“You’re still hungry?”
Áesta pauses as he slides beneath the cream-colored sheets and emerald green quilt. His equally green eyes gaze disbelievingly down at the already lying Jarl and the priest suddenly realizes the daemon’s full state.
“Are you… in a nightie???”
“One question at a time, ceart?” The disguised daemon wriggles his way into the folds of the bedclothes like a maggot into flesh and purrs quietly as the softness of the sheets envelop him. “Handsy said it were cute.”
“… the nightie?”
“Hn…” Green eyes peer up at Jarl from the cover’s shadows and, yet again, the priest is reminded of a cat—his hungry, oversized, daemonic cat… “‘E is in control o’ me body, remember? T'at includes me dress.”
“So, what: he picks what you wear and you just… wear it?”
“Ye ‘ave no idea hwat he had you do hwen we met, do ye?”
~
“Nat’ral born daemons don’ ‘ave bodies.”
Jarl furrows his brows as he settles into bed beside his daemonic cat. “Natural born?”
What in Hell does that mean?
Áesta giggles at him. “Daemons… (ye humans like dichotomy so:) come in two forms: Natural and Remade. Remade daemons are t’e kind yer prob’bly familiar with—t’e ones that fell from heaven or did bad in life. Natural are hwat I am: daemons t’at were ne’er anyt’ing else; Ah weren’t human nor an angel; jus’ me.”
“… So… You were always a daemon?”
“Remade, as t’e name implies, existed bef’re t’e daemon life. Natural ne’er existed bef’re.”
Jarl slowly nods, mind puzzling over that while eyes puzzle over the contrast of brown skin on cream sheets, “So being a Natural Born Daemon just means you weren’t around before being a daemon—weren’t alive.”
Áesta nods, “Ceart. As such: Ah didn’ ‘ave a body, neither.”
“You didn’t get one when you were born???”
“Me birth weren’t so much a birth as it were… an awareness.” Áesta’s brows furrow now, too, as It thinks about how to properly word Its explanation. “Ah t’ink tha’s t’e best way ta describe it, really: awareness.”
“… As apposed to being alive?”
Áesta nods again. His (orange) green eyes pierce Jarl’s soul in such a way that Jarl now wonders if he has one: souls are life even after death; so, if Áesta wasn’t alive before now…
“Are you… You’re alive now, though… right?”
The creature chortles: “Ah’m physical; not quite t’e same, but it’s close—as close as Natural Borns get.”
~
“Were you ever physical before?”
It seems like a dumb question: Áesta already told him that he’s been summoned and contracted before—even by another priest—but Áesta was also made entirely of shadows when they first met and not physical until Jarl used Manus’ spell to force him into the body the priest is now so [intimately] familiar with. Logically, that should mean Áesta usually appears to summoners in that same shadowy way and usually stays that way.
It should mean that… but then how would he feed if he’s not physical enough to…?
“Ah don’t generally need ta be,” Áesta answers with a shrug. The neckline of his nightie—Manus’ nightie—slips with the movement and slides down his shoulder with a supernatural grace.
It’s enchanting.
The daemon smiles up at him knowingly, “Ah feed off yer emotions, with or without yer touch. In fact: humans tend ta express me feed more hwen t’ey can’t touch me and satiate t’eir wants easily.”
Jarl blushes, embarrassed, and looks away.
“‘Ey, ‘ey~” the daemon croons as he slides closer to Jarl, a too warm hand reaching out to cup his red face. There are no claws on that hand this time—like there had been when they first laid together in Jarl’s bed—and thus no fear of cuts or scrapes or even having his eye poked out. Still: the holy man finds himself feeling the shadow of those one-time-felt talons tickling the hairs on the nape of his neck again and missing them.
How strange.
“T’ere is no shame in feedin’ me.” Áesta nuzzles his face into the pillow beneath him, a calculated movement that exposes more of his neck and shoulder to the ashamed and heated gaze of Shantown’s beloved priest. The bit of dawn’s dim light, which is able to filter through the heavy emerald green curtains behind Áesta, now highlights the curve of the daemon’s collar and the pitch blackness of the smaller creature’s hair.
His smile is so warm…
And inviting…
~
The hand that raises and shakes as it moves doesn’t feel like Jarls even though he knows that it is.
There’s no mistaking that familiar hand: the numerous calluses on his fingertips and the too rough palms from his carpenter days that always shock people during handshakes. That’s all the use they’ve seen, too, when it comes to other people: he doesn’t like TOUCHING anyone.
Until now, that is. (Then again: can Áesta, a daemon, really be considered a person?)
Jarl doesn’t breathe as the hand that is his but can’t be alights on Áesta’s shoulder. It’s smooth and warm—too warm, just like his hand—and delicate like a satin covered feather. It shivers under his tough, cool skin—like flower petals in the rain—delighting in his caress (for that is what this is: a touch filled with… something) that feels completely alien to him.
Completely wrong.
Jarl pulls back, almost violently, in alarm. His fingertips, still burning from their exploration of daemon flesh, curl desperately into his white sleeping shirt—as though scrubbing dirt from his nails or digging for his crucifix (which, of course, is in the pocket of his bright red jacket—which is, of course, in the room’s closet: far away). He stares, wide-eyed, at Áesta, unbelieving and unable to comprehend what he just did.
What he just wanted to do.
The daemon only smiles.
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