Blood-Born

Chapter VI - Thunderdome

"A cat uses its paw, while a grizzly will use all five fingers."

- Unknown.

Rubicon's mood remained dark and curdled; annoyed with both lack of progress and the one man who actually had managed to continue his nasty habit of enjoying himself while burrowed irritatingly deep beneath her skin.

Only because she had allowed him to by having taken the official position that she had beneath him.

Cousin Leviticus...

As she made her way through to the outer keep, she mused how her very presence and reputation most affected people when she moved amongst them as they diligently tended to her every task and whim.

It was time for a new spin on her old tools, should the smith finally have made them ready.

Failure of so many to reproduce what she once cherished had long left her convinced that she would never have them again; until she conveniently stumbled upon the demon smith named Cat and his advanced skills as a smith; once a praetor's tool now a priceless asset for her.

She wound her way down through the narrow curved passages while she descended slowly through the inner circles to what most visitors often considered as the fiery surface of hell itself.

The Demon's forge...

Her one and only request before she had accepted the position of Praetor had been for no boundary or other such limitation that might have otherwise found its way ahead of any demand that she would make or conceive.

And as Praetor she had developed quite the imagination over time.

She stopped at the threshold to take in the scent of crisped iron, burnt steel and the reverberated heat of molten lava that assaulted her bare skin to warn her off.

Her mood shifted considerably as she moved through the acrid fog and smoked ash to revel in the power that weapons and armor created here had such potential for.

The huge demon smith faced away from her, hunched over the flow of orange heat as thick muscled arms flexed to compress metal into a twist precise and true, before he laid it aside to cool.

"You need to work on patience, it's considered a virtue." Cat mused in an ever familiar deep basso voice when he turned to face her, dark red skin having faded quickly to that of dark brown that bordered upon black.

Hands clasped behind her, she sighed with a half smile as she admired his work.

"I do not recall having accepted virtue as any part of my rule."

Fortunately, amusement was plain in her words which allowed him some room for humor at her expense.

When he moved to step past her, she admired the raw power in flesh perfectly matched to the armor that he had made to protect them.

She caught herself, arm half extended in curiosity for a caress of exploration and pulled back before he might have noticed and made light of as he had proven extraordinarily capable of with his ever present dark wit.

Black cloth covered two long curved objects that he had retrieved and turned to offer her.

"Never met a Praetor yet ... who'd admit otherwise." He mused, rewarded by her pleasure when she took one of the weapons and pulled off the cloth to reveal his work.

Her reaction reflected that of a child in awe of a wish granted upon her birthday or in this case a two handed blade not entirely unlike those that she had used before her turn and long mourned lost to her afterward.