I look sideways at Joacham as he examines my 'wing' joint by joint. I can ask others to be my Keeper? In that case, I might as well. "Would you-"

"No," Joacham interrupts me without looking.

"You don't know-," I begin again.

"I do," comes the interruption again.

"How do you-."

"Experience." Joacham sighs. "I start to understand what Harijia's told me about you now. And no, I'm not telling you."

It annoys me that he interrupts me. What annoys me the most is that he did answer my questions before I ask them. I'm still predictable. I look at the devil for a while, expecting him to answer my next question. The silence stretches on and I get distracted studying his face. This is a face I can place a bit better, unlike Harijia, and Joacham is old. He doesn't look as old as some of the other devils, but he feels much older.

A sting from the whip brings me back. "I'm not going to answer a question unless you say it out loud," he says.

My mood sours a bit. "Fine. First you interrupt me when I want to ask something, then you want me to ask things. Fine." I take a deep breath and begin the question. "Why-"

"Why do I interrupt you?" he interrupts once again, to my frustration. "Because you ask the uninteresting questions. I'll give you a hint. Don't focus on the problem, focus on the solution."

His words make me think. He is right, asking why he wouldn't accept me is asking what the problem is. What's so bad about that? I need to know the problem before I can figure out what to do about it. As I ponder on it, pieces of the conversations I've had before start calling attention to themselves. The shape of an idea is forming and I'm skirting along the edges. The key is me, and doing things by myself. Or perhaps it is the problem. "How," I start, before pausing to reconsider. I know now what he wants. It rubs me entirely the wrong way.

I sigh and avoid looking Joacham in the eye. "What do I need to do."

It remains silent and I sneak a glance at the tall devil. I can tell he's pleased, but he's not smirking.

"Normally," he begins, "I work with two types of demons. Either they have mutated in a way that changes their body so much, they need to relearn how to move." The smirk comes back. "The others are the ones desperate to improve. They realize they've fallen behind the curve or perhaps they feel like they are lacking something. Something I can provide where others can't. You're not desperate."

Silence falls between us. He has given the answer to the question I didn't ask. Why would he reject me? My body may not be as I wish it, but it is serviceable. I've been told I'm not quite as strong as others of my age, but I make up for it by being better at using my body. Based on that, there is no reason why he would take me on. It hammers home his point, that I focus on the wrong things. However, there is still a chance.

"Normally?" I repeat after him.

"I am known to take on some projects for my own amusement," he answers nonchalantly.

I'm not happy to be amusement, but it could be worse. "So what do I do."

"First, you need to get your priorities straight. What is the most important thing to do, here and now, at this place and at this time, for you?" As Joacham talks, the ever-present smirk fades, leaving behind a stern frown.

"To get stronger," I answer. Joacham lashes out with his whip, hard enough to draw blood. I hiss and look at the weapon. It didn't look so dangerous before, but now it seems to have a life of its own. It's clearly not a normal item.

"If you stop the whip or dodge it, it's over and you don't have to bother coming back," Joacham interrupts my thoughts. "I told you, my methods are for the desperate. Why do you need to get stronger?"

"To leave this place!" I hiss back at him. Another bite of the whip.

"To stop harijia from interfering with me." Again.

"To be free!" Again.

"To stop devils from controlling me!" Again the whip hits. At every answer Joacham deems wrong, the whip gouges my skin. After a few more guesses, I remain quiet. After a moment of rest, the whip hits me again, hard. I want to throw myself at him and rip through his skin. It's a struggle with my anger and instincts to keep thinking instead of fighting. It helps that my body still feels weak and unwilling to move.

"You're not allowed to stop!" A cold eyed Joacham shouts at me. "More basic! Keep it simple!"

"To eat! To fight! To be the best" Three lashes his me in quick succession, though not as hard. "I just want to live my life!"

The expected pain doesn't arrive. I wait and wait. When there is no sound from the whip, I brave a look at Joacham. He still isn't smiling, he still stands ready to strike, but he was also clearly waiting for me to look up.

Slowly and carefully he speaks. "Then why are you trying so hard to get yourself killed."

I don't have an answer to that. I didn't know? That's a weak excuse and not one I'll allow for myself.

"Devils have studied all of the species and races that have a tendency to be demons. You hatched with a bunch of others, right? Swarmlings hatch their clutches at a dozen a month, or up to a hundred all at once. It depends on the region and the food supplies. Have you never wondered why the lands aren't swarming with your kind? Let me tell you why."

Joacham takes a deep breath. "They die. Out of the hundred swarmlings born to a colony each year, one or two will live to breed. Maybe you would have been that one, maybe not. You were taken out of that lottery and guaranteed life. Maybe you hate this life. Maybe you want to get away from here. Your focus should still be how to do so while remaining alive! I do not train anyone who wishes to die!"

By the end there is a clear passion in Joacham's voice. I get the feeling he isn't really shouting at just me anymore, judging by the way his eyes are slightly unfocused. There is something there, something happened. I'm not going to ask what. It takes a while for him to calm down enough to continue.

"If you leave in a year, like you told Harijia you wanted to, you're going to die. You'll be released far from settlements so you won't be tempted to raid those for food. You'll be alone, without safety and without help. You'll die. If you find a colony and fight your way in, good for you. One day you'll go into that trance again. When you resurface you'll be starving and irritable and you will attack your own colony and you'll die. No matter how strong you get before it happens, you can't get stronger fast enough to fight an entire colony of swarmlings, enraged because you ate a queen."

"I've seen it before. You die so often in your summons, death loses all meaning and you stop being concerned about it. Get concerned! If you go on the way you do now, trying to get stronger with no purpose, you're going to die. You almost died twice over yesterday and the day before yesterday. Sometimes I had to hit you four, five times to get a reaction! I haven't had such a work-out in a long time. occasionally I was concerned I'd kill you if I went too far, which would have looked bad on me."

Joacham's voice trails off near the end. "You, you are going to think hard on why you want to be outside. Give me a reason other than 'because you want to keep me inside', and I'll see what I can do. I'd understand it if we were still treating you like we did centuries ago, but it's different now. After that, you'll think long and hard about what you want to become and what you want to do. Do you want to settle somewhere, hunt, guard, travel around? Do you want to train other demons? Lead them into battle? Think on it, but don't worry too much about your choice. You have centuries ahead of you to try different things." Joacham cocks his head and pauses. "If you don't get yourself killed first."

There are many things I could say or want to say, but my mind gets stuck on one of the last things. Something to do? "What was your work?"

"I sent demons off to die in the war."

With those words, he leaves me alone in the cell. He may have asked me to think, but my mind feels more empty than it has been since I've been born. I've never thought beyond 'getting out', I never wanted to 'get out so I can do something'. I just want to see the suns, feel the breeze and smell the life around me. The cave is stifling me. Could I have said something like that before? 'Hey, can you let me outside every once in a while, not very far and I won't run away'. Would things have gone different? No use thinking about it. Going by the person I am, the person I was, I would not have been able to ask for a simple favor. Nor would anyone have believed me at that point.

I slink out of the cell and through the corridors back to the cavern. I can follow my senses even though I don't remember getting here. I also seem to have lost track of time while I was here. Days? It felt like less than a day to me. Only one snap of the whip required to get my attention. Right? I feel hungry again. It's hard to tell if it's because of my previous fasting or if it's new. The lights are dimming, signaling night. I can wait until morning, the urge isn't that strong.

So what do I want?

I don't want to feel used. Just sitting here and giving up my freedom and part of the summon energy for food and shelter feels wrong. That could just be my way of looking at it. The way Joachim tells it, I'm paying with that energy and my freedom now for a better future later. Harijia has hinted at it as well. Uncertainty pulls me back. Nothing can be offered to me. I feel it gripping me from inside, below my stomachs. Tendrils of tension snake out to my limbs and my chest, filling me with apprehension. It's fear. What am I afraid of?

Slowly I climb one of the smaller trees. It doesn't smell like someone uses it to sleep and I could use a place to hang out and think until there is food.

I'm afraid. I'm afraid they want more from me than they've let on so far. I'm afraid they're stealing more from me than they've told me. I'm afraid they're lying to me. I'm afraid they'll kill me if they think I'm too much trouble.

I'm afraid to trust or to believe. I'm afraid because they have all the power and I have none. I'm afraid that, when I do have power, I'll be taken away to a worse place. It may have looked like recruiters looking for strong demons, but what if they were effectively executioners? Taking them away to impossible fight after fight, getting the most use out of the beasts.

My mind grasps at the one thing I felt as the truth about Joachim. He doesn't want me to die. Not just because it would make him look bad, he doesn't want me to die purely because he doesn't want me to die. Even if everything else was a lie, I feel like I can believe that truth.

I've seen how many new demons are brought in every month. They won't miss one or two. Just like a colony, they bring in more because they count on losing part of the existing members. If I assume they don't really care about whether I stay or go, the main reason to stop me would be for their own benefit. Harijia wants to look good to her master. Keeping me here makes her look good. Joacham doesn't want me to die. If I don't die, it makes him feel good.

Shivering for a moment I try to physically dislodge my fear. Let's imagine Joacham speaks true. I silence the protest of my beating heart. What would I do after here? The first thing I feel is yearning. Not one for a place to belong or even a people or colony. I want to see and learn. I want to see the cities the devils hint at, the farming villages and the palaces. I want to know how and why this system I'm part of came to be. I want to know more about this world.

I need to get stronger so I can experience this world, see its wonders and find my place out there. As I am now, I'd need constant protection. I'd never be able to go wherever I wanted to go. What do I need for that? How do I get there? I don't even know, but now at least I know the direction I want to take. The question from here is what kind of options that leaves for me.

As I try to reach for an answer, uncertainty returns. It's going to be a long night.