Romeo was shaking.
He stared at the mirror in his hands- he'd been confused when he'd heard Xara talking, but the more she'd spoken, the more the weight in his heart had clawed at him, his skin, struggling to creep up his throat.
And then she'd turned to look at him
His fault his fault it was all his fucking fault
And the screaming.
God, the screaming.
(It was just like back then.)
He'd killed Fred he'd murdered him
How the hell could she pretend that none of it happened? That he hadn't been practically begging for help at one point, when some of the former Narvid lord's 'friends' had begun spreading rumors, poison on their tongues that still had an effect even now?
Fred was gone and he'd done it
He clenched his teeth so tight that he heard them creak. God, he was shaking with such fury-
- and self-hatred and fear and it hurt-
The mirror came clattering down on the desk, Romeo having forced his fingers to let go before his ever-tightening grip caused it to shatter into slush in his fingers. It almost rattled to a halt on the desk from how hard he was shaking.
To be honest, there was a tiny bloom of relief in his chest at it not breaking by how hard it landed on the desk.
He pressed his hands to the desk, trying to ground himself, take a deep breath. It was a miracle his hands weren't searing burning handprints into the desk.
It was fine. It was fine.
She hated him.
Romeo shakily let a long puff of breath pass his lips, letting his head droop a little bit. It felt heavy (god, he was tired of all this).
The door behind him clicked. There was a telltale creak of it easing open.
He paused, still shaking with- what was he shaking with?
He didn't know.
Then, slowly, he lifted his head and turned to face the door.
Kaster and Bedivire had curled away, hissing at the cloaked figure standing in the doorway. Their little jeweled eyes stared daggers at the stranger, but neither seemed to dare get near enough to bite them.
Surprise number two, as usually Kaster and Bedivire were cantankerous to bite almost any and everyone they could get near.
"Who the hell are you?" Romeo asked.
Maybe if he was in a better mood, he would've sounded surprised.
As it was, he just sounded aggravated, angry (and maybe a little like he was scared).
(Maybe he was scared.)
The stranger regarded him.
Then cocked their head to one side.
Romeo got the overwhelming feeling that this stranger was smiling, somehow, even though their face was drowned in shadow, and that 'somehow smile' sent lightning tickling up his back, digging claws into his skin, screaming one overwhelming word at him that sent the anger to the back of his mind.
Danger.
"I'm here for your key."
Jesse was left hugging the mirror tightly and to wander the maze of hallways.
By the time they'd gathered their wits enough, Xara had disappeared- probably back to the party- and Jesse was left mildly turned around.
Okay, perhaps that was putting it too nicely. Jesse was hopelessly lost.
They meandered about, trying to listen for the buzz of probably drunk nobles and the sound of the October Children, or Ivor discussing enchanting, or maybe even Binta talking with Magnus, but the whole house felt almost eerily quiet.
It wasn't the peaceful quiet of Lukas letting Jesse rest against him at a campsite while Maya and Gill ended up silently curled near each other and Aiden lay against a tree and Petra lacing her fingers behind her head...
No, it was a very... uneasy one.
The calm before a storm, almost.
Jesse tried to force the thought out of their head, but it whispered and clawed at the inside of their brain, like some sort of insistent monster trying to force the thought of something is going to go wrong into Jesse's brain.
The walls of the manor were loaded- almost overly cluttered- with gears, cogs, huge steam pipes that sent steam slowly puffing across the ground and warming every step that Jesse took.
At least it wasn't cold, they supposed.
They rounded a corner and froze.
It was a stranger, cloaked in a dark hood with purple trim and facing away from Jesse, though that wasn't what had alarmed them so much to render them temporarily speechless.
That would probably be because two guards lay unconscious on the ground (they were breathing, thank god, chests rising and falling steadily), the safe that the keys were being kept in standing wide open.
(Jesse vaguely supposed that it had been moved here; they'd only seen it briefly this morning when Ivor and Xara had set their keys inside.)
"What are you doing here?" Jesse asked, trying to sound authoritative, hopefully intimidating enough that the intruder would be scared off without ever looking at the tiny human.
It came out rather pleading instead.
The stranger turned to look at Jesse.
Jesse took in a brief, startled breath- it was the green-haired demon who'd been at the Death Bowl.
"Oh- hello," they said, relief heavy on their tongue.
It slowly began to evaporate, re-solidifying on their shoulders as worry.
First of all, they hadn't seen the stranger at the introduction- and surely they would've needed to be introduced, if they were here on official business or from an official lord.
Secondly, the guards were unconscious around this stranger, and the safe was gaping open, allowing free access to the keys.
Even if they were one of Xara's guards, and the unconscious ones were just drunk off their asses or something, they would've had no reason to open the safe- especially when the 'real key' was supposedly with Xara, and Ivor.
Actually, maybe that should be the first point.
And third, something was... off, about the eyes.
Jesse had to ponder that for a moment, the stranger and them silently staring at each other in the most awkward standoff of all time as if sizing each other up, before it clicked into place.
Their eyes were green.
Not red, like the other demons of Cosmos.
A bright, unnatural green that looked almost like text on a screen.
It finally clicked.
"You're a doll," Jesse whispered.
It turned to face Jesse more now.
The lack of emotions, what Jesse had dismissed as nonchalance, the visor that made it impossible to see their eyes, everything was starting to fall into place like the world's ugliest puzzle pieces.
(But then, why had it smiled at Jesse?)
"I like to think I am more capable of thought than a doll," the doll replied simply, artificial lips curling up into a smile.. "I am far more advanced than some of the others powered only by magic. You could call me a prototype, even."
"A- a prototype?" Jesse asked, trying to debate if they should run, scream, shout for help (would anyone even be able to hear Jesse?). "A prototype of what?"
With a terrifying speed, power, strength, the doll had abruptly slammed into Jesse, knocking them off-balance.
Jesse moved to scream, hit back, but by the time their limbs unfroze from the shock, the doll had slammed a fist into their temple.
They were unconscious before they hit the floor.
The doll turned back to the safe and looked over the two keys. The staffs gleamed iridescent from where they were placed neatly into the safe.
With almost no trouble, the doll casually slid the keys into a prepared sheathe on their back, weaving with robotic precision around the spells and barriers to snag them both without detection, and lifted Jesse's little form off the ground, hefting them over their shoulder carelessly like a sack of potatoes.
"Prototype: Artificial Magic-Powered Automaton," the doll replied to thin air.
"You may call me PAMA."
"... you want the key?" Romeo repeated, staring at the stranger. He'd never seen someone who was trying to get it who was so... blunt about it.
"Quite. I'm willing to kill you to get it, too," the intruder said, almost cheerfully.
Well, there was no way Romeo could claim that this intruder didn't have guts.
"You're a right little pixie, aren't you?" Romeo casually leaned on his desk, trying to conceal the crease in his brow as much as he could. It probably looked more like he was glaring, but he ignored that in favor of racking his brain.
How had this intruder gotten in? With all the enchantments and barriers up, there shouldn't have been a way for the intruder to get in.
Besides, he had guards around the house.
Well, actually, he supposed it was always possible that the guards had betrayed him...
The intruder simply shrugged, inadvertently shaking Romeo out of his thoughts. "Oh, I'm not here for pleasantries. Now."
A weapon came sliding out of a sheathe. It glinted dimly in the lamplight- probably a blade of some sort, but Romeo couldn't see it very well from where he was standing and how far away they were.
"If you would kindly hand it over, I might leave you alive to tell the tale." The other demon chuckled at that as if it were some kind of joke, a low sound that dimly reminded Romeo of two knives scraping over each other.
Romeo took a deep breath, the demon lord's brow knitting together in concentration- to an outsider, it might've looked like he was glaring at the intruder.
"No, I don't think I will," he said, with an eerie calmness that unsettled even himself.
Slowly, a small gray mark formed on his skin- something that Jesse might've thought was a bruise.
The stranger paused.
Then it sank deeper, spread, little crawling spiders of gray ink that stained his skin, snaking up his veins and spreading like a drop of ink dropped in water until his skin was a dark gray.
He blinked, and the whites of his eyes had gone bloodred.
There was a whole minute- of breaths held, of the stranger staring at Romeo, almost expectantly, as if expecting more to happen.
Then the intruder snorted at it.
To be fair, Romeo's demon form was less... demonic by default comparison to the other demon lords, considering the lack of extra limbs or tongues or heads or eyes.
It was something that had made him fairly self-conscious for a while when he'd first started being a lord, actually.
"Is that all? Even Xara has less of a pathetic demon form."
There was a blur through the air as the other demon shot at Romeo, the blade flashing up in the light-
Romeo flicked his finger.
The intruder was slammed into the bookshelf with a shockwave that sent several heavy books coming tumbling down on his head.
Swearing and muttering, shoving the leather-bound volumes off of his head, the intruder looked up, reading to lunge again-
Romeo glared down at him from where he was floating in midair. Steady pulses of energy were radiating off of him, sending pulses of goosebumps down the intruder's skin. The room suddenly felt harder to breathe in, as if the air had been converted to pure energy, crackling and sparking.
Literally, as tiny red sparks were flitting from Romeo's fingers, across the red embroidered threads on Romeo's robes, sparking and filling the air with a strange charge that tasted like fire and brimstone.
For a moment, Romeo thought he could see a flicker of fear in the intruder's eyes.
"I think you'll find that 'my pathetic demon form' can keep ahold of a key just fine, thanks," he said coldly.
A/N: i'm writing this in taiwan and am incredibly jet-lagged haha
things be going downnnnnn
responses to reviews!
DubstepDragon14: Oop :3c / That's an oof haha hope you can get your account back
Toni42: much drama much angst :D
Darkbeast Dend: No one did! which is both good and bad in this case haha.
Happygoluckymegami: for now at least :3c
TheAmberShadow: :3c We'll see. / Very Much, Evidently xD
Thank you guys for reading (and to those who leave reviews, an extra thank you. I don't think I'd be able to continue without you guys.)
x.X. A.L. X.x.
