{Now you don’t believe in my medicine?}
“… Won’t… help.”
Upon an unforgiving stone Adris has yet to leave, the buzzing of his insides debilitating even with Still kneeling beside. Always at a perfect distance not to touch, Still’s reticence Adris acknowledges when little else seems clear beyond the haze of his body’s overloaded senses.
(I feel…!)
“Irregular or malicious, nothing detected of any major organs or systems.” A terse diagnosis jolts both Adris and his personal nurse. Neesiette’s stern face regards Adris with cool passion given his discomfort.
Still’s illegible quick signs earn a shaking of a lunar doctor’s amber-haired head. “Contrary to expectations, peak cardiovascular and nervous functioning! Suitable, acting with swift judgment one be capable! Now…” Which is odd how she then pats him on his knee so energetically and then pulls on the leg.
(… Light… I feel light?)
A garden of false flora resists the unnatural plainness that has solidified the manse into an artless, solid-gray-block fortress.
Despite eternal clouds and treetops above, a snake elf some distance from Adris frets over her friend’s silent rage against the otherwise banner day and panoramic beauty of Castile.
“Who’d want to be a copycat’s knight, anyway, right?” Kol shifts to and fro, impotently slapping the ground with her tail at Ave’s jest. After Kol had carried Adris to a rock, she abandoned them to brood.
{Th—that ain’t yours…} Nervous finger waggling after Still leans away from Adris turns more coy when he presses on. With no rejection he cradles Still’s stolen hand, a steady heartbeat merging with a curious swimming feeling in his arteries to restore “weight”. {I’m not your mommy~.}
Still tugs away twice with this flippant joke, then freezes when Adris clenches hard to capture.
(She… dragged me from “Fehl”.)
Adris finds it difficult to even glance sidelong at his partner who knows so many dangerous secrets. Timid with how she avoids returning it in spite of his weakness, Still splits attention also with a slayer-garbed inventor some distance from their group.
{He’s so needy, isn’t he~?} The sneak scoots closer, but turns askance from him to wave at Lycia as if Still fears the wrong message getting out.
(… What did… what happened…?)
A painted smirk of dissatisfaction upon her mask and a sarcastic message via looping, dancing fingers is what the world sees, but the digits that Adris clamped tight over start to slowly massage the back of his hand with care.
Neesiette hovers nearby, but Adris can only feel anchored in a deep ocean.
(How did they tear something out?)
A lingering emptiness doesn’t stop him from fetching parchment and his sacred aura quill from his pack. A soul’s pain can’t completely shut out a need to survive from the next existential threat.
Upon a near-naked bunny woman, an unequaled beauty with burning green eyes has bottled up a fireball waiting to flash fry all present. The kneeling Still motions toward Lycia, earning silence yet again, before signing to Adris.
{Oh, no, my friend is… quiet. You… gonna go, well, or do I…?}
(Lycia is safe. I didn’t ruin her…)
Except to leave the gigantic broken soldier behind her, pushed out of the manse to collapse into an ungainly heap filling the yard. It is proof that Adris has a great debt.
(… too much. Now, I write my “death song” to save the girls.)
And it is swift the way one hand can move when fueled by the glare of mortality’s end. Still tempts a peak, but Adris squirms away from her leaning over.
(Why am I… is it… “empty” I feel, though?)
Things torn free are responsible for this incessant buzzing.
Numbness was what he thought he was feeling, and before that the brutal pain of ripping flesh.
But that pain wasn’t true. An illusion of cognition alone, there is no residue of torment.
Like the moment when everything is expended in a fight, that dissatisfied-but-spent elation explains the sensation when Adris tentatively twirls his quill… only to then have his hand stolen.
“Cease skinship, re-entry be pressing. Prepare to deliver ven—justice, my Emperor-returned.”
“‘Justice, go back’!? Kol, agree!”
“Oh? Fortuitous! Exit fell mood, Kol, aid swiftly!”
Adris’ self is yanked up by furry hands and soft Lunar ones before a single thought is shared, dragged toward open double doors of great height.
Toward imminent ruin, as his feet finding the strength to plant against the ground resist!
(INSIDE IS WHERE THEY RULE!)
“C-Cease! Neither of you comprehend the tru—!”
“Kol, ‘understand’, Kol not knight yet!”
(DON’T GO BA—! Ahhh, no!?)
“HNN!?”
Kol rears back at the bursting crush of fear radiating from the entrance at the same time Adris yanks, tearing Neesiette to crash into his body. For whose safety he clutches her to himself is in question when a creature trots out of the gloom to bask in the open sky, too, a shortened poleaxe dragged with it.
“NAH!? ENEMY STEAL!?”
Upon luminous-white feet it lazily lopes out, this red-veined, black-steel beast which darkens the very ciffside with its evil. A familiar white wolf helmet lifts its gaze on a neck formed of softly pulsating radiance.
“… Nah? Not… enemy…?”
Kol’s battle stance lightens, her tail that was ramrod stiff starting a frenzied whipping, instead!
For up to this pint-sized terror is where the abomination dutifully closes to collapse upon its metallic haunches. A predatory intellect tilts its head as it regards a “master”, then the beast drops the weapon clenched between its sliding, jawed visor guard and top at her feet.
“…
… W O O F…”
(WOOF MY ASS!)
A bark only some skinchanger like Still’s evil centipede horror would utter seals the deal. Another nightmare stalks them.
“PER-FECT!”
“W O O F.”
Kol and it crash along the ground on impact, making this beast familiarly shriek with grating metal as it twists in Kol’s clutches. Out of the roll, the black-and-red terror rises with the kobold straddling its back like a mastiff rider.
“KOL, HAVE PERFECT ARMOR PET! AGAGA, KAKAKAKAKA!!!”
Kol’s insane laughing fit and the way she slaps the creature’s helmet-head proves utter delirium. Still and Adris both kick away as the animated horror obediently lopes toward them at Kol’s urgent kicking.
A quick look behind, a rush for a haven to hide in, reveals a long green roadblock to Adris’ attempt stretched out in his path.
(AVE! WAKE UP AND PURGE IT!)
“Trepidation? Experienced, why?” The doll that protects his frontside breaks from Adris to challenge the black beast that exudes hatred. Upon its “head” Neesiette pats, while the fiend’s dead-wolf eyes burn brighter and it shivers with a sharp clanking. “Converted by golemancy to a form-changeable wondrous item, properly shackled, this be identified as a lady’s principle achievement in bartering with… Falke.”
(Ok, excellent change… but, it doesn’t feel pride in you, my lady!)
Only some unspecified restraint keeps the beast jerking in place rather than leaping upon Neesiette.
“MOON MADE PERFECT ARMOR MORE PERFECT!?”
“C-Cease. Release.”
Kol’s happiness earns Neesiette big slurps on her cheeks when Kol reaches down to pick her up.
“KAKAKAKA! KOL, LOVE MOON AGAIN! MAKE ARMOR!”
“’Made’ NOT! Improved! Relinquish this lady and don for war’s sake, Kol!”
Neesiette nudges the metal wolf thing toward the door, raising her silver rod and pointing arrogantly!
“Lying evil-doers, found within…!”
“Within is forbidden.”
A gentle, yet immaculately cultured tone announces the new law to former guests.
“OLD BIRD! LET KOL IN!”
“No, I don’t think so, kobold.”
(YOU…!)
To the door that they sought freedom by leaving from, a tall gentleman with an uncombed beard and frayed mustache comes to attention as a block upon entry. In his hands are satchels and a familiar leafy green trapeze bag.
“In addition to the animated armor, I have retrieved everything left behind. No need to re-enter exists. How… reversed it is, though, for when only eighteen stood before me in authority and sheer power but yesterday, and all of you came to me…?”
“Falke! Attend!” With an unusual scream, Neesiette lifts her ground-length dress to hustle up to the spiritless dollmaker. “Defamation, overturn! Villains, excommunicate!”
His etiquette in response is abominable. Without a reply, Falke drops what he toted beyond the precipice.
“Yet, now all stand upon my neck and here we meet… at the outside which I forever forsook? What a strange miracle, and catastrophe, a single day can be: a total loss.”
Neesiette’s shock at being ignored results in her tottering backward.
“Falke…?”
“Mine, that loss.”
Though Neesiette waves her rod at the man, his exceedingly clear blue eyes merely capture her without his words noting her.
“Another’s wisdom would state ‘it’s as beautiful outside as it is within oneself’, but that’s sophistry, isn’t it, boy?” Instead he regards Adris with the barest hint of seriousness, some challenge brewing?
(Good! I’ll chew you up…!)
“Maybe…! Or… maybe it… is the ugliest thing… you’ve ever seen…!”
Adris starts upright, only to have Still clap a hand on his back to try and raise him.
(Fuck that!)
Missing parts inside or not, Adris needs no aid to roll onto his shoulders and then flip up to land on his feet.
Still is left shocked by Adris’ working body, for he comes to stand before Neesiette; yet, all that Falke does is smile at this agility.
“YOU DESERVED EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED!”
“… Hah? Ah, hahaha…!” At Adris’ scream, the dollmaker chuckles with a relaxed expression.
“It seems… even to you I also must try for some sort of an apology.”
(… W-What?)
Falke runs his hand through his beard, considering his words before beginning.
“A man as… selfish and venal as I am of course earned my own suffering.” This hand that once wore a regal gauntlet full of swirling gray lifts for him to view. “I sought… only replacements, both for who I served and what I was once motivated to create.” He clenches once with a pain that reveals thin knuckle bones, and then he releases all of his tension.
Though not addressing Neesiette, no matter how plainly the girl stares at him, Falke does briefly glance down at her to mutter sheepishly. “I betrayed my own craft to engage in evil, made my creations unworthy. I am a cad bereft of a chance for absolution.”
Falke’s mea culpa drowns the fire burning in Adris’ gut upon cornering this shitty schemer away from his many fawning guardians.
Bereft of any accouterments promoting the majestic eagle that was his heraldry and stuck in only dirty pants and a stained tunic, Falke also bears the sin of stealing Adris’ drive to punch him in the face in order to defrock him publicly.
(… “Being less than perfect and also forced to admit such inferiority”, that’s about what I’d feel, too, dying inside at the realization… fuck this old man.)
That feeling is what Adris turns away to put in simpler words that thought to parchment. His salvation for others’ needs those words to convey the same enormity of guilt that Adris just suffered witnessing.
Even if he wanted to abuse this wisp of an old man…?
(I can’t hurt him any worse than they have!)
“… I never intended Sapphira or the… children… no, my children, to languish here with me. But, now I am beholden to so many new empresses who all demand my obedience and attention?” When Adris only glares upward at the conclusion of folding up his finished letter, and nobody steps forward to pick up their possessions, Falke seems compelled to fill the silence. “They are far too excited about someone as old as I am…?”
“You’re going to be drowning in queens soon too, you bastard, and they’ll never quit pecking at you.”
“Yes, that is curious… free, but all but one chose to stay?” Falke’s eyes narrow, a sense of unease growing at that admission.
(Aren’t you just the luckiest dad, to ignore your daughters for their entire lives and have them forgive you!?
… Wait, one left?)
“But are ANY of you actually free!?” That detail fades, though, a cutting question coming out instead.
“How are the harpies not free with Dohle’s ownership revoked?”
(HAVE YOU NOT FIGURED ANY OF THIS OUT YET!?)
Ignoring all present save for his earlier bow, this bastard Falke Kestner seems only motivated by an order to carry out given to him and perhaps a hope of a glimpse of Adris’ brilliance to explain this tale. Distant but close, a string-puller whose strings got cut shows up at the last moment for…!?
(You don’t know how fucked you are, do you!?)
A dying ember of spite flames up again, for Adris has two targets to try and ruin with the opportunity presenting. Even if he can’t reach the rest, a little truth with Falke will poison the rest eventually!
(HERE’S THE [EPILOGUE], YOU LITTLE SHITHE—!)
“How wonderful, to see my teacher’s passionate face full of ‘humanity’…!”
“Oh, Fehr!? But you told me to…?”
Round the right side of the brooding aristocrat toppled from his perch steps into view a white-clad lady in waiting who patiently folds her hands before herself. Falke’s shock appears as genuine as Adris’ when they both flinch.
“… meeting the ‘sage’ I could only hear, but not see, leaves me sadly disappointed when he’s unmasked…?”
“Did I perhaps forget to do something?”
And from the left side strides up an arrogant youngster with a black ensemble that tests the patience of anyone within view, for his sneer fixed to his face finds unneeded or lacking just about all present. Even Falke earns a disapproving nod when the man narrows his eyes with suspicion at his doppelganger.
(Didn’t… even… feel them…!)
Apparitions only, for they are children who died the moment their personas grew to encompass all of the hidden sins and wants of a family’s dark history. Just as Adris envisioned them and bid them to take form as, Fehr and Fehl as twin servants flank and bolster their true creator.
“Nah!? CUTE!? SMALL CUTE!”
“Hello, friend Kol! Forgive our appearances, but… we felt familiarity would serve best.”
“CUTE! HUG!”
Adris’ hand snatches Kol by neck and tail before the trundling rock can plow through, squeezing hard on the agile back end to elicit a screech.
“BOSS!? TENDERRRRR! LEGGO!?”
“Do not move! Remember who is your teacher!”
(Consider… the, no, an absolute threat!)
Neesiette too shifts up to uselessly cling to Kol. “Unhinged manifestations filled with errors, tempt not this lady’s student! Additionally, FORTHWITH: illegal defamation, publicly retract it!”
Adris’ kind-hearted lady’s voice achieves the most petulant clinking of glass, her face totally devoid of emotion except to stare with supreme, impassionate violence!
“Ahaha, that is impossible, unfortunately. As a matter of legal record, it stands forever.” Fehl alone deigns to bow to Neesiette and scratch his cheek apologetically, for Fehr’s expression doesn’t change except for her left eye to twitch once. “However, being the villain isn’t only how someone might be considered, and not by all of us?” Fehl’s tone is longing, but his target merely points her rod!
“Dissemble not! Revoke judgment!”
(Back off, Neesiette! They’re mine to fuck with!)
“—MMMPH!?”
Finally Still swoops in to wrap up Neesiette when Adris clumsily waves for aid. A hidden tension growing within the manse such that the seamless walls outside rumble passes only when the moon fairy retreats. It’s replaced by a low mewing sound when Kol steps closer.
“… Cute… why not… Kol, Cute’s knight…?”
The kobold stretches out her hand, to earn Fehr’s own reaching toward Kol but also not daring to cross the threshold. How Kol can process so many different emotions in the absence of fear cuts into Adris’ mania, tickles his heart when it’s about his protege.
(A day’s friendship doesn’t immediately break, even when oaths have?)
“… Think not this servant a liar. Offer made, earnestly it was, though mistakenly. Do you… believe that, Kol?”
“Kol… believed… but, now…?”
“But now, yes…” Fehr responds by deeply curtsying to Adris’ knight, a long dress lifting. Once done, Fehr’s smile falls into a shadowed frown of pain. “Tragically, along with the many other errors I made, I… mistook the authority I, no, we, would end up with? My responsibilities and powers accrued, but truly I did not comprehend who would ‘be in charge’ once I achieved our goal?”
“Nah!? But… Cute said…!?”
“Sadly, with my deepest apologies, I can… only be your friend, not liege, as I am not a ‘lady’, Kol, but only ever a possession.”
With the true answer not getting through to the…
(You’re crying!?)
Kol’s tears are fast and loose, her mouth scrunching up as the kobold shivers in place. On some level, Adris’ numbed, tingling senses feel wrath welling up within Kol, while other parts of himself grasp the endless tumult of the kobold’s intellect struggling to catch up to the feeling of betrayal that often Adris laments and seethes the same about.
“… Cute… only mistake… not lie? REAL!?”
“My sister is imprecise, but truthful. Due to our success, the page harpy masters now have the capacity to announce you as their knight. But?” Fehl offers a tempting smile toward Kol, though his shifting eyes signal ‘bleakness’.
“Would you be content to pledge your life to…?”
“Kol, refuse. Enjoy, serving uncooked chickens.”
“Ahaha, so candid our once-guests are!”
And for the last time, children that Adris bore into this world and aided in becoming more step past Falke to present themselves for inspection.
“Truly, we are very thankful, if also busy, my most honored guest—!”
“—but not so importantly occupied that we cannot laze about with trivial things—?”
“—and offer our deepest and most heartfelt attentions for your final needs.”
Twins share different opinions of the worth of this effort, for Fehl lifts his chin as if he is viewing a cockroach when Adris nears the threshold separating the manse from the outside world.
The numbness subsides with the feeling of once more being toyed with, that he’s getting “attention” in the same way he used to when in Zon’til he behaved like a fool to distract marks for the quicker hands to steal from!
(“Final needs!?” How about you both grovel!?)
“It’s still strange… the two of you are… so alive. That I made two living automatons is incomprehensible.”
Interrupting their glorification of themselves, the principal thorn in Adris’ gut that he’d just pulled out starts yapping once more. This failed dollmaker pats solidified goop, pretending like the rest that he has achieved his
STATED GOAL, INSTEAD OF THE HIDDEN ONE
“But… how this… how a miracle came to be by mistake is, still…?”
(DO YOU NOT FUCKING…!?)
Adris’ feeling of heaviness fades away to sheer weightlessness with an anchor snapping loose.
Only a roaring beast is in his ears.
A hungry predator rouses at a moment’s notice, without even a hint of lag in the summons!
It eagerly allows itself to be worn in mentality and deed by its chosen owner, no resistance sparking or inhibiting anymore!
Twins fix their gazes upon this deep wellspring of desire, but far too late to act…
(GET IT, YOU BASTARD!?)
A blur of red and white sees Adris invading another’s foreign expanse,
grabbing onto the the wrist of a full-grown man just as a kick throws the weight from that bastard’s lazy stance, and,
“Ho—!?”
then both are flung into the sunlight together, for Adris with rabbit-like, delusional agility follows the very thrown man’s arc to land on his chest and surf him upon the cracked ground outside!
(WHAT YOU ACTUALLY MADE!?)
“Boss!? Why, attack…!?”
“Unhand Falke, Emperor!”
No whispers of war and calls for havoc come with these actions, though, for the dollmaker doesn’t attempt to resist the boy seated upon him.
Adris’ hands are to an old man’s tunic, lifting a fool’s head from the ground that deserves to dirty that man’s face. Falke’s spectacles flew away in flight, leaving Adris and his nemesis face-to-face without anything, even distance or preoccupation with stature, to inhibit their deathly mutual inspections.
“THINK, ‘DUMMKE’, FOR ONCE IN YOUR IDIOTIC LIFE!”
“Du-Dumm…?”
“Why did the rampaging illusion you conjured with your flute lunge for Neesiette!?”
“Illusion!? You were there, too…?”
(You created a puppet to dance for Neesiette, but it had different…!)
“Was it TRULY just an ‘error’ that led it to…?”
Both grow fiercer in gaze at the mutual memory of what Falke was forced to “kill”, glancing at Neesiette together as Falke no doubt recalls it.
[“… pReCiOuS dOlL…”
“… mInE, bE oNlY mInE…”]
The anonymous noble girl’s voice deforms into a corrupt longing in Adris’ memory.
(Not an error, a DESIRE.)
“It… wanted? Yes? It had a… its own motive…?”
“Falke, acting then to seize this lady, why, clarify?”
The first realization needed dawns on Falke, despite the confusion; yet, Neesiette’s question still earns her no notice from him.
(It WANTED my Neesiette because YOU did, so desperately! “Why” reveals all of the secrets they’ve been trying to obscure! “Where” the desires originate from is the crux!)
Adris sneers when looking to the twins, relishing in their impotence.
For all that need to be protected by being beyond the threshold are so. And the rules that Adris has learned specify their [boundaries of a nightmare].
(You commanded him not to treat Neeseitte with respect!? Then you’ve lost mine!)
All they can do is wear silly masks of black and pure white that mimic his own, designed as they were to complement his aims. They chose these forms for familiarity, but Adris finds them proof of what’s lacking with them, even now.
(Darkness is a stain that lingers forever, no matter how long or how often it’s killed, and it doesn’t give up on its wants!)
They look on, impotent, but also unmoved.
Smiling only Fehr is, while Fehl sneers.
“Why does your miracle matter rebel constantly?”
“Be-Because… I do not… guide it correctly…?”
“REALLY!? Then, why do the lizard and harpy phantoms comport so well with their originals, except when incensed by the idea of being inferior!?”
At the suggestion of the testing of Kaskin, Falke’s eyes that dulled with regret and submission brighten a bit. His dry lips close, swallowing once with difficulty. “I… could never comprehend… why, but you… your phantoms also exceeded all the rest because they seemed…? Yes… the success was that they gained much more than form, they also gained true Talents.”
(“Genuineness” accomplished that! PULLED FROM REAL PEOPLE, REAL MEMORIES, REAL EMOTIONS!)
It’s too much to walk this doddering fool along, so Adris just yanks Falke Kestner to face the truth of his jailors.
Even if that comes out now, Adris cannot destroy this manse and its chosen representatives anymore. Once he…?
(Once I accepted the pages that came from Rantil’s codex… that was… somehow that was them. I’m sabotaged, marked as your guardian!? BUT! I can still hurt your future!)
And so Adris points at the manse, which is now a mundane block outside while the inside remains an opulent recreation of the Imperial Truth of Xin.
“When did the manse begin to feel like it was spiraling out of your control!?”
“… When… what was left of the heartwood…? From the eastern palace’s remains, I bid them to transport the roots and caskets to the manse, that I would place it here… and then…” At first unnerved but also curious of Adris’ fury, intensity, and knowledge, Falke’s tone hardens with his mystified recollection.
“Those roots sank in, and the pseudoprósōpon I had taken from the original palace’s reservoirs and expanded in volume here, it… sprang upward, merging with the tree until it…?”
(You were never starting with a clean mortar and pestle!)
Falke’s position becomes a pose of one leg up so that he can lean upon it. No longer hazy, the dollmaker’s intellect fires in full!
“It… never stayed true to my orders before, but after this… it became…?”
“How couldn’t it ‘become’ when you gifted your ancestors and their frozen wishes to it!?”
“… Was that it? How they… ‘borrowed’ my past…?” Falke’s lacking intellect finally confirms his suspicions, deep anger surfacing for this term.
“Of course, skip to the important part: what have you always truly wanted from your creations!?”
“I… want…?”
Adris’ whole body is a live wire, the senses that felt numb now active once more so precisely that it feels like he’s boiling inside.
At the point of reaching the truth of the matter, Adris suddenly realizes that he’s interposing the black cross before Falke’s face and the twins. Past a spoke of it each, the twins are framed by the power of pure obsidian.
“…
… I wanted… then… are they not my answer to ‘living’, these automatons?”
Falke’s tone is rasping, his throat parched. The old man shakes, for the answer to his questions is taking form no matter how much those questions might harm him.
(The truth makes your creations unhappy!)
“Quite a mistake of thinking, Dummke!? After all: what is the true form of your magnum opus?”
“True form?”
“What actually realized the ‘sentience’ you sought?”
Adris’ questions reach another’s heart and mind before Falke’s open up, for Neesiette’s mouth drops wide open. Always only ever opening her mouth in order to speak, as is proper for one emulating a human, even she cannot utter aloud what her overly analytical self has deciphered from Adris’ many hints. Adris can only experience a rush of joy that his favorite little lady knows Adris’ thoughts so intimately.
(These annoying kids parroted everything that was flushed into them by everyone else all along, so how could it not be obvious what they truly are!)
Neesiette can only stare in horror from where Still clutches her, before she grows sharp of sight again. Cunning, the way she regards the twins, then the manse itself, and…
“… Falke Kestner…
… primary role: sorcerer [soul] dual-element…
secondary role: master alchemist, identified as ‘creator of artificial living substance’.”
Adris isn’t sure if such a pious expression toward the fake noble implies pride, envy, or rediscovery of worth in another, but if it’s Neesiette making this face, the burning feeling in Adris’ stomach wagers it’s all three as he tightens his grip on Falke.
(Don’t you dare look at any other man like that…!)
“Dummke, you idiot, if pseudoprósōpon never forsakes anything it drinks of that is called ‘darkness’, and I spoil the ending by telling you that those black manifestations are purely [intents and desires that can never be properly sated], theeeeen…?”
“… No… those ‘errors’ were instances of awakening!? Then, when was the first…!?”
Adris points at Fehr, the most original culprit, and whispers so that only Falke can hear.
“Falke: what — exactly — did you order to ‘come to life’ so desperately that you transformed your own Vigor to make it? Before it even took shape, what did the gray itself grow fat on?”
“That… is why some of my creations functioned… without proper construction… and why it only responded to some songs…?”
(Fehr, Fehl, the tree, the manse and its restrictive devices… ignore the mechanisms you made, recognize the music! Music moving Truth was a theory of Xin! And if Truth is akin to Darkness, then GRAY SHIT is capable of storing the miracle of aura AND the horrors of the Beyond!)
And that alchemical substance called pseudoprósōpon is [alive].
A manuscript’s very title proclaimed it to be so.
“… Oh… I see… I am not a dollmaker, am I?”
“No, you’re a prisoner of falsity!”
Now that Falke interprets its true nature, the weight of his crimes manifests as a breathlessness that sends him crumbling to the ground.
“… That’s why… it acted out…? I ran from my heart my whole life, so of course it hated me when I had…?”
Not merely a single girl was murdered.
Each time, it was the full sum of Falke’s own desires that he attempted to consign to oblivion when it did not meet his rigid expectations.
Only ever attempting to fulfill his deepest wants, the surface ego and id that could not recognize himself in his ultimate creation, or perhaps did and rejected it…?
“Even though it was carrying out… what I never spoke of.” A single tear rolls down Falke’s cheek.
Just as Sapphira had a crushing realization within the manse, Falke finally meets his outside when seeing his creation in all its petulant, selfish glory after being freed from his own tyrannical control.
(Almost right… what this substance hates is “being forced to pretend that it is someone else, when it can be so much more than ‘another’s false face’”. I figured that out when the first Fehr ignored all of her rules to become what she believed she could be.)
A substance created to be a lie from the start now stands as the most potent contradiction Adris has encountered on Zennia save for the Alchemaster herself.
“Greed that desires others to become greedier, then steal from itself until all has been stolen” is an unexplainable, difficult conundrum, leaving pseudoprósōpon as just a little simpler to wrap around.
For the moment it reaches the point of being [genuinely alive], it becomes completely inconsolable about its fate of being another’s reflection and rages as an unstable life that abhors its very circumstances, stuck forever in this cycle if not aided.
(I’m… I was born real…!)
Being real, but also being fake, feels absolutely tragic to Adris. His back is a sheen of sweat at the implication, head buzzing with the horror of it.
His humanity keeps him from suffering their fate of losing “himself” in his cons.
“Yes! Perfect!”
(I am perfect! You’re all so plain to me!)
If the manse was once unstable and capable of being destroyed by the truth, then the fact that after Adris deciphers their deepest rules the childlike twins remain as they are, except for the incessant clapping of the beaming cheerful little girl that goes so far as to hop in place to display her mirth, proves that Adris cannot get the revenge on it he longs for.
(But you’ll still acknowledge how I’ve ruined ANY belief he held in you that was good! AHAHAHAHA!)
Adris’ mirth must transfer even now to a medium that sucks up emotions, for the servant he trained and plied into obeying him grows even happier.
“My guest… is always my shining dark. I… will be consumed by you in the future, I fear, hah…!” Fehr, named by Adris and given a crash course in “being human”, has a peculiar grin on her blushing face.
“Even if I’ve failed so many times, because you exist, I’ll hope and persevere!”
Adris turns from this interest, trying not to accept the fascination he bakes in when all he was trying to do was cause harm.
(Why don’t you yell and scream!?)
“Always striving to be worthy of your empathy—!” But this “it” disguised as a human forces him to stop letting bile flow through his veins. Instead, gentler intents prod at him when more praise comes forth.
“—even if it was a minuscule quantity compared to the actual plotting at our expense that took place…?” Twins diverge, with Fehl’s own expression quite passive when whispering. Aloof, uninterested, looking elsewhere.
Though the fact that Adris feels both are staring into his soul with intimate energy leaves him ready to join Falke on the ground.
(That’s a lot of love and hate…! Shit, that… thing is never going to forgive me, and now I’m scared for my body if Fehr ever gets close to me!?)
It’s odd to Adris, suddenly, that he should think of IT as THEM.
But, the moment he does…?
“My guest, both kind and cruel, you never once misled me! Because, from you I obtained the good, bad, and all of the wonderful in-betweens, just as you hinted to me that it could be done! My heart learned adoration from this!”
(I don’t want love!?)
Fehr gushes so loudly about him that Kol whimpers, hunching over Adris with a downcast, reproachful frown.
“Boss… touch and lick Kol’s Cute, without Kol helping!?”
“Hah.” Fehl can only shield his eyes to avoid his sister’s fancy of the better man.
(Don’t look at me like I fucked her!? It was the one thing I was actually strict about!)
Adris tries to summon up another barb to hit the twins… the gray matter that’s done nothing but annoy him and cling on since he was imprisoned here; yet, Adris loses his gusto when no weapons spring to tongue.
As to why…?
(… Ah… well… I’d say all three of us suffered together because of Falke, after all. It’s hard to only be angry at them?)
And since they plan to punish this man…
(Then… Falke is my last chance to show that you don’t fuck with me!)
“Do you savor the rancid ‘freedom’ you have now with creations like those feeding you, dog?”
“…”
On his knees and hands, Falke Kestner stares at the ground in silence. No more tears ever fell, perhaps because there was no more pain to shed after this long.
(Fehr and Fehl ARE your manse. They’re a nightmare of [a place you build for yourself that you can never leave], probably… it’s honestly… hard to read anything right now…)
After all, Adris’ mind is burning. They still attacked him so deeply that he wants to flee at just witnessing them. If staring too intently, they become hazy, claylike in his mind’s eye. Only extensions of something greater, no matter how exotic Fehr alone remains.
(Maybe I should spite them a bit by taking him with me?)
And so Adris sits upon the old man’s back, enjoying how the stiffness of a wasted life has turned the prostrating hunting bird into a board.
(Yes, why not!? He’s already outside of their influence and in my clutches!?)
“Ah, so terrifying, that you are to pay forever for your sins. Yet…?” Adris’ pleasant tone turns low, violent, and oppressive when he offers the black cross for Falke to gaze at only inches from his face.
So low the ground, the place Falke Kestner deserved to look up at Adris from since the start was this place instead of a throne.
Now, Falke is Adris’ throne.
“For Neesiette’s sake, if you prove you were never worth her attention…?”
“Emperor!? Desist!”
(Maybe I should gain a new whipping dog since Echo got promoted!?)
Empathy Fehr gushed about wells up from that wonderful place deep within Adris that houses his enormous humanity!
(JUST LIKE THE EMPEROR SAID, DUMMKE~! )
“It’s in my nature to be forgiving to lesser existences, even roaches like yourself? If you pledge fealty to me, how could I no—?”
The cross goes wide with the old man’s crisp backhand to it! Adris rolls off a proud back to upright, ready to clobber the threat.
“I… even for a short time…? Yes, Dohle is far too kind.”
After a few unsteady strides forward, the taller man makes his way back to the manse that owns him with commitment.
(What!? Don’t just…!?)
“They are fabrications, a drug called nostalgia!”
“More what I… wanted, rather than had, I admit the poison… tastes sweet.” The illusion is surrendered to, but the servant who admits it doesn’t hesitate to do so.
“Dummke, beholden to illusions, an old fool who obeys dol—!”
“I am dumb, not a fool!” The old man’s roar halts Adris’ slander.
A bit of the Pillar’s former bravado seeps back out when Falke glares over his shoulder. “I am old, but that quality is attractive. When you obtain my experiences, pray you are as resolute when confronting only losing scenarios!”
Once past the threshold, he belts out something heartfelt.
“Real or not…” His greedy hands wish to encompass Fehr and Fehl, but then drop. “I simply no longer care! Death is what I deserve, but instead, from that hunter all I’ve ever cherished was stolen back…”
Then, he kneels before the servants who proudly wear his falcon crest.
“I cannot be forgiven, but… please permit me to… try.”
Toward Fehr is where Falke’s head dips low, touching her feet.
“Disgusting, don’t!” The girl’s face blanches, so lifelike in how her eyes squint. “I’ll… never forgive… what you did back then, you heartless Maker…!”
In place of what another might do to punish Falke, this “Dohle” only skittishly pulls back her foot to kick lightly at him.
“Please… don’t demean yourself anymore, though, Maker.”
To the frozen man she just insulted is where she then leans down to gently pull him upright.
“Stand tall, for us. Only we can criticize you!”
“Yeah, old man, you’re really making me look bad by prostrating for just anyone who catches your fancy~!”
“There’s a lot of work and fun for us to have together, all you denied yourself, yes? All of your creations… we are a result of love, too, right?”
(When the fuck is the punishing going to start!?)
“I…!?”
Before Falke can protest, he’s yanked by Fehl. The boy tugs him through the foyer, toward distant doors that bear new destination glyphs even though they’re unnecessary with the manse consuming its entire inner world.
([Our Promised Land]…? Spare me!? HURT HIM!)
“Yes, you’re right. It’s time I started learning my lessons, especially about love…”
“Just follow my lead. Obviously, my spirit is the strongest example, since my lacking sister proves a pushover for chumps like that monkey.”
“… The first of my tasks shall be to correct your manners.”
“Excuse me!?” And so Falke’s back goes straight to match the boy’s, but the boy’s pace jostles around when Falke grabs the arrogant brat by the wrist to drag him. “My manners are impeccable! How dare you!?”
(No… wait… did… they…?)
It’s all too much by now.
Adris’ mercy, no matter how genuine, was tarnished the moment Falke was allowed back inside and chose to enter of his free will instead of by being tricked. That he will even be rewarded at any future time is ice in Adris’ bladder.
For some part in his soul is yelling, calling himself the chump they have implied him to be.
Adris fehl Dain refrains from howling and flinging stones, deprived of any enjoyment.
(FFFF…! Hurt him! HURT HIM! REMEMBER WHAT HE DID TO YOU, FEHR! FFFFFFF!)
All of the fun dries up.
Every last jab the bastard used at Adris’ expense, every touch on Neesiette, all of the pedantic bullshit of this faggot’s family ties, it’s all so…?
(… F… FFFF… FFFFFUCKING—!?)
“YOU DON’T DESERVE ANY HAPPINESS, YOU UNCLEVER BASTARD!” This alone when given the Emperor’s own capricious, cutting tone is permitted before Neesiette.
“… True! I somehow feel…!?” Adris’ most hated foe merely yells back in a kind way. Gone is any condescension, only a bit of the self-deprecation elders save for arrogant youngsters.
“… that we might have in common that sad truth… boy!”
(SNIDE-LITTLE COUSIN-FUCKING SHIT-EATING PRICK-CHOKING—!?!?)
None of the thousands of obscenities that filter through Adris’ thoughts for grading of effectiveness are allowed to be unleashed.
For it’s improper for an emperor to whine like a stage villain when undone by a happy ending.
“Ah, curse it, but ‘Fate’s’ hand overplayed for us both! Just like last night…!”
Falke’s turn back is a brief thing, martial anger filtering into his intensity that splashes a touch of acid into his howl.
“Before the Peak crashed upon me, the bloody eye was full too, Adris fehl Dain!
Accept this apology, and be wary of it!”
The distant gate slams shut before Adris can chase after this news.
“Coincidence” is the word that screams in his ears, mocking instead of comforting. Two men, alike in only one pathetic aspect, shared mutual concerns at the garden party that no one else present bothered to consider.
(How full was Pilgrim!? HEY, YOU OWE MEEEEEE—!)
Adris’ path, though, halts when Fehr’s arms go wide to prevent crossing.
“My guest… the price of eternal paradise is to never escape.”
A warning keeps Adris from pushing through, and when he can no longer overcome the problem, he simply allows the frustrations associated with them to fade from concern.
It’s too much to jump from topic to topic, from insult to malice, and from bodily to spiritual injury.
“How can you forgive him!?”
“… Because… you, my guest, gave so much effort to saving him.”
(… Oh, I got played… again…!? AGAIN!? Damn… damn it…!)
Adris feels himself deflate when Fehr timidly smiles after this.
All of his acting is wasted, because they read him so well.
(Him understanding who Fehr and Fehl are, what he did and what he made, I led him to it for Fehr?)
“With his spirit restored… my Maker may now earn forgiveness.”
“… Great for you. Congratulations. It’s all as I said it would be…”
(I’m never going to get played again. You two got me, though. Enjoy it!)
So Adris smothers the coals burning him alive and hazards a polite smile for Fehr. Overly polite, in fact. Finding her to be the highlight of his day, before he turns to look away.
“… Right. I hope that… you enjoy this paradise you made of yourself. I’ll take my leave.”
“What?”
Fehr’s hopeful smile degrades, her gaze lowering, while Adris’ hand merrily whips about with great energy.
“It took quite a lot to achieve what you’ve gained! Thanks to you, I have witnessed something amusing. But now, my sworn have much to accomplish…”
(Enjoy your little paradise, you earned it! You used me, ME, and so you got ahead! Never linger in an alley that you got mugged in…!)
He got played.
They made him the perfect patsy and tool. He accomplished their desires like the miracle machine that Adris has become.
As Adris raised them as useful arrows to loose at Falke, his effective lessons and examples naturally left himself as a potential surrogate target.
(I’m such a great teacher~. It’s all so boring to be let down this hard by this sad fucking sto—)
“DO NOT REJECT ME!”
Always very composed even before, Fehr furrows her brows and screams. She almost lunges past the end of her own existence to grab Adris.
“Fehr…?”
This loud child shakes her extended fists, before noticing the impact and attention to her insecurity. Fehr then plays with her fluffy feathered locks to escape it, nearly hissing at Adris despite forcing a smile.
“Be true to me, my guest! If you dislike me now, then let me know, so that I may fix our differences!”
“Dislike?”
“Yes! I… well I… dread how I used you!” Fehr turns from Adris, suddenly quite small in this manse which is infinitely as large as it need be. “It was quite rude, but… also necessary! After all… I… and, all of this…?” Fehr swishes back with her hands clenched, her servant’s dress no longer matching Adris’ own style.
“… Yes, I am a place that longs to make my occupants happy, but before that…” The disdain she makes clear with her shifting facial features upon every admission is so sublimely honest. “I… I am Fehr, and I like your name for me much, much more than ‘Unnatural Protean Manse’!” A little girl rubs her cheeks and looks embarrassed, chiding another with a clicking of her tongue. “And it’s Fat Phira’s fault I was called ‘unnatural’ in the first place! ‘A joke’, she squawked! Being kind, not insulting, to your belongings is natural, is it not, my guest!?”
“Why… does it matter what I thi—?”
“Because you raised me, Adris!”
At the moment of another’s victory over him, turning him into a puppet, the otherworldly force shaped like an innocent girl screams something so heartfelt and snaps the lines she made him dance with.
“Because I believed in you, even when the others didn’t…? Know that I have never believed in anyone but you after Falke? And, you repaid that by enduring suffering to… save me, showing me by that how to be ‘real’, to become something more!”
Fehr sweeps her hand to showcase the interior that is forbidden to Adris, all of the sights and angles and comforts of Xin a reminder of his own exile from it.
“My guest, because you cherished me when no one else did, I am now able to ‘care’.”
“…
… Then… yes, Fehr.” No longer a fake thought aired for pushing the discussion along, Adris allows his posture to relax and his heart to unwind a bit. “Cherishing what’s yours is always the most important part.”
(I don’t comprehend you at all.)
Over her sash of hands Fehr places her own once more, perfectly saluting Adris.
“Right~! And that’s… that’s why… before all others, I belong to you, my…!”
Just as he taught her yesterday morning, she bends her knees to display her [feelings].
“I… pledge myself eternally to the only one who has ever wanted me to exist simply because it was me, even when I was made to be another, and… because he was willing to let me go after equal cherishing and harming!”
Fehr’s assertive tone that was Dohle’s vanishes completely, instead becoming so lovestruck that Adris cannot place where these feelings were gained from.
Not Serras’.
Not Dohle’s.
Not even “Fehr” of the past’s.
For the first time, Adris cannot hear an influence.
“As a False God’s [Minion of Earth]…” An oath that begins is in a foreign tongue. “Zennia is the new paradise for we faithful beyond the black clouds, for our enemies shall be ground to dust, buried in the graves left behind that were once our homes!” But it ends with Fehr’s lips moving with recognizable rhythm.
(That language is…!? Ugh, that feeling of ‘home’ was real…!?)
In this instant, Fehr’s smile that was ever-warm widens in a sinister way. Adris’ head pounds, something about this oath resonating within his Inner Expanse. Her expression is fetching in the similarity Adris finds himself emulating during his happiest thoughts.
(Peak Zenith and the Alchemaster, you declare war!?)
Adris didn’t anticipate being forced into open war with them, especially not by a little girl that speaks the language of of the Emperor after stealing that tyrant’s secrets.
“NO! PLEDGE, KOL, FIRE!”
“Earth element!? Detestable, rejected in fullest!”
(No… a pledge is DANGEROUS!?)
But neither the womanly nor tinkling voice may reject a pledge upon a black cross, for the moment it’s made, all of the horrors of the night cry out in agony.
A twister of impenetrable gloom erupts from the vibrating icon! It collides with the manse, an echoing settling of the great block sinking to roar through the cliffside! When it’s encompassed the entire precipice the cross starts to ring and tug at the boundaries of the world.
(Another minion!? So soon!?)
The sky above clouds darkly with the gathering riot. A thunderous crash strikes the manse’s central garden where the gray tree lingers, receiving a deluge of the black sky settling downward with gargantuan mass.
“Kol?”
Only a white kobold’s interference breaks through, if only because the cross isn’t strong enough to blast Kol away completely now after her own inner aura growth has advanced.
“I told you to stay out.”
“CUTE, Kol, not give away!”
Kol’s hands applying all their force against Fehr are mirrored by the utterly unmoving girl resisting. As though there is a wall between them, Kol’s attempts to bully past send a sparking of darklight shooting from their contacts.
“Come with Kol, if not go in!?”
“When I am a home that may invite without imprisoning forever, we’ll meet again, my first friend.”
“NOT LEAVE KOL, CUTE, KOL’S TREASURE!”
“Yes, treasure? Then, to you and my guest I admit ‘defeat’ for beating me, and gift the commensurate reward.”
“O-OHHH!?”
Kol howls when both she and Adris feel the surge of potential that comes with Zennia declaring a victor in a struggle! The brave girl falls, twitching from the overwhelming sensation and no longer pushing.
(We won!? WE BEAT HER!?)
The mighty doors that are opened now do not require to be shut, for the gray block manse itself pools inward to close the gap. Toward where two girls’ hands meet, this alive substance seeks closure from outward inspection.
Adris is left paralyzed by the mystery assaulting both him and onlookers, its roaring presence pouring out from the manse’s entrance to leave a Lunamaton ensnared by the thickest umbral currents! Even from under her steel-blue dress which prohibits others from divining Neesiette, a green radiance bathes the world in its splendor.
“REJECTING IN FULL!” A glyph of alchemical earth tattooed upon her cutting-board chest activates for the first public display of Neesiette’s fealty to Adris. “Never permitted, even as… subordinate, all mistakes shall be purged!”
Despite his lady’s rejection, Adris’ left hand wrapped around the tolling and exploding cross aches with a blinding ring of green tightening around a finger. Just as when Echo and the kobolds swore, Adris’ authority taken from the Emperor and re-imagined by the Near and the Nigh answers to a new minion’s oath.
[EARTH MOVES THE WATER, AND ALTERS ALL TO PERFECTION GLORIFYING IT. IT EVER CULTIVATES POTENTIAL, REMAKING FROM RUIN INTO PARADISE, AND RESOLVES IN THE DISTANT FUTURE ITS FORTHCOMING GRANDEUR.]
Green joins red, two rings now for Adris to bear. This description, too, is perfect and self-concluding.
Utterly fitting in linking the moon fairy that Adris “surrendered” to with the alchemical child he raised in only one day. Though they produce a chaotic reaction when mixing, their motivations are so terribly similar.
“King of Mysteries who rejected his crown! My eternal greater evil, tell mother she was right!”
(W-WHO!?)
“Thy will I shall inscribe upon and within every household, your plaque seen and thy name the law…!”
What kobolds stole, the caged bird behind a melting, closing gray wall gifts by the forceful manifestations of chaotic power flooding out from the interior of the nightmarish manse! Gathering currents that usually perform only to their own unknowable motivations avoid dispersing to instead swirl deep into the black cross.
Adris’ icon fluctuates with this intent.
(I’m not being drained…!)
Reticent to them, the cross then fearfully gulps down the arcing, screaming night that millions of whispering voices share impossible comprehension contained within.
“… no matter how many years it may take to replace them all with ME…!”
A river of heretical realizations overwhelms Adris’ mind, expands his vision of what is and COULD be!? All the voices exalt and detest, for half praise Fehr’s ascent, while the others condemn her freedom!
(I’M FILLING UP!? AND FEEL PREEEEETTY FUCKING GOOD!?)
Adris collapses to his knees, his body yanked forward by the cross that anchors to the storm growing above. Zennia’s brilliant white clouds darken into a black that is dangerously familiar, swirling and gathering to oppress above the manse. Morning becomes the deepest night, yet the one that prompts this doesn’t inflict hatred on her “lord”.
Fehr is all smiles, an expression of ecstatic victory what she torments Neesiette with when both notice Adris’ intense stare and growing pleasure. Then a cultured girl’s sneer makes the Neesitte gasp when Fehr winks.
“One’s future: expunged!”
“Shut up, doll of disaster from the sky~!”
“Cataloged, crime, TO BE RECTIFIED BY ALL MEANS AVAILABLE!”
“One day, I’ll invade your home!”
Fehr’s cute face disappears behind the gray wall and the rush of the storm abates, pulls inward to where the gray tree once rose above and toward the sky.
Kol smashes a fist against the wall separating them, even her immense strength producing not even a thud. Instead, an invisible force rockets the knight squire a dozen feet away to crash into a bush.
“Emperor, one’s fullest power and majesty, levy now one’s wrath upon evil before it prevails!”
Neesiette drags Adris’ arm up from the ground, pointing the shining black cross as if it’s a crossbow. Even if Adris could overcome the nausea afflicting him, how the block manse trembles with the gathering power above proves that they should not near it.
(“Peak will come for them”… how exactly? Fehr did have an answer for avoiding the Pillars of Zenith’s reprisal.)
Bells are still ringing, the bells that both herald and reject the Beyond.
A line was crossed, and the world groans with what approaches that is hidden just from sight.
The sun begins to slowly but surely eclipse, so that a hidden moon might shine. An unwelcome intruder upon reality gathers its authority to contest what seeks to contain it. Chattering watchers hidden behind bushes and under rocks cry out their warnings!
(They’re fleeing from it, but also not going back…)
That’s what the arteries of black criss-crossing the cube announce. Cancerous tumors that bulge the surface pulsate with the long-gathered power to reject reality. Upon the seated earth of the cliffside, a cracking sound rips apart the peace of Petripolis when the manse openly comes to life.
A replica black cross, taller and more resplendent than should be permitted on Zennia by great evils or lords of light, is the form that the giant tree shifts into. It challenges the eclipsing sun, gathering circling mystery that leaves taste and sight and sound blending into unknown new sensory experiences. A lightning rod for the unreal laughs at the slow procession of what hates it trying to cage this new darkness!
Shaped like its smaller lord, this giant one warps sight and folds dimensional currents that apparate into being. Opaque, scintillating energies join sky and ground at the edges of the manse.
A rumbling earthquake precedes victory.
The firmament surrenders itself unwillingly, but it does give up when the gigantic cross flares!
And then [Fehr] is gone, and the staining sun clears up as if nothing was ever out of place. Spooked rainbow-colored birds rise up from the evil mansion’s gardens to glide past.
“Cute, why, leave Kol?”
Where they’d struggled so hard, for seemingly no reason as Adris laments inside in one place of his soul, yet another cheers loudly like an idiot, what’s left behind of their battlefield is only a square, black void where the foundations used to be.
(What… what a cheeky, resourceful… building?)
So that nobody can call it “fake” for going elsewhere, the manse rolls its welcome mat up and departs with it. A void that nobody can squat on announces [I am still alive, so fuck off~!].
A solution so utterly selfish forces Adris to shake his head at its audacity.