A First Imp Experience

When he reached into the space between the dresser and the clothes hamper, he briefly felt the twig-like legs of the small imp beast swiping at him, then the claws clicking and scratching against both the dresser and the floor. Despite its cheerful nature in the glass container with many of its kind, it didn’t much like being snapped up and popped into the folded cardboard carrier with the woodchips, he gathered from its scared chirps and desperate scratching in its containment. It had quieted down when they had gotten home, but sprung alive and loose once the box had been opened.

It had flitted between trying to land on his chandelier, and trying to land on his curtains…chasing the poor, confused creature had merely caused it to land between, well, the dresser and the weaved clothes hamper. The dresser and the weaved clothes hamper where it was now, scratching, letting out a confused series of chirps like the alarm from a fallen cellphone. Alarmed cries when he reached for the small creature, pitiful cries when he left it well enough alone, and eventually a tired, defeated silence.

And then, after mere minutes, it crawled up from between the dresser and the clothes hamper. Its little head poking out, Notoria frowned, and whether or not it could understand that expression it seemed to flinch a little at it–ducking its head back between into the small space, now only its ears perked up from between.

“Skittish sort, aren’t you?” The succubun, with his cold countenance, was largely unimpressed by its hiding tactics. Unafraid by its defensive clawing, its little claw somehow contorted about it, as it poked back out of its hiding spot as his approaching hand. When he finally grasped it carefully in his hand, he could feel it tremble, it breath or beat, or shudder in fear or from its previous efforts.

It looked preposterously silly grasped in one hand. Small due to being newly formed, it’s small claw-twig legs sticking out between his fingers. Loosening his grip, petting its ears, his grip was loose enough for it to pull free and flop onto the lip of the clothes hamper. Almost falling in, it caught and perched itself on, first looking between the doll and the opening in which it had almost fallen into.

Its large eyes then roamed to the rest of the room, the dresser it had scratched, the window where light poured into, the dark corners gathering hints of dust. Notoria wondered if it was looking for hiding spots, taking note of escape routes. Within the blink of an eye, the small creature had shot out and thrown itself at the bag he had come away from the imp store with. Crossing the space to stop its assault, he found the chirop had torn up a hole into the compressed block of bedding material, making itself at home at the center.

That spot in the torn open block of bedding, in the torn open bag, atop the table…would be its spot for the next week, before it would find the top cabinet of his study much more habitable.