Chapter 8: Getting To Know You
Moggy gets to know more about Saraka's home world, the Darkened Realms
The sun was setting, casting a golden glow over the tower whilst Moggy was brushing his horse after a day of farming. He’d been neglecting his chores a bit over the last couple of weeks and had been eager to get back on top of things today. He was thinking back to the fight he had with the demons a few weeks prior and wondered about what had really happened. It was distressing to see his horse burst into flames like that, but he was pleased to find him back at the tower completely unharmed. A part of him suspected it was another dream, or was it illusion.. or even delusion? The fight was certainly real. He settled on it being part of how the demons operate, to throw their enemies off with hallucinations and waking dreams. He’d considered asking Saraka about it, but they’d been a bit preoccupied between repairing the hole in the tower and getting to know each other in more intimate ways.
He looked up at the tower and there his partner was, looking out of the window down at him with his four big eyes. Saraka hadn’t left since that night, now making the tower his home. Moggy wasn’t concerned, he could tell the demon was innocent enough, besides they’d barely been out of each other's sights. Saraka couldn’t go outside during the day, a nocturnal beast. Luckily, Moggy being a cat was more than open to unusual sleeping patterns, as long as he didn’t neglect his duties to the tower too much. The tower functioned, despite a demon being inside it, nothing seemed untoward. The thought was at the back of Moggy’s mind on whether he should be trusting a demon, the supposed enemy, but he really did genuinely like Saraka and he could sense it was mutual.
Moggy put the horse away then went inside as the last of the sun set and night fell.
“Gosh you’ve been gone for like thirty thousand seconds, leaving me all alone to sleep, unattended and scared in this big haunted tower” he shivered.
“Haunted by you?” Grinned Moggy as he hung up his cape and wizard hat.
Saraka appeared next to Moggy in an instant “Give us a kiss to say sorry”.
Moggy rolled his eyes and planted a sweet little kiss on the demon's lips. “There”.
“That’s better! Look, I made us KEBAB!” He vanished and appeared in the kitchen pointing enthusiastically at a spinning joint of doner meat being seared by an open flame. He grabbed a khobez, filled it with salad then started shearing off some of the doner. “Do you want the spicy garlic?”.
Moggy was a little taken aback “I didn’t know you could cook...”
“My parents own a kebab shop. I worked there after school and stuff”. He put the spicy garlic sauce on and handed it to Moggy who slowly bit into it, his eyes widening.
“Wow, that's really good.” He said before taking another bite.
“I know right. Secret family recipe. Everyone in our ward loves our kebabs!”. Saraka replied whilst prepping his own kebab, same but with an added ingredient of a stripy wrinkly chilli pepper.
“What do you do at the moment exactly?”
“I work for the Imperial Intelligence Agency. Which is why I ended up here. Joint task force between the Imperial Guard and the IIA to try and bring this tower down”. He did a motion with his kebab to simulate the tower collapsing with appropriate sound effects.
Moggy gulped his mouthful of kebab and looked at Saraka. “Oh…”
“But lol I don’t give a shit. The Emperor can go fuck himself. Hasn’t done a single thing for normal people like my family. A job’s a job I guess. Needed to do something other than being stuck listening to my dad moan about how owls are stealing his coin collection or something, massive conspiracy theorist I swear”.
Moggy sat there listening with fascination. It was the first time Saraka had opened up about his world. Moggy had tried to broach the subject a few times but Saraka would always go off on some unrelated tangent.
“That big guy you met, he’s Commander Ranzar of the Imperial Guard. Very much a royalist. Absolute mug, I tell you. If the Emperor told him to jump off a bridge to fetch him a koi carp, he’d do it. Can’t think for themselves, I tell you.” Saraka came and sat on Moggys lap, munching a few bites of kebab.
“So what was school like for you? I had to go to the wizarding academy for what felt like an eternity to get my magical diplomas and once I was 11 it was boarding school so barely saw my parents” Moggy asked whilst stroking his partner's horns.
“Gahh, school was rubbish. Was above a conbini and below another conbini. There were like sixty of us crammed in this tiny room and the teacher was so done with us. I remember this one time we tied this one kid up and hung him out the window on a rope and got him to snatch stuff off people who’d just bought things from downstairs conbini. We got so many cigarettes and cans of coffee, it was great. Until the teacher had enough and punched a hole through the wall. Then the manager of the conbini came up and argued with her for like an hour, it was so fucking funny. I think we were supposed to be learning maths that day, I dunno. Most demons don’t bother going to school to be honest, there’s the posh schools the fancy pants kids go to run by the imperial university and the crummy public ones run by the ward. Oh oh!! Another time, the coffee machine in the upstairs conbini broke and it flooded a classroom and a kid drowned, I swear to Murasakidon” Saraka loved chattering on, his way of speaking was endearing to Moggy.
“Murasakidon?” Moggy said, swallowing the last of his kebab.
“Oh! That’s an ancient demon god. She’s an absolutely massive dragon. She’s supposed to be living off on some planet somewhere convincing the locals to sacrifice their kids to her. It’s hilarious. She apparently gave birth to the Emperor’s great great great great great… great great grandmother and that’s why he gets to live in a palace and eat babies or whatever he does with his time”.
“My world is run by the Grand Wizard Council, who are a bunch of really old men. They’re alright, just focused on magical tradition and keeping the balance in the universe. Everyone's very scholarly and society is entirely wrapped around advancing our collective knowledge of magic and understanding how it speaks with the universe”. Moggy was becoming eager to get a word in and talk about his own home life, but he knew Saraka had trouble listening, so he let him continue.
“That’s so funny how an entire world of people can be like together to do a joint task like that. You should see demons when we try to build a bridge. In fact that’s what happened to my school, they tried building a bridge over the top of it and it collapsed and the entire building broke. Ten floor tower block just came crashing down. It was epic. No one died other than the janitor, he was such a salty guy, hated kids with a searing passion. He would just sit around in the broom cupboard smoking all day and sometimes the teacher would tell us to go get a projector off him or something and he’d throw bricks at us. Anyway, he refused to leave the building, said if it was going down, so was he. But yeah, like we’re good at building stuff sure, but I dunno, lack of coordination I guess? Everything just gets shoved on top of each other until something breaks and then no one takes responsibility. The city is such chaos compared to this place, I love it here, really peaceful. Like, just me and you, and the horse and hills for bloody miles and miles” he nuzzled Moggy’s neck.
“It is pleasant here. I think I'll miss it a bit when this is all over and I head home.” Moggy casually mentioned.
“Oh. I didn’t think about this ending. You’ll be swapping out with someone else I guess and I'll never get to see you again.” Saraka stiffened, a sadness engulfing him.
“You could always come live with me on my planet.” Moggy proposed half jokingly.
“But that’s the fucking point of this fucking tower. I can't fucking go places, can I? I can only be on this planet because it took us centuries to learn how to manifest here. We’re stuck in The Darkened Realms. Not allowed to see the stars.” Saraka was shaking.
Moggy felt for his partner as he could sense his anguish, whilst the thought properly occurred to him also, the fact their relationship could very well have a time limit felt like daggers through his chest. Moggy held onto Saraka tightly, causing him to finally calm and relax his body into his. Moggy was then stricken with guilt, were his people, with this tower, hurting the innocent?
“Look, we’ll figure things out. You’re here now aren’t you and we’re together. Maybe I'll come to the Darkened Realms, meet your parents in the kebab shop. I’m pretty darn good at teleportation. I didn’t arrive here in a spaceship did I?” Moggy held Saraka’s hoof gently.
Saraka looked up at Moggy with his four wide eyes, twinkling with a few tears. “Oh you can listen to all my dad’s bullshit conspiracies for hours and try my mum's baklava, it’s so good” he was perking up at the thought, happy to hear a solution. He suddenly jumped up, full of energy. “Can we go to the onsen? You’re smelly from working so hard farming all day” before Moggy could answer the demon had already taken off his pants and ran off down the stairs.