Chest heaving, you held your arms in the same position as they had been when the double doors were slammed open. Your (E/C) eyes darted around the dark room, then landed on Nightmare. You almost growled at the indifference he was showing at your little entrance.

"Ah ah, (N/N)," he chortled cooly, waving a finger like he was a mother scolding her child. "You really shouldn't go around slamming doors like that. It really is quite rude."

You took a few moments to catch your short breath. The king watched you stalk towards his throne, eye scanning your form for excess weaponry. Yes. Just to make sure they didn't have any more weapons. Just that.

"You," your voice began, then cut off as you gasped another breath. Why did the library have to be so far away?? "I need some—gasp—words from you."

Nightmare raised an invisible eyebrow. Then a sudden throng of panic flashed through him: what if you found out? What if you had put two and two together and uncovered his lies?

However, to his relief, you only pointed an accusing finger at him and queried, "Th-The ripped page. What the hell was that?"

Nightmare flinched, unprepared for the question. He hadn't bet on you asking, or even paying attention to the page. There was a reason why he didn't want you looking in that book. There was a reason why he didn't let anyone look in that book.

Perhaps he really was too afraid. Perhaps Nightmare was a coward. Perhaps he was trying to simply push down something, drown out something that he had sworn to never let resurface again.

Perhaps he was mad with a feeling that he couldn't quite identify.

"Hey," you snapped, (E/C) eyes cold and demanding. It was a foreign feeling, the harshness you were displaying. It chilled both you and Nightmare to the bone. "You still there? I came for answers and I sure as hell am going to get them."

As you drew a knife from your hoodie's pocket, Nightmare stifled a laugh. There was no way you could ever hope to beat him, especially with a knife, unless—

He nearly choked.

Unless... Unless you had learned something that he hadn't. Unless you knew something he didn't. But that was absolutely ridiculous. He knew every spell, every curse. Even the Whispering Spell, a forbidden and eternally scarring.

Despite his morbid thoughts, you simply pointed the sharp tip at the king and drew your mouth into a thin line. "Answers," You snarled. "Now."

The corrupt ruler suddenly found himself drowning in an icy pool of water—or maybe it wasn't water. Whatever it was, it suffocated him. His world was filled with two voices, one recognizable, the other... familiar.

Help them. It won't hurt. No. They can't do anything to you. They have no idea what I can do to them. Would you? What? Would you do 'anything' to them? I have no idea what you're talking about. Yes. Yes, you do. You wouldn't hurt them if you could. Shut up. You feel something for them, don't you? SHUT UP. You want to protect them, don't you?? SHUT UP!!

With a sigh, Nightmare leaned back further, tired with an unknown exhaustion. "Fine," he muttered, rubbing his temples yet again. It was an adorable habit, you thought—what? Adorable? "I'll try my best. I can't promise anything, though."

You heard the (surprisingly already) familiar sound of a chair forming behind you; a slosh like sound that was between the noise of bones shifting and tendons breaking. You sat down on the inky chair, propping up an arm to rest your head on.

"So," you began, "The page."

Nightmare nodded, a slight sense of dread settling in his nonexistent gut. You want to protect them, don't you?

"...Yes," he confirmed to both the strange voice and to you. "The page is... ripped. Gone. You're probably wondering why."

Another nod, this time from you.

A skull-splitting headache was settling in from earlier. YOU WANT TO PROTECT THEM, DON'T YOU??

"Yep," you piped, popping the 'p' as loudly as you could. "You know the answer. This is your house, after all. So where is it?"

"Where is what?" Nightmare snapped, immediately drawing back from the receding of pain. As soon as he had been cruel, the pain had been buried once more...

You snapped, eye twitching, and leaped to his throne.

Of course, Nightmare was halfway across the room by the time you got to his seat. Growling, you launched yourself again. And again. And again. Now this is something I was looking for!

Yawning, Nightmare swept you up in a tendril. Your face was red with anger and exercise, and you were huffing and puffing a little. "PUT ME DOWN!!" You slashed at the tendril, fury fueling the blows.

Adorable, Nightmare smirked. He tossed you into a chair, then teleported back up to his throne. "Perhaps we should take this somewhere more..." he drew small circles on his chair. "...Private."

You suddenly were back in your room, laying down on the silk sheets of the bed. Nightmare sat across from you, eye glowing intensely at your forms A thought dashed through: There are quite a lot of things we could do on this be—

"...Do you trust me, (N/N)?"

Thankful to be snapped out of your strange thoughts, you gave the goopy skeleton a side-glance. Trust? You sneered internally, the very word bouncing around. "Sure," you sassed, "You saves me a couple of times and gave me a home. I totally, absolutely trust you."

Nightmare chuckled and kicked his legs off of the bed. "Enough to tell me your real name?"

You froze. How? It was the first name I ever told him! It was the first title I told him I had! How?!

"(N/N)," the king sighed, "I knew it wasn't your real name because of your aura. You were lying. It was clear as a star on a cloudless night."

It was his turn to glare at you. "So, do you want to tell me?"

With a sigh, you dropped your gaze. There really was no way out of this, was there? Might as well get it over with. With a breath, you gathered your courage and let it slip through your lips.

"...(Y/N)," you hissed, hating how it sounded. You had always hated it. Snapping your furious gaze up to his you snarled, "There! Happy?!"

The king contemplated for a moment, his face lingering on interest and disgust (or, at least, that's what you saw), before gently smiling, "That's a wonderful name."

Although you were positive he was lying, you teased him about his own name. The rest of the session went by in a blur, with you and Nightmare occasionally making a strange joke that would come out of nowhere.

Example: 'Obviously whoever named you didn't think about how you'd come out today.'

It wasn't until after he left you in peace that you realized that he never answered your original question, and that both of your faces were apple red with heat.

:):

Five chairs were set up around a table.

Only four of the five chairs were occupied: the fifth was standing, watching what almost looked like a captivating show through a screen.

"Your tea is getting cold, darling," a woman in a black suit with a deep emerald tie mused. She smiled, a terrifyingly innocent sight. The glisten of white teeth stood out against the dreary void, black and merciless. Her green eyes shined from her lively-yet-pale face, accented by her suit.

"Yeah, no shit Sherlock," another woman snapped, her deep sea blue dress shirt causing her brilliant sky blue orbs to flash even brighter. "Stars, you act like everyone other than yourself is blind, I swear—"

"Oh come now," taunted yet another girl, checking her rose gold pocket watch. "Now isn't the time to argue." Her own golden eyes were less like stars or street lamps and more like eerie lights in a horror game: sickly and dark. Her bow tie, a matching gold, was tied on the neck of an almost pretty tux. A chain snaked out of a pocket, connecting her to the watch.

The fourth, watching the commotion, simply sat with its hands folded neatly in its lap. A bandage was wrapped lazily around its head, covering only its right eye.  The other red iris stared unblinkingly at the others, dull grey trench coat keeping it warm. The mess of black hair was enticing, yet horrifying. Its silence meant everything. There was no need for it to speak just yet.

The fifth, watching a show through the screen, kept its back to the others. Its form shifted and warped until suddenly, the shadows settled into something most people would find unnerving.

It was you.

The you that you've always dreamed of being, the you you'd always wanted to be. It had become your dream, it had become what you wanted.

It dragged its—no, your—finger across the picture slowly, the digit trailing across the blush on your face through the screen. Smiling ever so slightly with your perfect face, a voice rang out without it even speaking.

"Things are staring to gather quite a bit of heat, hm," it jeered, watching you slip under the covers of your bed. The blush was still prominent on your cheeks as you willed your eyes closed.

"Mm. I always like this part." The smile on her face had yet to dwindle, and she stirred her own coffee with a silver-ish spoon. "Drama. Secrets. Love and war."

"Love," sneered gold-eye, watch ticking ominously. "Love is a conquest. Love is a war. Here is what I think of love."

A porcelain cup went crashing to the ground, pieces scattering everywhere across the cold floor. Red-eye sighed, scribbling something down in its book. The shards immediately disappeared.

"Mm. Well, if love is a conquest, if love is a war, than I guess that they have quite the battle to fight." Its lips curled as it relinquished your perfect form, shifting back to an abstract entity of darkness.

"It will be splendid when they find out the truth," Blue-eye clapped, delighted. "It's always nice to have just a little bit of chaos!"

It smiled, its black eyes melting and snapping back together over and over again. Everything shifted as it thought of the future to come.

"Things are about to become very, truly interesting..."