Demoncember writing prompt — Demon whose form reflects their inner life - hope, rage, fear, and lust, each has its effect on their body
It is in the spring of the War of Tulips that Warlord Kheom first commands Mivenn to parlay with Hell for aid.
It is understood throughout the world, in song and folktale wherever it is not within actual memory, that one ought not. That there will be prices levied. That the least among them will be eventual regret. Kheom thinks, with low cunning, that by employing a proxy to treat with demons, he can shrug the cost off onto them, too. Mivenn knows this.
She also knows that without the aid of something mighty, they will all lie slaughtered and rotting in the summer fields. She draws the designs in salt and sand, daubs herself with inks and perfumes, burns the herbs and oils. Prays for sixteen nights. Invites a demon to appear before her in the summoning-tent that Kheom has had made, to treat with her.
Tales say that demons are wile made manifest, that they are capricious and sly and unbound by physical form. The wise King-of-Yellow-Waters was carried on a litter borne by forty demons, they say, which appeared to his summons as a field of burning wheat-stalks, and slew all his enemies with swords of brass as red as blood. The magician ul-Vadaar, stories relate, bound a prince of demonkind to his service, which appeared to him as an ocean wave in the grip of storms, tall as a tree and violent as battle; he made it shrink small as a beetle before him and coiled it within a ring of gold, to wear on his finger and whisper advice to him. Tales tell of demons who appear as trees, as mighty serpents, as falls of snow; worst of all, as comely men with eyes of fire.
Warlord Kheom expects — desires — some great beast, she knows; a terror, something to descend on a battlefeld like an invincible warrior or natural disaster, sweeping away all before it. She prays dutifully for deliverance, multitudinous doubts in her heart.
On the night the demon comes, Mivenn is surprised. The demon comes in the shape of a woman, clothed in robe and veils; sloe-eyed, and little visible except for them. Mivenn bows low.
“Welcome, honoured guest,” she says. “War is upon the face of the world; I petition you for your aid in winning it.”
The demon tilts its head; shapes ruffle its sheath of clothes ever so slightly, like the fins of carp almost-touching the surface of water from beneath.
It is the autumn of the War of Tulips. Warlord Kheom is not precisely winning; neither is he losing. The demon is not a mighty force upon the battlefield, only a quiet body in the war-tent which listens and listens and says little. Everything it does say, on the occasions it does, is terrible truth; when Warlord Kheom ignores it, they lose. When he listens, they win. Rapidly, it comes to pass that Warlord Kheom always listens. He does not enjoy its advice; he does not enjoy listening. But he prefers to win.
Mivenn pays closer attention to the demon than the warlord or his generals or his other advisors. She is, after all, his proxy in summoning it; if they break their bargain with it, she is his proxy for its revenge. If its price proves egregious and terrible, she is his proxy for paying it. Should she not pay attention, and court its favour as best she might? And so she sees it waiting, still and silent, within the war-tent, even whenever planning is done with; even when everyone else abandons it for sleep or other duty; only ever does the war-tent stand empty when it is taken down and transported. They find it empty when it is time to dismantle it; they find it occupied, after it is put back up, as soon as anyone enters it for its purpose.
And so, in her own careful purpose to make the best she might of the demon’s association, Mivenn begins to sit in the quiet tent too, for long hours. She talks to it of matters beyond the immediate planning for war; she offers it — initially hesitant, fearing to offend — tea, or a portion of whatever meals she takes. When she speaks a little wistfully of the hours she once spent playing the Game-of-Tiles, it diffidently offers that it knows the game.
Mivenn spends long hours across the war-tent — across the table — across the game from the demon. And she slowly learns. Its moods are subtle, and hard to read, especially with only dark eyes to look upon; but the shapes beneath its robes, barely disturbing the lay of the fabric, begin to speak to her in the shapes and agitation of their motion. And when it is pleased with her company — or such she tentatively thinks is its mood — a slow drift of petals collect on the ground around it, fallen from nowhere.
In the second spring of the War of Tulips, Mivenn is wounded on the battlefield. She lies for long days in doctors’ care, hazed with drugs and pain and fever. She thinks, sometimes, that the dark-eyed demon stands over her bed, creaking and coldly dripping like a storm-wrenched tree.
She must be fever-mazed; the demon is never seen outside the war-tent. And that’s where she finds it, when she finally, haltingly makes her way from the medical pavilion, bandaged and weak.
For a moment — a trick of the light — she sees it crowned with mossy branches like antlers. Sloe eyes crinkle at the corners, as though its hidden mouth is smiling to see her. Mivenn lowers herself carefully to her chair; the demon quietly pours tea for her while she clumsily gathers a hand of game tiles.
“I thank you, honored guest,” Mivenn says, coldly sweating and a little nauseous from moving, but too tired of laying in bed, and too proud, to hobble back. “I hear that in my absence, you have guided us to progress.”
The demon inclines its head a little.
“They say you finally took to the field of battle, as a shroud of mist,” Mivenn says. “They say that into the mist went the Warrior of Grass and Wind, whose blade bit me so sore; and they say that there was a scream, just one, and that nothing more was seen of him, neither living nor dead.”
The demon dips its head lower, graceful, and says nothing.
“The war has turned,” Mivenn says softly. “By autumn, it will be over, and my debt will come due.”
She sips her tea.
“The war will be over,” the demon agrees. “And my payment will come.” It looks, subtly but unmistakeably, over Mivenn’s shoulder; at Warlord Kheom in his chair, chin on his fist, looking over his great table of maps and strategy.
“My debt,” Mivenn says, a nervous weight gathering in her belly. She could almost swear to the shadow of antler-branches on the wall of the tent; swirling petals.
The demon touches her wrist. “Is it your war?” it says softly.
“I fight in it,” Mivenn says uneasily.
“And bleed in it,” the demon says. “And yet, I think, it would go on if you died in it, and do you think your Warlord would even be grateful?”
“Do not whisper poison to me,” Mivenn whispers, and finds it almost pleading.
“No poison,” the demon says. It leans across the table a little; the scent of rainwashed moss rises from it. She feels its breath on her, even across the table, like a spring breeze. “As you say, it is almost time to levy my price. And so I reckon how much it is.”
“I summoned you,” Mivenn says, throat thick.
“How easily does your Warlord think a demon’s debt is misdirected?” the demon says, and — still touching her wrist with cool fingertips — gently strokes the point of Mivenn’s pulse. “I find that some blood spilt costs dearer,” it adds, gaze holding her own.
