carl@fire

Ir'alith was dreadfully bored.

No. Filled with dread. Filled with Boredom.

Ir'alith dug her claws into the top of the desk she loathed—the only other object in the small, accursedly bright room that served as her prison.

She kicked the desk against the wall again, watching it shatter to pieces and then turn to dust from the force as it collided with the invincible wall behind it. There was a time when the action had held hope for her; she imagined one day managing to break through the pure white wall with her claws, with her teeth, with anything. As that hope had waned, the action had brought some relief for her, a ludicrous feeling of revenge against her captors.

Not revenge. She bared her teeth. No revenge could ever be enough after what they have done to me. What they have allowed to be done.

What they have encouraged.

The protector of all demonfolk on Eden snarled as the memories assailed her. As a child, her parents had always been so proud of her memory—her ability to recall anything and everything down to the tiniest detail. When she was a little older, she had begun to despise it; she hated having to remember how her father gradually grew weaker—bedridden—after the traitorous, cowardly humans had betrayed the treaty and poisoned him.

When her mother had been captured while trying to obtain a cure from…

She clawed in futility at her eyes, at her face, at her throat, at her chest, at the collar around her neck, but she was unable to leave even the slightest of marks on her blessed body or the enchanted collar. It may have been too weak to create a lasting change in her mind, but its continued physical effect on certain parts of her body enraged her.

Ir'alith roared, and a ferocious sound that had sent an entire army of treacherous humans to its knees, cowering in pain and fear, echoed briefly through the room.

Her ears buzzed.

She destroyed the desk once more. Then again. And again. Her skin was bright red from rage.

At least I am free of that third hero at last. The century-old demon shuddered in revulsion, the same as she always did at the thought of the child. The others were quick, but I feared his infatuation would never wane. Even his name for me…

She smashed a fist down on the desk, sheering it cleanly in half for a moment before it blinked back into its normal shape. Her chest heaved with exertion.

She sat on top of the desk after a time, leaning back on her claws—the same ones that had split the so-called holy sword like kindling.

The day I am free.

The instant I am released.

They shall know pain.

I will save those two for last. They shall watch their precious, devoted slaves rot away, unable to—

A man fuzzed into existence in front of her, prizing her familiar, impossible daydreams of retribution from her mind.

The demon scowled, both for the loss of an especially vivid image of sinking her claws in through a very deserving set of ears—nearly reaching the brain inside—and for what she knew would come next.

What always came next.

The man this time was unusually tall. It was the first thing she noticed. He may even have been as tall as her—a feat few humans could boast of.

He wore no armor, however. Peculiar. The bitch always gives her chosen a few trinkets that they so proudly display.

He was… Old? How old would a man such as this be? He has no gray in his beard, but his face has lines, his hands are worn… He is no child like the third, at least.

He seemed decidedly unhappy to be where he was.

We share something in common. For a moment, at least. She waited.

It would not be long.

It never was.

The man… He seemed to grow confused when he noticed her.

Then he grimaced.

I feel I should be offended. Is it my heritage? He is so easily swayed by tales of "defeating the demon lord" and "rescuing humanity"? They need not his assistance. They need no rescue.

The face-off continued for a while longer.

If needs must, I suppose I shall offer the first greeting. Solitude is better than an eternity with one of these monsters.

"Greetings, human," she called, her tone cordial.

The man remained silent, but his eyes widened after another moment and his expression turned to horror. "Oh, no," he said, seemingly speaking to himself.

Ir'alith considered the statement. Oh, no? She grew puzzled.

Before she could think further on it, the brown-haired man shook his head, and his expression darkened once more.

"Oh, no?" Ir'alith repeated aloud, too curious at the strange behavior of the newcomer to her prison. She tilted her head to the side in confusion, causing hair to fall across her eyes.

Hair that should have been clipped up with her mother's hairclip.

She attempted to blow the stray hairs out of her face, unable to use her natural abilities to make her hair move on its own. Grudgingly, despite the humiliation of her—a shapeshifter—being forced to use her hands to adjust her own hair, she reached up and clawed the flowing purple locks back to the side, her arm brushing against the hated leash that was now the least of her humiliations.

"Am I not what you expected, human?" she asked, attempting to draw attention away from her predicament.

The man's gaze had dropped to the floor between them. "Um," he said, seeming to be lost in thought. His arms crossed over his wide chest, and his face contorted into a frown. His right hand pulled at his beard.

Perhaps he wonders how? Let me be done with this, already. Perhaps he will be easily sated like the first. "You seem distracted," she said reluctantly. "Are you prepared to be motivated? That is what I am here for, after all. Even if it is not by choice. But I cannot imagine that fact would stop you, will it?"

Ir'alith braced herself, preparing for the worst.

The man began to slowly tap his foot, his frown deepening.

Ir'alith grew puzzled once more. After an indeterminate amount of time, she pushed off the desk with her tail and strode towards the thinking man.

The man showed little reaction. His frown grew even deeper, his brows nearly covering his eyes, and he started worrying at the edge of his lip with his teeth.

A moral quandary, perhaps? More than any of the others have given the situation. She cleared her throat after watching him think a while longer. Just be done with it, human. Do as you have been told.

The man started and looked up into her eyes, failing to pause and ogle her along the way as she had anticipated. "It's just… I have a daughter who's probably about your age, and she's kind of a late bloomer. I mean, we've had the talk and all, but she hasn't started seeing anyone or been interested in it, and I don't want her to. She's my little girl. She's a little bit of an airhead like most kids are these days, I guess, and I keep worrying that some guy's gonna take advantage of her, or be, you know, a guy…"

She wrapped her tail around his middle to stop his flurry of unexpected verbiage, causing him to stop speaking and stare down at it. They always seem to like my tail. I am not here for you to talk, human. I want you to leave. It will be a thousand years or more before I—

"It's things like this, too," said the man, looking right back up into her eyes. "If she goes out dressed a little too revealingly then—"

"I cause you to think of your daughter?" Ir'alith said, her tone icy. So he is this type of disgusting human. She forced a normal expression back onto her face lest the disgust further excite him. I was mistaken. They are repugnant to the very last. "I," she hesitated, the memories of her own father flooding to the front of her mind, "suppose I can make do with that. If I must." They will sully even this for me?

Monsters.

The man grimaced, no doubt from having his secret perversion revealed. He stared at her face.

"Let us be done with this, then," she said, feeling something break inside of her that was yet unbroken. She moved closer, standing far too close for her liking, and placed her arms over his shoulders. "Tell me what you wish for me to do help motivate you on your quest," she said. Cease your hesitations; I know the bitch must be watching us, reveling in what she sees. You surely know of my compulsion—the curse of obedience placed upon me.

Invoke it.

Do your worst.

The man seemed lost for a moment, but at last he blinked. He shook his head once more as though clearing dust out of it. "Sorry," he said, "I kinda spaced out again there. I'm not great at multi-tasking. Do one thing at a time and do it well, Dad always says. Er, sorry for the ramble, too. I know that was a bit futile considering the circumstances."

An apology?

"Not even much point in apologizing, I guess?" he continued, shrugging his broad shoulders slightly. "I know you're just responding to keyword triggers just like a normal NPC…"

Ir'alith heard a sudden roaring in her ears which cut off her ability and desire to listen further. Her vision went red.

NPC.

Normannus's Personal Concubine.

The hated name that the third, youngest, hero had called her for an eternity while he tried, impossibly, to make her want to be his. How long had it been since that time? A month? A year? Not long enough for even the tiniest sliver of her rage and hatred to fade.

Her teeth clenched, and her lips pulled back in an instinctual snarl. The man was already dangling helplessly from her hand which held him aloft. Her tail stabbed into his stomach. "What. Did. You. Call. Me?" she growled, her thoughts revolving around a single word.

Kill.

Her other hand raised up to his eye, claws poised.

Even though she knew, deep down, that she could not.

The man's eyes were wide with shock, as they should be for having offended one of the most powerful beings in existence.

Then he…

He relaxed.

She tried to stab harder with her tail at the slight, but she was, of course, unable to harm anyone in any way—with a single exception.

"You're not an NPC?" he asked in his stupid, confused voice.

Ir'alith's rage grew. She exhaled, feeling the dragonflame that was part of her heritage building up inside of her. Smoke billowed out of her nose, and she grew even more furious as she forced the fire back, knowing the result if she were to try using it. The vivid memory of her charred, cooked flesh returned to her, as did the hysterical laughter of her most hated enemy.

"I. Am. Not. NPC. Mortal." she struggled to get the words out through her teeth—currently biting tightly enough to chew through a deity's natural protections as easily as they would a human's femur. Her claws curled around his neck, as though she could somehow overcome the curse upon her and crush the man's throat. "I. Am. Ir'alith!" she roared.

"Right, right, of course you are," said the man in a… A kindly voice? He patted the hand that she was wishing was able to squeeze the life out of him, smiling in… He smiled a friendly smile?

Ir'alith's mind roiled, unable to cope with the unexpected reaction.

Kindness?

"I'm sorry, Iralith," he continued, "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings," he finished, sounding…

He sounded sincere?

Ir'alith did not know what to do. She…

A human? One of them?

Being kind to her?

She began reevaluating the strange man's actions since he had appeared, assisted by her perfect memory.

At no point had he done what she expected.

At no point had he done what the others had.

Was she wrong?

"Ir'alith," she corrected the man's pronunciation while she deliberated, allowing her hand by his eye to fall away.

"Ir'alith," repeated the man, using the proper cadence and accent this time. "I think we just had a little misunderstanding about what that, uh, acronym meant is all, Ir'alith."

A misunderstanding? Ir'alith considered the possibility. With further thought, it did seem improbable that he would know of the hated name. Unless he had been told… The bitch has seemed more than content to allow her chosen their own means of torment and humiliation, that she might taunt me with their originality after. Perhaps it means something else whence he hails? Perhaps this one is different?

She felt a tiny bead of hope come into being in her center despite her attempts to quash it. Perhaps he can be reasoned with?

"You are a strange one," she said at last while she debated how to approach the topic. She hooked her tail over her shoulder to avoid its sometimes-subconscious movements giving her mood away. Then she set the unusual man down and looked into his curious brown eyes briefly.

She turned her back on him, and her tail slid from her shoulders as she decided. He should need no convincing if he is different. Anyone with morals should know this is wrong.

"I," she began, her voice wavering as her tiny stomach twisted. She crossed her arms, trying to steady herself.

For the first time in a very long while, Ir'alith dared to hope.

"I accept your apology," she said, the words tumbling out in an undignified rush that was not befitting of her. She hesitated. She hoped. "You are able to leave here on your own if you wish," she said as a reminder, her voice feeling weaker than she wished it to be. Always she mocks me, claiming her chosen always have the choice to leave but that they choose not to.

She waited, listening for the all-too-familiar subtle hum that signaled someone entering or exiting her prison.

After an uncomfortable amount of time, the man spoke again. "Alright, alright. Ir'alith, would you like to tell me a little about the world before I go?"

Two of her hearts leapt in her chest. He… He will leave? Truly? If I tell him about…

Ir'alith snorted in disgust as she realized what the man was asking for. "The world?" she said derisively. "Eden?" Of course he wants to know more of the world he has been summoned to. She shook her head at the thought. "What could I possibly tell you that the bitch who sent you has not already?" she said. None would believe me. Demonfolk, on the verge of extinction from the oh-so-in-need-of-rescuing humans? With how long I have been absent, they may already…

She kicked the desk in front of her again, destroying it as though trying to destroy her worst fear.

What happened here, to her, was abhorrent.

She would find her vengeance, and it would be endless.

What happened out there, to those she should be protecting…

The dead could not be brought back.

"She has already taunted me enough about the other three heroes she sent here," she snarled, imaging how her hated nemesis would crow with glee once Ir'alith was the last of her kind, save for those who had been enslaved. "I suppose I should be grateful that one of you manages to hold back," she allowed. "Uncountable years of humiliation, and finally one arrives who has some decency, the least of which is to not leer at me like some thing.

"Fine then, human. You wish to know of this world? This is a terrible world you find yourself drawn into. It has been filled with strife, with horrors, with depravity—all by the same one who brought you here. The elves bowed their heads rather than be annihilated, traded and sold as pleasure slaves for the wealthy in that horrid City of Lust now. Their subterranean kin cower in the darkness, afraid even to see the suns lest they meet the same fate, or the fate of those few who were captured during their flight from the so-called Empire. The dwarves still thrive in their cities, though none may leave; they produce ale and weapons according to the nigh-impossible schedules of their human taskmasters or face steep penalties. The seafolk are hunted for sport. Others, too, live in fear and oppression, but the dragons—those towering behemoths of yore—they fled to the elemental plane of fire just after the goddesses arrived rather than be taken as beasts of burden and travel.

"They abandoned us," Ir'alith raged, recalling the tales told to her of her distant kin when she was young. "The demonfolk. We who are different. We who live eternally unless slain. We who have watched the world be destroyed by your kin. Plundering its resources, slaughtering the wildlife and creatures they cannot tame, enslaving and driving the other races to extinction under the pretense of faith.

"This is your new world, human. A world where a so-called goddess plots to trick and enslave me, Ir'alith—the Queen of the demonfolk, and now I am compelled to behave like a—"

"Hold on," the man spoke up suddenly.

Ir'alith clenched her fists at the interruption, unable to continue speaking against the order to wait. Her claws dug into her palm without even enough force to leave a mark.

"Who did you say trapped you in here?" the man asked.

"Lucia," Ir'alith growled the name of the one she hated more than any other. "As I said, she tricked—"

"Key board," the man interrupted again, sounding disconcertingly nonchalant after everything she had just told him. "That's like, Lucia with a C?" he asked.

She heard a strange series of unfamiliar sounds and wrinkled her brow. What is a key board?

"She have a last name?" the man asked.

"A goddess has no last name," Ir'alith laughed at the idea, looking over her shoulder to see his expression. This human has a very strange concept of… She caught sight of something she did not recognize and turned her body to face him.

The man's face was partly obscured by a see-through black rectangle which hovered over a strange, off-white rectangle with rounded edges and a series of variably-shaped, smaller, raised rectangles on top of it. The black rectangle was clearly a form of magic, containing strange runes which skittered across it, but the off-white rectangle that he moved his hands across…

The Demon Queen had never seen something constructed of this material before. Surely no metal nor stone, not wood, nor a form of paper. She began to feel a deep sense of unease. "What manner of—"

"And you're Ir'alith," he said quietly as his fingers danced across the off-white rectangle, generating the unfamiliar noises she had heard a moment earlier, "also no last name, I take it, which probably narrows it down."

The runes on the black rectangle shifted again, forming a new pattern, or possibly a spell.

If it were magic, would it not give off a glow? I could not produce—

"Oh," said the man, his eyebrows raising as he moved one hand from the off-white rectangle—his key board?—to his mouth. He peeked around the rune display to look once more into her eyes with his usual unwavering gaze. "I'm so sorry," he said softly, "I thought…" he trailed off, and his eyes flicked back to the runes.

Ir'alith's unease intensified. Was he casting some sort of spell on her? Was his claimed intent to leave a lie? "What?" she asked, needing to know.

The man frowned deeply. "It's not right," he said quietly. "You getting bullied like this, stuck here without even having any of your gear, the whole thing with the collar and leash…"

Ir'alith blinked.

The man looked up at the ceiling and blew out a breath through his lips loudly, a gesture eerily reminiscent of a young Jungrathol, one of her friends when she herself was much younger. He looked back down, his eyes seeming more focused as he examined her with a clinical gaze. He nodded to himself a few times as his eyes darted around, then sighed. His shoulders slumped.

"Human," Ir'alith said, feeling fear begin to consume the sliver of hope she had unwillingly clung to moments earlier, "why do you gaze at me with those eyes?"

"I just," The man paused before completing the thought.

Ir'alith's breath had quickened, coming in short bursts.

"I think it's an injustice," the man said, firmly meeting her eyes once more. "You seem," he paused again, "cool, and I'm going to get you out of here. A rescue, I guess."

Ir'alith felt as though two of her three hearts had stopped. Can he… Surely not… "You, human?" she said, unwilling to hope for it. "Get me out of here?" She looked around at the prison that had held her for an unknown eternity.

It was impossible.

There was no escape.

There was no respite.

She could only endure until such time as the magic of the prison faded or the suns themselves went dark.

She had always known that her dreams of escape—of vengeance—were futile.

She pretended otherwise to stay sane.

But—

"Of course," said the man, as though it was a trivial matter to remove her from a prison that thousands of human mages and priests had come together to create under the direction of an actual deity.

Ir'alith felt her breath catch.

"It's your lucky day, Ir'alith," the man said, a small smile playing on his face. "I'm from fire."

Her mind went blank.

Fire?

As in, the elemental plane of fire?

The realm the dragons fled to?

They… They returned?

Ir'alith felt her eyes begin to water. "You?" she whispered, unable to believe the events that were transpiring. "You are… You are one of them?"

"Mm-hmm," said the man—more likely a dragon who had changed his form to fit inside the small confines of the prison and go undetected—as he looked around the rune display to meet her eyes again in reassurance. "This gi—goddess, Lucia, by the way—she have anyone else with her when she was bu—um, attacking you?"

"Dawn," she growled, the name of her nemesis's sister, the one who had created the spell that trapped her, "goddess of—"

"Dawn," muttered the dragon as his hands moved briskly over his magical contraption—possibly some new form of weapon. "Just the two of them?" he asked.

Ir'alith nodded dumbly, unable to think of anything else to say. "You… You truly intend to free me?" she blurted, struggling to believe the good fortune that had finally reached her.

The dragon held up a finger on one of his human hands, indicating that he needed a moment, while the other continued to manipulate the key board, causing the runes to change. He pressed down on a small rectangle—ah, a key—and a tension seemed to leave him. He grinned widely, then began moving his fingers again after a moment.

Did he do something? Why does he seem so pleased?

"Yeah, that should do it," said the dragon in man form after another moment of his fingers manipulating runes to the accompanying rhythm of the now-familiar clacking sound.

Ir'alith felt power suffuse her once more. Her long-dormant third heart, the one that generated the energy she needed for magic—for her own shapeshifting, for truly living—thumped once. Twice. And then it continued to beat. She held her palms up, cupped in front of her, and called a small sphere of light into existence from her soul.

She stared in disbelief. Her hair flicked up and behind her properly-elongated horns in a position that was impossible to maintain without her natural abilities—just how she preferred it. The disgusting things she had been forced to morph her feet into melted away, revealing her naturally wide, clawed extremities once more. Her arms, torso, and legs thickened with the muscle she preferred in her resting form. The collar abruptly felt tighter around her neck, as though it was actively suffocating her and not simply a constant reminder and humiliation to bear.

The magical orb in her hands pulsed along with her emotions as she returned to her true form for the first time in what felt like decades.

"Ir'alith," the dragon began, "did you have any weapons or armor that were taken from you?"

Tears began to stream down her face.

Free.

It was impossible, but it was.

She forced herself to focus. The dragon had asked her another question! "I had an axe," she said quietly, feeling an all-new wave of grief wash through her as she remembered that, too, and the sphere of raw magic she held changed form as her thoughts churned. "My father forged it himself before he…" she trailed off, squeezing her eyes shut as she directed her tail to wipe her teary eyes.

Her father.

Seth'tith.

Dead now.

Dead for decades.

The once-unmatched Demon King crying, on his deathbed, when he heard his wife had been captured.

His once-strong arm giving his daughter a last, feeble hug before she was dragged from the room by anyone and everyone who would come, such was her will to remain by his side until the end.

His eye, massive and all-seeing, where it resided in the axe he had put his very soul into just before he would have passed from existence.

The axe she had finished forging under his instruction once he became too weak to lift the colossal starsteel hammer that had been his own weapon, housing the souls of both his parents.

Something she would never—

"And they took it?" the dragon shouted, his rage evident, rousing her from pain-filled memories.

It was not taken. It was thrown into the void between planes so that I might never recover it.

"Was it a named weapon, at least?" asked the dragon, still seeming irate.

Named? Perhaps by humans, in fear. "He called it Ir'alith's axe," she said with a flick of her tail. "It was the—"

Ir'alith's axe dropped into her hands, and she gasped, the sudden weight and surprise nearly causing her to drop it.

"That it?" asked the dragon.

The Demon Queen, having had her most cherished possession returned to her, flipped the axe upright with practiced ease, marveling at the familiar weight in her hand.

{Daughter.} Her father's voice echoed once more in her mind. {I thought myself lost to the between-space.}

She clutched at her father's legacy—at his soul—as tightly as she could, hoping against hope that they would never again be separated. I missed you, Papa.

{And I, you, Alith.}