Chapter 293: Language Barrier

Chapter 293: Language Barrier

“Alex?”

“Jadis...”

“Do you understand me?”

“Jadis...”

Jay and Dys both blinked, their brows puckering in a frown. Clearly this new version of Alex had a grasp on who she was, but they were still encountering some communication issues. She decided to try again.

“Can you say anything other than my name?”

Alex tilted its head slightly to one side, its three eyes focused on Jay. Its inhumanly blank expression on an all too human face sent a chill down Jadis’ spines.

“...Yes.”

“Yes? Yes!” Jay grinned, some excitement thrilling through her for a moment. She quickly moderated the volume of her voice, though, since she didn’t want Noll or the others on watch to overhear. “So you can speak?”

“Yes...” Alex repeated, its strange multi-tonal voice also lowered to a volume that mimicked Jay’s. When the demon saw the grin on Jay’s face, its expression morphed into a warm, pleased smile that warred with Alex’s unearthly appearance. “Yes...”

“Okay!” Jay nodded, focusing intently on the transformed demon before her. “You remember the lessons I gave you from before? With the letter blocks?”

“Yes...”

Jay smiled at the response and waited for more. When the silence stretched on with Alex just staring at her and she realized nothing else was forthcoming, her smile dropped and she put a hand on her hip. A new suspicion formed, one which unfortunately made a lot of sense.

“Are you just saying, ‘yes’ to everything I say because you don’t really understand me and are just trying to please me?”

“Yes...” Alex repeated with a blithe smile.

“Great. Perfect,” Jay sighed, a pained look crossing her face.

Of course Alex wouldn’t just instantly know English or whatever fucking language was commonly spoken by everyone on Oros. Jadis had hoped it would be so, since Alex had grasped the meaning of the letter blocks as well as basic commands like “sit” and “stay”. Then there was the fact that demons like the green-eyed shit who had possessed Jana and the wind mage had some level of understanding of speech. Enough to make taunts, anyway.

Or rather, what had Aila once told her about people who were possessed by demons? They could put on a charade, but as soon as any kind of meaningful communication took place, people would immediately know something was wrong. A superficial veneer of understanding, which came more from the demon piloting a stolen body than the demon’s own thoughts.

Looking at Alex now, Jadis wasn’t sure this could be considered possession. The little demonling hadn’t infested Eike like the green-eyed demon and the wind mage, or like the other demon had tried to do with the dragon Vetregin. This new Alex was a transformation that involved the melding of Eike’s body into an inhuman one. While not anywhere near as disturbing, the demons that Jadis was most reminded of were the Burning Rancor and the Wailing Grudge greater demons. Was that Alex now? Had the once small squiggle of a demon somehow transformed into a greater demon?

Looking over Alex again, Jadis noticed with a start that its expression had turned upset. The demon looked... sad. Anxious, even. Definitely displeased. The body language wasn’t right, not at all, but the facial expression was an almost exaggerated mirror of... well, her own unhappiness.

That was right. Alex wasn’t stupid. Jadis had known for a long time now that the demon was capable of only a basic understanding of words, but more pointedly Alex seemed to understand action and emotion better. Alex had known when she was upset and had done what it thought would please her. It had seen Aila injured and had tried to help her. It had known Sabina was under attack, so it had defended her. Alex probably didn’t understand the words or the context, but the demon did at least have some grasp of the emotions and the intent.

Hadn’t the newly changed demon just groped her in the dark tent in a very explicitly sexual way? Clearly, Alex had some idea that Jadis plus Tent equaled Sex.

No, Alex wasn’t without comprehension. They just weren’t speaking the same language yet, not completely.

“Alex,” Jay pointed at the demon, making her intent as clear as she could through tone, body language, and her vocal inflection. “Alex.”

At the demon’s utterly blank look, Jay did her best impression of the bubbly smith, pretending to tinker with invisible items and moving in an exaggeratedly animated way.

“Sabina...” Alex intoned, its pronunciation strained, as though it had never spoken the word before. Probably it hadn’t.

Alex then repeated Jay’s movements in a near perfect imitation. At the end, it motioned towards the wagon and smiled brightly.

That could be interpreted in a lot of different ways, but Jadis chose to see the demon’s movements as Alex recognizing who Sabina was and being happy or pleased that she was alive. Maybe that was pushing it, but she felt like she was going to have to go by faith and assumptions for a while when it came to Alex.

“Eike?” Jay then asked, pointing at Alex.

Putting on a show of making an angry, sneering face, she pretended to slash the air, then continued to point at the body she knew once belonged to the blood bitch.

“Eike?” Jay repeated, then pointed at the parts of the demon that were definitely not human. “Alex.”

She switched back and forth a few times, making a distinction between the two and putting as much question in her tone as she could.

Alex frowned, its brow furrowing in obvious displeasure. The demon tapped at its face with one finger, then against its chest. There was no outward sign of emotion after that, but the demon sat there with a blank expression that Jadis was beginning to understand was either its version of contemplation or consternation. Possibly both. Human body language seemed to be entirely performative on the part of the demon, a conscious effort that it otherwise did not follow when distracted.

After a long, silent pause, Alex tapped its chest again while staring intently at Jay.

“Death...”

Now what the fuck was that supposed to mean?

Was that a simple acknowledgement that Alex had killed Eike? Or was it a judgement that Eike had deserved to die for her actions? Or was it a reference to the fact that, as a demon, Alex was a literal avatar of the god of death, Samleos? Maybe it was something more indirect, such as, Eike was dead anyway, so why not use her body?

Jadis wanted to pick apart that single word, but there just wasn’t any more time. At the very least, she felt confident that Alex’s single syllable statement was not a pronouncement that it was death, come to visit wrath up her or any of her companions. As strange and disturbing as the demon was, so far it still hadn’t done anything explicitly or implicitly harmful towards Jadis or her lovers. She was going to give the demon lots of leeway.

However, Jadis couldn’t extend the interrogation any longer. She had to return to her tent before Noll and the others came looking for her and discovered the much-changed demon. She definitely wanted to have a conversation with Aila and the rest of her girls before involving anyone else in the extremely unusual situation. Then she wanted to introduce everyone to Alex and see how that went.

Jadis cringed internally at the thought of how that encounter might go down.

Realizing that she had just left Alex hanging, she put on a smile and reached one hand out to gently pat the demon on the head. At her touch, Alex leaned in towards Jay, her tentacles wrapping around her hand in a familiar and affectionate way.

“Okay. We’ll talk more later, Alex,” Jay said. “For now, we have to sleep.”

Quietly, she instructed the demon to follow her back to the wagon, keeping to outskirts and shadows as well as keeping her two bodies between the demon and the light. They fortunately made it back without confrontation or issue. Sneaking back inside the tent, Jay and Dys helped Alex back into the wagon. The whole time Jadis worried that one of her lovers or Sorcha would wake up, but the long day on the road was an advantage in her favor, as was her greatly increased Agility. No one stirred as Jay crept into the wagon interior.

The crate that Alex led her to was in the back, one of many surrounded by various supplies and Sabina’s crafting materials. Looking inside, Jadis saw that resting on the bottom of the crate were a few scraps of stained cloth that had once been Eike’s clothing, as well as the blood bitch’s scythe. The weapon was... unexpected, but not unwelcome. She wanted to give it to Sabina to analyze later. That would have to wait for the time being, though.

It didn’t take much convincing, just a simple order of “stay” and the demon slipped into the large empty crate at the back of the wagon, curling up inside. Alex even closed the lid with its own tentacles, silently hiding itself in a way that easily convinced Jadis that it was capable of sneaking into the wagon and staying hidden for days on end. Alex’s slithering tentacles made virtually no noise as it moved across the wooden surface.

“Stay,” Jay repeated, softly patting the top of the crate. “Good demon.”

Then, to herself, she shook her head in disbelief.

“How the fuck am I going to bring this up with the others?”