The Night Is Dark and Full of Terrors

Light ash dusted the strands of his mantle, though he was seemingly a being already born of smoke- so it's presence was something personal. What others couldn't see, he could feel.. kissing the back of his shoulders and making him feel at home. Large talons gripped the brimstone beneath him as he embraced the feeling of it crumble and his talons scrape, being filed against it's hardened surface while he made his ascension up the heated slopes of the mountain.

He was a chaotic being, though he did not measure up at all to the chaos brewing beneath his very toes. Without notice, the fire could rain down upon them and take with it decades of life that had been growing around it. That sort of chaotic power is what drew the demon upward, he wanted to look into the scornful eye of Hell. It was not too long ago that he nearly threw himself in, that he nearly let himself fall and gave up entirely on his duties here. He nearly let himself willingly endure an eternity of torment, all for the sake of.. what was it.. mercy? Guilt? The hopelessness he felt when he awoke to find others dead? He nearly gave up, and here he was.. three years after his last.. incident with no known new victims.

He was stronger than he thought, wasn't he? Though sulfur was a thick, burning scent that made it near impossible to detect others in the area- the scent left behind on the trail of a group of three broke him of his memories. His nostrils flared as his thick neck craned downward, taking in the details of who had passed here. A cat? Maybe two, and another man. His ears flicked forward, attentive as his red gaze narrowed. He looked upward, to the peak of the mountain just twenty feet away from him now. His long limbs reached for the slopes that the lava had dried in the sturdiest, and he would grab and pull himself up with a newfound sense of need. Who was this that had visited the lands he was so quickly becoming attached to, and what did they seek of the demons that dwelled here? Were they aware of the tainted ground they were treading upon? These were things Elias had to discover.

Elias wasn't one to fight fate, and as he reached the peak and his eyes fell upon the massive cats in the wolf's company, he slowed his movements to a full stop. His face was cold and expressionless, but his being tall and radiating one of purpose. His ears remained forward facing like the horns of a minotaur, and his eyes ever watchful like those of a lurking predator. He assessed the cats, his skin rippling over his shoulders as he fought his hackles on their desire to prickle upward. Cats were fast and evasive, and therefore something he loathed to hunt. He saw them as capable hunters, and that is how he looked at the two that were before him now- like unpredictable hunters. His eyes flashed to the wolf, immediately noticing his scarred eyes and lack of life at the center of his visage. His father had been a man with one eye, and something he told him about it rang in his ears as he looked at this stranger. 'You cannot see my eye, but it is not gone. It is with them, on the other side.. and yes, it still sees.'

"I didn't expect to find anyone up here, not many are willing to dance with fire." His voice crawled out of his mouth nearly at a low whisper, only meant to reach those that stood before him just eight feet away. "Do you know this mountain?" Or rather, his true question.. did it hold any significance to him? If this was to be Elias' next conquest, these were things he was thirsting to know.