Azarius spinoff

5

I don't know how I'm supposed to feel when Azarius asks me where he can find a decent dagger in this godforsaken town. First of all, the use of the g word hurt. Second of all, I'm fairly certain he's killed at least one person.

"Should I be telling you that?"

He stares up at me. "I'll ask Darius if you won't help. He's easy enough to scare into doing shit, and he's fairly irresponsible."

They've been talking a bit more than I'm comfortable with. I mean, Darius is bad by Hell's standards, and Azarius is the scariest person I've ever met. Not a good mix.

"What do you even need a dagger for?"

"Self defense. In case somebody decides to come kill me."

"Don't you have magic for that?"

He stares at me. "I don't usually use magic for violence."

"I don't think self defense is supposed to count as violence?"

Azarius shrugs. "Will you help or should I ask Darius?"

I look over to where Darius sits, minding his business reading a book of demon erotica. I am getting tired of his infinite supply of demon erotica piling up in my basement.

"Fine. Darius, we're going on an errand," I tell him.

He glances over at us. "I'm not manning your shop as a wanted man."

"Good, if you even show your face in the public part of my shop I'll kick your ass."

Darius scoffs, but nods. I lead Azarius outside and we start walking through a series of alleyways.

"You aren't going to kill anybody, are you?" I ask.

I'm slightly worried that he's going to choose to stab me or Darius.

"I don't think so. I don't plan to, I just... haven't had a weapon on me in a while and it makes me nervous."

I nod. "Okay. Can I get you to swear an oath not to harm me or Darius?"

"You really think I would?" he asks, seeming offended.

"Well, I don't know anything about your past other than you sounded like some sort of dictator. So I have to be cautious."

Azarius looks away, frowning thoughtfully. "I suppose I can make that oath. But it needs to specify that if one of you harms me first or gives me permission then I'm able to."

"Permission, huh? I suppose that will work, but that also means we should specify that permission can't be given in a situation where our thoughts could be at all altered."

He nods. "You're quite good at deals."

"I know. Alright, we should make it before you get your dagger."

I stop in the middle of the alley, he stops too.

"Repeat after me," I say, repeating the deal. He says it back, and we shake on it. A chain of words in demonic run up both our arms.

He reads it over carefully.

"Alright, good."

"You can read demonic," I observe.

"Well, yeah, I use it for magic."

"Right, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, you mentioned. Just haven't heard you speak it much, so I forgot."

I glance at my arm. I'm not even fluent in the dialect my parents tried to teach me, but I'm pretty sure Azarius knows two seperate dialects conversationally.