Disclaimer: I do not own any part of The Corpse Bride. This fanfiction is for entertainment purposes only.
Chapter Three: Want To Meet The Parents?
Victor's world slowly faded in, revealing to him the corpse bride and a skeleton leaning over him in apparent concern.
"A new arrival!" the skeleton man – who appeared to have a mustache - said excitedly.
"He must have fainted," the Bride said in a worried tone of voice. "Are you all right?" she asked, placing her skeletal hand under neck and patting the nape of his hair in a reassuring manner.
"What--? What happened?" Victor questioned, too stunned at his environment –which appeared to be a pub filled with dead people- to be too concerned over having a corpse trying to gently bring him out of unconsciousness.
"By Jove man! Looks like we've got ourselves a breather!" the skeleton with the mustache said in surprise as he leaned closer in to him.
A small plump dead woman dressed as a cook pulled him out of the way, exclaiming "Ohhh! Does he have a dead brother?
A small skeleton boy in a tattered looking blue school suit pushed her aside, poking his chest with a stick, announcing to all the dead, "He's still soft."
Victor climbed to his feet using the bar behind him, staring aghast at the child.
"A toast" a small, dwarf-like skeleton in a French army outfit with a sword out his middle said, clanking glasses with a German army dressed skeleton with a bowling ball sized hole through his chest, drinking a pint of liquor. The German skeleton pulled out the sword which causes the liquor to come out the French skeleton's chest in a spout, filling his own glass, calmly replacing the sword and drinking the liquid, which flowed down through the hole in his chest in a stream.
"To the newly weds," the French dwarf finished, having the sword stuck back through him.
"Newly weds?" Victor asked curiously, shaking his head as he watching the entire strange toast, before looking back at the bride.
She sighed happily. "In the woods, you said your wedding vows so perfectly," she says contentedly, circling from his right to his left side before showing him her skeleton hand with his wedding band on her finger.
"I did?" Victor asked, remembering the woods, "I did," he repeated, rolling his eyes.
He slammed his head into the bar top, exclaiming, "Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!" which sounded a little more desperate with each repetition.
He couldn't be here. This simply couldn't be possible!
A new voice caused him to turn his head to the side on the bar top as it eagerly exclaimed, "Bonjoure! Coming through! Coming through!" He looked up to see a tall dead male chef come through the crowd carrying a disembodied head which appeared to be the speaker. The chef carefully angled the tray to slide the head off onto the bar where little beetle legs from his severed neck carried him towards them. "My name is Paul," he said in a French accent. "I am ze head waiter," he said, giving a short laugh that sounded like a young donkey braying.
Despite how rude it was –and how silly he probably looked at that moment- Victor openly gaped, opening his eyes as wide as they could go as he stared at the impossible sight. He knew his mouth was also hanging open in shock.
"I will be creating your wedding feast," the head-uh- Paul said enthusiastically.
Victor turned quickly to look at the Bride who was the only possible person this head-uh-Paul could be talking about, and her was just in time to see her right eye pop out and a green maggot stick it's head out and say, "Wedding feast! I'm salivating!"
Victor gasped, pulling away from her slightly.
The Bride covered her missing eye and the maggot, saying, "Maggots," like that explained everything - or that she was a little embarrassed by it's behavior - and laughing somewhat uneasily.
"Oh!" Victor exclaimed stumbling back colliding with another body, turning to see that it was another corpse that seemed to have had the top if his skull sawed off and replaced, and who seemed to have little tendrils of tree roots dangling from his right eye socket.
He backed away quickly from this corpse as well and walking backwards for several steps before catching his elbow on a skeleton's arm and exclaiming, "Keep away!" as he stumbled before falling at the foot of the table with the two skeleton army people were.
Jumping up quickly, glancing at the surrounding dead people and seeing the sword sticking out of the French army skeleton, tried to pull it out, instead picking the skeleton up along with the sword and brandishing them both at the crowd.
"I've got a-- I've got a--" he began, pausing when he saw the skeleton still attached, "dwarf," he blinked. "And I'm not afraid to use him. I want some questions. Now!"
"Answers," the dwarf skeleton said, "I think you mean 'answers'."
"Thank you, yes, answers," he replied, accepting the correction with all the grace of a gentleman despite the situation, before turning his attention back to the crowd. "I need answers! What's going on here? Where am I?" Looking at the bride, "Who are you?"
"Well," she began, clasping her hands together and looking down briefly, "that's kind of a long story."
"And what a story it is," another voice said, drawing Victor's attention to a skeleton with a massively oversized jaw bone, bowling hat and one eye, standing on a stage, leaning against a wall. "A tragic tale of romance, passion... and a murder most foul," he said, being very expressive with his hands with each of the three words.
"This is gonna be good," the dwarf told Victor eagerly, startling the breathing boy into letting go of the sword hilt and dropping him.
The skeleton broke into a song, telling how the bride had been a beautiful girl tricked by a handsome stranger. She had believed they were going to run away together and get married, but the man had stolen the jewels and gold she had brought with her and murdered her, leaving her to wait under the old oak tree for her true love to come and free her.
Which, Victor realized, was exactly where he had found her.
While informative – and entertaining – the song also provided Victor with an opportunity to escape.
He darted out of the pub while all the corpses were enjoying the music, only to discover he was in a whole town of corpses. When he heard the bride calling for him, he managed to hide behind a statue of a skeleton horse in what appeared to be the town square.
This resulted in Victor running away from the bride and trying to avoid her long enough to find his way out of this place.
At one point, a spider had even spoken to him. He had bapped it away and now felt rather badly about doing so.
Finally, he ran into a dead end, but, hearing the bride's voice behind him, he started climbing the sheer face of the wall that was in his way.
He reached the top with some difficulty, grabbing the bars of a railing to help him up, reaching forward, he grabbed what he then recognized was a leg bone.
Looking up, he realized it was her leg bone.
"Could have used the stairs silly," the bride said, grabbing hold of his right upper arm and helping him over the railing.
"Isn't the view beautiful?" she asked, spinning in a circle. "It takes my breath away." She started walking away, adding almost as an afterthought, "Well, it would if I had any." She chuckled lightly.
"Isn't it romantic?" she sighed sitting down on a dilapidated bench that looked as if it had once been a coffin.
Victor sat beside her, exhaling slightly in defeat and acceptance that he wouldn't be able to avoid or run away from her.
"Look, I am terribly sorry for what's happened to you… and I'd like to help, but I really need to get home," he told the bride, trying instead to make her understand that he wasn't supposed to be here.
"This is your home now," the bride said, like that explained everything, glancing over the town beyond the cliff ledge, obviously not understanding what he was trying to imply.
"But I don't even know your name," Victor told her, hoping she would see how he couldn't stay with a wife he didn't even know the name of.
She gave a single silent laugh, as if just realizing that she had never told it to him, then stopped, glancing away as if hearing something before whispering to herself, "Shhh! Shut up!" as she placed her hands on her head briefly.
Victor looked at her, wondering if perhaps her brain was rotting and she was hearing voices.
"It's Emily," she told him with a smile.
"Emily," he repeated softly, wondering why the name fell so lightly from his lips.
"Oh, I almost forgot! I have something for you," the bride-Emily said in a lightly surprised voice, reaching under the bench and pulling out a slightly decayed looking box with a ragged bow on top, setting it in his lap. She cupped one hand around her mouth and gave a half smile as she whispered to him, like it was a secret, "It's a wedding present."
She clasped her hands in front of her and watched him eagerly.
Well, it would be impolite not to open it.
Victor picked it up and holding it close to his ear, gave it a couple gentle shakes, trying to determine what was in the box. Giving up on guessing, he placed it back in his lap and pulled the top off and gasped, seeing a pile of bones inside. Still, it would be rude to say he didn't like it. "Thank you," he said, picking up a bone briefly.
The entire box began to shake in his lap and he quickly dropped the bone back in, replacing the lid firmly on the box and trying to hold it on.
The box jumped out of his hands, contents spilling on the ground, and them assembling themselves into… a skeleton dog?
The tiny creature barked happily and picked up a strip of red cloth that had been in the box with it, bringing it proudly to Victor.
Victor reached hesitantly towards it and took the cloth, which on closer inspection now resembled an old collar. In fact it looked just like the collar that had been on…
"Scraps…?" he asked, uncertainly, until the little skeleton barked cheerfully. "Scraps! My dog Scraps!" he exclaimed, letting the dog jump up into his lap, giving him a little hug, scratching his skull, and putting the collar around his little skeleton neck. "Oh, Scraps, what a good boy," he said, taking the dog's little jaw in hand and giving it a gentle shake like he used to do.
Scraps jumped down from his lap, running once around in a tight circle and facing him again.
"I knew you'd be happy to see him," Emily said happily.
"Who's my good boy? Sit. Sit, Scraps, sit," Victor ordered, watching as his dog obeyed his commands as eagerly now as when he was alive. "Good boy, Scraps. Roll over. Roll over," Victor continued, moving a finger in a circle as he ordered it.
Scraps did as he was told, rolling over obediently, but his skull seemed to stay on one place as the rest of him preformed the trick.
"Good boy, Scraps," Victor cheered and said, "Play dead."
Scraps looked at him a little oddly until Victor realized what he had just said.
"Sorry," he half muttered, a little embarrassed for telling a dead dog to play dead.
Scraps jumped back up on the bench with them, going over to investigate Emily. She cupped his little skull in her hands, saying, "Oh, what a cutie."
"You should have seen him with fur," Victor replied, scratching the point where Scraps' tail met his spine, which had been his favorite itchy spot when he had been alive, causing Scraps' leg to twitch in delight. His mother had always yelled at him for paying too much attention to the dog.
"Mother never approved of Scraps jumping up like this," he told Emily, looking away as he remembered her opinion of the dog. "But then again," he added, "she never approved of anything."
"Do you think she would have approved of me?" Emily asked softly, looking a little curious and hopeful.
Victor let out a light bark of a laugh, imagining what his mother would have called Emily. "You're lucky you'll never have to meet her," he said.
Wait a moment… maybe…
"Well, actually… now that you mention it, I think you should," Victor said, setting Scraps down.
"Hmm."
"In fact," he continued, rising to his feet and walking over to the railing on the cliff, "since we're, you know… married you should definitely meet her." He turned to see her. "And my father too. We should go and see them right now," he suggested.
"Oh, what a fantastic idea! Where are they buried?" she replied, standing up and walking over to him, glancing around the town below them, obviously looking forward to meeting her husbands' parents.
Victor turned away from her uneasily.
"What?" she asked. "What is it?"
"They're not from around here," he told her delicately, scratching the back of his neck nervously.
"Where are they?" she inquired.
Victor pointed up.
"Oh, they're still alive," she realized.
"I'm afraid so," he replied.
"Well, that is a problem," Emily mused.
Scraps barked excitedly, drawing her attention down to the dog. "What's that, Scraps?" she asked, going down on one knee as if to hear it better as it barked again. "Oh, no, we couldn't possibly," she replied. It barked again. "Oh, well," she said thoughtfully, standing back up, "if you put it like that."
"What?" Victor inquired, wondering what Scraps had told her to change her mind.
"Elder Gutknecht," Emily told him in a hushed whisper.