The Party on the Green (part two) [locked to demons and their allies]
A consummate gentleman, Elashte waits until the end of a song to turn down the music and take up the microphone. He taps it a few times, smiling as a wave of silence settles over the gathering.
For the last week or so something's been stirring within him, opening like a multifold book, spilling through his body. It feels like it did when he was sixteen: hitherto-unknown doors pulling open in his mind, his body, across his soul. But that first time, his metamorphisis, they had been bashed open rudely and left him crying and screaming for days.
This was different. This was awakening, enlivening--he'd stepped into the world and felt it solidly at hand, hungers and ambitions writhing so close to satiation that it only hurt to contain them.
"Excuse me," he says. "Your attention." It's got that easy sort of grace he's adopted over the years--he's got no need either to request or to command. He simply says, and people agree. "There is something I'd like you all to know."
He raises a hand, just to the level of his eyes. Concentrates. He's a mental południca, and with the powers he's just recently attained....
"You know you've come here in part for my birthday," he says. "I assume a healthy dose of curiosity must have been an equal lure. Before we break out the cakes, I want you all to know why, precisely, this birthday of mine is so important."
He steadies himself. He's been resting up for this, eating right, sharpening his skills--first impressions are important, after all. Especially this one.
"I would like to show you."
He closes his eyes.
His hand fists, and a tremor passes through his body as he broadcasts: a wave of pure Neqa'el power rides hard on a rush of południca talent, flooding the garden with pain and a temporary madness. He makes migraines flash in his guests' minds, makes their optical nerves scream and register too much light and too much colour, bears them to their knees. Even when he lifts the pain he keeps them there with the spectacular auras he's forcing through their eyes, and his voice booms through the sound system and resonates weirdly in disoriented ears.
"It is my three hundred and fiftieth birthday today," he says, at last releasing his hold. If done correctly, that trick of combining powers should have made him formidable in their minds--even compared to other Neqa'el, older and more belligerent than he. Południcas were rare, after all, and this sort of mass-effect broadcast was something they had much more practice with than the average Neqa'el. "And I have survived in this world of Angels and Demon-hunters and Demons of Calisto's ilk. But I am coming to the resolution that surviving is not enough for me."
He looks among the partygoers, among those who are already struggling to their feet, among those who are cowering.
"My apologies. I wanted you to taste my power so you would know in some small measure my ability," he says. "I want you to know me for my capacity. And I want you to know my aims. We demons have skulked in shadows too long, watching like rabbits for the silhouette of wings against the sky. I don't mean to use you--" He smiles. "I don't mean to conscript you, to coerce you. But look around." He indicates the apartments with their windows and their pretty little balconies, the garden with its spread of food, the gathering of demons. "If you believe as I do that this should be our allowance in life, that we should be free to exist, to be self-ruled, then I was right in bringing you here.
"These are my apartments," he says. True, not the ones he lives in--not primarily, at least--but his. "I designed them. I contracted them. I own them. This is a safe place for our kind!" He's in full oration mode now, buoyed by his passions, eyes alight. "If you believe as I do, I welcome you to these apartments. Take them. Inhabit them. And join my cause."
He smiles. It's the kind of smile that belongs to predators, people at the top of their food chains, people who exist to be hunted and bested by no one.
"I will watch over you," he says. "Accept me as your spiritual father." His voice on that is heavy with irony--he's inviting them to share in the joke, the great joke of Demonic superstitions and spiritualities, with him. "Your autonomy, so long as it does not threaten me or this commune, will be assured. You will come and go as you please--conduct your lives as you please. But when Angels come knocking, we stand together--in fear of no one."
The smile widens.
"Think it over," he urges. "And have some cake."
As he says it, the caterers are wheeling out carts with large cakes on them: a terraced white, an orange chiffon and, his own personal joke, an Angel's Food with amaretto and a Devil's Food with Godiva liqueur. As he replaces the microphone, restarts the jazz, and steps into the party once again, Elashte thinks that he must apologize to the chef. Under other circumstances, those cakes would be the centre of attention.
He rather thinks he's given the attendees something else to think about, now.
For the last week or so something's been stirring within him, opening like a multifold book, spilling through his body. It feels like it did when he was sixteen: hitherto-unknown doors pulling open in his mind, his body, across his soul. But that first time, his metamorphisis, they had been bashed open rudely and left him crying and screaming for days.
This was different. This was awakening, enlivening--he'd stepped into the world and felt it solidly at hand, hungers and ambitions writhing so close to satiation that it only hurt to contain them.
"Excuse me," he says. "Your attention." It's got that easy sort of grace he's adopted over the years--he's got no need either to request or to command. He simply says, and people agree. "There is something I'd like you all to know."
He raises a hand, just to the level of his eyes. Concentrates. He's a mental południca, and with the powers he's just recently attained....
"You know you've come here in part for my birthday," he says. "I assume a healthy dose of curiosity must have been an equal lure. Before we break out the cakes, I want you all to know why, precisely, this birthday of mine is so important."
He steadies himself. He's been resting up for this, eating right, sharpening his skills--first impressions are important, after all. Especially this one.
"I would like to show you."
He closes his eyes.
His hand fists, and a tremor passes through his body as he broadcasts: a wave of pure Neqa'el power rides hard on a rush of południca talent, flooding the garden with pain and a temporary madness. He makes migraines flash in his guests' minds, makes their optical nerves scream and register too much light and too much colour, bears them to their knees. Even when he lifts the pain he keeps them there with the spectacular auras he's forcing through their eyes, and his voice booms through the sound system and resonates weirdly in disoriented ears.
"It is my three hundred and fiftieth birthday today," he says, at last releasing his hold. If done correctly, that trick of combining powers should have made him formidable in their minds--even compared to other Neqa'el, older and more belligerent than he. Południcas were rare, after all, and this sort of mass-effect broadcast was something they had much more practice with than the average Neqa'el. "And I have survived in this world of Angels and Demon-hunters and Demons of Calisto's ilk. But I am coming to the resolution that surviving is not enough for me."
He looks among the partygoers, among those who are already struggling to their feet, among those who are cowering.
"My apologies. I wanted you to taste my power so you would know in some small measure my ability," he says. "I want you to know me for my capacity. And I want you to know my aims. We demons have skulked in shadows too long, watching like rabbits for the silhouette of wings against the sky. I don't mean to use you--" He smiles. "I don't mean to conscript you, to coerce you. But look around." He indicates the apartments with their windows and their pretty little balconies, the garden with its spread of food, the gathering of demons. "If you believe as I do that this should be our allowance in life, that we should be free to exist, to be self-ruled, then I was right in bringing you here.
"These are my apartments," he says. True, not the ones he lives in--not primarily, at least--but his. "I designed them. I contracted them. I own them. This is a safe place for our kind!" He's in full oration mode now, buoyed by his passions, eyes alight. "If you believe as I do, I welcome you to these apartments. Take them. Inhabit them. And join my cause."
He smiles. It's the kind of smile that belongs to predators, people at the top of their food chains, people who exist to be hunted and bested by no one.
"I will watch over you," he says. "Accept me as your spiritual father." His voice on that is heavy with irony--he's inviting them to share in the joke, the great joke of Demonic superstitions and spiritualities, with him. "Your autonomy, so long as it does not threaten me or this commune, will be assured. You will come and go as you please--conduct your lives as you please. But when Angels come knocking, we stand together--in fear of no one."
The smile widens.
"Think it over," he urges. "And have some cake."
As he says it, the caterers are wheeling out carts with large cakes on them: a terraced white, an orange chiffon and, his own personal joke, an Angel's Food with amaretto and a Devil's Food with Godiva liqueur. As he replaces the microphone, restarts the jazz, and steps into the party once again, Elashte thinks that he must apologize to the chef. Under other circumstances, those cakes would be the centre of attention.
He rather thinks he's given the attendees something else to think about, now.