29. The Truth About Mozenrath

"Mozenrath is one of the greatest current threats to Agrabah," the Sultan began.

"We've defeated him over and over," Aladdin explained. "But every time we think he's down, he manages to come back."

Jasmine ticked off a list of sins: "He's almost petrified Father, unleashed horrible monsters upon the Seven Deserts, worked the poor innocent Sprites to death, and transformed Genie into fuel for his twisted spells!"

"Long story short, not a nice guy," Genie commented.

"I don't have much experience with him," Sadira admitted, "but he gives sand-based magic a REALLY bad name."

"So we're talking about a sorcerer," Nick deduced.

"That's no big deal," Xander dismissed. "We've dealt with all kinds of magical enemies."

"Hear them out first," Luna warned. "This case may be very different."

"He's a powerful one," Genie affirmed. "He was able to knock me out with one punch. That shouldn't generally happen."

"He didn't seem so tough when I fought him," Kairi commented.

"Well, you have a Keyblade," Genie reminded her. "You have to pack a wallop to wield one of those!"

"He's…kinda hard to pin down," Aladdin added. "A lot of times, we've beaten him because he made really stupid mistakes. But then he comes back with some new power we have to figure out how to deal with."

"When did everything with him first start?" Cadance asked.

"When he captured a Thirdac," Jasmine explained. "A creature that eats magic. He wanted to use it to conquer the kingdoms of the Seven Deserts…"

"But it got loose in his palace," Aladdin recalled with a smirk.

"So he's the kind of sorcerer who lets monsters get the better of him," Nick observed. "I really don't see what we have to worry about."

"He figured he had to find somebody to do the dirty work of catching the Thirdac for him," Aladdin explained. "So he staged an attack on Agrabah with a different monster to see who could stop it. That person ended up being me. When I turned him down, he kidnapped Genie and threw him to the Thirdac. My only choice was to stop the Thirdac so I could save Genie."

"That's what makes Mozenrath so dangerous," Jasmine asserted. "He's underhanded. Even when he isn't strong enough to finish a job, he knows how to get it done by playing dirty."

"Any idea what he wants?" Yuffie asked.

"Whatever he can get," Aladdin answered somberly. "Especially if it's magical."

"Or a kingdom he can run," Genie added.

"That seems to fit so far," Kairi said with a nod. "None of the things he's done have seemed really…connected. If he's just after anything and everything, that would explain it."

"I wouldn't count him having some kind of plan out just yet," Aladdin informed her. "He usually does. We just usually never figure it out until it's almost too late."

"So where's he hide out when he's on this world?" Nora asked.

"In the Land of the Black Sands," the Sultan said forebodingly. "A cursed kingdom filled with all sorts of unspeakable horrors!"

"Mostly the Mamluks," Aladdin clarified. "His undead minions."

"So this guy already HAS a whole kingdom filled with scary stuff," Jaune sighed. "Great. That makes our job that much harder."

"Actually, I think that makes it easier!" Nora realized. "We could just go up there and knock him out for good!"

"Sure, we could," Stork grumbled. "If we all wanted to meet horrible magic-induced doom at the fate of his undead minions. DON'T YOU THINK IF ALADDIN COULD HAVE STOPPED HIM THAT EASILY, HE ALREADY WOULD HAVE?"

"You don't have to yell at me!" Nora huffed.

"There are a lot of us," Vida pointed out. "Maybe together, we could – "

"Eh-HEM," Stork interrupted. "A lot of us are currently missing our magical weapons thanks to Maleficent. Who, I might add, is apparently the OTHER big thing we have to worry about."

"What's Maleficent been doing?" Aladdin asked in concern.

"What she usually does," Kairi informed him. "Her allies took my Keyblade away from me. Riku's, too. They got most of our weapons."

"Taking a Keyblade away?" Genie repeated. "Now, that's SERIOUS magic!"

"It's serious magic, all right," Nick confirmed. "And that's what we've been dealing with on one front."

"This Mozenrath stuff seems like it's separate," Madison added.

"Maleficent on one end, Mozenrath on the other…" Genie summoned up two giant boulders that pressed him from either side. "Talk about…" He made a show of trying to push the boulders away. "Being between a rock…and a hard place!" The boulders squashed him flat; he slipped out from under them in a two-dimensional state before puffing back up and dismissing the boulders in a cloud of smoke. Madison smiled, having a soft chuckle at the display.

"What I really want to know is about the people working with Mozenrath," Ruby brought up. "Because you've been talking about him like you've always taken him on when he's alone, and that's bad enough. But he ISN'T alone."

"What do you mean, he isn't alone?" Jasmine asked in confusion.

"YOU KNOW," Papyrus explained. "ROMAN TORCHWICK. NEO. THE SCARY MAN IN THE DRAGON HELMET. THE PURPLE WOMAN. THE MAN WITH THE RED HAT. HIS FRIENDS!"

Aladdin shook his head. "Mozenrath doesn't have friends. All he has are his weird flying eel sidekick and his shambling undead minions he can boss around. If there's one thing Mozenrath would never have, it's friends."

...

"Well, friends," Mozenrath remarked casually as he peered out the side of the palanquin, "that's the end of THAT day." The sun was indeed going down on the horizon. Watching the landscape go by had been a rather stunning experience: Fantastica had no shortage of sights to see, including crystal towers, forests with plants of all colors, and mountain ranges riddled with caverns. Xayide had insisted that none of them were the place they were going next. She had a very clear vision of the next destination, and she was bent on getting there.

The company from Amarganth followed loyally, an impromptu army that came in all shapes and colors. They were ready to back Mozenrath's claim to the throne for eternity, the way they had backed Bastian Balthazar Bux. They carried their possessions with them: stores of food, rolled-up tents and sleeping bags. All made sure to keep a good distance behind the palanquin and the host of black suits of armor that ferried it.

Every metal suit halted at once, and the palanquin was lowered. "The people of Amarganth have to make their own sleeping arrangements," Xayide announced, "but for the four of us, I can make something both comfortable and extravagant. How would you like us to sleep? I can make as many tents as you wish."

"Well, obviously, we need two tents," Yzma stated. "One for the men, and one for the women."

"Why not four tents?" Mozenrath asked. "One for each of us. Then none of us has to get in the other's way. There's really no point in us SHARING tents if Xayide can make four."

"Slumber party?" Yzma replied nervously, giggling a little. "What slumber party? Who said anything about a slumber party?"

"You," Mozenrath groaned. "Just now."

"If you wish to share a tent, then we shall," Xayide told Yzma. "As for our male companions, I suppose they will be separated."

Mozenrath turned to the Huntsman. "Well? Did YOU want to share a tent?"

"It…might make it easier for us to keep watch over each other," the Huntsman stated. That was how it was rationalizing in his head. The closer he could be to Mozenrath, the better he could fend off impending threats, and when one proclaimed one was next in line to be emperor, threats tended to come out of the woodwork.

Mozenrath was about to shoot the Huntsman down on that front, but then he realized he rather liked the idea of sharing quarters with him. Perhaps it was because he figured he could catch another rare glimpse of his face. "I guess we'll be taking two tents," he resolved.

"Two tents," Yzma repeated. "You know, that's something you're a little too much of, Mozenrath."

"What?"

"Too tense."

Mozenrath buried his face in the palm of his gauntlet. "I'm going to pretend you never said that."

Xayide had already left the palanquin, conjuring up two roomy tents that looked more like cloth pavilions. One was a deep royal blue that matched Mozenrath's robes; the other was deep purple to complement Yzma's wardrobe. "Blue for the men," Xayide explained, "and purple for the women."

The interiors of both tents were stuffed with plushy embroidered pillows and laden with soft blankets. The floors were stuffed like mattresses, and as Mozenrath entered the men's tent, he noticed his feet bouncing a little wherever he stepped. "Not bad," he muttered, a slight grin playing at his lips.

"Rest well," Xayide told him, peering briefly into his tent. "We have far to go tomorrow."

"And where exactly are you taking us?" Mozenrath asked.

"Someplace I know the Huntsman will not approve of," Xayide stated cryptically. "But he shall have to refrain from complaints." She disappeared into her tent fluidly.

Yzma darted in right after Xayide, and the Huntsman peeled back the entry flap to their tent to ask, "What do you mean by – "

"NO MEN ALLOWED!" Yzma barked. "GET TO YOUR OWN TENT!"

"I'm not leaving," the Huntsman growled, "until I get an answer – "

Xayide flicked her wrist, and the Huntsman was thrown backward in a shower of red sparks. He knew then he wasn't going to get anywhere further that night, so he shrugged it off and entered Mozenrath's tent.

Mozenrath had settled back on a pile of pillows, levitating them into a comfortable stack. The Huntsman took his own seat on the plush floor, facing Mozenrath down. After staring fixedly upon Mozenrath with almost a degree of resentment as he realized it would have to come to this, he removed his helmet, unwrapping the balaclava from his head. Upon seeing the Huntsman's face, Mozenrath let his smirk grow.

"I don't know why seeing my face gives you such amusement," the Huntsman grumbled.

"I don't know why you don't show it off more often," Mozenrath replied. "Are you just trying to preserve your enigmatic mystique?"

"I can assure you, that isn't the reason," the Huntsman replied.

"Well, it can't be because you think it makes you better than everyone else," Mozenrath went on. "Because that would mean you'd think you could boss me around."

"You're seeing my face as we speak," the Huntsman retorted. "If it were a case of superiority complex, at the very least, I would know my place is below you."

Mozenrath had thought that was what he wanted to hear, but somehow, it didn't sit well with him. "Not…necessarily below me," he clarified. "Just…so we're clear that I'm in charge, and you're not BETTER than me."

"We're already quite clear on that, Mozenrath."

There was a silence between them for a while before Mozenrath asked, "You never told me what exactly you have against dragons. Don't get me wrong; they're very slayable. I know why I want as many of them slain as I do. But you never explained your end of things."

"I don't suppose you'll let the subject die until I do," the Huntsman relented.

"You suppose correctly." Mozenrath's smirk grew ever wider.

"It begins with the Academy," the Huntsman stated, reaching to take his helmet into his hands. He peeled off each black glove so that he could run his thumbs pensively over the horns of the skull. "They trained each of us to know the magical. To understand the magical and how it could work for us and against us. And to destroy the magical when it was against us. Dragons are always against us. As are many creatures of magic. There are, of course, exceptions. The undead are an untrustworthy lot, but Ayam Aghoul has proven himself different. Perhaps still untrustworthy, but not in any way that presents a threat to us. From the time we were children, we were trained in the arts of weaponry, shown the quickest ways to kill, instructed to do so without hesitation at the very sight of a dragon."

"I'm guessing this was a family business," Mozenrath theorized.

"I will never know," the Huntsman admitted. "The Huntsclan takes children with the birthmark of the clan, the red dragon, as soon as they are born. I never knew either of my parents. I can only suppose they were weak, ordinary people not worth knowing. The Huntsclan was my only family."

Mozenrath listened intently. While he didn't stoop so far as to offer any sympathy, for he had none to give, he no longer wore his smirk.

"I had my doubts about dragons, some days," the Huntsman went on. "Then, one day, the Academy was infiltrated by a red dragon. It nearly cost me my life. That, more than anything else, was what convinced me. Dragons are a blight that needs to be wiped out from my world and every world."

"All because of the one that attacked you," Mozenrath reiterated.

"To be fair," the Huntsman went on, "it threw me to another monster entirely. Either way, I bear the scars."

"What scars?"

The Huntsman hesitated. Then he delicately unfastened his cape, casting it aside; he would have needed it removed to sleep anyway. He followed by peeling away his tunic so that he was stripped down to his shirt, his pants, and his boots. The neckline of his shirt was low enough that Mozenrath could see it then: the jagged remnants of claw marks that dragged across his upper chest and lower neck. Again, Mozenrath had no sympathy to offer, but he almost felt he owed the Huntsman something for showing him this. It was somewhat of an anomalous display of weakness on an otherwise untouchable figure. "If nothing else," the Huntsman stated, "at least I gained a little more respect around the Academy after that incident."

"I have a hard time believing you weren't the most respected there from day one," Mozenrath admitted.

"I was…perhaps the least respected of the Academy before then," the Huntsman stated, his gaze now fully fixed on the helmet in his hands. "I lagged behind in classes, and before the incident, I had a rather…unfortunate-sounding voice. I was often made fun of by the other trainees. They would…" He sighed. "It doesn't matter what they would do to me."

He looked up into Mozenrath's eyes then and was stunned by what he saw. There was understanding behind those eyes, and perhaps, finally, a little sympathy. Not at all what he had expected from the normally snide young man. "Did you wish to say something?" the Huntsman asked.

"Just…a little disbelief," Mozenrath confessed. "I would have pegged you as the bully. Not the victim."

"You would have preferred me as the bully, I would imagine."

"I like what you are now," Mozenrath stated somberly. "I like knowing what you were then, but it doesn't make any difference to me."

The Huntsman nodded. "After I survived my ordeal with the dragon, I became better in my studies of battle. Fighting for your life will do that to you, after all. The wounds the monster left changed my voice as well, to what you hear now."

"It's a nice-sounding voice," Mozenrath said without thinking.

The Huntsman, surprised at this compliment, looked Mozenrath in the eye all the harder, baffled, attempting to figure out where it had come from. Mozenrath wasn't sure himself. "Go on," the young sorcerer said somewhat sheepishly, suddenly hyper-aware of his own heartbeat.

"There isn't much more to tell," the Huntsman concluded. "From then on, I was top student. I was the Huntsmaster's personal Huntsboy. I commanded the respect I deserved. And I never forgot that red dragon."

"There are still two things I'm not clear on," Mozenrath stated, trying to build back his suave exterior. "Mind indulging me by answering some questions?"

"I suppose not," the Huntsman answered. "Since you know so much already." By then, he would have told Mozenrath absolutely anything, he realized. He wasn't sure exactly why, but he somehow felt that his story had been told to just the right audience.

"First of all," Mozenrath said, "you mentioned being born with the mark of the red dragon. Is that supposed to be it on your face? Because that doesn't look like a dragon to me."

"It's only part of a dragon," the Huntsman confessed. "The rest is…here." He then peeled away his shirt, casting it aside so Mozenrath could see how the reptilian birthmark coiled over his entire chest.

Mozenrath's eyes widened, and his pulse quickened. "That answers that question," he said with a nod, momentarily hypnotized by the Huntsman's figure, suddenly starting to realize something he wasn't sure he wanted to know. He forced himself to look the Huntsman in the eye for the next question: "And as for my final inquiry…you said you were taken as a child. Is that why you never told anyone your real name? Because you don't have one?"

"Not true," the Huntsman clarified. "The clan raised us with names. We were never told whether they were our birth names or names simply given to us by those who brought us into the ranks. I do have a name."

"And that name would be?"

"George Liu." It amazed the Huntsman how easily that secret passed through his lips.

Mozenrath nodded, careful to keep eye contact so as not to be distracted again. "It suits you."

"I never felt it did," the Huntsman confessed.

"'The Huntsman' suits you just fine," Mozenrath added quickly. "Either way."

"You've asked much of me tonight," the Huntsman stated. "What about you? Now that you know about my past, it's only fair that I know at least a little of yours."

"That would be fair, wouldn't it?" Mozenrath reclined a little farther into his mound of pillows. "All right. I'll give you a bedtime story. It's all about how an Agrabanian child who everyone assumed would be a lowlife grew into a powerful and devious sorcerer."

"I look forward to hearing this one," the Huntsman said with a single nod.

"I guess it all began with a thief," Mozenrath sighed, trying to pin down the perfect starting point for his tale. "Now, I'm sure there was some glamorous love story about how Cassim the rogue fell in love with Aaliyah, a sorceress from the Black Sands, on one of his adventures, and liberated her from the tyrannical rule of Destane. It sounds like the stuff of terrible romance novels. All you need to know is that those were my parents. Cassim took my mother with him to his home kingdom of Agrabah, and that's where I was born. We had an…average life. I knew from the time I was young that I was destined for greatness. Cliché, I know, but true. I wanted to rule over kingdoms. I wanted to learn magic, like what I saw my mother doing when she would cook food over a fire she lit by snapping her fingers. I wanted POWER. I know I was young, but I think I always knew I wanted to be a conqueror. Basically, what you might call a 'villain.' My mother always understood this about me. Cassim never did."

"I notice that you refer to your mother as your mother," the Huntsman realized, "and yet Cassim is not 'my father.'"

"He may be my father," Mozenrath growled, "but I refuse to let him have the satisfaction of being referred to as it. Mother was too good for him. I knew he wanted a son who would run rampant through the city streets causing trouble. A little boy who would grow up to be the Prince of Thieves, following him on his adventures. The ones I knew he wished he could leave us behind to run away on. Mother was blind to his faults. I suppose love does that. But I always knew I wasn't what he wanted. But that was fine by me. He was never what I wanted in a father, anyway.

"Like I said, Mother got me, but Cassim never understood. I told my mother I was going to grow up to be the Sultan of Agrabah, and she agreed. I told her I was going to become the most powerful sorcerer in the world, and she told me she knew I would. I realize now it was probably just the ramblings of any mother to her child, but I still think to this day she believed in me the way Cassim never did. Whatever else happened, at least I had her. Then…she fell ill. And you can probably see where THAT'S going."

"You lost her," the Huntsman said, matter-of-fact.

"I did." Mozenrath's gaze turned downward, to the strewn-about pillows. "I thought then that I'd…lost everything." He immediately composed himself; "But I wasn't going to waste my time moping around for her. After all, I had plans to carry out. Big plans. Mother had always told me about the 'horrible and terrifying' sorcerer Destane, who ruled the Land of the Black Sands with an iron fist, or so she said. She also said he was the most powerful sorcerer in the world, and if I wanted the title, I'd have to take it from him. So I told her I wanted to learn from him. She said, and I remember her being fairly horrified at the time, that if there was one person I should never mess with, it was Destane. I told her I changed my mind and all I wanted to do was beat him. She said that, I could probably do.

"With Mother gone, all I could think about was my plan to learn magic. And not just any magic. EVERY kind of magic. I remembered what she said about not messing with Destane, but I felt pretty sure I could get him to respect me."

"And how old were you at the time?" the Huntsman asked.

"Seven. At which age I suppose you'd already killed your first goblin."

"Gremlin, actually."

"Anyway," Mozenrath went on, "after Mother died, I thought I saw an actual shred of humanity in Cassim. He grieved for her for a while. He put on this whole big show like he could never move on. But, in the end, he did. Some Agrabanian woman caught his fancy, and, next thing I know, I have a new 'mother' - " He put up his fingers to put air quotes around the term. " – and a younger half-brother on the way. I tried to put up with them, believe me. But, in the end, I knew my place wasn't there anymore. I didn't tell anyone when I left. I tried to just make it a quiet affair. In the middle of the night, of course. Maybe they missed me and panicked when they woke up. Or maybe they were just glad I was gone.

"I knew Destane wouldn't like me. But I was sure he'd at least UNDERSTAND me. After all, he also craved magic and power. We couldn't be that different. I practically killed myself trying to get to him. When I finally made it to the Black Sands, I was starving and dehydrated. It's actually hilarious, now that I think about it. If you look at it from Destane's point of view, I turned up on his front door half dead, probably hallucinating, and, I will remind you, a child. I'm not exactly sure why he didn't kill me. Probably because I babbled something about undying loyalty to him and he knew he could exploit that. I have…literally no memory of when I actually met him. He at least took the time to nurse me back to what passed for health. Don't go thinking that's going to make him the unsung hero of the story. He knew he couldn't put me to work if I couldn't even stand up.

"I worked as Destane's apprentice for years. Well, 'apprentice' might just be my term for it. Destane was…well, he was like a father to me. Just like Cassim. He didn't understand me at all, it turns out. He just wanted someone to order around. Someone he could make carry his spellbooks from room to room and pacify by teaching him a few cheap parlor tricks in return." He said it all with a cavalier air, as though it were water under the bridge.

"Cassim made a servant of you in the same way?" the Huntsman asked.

"Well…not exactly," Mozenrath admitted. "When you really boil it down, Destane was worse than Cassim on every level. I still hate them equally. See, when you were on Destan'e good side, he could show you things. He had a few old spellbooks he didn't use anymore because half the pages had gotten torn out or burned, and he let me have them. I learned more from them than I think he realized. And, when he was asleep, I would sneak into his library and get my hands on the good stuff. But get on his bad side, and he wasn't one to take infractions lightly. During one of his more dramatic fits of anger against the people he ruled over, he decided to cast a blight on all of their food, and I just so happened to bring him the wrong materials. He only noticed when crops started to actually grow HEALTHIER. I paid for that."

"How so?" the Huntsman asked.

Mozenrath paused then. "You realize this is all just the setup of the story. How I became what I am now. I'm not looking for pity here."

"I'm not asking out of pity. I'm asking out of curiosity."

Mozenrath relented, suddenly unsure of the waters he was treading. "Don't look at the right side," he commanded. "The right side is what's obvious. You know what's on the right side. Focus on the left." He then mirrored the Huntsman's earlier actions, casting his hat aside, peeling away his shirt to reveal his bare chest, eventually even dropping the gauntlet to the floor after some deliberation.

The Huntsman was at first distracted by the right side of Mozenrath's upper body, despite the warning. He was unprepared for exactly how much of the sorcerer's flesh had been eaten away by the gauntlet. Mozenrath's entire right arm was reduced to bone, a gleaming white shoulder blade exposed. The Huntsman was certain that if he got a look from the correct angle, he would see Mozenrath's beating heart tucked deep within the hollows of his body. Then he forced himself to look at the opposite side, where the flesh was whole…but not unmarked. A prominent burn scar coursed the length of Mozenrath's body from neck to waist.

"You have your scars," Mozenrath said flippantly, "and I have mine."

The Huntsman felt a twist in the center of his gut and was unsure how to address it. Mozenrath had asked for no pity, which was a feat the Huntsman was certain he would be able to pull off without even trying. Yet the burn was horrific, and, unbidden, images sprang to the Huntsman's mind of a much younger Mozenrath screaming in agony as magical flames licked him, tasted his flesh to see how much they could take away.

"I guess I do have Destane to thank for a lot of my power," Mozenrath went on. "His citadel, which would later become MY citadel, is where I learned the art of necromancy. Now, George Liu, do you have any idea exactly how hard it is to bring someone back from the dead?"

"I can only imagine it isn't easy at all," the Huntsman replied.

"The actual process involves a series of almost unnecessarily lengthy incantations and complicated patterns," Mozenrath explained. "All of which I have, by this point, memorized. All I need to do now is flick my wrist and take a little trip down memory lane, and I can have whatever poor departed soul I want at my disposal. But back then, I had to draw everything by hand and say everything out loud if I wanted to so much as bring a squashed beetle back to life. I actually started out practicing on animals. Just bringing them back to life at first, but then, other experiments. Seeing if I could bestow the power of flight or the power of speech or the power to survive out of water – aaaaaand that's how I ended up with the mess we call 'Xerxes.'"

"He seems to have been the only test subject you bothered to keep with you," the Huntsman pointed out.

Mozenrath shrugged. "I got attached. Probably because I put so many spells into him that he practically has part of my soul in him at this point. Emphasis on 'practically.' I never was able to convert him into a proper phylactery. Anyway, these were all spells that anyone could do if they had the right materials. That's the other important thing to keep in mind. I can skip a lot of the necromancy process because of the magic carried in the gauntlet. I could do magic. That didn't inherently make me MAGICAL. One resurrection could take me up to three hours. But, while Destane was sleeping, time was exactly what I had. I worked away at it until I was finally able to bring my first human being back to life.

"This is probably the turning point of the story. When I got that good at resurrection, Destane finally had enough of me, and I had had MORE than enough of him. I knew I needed to get rid of him once and for all. So I started researching the locations of powerful magical artifacts that could help me. And I came across this." Mozenrath picked up the gauntlet, almost cradling it between the bones of his stripped hand and the flesh of his hale one. "The magic that changed my life."

"If you'll pardon the interruption," the Huntsman said, "there appears to be a piece missing from your tale. Namely, the breaking point between you and Destane. I suppose it had something to do with the first person you brought back from the dead. Might I ask who you chose?"

Mozenrath fixed the Huntsman with a glare that was at first cold, but then grew to appear almost wounded. "Who do you think?"

...

The resurrection had taken all night. Young Mozenrath had grown weary, and was in danger of falling asleep where he stood, ready to collapse right onto the stone floor of the citadel and slip into unconsciousness. He knew, however, that he couldn't stop until he had seen the endeavor through. It would be the final confirmation of how powerful he had become…and it was a reunion long overdue.

He spoke the last words clearly, and the spiderwebs of symbols he'd drawn on the wall sparked with light. She shimmered into view slowly, a mirage at first, gaining light and substance; confused, she regarded the fronts and backs of her own hands, unsure what to make of the flesh that composed them. She was fully aware that she was not where she was supposed to be. She then looked up at Mozenrath, her dark eyes, so similar to his own, fixating on his tired visage. She struggled to find the first question she wanted to ask, for she had a great many.

"It's been a while," Mozenrath said with a smile, "hasn't it?"

"Do I…know you?" she asked, utterly perplexed.

"Better than anyone else does," Mozenrath replied. "But I don't blame you for not recognizing me. It has been over ten years, after all."

It took her a moment. What clinched it was when she realized just how much of her own face was in his features, from his cheekbones to his lips. Stunned, she whispered, "Mozenrath…?"

"In the flesh," Mozenrath replied, feeling a second wind of energy. "Just like you are now, Mother."

"How did you…" Aaliyah breathed, mind abuzz.

"Bring you back?" Mozenrat finished for her. "I won't bore you with the details. Let's just say I'm finally becoming what I always set out to be. What you KNEW I would be."

Aaliyah then rushed to her son, taking his face into her hands so she could run her thumbs over its contours, shifting to embrace him closely. "Mozenrath…my son…" she repeated, overcome with a happiness tinted with a strange melancholy.

Mozenrath hesitated; it wasn't natural for him to respond to such gestures of affection. Then he returned her embrace as lightly as he could, rather stiffly as well.

"Where are we?" Aaliyah asked as she removed her arms and backed away from her son.

"You're…actually not going to like it," Mozenrath confessed. "We're in the place where I learned to bring you back. Now, before you say anything, you should know that being here is what gave me power. REAL power. The kind of power that – "

She sensed something was wrong. "WHERE. Are. We?"

The way she fixed her gaze upon Mozenrath made him suddenly feel as though he'd made a large and critical mistake. "The citadel of Destane in the Land of the Black Sands," he answered, trying to keep his tone even.

Horror enveloped her. "We have to go," she said urgently, taking Mozenrath's right hand – still flesh, back in those days - and pulling him toward her.

"No!" Mozenrath tugged at his arm to free it from Aaliyah's grasp. "Not when I've come so far!"

"You don't understand the danger you're in," Aaliyah emphasized. "If you stay here, he will KILL you."

"I've been here for years, and he hasn't killed me yet," Mozenrath argued.

Somehow, the sort of horror that clouded around Aaliyah changed. "What has he done to you?" she asked.

"Done to me…?"

"He wouldn't let anyone into his citadel for years without making them pay a price," Aaliyah muttered. "If you've been here, he must have made use of you. He must have – " She shook her head. "It doesn't matter. We have to go now, while there's still time."

"No!" Mozenrath backed away from his mother. "Maybe YOU don't belong here. But I finally have real power, and I'm going to get more! It'll be just like I always said. One day, I WILL be the most powerful sorcerer in the world."

"You can learn that magic somewhere else!" Aaliyah emphasized. "Not here! Please, Mozenrath…come with me. Somewhere SAFE."

He rolled his eyes. "Fine. We can go somewhere else until we've…resolved this. But I'm coming back."

She knew it was useless to argue.

They dashed through the halls as silently as they could, making their way stealthily to the entrance. As they rounded the final corner into the atrium, he was there, waiting for them: Destane himself, fully awake, smirking proudly.

"Did you really think I wouldn't catch on to your little nighttime endeavors?" he taunted.

Aaliyah stepped protectively in front of Mozenrath, fixing Destane with her toughest glare. It would have caused any other person to flinch.

"And who is this?" Destane asked, sizing up Aaliyah. "A lover? No, not a lover. Where would you have met one? And who would ever be YOUR lover? No…this…" It dawned upon him. "This is someone you've brought back. That's what you've been doing all this time when you thought I was asleep. Trying to bring someone back. And don't think I've forgotten your little sob stories, either. This can only be one person." His grin widened. "Your mother."

Aaliyah turned to face Mozenrath. "Run," she commanded.

"No," Mozenrath growled. "I don't RUN from him."

"Perhaps you should," Destane taunted.

The next thing Mozenrath was aware of was the chains forged of pure energy that had wrapped around his body as he was flung up against the nearest wall; as he impacted the stone, knowing it was a miracle his spine didn't break, the chains glued themselves to the wall, pinning Mozenrath there. The young sorcerer-in-training struggled against them, but they held firm, keeping him fixed in place to watch the events that unfolded.

"Don't take this personally," Destane told Aaliyah. "This isn't about you. It's about teaching him a lesson." He charged a sphere of blinding blue-white light between his hands, lobbing it directly at Aaliyah. She put out her hands and gave a scream of pain as the magic made impact…but she had caught it, and though it was burning her palms, she found the strength to push it right back at Destane. He guided it to orbit around him, turning into a ring that exploded outward into several smaller projectiles; Aaliyah batted away the ones that came toward her. She surrounded herself with a ring of bright crimson flames, giving a twirl while guiding the fire with her hands to rush toward Destane, to engulf him. The flames arced over an invisible deflection shield, beneath which Destane merely stood and watched Aaliyah with a smug grin.

A dozen stone duplicates of Destane rose up from the floor, all fixing her with the same self-satisfied look. Then they rushed. Aaliyah coated her hands with pure red magic, punching through the stone as each duplicate reached her, shattering Destane's doubles into shards and dust. Finally, the real thing came at her, hands covered in his own magic. His hands clashed against hers in a shower of sparks again and again; every time he tried to lash at a weak spot on her body, she countered expertly. She stepped back to gain some distance, shaping the formless masses that covered her hands into vermilion blades, and then let them fly at Destane's face, building new ones where the former had been. Destane caught them both, melting them in his hands. Aaliyah struck with her sharpened hands, hoping to impale Destane; he caught both of her wrists, forcing them upward and away from him. She kicked at his stomach, causing him to reel momentarily and loosen his grip just enough that she could wrench her wrists free. But as she brought her blades of energy down upon him, they shattered against another deflection shield. Blue-white cords erupted from Destane's hands, wrapping around her wrists, binding them together as well as to Destane's palms. With one movement of his arms, he brought her stumbling to the ground, brought down by the ropes of energy as more surrounded her legs and crawled up to bind her entire body. She struggled, concentrating as hard as she could, and the blue changed momentarily to red in patches, but reverted back to its original color almost immediately. Finally, a patch of blue covered her mouth, silencing all of her cries.

Destane looked proudly down at the bound Aaliyah. "I see you've learned one of the primary facets of magic," he remarked. "The power of creation. It must have taken a while to create this host body for the soul you retrieved. And it even clothed itself based on the soul's perception. You've obviously come much farther than I thought, Mozenrath. And yet, you are still not a master of the true heart of magic: the power of transfiguration. The ability to convert essence from one form to another. I shall demonstrate it to you now."

The patch over Aaliyah's mouth was gone, and, knowing full well what Destane was about to do, she began to scream: "MOZENRATH! DON'T LET HIM GET AWAY WITH THIS! KILL HIM! SAVE YOURSELF AND KILL HIM!"

"Such harsh final words," Destane remarked, making a slow upward movement with his hand.

Aaliyah's whole body went still, and a fine, silvery mist poured forth from her mouth, balling up in Destane's palm until it became a gem half the size of his hand. "Observe your mother's soul," Destane bade Mozenrath, stepping away from the lifeless body to hold the jewel closer to the apprentice's face. "I hold her entire life in my hand. She is, at the moment, neither living nor dead, but instead suspended in a state between. And here is where you will witness the final facet of magic: the power to destroy."

"NO!" Mozenrath screamed.

Destane placed the jewel between both hands and clasped his palms hard around it, giving a little extra magical force. The gem collapsed into fine dust. "And now her soul is no longer," Destane said proudly. "It cannot return to her body, nor can it return to the Underworld, or any of the other immortal planes. It simply doesn't exist." He flung the dust at Mozenrath's face; Mozenrath coughed, trying not to inhale the remnants of what had once been the life force of the only human being he had truly loved.

Destane laughed. "What have you achieved?" he taunted. "You've only managed to kill a dead woman twice over." He let Mozenrath down from his position against the wall then, and Mozenrath collapsed to his hands and knees, shivering on the floor without a word. "Attempt to avenge her," Destane warned, "and you shall not only cease to exist, but it shall be far more painful than what she experienced. I expect you to report to the laboratory in three hours, as usual." He turned and stalked from the room, leaving Mozenrath to his silent shock.

...

"Of course, I didn't listen to him," Mozenrath continued to relate to the Huntsman. "He should have known getting revenge would be the first thing I would do." He realized that at some point, as he had related the tale of Aaliyah, he had ended up lying on the cushiony floor instead of propped on his pillow pile. "So I found the gauntlet. It wasn't easy. It was guarded by any number of magical defenses, but I managed to get it in my hands and ON my hand anyway. He punished me in the usual way for being gone for so long, but I don't think he ever suspected exactly what I went to get. The hard part became how to get the better of Destane. He had devices set up to let him know if anyone was sneaking up on him while he was sleeping. He tested all of his food and drinks for poison ever since I knew him. I just had to wait. And hide the gauntlet, mind you. I KNEW he would know what it was. After all, I found out about it from his books.

"Eventually, I figured out the key wasn't to figure out when he was vulnerable. It was to figure out when he thought I was harmless. So I botched a spell on purpose just to get him to hurt me. I think he actually used lightning that time. I really hate lightning. Anyway, I pretended to be out of commission for longer than I actually was. I made a whole show out of lying on the floor and moaning about how much pain I was in while slipping the gauntlet onto my hand. Then, when he came back to stand over me while telling me to stop whining and act like a grown-up, I got him. His guard was completely down, and I finally managed to kill Destane."

The Huntsman felt a strange sort of satisfaction from hearing that part of the story.

"But killing him just wasn't the ticket." Mozenrath's smirk was returning. "No, I needed to give him a fate worse than death. So I HALF resurrected him. He was the first of my undead army. From then on, I was the one calling the shots, and HE took orders from ME.

"I inherited the entire Black Sands, of course. Which only proved that I was right from the start about what I was meant to be. The problem then became dealing with the mess Destane left behind. As you can imagine, he was a sloppy ruler. The people were always falling ill from malnutrition or a plague or what have you. I couldn't keep track. I DO know that when they died, it was fair game to bring them half back to life too, and the Mamluk army grew every time. Then, at some point, the rest of the survivors just got tired of me and left."

"I'm surprised you let them get away unscathed," the Huntsman stated.

"I…didn't really know how to stop them," Mozenrath admitted. "I was still new to the whole conquest game. I'd only taken over one kingdom; sue me for being green. After that began the plans to take over my second kingdom, then my third, and so on and so forth. My big idea was to employ a Thirdac: a magic-eating monster from another world."

"I am well aware of what a Thirdac is," the Huntsman stated.

"George?"
"Yes."

"If you ever summon a Thirdac, have a magic-blocking collar ready on the other side of the portal BEFORE it comes out."

The Huntsman had known that, but he left the statement without comment.

"So, after a disaster that occurred through no fault of my own, I suddenly had a Thirdac running around my hard-earned citadel," Mozenrath grumbled. "So, naturally, I hunted down a so-called hero I could hire to take care of it for me. And wouldn't you know it…that's when I found out. The person I found to do the job happened to be the prince of Agrabah. A position he had only gotten because a lamp containing a genie happened to fall into his lap. Now, this would make him annoying enough, but I noticed when he had Cassim's face. And I noticed that his name was the exact same name Cassim and his second wife were going to give their son. My…half-brother." He said the words like a curse. "Aladdin. You know, to this day, he doesn't know what I REALLY am to him. He just thinks I'm that crazy sorcerer who lives a couple of kingdoms over and turns up every now and again with some evil scheme of the week to make him miserable. And, let's be honest, that's not WRONG, per sé. But when all this is said and done, I want to go back to Aladdin and personally see to it that he gets what he REALLY deserves. I already got what I did." He held his skeletal hand up in front of his face. "For the most part. He'll never know what it's like to die for what you really want."

"I shall be proud to assist you when that day comes," the Huntsman said solemnly.

Mozenrath struggled back up into a sitting position; he was growing uncomfortable with looking too vulnerable in front of the Huntsman. He wanted to be impressive instead. "And that basically brings you up to speed," he concluded. "I'm so CLOSE now, George. True, I may have lost my first claim to territory to Maleficent…but look at what we have instead."

"It will be impressive indeed," the Huntsman said with another nod. "And I've no doubt that you can make it work."

"After all I've sacrificed," Mozenrath muttered, "it's about time things go my way." He shrugged. "Well, at least one thing is definitely coming up roses."

"And what is that?"

"It should be more obvious to you than anyone," Mozenrath stated. "I have loyal allies. And, while at first, I didn't see the appeal of living, breathing allies that retained free will instead of the obedient undead type…or, in Aghoul's case, I guess, undead, non-breathing allies that retain free will…but now, I'm more than used to it. I actually have…friends. Still getting used to that word."

"It's an odd term for us," the Huntsman agreed, "but it seems to be the only fitting one. I am proud to be yours."

"And I'm glad I'm yours, George."

The Huntsman, suddenly overcome with the drive to follow a newly installed desire, reached out with his right hand. "Your hand," he said, somewhat unsure. "Might I…?"

"I don't see why not," Mozenrath answered, extending his bony right hand. Though he could think of a few reasons why not. The fact that the Huntsman touching any part of him suddenly made him feel overheated, like the rushing of his blood was speeding up ever faster.

The Huntsman took Mozenrath's hand into both of his own, gently running the pads of his fingers over the joints and the small, delicate bones. He knew he could break them right then if he wished, but the very thought horrified him. The hand was a true phenomenon of magic, but as much as that appealed to the Huntsman, that wasn't the reason he wanted to keep ahold of it. He simply wished to keep a piece of Mozenrath close to him for a while, within his grasp.

Mozenrath, by that point, had leaned in closer to allow the Huntsman better access to the hand. He scooted in closer still, asking, "Now that you've had your fill of looking at my hand, can I examine something of yours in exchange?"
"What did you have in mind?" the Huntsman asked, idly turning Mozenrath's hand over.

"That birthmark of yours," Mozenrath stated.

The Huntsman gave him a single nod. "Whatever you wish."

Mozenrath touched the zenith of the mark on the Huntsman's face with the tip of his bare right finger, tracing it down his neck, over his chest then, adding the rest of his right fingertips. The gentle, light brush of the bones was exhilarating, leaving the Huntsman's skin tingling, making him wish for still more.

Mozenrath looked up into the Huntsman's eyes then. "You know," he teased, "we're close enough that I could kiss you if I wanted. But I'm guessing you'd probably break my neck if I tried something like that."

"Perhaps I want you to," the Huntsman confessed. "And perhaps there's a reason you brought up that incredibly particular scenario."

They maintained eye contact for a moment longer before Mozenrath leaned in close to the Huntsman's face, pausing momentarily, giving the Huntsman a final chance to take back what he'd said. The Huntsman, instead, closed the distance between them, pressing his lips to Mozenrath's. The kiss started out soft, gentle, barely a touch at all, but then grew more forceful, more passionate, as both realized what they were truly doing, what they truly wanted of each other. Mozenrath's skeletal hand gripped hard over the Huntsman's shoulder; it hurt to have the bones dig in that way, but the Huntsman almost found the sensation pleasurable. His hands found their way around Mozenrath's slender waist, pulling him closer.

Mozenrath was the first to withdraw. "Maybe 'friends' isn't the right word for the two of us specifically," he admitted.

"I should say it isn't anymore," the Huntsman confirmed.

With that agreed upon, they entered a second kiss.

...

"You don't really think they're…?" Yzma said in disbelief.

"Whatever they're doing," Xayide pointed out, "it's too quiet for us to listen to."

Eavesdropping had been Yzma's first suggestion as soon as she and Xayide had entered their tent, and Xayide had been all too ready to provide a spell, in the form of a giant listening ear made of purple aura, that provided an audio window into the adjacent tent.

"I find talk of love utterly boring," Xayide continued. "Perhaps now is a good place to end this."

"Depending on what they're doing," Yzma added, "we may not WANT to hear what comes next."

Xayide dismissed the ear, and the two women only had each other to listen to within their sleeping space.

"I have never seen the use of love," Xayide confessed, conjuring up a bowl of a pasty green face mask and two brushes; she began using the brush to apply the paste liberally to her skin. "It interferes with wisdom and power."

"Like what they have is 'love,'" Yzma sighed, taking her own brush up to begin coating her own face. "You're right, you know. Actual love gets in the way of everything. But I don't see the harm in what they're doing."

"You wait and see," Xayide bet. "What seems like harmless fun will become a hindrance. Sooner or later, they will realize they love each other, and then they will fall."

"And let me guess," Yzma replied, deadpan. "This ruins your plans for Fantastican domination."

"Perhaps."

"If you so much as think about sabotaging them to get what you want," Yzma threatened, "I'll turn you into a slug. And don't think I won't know it was you that did it when it happens."

"It won't happen," Xayide promised. "Why do you wish to protect them so much?"

"Being comrades in arms on a multitude of worlds while trying to plunder for magical resources will do that to you," Yzma said with a shrug.

"Are you sure it has nothing to do with the newfound knowledge that Mozenrath lost his mother?"

"You're suggesting that I - !" Yzma broke out into somewhat forced laughter. "Me! Filling in for his mother! HA! Now there's a laugh. Like I want to waste my time babysitting a petulant child of a sorcerer. Come to think of it, I'm already the only adult in the entire WHAM ARMY."

"I do hope that Mozenrath and the Huntsman don't take time out to magically listen in on us," Xayide commented.

"Trust me, I spent too long raising self-absorbed emperors to want to do THAT anymore," Yzma insisted. "If Mozenrath wants to go swimming in a crocodile-infested river, I'm not going to be the one who drags him out."

Xayide nodded, though she still had her doubts about what Yzma was saying. "So what is your story?"

"My story?" Yzma was caught off guard.

"We heard Mozenrath's story, and the Huntsman's," Xayide reminded her. "What is yours?"

"Mine…?" Yzma shrugged again. "I had a really good childhood. Everything was fine."

"Truly?"

"Well, I mean, I was jealous of the royal family," Yzma admitted. "But I wasn't the palace laughingstock – before Kuzco took over the throne, anyway - nor did I have either of my parents murdered in front of me. I grew up as the daughter of the royal mortician, and when he passed on, they asked me to take over the family business, but I said I'd be of much more use as an advisor to the royal family, and after they let me sit in on a few decisive meetings and listened to my input, they agreed and let me have the position. Which was probably a mistake on their part, but, eh, I'm not going to look a gift llama in the mouth. I used to be able to get pretty much anything I wanted back in my spring chicken days. I was a lot prettier then. Like you are."

Xayide smiled and nodded at the compliment.

"Ah, the hosts of men I used to be able to put under my spell…figuratively, I mean," Yzma went on. "Around here, I realize, you need to clarify that sort of thing. But there was no shortage of attractive men knocking on my door. And a few attractive women, though that had to be kept a little more hush-hush. I would say those were the golden days…but that would imply the golden days aren't still AHEAD of me. And now that I'm traveling with present company, I can be all the more sure they are. So what about you? What's YOUR story?"

Xayide almost laughed. "My story is the least engaging of all, I am afraid. When Bastian, the great storyteller, arrived in this world, he gave stories to most of the people and places he encountered, even granting an origin to Amarganth and explaining its silver shine. But he never gave a story to me. I was simply the witch who lived in the fortress in the midst of the orchids. That is all I ever have been."

"Having a story is overrated anyway," Yzma said with a wave of her hand. "You heard how weepy those two nearly got over theirs."

"Oh, don't get me wrong," Xayide stated. "I completely agree." Her smile grew much more playful then. "I do hope you don't require a story to lull you to sleep."

"Have I not made it clear that among present company, I am the only adult?" Yzma stressed. "Well, now you're here, so I suppose the two of us have to be responsible to make up for the two of them over there."

"Duly noted," Xayide replied, laying down upon her carefully built nest of pillows and blankets.

Yzma lay down to sleep herself, wondering if she should say anything to close the conversation, but ultimately deciding "goodnight" was too childish a sentiment. The light in the tent dimmed at Xayide's command, leaving the pair to begin drifting to sleep.

Xayide's voice cut across the silence and the darkness like a blade: "You needn't worry."

"Hm?"

"I will not sabotage Mozenrath or the Huntsman. I am rather fond of their style, after all."

"Even though them apparently having a makeout session somehow puts your plans for world domination at risk?"

"You are strange folk, all three of you," Xayide said cryptically. "There is more to all of you than meets the eye. I still do not know how, exactly, you came to be in Fantastica. This leads me to believe you have depths and strengths even I cannot foresee. I suspect bad things come from giving your heart away. But perhaps you can overcome it. Perhaps you, being what you are, will be able to avoid the fate Bastian met with."

"And what fate was that?"

"He was only human."

Yzma wanted to ask, but she knew the answer would still make no sense. So she let the silence overcome her and Xayide once more until both drifted into dream.

...

The townsfolk of Cheesebridge gathered in a throng in one of the city circuses, where a wooden stage was set up and festooned with plaques that proclaimed its owner was "Larger than life!" among similar boasts. The crowd grew thicker and thicker, Boxtrolls and humans mixing in the fray, as Eggs, Sora, and Riku tried to weave their way to the front of it.

"So this'll explain everything, huh?" Sora reiterated.

"It's Winnie's favorite story," Eggs told him.

A high-pitched voice sounded from behind the curtains of the stage: "Quiet down out there! The show is about to begin!"

"That's her," Eggs said excitedly.

The crowd eventually fell silent, with a few "Hush"es and disturbances here and there. Once everyone had settled, the curtains were flung aside, and a girl Eggs' age, clad in a lacy white frock and with her orange hair bound up in curls. "Welcome, one and all, to the strange tales of Winnie Portley-Rind!" she cried, flinging out her arms as a host of Boxtrolls, her supporting cast, rushed onto the stage on either side of her. "I must warn you now: these stories are not for the faint of heart, and may not be suitable for children of all ages."

"Isn't SHE a child?" Riku muttered.

"What tale shall I tell today, hm?" Winne asked dramatically, beginning a slow pace across the stage. "Do I have any suggestions from the audience?"

"Tell our story, Winnie!" Eggs yelled enthusiastically.

"Oh, everyone's heard that story," Winnie dismissed. "Unless…you WANT to hear my rendition of the tale of Eggs the Boxboy and his amazing adventures again?"

A loud cheer went up from the audience.

"The tale of Eggs it is!" Winnie decided, clapping her hands together. The Boxtrolls onstage scurred about to get into position for the tale. Once everyone was in place, Winnie cleared her throat loudly. "It all began on one dark and bitterly cold night! The inventor Herbert Trubshaw – who you all know today as Jelly – was hard at work on his latest project. And he was working on it with his son, who was only a small baby."

One of the Boxtrolls had wrapped up a metal canister in a blanket to use as a prop, acting the part of a doting father cradling his child and talking to it sweetly.

"But then…" Winnie stopped to consider. "You know what would make this tale even more fun? A volunteer from the audience to play the ghastly villain of our story. Do I have any volunteers?"

"OOH!" Sora immediately stuck a hand in the air, waving it back and forth. "ME! ME! PICK ME!"

"You wanna play the villain?" Riku laughed.

"It looks like fun!" Sora rebutted.

"Well, aren't we enthusiastic!" Winnie gushed. "Come on up here!"

Sora immediately bolted onto the stage, at which point Winnie handed him a battered red top hat. "Here," she told him. "You're going to need to wear this to look the part."

Something about the hat stirred in Sora's memory, but he wasn't quite sure exactly what it meant. He shrugged and settled it atop his head. "How do I look? Evil?"

"Positively sinister!" Winnie replied, though Sora couldn't have looked less so. "And so, enter our villain, the despicable Archibald Snatcher!"

"That's right!" Sora turned to the audience. "I'm the bad guy!"

"On that fateful night," Winnie continued, "Snatcher came up with an absolutely horrifying plan. You see, he wanted to be one of the White Hats and have all the power to run the town that came with it. In order to do that, he came up with a complicated scheme, and first, it involved kidnapping the son of the best inventor in town: Herbert Trubshaw himself!"

After a moment of awkward silence, Winnie leaned over to Sora, hissing out of the side of her mouth, "Take the baby."

"Oh, right!" Sora rushed toward the Boxtroll actor portraying Jelly, whisking the bundle out of his hands. "Now your son is mine!"

"But the clever Boxtrolls managed to save the baby and bring him to their underground sanctum, where they raised him as their own and gave him the name of 'Eggs,'" Winnie went on.

Three Boxtrolls rushed Sora, who, knowing his part, dropped the bundle on the floor. "Oh, no!" he yelled. "The Boxtrolls took the baby!"

"Which is EXACTLY what he said to my father, Lord Portley-Rind," Winnie narrated as another Boxtroll donned a white top hat and strode toward Sora. "He wanted to blame the Boxtrolls for taking the Trubshaw baby, and he claimed they had cannibalized the child. This was all because…he wanted an excuse to KILL THE BOXTROLLS!"

A gasp went out over the audience, even though they'd seen this before; even though most of the humans, not too long ago, had thought that the death of the Boxtrolls would be a blessing rather than a curse.

"The Boxtrolls have stolen a baby, Lord White Hat!" Sora insisted. "And I don't mean from me! The only thing to do is KILL ALL THE BOXTROLLS!" Then, worrying his performance was getting a bit too convincing, he leaned down to whisper to his co-star, "Not really, though. Just for the play."

The Boxtroll hadn't been worried. He gave an official-looking nod and commanded Sora, in his own language, to deal with the Boxtrolls however he felt best.

"And so, for ten years, while the Boxtrolls brought up Eggs in safety," Winnie continued as a group of Boxtrolls passed the bundle from one to the other and eventually traded it out for another Boxtroll wearing a box that read "EGGS," "Snatcher and his associates kidnapped all of the Boxtrolls one by one, putting them to work building a terrible machine."

All Sora had to do was raise his arms above his head and go "Raaaaargh!" and several more of the Boxtroll actors, putting on their best display of fear, rushed to a pile of spare mechanical parts on the side of the stage and did their best to arrange it in a shape vaguely resembling a doomsday device.

And so the story went on and on. Winnie regaled the audience with how Eggs grew up to venture bravely into the aboveground streets of Cheesebridge, looking for his kidnapped foster parent Fish. She related the thrilling tale of how she and Eggs had nearly been taken hostage by Snatcher and his crew of red-hatted men. The audience laughed as she told them of Eggs' first attempts to blend in at her father's soirée at which he intended to expose Snatcher's scheme, and gasped as she revealed that Snatcher was the true identity of the woman they'd all come to know as Madame Frou Frou, spreading "her" propaganda that Boxtrolls were creatures of pure evil to be slain. All the while, Sora perhaps overacted his part, acting flamboyantly (if not convincingly) menacing. He had a feeling that Winnie had told the part of the final confrontation many times before, but each time had more detail than the last: Snatcher nearly being given his White Hat in exchange for the murder of Eggs, Jelly and the Boxtrolls turning up to save Eggs just in time, Snatcher taking control of the immense device and trying to use it to destroy Cheesebridge's elite to get his hat once and for all, and the way circumstance lined up so that Snatcher's deadly allergy was revealed at the moment of his final bargain for a White Hat.

"And there we were, in the Tasting Room, all of us knowing what was about to happen, poised somewhere between the excitement of waiting for it and the disgust of what was to come," Winnie said dramatically. "He lifted the bite of cheese to his lips and stuck out his swollen, disgusting tongue."

Sora mimed eating a small bite of cheese as daintily as he could, suspecting the real version of events was far less poised.

"And as he swallowed it, we were on the edges of our seats," Winnie continued. "There was a long silence at first. Then, just as he began to try and describe the taste of the cheese…it happened. KABOOM! HE EXPLODED, AND HIS BLOOD AND ORGANS RAINED DOWN FROM THE CEILING!"

Sora figured he might as well give the people a show. He called the Keyblade to hand, whispering, "Fire!" Spinning around, he created the effect of an explosion of flame that burst out several feet from him, then dissipated before anything or anyone could be set afire. The audience, believing this to be some sort of stage illusion, cheered in awe. Sora then slumped down to lie on the floor of the stage, miming death.

"And ever since then, Boxtrolls and humans have lived in harmony in our town!" Winnie proclaimed. "All thanks to Eggs and me! You're welcome!"

As the applause went up, Winnie bowed, absorbing the praise with pride. "Thank you, thank you!" She then hopped offstage and into the crowd, dusting off her frock. Sora rose and followed her, as did their other co-stars.

Once Sora and Winnie were down on the street, Winnie complimented, "You made quite a convincing Snatcher. I KNEW you were the right choice for the part."

"Thanks!" Sora replied with a grin. "But I couldn't have done it without a great storyteller giving me my cues!"

They met up with Eggs and Riku. "So?" Winnie asked. "How was I?"
"Wonderful, as usual!" Eggs proclaimed. Looking back around to Sora and the Boxtrolls who had filled in to play the rest of the cast, he added, "And so were all of you!"

"So that's why humans and Boxtrolls were separated in the beginning," Riku said, half to himself. "Snatcher was playing on your fears to keep you apart."

"I'm afraid it went back further than him," Eggs stated. "He just told everyone what they already thought about Boxtrolls, which wasn't true at all."

"So these are friends of yours?" Winnie broke in.

Eggs nodded. "Winnie, do you remember that conversation we had about…other worlds?"

"I do," Winnie reminded him. "And I remember telling you that I'd believe you when you brought back proof that they existed." Growing more excited, she asked, "Well? Do you have proof?"

"I have them," Eggs replied, gesturing to Sora and Riku.

Winnie gasped, noting Riku's silver hair despite his young age, the way the two youths were dressed. "Well, at the very least, you aren't from this town!" she realized. "I'm Winifred Portley-Rind. You can call me 'Winnie,' of course."

"I'm Sora!" Sora said enthusiastically.

"And I'm Riku," Riku added. Glancing to Sora, he commented, "You can probably take that hat off now."

"Oh, right!" Sora reached up to remove the tattered hat from his head, turning it over in his hands.

"I can't believe it!" Winnie squealed as the crowd dispersed. "People from other worlds! Right here! And I'm MEETING them!"

"Wait a minute…" Sora interrupted. It had hit home. "RED HAT?"

"What's wrong?" Eggs asked.

"I know this hat!" Sora answered. "Well, okay, not THIS hat, but I know the real one! What did Snatcher look like? Do you have a picture?"

"Er…" Eggs was at a loss. "I suppose we could try and draw you one…"

One of the Boxtrolls, bearing a box that named him "Gears," withdrew a pencil and a small sketchpad from within his box, handing them over to Eggs. Eggs did his best to try and recreate his vision of the man who had so very nearly killed him and everyone he loved on the tiny paper.

"Oh, give me that!" Winnie swiped pen and paper away from Eggs. "You're drawing him wrong!" She added a few quick strokes before turning the paper around so Sora could see. It was obviously a drawing made by two children, but it was similar enough that Sora's suspicions were confirmed.

"That's him!" Sora cried. "He's one of the guys we've been fighting!"

"But…you heard Winnie's story," Eggs reminded him. "Mr. Snatcher is dead."

"We've thought that about our enemies before," Riku said solemnly. "Xehanort, Maleficent…"

"All right," Winnie sighed, "I was willing to believe other worlds, but people coming back from the dead is just ridiculous."

"Not as ridiculous as you'd think," Riku replied.

Winnie put both hands on her hips. "Explain."

"It'll take a while," Sora informed her. "And if we're going to tell our story, we'll probably need some volunteers from the audience."

Gears immediately put his hand into the air and waved it; he was joined by several other Boxtrolls who were eager to hear and act out a new tale from beyond Cheesebridge.

"Count me in!" Eggs added.

"Well, then," Winnie commanded, "impress me."

...

There was more than enough room in the Agrabanian palace to set the myriad of guests up with rooms for the night, though some quarters had to be shared. As night fell, sleep overtook almost everyone in the palace. For the most part, the exception was the night guards, who patrolled to make sure no one made a post-sunset assault on the palace and the treasures within.

The other exception lay within the room where Papyrus and Stork had been assigned to share a room. Both had lain down with the intent to sleep, but neither could. Papyrus, to begin with, was used to a certain routine back at his home. Silly as it was, he had become accustomed to Sans telling him a story every night, mostly reading it out of one of his books but sometimes making something up based on what he'd witnessed in his daily routine, before Papyrus could get any sleep at all. He usually drifted off hearing the words. He supposed tonight, he would just have to deal without.

He was then made aware of the sound of his roommate getting up out of bed and making for the door. This made Papyrus incredibly curious. What could Stork possibly be doing at that time of night, and was it any of his business? Perhaps he should just leave it alone.

But he couldn't think of a single reason Stork would have left the room. He didn't know this palace or anywhere else on this world, so where did he have to go? Was Stork all right? Did he have some sort of problem keeping him awake that required the attention of a friend? Maybe Papyrus should have gotten up the moment he heard Stork leave. Either way, he wasn't getting any sleep, so he figured he might as well try and figure out where Stork had gone.

Papyrus crept into the hallway to find that Stork was long out of sight. He wandered the palace, trying to figure out which way his black-haired roommate had gone, before he turned a sharp corner and accidentally knocked over a gold ornament on a pedestal. He quickly caught the statue before it could fall and hit the floor, replacing it on its column, but not without making a lot of noise that woke up one nearby sleeper. As Papyrus settled the statue back in place, he was suddenly aware of Jasmine, hair loose and dressed in sleepwear, stepping out into the hallway. "Papyrus?" she asked. "What are you doing?"

"OH, HELLO, PRINCESS JASMINE!" Papyrus gave a somewhat embarrassed wave. "SORRY FOR WAKING YOU UP. I WAS JUST LOOKING FOR STORK."

"What's wrong with Stork?"

"I DON'T EXACTLY KNOW. I JUST KNOW I WAS TRYING TO FALL ASLEEP, WHICH IS VERY HARD TO DO WITHOUT A BEDTIME STORY, BUT, BEING THE BRAVE AND TALENTED HERO I AM, I WAS ABOUT TO ACCOMPLISH…AND I HEARD HIM GET UP AND OUT OF BED AND LEAVE THE ROOM. I THOUGHT SOMETHING MIGHT BE WRONG, SO I WENT AFTER HIM, BUT I WASN'T FAST ENOUGH, AND NOW I LOST HIM."

"Hmm." Jasmine thought it over. "I'll help you find him. I want be sure he's all right."

"ONWARD!" Papyrus declared. "ON OUR NIGHTTIME QUEST!"

Jasmine, rubbing the last of the sleep out of her eyes, nodded affirmatively.

It took them a while, but Jasmine and Papyrus eventually found Stork on one of the outdoor balconies, leaning on the rail as he surveyed the nighttime city. "Stork?" Jasmine asked softly.

"GAH!" Stork flinched, clutching the rail hard so that he didn't accidentally go bowling over it. He turned on a dime to face his visitors; "Can I HELP you?"

"WE WERE WONDERING WHY YOU WERE OUT OF BED," Papyrus said plainly.

"Papyrus and I were worried something might be wrong," Jasmine added.

"Oh," Stork replied, his heart rate finally slowing down from the startling. "It's nothing. Just my usual insomnia."

"Usual?" Jasmine repeated. "This happens a lot to you?"

"Almost every night," Stork confirmed. "You know that feeling where you're just laying in bed and all of a sudden you start thinking about everything that could possibly go wrong the next day, and then it turns into thinking about all the horrible fates that could befall you that very night if you dare close your eyes?"

Jasmine and Papyrus looked to each other; neither was familiar with that experience.

"…Just me, then," Stork sighed. "I just came out here because the view's better. Don't worry about me. If I fall asleep, it'll probably just be nightmares anyway." His strangely sinister smile crept back up over his face; "Though I have had some pretty good nightmares."

"You shouldn't have to feel that afraid," Jasmine told him. "I just wish there was something we could do to help you sleep better."

Stork shrugged. "It's really not a big deal – "

Jasmine was struck with an idea, recalling what Papyrus had said to her when she'd found him out of bed. "What if I told you a story? Maybe I could make up something that would chase all the nightmares away. Or, if you wanted, I could try to make it match the nightmares."

"You…want to tell me a bedtime story," Stork repeated, deadpan.

"Papyrus wanted one anyway," Jasmine told him, matter-of-fact. "It's your choice if you want to be in the same room or not. I just thought it might be helpful."

After a moment's deliberation, Stork nodded. "Sure. I'll give it a shot."

In a few minutes, Papyrus and Stork were back in their shared room, Jasmine taking her place in the center of the chamber. Papyrus snuggled eagerly against his pillows in anticipation; Stork was unsure of what to expect.

Jasmine was all too happy to think of a story to tell the both of them, and she thought back to the time she had been able to pacify the fickle King Mahmoud's anger fits with her tales. She rather wanted to see if she could outdo herself when it came to tale-telling. "Once upon a time…" she began.

She then launched into a tale of a heroine on a grand adventure, with obstacles inspired by encounters she and Aladdin had faced in life. It was by no means a short story. When she noticed Stork rolling his eyes, yet not being bored enough to actually drift off, Jasmine made the monster the heroine fought scarier, with sharp teeth and monstrous claws. This held Stork's attention better. But when Papyrus began to fret, Jasmine changed the tale yet again, defeating the monster easily in favor of the heroine beginning to sail over a calm blue sea.

There was a soft knock at the door, and Jasmine, Papyrus, and Stork all looked up to see Ruby standing in the chamber entrance. "Sorry," Ruby said softly. "I heard you telling your story from next door – "

"WERE WE KEEPING YOU AWAKE?" Papyrus asked worriedly.

Ruby shook her head. "Well, okay, a little, but I mostly just wanted to say it's really, really good. And I kinda wanna know how it ends."

"I don't even really know how it ends myself," Jasmine admitted. "Do you have any ideas?"

"Not for endings," Ruby admitted. "But it does seem a little weird that the main character is doing everything alone. Doesn't she have any friends that go with her?"

"You're right," Jasmine realized. "She should have friends. Luckily, we were just about to get to the part where she meets one of them. If you want to hear it…"

Ruby immediately rushed to sit cross-legged on the foot of Stork's bed.

Jasmine resumed the tale, but this time, Ruby would interject with ideas of how it should go every now and again, and Jasmine let her come up with longer and longer parts. This inspired Papyrus to make his own additions to the story, largely revolving around a courageous skeleton in a red cape. Stork, unexpectedly, found himself making contributions every now and again, suggesting horrible fates of doom for the heroes to face in hopes that Ruby, Jasmine, and Papyrus would be able to figure out how to find a glimmer of hope and pull the characters out of danger – which they always did.

Then, at last, they reached a point at which every plot thread had been tied up and every monster beaten. "She lay down in her bed, because she was very, very tired," Jasmine finished, "and she got some incredibly well-deserved sleep. And that's the end."

"THAT WAS VERY GOOD," Papyrus complimented. "I THINK I'M FINALLY – " He yawned. " – TIRED."

"Me too," Ruby said wearily. "What about you, Stork – "

Stork's only reply was a loud snore.

"Goodnight, everyone," Jasmine said with a soft laugh.

"Thanks for the story!" Ruby said as she dragged her way off Stork's bed and plodded to her room.

"You're very welcome," Jasmine replied. Feeling quite ready to get some sleep herself, she left the room, beginning the trek down the halls to her and Aladdin's bedchamber.

"PRINCESS!" Razoul came barreling down the corridor toward her. "There you are! Where have you been?"

"Just telling a bedtime story to someone who needed it," Jasmine replied somewhat sleepily, confused as to why Razoul had been so concerned with her location. "And now I think it's time for me to get some sleep of my own."

"Erm, princess…" Razoul informed her, "it's already dawn. Your husband and family were concerned when you were not to be found in your bed."

Jasmine blinked in surprise. "Oh." Then, overcome by just how amusing the situation was, she couldn't help but laugh.