[I wouldn't have dared to think you'd be so reckless. Not to mention disregard all my warnings. And for what?]

Khepre just went on and on and on. He was already repeating himself.

Nion had stopped listening a long while ago. 'Yes father' he wanted to say.

He'd come to a whole new world away from his father, and here he was now; being nagged at once again.

[I am not here to babysit you. I have aided you because I do not want you to die at the hands of a monster not of this world. And here it already hunted you down, with ease.]
[Right... ]

[I am serious.]

[Then, you should've warned me about Kay... And if you'd told me his nature, I could've avoided him in the forest before he moved onto my path.]

Nion was now playing the blame-game, but it was true. If Khepre had just told him Kay was the hunter from the beginning, he wouldn't have gone so deep into the woods in the first place.

[I was not sure there was anything more to warn about.]

Nion felt his temper rise.
"Not sure!? How could you not be sure, they had the same scent!"

Khepre bent his knees casually and jumped up.
[I could not tell whether Kay was the demon, or just... Kay.]

[You see... the hunters of this particular family are shapeshifters.]
"I noticed already." Nion scoffed.
[But they aren't shapeshifters through magic, as you and I are. When they turn they do not just take the form, they become it. Their consciousness goes into hiding and they seldom direct the form they have taken. They can, but they prefer not to.]

There was a pause and Nion tried to grasp what he had been told.

[You see, I knew it was the hunter by smell but I could not sense its consciousness within the mind of that human. He was harmless, so to say. Had it waited for it's scent to fade, the disguise would have been absolute.]

[He could've just shifted back and attacked, couldn't he?]
[That hunter? Oh no, it was in that form for a reason, and it is vulnerable during the shift, much more than in human form.]

Nion was quiet before asking a question that had bothered him since Khepre told him of the hunter's nature;
[But... if he's thoroughly a human, couldn't you just kill him when he's like that?]

[Would you?]
[What, kill him? Yeah.]
[I would not. Killing a human is nothing but trouble.]

[Their laws... human are rather strict if one of their own has been killed. They are weak alone but in numbers they are strong. I am in their world and thus not above their laws.]

[Still, it's not like they would ever find out or see the body.]
It wouldn't be hard to hide it.

[You do not see it. Kill one human. Kill ten humans. Slaughter hundreds of them... A demon killing one human, just one, was the beginning of the end of our world. It turned into an epidemic. It was addicting; killing weaker beings who were deemed to not have the right to live.]

Nion was about to intervene but Khepre kept on talking.

[Our world is at it's end. It may stay mobile for millenia's to come, but it has been dead for a long time.]

[Humans look toward the future. They are inventive, they understand living and try to make something of their short lifespans. But our world... the elders rule it and they are stuck in the past. A world without development, is as good as dead.]

...

[I have not come to this world to kill humans.]

Nion understood, but he felt frustrated;

[But he isn't a human to the core! He's a demon.]

[Ah, but can you be sure he is? Would you not feel bad to end the life of this... Kay?]
[But--]
[And do you know it would be safe to kill him? This hunter, Kilbas, does not care for much else than it's own life. It has secured it's life somehow. I am certain killing Kay would not be so simple.]

Somnion turned away, thinking.

Kilbas had told him himself that Kay didn't exist. And their scent didn't lie. There was no question about Kay's identity. But... he had said something about himself not being the danger. Did he know that he wasn't a human?

[Then, how come he--]

...

"I hate it when he does that."
Somnion spoke under his breath.