Note: If you type Deep Dream Frog in Youtube you will find the clip that inspired Shiro Mori's current appearance. Warning, body horror. My thanks to R5h and Pipefoxesonthemoon for their help with this chapter. Chapter title excerpted from Never Look Away by Vienna Teng.
"Veevee!" The voice surged closer and what felt like slimy feathers brushed Vivi's leg. "Veevee is okay! What do the doings of Shiro Mori?"
Vivi kept her eyes shut, her stomach still curdled from the brief glimpse she'd gotten. "Vivi is fine," she managed. "What do you mean about doing the doings?"
"What do the doings?" Shiro Mori pleaded. "Is doings bring fish from sea to nets? Is doings good hunt? Bring famine? Inspire art? What does Shiro Mori, please I beg?"
The sobbing in Vivi's mind had faded to little fearful hiccups, but she felt a spark of recognition flashed through Lewis. "You know something helpful here, Lew?" she mumbled.
He didn't trust himself with a voice yet, but pressed to come forward for a peek. She relinquished forward control to him, and he peered between their fingers.
At the base of the rock they sat on huddled a hideous lump of car doors, opening into frog mouths lined with sharp teeth that shut, stretching out feathered squid limbs that brushed her leg, leaving slimy sucker marks behind. A finch broke free from the mass and flew a few feet before vanishing.
"I know what we're looking at!" Lewis blurted.
Vivis' bile rose and Lewis shut their eyes again.
"Is not Veevee." The tentacles recoiled from her leg. "Is flames inside Veevee. Has hurt Veevee?"
"No!" Vivi gulped air. Wouldn't do to retch all over a goddess. "Not hurting Vivi. Gimme a moment. I'm having trouble… figuring out what to say, okay? Can you wait a minute? All the questions are gone and in a huge pile at the same time."
There was no response, so Vivi pulled her knees up to her chest and put her hands flat against the sides of her head. "Okay, Lew. What exactly were we looking at?"
A memory played against her closed eyelids. Arthur, but not as she'd ever seen him. A mass of howling, sharp-toothed mouths biting as Mystery pinned him down. Pools of blood glimmered on the floor, the walls, the ceiling as faces of children peered out from them. "Who am I?" he wailed in a hideous duo-tone. "Who am I?"
"What happens when a shapeshifter forgets who they are?" Lewis' question passed through her lips, scorching them brittle. "It's still a game of names and identity, Vee, same as it ever was."
"Aaaaiiiieeeee!" wept Shiro Mori. "Forgets and forgotten, is the me Shiro Mori if not doing the doings of Shiro Mori?"
"Mystery!" Vivi snapped. "What was Shiro Mori the goddess of?"
Mystery answered flatly. "Kami. Foxes, agriculture, fertility. Loves life. Loves growing things."
"Cannot be!" the stricken goddess moaned. "Cannot feel the growings, cannot joytake in the living's breathing, the plants blooming. Cannot be the me."
"I've told her who she is. She doesn't believe me," Mystery said.
Fix it all. Fix it all. Fix it all in full swing and a broken leg and just as good as a normal person could. Talk the goddess down and reclaim the stupid dog that had given her more preventative care than a boatload of doctors for over half her life. She massaged her temples, biting her lip against the prickling behind her eyelids. Help me, Lew.
And then, a unanimous conclusion. They were exhausted. All of them, pushed to the brink at every level. The thing that Vivi knew intimately and Lewis had often helped her with now became a peace offering, a way to buy time to think.
"Hey, Shiro… can I call you Shiro?"
A low cry was her only answer.
"Listen, I know you're not sure who you are, but Mystery's pretty sure, so we're going to call you that for now. So, Shiro, we're kind of wrecked." Vivi gestured to her leg, eyes still shut. "I fractured this. Chloe's been running for ages. Mystery's exhausted, and you're obviously in bad shape. In fact, did you know I've often been in really bad shape like you are right now?"
"You do forgettings of the Veevee doings?" Shiro murmured.
"Yeah, I've forgotten myself. I'm just lucky enough to be stuck in one form so nobody sees just how bad it is. I'm not doing too well about that right now either, so I want to make you a deal, okay?"
"Deal with maybe-Shiro-Mori. What deal? Is a doings for you?"
"No. I don't need your blessing. What I want is some time. Come with me for a few days. We'll rest. See if we can recover some, all of us. We'll help you as much as we can."
"But the Arthur-findings!"
"Give me a few days," Vivi repeated. "And at the end, I'll take you to Arthur myself."
Chloe stomped a hoof. "Vivi-chan!"
Vivi flapped a hand in her direction. "You heard Ginny. Finding Arthur is fine after she talks to me, whatever that means. I've got a vague hunch about where this is going, but we're all shot to flecks right now and it's hard to do anything right or think straight. Shiro, you think you can spend a few days with us? That way you don't have to search the whole planet for Arthur, or tax Mystery further. You don't want to hurt Mystery…" she paused for a moment. "Right?"
"No, no wanting to hurt child," Shiro crooned, and Vivi risked a peek she rather regretted. A boiling seal-faced slug nuzzled Mystery, enveloping his stony body in an embrace of hummingbird beaks and rat-tails. She quickly shut her eyes again.
"Great. So, listen. I have a friend I'm going to call. His name is Dib, and whatever field-project he's doing isn't nearly as important as this right now."
But this just isn't possible but he's right here and he smells of us and of her I know but time travel doesn't justhappen doesn't just happen? Is that really what you're going to fall back on after all this? Of course nothing just happens, it's planned. Perhaps a trick or a trap somehow I can't see the twins doing that if we are their parents perhaps not but what if they are being used? If they are pawns then it is possible they are being used against us but that still means we protect them, not tear them apart gods above and below I am so tired. How many are we expected to protect?
Your child is in your arms. Warm. Flesh and blood. Holding you. I don't know what to do with this. I don't understand but what is there to understand, obviously we change our minds about kids at some point do we? How even does this work that cannot be the most important thing to understand right now and you are dragging us in circles I have to get this, if I miss even one piece we could lose everything pieces be damned, we have to start acting. Think too long and we'll miss a whole lot more than the little pieces you're so afraid of.
For a single moment between breaths, Artie felt the thin layer of sanity holding them up tremble. Beneath it was a void, vast and dark and all-engulfing.
Circles. Little circles are being drawn on your face. One on the right cheek, one on the left cheek. Right cheek, left cheek. Something brushes the side of your face, gently. Your right hand is pried free and someone else pinches each finger. You think voices are speaking to you, but you are still too focused inward to differentiate sounds. Right now, all you can process is the touch.
If you stare into the face of this situation yourself, begging questions with no answer, we will both be lost. No more, Artie.
But-
It doesn't matter if it makes no sense, do you hear me? It doesn't matter. This is not a time to indulge a mental wrangle that we both know will incapacitate us.
But!
Yes, there are questions. We ask them out loud, here and now, and accept whatever answers we get and accept when we don't get answers and we keep moving. Do you understand? We don't stop here and fall apart. We do not churn endlessly, it goes nowhere, and we have family to consider.
Sit back, Artie. Let me handle this. I will harm no one, you have my word, but it is my turn to carry us.
Something sharp combs gently through your hair, tracing pleasantly all along your scalp. The voices do not sing, and you take this as a patient kindness. You are not just a puppet to be jerked along and back to alertness when your struggle is inconvenient. You are a beloved member of a unit. A family.
You are a husband.
You are a father.
A father.
Arthur Kingsmen.
Arthur drew in a shuddering breath, his eyes focusing.
He sat bolt upright on the floor, legs sticking straight out, his back to the bed. A blanket was draped around his shoulders. Kay sat on the bed above him, one hand stroking the side of his face, the other tracing talons with delicate precision through his hair. Gareth sat on Arthur's knees, holding Arthur's hand and pressing each fingertip between his own. Gareth mouthed words in time with each squeeze. It looked like some kind of chant, the way he bobbed his head as he lipped words.
The stove was cold, the fire long burned out, but light filtered into the cabin from the chinks in the door and the open window frames.
Gareth glanced up and stopped, relief sweeping through his face.
At the same time, the first, most pressing question crystalized between Artie and Arcturus.
"Are we going to die?" Your voice is hoarse, your lips chapped. The words themselves send spikes through your stomach. "Is that why you're here? Because Mother kills us?"
Immediately Arthur winced putting a hand to his face. Stupid to ask that. You never ask time travellers time and method of death, much less your own child. Speaking of which, it was stupid to ask that question with Gareth was staring him down here and now. Of course Arthur would survive a bit longer. Kay wasn't pregnant yet. Unless…
He inhaled a deep breath through his nose.
Subtle. There has been no time or thought to sift out subtle scent changes, but Kay smells different than usual.
Arthur trembled. She was already pregnant. The conception was quite recent. He hated how frightened he was by this. We aren't ready to die, not yet. We were re-learning happiness, why now? Why is every good thing taken from us?
Gareth snapped his fingers several times, drawing Arthur's attention. The earnest concern on his face gave Arthur pause. Gareth brought his hands together to sign, If Ginny did her job, Shiro Mori won't kill you.
Arthur blinked. What could possibly prevent Mother from carrying out her plans?
"What is Ginny doing, Gareth?" Kay asked, quietly. "Is she safe?"
Ginny is stronger than me, and she's not going to talk to Shiro. She's going to get Vivi to talk to Shiro. That's what has to happen.
Arthur screwed up his face in confusion. Vivi? Vivi was going to talk Mother down from murder?
He snagged on another set of words. Ginny is stronger than me.
"How is Ginny stronger than you?" You ask, already trying to guess. "She speaks when you don't, and I have never heard the gift in her tone, so she must not have her mother's…" Your eyes round out and your chest constricts.
Gareth nods once, confirming your next leap. She casts a semi-solid glamour, like you. It can give and take a beating, and she has fire like you, too.
When we raced Mystery to get to Kay, there was a green flash at the corner of our vision. We dared not turn back, but Mystery no longer followed us.
You stare at him, and at the clothes that look like cartoon drawings. "But you also can cast a glamour," you say, confused.
He grimaced. Not nearly as good as her. She can make it look and feel like the real thing. Look. He gestured from Arthur's hand to the sleeve of his shirt. Arthur reached out to touch the material and his fingers passed through. Gareth gave a sheepish grin. I fail all deception rolls on this. It's just so I'm not embarrassed for now. Got a nat20 on speed and agility, though. It's how I followed you here when you were running so fast.
Arthur's mouth hung partway open. His kid knew D&D references. And knew his way around a mechanic shop, even if he did hang back a little more than Ginny did. And they had come all this way, and… "And you don't hate me? Do you ever… Gareth, have I ever once made you fear for your life?"
Gareth swallowed his smile instantly. First time I was ever scared of you was last night, Dad. That was… his fingers stilled, his eyes dropping to his lap.
We do not brutalize our children. We do not harm them. We do not even make them fear us. Your throat tightens as something unspeakably heavy leaves your chest. Kay is right. If they came all this way, it must be because we aren't as terrible as we thought we'd be.
Kay leaves, returning a moment later with a set of clothes. "There are a few extra sets laying around. You should have told me last night. You must be freezing."
Gareth makes a face, holding up the large flannel shirt up against his torso and dropping it. Mom, I'm ten. It'll be like wearing a tent.
"Then wear a tent until we can get you something fitting, would you?"
I don't need it. If I'm cold, I can just go fox. The fur is plenty warm.
Arthur's stomach unclenched as he leaned back against the bed and momentarily released his stranglehold need for answers, laughing at the ridiculous normalcy of Gareth's protest and Kay's scolding. Leaning forward, he clamped his hands on Gareth's shoulders and touched his forehead to his son's.
"Gareth Kingsmen, I know one other kid your age as brave as you and your sister. Do you know what I said to her, right before she had to go through the scariest thing in her life?"
Gareth shakes his head, and you continue, "I told your aunt Dulcie that if I lived long enough to have kids, I hoped they'd be half as brave as her." You squeeze your son's shoulders tight, unable to bring out the rest of your words. For all your fears, they are ready and willing to take on at age ten things you barely survived in your early twenties.
Gareth bites his lip, and a scented warmth beyond belief pours out from him. It is something not even Kay can offer, something Dulcie is not capable of giving you. You gasp as it all rushes to your head. You dimly remember being drunk on anger, once. The anger of Arthur raging against the Shiker was like a sweet wine at first. Learning the taste of Kay's love dulled the recollection, but this sweeps it away entirely. Strength returns to you, body and soul. Artie, what is this? What is this that he offers us?
Arthur's heart cracked and mended all at once as his son looked at him. Love. Admiration. A touch of awe. This child, himself already a hero, looked up to Arthur Kingsmen.
There is nothing we would not do to protect this one, as there is nothing we would not do to protect Kay.
And we trust him. If he says we can safely face Mother, then we will face Mother.
It is difficult to find our voice again. The influx of this new emotion is so strong, it overpowers everything. When we do find it, we ask him, "When will we speak with Mother?"
He hesitates for the first time. I'm not sure. Ginny will come soon, I hope. She'll tell us more.
You tilt your head. "You do not know, or you cannot tell me?"
I don't know. We couldn't be told all the details, only a rough outline of how it had to go. He paused, then started again, Some things we knew because you told us stories, but now I know we were part of those stories. But we didn't know that when you told us. Some things Persephone told us. Some things, Shiro Mori did.
A piece of the puzzle slides into place. Mother, of course, had given them the potion from her own flowers to pass without scent. Mother, at least in their time, aided this venture to prevent herself in our time from unmaking us. A little more fear falls away.
You can hardly wait for Ginny to come.
