Those of you who like to keep track of Calavera already know that we had
quite the interesting Valentine’s Day here. For those of you who don’t, here is what
happened:
I was baking cookies with
Monster and had just taken a batch out of the oven when the room was suddenly
illuminated by that familiar light which I had so often heard described.
“Hello Calavera” I said, before turning to find myself looking at his
disappointed face. He said that he had wanted to surprise me. This
disappointment was instantly forgotten, however, when he noticed the cookies;
asking what the occasion was. I couldn’t help but laugh as I informed him of
the day.
I thought it best to let the others
know he was here so I handed Monster a cookie from the previous batch and sent
him out to do just that, before turning my attention back to Calavera with a
playful scolding
"So you thought you'd pop in and surprise me,
hm? Really now, how could I be shocked to see you? You told me that you'd like
to meet me and you have made a habit of appearing behind people as you did just
now- but on that note- tsk tsk where are your manners, dear? Didn't even knock
first! What if I had just gotten out of the shower or something?"
"Manners?"
he said, pointing to himself "Me?" He burst into a fit of laughter "Knitty,
that's a good one" He looked me over for a moment.
"And
naked? Why Knitty, if I didn't know your heart belonged to someone else, I
would assume you were flirting with me" glancing around he continued
"Nice Eden you got yourself here, by the way."
I laughed “Funny you accuse me of flirting when
you’re the one who just appeared in my home and whose mind has skipped straight
to naked, without even considering that I might have meant that I didn’t want
you to see my shabby old bathrobe! But no, no, it was just a further prod about
your manners- though on that note, I should remember my own.” I gestured towards
one of the batches of cookies “You compare this place to Eden? Then allow me to
maintain tradition by tempting you with something to eat. Please help yourself
to the chocolate chip cookies.”
I was about to offer him a drink when Fell and Hart
burst into the room, weapons in hand.
“What the fuck is this shit?!” Fell snarled “What
the fuck are you doing here?”
He grabbed a cookie, took a bite and then answered,
“Eating a cookie? Why? You have something against
Knitty's cookies?" he glanced back at me "Which are delicious, by the
way"
Fell
did not take this response well. She called him a son of a bitch and was on the
verge of attacking when I told her to stop. I was curious about Calavera’s
visit, so I wanted to be able to actually have a reasonable conversation with him for a few minutes more.
She
wasn’t happy but she agreed- though she threatened to kill him if he tried to
hurt me.
Before
any further threats or provocations could be uttered I suggested that everyone
sit at the table while I prepared some tea and coffee.
Calavera happily made his way to the table but not
before antagonizing Fell one more time. "Cheer up Motormouth," he said "I come in peace."
I thought I might have to step in again, but fortunately, Fell stayed in
control.
When
the drinks were ready, I brought them over to the table. I smiled at Calavera
as I set a cup in front of him “This probably can’t compete with Rose’s tea,
given your description, but I do hope you’ll enjoy it anyway.” My phrasing had
a double purpose. I honestly did hope that he would like the tea, but I also
wanted to give him a subtle little mental pinch for purposely trying to make
Fell angrier. “So” I continued on “what brings you all the way out here today,
Calavera?”
His
expression told me that the pinch had been felt
"...She
made the best tea ever," he said sadly.
To
his credit, he recovered quickly; the grin returning to his face as he answered
my question
"Why?
It's Valentine’s Day! I told you I'd visit you, and realizing full and well
that you and Fell had plans for this day, I made it my duty that I pay you a
visit on this very day..."
Turning
to Fell he continued with a laugh, “in order to make sure you kids don't do
something stupid with your lives."
His
attention focused on me again
"But
in all honesty, I came here to finally meet you Knitty, simple as that. Now I
tell you, getting into this place was no easy picnic...But those are the
benefits of living on the board, my limits slowly disappear."
Hart
was looking fairly nervous at this point, which Calavera apparently noticed as
well
"Jesus
kid, cheer up, I ain't going to, pardon my French, fuck everything up in here,
besides, I doubt you'll do that much with that Crowbar" He gave a glance
towards Fell "Same goes for the tomahawk."
Returning
his focus to me, he continued, "I'm also visiting here on business, but
that can wait until later, right now, I want to simply talk and catch up, don't
do that a lot these days, not ever since..." his gaze fell to the table as
his sleeves extended, wrapping around him as if giving him a hug "Rose was
killed."
“I might not be able to do much but you’re really
fucking making me want to try anyway, cunt face” Fell sneered
I will admit that despite my previous mental
pinching, I felt a pang of empathy towards Calavera, while at the same time the
more sadistic part of me enjoyed it. I decided to change the subject so as not
to ruin the mood of the conversation
“You know, I figured someone was going to
eventually find a way in here without mine or Ritter's help.... Seems about
right that you would be the one to do it.... So, catching up eh? Well,
most of the significant stuff is on the blog already- I’ve continued my knitting
and drawing, we’ve been training fairly hard, Carmine is long dead and… well...
not buried… Carmine is dead and making for a decent lawn ornament… So how about
you dear?”
He
was instantly smiling again "Me? Well I am slowly ascending beyond fabrics
of time and space, me and my darling..."
the
sleeves went back to their normal shape as he spoke
"we
become stronger with every second and much, much more closer." looks at
Hart "Incognito is following my clues, soon he and I will meet and we will
have the grandest dance ever!"
he
was practically shaking with excitement "Forgive me, sometimes I get
carried away, the thought itself, of the day when we meet, just makes me want to
jump in the air!" he took a sip of his tea which seemed to calm him down
somewhat
“Oh good. You and your boyfriend can finally fuck
and get it over with!”
I couldn’t stop myself from snickering into my
coffee at Fell’s comment. It was terribly low brow, and I probably shouldn’t
have found it as funny as I did, but there you have it. Besides, who am I to
laugh at a love so focused and pure?
“Myself and
Skein have also been getting along fairly well, though it’s a little confused
and curious at the moment.”
Skein had
been expressing this to me since Calavera’s arrival. At my acknowledgement, it
began to kick “It is wondering why I’m not flipping the table and attacking
right now, since it regards you as a direct enemy”
“I can fucking relate” Fell interjected
“It expressed similar when Roy was here. At the
same time, it’s following my lead, but growing curious about you due to the
mentioned lack of attacking and because of Fortissimo.”
“How could you not know?” Said Hart, finally
finding his voice and the courage to lift his eyes to meet Calavera’s gaze.
“About Rose I mean. You named her on your blog where all your enemies could
see, dude. How come you were so surprised when someone killed her?”
I was intrigued and surprised at Hart’s
sudden questioning
Kelevra smiled "Of course it would regard
me as a direct enemy, I mean you, Skein and this place are connected, like an
big blood vessel and when an outsider like me, just busts in, it becomes
confused and since "attack" is the only course of action it is mostly
familiar with, that is what it wants to do when confused, like an animal"
I looked at
my hands, the movements under my skin as he continued; now shifting his
attention to Hart
"You underestimate me Softy. I'm not stupid,
if mentioning her was dangerous, I would never do so. See, Rose, she had
abilities beyond mine, the pawn shop she stayed in, just like this place, was a
"Special" spot, no random schmo could break in and if they tried, they
would die. However, recently, she made a sacrifice; a sacrifice which destroyed
the barrier she had" I glanced up to see the hate in his eye "Dimir
cashed in on that, he knew about her long before I mentioned her on the blog,
she knew that she would eventually die, so she made a sacrifice...a sacrifice
to me, she gave me access to the board..."
“Why the f-“
Fell began before I cut her off. I could tell from her tone that she was about
to make a dig at what he had just said. Given his anger, I thought that such a
dig might be enough to end the conversation. As I still had some questions to
ask, I figured it would be best to send her outside for a moment
“Could you please go check on Monster, dear?”
She started to protest, but my glare changed her
mind. However, a moment after she left, we were interrupted by her swearing
again as she dragged Monster into the cabin. His hands, face and shirt were
smeared with rot.
“The little shit has been finger painting!”
I let out a sigh at the mess. “Well Calavera, I
need to clean him up. Feel free to follow if you want to keep chatting” I
ushered Monster into the bathroom and peeled the soiled shirt off of him and
handed it to a now gagging Hart to put outside until it could be cleaned. I
then took up a facecloth, prepared it with warm soapy water, knelt down and
began to scrub at one of his hands
“I don’t want to crush the bit of creativity you
have left, Monster, but if you want to paint like that, you should use FRESH
blood. Don’t pick at that corpse anymore because you’ll make yourself sick.
Kids these days!”
"So
this is one of your new "students"?" Calavera laughed "Have
to say, kid's got talent, don't yell at him, he decided to take a different
approach, rather than using Fresh blood which is always red, he decided to use
rotten blood, such a mixture of dark colors, don't you think?"
It
was my turn to laugh “You could call him that but, I’m not sure how aware this
‘student’ is of the classroom, if you see what I’m getting at. The colours are fine- they are not the problem, nor is the medium itself
really.” I finished with one hand and started in on the other. “But he doesn’t
have the sense to wear gloves or clean himself up after and I don’t want this
tracked all over the cabin and potentially making Fell and Hart sick. Also, I’m
honestly not sure how susceptible he himself is to illness, given his…
condition.”
“So while I’m trying to get him clean…” I started as
I scrubbed at his fingernails, working to remove any trace of rotten blood from
them “Is there any chance of you elaborating a bit about this board that you
keep talking about?”
He
smiled at my question "I just love when people are curious" he leaned
against the wall, with his arms crossed "I can't tell you much, but I'll
try to level. The board is a place, from which I can observe every game piece I
want, I can see anyone, anywhere, at any time. I can even transport to them, no
matter where they are, however, I cannot stay in this world for too long,
otherwise I slowly start losing my blood"
He looked at his own hand "The board is protected from any game piece,
nobody can enter, not even Marshmallow" he moved closer "I had to
sacrifice my free will, once I complete my purpose, I will become a puppet, in
the hands of an outsider, not a Fear, a different entity" he smiled and looked
at Monster "...A mindless puppet" he knelt by me- a grin on his face-
and whispered"...At least that's what "he" thinks"
His
closeness and his words riled Skein up again. It made it clear that because he
was an enemy of Ritter and because of the potential threat of his plan, it
thought we should kill him. I calmed it, telling it, among other things, that Ritter could take care of himself; that
to attempt such a thing now would be counterproductive both to my own wishes
and the orders I had been given.
Coming
back to the conversation with Calavera, I returned his smile “’He’ Hm?”
Finished
with Monster’s hands, I set about cleaning his face
“You
know, my frame of reference is limited to Ritter here, but keeping yourself
from being hollowed or coming back from that state is not easy… I wonder what
you will do to avoid ending up like Monster”
Giving
Monster a look over to ensure that he was clean, I handed Hart the cloth to dispose
of and asked Fell to get him a shirt.
“He’s
out of clean shirts!” Fell called out
from another room.
“Well
get him one of mine” I called back as I stood and washed my own hands in the
sink. Fell returned with a shirt which I then put on Monster. It was too big of
course, so I tied it on one side to make it fit a little bit better. “There.
Hope you like Alice Cooper” I said in reference to the image on the shirt “Please
try not to ruin this one immediately”
“Here”
Hart came back to the bathroom door with a slender man doll in hand “I thought
he might want this.” Monster’s eyes went
wide as he reached out for the doll and proceeded to cuddle it
“Looks like you
thought right” I said with a grin. I looked at Calavera “But you didn’t come
here for a lesson in babysitting. You said that you were here on business
too?”
He scratched
his bandaged head. "Business, right" He seemed to hesitate.
"But we need to talk in private about
this" he said, standing back up "I understand that you trust your
companions, but I don't. The only person I trust in here, is you and I can't
afford to let them hear what this "business" is all about"
Another hesitation "It's less of a business and more of a favor to be
honest..." He flashed an evil grin "You said that Carmine is still
"hanging" around, maybe we could go see him and discuss this near
him?"
“Fuck you if you think we’re going to leave you two
alone together!” Fell snarled, back on the brink of attack “She doesn’t owe you
any favors!”
“Fell…” I stared before she cut me off
“Wolf no! Don’t you remember what happened with
Carmine?” She was nearly in tears worrying about what might happen to me. This
concern was also present in Hart’s expression
“Yes I do” I said, the memory unfolding in my mind.
I calmed the rage that came with it so as to continue.
“You need to remember something too…” I said,
hinting at a past conversation; a plan that we had formed amongst ourselves a
while back
“Oh yeah and what’s that?” Snapped Fell
I arched an eyebrow at her, giving her a look to
suggest she should really know the answer
A look of realization finally spread across her face
“Oh…” She tightened her grip on the tomahawk “I
don’t like this”
“I know”
I drew in close and gave her a kiss. Fell smiled,
though she was still clearly worried
“Come on then, Calavera” I said, glancing back at
him before leading him outside.
I muttered to myself as I had to jump over the mess
of rotten stick figures that Monster had drawn on the steps leading up to the
cabin entrance. Once Calavera joined me, we walked over to Carmine’s corpse.
Looking back at him, I could not help but look over
his bandaged face, wishing to see the scars underneath but thinking it would be
rude to ask. I was eager to know what this was all
about but I was also wondering why he looked uncomfortable.
“Alright dear, here we are. So what was this super secret favor you
wanted?”
"The favor, right..." he began before being interrupted by
Fortissimo, apparently trying to rip through his right eye bandages
"Sorry, I hope you don't mind..." he said as he tore the bandages off
his head, revealing his scars. This also exposed his right eye socket, out of
which a tentacle emerged. "Much better" he said, sounding relieved.
"So the favor..." he paused for a moment,
then continued "You shouldn't be worried that this will end up like with
Carmine, in fact, I am the one in danger by trusting you..." he reached inside
his trench coat, out of which came a jar with a black substance inside,
Fortissimo held the jar between he and I "Skein's attack meter must be
going off the charts right now"
The tentacle threw the jar in the air and he caught
it. “Earlier you asked me what I would do to avoid ending up as a puppet,
right?" he smiled "I will die" he laughed "And then, through
this, I will come back. This is my request, I want you to store this jar
exactly at those coordinates, I can't do it myself, since "HE" is
looking over my every move, except right now"
I had stood transfixed as he had removed his
bandages. I did not mean to stare but his scars were a glorious sight to behold.
However, I found myself called back to the business at hand by Skein’s
agitation.
“Well that’s convenient.” I said “How is it that
‘he’ can’t see you right now?”
Through my reassurances, the storm within me calmed
once more
“And why would you trust me with something so
important?”
He
smiled "See, this little Eden you
have here, I'm sure you know that it is part of Marshmallow..." the
tentacle sticking out of his eye hole started twirling around as he spoke "And
that means, that Marshmallow protected it from an outside eye, however, not
from the board. But when I appeared here, the frequency of the whole place
changed a little, this is what happens when the frequency of the board collides
with the frequency of any other Fear" he clapped his hands together
"In result, those two collisions isolate everyone's view. Do you know why
Marshmallow isn't here yet? Because, just like "he" it can't see us
right now."
"As for, why do I trust you?" he pointed to Carmine’s corpse
"This is why...We understand each other, both of our minds work in our own
way that no one can comprehend. Both of us, we live in our worlds, which we
built, we are one of the few people that have the will power and the smarts to
do something like that. We might not understand each other's worlds, but we do
understand the importance of our worlds and thus..." he raised his arms in
the air "Respect is born" he spread his arms to both sides "That
is why I trust you, because you understand and thus respect me and I understand
and respect you, which is why I doubt you will betray me" Pointing to the
jar, he continued "This doesn't get in the way of your goals, if it did,
then you would betray me" he finished with a smile
I
paced as I thought about it, then let out a sigh. Turning back towards him I gave my
answer
“God
damn it Calavera… Alright. I’ll do it”
Smirking
at him I had to ask, “But what would you have done had I said no?”
He
looked lost at this. Finally looking at Carmine "...I would ruin your
sculpture?" he scratched his head "To be honest with you, I didn't
think about that, I guess I wouldn't let you see the scars? I don't know" The confused expression on his face along with his lack of
preparedness was just adorable
I
couldn’t help but laugh “Well I’ve said yes, so I suppose you don’t need to
worry about that now, hm?”
I
regained my composure “Also, I am grateful that you let me see your scars… So
thank you”
He
handed me the jar along with the coordinates "Always a pleasure, however,
it is a bit unfair don't you think?" he crossed his arms "You've
never showed me yours..."
I
had Skein lift and slide my open sweater over my arms, letting it drop to the
ground. The tendrils withdrew, leaving my arms exposed up to the short sleeves
of my shirt. I held them out for him to see the scars that covered them. He looked
at them and whistled. "Not bad… I hope you keep a track of these, I
used to do it myself, but was quite impossible..." he encircled me,
admiring them "Damn I'm jealous, must feel good to feel them, wish I could
feel mine..." he looks at his bandaged hands "Sometimes I hate my
numb body."
“I remember which ones I made and which were made
by others” I smiled “They do feel very good… The pain helps in its way…” I
lowered my arms “On the other hand, at least you will never find yourself
hindered by it.”
"Yeah..." he paused or a moment; blood
began to trickle from his nose and ears. “Oh great, I hate this...” he looked
at me "I'm afraid I must take my leave now, thanks a lot for agreeing to
help me out, I will remember that and I will return the favor, for when I
return" he extended his hand for a hand shake "It was finally nice
meeting you..." he smiled "Knitty"
“It was great to meet you too dear.” I said,
accepting the handshake “Good luck, Calavera"
In
that same flash of blinding light, he was gone
Oh and before I get accused of spilling secrets,
Calavera already disclosed the details of the favour on his blog. If he had not
done so, I would not have mentioned it here. Besides, as he pointed out, I’ve
already done
what he asked.
As
for the rest of the day, Fell was not pleased, but I didn’t want to spend the
day arguing about it. She finally let it go because she didn’t want to spend
the day fighting either
We
went out for some sushi, came back and watched both the original and the remake
of My Bloody Valentine back to back. Enjoyed some cookies and spent the rest of
the evening in each other’s arms
