Asmodeus

Bloodthirst and hallucinations aren't reagents that make the kindest of children. Asmodeus smiles wide at his shivering prey. "No one is coming, blossom," he says, in as gentle a whisper he can make his voice. He stretches his neck and unfolds his wings and takes away the little sky his prey has left.

Dragons have always gone missing. It was never unusual, and what resulted were the toys of a trickster god-- should be toys to Asmodeus. But despite what he knew, he wasn't sure what he felt at first. Sympathy for the bloodless bodies? A shiver of knowing that he could have been it?

He had stared at the dark holes, dripping like oil wept from trees. It wasn't till phantom fingers ran over his own throat that he understood. Empathy.

He forms the cage over his prey and watches it scramble. The fear is thick enough to bask in, to sink his head in and taste, heavy, cloyingly luscious, like rose petals and pennies left in the sun. He opens his jaws to let it flow over his tongue-- oh. It's all cold and getting colder now, and not a whiff of roses left.

Really, if he had it his way, death would be the last thing he'd want.

===

Gold, Asmodeus thinks idly. His siblings, the closest things to him he can think of, wear it. But gold is blood and blood is gold, and the last thing he wants is blood. Nothing else is so familiar.

His dinner pipes up from digestion. He hasn't thought about gold as much as stars recently, he thinks resolutely, stars stars stars. Inevitability? He supposes-- oh, well he knew that. But if that happens it wouldn't matter what he thought anyway.

Asmodeus doesn't want to think about stars. There's no point to thinking about them, things that sit in the sky and never change. It's thinking about stars to think about stars. Asmodeus growls and bangs his head against the ground. Again. He needs to go fix this case of indigestion.

He finds a terrified moth, snared between his claws, and the familiar chills and rebounded wingbeats like breaths of air makes him feel a little better. He wants to hold on to it, he could, if he, if he... a moth cage? A little pod made of twisted twigs that he wore around his neck?

Inevitability, his dinner reminds him again.

He imagines being a moth in a moth cage. Would he keep beating his wings until the twigs rubbed the powder off his wings? He can't imagine a moth still and quiet. Maybe he'd stop to stop rubbing off splinters in every movement.

Oh. Oh! That's it! Asmodeus opens his wings and his claws and the moth flutters free. He flies to where he'd built the embankment, angling his wings to dive in the narrow slot. The dragon, he notes excitedly, is lying in exactly the same spot where it had fell in a few hours ago. Asmodeus rears back and it reacts a little, but not enough to stop him from ramming into the embankment. Two more hits and the construct collapses. "There, blossom," he says to it. "You can fly."

If Asmodeus was counting losses, he might've been offended by the dragon immediately fleeing. Instead he just tastes the new rising note at the back of his throat, all orange flowers and dusted sugar.

===

He meets someone that tastes mostly of ice and emptiness. Normally, boring flavors like those wouldn't interest Asmodeus at all, but there's this... licorice? It's like the subtlety of a wisp fruit, providing a slightest taste amid the cleanness.

He sets a trap for it.

Even now, fallen into a hole as it is, it's still as refreshingly mild. Asmodeus hovers at the entrance, psyching himself up to show himself and turn the flavor noxiously deep.

Still as mild. Still as much nothing. Even with Asmodeus looming over it, his prey is still as emotionless as before.

Hmm.