Ranuk did not know how to feel as he marched with the procession of demons, following the same path that he had forged with his father as a youngling once again. They had been nothing more than game trails when Ranuk knew them but now his childhood wanderings had become a proper road, his own tread immortalized by elvish industry. He wondered if they understood the significance of that, if they were aware that they walked upon the foot steps of demons, had knowingly set stones and given names to pathways that had been originally established by their enemies.<br/><br/><i>Probably not</i>, Ranuk mused,<i>and enemies no longer.<br/>
</i><br/>Not many beside Ranuk would remember these pathways anyhow. Of the 50 or so demons within the royal procession, perhaps a dozen were actually returning, the rest were born afterwards and have only heard stories of Terranula's broken mountain. They were children of refugees and they stared, wide eyed in wonderment at returning to the motherland of their displaced parents.<br/><br/>Ranuk, on the other hand, could not stop scowling at the landscape, noting another thing the elves had changed or added. Like the castle atop the hill with its tall spires and imposing walls. That was new.<br/><br/>Ranuk could see the ugly structure for miles, and no doubt the inhabitants behind its iron gates could see them in turn as the demons made their slow way up the mountain face. They made quite a parade with Ranuk pointedly stationed at the front, the well remembered nightmare of the shadow people leading the congregation. They had called him the White Wolf, though no lupine blood pumped in his veins.<br/><br/>He was the son of Minas, the nine tailed fox, and Unak, a true mountain goat demon. He took mostly after his father in shape and color, his body a hulking mass of white shaggy fur, his back hunched and stooped with wide lumbering shoulders and four great black horns curled out from the crown of his head, but there was an elegance to him graced by his mother. He possessed seven sleek fox tails and his limbs were elongated, almost lanky, ending in wickedly sharp claws. His head was that of a fox's stretched out to fit the proportions of his body, the snout pointed and thin, the ice blue eyes slitted and slanted in his long face and cheek bones pronouncedly sharp. It was attached to an arching neck as thick as a horse's, and like a horse he had a mane of flowing white hair falling down the side in great waves.<br/><br/>In all, Ranuk looked little like a wolf but he was far too big to be a fox and far too skinny to be a bear, so a wolf they had called him. He did, however, look very much like a creature that belonged to the mountain and could have been easily mistaken for a mutated animal as he tended to walk on all fours if not for the decoration he wore on his body. There were silver vambraces upon his forearms, and his mane was braided and styled to hang in ropes around his horns. Around his waist he wore a black leather belt and a kilt to hide his loins, the fabric well crafted and dyed a vibrant patterned red with black edging.<br/><br/>Of all the demons, none were as large or as formidable looking as Ranuk, save maybe for Minas' crocodile husband, Goshnar, who lumbered behind her carriage, standing nearly as tall as the ornate thing and probably twice as heavy. The rest were a menagerie of lesser demons, reptilian men that walked on legs or crawled on snake bellies, frog men shivering in the cold, a pair of long eared rabbits, strange insectoids with many arms or many eyes or both. Some pulled carts or carried things on stretchers, while others merely walked or trotted or hopped or slithered or scuttled in loose formation. Very few carried weapons as most didnt need them.<br/><br/>As planned, Ranuk was the first to arrive at the long stairs that lead up to the castle proper, where all its royalty stood in their finery to welcome the demons. What a funny thing. Elves, welcoming demons.<br/><br/>Ranuk did not have much time to dwell on the dark humor of it as his mother's carriage came forward, pulled by a great lizard creature that would have been the size of a horse if it only had the long legs. The carriage itself was bright and guady thing, a sunny yellow and shaped like a gourd (which was exactly what she used to conjure the thing from).<br/><br/>Goshnar stood beside the door but made no move to open it as it opened quite by itself. Within was dark, plumes of purple smoke obscuring the inside. Suddenly a roll of dark violet carpet shot out and began to unfurl itself up the stone steps all on its own, ending right at the feet of the royal family.<br/><br/>Then, a delicate, inhumanely shaped foot stepped out of the carriage door, black and shining like an oil spill, the tips of the toes alighting on the carpet. Then a feminine hand reached out, fingers long and nails even longer, and Goshnar took it with his scaley stump of a hand as a gentleman might do for a lady.<br/><br/>A fox woman slipped out of the carriage, as that was the only way to describe her. She stood upon two legs, and had the arms and torso of a woman, but her neck was incredibly, distressingly long and her head was that of a fox, slitted eyes gleaming like amethysts in her vulpine face. And allover she was covered in dark, sleek fur, black but with the iridescence of a raven's wing, shining purple and green in the light. Upon her forhead sprouted a single spiraling horn, pale bone white, and behind her nine sleek tails flared into an impressive fan. She wore a dress of gleaming white, but it was little more than a single sheet of silk strategically knotted and draped to keep her body decent in the eyes of elves.<br/><br/>This was Minas, mother queen of the demons and former ruler of the Broken Mountain, standing proudly at the Dark Elves' door.