Nightmares and minotaurs

It was just another ordinary day within my dungeon. Or rather, it was actually an ordinary night. No light could ever seep in from the outside, so I had the inhabitants of my dungeon follow a mostly nocturnal sleep-cycle, since it made raiding human settlements and secret operations that much easier. But anyways, nothing of special notice was happening.

I just sat on my throne, my minions and Children milling about around me. In the meantime, my mind was busy with designing new ideas for potions and monsters, as I heard a voice that shouldn’t be around. The voice of a little girl.

“Mister?” asked Lilith in her usual high and clear voice. She sounded sleepy.

“YES, MY LITTLE ANGEL?” I asked back as I opened my eyes, looking for the little girl I took in on a whim some time ago.

It was a decision of the moment, really. I never regretted it, however. Though the time we spent together had been short, I had grown quite attached to her. And she to me, or so I liked to think. It honestly felt like I had a daughter. But I didn’t bring it up with her. I didn’t want to remind her of her last adoptive father, after all.

But why was she here? She should be asleep at this time!

“I can’t sleep,” Lilith said. She was standing at the edge of my throne room, wearing a child’s nightgown, and holding her favourite plushie in hand. It was a Minotaur.

“NIGHTMARES?” I asked. She was having them frequently. Dreams in which she was still with her old family. Or worse, in which she was entirely alone. The plushies helped a bit, but not enough.

Lilith nodded.

“WHERE IS LARELL? HAVE YOU LOOKED FOR HER?” I inquired, trying my best not to convey my annoyance at that woman. How was I, an 8m tall minotaur with tentacles growing on his back, supposed to comfort a human child???

“I don’t know. I can’t find her,” explained Lilith, tiredly rubbing her eyes.

I sighed internally. Then, I had an idea. Almost forgot about that one, hehe. Oh, but wait... then I would be naked... Hah! Not a problem! Using life-domain magic, I created a plant weave that resembled cotton from my old life and shaped it to a pair of black pants and a shirt around me as I shifted.

SKILL: HUMANITY
Allows the user to shift into any human form he desires. While in human form, any monster powers and abilities cannot be used. Should the user die while in this form, he simply returns to his original shape without any damage.

I rose from my throne and shrank down, until I was human-sized. Well, the upper end of ‘human-sized’ anyways, over 2m tall and muscled like a barbarian warrior from the north. If I had to be ****, I wanted every advantage I could get!

“You can look like a human?!” Lilith gasped.

“Yeah, though it’s not exactly practical and somewhat… uncomfortable. I feel so powerless” I replied.

Lilith giggled. “Well, I guess if I could be a big, fluffy minotaur, I wouldn’t like being a human either!”

That reply made me smile, such an innocent way of thinking. Using life-domain magic,

“Come now, let’s get you back to bed,” I told Lilith as I stretched out my hand for her to take.

She hesitated. Why did she hesitate?

“Can you carry me?” Lilith asked with the biggest puppy eyes I have ever seen.

I had to suppress a laugh. Such an innocent request. She was too big for Larell to carry easily, and considering her old family, that meant she probably had not been lovingly carried in… years?

“Sure,” I said and was about to crouch down, but Lilith leaped into my arms before I could.

“Hey!” I laughed, wrapping my arms around her to keep her from falling. She had her arms around my neck and her legs around my torso, with her feet resting on the middle of my back, so small was she compared to me.

“Careful now, we don’t want you to fall down, now do we?” I asked her rhetorically as I carried her back to her room.

I was just tugging her in as she asked me “Will the nightmares come back?”

“Not if I sleep here with you,” I answered as I was sliding next to her.

“But you don’t sleep! You don’t even have a bed!!” Lilith accused me groggily.

“That’s not true! Of course I sleep!” I told her, playing offended. “I mean, I don’t have a bed, but I just sleep on my throne!”

Yeah, I know it sounds pretty pathetic, but it’s actually genius: That way my semi-autonomous tentacles could even work on their tasks while I was asleep!

“You are weird,” Lilith giggled as she snuggled up to me. “But I love you. I love you, daddy…” she murmured as she drifted over into sleep.

I couldn’t possibly fall asleep though. Not now. Not after Lilith had just called me ‘daddy’ for the first time.

After what I knew to be almost exactly six hours after I eventually fell asleep, my eyes shot open and I was awake once more. Already in my old life, I had an almost unnaturally precise inner clock and as a monster, I needed even less sleep. That didn’t go for Lilith however, and there wasn’t much to do for a little girl down here anyways. So, I put a light sleep spell on her as I slid out of bed quietly, just strong enough that she wouldn’t wake up.

I looked around the room. It wasn’t nearly as big as my throne room of course, but Larell had informed me that it would definitely count as a hall by this world’s standards. Which was fine, since it not only served as a bedroom for Lilith, but also as a kind of safe haven for her, a mostly isolated bubble within my dungeon.

This was mostly evidenced by the fact that the doorway was merely 1.5 meters high. Lilith could easily go through, but even Larell who was a small woman had to duck and for almost all other inhabitants of the dungeon (including me) it was normally impossible to enter. Unlike the rest of my dungeon, the room was kept comfortably warm by a thick, mossy carpet that exuded heat. The carpet was actually a living part of one of my more plant-like children, a verdure monster.

The most notable feature, however (besides the hastily cobbled together furniture – didn’t exactly have time to prepare when I took Lilith in) were the plushies strewn about the room. Even now, she clung to one in her sleep. Her favourite – the minotaur. I seriously didn't get why she liked it so much - it didn't even look comfy!

Larell made the plushies for her, with materials gathered by my children from the outside. I didn’t know what she used to stuff them though. Just as I opened the door to leave and caught the first waft of cold dungeon air, I noticed something strange. Lilith’s room was all but permeated by my smell. And thinking back, it had been even before we went to sleep! But that couldn’t be, it was the first time I had actually physically set foot in here! Turning back, I used God’s Eye to search for an answer.

Ah. Now I got it. Larelle used the discarded fur of the dungeon monsters to stuff the plushies. And the minotaur one, was filled with mine.