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“Thou must giveth the wormes a clear path forward!” Rouxls explains brightly, “Otherwise they could grow tired, or find’st a different way through than the did'st intend. The best puzzles art solved exactly the way the creator imagineth, and the way to accomplish that is’t with a set of sensible rules!”
Jevil flops flat on his back on top of two wooden puzzle boxes, still unused, and stares straight up while Rouxls continues to pace around in his peripheral vision. He’s been sitting here listening to Rouxls ramble all afternoon, expound on the finer points of puzzle making while replacing the same block in this switch puzzle over and over again, never making a decision. Jevil yawns widely, letting out a big noisy breath, but Rouxls continues, oblivious.
Rouxls leaves the box in another not-new position, one that he’s tried before but apparently hasn’t completely decided against yet, and studies it, mumbling, “I just did’st not expect them to be so smart…”
Jevil raises an eyebrow, hopping down and sneaking over to the the only other box on the field while Rouxls is lost in his own thoughts.
“There’s nothing wrong with a little challenge...” Jevil reaches slowly to roll the box off the grass and into play. “Challenge!”
“Certainly not!” Rouxls bats Jevil’s hand away without even looking his way. “Dost thou have any idea how facile wormes are?”
Jevil grumbles to himself. They’ll be here all day just pushing one box around all the same spaces, at this rate. On his way by, he kicks the bottom edge of the box Rouxls is staring at, but it only skitters about a centimeter.
“Don’t giveth me that look,” Rouxls says-- again, without looking Jevil’s way. “I art the duke of puzzles. I ha’st been crafting puzzles as my profession, unlike thee.”
He brushes the box back to its original resting place perfectly on top of the tile and Jevil rolls his eyes once more, following the motion with his whole head as he flops dramatically back down where he was before, on an unused block by the sidelines. It slides a couple inches under the force of his weight, then a couple more as he slithers his back down the side so he’s sitting against the dirt, facing Rouxls, his baggy clothes now all bunched up around his midsection and his hat tipping towards one side.
Rouxls scoffs. “Puzzle making takes precision. Patience. If thou give’st a worme a puzzle that boggles it for too long, it simply gives up. Frustration dost not benefit minds of their simpleness,” he declares, already walking down the line to brush past Jevil and nudge the second unused box into line with the one behind Jevil. “We must useth the rules in order to create a suitable puzzle, of intellect and substance usable to a worme.”
“Rules, schmuules.” Jevil slides all the way down to the ground, pushing the box behind him as far as it will go. Then, when Rouxls turns his back to fix that situation again, he kicks his tail out at the single box involved in the puzzle too. “Useless tools... ”
Rouxls sighs to himself and places a new smooth tile down near the switch, resisting the urge to gnash his teeth as he realizes Jevil just moved the box he was using yet again. Jevil peels his body up off the ground and props himself up on his tail. He bounces around the other side of the puzzle and keeps going, deliberately jingling his bells with every little hop as he begins to circle Rouxls.
“Thinketh they’st fools,” Jevil continues on in the background, now mimicking Rouxls’s speech too. “Looketh, I’m Rouxls. Wormes, wormes…” He repeats the ‘wormes wormes’ in different tunes as he bounces himself along.
“Couldst thee allow me some room to work?” Rouxls turns back to stop Jevil in his second lap around the puzzle. “Thou were’st doing so well.”
“Just trying to learn, learn, worme, worme,” Jevil frolics.
“That... dost not rhyme,” Rouxls says. “If thou think’st making fun of me is going to get thee sent back to the castle, thou’dst had better reassess thine plan to spend the afternoon.”
“You could’a left me.” Bounce, bounce… ”Wouldn’t matter.”
Rouxls does his best not to groan out loud. “We art expected follow the king's orders without supervision. He thinketh thou might’st put thine newfound energy to use making puzzles--” He pitches his voice up to emphasize the sarcasm, leaning away when Jevil goes spinning by. “Why he never consults me on such matters…”
“Puzzles, muzzles,” Jevil sings, “Gets in troubles,” and gives another box a good kick with his toe.
That time, it jostles out of his reach just as Rouxls is about to move it, and that’s enough for him to snap. He snatches Jevil right out of the air by his tail and forces him to a seat in the dirt using the puffy fabric of his upper sleeves as a grip. The smile slides off Jevil’s face for a long moment as he blinks away the shock of getting manhandled. Nobody manhandles him-- Nobody has the gall to try it, much less with that amount of force.
“Sit down and be quiet,” Rouxls says through his teeth.
Slowly, the dumbfounded look on Jevil’s face fades into something decidedly sour. Rouxls just grabbed him by the tail.
Rouxls keeps pacing, apparently unaware of what he’s just done-- that, or unconcerned with its effect. Jevil still spends the next few minutes uncomfortably stunned, but for the moment, silent. Rouxls resumes filling in the silence with his own monologue, albeit a much less cheery one than before.
“Thine presence is’t like minding another child. I never did’st ask to be charged with the first one,” Rouxls keeps griping. “Useless, clinging worms. All they do is maketh noise for attention… The lot of thee, gallivanting about the castle like imbeciles.”
“Gallivanting, schmal… vi-lanting,” Jevil grumbles out loud, starting to really fume.
Unbeknownst to the two of them, a sheepish Lancer sidles up to the bars of the gate, moving so cautiously that he doesn’t attract any attention-- a learned skill that he’s picked up in the last year, to Rouxls's dismay. Seeing if he can startle people is one of his favorite games recently. He idles there for a good minute, not sure whether he should turn back or go for the scare.
Finally, Rouxls claps his hands together in satisfaction with his current puzzle layout. It’s just one box, and one rock which isn’t even exactly in the way.
“Boring…,” Jevil mutters.
Rouxls smiles disparagingly, the back of one hand held daintily in front of his mouth like he's just heard the most polite joke in the world. “Did’st thou really expect me to let thee touch the puzzle? The way thou behave’st?”
At that, Jevil wrinkles his nose, baring half of his front few sharp teeth, even though Rouxls isn’t watching. He tilts his head back and forth, miming Rouxls talking with one hand as he picks himself up, then taps over to the unused boxes on the side without a word. Lancer looks up just in time to scurry away as Jevil easily propels a box straight from the pile towards Rouxls.
“What dost thou th--!”
The box comes slamming down right between the switch and the box Rouxls has been spending so much time placing, bowling it out of alignment. Rouxls yelps, just barely getting out of the way before it comes barrelling past.
“Look!” Jevil hoots with an exaggerated open-arm pose, “More boxes, harder puzzle! Genius!”
Jevil hoists another box right over his head and it lands imperfectly on top of the other one, tumbling off so that all three boxes are lined up in a haphazard row.
Some distance behind the gate, Lancer peeks out from behind a stone bench, his face tucked as far into his hood as it will go, arms clinging to the rung underneath. Rouxls catches sight of him for just a second, then turns his attention back to Jevil to grind out, quieter, “I don’t recall asking for thine help.”
“Didn’t have to,” Jevil smiles sweetly.
Rouxls marches forward with his eyes fixed on Jevil, daring him to fire another projectile. To Jevil’s surprise though, he skips past where Jevil stands and crouches down a few feet past the gate to beckon Lancer forward with a small wave.
When Jevil looks back, he and Lancer accidentally meet eyes for a second before Jevil has the chance to stop glowering at Rouxls. Lancer shrinks back like he’s been stung, tugging his hood down over his eyes. Rouxls pulls him forward so he can’t see Jevil anymore and waits until Lancer pops his face out of the top of his hood.
“I can be quiet,” Lancer says in a tiny voice, “Promise,” and then stuffs the collar of his jacket into his mouth as if to prove the point.
“Ah…,” is all Rouxls says, cringing. It’s unclear whether he has the grace to be ashamed of what Lancer must have overheard, or whether he’s concerned about the hygiene of Lancer’s habit. Still, he doesn’t come up with a response.
“Dad told me to go find you.” Lancer’s eyes flicker over towards Jevil but don’t make contact with any part of him. “Doesn’t want me running in the castle. Everybody’s... busy.”
“Yes, of course he did’st...” Rouxls slides his palm across his own forehead into the roots of his hair, then slips back into muttering to himself, “Like I’m running a daycare…”
Jevil wipes the mean look off his face as he tilts himself into Lancer’s view, giving a wide smile and a gentle wave of the tip of his tail. Lancer does his best to hide a startled gasp, but his shoulders hunch up around his neck and he goes visibly stiff. He doesn’t acknowledge Jevil, just fidgets with his hood so that it blocks Jevil’s view of his face. Rouxls narrows his eyes and glares back over his shoulder until Jevil slinks off into the yard alone, tail swishing between his legs.
When Jevil is fully out of sight, Lancer stretches his arms towards Rouxls and flutters his hands in the air to be picked up. Rouxls lifts him with a short huff to place him on his hip. Instantly, Lancer brightens up and fists his tiny fingers into the fabric of Rouxls’s uniform to climb onto his back for a piggyback ride instead. Rouxls clucks in protest when Lancer’s hands catch some of his hair, but once Lancer settles, Rouxls doesn’t complain about it any further, so used to this development that it’s hardly worth fighting. Lancer holds on all by himself, resting his chin atop Rouxls’s shoulder and inadvertently tangling his hair as he walks back to the puzzle.
“Look what thou’st done!” Rouxls is quick to resume ranting at Jevil, throwing his hands out even as he’s bent slightly forward to counterbalance a still somewhat fretful Lancer on his shoulders. “Too many boxes and no space to move them in. It’s downright offensive.”
“Not if you do this.” Jevil steps to one side of the row of three boxes, pushes one aside, and casually uses his heel to shove the other two towards the switch with a decisive whump, leaving the front one hanging halfway too far off the tile. The switch still activates with its victory jingle and blinks green.
Rouxls blinks in confusion for a moment, then quickly turns his nose up and scoffs. “Idiotic. Three boxes for one switch? Completely unnecessary.”
Lancer, from Rouxls’s shoulders, imitates the dramatic scoff.
“Hee hee,” Jevil laughs, “Maybe the king isn’t so ignorant after all.”
“Thou hast done nothing. Thou hast made a puzzle which dost not conform to the rules.” Rouxls attempts to wave Jevil back towards the side, but he doesn’t move. “Get out of the way.”
Jevil hangs his head fully to one side looking at the two boxes he’s just thrown. “Can worms move more than one box?” he wonders aloud.
“That’s-!” Rouxls starts to rant some more, but then frowns. “That… is’t a good question.” He lays a hand on his chin and inspects the boxes himself.
Jevil totters up beside Rouxls and narrows his eyes seriously, mimicking Rouxls’s stance with an added thoughtful hum. He lifts himself up on his tail so that he’s level with Rouxls at shoulder height, at which point Lancer starts to tug on his hood again.
Rouxls hums to himself, drawing his brows together. Jevil hums back, longer, higher in pitch, but Rouxls doesn’t seem to notice. Lancer titters just a little from under his hood and gives his own timid hum. Jevil hides an answering grin by lolling his tongue out the side of his mouth. Rouxls’s mouth twists, maybe, but he doesn’t join in.
A short moment later, Rouxls decides, “No. No, they cannot. Wormes art weak, defenseless beings,” he says, picking up the second box and slinging it towards the others by the gate. “They would’st strain their feeble bodies in their attempts to push more than one box. We must taketh this into account.”
From some hidden pocket of his uniform, Rouxls produces a half-size notebook and pen, into which he scribbles a line about multiple boxes.
“Out of the way-- both of thee,” Rouxls says, bending down as he picks up the additional boxes.
Lancer, in a much better mood than before, clambers down off of Rouxls’s back and toddles off to the side, where he begins trying to climb on top of the crates Rouxls doesn’t intend to use. He scrabbles his fat little legs and wriggles his stomach up onto it with the type of energy that only toddlers can have, but it’s not quite enough to push him up there. When he stops to catch his breath, he loses his grip and ends up in the dirt. Failing that, Lancer finds the second-best object worth scaling—the fence—and starts trying to fit his arms into the bars in such a way that allows him to climb. He’s just about three feet off the ground by the time Jevil sits deliberately nearby, on top of the crate he’d just been trying to climb, and Lancer suddenly remembers he's supposed to be staying quiet.
Jevil curls his tail up under himself like a spring and uses it to rock himself back and forth while Lancer takes a seat against the front of the box. They both watch Rouxls work on resetting things the way he wants them, a slightly quicker process now that he has an end design in mind.
Jevil has just gotten to the point that his impatient rocking is starting to make him lose balance when Rouxls straightens up and dusts his hands off, satisfied once more.
“There!” Rouxls says, “A puzzle which will’st stop the wormes in their tracks!”
The entire puzzle consists of the same lonely box as before and one rock as the only obstacle. It’s solvable in no more than two moves, just like every other position Rouxls has stuck on for more than a minute.
“What?” Rouxls demands, watching Jevil’s face contort just looking at it.
“Nothing, nothing,” Jevil says, then repeats it with a different rhythm, smiling stiffly, “Nothing, nothing.”
Rouxls narrows his eyes, but doesn’t respond.
“I’m not allowed to touch the puzzle-- I don’t know up from down, toil from torture,” Jevil teases, “Don’t ask me.”
“That’s right. Thou does’t not know,” Rouxls says anyway, pausing to sit against another unused box.
There’s a short silence while Rouxls rests his feet. Lancer gets up to explore the rest of the puzzle area now that there’s nothing to get in the way of, still giving the puzzle itself a wide berth. It’s quiet for all of about thirty seconds, before Jevil starts taunting again.
“I’m sure it’s not as boring as it looks. --For sure, not. I’m just cracked.” He knocks the tip of his tail against one of the bells on his hat for emphasis. “But don’t you ever get... bored?”
“Boredom is’t the mark of a rotting mind put to no use,” Rouxls counters.
Again, there's a beat of silence that doesn’t last nearly long enough for Rouxls to relax.
“Maybe…” Jevil’s voice slides up in pitch, visibly fraying Rouxls’s patience. “If you used your mind, you'd make a puzzle that was actually… puzzling.”
Rouxls growls, clenching his jaw, to which Jevil’s mirth only grows, even as he lowers himself towards the ground under Rouxls's glare.
“Thou coulds’t not maketh a usable puzzle if thine puny clowne life dependeth'd on’t!” Rouxls says.
“I can do anything-!” Jevil bounces violently up and down, jingling like a tacky christmas decoration. “Anything. Anything!”
Just like that, the last of Rouxls’s patience is shoved to the side and he’s ready to knock Jevil into next week. He outright snarls, lip curling over his teeth in escalating rage, which only makes Jevil laugh harder-
Out of nowhere, the puzzle’s victory jingle chimes. Both Rouxls and Jevil turn their heads to see Lancer with his arms in the air and a huge smile on his face.
“I did it!” Lancer crows, out of breath from having pushed a box twice as large as himself. “I solved Lesser Dad’s puzzle!”
“I-- wh--” Rouxls starts and stops, hesitates, then commits to a yell. “What did’st I tell thee about touching my puzzles?! --And the name Lesser Dad?” He marches forward, anger now boiling over.
Lancer lets his arms fall and shrinks back a step, then a few more as Rouxls stomps past to push the box back off of the switch, muttering something incomprehensible and definitely not meant for Lancer’s ears.
“Cretinous little worme…” Rouxls scoffs that part aloud and begins meticulously tilting the box back to its exact original position.
Lancer fidgets guiltily with his hood, scratching his head as he waddles back towards the sidelines. He’s been told a million times not to touch Rouxls’s things, but then again, Jevil isn’t normally a part of the equation. Following directions has never been his forte, even when fully focused.
Jevil lowers himself to Lancer’s level with a carefully controlled smile this time, and whispers, “Good job, worm. High five!”
Lancer looks owlishly between the two adults-- first at Rouxls, who is as affronted as he’s ever been by Jevil, then back at Jevil and his still impossibly wide grin, palm waiting up in the air. After a full five seconds of hesitation, Lancer jumps up to slap a hard high five into Jevil’s hand, then covers his mouth by pulling the front of his jacket up over his nose as he runs away. Jevil shoots a smug glance towards Rouxls, who thumps the side of his own puzzle box, throwing it off the tile.
Rouxls breathes an irritated sigh out through his nose for what feels like the hundredth time already that afternoon, glaring at the displaced box some more.
“Thou know’st what? Fine.” Rouxls puts his hands up, smiling all of a sudden. “I’ve had enough. ‘Tis clear I will not get much done whil’st handling the both of thee, so... go ahead.” He splays one hand out at Jevil. “If thou think’st thee can handle the job without any training--”
Jevil launches himself forward with no further prompting, already yelling, “Yes! Yes!!”
Rouxls crosses his arms and leans his shoulder against the nearby gate. “Thou will'st see how difficult it is. Just watch.”
With a flurry of cackles, Jevil skips around the little yard for a moment, tumbling every which way, then comes to a lurching halt in front of Lancer. Lancer jolts but stands his ground.
“Want to lend me a hand?” Jevil asks, “--Or a foot?” He flips himself upside down, bending his tail at an improbable angle, and points at his toes. “How about a whole arm?”
Lancer giggles into his hands and marches his feet in delight. “Yeah, yeah!”
Beside them, Rouxls rolls his eyes and sighs audibly, though neither Jevil nor Lancer is paying him much attention anymore.
“Perfect, then give me your favorite arm!” Jevil sets himself on his feet and holds out both his hands palm up in front of Lancer.
Lancer gasps to himself and draws both his arms in, but doesn't exactly protest. He deliberates for a long moment, then very sheepishly starts to release his left arm. Rouxls sighs again, apparently already irritated with how long this is taking, even though Jevil seems to be having the time of his life.
Finally, Lancer extends his left arm. Jevil waggles his fingers expectantly over it and says seriously, “Are you sure?”
Lancer puts a finger to his chin. Rouxls looks skyward and slumps his shoulders again while Lancer thoughtfully licks his finger with his exposed tongue.
Again, Lancer thinks very hard and decides this is indeed the arm he wants to potentially sacrifice. He looks a little unsteady as Jevil takes his arm and pulls him across the area. Rouxls frowns in uncertainty for a moment, but doesn't intervene while Jevil uses that arm to place Lancer where he wants him to go, right next to the switch.
Once satisfied with the placement of Lancer, Jevil bounds off to retrieve every last box they have and throw them onto the field. A few more pieces of smooth tile go down, some in front of the button, some in random clusters on the other side of the yard. Rouxls watches with detached surprise at the speed which Jevil can muster when he wants to, apparently. In no time, he’s scampered all around the enclosure, and finishes standing at the far side.
“Ta-da!” Jevil sings.
Rouxls looks the new puzzle over with utter confusion. The placement of the smooth tiles is completely random. There isn’t a clear path to be seen anyplace. Each and every box is accounted for, and several are stacked rather precariously into a pyramid for no particular reason. It’s a mess, and the switch itself is completely surrounded by boxes such that none of them will move. The tip of Lancer’s hood is only just visible in the gaps between the boxes, where Jevil has effectively circled him in.
Rouxls shakes his head and then says, confidently, “It’s unsolvable.”
Jevil turns and puts up a finger in a ‘wait’ signal, so Rouxls petulantly re-crosses his arms and leans all his weight to one foot.
After turning a happy little circle, Jevil curls himself up into a wheel and rolls towards the boxes surrounding the switch. When he hits the box, he rolls his tail out over the top to where Lancer can reach it. With a little prompting, Lancer gets the message and tugs on Jevil’s tail while Jevil pretends to get sucked over the box and onto the switch, even though he just pushes himself up. Still, Lancer is overjoyed to be a part of the solution, and he does a happy little march as the victory jingle plays.
One corner of Rouxls’s mouth lifts for just a second. “Jevil, thou must solveth it with the box. Thou can’st not be the box.”
“I can-!”
“--yes, yes, of course, do anything, we know.” Rouxls pinches the bridge of his nose, the not-smile falling away instantly.
Jevil snickers, utterly pleased, bouncing a couple times anyway. Lancer picks himself up off the button and merrily plops back down just to hear the victory chime again and again-- two, three, four times, while Jevil echoes the chime in between, the both of them laughing away.
“Is it lunchtime yet?” Lancer whines, hitting the switch again.
“Stop that,” Rouxls orders, so Lancer rolls his tiny, round body forward and sits in the dirt a few feet away. He shimmies his way between two of the boxes until he pops out the other side.
Rouxls pinches his brow again and paces in the opposite direction, giving Jevil a chance to hop up onto a box and dive onto the button once more.
“What did’st I just--!” Rouxls turns on his heel, ready to scold, only to find Jevil grinning, rocking back and forth atop the button. Jevil just titters quietly, letting his tongue loll out of his mouth again as his grin stretches his face.
Rouxls is pulled away from the impulse to shake Jevil by a tug at the hem of his shirt, where Lancer is looking up at him.
Rouxls lets out a long breath. “Yes, Lancer, ‘tis past lunchtime. Come along.”
“Yay!” Lancer cheers, and without warning hops up to climb on Rouxls's back again.
The three of them walk back to the castle, leaving the puzzle as it is, unsolvable.