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“Is he alright, Castti?”
“His temperature is well below that of an average human. Can anyone make out what he’s saying?”
“He seems to be muttering something about rabbits…”
“If the hypothermia is intense enough, he may start to hallucinate. Either that or I must have given him too high a dose of slumber sage…”
“You’re an apothecary, damn it! I thought you were supposed to know the right dose of everything!”
“I’m human too, Temenos. We all make mistakes sometimes…”
How the hell Osvald ended up alone in the Brightlands, he didn’t know. But there he was, enjoying a spot of reading by the riverside. Somehow his chilblains had dissipated completely, as the afternoon sun enrobed him in warmth. He was just about to turn the page, when he heard an almost familiar voice.
“Oh gods! I’m late for a very important date! But what was that date exactly? I forgot…”
There, hopping along the trail, was a little white rabbit in an apothecary’s raiments. In her left paw, she clutched a pocket watch; under her right was a basket of herbs.
Of course, he could have just ignored her and let her go along her way. After all, chasing talking rabbits down holes was a little girl’s pastime, and he was a grown adult man. He didn’t have time for this. Surely Elena would have, but not him. But something about the rabbit reminded him of someone…
“Castti?” Osvald called out, dog-earing his page and closing the book. “Is that you? Where are the others?”
“No time to explain, Osvald. There are things I need to do.”
Come to think of it, her voice did sound scarily like Castti’s. With no other party members in sight, Osvald shrugged and followed after the rabbit-who-may-or-may-not-have-been-Castti. After all, perhaps through some form of convoluted deus ex machina, she could lead him to Harvey. Or this could all be just a silly adventure meant to distract him from his revenge plot. Either or.
Of course, as he had surmised, the rabbit had dived headfirst into an oversized burrow. Before he could think twice, Osvald’s foot caught on a root, sending him tumbling down, down, down the rabbit hole…
It was a rather well-furnished fall, as he passed all manner of floating furniture as he plummeted downward without a poofy skirt to act as a parachute. Now and again he would reach for the leg of a chair or the edge of a table to grab onto and break his fall, but his hand would either slip or miss completely. Eventually he landed, flat on his back at the bottom of the hole, but surprisingly without any bones broken. This is scientifically impossible, he thought to himself. A fall from that height would have killed me.
He found himself in a circular room, with a glass table in the center and a door at the end. On the table sat a pair of little glass vials and a pink paper box tied with a green ribbon. Osvald had no time for such fancies as he stormed towards the door. Just as he had begun fiddling with the doorknob to check if it was locked, he heard another voice from close by.
“Greetings, Professor! Nothing to report! Also, please be gentle with me.”
“GAH-!” With a sudden jolt, Osvald pulled his hand back. The doorknob… had just spoken to him. He took a deep breath, dusted himself off, and continued. “Does everything in this hellhole have to talk? ”
“If you’re asking about the furniture, I’m the only other piece of furniture who can talk here! At least, in this hole. You’re probably going to encounter some more talking furniture along the way heyyyyy— ”
“Listen.” Osvald gripped the doorknob tighter. “Do you know the whereabouts of a man named Harvey?”
“Harvey? I know a couple of Harveys!” the doorknob squeaked nervously. “There’s one who runs a clinic in Pelican Town, but I doubt that’s the one you’re looking for. Gosh, your hands are cold… ”
A bit of finagling later, and the door wouldn’t budge. Damn thing’s locked , Osvald muttered to himself.
“You know,” said the doorknob,” you can always drink from one of those vials, and then you’ll be small enough to fit through the keyhole.”
“To hell with it,” Osvald replied, and ripped the door off its hinges, letting a sudden surge of saltwater in from the outside. He wasn’t much of a swimmer, but what had to be done had to be done. One way or another, he was going to get out of this candy-coated nightmarescape and strangle Harvey to death. He cast the door aside, held his breath, and dove into the briny blue. The currents tossed his battered body about, and his spectacles did nothing to get the sting of the salt out of his eyes, but the doorway was just in sight…
“Mr. Osvald, you awake? I made you some tea, in case ya get thirsty or anything…”
“Leave him alone. He needs his sleep.”
“But look, Hikari! He’s regainin’ consciousness!”
The next thing Osvald knew, he was completely surrounded by water, but he could see and breathe just fine. And it wasn’t anything like the icy waters of the Winterlands, but more of a comfortably tropical climate. As he tried to regain his bearings, he noticed two creatures swimming up to him: a black and red crab with one purple claw, and a pink fish with fins that looked suspiciously like beastling ears.
“Hiya, Pops!” the little fish chirped. “Hikari and I were wondering where you were!”
Osvald, confused, looked down at himself. Not only was he naked from the waist up save for his glasses, but his legs were completely gone, replaced instead by a grey shark tail.
You’re joking. I’m a merman. Of all the things that could happen to me…
“Anyway,” the fish continued, “I found a really cool shipwreck! Wanna join me?”
Despite Osvald’s attempt to keep a stoic exterior, the tip of his tail twitched with unease. “I appreciate your offer, Ochette, but why are you a fish, why am I a fish, and why is Hikari a crustacean?”
“Frankly, I’ve been wondering that myself,” Hikari replied, cradling his purple claw in his red claw.
Staying upright with a tail instead of legs was easier than Osvald had first thought. All he had to do was gently sway his tail fin from one side to another, and he could suspend himself in the water. After gathering his thoughts, or what few thoughts he could gather in this hallucinatory state, he spoke again.
“Very well. Does anyone know how we can get back to land? I have a revenge plot to attend to, and I’m sure you have things you need to attend to as well.”
“Well, there is this crazy old sea witch in that shadowy place over there.” Ochette gestured to a cave in the distance, surrounded by whale bones. “She says she runs an orphanage, but I’m pretty sure she eats those children…”
“I’m sure she may be able to give you a pair of legs for the right price,” Hikari added.
If only Partitio were here. But alas, it was just Osvald, as well as Ochette and Hikari. And Osvald was more about mugging people blind than haggling for a price. But it was far better to crawl back up onto land than to waste time under the sea with all the talking marine life. Alephan forbid they start singing.
Without looking back once, he swam off towards the cave, with his two companions following after him.
Even the water around the cave was a dark gray-green, either from the generally evil aura or the dead things that lay strewn about it. Colorless coral skeletons reached their bony branches surfaceward, acting as trees for the witch’s front lawn; on the sand below, isopods and little fish darted about, in search of carrion. There, lounging nonchalantly amongst the whale bones, was Throné, looking largely the same as she always did, save for the seashell bra that strained to contain her huge tracts of land, and the eel tail which she had in place of legs, now wound around the ribs of the whale like a black-and-white striped scarf. Ochette and Hikari hid behind a rock as Osvald swam up to confront her. Or at least, to begin a polite conversation with her.
“You’re the sea witch, correct?”
“Nope, I just work for her.” Throné began untangling herself from the ribs. Being partly eel, she was quite flexible.
Hikari crawled up onto the top of the rock. “May we, perhaps, have an audience with her?”
“Not right now,” Throné replied. “She’s busy with some dumbass customers. You know, she has this whole song and dance about POOOOR UNFORTUNATE SOULS— ”
Eventually, Ochette regained her courage and swam into view. “Maybe we could just sneak in and use her cauldron while she’s busy?”
“That’s a terrible idea,” Osvald grumbled, crossing his arms. “There’s no way in hell I’d ever agree to—”
Three minutes later, there they were, in the darkest reaches of the cave. The whole place looked as if it had once been alive; Osvald swore he could make out a spine and ribs on the ceiling, as if this was no cave, but the petrified remains of some great leviathan. On the eastern side of the cavern sat what was apparently a cauldron, but upon closer inspection, could also have been some chitinous specimen from an age long since past.
“The boss would kill me if she caught me touching this,” Throné remarked, running a finger along the cauldron’s toothy rim. “Now, Osvald, in order for you to get your legs, you need to give me something important in return. Like, for example, your voice, or your ability to feel pleasure and not suffer some kind of physical or emotional torture.”
Well, that first option was out of the question. Osvald had spent five years muzzled, and he sure wasn’t going to spend the rest of his life that way. And what kind of person, sea witch or otherwise, would want to torture him forever? Other than Harvey, that is, or the powers that be. He reached into his inventory and pulled out his coin purse. “Four thousand leaves. Legally acquired. Take it or leave it.”
Throné stared at him, confused. The offers she’d witnessed usually cost something abstract and symbolic. Of course, it was sometimes an internal organ, but sea witches only resorted to internal organs in dire situations. But money was money, and there were no rules against it.
“Sold,” she said, shaking his hand before promptly stashing the money away. At once, she got to work, filling the cauldron with random crawly things from jars in a secret cabinet, watching them vaporize into puffs of smoke one by one, before beginning her incantation.
“Beluga, sevruga, come winds of the Caspian Sea!
And something, and something, I can’t think of lyrics, I just need mon-eeeeeeeyyyyy!”
The next few moments were agony, as Osvald felt his tail being rent in twain. Not to mention the burning, the inexplicable yet unquestionable burning of his flesh, as if his very skin was boiling…
“Oh no! Did I hurt him?”
“Ochette! What happened?”
“I accidentally spilled Partihardy’s tea all over Pops’ legs… I’m sorry, Castti…”
“He may be in a bit of shock from the scalding liquids. We’ll see if there’s any nerve damage, and if there is, we’ll see if Temenos can fix it. I know no herbal remedy for nerve damage…”
When Osvald came to, cold and wet and spluttering but somehow fully clothed after the whole merman ordeal, he had washed up on the shores of a river in a deep, dark forest. He had sworn he’d been in the ocean mere minutes ago. But at least he was far away from any talking marine life or furniture. He dragged himself to his feet and wandered alone through the seemingly endless stretch of evergreen like a sopping sasquatch, until he came upon a castle.
It was just like the castles from the storybooks he used to read to Elena; standing tall and grand, all grey stone and stained-glass windows and high roofed turrets. A perfect place to stay and dry off.
Tentatively, he knocked at the door. No answer.
He knocked again. No answer. Not even a guard to come and throw him back out into the forest. With no one there to stop him, he entered the castle. Not a sound reached him as he entered the great hall; only the echoing of his footsteps on the hard floor.
At least, not until about thirty seconds later, when he could swear he heard voices.
“A visitor! We haven’t had one of those in years!”
“Come ta think of it, it does get kinda lonely…”
“Quiet, you two. You don’t want him to hear us.”
“Who’s there?” Osvald whipped around, still on edge from all the mind-screwery he’d just endured.
No one replied. Truth be told, there was no one there, unless you counted the mantle clock inlaid with emerald enamel, the feather duster with the lurid orange feathers, and the oddly sexy candelabra that happened to be sitting next to each other on the mantelpiece, and the purple teapot sulking alone on a side table.
“If it’s the furniture again, I’m going to strangle the next actual living human I see.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, pardner,” replied the candelabra.
Osvald facepalmed. “Oh, godsdammit, why is it always the furniture?”
Come to think of it, they did look and sound rather familiar, as did every other… thing… he’d encountered on this journey. Except the doorknob. “Temenos, Agnea and Partitio, I presume?” he inquired. “And who’s the teapot?”
“Sure is!” The candelabra, obviously Partitio, did a dorky little salute. “N’ that there’s the famous Therion Octopath.” He gestured to the teapot. “I suggest leavin’ him alone, as he tends to get a liiiittle overheated…”
“ Don’t touch me, ” Therion grumbled, a plume of steam rising from his spout.
Osvald took a moment to hang his coat on the coat hanger that had trotted up to him. “Anyway, do you have any idea who owns this place? And if possible, where can I find that bastard Harvey?”
“Harvey…” Temenos’s expression grew dour. “We know him. Five years ago, he came to this castle, turned the mistress into a wretched beast and the rest of us into furniture. Except for Therion, he’s just naturally a teapot in this universe.”
“If I had hands I would disassemble you,” came Therion’s voice from the side table.
“Ah.” Osvald nodded in understanding. Another step taken on the road to vengeance; he’d have his hands on Harvey in no time. At this rate, it didn’t even matter how much fantasy nonsense he had to wallow through to get there.
“You must be starving!” Agnea exclaimed. “I mean, you look like you came all the way here on an empty stomach…”
“Very well,” Osvald grumbled, just about ready to turn away. “But you’d better not have any extravagant dance numbers while I eat.”
Partitio’s flames dimmed. “Well, uh… that’s… gonna be kind of a problem. Y’see, we got so bored waiting for guests to arrive that we kiiiiinda sorta choreographed a whole floor show just in case one shows up. It was Agnea’s idea, mainly . You’re not gonna mind that, are ya?”
Temenos dusted himself off. “Anyway, dinner will be prepared in an hour. Until then, esteemed monsieur, feel free to make yourself at home.”
By the end of the clerical clock’s statement, Osvald had already left the room and was now wandering through the halls, scrutinizing every nook and cranny he could, every cobblestone in the wall, every book on the shelves, every stair in the staircases. Halfway through his wanderings, he noticed that something was following him. Something even larger and more menacing than he, and that was really saying something.
When at last he met the eyes of his assailant, he stood his ground, but the fog on his spectacles hid the tinge of fear in his eyes. The creature that stood before him was neither wolf nor bear nor lion, but somewhere in between, with a few other miscellaneous creatures sprinkled in. Cradled in her massive front paws was a single teacup. Most striking of all were her eyes, for those eyes could only have belonged to…
“Rita?”
Upon hearing Osvald speak her name, the beast drew back.
“Osvald… why did you come looking for me?”
“To tell the truth, I wasn’t looking for you. But…” Osvald’s voice began to falter as he tentatively reached a hand out. “…but I was so blinded by what I was looking for that… by complete accident, I happened to find you…”
Rita nuzzled into her husband’s hand, letting his fingers sink into her plush fur. Even the teacup hopped up to him, out of the beast’s paws, and began rubbing up against his leg, crying “Papa! You’re safe! I missed you!”
“Osvald,” Rita said, shaking her head, “this isn’t a fairy tale. You know you can’t save me.”
“I’ll do my best to avenge you then.” Osvald knelt down and picked up the teacup to kiss her softly. “You too, Elena.”
Rita smiled, not the baring of teeth fools oft mistake for a smile, but a genuine smile, as she gently took the teacup back. “Thank you…”
It took a bit of work, but Osvald regained his usual air of stoicism, straightening his back as he issued his two lost loved ones their next command.
“You… you will join me for dinner.”
“…Osvald?”
“Osvald, are you alright?”
“Mr. Osvald! Wake up!”
All at once, the dreamscape dissipated, and Osvald found himself back in bed at the inn, with all of his teammates gathered around him. His mind was still a bit bleary, as one’s is when they’ve just awoken, and the chills still lingered, but somehow they seemed as if they’d lessened.
“I just had the most curious hallucination. There were rabbits, and… and talking furniture, and I was a fish for a bit… and the strangest part was that you were there, and you were there, and you…” One by one, he pointed to his fellow travelers.
“Was I there?” asked John Mulaney, who had been there the whole time.
“No, John Mulaney, go home.” Osvald shooed John Mulaney off weakly. “You’re not even part of the party, what are you doing here?”
John Mulaney phased through the wall out of the inn room, leaving an oddly sticky Mulaney-shaped stain on the wall.
“Anyhoo,” Partitio said, gingerly laying a hand on Osvald’s forehead, “I’m just glad you’re still alive. I don’t know what we’d do if we lost ya.”
“Besides,” Agnea added, “we’ve all still got adventures of our own that we haven’t quite finished yet…”
Osvald chuckled to himself. It was going to be a long and perilous road to happily ever after, but surely it would all be worth the while.