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He stretched his wings, flapping them as if testing their strength. My feline prince tucked his wings tight against his body before rubbing against my legs. His shoulders came up to my hips in this shape. I thought he was a little bigger than he had been before I’d helped heal him. After nearly pushing me over with his affectionate rubbing, he turned his attention to Geraint.
Feeling like I could probably get away with it, I let my fingers run over Dio’s back as he walked away from me and shoved his head against my knight’s hip. Geraint smiled and hesitantly pet Dio’s head. The prince pushed into Geraint’s touch, cat-like.
Guess he was serious about the brother thing.
After Dio spent a few minutes twining around the two of us, he bounded off, stretched his wings, and gave a mighty leap. His wings caught the air, and he soared.
I put my hand over my mouth, gasping at the sheer joy and beauty of my prince flying.
“So, what do you think you’ll get from Dio?” Geraint winked at me, coming over and putting his arm around my waist. He’d been hesitant to touch me, despite Dio’s assurances that he had accepted Geraint.
I leaned into my knight’s familiar embrace.
“Well, Nic’s got cool shadowy powers. I don’t actually know what powers Dio has, other than shape shifting and flying.”
“He’s certainly got some form of heightened senses. He smelled my scent all over you before he was even really conscious again.”
“Huh, maybe that’s why I’m thinking you need to take a shower,” I playfully nudged Geraint’s side.
He laughed. “We both need a shower.” Geraint squeezed me against him and kissed my head. We watched while Dio soared above us.
After a time, Dio turned and looked behind us. He hovered, as if watching before he dove.
The urgency in Dio’s flight got my heart racing. I glanced over my shoulder, but all I could see were trees.
He landed in front of us, hitting the ground hard and skidding a little before he melted back into his human shape.
“Nothingness storm. We need to run!” He pointed deeper into Nightmare. “Ember, if you can shadow walk, do it now. Get back.”
The urgency in Dio’s voice quelled my protest. I reached for the shadows, but they slipped through my fingers, and pain shot through my temples.
“I’m still recovering from the last one,” I said.
“This way.” Dio ran farther into Nightmare, and we followed.
Before long we broke out of the trees and into an open field. Familiar white puffy clouds flitted around in the gray sky. Small, light colored objects fell from the clouds.
I was so focused on the clouds and what they were doing, that I didn’t notice what stretched ahead of us.
“Shit.” Dio skidded to a halt.
I brought my attention down. Corn. Massively tall stalks of corn blocked our progress and the field spread for miles in either direction. The corn was starkly green against the prevalent grays and whites and blacks of Nightmare. It didn’t seem to have any shades, similar to many other things in Nightmare.
Above, creatures flitted about as if trying to catch whatever the clouds were dropping. Where the flying creatures missed, the corn rustled as the objects went into the depths.
“What are those?” I breathed, pointing.
I could see the exact moment when the clouds and the other creatures noticed the nothingness storm. They all froze their movement and hovered, before speeding away faster than I could keep track of.
“Those were tooth fairies. They were gathering teeth from the young clouds who were teething.”
“That’s fucking horrifying,” Geraint replied.
“What’s worse is we’re going to die if Ember can’t transport us.” Dio scanned the horizon as if looking for another solution.
We turned. The gray smear of the nothingness bore down on us.
The corn rustled behind us.
