The TwiceBorn

Blixen

"Pay for all my sins or save me from drowning."--Lori McKenna

   Blixen pulled himself up short and stared at Alora.

“For you?  You’re not a lowly demon seeking favor with procured souls.  What will you do with her?”

Alora shook her head, not having an answer.  And if she did have an answer, she sorely doubted she’d share it with the likes of Blixen.

Blixen’s already lined forehead crinkled up even more as he glanced at Islinn then back to Alora.  He rocked to and fro as he studied the situation.  A sudden rush of animation came over his features and his beady little red eyes took on a sly glow.

“Oh.  I see.  She has your soul instead.”  He laughed when Alora made no reply.  “Innocence is quite bequiling, isn’t it?  So…alluring.”

Blixen casually inserted one dirt-encrusted talon into his nose and rummaged about.

“So, Alora The Twiceborn, what will you do with this virture once you relieve her of it?”

Alora got up and paced the edge of the crudely drawn circle.  An instant of bewilderment and anger flashed across her expression before a tight smile appeared.  Blixen’s apple face twisted into a wide grin at the flash of emotion.

“I’m not relieving her of anything.  I want…I want to know what it is.”

Blixen lolled backwards merrily and rolled about in the dirt clutching his furry sides as he chuckled.

“Oh…oh…Yzebel always said you were a somber Master to serve but I find you quite amusing.”  Blixen slapped a knee for emphasis as the chuckle turned into a howl of laughter.  Tears steamed in the moonlight as they twisted and curved down his face.

“You and I are nothing but thralls of the night, Alora.”  He stopped and pointed a gleeful finger at her. “Granted I’m just an imp whereas you hold sway but when one pulls aside the trappings, we both serve the Night and we serve it well. Yet you stand there…”

Blixen paused again as he burst into a tinkling laugh that grated across Alora’s nerves like glass.

“…before me and speak of this…yearning…for innocence as though you could sip of it like holy water.  Bathe in it.  And…what? Save yourself from yourself?”

“I don’t have to justify myself to you.” She replied in a sulky tone.  The fact that she was allowing herself to be badgered by a minion had already sunk in and she could feel herself working towards an exquisite rage.

Blixen shook his head mournfully.

“So young, so young.” Blixen commented in a highly theatrical tone of anguish.  “Your inability to see yourself as you really are is innocence within itself, did you know?”

He squatted down companionably on the edge of the circle and his voice took on a more genuine tone of commiseration.

“Recognise yourself for who you are.  You can no more be with her and leave her untouched than I can. You’ll partake of her, possess her, then conquer that part of her that’s so alien to yourself and that’s your attraction.”  He sniffed disparagingly.  “Not this weak-hearted façade you’ve presented me with.”

“Soon you’ll be saying you want to band up with the Sentinels.” He concluded. The thought of this sent him off into more gales of chirping laughter. 

Alora sullenly watched Blixen as he rolled about. She squelched the urge to simply step on him with her boot.  Squash him like the little disease that he was.