If anything could lift him into higher spirits, it was finally being able to relax.
Gilbert's legs were almost completely numb. He couldn't even tell he was gripping anymore, but the terrain had become familiar a few hours ago when it became mysteriously rocky. That signified he was close to Basch's castle, and he'd expertly skirted around it. Now he was ever closer to his own wizard's hideout.
A delighted smirk crossed his face when he saw the tower rising into view amid the enormous trees. He guided the flummoxed mare through the maze of them, as there was no path leading to Piyo Fortress, (why have a path when one can fly?) And when at last he could stand on wobbly legs gazing up at its domineering majesty, he let loose a rasping laugh of victory from his hideous, unawesome human form.
"It is so much easier to fly!" He laughed. "But I have made it! I have made it home, and I intend to rest and forget everything about this horrible body and this play acting for at least a few days!"
On his shoulder, Gilbird chirped like a little henchman. He grinned at it, still with those sharper teeth. Even a spark of red flashed in his violet eyes. It was good to be home.
However, when he opened the doors to the great tower, he was not greeted so kindly. The floor was made of wild fowl, the furniture was covered in finches, the cracks in walls were crowded with doves and pigeons and squabs, and the window sills were filled with wide-eyed owls who turned their heads almost around to see him enter. And of course, seeing that the visitor was not the wizard who cared for them, the birds leapt from their perches and flew right at him, claws and beaks ready for attack.
Gilbert ducked. He held up a hand signalling for them all to cease. "It's me!" He cried in his true voice. "Get off me, birdbrains! Migrate already! You can't remember I'm a shapeshifter!? At least you know to attack a man who looks like this, but I'm not him! Gilbird! Talk some sense into them!"
Gilbird, being the most intelligent thanks to a little dark enchantment, raised its tiny cheeping voice and helped its master to calm the masses. The birds were ushered back outside where they belonged, and Gilbert grumbled as he was finally allowed to enter his own home.
"I need to figure out a way to keep them out. They feel as if they need to guard this place when I'm away. It's not a roost! It's a lair! I am the bird wizard, but the birds can stay outside!"
His mood took a steeper dive when he witnessed the carnage left behind by his feathered companions. Feathers littered every corner of all three floors of the tower, and on those three floors, making it very hard to walk around, was a sticky layer of—
"Scheiße! Look at this mess! I can't believe it!" Gilbert kicked at the wall so hard he stubbed his big toe through the boot. He swore and swore at the mess. Untidiness was not professional in a proper wizarding household, especially if its wizard plotted to become the most fearsome in Volkerburg.
"At least I can get rid of the shit," he sighed, maneuvering through the white stains to his potion shelves. He picked through old chests and drawers until he found some small cubes of what looked like chalk. He ground them with a pestle into a fine magenta powder. He then stood in the center of the room and threw the powder up in the air.
It spread and spread like smoke all around the first floor and up the stairs to the upper floors. When it settled on mess, it erupted into little pink flames which burned away at anything undesirable. After a few minutes of this, Gilbert made sure the windows were fully open so the scent of primroses could dissipate. Now the tower was simply full of feathers, but he could sweep those later.
Instead of continuing to worry, he visited his chicken coop, full of the only birds that really belonged to him as pets. He counted to make sure there were still six hens and one rooster. Gilbert was especially relieved to see a small white hen, affectionately named Henriette, come hobbling out of the coop to peck at his boots. He reached down to pet her fluffy feathers and held out a hand full of seed.
"It's good I left enough out for you. I came home at the right time. I was worried since I usually have Ludwig to guard you at night." He spread a bag of seed over the ground for the chickens and collected eggs from their roosts. Chickens, apart from his little yellow henchman, were his favorite birds. They were docile and loyal and ever so fun to watch totter around.
"Now listen," he told Henriette as she clucked and pecked at the seed in the dirt, "soon there will be another chicken joining you. His name is Roderich, and he will be a very good chicken. Or a very bad one. Either way, he will be a chicken, not a human. I'm going to melt away his human mind and replace it with a simple chicken's. Or should I leave it intact so he understands his fate and suffers? There are so many possibilities. It's a good thing I'm creative.
"Now really, if I bring home a little brunet bantam, I want you to make him feel welcome. Make him know that he is loved as a fluffy fowl, and he was never loved by anyone when he was a murderous man. Make him know that his feathers and fat are a mercy after what he's done to those tortured fairy souls. I could've turned him into a spider to be a little snack for you. Do you understand, mein kleines Vögelchen?"
Henriette clucked in what Gilbert's creative mind took to be affirmation, though she had no idea what he was talking about.
"Good," he smiled. He then popped the eggs in his mouth to relieve the aching hunger from traveling all day. He smirked with slimy white dribbling down his chin. Ludwig had learned to look the other way when his brother did such things. Gilbert assured him he really was as hungry as he professed, and it wasn't as if he complained if the eggs were raw. Everything tasted better when he was hungry.
He couldn't ease the torture that was being Edelstein, but at least he could make himself comfortable. From the coop, Gilbert went to the little shed that was his bathhouse. He slipped off his coat and shirt and heaved logs that were dry enough under the stove. This was enough to break him into a sweat. Usually his brother did such things.
But Gilbert persisted in stoking a fire under the stove to warm small tubs of water before straining his stringy muscles to dump them into the tub. There was a certain legend about how the wizard Frederick, Gilbert's predecessor, had stolen the frog-footed, porcelain tub from a wealthy family and brought it to the fortress as a trophy, but he'd long forgotten exactly how it went, and Gilbert only frowned when wondering what had happened to Fritz. One night the old changeling simply vanished. The young Gilbert could only assume he was murdered by humans.
With the water warm and inviting, Gilbert slipped off the rest of his clothes and climbed into the tub's embrace. Magical stones glittered on the ceiling to bathe the bathhouse in a multitude of colors. The wooden walls were Darkland cedar and gave off a savory aroma with the steam. He reached over and grabbed a bottle of potion that created luminous pink bubbles in the bath. They worked to flood the water in a vibrant pink that obscured what he didn't want to see.
"Ahhh, not indoor plumbing with a slice of cake at hand, but who doesn't love a rustic feel on his old bones?" He remarked as he slid his shoulders down into the suds. His tired muscles rejoiced in the warmth. He could feel the grease and muck washing away from his hair and skin. Even an ugly and useless body felt better when clean. Gilbert slipped just a bit deeper so his toes peeked out at the other end of the tub.
He pursed his lips, and his throat clenched. He breathed out the throaty, purring coo of a dove. It echoed in the space around him and melded with the lapping water to make him feel truly safe and at home. For at least this moment, he needn't worry about his vengeful crusades or the mercenaries or the unknown fate of Fritz. He could even forget that he wore the guise of his nemesis. He was simply Gilbert. In a tub. In the woods. With pink bubbles. And oh, he was so warm and relaxed!
He cooed for a while as the comfort moved him, and later on, when the water had cooled off, he climbed out and pulled the plug to let it drain into a hole beneath the bathhouse. It was then when he became at least a little anxious. Before he put on his black and blue robe, he looked once again at the red shadows of flame painting his pale abdomen. Stretch marks striped the edges where he'd swollen into a "healthy" human form. It was a scar that wouldn't shift with him. A reminder of the horrors he'd experienced throughout his life, which in human terms was short.
But he couldn't let this little glance down ruin his chance of relaxing. Gilbert stepped out into the cold air under the stars and trudged back to the tower. Somewhere, Ludwig was over seven feet tall and covered head to tail in fluffy light brown fur. Doggie. It pained and amused him at the same time.
When Gilbert reached the second floor, where his bed was, he continued up the spiral staircase to the third, where his brother slept. It was a lofty area with many bookshelves and a writing desk. Here and there were little trinkets and objects Ludwig found in town or out in the woods. Mostly "useful" things, but Ludwig also had an interesting fascination with uniquely-shaped sticks. One wall had once boasted a full-length antique musket before Gilbert chastised his brother for owning something even partially made of iron, much less a pointy bayonet.
He looked at the newest painting hanging just above the fireplace of Ludwig. It was done two years ago — Lud would've been but seventeen. He was smiling proudly and holding the rooster in his lap. Gilbert adored that rare smirk of his brother's. He'd inherited it from the one who raised him. Ludwig knew the rooster in his lap was his brother. That was why it sat still long enough for the painter to properly describe in color.
All at once, Gilbert felt that chronic pang of loneliness that always welled up when his brother was away. Perhaps a few days was too much solitude. He had to be responsible. Ludwig was in trouble, and just because one of the mercenaries was a changeling didn't make him his friend.
So Gilbert climbed under the covers of his own bed clean and fresh and immediately fell into a deep sleep.
"Gilbird," he whined groggily. He looked up to see any sign of the yellow menace trying to claw him awake, but nothing showed itself. Instead, Gilbert felt something come to rest on his chest. He poked it and found it to be a curiously folded letter.
"Probably from Lud," he yawned as he slipped out of bed. He trudged over to the window where the stars were still sparkling above and unfolded the message. Gilbert was instantly confused. This outrageous scrawl was not the neat and tiny letters of his brother's hand. He squinted to even make out the Dear Gilbert written at the top.
Gilbert forced himself awake to read this curious message. He mumbled as he scanned. "Alfred… mission… mercenaries… dark wizard… dog-man… Feliciano… spell on his mind… come meet us…"
In fact, Gilbert most certainly wasn't awake after reading the letter because he fetched a candle to read it a second time, and then a third and a fourth, and only then was he aware enough of the world to drop the letter in fright as his heart froze over.
"This isn't true. No. It can't be. He's not the one that wrote this. I know it. But… it sounds so like him. No, no, no, he can't be. He can't be!"
And Gilbert began frantically pacing around the room sputtering out more incomprehensible phrases like this until the owls hooting outside ceased in favor of listening to the wizard's late-night plotting.
He looked at the letter again, regarding it as a wicked thing. An evil spirit's trick perhaps. Or could it be debris blown in from another world? Addressed to a different Gilbert? Or was this a dream? No, he had read it four times over. The words would've shifted and the message skewed.
"It can't be… him."
"You disappoint me. Do you even know what you are?"
"I'm a… changeling," the latter replied with uncertainty in his voice.
"You don't even know what that word means."
"I'm a fairy," he insisted, "but I'm an evil one. People don't like me." Now sadness clung to his words, and he stared at the floor.
They were lying in the loft of an empty and dilapidated barn, the place where the boy called home. The old straw made a decent bedding, though it was scratchy over Gilbert's sensitive skin, and he needed to spread out his robe like a blanket to lie on. The boy didn't seem to mind. The straw made imprints on his back when he sat up, and the most he noticed them was when he reached back to scratch at the deeper marks.
In his true form, he had looked miserable. Scrawny even for a changeling with skin stretched so tightly around his fragile frame that his hands looked like chicken claws and his bulging blue eyes were the only signs of life about him. The star-shaped birthmark on the bridge of his nose only made him look more pathetic. One superstitious enough would call it a special mark. A mark of fate. Gilbert saw it as nature's rude trick. This kid was fated to die in the woods where the shadows had shaped him. He'd admitted he was abandoned.
However, he looked much better now. Gilbert calmed the roiling demons of his own past and respected that this kid had cheated Death. He was seven, though in human years, perhaps fifteen. A healthy build, but not too muscular, and with hair turned gold from the agonizingly hot sun of this strange land's summer. His eyes were still deep and spirited to Gilbert. Pools of wonder that quivered in the presence of hope.
"Am I s'posed to be a monster like the fairies said?" The boy interrupted his thoughts. The question was so sincere it hurt him. It was pure and silly nonsense, as if the boy needed instructions on how to breathe, but he asked with a genuine ignorance.
"There are many monsters in this world," Gilbert replied. "I'm even a monster. But that's because I have chosen to be one. If you think you're a monster, then be a monster."
"But I don't understand what I'm s'posed to do. To be a changeling, I mean."
"Well, you do what you have to if you want to survive. You eat, and you find someone to love you, and you have to lie to do these things, but that's why you were born with the power to transform."
"But I did transform to do those things, and everyone hated me when they found out. My brother… he was so angry. You don't know how my brother looked at me when he saw me transform. There was this fear in his eyes. An' this sadness. An' I'm not sure if I'm s'posed to lie if—"
"Kid!" Gilbert shrieked. "I'm going to ask you a very serious question. Do you want to die?"
"No. But I don't wanna kill anyone either."
"You don't have to kill anyone! Why would you say that!? Mein Gott, Kind! Listen to me, now! Every being in this world has a purpose. A niche in the fabric of nature. Humans are dumb animals who grow up and have children and die. Call them the control group of Earth's grand experiment. Fairies of light are clever creatures who possess magic and can change the world around them. They're the traitors who left the woods long ago to become modern like humans.
"Then there are demons — evil, horned creatures that skulk over the earth acting selfish and destructive. Next to them are spirits and half-spirits who live among the living unseen. Then there are beings that look like humans but aren't. Homoalces and Homoequus and those types of things.
"And you and I — we are the fairies of darkness. Changelings. Shadowborns. The Fairer Folk. In my country, die Schmetterdämonen. I know. A mouthful. Our niche is that we don't have one. We are intelligent creatures who are meant to take the forms of others and fill out those purposes. We steal away the poor creatures and take their place. Does that make sense?"
"So I really have to steal someone away and pretend to be him?"
"It's traditional, but no, you don't have to. I never did. I simply wear my robe, and people think I'm human. That's how I steal away someone's purpose. True, I feel sick much more often, but I prefer being a fairy."
"Were you abandoned as a baby, too?"
"I was found and mentored for a while, then kicked out to live on my own. But I'm smart like you are. I figured things out over time. Our kind has stolen people for centuries, and the mistrust is carved so deep into the hearts of men that we must be smart to live among them."
"Because they hate us?"
He sighed. "You can say they hate us, or you can say they're afraid of us. Being a fearsome creature is something to be proud of. The other creatures think highly enough of you to admit they're powerless against you."
"I don't want people to be afraid of me."
"Then use your powers and show them someone they won't be afraid of. Someone like that human you just became earlier today. Be him. Or someone else. You have something inside you that other beings find hard to come by. It's called freedom. You can choose to be anything in the world whether evil or good."
"But what if people find out I'm not really what I say I am?"
"Then change and find different people."
The boy rolled over and groaned. His nose wrinkled. He wiped away the beginnings of tears, and his voice caught in his throat. It was different for him, Gilbert realized. He'd had a family, and he'd experienced love and care before brutal reality had been thrust upon him. True, he'd had the knack to hide himself, but it was always easy to forget that one was a fairy of darkness. One small slip, and the string of a relationship could be cut with very sharp scissors.
"Are you afraid?" He asked, softening his tone. He needn't speak so harshly to the boy. He was shaken. Gilbert was reminded of Ludwig the night he'd been cursed.
"Yeah. I'm really afraid."
"I was, too, when I was young. I was afraid of dying. But I realized I was gifted with the very tools to evade a cruel fate. I had magic, wit, and awesomeness."
"But I was still thrown out of Dinsmoor. I miss my brother so much. I'd give anything to hug him again. He always smelled like maple syrup."
"Let me tell you something. Your brother is not worth it. They're all not worth it. You didn't even take one of their children, did you?"
"No."
"Then they're damn fools, and they should be ashamed. They should shudder in their sleep with shame and the fear of what you may become. Now, it must hurt you, but with the lot of fate you've drawn, you never know how long you'll stick around, so you have to move on and make something of your life. I helped you with the first step today. Now humans won't see what you are, and you have clothes."
"Can you help me more?"
"What else do you need?"
"Teach me to be a fairy of darkness. Teach me to use magic and be awesome. Can't you show me how you did it? You're pretty old, right?" His eyes filled with a tiny shimmering confidence budding from the wake of his tears.
With the look this kid was giving him, Gilbert just couldn't bring himself to say no. He was adorable, and as Fritz had once said, a changeling should always help his brethren in need.
"You're cute, kid. Trust me, though, I'm not as old as I look. In human years, I'm still a spry youth. I'll teach you what I know. Some little tricks to help you navigate until you find where you feel you belong. But in return, you need to help me find a flower called the Slipper of Selene. It grows around here, doesn't it? Northern Scintillatia?"
"The Slipper of Selene? I've never heard of it, but hey, we're in the northernmost state of Scintillatia!"
"Is that why it's so damn hot?"
"I just came south from the Northern Wilds, but I think, yeah. It's summer."
"I hate to think what winter is like."
"I got here in the middle of winter. It snows in March, and it's freezing. I lived in a basement for a while. There was a furnace down there to keep me warm."
"This place sounds like hell."
"Well, the 'Iron Range' is scary, but we're south of that, so we're safe. An' we got pretty lakes! There've gotta be like, ten thousan' of 'em! I can't swim very well, but when I was a Homoalces, I could really swim."
Gilbert laughed. "See? Life is wonderful, and your magic is nothing to be ashamed of. My favorite form to take is a huge black eagle with red eyes."
"An eagle!? Wow! I love being an eagle, too! Except a bald eagle! They're everywhere around here. I'llafta show you one! And I'llafta show you the lakes!"
"In the morning, then, I will teach you to be awesome. I will teach you to be a fairy of darkness."
"Thanks. Y'know, you're not a monster, Gilbert."
"Oh, but I am. From now on, you will call me Herr Schmetterdämon."
Gilbert proved his wickedness in the days that followed. The boy, who was called Alfred, had attained a basic awareness of the wild world and how to survive in the wilderness, but when faced with real people, he instantly retreated into a state of caution and ignorance.
"That boy in the stable. I want you to use that charm on him."
"But what if I can't do it? Plus, he has those things."
"They're called scissors. They scare you because they're made of iron. Iron. That scary magic metal that burns you. Your mind will play tricks, but iron is completely harmless unless you touch it with your bare skin. Now go. If you need to swap with someone, this charm is excellent for getting him out of the way."
Then Gilbert watched as the boy reluctantly sauntered over to the stable boy, (who was taller than him,) attempted to use the charm, and was given a look of pure confusion. He tried again and again, and when the boy pulled out his scissors to see if that was the matter, Alfred shrieked and cowered, prompting the boy to whack him on the shoulder with the blades and kick him out of the stable. He fled back to Gilbert whimpering and clutching the burn.
"You have to be quick about it!" Gilbert scolded.
"I don't know how to use the charm!"
"It's so simple! You just will your power into the other person and say 'sleep!'"
"How the heck do I 'will my power!?'"
They did it again, this time on a nearby farm. Alfred was tasked with charming a young child into sleep. ("So simple. We do it all the time!") Alfred's flaw was that he stiffened in anxiety when he walked over to the little girl petting her horse. Then the horse bent down to munch on its oats, and the dust from the oats forced him into a violent sneezing fit. The little girl, of course, was surprised to see a stranger appearing next to her and acting so weirdly, so she called for her older sister, and more burns and bruises were added.
"Pathetic!" Gilbert chastised again. "You'll never fit in at this rate!"
"Do I need to know this charm?"
"It's not even about knowing the charm. It's about being ready for any situation. Humans will be wary of your idiosyncrasies. Fairies even moreso."
"But Herr Cheddar-demon!"
"Schmetterdämon!"
"You're mean!"
"You're ugly!"
Furious at this insult, Alfred tried again and again to use the charm. Again and again he was burned and bruised and chastised until he thought Gilbert quite wicked indeed for forcing him into these torturous situations.
In Gilbert's eyes, he made little progress. His mind was functioning properly in that he picked up the behaviors of the humans around him, but he still couldn't look natural enough to appear inconspicuous. His odd behaviors burst out when he felt uncomfortable, (the habit of twittering especially,) forcing the humans to see that he was not one of their own. That and even teaching Alfred simple charms was difficult when he could barely understand how his magic worked. His energy had become idle in the six years he'd spent as a Homoalces. It was rusty, and it had never been used for anything except his instinctive transforming.
"You show me again," Alfred insisted one afternoon. His face was covered in dirt from tripping and falling after running away from a man wielding a fire poker. "Show me how to do the charm again."
Even after Gilbert showed him again, he couldn't understand.
Yet Gilbert had a clever mind as well, and he soon picked up patterns in the boy's behavior. In the attempts when he'd been almost successful, food was involved. The boy had a voracious appetite to sustain such incredible energy within. He loved meat and sweet things, even successfully managing to steal rhubarb pastries from a certain bakery several times in his new human form.
Gilbert turned that appetite into a challenge. "Steal something from that bakery. But this time, you have to use your lies and your magic. Think of it this way. If you can use your force of will to charm that baker woman into sleep, you can have as many treats as you want."
"I'll do it!" Alfred exclaimed, stars erupting in his deep blue eyes.
Gilbert pulled up his hood and watched the boy enter the little shop. The baker woman, who had learned not to trust this troublesome teenager around her goods, put on a stern expression when she saw him. She grabbed her broom and was about to shoo him out when he put on yet another act. Surely it was another story about how he was poor, for he pulled out his pockets and frowned with his round little face in such a way as to be endearing to anyone.
Still, she didn't buy it this time, so he increased his intensity. Alfred began coughing. He clutched at his throat. His knees wobbled and buckled beneath him. His body shuddered in the feigned attack. His eyes became wet and his balance off. Gilbert quietly praised him. That quick thinking was perfect for a changeling in a bind.
Concerned, the baker bent down to help him up, and it was then, for the first time, that Alfred thrust his hand to her forehead, uttered a simple word, and was faced with the woman asleep in his arms. He raised his eyebrows, absolutely dumbstruck. He looked to Gilbert for affirmation of reality, but Gilbert was well-hidden in a bush with leaves sticking to his greasy white hair. He only returned Alfred's confusion with an almost-sinister smirk.
He did end up helping the boy to revive her before taking him by the hand and leading him out and back to the barn. Alfred's cheeks and pockets were stuffed with stolen goodies made with rhubarb and blueberries and apples.
"See? Was that really so hard?"
"No!" He returned with a victorious grin. "It was really easy just like you said! I just imagined I was going to make her sleep, and I felt something really hot shifting in my chest, and it flowed to my palm, and I thought about the treats, and… I did magic, Gilbert!"
"Magic, yes, but little magic. That is the first charm you must learn in order to not make a fool of yourself when swapping. If, of course, you find yourself needing to swap. And now that you understand how it works, you have to train yourself to use it in the most difficult of situations. You must be ready in the blink of an eye. It will become your reflex."
"So if someone has scissors, I just put 'im to sleep?"
"Exactly. It's saved my life more than once. But we can begin in on that tomorrow. Enjoy your sweet treats for now."
Alfred soon enjoyed his treats more often because once he had mastered that charm, Gilbert taught him others. He gained a knack for the natural flow of his magic, and the more he understood it, the faster he could learn. Fairy charms were first, and then Gilbert taught him a few mind-meddling spells for assisting his fabrications if needed. These were a bit more difficult to teach since Gilbert discovered the boy was not gifted with music as he was.
Alfred came to know many non-magical skills as well, such as fine-tuning his transformed senses and quickening his improvisational abilities. He learned to stifle his anxiety around people and act so fluidly that he could appear to have never been a changeling at all. People were pawns, Gilbert instructed, and not predators. If they didn't suspect anything, they were simply harmless underlings.
He learned how to embrace his niche, too. Gilbert taught him about signs and symbols to use when speaking. Sunny weather meant it was safe to talk about what he was. Stormy weather was dangerous. A fellow's eyes were deep and wise. Cream was the (second) most delicious thing in the world. If something smelled bad, it was probably poisonous.
But all this was still not without difficulty. Alfred never gained any burns so bad as to be unchangeable scars, but he was burned and beaten often, especially once the towns they visited gained an awareness of his presence. Gilbert took the boy under his wing and built up a sense of discipline. He took a fragile shell and molded a strong persistence and hardened diligence within. He took Alfred's stubbornness and made him ever more stubborn. He took his will and turned it to steel.
"Life is difficult for us. I never said it's always wonderful. If you want it to be wonderful, you have to learn to be fearsome and not fearful. They hurt you because they're afraid of you. Know that and own that as a badge of honor. Then you will learn to defend yourself."
"Right. Don't be scared."
The message became the boy's aspiration, for he was scared, and Gilbert was sure Alfred would always be a little scared when scissors and nails were in his line of sight. Even Gilbert was afraid of those things, and people who wielded them made him irrationally nervous.
But he couldn't see into the boy's future. He couldn't know what Alfred would make of his new skills and mindset. Perhaps he would find a family to settle into after all, as that was what he was used to. Or perhaps he would be forever a drifter who only mooched off people from time to time. Or perhaps he would even create a new identity for himself as Gilbert had to strike fear into the hearts of men before they could even judge him.
He worried for the boy's future as he did for all dark creatures at risk of others' cruelty. But he was confident as well. Maybe that little bluish star on Alfred's nose was some kind of mark of fate, though Gilbert didn't believe in such things.
It was the night before Gilbert left with the Slipper of Selene ready to make the long journey home when Alfred turned to him in the barn loft and smiled like he'd never seen him smile before. The rounded face of his human form had grown handsome over the summer in a dorky sort of way. His eyes had brightened into a galaxy of stardust. No longer was this child wasting away with fear and sorrow tearing him apart. Now he was filled to the brim with optimism. His very being surged with it. His confidence burned with conviction when he spoke.
"Herr Cheddar-demon?"
He groaned. "Just call me Gilbert."
"Gilbert, I know what I'm going to do with my freedom."
"And what is that?"
"It may not be today, and it may not be for a while, but I'm gonna make someone not afraid of me. An' you know how I'm gonna do that?"
Gilbert raised his eyebrows at the little ball of energy he'd created.
"I'm gonna save someone. I'm gonna be a hero, and the person I save is gonna know what I am. That's how I'll prove myself to the world. It's a dream, and a pipe dream at that, but who knows? Maybe one day, I'll be completely fearless. If I keep believing in myself, I can be a hero. Yeah. A hero. A changeling hero. I like the sound of that."
"Changeling hero," Gilbert scoffed. "Shoot for the stars, kid."
He'd scoffed. He'd scoffed. Gilbert, with heart pounding, picked up the letter and read it again. This was definitely not good.
"He really thinks of himself as a hero, doesn't he? He wasn't kidding! But why? Why? Why is he the changeling mercenary Ludwig talked about? And he just had to have the brilliant idea of dragging 'my old mentor, Gilbert' into this! I mean, I'm flattered that he would think of me. But what am I supposed to do? Of course I know who put that spell on Feliciano. Me! And of course I know what it's making Feliciano think. He agreed to give Ludwig his inheritance and have no qualms about it! But what am I supposed to tell Alfred when he sees me? I was going to call off his entire mission!
"But if I appear as Edelstein and call off his mission, he won't relent. No, he has no use for a reward, and he won't care if the mission is off. He'll want to know who put that spell on Feliciano and see it through to the end. He's stubborn like that. I made him stubborn and persistent like that! He'll just brush off Edelstein and wait for Gilbert to come around, and if I don't, he'll come to Volkerburg looking for me and get himself killed! And it's not like I can help him like he wants me to! I really am a dark wizard! I need to steal that amulet, and I can't take that spell off Feli until he's found it!
"And why did you have to kidnap him, Alfred? Oh, Lud, I'm so sorry wherever you are. I'm so sorry I haven't told you. Perhaps if you knew about Alfred… oh, that wouldn't make any difference. Then Alfred would just be angry at me, and if he finds out… Who am I kidding. He was seven when I found him. What is he, four, five, thirteen now? He'll be so much smarter. Of course he'll find out about me. Of course he'll think I really am a monster, but I warned him, didn't I? I warned him about this! I told him people are pawns! Oh, what am I supposed to do!?"
For the rest of the night, he didn't sleep. Instead, he paced around and rambled on and on while memories of the little changeling boy plagued him like bugs flying around his head. Birds gathered on the windowsill to watch the wizard's madness. Gilbird tried to comfort him, but he shooed it away. Gilbert couldn't even relax in Piyo Fortress without remembering Piyo Fortress was a symbol of his identity as the dark wizard Gilbert — an identity Alfred didn't know he had.
When the sun rose, Gilbert couldn't take it anymore. His reunion with Alfred was inevitable. After all, Feliciano was with him, and Feliciano was the one he needed for his plans.
"I'll have to hold him off somehow. Maybe if Ludwig was there with me, we could steal Feli back and usher him and Ludwig on to Allegria. But how when the mercenaries will be there? I'll still need to be Edelstein if I'm going to win Feli's trust. And calling off the mission still isn't out of the question unless Alfred's fellow mercenaries are just as adamant as he is about saving Feliciano. They probably will be what with what Edelstein's mission has put them through."
Conflicted in his thoughts, he once again packed up with his flute handy, left out enough seed for the chickens to gorge themselves for weeks if needed, and mounted the great black mare. While he rode, he hastily wrote a letter to Ludwig telling him that he would explain everything if he would just come to Lafée.
With no plan yet in mind, he wasn't ready to reply to Alfred's letter. The young changeling would just have to trust that his old mentor had heard his prayers, though he didn't intend to answer them as he wished.
"I should've told him to stay on the ground."
