I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife

What is it they say about the devil’s tools? He is bored. It is a sentiment that he finds rather disagreeable; it crawls beneath his skin like some feral creature wild for release. The darkness hums at his hooves, an adoring pet, running long, black fingers up stick-like limbs, across the gaunt flanks and protruding ribs, a sinister lover. Like the ice on the lake’s surface the night of the first freeze, it seeps into the whites of his eyes, coaxing them into the back of his head …

When he opens his eyes again, the lanky stallion is stepping from the shadows in a strange land, insolent beneath the midday sun. It dapples his dark hide with sunlight for the briefest of moments; before the light is swallowed and the darkness prevails.

The forest, brilliant with reds and yellows, is quiet here, save for the occasional burst of birdsong and the flutter of feathers. He tilts his head, thin nostrils flared wide against unfamiliar scents. There is water nearby and this mortal body thirsts. The snow crunches underfoot, small black creatures scurrying ahead and alongside him as he slips in between the densely packed trunks, their rough bark drug against his dull coat. Ducking a snow-laden bough, he swings northeast, keeping to the shadows out of habit. His breath rises in steady clouds of vapor, bits of frost forming on the ends of his hair.

When the water source is due west, he abruptly leaves the treeline, his small black companions dispersing, their yellow eyes wide and eager. There is already a path to the shoreline and he assumes it, thin skull slung low, muzzle brushing the snow with every few steps. Someone’s been here recently – he pauses a moment to sort through the scents, before breaking the thin film of ice and drinking his fill. The darkness whispers and his head swings up and around, water dripping from his chin.

Niklas

I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife

When he turns to look up, his tongue is stuck between his lips, water dripping from his chin in time with each swallow. There’s a cloudy film that creeps over the otherwise black pit of his eyes as he finishes his drink and meets the red-yellow ones. His dark ears twisting forward, back, and then forward again. His tongue suddenly retreats. He had not called the hellhound recently. A frown skips over his brow – why was it here, in a form he does not recognize? The snow crunches underfoot when he shifts his weight, his muzzle wrinkling, sorting the questioning creature’s scent out from the surrounding wood and its residents. It is unfamiliar, but only in the sense that Niklas does not know this particular hellhound. Old blood and flesh reign supreme but there is the underlying smell, one that clings to the soul and defies all attempts to distance oneself from it. Niklas’ hazy-appearing gaze shifts over the charcoal-black fur, admiring the strength of bone, the menace, the vigor. A predator of the highest order; Niklas wonders who might be powerful enough here to control this, Hell’s (nearly) apex predators.

There is no caution in him when he slinks closer. No attention paid to the question posed, despite the unyielding growl that accompanies it. Death is an old friend; Agony, Torture, and Nightmares a truly delectable threesome. The film retreats, eyes gone brown and dull as they flick to their surroundings and back again. Still, he does not answer.

And you are? he had asked and Niklas contemplates his answer, his breath steady in his lungs, as if he had all the time in the world. The shadows leave their vegetative havens, creeping across the snow toward the duo like smoke on water. They cannot resist his magnetic pull. In their voids they leave the woods stark, naked and exposed in the waning light. They pool around his hooves, coiling and turning over one another, devoted companions.

“Niklas,” he finally answers in an unexpectedly refined voice. The name will mean nothing, most likely. He emphasizes this with a roll of his shoulders and a click of his tongue. It is not the notorious one, the one that he bore in the underworld. There, his name is well known, but that was several lifetimes ago. He drops his head - elegant, just square enough to remain masculine – to nose at the shadows twisting at his feet. “No one of particular importance.” He looks up now. “Just passing through.”

Niklas