"Grálkóz! Useless, the lot of them!" Chúdan sighs and sits down heavily, motioning for Ctoślome to join him. "Now what do we do? We've lost all our leads, and our party besides."

Ctoślome, as ever, obeys, though his face betrays less concern than his master's. We could simply disappear, couldn't we? his face said. Unlike his master, he had no loyalties to any of those people. Especially not that one, with the cannibal-demon hiding in his sword. He shuddered and put the thing out of his mind by reading Chúdan's face for clues about the correct answer. "We could... try to find... an inn, rather than sitting here in the dust? Maybe the stablehand you made friends with by the Screaming Gate will know a cheaper place?"

Chúdan shook his head, sighing and casting his gaze around the courtyard they were settled in. Behind them, the Temple of Aiag rose into the sky, the white marble columns reflecting the light of the morning sun. Within it's hallowed halls, he could hear Baramet chanting softly as worked at embalming their former companion. While Chúdan did feel some remorse at the loss of the bard, he knew that it would have happened sooner or later, given his lack of any form of self-preservation. And if anything, he felt that the exchange of him for the demon beside him was a blessing; At least Ctoślome could sing, for starters. To the left, his tent was still strung between a pair of palms, inviting after their ordeals in the caves beneath the temple, and beyond that the road to the Sighing Gate and the Golden Market. To the right, the lane led to the Silent gate that had first brought him to the city, and there beyond the wild, windswept steppes of his homeland. And directly in front of the , the main road down which the remains of their party departed, winding across the city until it reached the Screaming Gate. 

"Does my tent not suit you? Have your tastes in accommodation grown more refined during your journey underground?" he teases, hauling himself to his feet.

"No! I mean— I didn't think—" Ctoślome looks down, ready to melt into the pavement and percolate into the network of caverns underneath them. "I thought they were temporary and intended just for the duration of your work with the temple. They seem indefensible against bandits or the like." His voice grew smaller. "I like them, myself. You are generous to let me occupy them."

Chúdan chuckles, shaking his head once more. "Forgive me, I forget you're new to our realm. While for many cultures you would be correct, for my people, the tent is one of the few things that is permanent. They travel with us across the plains, providing shelter and comfort wherever we roam." he flashes a grin at the other man, dark, threatening. "And what better protection could they offer than the Mledev who occupies them?" The beckons the Sran to follow, as he makes his way over to structure of leather and canvas, pulling the flap open and motioning the demon inwards. "You do speak true, though. It's been a long day, and rest beckons. Tomorrow, we can determine where Tbida guides us."

The loose canvas of the tent notwithstanding, the Mledevite’s bravado leaves the sran oddly comforted. At least, if nothing else, they would be fighting back if something attacked them. Ctoślome crawls into the tent on hands and knees and sets himself on a pillow, hugging his knees to his chest. Unlike the tent’s human owner, the demon has only a loose, diaphanous shift to wear, which sticks to his body as though wet. He waits to remove it, though, until his master indicates whether they were indeed settling in for the night.

Chúdan casts one last look around the courtyard, the shadows of twilight starting to take hold, before following the sran into the tent and letting the canvas fall closed behind him, plunging the pair into shadow. He turned back to the other man and smiled at him, as reassuring has he could. "You need not fear. Nothing will attack us this close to the temple." With that reassurance said, he moved to ready for the evening, unstringing his bow, and settling it, along with his axes and pack, in a corner. His armour soon followed, leaving him bare to the night air that ghosted across his scarred and muscled form. Stretching, he turned back to the sran, settling upon the pile of blankets in the middle of the tent. 

"Nothing except the demon we found here ourselves, perhaps," Ctoślome shudders. He tugs at the little clothing he has and pulls it apart—it is demon-stuff, spirit and thought, and comes apart and dissolves the moment he does—so that he, too, looks naked. Really, he had never been wearing anything, and this is no more his real skin than the tunic he had been wearing. It plays the part well enough, though, delicate and clammy, muscles moving eerily under the skin. He waited each night for Chúdan to disrobe to make sure that his body conformed the man's expectations; he mirrors what he sees, roughly, as his thoughts bend toward embodying what his master expects, but it is ephemeral and delicate where Chúdan is solid and strong and real. He stares between the man's legs and then looks down, relieved to see that his form properly mimicked the only human he had seen naked so far. "Why do we sleep naked, here on this mortal plane?" he wonders aloud. "Are clothes uncomfortable?"

Chúdan grins at the demon. "Or the ones we willingly brought into our camp." He follows Ctoślome gaze, smirking as he watches the other man. "Why wouldn't we?." He rolls only his back, gazing up at the peak of the tent above them. "For some, like the Oveish, sleep clothes are a necessity. For others. they are a sign of decadence, of wealth and luxury. But for the people of the step, they are a waste of fabric, a hinderance of our connection to the wind and the plains." He turns back to the demon. "Does that answer your question?"

“Being naked is superior, then,” Ctoślome summarizes, scooting forward and draping himself against the mortal body. They had slept in this tent only a night or two together, but the sran had learned already that the man preferred they touch. He had observed how the half-demon with the horrible sword had helped Chúdan with his tent before joining him in it, and when he had entered sometime later, how they lay sticky and grinning in each other’s arms. The sran copied the pose as best he could each night since.

“It must be superior,” he says aloud to himself, “since the one named Innocence was always naked when he joined you in here, and he was Oveiger.” He nods. “So either it is better, or you were the superior man and he conformed to your ways in deference.”

Chúdan grinned, pulling the sran against him and wrapping him in his arms. “Sleep clothes are a hinderance when it comes to passion. They impede the freedom of our bodies to connect, skin to skin, as we bond. So yes, naked is superior, and Innocence was wise to know this”

“Oh, it helps you bind him to you. That explains why my noble sir wished to do it with the half-demon to keep him in line.” It also explained why Ctoślome was here, naked buried in the man’s skin. “Is that why you cover up outside, then? To protect yourself from others trying to bind you?”

Chúdan shakes his head. “Not bind, in the way you are to me. But bond. To form a connection, a shared interest and understanding. Bonds are what had kept our party together…” He scowls darkly for a moment, before shaking his head and continuing. “We wear armour and clothes outside to protect us from the elements, or dangers, or to share our wealth and status or occupation. But here, in the tent, there’s no need for that.”

"Because it is safe here, then." In truth, the idea did not make full sense to Ctoślome. Nudity was a kind of weakness, but more useful for this bonding among allies. Certainly, whenever he had peered into mortal minds, ideas of nudity were often prominent. He looks down the mortal's body again, toward the organs set casually between his legs, wondering what makes those so precious and vulnerable that they require constant guarding. Certainly the ones the sran had seemed tender a bit; just shifting the wrong way made him wince.

"It's funny how for all that I see these in mortal imaginings, I never saw any until I saw yours and Innocence's. I didn't know how much they changed over the course of a night, getting longer and shorter and such."

Chúdan smirked, shifting slightly so the Stan could have a better clue, and flexed his muscles. He cock, which has already begun to harden from having the naked man in his arms, began to twitch at the movement, and after a few moments, he reached a hand down to properly adjust it, letting the sran see how it bounced and moved. “They grow based on arousal; sexual need and desire. We get hard when we need to breed, to release.” He moves his hand away and motions for Ctoślome to play with it instead. 

The sran reaches down and massages the thickening cock as the master had. The head pokes past the foreskin and he pumps it casually, instinctively. He looks up at the master’s face with a confident grin of recognition. “This is what I’m used to seeing now, with them thick and stiff.” His mouth starts to water, and he swallows. His powers mostly whisper of mortal desires, and mortals generally only thought of each other’s cocks in states of arousal. Once they were hard like this, though, Ctoślome understood them better. Vectors of intense need and intense pleasure. Though he wouldn’t say so, he had peered into his mortal master’s companions’ minds, too, including Innocence’s while they were bonding and Ctoślome was stuck outside the tent. It was no accident he had draped himself over Chúdan the same way, and even more pumps the man’s cock with the same nonchalant, sleepy motions.

“You seem ready to bond, then, master.”

Chúdan sighs and lets his eyes slide closed as Ctoślome strokes him, feeling his length harden in the other man's grip, the motions almost familiar to him with how similar they were to the way Innocence had held him. He lets his hand wander down the sran's back, resting to cub the demons ass and squeeze it as the man continued to work. "Mmmmm, most men thinking on their cocks do tend to have them in this state, yes"

He cracks an eye open, smirking as he catches Ctoslome's gaze. "Mmmm, peering into my mind now, are you?"

“No! No, I can’t look into yours… anymore.” Not since they’d made their pact. “I’m just looking at your body when I say that.” He gasps gently at the hand groping him—this body is pleasant, actually—and nuzzles into Chúdan’s neck. “You are right that most men seem to prefer when cocks are hard. Do you, as well?”

“I am ready to bond then, yes.” Chúdan grins at the noise Ctoślome makes,, giving his ass another squeeze as he feels the demon nuzzling against him. “And I do. A hard cock is a good sign.”

The sran does not move right away, enjoying their embrace too much. The cock in his hand has finally hit full mast, though, and the dregs of others’ desires echo in his head. “It’s common to put it in one’s mouth when it gets like this, right?” he says as he shifts and pulls away from his master. In truth, he would have no idea what was common to do; only what was often desired. And those males who desires other males thought about cocks in mouths often. Innocence in particular seemed fascinated with it, and that alone was enough to make this demon want to do it better. “May I?”

“Mhmmm, you may.” Chúdan replies, moving a hand to the demon’s head and guiding him down to his groin. He holds Ctoślome in place for a moment against his balls, letting the sran explore on his own a before guiding him towards his head.

Thankfully, the pact restrains him from trying to consume his master, because having flesh in his mouth makes the instinct to consume flare up and blot out other thoughts. He freezes for a second, mouth locked over the balls, before the reaction recedes and he can focus on sucking, gently, curiously—then excitedly. By the time Chúdan guides him to the cockhead his whole body is tingling with excitement and sensation, especially between his legs.

So this is bonding.

Chúdan moans as the sran’s tongue and lips toy with his balls, the heavy sack twitching at Ctoślome’s ministrations. The moans intensify as as the demon moves to his cock, and Chúdan can’t resist thrusting up into his throat as the srans lips wrap around him.