Chapter VIII
Black Wonderland
A pair of pale cerulean eyes, darkened by fatigue and stress, snapped open immediately as Prince Ephraim of Renais awoke from his weak attempt at sleep. He sat up immediately, holding his freezing shoulders tight and let out a small sigh of relief when he saw that his surroundings were still the empty snow-covered field, and that the fire was still burning by him and Natasha's sleeping, shivering form.
He flexed his stiff hands, ignoring the dull pain that shot through them, looking at the empty sky above. There was still no way of telling what the time was, or what direction was north. Any direction could prove to lead to civilization, or miles of walking culminating in death.
Ephraim sighed slightly as he wracked his brain for what he should do. The only thing he could think of was to choose and hope that some town or village – something, anything – lay at the end of the long walk. Yet, there was too great a chance of death, and Ephraim would eat his own arm before he died due to some twisted little girl's idea of a game.
"Does ye wish to know where thine path lays?"
Struggling to his feet in shock and turning around quickly, Ephraim's eyes fell upon the dark and smiling face of a small, dark skinned and haired little boy, bedecked with braided wreaths of hemlock and aconite on his wrists and head and a coat caked with dark mud. This was the same little boy who had broken Ephraim's foot back by the well and demanded Myrrh in exchange for information, who had told Ephraim his name was Cat.
How long had the half-demon been there, watching him and Natasha sleep? Hours, minutes, seconds?
The prince tightened his firsts, ignoring the sharp and searing pain that shot through the knuckles and the warm blood that spilled out of reopened wounds.
"Where's Myrrh?" snarled Ephraim quietly, shifting weight off of his injured foot. Cat's grin stretched slightly.
"Thine human not human is safe; ye'd best not concern thyself with trivial matters," he responded simply.
Ephraim, his fists tightening to the point where his nails had begun to dig into his calloused palms, spoke in a colder voice. "But where is she?"
Cat's dark eyes glittered and his smiled stretched as he chuckled darkly. "Perhaps thou might concern thyself more with the fate of thy sister, cyning?"
He couldn't even remember deciding to move.
All Ephraim could remember was that, quite suddenly, he was charging at Cat with his teeth clenched and his fist swinging into his smiling face. The smaller boy caught the blow so easily that Ephraim nearly collided with him. Cat's grip was so firm that he was beginning to lose feeling in his fingers.
With that same maddening grin that stretched from ear to ear, Cat bent Ephraim's wrist as far back as it would go before severing the hand completely from his arm.
Ephraim would not let himself scream in front of Cat, but could barely keep the scream inside his throat. A violent wince and moan did pass his lips, as much as he would have liked otherwise. Sharp, searing pain ran through every muscle of his arm and shoulder, every inch of his body connected that was in some way to that wrist – as he drew the injured limb back to him, spotting bone and muscle under the broken skin.
"Where is Eirika? What did you do to her!" he snarled furiously to Cat, voice breaking with pain and fury. Cat laughed, a long and cold sound that still sounded mirthful and happy, and bore deep into Ephraim's eyes with his black ones.
"Thine sister be safe, thou shalst not worry for her. The Starlings watch her, and thine gambling companion, and thine sister's knight, all be safe with thine Starlings."
Ephraim didn't believe for a moment the false sincerity that Cat spoke with, but he recognized the other names Cat named; Joshua and Seth. How true the words were, he had no idea, and he had a firm suspicion that Eirika was alone.
"Where is Eirika!" Ephraim snarled as loud and as venomous as he could muster, drawing back his other hand – the one whose knuckles had broken when prying Natasha from beneath the ice – and bringing it down into Cat's stupid grinning face. This time, the blow made contact, and sent Cat sprawling across the snow in a flurry of white powder and crimson blood.
It took Ephraim a moment to realize the blood was from his own knuckles.
Cat hit the ground much like his namesake would have – on all fours, nails digging into the ice beneath the snow. His grin was still in place even though it was evident his jaw was broken. He stood up slowly, and his jaw reverted back into place as he began to speak.
"Ye does so enjoy violence, true sire?" Cat laughed, cracking his wrist delicately, "What would thine sweet sister think? What would thine dear, dead mother think of the evil cynn she bore, so afflicted with thine vice of wrath?"
"Where is my sister," Ephraim said as coldly as he could, grabbing the front of Cat's coat with his less injured hand, "And where is Myrrh?"
"Who does thine lufian more, cyning?" It took Ephraim a moment to decipher Cat's odd words, and they only made him grip the boy's neck harder then he should have. It had no affect on his speech, and he continued. "Thine lufian the human not human Myrrh more, or thine cynn Eirika more? Thou thinkith it be Myrrh more." He grinned wide. "The vice of lust."
"Where are they!" he spat venomously into Cat's face, his beyond-damaged fist unwillingly swinging itself into the side of Cat's face. Again, the boy caught the wrist and forced the palm and fingers apart. Without much effort and with that smile still plastered wide on Cat's face, he cracked all the fingers in Ephraim's hand with a loud, sickening snap.
Ephraim ground his teeth together, holding back the yell of pain that wanted to escape his throat desperately. He dropped Cat to the ground, cradling his ruined hand gingerly. All feeling had left that part of Ephraim's body, and he doubted how much good Natasha's staff would do to mend the limb.
Standing up from the ground once again, Cat began to speak. He was no longer the dark little boy that he he'd been a few minutes ago, but the monster Ephraim had seen by the well and forest with Myrrh. His voice was distorted and different then what it had been simply moments ago – high, girlish, younger then it should have been for even somebody his apparent age. Ephraim recognized it in an instant, although he had hardly heard the voice being spoken before.
Alice.
"This is my Paradise," whispered Cat in Alice's voice, walking towards Ephraim with a long-talon hand raised high. "You're going to play hide and seek with me in my Paradise."
He dug the claw-taloned hand through Ephraim's side, quicker than he could move with so many of his bones broken. He winced, preparing for the world to go dark –
Ephraim blinked rapidly to clear his fogged mind. The world around him no longer the white snow field he had found Natasha in, nothing even remotely like it. He, along with the sleeping form of Natasha still bound in Ephraim's cloak, sat on the hard ground of a forest floor, strewn with dead leaves and broken tree limbs.
He felt as if his head was going to explode with confusion. Could he not stay in one area for more then a few hours (or days)? Ephraim grabbed handfuls of his hair, trying to ease the pounding pain in his head with deep and heavy breaths.
Something made no sense, not just this whole evil place. Ephraim pulled his left hand away from his head, staring at it in a mix of horror and shock. He knew Cat had snapped the wrist so far that he had seen the damned muscle under the skin.
Now, he flexed the hand as easily as he done every day of his life. Not even the knuckles were broken from when he had broken the ice to pull the cleric out of water, and the same was true for the knuckles of his other hand. Even his gloves were mended . . .
Ephraim inhaled sharply to calm himself. Never before had he felt so scared, not since he had been very young, not since his mother had died. Several deep breaths stopped him from shivering in nerves and fear, and the Prince of Renais turned towards Natasha's still form next to him. She still breathed and he felt the steady rhythm of her heartbeat in her neck.
Lifting up Natasha carefully and standing (Ephraim noted unpleasantly that the foot Cat had broken had also been healed by some divine or demonic force), he began to walk north as fast as he could. He remembered Forde once telling him that heading north usually led to civilization, or at least to the signs of civilization. Ephraim doubted how true the advice was, but he had nothing else to go on.
Moonlight trickled down through the tree branches above, illuminating the pink blossoms of hollyhock and oleander that surrounded the clusters of dead tree roots. There was a faint, sickly scent wafting through the trees, rather like heavy wine. Ephraim could barely breathe without swallowing too much of that thick smell.
Who was Cat serving, if anybody? Was it Alice McGee, and if so, why did she send a servant to toy with him like this? Why did Cat insult and make Ephraim question his sanity so violently?
No, because he was sane. That much he knew and was certain of. He was sane and he was human, and he was going to murder Cat in as violent a way as possible the second he laid hands upon a weapon.
The thought left Ephraim with a bit of a smile as he continued walking through the forest with Natasha's sleeping body in his arms.
Eirika's mind was groggy as it woke up painfully, her senses and body dulled to the point where she wondered if they worked at all. She lay still for a long time, listening to her dim breathing and heartbeat that echoed in her ears.
She flexed her fingers, sensation fluttering back to them in broken measures. After several minutes of blank numbness, colors flickered back to Eirika and she sat up from the twisted position she had been lying in.
The second her vision returned to her completely, Eirika sat up quickly and gave a loud, shrill scream of fright, adrenaline pulsing through her veins.
A pair of dark, small red eyes had been watching her intently, and the hawk who owned those eyes fluttered its red feathers uncomfortably. It was the same hawk who had led Eirika to the riverside, though the river was nowhere to be seen.
Neither, for that matter, was the forest it had run through.
Eirika sat up slowly, her eyes wide as she looked around the graveyard that she had been sleeping in. The air was stagnant, and smelt of lime and decay, and was filled with an uncountable number of tombstones. She sat up uneasily, shivering violently when she felt the cold marble she had been lying upon.
A marble altar. The sort that sacrifices had been made upon long ago.
The hawk sat perched atop one of the broken trees, continually rustling its feathers. It watched Eirika with the sharp watch of a parent surveying a misbehaving child.
"Where am I?" she asked of the hawk, knowing it could answer her. It had, after all, spoken to her when she had been looking for something that could heal Seth's wounds . . .
Where was Seth, or Joshua for that matter? Still in the forest while Eirika was now in this graveyard? She suppressed a shiver as she looked around the tombstones, fear numbing her completely; so much so that she cared not that the hawk remained quiet.
Eirika stared at one of the tombs, marked by a huge statue of a marble angel holding a crooked scythe. The angel's face was handsome and familiar, oddly so, and she read the inscription beneath the angel's booted feet.
Joseph McGee
Loving Father, Husband and Son
Devoted Worker
So much so that he abandoned his daughter
And forced her to kill him
"By Saint Latona . . ." Eirika backed away from the angel quickly, staring at his face in horror. She knew why it was familiar, because it was almost impossibly similar to Alice's.
She had killed her own father . . .
And Eirika was trapped in this girl's Paradise; a girl guilty of patricide.
"Princess Eirika!"
Seth's voice, sounding almost like a chorus of angels to Eirika now, called out to her. No, she couldn't use that similarity, not after seeing Alice's father's face on that angel. The Princess of Renais stared around the graveyard quickly, her face ashen and her body shivering, looking for the familiar emotionless face of her knight.
"Seth?" she called, embarrassed but not really caring that her voice cracked with fear, "Seth where are you?"
He didn't answer her. Another did.
Eirika turned and screamed to see the stone angel guarding Joseph McGee's grave speak, its voice hard and full of pain.
"Little girl, run."
She didn't need telling twice, but for what reasons the angel had meant she didn't care. Eirika tripped over tree roots and grave mounds as she ran, intent on putting as much distance between her and the angel as possible.
Why did she need to be so weak? How could she kill Lyon when this was how she reacted? At the moment, Eirika could give less to how she was acting, for fear and instinct had taken over and she just needed to run away.
She collided with something sharp and heavy, feeling as though her kneecaps were about to split open from the impact. Eirika fell to the ground, breathing heavy from running so hard and shivering from cold and fear. She looked at what had made her trip.
"Hello misses! Fancy finding you here!"
Eirika thanked Saint Latona, and Grado, and any god or greater power that existed that she was no longer alone in this evil place. Eirika was looking down at Joshua, who had been lying on the ground, his hat pulled low over his eye as he apparently slept against one tombstone marked: Sean Catherine.
"Joshua, thank Saint Latona you're here," she whispered breathlessly, and he raised an eyebrow slightly.
"I could ask of you the same question!" he said cheerily in that annoying voice that Eirika was growing used to hearing.
"Where's Seth?" she asked immediately of him, her voice still quivering in fear.
"Seth who misses!" he asked of her happily, sitting up and grinning wider.
"Seth! The knight in silver armor?" she added, in case it would help with his corrupted memory. Joshua tapped his chin annoyingly, contorting his face in a mocking expression of thought.
"Hmm . . ." He snapped his fingers. "I know where he is!"
"Where?" Eirika asked sharply and Joshua looked at her, smiling still.
"Who's where?" he asked innocently.
"Princess Eirika!"
This time, it was not Seth's voice that yelled out to her, but another man's. Eirika stood; ignoring Joshua's scrambled attempts to get to his feet as well, and looked over the top of Sean Catherine's gravestone.
A young man, pale hair askew, eyes wide and the same color as the laburnum flowers bound about his wrists, dressed in royal gold and indigo. The red hawk that had led Eirika to the river perched upon his arm, chirruping doggedly; "Pretty lady needs to run! Run away, pretty lady, run away!"
"Hello Eirika," he said merrily, as if he were speaking to an old, yet younger, friend. He stroked the hawk delicately, making sure it never caught a nip of the yellow laburnum.
"Who're you?" Eirika demanded immediately of him, her voice still quavering in the sudden shock of finding herself in this horrible place.
He smiled wider, drawing his heavy mantle tighter to his thin frame. "Is that any way to talk to a friend Eirika?" he asked, "However, since I want to set a good example for you, my name is Bill." He gave a sweeping bow, the hawk flying from his wrist to perch on one of the crooked trees in the cemetery.
Eirika blinked in surprise, inhaling to calm herself. Something about the man, Bill, reminded her strongly of Jabberwock, which might mean that he had another one of Ephraim's soldiers with him.
"Where's Seth?" she asked, eyeing the large chunks of wood broken from a tree limb. Even if she lacked both her rapier and the Sieglinde, Eirika was not going to be defenseless if he had some stupid game in mind. Not after what had happened in the forest.
"Patience is a virtue," he said with a sharp nod, looking down on her from his beaky nose, "But you really shouldn't worry, Eirika. You're all safe in Paradise. Nobody dies here. Now, it might be best if you stopped stressing yourself out."
"But where is he!" Eirika yelled, amazed she could even speak this loudly. His diminutive attitude was angering her. She wasn't some child anymore; she'd seen both her parents die, killed others, and even if she was weaker than her brother, she didn't deserve to be insulted like this.
Bill sighed heavily, "If you are stubbornly refusing to be good, I might as well show you. But you must try and relax yourself." He turned on his heels, snapping them together in the mockery of a soldier's stance, pointing two fingers at the hawk in the tree. "Bang, bang!"
The hawk froze on its perch, the feathers on its body standing on end. It fell backwards from its branch, almost as if it had been shot by an arrow, though no wound or cause was visible.
However, its body never touched the ground. A man's did.
Eirika felt her entire body go number, her face draining of any blood or color. She was amazed she was still conscious; amazed she could stand and hold her stomach.
Seth's body skid on the ground where the hawk's landed, still bloody and still wounded, if not more so then before. Deep scars lined his cheeks and neck, the blood spilling down his face faster then it should have, face contorted in a mask of pain and feverish sleep.
"Poor girl," Bill said, shaking his head dramatically, "You do need to relax. How about we play a little game?"
"What?" she asked, amazed she could still talk.
"A little game," he repeated slowly, as if she were hard of hearing, "With some minor stakes; for fun. If you win, Eirika, I'll let you have this man's humanity back. If you don't, you'll give me your sanity. That sounds fair, doesn't it?" He smiled widely, like Father MacGregor had when Eirika was a child and done well in a lesson.
Eirika looked at Seth's body, numbness controlling her. She felt herself nod, knowing she was to lose.
Side Note:
Some of the phrases Cat used are Old English.
Cynn – kin
Cyning – king
Lufian – love
Starlings are small birds known for mimicking human speech, as quoted Shakespeare's play Henry the Fourth: "I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak nothing but Mortimer."
Edit Update:
Heavy editing for this chapter, but it deserved it.
I do not own Fire Emblem, Nintendo does. I own all original characters.