Location: Hell’s Too Nice/HTN | The Outerworld
Time: Again, let’s wing this rn; s’all an Illusion.
Closed for: @fallenariel
There’s familiarity tinged in the air; Halfway’s usually formidable for it, the prominent aroma of carcinogenic cigarettes linger in the atmosphere; hooked in by constant regeneration of exposed tobacco; its heated leaves that burn stains into the ceiling and welcome new patrons as they bypass the sweaty door that thick smoke navigates and escapes from. It’s haphazard in its method, following the scientific laws of diffusion and how it swarms to fill each empty crevasse; spreads white wings of mist to swallow bodies in its choking hold.
Azarius’ lip ticks upwards at its corner, amused by the thought of white wings strangling anything amongst the whitewash of lit straights and how sickening it would be to have something so holy in a place so eaten by sin. The demon knows that there’s no such thing close, for there’s no heavy dampener dragging his shoulders down and threatening to floor him with invisible weights; the same kind that would claw beneath his collar and spill internal fluids down his front to drip to the ground in a pool; there’s nothing holy near, because Azar wouldn’t sit idle at the bar if there was anything screaming power that penetrated his own; Angelics be fucking damned. .
Something dark sits at the base of Azarius’ glass, it’s thick like syrup; glues easily to the side of the cup and where the demon twists his wrist, it’s a slow sludge-like movement from within. There’s a spark prickling fire at the ends of fingertips, heating the heavy substance, it’s deep amber hue lighting a response, loosening its chemical binds and forcibly splitting it to a more drinkable liquid; something the demon can appreciate beyond its natural form; a sap that offers similar properties to even the most potent of alcohols; the illegal kind found only at HTN where Azarius could both trade souls, get a drink and watch barbarity under one roof. Every illicit activity brushed off to the corner of the desolate world, made better by the vices that monsters could partake in; make mortals do what even the most shameless of succubi would; a hell that’s all but a playground for the creatures that chased pandemonium. Every form, crammed to the corner of the known habitable and played out like a game.
And he’s sat on a bar stool, nursing a drink whilst he listens on to the carnage in his vicinity. There’s no wiping the smirk off his face as he hears it play out, puts images to the sounds at his rear and can form close copies in his mind about who might die and who’ll come back to join some lowlife ranks of the lesser creatures.
Because it’s not only smoke that permeates the breathable air; it’s another kind that Azarius has an affinity for; death, in every form. It sits there, shallow in amongst natural infections and laced in the obvious sting of magic as it brushes up against Azar’s own, like a warning that reminds him that he’s not the only apex predator in such confined quarters. Keeps a dagger held against his throat that reminds him to keep wary of his own potential mortality - neutral ground or not, the rules and the proclaimed laws can be too easily bent or broken.
Azarius also has an intolerance for most of the population of the entire realm, so the fact he’s essentially gathered an unannounced semi-circle of space around him is almost like nobody is intoxicated enough to overstep to cross that barrier or even then, the demon’s reputation precedes him.
Until some fucker sits on the empty one next to him and another too familiar prickle washes over the hairs on his arms and encourages the flames beneath the surface of flesh to erupt. But he instead gives the stranger a moment to realise his mistake and uses the glass as a prop to justify the pause in acknowledgement. The clatter of the glass on the barside a few moments later is signal enough that: Times up, cunt, move. A scratch of nails against the glass, a chalkboard effect that has Azarius slowly twisting his head to the other, a flash that’s incited another kind of familiarity in the form of disbelief and confusion. He’s refusing to voice that; neglecting to let his facial features admit to the other than he’d been caught off-guard by it.
But he knows and the only thing that tells him he’s wrong is the way he’s not unceremoniously being deprived of power just for being in the others mans presence; by process of elimination, it didn’t leave all that many options; Azarius recognises power similar to his own, and the guy beside him never before possessed it - not at least when the demon last encountered him. “Long way from home, aren’t you?” he remarks, fingers pausing on the glass to cup it with growing amusement - he could allow the agitation to settle in before he permitted that fire to explode like a shockwave from his being; some things he could temper; it mostly depended on the other’s actions.
And if he got the fuck off that bar stool.
So he can’t help but inquire with some hostility finally breaking through his tone; bitten; a sharpness that cuts through that heavy smoke screen between them: “You didn’t fall on your way in did you?”
