24 Chirreb 4385: GHEMPOCH

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

But his right claw isn't the burning claw so it wasn't as bad a sign as it could be which is why I didn't immediately Change Places to somewhere else.

The ghempoch hovered in the air and lifted me off the ground to hold me up to one of his huge eyes. They were probably his best feature: faceted and clear with the green fire of its left foreclaw reflected in them. The rest of him was massive and ugly: his head as big as my whole body, his muzzle black chitin with mandibles at the mouth and grey skin around the eyes and the base of the mandibles, and short fur of mottled reds and yellows framing the face. His voice was a loud, grating buzz: "Tell me where the other primes are, and maybe I will let you live."

"Other primes what primes?" I said, with possibly not my most convincing display of ignorance ever. I prepared to cast Change Places if he did anything to actually hurt me.

The ghempoch lifted his left claw to my face until I could feel the heat from the jagged emerald flames licking over it. "I went back to your village, where so many dozens of you swarmed, like the disgusting breeding cockroaches that you are. The corpses were gone! One of you used Mentador to trick me."

"What do you mean that's not my village?" I babbled.

He growled buzzily, and spun about in the air on his incongruously little bee-wings. "And I suppose that if, say, I pulled apart that -- " he pointed his flaming claw to the beaver dam " -- I wouldn't find a hideous heap of primes lurking underneath it?"

"Nooooooo there aren't any primes in there -- " I started. The ghempoch dived towards it, and I added quickly, "-- just a bunch of norren!"

The ghempoch stopped in the air. His eye on me looked skeptical. "A bunch of what?"

"Norren! Nonprimes that look like Orren in waterform but can't change into humanoid form. Wait you didn't think I was an Orren did you?"

The ghempoch held his burning foreclaw at my side. "Do you honestly expect me to believe you're not?"

"Well why else would I be in waterform when I wasn't in water?" I asked. I was still in waterform because I thought it'd be less conspicuous. Which it is, although in retrospect iridescent purple is not actually inconspicuous pretty much anywhere.

Translucent eyelids flicked lengthwise over the faceted eyes. The ghempoch still didn't look convinced. The heat from his fire was drying out my fur. I willed myself not to turn humanoid.

"And you were just at a prime village does that look like one of their building to you?" I pointed at the mound of flotsam that formed the refugees' hiding place. "And you said someone used Mentador on you that's a norren thing too primes hate Mentador worse than dying."

" ... there was an image of an even larger and more abominable city in the distance, but it vanished before I reached it."

"Illusidor! Primes don't like it much either but norren use it all the time. See totally different!"

The ghempoch snorted out a puff of green smoke. "If this trickster was not prime, why did it act to defend my enemies?"

"Maybe they didn't know you were only mad at primes? What were you doing when they tricked you?"

"Disposing of a pesky overabundance of primes!"

"... see if you were burning down a prime village around me then I might think you didn't particularly care if I was a norren or an Orren and that you were maybe planning on burning me down with it," I tried to explain.

The flickering green flames reflected in the ghempoch's eyes flashed. "Maybe I do not care if you are a norren or an Orren, if you're using magic to trick me."

"It wasn't me! I haven't done anything at all to you! Not even after you grabbed me and threatened me and threatened all my friends and burnt down a prime village which will probably get the primes mad at EVERYONE and maybe you don't care but some of us have to live here!" I lashed my thick tail in frustration.

The ghempoch snorted again but didn't answer. After a moment, he set me down by the riverbank. I dove into the water but didn't submerge. "What are you going to do now?" I asked him.

"Find the primes who escaped me."

"Do you HAVE to because it'd be a lot easier for all of us probably even including you if you just went back to the Verticals and forgot about them?"

A little flock of burning bats circled around his big ugly multicolored head. "I must. It is the purpose the gods put me here for. I've seen with my own eyes that there are too many primes on this World Tree, and I must do my part to lessen their numbers. But my quarrel is not with you, norren. I will leave your home in peace."

I hate when nonprimes are monstrous.