When Hagen leaves to take care of an order, Jarl is still shaken.

He gazes unseeingly at his front door after closing it behind his doctor friend and just tries to breathe deeply. But he is disturbed: “Affection is vone of z’e lowest forms of food for daemons. It is pure and z’us unpleasant. For a daemon to view it as an acceptable payment is rare and vhy Manus insisted on you using Áesta for z’is: he is vone of z’e only daemons boz’ capable of and villing to eat affection for somez’ing as big as z’is deal.”

“But what happened?”

“Your disgust towards your own feelings of affection—vhich vere triggered by you z’inking Áesta is cute— created a blockade z’at Áesta could not get past. Z’e result vas him having no choice but to default to desire: somez’ing you vould find just as disgusting—yes—but z’at you vould understand and rationalize better.”

“Understand and rati—NO, I do not!”

“Ja, you do: you understand z’at daemons are sensual and sexual creatures defined by lust and pleasure; z’us, you can rationalize desiring Áesta as an erotic being, but you cannot accept feeling affection for his cuteness.”

It’s moving again.

Jarl exhales slowly, trying to avoid a panic, as he listens to the sounds Áesta makes inside the spare room. They are curious sounds—strange—and make no real sense: the little daemon destroyed all but the bed so why does it sound like he is moving heavy objects in there‽

Confused and a bit alarmed, Jarl quickly makes his way past his study and into the spare room.

What he finds is very surprising.

~

“What is this‽”

Jarl lurches back from the spare room’s doorway, sky blue eyes wide and clouded in revulsion, as a tendril of what can only be called daemonic shadow reaches out for him. In a moment of blind panic, he reaches into his pants pocket and retrieves his holy crucifix before brandishing it against the living darkness.

Áesta hisses in alarm.

The little daemon jumps onto the bed and takes a defensive position in the corner of both it and the room. The living shadows follow it, coalescing around it protectively, while sharp and ever shifting shapes appear in the air as farther deterrents. They’re neon green and shaking just as unstably as the runes from yesterday.

But that instability doesn’t make them any less dangerous.

“hWat is t’at?” Áesta growls out, pointing at the object in Jarl’s hands with the longest edges of its shapes. The priest gripes his holy item tightly while noting that it does, in fact, ward off the still incoming tendrils.

“My crucifix, obviously.”

The daemon makes a disbelieving sound similar to when he was told the human didn’t know how to feed it. “Ye summon a daemon ta do yer biddin’ and t’en brandish a danong crucifix against it‽ And ye call me bad‽” Áesta waves his black-clawed hand almost desperately in a shooing motion, “T’row it away!”

Any remorse that might have been slowly building inside Jarl vanishes at the horrifying command; as if!

“Never.” He grips it tighter almost out of sheer spite, “There’s nothing wrong with me using a holy relic to incentivise your obedience. One might even consider this required: you are, after all, a deceitful daemon.”

“Deceitful‽”

Something about Áesta’s roar takes Jarl aback. It isn’t just laced with insult at Jarl’s jab to its poor character; it’s filled with indignation, too. As though the daemon thinks Jarl is somehow being unfair with his judgment.

“T’is comin’ from t’e guy t’at expects a lengt’y service fer just one meal‽”

Okay: that’s a fair critique. Not that Jarl is ever admitting that, “I asked for one thing!”

“Ye asked fer multiple t’ings, ye deceivin’ brat!”

“Brat‽” Jarl stands up straight, pointing the crucifix wrathfully at the creature hissing defensively on the bed, “I’m a priest!”

The silence that follows his statement is deafening.