Day 3 Evening

[Ada Wong]

A chilly, biting draft cut through his thin jacket and dress shirt like infinitesimal needles of ice. When he chanced a glance upwards, orange-yellow flames flickered into brilliant life in the distance and danced energetically among the skeletal limbs of trees, as if a match had been drawn across the windswept prairie in a jagged and terrible line. The sky remained dark and fathomless, even as spitting tongues of fire splintered it into reddish-purple sickles of curled smoke.

"Nice weather we're having," Crowley joked half-heartedly to the stirring, barely conscious Link, although a minute shiver from the cold racked his frame. "Haven't seen a lovelier evening, really."

Not a soul laughed. That was quite alright; someone had to be the life of the party. His eyes went to the splatter of visceral bits and scarlet blood still peppering the ground, glinting like little rubies against the midnight blue-green blades of grass. If you could refer to this half-cocked gore fest as a party, anyway.

Something about this whole thing just didn't sit right with him. Sure, it had been downright fun to watch that skinny-limbed ninja girl go flying away from his gun's blast like a spinning top, but it wasn't like him to just go and bully people around like that. You simply couldn't get away with such nefarious behavior.

Oh, who was he kidding? Crowley was having the time of his life. The others might have been having second thoughts, but it had been far too long since he had done anything outright sinister like that. Even if his long-abandoned heavenly sensibilities decreed otherwise, there was a certain part of him that preened upon acknowledging just how swimmingly things had gone.

He would have received a Commendation for this, he was sure of it. This sort of thing was right up Dagon's alley. Not that Crowley wanted to be up that guy's alley. No, certainly not. Far too smelly.

His hands strayed to his face, hovering for but a moment before he slid the shattered lenses of his shades from his aristocratic nose. Lips pursed in a decidedly sour look, Crowley murmured a few solemn words under his breath before tossing them away. They landed with a clatter against a low stalagmite, and for the first time in what felt like centuries, bright golden-yellow eyes glittered from the shadows furling along the faintly damp cave wall, completely uncovered.

The demon commented on the state of the blonde-haired Hylian's health to the others, paying half a mind to the grave words spoken by the ice-enshrouded soldier and the wielder of shadows. Something gloomy and dour loomed over their heads like a raincloud, and the impending conversation would surely make it fit to burst, sending cold droplets of despair-anger-helplessness washing over them. For now, however, they were a solid enough front, albeit a mite lop-sided.

It was unexpectedly difficult for him to meet any of their eyes. Instead of doing so, the demon knotted his shredded tie with geometric precision, hissing softly under his breath as dozens of miniature cuts stretched and bled.

A lulling, steady beat emanated from the weapon settled against his hip. It was a bit mud-splattered, but then again they all were, and so Crowley didn't begrudge it any for getting a smear of dirt on his leg. He even hummed along.

Da-dum-bada-dee-da-ba-die.