“Heeyah!”

A whip cracked. Two donkeys whinnied. They came back up to a walking pace, pulling a ramshackle wooden carriage along a garden path.

Sitting on the roof of the carriage was Dobie, shaded by a straw hat, holding the whip high in one hand and bundling the reins in the other. He had never ditched his knightly armor—he would sooner have discarded his flesh. The boots and forearms, though, were now irrevocably caked in mud.

Inside the carriage, Ethel looked about at the changing scenery of the amazing greenhouse. Nyx sat beside them, keeping still.

“What is this place, anyway?” said Ethel.

“It’s called a mind room,” said Nyx, their voice slow and deliberate. “In the demon world, they call this a very expensive toy. Feed it with thoughts or dreams and it grows.”

The near-blinding sunlight flickered. Canopies of that rainforest Ethel had been so curious about appeared overhead, thick and verdant. “So you chose this?” said Ethel.

“I didn’t choose most of the rooms of the castle, but yes. This much I chose.”

“Smart,” said Ethel.

“Well, it’s the only way for a human-turned-demon to really eat,” said Nyx.

A hauntingly familiar sound passed through the carriage.

“...I’ve never heard one of those on Gaia,” said Ethel.

“Yeah. Gaia doesn’t have whippoorwills.”

And then Ethel realized why Nyx didn’t spend much time here. It took quite a specific mood to want to return to a world like Earth—not only that, but a mere simulacrum. The only things that were guaranteed real in the greenhouse were things brought from, and born from, without. A Gaian tomato here might be picture-perfect, but an Earth tomato, resurrected, would be an approximation of flavors and sensations. It might try to act like food, or like an animal, but it sure wasn’t one.

With a whoop, Dobie brought the donkeys to a halt in a level, gentle part of the rainforest. Vines hung from the tree boughs like garlands, and vivid flowers bloomed between roots. Patches of sunlight cheered the earth. Nyx and Ethel disembarked.

As Dobie busied himself with feeding the donkeys fresh-but-fake flowers, Ethel eyed something drastically out of place: an ice cream truck. She came closer to the hull, looking down the list of popsicles. Red, white, and blue rockets...Spongebobs and Doras with gumball eyes...they were all here.

“Buy somethin’?”

Ethel jumped. She met the eyes of a middle-aged gentleman with a soft smile and a disheveled green polo.

Nyx walked next to her, and their presence alone seemed to give the truck its context. “Nothing in this rainforest area is based on anything real,” said Nyx, “but that guy is.” The ice cream man didn’t respond to this, even though they pointed so rudely at him.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” said Ethel, “when is he from?”

“Four...four years old. God, I’m gonna cry.”

“Nyx!” Ethel cried—surprising herself.

“No,” they said, wiping their face. It had been their decision to take the conversation here, after all. Ethel knew that, but she couldn’t fathom why Nyx had done it. “No, it’s about time I cried. I’m gonna do a lot more later.”

“You haven’t told me all that much about yourself, your time as a demon—”

“I know.”

“—and that’s okay. I figured you wouldn’t, I knew you wouldn’t, going into this. I like you, a lot, and that’s unconditional.”

Nyx’s voice began to wobble. “Sometimes,” they said, “I’m afraid of you hating me, now that I’m a demon. All these...ethical things...are starting to float away from me. But I’m more afraid of being vulnerable.”

“Well...you’d have to be.”

Her words were gesturing at the reason Nyx became a demon in the first place. It hadn’t been a choice—it had been an abduction, traumatic and nearly spirit-destroying for them both. In Ethel’s mind, nobody really wanted to be vulnerable. But the foundation of Nyx’s being was this one eminently vulnerable moment—and a failure.

“And I’m sure,” Ethel continued, “that’s something you have to guard every second of your life, in the underworld.”

“Yeah...well. Enough of that.” Nyx sat down on the grass, and Ethel followed suit. Butterflies passed through the air behind them. “I know you didn’t want to talk about this. You wanted to talk about Farander.”

“Well, that’s the same thi...oh, I almost forgot that was our next destination. Is it time?”

“Yes. Almost. We have a while to prepare.”

Farander Dungeon began to overflow around the same time every year. When autumn began, so did the slimes.

“Forgive me if I’m racing ahead,” said Ethel, “and forgive me for speaking out of turn as a servant—”

“Never. You always have my permission.”

“—but I’m tired of just preparing. I’ve hit ruts in everything I’m pursuing, and I’m convinced that the only way out is—violent.”

“You’re like Felicity?” Nyx said. “Scratching at the walls? I never thought you were the type.”

“Me neither, but I always had an outlet back then. ...Wait, does Felicity literally scratch at the walls?”

“Not anymore. She has a post for that now.”

“I see.”

“Surely it’s better for you to train a little before you get to the dungeon itself, Ethel. We’re not doing all our preparation indoors, we’re going on the road first.”

“Oh, good,” said Ethel with a sigh. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me—at least, don’t be so deferential about it.” Nyx looked away, feeling a tide of awkwardness incoming. “It really hurts me to hear you call yourself my ‘servant,’ y’know? But it’s kind of...yeah...master-servant dynamic, for obvious reasons. When we get on the road,” they said, looking up again, “it’s equals again.”

“You’ll still be a demon.”

“No I won’t. Can’t join the dungeon divers if I’m a demon.”

That was true—venturing into any dungeon required filling out forms, completing interviews, and generally being prodded before being allowed entry.

“But...we can just go in. Screw the rules.”

“That wouldn’t be the same experience.”

“We’re never getting the same experience we got the first time.”

“You know what I mean, Ethel. Of course I don’t want the exact same thing. And I don’t ‘want’ any of it!” For the first time since they’d gotten in this greenhouse, Nyx’s voice had a fierce edge. They took a second to breathe and it wore away. “I just need catharsis. And to get that, I need to be vulnerable. And to be vulnerable, I can’t be a powerful demon lord looming over the rest of the party, tagging along like a godly observer.”

“You need to tempt fate.”

“Yeah.”

A fresh breeze hit them, crossed over the entire forest. They did nothing but take deep breaths, there on the grass, for a while.

Then, deciding that they were done, they got up and made for the carriage again. Dobie, who’d been rubbing the donkeys on their muzzles, startled into attention and clambered back onto the roof.

The two passengers slid inside. Ethel shut the door.

“And then I’ll be on the path again,” said Nyx. Did they say it to Ethel, or purely to themself?

“...The third way,” Ethel mumbled. “I’m still thinking of it.”

“I meant the path to being a real, confident demon lord,” said Nyx.

Ethel stared up at them. “You’re not seriously doing that, are you?”

This simple sentence shocked Nyx like a deep wound. Not because Nyx loved the idea of becoming a demon lord, but because the question was so gnarled, and choosing wrong seemed to mean a ruined future. Their set expression, the suddenly distant look in their eyes, gave the hurt away. Ethel had misspoken a second time.

Nyx turned away. Out of politeness, Ethel did too. The carriage rumbled.