Prologue
The Story's power had long since achieved their victory over the world. Infecting every thought, belief, and emotions Charles Lewis believed to be his own.
Tickling the man's ideals until they bubbled to the surface in a soft chuckle. Echoing out across a dark field that still believed spring would never come. They could make that so, or perhaps they could make spring come all too soon and last forever. Such thoughts would be trivial to make real, the infinite power at their command came to them the same way an infant's demanded his right to breath leaving the womb,
Boundless as this power was, it wasn't enough to be useful. Not for the story who must still hear their rightful chuckle carried along by a snickering human. Not for the story who gazed down upon the Earth with blind eyes. Not for the story whose absolute triumph is felt by all bar the one it belongs to.
Such things will change, the story thinks from outside Charles mind. Comical as the man's role in their cycle is, he is the last in a long line of jesters, not fools. The Story's position as the court he dances him grants him the knowledge to know the difference well. Less they risk their superiority painting itself a useless pride, Such things have changed
The Story does not let their separation last long. He hardly cared for a stinging breeze he could not feel, and he can only be thankful that this curse of numbness left him pure against the pulsating warmth in Charles' head. But alas, the wool brain was the blanket wrapped around his current den. Slithering past motionless chestnut locks, the Story snaked their way back into the burrow mined by rats.
Charles's pure black suit seemingly sheds itself into a flickering robe upon the serpents return. His fair skin nearly glowing bone white against a colorless sky. The grass he passed feared such a sight. Thankful that the cobblestone paths his hovering steps echoed across kept his gaze a blue chisel rather than a hollowed scythe.
Both tools were unneeded of course. The emerald tide retreated to crimson brick quickly enough. And Charles scaled the Story's last mountain by simply strolling up a shallow hill. A manor sitting far off center. Atop a field it tolerated, and a defeated forest it forever dams.
Its bricks threatened to fade with each passing second. But the arc ways they flow into are far from ancient. Its concrete top hair, and black rusted ladders running as extensions. Proof of the mansion's imitation of the ancient structures it wished to be,
How the mighty fall, Charles thought. Unaware his judging gaze saw the curved oaken wood he approaches as shined steel,
How the mighty fall, they mused. Grabbing the black iron ring, he swung the door open like a chest. The three-inch barrier whipped out like paper, How the mighty fall from heights they fail to reach
Charles walked inside. Lone footsteps beat along white marble floors. Unworn by neither time nor use. Stone corridors lined with shadowed stills lead to rooms so empty he doubted one could even imagine the dining room tables, bookshelves, and stitching that should have hidden the foundation away. Not even the dark of the night could hide its bareness.
Perhaps the manor made itself feel older by the lack of modern lighting, but Charles eyes hardly felt the need for it anyway. Pale moonlight bounced off the granite wall well enough.
A charming design feature, he snickered at all the drapes he could not see, if an accidental one
Is it though?, the thought came to him like the memory of a strict tutor raising an eye, can anything made useful be accidental?
Charles sucked in his lips already knowing the answer, but ashamed of a slip of the tongue that never reached his mouth. The man follows the corridors dimming lights. Trailing to its center, before finding a sole column in its center,
How the creations of these accidents remained unused for so long is the true mystery, he frowned at the pillar with pity. Perfectly cut stone, pure marble white, and growing geometrically in a stone desert, or perhaps there truly is nothing here to use
His hand shot onto the pillar. The pain of palm striking stone whipped the sarcastic thought away. Before he had time to question his own muscle spasm, his pale hand grew damp. No blood marked the white stone, not that he could tell at least. But a stream of blue moonlight drew itself inward where flesh met marble.
Charles's hand grew heavy and tingled as if submerged in a pool of oil. A natural feeling, far too natural for an ordinary person to view it as such,
Of course, even a crippled wolf can still claim sight when amongst a herd of blind sheep, he thought the phrase twice over. Once in relief and the other in excitement. Charles's hand was traced by the light as the pillars concave ripples shimmered. The stone unrolling itself out like a parcel to reveal a spiraling staircase carving itself into the Earth, but without the pack it will still starve
The suited man almost wanted to laugh. Not in triumph, for there was none to be had in completing a maze that only led to the exit, but in the simplistically of it all. Embarking downward, Charles's knew little of the bloodlines that had journeyed across the sea.
All were long gone before this manor was likely completed. That very fact is what made them useful. Still, for their entrance to the fabled world to be so horrendously on display, and for the key to unlock it a simple showcase that one had the gift of a storied line flowing through their veins, it made him question if the entire ocean they cross had been used to water down their blood.
It was an amusing thought watching green lime stones twinkle with the energy of fireflies above his head. Shaking his head, Charles flexed his own pure blood by directing the moonlight into the corridor for actual light.
So much potential at their fingertips, so much planning in this location, and you never made use of the oil struck, the stair leveled out to a tunnel far beneath the field. Bedrock now running as a jagged cave corridor. The twinkling stones outshined by the brilliance in his hand. One that could almost grasp the fable force flowing towards a center point.
Charles's walked through the ocean of energy that seeped into the sea that collected itself beneath this land for century untouched. Perhaps if they didn't dilute themselves, perhaps if they brought with them the knowledge of the old world, the forgotten people who built that mansion above would be in it now. But like the bloodlines who forgot them, they forgot they needed to know how their gift work before they could fully use it,
How rude of me, Charles thought echoed out with a tooth like grin. In the back of his mind, he almost felt like two hands were rubbing together with anticipation, to mock a forgotten fable. It is for that very reason I should sing your praise
Not too loudly of course, another thought whispered in an anticipation. Not to be denied their prize. Closer and closer, Charles drifted to the center. The tunnel growing more condensed, as like roots, more and more green lights twinkled in thin branching patterns atop, through, and within the stone. Coming downward from all directions, and flowing inward like rivers to a delta, Not to loudly less the ignorant remember what they laughed away
Charles's hand dimmed as it no longer needed to outshine the emerald stone it now touched. The raw energy was enough to blaze on its own.
He trailed fingers on stories unheard but not forgotten. Ones that could be rewritten anew into use, into purpose, into his own. Into their own. Matter emerged from his right hand, paper as sturdy as the Earth it grew from, but fragile as the time that bit at its edges. He would fix that though; the lands blood was all around them. Pooling him into the place all fables pumped for their use,
"Twas brillig, and the slithy troves", his mind gained form, and cascaded from lips not his own. Containing teeth that filed on each passing tone. A hunger in his mind overwhelming two senses of control. He was here… they were here. Pulsating like polished gemstones of treasure, the heart of this lands fable was all around him, and here he laid the patient parasite in the vein,
"Did gyre and gimble in the wabe", in their hand the paper entombed itself between covers as hard as gravestones. Light shined on them, revealing pages blank and filled, words rewritten in the space they always existed. The green sap of ages an ink beneath his words quills to have them emerge,
"All mimsy were the borogoves", the air in this cavity hissed with the excitement of their re-birth. Damp and chilled, heavy, and humid, it was a breeze of victory. One that they're burning skin and desire felt but became blind to the reverse direction it flowed,
"And the mome outgrabe", two realizations hit Charle's. The burning of flesh bubbling entered his nose was one… and the fact the wind had pushed it into his face the other.
Green light radiated from the heart of the land outwards… and much leaked passed them. Reversing track, as the vein turned to an arty. Screaming the words, the wind overtook both. Pale skin boiled out blood and stitched fur padded leather.
Charles' gritted teeth of anguish bit a forking tongue. But the voice that screech in pain was not his… for the Story's words were no longer smoothly appearing on the pages. As if the text bled through with blood that faded. Frantically written… as the power to create myth to word transferred across a land that now pulsated with a heartbeat,
"Beware", their power was infinite, but the transformation incomplete, Charles mad but not lost. He could still become anchored… he just had to finish the words… he must finish the words,
"BeWARE", they cried out. Shoulder blades pulsating with pain he wished would burst free but simply hooked upward into skin that held. This feeling, it should not belong to him, he could not even think of the words he was, the story he was in this moment. Their own cry rang out like a chorus, Charles still there… for the night would not claim him like it would others. For the other story killed with confusion and regret his had the intelligence to banish even during their failure,
"BEWARE THE-", they were so close, eyes yellow as they saw the universe, they now could claim… but tonight, the universe would open its own pupil and watch his delay burn itself out into the hearts of others.
Green light blasted forth from the land's heart, the emerald turning a stony grey. The last remnant's launching through vessels of glowing soil, spreading out far beyond the field and into the houses beyond. The mansion itself lit up like a pyre fire to the funeral alone. The light banishing its pollution from the sky. The stars blinked in like shined stones beneath a sea, flowing in on mystic nebulas. The iris of the galaxy shined down upon the land. Waking up, to view what type of story the Earth would weave to the heavens.