Chapter 109, everybody! So I never did find that chunk that I swore I wrote so…it always bugs me when I have to rewrite something, but I'll be having to rewrite more of this anyway so…bear with me. :\
On the positive side, last update of 2020! It's finally over *sob*
Movie this week is…I legit don't think I watched anything last week. :O We did watch the first three episodes of Sleepy Hollow tonight, though—Dad got the series for Christmas. :D
Angiembabe, thanks for the review! Good question…ooh, that's a concept, kind of like Noah's virtual world….Maybe!? Finally it's about time those two did something properly romantic! XD
FluffyIdiotIsI, thanks for the review! Welcome back! :D Yeah, sorry, got blindsided by other stories that ambushed me and dragged me off, but we're finally getting some juice going again on this one, so good things. :D Oh goodness as of this chapter we're like 530+ pages in so I wish you all the best in rereading this. XD
References:
Yu-Gi-Oh! © 1996 Kazuki Takahashi
The Nightmare Before Christmas © 1993 Tim Burton
Dharma and Greg © 1997 Dottie Dartland & Chuck Lorre (Greg and his side of the Montgau family)
Criminal Minds © 2005 Jeff Davis (the other side of the Montgau family)
Skulduggery Pleasant © 2007 Derek Landy (the concept of Head Mages, Serpine, Crux, Marr…)
Lackadaisy Cats © 2006 Tracy J. Butler (the cat-people)
Don't Starve © 2013 Klei Entertainment (the ink-hounds look like the hounds in the game)
How To Train Your Dragon © 2010 Dreamworks
Malice © 2009 Chris Wooding
Godzilla © 1998 Roland Emmerich ("You know that feeling I get when something bad is about to happen?")
Original characters, + setting © Kineil D. Wicks (myself, not the girl in the story)
Once the kids were safely locked in bed, Yami moved on to the next important thing.
That was, getting everyone together and working on the means to get back home—even if some people were being recalcitrant.
"No," Tall Jake said flatly, sitting at a desk and glaring at him.
"And why not?" Yami asked, holding up the pertinent paperwork. "You just follow the pattern."
"And that is offensive to me, firstly—secondly, I'm not versed in runes. It could end badly."
"Like messily splattered across several dimensions badly?" Kineil—who had been enlisted in recruiting her semi-friend—asked.
"For starters. Mostly I just don't want to."
"I'm not staying here because you're feeling unfriendly, Jake."
"Fine, we'll stick with I'm not qualified. Happy?"
"Immensely."
"Well, technically, I'd much rather have China here working with us on the runework," Yami explained, wrenching them back on track. "Unfortunately, she appears to be one of the ones sent on to her permanent reward. But! An artist would do just as fine, wouldn't you agree?"
"I think you just want me out of the way because you think I'd kill the children," Tall Jake said.
"Well yes, that too. You're not a nice person, you know."
"I am aware, yes."
"Are you going to tell him how your mosaics nearly killed those kids?" Kineil asked.
"No."
"Yes while we're on that subject I have a problem with those," Yami said sternly. "And seeing as how there's people here now who would actually die from an encounter with those things, I'm going to have to insist you dispel them."
"Like a quick death wouldn't be better than prolonging the inevitable," Jake muttered, looking the designs over.
"Yes, a quick death would be bad. We're not doing that." Tap the blueprints. "Besides, all of us working together, around the clock—they shouldn't be here that long."
"You do know the kids didn't eat, correct?" Mitzi asked.
"Rocky trashing half the meal didn't help," Kineil pointed out.
"No, it didn't, but I caught the one nephew shaking his head at the rest. I think they figured out where the food must be coming from."
"Told you you needed something gray and bland," Kineil said to Yami. "They'd buy gruel over a turkey dinner."
"Excuse me for living," Yami sniffed—winced at his wording when everyone paused to glare at him. "Sorry."
"You should be," Jake said.
"You should," Kineil agreed. "So even with all of us working together around the clock, those kids are going to starve to death before we finish."
"Which means two things," Yami said. "One, we all work ourselves—and I'll say it before Skul does, to the bone—and two…I suppose force-feeding is out."
"Yes," Mitzi said. "Food, drink, they know it can't be coming from here which means it's coming from one of us. I'm willing to bet your nephews at least knows what comes of eating magic."
Muddied and morphed magic, a real threat of overflowing their own reserves, worst-case old-wives'-tales suggesting that it triggered Chaos sickness—a condition where people exhibited signs of turning but never did, oftentimes dying as a result. It had been a major problem according to the surviving documentation from the beginning of the Age of Chaos, with very few people managing to live though it and live fairly normal lives, albeit with a high chance of infecting others with Chaos. Mostly the results were either death or Chaos.
The documentations suggested there wasn't much difference, but then again, it was at the beginning of the age and most people figured turning into something monstrous was akin to death.
But back to brass tacks.
"Not eating, not drinking—they won't last a week," Mitzi pressed.
"So you want to hold them down while I stuff a biscuit in their mouths, or should you have the honors?" Kineil asked. "Because looking at this, there's no way we can get it done in a week."
"I say we stop dithering about it and do it," Yami said. "Some of us will have to be spared to keep an eye on the kids and keep them out of trouble—we'll rotate—but I want everyone on this who can work on it."
"You know how I feel about working with other people," Tall Jake said testily.
"And yet somehow, I'm sure you'll find it in you to get over yourself."
"Marvelous," Mitzi sighed. "Let's get started."
*\*/*
For the record, Tall Jake hated visitors.
For the record, Kineil did not care. She had faced down much worse than a malcontented artist who refused to leave his house, had trekked across a desert to earn her Hawk's Eyes, someone of Yami's build didn't bother her in the slightest.
Even though she had seen what he could do with that ink of his.
That one was a puzzler, since he seemed to produce an endless supply and it never made sense to her why he would conduit his magic into ink first and then go from there, but she had learned not to ask. Mostly because he got exceptionally snarly when she did.
And that one time she had to outrun ink-made hounds had been kinda terrifying—but don't tell him that.
But she had definitely learned what she could get away with with him—hence why she had launched into his windowsill and was laying in it as best she could.
"Guess who's come to grace your drab day," she declared, posing.
"Do I have to answer?" Jake groaned.
"Probably not. Hi Shard."
The noodle-y red dragon made something between a cheep and a warble at her, went back to grooming its winding loops.
"You know he looks bigger," Kineil observed, pointing at the little dragon.
"I noticed," Jake said, sounding aggrieved as he jabbed his brush at his paints. "I'm not looking forward to increased grocery bills."
"I'm sure. But on the positive side, you could ride him like the Vikings do their dragons. Be all impressive, swoop down on your enemies, all that bunk."
"You didn't come here to chit-chat."
"Surprisingly enough, I did. What's the rumpus?"
Jake finally graced her with an exhausted glare. "I never leave my house unless I have to. What makes you think I have news?"
"Does the paperboy not deliver this far out?"
"Not anymore. Fortunately."
She debated on telling him about her foreseen death, decided against it—didn't want to give him false hope.
"I have a question," she decided instead, swinging around so she was sitting in the sill with her hands on her knees and her feet on the desk below. "Say someone you know had a portent, but you know they're not sharing it all. And the way they act, you know there's more. What then?"
"I'm having a portent right now, actually."
"Throwing me out the window isn't a portent, it's a want."
Jake rubbed at his eyes. "Why are you asking me?"
"Because I felt like sharing my headache," she told him. "Are you telling me I should have asked Malachi instead? He puts less stock in divination than you do."
"I'm telling you you should ask anyone else."
"Search your heart: deep down, you know you like having me around."
"Like being stung by a hornet every time you visit."
"Oh hush I'm good for your ego." Got ready to turn and slip out of the window—
Couldn't bring herself to do it. Had to sit there, staring across the little lawn and through the woods, flexing her hands as she mulled over her thoughts.
You're in an orchard and you get shot in the back.
"You being quiet is actually an improvement," Jake muttered.
"It's just—" Cut herself off. "I'm getting one of those bad feelings—you know the ones I get, where something bad is going to happen?"
Jake grimaced at that. "Have them somewhere else then—I like this house."
"No you don't you're too tall for it and it's one room."
"I still like it."
Sigh, rub at her head. "I can't put my finger on it—it's like a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach and I can't get rid of it."
Jake was looking at her now. "I'm going to regret asking, but what happened?"
Tell, don't tell, tell, don't tell…oh what the heck, like Jake was the one who shot her—
Although the man with the badge could have been made of ink….
"Well?" he prompted.
Don't share that part, just go with broad strokes. "Teana dreamt of my death."
"So?" he asked. "I dream about killing you all the time. It's not like people act on it."
"Charming," she noised. "But I think this time you do—I get murdered in her dream."
"Hmm," he noised. "Is it too early to send the murderer a thank-you card?"
"You hush," she said. "Besides, once Yami's done with them there won't be anything left to send a card to."
Wait—maybe that was what worried her. She wasn't Teana, oh goodness no…but she was one of his oldest and staunchest friends, someone he'd travelled with, would tie himself in knots to help…he wasn't taking her possible death seriously because Teana insisted it was nothing—
What if her dying kicked off something worse? Yami was affable to the point of being annoying…but she had definitely seen the rare times where that well had run dry and he finally lost his temper.
This could be bad.
Poking to her side alerted her to the fact that Jake had been addressing her for some time now and had graduated to poking her with his cane to get her attention. "Seriously, what is your problem?" he demanded.
What indeed. "I'm going to die and cause more problems."
"Is that a threat or a promise?"
Regrettably, both.
