In the Monster world there are a few things that are inconvenient about being a ghost...and then there are the few things that are REALLY INCONVENIENT about being a ghost.
One specific example of such inconveniences is that you tend to phase through everything, except for mirror portals which are for some reason ghost proof. Apparently Ever After doesn't like spirits visiting their 'peaceful folk' and so they cursed all portals in order to prevent the ghouls and ghosts from 'disturbing' them.
Or at least that's what Dexter...THOUGHT Sirena had meant.
And then there's the fact that being a ghost essentially means that every hour your body and soul are separate, the less likely you will survive merging back together in. In other words, if Dexter didn't get back to his body within three days, he would be essentially: DEAD.
PERMANENTLY.
His body, possessed with a spirit under his father's command, just a drone that existed to please others forever, while he flopped, and floated, and phased around in another dimension for all of eternity.
"Ugh... Someone just bring out the shackles and chains...I'll never get the hang of this flying thing..." He spat frustratedly as his 'instructor' dazed off mid session for the millionth time.
He stole a glance at Cupid who winced, shrugging, "I figured Sirena was better than Spectra...the only other ghost I know...she's kind of like the Blondie Locks of Monster High, and I thought you'd prefer a little more privacy." She explained
Dexter huffed, feeling weird, as breathing was no longer necessary to him, and so the sensation was almost ...wrong in a sense. He attempted to 'row' himself towards Sirena, hoping to regain her attention.
"Hey...HEY! Wait, aren't you going to finish telling me about this whole flying thing? Is...isn't there something else that I'm missing?" He called out to her.
For a moment she paused, staring at him in a genuinely confused manner, before airily giggling, "Oh! Right...I forgot..." She 'swam' over to him and then clasped her hands, "that's it! There's nothing else to teach! Just practice and you'll be an expert in no time!"
She giggled again and then flew/swam off in another daze, phasing through an empty wall. Dexter floated there, his eye twitching a little...
He had been aimlessly trying to get her attention for two and a half hours now... And really... REALLY?
He shot a glare back to Cupid, "Seriously, I think next time I'll take the Ghost-of-the-gab over her any day!" He grunted, the inner beast seeping through him for a moment, his aura glowing a dark maroon as he simmered.
She flinched and apologise yet again.
After all that insufferable, TIME WASTING... Finally, the two of them began to head for the exit of this portal room.
They had to hurry though, for time passed differently in this world than Ever After. One hour here was equivalent to two in Ever After, so they only had half the time to find a way to get him back to where he belonged.
They closed the door behind them, and suddenly Dexter froze, his aura changing to a bright, golden-orange panic as he laid eyes on what was most likely the most terrifying thing he had ever seen...
Public High School... Oh, and monsters. Lots and lots of monsters.
If it were possible for a ghost to faint, this one just did. Cupid yelped as he fell unconscious and began to drift off aimlessly...
"No! No no no! Help! Help! Somebody! I've got a fainted ghost here!" She cried out. This was going to be a LOT harder than she thought.
XxXxXxX
Cerise hugged her cousins tightly as fiercely as they stood before the portals leading them back to their home on the other side.
"And promise me you'll keep me posted on this little prince of yours, okay? Because if he slips up JUST ONCE... He won't even know what bit him!" Howleen said, before stepping into the swirling vortex.
"Okay! Okay, I will!" Cerise laughed, as she let her go.
Howleen held her breath as the portal sucked her in, and she shook off herself violently as she came to a sudden halt, on the other side. Portal travel seriously messed with your fur and hair.
Clawdeen and Clawd had left for home earlier, and had taken the "long route" which included and even worse method travel...well, a worse portal anyway. Mirror portals were so much more convenient, and safer than crossing the dimensional border any other way, which is why it was so expensive to own one but it was worth it.
She began to pick up her luggage when suddenly, a voice perked up.
"Hey...Howleen... Is your cousin little red riding hood by some chance?" Someone asked from the shadows...
She whipped her head around, and stared in momentary shock at her BFF as she emerged from the walls, bewildered, and almost concerned that she'd know such a thing...
"Hey! How long have you been there? What are you taking about?" She interrogated defensively.
"Whoa, whoa, calm down. It was just a question," Twyla eased her with her hands, "it's just... While I was hovering around the shadows, I overheard something I think you should know..." She said, a look of grave seriousness in her eyes...
"It's about your cousin, ...who i know about because I've eaten her nightmares before..." She muttered the last bit really fast.
Recently Twyla had discovered that the rampant increase of conflict on the other side of the mirror was causing some terrorifically delicious and also disturbing nightmares.
Howleen nodded, and hummed, waiting for her to continue,
"It's about your cousin and this..prince guy. I think he's in trouble."
Howleen gasped, and she clenched her bags close to her chest, "Wait, prince? What prince? Are you sure?" She started in, panicking
"His name was something dorky..like David or.." Twyla began, "and I've seen him in her dreams before..."
"Daring?" She asked, the worst case scenarios playing in her mind.
Twyla clicked her fingers, "Yes! That's the guy! Well..." She stepped closer to her, and then said, "I just saw Cupid fly through here with this other Prince, saying that something was going down on the other side, and Daring is involved...something about a corrupt king trying to force destiny onto them. I didn't want to assume, but I was concerned.." She looked to the portals.
"Those people are suffering so much. It just hurts me...sort of...to think their own people could be so oppressive and selfish to each other." She admitted, folding her arms.
Howleen grabbed Twyla by the hand and began to proceed back to the portal from which she came, hoping it was still freshly locked on the cottage's location.
"We have GOT to tell Cerise about this!" She declared as they walked through to the other side.
XxXxXxX
Cupid thanked the lot of kind ghost strangers who has assisted her in her efforts to keep Dexter under control as they escorted him out of the school. It wouldn't be wise to expose him to any further trauma. Right now, all they needed was advice on how to get Dexter back into the other world, so naturally the New Salem Library of the Supernatural was her first logical stop.
Dexter was finally conscious and was trying hard to focus on flying correctly as he floated up to the higher shelves to scour them for any information he could find.
Cupid took the bottom half of the shelves, communicating as silently as possible with him as their search progressed.
This needless to say resulted in a lot of frustrated 'shushing' from the grumpy, three eyed librarian.
Dexter paused and called down to Cupid, "Okay! I've found the section where teleportation and portals starts! Have you found anything on reuniting spirits and bodies?"
She looked up to him from the opposite side of the aisle and called out, "No! But let's gather some teleportation info first!"
"SHHHHHHHHH!" The librarian hissed.
"Sorry!" They whispered in unison.
Dexter tried to grab ahold of the books, but Sirena hadn't been very helpful when trying to explain how to make oneself tangible when and where convenient, so she ended up skipping that whole topic. Dexter cursed under his breath as his fingers continued to slip through the spines of the books.
Cupid, luckily, had already located and positioned the bookshelf ladder and was halfway up to the row in which they were. Dexter motioned to them, "it's these ones here, and then on from there..." He pointed down and to the right.
She nodded and then they proceeded to select titles that sounded the most befitting of their circumstances.
With a large and heavy pile of books toppling around in her grasp, Cupid managed to get down halfway before tossing the books down into a near pile on a suitable table below her.
The echo rang out through the whole building and she and Dexter winced. The two of them seriously didn't belong in libraries.
"Okay, so where should we begin?" Dexter mused aloud.
Cupid began spreading them all out on the table and replied, "There's no time to pick and choose. Since you can't really do much in the state your in, I'll just open all of them. We need to look for key words and we need to be quick about this though so you can use the wind to flip through pages."
After a long while of fruitless skimming, however it was clear that none of the books had seemingly anything to do with what they specifically wanted to know...
When FINALLY...
"I FOUND IT!" Cupid slammed her fist onto the table, causing the other books to flip up for a moment, and Dexter squealed instinctively, as he whooshed to her side.
"Really? Where? Show me!" He cried.
The librarian tossed a chair in their direction suddenly, and they took some time to calm down and lower their volume before continuing on.
Cupid placed her finger to the exact paragraph on which she had discovered the needed information.
"Right here it says that those whose souls are shut behind a mirror portal are actually doomed to stay there forever..UNLESS!" She jabbed her finger to the illustration to the left of the words, "Unless the BODY is pushed through a mirror portal to the same location as the soul!"
She looked up at Dexter and he furrowed his brows, "Shoot! So we were looking at it from the totally wrong angle! This...this changes everything!" He ran his fingers through his hair, or at least through the top of his head, and he sighed, gazing off helplessly.
"How are we supposed to get my possessed body to enter a mirror portal?" He cried silently, tossing up a hand, "he's probably rigged by my father to never look into a mirror again!"
Cupid hummed, worried, and then began to skim through the rest of the page... "I'm sure we can figure out a way, but for now, it doesn't matter. There isn't any point in bringing your body here unless we know exactly what to do when we have it!"
Dexter floated back to her side and they continued to read on.
"Right there..." Dexter stopped her, pointing to a paragraph, "reuniting the soul with the body is a complicated and dangerous task..." He read aloud.
Cupid turned the page over and continued, "The origins of soul-body separation spells lie in the roots of black magic, and can only be reversed with it as a consequence."
"Most pure magic users have difficulty complying with the proper requirements for such a dark art despite the fact that reuniting a Boyd and soul is by most people considered a good or non-evil act."
"Well, that shouldn't be a problem," she said, reassuringly, "This world is home to some of the finest black magic users! We can surely get someone to fix that up..that is if we can convince them to do good magic."
Dexter felt a pang in his heart as the image of his beloved Raven came to his mind...
"Wait! That's it!" Dexter said suddenly, floating up a few inches with excitement.
Cupid looked to him, intently focussing as he paced through the air in thought.
"Cupid, keep reading and see if it says anything about contacting people on the other side without having to travel THROUGH the portals!" He said, snapping his fingers.
He floated down to her again, on a side note, pleased with his quickly increasing skill at flying, and he continued,
"Just think about it! We need to get my body through the mirror to here, but my body will need to be forced to come through, which means we need someone ELSE from Ever After to do it for us!"
He pointed to the excerpt and then underlined the part about black magic users, "We need a black magic user to put me back together again, but a black magic user who is keen on doing GOOD actions!"
Cupid gasped as the revelation hit her, "You mean we should try to contact Raven?"
He nodded frantically and then hissed with excitement, "Just think about it! Raven Queen, the daughter of The Evil Queen, would have had PLENTY of experience talking to spirits trapped inside of mirrors! HELLO! That's where we got the stupid Mirror Mirror phrase!" He exclaimed, grasping at his hair.
Cupid shook with anticipation as the idea sank in, and she slammed her attention back into the book, "This is too good! I'll keep looking and see what I can find! If we can contact Raven, and get her to force your body into this world, she can come here herself and put things back together again!"
They huddled down and began to search, desperately, and intensely for any last information.
XxXxXxX