We didn't talk much after that. The demon king was in one of his moods, a silent, brooding storm of contempt that I had no desire to disturb. Angus, sensing the tension, had taken to flying just out of arm's reach, a silent, worried shadow.
I was tired. My legs ached, my shoulders were tight, and the hollow ache in my chest had settled into a dull, persistent throb. The forest was a blur of green and brown, a monotonous tapestry of trees and roots that seemed to stretch on forever. I was so focused on the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other that I almost didn't see it.
He just...stopped. He stopped so suddenly I almost walked into him. Again.
He held up a single, elegant finger. "Silence," he commanded, his voice a low, urgent hiss. "We will go no further."
"Wha-...?"
"I have said before, fool. I will not carry you. You've stumbled over pebbles thrice within ten minutes, and I have no desire for this accursed necklace to force my hand." He turned and looked at me, a look of absolute disdain on his face. "You are not traveling tonight. Your pathetic, fleshy body will fall and force me the inconvenience of touching it." He gestured to a small clearing, a rare patch of flat ground surrounded by towering oak trees. "We will camp here. You will not speak."
He didn't wait for a response. He just turned and walked to the edge of the clearing, leaning against a tree and crossing his arms. He was a statue, a monument of silent fury, and I was the source of it.
"I didn't have any interest in speaking."
"And yet you do." The Demon King's words were final. "A talent of yours."
Angus fluttered down from the sky, landing on the ground in an oddly graceful manner that simply didn't match his awkward combination of vaguely sailor-suit and semi-angelic pastel ensemble and his toned figure. [It's getting dark! And this spot looks pretty safe! No giant spiders or corrupted trees! ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ] He looked from me to the Demon King, a nervous energy thrumming through him. [I can... uh... take first watch! If you need me! To... stare at trees! Vigorously! 👀]
Why he bothered to pretend that he wasn't worried about the Demon King using the night to break the necklace in a private message, I don't know.
It's for the best he used the method though, because it wasn't subtle at all, and I was exhausted. So much so I didn't even have the energy to retort at the demon king or tease Angus. I just sat down on a particularly mossy patch of ground, leaning against the rough bark of a tree and closing my eyes.
The next thing I knew, I was somewhere else entirely.
The forest was gone. I was standing in a vast, empty plain under a sky the color of a ripe eggplant. The ground was made of black glass, smooth and cold. There was no wind. No sound. Just a perfect, suffocating silence. A single figure stood in the middle of the plain, a tall, slender silhouette against the weird purple light.
I started walking toward it.
I didn't want to. I didn't choose to. My body just moved, my feet carrying me across the black glass without my command. I tried to stop, to turn back, but it was like trying to swim against a current. I was a puppet, and someone else was holding the strings.
As I got closer, the figure resolved into a person. Or something that looked like a person. He was dressed in a suit of black armor that seemed to absorb the light, and he wore a helm that obscured his face entirely, leaving only a single, glowing red eye visible. The red eye watched me, a single point of heat in a world of cold.
I stopped a few feet away from him, my body finally obeying my own commands. I opened my mouth to speak, to ask who he was, where I was, but no sound came out. My throat was frozen, a block of ice in the warmth of my chest.
The figure raised a gauntleted hand and pointed at me.
Then, without a word, he began to walk toward me. His footsteps made no sound on the black glass. He was a ghost, a silent, inexorable doom. I tried to run. I tried to scream. I tried to do anything other than stand there like a terrified idiot. But I was frozen, a prisoner in my own body.
He reached me. He stopped, the glowing red eye of his helm just inches from my face. I could feel a cold, terrible pressure, a weight that crushed the air from my lungs and stole the thoughts from my mind.
The glass shattered beneath my feet before he could reach me, and I fell, tumbling into an endless, screaming blackness.
I woke up with a gasp, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. I was back in the forest, leaning against the rough bark of the tree. The sun was just beginning to rise, casting long, distorted shadows through the canopy. The air was cool and damp, smelling of pine and wet earth. I was alive. It was just a dream.
The demon king was standing over me, a silent, imposing silhouette against the rising sun. He was watching me, an unreadable expression on his face.
"Whauh...naked..." I mumble, trying to make my brain focus on something else.
"What did you see?" he asked, his tone flat, devoid of its usual contempt. "Describe it."
"Thighs. And abs. And..." I sit up, rubbing my eyes. My brain was still fuzzy from the dream, and the sight of him so close, his skin glowing in the soft morning light, was not helping.
"Cease your drivel. What. Did. You. See?" he repeated, each word a slow, deliberate bite.
"Y-you...what? My dream?"
"Your sleep was not restful. It was disturbed. Answer me." He didn't move, didn't even seem to breathe. He was a statue of marble.
Mostly naked.
"Was it spiders?" Angus whispered. I hadn't even noticed he was there.
[I have spells for bad dreams! 🌙] Angus's text box popped up. [Though they mostly involve singing a very, very long song about how great the Goddess is! It's so boring it scares the nightmares away! (☆▽☆)]
"A-a guy. Just some...creepy knight."
The marble....
Looked more than a little annoyed.