Her balance was suffering from blood loss, as was her ability to remain lucid and alert for danger. When she saw the deer, she thought it was a mirage caused by the poison coursing through her blood, yet it seemed so real...
She began to follow it, watching its leaps in the distance; it was like a call to her, and she couldn't resist the temptation. The deer, in fact, stopped to watch her until she got closer, its dark, piercing eyes following her every move.
"Astrael." As Grimilde walked toward the deer, she began calling the name of her demon ally, hoping he would hear her.
"Astrael!" She took risks by screaming, but it was a life-or-death situation. "Astrael? Damn... where have you gone?" She gritted her teeth and fell to the ground, tripping over something. When she looked up, the deer was only a few steps away.
"Foolish human..."
It wasn't the wind that whispered this time; it was the majestic creature she had followed since the beginning of the race. "Astrael, that wretched insect, will not come here... but tell me... Human, do you not fear the dark beings?"
The deer's appearance changed: its fur darkened, its eyes changed color to red, and its overall appearance resembled an evil figure, no longer the docile one it had been before. Black burst from the ground at his feet, approaching her dangerously, like an expanding pool of water, ready to suck in anyone who touched it.
"Who are you?"
"What do I want?" The deer was sucked into the black pool, and in its place a mirror seemed to appear. Its reflection showed two people running through the woods, and the image grew larger until Grimilde realized it was Snow White and a royal guard. An icy cold crept into her veins, and the queen shivered from head to toe: it wasn't the blood she'd lost, it wasn't the pain of the wound, not even the poison... the idea that something very bad could happen to the princess was worse than the thought of death.
"I won't let you hurt her!"
"Pathetic! Human scum who dares oppose me? Morpheus?" The demon's evil laughter echoed throughout the forest. The mirror disappeared, and in its place the black pool rose into the air, taking on a humanoid form, but with long black horns and goat-like legs. The tail was that of a snake.
Just like his hissing tongue.
"I will kill you and torture you until your last breath... yes... I will take you to my kingdom, and you will suffer forever!"
Morpheus lunged at his prey, and Grimilde managed to dodge at the last moment, but in doing so, she fell on her wounded arm, and the arrow sank into the wound. A scream escaped her throat, and the demon stopped to watch her cry and gasp in pain.
"Astrael!" The call seemed to fall flat, as it had done before, because no one came. Grimilde tried to get up from the ground; she couldn't let go like that, she couldn't die like this. And despite his immense strength of spirit, Morpheus was still a powerful demon, and he didn't waste a moment before attacking her again: he grabbed her by the throat, tightening his grip. "Let's see how many seconds of life you can hold before I drag you into my kingdom..." His long tongue licked the blood gushing from the queen's wound. She tried to fight back, until her body grew weak and her eyes began to close.
"There... yes... like that... sleep, sleep an eternal sleep!"
"I won't let you, Morpheus." A violent force tore the demon away from Grimilde, hurling him against a tree trunk, which cracked and fell with a loud crash. Astrael took the queen in his arms, helping her lie down next to a tree to rest: "I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, Your Majesty. What is your wish?" Astrael's smile was so reassuring in that situation, and Grimilde let out a moment of comfort:
"I want him to disappear from the Earth forever."