Chapter 10
Warning: Within the next 3 or so chapters, there will be a LOT of bad 'haunted house' clichés. More than one character may abandon their own characterization momentarily to stutter out a ScoobyDooesque "G-g-g- ghosts!"
Vague Crossover Warning - If our illustrious heroes should chance, within the aforementioned next three chapters, to meet a dark-haired, red-caped, pasty coffin-dweller who has made a mistake in exactly WHICH big, scary mansion his coffin is in, take this as a sign that Rhianwen has become a little too obsessed with Final Fantasy 7...particularly if he expresses disappointment that there is no cute little ninja girl with the particular spiky blond haired lad who has chanced upon his coffin. ^_^
"...Wow. That's...quite a house, isn't it?" Zidane observed, his brow wrinkled in slight consternation at the sight of the large, many-turreted, gloomy, and decidedly spooky-looking castle, the sky above it shrouded with heavy, sulky grey clouds, occasionally split in twain by bolts of lightning.
"It...is, isn't it?" Dagger agreed, clutching Zidane's hand in one of hers. Seconds later, she felt a small hand work its way into her other hand. She glanced down to see the tiny black mage staring, wide-eyed and frightened at the house. After flashing him a sympathetic smile, she turned back to the house. "So, do you think that's where the inn-keeper's sister lives?"
"With our damn luck," Amarant muttered. "Everyone in there's probably dead. This whole thing's probably been a wild goose chase, which means I'll probably be stuck with this damn rat for even longer."
"Oh, and of course, you're such pleasant long-term company," Freya snapped back. "Hmph!"
"Hmph!" he echoed as both turned emphatically away from one another. If one chanced to look more closely, though, one might have noticed that their hands were, as well as being joined by the cuffs, clasped tightly together.
"Well, we shan't know until we go to investigate. So, shall we?" Steiner suggested, already stalking up the long, winding path, enclosed on either side by high, sturdy black wrought iron fences. Another well-timed bolt of lightning illuminated the sky above the second the knight set foot onto the path, causing him to jump back, alarmed, and then, with a shake of his head, muttering to himself that he was being ridiculous, start back up the path.
"Steiner's right," Freya announced. "Standing here and talking about everything that might go wrong certainly won't get our problems solved." . "Okay, then, let's go see who lives here," Zidane suggested, following Steiner.
"Let me just say now, if guy we're looking for isn't here, when we do find him, I'm gonna throw him so far, he hits...a shadow of some sort," Amarant spoke up coolly, starting after the rest of the group.
"Of course you will," Freya sighed.
"Hey, check it out, everyone!" Zidane called from up ahead. "There's a light!"
Hope once again renewed within the hearts of our heroes, as one they broke into a run, tearing up the twisting lane, being careful as they did so not to crash headlong into the spiky, rather cruel-looking iron fence.
The first to reach the door, Steiner lifted the heavy iron ring threaded through the knocker bearing the shape of a forebodingly glaring dragon's head, and let it fall back into place with a tremendous crash.
"Now, if the owners didn't hear that," Zidane commented lightly, "they've gotta be dead."
"I'm afraid that they might be even if they do come to the door," Dagger added nervously, eyes glued to a crooked headstone protruding from the ground, bearing the epitaph, 'I Told You I Was Sick, Mom.'
"Heh...your inside-out vampires again," Amarant chuckled, smirking down at Freya, who crossed her arm and looked away huffily.
"One wouldn't think," she began airily, "that, after everything we have seen, you would be so quick to dismiss such things."
Zidane frowned.
"Yeah, that's true, Amarant. I mean, is the idea of vampires really any more bizarre than the idea of dancing cacti going around, kicking our asses?"
"Yours, maybe," the tall redhead shot back. "I can handle those spiky green Cactuar bastards just fine, myself."
"Okay, granted, we could now, too, if we met them, but...what about the Grand Dragons that used Vivi for a hackey-sack that one time?"
"Uh...what?" Amarant lifted an eyebrow, bemused.
"Yeah; I don't remember that," Vivi piped up, forgetting his fear and letting go of Dagger's hand long enough to scratch his head, confused.
"Whoa...when DID that happen?" Zidane wondered aloud.
With a sigh, Steiner stepped forward, winding up to deliver a smack across the blonde's face.
"Hey, hold on, Rusty! I'm not out of character this time!"
"Out...of...character?" Steiner repeated, scratching his head in confusion.
"Uh...okay, I'm gonna knock again," Zidane hastened to announce, moving quickly away from the knight.
However, just as he made a move toward the knocker, the heavy wooden door creaked open slowly and ominously. The conversation came to a dead halt, the entire group falling silent as they gazed half-expectantly, half- terrified, at the figure in the doorway.
"Yes, what is it?" the tall, wiry, pasty man asked dully, peering forebodingly at Zidane with an expression that clearly stated that he could have cared less, and wanted nothing more than for these unexpected visitors to go away.
Zidane being Zidane, however, did not take the hint.
"Yeah, hi. Uh, we're looking for a guy. He owns a tavern over in the nearest town...that way," he finished, pointing in the direction that they had come from. "Or, at least, he DID own a tavern..."
The doorman opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by a voice behind him.
"Raff-Riff!" a smooth, cultured male voice called reproachfully. "If we have guests, you are to invite them in directly!"
The man, Raff-Riff apparently, did nothing of the sort, but rather, stared at them, his expression hidden within wings of thick, wavy brown hair.
"Oh, never mind," the voice huffed impatiently.
The next moment, a gloved hand seemed to emerge from the gloom within the house to nudge Raff-Riff out of the way, and another man, taller than Raff- Riff, with an extraordinarily long white face and nearly white-blonde hair, clad in a very expensively made suit with long tails, and a long black cape, stepped forward.
"Good evening, my friends," he greeted them. The smile, meant to be friendly, came across as wolfish, as an ample mouthful of sharp looking teeth was revealed, and the tone, meant to be warm seemed nearly mocking.
"Uh, h-hey," Zidane replied with a weak smile, fighting the urge to snatch Vivi under one arm, Dagger under the other, shout to the rest of his team to run, and take off himself down the hill, not stopping until the hill, the mansion, and the weird weather phenomenon that made it cloudy and stormy ONLY over that one house, were all well out of sight. Of course, though, that would probably be rude, and if he were to do such a thing, he would certainly hear about it from Dagger. Not to mention Freya. Not to mention Steiner. Not to mention...no, Amarant would probably back him up. Ah! But what was this weird man saying now?
"Would you like to come in?"
Zidane froze. Certainly, that would be the most sensible course of action, if they ever wanted to find this inn-keeper's sister, who presumably lived here. And yet... He gazed warily at those teeth, and was about to decline, when...
"Oh, yes! Thank-you, sir!" Dagger said with a grateful smile.
"Excellent," the man commented, appearing quite delighted. "Right this way, if you will."
With a shrug of his free shoulder, Amarant started after him, and as such, so did Freya. Steiner, with a little less indifference in his gait, followed them. Vivi clung to Dagger's hand, looking quite terrified.
Once the group was safely inside, the tall caped man led them down a long, dark hallway, lined with draperies of red velvet, lit only by two torches, one hung on each wall. Then, when the little impromptu parade reached the end of the hallway, the man turned to one side and opened a high oak door and led the weary travellers inside.
Then, taking a seat in a high-backed chair cushioned in the same red velvet that liberally decorated the walls, he indicated to the group to seat themselves on the long sofa opposite him and facing the door.
Silently, exchanging uneasy glances amongst themselves, the group did so.
"So," Zidane finally spoke up, fidgeting nervously, trying to find a position in which his tail was not compressed beyond belief, "uh...who are you?"
As he caught Dagger's eye, he knew immediately that phrasing his question this way had been a mistake. He inwardly steeled himself for the lecture on politeness that he would doubtlessly receive later.
The man, however, merely laughed, then folded his long white hands over his knee.
"My name is Leander Wesley. And who might you all be?"
"Zidane Tibal," Zidane announced. "And she's Gar-er, Dagger Tribal. The little guy's Vivi, the guy in the armour is Adelbert Steiner. The two handcuffed together are Amarant - the big guy - and Freya."
Leander raised an eyebrow at the casual tone of the young man's voice as he indicated 'the two handcuffed together.'
"Er...is there a story behind how that came to occur?"
"Don't ask," Amarant and Freya snapped in unison, before promptly receiving the same 'don't be rude' glare from Dagger that Zidane had only a moment before.
Zidane chuckled nervously.
"Eheh...yeah, uh, actually, the reason we're hear is that we're-"
"Stop right there," Leander commanded softly and eerily. "I know exactly why you're here. And I know what it is you seek. I will tell you only this: what you seek is somewhere in this castle. It is for you and you alone, however, to discover it."
With that, before any of the startled folks opposite him could utter a word, he rose, swept his cape about him, and exited in one graceful, fluid motion.
"Um..." Dagger began hesitantly when Leander had gone, "that was..."
"Weird?" Zidane suggested, glancing hesitantly about him at the small library into which they had been escorted. Along one wall was a bookshelf extending from the floor up to the high ceiling. A ladder leaned up against the shelves, threatening to topple at any second. A fireplace across from the bookshelves cast flickering shadows over the whole scene.
"I think weird about sums it up," Steiner agreed sadly.
"So, should we try to find our way out of here?" the blond youth asked.
"Why would we want to leave? The guy as good as said the innkeeper's sister is here," Amarant told him boredly.
Zidane frowned.
"Uh...what?"
"He said that what we're looking for is here, but we'll have to find it," Amarant paraphrased impatiently.
"You know, he could have simply been mad," Freya suggested
"Or slightly miffed," Dagger added, before shrinking back against the cushions as everyone fixed her a confused glance. "Okay, forget I said that."
Zidane blinked once or twice, then rose from the sofa.
"Okay, you guys, I think Amarant might be right. We should at least give it a shot. Y'know, look around for a bit."
"Zidane, the man is crazy," Steiner insisted. "His words are no indication that we have found who we're looking for!"
"I think Steiner's right here, Zidane," Dagger informed him gently, standing and placing a hand on his arm.
With a sigh, Zidane nodded in reluctant consent.
"Yeah, you're probably right. Maybe we should get out of here before we find out that these people are, like, cannibals or something."
"Alright!" Vivi chirped, exceedingly relieved that they were going to be leaving this creepy place.
Gradually, the rest of the group climbed to their feet and left the room.
As they entered the front room and opened the door of the castle, however, the tall, lanky brown-haired man, Raff-Riff approached.
"Where are you going?" he asked dully.
"Oh, well, I don't think we're in the right place," Zidane hastened to explain, "so we thought we'd just take off."
"We don't want to be an inconvenience, after all," Dagger added, nervously twisting a strand of hair.
"No inconvenience," Raff-Riff assured them unconvincingly. "You can't go anywhere in this rain, either way."
"But...it isn't raining," Freya noted, peering out the open door.
Raff-Riff frowned at this, and then made a quick hand signal. As if on cue - strange how these things work out - a crack of thunder echoed overhead, and a torrent of rain began to pour down from the mass of heavy grey clouds.
"Heh-heh-heh...well, don't that beat all..." Zidane laughed nervously, edging away from Raff-Riff and closer to the door, dragging Dagger with him.
"Yes, doesn't it," Raff-Riff agreed, for the first time cracking a ghost of a smile.
It seemed as though the lightning was in place, for that day at any rate, for the sole purpose of making Raff-Riff appear intimidating to lost, weary travelers, for the second he smiled, another deafening boom of thunder...er, boomed overhead.
"Raff-Riff!" a reproachful voice called from behind the wiry man. "Are you frightening my guests away again?! Really, my friends, don't pay any attention to him. He was raised by Tonberries, you know."
"O-oh," Dagger and Freya chorused lamely. "How tragic."
Leander stepped from the shadows, a mournful expression making his long, white face seem even longer and whiter.
"Yes, isn't it?" he sighed. "He is a good butler, though, if not a good doorman, and so I am reluctant to give him up."
"You're too kind, master," Raff-Riff put in tonelessly.
"But enough of that," Leander hurried on, ignoring the doorman. "You obviously cannot travel in that sort of weather, and so you shall be my guests for the night. Oh, no, I insist," he said, holding up a hand to silence the protest that Steiner seemed on the verge of offering. "And while you're here, you have a chance to...search for that thing that you're looking for."
"Do you think the innkeeper's sister would take kindly to being referred to as a 'thing?'" Freya murmured to Amarant, who was still gazing longingly at the door. If he had learned one thing by now, it was that nothing good could possibly come of a situation so clearly begging for something ridiculous to happen.
"I don't think he's talking about the innkeeper's sister," the redhead muttered, turning reluctantly away from the door.
"So, it's settled, then?" Leander asked, glancing about the circle.
Reluctantly, Zidane nodded.
"Uh...thanks, man."
"You may thank me by dining with me this evening. The meal will be ready at 7:00. Raff-Riff will show you at that time where the dining room is," the caped man informed everyone. "Well! I have business to attend to, and so I shall take my leave."
With that, he turned and started down one of the other two hallways branching off from the main room.
"Fell free to explore until I come for you," Raff-Riff said, scowling at the party one last time before following Leander down the hallway. "I shall see you within the hour."
"I-I wonder how he'll find us if we're wandering around," Vivi mused, putting a hand to his chin...or what was presumably his chin.
"Personally, Master Vivi, I would be just as glad if he should not be able to," Steiner said, his armour jangling together as he trembled ever so slightly with nervousness.
Zidane smiled wanly at the tall knight.
"Me, too, Steiner, believe me."
"There's something not altogether right about that guy," Dagger noted suspiciously.
Amarant rolled his eyes.
"Great. Now that we've had the obvious stated so well, can we get started?"
"Doing WHAT?" Zidane demanded.
"Looking for that innkeeper's sister," Amarant replied.
"I thought we weren't doing that," the blond said, scratching his head.
"Well, we have to do something while we're stuck here," Dagger reminded him.
"Yeah, I guess you're right. Okay, how about this: we'll split up."
At Zidane's words, Dagger suppressed a groan of annoyance.
'Oh, dear,' Freya thought. 'Heaven save that poor boy from the wrath of an angry woman if he should suggest splitting Amarant and me up again...'
"Perhaps, Zidane," Steiner spoke up, whether having caught onto Freya's thought, or just reluctant to be placed in a smaller group, "it might be wiser if we all stayed together. After all, we don't know what might happen..."
"Oh, c'mon, Steiner! What's the worst that could happen?" Zidane demanded, thus bringing down more of that good ol' death and destruction upon the heads of himself and his friends.
"Zidane's right," Amarant said, cutting off Steiner's reply of what exactly could happen. "It's an old house. Yeah, it's got some crazy people, but there's nothing we can't handle. And splitting up's the best way to cover more ground."
By the time he was finished, the rest of the group was staring at him strangely.
"U-um, Amarant," Vivi piped up, "when did you start talking so much?"
A moment of silence. Then...
"Shut up!" Amarant whined most uncharacteristically before glaring up at the ceiling. "I would NOT say that, Rhianwen!"
"Sorry," a voice called back.
"Enough of this silliness!" Steiner said severely. "Now, let us organize into these groups if we must, and start exploring."
Zidane nodded in satisfaction.
"Great. Now, how about this: Steiner, Dagger, and Vivi, you three go down the middle hallway, and Amarant, Freya, and I will take the right."
"It sounds good enough," Dagger agreed dubiously.
"Well. I suppose we'll see you three at seven," Freya called to them as she was dragged toward the hallway off to the right.
"Y-yeah," Vivi called back nervously as Dagger led him toward the center hallway. "See you later."
"Steiner, what door did we come in through?" Dagger asked nervously twenty minutes later, staring in bewilderment through the door that she held open, a door that should ideally have led them out of the grandly decorated sitting room that they were currently in, and back into the hallway.
"The one that you have just opened, Your Highness," the knight replied absently, intently studying a portrait hung above the massive stone fireplace. What fine attention to detail! What incredible melding of colours! Truly, he could feel the pain of the artist. It was like a window into the very soul of the tortured man!
Glancing over her shoulder, curious as to what could possibly be capturing Steiner's attention so, Dagger shook her head in despair at the sight of the man gazing, utterly transfixed at a simple canvas, painted black, with a single red square drawn in its centre. Well. So it seemed that Leander was a collector of modern art.
"Steiner!" she barked.
"Wha? Oh, yes, Your Highness?"
"It'll be YOUR highness if you don't stop calling me that," Dagger would have said, had it not been utterly out of character, as well as a direct plagiarism of a certain very silly cartoon show. As it was both, however, she simply sighed and beckoned him over.
Frowning, he clanked across the room, nearly taking out a solid oak coffee table on his way, and joined her at the door. He glanced out the door as she had indicated, and looked away, all ready and set to tell her that yes, this was the door they had come in, and that he didn't exactly see the problem. However, as he opened his mouth to say all this, something occurred to him, and his gaze darted back out the open door.
Gone was the dark, shadowy hallway. Gone were all its portraits of various family members of Leander. Gone were the velvet tapestries that hung the walls on either side. Gone were the torches. In short, gone was everything that might have led them out of this room.
In its place was what appeared to be a beautiful orchard with many and varying fruit trees, all in full bloom. The earth was carpeted with thick, soft grass of a vivid emerald green. The sun filtered through the branches of the trees. Overhead, robins warbled and chirped blithely to one another.
A delightful scene, certainly. But it is equally certain that neither Steiner nor Dagger found it particularly delightful.
"Er..." Steiner stuttered lamely.
"Quite," Dagger agreed dryly. "Steiner, where is the hallway?"
"Er..." Steiner repeated.
"Yes, I heard you the first time."
"U-um...what's wrong?" Vivi inquired from a wing chair, looking up briefly from his Oxford's Big Book of Fairy Stories.
The boy had been quite delighted to find the volume, having seen it at Kuja's desert palace, but not having had time to read beyond the first story. The first tale had delighted the little fellow, and he had been anxious to read more. Now, however, it seemed that there were more important matters than books.
Dagger turned from the door and asked what seemed to Steiner, and would doubtlessly seem to my readers, an exceedingly silly question. One must remember, though, that when one is under great stress, one's mental faculties may crumble slightly.
"Vivi, do you remember any of this?"
"U-um...no," Vivi admitted, gazing into the badly placed orchard bewilderedly. "Dagger, where's the hallway?"
"Well, Vivi, we...don't exactly know," Dagger informed the boy sadly. "We're trying to figure that out."
"Perhaps, my queen, we should go explore the orchard to get to the bottom of this?" Steiner suggested, glaring at an unoffending bunny that had chanced to bounce into his line of vision. With a nervous bunny-noise, the bunny bounced away, followed closely by a young cat-eared girl somewhat resembling the author.
"BUNNY BUNNY BUNNY BUNNY BUNNY!" she shrieked.
Vivi, Dagger, and Steiner watched her pass, blinking several times as they did so.
"Er, that worries me a little," Dagger admitted, "but I don't think we have a choice. I just hope that the others are having an easier time than we are..."
Now, it is a well known fact that to voice one's hopes for one's comrades in such a reckless fashion as Dagger has here is to condemn them to certain death, destruction, chaos, or at the very least, silliness. This case has been no exception. Tune in for the next instalment of 'Of Handcuffs and Singing Cats and True, True Love' to see this principle illustrated in a rather horrific manner...if my characters don't go on strike before then.
End Notes: I'm afraid they ain't leaving this mansion for a while. Everything took a lot longer in this chapter than it was supposed to. Anyway, thank-you to everyone who read, and I hope you're still enjoying it. ^_^
Warning: Within the next 3 or so chapters, there will be a LOT of bad 'haunted house' clichés. More than one character may abandon their own characterization momentarily to stutter out a ScoobyDooesque "G-g-g- ghosts!"
Vague Crossover Warning - If our illustrious heroes should chance, within the aforementioned next three chapters, to meet a dark-haired, red-caped, pasty coffin-dweller who has made a mistake in exactly WHICH big, scary mansion his coffin is in, take this as a sign that Rhianwen has become a little too obsessed with Final Fantasy 7...particularly if he expresses disappointment that there is no cute little ninja girl with the particular spiky blond haired lad who has chanced upon his coffin. ^_^
"...Wow. That's...quite a house, isn't it?" Zidane observed, his brow wrinkled in slight consternation at the sight of the large, many-turreted, gloomy, and decidedly spooky-looking castle, the sky above it shrouded with heavy, sulky grey clouds, occasionally split in twain by bolts of lightning.
"It...is, isn't it?" Dagger agreed, clutching Zidane's hand in one of hers. Seconds later, she felt a small hand work its way into her other hand. She glanced down to see the tiny black mage staring, wide-eyed and frightened at the house. After flashing him a sympathetic smile, she turned back to the house. "So, do you think that's where the inn-keeper's sister lives?"
"With our damn luck," Amarant muttered. "Everyone in there's probably dead. This whole thing's probably been a wild goose chase, which means I'll probably be stuck with this damn rat for even longer."
"Oh, and of course, you're such pleasant long-term company," Freya snapped back. "Hmph!"
"Hmph!" he echoed as both turned emphatically away from one another. If one chanced to look more closely, though, one might have noticed that their hands were, as well as being joined by the cuffs, clasped tightly together.
"Well, we shan't know until we go to investigate. So, shall we?" Steiner suggested, already stalking up the long, winding path, enclosed on either side by high, sturdy black wrought iron fences. Another well-timed bolt of lightning illuminated the sky above the second the knight set foot onto the path, causing him to jump back, alarmed, and then, with a shake of his head, muttering to himself that he was being ridiculous, start back up the path.
"Steiner's right," Freya announced. "Standing here and talking about everything that might go wrong certainly won't get our problems solved." . "Okay, then, let's go see who lives here," Zidane suggested, following Steiner.
"Let me just say now, if guy we're looking for isn't here, when we do find him, I'm gonna throw him so far, he hits...a shadow of some sort," Amarant spoke up coolly, starting after the rest of the group.
"Of course you will," Freya sighed.
"Hey, check it out, everyone!" Zidane called from up ahead. "There's a light!"
Hope once again renewed within the hearts of our heroes, as one they broke into a run, tearing up the twisting lane, being careful as they did so not to crash headlong into the spiky, rather cruel-looking iron fence.
The first to reach the door, Steiner lifted the heavy iron ring threaded through the knocker bearing the shape of a forebodingly glaring dragon's head, and let it fall back into place with a tremendous crash.
"Now, if the owners didn't hear that," Zidane commented lightly, "they've gotta be dead."
"I'm afraid that they might be even if they do come to the door," Dagger added nervously, eyes glued to a crooked headstone protruding from the ground, bearing the epitaph, 'I Told You I Was Sick, Mom.'
"Heh...your inside-out vampires again," Amarant chuckled, smirking down at Freya, who crossed her arm and looked away huffily.
"One wouldn't think," she began airily, "that, after everything we have seen, you would be so quick to dismiss such things."
Zidane frowned.
"Yeah, that's true, Amarant. I mean, is the idea of vampires really any more bizarre than the idea of dancing cacti going around, kicking our asses?"
"Yours, maybe," the tall redhead shot back. "I can handle those spiky green Cactuar bastards just fine, myself."
"Okay, granted, we could now, too, if we met them, but...what about the Grand Dragons that used Vivi for a hackey-sack that one time?"
"Uh...what?" Amarant lifted an eyebrow, bemused.
"Yeah; I don't remember that," Vivi piped up, forgetting his fear and letting go of Dagger's hand long enough to scratch his head, confused.
"Whoa...when DID that happen?" Zidane wondered aloud.
With a sigh, Steiner stepped forward, winding up to deliver a smack across the blonde's face.
"Hey, hold on, Rusty! I'm not out of character this time!"
"Out...of...character?" Steiner repeated, scratching his head in confusion.
"Uh...okay, I'm gonna knock again," Zidane hastened to announce, moving quickly away from the knight.
However, just as he made a move toward the knocker, the heavy wooden door creaked open slowly and ominously. The conversation came to a dead halt, the entire group falling silent as they gazed half-expectantly, half- terrified, at the figure in the doorway.
"Yes, what is it?" the tall, wiry, pasty man asked dully, peering forebodingly at Zidane with an expression that clearly stated that he could have cared less, and wanted nothing more than for these unexpected visitors to go away.
Zidane being Zidane, however, did not take the hint.
"Yeah, hi. Uh, we're looking for a guy. He owns a tavern over in the nearest town...that way," he finished, pointing in the direction that they had come from. "Or, at least, he DID own a tavern..."
The doorman opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by a voice behind him.
"Raff-Riff!" a smooth, cultured male voice called reproachfully. "If we have guests, you are to invite them in directly!"
The man, Raff-Riff apparently, did nothing of the sort, but rather, stared at them, his expression hidden within wings of thick, wavy brown hair.
"Oh, never mind," the voice huffed impatiently.
The next moment, a gloved hand seemed to emerge from the gloom within the house to nudge Raff-Riff out of the way, and another man, taller than Raff- Riff, with an extraordinarily long white face and nearly white-blonde hair, clad in a very expensively made suit with long tails, and a long black cape, stepped forward.
"Good evening, my friends," he greeted them. The smile, meant to be friendly, came across as wolfish, as an ample mouthful of sharp looking teeth was revealed, and the tone, meant to be warm seemed nearly mocking.
"Uh, h-hey," Zidane replied with a weak smile, fighting the urge to snatch Vivi under one arm, Dagger under the other, shout to the rest of his team to run, and take off himself down the hill, not stopping until the hill, the mansion, and the weird weather phenomenon that made it cloudy and stormy ONLY over that one house, were all well out of sight. Of course, though, that would probably be rude, and if he were to do such a thing, he would certainly hear about it from Dagger. Not to mention Freya. Not to mention Steiner. Not to mention...no, Amarant would probably back him up. Ah! But what was this weird man saying now?
"Would you like to come in?"
Zidane froze. Certainly, that would be the most sensible course of action, if they ever wanted to find this inn-keeper's sister, who presumably lived here. And yet... He gazed warily at those teeth, and was about to decline, when...
"Oh, yes! Thank-you, sir!" Dagger said with a grateful smile.
"Excellent," the man commented, appearing quite delighted. "Right this way, if you will."
With a shrug of his free shoulder, Amarant started after him, and as such, so did Freya. Steiner, with a little less indifference in his gait, followed them. Vivi clung to Dagger's hand, looking quite terrified.
Once the group was safely inside, the tall caped man led them down a long, dark hallway, lined with draperies of red velvet, lit only by two torches, one hung on each wall. Then, when the little impromptu parade reached the end of the hallway, the man turned to one side and opened a high oak door and led the weary travellers inside.
Then, taking a seat in a high-backed chair cushioned in the same red velvet that liberally decorated the walls, he indicated to the group to seat themselves on the long sofa opposite him and facing the door.
Silently, exchanging uneasy glances amongst themselves, the group did so.
"So," Zidane finally spoke up, fidgeting nervously, trying to find a position in which his tail was not compressed beyond belief, "uh...who are you?"
As he caught Dagger's eye, he knew immediately that phrasing his question this way had been a mistake. He inwardly steeled himself for the lecture on politeness that he would doubtlessly receive later.
The man, however, merely laughed, then folded his long white hands over his knee.
"My name is Leander Wesley. And who might you all be?"
"Zidane Tibal," Zidane announced. "And she's Gar-er, Dagger Tribal. The little guy's Vivi, the guy in the armour is Adelbert Steiner. The two handcuffed together are Amarant - the big guy - and Freya."
Leander raised an eyebrow at the casual tone of the young man's voice as he indicated 'the two handcuffed together.'
"Er...is there a story behind how that came to occur?"
"Don't ask," Amarant and Freya snapped in unison, before promptly receiving the same 'don't be rude' glare from Dagger that Zidane had only a moment before.
Zidane chuckled nervously.
"Eheh...yeah, uh, actually, the reason we're hear is that we're-"
"Stop right there," Leander commanded softly and eerily. "I know exactly why you're here. And I know what it is you seek. I will tell you only this: what you seek is somewhere in this castle. It is for you and you alone, however, to discover it."
With that, before any of the startled folks opposite him could utter a word, he rose, swept his cape about him, and exited in one graceful, fluid motion.
"Um..." Dagger began hesitantly when Leander had gone, "that was..."
"Weird?" Zidane suggested, glancing hesitantly about him at the small library into which they had been escorted. Along one wall was a bookshelf extending from the floor up to the high ceiling. A ladder leaned up against the shelves, threatening to topple at any second. A fireplace across from the bookshelves cast flickering shadows over the whole scene.
"I think weird about sums it up," Steiner agreed sadly.
"So, should we try to find our way out of here?" the blond youth asked.
"Why would we want to leave? The guy as good as said the innkeeper's sister is here," Amarant told him boredly.
Zidane frowned.
"Uh...what?"
"He said that what we're looking for is here, but we'll have to find it," Amarant paraphrased impatiently.
"You know, he could have simply been mad," Freya suggested
"Or slightly miffed," Dagger added, before shrinking back against the cushions as everyone fixed her a confused glance. "Okay, forget I said that."
Zidane blinked once or twice, then rose from the sofa.
"Okay, you guys, I think Amarant might be right. We should at least give it a shot. Y'know, look around for a bit."
"Zidane, the man is crazy," Steiner insisted. "His words are no indication that we have found who we're looking for!"
"I think Steiner's right here, Zidane," Dagger informed him gently, standing and placing a hand on his arm.
With a sigh, Zidane nodded in reluctant consent.
"Yeah, you're probably right. Maybe we should get out of here before we find out that these people are, like, cannibals or something."
"Alright!" Vivi chirped, exceedingly relieved that they were going to be leaving this creepy place.
Gradually, the rest of the group climbed to their feet and left the room.
As they entered the front room and opened the door of the castle, however, the tall, lanky brown-haired man, Raff-Riff approached.
"Where are you going?" he asked dully.
"Oh, well, I don't think we're in the right place," Zidane hastened to explain, "so we thought we'd just take off."
"We don't want to be an inconvenience, after all," Dagger added, nervously twisting a strand of hair.
"No inconvenience," Raff-Riff assured them unconvincingly. "You can't go anywhere in this rain, either way."
"But...it isn't raining," Freya noted, peering out the open door.
Raff-Riff frowned at this, and then made a quick hand signal. As if on cue - strange how these things work out - a crack of thunder echoed overhead, and a torrent of rain began to pour down from the mass of heavy grey clouds.
"Heh-heh-heh...well, don't that beat all..." Zidane laughed nervously, edging away from Raff-Riff and closer to the door, dragging Dagger with him.
"Yes, doesn't it," Raff-Riff agreed, for the first time cracking a ghost of a smile.
It seemed as though the lightning was in place, for that day at any rate, for the sole purpose of making Raff-Riff appear intimidating to lost, weary travelers, for the second he smiled, another deafening boom of thunder...er, boomed overhead.
"Raff-Riff!" a reproachful voice called from behind the wiry man. "Are you frightening my guests away again?! Really, my friends, don't pay any attention to him. He was raised by Tonberries, you know."
"O-oh," Dagger and Freya chorused lamely. "How tragic."
Leander stepped from the shadows, a mournful expression making his long, white face seem even longer and whiter.
"Yes, isn't it?" he sighed. "He is a good butler, though, if not a good doorman, and so I am reluctant to give him up."
"You're too kind, master," Raff-Riff put in tonelessly.
"But enough of that," Leander hurried on, ignoring the doorman. "You obviously cannot travel in that sort of weather, and so you shall be my guests for the night. Oh, no, I insist," he said, holding up a hand to silence the protest that Steiner seemed on the verge of offering. "And while you're here, you have a chance to...search for that thing that you're looking for."
"Do you think the innkeeper's sister would take kindly to being referred to as a 'thing?'" Freya murmured to Amarant, who was still gazing longingly at the door. If he had learned one thing by now, it was that nothing good could possibly come of a situation so clearly begging for something ridiculous to happen.
"I don't think he's talking about the innkeeper's sister," the redhead muttered, turning reluctantly away from the door.
"So, it's settled, then?" Leander asked, glancing about the circle.
Reluctantly, Zidane nodded.
"Uh...thanks, man."
"You may thank me by dining with me this evening. The meal will be ready at 7:00. Raff-Riff will show you at that time where the dining room is," the caped man informed everyone. "Well! I have business to attend to, and so I shall take my leave."
With that, he turned and started down one of the other two hallways branching off from the main room.
"Fell free to explore until I come for you," Raff-Riff said, scowling at the party one last time before following Leander down the hallway. "I shall see you within the hour."
"I-I wonder how he'll find us if we're wandering around," Vivi mused, putting a hand to his chin...or what was presumably his chin.
"Personally, Master Vivi, I would be just as glad if he should not be able to," Steiner said, his armour jangling together as he trembled ever so slightly with nervousness.
Zidane smiled wanly at the tall knight.
"Me, too, Steiner, believe me."
"There's something not altogether right about that guy," Dagger noted suspiciously.
Amarant rolled his eyes.
"Great. Now that we've had the obvious stated so well, can we get started?"
"Doing WHAT?" Zidane demanded.
"Looking for that innkeeper's sister," Amarant replied.
"I thought we weren't doing that," the blond said, scratching his head.
"Well, we have to do something while we're stuck here," Dagger reminded him.
"Yeah, I guess you're right. Okay, how about this: we'll split up."
At Zidane's words, Dagger suppressed a groan of annoyance.
'Oh, dear,' Freya thought. 'Heaven save that poor boy from the wrath of an angry woman if he should suggest splitting Amarant and me up again...'
"Perhaps, Zidane," Steiner spoke up, whether having caught onto Freya's thought, or just reluctant to be placed in a smaller group, "it might be wiser if we all stayed together. After all, we don't know what might happen..."
"Oh, c'mon, Steiner! What's the worst that could happen?" Zidane demanded, thus bringing down more of that good ol' death and destruction upon the heads of himself and his friends.
"Zidane's right," Amarant said, cutting off Steiner's reply of what exactly could happen. "It's an old house. Yeah, it's got some crazy people, but there's nothing we can't handle. And splitting up's the best way to cover more ground."
By the time he was finished, the rest of the group was staring at him strangely.
"U-um, Amarant," Vivi piped up, "when did you start talking so much?"
A moment of silence. Then...
"Shut up!" Amarant whined most uncharacteristically before glaring up at the ceiling. "I would NOT say that, Rhianwen!"
"Sorry," a voice called back.
"Enough of this silliness!" Steiner said severely. "Now, let us organize into these groups if we must, and start exploring."
Zidane nodded in satisfaction.
"Great. Now, how about this: Steiner, Dagger, and Vivi, you three go down the middle hallway, and Amarant, Freya, and I will take the right."
"It sounds good enough," Dagger agreed dubiously.
"Well. I suppose we'll see you three at seven," Freya called to them as she was dragged toward the hallway off to the right.
"Y-yeah," Vivi called back nervously as Dagger led him toward the center hallway. "See you later."
"Steiner, what door did we come in through?" Dagger asked nervously twenty minutes later, staring in bewilderment through the door that she held open, a door that should ideally have led them out of the grandly decorated sitting room that they were currently in, and back into the hallway.
"The one that you have just opened, Your Highness," the knight replied absently, intently studying a portrait hung above the massive stone fireplace. What fine attention to detail! What incredible melding of colours! Truly, he could feel the pain of the artist. It was like a window into the very soul of the tortured man!
Glancing over her shoulder, curious as to what could possibly be capturing Steiner's attention so, Dagger shook her head in despair at the sight of the man gazing, utterly transfixed at a simple canvas, painted black, with a single red square drawn in its centre. Well. So it seemed that Leander was a collector of modern art.
"Steiner!" she barked.
"Wha? Oh, yes, Your Highness?"
"It'll be YOUR highness if you don't stop calling me that," Dagger would have said, had it not been utterly out of character, as well as a direct plagiarism of a certain very silly cartoon show. As it was both, however, she simply sighed and beckoned him over.
Frowning, he clanked across the room, nearly taking out a solid oak coffee table on his way, and joined her at the door. He glanced out the door as she had indicated, and looked away, all ready and set to tell her that yes, this was the door they had come in, and that he didn't exactly see the problem. However, as he opened his mouth to say all this, something occurred to him, and his gaze darted back out the open door.
Gone was the dark, shadowy hallway. Gone were all its portraits of various family members of Leander. Gone were the velvet tapestries that hung the walls on either side. Gone were the torches. In short, gone was everything that might have led them out of this room.
In its place was what appeared to be a beautiful orchard with many and varying fruit trees, all in full bloom. The earth was carpeted with thick, soft grass of a vivid emerald green. The sun filtered through the branches of the trees. Overhead, robins warbled and chirped blithely to one another.
A delightful scene, certainly. But it is equally certain that neither Steiner nor Dagger found it particularly delightful.
"Er..." Steiner stuttered lamely.
"Quite," Dagger agreed dryly. "Steiner, where is the hallway?"
"Er..." Steiner repeated.
"Yes, I heard you the first time."
"U-um...what's wrong?" Vivi inquired from a wing chair, looking up briefly from his Oxford's Big Book of Fairy Stories.
The boy had been quite delighted to find the volume, having seen it at Kuja's desert palace, but not having had time to read beyond the first story. The first tale had delighted the little fellow, and he had been anxious to read more. Now, however, it seemed that there were more important matters than books.
Dagger turned from the door and asked what seemed to Steiner, and would doubtlessly seem to my readers, an exceedingly silly question. One must remember, though, that when one is under great stress, one's mental faculties may crumble slightly.
"Vivi, do you remember any of this?"
"U-um...no," Vivi admitted, gazing into the badly placed orchard bewilderedly. "Dagger, where's the hallway?"
"Well, Vivi, we...don't exactly know," Dagger informed the boy sadly. "We're trying to figure that out."
"Perhaps, my queen, we should go explore the orchard to get to the bottom of this?" Steiner suggested, glaring at an unoffending bunny that had chanced to bounce into his line of vision. With a nervous bunny-noise, the bunny bounced away, followed closely by a young cat-eared girl somewhat resembling the author.
"BUNNY BUNNY BUNNY BUNNY BUNNY!" she shrieked.
Vivi, Dagger, and Steiner watched her pass, blinking several times as they did so.
"Er, that worries me a little," Dagger admitted, "but I don't think we have a choice. I just hope that the others are having an easier time than we are..."
Now, it is a well known fact that to voice one's hopes for one's comrades in such a reckless fashion as Dagger has here is to condemn them to certain death, destruction, chaos, or at the very least, silliness. This case has been no exception. Tune in for the next instalment of 'Of Handcuffs and Singing Cats and True, True Love' to see this principle illustrated in a rather horrific manner...if my characters don't go on strike before then.
End Notes: I'm afraid they ain't leaving this mansion for a while. Everything took a lot longer in this chapter than it was supposed to. Anyway, thank-you to everyone who read, and I hope you're still enjoying it. ^_^