Explain It Like I'm Tree

Cursed

He passed the two-part monument to the sunken house without a glance and entered the final circle of graves. The face of each member of the family flashed through his mind as he shattered their markers and threw the remains over the cliff. Only when every headstone was broken did he return to the great pair of stone statues depicting a married couple in a boat across from a man atop a sinking house.

The tree's strength faltered. He stumbled, catching himself on a spyglass pointed out to sea. His blood pumped sluggishly, and he gasped out tiny breaths of air.

Not yet. We are not finished yet!

Once again, the serpent blocked the way. This time it lunged at him, stopping just short of his face with its jaws flung wide, fangs gleaming. It hissed like a hail of knives, bunching up its coils on all sides of the path to loom over them. On the far side of the house, the great tree gave a great creak under the serpent's tightening grip.

Arthur leaned forward on weary knuckles, staring down the inky maw. "You. Have nothing. Over me. Nothing. To threaten. Me with. Nothing to offer. Today I die. Soon you starve. But. First."

We have something to finish.

Once again, he passed through the serpent as if it were merely fog. He stared at the final monument, fatigue seeping through his limbs. "I trust. Your friend. To take care of. The rest. I have not. The strength. For more. Than this."

Lewis will be back to burn that house to the ground.

"So. Be. It. Thank you. For listening."

Take my strength. Tear it down.

..........................................................

Too long. Every leap felt like it took an age to complete. By the time Mystery left Christopher and Vivi at the van and scrambled back, he was sure he'd missed something important. Again. What was it going to cost Arthur this time?

I will never forgive myself.

He found Arthur sprawled, unconscious, between two hulking stones. Chunks had been gouged off each boulder. Stone hands, heads, and legs lay strewn around him. Great, spiderwebbed cracks ran through each boulder, as if some force had pounded away at them. Neither had a discernible shape anymore.

Fabric from Arthur's vest showed through the wood in patches here and there, and Mystery seized him by the patch of vest near his neck. Patches of wood flaked off him a Mystery dragged him to the van, leaving a trail of bark and tree debris in their wake. He shoved Arthur into the back and climbed in, crowding Christopher aside and barking at Vivi, "Step on it!"

Vivi peeled out. Mystery refrained from looking back. He'd never seen the monster that Arthur had pointed at, but even so he knew better than to offer such things any parting attention. He curled his body around Arthur, draping his tails over him like a blanket.

He replayed the afternoon in his mind as Vivi retraced the road away from the coast. Retracing every mistake. Aching over every word.

It could have been different. It should have been different.

If Lewis had been here?

If I restrained Arthur?

If Vivi and Arthur stayed together?

More than stone had been fractured today, and Mystery wasn't sure how many more blows his kits could take. He laid his nose across Arthur's chest and listened for every ragged breath.

............................

Note:... and then I don't update for ages. So, a few things. I finally brought the Just Legends saga to an end, and that took a lot out of me. I replaced all first-draft chapters of Best Served Cold with majorly updated & revised chapters (only on AO3) with plans to do the same for the rest of the stories in that saga. Then I finally began to write something original over on fictionpress and Wattpadd (The Remara Phenomenon) with very little plan about how to make it work, with the hope that if I practice enough it will do what my fanfictions do, and form itself into a story as I do what I do best in the background: observe and clean it up into something readable. The writing front is busy and this fic has fallen through the cracks a bit. I don't think that's a permanent state of affairs, but I do think this fic's updates will slow way down. I'm working on prioritizing and goal-setting, and sometimes in that mode you have to set aside half the projects you started because you realize they are distractions from the main goal.

One more thing. I've realized something about this story, and it saddens me, but it just... it's right for this story, if that makes sense. And that is, this story probably does not have a happy ending. Right now it looks to me like its ending will be more bitter than sweet, though more in the direction of dissolution than destruction. Usually I try for at least bittersweet, but I set up a few too many obstacles at the start of this story, and I'm realizing that the story doesn't always work out the way I hope it will. I have to follow the story's lead or it will become dead and uninteresting. You've been warned, you still have time to get off the ride.

My thanks to Joseph Anderson, whose Youtube review "The Villain of Edith Finch" inspired the way this case came together for the Mystery Skulls gang. My writing about the nature of the curse is heavily inspired by his review.