Curiosity of the Demon Ing

(note: contains mild self harm)

--

The boar princess, Suvir was not asleep when the daughter of the demon king left her side. She ignored the sounds of the doors opening, of her supposed servants entering and taking the draconic succubus along with them. She ignored what she suspected of their intentions and did her best to huddle up and at last fade into sleep.

She wasn't stupid; she knew damn well that she was meant to be a sacrificial pawn, and couldn't put the facts in line with that woman's, Fosi's actions. So close, Suvir had been to eliciting an execution, but then Peris in all his glory had come in, and she faltered. It only made sense that she would be taken care of for her failure if nothing else. Her father would not let her weakness foil his plans...

But now her enemy was protecting her for some reason... Her father's enemy, she corrected herself. Suvir herself had no stake in whether a few acres of land belonged to one ravaging horde or another so long as it did not border her own abode. Even if it did, she'd been a hostage before and had barely known it at the time thanks to the privilege of nobility, though she did clearly remember the public mauling of her captors.

The princess' feet landed on the bare stone by her borrowed bed once she'd absolutely failed to sleep, heart aching below a cupped palm. She stepped across the room to her few things and slowly, deliberately withdrew a bundle of cloth, unraveled it to reveal a thin dagger.

Insulting the demon king within his own castle, to the face of his blood and under the eye of a blood brother should have been enough... Was this newest lord as cowardly as everyone said? Did he actually fear the retribution of the boar clan? Suvir turned the blade in the air, in the light of a single candle, and set the tip against her chest, below her ribs, aimed it upward toward her heart... She could steal Fosi's efforts from underneath her with just a little strength, fortitude of will... just by falling forward...

To help her father, and her people... father required her death...

Her hand trembled.

She panted, knelt on the floor.

The tip pierced her clothing and a bead of blood soaked into the fabric.

Suvir hardly felt the pain, but she tossed the blade aside and clutched her hand against the small wound, touched her head to the stone and wept.

-o-

When Fosi returned, hours and hours later, Suvir pretended to have been sleeping all through the night, did not rile as the woman crawled into bed and put an arm around Suvir's belly to hug her. Fosi smelled of fresh soap and her skin was hot to the touch; she'd just had a bath, but there was no mistaking the smell on her breath...

Soon morning came, Merrili the bull wench brought breakfast for the two and a change of clothing for Fosi. The woman had to have someone else help her with dressing, as if she'd never put on the sort of dress she was provided with, while Suvir hid her bloodied clothing under the fur that had served as her blanket. The wound was small enough at least that it had already closed and scabbed over without any dressing.

Breakfast was not the despicable white soup Suvir had been forced to eat the day before, but a bone broth with large chunks of meat and bread, both spiced more than she tended to get back home.

Fosi didn't seem much for conversation, eating with only the barest attention paid to Merrili's questions.

"And for princess Suvir?" Merrili asked. "Shall I inquire about filling out her staff? It doesn't do for a noblewoman to be without her own maid for any length of time. I apologize, princess, but I can't see why they sent you with only those two brutes."

Suvir swallowed her bite and repeated a lie she'd learned by rote. "The rest of them were killed in battle on the way. Ovel and the other one survived because they are my father's soldiers, sent to protect me..."

"I'm sure," Fosi said with the dullness of disbelief, below the notice of her own servant.

"Of course, if your father hadn't chosen to set up in a damned hole of a castle, surrounded by monsters and ferals, we might have fared better." Suvir huffed, crossed her arms over her chest. "Any number of more opulent locations for the taking, had he been strong enough to clear out the remnants of the past lords, but I can understand that at least. He is the weakest among them, isn't he?" She was crossing her toes in terror as Fosi's tired gaze drifted over her, but forced herself to continue. "Hmph, no small wonder he's hiding away somewhere farther than even here. I bet he's just too cowardly to face his peers."

Fosi stood up and came around Suvir, who prepared herself for her fate. And Fosi... pinched her cheeks.

"Owowowww, stop it~" Suvir whined.

Laughing to herself, Fosi released her grip and Suvir massaged her reddening cheeks. At the side, Merrili demurely covered a smile.

"What was that!?" She pushed back from the table and spilled their drinks in the process, toppled her chair, stamped her foot.

"A punishment, of course," Fosi said. "Merrili, do kindly clean this. I'll be taking the princess for a walk." She took Suvir's hand and pulled her along into the hall, leaving no room for refusal. "I want to have a little fun this morning."

Suvir clutched her skirt with her free hand. "You mean... with me?... Again?"

"Hm?" Fosi looked back for a moment, seemed to realize the implication and smirked, but was too tired to take the sadistic glee that Suvir would have expected of her. "Are you saying that you enjoyed out little game in the bath?"

"That is not what I'm saying!" Suvir pulled, but she wasn't able to release herself from Fosi's grasp. This woman was far too strong to be a proper princess!

"It's alright, princess. Of everyone here, I know best how you feel now."

Twisting her hips, Suvir managed to release her hand. Her freedom lasted all of a second until Fosi came from behind and hugged Suvir to her breast.

"I do mean it, actually," Fosi said quietly, backing up to a wall where no-one passing could hear them. "And I know that you won't believe me, but we two have more in common than you think. Your father wants so much from you and you're so afraid that you won't be able to live up to his expectations. Once, my father was given to one of the dragon clans by his own father, to replace a son of theirs that granddad had killed in a fit of pique."

"Wh-" Suvir choked on her words, hyperventilated briefly and went limp in the woman's arms with an instant of feverish terror.

"I- My father tells me that he was used as a bargaining chip many times. As his... daughter... I only recently knew anything about my heritage that wasn't filtered through the cultists who raised me..." It sounded hollow, had the cadence of a white lie, but Fosi was smiling under her tired eyes. "For now, I'd actually like to have some fun in my own way. Surely you'll accompany me?"

"You'll just drag me if I say no..."

Fosi shrugged.

-o-

The daughter of Avlakoi brought Suvir to the edge of the training grounds where men were throwing themselves against one another as they had been when she arrived the day before, and Fosi left the princess' side for a time. Suvir was given to think that there was hardly any daylight hour that one could come outside and find nobody smacking one another with wooden weapons. It was strange to see such a variety of demonic forms all in one place; she identified nearly every clan's genes in attendance, mutts beside, and some whose bloods were so muddled and muddy that she could hardly tell for the mismatch of talon and fur and scale. But no monsters. Avlakoi did not keep those atavists for some reason...

This, at least the rest, was the standard of the demon king's minions reaching into antiquity and before writing. Representing all of their kind in the war against Heaven, the true king would emerge from prophecy and command the myriad and the many, taking strength from wherever it existed. The false kings of the past left behind feral and monstrous things in their wake that haunted their vacated fortresses, forlorn offshoots of demonkind for whom death was a kindness that reunited them with the ancestors. With such blood, their savagery would not be quelled with the defeat of their masters, would not be confined to the enemies they'd been bred to fight. Here, though, Avlakoi did not have any mindless soldiers, even among the mutts.

Then, among them, Peris~

Tall, with muscle like steel cord, Peris cut a gallant figure. High cheekbones that would have made for a beautiful woman seemed only to enhance his manliness by crossing the aesthetic gap. Fierce, focused eyes, held surety behind them as he fought some gross, black thing with a beak. Suvir watched with rapt attention from a table that a servant had brought out, belaying the feeling that she was out of place until she had her fill.

Ah, he wasn't wearing any padding; too skilled to need it against these whelps. Or a shirt... Sweat glistened on his body in the mid-morning light even as Suvir wrapped her arms around her own thin body to withstand the chill in the shadow of the castle. The portraits she'd seen did him no justice, not the way that seeing the real thing in motion did.

Someone came from behind and startled her with a blanket. For an instant, the chill had felt like the tip of a blade against her ribs.

"My apologies, your highness, I did not mean to give you a start." Merrili curtsied.

"Hah! It's not like you scared me or anything. Hmph, at least you know how to make yourself useful."

The servant simply stood back and smiled, and Suvir grit her teeth.

"So this is what that mutt of a mistress of yours considers fun?" Suvir gestured across the training field then rudely planted her elbow on the table and rested her cheek on a tight fist. They expected her to be a boor, as a boar, so why not leverage that? "I'll make a guess right now: that one there with the beak is her favorite boy toy. Oh, I'd heard she let a wolf demon fuck her brains out, but you know that can't be the only time, just the first time she was caught, ha!" She had to clamp down against nausea behind a false smirk. And Suvir's own 'servants' too. But... why? "You should know, so tell me: how many of them does she fuck in a day? This is how she picks?"

Merrili's smile faltered for a moment, barely noticeable unless one were watching intently, but pointed. "You are wrong about her."

Suvir stood up and slapped the woman. Her hand stung but Merrili stood fast even as a red mark appeared. She said quietly as her chest ached, "Have you not been taught not to talk back to your betters? Does this newest false demon king fail to discipline his servants even to that degree?" Too loud, too loud, some others close by had heard and turned away. But that had to do it... Actively calling his validity into question... Even this servant woman might... And yesterday, trying to strike this one had earned Fosi's one and only threat of execution... Suvir closed her eyes as Merrili stepped forward and-

-thumped her on the head with an open hand.

"A-a-assaulting a p-princess will..."

Merrili held a single finger up to her plump lips. "Just watch. You can always have me flogged later." The woman rubbed her cheek as though to erase the mark before her mistress had the opportunity to see.

On the field, Fosi emerged wearing padded armor and carrying a blunted glaive. As she passed, soldiers stopped their sparring and nodded reverently, no, with familiarity.

"What is she doing?" Suvir said.

Fosi went to Peris and let her weight fall onto her back foot, held the blade of her glaive above her forward foot with the flat facing her opponent. In acknowledgement, Peris raised his own practice longsword and stepped into a slow strike at Fosi's head.

Of course Fosi warded off the attack; at that speed, even Suvir would have been able to defend herself, with her thin arms! But from the moment their metal rang, the two of them increased in speed and strength by stages, either one trying simply to outdo the other's most recent attack. Steel flashed and clanged like bells as they progressed toward their most ferocious states.

Peris matched his lady easily, as Suvir expected, moving jabs to the side with the flat of his blade and casually batting away Fosi's more concerted strikes. His face while he was engrossed in combat was gorgeous, those noble eyes that Suvir wouldn't have minded looking down upon her as she lay back and~... But, he still wasn't winning outright. Even if Suvir wasn't learned enough in the ways of war to fully appreciate what she was seeing, she could tell that Peris actually couldn't win, not easily as she'd expect against a mere succubus. Fosi was pressing forward, defending against fewer strikes since she'd already filled the air with vigorous motion that demanded answer.

The other soldiers had mostly chosen to stand back and watch, taking a breather from their own practice, one or two holding their chins in deep thought and concentration to study what they saw. Fosi wove the glaive's blade in and out of Peris' space, favoring wider movements which avoided getting the haft of her weapon stuck on her horns, had wrapped her tail around her hind leg to protect it from glancing blows. What little Suvir did know about war told her that the draconic clan favored polearms, spears and picks and glaives, for their usability while in flight, for passing attacks that plunged out of the sky and literally enraptured their enemies.

But Fosi didn't have wings, and she seemed to be trying to tighten her positioning to account for that fact... Had she just learned the form she was using from someone who did have wings? Her father? When?

She was keeping Peris at a distance with her jabs, stepping back when he did approach and circling to ensure that she didn't get trapped between him and the crowd or a wall. It mattered less that she wasn't landing her blows, when Peris couldn't dig through the structure of her defense to get at her either. So that's what they meant when they said combat was like chess, Suvir thought; it had always seemed to her from what little she'd seen that the stronger fighter would just overwhelm the weaker one and bludgeon them to death. Here, she saw a strength that came from Peris' polished form that she could imagine killing any number of baser soldiers. For an incubus to have such strength, it was incredible.

And... Fosi was no slouch either, even if it was clear that she couldn't keep up her active defense forever, huffing and puffing after a few minutes. She could obviously take on at least, say, those two condemned men that father had sent along with Suvir...

So why hadn't she?

It ended quickly once weakness appeared in Fosi's form. A strike from above was a little too slow, Peris was able to couch the force of the impact near the heel of his blade and let one hand fall from the hilt, stepped forward and captured the shaft of Fosi's glaive. He pulled her forward and embraced her, pressing the tip of his blade against her belly.

He was looking down into her eyes, his lips parted slightly. Suvir could see that Fosi wanted to pull away, but she wasn't willing even in defeat to hand over control of her weapon. The woman was shaking as Peris lowered his face toward hers; it wouldn't be out of place for a victor to do as he liked, just a little, to take pleasure from his victory, though Suvir had never actually seen a woman fight a man on such even terms... Fosi closed her eyes in resignation, then Peris seemed disappointed, sighed, and released her.

The woman was rolling her neck when she came to Suvir and took the other seat at the table. "I needed that," she said. "Princess, do you have any hobbies? I could probably find a drake small enough to teach you to ride. Though, I'd have to learn first, haha."

Suvir sat stark still. "Ride?"

"As a mount, princess." Fosi rolled her eyes.

"Oh, I see... And you do this... man's work, every day?"

Fosi wiped a bead of sweat from her brow and melted out on the tabletop with a warm sigh. "Don't you think physical exercise is refreshing? Or are you the bookish sort?"

Suvir watched Peris find another sparring partner, his own stamina not noticeably diminished by his session against Fosi. She could get used to watching men fight if they were men like that, with hard, glistening muscles rather than the hairy, barrel-chested men found back home. He was even better than the stories that her maids had told her, but how could you distill into mere words the effect of a handsome man's presence on a body? She wiped a spot of drool from the corner of her lip and straightened in her seat when she realized Fosi was watching her with her cheek pressed to the table, knowing eyes and a tired smile.

"I-it's not like I'm interested in fighting or anything!" Suvir said. She held a proud hand to her chest. "But I do see that his reputation is well-earned. I wouldn't mind gracing the event with my presence for a while longer, since I have nothing better to do."

"We'll retire in a short while to my father's study." Fosi steadied herself on an elbow.

"I'll finally meet the coward, then?" Suvir's breath caught in her throat, but she was able to put out the right words, the ones that were expected of her.

From out in the training grounds, she saw Peris' gaze flash across her as if he'd heard and she shivered at the disdain she saw in his expression.

Of course he would hate her, she'd made sure of that. If the demon king were in attendance, of course she would have been executed on the spot, if he weren't a coward... No king should suffer that sort of abuse, or allow his kin to suffer it, but Fosi had made sure Peris stayed his blade, for the moment.

Why!?

"No..." Fosi said. She didn't respond to the accusation, but her eyelids were heavy and she yawned.

What had happened last night? Suvir hadn't seen those two, but she could smell their stench on this woman. After more than a week in only their regrettable company, Suvir could have picked out their musk in a crowded room. "Then, what?"

"Clerical work. I had precious little time to finish it off yesterday since I had you to entertain." Fosi smiled lazily with her eyes closed. "I could push it back, if you wanted to 'play' with me again. It doesn't pile up the way it once did."

There was no way she was being serious. Now that the thrill of mock combat had left her, Fosi looked as though she would fall over at the slightest poke. "No," Suvir said.

"Hm."

"And precisely what is 'hm' supposed to mean!?" Suvir rose up and slammed her hands on the table. "I'll have you know that I'm not some feckless slut like you! And I'll not fall to the passing pleasures of the flesh as you have!" She smirked nervously, showing a long, sharp tusk, looked around and felt the oppressive air of all those watching her outburst. Nausea threatened to overtake her, but she had to continue. "In fact..."

After several uncertain and uncomfortable seconds, she couldn't think of anything else to say, so stomped away to refuse Fosi an opportunity to respond.

Fosi called for the bull-maid to follow Suvir anyway.

-o-

It really was a pauper's castle, Suvir thought as she hurriedly went nowhere in particular. There had been so many other vacant castles and keeps dotting the land that one only had to slaughter monsters to obtain, so why had Avlakoi chosen to take what had once been nothing but a border crossing held by a minor nobleman a hundred yeas prior? Suvir felt that she could circle the grounds within an hour without losing her breath, and there was so much of nothing locally that Avlakoi had himself had to commission the road being widened into more than wagon ruts before her arrival.

That action had drawn attention from men who had nothing better to do than think of how each of the others was moving against him. With that road widened, Avlakoi could march more troops, have more materials and rations delivered in preparation for war, so the right thing to do would have been to harass the workers at least to delay completion of the project. With a delay, Vormise could organize his own efforts to counter whatever move the demon king was planning, and they would be left with a respectful standstill maintained.