Chapter Text
The fire flickers and dances on the Queen’s palm, inky and black like shadows.
It’s unlike her to favor darker fires in place of her usual brighter, prettier ones, but she insists that the throne has only opened her mind to newer changes.
Wilson feels that he’s mastered his dark, twisted power. He has all the knowledge he could ever need, or want. He controls shadows with the flick of his wrist and summons beings to his very will.
There’s nothing left to learn, but the thing inside him is still craving more.
His beloved still thinks him an idiot. There she is now, giving him a side-eyed glance that could only mean she wants something from him.
Willow could have anything she’d ever wanted. He would give it to her in a heartbeat.
“Yes?”
“Oh, nothing! I was just wondering why you’re wasting your time, is all.”
Willow is tapping her cheek in thought. She has an adorably evil smirk that he knows all too well.
His brows furrow. “Wasting my time? I don’t understand, my love.” He tsks. “I’m merely building suspense!”
Wilson’s in charge of the beasts, the insanity. He’s a summoner and nothing more.
Willow insists on taking care of everything else- the weather, heat and flame, the natural setting that surrounds the survivors.
She only wants to watch the world burn. A beautifully unforgiving practitioner of the elements would see it so.
Maxwell did a sloppy job creating this world, and Wilson has to be the one to fix it. Everything the shadows touch will be conquered. He’d have to find a way to change Willow’s mind if he wants to see the island reformed in his image.
“Ugh. You’re taking too long!” Willow clenches her fist and the shadowy fire dissipates into nothingness. “Send ‘em now, while they’re still busy!”
Ah, yes. He waves his hand and an image appears. There his friends were now, looking quite occupied with one of their new beasts.
Wilson hums, satisfied. He supposes he can hasten the hounds’ approach. It would make things interesting, for one.
“Very well.”
With the snap of his fingers, he watches as the hounds suddenly burst into the camp. His old friends have quite the look on their faces! And, oh- there they go one by one, dropping like flies as the pack surrounds them and rips them apart.
There aren’t children, thankfully. That’d be cruel, even for him! But Wilson doesn’t care what happens to the others. Some of them had it coming.
Willow appears over his shoulder, her fiery pigtails tickling his cheek as she takes a big long look at what used to be their camp. Their home.
“Hmph! They left a lotta blood.” She huffs, blowing a stray strand from her face. “I’m not the one cleaning that up.”
His gloved hand moves down her arm and settles comfortably in her own warm palm.
Wilson can’t forget that he was the one who brought her here. He did everything in his power to make sure she was safe and out of harm’s way. It was a painful decision to make, but one for the better.
It could have been Willow out there, getting her arms gnawed from their sockets and organs chewed up like toys.
“You don’t have to. Just burn it.” Wilson pulls her closer and kisses her forehead.
She doesn’t like it when he teases her, so she disappears from his grasp and sets his hair on fire.
She’s been doing that a lot, lately.
He blinks quickly, stunned for but a moment. “You-!”
Willow sticks her tongue out and blows a raspberry.
The fire doesn’t hurt, but now his hair’s smoldering and it’s annoying to fix. Maybe he’ll leave it messy, just this once.
“Not funny,” she says.
Wilson gets up from the throne and walks calmly to his Queen. She’s staring at her own reflection from a mirror that she summoned just now.
She’s always looked stunning, and especially adorable when she was mad. Her black lips form a cute, tiny pout on her doll face.
“Terribly sorry, my dear.” He’s sincere, yet the slight humor in his voice is there and unmistakable.
Wilson wraps his arms around her, hugging her slender figure from behind. With the slightest touch, he’s able to manifest his power into creating a physical object out of thin air. He certainly enjoys spoiling her.
It’s only a matter of seconds. Why, he makes a better magician than that lanky, arrogant buffoon!
The Queen clutches the item that he urges into her palms. It’s one of her favorite possessions, lost long ago from when she claimed the throne, and now reunited.
Willow touches her teddy lovingly, examining every feature: his burn scars, the stuffing, and his beady little button eye. She looks like she hasn’t seen him in years. To them, it may as well have been years.
“Apology accepted.” Willow has a sad smile on her face, something soft and beautiful that he hasn’t seen in ages. Genuine emotion, untouched by the raw darkness of their power.
“You’re sad,” Wilson says. He lets a finger trail down her smooth cheek. She always put up such a powerful, intimidating image; he rarely ever got to see pieces of her fragile side.
Willow shakes her head. She looks calm and serene, but the tight grip she has on Bernie says otherwise.
“Are you happy here, with me? You can always go back if you’d like.” He couldn’t possibly force her to stay if she was so secretly unhappy.
But Willow turns to meet his eyes, and they’re no longer sad, but rather witty and amused.
“No! I like being here with you.” He knows that she’s genuine about enjoying their intimate time together, but Wilson isn’t all that dumb. He knows that she’s too smart to willingly give up the power of her dreams and go back home to a life of famine and death and suffering.
He can’t control the smirk that suddenly appears on his face. “Let’s plan our next invention, shall we?”
They link their arms together as they walk into the shadows, Willow rambling on and on about different ideas about their new monster.
He can’t help but feel it. The eyes that stare in the darkness, the hushed whispers, their triumphant power.