Today was like all the others. Blending into a singular blur never ceasing. It was the conclusion the Demoness made as she was curled up in bed, a pillow in her embrace while buried under blankets. Her windows were sealed shut with an enchantment that kept the sun from entererting. And so she was drifting in her self-made void, drinking in the comfort it granted her.

The days have been passing by, sure. Each with a new event, a new addition to her life. Yet the Demoness was still not quite settled in her existence, nor what would it mean for her. She knew fairly well what would greet her when she made her choice, but she could never have prepared herself for what it brought, not entirely.

So here she was in bed, trying to ground herself in the moment. Strigr was coiled under her mound alongside her, what Lumikii would of guess as fast asleep. And the two stayed within the dark silence, content in that moment. Lumi tried hard to shut her eyes, an attempt to keep her keen eyes from peering what was around her and get over stimulated.

Lumi pated the bed with her hand until she could feel her little friend, cool scales that always surpried her how soft they really were. She extended her finger and blindly rubbed along the creaters coiled body.

Much of the morning, and then the day would pass like this. The two enjoing their pause from the world alone. Eventually Lumikki would have her fill and check to see if Tōga was still nearby so that she could have her fill of teasing such a noble but naive character.

She slipped on her swimsuit, her movement so sluggish and unrefined. Willing a sheer over sized shirt from the darkness that already wrapped around her. She swayed as she walked, grabbing the shades the say on her night stand.” Strigr lets bother our friend should we?” The small serpentine dragons would bounce on the bed, still eager to flu but not yet inclined. She settled on slithering as she was used to, coiling up the Demoness’ cool arm before settling around her neck.

As Lumikki opened the door to her room, the bit of light would flood in. Most of its intensity was long gone as the sun was reaching its lowest point in the sky. But as the Demon stayed buried in absolute darkness for the entirety of the day, even this was a bother to her at the moment.

In the presence of the light washing over her, she let her form peel away like black petals until she resembled something human once more. Walking leisurely in an area she figured her friend would be, and reaffirmed by word of her ravens who spotted him. Of she went, taking her sweet time in her sluggish pace to reunite with him. Until finally she could see him from the distance. Strigr Was ever so quick to leave her, eager for the affections of her other friend.

” Greetings Dragon.”

Lumi in her sluggish stride was met with Tōga’s full energy and enthusiasm. Honestly it bewildered her where he could pull out so much energy sometimes from no where at times. She figured it was the setting that granted him such vigor. The lad was in his element where she was not. The pouring rays bathing his skin suited him. The heat in the air paired with the heat of his budding magics. Yet as much as she very much enjoyed the islands and their culture, the temperatures were hotter than she would like. She would figure this could be a source of her dysphoria, but it was nothing she could not push aside. Still she would need a moment to regain her bearings, perhaps with another ice bath during the night.

As Lumi closed the distance in her pace, she was caught in the tight grip of his embrace. She was taken aback from his sudden affections. Not thinking he would still show much tender care for her after their recent spat. But the playful Demon happily played along, returning his hug before he parted from her. He pulled arms length away but she leaned forward perplexed, eyeing him for a moment before commenting. ” Did ye change how ya dressed Dreki, or am I just forgetful?”

He asked her of her day and she would simply shrug. ” Pleasantly dark, pleasantly silent. Sometimes one mush recreate the absence to find a particular kind of peace in all this noise.” She would go on but something caught the corner of her eye. Ships along the far horizon were ushering their way to the shore. Lumi turned and faced them, seeing clearly all the chaos in their movement as they tried to direct their attack. Her lips would pull back in a malicious grin in return as the shadow behind her would appear to peel off the ground while still maintaining her image. It clung to her in an embrace of its own, merging with her skin to reveal her truer form. Skin like night and hair of white, she was revving to go.

Tōga, mid-statement, would halt his words as he too became privy of the sudden company. Lumi took a pause from staring them down to see the expressions on his face. She was savoring them as much as she was the challenge approaching.

Lumikki quickly flung her hand in the air in a gesture to her birds to move away. Suddenly a massive unkindness shook to life as they all began to take to the air all at once. Almost like a black cloud moving in the air and heading for deeper within the islands. Among them was a harpy would would glide to them and land just beside her. She bowed slightly and waited until Lumi was ready to proceed with the plan. ” Tenevi me love, its a pain to read lips from here. See if ye could sneak around and fill me in on what those buggers are saying. I want to hear their intentions before I….pass them to me friend here. Play with their sails while yer are it. Might as well stand them but take care. They look testy.”

” Simple enough Revna. Consider it done. But what will you do about him?” She unfurled her lower wings as she spoke, getting herself ready to take off to the sky. But when she looked over to Tōga she halted to a moment, curious of what Lumi had in mind.” For now, I watch. But I’ll be sure to keep us both alive. Now go lass, I’m a curious raven.” Tenevi nodded a she was flapping wings and taking off. Giving another glance at Tōga before zeroing in on the ships.

Lumikki stepped toward Tōga making sure to keep behind him. She leaned in quite cheekily again, but her small framed robbed her of the experience in hovering his shoulder. Still her presence could not be ignored as the frost was pouring out of her, intensity chilling the air. The vigor of her newly sparked passion would have her shift once more. She was too eager to be contained, her plumage and wings would come to as the second wind of darkness would envelop her like the eclipsing of the sun.

The cannons would face them, their shot now rushing toward them. One could not mistake who the target of these men were and their audacious and malicious act was fueling her. Darkness seeping out of her as vigorous of her cold.

Now in her hybrid form, she was one step closer to her true form. With her wings no longer hidden, she took to the sky as to playfully whisper in his ear. ” Tell me Dreki, of noble morals and the defender of life. What shall we do in this instance when maliciously attacked?” She let her playfulness soak her voice.

As the cannon cut through the air to make way toward them, Lumi could already long make out the lines of their paths. It told her exactly where they aimed to go. So as they were getting mighty close to the pair, Lumi flew to the shore line. Walking on the water as she froze the surface in every step. She was used to doing this on lakes, so she would lose her footing constantly. Having to use her wings to help her hover more troublesome waves. Yet she was having fun and she was doing this on purpose, even through the trouble of the effort. After all, she was more animated now.

When she reached the spot she deemed fitting, she dipped her talon into the water. Letting it sit there for a moment to let her magic take a strong hold. The ocean wouldn’t be tamed even by one as strong as her. When she pulled back, she took to the air for this, needing all the stability she could get. She didn’t walk to far, so there was not a lot of darkness in these waters. With the swipe of her taloned hand, the water would jut up in jagged spikes. Crashing together to make a frigid wall. Some of her more sloppier work, but she was playing with the sway of the sea and couldn’t bother to add her usual flourishes.

The cannons, striking shortly after, wouldn’t even leave a dent let alone crash her structure. Yet she let her wall drop like the canon balls sinking into the water. Looking back once more to her company to see his plan of attack. ” What now Dragon?”

The smell of burning was permeating from behind her. As she turned around to see Tōga blazing toward her. His magic spilling out of him like a firework shooting through the sky, glazing the sand over to a molten glass. His momentum would not stop as he skid over the water. The waves would crash into his legs and feet but sizzle and evaporate on contact. It was fascinating to see, but it told her clearly how she’d rather stay away.

Lumikki loftily flew behind him, managing to match his speeds as they went over. She pulled her staff out the void and prepared herself for a massive spell. Tenevi, who was observing the ships, would begin to circle back. Turning over once again to match the glide of her Revna. ” Seems they were a crew hired to kill you. I did not get to hear a lot about it beyond one in particular muttering about a beast. He was insistent on getting it back alive but the crew figures the job would be easier over our dead bodies.” Lumikki nodded along to the report and ascended to a higher altitude. All so she could get a clearer glance of the men there. It did not take her long to understand what the problem was, nor who the harpy was referring to.

She let herself drop beside Tōga to clue him in what this really was. ” All that’s muttering about keeping them alive, yet its one of the poachers I let go that’s attacking us now. Seems with his first taste of freedom he choose to attempt and kill us. Since killing is so beneath ye, ya could handle this on yer own I’m sure” She let her staff fall back into her void as she took back to being higher in the sky. Preferring to now observe than assist as this was a conflict they had just before. She was curious on how he’s handle it. Almost sure of it being simplistic and naive. But seeing as the men there had no way to kill her and swiftly, she didn’t really care. There was no urgency to do anything.

Lumikki was the first to arrive. She circled just above as she awaited his actions below.

The fledgling Dragon would rise above the waves. Cutting into the air with an abundance of flames protruding from his clenched fists. He pointed them behind himself to propel him forward. Sparks like imitations wings, which would bring her back to days of her own. She saw a pair of flaming wings before, but it was still a fascination to see. The were the polar opposite of her own after alll. But she wondered if they were all flare and no constant. A move he made in the moment as a manifestation of his emotional turmoil, but not something he could recreate or make his own. He passed along Strigr before she would leave him, for the best as his horrid flames would harm her.

She eyed him more than she did the boat, leaving him with her cheeky remark before repositioning else where. Her true wings would hug the air currents in ways his rocketing magic never could now. Silently moving as she gracefully moved into place. Now she circled the airs above the ship, waiting for more of the tricks he would pull out his infernal hands and make come to life. But she would not stay there for long. As Tōga crashed himself into the ship, the massive heat of his flames would rapidly rise. Annoying the Demoness in the horrid and crippling heat waves above, causing her glide so that she would rotate around the ship instead. The cool air rising from the water as it evaporating as giving her second wind as she hung in the air and returning to a mildly amuse. Teveni would join her as well as the harpy would also hardly appreciate being cooked from above.

” He claims he won’t kill the men below, but it is beginning to look to me as if he’d be content beating ‘em an inch of their life. The Dragon calls me merciless but he wouldn’t mind singeing them inside out.” The pair was watching as his coils of infernal flames clutched their victims. The inverse of her magic once more, the polar opposite in the spectrum of thermal energy in which they shared. The wood was cracking under his feet, the sound of it snapping apart was filling the air while the dancing flames would over take the vessel. Rendering it far from useful and pushing it rapidly toward its end.

” Heat and cold are both incredibly uncomfortable to those who were not built for them. But there is a gentleness when one must embrace the crippling cold, accepting it to take you like your last walk in the night. The searing heat is more horrid than I can imagine. There is no relief to such infernal manifestations. It is a harshness akin to the blinding sun. And yet….It is usually of those and their like, who take on light and flames as their weapons and conflict, that believe themselves vessels of justice. How entertaining to watch their yearning for warmth consume them in a vicious way. In a vigor much on the level of them running from winters hold. I wonder what the men below would choose? Retaliation, punishment by the flame. For them to live on after feeling such grasp. Or feel the crippling wake of the tundra wash over them. Crippling them until their eternal rest.”


” As a human, I knew no heat like this. And as a Daemon, I knew the feelings of being wrapped around wild flames as they ate at homes and forests. I will never relive such a thing again. I rejoice knowing that flames like this would rarely bother me. Long as I manage to be stronger than such blazes. Bias as I may be, I can never find contentment in such gluttonous magic. But perhaps if this was the path I walked, even I would lose to the destructive desire that is being Demon as I drag the world asunder in me infernos.