OC SPOTLIGHT April: March // mostly sfw

this is going to be a LONG one, because march is one of my absolute favourite characters and i have a looot to say about him... he's from the Gods Among Us (GAU) setting and like so many of my characters he's a shapeshifter, with his 'main' forms shown on the sketches above (not to scale tho).

---

march (whose full name is marchosias) was born from a pit of lava in the depths of hell itself, created by the prime of wrath, nara. nara rules the demons of her realm like a general their army, and her soldiers are expected to be obedient and disciplined, more or less at the cost of their own free will. but march has attitude problems from the very beginning. it's natural for a wrath demon to be full of rage, but march is an exceptionally explosive combination of aggression and zero impulse control. he's violent, rebellious, undisciplined, and has no respect for authority. he'll behave like an asshole just to provoke people, never backs off, and picks fights everywhere. in terms of demonic power, however, he shows great promise. wrath demon training consists of learning how to fight and kill and is designed to make them stronger, faster, more agile, more deadly. march is a natural, and nara takes personal charge of his training. 

describe her teaching methods as "unforgiving" would be an understatement. it's the kind of training that most people don't even survive. but march is stubborn as all hell. even when his vision starts to blacken from blood loss or his limbs go numb from pain, he doesn't give up. time and time again he drives himself to the brink of death because he refuses to quit. he's pushed beyond what should have been physically possible, and literally made to fight for his life--to kill or be killed. every day he gets a new scar, but he never complains about her training methods because that would make it sound like he can't handle it. no matter how ruthlessly tough it is, he keeps going until she's content with his performance--or until he passes out. it's a peculiar brand of pride, where he'd never ask for a break, admit exhaustion, or surrender. in fact he'd rather get killed than give up. nara can see it in his eyes when he glares at her from across a line of defeated enemies, panting and bleeding and shaking but keeping himself standing through pure willpower. it's not that he wants to make her proud--he just refuses to fail. he'll prove he can endure anything she throws at him, and come out stronger for it.

as you can imagine, march has very mixed feelings about his "mother." on the one hand her mere presence commands respect and makes even him instinctively behave more like a soldier. on the other, he resents her authoritarian ways and how she uses his own stubbornness against him. what march doesn't know is that he's different from nara's previous "children." they were mindless and robotic in their complete obedience, never thinking for themselves. meanwhile, march seems too unruly to tame. he has so much spirit and willpower, for better or for worse. 

on that note, the training doesn't fix his bad attitude. he's still a relatively young demon, "only" a couple hundred years old, or the demonic equivalent of 20-25--full of youthful confidence and restlessness, with none of the insight and moderation of age. he remains a shitty punk who's always pissed off at everything and who's constantly looking for outlets. any attempt at punishing or disciplining him just makes him more angry, more disruptive, and more likely to disobey future orders simply out of spite. nara's generals and captains rarely ever manage to control him, and she can't always be around to personally keep him in check. march has plenty of time to be an agent of chaos. he acts like a bully, makes enemies in the wrong places, ruins the plans of others just for the sake of being an asshole, and acts counter to a given order just to prove a point. stronger demons end up loathing him and weaker ones fear him. 

many of nara's followers start questioning the wisdom in keeping him around. yes, he's a formidable wrath demon, especially after nara's training, but is he not too unpredictable and unruly to be useful? what good is a soldier who won't follow orders? is such a rebellious warrior not more or a risk than an asset? nara has no intention of letting march go too far without punishment, but she does have a soft spot for her son. in hindsight he got away with worse than he should have, and it made him all the more cocky. it gets to a point where he's causing more harm and disruption than good, tensions start running high, and it's only a matter of time before he steps over a line for the last time.

the fateful moment arrives in the form of march lashing out and defying nara in her own throne room, in front of an audience of officers and demonic nobility. their faces pale in disbelief, but many of them grow smug with conviction that surely she'll execute him now.

indeed, any other demon would have met their end right then and there... but nara decides to exile march to the human realm instead. that way he won't be able to cause more trouble in hell, and she doesn't care if he wreaks havoc on earth. he's completely cut off from his infernal home, isolated and alone and with no chance of returning without permission. his exile is a punishment, but also another test. the human world is ripe to be his punching bag, but earth is not without its dangers, even for a demon like him. there's skilled exorcists, monster hunters, and other powerful non-human beings, all of whom he'll have to face on his own in case of a conflict. part of nara also wants to see what happens if she leaves him to his own devices--perhaps that's what he needs to mature. march doesn't see it that way though. getting thrown out of his home is very much a blow to his pride, he always wanted freedom, but not like this. 

he finds himself stranded in 17th century europe. he's been in the human realm before, sure, but it was a good while ago and much has changed in the fast-moving world of men. with nothing else to do, he roams around aimlessly, letting out his frustration and anger on any humans that get in his way. as a wrath demon, violence, destruction, and killing is in his nature; in a way, he's just doing what he was designed to do. but it's also the only way he knows how to deal with the resentful humiliation of getting exiled. the carnage left in his wake quickly earns him a reputation among occultists, and before long a pair of powerhungry italian nobles try to bind him to their service. 

with their retinues of cult-like followers in tow, they take possession of an old medieval fort and perform a summoning ritual. the water of the fountain in the middle of the cortile turns into lava, and a massive winged monster emerges, roaring fire and crushing the stonework under his claws. they try to proclaim themselves his masters, tries to make him obey their orders--but their ritual just wasn't good enough. march steps through the circles of salt and chalk and writing that should have contained him, and what follows is a bloodbath. 

a local witch soon hears of the massacre in the abandoned fort and of a strange beast that's terrorising the surrounding countryside. they soon realise the matter is far above their paygrade, and so they contact charlie.

charlie is a half-human, half-troll witch who's the caretaker of a forest in germany--except the forest isn't really in germany at all. it's a liminal place that's everywhere and nowhere at once, containing gateways to places near and far. charlie is much older than they look, and very powerful. they track the rampaging demon to a destroyed village, finding a huge, somewhat draconic beast amongst its ruins, feasting on the dead.

march attacks the lone person, thinking they'll be easy to kill--but instead finds himself immobilised by their magic. while march trashes around in rage, charlie performs an exorcism... but it doesn't work. hell won't take him back. 

march mocks them for even trying, but charlie is unperturbed. they can't just leave a wrath demon running amok, so instead they put binding spells on him, which basically allows them a degree of control over him. it doesn't turn him into a slave, but they can stop him from committing further atrocities. and so it happens that charlie brings him to their forest, where they can keep him in check while deciding what to do with him. imagine, if you will, a very chill witch magically dragging a very unwilling demon along, like a dog trying to resist the pull of a leash.

charlie's home is like something out of a fairy tale; an idyllic forest, a picturesque cottage, blossoming gardens. march hates it, and doesn't waste time trying to free himself. attacking charlie doesn't work at all, since the binding spells lets them stop him cold in his tracks. they couldn't care less when he threatens to tear them apart unless they release him, nor are they interested in making a demonic deal when he tries to bargain. while he's free to roam the forest as he pleases, he can't simply leave, because no matter which direction he goes he always just ends up at the cottage again.

in his restless frustration, march turns to downright childish measures. he digs up charlie's potatoes, tries to eat their pet pig, and scratches the timber walls of the cottage like a cranky cat. he knocks over trees, terrorises the forest spirits, scares the shit out of visitors, and chews their garden tools apart. charlie even has to put a demon-warding spell on the cookie jar to keep him from devouring every new batch. but it seems like nothing march does can really faze charlie that much, which annoys him to no end.

he's still in his huge feral form, mind you, so he sleeps outside, even when it rains. imagine a very cranky demon, curled up under a tree and yet drenched to the bone. charlie says they'd let him inside the cottage if only he could fit through the doorway, but march just growls and stubbornly suffers through the rain.

... that is, until the arrival of the autumn storms. after weeks of rain, thunder, and lighting, one night charlie hears a banging on their door. when they open it they find themselves at eye level with the chest of a tall humanoid instead of a draconic muzzle, but once they lift their gaze they meet a very familiar pair of angry pink eyes. the heavy rains has his clothes and long hair glued to his scaly skin, and he struggles to swallow his pride and say something through gritted fangs. but he doesn't have to--charlie steps aside, and invites him in. 

minutes later he's curled up in front of the fireplace, a blanket around his shoulders and his clothes hung up to dry. he doesn't talk much, and whenever he does he's his usual rude, aggressive, douchebag self--but at least he's not trying to trash their furniture, bite off their head, or set the cottage on fire. as long as he somewhat behaves, even if reluctantly and unwillingly, charlie treats him with a kind of common decency that initially leaves him suspicious and confused. 

that rainy night marks a shift in their relationship. despite march's continued bad manners, they slowly start to get to know one another. he still acts like he hates everything about the witch and their cabin, but there's a curiosity brewing under the cranky surface that sometimes gets the better of him. hilarity often ensues as he pesters charlie while they try to go about their daily life, not to mention when they show him technological wonders of the 17th century such as telescopes, barometers, and pocket watches. despite the fact that the forest acts as his prison, march subconsciously ends up feeling quite protective of it. many of charlie's visitors (friends, travellers, people who need help) suddenly find themselves tackled to the ground by a massive demon, fully ready to maul the 'intruder.' charlie finds it impractical but admittedly quite endearing--and there's no denying that a powerful wrath demon is good to have around in the case of actual threats and dangers.

for example, the day that a yokai suddenly appears from one of the portals in the woods. after defeating it together, charlie explains that there's other liminal places in the world, all of them far apart yet intimately connected through magical gateways. one of them is a forest in japan, guarded by a kami called kazuo. something must be wrong, otherwise kazuo would never let a dangerous yokai pass through. before march knows it, charlie is dragging him along through the portal--they need to look into the matter and they have no intention of leaving him unsupervised. 

they are met with more hostile demons running rampant in kazuo's forest. after dealing with the danger, the spirit inhabitants of the woods comes out of hiding to thank them and they learn that the forest guardian has been stolen away by a magician, leaving them with no protection against malevolent beings. a brave tanuki has already gone off to save him, but the demons are trying to find the gateways normally guarded by kazuo. 

to keep more yokai from entering other parts of the world, charlie closes the portals, to march's great bewilderment. "great, now how do we get back?" "we don't." the witch has decided they'll stay until the forest protector is back, doing their part in hunting down hostile demons. march is very grumpy and disgruntled about the whole thing (as always when he's made to do something he hasn't personally chosen) but at the same time he gets to fight, which is what he's made for. 

plus, since he’s finally somewhere else than the german forest, he's looking for new ways to escape charlie's spell, and the opportunity presents itself in a witch who offers to free him. just as march is about to accept, charlie intervenes, revealing that the witch is trying to enslave march into their personal service instead. they are a collector of yokai, and now that they're busted they release a host of demons from a vessel at their hip, vowing to make march theirs and “put him in a much stronger spell than the silken thread charlie used.” while march is stuck battling their "pets," charlie and the witch face off in a duel, and though charlie is victorious they end up very weakened. it would be the perfect time for march to forcibly break the spells and take off.

instead, he carries them to the nearest healer and watches over charlie's recovery like a hawk. when the healer tells him not to worry, he staunchly denies being concerned at all, claiming that the only reason he's helping charlie’s sorry ass is because without them he'd be stranded there. that's all. the only reason.

he always has excuses like that, in denial of every caring about anything or anyone except himself. least of all charlie. why would he ever care about charlie? especially now that he's found out that charlie could've bound him much more strictly, but chose not to?

in other words, this is their first Moment. when they got home, things are somehow subtly different. march can't pinpoint or describe it, and it frustrates him endlessly. it's an incredibly slow burn, mostly because march is too dumb to figure out what he's feeling. even if he had any previous experiences of affection--which he doesn't--he'd be too stubborn to admit that he's growing fond of charlie. he's never known sexual attraction before, either. the concepts of lust and romance never really existed in his wrath demon mind, because they weren't in his nature. well, until now. 

what follows is a series of scenes ripe with unresolved sexual tension. there's the time charlie asks to inspect his fangs ("for science") but pricks their finger on one of them, leading march to lick the blood off of their hands--and having no clue of how erotic it is. there's all the times march finds himself staring at a half-dressed charlie, not understanding why he wants to touch and nibble and grope their deliciously soft body. there's the many moments when march has no idea that charlie is checking him out, thinking about letting him lick other parts of them.

finally, there's the time charlie asks march if they can collect some ... demonic specimen from him. you know, for witchcraft reasons. and for science.

it's all downhill from there, but in the best of ways. march is eager to delve into all this new sex stuff, and charlie is not complaining about having a suddenly very horny demon on their hands. march forgets about wanting to escape, and charlie forgets about trying to find a way to exorcise him. 

for a while, as they explore the new turn their relationship has taken, things get adorably slice-of-lifey, with charlie trying to teach march to bake his own cookies and taking care of a snotty monster when he catches the demon flu. march hunts for moose and leaves them on the threshold like an oversized cat bringing its human dead mice, and low key freaks out about how to take care of a bedridden human when it's charlie’s turn to get sick. somehow, charlie convinces him to help them in the garden and run mundane errands, and he even starts forming tentative friendships with some of charlie's associates (ranging all the way from other magic practitioners and supernaturals to a couple of monster hunters--volkov and kazimir--who occasionally do business with the witch).

in the middle of this odd serenity, a certain sister clementia enters the stage. she's a nun who uses her own brand of magic to "do the will of god," but in her zealotry she's absolutely demented. once she's learned of the liminal forest and the "satanic creature" it hides, she sets off to banish him “back to where it belongs.” she appears out of nowhere, and almost manages to do what charlie couldn't: exorcise march. he fights back, but her holy magic wounds him badly and charlie does the only thing they can think of--they release their binding spell on him, ejects him out of the forest, and traps clementia inside. with march safely out of the nun’s reach, charlie duels her on their own. 

the demon suddenly finds himself at the edge of the woods, stumbling through a portal that promptly closes behind him. he can practically feel the magical shackles evaporate, and realises that with the bond broken he could go wherever he wants. there’s no magical force sealing him in that shitty forest anymore, no reason he should ever have to see that dumb cottage again, and that stupid witch has no power whatsoever over him now.

two seconds later he’s running back through the forest as fast as his legs can carry him, cussing at charlie’s risky maneuver and tearing up the earth in his fervour to return to their side. the woods are warded to keep unwanted guests away, but he knows charlie’s methods well enough to force his way through. soon enough wings sprout from his shoulders and he takes to the sky, whence he sees the blinding light of clementia’s holy magic. before either the nun or charlie knows it, he slams clementia into the ground from above, burning out her eyes.

the holy witch manages to escape death, and seeing his injuries charlie stops march from pursuing her. they don’t get the chance to ask why he’d come back before march hisses at them to never kick him out like that again, yanking them into a hug and making sure they’re okay.

clementia was not their first foe and won't be their last. next, they have to battle a monster hunter named kuzma. in a way, kuzma and march are much alike; angry, violent, destructive. the first few times they fight, march goes at him with brute strength, powered by the same unfiltered rage as always. but they're basically two unstoppable forces clashing together at full speed, because kuzma can match him--and gets the upper hand when he severely injures charlie. it's bad. for the first time in his life, march runs from a fight, solely for the sake of saving charlie's life instead. 

somehow, kuzma has drained charlie of their magic, leaving them listless and weak. the sight fills march with a fury such as he's never felt before, but it's colder, raw and intense but like ice in his blood instead of the usual fire.

as it turns out, kuzma was volkov's former pupil gone mad. even while he's still wounded from their last encounter, march asks volkov and kazimir to help him train for the next--and he's not the sort to ask people for help. ever. but what better way to prepare for a fight with a monster hunter than sparring against two monster hunters, right? he tells them to do their worst, to help him figure out how to counter any trick kuzma could throw at him. day after day it leaves him bleeding and beaten up, but he refuses to rest or even take a break. sounds familiar...?

without really realising it, facing kuzma forces march to change his perspective; to take control of his rage, learn self-discipline, and be smart in his maneuvers rather than relying on force alone. instead of always acting on pure impulse he learns to think twice and consider the consequences--to strategise. seeing charlie in their sickbed, frail and powerless, fills him with a purpose beyond just fighting for the fight's own sake. he's not afraid of dying. it's not in his nature, because he was designed to be fearless in combat. but he won't give kuzma another chance to hurt charlie.

on that note, charlie does have an idea for how to heal themselves and gain their magic back. but it involves a covenant between the two of them--a new bond to tie their souls together. even though it would be very different from their first bond, charlie doesn’t expect march to be okay with it. this time, however, he’s more than willing. he even chides them for not asking him sooner. “I thought you might not want to.” “Don’t be stupid, of course I do.”

the union is consummated in a ritual that culminates in march and charlie having sex, which basically allows charlie to tap into march's demonic essence and kind of set their powers aflame again. it leaves them full to the brim with restless magic and the next morning march wakes up to charlie growing a massive tree in the yard, turning it from seedling to giant in under a minute. 

in other words they're firmly set on the road to recovery, but not entirely well yet, and the next time kuzma is upon them march insists on facing him alone. normally, the witch wouldn't let him talk them out of helping, but they're still weakened and there's just something so earnest in how march begs them to stay safe. he's not afraid of dying, but he's afraid of losing charlie. 

while march has trained to master his wrath, kuzma has been further consumed by his. it's a tough battle, but the demon manages to keep his head cool at the same time as kuzma deteriorates into a state of rabid frenzy. at the end of it, when march tears his head off of his shoulders, it almost seems like an act of mercy.

just when everything has calmed down, nara appears in the forest. march has no idea what his mother is doing there and is fully prepared to defend the people and the home he has grown to love--but she's not there to punish him further. quite the contrary. she's watched him over the years, as he gradually grew and matured and now, in defeating kuzma, he's finally proven that he can use his fury with purpose and determination. she lifts his exile, and invites him back to hell, saying he has earned it.

march glances over his shoulder, at charlie and the cottage, the garden and the potato patch, the newly added massive tree, the pet pig that he's been tempted to eat so many times, the marks of claws in the timber from their first few weeks together.

he decides to stay.

that's not to say he doesn't visit hell every once in a while, to sort of reclaim his place there. seeing march waltz in makes his old foes metaphorically choke on their drinks, and he's much too happy to show them they can't get rid of him that easily. march will always be march--he'll always be cocky, fighty, brash, stubborn, and kind of an asshole. but even his enemies have to admit that he has changed, a little bit, into someone more deserving of not just enmity and fear but also of respect. no longer banished he can come and go as he pleases, so he can reconnect with hell again and nara sometimes sends him on missions worthy of a proper wrath demon.

but he always returns home, to charlie.

-----

on a closing note, there's also an alternate GAU universe: slice of life GAU, or sol!gau. it's a more lighthearted and feelgood setting where angst and drama is not allowed, and it takes place in the present day. in this version, after getting exiled from hell, march makes his entrance into the human world by crashing a museum. instead of killing people he just destroys a bunch of priceless paintings, to the great horror of the art-loving guests. charlie is a local witch who rushes in to deal with it, but after the exorcism fails charlie has to put the same magical leash on him--and hide him in their college dorm room. hilarity ensues as charlie struggles to keep march's true nature hidden from the other students, and as march interacts with a human world that has changed a lot since last time he visited a couple hundred years earlier. imagine march trying to learn to use a smartphone, people asking if he bought his horns on etsy ("wow, they're so well-made, they almost look real!"), and him thinking people are trying to steal his demonic essence by taking photos of him.

-----

got any questions about march, whether sfw or nsfw? ask them in the comment section below! and hope you enjoyed the read <3

// art + march + kazuo + volkov © me; nara + charlie + kazimir + clementia + kuzma © kubi.