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Chapter Text

   Navigating the mega-structure of Snake Mountain was something Skeletor had known by heart. Spanning corridors and rooms that had once housed an army; centuries ago the Snake Men, decades ago Keldor’s Rebels. Now little more than a handful of Evil Warriors occupied Snake Mountain. Slowly, large swaths of the Mountain fell into neglect as the remaining skeleton-crew kept to only the upper portions of the base. The unoccupied space of the Mountain became thick with dust and cobwebs, passed through only by one of Tri-Klops’ Doomseekers on a routine security sweep. The Evil Warrior's true base condensed at the top of the mountain, with only two exceptions; Beast Man's bestiary, which had long replaced the dungeon in the bowels of the Mountain; and the armory, at the center where it had been since the time Snakemen housed their weapons within.

   Preceding the latter was a massive room, which functioned as a training area for the Evil Warriors. Skeletor stood at its towering metal doors, the sound of combat muffled within. Like most entryways in Snake Mountain, they were security doors fitted by Tri-Klops with a panel off to its side. A set of unlabelled buttons, above it a panel with a handprint shaped screen, which Skeletor reached for. However, the sorcerer hesitated as a strange feeling crept over him, settling as something akin to dread in the pit of his stomach. His other hand gripped his Havoc Staff tight enough to pale his knuckles, staring blankly at the panel until the feeling subsided. The panel beeped as he pressed his palm against the screen, another chime annunciating Skeletor's granted access as the doors parted into their frame.

   The training room itself was mostly empty, save for stationary targets and miscellaneous training equipment that rested sporadically along the walls. Two chairs had been set up outside the painted guidelines that boxed out an indoor practice field, close to the door. Only one was occupied, the Warrior's technician sitting with a small tablet in hand. He quickly vacated the seat upon noticing Skeletor's entrance, standing at attention.

   "Lord Skeletor!" Tri-Klops' voice the usual scratchy, grating noise it was. The metal eyebrows above his visor's eye raised in surprise. "I hadn't realized that you'd--"

   Skeletor walked past the man, stopping short of the worn outline of the field. His attention caught on the duel occuring at the center of the room, a practice battle with Faker as opponent. The constructed mimic of He-Man had been repurposed as a training bot after being destroyed by its original. Blue metal where synthetic skin once had been. He-Man costume replaced with leftover armor from the days of Rebellion, sprayed a bright orange. The only remnant of the original forgery was it's Power Sword replica, which too was made orange, for reasons unclear to Skeletor.

   "Looks like-- There's-- You won't get away so--!" The mimic's voice module had been salvaged from the original Faker, but mostly broken. With a robotic cry, the robot charged at the opponent, swinging his sword down into rock as his attack was dodged.

   Six months ago, Skeletor had tasked his Evil Warriors with uncovering the lost civilization of Coreternia. To perhaps make contact with the volcanic core of Eternia, which had been sealed off millenia ago by King Grayskull. Lava-soaked equivalent to the Earthling Atlantis, mermaids replaced with the demon-like people known as Thornimps. Talented alchemists, who if still alive, likely harbored a strong dislike for Eternos after so many years of geological imprisonment and all.

   Facing Faker was the product of this search. After uncovering a Core ruin, Tri-Klops had managed to salvage an ancient transporter, which had used to travel from Coreternia to the surface. Unstable Horde magic-tech which had managed to activate and implode on itself, as most technology Tri-Klops touches ends up doing. An explosion of magic fire which had melted Tri-Klops lab, and brought with it their mermaid.

   "Lucky try--" The robot grunted as the opponent's tail; a large syringe of reinforced flexiglass- swept out and tripped him with enough force to take one of Faker's legs with it. The leg whizzed across the field, narrowly missing Skeletor's head, before exploding against the rock wall behind him.

   "How is he?" Skeletor said to the inventor, unphased by the near miss, his gaze still outwards to the field. The opponent had knelt down, head tilted as he studied the damage he had done to the bot. Vibrant red feather-hair tousled by battle, strands hanging over the white skull-mask-like upper half of his face. He warily raised Faker's leg, as if uncomfortable with touching the robot, and stared into the cavity where his lower leg had snapped off at. Red-dot pupils scanned back and forth as he examined the machinery within.

   "As far as my sensors can tell, he's completely recovered," Tri-Klops said, walking up beside Skeletor. When his mermaid arrived, the man was nothing more than a melting heap of flesh on the floor of Tri-Klops' lab. Magic burned him deep enough to expose his bone in any extremities which hadn't been shielded by the other body he had brought with him through the portal. The gore illuminated by Horde-flame, by glowing red blood which seemed to clot the gaping burns and regenerate the man before their very eyes. Now, mere months later, the only remaining evidence of his maiming were ever fading magic-burn scars on his limbs. As if they were older than the same Horde-burn which ringed Skeletor's neck and bore his burden to his once mentor, savior, captor. "It's really remarkable, his healing abilities, I mean".

   "Indeed," Skeletor hummed. The man still hadn't registered Skeletor's arrival, and instead brandished his tail again, bringing the metal needle tip to Faker's leg. Immediately, the leg sparked, jerking up and hitting the man in his ivory colored jaw. The man fell back, quickly distancing himself from the spasming Faker.

   "He doesn't seem to understand what robots are, yet-- Spinal Tap! You made him short circuit!" Tri-Klops called out. The man, Spinal Tap, looked over now towards Tri-Klops, hand on his likely dislocated jaw. His gaze moved to Skeletor, red eye slits rounding out as he only then noticed the man's presence. With him distracted, Faker suddenly rose up and tackled the man to the ground.

   "...Spinal Tap? He finally decided on a Warrior name?" Skeletor raised a brow, watching the fight unfold again before the two men.

   "Evil-Lyn and I came up with it, actually. With the bionic I installed, and his whole… spine thing". Tri-Klops gestured, referring to the magic crystals embedded in the man's back. Seemingly the source of his abilities, and the magic which populated his vessels instead of blood. Tri-Klops' visor whirred side to side, in substitute to rolling one's eyes, "It seemed fitting. But, he still insists on being called Prince".

   "To think Coreternia is seen as a forgotten civilization, and I managed to get their Prince in my ranks".

   "That's assuming he isn't lying" Tri-Klops let slip, immediately shrinking in on himself as Skeletor gave him a side eye, "Given-- given he's our only source on Coreternia, and, well--"

   "If he was lying, I would have noticed," Skeletor drifted off into a loathful sigh, red slits in his eye sockets as he recalled the many times an ambitious conman would appear upon Eternos' doorstep, professing to be another bastard of King Miro. Or an agent of the Guard, hoping to infiltrate his rebellion. 

   On the field, both men had risen from the floor, Faker hopping after his now evasive opponent, who kept a steady backwards jog with his raptor-like legs. After assessing how to subdue the bot, he swung his tail again, hitting Faker's neck. The robot jolted, voice module letting out a broken crackle, before crumpling to the floor. The man looked pleased at winning the fight, or no longer having to deal with Faker, brushing the dirt off his black pantaloons as he made his way to the sidelines.

   "Good work, I think" Tri-Klops retrieved his tablet from his chair as the man approached, "You applied too much force earlier, but you managed to knock out Faker without taking his head off this time".

   "Yes, I am growing accustomed to this 'bionic'. However, it appears the plunger in the syringe is faulty, as it did not properly administer when I attempted to regenerate Faker's leg", The man's voice was deep, yet soft spoken, as if from far away. Not helped by his height. He towered over Tri-Klops, and much to Skeletor's displeasure, was even taller than him.

   "Faker is a robot, the only way to heal his leg is to weld on a new part. Healing magic only works on organic organisms"

   "Geolans are inorganic organisms, yet they still respond to Starseed's Influence. Why your 'robot' does not, I have yet to understand" Spinal Tap remarked, quirking a horned brow. Turning now to Skeletor, he extended his hand out to be greeted, "Good evening, Skeletor. Are you here to spar as well?"

   "...No," Skeletor ignored the hand, till eventually Spinal Tap curled his fingers in and dropped the fist down to his side, "I wanted to see first hand your progress-"

   "Pity! I have not witnessed your abilities as I have with the others, save for your tantrums," The man laughed at his own remark, something akin to a witch's cackle. The man's attitude towards Skeletor was certainly jarring, in an atmosphere where his other minions always treaded carefully on what they said to their leader. An air of disrespect radiated from his newest recruit. Or rather, that he didn't see himself as a minion at all, but rather as Skeletor's equal of all things. Something that if expressed in the others, Skeletor would have swiftly crushed out of them, put them in their rightful place. But in this situation, he could do nothing but scoff at the pompousness.

   "Since your abilities appear satisfactory, I believe you are capable enough to be tasked with your first mission--"

   "I would be more than happy to lend you assistance, Skeletor!" The man clapped his hand on Skeletor's shoulder, the sorcerer jolting in surprise. That same wave of dread crashing over him, whatever expression he made was enough for Spinal Tap to immediately pull his hand back. Skeletor stepped back, holding his shoulder as if the touch had burned him. Spinal Tap faltered slightly at the response, and as Skeletor's Havoc Staff glowed, warming up to deliver punishment, anything, to get away from this man who had stretched his unusual patience for him past its threshold, "Ahm, when shall we discuss this matter?"

   "There will be a meeting in the War-Room, and... expect the others to be there as well," Purple fog poured from the eyes of the Havoc Staff's ram head, enveloping Skeletor, "I will call upon you when that time comes".

   "Ah, I will look forward to--" The man's voice was cut short as the mist encapsulated the sorcerer's vision, then evaporated to reveal the War-Room before him.

"I am sure you will"

Chapter Text

   After much pacing, Skeletor finally settled at the head of the War-Room table as he awaited the coming arrival of his minions to discuss the matters of Spinal Tap's first assignment. The appearance of the War-Room hadn't changed much since the time of Keldor's Rebellion, a conference table carved in rock, overpopulated with chairs stolen from an Eternos outpost they had ambushed early into the Rebellion. The rock carved chair at the head, where he sat now, was well worn in from years of plottings for Rebel attacks and Evil Warrior blunders. The arms of the lesser-throne carved to resemble those of ambiguous beasts, ending in clenched talons. The etchings in its back faded, obscured to where not even Skeletor- who had carved out the seat himself; recalled what they were in its undamaged state. When he was young, Randor and him had together taken up wood carving. Crude miniatures of Bush-Tails, Denebrian Ducks, and the like. Skeletor's thrones on Snake Mountain would be the first time he took up this hobby of his again in those many years since his childhood. Magic blade took to stone as easily as Miro's sword had taken to the little Manticore that little Keldor made him for his birthday. 

   The murmurs of gathering Warriors formed outside the War-Room's door. Customary amongst them was to wait outside till their comrades arrived, as being alone with their leader was seldom desired by any of the Evil Warriors. Skeletor was not one for small talk anyway, it was only a distraction from his pre-scheme concentrating. Tragically, his routine wave of calm remained out at sea, and like a nervous tic his clawed thumbnail began picking at the surface of his nail beds. A chip in the black polish gave way as he worked at it, despite knowing well he would regret the impulse, be compelled later to re-polish as to maintain the image he wished to put forward. This distraction was enough to delay his attention to the whir of opening doors, signaling his minions had all gathered finally.

   "Took you all long enough," Skeletor placed his hands on the table, sure to hide the hand with chipped nail polish under the other. Evil Warriors filed in one after the other, making their places at the table, all maintaining a distance from each other, and their leader.

   "New guy wanted to walk himself to the War-Room," Trap-Jaw said as he spun his chair around and draped over it casually, his utility-arm placed on the table with a heavy thunk. "Took his sweet time, too" The aforementioned man indeed entered last, standing over the table for only a brief scan-over. Much to the Evil Warriors' shock and horror, he took one of the many empty chairs and placed it at the empty end of the table, directly across from Skeletor. 

   "What do you think you're doing?" Skeletor hissed, leaning over the table from his seat, glowing red slits razor thin in his eye-sockets.

   "Ah, my delayed arrival was due to a needed detour to my quarters. To retrieve my journal," He held up said item, a leatherbound book which had been procured by Beastman of all people, who kept them handy for inventory of his Beastiary's supplies. However a beast man understood the concept of counting was less the issue at hand. "While I have taken to your language, it is still not my native tongue of Preternian, so taking note of-"

   "Not your book, Imp-for-brains! It’s that you dare place yourself at the head of the War-Room's table!" Skeletor yelled, eyes glowing bright red like two flames alight. Spinal Tap sitting stupified while every other minion ducked in their chairs as Skeletor went for his Havoc Staff. "You have never left this Mountain and proved yourself an Evil Warrior, yet you place yourself at my level!?"

   No chance for rebuttal, no opportunity for stupid playful comments. The ram's eyes glowed bright, and Spinal Tap let out a yelp as the arms of his chair contorted to talons, and sunk into his arms. The back split into two wings which caged themselves over his body. Wooden limbs peeling into long spider legs, soon the chair creaked and swayed as it carried the man from the table.

   "Wait, Skeletor! I do not–" The man's words reverted to Preternian as the possessed seat knocked into the walls, surplus chairs and avoiding Warriors as it stumbled down the room. Stopping finally at the empty place where it had been taken from originally. The glowing eyes of the Havoc Staff snuffed like candle wicks, and with it the chair reverted and released the alchemist. He sat there with wide eyes, mouth agape, a look of embarrassment forming across his face. Finally, he had gotten to him.

   "Now do you understand?" Skeletor hissed, placing his Havoc Staff aside in its stand besides his seat. Spinal Tap however, quickly sobered his expression, turning to look at the sorcerer.

   "In the Core, it is customary that the host and subject of a meeting sit opposite of each other. I had not been informed that the Surface views it as a grave enough insult to warrant magical assault," The man spoke deadpan, breaking eye contact to evaluate the damage done by the chair-napping. His exposed arm had been punctured, wounds already scabbed over in the few moments that had passed, along with the return of that dread-feeling in the pit of Skeletor's stomach.

   "Well, perhaps you should make a note in your book to learn about Eternian customs, then!" Skeletor waved his hand in an attempt to brush off any wrongdoing on his own part, and faced the rest of the room. The other Warriors all still in their chairs, trying to maintain stone-faced lest they direct any chair-based-wrath towards them too. The journal sat open at the opposite end of the table, Skeletor's gaze locking on the scrawled notes in both Preternian and Eternian. A subtle purple glow came over the book, which vanished as it closed on itself, and now opened to a blank page in front of its owner.

   "I have called you here to discuss the matters of Spinal Tap's first assignment as an Evil Warrior. Which comes with good timing," The sorcerer flicked his wrist, lights dimming in the War-Room as purple magic formed at the table's center into a diorama of the area surrounding Snake Mountain. "Three of our supply-villages bordering the Tar Swamp have not fulfilled their end of our bargain with them. Swampshire was at least polite enough to send our Griffin back with a letter; informing us that their village has suffered a strange sickness which has left them without a workforce".

   "So you plan to what, send Spinal Tap to complete the bog-rice harvest himself?" Evil-Lyn snickered, leaning forward in her chair to loom over the miniaturized landscape. "And as you said earlier, he has never even seen Eternia beyond Snake Mountain".

   "Simply put Evil-Lyn; Since we finally possess someone with healing prowess in our ranks, I had thought it wise to assign him to investigate this plight. Unless you wish for me to send you instead to Swampshire with a package of bandages, hm?" Skeletor raised a brow, his curse benevolent enough to have made his skull-face malleable to basic expression. He turned to Spinal Tap, who had begun scribbling in his journal already, "It is true Spinal Tap lacks field experience, so I will be accompanying him on the mission".

   The room responded with surprised gawking at their leader, something he expected, as it was unheard of for Skeletor to involve himself in such a low-risk mission; rather sending his thralls to follow up on any non-fulfillment. Or perhaps that, only moments after brutalizing the man for simple ignorance, wished to partner-up with him for an entire mission.The decision on Skeletor's part seemed rather sudden, and it was indeed. Much to his own surprise, the rash decision seemed to calm the feeling that had been hanging over him all day. However, the shock did not extend to Spinal Tap, who beamed at him with a toothy Thornimp smile, dot pupils rounded to big red moons.

   "I am quite familiar with the Tar Swamps, and since I am the one who brokered the agreements with all three villages, isn't it obvious I should be the one to go along?” Skeletor continued, extending a pointed finger out as he began drawing a path in the magical-diorama. Two small projections traveling across the lava-fields surrounding the Mountain towards the Swamps, “Spinal Tap and I will go to Swampshire by wind raider. I suspect the other two villages are suffering a similar fate, and after assessing the situation at Swampshire I will determine if I require gathering reinforcement which might draw the attention of the Masters”.

   “What kind of steed is this Wind Raider ?” Spinal Tap inquired, excitement to his voice, his page of notes becoming more and more dense as Skeletor spoke. “Are they similar to Griffons?”

   “It’s a machine , Spinal Tap. A single-person flying craft, the best choice for this mission, as the ones we have I have outfitted with invisibility shields to avoid detection when we leave the mountain,” Tri-Klops said from his seat furthest from the others, his voice cracking as he spoke up from so far across the room. Spinal Tap made a disturbed expression, the concept seemingly foreign to him, and offensive to some unknown sensibility, “Uh… unfortunately, Skeletor, Spinal Tap hasn’t been trained in piloting any craft”.

   “I'll give’em something from my collection” Beastman added, scratching at his orange mane, “Princes like that whole eh-khess-ster-een thing anyway, right?”

   “Fine, I will bring Panthor and Spinal Tap will bring… something from the Beastiary. In this case, it will take about two days to reach Swampshire. We will depart tomorrow morning, so as to not delay our arrival any further,” Skeletor curled his fingers in, the projection ceasing in a puff of magic. He rose from his chair abruptly, retrieving his staff as he departed with no formal dismissal to his minions. “Have everything in order by dawn, I will be waiting at the gate.” 

   The door parted to allow for Skeletor’s passage, closing behind him and muffling the returning chatter of his thralls. Walking down the mountain-carved hall with no real direction, heartbeat elevating in his chest with each step. The vision of the alchemist smiling at him, when his other thralls would have responded with horror in the same situation, circling in his head like a tempest over the Sea of Rakash. But what it brought with it was not the sinking feeling which followed him after he snapped at the man earlier, but something else, indescribable to him. Something similar to standing out in the summer heat too long, when he had a face still that could sunburn. 

   Perhaps he was succumbing to some unknown blight, too. Something.

Chapter Text

   A hand outstretched to him alone.

    Skeletor clutched it in his own, running a thumb along the diamond stitched into the glove. How gentle it felt when he brought it to his face, sighing deep as the hand caressed his cheek, tracing an armored fingertip along the curve of his jaw. A smile, sharp fangs teasing against the phantom feeling of lips he once had. Warmth, which washed over his body as a tide tempting him further out to sea. Skeletor sank into its depths, letting himself become anchored with no worry for when he might run out of air. He just wanted to feel it all wash over him, until–

   The tinny cry of an alarm clock brought the sorcerer to the reality of his bedchamber. Supine in a puddle of sweat, tangled in the sheets. He groaned, bringing a hand down his face, fingers lingering on his mouth. Even with the ringing of the alarm beside him, he made sense of his dream, and of the mission ahead of him. Until it was all too much, and he silenced the clock when his returning heartburn became too much to cope with.

   Skeletor had decided it would be best to arrive at the gate early. Give him some time to collect himself before the dreaded alchemist would arrive on whatever foul creature Beastman loaned out to him. Perhaps watch Panthor wander about outside the Wolf Gate, take in the sunrise over the Dark Hemisphere.

   Upon approaching the Wolf Gate, any pre-plan idling he wished to do would become null. A massive hole smoldered in the gate, directly where the wolf motif which gave its name would have been. While, how this damage managed to avoid setting off the Tri-Tech security system was beyond his capacity, he could see the damage was fresh enough that the intruder was probably nearby. Skeletor extended a hand towards the ground, a spell of detection webbing out from his palm into the ground. Purple magic expanded out like tree roots, until catching on a lifeform a hundred yards or so outside the gate. One which was… levitating off the ground? Perhaps another magic user . He went for his sword, ready for confrontation as he commanded Panthor through the Wolf Gate and out into the open outside the entrance into Snake Mountain.

   “What coward would choose to break into my Snake Mountain, and not even bother enter–” Skeletor faltered, as before him was not a levitating enemy, but rather a timid looking Spinal Tap clinging to a pacing mechanical equine.

   “Get back! This… this wretched machine has a mind of its own!” The man whimpered, cringing as the horse raised its head and stared down Skeletor and his battle cat, the mounted gun on its golden withers trained on them. Much to both mens’ surprise, the equine's red eyes turned blue, and both guns on its withers and croup retracted into their compartments within its' chasse. The horse let out a compressed whinny, walking up to Skeletor on its own, as its rider was still hunched over in its saddle with a look of immense fear.

   “I am surprised you picked a mechanical horse as your steed,”

   “Tri-Klops accompanied me to the Bestiary, and persuaded me this invention of his... Nightstalker, was the wisest choice, 'given its similarities to Unicorns' we Coreternians have as steeds. He did not inform me that this is equipped with weapons, which it deployed upon seeing some creature outside the gate. I just kept pressing this until this… night mare, stopped pursuing the poor animal,” Spinal Tap gesture to a screen on the saddle, leaning back as Skeletor looked over at the screen. Tri-Klops’ work no doubt, the interface reading out previous commands by the console;

---------TRI-TECHNOLOGY---------

(04:10) SYSTEM OVERRIDE: authorized personnel added: [SPINAL TAP]

(04:11) STEED MODE engaged: Rider [SPINAL TAP]

(04:30) ATTACK MODE engaged: hostile threat [MANTICORE] detected

(04:30) deploying FRONT and REAR [LASER CANNON]

(04:31) ERROR: release of luggage compartment lock overridden by [ATTACK MODE]

(04:31) ERROR: release of luggage compartment lock overridden by [ATTACK MODE]

(04:31) ERROR: REAR [LASER CANNON] already deployed

(04:31) ATTACK MODE disengaged: DEFENSE MODE engaged by authorized Rider [SPINAL TAP]

(05:00) DEFENSE MODE disengaged: authorized personnel presence [SKELETOR] [PANTHOR]

(05:01) IDLE engaged until STEED MODE re-engaged by authorized personnel

----------------------------------

   “I thought you could read Eternian by now,” Skeletor inquired, hesitant as he reached over across the man’s lap and began fiddling with the system’s console. Thankfully, the software was almost exactly like the other vehicles Tri-Klops had modified for the Evil Warriors’ use.

   “I can. Ah, somewhat, not as well as I can speak it. Much to my dismay earlier, I have no clue what any of this says,” The man sighed, leaning back against the saddle’s raised back as he looked upward at the few remaining stars which remained in the predawn sky, “Tri-Klops insisted it would be ‘ just like riding a Unicorn ’. But, it clearly was not.”

   “I've disabled the weapons system, and locked it into Steed Mode until I authorize it otherwise. So now this will be no more than riding one. Why that dimwit didn’t do that in the first place-”

   “Thank you, Skeletor” Spinal Tap said, looking down at him now from the slight vantage his height, and the taller steed, gave him. Smiling, like the smile in his – Skeletor quickly turned away, sure his purple cowl obscured the involuntary warmth he felt across his face now. Spinal Tap didn’t notice, instructing his steed to walk forward a few feet, before stopping again in front of Panthor and his rider, relieved at the horse’s docile behavior. The alchemist looked out towards the horizon, where the dark purple night had begun to bleed into the Hemisphere’s red dawn. “Did you come here early to see the sunrise as well?”

   “...No,” He fibbed, dismounting from Panthor. “Although, since you seem so rattled by that incident. Perhaps taking a moment to watch it would be beneficial to you. So you don’t vomit from your cowardness towards the mechanical halfway down the Mountain-path”.

   “Perhaps,” Spinal Tap shrugged, throwing a leg over as if to dismount, but remained precarious on the saddle, now facing Skeletor. Undiscerning, the sorcerer extended a hand out, which was grasped by the other man’s before he could retract it. Spinal Tap’s hand was so much larger than his, so much warmer than he could have imagined . 

   But rather than dismounting immediately, Spinal Tap looked at Skeletor’s hand, which was poorly wrapped in gauze. The sorcerer’s heart began to race as the man unwrapped it, exposing the puncture wounds he suffered during his attack on the alarm clock earlier. While he felt the urge to pull away, run as far as he could in the opposite direction; he remained there, letting the man silently examine his hand. Seemingly a rabbit in shock, in the fangs of a wolfbat. But the alchemist was gentle in handling him, bringing his tail up, syringe tip quick and painless with injecting his hand with magic. Before them, the wounds miraculously sealed with little more than a slight sting, into white scar tissue, which then faded away just as momentarily. Still clutching the hand, Spinal Tap calmly dismounted. Upon fully registering the interaction, Skeletor pulled his hand away, as if he had touched a hot stove-top.

   “Perhaps there would be a good place to admire the view?” The alchemist smirked, crossing his arms against his chest as he looked past Skeletor towards a small clearing near the path down the Mountain-side.

   “What? Oh, whatever,” Skeletor grumbled, turning his back to him as he led the man to the cliff beside the Mountain entrance. Both men sat there, watching the sun creep up over the horizon line, bathing the magma fields which spanned out before them in morning sunlight. The few moments where the badlands of Snake Mountain softened, became peaceful. While the sunrise here normally could never compare to the one he recalled each morning at Castle Eternos, this time … it was different.

Chapter Text

   “Ah, the sky is truly a sight to behold!” Spinal Tap mused from his steed, which trotted calmly beside Skeletor's battle-cat. The sorcerer, who had been scanning the now afternoon sky above them, peeked towards the man from the corners of his vision. At the start of their trip, Spinal Tap had looked practically nauseous about riding the robotic equine again. Now, his demeanor smoothed out, as the previous altercation proved to no longer be a possibility. All thanks to Skeletor’s keen thinking . With this newfound confidence, his minion certainly looked like his princely title; unbowed in the saddle, confident with his reigns as he maneuvered Nightstalker around the ever-forming obstacles in the dirt road through the badlands. His cape, clasped at the shoulders with a red diamond-shaped broach, billowed out behind him. The man was awing from afar, even more now, reminding Skeletor of the massive oil paintings in Castle Eternos of the legends of yesteryear. He wondered, perhaps, if there were any similar depictions of this man lining the walls of the castle he had originated from.

   As he pondered further, Skeletor realized he knew quite little about this man. Sure he knew Spinal Tap was the Prince of The Core, with magical healing abilities granted by his God, like Zoar's Sorceress. But the latter information was only discovered with Evil-Lyn's disguised research in Library Eternos. Even after the man woke from the coma he should have died under, from injuries he should have never healed from and in such a quick time- he tried protesting this discovery. Seemingly terrified to admit the obvious, confessing what they already knew only when told his homeland was still sealed away by the ancient Grayskull-Barrier. But his knowledge stopped there, and what little he got from the man from then-on was about his homeland and his people, never about himself. Even after months, his name still wasn't known to the Evil Warriors, he was just the Prince, the new Evil Warrior; Spinal Tap. 

   “I have no time for gawking at nature. i’m keeping an eye on the skies, in mischance that surveillance has been dispatched on us by the Masters,” Skeletor returned his attention ahead of them, as the volcanic soil abruptly turned to rocky soil, the worst reaches of the volcanic badlands fading behind them. Spinal Tap's ambiguity was not that unusual, for other minions such as Whiplash and even Trap-Jaw's more personal details were not quite known to anyone .

   “Why would they  follow us if we are no more than traveling?”

   “You naive fool, I am the Lord of Destruction ! My mere existence is a threat to those goody-goodies! I have to disguise myself simply to get groceries, less I am accosted by He-Man and Friends, wishing to protect an innocent market from my dinner scheming!” Skeletor cackled, throwing a fist in the air to shake around for added dramatics. Why then, did he want to know further about the Prince? Want to know his life, his name, why he so eagerly joined the ranks despite his defiance towards authority, why he was so flamboyant yet so withholden about himself?

   "You complete errands and cook for yourself?" Spinal Tap scratched his chin, knitting his brows together. He looked rather irritated now, momentarily at least, with hand clenched on the reins "I see, that is quite… interesting "

   "So what if I do?" Skeletor squawked, suddenly self conscious. Spinal Tap’s sudden switch of attitude striking him like a blade in his chest,  "There is nothing wrong with cooking for myself, I'll have you know I am quite the culinary–"

   "Ah, I do not mean any offense towards you," Spinal Tap waved for him to calm down, flustering slightly as he spoke. "Rather, it appears Trap-Jaw has deceived me in how you Evil Warriors feed yourselves. I have been under the assumption those small meal containers are what our rations consisted of"

   "Oh Gods, you have been eating those terrible field rations Trap-Jaw's hoarded since the Rebellion?!" Skeletor's laugh was stifled with a gag, as he recalled the taste of the awful MREs that Keldor's Rebel Army just barely survived on.

   "I was told Snake Mountain has no servants. Trap-Jaw has been providing me with 'field rations' since I awoke from my coma. They are quite disgusting, a wretched tasteless dry powder! But, it has sustained me well since–”

   “Dry powder, you haven’t been preparing them before you eat them? Have you never made a meal for yourself before?” Skeletor watched as Spinal Tap sputtered, almost falling from the saddle. Spinal Tap commanded Nightstalker to walk faster and ahead of Skeletor, who was cackling now as the man answered him with his avoidance. “You have been here for months eating nothing but food-dust!?”

   “That is none of your concern,” Spinal Tap waved his hand again, bringing Nightstalker to a canter Skeletor tried catching up to him. Clearly embarrassed, but too stifling a giggle at his own embarrassment.

   “Ha! I should have expected that from someone who insisted on being called Your Highness !”

   “I have never made such a request!” The alchemist pulled back his reigns, his robotic steed stopping in its tracks. Abrupt and unexpected enough for Skeletor to pass him, and have to turn Panthor around and back down the path. Spinal Tap’s crest of feathers stood on end, whole body shaking, eye sockets wide. His sudden change in demeanor as if what Skeletor said was the equivalent to threat of death. No, something more than that, "Do not dare utter such foul lies about me!"

   “I…” Skeletor was taken aback by this response. That this man- who had no fear of punishment for all the defiance he had since his arrival, who always bit something back in response to Skeletor; had changed to something unrecognizable. Panic in his eyes, like when he had been informed they knew of his powers from Starseed. To think of what had induced such a terror within him, that despite thousands of kilometers of rock and magma and an unbreakable forcefield, something lay within Eternia’s center which bestowed such a horror in Spinal Tap’s eyes. Before he could speak, or think further, Spinal Tap refocused again, his expression dropping, unable to make eye contact with so much of a glazed over look.

   “Please never repeat what you said again,” He spoke flatley, beginning down the path again. Skeletor followed too, alongside the man, with a loss of words. No longer looking to the sky attentively for Masters, just ahead of him, taking in the path ahead through a pinhole. Perhaps he shouldn’t pry the man further , that there was a gilded mask the alchemist put on that was never meant to be removed. Lest deep wounds were uncovered beneath it that couldn’t be healed by even the Starseed. 

   Even with that, Skeletor felt his heart grow heavy as he recalled how the man looked. How it reminded him of the many times he bore into his reflection during his time as a child, as a teenager. As the world passed behind the two men, who rode in silence as the sun moved over above them in which hours seemed like only a few moments. Trees on the horizon now. Skeletor wanted to know the source of the horrified expression, not to simply know more about his minion, but be able to… comfort this man. He was picking at his cuticles now as all the nail polish had been stripped away by his tic. It would be hypocritical on his part, for he wore a mask too, defiant to lift it for anyone, let alone his minion.

   “We should be out of the badlands before nightfall. There is a small trader’s outpost on the outskirts of the Tar Swamp,” Skeletor spoke again, pretending as if the confrontation never occurred, “Nothing of interest to us, but it has an inn we can stay at for the evening. Cheap, serves food and drink”

   “Skeletor, you wish to treat me to dinner?” Spinal Tap seemed back to normal, looking over with that fanged smile of his, “I would be honored to try some genuine Eternian food, with you”.

   “I’m not paying for your meal, nor can I guarantee the quality of said food. But I can at least guarantee it’s a step above the unprepared rations you’ve been choking down” Both men laughed, the tense air from before now dust clouds behind them.

   “Perhaps when we return from our trip, you could even teach me how to cook. I am quite good at choosing quality ingredients, but I cannot guarantee that the first three or four dozen attempts will be edible”,

   “I will consider it, only if we use the old barrack mess hall instead of burning down my kitchen–”

   “We have a mess hall!?!” Spinal Tap balked, startling both Skeletor and Panthor.

   “I will give you an actual tour of Snake Mountain, too”

   The sky had become amber with sunset once they arrived at their destination. Truly was it a trading outpost, bustling with life as it did during the peak-season of trading, brought on by the nearing harvest in the Dark Hemisphere. Strange peoples of all types, from across both Hemispheres, their worlds nothing but little bubbles around them. All wanting to pass through the outpost as quickly and as uneventfully as possible. Easier to blend in, saving Skeletor the magic, for simply obscuring themselves under hooded cloaks, as many already did around them, was enough that an illusion spell was uncalled for. Skeletor did take the precaution to set one on their steeds, as two strangely proportioned Slottos were less to draw attention at the outpost’s stable than a mechanical horse and what was known planet-wide as the most wanted man in Eternia’s Dylinx Battle-Cat. Panthor seemed rather displeased with the arrangement, and it took much reassurance before the two were able to leave both creatures at the stable and make their way to the inn.

    “You said you rode Unicorns before,” Skeletor looked up to the alchemist, who had gone further in his concealment and wrapped his face with a scarf beneath his hood. Obscure enough to pass as a Caligar, as only his horns and his glowing pupils were visible now. “I always thought they were extinct, they are at least here”

    “Oh yes, they are commonplace in the Core, either wild or beasts of burden. I would ride around on one through the countryside quite often in my youth, collecting wild herbs and bugs in jars. However–” Spinal Tap stopped himself, his eyes thinning out to slits, "Mere memories".

    The inn’s tavern was overflowing when they arrived, both booth and barstool occupied with travelers wishing for a little cheer during miserable trade-runs for the merchants who hired them to transport their goods. Spinal Tap stuck close behind Skeletor as they entered, making their way to the far back corner booth.

    “Excuse me, I believe you gentlemen are sitting in our booth” Skeletor said smoothly to the men currently nursing what appeared to be their dozenth round or so.

    “ Your booth?” Slurred one of the men, an Eternian whose voice was indicative of a soon to come fight. The other Eternians grumbled in agreement, but upon looking up at the pair who wished to stake claim to their seat, the group went pale. Clearly the sight of two hulking cloaked figures who revealed no-more than red dots beneath their cowls, was frightening enough to snuff any flame of conflict within the drunkards. Whispering to themselves, they cleared, and Skeletor thanked them slyly as they fled from the shrouds. As soon as the men made their seat, a husky Spelean boy came up to their table to clear the empty beer steins into the large tub he carried. Quiet and avoiding eye contact with either man, much too young for a Spelean pup to be working as a busboy for such a place . The boy left without a word, and after some assessing Skeletor decided the booth was private enough he could let his cloak open, and for Spinal Tap to unwrap his face, while both remaining cowled for the time being.

    “Can I get you two somethin’?” A barmaid soon took up the busboy’s place in front of their table. A spelean like the boy, all of the employees appeared so, as the tavern was probably family-run. Nubby tusks just barely poking from her lower lip, suggesting she was no-more than a teenager. While possessing the pep and energy that came with her age, she was just as indifferent to the appearance of the two as her brother had been. As far as she was concerned, they were customers and no more.

    Skeletor had expected Spinal Tap to be quite flamboyant, and would be inquiring if the tavern had a menu as if the pompous man was expecting the place to be a high-class restaurant. But rather he was silent, sitting stiffly with hands neatly folded in his lap. As expected, he passed off enough as an off-color Caligar for the girl to even try asking again in Caligarian. No response.

    “Sorry about my companion,” Skeletor sighed, clicking his nails against the table-top. The busboy could’ve wiped the table down before he left, as it was sticky with spilt drink, “Two beers, and whatever today’s special consists of”

    “Grilled Swamp-Hopper and Bone Broth sound okay?” She scribbled into the small notepad she carried, probably didn't care whether it truly was or not. Skeletor nodded, and the barmaid soon returned with their mugs, telling them their food would be ‘out eventually’. Skeletor watched as Spinal Tap fidgeted at the handle of the wood stein, leaning in over the table to do as he did with things new to him. Studying the vassal, before bringing it to his mouth in a way one did with a beverage they were unsure was too scolding to drink just yet.

    “Have you never drank before?” Skeletor laughed, as the man took a hesitant sip of the beer, making a smacking noise with his tongue as he took in the taste. Skeletor wouldn’t inquire about the man’s odd behavior just yet. The sorcerer too sampled his drink. Hoppy, probably not worth the price they would be charged for it later.

    “I have only had wine, with my dinner” He expected nothing more from the nobleman, “This is my first alcoholic beverage on the surface however”

    “I see, try not to make your assumptions solely on this cheap swill. Eternia also has its share of excellent wineries”

    “Ah, well, I think this is rather acceptable actually,” The alchemist quickly took another sip, more of a swig, downing half the stein in one go. His fangs dripping beer now, the man instinctively went for a nonexistent table napkin. Rather than now wipe his face on his uniform, a glowing red tongue darted out from his mouth and licked the drink from both fangs. He had been making eye contact with Skeletor in the process, and a look of embarrassment quickly formed on his face as he realized what he had done. He was careful then not to dunk his fangs into his stein when he drank then-on. Skeletor wished he would not be.

    ‘Eventually’ had meant a few rounds in before their meal was brought to them. Spinal Tap had gone quiet each time the barmaid had come around to refresh their drinks, and to bring them their meals. Asking only for another drink by turning the stein so the handle faced outwards for the girl to refill. When she brought them their meals, balanced on a large platter she seemed too feeble to carry, she had also brought along a large pitcher of beer to cut down on her trips back to the table.

    “Thank you miss,” Skeletor nodded to the girl before she departed into the crowded tavern again. He felt a little bubbly from the alcohol by now, twirling a fork in his fingers as he looked over their food. Steaming bowls of a simple but aromatic soup, plates of grilled Swamp-Hopper legs served over swamp-kelp, with a small sauce-bowl of some green paste on the side. Nothing fancy, but quality enough given the bustle of the tavern. Across from him, Spinal Tap neatly spread some of the paste on a grilled leg, popping it into his mouth in one bite. He shut his eyes, letting out a pleased hum. “Good?”

    “Oh yes, this is quite delicious,” The alchemist washed it down with another drink of beer, which he had already consumed in a great quantity Skeletor hadn’t expected from the man. Certainly drunk by now, his movements more fluid with intoxication as he quickly finished the Swamp-Hopper and moved on to the soup. Another pleased sound, certainly filled with bliss at not having to eat another unprepared MRE. Probably the first real meal Spinal Tap had in months. He wanted to cook for him, buy a nice bottle of vintage for the occasion. Skeletor shook his head, swirling his spoon in the bowl of broth.

    “Skeletor,” Spinal Tap spoke up, both plate and bowl empty in front of him. He had taken his stein in both hands, looking into it rather than at the sorcerer, “I want to… apologize for my behavior earlier. I should not have spoken to you the way I did”.

    “I upset you,” Skeletor sighed, intoxicated enough to at least rip the next words out from his consciousness, despite the mental protesting on his part, “Whatever hurt you that bad, I am sorry for reminding you of it”

    Spinal Tap nodded in response, and they both sat there in silence. A pit formed in Skeletor’s stomach, making food unappetizing for him. He still forced it down, as Spinal Tap continued refilling his, and Skeletor’s mugs from the pitcher. The surface line of beer lowered further and further down the glass pitcher until there was nothing left but to nurse the remaining drink in their mugs.

    “Would you like to know?” Spinal Tap said quietly, slurred speech just barely heard above the background noise.

    “You don’t have to tell me,”

    “Well, I wish to. I have never told anyone else, not even my family,” Spinal Tap's gaze was boring holes into the table, “And- and I do not expect I will ever see my home again, so it does not matter if I confide in you," He paused, as if realizing his own impulsiveness, thinking to correct it, "As long as you do not tell the others”.

    Skeletor felt so foreign in his own body now. He should just simply tell the minion to keep it to himself. It shouldn’t matter, as long as he continued doing his job. But perhaps it was the beer in his system, or the constant swirl of that dreaded feeling that plagued him since the Thornimp’s arrival. I want to know . I want him to trust me. “If that's what you want”.

    “Imp’perum, our monarchs, they do not keep the throne for life," Spinal Tap began, after some time thinking over his words again, "Fifty years, and it passes to their eldest child. My sister Mammona was eldest, so she inherited it. Her coronation was controversial, as she was the first in hundreds of years to not be an alchemagii, an alchemist. She was never able to learn it, and she had failed out of her studies at the royal academy. Her admission was in part that my mother lead it before she herself was monarch, and that Mammona was her heir,” He ran circles around the rim of the stein with his finger. Voice calm even with the slur of alcohol, uncomfortably collected in himself, as it seemed he had thought on the story many times in before, how he would tell it when at last it could escape his fangs, “I, however, was considered gifted. Since the moment I could walk I was interested in being an alchemagii. I was accepted into the academy at sixteen years old, and graduated at twenty, not even Azoth the Great had graduated until his thirties! Naturally, my sister was upset, and she attended my private ceremony wearing that look. When you graduate, you must submerge yourself in the lake around Starseed, where all magic in Eternia comes from. It was so cold against my skin, and I was quick just to escape such cold. But, there was a great light that came from Starseed, as the entire cluster, the lake, all the roots spreading from Them into Eternia seared crimson”.

    “I remember that, all the magic water turned red. We thought it was an omen, it was the only time the old-Sorceress ever spoke to the outside world, assuring everyone it was okay”

    “Well, it was a day which proved I truly was a gifted alchemagii, I was chosen by Starseed in that moment. They embedded shards of Themself into my spine, gifted me Their powers, as Azoth had five hundred years ago. I remember breaching the surface, my sister already treading through the water towards me. We were supposed to celebrate after... a big frosted cake was made in my honor, my family knew I enjoy sweets so well. But she threw a robe over me, brought me to the tower in Castle Core where my bedchamber, my lab and my plants were,” Spinal Tap looked up now, deep into Skeletor’s eyes. Not like before, not through him into the distance. His pupils were so thin, like chips in fine crystal. Beaded blood on broken glass, “She threatened her guards. Had them pin me down as she screamed at me. She said I was trying to steal her life from her, steal the throne she had worked so hard to get, so hard to prove she was worthy of it. I tried telling her I did not want it, I never wanted to be imp’perum. She hit me with her scepter, and my horn broke off. Just... telling me that I did not deserve Starseed’s gift–”

    “Spinal Tap–” Skeletor felt ill at this, sickened deeply, and felt the ache in his bones. The man continued, still dreadfully straight faced despite.

    “She took a budding knife from my lab. First she shaved my feathers, which had turned from white to red. Then she- the guards begged her to stop, but she said she would kill them, their families. She was so angry at me, at everything, that the shards would not budge despite how deep she brought the knife into my back. I– I fainted, and I woke up the next morning, to find Starseed had taken pity, perhaps, and healed me through Their gift. I waited there, in my bed, unable to move until soon I found Mammona was sitting besides me. She had dyed her feathers, and I remember that she leaned in, so close to me, and told me she would be Starseeds’ Panacean. That if I told anyone the truth, that–” Spinal Tap whimpered, leaning over his mug with his hand over his mouth. Swallowing back something, shuddering as he had earlier that day. “My used my gift, took it through my blood, to make people pay for her ‘miracle healing’. For twenty seven years, I never told a soul. I was so afraid… because I feared she would follow through if I–”

    He couldn’t continue anymore, sputtering as his emotions broke through, pink tears running down his cheeks. So sick did Skeletor feel, fists clenched tight enough his knuckles went white, palms burning as his nails dug into his skin.

    “What your sister did to you…” Skeletor felt rage blossom in his chest, seeing this man so broken before him. Wished to smite the one who had traumatized him. Destroyed into ashes. Ripped from time and space. Wanted to hold this shattered soul and have him find solace, "It is sick".

    Spinal Tap wiped a hand over his face, looking back up with a mix of nauseousness and surprised relief. “Yes... and, and when you told me you knew what I was, I expected you to turn me back over. But when you said you were awed, and wanted me to help you. I had never felt so happy in such a long while, as I have in these few months. Even with your tantrums, even though I hate the word ‘minion’ and those awful rations” He was flushed, whether it from the alcohol, the crying, or something else. Moving closer, gloved hand inching across the sticky tabletop, diamond shapes embroidered on the knuckles. “I want to thank you… for everything”

    “Spinal Tap-” The feeling in his heart bloomed into something else, burning through his entire body. Everything seemed to slow to a halt around them. The commotion of the drunken tavern brought to a deafening silence. Nothing but the man in front of him.

    “My name is–” Spinal Tap’s flushed face quickly turned pale, and he lurched back with his hand over it. Laughed nervously, before letting out a groan, “I… I had too much to drink. I-I do not feel well”

    “Perhaps it would be best if you got some rest” Skeletor felt shaken, thrown around from all the sudden things he had felt in such a short time. Spinal Tap nodded, and so the sorcerer helped him up and walked with him to the tavern counter. An old Spelean man wiping down a beer mug, the sight of it making Spinal Tap groan again with uncertainty of becoming sick.

    “Here to pay your tab, corner booth?” He said with a grin, setting the mug aside to look at the pieces of paper pinned to the wall behind the bar, taking off the one belonging to their table. From the barmaid’s notepad, so many tallies for beer . “Sixty one gold pieces”.

    “How much more for two rooms?” Spinal Tap was much heavier than Skeletor anticipated, leaning his full weight on the sorcerer now. Hopefully those healing powers helped with hangovers.

    “Sorry, only have one room left. I’ll charge you half for it, if one of you doesn’t mind sleeping on the floor” Skeletor sighed, nodding as he took his coin purse out from under his cloak. The innkeeper extended a wing out, clawed digit taking the last key off its hook. “Let’s make it a clean seventy pieces then”

    Coins were exchanged for the key, and the innkeeper pointed them over to a set of stairs going to the inn rooms. Told them each room came with some extra blankets, and not to get sick on them or he would charge them. So upstairs they went, Spinal Tap a little more responsive now, relying less on Skeletor for balance as they climbed the stairs. Thankfully their room was right at the top, and quickly Skeletor let them in and surrendered the alchemist to the bed.

    “Thank you…” Spinal Tap muttered, eyes fluttering with drunken exhaustion the moment he was laid down, his hips bent awkwardly as his tail hung off the side of the bed and threatened to pull him down to the floor with it. Skeletor moved him around the best he could, the man pliant in his grasp, as Skeletor got the cloak off him, positioned him so he wouldn’t choke if he spit up. Thankful that along with extra blankets, there was a bucket tucked underneath the bed as if the owner expected this type of situation. Although as frustrating a situation this would be in other circumstances, Skeletor felt an unusual calm over him, setting the spare blanket out on the floor beside the bed.

    “Skeletor…?” Spinal Tap muttered, unmoving now as sleep began getting the best of him,

    “Mm?”

    “Your name… surely it is not Skeletor?” He giggled, the tip of his tail beating against the bed. Skeletor laid flat on the floor, knowing well his back will ache in the morning, arms behind his head.

    “No,” It would be unwise to tell him. The alchemist knew nothing about what he was, who he was. Yet, he was just drunk enough to ignore any holdings back, “My name is... it is Keldor”.

    “Ahhh, Kel-dor. Skeletor, Keldor. I see, yes” The man closed his eyes now, humming to himself as he drifted off, “My name is… Asteroth. I am…”

    Skeletor sighed. If he had lips still, they would be quirked up into a smile. Aster oth, representing elegance and daintiness. He certainly would have never expected this. He closed his eyes as well, shutting out the sound of the world still heard through the thin walls. Thought on that silence from earlier. Wanted to thank him, for everything.

    “Goodnight, Asteroth”

Chapter Text

   Sleep arrived, dreamless and unwavering. Pure darkness behind where eyelids had once been. Both infinite and momentary, only realized when Skeletor was roused from the deep slumber by shifting floorboards beside him. The sun had only just bled over the horizon, teasing the inn room with dimmed morning light. With a groan, Skeletor sat up, fighting the hangover that began to pulse throughout his body. It was nothing compared to ones he had after a night of binge drinking, coping with the loss of a well thought plan that had quickly gone up into flames. But this was still enough to be humbling, poorly paired with the pain in his lower back from a night on the floor.

   "Sleep well?" Spinal Tap said, his back to Skeletor as he looked out the open window. Muscular arms behind his back, his head quirked in that way he was prone to when curious.

   "Hangover,"  Skeletor wiped a streak of dried saliva from the oblique of his jaw. The alchemist peeked over his shoulder, morning light illuminating his feathers more than they already did on their own.

   "I have not experienced one since I was in the Academy," Spinal Tap said with a flamboyant shrug of his shoulders, "One of the benefits of Starseed's gift"

   "The Starseed must be pleased in knowing its emissary is using such a gift for binging," Skeletor remarked, reaching a hand out for help in getting up. The alchemist scoffed, and turned back to whatever he had been observing through the window. Left to his own devices, Skeletor began uprighting himself, fighting the sting that now enveloped his entire back. Perhaps sleeping with his armor on was not the wisest choice, but there hadn't been many alternatives with both their luggage stored within Nightstalker. Once standing, he made his place besides Spinal Tap at the window, curious as to what was occupying the man's attention away from him. 

   "Ah, I was admiring the early morning atmosphere. However those two across the alley drew my eye," Spinal Tap brought up his tail to point them out through the window. Two Eternian men stood back to back, looking around attentively at the pedestrian traffic flowing both ways through the street. One brandished a humorously large metal hand, while the other's neck was extended to an impossible length. Towering high to scan the crowd more efficiently, however giving way to much gawking by passerbyers. Despite the fog of his hangover, the pair's identities were clear, and Skeletor quickly willed the curtains shut with his magic. "Is something the matter–"

   "That's Mechaneck and Fisto, you fool! Masters, who are looking for us!" Skeletor hissed. In situations like this he would normally feel nothing but inconvenience, but somehow butterflies of panic were frenzied within him.

   "Ah," Spinal Tap frowned, opening the curtain just enough to peek out again, "You should not have made such a fuss, you drew their attention towards the inn–"

   The window shattered inward, Skeletor falling back, shielding himself from the shrapnel. Before either could process the breakage, Spinal Tap was pulled through the window head-first, ripping the curtains off the wall as he went. Thrown a far enough distance his impact was heard across the street, crushed metal and splintering wood, and the cries of frightened bystanders.

   "Hah! You played right into my hand , Skeletor!" Fisto shouted with mistaken triumph from outside. The sorcerer retrieved his staff from beneath the inn bed, along with Aster– Spinal Tap 's cloak.

   "Uh, Fisto, aren't illusion spells supposed to break when the target goes unconscious?" Skeletor grit his teeth, daring to peek out from the broken window frame. Both men, and a crowd of bystanders, stood over the wreckage of the building across' porch. Wood splintering inward, in the epicenter lay Spinal Tap, blanketed by the inn's dearly departed curtains. Fisto's bionic hand was still gripping his face, tight enough that bloody cracks spiderwebbed out from his bone-plated visage. The bionic had certainly gone through a new alteration, experimental and unsure in its damage like the unfortunate Prince's new tail. From Fisto's metallic wrist sprouted a grappling wire, which had severed in a tear of thread from throwing the man's weight, which he was now fidgeting at with his organic hand. Despite his expression, hadn't meant to damage the man so badly, which showed through in his body language. Typical Master of the Universe. "If this isn't Skeletor…?"

   The sorcerer vaulted through the window, cloak billowing out to block the sky in his shroud. The shriek of bystanders gave his surprise attack away, but either Master was too late in reaction before either side of the Havoc Staff made contact with their heads. Fisto fell on impact, while Mechaneck's still extended neck took the brunt of the impact. His helmeted head rocking back like a rocking horse, striking Skeletor on return.

   "And to think I was beginning to doubt Stratos' surveillance report…" Mechaneck coughed, Fisto pulling himself off the ground.

   "Is it not a tad ill-intended to be stalking someone on a sight-seeing trip–" Skeletor fixed his cowl, glancing down at the Thornimp. Now closer, Skeletor could see the extent of the fall's damage, forcing back a wince at two pieces of the storefront which had impaled the man through his shoulder and leg. "-- And maul their travelling companion?"

   "Don't play dumb with me, Skeletor!" Fisto barked at him, leaning down over Spinal Tap to rip the bionic off his face. " You're… you're just happening to head into the Tar Swamp towards Preternian runes, with a minion disguised as a fairy tale!?"

   "A disguise?" Skeletor blinked, nearly forgetting that to most Eternia, the Core was nothing more than an oral legend. Interesting that they were the first to recognize him as a Thornimp, when to most their appearance was unknown. And the knowledge of ruins was certainly new to even him, strange, "I am curious to know how you two know so much to be judge–"

   "What if this isn't a disguise, but another one of those imposter robots. Remember Faker?" Mechaneck said to Fisto, much to Skeletor's frustration at being interrupted with such insolence. Skeletor raised his staff, a bright glow of purple magic enveloping the ram ornament.

   "Enough playing detective," Skeletor swung the staff horizontally, a blade of magic cutting through the air towards the two men. They narrowly dodged, his attack taking out the pillars holding the storefront's facade up instead. The remaining bystanders screamed, fleeing in all directions as the front of the building groaned and began to sag forward with threat of collapse. Skeletor directed his next spell on Spinal Tap, who was still well unconscious. Dragging him across the ground into the center of the street. The wood pieces once staked in him had dislodged, wounds already scabbing over, and his face was now webbed with pink scar tissue. Useless currently, unpleasantly gurgling, but thankfully not dead.

"Well?" Skeletor hollered down the corridor. Pitch black, the only light was that of the green glow which bled from the melted entrance to Tri-Klops lab.

"It's uh, safe to enter now," Tri-Klops peaked out warily, clad in the magma-diving suit that had been left to collect dust in the armory until now. "Let me warn you, there's… bodies"

The laboratory was still unbearably hot, unsalvageable. The portal's explosion had filled the room with superheated air, melted technology contorting the artificial room into something almost organic. Had Skeletor and Evil-Lyn not raised shields when the Evil Warriors had fled, they all would have been no more than puddles.

"Four" Tri-Klops crossed his arms, nodding towards the epicenter of the explosion that was the now destroyed entrance to the other world below them. Two near-skeletons lay in front of the portal, both had been unable to pass through completely. Upper halves and severed wings, both clutching what was left of their weapons. Ambiguous handles clutched in four fingered hands. 

Farther away from the portal lay two bodies together. Harder to see as one was on top of the other, wrapped in a set of smoldering wings. Burnt feathers and flesh.

"This is… horrible ," Evil-Lyn recoiled at the scene, covering her face and stepping back behind the others.

" I know , how are we possibly going to budget in a new laboratory?" Skeletor snipped, although he could feel the disgust on his own face. "Or get the smell out of the Mount–"

 

From beneath the wings reached out a melted hand.

   With his bionic no-more than a flail now, Fisto swung it over his head, bringing it down on Skeletor. Easily blocked with his staff, however the wired hand coiled around the instrument, giving an opening for Mechaneck to extend his neck and headbutt Skeletor in the torso. The sorcerer stumbled back, losing grip of the Havoc Staff as he tripped over Spinal Tap and landed face first on top of him.

   Below him he felt the man awaken with a convulse, as if Skeletor's weight was an electric shock. The alchemist grabbed him instinctively, flipping over so he now pinned the man against the road. His senses returned, but not before he looked down at the man with a sense of puzzlement. Flushed just a tad too much for Skeletor's well being.

   "Skel-?" Spinal Tap was suddenly struck from the side by a return of Mechaneck's headbutt. He was knocked over, but his reflexes were indeed quick, as his tail coiled around the Master's bionic-neck and sent him flying over Skeletor and across the street into the inn. The alchemist righted himself in one fluid motion, and at full height and sudden full health, he was indeed imposing enough to cause Fisto to flinch. This gave an opening for Skeletor to cast a barrage of magic in his direction, knocking the staff and fist from his grasp.

   "I'm glad to see you're still alive, Spinal Tap!" Skeletor called out, levitating his Havoc Staff and Fisto's hand into his grasp, adding a little secret magic to his hold so that the bionic crumpled like paper beneath his grip.

   "Ah, it would take much more to pull me out of battle," Spinal Tap stood over the mess of Mechaneck, brushing dirt from his uniform and furrowing his brows at the holes and bloodstains left in the fabric from his impalement. "I hope my brief incapacitation was not too inconveniencing".

   "How did you…?" Fisto trailed off, drawing back cautiously as the towering Warrior began approaching him when he had little but his strength to defend himself. "This isn't funny anymore, Skeletor"

   "...Funny ?" Spinal Tap quirked his head, puzzled "How is my being... funny to you?"

   "He believes I've dressed another robot up," Skeletor pointed to Spinal Tap with his staff, "However, Fisto, and if you're listening too, Mechaneck; he is the real thing!"

   "You said the same about Faker, when you tried to turn Eternia against He-Man. The Thornimps are no more than–"

   "Why is it that Eternos sent two Masters down to follow me in the Dark Hemisphere, where Randor does not so much as care if it were to vanish off the map…" Skeletor stepped closer to Fisto, who in turn stepped back further, metaphorical hackles since raised. "Do you Masters truly believe I have dressed a robot up, or is it that your dear King thinks I am at risk of undoing one of the more crucial threads Eternos has spun into its tapestry?"

   Fisto swallowed nervously, remaining hand toying at the communicator attached to his belt. He had turned the receiver on sometime during the scuffle, how impolite. Skeletor clenched his teeth, switching his staff out for his sword. In turn, Fisto swung at the men, his super strength enough of a threat for Skeletor to require dodging. However, his strength proved moot when against two, and soon he lay atop his unconscious comrad much the same.

   "We must leave at once," Skeletor said to Spinal Tap, crushing both Master’s communicators beneath his boot with a satisfying crunch of electronics, as to buy some time. However, much to his horror, the alchemist had crouched down with his syringe tail brandished, administering his magic to both Masters. "What do you think you're doing, fool!"

   "Ah, this one's neck and shoulder dislocated, and the impact concussed him," Spinal Tap gently retracted Mechaneck's mecha-neck, before turning to Fisto, "He is also concussed, and you slashed him quite deep with your sword. It is only polite of me to heal them,"

   "Let the out-posters care for them! They are our enemies, they were– they insulted you!" Skeletor stomped with frustration, looking up at his surroundings. Petrified onlookers peeking out from doorways and windows. He made a frustrated sound, before blowing a whistle for Panthor.

   "My duty as Panacean outweighs my role as your adviser," Spinal Tap stood up straight again, "Do not look so distraught, Keldor, they will remain unconscious till long after we have departed"

   "Do not call me that. I should punish you for such insolent behavior," Skeletor growled, as Panthor approached with Nightstalker in tow. A half-fastened grain bag hanging empty around the robotic equine's neck, with a trail of oats and possibly a scared stable hand in its wake. Skeletor gave the feline a familiar pat on the snout, and both men mounted their steeds and began their departure deeper into the swamp.

   "If you insist," Spinal Tap grinned wide, the pink webbing of facial scars nothing more than a memory now, "It is unfortunate I was not able to properly introduce myself to those two,"

   "Do not fret," Skeletor said, casting a spell of invisibility over both men as they exited the outpost, rippling transparency visible to only the two men. Wincing at his headache that returned now that the adrenaline had worn off. Perhaps he should have asked for Spinal Tap to heal his hangover as well. The sound of a storefront collapsing onto the street. He would also have to consider another outpost for the way home, some new disguises, "You will be able to soon enough".

Chapter Text

    There was no longer a dungeon upon Snake Mountain. What had once been was now occupied with snarling creatures populating the zoo that Beastman's living collection had become. It was no loss to Skeletor. There was barely any chance an Evil Warrior scheme would procure prisoners, and the times that did were no more than a single being. One of the many rooms that lay dormant on the Mountain was all that was needed to contain a squabbling Prince-Nephew or Orko or one-time friend of He-Man, until inevitably broken out after a series of Minion Incompetencies.

    However, the room he stood outside now could not be described as an improvised prison cell. More of a bedroom, pristine still after twenty years, a bit dusty. Its last occupant was a higher ranking member of the rebellion, whose visage had long faded from Skeletor's memorance. Or never mattered at all.

    "Forgive me if i'm overstepping, Lord Skeletor…" Evil-Lyn said from behind him, glancing down at his hand which had been gripping the door's handle for quite some time now. Green, four fingered hand prints burned into his skin, gauntlets on that arm instead replaced with bandages.

    "You always are," Skeletor said, his words falling flat of their usual venom. One of the screws in the metal bracings upon the door was slightly off-center than the others. He thought of his bedroom at home, where the door always creaked, leading him to need to sneak out at night through the window as a rebellious youth. Telling him when the guards change shifts, despite the acid burning away his eyes as a dying, captured rebel.

    "Ugh, look. be grateful I am offering you a rare shred of empathy! You have been acting… off, since what happened in Tri-Klops’ laboratory. I had chalked it up to nerves after…" Evil-Lyn trailed off, perhaps not wanting to recall the ordeal in the lab entirely.

    "I feel just as grand as I always am, Lyn. Perhaps a bit peeved over our loss of Tri-Klops laboratory, all that rare Preternian tech he blew up being an idiot," Skeletor groaned, wanting to flee such a stupid conversation with the Word-Witch , forcing himself to open the door. 

    "Finally, thought y’were gonna stand out there forever," Trap Jaw leaned over a backwards chair. Resigned to guard-duty, as the entire Tri-Tech security system had shut down with its hub being melted from the accident, "Here to help with bandages?" He nodded towards the bed, "I know I’m just the greatest at field medicine, but this… yugh "

    Upon the bed lay the enormous creature, eerily still, the only sign of life being the rise and fall of his chest. Every part of him wrapped in gauze, unconcealed only at a set of blank eye sockets, and a fanged lipless mouth which wheezed with every breath. Partially tucked into dusty expensive sheets, the entire room was decorated with stolen goods from some unfortunate Eternos noble’s estate.

    "Has he spoken yet?" Picking at his nail polish, creeping sense of déjà vu.

    "Not a word, probably shock. Dunno how he's even alive anyway, Tri-Klops helped me pull four dagger blades out of him. Like, the ones you lace with poison and stuff," Trap Jaw counted the blades out on his hand. Skeletor raised a brow, stepping close to the bed to look down at the comatose being.

    "So all we know about our guest is that he survived a murder," Skeletor reached out, tracing a clawed nail over the bandage across the man's forehead. Pulling away as a red light appeared in one of the being's eye sockets. Not an orb of magic like the sorcerer's, a slitted eye of a lizard's. Opening up and revealing itself an eye like a glowing gemstone, which focused on the sorcerer. Full attention, scanning over Skeletor's face slowly, until it glazed over from the pain, and closed to a thin glowing line as light still shone from between the lids.

    "He… wasn't he blind?" Evil-Lyn whispered. The observation enticed the sorcerer to lift up the bandages near his eyes to inspect better. Where he had been burned so heavily by Horde Magic flame, melted flesh had already begun to scab and flake to scar tissue in a matter of days. From between his brow were the beginnings of feathers, little red quills that glowed the same.

    "That's why I called you two down ‘ere,”

     Skeletor had hoped the invisibility spell he had cast would distract him for the remainder of the trip. Concentrating on masking their tracks- combined with his hangover; left little room for ruminating on what had occurred the night before. While the invisibility spell’s range required Spinal Tap to keep closer to him than Skeletor would’ve wanted, it had done well to ward off the insects which plagued the Tar Swamp. As they grew closer to the edges of the meangrove treeline- where soon it would open onto marshy bog-rice paddies; Skeletor found himself now waving away at little pests which seemed to detect him even beneath the magic shroud of concealment. One such even managed to land itself on his breastplate. A slender insect with long legs and wings, armed with a long needle-like mouthpart. He swatted it, leaving a small green stain on the leather. Green like the scar around his neck. Quickly the stain faded, evaporating into the air like a spell in the wind.

    “Myah,” The sorcerer glanced over his shoulder at Spinal Tap behind him. The creatures had seemed to be avoiding the alchemist completely, and as Skeletor dropped back and rode side-by-side to him, the bugs dissipated around him. “You can add ‘insect repellant’ to your abilities”.

     “Ah? Oh, hm,” The alchemist muttered. He had been scribbling in his journal for most the day, multiple pages through with quick drawings of flora, and dense notes written in some type of shorthand. Conversation had been sparse, as the man had turned quiet since they had departed from the outpost, likely tired from all the regenerating he had done. Spinal Tap had changed out of his damaged thermal suit into a backup, during so Skeletor had stolen glimpses of the gnarled regenerating wound scarred over on his shoulder. Still, what if he’s contemplating what happened in the tavern the night before . He had divulged something so monumental, gotten so close, names exchanged. What would have happened had he not gotten sick ? Skeletor shook his head, concentrating on the approaching marshland, the air down the path swaying like the bare horizon on a summer's day. Swarming. Spinal Tap finally spoke, "These supply shipments you expect from the Tar Swamp…?" The alchemist left his question open, voice drifting as his eyes caught on a particular looking tree along the path.

    "Obviously the Evil Warriors have to procure ways to pay for schemes, weapons, and what-not. Bartering is what most of our under-the-table contacts prefer, especially if its food," Finally, the path opened up to the paddies surrounding Swampshire. Long stretches of tall bog-rice plants, yellowed and heavy from their postponed harvest. Skeletor disengaged the invisibility spell, and they continued down a muddy road bisecting two large fields. Idling slotto-drawn carts or busy farmers from his visit in the past were nowhere to be seen. Not another creature, not another noise. Skeletor stuck close to his traveling companion, his presence even without the spell continuing to deter the obnoxious flying bugs. Skeletor couldn't help but laugh nervously, as they grew closer to the densely packed buildings at the epicenter of the fields which signified Swampshire, "Myah-ha, I grow nervous at what may await us– gah!"

    From the tall crops emerged a young aquatican, the amphibious variation of the people which were native to this portion of the tar-swamp. A little thing with large eyes and a bulbous body, lacking any decorative fins (or feathery rami as amphibious aquaticans sported) besides a long tadpole tail which dragged in the mud behind them. In their arms they held a pellezean kit, the size and shape of a ball of yarn, a few more scampering out of the field after the taller child, ends of their monochrome fur wet and muddy. None seemed bothered by the pests, or Skeletor’s presence. Perhaps too young to know what his mantle carried, or perhaps like most Dark Hemispherians was not quite brainwashed to fear him as a boogieman the way Eternos’ subjects were, “Who are you?”

    "I am Skeletor," Skeletor dismounted from Panthor, crouching down to meet the guppy’s height. "Are your parents nearby?"

    "No… my mimiis sleeping,” The guppy seemed upset at the question, breaking eye contact to stare at the ground, “Lots of the grownups are."

    “I see,” Skeletor glanced back at Spinal Tap, who had silently dismounted from Nightstalker at some point, standing with his syringe-tail raised out of reach from the curious kits who now encircled him, “Are there any grownups awake right now that I could talk to?”

    “Mhm, they're all in town. But, I can show you how to get there!" The aquatican seemed to pluck up with newfound confidence, even with the town being quite clearly in view down the road. They set down the road on foot with the guppy in the lead, and soon the overripe fields ended and the road began twisting around thatched roof, clay brick buildings.

    "Why are you wearing a mask?" Skeletor heard one of the kits squeak to the alchemist, who had gradually been placing the litter of pellezean on the shorter Panthor's saddle over the walk.

    "...This is my face," The alchemist answered,

    "You look like the guys from the stories Stonedar tells us, he's sooooo old, just like Rokkan!" Another kit chimed in, and the others in the litter came to agreement on this assessment. Skeletor glanced back again, noticing Spinal Tap’s complexion had paled even beneath the cheerful look he sported around the children.

    "How… delightful," The alchemist spoke through his smile, making particularly intense  eye contact with Skeletor once he noticed he was being watched. Skeletor jolted, looking ahead again to assess the town as they were guided. Houses and storefronts were locked up tight, what few open windows stole only glimpses of empty homes. As in the fields, the bustling village life was completely devoid of all life.

    "Mister Rokkan had everyone stay at school, but we haven't had class in a loooong time," They pointed to the schoolhouse not far down the road. Unlike the other buildings, it was constructed of wood, and on its front face were large glass windows and an entranceway of multiple-sized doors nested into each other. From one of the windows someone peeked out, and there was a commotion from within the building for a moment before the largest-most door swung open and an ancient looking stone geolan with a cane emerged to greet them.

    "Didn’t I tell you kids before not to sneak out!" The geolan's face was an unmoving visage carved into stone, a blue light beneath the rock fluctuating with each word. The children quickly said goodbye and skittered off into the schoolhouse behind him. "Lord Skeletor, I am Stonedar, the one who provided your griffon with that letter".

    "Myah, quite a concerning thing to recieve it was. I've brought with me one of my Evil Warriors to help assess your sick, he specializes in healing" Skeletor gestured for Spinal Tap to approach, the towering alchemist stepping to the front.

    "Yes, yes. How good, our resident doctor can catch you… up…" The geolan's light paled as he registered the man, gawking up at him as if he was seeing a ghost. He sputtered, tripping over his feet and falling backwards onto the ground. "Y-your highness, b-but you– by the gods, you were…!" Spinal Tap and Skeletor helped the old man to his feet, and he remained clutching the alchemist's arm, as if convincing himself if he was truly real.

    "Um… you must be mistaken… we have never met until now," Spinal Tap spoke, the divots in his jaw besides his teeth were turned to a frown, all the color drained from his face. Uncharacteristically, he jerked his arm away out of the geolan’s grip and hid behind Skeletor.

    "Of course, you are a thornimp, the Great Seal and all…" Stonedar spoke, unphased by the alchemist’s timidity, "The Panacean ! I can sense it, Starseed's magic is in your veins as it was with Azoth!" He braced himself back on his cane, "I was alive before that Great Seal, and many believe the Core was lost to time. Yet here you are! What wonderful news this is!"

    After allowing Spinal Tap to retrieve his medical bag from Nightstalker’s luggage compartment, Stonedar led the men, and Panthor, whom Skeletor did not want to risk leaving out, into the schoolhouse. The classroom’s furniture had been pushed aside, the floor lined with the town's many unwaking. Few dozen still bodies tucked into makeshift beds, their exposed features wilted, green veins bulbous and spidering across their skin in varying degrees. The only waking beings in the room besides themselves were two elderly andreenid women and a teenage aquatican boy looking after the afflicted. They were led through another door into the school’s playroom, with soft flooring and walls covered in bright murals. Within it were the town’s children, twenty or so, varying in age and appearance. The group that had led them into town were being calmly talked to by another geolan.

    "Skeletor," The other geolan ushered the children off to play with the others and walked over. He was a few hundred years younger than Stonedar, too made of smooth chiseled stone, but with a bright blue vein of crystal vertically bisecting his form. Rather than a blank sculpture facade of a face, his was a flat plain with a single magical eye that seemed as if projected on, "I am Rokkan, Swampshire's teacher and resident doctor,” He chuckled to himself, a sound like glass windchimes, and shook Skeletor’s hand, “Yes, I know, quite an oddity to have a magical phenomena interested in such mortal feats. I see you brought…” His words drifted off, staring at Spinal Tap as the elder geolan had done as well.

    “Myah, yes” Skeletor stepped in, “This is my newest Evil Warrior, Spinal Tap–”

    “He’s the Panacean, Rokkan! I nearly thought he was Azoth himself!” Stonedar venerated.

    “...Indeed. Stonedar, could you take over here while I talk with these two,” He blinked a few times, embarrassed at the behavior, and the men returned back out into the classroom with him, “I apologize about his behavior,” Rokkan said to Spinal Tap, “Stonedar is quite an ancient man, the only geolan, or anyone for the matter, around today who was alive during the Preternian era–”

    “ I would rather we focus on the situation at hand ,” Spinal Tap’s voice peaked with impatience, faltering once more as he fumbled through his cloak’s inner pockets for his journal. “Ah… I… wish to examine some of your patients, and ask you some questions about this matter”.

    “Of course,” Rokkan rapidly blinked again, tripping over his words, “Anyway I can be of help”.

    "Your observations so far,” Spinal Tap walked about the room, making a general assessment of the patients. Discussing a familiar field seemed to infuse him with better confidence, although his body language still suggested his timidity, “When this started, for example”.

    “Yes… Well, one morning, a week or so ago, I had pulled an all-nighter grading papers and slept at the schoolhouse. My students arrived quite early, before class would be called, saying their family members wouldn’t wake up. Beside the children, I… only found four others who seemed unaffected by this. I’ve never seen anything like this in my lifetime, and we… brought all the ill here to look after. Odiphus, although he’s quite the rebellious young man, offered to go get help from our neighbors in Drifting Wood a few days before your Griffon arrived. He hasn’t returned yet,”

    “Myah, we also sent griffons to Drifting Wood and Murk, but only the one to your village returned” Skeletor addressed, hands placed behind his back.

    “Oh dear, I am deeply worried about him…” Rokkan sighed as Spinal Tap stopped and crouched down to examine a patient more closely. He had begun to procure the necessary tools to check their vital signs, when the aquatican patient’s eyes suddenly opened, bulging green sclera and white pupils. The person began to wail, thrashing beneath the sheets until they fell onto the floor on opposite side to Spinal Tap of the makeshift gurney and returned to their sleeplike state. Spinal Tap recoiled, falling back against the side of the bed behind him. The patient resting in it, an andreenid woman, too awoke with a violent scream. Attempting to oust herself from the bed away from the alchemist. Spinal Tap scrambled to distance himself from the patient, and she similarly fell back unconscious once he was out of reach of her.

    “Dear gods, what happened!?” Stonedar burst in from the other room, with what appeared to be a sword drawn from his cane. He stopped and assessed the patients on the floor and the mortified expressions of the others, and sheathed it back into the cane.

    “The…. the afflicted villagers…” Rokkan stuttered, cautiously approaching the aquatican laying on the floor. When they did not move, he carefully lifted them back into the bed and went to do the same with the andreenid woman, “They appear to have an… aversion to being in Spinal Tap’s proximity”.

    “There were flying bugs we encountered who acted similarly,” Skeletor added, recalling when they first entered the shire, “Despite my invisibility spell, they seemed to detect both our presences. They were drawn to me but repelled by Spinal Tap”.

    “Insects…” Spinal Tap muttered, looking up at the pitched ceiling of the schoolhouse. Skeletor looked as well, and above them there were indeed a few tiny green dots circling above them. They seemed uninterested in all but Skeletor, swooping down towards him only to recoil once realizing his continued nearness to the alchemist.

    “Shoot, they must’ve gotten in when I left the door open to greet you two,” The alchemist’s eyes darted back and forth, quietly forming his thoughts.

    “Ah, Rokkan… are the unafflicted villagers not capable of any amount of magic use?” Spinal Tap asked, looking towards the three huddled behind the teacher’s desk now.

    “No, I don’t believe they are. Do you think they are drawn to magic?”

    “Well, you see, it is a likely theory. Ah, um, magic traits only surface once a person or creature reaches pubescence, and even with very minute magical capabilities one begins to emit what is referred to as an ‘essence’,” He stared out, unleashing his thoughts in one jittery rush of information, “While you and Stonedar are magical phenomena , you are not capable of magic use and lack this magical essence in your forms, just as your unafflicted do not. However, one would think they would be drawn intensively to me, due to the fact that I am quite utterly a basin of the same magic which Starseed produces for the planet…” He looked to Skeletor, pointing a gloved finger up at the insects, “Skeletor, could you perhaps capture one for me, please? I would like to test something ”.

    “Only because you asked nicely,” Skeletor scoffed, turning away completely to attempt to catch one of the insects with his magic. He managed to encase one in a purple orb of magic, plucking it from the air to hold in his hand. The bug mindlessly tapped its proboscis against the inner shell of the orb in an attempt to pierce the sorcerer’s palm. As Skeletor approached the alchemist it took flight and began bumping itself against the orb opposite to Spinal Tap, attempts growing more desperate the closer it became.

    “Reduce the container as much as is possible without harming the insect,” Skeletor chided once more but decreased the orb to the size of a marble, leaving the now thrashing creature tightly confined as Spinal Tap carefully took it in his hand. He brought the magic marble up to his eyes to stare at it intensively, quietly taking in every feature of the immobilized creature to his memory in his particular observational habits, “I am going to expose the insect to my blood, to see its response to the healing magic” He tapped the needle of his syringe tail against the orb. Skeletor opened a pinhole in the magic for the alchemist to inject a small drop of red magic into the orb, and upon contact the insect instantly disintegrated. Spinal Tap then nodded to Skeletor, and the orb quickly disappeared to leave a sparkling green dust in the alchemist’s gloved palm.

    “The insect!” Rokkan exclaimed, “Could these bugs be the vector?”

    “Ah, yes,” He was still quite neural, looking around and twiddling his fingers together in what Skeletor could only describe as medical knowledge and social ineptitude continuing to clash, “However, these are not living organisms. Had they been merely flies carrying a parasitic disease, they would not be making such biases in the organisms they fed on. Furthermore, exposure to my healing powers would have simply terminated the pathogen, not cause the host to disintegrate into what appears to be spell residue”, Spinal Tap gestured to the two patients from before, “I wish to administer my healing magic to those two, before I can make a conclusion,” He paused, an abasing flush coming over his lily-white cheeks, “The least I could do is heal the injuries they suffered a few minutes ago. They will have to be restrained for the safety of both parties, since the aversion seems violent enough to result in accidental self harm”.

    “I…” Rokkan looked to the others, his eye blinking a few times before he let out a sigh, “I understand”

    “Excellent. Well, let us see… Skeletor shall restrain them with his magic. Rokkan… Um, Rokkan, I would like for you and Stonedar to be at their sides, so they may have a familiar face nearby if awakened,” Skeletor restrained the two villagers, and the geolans stood beside each villager respectively as Spinal Tap cautiously approached them. Both awoke at his presence, howling and fighting back unsuccessfully at their bindings as Spinal Tap carefully injected the syringe tail into both’s bloodstream. While they continued to convulse, their screaming immediately ceased, and from their mouths a sparkling green mist emerged and evaporated to nothing. Their sunken skin filled back out, and the sickly green veins spidering over their bodies faded, “This is the work of a curse!” Spinal Tap concluded as the patients fell limp, "Quite a powerful one," He administered another dose to them, however they remained unconscious, even as Spinal Tap examined them and found a faint green leftover in their sclera. "It… It is not lifting entirely…?"

    "Perhaps that requires us finding the caster–" Skeletor was cut off as Spinal Tap bolted upright, his crest standing up in distressed chunks.

    "No! No… I should be capable of lifting it completely, I am completely capable of lifting any bodily curse no matter the caster's strength," Spinal Tap attempted to inject them again, prevented as Skeletor grabbed him, pulling him back into the aisle between the makeshift cots.

    “ Get a hold of yourself! ” The sorcerer hissed, holding him by his shoulders. He would have to prevent the situation from getting out of hand, improvise , “The Sorceress’ magic dulls when she is away from Zoar’s Nest in Castle Grayskull, doesn’t it? You are thousands of kilometers and a magical barrier away from your Starseed. As her counterpart, you probably have similar restrictions”.

    “ Still –” Spinal Tap looked at himself, the faded burn scars along his exposed arm, his shoulder where the wounds from earlier were still scarring over, “It has taken longer for me to regenerate… it is just…” Spinal Tap sighed, the panic in his face beginning its departure, he hoped . Skeletor stepped away, crossing his arms over his chest with a huff, looking out to the others around them.

    "Let's all try to maintain an air of calm, myhm? We will get nowhere with any more flights of frenzy," He shook his head, "Stonedar, go back to looking after the children. Spinal Tap, Rokkan, and the others, continue partially lifting the curse from the villagers. I will get these flying familiars out and think on our further course of action ".

Chapter Text

    Skeletor's plan had brought them well into the night. He had captured and crushed the bugs inside and began prevention measures to keep out any more. Due to the nature of the curse, he could not risk bringing in his other minions to aid the village. There could be substitutes, he formulated having Tri-Klops send supplies and Doomseekers to help remotely once Skeletor and Spinal Tap left to find the caster. However, not having minions like Evil-Lyn, meant he had to substitute warding spells with Anwatian talismans placed at all entry points. 

    "I am finished with my work," Spinal Tap had snuck up on Skeletor, who was placing the last paper charms on the main entryway, one for each nested door just to be sure.

    "And I as well, almost– Myah!" Skeletor peered back, surprised by how close the man was to him. The red glow of his feathers and eyes were dulled, hunched over and exhausted from exerting his magic the entire day. He was looking over at the talismans, "...It's something I picked up in Anwat Gar, after living there for a year or so".

    “Ah, I see" The alchemist acknowledged, watching intently as the last talisman was placed, "Rokkan has granted us his home to stay the night. It is next over from this schoolhouse, with food and drink that should still be fresh due to an enchanted 'refrigerator' that was gifted to him by a former student of his".

"Well, I am done here," Skeletor sidestepped away from Spinal Tap and went to touch base with the others before his departure. Rokkan, now at the bedside of an elderly aquatican, insisted on remaining with the patients, so Skeletor provided him with an extra talisman before departing with Spinal Tap and Panthor. He stuck close to the alchemist during the walk there, the flying curse carriers easier to avoid when self-illuminated in the night.

    The house itself was rather comfortable for a geolan. Being magical rocks, they needed no soft furniture or 'organic needs' as their literature labeled things like bathrooms or kitchens. However, the entire residence was stocked to meet those organic expectations. Spinal Tap had carried their evening bags in from Nightstalker, and left Skeletor to prepare dinner while he showered. Indeed the fridge had a time-pause enchantment on it; inside were various fresh foods, a leftover pot of stew, and a mostly full bottle of wine. He procured the wine and stew, and began reheating the leftovers on the stovetop while he fed Panthor and set the table for dinner. At this point in his hunger, after such a long day, the stew was irresistibly aromatic, and he pulled himself away to gaze at photos on the walls before he gave into temptation and ate straight from the pot. 

    The entire house’s wall decor was made up of framed pictures. On one wall were exclusively class photos, the oldest dated back to 75 years prior, with the same Rokkan standing politely with changing handfuls of older children finished with their small town education and ready to explore the world. There was a wall of wildlife photography, with mixed in children’s drawings of animals gifted to him, and another named individual. Every wall followed the same path, grouped to formal themes or interests in the man’s life. However, as he neared the mantle, which too was lined with photos, Skeletor noticed the picture frames had been taken off and placed on their faces. He flipped the one at the most left to see an old photograph taken of the geolan sitting with a pale aquatican adult dressed in male Eternian attire. The aquatican was of the ocean variety like Merman. Unlike the solely amphibious population within this village, they had spiny fins and vibrant scales, rather than frills and dewy skin. The rest were exclusively subjecting the two, documenting the passage of time as the aquatican grew older and Rokkan’s appearance changed over the years. Standing quite close, hands on shoulders and waists, the aquatican frequently smiling wide enough to compensate for Rokkan’s lack of. He began turning over the lastmost one, labeled “ Delos’ Retirement Party, Spring 501 a.g.” on the back, when Spinal Tap emerged from the bathroom.

    “You didn’t use all the hot water, did you?” Skeletor pointed at the steam billowing out from the doorway. Spinal Tap’s feathers were loose and unstyled, his crest appearing much thinner, perhaps due being pasted back wet against his scalp. Instead of his uniform he wore an antiquated men’s nightgown, the frocks ending at his ankles, and were tailored to accommodate his tail. The alchemist had no witty comebacks, quietly sitting himself at the kitchen table, taking the wine bottle. He paused and stared at the cork, placing it back down, “Myah… it looks like we will be having stew,” Skeletor served them both and sat opposite of the thornimp, uncorking the wine with his magic to pour each other a glass. They ate in silence. Panthor had come over to beg, but to no avail he merely trudged off again to lay on the large rug in the living room. The alchemist on the other hand was seeming to take more to the now open wine than to their dinner, nearly draining the bottle without making a dent in his meal. Remembering their bar tab, Skeletor quickly extracted the wine from Spinal Tap’s presence and placed it back in the fridge, all too familiar with the direction this could take.

    “So… I was curious why a geolan would have such a cushy house with a full pantry. Given how geolans function,” Finished with his own food, Skeletor attempted to stick his foot in the conversational door with the increasingly withheld Spinal Tap, “I saw some photos on the mantle that suggest he’s been living with, or at least frequently entertaining, a Delos fellow. For quite the long time ,” He insinuated with an eyebrow raise, getting no reaction from Spinal Tap, not even a glance. What are you doing, you idiot, you sound like your step-aunts gossiping distant relative’s lifestyle choices to each other at the Eternos Winter Solstice party. “M-Myah, well, I think it’s a wonderful thing! Indeed, to… to have such a close bond for so long,” Spinal Tap was separating the celery from the other ingredients, more interested in the potato and slotto beef chunks than their conversation. A lack of response would normally get him fiery with aggravation, but the sorcerer was… sweaty, and high-strung, unable to shut himself up before– “Do you have anyone like that in Coreternia?”

    This got the man’s attention, albeit nothing more than a noticeable pause in skewering carrots on his fork. Skeletor felt his own pulse now in every part of his body, that he would soon go into cardiac arrest and faint face first into his own bowl . Centuries passed as Spinal Tap chewed on the carrots, then swallowed. “No,” If a heart could sink and flutter simultaneously, Skeletor’s did, “It is something I desire, but I was not allowed to court... or form platonic relationships”, his tone was blunt but slurring with intoxication. He was looking at Skeletor now, his foot was in a door he should perhaps close instead.

    “Myah, well- Thankfully there’s nothing preventing you now from fulfilling your des– ” Skeletor shot up from the table, startling even himself. He grabbed his bowl, and rather than bring it to the kitchen sink, he evacuated the kitchen and locked himself in the bathroom. Skeletor stared into the mirror, at his red faced complexion, why had his curse left him still with such emotional giveaways. He wanted to punch a wall, or perhaps hide in one. He grumbled, looking down into the sink to clean the dish there and prolong the walk of shame back into the kitchen after his behavior. His vision caught on something sticking out from the drain, pulling out a long feather from beneath the open stopper. With lack of Starseed’s influence the feather had reverted to white, possibly the man’s natural color. The rachis of the feather was bent, as if forced down the drain, with the only red being a stain at the ending calamus. Skeletor removed the stopper and found another clump of white feathers. He flushed them down the toilet and returned to the kitchen with the still dirty bowl. Spinal Tap was gone, the door to the master bedroom was closed, and his table settings were placed neatly in the sink. “You’re an idiot,” He muttered to himself, at himself , cleaning up the dirty dishes and bringing what was still left of the stew back to the fridge. The bottle was in a different spot, claw marks in the cork. Skeletor dumped its’ contents out in the sink and went to bed.

    Of course of all trips he had forgotten to pack sleepwear for, and a sober sleep in but his underwear proved terribly cold tonight even with a soft bed and warm blankets. At one point the shivering became unbearable, and with a blanket as a shawl he rose to attempt at lighting a fire in the living room hearth. He was met with the alchemist on the other side of the door.

    Asteroth spoke to him, shutting the door behind him as he let himself in.

    “I-I wanted to light a fire-” Skeletor responded, heart in his throat as the alchemist removed the blanket and exposed him to the night. The alchemist was much larger than Skeletor, blocking out his view, his feathers bright white, with eyes like Eternia's two moons in full. “-because it’s cold,” He shivered, at Asteroth’s touch, how warm his broad hand was as it caressed him, as Asteroth leaned in and did away the inches between his fangs and sorcerer’s soft blue lips. “Please,” No need for fire when he was already set ablaze, a great fervor which burned high and burned through him like a wildfire. Bright glow in the inky black night, clawed fingers through black hair. Taken, hot breath and honeyed words into his ear, kindled his flames. He wanted it to burn higher and higher until–

    His skull-cursed head hit the floor first. Cold wood and tangled sheets and a locked door.

    Extinguished.

Chapter Text

    "Mmmrrhh, you were not overexaggerating when you said the laboratory was destroyed," Merman carefully ventured further into the wreckage, followed closely by Skeletor, Evil-Lyn, and a duo of Aquatican hired guns. "Completely unsalvageable, it seems" The pirate gazed up at what had once been the center of the Tri-Tech security system, now nothing but melted metal and wire.

    "That is why we require an advance on your kind patronage to our cause, Merman," Evil-Lyn had been laying it on thick, forced smiles and clasped hands. Even in their disastrous failures of yore, they had never been in such financial straits to require any such pleas for money, "It is urgent that we get Tri-Klops' system back online as soon as possible, but we do not have the means to acquire the needed materials, without your assistance".

    "You have mmr'entioned that, mmr’y dear lady" Merman looked to the center of the laboratory. Even after close to a month, the portal and its epicenter had not cooled. Its remains smoldered with cracks of bright green, which spidered out from the floor like veins. They had buried the bodies, but their ghostly imprints in the floor still remained. Forbidden shades of green. Merman winced at the sight, "What horrible things did you fail to scrounge up this time, Skeletor?"

    "Do not assume that I'm pleading for coin after some failure ! While the laboratory suffered casualty, my scrounging has provided up an asset to our mutual benefit " Skeletor led the group out of the laboratory into the corridor, placing a hand to the gem in his harness. "Skeletor to Tri-Klops," It glowed a vibrant red, and shortly there came from it the voice of his inventor, "I'm bringing Merman down to introduce to our guest. Have you set up the equipment you requested from the captain?"

    "Yes, Lord Skeletor. I'm uh, about to take a blood sample from him to examine with it, actually".

    "Excellent, you can show your findings to us both when we–"

    There, from the gem. There was a loud hiss, gurgling air escaping from the throat of something terrified. A scream choked out, nothing but phlegm and hot air.

    "Tri-Klops?" Skeletor halted the group with an outstretched arm.

    "Stop! I'm- I'm not going to hurt you!" Tri-Klops begged to an unknown force, the gurling continued. A gasp for air followed by a weak scream. Muted, but enough to cut through one's senses like a cold blade, "Help me– h-hold him down! Now!"

    "Tell me what's happening this instant!" Skeletor yelled onto the gemstone. The communicator, still active, broadcasted only the disembodied struggle. Until there was the sound of crunching metal, Tri-Klops crying out in pain.

    "Triks! Oh god, Sk–" Trap Jaw's voice crackled through, just out of its range.

    The communicator went dark.

    Skeletor looked to his entourage, but they had already made it well down the hall by now. He ran a finger in circles around the gem, staring into the abyss beyond the hallway.

    Skeletor and Spinal Tap departed early the next morning. North towards Drifting Wood, before the arrival of sunlight. In a limbo where stars still lingered, loitering in the sky with hesitation to depart themselves.

    Tri-Klops would be sending a fleet of Doomseekers to Swampshire. Tasked to bring food to the villagers while they sheltered from the cursed insects, tend to the farm animals laying asleep in their pens. Even complete their harvest before it over-ripened, a fate which would leave them with empty bellies, and importantly, unable to fulfill their half of their agreement with the Evil Warriors. It was all quite charitable of Skeletor, really.

    The air was thick with humidity, sticking to Skeletor's skin as an uncomfortable film. In the past he would fret about what it was doing to his hair. What a nostalgic kind of worry it was, he touched his bare scalp through his hood, as if the mass of navy would meet his clammy fingertips.

    Spinal Tap's reaction to the weather, or anything at all, was hard to gauge. Since that night, the alchemist had gone quiet, nothing beyond single worded replies. Thankfully, it did not seem he was avoiding the sorcerer, allowing Skeletor into the safety of his proximity, and they rode close together now down the path. So very close that the Lord of Destruction could easily reach up and touch his stirruped boot if he wished to– He banished the thought, though it whispered still through the palisades of his mind to his unsuspecting neurons.

        Drifting Wood appeared over the horizon as Swampshire had. Spanning fields of overripe crops swaying in the breeze. Here, the buzzing of insects was louder, masses of green blotting out the sun like storm clouds. Along the main path, two slottos lay in the mud, the skin beneath their purple wool a sickly green. They had broken from their wagon, loose rope hanging from their yokes.

    “I don’t think they’ve been down long,” Skeletor noted. While sunken in appearance, they were only dehydrated, no sign of starvation. The longest they would have been here were two or three days at most. As Skeletor looked around, he noticed that like Swampshire, there were no other working wagons or animals outside. It must have been the same, the plague descending over them at night. However, the unattended slottos were worrisome. 

    Skeletor made note of the location for the future Doomseekers, he would call for Tri-Klops once they made it into town rather than wait till their departure as they did before. Further down the road was the slottos’ overturned bullock cart, burlap sacks torn open by brave scavengers, bushtails that now lay upon them too asleep.

    “Someone walked into the village from here,” Spinal Tap had broken his silence, pointing to the tracks in the mud, small paw prints. 

    “Perhaps this is the Odiphus that Rokkan mentioned,” Skeletor noted as the two men followed the trail into Drifting Wood. The village consisted of artificial mounds built up with silty clay, pellezean burrows, rather than buildings. The burrows were usually connected to each other by underground tunnels, and Skeletor didn’t know whether that would make their search more or less difficult. However, the footsteps soon led them to one of these burrows. The trail stopped abruptly here, where the mud turned to a mess of sliding prints which blended together. There did not seem to be any fresher prints leading away.

    “Myah, and there’s no way for us to look inside ourselves,” Skeletor grumbled to himself, crouching down to open the burrow’s little wooden door. While it wasn’t locked, something was blocking it from being opened. He heard terrified whimpering come from inside now, “Is there someone there?”

    “No one’s here!” A little voice called, followed by some hushings and ‘shut ups’.

    “Do not be afraid, I am Lord Skeletor. I am here to make sure everything is alright, as the griffin I sent with a letter never returned,” Skeletor assured the occupants of the burrow. Who, to much of Skeletor’s increasing dread, sounded to be all pellezean pups.

You go look!

Nooo, i’m scared!

What if its that thing again?

Just go!

    After much pause, Skeletor heard something dragged across the floor inside, and shortly after the little circular shudder on the door opened. The fluffy top of a pup’s head, round wet eyes just barely peeking up through the window.

    “H-Hello?” The pellezean squeaked.

    “Are there any grown-ups inside that I may speak to?” Skeletor asked, even though deep down, he knew the answer.

    “N-No,” The pup’s eyes immediately welled with tears. Little children huddled all alone, for who knows how many days.

    “They are sleeping, aren’t they?” Skeletor asked softly, kneeling down in the mud to not be so imposing anymore, “We have just come from Swampshire, where some of the grown-ups are sleeping too. But it’s okay now, my companion and I are here to help, ok?”

    “We should bring them to Swampshire, if all the adults here are cursed as well,” Spinal Tap suggested to Skeletor.

    “A curse ,” The pup in the window said. Not as a cry out, but as if they found an answer to something.

    “Yes, someone placed a curse on Swampshire, and Drifting Wood as well,” Skeletor said, “We are looking for who might have placed it,” The sorcerer thought to the cart, the footsteps to the door, “Is there someone from Swampshire here with you? A pellezean boy, I believe”.

    Something surfaced, behind the eyes of the little pup in the window. Terror, guilt.

    “My mama let him in,” The pup sank, barely visible in the window besides the puffy fur atop their head, “My papa was sleepy, but my mama was up. Because my friends’ mamas and papas were sleepy too, and-” Their voice broke, stammering words which could no longer lead anywhere, “It’s m-my fault”.

    “This isn’t your fault, little one,” Skeletor sighed, “The boy, is… is he still here, then?”

    “She unlocked the door! She let it in!” One of the other pups yelped from inside. Hatred and fear in their words.

    “No, no, no! She- She told me she was his friend , that- that-” The pup shivered, and Skeletor could hear her begin to weep behind the door, “I didn’t know! I didn’t know that it was–”

    “The curse-wielder,” Spinal Tap whispered behind Skeletor.

    “Little one, listen to me. This isn’t your fault, no one here but the ones who placed this curse are at fault. I know this is upsetting, but what you saw is very important. I need you to tell us what you saw, as best as you can,” Skeletor explained calmly.

    “Okay…” The pup whimpered, straightening up so she could see out the hatch again. She sniffled a few times, wiping snot and tears away as she collected herself, “She asked me to let her in. B-but sh-she was too tall to even fit through the door, but…”

    “What did this person look like?” Spinal Tap inquired. Skeletor glanced back to Spinal Tap. He was writing in his journal again, listening, but detached in a way that suggested he had other thoughts at the back of his head. A curl in the white scales above his mouth, a snarl only just held back in his composure.

    “The bugs”, The girl pointed a little claw out towards the sky.

    “...The bugs? Was she an andreenid?” Skeletor raised a brow. There were no other insectoids besides the andreenids, not even distant ancestors.

    “No. She was… creepy looking. She was… the bad color, like the bugs- like- like your neck!” Skeletor’s mind was filled with the color. A forbidden shade of green, from a place far away, from a far away time. A green that meant death and war and old scars that never healed, "She reached in... and they were everywhere. They-- they hurt my mama. She- she grabbed him- She was yelling that he had to help her finish--"

    Skeletor felt his scar tissue itch. Beneath, where his nails couldn’t reach. It was obvious. It was right in front of him. Since Swampshire. Since the portal, and the alchemist–

    At his throat, something pricked his scar tissue,

WAS WHAT I TASKED YOU TO DO TOO MUCH TO ASK FOR, CHILD?

THAT NOW,

YOU ACT IN WAYS TO HINDER IT

    A voice boomed within his skull, echoing out all around him. A voice from long ago, when he was dying in a bed he had wept in every night as a child.

TO THINK,

I GAVE YOU SO MUCH TIME TO FREE ME.

SO MANY CHANCES,

OUT OF THE GRACIOUSNESS OF MY HEARTS

THOUGH I WILL ADMIT,

FOR A LONG TIME, I HAD NO CHOICE BUT TO ALLOW YOU TO TOIL.

    “Skeletor?” Spinal Tap’s voice behind him made Skeletor jolt. He looked back, feeling his neck muscles turn without willing it. The thornimp did not seem to hear the voice, “Is something the matter?”

AS OUR AGREEMENT COST ME SO MUCH.

    “Wh-why–” Skeletor went to speak, but his words were choked out, as if there were hands around his throat.

CHILD, MY CHILD.

HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN?

WHAT YOU PROMISED ME,

SO LONG AGO,

IN RETURN FOR WHAT I GRANTED YOU.

    “I have been trying!” Skeletor managed to cry out. Phantom fingers dug into his skin, but there was weakness in them. Still not as strong as they once were, 

I KNOW YOU HAVE TRIED.

TRIED, AND TRIED, LONG AGO.

BUT YOU STRAYED, CHILD.

THINKING YOU COULD TAKE THE GIFT I HAD GIVEN YOU,

OF AN ALTERED FATE.

WHILE FORGETTING… REPRESSING…

    “You never appeared to me again! How- How was I supposed to help you after that!”

NO.

I GAVE YOU CLEAR INSTRUCTIONS,

YOU INFANT.

    “Skeletor, what are you talking about?” Spinal Tap knelt down, placing his hands on the man’s shoulders so he could turn him around to face him fully.

NOW YOU MET HIM.

YOU LET HIM LIVE.

BECAUSE YOU THOUGHT YOU FOUND A LOOPHOLE.

    “Stop– please–”

YOU STRAYED TOO FAR FROM AN ENDING WHICH I SO GRACIOUSLY PROVIDED YOU.

BUT, 

AS YOU HAVE REALIZED NOW, STUPID CHILD,

YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY MISERABLE WHELP ON YOUR WORTHLESS PLANET,

WHO WANTS THEIR STORIES TO FAIR DIFFERENTLY.

    “Stop what?” Spinal Tap seemed panicked, looking over him with newfound urgency, “You– oh my ,” His eyes focused on something, and without hesitation, the man stuck his syringe tip into his neck, “Skeletor. You were bit- but- but it is not-”

CONSIDER THIS MY FINAL MERCY.

AS I USED MUCH OF MY ENERGY I GAINED AGAIN,

TO AID ANOTHER’S STORY,

TO REACH YOU ONCE MORE,

STUPID CHILD,

    Skeletor’s muscles relaxed, and the voice began to fade from all around him. As if swept up in the wind.

THAT IN DUE TIME,

YOU WILL HAVE THE ENDING 

IN WHICH YOU

DESERVE

    “Skeletor?” Spinal Tap was staring at Skeletor now, holding his face in his gloved hands.

    “I spoke to someone…” Skeletor reached up and touched his neck. On his fingertips were remnants of green magic, from the accursed bug that had bit him. However, he was not infected. Did the alchemist reverse it, or was it truly an act of mercy from…

    “Who?” Spinal Tap tilted his head, “Our curse-wielder? What did she say?!”

    “No, it wasn’t her. But…” Skeletor felt scared to continue, “I… Know… I know now…” He thought he could ignore it for so long, “Who she works for–” He braced himself. But, the voice didn’t return, nor the pain. He was abandoned again. 

    But for how long? When there was now another like him? One who might make due of what they owe.

    “Yes?” Spinal Tap smiled warily. Skeletor wished he could cry, he wished for tears he could no longer shed. Long ago, all he wanted was for things to be different.

    “Hordak”.

Chapter Text

   The thornimp’s blood was red.

 

   This blood was more brilliant than any other red Skeletor had witnessed before. Glowing so strong it put off its own light, just barely, even as stains in the dusty silk sheets that the maimed colossus had been bedridden in. It dried to sparkling magic-dust, red handprints pressed into the now healed wounds that had been inflicted on Trap Jaw and Tri-Klops during his escape. Smeared on the door handle, on its ancient stone frame.

   In his memories, that blood had been his own. Purple streaks, as he fled from Castle Eternos, as something no longer Keldor.

   Such beautiful, sparkling red blood gave the thornimp’s flight away. Skeletor followed those small drops of stardust out into the hallway. There was no haste to his step; it would take some time for Merman and Evil-Lyn to reach this part of the mountain, and the thornimp would not have managed far in his condition anyway.

   Skeletor followed around a turn, where the droplets turned frequent, staining reptilian feet and leaving stumbling, dazed footprints. Around another bend, to the main hall of the old dormitories, leading straight to the primary stairwell within the fossilized Serpos.

   “...Star…seed…” Skeletor heard a voice from below, a rasping prayer repeated over and over in an ancient tongue. Hand prints smeared across the inner wall of the tunneled staircase, over the ribs of the ancient mythic-beast from Preternia. The voice grew closer as Skeletor descended, hand daring for his sword. A pained whimpering followed the words, only vaguely familiar to Skeletor, then quiet sobbing.

   Keldor had slept in the forest outside Eternos after he had escaped with Panthor. For as hard as he retched out sobs into the leaf litter, there were no tears from where eyes had once been. Hollowed sockets were what remained, and never again would he cry for something, for someone.

   The thornimp lay crumpled across the threshold to the level below, where his legs had at last given out. His bandages were soaked through, from stitched wounds reopened in his carelessness.

   “....Starseed….” The thornimp did not notice the Lord of Destruction, too consumed in muttering to the crystalline God. Skeletor faltered, and with the clunk of his armor, vivid eyes locked with his own. The thornimp hissed, blood speckled in his spittle, but he had no remaining spirit to fight back as his captor approached.

   Something stirred within Skeletor, unknown, and he knelt down besides the thornimp. The hissing ceased with a wheeze, but those red eyes remained upon him. The hulking man seemed so small now, weak, prey caught in a snare. He had the opportunity to subdue, restrain the pitiful creature, bring him back to his room without a fight. But all that he did was whisper,

   “Please, forgive me”.

   “I beg pardon?” Spinal Tap stared down at him, tilting his head side to side. Not curiously, more puzzled.

   “I… may have withheld some things from you,” Skeletor could already envision what would follow, once Spinal Tap put two and two together right in front of him.

   Spinal Tap’s eyes lingered over Skeletor’s face, falling to his neck. It was not Skeletor’s fault for never telling Spinal Tap why he was the way he was, green scarred and skull-faced. Spinal Tap had never asked him, nor even prompted it to the other Warriors. He must have come upon his own conclusions amongst the suspension of belief he held about the surface. So Skeletor had never brought it up, not even to lie.

   “My healing magic has neutralized the bite before it spread,” Was all Spinal Tap had to say, leaning closer to examine Skeletor’s neck in more detail. His features seemed more pale now, the red fading in his feathers and eyes.

   “Did you not hear me before?” Despite being healed, Skeletor still felt ill. Shaking, clammy hands, racing heartbeat. The sun felt too bright, even behind the swarming green.

   “We might have discovered a window where I can reverse the curse. Let us monitor your condition, just to be certain,” Spinal Tap stood up, seeming satisfied with his findings, “There is still important work that must be done now, Skeletor,” He was by all means calm and collected, no edge of anything else, as much as Skeletor hoped and feared there would be. Spinal Tap took his journal out and began writing in it, “We must account for the villagers here. I will administer my magic to them, then we send them to Swampshire until the curse is lifted entirely”.

   “Y-Yes. Of course. The mission,” Skeletor pulled himself off the ground. Perhaps what had happened was just some nonsense brought on by the curse. Yes, that was most certainly the case.

   “...It is worrisome that you were bit in the first place,” Spinal Tap had paused writing, tapping the stick of graphite against the paper for a moment as he thought. Spinal Tap then turned to a fresh page, tearing it out before returning the journal itself to his pocket, “The magic I administered may distance the swarm away from you for some time. Still, I will remain cautious, and provide you a deterrent based on our previous findings,” Spinal Tap brought his syringe tail up to the paper, carefully dispensing some of his magic blood onto it. The white paper soaked red, and once dry Spinal Tap tore it, offering Skeletor both halves, “Pin one to your armor, and the other to Panthor’s saddle”.

   “If you say so,” Skeletor looked down to the scraps of paper. The thornimp’s blood, even dried, was such a brilliant red.

   Skeletor wondered how it would taste.

   “Pretty certain everyone’s headed off to Swampshire, Lord Skeletor,” Tri-Klop’s scratchy voice said through the speaker of one of the doomseekers buzzing around the village. The villagers of Drifting Wood were indeed on their way to the neighboring Swampshire, sent over in an autopilot ship. The rest of the day had been spent accounting for and administering healing magic to all the residents, as well bringing any stray livestock back to the village’s barn for the worker fleet of doomseekers to look after when they arrived tomorrow. Thankfully, the stout pellezeans kept their equally sized livestock in a regular sized barn, and they were capable of moving the two slottos they had found into it as well. As well as the griffin they had sent out from Snake Mountain, which they had discovered in their search of the village, in the swamp just outside the village. It had been accosted by the curse mid-flight, and had fallen into a tree.

   “And what of Swampshire now?” Skeletor inquired, toying at the scrap pinned to his cowl.

   “Better than expected, b-but i’m not sure if they can care for any more people than this. Uh, even with the doomseekers,” Tri-Klops told him, an edge of nervousness in his voice. Skeletor had not informed his minion of what had occurred earlier, that Skeletor had been bitten and what he had... hallucinated. Skeletor was still not sure in himself what had precisely occurred. Only that, since then, Spinal Tap had avoided discussing anything besides their work, which the alchemist focused on now, seemingly consumed by it. Skeletor had aided him in his efforts earlier, watching him work now in relative silence, his gaze vacant as he injected each cursed villager with his magic blood. Now after seeing a whole village of patients, the self-destructive thrashing and clawing of each one under a curse’s influence, Spinal Tap seemed to wish not of talking altogether-- “Umm… Lord Skeletor? Your thoughts?”

   “Myah? Oh– Uh,” Skeletor shook his head, thankful the doomseeker was on audio only at this distance, “Our suspect was here recently, so we will likely find her, or this Odiphus, in Murk”, Skeletor looked around. Panthor was nearby, stalking an unsuspecting doomseeker behind one of the mounds. Skeletor snapped his fingers, and the dylinx ceased his hunt with an irritated huff and began walking back over to his master. Farther off, Spinal Tap had finished packing his alchemy supplies back into Nightstalker’s luggage compartment. Now he was simply standing, swaying slightly as he stare up at the sky. Over the course of the day, he had turned light pink, “Myhh… or at least nearby Murk, or something”.

   “Uhmm, well, in any case I’m-- I’m gonna take some more doomseekers off the work fleet and send them down in advance. Any more and that would have to be our security ones... so I'd have to lock down the Mountain until this is- well, uh, all done with”.

   “Thank you–” In his distraction, the words fell from Skeletor’s mouth in pure accident. He heard a surprised sound from Tri-Klops, “Myeh! Just- Just keep me informed about Swampshire and here and- get lost!” Skeletor, unsure still how to end communication via doomseeker, batted it away with his Havoc staff. It spun backwards a few feet, righting itself again with a frantic beeping.

   “Of course, Lord Skeletor! And, ha, you’re welcome” Tri-Klops snickered.

   Skeletor had no energy for further retaliation, letting the drone buzz away without further harassment. The remaining doomseekers took off in the direction of Swampshire, likely to meet up with the cloaked ship bringing the villagers. Sunset was approaching, and they would need to set up some sort of camp before nightfall.

   “Spinal Tap!” Skeletor shouted, his voice carrying across the village. Spinal Tap jolted, looking around until he met eyes with Skeletor. Skeletor waved for him to come over, to which he got another stare, before Spinal Tap rode over on Nightstalker.

   “Yes?” Spinal Tap asked as the robot stopped to a halt, exhaustion scratched in his voice.

   “It’s getting late, we should make camp for the night. Set up tents and such,” Skeletor looked up at Spinal Tap. He looked haggard, having spent all day healing the cursed villagers.

   “I would rather we find an inn,” Spinal Tap huffed. Though likely tired and experiencing spell fatigue, his scales had grown muted and pale, the luminous red of his feathers and eyes no more than a faint glow.

   “It would be absurd for us to wander out into the swamp at night!” Skeletor dismissed the suggestion. It was foolish to suggest venturing out into the darkness of Eternia’s countryside, no matter what hemisphere. There within risked nocturnal predators, reckless bandits. Or, more realistically, breaking one’s ankle on dirt paths maintained only by the wear of traveler’s footsteps.

   “I can see just fine in the dark,” Spinal Tap seemed to struggle to get the sentence out, exhaling deeply once it was finished.

   “Look, there are no inns anywhere near us, or any other civilization in fact. The closest place is Murk, and we have no idea what to expect there. Or we lose two days by traveling back to Swampshire,” Skeletor bristled, not willing to back down on the matter. He did not understand why Spinal Tap would want to act so irrationally over a bed to sleep in, especially in his current condition, “I will set the tents up myself so you can rest”.

   Spinal Tap shifted in the saddle, unease surfacing in his demeanor, “We- We do not have any”.

   “What do you mean we don’t have tents? There should be a whole kit for camping packed away,” Skeletor knitted his brows, finding Spinal Tap’s claim hard to believe. They could not of lost it admist the chaos with the Masters prior, nor was anyone besides them capable of getting close enough to Nightstalker to take anything from the compartments, “Let me look at our luggage”.

   “I am telling the truth! When I put my supplies away they were gone!” Spinal Tap protested, but did nothing else when Skeletor climbed up on one stirrup to access Nightstalker’s control panel. There were no signs of tampering, or unusual access requests in Nightstalker’s log. There were no signs of tampering, or unusual access requests in Nightstalker’s log. The compartment had been opened and closed by Skeletor earlier. Then twice more over the course of the afternoon by Spinal Tap, the former having a large gap in between- Wait, when did he-

   “How did you figure out how to use the console?”

   “I asked Tri-Klops how to,” Spinal Tap’s response was sharp, cutting into Skeletor like an icy knife. Was this all that he had asked him? Or had curiosity gotten the better of the thornimp, or had he finally misstep on the fragile tightrope holding him just above a truth. Spinal Tap batted Skeletor’s hand away from the console, shaky fingers pressing against the screen as he input a command. There was an approving beep from the console, and the panels to the cargo compartments opened with a mechanical whir, “Go look”.

   “I will,” Skeletor growled, floating all their supplies out of the compartments onto the ground to take inventory of. Indeed, everything was accounted for except the camping kit. He returned the bags.

   “Well?”

   “Fine, fine. You’re right! No tents,” Skeletor said, climbing into Panthor’s saddle, "Probably somewhere in that field, since you let the damn horse wander for a half hour completely open," He walked the dylinx up besides Nightstalker, ripping the reigns out from Spinal Tap’s hands, “We will just have to sleep in that barn over there, then. Probably best that we keep an eye on the animals until the doomseekers show up in the morning”. 

   “What? No!” Spinal Tap squawked, trying to take the reigns back as Skeletor led them off to the barn.

   “Unless you want to try fitting yourself in those burrows, this is the best you’re going to get,” Skeletor gave him a dismissive hand wave, and Spinal Tap did little more to protest for the remainder of the walk over. Once they were at the barn, Skeletor climbed down to unlock the door, reigns still in hand. Most of the barn’s space was taken up now by small, sleeping farm animals, the slottos, the griffin. To the side there was a ladder, leading to the hay loft above them. After leading their companions inside, Skeletor clasped the door shut behind them, “There should be plenty of room up in the hay loft—”

   As Skeletor turned to face Spinal Tap, he saw exactly why the man’s protesting was so short lived. Spinal Tap was shivering, hunched over in Nightstalker’s saddle.

   “Spinal Tap?” Skeletor dropped the robot’s reigns, stepping closer so he could see Spinal Tap’s face. The alchemist’s eyes were glassy, drifting around as if he was in a trance, “Are you spell-sick?”

   “I am fine!” Spinal Tap snapped to attention. He was panting now, breath shallow, saliva dripping down from his mouth. The manic fire in his paled eyes snuffed out as quick as it had ignited, “Spell sickness... like you said. I... must lay down,” Spinal Tap struggled to get himself out of the saddle, and once on his feet he swayed with each step towards the ladder. Spinal Tap quickly vanished up into the hay loft, the wood above creaking under the his weight as he walked across it.

   Thinking it over yet again, Skeletor suspected that Spinal Tap had learned something from the incident earlier today. That, even if the message Skeletor had heard was only curse induced hallucinations, he himself had admitted to Spinal Tap that there was information pertaining to Hordak he was previously unaware of. Worry sat in the pit of Skeletor's stomach now, that Spinal Tap had expressed some sort of concern to Tri-Klops, that he had been told too much alongside the technical help. His behavior suggested that, if anything, the incident has changed something.

   Yet, Skeletor had noticed peculiarities cropping up in his behavior even before then, since the start of their journey. Perhaps it was the pressure of the mission, or something pertaining to that sister of his. Or perhaps it was another matter entirely, one unknown to Skeletor unless he were to ask Spinal Tap himself. That was a conversational door Skeletor felt hesitant to open now, lest he find himself reflected back from the other side.

   Thankfully, their travel rations were still accounted for. Skeletor set food out for Panthor, putting together two MRE pouches to bring up to the loft for their dinner. Despite being so late in the season, the loft was still half full with hay bales. The rectangular bales seeming awfully too big to of been processed by the little pelleezean residents, were likely brought in from another village. They had been processing the bales for their livestock by removing portions from them at a time, reflected in the nearest most bales being no more than loosely tied clumps. Spinal Tap had set himself up in the back corner of the loft already, curled up on his side, akin to how Panthor slept.

   “I brought dinner,” Skeletor sat down on one of the bales. Unlike Trap-Jaw’s stash from the rebellion, these rations were thankfully in-date, obtained specifically for field missions like this one. Meant to be issued to magic users, they were magically activated. Skeletor held one of the pouches between his hands, feeling it grow warm as he focused his magical essence into it. Spinal Tap was still up in the corner, itching at his head, “You should eat some, especially if you’re spell-sick”.

   “I do not want it,” Spinal Tap responded, voice soft and whining. He curled up tighter in the hay, like a child refusing to get ready for school.

   “Then don’t,” Skeletor shrugged, leaving the other pouch off to the side. He tore open the one already prepared, removing the warmed contents. It was a rather boring meal, an under seasoned bean stew with a single biscuit and some tea. The sustenance was welcome, now that he was near starved from the labor of today.

   The smell of food wafting through the loft did not stir the thornimp, who’s back was still turned to Skeletor. Skeletor watched Spinal Tap as he ate his meal, hoping perhaps he would change his mind and join the sorcerer for dinner. Despite the man’s spine being the defining aspect to him, Spinal Tap , Skeletor had never really paid much attention to it until now. Red crystals were embedded into the thornimp’s spine, from the back of his neck to the base of his tail. His thermal suit was altered to leave the shards exposed. But, Skeletor realized, only the three in his neck could be considered shards. The others were chipped, broken down to jagged bumps in his spine.

   “This better be important,” Skeletor scowled, looking up from his draft paper to see Tri-Klops hovering over him with papers in hand. All that remained of the thornimp’s escape was the faint lines where Tri-Klops had been clawed, not even a scar, pale skin not yet tanned to match the area around it.

   “It’s about the- the thornimp,” Tri-Klops’ reply peaked Skeletor’s interest, placing his pencil down to hear Tri-Klop out, “I was able to, uh, to test his blood samples-uhm, scrapings I took from the room since, uhm-- and-” Tri-Klops handed the papers to Skeletor.

   “ Your conclusions? ” Skeletor thumbed through the pages, unable to make much out of what was scientific nonsense. Strings of numbers and letters.

   “Well, uh, his blood isn’t- it- it’s all coming back as magic essence,” Tri-Klops pointed at a line on the page.

   “ Yes, and all magic users have high concentrations of essence in their bloodstreams. So he is a magic user, even a dunce like Trap Jaw deduced that,” Skeletor stuffed the pages back into Tri-Klops’ hands, unsatisfied with such findings.

   “No. Listen, Skeletor- His, he has no blood at all. It’s all magic, magic! Not even the Starseed spring in Castle Grayskull is this pure!” Tri-Klops’ visor whirred side to side manically. An older model he wore while he fixed his now broken visor, it clicked softly with age as it moved, “His body is literally generating pure magic!”

   “Only Starseed can do such a thing, and They are sealed away in the core as our guest was,” Skeletor drummed his fingers against the table.

   “That’s exactly it! Y- You saw those rocks in his back, the red ones sticking out,” Tri-Klops gestured wildly, nearly dropping the papers in his hands, “ And- remember, you said he was whispering about Starseed when you found him. What if- What if those rocks are parts of the Starseed!”

   Red magic swirled in the now paled fragments in Spinal Tap’s spine, leeching out slowly, like ink droplets in water. Spinal Tap had no blood, for Starseed took its place.

   “Spinal Tap,” Skeletor placed the empty tray aside, walking over to Spinal Tap.

   “I... do not... want to eat,” Spinal Tap’s voice was almost a whisper now. He was scratching still, the sound just as faint as his voice.

   “Your condition now, this isn’t spell sickness,” Skeletor reached out to turn him over, pausing as he noticed something white in the hay.

   “No, it is,” Spinal Tap quickly hid whatever it was beneath a hand, covering his face with the other. It did not hide the red flecks at the tips of his gloves. Feathers in the sink’s drain, he spoke nothing about it.

   “Maybe it is spell sickness, but your magic is your blood. You pushed yourself too far today,” Skeletor stood over him now, unable to do anything more with his body. Anchors had been tied to his limbs, holding him there.

   “P-Please... go away, let me sleep,” Spinal Tap’s voice quivered now, as it had when he drunkenly spoke of his sister. There had been hardly any evidence upon Spinal Tap’s body to suggest he had been fully disfigured only months prior. Beyond the faintest reminder of his burns, not a single old scar or imperfection of the skin, to suggest he had ripped open vital stitches in his escape from Snake Mountain.

   “Did she keep you like this, for all those years in Coreternia?” Skeletor let slip. Spinal Tap tensed as the question, claws digging into the hay. Nothing to show of twenty seven years of imprisonment, except chipped crystals in his back.

   “Why should I tell you?” Spinal Tap turned his head slightly, just enough for Skeletor to see the glint of his eye, and the featherless patch he hid beneath his palm, just under the curve of his horn.

   “Why?” Skeletor stared back, unsure what to answer with. Why was he so determined to know? What was it that kept him at the thornimp’s side, unable to leave. He clutched his skull beneath his cowl, as the thoughts pained him, “Because I’m talking to you, that’s why”.

   “I do not want to talk!” Spinal Tap hissed, burying himself deeper into the hay. His tail swept out, sending Skeletor stumbling back and away from him. Skeletor watched him still for some time, perhaps in shock at the outburst, perhaps hoping for a change of response. The thornimp had made his rejection clear, and now he radiated not the fear of a trapped animal, but a stressed beast already past a warning. Skeletor retreated back to where he had sat, trying to distracted himself with preparations for sleep.

   The hay scratched at his skin, even through the fabric of his cape. Spinal Tap’s words hung around his neck like a noose, every repeat pulling it tighter. Skeletor placed a hand to his neck, and soon his thoughts lulled as exhaustion dragged Skeletor into sleep. One without reflection, one only out of bodily need. His magic pupils snuffed out, and the world fell away from the barn, from their mission, from rejection, and back into his brain. Though the cells of his mind would have very well tossed and turned him in the night, his body did not stir. Dead weight and pulled out into dark, open waters.

   Skeletor drifted, looking up to a sky with no moons, no stars, no shadow of the rotting Horde ship that forever hung in Eternia’s orbit. Black, utter darkness, to which he held or formed no thought of. He simply wanted to drift, and think not.

   Yet, high above him, far in front of him, the watery void displaced. From it emerged the towering alchemist, who’s beautiful white feathers shone in the absence of the moonlight. He wore not his uniform, but the robes he had arrived to them in. Pristine, unstained by melted flesh and boiled blood, not yet tattered by dagger blade and killer’s grip upon tortured flesh. The alchemist looked to Skeletor with his golden eyes, and a smile at the edges of a fanged mouth, both which drew Skeletor from afloat in the water. He felt the water against his body, like a rope had been tied around him, like an anchor drawn back to ship, dragging him through and towards the thornimp. Yet no distance closed between them, and only did the alchemist grow near once he himself began to take steps forward Skeletor. The alchemist walked across the water, down and towards him, displacing the surface but never sinking.

   “Keldor,” The alchemist spoke, and the sound was sweet, so warm, filling Skeletor’s body with a feeling long forgotten. The current grew stronger, and the alchemist steps began to skate along the waters surface, like a stone skipping across calm waters.

   “ What is it that you seek in me, Keldor? ” Strong arms reached out, welcoming Skeletor into them. They held him tight, and in it the warmth had bloomed to a great heat. Aching, comforting, as Skeletor rest his head to the man’s bosom, a hand gently stroking his back, “ What is it that drives you to know me, unlike the others upon your Snake Mountain?”

   “I don’t know, I just want to know. I want to...” Skeletor sighed, burying his face in the silken fabric and the softness of his form. He wished more of this touch, letting the hand drag up from the base of his spine, up to his face, where it caressed him, “Why can’t I just know?” The alchemist ran his finger along Skeletor’s jaw, urging him to look up to him now. Skeletor hoped to feel those fangs, which could very well tear his throat out, pressed to his own. To soft lips of the eldest son of Eternos.

   “ Because I hate you, Keldor, ” The alchemist spoke down, his white feathers a waterfall around them. His voice gurgled in his throat, oozing down from a mouth of missing teeth, on a skeletal face painted only in melted flesh and scale. Green and smoldering from forbidden magic fire. Skeletor’s feelings turned cold, aching turned to fear. He tried to pull back, crying out as he felt his skin pull, stuck to the man’s molten body.

   “You wish to know me. Yet you lie, so you may possess me. Just as the Hordak possesses you,” The hands pulled off him, peeling away to bloodied bone, molten prints still burning into Skeletor’s flesh. The alchemist, whatever was left of him, placed his hands to Skeletor’s neck. “You want to know my pain, yet you let my blood just as my sister did,” Thumbs pressed in, claws breaking skin the same green as the alchemist’s now mutilated body. Skeletor thrashed, unable to free himself, unable to speak a single word of protest as the claws dug into the muscles of his throat. Blood filled his mouth, but as he sputtered and spit, he saw it was not his own of purple, but of brilliant red.

   “ Why should I tell you?”

   Skeletor jolted awake, before him now the early morning light, peaking through the walls of the barn. He sat up, shivering as his heart worked to calm itself, pounding hard enough with adrenaline to fill his head with its’ sound.

   Looking out to the rest of the hay loft, Skeletor saw that Spinal Tap was absent from where he had slept. Seeing also that the barn’s doors were ajar, Skeletor went to investigate, his heart refusing to lull. He did not search long, for outside he found Spinal Tap sat outside, picking at one of the meal rations.

   “Good morning,” Skeletor approached, shaking his hands out at his sides to rid himself of remaining jitters. The air was crisp in the early morning, and Spinal Tap now wore a cloak over his uniform. The color had returned to him, and again he had returned to the same state he had been the first day of their mission. Closer now, he saw another ration pouch on the ground near Spinal Tap, half melted alongside a dirty rag stained with food and dirt, “...Did you try cooking that?”

   “No,” Spinal Tap eyed the burnt mess warily, taking a sip from the small drink box that came with the seemingly room temperature packet he was eating from. There was no indication a camp fire had been set up. Had he tried using magic and, with the raw gift of the magic God, destroyed it? Imagine the power he would wield as a spell caster.

   “Are you feeling better?” Skeletor sat down across from him.

   “I suppose,” Spinal Tap shrugged, focusing on his food rather than make eye contact with Skeletor. Awkwardness itched at Skeletor, as he realized perhaps he should have too procured his own breakfast as well.

   “That’s good,” Still, Skeletor sat there, hands folded in his lap. He watched as Spinal Tap scraped at the last pickings of his meal with the tiny fork supplied by the packet. He had no appetite for the food, and the scratching against the metal tin felt so loud within Skeletor’s skull. Every sense began to feel this way now, as if awakened to it from his slumber before. As he stared, he saw Spinal Tap’s face in the back of his thoughts, staring down at him with melting green flesh. Skeletor broke away, looking up instead to the sky. Patches had broken within the curse swarm’s veil, and beyond it were in fact the brewing of true storm clouds. As if beckoned, wind traveled across the village, just enough to kick up the burnt trash. Skeletor caught it beneath his boot, crushing it into the soil, “It seems you still don’t want to talk”.

   This suddenness caught Spinal Tap’s surprise, and he looked to Skeletor for just a moment, wide eyes of red. He then stood from his seat, taking the trash from Skeletor, to leave for inside the barn again, “We should depart for Murk, before ill weather catches to us”.

   Skeletor, deciding now to forego breakfast, joined the alchemist inside the barn. It would not take long to get themselves together for departure, fitting Panthor’s saddle and checking that the barn was secure for the storm until the doomseeker’s expectant arrival. Once the work was complete, Spinal Tap wandered outside to wait for Skeletor as he return the remaining rations to Nightstalker’s storage compartment. However, upon his checking of the robot’s console, he noticed the compartment had been accessed multiple times over the course of the night. Varying lengths of time between their opening and closing.

   Curious, he opened the compartment himself to look, finding everything packed the same as when he had interrogated the alchemist the previous evening. Skeletor took everything out again, to make sure everything that remained was still accounted for. Spare clothing, alchemy supplies, tools, and in in the very back of the compartment a familiar looking bag. One that he had handled countless times in schemes of the past. The camping supplies, who’s bag was torn now, hastily cleaned of dirt and plant debris that still remained in its seams. He held it as if it was spoiled meat, a rotting animal, the feeling of it in his hands now repulsive. Still, he opened it, and inside everything lay accounted for. He did not wish to hold it anymore, letting it fall to the straw covered floor. All the bags and boxes and supplies enveloped in purple, drawn up in his magic and placed back into the compartment.

   Wishing to leave for Murk, Skeletor led Nightstalker out of the barn, with Panthor following behind. The landscape had now dulled under the shadow of heavy clouds, and sprawling field around them rolled like ocean waves in the wind. Spinal Tap stood not too far outside the barn, watching as little doomseekers puttered over the horizon, above the treeline like little marbles hung up on string.

   “Shall we leave this place?” Spinal Tap said, back turned to Skeletor. His cloak fluttered in the wind, only a single clasp preventing it from being taken away in the storm’s influence. It almost seemed as if the man, even with his hulking form, wished he would be pulled up in it, like scrap paper taking off in the breeze. Yet, unlike the bodies that accompanied him in his ill-fated invitation, Spinal Tap had no wings in which to break away and be carried upon elsewhere. He was forever bound to where he stood.