Time in a Dream

Sleep came easier to Simon that night. While the unfortunately cold bath hadn't quite refreshed him like he'd hoped, it had let him clear his mind. That, combined with the fresh bedding and the draining efforts of the day sent him to relaxing sleep soon after his head hit the pillows.

Or rather, it would have been relaxing if he didn't find himself awake in Hethoria's domain, the world a brilliant white expanse that stretched to the horizon in every direction.

Hethoria didn't rush to him immediately when he entered, quite the opposite of how she had acted yesterday. Instead she seemed to have left him floating there by himself. He stopped himself from opening his mouth to speak, remembering the rules of the space.

"Hello? Hethoria? Are you out there?" his words echoed infinitely across the expanse, spreading into the empty eternity.

"I can't say I like you very much, but I'd rather have someone to talk to than wait here alone to wake up! You're the one who said I was entertaining!" Again, his words flew away into the distant nothingness.

With silence as his only answer Simon consigned himself to waiting alone, trying to find some position to place himself so that he could float comfortably in the space, yet finding no comfort in the unusual positions.

He closed his eyes to try and emulate sleep, covering them with his hand to prevent the bright light piercing them. He stayed like that for as long as he could before growing bored once again. He removed his arm and prepared to open his eyes, yet the light didn't pierce his eyes as before. Confused, he opened them.

"Aghhh!" He screamed when he opened his eyes. A pure black silhouette floated only inches away from his face, its beady eyes staring directly at him, piercing him to his very soul, its body consumed the very light around it, emitting a terrible dark miasma all around it. Simon tried to lurch away, trying to ineffectually swim his way through the air, yet he was as stuck as he always had been, only able to twist and turn in place.

The silhouette slowly approached, moving imperceptibly slowly, but moving nonetheless. His panic and unease only increased, desperately trying to to force himself awake, pinching himself and thrashing as wildly as he could while ensuring he didn't touch the ominous figure. It's not working  was all Simon could think to think, lost in his terror.

The world around him began to shriek as the shadows above him shrunk and coalesced, their miasma constricting and its erstwhile eyes disappearing into its body. Slowly it began to shape itself into a small sphere, a screaming stain against the pure white world.

"Sorry for the delay honey, I wanted to make you miss me a bit. Seems I left you alone a bit too long though." Hethoria approached from behind him, once again walking across the expanse as if it were solid stone.

"What-what is that thing?! Why is it here?!" Simon sputtered out whatever thoughts his mind could conjure. His first thought was that it must be some sort of demon, with its dark form and soul haunting eyes he couldn't see it as anything else.

"Hmm, how do I put it? It's a shade I suppose? A fragment of a sleeping conscious that's found itself floating away around here. They're completely physically harmless even to a fly. Yet it can be, well, let's call it mentally disturbing, when they mix with one of you. You start getting your consciousnesses mixed up, lose your sense of self, go a bit mad, that sort of thing. Good job having avoided touching it, no clue how that would have turned out, would have been fun though." She smiled predatorially at him, immediately bringing forward flashbacks from yesterday.

"So what was it doing here?! How'd it get in! Isn't this your domain?!" Simon tried to direct his thoughts into shouts, a surprisingly difficult task, much of the emotion dying in his proverbial throat.

"Well they can get lost sometimes. They're meant to float in the Sleeping Eternity till their owner wakes up, but given how close that is to the Ephemeral Realm, they can slip through the cracks sometimes. Anyway, I wouldn't worry about them, they're pure innocent little things, I'd even call them cute." Hethoria smiled gently as she pulled the black orb to float in her palm.

The orb had stopped screaming at some point, the implications of its whine terrifying with context. Simon could only imagine the sound as some poor sleeping person screaming in pain as their body was crushed into a thousandth of its size.

"Oh don't worry, they're not in pain, they're probably just having a nightmare, or at least that's what the God's consensus is. I can't say we know particularly much about this dream part of the world, it's too close to ours. Seren did once, but well she's dead so can't really help us now."

Hethoria spent a few more seconds looking into the black sphere before, suitably amused, throwing it nonchalantly over her shoulder and into the white abyss. Simon was torn whether he should scold her, but ultimately decided it would be pointless, plus the person in the sphere was probably fine.

"Now, it's time to talk about you." She seemed to sit languidly in an invisible chair, raising one obscured leg over the other. "I was hoping you'd be more fun today."

"Well, I'm sorry for not being constantly entertaining."
"No magic, no conflict, and no real drama. About the most entertaining thing in the whole day was seeing you red with rage, and that certainly didn't last. You're boring you know that?"
"Honestly, it sounds like a good thing if I can spend less time with you in my head."
"Touché, touché. Well, it'll be fun to see your improvement over time at the very least, maybe you'll grow some muscles, become fun for the eyes if not for the mind."
"I assure you, you having fun would just be an unfortunate side effect."

Hethoria leaned forward, enjoying the resistance. "But how cruel to spite your patron so. Oh well, I'll stop tormenting you now, I think you've had enough for today."

Simon was suspicious to say the least. The Goddess hadn't let up her jabs and prods for even a moment since they'd met. She must have some reason to stop it now.

"For your information I'm not a Goddess who enjoys revelling in cruelty, it's just so very fun to play with humans, and I haven't had a Knight in so long. It's like playing with a pet."
"I am not a pet."
"No, but it's close. If you behave well, I'll even give you a treat like I did yesterday. You can look forward to more of those the more entertaining you are. Think of it as an incentive."
"Listen, I really don't know how you can be having so much fun when your family is literally at your door trying to kill you. We die, and you're almost immediately next, you know that?"
"Hmm, I wouldn't worry about that. it's the benefit of my domain being space, worst case I weasel myself away in a pocket dimension and wait out the storm. Florient could and did find me, but then I killed him so that's a worry out of my hair."

Despite the meaning in her words, Hethoria never stopped smiling. It was like she was absolutely and completely certain of her victory.

Simon was furious. She was talking about running away and hiding, hiding even as those who believed in her fought and died. He'd taken her teasing up to now, and accepted her terrifying whimsy as the nature of a being so far removed from himself, but he couldn't stay quiet in the face of her apathy.

"Those people down there are dying for you! You! And you're talking about hiding yourself away!? You're just going to leave them to die!? Do you not care for them at all!? Do you not see how devoted they are to you!? Every last person in that cloister was ready to die, ready to throw their lives away just to defend you!" Simon's fury surprised even himself, this time managing to fully unleash the rage in his voice and let it fill the quiet of the void.

For her part, Hethoria did a good job of looking abashed and ashamed. Her composure somewhat shattered, she leaned forward out of her would be chair and begun to defend herself.

"Now why would you ever think that! I sent you to them didn't I? I've already given you information, I've given you access to nearly all my powers, and I've even promised more help in the future! How is that not caring?!" She seemed genuinely offended by the claims. "Now I am preparing for the worst, and I am trying to have fun, but I told you already. The army you're facing isn't even that large, get a grasp of your strength and you won't even struggle. Unless they divert one of their Knights. But they won't." Her own words were uncertain at the end, as if she herself was struggling to justify her actions.

Hethoria did not need to read Simon's thoughts to know he wasn't impressed. His disappointed gaze said it all.

She threw up her hands in defeat, like a mother scolded by her child. "Fine, fine, ok. How about this to show you I mean it? The next few nights you're in here I'll help you with your magic, ok? It should be easier for you in here so just stop. Alright?"

Simon smiled with some difficulty, anger still lingering, himself like a toddler after a successful tantrum. "Thank you, Lady Hethoria." He said with a faux bow.

"Yes, yes, ok. Look, dawn's coming up. I'll be waiting tomorrow so don't make me regret it. And at least try to do something entertaining, I can not stress enough how boring it's been lately, ok?"

Simon didn't have a chance to respond before his stomach lurched and he was pulled back down into the void.