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When requests to slay demons go on the board, Altare always takes them for himself.
It’s not that he’s worried the others can’t handle them. Well, he’s kinda worried about that. He doesn’t want them to get hurt fighting a demon of all things. It makes his skin itch like he’s responsible, like he could have done something.
So he does! They’re a bunch of chumps anyway, low-tier demons that terrorize travelers and scream at the sight of him. Usually, he just has to give a firm scolding and the demons will scatter.
This demon recognizes him.
It’s a mountainous gargoyle, large wings fanned out into the night sky like a dragon. It has eighteen horns and a beard that drapes down to its knees. It has four eyes, each one slit red and observing him with intelligence that lower-tier demons don’t have.
“You’re far from home.” The demon rumbles.
Altare has been in this business far too long to rise to that bait, “I could say the same about you.” He hefts the sword of light over his shoulder. His job was to slay this demon. It’d pay the guild funds for a whole month. It’s the kind of job that other guilds take twenty members to complete.
Instead, Altare crouches down and starts gathering sticks. It’s hard to find them in the shadow of the mountain demon, but he gathers them into a triangle. His sword is electric magic and vapor. Just a brush of it against the stick lights it in a burning blue fire.
Altare sits down. With a tremendous noise, the demon sits as well, two trees toppling by its boney hips.
“How’s it been?” Altare asks lightly. “You know. Down.”
“Colder.” The demon rumbles. His teeth are jagged, curled over his lips and nearly poking at his nose. “Hellfire has cooled.”
“That happens sometimes.”
“Sometimes.” The demon says. “Not often.”
“Seen any others?” Altare asks. He keeps his voice neutral. The demon sees right through him.
“They’re gone to the earth.” The demon tells him, a moonlit glow casting each of its horns into an ominous silhouette. “Embarking on a different path than brimstone and fire.”
Altare lifts his backpack over his shoulder. He sets it down, his sword clattering to the ground as he digs inside it. He finds the bag of marshmallows at the bottom. It’s pretty amusing to rip the bag open and offer one to the mountain demon. A large claw four times the size of Altare reaches down and daintily plucks it between two of its claws.
“A small gift.” The demon says. “From a small man.”
“Thank you,” Altare says warmly. He spears a marshmallow on a stick and holds it over the fire. The crickets chirping in the woods is the only noise. The demon is still holding the marshmallow.
“Why?” The demon asks.
“It tastes good when it’s roasted.”
“Why be the little man?” The demon asks again. “Why him? You were great, before.”
Altare leans his cheek against his fist, “Am I not great now?”
“You are very small.”
“I like being small.”
The demon hums, a noise that clatters through its chest and vibrates the ground. Altare moves his marshmallow away from the fire, satisfied with the crispy brown color of it. He palms it off, hissing as it burns, and offers it up to the mountain demon. Searing red eyes stare him down.
“You let fire harm you.” The demon says.
“Sometimes,” Altare says softly, “hellfire goes cold because it wants to. Sometimes, it wants to be small. And sometimes, I wanna feel what it’s like to hold a toasty marshmallow.” He smiles wryly. “Is that so bad?”
The mountain demon leans down and plucks the marshmallow from Altare. It holds both the marshmallows up to its face. It opens its ghastly maw, a wave of heat emanating into the air as it flicks the marshmallow down its throat. It kept the untoasted one in its claws.
“It tasted good.” The demon says.
Altare can’t help but grin, “Yeah? Want another?”
“I’ll have another.” The demon says. “I will keep this one for later after you’ve killed me.”
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When he returns to the guild, it’s morning.
His body is running on caffeine and a few cinnamon rolls he’d bought on the way into town. The only problem was the food was really starting to drag him down. He walks sluggishly through the front doors of the guild. Walking was a generous word. He puts his weight against the doors and nearly falls into the main hall.
“Leader!” Hakka’s voice reaches him first, exuberant energy as the tengu is suddenly there, between one blink and another, there’s an exorcist gripping him by the shoulders, “Heyyy, there’s the man of the hour, where have you been?”
“Questing.” Altare yawns. “What’s up? Something happen?”
“Nothing happened. We ordered out for breakfast.” Hakka gestures behind him. Altare glances towards a doorway. There, he can see the candlelit glow of the dining room. There’s a murmur of noise and laughter inside. The colors of his guildmates were blending together. Altare rubs his eyes.
“Wanna join?” Hakka asks.
“I had some breakfast already,” Altare says. “Sorry, I need to get some shut-eye.”
Hakka blinks, but his smile doesn’t dim in the slightest. There’s a softer edge to it as he says, “Hey, you know what? Breakfast in bed. I can do that.”
Altare laughs, “What? Now hold on-”
“You get on to bed mister. I’ve got everything covered.”
“Hakka!”
Altare finds himself being dramatically pushed towards the stairs. Amused, Altare lets himself be shepherded until Hakka leaves him at the threshold of the second floor. Down below, he can hear Hakka shouting. The revelry on the first floor follows him to his room. Wearily, he places his armor and backpack by the door. He has just enough energy to shuck off his shoes before laying face down on his bed. His jacket he worms out of but just enough that he uses it as a makeshift blanket. He didn’t need to use all his energy on getting under the covers. He sighs into his pillows.
His dreams are strange. He’s in bed. Someone is turning out his lights. He tries to raise his head, but a voice is telling him get some sleep, you look like hell and that’s enough incentive to drop back to his pillow and fall back asleep. Warm smells brush his nose. Someone tries to wake him with a gentle shake to his shoulder, but they give up, a laugh in their words but their voice too quiet to make out.
Altare blinks his eyes blearily. Dez has his arms folded on his bed. He’s crouched down and peering at him clinically. There are two others behind him Altare can’t make out.
“-came back from that, caught something?” Dez’s voice is fuzzy in his head.
“Probably.” That’s Vesper. “It’s not a very high fever, thankfully.”
What? Altare thinks that’s the strangest dream yet. As if he could get sick. Could he? Wait, he’s not big anymore. He’s not sinking into a mountain and joining the earth. He’s not fading from the world. He doesn’t have an empire, wings, or an army. Hellfire is not his home. He’s small and his nose is stuffy.
He wakes up and groans.
“Yeah, that’s how I feel.” Bettel says. He’s sitting in a chair by the bed. He’s got a notebook in his lap that he’s messing with. Not in a conventional way. He’s bending the pages and folding them. With scissors, he’s cutting out shapes. “But I’m betting you feel much worse though.”
Altare’s brain is throbbing. He reaches up and massages his temples. He’s surprised to find resistance. He’d been put under the covers at some point. His jacket is gone.
“What?” Altare croaks. The absurdity of falling ill has him staring at Bettel, utterly baffled.
Bettel looks up at him with a frown, “What? You’re sick.”
“I’m sick?” Altare parrots.
“Yeah, you were out for a whole day, man. Must have caught a bug when you went up and-” Bettel sputters, “Wait, we’re mad at you.”
“Mad at me?’
“You took on a guild class quest by yourself. You soloed that shit.”
“Yeah, it was pretty cool.” His usual theatrics when it came to downplaying demon quests wasn’t quite there when his voice sounded like gravel. He winces.
Bettel makes a face, “Okay. Brag about it. That’s cool. You look like a real winner when you’ve got snot hanging out of your nose. That’s gross, by the way.”
“Sorry.” Altare sniffles.
“No, no, keep snotting away.” Bettel refocused on his notebook. “Get it all out, or whatever. We’d rather have you healthy and happy.”
Altare smiles wryly, “Did you wait here to get me good when I woke up?”
“No. No, that’s not my intention.” Bettel sniffs. “Everyone’s out getting medicine and we needed someone to watch over you. Simple.”
“Watch over me?” Altare stares.
Bettel stares back, “Do you want me to look away?”
Altare laughs. He can’t take that type of affection directly to his face. He brings his blankets up to his nose and says, “You wouldn’t have to look at my snotty face.”
“It’s not that snotty. Just rest up.” Bettel says. “We’ll take care of you.”
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Altare dozes. He wakes up with a spectacular bedhead and his face grimy with sleep. He obligingly opens his mouth and takes the thermometer Dez offers him.
“That’s state of the art, right there.” Dez brags, leaning back and crossing his arms. “Bought it myself from the highest establishment I could find.”
“We got it from Wacmart.” Vesper says. He’s unzipping a medicine bag.
“Vesp, don’t make stuff up.”
“We literally got half the store to help us find this.”
“They weren’t doing anything productive.”
Altare laughs hoarsely. When Dez takes the thermometer from him, the tension around his eyes fades. He looks satisfied.
“Alright, good. You’re not dying at least. Now buckle up, it’s time for the disgusting ass mouthwash shit that’ll make you feel better after it makes you feel worse.”
“Thanks, Dez.” Altare smiles.
“Just get better. We were worried.”
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When he’s out of bed, he goes down the stairs after a refreshing shower. It felt like a cleansing. No more sickly grime over him. His nose is still a little plugged up, but he can breathe easily and his head isn’t foggy with illness. He goes down the stairs. He can hear the noise from the dining hall as breakfast rolls warmly over his nose. His stomach rumbles.
Elsewhere, there are ancients that are folding into the earth and leaving this world to become something else. Elsewhere, far below, fires burn frigid with winter. Around the world, the sun rises. It’s another day.
Altares exhales softly and leaves those memories behind. He walks where he belongs, right into a Hakka-shaped hug waiting for him the moment he walks into the dining hall.
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