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I’ve been tracking the arkoda for three cycles of the gold moon.
Of all the beasts that lurk in the shadow, it’s the only one who has ever eluded me. Not because it is wily or because it is a better tracker than hunter than I. I’ve already proven that it was not when I trapped one once before. It was a brutal hunt, but I was victorious, and I had meat to last for a full cycle once I butchered the beast with my claws.
In the shadows, it is eat or be eaten. We are all prey in the dark. You must want to be the one who survives most. My demon instincts beg that I do. For one reason, it is because I am immortal. If any of the other beasts bested me, they could feast on my flesh for centuries. My shadows would ensure that I forever regenerate unless I’m weakened in some way. By enchanted chains that bind my shadows and my essence perhaps, or by going fully demonic and finally giving up on this existence.
Like I almost have.
Even as I stalk the beast, I must admit that I have grown weary of this life. When there is nothing to exist for except making it through another cycle, time slows. I know not how long I’ve hunted the dark, only that I continue to wait for the only thing that will give me purpose—and the second reason why I refuse to let the shadows completely take me even after all this time.
I wait for her. For my female. I hope for her with every breath while also knowing that I shall never likely have her.
How would I? Unless my demoness is as lost as I, she will never appear in the shadows to find me. She might be crossing over Sombra, maybe even visiting from Rouge Brille or Soleil or any number of demon planes, longing for her male, but Loki is here. As though I’ve always belonged in the chill and the dark, I can’t bring myself to leave.
There is plenty to eat. In the small two-room shack I conjured before the last of my magic fled me, I have a bed I rarely use, a tub I haven’t bathed in so very long, and a water tube so that while I hunger for my female, I don’t suffer from thirst.
I guard my home fiercely, hunting any prey that dares approach. Skulls line the outside. Most of them have horns, the remnants of Sombra demons of eons past who begged for death from either our ruthless ruler—or the arkoda. There’s one I prize for how different it is. The skull had no horns, a smaller head, and bones that belonged to a creature unlike any I’ve met in the shadows.
In my madness, it called to me. Though I did not hunt the creature it belonged to, I carried the skull home like a prize, tossing it in the corner of my resting quarters.
Perhaps I am meant to search the shadows for other such creatures, hunting them for meat and to protect my claimed territory. I thought that once, when I first found it many cycles ago, but I’ve never seen another since.
And then, of course, my obsession with the arkoda began.
Three heads higher than the tallest Sombra male, with thick shadow fur, glowing white eyes, claws designed to rend and fangs that would snap off my solid arm in one bite, the arkoda is a fierce beast that has the ability to consume the shadows themselves. In either of my forms, it’s a worthy opponent, but the one I chase is more than that.
It is the mate of the female I defeated four cycles ago. Even bigger and more ferocious, the male is intelligent enough to know that I am the reason he has no female. Wary that he will meet the same fate, he does not attack me, but he lingers on the edge of my territory, taunting me to face him at the same time as his presence frightens some of the easier meat away.
I do not fear him. If my fate is to succumb to the arkoda, so be it. Maybe then this endless torment of wanting a female who is a whisper in my mind and a dream whenever I do sleep will finally be over. It’s worth the hunt, and should I survive as I have done for ages, then I will prove once again that Loki and his two-horns are more powerful than anything the shadows have to offer.
Once I was full of rage. I am not now. More mournful than anything at what my arrogance and impatience caught me, I’ve spent my time in the shadows learning to be patient.
That is why, when I’m closing in on the arkoda’s newest nest, I force myself to ignore it when my instincts tell me to turn back. As though something is pulling me, tugging me, it reaches for the essence of Loki—and, yet, there is still none to find. As demonic today as I was when I allowed the shadows to swallow me whole, I have not been able to recover any of it.
Without my mate, it does not matter. Without the essence, the strange sensation that I’m being called is a mere buzz in the back of my skull. The arkoda marks his nest with a fervor that has my nose wrinkling. I’m so close to finding the beast, and I’m eager to end the hunt at last.
It’s him or me, and I’m not sure who I want to be the victor.
* * *
Wily beast.Leaving his droppings behind and a disturbed nest, I thought I found the arkoda’s lair.
I did not. It was abandoned, and I headed for my shack with a snarl and a fresh ungez for my supper.
Unlike the arkoda, the ungez is small and simple. It does not take much to hunt the creature. Friendly as they are, they will hop into a hunter’s grip, offering themselves up as a meal. For a male my size, it’s little more than a nibble, but with the arkoda continuing to elude me, it’s all I have this night.
I’m thinking about whether it would be worth it to gather some of the roots that grow in the shadows and stew my supper rather than eating it raw when I miss the step in front of me. That is not usual. The shadows are dark, but my sight is keen. I know the land surrounding my shack as well as the ridges over my nose. I don’t misstep, but I did.
Immediately on my guard, I go still. I see nothing that would have tripped me. Not an ungez under foot, or a skull buried in the ash-filled ground. Odd. Breathing in deep, I sample the chill in the air, searching for a threat.
Over the familiar scent of brimstone that lingers even in the shadows, I take into my lungs a scent so delectable, so sweet, soenticingthat I don’t want to exhale. I want to keep it forever, bottle it up and never let it go.
My cock agrees.
From my first breath, the scent has my cock stirring. In Nuit, it is expected for villagers to cover themselves in their solid demon form with either shadows when they expect to change forms, or woven garments when they don’t. Since moving to the shadows, I’m insubstantial more than not. Regardless of forms, though, I don’t bother with any coverings.
The only time my cock begins to twitch, hardening and lengthening, begging for me to take it in hands and stroke myself to release is when I allow myself to think of my mate. It isn’t often, since I feel the ache of the miscast spell so strongly even now, but on lonely nights when the gold moon is high, I don’t stop until I’ve rubbed my cock as often as it takes to remind myself what exactly I’m waiting for.
My one true mate. The female born to be mine. Who will let me mate her, love her, worship her and her forms… and then be with me forever. No longer will Loki be lonely. We shall have a home together. A family.
