Demon Called

please, please, please review. please.

Demon.

Vile nightmare. Get thee behind me, Satan. Troubleth not my house, monster. Away from my children.

For two thousand years, I've heard this.

Yeah, I try to keep my spirits up. I try to make a joke of it, really I do, but after a few millennia of being regarded as a monster, even someone as naturally chipper and intelligent as myself.

Come, demon

The summons tugs at my essence. I scream.

I am rent from my home, from my self, from my sisters and brothers that are that self. I am torn from the Other Place, the only place.

And sent screaming into the human world of pain.

Here I could suffer, here I knew fear and the slow dull ache and the crashing possibility… I could die any minute.

You are summoned

I hate it. I try my best not to think too hard about what's happening because I can't afford the strong emotion, because then I will attack and there will be pain.

I hate that I am forced. I want my will. I want to choose. I hate being forced.

Slavery.

Whether or not Faquarl likes the word, it's true. I am a slave, bound forever to the command of any who knows my name.

Bartimaeus, I summon you

It's amazing.

They can make me hate my own name. They can make me hate myself, because that very nature is one they can control.

I don't know what will come next, not for certain, but I can predict it- a magician, another loathsome interchangeable man monster will command me, torment me, and finally free me.

Just in time for another summons.

Come, Bartimaeus

It never ends. There is no liberation, except in death. And even that- I don't believe there is anything after. Just snuffed out like a candle, that's where demons go.

Demons, hate that word. God. But it's what I am. What they call me defines me.

In the Other Place, I am nothing, or rather everything. It doesn't much matter. But they define me, label with me, with their cruel names, force me to be, and exist, and think, and feel.

When all I want to do is exist.

Demon out of darkness

It isn't dark in the Other Place. It's light, and movement, and freedom, and wonder. I don't want to suffer. I want to live, to simply be with no constraints and no commands. Oh, I want to go home.

And I'm not even gone yet.

I define you

I am rent from my brethren, torn from the place where we cling together as one entity, ripped into a single being.

I miss them.

We are one.

Only I am not one of us anymore, I am torn away. I sense their pity and their fear.

Any moment, any one of us could be next.

I summon you

The Other Place releases me. I am gone from it. I am alone. I am separate.

I grieve for my loss. I weep for what I must do.

I dread the vile tasks and look forward to its end. Soon, I will go home. I pray it will be soon. Soon, I will be free. I pray it will be soon. Soon, I will be happy. I pray it will be soon.

I command you

I settle into a form- female, blue eyes, black hair, pale skin, shapely figure (always a good move where male magicians are concerned) and, on impulse, flaming claws.

Remind the little buggers that things are not always what it seems. Keep 'em on their toes, as it were.

"Djinni," my new master begins. "Answer me a question."