Vesper

The first time Vesper met THE DEMON, they were lost in the void, had been for years, and starving to death. They could feel the magic turning thick and stagnant in their veins, slowly choking them at an excruciating rate. It was the first time in their life Vesper had managed to void-jump, though they’d held the ability from birth, and the depths of the void between worlds held no love for them. The experience was terrifying. They were surrounded by a crushing, living Nothingness – an unending, unchanging black that pressed in close and sought the halting of Vesper’s heart. They didn’t know how to escape, but the true factor that allowed the scales to tip in the side of the shadows was that nothing lived and nothing moved. Vesper had nothing to hunt. Vesper had no food. Although they were a lesser-known, less-common type of mara, akin to a succubi but rooted in pure lifeforce – Vesper was still linked intrinsically to the very void they were now trapped in. And it needed them to eat.

Bar that, and the next available lifeforce was Vesper themself. All they could do was move, forward, and search blindly for light.

And then THE DEMON appeared. Looming, large, and older than anything Vesper had ever known, it could’ve ended them immediately. It could have snuffed Vesper out with less effort or thought than what took a twitch of the extremities of its corporeal form. Vesper themself was half-dead and delirious, able to do little more initially than gasp up at it, but soon they had enough self-preservation left to try and claw their weak body away. They did not make it far. Truly, they thought they had arrived upon the site of their deathbed.

But THE DEMON did not end them. It did not spear their soul through with ancient force, or rip Vesper’s own magic right out of them – it did not even try to move closer. It stayed still and calm. And then it offered them a deal. One whose words reverberated through Vesper’s skull as if spoken aloud, and whispered of THE DEMON’s intent, of the power it held which it chose not to display.

And Vesper agreed.

Obligingly, THE DEMON returned them to their plane, and for a long time, Vesper did not hear of it again. They did not even brush up against the void, ever-present and lingering as it was. (They dared not.) They hoped it would be the last they encountered THE DEMON.

The second time THE DEMON entered the stage of Vesper’s life, the mara was attempting to woo the favour of a particularly influential eastern clan: one with incredible connection in the dragon world, not to mention raw academic knowledge. This time, Vesper’s deal was not a matter of hunger or survival (gods knew that living in a highly populated area allowed them to feed without killing anyone – dragons were so full of life, just bursting with it, how did they not explode?). This time, Vesper was trying to secure their own future, a future not as a mara, but as a dragon.

The moment they were accepted into the guild by the clan leader, standing before their new kin, clothed in ceremonial robes and watching their new matriarch turn to them with a smile – THE DEMON decided to make good on their deal for the first time in the decades since its conception. Vesper’s vision went black just as they shook the leader’s claws. They fell unconscious as an accepted dragon, feeling warm and welcomed. They awoke to find the land around them charred and destroyed for leagues – their new clanmates dead and dismembered. Gruesomely.

And a presence, a familiar one, lingering inside of Vesper’s magic and bones… licking its chops in the kind of satisfaction only an immortal can feel after centuries of non-indulgence.

In their rage and grief (one born mainly out of what could have been), Vesper did the only thing they could. They bound THE DEMON to a living form – suppressing its magic and tying it to Vesper forever – to a familiar, of all things. (And, in retrospect (as well as many arguments made by THE DEMON itself), Vesper does suppose this was an act of spite.) One large enough to house THE DEMON’s power without destroying the flesh, but docile enough that Vesper could tie the magical knot good and tight. A midnight lantern.

THE DEMON was enraged, but there was little it could do. Vesper had not tampered with its contract, nor its power; they had not broken the terms of their deal. They had simply given it limitations. A leash.

And so it was forced to remain with Vesper in their plane, away from the void and its brethren. Lurking and trailing behind them, it constantly whispered to them and tugged at their magic for whatever scraps of power and lifeforce they would allow it. It was not all bad, when placated with novelties such as small animals and trinkets. It could even act… fond.

Vesper grew used to it. Their newest clanmates, however, did not.

Really pretty nocturne. Love the colors!