[Axis Powers Hetalia] Croatoan (England/America)
Title: Croatoan
Author/Artist: halflight007/lenarix_klinde (beta by konishii)
Character(s) or Pairing(s): America/England, mentions of Greece/Japan
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Supernatural, Action/Adventure
Warnings: Language, mild crossover (I try not to make it too obvious)
Summary: On a crisp Halloween night, America disappears into the forests with no warning, and England will have to fight his way through a corrupted world to save him.
Disclaimer: Himayura-sensei lets me play with them as long as I clean ‘em off before I give them back. Ariel and Sycorax were created by Shakespeare, which I believe is public domain. All characters you may recognize from xxxHolic are copyright CLAMP.
Author’s Notes: So I was thinking out another multi-chapter fill in my head when suddenly I went, “Hey, wait, don’t I have another multi-chapter story that I kinda-sorta hiatus’d when life and inspiration kicked me in the - OH WAIT I DO CRAAAP.”
My apologies for the wait, guys. Here’s hoping you enjoy chapter 3a.
Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2
___
The air stays still for a moment, so thin and fine that Arthur has trouble breathing it in through his nose.
Ame-warashi narrow her eyes. “How do you know her na -”
“That’s…it is him, Ame-warashi! It’s Honda-dono!”
Zashiki-warashi pushes past her partner, her kimono fluttering as she comes to their side.. Arthur relaxes his arms as she kneels and reaches to touch the side of his face.
“Honda-dono! What’s happened to -”
Only her fingertips graze the surface before she shudders and pulls her hand back. She stares at him in shock for a moment before her face crumbles. “I…I can’t touch him,” she murmurs. “He’s tainted with evil.” She lifts her head a bit, blinks, and then looks up into Arthur’s eyes. “And with you. It’s the same thing, Kirkland-san.”
So she remembers. Arthur feels his lips perk up. “It’s certainly been a long time, hasn’t it, Zashiki-warashi? You’ve grown so much.” He remembers in clarity now, recalls the way she laughed and ran as he chased her away from Kiku’s home. He remembers her as someone with a bright, mischievous spirit.
So it’s a bit of a surprise when she blushes and bows low, ducking her head and not meeting his eyes. “I shouldn’t have left his home,” she says, her voice tense and sad. “I should have stayed, even when I started to fade - I…oh, Honda-dono, I’m so sorry….”
He shifts enough of Kiku’s weight onto one arm so he can reach down and tilt her chin so that she’s looking into his face. (He ignores the way Ame-warashi growls and pokes her umbrella at him.)
“You stayed as long as you could, Zashiki-warashi,” Arthur says. “That’s all Kiku could really ask of you.”
His pardon doesn’t really have the effect he wants, because now she looks closer to crying than she was before, and Ame-warashi looks as though her entire body will start oozing steam. Arthur wraps both arms around Kiku and shifts the subject. “Where are we, Zashiki-warashi?”
Ame-warashi answers for her. “This is the realm of the tengu,” she says. “You’re standing in their sacred spring.” Arthur’s head jerks back, head turning as he surveys their surroundings. “Oh, they’re not here. Not right now, at any rate.”
“They’re not? But - I thought the tengu rarely left their mountains….”
Ariel pipes up, and Arthur jumps; he’d nearly forgotten about the little fairy. “It’s because of the evil aura, isn’t it?”
Ame-warashi snarls and crosses her arms. “It’s all their fault! First Jorougumo has to take up residence in one of the caves. Then that witch and her lackey follow her there with their stupid trees and that rancid scent -”
“Wait, trees?” Arthur interrupts, frowning.
“Yes. Trees. They’re blocking the entrance to the cave.”
Arthur feels his stomach drop. “What do they look like?”
Zashiki-warashi pipes up, her voice like ripples on water. “They look like bonsai trees,” she says. “Dark, dying bonsai trees. And they smell of decaying leaves.”
Arthur feels his arms tighten around Kiku.
“That boy should have killed her when he had a chance,” Ame-warashi spits. “She had the nerve to kidnap Zashiki-warashi, then to eat that fool’s eye. And now she had to run here to escape that cloaked man and the rogue Fey. Why can’t she just leave us alone?”
Arthur thinks of Texas and of a calm, sinister face; but even over that, he thinks of a blue eye and magic beyond even his own. Ame-warashi’s ranting becomes the least of his concerns.
“Take us there,” he says, causing both spirits to lift their heads and stare at him. “Ariel and I.”
“…You’re a human,” Ame-warashi sneers with narrowed, skeptical eyes.
“All the more reason I should go in,” he insists, gritting his teeth and keeping his voice level against the contempt in her tone. “It’s because I’m a human that I think I can do this. I’m not limited by the evil aura that keeps you two away.”
“And that power doesn’t affect me,” adds Ariel. “I can help Master Kirkland if he has trouble going in. So please…let us try to help.”
“And why should I?”
“Because Jorougumo has something I need,” Arthur says, “and I will either have to convince her to give it to me, or fight her to get it. Either way, you will benefit, and I’ll be able to save Kiku.”
Ame-warashi fumes, but Zashiki-warashi thinks this over for a moment before nodding.
“All right.” Arthur kneels into the pool again. “Do you mind if I leave him -ACK!” Arthur barely misses the umbrella swipe aimed for his head.
“You may not!” Ame-warashi says. For the first time, Arthur thinks he hears some real anger in that voice.
“Ame-warashi, it’s okay!” Zashiki-warashi says, taking Kiku from Arthur’s arms. “I-I can keep an eye on Honda-dono -”
“I’m not leaving you with him!” she snaps over her shoulder. “I’m not leaving you with that bastard!”
“H-Honda-dono’s not…”
“He hurt you!” Ame-warashi snaps. “He accepted you into his home and then he ignored you! It’s his own fault that he can’t survive in this world. He deserves to die here for the pain he’s caused you -”
Ame-warashi gets cut off by one loud, ugly sob, a sound that’s rough and raw around the edges. Both Arthur and Ame-warashi see the tears in Zashiki-warashi’s green eyes, desperate and pleading.
“…Please…it’s Honda-dono….”
Nobody moves for a minute, and then Ame-warashi sighs and drops her umbrella.
“Consider yourself lucky, human,” she growls, while affording a blushing Ariel a single, polite nod before starting up the mountainside.
It isn’t until Ame-warashi stalks past him that he stands, looking down at Zashiki-warashi. “Please take good care of him.”
Zashiki-warashi gives him a single, sweet smile. “Of course I will. Even though he couldn’t see me, he…he’s still someone very dear to me.” Her gentle hands cradle him, stroking his wet hair. “He’ll be fine, Kirkland-san.”
Arthur smiles. “I know he will be, since he has you to watch him.”
They just sit there for a moment, smiling at one another. Then a breeze whooshes against his neck, making Arthur jolt and whirl around.
“We have to go, Master Kirkland,” Ariel says, reaching out with a tiny hand to take one of Arthur’s fingers.
“Right.” He looks down at Kiku once more, bending down to brush a stray clump of wet hair out of that pale face.
I’m going to get you help, Kiku. Please hold on.
Then Arthur turns and picks his way over the mountain crags, towards where Ame-warashi waits in the distance.
___
“The Magician….” Ame-warashi says after some silence, stopping and turning to look at Arthur. “You’ve met him, haven’t you?”
Arthur is beginning to realize his weaknesses, even in this realm. It’s difficult for him to breathe in air so pure and strong. It’s like a drug trying to lift his mind and unchain it from his body. Arthur’s managing to fight it off, but it’s tiring in and of itself - not to mention while he’s trying climb the mountain. He’s panting as they climb and slip across crags.
“What…how do…you know about…Merlin?” Arthur sits down on a rock, hunched over and panting.
Ame-warashi lifts an eyebrow, as though this is odd, but she doesn’t say anything. “Is that what he’s calling himself? …Well, anyway, the magician saved Zashiki-warashi once,” she growls, and fights her lip’s natural inclination to curl. “He did it at the price of his eye.”
Arthur blinks. “No…no,” he says, starting to catch his breath. “I mean, how did you know…that I knew him?”
“Please. His magic is all over you - in addition to that vile taint, I might add. And he’s one of the few that possesses the power to traverse dimensions.”
Ariel nods. “The Magician is the one who summoned me asked for my help with Masters Kirkland and Honda.”
“Was there a woman with him?”
Arthur blinks. “What? What’s that got to do with this -”
But Ariel seems to understand. “Her time started moving again.” Ariel’s head ducks down again, white bangs covering indigo eyes. “She’s no longer among us.”
Ame-warashi considers this. “I see. …I hope she got what she wished for in the end.”
Arthur blinks, thinks of something. “Wait, you know the Magician? What’s his name? His real name, I mean.”
The Ame-warashi fixes him with a flat look. “Not even I know that,” she says. “I only know the name he goes by…and we shouldn’t speak it, especially not here.” She lifts her parasol and gestures up the face of the mountain. “These rocks have ears, after all.”
Arthur feels indignant and opens his mouth to retort. Whatever he wants to say becomes shredded and dead in his voice box when he follows Ame-warashi’s parasol and where it’s pointing.
There’s a piece of rock jutting out of the side of the mountain. Bonsai trees twist and gnarl on it, seeming to create a cage around some sort of entrance. A soft, golden glow leaks out between what little space is between the trunks.
Every now and then, a dark speck will flit out, making it a little ways away from the trees before fading into dust and nonexistence.
“She’s in there,” Ame-warashi says, and Arthur realizes with a jolt how her voice quavers, how her face is screwed up in pain and clear discomfort. “I - I can’t get any closer than this.”
A mountain wind bears down upon them in a gentle rush, carrying with it the scent of leaves and dirt. Ariel quivers and leans into Arthur’s warmth.
“All right. Thank you, Ame-warashi.” He gives her a curt nod as she turns and begins her way back down the mountain, but he doesn’t move as an idea strikes him. “Ariel…wait a minute, I think I know something that might help.”
Ariel nods, patient and understanding, and Arthur swears he can feel even that minute breeze as he shuts his eyes, trying to summon from within him a powerful well of magic. Even if he looks ridiculous, it is better than….
…Better than….
“What…what the bloody hell?!” His eyes shoot open again, and his body goes rigid, his eyes wide and terrified.
“Master Kirkland?” Ariel asks, leaning forward and into his line of vision. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Arthur’s eyes widen, and he takes a few deep, panicked breaths. No. This…this isn’t possible. It shouldn’t be….
The taint. Of course. The damned taint. Arthur grits his teeth and curses the witch with every atom in his body before remembering that Ariel is waiting for him. “It’s nothing, Ariel,” he says, beginning to pick his way up the craggy slope. “Let’s go. We don’t want to keep Jorougumo waiting any more than we have to.”
Ariel whimpers a little, but follows him up the path to the outcropping. Arthur doesn’t say what’s on his mind, the thought that’s making his hands tremble and his throat tight.
He can’t access his magic. He can’t turn into Britannia Angel, the strongest of all his magical forms.
He swallows the fear clawing its way up his throat and prays for luck as he stops at the edge of the dark, dank trees. He takes a deep breath, pushes aside a tangle of branches, and ducks into the decadent warmth.
His vision and mind start to swim in immediate confusion, his entire body slowing and numbing as Croatoan’s scent and sound fill his senses. His mind starts to float, to expand across this world. He is tired and unprepared; his eyes flutter as he starts to let it win.
“M-Master Kirkland!”
Arthur swears, one arm coming to cover his face as a great breeze blows and gusts around him. When it settles, he lowers his hand and blinks. He can think again; the soft, seductive notes and scents of Croatoan sound faint and boring against the high, sweet music and clean air.
“Ariel?” he whispers to the cleansing presence. “Is that you?”
No answer, but he thinks he feels a breeze flicker through his hair.
“…So this is what you help out with,” he says, and grins. “Thank you.”
Arthur takes a step and rejoices to find that walking is easy again. He takes another, and another, and together he and Ariel travel down into the dark depths of the cavern.
The trees fade from sight, but Croatoan hangs even in the darkness. Arthur can sense it beyond his little bubble, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.
“So is the world itself encroaching on this place?” asks Arthur. “Or is it that Sycorax can travel between realities herself?”
He feels wind flicker over his shoulders, as though Ariel’s shrugging.
Arthur licks his lips and thinks, one hand almost reaching out to the wall for support before remembering where he was. “At any rate,” he says, withdrawing his hand, “we have to get rid of this…thing. It’s what’s imprisoning Jorougumo -”
A scream splices through the air. The sound is high and unearthly, as though many demons are screaming at once.
Arthur’s first impulse is to turn and bolt out of the cave and not look back. He does end up bolting - but he lets his feet carry him deeper into the cave, into the darkness. He knows he’s getting close when he sees a soft light shine from down tunnel hall. With a sharp curse he puts on speed, closing in on the light and -
Arthur digs a heel into the stone and comes to a stop just before he stumbles into a wide open space in the cavern.
Alfred stands in profile to him, but Arthur’s gaze is drawn to the dark, curly hair and soft, black wings of the woman standing behind him. Sycorax smiles, a gentle, benevolent thing that shines in her face and eyes, seductive and gentle. She pulses with the orange-gold color of sunset, and it glints off of Texas, hiding blue eyes that seem darker than before. Arthur fights down the sickness searing in his throat.
“Where is it?” she asks, and her voice is made of goosebumps and quickened pulses, of spiders crawling over his skin.
Arthur sees Alfred lift his hand and extend his sword. He follows the silver glint to the very tip and sees what it points to.
The spirit is bound to her very fingers and toes in roots and wood, limbs splayed and arms stretched out to her sides. Her blonde hair is wild, and her eyes look at Sycorax’s knight with a sultry expression.
All around her, on the walls and ceiling, are spiderwebs, torn and destroyed beyond all repair.
“Jorougumo,” Arthur mouths to himself, and feels a light breeze thread through his fingers.
“I won’t ask again. Where is it?”
Jorougumo pouts at Sycorax, and though she’s prone and trapped Arthur feels fear skitter down his back. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Caliban, my dear?”
Alfred twitches a wrist; the tip of his sword flicks her collarbone. Arthur winces and bites his lip to keep from calling out.
Jorougumo’s thick eyelashes flutter over her violet eyes as she thinks. “…Oh, you mean that! The boy’s eye, you mean?”
“If you hand it over, we shall spare your life,” Alfred says. His eyes are dead, save for a backlight of something sinister underneath the color. Arthur swallows back bile and the blood on his tongue.
Jorougumo is unafraid. Her smile comes easily.
“That’s a shame, that you came all this way for that thing. I can’t give it to you.”
Arthur thinks he sees Sycorax’s hand tighten on Alfred’s shoulder. “I can sense it, though. You do have it on you….”
“Oh, I have it,” says Jorougumo, her voice light and and thin. “But it’s part of me. I ate it. You won’t be getting it anytime soon.” She grins again. “It was delicious.”
Alfred doesn’t make a sound, just stares at her with calculating eyes. Arthur licks his lips and tries to think of how he can solve this.
“I see. You’re useless to me, then.” Alfred draws his sword back, and Arthur’s stomach plummets when he realizes he’s going to run her through and -
“Stop!”
Arthur stumbles into the clearing, hand outstretched. He falters a few steps, and then stops as he realizes he’s revealed himself to three sets of dark, sinister eyes.
“I thought my Caliban dealt with you,” Sycorax says. Arthur ignores her and the heavy threads in her voice.
“Alfred, dammit, wake up!” He tries to throw as much power behind his voice as he can; he might as well be trying to reason with a brick wall. “Take a bloody look at yourself! Is this what a hero does?”
Arthur sees Alfred blink, thinks something like awareness is glowing at the back of those red eyes. Arthur presses further, pleading and coaxing him like he did when Alfred wouldn’t eat his supper. “Alfred. Drop the sword, please. Come back.” If Arthur can just get Alfred to drop the sword, then maybe he can coax him the rest of the way out of this madness. His focus narrows onto Alfred; everything else takes a backseat in his consciousness
He didn’t sense the way Ariel swirled around him, winds thin but urgent in his hair; he doesn’t see the way Sycorax’s lips curl up.
So he doesn’t feel the ropelike wood tighten around his ankle until it’s too late.
The roots burst from the ground in a sudden, vicious thrust, twining around his middle, his legs and arms. Arthur cries out and struggles, trying to free himself, but the wood tightens around his knees and holds them straight. He’s immobile by the time they slow and stop, but that doesn’t stop him from clenching his hands and glaring down at Alfred.
Arthur feels Ariel buffet around him, panicked and scared. “It’s no use,” Sycorax says, taking slow steps forward with Alfred at her side. “He’s trapped in pine, little sprite.” Her voice takes on a sultry, self-satisfied sound. “You remember the pine, don’t you?”
Arthur swallows the saliva resting thick and uncomfortable on his tongue. “Ariel, don’t waste your energy. I’ll be fine.” Arthur feels one last, fervent flick of wind over his hair, but Ariel’s breezes cease, and Arthur feels more alone and vulnerable than ever.
“Caliban,” Sycorax says, and Arthur watches as Alfred makes his way past her to in slow, measured steps, stopping in front of him.
“I can sense your power,” Sycorax says. Arthur lifts his head, but keeps his eyes focused on her forehead - to make it look like he was meeting her gaze. “But it’s trapped under my seal, isn’t it?”
Arthur grits his teeth and refuses to answer.
Sycorax steps forward, reaching up and over Alfred’s head to take his chin in her spindly, strong (so strong) hands so that they look one another in the eye. “I could remove the seal from your soul,” she whispers, and Arthur holds his breath against the sick-sweet smell of her breath. “I could give you back your most powerful magic and more, if you swear yourself to me.”
Arthur’s eyelids flutter, and for a moment he almost believes her - almost secedes his will. But something funny happens when he looks into her eyes. If he looks deep enough, he can almost see the blue there. Blue.
Alfred’s blue.
The reason he’s hear rushes up and into him like the sound of a bell.
With a smile, he turns his lips into her palm - and relishes her screech when he bites the tender, webbed flesh between her thumb and pointer. He grins as she pulls back, brows furrowed in triumph. “That enough answer for you?” he asks, all smug and cocky -
And then Alfred elbows him in the gut and knocks the smile right off his face, along with the wind out of his lungs. “You better pray that she wishes for a swift death,” Alfred whispers into Arthur’s ear as he doubles over as much as he can.
As he coughs and blinks through his tears, he sees her fury smooth back into a serene self-confidence.
“That’s fine, if that’s what you want.”
Arthur’s eyes flick up to Jorougumo - as his eyes clear, he sees that her bindings have loosened and shriveled. If she moves in the right ways, she can get free - but before he can communicate this to her in some way, Sycorax turns his blood to ice in his veins with her words.
“I’ll just kill you, then, and eat your magic. It feels so rich and strong - I might even have enough to conquer those lands beyond Croatoan…perhaps even enough to pass into the realm you mortals walk.”
Arthur’s stomach churns and his body goes numb, and from the corner of his eye he can see Alfred raising his sword, ready to finish what he started in the clearing. Eyes wide and breath shallow, he tilts his head and flicks a finger towards the exit. Run, he thinks. Get out of here. Someone needs you.
He sees Alfred pull his arm back and shuts his eyes. Alfred, he thinks. Alfred, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for the last words you ever heard from my mouth. I’m sorry that I never told you -
Sycorax screams.
Arthur’s eyes snap open to the sight of Sycorax struggling and flailing, entangling herself in a cocoon of thick, white threads. Jorougumo’s lips are pursed, and sticky-thin strands of spider-silk shoot from her mouth to ensnare Sycorax.
Arthur does not feel hope. Not even curiosity. Because Sycorax’s roots burst the web from the inside-out and rip Jourougumo’s magic apart. “You bitch!” she shrieks, whirling around to meet calm purple eyes and a serene smile.
Arthur watches with a stupid expression on his face. The roots weaken ever-so-little, and in a sudden rush of understanding he realizes that she intended to distract the two of them. To give him a chance.
And they both know the price she will pay for it.
“No,”Arthur breathes, the air in his lungs dread-heavy and brimmed with bile.
“I hate people like you,” she says, her easy voice unchanging and soft. “He did the same thing.”
“No, Jorougumo!”
He struggles, but the bonds aren’t weak enough, he can’t move, he can only watch as -
“Caliban!”
“Yes.”
Alfred charges forward and thrusts his sword up and in. The soft stomach of Jorougumo’s belly yields, the sword sliding in with soft, disgusting sounds. Her eyes go wide; her mouth opens, something dark and vile trickling from the edge.
“NO!”
Arthur watches as his only chance to save Kiku slumps forward, crumpling to the ground as her bonds give way.
___
Endnotes: So yeah, some definite significant changes here. I decided to add Sycorax and define her character, as well as why she wants Arthur dead, a bit more. Also hinted at the reason as to why Arthur needs Jorougumo alive for those who haven’t read Holic (those of you who have read it, and the original KM fill, know why). Also decided to take out Arthur’s CMOA Britannia!Angel part, because it didn’t make sense in the original context of the story - if he could use it there, why didn’t he use it through the rest of the story?
I’ll try to finish off chapter 3 tomorrow, as well as post 4 over Mon. and Tues. - I have a long weekend. I’ll post at least part of 5 on Sat., and then updates should be weekly from then on.
Comments/concrit welcome - thanks for stopping by!
Author/Artist: halflight007/lenarix_klinde (beta by konishii)
Character(s) or Pairing(s): America/England, mentions of Greece/Japan
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Supernatural, Action/Adventure
Warnings: Language, mild crossover (I try not to make it too obvious)
Summary: On a crisp Halloween night, America disappears into the forests with no warning, and England will have to fight his way through a corrupted world to save him.
Disclaimer: Himayura-sensei lets me play with them as long as I clean ‘em off before I give them back. Ariel and Sycorax were created by Shakespeare, which I believe is public domain. All characters you may recognize from xxxHolic are copyright CLAMP.
Author’s Notes: So I was thinking out another multi-chapter fill in my head when suddenly I went, “Hey, wait, don’t I have another multi-chapter story that I kinda-sorta hiatus’d when life and inspiration kicked me in the - OH WAIT I DO CRAAAP.”
My apologies for the wait, guys. Here’s hoping you enjoy chapter 3a.
Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2
___
The air stays still for a moment, so thin and fine that Arthur has trouble breathing it in through his nose.
Ame-warashi narrow her eyes. “How do you know her na -”
“That’s…it is him, Ame-warashi! It’s Honda-dono!”
Zashiki-warashi pushes past her partner, her kimono fluttering as she comes to their side.. Arthur relaxes his arms as she kneels and reaches to touch the side of his face.
“Honda-dono! What’s happened to -”
Only her fingertips graze the surface before she shudders and pulls her hand back. She stares at him in shock for a moment before her face crumbles. “I…I can’t touch him,” she murmurs. “He’s tainted with evil.” She lifts her head a bit, blinks, and then looks up into Arthur’s eyes. “And with you. It’s the same thing, Kirkland-san.”
So she remembers. Arthur feels his lips perk up. “It’s certainly been a long time, hasn’t it, Zashiki-warashi? You’ve grown so much.” He remembers in clarity now, recalls the way she laughed and ran as he chased her away from Kiku’s home. He remembers her as someone with a bright, mischievous spirit.
So it’s a bit of a surprise when she blushes and bows low, ducking her head and not meeting his eyes. “I shouldn’t have left his home,” she says, her voice tense and sad. “I should have stayed, even when I started to fade - I…oh, Honda-dono, I’m so sorry….”
He shifts enough of Kiku’s weight onto one arm so he can reach down and tilt her chin so that she’s looking into his face. (He ignores the way Ame-warashi growls and pokes her umbrella at him.)
“You stayed as long as you could, Zashiki-warashi,” Arthur says. “That’s all Kiku could really ask of you.”
His pardon doesn’t really have the effect he wants, because now she looks closer to crying than she was before, and Ame-warashi looks as though her entire body will start oozing steam. Arthur wraps both arms around Kiku and shifts the subject. “Where are we, Zashiki-warashi?”
Ame-warashi answers for her. “This is the realm of the tengu,” she says. “You’re standing in their sacred spring.” Arthur’s head jerks back, head turning as he surveys their surroundings. “Oh, they’re not here. Not right now, at any rate.”
“They’re not? But - I thought the tengu rarely left their mountains….”
Ariel pipes up, and Arthur jumps; he’d nearly forgotten about the little fairy. “It’s because of the evil aura, isn’t it?”
Ame-warashi snarls and crosses her arms. “It’s all their fault! First Jorougumo has to take up residence in one of the caves. Then that witch and her lackey follow her there with their stupid trees and that rancid scent -”
“Wait, trees?” Arthur interrupts, frowning.
“Yes. Trees. They’re blocking the entrance to the cave.”
Arthur feels his stomach drop. “What do they look like?”
Zashiki-warashi pipes up, her voice like ripples on water. “They look like bonsai trees,” she says. “Dark, dying bonsai trees. And they smell of decaying leaves.”
Arthur feels his arms tighten around Kiku.
“That boy should have killed her when he had a chance,” Ame-warashi spits. “She had the nerve to kidnap Zashiki-warashi, then to eat that fool’s eye. And now she had to run here to escape that cloaked man and the rogue Fey. Why can’t she just leave us alone?”
Arthur thinks of Texas and of a calm, sinister face; but even over that, he thinks of a blue eye and magic beyond even his own. Ame-warashi’s ranting becomes the least of his concerns.
“Take us there,” he says, causing both spirits to lift their heads and stare at him. “Ariel and I.”
“…You’re a human,” Ame-warashi sneers with narrowed, skeptical eyes.
“All the more reason I should go in,” he insists, gritting his teeth and keeping his voice level against the contempt in her tone. “It’s because I’m a human that I think I can do this. I’m not limited by the evil aura that keeps you two away.”
“And that power doesn’t affect me,” adds Ariel. “I can help Master Kirkland if he has trouble going in. So please…let us try to help.”
“And why should I?”
“Because Jorougumo has something I need,” Arthur says, “and I will either have to convince her to give it to me, or fight her to get it. Either way, you will benefit, and I’ll be able to save Kiku.”
Ame-warashi fumes, but Zashiki-warashi thinks this over for a moment before nodding.
“All right.” Arthur kneels into the pool again. “Do you mind if I leave him -ACK!” Arthur barely misses the umbrella swipe aimed for his head.
“You may not!” Ame-warashi says. For the first time, Arthur thinks he hears some real anger in that voice.
“Ame-warashi, it’s okay!” Zashiki-warashi says, taking Kiku from Arthur’s arms. “I-I can keep an eye on Honda-dono -”
“I’m not leaving you with him!” she snaps over her shoulder. “I’m not leaving you with that bastard!”
“H-Honda-dono’s not…”
“He hurt you!” Ame-warashi snaps. “He accepted you into his home and then he ignored you! It’s his own fault that he can’t survive in this world. He deserves to die here for the pain he’s caused you -”
Ame-warashi gets cut off by one loud, ugly sob, a sound that’s rough and raw around the edges. Both Arthur and Ame-warashi see the tears in Zashiki-warashi’s green eyes, desperate and pleading.
“…Please…it’s Honda-dono….”
Nobody moves for a minute, and then Ame-warashi sighs and drops her umbrella.
“Consider yourself lucky, human,” she growls, while affording a blushing Ariel a single, polite nod before starting up the mountainside.
It isn’t until Ame-warashi stalks past him that he stands, looking down at Zashiki-warashi. “Please take good care of him.”
Zashiki-warashi gives him a single, sweet smile. “Of course I will. Even though he couldn’t see me, he…he’s still someone very dear to me.” Her gentle hands cradle him, stroking his wet hair. “He’ll be fine, Kirkland-san.”
Arthur smiles. “I know he will be, since he has you to watch him.”
They just sit there for a moment, smiling at one another. Then a breeze whooshes against his neck, making Arthur jolt and whirl around.
“We have to go, Master Kirkland,” Ariel says, reaching out with a tiny hand to take one of Arthur’s fingers.
“Right.” He looks down at Kiku once more, bending down to brush a stray clump of wet hair out of that pale face.
I’m going to get you help, Kiku. Please hold on.
Then Arthur turns and picks his way over the mountain crags, towards where Ame-warashi waits in the distance.
___
“The Magician….” Ame-warashi says after some silence, stopping and turning to look at Arthur. “You’ve met him, haven’t you?”
Arthur is beginning to realize his weaknesses, even in this realm. It’s difficult for him to breathe in air so pure and strong. It’s like a drug trying to lift his mind and unchain it from his body. Arthur’s managing to fight it off, but it’s tiring in and of itself - not to mention while he’s trying climb the mountain. He’s panting as they climb and slip across crags.
“What…how do…you know about…Merlin?” Arthur sits down on a rock, hunched over and panting.
Ame-warashi lifts an eyebrow, as though this is odd, but she doesn’t say anything. “Is that what he’s calling himself? …Well, anyway, the magician saved Zashiki-warashi once,” she growls, and fights her lip’s natural inclination to curl. “He did it at the price of his eye.”
Arthur blinks. “No…no,” he says, starting to catch his breath. “I mean, how did you know…that I knew him?”
“Please. His magic is all over you - in addition to that vile taint, I might add. And he’s one of the few that possesses the power to traverse dimensions.”
Ariel nods. “The Magician is the one who summoned me asked for my help with Masters Kirkland and Honda.”
“Was there a woman with him?”
Arthur blinks. “What? What’s that got to do with this -”
But Ariel seems to understand. “Her time started moving again.” Ariel’s head ducks down again, white bangs covering indigo eyes. “She’s no longer among us.”
Ame-warashi considers this. “I see. …I hope she got what she wished for in the end.”
Arthur blinks, thinks of something. “Wait, you know the Magician? What’s his name? His real name, I mean.”
The Ame-warashi fixes him with a flat look. “Not even I know that,” she says. “I only know the name he goes by…and we shouldn’t speak it, especially not here.” She lifts her parasol and gestures up the face of the mountain. “These rocks have ears, after all.”
Arthur feels indignant and opens his mouth to retort. Whatever he wants to say becomes shredded and dead in his voice box when he follows Ame-warashi’s parasol and where it’s pointing.
There’s a piece of rock jutting out of the side of the mountain. Bonsai trees twist and gnarl on it, seeming to create a cage around some sort of entrance. A soft, golden glow leaks out between what little space is between the trunks.
Every now and then, a dark speck will flit out, making it a little ways away from the trees before fading into dust and nonexistence.
“She’s in there,” Ame-warashi says, and Arthur realizes with a jolt how her voice quavers, how her face is screwed up in pain and clear discomfort. “I - I can’t get any closer than this.”
A mountain wind bears down upon them in a gentle rush, carrying with it the scent of leaves and dirt. Ariel quivers and leans into Arthur’s warmth.
“All right. Thank you, Ame-warashi.” He gives her a curt nod as she turns and begins her way back down the mountain, but he doesn’t move as an idea strikes him. “Ariel…wait a minute, I think I know something that might help.”
Ariel nods, patient and understanding, and Arthur swears he can feel even that minute breeze as he shuts his eyes, trying to summon from within him a powerful well of magic. Even if he looks ridiculous, it is better than….
…Better than….
“What…what the bloody hell?!” His eyes shoot open again, and his body goes rigid, his eyes wide and terrified.
“Master Kirkland?” Ariel asks, leaning forward and into his line of vision. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Arthur’s eyes widen, and he takes a few deep, panicked breaths. No. This…this isn’t possible. It shouldn’t be….
The taint. Of course. The damned taint. Arthur grits his teeth and curses the witch with every atom in his body before remembering that Ariel is waiting for him. “It’s nothing, Ariel,” he says, beginning to pick his way up the craggy slope. “Let’s go. We don’t want to keep Jorougumo waiting any more than we have to.”
Ariel whimpers a little, but follows him up the path to the outcropping. Arthur doesn’t say what’s on his mind, the thought that’s making his hands tremble and his throat tight.
He can’t access his magic. He can’t turn into Britannia Angel, the strongest of all his magical forms.
He swallows the fear clawing its way up his throat and prays for luck as he stops at the edge of the dark, dank trees. He takes a deep breath, pushes aside a tangle of branches, and ducks into the decadent warmth.
His vision and mind start to swim in immediate confusion, his entire body slowing and numbing as Croatoan’s scent and sound fill his senses. His mind starts to float, to expand across this world. He is tired and unprepared; his eyes flutter as he starts to let it win.
“M-Master Kirkland!”
Arthur swears, one arm coming to cover his face as a great breeze blows and gusts around him. When it settles, he lowers his hand and blinks. He can think again; the soft, seductive notes and scents of Croatoan sound faint and boring against the high, sweet music and clean air.
“Ariel?” he whispers to the cleansing presence. “Is that you?”
No answer, but he thinks he feels a breeze flicker through his hair.
“…So this is what you help out with,” he says, and grins. “Thank you.”
Arthur takes a step and rejoices to find that walking is easy again. He takes another, and another, and together he and Ariel travel down into the dark depths of the cavern.
The trees fade from sight, but Croatoan hangs even in the darkness. Arthur can sense it beyond his little bubble, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.
“So is the world itself encroaching on this place?” asks Arthur. “Or is it that Sycorax can travel between realities herself?”
He feels wind flicker over his shoulders, as though Ariel’s shrugging.
Arthur licks his lips and thinks, one hand almost reaching out to the wall for support before remembering where he was. “At any rate,” he says, withdrawing his hand, “we have to get rid of this…thing. It’s what’s imprisoning Jorougumo -”
A scream splices through the air. The sound is high and unearthly, as though many demons are screaming at once.
Arthur’s first impulse is to turn and bolt out of the cave and not look back. He does end up bolting - but he lets his feet carry him deeper into the cave, into the darkness. He knows he’s getting close when he sees a soft light shine from down tunnel hall. With a sharp curse he puts on speed, closing in on the light and -
Arthur digs a heel into the stone and comes to a stop just before he stumbles into a wide open space in the cavern.
Alfred stands in profile to him, but Arthur’s gaze is drawn to the dark, curly hair and soft, black wings of the woman standing behind him. Sycorax smiles, a gentle, benevolent thing that shines in her face and eyes, seductive and gentle. She pulses with the orange-gold color of sunset, and it glints off of Texas, hiding blue eyes that seem darker than before. Arthur fights down the sickness searing in his throat.
“Where is it?” she asks, and her voice is made of goosebumps and quickened pulses, of spiders crawling over his skin.
Arthur sees Alfred lift his hand and extend his sword. He follows the silver glint to the very tip and sees what it points to.
The spirit is bound to her very fingers and toes in roots and wood, limbs splayed and arms stretched out to her sides. Her blonde hair is wild, and her eyes look at Sycorax’s knight with a sultry expression.
All around her, on the walls and ceiling, are spiderwebs, torn and destroyed beyond all repair.
“Jorougumo,” Arthur mouths to himself, and feels a light breeze thread through his fingers.
“I won’t ask again. Where is it?”
Jorougumo pouts at Sycorax, and though she’s prone and trapped Arthur feels fear skitter down his back. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Caliban, my dear?”
Alfred twitches a wrist; the tip of his sword flicks her collarbone. Arthur winces and bites his lip to keep from calling out.
Jorougumo’s thick eyelashes flutter over her violet eyes as she thinks. “…Oh, you mean that! The boy’s eye, you mean?”
“If you hand it over, we shall spare your life,” Alfred says. His eyes are dead, save for a backlight of something sinister underneath the color. Arthur swallows back bile and the blood on his tongue.
Jorougumo is unafraid. Her smile comes easily.
“That’s a shame, that you came all this way for that thing. I can’t give it to you.”
Arthur thinks he sees Sycorax’s hand tighten on Alfred’s shoulder. “I can sense it, though. You do have it on you….”
“Oh, I have it,” says Jorougumo, her voice light and and thin. “But it’s part of me. I ate it. You won’t be getting it anytime soon.” She grins again. “It was delicious.”
Alfred doesn’t make a sound, just stares at her with calculating eyes. Arthur licks his lips and tries to think of how he can solve this.
“I see. You’re useless to me, then.” Alfred draws his sword back, and Arthur’s stomach plummets when he realizes he’s going to run her through and -
“Stop!”
Arthur stumbles into the clearing, hand outstretched. He falters a few steps, and then stops as he realizes he’s revealed himself to three sets of dark, sinister eyes.
“I thought my Caliban dealt with you,” Sycorax says. Arthur ignores her and the heavy threads in her voice.
“Alfred, dammit, wake up!” He tries to throw as much power behind his voice as he can; he might as well be trying to reason with a brick wall. “Take a bloody look at yourself! Is this what a hero does?”
Arthur sees Alfred blink, thinks something like awareness is glowing at the back of those red eyes. Arthur presses further, pleading and coaxing him like he did when Alfred wouldn’t eat his supper. “Alfred. Drop the sword, please. Come back.” If Arthur can just get Alfred to drop the sword, then maybe he can coax him the rest of the way out of this madness. His focus narrows onto Alfred; everything else takes a backseat in his consciousness
He didn’t sense the way Ariel swirled around him, winds thin but urgent in his hair; he doesn’t see the way Sycorax’s lips curl up.
So he doesn’t feel the ropelike wood tighten around his ankle until it’s too late.
The roots burst from the ground in a sudden, vicious thrust, twining around his middle, his legs and arms. Arthur cries out and struggles, trying to free himself, but the wood tightens around his knees and holds them straight. He’s immobile by the time they slow and stop, but that doesn’t stop him from clenching his hands and glaring down at Alfred.
Arthur feels Ariel buffet around him, panicked and scared. “It’s no use,” Sycorax says, taking slow steps forward with Alfred at her side. “He’s trapped in pine, little sprite.” Her voice takes on a sultry, self-satisfied sound. “You remember the pine, don’t you?”
Arthur swallows the saliva resting thick and uncomfortable on his tongue. “Ariel, don’t waste your energy. I’ll be fine.” Arthur feels one last, fervent flick of wind over his hair, but Ariel’s breezes cease, and Arthur feels more alone and vulnerable than ever.
“Caliban,” Sycorax says, and Arthur watches as Alfred makes his way past her to in slow, measured steps, stopping in front of him.
“I can sense your power,” Sycorax says. Arthur lifts his head, but keeps his eyes focused on her forehead - to make it look like he was meeting her gaze. “But it’s trapped under my seal, isn’t it?”
Arthur grits his teeth and refuses to answer.
Sycorax steps forward, reaching up and over Alfred’s head to take his chin in her spindly, strong (so strong) hands so that they look one another in the eye. “I could remove the seal from your soul,” she whispers, and Arthur holds his breath against the sick-sweet smell of her breath. “I could give you back your most powerful magic and more, if you swear yourself to me.”
Arthur’s eyelids flutter, and for a moment he almost believes her - almost secedes his will. But something funny happens when he looks into her eyes. If he looks deep enough, he can almost see the blue there. Blue.
Alfred’s blue.
The reason he’s hear rushes up and into him like the sound of a bell.
With a smile, he turns his lips into her palm - and relishes her screech when he bites the tender, webbed flesh between her thumb and pointer. He grins as she pulls back, brows furrowed in triumph. “That enough answer for you?” he asks, all smug and cocky -
And then Alfred elbows him in the gut and knocks the smile right off his face, along with the wind out of his lungs. “You better pray that she wishes for a swift death,” Alfred whispers into Arthur’s ear as he doubles over as much as he can.
As he coughs and blinks through his tears, he sees her fury smooth back into a serene self-confidence.
“That’s fine, if that’s what you want.”
Arthur’s eyes flick up to Jorougumo - as his eyes clear, he sees that her bindings have loosened and shriveled. If she moves in the right ways, she can get free - but before he can communicate this to her in some way, Sycorax turns his blood to ice in his veins with her words.
“I’ll just kill you, then, and eat your magic. It feels so rich and strong - I might even have enough to conquer those lands beyond Croatoan…perhaps even enough to pass into the realm you mortals walk.”
Arthur’s stomach churns and his body goes numb, and from the corner of his eye he can see Alfred raising his sword, ready to finish what he started in the clearing. Eyes wide and breath shallow, he tilts his head and flicks a finger towards the exit. Run, he thinks. Get out of here. Someone needs you.
He sees Alfred pull his arm back and shuts his eyes. Alfred, he thinks. Alfred, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for the last words you ever heard from my mouth. I’m sorry that I never told you -
Sycorax screams.
Arthur’s eyes snap open to the sight of Sycorax struggling and flailing, entangling herself in a cocoon of thick, white threads. Jorougumo’s lips are pursed, and sticky-thin strands of spider-silk shoot from her mouth to ensnare Sycorax.
Arthur does not feel hope. Not even curiosity. Because Sycorax’s roots burst the web from the inside-out and rip Jourougumo’s magic apart. “You bitch!” she shrieks, whirling around to meet calm purple eyes and a serene smile.
Arthur watches with a stupid expression on his face. The roots weaken ever-so-little, and in a sudden rush of understanding he realizes that she intended to distract the two of them. To give him a chance.
And they both know the price she will pay for it.
“No,”Arthur breathes, the air in his lungs dread-heavy and brimmed with bile.
“I hate people like you,” she says, her easy voice unchanging and soft. “He did the same thing.”
“No, Jorougumo!”
He struggles, but the bonds aren’t weak enough, he can’t move, he can only watch as -
“Caliban!”
“Yes.”
Alfred charges forward and thrusts his sword up and in. The soft stomach of Jorougumo’s belly yields, the sword sliding in with soft, disgusting sounds. Her eyes go wide; her mouth opens, something dark and vile trickling from the edge.
“NO!”
Arthur watches as his only chance to save Kiku slumps forward, crumpling to the ground as her bonds give way.
___
Endnotes: So yeah, some definite significant changes here. I decided to add Sycorax and define her character, as well as why she wants Arthur dead, a bit more. Also hinted at the reason as to why Arthur needs Jorougumo alive for those who haven’t read Holic (those of you who have read it, and the original KM fill, know why). Also decided to take out Arthur’s CMOA Britannia!Angel part, because it didn’t make sense in the original context of the story - if he could use it there, why didn’t he use it through the rest of the story?
I’ll try to finish off chapter 3 tomorrow, as well as post 4 over Mon. and Tues. - I have a long weekend. I’ll post at least part of 5 on Sat., and then updates should be weekly from then on.
Comments/concrit welcome - thanks for stopping by!