Part One Hundred Twenty-One — For the Food, Mostly

　Nyxara's visits became, over the following weeks, a genuinely regular occurrence — never announced properly, always somehow perfectly timed to whatever meal Horizoncrest's kitchens happened to be preparing.

"That smells considerably better than whatever Cassmoor's kitchen ever managed," she announced one afternoon, appearing at my own table without any preamble at all, already reaching for a portion of the stew Aeron's people had spent the morning preparing.

She just... shows up. For lunch, apparently. This is my life now.

"You could knock," I told her, mostly out of habit at this point, since I already knew the suggestion would go entirely ignored.

"I could," she agreed, cheerfully unbothered, already eating. "This is more efficient, though."

　Eris, across the table, had long since stopped reacting with the initial alarm Nyxara's arrivals used to provoke, settling instead into the same easy, faintly amused tolerance the rest of us had gradually adopted.

"Is this actually about the food," Eris asked, direct as ever, "or do you just enjoy watching Kai's expression every time you appear unannounced?"

"Both," Nyxara admitted, entirely without shame. "Though I'll confess the food's genuinely excellent. I don't get proper cooking often, given most beings my age subsist on considerably less pleasant fare."

That's a genuinely unsettling detail I'm choosing not to examine too closely.

　Ivy, seated nearby, had developed a particular skill for managing Nyxara's visits with the same brisk efficiency she brought to everything else — anticipating her arrival's timing well enough to ensure there was always slightly more food prepared than strictly necessary.

"You've gotten good at predicting me," Nyxara observed, genuinely pleased by the observation. "I approve."

"I try to be useful," Ivy said, simply.

"You're considerably more than useful," Nyxara said, something almost fond in the assessment. "I'm rather proud of what you've become, honestly, watching it happen."

That's a strange thing to hear a demon lord say with genuine warmth. This whole situation is strange, honestly.

　The awkward moments came often enough that I'd started, privately, keeping something like a mental tally of them — the afternoon Nyxara had casually asked Enzo whether Elder Dragon status came with any interesting new capabilities, watching him fumble through an answer with visibly more embarrassment than his usual composure ever showed; the evening she'd asked Eris, entirely straight-faced, whether being blind actually improved her cooking somehow, and Eris's genuinely baffled attempt to figure out how those two things could possibly be connected.

"She just says things," Eris told me later, still faintly confused by the exchange. "Things that don't need to be said. I don't understand how someone that old still asks questions like a curious child."

"I don't think age and curiosity are actually opposites," I said. "Maybe that's part of how you get that old in the first place. Staying curious about things, instead of deciding you already know everything."

　Ace, for his part, had developed a particular rapport with Nyxara that unsettled me more than either of them seemed to notice — the two of them trading dry, deadpan commentary about the town's various residents with a synchronized wit that made me genuinely suspicious they were, somehow, actively colluding against the rest of us.

You are being uncharacteristically friendly with a primordial demon, I noted, privately, through the link.

She has excellent comedic timing, Ace replied, entirely unbothered. I find quality worth acknowledging wherever it appears.

That's not remotely reassuring.

I was not attempting reassurance. I was stating a fact.

　I sat through another one of these strange, genuinely warm afternoons, watching Nyxara finish her second helping while Ivy quietly, efficiently prepared a third without being asked, and felt something settle in my chest that I hadn't expected to feel about someone who could, by every reasonable account, end my entire existence without meaningful effort.

She's terrifying. Genuinely, unambiguously terrifying. And also, somehow, strangely, warmly, part of this family now, whether any of us fully signed up for that or not.

"Same time tomorrow?" Nyxara asked, standing, already preparing to disappear the same unceremonious way she always arrived.

"Do I actually have a choice in the matter?" I asked, dry.

"No," she said, cheerfully. "But I appreciate you asking anyway."

　She was gone before I could think of a proper response, leaving the same faintly bewildered, faintly fond silence behind her that she always did.