Forgotten Ventures

Coming to Terms Pt. 1

Time was a cruel thief. It had stolen her future, her family, her very self. Now, it offered only one moment in the presence of a murderer, a twisted mockery of the life she wanted to reclaim. Everything she'd worked for, every olive branch and leap of faith had afforded her this final chance. So much pain had been dealt to the people of Mewni, and yet, this felt moyhing like a saving grace. If she had simply died again, the whole ordeal would have been much easier.

No, he was more than just a tattered remnant of her old life, bent and misshapen though he was. Vartek was instrumental. She had no hope of going home without him, and no chance of seeing Silva without his help. Whatever lies she had to conjure, whatever calculated appeals she had to front, they were but steps on a very long, dark road. Maybe that made Merina a monster, more so than what her husband was now. She didn't have the luxury of caring.

"Chroma. Lunde. Pastel. Trait. Visage. Copper."

Moon rattled off her entry phrases before the guards manning the central vault stepped aside. The screech of grinding metal flooded the dungeon, but in the following silence there came only the drips of stale water. A wash of mildew-scented air seeped from the opened vault, clinging to Merina like a shroud. The party of four marched through the gaping maw and descended further into the torch-lit void.

The usual procedure was much the same, as every action of care that could be afforded for Varteks health was given. It wouldn't do for the most wanted man in Mewni to die of a cold. After Willow had taken her readings and drawn his blood, she promptly excused herself, taking Sir Stabby with her. That only left Moon, Merina, and Vartek. Lost in the expansive cavern beneath the castle, Moon finally sighed and met Merinas's gaze. "I can afford you ten minutes, but not a second longer. After that, it's up to the high commission and the kingdoms of Mewni to decide."

Merina gave a short nod of approval before Moon turned her attention to him. She didn't offer a gloating remark or even a guilty verdict. With a wave of her hand, the shackles binding Vartek's feet and hands rattled against their chains. "Please…don't make me regret this." His eyes met hers, and where she expected to see a hint of understanding, she only found surprise staring back. He shifted his gaze to Merina, and there it stayed until Moon cleared her throat. "Ten minutes. If he agrees, splendid. If not…" She didn't need to clarify before excusing herself and sealing the cell door.

Slowly, Vartek moved his chains to rest in a neat pile beside him. He rubbed his wrists and ankles, and with care he slid the muzzle from his face. A languid sigh of relief hissed through his teeth before he reclined against the wall and waited. He was still staring at her, careful not to move too quickly, and careful not to scare her off. She stared back at him. The silence of the cell was deafening. "You used to be so lively, before the fighting." He offered a smile in a bid to ease her apprehension, one as painfully empty as the dark around them. "To think that after everything you suffered through, I had to twist the knife."

Her pensive stare turned sour. She knew he was right, and she knew that he knew she thought so. He was a brilliant tactician, once. It was a wonder how much of him was still left in there. Regardless of her plans to win him over or convince him to help, Merina couldn't fight off the urge to twist her own knife. She wanted him to hurt, innocent though he was. "You left Silva behind."

Vartek surprised her by nodding. "We both did." At her pointed glare, his eyes sharpened to meet her silent accusations. "I fell apart in your absence, but whose decisions cost Silva her mother? I admit my part; will you?"

Merina set her jaw and steeped her glare. The itch in her fingers to strangle the cheap imitation of her husband was damning, but so was his question. "That was a long time from now, and those weren't my decisions. I'm only a copy, after all." His brow lifted, but at least she had his attention. "Here, we have a chance to atone for our mistakes. Will you take it?"

He didn't answer immediately. His eyes darted toward the cell door. "Moon spoke to me about what you're doing. You want to fix her people and go home, but it's impossible." His resolve shattered as quickly as it had returned, and his shoulders slouched. Dull, topaz eyes turned towards the floor. "You'd be better off watching my head roll from my neck. At least that's something I can guarantee."

A pack of rats scurried somewhere in the distance. It was cold here, too cold to keep the fire in her chest alight. Merina forced a ragged breath through her teeth and glared at him. "Why did you do this to me?" She drew his focus, capitalizing on it with the heat her eyes leveled with his. Their corners were wet with fury. "You made them hate me. You brought me here to see the horrors you made, so why did–"

"I don't know."

At her stunned silence, Vartek slowly pulled himself to stand. He looked far thinner than he had when she'd tried to stop him. In the temple, he was a mountain, but now he was only its shadow. "Comrades, friends, homes, peace… I lost more than just you, that day. When you died, I lost what little I had left, and the weight of your loss crushed me." Merina watched him carefully, her hands ready to catch whatever strike he could throw, but none came. He looked broken and lost, like she had after they'd escaped the castle. "I have no excuse that could satisfy you, Merina. Your magic drove me insane. I saw everyone as either a tool, or an enemy. I cared for nothing but your return, not even my own child could distract me. I was…I'm a monster, in every sense of the word."

"And that makes it easier to blame me for your misdeeds?" Her tone was sharp, and her eyes deceptively narrowed. "It was my magic, my decisions, my loss that drove you to do this? Was it my fault you killed them? My fault you brought me back as this– this thing? A copy of myself?"

A ragged sigh hissed through his teeth as Vartek fell back a step. There it was again, that defeat in his eyes. He shook his head. "My choices were mine, however horrifying they may have been. I told you, I have no excuse that could satisfy you. Best not to go looking for one." He slumped against the wall and slid down to sit. He didn't have the energy to argue, apparently, nor the conviction to defend himself.

Frankly, it took the wind out of her sails. He was unwilling to even try; too much regret and grief cluttering his head to feel any sort of will. She watched him, playing with Star's suggestion of cozying up to him, but it didn't feel right. There was more to this than her own grievances. If she had any chance of going home– of fixing the broken world, she needed him. But the man she remembered loving, he needed her. This wasn't about games and manipulation, it was about reminding him that he was even alive.

"Is that really all that's left of my husband?" She asked, kneeling in front of him to catch his gaze. "A derelict void so washed in pity that it can't feel anything but pain? What happened to the man I once knew? What happened to the man who would have bided his time in the storm, waiting for the perfect moment to break free? Have you fallen so far that you can't pull yourself up again?"

He glanced at the grimy stone below and shivered. "When I was locked up, Moon told me how I could answer to you, how I might 'appeal' to you in the hopes of reaching an understanding. Apologies and the like." He shook his head. "But you're only a ghost. I'm sorry to drag you into–"

Enough was enough. Merina grabbed his snout, forcing his gaze to remain on her. "I am the furthest thing from a ghost," she spat. Vartek hissed as her hands gripped his scars, but she was deaf to it. "I am a flesh and blood penance for a feckless lizard! Now stand up and face your wife with the dignity she is owed! I didn't suffer through all this to let you rob me of my Silva!"

Vartek forced his face free and stumbled back into the wall. A fist slammed into the wood only inches from his head; a far cry from Star's level of magnitude, but effectively rooting him. She glared at him and fought to ignore her aching knuckles. "'I live every day wanting,' so give me everything you have! Put away your tears and answer me! Have you fallen so far? Or is my husband hiding somewhere beneath this shell!?" He had to be. He had to fix this. It was the only way she could get home.

"What can I do?" Vartek demanded. He pushed himself closer, his teeth gleaming and his scars crinkling in fury. "What is it you want from me? Our daughter? Your future? The lives of everyone in Mewni? What do you want that I have left for you to take?"

"I want my bloody life back!" she screamed, her words echoing through the rotting prison. "Tell me how he would fix this before I accept that I became a widow long before you pulled me from the dead! Tell me how to clean up your mess!"

Her demands brought a flash of heat to her face. It wasn't enough that he did this to her. It wasn't enough that he brought her back with nothing but a name and memories. It wasn't enough to hate him. His silence offered no catharsis. With a huff of indignant frustration, Merina turned away. He thought like Vartek, and maybe he could act the part, but the creature before her was the same as she was. A memory of someone who died a long time from now. She stared at him, welcoming the sting of tears and the clipped gasps that followed.

Vartek watched her, but he didn't dare move. She wanted something he couldn't give, not as he was. But then, this wasn't the first time someone asked that of him. Moon had done the same; she'd given him a chance. 'You can save yourself in a way you couldn't before.' The only difference between then and now was…now he had the choice.

"The Turned spell…isn't a spell."

Her glare softened, just slightly. The fire was fading, but her eyes were wary, and cautious. Vartek nodded at her silence, the frills on the back of his head lifting. "It's an application of corruption and magic," he offered bluntly. "You force both upon the subject, scramble their mind, body and soul. I saw the goat man fixing the Turned, and if I were to hazard a guess, he was untangling them."

Merina nodded. "Lekmet hasn't been seen since the battle. Whether he's dead or in hiding, it makes no difference. I'll have to–"

"The effort would kill you before you even finished one of them," Vartek cut in. He gave her idea a dismissive wave and sat back against the wall. His shoulders slumped. "You're too smart to try something so stupid, so you'll have to either find Lekmet, or find another way."

Neither option seemed viable, considering the costs. In the old timeline, Toffee killed Lekmet through Ludo. Here, it was possible Lekmet survived, but it had already been so long. After a moment of thought, Merina nodded, her mind made up. "My magic did this, so you're going to use it to fix them." At Varteks pronounced skepticism, Merina rolled her eyes and paced. "You made that…that effigy of me, as a catalyst. You can use me now the very same way. With my magic, you can sort through the mess and reverse it, one by one if you have to."

When she turned her eyes back to Vartek, he looked…terrified? His eyes were wide and his frills dropped. He exhaled slowly and rubbed his wrists. "'Your magic.' That place is a darkness I can't face a second time. The echoes of everything I've done…I don't want to hear them. They're a poison I wouldn't survive."

Merina crept closer and knelt in front of him. It wasn't exactly a surprise that he wouldn't choose to use her magic again, but in the absence of another way home? A thought arose, a memory she'd forgotten until now. He'd carried that pain, so maybe now, she could try to shield him from some of it. "What if I could keep you safe?" She smiled. "We fought vampires together, griffons, trolls; this is nothing. Magic is still rare and misunderstood in this time, but I know mine. I could help you."

Vartek's breath hitched, a ragged sound in the dim corridor. He looked genuinely afraid, nothing like the composed facade he usually wore for his generals. He reclined heavily against the cold stone wall, then shook his head, his shoulders slumped. "Merina. You have no idea–"

"Silva is out there, Var," she interrupted, her voice low and fierce. "There's nothing I wouldn't do to get back to her, and…I know you have the same drive. I watched you shoulder it for years." The memory of his quiet dedication, misguided and rage-fueled as it was, flashed through her mind. The end didnt justify the means, but in a way? It was still Vartek.

He was slow to agree, his gaze fixed on some unseen point in the distance. He seemed to wrestle with something inside himself. Finally, he relented with a sigh that seemed to carry centuries of weariness. "What the hell are we even doing, Merina?"

"Everything we can," she replied, her voice firm, but wistful. "I almost saved you…in the temple. You were there, you wanted to go back, more than anything. You were so close to letting go, despite all the magic in the universe weighing your shoulders. So where has your–"

"I have one condition." His voice cut through her words, grave and even. She looked at him, but his eyes were distant, lost in the past. "After this is over? You go home, and tell her I loved her. Make sure she knows that, despite everything. Tell her that her father is– that I lost my way, forgot her, but I will always love my daughter." The uneven waver in his voice was unexpected, disarming.

Merina was silent for a long moment. She had assumed he had a way home, a plan. She'd even braced herself for a confrontation, a fight for the means to return. But here he was, his only concern being Silva's happiness. After everything, after the choices he'd made, he just wanted to fade into memory, shackled by his own. A bitter understanding settled in the pit of her stomach.

"It would be so much easier…to just hate you for what you were," she admitted, the words heavy with the weight of their shared history. "But…" She reached out and took his hand, her fingers closing around his. She saw the same apprehension in his eyes that she'd seen at the Blood Moon Ball, all those years from now. A flicker of the man he used to be, before everything changed. Before they lost everything. "If you can fix what you did here," she continued, her voice laced with a fragile hope, "then we can tell her together."

He watched her, wary and careful, the soldier he used to be was still visible beneath the layers of regret. There was pain in his eyes, deep and profound, but there was also something more. A spark of something like hope, or perhaps redemption. "I'll give you everything I have," he promised, his grip tightening on her hand.

In the silence of the cell, beyond all reason, she believed him.

Authors Note

Hey everyone, sorry for the delay for the 50th millionth time. I'm gonna keep this short because busy and frantically working, we love to see it. I finished writing my book, and have since learned that the process of publishing is a slog. So, with all this new freetime, back to the action! I'll try to have part two of this chapter uploaded within the next couple weeks. Those of you in Lord Cornwalis' and I's shared stories discord server can see the next five chapters and the teaser synopsis for each of them. If you arent in there, I guess use this link? https(COLON) /2MpyzM7U I don't know if this will display properly, or if you're going to have to manually enter it, buuut that's on you if you want teasers and updates from ole Corn and I. The link will expire seven days from today, on February 9th. I'm sort of hoping that if I post more, then that'll be more obligation to finish the finale of TOAFQ's act 1. We've gotten pretty lazy, but you already knew that. So in closing, again thanks for the patience, those of you that are still here! And uhh... yeah, I'm back, baby! I'll see yall in a couple weeks! BUH BYYYEEE

Ps. Also no, I didn't forget about Fleeting Moments, or the Labyrinth. More to come with those, soonish? Lemme get my feet wet again with this one.

~Mr. Ronald Reagan