And thus, two months passed.

They took both an eternity and went over in a heartbeat at the same time. Theora mostly spent them just walking ahead on the path, being lost in her own circling thoughts. Dema talked to her constantly, but rarely required any answers.

They both had a very intricate relationship with time, and what might seem like a daunting duration to many felt like almost nothing to them.

Theora spent a sizable while as an anxious mess, though it didn’t necessarily show on the outside. There was no reason to let Dema know any of it, it would just be cruel to use that girl as an outlet to lament a situation she was essentially the victim of. However, day after day, Theora’s anxiety slowly subsided in lieu of increasing agitation.

That agitation stemmed not from Dema’s endless shenanigans. Not from her constant questions, her teasing, or from her pretend-snoring at night, or from the way she started screaming in joy every time she saw a snow rabbit and started gushing how it was ‘just like Theora’. Or from the fact that Dema really liked to show off random rocks she found on the wayside. No, these things didn’t bother Theora at all. If anything, they were helpful distractions, though her emptiness was hard to fill even with any of that.

Instead, what actually bothered her was the System. It had been quite a while since she’d felt such annoyance, and even if, by some metric, she maybe wasn’t justified in feeling like this, she couldn’t help it.

She thought the System was being unkind. Hadn’t Theora earned some good-will? Shown determination? She’d put on a yearlong journey to find the Ancient Evil, had removed it from its prison, and now, Dema’s impending death was just a second away, at any given point in time. Theora had, for some reason, expected a little bit of a concession, the tiniest fragment of a compromise for having advanced on her Main Quest.

And yet, right now, as Dema was peacefully sleeping in front of her, Theora had been woken up by a pop-up she knew all too well. One that persisted even through her attempts to mute System notifications.

[Current Main Quest: Kill the Ancient Evil.]

In her anger, she almost lashed out. Almost did something she’d already done once before and knew to be pointless.

It was no use. She took a deep breath, needing to restrain herself. It was getting strikingly hard. Theora wasn’t usually one to work herself up — except exactly in situations like this that felt simply unjust.

As she forcefully shut down the message again, Dema’s face suddenly appeared in the middle of her field of view. Theora had prepared a mat of hay and grass over the stone floor, and Dema was sleeping on it soundly.

The two were in an alcove, shielding themselves from the rain in the night. They’d travelled south for a long time, but the weather was still chilly. Not that Dema minded, as she continued doing all the same kinds of lively nonsense that would cause her to get cold. And then, she’d proceed to complain about feeling cold for an hour.

Right now, she was probably truly asleep. If she wasn’t, she’d likely attempt to be aggravating in some way. ‘Accidentally’ kicking Theora, making unsavoury noises, or ‘sleep talking’ mockeries for which she’d deny all responsibility when awake. ‘Little rabbit wants to be dominated’ had been one of the more egregious sleepy mumble crimes, and when Theora tried to complain about it later, Dema gave her best to make Theora repeat ‘the exact words’ because otherwise ‘how would she be able to remember what Theora was talking about.’

But now, Dema looked calm. Her body gently swayed up and down with her breathing, her expression was unusually serene. One of her arms was ashen white, the other was tar black, and the legs repeated that pattern, but on opposite limbs. Her face was mostly dark, patches of white around her eyes. Where the colours met, they did so in seemingly mathematical patterns. It was fairly aesthetic, as far as Theora dared to judge.

Her pointed and long ears were bent ever so slightly against the plants on the ground. Rather cutely, a little twig had somehow gotten itself caught up on the slightly bent, black demon horn protruding from the right side of her forehead. And the hair was a dark and short mess. Dema kept lazily cutting it herself — apparently whenever a strand grew too long and annoyed her in some way, for example by grazing her shoulder or entering her field of vision, she’d just shorten it back by half, leaving the rest of her hair-style as-is.

Theora had the sudden urge to draw a blanket over Dema’s body, except, of course, she didn’t have a blanket, and even if she did, she would never actually do it. If Dema suddenly woke up after being doted on that way, Theora would never hear the end of it.

Well, ‘never’ was a harsh word to use, because it didn’t encompass that much time in their case.

Tomorrow, they’d arrive in the village. Dema could have a bit of fun, let herself out. And then, perhaps, finally, she’d agree to end this whole farce. Maybe these two months had given her enough time to ‘think’. Because Theora was tired, being reminded of this Main Quest every single day, and having that excruciating pain in her chest of knowing where it all would end. For both of them.

Because completing her Main Quest would be the last thing Theora would ever do. After that, she’d finally be able to rest and find respite from this continued exhaustion Dema happily called ‘being alive.’

Ending the Ancient Evil was the only reason for Theora to even exist. She knew that no matter how she felt about it, it was what she had to do. She couldn’t pass on before ending the Ancient Evil. Unleashing it on the world would lead to unknowable suffering. It was the inevitable conclusion.

It was her terrible fate.

Even for Theora, it was hard to believe. This small, fragile creature, sleeping peacefully. That something like her could be irredeemably evil. And yet, it was likely that every single gesture of this creature was deliberate, carefully constructed for the purpose of prolonging its life and regaining its freedom to inflict endless suffering.

Of course, those attempts were pointless floundering, because none of it would work in the end. And yet, Theora couldn’t help but feel sympathetic for her.

She inhaled the air filled with petrichor, gazed out at the soft drizzle lit up by just one moon and the dying embers of their campfire, and then laid back down to sleep.

Just one more day.