chineseink | [DD] The Art of Bargaining, PG, Gen, KAR4

peace_now wanted Krayon/Raenef IV from Demon Diary, with work. I always associate you with KAR4 now. :) Hope you like it!

The Art of Bargaining
Demon Diary, Krayon/Raenef IV, PG, 692 words
In which Krayon gets what he wants.

The Art of Bargaining
by

meitachi

“How much will you take for Eclipse?” The Demon Lord of Egae drawled the question from his midair sprawl, his pose every bit as indolent as his tone. His curls spilled over his shoulders as he rolled from his back onto his side, eyeing the other demon he was hovering eye-level with.

Raenef IV twirled a quill as dark as his hair. “He’s not for sale,” he replied.

“Everything has a price,” Krayon argued. He was a firm believer in this theory and thousands of years as a demon lord had not proven him wrong. Everything could be bought—with money or promises or services or threats; Krayon was willing to use whatever worked, but he was accustomed to getting what he wanted in the end. Compromises were for the weak, and occasionally for those who didn’t want to anger the four demons older than him. With hundreds of demons younger than him and according him respect, Krayon rarely had reason to complain on that end.

He fixed Raenef with a gold-eyed glare. Now here was a demon getting too comfortable with the familiarity Krayon graced upon him. If he wanted Raenef’s servant demon, he was going to get him. “Everyone has a price,” he repeated. “Name yours.”

Raenef’s voice was cool as he said, “Eclipse is too valuable a servant to sell.” He turned his back on the demon floating beside him, returning his attention to the desk where he was seated and the scrolls heaped on its top. “The amount of work he does for me is unimaginable. I couldn’t fulfill my duty as Demon Lord without his aid.”

Krayon raised an eyebrow, swallowing his initial retort. He had learned to bide his time over the years (and decades and millennia). Raenef shook his hair and picked up the scrolls, licking a finger as he flipped through them with a quick skim. Krayon sighed. The scrolls rustled, brittle and dry as they shifted against each other, covered in black and red symbols. Raenef tapped a long-nailed finger at a few of them, marking them with his magic for later perusal. Krayon watched.

“He doesn’t seem to be providing any assistance now,” Krayon finally observed after a long stretch of this not-quite silence.

“Not that you can see, no.”

“You do realize it is precisely because of this efficiency that I wish to attain him?”

“I’m sure it has nothing to do with his appearance,” Raenef said dryly, tracing his index finger around a group of symbols. A stream of green magic glowed briefly before fading into the parchment, invisible except to Raenef.

“He’s easy on the eyes,” Krayon admitted, a purr low in his voice, and he slanted the other demon a sideways look. “But I am not acquiring him for my harem.”

“You are not acquiring him at all,” Raenef corrected him with a bland smile. His eyes glittered from under the dark fringe of hair. “Eclipse, as I have made clear, is not for sale.”

Krayon righted himself and planted his booted feet firmly on the ground beside Raenef’s chair. He dismissed the sylphs that had been darting around his robes, keeping them artistically aflutter, and slid long fingers through his hair to rearrange it to suit his tastes. Then he looked down at Raenef from his superior vantage point and said coldly and clearly, “In that case, I expect an equivalent exchange.”

Raenef shifted through another scroll. He did not look up. “I am a demon lord, Krayon. I do not play fair.”

“But even among those unscrupulous by nature, there are rules.” The long fingers that had just moments ago been in Krayon’s wild curls were now stroking through Raenef’s hair, just beneath his ear. Krayon’s mouth curled up when he saw an involuntary shiver skitter up Raenef’s spine. “Do we have deal, Demon Lord Raenef IV?”

“I will draw up a pact,” was Raenef’s response. His hands stilled on the scrolls and, with a quick flick of his left wrist, a blank sheet of parchment appeared before him. He began to write with broad, steady strokes.

Krayon’s lips brushed his ear. “That will do.” He smiled.

Started/Finished: 12.21.2006