Chapter Text
In the five years of his apprenticeship, Dream had never seen his master so excited.
“Did the king send good news?”
“I have been given the command to take down Baron Soot’s rebel forces.”
A battle between nobles? Dream had heard of such conflicts, but he had never seen anyone try to fight against his master. Baron Soot might have strong commoner support and the resources of an old noble family, but Dream’s master had five demons at his command. No one with any sense would fight against five apothecary-charged demons.
Well, technically four and a nekomata. Master Sam said the distinction didn’t matter. Dream tried to agree with him, and Antfrost did not mind being lumped in with the others. But he… it did not feel right to deny what and who Ant was. None of the others made experimenting with enchantments half as fun.
“Is there a reward for taking down Soot’s forces?”
“Yes,” Sam said, storing the royal scroll in his files. “I will finally gain the royal permission necessary for a sixth demon.”
Sixth? Most apothecaries rarely had permission for two, and now Dream’s master would soon have permission for six. No other apothecary had ever been trusted with that many. Dream should be happy. Proud that his master was on the cusp of reaching a status farther beyond any other apothecary. A legacy Dream could eagerly strive to live up to.
The image of a new demon struggling to find space in the overcrowded cage caused his stomach to clench on nothing.
“I should work on an expansion enchantment for the demons’ cage then,” Dream said clearly and loudly, so his master could not claim to have failed to hear later. The recording scrolls would show otherwise.
“Yes, you should do that,” Sam agreed dismissively as he pulled a map out of his files. He unfolded it on his center table. “Go make yourself useful while I plan out this massacre.”
The slight eager note in Dream’s master’s voice gave Dream chills. He darted down the stairs and out of his master’s lab. A heavy weight immediately dropped onto his shoulder.
“So? What’s the crazed scientist up to now?”
“He is an apothecary, not a scientist,” Dream whispered at the small, diamond golem perched on his shoulder. Scientists were little more than madmen, and Master Sam hated being compared to them. “His majesty the king has ordered Sam to destroy Baron Soot’s rebel forces.”
“Ouch,” Skeppy winced. “I’ll never get why anyone would try to fight someone with charged demons without any of his own.”
“Maybe Soot has access to some demons?” Dream suggested, slowing his pace to have more time to think the newest information through. “His adoptive brother is the Technoblade.”
“I don’t think the Technoblade would help the family he clearly and explosively disowned,” Skeppy said. Dream knew that, but he had been trying to grasp at straws in order to figure out what the inherited noble was thinking. Unless he wasn’t.
“Maybe he thinks he can win with numbers. He has a thousand times our soldiers.”
“That’s because Sam’s ‘soldiers’ consist of 4 demons, a nekomata, and probably a few mindless golems he’ll add last minute,” Skeppy scoffed. “It doesn’t matter how many humans this Soot guy gathers; he’s doomed to fail. The real problem is, what are we going to do about Bad and the others?”
“I can start by telling them,” Dream murmured as they came to the heavy basement door. “We’ll…figure it out from there.”
“Never change, kid,” Skeppy said, patting Dream’s cheek patronizingly. Dream slapped the small hand away, and the golem laughed. He leapt off Dream’s shoulder, twirled around, and pulled out three dandelions and two poppies from his magical storage with a theatrical flourish. He placed them carefully into Dream’s hands. “The dandelions are for Ant, Tina, and Sapnap to have fun with, and the two poppies are for Bad and Eryn since they both like the color. Give the bigger one to Bad, of course.”
“Of course,” Dream chuckled. He held the flowers carefully, long having given up on figuring out how the small golem snuck out of his master’s castle on a regular basis. “Anything for me?”
“Yeah, a punch if you mess with those,” Skeppy playfully warned. “Tell Bad I love and miss him.”
“Will do.” Dream opened the large door and stepped into the main laboratory. Antfrost spotted his entrance first and unfurled his curled body, stretching luxuriously before standing on his hind legs. He unhurriedly padded over to the carved and warded bars of the large cage taking up a full third of the expansive space. Fur in varying shades of brown and tan did a better job of covering the short, humanoid cat’s body better than the torn black shift he wore.
“Another delivery from Bad’s Skeppy?” Ant said as he sniffed the air. Dream held out the flowers and placed the varied bouquet into padded paws slightly large than his own hands.
“Partly. He got you, Sap, and Tina dandelions, and the poppies are for Bad and Eryn. The bigger one is for Bad of course.”
“Of course,” Ant rolled large, teal eyes, but could not suppress a grin. He gently took the flowers in his paws as the demons unhurriedly untangled themselves from their normal jumbled rest pile.
“Baaaaaad, tell your dumb golem to stop sending foliage into our cage,” whined a half awake Sapnap. His soot black hair dusted out in every direction and nearly hid his horns, which meant a hair harvest was due soon. His mouth stretched open in a yawn, revealing wickedly sharp fangs and a long, forked tongue as a pointed, prehensile tail swished languidly behind him. The obsidian-skinned demon blearily looked at Dream through orange eyes with tiny, pinprick pupils. “The pieces keep getting everywhere.”
“Oh! Dandelions!” Tina said, wide-awake in an instant. She sprang up, bounced over to Ant, and took one slowly, cupping the sphere of white seeds protectively in her other four-fingered hand. Like Sapnap, her pitch-black skin absorbed the light, but her pupilless lavender eyes sparkled with delight. She burst into a flurry of movement, twirling around and around with her dandelion in hand, the longer skirts of her brown shift flaring out around her digitigrade legs. Choppy strands of hair colored a brown so dark it was almost black fluttered around her head along with the white seeds floating in every direction, and she giggled like a little girl. “Look, Eryn! It’s like a tornado of fluff.”
“If you say so,” Eryn grumbled, having only just sat up and rubbed his eyes, his hair a tousled mop of short, black curls. His horns jutted prominently out of his forehead, a little shorter than Sapnap’s. His tail stretched half his height and curled into his lap as the young demon flopped onto his back and splayed his foot-long wings behind him. Dream hoped Sam would wait until after this upcoming battle to harvest those. A battle had to take precedence over ingredient gathering.
“Don’t do that!” Bad instantly fussed. The largest demon of the group, measuring ten feet tall at his full height, pushed the youngest demon back into a sitting position. “You’re going to tear them!”
“That would be terrible,” Eryn agreed dramatically. “For our master. Wing harvest is this week. What does it matter if I tear my wing cartilage?”
Bad flicked the shorter demon on the forehead. “Because until he cuts them off, they’ll hurt. And I don’t think Dream has brewed a new batch of potions so soon after Sam banned him from the potion lab and destroyed his secret stash.”
“I found another place to brew. Skeppy- Skeppy showed me an old lab room Master Sam has no idea exists. According to Skeppy, it’s from when the castle was Master’s master’s. I have some new healing potion recipes I want- I could try out,” Dream offered. Eryn scowled, rubbing his forehead.
“Fine. I’ll be more careful,” he grumbled, moving to stand next to Bad and glower at Dream. The top of his head only came up to about Bad’s chest. Red, pupilless eyes would have set Dream on fire if they could, but that was Sapnap’s specialty. “Just keep your experiments away from me.”
“Someone woke up on the wrong side of the nest,” Sapnap sing-songed. He skipped over and blew a burst of dandelion fluff straight into the taller demon’s face. Eryn coughed and hacked and then swiped at Sapnap’s laughing face. Sapnap did the wise thing and dodged and ran. He folded his stunted wingspan into his back and dove into the nearest tube. Eryn hissed like a cat and followed him.
“How long do I have to hold this before he comes to get it?” Ant asked tiredly as the chase went in and out of the small maze of tubes. The last dandelion lost a couple of white seeds in the nekomata’s tightened grip while the poppies spun in his other hand.
“Hm. A while,” Tina said, sticking the stem of her dandelion in her mouth. “It’s wing harvest week. You know how anxious he gets.”
“We’re lucky Sapnap can keep up with him,” Bad said, stretching his own small wingspan along with his arms. “I’m too old to be chasing him around the cage.”
“You are old,” Ant agreed, nodding sagely. Bad huffed a chuckle.
“I was going to offer to hold Eryn’s flower, but to an old, decrepit demon such as myself, a flower might prove to be the final trickle atop my lava pier.”
“Alright, alright. You win. You’re not old,” Ant said. The two poppies were thrust at Bad, who grinned and took them. The nekomata immediately blew dandelion seeds everywhere before attempting to recapture all the little bits of fluff in his paws. Bad leaned back against the bars to enjoy the humanoid cat playing while the two younger demons skirted and ran around him. Tina giggled and wordlessly held her hand out. Bad placed the larger poppy into it, and she sniffed it happily, caressing the delicate petals with a gentle finger.
Despite the bars, Dream felt like he was standing between the two demons and enjoying the antics of the other two and their silly nekomata. He knew that demons were dangerous. Deadly. Useful only for their harvestable parts. But moments like this were remarkably like what some of the other kids in the orphanage talked about when–
“You said you only came partly for Skeppy’s delivery?” Bad asked abruptly, glancing down, down, down at Dream.
“He didn’t even finish the delivery,” Tina commented pointedly. Her lavender eyes barely brushed over Dream before returning to the two demons tussling and locking horns in the middle of the cage.
Ears burning over the nonsense he was thinking (again), Dream hurried to answer Bad’s question, “Right. Skeppy loves and misses you, Bad.”
“Tell the dumb muffin I love and miss him too,” Bad replied predictably. And yet, Skeppy would be waiting outside the door to receive said predictable reply with bated breath. Dream wished Sam would…His master was not a man open with his emotions. Apothecaries were not supposed to be.
“I’ll tell him.”
Bad tilted his head to the side, the motion reminiscent of an owl, his white eyes warm yet searching. “So, what’s the other part of ‘partly.’ Did Master move up wing harvest day?”
The tussle suddenly paused.
“No,” Dream quickly said. “He sent me down here to activate the cage expansion enchantment since he might finally get permission for a sixth demon.”
“Another demon?” Tina asked, alarmed. She whirled to fully face the giant beside her. “Six? I thought apothecaries were capped at four and he already has five!”
“Sam is going to do His Majesty a great favor,” Dream answered. “He’s going- going to eradicate Baron Soot’s rebel forces.”
“He’s going to what?!” Tina said, her usually sweet voice shrill and panicked. “He can’t- he hasn’t had us practice any combat maneuvers in- in ages! Does he think we can take down an entire rebel force just because we’re demons? Is he insane?”
“I think the jury came back with that verdict a long time ago,” said Ant, coming over with his paws full of dandelion fluff. “The problem isn’t that he’s insane, it’s that he’s decided to be delusional and a complete dumba–”
“Ant!” Bad scolded. The tall demon’s long tail wrapped around one of Ant’s two and tugged.
“He is,” Ant muttered. He tucked himself against the large demon’s leg the way he did when Bad got especially nervous. “What kind of moron thinks ‘I have three demons and a nekomata and that’s all I’ll need to take down a whole army’?”
“He is going to use golems too,” Dream said. “And he will make sure to charge you up. He’s likely- he’s probably already brewing some speed and strength potions right now. Speaking of, I think I- I might have found a recipe that I think will be more effe–”
“Bad, we haven’t had to fight since Eryn’s growth spurt!” Tina cut in as if she hadn’t heard Dream speaking at all. “You don’t think that Master will- he can’t make Eryn fight!”
“He can and he will,” Sapnap spat, untangling his horns from Eryn’s and protectively wrapping a sturdy arm around the gangly impling’s shoulders. “But Eryn’s ready.”
“I am,” Eryn said, standing at his full height, shoulders back, chin high. “Sapnap’s shown me how to fight.”
“He’s shown you how to fight in this cage while holding back.” The poppy twisted and snapped in Tina’s clutching hands as a tear rolled down her cheek. Then another. Then another. “A battlefield won’t be anything like that. People will be trying to… trying to-!”
“Mom–”
“Don’t ‘Mom’ me! You are not going out onto the battlefield to die!”
“I can- I can talk to Master Sam and ask him to allow me a demon to assist me with camp defense,” Dream spoke up through Tina’s growing hysteria. “Since the rest of you have battle experience, Master Sam will have to assign Eryn to me.”
“You… you think that’ll work?” Tina sniffled. The poppy fell to the floor of the cage, and graceful hands slipped through the bars and snatched one of Dream’s. Dream held himself still as her strong fingers grasped his in a crushing grip. He could count how many times she had willingly touched him on that one hand. “You can keep Eryn from fighting?”
“Yes,” Dream said confidently… until his conscience pricked his brain. “As long as Master Sam does not think he needs him for reinforcements.”
“Thank you! Thank you!” Tina exclaimed in sheer relief, still holding Dream’s hand. Tears poured down her face as her voice fell to a whisper. “Thank you.”
“I can fight,” Eryn insisted. “I don’t need some human to make plans to keep me awa–”
“Yes, you do,” Ant interrupted. “For Mom’s sake. You’ve barely been out of this cage. Wait until you have more experience.”
The classic scowl returned. “Fine.”
“If anyone can, Dream can. Right, Dream?” Bad said. Dream nodded decisively and reluctantly slipped his hand out of Tina’s, unable to resist giving her hand a parting squeeze as he let go. It said volumes that she allowed it.
“Let me finish the expanding enchantment, and I’ll go talk upstairs and help Master Sam with the battle plans.”
“The runes you sketched out are still in the corner,” Ant said, pointing to the corner Dream had been mapping out whenever he had a few minutes to spare. His big blue-green eyes took on a pleading glint. “Can the enchantment add a scratching post?”
“Considering the last one he tried to enchant lasted a day, do you think he should be wasting space in a complicated rune command to try another one?” Sapnap asked wryly. The post might last longer if Dream did not enchant it to take the shape that would relieve the user’s stress best. Ant had thankfully nearly demolished the thing before Master Sam saw how much the post resembled him.
“I will add a new one later,” promised Dream. He had to hurry before Master Sam got too far in his plans and too determined to be talked out of using his youngest demon in the battle. He pulled out his demon blood pen and etched out the runes as fast and accurately as he could. He could not let the demons down. Not when he was finally proving that he was different. Not when he was finally gaining real trust. Sam might have assigned him the mission of endearing himself to the demons since the moment he became an apprentice, but at this point he was doing it more for himself. More for them.
He wanted to prove himself worthy of... of… He would prove himself worthy.
The curve of ink ended the last rune, and the command glowed. The cage expanded an extra third and several new tubes connected to the old maze. The enchantment had gone perfectly. With skills like this, Master Sam would have to listen to him about lending him a demon for defense. His master would have to.
Twenty potions. Four sets of enchanted armor. Two sharpened, enchanted blades and one ax. Everything Master Sam had instructed him to fetch and pack the instant Dream had stepped back into his master’s planning room. Skeppy helped him lug the load to the lab’s entrance. The tiny golem lifted the crate of potions up to Dream, and Dream activated a hidden rune. The crate floated weightlessly in his hand.
“Thanks, Skep.”
“No problem,” Skeppy said. “Give Bad my best! And don’t worry about what happens. They’ll be fine. They’ve always come back.”
“I know,” Dream said. Skeppy had been here when this had happened before. He had been here for decades, longer than humans normally lived. He could be trusted. The demons and nekomata would be fine. And if Dream made sure the preparations perfect, Master Sam would have no reason to change the plan to use Eryn to build the camp’s enchantments. So far Master Sam had understood that putting an inexperienced demon in the middle of a fierce battle might end in the loss of said demon and had agreed to allow Eryn to stay back with Dream.
“Take care of them,” said Skeppy. He patted Dream’s leg. “And yourself.”
“I will,” Dream reassured. The golem saluted and then scuttled down the hallway. Smiling, Dream entered the lab.
“—ortable! My useless apprentice made a good point about using the impling as fuel. But make no mistake, if he proves himself useless in that endeavor as he has in others, I will send the impling into the battlefield without a second thought.”
“You’re just upset because Dream’s better at enchanting than you are,” snarked Eryn, and Dream’s blood grew cold. No. Now was not the time for Eryn to lose control of his mouth.
“What did you say?” Master Sam hissed.
“You heard him,” Tina hissed back. “You’re upset because your so-called useless apprentice has made more creative, powerful enchantments than you. One day, he might even surpass you.”
“You know that will never happen,” Master Sam snarled. “Never. He is here for one reason and one reason only.”
“Yeah. Because you’re stupid,” she said, and Dream tucked himself into the corner and watched as she pushed her face against the bars, nearly half a foot shorter than Master Sam but still not backing down.
“Master, she didn’t—” Bad began, a desperate edge to his voice, and then Master snapped his fingers, and his mouth snapped shut. The runes tattooed on Bad’s collar and carved into his steel shackles swirled, and he grabbed Tina’s upper arms in a bruising grip and pinned her face-down against the floor. The small demoness reflexively struggled under her large legate’s grasp, but to no avail. Bad’s long, thin tail slashed across her skin, exposed by the shift’s open back. From his half-hidden position, Dream could not see the countless white and red lined scars marring her onyx black skin, but he knew they were there. If he concentrated, he could almost made out the new ones being cut into her flesh.
His mind raced for a way to interrupt. If he appeared, Master Sam usually ended the punishment quickly. Unless Dream had angered him, then the floggings lasted longer. Would Eryn and Tina’s comments have made Master Sam angry enough at him that him walking in would make the situation worse, or—
“Enough,” Master Sam barked, snapping his fingers. Bad yanked his hands away from Tina as if her skin burned him and scrambled up and off her. He stood to the side a pace away, wringing his hands and looking like he wanted the ground beneath him to open up and swallow him. The demoness herself lay slumped and bleeding on the ground before she clawed at the floor, trying to push herself up.
Sam reached through the bars, grabbed her by her boyishly short hair, and brutally dragged her upright, tilting her head back to look her directly in the eyes. “You’re lucky I need you functional for tomorrow and can’t afford to waste resources right now. Next time, you will not be so fortunate.”
Sam let her go, and she fell into the bars and slid limply down onto the cage floor.
“I’ll find my useless apprentice and get a healing potion so that you’ll be ready for tomorrow,” he said and walked past Dream, invisible to the man as he often was. And not for the first time, Dream felt relief over disappointment. He didn’t want to think about why that was.
He moved to rush over to the cage but paused as Tina grabbed the bars and pushed her legs under her. Bad unfroze, shrunk to his eight feet, and moved to help her but, like Dream, paused. Tina made the decision for him when she reached out and grabbed hold of his hovering hand to finish pulling herself to her feet. She then grabbed the collar of his shift and pulled him down to her level, locking his horns with hers. His longer horn tangled with her hair while the shorter one paralleled hers perfectly.
“Not. Your. Fault,” she spat, every word strained with pain. Bad’s expression melted with relief and sadness, and he gently placed a hand behind her head and closed his eyes. The two breathed together, and Dream could only stare.
“Kit!” cried Ant, startling the two oldest demons and Dream. “You have any of the good potions in that box you’re holding?”
“I-I do,” Dream stuttered, hurrying over with his light load. He pulled out the potion he had brewed last night using one of Bad’s hairs. It glowed a little brighter than the rest. “Here. It should help.”
“Eryn wasn’t lying. Your potions are way better than Sam’s,” Ant praised, showing he had known Dream was standing there the whole time. Dream’s face went from cool to hot, and he barely registered Eryn’s loud scoff. Dream handed over the healing potion, and Ant uncorked it and poured it over Tina’s back where she stood still clinging tightly to Bad. The red, oozing lines closed, the blood mixing with the gold of the potion and spilling down her back to soak into her shift. A few streams of liquid trickled down her legs and pooled on the floor.
Tina held onto Bad’s forearms the whole time, face contorting in pain while leaning against his large chest. Once the mixture of blood and potion had either stained the back of her shift or puddled on the floor, Tina let him go and let out a long exhale.
“You should go get your master, human,” she bit out without turning to even look at Dream. “He’s looking for you.”
Dream opened his mouth, closed it, and went to find Master Sam.
“I will need him for longer than one day, Master,” Dream argued, his tone extremely respectful. This tent contained him and Master Sam only, but he knew royal soldiers milled around outside the thin, unenchanted fabric. Master Sam would not appreciate Dream disagreeing with him where others could hear.
“If this takes longer than one day, then my demons have gotten weaker than they should ever let themselves get, and will go straight into gladiator training afterwards,” Sam said blandly. “Bad should be more than enough for this army on his own.”
“What if you lose the demons to a rune trap? Should you not hold one in the back just- just in case?”
“Dream, I can understand you thinking you need to learn how to handle demons on your own. To show me you can. I appreciate that initiative. It’s why I am graciously loaning you the youngest for one day. But you must remember: these demons are mine. At the end of this battle, if I lose a demon, I lose it. Not you. One day you will finish your apprenticeship, and you will no longer have anything to do with my demons. So unless you find a way to continue your apprenticeship with me indefinitely, I suggest you worry more about yourself than them.”
Dream’s stomach sank. Sam often reminded Dream that he would leave the demons one day. That he would have to find his own. But that did not matter now. He had to keep Eryn out of the fighting. He had promised Tina. (She had trusted him. He couldn’t let her down.)
“I know that. I’m not worried about them,” Dream choked out the lie efficiently. Easily done if he imagined himself being four and a half years younger. “I’m worried about you. What if the king doesn’t give you permission for a sixth demon if you lose one? Plus, demons are becoming harder and harder to get a hold of thanks to the Antarctic Empire. Even if the king gives permission for a sixth demon regardless of what happens, you might not be able to get more than one if you need replacements. And I think the—the impling can be motivation to have the rest of the demons do their best. Make them more focused and powerful.”
“Really? And how do you suggest using the impling to motivate the others?”
Dream looked down to hide his wince and forced the words out smoothly. “Er- the impling is the youngest. He is the baby of- of your legion. If you threaten to- to have him drink a weakness potion every night they come back without fully destroying the enemy, then they will fight at their fiercest. Also, if you send him out to the battlefield with them, the rest might be distracted over his well-being over the battle. He would work better as a motivator than a weapon.”
“And that’s your opinion?”
“That is my opinion, Master,” Dream said, looking back up and straight into eyes a darker green than his own. He held the eye contact until his master cocked his head a degree to the left. He hurriedly let it drop as if he was showing his nerves. (Maybe he was.)
“Hm. It does make sense,” Sam said, almost pleased. Dream’s stomach squeezed, but he forced a small smile onto his lips as if he was pleased too. (When had smiles around his master all become forced?) “Go prepare the youngest to help you power the defensive enchantments. Make sure to inform the rest of their… motivation.”
Dream bowed properly and hurried to the tent holding his- Sam’s demons. He had to keep that in the back of his mind. But he had done it. For sure this time. He had kept Eryn out of the battle. As for the weakness potion, he had a new test batch that looked like weakness but actually had the properties of milk and would undo most potion effects. Should do a great job of confusing charged enemies by instead of adding a new potion status effect erasing all their potion enhancements. Could also level out the field when too many potion effects were cluttering the battlefield. But Dream could show the potion recipe to Sam long after this battle so he would not suspect Dream had already perfected it and given it to Eryn instead of a classic weakness potion.
He flipped up the tent flap and let light invade the abnormally dark tent. Eryn… might be more nervous that he had let on. The soft sounds of humming filled the tent as Tina gently comforted the youngest, his head pillowed against her knee as she stroked his curls. The demoness sat curled trustingly into Bad’s side, his huge arm draped across her shoulders like a warm blanket, while Antfrost sprawled lazily across his lap. Sapnap, meanwhile, used Eryn’s stomach like a pillow as he tore up stray handfuls of grass from the dirt floor and lit them on fire blade by blade.
Dream stared longingly at the domestic scene, and a wave of jealousy so strong it almost knocked him over welled up within him as he watched Tina tenderly card her fingers through Eryn’s hair, hummed to him like he was the most important thing in the world. Like the way that one girl at the orphanage talked about her mother acting before dying. Back then Dream could not imagine an adult acting that way to a child. Dream’s mother definitely hadn’t.
As Dream finally let the flap close behind him, five pairs of eyes turned as one to fixate on him.
“Well? Did you convince ‘Master Sam’ to stick to your plan for more than a day?” The harsh question coming from Sapnap meant that the whole legion must be on edge, maybe on the precipice of having magic burst through the runes and lash out at him. It had happened once, and Dream did not want a repeat of the experience. (It had been years. They wouldn’t hurt him. They wouldn’t. Bad wouldn’t let them.)
“Yes,” Dream reassured. The temperature that had Dream’s exposed skin stinging dropped to a normal temperature. So Sapnap would have been the one to attack Dream, not Tina. That did not reassure him. “I convinced him by telling him we should threaten Eryn with a weakness potion for every day you fail to eliminate Baron Soot’s entire army.”
“A weakness potion?” Tina shrieked, the light from the lantern hanging from the ceiling brightening to a painful level. “Are you crazy?”
“A fake weakness potion!” Dream quickly added before the magic blinded him again, hands flying up to cover his eyes just in case. “I had one worked out in case I had to convince Sam with something like this!”
“It better be fake,” Tina growled. She sounded almost scary, but the light filtering through Dream’s fingers had softened back to its original comforting glow, and he cautiously lowered his hands. “Or you won’t see straight for a month.”
“Don’t threaten the muffin, Tina. He’s doing his best,” Bad said in a tone that brooked no argument. He stood up from the demon pile in the middle of the dirt floor, dislodging a disgruntled Ant from his lap, who sullenly went to sit loafed on Sapnap’s chest instead. Bad walked over to Dream, letting the leash connecting his collar to the center pole drag behind him. His sheer size should have made the large demon feel like he was looming over Dream, but he as always managed to lean and slouch enough to look large but not oppressive. “Thank you, Dream. If you need some extra blood or hair for your next set of potions, let me know.”
Dream shook his head. “If you do that too much, Master Sam will figure it out. I just- This is all I can do. It’s up to you now. The quicker you take down Baron Soot’s rebel forces, the less chance there will be of Master Sam catching on to the fake weakness potion.”
“Understood,” Bad said, reaching down and tangling scarred, gentle fingers into Dream’s golden curls, his blunted claws scratching pleasantly against his scalp. The boy couldn’t suppress his reflexive smile. “We’ll make sure that Master doesn’t figure out how smart you really are.”
His face burned under the praise (Sam had never), and he shook his head.
“It’s- it’s all I could do,” Dream again regretfully. “I wish I could have done more.”
“You’ve done more than enough,” Bad said, retracting his hand. “Leave the rest to us.”
“Yeah, we’ll easily slaughter the hundreds of your kind that decided to try and free us,” Sapnap said, heavy sarcasm in his words. “No problems, kid.”
Bad hissed and glared at the fire demon who huffed and looked away, but Sapnap wasn’t wrong. Dream knew that if the demons had a choice, they would be fighting on the other side of this battle. They would tear Sam to pieces… and his apprentice, too. Why have mercy on either?
“I don’t want to go with him,” Eryn said in a tone of voice that sounded suspiciously similar to a whine. “I want to go with you. I can fight. I can kill some dumb, magicless humans-”
“No,” Tina cut him off. “You’re not going, and that’s final.”
“No,” Eryn shot back, pulling away from Tina, surging to his feet, disturbing Sapnap’s resting place, and tugging his leash hard to get away from two demons and nekomata. “You can’t expect me to sit and play battery for this idiot human while you go and fight outnumbered a hundred to one!”
“Sounds like you think we’ll lose,” Sapnap said, cradling Ant to his chest as he sat up and shuffled to sit next to Tina.
“I’m not a baby, Stupidnap! I know you’re not invincible!”
Dream’s stomach sunk. He had been trying to ignore the truth of what he told Sam. They could lose one of his demons. Or all of them.
It would just be Dream and Eryn then, and Eryn hated Dream. (Dream hated himself too.)
“We’ll come back,” Bad said softly, looping back to reach for Eryn. Eryn gave a pathetic hiss, and Bad’s large hand hesitated but then rested firmly atop Eryn’s head between his horns. “We always have.”
Eryn hissed a whisper, and Bad chuckled, which earned him a suspiciously damp glare.
“It’s not as insane as it sounds. Trust Ant, Sapnap, Tina and me. We will come back.”
“Promise?” Eryn whispered loud enough to hear.
“Promise,” Bad echoed. He fondly cupped the impling’s cheeks between his palms, bent down, and kissed the top of Eryn’s head. Yet again, Dream stared when he should have looked away. The legion got rare moments of privacy where Sam did not have recording scrolls. Dream should leave them-
Paws batted at his ankles, and Dream automatically bent down to scoop the two-tailed cat up. Ant, still in his four-legged form, nuzzled Dream’s cheek.
“You heard Bad,” Ant whispered straight into Dream’s ear. His whiskers tickled Dream’s neck. “As if our legate would let anything else happen. He’s a nightmare off his leash.”
A laugh bubbled and suffocated into a brief snort.
“I promise to do my best to protect Eryn,” Dream whispered back.
“Don’t forget to keep yourself safe too,” Ant said before leaping out of his arms and following his leash back to its source. He reared up on his hind legs, grabbed one of the rings holding the leashes to the pole in his mouth, and tugged at it. “Thid one id Eryn’d.”
“Got it,” said Dream, hurrying over to unlatch the leash. He would do his part, and the demons and nekomata would do theirs. They would all be fine.