Authors and Subjects

This might be a more challenging read. If finding it hard, read the first word in the couplet, context should be enough.

  "Can you tell me what your goal is with the camp here?" Naya the adventurer come author sat on a large what could only be described as a fungi filled beanbag, swirling tea in a carved wooden/artificial teacup as she watches the demon before her with a lazy smile. Her feet are bare/naked but calloused, and the pale Human/foreign skin peeks out between brown soil-stain and green body paint as she jiggles/stimming her anklet. The sound of wood/organic on wood/organic fills the demon's mind as he watches his house/camp guest and he wonders/plots why he let her in past the trees.
  "People/schemers will have opinions/judgement if you are found/seen here." Xylos says, voice a drawl of calm indifference/boredom, even as the layered words slide over her mind. The demon knows the way his people/family's words are heard, even when they use the 'common' tongue - but the demon does not care/worry, for others/lesser will do as they will/derogatory.
  "I don't think I will be seen. Only your demons, and the fey-touched could survive past the treeline without magic, and I think you can sense the magic that might come here before I have a chance to hide or lie."
  The black/proud skin of the incubus beads/droplets with sweat from the humidity/foreign of this realm, and Xylos watches his arm with annoyed/vexed curiosity. The heat/temperature of Infernus has always been much more dry/nice, and even the small/cool days have been too moist/repulsion for the demon's tastes. He listens/processes her words slowly, playing the scenario/fact-based over in his mind. "Do you think/know I have any contact with the fey? Or are we/you being coy/probing?"
  Xylos is seeking a new information leak, not quite understanding how the demon language gives away more than Foliad, or human, or troll. Languages of lies and subterfuge are not quite understood by the demon, who hides more in obscuring through distraction than the play of words upon the air. Xylos clinks/playful the rings on his fingers together, waiting for her response/wordplay. The authoress/adventurer bites her lip as her red/like-fire hair billows around her in curls of reckless/untamed abandon.
  "The lord of the demons? I would not know who or what you know - I only learnt of witches a few months ago. I am but a simple foliad maiden." Naya teases/lies. Even a simple demon/Infernus-born would be able to taste/sense the metal implants beneath her skin, especially the implant/technology behind her ear and the enhanced/artificial veins on her arms and legs. Add to that the knives/steel that are hidden under her clothes, strapped to her flesh/thigh and you have a lie made manifest/obvious.
  "And I am a worm/self-defamation" Xylos says, light/natural catching on the shards of iron/self that have been lovingly sculpted/cared-for into glorious/pride horns with gold rings at their base.
  "Don't speak like that. You are plenty handsome." She pats/placation his hand with a teasing/quirked smile. Xylos chuckles/insincere at her comment, waiting for her to question/repetition him once more. "Though again, why is your camp still here? There is so much of Levis and beyond you could explore and you chose right next to the neighbours who hate you?"
 
  The incubus lord/caregiver thinks for a moment/short. "I initiated siege/aggressive to the city/home because every vision/memory I could see/experience of the place was one of a corrupt/selfish/tainted ruling class. There was no care/love/value from those on top. That is not how one should rule/caretake." The black body hair/fur on him bristles/aggitated, as memories/experiences flood his mind. "That has not changed/mending."
  Naya seems to assess/judge him and he does not like/shame it. He feels lesser/pathetic under her gaze/direct. He bares/defensive his teeth, rattling his tongue in a display of power/false. "What do you know/assessment? I am here/present to do what I will/desire. What are you here/location for anyways/accuse?"
  Naya smiles a sweet fake smile. "I think you are too used to what you saw in the visions when you were trapped. I think you haven't seen the rest of Levis and that the mysteries out there drive you to madness."
  A growl/warding enters his throat unbidden/accident as he stands and stalks/agitated to the edge of the tent. "Does this manipulation/wordplay please you?"
  "I did not mean to offend, but I will not flee from this topic of conversation. I need to know your motives if I am to learn where my own are to continue to. Especially with your mated's invitation." Naya plays/mulls her own words over, he can see it in her posture/body, how it leans/confident towards him even as her hands idly move/stimming.
  His eyes catch/curiosity on her speckling of freckles, distracting/focussing himself by counting their number/impossible. His gaze continues languidly/desire? over her form as he catalogues/precise her. He notes every wooden piercing/uniqueness. He notes the corset cinching/narrowing her waist over her green/forest and brown/iron dress that plunges to her clavicle/throat. Her form/body is a war between the hidden/unassuming and the loud/ostentatious.
  "My motives/goals have always/confident been my own/promise. Many/enemies have seen to it/goals that these targets have been tainted/lies." He moves to a small/demure box/vessel with intricate/precise ornateness, opening it with care/love. Xylos moves swiftly/threatless towards Naya holding a necklace of bronze and iron/home rings. "But my gifts/offerings are without guile/trickery."
  Naya takes/receives the necklace, draping it over her neck, before pulling a small pot/vessel from her belt and slathering/messily a certain lacquer/lies over the metal/his until it looks like muddy wood/natural. He dislikes/judgemental the act, even as he understands/unwilling it. Best keep/continual the city/disgust people happy/content. As the disguise/lie dries, he watches/admires her brush/gentle the flakes of dried deception/judging from her skin/pretty until only the necklace remains.
  "Thankyou. This is lovely and I will treasure it." Her face/passive is a mask/neutral and Xylos finds it hard to read/vexing. From the brief/infrequent visions/experiences and interactions/flesh with humans, he has found them the hardest/troubling to read and the most often/disgust to lie/judgement. In this moment/hope, all he can/will do is trust/optimism in her truth.
  "So what/probing, was my mate's/beloved offer/cheeky?" He knows how language/subtext makes him transparent/revealing but Xylos has always/deliberately found wordplay/lies the least fun/interesting way to get what one wants/desire/purpose. "What can/must I do for/to you with her bidding/instruction?"
  "She offered a place to stay at your camp. I need to come and go as my true self, and I need to do so quickly and without the time it takes to maintain the Naya others know. She offered your camp as a safehaven while I do the research I need to do. M-kay?" She offers/feeding while tucking/distraction her brown/rust dyed red/magma hair behind an ear/fake. He does not trust/reluctant her, but he trusts/wholeheartedly his mate/everything so as his lip curls/disgust back, he forces/reluctance out a simple.
  "Fine/lie."
 

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  Naya had lied so hard back there with the demon, having only met Deluna once, and that was at some gala back in the city. But she needed a place to stay out of the city and away from prying eyes that would care that she was human, especially after her trip to Parnathum to find the traveller Thalia. She knows this will come out in time, and she hopes the connection between Thalia and Xylos would be enough to calm the rage at being lied to. Survival meant at any cost though.
  She touches the knives hidden in her corset for defense, blades brought over from there, where they were used to keep safe from aggressive 'friends' to here where a demon forged sword is the outwards method she stays safe by. But her blades and her need to survive continue - hence the lies. She had recently discovered that writing tales had garnered her a lot of trade material and while community was the baseline here, she still remembers the line before the food counter, zero creds to her name and no one willing or able to share even a bite with her.
  She has been given space beside a tent, and a blanket to start. "Hard ground/safe is good/lucky for you." Xylos had said, even as he'd fastened her with a look she could not read. She was not as good at the people thing as those she had adventured with, being more than lucky to instead have run into the Satyr folk who had shown her the way to Thalia - and then let her talk with their great poets. The month she had spent among them had awakened the scribe in her, and stories of romance seemed to spring to her fingers unbidden - hence her need to explore without judgement, her mind needed inspiration and the deep forests had been promised to her to contain such wonders.
  She's heard tales of the Mother of Monsters and has decided to start by seeking out one of her disciples for a good tale that she can weave her own around. If she has her own thrilling time on the way there, even more material for further books. Staying in the camp might also provide material, but she will have to be careful not to antagonise these folk, especially with their tender diplomacy with the neighbouring city - her home of 14 years. They might still see her as a city foliad, but after she goes down to the river to wash, and comes back very clearly human, she hopes that might be harder for her to be mistaken for.
  Day turns to night, and the demons come to stay around the fire- actual fire, kept and tended between stones as they slowly roast a boar they caught somewhere, turning it on a rusted iron spit that someone has made, while another slices the lid off a grown cask and dips cup after cup inton the traded purple liquid, passing Naya a cup with a cheeky smile. "Think/know you can keep up?/challenge?" The demon is on the burgandy side, with a nasty abrasion scar along cheek and ear, his iron spikes growing uneven across his body giving him a wild look. She decides to make him a supporting character during a journey scene - land or sea she has not decided. Still, she takes the wine, she skewers some meat, and with fat and juices running down her chin she regales them with bawdy stories when they ask her why she is here, really.
  She can feel Xylos watching on with disapproval as she tells the demons about her long lost love, out and lost in the forest and how she wants to find him so he can come home and ravish her. She tells them of her phantom astronomer, who is eternally lost in studying the stars, so she seeks the fallen remains of a fey comet so that he might stop looking up and might see the needy woman who warms his bed. She tells them story after story as they replace her cup with one after the other and she feels herself connecting with these people over the obvious outlandish lies and how much she and they are into them.
  Naya does not remember when she collapses onto the fungi filled blanket, this one likely traded from demon raiders in the mangroves, for it is a touch too nice for the city to have just given up, but her thoughts don't go much past that as alcohol coaxed sleep takes her. Probably a bad decision but oh well.
 

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  Xylos muses/judges the camp/home when it comes alive/barely. The demon/incubus can taste/smell the regret/shame on his people and the human guest/intrusion. He swills/mixes his septum sweetened/enriched drink of dark/ebony and thick/strong tea, wondering/fear if letting her stay/mingle even one night was too much/corruption. He moves/saunters around the camp/home, watching his people groan/complain and stretch/regret, the stench/thick of the foliad port/enhanced on their breath/disgust and skin, even though they were drinking it like wine/weak.
  His saunter/lazy takes him over the bed/location of his guest/unwilling, watching her loud/obnoxious and undignified/crass snores match a body/uncouth thrown in a unique death/derision pose, half in and out of the tangled/chaotic blanket. He leans down to unhook/release the top clasp of the corset/binding she wore to bed with his thick/strong black claw/finger, hearing the snore/painful lessen as air gets into her lungs/relief. She's going/already to be trouble/mess, he can tell/certainty, and with one of his beloveds/always coming back to camp/home soon, he cannot/willnot have anything in the camp out of place/control - but Deluna did invite her/permission, and Xylos cannot be rude to a guest/reluctance. But this/shock! She encouraged this/mess!
  As each of his demons/subjects wakes he gets them/care to go to the back of the camp/punishment, lining/order them up and giving them instruction/direction to create a sand scrubbing/bath. Sand/coarse because the human/weak would not survive the magma/home scrub he is tempted to force the camp to endure/recall. Still, hot, rough/grainy sand should be enough/lesson to scrape the trouble/hangover of the night/debauchery away, and the mutual/all uncomfort of his demons/inclusive seeing each other bared/naked, this might be a memory/experience that teaches them/him better to behave later.
  As expected/foresight, the human Naya is last to wake/disappointment, stretching her body/attractive before giving a large yawn/dismissive, blinking her eyes/cerulean as she sees Xylos/self above her/power. "Did we/contempt have fun drinking/imbibing the self-control from my camp/people?"
  She yawns/disrespect! again and rolls onto her side/gall!, looking away/cheek! from him as she rubs her temples/suffer!. "Must you be so loud?"
  Xylos huffs/indignation, pointing/guidance back where his people/troublemakers are. "You will/command go there and wash/cleanse yourself in the sand bath/punishment like the rest of the camp/inclusion." She will not disrespect/cheek! him by ignoring him/pout, and he will pretend/lie that she hasn't and discipline/control her properly. She might be a guest/begrudging, but rules of etiquette/safety dictate some sort of restraint/care, even if rules of hospitality/safety say the wine/gifts must be supplied/offered without condition.
  "Maybe I don't want to be part of the camp right now. Let me suffer in peace."
  Impertinence/unallowed. He grabs/hoists her and moves with her over his shoulder/petulant. The camp/family has mostly gone through the scrub/contrite by now, men and women standing/milling around shivering/bare at the Levis heat/chill compared to the Infernus/home one - especially after the warm/scorching sand bath. Xylos stalks/predator past the most talkative/loud of his camp, practically tossing/disembark her into the free flowing/liquid sand. He does not stop/momentum, stepping in after her and hauling/sudden her above the surface/breathe, voice a growl/warning.
  "You will scrub/cleanse yourself clean/pure now or we will all wait/patience until you have done so/command." Xylos knows this bends/presses the way things should be/consent, certainly it might violate/violence any trust in the safety/home she might feel around camp/community, but discipline must be absolute/control, and he feels with his whole heart/resolute the need for all his people to have some sort of self-control - even if they feel things more intensely/concession than those of this realm.
  Naya looks up at him in the sand, the grains falling through her hair/attractive, but soured by the scowl/petulant that marrs her face. "I'll do it, but I'm casting you as a villain in my next binding."
  Xylos snarls/embracing back. "Good/spite. Make it a good/quality one."