Kairi Hearts
By Chronic Guardian
Written for Twelve Shots of Summer: DECK
Week 5: Justice & Hermit
05 – Friends on the Other Side
Good help was hard to find. Some might call that poetic justice for those with a record for backstabbing.
Mad Madam Mim didn't consider herself a backstabber, she felt that all her betrayals were perfectly legitimate and by the book.
In present company, she'd figured a good fix for almost everyone.
They'd set up court in one of Master Aced's Way Gates. A paranoid and artless master, Aced had his Union create gateways to quickly position his followers wherever he needed them. The Relics went unused and were scattered among the worlds. It was there, lost in the lanes between, that one of their number had discovered the place.
Mim sniffed. It was hardly a proper cottage, but it would have its uses for their mischief.
"Comin' down with a cold, little lady?"
Whirling on the new arrival as the Way Gate activated, Mim smirked at the lanky figure stepping through. "You're late, Lily!"
"Doctor Facilier, thank you," the man muttered, straightening his jacket lapels and strutting on towards their main meeting chamber. Dr. Facilier was a lean man in every sense of the word, with a pin-line mustache and spindly limbs like a spider. Trailing behind him on the ground, his shadow stuck its tongue out at Mim.
The witch giggled to herself at the ruffle and waddled after him. "Sure, sure, Doctor. Putting hypocrite back in the Hippocratic oath, eh? 'First, do no harm'?"
"Hey now, I start harmless enough," he retorted in an oily-smooth voice, studying his cuffs instead of gratifying her with an annoyed look. "It's step two that makes things messy."
"Now you're sounding like that Rourke fellow..." Mim chuckled. "Oh, I hope he calls us when it's time for things to get messy!"
Facilier scoffed and kept walking. They were allies of convenience, mostly natural loners drawn together by a common goal. Facilier thrived on suckers he could swindle into handing him the big end of the stick.
Mim thrived on tormenting anyone unlucky enough to fall into her clutches.
"So… how's the eye hunt?" she hummed, hands clasped childishly behind her back. It was still a few feet from the main meeting chamber, and she was eager to wring out as much entertainment from the doctor as she could in the meantime.
He rolled his eyes. "You wanna trade shifts on that one, sugar?"
"Aww…. What's the matter? Did the Medusa plot stop stone cold?"
"Medusa is sloppy. If we wasn't keepin' an eye on her and a thumb on the scales, she'd have fed herself to the Heatless by now with how reckless she been. Damn stupid, too. Relics of Light can't be handled by those dark critters. I'd have it out myself if that weren't the case."
"Oh, but what fun it will be when it all comes crashing back on her head," Mim snickered. "And so convenient, too! Don't you love it when they dig their own graves?"
Facilier cocked an eyebrow at her and she leered back. They All knew the game they were playing. Just like Maleficient years earlier, they were all of them at risk of dipping their toes just a little too far into the deep end. Darkness wasn't a force to be trifled with, but that didn't mean it wasn't a force to be mastered. If one of them found the prize—the ultimate prize—then they would be fine. Everyone else would pay the price, sure, but not whoever found Master Luxu's Hand and Master Ira's Cauldron.
They reached the end of the hallway and opened the doors to the main chamber where their host was waiting. "Yoo-hoo!" Mim called out, flapping her hand at the red robed figure seated at the far end of the chamber. At the top of his scarlet cowl, a pair of antlers sprouted from his skull. "You didn't die on us while we were out, did you, Arawn?"
"Dead?" someone gurgled from the shadows to their right. "No, no talking to the dead, nuh-uh. Not for—"
"Who's there?!" Mim shrieked and flung an accusing finger at the voice, sending a spark of light to the corner. An instant later, it erupted in a showering of sparks and crackles. Amid the surprised yelps and yowls, Mim caught only a glimpse of their visitor.
"Calm yourself, Mim," Arawn growled from his throne. "It's only an emissary."
"Oh!" Mim slipped into a sweeter, innocent tone. "An emissary?"
"It would seem you've attracted attention on your jaunts to find the cauldron," Arawn drawled on. "This one calls himself Fidget. He claims his master wants to meet with us."
Fidget, who was either invisible or smaller than most folk, gave a slovenly vocal agreement. Mim kept on her smile, but inwardly cursed the mystery man and his emissary. It wasn't fair that they wouldn't show themselves. Playing things from the shadows like cowards… just wait until she had her hands on them.
"Well, what's ol' Fidget got for us in return?" Facilier said, taking his own seat and paying absolutely no mind to Mim's internal muttering. "Not exactly neighborly to ask somethin' for nothin', is it, Fidge?"
"Uh...No! No, not f-f-f-for nothin'! Uhuhuhuh..." Fidget chuckled nervously, making a noise like a tortured rubber ban dragging gravel through a creek. "The boss he's—uh… well, he's got somethin'."
"Ooh, something!" Mim did her best encouraging voice and kept scanning the room. "I think I might have one of those myself. Does it breathe fire and hunt boys with strange destinies?"
Fidget tried to stammer his way through the snare before Arawn cut an end to the fun. "Enough, Mim," the death-lord growled. "This is a world we haven't investigated yet, a world that might hold a Relic. Why not allow Fidget and his master to prove useful to our plans? You know it's not in my nature to… turn away prospective allies."
Not in his nature indeed. Mim idly smacked her lips. Arawn would welcome the heroes of light themselves into his stronghold if he thought it would advance his agenda. Of course, he would probably finish by throwing them in the cauldron, but he would be welcoming enough in the meantime.
"Facilier," Arawn went on, "arrange for this miserable wretch to safely find his master again."
The doctor wheedled a grimace into a simper and shrugged. "Sure thing, boss. You wanna put a rain-check on the Medusa mess until I can get a proper eye back on her?"
"No need… Mim will go."
"Me?!" Mim snapped out of her foolery and scowled. "Ohhh… I hate that old swamp witch! She's always mucking things up."
"Birds of a feather..." Facilier muttered under his breath, standing to go. "Good luck to ya, Mimsy."
Mim squirmed in her seat, glared at Arawn, and firmly buckled her arms together across her chest. "You didn't say when," she said obstinately.
"Very well," Arawn rumbled. His head bowed and he pulled himself to his feet with a soft crackling. "Mim will feed the engine. It was designed to run on lux, but a strong heart may work the same."
She set her jaw. "You wouldn't dare."
Except, he almost certainly would dare. She kept her steely eyes defiant, but she knew Arawn didn't make idle threats. Unlike Facilier, he didn't have any interest in games. He wasn't just a creature of Darkness, he was a creature of Nothing. He didn't tease, he didn't exaggerate, and he didn't hesitate to follow what he saw as the most expedient path to victory, even if it left him all alone.
He was, in short, a proper monster; a nasty thing left over from the Age of Fairytales.
"I cannot create a new gateway for my own use without feeding the engine," Arawn explained patiently. "If you will not go to Medusa, I will do it myself."
"Ohhhhh! Fine!" Mim hopped to her feet and scuttled out of the room, following Facilier. "You watch and see if I ever come back, you miserable bag of bones!"
-M-
Arawn waited until the throne room was empty before returning to take his seat. He sunk slowly back into place and breathed deeply. Mim had always been planning a betrayal—he knew that the day he met her—but she wasn't ready to go through with it just now. She was frazzled, but she still knew she needed him.
It was his influence that was breaking down the barriers of the worlds, resurrecting reality they once shared. His work was yet imperfect without the cauldron, true, but once he had the Relic restored to him there would be no limit. It would be one world, reborn.
A world without the lost masters.
The lost masters… those who had sent them to die in the badlands. Those fools who had led their unions into ruin and shattered the worlds even further. They thought lux would save the worlds from darkness and in their greed for it had destroyed the very balance they were trying to preserve.
They were idiots, all of them.
That was why Arawn hadn't followed his Union leader. He had learned the arts of the Darklings and watched the watcher—Luxu—who had slipped away from the great war and scattered the Relics. Arawn Death-Lord had lurked in the pages of prophecy, waiting to claim the powers lost to time, watching for the moment to strike, and binding to his heart every world that fell into darkness.
So then, when the worlds were restored, so too were the chains of Arawn. And now he was ready to bring about the world the champions of light had long ago failed to realize, the world they had failed to earn.
He looked back at the door to the chamber as raspy breaths filled and emptied his lungs. He would endure, alone if he had to. If there was a justice against him in this, it had found his masters sooner.
His eyes closed and he let his mind wander to memories, to heart-ties and promises made. He had scavenged worlds for centuries as they fell into Darkness, diving into their hearts and weaving himself in their sleeping memories. They were his close companions, her dearest hopes of conquest. They would remember him in glimpses, now and then. As the face waiting in graveyards and under beds. While the champions of light labored to connect worlds that had closed their doors, Arawn came and whispered to them as they entered the void. And they would again remember him, even as they returned to light.
He was the nightmare that would one day call them truly awake. And then, he would rule.
Chapter Closed
A/N: It's late and I need to go to bed. Wish me luck on work so I can eventually come back to this. Thank you for another week.
-CG