A single neon blue eye swiveled around, staring at anything and everything surrounding it as a wriggling mass of dark tentacles writhed in chaotic patterns. There were at least a dozen of the slick looking appendages, all radiating from the central mass of the creature, each about six inches long. There was no sign of a mouth, nose, or any kind of orifice at all on the little monster. Besides the dark purple flesh of the tentacles, the only visible feature was the large, slightly glowing eye of the demon.
Jadis watched the squirming little thing inside of its glass mason jar with fascination. After finding the demon egg she’d taken from the bone thief matriarch’s body had hatched and knocked the jar over from within her supply crate, she had placed the jar on the floor between her three selves, all of them eyeing the demon with interest.
“You should kill that thing before it causes any trouble,” Aila said, staring coldly at the hatchling from her spot on one side of the circle surrounding the jar.
“What? No,” Jay rejected the idea immediately. “It finally hatched and I want to study it.”
“Study it?” Aila repeated, her tone dubious. “What exactly are you trying to study? It’s a demon. As long as you know how to kill it, how much more do you really need to know?”
“Well that’s not very forward thinking of you,” Dys said teasingly. “Aren’t you curious to know more about how they work? Knowledge is power, didn’t you know?”
Aila rolled her eyes at Dys and shook her head. “Yes, it’s important to know your enemy, but there have been many scholars who are far more suited to the study of demons than either of us who have performed years upon years of research. I think you’d be better served buying a book on demons rather than playing around with this thing.”
As Aila spoke, she waved her hand at the demon hatchling and it responded, several of its tentacles reaching out towards her, sliding against the glass of its tiny prison. Aila recoiled, keeping her hand far away from the questing protuberances.
“Okay, fair enough,” Jay grudgingly agreed. “If others have already answered the questions, then I’m fine learning from a book. But I’m not going to kill it until I know I can get my answers elsewhere.”
“You’re well read, aren’t you?” Syd asked, looking at Aila.
“Somewhat,” she answered warily.
“Then you’ve read about demons, right? What do you know about them?”
“That’s a broad subject,” Aila said with a slight frown. “Can you be more specific? Also, I’m no expert on the subject and I’ve never read any of the major treatises on demons and the spawn of Samleos. Most of what I know comes from sidenotes in more practical books and what I’ve learned from working with mercenaries.”
“How about, do they breathe? Is it going to die just from being stoppered in that jar?”
The demon had crawled up the side of the glass and was hanging upside down from the stopper in the top. It looked like it might be trying to figure out how to get out, but then again, it might have just been trying to figure out why the cork felt different from the glass. It was hard to tell.
“They don’t breathe,” Aila said confidently. “They don’t eat or drink either. Modern scholars believe they gain all their sustenance from magic power, though older theories are still prevalent, such as they feed on souls or on life force or things like that. Either way, no, it’s not going to suffocate or starve if you leave it in there. It might just live indefinitely if you leave it like that, actually…”
That was an interesting thought. She could set up a collection of the things. Dozens of jars filled with the squiggly demons lined across a shelf, maybe backlit with some ominous light. She could go for some real mad scientist vibes if she wanted to.
Maybe in another life.
“Any idea on intelligence? Can it understand us?”
Aila frowned, shrugging her shoulders. “I don’t think so. From what I know, only special demons like soul possessors or princes can talk. And even then, it’s hard to say how intelligent they are. Demons are just conduits for Samleos’ ill will. I don’t think they make any decisions or plan things. They just do what their god commands them to do.”
“If that’s true, then they must at least have the intelligence to understand what they’re being told to do,” Jay pointed out.
“Perhaps,” Aila allowed, “Or their god commands them like puppets. They’re probably no more intelligent than a dog. I’m not sure. I do know that they are always looking for ways to kill anything living that isn’t them, though.”
So that meant the little demon was actively trying to find a way to kill them, even as it wiggled around in its jar. If it was trying to kill her, Jadis couldn’t tell. So far, the hatchling hadn’t cast any spells or made any real attempts to break the glass. Nor was it making any attempts at communication. It didn’t seem any more hostile than a strange-looking octopus plucked from the ocean and plopped into an aquarium.
“What about eye color? Does that mean anything?”
“Eye color?” Aila repeated, looking between Dys and the demon. “I have no idea. I don’t think so? At least, I’ve never heard that it does.”
Jadis hummed consideringly. “Yeah, might not mean anything. But I’m still curious. This is the only blue-eyed one I’ve found, and trust me, I’ve killed a lot.”
“The matriarch didn’t have blue eyes though,” Syd mused. “They were just the normal orange, though she had dozens of them for some reason, instead of just one.”
“It might just be random chance, like my hair being red. Most of my family has brown hair, but a few from my mother’s side have red and I inherited the color,” Aila added.
“Can demons have classes?” Jay asked, then continued the thought. “Actually, is bone thief a class? Or is it their sub species?”
Aila looked thoughtful at that question, one finger rubbing at her eyebrow. “I guess I’m not sure? No one ever made the distinction in any of the books I’ve read. Does it matter?”
“It might,” Syd tilted her head, staring at the demon. She moved up close to the jar, faces inches away and watched the demon’s eye for any sign of recognition as she spoke. “I killed lots of these little ones after I killed the matriarch, they were called ‘Demon Hatchlings’ by the messages that appear in my mind. Dozens and dozens of them, but all were demon hatchlings, not bone thief hatchlings. If they aren’t bone thieves from the start, then maybe that means they don’t have to be at all. Maybe this one can take a different class.”
“Why would that matter?” Aila asked, not dismissing the line of reasoning, instead curious about where Jadis was going with the thought.
“If it can choose a class, that means it can understand what a class is. If it can understand classes, presumably it can understand attributes and picking skills and things like that. If so, then maybe they can be communicated with.”
“Or they might be directed by Samleos,” Aila interjected. “Or it could be that they aren’t given options the way we are because they’re demons and not favored children of Valtar and his host. Or it could be completely random what they pick because they’re stupid animals.”
Jay sighed and picked the jar up, causing the demon to press against the glass, reaching towards her hand. “Maybe. Could be any of those. But I’d like to know for sure if possible. For now, I’m going to keep it and observe. Maybe monitor its progress, see if it becomes a bone thief or something else.”
Jay carried the demon to the crates and pulled some string out from within. Wrapping the jar up, she tied the top securely in place to make sure the demon couldn’t wiggle out. She almost put it back in the crate, but then thought better of it and left it sitting on top where she could see it.
“Why do you care so much about how intelligent demons are?” Aila asked, looking into Dys’ eyes searchingly. “They’re evil, through and through. Even if they’re smart enough to talk, they’ve never tried to. All they do is kill. I’d think you’d understand that well, considering your past.”
It took Jadis a moment to realize that Aila was referring to her fictional destroyed village in the mountains, not her first few days just trying to survive attacks from bone thieves. She looked into Aila’s eyes and saw concern, not reproach. The way Aila seemed to show genuine worry for her wellbeing and hesitation to bring up something she thought was a sensitive subject for her made Jadis want to admit her extra-dimensional origin then and there.
She restrained that impulse. Explaining the truth of her rebirth on Oros was a massive can of worms that she just wasn’t ready to open yet, not even with someone she trusted like Aila. Beyond the fact that she wasn’t sure if her story would be the least bit believable, there was still the fact that D had sent her to Oros with the explicit purpose of ‘shaking things up’. Not that he’d specified in what way. He’d implied that she should change the balance of the back-and-forth between Valtar and Samleos’ forces, which basically meant the balance between people and demons. That was a balance she assumed she wanted to tip towards people; but did D see it that way?
D didn’t like Valtar, his ‘stepfather’ as he’d called him. And Valtar was the patron deity of the empire, the holy force of good the natives worshiped. Aila had been calling out Valtar’s name, not D, nor any other god so far as Jadis had noticed. Would D really put her here on Oros to end the conflict in Valtar’s favor?
Would other people believe D had sent her to help, not harm?
Jadis needed to speak with some priests. She wanted to know more about her personal patron D, Valtar, and any other gods that might exist. Before she started poking things too much, or telling anyone about the reasoning behind her origins, she wanted a better understanding of the players at work. Which was another important reason why she wanted to study the demon.
If the demons were intelligent enough to communicate, maybe she could get a better understanding of exactly what was going on to drive them to constantly attack the civilized nations of Oros every century or so. Was it all Samleos? Or was it something else, maybe multiple factors at play? Knowing more about what motivated the demons could very well change the way she approached her method of ‘shaking things up’ like D had asked.
D professed at the time to not care how she changed things on Oros, which may or may not be true. Either way, she cared how she changed things. If for no other reason than Aila, she wanted to change things for the better, not for the worse.
“I don’t like not understanding why,” Dys finally said, answering Aila’s question.
“Why? Why what?”
“Why anything,” Syd explained, scooting over into the blankets to get comfortable. “In this case, why demons do what they do, and why they do it the way they do it. It doesn't make much sense to me.”
Jay walked over to Aila and held out a hand to help her to her feet. Syd and Dys made themselves comfortable in the blanket nest while Jay led Aila to the middle of it, inviting her to join the three of her in a cozy pile of warmth.
“If things get dangerous, I promise I’ll kill the demon,” Jay assured Aila as they both settled into the nest, Jay’s arms wrapping around Aila’s waist. “Until then, I want to learn what I can.”
“Okay,” Aila said solemnly. “I’ll see what I can find out for you. I don’t know a lot about the study of demons, but I’ll read up on what I can and find people who might be able to answer your questions.”
“Thanks, Blue,” Syd said, giving Aila a kiss on the cheek.
“In the meantime,” Dys said from the other side, “I’ve got questions about magic you can probably answer with that big, sexy brain of yours. Care to give me an educational lecture before bed?”
Aila smiled and gave Jay’s arm a pat. “I can do that.”
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