voice; un: stranger

[eightfoldfiend]

(cw: sickness and the frustrated war devil will probably be saying gross, violent things in comments.)


[A guttural wheeze.]

If one more person tells me--

[Sneeze.]

--that I need to calm down and learn to be human I'll burn this whole city to the ground.

[This has been a PSA.]

Comments

[eightfoldfiend]

Bah! Stop trying to trick me.

I need to cool down... Blankets and soup will only make this worse. I'm not a fool.

[serpentinthegarden]

Fine, do the opposite, strip down and go for a swim in that freezing lake. You will only make it worse.

[eightfoldfiend]

[It takes a moment for him to mentally struggle through this.]

...You are trying to tell me that cooling down...to avoid burning up...makes the burning worse?

[serpentinthegarden]

Doesn't make much sense, does it? I always wondered why but... apparently it's ineffable.

[eightfoldfiend]

What? No! It doesn't make sense.

Being cold doesn't make you hot.

[serpentinthegarden]

Its not like you would know if it did. It sounds like this is your first time being human. What were you before?

[eightfoldfiend]

Something else.

[serpentinthegarden]

Right, you're not a conversationalist. Good to know.

Enjoy the cold.

[eightfoldfiend]

I'm not.

[Sniffs.]

But I'm not trying to be evasive either.

Nobody has ever had an adequate term for what I am.

[serpentinthegarden]

I can think of a few.

[ He had a creative imagination. ]

I only asked because you never had a cold before. I can't think of many creatures who could avoid that...

[ Only Angels and Demons really came to mind. ]

[eightfoldfiend]

The humans where I come from refer to me as "devil" or "demon".

[serpentinthegarden]

The humans where I came from never knew I was a demon.

[ Undercover mission! ]

What did you do, burn their town down like you threatened to do here?

[eightfoldfiend]

Yes.

[He sounds proud of himself.]

In fact I may have done that a few times.

[serpentinthegarden]

[ Typical demon. Hastur would have thrilled in those senseless town burnings too.

Crowley did not. ]

Wouldn't recommend trying that here. If you have been taken down by the common cold then you wouldn't stand a chance against a bunch of humans that now have magic of their own.

[eightfoldfiend]

Magic or not, most humans still can't handle being run through by a sword.

[He coughs.]

But I have no intention of bringing the vengeful ire of the population down on my head.

...Unless people do something very stupid like continuously try my patience.

[serpentinthegarden]

Neither would you, now that you are one of them.

[ Hm, a cough. ]

Might look into some lozenges too.

[eightfoldfiend]

My body is like theirs.

I'm not. I'll never be as vulgar as a human.

[Slightly rustling.]

...If you are a demon why do you know so much about this?

[He means being sick.]

[serpentinthegarden]

You're missing out. I enjoy a good vulgar human.

[ They have a certain charm. ]

I've been around humans from the beginning, was one for a century or two on another world, I'm an expert on them by now.

[ He even *gasp* likes them. ]

[eightfoldfiend]

Two hundred years spent as a human sounds like too long.

[serpentinthegarden]

[ He might have exaggerated a bit and it might only have been about fifty years. ]

Does it? Anyway it was so nice we decided to try it again here.