23.

The Red ChɅin


Cyllene reappeared in her quarters noiselessly.

A blue jacket was draped over each arm. One was her own — the new one with the plum blossom and the golden Gs. The other was Ginter's — Volkner's — ragged old thing. Pesselle had glommed onto the old man immediately after seeing him reappear in the infirmary, and Cyllene had had no time to stuff the jacket back in the pack and stow it away with him safely.

Volkner. What a strange name. It sounded powerful, but in an impish sort of way. Forceful in the V. Awkward in the throat between the K and N. Falling off abruptly yet softly at the R.

"Why can't you remember how you got here?" she'd pried on the cliff in the Coastlands.

"It was a normal afternoon. That's all I remember. I was a little stressed, maybe. A few things weren't going right in my life, and I was angry about them. But I don't think I was angry enough to throw myself seven hundred years in the past and turn into a geezer to escape it."

And Cyllene had scoffed. "Looking at you now, it's hard to believe you were ever young to begin with."

"I was young! I was young and handsome and an incredibly powerful Pokémon trainer! Ask the professor. I tried to tell him all about it."

And then he made it clear talking to Eiffel was a bad idea, because it could spoil the future, and Cyllene said that was nonsense and teleported him back to the infirmary and let the matron hound him with her wet cloths and little bowls of powder.

She changed into dry clothes and pulled on her new jacket again, cinching it tight with the belt around her stomach. It felt constricting now, she thought as she appraised her wild hair in the mirror propped up in the corner. Pieces of blue that didn't stick straight up were long enough now to curl down past her ears. Odd shadows hung beneath her cheekbones. Her eyebrows weren't growing back.

She took her jacket off and put on Volkner's again. Volkner's, because it did have some charm to it despite being neglected and stuffed in the old merchant's pack for so long. What that charm was, Cyllene couldn't gather. Ginter still didn't seem like he could really be Volkner. She pictured Volkner as an impish man with a pointed nose and long purple hair — a king's closest counselor and confidant who controlled the element of lightning. Bitter, perhaps. Brooding. Bloodthirsty. Yet nonetheless indispensable… until he'd been killed by pirates.

But could he look good carrying my corpse?

She tried it out in her fantasy. Her cheeks pinked. She heard Abra snickering behind her.

Her fingers curled into the weathered old pockets. Within the left, the vial of medicine still tinkled faintly. Best to give it back to Ginter now. She tossed it toward Abra to give it something to do, and exhaled when the creature vanished.

Then she explored in the other pocket. Something warm and wet and snakelike dwelled in there. Her heart gave a little jump thinking it moved beneath her fingertips.

Please don't be a baby Wurmple he put in there to spite me!

No. She was braver now. She'd screamed Volkner's name to the wind and the water, and whoever Volkner was, she felt like she could trust him. Cyllene gripped around the wet, snakey thing and pulled it out of the pocket, watching her reflection do the same.

She immediately whipped it against the mirror, screeching.

Beads of dark, fresh blood splattered on the glass. They splattered on her face. They splattered on the blue jacket. They splattered on the floor. Cyllene nearly tripped over her sandals when she saw how much red was running down the creases of her palm. She tore off Volkner's jacket, smearing more of the bleached old blue. It was like she'd been shocked again. Her heart was throbbing the same way it had when she'd gripped Ginter's hand the night of the peacemaking.

She fell to her knees, scrutinizing the thing that had fallen to the floor. It twitched, proving suspicions, and she shuddered. Scarcely a foot long, coated completely in blood…

No… not completely…

Only the center of it was bleeding — where she'd touched it. Over the rest of it, blood was old and brown and caked on thick, mingling with a rough fuzz of rust like it had sat for years undisturbed. The links at each end were misshapen teardrops, like they'd been welded shut.

"A chain that bleeds," Cyllene remarked. "Where have I seen that before?"

She timidly passed her reddened hand over it again. Her fingertips lightly grazed a link where the blood was dried. Now a warm, tingling shiver shot up her arm and into her chest and hazed all her senses for a moment. There came a hiss and a splurt and a faint, reddish glow, and the coagulants liquefied, darkening into a shiny, oozing mess around her nails.

Cyllene breathed, blinking away something like pleasure. Or had it been pain? Her fingertips were faintly itching now, and her vision came slowly back into focus, head pulsing like she'd just awoken from a long, dreamless sleep. She creased her fingers, feeling dried blood slip and crack. The skin felt warm when she touched it with the other hand. Hot, even, and not her own — like she were touching a blanket instead of her own quivering palm.

The chain twitched. She shrieked again.

It was a magic object. A cursed object. That did it! Ginter was a sorcerer, from the future or elsewhere. He hadn't even mentioned what was in his other pocket! Cyllene snatched up the chain in both hands, trying not to gasp when her skin went hot and numb at once. It wriggled furiously until she crossed the room and plunged it into her teapot. Blood swirled darkly in the lukewarm water. The odors of lake scum and black tea boiled and hissed and turned into a crude mixed scent of burning flesh and petrichor.

All too quickly then, the blood swelled and foamed thickly and the clay cracked apart, letting a small tide of red cascade out onto the nearest cushion. The fabric took it, turning from sky blue to black.

"Accursed!" Cyllene bit as she sopped up puddles of red with both cushions. There was so much of it — more than the chain could've held on while dry — or perhaps more than she'd initially noticed. It was smeared all over her hands and the sleeves of her gi now, running thin where the water carried it. Her sandals made sticky squeck noises when she climbed to her feet.

The chain lay corkscrewing over itself confusedly in the splattered murk very much like a worm. Its metal links scraped against the wooden floorboards. It looked strangely newer now. The welded ends had softened and morphed back into elongated zeroes, and the rust was gone from it entirely. It shone bright and silver where the blood had all run off.

And then someone had to knock on her door.

Cyllene's voice caught in her throat, but managed hastily to shout, "WHAT DO YOU WANT!?"

"It's… it's me, Captain," came the voice of Rei. "Professor Laventon was wondering if you wanted to help us with a survey. We've found a Munchlax, you see. They're exceptionally rare — the professor didn't even have an entry in his other Poké Dex, and he said you might be curious about it…"

And why would I care about a "Munch-lax?" she wanted to shout right back, but she stopped herself quickly. She had to be civil now. Play nice with Eiffel, or at least become agreeable for him, lest she end up huddling with him in a cave in the waste when winter came.

Right. And she looked like she'd spent the morning murdering Wurmple with her bare hands.

"Tell the professor I'll meet you both shortly at the south gates. It is paramount we study this specimen of Munchlax alive."

"You… didn't think we found it dead, did you?" Rei called from beyond. Cyllene wiped her hands on a tea towel, stomach turning over at the smell. The chain twitched again on the floor and she stomped on it.

"Go back to the professor, Rei! You mustn't linger when your Captain is… indecent!" she stressed.

"Oh, I didn't realize you were dressing! I saw you with Commander Kamado earlier and assumed you were already prim for the day! S-sorry, Captain Cyllene, I…"

He muttered other apologies, but Cyllene wasn't paying attention. The tea towel had only done so much, and with the rationing of potable water her washbasin was empty. She threw off her ruined gi and scraped fast-congealed droplets of blood away from her cheeks with her fingernails. It had even gotten in her hair and held it fast in sticky strings.

"Abra!" she called. "Abra!"

The creature didn't reappear. How long did it take to replace a vial in a pack!? She should've sent the jacket back, too. Now the charm on the jacket had taken her in, and she was probably cursed, or about to turn old, or bringing about Hisui's doom, or—

The chain squirmed beneath her sandal.

Cyllene stooped and seized it in both hands, glaring full moons into its silvery links. "You will stop this foolishness," she told it. "Look what you've done! I can't be seen like this! I'll be exiled and die alone in the wilderness!"

Both hands went numb. Her heart fluttered, and she stumbled, luckily falling back onto her futon, where she lay stiff and dazed on her back. That same shivery heat pooled within her chest. She gasped, and it burned, flaming out into her shoulders and down into her stomach.

In an instant, her whole body wasn't her own. It felt too tight around her. Tingling. Stinging. Her skin was thick. Swollen. Bones were stronger. Stomach weaker.

Her stomach… it was churning and boiling like plasma. Like the stuff that made stars. Red, glowing, powerful. Her vision blurred, and she was curled up in the center of an impossibly vast sphere of light. Dust and gas condensed all around a hot, dense fiery core.

It exploded.

Blackness.

Not blackness.

Cold. Impossible cold. Too cold to move. Too cold to exist.

"I am… Cyllene."

It was her voice. It wasn't her voice. She couldn't tell whose voice it was because in this universe she was the only flesh-and-blood thing that existed. Void expanded endlessly all around her, yet seemed far too cramped for her liking. Its growth was stunted. The edges were crinkling like burning paper. All curling inward and falling to pieces. She had hated that paper. It had wanted to destroy her. She would never be the same. Not with a hole in her heart like this—

"ɅND WHɅT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING HERE!?" screamed a voice. An angry voice.

"Me? I… I don't know…" she called to the wind. Her body clenched even tighter around her. She saw the ceiling of her quarters, far away, glazed beneath a golden circle that spun with intelligence too great and terrible to comprehend.

"I'm Ʌngry," she said, because she could feel the anger in the voice. It was hers, she thought. No, she had been… She was… She wasn't…

"Let me go," she screamed at the golden circle. "LET ME GO! LET ME GO!"

She could see what was binding her now. The space dust cleared and time made breath rush down her throat into her lungs and choke her. Her legs were bound by a length of chain steeped in blood. It snaked up under her clothes, curling tight around her torso, squeezing her chest. The links burned her skin, and she buckled.

"Let the girl go this instɅnt," something incredible hissed. The golden circle quivered, and a colorless shadow deep below her shook with fury.

"Do not Ʌccuse me of binding her," something else roared, its voice the loudest thing she had ever heard in her life. "Who wɅs it who let the Red ChɅin fɅll into the hɅnds of a mortɅl? She does it to herself."

The second voice was teasing, almost. Cyllene's head ached. Both voices were digging inside her like the links of the chain. She struggled, breath heaving. The universe had grown much larger now. Stars and comets flickered in the corners of her vision. They swelled and popped and died when she looked at them directly.

"She hɅs powers like ours," one of them mused. "Could it reɅlly be?"

A claw made of fire pierced through her chest, seeming to turn everything inside her over to inspect. She felt like she had swallowed her own stomach. The chain snapped over her arms, and she clenched her fists, screaming with all her might.

"She does not understɅnd," the darkness thundered. "LeɅVe her Ʌlone. She does us no hɅrm by existing."

"Yet you toy with her. TeɅse her. It is your fɅult a humɅn like her beɅrs this burden."

"Fool. I hɅVe been testing her to see if she is worthy of it."

The chain snaked tighter. Cyllene's heart was pounding even in this dream world. All around, the dust was unfolding and laying itself to rest like tattered fabric. Lights stopped flickering. Fires cooled into dry white ash.

The universe was dead.

"Sometimes I think you forget the truth of it Ʌll," the dust whispered. Even the golden circle and the shadow had gone, and she was alone more than ever. The chain grew sharper. She heaved, and her muscles quivered and swelled, stretching it thin. "I shɅll finish whɅt I stɅrted, however long it tɅkes. Someone sɅid thɅt. Eons Ʌgo… I forget who..."

Then time ran backwards, and the universe formed again, and she was standing in a bright blue room where everything was made of soft, shimmery paper twisted into delicate bows while warm sunlight streamed in from a large, square window and Cyllene was certain now she was living inside someone else's memory.

She thrust her chest forward, willing the Red Chain to release her. For the universe to hear her. For Time and Space to obey her every command.

It snapped.

It shattered into millions of glittering shards.

She fell forward onto her knees in her quarters, squeamish and confused. It was another dream like the ones she had while sleepwalking. The Golden Circle spun, and the Red Chain bound her tight, and two voices were inside her and she couldn't escape.

But she'd escaped this time.

And she remembered.

She remembered everything.

The chain lay beneath her. It wasn't twitching anymore, and the blood and rust caked it thickly again like it had aged fifty years in five minutes.

She took it in her hands, tears of confusion and frustration streaming down her cheeks. Cyllene flinched, thinking those were made of blood too, until plain gray stains started dotting the mat beneath her.

"No more blood. Just… no more blood," she whispered. "Go back to when everything was clean."

The world shuddered. Cyllene felt like a large, heavy and invisible blanket had been thrown over her suddenly. She shrugged and pushed it away with her shoulders. The chain warmed in her hands, and her fingertips tingled again.

Slowly, like she were watching ice melt, the blood began to vanish. Dark pools flowing out across the floor slid in reverse, shrinking and thickening and leaving the panels completely dry. The cushions and the tea towel softened. Darkness drained from the cloth and slithered back into shards of clay that flew up and glued themselves together again.

The stickiness intensified on her cheeks and hands. Red turned liquid, then all ran off at once. Finally she was clean of it, like the mirror and the water and Volkner's jacket, now bearing only its aged smudges where it lay crumpled on the floor.

Cyllene reached over and picked it up, rising to fold it on the corner of the mirror. She met her own frightened gaze, and the way the two ends of the chain swung lifelessly from her left hand.

"Did you... did I do this?"

She looked around the room, astonished. Not a single trace of blood. It was as if she'd never touched the chain at all. And the chain itself refused to bleed while she held it. Even the dried blood had smoothed and flattened out over the links until the silver looked simply painted a dark ruby red.

She stretched out the fingers of her right hand. Flexed them. Splayed them. Imagined that same warm tingling coursing through them until like little flickers of flame, she suddenly could.

"Turn into a bracelet," Cyllene instructed the chain.

It obeyed, snaking up around her left wrist and shrinking a bit until its two end-links shuddered and morphed into clips. Cyllene quickly slipped into her new jacket, covering the bracelet with her sleeve and buckling her belt.

"Anyway," she told her stern reflection, which now stood tall before her, like no such nonsense had entered her vast domain. "Anyway, now that I've had enough nonsense for the day—"

"—girl and her beauty routine. She's hardly got any water to wash up with. Cyllene!"

Soft knuckles rapped rapidly upon her door. "Cyllene," called Eiffel, "Are you decent enough? I can't hold onto this Munchlax all day. I really need your expertise in keeping things still with your blue moon glare. It refuses to be caught!"

Cyllene exhaled. She crossed the room and slid open the door, giving the professor one. Rei stood beside him, and below them was a small, furry green creature fatter than both of them combined.

"Eiffel," she said, "Let's take a walk."


~N~

Chickadee, next chapter's for you. 😈

I just finished reading the Disney Twisted Tales version of Sleeping Beauty and I swear besides the Aladdin one it's the goriest one I've read so far. Ceesus chips, Liz Braswell, why do the books you write always end in so much death?

Thanks for 50 reviews! (Lol, like the three people who review every time. Who else keeps up with my nonsense? Don't be shy!)

Published by Syntax-N on FanFiction . Net and by scrivenernoodz on Ao3 October 2nd, 2023! No reposting allowed.