"Well, that was cathartic."
Casually walking to nowhere in particular, Neo affectionately rolled her eyes at Roman's understated comment as he stole one last look at the rapidly disintegrating teahouse. They continued on in silence for a couple minutes; after all the nonsensicality of the last couple days, knowing that pink-and-teal-checkerboarded talking cats were just as susceptible to a good old deception as the humans they so despised was a relief.
A few minutes later, Roman finally broached the subject. "Soooooo…" he began, "what now? Care to find the plate number of that Griffon that got me? Any new grudges pop up while I was away?"
Neo shrugged indifferently. Eh. Her Ever After bucket list had been precisely one item long, and that item was crossed off, buried an indeterminate amount of feet underground, and never to see the light of day again. Other than that, she was all too happy to let Roman take the wheel.
"Really?" he asked. "Offing Little Red was all you wanted?"
Another shrug. Looking back on the past several months, Neo hadn't thought past revenge—though to be fair, even if she had, tumbling into a children's story would have ruined her plans regardless.
Roman leaned his head to the side. "…Fair, she had it coming," he concurred. "Well, then… who else is on my revenge list? Oh, right, never had the time to write one down…"
Neo mulled over the question. Beyond her slipup on the airship—which she had since rightfully corrected—the plan was working quite well, Roman was commanding a ship with sabotaged defenses in Grimm-infested skies, and who's irresponsible idea was that, anyway?
"Cinder," Roman said, having come to a similar conclusion.
That was something she could get behind. While Cinder hadn't done anything so heinous as Ruby, she had stomped Neo into the abyss. Thumbs-up.
Roman smiled. "Oh, she'll never see it coming…" he mused, ending the sentence with a quiet chuckle. "Say, Neo, how did that little girl get out of here again? Never read the story myself…"
It was an easy question to answer; while Neo's favorite fictional girl was the one in the tower, she'd also read about the one that fell through her—oops, the—world a few times. It was somewhat strange to think that Roman wasn't the same. It made perfect sense, but at the same time felt like he was missing out on something he could never claim.
Ultimately it made no difference, and Neo created two illusions: one of Alyx and the other a miniature of the giant tree looming in the background. As Roman looked on, Alyx walked up to the tree, opened a wooden door into the tree labeled "REMNANT," and stepped through with a cheesy smile.
"The tree, then," Roman said. "Well, what do we know about the tree?"
New smirked; she was going to have a bit of fun with this one. A carbon copy of the Curious Cat merrily trotted in front of the two of them, then instantly bared its teeth. "You still don't get it, do you?" they sneered condescendingly. "It's not a place you go, it's a place you know."
They then dropped the vicious act. "Oh, wait, I forgot, I am cursed with curiosity and know nothing!" the cat said in a desperate mockery of their own voice. "And I'm about to run into a wall!"
The cat ran into a wall.
As the last fragments of the illusion winked away, Roman craned his neck slightly upward to face the tree. "Thanks, Sir 'I'm afraid I haven't been entirely honest with you.' Very helpful. All in favor of 'going?'"
Neo went with the bit and overenthusiastically raised her hand. "Excellent. I'll get us to the base of the tree." Roman took Neo's hand in his, focused, and they simultaneously blinked.
Nothing changed. Well, not quite nothing, Neo noticed. Somehow, they had moved backwards, as the faint impressions of their shoes lay a few feet ahead.
Roman blinked in confusion. "…I'll get us to the branches of the tree," he declared. They held hands and repeated the process.
To say nothing changed would only be half right. While they were now vertically on the level of the upper branches, they were just as far away as they were when on the ground, and suddenly they were plummeting through the air.
Leaving little time to waste, Neo reflexively opened Hush and breathed a sigh of relief as the blur of the tree's bark rushing by slowed to a relaxing downwards pane. It was only then, however, that she realized both that Roman was also up in the air and that she'd inadvertently unclasped her hand. Sure enough, Roman was falling uncontrollably.
A pit of horror opened up in her stomach as she watched her partner plummet. There wasn't enough time to summon an illusion trampoline, so she preemptively cringed, waiting for the heartwrenching… shatter?
A million tiny pieces of Roman flickered away, and Neo breathed another huge sigh of relief; in the heat of the moment, it had somehow slipped her mind that he could be reformed on a dime.
After a few more moments of controlled descent, she closed Hush, hit the ground, and resummoned– "AAAAHHHHH… oh."
Returned to the earth on gentler terms, Roman's scream of terror quickly tapered off. A far-off look entered his eyes, and a contemplative silence was had. Beyond him, the fall also weighed on Neo. Despite the danger level being akin to calling a car backfiring a gunshot that constitutes a 'near-death experience,' it didn't make the feeling any less real. Effective indestructibility or not, Neo couldn't lose him again.
"…Why don't we just take a nice, leisurely walk?" he finally said.
With negative fanfare, the two settled into another walk. Rather than the satisfied elation of a job well done a few minutes ago, it was marked by strange introspection. In literally any other scenario, Roman would have been seriously injured or even died. In this frankly quite absurd reality, though, he was unscratched. However, if she had been the one to fall—something that had happened uncomfortably recently—who knew what would become of him?
The question was compounded by the fact that there was a Roman to fret about. After the emotional chaos of his… resurrection of sorts, Neo had let herself slide back into the still-unforgotten pattern of working with him. That decision had the additional benefit of keeping her mind from pondering the sheer strangeness to death until she became naught but some crazy fellow in a bowler hat, but what now? Now, when there was no more plan or redheaded brat to execute and they were no closer to returning to Remnant? Where did that leave her, and Roman?
Did that really even matter for now?
Neo didn't tend to overthink things; such was the power of the not-quite-fictional land she now walked that she had slipped into it. Yes, she realized, I'm making this more complicated than this needs to be. Roman was alive, and that was a good thing. End of story.
Firmly discarding all doubt, Neo stopped in place, pivoted, and gently hugged her forever partner-in-crime. His arms followed around her back a moment later, and Neo caught a glimpse of his face. It reflected her thoughts: pensiveness fading away into simple joy.
A few moments passed, and Roman stepped away. "Neo… I've had a few overdue thoughts," he began.
Oh, how great minds thought alike.
"This whole time has felt a bit like a dream. Coming back to life in a fairytale? Nonsense! Yet… here I am."
He paused for a moment, staring up at the two-sun sky. Ah, yes, only the seventh most remarkable thing about today, Neo dryly thought.
"'Do I exist? Was I even real in the first place?' That kind of thinking tripped me up for a bit, I have to admit."
You're not exactly the only one…
"Turns out that when you fall through the sky, you get one hell of a view; a perspective if you will."
Another pause, half dramatic effect and half seriousness.
"Why did any of this happen? I don't care. That's a problem for Little Red's miserable bunch."
He stiffened for a beat, and Neo could feel the tension just waiting to be released.
"Illusion or not… oh, it is good to be back!"
Roman blinked.
When he decided to quote himself, Roman expected a "Really?" look from Neo and nothing more. He very much did not anticipate the papery landscape changing into a wooded expanse in the literal blink of an eye.
As a cherry on top, from out of nowhere a multicolored maple leaf flew directly into his face, blocking all but the fringes of his sight.
Roman attempted to brush it off with his left hand, only to find it was gripping Neo's gloved right in the edge of his vision. Quickly shaking his head to get the leaf off, his gaze landed on Neo's face, which was unceremoniously plastered with a different leaf.
She quickly discarded the leaf with her off hand, then glanced around in wonder. Roman also took in the scenery and found himself equally amazed: twigs and trunks alike swirled all around him, the former decorated by and the latter smothered in the strange leaves. Looking down, he was standing on a massive branch, somehow perfectly flat on the top but still rounded on the sides.
"Huh."
Without an immediately better idea at hand, Roman began to walk forward somewhat aimlessly, and Neo followed at his side. "'Not a place you go, a place you know…'" he repeated. "Nah, still don't get it."
The more Roman thought about it, actually, the less sense it made. Hell, it felt like he now knew even less about whatever the Ever After was trying to be. He said something about the good of being alive, and suddenly the both of them skip ahead to the tree, the end of the stupid story?
Actually, no, that wrapped around to making some sort of sense. "Is this some 'moral of the story?'" he asked half-rhetorically.
Neo could only offer a shrug.
Mildly aggravated, Roman let his eyes wander for a moment. The branch they'd been following had joined with several others, forming a platform still peppered with prismatic shrubs and a single small wooden pillar.
Roman's eyes widened as the latter came into focus. It was an exact copy of Little Red propped up against a branch, hands clasped over her chest and head bowed down contemplatively with peaceful closed eyes—a far more serene posture than her pathetic end. "How cute," Roman drolly said, "they left a statue of her!"
On the other hand, Neo was far less enthused. She drew Hush and stabbed directly at where the heart would be. Her aim was true, yet her weapon was effortlessly deflected by the shining wood, leaving the surface unbesmirched.
"A bit harsh, really," Roman commented. With an unsatisfied huff, Neo withdrew her parasol and continued walking forward as if nothing had happened.
Little of any note occurred for the next minute and change until the two of them stumbled into a clearing, free of the canopy that perpetually hung over the rest of the tree. On one end stood a giant doorway on a staired pedestal, its great wooden doors decorated with intricate carvings of a dragon, each the inverse of the other. Between them shone a brilliant white light, masking whatever lay beyond the threshold.
"Now I don't suppose this is the door back home?"
Neo shot him a capital-L Look, and Roman could hear the "well, where else would it possibly go?" in his mind, crystal clear. An unspoken agreement instantly made, they continued across the clearing, the clack of their feet on each step sharper than the last. Roman took in a deep breath, Neo did so simultaneously, and as one, they stepped across the border.
The dazzling light quickly faded, revealing a strange backdrop Roman could best call a shade of dark green dotted by small bright green orbs, slowly pulsing their way through the air. Stranger still, he was falling, but at a markedly slow, almost relaxing speed; touching down was a gentle process.
"…So maybe it wasn't," Roman deadpanned. His best guess was some sort of interdimensional limbo, but it really could be anything at this point. Emphasis on limbo: there wasn't a single object to be seen, only a steady stream of those mysterious orbs.
"Ah, you've arrived."
A voice suddenly sounded to Roman's left, and he immediately turned in its direction. Despite him not seeing anything there only seconds earlier, a tall, feminine figure made entirely of steel with a metallic face and a blacksmith's smock stoically stood, examining him and Neo with their optical impressions.
Roman raised an eyebrow. "And you are?" he queried.
"No one of importance," they answered. "Someone else's problem, you might say."
"And this is?"
"My workshop." No further explanation was given.
Someone else's problem, indeed… Roman decided. Well, then, on with business. "Hmm… I have to ask: do you have another magical portal to Remnant lying around somewhere? You know, largely overrun by beasts of destruction incarnate, four kingdoms–"
For some reason, Neo flinched, but Roman wrote it off.
"–can't miss it." In response, the blacksmith nodded.
An assuredly-genuine-used-motorcycle-salesman smile grew across his face. "Lovely. In that case, can you find a certain someone? Name's Cinder, black hair, amber eyes–"
Another flinch. Odd. Was he missing something? Eh, he could always circle back to whatever it was later.
"–acts all smug and superior, really needs to get knocked down a peg or seventeen, can't miss her."
A second nod. Good. "Well, could you make a portal to her general vicinity right now? I can assure you it'll be worth your while–"
"No," they cut him off, "that will not be necessary. Your continued existence shall be sufficient."
The strangeness never ended in this place, did it? He and Neo stole a mutual glance to each other. When it ended, the blacksmith had vanished. In their place were twin swirls of golden light, which quickly collapsed on themselves, forming an oval portal with a golden outline and a blue inside.
Neo took in a sharp breath of recognition. Yep, definitely missed a lot, Roman noted. The portal's inside shifted to a strange distribution of colors: green in one corner, purple in the next, and a smattering in between.
The time was upon them. Roman extended his hand downward, joined it with Neo's, and with one final step, the chromatic light flashed into their eyes.
Remnant awaited.
NOTE FROM MYST: And just like that, the fic is halfway over. Only took... eight months. Oops.
Well, here's to (hopefully less than) eight more!