Allen In Dreamland by Blumarshin
The regular disclaimer applies:
Chapter 4: The Storytellers
Allen had left the Dodo behind and travelled upon a new path that was enclosed by another dense wood, currently on his way to find the white queen and hopefully out of this place. Allen was beginning to get truly disturbed about the weirdness that surrounded him, now wishing he didn't follow the shadow's direction. A strange new world indeed.
"Argh, I'm sick of travelling through thick woods, I wish that there was a change of scenery, a garden, a flat plain, a lakeside even." Allen grumbled, getting his hair stuck in a branch once again. After he got his hair free, Allen then tripped on a root, falling face first to the ground. Slowly he got up onto his knees and raised his head, looking forward.
"This isn't getting any bet...a lake?" Allen stared dumbfounded, before him was a huge lake. Years ago there must have been some kind of building that stood before it, but now Allen could only see its ruins that spread out to one side, in and outside of the lake. Soon he found himself mesmerised by the reflection of the crescent moon upon the water.
"Watcha doin'?" a voice asked next to Allen, who nearly jumped out of his skin.
"Silly, he's watching the lake, gazing they call it," another voice answered.
"Oh yeah...but why is he doing it?" the first voice asked.
"Well it's because...ahh...well...umm...why are you doing it?" the second voice turned back to Allen.
Allen flipped over onto his back and pushed himself back away from the two shadows that had abruptly appeared behind him.
"Wha..wha..wha..." he stuttered.
"Now look what you did, you scared him," the second voice sighed.
"No I did not, you did!" The first voice accused the shadow beside him.
"No, you did!"The shadow pointed back.
"Is that a challenge I hear?" The shadow put up his fists in a boxer movement.
"You bet your favourite book it is!"The other shadow put his own fists up.
"Well I would if someone hadn't destroyed it!"
"That was an accident and you know it!"
Allen now no longer scared out of his wits, his heartbeat settled back down to a steady rhythm. He got up onto his feet and moved closer to get a better look at the two before him, the glare from the lake gone, he saw too young adolescents, twin brothers. They wore strange uniforms with a huge orange scarf around their necks, a headband holding up their red hair and an eye patch on one of their eyes, the other having it on the opposite eye. They were preparing for a fist fight.
"Don't fight!" Allen interjected. The two paused at the sound of his voice, their fists against the others cheek. They jumped apart.
"He talks!"
"I told you he could." The other said smugly.
"No you did not! It was I who knew he could talk," the other shot back.
"Why you-"
"Please stop," Allen soothed. "I'm Allen, and you are...?" Allen tried to change the topic.
In perfect synchronisation, the two posed. "I'm Lavi-Dee!" one brother pointed to himself.
"And I'm Lavi-Dum!" the other mimicked.
"Well, it's nice to meet you both. Could you guys tell me the White Queen is? I think I'm lost." Allen asked. The two at the same time brought their hands up to their mouths and gasped.
"What's wrong? I need to see her." Allen tilted his head in puzzlement.
"You don't want to go there!" Lavi-Dee exclaimed.
"No he doesn't," Lavi-Dum agreed.
"Yes, I do," Allen replied.
"But the Red Queen has her." Lavi-Dee explained. Lavi-Dum nodded his head furiously.
"Yeah, scary."
"Why?" Allen asked.
Together the two simultaneously brought their thumb across their necks. "Upset the Red Queen and it'll be off with your head!"
"Oh..."Allen said, taken back.
"Off with your head! Off with your head! Off with your head!" the brothers sung while they danced in a circle, elbows locked together.
"Well I still need to see the White Queen. The Dodo told me she might be able to get me home." Allen explained but the brothers weren't listening to him, continuing to dance. "Guys, guys, Lavi-Dee, Lavi-Dum," Allen tried to get their attention. The brothers abruptly stopped.
"I know! Let us tell you a story instead."
"Yes, you must let us tell you a story! It's proper etiquette you know."
"Quite right brother, first there's introductions, then there is dancing and then the hosts must tell a story."
"Guys, I don't think I really have the time." Allen began to edge backwards, but the brothers grabbed him by both arms and pulled him down the lakeside to a small clearing where a stone piece of column had sunk into the ground. They threw him onto it.
"Time? It doesn't exist in this world."
"So there's plenty of it," the brothers explained.
Resigned for now and still shocked at being manhandled by them, they were quite strong, Allen sighed in defeat. "Still, just a quick one please."
The brothers bowed. "We shall tell the tale of the Millennium Earl and His Noah." The brothers' one eye glowed next to each other in the pale moonlight and the atmosphere sank with a rolling fog heading towards them coming from deep within the lake.
"Once upon a time, many years ago, before man became giants in their own right, there lived a pious man. Devout to his religion, he followed every commandment, prayed daily and was a leader among his people, telling the tale of their holy Lord, saviour and above all else, their creator.
This man was eventually blessed with a family of his own and he thanked his God for every moment they shared. The man was very skilled with his hands, a brilliant mind he wield and with both created marvellous inventions that supported the village. There was peace, prosperity and happiness.
However, nothing lasts forever and the time of peace and prosperity came to a sudden and abrupt end. War had broken out within the Land. Foreigners had invaded and began to slaughter the innocent, pillage the villages and turned the survivors into slaves.
It was dark times for the Land, as there were no warriors to defend them. Their very religion had forbidden violence and the act of killing another man. In desperation the people turned to the pious man for guidance, hope and protection. And so the man prayed to his Lord day and night without pause. But no answer came. No angels descended from Heaven to defend them and the enemy was not struck down by God's mighty plagues. The people began to cry as despair engulfed their hearts. Their Lord had deserted them, they wailed in hopelessness.
The pious man had now begun to grow angry with his Lord for His silence. His people were suffering and the Lord was doing nothing. The man's village was now under siege and in desperation the man had forsaken his vows and broke the commandments he had once preached. He broke into the forbidden library and read the dark scrolls that contained black alchemic magic. Using his brilliant mind and crafty hands, he created the unthinkable. With the aid of twelve nobles, the now irreverent man had imbued them with dark powers and together they defeated and sacrificed the invaders to the irreverent man's dark egg. However, during the bloody battle, the irreverent man had forgotten his most cherished treasures, his family.
In the middle of a dark night, surviving invaders had banded together and devised a plan so nasty and foul. They murdered his family in a most vicious way. Sheathed with rage so immense, the irreverent man swore vengeance on the earth now seeing it to be nothing but evil, he vowed its destruction. He needed to destroy what God had originally created.
Using his dark magic the irreverent man cast off twelve of his precious human emotions into the twelve nobles, increasing their power, he renamed them the Noah. The once pious man now no longer human, he was less than a shell left behind, but filled with darkness, revenge and hatred he became something more. They called him the Millennium Earl, Duke of Destruction. For years he researched ways to return his lost family to him and every attempt met with failure. During this the world was being consumed; the Earl's vow was almost complete.
However, when victory was almost his, a bright light had descended from the heavens and for the second time in the Earl's life he heard his Lord's almighty voice speak to him, saddened by his child's decent into sin and fallen from His grace. The Earl spoke back in anger, how dare he speak to him now, after he had suffered so much, lost so many. The people had depended on him and he had failed them, it was all God's fault, he bellowed back. The Lord said that when he had made humanity, he had gifted them with freewill, the power to make their own decisions; He couldn't intervene, for to do so He would undo His Word and the universe would cease to exist. The Lord reminded the Earl that suffering was momentary, compared to eternity in Heaven and now the Earl will forever suffer, bared from Heaven for all time.
The Earl cried for his lost family, but the Lord said he could never see them again, for true the Earl's power had grown and he had the power to summon souls down to Earth, he could not call them for the Earl had castaway his most powerful trait, his humanity and that was the key.
The Earl's last hope crushed he declared his hatred to God and the humanity He had created. The Earl then vowed that he shall make humanity suffer like he had suffered. He would make God cry from Heaven and destroy all that God loved and had made in His image and God could not stop him, as the Earl still possessed God's greatest gift-freewill.
And so the World wept and was consumed within a great flood. However, God did not allow his remaining faithful children to suffer needlessly. As demons roamed the Earth, God decided to gift humanity once more. God took in the peoples' pain and He cried a single tear and as it fell from the Heavens it turned into a golden cube that people named Innocence. Together the people rallied; their faith in their Lord unshakable and with the power of the Cube, their faith and their humanity they defeated the Earl and his Noah, becoming memories in the dawn but at a great cost. The cube had been shattered into pieces, falling like small tears into the flooded earth and disappeared. The people despaired once more, believing their protection now gone. However, their Lord smiled down from Heaven proud of his children and told them to seek and they shall find within themselves the power to find the tears once more, their guiding light within the darkness.
The Earl, though defeated but not destroyed, went into hiding and disappeared from history. They say he is merely biding his time, resurrecting his Noah and waiting for the right time to fulfil his prophecy and once again bring on the end of the world and insure its final destruction..."
The twins finished with a flourish, their glowing eye dimmed and returned to its normal green. They bowed and Allen began clapping in earnest.
"Well?" the twins said.
"The story was great, but it was sad. You really feel for the Earl, but he turned so evil, such pain," Allen said slowly.
"Not all stories are happy."
"Not all stories are sad."
"Not all stories are true."
"Not all stories are false." The twins shrugged.
"Is that story a true story?" Allen asked, curious.
"Who knows?"
"Who cares!" The twins shrugged once more. Allen looked disheartened and the twins looked at him and then each other.
"But you know, they also say that when a person loses the person they loved the most to death,"
"A gentleman comes to see them in the dead at night and offers them a chance to summon their loved one back into their arms."
"Call out to them, he says, call out their name!"
"The soul comes down from Heaven and the man traps them into a metal doll."
"Dark magic,"
"Very dark indeed."
"But, reunited again, the person cries in happiness!"
"But the soul cries out in pain!"
"Why, why did you do this to me!"
Allen's heart began to beat faster, the twins, their words struck something deep inside him, Allen was suddenly afraid. "Stop it," Allen says, he puts his hands to his ears, trying to block them out.
"The person had committed an unspeakable sin."
"For the doll was actually a weapon, fuelled by the soul, it will be destroyed. Locked in a painful struggle!"
"Stop it!" Allen yells.
"Why, why did you do this to me? The soul cries out to the person."
"The pain!"
"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" Allen cries, covering his ears, bent over his eye throbbed with pain.
"Kill the person who called you with their sweet, sweet voice and wear their body like a suit, the man would order the weapon."
Unable to take anymore, a fear, a painful memory overtaking him, Allen ran. He ran away from the twins and their stories, away from the lakeside and back into dense woods. He ran on and on, not noticing the braches that tore his clothes and ripped his hair. He ran until exhaustion took over and he collapsed before a giant mushroom, shivering uncontrollably.
"I did it..." he whispered in horror.
"If you are referring to defacing my mushroom boy then yes you did," an old grumpy voice growled out.
-End chapter-