Chapter I: And heard within, a lie is spun
x
A/N: This is a very belated Christmas gift (so late it's now a bday gift!) for the ever-lovely tcrmommabear/Shelby! We saw the finale to Centaurworld and immediately agreed the Nowhere King arc would make such a good au for TCR that we both wanted to play with that idea. Had I the energy for it, this was an idea that could have become a proper multichaptered story but, as things stand, it'll have to live in this 3-chaptered fic for now. For anyone familiar with the original inspiration, please note that I couldn't commit to the whole story arc of the Nowhere King, so have had to simplify things down for it to fit into a cohesive fic.
If anyone wants to check out another TCR ficlet inspired by the same source, please take a gander at thedrunkenwerewolf's To Curse Oneself on AO3! She stayed much more loyal to the original premise, including the heartbreaking ending (which I wimped out of), and is definitely worth a read!
Chapter titles are taken from Netflix's The House, and the next two chapters will be posted weekly.
x
The first time he sees her smile, he has no idea of the impact it will one day have on him.
It's a pleasant smile, to be sure; a little preoccupied, perhaps, and burying an ocean of other emotions, but he is more focused on the nature of the owner of the smile than anything else.
There is a human in the Sanctuary.
It's not that he's never seen a human – it's simply that he's never seen one as far… well, inland as his tiny little corner of the Creation world before. (As far as 'inland' can be applied when the sea in question is a portal across worlds.) He's certainly never seen one arrive on his doorstep with quite such a flashy entrance as this woman either.
Still, his Bureau is open to anyone seeking help, and he somewhat suspects this human falls rather heavily into that category. Once the purple light of the intraworld portal fades – and powerful magic it must be too, if the way Baron's fur crawls is anything to go by – he steps out into the courtyard to greet her. He does not miss the way her smile falters when she sees his form – but he is not unfamiliar with such reactions from humans. He is not the oddest of Creations, but he is still undeniably other, his form floundering between feline and human.
(It is only later that he learns her response was borne out of unease at his feline side, rather than his Creation one.)
She tilts her head back to meet his gaze as he approaches – she is shorter than him, but not by much – and the smile returns, a touch wry.
"Well," she says. "I suppose this means I'm still not in Kansas."
He sweeps his hat from his head (the smile turns a glimmer more genuine at the old-fashioned gesture) as he replies. "I'm afraid not. Welcome to the Cat Bureau."
Another flicker, this time accompanied by a flinch, nearly imperceptible. "Is that, by any chance, associated with the Cat Kingdom?"
Her question earns a derisive laugh from the other cat Creation residing at the Sanctuary. "Those kooks?" Muta snorts. "Not a chance. It's a bunch of baloney; cat Creations go there if they can't live out in the rest of the Creation world like I can. It makes them feel important, having a 'kingdom' all to themselves."
The woman relaxes, but not by much.
In the introductions that ensue, Baron takes a proper look at their newest client. Her name is Miss Haru Yoshioka, she works in her local library, and the scent of cattails and fish lingers on her. She is shaken from whatever misadventure has landed her on his doorstep and her hand is clenched around something still shimmering purple, but she stands tall, single-minded in her need to get home.
"We're a long way from the portal gate," Baron warns her. "And the type of magic to shorten such a journey is few and far between."
She nods. "Then I'd better get started."
"We, you mean," Baron amends. It is his turn to smile now. "Do you really think the Bureau would leave you to find your way home alone?"
x
Eventually, he coaxes her to release the shattered gem shard which is clasped so tightly in her grasp that it has drawn blood.
It is longer before he can coax out the story of how she came to arrive at the Sanctuary.
She tells him her tale as they sit atop the balcony of a moving castle, the latest in a series of hitchhiking endeavours back to the portal gate. The world swings beneath their feet, the grass below rippling in the breeze like waves.
The story she weaves is one he has already halfway guessed, but there is something about hearing it spoken that makes it all so suddenly real. It is one of a human librarian who saves a cat Creation from the thundering wheels of a speeding truck, whose kin took it upon themselves to heap gratitude upon her, regardless of her disinterest. She talks of unprompted gifts, of mice and catnip and cattails. She talks of the grievous communication error that led to the eventual culmination of her kidnapping to the Cat Kingdom corner of the Creation world.
Her voice tightens here, a steely façade slotting into place as she reaches the story's conclusion. It is a muddled, muddied retelling, coloured by the desperation of those final moments, and she can only hazily explain how she attempted to escape. How, in the scuffle, the crown of the self-proclaimed Cat King was knocked from his head and the gem atop it fractured. And how, when she grabbed it, she felt the magic crackle from the fissure and a portal spilled forth before her.
"I thought it might bring me home," she says, and she offers a rueful, tired smile. "It was clearly magic, and I thought maybe, perhaps, the magic from a powerful Creation such as him…"
"To travel between worlds takes more than even he would possess," Baron replies. "There is a reason there is only the one portal gate in both realms."
"Well, I realise that now." She snorts. "Still, you think it would have dropped me off a little closer to the gate."
"It should have, if you wished to go home when you took it."
"I did. I…" She falters. Then she chuckles, but this time it reaches her eyes, an amused, fond thing. "I wished to be safe," she says. "In that moment, that's all I wanted." She glances his way out of the corner of her eye. "I suppose it knew what it was doing when it brought me to you."
That is the first time her smile makes his heart stutter.
x
It is a long journey across the Creation world to the portal gate which ties their realms together, and it is not without its dangers. This far out, humans are a rarity, and anything that scarce is worth something to someone; name-thieves, years-stealers, and monsters with a taste for human flesh all share a malicious curiosity for mortals. And humans are so terrifyingly fragile.
He does not express it, but he thinks it as he patches Haru up after a close encounter with a wolf spirit with a volatile distain for humanity. They have found shelter in a town nestled against the forest, a place which reeks of smoke and metal and reminds him how far he has travelled from his quiet little corner of the world. Three long scars mar Haru's shoulder, bloodied and red. She does not wince as he cleans the wound, but he can hear her breath shallow as she braces against the pain.
"So," she says. "I guess we can add giant white spirit wolves to the list of things to avoid."
"Was that in any doubt before, Chicky?"
She laughs. "It's always good to make these things official, Muta."
"Before or after they nearly eat you?"
"That wolf wasn't going to eat me."
"Fine. Shred you, then."
Baron sets to binding the scars, and Haru's breath catches again. She glances balefully down at her shoulder. "Still, you'd think spirit wolves would be significantly less substantial."
"Not here, they ain't, Chicky."
"Again, lesson learned."
The rueful laugh sets her shoulders shaking gently, and Baron has to loosen his grip so not to catch the wounds accidentally.
It is an unfamiliar fear to him. For him, his magic takes over, reverting his flesh and blood to the inanimate form he was originally crafted from at the first sign of injury. If Creations are cut, they do not bleed.
But she… she is all too mortal.
She leans into him, and he can tell she's fighting to ignore the stab of pain. "You're being suspiciously quiet, Baron," she says. "Care to share what's on your mind?"
He can't answer that. Not honestly. He cannot tell her how he wonders how humanity ever survived long enough to climb down from their trees, how he does not understand how their own mortality doesn't haunt them every step of the way. No matter how much care he takes with tending to her injury, the fur across his gloveless hands are still stained russet-red. The blood smells of iron and copper, metallic, and it merges uncannily easily with the town about them.
"I am thinking," he says, and he finishes bandaging her shoulder, "that we all had a very lucky escape back there."
"It wasn't luck," she mumbles. "It was you."
"I am indeed a lucky Creation."
She laughs, and his heart soars the way it always does now whenever he hears the sound. "Not quite lucky enough though," she amends, and she scoots round so they're facing one another. "Come on, your turn."
"My turn for what?"
"I wasn't the only one who got a little too close to that spirit." She taps his arm. "You need some patching up too."
"I assure you I don't."
She takes his hand and gently, but firmly, turns his arm around to reveal the matching scars. There is only the faintest of hitched breaths as she sees the skin that has reverted to its wooden form, fur exchanged for painted strokes, and flesh to grain lines. The wolf's claws ran deep, but there is no blood. Only wood, marred by long, jagged furrows. Her fingers dance over the grooves as lightly as cobwebs, as if she fears to harm him.
Her question, when it comes, is soft. "Doesn't it hurt?"
He resists the urge to reclaim his arm, to hide away the parts of him that denote him as strikingly other to her. "Only in the moment," he answers honestly. "And then my magic is triggered and changes it to… well, this."
"Will it heal?"
"Over time. When I sleep, my magic rejuvenates and speeds up the process."
She raises her gaze to his, but there isn't the fear of the unknown in her eyes. Instead there's a fierce protectiveness he isn't prepared for. "Then you should." Her voice is still caring, but the softness has been replaced by steel. "Sleep, I mean."
"It causes me no pain–"
"Then why aren't you always in this… semi-inanimate form?" she shoots back. "If it makes you impervious to injury, why not stay like this? Surely it's safer? But, no, you prefer to live in your flesh and blood form, so evidently you like that better." She motions to her bandaged shoulder. "We're not going anywhere tonight, so why don't you take advantage of that and rest?"
"Someone should keep watch–"
"We have Muta and Toto for that." She turns to his fellow Creations. "Right?"
"Sure."
"Yeah."
She snaps back to Baron. "So for once in your life, look after yourself and sleep."
When he finally admits defeat, a smile lights up her face and Baron begins think that maybe he understands it now, how humanity thrives when they are delicate things in an indelicate world. That maybe there is a kind of ferocity in the act of caring for another.
x
Few humans linger this long in the Creation world, and for good reason, he discovers. It is not enough that the inhabitants pose their threats, but the magic of the world harbours its dangers also.
He stares at the hand cradled in his, once so familiar and human, now marred by a layer of metal. "It'll go," he finds himself saying – promising – and he hopes he is not imagining the mortal warmth he feels beneath the inorganic sheen. "Once you return to your world, the magic will fade and it'll crumble away."
Haru rubs a thumb against her palm. Slivers of silver scatter. "I've been peeling it off for some time now," she admits. "It was just fragments at first, so thin I thought it must be some sort of glitter. But it's been getting thicker."
Deeper, Baron mentally amends. He resists the urge to scrub away the metal until none is left, knowing it'll only be postponing the inevitable. There's only one sure solution to this. "This world is built of magic," he says. "It's in the inhabitants, the water, the air. For Creations, it helps sustain us, but for humans…" He runs a thumb over where the metal yields to skin. "For you, it settles. It doesn't usually matter – it dissolves upon returning to the human world – but if someone stays too long, it builds up." He meets her gaze, and though the words pain him, he says them regardless. "You've stayed too long."
The smile he has come to know – to love – flickers. "You make it sound all so serious, Baron," she says, her voice finding purchase on teasing humour. "It's fine."
It's not. Not even a little bit.
"It will be fine," Baron corrects, "once you return to your world."
"And if I stay?"
He stills.
"You can't," he whispers. He curls Haru's hand in his own, hiding away the Creation part of her as if it could be fixed so easily. "You have a home. A world. And I will not take that from you."
She meets his gaze with eyes that now shine with a glass-like gleam. How long has he missed the signs of her creeping Creation change? What other tell-tale symptoms has she hidden from him that, even now, he is ignorant to? He does not know where this shift will end – whether she will become a full Creation like him or something other – but he knows how this song will play out and he has no desire to dance to its heart-breaking melody.
He looks to the horizon. The blue sheen of the portal between their realms is finally in sight now, and it colours the red sunset a strange purple. He thinks of the portal that brought her to his doorstep all those weeks ago and how much has changed since then. "It's time for you to go home."
"Only if you promise me you'll come visit."
"I promise."
She does not argue any further, but when it comes to her passage back to her world, she hesitates before the gateway. She stands there, bathed in azure light, and turns back to him one last time. "Just for the record, Baron," she whispers, "I think I might be a little bit in love with you." Then she grins, kisses his cheek, and vanishes into the portal.
It is only later that he curses himself for his mirrored confession, spoken too late and with a whole world now between them.
x
He tries to make it work. They both do – and somehow that makes it all the more bitter when it becomes plain it will never be.
For just as she is too human to linger in the Creation world, so also is he too Creation for the human one. In her world, he is no longer the dashing hero-turned-friend, no longer an easy shoulder to lean on, no longer anything but a curio. He is a living figurine, with all the limitations that such an existence entails.
When he visits Haru, her friends eye him with the same kind of fascination that one might employ for a well-trained pet or exotic souvenir. He stands atop her kitchen counter in a meagre attempt to meet her at eye level, but the humans still stoop to examine him.
"He's adorable!" coos one – Hiromi, Baron believes her name to be – and even she, shorter than Haru by almost a full head, ducks down to better see him. "Look at his little gloves and hat! And his cane! He's even got a tiny bowtie!"
"And ears," Haru reprimands her friend. "Talk to him, not at him."
It is kind of Haru, he is aware, to defend his dignity. But even so, he cannot help but wonder how long it will be until she yields to the attitudes of those around her. Until she sees him in the same way as so many other humans do – as an oddity. A quirk of magic.
Until the idea of falling in love with a Creation becomes laughable.
x
"Did you mean what you said? Before you left the Creation world?"
He does not mean to ask the question, but it slips from him regardless, a momentary lapse in emotion. They sit atop the roof of Haru's apartment building, their conversation comfortably idling on shared memories and harmless truths beneath the starred sky.
Haru sets down the hot chocolate she has been warming her hands by, and looks to the Creation. "Mostly," she says.
"Mostly?" he echoes.
She grins and, oh, how he has missed that smile. "When I used the phrase 'a little' I might have been downplaying it a bit." She leans back, tilting her head to admire the night sky, and it is at times like these when Baron grieves most for the limitations of his Creation form in the human world – for back in his realm, he could have easily offered her a shoulder to lean on. "Why?" she asks. "What makes you think about it now?"
"Simply a regret," he replies honestly, "in that I wasn't quick enough to return the sentiment."
She throws another smile at him, bright and beautiful. "Oh, I wouldn't worry about that. I figured it out ages ago."
x
There is no magic in the human realm. He does not notice it at first, but as the days pass his own magic wanes, no longer replenished by the world around him. Slivers of wood creep along his claws and numb his toes. A scratch that should heal easily reverts to its original form and does not recover. And when his laughter turns hollow and his eyesight flickers through an enamel haze, he concedes that the human world has no home for a Creation such as himself.
He leaves only when the evidence of his ever-draining magic becomes too extensive to hide from Haru.
x
"You will simply have to keep your visits short then," Toto says, ever the pragmatist. He perches on the inner balcony of the Bureau, watching over as Baron recovers from his time in the human world. "If you exhaust your magic entirely while on the other side of the portal–"
"I know, I know. Trust me, I have no interest in being stuck as an inanimate object. I just–" He hisses in pain as Muta applies the rejuvenating salve to his wooden hands, the surge of magic stinging with a rush of pins and needles. "Careful, Muta."
"If you think that's bad, just you wait until you get to the fly-by-night tea," his friend mutters. "You'll wish your nose was wooden too."
"Somehow I'd take that more ominously if you didn't feel that way about all tea." Baron gingerly flexes his hands and, when the magic feels somewhat settled, experimentally shifts them back to flesh and bone. His knuckles still creak with a distinctly wooden sound.
Muta is right, in the end. The tonic does taste foul.
"Take it slowly, Baron," Toto warns. "Your magic is still weak."
"Yes, yes," Baron mutters. "The human world doesn't have enough magic to sustain me, the Creation world has too much magic to let Haru stay here in peace, I understand that well enough." He exhales heavily as, for the first time in weeks, his lungs no longer carry that strangely hollow echo. "This is just the way things have to be."
Muta laughs humourlessly. "Shame you weren't born a human, huh, Baron? That'd solve a lot of problems."
Baron echoes back the mirthless sound and rises to his feet. His legs shake from the exertion and he braces himself against his desk to hide the tremor. He doesn't need any more of Toto's admonishments. As he clears the desk, his gaze falls on the shattered remains of the Cat King's crown, a thing of broken magic but powerful nonetheless. More powerful than he could ever hope to be alone.
"Yes," he says. "Yes, it would."
x
It's not something that can be done.
Or should be done.
Baron isn't sure which one it is, but he's not sure it makes much difference.
He's going to find a way regardless.
His friends worry – because that is their nature and even he, through the haze of his dogged determination, can understand that – and do their best to detract him from this reckless, desperate plan.
"I'm just saying, there's probably a reason it's never been done before," Muta tells him.
"That we know of," Baron replies.
"Look, you know it's bad when I agree with puddingbrain over there, but he's got a point. Baron, this kind of meddling with magic is dangerous. You never know what the outcome is going to be."
"If all goes according to plan, the outcome should be a human form, Toto."
"Yes, but when do your plans ever work out how you mean 'em to?" Muta mutters. "And even if it does, is it going to be a temporary humanity or is this more of a one-way ticket?"
Baron hesitates in his preparations, his hands stilling over the array of notes fanned out across the desk. "I don't know. As you said, this isn't something that has been done before. There's no case studies or research, just theories. It's just – just conjecture."
"We could stop you, you know," Toto says. His voice is soft. Apologetic. "It's clear from the theories that for anything like this, you'd have to access the portal. It'd be a simple enough job to keep you clear of it."
"And are you?" Baron asks, just as softly. "Going to stop me?"
Toto stares at Baron and wonders how they came to this – how he became trapped between the right thing and the kind thing, and how yet both feel like a betrayal. He shakes his head. "Just find your way back to us, Baron. One way or another."
He promises, but they both know it's not one he can be sure to keep.
x
Armed with the magic of the Cat King's shattered crown, he is able to strand himself in the passageway between worlds. It is a featureless realm, filled with a gentle white glow that has no source and casts no shadow, and yet his feet find purchase on an unseen floor. As he exhales, his breath plumes in a cloud of colour, like a tiny array of northern lights.
"That's… different," he says, and the colours rising from his lips shift hue, as if responding to his surprise. He steps forward, and even that movement leaves colour in his wake. An after-image of himself – the colours and the proportions not quite picture-perfect – echoes behind him. Like a series of photos, snapping almost quickly enough to mimic reality. Almost.
He paces further into the passageway, leaving the blue portal of the Creation world behind until he reaches the point where the realities of the two realms – Creation and human – are balanced on a knife's edge.
He feels the rules of both worlds tugging at him. The Creation side would see him as he is now – living, breathing – while the other, the human side, would reduce to a mere trinket if he tarried too long. For the human world has no place for a Creation, no magic to support it, and so it tries to fit him into its understanding of reality. But there is more than one way to skin a cat, and perhaps he can nudge the latter reality to consider his human aspects, his soul born of a human artisan, more than his cat and Creation side.
And so, at the point where the two realities collide, he takes the shattered Cat King crown in hand and forces the human world to mould him to fit its logic. To parse the two sides of him that, separately are accepted, but together can never be. Cat verses human. Creation against mortal.
He has never known a pain like it. The gentle colours swirling around him turn sharp and jagged. The echo images splinter, and through the static and fractured forms, he sees his shape shift. Sees it split. His breath and heart stop
and start
as for a moment he is human
and the next he is wood.
And then
And then he is human.
And then he is not.
He gasps and shakily rises to his feet, his balance strangely off, although it is only later he prescribes that to his sudden lack of tail. His hands run through his hair, locks as ginger as his fur had once been and head feeling oddly naked with the loss of his feline face. The world is brighter, but his sense of smell is dulled. He is distracted from this inevitable trade-off when his legs give way – it's only to be expected, he rationalises, after all these legs are so new – and reaches for his cane. It knocks into something that wasn't there before.
He turns and sees the cat figurine.
The strange human locks eyes with him, and with horror Baron recognises the emerald-green gaze.
But that was meant to be me, he tries to cry out, but the words do not come. He finds he has no tongue, no lungs or voice-box – no living form with which to speak. He is wood all the way through, as inanimate as any child's toy crafted without a soul.
It is then that he realises the reality of his situation.
He is the by-product.
He reaches for the figurine.
It is wholly feline now – he supposes he took the entirety of its human features – and sits still. Inanimate and lifeless and conforming to the harsh reality of the human world. He cradles the remains of his Creation life in his now-so-human hands and laughs.
He has succeeded.
Failed.