Blah Blah Blah: A Demon King's Autobiography, Chapter 1: A Day In The Life
What to say, of old Mansur? The Dark Lord, what a delicious title you humans gave him. He was born in Reqas, to one of your royal families, of pure human blood lamentably, but certainly with a demon’s heart called straight out of Hell. He bathed the continent in blood, and what blood it was! A glorious war, a horrible war, a glorious, horrible war. You must despise him, peace-lovers born with silver spoons in your mouths. I loved him. He led with callousness and intellect, he warred with fervor and grandiosity, and he died standing against the hero chosen by your bastard gods. If I had to have been born as someone but who I am, it would have been Mansur.

But, this is not the story of old Mansur, is it? So why am I beginning there? Because I want you rats to understand, I don’t regret fighting for him in the least bit. Moan, cry, plead for courtesy, for chivalry, for good character, for remorse and ethics. I won’t give them to you. I love life! I love sleeping, I love fucking, I love eating, I love pissing, I love drinking, I love fighting, and by the Lucifenes do I love killing! All of these are parts of life, parts I embrace with glee!

You, who worship at the altars of the Nephines, despise life and love death. Yes, Mansur sacrificed newborns. How many demon babes do you think have died wailing for not having had good enough crests? You want me to cry for a few hundred of his enemies’ young, offered up to one of my gods, when hundreds of thousands died in that war? We saw our chance to claw some better lives for ourselves, and we damn well took it - were our situations reversed, even the most sniveling of your saints would have done the same. Of that, I have no doubt.

That out of the way, let us begin this story properly. I am Alifex, of the lineage of demon princes and royals known as the Ozken clan. Our lineage stretches back to time immemorial, but any demon who goes about claiming he’s great because of his ancestry’s a damned fool. Past a thousand years and change, every one of my ancestors is shared by every other demon, and the same is true the other way around. At birth, I was betrothed to my perfect, beloved mirror, the shadow that walks behind me, the whispering temptress in my ear, Elze. Ah, Elze. I love you so very much, my darling. I would ruin this book writing a thousand pages of sweet nothings, but you’ve heard enough of them so far, even as I can always find new ones to draw forth that smile of yours, the one so rarely seen - the one that comes to your lips when you are happy but no one is hurting. So, forgive me for not speaking in impassioned tones of my love for you now. I am certain my love will come through with every line I spend describing our relationship in the chapters to come.

I was born, of course, in Hell. How shall I describe it? In a word, it is harsh. We know not day nor night. Three red, burning, scalding things like your sun float overhead, irregular in their pace in the sky, but they vanish all together only for one night in a thousand. They are soft on the eyes, so mild I think even one of you could look up at them, but the aching heat they scrape across the surface is ever present. Every plant is painted in crimson rather than verdant; is it not fitting, that our own world offers up blood as its grass and trees?

As to the daily lives of our world’s inhabitants, ah, such rich ones we lived! Easy - certainly not. Wondrous - certainly so. The beasts of Hell supped freely on the overgrowth, grew to tremendous sizes. Monsters, that would be the word you would use to describe them. I would call them, instead, beautiful, noble beasts, which we, demons, the king beasts of hell, brought to heel. The gargantuan maw of the esurient is so vast it could swallow a car in a single, terrible bite, yet those creatures came to do our labors. The malefax are so clever they can pick locks, and we made them our hunting hounds. So many wondrous things did Hell provide us, and all are now lost to me, stranded on this world of yours.

What is the life of a demon prince, then? It is a life of hardship. From the moment I first took breath, I was being sculpted by my elders for a purpose. As a sword is sharpened, so too was I honed. Sweat, tears, blood - I spilled them all, a thousand times, no, more than a thousand. If one were to wring me out six hundred and sixty six times over, let every drop of liquid in me fall into a basin, it would not be one tenth of all I have spilled to become what I am today.

I want to be clear: I have never envied a man for an easy life. I despise you as one despises vermin. There isn’t a hint of jealousy in my heart. But, I shall nevertheless enjoy this world of yours. Joining Mansur was the wisest decision I ever made, because it let me reap the reward of seeing that moon of yours, your pretty Luna’s face, feeling cool night air, viewing a thousand pinpricks of stars… what a wonderful fortune, no?

My education, as all the educations of demon princes, was focused. I was not called upon to attend some classes, to sit with a dozen other mangy youths, our pubescent lusts overtaking our reason and rendering every word of dry history moot. Instead, I was tossed around between experts, each of whom taught me in turn, twisting me as I grew. I was not raised, but molded, sculpted like a marble statue, slowly shaped into my present glory.

I scarcely had time to learn to speak before my tongue was cut out and replaced by an ofidex, which in turn was enchanted, killed, and raised anew, becoming utterly bound to my will, its bewitching charms under my own control. I learned sixteen demon languages fluently before I had sixteen years; learned all the proper court procedures, the factions, the ideals, the names of every god and the proper way to propitiate them. It was my solemn duty to manage demonic society.

The lands of Hell were not made by the Lucifenes for our convenience; when the first demon strode upon its blood red fields, it was already occupied by the great primordials. With the blessing of the Lucifenes, we slaughtered them and seized this land, but their blood still spatters and soaks the soil, their ancient power surviving even after death. The wealth and character of our nations is not determined by our crops, but by which primordial’s blood has soaked into the soil there.

Seven-armed Ishtar once sat astride the mountaintop I would go on pilgrimage to as a youth. Her beautiful eyes and spirited heart were plucked out of her body, which fell and rotted in place, black blood pooling and congealing in an ancient cavern at the base of the mountain, now used as a sacred site. Every century, a young maiden of no older than nineteen is drowned in that blood, and what emerges is Ishtar’s revenant, a mighty sorceress with ten thousand years of magical knowledge, who is treated as a great holy figure until her death, upon which she is condemned once more to that blood.

As it happened, the centennial sacrifice fell when I was sixteen, my sweet Elze twenty-four. I was wed shortly before it, as it was considered more auspicious that I be married than not, given Ishtar's ancient purview of love and war both - I shall begin my story properly here, as the most momentous events of my life begin to happen at that very sacrifice.

How shall I describe my sweet Elze? From the moment of my birth, she knew we would be wed. Some women, perhaps the sniveling sort your world produces with constant regularity, would complain, being betrothed to a baby. Not my darling. If your world produced more ladies of her caliber, perhaps Mansur would have been defeated in the early hours, his mother noting her son’s fratricidal tendencies and strangling him in the cradle. Elze is my muse in ruthlessness; if ever my hand has hesitated when it oughtn’t, there she was to stoke the fires needed to do what must be done.

Of course, unlike the meek schoolgirls you produce, who do nothing but hope for a man to sweep them off their feet and pamper them as a pet, my Elze was only ever looking for a partner, and naturally that means she has herself been cultivated to a level to be worthy of one.

The ancient Fang of Asmodai, supposedly taken from the maw of the god of war himself, has been her companion since birth. Its ancient, holy magic shaped her growth, as it has done for generations of warriors, giving her strength and height. She towers over even I, and she wields it as a weapon worthy of a lady of her caliber. To see her in battle… to my eyes, she dances more sensually than the most well-trained courtesan. I envy those whose last vision is of my lady with the Fang in hand.

Ah, see, I have become distracted. You see, at that great ritual, we were interrupted. Yes, at such a sacred event, some young maiden ready to give her life to give succor to the nation, we were informed of trespasses upon our nation's territory, an army coming directly our way.

Now, hardly any brilliance is required to see that whoever came upon us was not of our own nation, but I suppose that for you ignorant foreigners, one must be clear regarding details. My nation was Ibaal, of which the Ozken clan were but one of eighteen royal clans, all coming together to rule our nation by council and consensus. To our west were the Parathix riders, to our east the kingdom of Sirex, and to the south, the city-state of Murcaime and the kingdom of Daminatiex. (To our north were the fractious Kakas tribesmen, who are a threat to no one but themselves.) The forces came from the south, so our inclination at first was to believe them to be of Murcaime, simply for the religious differences - the Murcaime foolishly worship your own weak gods, rather than the Lucifenes.

But no - the forces came from Daminatiex, as soon became obvious by their size and kind. Daminatiex was a nation ruled by the corrupt and wealthy king Leforias, who kept his people in line with bribes, derived from their own primordial wealth - his army was made of ragamuffins with hardly a hint of professionalism to them, mercenaries gathered from across the world and slave-soldiers from the hinterlands of Hell. Despite the greater numbers he could field, knowing it was his forces brought a sense of ease to my heart. They would not wish to fight, and thus would be quick to flee when pressed.

I participated in the battle, of course. No young prince of Ibaal could simply hide his face beneath his mother's skirts, unlike your own royals - though the Dark Lord Mansur faced off against the hero selected by your gods, the Emperor of Nantonne hid in his capital and commissioned movies. Had the battle happened when I was but twelve, I still would have been pushed out, though not on the front lines - demons live harsh lives, and we cannot afford to be weak. The blooding is an important part of manhood. I had already attended my first battle - a defensive one, fought against raiders and bandits of Parathix - but I felt the familiar thrum of excitement that came with the still-novel thing of war.

Leforias likely believed that he would find us weak, our leadership all in attendance to ritual, and that he could kill and slaughter and steal. But we are demons, and we are Ibaali, and we are never weak. Those who were fit to fight rode off to battle, all as one - and it was a great mass, our royalty and all their retainers together. I fought alongside a dozen soldiers of my father's house, and my father with a hundred.

I will never take credit for something I am not, so I shall say that in truth, I killed only one man in the fighting and only three more in the rout. It was my beloved Elze who truly showed her talents, as she swam among the ruffians that Leforias dared call soldiers, cutting them down as the scythe reaps the wheat. Seeing her simply dance among them, their weapons powerless against her, I felt my heart beat all the faster for my new bride, and all those who saw her were surely envious that she was mine.

Whatever foolishness Leforias had imagined, it was surely undone the moment our forces met his. If anything, his poor choice of date was what doomed him: the whole of the royalty were all together, and we moved as one, ready as we were for our pilgrimage, our time at the ritual, and our long return to our own homes. The sacrifice was not even delayed for the sake of the attack - we left behind those of great import and of infirm bodies, the aged and the wise.

Ishtar is a goddess of war, after all. She would understand, even delight, in our attack south.

Even given his stupidity and feckless nature, we were surprised to find Leforias himself among the men taken captive. He rarely participated in battles himself, nor had his fathers or his father's father - they were cowards who thought themselves wise, for keeping away from the battle. Perhaps, even, they were wise to know their own weak nature, as his capture was greatly to the advantage of Ibaal.

He was kept in chains, not afforded any fineries or luxuries as you might give a captive royal - he received the same treatment as those of his men who still drew breath. We discussed what to do with him. I recall only vaguely the broadest strokes, the many sides and arguments. Some proposed simply taking his head, for his temerity to attack at such a sacred time, but these men were soon talked down from their righteous anger. Others suggested that he be forced to pay a mighty ransom to Ibaal. I, however, proposed a different plan: to force him to wed his daughters and sons to our princes and princesses, to hold them hostage in a foreign land, that he might know that any further aggression would see his children butchered like the dogs that their father was.

My plan was changed in the end, though only modestly. It was suggested that marriage was too good for the children of such a loathsome kingdom, full of such moronic rulers who ruled over such a fat people. In Ibaal - as in the rest of Hell - there is no norm of monogamy, of a man marrying but one women, so this was merely a small political humiliation, not a political consideration. Your sociologists tell me that monogamy makes more stable societies - I say it makes weaker ones. If a man is of truly high quality, should he not have many women, that his children shall be numerous among the next generation? If a woman is of truly high quality, should she not have the highest quality man (or men, as the case may be) breed with her, that she may make the best children, whether he be wed already or not?

As a young prince of one of the major families, with but one woman to my name, I was allotted one of the concubines. Leforias had many wives and many sons, so ultimately it was decided to demand one concubine for each of the eighteen clans, with each clan choosing whether they desired a male or female concubine (so far as I know, all decided female, for the simple reason that Leforias's seed was worth about as much as spit). My dear, sweet Elze, did not complain of the arrangement, not even for a moment. On the contrary, her own fierce intelligence soon began to spin and wonder at what we might accomplish, were we to pick the bride very carefully.

That is precisely what we did, of course. Leforias had many wives, and many children. His wealth had allowed him to buy the women of some of the great nations of the region - Parathix, Hittana, Califex - as if they were common whores. There was even word that he had tried to acquire a wife from Nov, the nation far to the north of us, but such things were hard to speak to the truth or falsity of. Even were some negotiation on the matter to happen, it cannot be said for certain that it was sincere on both sides' parts. What I can say, is that he did not have such a wife, nor such a child.

After much discussion with my dear Elze, I chose to take a granddaughter of the king of Hittana as my concubine. Parathix may have bordered us, but it was precisely for this reason that a relative of the Hittani king was a better choice. He might be persuaded to act against Sirex, but Parathix's two kings could hardly be expected to act against their own interest merely because I had married one of their granddaughters. It was two full months after that battle, before I laid eyes on the concubine I had been promised.

That daughter's name was Vida. She was softer than the Ibaali nobility, of course. The lords of Hittana had last been seen in Ibaal when I was just a babe, aiding in crushing a madman and the fools he had gathered around him, and they showed their strength. It simply speaks to that ancient claim, that the soil makes the crop, that she was soft and gentle rather than hard. She might have fit in among your women, if she had simply been deposited in Albinreich or Talionne. But she was born in Daminatex, and her fool of a father was forced to hand her over to me, to bear my children dutifully.

When we met, she bowed and curtsied, keeping her eyes downcast. "I am pleased to meet you, Prince Alifex," she said, doing her best to seem suitably submissive. As to her heart? At the time, I could hardly have known that. Only a fool believes that they can see another's heart in a few scant hours of meeting them.

"I am pleased to meet you, as well," I said, as I eyed her up. As I said, she was soft. It was clear she would hardly be able to fight, much less be the flower of war that was my Elze. While I may spit venom at you lot, you are my enemies - Vida was my concubine-to-be, and would be bearing my children. I was gentle with her, the ofidex in my mouth serving to sweeten my words. "You are quite beautiful, Vida."

She flushed at that, eyes flicking up to me with some surprise at the compliment. It had come off as genuine, uplifting, thanks to the magic of the ofidex. It implied more than words could express. Behind the veil she wore, covering her mouth, I could see the curves of her lips in a smile. I gently cupped her cheek, feeling it through the thin fabric, and she flinched minutely in surprise, but then submitted to the touch. "Thank you, Alifex. You do me much honor."

The actual formal ceremony of a concubinage is a legalistic affair, rather than a grand, romantic, or political one. It was simply a matter of Vida offering the written consent of her father, in a sealed letter, that declared from this day forward, she would be mine. Perhaps some prurient teen boys among your people would find the situation deeply enticing - a woman forced to become theirs, to take their manhood and receive their seed. For myself, I saw it more as a necessary thing, a political aim, as I did my best to make sure that Vida herself would be happy with me - or perhaps even fall in love. Sweet nothings are called such because they cost one nothing to say.

By the time her concubinage to me was confirmed and witnessed, I had used the chance to ensure she would hang on my every word. An ofidex's magic enhances the power of words, it does not create that power. Nevertheless, for a girl far from home to hear honeyed words from the man she knew she would have to spend the rest of her life with - it took little for the impact to be much. "I do wish for you to be happy with me, Vida, so if you have any troubles in Ibaal, speak to me or Elze." "Don't worry - this is not some Daminatex harem. There is no reason for you to fight with Elze." "Your tail is quite enchanting. I wonder how flexible it is?"

My fingers trailed softly along the thing, and I could see the goosebumps run along her bare skin, feel them beneath the thin fur of the tail. Her blush grew brighter, her head ducking lower. I towered over her, as I guided her to my room in the Ozken family fortress - there, Elze was waiting.

In the units of Reqas, Elze is eight feet and one inch; in those of Talionne, two hundred forty six centimeters. I myself am 6'3", or 190cm; and Vida is but 5'5", or 165cm. As such, Vida did not reach even the bosom of Elze (I myself do not quite reach her shoulders, when we both stand straight), and she looked up at her in awe, swallowing thickly with trepidation.

"Hello," Elze said, wearing a smile. It was not a cruel smile, but a happy one. Glad that things had gone so well, that I now had a concubine that was the granddaughter of the Hittani king. Like myself, she neither knew nor loved Vida - how could she, having only just met her? "I am Elze - I would love to spend more time with you, but I think first, you really must lay with my husband."

"Y-yes, I understand," Vida agreed immediately, swallowing again, bobbing her head. She quietly removed her veil, beginning to strip further and further, revealing more and more pale and creamy flesh. "I heard, ahm, from some of the gossip, from the survivors, of the battle," she said, struggling to get out the words, "that a woman wielding the Fang of Asmodai slaughtered many of them. Was that... you?"

"It was," Elze agreed. "But there is no need to concern yourself with such things. Only with satisfying my husband."

Vida had managed to strip herself bare before me, full breasts rising and falling with every moment, a crimson note to her cheeks. One thing you soft-bellied men of this world often remark upon, and complain about, regarding demons, is our crests. Some simply call them tattoos, though this is not true. They are mystical bindings that protect us from wayward magics common to Hell and strengthen the soul and spirit both, and they do their best work if they are drawn young. Different cultures and different parents leave these markings on different places on the body. Mine was drawn across my back, beneath the shoulderblades; Elze's was drawn upon her chest, just above her breasts; and Vida's was drawn upon her pelvis.

I have to admit to finding a certain visual appeal to the positioning, as I stepped towards my newly-naked concubine. One hand slipped around her waist, pulling her into me, her face pressed against my chest for a moment, then I tilted her head up, meeting her gaze with my own. She swallowed, blushing brighter, her nipples growing hard, and I kissed her. She mewled in surprise at the intensity of feeling. She likely had never been kissed, but, with an ofidex in my mouth, well... it was quite a bit better than most any man of your world could be.

I continued the kiss as I laid her down upon the bed, placing her naked body against it, my tongue exploring every inch of her mouth with a skill, alacrity, and precision, that no ordinary tongue could manage. She shivered as my hands slid along her flanks, making their way up to her supple breasts, caressing the soft flesh there. Her legs gently twisted around me, brushing along my flanks as I let my hand descend down her body, finding my way to her sex.

She was wet, of course. With my tongue in her mouth, she could hardly have been otherwise. My fingers slid along her inner thighs, running around to her wet sex, brushing a couple fingers inside her, and she gasped at the sensation, shivering as I touched her.

It was my wife who actually took my cock out, striding over to the bed and pulling down my pants. "Take her, my love," she whispered into my ear, leaning down over the pair of us as I carried on the long kiss.

I understood her impatience well enough. For Vida, of course, the kiss was plenty good enough to keep her suitably distracted - and for myself, I could at times be too much of a tease even with Elze herself. For Elze, on the other hand, all she was getting to watch was a wriggling Daminatex princess, and that was hardly arousing to her.

I thrust inside Vida a moment later, my cock filling her up in a swift stroke, the girl beneath me squeezing and mewling into my mouth. Her fingers suddenly reached up, running along my back as I began to pump away. At first, her response was ambivalent, pain and pleasure mixing together, but as she became accustomed to my girth, she began to shiver and bounce on my dick pleasantly. I could feel her orgasm approaching, by the way her eager sex gripped my cock, and I broke off the kiss.

Elze liked to watch other women come, as it turned out, and her gaze went right to Vida's flushed cheeks as the girl's mouth opened wide, a wet moan filling the air as she came from my cock. Her pussy squeezed and gripped my length, and despite my youth at the time - I was just sixteen - I had spent much time with my voracious wife, who took the extra effort to make certain that I could last long enough to satisfy her, so I did not come alongside Vida.

On the contrary, I kept going, even through the orgasm, making the girl squeak and jerk in pleasure in the midst of her orgasm, eyes wild with shock at how good it felt, to be fucked in the midst of her own orgasm. She was unable to speak, naturally, but I just focused myself on pumping away, relishing her naked body, one hand teasing her clitoris as the other went to her breast - and I promptly leaned down to suckle at another of her bare tits, my tongue flashing out along the nipple and making her shiver in pleasure. "Ah, ah," she panted out, "it's, ahm," she sputtered, her eyes rolling around, a truly ridiculous look on her face.

"It's so good, isn't it?" Elze offered, and Vida nodded rapidly, agreeing with my wife. Elze's hand gently cupped Vida's cheek. "You're going to have many children for my husband, you understand?" Again, Vida nodded, her cheek growing bright red. "Since I'm blessed by the Fang of Asmodai, I will have a difficult time giving him as many children as he deserves - I've yet to stop bleeding, three months after marriage. I suggested you to him. It's thanks to me that you have him, instead of whatever damned fools live in Daminatex, or whoever else among the Ibaali would have been your husband. So do your duty, and take his seed, and carry his children," she explained.

Despite her cool voice, seeming more like a schoolmarm than anything else, I could see the dancing desire in my wife's eyes, as she looked down at the other woman. We had discussed our fantasies a fair bit, before then, and among hers was to see her husband dominate other women, to help him do so. Not to partake herself - my dear, sweet Elze only has eyes for me - but simply to assist.

"Puh, please, come in me," Vida got out, turning her attention down to me as she spoke, a nervous, jerky smile on her lips, as she did her best to satisfy my wife's entirely reasonable request. "Please, guh, get, me, preg, nant!" She squealed out the last word, coming hard on my cock, and I decided to meet her desires - and more importantly, my wife's. I bottomed out within her, my cock twitching as I found sweet release, spray after spray of hot cum filling her waiting sex. My wife smiled as she watched the scene, gently grasping one of my horns, peeling me off Vida's breast to make me kiss her on the lips.

She moaned softly as our lips met and my tongue invaded her mouth. I could feel the shiver down her spine, the distinctive pant, from a carefully-restrained orgasm on her part. When she broke off the kiss, she was wearing just the cutest smile, looking down at the two of us.

I made love to her next, of course.

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