Symmeran Wastes 1

Okay so one, I'm working on this briefly while I wait on feedback for The Captain's Oath, and two, this is a tentative title because I still don't quite know what to title this story. In any case, I saw what Gre7g was doing on his patreon (go check him out if you need another writer to follow), posting everything one scene at a time, and I figured, that's a fun idea, maybe I could try the same thing.

This is basically the first-ish pass on a new Hayven Celestia story, and I don't know how long it's gonna turn out to be. It will not have a fixed update schedule. I'm gonna show it to you serially (I'm not going back to update anything I post unless I really gotta change something), but also I'm willing to entertain ideas on where this story goes once the premise has been sufficiently established.

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Ayrsir pulled back on the reins of the lizard under his legs, and the beast skittered to a halt along the crest of the dune. The long rows of empty clay jugs clattered all around the sides of the animal. The mysa, clinging to its back, had to throw his long tail around some looser ones to keep them from hitting too hard and cracking.

Rohomes, looking more at Ayrsir than where he was driving his own mount, stared at his whiskers with great concern. His large round ears perked up.

“Brother!” He called out, pulling his own lizard to a stop, “What’s the matter?”

“What, don’t you see it?” Ayrsir called back, pointing out along the path of their travel.

Rohomes turned. The dust was heavy, and so his cowl had obscured his face, but Rohomes pulled it back anyhow to get a clearer look at the shape resolving in the wind.

The rectangular structure bore features not unlike the buildings out at the trading post, with squares for windows and a tall entryway for a door. But besides those rough approximations of familiarity, nothing else about it made sense. Jutting appendages and struts that reached out and planted themselves into the ground, and some toward the sky. The deep blue gloss of the roof like an unbelievable wealth of sapphires. A series of thick, black wheels underneath dug into the dirt. Fabrics hanging out to the side, one covering a fenced porch with a furnishing too narrow for reclining. And the whole facade of it was a bright white, as though carved out of fine stone but without the accompanying texture—metal? Some greenery hanging outside, in the windows, and other dangling, colored bits like glass.

Ayrsir pulled back, but they were almost at the well and it was two hours to ride back. He turned and looked back over the whole of the desert they crossed, all the way to the jutting rock of the mountainside they lived underneath, looking like a bare sliver in the distance.

“What is it?” Rohomes asked.

“It appears to be a strange caravan,” Ayrsir said, “At least… I think so. There are no animals at the non-existent reins and it looks far too heavy to pull besides.” Ayrsir had heard stories—or rumors, really—about these houses that moved on their own, but he hadn’t been sure he believed them.

“Maybe the owner took their lizards down to the watering hole,” Rohomes said. “And if we continued down that way we’d come upon them.”

“Yes, perhaps.”

But neither of them moved. They were both silent for a long moment. Ayrsir knew that apprehension that Rohomes was feeling—strangers from the Outside were uncommon in the End Days. Ayrsir himself had barely seen even other mysa outside of the Last Settlements, as those kinds of interactions were not his chief concern—he was not a very skilled trader. It was a very practical, political business to haggle and argue.

But was this even a trader? He’d seen some strange things before in his few encounters with the Outside, but never so showy. That curiosity between his ears quickly rose up before he could tamp it back down again.

He ushered his mount forward again, and the lizard started up, skittering along the sand past Rohomes.

“Wait, maybe we should go back,” Rohomes complained.

“If you wish,” Ayrsir said, “But I’d rather not return with empty paws.” He turned around on his saddle the whole way around, pulling back on the hem of his cowl to look his companion in the eye. “Besides… I’d prefer you to stay with me.”

Rohomes groaned under his breath, but kept his muzzle shut, and he ushered is own steed forward across the dunes.

For a while, Ayrsir had thought they would come upon the structure within mere moments, but it kept growing larger, and larger, until they had come upon the enormous wall before them. It rose up three times bigger than any house either of them had seen before. Arysir’s ears dropped regarding the magnitude of even the entryway door, sealed up with a metal cover.

“Oh… Domour help us,” Rohomes said. “This is the house of a demon. We shouldn’t push our luck, Ayrsir, come on!” He pulled at his lizard’s reins and turned to flee, but stopped again. He turned. Ayrsir was not following.

“Ayrsir!” Rohomes called out. “Brother, we are not messing with any demons—come on! We need to tell the elders!”

“You said it yourself,” Ayrsir said, turning back to Rohomes. “The owner is down at the well. That well may be dead to us if a demon should poison it—we should sneak into its abode and take what we can for repayment.”

Rohomes blinked. “…Ayrsir, that’s ludicrous. The Edicts say—”

“I know what the Edicts say,” Ayrsir said. Which was half-true, but he was reasonably certain. “The demons brought with them structures that cut into the earth and destroyed the sources of life.”

“And what are we going to do with something like that?” Rohomes said. “Brother, demons only destroy. All you’ll find in there is the antithesis of life.”

“Maybe,” Ayrsir said. “But that is at least something.”

“And what if the demon returns?”

Ayrsir dropped from his mount, his paws kicking up dust as he landed. “I will be fast.”

“Brother!” Rohomes snapped, “Brother!”

But Ayrsir's compulsion carried him to the front door, and he looked for a way to unseal it. He pinched his fingers into the crack between the seal and the frame, but could not get it to budge. Then he looked up, and spotted that the occupant left one window open—the seal over its face pushed out on a hinge along its top, and propped open with a steel strut. A narrow opening for a demon, but just enough for someone of Ayrsir’s size.

It was rather far away. Ayrsir grabbed some rope from the back of his mount’s saddle, and affixed to the end a metal hook, normally strong enough to carry back up a mysa or anything else that may have fallen into a well. It would suit his purpose.

Ayrsir swung the rope around in his paws like a sling, until at the precise arc, he released it, tossing it up at the window. It bounced against the outside of the structure, making a flat thudding noise rather than the clashing of metal-on-metal he would have expected. The hook fell back to the ground, and Ayrsir had to avoid it crashing down upon his head.

He was about to try again when Rohomes grabbed him by the arm.

“Brother…”

“I know, I know,” Ayrsir said, “But… I mean…” He sighed. “I just want to see, okay? I know, I’m supposed to be afraid and repulsed and it’s very dangerous, but I at the very least need to know what it looks like. I’m tired of being afraid of shadows.”

“Yeah,” Rohomes said. “You always need something to see and touch before you understand. That’s a failing of yours.”

Ayrsir’s ears flattened out.

“And sticking with you is a failing of mine,” Rohomes said, “So I’m coming with you.”

Ayrsir grinned. This time when he threw the hook to the gap under the window, it bounced off of the inner angle of the seal and flew inside the opening. When Ayrsir and Rohomes pulled, it stuck fast. Ayrsir climbed immediately, kicking his paws off of the house’s wheels that felt softer than he expected.

“Mind you,” Rohomes said, climbing up after, “I am terrified.”

“Oh, I am too,” Ayrsir said. His guts felt twisted up and his heart was hammering in his chest, but something about this was so thrilling, he couldn’t stop. What was on the other side of that window, he wondered? What was in that demons looked like from the inside? It was, of course, a horrible nightmare that Domour’s once lush world had fallen to the End Times because of the demons ruining the world, and yet…

And yet…

Ayrsir pulled himself over the lip of the window, finding a firm ledge to stand on. His eyes adjusted to the shaded interior after being in the sun for so long, and the coolness of the interior, not unlike a deep cavern, struck him first as most notable. He blinked and looked about. Greenery furnished the walls in spots surrounding the glow of the windows. Tables and cabinets lined every wall, leaving only a small portion in the middle where one could stand, and each one a strange color, pale purple with wood trimmings around their edges. Fine cloth wrapped other furnishings, though the long flat area below them the occupant had treated without dignity, messy with rumpled blankets.

It was the coolness of the interior that struck him the most. He pulled his cowl all the way back, letting the air flood the back of his neck. It was like a long refreshing drink of water, though his lips still felt all too dry.

Rohomes grunted as he heaved himself over the ledge, and Ayrsir hurried back to help him up. Rohomes panted, the dust of the desert flaking off him in large clouds.

“Hum,” he said after taking a long moment to inspect the interior. “I can’t say it’s what I expected.” He wrapped his paws around his arms, shivering a little.

“Nor I,” Ayrsir said. “See, this is what I meant. We know nothing specific about demons. The Edicts say little about them.”

“Because they’re evil,” Rohomes said. “They were not spoken for fear of tainting us, which is why this is such a bad idea.”

“Brother, think!” Ayrsir said, climbing down to the surface below. It sank under his paws softly, so softly it was difficult to find his footing—it, too, felt cool. “The elders have said many things about the demons—that they’re from a realm of suffering and fear. Yes?”

“Well, yes,” Rohomes said, standing stiffly at the edge of the counter even as Ayrsir beckoned him down.

“But this place is just a house, isn’t it? What kind of being of suffering and fear would have cool, soft furnishings all around? Or greenery?”

“Greenery indoors,” Rohomes said. “I don’t know. It’s unnatural.”

But he continued on anyway, and they crossed from the soft surface onto a firm one. Ayrsir wondered if the demon had any of the same things as mysa did, and thought there might be a basin for paw washing underneath the stacks of junk littering the countertops. But then he stopped before a dun plate that was as wide as either of the mysa were tall. In the center laid was was clearly a fruit, from its color and the shine of its juice dripping down the exposed pulp where a knife had cut it in half. Besides that, Ayrsir could not identify it.

But his stomach groaned anyway. He hadn’t had fruit in months, not since the last trade ages ago, and he had seen none this fresh or juicy in years.

Drawing his long dagger, he reached over the plate and cut a small piece.

“Ayrsir!” Rohomes pulled his cowl down tight over his face, unwilling to believe what he was seeing. “What are you doing!”

“Just seeing what this is,” he said, sniffing the pulp of the fruit. A suggestion of sweetness hit his nose like a flung stone, and his mouth watered.

“That’s demon food! It may well be poisonous to us!”

“Well, my stomach isn’t reeling back in horror,” Ayrsir said. “To be frank, it smells better than half of what we’ve had to subsist on. Listen, if we can eat this stuff, the demon might have some more around here, and we can take it back instead.”

“That’s not even—”

Then Ayrsir ate it. The pulp burst in his mouth and sticky sweet juice washed down the back of his throat. It carried with it a strange flavor—compelling, enticing, exotic. He sliced off a large piece.

“This is delicious!” He offered it to Rohomes, who held up his paws in defense. “Here, you try a piece, let me know I’m not delusional.”

“You are delusional!” Rohomes said. “I’m not touching that!”

Ayrsir sighed. Rohomes, his ears faltering, tried to back up and explain. “Ayrsir, this is foolishness, we don’t have any idea where that came from. You know full well the sweetest fruit may carry with it pestilence…”

But he trailed off, staring up into Ayrsir’s eyes. Groaning, he snatching the sliver of fruit from his friend’s paw. “Okay, I’ll try it, but only because I’m damned along with you for other reasons.”

Ayrsir grinned again.

“And stop smiling at me like that!” Rohomes protested. “I’d think you were manipulating me with those sad expressions of yours if I didn’t know full well you were sincere.”

He still hesitated, but after a moment and a fully drawn breath, Rohomes took a bite. His eyes lit up.

“What did I tell you!” Ayrsir said. He leaned in to kiss Rohomes on the lips, in part to share some sticky sweet juice that had escaped his lips. But mostly just to reconfirm their mutual sin. Ayrsir’s head spun with the exhilaration of the new experiences so much, so excited was he, he wished to pull Rohomes onto the table and satisfy him carnally.

“Well if we are damned,” Rohomes said, kissing back, “It is a pleasant way to go.”

Suddenly, from behind, the sheets along the soft surface shuddered and moved. Ayrsir jumped back in surprise, brandishing his dagger. Rohomes turned and pulled his blade as well, shoving the reminder of the fruit into his mouth and licking the syrup off his paw.

The sheets fell, and a furred head popped out from underneath. It was familiar, natural-looking, if differently shaped with its dark fur striped all over in patterns. Ears, pointed instead of round. Nose, black. It had a long, long tail much like a mysa, but covered in ringed fur, tipped with white on the end. An array of fabulous gold jewelry glinted in the dim window light, hanging off every tip, including her nipples. Oh yes, so far as Ayrsir could tell, the demon was female, if demons had the same swollen breasts that did a female bearing pups. Though, this creature was so skinny Ayrsir couldn't believe she had ever borne any. But it may not have been female at all, rather some strange, abominable, yet fascinating mixture, a mockery of creation and yet fitting inside of it easily.

Rohomes, shaking, backed up until he stood behind Ayrsir, his arm still outstretched with the wobbling blade at its end. Ayrsir stepped forward—this creature may have been three times his size, but he was not a slacker with a blade should it have attacked.

The creature blinked some wide, intelligent eyes, and looking in their direction, itself jumped and backed away until its back struck the shutters covering a rear window.

“A-ah!” she cried out in a demonic tongue, “Hue, ama sieai!”

“Demon!” Ayrsir said, almost proud that his threatening gesture was enough to do the job, “You will not attack us or our tribe! You will leave us an offering and go in peace, or else you’ll suffer the wrath of my blade!”

The creature scrambled for something on the enormous bed—a weapon, perhaps? Ayrsir worried. But when she pulled it up, it appeared a shaped scoop made of glass, which she affixed over her eyes.

“Oh my gods,” she said, her words forming sensible speech, “You’re a Symmeran mysa! I didn’t think I’d find any of you still alive! This is amazing!”

Ayrsir blinked, the tip of his blade faltering. It dropped until it clacked against the countertop. “Uh… excuse me?”

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Feedback is appreciated!

EDIT: Oh and, because of patreon structure, consider this a sneak preview. Early story access is normally for $3+ patrons, and potential suggestions when I get to them will be locked to that tier and above.