Maxwell wasn't a fool.
There were several elements that may have lured a lesser man into a false sense of security. The fact that he was still alive, first and foremost. That had been a surprise in and of itself, although he hadn't quite decided yet whether it was a pleasant one. One did not intertwine his own mind, body and soul with the darkest forces in the universe simply to walk it off when said connection was brutally severed. Turning into dust was a remarkably tamer consequence than he'd imagined for being torn from the throne, and waking up anew, fully endowed with his own sense of self and most of his humanity, had been quite the shock. He supposed it made sense for Them to want to squeeze every drop of fun They could possibly get from him, even past the expiration date of his Reign. One more death, or maybe a dozen, in the Hell of his own making. The irony didn't escape him.
Secondly, the Codex. He hadn't seen, actually seen, that damned book in ages. When the throne had ensnared him, he had more or less… incorporated it. Well no, such an insulting wording was likely to earn him the rage of the greater powers: it had incorporated him. Like one of its many pages, a relatively self-contained bit of essence that relied entirely on the whole to realize its meaning and potential. The simile was somewhat shaky, he realized that, but after all one couldn't get even close to describing the deep and complex entity that was the Codex Umbra without looking past the trivial form it had assumed on Earth. Nevertheless, despite the pains and misfortunes it had brought him, Maxwell had felt only relief when he had found the precious tome in his pocket. Power was power, after all, and it would have been unwise not to feast on the crumbles They were willing to hand out to a discarded ant stranded in an unforgiving world. The puppets, as frail and mindless as they were, were still invaluable help in his daily struggles, and he could only count himself lucky for having them.
Lastly, the world itself. Faithful to its name, it was still the same old Constant he himself had crafted. Same monsters, same biomes, same extreme weather that was barely compatible with human life. The new management hadn't interfered with its inner workings in the slightest; in fact, it hadn't even made itself known to Maxwell, neither for revenge, nor for gloating, nor for threats, which was admittedly surprising. Reassuring, an imbecile might have thought. An optimistic idiot may have interpreted all these facts as a benevolent sign, as a generous second chance to prove his worth, even with a quantum of regard for his less than optimal physical shape. An utter moron may have taken all these facts as a promise of hope, of goodwill from a new ruler that wasn't nearly as vicious as his predecessor.
But Maxwell wasn't a fool.
So that evening, when shadow tendrils sprouted from the ground without warning as he was calmly munching on his meatballs, he wasn't too surprised. When they coiled around his neck, arms and legs and forced him to kneel on the very dirt he had created, he already knew what to expect. Or rather, who. And soon enough, the silhouette of the new King manifested from the darkness, walking slowly towards him, head bent down and eyes fixed on the dust his steps were raising, as if he was evaluating it.
The first thing that surprised Maxwell about Wilson's appearance was, frankly, his body. He was still the same undersized, minute figure he had always been, and Maxwell couldn't help but wonder if Wilson hadn't realized he could change the appearance of his projection at will, or if he was genuinely happy with his natural and utterly non-threatening build. It just seemed weird that he hadn't used his newfound powers to grant himself a few extra inches, especially considering that he had tweaked his aspect elsewhere. His hair, his pride and joy, was more luxuriant than ever: wavy locks adorned his head like a crown, each strand slightly flickering and swaying like shadowy smoke, or maybe dark fire. It was a quirky optical effect, impossible to describe, but it was admittedly impressive. There were few strings of white strategically placed in that mane, and all that was left of the vibrant red of his old waistcoat was the crimson touch of his tie. Everything else in his new form was black and ashen: his three-piece suit, his shoes, his complexion.
Wilson didn't look at him. He stopped near the firepit and let his gaze wander around Maxwell's base, taking in the shoddy tent, the charred crockpot, the odd prestihatitator with palpable disinterest. His eyes briefly lingered on Chester, which Maxwell had found only few days prior. The dumb creature didn't react to his master's presence, it simply kept panting and drooling at them both, its lumpy paws folded on its precious bone. Wilson didn't react to the sight of what had been his only source of companionship for months either.
"Not bad, pal." Maxwell broke the silence, with the barest smile. Their roles may be reversed, Wilson may now be and even look the part of the uncaring false God who had the last word on Maxwell's torture, but the former King would rather be struck down on the spot than letting him have the first one too. "Not bad."
Wilson finally turned towards Maxwell's prone figure. He stared at his chest, silently. It was starting to grate on Maxwell's nerves, to be honest. Wasn't he even worth derision, scorn, any sort of interaction? Or had the throne squashed his original personality so thoroughly? If Wilson was going to stick to that sort of charade, he'd spoil all the fun for the both of them. Maxwell mentally reached to the duelist and the two gatherers hidden behind the tent, and found them still in his control. He wasn't planning to make them attack, because there was no point, the King could swat such feeble annoyances like flies, but maybe it would be worth just for the sake of eliciting a reaction-
Suddenly, Wilson reached down to him and, for the briefest moment, a spark of fear raced through Maxwell's nerves, an instinctive reaction to those sharp fingers moving straight towards his heart. Wilson's claw did not burrow in his flesh, though; it delicately slithered under the hem of his jacket, removing the object from Maxwell's inner pocket. Wilson weighted the Codex in his hands, considering its crude front and flipping slowly through the weathered pages, still silent, still blank. Then, in a blink, he vanished, along with the bonds around Maxwell's body.
"...Hey!" Maxwell finally said a good minute later, to absolutely no one. He stood up when it was clear that that had been it, the new King's first apparition to his former persecutor. Rather underwhelming, really. He patted his jacket, pointlessly, for he wasn't really expecting the Codex to reappear so soon, or at all. Well, that was a pickle. He studied what remained of his renewable magic workforce, standing idly where he'd left it. He'd better make those three last, he supposed.
It was a good month before Maxwell received the next visit. Wilson materialized in Maxwell's camp with even less fanfare than before: no tendrils or monsters, just him, suddenly casting his small shadow on his half-asleep pawn.
"Grab a lantern."
"...Oh, good. You can still talk. God knows I can't stand pantomimes." Maxwell sat up unhurriedly, meeting Wilson's gaze with no little satisfaction. About time the shadow twerp dropped the superior act. He made no move to obey, and Wilson waited a tad too long before talking, as far as imposing silence went.
"I said grab a lantern."
"What if I don't?"
That didn't make Wilson angry, unfortunately. He looked simply confused, staring at Maxwell like one would stare at a brand-new machine that inexplicably broke down. "You're coming anyway. You can grab a lantern now or perish in the darkness in a minute."
Albeit very poorly delivered, the threat was real enough to push Maxwell to ruefully fetch the tool. "And where are we-"
The world shifted before he finished his sentence. The comforting glow of the firepit disappeared, replaced by the smaller circle of light granted by Maxwell's lantern. Even though the place was mostly enveloped in darkness, he instantly recognized it. The characteristic color and the crude carvings of the turf under his feet were unmistakable, as well as the peculiar smell of the stagnant air, an intense mix of moss, stone, and fuel that filled one's lungs as thickly as water.
"What can you tell me about these ruins?" Wilson asked, gazing past the blackness. Maxwell stood up and took a few steps in a random direction. Piles of broken clockworks and assorted pottery lay scattered around the area; two rows of golden statues of creatures that had long since ceased to exist glinted eerily from opposite sides of the large room. He kept his distance from the relics as he strolled past them, making sure not to stray too far from Wilson.
"Ah... Not much more than you already know, probably. You'd better ask Them."
"They are quite reticent about this topic, and the Codex isn't any clearer." Wilson's voice echoed clearly in the perfect stillness of the atmosphere. It still had its usual high timbre, but the utter lack of emotion was enough to make it sound less juvenile. "You said you created this whole world from scratch, didn't you? If that's true, that must mean you made these ruins too."
"...Yes, and no." Maxwell acknowledged. He headed back to the center of the chamber, shivering from the underground chill. He wasn't interested in exploring, nor had he ever been especially interested in the remains of that wretched civilization. By the time he had learnt of its existence, it was far too late for cautionary tales. "I found only dust and void when I first arrived in the Constant, yes, but they weren't… chaotic. They bore traces of what had been here before me in their very nature. Intangible ones, mind you."
He paused, and he noticed that Wilson was observing him with genuine interest. Confound the man, he was still an open book. One only needed to dangle a juicy bit of trivia before his nose to obtain his undivided attention. Well, better that way. No doubt Maxwell could find a way to turn Wilson's insatiable curiosity to his own advantage.
"It was like a disassembled jigsaw puzzle, you get me?" He continued. "Scattered particles and sparks of magic with different forms and qualities, an apparent mess with no obvious head or tail, but… if you paid close attention, you could dimly see a bigger picture. I did try to recreate at least a portion of what was before, and this is the result."
"...Ah. You had no idea what you were doing then. You were simply following an outline laid out by someone else, out of sheer curiosity." Wilson paused meaningfully. "Fascinating."
That gave Maxwell pause. "I suppose you could put it that way." He eventually said evenly. He was well past the point of caring about every little sarcastic twist They or anyone else may have imparted on his life anyway.
"And then? Why did you rebuild only so little?"
"They didn't like it." Maxwell shrugged. "They had already destroyed the world I was reassembling. They were bored of it. They wanted something new to toy with, so I just gave Them that."
"...I see. A pity-"
"And I bet They aren't too fond of you snooping down here as well, instead of entertaining Them properly." Maxwell added with a smirk. "You'd better focus on what's required of you, pal. Before They get impatient."
"I have been granted both the freedom and the power to pursue whatever endeavour I desire. You needn't concern yourself about such matters." Ah, such ingenuity! Had he still had the tiniest shred of sympathy in him, he may have even felt pity for the naive little man, and the obvious ruin that lay in his path. As things stood, however, he just couldn't wait to witness it. "What else do you know about the Ancients?"
"A few things." Maxwell smiled affably, putting down the lantern and clasping his hands behind his back. "And I'd be more than glad to share such information with you, if you were kind enough to return the favor."
Wilson blinked stolidly.
"The Codex." Maxwell patiently explained. "You have no real need for it, do you? It is merely a reflection of Their essence, after all. Useless to someone who stands as close to Them as you do. To me, on the other hand, it is a priceless aid. I believe They wish me to keep it anyway, since They gracefully allowed me to retain it after you succeeded me. If you-"
"No." Wilson interrupted him curtly. "Tell me what you know."
"Come on, consider my position, pal." Wilson's dogged single-mindedness was positively grating, without even mentioning his dreadfully incompetent attitude. However, Maxwell was an adept liar, if nothing else. "It would take me far longer than a single night to dispel your every doubt. And if I die, as it will happen sooner than later if I'm stripped of my most important asset, your questions shall remain unanswered. What would it cost you to-"
"Are you seriously trying to bargain with me?" Suddenly, Wilson's demeanour changed completely. There was a dangerous edge in his tone, as sharp as a scalpel, one that was completely extraneous to the scatterbrained scientist Maxwell had known and despised. Maxwell raised one hand placatingly.
"I'm simply asking for-"
"Look here, you miserable worm." Wilson moved towards him and Maxwell, despite himself, took a step back, stumbling against a statue that, he was sure of it, hadn't been there a moment before. Inky tentacles erupted from the polished gold and trapped him against it, coiling more than once around his neck and forehead to block his head firmly on the spot. "You should be kissing the ground I walk on simply because I didn't wipe you off my world the moment I noticed you were still crawling around it. I don't have time for your idiocy. Start talking before I dig your brain out of your nose and rummage into it myself."
For the very first time, Maxwell found himself gazing straight into the new King's eyes: two large pools of blackness, framed by a shimmering iris of an ineffable, ever-changing hue, currently veering towards a fierce shade of scarlet. "Hey, all right, no need to-"
"In fact," Wilson added, and unceremoniously shoved two clawed fingers up Maxwell's nostrils, "I may as well."
Pain exploded in Maxwell's head without warning, immense, horrendous, indescribable. Fluid shadow wormed its way into his skull, freezing and burning his very bones from the inside out. It filled his nasal cavity, dripping down his throat and windpipe, disgusting and suffocating, it seeped through whatever feeble tissues stood in its way until it reached its destination, and ravished it. Maxwell had been through his fair share of infernal agony, but in that moment he could not recall experiencing anything more excruciating than that. In that moment, he could not recall or think anything at all, as Wilson probed through his grey matter with all the grace of a butcher, piercing and mincing and slicing away in his meticulous search. Maxwell became aware of his own screams only when he needed to stop to breathe, gasping and convulsing uncontrollably against the tight tendrils, only to begin anew when pain flared up again, impossibly stronger, when Wilson found what he was looking for and latched onto it like a leech.
It ended as abruptly as it had started. Maxwell found himself sprawled on the ground, feverishly clutching his head, palming his face, desperately trying to prevent his own thoughts from trickling down the cracks Wilson must have left in his skull. It took him several anguished minutes to realize that there was no blood on his gloves, no outer sign of damage or injury anywhere. He rolled on his side with a jerk and retched.
"Mh." Wilson hummed thoughtfully as he paced away from Maxwell, gazing at his surroundings appraisingly. He clicked his tongue, frowning disapprovingly at the statue Maxwell had been tied to. "And yet…"
Maxwell shakily wiped his mouth on his cuff, taking avid gulps of air when the heaves finally receded, his throat burning from the bile. He didn't dare to speak, until Wilson turned his back to him.
"Higgsbury-" Maxwell croaked, but Wilson had already disappeared. Maxwell didn't move for a long time, until the ground turned a faint shade of grey under the blooming light of the statues, and a deep thrum echoed in the forgotten chamber.
Maxwell wasn't a fool.
But there was no denying that he had made a significant miscalculation.
If Maxwell had dared to push his luck with his request and uncooperativeness, it was only because he was perfectly aware of how limited the King's ability to mess with the survivors was. Not for lack of power, obviously, but for a very precise restriction. They did not appreciate when the King abused his position to punish a pawn arbitrarily. They wanted Their game to be (or at least appear) fair, They wanted each participant to feel capable of overturning their disgraceful doom. It added zest and motivation to their actions, it feeded their anger and spite, and They liked it. Maxwell himself had never dared to go against Their will: even when he was cornered, even when Wilson was literally on his doorstep, he had never raised his hand directly against him, or against anyone else.
Well, except the mime. But that moron had managed to piss Them off too, so he was a bit of special case.
Wilson, however, didn't seem to be playing by the rules. When and how cruelly his disorderly behavior would be punished was of little consequence or solace to Maxwell, considering the amount of problems it was causing him presently. Stealing the Codex, Maxwell's unique and personal perk, was an unforgivably cheap shot. Unforeseen accidents and attacks had decimated the few puppets left in less than three weeks, and he was already struggling to keep up with the ungodly amount of food and materials life in the wilderness required him to gather on a daily basis. Then, Wilson had gone and practically kidnapped him, abandoning him in the most dangerous area of the map without a second thought. Maxwell had managed to make it out of that hellhole only thanks to the ingrained habit of keeping his sword and armor on his person at all times. Still, he hadn't escaped unscathed. Just as he had found an exit from the underground, a single moment of relief and distraction had been enough to leave him exposed to the attack of a colony of bats. He dropped the lantern, its glass cracked, the fireflies escaped. He had managed to grab a handful of lightbulbs on his way out, but he had been slow, too slow to pull them out of his pocket, what with the bats' teeth sinking into every square inch of his armor, and then- and then-
Maxwell's hands shook visibly as he pressed the silk cloth on the bleeding gashes on his arm. There was no helping it, he'd have to stitch them, tremors or not. He didn't hope for a moment that it might be less painful than it looked. He fetched the sewing kit, trying his best to steady his mind as well as his limbs. It had been a trick. It must have been a trick, obviously. Nothing simpler than mimicking a voice, just for the hell of it-
"Not looking too dapper tonight, are you?"
Maxwell jumped on his feet with a gasp. Behind him, at the very edge of the firepit's light, was a human silhouette- God, that stupid hair-
"What do you want now?!" Maxwell barked, heart thumping in chest.
"Don't lose your marbles, pal." Wilson was barely visible in the dim light, yet his wide smile stood out sharply from the darkness, almost luminous, like a jagged crescent in the night. "Unless you want those guys back there to join us."
He pointed behind himself, deep inside the wall of blackness. Maxwell didn't need his sight to guess what lured back there: familiar whispers and choked noises slithered all around him, alerting him of the presence of the Corrupted Ones, waiting for insanity to drag him within their reach. He wasn't in any rush to do so.
"What do you want, Higgsbury?" He seethed.
"Oh, I'm just here to offer some company. You look like you might use some, after all."
Well, it looked like Wilson may have finally remembered his old grudges and decided to act on them. If he intended to hurt him, there wasn't much Maxwell could do to prevent that. If he merely wanted to annoy him, Maxwell's best bet would be to ignore him completely and hope he'd get bored soon. That seemed like the best tactic to adopt.
"You've had enough fun at my expenses for tonight, I'd say." Maxwell sat back on the log and resumed preparing the thread. "Get lost."
"Aw, but I just got here. Come on, let's have a chat." Suddenly, Wilson vanished, only to reappear sitting beside Maxwell. He snapped his jaw open and close a few times, his teeth clinking audibly. "What's eating you, pal?"
Only then Maxwell noticed that Wilson looked different. His projection was nothing like the ones he'd used before, in fact… he looked pretty much like one of Maxwell's puppets: no features or colors, just a uniformly grey lump of shadow, except the bright mouth. The fact irked Maxwell almost more than anything else: he wasn't even fully focussing on tormenting him, he had just sent that half-assed placeholder while he was probably busy misusing his new powers somewhere else. The nerve of the man.
"My my, someone's really grumpy tonight. Good thing I know you better than you know yourself." That manic smile seemed stuck on his face, barely moving as he spoke and leaned closer and closer to Maxwell. "It's her, isn't it?"
The first stitch stung horribly. Puny, cowardly bastard. Maxwell kept ignoring him as he worked, and Wilson remained quiet for a few moments as he observed Maxwell's dubious dexterity. The moment of respite didn't last long.
"What a surprise, uh? She hasn't uttered a single word since… well, since before she got here, if we don't consider all the screaming-" Maxwell's hand closed into a fist automatically, and it flew towards Wilson's head. It went straight through it. The dark silhouette laughed mirthlessly. "What? Really, you should be happy for her. Your name was the first word she remembered, isn't that something to cherish?"
"Don't try to play games with me." Maxwell hissed, despite himself. His arm hurt, his head hurt and he had no patience for any of this bullshit. "If you think you can trick me with something so stupid-"
"It was no trick, pal. You heard her, right? She called you. And then she mauled you because, honestly, who wouldn't?"
Maxwell's hands trembled harder. Eyes trained on the wound, he sank the needle in the flesh again. A thick drop of blood coalesced at the opposite end of the gash, it rolled down his wrist- and stopped halfway through. It turned black, black as ink, and Wilson's head phased through his arm from God knew where, smiling up at him.
"It's easy, isn't it? Pretending that it's all a ruse. I can hear you thinking that. 'Lies, all lies. She can't speak. She can't remember. She's gone.' It's easy to pretend that someone else couldn't possibly have succeeded where you had failed."
"There's no way you have!" Maxwell snapped. He couldn't even see his arm now, there was no more pain to distract him from that frustrating conversation. "I have tried everything, I have-"
"You have tried everything, except the one thing that would work! Do you really not know what the problem was?" Wilson laughed, he laughed until he couldn't breath, as if he needed to in the first place. "You."
The rest of Wilson's body rose up right in front of Maxwell, like smoke seeping through the bleeding cuts. His smile was wide, impossibly wide, of the brightest white Maxwell had ever seen, and he found that he just couldn't take his eyes off it.
"Let me tell you a story." Wilson cooed, softly, mere centimetres from the tip of his nose. "There was, once, a foolish, weak man, who wandered straight into the clutches of beings much stronger, much smarter than he could ever dream of becoming. In his idiocy, he dragged an innocent girl down to hell with him. The man was graciously spared, and turned into the King of a Reign of his own making. The woman was not, and darkness latched onto her, and she onto it."
Wilson's body kept growing, longer and thinner, coiling around Maxwell like a snake, immaterial like air, oppressive like gravity. Maxwell couldn't move. He wasn't sure he was even trying to.
"The King mourned his friend's corruption deeply, so deeply that he started harboring twisted thoughts. Thoughts of rebellion, of escape, of annihilation. Thoughts unfitting of the King of the Constant, thoughts that defeated the very purpose of this world. Thankfully, They intervened. The few traces of the woman that were left, the fragments of her mind, of her will, of her semblance, brought nothing but pain to the King: so They repressed them. They caged her humanity and her soul in a shell of unthinking bestiality, of remorseless violence and unawareness."
"...What are you talking about?" Maxwell's throat was dry. His head felt heavy, so heavy that he couldn't keep it raised. He couldn't look at Wilson any more, he could only see the grass beneath his feet, grey like ashes, grey like his suit, grey like everything.
"Her suffering was dulled… and so was the King's. Without the remnants of what she had been, it was easier for him to let go of his delusional fantasies. She is gone, They said: he acknowledged it, and under Their guidance, he finally made the right choices. She's hungry, They said: you should feed her. He did so, he let her roam his lands and feed on the flesh of the lesser creatures. She's ugly and ruined, she'd hate to be seen like this, They said: you should hide her. He did so, he shrouded her in perennial darkness, so that unworthy eyes and minds may not be privy to her disgrace. And eventually, the King gave up on her recovery, as it was easier for him to accept irreversible doom than to keep failing and mourning."
"I didn't- I did not-" Maxwell had to support his forehead with his hands. The blood was warm on his fingertips, it flowed freely along his forearm, and Wilson's voice flowed as well, cold and thick, like poison dripping into his ears.
"Until, one day, things changed. A new King arose, one driven by the purest thirst for knowledge, one unencumbered by self-serving remorse or guilt. They had no reason to keep restraining the creature, for the new King wasn't bothered by her. They released her from Their grasp, and just like that, she existed again. Bit by bit, she started to remember. Who she used to be, what had become of her." Wilson's voice smiled. "What you did to her."
"I helped her!" Maxwell suddenly roared. "Everything I could do, everything I could think of, I-"
"You were useless!" Wilson's voice raised in return, distorted and grating. "Had you been steadfast, you wouldn't have shied away from her crippled form. Had you been powerful, you would have healed her. Had you been merciful, you would have killed her. But you were none of those things. You were just a coward, and condemned her to this corrupted mockery of existence. But you'll see for yourself, just how grateful she is for your help."
"Silence!" Maxwell jumped on his feet with an explosion of energy, fuelled by sheer rage and spite. Wilson didn't seem bothered by the fact, as he kept fluctuating in the same spot Maxwell had been occupying, its shadowy body coiled like a sick, twisted cobra. "Do you really have nothing better to do than messing with me? Why do you expect me to believe any of this nonsense?! You know nothing of her, nothing of me, nothing of this world!"
"And you do? Why do you keep addressing me as if I was the King, then?" The shadow laughed. "He's very busy, you know? This is all you. I'm all you. I'm sure he'll find the shape you've given me very amusing though."
It took a couple of seconds for Maxwell to register the meaning of the shadow's words. It wasn't Wilson. It wasn't Wilson, it was- it didn't matter what it was. If it wasn't the King himself, then Maxwell didn't have to tolerate another minute of its cajoling. He immediately drew his sword and lunged forward. The black blade sliced through the air with a hiss and cut the wooden log neatly in half, but the apparition had dissolved before it could be hit.
"Whoa there, getting so worked up already?" The derisory voice came from Maxwell's left this time. "Seriously though, did you think the King would waste his precious time with the likes of you? You have no more knowledge to offer, he may as well forget you now."
Maxwell attacked the shadow over and over again, but it kept fizzling out of existence before any hit could reach, only to reform at the opposite side of the camp. He found himself short on breath very quickly, his arm as heavy as lead and his heartbeat pulsing painfully in his temples.
"In truth, he may have been interested in you, once. Back when you were shrouded in a convenient cloud of mystery and apparent omnipotence, that is. Back when you were the unreachable oppressor. And indeed, when he accepted to serve Them, the first knowledge he seeked was about you, about who you had been. And he found out. Everything. And when he did…" The homunculus shrugged and shook his head. "He lost all interest in you. Even his desire for revenge. I wouldn't go as far as to say he pitied you, but-"
"Shut up." Maxwell had to stop, supporting himself against the nearest tree to keep his balance. The world swam around him, and he covered his ears, in a vain effort to muffle the deafening whispers.
"And, I mean, can you really blame him? Is there a more shallow, boring, pathetic story than yours? You've tried your damndest to make it worth telling, but at the end of the day there's no fancy suit, no mystical power, no pretentious name or grand persona that'll ever make you any better than what you've always been, William Carter." The figure emerged from the bark and stepped forward, it overlapped Maxwell's body, and when it spoke, the word rattled within the walls of his own skull. "Insignificant."
"SHUT UP!" Maxwell stumbled backwards and lashed out instinctively. The sword cleaved the creature's shoulder neatly, cutting through the rest of its dark body like butter. It vanished slowly, dispersing like smoke in the faint breeze until only its dazzling smile was left, floating idly in the air for a few more seconds before disappearing as well.
Maxwell waited, frozen in place, for the shadow to reappear. It did not. When the sinewy outline of a terrorbeak snaked beside him, still blessedly incorporeal, he dropped his sword and kneeled to the ground, eyes darting left and right to spot as many flowers as he could. He ripped them all off unthinkingly: the fierce gladiolus, the twin daisies, the bright tulip, the lonely rose at the very edge of the light.