2021-02-06 - The Brighter Side of Fear

This is the most boring shit ever.

Somewhere, somebody reads a story and realises that it is both dated and dull. It's not a bad story as such -- but come on, this is the 21st century.

Why does the hero have to be a boy? There should be a girl hero. Or is that just genderswap? I did that already. How about -- a boy and a girl?

Once upon a time, a father had three children.

And like, the girl is not like other girls or something. She wants to do her own thing. And she's got a pet. Not a dog because that's boring. She's got a -- raven. Covids are cool.

The oldest son was clever and intelligent, and knew how to do most things. The middle daughter was smart and cunning, and resourceful. The younger son, they said --

He doesn't have to be that dumb. Maybe he's just really nice and sweet. The kind of guy who has a cat. A talking cat.

The younger son, they said, was sweet and gentle. When they did their chores, the daughter would be followed around by a talking raven that she had found with a broken wing once and nurtured back to health. And the youngest son would spend his time with a talking cat who was very smart.

Oldest son doesn't get anything, though, because he's an asshole. Oldest son is always an asshole.

The sexton of the village --

What village? Who cares? Somewhere in Europe. Probably looks like something from Beauty and the Beast. The daughter probably looks like Belle.

-- is a kindly man. He's not sure why the boy must bring his sister and their little menagerie, but he asks no questions. He has been tasked to teach the boy how to shudder, and that's what he's going to do. He tells the young ones that they will be helping around the house and that one of their tasks will be to ring the church bell. He puts them to work, and he feeds them well, because he is a kindly man.

A day or two later, the sexton walks into the room where the boy and the girl is sleeping. He wakes them with a prod to the shoulder each and says, "Children! You must wake up! It is midnight, and you must ring the church bell. Evil is afoot, and the sound of the bells will drive away the forces of evil. Put your clothes on and climb the stairs to the church tower, and ring the bell until dawn breaks."

This will teach that silly boy the meaning of fear, the sexton tells himself as he watches the children leave. Then he sneaks out the back door and runs to the church to get there before them. He has hidden away a sheet in the belfry and he puts it on.

When the children step into the darkened church tower, so silent and echoing, sitting in the darkened church yard of graves and mausoleums, what do they see atop the stairs? A figure, a ghost wearing its white burial shroud, risen from its lonely grave, waiting in silence.

The Raven was asleep as all good ravens do when the sun is down and stars shine in the sky. Of sure it had pruned its feathers and stayed awake until the girl was asleep, that was it's job now. To watch over her since she had rescued it from certain death at the hands of a cat. Maybe not the cat with which it shared this abode, but a cat none the less. So it made the relationship between bird and cat tense and filled with little jibes. As the door opened and the Sexton arrived she had woken and begun to cry in agitation in the words of her kind. The sexton hadn't earned the right to be spoken too like a real being yet, so he couldn't understand her. And rules were rules on who she could allow to understand the ravens too, otherwise the world would be full of raven chatter and no human would get a word in edge wise. Which this Raven thought was a delightful idea, but alas was not to be.

Ruffling her feathers she had been ready to peck his hand as he shook The Girl, but let it be with a sharp caw and hoping over to her headboard menacingly. Those wings spread and flapping till he gave his reason. Evil? Afoot? The Raven turned it's head to the cute little window that it often came and went from. Or just stood in to enjoy the different winds in this village. As The Girl woke she made a happy rumbling caw and leaned down to gently adjust her mussed hair. >Evil things afoot? Hah! We shall smite them, shall we not?< She said before flying to the window to peck upon it's glass.

Then Kailey awoke and it was really weird. She gave a shake only it didn't feel right and she turned her head, seeing colors that were impossible for humans eyes to see. Instead of her mouth dropping open, her beak did. Can a Raven look surprised? This one can and she made a surprised squawk. >Oh...Oh me oh my...< Came a less pert and protective voice. It has yet to hit her that she is a Ravn. Instead she peers at The Girl and then The Boy, taking in all the colors they are. Boy will she be disappointed later when she cannot recreate them. > Well fuck...ummm...hello?< Uncertainty makes her ruffle her feathers again as she looks between the other three. Noting their glimmer and cocking her head sideways as birds do.

There are only so many people who glimmer as bright as two of the people in this room. Unfortunately she cannot place them by their colors for she sees so many more. >So...who all is on this jaunty ride of strangeness? And...whose the cat?< Her black eyes flick down to the pussycat and her head tilts the other way. Then her head tilts down and her wings come up as she realizes something. She is not human and those -are- in fact wings. There's another squawk of surprise and this time she sort of falls over. Which is really not something one sees every day. This poor Raven suddenly seems to forget how to use feet or wings and flops onto it's side where it writhes to roll over. Only to roll fully out of the small casement and onto the floor. >OW! Mother fucker!< That probably narrows it down to who is the Raven to some of the individuals here. Kailey does tend to swear like a sailor.

The girl, possessed by a mid-40s man who is used to jolting awake from nightmares and worese, does exactly that: startles up, one hand in a fist, ready to punch--

Wait, no. This is the sexton. It's fine. This is fine. The Dream assures August of that, and he calms. The raven fixes his hair, which makes the girl calmer, and so him.

...hang on.

The whole way to the church the girl is looking at herself, at the boy and the cat and the raven. Not that August can tell without a mirror, but he's the spitting image of his youngest sister, Zelda, at this age. "What the fuck," she growls under her breath.

The raven starts talking, swearing even, and August squints at it. "Who're you," she demands, much like she did of Eleanor Lake well over twenty years ago when dropped into a twelve-year-old body. It was like the intervening thirty-four years of war and death and pain had never happened. She was twelve again, and being asked to ring a church bell in the middle of the goddamned night by this priest. Who the hell thinks a church bell will--

The floating sheet makes her stop, eyes hard. "Take off that sheet, you look dumb in it," she declares.

The Boy, for his part, is possessed by a mid-to-late-20s man for whom waking up -- being woken up -- in the middle of the night also has something of a negative history, even if the flicker of panic doesn't manifest in the same readiness to punch someone, but rather a (perhaps inappropriate for who he's supposed to be) momentary drawing back, and then a blink of confusion. What is...? Who...? Where...?

The Dream settles those questions first, calming him, and then the rest of his mind catches the fact that this reality is not his reality. Except for how right now it is. He blinks, and the eyes he blinks with are distinctly larger in proportion to the rest of his face than anyone here is used to seeing, but the same hazel shade, and the shock of dark curls has barely changed in any way. Someone who knew this-- what is he, a ten-year-old, perhaps, given the twelve-year-old elder sister? -- might or might not recognize the full-grown Aidan as that child, but to anyone familiar with the full-grown Aidan and the ways of Dreams, the resemblance is certainly strong enough to make a fair assumption. "Uh," he says eloquently, small brow furrowed. "...okay. It'll take all night to drive the evil off? Won't it wake everyone up though?" Well, maybe evil being afoot would do that too. Evil being afoot is not, in those terms, his specialist area, so he'll go with the sexton's appraisal here.

The raven's trouble (and potty-mouth) make him laugh, though the swearing isn't nearly identification enough on its own to put a name to the corvid. Certainly not in a raven's voice. "Aidan," The Boy says quietly, "you? And, uh. You okay?" Because thunk. He watches it for any indication of broken wings or the like before they head to the church tower as instructed.

At the top, the boy stops, blinking at the figure and tilting his head. His sister gets her opinion in first, and while he doesn't directly second the looking-dumb remark, he does add, "I mean, I'm pretty sure that's just gonna get in your way? Unless you were aiming to go to sleep, in which case you prolly don't wanna be here 'cause we're gonna be ringing that bell a bunch. It's gonna be loud." He stifles a just-woke-up yawn. "What are you doing up here, anyway?"

So, The Boy has a Cat. This is no fluffy, adorable marmalade kitten. No sleek Siamese. No, the Boy's Cat is lean and scarred from head to toe, ears notched, one fang broken. Midnight black save for gray around his muzzle, with knowing, amused blue eyes. How did the Boy end up with a Cat? Just how any fool ends up with any cat - he fed him, and the Cat, recognizing a sucker when he saw one, has followed him ever after.

A Cat who has been peacefully curled up asleep in the corner, one shadow among many, until the moonbeam glow of reflective retinas appears, followed by that incongruous pink yawn. He stretches fore and aft, exposing black claws, and then pads after the Boy. And because no Cat out of its first fur ever gives anyone a straight answer, the only reply for the Raven is a distinct, "Meow." Not an actual mew - someone saying the word Meow, and with a drawl, no less. If Joe's discommoded to find himself in an actual for-real fursuit, it doesn't show in his body language. No, he's taking this with his usual good-natured ease.

Then the boy shouted to him for the third time, and as that also was to no avail, he ran toward him and pushed the ghost down the stairs. It fell down ten steps and remained lying there in a corner. Then the boy rang the bell, went home, and without saying a word went to bed and fell asleep.

This is wrong. Boy wouldn't do that. Girl might. Cat would probably point and laugh. I'm going to retcon this.

Then the girl shouted to the sexton and told him to take that sheet off because he looked stupid. The priest looked from one to the other. There was the raven, fluttering about like a dark bird of omen from some ghost story -- one with a real ghost. And there was the cat, dark and grim and not at all adorable. None of them were the least bit frightened, least of all the boy for whom the lesson was intended. It dawned on the sexton that maybe he had really done something stupid.

He raised his arms and went, "Boo!"

But when he did so, his foot slipped in the sheet and he fell down ten steps and remained lying there in a corner.

Better.

"Kawley...KAWLey! Of really?" The Raven managed to right itself and boy were those feathers ruffled. But she was otherwise all right. At least she was with people she knew, mostly. Except for the cat. And that 'Meow' only made her feathers ruffle more. "Fine then, be that way pussy...cat," She had kawed in the cat's retreat. Good thing the Dreaming reminded her how to fly because she shot up and to The Girl's shoulder. >Does he not know we can see his skinny, hair legs and stockinged feet from here?< The Raven of the story whispered into The Girl's ear. And then the man is tripping and falling and she lets out a surprised sqwuak. Taking wing from shoulder to stairway handhold near the man.

"He broke his leg and has a concussion, probably..." Kawley speaks without care for silly Raven rules. Hopefully she doesn't give the poor Sexton a heart attack too. "I remember this story! Fairy Tail theater with Bernadette Peters," There's excitement in her raceny voice, instead of any real empathy for the poor Sexton. "Poor guy, that leg is going to bother him the rest of his life," But one gets the sense that she doesn't -really- feel sorry for him. Or maybe that is the corvid talking?

The girl goes from annoyed by the 'boo' and raised arm gesture to horrified at the rather sudden spill down the stairs. When the body settles, she tenses, checking the crumpled heap over. No, no...they're fine. Well, not fine, but they're not dead.

A little shaken by the near miss, she gives the crow an angrier-than-necessary look. It eases once she recognizes the name. "Kawley...Kailey?" She sighs heavily, squints at the 'meow'-ing cat with a drawl. "Pretty sure you're no more a cat than that's a ghost."

She can't recognize Aidan, but then, no one is going to recognize her. "It's August," she explains on a long-suffering sigh. She eyes the bell tower. "Should we go ring it? Will that just call a bunch of monsters?" Then she eyes the heap of sexton. "I guess we could heal him up, even though it's his own dumb fault that happened."

The boy, for his part, goes from confused by the 'boo' and raised-arm gesture to horrified at the sudden spill down the stairs. He's heading that way immediately, taking those steps one at a time but quickly in that way children's legs often do, the wood squeak-thumping with every landing of his unimpressive weight. He drops down to pull the sheet off, revealing the sexton beneath it (shades of Scooby Doo!) but instead of declaring that it was him all the time (duh) is also busy trying to figure out how hurt he is. Turns out the raven's right, and he glances to his sister as she's also been checking, and nods a silent agreement with what appears to have been her assessment as well. Not dead. Almost definitely not dying. Probably not very happy.

Of all of them, the boy really does look the most like his Waking self, but given the loss of over a decade and a half, it's probably just as well he gave his name too. 'Kawley' took him a second, but then amused him; 'August' is much more immediately clear, and he's less inclined to be amused by things at this particular moment. Even if not-dead is a relief. "Well, I mean. It could be worse, but I don't wanna leave him with a leg that's gonna bother him all his life. I mean usually he's the one who's gotta go up and down all those stairs and do the bell thing, right?" He considers the fully-grown unconscious man a moment. "...also I dunno if we can, like... carry him anywhere. Maybe we should get our-- dad?" That being a possibility makes him blink, and hesitate a moment before he shifts down nearer the leg and very gingerly puts his hand on it to see what he can do.

"I dunno if we should go ring it. I guess it depends if there really is evil afoot that needs scaring off with the bell? Otherwise won't we wake everyone up?" He looks to Kawley, She Who Knows the Story, and then to the cat. Black cats in otherworlds these days... but this one's 'meow' and the story's insistence that this is his cat work together in a calming way, and for some reason make him feel like he ought to ask its counsel. Or maybe that's just Aidan-inside knowing they're probably all people he knows. "Whatcha think, bell or no bell?"

The Cat looks grave, save for the dancing light of mischief in its eyes. Joe with a cat's nature over his own is twice as malicious, and far more inclined to act on that malice. He pads down to sniff over the sexton, and affirms, "Yeah, he ain't dead. I mean, y'all knew that. My vote is that we ring the bell. At worst, we'll just wake up a bunch of townspeople.....and if we do call monsters, maybe that's what we're meant to do in this dream."

Then he's turning to the stairs and heading back up them in a series of fluid leaps....all the way up to where the bell rope dangles. He jumps up and seizes it in his claws, but his cat self isn't heavy enough to ring it. So he's left dangling there on a rope that's swaying gently, clearly undecided if he wants to be angry or amused.

The boy and the girl, and the raven too --

-- she wasn't really an asshole, she just played one in a story --

-- checked on the sexton. His leg is at an odd angle --

-- as predicted by She Who Knows The Story, that is the coolest name, I should call the raven that --

-- and there was little question that he has hit his head hard, probably has a concussion. Apart from that, though, he seems to be all right, all things considered. Maybe the old man had learned to not try to scare innocent children?

The cat, meanwhile, jumped to the bell rope and dangled from it. He was not strong enough to sound the bell; his entire body could curl up inside it with ease, if anyone ever felt like taking it down and turning it over, and maybe padding it a little.

Strangely, it was enough.

Ok, let's get on with this, the kids made it, yada yada, boring bits.

No monsters appeared when the church bell was rung at midnight and on to dawn. The villagers were not thrilled but when they were told that children possessed by the Devil himself to work a horrible prank on the sexton, they shook their heads and did nothing. The sexton, of course, did not correct anybody. Maybe he didn't want to admit to sending kids to work at midnight and then stalk them wearing a sheet.

Did they have child protective services back then? Probably not. Whatever.

The father of the boy and the girl scolded them and told them that the devil was in them and had made them harm the poor priest. The boy and the girl both tried to explain that they had done nothing wrong but their father would not listen.

He's like, not very cool.

"Oh," said the father. "I have experienced nothing but unhappiness with you. Get out of my sight. I do not want to look at you anymore."

And so the children did. The boy still wanted to learn how to shudder, and the girl thought that their old man was kind of a dick. The raven stuck with the girl and the cat had no desire to be delegated back to rat chasing duties in the barn. They took fifty talers with them and headed out.

What kind of money is that? I don't even know if that's a lot.

They took fifty dollars with them and headed out, waling down the road, and there they met a stranger. They told him about their plight, and they walked with him until they could see the gallows. "Look," the man said. "There is the tree where seven men married the rope maker's daughter, and now they are learning how to fly. Sit down under that tree and wait for night, boy. Then you will learn how to shudder."

"If that's all there's to it," the boy said, "I can do that easily. But if I learn to shudder that quickly, you shall have my fifty dollars. Just come back to me tomorrow morning."

That black beak opened and closed several times, clacking at August's questions, and then ruffled her feathers. "Uh...to be honest I don't recall the ending bit right now? I seem to recall -real- ghosts did come and the villages were grateful for the boys lack of fear...?" She sounds a little uncertain and cocks her feathered head the way a bird does. Why do the sexton's eyelids look good? NO! Bad raven! Kailey ruffled herself and flies back up to perch on the rail near the danging cat. Watching it's plight with amusement, if a bird can look amused. Then flies down to rasp the rope in it's feathery beak and bring it to the girl. Allowing them to rescue the ragged tomcat from his predicament. And then begin the ringing.

And things don't go so well. But it is a true fact adults almost never listen to children. Children never know anything and couldn't have seen what they saw, not when an adult says different. The crow had clacked her beak in agitation at the father, but knew better than to speak to him. To chastise him for being a patrionizing dickbag consumed by the story. But oh how she wanted too. Instead she just croaked out a single, "DiiiIIiiiCK-CK," That sounded enough like some raven noise to be a good compromise. Maybe unerve the man a bit. His eyeballs looked good too, after all. NOo! Bad bad raven, stop it with the eyeballs. Lucky they were kicked from the house or she might have been tempted to wake him sitting on his chest staring. That would have been -real- good fun. The raven in her agreed.

As they came to the place of the gallows awhile later she flutter to land upon the wooden beam. Peering about with a sudden excitement. >Oh, are they about here? I could do with a nibble...< The corvid croaked to The Girl aka August below. Then it went still and shrugged it's shoulders, hunching down and sticking out it's tongue. >Ack! Forget it...No, I do NOT want that experience...< A momentary hiccup to the story as Kailey asserts herself. Fluttering back to The Girl's shoulder she whispers, "I don't remember a gallows...but that doesn't mean anything...Grimm's fairy tales being what they are could have been edited out."

"He tripped and fell," August growls when she's accused of throwing the sexton down the stairs. "Because he was wearing a sheet and got turned around." Oh, this being twelve again, and accused of injuring someone who in fact did it to themselves, They sure no how to get at him. Except instead of parents who believe him and not the shitty authority figures, he has the kinds of parents most other kids do.

"The devil?" She rolls her eyes, folds her arms stubbornly. "Are you kidding me, he told us to go ring the damned bell."

And so, they're turned out. With fifty bucks. She packs herself a backpack of odds and ends, including clothes, flips her parents off on the way out the door. "Way to go believing a shitty sexton and not your own fucking kid!"

She marches down the road, head held high. Until some guy tells them to go hang out by a gallows. She grimaces. "You can call it what it is, we're not five." And not twelve, but that's neither here nor there.

August sighs at the crow, more amused than anything else at her carrion-eater's drive warring with human sensibilities. "Can't recommend it. If you read a sanitized version, might have been removed. They do that all the time, for kids."

"Wait, what? I'm pretty sure I didn't say that," the Aidan-boy says, looking somewhat lost. "And I thought we were gonna try to get him help? Also just kinda standing there silently doesn't sound like a thief thing to do at all, like, either take stuff and run away or give up and just run away but either way..." He trails off, and looks a little less lost as at least things rearrange themselves to fit more closely with what he could swear just happened. Plus, cat dangling from the bell is pretty funny.

The boy makes an attempt to explain himself, and to confirm his sister's version of events, but maybe they know how to get to him as well; the insistence that he hurt someone on purpose when he didn't, the insistence that he's Devil-possessed, has him falling silent after not terribly long, a quiet parcel of ten-year-old anger and hurt.

But not fear. So the quest must go on.

He packs up what belongings qualify as his own and hefts them onto his shoulder, silently following the girl out into the world, cat and raven at hand. It's a fairly quiet trek if the chat's left up to him, as for a while he only speaks when spoken to, and briefly at that. By the time they reach the stranger, though, he's a little bit chattier again, even if he does let the others recount most of their story. He even grins briefly at the raven's reaction to the potential of a meal and moreso the raven's other-self's reaction to that. And he does, in fact, look dubious at the idea that waiting for night near a gallows is going to solve the shuddering problem. And also somewhat dubious at the offer he's apparently made. "Wait," he says quietly to the others, "that's all our money, right? It's not like we can go back if I learn how or people are gonna start paying me for shuddering, is it? Why do I keep being dumb?"

The Cat just hangs there, and drops off when the rope is lifted. When the father's lecturing, the Cat's just sitting there, tail curled neatly around his feet, gazing at the human sardonically. He doesn't dignify that with a reply. The Boy and the Girl get to hear him speak, not some blowhard.

He seems philosophical enough as he pads alongside the Boy....and then when they come to the gallows, he sits down and looks up again. "I hear the eyeballs are particularly good, if you're into that kinna thing," he opines. Apparently the Cat's amorality is laid over Joe's own particularly flexible conscience.

The Boy's question has him craning his neck in a way no human could match to peer at him. "Now, if this were a Russian fairy tale," he says, with enormous relish, "We'd go back at the end and burn them all to ash. My fiancee used to love that fairy tale about Vasilisa the Wise.....and honestly, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Baba turned up in here. A witch is a witch, and a witch loves a dumb, goodhearted hero."

Dollars. Not talers, whatever those are.

The next morning the man came to the children and wanted to have the fifty dollars. He looked at the boy --

-- because clearly, he's some kind of asshole who doesn't even notice the girl and the animals --

-- and said, "Well, do you know how to shudder?"

"No," the boy answered. And how would he? The dead men had not said anything. They had not even stirred. Not even looked uncomfortable while the raven was debating eating their eyeballs. The children were unimpressed with the corpses as teachers go; they didn't even know to move away when their rags caught fire.

Do corpses in a gallow even have eyeballs? Aren't those soft bits like, the first shit to go or something?

The siblings and their brave animal companions went on their merry way. And on that merry way they came upon a cart driver who asked, "Who are you?"

"I don't know," said the boy.

The cart driver asked, "Where do you come from?"

"I don't know," said the boy.

And it went on like that for like, an hour, because for some reason this kid is so stupid or so obstinate that he won't tell some random guy in the street who he is or what he's doing. Or maybe he doesn't think it's any of this guy's business. And again, no one's asking the sister, even if she's the older one and might, like, know what she's doing.

"Stop that foolish catter," said the cart driver. "Come, walk along with me, and I will see that I get a place for you."

Medieval times, when it was totally safe for a couple of kids to follow some random guy in the street into some hotel.

The boy went with the cart driver --

-- oh my fucking god, this goes on forever, blah blah, he needs to learn to shudder, have my fifty whatever, no one asks the girl anything because they're all medieval misogynist dicks --

Flipping ahead a few pages.

The night would pass and the Raven and the Kawley would have a tussle over those eyeballs. If it is possible to hide ones eyes while they still did a thing, that is what happens. Because a raven will be a raven when corpses are about. And hunger gnaws deeply at it's feathered belly. Thankfully that part was brushed past, this whole Dream being jarring in some ways as they were whisked through time and pages. Things blurring together. Herself and the corvid also blurring in ways uncomfortable and alien.

It was the castle that jarred some of Kailey's memory to the story. "Oh! Oh yes! This is where the actual ghosts are. And I think he came to find them quite companionable if I remember right?" The crow tilts its head from where it is perched atop a dusty tapestry, surveying the things below. This story keeps forgetting the girl and her crow, but then...the tv show did too. Then those sharp eyes are peering into the shadows from where the sound comes and her tail-feathers ruffle.

August isn't as put out by her existence being ignored as she should be, largely because it's keeping her from starting fights. And oh, what fights she wants to start; first with the idea of bringing down the corpses (she goes to quietly be sick in a corner), then with the man asking for fifty dollars ('Why? He didn't learn how to shudder!") and then the cart driver ("Our parents kicked us out because the sexton tripped and fell down the stairs and blamed it on us. What? That's what happened!"). But now they're agreeing to...stay in a haunted mansion?

"If you think I'm not going with him, you've got another think coming," she informs the king, and marches off to the haunted castle. Though, as soon as they're ensconced, she says, "No offense Aidan, I'm sure you'll make someone a great husband, but we're not the hell letting that man marry his kid to you like this. I don't care if that's how it was done in the stories, it's BS."

She peers at the sound, frowning, and totally doesn't grab Kawley for reassurance. "Who's there." A few dead sconces and candles flare to life suddenly, fire flickering pale lavender at the base. "Don't think I won't set you on fire if you come after us."

"...so do I just not understand about people being dead or what?" the boy mutters, eyeing that whole corpse situation -- and no, he doesn't look real thrilled with the idea either, even if it's supposedly his own. "I really am a pretty dumb hero, huh? Though I mean so far I'm not even a hero, I'm just a kid with some weird wiring..." He trails off, going quiet again for a little bit, until he finds himself claiming not to know who he is or where he comes from when obviously what his sister has to say is true. For a moment he looks like he might burst out with some kind of agreement, but-- yes, now they appear to be agreeing to stay in a haunted mansion.

Aidan blinks. At least they get supplies? "...do any of you know what you even do with a lathe?" he asks his companions, giving the thing a curious look. "Why do I want this? I mean, fire I get, obviously, and I dunno so much about the bench but at least a knife's pretty handy, but..." Presumably the loophole is that he doesn't ask for his cat and sister and her raven to come along, since they're alive. They can do it of their own volition! And his sister has a decent point, too. "I feel kinda young to be worrying about getting married," he admits, "...and I guess either she is too or this is gonna be kind of a weird attempted pairing? I mean if she's my age it's kinda messed up if everyone's saying she's the most beautiful girl around... So. Yeah."

Making that fire was calming; stirring it up is too, and he's staring into the flames that rise as he blows into it when that voice comes. Another blink, and he tilts his head, looking curiously in that direction, and then to the cat. "Did that kinda sound like some relation to you?" he asks, before asking the voice itself, "Who's we? And if you promise not to be some kind of jerk, we don't mind letting you come closer to the fire, I think?" A flicker of a glance to the others, either checking confirmation or waiting to see if any of them object.

Like anyone's gonna keep a Cat from going where it wants to go. Oh, he made an attempt to not be seen as the Boy set off for this haunted castle....but once they were out of sight of the guards, he was trotting along merrily. Not a care in the world, tail up.

And the Boy's built a fire, which is a perfect excuse for him to curl up in a loaf shape, paws folded under him, and contemplate the flames. Until there's that voice, which has him turning first an ear, and then his head....and finally condescending to get up and look in the direction of the voice. "Meow yourself," says the talking Cat. "There's a fire here, if you wanna come get warm. Assuming you are something that can get warm. You're not, like, the unquiet dead, are ya?"

"We're not quiet," said one of the cats and looked at Joe the Cat with an odd expression as if it couldn't quite make out why one of its peers appeared to be playing for the wrong team.

I should have made him a dog instead. Oh well.

"We're not undead either," says the other cat. This should be obvious; they are large black beasts with eyes like burning embers. "Comrade, shall we play a game of cards?"

Shitty translation. Should have been 'pal'. But hey, it fits. He's Russian, right? Whatevs.

"Do you like my claws?" the first cat asked of the boy.

"I don't like to lose at cards," the other supplied.

Now let's see if Kawley there remembers her story.

There may or may not have been an undignified sqwuak from the Raven when August(ina) hugged Kawley tight. But she didn't peck them, only squirmed until released. Flapping to the relative safety of a piece of falling apart furniture. "You'll use it to smooth down a skull for bowling later," She informs Aidan asked his question as to it's use. "But that's apparently tomorrow night? Umm...I don't think Fairy Tale theater covered this part of the story either..." The Raven admits with some reservation.

The appearance of new cats has her cawing indignantly and flying up into the rafters. Black wings flap and she finds herself continuing to caw and scold the strange felines. "I definitely do not remember them! Bad kitty! Shoo shoo!" But this is a dream. And those felines are not likely to just leave. "Oh...oh...August, Aidan, you still have the knife? I...kinda remember some of the original story...something's gonna attack...but no clue what or when so...helpful I am not."

August releases Kawley with an apologetic wince. She frowns, says, "Bowling with...a skull," she repeats, like she's aware these are words ostensibly forming a sentence, and yet isn't sure they mean anything. But now cats want to play cards. Black cats, with lamplike eyes. Well, August has had her fill with troublesome cats.

She cuts a look at Aidan, then Kawley. "Think we need to file them before we play?" she murmurs, trying to keep her voice low. This much she's learned from Latte, Xylem, and Phloem: kitties do NOT like having their claws trimmed. Cutting a look to Joe, she adds, "Careful. They might have fleas or worms. Demonic ones. No grooming."

She nods about the knife, pulls it out. It's not a particularly fancy hunting knife, but it's clearly meant for use in field-dressing a kill. The wood handle is scarred and stained dark brown and black, the blade scored in one or two places yet still with a keen edge. "Do we actually need the knife for that? Is it something that's hurt only by knives?" Because she and her brother (Aidan, not her brother, she has no brothers, just sisters) are pretty good at breaking things to pieces. Really damned good at it, actually.

The Boy is going to smooth a skull into a bowling ball? "...that seems kinda rude to whoever it used to belong to," Aidan says, "Though I guess for all I know their ghost is gonna come suggest it 'cause they're bored, so..." He eyes the lathe somewhat dubiously. Lathes as such have not been included in any curriculum he's been subject to. Well, we'll rotate that bridge when we come to it.

Black cats making trouble is an experience still pretty fresh in his mind as well, and August's sidelong glance is returned. "Dunno," he murmurs back, "Might be a file in the woodcarving bench? But I dunno they're gonna be on board..." He has less experience with trimming claws. It still agrees that they don't much like it. There's a more direct look to August when Kawley asks about the knife, and he nods when she withdraws it, then again at her question, 'cause that's a darn good question. Especially with only one knife.

If a cat can look at a king it only stands to reason he can also wander into a castle. Haunted or not. The Boy isn't inclined to question the feline's presence in either of his minds. These new cats -- those he'll question. "So... you're the unquiet alive? I guess we are too. Your claws look... good, I think? Sharp. Only, it seems like that'd make them get in the way playing cards. Don't they get caught on them or make marks on them? Or, I mean, if you're playing, like, Slapjack, that'd definitely be an unfair advantage." The Boy doesn't know how to be afraid; Aidan does, but his experience suggests being friendly rarely hurts. Either he's oblivious to the implied threats or ignoring them. "Thing is, though, I was only allowed to ask for three things to bring here, and I didn't think of picking cards. Did you bring them?" Cats rarely have pockets, granted. But they rarely talk and have eyes like embers, either, so who knows.

"Yeah, that's for sure," Joe the Cat agrees with the newcomers. "We're a chatty bunch of motherfuckers, ain't we?" He grins at the new cats, baring white fangs...then he extends first one paw and then the other, exposing sharp black claws, like a woman displaying a new manicure.

"Nice," he approves. "What kinna card game you wanna play? I warn you, I'm an absolute shark at Go Fish and Old Maid, but I'm decent at blackjack and bridge. No pokerface, though." He is, however, getting up to all fours - arching his back like a Halloween cat, the retinas of the blue eyes reflecting coppery read. "I didn't bring any cards. Or board games, for that matter," he adds, with a sigh, glancing at Aidan, before looking back to the new cats. "I suspect y'all're the bettin' type."

OH MY FUCKING GOD NO ONE BROUGHT THE ACTUAL PLAYING CARDS

Ahem.

The boy had a cat who could fleece any ghost at cards but he had no cards. Neither did the ghost cats.

Wonder if they had demon lung worms, though. Anyway. Boy's getting all the credit again.

With that, the boy and the girl seized the ghost cats by their necks, put them on the woodcarver's bench, and tightened them into the vice by their feet. The raven and the cat -- the Cat -- laughed and watched, and made all kinds of snide comments about pussycats and pet grooming.

"I have been looking at your fingers," the boy said, "and my desire to play cards has disappeared." He chased the declawed cats off, because he was not an asshole who kills a cat just because it has a bad attitude.

After the boy and the girl had chased off the cats they were able to sit back down by the fire with their pets, when from every side and corner there came black cats and black dogs on red-hot chains.

... So, like, the dogs were chained but they got free or something. Fairytales are weird.

More and more of them appeared until the children could no longer move. They shouted horribly, then jumped into his fire and pulled it apart, trying to put it out. The four watched for a little while but finally it was too much. The girl seized the carving-knife and cried, "Away with you, you villains!"

Bet she actually said fuck off, assholes.

Some of the black animals ran away, and some they killed and threw out into the po --

No. Nope. Not.

Some of the black animals ran away and some escaped by jumping into the pond outside the castle. When they were gone the children blew into the embers of the fire until it flamed up again and warmed themselves. When they got tired they found a big bed in the corner. The children curled up in it to sleep, the cat found himself a nice comfortable spot in the foot end, and the raven settled on the canopy.

But just as they were about to shut their eyes the bed began to move by itself, going through-out the whole castle. It rolled on as if six horses were harnessed to it, over thresholds and stairways, up and down. Then suddenly, it tipped down and tried to crush them like a mountain.

The children climbed out and said, "Now anyone else who wants a ride can have one." Then they laid down and slept by the fire instead until morning came.

In the morning the king turned up and when he saw the children lie there as if they were dead he cried that the ghosts had killed them.

"I'm not dead yet," said the boy and sat up.

"Do I look dead to you," asked the girl and sat up too.

"Caw," said the raven and rolled her eyes.

"Meow," said the cat, and you could almost hear the implied motherfucker.

One night was past. But the boy had still not learned to shudder.

The second night they went to the old castle again, and sat by the fire again. As midnight approached they heard noise -- soft at first, but then louder and louder. Then all was quiet -- and finally, with a loud scream, half of a man suddenly came down the chimney and fell out in front of their feet.

Don't think anyone's going to mind that I skipped the whole exchange with the king and the innkeeper there. We get it. Kid's not scared. This story needs to not be six million miles long.

The raven watches as the story progresses. Hoping back and forth like some fancy Bird of Paradise. But her hops are nerves not a mating dance. Those claws are sharp and tearing, but she can hope they won't find her flesh. And those nerves? They pay off when the shadows erupt.

With a warning cry she takes wing, circling over August and Aidan's heads. After a second the air smells of ozone and arcs of electricity zip from her beak. Not actually striking most of the shadow-animals, but near enough to scare away. Also? What dog or cat wants to deal with a bird spewing lightening from its beak?

"Does this make me Muenin?" Kawley asks of the two on one particularly well placed zorch. A large dog and two cats yelp and yowl before noping the other way. And it finally seems to be settling down. Time to sleep?

No, of course not. The bed has to run around and try to kill them. Fine then. Kawley simply takes flight and follow the galavanting somnial device. "Faster! Faster!" She encourages it as she takes a turn sharply. Only to almost crash into the bed when it falls over. "Well, that was a thing. Think the castle is done? I think it may be...I don't remember this..." She chatters as she moves to land on August's shoulder. Do raven's yawn? Yes and it may or may not be adorable.

The next night, because no one needs to know about pecking for grubs or hunting bugs to eat, Kawley seems excited. "This is a good night. There is fun and bowling and-" She sudden gives a dismayed croak. "Aaawww! I can't bowl with bones!" She realizes in dismay just as screams begin. Turning her black eyes on the fireplace she adds, "Ah! The first guest...well, part of him. Better go get the other half. After this we bowl with bones, buuut you're gonna have to fix the skull, like I said..."

August asides to Aidan, "I appreciate actual cat nail clippers a whole lot more right now," as they use the knife to carefully trim down those long, deadly claws. She wonders, briefly, if she could use shaping to simply snap them off, but it's a very fine use of that gift, and she'd be worried about missing. She knows her way around a knife, though, even if it's not made for this kind of thing.

Which becomes readily apparent as they're set upon by--

No, no, this is not happening. She's too small and young to have the right voice for making her battle-cry of "FUCK OFF, ASSHOLES," sound like much more than the twelve year old fury it is, but she does it without thinking, the same way she'd try to startle a bear away from a campsite without bothering to check if she had clothes on when she curled up in the sleeping bag. No hell-dogs and -cats are eating any of them. Not tonight! Kawley's lightning is a fine light show to go with her rage.

She runs at the fleeing beasts like a wild thing, knife slashing through the air around her. Some she drops through holes that spontaneously appear in the floor, sending the animals plungeing to lower levels. More than a few flee old, decrepit chandeliers falling from the ceiling or tall dressers and bookcases collpasing onto them.

...it's possible she is the source of a ghost story, in years to come. For now, though, she comes back, tears streaking her dirty face, panting, knife in hand. "They'd better not come back," she announces, voice hoarse from all the yelling, flops next to the remains of the fire. It's probably for the best she has this freak out, because when the bed becomes a bucking bronco she lacks the energy to set it (and thus them) on fire.

"THIS IS SOME BULLSHIT!" she shouts. "I NEED SLEEP."

And so the next night she's tired and grumpy and giving everything narrow-eyed glares, the fiercest of which (a 12-year-old rendition of The Face) lands on the half of a body when it spills out of the chimney. "Oh hell no," she growls, studiously not getting up, arms folded in tween defiance.

Tightening cats into vices by their feet? What the what? Aidan is not even entirely certain how he's managing that, though at least he can help hold them still while August carefully trims down the claws. The same thought of doing it by magic comes to mind, and he's actually fairly confident he could shave those pointy tips off okay, but somehow it feels like... cheating?

Which is weird considering the liberties that're already getting taken.

And it doesn't last, either. He is indeed not an asshole who kills a cat just because it has a bad attitude, and actually once the claws have been dealt with he'd be perfectly willing to make good on the earlier 'you can curl up by our fire if you don't act like a jerk' offer, even lacking a deck of playing cards. Or maybe especially. Those two seemed like card carpet sharks. And if that's what the incoming cats and dogs wanted, that'd be fine, but there are So. MANY. Of them! And their red hot chains and the raven shooting lightning and his sister The Girl attacking in a rage and bits of their surroundings collapsing, and he curls up smaller in the center of the mass of-- shouting? Dogs and cats shout now? --creatures, seated with his arms wrapped around his knees and radiating a feeling outward to them: homesickness, the ache to go back somewhere they belong. It's a relief, when they're gone, and the fire in the grate flares up, flames catching every dying ember in a burst of heat and light, no blowing required.

He sits by it until they're tired, by which time he's cheerier again in the face of not more things accosting them. This is handy, given what happens when they get into the bed. 27-year-old Aidan might be somewhat frightened, knowing they could get hurt, but 10-year-old Aidan and the Boy Who Knows No Fear firmly outvote that voice in the back of their head, and he holds on tight but looks like he is in fact having a great time. A couple excited whoops as they go suggest the same. "I wonder if we could fix it and ride it again tomorrow?" he asks, as they head off to sleep on the less soft but more dependably stationary (probably) floor, instead. Given a moment's thought, he darts back and tries to snag the pillows and blanket from the bed. Those are probably okay, right?

In the morning he is indeed not dead, and in the evening it's surprisingly calm as they sit by the fire again. As midnight nears he's starting to consider going to sleep (and, okay, also starting to consider finding out whether the bed will do it again if he goes and tries to climb onto it), though the scream and thump and-- that's half a dude, isn't it, kind of interrupt that train of thought.

"Uh... hi," he greets the half-body, "Are you okay seems like a dumb question but, uh. Do you need help? Is the other half of you somewhere we could get it and put you back together or something? Or," he glances briefly to Kawley and back, "did you just drop in for bowling night?"

The Cat's content to fight other cats and dogs (because fuck dogs says his inner feline self). To ride the ridiculous bed (how many Gs does a speeding bed pull? It's no X-15, surely). But now there's a half-dismembered body. "This is some Haunted Mansion bullshit," notes the Cat, but again, he sounds more amused than annoyed. Somehow, he can't bring himself to take this totally seriously.

How do you make the bones of nine dead men stand on end like bowling pins?

Somehow the dead men managed to set up a bowling game, because screw you, human anatomy -- and as the boy still carried the little group's communal money, they were allowed to join the game and make a few wagers. Hitting anything at all using a human skull for a bowling ball became way easier, too, once the little group remembered Kawley's predictions about the lathe, and the boy turned the skulls round.

Surprisingly for this story, the skulls did not bite, and did not protest too loudly, either. But they did go Whee! when thrown.

And Caaaaaaw! -- no, wait. That was Kawley, having figured out that while a raven has no hands and hence cannot throw a bowling ball, a raven does have claws and wings. Holding on to a handy eye socket with one's feet and half dragging, half flying the skull at the pins surely counted! (The skull insisted that it counted).

The only regret the raven had was that all the bits of men falling down the chimney did in fact add up. There were no spare parts lying about and this, at least to a raven who had yet to find a proper meal in this story, was not acceptable. The bird made a solemn note to pounce next time things came out of chimneys, before those things could find the time to assemble. Finders keepers, dudes.

Say, is Kailey a vegetarian? She looks like somebody who might be vegetarian. If she is, she's going to be a vegetarian with some interesting meat cravings for a while.

The ghastly men -- not only were they obviously dead, they were probably ugly before they died, too -- were quite sociable in their own way; unlike the cats and dogs of the first night, they seemed intent on playing their game, and anyone who had a few coins to gamble and didn't mind holding a prattling skull by its eye socket was welcome to join. If the boy's natural friendliness bothered them at all they did not let it show; the only one who gave him a Look when he pointed out a missing ear lying in the fireplace ash was the raven.

The girl took one hard look at the bed that had turned into a bucking bronco the night previous and tried to curl up in a corner instead, to get some sleep; she was tired and fed up with the silliness of this place. Trimming the claws of ghost cats in ways that seemed far more ridiculous than efficient one night -- and now turning skulls on a lathe and bowling with a cackling raven and pins made from human femurs? Oh come on. In the end she got back up, swore a lot, and vowed to show these idiots how to throw a curveb---skull.

The best part of this is the way I can hear that old guy from the garden shop banging his head against the inside of the girl's skull. This is the best job ever.

Between them, Team Teach Kid to Shudder managed to win the game; slipping a few coins to the skull that helpfully blew hard on the last pin standing and thus turned a near-strike into a full one, they got to label themselves best bowling league fairytaleland as the clock struck midnight and the hideous men disappeared just like that. Not as much as a stray finger was left anywhere, much to the raven's regret.

But where in all of this was the cat?

Where the hell do you think the cat is? That cat used to ride a space shuttle. If I want to impress that guy I'm going to need to up my game. Brothers Grimm, you need more xenomorphs.

The cat was doing what a cat does: It slept soundly atop the pile of pillows and blankets that the boy had rescued from the bed the previous night, and gave not a single fuck about half-men, laughing bowling skulls, or shouts of 'striiike!'

A cat may look at a king. Or turn its back on one, tail in the air and all attitude, and that's exactly what the cat did in the morning when the king and all his advisors turned up to find that the boy was in fact not dead.

Kailey is not a vegetarian. In fact anyone who has seen her at a steakhouse would agree she is as much carnivore as omnivore. Which leaves her trying to distract her Raven mind from ears and bits and dead people. "Don't leave your bits lying around or I'll have a nice snack!" She kawed at the dead men. Because they were dead and thus did not count about laws of speaking to things not corvid. There is an ear and it calls to her bird brain as the hunger nibbles at a small belly. You know that moment when you are attempting to hold back the tide of your body from purging in some way and you lose the battle? Well that is this, only the reverse. There was an ear in the ashes. Kawley doesn't want to talk about it.

After the king's visit she opts to comment, "I don't think you're gonna like what comes next. Lots of corpse handling..." To The Boy played by Aidan. "And a creepy guy threatening to kill us if you don't beat him at a weird feat of strength. Then you beat the shit out of old guy trying to kill him while he begs you to stop. I think he promises something, but I don't remember what." If she had lips they'd be pursed as she tried to force memories forward. But nothing further comes. "There's also a coffin involved, but I don't remember why."

August has slept in worse conditions than a corner in a castle with a warm fire. Though, it must be said, not weirder ones; a fire kept warm by re-assembled corpse was not in her list of prior experiences. She reluctantly takes part in this 'bowling', wondering at how old bowling really is as a game (she makes a note to look that up when she's herself again). But finally, it all disappears, and she curls up next to the cat on the pile of pillows and blankets, emotionally and physically exhausted. "Kids need their sleep to grow up healthy," she mutters, annoyed.

As she's dozing off, she watches Kawley with slitted eyes. "Corpse handling?" In some distant part of her she shrinks back, feels bile in the back of her throat. She's done too much of that. But being this girl provides a buffer between then and now; she didn't live in hell for three years, doesn't have a stack of memories to crush her. Right? Right. She clings to that.

"As long as we don't have to hang out in it," she says, and falls asleep.

"Maybe if you kinda... shave the end so it's flatter?" the Boy mutters as the question of just how one turns bones into pins (if they're not already leg bones, ha) floats through his consciousness, "...or kinda turn them on the lathe right?" Which leads to less of a mutter, "So wait, is this what I wanted the lathe for? Skull bowling? 'cause I'm pretty sure there's no way to anticipate that if you're not a really well-informed raven but I haven't seen anything else you'd wanna make... rounder. I mean, it seems like you'd need to expect a bunch of stuff to use on it if you were planning to pass the time with it? What was I hoping to do, refurnish the place?" Granted, some might say that's a really good idea, particularly those who don't enjoy rampaging bed rides.

Still, the bowling... is pretty fun. Even the skulls going 'whee' is kind of weirdly charming after you get over the surprise. At least they're on board with the plan! And as for the dead men, well, as they say, we can't help how we're made, right? By now the Boy's frankly getting pretty used to hanging around with corpses. At least these are way better company than the gallows ones. The Girl may be fed up with the silliness of the place, but Aidan actually seems to enjoy it more the sillier things get, complaints about his own (sort of) logic aside. He gives an (appropriately?) childlike whoop of triumph as they win, and attempts to high-five August(a) for the power of her curveskull in there.

Midnight comes and more sleep; he too has slept in worse conditions than a corner in a castle with a warm fire and some scavenged linens. And company, too. He curls up by the girl and his cat, giving the latter some scritches, and sleeps fairly soundly until a fair bit after the dawn. He's still waking up when the king arrives, and actually doesn't go that far off-script:

"How did you do this time?"

"Some guys dropped in and went bowling. We won, it was pretty cool actually."

"Did you shudder?"

"Nope. I mean... bowling." He shrugs.

He watches the man go as Kawley volunteers her info about tonight, and makes a face. "...define corpse-handling? I mean, more handling than the last few days? 'cause honestly this is already the most I've ever handled corpses in my life. Also I kinda don't want to beat the shit out of some old guy who's begging me to stop? I don't really even wanna beat the shit out of some old guy who's begging me to continue. So... I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna do that." Be told, story. Uh. In-- in not the literal way.

By now, the only member of our heroic group who was not seriously questioning the boy's intellectual capacity was the boy himself, and that was largely because Aidan knew that the kid was honestly quite dense.

No, really, what the fuck?

The boy suddenly remembered his cousin Bob. This was very convenient because until now he and his sister had completely forgotten Bob, they had in fact not thought about Bob at all on this trip, Bob had never come up in conversation, and neither of them had spent one second lying awake at night, mourning poor Bob's passing. Clearly, Bob was very important to them both. Also, Bob was a midget because the boy was ten years old and kept calling him little cousin.

Mind. Blown.

Whatever. The boy picked up the grown man who was apparently not very big, and with the help of the girl threw him back into the coffin and slammed the lid shut. The six guys turned up again like some kind of infernal Uber service and took Bob and his coffin with them.

If any of the other three gave the boy some serious side-eye for deciding to jump into bed with his dead cousin -- it was probably well deserved.

Just as they were settling down for one of those nice, cheerful what the fuck is wrong with you arguments, a man walked in. He was larger even than the infernal Uber coffin bearers and terrible to behold, with a long white beard and eyes that burned like fire. "You wretch," he shouted. "You shall soon learn what it is to shudder, for you are about to die!"

Rude.

"Not so fast. If I am to die, I will have to be there," the boy replied, and surely somewhere, this made sense to somebody.

They argued for a bit. The monster claimed that he was stronger, and the boy maintained that he was, because obviously, a ten year old boy will defeat a white-bearded ogre in martial prowess any day of the week. If not for the glare of the girl, the smart mouth on the raven, and the scornful glare from the cat, the terrible old man might just have gobbled up the boy right there. Under that kind of terrible peer pressure, however, he agreed to a contest of strength.

He lead the children and their animal companions through dark passageways to a blacksmith's force. There he took an ax and with one blow drove one of the anvils into the ground.

"I can do better than that," the boy scoffed and went to the other anvil. The old man stood close, wanting to see what the child would do, so the boy seized the ax and split the anvil with one blow --

-- OK, where the hell did the kid get this strong?! --

-- which he could totally do because something mystical blessing from the raven and the cat and what-the-fucking-ever, something something, okay then. Anyway, he wedged the old man's beard into the crack, trapping him.

The only problem with being the person (raven) that knows something of the story is that when it does horrible things you feel slightly responsible. Especially when you don't remember everything. A taking a dead body to bed definitely was not what she remembered and squawks repeated, "Sorry. Oh stars. I'm so sorry, that is NOT what I remember...there was some undead wizard or something. And the princess. And I very much prefer Shelly's version oh this is just..." She caws because only the covid language is able to describe how this is. They have word for dead things you would never think of after all. And shiny things. Oh what she wouldn't give for some rug rolling or shiny coins...

But the cousin is dealt with and while she is panting upon The Girl's shoulder. She really didn't do anything but fly around and make noise. And now there's an ogre and she is squinting at him. Because here raven's can do that. "Maybe that's where they got the wizard undead king guy from?" She wonders as they follow a murderous ogre deeper into dungeons they could get lost in. Like that's a good idea at all. "Why are we following him again? This could be a trap! This is not the story I remember!" And she REALLY wishes for a very very large rug. One that they could wrap this silly ogre up in.

"Now...we beat him up till he yields..." Kailey remembers that being a part of it at least. The king got wrapped up and the boy kept bouncing on his belly. That she recalls. But this? It's not as easy or clean. And she turns her eyes up and into a random direction. It's as if she is meeting somethings eyes and she says, "This is BS. A rug would have been much funner. What, you don't have a TV there? No Shelly Duvall? You're missing out. It's on WatchTubes, you got no excuse with this beating trapped men up stuff," She begins to chastise whatever has chosen to put them through this story.

The weird thing is it feels like she actually -is- talking to some...thing beyond the wall.

Remember when August said 'as long as we don't have to hang out in it'? Yeah, she has so many regrets. So many.

She recoils from the corpse, swallowing fiercely. And then Aidan, propelled by this insane Dream logic, wants to curl up with it in bed. August's hands curls into fists. Her nails dig into her palms hard enough to draw blood. "No." Her high, trembling voice brooks no argument. "I'll sleep on the floor." And she does just that. Lay on the floor, that is--she doesn't sleep a wink, just curls up into a ball and stares at a spot on the floor, trying not to cry.

She'd just assumed she was in for a long, sleepless night. Silly August! When she hears the corpse shout--and she only knows it's the corpse because it's not any of them--she bolts up. "I'm sick and fucking tired of this. What kind of sadistic bullshit is this," she growls, helping Aidan wrestle the corpse back into the coffin. She slams the lid back down, wills the wood to grow back into itself, sealing it perfectly shut. She kicks the side of the coffin, for good measure.

"God, I just...want to sleep." She checks Aidan for injuries or anything else horrible that might have happened due to sleeping with a corpse, collapses onto the blankets on the floor. She's dozing off when someone who really has no sense of self-preservation comes in.

"They want me to murder someone," she says, slowly getting up. "Well, they're gonna get it, at this rate." This 'someone' appears to be a monster, though, so at least August won't carry that on her conscience?

Instead Aidan...or the boy driving Aidan, it's hard to tell, convinces this flaming-eyed jackass to a test of strength. It's not hard for August to glare savagely, a real good glare of 'my brother and I should just kill you but I guess you get a chance'. They leave behind their blankets and pillows and bed ('If those are gone when we get back I am gonna kill someone,' she thinks) for a blacksmith's forge. The girl is at the end of her rope. So when it's Aidan's turn to split an anvil with an axe, she's more than happy to help out, slicing right down the center of that anvil with all the anger she can muster.

She frowns, looks askance at the raven on her shoulder. "Who are you..." Her voice fades. She blinks. "You mean you think whoever is doing this is listening to us?"

That's enough to bring the Cat out of his amused contempt for most of the proceedings. Enough to have it so it's Joe looking out of that furry face. "Wait, did you just break the fourth wall?" he asks the Raven, and it's just Joe, without none of the feline smartassery that's been present previously. "Do we have to do somethin' that isn't just kinna followin' the story to its end?" It's weird to hear that engineer voice coming out of a mouth with whiskers. Even the good ol' boy accent is suddenly much less there.

No, really, what the fuck?

It's not just the... rewriter...ist... that has that reaction to the situation. "Okay, so for real I just don't understand about people being dead." This is no longer a question in Aidan's mind. Plenty of proof. Probably plenty of proof even if he were trying to use the Boy's brain, which-- well. Yeah. The kid ain't winning any Nobel prizes. Maybe some parts of the original story are harder to revise than others. "None of this makes any sense! I mean even before you get to the whole warming thing, first off yeah any 'little cousin' of mine'd have to be like, six or something, and secondly why would they bring the body to this random haunted castle that's days walk away from where we started? I mean, the one where no one else who tried to stay overnight ever came back? And do it days after the cousin must've died since we know about it so it had to happen before we left. Which. Only kinda makes this all worse?"

And yet. And yet. Hard as he tries to fight the narrative from inside, Aidan can't stop The Boy from doing what he's written to. The best he can manage is a hint of foot-dragging and a low near-chant of, "No no no no no no no," as his current body insists on going over to the coffin, on opening it, on trying to warm the corpse in all its varying ways, right up until he's carrying it to the bed while protesting with ten-year-old distress, "I don't want to!" It does not make him shudder with fear, which at least would possibly end things. It does make him go fairly green, though, or at least distinctly olive. At least everything that should stay on the inside does. For both of them.

Do. Not. Want.

There is, at least, no visible damage that August finds on examination. Nope. Strictly psychological trauma today. Frankly after that some old ogre-y dude is a relief. Even if that's another one threatening to kill him. "Not so fast. If I am to die, I will have to be there," The Boy replies, and Aidan thinks this is a fabulous idea and attempts to get the body to turn around and run away. No dice, of course, and he's stuck arguing with this creature probably twice his height and weight about which of them is stronger. "This kid is damn lucky he's the main character," Aidan mutters more or less under his breath as they make their way down to the forge.

He doesn't know what to expect, honestly, when it comes his time to hit an anvil, and he's almost as surprised as the ogre probably is when it splits down the center like that. Narrative determinism has him yanking the long beard until it's into the crack, at which point he partially repairs the anvil, the split healing itself just enough to properly trap the hair within. "I don't wanna beat anyone up, either," he says, "...and my sister really needs to get some sleep." Taking a breath, he focuses on the bearded man, and wills him to feel cooperative. Well-disposed. Helpful? "So how about we just kinda call it there and you yield and don't try to kill me and I let you go and don't hafta try to kill you and it's all good. Yeah?" He looks in the direction Kawley's addressing and adds, "Okay? At least *that*makes sense. Can we go home now? We've all learned a valuable lesson about the value of not being scared. Or the value of being scared in making you not mess around with corpses. Both?" Maybe the raven's right; it's worth a try!

Okay. Pause this show. Hold up a moment. Have a break and a Kit-Kat.

We're doing Grimm's Fairytales. You think snuggling with a corpse is wrong? Should have done the version of Sleeping Beauty where the king -- not a prince, a king -- finds the chick in the tower and impregnates her, and she wakes up because she's giving birth to twins, and then the queen tries to kill her because, hey, nobody ever blames the guy who had sex with the coma victim. Want to be a princess next time, Raven?

Yeah, fine, it's a silly story. It's a kids' story. It's supposed to be silly. Okay, okay. Maybe it's too silly.

Rewind.

"Now I have you," said the boy. "You realise I could beat the stuffing out of you with this iron bar that my sister is handing me, right? Or we could say that I have, and then we call it a day because this is getting stupid." The old man moaned and begged the boy to not let his angry little sister trash him with an iron bar while the cat and the bird laughed. The boy, being the kind and generous and sappy sweet little soul that he was, pulled out the ax and released him. The old man lead them back into the castle and showed them three chests full of gold in a cellar. "Of these," he said, "one is for the poor, the second is for the king, and the third one is yours."

Meanwhile the clock struck twelve and the evil spirit disappeared, leaving them in the dark. "We can find our own way out," the cat said for he had whiskers and good eyesight in the dark. They found their way back to the pillow nest and fell asleep by the fire.

Better?

The next morning the king came and asked if the boy had learned to shudder yet. "No," said the boy. "But my dead cousin was here -- "

-- and he didn't smell very much at all because yuck de yucking yuck you guys are gross, why did you even have to bring that up, oh my god --

" -- and an old man showed me a large amount of money, but no one taught me how to shudder."

Then the king said, "You have redeemed the castle, and shall marry my daughter."

The gold was brought forth and the wedding celebrated and yes, child marriages were a thing in medieval Europe, okay, just roll with it already. Now the boy was king and his sister was a princess and no, she didn't get married to anyone because no prince in Europe was dumb enough to want to touch that little rageball with a six foot pole.

Yes, the old king... croaked or something. Maybe the girl killed him in his sleep for putting them through this.

The young king

-- the very young king --

loved his wife, but however happy he was, he still was always saying, "If only I could shudder. If only I could shudder."

In the end, the other three had enough of him saying stupid things that got them dragged through stupid castles to play stupid bowling and snuggle stupid corpses and fight stupid ogres.

So, in the original fairytale it's the young queen and her chambermaid but what the hell, I mean, I'd be pissed off if I were the other three so you guys get to have a little bit of revenge or something.

They went out to the brook that flowed through the garden and they caught a whole bucketful of minnows, not counting the ones that the cat and the raven ate. That night, when the young king was asleep his sister pulled the covers off him and poured the bucketful of cold water and minnows onto him, so that the little fishes wriggled all over him.

At this, the boy king woke up and cried out, "Oh, what is this making me shudder? What is making me shudder, dear wife? Yes! Now I know how to shudder!"

His child bride, her sister-in-law and their pets all face palmed in unison at that point because this ending is just one big, very bad pun.

Somewhere, a self-proclaimed finishes editing a story. They're not sure it's actually any better now, but at least it is funnier. The best part of this story has not been the story itself -- but the internal monologues, the sheer disbelief of the cast that was recruited to play the four parts.

The ease with which Kailey adopted her bird personality and became Kawley, First of Her Name, Ruler of the Tall Bedframes, Devourer of Ears.

The rage of August, trapped in a little girl's body, rebelling against just how contrived that whole story is.

The contempt of Joe, twirling his feline whiskers and noping out on any pretense that this is not just about the silliest dream he's ever had.

The flailing of Aidan, struggling against the sheer imbecility of the boy protagonist.

This job is the sweetest gig ever. If only things could... last.

Maybe things can. Maybe if somebody wanted to ... keep something ... from this story they could. They'd just have to say so. Or maybe everyone should just wake up with a fun new tattoo or something.

They sip their hot cocoa and wait.

Siri, define breaking the fourth wall.

Kawley turned to Joe as The Cat instead of The Cat and said, "I sure as fuck did!" Oh that is so not fitting to a children's story. But they've not watched their language before so who cares. The raven ruffles her feathers when she feels that threat of sleeping beauty. Unfortunately Kawley has also read Anne Rice's version. Raven's can't blush, but boy would she be.

The break is closing as Raven brain tries to come back, but she gets in a good sharp thought of, o O (NooOOOooOOoooooooo. Hell to the no thank you very much!)' To the...Rewriter?

As they fast-forward it is okay for Kailey to take a back seat and enjoy the life of a Raven of a Princess. No bugs or ears unless the Raven insists. Kawley is sure gonna have weird cravings when she gets home, but she's not thinking of that now. Instead enjoying being a pampered bird. It ain't bad and she can fucking fly so that is just awesome. And her wings are so pretty and she has whatever shiny she wishes. Often stealing August's crown and filling her gold and silver filigree nest with more shine.

But then they are still here. And Kailey wakes up from her mental vacation to comment, "You know...I don't know why they didn't keep the dousing in the Shelly version...That's funnier than him wandering off to find out about The Blues. How he discovered the shivers in the other one was the King telling him he was going to get married and the princess gushing about ALL THE PLANS," Kawley comments as the minnows flop and jump in the bed.

WE DON'T TALK ABOUT THE EAR!

Kailey wakes with a gasp in a dark room. Moving is more flailing and she ends up falling out of her bed and onto the floor with an stifled yelp. Morganna, asleep in her crib, doesn't even noticed. Going from having lived a few fast forwarded months as a Raven to a human was just as discombobulating as going from human to Raven. Kawl- Kailey lays on the floor, staring at the ceiling as a handful of feathers float gently to fall on her face. She lays there and lets them and just giggles. It isn't exactly a happy giggle. It's an, 'I better take my Valium fast' giggle.

"At least it wasn't Sleeping Beauty..." She says to no one. Or maybe someone. But she has a hand now and it lifts. As she gives the ceiling a thumbs up she starts as she sees, in the light from her night-light, the silhouette of The Raven in flight with feathers trailing behind it. "Thanks for not adding an ear..." Kailey mutters before the crazy giggles take her again. Definitely need to sleep with Prince Valium tonight.

August bristles as...whoever this is mentions Sleeping Beauty's less-commonly-referenced version with its straight up rape of the protagonist. It's on the tip of her tongue to snarl something about 'just you fucking try it', except, well...they just might. Her anger might know no bounds, but so does Their nastiness.

She schools herself to calm. This sounds like some kid, reaching for hyperbole without actually considering the potential consequences of what they're threatening. This doesn't make it better, but it does explain some things.

Their lives in this story continue apace. "Some people are into fiesty women," August snaps in response to her fate of 'ragefull unmarriable'. "Even back then. I would know, I'm--I've been a man. And why does it have to be a prince? It could be a princess. Saving me from," she waves a hand furiously, "this!"

But she goes unsaved by any would-be Brienne's in shining plate, and has to content herself with being regarded as the fiercest, most unmarriable heir on the continent. On the other hand, now she doesn't have to explain a child wedding to Eleanor, so there's that.

So naturally she...dumps a bucket of minnows on Aidan's head?

She stands there, staring at the sodden mess of tiny fish flapping about, helpless and suffocating. "I don't get it," she announces, dropping the bucket and marching back to her room. Why minnows, she thinks. It should have been guppies. The fancy kind like we have in the barrel ponds at the shop. At least then it looks cool in a children's book. No, it's minnows. This is a dumb story, by the way!

She opens the door to head out of Aidan's chambers, and it's August who jerks awake in his own bed.

He lays there for several seconds, slowly taking in the room. It felt like years, but it waan't. There's Eleanor, sleeping next to him, and Latte, curled up on Eleanor's pillow. He's a man again. An old, achy one.

In the morning Eleanor's going to ask where the new tattoo came from, and he's going to reply, "What new tattoo?" But for now, he turns over in bed and pulls her close. Latte mews a question.

"It's fine."

She trills, goes back to sleep.

It's fine, he thinks to himself, and does the same.

"I don't think snuggling with a corpse is wrong, I think it's gross," currently-ten-year-old-influenced Aidan retorts, managing to get back a few of his mental years to add, "And creepy, only in a totally different way than that version of Sleeping Beauty is gross and creepy, which it definitely is." He doesn't flat out admit that this is, on balance, probably better, but that's a difficult thing to say aloud with the memory of dead-cousin-cuddles quite so fresh.

Unlike the cousin.

Yes, though, the revision where the beating's taken as read is much better as far as Aidan's concerned, and he doesn't fight the rest nearly so hard, despite the child marriage thing. Not really on his list of 'okay', let alone 'good', but the bits where the story fast-forwards are the hardest to change on their end, and in any case, it turns out he does like the now-queen and at least she isn't getting married off to some more Sleeping-Beauty-adjacent kind of guy? Plus no more corpses and he's kinda got a weird little family going on, plus riches and stuff. Things've been worse. Things may well have been worse when he was actually ten.

Still, it remains kind of annoying being The Boy, with that whole shuddering fixation. It helps that the time goes by in that weird montage sort of way, has-happened more than is-happening, but -- unexpected chills and soddenness notwithstanding -- Aidan's almost as thrilled as The Boy when shuddering is finally achieved. It turns fairly quickly into another form of shaking altogether, uncontrollable giggles with a touch of the same edge as Kailey's.

That's how he awakens, damp and alone in the dark, and still snickering. It trails off after a little, and he rolls over, spreading out in the bed, all his limbs the right length again. It may be a while before anyone's in a position to notice the new tattoo of tiny watercolour fish tumbling down along the back of his shoulder. Maybe he'll catch a glimpse in the mirror. Maybe he won't know for months. But given it would be rather unreasonable to try to keep a sister, a cat, or a raven, especially with other people inside, it's not too bad as souvenirs go. Probably the best scar a Dream's ever left on him.

In the darkness, he drifts off to sleep, with its proper dreams.

And they all lived happily ever after... until the next time.