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perpetualexistence · 6 months

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Coils and Toils

Alenoah Week Day 3: Role Swap / TDWT Ending Rewrite

I decided to use woah-i-am-here's roleswap Alenoah for my funky little AU for today. The personalities are based mostly on their AU, and most of Alejandro's backstory is as well. Noah's I took more creative liberties with. It was a bit hard to translate that one over with this being a naga AU.

Because this is me, I couldn't help but make this a tiny bit dark at the end. So I'm just going to put a content warning for murder here to be safe.

Alejandro and Noah are fine! ...Someone else, not so much.

Alejandro is forced to go on his family's annual hunting trip. It's a week-long 'bonding' activity. He really doesn't care for it. He knows it's just an excuse for his parents to brag about traveling the world and conquering nature. José always turns it into this big competition that no one asked for, gets their parents praise, and rubs it into Alejandro's face. It's predictable, it's annoying, and it's bound to drive Alejandro up a wall.

The instant they split up, Alejandro focuses on putting as much distance between himself and the rest of his family. He's not going to hunt a damn thing. He'l just have 'bad luck'. It's an excuse he's used before, but it's not like they can truly make him do anything. He turns off his walkie talkie, the only thing that works in these godforsaken woods, because otherwise he'll have to hear his brother incessantly praising himself for each kill he bags. He has a bag of supplies, GPS included, and a gun. He'll be fine.

As he walks through the woods, he starts to notice strange markings on the ground. He'd mistake them for signs of animals having passed by. Except this looks wider than something like a bear having pushed through some brush. He climbs up a tree to get a better vantage point. From here, he can notice that it looks more like something large was dragged through the woods. The concerning part is it was dragged continuously. As if whatever was doing the dragging was having no issue in doing so. Despite the thing being as wide as train tracks.

That's when he heard the rustling. He couldn't tell where it was coming from, but it was getting louder.

Climbing down would attract too much attention. He could only cling against the tree as tightly as he could, and hope whatever it was didn't look up.

"Oh. You're new." said the voice that came from his right.

He dared to turn his head. He met the gaze of two slitted pupils.

Alejandro was over 12 meters off the ground and he was directly meeting the gaze of another.

He looked down to see the torso of the giant he was now looking at connected not to legs, but to a snake's tail.

He's grateful his instinct was to cling tighter to the tree, and not to loosen his grip.

After Alejandro successfully doesn't faint, the two get into proper greetings. Noah's incredibly polite, and is clearly doing everything in his power to make himself come off as careful about the height difference as possible. He's controlled in every action he takes.

...Too controlled for someone currently claiming that he's lived by himself in the woods his entire life. If he had, then he probably wouldn't know to control his volume or have anything resembling manners.

Alejandro calls him out on this, which shocks Noah for a bit. Not only that Alejandro found him out, but also that he'd have the courage despite Noah's size advantage. Alejandro realizes he might have screwed up hard, except Noah laughs and lets some of his mask slip.

He tells something closer to the truth this time. He's from the fae realm, and got cursed to look like this. He's trapped in these woods, serving as its guardian. Meaning he does need to know why Alejandro's trespassing.

Now it's Alejandro's turn to start lying his ass off. He knows about the fae thanks to reading, but he has no idea how much is true and how much isn't. He doesn't know what answer is acceptable, what answer will get him killed, and he doesn't know if Noah can read people.

He admits to being on a hunting trip, but he hadn't killed anything yet as his priority was finding somewhere to make camp. He didn't know he was trespassing, and wants to ask proper permission to stay in the woods for a week. He says nothing about the rest of his family because he knows that they've certainly killed animals by now.

Noah chooses to believe him. And because Alejandro did ask nicely (though with a bit of sarcasm since he couldn't help himself), Noah will let him stay. But he's only allowed to hunt what he needs to in order to survive. In return, Noah will promise not to hurt him. He'll even make a fae bargain, so both are bound to keep to their deal.

Alejandro doesn't really have much choice but to accept. Not that he planned to do any hunting anyways, but he has to go with this now or risk Noah catching wise. Noah lets him know that if Alejandro needs anything, Noah'll stay around here to make himself easier to find.

So Alejandro is allowed to leave to 'go find a place to make camp'. Which means returning to his family's camp and checking that Noah isn't following him. At least he's too loud to get away with sneaking up on the human.

Still, now Alejandro is going to have to convince his family not to go near the area Noah is in. He can't tell them Noah exists. They'll think he's finally lost it. Instead, he settles for committing to heading in that direction when his family splits apart to hunt each morning.

He doesn't have to actually go anywhere near Noah's slithering grounds. He just needs everyone else to think he's going there.

...Yet, Noah has been the most interesting thing that's happened to him in quite a while. The only other person who has proven to be an intellectual match to Alejandro is Jose. And he's insufferable. Noah is dangerous, certainly, but he isn't hard to be around. So long as Alejandro is careful about what he says. Besides, if he can keep Noah occupied, then he'll know that the rest of his family is safe.

This has absolutely nothing to do with how attractive Noah is or how his laugh made Alejandro melt like butter.

So he goes back to Noah the next day and says he wants to know more about Noah.

"Sure, I'm an open book." Noah replied. "You're as open as a mouse trap." Alejandro retorted.

This gets another laugh out of Noah, and the two begin to bond.

Over time Noah reveals that he hates the outdoors. He misses being small enough to read in peace. Not that he even has any reading material on him. But Alejandro does since his original plan had been to find a spot in the forest to read the entire time. So he pulls out one of his books and offers to read it aloud to Noah.

"Is that the only one you have?"

"I thought you were desperate enough to read anything."

"I just want to know what my options are. I don't want to read anything trashy if you're holding out on me."

This would be enough to make Alejandro snicker at how spoiled Noah was acting. He might have been imagining things, but he swore he saw the tip of Noah's tail flicker in delight at the sound.

Alejandro found himself going from keeping a respectable distance from Noah to leaning against the naga's coils.

Alejandro would begin to open up about his family. How he tires of playing second fiddle to Jose, and how his parents do everything in their power to encourage him. They put on a show for the world to see that Alejandro is 'lucky' enough to be a part of. He tried to show Jose up, once upon a time. But loss after loss whittled away at him. Until there was nothing left but a bitter, snarky teenager who would rather stay in his room than deal with anybody. Still with the knowledge of how to charm and fight, but none of the motivation.

It would lead to Noah opening up about his own family. He came from a line of powerful fae. Having eight siblings in the fae realm meant they were constantly fighting for everything. He was last in line to inherit anything by birthright. If he wanted anything, he'd have to fight for it. As the youngest, Noah could never hope to win in a battle of strength. He adapted to winning battles of wit instead.

He didn't care that he had to fight dirty. He never got a fair chance in a fight with his siblings. Why should he return the favor? The only way he'd beat his siblings is if he performed just a minor coup, so he did. Or well, he tried. He underestimated his parents' ability to catch on to his tricks.

So they cursed him. "You'll live as you truly are in the wild until you learn the sanctity of a life." Rather shitty of them to exile their own child instead of acknowledging the environment they created in the first place. But, oh well. Noah's here now. ...and it feels surprisingly refreshing to let his guard down and tell someone else this.

Alejandro is reminded that he should in no way shape or form trust someone who tried 'a minor coup' on his own parents. ...But it is nice to have Noah agree that Alejandro's parents and brother are in fact terrible. He'd been around so many sycophants to the Burromuerto name, he thought he must be the mad one for thinking ill of them.

Sadly though, the week is up before they know it. Alejandro is going to have to go back home, and miss his new boyfriend. Alejandro finishes reading the last book he brought over so Noah can have a proper ending. At this point, he's grown so comfortable with Noah that he's nestled in between Noah's loose coils. Noah could kill him easily anyways, so why deny himself something so warm and cozy?

By the end, Noah gifts him the largest moose he can find. It'll be rations for the road, plus the antlers will make for a good hunting trophy. He knows it's gauche but his options for giving gifts as a giant snake thing are limited.

Alejandro suspects something's up by the look in Noah's eyes, but doesn't say anything. Rejecting Noah's gift would be a terrible idea if fae work how he thinks they work. He could just bury the gift when he's far enough away from Noah. He can't imagine anything good would come from bringing this to his family.

...Yet he's so tired of them. He feels more comfortable with a stranger he's only known for a week than with his own family sitting down for dinner. That stranger could squeeze him to death without a second thought and he'd still trust Noah more than he would trust Jose not to find an excuse to shoot him in the head when he's in a mood. So you know what? Whatever happens to his family will just have to happen to them.

He takes the gift back to his family so he can actually win at something for once. Jose tries to play it off, but it is the biggest thing hunted, so that's what the Burromuertos decide to eat as their final meal here before heading out.

Alejandro, not trusting Noah, wisely waits for everyone else to eat the food first. He gets away with it because the second they take a bite, they're hooked. They're scarfing the food down like animals. He pushes his portion into the fireplace. He's grateful he did when his mother starts coughing, then gasping, then choking for air and foaming at the mouth. Soon followed by his brother, then his father.

Noah said his new body reflected his true self. Alejandro isn't surprised that means he's a venomous snake.

Noah slithers quietly behind him. He's genuinely happy that Alejandro did survive this. Because if he didn't, Alejandro wasn't the type of person Noah thought he was.

"If you hadn't found a way around it, then you weren't worth all the time and effort I put into you. And that would have been such a pity, truly."

Noah knew Alejandro was lying about being by himself the whole time, and that it was probably because his family had been hunting without his permission. Fae rules said he had to do something about it, and from how Alejandro described them, there was absolutely no reason to let them live. Alejandro getting caught in the crossfire was a calculated risk. 'Noah' couldn't harm Alejandro, but that isn't to say one of his gifts couldn't.

However, he genuinely thought he had done a great job of gaining Alejandro's trust. He believed Alejandro had no idea the gift was a trap, or at least didn't realize it until later. To find that Alejandro actually did know that the gift was tainted from the beginning, and that he still chose to give it to his family? He's delighted. Especially when Alejandro admits he's not that worked up about their deaths as he feels he should be. And when Alejandro pulls one last contigency:

Noah never gave an end condition to when he could harm Alejandro. So as long as Alejandro only hunts for food and not for sport, Noah can't cause any direct harm to him, ever.

Noah could of course try to find another work around to get rid of a final loose end. But he's much happier to offer him a place in the woods for as long as Alejandro wants. And he wants to start dating Alejandro properly. Alejandro has nowhere else to go, and he's much happier here than he's ever been. So he agrees to the home, and to being Noah's boyfriend.

Noah takes care of Alejandro, and Alejandro works on a way to break Noah free from his curse. 'A life' could just mean one person specifically after all. So if Alejandro just makes sure that person is him, he'd be set for life.

Everyone else?

Not their problem.

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whumpitisthen · 19 days

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Chess

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CWs: tiny whump, g/t, blood, gore, death, fear, power dynamics, nonhuman whumper, deity whumper, nonhuman whumpee, dehumanisation (it/its), slavery, religious themes, whumpee used as ashtray

A few hundred years ago, life on Earth was much different than it is today. After the sky fell, but before the world was forced to bend its knees under merciless demonic conquest, where the infestation’s first wave reached, new and wondrous creatures had emerged. New animals, new plant life, new climate and oddities.

Back then, minims could be found in just about any home.

Their little villages being scorched to the ground by Hell, along with the forests they had called their home, the small creatures sought safety and food behind brick walls instead. Humans were generally sympathetic, even loving towards them, leaving out crumbs and making comfortable places to hide out in for their little companions. Not all humans were kind, of course; they knew as much. But it was a gamble a lot of the homeless, starving bunch were willing to take.

Unfortunately, Hell's hordes would find them in the end nevertheless. A majority of mortal dwellings had been destroyed, entire cities completely overrun by cruel beasts, skyscrapers toppled and drowned in flames. Everyone had to run, no matter how big, no matter how small, but there were few places to hide. Millions of souls have been extinguished, millions more killed every year since.

Simply put, the life of a minim is not the kind of existence that most sensible, sentimental beings yearn for. Living in a world of giants, in the space between their soles and the unforgiving ground under their feet isn't truly a way to live at all. Prey are not meant to thrive. Those residing at the bottom of the food chain are rarely allowed anything past tolerance in a world under the full control of carnivorous predators.

Minim could mean anything from a regular person to a sentient flower. The word itself only refers to their stature, that being quite small, so the variety this umbrella term hides under it is a field of science in itself. Faeries, mers, micekin, wisps, tiny variants of any and all mystical or not so mystical creatures that exist, including humans — and differing variants of each; from slight size differences, to cultural differences, anatomical differences, hair colour, preferred foods… To list each and every one would take a ridiculous amount of time, and because so many of them have left their homes, they are scattered across the globe so chaotically that only a learned expert may decipher for certain what kind a given little creature is.

Aside from the ones that end up in glass jars and cages to be taken and devoured later, the lucky few that aren't are instead taken to be used as living tools. Truth be told however; there just aren't many jobs to entrust to someone so small.

Wisps and spirits tend to glow; their luminescence is useful enough to save them from becoming the appetisers at an overlord's feast about half the time, generally put in lanterns until they starve or wither to death instead the rest of the time. The clever few who speak the same language as their captors; ones, whose gifted minds allow a unique understanding of machinery or magicks or the stars or anything such — those ones are kept in isolation from everything that could distract them from the work assigned to them, one foot forever numbed to purple from the cutting string keeping them a prisoner of their talents. Some craftier, wily thieves can even be used to spy or infiltrate. As bait, if one so wishes, to catch other pests.

Unsurprisingly, the vast majority that aren’t eaten are taken to be fleeting entertainment. A desk rat to hold a pen, or to hold a pen to. A pocket vermin, to take out whenever one craves a bit of distraction, something to busy one's hands with. Perhaps the small one bears a striking resemblance to a person in its owner's life, someone they carry love or resentment towards, — an unfortunate situation for the poor minim to be in. Toys and playthings, little companions, a quick snack.

They are quickly torn apart in such cases, and are therefore highly disposable. Following the growing popularity of breathing toys among demonkind, a new concept was born.

Today, a select few of them — the better behaved ones — are made to act out war. Living, breathing pawns and soldiers on a wooden-tile battlefield. They take up the identity of a specific piece, learning how they may move across the board. They feel enough terror in their tiny souls to freeze them in place, and so they play along, hoping that if they play well, they may be spared. Dressed up like dolls in tiny armour, they walk out and assume formation on each side of the board, tiny weapons ready, struggling under the weight of two gods watching them from up high.

Chess has always been a popular game, even among humans. Though humans’ chess focuses more on strategy, the game demons have come up with tends to focus on a spectacular bloodshed and cruelty instead. Both games have their own rules. The little soldiers must be ready for either. Just as the board is tiled to help count out the steps and directions for a piece when mortals play, the tiles serve as small arenas for which the pieces must stay inside as they cut each other down when demons play.

More often than not, if one has living soldiers to command, logic dictates that they would enjoy a dramatic battlefield rather than a dry simulation — so, of course, it would only make sense for His Majesty to value overelaborate strategy over fun, and force him to play regular old chess instead.

“Is your focus waning, Reaper?”

Grim’s white bishop is taken out, a surprised yell and flailing legs alerting him as it is lifted off the table, before being replaced by a black rook sporting a serious, yet weary expression. An unfortunate loss; that one was a crucial piece in his attack.

“Waning? Perhaps wandering.”

“When is it not,” — the demon lord sighs, seemingly uninterested. Then he asks anyway;— “and where has it gone this time?”

“Not far enough, unfortunately.”

Grim lifts his silver claws unhurriedly, hovering above his little army. One talon finds the tip of a knight's head. He gently taps its silly-looking horse helm to gather its attention, then places the tip of his finger on the tile in front of it. He then proceeds to draw a deep, excruciating line into the board, languidly carving exceedingly clear directions for it to follow. The claw sings to it until the little one breaks out in a cold sweat, eyeing the small ravine created on the chessboard. The Lord narrows his eyes in slight annoyance at the casual wrecking of his beautiful chess board, but he isn't much surprised that a being of ruination would feel the urge to ruin something, especially something that belongs to him.

Grim’s hand returns to rest on the table next to the eliminated black pieces on his side. The rhythmic knocking of cursed silver on deep walnut is the small knight’s only companion as Grim watches it shimmy past two other, similarly anxious pieces and stands on the tile it was shown. It avoids stepping directly onto the scratch its master had created. Belatedly, it recognises two other black pieces, clearly standing in their line of fire.

“I am wondering why you have brought out the whole commedia if you just wanted to watch them stand around.” — He gestures widely to the side with one hand, moaning in apparent agonising disinterest, — “It seems wasteful — not to mention dull. A rusted cleaver may cut me deeper than the riveting excitement of plain old chess. Surely the little smurfs are more than capable of giving us a nice show.”

No game should be allowed to be this boring. Perhaps it’s because he has played so many times before, but he never really grew to truly enjoy chess; or checkers, or any of these kinds of games. He is not the type to sit in quiet contemplation and plan for hours on end. He would much rather hang himself.

The Lord’s lips curl just so, rumbling as he thinks of his next move; —“Mm. The wanton cries waste…”

“The wanton,” — Grim repeats, brow raised.

“Recklessness and gratuity are among the first two words that come to mind when I think of you. Your very existence begets waste; I do not see you extending much care for my supposed wastefulness,” — his Lord explains matter-of-factly, taking hold of his queen and dragging it across the board. Once the queen finds its balance and takes a look around, it spots three possible targets on the white side eyeing it with the same muted sense of resolve in return. It struggles to catch its breath from being squished and moved so suddenly, an odd pain growing under its ribcage where it was grabbed. It tries its best not to show too much distress. Every chess piece knows to keep attention off of themselves if they wish to remain on the board.

“With such a silver tongue, how could I ever disagree,” — Grim sighs with a breath of sarcasm, uninterested in childish name calling. From his spot on the red plush sofa, sprawled out as he is, he barely pays attention to the game. He turns his torso forward enough to flick a pawn on its back, causing it to take a couple steps forward onto the tile in front of it. He then snatches a black pawn off of the table, the one he had taken a couple turns prior from his opponent, and brings it back with himself as he settles back onto the duvet, dangling it above himself.

It's a particularly scrawny looking one, with half a tail and the frame of someone who hasn't seen a full meal in weeks. If Grim's red eyes were any less sharp, he would have never noticed the microscopic ocean of freckles running across the bridge of its nose. The panicked little kicks in the air bring a smile to his face. As the grin parts his lips, the pawn must gain insight into what manner of creature Grim may be, because upon sighting his fangs, it squeaks so sweetly, its tiny heart beating so fast, its legs pulled up so close to its wobbling chin, that he simply has to bring it in for a closer look — perhaps for a little taste.

“Are you really so bored?” — his Lord asks.

“I don't know how much clearer I could make it.”

“I ‘brought out the whole commedia,’ as you so creatively put it, specifically so you would find the game more enticing. I assumed having something living to fiddle with would help keep your attention,” — his Lord remarks, lifting his gaze from the board to watch Grim terrorise the minim in his grasp. He gives it a little shake, and giggles when it squeezes its eyes shut with a sob, holding onto the tips of his fingers for dear life. From the hungry look in the Reaper's eyes, it wouldn't surprise him if his black-clad-friend popped the pathetic creature into his mouth and swallowed it whole. — “Was I wrong?”

“You were. Unmistakably so,” — Grim replies without missing a beat despite showing the clear opposite. His head flops to the side lazily, the mess of white hair escaping from under his ribbon sliding like a river to cover one of his sanguine eyes, lips parted. His gaze is near accusatory. — “My attention left the premises the moment that name left your mouth.”

His Lord merely smiles. It's a pleasant, tailor-made expression meant to communicate amusement. Expressive, while in reality it shows nothing.

It seems his Reaper’s hate for Miss Thu'lin surpasses rationale. He will have to calculate that into his next approach on the issue. — “Yet your wit remains,” — he murmurs instead, a good-natured chuckle. He makes his next move, cornering Grim's remaining bishop.

Well, if the game won't work to distract him, perhaps he could change it up. A plan starts forming in the demon's head.

If there is one attribute he can always count on, it is Death's lust for blood. Grim thrives in violent delights, and tends to knowingly, if not begrudgingly, let his Lord pull him around on a leash if it means he gets to take part in some real carnage. Manipulation does not work on him as well as the Lord wishes it did, — Grim knows his devil-friend too well for that, — but at least his carefree thrill seeking and self-assurance allows for cooperation.

He takes a long sip of his warm camomile tea, letting the soft crying of the chess piece hanging by the ankle from Grim's hand fill the silence. — “Hm. How about this; — you clearly do not feel up to playing with me, but how about the little ones? How well do you think they know the rules? How well do you think they play?”

The pawn in the Reaper's grasp screams in terror as it is thrown in the air and caught. Grim surely already knows where this is going, and is considering playing along. His plaything flips in the air a couple more times before he replies, cautiously contemplative, — “I am not sure.”

His Lord looks at him with dark eyes shaded by a curtain of eyelashes. — “Are you not curious? Perhaps you could let them play for you. You could… encourage them. Help them as much or as little as you desire. You may take every piece that falls to do with as you please.” — In a motion mimicking Grim’s ennui, he leans his chin onto his fist and he lets his other hand wander over the heads of each piece on the board, leading the Reaper's gaze hypnotizingly. He finds his queen at the edge of the board, knocking her down onto the table with an innocent nudge. It falls gracelessly, face planting on the wooden surface. His index finger sets onto its back, slowly increasing pressure until the queen cannot muster to breathe in more than strained gasps.

Taken a pause, he glances up to the other, finding vermilion eyes glued to the suffering at his fingertips, Death idly pushing his icy thumb into his own pawn's stomach to feel it squirm. — “Doesn't it sound fun? I revel in watching mortals attempt to outwit their God; I know you do too.”

Grim's eyes lose all playfulness in them, replaced by a scary look. It's like he is looking directly into his Lord’s soul, contemplating it deeply. The Reaper tends to have such showmanship with the brightest grin to match, and though his very presence is unsettling to all living beings, there is nothing more terrifying than a displeased frown and an intensely empty pair of blood red eyes sizing up oneself when it comes to him. His attention is so fickle, but his focus is an omen.

Not to the Lord, of course. Just as Grim is immune to his Lord’s penchant for bending minds to his will through subterfuge, Grim’s intimidating nature no longer has any effect on him either. An even match, however infuriating that is. To be God, of this world and the next, and yet still be vulnerable to someone who he had aided in apotheosis in the past…

“Fine,” — Grim groans, cutting off the demon lord’s train of thought. He has already switched back to his own mask of pleasantness, gesturing to him with what begins as a flourish, but ends up a lazy ‘do whatever you want’ kind of motion. — “Far be it from your humble servant to displease you, Your Majesty.”

“But do make it quick, will you?” — he reminds, his voice a rumbling murmur. — “I do not have time to waste on listening to all your nefarious plans of inconvenience on a good day. And you have already soured my mood.”

Evidently. — “Of course,” — his Lord assures.

Setting aside the mug of lukewarm tea, he begins by lifting one end of the chessboard, tilting it higher until every still standing piece tumbles down it and onto the table. Though their armour is flimsy, their little blades are sharpened to cut through flesh, so it is inevitable that at least a couple of them injure another as they fall. Grim's nose flares as he takes a lungful of the sweet aroma of fresh blood pearling onto the surface.

Then, one by one, he sets the board and with it, the scene as it stands. He chooses tiles for each relevant piece, seemingly arbitrary yet purposeful. Before long, an elaborate mess of a battlefield is created, black and white pieces alike looking around nervously between each of them. This is no longer a game of chess, but something more.

Finally, the Lord sits up straight and intertwines his fingers in front of himself, ready to explain the situation. — “To keep it short, as your time is precious; Miss Thu'lin wishes to expand her territory, and has made arrangements with the Plague Bringers to aid her in that. I believe her greed may lead us to progress.”

The Plague Bringers; mortals whose souls are chained to their bodies indefinitely. As opposed to other undead, like vampires or necromancers, they are not invulnerable to injury and disease, and only heal as much as a simple mortal would, but contrary to the soulless undead, their hearts and minds remain intact, and their souls remain free of control. It is a curse by all definitions — alive and aware, but eroding all the same. They never die, but they never die, and sooner or later, once their bones have grown fragile and their skin has started to wither into nothing, and their lungs and stomach stop functioning — well, that is the reason their communities are so proficient in the creation of prosthetics and medicine. No matter the cost.

Their members have found each other and grouped together in mutual suffering, building up incredible cities along the years in demon territory. The air there is barely breathable, the water yellowed and poisonous, the sky black with pollution — very quaint. Access to things like food, shelter and medicine is scarce for most residents, which accelerates their torment. They are an unpleasant, withered, maggot ridden crowd, but delightfully desperate, fearless, and highly territorial, with nothing to lose. Half of them worship the Grim Reaper, the other half curse him every day. They can be useful.

“Deal-making with the undead, is she? Perhaps she should join them,” — Grim supplies, suddenly lost in a fantasy about a world where he could see the queen slowly decay, getting to watch her grovel and beg him to take her soul so she may rest, and declining her outright every time. — “I wonder if her rouge could cover up her rot-bitten face.”

His Lord ignores the casual morbidity, staying on topic to get his point across before Grim changes his mind about hearing him out. — “There is a mortal settlement that has been steadily expanding thanks to human military and some clandestine inner assistance near her domain. Their hunters are ruthless — I found my poor watchdog’s head on a stake out in the field in front of their walls the other day. Her horns were torn off and stuck into her eyes. She must have suffered terribly.”

His fingers slide along each edge of the board, drawing a square around one end of it made up of primarily white pieces behind two white rooks cutting the board in half — much like the walls of the humans' castle-town divide it from the reaches of demonic grasp.

The battlefield is set, mirroring the location well enough, ready to play out the bloodbath that will drown the fields and people of those skilled demon hunters soon enough.

“We may assert dominion over a new region of particularly vexatious mortals, gaining resources, land and new flesh,” — he rattles off almost intrestlessly, then takes a pause, aiming a shrug at Grim, as if just offhandedly mentioning the rest; — “and, of course, we may question Miss Thu'lin about her inadequacy in keeping her people loyal and well behaved, and her letting them help the enemy, as well as her thinly-veiled attempt at going behind my back and trying to take land for herself without my knowledge.”

The most crucial addition, that last bit. The only thing that may surpass Grim’s love of bloodshed is his love of causing issues on purpose, especially for those that generally don't have to deal with many issues because of the power they hold over others. If the promise of war was not enough to charm him, the opportunity to mess with the Dragon Queen will be.

“Thus, we could kill two birds with one stone.”

A slow, humming laughter bubbles out of the Reaper's throat after a moment of consideration, chilling his little prisoner's spine down to the marrow.

Hook, line and sinker.

“Go on,” — he sings, a haunting melody, a wicked chortle, — “you have my interest, you conniving prick.”

The self-assured smile never leaves His Majesty's lips. — “I am glad.”

The demon takes two minims and brings them forth, setting them next to each other with one empty tile between them. He asks then, peeking up at the whining darling in Grim's steadily tightening grasp, — “is your little pawn ready to play?”

“Oh, it certainly is,” — his friend replies, huffing a puff of air through his nose as he sits up, causing the pawn to flinch violently in-between his fingers. He brings it up to his eyes and shakes it once more. — “Isn't that right? Ready to crush the opposition? Chess is such a difficult game, but surely you will make all the right choices; you should know the rules better than anyone, being a professional chess piece and all.”

The Lord motions for Grim to set his pawn down on the table, right on the tile diagonally in-between the two white pieces he had brought forth before. It falls out of the Reaper's hand like a sack of potatoes, landing painfully on its knees and wobbling to the side, searching for balance its wildly trembling panic-ridden limbs cannot find. Its heart beats the rhythm of a thousand drums.

They wait for it to clamber to its feet, — Grim prodding it in the sides until it manages to, — and looks up at the Devil smiling kindly, cruelly down at it from above. It almost falls right back onto the ground.

His Majesty hangs his index finger like a guillotine over the white knight, the left one of the pair of chess pieces, and elaborates, — “their hunters have a cavalry regiment that specialises in chevauchee. They are few in numbers compared to the rest of their militia, but highly talented. Their leader,” — he highlights, tapping the little knight’s head twice, — “is well-versed in the art of war, and is followed with great, almost zealous trust and respect by his fanatical horde into any battle. Plundering and lengthening their borders is not their only strategic strength; removing them from the picture from the start altogether would be beneficial — and so terribly simple.”

He then points to the other piece, a white pawn. — “On the other hand, one of ours is supplying the enemy with information. Whoever it is Miss Thu’lin had put her trust into betrayed it, and though she will answer for that inadequacy later, cutting off; — or better yet, misleading their stream of intelligence is paramount. We could send the traitor in with the wrong insight, make use of their uselessness and put an end to the practisant itself either by our own hand or by the mortals’ once they realise they had been betrayed.”

The air cools as he straightens upright, reaching for his mug to take another sip. The small pause that this leaves is only filled with growing anticipation. Grim can hear his pawn’s little fingers rubbing against each other nervously.

Looking to Grim, he adds, — “whichever way we go about it, we will gain the upper hand even before the fight begins. This will leave the mortals lost in their panic, then we may sit back and watch them make mistake after mistake trying to catch up with us. Moreover,” — he looks to the pawn now, — “this first step will echo out with every move we make after it, and it will carve a path we will not be able to deviate from — much like the first move made on a chessboard. As a pawn, you must gather as much,” — he remarks, finally looking away from the anxious little soldier.

Beckoning the black pawn, he finishes with; — “Choose wisely.”

An impossible, cruel thing to force onto such a little creature. It wrangles its fingers in front of itself, frozen still. Its eyes flicker about it all — the board, the two white pieces looking back at it with abject terror, the dark shadows looming above, its own buckling knees.

Truth be told, it did not understand half of what was said. Its lungs fighting for air, its eyes holding rivers of unshed tears and its ears thrumming with its pulse made it hard to pay any attention at all. Nevertheless, a good pawn stays still and does as it's told.

Pawns are disposable. They are fodder, a necessary sacrifice, — useful in a pinch, nearly useless otherwise. One gets taken out and there are seven more to take its place. It can move only one tile per turn, only forward. It may eliminate in a diagonal direction, only one tile, only forward; the two spots that are occupied by the white pair. It must choose to eliminate the other pawn or the knight, according to the basic rules of chess.

Traditionally, it knows a knight is far more valuable than a mere pawn. When the opportunity shows itself, it would be illogical not to act and take out the knight, even if the pawn itself is sacrificed in the process. But this is not traditional chess, nor demon’s chess, but a real battlefield, with very real consequences.

The black pawn shimmies in place, looking back and forth between the white pieces, turning around to gather some form of guidance from the Reaper, only to find nothing but mild impatience and a vicious smile, then back forward to do the same with the demon lord and gathers nothing at all from the Lord's unreadable expression. The knight is shaking, its gaze stuck to its toes. The white pawn pleads at the black one through miserable, terrified eyes. Lined up for execution, all the pair can really do is tremble before their executor.

The black-clad pawn hangs its head low, taking a somewhat decisive step forward.

Pawns are disposable. Pawns are meant to be sacrificed. Pawns do not get to dictate fate.

Another step forward. The Reaper's grin twitches.

It was never made to make such awful choices. It cannot know what's best. Its palms pearl with sweat at the prospect of being in charge of anyone's life.

It stumbles, hesitates. One more step and its choice will be clear.

But there is one more thing about chess. A special rule only applicable to pawns; — promotion. If a pawn reaches the other end of the board without being taken out, it will be taken off the board, replaced by another, more powerful piece, generally the queen.

If it can reach the end of the board, it will not have to make a choice. Nobody's blood will be on its hands. It is the best strategy, as far as any pawn is concerned.

It steels itself to take one more step forward —

Bang!

The board nearly explodes before its foot could make it onto the tile between the white knight and pawn. An earthquake shakes them all, its epicentre the black pawn’s targeted tile, — now divided by Grim’s favourite carbon steel carved pearlsilver balisong.

The low laughter of the Reaper pulls the pawn’s attention above itself like a noose, following the hand holding the knife all the way up to a vicious row of sharp teeth. Its wild rabbit heart nearly stops beating.

“How sweet. You must have misunderstood. There is no third option here, little pawn.”

His voice is like the wind, soft yet cutting, suffocating. There is no anger in his eyes, but a glint of intensity, beckoning, daring it to step forward just once more. The pawn has fallen to the ground with the explosion on the board, and under the heavy shadow looming above it, it cannot find it in itself to make its legs work.

Eyes wet and wide, face pale as a sheet and shiny with perspiration, it points a violently shaking finger at the white pawn. The pawn — the creature — the person, who is curled up on their side, whimpering hysterically and hiding behind their too-large, scrappy gloves does not even see that they were chosen. They are younger than the black pawn, horridly so, as the black pawn isn't very old either. Not many minims live to see much of their adulthood nowadays; but it feels like it just brought death upon a child.

It's a pawn. Pawns are disposable. Pawns are weak, and stupid, and useless.

If the black pawn screws its eyes shut tightly enough, it could pretend that the one being sacrificed is itself instead.

At the decision made, the Reaper's eyes light up. — “Smart choice.”

The rumble in the deity's voice hints that the choice he praises is not the one it had made between the knight and the pawn, but the one between willingly participating in this morbid game or not. That meant it did well — but there is no relief. Its cowardice brings shame as soon as the imminent cloud of death overhead moves above the white pawn instead.

“You said something about finding your dog's head on a stake?” — he asks, turning the white pawn onto its back and forcing it still with two fingers. The black pawn can hear it whimpering. Grim can as well.

The demon watches on with the mild interest of someone sitting through a mediocre opera. He looks more concerned over how ruined the board is becoming from Grim’s playful-violent outbursts than for the life made ready to be snuffed out on it. — “Briefly,” — he replies.

The Reaper's hold on the piece changes; a finger holding down each limb, the middle finger resting lightly on the forehead. He moves its small head idly up and down, then side to side as he talks. — “A traitor deserves a fate worse than a spy, don't you agree? Mistakes are easier mended than trust. Trust, when broken, may bring to its knees an empire.”

“So what are you proposing?”

“Pressure.”

His Majesty tilts his head, curious. — “What do you have in mind?”

Though the Reaper never takes his eyes off of his current infatuation weeping under his sliver-dressed hand, a plan has already formed in his head. He starts applying a steady weight onto the minim’s head. — “I will hunt down the traitor myself. It will not be hard; I presume their cowardice will have left a trail in the mud.”

The finger at the pawn’s forehead hurts. Its verminly squirming warms the Reaper’s belly. — “I will go see the queen — Heaven knows she is too bayardly to have noticed this betrayal by herself. Fate wills it she knew about it all along. That certainly could not go unpunished. Though she has already broken your trust, has she not? And yet, she still wields the power of a nation...”

“She will answer,” — the Lord promises, sensing Grim's silent accusation of his favouritism towards the lady resurface in his pointed glance. His special treatment of one of his most important pawns should not be such an issue with anyone, but it is somehow always an issue with him. Broken trust brings to its knees a man — or an empire, was it. — “You can be sure of that.”

Silence; Grim testing the taste of the lies on his tongue as he considers believing His Majesty. Retortlessly, he continues, — “she will point me to the rat. Once we know who it is, we may feed it rotten knowledge. Small inaccuracies at first, grown larger and larger with each one. The mortals would not kill it outright after just a couple of small mistakes; a demonic spy is far too precious a resource. With your poison on its lips, it will surely poison the mortals it meets. We shall keep the thing alive as long as possible.”

The white pawn cries out in pain and terror, the pressure on it becoming unbearable. It had managed to wrench its head to the side, now facing the other pawn still sitting on the board frozen in horror. It cannot bring itself to look away, it cannot even bring itself to do any more than weep silently and watch as its counterpart is slowly crushed. It is screaming, and the gods pay it no mind.

“It will not realise the part it was made to play until it is far too late.” — There is an awful giddiness in Grim's voice, a dark pleasure clouding his eyes. He must not be this excited about tormenting an insignificant person he doesn't even know, right? Something else must interest him, but he continues on as if he has some sort of personal vendetta against this traitorous nobody. — “Eventually, the humans will decide it must be doing it on purpose. It must be directly working with you, purposefully misdirecting them, slowly tearing them down from the inside.”

“Of course, it will surely run and hide once it hears about their ruthless cavalry leader having fallen in an ambush set at the location it had led their troops to,” — he muses, lifting the chin of the heaving knight with his free hand, letting its head slide off of the chilled claw, sighing; — “but that is then.”

A loose thread hanging off his blouse's cuff steals the Lord's gaze from the pitiful creature mewling under his companion's grasp for only a moment. Tearing it away, he lets it fall to the hardwood floor beneath. — “You are saying that instead of directly confronting the spy, we continue this charade, and we make it so the information it gathers, unbeknownst to it, is false?”

“I am saying not even Miss Thu’lin has to know,” — answers the mischievous, sinister purr. Leaning over the board, his fangs gleam above the head of the white pawn as he whispers something to it. His Majesty cannot make it out, but he can certainly make out the frantic pleading of the distressed creature.

“The weight of one’s sins only ever grows;” — he sings, like a mother's lullaby, to the moribund minim.

“Right up until it falls to the ground —”

Wailing, the poor thing crying, screeching for help, they are dying, let up, please let up on the —

“and pops… like an overripe fruit.”

A splash of viscera is all that remains. Where a moment ago a living, breathing person lay barely five centimetres in front of it, the black pawn now only sees barbarous red grime covering the scraped up wooden tile under the unforgiving hand. Their innocent agony paints their mock armour, as well as the merciless, icy talon of Death.

And he doesn't even look satisfied.

“So,” — he says, lifting his hand at last, watching in morbid fascination what is left of the white pawn’s brains stretch and stick to the pad of his middle finger in a greatly nauseating manner, — “it may behove us to shake the branch her hubris thrives on to speed up this process.”

Despite the wicked eagerness that has overtaken his Reaper, the demon lord does not seem too intrigued by it all. In a moment of silence, he listens to a sound emerge. From down the hall quick footsteps hurry to the double doors leading into the quiet parlour, a mortal boy entering with no small haste. As if its arrival was entirely expected, the demon patiently waits for his slave to bow to the floor and present a small leather case. With utmost reverence and submission, he holds it in the air above his head, whispering; — “as you requested, my Lord.”

“Thank you, my darling.” — Taking the auburn red case, he catches the human’s chin and lifts it. The boy does not dare to lift his gaze off the floor. — “Come, sit with me.”

The slave, with the smallest resistance, obeys and crawls over to kneel by its master’s legs. A torrent of bruises circles his shoulder and neck regions, bigger and smaller puddles of red-purple slipping under the metal shackle around his throat. Upon closer inspection, small, pink, round burn scars decorate his collarbone and throat, climbing far enough to reach even behind his ear. The movements of his flesh betray the discomfort his naked torso brings, shoulder blades constantly working, hands clutching each other in his lap aggressively, nails digging into the underside of his fingers on the opposite hand. Gently, the demon runs his claws down the slave’s scalp and it flinches so violently, the gasp forcing its way out of its lungs nearly turns into a whine.

Paying the nervous thing no mind, His Majesty slips the buckle open, the small bag his servant had brought opening to reveal a couple ornate cigarette holders, as well as an orderly row of about twelve cigarettes. He picks out one of the holders. Humming, he slides a finger along each cigarette, considering what taste would go with his mood.

Still waiting on a response, however, Grim clears his throat, eyeing the slave boy. — “Did you call him while I was talking?”

“Yes,” — is the Lord’s concise answer.

The slave feels the Reaper's eyes on itself. The discomfort builds until it cannot help glancing up just to take a peek. When its eyes meet deep vermilion ones, they flicker away near instantly. Grim lifts his bloodied finger to his lips and tastes what is left of the minim on his tongue as he watches a drop of sweat materialise on the boy's skin. The boy sees him lick his lips out of the corner of his eye and shudders. — “Could my dilucidation have been so dull that you found yourself uninterested, Your Majesty?”

“Yes,” — his Lord replies bluntly, offering the case to his Reaper. Grim chuckles in amusement at his direct tone and takes a coffin nail and a holder himself. While he cannot so much taste the flavours of these sorts of cigarettes — the smell of fear is just as invigorating to him as the taste of it is to any demon.

Once chosen, — ‘a careful blend of melancholy and misery,’ according to the label, — His Majesty cups the end of the cigarette and summons a small flame to his hand, breathing in the pleasantly saccharine smoke.

A long, slow exhale. The smoke dances in an indigo hue. — “You truly think she knows about the spy and is letting it cause trouble of her own volition,” — he sighs, graciously revisiting the topic he had dragged Grim into.

“Would it be so untoward of me to hope that is the case?” — he smiles innocently. His tone is light like an excited child's at the possibility of due punishment, and the chance that he could be the one to carry it out. — “If that is not the case, however, it would still strengthen her loyalty, would it not? Seeing as she already at the very least planned on misbehaving; if I were to put it charitably.”

“You will not kill her,” — His Majesty states like a warning, a threat and a promise all at once. Lifting an eyebrow, he watches Grim lift himself off of the sofa and round the small table between them. The servant on the ground scrambles to crawl back and make space for him to stand directly in front of the Lord, bowing with one hand behind his back, the other holding the ornate jade bocchino, not yet lit.

“No, I will not.” — He takes hold of his Lord's chin and gently angles it upwards so the ends of their cigarettes meet. Once his own is lit, he inhales deeply, breathing out a smoke much darker than the reddish hue the flavour of fear would have made it to be, the black tendrils of smoke from his icy lungs mixing into it. — “I will only pay her a visit.”

The fresh smell of mortal sufferings mixing together with the even fresher cavalcade bubbling in the chasm of the slave's lungs is simply divine. These kinds of pleasures awaken something in a man; and no matter how many times he has felt it, it never loses its thrill. However, though he is not surprised in the least by Grim's antics, he cannot help but ask; — “do you not have your lighter?”

“I do. I was saving it for later.”

“For what purpose?”

Grim gives a nod towards the servant, who curls up a little tighter. — “Fun.”

A dry chuckle. — “Such simple joys do not interest me nowadays, I am afraid.”

“Well that is a boldfaced lie.”

On the board there are a couple new puddles, a couple pieces sickly pale and hunched over. Grim pokes at his pawn, and it barely reacts, stuck in a reality where it is forced to relive watching its counterpart being crushed to death over and over again right in front of it. Taking another drag, he admires the chaos he has caused in the tiny, catatonic being’s world with joy. — “What a fine mess.”

Surveying the board, he itches to continue. — “So, what's the verdict? Is the plan sound or shall I expound on it some more?”

After carefully considering his options and thinking it through, only one answer seems plausible to the Lord; —

“Oh, why not. You made it sound very intriguing.” — He takes his hand and pulls the boy closer, letting the cigarette ashes fall onto his tongue cruelly, yet casually. The slave opens his mouth without complaint. — “Not to mention, we really will be here all day if we do not get on with it, so I hope your pawn is ready for the next round.”

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