Czar's mind drew a blank.
Was he forgetting something?
In front of him, the pale asymmetrical towers of Aningmoon Castle disappear into darkness in contrast with the calm, leaden-blue skies.
Serenity prevails outside the Aningmoon Castle.
What was he here for?
Oh.
Toril Maely's prisoners. Right? Wait— Prisoners? Wasn't it just one?
A human prisoner.
Edith.
In the East Wing. And Julius.
Where was he?
Czar sucks in a breath, tipping his raven head against his fingers. He smells fire and everything that it kissed on its way. He smells ashes and dust but no rotting flesh.
Were there no casualties as of yet? That's borderline impossible.
Czar closes his eyes and concentrates on a bubbling feeling within himself. It's his bond with Julius. It's still there. Prominent and throbbing.
He's alive. But for how long?
Jumping off his bike, Czar runs towards the East towers.
He throws his helmet at a snarling skeleton standing outside the bricked walls. Its head goes flying into a tree and its body flings after the said head.
Czar pulls open the chain doors to get inside the inner premise of the Castle. Nobody greets him. He had a strange inkling that people used to be here. Shrugging the thought away, he runs ahead.
The hallway is laden with flaming skeletons.
Ah, finally something that Czar could vent on. His lips pull into a wannabe ghost of a smile.
The hallway is narrow, grimy, but assorted with everything that Czar could use as a weapon. The three different sized paintings on the wall took three heads down. A fire extinguisher, formerly hung beside the door, worked well in crushing them.
Czar pulls apart a nearby stool's legs and uses them as daggers, taking head after head down. This was exhilarating.
He doges their shaky burning limbs with graceful ease. Using the walls he kicks and punches around the moaning mess of bones surrounding him.
He doges their weapons with the remnants of their crushed skulls. The only thing resistant to hell fire would be creatures of hell themselves.
He uses the stooltop as a shield for flaming knives and scythes and the broken bones to get them away.
He doges bullets with finess, extinguishing the skeletons' burning ribs with some water from the flowerpots.
His empty feet were bleeding after stepping on everything that was in their way, but that was the only damage he had taken uptil now.
And so it remains as he navigates his way to the East Wing after smashing four skeletons with a three volume Directory of the Shadow Empire.
Julius' scent grows more prominent and so does Edith's. They're both inside. What were they doing together? Planning treason against him?
But wait... There is another scent around them.
A scent different from these gruesome skeletons and that of Julius and Edith.
It is deathly, heady, powerful and stale. Was it the Necromancer?
With an enraged growl and slashing another head off from a sword that was formerly hung on a wall, Czar kicks the doors open.
He hears screams.
Czar expected Julius and Edith to be tied against headposts or taped against walls or being beaten down by leashes. He expected the room to be brimming with the undead, cheering over the torture of two innocent souls. He expected the Creatures of the East Wing to be hurled into a gruesome fight—something bloody and scary. But not that...
Not this.
Though, as he stands in front of doorframe, panting and heaving, as his sweat trickles down his tan skin while tracing against his tattoos, as he stares ahead, while feeling the injuries and cuts of his feet throb against his skull. He ends up staring.
At the scene before him.
His dumb and selfish brother, Julius Castello, that even dumber human woman, Edith Chambers, and the Ruler of the Dead, Necromancer, were huddled around a white plastic table, playing with fruits.
Selene tests him daily in all new ways.
"You scared me!!" Edith Chambers exclaims in a high pitched snarl, stamping her palm on Necromancer's arm. "I understand to not expect the basic, common, human— oh my bad, person? Wolfish? Wolf-esque decency to knock before entering — but at least you could have been a little less violent to that poor door!"
Four pairs of eyes now behold the broken door in high graces.
"Oof, sis snapped," The Necromancer exclaims beside Edith, snapping his fingers together. His upper body was snug close to Edith's while his non-existent lower half was snug in the sheets.
Czar's lips pressed in a thin line. They were sitting too damn close.
"Mans got no chill, like bruh dude, breathe a little!" Edith drawls out, turning to Necromancer and sharing a well understood frown.
"Well said Queeeeeeen—!! Did I do it right? Did I say it right this time?" Necromancer giggles, taking Edith's small hands in his large ones and shaking them up and down.
"Yes, you aced it!" Edith exclaims, patting Necromancer's back as he flips his obnoxiously long hair.
On the other side of the creaking bed, across a bed table filled with fruit art, Julius waved at Czar.
"Oh, you just made it in time for the ceremony!" Julius exclaims, wildly gesturing Czar to come inside.
"The ceremony? What the absolute fuck are you all on about?!What is the Necromancer doing here? Why is Aningmoon under attack and what is happening?" Czar breathes in, only because it is a deliberate necessity for living rather being a choice, and questions.
"Soooo many questions," Edith giggles, popping a cranberry in her mouth.
Necromancer gasps.
"YOU JUST ATE MY BABY'S EYE!! YOU BLINDED HIM!! I SHALL HAVE YOUR BLOOD!!" the Necromancer shouts, nostrils flaring up and points an accusing finger at Edith.
Atop the table was a small octopus made out of mango pieces for its head, bananas for its tentacles and cranberry for its eyes. Edith just popped one of its eye.
"I SWEAR TO SHERLOCK I DID NOT!!" Edith haphazardly denies, hands waving in Necromancer's face and eyes faltering from Necromancer's to Julius. "TELL HIM I DID NOT!!" she shouts at Julius.
"But you did," Julius whispers, shielding his mouth with a hand while side eyeing Czar. "She totally ate her eye."
"The pronouns are 'He' and 'Him', respect it you ignorant rat!" The Necromancer throws a bunch of grapes at Julius' face.
Looking repulsed, the redhead catches them in his mouth and claps his hands in front of his forehead. "I don't identify as a rat!! No, No!" He sings out loud while muching on the grapes, "I am a clown! Now let's begin the ceremony!!"
Meanwhile, Edith replaces baby octopus' cranberry eyes with blueberries.
"HE CAN SEE HIS MOTHER AGAIN!" Edith shouts before Necromancer could voice out a reply to Julius.
"What an angel!!" Necromancer coos, patting the mango head slowly, borderline caressing it.
Czar shudders.
"Are you all okay...?" He genuinely questions, uncaring to whatever the fuck was happening outside the room.
"Yes!! We are about to circumcise baby Octo!!" Julius announces proudly. Edith and Necromancer nod beside him.
"Julius, find his dick! Necroro, hold it down! And I shall cut it!!" Edith picks up a knife from the table and unsheaths it. Its tip sparkles with I'll intent.
Czar's left eye twitches twice before he picks up a random chair sitting beside the door and throws it at his brother.
Julius' intrest in Octo's fruity genitals was greater than his will to live. Hence why his reflexes were not quick enough to predict an escape. Instead, he falls to his back with a probably bruised and broken nose. It bleeds after the chair rolls off the bed and onto the ground with a loud thud.
Edith and the Necromancer clap in synchronization.
"That's a home run!!" Edith announces, sheathing the knife again before she would accidentally stab anyone.
"What's a home run?" The necromancer asks curiously, tipping over the table to eye Julius' bleeding nose.
"It's when you hit someone so bad that they run home," Edith explains with an intellectual streaks, pocketing the knife for further use on Octo's private parts.
The necromancer pokes a finger to Julius' nose tip.
The redhead groans out loud, "It fucking hurts, selenedammit!!"
The necromancer coughs out a laugh and retreats his hand.
"Now, shut up and explain what the fuck is happening here?" Czar questions coldly, staring down at everyone in the room. Edith stared back, asserting dominance along with the Necromancer, but they were chased away by the harshness in the cold depths of Czar's dead red eyes.
"Julius, explain!!" Edith whisper shouts as Czar picks up the chair he threw at Julius and sits on it.
The werewolf, already healed enough, jumps up on the bed and grins. He folds his arms against his chest and jutts out his lips in a pout before speaking, "I'm da necromancer an' I've come for yer souls!!"
"I DO NOT SOUND LIKE THAT!"
Julius shushes Necromancer and continues, slouching his shoulders and hanging his head he speaks in a deep squeak, "You can wait in line! Let's schedule death after the last supper!"
Dark brows sneaking their way into her blonde hairline, Edith lets out a scandalized gasp. "I do not stand like that!!"
"You so do!!" Necromancer scrunches his nose in Edith's face.
Czar is so done with their shenanigans now. What is with this human girl ensuing chaos everywhere around him and his brother? His jaw clenches, red eyes zoning dead on Edith's head hanging back in a laugh and body vibrating in mirth.
'What's so good about committing to tomfoolery? Here I thought she would be dead in the East Wing. Did all the creatures finally decided to commit mass non-existence or what?!' He grumbles in his mind.
"And then he says, 'Let me join your last supper before your miserable lives cease to exist. Mwahahahahaha!'" Julius continues, only to earn a slap on the leg in return.
"I don't impersonate Cruella's laugh, fuck you!" Necromancer scowls.
'Toril Maely did not lie to me,' Czar thought. But he could not, for the life of him, remember what he was supposed to be concerned with.
Is there something that should have troubled him? What is it? Where is it?
He has no memory. He keeps drawing blanks.
"And so she replies, 'you can make food art in the meantime! See I made a porcupine!'" He extended his jazzing hands at Edith's masterpiece in front. Atop the table.
"Thank you, thank you very much!" Edith mock bows, waving as if she were a celebrity amidst a crowd of admirers.
"My Octo is prettier," Necromancer butted with a pout.
Before Edith could start a riot in the name of defending her food art, Czar stood up, dragging all attention to his majestic form. He was fine art.
"I see I am crashing your play date. I shall take my leave now. But don't you worry, my absence will be replaced by the creatures of East Wing. I shall personally fetch them for you. Oh, and the hounds would be just for you, Julius."
He pulls his lips in a hollow smile as three pairs of eyes stare up at him. Julius visibly shudders. He feels like someone had told him that...but who?
Czar leans in to grab Edith's hand over the fruit laden table before the Necromancer stops it.
"Hold up, my mate. I waited for you, so long. Now that you are here, do wait, for the void is coming for all of you."
His stretched out drawl has Czar's palms clenching into a fist.
The Void.
Necromancer's Void of the Forgotten.
Everything that he couldn't remember was because of the void. Zero casualties. Just disappearances. No wonder he did not see a soul other than skeletons all the way to the East Wing. He had heard nothing but the guttural moans of the dead.
The Void had consumed all of those whom he must have had cared for— once.
"What's the void?" Edith questions brightly, now making a rose out of watermelons while Julius hastily rushed up to the locked window of thr room and peeked outside. It was all green fields and forest trees.
Not that Julius could remember what he was expecting to see.
"Oh I'll show you, sweetheart," Necromancer grins, showing off his rotten teeth.
"Yeah! And then I'll show you reels on aesthetic food art!" Edith claps, "If I ever get out of this prison."
And suddenly, in the enclosed space of that room, huge black winds start winding on Necromancer's fingertips.
Czar pulls Edith by her shirt collar and circles a hand around her waist, pulling her off the bed and placing her feet on the ground. The wind gets stronger, harsher as their hair start blowing aggressively along with the gusts.
"Brother!!" Julius shouts, hurling a hand to reach out but the winds kept pressing it back to the walls. So he stared at his older twin brother with pitiful dawny eyes, ready to accept his fate because no one has been this close to a Void and lived the tell the tale.
And this was being created personally by the Necromancer's fingertips. In front of them.
Czar's red eyes stare at his brother's glassy ones. And in that moment, he knows that Julius did not plan this. He knows that Julius was a victim of Toril's just as much as Edith and Czar were right now.
His jaw clenches. This is not how they will end. He was a man on a mission. This will not be an end.
Or will it? Will they disappear like scent from a dying flower?
Edith involuntarily clings harder to Cazr's stiff form, anchoring herself against him. She wants to speak something, anything, but the winds are drying out her eyes and lips. She cannot help but bury her face in Czar's neck and pray for her life.
"Ah look, here it is!!" Necromancer giggles as the winds give way to a hole so dark and calm that even one look at it terrified Edith to wits end.
At least this would be better than a concussion death. Right?
She is genuinely scared when the Necromancer starts bringing the hand closer to them. This is scary. They're all gonna die. What about their short lived friendship? Who is going to make beauty vlogs with Necromancer on Valentine's Day?
"Edith Chambers," Czar's deep voice pierces through her depressive thoughts. But his words were an octave above a mumble. He was saying something to her that she couldn't understand. His grip on her waist was loosening and so was Julius' from the window's edge.
Her breathing was now a cry for help.
Czar was saying something to her but her mind could not comprehend it over the loud winds...but when they stilled, they had been sucked inside in a pit of darkness.
——— F I N ———