Work Text
Kaveh slumped against the wall of his room with flushed cheeks and sweat rolling down his temple. He had been awake for sixty-seven hours and it was beginning to take its toll on him.The whites of his eyes had gone pink with irritation from rubbing them and the dark circles beneath his lower lids seemed to deepen with every minute, but he refused to sleep. He glanced up at his desk where his latest blueprint sat, the intricate lines and mathematical equations staring back at him.Kaveh could feel the weight of his string of bad luck bearing down on his shoulders, no matter how hard he tried to shrug it off. It was easier when he was distracted, but he always returned to his desk with a sense of doubt in himself. To have made such a terrible oversight as to build the Palace of Alcazarzaray in a withering zone of all places was something that he should have known to be more careful to avoid. Surveying potential building locations was an essential step and Kaveh simply could not move past the fact that he had not taken more precautions with a job like this. He knew he was better than this, but he had still made a dire mistake. His toolbox, Mehrak, beeped at him from the corner of the room, a sad expression on the front display. The beeps felt somewhat encouraging, but he couldn’t help but feel like he was being patronized when others tried to cheer him up.“Come on…” Kaveh groaned and held his head, the ache of his hangover just making the entire situation so much worse. “Get it together…”He took a deep breath as he pushed himself back up to his feet and returned to his chair, hoping that he might be able to shake this. He picked up his pencil and returned to his calculations. He had to prove to Dori that he could fix this. He had to prove that his talents and vision for architecture were not unfounded. Not just to her, but to himself.Kaveh could feel his exhaustion setting in and started doodling circles and triangles within themselves in the corner of the page, humming slightly as his eyes and head grew heavier and heavier. As he continued to scribble, he nodded off just enough that his head fell forward and made him jolt awake. The sudden movement caused him to apply too much pressure with his pencil and the tip snapped. It was the final straw on the mountain of issues that seemed to be plaguing him. His eyes widened in anger as his resolve finally broke. “Damn it!” he jumped out of the chair and to his feet, throwing the pencil across the room before covering his eyes. “Just work with me here! I can’t give up on this, I can fix it!” Mehrak lifted off the floor and floated over to him, whirring and beeping. When Kaveh looked at it, he sighed. Despite his earlier feelings about the way Mehrak had tried to encourage him, he could feel a small smile pulling at the corner of his lips. It was difficult to fight the urge to pat the construct on the top near the handle, as if it was a puppy. Mehrak scanned the blueprint and made a buzzing noise as it internalized the information before projecting the new plans into the air with a green light. Kaveh chuckled at its attempts to cheer him up and nodded. “Yeah, you’re right,” he said. “I can’t give up on this now.”“I’ll say,” an unfamiliar voice responded. Kaveh flinched in shock as he looked up at the strange figure that was standing near the desk. It looked human, but it was surrounded by appendages that humans simply did not have. Seafoam eyes with tangerine centers stared at him and Mehrak with a stern expression. The owner of the eyes had an angular jaw and overall handsome face, but that wasn’t what pulled Kaveh’s attention.It was the feathered wings, long tail, and two horns. Kaveh felt his heart pounding in his chest, unsure what to do or say about the strange being now standing before him.
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The light in the demon realm was dim, but that only made the Prince of Pride more eye-catching to his underlings. Al Haitham sat in silence on his throne, one leg crossed over the other with his head propped up lazily by his hand. His large feathered wings shifted silently as they settled into a more comfortable position. His long, smooth tail draped across the armrest and curled around the base of his throne, the thick spaded tip casually tapping the floor. His eyes glowed in the dim light as he waited for his attendant to finish speaking. Whatever they were saying did not particularly matter to him- nothing ever changed and it made him incredibly bored. “Have you finished?” Al Haitham finally interrupted the other demon, who looked startled at hearing their prince speak. “None of this matters to me. Are you going to keep droning on or let me be?” The other demon apologized and bowed low to the ground, ensuring that their horns were fully visible as a sign of respect to the embodiment of Pride. Al Haitham did not care to watch them leave. Rather he sighed and closed his eyes, tilting his head back slightly and drumming his long, curved clawed fingers upon the marble throne. He needed something… anything to pull him out of his boredom. Sitting here day in and day out, listening to reports and other trivial matters was slowly driving him towards a breaking point. The feathers at the base of his tail lifted as it began to move across the ground while he stood. His wings stretched out to their full glory for only a moment, before he began a slow trek to his bedroom. It was the only room he actually enjoyed being in anymore. Al Haitaham kept his back straight and head high, maintaining his position as the most important person in the room. His breathing was completely silent, his chest barely moving with each inhale and exhale. It would have been easy for him to trick unsuspecting persons into believing he was a statue. He would have loved to learn what others had to say about him in his absence, just for the thrill of watching their faces as they realized he had overheard them. Life as a feared entity could always use a little more fun. Another demon knocked on the door frame to announce her entry. She was shorter than him, and her skin was unnaturally pale. Two long horns protruded from her forehead before stopping abruptly in a jagged edge. Two iridescent insectoid wings were carefully folded behind her like a cape made of stained glass, and a segmented tail that resembled a scorpion’s curled behind her. Her long black hair was braided into a ponytail high on the back of her head. She was not as high ranking as Al Haitham, but she still emitted an aura of authority. In her arms were several books that appeared to be encased in leather, though the coloration was undeniably flesh toned despite the dimly lit room. “What do you want, Obizuth?” He asked without looking at her. “My Prince,” she began, “I have new summon requests from the Human World for your approval.” “Hm.” Al Haitham closed his eyes as his tail continued to sway back and forth behind him, never touching the ground. “Alright. Let’s get it over with.” He extended a hand to signal for her to hand the requests over. Upon opening the first book, he scanned the details of the listed human that was attempting to summon a demon. Someone trying to not work a day in their miserable life and forcing a demon to be their servant? Boring. Pass. Al Haitham tossed it behind him; the corner of the cover bounced off the ground and the fleshy leather squeaked as it skid across the ground. The second one was also cliche. Someone willing to summon a demon in the hopes it would save a loved one from dying. That, too, was tossed aside. The third, however, caught his interest. There was no request, per se, but the summoner had a great deal of pride in his talents and his craft. He flipped through the pages, looking for the reason why this book had even come through. He drew a summoning circle… on accident ? “Hff…” Al Haitham found himself fighting the urge to chuckle. This was different. This could become a very interesting development. “I'll be taking this one myself.” Obizuth raised her eyebrow, but knew better than to argue with Pride himself. She glanced at the cover of the request he was interested in with curiosity, wondering what had made him so invested in the mortal it belonged to. “Yes, my Prince, I will prepare a portal for you.” “There is no need,” Al Haitham walked past her as he spoke. “I will be handling this on my own. You are under strict orders to not bother me while I am in the mortal realm.” “Yes, sir,” she bowed her head and lowered her tail respectfully before picking up the books he had discarded. Al Haitham raised a clawed hand and channeled his demonic power to create a portal. The space before him had a faint shimmer, signifying that he was free to cross planes. When he stepped forward, the light of the mortal realm was blinding for a moment, but his eyes quickly adjusted. Al Haitham found himself standing in a shabby apartment with a desk in front of him and a grand building outline drawn onto a large piece of paper. In the top corner was the summoning circle that had been accidentally created. Just by looking at it, he could tell that the owner’s pride in his abilities were not unfounded. The curves and angles were made with a well-practiced hand, the lines were smoother than what most humans could manage. He began to study the outline with interest, tracing each line and checking the equations to find that they all served a specific purpose in the creation of the blueprint. A green light illuminated the space, taking his attention away from the drawing and towards the little gold, green, and white briefcase that was emitting a 3D image of a building that looked similar to the one on the blueprint. Standing beside it was a tall human that Al Haitham knew was his accidental summoner. “Yeah, you’re right. I can’t give up on this now,” the human said with renewed confidence to his little…pet? “I'll say,” Al Haitham responded, uncaring of the fact that the blonde had not been speaking to him. The human obviously had no idea that Al Haitham was even in the room with him. Scarlet eyes rose to meet his own as the human flinched. Al Haitham could sense the man’s confusion, shock, and fear as they stared at each other. Time felt as though it had fallen to a standstill, as neither of them moved. The mortal’s eyes scanned Al Haitham, taking in everything before him.
Kaveh was calculating whether or not he was dreaming, hallucinating, or if there was an honest to gods demon standing in his apartment. He clenched his eyes shut for a moment and took a deep breath before opening them to see if the figure was still there. “Huh…” Kaveh blinked in rapid succession. “I'm losing it, Mehrak. I've finally gone crazy.” “You're not crazy.” Hearing that unfamiliar voice again made Kaveh yelp in surprise as he found that the creature had simply stepped away from the desk and was now inspecting the construct. “Interesting little creature you have here. Is this your pet?” Al Haitham asked. “Wh- no!” Kaveh shouted as he grabbed Mehrak and held it close to his chest. “What is this?! What the hell are you? How did you-” A long finger pressed to Kaveh’s lips, silencing him. “You talk too much and at far too loud a volume. You summoned me to this realm,” Al Haitham pointed at the summoning circle that Kaveh had doodled onto the corner of the Palace blueprints. “You should consider yourself honored to be in my presence, human. It is a very rare occasion for a demonic prince to grace one such as you in the flesh.” Kaveh blinked, trying to process the information that the entity had just given him. Demon? As in, a literal demon? It both explained a lot and opened up a plethora of questions that he just could not manage to voice. Kaveh’s thoughts were racing as he tried to make sense of the anomaly that was standing in front of him. One that had just touched him with… admittedly, very soft fingers and looked at him as if Kaveh was a little lost lamb facing down a vicious wolf. Kaveh made some stuttering noises as his thoughts raced and could not settle on any one question to ask of the visitor. The demon seemed to understand that this was not getting either of them anywhere fast and let out a bored sigh. “Is this how you greet everyone? Or am I just special?” “I… no…” Kaveh said as his cheeks heated up from embarrassment. “I… summoned you.” “I believe we have already established this.” “No… I summoned a demon!” “Yes,” Al Haitham spoke matter-of-factly as he looked at Kaveh, wondering if there was something wrong with this human. “And I’m granting you quite an honor, so I would greatly appreciate it if you’d pull yourself together and discuss the terms of our deal. It’s only fair, seeing as I’ve come all this way.” Kaveh swallowed his disbelief and walked up to the taller figure, reaching out with an extended finger and poking the demon’s muscular bicep, earning him a swift shove into the wall. “Ouch! What the hell…?” “Touching others without permission is extremely rude, wouldn’t you say?” Al Haitham sighed again and released his hold on Kaveh before rubbing the side of his temple. “If you won’t give me a proper introduction, I suppose I will start. You may call me Al Haitham. Now, state your name and the name of your rectangular cat.” “Rec… I don’t have a cat-” Kaveh’s response was cut off as Mehrak beeped at him and produced an audio playback of ‘rectangular cat’ and groaned as he understood. “My name is Kaveh and Mehrak isn’t a cat, it’s a construct. It helps me with my work, among other things…” “I see,” Al Haitham mused, squatting down to get a better look at Mehrak. “And is this ‘Mehrak’ dangerous at all? Is it alive?” “Uh… well…” Kaveh mumbled as he looked down at his toolkit as he thought about how he should answer. On one hand, Mehrak had a tendency to display “expressions” and seemed to be able to, at the very least, mimic human intellect and emotion. While Kaveh had programmed it to not be able to actually speak, these other traits had been a default setting that he was not able to remove. Doing so would cause significant damage to the processing unit that made it run. The issue was that this was a taboo topic in Sumeru, and Kaveh was already dealing with issues regarding censorship due to the sages trying to discourage the arts as a whole. While Kaveh was fairly certain that he was not experiencing a drunken hallucination, he also did not want to take any more risks given the bad luck he had been dealing with lately. “Not exactly…” “Fascinating,” the demon hummed, his tail gently swaying left and right as he stroked the top of Mehrak. Kaveh internally breathed a sigh of relief that the demon had not pressed him for a deeper explanation. “So uh… you said something about a ‘deal’? What’s that about?” “Ah,” Al Haitham said as he stood upright again and returned his attention to Kaveh. “That’s right. While you may have not intended to summon me, you clearly want my help with something. I assume it involves your blueprint over there? Demons are not too much different from you humans, you see. We both have a tendency to gravitate towards our more base desires. You want to give up. You want to throw all of this away and start fresh. But your pride keeps you here, in this disgusting place. Your mind and body want to let all of this go, but your pride is your final life-preserver in an ocean of doubt and fear, isn’t it? So here is the deal I would like to make…” Kaveh watched carefully as the demon made a gesture with his hand and a massive contract appeared before Kaveh, causing his stomach to drop. It was easily a few hundred pages long and there was absolutely no way that Kaveh would ever be able to read all of it. Even if he did, there was no guarantee that there wasn’t something hidden within the text. Just based off the first page, Kaveh got the impression that there might be some bad deals or demands that might be harmful that he may not be able to unravel. Assuming the stories about demons being tricky were true, Kaveh knew that he needed to proceed with caution. He licked his top lip and picked up the first page to read the first couple of paragraphs:
Service Contract
Parties
This service contract agreement (hereinafter referred to as the “Contract”) is entered on _________(the “Effective Date”), by and between _________________, (hereinafter referred to as “Human”) and Al Haitham, (hereinafter referred to as “Demon”), (Collectively referred to as the “Parties”).
The aforementioned Parties agree to enter this contract with the understanding of all of the following, willfully and without duress:
I. Human will allow Demon free reign within their sphere of influence so as to see the fulfillment of the Contract.
Kaveh looked up at Al Haitham, wondering what the hell could make this contract have this many papers in it. He thumbed through, finding things such as “Human will not pull Demon’s tail without consent”, which caused him to shake his head. He couldn’t help but wonder how many times that must have happened for it to be in a contract. Then again, he remembered that he had just tried to poke the demon’s arm and he was finding himself increasingly intrigued by the other parts of Al Haitham’s anatomy. “This is… a lot,” Kaveh finally said after thumbing through a few more papers, trying to find what exactly Al Haitham would be doing for him. “It’s important for any contract to cover everything, particularly when it comes to one such as this.” “Right… Can you direct me to the page that explains what the hell I get out of this? What are you going to do for me?” Al Haitham smirked at him and stepped towards him, causing Kaveh’s heart to beat faster. He couldn’t quite understand why he was even asking this question; did he want a literal demon in his life? Al Haitham came to a stop and tilted his head slightly to the side as he inspected Kaveh’s face. “Everything.” “... that’s vague,” Kaveh whispered his response. “I can’t trust you.” “Why not?” “...” Kaveh felt like his brain was about to short circuit. Al Haitham was extremely attractive and he knew it. He could imagine that demons might use this to prey upon humans, luring them in with a false sense of security. Demons weren’t exactly renowned for their soft, cuddly nature. His eyes dropped to the curved nails on the tips of Al Haitham’s fingers, thinking of what kinds of things he could do with them. He shut his eyes for a moment to purge that thought from his mind and released a breath. “Because I’m not stupid? There’s no way I can read this damn thing, and I’m not going to agree to this unless you can really sell me on it. What do I get out of it? I want a specific answer.” “Hm,” Al Haitham considered him for a moment before giving a slight shrug of his shoulders. “Very well. Among other things, I will assist you with this project of yours.” “Project… you mean my commission?” “That’s right. I’ll assist you with it. Would you say that is important enough? Your pride brought me here and if you sign the contract, I’ll support you with it.” Kaveh frowned, but looked back to his desk as thoughts ran through his head. Finishing the palace was, while not the most important thing he had ever done, still going to be a credit to his career. After everything that had gone wrong, he really had to consider how far he was willing to go to see it completed. After all, right before the demon had appeared, he had been on the verge of throwing in the towel. Glancing back at the contract, he noticed a particular bullet point that he had not noticed during his first read through:
VI. Demon will aid Human in the completion of the construction of the Palace of Alcazarzaray, and all related stages from conception to finalization, no matter the cost.
Kaveh bit his lip. That was certainly a tempting proposition. He looked down at Mehrak, wondering if it had any opinions on the proposition. Mehrak simply looked between him and Al Haitham then back to him before its eyes changed into karat symbols to display feeling pleased. Kaveh sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling that something was bound to happen that would make him regret this decision. “Alright, fine. What should I do? Sign it in… what, my blood or something?” he said with resignation in his voice as Al Haitham smirked at him and began to explain the intricacies of making a deal with a devil.