Upon settling their differences, Lord Brudo and Ludo head to the kitchen of King Pludo's Castle to bond a little bit. Brudo's decision however, involves celebrating his newfound understanding of his son by indulging in more drinking.
Lord Brudo: Okay now where did he keep it?
Ludo: Where did he keep what, father?
Lord Brudo: My old man, where did he keep the booze? Surely that old vulture didn't have it buried with him. Hmm, no. Ah here we go!
Brudo pulls out a very dusty old wine. He polishes it with his sleeve. Pulling out two glasses from the cupboard, Brudo lays the bottle down on the table with a prominent thud and places the two glasses. Ludo looks at him, confused.
Ludo: Why two glasses? Extra thirsty?
Lord Brudo: Ones for you, silly boy!
Ludo: Me? I've never had alcohol before.
Lord Brudo: Well, you're a man now right? I mean look at you! You're a strapping young lad my boy, spitting image of your pop. Even your beard's growing in.
Brudo feels Ludo's beard and the texture of it and laughs somewhat heartily. It was almost alien for Ludo to see his father in such a jolly mood.
Lord Brudo: One for me.
He fills one glass
Lord Brudo: And one for you.
He fills the other. Ludo stares at the blood red liquid slowly settling into the glass.
Lord Brudo: Come on boy! It won't hurt ya!
Ludo reluctantly sips at the wine. It's sourness completely catches him off guard and he makes a scrunched up face, shaking his head in a bit of disgust. He coughs and Brudo laughs at him. Frustrated, he takes another sip, over time begins to find the wine more palatable until he actually likes it. He finishes the glass and hiccups.
Already he is pretty drunk. Ludo's tiny body means that he has a very low tolerance for alcohol. He starts slurring his words and giggling at himself for no reason. After finishing the wine bottle on his own, Lord Brudo starts feeling pretty drunk himself, and he finds himself laughing at Ludo's ramblings as well.
Ludo: I... I like my beard. Iss.. is sssoooooo soft.
He tries to get up and falls off the chair onto the floor.
Ludo: Oowie!
Lord Brudo snickers at him.
Ludo: Tha wa'nt funny! I coulda got hurt!
Lord Brudo: Yeah it was.
Ludo: Yeh you're right it was.
They laugh some more. Ludo climbs back onto the chair, having a somewhat hard time til Brudo helps him up. He finds several more bottles in the cabinet and proceeds to drink more until he's totally wasted. Ludo passes out drunk at the table while Brudo stammers and tells delusional stories to Ludo based half on fact and half on fantasy fueled by being totally drunk.
Lord Brudo: Yeh know... there, there was this one time when your mother and I, we were watching the eggs, and you were just a little tiny eggy. And she was soooo pretty, the prettiest I ever seen her, like an angel pretty, you know son?
Ludo doesn't respond. He just sits there, rocking in his chair, completely removed from sobriety.
Lord Brudo: And you and your brothers, and your sisters, and your brothers... and your eggs cracked and you all came out the eggs, and you were so cute, all of you! My little green birdie babies and your teeny tiny little beaks and your big eyes and soft feathers. You were so cute... and I was so happy and so proud. You don't, you don't know it. You don't know it because you were so little back then, I mean, you're still little, but you were... reaaally really little back then. I could hold you in one hand. Oh god... I'm so sorry.
He starts sobbing.
Lord Brudo: Oh god I gotta gotta make it up to your mother... get, get up boy.
Brudo shakes his son, whose face was down in the booze and who now is all sticky.
Lord Brudo: We're, we're gonna go see mommy!
Ludo: Mommy? I wanna see *hick, I wanna see mommy!
Brudo picks up Ludo and hoists him onto his shoulders and he stumbles around until he finds the door. He goes outside, leaving the door wide open with Ludo on his shoulders The poor boy could be tilted and fall off of Lord Brudo's shoulders at any moment. He clings on for dear life. They stumble through the forest. In a turn for the worst, Lord Brudo bumps straight into a Septarian man. A large, very muscular lizard with spikes running down his back, wearing denim pants, leather boots and with a canvas of voodoo chaos tattooed on his forearms stood before them.
Lord Brudo: Watch where ya goin' snake boy!
Lizard: Who are you calling snake, fatso?
Lord Brudo: Excuse me?! Do you have any idea who you're talking to? I am Brudo Avarius! Lord of all monsters, now get outta my way!
Lizard: HAHA! You're not Brudo! If you're Brudo, then where's your crown?
Lord Brudo: I, I... I lost it.
Lizard: HAHAHAHA! You lost it? HA! Oh well then. It doesn't matter. Lord or not, I'm gonna skin you alive, bird boy!
He pulls out a dagger, swiping it towards Brudo's throat. He stumbles backwards. Ludo falls off.
Lord Brudo: Run boy!
Ludo flees.
Lord Brudo backs away on from the Septarian. Too drunk to get up, he sees doubles of the assassin before him.
Ludo runs until he bumps right into another Septarian, a brown, scaly, bearded dragon.
Dragon: Where you going, pipsqueak?
He grabs Ludo by the collar and pushes him against a tree.
Ludo: Put me down you imbecile!
The dragon laughs as he kicks and squirms. He licks his lips in hunger.
Dragon: Looks like I'm having chicken tonight!
He salivates, unhinging his maw and preparing to take a big chomp out of Ludo.
"Unhand my son!" exclaims a voice comes from above.
Dragon: What the_?
Like a series of missiles, the Avarius family swoop down. Tens of birds surround the lizards, their glowing yellow orbs piercing them from the darkness menacingly. They soar past them, fast as a bullet, back and forth, disorienting the lizards. They swing, and each time an Avarius flies by, the Septarians get met with another jab to the face. The two Septarians are knocked to the ground, where they are surrounded by a miniature army of green-feathered and very angry looking birds.
From the center steps a single figure towards the Septarians. They cower, moving backwards from her. A night torch lights her face. It's Lady Avarius, somehow more menacing than before, with a very cold, lifeless look in her eye as she approaches the Septarians. She picks up the dagger from off the ground and approaches them, sticking it right in the spiky one's face.
Lady Avarius: I thought I made it crystal clear that you were to stay out of my territory.
The children grab them, wrestling the lizards to the ground, an Avarius child holding the leader in a headlock.
Pin them down. The Avarius' lock the lizards down to the ground. Brudo stares in drunken confusion at his wife. In an instant, and in one hard downward thrust, she cleaves the lizard's hand clean off. He grabs at the stub in pain.
Lizard: W-w-we're sorry, L-Lady Avarius! it won't happen again I swear!
Lady Avarius: If I ever see you or your idiots ever again, if you EVER threaten my family again, I will skin the flesh off your bones and use it to make lovely clothes for my children. I won't kill you, but when I'm done with you, you will beg me to release you from this forsaken world. Do you understand?
She eyes them maniacally, with her damaged eye, pulsing blood red with hatred.
Lizard: Yes, yes! Just let me go!
Lady Avarius walks away. She snaps her fingers and the birds lift the lizards high in the air. They are floating above a moat of goopy, bubbling swamp water. They release them into the water, where the Lizards struggle to swim to shore. She looks over to her husband who she hadn't seen in months. Her face is filled with a combination of hatred and disgust.
Lady Avarius: Hoist him up.
The children grab their father, putting each of his wings over their shoulders and fly forward. Lady Avarius swoops over, scooping up little Ludo off the ground, whose fainted in all the action. They descend before a rebuilt Castle Avarius. She had spent a good portion of her time hunting down Ludo's former henchmen, who now worked for her as if their lives depended on it.
She had whipped her children into an obedient miniature army of her own and taken an iron fist over Ludo's minions, who now feared her even more than they feared him. Buff Frog had returned to work for her, albeit voluntarily, as he felt that he owed Lady Avarius for being partly responsible for its destruction in the first place. The minions are surprised to see Ludo, and rejoice at their former boss being brought home to them. Ludo awakens in his mother's arms. His vision clears and he sees her face.
Ludo: Mommy?
His voice is groggy. She stares down at him with a disconnected and somewhat disappointed look on her face. Ludo's excitement for seeing his mother diminishes in mere seconds as that look and turns to one of cowering guilt.
Bearicorn: BOSS!
Bearicorn runs over, dropping his work in extreme joy at his former master returning home.
Lady Avarius darts her head towards Bearicorn looks at him dead in the face.
Lady Avarius: What did I tell you?
Bearicorn: Duh, you want us to rebuild the castle because we kicked you out? Uh, cause we owed you?
Lady Avarius: You belong to ME now! His way of running things_
She looks down at Ludo, who looks up her very sadly...
Lady Avarius:... is over. And don't any of you think for a second that just because HE'S here, that anything changes. You all work for me now!
Lord Brudo: Honey... you've changed.
Lady Avarius drops Ludo to the ground and he lands with a thud. She steps over her son and approaches her husband, eyeing him with her damaged eye as she approaches him, stopping a mere foot before Lord Brudo.
Lady Avarius: I'm not your slave anymore.
Lord Brudo: I missed you, a lot.
Lady Avarius: Oh really? You missed me? Just like you missed your son, right? Just like you missed the last 22 years of his life?
Ludo: 23, mom. I'm 23 years old.
Lady Avarius: Correction, the last 23 years of his life.
Lord Brudo: I've been catching up. I've spent more time with Ludo in the last few months than I have, ever.
Lady Avarius: Oh yeah? Really? Doing what? Getting plastered as usual? Like the pathetic drunk you are?!
She paces back and forth and he looks at her, nervously, sweating profusely. She still holds the dagger and ponders as she walks back and forth with it. She turns it in her hands as she examines it.
Lady Avarius: What kind of horrible father are you? You spend months living in that... that dump he calls a house! You waited this long... THIS LONG to come back? How DARE you even show your face?!
Brudo: I... I was coming back. I was coming back to apologize.
Lady Avarius: Seriously? Because I've never heard you apologize once in your LIFE, FOR ANYTHING!
Brudo: I'M SORRY!
Lady Avarius: Sorry? You're sorry?! Sorry isn't gonna fix this castle. Sorry isn't gonna fix our marriage! Sorry isn't gonna fix this eye, or our son, or the half of my life I spent UTTERLY MISERABLE!
Brudo: Is this how you really feel about me, like... like I'm a burden to you?
Lady Avarius: Yes Brudo. You are like a series of shackles with thorns. You have strangled the life out of me. You made me bleed. You forced me into submission, choking the happiness out of me until I walked the earth a husk, with my soul in the palm of your hands. You paraded me around, and like a fool, I did your EVERY bidding... with a smile. I raised our family, alone, while you partied and got drunk.
I had no life, no happiness, no friends. And its all because of you, and because of that stupid thing I had the gall to call to naively call love!All those years I spent with you that I could have spent realizing my true potential! I could have been the real Queen Mewni had been desperately wanting since the beginning of time in this land! I could have had the love of monsters everywhere! I could have taken this land back from those Mewnans on my own! I could have been happy and free. I will never have those wasted years back!
Lord Brudo starts to cry tears of true remorse. His tears hit the stone ground under him, pouring like rain from his eyes. He can't even muster humiliation. He knows he deserves it, every bit of it. His head hangs limply in shame as he quietly sobs while everyone stares at him in pity. Lady Avarius looks at him, unfeeling, uncaring, and so emotionally drained that she can not muster so much as a single tear for her husband, the man she once loved, and admitted to it. All she wants to do was take that dagger and thrust it into his heart, twisting and turning and making him feel the pain she feels. It goes on for several awkwardly long minutes. The youngest Avarius, little Fludo starts to cry watching her father do so. She grabs at her mother's leg, begging to be picked up and consoled. She starts to whine until Ludo works up the nerve to go and hug her himself and tell her it's okay.
Brudo: How can I ever make it up to you?
Lady Avarius: You can't.
Brudo: Please, have mercy! I'm begging you! I'll do anything for you my love! I'll climb a mountain, fight a dragon, anything! I'll even let you thrust that dagger into my soul! I'll let you make my eye like yours! I'll take any punishment you can dish out! Please! I miss you so much! I'm nothing without you!
Lady Avarius remains silent. She thinks for a moment, leaving Brudo in agony as he stares at his wife in confusion, tears rolling down his drunken face and snot running pathetically down the side of his beak.
Lady Avarius: Leave.
Brudo: What?
Lady Avarius: You heard me! Leave!
She takes out a pair of inter-dimensional scissors, cuts open a hole, and points into it. Lord Brudo looks down in defeat, and then at her.
Brudo: Fine. Come on Ludo.
Lady Avarius: He stays with me.
Brudo: What?!
Lady Avarius: Are you deaf? Ludo stays with me. You're going back to that trash heap alone.
Brudo: I...I ... sigh... fine. So be it.
He approaches the portal, about to step into it when he turns around to his wife and spares one final desperate sentence.
Brudo: I... I love you.
Lady Avarius doesn't respond. Lord Brudo sulks as he walks into the portal. Lady Avarius closes the gate behind him, sealing him in the other dimension, unable to return.