(2021-04-09) The Old Demons

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Author:	Saaron
Summary:	Sandy decides to ask his demons (Kupjub, Grimnos and Brynia) about their past.
Rating:	M for Mature 17+

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Mentions of torture, murder

Sandy was pacing up and down his room, mentally preparing himself.

Jocoza and Kenna were right, he had never thought of asking. Did the specific demons he found hurt the people of Azeroth before they joined him? Were all demons here when the Burning Legion attacked? Were some staying in the Twisting Nether? Or did some travel… elsewhere? Where were his friends? Were they killing the Elves? Torturing them?

Jocoza asked “Would you try to make me befriend a Trogg?” and Sandy’s instant reaction was to answer that, yes, he would. If he knew that this precise Trogg never wanted to hurt a gnome and that they became Sandy’s friend, why wouldn’t he introduce his new friend to all of his other friends?

However, if that specific Trogg had tried to hurt Jocoza or any other gnome, no. He wouldn’t even want to befriend them.

Still, he never thought of these demons’ past. Maybe they had hurt these people he cared about, in that Third War? Maybe they hurt their families? Maybe it was the opposite? What if Elohad or Dane had hurt them in battle?
What was he supposed to do if they did?

Sandy gave himself little slaps on the face and took a deep breath. He needed to know. He would have liked it if Kenna could have joined, but she was right. He had to do this alone.

Purple light emanated from his hands as he started drawing sigils in the air while speaking demonic.

The green light of Kupjub’s Fel flames gave a new glow to the room, completely overpowering the yellow glow of the lit candle on Sandy’s desk.

The imp sat down, staring up at Sandy, waiting for something. Anything in exchange for being summoned. He cackled as his summoner handed him some old bones, spider, and wolf meat. Some of the things he picked up during his adventures. Kupjub started jumping around, breaking the bones, burning the flesh, and turning it into ashes. His desire to destroy had been satiated, for now.
He calmed down at Sandy’s questions about his past.

“Why the Hell is that guy asking these questions, now?” he thought.

Of course, Kupjub had come to Azeroth! Countless times! Sometimes willingly, sometimes summoned by orcs, sometimes by other demons. He even met Sandy’s mom in the past! He remembers seeing her, on a battlefield, looking for the casters of the opposing armies. Those that were away from her allies. When she had noticed them, she closed her eyes and started shooting fireballs and arcane missiles in that general direction. It was fun to see her so terribly afraid to know that she had hurt, she had killed. Kupjub even threw his own fireball at one of the orcs when his master’s attention was focused on something else, just to see the funny look on Ekorenine’s face as she opened her eyes and saw that maybe her spell did kill someone! He cackled for such a long time as her face contorted in fear and despair.

Kupjub knew that this wasn’t what he should tell Sandy. He wasn’t naïve. He knew how people worked. He was pretty sure he was a “people”, at some point. He knew that he had a life before, probably not on Azeroth, he sometimes remembered parts of it. His living soul had been given to an Imp Mother, and from that soul, she birthed him and other imps. That creature’s soul was split and there were now a dozen Imps running around in the Twisting Nether, sharing one past life they could barely access. Sandy was one of the best masters he had ever had, he didn’t want him dead as much, at least not as much as the previous one! Indeed, that warlock wasn’t using Kupjub as a tool. He knew that the imp had his own needs and desires, and he thought of those! Under his command, Kupjub will never get to destroy and create chaos as much as he could with his own free will, but at least Sandy thought about the fact that this was what he wanted. Kupjub isn’t just a weapon with him. He liked how that felt.

So to the question “Did you ever come to Azeroth before I summoned you?”, Kupjub paused, looking at the floor for a moment. Then, he raised his head and shook it no, with the most innocent smile on his face.

Sandy sighed in relief, smiling back, and gave him some more things to break.

Grimnos answered negatively as well. Only it wasn’t lying. Before being summoned by Sandy, it knew only of an extremely bright light extinguishing itself, then the Void. An emptiness, with no sounds, no colors, no life, no light. No warmth.

It couldn’t have found a more odd master when it first came to this world. Even though Sandy was well aware that touching a Voidwalker could hurt him, it was still one of the first things he did. He approached his bare hand to pat Grimnos’s head and quickly took it away from the Void creature as he felt the burning cold of its body.

The warlock had learned from his errors, though, and avoided direct skin contact with the creature.

At first, Grimnos didn’t understand what hugs were, or why would any human want to touch it. Then, Sandy started feeding it souls regularly, to keep it with him. Through these, Grimnos started to understand. Even though it had never been to Azeroth, it knew that world. It had lived through it several times. When devouring these souls, it knew of their lives as wolves, spiders, murlocs, boars, as orcs, and humans.

It knew the taste of flying, the savor of running freely in the grass, of the water on your scales or skin, of weaving webs and cloths. It had felt in its mouth the taste of fear, of pain and death, of being raised from the dead, of anger, and of losing everything too. It knew of love and of receiving a friend’s warm embrace.
It was a God, living many lives in an instant, so many that it’d forget many of them. Even with these lost memories, one feeling would linger in its mind forever, and while it may have never truly felt a real hug from Sandy, it knew the warmth it was supposed to receive from it, which was more than enough.

It was a God, living many lives in an instant, and in its very own, it decided to pledge to eternally protect that human.

The final one to be interrogated was Brynia. This was the one Sandy was the most worried about, and he was right because when he asked her about Azeroth, she laughed at the question.

“Oh, you’re serious,” she paused. Then, with a grin, she finally said: “I have seen Kalimdor. That’s all you need to know.”

Millennia ago, a shy, young Highborne named Miarleth was exposed to an overwhelming amount of Fel energies and turned into a Sayaad.

To the previous warlocks that had summoned her and asked her such questions, she told a complete sob story about how she was captured, used, and abused by the Burning Legion, turning her into the demon she was today, a weapon made to hurt. Painting herself as the damsel in distress of her story, that always got them.
“She’s a victim of the Legion,” they’d say. “You just don’t understand her,” they’d add, slowly cutting ties with those they used to love. But it was all right, right? It was the loved ones that actually pushed them away, they were completely blameless!

Then, when these warlocks were all alone with no way back to those they loved, Brynia had all the power necessary to break them. One minute, she was an angel, a poor, manipulated girl looking for redemption and the other she was berating and creating. One minute the victim, the next one the monster. Soon enough, they were the ones obeying all of her orders until she got bored of them, and lead these poor souls to their deaths.

With Sandy, this didn’t even feel necessary. This simpleton was already pushing people away with his “But maybe demons can be nice!” or “They’re my friends, stop insulting my friends!”. She was certain she could tell him her real story and he might still believe there was some good left in her.

She could tell him that she was that Mialeth, that she saw all Highbornes were full of hatred for one another, how they just wanted to be better, stronger, smarter than their neighbors, friends, and families. She could explain how she grew tired of being a pawn for her parents to display the “strength of their lineage”, constantly making her compete against her peers. If she did tell all of this, she would also have to talk about how, for centuries, she thought she could change things, how she tried to make friends. She’d have to express how she loathed the Highbornes and how she despised the other races of Azeroth for never being strong enough to stop them, how she saw the Burning Legion as a deliverance for this world. How she saw these demons working together for a common goal. She saw the Sayaads, and she observed their sisterhood, longing to feel something like this.

And so, one day, after a fit of rage when she had enough, Mialeth, her parents’ blood splattered all around her clothes, went to the Burning Legion and demanded to join them. Finally, she was part of something. She was Brynia, one of the Sisters of Grief. She finally had a real family.

Brynia could tell all of this to Sandy, but she didn’t need to. This time, she just had to sit back and enjoy the fire that he had lit on his own. Her sisters didn’t really understand her plan, why wouldn’t she immediately destroy that weak-minded boy, if she doesn’t think he could commit awful acts? They didn’t get that it was more fun to enjoy the show, to watch this little boy, persuaded that he was doing good, never questioning why he killed those he was told to kill. He just did, and never thought about why.

Her previous masters were either cruel or, they too thought they were saving their world with their huge ego and their hero complex. Sandy… was just doing good deeds, little by little. No search for power to destroy a dangerous threat or to protect those he loved from a great evil. He just wanted to do good things. That was the interesting thing about him, and she was looking forward to seeing where his childish naivete would lead him. More than just scientific interest in the boy’s behavior, Brynia also saw a lot of that old Mialeth in her new summoner, and a part of her deep down, wanted that girl’s optimism to win. Just once.

The succubus sat down at Sandy’s desk, looking at herself in a mirror, brushing her hair, and whispered:
“Yeah, I’ve seen Kalimdor.”