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sipony · 1 day

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So the kids are not dead. Somehow. Yet.

Tina probably got "How to form a good relationship with a humans" directly from Hell's library.

Why was Bagi going to (I supposed) Cellbit's old room?

Why did the sky turned green?

Why is Tina even there when Bagi doesn’t seen to be the one to make a deal with her? Only if she being there part of someone's else deal?

So basically we need Foolish to show up, declare war and end up stuck ina loophole trying to explain to a demon the the best way to make someone think about you all the time is not by giving them nightmares.

That if something else doesn’t try to kill everyone first.

Part 10.5 of the Catboy in the Village AU

Chapter One | Chapter 10

So, weirdly enough, there's a literal hole in the castle's wall. It's in the back by a big tower and surrounded by untrimmed bushes and grass taller than Pepito, and it's just big enough for Richarlyson and Pepito to be able to squeeze through.

Richarlyson narrows his eyes at the hole suspiciously. It's a bit too convenient...

Pepito, though, doesn't seem to care. He's too stupid to, probably. (Fucking baby...)

Thumb in his mouth, Pepito looks up at Richarlyson, waiting for orders. This is how it's been for the past, like, forever since their parents got stolen, and this is how it should always be: Richarlyson In Charge.

Richarlyson rolls his eyes and smacks Pepito's hand out of his mouth.

"Stop that," he huffs, not for the first time on this trip, "you're gonna suck your thumb off."

Pepito's lip wobbles, but he nods.

Richarlyson nods.

Pepito nods again.

Richarlyson looks back at the hole.

As soon as he does, Pepito's thumb finds its way back into his mouth.

Richarlyson sighs. Babies...

Pepito is four years old, and he doesn't suck his thumb at home. But he's stressed, and Tío Bad said that it's normal for kids to do it when they're stressed. Richarlyson is nine years old, though, and he hasn't sucked his thumb at all so far, and he's a kid. So Pepito is just a baby, and Richarlyson is sick and tired of him.

Pepito's free hand finds its way to Richarlyson's to hold; Richarlyson allows it.

"I don't trust that hole," Richarlyson declares.

Pepito nods. Around his thumb, he says, "It's creepy."

It is creepy. It's a normal hole, but it has the same vibes as the craters Pa Roier makes with explosive potions out at Tío Etoiles' house when he's angry, and those potions never work right. Pai Cellbit doesn't make them too explode-y, but they always do more than they should, and they smell bad.

Like.

Bad.

This hole doesn't smell bad, but it kinda looks bad. There are weird drawings all around it on the outside going in that look like the ones from Richarlyson's nightmares, all wiggly and purple and red and creepy.

But it's the only way into the castle that Richarlyson has been able to find so far, so.

It's nighttime, so it's dark. There aren't any guards around this part of the castle for some reason, so it's safe. Richarlyson has his knife, and Pepito has... okay, so Pepito is useless, but he's cute enough to be a distraction in case anything does happen.

Richarlyson squeezes Pepito's hand- for Pepito's benefit! Not because Richarlyson is scared at all!

"Come on," he says, and his voice does not shake at all!

He takes a step out from behind the tree he and Pepito have been hiding behind for, like, years, and he pulls a terrified Pepito with him.

Together, they approach the creepy hole. It's just barely taller than Richarlyson's head, but it's pretty big in the other way. Thankfully, it's big enough that they won't have to take their bags off to get through it. (Pepito's bunny is in his bag, and he cries every time he has to take it off, and Richarlyson does not want to deal with that right now!)

Sucking in a deep breath, Richarlyson goes through the hole.

Just as he makes it through the wall, Pepito bites off a scream, and maybe Richarlyson does, too, because the entire castle starts to shake around them like they'd just majorly pissed it off. It even starts screaming, which thankfully covers up their own screams pretty good.

Pepito rushes to hide in Richarlyson's side, shaking; Richarlyson holds him for his benefit, not because Richarlyson is scared himself!

The hole opened up into a small dusty hallway that doesn't look like it's been walked in for, like, centuries. It's super dark, but Richarlyson can sorta make out pictures on the walls just like the ones outside of the hole.

The hallway stretches to both sides, but it looks like there's a staircase on one side.

The castle shakes. Pepito shakes.

The castle screams. Richarlyson does not scream.

"Fucking hole!" Richarlyson shouts, glaring at the hole. He knew it was bad news! He knew it!

He freezes, mouth still open mid-shout, as he hears a rush of armor from the other side of the inside wall. People are shouting about protecting the prince, protecting the queen, protecting the princess, whatever. They don't care about Richarlyson, so Richarlyson doesn't care about them.

The hallway doesn't look like it has any doors in it. Just the stairs, and the other way. But the other way stretches on for forever into darkness, and at least stairs go places.

So Richarlyson covers his ears as best he can and starts towards the stairs. Pepito shakes his head, terrified out of his stupid baby mind, but he goes with him, because he isn't that dumb.

The stairs are tall. They go on for at least three hours until they stop at an open door leading into a dark room.

Richarlyson looks down at Pepito.

Pepito shakes his head again.

Richarlyson walks into the room.

Thank the gods, the room has a window... even though all the light outside is creepy and green and absolutely horrifying and literally not what Richarlyson wanted to see. What happened to the moon? What the heck is wrong with the Gato Kingdom?

The room is small, but it's fancy. Everything including the floor is covered in dust so thick that it's basically a carpet. The bed is small and red, and the window's curtains are long and black. There are bookshelves along every single wall reaching up to the ceiling, but all the books are gone.

There's a desk with a big empty dust-free rectangle on it.

Richarlyson frowns. Where are they?

Suddenly, the shaking and screaming stops. The moon comes back outside, and the green goes away.

There are more footsteps outside, but these ones aren't all armor-y. They're angry footsteps, Richarlyson knows angry footsteps after pranking Tío Bad so many times.

"Demon!" someone, a lady?, shouts outside of the room. "Come out and face me already!"

Richarlyson and Pepito rush to hide under the bed just in case. They've come too far to get caught now...

More angry steps: "I know you're here!"

Pepito huddles up against Richarlyson's side. Richarlyson pulls his knife out, just in case.

Even more angry footsteps, and a slam of a door.

And then:

"She's scary, isn't she?" someone asks right next to Richarlyson's ear.

He jumps and stabs and meets thin air. But he can't meet thin air, because he's looking right at a woman with pale skin and- and-

Richarlyson drops his knife.

"Are you a demon?" he whisper-shout-asks, excitement rising up in him because! Holy shit!

The woman giggles and puts a finger to her mouth. Shh.

"She can't know I'm here," she whispers.

She looks out into the room with a sigh that Richarlyson knows he's heard before. He hears it every time one of his dads sees the other do something "attractive" (blegh.)

Richarlyson's eyes sparkle. There's a demon. And she's in love!

Pepito tugs at Richarlyson's sleeve questioningly. Richarlyson just pushes him away with one hand; not now!

The woman props her chin up on her hand wistfully. "She's amazing."

Very, very quietly, Richarlyson asks, "Then why are you under the bed?"

"Why are you under the bed?" the woman replies. "You aren't supposed to be here. Trespassers."

Pepito wiggles petulantly. "We're not! We're here for our dads! The lady took them!"

Richarlyson shushes him, he's too loud! They're going to get caught!

But the woman just nods.

"You got here just in time," she says. "They missed you."

"Of course they did," Richarlyson scoffs. "We're awesome."

"You seem awesome!" The woman nods. "Bagi is gonna love you!"

"Who?"

"Your aunt... or whatever."

She... doesn't sound too happy about that.

Pepito points out, "We already have an aunt, though."

Richarlyson rolls his eyes. "You can have more than one aunt, idiot."

But Pepito just shakes his head. "But we have Tía Jaiden!"

"Yeah, and we can have more aunts. Like Tía Baghera, right?"

"Who?"

Richarlyson puts his hands in his face with a groan.

The woman laughs. "Aww, you're cute! You Can Stay."

For whatever reason, that feels important. It feels heavy, weighing down on Richarlyson's shoulders, like, physically. The inside of his head itches with the power of whatever she just did.

Demons are so cool!

The feeling passes quickly, leaving Richarlyson breathless.

He removes his hands from his face to ask the demon what she just did, but, when he does, he doesn't see anybody.

She's gone.

Richarlyson stares into thin air for a moment before turning his head to look at Pepito.

"Dad is never going to believe this," he says.

Pepito nods.

After a moment more, Richarlyson wiggles out from under the bed and wipes the dust off his clothes as best he can. He puts his knife away, stretches, yawns. (It's way past his bedtime!)

Pepito soon joins him, thumb actually out of his mouth for once.

"Come on," Richarlyson tells him. "Let's go find them."

And that's when light suddenly floods the room, catching them both in it.

Snapping to attention, Richarlyson spins around and sees the room's door open- not the hallway door, the other one- and a woman standing in it in a nightgown holding a candle.

"Apa Celbi?" Pepito gasps. Which is stupid, but a fair enough guess from a baby because the woman looks just like Pai Cellbit, just, like. A girl. And a bit taller.

The woman drops her candle.

Richarlyson pulls out his knife.

Pepito sticks his thumb in his mouth.

And, down the hall, there's an explosion and a scream.

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sipony · 3 days

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ok, so, either they have been trying to break into the castle for the whole time by themselves or they have really been kidnapped or/and the guards are actually spies from *cof cof* federation *cof cof* who are trying to overthrow the throne.

or they could be dead. kinda.

Part Ten of the Catboy in the Village AU

Part One | Part Nine

The queen breaks the news to them at the breakfast table as soon as she's finished eating. She wipes her mouth daintily with a napkin, pushes her empty bowl away from her, snaps her fingers, and smiles as a guard pulls out a familiar-looking envelope from beneath his cloak and hands it to her.

Roier almost coughs up his eggs. His eyes go wide and his fork scrapes against his plate and he stops breathing and he suddenly breathes too hard while chewing and he doubles over and covers his mouth to keep himself from spitting his food up in shock.

Cellbit immediately drops his own silverware and raises a hand to rub Roier's back. Roier shrugs him off, getting himself under control pretty quickly, but Cellbit's hand remains on his back, and Roier lets it stay there.

Slowly, the queen opens the envelope; its seal has already been broken. She makes direct eye contact as she does so, her face perfectly flat.

That's Roier's handwriting on the envelope. And inside is the princess' notebook paper with a message written in Cellbit's messy scrawl. The message was coded, and the address was encrypted, so there shouldn't be anything to worry about.

...Right?

Unless-

The queen clears her throat, raises the letter so that she's looking at it, and reads: "'As someone experienced with the culinary nuances of human flesh, I have decided that it's absolute dogshit when cooked. I prefer to taste the blood, as it adds a bit of spice to what would otherwise be pretty bland.'"

Her nose wrinkles, her entire face screwing up in disgust. Good. Just as planned.

"'However'," she continues, "'I have discovered the value in different types of meats. Bear meat is still my favorite, but I have grown to like rabbit meat as of recent. Something about it reminds me of my childhood, I'm sure you know why. The taste of cooked rabbit paints a picture of warfare and bloodshed, and the nostalgia makes it taste even sweeter.

'Rabbit cooked in a mushroom sauce is better than you'd imagine, though I know that we both can't really do mushrooms anymore.

'Try it out and let me know how you like it. Was it good? Bad? I can adjust the recipe.'"

Lowering the letter, the queen folds it up and calmly places it on the table in front of her.

Cellbit glances at Roier out of the corner of his eye.

Roier just smiles, closed-mouthed, and gets himself another forkful of egg. The way he's holding his fork, though, and his knife is... dangerous. He's ready.

And then the queen smiles, leaning back in her seat with her hands clasped in her lap.

Cellbit picks up his fork and holds it just a bit too tightly. His knuckles go white.

Suddenly, the queen stands from her chair and picks up her bowl and chucks it clear across the table with a screamed, "What the fuck is wrong with you!?"

Cellbit yelps and falls to the side out of his chair, hand on his head to keep his hat on, the bowl whiffing past his face so close that bits of berries drag across his cheek and leave a mark behind.

He tries to get back up, but he's stopped by a guard rushing forward and putting a heavy armored foot on his back. He hisses and struggles and squirms, ears laying flat under his hat.

He fights twice as hard as he hears Roier shout. His head whips to the side just in time to watch Roier get manhandled out of his chair and forced to drop his makeshift weapons, his arms getting pinned behind his back by four entire armored guards.

"You attacked my daughter?" the queen demands.

On the floor, Cellbit can't see anything of her but her feet as she gets out of her chair and storms over to their side of the table.

Cellbit bares his teeth as she approaches. She does the same in return, ears twitching angrily.

"It was just a little blackmail," he taunts.

"She is a child!" she snaps.

"Yes, and?" Roier asks. "So what?"

Her gaze snaps towards him, and her face darkens.

"You," she spits.

A second guard has to run over and pin Cellbit as the queen storms towards Roier and slaps him across the face loud enough to echo throughout the room.

Roier just blinks and takes it. The side of his face is red and angry, and Cellbit feels red and angry.

"She cried because of you," the queen lowly says, body shaking in anger. "Did you really think that she would keep this from me?"

Roier shrugs. "I mean... yeah?"

Cellbit accidentally lets out a pained yowl as the second guard on him digs their armor into an older wound on his lower back, one that never really healed after prison.

For whatever reason, the queen turns her head to glare at the guard.

"What are you doing?" she huffs. "Don't hurt him."

Cellbit blinks up at her in disbelief. "You just threw a bowl at me!"

"And you have a thick skull. It wouldn't have hurt you."

At that, Cellbit starts struggling even harder. He used to be able to fight off an entire gang of men at once, what happened? How are two people holding him down like this?

"Kids lie," Roier loudly says, trying to bring the attention back to him, the idiot. "Kids suck!"

And it works. The queen turns back to him, face slowly reddening.

"Empanada is an angel," she says.

"She's a fucking stalker!" Cellbit argues, trying to bring the attention back to him. "And you're making her do it. So what does that make you?"

And it works. The queen turns back to him, eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

"What?" she asks.

He rolls his eyes. "Oh, come on. She's been following me for weeks. Basically since we got here! Because you're making her."

He scoffs, "Child labor, really? Even I don't make my kids help in the store."

"I do," Roier comments.

Cellbit nods. "He does. But I don't, and I'm the cannibal here, so..."

The queen just shakes her head. "No... what? First, you aren't, and, second, I haven't told her to do anything but stay away from you, and-"

"Okay, fuck you," he interrupts, "I am a cannibal. Didn't you read the letter?"

"Yes, and that's how I know you're lying. But listen, I haven't told Empanada to do anything to you!"

"Yeah," Roier agrees, "except follow us!"

"Invisible," Cellbit adds. "And her potions aren't even properly mixed! Do you know how dangerous that can be? She's going to wake up dead one of these days, and it's going to be all your fault."

The queen groans and puts her face in her hands. She breathes, shoulders rising and falling dramatic with every breath.

"I told her to stay away from the cauldron," she murmurs, so quiet that it's likely that nobody but Cellbit can hear her. "She's too short. She hates the smells. She can't reach. What the fuck?"

Sensing a weak moment, Cellbit smirks and says, "I knew you think I'm the wrong person."

Lowering her hands, the queen frowns and asks, "What?"

He shrugs. "Why else would you be hiding your daughter, a-k-a my niece, from me unless you think I'm the wrong guy. If I'm supposed to be her long-lost uncle, wouldn't you have introduced me to her immediately? Unless you don't trust me, because you think I'm not your brother, because I'm not your brother."

Roier 'OOOOOOOOOH!'s. As does one of the guards holding him, who gets shut up immediately by another guard.

The queen just stares. She stares for a long moment before sighing and saying, "My daughter asked me to keep you away from her. She said that she didn't want to get cooties."

Roier blinks. "What the fuck is a cooties?"

The queen waves her hand dismissively. "It's a girl thing, you wouldn't get it. But-"

Cellbit cuts her off with a shake of his head: "No, no. She told us that you told her to stay away from us. We aren't supposed to know that she exists. Because you wanted her to spy on me!"

"Why would I want her to do that?" The queen throws her arms into the air in frustration. "Why would I even spy on you? I did that before you even came here!"

"Aha!" Cellbit shouts, wiggling an arm free so he can point at her. "You did spy on me!"

"And you still are!" Roier accuses. "You stole our mail, what the fuck?"

The queen rolls her eyes. "Because you blackmailed my daughter? If you wanted to send a letter, you could have asked."

"Uh, and then what?" Cellbit sneers. "You follow it until it gets to the other person and you kidnap them, too?"

"Oh, I don't need to follow it to do that," the queen simply replies.

She smirks slightly, arms crossing as she leans back against the table.

"Who do you think taught you encryption in the first place?" she asks. "And your code sucked. The cannibalism was a good distraction, but it was too ridiculous. Searching your home weeks ago showed that your youngest child's favorite animal is the rabbit and your other child likes cows. Your children were growing mushrooms in a window garden. There were art supplies throughout the apartment. It was all obvious."

Cellbit's heart clenches.

The queen just smiles.

Her attention quickly moves away from him, though, as a messenger runs into the room out of breath.

"An update, your highness," the messenger wheezes. "The team has completed its search of Mr. Halo's home."

Roier freezes.

Cellbit stops breathing.

No.

"And?" the queen asks, frowning.

After a moment, the messenger answers:

"There are no signs of the children there. Evidence shows that they had never even arrived."

Roier's knees buckle beneath him. The guards holding him all shout and rush to keep him upright as he faints in their arms.

The queen raises a hand to her mouth in shock. She immediately turns to Cellbit, pale, but he doesn't see her. Not really.

He stares blankly into the space ahead of him as the queen drops to her knees by his side and talks. He doesn't hear a thing besides the beating of his own heart.

They had never even arrived.

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