Fantasy The MPC Rushes Story, Cont.

[Genevieve Moulin]

Genevieve eyed Fitz critically as he gathered their friends and acquaintances and prepared for a jump. Something was wrong. The slight crinkle of a wince lingered around his eyes even when he grinned at her, and though he went about the task at hand with his usual bravado and confidence the edges of his voice were strained. She felt an urgent need to hold him in her arms, to assure herself that he was okay.


"France," Daisy croaked in answer to Fitz's question of When and Where they should go, interrupting Genevieve's concerned thoughts. Her eyes flew wide. France. No. She could not go to France. But before she could protest, Fitz had his arm around her waist.


"All right, Red, you ready?"


No!, her mind screamed. But she only had time to open her mouth before they were off. She squeezed her eyes tight, trying to clear her mind. She didn't know When or Where in France Fitz was planning to guide them, and she wasn't sure what would happen with her own thoughts fixed on the time and place she feared they might land. But try as she might she could not still the thoughts of the city that set the course of her life--the thoughts of home.


The swirling of places between times stopped, and she opened her eyes slowly.


"Bienvenue à Paris!" Fitz cried.


And here it was, Haussmann's Paris. Her own Paris. Its wide, gleaming avenues. Its green beltways of flowering trees. And--she turned around to check--yes, it was here, too: Monsieur Eiffel's miraculous tower rising above it all. The Seine flowed lazily beside them, and pastel silk-bustled ladies strolled arm-in-arm with top-hat clad gentlemen down the sidewalk.


Genevieve crossed her arms over her stomach and stumbled back a few steps, feeling sick and disoriented. She should not be here. She could not be here. She cast about for something to indicate When they'd landed, and her eyes fell on a poster tacked to a lamppost. Bold letters arched over an illustration of Eiffel's glistening iron tower proclaimed: Exposition Universelle de Paris.


"1889," Genevieve said quietly. "I'm eight years old. Still in Algiers."


While that was some comfort, she was still shaken by existing here, in her own time, in her own home. And not only that. On their last day together, Tristan had taken her on a glorious tour of the Chicago World's Fair; now Fitz had brought her to the one Chicago had sought to best.


Genevieve was dimly aware of Lisbeth and Blott discussing something about the Architect in hushed tones.


"We need to find somewhere that we can rest for a minute and talk," she caught Lisbeth say. Shakily, Genevieve gestured toward an empty bench facing the water.


"I suppose here's as good a place as any for the moment, until we have a plan," she said, taking a seat to keep her knees from buckling under her. The scene was so quiet, so achingly familiar. Would their presence here bring destruction as it had elsewhere? And, if so, what would happen to her future with her past destroyed?

 

[ArtBlott]

Blott rolled the unconscious Trent closer to the bench, sort of scooting him along with her foot. When did she become the dead weight wrangler?


Mission of movement complete, she plunked down onto the cool grass next to the bench. Everyone was shaken, having just literally fought a monster, but the Artist felt everyone was taking it quite well. She was particularly pleased with herself, having done something useful for once. Daisy seemed the worst off, but at least she was still standing. Genevieve looked more unhappy to be in France then she was being attacked by a...whatever that was. Speaking of which...


"Are we to assume that one of the many whatever after us now control monsters?" Us. How odd. Really, no one was after her in particular, but she couldn't really extricate herself from everyone now.

 

[UCBooties]

William tried to get his bearings after the jump. For a long moment he was quiet as his disordered thoughts tried to make sense of what was happening in the Here and Now. First and always his mind reached out, vainly seeking the echo of familiarity and purpose that would tell him that Black Iron House existed in this world. There was only the now familiar twinge of disappointment. Under that disappointment was fear. Fear that his separation from Black Iron House was permanent and fear of what that meant for his own existence as well.


He pulled his thoughts away from that and instead tried to make sense of their hasty departure from Shanghai.


The creature had nearly gotten him, and what was worse, it was only by luck that he had escaped. He had known that he was at a disadvantage without his books and tools. This most recent episode only underscored just how badly out of his depth he was without Black Iron House.


He looked around at his friends as they chatted in the warm sunlight in a gaily colored city beside a languid river and the truth of it lodged like a stone in his gut. He was a liability.


He moved towards Blott and Trent, unsure of what to do. Normally it would a simple matter to produce smelling salts to rouse the man. For now all he could do was be sure that Blott didn't need assistance. She seemed to have their new companion well in hand so William turned again to look at Daisy. So far as he knew this was her first time Jumping. He put on as reassuring a smile as he could manage and bent down towards her.


"Are you holding up alright?"

 

[Arkadious]

France, 1889: Fitz beamed, especially proud with himself for getting everyone safely to Paris, and the 1889 World Fair at that!!! He glanced over at Genevieve, expecting to see her smiling at him and his great idea but instead was shocked by the look of displeasure on her face. Fitz looked down at the unconscious man that Blott rolled along to the bench and scowled. He still didn't know who he was and wanted answers. Swiftly, using his boot, Fitz nudged him, hard, in the soft spot just below his ribs, in a not so gentle attempt at rousing the unconscious man. Suddenly Fitz turned to Gen and half shouted, "What's wrong? We're all here, no one's dead, and it's the World's Fair!!! We can finally take a moment to catch our breaths!!!"


Knowhere: A gaunt and hollow figure stood and peered into a cracked and blurry mirror from underneath a deep hood, once bright glowing embers for eyes now barely smoldering coals. In the mirror, the figure watched as six travelers were spontaneously whisked from 1930 Shanghai to 1889 Paris, the Artist barely launching a feather into her Creation to set it ablaze before the sudden jaunt, the Writer's Raven warrior fading from existence shortly after felling the unearthly horror that had suddenly crawled through Time and Existence. With a weary sigh, he turned and looked over his shoulder.


"They're starting to draw more and more Touched to them, as well as the attention of the Old Ones. The barriers continually grow weaker. Thanatos and the Knights are not helping matters either...Someone is going to have to die, and soon..."





With a curt nod, the small figure that he was talking to turned sharply on it's heel and walked away, six other figures following it from the shadows before shimmering and disappearing from Knowhere, leaving momentarily hazy afterimages of various hues...

 

[Marianne]

Daisy was conflicted, for the poor girl was barely in the right mind before she went through an unexplicable blast of energy and witnessed quite a few What could have, and a What might not have's.

What is this, she thought, although it was cut short before she was whip lashed into a totally different reality. She felt as though her Master had told her about something like this before. Was this a time jump of some sort? That's how he said it when she hadn't understood. Who knew.

By the time Daisy regained proper consciousness, she attempted to stand before giving up on her first try; she was still relatively in shock, but the ordeal was not too bad, right? As Daisy looked down at her shaking hands, she felt a presence before her; looking up her doughy brown eyes took notice of the man who was announced before - William, yes? Most definitely, since the other was a new presence amongst the group, and the man named Fitz was most certainly elsewhere, he acted differently. Daisy could hear everyone, but her vision was limited to what was before her. "Are you holding up alright?" She heard him ask, she watched as he put on a reassuring smile, and she frowned. Daisy felt young all of a sudden, and she put on a determined expression as she attempted to stand, although her legs were some what unstable due to the unusual experience she had just undergone. After two more attempts, she managed to stand upright for half a minute, one step causing her to tumble before she sat back down on the ground. She might have felt as though she was ready to get moving, but her body was on a totally different level.

She stared at William before deciding to answer his question properly. "No, and it wou' not be too much to -" clearing her throat, for her English had sounded strange in her ears, she tried, "It would not be too much to ask for you to help me, would it?" The troubled girl didn't want to burden anybody, none of that was her intention, she hated troubling others, especially her Master. If anything, she wanted to be stronger, although he would tell her otherwise. That she wasn't meant to be strong at all, but she knew that she could do better. The way the others fought, she wanted to fight too. Never, never did she want to feel helpless. The jump, the experience, the inhumane screeches of disaster, and the reeking smell of promised death and misfortune back in Shanghai? Never again.​

 

[Genevieve Moulin]

Genevieve, stung by Fitz's tone, blinked at him in disbelief. He had never so much as spoken an unkind word to her, and now, as she stood frightened and at a loss in a place that could hold more danger for her than a monster-infested Shanghai, he shouted at her as though she were ungrateful. Her hurt quickly hardened into anger.


"What's wrong?" she shouted back, balling her fists and pulling herself up directly in front of him. "Altamonte, are you daft? Do you think I can just go waltzing around Paris, taking in the sights of the Fair with you? You've brought me home, Fitz. To a home I can't ever return to!"


Fitz stood significantly taller than Genevieve, but at that moment you wouldn't have known. She stood on tiptoe--the top of her head still only reaching his chin--and leaned in closer, projecting all the passion and terror contained in her compact body through the finger she jabbed into his chest to punctuate her words.


"What if I'm seen? What if I'm recognized? And in case you haven't noticed, we tend to have a habit of destroying forever the worlds we visit lately, whether by ink or flame or...or...monster! What happens if the Paris of my childhood is gone? What happens to me then? But you didn't think about any of that, did you? Of course not, because you were too busy trying to impress everyone to take one second to think about how coming here would affect me, and then you have the audacity to shout at me as though I'm the one who should be thankful!"


I won't cry, she told herself. I will not let him see me cry. Not now. The prickle of tears gathering at the corners of her eyes betrayed her resolution, but she held them back just as she held his gaze, the two of them scowling and seething at each other in the middle of the City of Love.

 

[Arkadious]

Fitz held Gen's gaze, stiffening slightly, having not expected her to get this angry with him. He had barely escaped her precious ex-lover, Tristan, managed to find them in that When/Where out of all the possible combinations, and got them out to safety and she was blowing up at him?! He clenched his hands into tight fists and gritted his teeth.


"Well, Red, I don't recall you or anyone else making any suggestions as to what to do. Besides, in case you haven't noticed, this isn't entirely Our Paris." He nodded to some figures off in the distance, walking around with mechanical limbs, gears and steam, walking arm in arm. On futher inspection, the group noticed that, while this indeed was Paris, things were just a bit off kilter, much like the alternate WWII London they had visited. There were more gears and steam powered and lightning rails. Off a ways, there was an old peddler handing out ice cream cones to young children as well as a couple of adults. Five individuals wearing variously hued cloaks were standing off to one side of the park, underneath a large tree.


"So, as you can see, there shouldn't be much of an issue with YOU being here, since you don't exist here in the first place!" Fitz snarled then turned, delivered another swift kick into the unconscious Trent's abdomen before barking at him to get up and explain himself.

 

[Genevieve Moulin]

As Fitz turned angrily away from her, Genevieve sank back down, folded her arms over the arm of the bench and buried her face to allow the tears to flow unseen. Emotions washed over her in waves, bringing fresh sobs to stifle with each new feeling.


Guilt for being angry at Fitz, who had only been trying to help after all. Hurt at his tone. Relief that this wasn't their Paris. But sadness, too, if she were honest. Because the thought of a small glimpse of home, of her former simple and straightforward life, of family had given her a thrill of hope beneath all the fear and worry. When she'd lost Tristan, she had lost everything else, too. She didn't know what happened to her parents. When they died, where they were buried. And all they knew of her was that she vanished one day. Her timeline was no longer linear, and until just recently it was beyond her control. Given the chance, she might have risked her future for a glance at their loving faces--even from a distance.


As the tears slowed and she uttered a small sniffle, Genevieve realized just how drained and hungry and dirty she was. When had they last slept or eaten? No wonder we're fighting, she thought. She peeked up toward Fitz, his back still to her. She wasn't quite ready to apologize, but she dearly wished he would turn and catch her eye.

 

[Lisbeth Walpurgis]

It seemed that everyone was getting back on their feet, so to speak. Some more literally than others, Lisbeth noted. She was about to open her mouth to speak when something of a kerfuffle erupted between Genevieve and Fitzgerald, all flared tempers and hurled invectives. Lisbeth's jaw snapped shut with a click! as she watched her friends with slightly widened eyes. In moments their argument had passed, but the tension had not, and Lisbeth cleared her throat in the uncomfortable silence that followed.


"Listen.. we've all just been through quite an ordeal. Maybe a little food and rest is in order? I can explain my theories regarding Arkadious and the Architect and what I believe we must do to find him over..."


She trailed off and looked around, trying to gauge the time of day. The sun was high, casting everything in warm light. A nearby tree broke the sunlight into irregular shapes, and a pleasant breeze stirred the leaves to chase light and shadow across Lisbeth and her companions.


"... lunch?" the Writer finished uncertainly.

 

[ArtBlott]

People were having feelings again. She swallowed her own with difficulty. Anger made her nervous. It made her arm sting and her insides bubble. Blott set her jaw. The yelling was over, for now, but the unresolved irritation crackled in the air around the group.


"We'll need money if we want food, but I'm game," Blott's bird chirped a little too cheerfully. She caught the confused glace of Daisy and a few others, "I mean I'm all for it? It's a good idea?" She twisted her fingers in her lap. If she were honest, she was actually kind of excited. She had never been to any part of France before. She thought back to cartoons from her childhood and cliches from the internet. How much of that was going to be here? Blott owned a beret (ironically, of course) but had never seen a baguette before. Not that she could eat one either, but the idea threatened to make her smile.


Her fingers ran over the grass as her crow pecked at the ground. It was picturesque, this little scene. The breeze kept it from getting too hot, and a few fallen leaves danced along the ground. One of them even danced right up to her shoe, flopping itself over the heel. Or, no, it wasn't a leaf. Some kind of postcard? Awkwardly small flyer? She picked it up.


World's Fair, featuring a Masquerade Ball at blah blah blah, open 7 to midnight, come see blah blah blah....She flipped it over. The other side was blank. Eh, good enough. She folded it up and put it in her pocket. Paper was paper, and beggars can't be choosers.

 

[Genevieve Moulin]

Genevieve surreptitiously wiped the last tears from her eyes with the back of her hand and sat up with a sniffle. Fitz clearly needed time for his anger to settle, and she didn't have any idea what to do about Thanatos or the Knights or the Lance. But lunch, perhaps, was a concrete problem she could solve.


"Blott's right," she said. "No matter what we do here, we're going to need some money to get by. Fortunately there's no shortage of ways to make a few francs on the street in Paris."


She caught a few widened eyes and raised eyebrows at her wording, so she shook her head and gestured at the scene around them. Indeed, just in the park in which they sat they could see an organ grinder with a dancing steam-powered monkey, an ice cream peddler, no less than four mimes and a singer wearing a dress positively encrusted with brass gears, all of whom seemed to be doing quite a brisk business in tips.


Genevieve shrugged.


"I don't usually hold with palmistry. Turkish coffee grounds are the only real way to gain insight. Sadly I don't have any coffee, but I can be a very convincing actress." As proof, she flashed a bright smile while simultaneously lowering her chin and batting her eyelashes. "It's mostly about reading people's faces anyway. So if one of you," she nodded to Blott and Lisbeth, "could work up a few supplies--a small table with two chairs, perhaps something a bit more exotic to wear than a torn blouse and blood-stained pants--I could set up shop and see if I can earn us at least enough for a few croissants and a cafe au lait, for a start."


She glanced at the crumpled Trent, still unmoving on the ground by the bench despite another swift kick from Fitz. She inhaled sharply at Fitz's petulant treatment of the man but decided to hold her tongue rather than start a fresh argument. She did long to make up, even if she was too stubborn to apologize. Still, it was true that something had to be done about Trent.


"I'm not sure our unconscious companion will be very good for business, though."

 

[ArtBlott]

"We could roll him into the river, see if that wakes him up," Blott's bird suggested, "Though I'm starting to think he got brain damage or something from the fall. This sort of heavy sleep isn't normal." Blott herself was already dutifully drawing on her flyer. It was always a pain to pull big things off of small paper, but she could manage a table at least. And a table cloth. With ruffled edged. And two chairs. With pouffed cushions. Well, if they were going to do it, might as well do it right. She added a sign with hand with an eye in the palm. Standard stuff, she figured.


She hoped paper napkins would be a thing, wherever they ate. The Artist sighed, carefully folding the now old and brittle looking flyer back into her pocket. If she had known this was what her week would look like, she would have found a way to stuff a whole sketchbook into her hat.


"Lisbeth, can you handle the clothes? I doubt Genevieve wants to look like a funeral director, and I can't do colors." She paused, pulling hard at the leg of the table to encourage the rest of it to fall off the page, "Though, we should be careful I guess, with how long we do this. I'm not sure a suddenly naked gypsy would be welcomed, and your Written stuff is finite..." Blott was interrupted as the tablecloth shot out after the table. She now looked like a very short ghost. Oh well, who needed dignity. She sighed, and finished up, leaving a small but rather respectable looking scene sitting in the park. Now they just needed the star of this attraction.

 

[Lisbeth Walpurgis]

"Gypsy clothing, hm?" Lisbeth mused, nodding, "I think I ought to be able to whip something up. We ought to get a few hours out of it. The smaller an item is, the longer it will last, generally. Especially mundane items."


She had already summoned her Book and was opening it to a blank page. She thought for a moment before setting her pen to the page, then she began to Write.


Her skirt is a rich, deep red with a flowing floral pattern in gold. An over-skirt of light, golden cloth wraps around her waist and is edged in small bells that jingle gaily. A vest of russet velvet that laces up the front hugs her body, the neckline just low enough to be enticing. Beneath the vest she wears a loosely fitted blouse of crisp ivory with flowing sleeves that bell out at the elbows. Her outfit is completed by golden bracelets and anklets that chime as she moves.





She finished the text with a flourish, and the clothing appeared, neatly folded and perfectly tailored to fit Genevieve.


"I hope this is sufficient," Lisbeth said, "I'm not certain how authentic it might be, but I didn't think that was particularly important. Oh, wait, one more thing..."


She scribbled another line in her Book and a large red dahlia flower appeared on top of the pile of clothing. She dismissed the Book with a wave and picked up the pile off of the ground before holding it out to Genevieve.


"There we are!" Lisbeth cried, then added, "Ah, the flower is for your hair. Will these do?"

 

[Genevieve Moulin]

"It's all perfect!" Genevieve said with a grateful smile to the Writer and the Artist. She maneuvered her way into the outfit as modestly as she could without a dressing room then took a seat with a flourish. Before long, a steady stream of curiosity seekers were lining up to hear her breathy predictions on their love lives and future prospects, and a purse full of francs jingled at her side. Occasionally a young man would lean in a bit too close, and Genevieve would catch sight of Fitz clenching his jaw. She took a sort of haughty satisfaction from this but tried to keep the grin creeping across her lips under control.


Finally, stomach rumbling, she dashed across the street to a nearby market, coming back to her friends with a basket loaded with breads, pastries, cheeses and a bottle of wine. And for once she felt useful, normal almost. So this is what people do, she mused, instead of fighting monsters and dashing through Whens and Wheres? They work and earn and meet needs and share with friends. She wondered, with an unconscious glance at Fitz, if she would ever have a chance at that kind of life. And, if so, whether she would be happy in it. She shook her head, clearing her thoughts, and offered up the basket to the others.


"Now, Lisbeth, you had some news of the Architect?"

 

[Lisbeth Walpurgis]

Lisbeth nodded as she gratefully took what appeared to be some variety of fruit pastry from Genevieve's proffered basket. She looked around furtively. No one seemed to be paying close attention to their group. Good.


"The Architect, yes," she began, "According to Mr. Nope, or at least the note he sent along to us with Daisy, we will require the Architect's assistance in procuring the Lance of Longinus. I believe that the identity of the Architect is, in fact, that of Arkadious Grimoire, who has been nudging us along since we left the Sitting Room."


Her chest tightened when she uttered his name, the image of his face, his true face, flashing through her mind.


"The problem is... Well, something happened to him when he transported us out of the Sitting Room. He sent Thanatos through one portal, and us through a different one, but then Thanatos somehow pulled him into the first portal. Then, the next time we saw him, he was... changed. He was like a shade somehow, with those glowing eyes like embers, and now we've encountered several other figures with the same look, each one a different color. I think that..."


She hesitated. What she was about to say might seem outlandish. Then again, what had they encountered recently that wasn't outlandish?


"I think that somehow Arkadious Grimoire has been fractured into several different beings, and if we want his help then we need to find some way to make him whole again."

 

[ArtBlott]

Blott tilted her head. She was pretty sure this plotline had cropped up in a few webcomics before, so she wasn't unfamiliar with the concept. Though it probably wasn't as simple as common pop culture portrayed it.


"He, or they, seem to pop up at random though, and go away just as fast. I'm not sure about how we'd go about keeping one of him around, much less a gaggle of him." Though, the idea of each one of her friends dragging along an Arkadious each as they rounded up the lot of them was pretty funny. "We're not even sure how many there are. And that's assuming you're right. I'm not saying your wrong, but I can't even start to fathom how that kind of thing happens." Her voice tapered off with a birdy sounding crack.


Her crow was done being patient, it seemed. The Artist stewed in her silence as she picked up a piece of rounded slice of bread-with-cheese-on-it (she was sure there was a name for it, but didn't know what it was), inspecting it mildly before offering it to her crankily hopping bird. The more she talks, the more he needs. That was the rule. A rule. So she fed her bird and tried to think of something less negative to say.

 

[Lisbeth Walpurgis]

Lisbeth shook her head.


"I'm not certain how it could have happened either," she admitted, fidgeting, "Or what we should do to put him back together if that is indeed what we need to do. I have quite a few questions, actually. Who is he, really? What is he after? Sometimes I hear his voice in my mind or see him in my dreams. Why? Why me? Did he choose me? Or is it simply because I'm the one who picked up his..."


She trailed off as her hand went instinctively to the pouch on her hip.


"... his watch."


She flipped open the pouch and reached inside, her hand brushing the folded photograph as she reached for the watch. Her brows knit as her breath caught in her throat. She'd forgotten about the photograph, the one that depicted a slightly younger Arkadious standing beside a child version of herself. Another mystery. Was the photo genuine, or a clever fake? And, speaking of mysteries, just who's heart now beat within her chest? She pushed the thoughts away for the moment and pulled the watch out to show her friends. One thing at a time.


The watch still looked strangely tarnished, the silvery metal blacked in some places and showing green spots like aged copper in others.


"I've mentioned this before, but I'll repeat it for our newer companions: this watch belonged to Arkadious Grimoire. He dropped it when he was pulled from the Sitting Room by Thanatos, and when I picked it up I was taken to where he had sent you," here she indicated Genevieve, Blott, and Fitzgerald before continuing, "That was where we saw the first aspect of him, the one with orange eyes, and he gave me this."


She opened the back of watch, revealing the Blood Stone inside.


"He said it could be used to trap and contain souls, and I tried using it against Thanatos to some effect - he at least hasn't been directly on our tail lately - but I don't know much else about it."


There had to be something else. Something she was missing that pulled everything together.


"... you wish me to join... made whole... find the Others... each one possesses... collect them... one already..." she murmured, the words coming back to her as she looked at the watch and the round red burn on her left palm that it had made when she had grabbed it upon waking in Darien's chambers.


"The Blood Stone," she breathed, then she raised her voice and looked around at her companions, "What if each aspect of Arkadious has one, and we need to collect them? What if they are pieces of his soul?"


She placed one hand on her chin, the other closing tightly around the watch.


"Though that still doesn't answer the question of how to find them. Damn. We need more information, somehow, and without the Librarian I don't know how to get it."


She wracked her brain. Who would have information aside from a Librarian or Arkadious himself? The Knights, maybe; they always seemed to be either one step ahead or behind. What about some of the other organizations she'd heard mention of? The Watchers. The Keepers. The Brotherhood. But again, she had no idea of how to find any of them.


"If only there were some way we could look for information without being too obvious about it..." she mused aloud.

 

[UCBooties]

William had helped Daisy up as carefully as he could and then his own thoughts drifted while his companions set about making up Genevieve and going through the hapenny play of fortune telling for their supper.


For a few moments he toyed with the idea of doing a few readings of his own. Reading coins was a trick he'd picked up from a grateful pirate after killing the Brain Kelp that had been controlling his crew. He shook the idea off. William didn't have Genevieve's gift with people and experience had taught him that true fortunes were not always gladly received. He frowned, without the connection to Black Iron House subtly influencing the way the coins spun would the fortunes even be accurate? Perhaps if he could find an observatory and a sufficiently detailed record of this world's planetary movements...


His attention was drawn back to the group as Lisbeth began to talk about Arkadious. As she trailed off he spoke up, "Well, the watch is a lodestone so that makes things easier. It's something that all aspects of his self are connected to so it will necessarily exert a draw on him. We ourselves exert a gravity-like influence across time-lines so it should be a question of when they will reappear, not if."


Here he glanced at Lisbeth, "Incidentally, holding onto that watch should guarantee that you can physically interact with them when they appear so please keep careful hold of it."


He frowned as he looked around the square where they were having their impromptu picnic. "As for how to get more information, I doubt we have time to research what we need. Even if the information we need is recorded in this world we've no way of knowing where it is or if we would be allowed to see it. It will most likely be best to find a neutral party who we can inquire with directly."


Here William's face turned distinctly unhappy, "And barring a native time traveler or local Loomsman guild, I'm afraid we're going to have to try asking the Fae."

 

[ArtBlott]

"Let's not!" Blott cringed back even before she was done talking. Wow, she wasn't aware her blood pressure could get that high so quickly. It almost made her dizzy. Her knee-jerk reaction had startled her friends, and she was already starting to regret...everything, really. She took a deep breath. Ok, she could smooth this over, right? Probably not. Let's try anyway.


"I mean, aha, that's a bit much, don't you think? Fae are, uh, tricky to work with, right, and they don't help for free, yeah? I mean, the Knights just follow us anyway, we could just wait around for them to catch up, or we could at least look for a...a Looms guild or something, I mean. And waiting around, some form of Ark shows up anyways when we're in one place for a while so we could...we could..." Do anything but that! "just poke around for now. This is a main city with a big event going on, there's a massive worldwide fair and a big party, so surely there's an important someone from somewhere who knows something?"


She flushed purple and fell silent, bringing an end to her rushed stumbling of words. She had figured out mid-babble she was backing herself into some weird verbal corner. Smooth Blott. Very nice. She very carefully looked at not-William, and willed herself to sink through the ground. As far as she could tell, it wasn't working.

 

[Arkadious]

Fitz scowled then scratched his head. "Arkadious? Who? Wait, you mean that fellow from the Sitting Room?!" The furrow in Fitz's brow deepened as he chewed on what Lisbeth had just said. "If he's this godforsaken Architect that we're searching for, then how come none of these Aspects of him have provided any clues or help in obtaining the Lance to defeat Thanatos, YOUR CREATION!!!" He bellowed, rounding on Lisbeth. "We're bouncing all over Whens and Wheres, trying to stay one step ahead of this, THING, and we haven't the foggiest on what we're doing!"


Growing redder in the cheeks and absentmindedly scratching at a throbbing ache in his chest, Fitz cast a cutting look at Gen. "Before I managed to evade Tristan" Fitz spat the name like a curse, "He told me all about how you looked at him with longing and love filled eyes." Fitz squared his jaw and looked at Gen hard, a twinge of hurt in his eyes, before he turned away and stomped off, pausing to scoop up a flier similar to the one Blott picked up, detailing a grand Masquerade. He eyes flicked over the flier briefly, committing its details to memory before balling up and tossing the parchment over his shoulder towards Lisbeth.


"Come on," he said briskly as he stormed off. "We may as well go check that out. An extravagant event, such as that, would likely attract the Aspects or Knights or someone that we can broker information from." Fitz rubbed his chest absentmindedly then ran his fingers through his hair, notably grayer than it had been earlier, or had it always had those patches? As he stomped off along the river bank, several figures watched him and his comrades from the awning of a shop along the opposite riverbank.

 

[Lisbeth Walpurgis]

Lisbeth flinched back a step at the force of Fitzgerald's words.


"YOUR CREATION!" he had bellowed in her face, and she felt as though physically struck by the words.


She ducked her head, the brim of her hat obscuring her eyes but not her gritted teeth. Her hands balled into fists, Arkadious's pocket watch clinking in her left hand, and for a few moments, as Fitzgerald continued to rant, she simply stood, trembling. A crumpled up piece of parchment struck her, bouncing harmlessly off her chest to land at her feet, but it felt like a knife in her heart.


"Yes," she whispered, "my Creation. My fault."


"I have already apologized for dragging all of you into this mess," she continued, her voice rising in volume and pitch, "What more do you wish of me?! Do you think that I am not painfully aware of the amount of danger that you're in? Because of me?! I don't know why you feel the need to rub it in my face so suddenly when I thought us past such things!"


Her voice broke as tears streaked their way down her cheeks. Damn it all. Why did she always have to cry when she was angry? She ran a hand across her eyes and swore, scooping up the flyer and turning away from her companions to stalk off a little ways into the park. Someone would surely come to fetch her when they were ready to leave, but for now she wanted to be alone, at least for a few moments. She ran her thumb across the pocket watch still in her hand and pressed it against the mark it had made on her left palm until it hurt. Maybe it would distract her from the aching in her heart.

 

[Genevieve Moulin]

Before Genevieve could express her disbelief that now they were dealing with fairies, too (Not more magic, she thought with a groan), Fitz was hurling insults in all directions and the Writer was crying.


"Lisbeth," Genevieve whispered as the woman pushed past her, but it was clear Lisbeth wanted to be alone with her tears and thoughts. Genevieve rounded on Fitz.


"Is that what all this is about?" she shouted at his back as he stomped away. "You're jealous of Tristan?" He stopped but didn't turn around. Genevieve closed her eyes and let out a long, slow breath. She recognized this--in fact, she begrudgingly admitted she would have reacted much the same way if the roles had been reversed. Fitz wasn't angry; he was hurt. She was angry at the way he was treating her and their friends, but the will to fight drained away as she watched his shoulders slump ever so slightly. She walked over and stood in front of him, though he carefully avoided looking anywhere near her.


"Fitz," she murmured, gently placing a hand on his cheek and turning his head to face her. "Tristan said that to hurt you. He's doing everything in his power to separate us because he knows you've helped keep me out of his grip. And," she paused, looking deeply into his eyes to make sure he understood, "because he's terribly jealous of you. If he couldn't kill you, he wanted to make you doubt me. Are you going to believe him over me?"


She dropped her hand and sighed.


"I can't deny that I loved him, Fitz. That I loved the man he was. You knew that. You were there. You watched from the shadows as I fell in love with him. As I married him. So yes. Yes. When I saw him again for the first time in all these many years--in lifetimes, it seems--he probably did see love in my eyes. But it was the ghost of a love we once shared, a love that is long since dead for both of us. Neither he nor I are the same people we were then. Do you truly think I could ever take him back? And besides that..."


She had sworn she wouldn't say it. She promised herself she wouldn't even think it, at least not until all this was over. If it was ever over. But now the words tumbled out anyway.


"Dammit, Altamonte. I love you, you stupid ass! How do you not see that?" She crossed her arms over her chest and stomped her foot. "And if you're going to ask me to a ball, you ought to do it properly."

 

[UCBooties]

No one seemed particularly interested in dealing with Fae and William didn't blame them. Even under ideal circumstances trying to get information from a Fae was a tricky proposition. These were not ideal circumstances. In his capacity as Master of Black Iron House he would normally be afforded certain privileges, privileges that were best invoked rarely and with great care. In his current state it was probably best not to chance it.


Their next best bet might be the Loomsmen but William could see a number of spires that he was given to believe denoted the dominant faith of this region. He was already coming to recognize their crossed spar symbol. They were certainly not the clockwork temples of the Loomsmen and the presence of another faith in this city was fairly definitive proof that the Loomsmen did not exist on this world. The Loomsmen were... quite uncompromising where other faiths were concerned.


William gave an involuntary shiver. However much the Loomsmen might have been able to aid in their present situation, William was glad that they were not here. He was glad that the pleasant avenues of this city did not have the great penitent spikes and witchfinder statues looming over them, omnipresent reminders of the price of heresy on any world the Loomsmen claimed.


So, they were going to have to try to catch one of the Arkadiouses when next one of them showed up. Given their current group, that was likely going to prove an interesting challenge. Perhaps this gathering they were discussing would afford an opportunity. William certainly didn't have any better ideas.


Suddenly Fitz erupted at Lisbeth. William took two quick steps towards the group with his fists balled tight before he caught himself. He'd been two more steps from striking the hot-tempered time jumper upon the face. William frowned and looked between Fitz and Lisbeth.


Now where did that come from?





The Writer and the Time Jumper parted in a haze of frustration and ill temper. Genevieve went after Fitz and William found himself trailing after Lisbeth.


"It's not your fault, you know." He kept his voice low but still she jumped in surprise. Obviously she had not expected anyone to come after her. As she turned to look at William he could see that he had misjudged the situation. The hurt and anger in her eyes made it clear that she was not glad of his reassurance.


She wanted to be alone. I am an idiot.





William pushed the thought aside. He might as well say his piece, she wasn't going to thank him for scurrying off with a mumbled apology.


"The business with Thanatos is not your fault." Lisbeth opened her mouth and William could tell that she was preparing to launch a fusillade of angry retorts letting him know just what she thought of his weak-tongued homilies. He hurried on before she could quite get started hoping that he might get through before she completely unloaded on him.


"I don't mean that as a sop to your guilt. I mean it in absolute terms. I don't know who taught you your Writing craft, but surely they must have made some mention of the rules and mechanics of it. On some level you must know it as well. However much your guilt tells you that you must bear ultimate responsibility, you must understand that such a thing is impossible."


The Writer did not look particularly impressed so William did his best to get to the point. "The Munchhausen fields around a Writer's work are inviolate law. Something you created in your Writing could never escape the worlds that you created without your own consent. Someone else has been actively weakening the Munchhausen fields of the whole meta-verse, I am sure of it. They unleashed Thanatos in order to further their aims but if it was not Thanatos, it would have been some other Writer's creation. The shelves of Black Iron House are filled with an infinite number of books, written and unwritten from which someone so inclined could..."


The color drained from William's face. His own words echoes back on him with new and terrible meaning. The shelves of Black Iron House.


The whole of the world seemed to tilt beneath his feet and the sky yawned above him with terrible portent. It seemed to William that any moment he must fall up into that open void and there was nothing to keep him planted to the ground.


Someone was trying to weaken the barriers between worlds. Whoever it was had dogged their steps with casual ease and had given every appearance of having unlimited resources at their disposal. Of course he could not be certain, and he desperately hoped he was incorrect, but he knew of only one way for them to do what they were doing so effectively.


The being or organization that was after them, the one who had unleashed Thanatos from Lisbeth's Book, the one who was even now gnawing at the great structures that kept the meta-verse functioning...


They were using Black Iron House to do it.

 

[Lisbeth Walpurgis]

"It's not your fault you know," came William's quiet voice beside her, and Lisbeth jumped despite herself. She had assumed someone would come after her eventually, but she hadn't expected anyone to follow her. How had she not sensed the Hunter's looming presence? He visibly wilted under the glare she shot him, though some of her ire was self-directed and stemmed from embarrassment.


"The business with Thanatos is not your fault," he went on, causing a bitter remark to rise in Lisbeth's throat, but he continued before it could escape her mouth.


"I don't mean that as a sop to your guilt. I mean it in absolute terms. I don't know who taught you your Writing craft, but surely they must have made some mention of the rules and mechanics of it. On some level you must know it as well. However much your guilt tells you that you must bear ultimate responsibility, you must understand that such a thing is impossible."


"But I still chose to create him," she thought, "I still scoured my soul for every scrap of darkness, every black desire, every shred of malevolence I possessed to give him life. It's still my fault."


"The Munchhausen fields around a Writer's work are inviolate law," William continued, oblivious to her thoughts, "Something you created in your Writing could never escape the worlds that you created without your own consent. Someone else has been actively weakening the Munchhausen fields of the whole meta-verse, I am sure of it. They unleashed Thanatos in order to further their aims but if it was not Thanatos, it would have been some other Writer's creation. The shelves of Black Iron House are filled with an infinite number of books, written and unwritten from which someone so inclined could..."


Lisbeth's brows knit. She wasn't sure what a Munchhausen field was, but it sounded like some sort of barrier between worlds. So what William was saying was that Thanatos could not have escaped her Story without some sort of outside intervention. How was that even possible? She was also struck by the realization that this man who had been terrified of her only the previous day had now gone out of his way to give her reassurance when she was upset, and her shoulders relaxed as she felt some of the tension leave her. William had trailed off (perhaps some of that old fear was getting to him), and Lisbeth was about to gently prod him into continuing when she saw the look of mounting horror cross his face.


"William?" she asked, a note of concern entering her voice as she took a step toward the Hunter, "What is it? Are you all right?"

 

[ArtBlott]

Blott wondered if this was what claustrophobia was like. Only instead of walls closing in, everyone was having feelings at each other. It seemed the emotional tone of the group had flip-flopped fast enough to give her whiplash again. She rubbed at her eyes hard enough to see stars. At least no one was rattling on about the Fae still, so her heart rate could go back to normal...aaaany minute now.


She took a piece of leftover fruit, some sort of small orange-ish thing, peeling it with her nails absently as she listened to the two 'couples' argue. On one side, declarations of love. On the other, a dawning horror. She didn't know much about either. Well, not this dawning horror. And love wasn't on her bucket list either. And she simply didn't have enough pats to go around, this time. And the ground was awfully comfy. She could just stay here. For now.


She fed a sliver of fruit to her crow, still stupidly puffed, and wondered what it tasted like.