It has been an awfully long weekend. It was kind of embarrassing singing Val that Daemonic lullaby, but it calmed him so well… that is, until he started to freak out again, prompting me to hold him securely in my arms. He seems so mature on the outside, and yet on the inside, he is so frightened. Seeing him calm down slowly in my arms was like holding a small child.

That is, if a child had a job and responsibilities.

“You good, Ke’tlan?” Kam’rin asks me, pulling the tip of a hose from their mouth and exhaling smoke rings. I raise my brows and stare at them with half-lidded eyes as they indulge on this device called a Hu’tka. I think they do it to tease me sometimes, as sometimes they blow out sophisticated shapes. Or maybe they just enjoy indulging in this vice. “Want some?”

“I have mentioned it to you before,” I drone as I look through my phone, “pure-blooded demons cannot indulge in drugs or alcohol, as it messes with our elemental properties.” I gaze back at them. “You were the one talking about the fact that ‘messing with world essences’ can end in imminent disaster. I don’t understand how you’re even able to smoke that much.”

“Human resistances, baby,” Kam’rin laughs heartily. “Remember that we are bastard kin, a hybrid of our natural ancestors and humans, a long, long time ago. Crazy fuckers. You pair up any Daemon that isn’t the same subspecies, and you get precious babies like me: looking a hell of a lot like a human, but with weird body shit going on.” They tap on what I have been assuming were piercings atop their head. “See these? Horn bumps. Have to keep these babies shaved; thank goodness they aren’t full of blood or I’d be forced to explain why my mutant-ass has horns. It’s a blessing that Cambion hardly ever have horns with veins. Unlike you two pure-bloods.”

I look over to the couch, and Satcha is hammering away at this device, similar to my phone… but not quite. A crescent with buttons, I call it; a game controller, Kam’rin said it is. She sits with her back hunched on the couch, staring at the television. Thankfully, I know what those are: they are fairly present in human bars nowadays.

“I can’t read any of the crap on screen, Kam’rin!” she yells, skipping through what looks to be news banner headlines by jamming hard on the controller. “Are you sure this is the best way to learn the language?”

Kam’rin laughs heartily. “If you’re going to jam through the dialogue like that…” they drag on, and then punctuate the sentence with a stern, “no.” The Cambion puts the pipe down on the table and stands up slowly, walking over to Satcha. At the moment, she is donning her pearlescent, inward-hooking horns and lithe, stinger-tipped tail to keep her energy consumption low. Despite buying so many clothes, she’s still wearing the clothes I let her borrow.

Ah well, at least her tail is poking out of the tail hole I have installed on most of my pants, for moments like this.

When they sit next to Satcha, they continue, “see, what I did to learn the language was listen to the dialogue, and read the words as they are being said. Usually, the words spoken line up to the same letter sounds that we use; for this title, they, thankfully, use Daemonic glyphs for in-game flavor text. I also have Daemonic transliteration enabled for you to make it easier.”

Kam’rin pets Satcha in between the horns, causing her to purr a bit: cute. “Either way,” they continue, “take it slow. Daemon are far faster learners than adult humans; we’re about on par with human babies as well. Plus, if you look and listen carefully, there are a bunch of overlaps between the two languages. Pay attention to the repetition and learn from it, Satcha.”

“Got it!” she cheers, and continues with the button-mashing. I get curious about what Satcha is playing, so I put away my phone, walk over to the couch, and sit on the other side of her. As she presses buttons, the Daemon on screen moves through a really ancient-looking farming village. Parts of it seem razed, but besides that and the roaming animals, it’s a pretty standard farming village.

As nothing really extravagant is happening, I analyze who she seems to be controlling: a really tall, buff Daemon with umber skin, large, spiraling horns, a huge puff of red hair held poorly by a headband, pupilless eyes, and a sizable chest. The only thing this Daemon seems to be wearing is a pair of tattered pants and a stained, loose white shirt. I am assuming they are local to this area.

“Who is it that you are controlling?” I ask.

“Her name is A’shtaka, the terrible!” Satcha announces with vigor. “Angry that her village was razed and her family was taken from her, she craves HUMAN BLOOD.”

“Um, Satcha…” Kam’rin speaks up with a furrowed brow. “Your character is actually the chosen one, cursed by the mysterious forces that destroyed your village… Your family was taken from you, yes, but they were possessed and flew away. If you didn’t skip through all of that dialogue, I could have translated it for you…”

Satcha looks up at Kam’rin, a fire raging in her eyes.

Uh oh.

“Let me add more lore to MY game, Kam’rin,” she shouts, “so I can enjoy it in my way.” Satcha pouts intensely and her character continues walking around, swinging her bare fists at anyone she thinks is a threat to her-- which, at the moment, is… basically everyone. Far less sparks than I was expecting, and, judging by the look on Kam’rin’s face, the same goes for them as well.

Whether she intended to be serious or perform wildly in jest, we’ll never know.

An hour passes and we become enveloped in this game. Satcha does her weird rampaging for a long while, but once her... fury settles, she actually takes the game seriously and slowly progresses through its story. Kam’rin and I sit around and assist her with translation whenever it is needed.

After a while, she picks up enough of the on-screen prompts to stay content with herself. That’s when Kam’rin and I head back to the card table and sit down.