Chapter Text
It was the first time out of many that Riki and his littermates from Guardian escaped the confines of the warding poles, and the first and only time they trespassed through the Kazara wheat fields. As had been passed down through the generations of Ceres village youths, they were attempting to find Abis Castle. More specifically, they sought a lookout tower on the very edges of Abis Castletown.
One could see it if they climbed just a little ways into Hot Crack, the almost intolerable heat of the cursed valley between Ceres and the rest of the world, ensconced on each side by the Dana Bahn Mountains. Only the bravest (or stupidest) of Ceres villagers crossed the valley without plenty preparation.
However, there was a path that children could take. For some reason, this path could only be spoken of by children to children, remembered just the same. While most kids attempted the trek, most never completed that task of climbing the lookout. They passed out along the path while waking up at the door of Guardian.
The five of them finished packing, walked to the small entrance to the beginning of the path.
“They could have been y-ing, Wikki,” Guy murmured, wiping away the sweat already beading across his forehead. “They ‘wolder.” His large front teeth had both been popped off last week after a game of King of the Mountain, and he had remarkable trouble making sounds with the combination of lips and now-missing teeth. None would tease him about it, though, not with Riki being as strong as he was small.
Riki’s small body was already crawling inside. “You saw how Langeais acted when ya asked her. Are ya sayin’ she was just in on the joke?
Guy didn’t have anything to say to that except, “You sood call ‘er Madam Langeais,” and he crawled in behind, going as prone as possible so that his ears, equally large like his baby teeth, didn’t scratch against the top of the tunnel. It was hard, because just being there made his ears stand on end.
Luke complained, “It’s so hot…” With his reptilian skin, and nowhere to release his heat, he had the most to lose, which was why Riki decided he would go in the middle, just in case someone needed to push and/or pull him through.
Norris went right after him because he was the strongest, but he couldn’t go last because he was almost blind in the darkness, and it would freak him out (his words) to be at the end. Of course, they were all pretty much blind but for their Guardian Stones glowing their soft green light. Going to sleep with them would take them to the door of Guardian where on the other side was a lecture to end all lectures.
Besides Norris’ concern, Sid was also last because no matter how low he put his head, his antlers would scratch the walls, sending a steady stream of dirt around and behind him.
That’s how they crawled through the tunnel.
Riki could barely contain his excitement. Seeing Langeais’ eyes cloud over with old magic convinced him that on the other side of the path lied the fantastic so wanting in Ceres. The exhausting climb to barely see the tower was followed by the quick check to see if the tunnel existed.
“The tower is huge! You’ll see the rest of the world from there!” Django had told them. He was almost an adult, and worked hard to be able to take the Knight’s Trial. “You’ll see Midastown and Tanagura City. If the weather is perfect, you’ll see the shine of the Eos Tower where Our Glorious Jupiter dwells.”
Riki didn’t give a flying fuck about Jupiter, but the paintings of Eos were admittedly impressive, and to see something other than the tight confines of the warding poles drew him more than anything. None could come back into the village without a Guardian Stone, and the wards sounded an alarm alike a cacophony of birds’ cries if a child crossed the lines.
“For some reason, even if a kid walked between the two red trees to the east, the alarm doesn’t sound, but you can only come in and out through the red trees.”
Before they left, they tested out the extent of their Guardian Mother’s knowledge: “Oi, Langeais, you know about them red trees to the east?”
“Madam, Riki! Madam!”
“Maaaaadaaaaaammmmm.”
Madam Langeias had sighed from the depths of her soul before taking the question seriously.
She stopped completely in the middle of feeding one of the children, red eyes twitching out of focus, and her starkly white doe ears sank slowly to the side of her head.
“There are no red trees to the east,” the Madam said slowly.
“What you talkin’ ‘bout? Langie? Are you okay?”
Her eyes focused. “Madam Langeais, Riki!”
“Maaaaadaaaaaam! The red trees!”
“At Asteroid Lake?”
Guy corrected softly, “No, Madam, the ones to the east.”
After the familiar pause, the Madam repeated, “There are no red trees to the east.”
So there must be something out there! On the other side of the path! No way that type of magic would affect all the adults wasn’t also something cool. There had to be something cool on the other side, something amazing that he had never seen before, and he wanted to be one of the few who found it.
While he didn’t know about how few children managed to get to the tower, and in fact didn’t know that anyone made it other than Django, he felt as if he wasn’t the first to make it, but he’ll be one of the ones to come back and talk to Django about it. Him and his friends, of course.
First, he had to survive sweating his skin off while crawling through the increasingly narrow space. No wonder no adults knew about this; there was no way they could fit.
From far back, further back than Riki expected: “Riki! I gotta go back!”
“Sid? Are your antlers stuck?” He the scratching had been gone for a while now, he finally noticed.
“Yea! I can’t! I can’t even move right now… I think I might have to break the tips.”
Pop! Pop!
He did just that.
“Oh, ok, be careful!” Riki continued forward.
Guy murmured from his spot in the line, “We should all go back.”
“I can’t be last!” Norris wailed. “I want to go back too!” A moment later: “I’m gonna go back!”
From further back: “I need you to kick my antlers, Norris!”
“Be careful,” whispered Guy. “Are you sure you don’t wanna go back?”
“I’m sure!” Riki said at once, with a bit of a whine.
They continued crawling. Impossibly, the air grew more stifling, but Riki could hear through his own small, furry ears the wheat swaying in the summer night, and smelled their sunburned stalks. He could hear crickets, and the creaking of the open-air pockets that seemed to infest the mountain overhead. One good crackle and all of it would squish the three of them like bugs.
Three… Three of them?
“Luke?!”
Guy screamed: “Ah! Why you scweaming, Wikki?”
“Is Luke behind you?”
“Uh…”
He could hear Guy kicking behind him, scoot backwards, kick, kick, scooted, kicked. Riki heard the thump of sandaled foot on a body far behind.
“Let’s go back, Wikki! He’s not moving!”
“You go back with him!”
“What?”
“You go back.” Riki continued forward, now more determined than ever and, just slightly, a bit happy to know that he was now alone to do what he wanted and not worry a lick about anyone else. He knew what he wanted and he will follow things through!
Guy called out to him, “You better come back, Wikki!”
Guy not staying to pester him about the safety of his conduct surprised Riki just a bit, but he took this as good as permission as any. He would come back with a story of how tall the tower was and how bright Eos’ stone shone. Even though the sweat started to sting his eyes, and he now wanted water more than he’s ever wanted water in his life, he believed steadfastly in the magic he looked for.
“YES!”
Riki popped out of the hole, nearly getting his head stuck with his hand underneath his chin. There was no way Sid would have made it.
“I made it!”
He jumped around in circles, giggling in a way that he would never have done in front of others.
He stopped.
The area before him held no wheat, or the tower, just the castle town walls. Riki heard nothing of any plantlike sort- no, he did. Turning around, wheat waves reached his ears miles away, where the other side of Hot Crack opened up in a wide, cooling gesture. On the other side of the heated valley, Ceres had to be there. Riki turned around in circles, looking for the cave, but didn’t find it. He did find the tower blending into Hot Crack, and then he saw the hole he had popped from, something small, nothing so grandiose as a secret tunnel, more like a rabbit’s hideaway hole.
Riki smelled Ceres from the entrance.
“Magic?”
From over his shoulder, he heard the calm, soft voice of a complete stranger, “Didn’t work on you, apparently.”
Riki snapped around.
An impossibly huge woman of a snow-white hue stood from between the wheat fields and the castle, wearing the simplest of white dresses. Her wide eyes and elliptical pupils, her long straight hair, her skin flickering with the sparkle of scales, all shining white. She twitched her head to the side, and with her fingers interlaced, she re-laced them with interest, snow-white eyebrows raised.
“You can see me, little one?”
“Uh, yea.” Riki swallowed thickly. “Are you a g-g-ghost?”
Her thin lips stretched into a smile. “Are you afraid of ghosts?”
“No!” Riki sniffed, jutting his fists onto his hips. “So, I don’t care if you are a ghost or not.”
“I see. Good. Then I won’t tell you if I am a ghost or not.”
“Good!” That was not good, but he didn’t want the scary lady to see that on his face. He turned to the castle and started walking towards it, lifting his fit with stiff jerks. Maybe if he got inside the castle walls, he’ll see Eos, which was blocked from his view.
The woman warned, “You should return, while you have this second chance. There is a Midnight Run tonight.”
Riki didn’t know what a Midnight Run was, but he still said, “I’m good!”
Riki found it weird that the woman was so large and walked so softly, even if her obviously huge feet stepped on grass. He could ask her who she was and why she was there and why she cared if he went into the castle, but she creeped him out and he couldn’t keep the shakes from his fingers.
“Little one!”
“I’m not that little!” His tiny feet marched forward.
“Six years old is very little.”
“I’m ten!”
“Oh?” She suddenly appeared at his side. It had to be magic; Riki heard no extra steps. “You’re exceedingly small for a child of ten years.”
Again: “I’m not that little! You’re just really big!”
The pinprick end of her long fingernail tapped the side of her mouth. “You have me there.”
She chuckled, and then let out a short gasp. Riki looked below her chin and saw her reach out her hand into some invisible wall, an invisible wall that turned her own hand invisible.
“You’re not a ghost! You’re just cursed!” Riki said with relief, but his wariness returned with a start. “Why are you cursed? Did you do something bad?”
Standing still at her invisible border she answered softly, “Yes.”
“What you do?”
“What did I do? Nothing evil, per se, just foolish. Just one drink from one man has created all the misery in the world.
“But enough about me, little one. You have been given a second chance. Return to Ceres.”
At her instructions, a child’s watery scream bellowed from the castle with an explosion of greenish fire peaking over the high crumbling stone. Wailing carried on for moments longer before a guttural wretch ended it.
Riki turned from the sound to find the white lady turned around, tears falling down soft.
Heart in his throat, Riki whispered, “Can I help?”
She blinked at Hot Crack, and then seemed to actually hear the words he had said, her long ears twitching the small hanging diamonds to a twinkle.
“Help? Why would you help me?”
“Why would you help me? Saying I should go back and stuff.”
She smiled, pushing a tear down a different path.
“I am an adult and you are a child. Adults should protect children.”
“Well, that’s just-uh opinion.”
“Yes, an opinion.”
“And it’s my opinion that children can protect adults sometimes too.” Riki looked at the castle wall, finding a climbable spot not too far. “Was I supposed to pop up inside the castle?”
The woman shook her head. “You were supposed to be transported to the tower over yonder, where someone would take you against your will and make you into Carpet material.”
“Make? Carpets volunteer.”
Her sad eyes fluttered closed.
“I knew it! I bet even the Fashion Plates aren’t volunteers either!”
She shuddered, glancing at Abis. “How perceptive you are. They are not.”
“I knew it! Wait… Does that mean merchants ain’t a real job either?”
“Mercantilism, if that is what you mean, is most certainly a profession. Is that what you wish to do? Leave Ceres and sell wares?”
Riki nodded with a grin. “People say I knack for it!”
“Do they now?”
“And Langie says I could knack for being a Knight, but I don’t know how to follow directions. But! She’s right! I’m not gonna follow directions and I’mma go in there and see if someone needs my help. I’m good at hiding and if… Um... If kids are being hurt, I’ll hide them and then bring them out here to you when the coast is clear.”
She shook her head. “Do not bring them here.”
Riki protested, “But you said you’re an adult.”
“I cannot help them, little one. This is only a projection of myself, and this projection only goes this far. I’ll only be able to see them. They won’t even see me.”
Several screams erupted at once, chilling Riki’s spine and making his narrow entertwined tails stand on end.
“Do you want to see them?”
Her silence told Riki all he needed to know, even as her mouth said, “No. I do not. They’ll be tortured for their rest of their lives, and I cannot help them.”
“Where are you? Maybe I can walk them back to you,” Riki tried again. His view of life churned with an oppressive darkness which heretofore was blocked from his child’s vision. Surely there was some bright light to shine on this situation. The nice, scary lady depressed him with her seemingly bottomless pessimism.
“My curse makes me unable to even look the direction of where I am, much less speak of it. Just know it’s far away, further than you’ll reach even if you spread your business in every cardinal direction for the next millennia.”
“So you’re at Eos Tower!”
She disappeared, just like that, blipped from existence and instead of being confused on why she left, he instead believed that the curse made her disappear because he was right.
Like she had said, he was most perceptive.
As well as that, he was no liar. He ran to the protruding stones of the castle wall and climbed quickly, the strength in his little legs bringing him up top and around in moments where others would have taken at least ten minutes, not even taking account the very likely likelihood of falling down and having to start over.
The up-close look of Abis Castle Riki had demolished his expectations. While the walls fell apart from the outside, Abis Castle itself stood tall and majestic, very much in use. In fact, Riki turned around and saw the walls from the inside had substantial upkeep, with tapestries infused with magic and real skill covering every inch that didn’t have a marble statue or some ginormous weapon fit for a scary white cursed lady.
In effect, the place proved the most glorious location Riki’s ever laid eyes on.
Then a child- looking much like the ghost lady- climbed out of a ground floor window, landing on their face. They were completely naked. Riki couldn’t explain why, but the thought of being killed naked put fresh indignancy to the atrocity taking place.
Foolishly, the child was running straight down away from the window, under full view of a full moon, so Riki went on all fours to cross the distance before someone else got to the window. The other child stopped in their tracks at the sight of this speeding shadow, fleeing back to the window, and impossibly foolishly, attempted to climb back up!
Riki grabbed their leg to pull them down, shoving their head back and down way underneath the concrete windowsill longer than his arm.
With little time to spare, Riki felt the body of an adult slam into the window’s space.
“Iason came out here! He must have gone back inside!” yelled some woman in annoyance. “Damn it… What the fuck happened!”
Heavy boots joined her at the window.
“Just gotta call through the mic. Some Ceres kids made it through the tunnel the long way, none of them ever made it to the tower even. Django couldn’t get to them before they made their way back to Guardian- they don’t remember a thing though, from what the Madam says.”
The woman sighed loudly. “The Carpet Tunnel fucked up and messed up the collars? Why is all that magic connected?!”
“It’s old magic. I heard no one can even do it anymore.”
“There’s only three of us left to collar them all again! We should just leave them here to starve instead of trying to collar them and being burned alive.”
Her friend scoffed. “It’ll take them decades to starve, and they can leave now, without the collars. The only reason anyone is being burned is because they are trying to hurt them or rape them. Just talk to them like babies and give them food and they’ll be fine.”
“What if they already saw one of their siblings being killed- attempting to be killed?”
“Idiot! C’mon, let’s find one of them that’s fully healed up, then!”
With that, they left the window.
“Okay, let’s get outta here,” Riki instructed, pulling on the frail pale arm.
It looked frail. It was not. Riki could barely move it.
Still, the child whispered, “You’re very strong.”
“C’mon! Iason, yea? Let’s go. Before they start looking for you outside!”
“I’m not going with a dwarf who’s just trying to steal me for cheap. I’d rather starve here in Abis.”
Riki gave the child a look of exasperation, but was arrested by the sad blue eyes around elliptic pupils, and the wan but round face glinting with barely-there scales. Unabashedly, he continued roaming his eyes over the narrow shoulders, the pinkest nipples in the universe, and the lumps that counted for ‘pee-pees’ for ‘girlies’. Iason covered himself there and Riki’s eyes snapped back up, now fully abashed.
“I’m not a dwarf!” he said too loudly, dropping his words to a whisper. “See my ears? And my tails? I even got wings!” He pulled up his shirt to showcase the thin wings that will never fly.
“A dwarf can have all of those,” Iason told him. Still, their blue eyes eyed Riki’s tails curiously. “But your back is not that of an adult dwarf. Which means you’re just a mongrel from Ceres.”
“Don’t call me that!”
Iason huffed. “What? It’s true.”
“I’m Riki from Ceres!”
“Who’s a mongrel.”
“Alright, I’m not gonna call you Iason. You’re just a Fashion Plate.”
Riki huffed now as Iason looked down with hands clenched tightly.
Then he smelled the salt from their tears.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it! Don’t cry! C’mon! Let’s go over the wall so you can meet the scary lady.”
“I don’t wanna meet a scary lady!”
“She’s nice, though.”
“Nice and scary?”
“Yea. Like Madam Langeais when you steal an apple from the kitchen.”
“Oh.” Iason nodded. “I understand now.”
“You gonna come?”
“Ok…”
Iason didn’t seem that convinced, but they followed at least, while Riki listened out for any bad adults. Once they reached the wall, Riki climbed up quick as usual, finding four stones to make the less convenient trek on the neat stone.
Iason grabbed hold of a single rock sticking out and threw himself across the wall in one fluid movement.
Riki couldn’t help but yell, “You said I was strong!”
“Yes?”
“But you just went whoo over the wall just like that!”
“I didn’t say you were stronger than me.”
Riki pouted.
A familiar gasp had Riki turning around to the scary white lady. She had her hands over her heart like what the helpers at Guardian would do when he would kiss the boo-boos of some stupid little kid. So that means he did something right!
“Where is the lady?” Iason asked, turning his head every which way.
Riki now just remembered that the lady said they won’t be able to see her. “She’s right here, but you can’t see her.”
Iason’s blue eyes went wide, but the pupils sharpened razor-thin. “What trickery is this? Are you some old man in a child’s body? What shall you gain from doing this to me?!”
The woman said softly, “Mink.”
So Riki said softly, “Mink?”
Iason’s face softened so much, Riki believed they transformed into an even younger version of themselves!
“Why did you call me Mink?” Iason asked in a whisper, as if believing things to be too good to be true was too good to be true.
“She said it.”
“That’s my middle name… Ask her who’s my hatchmate.”
“She can hear you.” Riki waited for the woman to answer. “She said Raoul?”
“Mother!” Iason reached out, going straight through his mother. “I felt her! Just a small bit. Is it a projection?”
Riki grinned from ear to ear. “Yep! But only I can see her for some reason.”
“Then that means you’re the one causing all the magical problems. But you’re a baby!”
“I’m ten!”
“We’re the same age?!” Iason stopped in his tracks, green fire leaving his mouth with each word: “That means Mother didn’t leave us in the castle. I knew it! They kidnapped us! I knew it! I knew it! I will kill them all! I don’t care about the Cryptic stones! They’ll have to melt me to mush to stop me!”
Jupiter screeched, “No! Riki! By the gods, tell him to make his way home. If… By the gods… By Lord Zeus… If he makes his way home… This sorrow shall end! Just one of them needs to make it. And I’ll find them all.”
Iason demanded, “What is she saying?”
Riki summed up, “She says if you make it home, the curse will be broken. She says only one of you needs to make it and she can find the rest of ya.”
“But… I can’t make it on my own. Any adult that I ask for help will try to sell me or use me…” Iason sniffed. Shortly, he was sobbing. “I want to go home.”
Jupiter fell to her knees, fingers caressing around and through Iason’s cheek. “Such torture to be so close and so far. I am at a lost. If only I could get close to a Summer’s Game.”
Realizing the Summer Games, Riki suddenly yelled out, “I’mma be a Knight!”
The two of them turned at once, and Riki suddenly thought of how pretty they were. They were pretty people.
“I’ll be a Knight and fight for Iason! And when they give me my station, I’ll just ignore them and take him home!”
Jupiter shook her head- so negative- and she told him, “When you go back through that tunnel, you shall forget everything.”
“Maybe it won’t work?”
“If it doesn’t, you’ll never return and shall die of thirst.”
“Oh… Well… Okay, here.”
Riki took out his Guardian stone.
“If I forgets, you can ‘member me and remind me when they make you a prize at a Summer Game. If I die, you can find Guy, or Norris, or Sid. Luke is a meanie sometimes, but you can try him, too.”
“Foolish! Little one! If you don’t have your Guardian stone, you might get lost! If you go outside the warding poles and some creature or adult threatens you, you will be taken! That stone keeps you safe!”
While Jupiter lectured him, Riki watched Iason press the stone into his hair and then tie it up in a hump.
“I suppose I should return and put the collar back on.” Iason stared at the castle wall without moving.
Waiting, Riki asked, “What the collar do?”
“Makes me weak, tired. I can’t breathe fire either. I might as well not be a dragon.”
“What’s a dragon?”
Iason sighed. “Doesn’t matter. I won’t be able to say it with the collar on anyway.”
“Oh.”
“Do you not need this stone? I feel great magic from it.”
“Nah. It just tells me where’s home, but I can already see it from here.”
“I see.”
“You want me to stay until you’re ready to go back?”
Iason’s mouth quivered as fresh tears fell around his mouth. Just as he was about to answer, a yell from the Abis wall: “There’s one of them out here! And some sort of black animal!”
“GO HOME, LITTLE ONE!” Iason’s mother bellowed with such energy and volume, Riki was on all fours at once, leaping into the tunnel and struggling to get through, or at least far enough.
From over his shoulders, he heard the bad adult at the end of the tunnel, “Wait. Did that thing come out of the tunnel- it’s a kid? Hey. Iason. Look, I lost my Cryptic stone, but I promise you that I won’t put you in the collar. Just come with me. You can’t fit down that hole anyway. And it’s so hot down there, you’ll die all thirsty. C’mon.
“Wait. C’mon, put the fire away. I promise you-”
“You saw my friend.”
“What? It doesn’t matter! He’ll be dead very soon.”
“Just in case.”
“Just in case? You’re going to kill me just in case?”
“Yes.”
Riki could see the fire from the tunnel, and he continued crawling, hoping he remembered everything, the scary mom lady, Iason, his promise, and that he wouldn’t die of thirst.
He didn’t die. And he didn’t remember.