Chapter Text
Reality sinks in around you, now entirely alone, the figure of the beautiful stranger vanishing in the warm wind.
Any sign you were only hallucinating this discordant world and were still perhaps within the safety of your home with familiar surroundings and sounds is gone. The curtains are drawn away and have disappeared. There’s no place to turn back and hide under your bed and close your eyes until the nightmare fades.
Thirteen hours.
Only thirteen hours to save Gregory.
With a shaky breath, you take your first step towards the enormous labyrinth.
Dead grass and bizarre flora crunch beneath the soles of your shoes. Eventually, the wilted path of trodden plants turns to a broken road of stone, lined by cracked and halved pillars and what seems to be once beautiful architecture of an ancient kingdom. You reach out, fingertips grazing over one of the stone works etched with carved images of jubilant figures, stars mapping out a story of eras gone by, stretching out to a deep fissure in the rock wall, singe marks and scratches like wounds destroy the rest of the sculpted story. An ache settles in your stomach as you observe the marred marble, the disfigured art of a once immaculate realm now left in ruin, left to decay and rot into forgottenness like a pit of death that consumes all who are unfortunate to fall into its lulling trap of despair.
Unease settles over you, and you pull yourself away from the fractured wall.
The towering walls of the maze sit before you, large stones stacked up to great heights covered in layers of grime and lichen, the structure looking so old it seems that the stones themselves grew out of the ground. Perhaps they did. Even with the little display of magic the Goblin King had shown, you are more than aware of the unearthly nature that surrounds you.
There is no clear entrance. Either way you look, the wall continues on, seemingly for miles with no end in sight. There must be a door somewhere … And so, you take your luck, walking westward through brambles and ruins. Slowly, a faint sound of steel strings grows closer over the sound of gurgling water. You weave through old columns, coming to see a…well you aren’t quite sure what . A burly creature, manly shaped with the head of an alligator, sits on a decrepit tree stump, their long scaly tail thumping on the dirt ground beside a sad looking fountain with a nightmarish gargoyle spitting out water into the overgrown pond. The gator-man is strumming what looks to be a banjo or lyre of some sort, sharp claws carefully plucking the strings over the taut rawhide of the instrument’s cavity. The creature is dressed in a billowy shirt, yellowed no doubt by age, underneath a pauldroned leather vest. Slung over their shoulder appears to be a utility sash, adorned in buckles and hooks holding little trinkets and odd tools. The strumming sound is accompanied by a low hum and some mumbled phrases, exposing the creature’s maw of sharp teeth. Your stomach drops at the vicious sight, though you pause before panicking. How likely would it be that a creature with enough intelligence and sentience to play and instrument and dress itself in clothes would attack you? Well, you aren’t exactly able to rely on your earthly knowledge anymore, now are you, seeing as your current situation in the realm of fae… Still, you have yet to come across another person, so you swallow the lump of fear in your throat.
“Um, excuse me?”
The creature’s face snaps towards you, eyes wide and brows raised like a child caught with their hand in a candy bowl.
“Oh! Excuse me.” With a clumsy fumble, the stringed instrument is fastened on the back of the sash. He picks up a strange looking tool, some odd mix of a paint sprayer and a crossbow.
“I’m trying to get through this labyrinth,” you start, watching with perplexity as he pumps the plunger of the little machine, a blase look on his face, “could you help me?” A little sparkle of light dances past you, a pair of iridescent wings fluttering in the air attached to the tiny body of a sprite. “Oh, how sweet.”
The little flying sprite flies around in a circle, before promptly plummeting to the ground from the sound of a solid shot.
“Fifty-seven.”
You look over in shock at the gator-man who has a giddy smile on his face and is priming his machine again for another target.
“How could you?!” You exclaim, squatting down to gently cradle the fallen sprite in your hands. “You are horrible- ouch!” The little sprite has bitten down, hard, on your palm, weakly flying away with a maniacal giggle. “It bit me.”
“Well, what did you expect pixies to do?” He asks incredulously, shooting down another little sprite that crashes into the dirt.
The pain is like nothing you felt before, the small fangs of the creature leaving a seemingly impossible wound on your hand from which blood begins to bead up from. Were those things venomous?
“I thought they did nice things-” you press the wound into a fist, the pressure subsiding the pain “- like granting wishes or helping people.”
He harumphs at your apparently naive answer.
“Shows what you know.” Another pixie hits the dirt from the shot of his contraption. “Fifty eight.”
Even though the little creature did hurt you on purpose, you still can’t help but feel an overwhelming disgust towards this alligator-man’s delightful malice towards the little things.
“You’re monstrous.”
“No, I ain’t,” he replies, fixing a look at you over his shoulder and straightening his leather vest, “I’m Montgomery. And you are?”
Ah of course, how could you have forgotten the oh-so important formalities of introductions when you are trying to rescue your little brother. Begrudgingly, you give your name, before continuing your inquiry about entering the maze.
“Do you know where the door to the labyrinth is?”
“Maybe.”
You bristle at his nonchalance, watching as you trail behind him continuing to attack the pixies flittering about. Is he really going to be stubborn about this?
“Well, where is it?”
“Where is what?”
This is unbelievable. You begin to wonder if thirteen hours will truly be enough to get through this place if this is how you must go about finding information.
“The door!”
“What door?”
Oh, damn this all! If this is how you act when Irene and your father claim you to be stubborn, you are ready to grovel and apologize for all you are worth, because this has you ready to kick rocks at this indigent, obstinate, petulant creature.
“It is hopeless asking anything of you!”
Looking up at the frighteningly tall and imposing wall, your will flickers in your heart. What a cruel game to play. To be given limited time to win, but you can’t even start. Like those dreams, where no matter how fast you try to run, your shoes melt into the ground, and you are swallowed by quicksand, unable to move despite the pounding in your ribcage begging you to just go . The kind that had you bolting up in bed, desperate to get away from the frightening shadow on your heels, ready to ensnare you. Perhaps this is a dream, considering how little you’ve been able to move forward. You pinch yourself, and to your dismay, you are still here in this strange realm.
“Not if you ask the right questions.” The creature’s voice is a little softer, maybe feeling the tiniest bit sorry for talking in circles around your queries. It still doesn’t give you the answer you have asked for, so you sigh, and look at him directly.
“How do I get into the labyrinth?”
Montgomery smiles, something toothy and a little awkward on his long snouted face, though still far kinder than the grumpy glower previously. He hitches his bizarre pixie killing contraption to a hook on his belt, planting his large clawed hands at his waist.
“Now that is more like it.” He guides you several paces back, motioning with his hand for you to follow. With a swish of his arm, he points at the wall, where huge iron gates materialize from the stones. You blink several times. Those were not there before, certainly you would have seen them if they had. “You get in here.”
The gates open on their own, a cloud of dust breaking from the creaking hinges, draped vines ripping at the force.
One foot in front of the other, you enter.
There’s a force, a veil, invisible and gentle like satin, that you feel drape over your body as you cross through the archway, a prickling tingle running down your spine and through to your fingertips, every vein alight from the unknown energy that shrouds this place. Something remnant of magic, an echo of a thousand eras of history lost to violence. It pulls you in.
“You’re, uh, really goin’ in there?”
You spare a glance back at Montgomery, who seems just a breadth’s distance from possibly being concerned. Perhaps he only knew how to enter the labyrinth, and not so much as to what lay ahead.
“I’m afraid I have to.”
The veil pulses around you, and for a moment you can almost feel the tiny grasp of Gregory’s little hands against your own. He must be terrified right now.
“He’s taken somethin’ of yours, hasn’t he?” Montgomery’s voice is quiet, and your back straightens at the question, tears threatening to prick at your eyes as you turn to look at him. “Eclipse, our high ‘n mighty king…he’s taken somethin’ you love, yeah?”
So that’s his name…Eclipse.
“Something like that, yes.”
He hums, his snout twitching as he looks up at the oxidized metal archway, almost seeming nervous, before trailing in behind you, notably unbothered by crossing through the veil. It must be a faerie thing, you suppose.
“Well then,” he starts, pulling his stringed instrument out once again and begins lazily strumming, “would you go left or right?”
You look in both directions, and to your despair, they are nearly identical, each hall of imposing stone walls never ending, stretching into oblivion with no change in direction in sight, both littered with dead vines and grotesque formations of roots and branches.
“They look exactly the same,” you say, throat tightening at the predicament of having no advantage at all. In your chest, your heart pounds, the looming walls of the labyrinth seeming more and more like an impossible conquest. “Which way would you go?”
“Me?” he asks with a snort, plucking a jaunty tune on his banjo, “I wouldn’t go either way.”
Ah, back to being stubborn and uncaring.
“If that is all the help you are going to be, you can leave now.”
The strummed song stops with a twang, and Montgomery eyes you up and down with a quirked brow.
“You know, even if you do somehow make it to the center of the labyrinth, you’re never going to escape. You’ll be lost forever.”
“That’s your opinion.”
The thought of being trapped here forever does terrify you, no doubt, but perhaps by the rules of the fae, at least what you have come to understand, you mustn't speak your destiny into existence, lest the worst comes true.
Montgomery snorts again, less laughter and more of an annoyed brushing-off of your comment as he walks back towards the entrance.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
The heavy iron gates shut resoundingly behind him.
From the crystal ball in his sharp grasp, Eclipse watches you begin your journey into the tangle of his labyrinth, and small flare of anger alighting his solar heart when he sees that lowly reptilian beast show you the way in. He had hoped slightly that you would waste so much time trying to find the hidden gate that you would simply grovel and weep for his forgiveness. Still…the vigor with which you take your steps once you choose a direction stirs a delightful feeling in the pit of his being, a warmth that spreads through his large body as he observes you through the orb.
He hums, thrilled to have found a new object of entertainment…of obsession, though he would never say it out loud. It is always so much more fun when prey fights back.
Little Gregory sits on the floor of the throne room surrounded by goblins of all size and shape gleefully playing with the little child, poking at his squishy human form and delighting in his coos and babyish laughter.
With a snap of armored fingers, one of the goblins brings Gregory forth to their leader, Eclipse taking the child up into his lap. He is an adorable little thing, pink cheeks and dull tiny teeth, a stark difference from the normal court of goblins and fae. Eclipse can see traces of your lineage in the little boy, particularly in how he furrows his eyebrows up at the king in curiosity. Must be a shared quirk of fascination.
Eclipse stands, holding Gregory in the cradle of one arm, and the court of goblins parts in his wake, each creature bowing in delight at their leader. His pointed boots clack satisfyingly in heavy rhythm against the stone floor, the king exiting the throne room and into the great hall, the little child in his arms staring up at the celestial ceiling above, buttressed arches reaching impossible heights and creating caverns that allow a velvet night sky to flood through the naked architecture. The king looks up as well, the cosmos shifting with each step.
“The stars are more than just pretty lights, you know, little one?” Eclipse raises the opposite arm arm, the light of stars reflecting against the magma-escent color of his limb, fingers shifting about in a spell directing the constellations to glide into hypnotic formations, twinkling stars dancing around creating figures against the darkness, some of the glowing celestial bodies sinking down into the air and into the reach of Eclipse. “They can tell stories…if you know how to look.” Gregory reaches forth at one of the stars that has floated towards the pair, his tiny hands trying to grasp the intangible bundle of light. Eclipse’s chest rumbles with a laugh as he takes the star into his hand for the boy. “Careful now, there may be many but each is precious.”
He watches the child play with the little star, staring at the glowing visions inside the celestial body. Star-reading was a delightful way to pass the time, almost as indulgent and comforting as dream-walking, skills Eclipse had only been able to partake in lonesome. Perhaps once the boy was older, he could teach him the ways of the stars.
Eclipse was more than certain you would give up eventually in trying to get through the labyrinth. Though he did admire, and secretly desire, your fierce defiance and strong will, he liked to win above everything else. So when you finally heeded to him, he could bring this human child up as his apprentice instead of acquiring yet another little subject.
He didn’t often enjoy admitting to his loneliness.
But life atop the highest pedestal had grown to be quite unbearably isolating over centuries, especially when no one was willing to climb the pillar. But you had taken an axe to his intricately carved pedestal, carving the smallest crack into the foundation with a determination to meet toe to toe.
Maybe…he wouldn’t be so lonesome any more.