#nemnok

Nemnok screeched in protest and feebly swiped his claws, but he quickly became silent when Edér pulled a suole from his pocket and popped it into the imp's small mouth. For a moment, Nemnok stilled entirely, then he lowered his arms and curled inwards as he began to suckle the coin like a pacifier.

“Aw, that's right, buddy.” Smiling broadly, Edér shifted Nemnok into the crook of his elbow, cradling the creature against his chest while he began to rock his arms. “Who's a good imp? You are, little guy. Yes, you are.” Edér gently scratched the imp's belly and Nemnok's legs kicked in pleasure. “You got the cutest little feet and the cutest little tail. The cutest little tummy, too. I'm gonna bite it,” he cooed, cuddling Nemnok closer as he hunched over. “Yes, I am.”

“How revoltingly saccharine,” Concelhaut sneered. “Were that I still had a stomach myself, so I might express my disgust by vomiting upon the two of you.”

Edér glanced up. “No need to be grumpy, little skull. If you want some attention too, all you gotta do is ask.”

“For whom do you mistake me, you simpering mooncalf?” Concelhaut reared up and glowered down at Edér, the flames in his eye sockets burning brightly. “I am Concelhaut, fool! Greatest archmage to ever grace this miserable planet—and I do not ask. I take what I desire, whenever I desire it, just as I shall take your pathetic life once I have secured a new body!”

“C'mere,” Edér said, reaching for the former lich. “I got a whole other arm here just for you.”

Concelhaut hissed and swerved away from Edér's outstretched hand. “Keep your grubby fingers away from me, you cow-handed oaf! How many times must I tell you that before it penetrates that overgrown cabbage atop your neck?”

“Sure sounds like somebody needs a nap.”

“I do not require a—a nap.” Concelhaut grimaced, as though it had pained him to say the word. “Nor do I require your cuddles or your petting or any of your incessant gibbering, you lumbering, half-witted bespawler.”

Edér carried Nemnok over to one of the straw beds for the ship's numerous animals. Kneeling before it, he gingerly placed the imp into a blanket then carefully swaddled the creature, pressing a kiss to Nemnok's forehead after he finished.

“Look,” he began, glancing at the skull as he straightened. “I'll make a little bed for you too, okay?”

“I do not require a bed, either!” Concelhaut seethed. “Curse this wretched form! If I still had arms, I would smite you into the form of a swine, silence your flapping maw with an apple, and roast you into a succulent, honey-glazed dinner.”

“Well, I always did like a pork chop. My mom served 'em with applesauce on top, roasted potatoes and buttered green beans on the side.” Edér chuckled as he grabbed another blanket and shook it open. “Now you got my mouth watering, thinkin' about it.”

“Of course you would salivate at the thought of consuming yourself, you daft pillock. I wager you would be equally gluttonous if I served up a pan-seared cut of your fishy friend with a slice of lemon and some mashed parsnips.”

“Uh, wait,” Edér said, pausing. “Which fish friend, now?”

“That fribbling, layabout libertine.”

Edér squinted slightly.

“The dawdling dew-dropper, with all his insufferable singing and monkeyshines.”

Edér titled his head to the side, his mouth scrunching into a frown.

“Confound it, you dolt! Ondra's blasted whelp! The shark man! The marine godlike! That one. I can't be bothered to actually remember any of your names.”

“Oh, you mean Tekēhu. Okay, I got it.” Another chuckle rumbled past Edér's lips. “Heh, 'fishy friend.' That's real good. Gonna tell him that later.” He whipped the blanket behind himself, draping it over his shoulder, then paused once more. “Uh—what about him, again?”

A noise of deep displeasure rattled from Concelhaut's mandible and he surged away to resume his pacing.

“Damn this humiliation! Reduced to suffering the vacuous fiddle-faddle of a farmhand. Pah!” He swished back and forth across the hold, grinding his teeth. “Damn that ghastly, meddling busybody. Once more, this is entirely her fault. Damn her and her tedious puns and her consistently overcrowded pack. Who requires that many eggs, anyway? And for what purpose? They are not even hard-boiled for the rigors of travel!”

“Never know when you might want a road omelet.”

“When I regain corporeal form,” Concelhaut continued, ignoring him, “I shall delight in her vivisection. I will slowly dissect that loathsome saucebox, layer by grisly layer, until I hit bone and peel that Watcher's soul free. Then, victorious at last, I shall mount her ridiculous horns in my study as a trophy and a warning.”

“Y'know, I almost got to touch those horns once,” Edér said, as he gathered straw into a pile. “I had my hand and my face buried in her smoke hair—which is real soft and pettable, by the way—and I started to reach for her horns when, suddenly, I just couldn't move anymore. I fell over, and she started to drag me across the ground by my foot. At first, I thought she was tryin' to get me to some help, but then she just left me under this tree with a beehive in it. Few seconds later, an arrow knocked that thing clean off the branch.” He grinned. “I had to go jump in a pond. Couldn't sit down properly for a week after, neither.”

“It does not surprise me that a dullard such as yourself would be easily ensnared by a cipher's parlor trick.” Concelhaut rolled his flames. “Mindhunters,” he huffed in disgust. “What an inappropriately overwrought title for those Glanfathan savages who practice that feral excuse for magic.”

Edér hummed in consideration as he hugged the pile of straw together and shaped it into disc. “Well, I dunno 'bout that. I think it's fun when Serafen goes mindhuntin' and guesses my thoughts.”

“What, precisely, is there to guess?” Concelhaut twisted to face Edér. “You are all field and no crops, farmer! One does not need the proclivities of that mangy, orlan guttersnipe to deduce that obvious fact,” he said, snorting. “And when I have fingers again, I will fashion that hirsute cockalorum into a rug for my washroom, right after I pluck each and every feather from that dour, grumbling bird-woman to stuff my bed pillows.”

Edér fluffed the blanket over the straw bed, then patted the middle.

“All yours, buddy,” he said, flashing his favorite little skull a smile. “It ain't as soft as that rug, or as fancy as that feather pillow, but it should be comfy enough.”

“By the degenerate standards of a Dyrwoodan mongrel, perhaps,” Concelhaut said, scowling at Edér. “Why don't you join your family and all your flea cousins and lie down in it yourself? Or, better yet, do that whimpering, foppish fussbuget a favor and push him into it, face-first preferably.” Concelhaut huffed again. “If that milksop represents what passes for a mage these days in the old empire, then it is no wonder they lost their little war to a bunch of inbred yokels and the pack of illiterate stone-worshippers a hill over.”

Shrugging, Edér sat on the floor by the newly-created bed.

“Guess I'm not as picky as you are when it comes to who's casting, long as they're casting lightning spells, anyway,” he said, leaning back against the wall to rest one of his arms on a bent knee. “Think that might be my favorite type of spell. Well, other'n that piggy one,” he added, grinning. “I've always liked the way you can feel the lightning 'fore it's cast, by the way all your hairs suddenly stand on end. And I like the way the bolts streak across a battle and leave that ghost of themselves behind, haunting the air between everybody for a few seconds. I also like that hot, sharp smell that lingers too. Makes my nose and throat burn a little. It's almost like breathing in a storm, y'know?”

As Edér glanced at him, Concelhaut jerked upright from where he'd tilted to the side, listening. He glared at Edér for a long moment, then abruptly spun away.

“Feh! Like breathing in a storm, you know,” he mocked. “You know nothing, farmer. Your barren mind could scarcely even begin to comprehend the arcane, much less appreciate its full and beautiful glory. You do not know magic. You cannot grasp any of its numerous intricacies. Beyond base superficiality, you will never understand it, not what it truly means, and neither will that long-eared, knock-kneed poltroon! In fact, it offends me that his soft hands are allowed anywhere near a grimoire!”

Concelhaut vibrated in agitation and began pacing so rapidly it almost made Edér dizzy to watch.

“When I am whole once more,” he spat, “I shall grant that pusillanimous mollycoddle the mercy of being adjacent to my wondrous, arcane world, but he will observe it all from a position befitting his mediocrity, one where he may finally contribute something of value to the field by serving his unmistakable superior!”

“Uh, serving how?”

Concelhaut shot across the room and stopped short of slamming right into Edér's face. Shadows danced over his rictus grin while his eyes flickered with malicious glee.

“I shall flay him into sheets of vellum and bind them together into the grimoire I will use to finally scribe those elusive spells of time manipulation. Then, once completed, he and every other mage on Eora, including the members of that despicable Circle, will be forced to bow and scrape and acknowledge, over and over as much as I please, that, short of the gods themselves, I, Concelhaut, am the most powerful creature alive and the only true and worthy master of the arcane realm!”

Bobbing gently, Concelhaut's gaze bore into Edér eyes, hard and expectantly.

Edér blinked.

Then raised an eyebrow.

“…So you're gonna make a whole grimoire, now?”

Concelhaut sputtered. “Th-that is the least important aspect of what I just said, you dim-eyed clodhopper!”

Edér shook his head as he reached for his pocket. “Well, I'm just sayin', you ain't exactly gonna get more'n a few pages outta Aloth, much less a whole grimoire.”

A long and seething noise of distaste whistled through Concelhaut's gritted teeth, then he soared away.

“Then I shall create more from that ample, Rauataian lickspittle! And if she does not suffice, I shall salvage an index out of that prattling, starry-eyed priestess!” Concelhaut shook in anger again, but he immediately spun around when the sound of Edér lighting his pipe echoed across the hold.

“Stop that!” he cried. “Stop that at once!”

“Stop what?” Edér asked from around the stem.

“The smoking, you imbecile!”

“Why?”

“Why? Why?!” Concelhaut sped towards Edér again. “Are your faculties truly so addled at this point that you cannot even recall the countless times I have already answered that inane question?”

Smoke leaked from Edér's lips, a slow and guilty trickle that ended in a billowing, choking cough as Concelhaut glared down at him sternly. Before he was forced to answer for himself, though, salvation rounded the corner of the alcove and meowed at him.

“Hey kitty,” he coughed, smiling. Then coughed again.

The cat darted towards Edér, her purrs rumbling with each step. When she reached his leg, she meowed again, then closed her eyes as she arched and began to rub against him. Edér cleared his throat and beamed down at her.

“Aww, who's the best kitty?” he asked, scratching her head.

Concelhaut glared at the animal. “The best at being an unsightly, imposing nuisance, perhaps.”  

“Oh, don't listen to him, sweetheart. He's just cranky 'cause he's tired.”

“If I am tired, it is only because I am exhausted by the burden of being in your general vicinity. And now you force me to endure the pain of experiencing you stunt your wits, yet again, while you coddle that failed science experiment!”

“He's jealous 'cause he doesn't have a cone,” Edér whispered, winking at the cat as he continued to pet her. She stepped onto his thigh, purring while she kneaded his leg, then jumped into the empty straw bed.

Concelhaut gasped sharply.

“Remove that creature from my bed immediately!”

Edér took a drag on his pipe and exhaled. “I thought you didn't even want it.”

“It does not matter whether I wanted it or not. It is mine now regardless—and I do not share! Remove that detestable creature at once!”

“No way,” Edér said, shaking his head. “She's too cute and there's plenty of room for the both of you.”

Quivering with fury, Concelhaut scowled at Edér then burst over to follow the cat as she circled the blanket. “Get out my bed, you impudent feline! Shoo! Shoo, I say!”

Animancy cat meowed in response, then rubbed against him.

Gasping again, Concelhaut recoiled in horror.

“How— How dare you!”

“Aww, she likes you!” Edér laughed and took another pull from his pipe. “Bet she'd even cuddle if you asked nicely.”

The former lich said nothing. He merely stared at the cat, watching as she kneaded circles in the center of his blanket on his bed, round and round, smaller and smaller while Edér puffed away, until she finally lay down in a coil and nestled into herself, purring in satisfaction.

“…When I regain my body,” he uttered quietly, a long moment later, “I shall find immense pleasure in ripping those tubes from your sides and kicking you from—”

Concelhaut never saw the mace coming until it smashed him into the floor.

“You speak one more word 'bout harming that sweet kitty and I'm gonna have to crush you completely, little skull.” Edér leaned his weight into the weapon for emphasis, pressing a squeak from Concelhaut's bones. “Now, I don't wanna have to do that, but I will if you make me. Are you gonna make me, or are you gonna behave yourself?”

A long and humiliating moment passed before Concelhaut spoke again.

“I…” Concelhaut started, then cringed. “I… I-I promise you I shall never harm the cat.”

Edér nodded once. “Good,” he said, then pulled his mace away. He inhaled from his pipe again.

Concelhaut floated upwards again, then whirled towards Edér.

“…But I never said anything about you!” he shouted, then hurled himself into Edér's forehead with a violent crack.

“Son of a bitch, little skull!”

As he bounced off Edér's face, Concelhaut cackled maniacally and zoomed away. Sucking air through his teeth, Edér groaned and gingerly touched the lump on his forehead. He shook his head, then pressed to his feet to follow his favorite little skull.

“When I catch up to you, I'm gonna put you in a time out!”

Notes:

Written for @pillarspromptsweekly #56, a random roll for Concelhaut, Edér & threats (which I initially misread as 'treats' …lol)