STLTH 100

So we've got a Higgs with a conscience. The last chapter was really fun to write. I'd planned the chapter a long time ago, and it's always been on my mind to write, but a request made me bring it up sooner rather than later.

Anyway, I'm gonna make the chapters a wee bit shorter, like they used to. This way, I can make more frequent time skips. Guess they'll still be as long as they need to be, if the plot demands it.

(Was what I said, then I wrote 4k. Goddamn it. ._. )

11.

Slowly, he came up to the surface, rousing himself from sleep. Eyes cracking open into a squint, Marco lifted his head from a too- soft red pillow. The first thing he was aware of was that he had a dull headache squarely in the center of his head. The second was that he had been sleeping sitting down at a table. A wave of confusion swept over him as he tried to get his bearings; it took him another half a minute to realize that this was Higgs' room, and he'd fallen asleep at some point. He couldn't even remember when or how.

"Ugh," he groaned as he looked up, that the room was too bright, hurting his eyes just a bit more than just his pupils simply being unused to it. "What time is it?" Looking off to one side where the window was, he saw that the light coming through its thrown-open lattice shutters was bright with a low shadow. It was supplemented by the room's sole lantern that hung from a hook overhead.

"About middle of the morning," he heard Higgs say somewhere off to his side. Looking in her direction, he saw her in the doorway, leaning against the frame. "Good thing you woke up when you did, 'cause I just found a marker while I was out sorting all this mess. I think you have enough forehead space for me to write a notice about me looking for work."

"Oh? Oh." He thought about what she said. He could vaguely recall that they had conversed about the grey area that was joining Eclipsa and working for her. "Don't worry about that, you'll be fine being with Eclipsa. It's not that bad."

"Not that bad, huh?" she sounded doubtful but shook it off. "Anyway, how're you doing? Hungry, right? You didn't even eat dinner last night."

"Uhh, yeah… yeah!" He didn't need much time to consider it. Everything close and leading up to when he fell asleep was like a runny blur, but he was sure that it had been sometime around late afternoon, early evening. Heck, he didn't even have a full lunch yesterday. He was also thirsty. Before he could add that, she was already gone, saying she would be back in a bit. Left alone, he continued to pull himself together and observed his surroundings. Besides how he felt and how he came to be that way, everything seemed normal. Higgs' room was the same as it had always been; table, dresser, closet, bed, wine cask in the corner. He realized that the single-size bed was short one pillow, the only one that was usually there. She must've given it to me so I wouldn't be too uncomfortable. Why didn't she just wake me so I could sleep in my own room?

He could appreciate the gesture, but he wasn't too keen on the sharing of such an item. He didn't call the girl's hygiene into question, or whether or not the pillow was clean, but there was always a risk of some illness to be caught, or lice or something else of the sort. He tossed it back to the bed. He made a mental note that he'd still thank her, and tell her to never do it again.

With the pillow gone, Marco saw something else on the table, something that it had blocked out of sight. His eyes widened in shock and elation as soon as he realized that it was his dimensional scissors. "Yes!" he yelled. The headache that he had flared up a little and made him wince, but it didn't detract from his happiness. "Yes, yes, yes!" he yelled again. His mind was instantly going through all sorts of scenarios about how he came to lose them, finding them, and what he could do with them in the future. They were mainly centered on his somewhat peculiar night, Higgs who might've placed the scissors there and what to do about Tom. Just as he was about to get up, Higgs returned; she opened the ajar door with a foot and let herself in, holding a plate in one hand and a cup in the other.

Unconsciously, it occurred to him that this was the first time he was seeing Higgs like this; new circumstances caused variations to her. The contemplation catching up to him, he took her in. Attired differently, instead of her usual squire uniform of her tunic and its supplements, she wore a simple light green blouse that was two-thirds buttoned and a pair of ankle-length white pants, complete with sandals. Casual clothes aside, she looked very domestic carrying food and drink that he presumed was his; she had never done him such a favor before. Her expression wasn't scowling, stoic, or relaxed. It was a smile, but it was noticeably forced this time, and with a nervous expression. She looked absolutely bashful, and Marco thought she was appealing in her own modest way.

"For me? Please tell me that it's for me." His stomach growled, just loudly enough for her to hear while she stood over him as she placed the plate on the table, along with a cup of steaming liquid that he guessed was tea.

"Yeah, Marco, it's yours," she said lamely, "I already had mine. I held off making yours until you woke up, so you could have it warm." He thanked her profusely, to which she smiled in appreciation. "You're welcome." Instead of sitting directly across from him at the same table, she put more distance between them by sitting on the bed instead. She watched as he gazed intensely at the plate of a double set of sandwiches, each set cut into two diagonal pieces. Lifting off the thick slice of bread from one such sandwich, he saw that it was fried eggs with bits of sausage in them as a rough pan omelet.

"Checking for poison?" she asked amusingly.

"Well, who knows, there could be," he replied, mirroring her tone. As if suddenly realizing what they were joking about, the girl's countenance became glum, and Marco immediately went on damage control, thinking that he had upset her. "Doubt it though, and even if it is, I'd eat both the poison and the dang plate, I'm that hungry." That managed to squeeze a small chuckle out of her, and she shrugged.

"Poison, eh?" she murmured. "Can't joke about that, but okay, okay. But you have to drink the tea first. You've got gas from your stomach trying to digest itself, I bet." It was his first time hearing about such a thing, and she had to explain to him that it was like a household remedy to prevent the pain that would surely come after eating if he didn't. "You're gonna have to take my word for it, Marco. This says a lot about you and your lifestyle from where your home is… Earth, you said? Haven't been hungry a lot, have you?"

"I've never starved if that's what you mean. I've got food at home. Shops close by… and pizza can get delivered… and…" he salivating just at the mere thought but considered that Higgs was implying that he was better off than her, and she had undoubtedly gone hungry for long periods before. Taking her suggestion, he drank the tea, and he belched as if he'd drunk a heavily carbonated soda and blushed in embarrassment. "Excuse me."

"No worries, it's what I was waiting for. You can eat now," she urged. He ate ravenously, and he complimented her between bites. "Good at cooking? Yeah, I can help myself. Would've done more, but didn't have much to work with. So… it's just those sandwiches."

"No food left in the kitchen?" he asked. He'd never seen or heard of that happening before in the Butterfly's castle.

"Not really. The castle's just about empty, Marco, and only about a handful of us are still here. Maybe five or six or seven, including us in total. Everyone else is gone, and most of them took pretty much everything that isn't nailed down. Guess they didn't master the art of it, like a certain somebody," she added humorously. "Bet you could take everything else, and the nails."

"I'll get it cured, don't worry," he assured. "I've even got my scissors back –"

"Yeah, I saw," she interrupted, "been meaning to talk to you about it." She took off one of her sandals, gesturing it at him before putting it back on. He vaguely recalled that it had been missing as well as a result of his thieving, and gaped. "All the things you stole came back last night." At the revelation, he nearly choked and had a small coughing fit. "I spent most of the night and this morning putting them out into the hallway and sorting them out in different piles. Useful and non-useful, could be important and probably garbage. No one's passed by and troubled it yet, so feel free to browse. This is still my room, so I didn't want the clutter in here." In elation, he picked up the last piece of his breakfast, eating as he walked out into the hallway and sure enough, he could see everything he had stolen, most of which he hadn't even been aware of. Tiny things he could perhaps fit into his pockets, large things he could stand and lean against. How could he not notice stealing a clothing cabinet? Didn't anyone else realize it?

Regardless, they were rediscovered. It was something to be thankful for. "Oh geez. That's great. One less thing to worry about." One of the possible items came to mind. "Did you find the, uh, old man's pager?"

"Yeah, I found it… guess I'll give it to him later when I have some time," she replied from where she still sat on the bed. She looked contemplative. Marco stared at her. She was usually strong-willed, but now, she appeared nervous and hesitant. She paused too much.

"We've got time now. We could go give it to him. Unless you need help moving out first? Have a new place in mind where you can live? Or wherever you used to live before?"

"It's a decent offer, but I could still live in the castle. No one would know."

He tilted his head in confusion. "All by yourself?"

"Sure. Who knows? I might even move into one of the fancier rooms, like one of the high-ranking knights, or even the princess's. I don't think anyone's coming by to make sure that everyone's out and gone."

"Sounds like squatting."

"I've got no better plans." This was disheartening, and Marco felt that whatever Higgs was doing went beyond simply not wanting to work under Queen Eclipsa. She wanted to stay in the castle. It couldn't just be a matter of being alone, right? Or something else? As if trying to pick his brains, she asked him if he had any of his own plans for the future.

"Now that I've got my scissors back, I'll go find Moon, or look for some evidence against Tom or something," he replied as he made his way back to the round table and sat down. "Maybe in the underworld. I might even get lucky if I ask his parents. They could know something." She looked completely disapproving, and Marco became sheepish. "I mean, it's not much of a plan, but I can wing it. I've done it before. Meteora and Toffee were worse, and we got through those, right?"

"Point made," she said with a sigh. "You've got your scissors. But Marco? Question. Where's the breakfast plate?" Looking down, he realized that it was missing, and the boy sighed in frustration when he found it in his lap and returned it to the table. "Yeah, the things came back, but you're not cured. Doesn't it worry you, Marco, going around and possibly stealing every now and again, and probably important things? Life and death important? You could steal something important enough to keep someone alive, or worse, something that someone would kill you for. I don't think you should just gallivant all over the dimensions until you know more about the curse."

He nodded; she was right. "It IS worrying. But hey! It sounds like it worries you." He grinned. "Never thought I'd get that from you, Higgs."

"You could go back to tasting the rug," she stated, referencing her bullying from previous times.

"I appreciate the concern, Higgs," he retorted, "and it's nice seeing you… being nice!" She didn't respond immediately, and he realized that she was more contemplative. It was strange. In the time they had grown to be friends since the fiasco started, she was more prone to be blunt, and whatever she was thinking was usually spoken. "Hey, are you doing okay?"

"You've got scissors," she said quietly, "and you make a portal. What if you lose the scissors, lost in some unfamiliar dimension?"

He shrugged unabashedly. "Try to make do. Been lost for sixteen years until I earned these scissors from Hekapoo."

"Yeah?" she asked in disbelief. "And yet so upset last night about not having them for… what? Two-and-half weeks?"

"It's embarrassing when you put it that way." He didn't miss the concern in her voice, nor could he ignore the important issue she raised. It'd be terrible if he did lose the scissors while in the underworld. "So… I stole my own scissors?" She nodded in reply. "Makes sense. But it came back. Something happened to make it and everything else come back."

"Could be because of the wine, methinks," she said. "Been riding my mind most of the night. The only thing you've ever done differently was drink wine, and the things didn't come back until you passed out."

"I passed out?" he blurted. "How –"

"The long and short of it is that you drank wine, and got drunk," she interrupted, "and just before you passed out, everything just… appeared out of thin air. You slept until now." His face went through a menagerie of different emotions, ranging from shock, surprise, and horror but she brushed it off. "Yeah, nerd. Your first time. It happens. Honestly, Marco, You're out of your element. Don't know if it's because this isn't your home dimension, but sometimes you come off as a little kid, not really knowing how to handle yourself when you're exposed to new things."

"I can manage. Drinking wine… I've done it before. It's just never made me feel that way. But I can manage. I'm the only one I know, for a fact, who's earned dimensional scissors, not bought them or inherited them."

"You're not the only one. That smuggler did it too. So he says, anyway."

"Eh?" This was surprising. Maybe that old man had more mettle to him than he first thought.

"The smuggler," she said again, and then her voice became tiny. "And… Rocam." She didn't continue. He knew that the person was a sore topic, and Marco was always at pains to avoid mentioning anything that could be possibly sensitive to not offend Higgs and wreck the friendship they were building.

"Maybe he cheated," Marco joked.

"Maybe," Higgs repeated with a laugh, but she still thought of it as one more similarity between the two boys. Somehow, as long as Marco didn't have his scissors, he was less like the one she hated, but now he had them again. She got off the bed and sat in the chair across from Marco at the table. Reaching for the scissors, she took it from him – mild manneredly – and turned it over in her hands. Now and again, she would stop to look at the characters inscribed into the blade portion. She slowly read out the letters that made up his name out loud, endlessly.

Finally, she fell quiet.

Higgs ran a thumb over his name. "He had dimensional scissors too. They looked just like yours. But the name is different. Your name is different. You're different, Marco. I spent last night, looking at the scissors, afraid they'd change and show Rocam's name. Afraid now, still. He was like you, but… you could say he was older… like he'd seen more. I liked him. Loved him, too. He was nice, kind, considerate. At first."

He was afraid to speak but did so regardless. "What happened?"

She didn't want to say. "Things happened. He changed."

"But I'm not him, Higgs. I'm not Rocam."

She looked like she wanted to cry, but she steeled them back. "And that's the problem, Marco. You're not him. You're both wrong! I… I tried to kill you. I would've felt better knowing that he died, that I was finally rid of him." She sighed exasperatedly and jadedly. "The more I saw you, the more I saw him. Not even relatives, not even twin brothers. To me, you might as well be the same person. But you're not. I took my hate and frustration out on you, and I'm sorry."

"You've been difficult," he said tersely, now feeling a sense of foreboding from all she had unloaded on him. "Sorry to disappoint you, but anything you've done to me wasn't enough to kill me."

He didn't know, and this time, she couldn't blame it on his naiveté. She was the one completely at fault, her wickedness. "I got a potion," she answered, "from Tom. It was the curse. He got me the job to serve people at the celebration."

His look of mortification and shock was plain to see. She didn't even need to finish, knowing that he had already figured out what she was explaining. Yet still, she continued to drive the nail in further. "He said to give you a capful. It was to spoil your relationship with the princess. But I wanted to kill you, and it would be the closest chance I could get to kill you and get away with it. I gave it all to you, hoping you'd just die in your sleep. Instead, you ended up like this, stealing everything in every which way, and hating the princess when she's close. It's all my fault. I'm sorry."

He was still dumbfounded. Fearful, she didn't know how he'd react, physically by hitting her, or yell at her, or simply leave.

He didn't move an inch. He just sat and stared.

"You're both wrong," she said again, trying to get the words out but the knot in her throat stifled them to a whisper, "You're both wrong, wrong people in the wrong places, and I was wrong too. All of me wishes it was you that I met first, that it was you that I loved. At the same time, I wish it was him that was in front of me right now, the one that deserves everything I've done to you, all the spite and lies, to put my hands 'round your neck and squeeze it until you stop moving. But you're not him. I'm sorry, Marco. I really am."

Marco didn't speak. He wanted to – every time something seemingly occurred to him, he would hesitate. Finally, he just took a few deep breaths and steadied himself.

"I want to know what this guy could've done to you, what he did to make you want to treat him like this, to try to kill him," Marco said, emphasizing her treatment of himself, "but… I don't want to pry. I want to justify you, thinking that this was before we became friends. But at the same time, I just can't! You KNEW!" he shouted. At the same time, his fist had crashed right through the round table, breaking it into pieces and sending everything on it crashing to the floor, stunning the squire with his ferocity and his possibility for violence. Higgs flinched away from him, almost reflexively in preparation to be hit, but he stood away from her. Outside himself for a moment, he realized that he had hurt her before, Rocam did, and he put his hands down. "You knew what I was going through," he said more levelly, "because you're the one who put me through all this! Pretending that you didn't know anything about the curse. We went over this… You realized that I wasn't Rocam from more than two weeks ago, but you didn't say anything, do anything. You just watched me suffer from the curse, stealing from people, and hurting Star!"

She was downcast. That was true. She could've told him that long ago, but had kept it to herself. He wasn't desperate, he didn't need to be friends with her, but he was trying to make the relationship work, and all the while Higgs knew that she didn't deserve the effort.

"You can't, and shouldn't trust me," she said, thinking of the wine and the breakfast that she had fed him, but also of the curse, "but thanks anyway, Marco. While we were friends – I valued every moment of it – but I can't expect us to still be. I'd still do anything to make it up to you, to try to fix this. I can tell the princess the truth, give Eclipsa the bottle that Tom's potion was in. Anything. I'll even try to find the cure myself and give it to you."

"Oh yeah?" he asked sarcastically, "when I can't trust you?"

She had said it herself, but it was all the worse hearing it from him. Saddened, she looked at him with remorse. "I wish I met you first," she said.

"I wish I never met you at all." It wasn't in him to end things like this but the Diaz was sure he didn't want to see or hear from her again. To him, she had always been a vindictive bully, a liar, a cheat. She tried to kill him, and he had wanted them to be friends, to bridge their gap. On the other side, he'd had no idea that this was what the girl had kept from him.

Why couldn't the curse have made him hate the people who deserved it? Reaching down, he picked up his scissors off of the ground from where they had fallen from the broken table and headed towards the door. Part of him wanted to steal something of hers, something to get back at her because he was unwilling to do it himself.

But you won't. You know that she was trying to get back at Rocam, but you're not him. She wasn't trying to hurt you, she was trying to hurt HIM, wherever he is.

Part of him wanted to understand, wanted to forgive her. The rest told him to leave. Almost out the door, he turned back to gaze at Higgs. She looked small and miserable.

He almost felt sorry for her.

"Sorry about your table. Take care, Higgs."

With that, he was gone, pulling the door behind him in a slam.

Left alone, Higgs stared at the closed door dejectedly. She hoped he would come back but quashed it immediately. Her eyes fell to the broken empty plate before her that had smashed to pieces; there wasn't even a crumb left on or around it, only a bit of grease. Almost afraid that her stomach would turn from her ravenous hunger, she pushed the nearest pieces away gingerly with her foot. She ought to search the castle to see if there was food somewhere, but knew that she wouldn't find any. She'd given Marco the last of the bit that she had found, not keeping any of it for herself.

Wanting sustenance, she spied his teacup. The handle had broken off and there was a bad chip at the top, but it was otherwise undamaged. She picked it up and went over to her wine cask. Experience taught her that she shouldn't drink on an empty stomach. She scoffed. It wouldn't affect the taste, but it'd at least fill her. She had a cup of it. Then another. She accidentally nicked her bottom lip on the chip, and the wine burned the cut. Ignoring it, she had yet another cup.

It wasn't working.

On her fourth, all of a sudden, she found a new reason to resent herself and the barrel of wine. It was ill-gained through her wants of murder. She had tried to kill Marco who had been completely undeserving of her spitefulness and malice. She put the half-empty cup of wine down on the cask and went to her bed, kicking off her sandals on the way there, and lied down and gazed at the ceiling.

"It can turn to vinegar for all I damn care."

Lifting her arm closer to her face, she pulled off her left arm warmer and peered at the scarring that wound its way around her hand down in a spiral, frowning all the while:

MY SIANNE, MY TREASURE.

"You bastard," the girl groaned she lamented at the wording scars that the boy had etched into her flesh. "I bet Marco wouldn't have done anything like this." He'd reacted in anger, directed it to the table. He was unexpectedly strong, like Rocam. With muscle force like that, he could've snapped her neck; it's what a few might've done, given the circumstances of an attempt on their life. Everyone else would've probably hit her, at least. She had expected it, deserved it, even–… she had almost wanted it in her penitence. But Marco had stopped himself and stepped back. Not once did he put his hands on her.

All over again, she could feel drawn to him and knew that Marco was genuine. He wouldn't hurt her, much less anything like this. He apologized and had even wished her well on his way out.

Marco was gone.

I wish I had met you first.