A sigh was the only sign of her deep distress, for a mermaid cannot cry.

— "The Little Mermaid," Hans Christian Andersen

The earthen aroma of coffee perfumed the near-empty study, heralding Dantes' presence long before he slipped out of the shadows. Entering the authors' den had grown into its own little ritual which he followed well. Knock once, and only once. Should no one answer, help yourself in. And never, ever come emptyhanded, for the beleaguered authors won't be in the mood to chatter without tea or coffee to entice them.

There was only one author tonight, hunched over the mahogany desk much too large for his small stature. His quill scratched at his manuscript with the frustrated ferocity and, judging by his muttering, not much progress was being made. Dantes set the steaming tray beside a stack of papers and spoke with bemusement. "A reward for your efforts, Andersen."

"Eh?" Andersen lifted his head. He pushed up his glasses with a finger. "Oh, it's just you. Is it that time already?"

"Seven o'clock has come knocking, yes. I see that you are still struggling futilely against the weight of your draft."

"So I am. So I am! Come to point and laugh, have you? The spirit of Hell has darkened my doorstep to mock my infinitesimal efforts, to cackle over how I've been squirming like a worm in my pathetic attempts to scale my deadline?"

Dantes shrugged the dramatics off and flicked his hand to summon his lighter. "If that is what you wish. I was thinking more of a coffee break."

"Don't smoke in here," Andersen grumbled. He swiveled away from his manuscript and helped himself to his usual chipped cup. "I suppose your idea will do. Less noisy."

It would be easier to form a cigarette from mana, but Dantes liked the physicality of a real one. Packaged goods were scarce in the Atlas Institute so he handrolled his own from their tobacco stores. As he lit up, his eyes wandered over Andersen's desk. "I see you've made progress," he said.

"If you can call such a mess 'progress,' yes. I've made some." Andersen rolled his eyes. "Listen, there is nothing worse than a reader. They're among the greediest creatures known to man! Even if you deliver a well-crafted story to whet their appetite, they'll stamp their feet like children and demand things to be adjusted to their liking. Or worse, they'll demand more without any consideration for the author!"

"Heh. An author is a miserable thing, not unlike Sisyphus."

"That is exactly what I am. A literary Sisyphus, breaking my back for a boulder that doesn't care for my efforts!"

Dantes sighed, smoke flowing out on his breath. "Come, now. We both know you enjoy the ordeal."

"Of course you'd say that. Writing is the sort of craft the devil would come up with."

"Indeed," Dantes answered with a sly smile. "Why else would I regularly supply you with coffee?"

"Unbelievable. A confession straight from the serpent's mouth."

Complaining came as naturally to Andersen as water did to a brook. When they first talked, Dantes found the man a masochistic pessimist. His assessment still stood but his ears were better trained to hear and understand the meaning beneath the words. When one worked with authors, one had to learn their strange, roundabout ways of interacting with the world.

So Dantes considered, instead, the stacks of paper on and off the desk; the dark bags beneath Andersen's eyes; the contained chaos of books and manuscripts that formed the study; how it'd only been a day since the Penglai singularity was resolved.

As if reading his mind, Andersen said, "Murasaki filled me in on the details of our Master's latest escapade. But I haven't gotten the story from your point of view."

"There isn't much to tell," Dantes confessed. "My compatibility with the singularity was too poor."

"Is that so?" Disappointment colored Andersen's voice. He frowned over his coffee. "Hm. It's true that the difference between the realm of fiction and dreams is a fine line. In such an environment, you'd be subject to the author's rules."

"I suppose I would be. Are the events on the mountain the inspiration for your newest piece?"

"What makes you say that?" Andersen swiveled away from him. "And didn't I tell you not to smoke in here?"

A button was pushed. What the button was, Dantes was hard-pressed to define, but it would not be Andersen if the motivation was easy to discern. He held his cigarette between two slender, long fingers and removed it from his lips. "You don't mind it," he said. This was true. Andersen only protested for the sake of protesting. He never insisted on it after the first time.

"I do mind it," Andersen snapped. "It lingers long after you're gone, like some noxious perfume."

Dantes bent over to draw Andersen's gaze to him. He held those sea-blue eyes with the burning authority of his own and slowly said, "If that's your true wish, I'll put it out."

The air between them burned. Neither of them were willing to back down, and so neither of them looked away. Smoke drifted from Dantes' cigarette in faded wisps, faint as a morning mist. It occurred to Dantes just then that he never noticed how small Andersen was. The Caster's attitude made him seem larger than he truly was, made Dantes forget how he had to stoop to meet his eyes or to help reach the too high shelves.

It was Andersen who spoke first. "Get out of my space. How am I supposed to enjoy my coffee with you breathing down on me?"

There was more spirit to this insult. Dantes grinned and exhaled smoke. He straightened up as Andersen coughed. "As you wish."

"Unbelievable!"

True to his word, Dantes padded to a velvet armchair and eased into it. This study was truly a writer's haven. With the combined skills of all the writer-type Casters, the room dripped with a style the rest of the Atlas Institute lacked. When his conversations ran long and the night stretched on, the study reminded him of the grotto he once called his base. Perhaps that was why he was so comfortable here, why he was content to watch Andersen sip his coffee and sort through his manuscripts.

"It's the Little Mermaid 2."

"Ah. I thought you despised bending to the whims of arrogant readers."

"I do, almost more than anything else in this world. An author should be free to write whatever he pleases. Unfortunately, that is not the hand I've been dealt."

"It seems a difficult task, for the Little Mermaid was complete on its own."

"You understand, at least." Andersen looked over his shoulder at Dantes. Dantes looked innocently back. "Only a hack beats a good idea into a bad one. And I've put the Little Mermaid through enough. To demand her undergo further trials? That's a sadist's twisted desire."

"If the prospect of working on such a project fills you with such disgust, why don't you refuse?"

Andersen looked back down at his work. "… tell me, Dantes. You've read my works."

"I have."

"What is the mermaid to you? A girl betrayed and broken by fate? A fool who should've known her place? Or a pure maiden who did the right thing in sacrificing herself?"

These rapid-fire questions were a welcome invitation. Dantes took a drag on his cigarette. "It would depend on the reader," he said. "That is the nature of the mermaid, no? The sea takes on a blue hue because it reflects the sky. The mermaid is the same, only she reflects the heart."

"A mirror, huh?" Andersen said. "Something about your answer pisses me off and makes me all the more curious."

"Why?"

"What do you think? Because you aren't telling me what your heart's reflection is."

Dantes smiled. "I'm only another irritating reader, Andersen. What does my heart matter to you?"

Andersen sipped his coffee. His silence wedged between them. "You aren't that stupid. Were it not for our readers, we wouldn't be in the forms we are now. The reader is everything to creatures like us."

There was truth in what he said. Still, the words churned in Dantes' stomach, bitter and hot, a familiar sensation fueled by his Saint Graph which whispered, You'll always be a slave to that man's fiction, you cannot forgive him, you cannot forgive any of the monsters who've wronged you. Anger bubbled up – whether it was true or not didn't matter. Dantes was in control. He was the one who decided his emotions; not this body, not his spiritual core. The cigarette flew to his lips and when he breathed in, it was a little more sharply.

Swallow the anger. Press down on it.

He waited, with the patience of a sailor who'd experienced many storms, and he felt the white-hot anger wash over him and crash. Dantes exhaled.

"If I've offended you, say so," he said flatly.

"What do you expect from me? I'm an author. Nothing I say is straightforward."

"It is not decent of you to provoke me in order to avoid a question."

"Why are you surprised?" Andersen kept his head down. "Everyone knows what wretched company I am."

"It is even more wretched of you to try and garner pity from someone you've insulted."

That got Andersen to shoot straight up in his seat. "Pity! You think I want your pity?"

"What else am I to call your flagrant caterwauling?"

"You are a rare man who understands my taste in stories and coffee, but you are sorely lacking when it comes to the rest of me. You think I pace about, mewling like a miserable kitten in hopes of being scratched behind the ears? That I'm putting on an act to make others feel sorry for me? You think I'm that sort of sellout, hackneyed performer—!"

"—I said what I said!" Dantes raised his voice over Andersen. He had to cut him off here. If he let him go on, there wouldn't be a chance for God knows how long. "Is it so much to have you say what you mean, Caster? Everything with you, it must be a performance—"

"—oh, forgive me, for not making this performance entertaining—"

"—an allusion, I may tolerate, for I am no stranger to riddles. But you, you—"

"—I ought to have taken a tidier, prettier role that'd please the Count's tastes—"

"—you say one thing while meaning another! And you dare condemn my frustration, my anger?"

Andersen made a violent gesture. "You speak as if you're less of a pain in the ass. Watch your glass house."

"Delightful. You'd turn the spotlight upon me so you may slink away in the shadows?"

"Hiding in the shadows is your schtick, not mine. And in any case, you avoid others like the plague."

"Then what am I doing, standing before you, tolerating the filth pouring from your mouth?"

"Don't play stupid! You know well I'm talking about your fear of opening up!"

Dantes crossed his arms. "Isn't that what's happening here? You're leading us down another pointless argument because you'd rather spew vitrol than to make yourself vulnerable."

Andersen's mouth snapped shut. For a moment, they only stared at each other: Andersen, red-faced with exertion; Dantes, eyes aflame with a challenge. Then—

"I wasn't trying to rile you up," Andersen muttered. He cupped his coffee close to him. "You're one of my readers. I was saying that how you see the mermaid is more important than you think."

There was an unspoken apology woven in there, made clear by the way Andersen hunched over his drink, how he stayed quiet rather than rambling on. This was a man setting down his pride in exchange for an olive branch. A crooked one, but an offering all the same.

Dantes leaned forward. "Who do you see when you look at me?"

"Edmond Dantes."

"There is your problem," Dantes said. "I may wear the name but I am not the man. I never was to begin with, for my legend – my existence for being – is little more than an excerpt from another author's story. The Little Mermaid is a mirror, you say. What is there in my heart to reflect? This body and soul can only hate. A story of love cannot reconcile itself with that, much less reflect them."

"Do you expect me to believe that?"

"There is no reason for you to believe otherwise."

"The Count of Monte Cristo, this creature of hatred you've conjured up, he is capable of only malice and destruction. That is what he is, is he not? He would see the Little Mermaid as a tale of fitting retribution for a girl's vanity and naiveté, a mere natural turn of fate. But Edmond Dantes…"

"Andersen," Dantes said softly, but the author did not stop.

"… he is the sort of man to call the tale an act of love. Edmond Dantes is willing to crawl through another realm to die, over and over again, to protect those he cares about. And Edmond Dantes is the sort to brew coffee for a nagging, pessimistic writer rather than set him ablaze for mouthing off to him."

An inexplicable feeling clenched tight in Dantes' chest. It did not burn like anger and instead stung in the way his scars often did when it rained. A deep, painful sensation that trickled down to his very nerves. "You should have said from the beginning that you want to make others happy with this new story of yours."

"I didn't say anything like tha—"

"Is it for me?"

There was a long silence.

Andersen burst into laughter, the sound cutting and sharp.

Dantes opened his eyes. The author had pushed up his glasses to rub at his eyes, shoulders shaking. "Do you think," he managed through a gasp, "that I'd be so stupid as to dedicate a story to someone like you? Look at me!"

"I am looking." The pressure from Dantes' hand ever-so-slightly bent the end of his cigarette.

"I'm as deformed a thing as you are. Everything about me – my heart, my body, my words – all of it is cursed." Andersen's smile stretched too wide. "Mermaid scales on my legs, to remind me of the torment I inflicted upon her. Burns on my arms, so I may always experience that girl's final moments. And my form, yes, this body of mine will always be half a man's. I will always be a child, for that's what they wish. What sort of putrid, filthy human would be fool enough to accept a dedication from me?"

"Andersen."

"Don't make me laugh! Even you wouldn't stoop that low. Love is not for a creature such as I, I've long accepted that!"

The feeling in Dantes' chest was now a sharp burn. The soft whisper of a young woman – a will torn in a fit of despair – the feeling of another's arms around him – all ghosted through his mind, realities and dreams all at once.

"Andersen."

"Even if this story were for you, what use would it be? The more I think of it, the more I ought to let it rot—"

"Hans," he said, the name tinged with desperation.

It were as if he doused Andersen with cold water. The author froze, smile gone and swallowed by the tense restraint constricting his features. Those eyes were no longer a calm ocean's but a drowning man's. Dantes could not mistake such an expression. This was something he understood, something he could work with. He sucked in a quiet breath.

"I spoke nothing about love," Dantes said, slow and quiet. He ashed his cigarette in a tray and stood up. Andersen shrunk back into his seat. "You must not put words in my mouth."

"We were speaking in hypotheticals." The author's voice was much too flippant to be true. "What, is the topic forbidden to us now?"

At his full height, Dantes easily towered over Andersen. The differences between them could not be clearer. The lithe and powerful Avenger, the scrawny and small Caster. If he wished it, Dantes could easily break the other man. He was never aware of his power more than in this moment, with how Andersen kept his head down, too-small hands balled in his lap.

Gently, so as not to worsen his own pain, Dantes knelt before Andersen to better see his face. "What was it about the Penglai singularity that troubles you so? You have always enjoyed trashing yourself, but your words tonight carried unusual venom."

"It shouldn't trouble me. There's your answer. I don't even have memories of what happened."

"I profess, you don't seem to hold much guilt over cheating Kiara out of her dream story. You were much too merry and too willing to share the subject of your manuscript with me. With that considered, you must be concerned about the form you had taken in the mountains."

Andersen raised his head. "What, do you want to play therapist? That isn't your duty, Dantes, and you've your hands full with Ritsuka's nightmares already."

"I am not playing at anything," Dantes answered calmly. "I am your friend and I wish to better understand you. Do you take me for the sort of man who'd squander his time on trifles?"

Some of Andersen's old smile bubbled up. "So you say. But that inflatable tube you bandied around…"

"… I shall acknowledge that one exception if you will speak."

"The Count drives a hard bargain. What is there to say? My situation will not change. Oh, there are Servants here who can transform their saint graphs with a snap of a finger. It seems all they need is an obsession and it'll come true, especially around the holidays. But spirits who've been stained by public perception – spirits such as Salieri, Napoleon, you and I – well."

"We are not truly ourselves," Dantes said, falling back into the easy rhythm of their discussions. Andersen nodded.

"We can't exist without the public. It's as easy as that. Therefore, we can't modify ourselves as we please, for that power lies in forces beyond our control. I've a theory for why my form differed on that mountain. To put it simply: 'I was not Hans Christian Andersen.'"

Dantes allowed the words to sink in. "Which means?"

"I didn't have my memories. I had no awareness of who I was. I was only a writer without a name, and because of that I was freed from the shackles of my life. Fairy tales? My miserable failures? Whited out on my saint graph! That writer was a man who could live as he pleased, writing what he wished." Andersen raised a hand, turned it to and fro in the light. His voice fell to a murmur. "He'd forgotten who he was and so he could be what I am not. That's why… it's useless to daydream about it."

A spirit of vengeance was not summoned to be kind. In the shadows, Dantes' saint graph never permitted him to forget. The white-hot rage when he realized who condemned him to Chateau d'If. The icy pull of the dark ocean waters. The sickening fury that clawed at his throat when he heard of Mercedes' marriage, when he realized all his waiting and hoping was in vain. All these betrayals thrummed within his heart as if they were blood and on worse days, he found himself so shaken with anger that he had to escape to the darkness of his Master's psyche, so as not to lash out at others.

Kindness was a liability. Kindness was something he lost long ago. But Dantes tugged off his gloves, exposing the corpse-pale skin beneath. His hand – cold, dead, rough – curled around Andersen's, completely enveloping it. The author's hand was soft, as an artisan's should be, and glowed with a warmth Dantes lacked.

Andersen tensed. "I told you not to play with me." The words fell heavy from him as if they cost him great effort.

"And I told you," Dantes said, "I don't have any interest in such stupid matters. Don't make me repeat myself again."

"Let go. If Shakespeare walks in here, he'll never let us live it down."

Dantes did not let go. "The Count of Monte Cristo is incapable of love, but I've knowledge of these matters. Let me say to you, Hans: write a story for yourself. Not for the public, not for others. Make it for your eyes only. Burn it afterwards, if you so like. But this form you desire must come from your pen, and your pen alone."

"You think I haven't considered that? That I haven't tore my hair out over how to use my Noble Phantasm? I know myself, Dantes, and I couldn't give a rat's shit about my story. There's no one I despise more than myself!"

"Then the solution is simple," Dantes said. "Your story will be about you and I. I, Edmond Dantes, will aid you in becoming your own muse."