The stable was silent, but tension hung in the air like the weight of a thousand questions. Nyx sat on the grass, staring at the wooden beams of the ceiling as if they held some divine answer to his existence. Then, with a worried look twisting his already confused features, he sat upright.
"I think… I think someone is coming in here. What should we do?" he whispered, eyes flicking toward the entrance. A shadow had begun to stretch under the door, long and unmistakably human.
Love responded with a calmness that did not match the panic stirring in Nyx's chest.
[It's simple. Just act normal.]
Nyx blinked at the words, uncertain. "And what's 'normal' for someone like me? Act like an incest baby?"
[Yes. Exactly. Act like an idiot.]
"What does that even look like?!" he hissed in a fast whisper. The shadow was now a full silhouette. Whoever it was, they were just a heartbeat away from entering.
[You don't know how retards act?]
"HOW WOULD I KNOW?!" he hissed again. Panic flared in his voice. Before Love could explain, the door creaked open.
[Remember one thing -]
But before Love could complete her sentence-
In walked a girl, no older than seventeen, wearing the modest linen dress of a commoner. Her hair was tied in a messy braid, her cheeks flushed. She held a small wooden plate with a hunk of coarse bread and a wedge of cheese on it, like some offering left at the shrine of a forgotten god.
She didn't speak immediately. Her eyes were still adjusting to the gloom of the stable, scanning the room.
That's when she saw him.
Nyx, in all his brilliance and desperation, bent down on all fours. His hands slapped the dirt as he shifted his posture into something vaguely simian.
Like a startled gorilla, he lunged forward with a leap and let out a screech. "OHHH OHHH! FOOD! GIVE FOOD! WOO HOO WOO HOO!"
He was jumping in a wide circle around the poor girl, hopping from foot to foot, arms flailing like a badly-wound puppet. His mouth hung open, tongue lolling as he hollered incomprehensible nonsense. His eyes kept darting to the plate in her hand as he performed the most humiliating, primal dance he could think of on the spot.
The girl stood frozen in place, her mouth slightly open, eyes wide as dinner plates.
He leaped again, pointing at the bread. "WOOO! BREAD BREAD! WOOO HOOO!"
Before the poor soul could respond, Nyx galloped back to his corner of the stable in his gorilla crouch, then slowly rose to his feet. As if possessed by the spirits of every lunatic court jester that had ever lived, he began dancing in place, arms flailing with even less coordination than before.
"WOOOOO HOOOO! FOOD FOOD! DANCEY DANCEY! WOO!"
The bread trembled in the girl's hand. And then—
CLATTER.
The plate hit the ground, bread rolling under the hay.
She let out a shriek.
"AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"
And then she was gone, feet pounding down the hillside like a deer fleeing a hungry wolf. Her scream echoed across the fields.
As the sound faded, silence returned.
Nyx slowly sat back down. His face dropped into his hands. The heat of shame climbed up his neck like a swarm of ants.
He whispered to the floor, "Oh gods… what have I done? Someone kill me. Please. Anyone. Just strike me down."
A few heartbeats passed before Love finally broke the silence. Her voice echoed in his mind, teetering on the edge between disbelief and glee.
[What. The hell. Was that?]
"Don't talk to me," Nyx murmured through his fingers.
[Your dead brain really doesn't know how someone with an undeveloped mind acts, does it?]
He groaned. "How would I know how an incest baby acts?! I've never met one!"
Love's laughter burst forth like a dam breaking.
[Oh my god. You actually—You actually jumped like a monkey. You screamed 'woo hoo'. I can't breathe!]
Nyx turned away from where her voice echoed in his mind, cheeks flushed like boiled beets.
"I panicked, okay? I PANICKED!"
[You think?! You scared the bread out of her hands. That's a new low.]
Nyx sighed and flopped onto his back, arms splayed wide. He stared again at the wooden ceiling, a familiar canvas for his embarrassment.
"She's never coming back."
[Nope. She's probably halfway to the next village by now, telling everyone a wild baboon escaped the palace.]
He covered his face again.
He groaned. "I can't live like this. I need a redemption arc."
[Good luck with that, monkey boy.]
He peeked through his fingers. "I hate you."
[You'll thank me one day. When you're married to a princess and she says, 'Tell me the most humiliating moment of your life,' and you get to relive this trauma all over again.]
"No one is marrying me. I'm a baboon in a stable."
[With a very rare, expired magic core, let's not forget.]
He shot up. "Right! That! Can we go back to the 'I used to be powerful' part of my tragic story? Maybe you can fix that?"