The Fiddler

[catch]

Cat was lost, nothing but empty skin in Cherny's hands. But his own fingers did not let go. They could not let go, any more than his feet could not stop moving. There was the music of the Carnival, wholesome, and the music of the forest, natural. He wondered if Cherny or Tsoss could hear. Tsoss, perhaps not, though his ears were sharp; Cherny a little more, because the boy was a part of the trees. Catch was largely unconcerned as he dragged his two boys from the brink, as if this were an occurrence, to him, of little importance. In a way, it was. He has already forgotten the other children, save for a handful, and then only this one.

"Little Cat's g-g-one dancing," Catch tells Ser Elliot, as soon as he hears the boy's voice. It was difficult. It was honeyed syrup in his ears, and his eyes focus but slowly. "You'll g-g-go, go fetch him, won't you, Ser Elliot? Even if you aren't t-t-to be a Knight anymore?"

[Cherny]

It's been a long walk for Cherny, or at least a difficult one, and he's been dragged for at least part of it to gauge from the cuts and grazes to his shins and knees. Points at which he's lost his footing, stumbled over gnarled roots or fallen branches that he ought to have seen and stepped over; others in which his feet have rebelled, tried to carry him back into the woods, when he's fallen in the struggle for control and had to rely on Catch to keep him from following the fiddler's tune.

Elliot's presence is noted but vaguely, dark and fear-blank eyes turned unseeing towards a familiar voice; thin features pale and waxy, he can only shake his head in mute denial as Catch speaks of dancing, bony hands still clenched tightly upon the fabric of Cat's empty jacket.

[Glenn]

Cherny had no sharp words, no sharp anything. Granted, he rarely had sharp words but he often had words he thought were sharp and now he had none of those. He didn't have much of anything, just Cat's jacket, which was something Elliot saw on an almost daily basis. Catch was in one of his moods, but this was something more. Maybe someone else would blame Catch, would think he was responsible for whatever was going on, but not Elliot Brown. Catch was good. He was his friend and he meant well. Catch saw him as something of a knight? Well Elliot saw Catch at his very best, more so than almost anyone else in Myrken. There were lapses like with Gloria; there was that wolf Zilliah talked about. There were... cracks, but in this moment, he didn't see any of them.

He saw Catch and he saw two kids, even if one was unfortunately shaded and the other was a complete and utter prat. He heard Cat mentioned. And when he spoke, it was with concern. "Catch, where's Cat? What's happened? Tell me and I'll go help the kid, ok? Just tell me."

[catch]

As patient, kind, wise, wonderful that Ser Elliot was, Catch shook his head to clear the cobwebs, irritation flashing in eyes that were bordering too close to the feel of sanity, his face curling into a rictus snarl. Not in anger. Not at all. He could not express, with his tongue and his lips, the very nature of a Fiddler, the Glutton, the snap-crunch of little bones and agony screams mingling with laughter and string-song. He struggled because it was Elliot, because Elliot trusted him, believed in him. Ser Elliot deserved the best in Catch.

"Marks in the dust," he'd finally say, his bearded chin jerking spasmodically back the way they had come. No great skill needed to see where Myrken's children had gone, and Catch' sbroken mind begged Elliot to understand. He was so clever. "There. Th-th-they danced away into the Fiddler's mouth, and sh-she needn't c-c-cover her t-t-tracks. Not like th-the Story-teller. Oh, hurry, Ser Elliot! I have th-t-these," he cries, his great hands shaking where they gripped little Tsoss and silent, dumbed Cherny, as if Catch had never fixed his tongue.

"I have, have th-th-these, but you m-m-must save little Cat - you must save Wormboy Tony, or else th-th-they'll dance forever in her gullet."

[Glenn]

Clever. Catch's kind heart more than eclipsed whatever thumped in Elliot's chest. He thought the teenager clever. It was sweet, not that Elliot wanted sweetness from anyone not of the female gender. If he did, though, Catch would be high on the list. An endlessly older younger brother. Despite how dire things seemed, Elliot smiled at the confidence of the deranged man.

He was barely sure what he was meant to hurry to. Given what Catch had told him, the very last thing he expected was the literal truth of a fiddler stuffing children in her gullet. Wormboy Tony? He knew Agnie was the wormwoman but .. oh, he couldn't keep track of the Kaczmareks. Also, it might have been some element of Agnie that Catch associated with worms. It was giving him a headache just to think about.

Thinking. That was the problem. He needed to do less of that and more of acting. Play to your strengths. That's how you survived in Myrken. Elliot nodded, clapping a hand on Catch's shoulder before starting to run down the path. The tracks were easy to follow and within a mere matter of seconds, the sound of the music started to call out from the distance. As far as teenagers went he was both older and younger than most. Perhaps the music called out to that younger, whimsical, fairy-touched side of him now, but even so, the ring upon his finger would stop it dead cold.

It was distracting, though, distracting enough that he didn't at all notice a neatly dressed man taking up space on the path before him. Even if the man was swift and attentive, it would be hard to avoid the careening form of Elliot Brown.

[Waldemar]

The carnival was a frivolity, a tiresome riot of raised voices and garish displays, and as such lay well beyond the miller's interests. It was, however, an opportunity to encounter the good people of Myrkentown in an informal environment; to nod, to smile politely, to make small-talk and perhaps make light mention of business - only in passing, of course, for risk of seeming a bore. To be seen, to present a respectable face to those upon whose goodwill one's livelihood depends.

So, a while spent taking in the atmosphere - redolent with the aromas of dubious sausages spitting and sizzling over charcoal fires; the reek of unwashed bodies from some funseekers and an excess of perfume from others; a clamour of voices and ill-tuned instruments, and the constant jostle of crowds. He's nodded in recognition to some familiar faces, shaken hands, passed the time of day and inquired solicitously after the health of spouses, children, parents.

At some point, however, it became apparent that something was awry, a shift in the tone of the crowd, something changed - more precisely, something missing. Followed a little while after by an altogether more troublesome change, a subtle taste at the base of his tongue, a lifting of the fine hairs on the back of his hand. And it's that which has him now standing on a forest path, scowling into the middle distance with his head tilted in the attitude of one listening intently.

Which means that the approaching sound of running feet and rushing breath gives him warning enough to turn, at least, if only in time to be knocked sprawling by the impact of some overdressed young lout in an unseemly hurry. It's not until he's struggled back to his feet in a welter of furious oaths and reclaimed his walking stick from the leaf mould that there's a moment of recognition, lined features darkening further with anger.

He might have known, might have expected such an assault from the boy, the strutting bravo with far too much time and far too little sense and not even an ounce of good manners.

"You."

[Glenn]

"You."

In some ways, the trajectories of Marek Waldemar and Elliot Brown were strikingly similar. Around two years ago now, both had begun very distinct ascents. Fortunes had changed. An old jacket was discarded. A boy's stomach was full for the first time in years. Look at them now. Why they were likely wearing materials of the exact same quality even if fashion and necessity would push each towards different styles.

One had risen through respectable means the other through any means possible, yet there they were, on this path, together. Elliot would rise to a knee, perched, a dagger in hand though not yet drawn. It was strange, seeing this older man before him. He'd come so far since their first encounters. Elliot knew now that he was a mage of some sort, or perhaps magical himself, but he just seemed like a stodgy old bastard, not like some sort of outright menace. It was the hypocrisy that made him attack Rhaena Olwak like he did. Looking at Waldemar, looking at that expression it was rather obvious that he may lie to everyone else, but perhaps not to himself.

Still, the teenager had just bowled him over and his expression, though mostly even, was still tempered with a bit of satisfaction. "Waldemar." Older, taller, more mature? Well, two out of three at least. More confident certainly. "You stealing the kids with your devil's fiddle to work in the mill?" As greetings went, it was one of the worst ever recorded in Myrken Wood.

[Treadwell]

Delicious, delightful, belly filling slurpiness and gobbliness of delights and treats and ale and sludge that passes for a hodge-podge mish-mash of foods and cuisines: the fallen Treadwell, in his unconsciousness, has drifted off to dream of the Glutton in his native environment, half submerged and eternally hungry and endlessly eating. In short, it's paradise for the old slug.

Then there is the horrible problem of that fat, little, mortal body having to wake up.

At first, swimmy-headed dizziness is confused for actual swimming in the Glutton's sea of ale and mush. A brief giggliness and a pat of the stomach ease the woozy fellow gingerly back to this reality. Even though the Glutton's reality is always either a nap away or a bit of daydreaming distant, that dark and fetid cave is now replaced with the bright and sunny greenery of Myrken Wood.

Aloisius Horatio Treadwell's first problem is getting his cane back upright, point-first into the grass. His second is hefting his feast-swollen self, with his robe and underlying pajamas all too tight, back to a sitting position and, then, with aching knees and ankles and back and backside to his feet.

A hand goes up to straighten his glasses and to brush the knot grown on his forehead--"Oww!" Another wave of nausea sets the wobbly tub's vision and stomach spinning. Lunch, however animal and fluffy it was, is held in check, though. That hand goes from head to belly, rubbing it, soothing it gently as he looks around with bleary and blurry eyes to take in where he is.

This part of the wood is unfamiliar.

Ears hint that the screams from the children--another stomach-churning horror!--seem to be from all around instead of one given direction, although the truth would find it all toward the west, somewhere, from where he stands.

What of the Glutton's slime trail, splotchy and gray and goopy? Slow turning about sees none of it; it's still right where he left it, worming its way somewhat erratically through the undergrowth and mud and grass. However, Treadwell had apparently left it behind him somewhere, having stumbled just through enough of the trees before whacking his head--though it's certainly something he can smell (to him alone, so sweet and fragrant and healthy and normal).

He could find it easily enough. Some stumbling back the way that he thinks he came, a bit of careful sniff-snuffling about (even a nose deadened some by how much he smokes of his pipe can pick up the, to most, reek of that trail), and he could follow it back. . . .

Back to where?

To the other ravenous, gluttonous monstrosity that was eating children just as he feasted on wildlife? To the crushed bodies and blood-slurped slabs and chunks of young, human meat?

"My only choice, mmph mmph."

A look up, barely, causes another stumbly spiral of dizziness, a spiral stopped by fleshy hand meeting tree trunk and cane stabbing fiercely into mud.

"Not going home another way, mmph mmph. Lost!"

So, after a few moments of trying to come back to his senses and failing quite miserably, Aloisius Treadwell lurches back the way he'd come, carefully (and, secretly, quite happily inside) scenting out the oozy slime he'd left behind, soon using it as a wandering, messy, and safe trail back to the edge of the woods.

[catch]

Brave Elliot ran, he ran along the trail, and Catch knew. No matter what Other Bells might say, Ser Elliot was, truly, a Knight at his core, just as in the stories. Stories? Stories were at the root of this. He waits, until he no longer can hear Elliot's footprints, and slowly, carefully, he would force his wooden fingers to move, peeling them slowly away, hovering above each boy's shoulder to make certain that they do not dance away again. If they do not, Catch would busy himself trying, with utmost gentleness, to remove Cat's coat from Cherny's white-knuckles, frozen hands.

"Ser Elliot will save them, Ser Eater," Catch says, his words meant to be soothing even as they were incredibly tactless. It does not even occur to Catch that his nickname for Cherny would be inappropriate, after what he had just witnessed. He is busy at his task when movement glimmers, there at the corner of his eye, and his head twitches, twists, his eyes see the emerging Treadwell.

There is none here to stop him. None at all. He hasn't his axe, but he did not need it. The children doomed for the Fiddler's gullet had seen, had witnessed, had known what the Fat Man was. The addled man slowly bends, his long legs a giant's stride. Silent, and swiftly, he comes, and from under his sweat-stained sweater and shirt, his fingers grip a kitchen-knife, safe against his belly, a cast-off that had been honed so often that it was more whip-like than knife-like. Being so close to the Fat Man brought him shakes, brought him great, silver sweat to further dampen his clothes, but he'd not stop. It is with joyous, ferocious glee that he bounds at Treadwell, seeking to knock the Fat Man off his feet. It is with an inhuman grin that he would thrust his knees at that great gullet.

"I have you now, Fat Man," he would whisper, in triumph, for there was no-one here, no-one to stop him from what should be done. And, if Treadwell is truly pinned, he would whip that thin fillet-knife right across Treadwell's death-swollen gut.

[Waldemar]

The youth's accusation has fury giving way to incomprehension on the older man's features, shortly followed by distaste.

"...are you drunk, Brown?" It would make sense of that ridiculous question, at least in part; it'd also confirm the miller's opinion of the boy as a hopeless wastrel, no better than any of the other well-dressed louts squandering whatever potential - and money - they may have had the undeserved fortune to stumble over. He takes a moment to brush dead leaves and detritus from his clothes, gathering his dignity about him like a cloak. The boy is an irritating distraction, and one which the miller is entirely ready to dismiss.

"You're clearly in a hurry. Don't let me keep you." A brusque wave of his stick invites the young man to be on his way with all haste. Maybe he'd carelessly crash into a tree next time.

[Treadwell]

Aloisius is still dazed and woozy as he follows that sludgy, slimy trail back to the edge of the trees. On finally reaching the treeline and blinking, dazzled, in the fullness of the sun. . .

There is a WHUMPF.

Two WHUMPFS, actually, the impact of mammoth knees into elephantine belly.

Whispered words, failed to make out, a silhouette unmistakably Catch, and a smooth shlickshluck of a slice of gleaming scythe-blade fillet knife across the middle.

It's a reasonably superficial injury, not piercing anything than the topmost layers of bulbous flab, but the shock of this latest injury and the nearly immediate wet, sticky scarlet staining the buttery yellow robe and pajamas and flubbery flesh is more than enough to drop Treadwell once again unconscious for the second time today.

[catch]

Catch did not expect the Fat Man to go down so easily. For a moment, shock penetrates his Fiddler-mad mind, and he shall scramble off of Treadwell's giant, bloated form, the smell of his blood in his nostrils and on the blade in his hands. Is he gone? But, no. There is breath. It is a trick. It must be. Catch paces the prone form, a predatory half-circle, scrambling to regain what boldness he had. It is not hard to find.

He looks down at the splayed body, and he sees the red droplets squirm out, fat, piggish slugs, their noses upturned, their blind, smooth heads turned upwards, their fang-filled teeth squealing, squealing.

After that, it was not hard. It was a frenzy of blood, of hacking motion. There is much of Treadwell to get through, before anything vital may be touched. Before he'd even reach the vitae, Catch is bloodied, maddened, a slaughterhouse beast.

In his efforts to pierce Treadwell's sheer mass, Catch resorts to cruelty. In his freedom, Catch is not beyond torture. His hard heel will smash at pudgy fingers, at jolly, red cheeks, seeking to shatter the bone, the wax-mold, to reveal the terrible slug-beast that he had seen. It was not hard to merge Fiddler and Glutton into one. It was not hard to imagine dancing children being torn from Fiddler-feast to dance, instead, in Treadwell's gut.

Now, if he could only open him. Catch danced, mad as a weasel, his bloodied teeth bared in a grin.

[Glenn]

"I'm not drunk, Marek." Sentence one, said with a coy sense of smugness mixed with blatant and unearned familarity. "You just don't have the first idea what's going on." Sentence two, said with.. well, basically the same thing, just twice as grating and irritating. Sentence three, however, was a tempered thing, tone lowering. "That music off in the distance. And all the tracks. And how there were no kids at the carnival. Something took the kids. Cherny was taken too." And here he may have conveniently forgotten to mention that Cherny was since rescued just as he didn't mention it was Catch that told him.

"Something's going on that way. I think.." Then, he'd pause, frowning at the older man. "I think that you wouldn't have been just standing here by the path if there wasn't something going on, right?" That razor sharp Brown logic at its finest. "So either you were a part of it or you were trying to stop it, yeah? Well, it's down there, down the path, whatever it is," it being the situation in general, not that he was making enough sense for that to be clear.

He rose the rest of the way to his feet, turning his shoulder down the trail. "So are we going to take a look or what?" Brazen and fickle, but certainly not drunk.

[Rance]

A dance of all dances. A feast. Drawn toward the cave, forgetful of those things that made him what he was, that made him Phlynn.

The fulfillment of his promise to Elzie was a final shove, a violent, desperate motion, a chance for her to escape what it was she feared. The moss-shouldered boy's retort was a thing of fascination, of wholly reasonable purpose:

"I w-...will go to the dance. I will say I am you, and when I am eaten b-....by the music, no one will be any wiser."

The boy's stalactite teeth were black nubs in the forest light as he turned to teeter his way toward the fiddlesong, hearing nothing of the violence that occurred elsewhere in the woods. He was blind to it, deaf, his bladed fingers helping him nudge a ragged path through the masses of children. The mouth of the cave was a river of blood, of tiny little severed fingers and heels splashing in the sloppy ruin of muck that had once been daughters and sons--

do you remember how it is to eat a heart, do you? do you remember the blood of the Omtohpa under your little heels, Cries-to-Flowers, carrying buckets of water across your weary little shoulders to the men who lay cut open in the winter sun, their guts hanging like so many sausages from the smiles torn in their bellies--

There had never been enough eyes to grow. There had never been enough brains. He was a defective thing, and his vines tangled in his arms as he shoved his way through the line of children. One of them -- an urchin, Cat, a child he knew nothing about and cared less for -- was tossed to the side, shoved back toward the entrance. With predatory violence, a voice nothing like a little boy's, he snarled, "I want the music. I want the music for the wolf-wearer.

"I want the too-roo-lee f-...for King Bug."

A little girl who still lived despite the missing bottom of her torso and the absence of legs--

(she was just a chest in the
remnants
of a dress
that was longer than her hanging guts
her red hands scrabbling at the cavern floor)

--was trampeld under his muddy feet.

Two twin boys whose eyes screamed but whose mouths were stitched invisibly in silence were knocked away from their inevitable death.

He did a treacherous act among children -- he butted in line, only so that he, this blue-eyed boy with claws for fingers, could stare with wonder and intoxicated desire upon the slavering, gelatinous mass.

The cave reeked of steely blood. Stomach-bags had been torn by horrid, devouring teeth and an ever-hungry gullet. The rock and darkness was saturated with the stink of acrid feces and fear. The screams were so loud, an accompaniment.

"I am the Wormgirl," the boy said. "I am the Wormgirl."

And he gave himself--

what memories would there be within
what wonderful, fetid dreams
what things could he
Do
and grow
such discoveries to be made

--to the Fiddler's maw, reaching in a pale, vine-wrapped arm as deep as his flower-bud shoulder. Lifting a leg over a sagging lip. He was the Wormgirl. If she did not want the music, she could have her silence, and he would have this. It could have his limbs.

An arm chewed from its stone-bone socket.

A leg severed at the thigh.

Black blood, dark like lightless night and splattering like wild oil, tasting of rot--

Too-roo-lee -- too-too. Too-roo-lee!

[Waldemar]

Insolence. It lends a stiffness to the miller's shoulders, sets his features in a stern mask, refusing to grant the boy the satisfaction of any further reaction.

"I may have been taking the air. It's a pleasant enough day for it, when one isn't being bowled over by careless oafs." A welcome respite from the noise of the carnival, a chance to take an unhurried stroll through the forest without being shoved and bumped and elbowed by all manner of rustic folk. Besides, his mill is in the woods, and it's not inconcievable that he might have been taking a roundabout route back to it.

His glance along the path, though, betrays a greater interest in what lies at the end of it, the set of his mouth a touch too grim for someone just out for a walk. Elliot recounts a story that is by all sensible measures preposterous, and yet the miller fails to rebuke the boy for telling such outrageous lies. Instead there's careful consideration, attention returning to the youth for a brusque inspection, and eventually a nod for Elliot to lead the way. If the boy is expecting shock or alarm at mention of Cherny's name he will be disappointed; a flicker of annoyance, perhaps, but little more than that.

In answer to that question, then, he extends a hand in invitation for the boy to precede him down the path. It's a few yards before he asks the obvious question.

"And how do you know all this?"