A/N: Yes, I updated, and no, you're not dreaming. Thanks so much to the many people (I think Sword Pen counts more than once) who have been bugging me via reviews and PMs to actually work on this story. I really have been ignoring it. Actually, if you're bored and want to read something ridiculous and Inkheart-related, I suggest checking out my Inkheart/HP crossover, found on my profile. It's co-written with the wonderful mynameisbob, and is even more whacked out than this story.

Disclaimer: I offer my sincerest apologies to Cornelia Funke, Nathaniel Hawthorn, and Bob. (Yes, you read that correctly, dear, you'll see.)

Capricorn is very fond of monochromatic coloring. Especially when it involves red. Or black, on occasion, but mostly red. For evidence, one merely has to take a good look at his church. Yes, Capricorn has his own church, located directly in the center of his personal village (which could very well be called Capritropolis) and is about as red as Hester Prynne on vacation in a field of poppies after an accident involving red paint, pasta sauce, and lots of blood.

Dustfinger had arisen bright and early on the morning of his disillusionment. Not that he knew he was about to be disillusioned—at the moment he was almost cheerful.

I, however, had a few lurking suspicions. Mostly because first hand experience has taught me that it's usually not the greatest idea to trust people who are obviously very, very evil and enjoy making other people's lives as miserable as conceivably possible.

"We're going home, Gwin," Dustfinger murmured dreamily.

"One would hope. I'll cross my claws for you."

"Hmm…"

"You know, Dustfinger, you never really listen to me when I talk to you. I'm not trying to complain, but it is a bit rude."

"Shh…" he patted me on the head. "Don't worry, they'll be here soon."

"Um, that's nice, but it really has nothing to do with—"

I was cut off as the large church doors swung open, and a pair of Capricorn's unimportant flunkies entered escorting a trio of our story's little nice people. That is, the little nice people who weren't attempting (and failing) to pass themselves off as at least semi-evil double-crossers—namely, Silvertongue and his extended family.

After being forced to bow to the rather lumpy statue of Capricorn standing in the back of the church—yes, I know, the man's ego is off the charts—the good guys were ushered up to the front, closer to us.

A word of advice: Never be deceived by the innocent and slightly spacey look of Miss Meggie Folchart. Get on her bad side, and she can be rather frightening. And this is coming from a marten who's experienced the wrath of a four-year-old Brianna and lived to tell the tale, so it's really saying something.

Anyway, right then the little blonde horror's death-glare was focused directly on the two of us. Well, mostly on Dustfinger, but since I happened to be sitting on his shoulder, I got full blast of it as well. It very nearly knocked me over.

A moment later, our dear friend good ol' cat-face (and by this I mean Basta) entered stage right carrying, for some unfathomable reason, a carton of lighter fluid. Dustfinger lowered the matchstick he was playing with (it can pretty much taken for granted that given a momentary break in the action, Dustfinger will be playing with matches) and straightened up as Basta, for some other unfathomable reason, handed him the gas can.

At this point in time, Basta apparently decided that it was a good idea to pursue his very favorite hobby. Actually, it might be a bit more than a hobby, because pretty much everything in Basta's life, when he's not busy avoiding ladders and horseshoes, revolves around making Dustfinger's day worse.

"Ah," said Basta, in his scratchy kitty voice. "So Dustfinger's playing with his best friend again."

"Ooh, ouch," I interjected only slightly sarcastically. "Do something, Dust-Oh! You can't possibly take that one lying down."

"Another toy for you," Basta indicated the canister of flammable liquid, "Light us a fire; that's what you like best."

"Oh, give me a break," said I, "How is that even supposed to be insulting?"

"So how about you?" asked Dustfinger, quietly. "Still afraid of fire, are you?"

Basta knocked the burning matchstick out of Dustfinger's hand.

"Oh, you shouldn't do that! It means bad luck. You know how quickly fire takes offense."

It was perfect. You could see the battle raging inside Basta's brain—his two top priorities were clashing. His absolute terror of anything connected to "bad luck" versus his age-old obsession with physically abusing Dustfinger. Bad luck won out, apparently, because Basta soon reverted back to his default setting—trying to seem cool and menacing without ever actually doing anything cool or menacing.

"You're lucky I just cleaned my knife!"

See what I mean? What kind of a death threat is that?

"One more trick like that and I'll carve a few nice new patterns on your ugly face."

"Except you won't, because you can't get your sparkly knife dirty, remember? And no one did any tricks. You were the one who decided to bother us. We were just sitting here."

"…and make myself a fur collar out of your marten."

"Just you try it! I'll call the P.E.T.A. on you."

"Yes I'm sure you'd enjoy that," said Dustfinger. The King of snappy comebacks, my master is.

Around then was when Capricorn showed up. I think you know pretty much how this scene ends. It is worth noting, however, that Capricorn is considerably better than Basta at making Dustfinger's day worse.

I won't bother you with to many details, but once things started to get violent I sensibly elected to hightail it out of there. Avoiding a kick from some miscellaneous background person, I slipped out through a partially open side door.

The day was bright and sunny. I wanted to avoid running into a large concentration of Black jackets, so I slipped away from Capritropolis central via a narrow, dark ally. I knew of a few cozy spots in Capricorn's village, mostly the result of being stuck hanging around while Dustfinger thought up plots to rescue Resa. The first of them was occupied by a solitary Capricornian, who was spacing out and humming "The Red Rooster is Coming to Town" under his breath. The second was relatively vacant. It was a ledge between a small, dilapidated building, and an even smaller, more dilapidated wall, both of which were covered in graffiti. I sat down between two sections of wall, one reading "Rodney wuz here" and the other declaring "Beware! The floating orange pinochle will soon be upon us!"

The commotion in the church would soon die down, one way or another, I thought. I only had to wait a bit.