Out the window there were familiar sounds, clashing wood and steel, the sounds of productivity throughout the castle, not without a few arguments thrown into the mix. Always with the arguments; demon-kin did not get along well in the best of times, and these were not the best of times. Avlakoi did, with notable difficulty, finish the small amount of paperwork that had been delivered for his eyes and he was sitting in the mid-morning air with very little to actually do once more. Yesterday Fosi had gone through what was there before so quickly that it seemed magical to have a clean desk. But of course it wasn't that so many documents were delivered each day, only that they accumulated a bit faster than he preferred to deal with.
He went for a walk for the first time in ages, outside the castle entirely and into the countryside. A pair of heavily-cloaked mages separating themselves from the garrison to accompany him without his command and followed at a respectful distance, though they had to jog every third step to keep up with Avlakoi's long stride. It was nothing unusual, but these two were within Kaffe's purview...
He'd seen the splendor of the human lands while on campaign, compared them favorably to the magic-blasted wastes of his homeland where the grasses stabbed up through cracked dirt and very little other foliage fared any better, emerging as tangled, stabbing bramble. He plucked a spiny fruit from a nearby tree and used his draconic maw to rend the thick, spiny rind without piercing his flesh to get at the deeply-hidden meat, barely sweet enough to justify the effort, spat out the giant, poisonous pit. He continued on down the path, blazed by supply carts over decades with near-fossilized ruts, and he wondered whether he would decide to simply continue walking to the nearest town in that direction.
There would be another six days before Fosi "returned" and he would be "staying at his manor" again. Kaffe wouldn't spring the change on him any sooner than that, but he didn't rate his chances high of walking far enough away that she couldn't find him. He'd already lost his virginity as a woman... If he made her track him down, he couldn't imagine the level of cruelty she might enact before her pique was exhausted.
With a grumble and sigh, Avlakoi beckoned his companions to walk beside him. Neither cloaked being stood higher than his stomach, but he was more than accustomed to being tall. It was Fosi who had to gain experience in being small, just slightly taller than either of these mages.
"How far are you prepared to walk?" he asked.
One, the left one, said with a deferential voice passed through too many layers of cloth to recognize, "As far as our lord wishes."
He grunted, not quite a response, and slowed his stride enough that neither mage needed to rush. "Your names, both of you."
The one at his left said, "Leikos."
And the right, "Tein."
"And where do you both hail from?"
Leikos spoke for the pair. "We are from a small town at the borders of the Snake and Wolf kingdoms, logistically unimportant enough not to suffer from our placement."
"Was it a nice place?" Avlakoi surprised himself by asking.
The mage also was surprised enough to lose a step and had to catch back up. Leikos confirmed with their companion and again represented them both. "Yes, my lord, compared to many. Near the mountainous regions, there were hot springs nearby that were once a well-guarded secret. They were too small and sparse to commercialize and remained a luxury for our small community. My lord, you may enjoy visiting them one day, if you find yourself in the area."
Tein coughed. "My lord, do temper your expectations though, as you are likely used to the springs found in your homeland."
The springs of that volcanic area were known for their minerals, the extreme temperatures available which penetrated draconic scale and boiled all others. This mage was wise, previous demon lords might have considered the comparison a mild insult. Stories of what Avlakoi's predecessors did when ever-so-mildly insulted had become legends.
"No." Avlakoi raised a hand. "It takes so much heat to get through my scales that the difference is not meaningful. I will visit if I find the opportunity." Perhaps Fosi would enjoy them more. "And the springs are one of the only redeeming features of the Dragon king's lands. The soil is fertile, yet burns so frequently that it only ever sees the growth of a few years with the exceptions of singular villas where there is an interest in fighting the lava flows. Have either of you been?"
Both shook their heads, hidden beneath their hoods.
"If you go someday, there is a river running through an aquifer in the south, I will show you its path on a map, as it is obvious once pointed out. Along this underground river there is a tree whose roots extend above-ground and hide during eruptions so as to extract nutrients from the cooled magma. I am told the fruit, rare as it is, is exceptionally delicious." He continued speaking as they walked, recalling a time in his youth when he'd spent a week underground, risked drowning in the deep darkness as he'd followed the aquifer in search of that elusive fruit. In the end he had returned home unsuccessful and without comment from his father, who might not have noticed his son's having left. Such childhood experiences, Avlakoi thought, were fairly normal.
Tein said, "My mother would have flogged me if I tried doing anything like that behind her back." Leikos nodded at their side. "But... Leikos, you at least would have been able to stem the flow with ice. I doubt it would be quite so dangerous as our lord says."
If his face were capable of it, Avlakoi would have smiled. This pair of mages would find it much more difficult than they thought if they indeed tried to find the fruit. He was happy to see his underlings acting in the spirit of camaraderie.
"Dragon-kin aren't believed to be worth raising for the first ten or twenty years," he said with a sharp laugh. "My father, the Dragon demon king is a traditional sort; it comes with the first several hundred years of life. What sort are you both?"
The mages looked aside to one another, hesitant either to reveal their races for some reason or to speak convivially with their lord.
Avlakoi stopped in the road so suddenly that the mages nearly ran into his back. "Am I so feared that your tongues catch in your throats? Here, I had believed that I was seen as weak, so which is it?"
Tein came around the side and bowed. "My lord, we are both mutts."
"I see." Avlakoi merely nodded and continued his stride. "A strong lineage is an accomplishment of one's ancestors, not one's own. A muddled pool cannot be seen as a personal failing. There are situations in which I would welcome a so-called mutt at my side before a pure breed, and distinguished examples I'm certain you know of. It is not in any way shameful."
"Apologies, my lord, we did not wish to offend you with a disrespectful manner." Tein joined the other mage and surprisingly Leikos held Tein's hand without a word as comfort.
Well well, if that was how they were, Avlakoi couldn't exactly bring himself to condemn it after his last few days.
There were some longer-term concerns with that sort of behavior, but Avlakoi was not about to dash any kind of love that could be found in these days. Moreover, he didn't want to think too much about the taste... or anything else about losing his female virginity. He let the gesture of affection pass without mention and saw in the edge of his vision both mages relax visibly.
"I would rather that my men speak to me with open disrespect than not at all," he said. "Imagine one day you wake and everyone you once knew refuses to acknowledge your existence without being prodded. The men you joked with become afraid to poke fun, the women you might have courted lay themselves like dolls at your feet, and you cannot so much as have good exercise, as no man will spar meaningfully with you. Some days I think I would accept being slugged and pat the man who did it on the back. Well? Speak to me as you do to one another, and I vow I will not take offense."
Leikos whispered something to Tein, then Tein said, "If you wish. Then I will get something out of the way. How far do you expect to drag us out of the castle?"
"I don't know!" Avlakoi barked laughter that spooked the mages. "At this point, I'm wondering how long I would have to be gone for someone to come and force me back!" One week, he had one week before Kaffe would come for him... Did these two even know that they were that woman's agents, keeping tabs on him? "What about it, don't men look for opportunities to shirk work anymore? I'd prefer company, as I intend to find some way to have fun, but either or both of you can go back if you wish."
He looked down, Leikos had twined their fingers together.
If I'd done that and my father found out... no, he probably wouldn't have cared as long as I still knocked someone up eventually, were I still effectively part of his bloodline. Even now, the continuing line of the demon lord isn't valuable, just the man; he likely wouldn't care if I were... but I'm not!
Even if recent events cast doubt on the assertion...
Those two did separate by the time the bramble opened to pasture with the nearest village just in sight over the next hill. Smart of them, not everyone took well to that kind of thing. All three drew the gazes of farmhands but didn't turn out to be interesting enough to actually approach when one's work was at hand. Being eight feet tall wasn't so out of the ordinary for demon-kind, but bipedalism as well was less likely, and mages were well known for keeping their skin covered to protect from the errant mana floating in the air (or covering very little, to aid in absorption), as it could interfere with thaumaturgy. Avlakoi wondered if people living less than half a day's travel from the castle would recognize his features; he was on newer coinage but the common man didn't use coins much and his profile looked much like any other dragon when stamped into metal. Most people in general didn't care to memorize the pattern of another's horns.
In the fields, orokhi tore up plants root and stem and stood placidly in the heat of the day chewing their cud to eke out any nutrition to live from the things growing in this soil. To the north was a golden, if mangy, wave of grain being carefully tended by at a dozen plus workers, slaves in all but name for how hard they worked for their pay. A dreg was yet a brother to demon-kind and deserving of some respect. It would take that many to ensure the crop wouldn't be destroyed by pests, whether animal or kinsman, before harvest.
