The palanquin glides effortlessly down the sun-baked road, its enchanted wheels turning without need of human hands. Within its silk-draped interior, the air remains unnaturally cool—the result of whispered words that still hum faintly against Regulus's skin when he passes too close to the carved runes along the ceiling.
Nyx lounges across the cushions like a contented panther, one arm draped dramatically across her eyes. "Moth," she commands without looking, "entertain me."
Regulus glances up from where he's been studying the phone's capabilities. "I'm not your jester."
Golden eyes slit open. "No. You're my moth. And moths who don't amuse their flames get… singed." A fingertip sparks for emphasis.
With a long-suffering sigh, Regulus slides further inside. The palanquin adjusts its balance automatically, the enchantments compensating for the shifted weight. He holds up the phone. "What do you want? Music? Games? I could read you terrible poetry from my world's internet."
Nyx makes a lazy grasping motion. "All of it. But first—make it louder. That… metal bird death sound you call music."
As Regulus navigates the playlist, the device thrums strangely in his hands. The magic sustaining it flickers at the edges of his vision—his own creation, but still not quite of this world. He selects a song, then pauses.
"Wait. If I'm understanding the enchantment matrix correctly…" His fingers trace glowing patterns in the air. The phone pulses in response, its sound expanding to fill the space without distortion.
Nyx claps exactly once. "Better. Now—what other wonders does this little box contain?"
Outside, the landscape rolls by unnoticed as Regulus finds himself drawn into an impromptu exhibition of mortal absurdity. A rhythm game unfolds into a spectacle of flashing lights and frantic tapping, each perfect combo met with Nyx's imperious demand for "More fire! More lightning!" Terrible memes dredged from the depths of the internet somehow make an ancient goddess cackle, her laughter sharp and bright as shattered glass. And when he hesitantly opens his photo gallery, her scrutiny turns uncomfortably pointed. "Why," she asks, tilting her head, "do your people cage themselves in those… what did you call them? 'Office buildings'?"
As the sun begins to dip below the horizon, Nyx suddenly stills. "Enough." She plucks the phone from his hands, examining it with newfound seriousness. "This phone is… curious. Not of Tenkai. Not of Genkai." Her gaze lifts to meet his. "You really are from beyond, little moth."
The palanquin's gentle rocking paused as if the world itself held its breath. Regulus met Nyx's piercing gaze, the fading sunlight casting golden patterns across her face through the silk curtains.
"You didn't believe me the first time we talked about this?" he asked, fingers twitching toward the reclaimed phone.
Nyx's lips curved in that infuriating half-smile he'd come to know too well. "Regulus, the gods know when mortals are lying. But not if their words are empirical truth." She plucked a grape from a bowl that hadn't been there moments before, examining it with feigned disinterest. "For all I knew, you were just another mad prophet who genuinely believed he came from another world. Do you know how many of those we get after a good wine festival?"
The palanquin's enchantments hummed as it adjusted to a sudden shift in weight - Nyx leaning forward, her sudden proximity making the air taste of ozone. "But this..." She tapped the phone's screen, making it flare to life again. "This is proof even the heavens can't deny. The patterns in it are..." Her nose wrinkled. "Alien."
Outside, the first evening star blinked awake as shadows stretched across the road. Somewhere in the gathering dusk, a nightingale began its song - though Regulus suspected that too might be one of Nyx's affectations.
"So," he said slowly, weighing the device in his palm, "what does this mean for your 'moth'?"
Nyx's laughter was a silver dagger in the twilight. "Oh, nothing changes. You're still mine." She leaned back, fingers dancing through the air to conjure a floating image of the phone's circuitry. "But now I have questions. So many questions."
The palanquin's curtains drew themselves shut as the last light faded, leaving them in a cocoon of enchanted darkness. Somewhere beyond the silk walls, the world continued turning. But here, in this suspended moment between day and night, between truth and revelation, Regulus realized the rules had just changed.
And Nyx's eyes glowed with the thrill of the game.
Nyx leaned in suddenly, her face so close to Regulus' that the scent of lightning and pomegranates filled his senses. For one breathless moment, he thought—impossibly—she might kiss him. Instead, her lips curved into a smile sharp enough to draw blood as she whispered, "I'm never letting you go."
The enchantments seemed to pulse in time with the declaration, the very air thickening with ozone. Somewhere beyond the silk walls, a distant thunderclap echoed the sentiment.
Regulus swallowed hard, his fingers tightening around the phone. The rational part of his mind—the part that had survived dragons and divine whims—started calculating escape routes. The rest of him noted, with detached fascination, how Nyx's eyelashes cast starlight shadows on her cheeks in the dim light.
"Can we at least," he began carefully, "have others join the familia?" The question hung between them, balanced on the knife's edge of her mercurial moods.
Nyx drew back just enough to study him, her golden eyes gleaming with amusement. "When you've proven yourself worthy," she declared, plucking the phone from his grasp with effortless grace. Her fingernail—too sharp to be entirely human—tapped the screen thoughtfully. "Until then, little moth, you'll have to content yourself with my divine company."
The palanquin hit a bump in the road, jostling them closer together. Nyx didn't pull away. Somewhere in the distance, an owl called—three mournful notes that sounded suspiciously like laughter.
Regulus exhaled slowly. "And how exactly," he asked, watching as she absently scrolled through his music library, "does one prove worthy to a goddess?"
Nyx's smile widened as she selected a song—something fast and pulsing that made the palanquin's wooden frame vibrate in protest. "Oh, you'll know," she promised over the sudden swell of music. "I do so love making tests... personal."
Outside, the first drops of rain began to fall, hissing as they hit the still-warm road. The storm, it seemed, would be traveling with them.