"Alibaba? That spineless, useless, farce of a king vessel Alibaba? Impossible! You're dead! I saw Hakuryuu cut you down with his scythe!"
He's dead. He's dead. I'm talking to the dead. What kind of crazy, distorted dimension is this, where the dead are undead and the undead are alive?
"Things happened," is the haniwa's excuse for his pitiful appearance.
"Alright, I get it. I must be hallucinating." With a snap of his fingers, he drives away this weird figment of his imagination, but it stays. He rubs his eyes and it's still there.
Interesting. He has been exiled to a place where Aladdin's friend exists. In Judal's eyes, this world is a weird and repulsive wasteland. Alibaba is a disgusting waste of a king vessel. How fitting, then, for them to end up together. Maybe the universe is not so bad, after all.
The presumed calm of the haniwa's expressionless face grates on his nerves like nothing else. Judal wants to give him a thorough shake, stab him with an icicle and twirl him around until his tiny brain gets flung out of the cavities in his skull, but his power reserves are low and not worth spending on an inanimate being.
"What's wrong, Judal?"
An inanimate, moving, talking, annoying, being.
He grabs the self-proclaimed Alibaba - that looks nothing like Alibaba - and attempts to unscrew its head to figure out the mechanism at work. How is this even possible? What source of energy enables this creature to go on with its half-life? He's baffled and this crazy, crazy garbage dump of a world is already too much to deal with and he has to hurry back and find Hakuryuu and staring at this clay doll may be the final link in the universe's ploy to drive him insane.
"So," he says, letting go of the stubbornly intact head, "which way leads to Kou?"
"I don't know, but in that direction is a jungle full of the strangest plants I've ever seen and monsters like the one that attacked you."
Judal decides to follow Haniwa Alibaba into the forest. He's just curious, he reasons with the part of his brain that protests against having anything to do with his favored king candidate's enemy. He needs to get back and assist Hakuryuu in case Chibi Magi sides with Kouen and causes trouble for the youngest prince. Granted, there's not much he can do if Aladdin decides to send him back into deep space. Still...
Impossible, he groans, as his feet sink deeper into soggy mush. The farther they trek into this thicket of monstrosities, the weirder everything gets. And more disgusting.
"Arrgh! Whatever you are, I've had enough of you. I'm leaving!"
"Where are you going?"
"Somewhere I can get away from useless trash! So long! Hope you die for real!"
Thirty seconds later and Judal has another encounter with a giant potato head. His instincts kick in this time, reminding him how to run and which foot to move first, but a tendril lashes at his waist, and once again he's entangled in the tenacious grip of tentacle appendages, pulling him towards an enormous cavern overflowing with row upon row upon row of tusk-like teeth. Kouha would have loved to see this, he thinks, and he wonders how his mind could conjure images of the sick creep at a time like this. The thing pulls, squeezes, suffocates, and those rows of spearheads are inches away from his body and he feels so tiny, so defenseless and this is such a shameful end for a magi and the haniwa saves him.
The monster is vanquished. He is rescued by a clay doll. Again.
How embarrassing. The universe has condemned him to eternal humiliation at the hands of someone he never deemed strong enough to be an enemy. Still, he acknowledges that right now, in haniwa form, Alibaba is more powerful than he is. Self-preservation overrides disgrace, forcing him to stay.
"H-haniwa…"
The haniwa's head pops off.
HE'S DEAD?! The turn of events is so unexpectedly ironic that Judal the Great dissolves into Judal Stupefied. And then creepy takes on a whole new level.
"Oops." The severed head bounces, cartwheels on the ground, rolls to a full stop at its feet and…talks. The decapitated body bends down, picks up the clay head, and places it back on its neck.
"Looks like I was hit once. I'll have to be more careful next time," the reassembled clay body says, as if beheading was as normal as eating breakfast.
He's not dead? Actually he is – his body is – unless someone attempted to preserve it -
"Judal?" White eyes stare at him – white…circles? Dots? Holes? What should he call those things?
Haniwa Alibaba approaches the groaning magi and taps his knee. "Shall we proceed?"
"You're alive," Judal acknowledges, feeling equal parts indifferent and disappointed by this realization, "and as useless as ever. Do the world a favor and just disappear forever." He kicks the clay doll with all his might. The haniwa moves a distance of three inches. Judal's foot feels like it's been stomped on by three elephants.
Why am I here again? Judal asks himself for the hundredth time. Oh right, it's Chibi Magi 's fault.
As he nurses his sore toes, his strange companion watches him, ever silent…out of spite, perhaps? He's thinking …maybe he's thinking… is that clay doll brain even functional?
"Hey Judal, let's call a truce."
Who does this creepy lump think he's talking to?
Judal straightens his back, frowning, "Why should I?"
"You need me to defend you from the creatures here. As for me, your ability to fly will help me reach my destination sooner."
"No way! What makes you think a magi like me would ever team up with the likes of you?" he screeches, indignant, for though he may be weakened with the lack of rukh, he will never, ever let himself be a clay doll's lackey.
"Suit yourself," says the haniwa, accepting his decision without further ado. The worst part is, he doesn't gloat. Not once. The fallen magi can't stand it.
Judal takes five steps away and the world moves, flipping him over and snapping closed. He can't move, can't breathe as a cavern sucks his life out. How was he to know the pad-shaped leaves belonged to a monster flytrap? He has yet to process the situation when his attacker is slashed open, freeing him from the dangers of plant bile.
That's it. This is a pit of monsters and there's no way I'm spending an eternity trying to outsmart every single one.
"Alright! I give up! I'm sticking with you from now on. But only 'cause I need to get back to Hakuryuu as soon as I can!"
"Oh. That's good," Haniwa Boy agrees. "I'm in a hurry to get home too. So, guess we're on the same boat?"
That ticks him off big time.
"Listen, peanut-brained ha-ni-wa. You and I are different. I am a magi and you're just a petty king vessel who was only chosen 'cause that chibi don't know any better. Don't ever, ever dare group me with your puny self!"
It would have been, could have been the perfect insult, if his stomach hadn't chosen that moment to let out an embarrassing rumble.
"You're hungry," says Haniwa Boy.
"I'm not!" Never show weakness to anyone, even the person closest to you, and especially not this brat!
Haniwa Boy rises to his feet and starts to walk. Where to, Judal has no idea.
"We should look for food," he suggests. "Earlier I saw some plants that look edible."
"Nah, I'll just wait till we find a peach."
"Judal. You do realize there aren't any fruit trees here similar to those in our world."
"What? No peaches? What's for breakfast, lunch, and supper, then?"
"Hmm...vegetables. They are vegetables, I think, even if they walk and...eat people."
"VEGETABLES? Are you insane? You don't feed a magi that disgusting plant scum!"
Haniwa Boy turns, gives him a blank look, turns about-face, and carries on.
"Sounds perfectly like the Judal-chan I know. Why'd you help him, Alibaba-chan?"
"It was the right thing to do. Plus, I thought his magic would be a great help navigating the world of black sky. Guess what, he couldn't fly, either."
"That's all?"
"Now that I think of it, maybe I wanted a break from the silence. The absence of human language can drive a person crazy, you see."
Haniwa and magi plod farther through forest and desert, without the sun to keep track of time, in this convoluted universe where the moon does not exist and irregular triangles of light are called stars.
They reach a sea of mushroom trees, huge pillars of what appear to be giant asparagus with violet turrets. There are bundles of tendrils similar to cockroach antennae, plants resembling wormshells or with spiny stalks that branch out like tarantula legs, and other twisted parodies of nature that could only have been designed by Al Thamen's head boss.
An hour later, his belly is a cave hatching thunder. Haniwa Boy offers him more of the icky green stuff, which he vehemently refuses. He sees chickens, he sees ducks, he rubs his eyes and the chickens and ducks are gone. There were chicks, right? Just beside the nest of eggs? What, not even a single duckling? And then he hears a cow.
Finally he surrenders, knowing he can't last another hour without a bite of something…anything. Let it go down in history that the great magi of Kou died of overdosing on barbecued plant brains. He simply has to eat.
His feet grind to a halt, unable to take another step. He's starving and exhausted, two unfamiliar and equally frustrating sensations. So what if Haniwa Boy sees his moment of weakness? Haniwa Boy is no one.
Judal takes a deep breath, squeezing all his remaining energy into his next words. "Is there no food anywhere?"
"What sort of food did you eat?"
"My body didn't need food. As for Judal, he had no choice but to eat whatever was available. Plants, mostly – if you'd call those wriggling things plants - but that guy really hates vegetables. You'd think I was forcing poison down his throat for lunch."
"True! He's just like me. And I suppose he kept begging for a peach or two?"
"He asked me around a triple dozen times if I ever heard of a clan of fanalis that could transform into giant peaches. I said no, the idea was too impossibly morbid to be true. That was the first time I ever saw him cry."
"Judal, here's dinner!" Haniwa Boy calls out, emerging from the rushes just as Judal figures out that a stack of firewood shouldn't be thrown into the fire all at once. Squirming in his fingerless limbs is a blob that is gross and slimy and alive. He swats it and tosses it to the magi, who bashes it on the ground over and over until it resembles the mangled corpses of animals he would inflict ice torture upon as a kid.
The squid-bird-insect-plant is promptly skewered and roasted to a crisp. "Alright Judal, eat up!" says Haniwa Boy, with the guts to sound cheerful as the magi stares gloomily at his so-called dinner, the mere sight of which makes his stomach turn.
This is what food means. Food means edible; edible means not palatable. It means cram disgusting stuff in your belly and do not throw up. Judal bravely swallows down the thing and makes a mental note to sample every sort of cuisine in Hakuryuu's kitchen when he gets back.
"Honestly, Kougyoku, I had never called anyone weak before, and I thought he deserved the honor. He was more spoiled than a prince! But when I saw him lapping up the water like a camel, I questioned myself if I was being too hard on him."
"I trust your judgment."
"He never did."
"How'd you find water so easily?"
"I grew up in a desert. Water was scarce in Balbadd. We had to recognize all potential sources back there."
It's heartbreaking to acknowledge that he's dependent on this talking puppet for his very existence. This joke of a king vessel with the nerve to call him a spoiled brat. The last thing he wants is this creature so full of the light. Come on, he challenges. Dazzle me. Show me what Hakuryuu and Sinbad and Kougyoku saw in you! Tell me what you had that fascinated them!
Haniwa Boy's reaction is drowned out by the buzzing rhapsody of a swarm of orange mosquitoes.
Why oh why oh why oh why of all the million horrid things from our world, did it have to be MOSQUITOES?!
"It's a wonder you managed to put up with him. Judal-chan can be a real pain sometimes."
"When there's only two of you, you either get along or go insane."
It's been three days since he's landed here, and already Judal feels like a hermit.
There are no beds, no spare clothes, no flying carpets, and no bathrooms. There's no one to tease, or throw peaches at, no one to clap at his demonstration of magic. No destruction or annihilation, no one to manipulate, and no one to be manipulated by. Just a week ago, he was the magi of Kou, the greatest empire in the world. Here, there is no king but the reigning silence.
He gets a rock and tosses it at his companion's back. Haniwa Boy sidesteps, evades the missile, and keeps walking. Frustrated, he punches a nearby tree trunk, immediately regretting it when the sleeve of his choli tears on a thorn.
"Argh! How do you mend this?"
Haniwa Boy inspects the damage and suggests using a cactus needle and some filaments from the grass-vines.
"What? Me? Forget it. I can't sew."
"Neither can I," Haniwa Boy admits. "I don't have fingers."
"Judal-chan sewing? That guy can't make four stitches without snarling the thread!"
"He can't walk four miles without running into a monster."
Five days have passed. Judal knows, because the sky has regularly grown a shade darker five times. He is bored. And hungry. Bored and hungry. He can see muscles in his thighs and calves where they once ached. That's a good thing.
That's the only good thing.
"Let's play," Haniwa Boy suggests one day.
Won't this creep ever shut up?
"I know a lot of childhood games. How 'bout you?"
Games, he says? Silly make-believe or tripping on one another and other stuff for fools and toddlers that do not involve murder or torture or other fun things. What a bore.
"I had better things to do than engage in fool's pastimes."
Haniwa Boy sends him a prolonged stare. "You never played, even once?"
Did he? There was the Old Hag and her dolls. There were the palace guards, members of the organization, the royal family…
"Arm wrestling," he concedes at last.
"Eh? That's a surprise. Considering you couldn't defend yourself from the even the smallest of the creatures here."
"Ha! Even I could beat you at arm wrestling, in that pitiful state."
"You sure? Wanna give it a try?"
Haniwa Boy wins.
Judal sulks away and manages to get himself in yet another scrape. His companion searches for him when he doesn't show up for supper, and of course he can't because of his current predicament. He's dangling upside-down, crucified among brambles, hoping a trail of fire ants won't think of him as an exotic delicacy.
"Cut this, Haniwa Boy. I can't move!"
"You know, you really should learn to be more polite when asking for help," his companion chides him while hacking down vines and branches. "There's a saying that goes, 'Don't bite off the hand that feeds-'
"How dare you compare me to a dog!"
The last loop snaps and Judal falls to the ground with a thud, too exhausted to curse his luck.
"Was Judal-chan mean to you?"
"I guess he enjoyed seeing my head decapitated every once in a while. But otherwise, even if he acted like a thug, he was about as harmful as a frightened kitten."
On their sixth day, Judal knocks into a cactus fruit that resembles a peach, so juicy-looking that he wants to savor every drop of its precious beauty…
...but it's full of thorns inside. He slams it on the ground, staining the soil with chunks of blue pulp.
"How dare you cheat me like this! If you're not a peach then don't pretend to be one!"
Even his beloved fruits have abandoned him. The last one he tried, thinking it was a pomegranate, had eyes.
Is this the world we promised to create? Is this my reward for helping defeat Al Thamen?
"Food," offers Haniwa Boy, sounding quite amused, and Judal's belly squelches in revolt.
"What's the matter, Judal?"
"I'm not hungry." He wraps himself in his shadow and pretends to nap. The thing in Haniwa Boy's arms reminds him of someone.
Gyokuen.
But she's dead. Hakuryuu killed her. It's over.
Unless it isn't.
His stomach rumbles.
This, yes, this is what despair sounds like. It's louder than Gyokuen's whisper, louder than the whistling of Aladdin's staff, and seems to fill up the space of a little, weeping boy.
"Now that I think of it, I should have bopped him real hard on the head. Maybe if I did he'd have pulled himself together sooner. Things wouldn't be so complicated."
"Tell you a secret. If you really, really want Judal-chan to pay attention, all you need is to mess with his braid. Works every time."
They talk, sometimes. About this world. About their world. About food and traditions and people.
"Among all the king candidates, why'd you choose Hakuryuu?" the former king vessel asks, after a boring discussion of textiles.
Judal feels a shiver at the mention of Hakuryuu's name. It's so good to hear that he graces Haniwa Boy with an answer.
"The others would not do. Take that hag for instance, she cries too much."
"You mean Kougyoku? Sure, but I've seen Hakuryuu shed tears on a couple of occasions."
Judal grits his teeth. A brat like him has no right to insult this magi's chosen king. Now for a proper retaliation...
"Heh, being the wimp you are, you've probably cried more than both of them combined."
"Judal."
"You probably cried yourself to sleep lots of times, like a girl."
"Judal."
"Whaaat, pesky haniwa?" In the past weeks, he's acquired a dislike of that tone. It could only mean either of two things: Haniwa Boy senses danger or Haniwa Boy will make him work.
"I'll be by the river. You're in charge of supper tonight."
Judal curses and stalks away to find something decent to stuff into his aching belly. He returns with a vine covered in inch-long protrusions resembling leeches. It's food, it's food, and it's delicious, he chants to himself with increasing fervor, as if a hundred repeats of this impossible refrain will make him believe. Later, when he forces down his meal, it isn't the disgusting shape of his food that upsets his stomach, but the realization that once again, he let Haniwa Boy win.
"Sometimes I wish I could figure out what Judal-chan is really thinking. Then his words wouldn't hurt as much."
"He was thinking about you, too. Sometimes, under the moonless night, he would go on and on about what you and your brothers were like as kids."
"Did he look happy then?"
"He was laughing almost every time."
"Then I'm glad. He remembered."
"Guess what his favorite story was? I never knew you could fall into the sewer while serving tea."
"HE TOLD YOU THAT?! What a shameless, insufferable, rude, foul-mouthed, insane, girly, egoistic-"
"Now that's the description I was aiming for."
TBC
