Love and Chaos

The First Duel to the Death

Bedlam deflated slightly, unable to answer this obvious question, but slipped the watch onto a string for safe keeping, just in case.

"Anyway, what were you saying about your fiancé?"

"That's what I came to talk about. It turns out that she's actually your fiancé."

"What!" Bedlam jumped, hitting his head on the ceiling again. "Mine? But didn't you get engaged to her over a year ago? I picked up the marriage contract from the Catawampian bureaucrats myself."

"Yes, well... I've had ample time to think it over, and I've decided against it."

"But we need Styx's resources. The moor's all but depleted."

"Which is why you still need to marry her."

"But you're the oldest."

"Exactly, so what I say goes."

"But... but I mean...you can't just decide..."

"No, you're going to decide, and tell Father that that's what you want, and that will be that. Or else."

He swept his arm across one pf the specimen shelves, sending a bowl of birds eggs and a cage of glowing tarantulas to the floor.

"But I don't even know her," Bedlam said, kneeling down to make sure the spiders were all right; the eggs were obviously done for.

"If that's you're only hang up..." Mayhem dropped a bundle of envelopes that were tied together with twine. "Her letters. She's been writing incessantly. Every week it seems."

"Oh..." Bedlam pulled the stack towards him, extracting one of the envelopes from its fellows. "W-wait a minute! These aren't even opened! You haven't read them?"

"Why would I read them. It's not like I'm marrying the girl."

Bedlam was too horrified to even rebuke him and instead ripped the envelope open and extracted a letter covered in swirled green ink.

My Dearest Mayhem,

I hope this letter finds you well. Since you haven't written back to my previous thirteen epistles, I shall assume that you are ill. I myself have come down with a bit of a cough. Worry not, though, as Auntie Giselle is whipping up a concoction in our laboratory that she assures me will have me sorted out with the barest number of side effects.

The weather here has been balmy, and the Forest of Infinite Horrors has just begun to turn yellow and orange. It is truly a sight to behold. How is everything on the moor? I like to imagine that it gets rainy this time of year, but of course I don't know.

I hope that you are keeping warm in the scarf I knit you—I hope you like orange and brown. Of course you like stripes, I assume?

Please write me back.

Love and Chaos,

Raina

Bedlam selected another letter at random, which read:

Dearest Mayhem

I am sending you a bit of scale-molt from my pet Wyrm, Sedgely (he has left sloughed-off scales all over the palace!). I have read that Lessarian goblins can extract magic from all sorts of things, and though I'm not sure if wyrms are magical, I thought you might like to try.

Do please write me back and tell me if you find the scales useful.

Love and Chaos,

Raina

"She sounds... nice," Bedlam said noncommittally.

"She sounds human."