Even a fireplace and plentiful candles couldn’t fully drive off the chill of this rat-infested cabin. Nothing could make it feel “homey,” but that wasn’t really the point anyway.

Ethel didn’t mind. It wasn’t like this would be anyone’s deathbed, though she was indeed in a bed under scratchy covers and the pain of the dungeon’s ordeals still lingered in her.

At least the pixie dust Nyx had gathered could finally come in handy. What was suspicious to use in public in Darshanna could be tossed like confetti here. The perpetual-failure demon lord applied it to the wounds still open and scabbing. It hurt at the touch, but as it seeped into the flesh to the bone marrow and became one with Ethel, she could feel it strengthening her.

“You might as well take the pixie with you,” said Nyx, kneeling beside the bed, face rimmed by low firelight. “It’s more use to you than me.”

“That’s alright. Even if the pixie’s existence doesn’t attract the FBI like in all the movies, who knows what a foreign element on Earth could do, even a very small one.” Ethel blinked. “What if the microbes from Gaia infect—”

“Don’t.” Nyx held out their hand. “We didn’t infect Gaia, and Gaia won’t infect Earth. Probably have the same plagues as each other.”

“I suppose so.”

Beside them was a window to Lillifal, the great scrappy city that had stood up to the metropolis Arkadia. The snow outside was picking up, burying the rock houses in hills. Everything was a series of greys.

“Is there anything you always wanted to do on Gaia?”

“Is this a last will and testament?”

Nyx hesitated. “Yeah, I guess,” they decided. “Make a wish, Ethel.”

There were so many locations around Darshanna that Ethel had never visited, like the monasteries in the frozen north and the bizarre glitched peninsula in the south, and there were natural and supernatural wonders the likes of which the Farander Dungeon rivaled. And monsters and animals and spirits out of paradise.

“Nah,” said Ethel.

“...You serious? Not even a phoenix? Come on. I’ve wanted to see one of those since I heard of them way back at the Lillifal camp, but I just never made time.”

“Eh,” said Ethel. “It’s like fireworks. A pile of ashes catching on fire and coming back to life again. On Earth, you can make that in Photoshop.”

“But in person...”

“I’ve read about it,” said Ethel. “My imagination will be enough.”

“Wh-what about other continents? Gryzgell? Emenuma?? West Darshanna???”

“Bev, I don’t even go places when I’m on vacation. I sit on the beach with a book and learn about them. I will be fine.” She grinned.

“Just don’t go home with any regrets.”

It wouldn’t exactly be home. Maybe Ta’Gelkiyr could work out some poltergeisty communication with Ethel’s family to let them know that she was returning, and for really-real. Even if he could do that and send the message unambiguously, would he care enough to? Ethel had accepted that she might have to start from absolute scratch and, at minimum, undergo some strange government questioning and end up in tabloids as “Person Missing 3 Years—Gone Off the Face of the Earth!”

“...Are you sure about all this, Ethel?”

“Yeah.”

“If you die in a ditch, then...”

Not the kindest way a best friend could phrase that, but Ethel answered. “Now that I have the option of going back, I’m officially sick of not knowing where I stand as a Gaian. You have a niche. I have a string of aborted life goals and failures.”

“Uhh, I do too...”

“You have a millennium-long life ahead of you. And now that you don’t have to mess with me and the ‘third path’ idea, you can really get started. Get your running start.”

“And you know, you can still...”

Ethel shook her head slowly. “The demon world is freaking terrifying,” she said. “Besides, if both of us are homunculus prodigies, then you are less amazing by comparison.”

Nyx sighed. “You’d be great. You’re putting yourself down when you don’t have to, Ethel...”

Food arrived. Dodd came in from the vaguely sanitary kitchen holding a tray on her head. Heaping, steaming toasted bread garnished with tomato preserves, fish offal, and all the salt and pepper that could be found. No cheese or pepperoni-like meat to be found.

“It’s called poverty pizza,” said Dodd as she dusted off the bedside table and set the tray.

Nyx squinted at it. They sniffed and couldn’t decide if the smell was truly awful or the kind of sloppy-good that comes with the best fast food. “Did you taste it?” they asked.

“I did. I don’t have taste buds.”

“I see. Stay or go as you please, Dodd.”

Dodd paused. “In the room, you mean?”

“Of course. If I wanted to dismiss you, I’d be more formal about it. Don’t you trust me that much?”

“I’m still learning you, my lord,” she said, bowing her head. “I was with my last employer for ninety-seven years, and in that time I hadn’t even begun to fathom the intricacies of proper torture wheel turning.”

“...The demon world,” said Ethel. “Show me that.”

“You’ll die,” said Nyx flatly.

“Not if it’s just for a moment?”

“You can get her a viewfinder,” Dodd suggested.

“No, I want to experience it with my body. Seeing pictures—that’s the same thing you can get or imagine on Earth.”

Nyx deliberated between pizza bites. It wasn’t bad! Trust salt and heat to liven up any meal.

“Since you’re set on feeling it,” they said, mouth full and chewing, “you’ll have to get just a few seconds of it.”

“That’s fine. Can I do it multiple times—a half-second for each place?”

“Uhh...maybe, but that’s not advisable...”

“What are my options?”

If this were anything but a great friend’s last request for her final Gaian moments, Nyx would have rolled their eyes terribly and thundered out of the room. “Well, there are twelve hells, and in those hells are, like, subhells. I don’t know all of them, never been to that many...

“There’s Hellfloes. Never mind, that could burn your eyes out. Desolay might be just bright enough, but it might just look all white to a human. Hm...Stahlroar could be the perfect mix of abstract and concrete. Metal bars tunneling through each other in twisting horror shapes.”

“Like Giger?”

“Basically. And there’s Styx. You can touch ground there just long enough to hear the voices of the newly dead.”

“And Darkworld District.”

“Huh? Oh yeah, that one. It kinda just looks like a sooty old London, but with more ghost effects. You can imagine it. I’m sure you’re imagining it right now.”

“Yes, but remember I want to feel it. That’s the place you’ve spent the most time as a demon. Of course I’d want to feel that, Nyx.”

Nyx swallowed. “...So that’s on your itinerary.”

“Yes, please.”

Nyx jimmied the tray, encouraging Ethel to eat some already. She tore off a jagged slice, and they ate in silence for a few minutes.

She began again suddenly. “And a hug...that’s something you do.”

“Yeah! Sure.”

“...Now it’s awkward, I guess...”

“It was always gonna be awkward. This whole thing is awkward, unnatural, premeditated by an unnatural superbeing. You don’t have to worry about that part, Ethel.”

“Then...”

With a quick transformation, Nyx put themself in a casual, already-disheveled shirt and pants. Ethel nudged the covers off and shifted herself for a sideways embrace. They hugged, holding tight as if they’d be remembering each other by the touch alone.

“And a kiss, maybe?” Nyx asked.

“No,” said Ethel immediately.

“But it’s like your last chance ever!”

“But I don’t...okay, you make a good point. But drink some water first, and I will too.”

“We should gargle.”

Both turned to grab their glasses of water...and remembered that Dodd was watching them, wide-eyed and studying.

“This isn’t typical,” Ethel explained. “Humans only kiss like this when they’re awkward and...”

“Ace?” said Nyx. “Why the hell are you trying to explain this to a demon?”

“I dunno! I just didn’t want her to go on assuming things about humanity—”

Tonguing happened.

“E-ew...thanks.”

“I’m told I’m good,” said Nyx.