Through A Crystal, Darkly
'C'mon Susie, give me back my glasses!'
Ralsei waved feebly with his free paw, trying in vain to swipe his spectacles back from his draconic tormentor. Without their protection, his entire world was little more than indisctinct shapes and colours - no contours to differentiate anything, no solidity to grip onto, an illusory world devoid of truth and meaning.
Oh, if only Kris were here to restore some semblance of order...!
"Ooh, look at me!' squaked Susie from somewhere above him, tongue poking out from between her yellowed fangs. 'I'm a gigantic dweeb who loves homework!'
The delicate metal frame, designed for the prince's more demure facial structure, dug into the scales behind her ears, and the thick cola-bottle glass made everything fuzzy, and hurt Susie's eyes to look through. But these discomforts were well worth taking the preachy little do-gooder down a peg or two...
...well, it wasn't exactly bullying. Just a bit of fun between friends, that's all. Yeah, that' s all it was.
She looked at him through her ill-gotten glasses. He seemed even fluffier than ever, distorted through those ridiculous lenses - in fact, he looked like an actual hairball with green and pink blotches coming off of it. She'd have snickered at the image if not for the fact she was already midway through a giggling fit.
He also seemed... larger. Wait, no, that wasn't quite... more like he had more presence. There was more Ralsei there than before... or something...
Ugh, okay, now her head was starting to hurt, and this joke had run its course. And then, just as she was about to take them off, Ralsei lowered his arm, and opened his eyes.
'C-c'mon...' he pleaded, his simpering smile unseen.
Susie blinked, staring into the swirling blackness where her friend's eyes should have been. It was a darkness deeper than she had ever seen before. The memory came to her unbidden, of the empty storage closet, the unending expanse, the floor giving way...
Susie stumbled.
The world beneath her feet was gone, in its place a formless, shifting void. Silhouettes phased across her vision, their forms indisctinct, but she could tell well enough that they were neither monster nor human. The darkness poured forth from Ralsei's eyes like black ink from an upturned well, staining everything it touched, blotting out the reality around it.
And slicing through the unfathomable depths, like spears of blood-red sunlight, were shapes that could almost be called eyes, if eyes opened up like festering scars, unfurling like the petals of infernal flowers...
Susie blinked again. She was back in the basement, everything was solid once more, and the only thing strange about Ralsei's eyes now were how irritatingly pretty they were.
...musta been some kind of... optical illusion or summat.
'...Fine take them back,' she grumbled, lifting them off her face and plopping them back onto the bridge of his snout. The prince blinked, adjusting their position until he was satified.
'Thank you!' he said with a bright smile. Then he turned to look toward the basement's entrance. 'Oh, Kris! Are you finished?'
The dragoness followed his gaze towards the figure, who was clutching what looked like an old USB drive between two fingers. Their armour was singed in numerous spots, and the hair all down their left side had become blackened and charred.
'Jeez, Kris! you look like ya lost a fight with a toaster!' cackled Susie. 'What were you even doin' down there, anyway...?'
'Susie!!!' the prince chided, a healing spell already primed. 'D-don't listen to her Kris - I'll have you patched up in no time!'
She turned away a moment while the prince tended to her friend's injuries. The strange darkness she saw, the eyes staring out of it... i had only been for a second, like the nonsense shapes you sometimes saw on the backs of your eyelids while blinking. Susie wasn't even sure if it had been real or some strange trick of the darklight.
Glasses were meant to help you see, weren't they? So then, what did Ralsei see through them? What kind of glasses could they be, if they could let you see things like... like...
'All done!' he called out. 'Good as new, Kris!'
And the thought was gone. Great.
'...whatever. Let's go!' she growled, falling into step behind Kris. As they left Queen's basement, she cast an amber eye over her shoulder at Ralsei, smiling placidly like everything was normal. Perhaps it was normal for him.
Glasses're for nerds anyway, she snorted quietly to herself.
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