Queen's Gambit Chapter 15

Chapter Index:
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Previous Chapters:
Draconic Fortune (Noelle)
1
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2
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Draconic Fortune

Chapter 03

Little Girl Blue

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She couldn't do it. School was over, she had showed Susie her tarot cards and she had visited her father for the day. But Noelle didn't want to risk going through the same thing she did yesterday. She couldn't ask her mother for the key to her home. It was too much yesterday, it was too much today. And she couldn't keep relying on Catti day in day out either. Which was why she planned ahead this time.

She had taken the time to make for at least a chance at not having to. With his disappearance for an entire day's worth of school classes, followed by the strangely excessive group project, she was sure that Kris was more in need of help with school work than ever. Or at least, she could argue as much with him and Toriel. She had prepared problems to walk him through based on the material in yesterday's worksheets.

And because she knew his mother was a bit squeamish with visitors or letting people spend time with Kris in general, she made sure to ask her for permission to come for a visit, several hours in advance, while still at school with Susie. And as she walked up that last road towards the woods, she didn't just see that house come closer, she could feel it.

Here was to hoping it would work. When she stood in front of the door, she couldn't bear raising her head far enough to even see its upper end. And she hesitated ringing the bell for quite some time, until she managed to push herself enough to do so.

It appeared Toriel was only a few steps away, from how quickly she answered the door. "Oh, hello." She was speaking with a lowered voice and slowly moved aside. "Why don't you come in?"

She nodded and thanked her. "Uhm..." She sat down at the edge of the couch. "I wanted to - wait. Kris is at home, is he?"

Seated back in her comfy chair, the smiling woman nodded. "Although I would rather if you stayed down here for a while." She was still speaking with a lowered voice, and gave Noelle disapproving looks when she didn't. When Noelle asked why, Kris' mother put her book aside and got up. She trod through the living room as softly as a big creature like herself could, with paws like her own and gestured Noelle to do the same.

They snuck up the stairs, Toriel opened the door to her son's and Asriel's room very slowly. He was lying in his bed, fully dressed, with his arm wound around the cushion. Sleeping. Even the doorbell didn't wake him up. Once Toriel's suspicion was confirmed, she closed the door again and led Noelle back downstairs.

Once they were back on the soft seats around the unused television, Noelle began talking again, now keeping her voice down the way Toriel did. "I - uhm - I wanted to know if...because of my father's situation, things are a bit complicated. I'd like to know if - if..."

"Please, no need to worry. Whatever request you might have, I'm sure it won't be too much."

"I wanted to know if when me and Kris are finished studying - whether I could stay over for tonight." Toriel stared at her in silence. She could feel the pressure from here. She opened her bag and began searching through it. "I - I uh...I have everything I need here."

She pulled out an old, small bag with a zipper, filled with unused toothbrushes, tooth paste and other bathroom utensils she needed if she stayed overnight with someone else, usually Catti. "I promise I won't be a burden, I mean we've all known each other for long enough and I can cook for myself if that's..."

Toriel was gesturing her to stop and when she did, she spoke as softly to her as she did before. "There is no cause for concern. You're a sweet, diligent and orderly girl. Of course you can stay here if you like. As long as Asriel doesn't need his bed." Hearing this took a heavy burden off of Noelle's mind. She got up for a second and thanked her several times until she realized that she was perhaps showing more excitement than she should have.

While she was still standing, the older woman got up as well. "Just, please. He just visited another classmate. I was hoping to have a relaxing evening at home today. I would much prefer if the two of you stayed here. No trips outside or the like." This was all she wanted.

As long as she remained here, she had a place to stay. Toriel continued while she made her way to the kitchen. "If it were someone else, I would worry they might be too much of a distraction, but with you, it's quite the opposite. You're part of the family." Noelle followed her and when she began cutting vegetables, her weary guest offered to lend a hand.

Toriel trusted Noelle enough to agree, too. At least for a bit. While they did, she began to ask the relieved doe one thing after the other. What this assignment was that seemed to prompt Kris' spontaneous sleepover at Berdly's, she asked how Noelle's father was faring, how she was doing at school.

When she noticed Noelle getting uncomfortable upon being asked what those 'complications' were that had given rise to this visit of hers, she luckily didn't see reason to further inquire. Most of the things Toriel brought up, she was prepared for. She expected them and came here with a basic idea what to tell her if asked each one. But eventually, the teacher surprised her. "And - before you head upstairs..."

She paused right after pouring oil on a pan and smiled at her. "Pardon my curiosity, dear. I admit when I see you, Kris and the others in the hallways, I tend to watch all of you a little more closely than I care to admit. You seem a little down as of late. Even before Rudolph's condition. Is there something on your mind?"

Yes. "No. No worries."

"Is there anything you would like to talk about?"

"No, really. There's nothing." Noelle appreciated it. Toriel didn't have to show concern like this. She closed her eyes and shook her head. There was. Well, there used to be. But that was in the past. Signals were misread, when she expected something to happen, when she hoped it would happen, nothing did.

More than enough time had passed for her to be sure it never would. It was a misunderstanding, a big misunderstanding. Nothing else. She was foolish to think it was more than that. Even so, it was in the past. Now Susie was all she could hope to fill that void with. Besides, there was no need to involve Toriel here. Considering her religiosity, that would have done more harm than good.

To her relief, this sufficed for an answer and she could make for sneaking up the stairs to check whether Kris was awake by now. He wasn't. Still fast asleep with his head facing the window. Did he and Berdly not sleep at all last night? Did they really go all out finishing this ludicrous assignment and then spend the rest of the night putting together this 'dark world' story they then told Susie as part of this game they were playing?

What were they thinking? How completely irresponsible. But that was Berdly as she knew him. Getting so carried away by something that caught his interest, he'd stay up all night if she wasn't there to stop him.

Careful not to touch him, she sat down on the side of the bed and placed her hand on his shoulder to give him a faint nudge. "Kris." It did nothing to wake him. Perhaps whispering and barely touching someone wasn't the most effective way to wake someone up. When she increased the pressure and slightly pulled back and forth on his side, she was startled when she realized she was eliciting a reaction.

He shifted and flipped around, ultimately facing the wall and mumbling to himself as he did. "No, Gobbler, no." Eventually, she pinched him with the solid tips of her fingers. She had to do it several times until she finally saw and heard the signs of him waking up for good. When he opened one of his eyes, he hesitated and shook his head. Truthfully, he was actually a lot less tired than he should have been considering he and Berdly had stayed up all night. With a lot of excitement to fill that, too.

A glimpse at Asriel's alarm clock revealed to him that he had slept for less than an hour until Noelle woke him up. "Kris, what were you thinking? Sleeping at a time like this. Does this have to do with that thing you two were talking about with Susie?"

The moment she said that, he twitched. Was she listening when that happened? He thought she had already left. Then again, she still was in the hallway when he followed Berdly outside. She seemed to register his shock, as she backed away and threw her hands off. "No need to worry. She explained it to me."

Wait, she did? No, she would have been more rattled. What exactly did Susie 'explain to her'? "I'm really surprised about you lately. Making friends and getting Berdly to join on making up silly make-believe stories, too?" She laughed. She was doing this thing again where she seemed to know him so well, she responded to what he was thinking without him saying anything. "Susie, too of all people? Just what happened to you?"

On one hand, her having him figured out so well always unsettled him, on the other hand, he enjoyed having someone understand him without him having to go out of his way to talk to them.

By now fully awake, he looked up and straight at her. "Well. Since you heard." He got up and balanced off the edge of his bed to not drag his shoes along the middle and reached up to his lower shelf.

Under a green crayon, up on its flat back tip, lay the drawing that apparently once was to become a card. Samuel, although Noelle probably didn't know him by that name. He placed the crayon aside but kept it standing so it wouldn't roll off and sat back down to show her. "What is - what is - I mean how did you find that?" A faint glow was shimmering through the fur on her cheeks as she realized what this was, and what he had done with him.

All right, now he had to think this through. "We found it in Berdly's room." She said Susie 'explained it to her', but if she had to ask where he found Samuel, she probably omitted the part where they traveled to another world where her art came to life. He just had to be careful not to say anything that conflicted with what Susie told her.

"Yes but - did you do this?" She took it in her own hands to give it a closer look. "How did you - how did you know it was him?" He looked at her with confusion. "How did you know it was Asriel?"

He had nothing elaborate. "A lucky guess?"

"Really? I mean I guess that makes sense. There aren't that many Boss Monsters around here after all." When he checked where she was looking, she was avoiding eye contact. She didn't believe him. Well, at least she would move on to something else.

"And the card - I mean thank you. I appreciate the effort. But I already made a new 'Devil' long ago. I don't need this one any more. But look at - if you made this, you drew other things, right?" He shifted away from her and looked off to the side. She responded with a calming gesture. "It's all right, you don't have to show them to me. I didn't come here for that anyway. I came for this."

She reached into her bag and pulled out a familiar, green and loose leaf binder. "I thought you and Berdly would take yesterday's assignment much less seriously. Well, at least that you wouldn't complete it. So if you need help with our homework, I'm here now. And I prepared some more stuff for after that."

Homework and extra work that wasn't even homework. This wasn't the recuperating afternoon and evening he was hoping for. And now that she was already here, he couldn't turn her away either. So without further complaint, he put Sam back on the shelf, took the lamp off his unusually wide nightstand and turned it sideways so that it could serve them as a table.

They didn't get too far. Not long after they started, Kris' mother opened the door to announce that dinner was ready. Noelle was merciful enough not to press him further on anything, including the dark world. And after a full-fledged meal, they went on with school work. Mom regularly popped by to offer to bring them something, sometimes just to take a peek.

And he didn't pay attention to that first, but he gradually noticed that she kept coming by and made sure that the door to his and Asriel's room was always open at any given time. The reason he picked up on this to begin with, was that her visits became more and more frequent as time went on.

The hours went by, and towards them finishing up with all the extra material she prepared for him, the pie for the three of them was done as well. Of course Mom made pie. She always did when they had someone visit. And a lot of the time when they didn't have anyone over as well.

"Again..." Noelle went on. "I can't say often enough how thankful I am for you to have me stay over." She had told him that she was sleeping In Asriel's bed while they were doing homework. It cleared up a lot of confusion on why she was still here at eleven o'clock, in the night.

"Of course. You're always welcome with us. Besides. Kris has been more sociable lately in general as well." She placed a hand on Kris' and smiled at him. "I'd love to know what I have to thank for this."

"For one, I think we discovered we share a hobby I didn't know of." Oh no. "Oh, come on. Don't be like that." What was she doing? "Come on now, there's nothing wrong with wanting a little praise. You know what?" She didn't seem to pay attention to whether or not he agreed to this and got right up from the table. "No need to even get up. I'll fetch it." She was going to show Mom Sam. She was going up the stairs, leaving him helpless at the table.

The human swallowed. All right, it wasn't as if Mom knew anything about the dark world. All Kris had to do, was stick to his story. Noelle said something about make-believe stories. If he just went along with everything relating to the dark world being a story that he and Berdly made up, he was going to raise some eyebrows, but it was still more believable than the truth. He accepted that he was possibly to retell the story and waited for her.

He listened intently to accompany her along every step in his mind. He heard every step up the stairs and with a lingering sense of discomfort. This wasn't a conversation he wanted to have. He heard her grab the door handle and turn it. "Uhm..." Then she stopped. He wasn't sure why. Something changed, but he wasn't sure what that was.

He looked towards the stairs. Something was different. Wasn't the light on a second ago? Wait, it sort of was, but it was somehow replaced with a pale, very faint light. "What happened - is it..." He had an inkling. No. It couldn't be. It wasn't that a pale light replaced the yellowish glow of the upstairs lamp at the ceiling. It was that the hallway upstairs was getting darker and he could see it from down here.

Without a word, he got up. He was sure he was wrong. He was most likely wrong. "...wait, it's not...he-" He ran up the stairs, ignoring his mother's protest, and doing so only confirmed his suspicion to his horror. Behind the open door he was running towards, was nothing but a black void. And the entire hallway was darker, the same way it was when he and Susie opened the supply closet door, or when Berdly opened his closet to look for Pluma's Scott doll.

When he reached the doorframe, he grabbed it by both sides and stretched his head through it. In the dark, right below him, he could see something fall. Her. It must have been her. The door to his room opened as a portal to the dark world and Noelle fell right through just like Berdly. And to make it worse, below, it wasn't just blackness. He recognized the waves by their silhouettes. She was falling into a sea.

He had no room for hesitation. He didn't take time to be careful or slowly inch his way into jumping after her. This was Noelle that was falling down there, not Berdly. He stretched his hands through the door ready for a dive and jumped right through head first. Again, the instant shock from feeling through the rippling air currents, how fast he was falling, filled him with tread and immediate regret over his reckless decision.

He could tell from where her screams came from, that he sped past her. And then came the impact. Hitting the water hurt his hands so much, he couldn't feel them any more, and the pressure of the water crushed him from all sides as he dove in. The rushing water pressed against his ears and made hearing anything impossible.

He couldn't breathe, and the cold water only made the pain even worse. But he was conscious, and holding his breath paid off. With a few strokes upon turning himself around, he was able to swim back to the surface and immediately struggled for air when he did it. The uneven water almost crashed right in his face.

Noelle crashed into the water, before he had time to look up to where she was. He took a deep breath and dove right back into the water. Even in the pitch black void down there, he could see the red and blue glow coming from her direction and knew where to swim. She was struggling in panic, but she wasn't swimming anywhere. He had to go back to the surface to catch some air on his way, she was too far away not to.

After reaching her, he swam up to her and approached her from below with his arm open to get hold of her in this voluminous red robe she was wearing all of a sudden, and push her to the surface. She was gladly thin enough for that to work. Even when he had pushed her back up here, they were far from out of danger. But he was still glad when he could gasp for air and heard the hysterical doe do the same.

She was out of it. Struggling randomly in his arm. It was like Rudy had said. She was scared out of her mind. And unless he found either land or something to hold onto soon, she had every reason to be. It was so cold. They wouldn't last for too long, at least he didn't feel they would.

Whenever she wasn't incoherently screaming or struggling for air, all she said were random repetitions of 'help', his name and something like 'what'. Hard to tell most of the time, since she never held onto a thought for long enough to utter a word without stuttering and interrupting herself.

The desperate human did what he could to find something to escape to. The closest he saw, was a tall, red metal structure, built above the water and mounted on more metal supports that went into the water, possibly all the way to the bottom of the sea. This was his only hope. If they could get to that, there was a chance that they would make it. All he had to do, was force his way through this.

The trip was long, and physically exhausting to him all around. Every part of his body was in pain. He didn't even bother to ponder too much how he could swim in his armor, he was just thankful that he could. The further he made it, the more Noelle's struggles subsided.

The interrupted single-syllable words she tried uttering before, made way for her starting to ask him something, and stopping mid-sentence each time, either because they had to dedicate everything to catching their breath, or because those smaller waves that crashed onto and through their faces, turned their swimming into short dives through the water.

This trip was endless. At times, it felt like they weren't getting closer at all. Sometimes, he was convinced of it. He just had to keep going. It was the only way. And eventually, they got close enough that he could spot a ladder that ranged from into the water, up to where they could climb up the red wall. Not long later, they actually made it to the ladder at last.

Noelle had long defaulted to trying to ask Kris what all this was, but never actually finishing the sentence. He was so happy to at long last reach for and grab one of the bars and hold onto it. When he pulled Noelle closer and pressed her against the ladder, she understood, hesitated, but eventually began climbing up.

When he had guided her far up enough for there to be space for him to follow her up, he was so glad he could get out of the freezing water. The more of it ran off of his body, the more the cold left with it. It was still there, but it was moving towards becoming bearable. At last, it was time to take a moment to look around.

Even from here, past the supports, there was land in the distance. He could already guess that their way out of here was probably not on this place, they were going to head over there sooner or later. For now, it was best to climb up.

At the top, the ladder led right into another ladder that led down for a bit. Onto a single, platform surrounded by walls as red as the platform itself. As much of the area as was possible, was encompassed by a dome made of broad iron bars.

The top was covered in leaves and debris here and there to make for a ceiling, especially towards one corner. In which there was a makeshift house, built of loosely attached wooden planks and a straw ceiling. The planks were all arranged unevenly, nothing seemed to quite fit, in some places, the measurements were so mismatched, they outright left holes in the corners between the outside walls and the planks making up the flimsy attempt at a ceiling that it had.

Whoever built this, was either in a hurry, had little care for stability or things fitting optically, or both. It was surrounded by heaps of all kinds of things, such as bows, garden tools, rotten fruits, furs, everything.

"Kris...Kris..." He was already thinking of going to that house when his trembling friend grabbed onto the shoulder covered in his cape. "Kris what's going on?" Noelle wasn't in panic anymore, but still visibly scared and confused. Her cheeks were burning enough for it to shine through and she was near tears. "Please!"

"We're in the dark world."

That only unsettled her even more. "But - but it was a story. You and Berdly made it up!" Well at least now that the cat was out of the bag and Noelle was seeing this bizarre place with her own eyes, he knew what Susie ran with to explain their conversation away.

"This can't..." It must have been obvious even to her, that they were no-where near home anymore. Everything looked fundamentally different. They could see this platform, and the silhouettes of the waves in the ocean down below, but like the last two times, they couldn't really make out a source of light that explained all this being visible. Even here, the only sources of light were the torches along all the walls of that house on the other side of the dome.

And he and Noelle stood in bright contrast to this darkness. Noelle was wearing a bright red coat, with patches of white fur aligned along all the edges of her. Her fur was deep blue, her hair dark green, and her antlers had the same shade of red here, that her robe did. "No...no..." She began to cover her face and look down. "This isn't real, this is some dream! A strange dream! I shouldn't have had pie just before going to bed!"

He wasn't really sure what to do, so he just stood next to her. Then he remembered what worked with Berdly. But this wasn't Berdly, so he had to try not to startle her too much. He reached out to grab her shoulder with one hand, and tighten his grip to get her attention. "Noelle! Noelle, listen." Perhaps running with her idea of what this was, was a good way to ease her into it.

After she calmed down a bit, he looked at her right in the eyes. "Yes, this is a dream. Maybe. Maybe nothing here is real. Maybe I'm not real either. Everything will be all right. By the end of this, you're going to wake up in Asriel's bed and it will be like none of this happened, okay?" He got through to Noelle enough for her to get a hold of herself.

She nodded, but at this point her red nose was already running. Out of a pocket in her coat, lined with white fur like so many other parts, she pulled a handkerchief and wiped her nose with it. Now that she had calmed down, he pointed towards the house. "I want to know if there's someone over there." For how shoddily it was built, that house was pretty big. It only had one story, but it reached pretty far and it was too tall for Kris to make out where it ended towards the back.

He was about to walk over there, but noticed that Noelle was still a bit too hesitant, so he grabbed her by the wrist - which proved a bit more difficult due to the soggy sleeve of her robe and the still drenched winter glove she was wearing on her hand. He stopped to pull off the glove, take it in both hands, and twist and squeeze it to dry it as much as that immediately did and repeated this with her other glove.

Even so, she was still trembling. So was he, if he was honest. Leaving the water was an improvement, but he was still freezing. Now he just wanted to reach the warmth of those torches all the more.

As they came closer, someone actually came their way through the empty doorframe at the front. It was a grown man - an elderly human with a long grey beard and long, unkempt hair with leaves and dirt caught in it here and there. He was wearing several layers of tattered rags, each one loosely dangling and looking out of the one covering it.

The old man was supporting himself on a wooden stick the length of a staff. With his other hand, he was lighting his way using a torch, which he held by the handle at its top. It was neither electric, nor a torch using fire. Inside its casing, there was just a six-pointed star, the yellow light of which was a lot brighter than the torches that lined his wooden house.

"More strangers? Out here? Look at you two!" He had a creaky voice, but it didn't sound hostile. "All drenched, you've got to be freezing." He let go of his staff for a second and let it lean against his arm. He pointed his quivering hand towards the star. A short flash of lightning came from the tip of his finger and hit the star, after which it glowed a lot more brightly, bright enough that they could feel its warmth.

"Come on closer, you two. Poor girl looks terrified. How did you get here? Nevermind, come on in! I'm sure I've got some stuff to warm you up lying around somewhere." He took a step to the side but made sure he always shone on them with his torch. Kris wanted to follow, but Noelle wasn't following. The old man grinned. Kris could see that he was lacking a few teeth. "'less you two want to swim to the main land, you're either coming or you can stay out here forever. Your choice."

Noelle didn't seem to want to follow. She was freezing, but moreso, she was frozen in place out of fear. "Are you - are you sure about this?" A little further to the side, was a light. The lights no-one else could see. Kris figured one thing. He learned out of yesterday.

It was probably for the best if he didn't touch more lights than he had to. At least until he knew more about this place. That way, if he made some big, irreversible mistake, he could go back. He led her to the light, and touched it. "What are you doing?"

He was as unsure as she was, but he tried putting on a smile. If he wanted her to muster the courage to follow him anywhere, he had to project confidence. "Just thinking. And yes, I'm sure. Let's go." It was working. She was following his lead. Now he just had to figure out where exactly they were. If this realm worked anything like the last two, there would be a dark fountain, and sealing it would send them back home.

It wasn't as if he wasn't careful. But this man at least behaved friendly enough. Guided by the man's torch, they followed him. The lit torches didn't just end at the front door, they even lined the narrow hallways inside the old man's wooden house.

In a room at the end of the front hallway, the planks that made up the house, in smaller form, were arranged in a vague imitation to a modern living room, complete with a box made of planks as a placeholder for a television. He even had a fireplace. Two actually. One in front of the 'television', which he pushed aside, and one behind the wooden couches.

If Berdly was here, there was no way he would have missed the opportunity to comment on how this solitary person was keeping all these fires in a house made of wood. But it somehow hadn't burned down yet, so Kris figured it was best to humour the man's antics for the time being. He was a hoarder. There were piles and piles of random objects everywhere in here, just like outside.

The piles were in the fake living room, in the hallway, they filled the rooms behind the open doors to their sides, they were everywhere.

And Their hectic host walked off to a corner opposite from the fireplace, to one such pile in particular and threw everything on it to the side until it revealed to be covering a drying rack for clothes. Which he put up in front of the other fireplace. "Just hang it all there and warm yourselves up at the fire. I've got something to do, I'll be right back." Without further ado, the stranger went further into his wide house and left the two of them alone.

Noelle had followed suit. She took off her robe and with Kris' help, twisted it to squeeze as much of the water was was reasonable with the force they could apply out of it. Then she, hung up the heavy red-white coat and sat down in front of the fire. Under it, she was wearing a shirt and a pair of trousers with suspenders.

Kris was a little uncomfortable taking his armor plates off. He was wearing all black under them. Shirt, socks and trousers. All of it as smooth as silk, but elastic and so tight, it all stretched straight along him like a second skin. And it remained that way even when it was drying off. Nonetheless, it was Noelle, so that was okay.

He was okay with sitting next to her in front of the fire in spite of that. "Kris..." Noelle needed some time before she had her thoughts collected enough to speak up, but it was unavoidable to do so at some point. "Will we be okay?"

Maybe. "Yes."

Why was he even trying? He could tell from her expression that she didn't believe him. "I suppose...if this is the dark world, then - is that why you look like this?" How was he supposed to answer that? He couldn't. He just shrugged. She looked over to the rack with her robe and his armor plates lying at the side. "Why do we wear these clothes?"

Again, he had no idea. No-one bothered to really think about that. He wasn't sure if there even was an answer. "And if - is it like in your and Berdly's story? You said the dark people there were his old toys."

"Everything in the dark world is actually something in the real world. They were playing cards with Susie. With Berdly, they were toys. But I don't remember seeing him anywhere." He nodded to the exit the old man had taken. "Or anyone like him. Do you?"

She curled together with her knees raised, wound her arms around her legs and hid her face behind them. "I think. Maybe. He looks like he lives alone out here. And if he does, that makes him a hermit. I mean it fits, but..."

Before she could go on much further, the old man was already coming back. And he wasn't alone. Kris got up immediately the moment he registered that, but he and Noelle were both startled when they saw who was accompanying them. After a few more steps, a dragon with a rounded snout and in a darker tone of pink loomed over the two of them with a wide grin that bore her teeth. She was tall enough to look down on Kris in a menacing way. It was Susie, fully dressed in her dark world attire, complete with spiked armbands and everything, with the colours to her scales and hair to match it and her devilsknife in her right hand. "Susie?" He had to take a step back at first. "Wait, Susie, is that you?" Why was she here?

"Yep!" She swung her weapon over her shoulder to carry it that way and swung her head a bit to shake the dark red hair aside so she could fixate on him with those menacing yellow eyes. "In the flesh! I made it to the dark world!"

Kris took a small step back, and only noticed in hindsight that he did. He was dumbstruck. "Susie?" He just couldn't believe she was here. They could both tell how excited the dragon was to be here. She was grinning at them, but something about her and the and about how unusually wide her grin was, gave him that impression.

More than anything, he was just confused. The card kingdom was the abandoned classroom, very close to the closet he and Susie had fallen through to land in the cliffs they were in before. The closet in Berdly's room led to a set of cliffs adjacent to a larger area that corresponded with Berdly's room. So going by the door he and Noelle had fallen through, this should have been his and Asriel's room.

How did Susie get into his and Asriel's room? The thought of her getting here of all places so easily filled him with actual dread. In the end, worrying about it for himself wouldn't solve it though, so he went out of his way to ask her: "How did you get here?"

Their unannounced visitor scratched the side of her jawline. "I'm not even sure myself. I just know that I'm here now."

Their returning host came uncomfortably close to the frozen doe and stared her in the eye with the one eye he had that wasn't half-closed at all times. "So you three know each other?"

Susie pointed at her classmate. "That's Kris, remember? They're lightners, like me." The fast, cutting way she nodded at him almost made him inch further back, but when he realized that he did, he pulled himself together and took on a more straight and solid stance. "So Kris! Are Ralsei and Berdly around here, too?"

"We just got here. I don't even know if Ralsei will be here at all. How long have you been here anyway?"

The old man, who was throwing around some of the junk in his room, chimed in here. "That nosey drake's been popping in and out of here ever since I got here myself." Once he found the paddle he was apparently looking for, he handed it to Kris. "Here. You're going to need this if you want to go faster."

He stared at the paddle for a second and then raised his head to give Susie a questioning look. "Yeah, that'll help. Hey! Kris! I got us a ride to the main land, too. Come on, let's go." With a slow wave towards the back exit of the house, she turned around to go back to where she came from.

"Wait, what about our clothes?"

Susie stopped and came back upon registering it. "Oh, right. just follow when you're ready then. I'll be taking this." She came back to pull the paddle out of Kris' hand and left again. "Geezer knows where to send you."

Well at least they had a way off this platform now. He sat back down beside Noelle.

She was a sweating, trembling, bumbling mess, and even though the cold their bodies were running hot to counteract had worn off, she was blushing enough to see it through her fur right again. "I - uhm - Are you sure about this?" She leaned forward so she could look past him and glanced over at Susie. The dragon was so excited, she was swinging her short tail left and right. "Susie looks a bit more - different. She looks a bit different."

Kris shrugged. "You look different, too. And I do. And Berdly did. I've been in the dark world with her before. That's just what she looks like here."

"But - but we don't..." She paused for a moment, looking down on the floor. "I suppose." They both spent some time in silence, staring either at the fire or at the floor. Without looking up, his childhood friend continued. "So what happens next?"

"Now we'll need a prince from the dark world. I'm hoping we meet someone I know. He can help us. Then we need to get to a dark fountain and seal it together."

He checked her face to get an idea of whether she was listening or understanding, but he noticed something else instead. She was pinching her upper arm with the tips of her fingers. When he reached over to pull her hand off her arm, she only looked back at him. More worried than before. "This feels too real. This isn't really a dream, is it?"

They were both shaken up a bit when they hear something. Deep, mechanical droning, the sound of metal grinding against metal. Something in the facility the hermit had built his house on, was shifting. "Settle down, you two!", the old man said. "It's just the pier rolling out."

Kris pouted and stared back at the floor. It didn't matter. He could remember everything about how they got here. He was real of course, but from her point of view, if he wasn't, how would he know? It was probably best to just let her realize it on her own.

After waiting for a little while longer, he finally got up to check on their clothes. They weren't all dry just yet, but they were a lot more dry than before. Improving too much here would have taken a long time, so he slowly picked up his armor pieces and the straps by which they were usually attached to and put them back on.

He wasn't in a rush either. He took his time, and made sure each piece was sitting tight enough that it would stay in place even in a fight. Then he picked up Noelle's coat. It was really heavy due to how thick it was. With one of his gloves off, he felt various spots to see how dry it was, but as far as he could tell, it was good enough.

Back at the fireplace, he held it up, to hold as much of its inside against the warmth as he could. She had turned it inside out to dry out more of the water on the inside of the robe.

Eventually, Noelle got up as well and began to feel up the inside of the robe. "I think that's enough. Thank you." Finally, they flipped the robe back and she put it back on. She took the many red bands with white fluffy orbs at their ends that were arranged at various places on her robe, especially the belt, and tightened them so the robe fit again, the way it did when she came here. She was ready to leave. They both were. It was time to leave this dark red metal island.

On the other side of the corridor that led right back outside the building, but on the other side, the grinning elder was already waiting. "Right up there, you two." He gestured to another ladder that led up to the top of the wall and onto a scaffolding that spanned most of the wall.

They had to climb back to the top, and then follow between the handrails right back around towards where they had come from, but onto a different part of that front side they couldn't have gotten to from where they were then. It led towards the middle of the front side, and onto a lengthy platform, which spanned a long way down onto the water, where it branched out left and right to form what the strange man had alluded to.

A pier. A platform that was dipped into the water just enough to move along with it, while still looking out enough for the two of them to walk on it. Tied onto a tiny handle on it by a rope, a small wooden rowboat drifted in the water. And on it, a very impatient dragon was waiting for the two of them, still with her scythe swung over her shoulder.

Only being out here and feeling the frosty breeze really drove home to Kris how well the wooden house isolated everyone in it from the winds and the rushing of the waves. He immediately felt the uncomfortable cold again when outside, in spite of him and Noelle drying up just before. Standing with one foot on the pier and with the other in the boat, their eager classmate waved them closer. "You guys ready?"

Noelle wasn't in much of a state to answer, and Kris merely nodded. "Sweet! Kingdom of Taint, here we come!" They took their time carefully climbing into the boat and grabbing hold of the sides to get used to how it constantly tipped back and forth with the restless water.

"You'll love this place! The surface there's just empty, but they dug an entire country into the landmass below. It's all underground, and they got everything. An underground city, underground woods, underground lakes, an underground fun house, anything you could ask for, it's there."

With the paddle in one hand, ready to row it, the human raised a finger. "Do they have a dark fountain?"

Still with her teeth showing, the dragon giggled and ruffled his hair. He made sure not to move an inch while she did. "Don't you worry your silly little head! Fountain's up over the Kingdom of Heaven, that's overseas from where we're going. But I've got you covered all the way there." Noelle sat in the back while Kris grabbed one paddle.

Susie took the other when she came back from untying the rope, and everyone had to keep their balance when the boat shook a little more again from being pushed away from the platform. It took them a while, but after some time, Kris and Susie got into a rhythm where they rowed the boat in sync.

The landmass they were rowing towards indeed had a mostly flat rock wall pointing in their direction far above. It was so enormous, looking all the way up alone made him dizzy. Maybe it was just a matter of perspective, but everything here seemed somehow bigger than in the realm around Canyon City. "So where's the kingdom of heaven?"

Susie took a moment to make sure she had the rod safely within the little frame at the side of the boat, and then suddenly, she stretched her left arm right into Kris' face to point that way. He was startled, but quickly faced the ocean she was pointing at. "Right over there." There were just endless black waves as far as the eye could see. And the waves seamlessly blended into the dark in the distance. Then she took her arm down and shrugged. "Can't see it from here, but it's there." If she said so.

Now that everyone was safely seated though, with the rope removed, Susie got up and pushed herself and the boat off the pier with a decisive kick with her boot. She almost stumbled, almost, but soon, both she and Kris got to rowing the boat together, each with their own paddle, facing forward. Rowing such a tiny boat through the heavy waves was taxing, and their progress towards solid land was about as visible to Kris as it was when he was swimming to that rig.

But it was not nearly as exhausting as swimming. For that, he was thankful at least. Staring at the precipice that hung over them more, the further they got, was uncomfortable to him. And it was hard not to be distracted and a bit scared every time the one uncovered spot on his arm brushed against the bare scales of her elbow.

He was slow and careful about it, but occasionally, he tried sneaking a glance up at Susie. Every time, he regretted it and immediately went back to staring at the hollow beneath the rock wall that was ever so slowly inching their way. Every single time, he looked up at her, she was grinning down at him. He was convinced that he wasn't making any sudden moves, and yet she always happened to pay attention to him. Was he so easy to read?

This slight dizziness from both Susie and the sheer size of that wall was interrupted when they were a little less than half-way there. He felt something touch the right half of his back, and immediately afterwards, a faint shriek came from behind him.

When he and Susie turned around to check on Noelle, she was clasping onto the bench she sat on and had a somewhat incomplete smile on her face. He wasn't really sure. She was blushing, completely tense and seemed almost alarmed, for lack of a better way for him to put a finger on what sense she was giving him. She tried to relax when she became aware that he was looking at her. Was there something wrong? "It's - it's okay. Everything's all right."

Susie turned back to face the front quite a bit before Kris and shrugged. "Now's as good a time as ever anyway. See that over there?" She pointed ahead. They could now see a lot more clearly into the gigantic cave that was carved into the mountain. "See those stairs?"

It was hard to miss those stairs. A fittingly scaled-up staircase led far, far up a smaller wall within the cave, which was so high up, there was no chance that they could see what was up there. "That's the way to the city. But it's a bit tricky. I made that mistake and took the stairs the first time round, we're gonna take a little detour. Keep going."

She grabbed his shoulder, but not in the painful way she usually did. She only applied as much pressure as she had to and raised raised the paddle. She wasn't rowing any more, so the boat turned until she started again. They weren't going straight for the beach, they were moving down the coast to the right. Away from the cave very obviously meant to be used to enter the city or what other place lay up there.

Even though this opening was a lot bigger, it wasn't the only one. They passed various caves that led into the mountain on their way. But they didn't actually make for solid ground until the opening straight to the city was long out of sight.

When they did, they stopped in the middle between a whole slew of entrances. In an area that was somehow brighter than the nigh-pitch-black ocean they came from. By the time he really took a moment to look around, most of the water was more in a tint of dark blue, as was the beach. An unnaturally big moon was shining down on them from here.

Overall, something about this whole location seemed familiar. Black spirals extended out of the water a little further off in the water. He felt like he had seen this whole place before somewhere. Susie just had them row straight to the beach and didn't stretch her foot over the edge and onto the ground until Kris could already feel the hull forcing its way through half a foot of sand. "There we are." She waited right next to the boat.

Kris followed immediately, but Noelle needed a little while to shake off the nervousness and dizziness from being at sea and from their general situation. "Get on with it!" Susie's impatient reaction startled her, but soon after it, she sped up and climbed out of the boat as well.

She led them closer to the wall. She didn't lead them straight towards one of the cave entrances though, but between two instead. "Okay, going to need some help on this one." She wound her arms around Kris and Noelle and then spoke up. "Hey girls! You can come out!"

Around the corner, from one of the caves, someone indeed walked around the wall and came their way. Noelle was startled enough to make a sound upon seeing who it was, and Kris wasn't sure what was going on either.

It was Susie. She wasn't looking up at them, but he didn't need her to to recognize her. The freckles, hair covering every part of her face that wasn't her muzzle, it was definitely Susie. And what was more, she didn't look like the Susie that was standing next to him. In spite of them all being in the dark world, this other Susie had purple scales, the hair that covered her face was in that familiar tone of brown and she wore the same tattered clothes she wore in school.

She was a little shorter than their Susie, and generally, looked the way she would have looked in the light world. On the other side, another person came out of the cave. And that person was Susie as well, identical to the one already approaching them. "Susie - Susie?" Noelle was audibly confused. But when the next two Susies included one that looked different from the other three, Kris began to realize what was going on. "What's happening?"

One of those two Susies differed from the others. She was was a little taller than the regular light world Susie next to her and had a two-handed longsword in her right hand. With slightly bigger arms, visibly wider, padded out legs, more muscular on both, and with visible abs beneath her chest that hung over her stomach unlike that of any Susie true to the she had a long and wide tail that befitted her form.

She was stripped naked save for two pieces of not very concealing swimwear which were made of chainmail and didn't completely hide the scales and what lay under them either. "Berserker..." He mumbled to himself.

The Susie that was still holding both of them tightly, nodded. He didn't look up at her, he could feel her nodding from the motions of her hair scratching against his neck. "Yep, the zerks are quite something, huh? They got nothing on the missies though." It didn't stop here. More and more Susies came out and began swarming them from both sides. Most just looked like regular light world Susie.

A lot of them were light world Susie with some gimmick. More berserkers, Susie dressed up as a nun, Susie dressed up as a bellydancer, Susie with smooth hair in a white dress, Susie as a cowgirl or gunslinger, two comically well-fed but well-proportioned Susies in their thirties dressed up as dominatrices.

The only one who had 'their' Susie's pink-black-dark-red colours was a single one who had weirdly stretched-out proportions and who was on a leash held by one of the other Susies, and walking on all fours. They were being swarmed, and before regular Susie let go of them, they were already surrounded with no opening in sight. "Okay, you two, okay."

When she did let go of the two of them though, she stepped aside, faced them and threw up her arms, even letting go of her scythe for a brief moment. "I've not been quite honest with you guys. Sorry, Kris." She brushed her hair aside so she could grin at him with both her bright yellow eyes contrasting the night around them. After that though, she swung her scythe up to have it hang over her shoulder once again. "I'm not actually Susie. My name's Axe."

Noelle was sweating, trembling and keeping her mouth covered with one hand at all times. When she heard this, she pointed at Axe. "That's - you're not Susie! That's why - that's why your tail..." She paused.

Axe and Kris both stared at her. "What about my tail?"

She didn't answer, her eyes only darted back and forth between them. Kris gestured Axe's way with an open hand. "So? What about her tail?"

It took the doe a little time to pull herself together, and even when she did, she inched away from both of them. "Nothing...nothing. Forget I said anything."

"Sublime work, effigy." The voice of a woman hissed down at them from above. It came from a woman who stood on a dark red cloud. The cloud spread forward into a curved, downward slope. She walked down its path until she was a mere few feet above the Susies around them.

Kris summoned his sword and got ready for battle, but when he did, shackles made of those same clouds formed around his his wrists and ankles and chained him and Noelle to the ground. They were allowed to stand, but they couldn't move.

She was a human. A grown young woman with tan skin and long, smooth and natural blonde hair. Old enough to be taller, but she couldn't have been much older than him and Noelle. She wore a deep red, silken toga - a robe that only held itself up by one of her shoulders, leaving the other bare. With loosely hanging pieces of cloth that dangled in the wind from her legs, her arms, along most of the length of it.

It had a major strand of its fabric hanging off her right arm, with glittering green bands on her arm, legs and waist. On her head, she was wearing something strange. On her head, were a crest or tiara made of black, wooden vines, and the antlers of a deer monster, either grown out of her head as though she was one herself, or attached to the tiara in a way that made it look that way.

Noelle was panicking as it was, but seeing this human seemed to set her off even more. "What is go - what is going..." She hyperventilated until Kris signaled to her by moving a little closer, that he was there with her. "What's going on? What are all these?"

The human woman kept her mouth closed while she chuckled at the terrified monster's reaction. When she opened it, her voice was a lot louder than before. "The Knight described them as the perverted obsessions of a lightner! Put to paper, but for no-one else to see."

The stream of Susies coming out of the caves and filling the beach just wouldn't end, there must have been hundreds around them.

The more they surrounded them, the more noisy the 'Susie's were getting. More and more often, you could hear one giggling, their smiles turned wider and wider and Kris was startled into avoiding directly looking at them altogether, when he did so with one of the Berserkers who stared back at him and licked her lips with half-open eyes. He made sure to focus his attention on the human woman instead. "Do you work for the knight?"

The tired-looking darkner above them could only chuckle at his question. "Perhaps. As of yet, we may be a keen man and his eager maid servant! But now that you are here, soon, we will be so much more."

"Are you their leader?" He pointed at the dragons around him and Noelle, just to make sure.

"Technically." Axe pointed at herself with the tip of her thumb. "I'm the leader."

"Keep to your place, effigy!" the woman above them hissed at her. "The Knight has chosen me as his prime servant."

"Kris...Kris, what is going on?" Noelle began to hyperventilate. She was having a panic attack, and Kris wasn't sure how to help her. He just looked her right in the eyes and tried giving her a look that would calm her down. He wasn't sure how and whatever he was trying, it wasn't working.

"All right, girls." Axe clapped her hands. "We got what we're here for. Let's pack 'em up and all head to Fortune's Keep."

"No!", the human woman shouted. "Keep only as many at the keep as absolutely needed. Faith, a few Mistresses and maybe some Grunts and Berserkers! The rest is to follow me!"

Real Susie's doppelganger was a little confused at hearing this. She tilted her head to the side and looked up at her. "Say what now?"

"We will set sail for the Kingdom of Heaven! Now that the lightners are in our possession, the throne awaits! Once this realm is mine, I will have the Knight's true attention!"

Axe sighed. "Wait, Tempts..." She turned to her fully and took a few steps back to be able to face her more easily. Where she went, the Susies around her stepped aside. "...Knight gave us clear orders. Keep the human alive and the lightners away from the fountain. Last thing you're gonna want to do is risk them getting away and lure them straight to it."

"What worth is this realm to him, if it is not in my control? What use is the fountain, if I cannot wield its power for him?"

"Look, all I'm saying is let's not get ahead of ourselves. We got the lightners now. We should devote all forces we got to keeping them right here, where they're in our possession, until the next time the Knight comes by."

The Susies went out of the way as the human sorceress lowered herself onto the ground. "You will obey me! We will set sail for the Kingdom of Heaven. Now!"

"That's stupid! I refuse to follow that order!" She put down the scythe and loosened her grip on it enough for it to slide down with its blade near her hand, something the real Susie did when she got ready for a fight with her axe already out. "Don't listen to her, girls! I'm in charge."

As soon as she said that, the same shackles that prevented Kris and Noelle from resisting against this ambush, were nor forming around Axe's wrists and boots, too.

The woman was now cackling at the sight of the upset and confused dragon. "Do you feel in charge? What gives you that impression? You're a lowly servant, like the rest of you! Nothing more, nothing less!" The more Axe resisted, the more the shackles tightened and the more force they applied towards pulling her onto the ground. It took a bit of a physical struggle on her part, but eventually, she stopped fighting back. "There we are. Had a change of heart?"

Even when the chains vanished from Axe's body, her shoulders hung down and she lowered her head. "You heard her, girls. Get the bags. Put the bigger one on the girl." And they did as they were told. From further behind, the dragon girls were passing two crude bags made of jute cloth, closed in on Kris and Noelle, and wrapped them over their heads to obscure their sight.

Soon enough, big dragon hands grabbed onto both of them from all sides, lifted them off the ground and carried them away. Kris struggled, summoned his sword and tried striking at them. He couldn't really strike at anyone since that requires swinging his arms, which he couldn't do, because the Susies were holding them tightly. He tried calling for Noelle to fight back, but she was too terrified to react to anything but an army of purple dragon girls hauling her god-knew-where.