A Demon's Honor

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IamLEAM1983
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A Demon's Honor

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June 7, 2027

Dawn crept slowly through the brownstone's aged windows. Ivy trellis clung to them and encroached on the windows' lower fixed panes, the shafts of light taking on emerald undertones. The house was a single flat, elevated above ground by a ground-level garage that currently went unused. The neighbourhood was a quiet one. Few kids to speak of, plenty of retirees. Young couples with careers in mind.

At this hour, the streets were quiet. The wind carried the scent of Greene Farms' apple orchard, sweetness in the early summer air, with the occasional stronger gust adding the invigorating taste of salt on the wind. Sounds reverberated easily but came from afar, someone's jet ski purring along Pickman's Sound, the seagulls squawking as they cheerfully foraged for food, going from tiny café to tiny café, from the bakeries to Old Hope's summertime open-air market. A low-orbit shuttle purred, far above, while the forlorn creaks and pops of Green Island's static air-baloon parks came distantly.

Inside, the blinds were all mostly drawn. Pristine hardwood floors that had been restored before the judge had received his keys were set abaze by sunlight, caramel and nutmeg details coming into focus. Everything showed signs of habitual use, except the seating arrangements. More than three years after his being appointed to Hope's courthouse, Randolph Mantus still hadn't found cause to try out his high-backed leather chairs, his sectional leather sofa.

Upstairs, the lively and flexible cleanliness of someone with an active life could be found. The desk's chair, in the office, was barely used, the ottoman waiting at the foot of the bed had never been tested. The walk-in closet looked as though its six pairs of pants and shoes had never been touched. Randolph had bought them only for the purpose of making normal purchases pop up on his debit record. He sometimes picked up one of the shoes and sniffed their never-used leather, briefly daydreaming on what it would feel like to have feet, to feel the way Tom said a good pair of shoes could change your gait. Whatever changed your gait changed you, he'd said. You stood with your back straight, you felt the leather's light constriction as a reminder of their selective nature, of how they came together to create what you showed to others, with the rest of your wardrobe.

The bed was also unused. The bed had been made once, and once only - only to never be touched again. It was a curious object to him, something of which he couldn't quite fathom the importance. Lying down felt like an impractical considerations on too many levels for him to consider. Being what he was, Randolph relied on the solidity and flexibility of his spine, on how it seemed impossible for his neck to grow tired. Based on the one medical examination he'd agreed to take as part of his joining the System, he'd been found to have excellent posture for a man his age.

The doctor had joked. "You don't do much sitting-down, do you? At the same time, it looks like you're involved in low-impact work... You're going to give your insurers a field day, I can tell..."

Randolph hadn't bothered to smile back. To him, what was a joke was a simple and obvious truth. He couldn't sit down. He didn't want to sit down.

Justice didn't sit down. Due process didn't take breaks.

Gloom was slowly creeping out of the one shadowed corner of the room, in the blind spot the noon-day sun never managed to fully illuminate and which grew darkest just as summer's dusk crept in. You'd have taken the thing that rested there to be some sort of statue at first, if it hadn't been for the soft snores that came from it, or the slight motions. His projected mouth was slightly open, his head barely canted downwards, his arms crossed high behind his back. They'd simply been held there the whole night through, and it seemed as though Mantus wasn't about to complain of pinpricks in his arms. Close to the ground, four of his eight tentacles' tips lightly twitched, curling this way and that the way the limbs of a sleeper might move involuntarily.

The alarm clock on the nightstand rang, cutting off a slightly deeper snore. The judge opened his eyes and let out a slight grunt of assent. Yes, he could hear the contraption. A hand came forth, the other one bolted to his back, it seemed, and turned it off. To others, he would've looked like someone weighed down by a severe sleep deficit or a disorder of some kind. Exhaustion clung to his face. The fact was that he wasn't tired on the physical level, nor especially mentally. Sleep was a constant temptation, even if he knew he didn't need more of it.

Leonard had made him tired, created him in a pall of drowsiness, exhausted after a nearly endless succession of thankless labor and unceremonious ends. Someone else would have pushed the curtains away and smiled at the clear skies, he merely took note of the weather through a slit in the drapes. It was pleasant. That was all he noted. Anything else seemed irrelevant. His body felt capable, his mind felt sharp, but he hadn't figured out how to care about these things just yet. Sleep seemed like such as easier prospect...

He had tasks, however. He had responsibilities. He had a life, for the first time in seemingly forever. Sleep would have to wait, as it usually did.

With no pants, socks, shoes or underwear to worry about, and with no facial hair to clean away, his routine was fairly quick. A cold shower to tear at his desire to skip the day entirely, and to stoke his increasingly familiar feelings into taking their proper place, and enough clothes to make his top half appear fitting of his function. Having been impartial for so long - completely impartial - had left him numb. Letting his mind wander to friends and duty alike was as demanding to him as rediscovering the use of atrophied limbs was to someone stepping out of coma.

The thoughts felt creaky and sluggish, but they were genuine. Had Aislinn made some progress? How closer, exactly, was Tom to being able to recognize what he felt for Aislinn as being love? Had Archie finally taken to Bucky's idea of a book club? Speaking of, he still had two chapters to take in...

Another odd aspect of his adaptation meant finding uses for his upper limbs. Randolph wasn't used to manipulating things more complex than his gavel or printed documents. People who gestured wildly as they talked struck him as being exhuberant, the deaf who had no choice but to use ASL felt as though they were screaming continuously. He considered his hands to be highly specific tools of discourse, meant to accentuate his voice and his words only in key instances. Coordination wasn't a problem, seeing as he'd figured out how to handle a TV's remote on his first day in Hope - but the concept of hands being useful, if not necessary in conversation, was strange to him. Again, he uncoiled an arm and gripped his badly-glued copy of Hammerfall, a novelization of the Battle of Hope as seen through fictitious soldiers and survivors. He slid along the corridor and glided down the stairs, both of his hands finally finding some use as he slowly and thoughtlessly ripped out a sheaf of folded pages, folded it, and popped it in his mouth.

As usual, ink and paper faded from his tongue even as words and concepts gained tastes of their own. Connor had managed to reunite with Ashley in a dilapidated gas station on 43rd and Vart, little Ollie was still stuck in the reluctant care of Ares the Red Chimera, two boroughs away. The pacing was decent, he thought, but the copyright regulations castrated the narration. If Archie and the others had been mentioned, royalties would have needed to be paid. As Nella Atkins' first novel - and an Amazon-published one, at that - it stood to reason that the young author had opted not to take chances. A smart move, legally speaking, but one that hampered her creative license. Randolph briefly wondered how this stretch of the story would've been if Archie and Amazo could've been mentioned, if Sophia had received a cheque for every thousand or so copies sold.

Slightly better, perhaps, but not by much. Hammerfall was a bag of literary popcorn, something that tasted good but had no lasting aspirations. The judge knew he'd all but forget about reading this as soon as Book Club would be adjourned, later this week.

The dragon-like demon looked down at the last sheaf left in the book and realized he didn't care to keep reading this. He didn't want to disappoint his friends, however. Sighing, he tore out the rest of the pages, inhaled and closed his eyes, pushing through the maelstorm of the last fifty pages joining his conscious understanding of the story. Then, pouting, he tossed the mangled cover in the kitchen's trash can. The back of his mind still swimming with emerging plot considerations and glaring flaws, he prepared a simple breakfast for himself. He was halfway through it when his inner snapshots of the book's final chapter came to a close. Randolph's eyelids briefly felt heavier as a sudden pall of sheer boredom overtook him. The book hadn't been very entertaining. Not at all, actually. He briefly felt like setting his spoon down on the counter and letting his head hang for a few minutes. He'd doze through his disappointment and wake up in time to catch the bus - his grapefruit be damned.

But - of course, he couldn't afford to do this. The body had needs. He had to eat. Really eat. He did just that, food striking him as being too simple compared to the data flow of ingested words. He found himself wishing the idea of his grapefruit would hang around in the back of his mind the way Atkins' book unfortunately had. He also needed to sate his sense of duty, do a manual once-over of his latest case file. He'd ingested copies the night before and had spent an hour or so transcribing the thoughts and musings they produced to paper. He still needed to compare the actual papers to his own insight, see if anything was out of place.

Once done with his breakfast and with his teeth cleaned, he slid into his office, giving his chair the customary moue of disdain as he forced himself to sit at it. He would've wanted to have every surface elevated so as to never have to sit anywhere, but the costs would've been prohibitive. Not to mention, of course, that this would've defeated the purpose of his Veil, below the waist. Instantly, he felt some of his rear tentacles twitch and spasm in response to being constricted. Blood flow was cut off, with one half of his locomotion system going numb within moments. He couldn't repress a grunt of aggravation at this. Just as his spine had been fine with him spending the night upstraight, he felt it tense and protest over the next few minutes. He had too many files to open and close to work while standing.

Things had been coming to a head in the last few months. Leonard Ephesian's ghost was digging through the Shadowlands with a will, assembling an ever-growing list of willing suspects. Shield had every case file from the Ephesian weeks and months, from the goat's panicked calls to the Archdiocese and their own office to the string of increasingly botched, if not outright fraudulent settlements Ephesian and Associates had managed to garner over the years. If Leonard had been a mere mundane, this would've been an open-and-shut case. Reading through the documents, Randolph felt his mantle stir. The civil servant he was was growing into the Infernal judge he'd never stopped being. Power felt as if it stood a few words away, a few gavel strikes away.

"Of crimes against Hope and her people, against the State of Rhode Island and the legal authority of the United States' magistrature, against the Supreme Court of the United States of America and yea, the sovereign nature of Mortalkind over this plane; Master Leonard, Chief Inspector of Black Magic and Ruler of Sabbaths from the Orient to the Occident, from Dawn to Dusk; this court finds you guilty.

The sentence is banishment to the Infernal Pit, from now until the Creator's last word is spoken, the last dawn, arisen and the last dusk, fallen. Now and forevermore, Fiend - I banish thee."


The words were close, but he knew a few bricks were missing. He couldn't offer his verdict just yet, even if in the confidence of his friendship with Aislinn and Tom, the matter was technically done. With his friends, he already felt the new part of himself jubilate. The old one, the eternity-scarred one that still dominated much of who he was, knew better than to celebrate permaturely.

A demon was locked up in Chimera Row, but his threat was far from over.

For now, what mattered was dismantling the corrupt cesspool that Ephesian and Associates had become. Minor demons had to be shunted out of credulous juniors who had gone from promising legal mavericks to cocaine fiends powered by supermodel sweat and brazen excess, and Ephesian's new right-hand man had to be smashed utterly by the very weapon they had the audacity to pervert. He dug in, lost an hour to the hunt across printed pages and video stills, only to be pulled out of it by the trills of his pocket watch. Grunting, he laboriously stood up, mentally swore never to sit down again - which he knew he wouldn't be able to do forever - and slipped everything into a small leather sheath, a classier relative of the manila folder.

The jury was on recess for today, and it would have one last day of deliberation tomorrow.

Then, if all went well, Allison Masters - Abigor to those who knew her well - would be in for a very bad day. For now, all he could do was go over the facts and the evidence with his friends - who also were the prime witnesses in the case. If he reached Holden Hall as judge, he'd be acting in breach of conduct. If, on the other hand, he only worked to coach the local vigilantes on the needs of a high-profile court case, he had every right to visit them.

He was glad there was no law against friendships. He knew he had to be impartial as a magistrate and knew he could be more impartial than the best mortal judge on the planet, but he also knew he wasn't ready to bury his feelings for Holden Hall's residents just yet. He dreaded the next three to four days, which would be some of the loneliest he'd have to go through since his emergence on the mortal plane. For this reason, he intended to make the most out of what free time he had.

Besides, Aislinn still needed to work on how to create convincing creases on pants Veiled into existence, while Crystal still needed to help him translate the needs of a ballroom to someone with eight tentacles for legs...
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Re: A Demon's Honor

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Much like Randolph, Aislinn and her siblings had chose to take the day to relax and enjoy themselves before the regimented atmosphere of Leonard's trial started tomorrow. Given that it was summer, the selkies were hanging in the shade and trying to remain cool even in the warm morning. The hottest time of year was uncomfortable for supernatural beings who originated from the northern climes and seas.

On the Holden Mansion property, they batted a volleyball over a net, not particularly adhering to the traditional rules of the sport. Naturally, they did take the wearing the customary uniform of volleyball-swimsuits. Nearby, they had chairs and an enormous umbrella, under which they could cool off with water and Gatorade. A cooler was iced down and filled with fruit and freshly made sandwiches.

Since they weren't actually competing, Aislinn had suggested they added telekinesis to the game for a little fun and practice for their skills. Dressed in a black bikini, the younger twin tossed the ball over the net with psychic thwap.

While the twins had teamed up, Neasa had paired up with Three, who bounded the ball back over to their side with her wrists.
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Re: A Demon's Honor

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Aidan was in decent shape and proved he could muster a decent competitive streak when the need arose.

"Come on, you TK-using cheaters," he teased, "put some actual body English into it!"

Out in the pool - or rather, on top of it, Archie lounged in an inflatable tub, dressed in his amusingly dated male "bikini" of sorts. With his red-and-white striped tank top and shorts, coupled with the requisite straw boater hat, he looked like a mechanical reject out of an old Buster Keaton short. Freshly scoured and rust-proofed, he'd savored the first of several good dips in the season, beads of water glistening on his thoroughly cleaned plates and carters and clinging to his mustache. One flip-flop wearing foot idly shaking over the tub's rim, he took a sip at a glass of chilled rosé he'd dressed with small frozen fruits.

"I think you mean body American, Aidan!" he called out, which made the young man turn around and frown at the Clank, not seeing his point of the comment. That was opportunity enough for Aislinn's latest swing to find no receiver - and for Three to receive the volleyball upside the head. Archie laughed heartily in response, replying to Three's briefly murderous look with a very deliberate look of pure snobbery and the daintiest of sips imaginable.

A mean smile birthed on the soldier's face. "Oh, that tears it!" he muttered, sprinting for the pool and leaping for it, going for a bomb in the half of the pool that was currently unoccupied. It was all Archie could do to avoid spilling his drink thanks to the created waves - but he couldn't save his straw hat. Repressing a few curses, the Clank tried to row himself closer to the partially sunken hat, but Drake shot underneath him and grabbed it, coming out of the pool in quick and practiced motions.

"My hat, if you please?" asked the spy, pointedly gesturing for it. Three settled with shaking it so most of the water would come off, and then defiantly placed it on his head. "Leave your drink and come and get it, Mister Barbershop Quartet," he said, smirking.

While Archie shot his own manslaughter-suggesting gaze and did everything he could to row himself towards the pool's ladder, Three returned to the makeshift volleyball court. "All I'm missing is a white jacket with a celery leaf pinned to a lapel, plus a question-mark cane."

He then removed the hat. "Hey, Ais - Frisbee!" he said, tossing Archie's hat over the net.
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Re: A Demon's Honor

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Laughing in reaction to the new game of keep-away, Aislinn jumped up to reach it and tossed the straw hat to Ciaran, who then sent it back of the net to Neasa. From there, the oldest of the siblings received it and sent it back over the net. "Come on, you old fop! Try and get it!" she shouted.
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Re: A Demon's Honor

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Floundering as he tried to shift onto the pool's ladder while leaving his tub and putting his drink in a safe spot, Archie half-muttered indirect threats until he managed to actually get out of the pool. There, amusement giving weight to slight annoyance and making him far more angry than he truly was, he reached underneath his tank top and gave himself a few extra key turns.

"You found the wrong mark, lads!" he warned, his now overcharged pistons allowing him to jump over the net and land behind Aislinn. As he did, he hooked his foot in a nearby garden hose and kicked its pistol-shape end upwards. He caught it with one hand, the other one lashing around Aislinn's shoulders. An amused chuckle left him, but he then opted to get into "character" for the fun of it. Lowering his head and giving Drake the comical version of an evildoer's intense stare, he set the water-gun's business end of the hose against Aislinn's temple.

"The hat, mister Drake, or her sunscreen runs off. The nozzle is set to Wide."

Playing along, Three stuck a facsimile of pure horror on his face. "No - Not the sunscreen! She's a poor selkie, her skin's so pale as it is! She'll never live the sunburns down!"

Archie shrugged. "Balderdash. That's nothing a little calamine lotion can't fix."

Three exchanged a mock look of horror with Neasa. "You - You monster!"

The spy replied with the kind of theatrical evil laugh that was perfect for the occasion. "Now - my hat. If you please."

Three chanced a look over his shoulder, only to find Bucky's prone form in the grass, an open book balanced in the upper curve of his belly. "Bucky, help me!" he shouted, trying to pack as much theatrical excess in it as he could. The Okie samurai grunted and gestured dismissively. "Can't. Gotta finish this one. Besides, uh, I'm on his side," he said, pointing at Archie without looking. "Call me Oddjob or something."

Three tried to furrow his brows in as exxagerated a manner as he could. "Traitor!"
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Re: A Demon's Honor

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More amused at the theatrics, Aislinn played along with their little game. "Oh no, not my precious Gothic pallor and tattoos! I'll have a slight tan and lightly faded tattoos!! Nooooo!" she cried in feigned horror. A few moments later, she rolled her eyes and levitated the straw hat back on his head.

She then padded away and glanced back, hands on her hips. "Seriously though, I have to maintain my appearance for my livelihood. My tattoos are an ode to my ancestors, a living altar, if you will. And I like my Gothic aesthete, so I shall remain forevermore porcelain-skinned," she replied, dramatically placing the back of her hand against her forehead and then chuckling.
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Re: A Demon's Honor

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Archie set a knee down on the ground and joined his hands. "Your gaslight-era elegance has conquered me, fair maiden," he joked. "I thank you for my hat and will make haste in obtaining you a dress sufficient to protect your gossamer skin!"

He made a little show of dashing off, only to stop near another one of the poor chairs. Dropping the melodramatics, he picked up one of the scattered pool towels and tossed it at her. "In the meantime, settle with cutting a neck hole through the middle, alright? That's a good girl."

Three lifted his eyebrows and whistled. "The Makeshift Poncho - that's one heck of a Victorian fashion statement!"

Archie laughed earnestly at this. "All jokes aside, does anyone need something inside? Refreshments, food? Perhaps a court case file?"

Three rolled his eyes. "Come on, we have two days and we all know we have to testify! We're just going there to gun down Masters, rhetorically speaking - we're only halfway through being ready to take on Leonard.
- You mean the demon wearing mister Ephesian's skin, I hope," corrected Archie, an eyebrow raised.

Three sighed. "I know - it's just a shortcut. I got sick of addressing him as the Goat or Inspector or Master of Sabbaths. Speaking of, I thought Mister Real Deal would be around today.
- Our Leonard?" questioned Holden, "I received word Melmoth had arranged for his meeting his wife for a few hours. I daresay Thomas' father is quite well enough without our meddlesome pokes and prods; he'll join the pool party when he's good and ready."

Three eyed Aislinn. "You'd figure the ghost of a goat who's gone through Hell to try and reclaim his body would want to bring his dead wife to a pool party, for once. Y'know, lighten the mood a little?"

He then checked his watch. "Speaking of lightening the mood, where's your beau? You'd figure mister Demon Sexypants wouldn't miss the chance to show off a pair of bermudas. Purple ones, I bet, because natch..."
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Re: A Demon's Honor

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Aislinn scoffed and shrugged. "I have no idea where Tom's at. I know he planned on being here today, but when? Not sure."

She then frowned at the human's choice of words. "I've slept with Tom, and we're friendly with each other, sure. However, I don't know if 'beau' would be an entirely appropriate term. It's not like he's said he loves me, even though I care about him greatly. Besides, he's still an incubus; he can look for love and research it, but that's another thing I don't know about him is if he can genuinely love," she admitted to her friend.

Ciaran snorted lightly. "Maybe you're just not being patient enough. It took me a while to even ask Sophia out and for feelings to develop and deepen. And then a month ago, we were just quietly cuddling in her tree, and she whispered, "I love you" in my ear. I then told her the same thing. He could very well love you, but he may not realize it yet."

His twin scoffed. "Maybe, but perhaps you should save that for an advice column, Ciaran."

In response, he rolled his eyes at her. Neasa sighed faintly and frowned at her sister's seeming disbelief at Tom's intentions.
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Re: A Demon's Honor

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Three shrugged. "I think he's waiting for some kind of epiphany or some sort of mental click. Like love's a switch and you just go 'Oh, snap! I now want to spend the rest of my life with this particular person!', but that's not how these things go."

He picked up a can of cola from the cooler. "What I felt for Carrie isn't what Archie feels for Crystal. It might have the same name, but it's expressed differently. If Carrie were still around and I tried to act all Dapper Dan like Archie does, she'd sock me on the shoulder and tell me to man up," he explained, chuckling. "I think he's not looking at the problem from the right angle," he confessed. "He doesn't need to start loving you, he needs to realize that he loves you."

He took a swig. "I mean, you're the only person he's ever fed from. For all his talk of maybe going out to snatch a hooker or two to fill some sort of primal need, he hasn't done much of that at all. He's expecting you not to be able to fulfill his needs because of what he is, and he's not realizing that you actually are. Plus, all he talks about apart from the usual innuendo-laced compliments is you! He frames it so he sounds all didactic and professorial, like the tutor he's supposed to be, but he's not fooling me," he explained, smiling. "You take two steps forward and manage to yank a volunteering Melmoth through Hell and halfway across town to your summoning circle alone and with no ritual elements that he's all Oooh and Aaaah and swelling with pride so much you'd think it''ll leak out of his nostrils!"

Aidan shrugged. "Plus, we've gotten to know your post-night-out faces. It used to be the bedroom eyes were one-sided. Now you're reciprocating. Unless he's a champ at making bad romantic evenings or terrible foreplay seem like passable attempts at romance, I'd say you're both getting something out of it."

Drake parted his arms a bit. "If it's consensual, you both enjoy it and it's a repeat performance that's practically scheduled on your smartphones, then how is it not love? You both have an artistic mindset, you're sensitive and he's so sensitive light switches turn him on - that, and Tom feels like the last person who's ever going to manage cold and disillusioned sex."

Bucky scratched his outie, the light scraping sound somehow feeling like an attempt at an interjection. "There's other things to a relationship than sex, Drake. You two ever get some quiet time, Ais? Like, he's sated, he's happy with lettin' you catch up while also workin' on his own stuff? I mean, ask Neasa, but we don't do the whole 'I'm so crazy about you I could eat you up alive' thing. Just - a whole lotta pleasant nothin', then the three little words come out. I say 'em, she melts, she says 'em back, I melt somewhere inside all this metal, and we just bask in that."

Three canted his head in allowance. "Yeah, but you're rounding out to what I just said. Love doesn't express itself in the same way for everyone. Archie somehow manages to make calling Crystal Mrs. Lowell in full view of the public feel like it's some sort of secret lovers' nickname. Booboo, honeybear, Mrs. Lowell... It all took us a week to realize he hadn't gone back to being frigid and professional, Crystal even had to tell me to back off, after I mistakenly thought that he was being cold towards her and confronted him on that. Turns out he only pulls out the C-name on her here in front of us, or alone with her. Anywhere else? Mrs. Lowell."

Bucky gestured vaguely as he turned a page. "Well, he's a Victorian Englishman. What'd you expect? Him suddenly calling her his BAE? Even just using sweetheart in front of us took everything he had!"

Still, the conversation left Three curious. "What does a selkie call a battlefield-model Japanese Clank, anyway?"

Scoffing amusedly, Shamus closed his book and stuck a forearm under his head, looking to Three while remaining splayed out in the grass. "Lumpy," he confided, which made Aidan smile broadly. "Lumpkins, sometimes, but then I just act annoyed. The suffix makes it seem like I'm some kinda overgrown mechanized Pokémon or something."
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Re: A Demon's Honor

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Neasa snickered. "Can't help it; it's cute and even more adorable when he acts annoyed over it," she admitted.

Aislinn then shrugged. "Yeah, we do. Sometimes he seems happy to just be in my presence, so I suppose it could very well be love. However, Tom's the one that needs to realize it for himself, not all of you doing it for him. So enough with the speculation and let him reach whatever conclusion that suits his feelings," she opined, now pulling out a bottle of water to drink from it.
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