Chapter 39: Emotional Support Angel

It’s well past midnight in the forest clearing, when a single hoot drifts through the trees.

Lucien jerks upright, screaming.

And it’s not a dignified scream, at all.

It’s the kind that starts somewhere in the gut and claws its way out through the throat with no regard for rank or reputation, echoing off the treeline and startling a family of shroom-hare.

He scrambles backward, breathing hard, eyes darting through the dark camp.

And then locks onto a low branch on the edge of the clearing.

An owl sits there.

Perfectly still.

Perfectly silent.

Two enormous golden eyes fixed directly on him, unblinking, patient, like they haven’t shifted at all through the night.

Lucien goes speechless, staring back at it with the transfixed horror of a man who has just made unwilling eye contact with something powerful and ancient wearing a small feathered disguise.

Val groans awake beside the dying fire, rubbing his eyes, hair mussed, radiating the particular fury of a dragon who did not sign up for a midnight meeting.

"What," he growls, "is that infernal commotion?!"

He rolls over, takes one look at Lucien’s face. It was pale, wide-eyed, utterly wrecked.

He sits up properly. "What’s wrong, Dark One?"

"That thing mind-raped me." Lucien whimpers, pointing a shaking finger at the branch.

Val squints at the owl. Squints back at Lucien.

"...The owl?"

"Yes, the owl!" Lucien’s voice cracks on the last word.

His eyes never leave the bird, wide and locked, entirely unable to look away.

The tent flap rustles and Serenith’s head pops out, hair mussed, eyes still blurry with sleep.

"What’s going on? What’s—"

She takes one look at Lucien’s terrified face and bursts fully out of the tent in an instant, wings flaring, holy aura flooding to life around her in a protective golden blaze as she scans the treeline for a threat that isn’t there.

"It’s nothing!" Val sneers, waving a dismissive hand. "The Demon Lord had a nightmare."

"It wasn’t a nightmare!" Lucien insists, still transfixed. "Something got into my head. It did things to brain."

Serenith’s aura dims.

She stares at him for a long moment, unimpressed, then rolls her eyes with the full weight of divine judgment behind it.

"Even for you, this is ridiculous."

She slinks back into the tent, muttering something about the fragile little psyches of demon lords.

"I’m serious!" Lucien calls after her. "It got into my head! It made me see things! Feel things!"

Val, already lying back down, jerks upright a second time with a growl of pure exhaustion, snatches a rock off the ground, and hurls it at the owl with more irritation than accuracy.

It sails past by a hair’s breadth anyway.

The owl does not flinch.

Does not blink.

Does not so much as ruffle a feather, its golden eyes still locked entirely on Lucien, ignoring the projectile like it was never thrown at all.

Val pauses, actually eyeing the bird with sleep crusted eyes, something faintly considering flickering across his face.

Then he scoffs, waves it off, yawns for to loud, and flops back down onto his bedroll.

"Stubborn bird." He mutters.

Within minutes he’s snoring again, dead to the world, leaving Lucien alone with the fire, the dark, and two unblinking golden eyes that refuse to look anywhere else.

A while later, a soft voice calls into the tent.

"Serenith?"

She groans into her pillow. "Go away. You’re not welcome."

"Serenith, it’s still there." he says again, and this time something about it makes her actually open her eyes.

Because there’s no swagger in it.

No smirk baked into the syllables, no practiced velvet edge. Just her name, quiet and a little unsteady, the way a man says something when he’s stopped performing and started meaning it.

She pokes her head out through the flap.

Lucien is knelt at the entrance, looking small in a way she’s never seen on him before, shoulders drawn in, eyes darting toward the dark treeline every few seconds like the shadows might grow teeth.

"What," she asks, "do you want?"

"I can’t sleep out there," he says. "Not after what I just experienced. And that thing still watching."

She rolls her eyes so hard it physically hurts.

"I’m not falling for it. You’re just trying to get into my tent. And, subsequently, my pants."

But his eyes go wide and soft, none of the usual mischief in them, just quiet, visible effort as he tries to muster something like courage.

He glances at the trees again, then sighs, shoulders sagging.

"Of course," he says, and looks, for one unfair, devastating second, exactly like a sad, abandoned puppy.

Something in Serenith’s chest folds in on itself.

She groans, louder this time, dragging both hands down her face, and yanks the flap open.

"Get in. Quickly. Before I change my mind."

Lucien’s whole face lights up so bright it’s genuinely a little blinding.

Then the two of them wrestle for a solid, undignified minute against the tent’s cramped internal dimensions. Elbows and wings and knees colliding in the dark as they try to find some configuration that doesn’t involve someone’s face in someone else’s foot.

"Hands to yourself," Serenith warns, breathless from the effort.

"I swear it." Lucien says solemnly, hand over his heart. "On my heart. I will not do anything."

"I will smite you," she clarifies, "the instant I even suspect you’re thinking about it."

He goes quiet for a moment, then genuinely soft. "Thank you. For this. For... for showing you care, even now, even after I got mentally violated by a woodland creature."

Serenith flushes pink from her collarbone up, and on pure instinct folds her wings forward to hide her face. Except there isn’t enough room in the tent for that particular maneuver, and the wing’s edge catches Lucien clean across the cheek instead.

He gasps, clutching his face. "You hit me!"

Serenith opens her mouth to defend herself, to say anything.

"Ah." He deflates slightly, mutters a small apology, and turns over to face the canvas wall, quiet now.

Nothing comes out of Serenith at all.

She stares at the back of his head for a long moment in the dark, then, finding no better option available, turns over herself and closes her eyes.

Outside, the owl was still watching.