Darned to Heck

Special Snowflake

I sat at his feet with my head buried in my hands trying to slow the tears that now started, I didn't seem able to stop. I felt betrayed by my own body, and so angry that I had given somebody so much power over me without even realising it.

"I'm sorry Allie." He spoke softly, he hadn't moved since releasing me. But I could feel his eyes on me.

"Shut up." I mumbled, getting to my feet. I brought my thumb to my mouth and bit down hard, wincing as the metallic taste of blood hit my tongue. I stared at him and held my hand a few centimetres above the rock. He looked back at me in silent understanding and I pushed my hand deep into the wall, the rock flowing smoothly over my skin. I noticed that each time I made the connection with the rock it became easier, there was no longer a question in its mind of what I wanted from it as our understanding of each other grew deeper. I spread my fingers inside the wall and my command rippled out wordlessly from them, the rock liquefied in waves, spreading out like a drop of dye in water, releasing Asmodeus's arm from its unrelenting grip.

I walked back over to the few documents that had somehow managed to stay on the desk after the night before and pulled a chair up to them. I sat down and pooled the remaining resources in front of me. Asmodeus was keeping his distance like I was a cornered lioness, I didn't blame him, the thoughts swirling around in my head weren't particularly friendly.

"Are you going help me or not?" I questioned impatiently after a few minutes of failing to read the demon scripts.

I heard his quiet sigh of relief and felt him come up behind me, putting on a shirt and pants as he did so.

"I didn't really get very far with it before you miraculously appeared, I think what would be most helpful would be for you to answer some of my questions, and I yours."

"Ok, shoot."

"How is it that you discovered your power?" he sat on the desk next to me and picked up an unmarked piece of parchment and a quill.

"I kicked a rock back at that Hollow place, I picked it up to throw it, and the rock kind of, spoke to me I guess."

"What? You can control the rocks at the Hollow?" There was surprise in his voice followed by the hurried scratching of the quill on the parchment.

"...why?"

"The rocks at the Hollow are sent there to be processed because they cannot be commanded to perform a task. They are supposed to be non-responsive. What exactly did you do with it?"

"It's my turn to ask a question."

Asmodeus nodded and continued to scribble; he'd already seen what I did with it in my head when he asked.

"Why were you stuck in the wall, you can do all the stuff with the rocks too right?"

"Do you know the principles upon which a demon can command the rock?"

I remembered the conversation I'd had with Accuis and Taureel and nodded.

"I have the authorisation to command most everything in this world, much more so than 90% of the demons here, one thing I cannot change however is something called a fixed structure."

I leant forward a little and rested my head in my arms on the desk with my face towards him.

"Fixed structure?" I asked

"A fixed structure is one that cannot be changed. Mostly for practical reasons, the structurally important rock of all buildings is fixed with a permanent enchantment that makes it unresponsive to change. A sheet of responsive rock can then be layered over the top of the fixed rock like muscle over bones, allowing me to do this." He looked over to a spot on the floor and held his hand out, silently commanding the rock to gather and blob up to his hand like an emo lava lamp.

"It doesn't matter what your rank is, the fixed rock cannot be manipulated, only broken down and removed if a change needs to be made. These broken rocks are what you were processing at the Hollow, which is why I was surprised you could control them at all, let alone to the extent that you did. I was stuck in the wall because you had pushed us past the responsive rock and into the fixed layer."

Huh... just for the record it was an accident, I didn't mean to stick you into the wall.

"I know." He said quietly, a bead of black rock breaking away from the main pool in his hand. Slowly he let the rest of the rock slip between his fingers leaving only the one small drop running over his palm, it stopped dead centre and moulded itself petal by petal, into an impossibly delicate jet black rose. I sat up in awe to stare at it. He placed his other hand over it and closed his eyes, whispering in a strange and beautiful lilting language, the words spilled from his lips like liquid gold and his hands lit up from within with a strangely coloured light in between amber and deep rich red. He opened his hands to reveal the flower, it was no bigger than my thumbnail, and the most perfect thing I had ever seen.

"It's fixed, you are the only one who can change it now."

He held it out to me and I gently picked it from his palm.

"It's beautiful..." I breathed.

He smiled, obviously pleased that this gift went down better than the last one.

"Asmodeus."

"Yes?"

"Why do I have to bleed for the rock to work for me?"

"It doesn't work without blood?" he questioned.

"No, it only responds to me if I'm injured, but it heals me afterward, it always feels bad for taking my blood but it can't work without it."

"How peculiar, I have heard of some demons using blood to make the connection stronger, and increase their power over it, but it is an unusual practice, particularly because trying to summon something above your authorisation rarely if ever works and is also punished rather severely."

He took my previously injured hand and looked it over, smoothing his fingers over the unmarked skin where the cut and more recent bite mark had once been.

"There is a class of demons that I was looking into..." he put my hand down and began searching on the floor, picking up a very old book and bringing it back to the desk. "A very powerful and ancient class of demons, so old in fact that they no longer exist. They used the rock to heal
themselves, and had a great deal of power over it. Authorisation and class simply did not apply to them, they existed before it was implemented and did not care when it was. My Father respected that and the different classes coexisted peacefully...it struck me as familiar; you also do not feel the restraints of the class system and can be healed. The books say that it is a very different kind of connection to what I and other demons have, stronger, more profound. They used to speak to the rock and the rock would speak back, the rock was not just a tool to them, but a living breathing being. But you being related to this class? It is beyond impossibility..."

"Soooo, what you're saying is that I'm a super special snowflake?"

He gave me a withering look "...I don't think you understand quite how rare you are, but if I had to equate it to snowflakes I would add at least three more 'supers' and possibly another special to your estimations."

Is that why you're so obsessed with me? ;)

Allie...