Evening at the Daffodil. Dulcen went out front in the cooling air and decided to casually train. He twirled his blade like a baton, battering the air around. He stepped and swayed. He was silently daring the rest of the people within the Daffodil to come and fight him.

Inside, the adventuring party struggled to enjoy their bowls of stew and each other’s company. They remained genuinely afraid of Dulcen.

“He is,” Athalie offered, “probably just a pushover.”

Yet nobody at this bar felt aggravated like Nyx. When Ethel had busted the bathroom door with mind bullets hours before, something like a will-o-wisp went flying out—and dissolved into thin air. Nyx knew that it was a demon, that it had probably gone incorporeal for a moment, and that all it’d shown was likely not within Dodd’s skillset. Still...this was a good reminder that Dodd had only become Nyx’s most faithful servant by deliberately betraying them to zip into the underworld of her own accord.

Nyx had wheeled around and chased Dobie’s fireball for a moment before realizing that Athalie wouldn’t have the same reasoning. She’d just assume it was a miscast spell, a monster, or basically anything but her own demon liege. So Athalie stopped in her tracks and said, “What?” And Dulcen walked back to his seat in total quiet.

Here and now, Athalie said Dulcen was probably just a pushover and believed it. Dobie was also a fucking pushover and a loser, Nyx insisted inwardly. Let him go his own way.

“Wait,” said Ethel, leaning forward on the bar, craning her neck past Athalie’s shoulder. “I have an idea. It might sound incredible, but I think it’s the only way.”

The adventuring party watched her for the first time all day.

“You should go outside,” she said, “and leave.”

Helda immediately added, “Right! If we head out together, especially while his back is turned—”

“No, really. Just leave. I think he stopped caring about beating you up.”

The foursome shared a look. Then, with broken pride, they ducked their heads in a solemn nod.

A minute later, Buck went outside pretending to take in the last shred of sunset. He took a deliberately wide right around Dulcen and deliberately did not look at him. The people inside watched as Buck, hazy in the window, walked off, then ran, circling back, as Dulcen raised his blade and charged after him. The door burst open and Buck threw himself back onto his seat.

***

That night, Dulcen was late in getting into the lodging. Athalie and Ethel paid their way in with a hundred gold—a sliver of what Agi had made last week by pawning off goods. They were glad to get away from Gaians for a while, in their own one-bed place.

“It’s getting absurd,” said Ethel as she brushed back the lace-lined curtain. Dulcen was still out there practicing, and now he was doing twenty-foot-high gymnastics. “I guess he’s like the school bully who threatens to beat you up the moment you leave campus.”

She blinked over at Athalie—disguise still on, but voice and personality slacking off. 

Nyx writhed on the bed in that bluish-green light, arms spread across the pillows, wearing nothing but the Daffodil-provided nightgown. Their armor lay in an uncharacteristically neat array beside the bed. That alone had been a trial for Nyx. More than that, though, Nyx looked so...small. Diminutive in every way, eight inches taller than their normal self—despite being average height for a human. Proportions mattered. Less muscle made for a lithe form. And the lips, Ethel was coming to realize, were newly soft and full.

“You don’t think he’s a demon, do you?” said Ethel.

“Pfft. Not at all, no. He gives off an ordinary high-magic sign. Must be a prodigy among mortals. I could break character to defeat him, but I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”

“You think he could beat a witch?”

“A smart one? No.” Hard to compete with a skillful friend of monsters—especially out here where the dragons were fierce.

“...You think Dodd’s coming back? Or maybe swearing revenge against you?”

“Haaa,” Nyx laughed lazily. “That wasn’t Dodd. We were just talking about it while you were staring out the window. She apologized for letting me yank Dobie out in her place, but she didn’t really mean it. Then she said something corny about every experience making us stronger.”

“I didn’t know demons got corny.”

“I’m sorry you didn’t get to hear that surgeon, then...”

Ethel watched him through the window for a while longer.

“When are you going to bed?”

“Soon.”

“Well—” Nyx smiled involuntarily. With all the times they’d shared a bed before, they weren’t quite sure why now was the time to hesitate about it. Sure, there was that gulf of time, but... “When you do, can you...?”

Ethel turned away from the window, gave her full concentration.

“Okay,” Nyx huffed, arms falling from the pillows to their sides. “I’ve been having bad dreams lately. About—not Dulcen—about him.”

“That’s understandable.”

“So could you sleep next to me tonight, and stay close?”

“...You’ve been having these dreams all along?”

“A few weeks now. On and off.”

“And you could’ve...” Ethel fit the words in place. “We’ve been camping for days, and I was right there, and you didn’t reach out then.”

“Didn’t wanna.” What Nyx meant was, wanted to shoulder the burdens on my own.

Soon the storm jackals were howling outside. Ethel came to bed wearing her own nightgown, where Nyx-as-Athalie had already slipped under the covers and dozed. She slid backward, slowly, up to Nyx, minding the rustling of the blankets and spring-sounds of the bed. At last, the barest touch of Athalie’s upper legs, the breasts against her shoulders.

Nyx’s legs shifted, and their free hand slid between Ethel’s neck and shoulder, almost into her collar. She shivered. In a whisper she asked if Nyx was still awake, but was answered by a snore.

Good. Hopefully they’d been soothed to a good night’s sleep. Still, it might have been fun if...