As the iron door of his cell slammed shut, Fredrik was left alone in darkness with only his own thoughts for company. He couldn't bring himself to believe that the eighty-thousand arms of the WPRS were open and waiting for him to embrace them in return. With his creative hands in chains, he couldn't even hold himself.
He thought this time would be different somehow... That he'd find the answers he'd sought since his curse began, especially with Joseph's once-brilliant mind for help. He'd been so sure something would begin making sense. But he should have known better than to surround himself amongst larger and yet larger crowds -- harder to hide, harder to keep himself away from them -- when it was only a matter of time before something like this would surface. It was an inescapable pattern that had always been part of life, spiralling ever larger, consuming out of control. He could not build himself something greater if it meant he would only ruin it harder, especially with what he had let himself do to Joseph, he could never risk making friends again, let alone actually falling in love.
A mote of dust floated in the single moonbeam through the high window of his prison. Even this small reprieve from the darkness he refused, preferring instead to keep his eyes cast down and shut tight. Hot tears streaked down his muddied cheeks, but even those were stained as black as ink as his thoughts stitched themselves into his skin. When they struck the cold, hard dirt, their power fizzled out with a sickening hiss. Iron shavings mixed into the floor. On this dead ground, not even his power could make things grow.
He didn't see the twinkling light in the tiny star that drifted towards him. It grew in size and intensity, taking on the form of a being of rainbow colored light.
It was not until she was fully manifest did the brilliance of her aura draw him from his woe long enough for him to open his eyes. He scuttled backwards across the floor at the sight her as far as the chains would let him -- not only had he thought he was to be alone for an indefinite span, but he'd long been unaccustomed to the naked form of a woman.
The curvy figure ignored him at first and retrieved the black cloak discarded at the corner of his cell. She draped it around her shoulders and her form solidified into deathly pale skin with a prismatic sheen.
"So this is the 'Inkboy' I've heard about in hushed prayers," she said, still facing the wall as she ran slim fingers through dark red hair.
He flinched away at once, loosing a muffled yell from behind his mask. The woman should not touch him. Nobody should touch him. He knew that much.
The Magistra clicked her tongue and bent over in front of him with her arms crossed. He felt the gaze of her white eyes bore through him, inspecting every inch of his soul. Once she had gleaned everything she needed, she grinned.
She gripped his chin and lifted his head. The half-mask split and fell into a heap on the ground. His lips finally free to speak, all he could muster in his fear was a broken whisper.
"Don't. Don't. Please...don't touch me."
"The InkBoy, the one with shadows written into his very skin. Aren't you an interesting one?"
The Magistra narrowed her eyes and took a knee in front of him. She ran her fingers down his bare arms, reading the words that skittered across his skin.
LEAVE. GET AWAY. WORTHLESS.
Her hands settled on the metal shackles that bound his fists to the floor. With a touch, they split apart and he was free.
"Leave me be," he pleaded. "Why are you doing this?"
"The shadows could never love you more than me, my poor boy. You have creation in your fingertips and instead of writing words of love on your arms, you've attacked yourself. Haven't you?"
AFRAID. UNDESERVING. FREAK.
The scars just under his skin ached. Fredrik held still, then nodded.
"What fool led you to believe this power is something to contain and hide? You're wasting away here. It's in your very veins to create. If you're hurt, you'll just write in blood instead."
"Nobody convinced me," he breathed. "I didn't need convincing when I can see for myself how I ruin everything." The gentle sensation of her fingertips had soothed his burning scars just a little, but he had no idea how. "I try, and I try, and I try to fit in, but how can I when I'm just so..."
DIFFERENT. DANGEROUS. REPULSIVE.
With a sweep of her hand, the words disappeared for a brief moment. In his disbelief that the traits could ever be erased, they quickly etched themselves back.
"And yet you're none of those things to me. Interesting, isn't it? You're in a place of miscreants and misfits. The woman who brought you in, Hella. Didn't she fit those descriptions herself? How did you feel about her?"
"Hella? I..." He thought back to when he'd first met the draugr, suffering the flashbacks of those brilliant blue orbs peering at him under the bed. "I was terrified."
"But then?" she pressed.
"After I saw her fight? Awed. And for somebody who isn't human, she turned out to be pretty, well, human. A victim of her own flaws, but she has her head on straight." He gave a small shrug. "If you don't look too closely at the stitching..."
The woman chuckled. "I don't think there's a straight thing about that woman." She folded her fingers around Fredrik's hand, noting the way he flinched and gasped at her touch. "You, though. You're welcome here. This power is a blessing, not a curse."
She watched his lips part to protest and held a finger to her own to silence him. The words across his skin spoke for him and she laughed.
YOU'VE NO IDEA, LADY.
"See? You can't stop yourself. Creation is a part of you just as much as a vampire's fangs or a ghost's spirit."
The words blazing across his skin grew ever more harsh. "You say creation like you don't see what I've done. I've done exactly the opposite. If what you say is true, and I'm welcome here, why is it that everyone suffers me when they get close? Somebody said they would send help, but I don't know what they can do to make me normal, whoever it is."
More laughter from the woman. She squeezed his hand and ran her fingers back through her hair.
"You truly don't know who I am then," said the Magistra. "All the better. Maybe my words will speak on their own."
She took his other hand, chasing it even as he pulled it away, and rested their entwined fingers on her knee.
"You're already your own normal, and that's okay. You knew what you were, how you should be, and you made it happen," she said. She reached up and gently stroked the scruff of an incoming beard with the back of her hand. "I think that's wonderful. True, sometimes creation does require a bit of destruction in the process, but you make something beautiful out of it. You make it your own. There's merit in that."
Fredrik averted his gaze for a fleeting moment. Her words rung true, even as far back as being that little girl cutting up the training bra his mother had bought him. Surely the woman in his cell hadn't guessed that as well. It was ridiculous to think she could have all the answers, but just the seemingly inconsequential touch of what little facial hair he had managed had stirred him. It was like she knew what he had already created, but how could she?
Creation was destruction... she was right about that too. It was the destruction of outdated, limited, imposed ideas into entirely new expressions. He had already recreated himself without the power that now bound him. What could he do if he applied it? What might he achieve if he channelled it into helping others? He'd never liked to admit it, but creativity had always given him purpose. Who was he to say he should ever forsake it?
The Magistra sat quietly and smiled as his thoughts snaked across his forearms. After a while, she swung her hands to get his attention. "One thing you might've missed--" she picked up the cuffs that once bound his fists and dangled them in front of him with a wink "--these weren't actually locked."
Fredrik did a double blink. "You mean... You mean to say nobody thought to lock these? That I didn't do any harm? Who the heck are you anyway and how can you break chains? I thought I was in trouble with the Magistra, not here to be tricked." The words across his skin became so frenzied they were a jumble of languages and contradictory feelings.
FORVIRRET. INSPIRED. HVORFOR? ANXIOUS.
"If you're worried about Joseph, he's fine," said the woman. "Just needed some rest to recover himself. Turns out our belief in the effect of words is strongest when it's someone we care about saying them. Or crawling over our skin, as the case may be."
"As for the Magistra, well..." She took his hand, still held in hers throughout their conversation, and pressed his knuckles to her lips. "It's very nice to finally meet you, Fredrik."
This time he winced just a little less, more taken that the woman knew his and his lover's names.
"Don't be afraid." The Magistra smiled at him. "You're going to do great. You wouldn't have any power over anyone if they didn't believe in you. And you already know what power you have when you believe in yourself. Why not let it flourish?"
Fredrik let himself smile, but almost immediately knitted his brows. "Going to do great? Going to do great at what?"
The Magistra took a seat beside Fredrik on the floor and hooked arms with him. She leaned in conspiratorially and whispered, "To be honest, I'm not of this world. Not originally. Everything here, everything except you, that is, is of my creation." She pointed to her bare chest, strategically covered by the cloak, and repeated herself. "I made this reality."
She laughed. "Though I didn't make the Board, of course. They're like you. Like me. It's as much their creation as well. They just need to wake and realize that."
Color poured into the woman's cheeks and life flushed back into her skin. Her hand, once cold, warmed like melting ice, and he realized he was holding her hand as much as she was holding his. She rubbed her forehead and sighed.
"Unfortunately, I'm needed back in my first world. The one that created me. And I'm taking #2 with me. But I need someone with as much creative power to take over while I'm gone. It was no accident I sent Hella to find you."
She held up their enjoined hands and shot him a small smile. "What do you say? Will you make yourself Lord Magister? Will you take care of them for me?"
Fredrik wasn't wholly certain he had understood her right. "Lord Magister? Me?" When the woman's face did not reveal the hidden joke he'd envisioned, he looked anywhere but her eyes. "Me? Are you serious? The responsibility... the experience I'd need... the paperwork!" He looked to her again, dead in the eye, unable to hold back his forming grin. "Are you seriously serious?"
"I am. And you have plenty of space to write your name to all the paperwork," she said, looking over his skin as frantic words of confusion wrote themselves. "You created a whole world inside you, and were content to live there. You're already qualified. Why not this one as well?"
For the first time, Fredrik gently squeezed her hand. Her touch didn't frighten or repulse him, and for once the thought of responsibility didn't tower over him. "I guess I won't be alone," he muttered, more to himself. "I'll always have people to guide me. People who are also misfits and miscreants, no less, but they'll look after me as much as I'll look after them. I guess... No. No guessing. I've spent a lifetime second guessing myself." And with final affirmation he added, "Yes. I'll do it."
He drew in his shoulders a little. "But not like this. I couldn't be Lord Magister with all these awful words on show. I'd be a laughing stock. Everyone would know. How do you think I'd look in a suit?"
The now nameless woman grinned. "Handsome as hell. Try it on."
Fredrik let her go a bit reluctantly and stood. He looked at his hands and the ink that swirled just under his skin. With a deep breath, he closed his eyes and snapped his fingers. The ink oozed over his bare chest and down his muscled arms, then materialized into a fine black suit. His bare feet were covered in faux leather oxfords and his legs in pressed trousers.
He took one more breath before opening his eyes and inspecting his work with a shocked grin. With confidence, he straightened the grey silk tie held in place by a ghost pin. He twirled his hand with a flourish and when he opened it, a key set made of bones appeared. He opened the cell door and walked out a free man.
"Shall we?" he said as he held the door for his new friend.
But when he looked behind him, the cell was empty darkness once more.
He wasn't alone though. He had an entire universe inside him, waiting to come out.