Erik's Moving Castle: Part 2/3
Title: Erik's Moving Castle
Author sunryder
Artist: amoralambiguity
Verse: First Class AU
Word Count 16,810
Rating T
Characters/Pairings: Erik/Raven, Erik/Charles
Warnings: AU
Summary: Charles Xavier had accepted that he was doomed to be ordinary while Raven and Hank got to be extraordinary. Of course, that was all true right up until Charles flirted with the handsomest fellow he'd ever seen and got cursed into a crippled old man for his trouble. Now Charles is hiding out in a moving castle with a fire demon named Logan who has a cigar problem, a magical apprentice and accidental firestarter named Alex, and the same handsome man who got Charles into this mess in the first place. A man who just happens to be the great and terrible Wizard Erik.
Link to art master post HERE
Links to chapters 1 | 2 | 3
A/N This fic was done for the xmenbigbang, which once again was run like well-oiled machine. The mods are awesome! All of my love and devotion goes out to amoralambiguity who has bee amazingly supportive through this process despite the fact that I re-wrote the story half a dozen times. Her masterpost is HERE, and I tell you that you have to go and make a fuss, it's so amazing!
And so it went for days. Charles dealt with his customers and made his potions like he was a wraith, unable to smile at them all like he once had, bled dry of the buoyant life that had been keeping him afloat in the months since the Wizard Erik had first entered their family's shop. He felt hollow, and no amount of lunch with Hank, or tea with little old women could bring him back to the pleasure of before. (And no matter how he called himself a fool for holding on to it, the halo of daisies stayed safely on his dresser, apparently unable to wilt thanks to Erik's magic.)
Over the days Charles began to put aside his heartache and pick up his anger. Slowly but steadily Charles got furious, thinking to himself all the nasty things he would say to the infamous Wizard Erik the second he got the chance. But always at the base of it was the ache of disappointment that the one time he'd been noticed was the result of nothing more than his sister.
Over a week after May Day Charles was sitting at the shop, quiet and isolated in the few minutes before closing up the doors for the night. Angel was away visiting Raven at Armando's, leaving Charles there to handle the shop on his own, which did make things simpler for Charles to run the business, but there was something soothing about having his stepmother’s voice in the background while he did his work. Save for the few regular customers who came in to take their tea with Charles, it had been an almost painfully quiet week.
Charles was in back setting up for one of the experiments that he could only conduct when he was sure he wasn't going to be interrupted, when the bell rang at the front of the shop, signaling that a customer was there. Charles bit back a sigh of irritation at having to plaster on his fake smile and make nice when he was so close to being done for the day, but he did it anyway. He straightened his, admittedly rumpled, vest and strode out to the front counter with a smile that was painful to maintain.
The best description for the woman standing there that Charles could summon up was dignified. Her white hair was drawn up into a complicated braid of a bun at the crown of her head; Her dress was an exquisite dark brocade that Raven would've called about a hundred years out of date. She held herself stiffly, like her bones had grown tired of holding up her not inconsiderable weight. While Charles looked his fill of her, she glanced around the shop with an expression of severe distaste and Charles had to stifle the urge to inform her that they were closed for the evening just so he wouldn't have to put up with her. Instead he shored up his smile and asked, "How may I help you, ma'am?"
The woman took one long look up and down the length of Charles, like she was sizing him up for roasting before she replied, "That depends. Are you Mister Xavier?"
Something about this woman, for all her posh aloofness, set off warning bells in Charles's head, but Mister Xavier could only be him or Hank (or Raven as the case may be), and he would far rather that this woman and her dead eyes came looking for Charles instead of his siblings. "Yes ma'am, I am."
She hmm-ed to herself, disappointedly, while she took a quick tour around the shop. She poked at several of the vials Charles had on display along one wall, and then flicked her fingers like there was something distasteful now coating her skin from touching them. Charles bit his tongue and with all the geniality imprinted on him by Angel he asked again, "May I be of assistance?"
"I am unimpressed, Mister Xavier," she sighed in disappointment. "Erik has a gift for finding the most interesting of companions," she paused and gave Charles a look that was simultaneously lecherous and demeaning, like she was dealing in subjects that a man so plain as him would never find a way to understand, "and he has had many, many companions my dear boy." Charles unwillingly blushed, which she seemed to be waiting for before she continued, "I was prepared to forgive him for his little dalliance if you had proved interesting, but you have proven to be one of the most pathetically uninteresting creatures I have come across."
Plain and simple though Charles may be, he was fully capable of putting two and two together when it was staring at him across his shop counter. This woman had come for Raven. So while Charles's pride and his temper demand that he throw her out of his home before she could stain the place with her insulting demeanor, he held his tongue. Through gritted teeth he replied, "I'm sorry you find me so disappointing Madame, but I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about."
She gave him another demeaning sort of little smile, "Oh you don't, do you?"
"No, ma'am. I don't know any Eriks. Least of all ones who would be worth your attention."
She sneered and the shadows around her seemed to grow and writhe with her displeasure. "You honestly think that you can get away with lying to me, Mister Xavier?"
"It's not a lie, ma'am. I’ve never been introduced to any Eriks!"
She stormed over to the door and smacked the wood with the palm of her hand, her power echoing out and causing everything in the shop to rattle with the force of her magic. Charles thought it was some sort of tantrum until faint lines began to appear on the wood, steadily growing brighter until the whole surface was covered in a complicated sigil of knot work. Before Charles had the chance to recover the woman shouted, "Now do you mean to lie to me?"
Charles tried to refute since he had no idea what was going on here, but at the moment he couldn't seem to find words that meant something, only stuttering. The woman sneered, "That is the mark of the Wizard Erik, a sign in magic that he has tied to his power and only he can make. Erik has blessed your pathetic little shop, leashing it to the well of magic that supplies his own strength. It is among the greatest honors and most powerful gifts that a wizard can leave on a location and you mean to tell me that you don't know who he is?"
And well, without declaring to all and sundry that Erik was apparently quite besotted with Charles's sister, there really wasn't any defense against evidence like that. So Charles bit his lip and let the woman think whatever she wanted to. And based off her frankly murderous expression she thought the worst.
She sneered at him again, as though he was even more pathetic than she had first realized and snapped, "Child, I am the Witch of the Waste, and I have never been fond of competition. Even competition so laughable as you."
Charles abruptly paled at that, fully aware that all of the horrible things that Erik was rumored to be, the Witch of the Waste actually was, and it was more than likely that he was about to be killed where he stood. Instead, the Witch just flicked her flicked her wrist at Charles, tossing nothingness in his direction. Charles tensed, expecting some sort of crushing pain and his life flashing before his eyes, but instead there was nothing. He opened his eyes to see the Witch smirking at him like he was a child. She smiled at him, all teeth, and hissed, "Whatever beauty it was that Erik saw in you, he will know better now. And of course, as with all my spells, you'll never be able to tell anyone about it." And with that, she was gone in a flick of overdone dress.
Charles stayed frozen on the spot for a moment before he tried to dart to the door and lock it, for all the good that would do, but he stumbled like his legs weren't capable of carrying him. He caught himself on the counter and looked down, only to see his hands, that not ten seconds ago had been thin but sturdy, were now knobbed and wrinkled, with bulbous veins breaking the line of his thin skin. Those new hands immediately shot to his face and found sagging skin on his cheeks, and deep wrinkles around his eyes. Then, ever so slowly Charles slipped his hands to the top of his head and… merciful heavens he was completely bald! Charles slowly sank to his knees, feeling the kind of ache in his joints that meant it would take him time to get back up. He stayed there for several long minutes, sucking in deep breaths while he fought back his panic.
These minutes were all the time Charles gave himself to wallow in his newfound fate, because any longer and he never would've gotten up off the floor. He knew full well that he couldn't stay here, Angel would have a meltdown and there was a more than decent possibility that Raven would find out and go to hunt down the Witch of the Waste herself. No, there was nothing to be gained by staying curled up in a ball on the floor of the shop, but if Charles got to his feet and made his way out into the wilds there was a chance he might come across Erik, and despite the fact that the man was a scoundrel, he was still a wizard, and perhaps he could put Charles back to rights. (After all, it was the least he owed Charles for making a fool of him.)
With the hope of that chance Charles pushed himself to his feet and climbed the stairs to his room, where he gathered into a bag a change or two of clothes, and the few things he couldn't bring himself to be without (the halo of daisies included). Bringing together the remnants of his life was the work a few minutes, and then Charles put on his coat, left a note telling Angel he'd gone to another apothecary's shop to look at ingredients, and slipped out the door and into the waiting night.
The shop was by no means in the center of town, so it was only a few minutes hobble to the edge of Westchester and the beginning of the Wilds. Charles tugged his coat a little tighter around himself against the slight chill of night - no matter how pleasant the air would've been when he was a young man - and didn't even bother looking back.
Charles took one of the easier paths up into the hills that he knew from when he and his father would go looking for interesting herbs to experiment with. The path took him on a gentle slope up through the greener part of the lands, not terribly far from a stream deeper in or the main road further out. He went along slowly and stiffly, but consistently, for about an hour before his knees finally decided to make their displeasure known. Charles was sure that if he sat down on one of the rocks that were looking more and more appealing by the moment then he wouldn't be getting back up for the rest of the night. Instead, he went to lean against the nearby bush, just for a moment, but the hedge growled at him.
Charles had a terrible moment where he thought he was about to meet his demise - and really, this is why people weren't supposed to be leave the safety of the road - when instead, the bush barked. Charles crouched down as far as his unhappy knees would let him and saw a tail beating frantically within the confines of the hedge. It appeared that the dog had gotten stuck and had tried to find his way out by pushing forward instead of back.
Rather than leave the poor thing to its fate and the hope that somehow it would work its way free before something larger came along to eat it, Charles reached into the hedge and grabbed the dog high on his hind legs. The dog flailed as much as the shrubbery would let him, but Charles just ran a soothing hand along the dog's thigh and crooned, "No, no, no, my friend. Don’t worry. I'm not going to hurt you." The dog calmed surprisingly quickly, but given how Charles' thighs couldn't stay crouched for much longer he chose not to think too deeply about that. Instead he slowly began pulling the dog backwards out of the bush over the path that he'd taken in the first place. The dog remained calm and still for the whole process, and when Charles finally got it free it gave him a genial little 'yap' before running off into the darkness.
Charles stayed crouched there for a long moment, utterly baffled by this strange turn of events, but then the long-limbed, red-haired dog came running back to him and barked at Charles like he was saying he wasn't going to wait all night for Charles to come along. Charles just stared at the dog, then decided that his night couldn't possibly get any stranger, and followed after him.
The dog trotted along peaceably in front of Charles for another two hours, sniffing his way along the trail of what, Charles couldn't possibly imagine. Just when Charles had reached the point where he was ready to lay down in on the grass beneath his feet and sleep until he couldn't sleep anymore, he followed the dog over a rise, and in the valley below he saw a castle.
Erik's moving castle was tall and narrow, and looked like it had been hewn out of stone. The whole building rocked back and forth while the spindly legs underneath carried it along, only a slight motion at the bottom that swelled to wide arc at the top. As the castle swayed, pieces of it caught the moonlight, glinting with the sheen of metal. Charles assumed that all that movement couldn't be good for a building made of stone and mortar, and so the crumbling bits had been pieced back together with slabs of shining copper. And yet, it pressed on, seemingly unconcerned with its own instability.
The dog nudged Charles in the back of the knee, obviously directing him towards the building that was slowly and effortlessly moving from one end of the valley floor to the other. As seemed to be the trend for the evening, Charles decided not to question the exceptionally strange cards that fate had dealt him and stumbled down the hill towards the castle that he honestly hadn't ever expected to find. He made it halfway down the hillside before he realized that his red guide dog wasn't following him. He turned around to find the dog sitting at the top of the hill, watching to make sure that Charles hadn't fallen. "Aren't you coming?"
The dog barked and pointed it's nose off to the left, implying that it had places to go and people to see someplace that wasn't the moving castle. "Well, if you're sure." Charles replied, determinedly not thinking about the fact that he was conversing with a dog. "You've been excellent company though, and thank you for all your help!" The dog gave a happy yip of welcome, but remained standing at his spot, just in case. Charles rolled his eyes at being coddled by an animal, but he slowly made his way down the rest of the hill and towards the castle.
The building wasn't moving particularly fast, and despite his now worn out knees and the exhaustion he had been feeling moments before, Charles still managed to catch up to the floating castle before it escaped him completely. (Apparently dashing was good for the joints.) He caught the thick metal railing attached to the back steps and hauled himself up off the grass. He paused for a moment, more than a little winded from the effort, then pushed himself up to his feet in time with the swaying of the castle and knocked on the heavy wooden door.
Considering the movement of the castle meant that Charles was more likely to be thrown from the stairs than not, he only waited a few spare seconds and then pounded again, and a moment later it swung open to reveal a boy with tousled blonde hair, who seemed no older than Hank. The boy crossed his arms over his chest and stuck out his chin as though that would make him formidable and demanded, "What do you want?"
Charles was thoroughly not in the mood to deal with mouthy teenagers considering he'd just been cursed on behalf of one of them and instead nudged past the boy and into the room behind him, declaring, "I should think that was obvious."
The door opened into a warm room full of anarchy. There was a massive kitchen table shoved off to one side and covered with all manner of debris, stacks of paper spilling over into indeterminate mounds, random half-empty vials with poorly maintained stoppers, and more than a few bottles of what Charles was fairly certain was either paint thinner or alcohol. And that table was a good barometer for the state of the rest of the room. Any surface that could maintain the clutter did, as well as a mountain of documents impossibly perched on the spider thin top of a lamp.
Certain that he wasn't about to be set upon by any sort of wild creature, Charles shifted a pile of documents off one of the chairs and tugged it over to settle himself in front of the hearth. The blonde boy continued to spout all the reasons that Charles couldn't be there, until Charles turned to him and glowered until the boy stopped talking. Charles paused for a moment and focused on the way the little old men in the village would scold the youths when they thought they were out of line and replied, "Young man, I am tired, and it's unpleasant out there in the Wild. I happened across your castle at precisely the moment when I thought I would drop to my knees from exhaustion. I choose to take that as a sign."
"But it's not my castle!" The boy shouted, almost desperate.
Charles quirked an eyebrow at him like the thought of this child owning a castle was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard. "I know full well whose castle this is, young man."
"No," the boy lurched forward and dropped to his knees to meet Charles eye to eye, "you don't. And he's not gonna be happy when he gets home and finds you here!"
Charles put a hand on the side of the boy's face, "Is he going to hurt you?"
The boy snorted and smacked Charles's hand out of the way. Charles would have been offended if he hadn't seen the way the boy relaxed at a little gentle human touch, so he chalked the reaction up to embarrassment. "Of course not! He's probably going to turn you into a toad though."
The boy stormed across the room, pacing out his frustration while Charles muttered to himself, "At this point an amphibian would be an improvement. I know what to do about that."
The boy whirled around to shout something new at Charles, only to be stopped by a deep and gritty voice that declared, "Let him stay, kid."
The boy turned his wrath, not to Charles, but to the fireplace beside him and yelled, "You just want him to stay because it'll piss Erik off!"
The boy and the voice continued their shouting match, but Charles couldn't bring himself to pay any attention to the content of their conversation once he caught sight of the source of the voice.
There was a creature in the fire.
No, not a creature in the fire, it was the fire. The lines of the creature’s body were poorly defined, ever changing with the flickering of the flames that made up his mass. But Charles could make out two arms (since they were gesturing furiously at the boy), a thick body (well, thick compared to the rest of his small frame), and what Charles was forced to call spikes of flame jutting off his head in the place of hair.
After a minute of coarse shouting between the two men the fire finally realized that Charles was staring and snapped, "What are you looking' at, bub?"
"My apologies for staring," Charles replied automatically, good breeding easily taking over, "I've never seen a talking fire before."
The fire grumbled at him, "'M not a fire."
"Again, my apologies, but you look like a fire."
The not-fire propped himself up on the log in front of him, leaning forward as menacingly as possible for a creature that Charles was fairly certain was restrained in the hearth and murmured, "But we're not always what we look like, are we?" Charles's eyes widened in shock, but before he could ask the not-fire how in the world he knew about the spell when the Witch said it was impossible, the not-fire turned to the boy and ordered, "Go upstairs and get the kid a mattress and some blankets, Alex."
"But Logan-"
"Now!" the not-fire roared, the flames along his shoulders roaring up to flare uncontrolled out of the fireplace. The boy, Alex apparently, squeaked and dashed up the stairs at the not-fire's command.
Charles settled back into his chair, determined to not be intimidated by the not-fire (much easier to do now that he knew its name), and asked, "How did you know?"
"I'm a fire demon, kid. Ain't no kind of magic that I don't know about."
"Does that mean you can fix me?" Charles asked, trying not to sound quite so desperate as he was.
"Nope."
"But you said-"
"Knowing it doesn't mean I can change it, kid."
Charles sunk back into his chair, suddenly feeling the weight of his newfound age settle on his shoulders… and he was tired.
The demon reached out a fiery hand smacked the toe of Charles's boot, "If you're just gonna lay down and die then it doesn't matter if there's anyone out there who can help you."
Thunking his head against the back of the chair Charles replied, "If you can't help me than I assume Erik can't help me, and there's no one else I can think of."
Logan grumbled something under his crackling breath that sounded vaguely like, "Humans," and snapped, "Erik might, but the only person you can be sure can take it off is the Witch."
Charles slammed back to consciousness and shouted, "You want me to have anything to do with that madwoman! She turned me into this!" Despite lacking definite facial features Logan still managed to give Charles a look that screamed, 'Duh'. "No. Absolutely not. I refuse to have a thing to do with her. Besides, it's quite likely that she'd do far worse to me the second time."
Logan reached into a hole in the bricks and pulled out a cigar, lighting the tip of it with one of his sparks of hair. He took a long drag on the cigar, blowing out a cloud of smoke easily distinguished from the smoke that trailed off from the top of his head. "What did you do to get yourself changed into an old man?"
Charles awkwardly cleared his throat, "It was a simple case of mistaken identity."
"Apparently not that simple. And you didn't try telling her you weren't who she was looking for?"
Charles bit his lower lip, an expression so young that Logan could see the image of the youth he must've been before this whole thing started. "Because I would rather have her after me than the person she was really after."
"Well then, it seems like you're going to have to give the Witch something to make it worth her while to change you back."
"You're suggesting I bribe the woman who did this to me in the first place? And just hope that she doesn't make it worst once she has what she wants?" Charles asked dryly.
The fire demon shrugged, "That’s up to you, bub. I'm the age I'm supposed to be."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"You don't think I'm giving away this information free, do you kid?"
"But you've already told me to go to the Witch."
"I've told you to go to her, not how to get there."
"And what is it you want in exchange?"
"I'll tell you when it's time."
"That is an absolutely ridiculous bargain. I don't agree to deals that I don't know the terms of."
Logan took a mocking puff on his cigar and replied, "Then you can stay an old man."
Alex thumped down the stairs; tugging a mattress along behind him with blankets flung over his shoulders and trailing along like an awkward cape. Charles tried to push himself to his feet to help carry them, but his knees weren't having it. Alex grumbled at the effort but said, "Stay put, old man." Charles accepted that he'd be even less use lugging things than he had been before. Despite the harsh words Alex pushed the mattress over to the hearth in front of Logan. Charles gave him a small smile for the effort, but the boy just blushed and grunted, "Logan'll be able to keep you alive long enough for you to explain to Erik what in the hell you're doing here."
That didn't stop Charles from reaching out to grab Alex's forearm and replying, "Still, you have my thanks." To which the boy just blushed all the harder and dashed up the stairs, shouting his goodnights to the fire demon.
Charles slipped out of the chair and straight onto the mattress beside him, pausing for a moment to straighten the sheets that had come undone during transit. With that he pulled off his boots and stripped down to his undershirt before sliding under the blankets, reveling in the unearthly warmth of Logan. The fire demon had been watching Charles go through the motions, pretending like he wasn't paying ardent attention while he puffed away on that cigar. The moment Charles's head hit the pillow Logan withdrew on himself, tugging in on his light so he just barely glowed. Eyes closed from the exhaustion of his day Charles murmured, "Thank you, Logan."
The fire demon was quiet for a long moment before he replied, "You could be young again."
Charles snorted, "Or I could be a toad," and within a few breaths slipped into sleep.
To Part 3
Author sunryder
Artist: amoralambiguity
Verse: First Class AU
Word Count 16,810
Rating T
Characters/Pairings: Erik/Raven, Erik/Charles
Warnings: AU
Summary: Charles Xavier had accepted that he was doomed to be ordinary while Raven and Hank got to be extraordinary. Of course, that was all true right up until Charles flirted with the handsomest fellow he'd ever seen and got cursed into a crippled old man for his trouble. Now Charles is hiding out in a moving castle with a fire demon named Logan who has a cigar problem, a magical apprentice and accidental firestarter named Alex, and the same handsome man who got Charles into this mess in the first place. A man who just happens to be the great and terrible Wizard Erik.
Link to art master post HERE
Links to chapters 1 | 2 | 3
A/N This fic was done for the xmenbigbang, which once again was run like well-oiled machine. The mods are awesome! All of my love and devotion goes out to amoralambiguity who has bee amazingly supportive through this process despite the fact that I re-wrote the story half a dozen times. Her masterpost is HERE, and I tell you that you have to go and make a fuss, it's so amazing!
And so it went for days. Charles dealt with his customers and made his potions like he was a wraith, unable to smile at them all like he once had, bled dry of the buoyant life that had been keeping him afloat in the months since the Wizard Erik had first entered their family's shop. He felt hollow, and no amount of lunch with Hank, or tea with little old women could bring him back to the pleasure of before. (And no matter how he called himself a fool for holding on to it, the halo of daisies stayed safely on his dresser, apparently unable to wilt thanks to Erik's magic.)
Over the days Charles began to put aside his heartache and pick up his anger. Slowly but steadily Charles got furious, thinking to himself all the nasty things he would say to the infamous Wizard Erik the second he got the chance. But always at the base of it was the ache of disappointment that the one time he'd been noticed was the result of nothing more than his sister.
Over a week after May Day Charles was sitting at the shop, quiet and isolated in the few minutes before closing up the doors for the night. Angel was away visiting Raven at Armando's, leaving Charles there to handle the shop on his own, which did make things simpler for Charles to run the business, but there was something soothing about having his stepmother’s voice in the background while he did his work. Save for the few regular customers who came in to take their tea with Charles, it had been an almost painfully quiet week.
Charles was in back setting up for one of the experiments that he could only conduct when he was sure he wasn't going to be interrupted, when the bell rang at the front of the shop, signaling that a customer was there. Charles bit back a sigh of irritation at having to plaster on his fake smile and make nice when he was so close to being done for the day, but he did it anyway. He straightened his, admittedly rumpled, vest and strode out to the front counter with a smile that was painful to maintain.
The best description for the woman standing there that Charles could summon up was dignified. Her white hair was drawn up into a complicated braid of a bun at the crown of her head; Her dress was an exquisite dark brocade that Raven would've called about a hundred years out of date. She held herself stiffly, like her bones had grown tired of holding up her not inconsiderable weight. While Charles looked his fill of her, she glanced around the shop with an expression of severe distaste and Charles had to stifle the urge to inform her that they were closed for the evening just so he wouldn't have to put up with her. Instead he shored up his smile and asked, "How may I help you, ma'am?"
The woman took one long look up and down the length of Charles, like she was sizing him up for roasting before she replied, "That depends. Are you Mister Xavier?"
Something about this woman, for all her posh aloofness, set off warning bells in Charles's head, but Mister Xavier could only be him or Hank (or Raven as the case may be), and he would far rather that this woman and her dead eyes came looking for Charles instead of his siblings. "Yes ma'am, I am."
She hmm-ed to herself, disappointedly, while she took a quick tour around the shop. She poked at several of the vials Charles had on display along one wall, and then flicked her fingers like there was something distasteful now coating her skin from touching them. Charles bit his tongue and with all the geniality imprinted on him by Angel he asked again, "May I be of assistance?"
"I am unimpressed, Mister Xavier," she sighed in disappointment. "Erik has a gift for finding the most interesting of companions," she paused and gave Charles a look that was simultaneously lecherous and demeaning, like she was dealing in subjects that a man so plain as him would never find a way to understand, "and he has had many, many companions my dear boy." Charles unwillingly blushed, which she seemed to be waiting for before she continued, "I was prepared to forgive him for his little dalliance if you had proved interesting, but you have proven to be one of the most pathetically uninteresting creatures I have come across."
Plain and simple though Charles may be, he was fully capable of putting two and two together when it was staring at him across his shop counter. This woman had come for Raven. So while Charles's pride and his temper demand that he throw her out of his home before she could stain the place with her insulting demeanor, he held his tongue. Through gritted teeth he replied, "I'm sorry you find me so disappointing Madame, but I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about."
She gave him another demeaning sort of little smile, "Oh you don't, do you?"
"No, ma'am. I don't know any Eriks. Least of all ones who would be worth your attention."
She sneered and the shadows around her seemed to grow and writhe with her displeasure. "You honestly think that you can get away with lying to me, Mister Xavier?"
"It's not a lie, ma'am. I’ve never been introduced to any Eriks!"
She stormed over to the door and smacked the wood with the palm of her hand, her power echoing out and causing everything in the shop to rattle with the force of her magic. Charles thought it was some sort of tantrum until faint lines began to appear on the wood, steadily growing brighter until the whole surface was covered in a complicated sigil of knot work. Before Charles had the chance to recover the woman shouted, "Now do you mean to lie to me?"
Charles tried to refute since he had no idea what was going on here, but at the moment he couldn't seem to find words that meant something, only stuttering. The woman sneered, "That is the mark of the Wizard Erik, a sign in magic that he has tied to his power and only he can make. Erik has blessed your pathetic little shop, leashing it to the well of magic that supplies his own strength. It is among the greatest honors and most powerful gifts that a wizard can leave on a location and you mean to tell me that you don't know who he is?"
And well, without declaring to all and sundry that Erik was apparently quite besotted with Charles's sister, there really wasn't any defense against evidence like that. So Charles bit his lip and let the woman think whatever she wanted to. And based off her frankly murderous expression she thought the worst.
She sneered at him again, as though he was even more pathetic than she had first realized and snapped, "Child, I am the Witch of the Waste, and I have never been fond of competition. Even competition so laughable as you."
Charles abruptly paled at that, fully aware that all of the horrible things that Erik was rumored to be, the Witch of the Waste actually was, and it was more than likely that he was about to be killed where he stood. Instead, the Witch just flicked her flicked her wrist at Charles, tossing nothingness in his direction. Charles tensed, expecting some sort of crushing pain and his life flashing before his eyes, but instead there was nothing. He opened his eyes to see the Witch smirking at him like he was a child. She smiled at him, all teeth, and hissed, "Whatever beauty it was that Erik saw in you, he will know better now. And of course, as with all my spells, you'll never be able to tell anyone about it." And with that, she was gone in a flick of overdone dress.
Charles stayed frozen on the spot for a moment before he tried to dart to the door and lock it, for all the good that would do, but he stumbled like his legs weren't capable of carrying him. He caught himself on the counter and looked down, only to see his hands, that not ten seconds ago had been thin but sturdy, were now knobbed and wrinkled, with bulbous veins breaking the line of his thin skin. Those new hands immediately shot to his face and found sagging skin on his cheeks, and deep wrinkles around his eyes. Then, ever so slowly Charles slipped his hands to the top of his head and… merciful heavens he was completely bald! Charles slowly sank to his knees, feeling the kind of ache in his joints that meant it would take him time to get back up. He stayed there for several long minutes, sucking in deep breaths while he fought back his panic.
These minutes were all the time Charles gave himself to wallow in his newfound fate, because any longer and he never would've gotten up off the floor. He knew full well that he couldn't stay here, Angel would have a meltdown and there was a more than decent possibility that Raven would find out and go to hunt down the Witch of the Waste herself. No, there was nothing to be gained by staying curled up in a ball on the floor of the shop, but if Charles got to his feet and made his way out into the wilds there was a chance he might come across Erik, and despite the fact that the man was a scoundrel, he was still a wizard, and perhaps he could put Charles back to rights. (After all, it was the least he owed Charles for making a fool of him.)
With the hope of that chance Charles pushed himself to his feet and climbed the stairs to his room, where he gathered into a bag a change or two of clothes, and the few things he couldn't bring himself to be without (the halo of daisies included). Bringing together the remnants of his life was the work a few minutes, and then Charles put on his coat, left a note telling Angel he'd gone to another apothecary's shop to look at ingredients, and slipped out the door and into the waiting night.
The shop was by no means in the center of town, so it was only a few minutes hobble to the edge of Westchester and the beginning of the Wilds. Charles tugged his coat a little tighter around himself against the slight chill of night - no matter how pleasant the air would've been when he was a young man - and didn't even bother looking back.
Charles took one of the easier paths up into the hills that he knew from when he and his father would go looking for interesting herbs to experiment with. The path took him on a gentle slope up through the greener part of the lands, not terribly far from a stream deeper in or the main road further out. He went along slowly and stiffly, but consistently, for about an hour before his knees finally decided to make their displeasure known. Charles was sure that if he sat down on one of the rocks that were looking more and more appealing by the moment then he wouldn't be getting back up for the rest of the night. Instead, he went to lean against the nearby bush, just for a moment, but the hedge growled at him.
Charles had a terrible moment where he thought he was about to meet his demise - and really, this is why people weren't supposed to be leave the safety of the road - when instead, the bush barked. Charles crouched down as far as his unhappy knees would let him and saw a tail beating frantically within the confines of the hedge. It appeared that the dog had gotten stuck and had tried to find his way out by pushing forward instead of back.
Rather than leave the poor thing to its fate and the hope that somehow it would work its way free before something larger came along to eat it, Charles reached into the hedge and grabbed the dog high on his hind legs. The dog flailed as much as the shrubbery would let him, but Charles just ran a soothing hand along the dog's thigh and crooned, "No, no, no, my friend. Don’t worry. I'm not going to hurt you." The dog calmed surprisingly quickly, but given how Charles' thighs couldn't stay crouched for much longer he chose not to think too deeply about that. Instead he slowly began pulling the dog backwards out of the bush over the path that he'd taken in the first place. The dog remained calm and still for the whole process, and when Charles finally got it free it gave him a genial little 'yap' before running off into the darkness.
Charles stayed crouched there for a long moment, utterly baffled by this strange turn of events, but then the long-limbed, red-haired dog came running back to him and barked at Charles like he was saying he wasn't going to wait all night for Charles to come along. Charles just stared at the dog, then decided that his night couldn't possibly get any stranger, and followed after him.
The dog trotted along peaceably in front of Charles for another two hours, sniffing his way along the trail of what, Charles couldn't possibly imagine. Just when Charles had reached the point where he was ready to lay down in on the grass beneath his feet and sleep until he couldn't sleep anymore, he followed the dog over a rise, and in the valley below he saw a castle.
Erik's moving castle was tall and narrow, and looked like it had been hewn out of stone. The whole building rocked back and forth while the spindly legs underneath carried it along, only a slight motion at the bottom that swelled to wide arc at the top. As the castle swayed, pieces of it caught the moonlight, glinting with the sheen of metal. Charles assumed that all that movement couldn't be good for a building made of stone and mortar, and so the crumbling bits had been pieced back together with slabs of shining copper. And yet, it pressed on, seemingly unconcerned with its own instability.
The dog nudged Charles in the back of the knee, obviously directing him towards the building that was slowly and effortlessly moving from one end of the valley floor to the other. As seemed to be the trend for the evening, Charles decided not to question the exceptionally strange cards that fate had dealt him and stumbled down the hill towards the castle that he honestly hadn't ever expected to find. He made it halfway down the hillside before he realized that his red guide dog wasn't following him. He turned around to find the dog sitting at the top of the hill, watching to make sure that Charles hadn't fallen. "Aren't you coming?"
The dog barked and pointed it's nose off to the left, implying that it had places to go and people to see someplace that wasn't the moving castle. "Well, if you're sure." Charles replied, determinedly not thinking about the fact that he was conversing with a dog. "You've been excellent company though, and thank you for all your help!" The dog gave a happy yip of welcome, but remained standing at his spot, just in case. Charles rolled his eyes at being coddled by an animal, but he slowly made his way down the rest of the hill and towards the castle.
The building wasn't moving particularly fast, and despite his now worn out knees and the exhaustion he had been feeling moments before, Charles still managed to catch up to the floating castle before it escaped him completely. (Apparently dashing was good for the joints.) He caught the thick metal railing attached to the back steps and hauled himself up off the grass. He paused for a moment, more than a little winded from the effort, then pushed himself up to his feet in time with the swaying of the castle and knocked on the heavy wooden door.
Considering the movement of the castle meant that Charles was more likely to be thrown from the stairs than not, he only waited a few spare seconds and then pounded again, and a moment later it swung open to reveal a boy with tousled blonde hair, who seemed no older than Hank. The boy crossed his arms over his chest and stuck out his chin as though that would make him formidable and demanded, "What do you want?"
Charles was thoroughly not in the mood to deal with mouthy teenagers considering he'd just been cursed on behalf of one of them and instead nudged past the boy and into the room behind him, declaring, "I should think that was obvious."
The door opened into a warm room full of anarchy. There was a massive kitchen table shoved off to one side and covered with all manner of debris, stacks of paper spilling over into indeterminate mounds, random half-empty vials with poorly maintained stoppers, and more than a few bottles of what Charles was fairly certain was either paint thinner or alcohol. And that table was a good barometer for the state of the rest of the room. Any surface that could maintain the clutter did, as well as a mountain of documents impossibly perched on the spider thin top of a lamp.
Certain that he wasn't about to be set upon by any sort of wild creature, Charles shifted a pile of documents off one of the chairs and tugged it over to settle himself in front of the hearth. The blonde boy continued to spout all the reasons that Charles couldn't be there, until Charles turned to him and glowered until the boy stopped talking. Charles paused for a moment and focused on the way the little old men in the village would scold the youths when they thought they were out of line and replied, "Young man, I am tired, and it's unpleasant out there in the Wild. I happened across your castle at precisely the moment when I thought I would drop to my knees from exhaustion. I choose to take that as a sign."
"But it's not my castle!" The boy shouted, almost desperate.
Charles quirked an eyebrow at him like the thought of this child owning a castle was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard. "I know full well whose castle this is, young man."
"No," the boy lurched forward and dropped to his knees to meet Charles eye to eye, "you don't. And he's not gonna be happy when he gets home and finds you here!"
Charles put a hand on the side of the boy's face, "Is he going to hurt you?"
The boy snorted and smacked Charles's hand out of the way. Charles would have been offended if he hadn't seen the way the boy relaxed at a little gentle human touch, so he chalked the reaction up to embarrassment. "Of course not! He's probably going to turn you into a toad though."
The boy stormed across the room, pacing out his frustration while Charles muttered to himself, "At this point an amphibian would be an improvement. I know what to do about that."
The boy whirled around to shout something new at Charles, only to be stopped by a deep and gritty voice that declared, "Let him stay, kid."
The boy turned his wrath, not to Charles, but to the fireplace beside him and yelled, "You just want him to stay because it'll piss Erik off!"
The boy and the voice continued their shouting match, but Charles couldn't bring himself to pay any attention to the content of their conversation once he caught sight of the source of the voice.
There was a creature in the fire.
No, not a creature in the fire, it was the fire. The lines of the creature’s body were poorly defined, ever changing with the flickering of the flames that made up his mass. But Charles could make out two arms (since they were gesturing furiously at the boy), a thick body (well, thick compared to the rest of his small frame), and what Charles was forced to call spikes of flame jutting off his head in the place of hair.
After a minute of coarse shouting between the two men the fire finally realized that Charles was staring and snapped, "What are you looking' at, bub?"
"My apologies for staring," Charles replied automatically, good breeding easily taking over, "I've never seen a talking fire before."
The fire grumbled at him, "'M not a fire."
"Again, my apologies, but you look like a fire."
The not-fire propped himself up on the log in front of him, leaning forward as menacingly as possible for a creature that Charles was fairly certain was restrained in the hearth and murmured, "But we're not always what we look like, are we?" Charles's eyes widened in shock, but before he could ask the not-fire how in the world he knew about the spell when the Witch said it was impossible, the not-fire turned to the boy and ordered, "Go upstairs and get the kid a mattress and some blankets, Alex."
"But Logan-"
"Now!" the not-fire roared, the flames along his shoulders roaring up to flare uncontrolled out of the fireplace. The boy, Alex apparently, squeaked and dashed up the stairs at the not-fire's command.
Charles settled back into his chair, determined to not be intimidated by the not-fire (much easier to do now that he knew its name), and asked, "How did you know?"
"I'm a fire demon, kid. Ain't no kind of magic that I don't know about."
"Does that mean you can fix me?" Charles asked, trying not to sound quite so desperate as he was.
"Nope."
"But you said-"
"Knowing it doesn't mean I can change it, kid."
Charles sunk back into his chair, suddenly feeling the weight of his newfound age settle on his shoulders… and he was tired.
The demon reached out a fiery hand smacked the toe of Charles's boot, "If you're just gonna lay down and die then it doesn't matter if there's anyone out there who can help you."
Thunking his head against the back of the chair Charles replied, "If you can't help me than I assume Erik can't help me, and there's no one else I can think of."
Logan grumbled something under his crackling breath that sounded vaguely like, "Humans," and snapped, "Erik might, but the only person you can be sure can take it off is the Witch."
Charles slammed back to consciousness and shouted, "You want me to have anything to do with that madwoman! She turned me into this!" Despite lacking definite facial features Logan still managed to give Charles a look that screamed, 'Duh'. "No. Absolutely not. I refuse to have a thing to do with her. Besides, it's quite likely that she'd do far worse to me the second time."
Logan reached into a hole in the bricks and pulled out a cigar, lighting the tip of it with one of his sparks of hair. He took a long drag on the cigar, blowing out a cloud of smoke easily distinguished from the smoke that trailed off from the top of his head. "What did you do to get yourself changed into an old man?"
Charles awkwardly cleared his throat, "It was a simple case of mistaken identity."
"Apparently not that simple. And you didn't try telling her you weren't who she was looking for?"
Charles bit his lower lip, an expression so young that Logan could see the image of the youth he must've been before this whole thing started. "Because I would rather have her after me than the person she was really after."
"Well then, it seems like you're going to have to give the Witch something to make it worth her while to change you back."
"You're suggesting I bribe the woman who did this to me in the first place? And just hope that she doesn't make it worst once she has what she wants?" Charles asked dryly.
The fire demon shrugged, "That’s up to you, bub. I'm the age I'm supposed to be."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"You don't think I'm giving away this information free, do you kid?"
"But you've already told me to go to the Witch."
"I've told you to go to her, not how to get there."
"And what is it you want in exchange?"
"I'll tell you when it's time."
"That is an absolutely ridiculous bargain. I don't agree to deals that I don't know the terms of."
Logan took a mocking puff on his cigar and replied, "Then you can stay an old man."
Alex thumped down the stairs; tugging a mattress along behind him with blankets flung over his shoulders and trailing along like an awkward cape. Charles tried to push himself to his feet to help carry them, but his knees weren't having it. Alex grumbled at the effort but said, "Stay put, old man." Charles accepted that he'd be even less use lugging things than he had been before. Despite the harsh words Alex pushed the mattress over to the hearth in front of Logan. Charles gave him a small smile for the effort, but the boy just blushed and grunted, "Logan'll be able to keep you alive long enough for you to explain to Erik what in the hell you're doing here."
That didn't stop Charles from reaching out to grab Alex's forearm and replying, "Still, you have my thanks." To which the boy just blushed all the harder and dashed up the stairs, shouting his goodnights to the fire demon.
Charles slipped out of the chair and straight onto the mattress beside him, pausing for a moment to straighten the sheets that had come undone during transit. With that he pulled off his boots and stripped down to his undershirt before sliding under the blankets, reveling in the unearthly warmth of Logan. The fire demon had been watching Charles go through the motions, pretending like he wasn't paying ardent attention while he puffed away on that cigar. The moment Charles's head hit the pillow Logan withdrew on himself, tugging in on his light so he just barely glowed. Eyes closed from the exhaustion of his day Charles murmured, "Thank you, Logan."
The fire demon was quiet for a long moment before he replied, "You could be young again."
Charles snorted, "Or I could be a toad," and within a few breaths slipped into sleep.
To Part 3