Specific General's Warning: Shelby's spelling/handwriting may lower your IQ. Put don't worry, you won't end up like Sophia.
Chapter 6: No One Mourns the Wicked
Nobody, I said nobody, no fool anywhere, loves the Wicked, mourns the Wicked when they die!" You came in so close that I could feel your ivory canines on my lip. Then you pressed your lips against mine and kissed me with some feverish insanity, poisonous, before backing off, turning away and motioning for me to leave. "Nobody."
He reread the passage again and again. He had finished the book, unsatisfied with the queer happy ending. It was so fake, so sacrificial. The wicked were destine to have disastrous endings, it was fate.
A weak laugh. 'Yeah, fate, what a thing to think about now.'
"We're doomed." The Crimson Scourge said sternly, echoing Albel's thoughts.
"Shut up." He took the sword and laid it on the end table, getting up from his chair and leaving it there. "Not like it matters anymore."
"It's a shame... I would have really liked to see you grow up. Even if things fell apart... I'd like to see you happy... just for once..."
"Since when do you care." He sneered before slamming the large door behind him.
"I always have, Albel..."
-
Leaving his father in a warm bed of hay, Fayt hurried to fetch the Greeton passport from inside. There, when he lit the candle in a hurry, sat Shelby, smug on the sofa.
"Fayt, boy, where's your father."
"He's resting, what do you want? He's sick and we're in a hurry!"
"So I've heard. I've come to help."
"What? Y-you have?"
The large man stood, motioning out the window towards a cart labeled 'ZH3LBY'Z AZYLUM F0R L00NZ.'
"My father's not crazy!" Fayt insisted, protesting as he was pushed out the door.
"Try telling that to them." Before their doorstep the town's people had gathered, shouting and jeering Robert. Two farmers already obtained the sick man and were hauling him into the cart.
"Gee, Fayt, it's a shame about your father..." Sophia swept up, smelling strongly like jasmine. Fayt thought he was going to be sick.
"H-he's not crazy."
"You know... I could probably clear up this little misunderstanding if you... well..." She smirked as she saw the cat's eyes drilling down onto her. "If you agree to marry me."
"Why- I-!"
"Just one word, Fayt, and your daddy will be free."
Fayt grit his teeth and turned to Shelby. "Hold it! My father's not crazy, and I can prove it!" Dashing inside, he snatched up the mirror Albel had given him. Mayu had informed him that this is how The Wicked One could keep an eye on the outside world, that it could show him anything he wanted. "Here!" Holding it now before the crowd, he commanded, "show me Albel!"
Before the eyes of dozens, the crimson eyes appeared, focusing down on the dreaded claw, watching it clench and unclench.
"It IS real!"
"Robert is telling the truth!"
"He'll kill us all!" The crowd was in a panic.
"No, no he won't! He- he's... he's really good at heart." Fayt held the mirror affectionately. Sophia's large eyes caught this scornfully, jealously.
"If I didn't know better, I'd think you had feelings for this... this monster!"
"He's not a monster! YOU are!" Fayt gave her a hard slap on the face.
She glared at him, and the smirked, turning towards the worrying townsfolk. "Of course! He'll make off with your children!" She yelled, drowning out Fayt's protests. "He'll come after them in the night! We're not safe until his head is mounted on a wall! I say we kill this beast!"
"Kill him!" Came the joined call.
"We're not safe until he's dead! He'll come stalking us in the night, set to sacrifice our children to his monestrous appetite! He'll wreak havoc on our village if we let him wander free! It's time to take some action, boys, follow me! Kill the beast!"
"No! I won't let you do this!" Fayt held her wrist tightly, threateningly.
"If you're not with us, you're against us! Bring the old man! We can't have them running off to warn the creature!"
The men threw a drowsy Robert and wriggling Fayt into the basement and locked it tight.
"We'll rid the village of this beast, who's with me!" Sophia smiled at the large response. "We'll lay siege to the castle and bring back his head!"
"I have to warn Albel!" Fayt cried. "This is all my fault!"
"Your fault? They stuck us down here... because of him. None of this would have happened... if that horrid thing had just let you go..."
"He did, Father, he did... but I... I wanted to stay. And then you came and he forced me to go. He really is a nice man, Father, once you get to know him."
Robert smiled. "I'm glad... you finally made a friend... I only wish... you could have seen Greeton."
"Dad, just hang in there. We'll get out of here and then we'll go straight there and they'll cure you!"
The man shook his head. "Fayt, when you get out of here, save your friend."
"Dad?" Fayt choked as the weight in his hands suddenly increased. "Hang in there, Dad, come on!"
"He-he's ok, right?" Came the small, timid voice.
"Wha- who's there!" Fayt jumped, looking around.
Cautiously crawling out of the bag he had quickly gathered on his way out of the castle came Mayu. "Fayt, he'll be okay, right?"
He shook his head. "He wasn't okay the moment he set out to rescue me..." giving a small sob of regret, "and soon I'm going to lose Albel too. They even took the mirror."
Mayu mentally bit her lip, looking at Fayt's hopelessly crestfallen face. "I think I can help, maybe." She encouraged. "Here, maybe I can slip under the door and unlock it!"
Giving her a small, grateful smile, Fayt showed her to the door and waited to hear the plank fall from its place before opening it. Scooping up the velvet blanket, he hurried to the lum, setting off as fast as he could towards the castle.
-
"I knew it! I knew it was foolish to get out hopes up." Luther mourned.
"Maybe it would have been better if he had never come at all." Beside him, his sister sighed. "Wait, what's the noise? Someone's outside! Could it be?"
"He's back?" they hurried to the window to peek out. "Invaders!"
"Enroachers!"
"And they have the mirror!"
"Warn the master! If it's a fight they want, we'll be ready for them!" Blair pushed her brother while she went off to warn the others.
"Take whatever booty you can find!" Sophia held her staff above her head. "But remember, the beast is mine!"
"Pardon me, Master..." Luther lurked out onto the rooftop where Albel idly swung a rusty old blade around, having abandon his own.
"Leave me alone..."
"Albel, the castle is under attack!" The twin blood pools frightened the candelabra back down the stairs, into the havoc of objects trying to fight back.
"Luther, this isn't working!" Nel was quick to report.
"We must do something!" He looked into the pleading eyes of his sister.
"I think I have an idea."
-
"Albel, you have to do SOMETHING." The Crimson Scourge urged from the table as its master passed by. His fuse frizzling, Albel grabbed the hilt and chopped his story book in uneven halves. He dropped the sword on the floor. "Don't be such a child! I thought you were growing up!"
"It doesn't matter anymore!" He snapped as chants of 'kill the beast' rose like a flood around him.
-
In the floors below the objects waited for the ram to open the doors. Luther kept an eye open. As soon as every man was in the room, he gave the shout.
"Go!" And the ambush was on.
Luther, however, found himself cornered, lined up for Peppita's 'kaboom' and fearing it. But in an instant Nel was there, wiping out the child with hot tea, scolding the little face. With a quick thumbs up, the candelabra was back in the game.
Using quick, decisive moves with the help of a knife, he made his way through the crowd, slowly letting insanity increase his strength. When he reached the kitchen door, he heard the shrieks.
Inside, laughing sinisterly, a gruff man was plucking the feather's from Blair's fine bunch. Taking a quick survey of the room, Luther grabbed the squid, squirming, from the bowl it had been placed in before being butchered for that night's dinner. Throwing it at the man, he was quick to dash in and stab the intruder, catching his sister as she fell.
Her look was stern, but sad in a way, before nodding. "Thank you, now let's get these guys out of here."
-
Sophia was nimble on her was up the stairs, clutching her staff tightly as she threw open doors. Finally she entered the room farthest west. "You!" She pointed across the room where Albel sat, turning his glare for the withering Palmira's flower to her. "Gravitation!"
Albel grimaced as the broken objects in the room rose, coming quickly at him, knocking his light figure through the stained glass. He landed on the roof, tumbling down onto a flat ledge.
The dull maroon gaze not meeting her satisfaction, Sophia grit her teeth. "Speak!" Still nothing. "Thunder flare!"
"Stop it!" Came the shout from below. Quickly the life returned to Albel's eyes as he skidded out from the ledge where Sophia had him cornered, coming behind her.
"So, you thought you could take my Fayt away, huh?" She turned and held the crescent shaped carving over the angered expression. "What were you thinking!" At the moment, actually, Albel's mind quickly scanned over why she would hang a kitten from her staff. Even his cold heart felt sympathy over the young limp creature. But it was only a moment before his thoughts returned to his blue-haired torment. "Why would he ever want you if he had me! Do you think he's gay or something!"
"No, I don't!" The claw came up and snatched the staff from in front of his face, leaving the whippy thing hanging in her hand. "But I think that, if he had a wife like you, he would-" His uncontrollable anger clogged his throat as he held the girl by her thin throat over the gorge below.
"No!" The ear-piecing squeal escaped. "I-I'll do anything! Let me live!"
He rolled his eyes, throwing her back against the roof just in case Fayt had come for her.
"Albel!" Above them, on a small balcony, Fayt was climbing over the railing, hurrying over. He spotted Sophia gasping on the floor them looked back up to her attacker. "You're ok..." The smile made the man look away quickly.
"Why wouldn't I be." He mumbled, starting to walk away, not wanting to face Fayt.
"Stone rain!" The sudden fall of stones was accepted by the man, but the boy was quick to retaliate.
"Stone rain!" He held up the Crimson Scourge whom he had picked up along the way.
"Yaaaa!" The pebbles sent Sophia down into the previously avoided gorge, dead in an instant of impacting the ground.
"Albel, Albel, talk to me!" Hands were flying through the stone, quickly uncovering the paled face, dark lashes held gently against the fair cheeks. "Albel, come on... not you too." Fayt choked, brushing away the last of the rock and shaking the man gently. "Please." Leaning over, he touched the soft cheek to his own, shocked at the feeling of uncontrolled lips touching his skin. Still unaware that the sword laid at his side had senses, Fayt carefully sought the lips.
The sudden adrenaline faded as soon as he made contact. Two hands grasping his sides and two lips pressing firmly against his own sent it soaring again. The adrenaline, that is. Along with... other things.
Setting the man gently back down, he looked surprised into a pair of dazed crimson.
Sudden movement beside them caught both of their attentions, causing them both to sit up and look at the man standing next to them.
With a clever smile the man chuckled, "happy birthday, Albel. It's hard to believe you're twenty five already. You're still acting like a timid teenager. Why didn't you just kiss him when I told you to?"
Albel shook his head. "You- you're... You mean that The Crimson Scourge was... Dammit, what the hell!"
Fayt blinked then looked at his partner. "What's so unusual about an object turning human?"
The birthday boy's glare met his banefully. "That's my dad, dammit. You've been watching me the whole time, you bastard! Why didn't you just tell me!" He stood quickly and pounded into the chest with two fleshed out, living hands.
Fayt was startled at first, but became blissfully happy as he watched.
Two smiles... that sound... that sweet, sweet sound... Albel was laughing.
As much as I hate swearing (I try not to use it when I can) it needed to be done here... This plot twist struck my mind somewhere around chapter 2... And yes, the Stone Rain idea came from Zen's 'Selective Hearing' ( http/ of Zen... I love you, marry me! xD j/k Thank you SO much! -dances- I can die happy now.