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A teenage demon lets his mouth get ahead of him with his Chief. But said leader isn’t neccessarily looking for blind obedience... This story is a sequel to The “Lessons Of Etu Eqlum” … and takes place in Chronicles Of Amber ‘verse, with lore included by a gaming group I am in.
This is a submission to the Thursday Prompt writing group. The prompts used were ‘boy,’ ‘chief,’ and ‘alternate.’ Check out the group's user page by following this this link. And the other stories generated from these prompts here, here and here.
Visual Reference for St'Rahn is available at this link. And Sl'Sa'Ven at this link.
<--- PREV | FIRST | NEXT --->
Little Demon With A Big Mouth
By: DankeDonuts
https://www.furaffinity.net/user/dankedonuts/
High Chief Sl’Sa’Ven was a large man, broad and burly. The Demon’s downturned horns sat crown-like atop his pale, solid faceplate. His bare chest was taut with muscle, and embossed with esoteric lines across the blackish-brown pectorals. Ritual scars of a sort that provided magical benefit to the bearer. His belt was thick, and his hide trousers could not quite hide the definition of powerful digitigrade legs. He walked among a handful of Chiefs and Chieftesses who had gathered under his banner from multiple alternative universes. Every one of their noseless faces was a mask of bone, their mouths being located behind their chins. But their body language, especially the motions of their twin-tipped tails made clear that it was a discussion of some import.
Surrounding them, the tents, wagons, flags, and paddocks of the Never-Wake. A horizon’s worth of nomads waiting for word of where their peoples would go next.
A gathering of smaller, younger Never-Wake sat nearby, circling a woven mat placed over the grass. Watching the discussion from around a game of Alektu. The long, thin cards mostly going ignored. Teenagers by some shadow-dwellers’ definitions, these ‘wispfurs’ were at the age when Never-Wake’s skin finished toughening up and they finished losing all remaining hair but the light-colored thatches behind their head.
“I don’t suppose they’re all here for anything good,” Teg’Nel quipped. At sixteen, the archer bore just a little remaining hair halfway from her wrists to the middle of her forearms, and from her dewclaws to the balls of her feet. Her horns, while short, were brutally pointed. She wore a duster-style jacket over loose clothes tailored for running. Her clawed feet were as bare as anyone else's. “When was the last time so many tribes came together for something fun?”
“There’s too many dreams,” Noted Shiall, the apprentice Dreamspeaker. At thirteen, she still had a full pelt in the places where Teg’Nel had tatters. And upon the ends of her tailtips as well. But she didn't have any horns at all. Her teacher would certainly have been part of the closed-door section of the Chiefs’ Council. “Master Ab’Dros says it’s getting harder to sort out the Shadow wars we don’t want to engage in.” She straightened the pleats of her skirt when she spoke her master’s name.
“Fighting is fun!” Tal’Koak piped, ramming two fists together. The fourteen-year-old boy’s horns were but small, blunted stubs. Lonely strands of long fur clung to the very tips of his tail. As always, he’d managed to find an interesting hat to go with an otherwise drab outfit. This time, it was a poker visor from a casino on Procyon V.
“Easy for you to say.” Teg’Nel rubbed her wrists. A trio of whitish hair came away with her long fingers. These she deposited atop the younger one’s head. “You’re not about to get called up.”
A chuckle at the younger boy’s expense came from Jerb, a visiting member of Chieftess Rennek’s retinue. His riding clothes were still darkened with the grime of many interdimensional roads.
While Tal’Koak batted the stray hairs away with his hand of cards, the final member of their group sulked into his own. Another fourteen-year old, this one in a hoodless poncho and cargo shorts. His back was turned to the Chiefs. “When you do go to war, it’ll be to where others say to go.” St’Rahn, huffed. “Sl’Sa’Ven’s not really in charge --”
The ground at St’Rahn’s dark purple feet shuddered, and with no other warning there was now a large, black-bladed dagger at the boy’s crossed feet. Precisely thrown so as none of the cards of the ground were touched. The pommel bore Sl’Sa’Ven’s’s symbol; a pair of esoteric double-curls, and it was pointed right at him. The High Chief’s crest starting St’Rahn in the face was as good as an order to stay put. The pack of youngers looked tentatively from it to the handful of leaders. To find the weapon’s owner wave his seconds away, and start moving towards them.
St’Rahn’s friends scattered, leaving him alone with the Chief of Chiefs. Who was stepping ever closer. Sl’Sa’Ven’s large, black eyes stared expressionless under an immobile brow. But his tail swiped back and forth, almost lazily. And his stance, though heavy-footed, wasn’t a hostile one; the great dewclaws set halfway up to his heels were hanging loose and low. Sl’Sa’Ven wasn’t mad (yet), but he most definitely in charge. He towered over the boy was only then scrambling to his feet.
St’Rahn looked around himself, nervously. His cohorts were good and gone; there were plenty of things they could have climbed over or shimmied under to get out of view. The nearby pair of shagbeasts -- a mother preening her colt -- were looking like a particularly good pair of obstacles to hide behind. Every one of the nearby bodies that he could see were busily finding something else to do. Other than a few half-furred younglings peeking at the scene from behind a wooden wheel, staring with morbid curiosity. The boy’s tongue crept out from under his chin, testing the air between pride and respect. Deciding he favored the latter. “I… um… what I meant to say… sir… was… er...” St’Rahn’s tail-tips rotated into all sorts of uncomfortable positions as he tried to formulate something -- anything -- to say for himself.
“I’m waiting, nubhorn.” There was barely a two arms-lengths between them now. The Chief towered over the wiry youth. “I know that little toothpick of mine didn’t shock you hard enough to chase out any of the sense your mamma put into you.”
“Uh, no, Sir!”
“Would you like me to find a few more things to throw until you find them?”
“Uh, not particularly. Sir.”
“Keep you jumping and dancing until you grow back the spine you had half a minute ago?”
“N-no, Sir!”
“Maybe toss you about some, instead?” There was slightest of flexing of those muscular arms.
“Please no, Sir!” St’Rahn had no doubt that Sl’Sa’Ven could hike him clean into another dimension.
“So just what were you in the middle of saying?” Sl’Sa’Ven’s tail swung just a little bit faster.
“You’re not in charge,” the youngster forced the words out. “You go where the Dreamspeakers tell you to go.”
One of the furlings propped a furry hand before their neck, to cover their mouth. None of the other witnesses spoke, either, and even the breeze knew to grow silent.
Sl’Sa’Ven was closed into but one step away clear of St’Rahn. “You wanna try to try that thought out again with a little less sass?”
St’Rahn took a moment to compose a more palatable answer. “We travel from one reality to another, finding battles we can wage for the entertainment of the Deep Dwellers. To keep them asleep, keep them dreaming. It’s the Dreamspeakers who find the battles, and scouts like my mother who find the places they dream of.”
Most of the older Never-Wake flinched at the words ‘Deep Dweller.’ Preferring to refer to the Abyssal deities by the sobriquet Sleepers Under The Dark. Which, of course, meant their true name was bandied about like passed among the wispfurs like forbidden treasure. Against St’Rahn’s expectations, the High Chief did not flinch. “Go on.”
“But nobody tells me why that is! How that became what we do! All I get from my mother, from the Dreamspeakers, from the elders, is stories and songs. Stories and songs that they hold to be true because their parents and elders told them they were.”
“There’s more than songs,” the High Chief answered. “You’re old enough to have taken the trip downstairs.”
‘Downstairs’ was a nickname given to the Abyssal realm. The home of Entropy, the home of all Demons. Through the Never-Wake’s particular territory within that endless place was essentially lost. “The fact that Etu Equlum was cracked up does not prove that a waking Deep Dweller cracked it,” he said, finding a teenager’s defiance once more. “And the existence of Deep Dwellers does not prove we’re placating them with all our hopping around in Shadow picking fights.” St’Rahn swallowed, and his tail mortified to think that his next words were going to be taken as cowardly ones. “In a few years, I’ll be called on to fight in the battles. I’m not afraid to fight!” he insisted, raising a fist to his chest. “And I know a warrior doesn’t always get to know the whole strategy, or need to. I just want to know that I’m doing it for a good reason… Not for some story that might have been made up or mis-remembered.”
Sl’Sa’Ven’s tail-tips curled into the smile his face could not form. He knelt down to bring himself face-to-face with the lad. He whispered, so as no one else could hear, “That’s what I like to hear. Follow.”
The big man reclaimed his weapon, then rose and started walking. St’Rahn obediently followed. He looked to the sky and squinted. Looking with more than corporeal sight. A maze of thin black lines came into view, far away, but intricately focused in their every bend and wripple. Brimming with purple-black energy. The energy of Entropy, which was the primal force to which all True Demons were partnered to and descended from. It was the Chief’s feet he followed, though, not the skyward lines. The dagger he’d thrown was radiated the same power, until it was housed within its sheath.
With every step the pair took, the world changed. Aquamarine plains shifted into a field of red-gold flowers. These became dancing nettles, then a crystalline swamp, then a blanket of green snow.
As the man moved, he spoke. “I had some of the same questions when I was ‘round your age. Well, maybe not exactly the same. You know what I did about it? I went looking for answers.”
Some of St’Rahn’s older friends were already going on ‘walkabouts.’ Excursions into Shadow for fun or education. “Where?”
“Downstairs,” he answered, pointing. “Further down than many of our kin have gone in a long while. Met a few folk. More than a few nasties. Gathered some stories. Found some scraps of the mystery I wanted to unravel. For now, I can only give you my word that I’m satisfied I’m leading us in the right direction… Mostly.”
“Mostly?” the boy asked, confounded. Was an elder -- the High Chief, no less -- admitting the possibility of error?
Sl’Sa’Ven threw his long arms upward. “Well, why in shine-ola do you think I went and called a council?” He turned to the boy, who was now standing at attention. The land was now a world of rose pink glass. Speckled scarlet, from trapped pockets of flame whose heat tickled the boy’s feet. “I don’t know everything. It’s the ones who think they do that you’ve got to watch out for.”
St’Rahn nodded in agreement while the High Chief looked about their environment. He seemed rather disappointed that the wide-open space had nothing to lean against. He settled for hooking his thumbs into his belt. “But I sure as Elf shit know more than you. Do you doubt that at all?”
“No, Sir!”
“Good. Now I’m a very busy man. And you did interrupt a very important conversation. So, I haven't got a lot of time to burden you with the wisdom of five-hundred-and-something years. What mind-blowing truths could I bestow upon you in the next... oh… three minutes?” There was an openness to his stance that showed this to be a genuine offer. Accompanied by a terseness to his voice that made clear this really was all the time he was going to grant.
St’Rahn wasted his first saying nothing at all. Opening his mouth once, twice, three times just to close it again. Choking on the possibilities. “I don’t know where to start.”
Sl’Sa’Ven let out a chuckle. A deep, rumbling sound. “Very good! I’ve always found that’s the best place to start from. ‘I don’t know.’ And I’ve also always found that the best answers are the ones you claim for yourself. And I’ve also also always found more questions you answer, the more questions you end up with. If you’re looking honestly.”
St’Rahn nodded silently. This time in understanding.
“Here’s a question for you for you…” Sl’Sa’Ven waved about the sky. “Can you get us back to the others?”
The boy looked back behind him. Here, the Cables had changed their locations in the sky. Most were to the sides of the horizon. Some were dipping into the grounds. But there was one that looked vaguely familiar. It was a little more purple, a little less… crinkly… thank the rest. “Maybe. Yes! Mother’s shown me how to backtrack.” His tail coiled apprehensively. “But it’ll take me longer.” Quite possibly a lot longer. More Shadows to pass through. And he really, really did not want to waste the Chief’s time.
“Well then, how about you get us started? Double-time march. Show me how far you can go before you get all wobble-eyed or your legs fall off. And when we get back to basecamp, you’re going to pick one of the Entropy Masters and tell ‘em you want lessons. You put in the work to get the powers you need to go looking for the answers that will satisfy you, and I’ll tell you where to start. Sound like a deal?”
“Yes, Sir!” St’Rahn was amazed to have basically gotten away with his previous, regrettable, comment. He had to make his tail not betray his relief. “I’m sorry for what I said, sir.” His legs twitched for the order to disembark the Shadow.
But his leader wasn’t done. “Oh! And while we’re on the march, you’re going to come up with a list of aaallllll the ways I could have punished you for piss-talking me in front of the other Chiefs. Maybe I could have had you run laps with a boulder on your back? Or do calisthenics til’ your whole body arched. Wrestle a graviton-bear. Climb up a hill giant and pluck me a nose hair. Muck out an oliphaunt stable. I want you to get real creative with it. Then you might tell your friends, and anyone who asks, that I took you to a fast-time Shadow and ran you through all of them. I have a fearsome reputation to uphold, see.”
The youngster couldn’t help but laugh.
“And I want you to write that list down and keep it close at hand. Because if I ever hear you talking that way about me or any other Chief like that again, or anybody else who outranks you, which is practically everybody, you’re going to do all of them. Twice.” As much as a tail could form a malicious grin, Sl’Sa’Ven’s did. “You get me, St’Rahn?”
“I get you, High Chief!” The wispfur didn’t think he could stand any straighter.
Sl’Sl’Ven made him keep up the pose for a moment before waving him permission to get moving.
<--- PREV | FIRST | NEXT --->
This is a submission to the Thursday Prompt writing group. The prompts used were ‘boy,’ ‘chief,’ and ‘alternate.’ Check out the group's user page by following this this link. And the other stories generated from these prompts here, here and here.
Visual Reference for St'Rahn is available at this link. And Sl'Sa'Ven at this link.
<--- PREV | FIRST | NEXT --->
Little Demon With A Big Mouth
By: DankeDonuts
https://www.furaffinity.net/user/dankedonuts/
High Chief Sl’Sa’Ven was a large man, broad and burly. The Demon’s downturned horns sat crown-like atop his pale, solid faceplate. His bare chest was taut with muscle, and embossed with esoteric lines across the blackish-brown pectorals. Ritual scars of a sort that provided magical benefit to the bearer. His belt was thick, and his hide trousers could not quite hide the definition of powerful digitigrade legs. He walked among a handful of Chiefs and Chieftesses who had gathered under his banner from multiple alternative universes. Every one of their noseless faces was a mask of bone, their mouths being located behind their chins. But their body language, especially the motions of their twin-tipped tails made clear that it was a discussion of some import.
Surrounding them, the tents, wagons, flags, and paddocks of the Never-Wake. A horizon’s worth of nomads waiting for word of where their peoples would go next.
A gathering of smaller, younger Never-Wake sat nearby, circling a woven mat placed over the grass. Watching the discussion from around a game of Alektu. The long, thin cards mostly going ignored. Teenagers by some shadow-dwellers’ definitions, these ‘wispfurs’ were at the age when Never-Wake’s skin finished toughening up and they finished losing all remaining hair but the light-colored thatches behind their head.
“I don’t suppose they’re all here for anything good,” Teg’Nel quipped. At sixteen, the archer bore just a little remaining hair halfway from her wrists to the middle of her forearms, and from her dewclaws to the balls of her feet. Her horns, while short, were brutally pointed. She wore a duster-style jacket over loose clothes tailored for running. Her clawed feet were as bare as anyone else's. “When was the last time so many tribes came together for something fun?”
“There’s too many dreams,” Noted Shiall, the apprentice Dreamspeaker. At thirteen, she still had a full pelt in the places where Teg’Nel had tatters. And upon the ends of her tailtips as well. But she didn't have any horns at all. Her teacher would certainly have been part of the closed-door section of the Chiefs’ Council. “Master Ab’Dros says it’s getting harder to sort out the Shadow wars we don’t want to engage in.” She straightened the pleats of her skirt when she spoke her master’s name.
“Fighting is fun!” Tal’Koak piped, ramming two fists together. The fourteen-year-old boy’s horns were but small, blunted stubs. Lonely strands of long fur clung to the very tips of his tail. As always, he’d managed to find an interesting hat to go with an otherwise drab outfit. This time, it was a poker visor from a casino on Procyon V.
“Easy for you to say.” Teg’Nel rubbed her wrists. A trio of whitish hair came away with her long fingers. These she deposited atop the younger one’s head. “You’re not about to get called up.”
A chuckle at the younger boy’s expense came from Jerb, a visiting member of Chieftess Rennek’s retinue. His riding clothes were still darkened with the grime of many interdimensional roads.
While Tal’Koak batted the stray hairs away with his hand of cards, the final member of their group sulked into his own. Another fourteen-year old, this one in a hoodless poncho and cargo shorts. His back was turned to the Chiefs. “When you do go to war, it’ll be to where others say to go.” St’Rahn, huffed. “Sl’Sa’Ven’s not really in charge --”
The ground at St’Rahn’s dark purple feet shuddered, and with no other warning there was now a large, black-bladed dagger at the boy’s crossed feet. Precisely thrown so as none of the cards of the ground were touched. The pommel bore Sl’Sa’Ven’s’s symbol; a pair of esoteric double-curls, and it was pointed right at him. The High Chief’s crest starting St’Rahn in the face was as good as an order to stay put. The pack of youngers looked tentatively from it to the handful of leaders. To find the weapon’s owner wave his seconds away, and start moving towards them.
St’Rahn’s friends scattered, leaving him alone with the Chief of Chiefs. Who was stepping ever closer. Sl’Sa’Ven’s large, black eyes stared expressionless under an immobile brow. But his tail swiped back and forth, almost lazily. And his stance, though heavy-footed, wasn’t a hostile one; the great dewclaws set halfway up to his heels were hanging loose and low. Sl’Sa’Ven wasn’t mad (yet), but he most definitely in charge. He towered over the boy was only then scrambling to his feet.
St’Rahn looked around himself, nervously. His cohorts were good and gone; there were plenty of things they could have climbed over or shimmied under to get out of view. The nearby pair of shagbeasts -- a mother preening her colt -- were looking like a particularly good pair of obstacles to hide behind. Every one of the nearby bodies that he could see were busily finding something else to do. Other than a few half-furred younglings peeking at the scene from behind a wooden wheel, staring with morbid curiosity. The boy’s tongue crept out from under his chin, testing the air between pride and respect. Deciding he favored the latter. “I… um… what I meant to say… sir… was… er...” St’Rahn’s tail-tips rotated into all sorts of uncomfortable positions as he tried to formulate something -- anything -- to say for himself.
“I’m waiting, nubhorn.” There was barely a two arms-lengths between them now. The Chief towered over the wiry youth. “I know that little toothpick of mine didn’t shock you hard enough to chase out any of the sense your mamma put into you.”
“Uh, no, Sir!”
“Would you like me to find a few more things to throw until you find them?”
“Uh, not particularly. Sir.”
“Keep you jumping and dancing until you grow back the spine you had half a minute ago?”
“N-no, Sir!”
“Maybe toss you about some, instead?” There was slightest of flexing of those muscular arms.
“Please no, Sir!” St’Rahn had no doubt that Sl’Sa’Ven could hike him clean into another dimension.
“So just what were you in the middle of saying?” Sl’Sa’Ven’s tail swung just a little bit faster.
“You’re not in charge,” the youngster forced the words out. “You go where the Dreamspeakers tell you to go.”
One of the furlings propped a furry hand before their neck, to cover their mouth. None of the other witnesses spoke, either, and even the breeze knew to grow silent.
Sl’Sa’Ven was closed into but one step away clear of St’Rahn. “You wanna try to try that thought out again with a little less sass?”
St’Rahn took a moment to compose a more palatable answer. “We travel from one reality to another, finding battles we can wage for the entertainment of the Deep Dwellers. To keep them asleep, keep them dreaming. It’s the Dreamspeakers who find the battles, and scouts like my mother who find the places they dream of.”
Most of the older Never-Wake flinched at the words ‘Deep Dweller.’ Preferring to refer to the Abyssal deities by the sobriquet Sleepers Under The Dark. Which, of course, meant their true name was bandied about like passed among the wispfurs like forbidden treasure. Against St’Rahn’s expectations, the High Chief did not flinch. “Go on.”
“But nobody tells me why that is! How that became what we do! All I get from my mother, from the Dreamspeakers, from the elders, is stories and songs. Stories and songs that they hold to be true because their parents and elders told them they were.”
“There’s more than songs,” the High Chief answered. “You’re old enough to have taken the trip downstairs.”
‘Downstairs’ was a nickname given to the Abyssal realm. The home of Entropy, the home of all Demons. Through the Never-Wake’s particular territory within that endless place was essentially lost. “The fact that Etu Equlum was cracked up does not prove that a waking Deep Dweller cracked it,” he said, finding a teenager’s defiance once more. “And the existence of Deep Dwellers does not prove we’re placating them with all our hopping around in Shadow picking fights.” St’Rahn swallowed, and his tail mortified to think that his next words were going to be taken as cowardly ones. “In a few years, I’ll be called on to fight in the battles. I’m not afraid to fight!” he insisted, raising a fist to his chest. “And I know a warrior doesn’t always get to know the whole strategy, or need to. I just want to know that I’m doing it for a good reason… Not for some story that might have been made up or mis-remembered.”
Sl’Sa’Ven’s tail-tips curled into the smile his face could not form. He knelt down to bring himself face-to-face with the lad. He whispered, so as no one else could hear, “That’s what I like to hear. Follow.”
The big man reclaimed his weapon, then rose and started walking. St’Rahn obediently followed. He looked to the sky and squinted. Looking with more than corporeal sight. A maze of thin black lines came into view, far away, but intricately focused in their every bend and wripple. Brimming with purple-black energy. The energy of Entropy, which was the primal force to which all True Demons were partnered to and descended from. It was the Chief’s feet he followed, though, not the skyward lines. The dagger he’d thrown was radiated the same power, until it was housed within its sheath.
With every step the pair took, the world changed. Aquamarine plains shifted into a field of red-gold flowers. These became dancing nettles, then a crystalline swamp, then a blanket of green snow.
As the man moved, he spoke. “I had some of the same questions when I was ‘round your age. Well, maybe not exactly the same. You know what I did about it? I went looking for answers.”
Some of St’Rahn’s older friends were already going on ‘walkabouts.’ Excursions into Shadow for fun or education. “Where?”
“Downstairs,” he answered, pointing. “Further down than many of our kin have gone in a long while. Met a few folk. More than a few nasties. Gathered some stories. Found some scraps of the mystery I wanted to unravel. For now, I can only give you my word that I’m satisfied I’m leading us in the right direction… Mostly.”
“Mostly?” the boy asked, confounded. Was an elder -- the High Chief, no less -- admitting the possibility of error?
Sl’Sa’Ven threw his long arms upward. “Well, why in shine-ola do you think I went and called a council?” He turned to the boy, who was now standing at attention. The land was now a world of rose pink glass. Speckled scarlet, from trapped pockets of flame whose heat tickled the boy’s feet. “I don’t know everything. It’s the ones who think they do that you’ve got to watch out for.”
St’Rahn nodded in agreement while the High Chief looked about their environment. He seemed rather disappointed that the wide-open space had nothing to lean against. He settled for hooking his thumbs into his belt. “But I sure as Elf shit know more than you. Do you doubt that at all?”
“No, Sir!”
“Good. Now I’m a very busy man. And you did interrupt a very important conversation. So, I haven't got a lot of time to burden you with the wisdom of five-hundred-and-something years. What mind-blowing truths could I bestow upon you in the next... oh… three minutes?” There was an openness to his stance that showed this to be a genuine offer. Accompanied by a terseness to his voice that made clear this really was all the time he was going to grant.
St’Rahn wasted his first saying nothing at all. Opening his mouth once, twice, three times just to close it again. Choking on the possibilities. “I don’t know where to start.”
Sl’Sa’Ven let out a chuckle. A deep, rumbling sound. “Very good! I’ve always found that’s the best place to start from. ‘I don’t know.’ And I’ve also always found that the best answers are the ones you claim for yourself. And I’ve also also always found more questions you answer, the more questions you end up with. If you’re looking honestly.”
St’Rahn nodded silently. This time in understanding.
“Here’s a question for you for you…” Sl’Sa’Ven waved about the sky. “Can you get us back to the others?”
The boy looked back behind him. Here, the Cables had changed their locations in the sky. Most were to the sides of the horizon. Some were dipping into the grounds. But there was one that looked vaguely familiar. It was a little more purple, a little less… crinkly… thank the rest. “Maybe. Yes! Mother’s shown me how to backtrack.” His tail coiled apprehensively. “But it’ll take me longer.” Quite possibly a lot longer. More Shadows to pass through. And he really, really did not want to waste the Chief’s time.
“Well then, how about you get us started? Double-time march. Show me how far you can go before you get all wobble-eyed or your legs fall off. And when we get back to basecamp, you’re going to pick one of the Entropy Masters and tell ‘em you want lessons. You put in the work to get the powers you need to go looking for the answers that will satisfy you, and I’ll tell you where to start. Sound like a deal?”
“Yes, Sir!” St’Rahn was amazed to have basically gotten away with his previous, regrettable, comment. He had to make his tail not betray his relief. “I’m sorry for what I said, sir.” His legs twitched for the order to disembark the Shadow.
But his leader wasn’t done. “Oh! And while we’re on the march, you’re going to come up with a list of aaallllll the ways I could have punished you for piss-talking me in front of the other Chiefs. Maybe I could have had you run laps with a boulder on your back? Or do calisthenics til’ your whole body arched. Wrestle a graviton-bear. Climb up a hill giant and pluck me a nose hair. Muck out an oliphaunt stable. I want you to get real creative with it. Then you might tell your friends, and anyone who asks, that I took you to a fast-time Shadow and ran you through all of them. I have a fearsome reputation to uphold, see.”
The youngster couldn’t help but laugh.
“And I want you to write that list down and keep it close at hand. Because if I ever hear you talking that way about me or any other Chief like that again, or anybody else who outranks you, which is practically everybody, you’re going to do all of them. Twice.” As much as a tail could form a malicious grin, Sl’Sa’Ven’s did. “You get me, St’Rahn?”
“I get you, High Chief!” The wispfur didn’t think he could stand any straighter.
Sl’Sl’Ven made him keep up the pose for a moment before waving him permission to get moving.
<--- PREV | FIRST | NEXT --->
Category Story / Fantasy
Species Daemon
Size 120 x 120px
File Size 102.2 kB
Comments