Stones. I absolutely hated stones. During my last hours of travelling in the direction of the needle, they were always by my side. I was still quite angry at Aska for knowing me better than I did and thus didn’t really watch where I stepped. I already fell over some shitty stone tower once. I wondered what idiot would build such a thing down here and quickly concluded that it could only be Aska who was nowhere to be found. It was probably better that way considering my seething anger.

“Fire? Are you kidding me?” A few hundred metres away, there was a small fire burning. If I walked for hours to reach this place, Aska´s death would be painful. Even more enraged did I approach the burning torch only to find something that shouldn’t be possible down here. A living human laid next to the torch, sleeping uncomfortably on the gravel with a sword in hand. He wasn’t glowing like the other souls and even breathed.

He was around twenty years old, wore heavy armour, but the visor was luckily open. He already had a scar on his right cheek despite his young age, but that didn’t worsen his looks at all. With his blonde hair, he looked quite handsome in comparison to the other souls who walked around here, but that may be because he actually lived.

Instead of waking him up, I walked out of sight as quietly as possible and wondered about what I should do. The anger I had was quickly forgotten by this discovery and even replaced with joy. Aska was strangely right and I couldn’t blame him for knowing that this human basically impersonated a desire of mine. Suddenly, I had a great idea and dishevelled my hair quickly and rolled around in the gravel. I couldn’t really talk to him as clean as I was as my eyes were already suspicious enough. Just imagining how he would react if he saw a pale, red-eyed young girl in a place where souls wandered around was quite enough to see that this wouldn’t work out. As soon as I found my appearance satisfying, I stood up and started to run towards the knight again.

“HELP! Please, somebody!” I screamed for help, over and over again as I ran towards the knight. I obviously didn’t run towards the man directly, but rather changed my course as soon as he stood up. “Please! Mr. Knight, please help me!” Confused by the sudden development, he unsheathed his sword and quickly scanned the completely normal, but dark area behind me. I even doubted that he saw me as his eyes never focused on me, but that didn’t stop me from running towards him in the slightest.

The sword swung to me slightly as I stepped into the light, but he immediately turned to look behind me once more. Without wasting any time, I scooted behind him and turned around. “Sir Knight, they are coming. Please save me!”

It took some time for the knight to realize that there was no movement in the darkness at all, but he still held his sword in front of him. “Who is coming?”

“Hounds … they were just behind me …” I breathed heavily and tugged on the shirt that peeked out of his amour. With my dishevelled appearance, pleading and apparent age, I should be able to trick him quite easily, but there was just one problem I just couldn’t overcome easily. As soon as he turned around, I gasped and stumbled away from him.

“Please don’t hurt me!” He clearly saw my red eyes, an obvious indication that I was in no way human. He immediately pointed his sword towards me but showed no intention of striking me at first. “You can drink my blood, but please don’t kill me!” I fell over a stone and pitifully landed on my butt.

“What? Why should I drink your blood?” He was somewhat confused but still held his sword steadily. He was by no means a beginner judging by his stance and I would definitely lose if I fought here, even when the darkness was on my side. And so, I had to make him think that I was his ally.

“You have red eyes … like a vampire.” I wondered if he concluded what I wanted him to, or if he thought that it was all a ruse. He took his goddam time to think about what he said while I crept closer to the light and hugged my knees.

“Miss, I am not a vampire. This place is messing with our perception and probably wants those that are trapped here to fight each other. You are safe now.” Those were quite bold words coming from someone who was in a place he didn’t understand at all. Still, I couldn’t help but smile sweetly as he said these words, mostly because he finally sheathed his sword.

“Sir Knight, how did you get here? … I fell into a well and then …” He approached me and kneeled in front of me while I started to sob because of the imaginary family I left behind. He even patted my head ruined my hairstyle even further. I hated his touch so much that I barely held up the façade of the troubled and sad girl.

“We were exploring the lower levels of the labyrinth of Corsk as some creature threw me into a deep hole. I woke up here, just like you.” I immediately knew that this was quite an interesting piece of information and made sure to never forget it. Just as he was about to wipe my tears away from him, I twisted my head away from him, unwilling to let him touch me any further. “But … how did you find me? As far as I can tell, this place is pretty large for an underground cave.”

Reluctant, I showed him the compass that I still held in my hand. One needle was steadily pointing towards him, while the other one was pointing in the general direction where I approached him from. I didn’t make the mistake of coming directly from there though.

“I found this thing with me when I woke up and it lead me to you as I followed where this is pointing. I don’t know about the other needle through … maybe a way out of here?” He could easily spot a mistake if he thought about it calmly, but the prospect of getting out of here was probably too exciting for him. The problem was that I shouldn’t be able to see anything without a torch. He wasn’t able to see souls, and thus had no way of looking further than the light of the torch that still burned on the ground. I certainly knew of my mistake and started crying once more, just to throw him off the trail.

“Hmm… I think that is a possibility. Or we will be able to find others like us this way. Can I have this?” Still trembling, I gave him the compass and glared at him as he turned in the direction of our house. At first, he put me in the same category as him, and then he was taking my possession away from me. I stood up and grabbed the hem of his shirt again. He soon picked up the torch and together, we began to walk back home.

We didn’t talk much during that time, mostly because I was too angry to speak to him and thus kept my answers short. He still tried to cheer me up and looked back at me quite often. I even caught him several times ogling my neckline and seriously wondered why the two intelligent beings I met so far were perverts. As soon as I noticed his stares, I adjusted my dress so that I showed off less skin, but that didn’t help much.

Unsurprisingly easy, we managed to approach the house. On purpose, I said absolutely nothing as I knew that the lights here were stuffed with souls and waited for him to notice the building. As soon as he saw the building in the shine of the flame, he immediately reacted and squatted down, pulling me with him.

“There seems to be something up ahead. Wait here while I check it out.” That was the worst idea he could come up with. Considering that there were some pictures of Aska and me together inside the house, it could backfire way too quickly.

“Sir Knight, please don’t leave me alone again. I am scared…” He grabbed my hand gently and I had to do my best not to scratch his eyes out. His sweaty hand was so disgusting to touch, that I nearly puked. The way he smiled at me, full of compassion and understanding made everything even worse.

He handed me the torch and grabbed his sword with his dominant right hand while still holding onto me with his other. He dealt with me like a child, which was understandable and exactly what I wanted, but also gave me the creeps.

Instead of approaching the main house first, we luckily walked towards the shack. I felt his tension through his hand as he opened the door slowly and stepped inside with me in tow. The interior of the shack didn’t change that much and it was still rather uninteresting, except for the cage that stood in the middle of it and a trapdoor in the back of the room. The knight was quite interested in the door, but I already knew that it was probably a distraction. Even if he would make it that far, there was nothing under it except gravel.

He still tried and walked slowly but surely towards the door, while I waited for the second actor in this play. Halfway there, I was brutally yanked backwards and lost contact with the guard completely. I screamed loudly as a sharp dagger was pushed against my throat and blood started to flow down. Another hand soon found its way over to my mouth and shut me up completely.

“Release her at once!” The knight pointed his sword towards the third party in the room but didn’t attack Aska, probably fearing that my life would be over in that case. It was really interesting to see him struggle between abandoning or trying to save me.

“I´ll kill her if you move one step closer.” Just to support his claim, the dagger dug itself a bit deeper into my skin and I began to tear up, not because it hurt so much, but rather because I had to make it look real. It immediately worked as the sword began to tremble slightly.

“Who are you?” Was our play not satisfactory? Did he see right through it, or why was he not asking what Aska wanted? I was rather fed up by the dagger already and just wanted to bite into Aska´s hand as he answered.

“My name is Aska.” The knight´s reaction was immediate. He didn’t know him. Either Aska was some obscure god, or the knight didn’t know him under his nickname.  Either way, the knight wasn’t impressed, but rather steadied his sword a bit more.

“What do you want?” Thank you for trying to save me again, kind human. I seriously wanted to punch him really badly because of his unnecessary question previously. I mean, we introduced ourselves during our way here, but asking the name of Aska while he had a dagger against my throat was just a bit idiotic.

“I need a sacrifice to go back to your world. It´s either you or this girl. If we do this peacefully, the other one can accompany me back.” I had to agree that this way of ending the play was seriously brilliant. I wanted to make the climax even better and dug my teeth deep in Aska’s hand. He grasped, seemingly in pain and freed his hand quickly from my bite. I tried to struggle free, seemingly not caring about the dagger, but Aska quickly caught my hands and secured me easily. Still, my mouth was now free to utter whatever nonsense I could come up with and that was by no means little.

“He is lying! Please don’t worry about me!” How would he decide? Would he try to save me, or would he discard me to get out of here? With glee, I watched how the sword slowly sank to the ground and anticipated the knight’s decision with joy.

“I´m sorry, I can´t.” With a bitter expression, he let the sword go and walked inside the cage, completely defeated. I seriously wondered about his self-perception and couldn’t come up with a satisfying answer. Some kind of hero? A knight that saved a little girl in need? Did he seriously think that by sacrificing himself, he could save me? In any case, Aska soon dragged me towards the cage and made sure that it was locked.

“What an idiot.” As soon as he was sure that the door was locked and we were a few steps away, Aska immediately let me go and put the dagger away. Aska nearly laughed, while I was deeply concerned about the intelligence of the knight.

“Yeah, I even told him that you lied.” The guard on the other hand could only stare at us as we gave each other a high five. He took his sweet time to figure out what was going on here, but as soon as he understood, his reaction was really good.

“You tricked me!” Desperation, fear and anger were brewing inside the knight and he furiously rattled at the unmoving door. Yeah, I tricked him, but he let himself get tricked which was way worse in my opinion. I was quite excited about the prospect of having a new pet, but there was something way more important for me.

“Aska … I´m sorry that I flipped out earlier. It´s easy to see that this is my desire. Thank you.” I was truly sorry and happy at the same time. I hugged him as tightly as I could and rubbed my cheek against his clothes. This was truly the best gift he ever made me.

“Oh, don’t worry about that. What do you want to do with him though?” The possibilities were nearly endless, but I already decided as I saw the knights first reaction.

“I´m thinking of becoming a princess.” I stepped away from Aska and curtsied elegantly. “And a princess needs a guard, doesn’t she?”

I looked towards the still struggling knight and smiled sweetly, knowing that I could have so much fun with him.