Echidna wiped the mirror on her vanity free of Ezra with a satisfied smirk. For a king, he was so fancifully gullible, although she more than suspected his plans were going worse than he let on. Still, that wasn't a bad thing. If anything, it promised amusement in the coming days, and the days were quickly slipping away from her. She couldn't tell how long she'd been in the mirror room, nor how long it had been since Ezra made his pleas. Moving from her private cavern in the carved black cliff toward the open water, she felt a familiar tug, and then a pain in her side that pulled a hiss through her teeth. Something in the trench was wrong. When she felt the pain again, and again, she slithered as quickly as her stinging fins would allow, in time to witness a very bold cecaelian boy being hunted by one of her pets—hunted and losing.
In the mood to watch, she curled on the precipice of a ledge overlooking Bone Valley. The boy was handsome—even more so than Ezra, though that wasn't enough to make her happy when her squid failed to eat him.
About to approach him herself, it was to her great annoyance when King Djeval, himself appeared between her and the perpetrator.
"What are you doing out of your kingdom, little puppet?" she snarled at his fins. As long as he was in the territory, she could not approach. In all her centuries, Djeval had been one of such a small handful to keep his deals with her—and thus had resulted in her ban from his kingdom—or anywhere near anyone of his blood. "Horrid little trickster," she added under her breath for good measure, as he took a distastefully long time to leave.
Djeval's presence kept her from approaching the boy herself long enough for the initial murderous cravings to dissipate; however, when he was finally gone, she found another figure already stalking the boy, and found herself hanging behind, intrigued. It had been…centuries since she'd seen Fate make a deal.
Before she could decide on which of her many contracts to try and lure the boy into, she found herself trailing after Fate, in the shadows where she was sure neither would be able to trace her.
"Might I have a word?" said Fate to the boy, ever the charming devil. She'd forgotten how delicious his voice could sound.
"A word," the boy agreed.
Echidna would have scoffed if she hadn't thought there was the slightest chance that Fate would sense her. The boy was already agreeing to Fate's requests, and what he would demand in exchange was only limited by the imagination.
"I do apologize for interrupting what seemed to be quite the rousing speech," said Fate, once he'd pulled the boy far enough away from his friends that the couldn't hear. "I couldn't help but notice you and your….friend seem to be in a bit of a complicated magical predicament."
"Complicated is the word," the boy said more tersely than his age should have permitted.
"Yes," Fate agreed.
Clever, she thought, more interested than ever. The boy had managed to finish off his first deal. Perhaps he wouldn't be as stupid as the rest.
Perhaps he could be the next Djeval? Something in her head slithered.
This boy seemed to be familiar with at least some of the workings of a sea-devil. He held Fate's gaze carefully, never turned his back, and was at least somewhat aware that Fate was about to make him an offer.
"You can see our aim, then?" the boy said carefully, more a statement than a question.
"Why yes. I can, indeed," Fate answered. "Your princess is under quite the clever curse. Of your own making, if the signatures are to be believed. A curse. A stake. The guilt. A time-limit. It's all as apparent as the sea-snow, to me, young one."
"I see."
Echidna sincerely doubted the boy's ability to see the sea-snow in this darkness, a fact which evidently didn't elude Fate's glowing eyes, either.
"Marvelous," said Fate. "Then perhaps I could help save you a considerable amount of time. I would happily remove this curse. I could even point you to a much faster way to get between the kingdoms. You could settle into the life you've dreamed of for so long. Your guard friend will keep on climbing his social ladder to his heart's content. The princess would have her mind back. Everything as it should be as easy as a breath! I'd throw in permanent-protection guarantee of my own as well. No devil or mer or human could ever mess with her pretty little thoughts again. Sounds…nice, no?"
"The price?" the boy said bluntly.
"Why, all I'd ask is your love." Fate made his demand.
"My what?"
His what?
"For the girl, of course." Fate swam a lazy circle around the boy. "I wouldn't take away your appreciation for life, food, or merriment. I wouldn't even siphon off any of the care you have for the brothers you love to protect, or what little you have left for your…mother? No, not quite that, is she?"
The boy paused, likely considering the offer. Echidna had to admit it was a good one. Fate had outlined a few vague details, but would likely stick to the spirit of the thing, although he would certainly be entitled to siphon off a little of the loves he hadn't taken the time to mention. The boy would be a fool not to accept.
"I have no…mother, as you put it," said the boy, trying to deny Fate's assessment.
"But of course," said Fate blithely. "Her blood was in high demand once upon a decade, if I recall."
"Indeed," said the boy, though even Echidna could hear that he had no idea what Fate was talking about—so few ever did.
Was this what passed for Fate's deals now? Heart magics were rare, to be certain, but for one so old as Fate, did he still have the taste for such things?
"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about. What I have for the princess is regard, and a duty to rectify my mistake, of course," said the boy.
"I don't have all day, boy," Fate scolded.
Though he was amused, even from her place hiding in the empty shadows, Echidna could hear the promise of a threat. It excited her. She remembered the Fate of old. Her curiosity spiked like a dorsal through the waves. What would he do to him? What creative things did Fate have in store? He used to be such a thrilling devil…
"No," the boy said firmly.
"No?" asked Fate in disbelief. "Perhaps you didn't quite understand my offer, boy. I'll only make it once, you know."
"I'm afraid I'd rather exploit other options first, although I…appreciate the time you've taken to offer."
Echidna was as surprised as Fate at his answer. The boy had left him with nothing—not even a 'thanks' from which to construe some backwards deal.
"Are we free to go?" he asked, trying unsuccessfully to sound polite. Luckily for him, Fate seemed amused by his failure.
"Oh, quite free. Unless you don't want to be?"
"I very much do," said the boy. Then, by some miraculous sense of direction, he turned in exactly the direction of one of the monoliths of the depths, and darted back to it, likely with the intention of disappearing into one of the travel currents as fast as his tentacles would let him.
"Echidna," said Fate, once the boy was truly out of sight. "It's been centuries—ages, even.
"Fate," Echidna crooned. The fact that he'd sensed her once his sensibilities were no longer focused on the boy surprised her—but only a little. This was Fate, afterall. "Three centuries, I think. It's almost enough to make a woman think you were avoiding her."
She drifted out of the crevice that hid her glossy scales from him, and let her tendrils fan out behind her head as smokily as she could manage underwater, and enjoyed him watching her as she circled his position.
"Has it been that long already? My, my…"
She settled in front of him, hovering mere feet from his oily scales. "You could make it up to me by telling me what you had in mind with the boy."
An odd purring rippled down his spines, and she could have sworn he was laughing at her. "You know better than anyone not to interfere with another devil's bargains, if I recall correctly—and I always do," he said.
"From what I saw, the boy wouldn't make a contract with you," she smiled, taking in his unparalleled spines, and sinewy tail. It seemed she'd forgotten more than she'd thought. "In fact, I haven't seen any of your deals in my waters before."
"And yet, I've run into several of yours, of late. I didn't know anyone would still deal with you. Didn't know anyone was that foolish."
It was almost a compliment.
"It's true there have been more than a few," she sighed discontentedly. "But, I want more chaos than small deals and bargains can give me. In fact, I have plans to find and remove the so-called Savior the Cecaelians have been propheting about this last century. Such a convenient rumor…"
"Remove him?" Fate asked, that dangerously amused edge in his teeth giving away his interest. "And how do you plan to find him?"
She tsked pointily at him, rolling in the water away from his direct line of sight. "Asking something for nothing, Fate? Tut."
"Funny, and I thought you were happy to see me," he countered. "Not so excited with your plans you can't spare a moment to…indulge an old friend?"
"And here I thought you knew better than to interfere with another Devil's deals," she said, tapping a finger to the side of her face loftily. "Although you are correct, as usual. I almost missed you, Fate."
"Flattered," he purred. "Now what has the foretold cecaelian heir done to capture your attention? From what I know, you don't usually deal in myth."
"I am myth, Fate," she enunciated. "And no, you won't bait me into telling you how I'll get to him, but once he's found, the rest of his kind will come out of hiding, and I'll finally get the last of them that I so unfortunately missed during the fun little war I orchestrated. Then, once I've taken care of him, the Aegeans will finally feel free to expand their borders. The whole ocean will fall into chaos. No more hope. The desperation. The deals made in haste. With the tremulous ties between Atlantis and the Aegeans, it's all hanging by a hair-trigger as is."
Echidna could feel herself salivating at the potential of it all, but Fate was far less amused.
"Then you're more foolish than I remember," he sighed, after a long moment of allowing her to undulate around him. "It seems to me, Echidna, you've lost the subtle art of the deal. The nuances you need to play these games is what makes our kind. Even if you succeed, you would never deal again."
She rolled her eyes and extended a hand in invitation. The shadows around them seemed wise enough to flee in the wake of her displeased smirk. "Everything is already in motion. Would you not like to join me in the fun?"
He didn't take the hand, choosing instead to flare his fins over her, and she was starkly reminded that the deals he'd made over the ages had given him much more size than they had her—something she didn't plan on worrying about for much longer. Catching up to Fate would indeed make her the sort of myth that would transcend the ages, if any survived to recall.
However, the look Fate wore wasn't one of awe or excitement as she'd anticipated. He was regarding her with a look of forced patience. If she didn't know better, she would have called it patronizing.
"I do plenty well as-is. Plenty of desperate souls in the world we live in. Some of us don't need to destroy it to get more business. In fact, my denizens come to me," he said in a tone that curled her fins. It was most definitely patronizing.
"Catch the vision, Fate," she slithered, keeping the self-assured smile she always wore at the forefront of her persuasion. "Think of the chaos. The glory of a win big enough to trump all."
He remained unmoved. "Think of after that, Echidna. We destroy everyone and the game ends, and I kind of like playing."
"The game has to end sometime, Fate." She shook her head, pulling herself away from his sight once more, and forcing him to track her wiling circle through the shadowy water. "And at the end of it, someone always wins."
"Then it's a game. Are you going to play it…with me?"
Fate's grin was dripping with challenge, and warning, and temptation.
He couldn't have made the idea more alluring, and she found herself coiling with a purr of her own.
"It's a date."