Bara saw the dark cloud that had exited Astara swirl around the ceiling of the throne room. Bara smiled at the thought that her princess would
be her powerful confident self again soon. Bara wasn't lying when she said that she had accepted her existence and was willing to follow Astara
to death if that was what it came to. She wouldn't leave her princess in this pathetic state. And she knew if Dana was in her right mind that
she'd do the same.
Bara gasped in shock when the dark cloud invaded her own body instead! She felt the power, the twisting nether, the blackness pushing inside
her body, make her muscles bulge, her horns and fangs grow. And she heard voices that echoed infinitely but spoke as one.
~TAKE THIS POWER. SHE NO LONGER WANTS IT. BECOME A DEMON PRINCESS THE SIXTH HUNDRED AND SIXY EIGHT. CLAIM IT ALL FOR
YOURSELF. WHY BE A SLAVE FOREVER?~
The tiger artist fiend shuddered under the powerful voices, remembering everything she had done as a human, of everything Astara had taken
from her. Of Astara now helpless and vulnerable before her totally at her mercy.
And she felt a tiny pieces of herself being force quite, snuffed out. She remember what her princess had said, Dana being deader than dead,
the tiny spark of independent and unique will that had captured Astara's curiosity.
Bara remembered hers and Dana's work, trying ever so slowly, ever so sublimely, to teach Astara the value of love, the value of friendship, and
other things the fiends saw as absurd fiction or total and complete lies. Micrometer by micrometer as the eons slowly dragged on.
"NO! I don't want it!" Bara screamed, "GO AWAY! If I am my princess' slave then that is my fate and I chose to make the most of it! I won't give
up me to be more than her! At least this me is still a version of me!"
Bara heard angry sounds that were not words in any language and felt herself vomit the black cloud from her body as all the power it had been
filling her with left her.
Bara gasped and heaved, and only now she realized she was still holding her princess.
The tears still on her face, the child Astara said in a deadpan tone, "It's not of my business anymore. But you're a fool for not accepting that
power. You'd have been part of the inner elite of a force that's existed before mortal consciousness. No one would challenge or dare challenge
your position if you have given yourself a promotion."
"You're my princess."
"It's what a proper demon SHOULD have done."
"You're my princess! Why are we still talking about this-?! And that power belongs only to you! It's not mine to have. And I'm an artist. What
would I want with more power?"
"To have more power is to have more power, nothing else to it."
"There's no point to power unless it's for something. No sane mortal would want this world you've made Astara. But it's the world that is now
and I'll die protecting it and you."
"Loyalty. That's considered a sign of insanity you know among us."
"Ask me if I CARE! Now hurry up and GROW UP and defend your domain from an uppity new comer and bring Dana back to herself. You
wanted to keep that tiny spark of unique will in the fiends you created here Astara? This is what you get. And I know I speak for all of us when I
say we'll all fight and die to the end if need be to protect your domain and you with it."