There was a benefit to being rather old and having enough experience in the means of bestiary knowledge to know when it was best to keep moving on and when it was wise to fight. In that of personal case, there was no reason to fight. At least not currently. Nothing thus far in the coagulated souls had been warrant enough for a need to pause. Tear it apart and see if there was anything worth pulling out for use.
Perhaps he could have dealt with the collector when he had located the rather impressive underground outpost, but the thing had been wise to avoid him. And him in turn. Not sure he wanted to find out if a thing that was starving for mortal lives, wanted to try and snack on him. And he had no holy flame to purify the gathering mass of souls that made its ghastly form anyways. It wasn’t his business to purge the damn thing and it was more than content to evade him when he had gone peeking around.
Looking for anything that might have been useful.
He wasn’t even sure at this point how long he had been walking anyways. He could have kept using his beetle form but there was only so much flying he could do before even that was tedious. A little mentally annoyed that these tunnels were so long too! Like if he was bored, he couldn’t imagine a mortal being any more enthused about the travel.
Thus far at least, things were evading him. He noticed at some point there were some dryder’s in one of the other passages that had been more than pleased to give him a wide berth. In reply, he didn’t ignite them.
That awful little voice that liked to whisper how terrible she was had grown silent again while Calia searched for the correct tunnel. Unsure if that meant she was already thinking so lowly of her own self that the inner voice had nothing to add to it, or if this was simply what it wanted. Her miserably resigned to this path she’d chosen. Finding herself a bit numb in the brain to go along with that dull emptiness inside her chest. Almost welcoming that state of unfeeling, as it was a hell of a lot more restful that a brain full of chaos!
While Calia did not know the old travel routes through the mountains, she’d listened to the village elders when they’d discussed how the tunnels worked. The symbols and carvings to look out for. Monster routes and natural dangers were pretty obvious, directional passages were a little harder to work out, as they seemed to be designed based on the needs and speed of travel. Wider tunnels made for large groups of people and trade to cross terrain without issue when bringing along wagons. Narrower tunnels for those that could walk on legs and through obstacles. The ancient mine shafts that’d lead into cliffsides and pits.
Though she might’ve been trying to mentally check herself out from this plane of existence, Calia wasn’t without a keen awareness to details. At some point she came across… tracks. Tentative and wary at first, assuming it was most likely going to be some new manner of monster skulking around in the old tunnels. Finding instead that the gait was a bit strange, coupled with an even stranger feeling of… something she couldn’t quite explain up until her nose wrinkled up and it dawn on her just what it could be.
Could an idiot demon get himself lost inside the mountains? Absolutely. Cocky enough to just devour whatever he came across if it gave him trouble, too. He’d be fine.
Still, Calia intended to be careful herself. Not about to come up on monster or dumbass demon unawares and get herself killed. Only how does one give warning that something is coming without giving it away that you might be a tasty morsel yourself?
So Calia cupped her hand to her mouth and gave a low haunted howl. A wolfish ghostly sort of thing that was likely to scare the shit out of any mortals (to which, good, let them haul ass and get out of the way) and hopefully send anything beastly scuttling off to avoid dealing with a nuisance.
The sharpness of ear pulled first. Then attention over shoulder like the means of eyes were about to somehow locate and triangulate themselves on the sound of distant reverberating howling. Mentally going through the state of educational bestiary once more searching through its pages to determine that it was highly unlikely that a wolf actually had got itself into the tunnels. Even lone wolves weren’t prone to go dying somewhere that was like this.
Though it was still a bit of distance away, it made him ponder what other things could have replicated the haunting noise.
Mortals. Mimics. Some sort of magical creation that was given one thing to say or do. He wasn’t particularly bothered about it, he’d been pretty successful thus far at evading or being evaded. But to hear the noise was enough reason to be wise on his surroundings a little further. The last thing he really wanted when the means of travelling through that of the mountain depths was to deal with humans that would question a singular male in the depths.
And he was of no need to start having to use magic to swat the pesky pests away.
With little worry in thought about some sort of untold amalgamation coming through the old passageways, if he was to give reply; he wisely did not. If it were mortal blood coming through, they wouldn’t be able to see what he truly was without either grand holy power or his own choice.
He just hoped whatever was lurking back there, was smart enough to avoid the tunnels that were housing unmentioned terrors of arachnid quality.
Well, there weren’t any sounds of stampeding flight or screams of terror echoing down the tunnels. That at least eased her mind about there being any more traveling people… at least not ones close by. Leaving her curiously… hoping? that this trail of footsteps she’d now piqued her interest in might actually be that stupid demon. Though, what would she be hoping for, exactly? Calia wasn’t sure. As she trekked through the endless, long, same brown, brown, boring tunnel she entertained herself with ideas of brushing past him and shoving him down one of the ravines. Maybe even not throwing him to his doom, to instead gloat about his sudden departure from the loving arms of his current paramour.
…only to swiftly feel that sharp pain of regret. Because that poor girl was dead now too. He hadn’t killed her and neither had Calia, but she couldn’t help but feel that it was still somehow her own fault.
Time to bury those thoughts in the growing coffin with the rest.
The trouble with burying thoughts, though, was that often it came with burying sense and awareness too. So focused on trying not to think about the things that made her lungs squeeze up and her brain to get fussy, she wasn’t paying enough attention to the warning symbols on the tunnels. Calia kept her eyes on the tracks until she reached a cross-roads where all signs of tracks and movement seemed to have vanished. Then in choosing her direction, she did not notice the faded mark that had almost been entirely rubbed away was more than just squiggling lines that looked like a bridge over a river, but might’ve been something disturbingly arachnid instead!
Calia walked with her chestnut companion until her tunnel opened up into another large cavern full of jagged natural formations, and with the chill down her spine a sort of cool mustiness that came with the light dribbles of water that were trickling down some parts of the walls. Then, before the full awareness of her surroundings kicked in, there was a tap tap skitter that had her releasing Mercy’s reigns to reach for her sword only for in that same moment for something to reach out of and go BAP to her lantern of light. Glass shattered somewhere in the cavern and took her only source of light with it.
Mercy neighed and clipclopped her hooves on the stone ground, to which Calia reached to soothe her… only to find herself the next thing to get bapped right off her feet. Landing a few feet away with a cluttered crack and a shout of explicits before she scrambled back to her feet. Listening in the dark as the poor horse gave another wild sound of protest before Calia could hear the thundering of hooves run right past her. Echoing, echoing, echoing as the beast fled into the tunnels.
Mercy for Mercy. Good.
“A woman! Pretty too, how unusual…” announced a voice, distinctly male, though there was a strange hissing raspyness to it. “Not quite human, though, are you love. Not quite whole, either. Intriguing.”
Calia didn’t hesitate to pull out her sword – she might not be able to see in the dark like this, but she could hear well enough. Whatever this was, it was taller and bigger than she. As he moved in the cavern, it was a strange, confusing gait. An odd tik, tik, tik, tiktik, that didn’t sound like normal booted feet on stone.
“Wish I could say the same, but you broke my only lantern and scared off my horse,” she replied breezily, tightening her grip on sword’s hilt.
“A necessity for my safety, you see. Unlike my dear sisters, I have no web to make my nest… cozy.”
Web, nest, what?
When there was no additional haunting howl somewhere behind him, there was no further thought offered to the oddity of the moment. Even if it were something of a monster, they ought to be wise enough not to meddle with a demon. And if they were, well… suppose it would kill a little of his bland boredom. For a few minutes.
What he would prefer was an end to this place. Even if he were still just an elf, he could have sworn he might have felt himself aging by the second by being present in this long stretch of earthly corridors.
However, in his lackadaisical trail of thought, something was promptly approaching.
Striking hard upon the stony surface of the ground. Kicking loose stones to ping themselves off nearby walls and bid him to stop his means of falling into his own thoughts to come twisting around. Narrowing eye and readying hand to snap or make some other over dramatic motion to ignite a spell to his choosing. Hearing the steadfast rushing of shortly became clearer as hooves. Searching over his thoughts if there were any beasts down here of the fae sort that might linger in such a place to call home. But coming up perfectly absent of that.
Fae weren’t uncommon in the elven lands, that he knew. But similar to wolves, they weren’t prone to making mountain holes their dwelling. Far more in the ambient mood for roots, bushes and leaves. Some mystical light and unnatural glow stuff.
So whatever the hell was coming like hellfire had caught their backside in flames, he was preemptively ready to strike first!
Save nothing could have prepared him for the running dash of a frightened mare that was so god damn familiar that it took him a solid triple take even as Mercy went running by. Forcing himself to slap himself near paper thin into the stony wall less he be mowed over because she was clearly not about to stop for anyone. Blinking wildly and letting his thoughts try to piece together the very event with a glaring missing hole of just what the fuck had happened. Gradually looking the way the wild mare had come running from as if waiting for that of former princess to come rounding the corner with curses flinging from lips and hand swinging in useless attempts that of blade to hold back some barrage of wild creatures.
Naturally, nothing came and he was left to sort through the muddle of thoughts.
Not even sure how long he stood there. Plastered to the wall like a painting. Milling the chunky efforts of thoughts through the grater of mind to come up brilliantly empty.
Well, empty enough. Minus the damnable expression of three times the fate. Surely this was not it and he was not any sort of believer of fate! Yet, that had been Mercy and Calia had last time he checked been in possession of the mare that he originally found. So, where was madam better than everyone, anyways?
Actually, none of that mattered to him. If she had taken a tumble into some hole to make herself comfortable with the next blackened pest, then so be it! “Mercy,” He decided instead to call perfectly uselessly after the long gone mare. Pressing lips and sighing a bit, it wouldn’t do if the mare was having such strokes of luck only to fall down a hole and break a leg. And well… he might actually like the horse!
“Look, you sound reasonable enough. I’m not interested in being someone’s dinner tonight and I’d love to skip past the parts where you play with your food and I have to stab you.” she told the stranger in the dark.
This resulted in a low laugh, oddly without a tone of sarcasm or harshness to it. A genuine hissing chuckle.
“The mare would’ve been a better meal. I am looking for a mate, love. And you… are not the flimsy delicate miss that’ll burst open at the seams. We could have several broods.”
Calia’s defensive stance dropped entirely, so did the look on her face to shift from pensive waiting to a wrinkled nose of disgust.
“If that’s how you’ve been proposing to women, no wonder you’re down here in the dark! I doubt you have the sort of face that can get away with it,” she goaded. Quite deliberately too, because as long as they were in the dark she was at a severe disadvantage. Even while she tilted her head and listened to the tiktiktik tik tik sounds of movement in the cavern, closer… closer. A shiiiink of metal and glass on stone, until there was a hissing breath and her lantern flickered into the tiniest of little flames.
Well, color her all kinds of wrong. The first thing she saw was skin as black as midnight and hair as white as bright stars. The obsidian eyes, devoid of white sclera gave her a quick jolt, but he seemed to be the very definition of a pretty man worthy of even making her own missing heart do a stumble and a flutter.
“I guess I was wrong,” she answered, lips blooming into a wide charming smile. At least until those dark evergreen eyes of hers wandered downwards over bared torso to where the halo of light faded into shadow. Where torso did not meet hips and legs in a way she expected, but rather seemed to be attached to something much, much larger. With long spindly legs… extra legs… tippy tappy, buggy legs…!
Calia let out a high pitched horrified scream and within two seconds slapped her own hand over her mouth to stifle it. Taking in an immediate deep breath and letting it out in a slow rush.
“That- I apologize, you might have warned me.” she croaked out.
The man… the spider? He shockingly just smile wide, somehow not even taking a single ounce of insult.
“Most do not stop screaming. You truly are an interesting woman. You’ll make a good mother.”
“See, now we’re back to where I have to stab you and I am so tired of having to stab things.” Calia sighed.
What she wouldn’t give for a spark of magic right now.
When it became clear he wasn’t about to find the mare any time soon, there came a stupid, asinine decision on his part. And knew that a majority of it was terrible curiosity. Something that ought to be killed because it was only bound to lead him into things that he didn’t want to deal with in any capacity. Yet, he had turned around and bugged out in a sense so he could fly a lot faster than walking. Finding himself trying to determine just where the horse had come running from. A task that was not so simple and he was no in possession of any sort of tracking spell.
Honestly, the very thing would be incredibly helpful. It would certainly cut down the means of having to search and dig for clues when one could just cast a spell and viola! Things would be determined with a figurative sense of an arrow pointing one in the right direction.
Although it seemed that someone was going to help him out a little bit because there was a scream that caused him to pause. To listen and then to shortly start slipping down into a new cavern that was well… rife with a sensation that foretold him once more that this was where those dryder’s had been.
Of course. Why wouldn’t it be some stupid overgrown spider fucked centaur monstrosity.
Reverting back to that of mortal form, he truly was rather lucky to have come on the tail end of the conversation. “Yah should just fuckin’ start stabbin,’” Arc stated bluntly, “Yah let the mare go running off scared, I thought yah gave a shit about her at least. Yet here yah are, makin’ cow eyes at a spider man.” He sighed, knowing what they said. Curiosity killed the cat and he was certain there was no satisfaction to bring it back this time.
Later Calia would have to analyze why she had a delighted sense of smugness to hear the demon’s voice. There certainly wasn’t any time to do so now, as this man spider had acted in an instant of hearing a new voice. Rising up to his full impressive height on those creepy spider legs, while guiding her backwards with a hand to stand behind him. An oddly protective motion for having just met the damn man moments ago.
…and the fact she was in full armor with a sword in her hand.
“Demon,” he snarled, somehow puffing up in a way that churned his handsome features from strikingly pretty to a twisted pantomime of a person. More alien and creature. Monstrously spidery to the point it actually made her cringe.
“Letting her run off saved her life, Archimedes, I’m not going to have her get eaten by… by whatever this guy is!” Calia defended, as truly her care for Mercy was not to be questioned. If Arc wanted to imagine her fucking weird cave spiders, he could have his fantasies.
“Mate. I am her mate-“
“I didn’t agree to that-“
“You are not welcome in the home of my brood, demon.” the dryder continued on, taking the lantern in his hand and smashing it down on the ground again to snuff out the dull bit of light and bath them once again in full darkness. His means of protecting himself without a web, it seemed, as the creature could see so perfectly well in the dark.
“Shit,” hissed out Calia, swinging sword in a wide, smooth arc to be sure nothing was about to snatch out and grab her.
There was a small, ever so tiny niggling in his head that painfully ached to suggest that there was likely some history of dryder’s from his life as an elf. What, well he couldn’t say. Just that it pressed uncomfortably on his thoughts and that was more than enough to make him avoid thinking about it any further. Instead levelling gaze upon the thing that went from perfect little pretty thing to something better suited for children’s imaginative nightmares. “Ah, is that what I be? Thank the nines, yah told me. And here I thought I was a pixie.” Brows furrowed with a slight shake of his horned head.
Not sure the dryder needed to announce that yes, in fact, he was a demon. But whatever.
It seemed to be protective over Calia, which well… maybe this thing was dumber than it looked. In all fairness, the dryder might need someone else to protect it from her. That wasn’t just any regular ol’ lady. That was one with one hell of a icy chip on her shoulder that seemed to hate everything living person on the planet one way or another. And a dryder was in fact some sort of mortal creature, so it shouldn’t feel blessed currently.
“Saved her life from here maybe, but a scared horse ain’t got no logic. For all we be knowin’ she just ran off into a new nest of creatures that are eager to have lunch.” He gave Calia his first ever truly unimpressed look. He expected her to pretty much loathe anything that had more sentience that a casual animal, but was she really that cruel to just let the mare run off in a panic to get itself killed somewhere else.
She truly was heartless then.
Just that his gaze shifted to the thing she didn’t know what it was, “Dryder. A drow that wanted to be a centaur that failed and decided a spider was good enough.” He offered as arms crossed. Only to give said dryder a look when it confessed that apparently Calia was his mate. That got a look and a raised eyebrow. “Yah be wild then, dryder.” Deciding that it ought to be more concerned with its mate. Only that it was clearly not happy about him being here.
And he was fairly guna say he wasn’t guna stay. Just it clearly was upset. Throwing the lantern down on the ground like a dramatic child. “I was guna feckin’ leave! Whatever freaky shit yah wanna get into is yers and her deal. Ain’t mine. I ain’t that kinky.” He actually winced at that. Something about getting all freaky deaky with a spider thing was actually too far for him.
Calia wanted too, then fine. She could fly that freak flag.
He felt something whizz through the air. “Feck sakes!” Jumping backwards to let his eyes adjust to the dark, he could see well enough. Not magnificently but enough to see Calia was giving her sword a nice twirl, “I’m out. Ain’t involved.” He held up his hands, “She’s all yers. Ain’t got no business getting involved with spider human sex.”
“If you care so much about Mercy, then why didn’t you GRAB her, Arc!” she shouted back. Careless bastard, if he’d seen her he could have easily followed her and fetched the poor thing! Instead he decided to show up here and make a bad situation worse with a peanut gallery! “And I’m not about to fuck any spiders!”
“No?” came the odd, hissy voice of the dryder from somewhere in the cavern. Hard for her to pinpoint with the way sounds echoed, and by the tiktiktik tik tik tiktik movements of his too-many legs, he was skittering about all over the place, doing who knew what sort of creepy things. “You fight like lovers. I will NOT share or be second to any demon. Our brood will be dryder, dozens and dozens of dryder.”
God damn, she hated when the demon was right. Calia should’ve led with the stabbing right from the start.
Tiktik, tiktiktik, tik tik tik. Calia listened for the scritchy scratchy steps on hard stone… then she mimicked it with steps forward. Stepstep, stepstepstep, step step step. Tilting head to listen, rolling her eyes in the dark at the demon’s completely unhelpful commentary. Continuing her own silent stalking until with a graceful movement of body and arm, down came a smooth swing of steel to crack through chitin leg. Earning an immediate bellow of pain from the male… but no time to feel triumph in the moment. For a dryder had seven other long powerful legs, and while her spin and bend away landed her safe from the immediately jerking reaction, Calia didn’t dodge the next two.
This time it was no simple bapping that knocked her off her feet. It was a hard hit against the metal of her chest plate and a slam to the ground. Thankfully being absorbed mostly by the armor she wore, yet there was no protection from cracking her head on the floor. Letting out a grunt of shocked pain and a soft confused bewildered sound in the moment after when all her wits appeared to be knocked out of her.
She was lucky this dryder had more interest in keeping her alive as a host for spawn, for once she was no longer the immediate threat, he was more concerned with the demon who entered his territory. It didn’t matter that he was claiming to leave, the demon was too familiar with his chosen mate and… called him a centaur wannabe! How fucking dare he compare his glorious form to a horse’s ass!
So it was a fast, skitterskitterskitter toktoktok scuttle across the stone, leaping through the air under the cover of darkness. No war cry, no threats, just a deadly leap an a mouth dripping with poison ready to sink venomous fangs into the creature of another realm.
“Yah be thinkin’ I didn’t try goin’ after her! She’s a damn horse, I ain’t that fast!” Arc snapped back actually rather annoyed that Calia was even saying shit at all. None of this would have happened had she not just walked or been taken into a dryder nest. That sounded like a whole lot of her problem, “Yah fuckin’ can’t take onus on anythin’, can yah!?” He didn’t really want to know or care too, considering the fact that he was about to just turn about and leave Calia to her weird sex thing.
Not about to stand here with gaze gawping to see how that worked. Really not interested in finding out.
Yet in the dark, the dryder was talking. And claiming they fought like… like what… “I just ate, do yah gotta be talkin’ nasty?”
There was no way in the nine hells would he ever, ever put his effort into someone so callous, so rude, so vindictive and full of malice and spite that it would be no surprise if she bled vinegar rather than blood. Yet, this stupid spider reject wanted to claim nonsense. The not so itsy bitsy spider could damn well have the sour wench. Hell, if he had money, he’d pay the dryder to keep her for however long. This whole continually running into another was getting old and he didn’t care to repeat it for a fourth time.
He’d sooner lobotomize himself.
Looking around in the bleak, it seemed Calia was up to something. And it came around to being rather successful. With her mimicking the sounds of its footsteps as it did its little nubby foot dance in the umbra, only that it promptly lost one of its spindly legs. Just there were plenty more where that came from, which the girl found out.
At this point, he wondered if she liked just seeing how rough she could take. For Mister Personality had decidedly put her on her back. And he was personally ready to just vamoose like the unwanted third wheel. Yet, spider dork didn’t get the memo.
Baring teeth at the thing moving at him, leaping around so fast that really he ought to be highly concerned. But at this point, well, he had stated he was guna leave but noooo! It didn’t want to listen and insulted him instead. Fine! He was personally done with this and if he wanted to play monstrosity to monstrosity, then so be it.
A sickening splatter of gore burst like a bloated shell. Face warping into a all too wide fang riddled smile. Skin twisting and webbing to pull taught. Tearing to leave open welts of withered void. Sclera bursting to brightening glistering orbs. Exhaling sharply. Letting guttural reverbs chase along chest, up through throat and out through the lipless grin to raise great mitt. Swatting the damnable parasite from its momentum to slam it upon the ground. Giving horned head a slow rattling shake to scrap the gnarled tips upon stone, “Yaaaah… just be maaaking mistaaaakes.” Curling claws to act as cage and began squeezing. “Eaaager for deaaath, then let me give it to yaaaah, pest!”
The dryder male made quite the snarling sounds on his own, even when large demonic hand had him slamming down to the ground hard enough to make something in his arachnid exoskeleton crack. While he seemed to have a sense of self preservation when it came to protection of his cavern lair, to luring himself in a meal or a mate, there was something violent that had sparked up within him at the face of another creature that was clearly a hell of a lot more dangerous! Some old stupid instinct to fight to the very death for pride, honor – a warrior’s end.
What the dryder lacked in brute strength he more than made up for by oozing stinging venom from gods only knew how many gross hidden glands! His perfect beautiful face contorting and shifting until pedipalp-like fangs sprang out of his mouth to go chomping down on squeezing hand. His long spindly legs being glass sharp and attempting to grab onto arm or simply stab their way through body.
And all through this ghastly mess, Calia’s ears were still ringing where she still laid sprawled on the floor. Barely managing to lift a hand where she’d been struck so hard against armor that she could feel a dent in it. Not quite registering the gnarly sounds of viciousness in the darkness nearby when she rolled to her side and tried to gather enough sense to even remember what she was doing there!
“Archimedes,” she stated with a strained breath, so weirdly calm when there was chaos going on in the dark. …immediately forgetting why she’d said his name in the first place as she reached out to pat her hand on the ground searching for where she’d dropped her sword.
All of this was so absolutely unnecessary and yet the damnable creature that couldn’t make up its mind whether it was a drow or spider but settled on unnerving children’s nightmare; just had to get all fussed up over nothing. Leave it to some pigheaded arrogant pest that couldn’t realize that the truth was, there was no want or desire to have its proclaimed mate. Granted, Calia also expressed her lack of desire to do so but that could just be her doing that I’m better than thou art superiority thing again. Something she had in abundance that could be referenced.
Pressing that of bodily weight down through that of arm, the way this festering lump of ooze was trying so desperately to be the glorious victor, was truly pathetic. So it clearly still have some drow pride in it. Folly as it was, one could consider it commendable.
As it tried to bite and scratch and make itself into a snotty oozing poison dripping mess. Spurring the hollow knocking growl around in pockmarked chest, feeling the ground dimple with the extrusion of pressure.
While he certainly was outmatched, the damnable dryder did still puncture into his flesh. Feeling the undesirable flood of ichor touching demonic blood, as he heard the equally damnable woman calling his name. For what!
If she was about to start lecturing him or something, he was going to throw her across this damn room!
Though he didn’t want to find out how effective this goop pooping spider was to him, skinless lips curled in its crooked fanged grin mumbled. Igniting curled fingers into a eerily green ebb. Striking in the low light, emitting some coverage that was properly sickly. Haunting and fingers curled tighter. Feeling where body began to crumple inwards as palm let the ignite of deadly bolts into the dryder’s body. Inflicting the necrotic damage at such a close range. Feeling its body break. To begin to rot as sickly light began to plume into a meld of shadowy mist.
Decay and shadow, one of his far stronger spells and no easy feat. Waiting but a moment before he could successfully squeeze fist close to turn the parts of its body that had been driving by the necrotic bolts at such a deadly close range. Feeling the decay having eaten away and turning into plagued dust.
Only that the means of a bright flare burst next as a gout of fiery red and orange illuminated the tunnel hole as to properly singe and burn this damnable fucker to nothing.
Hissing low in throat and dusting hands off after a moment, leaving the body to burn like a oily wick. Casting shadow. Casting light and letting himself get a look at the gouge marks from legs that had been so gracious to harm.
It was not a pleasant sensation. “Feckin’ dryder.” Gnarling the words through features, glowing gems glanced their way towards the woman. Staring a moment but ultimately turning so frame could revert back once more to mortal allowance. Feeling the effects of the poison far stronger in a more manageable form. Oh that was going to be fun to purge later! He better not fucking hallucinate!
There sounds that came straight out of hell. The way that dryder went from wails of a mortal man, to this horrifying unnatural alien screech as whatever was being inflicted upon him did it’s work. Light of magic igniting up the cavern lair in blooms of orange to give Calia a glimpse into what the demon realm might’ve actually looked like. As she squinted at the wriggling imagine, unaware she was seeing in triplicate, there wasn’t the stupid face of Archimedes that she expected, but rather this giant, sharp figure of nightmares with multiple wavy friends.
It wasn’t attacking her, so she didn’t care at the moment. Moving with her own deep rooted sense of instinct and survival. One tiny motion at a time to reclaim her weapon. Draw herself to her knees, then to one foot. The other foot. To stand up straight, albeit wavering dangerously, ready to start swinging that sword at whatever came at her.
Nothing did. The cavern draped itself back to quiet as the dryder’s burning corpse lent light, leaving her alone with the vision of three impressively large identical nightmare beasts… who promptly shifted back to three dumb looking Arcs in the span of her giving an owlish blink. He had a few bleeding perice marks, and she sure as hell had cracked her head hard enough to feel the warm sticky blood.
So in her concussed delerium her natural response was to grin wide and give him an awkwardly, stumbling curtsey. “Thank you,” she murmured with all amused sincerity. Because he didn’t give two shits about her. There was no possible way for him to hate her more, so Calia was actually free to just be. No pretenses of being intelligent and responsible. No need to be strong, or clever, or sweet and kind. He was likely the only person in the world right now that actually knew her for what she was.
Away went her sword directly afterwards, with Calia shaking out her hands as she tried to get her vision to settle down enough so she could glance around and figure out where the exist was.
“Which direction did Mercy go…?” she asked, already weaving and tilting towards the directions where she squinted and thought she could see hoof prints. “We oughta find her before you bleed out, or… or burst into spider babies.”
Idly flexing hand to make the blood and invasive toxin leak a little faster through the every so lovely gifted holes, her stupid remark of thanks was almost enough for him to glare back at her. By some will he didn’t. Just giving arm a hard flick to splatter the drip drops across the ground to act as maybe a sort of warning. Till it dried and was swept away by footprints or spider feet. Whatever. It was none of his business at this point and was certainly more than content to go back the way he had come. Bonus to having dark vision, he could see well enough. Again, not perfectly but he wasn’t the one that was likely to be someone’s dinner.
It was every bit his intention to just move on. Back to his original goal to go to the elven lands at the end of this never ending mountain colon, so he could find something else to engage with.
So when it seemed that Calia was using the burning body pyre’s light to help herself to toddle after, she was talking. Asking the way Mercy went, and he pointed. At first.
Turning to a look at her then. “We?” Arc replied with no means of being polite or sweet. Stalling steps, “There ain’t no we. Yah were rather vehement about yer freedom and that stuff. Being alone, left to yer devices. What the bloody hells do yah think there is suddenly a we in any of this.” Rocking jaw back and forth, clearly she had clunked herself hard in the head to even utter such absolute nonsense.
“The mare went further along the tunnels. That’s all I know. Have fun.” Violet rings looked her up and down again. “Yer on yer own.”
There was no doubt that Calia did have every ounce of sense knocked out her, likely bleeding right out of her brain with the way his complaining had her grinning all the wider. Huffing this amused hum at his insult to we, which of course he was right. There was no we. They were not partners, friends, or even associates. This was a mutual dislike – how refreshing! Honest and open ire!
Damn, she wanted to sit down and take a nap so bad.
“It’s the same direcshun,” she slurred, even catching it with this perplexed look on her face as she stumbled after him. Having to lean along the wall here and there to keep her balance. Calia was going to have to get some food and water into herself, she supposed. Alcohol would be even better, but she hadn’t stashed any away in Mercy’s pack.
“Hoof scuffs… she is so lucky, you know. Fae-touched and heading off in the right way. Should have named her Lucky, it’s so much more apt than Mercy.” She made a motioning flick of her hand towards the stone ground, pointing out what looked obvious enough to herself.
“…and you were bored. You chose me over the mare. You missed me.” she teased at what also seemed obvious. For the demon could have shifted into whatever form he wished. He could have caught up to Mercy or stopped her running, or done anything with all he power he had. He hated her, but he was lost in this damn mountain bored out of his skull without pretty girls to fawn over him, or trouble to be entertained with. And some deranged part of her was actually glad to see him!
She was slurring and it was probably an indication that her eight limbed mate had given her quite the blast to the skull to have such things happen. By no means was he a doctor or healer, but he could tell enough that her trying to pronounce direction was enough of a botched try, that the stumbling and means of following was probably some stupid part of her internal need for preservation. “Same direction, different gaits.” He stated so effortlessly. It wouldn’t be hard to lose her after all if she was clinging to the walls like they were walking canes.
At this point it was evident that whatever sort of demented luck had her by the hair, wasn’t about to let her go. She’d keep living, so that mattered little to him.
Actually making a point to lengthen his stride as not to encourage this stupid matter of we. She had sought solace and made it a point to annoy him after he had saved her stupid ass from the fungi demon. Then again at the village where he didn’t have to do anything but then she twisted and made his work into some pig slop of nonsense.
Now, was a third time and that was entirely unintentional. He just was done with the dryder peacocking at him because it wanted her and he didn’t! Hello! It was pretty clear.
“Then rename her.” Arc stated flatly, uncaring what she called the mare. Granted he suspected the mare was likely dead meat now anyways. A unfortunate thing because former master had been cruel. A gentle shake of head and eyes were peering at arm once more. He’d bleed out the toxin eventually but it was still burning like a bitch. Unsure if it was eating his insides or outsides, it was a bit hard to see even with better vision.
“I chose curiosity. Yah were just an unfortunate addition that I ought to have left immediately.” Arc rolled eyes and gave arm another flick to cast blood along the ground. “I’d sooner miss a hole in my head than yah. A boil on my ass than yah. Take yer pick. And if I recall, it’s yah who wanted solitude. So yah know, go do that. Find yer mare, fall down a ravine, go find a collector and have yer soul eaten. I don’t care.”
The demon huffed at her as if that was the final thing he needed to make a point about as they managed to crawl out of this side tunnel and back to the main artery.
“You can’t rename a horse,” she scoffed, seeming to find that the most ridiculous thing in the world, despite the fact he’d found that horse at random and she likely had a different name before he’d left the poor mare with Calia. But she was hers now, a blessed sweet thing that really didn’t deserve all the trouble and turmoil Calia was putting her through. Realizing too late that she should’ve left her with the villagers instead of dragging her through these damn, pitch black tunnels.
Everything was dark again, Calia had to hold onto the wall not just to keep herself upright, but so she wouldn’t trip over her own feet in the dark. Ever so often having to add an extra skip in her step to catch up to him, as she was very aware he was trying to use those long legs to leave her behind.
“You damn me because I want sholitude, well I tried it your way,” she grunted with a pained huff. “I stayed with the villagers and I played the part of waschful guardian you guilted me into. Failing shpectacular because I am… a curse. Ishbelle is dead and others with her. I’m not for them, I’m for something else.”
Heaving a heavy sigh, she glared around at the darkness of this new larger space. Squinting to try and see if she could find the hints of Mercy’s tracks.
“I should be the demon,” she muttered, raising her hand on the stone tunnel walls to search for those guiding symbols. “Thas where I’m headed anyway, may as well shtart now.”
The retort was so absolutely lame that he could only huff at it. Unless the mare had papers stating she had a legal name, he was pretty damn sure you could name her whatever. And currently he had left Mercy with Calia. And the horse was a mercy. To a woman that was clearly all sorts of deranged, a flip flopping cold to hot nutsack that didn’t seem able to take anything to her own. Blaming others. Pushing others. Shaking a figurative finger at another because god damn if she wasn’t fucking flawed to noticed that maybe that things kept happening to her was because she was constantly blaming someone else for it.
Or something.
He really didn’t know and didn’t really care either. Simply trying to think of his next steps. Again a tracking spell would be nice right about now but as they entered the main artery of this butthole long tunnel system, he could hear her making feeble haste.
“I guilted yah into, or yah guilted yerself into. I only spoke, yah be the chooser.” Arc pointed back at her, “No one can make yah do anythin’ unless yah want to on some aspect. Stop blamin’ me for shit yah had the final say in.” Good god, she was giving him an awful lot of credit. Only that when she mentioned that Isabelle was dead, well… that did make him stop walking.
Pausing to repeat that information through his skull before grounding teeth together. Poor kid, she didn’t deserve to die but… well… there was nothing to be done about that. Nor did he think others did considering they’d escaped from their home only to be slaughtered elsewhere.
Fate was a cruel mistress.
After a moment, feet started again. And a laugh cold and hollow rose up, finding her idea that she should be a demon. She’d be an utterly terrible one honestly. Though her fickleness would work at least well. “Then go find the fungi demon yah picked up earlier. Yah can be its corpse walker.”
Features winced as the poison had started to burn at his shoulder. Unpleasant as it was, he was likely going to need to go and settle somewhere for a bit. Just to bleed this shit out for a day or more before continuing on. Once more slowing feet to a complete stop and glanced at her in the shady bloom. “Get along, we be partin’ proper ways once more. Find yer little mare if yer lucky.”
“Hmn. You’re right as always. It is my fault,” she agreed all too easily, because well… it was wasn’t it. Every choice Calia made, from bad advice or not, it was still all her own choice in the end. Making stupid choices here and now again, in realizing that her gladness to have him see her for what she was has also been such a mistake. Because his words were always vicious, biting and cruel… but true.
He stopped to glare at her, perfectly reasonably telling her to fuck off. And in that moment Calia thought she should stab him. It’d be quick and he’d not see it coming. A simple flip of her dagger right into his chest, while he himself was weak with poison and not expecting her to turn on him. He wouldn’t die and as he’d promised the retribution would be swift and Calia would be gone. Finally gone and dead, never having to care about or feel anything ever again.
But she didn’t. Apparently her stupid soul wanted to suffer through this complete nightmare of a life.
“…what if I asked for a new kind of deal,” she asked suddenly, the strange thought coming to her in this grim moment where she was so desperate to find something, anything to keep her moving forward that just about any idea was better than being suicidal buried under a mountain. “One deal and you never have to see me again.”
If she kept saying shit like that and agreeing with him, he was guna start to worry that her brain was about to explode out her ears! Evidently she had been rattled so violently to be saying such nonsense when it was in reflection to himself. Sure that she was liable to have brain trauma at this rate.
But she was still nattering and poking at him when admittedly he was more than ready to be done with her presence once more. Permanently this time. Figuring at this point that whatever sort of gift of karma had been given, this was it. For their original introduction was certainly biting him in the ass repeatedly.
However, he didn’t have to think about that. Consider it. Merely indicating that with how he was feeling now, it was better she went away. Kept hobbling along till either some luck was given and she found the mare or she just had her skull explode. Whatever worked for him.
Only that when his intention for her to clearly go away was met with a new question, Arc was frowning. Feeling fangs piercing at his gums with the intensity of his clenched jaw. “I did the deal with yah once. Ended up bein’ no fun and more trouble. I could just get the latter half of that anyways, so why bother makin’ any sort of deals with yah?” The demon was squinting at her. Suspicion ripe as a fresh fruit. “Yer delusional. Yah wanna make deals, go find a new dryder to make into yer freaky mate. Yah ain’t got nuttin I want, need or feel inclined to be nice too.”
“Yeah, okay, a deal for a demon hushband is what I’m looking for, sure,” she shot back, wrinkling up her nose. If there weren’t still three of him wriggling around like dizzying apparitions, she might’ve taken a swing at him just out of pure spite. Calia was already on the edge of a cliff here out of sheer desperation to cling to any freaking glimmer of hope she could find, he didn’t need to create stupid bullshit ideas!
He did have a point, though. What even did Calia have to offer? He’d wanted blood and entertainment before, which she had plenty of the former but it was pretty obvious the entertainment part was… well. Calia was more trouble than she was worth, even for a demon so it turned out. And apparently this was the one demon that didn’t care about collecting souls, so it’s not like she could offer that up on a silver platter.
But there was one thing she did remember him mentioning, causing her to cast him that examining squint.
“You can have my heart. My magic.” she finally said, and boy even hearing it out loud herself she knew that knock on her head had clearly sent her well past delirious into some new realm of insane. “You eat the hearts of other demons and take their powers if they’re usheful, doncha? Give me the power I need to take my heart back, and it’s yours. It along with every single powerful fuck I kill along the way. And if I die before I get there, you aren’t missin’ much, anyway.”
Ugh.
She was straight crackers at this point and he was about to truly just start walking away faster. There was nothing she had to offer him that was worth putting himself into a new sort of uncomfortable hell. Actually, he’d sooner try to get with another demon’s plaything and being put into his beetle form for all eternity than entertain her delirium.
What the hell was she lurking around him anyways? Wasn’t it abundantly clear that they got along like oil and water? There was no cohesion. No agreeing abilities between them and she was pretty clear that in their previous interactions that she would do everything possible to earn his ire. It wasn’t even amusing anymore.
So her idea of a deal, by the gods and eternal demons, he was not stupid enough to even vaguely entertain that. She’d have to be somewhat tolerable for him to even consider it. Which she wasn’t.
If he wanted to be around a prickly ass jackass, he’d find a cactus. Holding it with his bare hands.
As it became apparent she had nothing of use to even offer as a deal, he began walking away properly. She ought to just be grateful she wasn’t a dryder’s mate at this point and focus on handling her concussed self. But in a few steps, she spoke up.
Her heart.Her magic.
Arc stopped. Turned to look at her and listened. Her plea was… tantalizing. She had abilities certainly and it would be useful but there was so many glaring things in all this that wasn’t in his favour. Actually, most of it was absolutely not in his favour. If he wanted her abilities or something of use from them, then she would have to stay alive. And he knew damn well how fickle she was. That again, hot and cold personality. “What’s the point of givin’ yah power when in the end, the means of retrievin’ the very thing for it to be devoured.” It was a flawed, half baked and dare he say desperate plan.
“Yer clingin’ to nothin’ Calia. And tryin’ to make a deal with someone that knows yah would simply try to kill or maim for yer own callous cruelty. I also don’t need yah to find powerful adversaries if I wanted to.” He had done this all on his own after all and gotten himself quite a collection of spells that were useful. So what did he need her for?
“Yer desperate. And not even in a way that is worth monopolizin’. Plus… it ain’t me that needs to do nothin’. I’ve already gotten free of bein’ stuck, so while yer heart and powers may be highly interestin’, yer not.” Arc might regret this in the future but well, she was too much of a risk and he wasn’t feeling it was a wise investment. Plus he did believe that she would use every second to try and stab, maim, slice, dice and slaughter him.
She was desperate as he said, but it wasn’t in a favour that would benefit him. She was too wild. Too unmanaged and so deceitful in ways that probably most other demons would find remarkable. Him however, maybe that was a part that was missing from him. That he hadn’t been a demon his entire existence, that something of the elven humanity or some other bullshit was still present. But there was something holding him back from taking advantage of this. “Go find yerself help. I’m leavin’. Some of us gotta go leak poison, yer on yer own.”
“Ah, right… my callous cruelty,” she murmured, and somehow with that simple statement any fight that might’ve been left in her was gone. So Calia was not even worth the price of her magic. A broken, cracked shell that was only suitable for some parasite to climb into. Incapable of forming connections with human people, and apparently a walking nightmare to demons.
Hard to imagine a future when you were such a pariah you couldn’t even give your own heart and soul away.
“You must really be the most powerful of demons,” she finally said. “To have found someone who thought they were already at their lowest and prove with endless twists that no, no there is so much worse. I am the cruel one? You gift hope, then you take it in your hands and crush it every time we speak.”
Calia’s head hurt. Her missing heart hurt. Her stupid feelings that were meant to stay locked in their box even hurt. Shoulder collided with the hard stone wall, where she huffed a frustrated sound before deciding standing was no longer worth the effort given. Sliding down to the cold floor in a slow, dazed plop.
“I asked for your help, just remember that. For when you see me next, and I’ve made a worse mistake given such a deal to someone else. Because I can’t live, and I won’t die. What else can I do?”
There was a pause watching her a moment when she seemed to contemplate those select words. Well, she wasn’t sunshine and rainbows that much was damn sure. She wasn’t sweet or really that nice from what he witness. Nor did he really expect her to be considering what he knew happened and stuff. But the girl was like a razor sharp shell full of bitch cream and hostile like nougat. While he didn’t make it a habit to find anything remotely worthwhile in that of the mortal persons, he could also say that he had found probably one of the most unpleasant souls he’d ever met.
A feat, probably.
A trophy he would give her if he had one.
Because she was nattering nonsense about him being a powerful demon or the most powerful. Which they both knew that was not the case. Strong, yes but not the most. Not even by a long shot. Yet here she was, going on about how he apparently gave hope and crushed it. Where was that? When was that. Cause if he managed to do that, he would like to take credit for it. But for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out the time, the place or the how.
She slipped down the wall and seemed to finally be giving into that of her mussed up brain. “Help?” Arc found that the most baffling part. “Yah be havin’ a funny way of askin’ for help by tryin to coerce me by sayin’ let’s make a deal. That ain’t askin’ for help. And don’t yah try to change the narrative to fit. If yah wanted help, yah know how to ask.” He might be a demon but by the nine hells, even he knew there was a way to ask for such things.
It wasn’t by twisting things around to sound like it was a deal! She was just so god damn prideful that her intent was to lure him with an offering –one that was certainly a bit confusing even to himself why he wouldn’t take it even if the odds weren’t in his favour- but that was not asking for aid. That was Calia being too stuck up her own ass to even lower her morals to do so.
“It’s a good thing Derrick took yer heart, I don’t think yah even knew how to use it anyways.” The demon pointed out mercilessly. “The only loss there was it was attached to yer magic. Otherwise, the damnable thing seemed like it was probably witherin’ inside yah.” Arc sneered at her, “So while yah sit there, tryin’ to fork over blame because I don’t respond the way yah want or expect, yah are more than welcome to make a deal worse. Because truly, how much different would it be anyways.”
The good hand rose to shuffle hair back, “Feckin’ hell, yer a damn mess and even in this manner, yer so full of pride and a superiority complex. Help… ha! My left nut. Here I be arguin’ fruitlessly with a princess that wouldn’t even rely on her own family, so what the fuck yah want from me? Blame all yah want, as stated probably for the umpteenth time, I’m a demon. What I say, what I do, are what I own.”
He gave a dismissive wave to her, “Rot for all I give a damn. Or rot further, I ain’t sure if yah were ever not so.” Footsteps moved away as it wasn’t his place or his consideration to give further to someone that clearly didn’t know what she wanted besides successfully being a miserable old boot at the bottom of a ocean. Just this time, it was a mountain cavern.
Right now, he’d just continue walking away and if he were lucky and the mare had some sort of gift of the same, she might come back to find those in which she had bonded with.
“I hope you find happiness, Arc.” she muttered at the dark, with a strange genuine sense of sincerity.
There were a thousand angry things she could’ve said instead. That he was a self righteous hypocrite, so wrapped up in his own bullshit that he couldn’t see every mean and nasty little thing he said to her was a projection of himself. Calia didn’t know if he were born a demon or became one through other means, but it was pretty obvious to her that he had something burning inside him just as insidious as the voice rooted in her empty chest. He had a care for things that didn’t make any sense – for the horse, for the villagers – a moral compass that didn’t align with his insistence that he was just a demon doing what demons did.
And Calia was just unfortunate enough to have been the first person to throw his own bullshit right back in his face. Betting without a shadow of doubt that not once did he ever ask for someone’s help. Betting he too spent a lifetime of pushing people away. Clearly putting blame on anyone else but himself for the way others reacted to his own behaviors. As long as he kept spewing judgmental vitriol at others, he’d never have to risk making a connection with the one cracked and broken person in the world that might actually be stupid enough to weather through it.
..and proving that she’d been wrong all over again, because if he really did see her for what she was, then he’d know that Calia didn’t blame everyone else for this situation she was in. She knew very well how it was her own fault. That she deserved this special brand of hell she’d landed herself into.
Calia was done trying. Trying with him… trying with everything! At least in that moment, because she was too tired to will her body to move. If she were lucky, she’d wake up in the jaws of some new cave horror! And if she weren’t… well, she’d crawl herself back to the surface world somehow, and start the insanity all over again.
A hollow chuckle came back at her attempt to sound sincere… even if he could hear it was. Maybe the first authentic thing she may have ever said but what a damnable waste it was. If she could muster that sort of energy into such malarkey then she ought to do it for herself.
What a pitiful fool.
He’d gotten what he needed from her days ago. Anything more, was akin to putting one’s hand in the fire over and over again with the same burning outcome. Then being confused to why it burned at all. Surely he had more semblance of thought that to keep doing such lunacy.
Honestly, he did. One didn’t get as far as they did without knowing what eggs were cracked and which ones were spoiled beyond use. And it was of no use to him that she just keel over to die anyways. The world was fucked and a demon’s playground at this point. So, well… that’s that.
So… why the fuck was he stopping when he was a good twenty paces away. Gritting teeth at this very befuddling and nonsensical measure of… what the fuck was that… guilt? Guilt! What the hell was something so entirely worthless presenting itself at all.
No. It wasn’t guilt and he wouldn’t dare call it as such.
This was something else. Yes… something entirely else and if anyone questioned it, he’d just ignore it.
Footsteps came back no sooner, glaring at this seemingly haughty snob of a royal being all flopped over because her head had gotten a rattle. The very insult to everything and he was the stupid, stupid person that was putting his hand back in that fire to let his hand roast like some god damn plump turkey. “Go gcuirfidh ifreann mé níos faide!” Casting shade upon himself, the good limb made use of itself. Reaching out to grab her quite liberally by the shoulder. Finding whatever sort of grappling point he could with her dented armour and general uselessness to haul up. While the other hand was certainly feeling like it might be better to cut it off, it was still put to use.
Manipulating the tart of a princess up and over better shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “Do us both a favour, and just fuckin’ shut yer trap.”
Dazed and surrendering to the futility of the world, Calia was truly ready to have herself a cold uncomfortable nap there on the stone floor. Having had enough of being kicked around when she couldn’t possibly feel any worse, so she did not care to listen to his fleeing footsteps. He could fuck off like he always did, and she could be left to perish or not in peace.
Only to find with a soft, confused sound of surprise to find herself bodily hauled off the ground like she weighed nothing more than a sack of feathers to be thrown so unceremoniously over a shoulder that it knocked the breath out of her. Entirely confused he was still there at all, and more than a little embarrassed to find herself upside down blinking at a demon’s ass here in the darkness of the tunnel. She’d not been tossed around like this since she was a small child. Calia had grown too tall, and truthfully, no one had been brave enough to dare try!
“…yeah, okay,” she croaked out, with a cowed sort of meekness. Glad at least he hadn’t grabbed her by the hair or a foot to just drag her through the tunnels. Forced to awkwardly brace an arm against his back so she wouldn’t get bounced and jostled to the point of accidentally and literally kissing his ass!
There was at least some agreement then. She wouldn’t start finding ways to move her mouth and earn herself a toss off his shoulder like said potato sack. Leaving them to the means of silence as this dangling liquorice whip was just a new bit of baggage he didn’t know why he was even bothering with. That whole attempt to ignore this bubbling myriad of emotions that had no business or place in his body, was being poked figuratively at. Not even sure where the hell it had come from but it was going to find itself thrown out sooner than later.
Once he figured out how too.
It wasn’t particularly clear how long they walked or he walked. Just that the tunnel was the same boring state it typically was. Long. Stony. Bland… yeah it was riveting.
They’d pass periodically veering ways that were denoted by little sigils or something, though he was often considering them because curiosity was still ever abundant. Seemingly gifted enough to know where to avoid and once at least, something else avoided them.
Eventually when the burning discomfort was well into his chest and neck, it was time for him to decide that they had to stop somewhere. He wasn’t too sure what would happen when it hit into his legs, but the idea of being two idiots laying on the stone like worms was not exactly a thrilling idea. Forcing self to walk enough till they were presented with at least a side tunnel that was pretty shallow. Enough to fit and sit for a while but not enough to determine it was something else’s burrow.
With some strange delicacy, he slumped Calia off. Lightly to the floor so she could just be a bump on the ground. Repeating the motion of flicking blood that had oozed plenty along the ground. Determining it would at least act as some sort of deterrent to anything that didn’t like the smell of demon blood. Stepping away from her for the means of space and plopped his own merry little ass on the floor. At the front of this little inlet. Just to keep an eyeball out for anything that might wander by or if they were lucky, a cart to take the madam away.
Calia might’ve helped give some guidance on which tunnels to take and what some of the symbols meant, but without enough light for her human eyes to see, and well… her vision being focused on his rear end, she wouldn’t be much help. Not to mention, it was an awkward moment of being keenly aware that keeping her mouth shut was likely the only thing sparring her another lengthy lecture on all her faults.
That silence continued when he finally deemed it necessary for them to stop. Her confusion sure hadn’t left her, and now having curious wonderment added into the mix. And distrust. All it ever seemed to take was one misunderstood statement from Calia for him to turn on her, and she wasn’t so sure she wanted to risk that. Because once again he was showing that fragile hint of compassion that kept drawing her in, and she was far too tired to handle when he’d eventually snap back out of it. These bubbles of time where they weren’t hissing at each other were so rare and fragile.
So Calia sat there in her thoughtful silence, too afraid to allow herself to drift off to sleep. Likely a good thing, as if she were truly concussed, to sleep now might risk her never waking up. Instead, attempting to bring order to the chaos that lived in her mind. To try and think of the bigger picture beyond the next dark tunnel, the next step she had to take. If she even cared about her own vengeance anymore, or if it was time to let it all go and accept this new, hollow life.
Somehow, despite every obstacle so far, giving up still didn’t feel right. With all of the missteps and mistakes she’d made, reclaiming her magic remained the North Star. For Calia knew what her magic could do in her own hands, and that meant in the wrong ones it could be devastating.
Leaving her wondering where she even got the strength for such a stubborn will, and when she tilted her head to try and squint at the dark silhouette form of her unwilling companion, Calia had to wonder where he got his. Kindred recognized kindred, soul recognized soul. What spark could possibly drive Archimedes and was it worth the effort of finding out?
Why was she such a masochist.
“…were you always a demon?” she dared to ask after a long while.
The idea of plotting to go back and find the dryder nest and torch them all to burning corpses was highly entertaining of a thought. Even allowing himself to be mentally graphic about how he might do it even if the other dryders were not responsible for plaguing him, it would be a kindness to snuff them out. Them and their weird fucked up appearances. Their very existence was a blotch on the mortal realm and surely it would be a act of glorious favour even by a demon.
All this because he was poisoned. Yeah, seemed about right.
He wasn’t even sure if an antidote would work on him anyways even if there was one. So it meant just dealing with the strong discomfort of feeling like your own organs were playing hot fiery potato while attempting to keep the wounds open with now a purposeful effort of stabbing them with claws. A very unpleasant situation but he wasn’t a fan of keeping such a gift for any longer than necessary.
Stupid, fucked up, spider centaur.
Ears lifted subtly to hear that she was apparently still awake, how unfortunate. Asking him a question that was digging into whether or not there was something potentially more about him. Initially through gritting teeth did he want to snap back at her that she ought to know considering they had done an informational swap upon the original contract. But didn’t. Because that wasn’t part of the contract that she would know much about his origins. Only the most recent bit and that part was certainly not recent.
“No.” Arc answered surprisingly calmer than he originally wanted too. “Elf.” He stated just as easily but didn’t appear to be as talkative as typical. Blaming it on the fact that he was highly uncomfortable and didn’t want to really talk to her anymore.
Despite being two curt words, it was a surprisingly satisfying answer. Confirming to Calia that there was more to Archimedes that a demon being a demon, for there was just too much about him that screamed otherwise. At least to her. Unsure if it were due to their short time of having a contract and getting a deeper sense of him, or just in the simple fact Calia herself didn’t fit into what was normal for her own kind and thus had an eye for noticing the unusual.
Spurring her into a flurry of new thoughts, as Calia herself was at a crossroads of choices. Multiple roads she could choose for herself, and whether he realized it or not, because they’d crossed paths there was this odd sense of… destiny about it. What were the chances that her world would crumble around her and an elf-turned-demon would be the one that flittered into her life. How much of it was just coincidence that even despite the both of them walking away to separate that they’d keep running into each other.
Were they meant to bring out the worst of each other, to torment and ridicule and suffer for all they’d done? Was it foolish to wonder if there were a chance it could be something better?
Hope was definitely the worst of all her curses.
“Do you remember your life before?” she tested the waters, deciding it wasn’t wise to ask him the hows just yet. Guessing he’d get prickly all over again if she dared suggest he was a shitty person and then naturally popped into the afterlife as a demon. “I am soon to join you at the rate I am going, it’d be nice knowing what to expect.”
An eye dared to open when it was apparent that she was probably using him as a way to stay awake. Not sure he appreciated her need to start getting all question-y. Having answered her just a second ago, could she not just let him be in his misery contently?
Apparently not.
And she still believed that she was guna be a demon herself. A strong doubt was in his thoughts about that considering he was pretty sure that no demon was willing to deal with her. She might have too many ideals or desires as a demon that wanted to overthrow others to sit at the very top. Which most demons were pretty particular about being where they were on top.
A question asked and his head painfully throbbed again with that knowledge that whatever memories he had as an elf were no no’s. He hissed about it and instinctively pulled away as not to make his own skull implode with whatever sort of thing it was that made sure he didn’t cross that boundary. “N-no.” Arc shook his skull and massaged his brow like that was going to make it better. “No.” Repeating the word with a little more confidence, the demon leaned his head back to the wall. “Yah don’t turn into a demon just by doin’ shit things. Or dyin’. Yah gotta make a deal for it with somethin’ a lot stronger than me.”
Sighing somewhat, he stared out into the open darkness. “And be willin’ to give up things for it.” Which he long since guessed, his memory was part of that process. Hence why he wasn’t allowed to remember it.
Several things were answered for Calia in that moment, some of which she already suspected. If Archimedes made his own demon deal and lost himself in the process, the way he made a less brutal deal with her and then snatched it away the second he thought she was a frightening new threat suddenly made so much more sense. While Calia still felt it was him who attacked first, who made the first threats and shows of violence… now she had an inkling of where the distrust was born. Her, in all of her chaotic feral glory, hellbent to survive and full of fiery vengeance and seemingly undue confidence in her own power would absolutely seem like a future demon lord in the making.
It wasn’t as if she could see past her own nose in those early traumatized moments. There was little that would’ve happened differently, as she wouldn’t have trusted him herself regardless of what he’d said or done. Calia needed the time to process and there were not opportunities to do so. Hell, she still hadn’t processed… she was sitting here in the dark with the biggest headache of her life and still hanging on by a thread. All too self aware that she’d been here before too, wanting to make a change and be different with him and how spectacularly it failed the last time.
The very definition of insanity was trying the same thing over and over again, expecting a new result. But once upon a time a demon had taken advantage of the position Arc had been in, and Arc had the chance to repeat it with her but didn’t. That was worth remembering.
“What would you do if you were me,” she wondered out loud. “If someone else held a piece of you after destroying everything and everyone you ever knew. Would you cut your losses and just be glad you were still alive? Or would you become something else just for the chance to make it all right again.”
Briefly he thought she might just settle and stop this strange want to ask stupid questions. Just cause he had some sort of lapse in judgement didn’t mean that once she found her bearings, they would be hunky dory. If anything, it would just alleviate whatever stupid twisting sensation had been there at all and not have to think about it a second time. Maybe a part of him was just wanting her to go take on the wannabe warlock named Derrick and meet her demise that way.
Whatever it was, whatever reason he had temporarily possessed, it was gone.
And he just wanted to entertain his internal thoughts with other imaginations that weren’t associated here. With the nattering woman.
Alas, she had decided that she wanted to speak more and he may have even contemplated getting up and walking away to go and wither for a time somewhere more peaceful. Like in an overcrowded bar while people just stepped on him. Sounded better.
Yet she was playing prophet or something. Standing figuratively on a soapbox asking rhetoric. Earning the violet rings once more presented to her as he could feel his heartbeat literally in his ears. Idly squeezing fist and assuring the holes were open once more. Letting lips curl in such a way that it was empty and fanged. “Cut my losses. Simple.” He shrugged so nonchalantly at that. “What yer playing metaphorically with is based on the premise that one has a heart or soul or cares. While I might have two of those things in fleshy and material sense, they all equate to not a fuck given.” His tone suggested he wasn’t telling her tall tales. He truly believed that.
“But the way yer talkin’, yah be thinkin’ that yah need to be somethin’ dark to fight the gobshite that started all this. Rather than realizin’ that there’s a reason stories talk about good and bad. Light and dark. It’s not just fiction. Yah can’t fight dark with dark. They just absorb another. Till there’s nothing but umbra all around.” Arc huffed, lowly grunting at the displeasure of burning pressure and crossed arm over as an act of just trying to showcase he didn’t think they needed to talk to another. “Yer playin’ with idioms. Yah ought to worry about the reality instead.”
Calia could not see that bare fanged expression he was giving her in it’s entirety, but she could certainly hear it in his voice. Finding new interest in this way he kept insisting he had no heart or care of his own to give. Especially considering he’d accused her so many times of being callous, careless, a monster in her own right that didn’t care about the people around her, or even the chestnut mare. To still tell her she couldn’t fight dark with dark, as if somehow she’d been a disappointment this entire time because at every turn she didn’t reach for whatever his idea of good was meant to be.
This little tunnel cavern he’d tucked them away in was starting to feel stuffy and over warm, though Calia guessed it was likely her own body catching a fever after getting beaten to hell and back. With a soft grunt and a bit of shuffling she reached up to undo the belts and buckle the helped keep her armor in place. Dismantling the set piece by piece while she tried to decide if she was going to accept this answer of his at face value and apply to herself – worry about reality as he said – or if there were more to it.
Discovering that she didn’t quite agree with this point of view.
“And what makes you think darkness itself is equated with evil?” she questioned in earnest. “What if I was already something a little dark? Not evil, not someone with intentions to do harm. Just someone unafraid to cross lines where others are too soft of heart to go. Maybe it’s stupid of me to seek out power I wasn’t built for, I can admit that. But I was never of the light, Archimedes, it’s not who I am.”
He could have stared and she might not have known with her doing her thing with removing gear, but he turned away. One couldn’t pay him enough to even gawp at her, so there was no sense in even entertaining some sort of frivolity about it.
Accepting the means of hopefully just sitting there. Existing.
Painfully but you know still doing it.
But by whatever great hells there were that he was unaware of, she was apparently not content to just accept anything. Wanting to poke holes into something that really didn’t need it. What the hell was it with her, did she want everything to be swiss cheese?
“Then why ask what I thought or think if yer not guna accept that simply my thoughts.” Arc asked showing is irritation again with her. “Yah don’t have to agree with it. It’s my opinion, but that don’t mean I have to change it either for yah. Believe what yah wanna. I’ll do the same.” He was shuffling them. Moving to get up and pointedly stepping further away. Muttering about she wouldn’t even let him enjoy suffering in peace right now! Disappearing further into the actual tunnel so he could clearly declare that he was of no mood to continue the means of nonsensical conversation.
As he said, she could believe what she wanted. In turn, do what she wanted. He didn’t house a singular care in that regard. He just wanted to suffer right now privately without someone giving him proverbial owl eyes and head tilts asking why? Why? Why?!
Calia had reached the end of the line for how much he would tolerate, and ironically his immediate reaction to snap at her and essentially tell her to mind her own business made her all the more curious. Before she might’ve taken this as a weakness to file away into her mind to be used later against him, but now…? Calia wasn’t sure what it meant in the greater picture, only that if she didn’t want him doing more than baring teeth at her and telling her shut up, she ought to quite while she was ahead.
So when he shifted away to put some distance between them as a means of escape, Calia finally caved into the pain that throbbed in her head. Settling her armor next to her in a neat little pile to awkwardly plop down and use as a propping pillow for her head.
“Sometimes it’s just nice hearing someone else’s voice, instead of just my own,” came her simple answer. Leaving it at just that and a slow pained sigh when she closed her eyes and allowed herself to just drift.
If he left, he left. Though by that faint acrid scent of blood in the air, blood that did not seem to have the same sharpness of her own, Calia suspected he needed the time to heal himself from whatever nightmarish wounds that dryder gave. Hopefully not about to burst open with a million tiny spiders, because Calia might just risk reaching for her own magic again just to take the whole mountain down if he did!
Hearing someone else’s voice? Didn’t she originally tell him that he talked an awful lot and such. He couldn’t remember the exact words but she hadn’t been thrilled when he was willing to sit, stand or perch around with a comment or three to fill any sort of silence. Now she was seeking it like some starved pup. Yeah he couldn’t make sense of that and personally, he didn’t want too.
Especially cause he had an unwelcomed feeling that if she kept talking, she was going to keep asking questions she didn’t want answers to. Or push to where he was forced to get too close to the barrier in his own head. Double the suffering didn’t seem that thrilling or entertaining so no thank you!
Truly if he wasn’t a bit worried he would fall face first into the ground when legs decidedly had enough of this event and show of internals doing whatever messy dance they were; he’d have left. Actually the idea was so thrilling that it at least gave him something to think about. Paired with the fact that he wasn’t sure what sort of ill luck this woman had to not only keep surviving, but to somehow keep wandering into his neighbourhood as it were. She’d been born under a very unlucky star or he had!
One of the two.