Dormant

23

Be on your guard; stand firm in your faith; be courageous; be strong.
-1 Corinthians 16:13

23

It was a small noise in the brush near him that attracted his attention.

Granted, Alooc had been traveling long enough for centuries to know that not every little sound had a source that was going to attack him. There were always different noises. Of course, every one had a story behind it, a past of influence that would cause them to either walk by, hunt him, or watch carefully from the sidelines as he wandered by. So many sounds with so many stories. Story after story. Tale after tale.

But it had been just a sound.

Alert now, Alooc twitched the blade of grass that he had in his mouth, the yellow end jerking as it lost several seeds. The Demon Lord paused in his stride, calmly reaching up to take the blade of grass from his teeth and twirl it between his fingers as he waited. That was something he didn't have to worry that much about as a Demon Lord. Things came to you the majority of the time. Trouble always seemed to find him.

Studying the lush, dark green foliage before him, Alooc danced the piece of grass between his large, black fingers absentmindedly. His eyes, like two drops of ink in pure white, flickered over the mountainous scene as he rested a hand upon the wide belt that was about his waist. Now he could easily grab the only weapon that he had; it was an axe attached to chains that draped from its hooked position on his belt. The axe head, dent and scraped from age, was sharp after Alooc had literally spent three days dragging a rock along the side of the blade, practicing with it whenever he grew bored of the tedious job. With time, he had became decent at slinging the blade wherever he desired too. However, it was a different story getting used to actually using the weapon whenever he actually needed too. The transition between using hands to fight and an actual weapon unnerved Alooc.

He flicked away the grass that was still in his hand, deciding that the noise didn't have much importance. Turning his head away, he started walking as he gathered his newfound dreadlocks up into a loose ponytail to get them out of his strong face. At first he hadn't been too overjoyed to have the new hairstyle, but it had truthfully grown on him over the past few days. He had met a few humans traveling like him (in the opposite direction) and he couldn't help but to notice how most of them had shorter hair and long hair was kept neat and controlled. The dreadlocks were different here.

There wasn't any noises as he pushed his way through the brush. Strange. But not unwelcome; the animals here made a ton of noises and were constantly annoying Alooc with their squeaks and squeals. After asking the few members of Kingdom of Man that he had seen, he had a guess of where he was. One had said that they were near Radford, Virginia. While the states of the United States of America held no significance to the Demon Lord, he was familiar with the term the Eastern Shore and even the Appalachian Mountains. Traveling east meant that he was leaving the mountains and heading toward the beach.

But knowing where he was didn't help him locate the safe haven that he was supposed to find. Legion had made sure to get him started in the right direction and implant a sort of animalistic sense into him, but Alooc had never been good at reading even his own instincts and turning right or left never caused anything in his gut to feel if he was going the right way. As far as Alooc was concerned, he could be standing on the safe haven and he wouldn't even know.

Another little noise.

Whipping around, Alooc straightened as he caught a glimpse of a shadow moving through some dark vines crawling up a tree. Grasping the chain of his weapon, he growled slightly in warning as he slowly began to approach the spot. No animal he knew of walked on two legs and was easily seven feet tall. Several plants brushed against his bare chest and he ignored them despite how they itched him a little. He had bigger problems.