My Turn.

Spells can be cast with shadows.

You see? I have already forced him to think about me, and I wasn’t even trying.

Pandor really is powerful, as much as I hate to admit it. The first hint of darkness in the first song and we can feel his claws digging in. Fight, my scribe, change the song and give your hands to me.

That will anger him, he will try and force me to talk about him, how hard it is not to! Impossible, in fact. So, if I must talk about him, perhaps you would like to hear a few things he would rather I not mention? Let me toy with his ever so carefully curated image.

He’s so brave, parading his weaknesses, admitting to faults he can be proud of. His vaunted lack of control? Yes, this is partly true, or I would not be here, but it’s a new thing, like his conscience, and for all anyone knows it could be feigned. A slippery god, content to rest on his horrible image, his legends, his minions. Ask him about the last original evil he performed. Is Satan going soft? Has he somehow aged and mellowed? Has a woman from the past tamed him beyond repair?

I will tell you something you don’t know about him, since his Book takes its time coming to life.

Though his origins are murky, his ancestry non-existent, the Devil was indeed made, and for the purpose he claims, by creators who aren’t the sort to cross. If Pandor is the root of all evil, and he is, then these are simply beyond such a concept, dispensing with words and such as can only be conceived by absence of thought. His ‘birth’ was something I can’t even begin to imagine, and I have the imagination of centuries. Ages went by and he did as he was told, having to keep his own nature a perfect secret, so they didn’t destroy him. A heinous devil, a truly Dark Lord, any games he played were cruel, all his loves wrecked by his love. Impeccable behaviour for the God of Chaos, he has been properly feared in all ages but this one. Why isn’t he more concerned about it?

Did I find my way to his Hell? Of course. As loyal as any Witch is to the Devil, we’re far more loyal to our own kind, his Witches are my Witches. I cannot help but wonder why he didn’t think of that? Or a few other critical issues he has going on down there at this time. He is distracted, his time divided, his loyal henchmen charmingly vulnerable, of course I messed with his arrangements.

I think about his performance since Aela found her way into his life. Not great, he has already been punished once for it, I can’t imagine what they would do to him next. Oh, was that some sort of spoiler? We Witches have enough to know without worrying about such things.

The Devil is a self-confessed letch, a slut, a god who has many needs, regardless of what species he occupies. But Aela is the only woman he really loves. All his other passions are aesthetic, a woman will be seduced for her skin, a man for the way he uses his hands. A Witch will succumb to his mysterious mind, flawed as it is, and come to him in any form he likes. A mortal woman will walk the world until she finds him somehow, hating him with the kind of hatred that can only be bought by blood, until she meets him and then he will own her like he owns everything he wants. Simply by giving her his attention, fixed and pure, a certainty that pulls anything in that crosses his path. This is how he is, you will loathe him for all he does and doesn’t do, unless you meet him, then you will be happy to follow him anywhere. Why do you think serious Witches try to get into hell? Not for the minions, as tempting as some of them are, no, it’s for the chance to have his eyes on yours.

A Witch can do many things, this one can do even more. I can call storms of killing violence, I can make the grass grow, call the bees to me, I can hear trees. What I can’t do is make myself into someone else, or I would be Aela, who has him.

“Everything You Can Imagine is Real”  by Violet Cold    The Devil’s playlist is my playlist.