I was able to write another chapter, yay! ;) Hope you enjoy it and Happy Halloween! Oh, and I don't actually know Australia's human name, so it's Lachlan for now!

I was sure Mathias's voice had changed, taken on a strange robotic tone, yet when I furrowed my brow in confusion, he just gave me his usual smile and a half-shrug.

Questions burned in my throat: what had he meant by saying such a thing? Did he believe this was the only world where he existed? Did this world even truly exist? How had I come to be here? But before I could put together a coherent thought, Tino had burst back into the room and dragged me into the dining room, excited beyond my understanding.

The table had been set and laid out carefully, in a similar fashion to the mansion on a smaller scale. On top of that, there were several dishes of my favorites kinds of food scattered around, and others I had never seen before my visit here. Taking my napkin, I sat down and placed it in my lap, serving myself while the others followed suit, every eye trained on me like I were some form of god. Taking a slice of meat from a tray, I cut into and flinched as the blood ran red across my plate.

"Alright!" Mathias announced, pulling the tray away from me and loading his plate with the uncooked mystery meat. "Thanks, Tino!"

Tino gave him a sweet smile and looked over at me, explaining. "The demons eat extremely rare meat, so I made him a separate platter of bloody food. This one is ours!"

Gently, he handed me the untainted food. Wordlessly, I took a few slices, and, finding it delicious, decided they weren't trying to poison me after all. With all the dignity I could muster, I brought my fork slowly to my mouth the way Father had always demanded, trying to ignore the fact that Mathias had ignored the silver set out for him and shoved his face in his dinner like some form of animal.

At least human Mathias had had some decency.

We sat in an almost awkward silence as we all ate, the only sounds in the room Mathias's disgusting eating and the clinking of the silver onto plates and the table. Chewing lightly, my mind drifted to my brother under the waterfall. What did he eat for dinner? Why was he not invited inside the house to join us? Just as I was about to ask, there was a light knock at the door.

Tino hurriedly excused himself to go get it, but for some reason Berwald followed close behind, leaving me alone with Mathias again. With nothing else to do, I found myself staring at the blood dripping down his chin onto the table, watching in disturbed fascination as it formed puddles. Seeing me, he gave a red-toothed grin and finished his last piece of meat, taking the handkerchief from his lap and wiping his face of any and all mess. Was he…trying to be polite for me?

"If you were really a gentleman, you wouldn't have shoved your face into your dish in the first place," I chastised. "That was horrendously disgusting."

His tail wagged gently back and forth as he considered me, still grinning that aggravating grin. "You have some weird kinks, y'know that? Since this is your utopia and all. I bet it turned you on and you're too stiff to admit it!"

"Well that's something to walk in and hear."

Annoyed, I turned to see my brother leaning in the doorway, looking much the same as he had just hours ago. His eyes were alight with that same perpetual boredom with the universe, even as they made their way over to Mathias, his violin still in hand.

He took the seat beside me, grabbing Berwald's untouched plate and starting to eat it. "Lukas, I've been waiting for you to return to the waterfall to meet Father again. Because you wouldn't let me teach you," he grumbled, "I decided to play the song for you. He flew right in and I trapped him in a cage so that you may come back with me and see him."

"He…flew in? And you mean that in a literal sense?" I asked, recalling that Mathias had laughed earlier about what my father had become in my imagination. "He's a bird?"

Erick pursed his lips, looking down at his food happily. "Well of course he is. Tino, you're cooking is as good as ever."

Tino, who I had failed to notice re-entered the room, thanked him and began clearing the table, humming.

"Really, he makes the best gnome stew in all of the kingdoms," Erick informed me, taking another bite of soup.

I stared into my own bowl, eyeing the meat chunks in horror. "Gnome stew…why is it called gnome stew?"

Erick gave me a peculiar look. "Because it is made from the gnomes that Berwald catches in the forest every day. Obviously. And the meat is werewolf. You seem to have forgotten everything since you were last here, Lukas...you're dumb."

Seeing the look of shock on my face, Tino quickly took my bowl from me and blushed. "We can't afford the meat in the market, so Berwald hunts for us! He always comes back with something delicious!"

"Why can't you afford the meat in the market if you're royalty?" I asked, feeling suddenly suspicious of everyone around me. "Aren't you rich?"

Three pairs of blank eyes watched me.

"You asked Arthur to personify your imagination. He did just that. We live with as little as we possibly can and we're perfectly happy about it," Mathias told me, and they all grinned in unison as if to tell me just how "happy" they were to be poor.

I shivered, nervously recalling how I'd always been sure I'd be perfectly happy living like a commoner. Clearly, that wasn't the case. In my selfish, naïve imaginings, I'd cast poverty down on my family and now they, the royalty of Norway, couldn't afford the meat sold at the markets.

The door creaked open and we all turned to see Berwald entering with a sack hanging over his shoulder. "N't m'ch out t'day…" he informed Tino, heading into the kitchen.

"Winter is always more difficult," my Finnish cousin murmured, before following Berwald.

Mathias snorted. "Of course he forgot to mention it's winter here ALL the time."

Erick nodded, slurping up the last of his stew. "Well, we have to keep the pond frozen. If the merpeople got out again, we'd have another World War on our hands."

Merpeople?

"Hey, that was your own fault! That's what you get for thinking one of the mermen is cute and thawing out the pond just to get him!"

Erick blushed faintly, but when he spoke, there was no hint of embarrassment. "It wasn't because the man was cute. It was because the other merchildren were bullying him and I didn't want him to get hurt."

"Sure," Mathias teased. "I think you chose him for his hot bod."

"I don't even know what you're talking about," Erick said through tight lips.

"What, afraid your big brother's gonna make fun of you when he finds out you have a boyfriend?"

Erick, clearly annoyed by this topic of conversation, dragged his long, cat-like nails across the strings of his violin, causing a high-pitched shriek to emit from the instrument. "He isn't my boyfriend, you indecent demon. Please refrain from such ghastly behavior in front of my brother."

Mathias laughed, his eyes burning with amusement. "I don't think your brother minds my…indecency."

"Anyway…" Erick said before I could speak, "Why don't you come with me to meet Far again, Lukas? I'm sure you're exhausted from babysitting this imbecile."

"Babysitting? Hey, that's demonsitting to you, fosse."

"Is Far really a bird now?" I asked, wondering what in my mind had created that.

"A well-bred, high class Puffin," Erick answered. "Don't worry; he still speaks. He just has a somewhat different appearance. Come on then, hurry up. He still has the brain of an intelligent man, so keeping him in a cage doesn't last more than a few hours."

Erick left the room, obviously expecting me to follow. With one more look for Mathias, who was now sulking in the corner of the room by the fireplace, I went after my brother. The outside had thankfully remained unchanged throughout my time in the "palace"; everything was still shades of white and gray everywhere I looked. I somewhat began to wonder why my mind was such a dull, colorless place…I had been sure there were at least some things about me that weren't in grayscale. Yet the whole place seemed desolate, the only color around Erick's mahogany violin.

"Is this really a utopia?" I found myself asking my brother as we made our way to his kingdom behind the frozen solid waterfall that supplied my pond with water. "It seems rather lifeless."

"It's not made for others, Lukas. Norway was created for you and you alone." He looked around. "Why? Don't you like it? Does something not please you? I think it's rather beautiful, in a cold way. And since it's your mind that created it, I believe it makes perfect sense."

I narrowed my eyes. "Even in other dimensions, you insult me."

"I called you beautiful, didn't I? It was a compliment. But you are icy. Even Mathias admits to that… Ah, here we are," he announced as we squeezed behind the ice falls. "Home sweet home."

I followed suit and soon found myself in something that was nothing more than a cramped, decorated cavern. In one corner sat an occupied birdcage, and in the other was a strange, early white pool of water…everything else was simple furniture. I watched pensively as Erick went over to the birdcage and began speaking quietly, in low tones that I couldn't pick up, to the creature inside.

"Okay, Lukas. Far said he wants to speak with you," Erick muttered, plopping down on a chair and taking out his bow from a bag I hadn't seen that he was wearing. Quietly, he pulled the bow across the strings, emitting a pure, beautiful sound unlike the one from earlier.

Blocking out my brother's spontaneously musical abilities, I went over to the cage, peering in. "Father…?"

"He trapped me in here because of you?" the caged Puffin snarled, his voice exactly how I remembered it. "Erick, I told you I was searching for your mother! I saw her today, I know I did! She was here!"

Erick just continued to play, not looking over.

However, this was something I couldn't ignore so easily. "You saw Mother here?"

Far, his icy blue eyes still intact, glared at me and said, "Yes, I was sure I heard her singing. So I flew off to go find her, but Erick's violin threw me off course…I lost her. And as usual, it's your fault, Lukas."

"I didn't ask him to trap you here," I argued, before realizing how ridiculous it was to be yelling at a bird. "Is…Mother really here in Norway?"

"No." Erick's lifeless voice cut through the music-filled air, sharp and painful. "He believes she does, but I have yet to find a clue. There's no proof, and that's why I play her song. If she's here, she'll hear it and come to me. I've been playing for years."

My father shrieked and rattled the cage furiously. "You will not speak like that, Erick! She's just wandering around, waiting for someone to come to her! She has always been that way!"

Silently, I unhooked the lock of the cage and threw open the door, watching with relief as Far took to flight and soared through the waterfall's entrance, continuing on his perpetual quest to find the woman who had given his soul a purpose.

"Why'd you do that? Didn't you want to speak with him earlier?" Erick murmured, closing his eyes as he played. "Don't tell me you expect me to round him up again."

"I wanted to speak to him when I was afraid. Now that I'm more comfortable with my surroundings, I realize there's no way to speak to someone who is so determined to find their happiness that they would beat their child to get there. He's nothing more than a wild animal now, following his instincts. That's why I created him as a bird; he'd fly through any obstacle to find his meaning."

Erick's music ceased, my statement surprising to him. "You…recognize why you created him as a bird? Then tell me…why did you make me what I am? I've never even liked music. You know how terrible I was singing in choir."

"I don't know about you," I told him bluntly. "I remember how awful you were at singing. You're completely tone deaf, and yet I made you an exceptional violinist. Maybe I wanted to bring you some musical ability because your life seemed so dismal without it."

"You can't sing either," Erick grumbled. "Is your life dismal? Oh, right…it is."

My eye gave a small twitch, but I let it slide. "What's in the pool of water over there?"

Suddenly, he seemed slightly uncomfortable, refusing to meet my eyes and polishing his violin as an excuse. I recalled what Mathias had been teasing him about…the merchild that Erick had saved from being bullied. Erick had denied any relations with him, but…

"Is it your merboyfriend?" I asked, walking over and getting a closer look. "Why's the water white?"

"I already told you," Erick sighed, setting down his instrument for the first time since we'd met and coming over to me. "He isn't my boyfriend. The water is white because…it needs to be cleaned, I guess."

I looked over at him, mildly concerned by that statement, but before I could say anything, something leapt high into the air, splashing the strange white water all over me.

"G'day, mate!"

I grimaced in response, looking at my soaked clothes.

"Lachlan…" Erick shook his head. "I told you to be careful."

"Oh…is this your brother?" the mercreature asked in English, his Australian accent heavy enough to confuse me into not being able to understand him.

I turned to Erick. "What? You know I don't speak English very well."

"He asked if you were my brother…" he explained, before turning to Lachlan again and saying, "Yes, this is him…I told you not to splash anymore. It's only fun for you."

Lachlan looked down, ashamed. "Sorry, King Lukas."

I stared at the merman, taking in his crazy dirty blond hair, nicely tanned skin, and bare, muscular chest. Obviously foreign. Yet there was only one thing I couldn't stop staring at… "Why does he have a Band-Aid on his nose?"

Erick sighed, clearly wishing this wasn't happening right now. "I'm not sure. He's been living with me for a few months now, so his injuries have healed, but he won't let me take it off."

"How does it stay on there when he lives in the water?"

"It's waterproof, mate!" Lachlan shot me a giant grin. "I speak a bit of Norwegian…" he added when I looked at him funny. "By the way, I'm Lachlan, Your Majesty. Pleased to meet ya!" He extended a hand towards me, but I just stared until he set it back down.

Finally, I turned toward Erick and looked at him strangely before telling him, "You have strange taste."

"Look, my merkoala wants to say hi, too, mate!"

I blinked at the half-fish, half-koala creature. "Very, very strange taste."

Erick shrugged. "He refused to let me save him without the merkoala, so I took them both in."

Unsure what to say, I looked back at my soaked clothes and sighed. "Well, not that meeting your Aussie friend and his half-breed wasn't fascinating, but I believe I'd better go back to my own palace now so I can change. I'll…see you later, Erick."

Erick gave a small wave as I left.

Back at my own home, something seemed to have changed. Though it looked relatively the same as it had when I'd left, there was something about it…it was colder. And empty. There wasn't a single soul in the place but me. And the fire that had been burning in the fireplace was now nothing more than charred wood and dimming embers. I padded through the empty rooms, wondering if I was about to find myself suddenly back home. After all, hadn't I come here in the exact same way? Maybe being alone was the key.

"I ran the bath for you. I was wondering when you'd be coming back…I was so bored!"

Shocked, I spun around to find Mathias standing in the doorway. My heart eased in recognition…yet there was still something off…and this time I really looked at him. His eyes, which had been blue just hours ago, were blood red.

"Mathias…where are Tino and Berwald?"

"I was so lonely without you, Lukas…I don't like it when you leave me."

Unconsciously, I took a step back, worried. What was wrong with him? "Mathias. Tino and Berwald. Tell me where they are. That's an order."

A wild grin stretched across his face, his eyes widening as he came over to me and wrapped his arms roughly around my waist. "I like it when you order me around," he whispered into my ear.

I struggled against his vice grip, but I knew it wasn't going to work. "Mathias! Let go!" I demanded, attempting futilely to get my hands free.

"No. I'm not letting you leave me again," he said teasingly. "Besides…I think that it's time for you to take a bath! After all, you ARE soaking wet. You must be freezing. Don't worry; I'll keep you nice and warm," he purred, giving my neck a long, slow lick.

Shivering, I gave up my useless fighting, looking up at his fiery eyes. "You're right. Maybe I should," I told him, pretending to give into him. "But…you'll be coming with me, right? You won't leave me alone again?"

His grin widened. "Of course I'll stay with you. I'll never, ever leave my King's side again, if that's what he wants!" Clearly excited, his grip on me loosened.

Perfect.

Before he could recognize what I was about to do, I pressed against his chest, giving him false security. "Mathias…?" I muttered.

"Hmm?" he wondered, looking down at me.

As hard as I could, I shoved him away and brought my up to the bottom of his jaw, knocking him to the ground with as much force as I could muster. Then, just to add insult to his injuries, I crawled over his limp body and hacked a nice ball of spit into his unsuspecting face.