Part 1: Demonic dust bunnies
The cleaning of an attic is a job best left to gremlins and elves. But since the Elven suffrage movement at the epoch of Thetis, no self-respecting worker elves took up such simple jobs, it had to be something as grand as cleaning out a mansion or they wouldn’t even consider hearing you out. And gremlins were unpredictable enough that despite their vows of servitude to the wizarding community, the chances that you’d find half your furniture gnawed on was a risk you had to be willing to take in case you employed one. In the end it all boiled down to whether you wanted to spend a hundred cronos on a sparkly house or ten with risking your grandmother’s diadem with fresh bite marks for a clean attic. Adev picked up the cleaning supplies that had been glaring at him since the break of dawn and climbed into the ladder that led to his dusty attic. Vowing to tackle the task all by himself because cleaning in the middle of the day helped him sleep.
The floorboards were carpeted with a layer of dust of the non-magical variety. The cobwebs lined the window panels and shrouded the furniture left behind by his ancestors, claiming their ownership. Rodents scattered away at the sound of his footsteps, making Adev grimace. He’d forgotten his mask again and couldn’t be bothered to climb all the way downstairs to retrieve it from his room, remembering vaguely the family Healer Lo’s words of advice for his dust allergies and immediately dismissing them. He’d be fine because Voltaires weren’t wusses with allergies. Non-magical dirt was too deplorable to cower away from. With that thought he went to work, brooming away.
The cobwebs were a pain to get rid of, sticking to everything in plain sight. “I wish I could just light you all on fire you godforsaken arachnids.” He grumbled, peeling away at the filaments clinging to the fabric of his tunic. The nearest spider scuttled away startling him and for a second he could’ve sworn that it had looked at him with murder in its dark, beady eyes. Malevolent as they were, arachnids kept the other insects away and were holy to the wizarding community and Grandma Aretha had exacted a promise from Adev to never harm one. Now he was sure the vow had been for his benefit than for the eight-legged fiend’s safety.
By midday he’d cleared most of the dust and was ready to start mopping the floor to get rid of the remainder.Starting from the end farthest from the trap door, he swished his mop about, rubbing away at the grime with vigor. These were the times he wished he still lived with his family. His mother Alifa was great at cleansing spells and was known for having cleansed the plagued land of Savannah when she’d been barely as old as he was now. It had been in the epoch of Andromeda, considerable eons before his birth into the Voltaire household. While his father specialized in liquidation spells which weren’t as terrifying as they were made out to be. The need to go home warred against his need to fight against the prophecy, making his eyes prick with tears of longing and shame.
Something squeaked in the dark catching Adev by surprise and he released his hold on the mop, stepping back from the area. The low hanging rafters caught the back of his head making sparks of pain throb in his skull. He clutched his head, dropping down as he called out to his mother in pain. While the residual filth rose with the flow of his tunic and he inhaled, lost in the throes of pain.
The sneeze built up at the base of his throat, tickling and begging for release and with the arch of his neck he let go. It echoed in the resounding silence before the ground shook with power throwing Adev off his feet. He crouched back on his knees, dazed and confused as the daylight in the room disappeared winking out like an amber lamp thrusting him into darkness.
A rafter collapsed as thunder crackled in the room, Adev ducked barely missing it by a few inches. He watched as the dark grew swirling like oceanic tides before assembling to a focal point in the floor in front of him then expanding again into an inky black lake the size of a bathtub. Grey sparks flew out from the edges where the ink collided with the white carvings in the wooden floorboards as a creature climbed out of the blackhole on its hands and knees. The lightning crackled a brilliant silver as it bid adieu to the form it had purged before the dark collapsed into itself.
Adev looked up from the chest he’d been hiding behind, pinching himself to check if he was asleep. It could very well be a product of his imagination with all the magic suppressing potions he was usually doused out on. The potions had been a flimsy security blanket he’d crouched behind after running away from home. He was convinced that if he didn’t stake a claim to the complete extent of his powers the prophecy wouldn’t unravel and everything would be fine. He could just be another wizardling and fight normal battles and have a standard life spanning a few epochs and reincarnate into the next world.
“So, I know I’m dazzlingly beautiful and everything but it’d be a shame if the first thing I did after escaping from that hellhole was to blind my saviour.” The creature pouted approaching him with curiosity.
Adev backed away terrified, his mouth agape. Equal parts wonder and disgust clouding his thoughts.
“What are you? A fledgling?” The creature asked coming to a crouch, a few feet away from where he was sprawled ungracefully on his behind, a weak hand thrown across his face.
“You an elf? I doubt this civilization has given that much power to those poor creatures.” The creature mused, tilting its head. It had dark hair that trailed down to its midsection covering its bare body which shone like caramel taffy in the sunlight streaming through the windows with more enthusiasm than before, like Solaris herself was welcoming this creature with open arms.
Adev opened his mouth to respond, offended at being compared to a lower order species only to have an elegant squeak escape.
“Oh my. How adorable. Has my beauty made you lose your voice?” The creature grinned, batting its eyelashes at him. “How romantic.”
“Romantic?” He asked, finally regaining his voice. “What--who are you?”
“Oh. You don’t know who I am?” It pouted, cupping its face. “Get banished for a few eons and mages just forget you forever. Ouch.”
“Banished?”
“Yeah. Didn’t you just summon me? Oh please don’t tell me you just wanted company or something. I devoured the last mage who did that but honestly, he looked at me weird and I was offended. Demons aren’t running a dating hotline, ya know.”
“Demons?” Adev spluttered, backing further away from the creature as dark stories of bloodshed and violence came back to him. The bloody battles from the epoch of Andromeda that had left their orb ridden with plague and dying.The bedtime stories of Grandma Aretha resurfaced in his memories bringing back painful memories from before her reincarnation.
“Do you only speak in single words? Is that a new thing in this civilization? Conversation seems rather painful that way.” The creature frowned. It looked like it could’ve been twenty-three moons old or a million and twenty-three. Eyes a distracting purple, the creature looked nothing like the demons he’d heard of. No bat-like wings sprouting from the back or teeth like sabre-tooths, even its hands looked more wizard-like than demon. No claws or talons.
“Anyway, I’m here and it doesn’t matter why you summoned me. I’m Naraka, pleased to meet you mister--?” It waited for him to speak.
“Adev.” he gasped before blinking out. Falling into the folds of darkness just as the sirens and alarms erupted into chaos in every direction in half a mile radius from his house.
(A/N: This was an idea I had a while ago and I finally decided to work on it. I'm stuck at a dead end in one of my other stories and writing has been hard. This piece marks my first attempt at writing anything remotely fantasy-ish, so lemme know how you feel. Is it nice or should I be running in the opposite direction?)
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