Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You…pesky…LITTLE BRAT!” Snatcher roared in response to being smacked in the face by Hat Kid’s umbrella. 

The child snickered at his reaction, but any amusement she’d gained was swiftly replaced by fear. The tufts around Snatcher’s neck spiked outward as a purple and yellow light gathered around his form. His tail lashed about violently and his clawed fingers sharpened. The fight had been challenging enough already, now she had gone and really pissed him off. HK shuddered and braced herself once more, unsure of what to expect. She didn’t know the extent of his power, but she could tell that whatever he was charging up for now was significantly stronger than anything she’d seen him unleash before. Still, the fight had clearly taken its toll on both of them since she’d dyed him blue. This would likely be the last attack either of them made. The question was: who would strike first?

Hat Kid lunged forward, realizing this might be her last chance to hit him and regain her timepiece, but Snatcher wasn’t going to give in that easily. He waited until she was just inches away before releasing the gathered magic, sending out a powerful wave of energy that blasted the two of them apart. All of Subcon shook, knocking snow and dead leaves out of the trees and making the inhabitants shudder. HK was lying on her back, the air sucked from her lungs by the force of the blast. She’d managed to block the worst of it, but even so, she could hardly move. She struggled to roll onto her stomach and bring herself onto her hands and knees. Across the makeshift arena, she could see Snatcher shakily getting up as well, a cocky smirk on his big stupid face. 

“Y’know, I just realized something, kiddo!” He chuckled and shook his head, Hat Kid’s far too small hat threatening to topple off with each jerking motion as he summoned the time piece and twirled it in his hand. “I don’t actually need to fight you. I could just,” he waved his free hand in the air making some vague gesture, “do this !”

“NO!!” Hat Kid watched in shock as he flung the time piece onto the cobblestone, reaching out to catch it in vain. 

Time seemed to move painfully slow for a moment, as if everything were passing through a thick gel. She waited to see what terrors would be unleashed when Snatcher’s vision was realized by the timepiece, but oddly enough, nothing seemed to change. 

“What the-?” Snatcher scowled, looking confused and angry that his plan hadn’t worked, but the equally confounded expression on the kid’s face at least reassured him that he’d done something . He shrugged, and his smug look returned as flickering flames once again engulfed his hands. “Back to plan A-”

Before he could continue what he was saying, a burst of light appeared between them, cutting off their view of one another. Hat Kid gasped as she realized what had happened, though she wasn’t quite sure why it had occurred. Several questions flooded her mind as the light subsided enough for the two of them to see once more. Snatcher glared at her accusingly, as if she’d had something to do with the thing that hovered between them, but the kid just shrugged and smirked. Regardless of what had made it appear instead of doing what Snatcher wanted, a time rift was a much easier way to keep the timepiece away from him. That stupid noodle ghost couldn’t possibly figure out how to make his way through…

“Hey kid, what is this thing?” Snatcher sneered as he reached out to grab the rift.

Hat Kid’s eyes widened as a surge of panic gave her the sudden burst of energy she needed to bolt towards him. “NO, WAIT! DON’T—”

But she was too late; Snatcher had already placed his hand on the floating orb. 

He momentarily glanced up at her, startled by her cry, but there was nothing either of them could do; he was already being sucked inside the swirling vortex. Her hat landed with a soft thump beneath the rift, having fallen off in the commotion. Without a second of hesitation, she picked it up and quickly placed it back on her head as she jumped in after him, letting the light surround her small form as she was pulled into yet another rift while silently hoping that things would go better than the last time this had happened.

Chapter Text

    With a bit of skillful maneuvering, Hat Kid adjusted her umbrella so that it carried her to a narrow platform that hovered over a foggy landscape a short distance below. She could faintly make out the outline of the buildings enshrouded by the low clouds, but she couldn’t really distinguish one building from the other. She sighed and glanced around her, searching for the shadow that had entered moments before her, certain that he’d already be causing trouble. She was pleasantly surprised to find him just floating in place not too far from where she’d landed. She wordlessly jumped down and walked over to him, her hands balled into fists, ready to finish him off for making things more complicated for her than they already were, but the look on his face made her hesitate.

    “Sna-Snatcher…” she stammered as she drew nearer to him. He seemed to be fixated on something within the fog. His eyes burned darker than usual, casting an eerie shadow over his abnormally somber features. 

    She was about to question him when he abruptly turned to face her, swiping at her with his talon-like fingers. All his earlier rage seemed to return in an instant, but there was still a pained look on his face. “What did you do?!” He seethed as his hand threatened to slice her to pieces where she stood.

    “I didn’t do this, you jerk!” She spit back and shoved his hand away, “ You’re the one who broke the timepiece!”

    “Well it wasn’t supposed to do...” his voice trailed off as he looked back into the fog, “this.”

    “Well, maybe you’re just too dumb to use one properly!” HK stuck out her tongue and started walking off in the direction he’d been staring, curious about what had drawn his attention.

    “Where do you think you’re going?” He trailed behind her, a hint of anger still lingering in his voice.

    “I don’t want to stay here with you.” She huffed and continued walking, not really seeing anything out of the ordinary, though it was hard to see much of anything through the fog. “I’m finding the exit!”

    “Exit?” He sneered. “Like you could find your way out of—”

    “There it is!” 

She cut him off as she sprinted forward, briefly disappearing in the fog. Snatcher sped up slightly to catch up to her, mildly annoyed that she’d actually found a way out before he did. But boy was he glad he hadn’t killed her a while ago, because the supposed ‘exit’ made zero sense to him. He was about to bombard her with a bunch of questions when the fog began to lift. He hadn’t been sure earlier, because he couldn’t really see at the time, but in the clear light of day, his somewhat unpleasant suspicion turned out to be right. He stared off at the simple buildings as feelings of confusion and anger welled up within him.

    “Why do you keep looking around like that?” She frowned as she caught him making the same solemn face he’d made earlier. 

    “I’d forgotten what this place looked like,” he laughed half-heartedly as his usual condescending grin made its way back onto his face.

    “You know this place?”

    “You don’t?” She shook her head. “Come on kid, I know it’s only been a few days, but you’ve spent enough time wreaking havoc in my forest that you should be able to recognize Subcon Village when you see it.”

    Her eyes widened and she gasped softly. “This…is Subcon?” 

HK looked around her in shock, but now that he mentioned it, some of the buildings looked vaguely familiar. It took her a moment to realize that they were the same dilapidated structures that littered the area between the bridge and the manor back in their reality, the ones that had long ago been destroyed. But in here, they were pristine. There were no columns of ice tearing through them; none of the windows were shattered, and none of the wood had succumbed to rot. As HK continued checking the place out, she realized that there was no snow at all either. 

“Kid,” Snatcher spoke softly but sternly, “how did you do this?”

“Like I said,” she explained, “it wasn’t me. Timepieces react to the one who broke them, and to the places and other people nearby when it broke. So I guess…Subcon itself just had more…energy than you.” Snatcher looked annoyed by the idea that something inanimate had been prioritized over him, but when he thought about it, it made sense. Subcon’s magic almost had a mind of its own. “It’s kind of hard to explain.” She continued, snapping him out of his thoughts. “But it doesn’t matter too much now, the point is, we have to get out of here.”

“And we do that with this thingie?” He pointed at the rift door skeptically. “Then why are we just standing here? Open it. Let’s go.”

“I can’t.” She shook her head and crossed her arms. “See that number? That tells us how many rift pons we need to open the door. We can’t leave until we find one.” Snatcher grumbled something under his breath and rolled his eyes. “We should probably split up. We’re looking for these little ball things that shine and have a tiny crown inside them. You’ll know it when you see it.” She took a few steps forward, but stopped when she realized he was still trailing behind her. “The first one usually isn’t too hard to find, so I’m sure we’ll find it faster if we look separately ,” she emphasized the word, hoping he’d take the hint.

“What if I find it and ditch you here,” he asked coyly as he hovered off to her side.

“Doesn’t matter,” she smiled cheerfully, “the door stays open as long as the rift is active. I can just follow you through. Feel free to do all the hard work for me!”

Snatcher froze in place, taken aback by the sheer nerve she had to say something so preposterous. Him? Do her work? That was absolutely absurd! Still, it’d be boring to just stand around doing nothing, and just being in a place that so perfectly resembled Old Subcon was…unsettling. He wanted to get out of there as fast as he could too, and so, he went the opposite direction in search of that mysterious orb thing the kid had mentioned.

As Hat Kid made her way through the streets of the village, she wondered why the rift had formed. It made sense with the Conductor. The timepiece had been broken by accident, and it just took in everything around it in response to the shock the conscious parties nearby felt. But with Snatcher, the timepiece should have done whatever he wanted it to do. 

“Why didn’t it work for him? Unless…” she glanced back in the direction he’d wandered off in, “he was distracted.” She seemed to roll this possibility around in her mind, but she eventually rejected it. “Snatcher wouldn’t get distracted that easily, it must have had something to do with Subcon’s magic.” She concluded again silently, though she was still somewhat skeptical about her theory.

She shook her head and focused on her search. The area they’d been dropped in wasn’t very big. It basically just consisted of the street she had walked down moments before. It was clear that the pon wasn’t behind the buildings she’d just checked, and based on the annoyed look on Snatcher’s face when they regrouped where they came in, he hadn’t found it on the other side either.

“I guess we check inside then.” HK shrugged and started walking.

“Hey, kiddo,” Snatcher grinned and closed his eyes, “it’ll take too long to search every room. Just hold on a second.” Hat Kid watched him curiously; he seemed to be concentrating pretty hard on something, but after a couple of seconds, he reopened his eyes and frowned. he looked down at his left hand as he opened and closed his claw-like fingers. “What gives?”

“What’s wrong?” She asked as she walked back to him.

Snatcher thrust out his hand without any warning, as if he’d intended to launch an attack in her direction. HK instinctively moved to shield herself with her umbrella, but if Snatcher had intended to attack her, he hadn’t been successful. She lowered her umbrella and stared at him, sensing his growing frustration. Then he turned to her, his eyes nothing more than narrow slits, and spoke with an eerily calm voice.

“Why isn’t my magic working?”

“What do you mean?” 

Snatcher made a series of over dramatic motions, all of which would normally produce some kind of magic or summon an item, but regardless of what he tried, nothing seemed to happen. “As you can see,” he said in a hushed voice, “Nothing. Is. HAPPENING!” 

HK shrugged and smiled innocently. “Time rifts are weird.”

“TimE RifTs ArE WEirD,” Snatcher muttered mockingly. 

“What were you even trying to do?” She disregarded his ridicule and headed off towards the nearest building, hoping the doors to the ones she didn’t need to enter would be locked like they so often were.

Snatcher trailed behind her, pouting slightly, though his typical contemptuous tone had returned. “Usually I can just search for, er, out of place things by reading the forest’s auras, but…”

HK sighed as she tried the first door. It wouldn’t budge. “You can't do it now, right?” She asked as she moved down to the next door, once again failing to open it. Snatcher passed her and went to check the next door, shaking his head. “It’s not a big deal.” She smiled reassuringly before trying the fourth door. “Like I said, rifts are weird. You may not be able to use it now, but your magic could come back in the next area. Worst case scenario, you won’t get it back until we get out of the rift all together.” They sighed simultaneously as both doors failed to open.

“What do you mean, ‘next area’?” Snatcher stiffened. 

“Oh, um…” Hat Kid scrunched up her face as she tried to think of a good way to describe how rifts worked. “I-it’s like...levels! Time rifts have a bunch of levels you have to go through before you actually get to the exit. Like in a video game!”

“In a what now,” he deadpanned.

“A video game?” Her mouth dropped open when she saw the utterly confused expression on his face. “You’ve never played a video game?!” 

“I don’t even know what that is, kid.” Snatcher sneered and moved to the other side of the street to try another door.

“When we get out of here, I’m gonna have to make you play some.”

“Please don’t.”

“No! It’s important!” She cried as she jiggled yet another doorknob, only for it to be locked. “Video games are great! You get to punch stuff and explore crazy places without having to leave your house!” Snatcher pondered the idea for a moment. It was certainly intriguing. “I’ll make you play corgi quest!”

“What’s a corgi?” 

HK screamed internally. “N-nevermind. But anyway, I think you’d like it. It’s an adventure game where you play as a corgi and you have to-”

“Sounds boooooooooooring,” Snatcher drawled.

“What?! It is not!” She shouted defiantly. “It’s so fun, that if I couldn’t play it anymore, I’d rather diiiiiiii-” her voice trailed off as she remembered to whom she was talking.

Snatcher perked up, positively beaming as he turned back to face her, his hand still resting on the knob of the next door. “Oh, what’s that? No, go on. Say it! It’d be-” 

A soft click cut him off as the door knob turned.

“Hilarious...” HK dashed across the street after seeing him open the door, but hesitated in the entrance. “Ladies first,” he purred as he held it open for her.

“Oh, please,” she rolled her eyes. “You say that like you’re actually gonna come in and help me look. You probably can’t even get your big fat head through the door.” Snatcher feigned being insulted, a sardonic smile still plastered on his face as he did so, “whatever, just wait here. It shouldn’t take too long.”

Hat Kid rushed inside, determined to find the rift pon swiftly. The building didn’t seem to be very large on the outside, so she didn’t imagine it’d take long to find it. After poking her head into a couple of rooms, she spotted the faint glimmering light that usually signified the location of the pons peeking out from one of the rooms upstairs. She made her way up to the room quickly, hoping to grab the rift pon and get going. But upon entering the room, she was slightly taken aback. The rest of the house had seemed pretty typical of a rift. The rooms were hardly furnished, the walls were bare, and there were objects lying around that seemed really out of place, but not this room. 

Hat Kid looked around, surprised by the amount of detail the rift had put into recreating it. It was a bedroom that smelled faintly of gardenias. Several pots of them were placed meticulously around the room, well pruned with vibrant pearl blooms that contrasted the deep emerald leaves behind them. There were trellises by the windows with other flowering plants slowly climbing them. Pops of pinks and blues decorated the walls of green. The bedding and other furniture all seemed to don a floral print as well. It was surreal. She was so used to rifts being filled with abstract platforms and little coherent structure; she sometimes forgot that they could replicate reality like this.

Hat Kid shook her head, realizing that she was letting the room distract her from her original goal, and turned to face the sparkling orb beside her. It was sitting atop a neatly organized desk that was garnished with drawings of various flowers and a few letters and notes. Next to the pon was a frame with a picture of a young woman inside. Her rose coloured hair was adorned with numerous flowers that seemed to be interwoven in her delicately arranged braid. Her smile was dazzling, lighting up her entire face. Hat Kid smiled at the photo as she picked it up, admiring how blissful the freckled girl seemed. She turned it over and saw writing scribbled on the back.

“Camellia, 04/1242.” She flipped it back over. “That must be your name. I wonder how long ago that was.” She frowned and glanced out the window at the old Subcon. “It probably doesn’t matter though, huh?” She laughed half heartedly. She wasn’t certain what year it was for the subconites outside the rift, but it seemed like a pretty good bet that the girl pictured had passed away centuries ago. She set the frame down carefully and went to grab the rift pon.

As she was reaching for it, her elbow bumped into a vase, nearly toppling it over, but she caught it at the last second. The maneuver however, caused a piece of paper to slip off the desk and flutter to the ground, landing partially on her boot. Hat Kid knelt down to pick it up, meaning only to place it back where it had been sitting, but a name mentioned at the start of the note caught her attention.

“This is all my fault,” Hat Kid read the letter silently, “our prince has gone missing. Everyone suspects Vanessa is involved in his disappearance, but...we cannot even approach her.” She paused, wondering if it was the same Vanessa she knew. “I fear for what she may have done to him, and I worry that it has something to do with her reaction the last time I saw the prince. I knew she got jealous easily, but...she wouldn’t really believe her prince was having an affair simply because our hands brushed for a moment, would she? It’s absurd, and yet, that is what everyone seems to believe.” She paused for a minute as she turned the page. The writing on the back gradually became messier as if the writer had been in a rush. near the bottom of the page, small splotches smeared the ink and obscured some of the words, but this didn’t deter her from continuing. “I do not know what has become of our prince, but if it is my fault that he has vanished, then I think it is also my responsibility to help him return. I am going to the manor, alone. Everyone who has dared enter before me has not come back, and I wonder if they have met a fate similar to our prince. I intend to find out for myself, though I have little hope that I will make it back…”  

HK lowered the letter after reading the final line, a strange sense of dread filling her. “Oh peck…” she grumbled softly. “This is gonna be another tragic story, isn’t it?”

Chapter Text

“Hey, kiddo,” Snatcher shouted from outside, his voice somewhat muffled by the wall between them, “hurry it up in there.”

Hat Kid rolled her eyes, pocketed the letter, and grabbed the rift pon, making a mental note to ask Snatcher about the prince later. After all, if anyone would have some lame history facts about Subcon, it’d be him. She dashed down the stairs and headed towards the front door, ready to move on to the next area. But as she neared the entrance, a familiar shadowy hand blocked her path. She just narrowly managed to duck beneath it, but her hat was knocked off in the process.

“Snatcher!” She huffed as she stood up and brushed herself off, “Give it back!”

“Well, it’s nice to see that I can still hit you.” He smirked as his fingers sharpened to a point. “I think I’ll keep your hat for now. It’ll make for good leverage.”

“You already have my soul, why do you need my hat too?” She pouted, but Snatcher merely gave her an indifferent shrug. HK crossed her arms in annoyance and sighed before stomping over to the rift door. It wasn’t like she needed the hat for the level they were currently in anyway. She’d just get it back from him later.

Snatcher looked a bit irritated that she just walked away without putting up much of a fight. He liked messing with the hat brat, but it was no fun if she didn’t play along. He decided he’d get her later, and instead followed her to where she was waiting at the strange door. The rift pon reacted to it by lighting up brighter than before until she drew a little closer and the small orb blinked out of existence. As soon as it had vanished, the door swung open and a flash of white light shone through the tube. HK looked back to make sure Snatcher was following her, and was pleased to find him bewildered by the foreign technology. 

“Noodle ghosts first,” she said with a smug smile planted firmly on her face.

Snatcher pointed at it, still confused as to what he was supposed to do. Hat Kid muttered something under her breath before grabbing his tail and (trying) to drag him over to it. “Just. Get. IN!”

“Alright, alright!” He scooped her up by the cowl of her cape and set her beside the tube, eyeing her suspiciously. “This isn’t some kind of trap, right kid?”

“Oh my gosh,” HK brought her hands up to her face and dragged them down her cheeks in exasperation before hopping up on the ledge of the door. “Stay here if you want, but I’m going! Bye bye!” She called out to him as she leapt inside.

Snatcher watched with a curious expression as she disappeared into the light. After a second of staring down the tube, he looked back at the old Subcon, a mixture of grief and disgust manifesting within him. “Like heck I’m staying here.” He mumbled before flying into the door and following Hat Kid into the unknown.

Chapter Text

Hat Kid glided down from the place the rift door ejected her, landing softly on the ground below. She glanced back up and found a rather annoyed looking Snatcher emerging from the same place. She snickered as he flew down to her but stifled her laughter once he drew near. Done mocking him for the time being, she turned her attention back to the place they’d landed. They were in a forest this time, which made sense given how much of Subcon was surrounded by woods. But if this was Subcon, it was completely unrecognizable. HK looked around in awe. The trees were full of bright green leaves that filtered in the warm sunlight from above. There were birds and squirrels flitting about in the branches and rabbits hopping around in the lush grass below. Everywhere she looked was teeming with life. There was nothing spooky, toxic, or dead in this place. Nothing except Snatcher. HK looked back up at him, a wide smile taking up the majority of her face. Her excitement was painfully evident and he could already hear the barrage of questions coming before she’d opened her mouth.

“What’s wrong?” She asked with a far calmer tone than he’d expected. The smile on her face had been replaced by knitted brows and concerned eyes.

“Nothing, kid.” He adjusted his expression, grinning devilishly before poking her forehead. “Fix your face before it gets stuck like that.”

HK slapped his hand away, giggling slightly at the idea of such a thing happening. She stuck her tongue out at him once for good measure before addressing the real questions she had. “Where are we?”

“Subcon Forest.” Snatcher rolled his eyes and nudged her teasingly. “C’mon, kiddo. You’ve been stomping around my forest for half a week and you still can’t recognize the trees yet?” 

“I might’ve recognized them if they were dead.” She groaned. “I meant where in Subcon are we?” Snatcher gave her a blank look. “You don’t know either, do you?” She grinned and crossed her arms smugly.

“Hey, things changed after everything went to shi...heck...went to heck.” He corrected himself mid sentence, realizing that he couldn’t really swear in front of a kid. “Oh, but you could kill her? Yeah, makes sense.” He groaned internally. What were morals? He didn’t know anymore. “Anyway, we’ll just have to look around for something to tell us where we are.”

“Something other than trees?” HK clasped her hands behind her back and swayed back and forth on her heels, her expression still as annoying as it had been a second ago.

“You know, it’d be real easy for me to just pluck your eyes out right here, right now, kid.”

“Bet you won’t though!” HK shouted before taking off, not 100% sure he wouldn’t .

Snatcher flashed her an unamused glare before hanging his head in defeat and following her. She was right, at least for the time being. “Wait up, kid.” Once he got used to the weird technology, then maybe he could dispose of her and still get out. She hadn’t run too far ahead before she had reached a path. 

Snatcher still couldn’t tell where they were, but HK was signalling for him to head back a little further into the forest. He wasn’t sure why he obeyed her, but he hung back, trying to conceal himself among the trees. Several small forms suddenly ran past Hat Kid, giggling as they chased each other down the path. She waved back to him, signalling that it was clear.

“I think we’re back in the village!” She cheered and bounced up and down slightly. “But it looks way more fun now than it did before!”

Snatcher approached her cautiously, peering out from around the trees so that he could see down the path where she was pointing. Sure enough, there was Subcon Village in all its former glory. The neatly paved streets, the bright sunlight, the crystal clear stream, and the joyful sounds of its inhabitants enjoying...life. Snatcher smiled at the sight; it had been ages since he’d seen Subcon look so peaceful. It wasn’t something he thought he’d ever get to experience again. HK looked up at him, surprised at how content he suddenly looked, but his soft expression faltered and evaporated almost as quickly as it had appeared. He hadn’t noticed it at first, because he’d gotten so wrapped up in everything else, but everywhere he looked, there were decorations put up. Strands of lights were hung all throughout the square, tables were being put up with elaborate settings, and a band was rehearsing songs somewhere nearby. But the most obvious decorations were the ones mounted on everyone's person. Children darted around the square sporting strangely decorated masks depicting animals, runes, and skulls. Adults had similar masks, though many of them had theirs strapped to the sides of their heads or clipped to their bags or clothes. Others carried several of them in large baskets and handed them out to any who passed by without one.

“It looks like some kind of party is gonna happen soon!” Hat Kid’s face lit up with excitement as she clapped her hands together. “Maybe this rift won’t be so bad after all! We should go check it out while we look for the rift pons! Right, Snatcher?” Her smile and excitement faded the moment she laid eyes on him. “Snatcher?”

Sometimes it was hard for her to gauge exactly what Snatcher was feeling or thinking because he almost always had on that goofy grin, but she didn’t need a translator to tell her that something was seriously wrong now. His eyes had narrowed to the point that they were just two, thin vertical stripes, and his mouth had almost completely disappeared. She wasn’t sure what had changed in the last few seconds, but she could sense that he was in some distress. She silently started pushing him back into the forest, trying to put something between him and the village.

“Hey, what’s wrong with you?!” She huffed. “Are you scared of parties or something?” He didn’t respond. “Oh no, my big, spooky ghost friend is afraid of fun!” She wailed dramatically.

“This isn’t a celebration I’d like to be a part of, kid. That’s all.” Snatcher pinched the section of his face between his eyes and sighed. “Let’s just find the rift puns or whatever and go.”

“Pons,” she corrected him before looking him over, her expression growing more and more unsatisfied the longer she stared.

“What?” He laughed, though there was a hint of worry in his voice.

HK scrunched up her face and groaned, “you’ll scare everyone off like this! How are we going to look for the pons?”

Snatcher lowered himself to the ground almost as if he were trying to sit down, and casually rested his back against a tree. “I guess you’ll just have to look for them on your own. Tragic.” He said with a complacent smirk as he pretended to observe his nonexistent fingernails.

She put her hands on her hips and scowled. “Can’t you just shapeshift into someone more normal sized like you did earlier?”

“No magic, remember?” Snatcher snapped his fingers confidently, clearly not expecting anything to happen, but he surprised them both when a small puff of smoke obscured him from view and he reemerged a second later as a rabbit. “What…” he frowned as he hopped out from underneath the kid’s hat which hadn’t changed sizes with him.

Hat Kid did nothing to conceal her laughter, and just let herself fall back onto the grass, clutching her stomach as she squealed with delight. “Why a bunny?!” 

“THIS ISN’T WHAT I WAS GOING FOR!” He shouted furiously, but in his tiny form, his words came out as mere squeaks, only sending the kid further into hysterics. He waited for her to settle down before he continued in his still puny voice. “Ok, well my point still stands.” HK had to muffle her giggling with her sleeve. “People won’t be any less freaked out if they see an alien kid walking around with a glowy-eyed, talking ghost rabbit.”

“I don’t know,” she wiped a tear from her eye, “I think you look pretty cute like this!”

“I’ll kill you as soon as I switch back.” He grumbled irritably as she started snickering again.

“A-anyway,” she gasped as she actually tried to stop laughing, “try to turn into a person. I’ll find you a disguise and be back in a bit, ok?”

Snatcher rolled his eyes and let out a frustrated growl, “fine!”

Hat Kid took off towards the path once more, stopping briefly at the clearing to wave back to him, despite not being able to see him anymore. He waited until she disappeared from his line of sight to hop back out to the path and look towards the village once more. He’d already lost sight of the kid, but that wasn’t why he’d ventured back over there anyway. Still standing in the center of the square helping to arrange everything for the celebration that night, was a young woman with long flaxen hair that reached down to her waist and glowed gorgeously in the sun. Her familiar green dress caught the breeze as she spun on her heels to face another person trying to speak with her. A silent rage filled the now rabbit shaped shadow as his gaze remained locked on her. It wasn’t until he heard the gleeful whispers being uttered behind him that his attention shifted.

“What is that?” A kid knelt down behind him, lifting her mask so she could see him better.

A young boy who was with her, grabbed her shoulder and tried to pull her away. “D-don’t get too close! What if it attacks you?!”

“It’s just a rabbit!” The third kid scoffed.

“Well, yeah,” the girl continued to observe Snatcher a little too closely for his comfort, “but I’ve never seen one like this!”

Snatcher grinned suddenly, his usual, very unrabbit-like smile appearing on his too small face, before shifting back into his typical spectral form. He towered over the three children and crossed his arms over his chest, leaning down down that his massive eyes were looking directly into theirs before he said, “Boo!”

Chapter Text

Hat Kid could hear the terrified screams of the kids from the other side of the square where she was “borrowing” a cloak from someone’s unattended clothesline, and looked down the path just in time to see the trio come scrambling through the center of the village, screaming about a ghost. In their frenzied attempt to escape, the three of them flew past the blonde standing in the middle of their path and accidentally knocked her over. HK instinctively moved to catch her, but someone beat her to it.

A man clad in red attire swooped in and caught her clumsily, stumbling backwards as she fell into his arms. “Well, hello there! Nice of you to drop in!” He chuckled teasingly after they landed on the ground.

“Oh, you!” She gasped and jokingly pushed him away, though he couldn’t really go anywhere with her sitting on top of him.

“My love,” He smiled and gently kissed her forehead. “Shall I pursue them?”

“No,” she blushed and moved to stand up with the aid of his hand, somewhat embarrassed by how long she’d sat on top of him while everyone stared, “they were just children. It seemed as if something gave them quite a fright. I’m sure they didn’t mean to run into me like that.”

“Well, as long as you’re alright,” the man smiled up at her, still sitting on the ground where they fell.

“A-are you two ok?” HK approached them nervously, wondering if he wasn’t getting up because he’d gotten hurt. She was almost certain that Snatcher had something to do with the kids running into her in the first place. 

Her sudden appearance seemed to startle the two of them, making them jump slightly as they were brought out of their daydreaming and back into reality. “Oh my!” The woman exclaimed before laughing at herself. “I didn’t see you there! Yes, we’re quite alright. You don’t need to worry.”

HK looked at the man who was still on the floor, her concern written all over her face. Almost as if he understood what she was waiting for him to do, he got up and brushed himself off. “Right, of course! We’re fine!”

“So you’re not hurt?” She let out a relieved sigh when they shook their heads.

“Still, I do wonder what frightened them so badly.” The woman glanced back down the path.

“They were shouting something about a ghost.” The man snickered until the woman gently kicked him in the shin. “Right, yeah! Wonder what it could have been!” He stiffened and changed his answer, though the snarky look remained in his amber eyes.

“Uh...um…” HK panicked slightly at the thought that someone might try to look for what scared the children and find Snatcher. So without really thinking, she tossed the borrowed cloak over her head and waved her arms around. “I-it was me!”

“You?” The man asked surprised.

“I was pretending to be a ghost to scare them!” She replied a little more confidently. “See? OooOoooOOOooh!” She moaned for good measure. There were a few beats of confused silence before the two of them burst into laughter. Hat Kid lifted the cloak to peer up at them, still worried. “You guys aren’t mad, are you?”

“No, no, of course not, sweetheart!” The woman laughed. 

“No harm done. You’re alright.” The man added before frowning suddenly. “Although…” He walked a circle around her, “You seem to be missing a mask. Aren’t you coming to the ceremony tonight?”

“The ceremony?” She asked quietly as she folded the cloak back up in her arms.

“Yes,” the woman stepped forward and offered to help her fold it, “tonight is the night where the kingdom observes its prince and princess dance beneath the new moon in celebration of their new reign. It is tradition.”

HK took the cloak back from her. “Oh, thank you. I’d like to go, but…”

“Aw, don’t say it like that!” He frowned and reached into his bag to get something. “You make it sound like you won’t come.”

“W-well, it’s just...I need to do something first and my friend doesn’t really want to-” she was stopped mid sentence by him placing something on her head. “What’s this?” She reached up and pulled off the mask he’d given her. It was far more elaborate than any of the others she had seen. It was painted a pale blue, had big, puffy eyes with red circles and diamonds in them, and a cheerful smile that took up most of the lower half. 

“Oh, but dear, you made that one for yourself!” The woman cried.

“Ah, it’s alright. I can just get another one!” He smiled at her kindly. “Let’s make a deal, ok? You can have that one if you promise to join us at the ceremony tonight.”

HK beamed excitedly and put the mask back on. “Ok!” 

“Oh, right! Before you go, I don’t believe we caught your name.”

“My friends just call me Hat Kid!” She blurted before remembering that she wasn’t wearing her signature hat.

“Hat Kid?” He sneered. “What a weird-” the woman frowned and bopped him on the back of the head before he could finish saying it. “That’s a lovely name!” He corrected himself wearily. “Well, not that we need any introduction,” he bowed gracefully before her, “my name is Thea, and this is my soon to be fiance.”

“You can just call me Nessa.” She nodded her head almost regally. “That’s what the other children call me.”

“It’s nice to meet you!” She bowed back quickly.

“Well, I enjoyed meeting you, Hat Kid!” Nessa chirped, “I hope to see you again tonight!”

HK watched as the two of them linked arms and waved before strolling off, a bright smile still plastered on her face. Nessa rested her head against Thea’s shoulder as they went. “Aww.” She gushed silently. “I hope we run into them again. I bet even Snatcher would like them.”

With a mask and cloak in tow, she headed back towards the forest to find Snatcher. She’d have to talk to him about not drawing too much attention to himself after she got him into his new disguise. She wandered down the path for a bit before checking to make sure no one was following her. Once she was sure she was in the clear, she slipped back into the more heavily wooded area where Snatcher was waiting. He was, unsurprisingly, back to his usual form, and he’d returned her hat to his head. 

“I should have taken that back while you were a bunny, huh?” She sighed, alerting him to her arrival.

“Hey, kiddo! What took so long?”

“You scared some kids, and a nice lady almost got hurt because they were trying to run away!” She exclaimed irritably, though it was clear that he only saw that as an accomplishment. She sighed and tossed the cloak to him. “Whatever, just switch forms and let’s go. We’ve got to find the rift pons before the ceremony tonight.”

“Ceremony?” Snatcher grimaced at the word, though HK didn’t notice since her back was now turned. He already knew what was going to happen, but how’d the kid find out?

“Yeah, that’s what that nice lady said. Oh!” She spun around to face him again. “She told me tonight's ceremony is some weird dance thing to celebrate the prince and princess getting married.”

“Ah, that’s how,” he mumbled to himself.

“Why don’t you want to celebrate that?” There was a sincere curiosity in her words, which only made him more uncomfortable.

“Oh, it’s too embarrassing!” He cried sarcastically as another puff of smoke emerged between them, only this time Snatcher actually came out as a shadowy version of Hat Kid. “I can’t dance.” He pretended to faint melodramatically, going so far as to drop onto his back and moan.

“That’s not why, you jerk!” HK jogged over to him and started dragging him by his leg, much to his amusement. “C’mon! Get up!”

“Hey, kid.” Snatcher’s playful tone went away when he spotted the mask. “Where’d you get that?”

“Oh,” she reached up and pulled it off her head to hand it to him, “there was a guy with that girl you almost hurt. He said I could have it if I went to the dance tonight.” His expression was even harder to read now that he looked like her, but he’d been staring at it in silence long enough to make her worry. “What now-hey!” He cut her off by slapping the mask back over her face before turning to grab the cloak off the ground. “Why’d you give it back? You need this to hide your ugly face!”

“This is your face. You do realize that, don’t you?” He snickered as he removed her hat and pulled the hood over his head. “We might run into the guy who gave you that again, and he’d probably be offended if you gave it to someone else. Besides,” he held her hat up and waved it in front of him, “I know I’ve seen you turn this into a normal dweller mask before. Just make it do that again.”

Realizing that he had a point about the fancy mask she’d been given, HK reluctantly turned her hat into the red and white variation of the dwellers mask and positioned it on Snatcher’s face so that only the tiniest bit of light from his eyes and mouth shone through. Satisfied with his disguise, she pulled her new mask down over her face and lead the way back to the path so they could finally begin their search for the rift pons.

“Alright!” She twirled to show off the mask. “How’s it look?” Snatcher gave her a few, painfully slow claps in response. “Boo!” She frowned. “Whatever. Let’s go!” 

Chapter Text

Hat Kid bounded out of the forest and back onto the main path. Snatcher trailed a short distance behind her, fiddling with the cloak wrapped around him. It felt weird wearing actual clothing. He was a ghost for peck’s sake! Who makes a ghost wear tangible clothes? Only the kid as far as he was aware. She was right though. He knew these people, and they wouldn’t have handled seeing a real ghost any better than those three children from earlier did. A cruel part of him desired nothing more than to use being trapped in the rift as an opportunity to wreak havoc on his own subjects. They’d be easier to frighten than his current minions anyway, but showing his face around these people posed a greater risk. The kid could not be allowed to find out the whole truth. If the rift wanted to show her some dumb dance, fine, but the rest of his past needed to stay in the past, far away from the hat brat’s prying eyes. Snatcher hadn’t realized how lost in thought he’d gotten until he quite literally stumbled into Hat Kid and toppled both of them over.

“Snatcher, you big dummy!” She huffed as they got back up and brushed themselves off. “Pay attention! Were you even listening?”

“Were you even talking?” He retorted, though truthfully, he had no idea if she had been or not.

“Aaaaaaaah!” She let out a quiet frustrated scream before grabbing him by the sides of his head and turning him towards a group of kids on the other side of the bridge. “Look!”

“Kid, what are you doing?” He growled and shook himself free. “ What are you trying to show me?”

“The kid!”

“Which one?” He groaned impatiently, “there’s probably over twenty kids there.”

Hat Kid pointed to one in particular who was carrying one of the baskets filled with extra masks. Snatcher didn’t quite understand what she wanted him to see until the boy turned around for a moment to let someone catch up to him. “The raft pon…”

“Rift…” she corrected.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Come on!” Snatcher gently tapped her arm with the back of his hand as he flew past her and darted towards the kid with the pon.

“W-wait up!” She cried as she chased after him. He was surprisingly quick, though she supposed it probably had to do with the fact that his feet weren’t even touching the ground. She grit her teeth and sped up. “Snatcher, start running like a normal person before someone sees you!”

Her remark, of course, turned a few heads,forcing Snatcher to land rather unnaturally so no one would spot him, this however only resulted in him tripping just as he cleared the bridge. Hat Kid caught up to him, panting from how hard she had to run just to keep up. As soon as she caught her breath though she started laughing. “How do you run on these stupid meat sticks?” Snatcher groaned and picked himself up unsteadily.

“What, you didn't have legs back when you were alive?” 

“Ha ha,” he replied monotonously. “It’s been a while, and it didn't help that I had to start doing it while I was already moving!” Hat Kid sneered. “Even ghosts have to follow some rules of physics.” This only seemed to fuel her giggling. “Yeah, ok, fine. This is fine. Come on, we’re gonna lose the kid at this rate.” 

“Yeah.” Hat Kid brushed a few pieces of grass off of the back of his cloak as they started walking again. After Snatcher seemed to adjust a bit, they picked up the pace, but they didn’t stand much chance of catching up to the kid now unless he’d stopped somewhere up ahead. “Hey, Snatcher?” She slowed down as they approached a long narrow pathway that lead to a hauntingly familiar building. “Isn’t that…”

“I should have known.” 

“He went in there, didn’t he,” she asked anxiously. Her last trip to the manor was traumatizing to say the least. She didn’t want to go in there any more than Snatcher did.

“Probably.” He lifted his mask and frowned, his eyes narrowed in a pensive manner as he stared at the house. “How historically accurate are these rift things?”

“Well, I’ve only been in a few purple ones that got this detailed, but based on what happened with the Conductor, I’d say they’re pretty close. Most of the stuff that gets messed up only gets messed up because someone from outside the rift did something.”

“Like you getting that mask?”

“Or you scaring those kids.” She snapped back, eliciting a snarky grin from her ghostly friend. “But yeah, Mr. Thea was probably going to give it to someone else, but I showed up instead.”

“‘Mr. Thea?’” Snatcher looked like he’d been smacked by a bag of bricks. He was centuries old, sure, but he’d never been called ‘mister’ before. But the realization that she really had met him was far worse.

“A-are you ok?” Hat Kid held her arms out as if she’d expected him to keel over. His vacant smile was a pretty concerning sight to behold.

He waved her off and pulled the mask back down over his face. “As long as you’re right about the rift’s accuracy here, we shouldn’t have to worry about getting attacked by little miss ice-to-meet-you.” He shook his head. “At any rate though, it’d be better if the queen isn’t home. It’ll be easier for us to find the kid and search the place if she’s not around.”

Hat Kid nodded in agreement, and the two of them continued to jog up the path leading to the manor. A sense of unease washed over them with each step they took, even though they were both pretty sure the violent demon wouldn’t be inside. They stuck close together as they cautiously climbed the front steps, continuously glancing between the statues and the door, half expecting the former to come alive and the latter to swing open on its own, but neither of those things happened. They felt strangely irked by how uneventful their trek had been. Nonetheless, Hat Kid banged her fist against the front door, probably more forcibly than necessary, and waited for someone to answer. The sound of footsteps could be heard coming down the hallway, making the pair of them back up slightly, ready to fight if the shadowy queen were to emerge. They were half right about who would answer the door.

“Nessa!” Hat Kid squealed enthusiastically.

“Oh! It's you again!” Nessa exclaimed cheerfully. “Aw, and look how sweet you look in that mask!” Hat Kid tugged on the bottom of the mask to conceal her blushing. “Is this your friend you mentioned earlier?”

“Yeah!” Hat Kid reached back and grabbed Snatcher's hand and pulled him closer to the woman.

“And what might your name be?” She crouched down in front of them, smiling pleasantly as she spoke. 

After a few beats of silence, Hat Kid glanced over to Snatcher to wordlessly insist that he respond, but she was distracted by her trembling hand. Or rather, the hand trembling within hers. Snatcher stood stiff and unmoving as Nessa waited patiently for him to answer her. His hand was still locked in Hat Kid’s, and now he seemed to be clinging to her for dear life. If he was trying to conceal how much he was shaking, he wasn't doing a very good job.

“Uh, um, he's,” Hat Kid stumbled over her own words, still shocked by his reaction to the nice lady, “he's kind of shy. Don't worry about him!”

“O-oh, is that so?” Nessa stood up with a somewhat disheartened look on her face. Hat Kid felt a little guilty realizing that she probably wasn't used to having a child so clearly frightened by her. She quickly shook the solemn expression off though and replaced it once more with a dazzling smile. “Well, Hat Kid and nameless friend, you are both welcome to come inside and enjoy a treat with the other children.”

“A treat?” Hat Kid perked up.

“Yes, cookies to be exact!” Nessa clapped her hands together. “I made them myself!”

“Aah, cookies!” She cheered and bounced in place giddily.

She placed a hand over her mouth and laughed at the excited child. “Well then, follow me!”

Hat Kid gleefully obeyed, taking a step after her as she entered the manor, but her progress was cut short. Snatcher didn't move from his spot on the front steps. His grip on her hand had somehow tightened even more and it seemed to HK that if he squeezed much harder her fingers would break. “Snatcher!” She whined as she moved back towards him and lifted her mask. “What are you doing? Come on!”

“We are not going in there!” He whispered harshly.

“Yes. We. Are.” Hat Kid huffed just as hotly and tried to pull him inside. Her efforts were in vain however. It seemed that even in this smaller form, his usual strength remained the same. She let out a heavy sigh, “why are you so freaked out by that nice lady?”

“If you knew who she was, you'd be scared too,” He snapped.

“Haha, so you are scared,” she taunted, prompting him to tighten his grasp on her further. “Ow, ow, ok! Sorry!” She winced as he loosened his grip, but he didn't let go of her. “She said her name was Nessa, and she's nice! I don't see why we cant have some cookies before looking for the rift pons. What's the big deal?”

Snatcher looked at her incredulously, though she couldn't see that. “Do you even hear yourself?! That's her !”

“And?” Hat Kid raised an eyebrow, still not fully understanding him.

“She lives at the manor at the edge of the village?!” Snatcher continued, though he made an effort to keep his voice down.

“A lot of people could live here,” she pointed out. “Why does it matter if she lives here or not?”

“SHE'S A MONSTER,” he roared, unable to hide his frustration with the child any longer.

“Rude.”

“Kid, I’m serious.”

Hat Kid stared at him in complete awe for a second, contemplating the reasoning behind his sudden outburst before ultimately deciding it was some kind of joke. She burst out laughing, “What?! No she's not! Come on, Snatcher, I'm not that stupid.”

Snatcher was certain that if he had a brain in that moment, he would have had an aneurysm. “Kid,” he wheezed, “are you serious? How can you not…”

“Oh, there you are!” Nessa reappeared in the doorway. “I walked all the way to the kitchen, and when I turned around, you two were gone.”

Hat Kid jumped at the sound of her voice, but recovered quickly, turning away from Snatcher and yanking her hand away. “Ah, we got separated from you and got lost. We somehow made it back here though!” She laughed nervously, realizing how absurd the lie sounded, but it was better than saying ‘my friend seems to hate your guts, bye.’

“Oh, dear. I do have a habit of walking too quickly; I’m sorry.” She bowed her head apologetically.

“N-no, it was our fault! We’ll keep up this time, won’t we?” She jabbed Snatcher in the ribs, eliciting a sharp grunt from her shadowy friend.

“Yeah, right. Sure thing.” His tone was dripping with malice as he eyed the blonde through the mask.

Nessa and Hat Kid either didn’t notice or didn't pay him any mind however, as they immediately headed down the hallway towards the kitchen. Snatcher groaned, but followed close behind.

Chapter Text

The layout of the manor didn't appear any different than it was outside the rift. The only real difference was the comforting lack of nail markings, ice statues, and dark corners. Everything was clean and bright, much to Hat Kid’s relief. There were no signs of a rampant crazy ice queen, but there were signs of commotion up ahead. Excited chattering gradually grew in volume as they neared the kitchen. Upon reaching the doorway, it became clear as to why.

The kitchen area was overflowing with children of all ages, decorating more of the strange ornamental masks at the long table in the center of the room. Along the wall were massive plates loaded with piles of cookies that rivaled her in size. Hat Kid’s eyes lit up at the sight of the treats and let Nessa gently guide her over to the person who was handing them out. Snatcher remained in the doorway, reluctant to go into a room where he could easily get cornered, and instead, chose to watch them from a distance. While Hat Kid got some cookies, he kept his eye out for the boy they’d come for, but in the mass of small bodies, it was hard to distinguish which one he was supposed to find. It didn't help that they had been too far away to really make out what the kid looked like. He switched gears and tried to just spot the light of the rift pon itself, but he couldn’t even see that. The room was too bright and crowded to see much from the entranceway. 

Hat Kid wasn’t so distracted by the cookies that she’d forgotten what they went in for however, and even while she was getting the food, she was keeping an eye out for the boy. Fortunately for her, she had a much better angle of the room, and found him pretty quickly. He was sitting near the back, close to the window and the fridge. Someone handed her two plates, reminding her that one was for her friend, and sent her off to find a seat somewhere. A couple of kids ran up to Nessa, freeing Hat Kid up to carry out their plan. But first, she had to get Snatcher out of the doorway.

“Come on! Stop hiding!” She linked arms with Snatcher and forced him into the swarm of children. From across the room, she spotted the boy with the rift pon once more and darted towards the couple of empty seats that were near him. “Don’t worry, Snatcher,” she smiled sympathetically, still sensing that he really didn’t want to be there, “we’ll get the rift pon and leave. I don’t really want to stay in the manor either, even if it is nicer now.”

“Fine.” 

Snatcher didn’t struggle as much as he had earlier. There was no fighting the kid this time since the boy with the pon could easily disappear with it if they lost sight of him again. At least it was a kid and not Vanessa herself who had it. How hard could it be to take it from him anyway? They’d just sneak up behind him and snatch it. Easy peasy. Or not. His train of thought was interrupted by Hat Kid plopping him down on a little stool at the table. She sat down next to him and set the two plates of cookies down in front of them before chowing down on hers. Snatcher recoiled at the sight of her eating those things and had to physically keep himself from smacking them out of her hands.

“S he didn’t poison these. The room would be full of dead kids if she had. These are safe. They’re safe, ” He silently reminded himself, though he clearly still didn’t fully trust the treats laid out before him.

“You aren’t going to eat yours?” Hat Kid’s voice was muffled by the several cookies that were still in her mouth as she spoke. She was absolutely covered in crumbs and only spread the mess further by talking.

“Ugh, kid,” he groaned. “Swallow first.”

She gulped them down and laughed, “are you gonna eat those or not?”

“Maybe in a minute,” he lied.

“If you aren’t going to eat them, I will!” A chipper voice called out from the other side of the table. Hat Kid and Snatcher both looked up to see the boy they’d been chasing staring at them expectantly. The rift pon sat near the top of his basket of masks, glimmering faintly.

“Get your own, kid,” Snatcher sneered, hoping the child would leave the basket behind long enough for them to snatch the pon and bail.

“I can’t,” he lamented. “I already had my plate.”

“Can’t you just ask for some more?” Hat Kid naturally had ulterior motives in asking; she’d already mentally called dibs on Snatcher’s cookies. 

“Oh, we only get one plate, because the rest are for tonight,” he explained with a disappointed sigh. “Which is too bad. I really wanted more now.”

“How badly?” Snatcher’s eyes gleamed mischievously as he folded his hands in front of his face.

“Snatcher…” Hat Kid warned him implicitly, half expecting that he’d try to steal the kid’s soul or something over a plate of cookies.

“Let’s make a trade.” He grinned beneath the mask. Hat Kid eyed Snatcher’s untouched plate of cookies then looked at him; she instantly figured out what he was doing, “My cookies for that ball of yours.” The kid picked up the shining orb and looked between it and the cookies for half a second before practically tossing the pon at them and scarfing down the cookies. “Good decision!”

“Glad I didn’t eat them first, haha!” Hat Kid nudged Snatcher playfully as she tucked the rift pon away.

“Yeah, yeah. Way to restrain yourself, kid.” He rolled his eyes and smirked. “We got what we came for. Let’s go.” She nodded and pushed her seat back so she could get up, but before she did:

“It’s the prince!” One of the children screamed causing the rest of the room to erupt in cheers.

“The prince?” Hat Kid glanced towards the doorway. This was good. She had been wondering about the letter for a while now. If she knew who she was looking for information on, it’d be easier to learn what happened to him. Or so she thought. The man who stood at the entrance, the one everyone in the room had referred to, only made a knot form in the pit of her stomach. “Oh no…”

“My, my, I’m popular today,” Thea said playfully as he stepped into the crowded room. “Ah, my love! I thought I might find you here.” He made his way over to her, careful not to bump into any of the many children now swarming him. He knelt before her, taking one of her hands in his before gently placing a kiss on the back of her fingers.

“Must you do that every time,” she asked as she tried to restrain the smile and deep red hue from appearing on her face with her free hand.

“Well, if you actually wanted me to stop,” He stood up, still grinning snarkily, “I would.”

She sighed and lowered her hand from her face, revealing her bright smile and flushed cheeks. “What did you need?”

“Ah, well I figured since I need a new mask, I’d take this opportunity to make ours match!” He fished a plain, unpainted half-mask from his bag and showed it to her. “I need the paint you used for yours though.”

Nessa looked touched by the idea and ran her fingers across the smooth wood. “It’s downstairs in the cellar. I didn’t think we’d be needing it, so I had the guards store it down there. Shall I have one of them fetch it for you?”

“No, no, I can't get it. It’s just some paint.” He scoffed and waved his hand. 

“That’s what you said about bringing that vat in in the first place,” she huffed, “and you got hurt trying to carry it by yourself!”

“I just had some trouble with the doors,” he countered sheepishly.

 “Ah, we can help!” the boy who’d had the rift pon piped up, seemingly volunteering himself and the duo.

“Oh, yeah!” Hat Kid stood up and wiped the worried look off her face.

“It’s you!” Thea looked pleasantly surprised. “Hat Kid, right? I didn’t quite expect to find you here.”

“She convinced her friend to come along too!” Nessa clasped her hands together and beamed. “He’s a bit shy though.”

“Ah, well,” he crouched down in front of Snatcher, Hat Kid, and the boy, “it’s nice to meet you. Would you be so kind as to lend me your hands for a moment?”

“Yeah! We'd be happy to, right?” Hat Kid turned to Snatcher. She had expected him to be mildly annoyed by the extra detour, but instead she found him squirming uncomfortably and backing away. “H-hey…”

“Oh, dear.” Thea took a few steps back. “If you don’t want to, you certainly don't have to come. Just one of you ought to be enough anyway.”

Snatcher’s gaze darted between Thea and the door, but he couldn’t quite make himself move. “Y-you can’t…” the words came out as a tremulous whisper.

“What?” Hat Kid lifted the mask and eyed him worriedly.

“...not there…” he seemed to be rambling about something, but she wasn’t quite sure what. Snatcher shuddered. He didn’t need to breathe, but for some reason he felt as if he was suffocating. He could not go back to the cellar. Never again. Not after what happened last time. It was with that final line of thought that he charged past Thea and bolted out the door, leaving Hat Kid behind in the kitchen, just as confused as everyone else.

“What was that all about,” the boy who had traded them the rift pon murmured.

Thea folded his arms across his chest and covered his mouth with one of his hands. “I-I didn’t mean to scare him…” He seemed genuinely upset about the situation. Hat Kid cringed as she caught a glimpse of the pained look in his eyes.

“It’s...not your fault.” She tried to say reassuringly, but she wasn’t too convinced that it wasn’t. “He’s been kind of weird since we got here.”

“Still…” he rubbed his forehead as his brows knitted with concern.

“Oh, Thea…” Nessa placed her hands on his arm and squeezed gently.

“I-I’m really sorry about this!” Hat Kid bowed swiftly and started walking towards the kitchen door.

As she was leaving, another child approached Thea and Nessa and tugged on her dress. “Why did he run away, Queen Vanessa?”

Hat Kid froze just outside the door. “ Queen V-Vanessa? ” She whirled back around to see the blonde crouch down beside the child and tenderly try to explain the situation, even though she herself didn’t know why Snatcher had reacted so negatively. “ N-no way… ” She stared at her in horror and disbelief. How could someone so sincere and kind turn into...that. Her gaze shifted to the prince, who still seemed disheartened but now wore a more calm expression. The realization struck her that Snatcher had probably already known, “ He’s in danger. ”

Hat Kid wanted to warn him, but she remembered the last time she tried to prevent something from happening in a rift. There was nothing she could say or do to change his fate, so she grit her teeth, clenched her fists, and tore off after Snatcher. It had only been a moment since he’d run away, and even though he was much faster than her, she guessed that she’d be able to spot him in the vast open clearing outside. Evidently she thought wrong. There was no one in sight for as far as she could see. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Snatcher had been right about Nessa, and she hadn’t listened. She probably needed to apologize for that, or at least for dragging him inside. He had made it painfully clear that he didn’t want to be there.

Hat Kid laughed slightly at the idea that Snatcher of all things was scared of some person, but quickly stifled it. The Vanessa she knew wasn’t as friendly as the version she’d met today, and on top of that, she had no idea what kind of stuff the one she did know had done to her ghostly friend. As she continued watching she began imagining possible scenarios. She did know that Vanessa messed up some parts of the forest, and there was a large section Snatcher and his minions couldn’t explore easily because of her ice. Then she remembered the original Subcon Village and stopped in her tracks. Maybe she destroyed his home. Hat Kid hugged her chest and grimaced. She was all too familiar with the pain that came from losing the place you lived; she didn’t want to think about how much worse it felt if you could never even return. Shaking the intrusive thoughts from her head, Hat Kid began her search once more.

Chapter Text

“Snatcher!” She cupped her hands around her mouth in a vain attempt to make herself louder. “Snatcher, where’d you go?!” When he didn’t answer, her shoulders slumped forward and she sighed dejectedly. “Why did you run off like that?”

She still hadn’t seen him on the way back to the village and silently assumed he’d already made his way there. As she entered the square, she cast an anxious glare up at the darkening sky. The lights that had been strung up earlier were now ablaze with a muted yellow light that illuminated the streets and buildings. As peaceful as the sight was, it made HK nervous. It’d be a lot harder to find Snatcher in the dark, especially if he’d run into the forest. She really hoped he hadn’t done that.

“If he did, it’d be better to look for him now while there’s still some light,” she reasoned with herself as she stared down the path to the woods. “But it’ll be harder to find the rift pons in the dark too...we haven’t even found the door yet!” She moaned and buried her face in her hands. 

“Are you alright?” A hand was placed on her shoulder, startling her out of her thoughts. “Oh! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to frighten you!” 

“N-no, it’s ok! I was just-” she froze as she turned to face the woman who had approached her. Bright, rose colored hair, a freckled face, and worried eyes looked down at her. “Camellia…”

The woman jumped slightly, “do...do you know me? I-I’m very sorry, but I don’t actually recall meeting you.”

Hat Kid lifted her mask, forgetting to hide the obvious concern on her face. “No, we’ve never met, but…” she should have known she’d run into the florist eventually. She’d already met the prince and the kind woman who was believed to bring his demise. Now, crouching down before her, glancing the child over for signs of injury, was yet another character involved in the mystery of the prince’s fate.

“Are you hurt anywhere?” Camellia seemed to give up since she couldn’t really tell, but she didn’t seem convinced when Hat Kid told her ‘no.’ “What’s the matter then, sweetheart? You look distressed.”

“ Don’t go to the manor ,” She thought to herself, but of course it wasn’t something she could really say out loud. Even if she did, Camellia had already met whatever fate she had, likely centuries ago. “I got separated from my friend,” she muttered and began fiddling with her mask.

“Oh dear…” Camellia looked around, not really certain of who she was keeping an eye out for, before gently extending her hand. “Well, why don’t you come over here with me?”

“Huh?”

“My shop is pretty close to the center of the town. You pretty much have to walk by it to get anywhere.” She smiled reassuringly. “Come sit with me for a while. I’m sure you’ll spot your friend if you do.” Hat Kid somewhat doubted that, especially if he really had gone into the forest, but she was tired, and the threat of getting lost by searching on her own was frightening to her. She silently nodded and took Camellia’s hand, praying that she was right. “That’s it,” she said as she stood back up and guided the child through the center of the square. 

Sure enough, her shop really did rest pretty close to the village’s main intersection, and it did seem like most of Subcon’s inhabitants were making their way through there, regardless of which way they were headed. A tiny bit of hope was restored that Snatcher might actually come through there if she just waited. But even if he didn’t, Hat Kid had found another reason to stick around.

As Camellia led her to her shop, Hat Kid caught a glimpse of a distinctively shiny object shimmering vibrantly from within a bouquet of flowers. “That’s-” she cut herself off, realizing that most of the time the people in the rift didn’t understand that the rift pons were for her anyway. She’d have to find a way to convince her otherwise.

“So, what’s your name, sweetheart,” Camellia asked her warmly as she collected a stool for the child to sit upon.

“Hat Kid,” she replied more cheerfully than before.

Camellia made the same face Thea had made when hearing that, kind of confused and then kind of disgusted. “Your parents named you that?”

“N-no!” She waved her hands out in front of her. “That’s just what my friends call me.” It really did make more sense when she had her hat. That was twice now that Snatcher had messed up her introductions, and both times he hadn’t even been around. Way to go, noodle ghost.

“Haha, well then, pleasure to meet you, Hat Kid!” She still seemed kind of irked by the name, but went along with it nonetheless. “I take it you’re coming to tonight’s ceremony?” She asked as she pointed to the mask she now held in her hands. “You did a really good job making that! I’ve never seen a mask quite like it!”

“Oh!” Hat Kid shook her head. “I didn’t make this. Thea gave to me!”

Once again, a mixed look appeared on Camellia’s face. “P-Prince Thea?” Hat Kid nodded nervously, unsure of why the woman seemed so surprised, or perhaps...scared. “Well, that was awfully nice of him. I wouldn’t have expected him to give that one away though.”

“Why not? He said he could just make a new one…” she suddenly felt guilty for accepting it again. “Earlier he even seemed glad he gave it away, so he could make his new one match Nessa’s.”

“Ah,” Camellia looked relieved all of a sudden, “that makes more sense. He’d go to great lengths to make our queen happy.”

“Y-yeah,” Hat Kid agreed though the dreaded reminder that something bad was going to happen to them crinkled in her pocket, making her smile fade a bit.

Camellia could sense her sudden unease and tried to find a way to calm her before her mood worsened. “Well, since you’re going to the ceremony, would you like me to do your hair?” The question sort of came out of nowhere and surprised her, but Hat Kid could tell she was trying to help her and nodded. “Come here for a second then!” Camellia lifted her off the stool and moved over to one of the many flower stands. “Pick whichever ones you like!”

“What, why?” Hat Kid’s eyes darted between every display, confused as to why flowers were being discussed so abruptly.

“I’m going to put them in your hair, silly!”

“Oh!” Opportunity had struck and she immediately pointed to the bunch of flowers that contained the rift pon. “Those!”

Camellia followed her finger to the bouquet and cringed. Her surprised gasp startled Hat Kid. “Those? Are you sure?”

“Y-yeah…” Hat Kid frowned. “Why, is something wrong with them?”

“N-no, but...it’s just those aren’t really…” Camellia stared at the purple and white flowers for a moment. “Why those?”

“They’re pretty.” She replied quickly, trying to hide her real goal of getting the pon sitting with them. 

Once again she turned her gaze back to the bouquet and sighed. She couldn’t expect a child to understand the significance of that particular display, but it also felt wrong to use them to adorn her hair. Still, she couldn’t bear to ruin the kid’s perception of a plant just because someone decided they meant something unpleasant. So Camellia sighed once more, smiled tightly, and began cutting off the stems of the white chrysanthemums and purple hyacinths. Once they were ready, she placed them back in the paper wrapper they had come from and handed them to Hat Kid.

“Could you hold them for me while I work?” She smiled sweetly as the girl took them and placed them in her lap. The rift pon was still sitting inside the wrapper, but she couldn’t just take it, not yet anyway. “I think I’ll braid your hair. Is that alright? We’ll kind of match!” She showed off the way she’d done her own hair, though her ponytail was much longer than Hat Kid’s hair. She nodded anyway and began scanning the bustling streets for Snatcher, but Camellia didn’t seem content with just sitting in silence. “So, your friend...what do they look like,” she asked, hoping she could keep a look out for Snatcher too. 

“Oh well, um…” This was a real dilemma, because she couldn’t actually describe him, and if she just tried to explain what he was wearing, she’d basically describe every other person in the square. “W-well, he has on a reddish-brown cloak, and he’s wearing a white mask with red lines all over it. Oh, it has horns or something too that are red at the top!” She tried to think of something else to say, but unless he’d taken the disguise off, that was all Camellia would be able to see of him anyway.

“Oh,” Camellia sounded a bit disappointed when she realized that it would be next to impossible to spot one mask out of the hundreds passing by them. She could understand why the child had been so distraught when she’d first found her. “W-well, I’m sure he’ll pass through here eventually. The ceremony takes place right there after all.” She pointed to the center of the square. “He’ll have to if he’s joining in on tonight's festivities!”

Hat Kid bit her lip as she recalled him rather adamantly declaring that he didn’t want to go. Most of her hope rested on the fact that he was aware that they had to find the pons and the rift door if they wanted to leave before it started. And since she had two pons in her possession, it wasn’t likely that he found enough extras to leave without her. 

“You aren’t from around here, are you?”

“My friend is, but I’m just visiting,” Hat Kid confirmed her suspicions.

“What’s it like? At home?” She smiled as she tilted her head back to brush her bangs.

“Well, I live veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery far away!” Hat Kid began with a hint of excitement. No one had asked her about where she was from. “Everyone lives in these big houses covered in metal and these glowy scribble things, and most of our stuff is controlled by these really cool hourglasses that have the power to mess with time!” 

Camellia snorted and had to stop brushing the child’s hair for a moment before her laughter insulted the girl. “Oh my, that sounds quite exciting!”

Hat Kid frowned, knowing full well that the redhead didn’t believe a word she was saying. “It’s true!” Camellia was still trying to contain her laughter, though she did nod to signal that she definitely believed what she was saying. “I came here by falling from my spaceship in the sky and kicking my friends butt! I wouldn’t be here right now if he hadn’t broken one of the timepieces and made this rift!”

Camellia looked slightly uncomfortable with Hat Kid’s outburst, and did her best to change the topic as she started to thread the flowers into her hair. “Well, what about your friend? Where does he live here?”

“He lives in a big tree in the forest.”

“A...tree?” she repeated disbelievingly. 

“Yeah, but I couldn’t tell you where it’s at  now, because this place is really different from the Subcon he’s from.”

“What does that mean?” Camellia chuckled, but the sincerity in which Hat Kid spoke of these things was...unnerving.

“We’re from a future Subcon. I don't know about him, but I definitely wasn’t alive when this Subcon existed.”

“I see…” she maintained a cheerful disposition, but inside she was screaming something about Hat Kid being a witch. “Is there anything else I should know about this friend of yours?”

“He’s a ghost,” She blurted. Camellia finally stopped working on her hair, the flower still hovering over the section of braid she had intended to place it. Hat Kid laughed nervously, realizing she’d probably made a mistake in mentioning that. 

If Camellia was superstitious, she may have just scared her, but it was more likely that the woman no longer believed that the child was looking for someone real . Fortunately for Hat Kid, she resumed her work with a brief chuckle and an exhausted, “is that so?”

The two of them stayed quiet after that save for the occasional moments where someone would come up to Camellia to get something. When Camellia started to pack up for the night, Hat Kid looked up and saw the last sliver of the sun vanish into the horizon, plunging the world beyond the square into darkness. If Snatcher wasn’t in the Village, her chances of finding him before morning were slim to none now. Camellia came back to collect the last of her equipment and was surprised to find the girl still sitting on the stool. She had really hoped her friend would turn up while she was gone, but it didn’t seem like they were that lucky. Sensing her getting anxious again, the redhead gently patted her shoulder.

“It’s alright. I’m sure he’ll turn up any minute now,” she tried to sound confident for the child’s sake, but she was starting to believe otherwise.

Hat Kid sighed and hopped off the stool. They needed to get out of the way so final preparations could be made anyway. “I’m gonna look around for him again. Maybe he decided to sit and wait for me somewhere and that’s why we haven’t seen him.”

“I…” Camellia blushed, “I didn’t even consider that. Oops.”

“It’s ok.” She giggled and waved. “Thank you for everything!”

“You’re very welcome!” She half smiled as she watched Hat Kid bound off into the crowd and disappear before scooping up the last of her things and leaving. “What a strange girl.”

Chapter Text

There were more people gathered in the Village square than Hat Kid could have ever predicted, and combing through every mask-covered face for her red and white one would be more difficult now than it had been earlier. But by this point, she was convinced Snatcher wasn’t even in the Village, so she made her way through the crowd and popped out onto the path that led back into the forest where they’d started. She couldn’t see a thing, so with a bit of quick thinking, she pulled out her umbrella and equipped the laser badge. Eventually she would have to release the energy it was gathering, but for the moment it served its purpose as a decent flashlight. She made her way down the path, intending to check the spot they’d landed in first, but as she was nearing that section, she heard some bushes rustling on the opposite side of the path.

“Snatcher?” She took a few tentative steps into the brush, scanning the nearby area for any signs of his bright facial features.

A soft breeze filtered through the treetops, sending a few stray leaves down to fall around her. But beyond the shaking leaves overhead, the forest was silent. The hair on the back of her neck rose as she trekked further into the wooded area. The trees eventually opened up into an empty spot where she could look up and see the clear sky. The only thing in the middle of the open space was a single, gigantic tree. Something about it seemed vaguely familiar, but she couldn't quite figure out why from a distance, so she headed towards it. Unfortunately for her, she had been so focused on shining the light directly ahead of her that she hadn’t noticed the oddly placed lump placed near the base of the tree.

She didn’t even have time to properly scream before something snagged her by her foot and whisked her into the air. In the process of being swept off her feet, her umbrella slipped from her hands, blasting an overcharged laser beam through the trees thick trunk. There was a series of popping and splintering sounds followed by a more human sounding shout. As Hat Kid spun helplessly from the trap she’d sprung, a blinding orange light emerged behind her.

“Why helloooooooooo there!” She scowled as she heard the familiar voice of her too animated friend. “Didn’t expect to find you hanging around here!”

“Snatcher!” She flailed her arms out in front of her as if she were trying to swipe at him, but all she did was make herself spin slightly. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you! Why the heck did you run off like that?!”

Snatcher was happily bouncing away like he usually was, snickering at the kid’s predicament. “I can’t stay in that form forever, kiddo. It takes up more energy than you’d think.”

She stared at him skeptically for a moment, but as far as she could tell, he was fine. Maybe he was just so shaky because he was draining too much power too quickly. “You should have just said that,” she pouted and crossed her arms. “I got worried about you, you big jerk!”

Snatcher made a sound akin to a snort before cutting the rope apart with his claws. He let her drop a bit, relishing the short scream she let out, before swiping her up and gently setting her on the ground. Hat Kid huffed and fixed her disheveled cape and returned the boot that had fallen off to her foot. Snatcher waited silently for her to finish brushing herself off to speak.

“I found the rift door.” 

Hat Kid’s head snapped up to face him. “You did?!” 

“It’s in a dead end alleyway just off the center of the square.” He beamed pridefully, as if he’d done them a great service by finding it.

She rolled her eyes and laughed, “well, good job, I guess! How many pons did it say we needed?”

Snatcher’s smile faded a bit. “Three.”

“I don’t suppose you found one while we were separated,” she asked hopefully but wasn’t surprised when he shook his head. “Well, I did manage to find one! We’ve got two now, so we’re just one short of getting out of here!”

“Wow, congrats.” He clapped sarcastically. “You can do some basic math!” 

“Snatcher…” they’d only been reunited for a couple of minutes and he was already irritating her.

“Anyway, I’ve been here most of the time. I figured you’d just come to the forest after a bit. What the heck have you been doing this whole time?” It sounded like he was a bit annoyed with her too.

“How was I supposed to know you came back here!” She protested. “Besides, this isn’t even the same spot we came in at! That’s on the other side of the path!” Snatcher shrugged indifferently. “It doesn’t matter now. Let’s go find the last rift pon.”

A puff of smoke obscured him for a moment before he reemerged as a Hat Kid clone. He fished around the forest floor for a second and retrieved the cloak and mask before taking the lead. “Where’d you find that one though?” He asked as he secured the mask to his face.

“Oh, Camellia had it,” she replied nonchalantly. 

Snatcher faltered for a moment, “C-Camellia?”

“Yep! She did my hair too! See?”

He watched her spin briefly before muttering, “mm hmm,” and wrapped the cloak around himself.

“Ah, that reminds me…” Hat Kid grit her teeth, “S-Snatcher, you’ve been in Subcon a long time, right?”

“Yep!”

“So you know a lot about it?”

“Probably too much,” he chuckled dryly.

“Do you know what happened to the prince?”

Snatcher spun on his heel with such force that a gust of wind blasted Hat Kid and pushed her back. “HOW DID YOU-” Snatcher moved to take a step towards her, but his spin had dug his foot into the ground just enough that he tripped and fell on his face before he could.

“A-are you ok?!” Hat Kid ran over to him and tried to help him up.

“I hate legs…” he grumbled as she dusted the dirt from his shoulders. 

“You’re just out of practice,” she started walking again, slowly though in case he stumbled again. She wasn’t quite sure if he could have gotten hurt by that fall or not. “Soooo...the question…”

“No.”

“Huh?”

“No, I don’t know what happened to him,” Snatcher asserted. 

“But, I thought you knew everything about Subcon!” She stopped and waited for him to catch up.

“I said I know too much, not everything,” he clarified and passed her swiftly. He decided to abandon the walking rule for a bit. There wasn’t anyone around to see him anyway. “What makes you think something happened to him,” he asked suddenly.

“It’s...uh…” Hat Kid felt the letter in her pocket, but she could already see the Village coming into view. “I’ll tell you later!” She ran ahead of him, hoping he’d drop the subject for the time being. She had no idea how relieved he was to not have to talk.

Hat Kid waited for Snatcher at the sign post that marked the start of the forest, or in their case, the entrance to the village. She frantically pulled him back down to the ground just as a few kids darted past them and quietly scolded him for floating around in the first place. They turned their attention to the dimly lit streets, overflowing with people. Everyone had donned their masks and headed to the square. A quick glance up at the sky signalled to Hat Kid that it was probably almost time.    

“Ohhh,” HK gasped as they approached the square, “I think it’s starting!”

    “So?” He sneered and folded his arms across his chest. “We only need one more of these things to get out of here. Why would we waste our time watching that bi… ahem, watching Vanessa,” he coughed as he corrected himself, “do some stupid dance with her prince .”

    Hat Kid’s expression soured. “You really don’t like them do you?”

    “Ha,” he scoffed mockingly, “what gave it away?”

    Her face scrunched up in annoyance beneath her mask. “Ok, fine. You can go look for the rift pon. I’m going to watch them for a bit.”

    “Why,” he whined hoarsely, but Hat Kid had already turned away and headed into the crowd of villagers who had gathered to watch. Snatcher’s shoulders slumped forward as he let out a defeated sigh, “fuck.”

    Now that he more or less understood what the rift was capable of, Snatcher knew that letting the kid run off on her own was a tremendous problem. There were too many things for her to discover, too many events to get caught up in, too many memories for her to unravel. He cringed at the dilemma. Leaving her alone allowed for her to ask too many questions and possibly piece the story together on her own, but going with her meant replaying, practically reliving that night once more. He dragged his hands down the front of the mask, momentarily forgetting it was there, and groaned loudly before taking off after her.

Chapter Text

Hat Kid had already made her way to the front of the crowd, placing herself close to the middle of the space cleared for the dance. Soft chatter and the gentle sounds of the forest combined with the warm ambient lights hung around the square gave her a much needed sense of ease. She glanced up at the clear sky overhead and silently admired how brightly the stars shone against the blanket of darkness. Her calm was interrupted however when she spotted Vanessa standing near the edge of an alleyway. A handful of people were helping her tend to some last second preparations from the shadows. Hat Kid waved to her, grateful that the mask concealed her nervous expression from view. The realization that the calm and kind Vanessa that stood just a few meters away from her was the same demonic ice queen who had tried to kill her just a day ago was still hard to swallow. As if that weren’t enough, the letter in her pocket implied that she might have been responsible for the disappearance of her prince. She shifted her gaze to the other side of the square and spotted the prince standing a short ways into another alley, another small group of people helping to ensure that everything was ready on his end. Thea blew a kiss to Vanessa, much to Hat Kid’s delight. He evidently heard her giggle, because his head whipped to the side so that he was looking directly at her. His face turned beet red before he whirled around on the heel of his boot and leaned over as he rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. He cocked his head just enough for him to see her and waved, a goofy smile making its way back onto his clearly blushing face. Hat Kid started to wave back, still laughing at the poor guy, when a rather familiar body stumbled out beside her.

    “Snatcher!” She yelped and jumped back, her hand still held up mid-wave. “I thought you were looking for the rift pon.” She crossed her arms smugly, “Did you give up already?”

    “I didn’t get to look.” Snatcher brushed himself off and placed his hands on his hips. “I had to keep a certain young lady out of trouble.” She meant to protest, but the sound of an orchestra tuning their strings cut her off. “Five minutes.”

    She turned back to Snatcher, “what?”

    “Five minutes, then we start looking again.”

    “But I wanna watch the whole thing!” She whined and flailed her arms slightly.

    “That is the whole thing, kid,” he said matter-of-factly. “The dance itself only lasts a few minutes.”

    “This is an awful lot of buildup for a five minute dance,” she pouted.

    Snatcher kind of reeled back at her remark as if insulted by it, but after a second he just chuckled, “yeah, it really is, isn’t it? It’s tradition though. It might seem stupid to us now, but it’s important to everyone in Subcon...or it was at one point.”

    Hat Kid stared at him silently for a moment, waiting for him to say something else, before turning her attention back to the center of the square where it seemed Vanessa and Thea would be entering soon. “Do you know what all of this is for?”

    “Yep.”

    She waited for him to explain further, but naturally he didn’t. “Snaaaaaaaaaaaatcheeeeeeeeeeer,” she held his name for as long as she could before running out of breath.

    He let out an exasperated sigh before explaining. “In the ten centuries that the Kingdom of Subcon had existed, each generation of prince and princess would partake in the ceremony of the new moon. During this event, they must perform the ceremonial dance beneath the sky of the year’s last new moon in front of all their subjects. It’s meant to be a final...vow before…” his voice trailed off.

    “Before what?” Hat Kid pressed, curious about the nature of the celebration.

    “It doesn’t matter,” he grumbled.

    “Before whaaaaaaaaaaat??”She shook him by his arm, overly excited about the answer.

    Snatcher didn’t seem nearly as enthralled by it, but he continued nonetheless. “This whole thing is just a set up for a wedding that never happens!” 

    She stepped back as a small burst of blue fire sparked from within Snatcher’s cloak, nearly setting the thin fabric ablaze. “What do you mean it doesn’t happen?” Hat Kid asked timidly, a sense of dread slowly creeping up inside her.

    “Nothing. Never mind.” Snatcher shrunk back evasively as Vanessa and Thea approached the center of the square. “It’s starting.”

    “Fine.” She made a mental note to ask him about it later, but for now, she planned to enjoy their little break.

    The orchestra silenced their tuning as the couple strolled in, smiling and silently mouthing, ‘ready?’ ‘Are you?’ Nods of confirmation prompted them to retrieve their masks. The prince pulled out a seemingly plain ebony half-mask that when caught in the light, shone with hues of blues and reds. Dark garnets decorated the area around the eyes and down the bridge of the nose. He tenderly placed it on the queen’s face, positioning it carefully so that it wouldn’t shift during the ceremony. His hand lingered by her temple and slowly brought it down her cheek. He flashed her a somewhat flustered grin before he pulled away. Vanessa held another mask, undoubtedly the one her prince had thrown together at the last minute to replace the one he’d given away. His too was painted with the iridescent black paint and only covered half of his face, but instead of garnets, his was ornamented with what appeared to be honey colored glass that burned like fire in the warm lights that hung overhead.

    As the music began, they drew nearer and took each other’s hands within their own. The quiet chatter of the crowd hushed as the ceremony truly began. Beneath the sky of the year’s last new moon, the prince and the queen danced. They moved in great graceful strides, gliding across the square as if they weighed nothing, and let the subtle breeze carry them through their every step. The occasional lift, the deep dips, and gentle spins had everyone enraptured. The soft light danced across their forms and gleamed in their glistening eyes. Of all the masks in the crowded square, theirs shone the brightest. Hat Kid lifted her own mask to see them more clearly, doing her best to take everything in at once. 

    “Fun fact,” Snatcher’s voice intruded on her experience, but she listened anyway, “it’s incredibly bad luck to remove your mask during the dance.” He snickered, “But do us all a favor and leave it off, those two shouldn’t be together anyway.”

    Hat Kid rolled her eyes and went back to watching them; it was almost over. Surely Snatcher could keep his mouth shut for another minute or two. Once again she let herself get swept up in the way they moved. The way the wind lifted Vanessa’s hair, the way the lights caught the edges of their masks, the way their loving expressions never faltered, warmed Hat Kid’s heart. Hidden behind a mask of his own, Snatcher watched them with a dull ache in his chest. Of all the moments the rift could have brought them to, it had chosen one of the happiest days of his former life; now all it brought him was sorrow. But it seemed in that moment, that world existed only for them, and there wasn’t anything he could do to change that. As the song slowed, so did their dance. It was with one final stride that they drew each other close and let their foreheads brush, casting soft shadows over their masked faces. Even though she couldn’t see, Hat Kid swore they were beaming.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.” 

HK heard Snatcher’s exasperated sigh and groaned, irritated that he couldn’t have waited just a moment longer to be annoying, “What now?” He pointed towards the center of the square, just above where Vanessa and Thea were dancing. “Oh, peck…” 

“Language, kiddo.” 

Hat Kid ignored him and buried her face in her hands after spotting it. Hovering in the very center of the festivities, being used as a brilliant lighting decoration, was none other than the final rift pon they needed to escape. HK looked around for some way to retrieve it, but it didn’t seem like there was anything they could do until the dance was fully over. Even if interrupting it wouldn’t affect the real timeline, she would feel bad for messing things up for them.

“How should we get it?” She turned to Snatcher who was still focused on it. “We should really try to avoid being seen so we don't disturb anyone.”

“What’ll happen if we are seen?” He asked seriously, though there was a hint of mischief in his tone.

“Well, things outside the rift won’t change, so if we’re quick and just make a run for the door, probably nothing.” She concluded with a slight nod. “Why?”

Snatcher pulled off her mask and handed it back to her. “Hold on.”

“Wait, what?” 

Hat Kid didn’t have time to properly protest what he was doing before the damage was already done. Snatcher tore off the cloak and, in a puff of smoke, returned to his towering shadowy form. He plucked HK up from the crowd of people who were now screaming and backing away from the two of them before swooping into the center of the ceremony. Hat Kid watched in shock as he deliberately dove between Vanessa and the prince, forcing the two of them apart, before rising up high enough to tear the rift pon from its perch among the other strands of lights.

“What are you doing?!” She whispered frantically. “I said we didn’t want to be seen!”

“Well, you also said nothing would happen if we were, so…” he shrugged indifferently. Below them he spotted the prince running to Vanessa’s aid, standing between her and Snatcher as if he stood any chance of actually being able to defend her from him. HK watched the condescending look get wiped from his face as he eyed the prince. “You…” he growled bitterly as their eyes locked, “look how foolish you are. You will defend her until the day you die .” HK looked between them, confused. That phrase would normally be a good thing, but the way he’d said it… “Let’s go, kid.”

“S-snatcher,” She stammered as he rushed towards the rift door, ignoring the many exclamations sounding behind them, “why’d you say that stuff? What’s going to happen?”

Snatcher either didn’t hear her or chose to completely disregard what she was saying. The rift door reacted to the collected rift pons as they got closer, opening just before they were on top of it. Snatcher flashed her a quick smile, waved to her briefly, then dropped her into the open chute, listening to her stunned cries until she vanished beyond his line of sight. With far less hesitation than the first time, Snatcher followed suit, letting the rift door transport them to the next area.

Chapter Text

A resounding thud echoed through the manor as Hat Kid was ejected from an opening in the ceiling. She grumbled as she picked herself up and waited for Snatcher to make it through. Sure enough, he emerged a second later, his massive form spilling in and taking up a huge portion of the hallway in which they’d landed. For once she was glad that he was a ghost, or she probably would have been squashed. Snatcher snickered as she cleared her throat and crossed her arms over her chest, silently demanding that he move. He drifted down the hallway a bit more and morphed back into a Hat Kid clone for the time being.

    “Better?” Hat Kid was still glaring at him. “What? What ???”

    “What the heck was that?!” She flung her arms out to the side and scolded him. “We could have waited for them to finish, but noooooo,” she ran her hands through her hair, “you just had to be an annoying jerk to them, didn’t you?!”

    Snatcher scoffed and smirked unapologetically. “You said it wouldn’t change anything, kiddo. What’s the issue?”

    She scooped up her dweller mask and turned it back into her signature purple top hat before stomping up to him and poking him in his chest hard. “You are,” she seethed and started walking down the hall.

    His smug smile faded as he blinked blankly, but he quickly shook off his surprise and turned to catch up with the kid. “Come on, kid,” he chuckled, though there was a hint of worry in his gravelly voice. “No harm was done, right? Can’t we just let it go?”

    Hat Kid stopped walking, making Snatcher stop too, but she didn’t turn to face him. She hung her head and sighed deeply, “why did you say that stuff to Thea?”

    “Wh-” he flinched, not really sure how to answer her. “C-Come on, kiddo,” he opted to try and evade her question altogether, “let’s just start looking for those pon things and get out of here.”

    “No!” She spun around, completely fed up with him, and shot him a glare that would have made his blood run cold. “We’re not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on! Why are you being so weird?!”

    “I’m a ghost kid,” he remarked sarcastically, “am I not supposed to be weird?” Hat Kid grit her teeth and marched up to him again, but this time:

    SLAP!

    One second he’d been looking at the kid, and the next he was staring at the wall. “Did you just,” he faltered, still trying to process what had been done, “slap me?” He rubbed his cheek, not that it really hurt, but more so because the reaction felt familiar. Hat Kid stood her ground, her eyes still burning with rage. Snatcher wasn’t sure whether he should be angry or impressed.

    “Talk.”

    “What are you gonna do if I don’t?” Snatcher cackled and tried to step around her, but she whipped out her umbrella and pointed the tip at his throat. He looked between her and the makeshift weapon in disbelief. “What, really? We fought...what...yesterday? You know you can't just hit me with that. It won’t work.”

    “The rift messed up your magic,” she growled, “it probably messed up your weird immunity too. You felt me hit you, right?” 

    Snatcher made a few progressively more confused faces before acknowledging that she was right. He still laughed though, “You wouldn’t.”

    Hat Kid charged up the laser beam. Snatcher could faintly feel the static and heat gathering in front of his neck, but his confident grin did not waver, not until she shifted the umbrella off to the side of his head and fired. “Try me,” she seethed through clenched teeth as she re-positioned the tip back in front of his neck.

    Snatcher wasn’t stupid. Even if she couldn’t destroy him, he had very little doubt that she could hurt him. “Alright. Alright!” He threw his hands up and tried to move out of her umbrella’s path, but she wouldn’t let him escape. “Fine, kid.” His hands dropped to his side as he tried to find a good way to explain himself. There really wasn’t one. After a few tense seconds, he settled on the truth. “I lied.”

    “About what,” Hat Kid raised an eyebrow in response to his answer.

    “The prince,” he huffed, “I know what happened to him, or rather...what will happen to him.” He’d kind of hoped that would be enough to sate her curiosity, but she still held the umbrella steady. “Look kid, it isn’t really something you need to hear.”

    “It could be,” she said a little more calmly.

    “Allow me to clarify,” he grimaced, “it isn’t something you want to hear.” He hung his head and groaned as she gently prodded him with her umbrella. “You’re a tough negotiator, little lady. I’m not going into the gritty details with a child though. All you need to know is that Vanessa and her prince do NOT have a happy ending!”

    Hat Kid glanced him over, trying to determine whether or not she’d gotten enough out of him, but she ultimately decided that he had confirmed her suspicions, even if just vaguely. She decided she’d just pry some more after seeing how her next move played out. “Snatcher-” she lowered the umbrella and fished the crumpled letter out of her pocket- “I found this in the first level.”

    He eyed her and the letter distrustfully. “What is it?”

    “It’s just paper, you big dummy! Read it!”

    Snatcher snatched it from her hand and rolled his eyes before reading it. Hat Kid watched as his expression shifted from confused squinting, to twitchy smiling, and then to...shock...fear...grief? He looked distraught by the time he finished. “Why didn’t you show me this sooner?”

    “Stuff kept getting in the way,” she rubbed her arms awkwardly, not wanting to admit that she had kept it secret intentionally at first. “W-Why? Is something wrong?”

    Snatcher looked back at the letter once more before dropping it back into her hands. “So you’ve known this whole time something was going to happen, hm?” He finally made his way around her, but didn't stray off too far. He stopped at one of the windows and peered out of it. “Ha, well, it doesn’t really matter!” He shrugged. “We’re just gonna find your crap and get out of here before any of that-” he vaguely gestured to the letter- “happens.”

    More or less satisfied for the time being, Hat Kid returned the letter to her pocket and joined him by the window. Subcon didn’t look much different than it had in the last area. The clearing in front of the manor was still thriving, though it now had vibrant pops of color where wild flowers had sprung up. The only thing that felt off was the manor itself. It somehow felt emptier, though Hat Kid didn’t see anything missing. They hadn’t seen anyone since they landed though, so it could have just been the lack of other people.

    “It’s...quiet,” she mumbled more to herself than anyone.

    “The festival probably ended a while ago in this area.” Snatcher scowled. “There wasn’t much reason for everyone to gather at the manor unless something was going on.”

    “Yeah, but,” she paused, “we were being really loud a second ago, and no one came to see what was going on. Shouldn’t someone be here?”

    Snatcher had to admit that she had a point. Even when nothing special was going on, the manor still typically had a handful of people inside, but as far as he could tell, the manor was vacant. “Heh, I don't...actually recall this place ever being this empty...not before Vanessa...changed.”

    Hat Kid gulped, “d-do you think she’s…” her voice trailed off, but Snatcher knew what she was asking.

    “No. I’m not sure when this is yet, but it's too bright and pleasant outside for that to have happened.” His matter-of-fact tone was oddly reassuring to her, though she remained wary of his words anyway. Trusting Snatcher too much was probably a bad idea. “We should get going.”

    Hat Kid nodded and led the way down the hall, occasionally peering into open doors to see if she could spot any pons. Snatcher trailed behind her, letting his eyes wander across the pictures and furniture that lined the walls. There were a staggering number of paintings of Vanessa and Thea. At one time he might have seen that as endearing, but now it only seemed obsessive. They made their way down a set of stairs and popped out onto the first floor of the manor. There was still nobody in sight.

    “I wonder if something’s happening in the village,” Hat Kid piped up suddenly. “That would make sense, right?” Snatcher didn’t seem too convinced but nodded anyway. “Oh, look!” She took off towards the other end of the hall and began bouncing excitedly as she pointed out the rift door. 

    “Huh, way to go, kiddo!” Hat Kid beamed at the rare compliment. “So, we need four this time?”

    “Seems like it…” Hat Kid looked a bit discouraged for a minute but perked back up. Four was a lot to look for on her own, but she had help this time. “Maybe we should split up,” she chirped. “I bet we'll find them faster that way!”

    Snatcher wasn’t too enthralled by the idea of separating again, but they probably would cover more ground faster if they did. “Fine,” he said as a puff a smoke appeared between them, “but I’m taking the manor. I need a break from being a puny hat brat.”

    Hat Kid ignored his snide remark and backed up to give him more room now that he’d gone back to his full size. “Won’t you be kind of cramped here though?”

    “A bit,” he admitted, “but I doubt I could search the village like this without being seen. At least there doesn’t seem to be anyone around to find me here.” 

    Hat Kid could tell that he was using her rules against her for some reason, but didn’t have the energy to argue with him anymore. “Alright, we’ll meet back here in an hour then!”

    “Why?”

    “We don't know how many pons are out there.” She pointed to the front door. “I may have to find one; I may have to find all four.” She shrugged. “You won’t know that unless I come back first though, so just meet me here.”

    A solid line of thought coming from a kid; Snatcher sneered, “Alright, then. Don’t die!”

    “Don’t kill anyone,” she quipped back and flashed him a smile before waving goodbye and running out of the manor, leaving him alone in the corridor.

    “Pssh!” He scoffed and shook his head as the door slammed behind her. He spotted another framed painting of him and Vanessa, and a vindictive sneer lit up his face. “No promises, kiddo.”

    As tempting as it was to hunt Vanessa down, Snatcher restrained himself and went back to the task at hand. All he had to do was search the manor for pons until the kid got back. Easy peasy; he’d just start from the bottom of the house and work his way up. His reasoning was sound, but he found himself hesitating as he moved the few meters it took to reach the trapdoor that led to the cellar. He withdrew his hand as he stared at the door with disgust.

    “ I’ll just...come back to this room, ” he thought to himself and slipped past it.

    If he was lucky, there wouldn’t be one down there, and he’d be able to skip entering that forsaken place altogether. But unless he and the kid found the other four elsewhere, they’d have no choice but to check it out. For the time being though, he had the luxury of searching just about anywhere else. Since starting from the bottom wasn’t going to work, he switched plans and headed upstairs to the attic first. It honestly made more sense to start from the top anyway since he would be meeting the kid on the first floor. He didn’t bother with the stairs and phased through the ceilings until he reached his destination. He was a bit excited to see his old home again without having to worry about getting iced, but those feelings faded quickly once he laid eyes on the rather underwhelming sight of the uppermost floor. He sighed deeply, already regretting his decision to take the manor, because the attic was...as cluttered as always.

    “We never bothered to organize this room,” he groaned, as he shuffled through a few crates and peeked under sheets that were tossed over furniture to shield them from dust.

    There wasn’t much point in checking everything thoroughly though since the rift pons had a way of making their presence known. The attic was silent and poorly lit and no matter where he hovered, he couldn’t hear one shimmering or see one shining. He shrugged and moved on to the third floor, searching the vacant rooms. Unsurprisingly, those were empty too with the exception of a room that had once been his bedroom. There was a single wheel of cheese laying on the floor for some reason. He...didn’t really want to know why. 

    He hoped that he’d have more luck on the second floor.  He’d already wasted several minutes on the upper levels and dreaded the idea of turning up empty handed if time ran out. The manor wasn’t that big. He shouldn’t be having any issues finding loud, shiny magic orbs, unless there weren’t any there. The hallways were clear. The only thing really out of place was the fact that all the curtains were drawn shut. Seeing in the dark wasn’t really a problem for Snatcher though, so he ignored them and popped into the first door he saw. 

    “Ah, right. I forgot about this.” He crossed his arms as he looked around the nursery disdainfully, appalled by the vivid reminder that he was at one time supposed to bear an heir to the Subcon throne. It seemed preposterous after everything that had happened. At any rate, he bet the nursery outside the rift did nothing but collect dust and ice. 

    The room was furnished sparsely enough that he could tell there were no rift pons present, so he moved onto the adjacent room. The nursery had been awkward enough, but stumbling into Vanessa’s room after all the time that had passed was...unsettling, though it was still a troubling sight even if he put his personal feelings aside. Just like the windows in the rest of the manor, the drapes were pulled shut, letting only the tiniest margin of light filter in through the gaps. Particles of dust glimmered in the bright slivers, rising up as Snatcher’s entrance stirred the stale air in the room. He could smell the faint aroma of perfume and parchment mingling with with the lingering scent of burnt wax. A few candles were lying discarded on her desk, wax droplets clinging to the varnish. A feather quill rested next to them. Ink that had once flowed from its tip now sat on the desk in a dried up puddle.

    Snatcher opened one of the curtains to let a bit more light in before he started rummaging through the wardrobe, drawers, and even her bed. As far as he could tell, Vanessa’s room lacked a rift pon as well. He was starting to think there weren’t any in the manor at all. He meant to just leave, but in the process of searching, he did find something else of interest. Glancing up at the clock on the wall, he decided that he had a few minutes to spare and moved back to the bedside table to investigate a small, green journal he’d noticed there earlier.

    Snatcher eyed the book clearly labeled ‘diary’ curiously. He still hadn’t run into anyone yet but poked his head into the hallway and the nursery to make sure no one was around just in case before flipping it open. “Let’s see what secrets Vannie dearest wrote about,” he grinned vilely as he turned a few more pages, skimming their contents briefly before moving on. “Boring. Boring. Lame. Ew. Wow, she could not draw for the life of her; that's not at all what that looks like. Oh…” he paused as he finally came across an entry that sounded interesting.

    “Mother had a bit of an accident last week, so today I got crowned as queen. Now the prince can’t call me his princess! Life isn’t fair!”  

    “A bit of an accident?” Snatcher was silent for a second as he took it all in, then immediately burst into uproarious laughter. “I was told someone pushed her off the balcony of the Kingdom’s southern tower!” He reread it and shook his head, still cackling. “Oh god, you did it, didn’t you? Naughty girl! ‘Life isn’t fair,’ my butt,” he mocked her quietly as he flipped to the next page. “Pff, I should have known…”

    “Dear diary…”

    “What a cliche opening line…”

    “Today my prince left to begin his studies. He will be so far away, and for so long. He has promised to write. He won’t forget me, will he? His beloved princess?”

    “Wish I could have.” He rolled his eyes and turned to another page. 

    “He is coming back. Just one weekend. A short holiday, from HER.”

    “From who ?” He scowled and tried to think of who she could possibly be referring to. “J-Julia??” His frown deepened. Given the date, the holiday was probably referring to his last trip home from law school. The only female he actively spoke to at the academy was his tutor, Lady Julia.  “Why were you mad at her ?”

    He disregarded it as another mystery to which he would likely never receive an answer and continued. “I will convince him to stay. I CANNOT let my love leave again.”

    “Bit melodramatic there, Vannie,” he scoffed and moved to close the diary, but a folded page slipped out and fluttered to the floor. “Ooh, what’s this?” He plucked it up, a curious, mischievous smile playing on the corners of his lips.

    “Oh I wish I could just keep him always!” He groaned internally as he realized it was just another overly possessive passage. He would have set it down and moved on, but his eyes had already skimmed ahead a bit and latched onto the next sentence. “Locked up and in chains in the cellar! But you can’t chain a man...can you?”

    Snatcher pressed his lips together so tightly that his mouth seemed to disappear from his face completely. His eyes were wide and now focused on some point in the distance, seemingly gazing off into someplace that was not a part of this plane. “Ha...haha, that’s enough of this!” He flung the entry behind him as he headed back into the hall, laughing weakly as he went.

    The last room he needed to check on the second floor was the bathroom. He sincerely hoped he wouldn’t find one floating about in there. His silent prayer was answered; no rift pons, just a remarkable amount of steam. He waved the wispy fog out of his face. Someone had evidently been there not too long ago. He guessed that they must have left just before he and Hat Kid arrived. It was probably Vanessa. He found solace in the belief that she probably wouldn’t be coming back for a while if she had just left. With the second floor scoured, he dropped through the floor and back to the first level.

    He crossed his arms, visibly annoyed by how much work he’d put into looking for something that didn’t even seem to be there. “The kid better be having more luck with this…” he grumbled to himself before wandering into the kitchen. The first thing he noticed upon entering was the fridge door hanging wide open, illuminating the unnervingly dark space. His eyes darted across the shadows of the room, quickly ensuring that no one was lurking in them. He sighed and continued into the room, griping about the state of it. “She always remembered to turn off the lights but never to close the stupid door, and why are the curtains shut?” He ignored the fridge for a moment to fling the drapes open, temporarily blinding himself with the intense and sudden sunlight he’d let inside. “Jeez...” he drew back, rubbing his eyes as they tried to adjust to the lighting, but he wound up bumping into the long table in the middle of the room. The soft clinking of glass and muted sloshing of liquid gained his attention, making him turn around to see what he’d disturbed. 

    His eyes widened as his gaze fell on the contents of the table, catching the rims of beakers and flasks and broken shards with a pale yellow glow. A faltering, “what the heck,” was muttered in disbelief as he stared at the mess of potion making equipment lying scattered across the surface. With the increased light and his focus turned to the room itself, he finally noticed its state of disarray. Shattered glass rested haphazardly on the floor, and in some cases embedded in the walls and furniture, clearly thrown aside with a violent amount of force. Scorch marks, strange puddles, and ominous holes stained the floor, table, and countertops. Several sheets of ancient parchment clung to the table, trapped in a sticky, glittering substance Snatcher didn’t dare touch. He glanced over them silently, checking to make sure no one was around before nearing them. He squinted at the faded writing, recognizing the papers as some kind of magic text.

    “I knew she’d been studying to advance her powers, but what was she doing with this…” He gently peeled the top sheet off of the table, holding it out away from him so the strange ooze dripping from it wouldn’t touch him. “What were you trying to do?”

    Holding the sheet up to the light from the window, he tried to make out the heading, but wasn’t having much luck. He could read the ingredients though and wondered if he could figure out what it was from there. Unfortunately, magic hadn’t been a major interest of his at the time. The little bit he did study, he only studied because he wanted to impress Vanessa. It seemed like such a foolish effort now. He turned back to the remaining sheets and cautiously pulled out the one that appeared to contain a description, deciding that was his best if only chance at discovering what she had been trying to create.

    “ ...a brew, which causes the drinker to become wholly infatuated or obsessed with the person who gave it to them. ” He scoffed, “What? A love potion?! No way!” He chuckled before continuing, “ Got your eye on someone who doesn’t even know you exist? Perhaps you fear a loved one is planning to leave you behind? This is the potion for you! ” Snatcher rolled his eyes, internally cringing at the unnecessary infomercial tactic being included in the recipe. “ This particular blend is designed to dull the consumer’s cognitive senses, preventing them from realizing that they’re ever under a potion’s effects. Wears off after 3 days. Prolonged use will eventually result in death. ”

    “My, my, this is some dark stuff, little lady,” he chuckled as he looked it over once more, sneering at the idea that Vanessa had actually been trying to make something so potent, “but what in the world would you want this for?” Epiphany flashed behind his eyes, and he lowered the paper. He experienced all five stages of grief in an instant, his facial expression contorting to match each one until he made it to acceptance. “Oh…” The word was barely audible, coming out as nothing more than a breathy whisper. For several minutes he stood there, staring off into the distance blankly, his thoughts silent for the first time in years. Eventually he closed his eyes and laughed halfheartedly, then maniacally. 

    “Ha...hahaha...HAHAHAHAHA THAT WITCH PLANNED IT,” he screamed triumphantly and threw his arms out to his side, flinging the parchment to the floor. “I KNEW IT!” He finally had some answers to the questions he’d spent centuries worried about, but it was a relief far too little and far too late. The high he’d felt from his hollow victory dissipated as quickly as it had come, leaving him to laugh weakly without any reason as to why. “Ha...great...just one more reason to get rid of her I guess.” 

He scratched his lack of a chin and wandered back over to the window, checking to see if the kid was on her way back yet. She wasn’t as far as he could tell. He shrugged; it was still a bit early. He caught the fridge door still sitting open out of the corner of his eye and moved to close it, slightly irritated again, but as soon as he reached for it, he saw something rather interesting sitting inside. Among the startling number of potion soaked cookies and spoiled meals, there was a rift pon, just casually resting among the unappetizing food. His left eye twitched as his frustration levels skyrocketed. He took a deep breath, trying to settle his already shot nerves, before grabbing it and slamming the door shut, snickering at the sound off the piles of food inside falling against the door.

“That’s gonna be fun for her to clean up later!” He smiled smugly to himself and headed for the next room.

Chapter Text

Hat Kid dashed across the flourishing meadow that spanned out in front of the manor, making her way towards the original Subcon Village. Even outside, things were quiet, but unlike the manor, it's silence was soothing. She moved around town for a bit, shuffling past the few people wandering about without paying them much mind. It didn't take her long to conclude that the village didn't have much to offer in terms of entertainment or pons. She frowned as she made it to the bridge separating the forest from the village and placed her hands on her hips. 

“Where could they be,” she asked herself quietly. She had been certain that she'd find at least one outside. “Maybe in the forest…”

She looked ahead of her debating whether it was worth the extra effort to go in there on her own, but going back empty handed wasn't really an option. The odds of all the rift pons being in the manor when she could still get outside were not in her favor. She'd just wind up annoying an already agitated specter or being teased. With a soft sigh she made up her mind and began crossing the bridge. She’d been so focused on the path ahead that she almost missed the crescendo of a moving rift pon. She perked up, suddenly alert as she tried to source the sound. It was hard not to laugh a bit when she spotted it drifting down the river. Hat Kid finished crossing the bridge and squatted next to the river bank as she waited for the pon to make its way to her.

“That was easy,” she chirped as she plucked it from the water and dried it off with the bottom of her shirt.

“Still enjoying that, I see,” Hat Kid jumped at the pleasant sound of someone's voice, startled that she'd not been alone. The slight jolt faded as soon as she looked up though. 

“Camellia!” She waved excitedly to the redhead watching her from the middle of the bridge.

“I thought you left after the festival,” she frowned a bit, “why have you come back?”

Hat Kid hesitated for a moment. Usually interactions with in rift characters were wiped away from their memory once she passed through the next rift door, but Camellia seemed to be completely aware of the fact that she'd vanished after the ceremony. “I um, came back to visit my friend.”

“The one from the future with ships and metal homes?” She snickered teasingly, though Hat Kid didn't mind.

“That's the one!” 

“Well, I'm glad to hear you're alright. I heard there was some kind of commotion at the end of the dance.” Her expression darkened. “I wasn't able to attend, so I didn't see, but...everyone seemed convinced that some creature swept in there and took off with a child.” Hat Kid cringed as she caught Camellia brushing a tear from her cheek. “Everyone was accounted for except you, so I thought...that perhaps you'd been…”

“No!” Hat Kid piped up unexpectedly and ran to her side, hugging her tightly so she wouldn't stay upset.

“Oh dear,” she laughed sadly, “I'm sorry. Grown ups shouldn't act like this, huh?” She patted the girl's head and pulled away. “Where is your friend though?” Hat Kid stiffened. “Has he abandoned you again? How rude…”

“Y-yeah,” she confirmed as she fumbled with the rift pon nervously, even though in reality she'd been the one to ditch him. “He's kind of a jerk, but I think he's starting to like me more!”

“Is that so?” Camellia was beginning to form a default phrase for when she couldn't understand the kid. “Well, I do have some work to tend to, but you're welcome to tag along for a bit if you'd like.”

Hat Kid was about to decline when she remembered the letter. “Oh, actually,” she paused, debating whether she should mention the letter or just it's premise, “I kind of wanted to ask you something.”

“Me?” She seemed surprised though she didn't stop moving towards the riverbank. “I'll do my best to answer then!”

Hat Kid watched her collect some water in a can for a moment, still working out how she could word the question. Camellia could practically see the gears turning in her head and simply smiled, patiently waiting for whatever the eccentric child would say. Perhaps she would ask if she'd seen her friend, or maybe she wanted her hair done again. Regardless, she firmly believed it'd be some easily doable task or something that needed a simple response. She hadn't expected what was actually asked at all.

“What did Queen Vanessa do to the prince?”

Camellia looked up at her confused. “What?” 

“She um…” she hesitated. Not knowing where they were in the timeline made it difficult to determine whether or not Camellia had even written the letter yet, so she did her best to keep things vague until she was certain. “Is it magic or something,” she eventually asked, deciding that perhaps a question regarding the curse that would eventually overwhelm all of Subcon might lead to answers about the prince.

She laughed unknowingly, thinking perhaps she'd meant to ask why they were together. “I suppose you could consider it an enchantment.”

Hat Kid's eyes widened in horror. “An enchantment?!” She had hoped that that wouldn’t be the case, but if the curse could take over an entire kingdom, she had little doubt it could take the prince as well.

“In a manner of speaking,” she giggled, much to Hat Kid’s confusion. “He is quite captivated by her.”

“Why do you sound so happy about it?!” Hat Kid's chest tightened at the thought of Vanessa turning Thea into a popsicle. 

Camellia quickly sensed that one of them had gotten the wrong idea. “Wait, what? No, sweetheart! I just meant that they're love for one another is magical. The queen would never do anything to hurt Thea...erm, Prince Thea,” she corrected. 

She stuffed her hand into her pocket and gripped the letter tightly. “But...what if she did?”

“Well,” Camellia hesitated, speaking about that sort of thing was taboo, but she couldn't see the harm in quelling a child's concerns on the matter, “there would likely be an investigation involved. They'd have to find out why she had hurt him, not that she ever would,” she added quickly, “but should it happen, there are people who would make sure that the situation were handled. If Vanessa was at fault, she'd be punished accordingly. The same would apply to the prince if they found he'd done something to warrant being hurt.”

The letter felt like it was burning through her hand. There wasn't much point in asking anything else. It seemed pretty clear that Camellia wasn't aware of any vile schemes Vanessa might have had against Thea, but her questions got the better of her and she wound up blurting, “Vanessa is going to do something bad to Thea!”

“What are you talking about, sweetheart?!” Camellia looked absolutely appalled. Her hands started trembling, clutching the watering can so tightly that her knuckles turned white. “Prince Thea and Queen Vanessa are very much in love!”

Hat Kid reeled back, realizing she'd said something that could have been considered treasonous. Unveiling a secret plot for the queen to do something horrible to her prince, that was unthinkable for the residents of Subcon. She broke out in a nervous sweat. “I...I was just kidding.” She tried to laugh it off, but it sounded so forced. 

Camellia continued to stare at her in shock for a few more seconds before sternly saying, “That is not something a person should joke about.”

“You're right,” she whispered apologetically. “I'm sorry.”

A few more beats of tense silence passed between them before Camellia sighed and smiled once more, though it was more out of politeness than genuine glee. “Well, as long as you don't go around saying that anymore, it's alright.” She stood up and smoothed her skirt out. “I need to get to work now, but good luck on your search for your friend, sweetheart. Don't get yourself into any trouble, alright?” Hat Kid nodded, forcing a tight smile so she wouldn't further worry the redhead, and waved to her as she crossed the bridge and headed back to the village.

She waited for Camellia to round the corner in the square before resuming her trek into the forest. Everything she'd said and everything Hat Kid had seen matched up. “ Prince Thea and Queen Vanessa are very much in love ,” Camellia’s words echoed inside her head, only confusing her more. Where did the letter fit in? What was going to change? How do things end up so horribly? But most worryingly, what was Vanessa going to do?

Her head began to hurt. She had too many questions and too few answers. Rubbing her head between her hands, she made her way down the forest path, trying her best to focus on finding the rift pons. She was nearing the spot she and Snatcher had landed in the last time when she first heard it. It was soft and sounded distant, but she could definitely hear a rift pon. She started walking around, listening for the noise to increase or decrease, but it seemed that no matter which direction she moved, the sound only decreased from the spot she'd first noticed it.

“Where is it,” she kicked a thin tree, sending a shower of leaves down on her. She looked up, scowling and sticking her tongue out at the sky. Good thing she looked up though, because resting several meters off the ground, sitting on the upper branches of one of the trees was the rift pon she'd been hearing. She groaned, “it's been above me the whole time…” the rift pon shimmered in response, almost as if it were mocking her.

She raised an eyebrow quizzically, wondering how in the world a rift pon had landed so far up, wedged in the crevice of a tree branch no less. Regardless of its strange positioning, she would have to find some way to collect it. She smirked slightly as an idea popped into her head. Whipping out her umbrella, she equipped the hookshot badge and prepared to scale the tree. With a bit of careful aim, she managed to snag a branch a few meters above her and pull herself up. She repeated the process a few times, quickly making her way up the side of the tree until she was one shot away from being able to grab the pon. She aimed her umbrella at a limb just above the branch holding the pon and leapt forward, one hand clutching the umbrella, the other reaching for the shimmering orb. She was so, so close to grabbing it when the branch she'd hooked onto snapped without warning, dropping to the forest floor and taking her still grappled umbrella with it. 

“Ah! AAAAAAAA-” Hat Kid screamed as she realized her umbrella had slipped out of her hands and that she was plummeting to the ground. “SNATCHER-” she cried instinctively, hoping he was close enough nearby to save her, but she lost all hope when she saw the ground below rapidly approaching her.

She closed her eyes and braced for impact, but just before she should have hit the ground, something wrapped around her waist and abruptly halted her descent. She gasped as the air was sucked out of her lungs by the pressure in her abdomen, and immediately sank to her knees upon being set on the ground.

“Oh dear, oh dear! I didn’t mean for that to happen! Are you alright?”

Hat Kid shakily raised her head towards the voice. A strange, blurry figure stood a ways away from her; bright red threads flicked about his body before retreating beneath the cloak he wore. He moved towards her, seemingly gliding across the forest floor before offering her his hand. She took it tentatively, still wary of the person she couldn’t even see clearly. But her footing was still unsteady from the sudden drop and lack of oxygen, and she wound up stumbling into him.

“Whoops,” he chuckled and helped her stand upright. “You took quite the fall, young one. What in the world were you doing up there?” Hat Kid looked up, trying to point to the rift pon that was still lodged up in the tree, but got dizzy and staggered backwards. “Oh my…” the man sighed as he caught her once again, but this time he helped her lower herself to the ground. “Perhaps you should sit for a moment. Let me see what I can do about your elevated artifact.”

Hat Kid observed him silently as her vision gradually came back into focus and her breathing steadied. His back was now to her as he stared up at the rift pon, seemingly contemplating the best way to retrieve it. He didn’t think about it for long before the red strings she’d seen a moment ago reemerged and shot up to grab it. Her eyes widened in awe as they coiled around the orb and carefully brought it back down to the man’s extended hand. He brushed the pon off a bit and polished it with his cloak as the strings disappeared inside once more.

“There we go!” He spun around excitedly, letting his cloak catch the wind but never allowing it to open, before reaching out through a narrow slit in the fabric to return her possession. 

Hat Kid got her first good look at the person who had saved her as she gratefully accepted the rift pon from him. He wore a deep mahogany colored cloak that had a tall hood that seemed to sit on his head unevenly. He appeared to be going to great lengths not to let his attire flap open, so the only other feature she could acknowledge was the full-face dweller mask he wore. His was plain enough, a solid purple mask with wide, crying eyes and an enormous toothy grin. She’d seen several people and Dwellers alike with that exact variation around Subcon. The real question was why he was still wearing one long after the festival was over. She decided it was best not to pry. 

“You...saved me,” she said breathlessly. “Thank you.”

“You’re quite welcome!” He made a bowing motion before continuing, “I simply couldn’t pass by a damsel in such distress.” Her face flushed from embarrassment. “May I ask your name, young one?”

“It’s Hat Kid!” She could finally say it with confidence now that she had her signature hat back.

“Hat Kid,” he tilted his head back a bit, “that has a lovely ring to it! It is nice to make your acquaintance Miss Kid!”

She giggled, “No, just Hat Kid!”

“Ah, pardon me then,” he lowered his head apologetically, ”it’s nice to meet you, Hat Kid! My name is Moonjumper!”

“Moonjumper?” She frowned. “What kind of name is that?”

“A very strange one, no?” His form shook as if he were laughing, but he didn’t make a sound. The motion did however cause one of the red strings to poke out for a second.

“Oh..” Hat Kid hopped to her feet and pointed at it. “What are those?!”

Moonjumper jumped a bit when she shouted, but quickly recovered and laughed. “Ahaha, these?” He slipped his hand out through the slit in his cloak again and held up a limp piece of thread. “It’s just a string, young one!”

“But you were making it move!” She hopped back and forth excitedly, “is it a magic trick?! Can you do it again?!”

Moonjumper silently stared at the animated bundle of energy for a moment before wordlessly accepting her request. He slid his other hand out of another slit in the cloak and began wrapping the string around his fingers, patiently thready the red strands in and out until he’d formed a star. Hat Kid didn’t look impressed. It was cool, but she knew she’d seen him moving them without touching them. Moonjumper cracked a smile, one she couldn’t see, and jerked his hands back inside his cloak, leaving the star hovering in midair before him. The only trace that it came from him was the tail end of the string leading back into the slit where his arms had returned. Hat Kid perked up slightly as she ran around him a couple times to try and figure out how he was doing it, but Moonjumper wasn’t quite done. He cocked his head to the side suddenly and several more threads erupted from within his hood, weaving themselves into crazy shapes before settling on becoming a series of stars that surrounded a large crescent moon. 

“Whoa!” Hat Kid cried as she stared up at the starry scenery he’d stitched into the air itself. “That’s amazing!”

Moonjumper chuckled before taking a step back and recalling all the strings. Once the last piece made its way back inside his cloak, he took a bow. Hat Kid clapped enthusiastically, still thoroughly amazed by his performance. “Thank you, thank you,” he laughed light-heartedly. “I’m quite out of practice, so I’m relieved that went so well, aha!”

“How do you do it?!”

“Hm, a magician never tells!” Hat Kid crossed her arms and made a pouty face. “But perhaps,” Moonjumper held his index finger over the mouth of the mask, “if you could do me a tiny favor, I might tell you something even more useful.”

Hat Kid eyed him skeptically, “what kind of favor?”

“Can you keep a secret,” Moonjumper asked mischievously. Hat Kid pretended to zip her mouth shut and nodded. “Don’t tell anyone that you met me.”

“Huh?” Hat Kid reeled back, both shocked and underwhelmed by the nature of the secret. “What, why?”

“I’m supposed to be a surprise guest!” He spun around joyfully. 

“For what?” She frowned. “A party?”

“Yes! A party,” Moonjumper agreed quickly. “But the party boy doesn’t know that I am coming! If you were to tell anyone of my arrival, you would spoil the surprise!”

“I can’t even tell my friend?” She looked puzzled, unsure of how telling Snatcher would really affect any in-rift events.

“Does your friend have a big mouth?”

“Well, kind of,” Hat Kid clenched her fists. Snatcher would totally blurt something like that out if it’d ruin someone else’s fun, but at the same time, it felt weird not being allowed to tell him about this guy. 

“I can see you’re still unsure,” he began again. “What if I could tell you where to find another one of those orbs I fetched for you a moment ago?”

Hat Kid’s head shot up at the suggestion. “C-can you really do that?” 

“Of course! I saw another one earlier!”

Hat Kid rolled things over in her mind for a bit before deciding that not mentioning Moonjumper to anyone was a small price to pay for getting another rift pon. “Alright, Moonjumper. I won’t tell anyone, not even Snatcher.”

“Good, hehe! I saw one in the library at the Queen’s manor earlier today!”

“The library?” Hat Kid couldn’t recall an actual library in the manor. 

“Do not fear, young one!” Moonjumper strode over to her and gently turned her around. The prince himself is in the village square even as we speak! I’m certain if you hurry, you can catch up to him and ask him to show you the way!”

“Y-yeah!” Hat Kid concurred. Prince Thea had seemed genuinely kind hearted the last time they’d met. She firmly believed he’d be willing to help her out. “Thank you, Moonjumper-” she spun around to face him, but he’d already disappeared. “Oh…” She felt a bit guilty for not saying it sooner, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it now. She sprinted off towards the village, trying to catch up to Thea before he decided to leave. “ I hope he’s not busy, ” she thought to herself. “ If he is though, I guess I could ask Vanessa for help instead...assuming I can find her. ” She flinched at the idea of having to confront the woman. Even though she wasn’t even remotely terrible to be around, knowing what would become of her made it difficult to get close.

Fortunately for her, she caught sight of a familiar golden crown resting atop slightly messy auburn colored hair near the edge of the square. She squeezed through the busy streets and made her way to the corner opposite of where he was standing. She would have crossed over to him, but she noticed that he was speaking with someone and didn’t want to interrupt. “Let’s go with those,” she heard him say as he pointed to something just out of her line of sight.

“Oh, of course.” Hat Kid gasped as she recognized Camellia’s voice. “If you think she’ll like them...”

“I’m sure she will! She always comments on how lovely the hyacinths smell this time of year.” Thea shifted his weight to the side, giving Hat Kid a better view of what was going on. 

Camellia was in the process of wrapping up a fresh bouquet of purple and white flowers, though her expression seemed a bit concerned. She went back to smiling brightly when she finished however and went to hand Thea the arrangement.  “Here you go!”

“Thank you, Camellia!”

“Ah, if you don’t mind my asking,” Camellia blurted suddenly, “what are you doing back so soon? No one was expecting you for another week for the wedding! We haven’t had time to plan anything for you!”

“Ahh, I know.” Thea scratched the back of his head and laughed awkwardly. “I worked ahead in my studies and advanced just far enough to take the day off.”

“So you could surprise your fiance?” Camellia smiled smugly as she rocked back and forth childishly.

 He nodded sheepishly. “Truthfully, I was trying to avoid being seen by anyone, but I thought flowers would be a nice gesture.” Hat Kid could tell by the way he hung his head that he was trying to hide how hard he was blushing.

“You’re so thoughtful,” Camellia stifled a laugh as she waited for him to compose himself.

“I try. Oh! I almost forgot,” he dug a handful of coins from his bag, took Camellia’s hand, and placed them in it, “wouldn’t be very prince-like if I ran off without paying, haha.”

The distinct sound of someone gasping sharply rang out through the square. Thea and Camellia jumped, startled by the sudden sound, and turned towards the source, hands still linked from the unfinished transaction. A wisp of green fabric and flaxen hair trailed behind someone as they darted down an alleyway and vanished from Hat Kid’s sight. But even though she couldn’t see the person, she could still hear them crying as they ran away.

“W-was that Vanessa?!” The prince jerked his hand away and stared off in the distance, a glint of worry flashed in his amber eyes.

“I-I’m not sure,” Camellia looked just as troubled. “It could have been, but...why’d she run off like that?”

“Vanessa?!” Thea took off after her, fear gripping him as he ran. What happened? Was she ok? Did she get hurt? Why was she fleeing?

Hat Kid didn’t understand the situation any more than Thea did, but she couldn’t just sit there either. She dashed across the street, turned into the alleyway he’d run down, and followed it until it spilled out into the clearing just before the manor. For a brief and horrible moment she recalled the letter in her pocket and realized that this was the exact scene Camellia had written about, the event that occurred just before the prince disappeared. She had come for the rift pon, but she feared she was about to get more than she bargained for at the manor. She could see Thea not too far up ahead and sped up, but whoever he was pursuing had already vanished from sight. She continued to chase after him anyway, silently pleading for nothing bad to happen.

Chapter Text

Snatcher tossed the rift pon up and down in one of his hands as he hovered into the room adjacent to the kitchen. He lingered in the doorway for a moment as he looked over the space and fought back the urge to set it ablaze. A grand piano sat in the middle of the room, piles of books and sheet music lying scattered around it. He and Vanessa had spent a great deal of time there, playing, teasing, just talking. He rolled his eyes and hovered towards the door, not wanting to remain there any longer than needed, but as he drew closer to the exit, he heard a faint shimmering. He spun around, squinting slightly as he glanced over the room, searching for the glow of what would be the duo’s last pon, but the only source of light came from the window.

He emitted a soft sigh before setting the one pon he'd found down on top of the piano and poofed back into the kid's form. It would be easier to search the cramped space if he didn't have to worry about bonking into things. The pon sounded distant, but after poking his head into the hall and kitchen once more, he determined that it was definitely hidden somewhere in the library. With a heavy sigh, he began his search. Boxes were moved, furniture was lifted, even tiny mouse holes in the walls were scoured, but he couldn't seem to place it. Frustration was beginning to set in, a fact made obvious by the expression on his face. He still had 10 minutes before he was supposed to meet the kid though. He hopped into a chair resting in the corner of the room and let his eyes drift across the cluttered space. It didn't sound any closer than it had a moment ago, and it's light still didn't shine. He groaned and let himself fall back against the chair, resting is head in one of his hands as his frown deeped, but the action of hitting the chair caused the bookshelf next to him to shake.

A large black object fell in front of him, and Snatcher instinctively reached out to catch it. There was a soft clattering and a discordant ring coming from it when it landed in his outstretched arms. But more importantly, he could just barely see the light of the rift pon coming from inside. He rather forcefully opened the case, not quite acknowledging its shape until its contents were revealed to him. The rift pon was tucked beneath the neck of a painfully familiar piece of hollowed wood that was somewhat misplaced by its impromptu descent. Snatcher blinked in surprise at the cello resting in his lap, uncertain of how else to react. He'd almost forgotten that he'd been able to play before everything fell apart.

He stared at the instrument for a prolonged period of time before finally plucking one of the strings. The open note harmonized with the muted vibrations of the other three, echoing through the hollow wooden chamber. “Heh,” he let out a breathy laugh and pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. “What am I doing? Just take the stupid pon,” he reprimanded himself and picked it up, abandoning the cello against the chair. 

He glanced up at the clock on the wall. The hour had already almost passed. He moved back over to the piano, careful not to trip over the cluttered mess of paper on the floor, and picked up the rift pon he’d left there earlier. With the exception of the cellar, he’d already searched the whole manor and was fairly confident that he’d found the only rift pons that were there. That meant the kid had to find two of her own outside, or the two of them would need to make a rather dreaded trip downstairs. He was making his way to the door so he could get to their designated meeting spot when he overheard the sound of crying in the distance.

“Kid?” He found himself speeding to the window, nearly dropping the pons in the process. He was both relieved and terrified to discover that it wasn’t her he’d heard. As he watched Vanessa come barrelling through the clearing, a knot formed in his chest. “Ha...haha...don’t panic…” he whispered to himself, already panicking. “It’s no big deal as long as-” he didn’t even get a chance to finish what he was saying before the prince appeared in the distance, clearly chasing after her, and Hat Kid wasn’t far behind him. “You’re kidding…” he groaned and smiled blankly.

Snatcher was painfully aware of what was about to happen, and among the last things he ever wanted to experience again, this moment placed in the top five. He bolted for the door to the hallway, hoping he’d have enough time to slip out, but the second he reached for the handle, he heard the front door open and slam shut. Rather than run into the kitchen like any rational person, he dove into a heavily shadowed corner between a bookcase and the wall, deciding he’d just slip out after Vanessa came in and before the prince arrived. His only other problem was the two very bright beacons of light resting in his hands that would be nearly impossible for her to miss. But since there wasn’t a spot to hide them nearby and since he didn’t have access to the magic that let him store stuff in a pocket dimension, he did the only thing he could think of and shoved them in his mouth. The kid would probably kill him for it, but he’d worry about that later.

Vanessa shot through the door and immediately collapsed onto the piano bench, trembling and gasping as she wept. Snatcher rolled his eyes and silently moved towards the door again, but froze when she began to speak. “How could he do this to me…” she whimpered pathetically. “My prince...my sweet prince, betraying me with...with that whore !” 

Snatcher stiffened at the word. Camellia was no such thing, though there was no sense in trying to defend her honour now. He could however just...accidentally slit Vanessa’s throat. The kid wouldn’t need to know. He was rather fond of the idea and likely would have executed it had the prince not stumbled into the room a second later, panting and leaning against the doorframe as he struggled to catch his breath. 

“Vanessa...my love…” he wheezed, “why...oh lord...why were you running?” Snatcher pressed himself back into the corner, keeping his eyes open just the tiniest crack so he could see. Vanessa mumbled something under her breath, words that neither version of him could hear. Thea took a few deep breaths, composing himself before attempting to approach her once more. She had always been prone to overreacting to even trivial things, she must have misunderstood something, though he didn’t yet know what. “My love,” he began again, “what happened? Have I done something wrong?”

Snatcher groaned silently from his hiding spot, “ the only thing we did wrong was court her. ” The two of them began their debate, one side violent and heated, the other quiet and subdued. Snatcher did what he could to drown them out, already familiar with the largely one sided dialogue, and tried to figure out a way to slip past them without alerting them of his presence. If it weren’t for the rift pons, he could have simply slipped through the wall, but the solid objects wouldn’t pass through with him. Getting around the prince wouldn’t be any easier since he still stood too close to the door. It was at that moment that he noticed the familiar purple top hat just barely peeking out from the shadows of the hall.

He and Hat Kid spotted each other and exchanged worried glances. Hat Kid held up two fingers to signal that she’d only found two rift pons outside and cast a worried look around the corner of the door. Snatcher smiled slightly and briefly opened his mouth to show off the two pons he’d found before snapping his jaw shut. He couldn’t risk being spotted. They were already losing precious time. Hat Kid looked both disgusted and relieved. As soon as Snatcher could get past those two, they’d be ready to go, but things seemed to be escalating between the prince and queen, and Hat Kid wasn’t entirely sure how long their fight would last. Snatcher on the other hand, had this moment ingrained in his memory for centuries, and knew exactly how much longer they had left. He grimaced as the tears sliding down Vanessa’s cheeks turned to ice before they hit the floor. He shot a silent warning to Hat Kid and gestured with his hand for her to back away from the door. 

“Vanessa...” Prince Thea neared her, cautiously extending his hand towards her trembling shoulders.

And then it happened. The demanding, “stay away,” followed by her arm being thrust out to her side. Then the armored statues, filled with ice and leaking darkness. The prince’s heart rending plea as he was swept up and dragged from the room with a violence and cruelty he did not deserve. Hat Kid watched in terror from the shadows of the hallway as the armored statues carried him down the steps to the cellar. Even though she knew there was nothing she could do, she raced after them, overwhelmed by the desperate need to help. Snatcher glared at Vanessa for a moment longer, his fingers sharpening into razor-like claws. Even if it wouldn’t change anything in their timeline, he could still kill that Vanessa then and there, but his attention was pulled away by the purple and yellow blur that sped past the doorway. He spit out the rift pons, swore under his breath, and took off after her. She was already in the cellar by the time he made his way over there, but he still couldn’t bring himself to go inside. Instead, he paced by the opening in the floor and tried to spot the kid, but she’d already ducked into the other room where she wouldn’t be seen by the guards. From her spot beneath a massive barrel of wine, she could still see everything . 

The heavily armored statues slammed the prince against the stone wall with enough force to rattle the chains hanging limply beside him. Both guards had pinned him by his arms and began placing heavy shackles just above his elbows. Thea watched in silent terror as they bound his hands off to either side of his head, completely restricting his ability to move his arms. Even as they moved to thread another strand of chain across his chest and lower body, he said nothing, too paralyzed by fear and shock to form words. He wasn't so startled he couldn't scream though, and scream he did. The moment the chain was in place, the guard to his left jerked its arm back, pulling the chain straight as it went. Coiled around the prince's torso, the chain then dug into his ribs and hips, splintering the bones beneath. Hat Kid covered her mouth with her hands to keep herself from screaming too and silently begged for the guards to just leave. 

“Why are you doing this,” Thea asked weakly between coughs. A thick trail of blood ran from the corner of his mouth, and Hat Kid was afraid to guess how severely he'd been injured. 

The guards however, not being sentient, gave him no response, and merely completed their task of locking him up before leaving, no doubt to return to Vanessa. Hat Kid waited until she could no longer hear their pounding footsteps to crawl out from under the wine barrel. The moment she did, she bolted through the door and ran up to Thea, startling him with her sudden appearance.

“Y-you?!” His voice rasped from the strain he'd been putting on it, choking on his words as blood gurgled in the depths of his throat. “Gods...What are you doing here?!” He paused as a troubled look clouded his eyes. “How much have you seen, Hat Kid?” The tears gathering in the corners of her eyes told him all he needed to know. “Too much, hm?” He sighed, desperately trying to keep down the lump in his aching throat and the whimper trying to proceed it. “Please, leave this place. I do not know what Vanessa would do to you while in that...state…” his voice faltered a bit as he tried to figure out what to say.

“Why is she doing this to you?” Hat Kid looked between the many chains binding him, progressively growing more frightened.

Thea cringed, uncertainty masking his usually cheerful demeanor. “A...misunderstanding,” he settled with the vaguest explanation he could muster, truthfully the only one that really made sense to him. “Do not fear for me though.” His expression relaxed as a bit of his hope was restored. “While I can’t say my love has ever reacted quite this rashly,” he hesitated before shaking away the doubt forming in his tone, “I’m certain that she’ll come to her senses soon.”

“But…” Hat Kid looked at him in disbelief, “you aren’t really just...ok with this, are you?”

His smile tightened as he closed his eyes, a pained wince finally resting on his paling features. “I can’t say I’m pleased with this turn of events, no, but our love is strong.” He beamed pridefully. “Vanessa and I can work through this. Don’t worry about us. Please go.”

Outside of the cellar, Snatcher began pacing anxiously. She was taking too long, way too long, he thought. They had mere moments left. No time to spare. They had to leave. Immediately. Snatcher's eyes darted down the hall and widened as he caught sight of the dark tendrils spilling out of the library. Moments were turning into seconds,  and he knew if they didn't leave soon…

“Kid,” he hissed and practically flung himself down the steps and into the cellar, more afraid of the threat in the hall than the memories of the cellar, “we have to go!”

She looked up at the prince through misty eyes. “Are you sure you'll be alright?”

“Of course.” He winked and tilted his head slightly to the left. Hat Kid followed his now perturbed gaze and noticed Snatcher, who was half a second away from just sweeping her up and carrying her out of there. “I believe it's time for you two to make your leave,” he said calmly. Snatcher shook his head as he looked at the man in chains. “Defend her...until my dying breath,” the prince wheezed. “How cryptic. How ever did you know?” Thea smiled, genuinely, through the pain that coursed through his body and Snatcher’s mouth furled into a snarl. “Better hurry up. You know how this ends.”

The trio jumped as Vanessa relinquished the most harrowing, heart-rending scream Hat Kid had heard in her life. It was a sound that carried so much pain and sorrow that she could feel it resonating inside herself. Thea winced before casting Snatcher a mortified stare and mouthing the word, “go.” He didn't need to be told twice. Snatcher burst forward and coiled around Hat Kid, lifting her off her feet and speeding towards the stairs. Hat Kid squeezed her eyes shut and averted her gaze from the warmly smiling prince. If this would be how he met his demise, she didn’t want to see. They were back on the first level within a second, and Snatcher was already in the process of pulling out the rift pons, fumbling them clumsily in his one free hand. He didn’t dare look back to see what awaited them if they hesitated any longer. He could already sense the malicious shadows creeping up from behind. 

“Ah,” Hat Kid yelped as something suddenly snaked around her ankle and tightened, tearing her from Snatcher's grasp. 

She fell to the floor, landing square on her back, but Snatcher had too much momentum to stop abruptly and ended up making it to the door before he could turn to see what had happened. The rift pons activated it as he turned his attention back down the hall, his eyes widening in horror as he spotted the kid, inadvertently illuminating the slimy vine-like substance rapidly overtaking the corridor. She was slowly rolling onto her hands and knees, oblivious to how close she was to being plunged in darkness. Snatcher gasped and flew back to her. He could have left. What compelled him to throw himself down the hall instead, reaching out for a kid he wanted dead, was unknown to him, but he did it anyway. Hat Kid didn't have a chance to process Snatcher barrelling towards her before he'd already grabbed her by the wrist and darted back to the rift door, moving with such velocity that her feet couldn't even stay on the ground. She screamed as she noticed the vines catching up to them, oozing and writhing about just centimeters from her legs. Snatcher leapt into the rift door, still clinging tightly to her even after most of his form had vanished. Hat Kid could feel the warmth of the light enveloping her shoulders, but all she could focus on was the sharp, stabbing pain in her left leg where one of the vines had stung her. The world around her seemed to stall, leaving her frozen in a place between light and darkness. She could hear her heart pounding inside her head as a sort of weightlessness overtook her small form. With one last glance at the manor and one last tug from the hand that still held onto her for dear life, Hat Kid was sucked through the door and into another unknown.

Chapter Text

Wind wisping past her ears. The snapping of twigs. Leaves rustling. A series of unpleasant cracks. Two horribly loud thuds. The sensation that she could no longer breathe.

Then darkness.

But only briefly.

“Ugh…” Hat Kid barely registered the pained moan sounding somewhere off to her right. “What the heck…” Snatcher grumbled, still in a daze from crashing into the hard forest floor.

Hat Kid rolled onto her side, blinked away the black spots obscuring her vision, and tried to pull herself into an upright position. Her arms gave out halfway through, and she wound up sinking back onto the ground, too exhausted at the moment to try again. She curled up a bit in response to the biting cold of the dirt and air that surrounded her, wincing as her body painfully reminded her of her many injuries. She could feel herself shaking, though she wasn't sure if it was from the cool temperature. She was too tired to care.

Meanwhile, Snatcher had lifted himself into a sitting position, visibly shaken by the violent turn of events. A quick glance at Hat Kid reassured him that she was alive and squirming. He let out a shaky breath as he looked at his trembling hands, flipping them over a couple times to reassure himself that he was still there as well before placing them on top of his head and laughing. “Ah...ahahaha..” His shoulders shook as he threw his head back. “AHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA! KID!!” He bellowed as his ridiculous grin reappeared. “DO YOU EVEN REALIZE HOW CLOSE WE CAME TO GETTING SLAUGHTERED BACK THERE?!” His booming laughter echoed throughout the dark woods. “LOOK AT YOU NARROWLY CHEATING DEATH AGAIN , EH?!” He nudged her playfully, but his joy flickered and died out the instant he actually saw her. “K-Kid? What’s up with you?”

Hat Kid couldn't even answer him and instead made a high pitched squeaking noise before folding in on herself further, trying to hide the fact that she was on the verge of tears. She didn't want Snatcher to see that. He'd probably laugh at her for it. Despite her efforts, he could still tell what was happening. His gaze shifted to the floor awkwardly as he pressed his lips into a tight line. Normally he would have made a scene, humiliated the poor fool who'd been dumb enough to break down in front of him. He relished moments like these, but not this time. Staring at the kid crying left a heavy feeling in his chest.

“Are you hurt,” he asked in a callous tone, upset with himself for even remotely caring in the first place. She didn't respond. He rolled his eyes and softened a bit, “kid, what's wrong?”

Silence dragged out between them, both of them seemingly waiting for the other to speak until Hat Kid unfurled herself just enough for her voice to not be muffled. “You went back for me,” she hiccuped and buried her face in her arms again to avoid having to look at him.

“Of course I went back for you,” Snatcher blurted with a sincerity that startled them both. Hat Kid lifted her head, revealing her puffy eyes and tear stained cheeks as she stared at him with confusion muddling her already cloudy eyes. “I...I mean,” he cleared his throat before smiling evilly, “I can't kill you if someone beats me to the punch, kiddo!”

“You didn't have a problem with the Vanessa outside the rift trying it.”

Snatcher scowled and narrowed his eyes at her, making her giggle a bit. “It's a recent development, kid,” he argued. “If she'd gotten you then, that would have been fine, but you've caused a lot of problems since then. Even that possessed outhouse couldn't can you.” He watched her stifle a laugh from the corner of his eye and smiled. “You've got to be the most horrendous person I've ever contracted!”

“The worst,” she asked a little more cheerfully.

“The worst ,” he confirmed with a nod.

Hat Kid smiled slightly and wiped the tears from her cheeks. Feeling a little better, she finally decided to observe their surroundings. She wasn't comforted by what she could see. “Is this...still Subcon,” she asked, though she already knew the answer. Snatcher gave a solemn nod as he stared off into the now deep purple woods that surrounded them. “It's almost back to normal now. What...happened?”

“Vanessa,” Snatcher seethed as he smiled sinisterly. 

“You mean…those vine things...did this?” Hat Kid stared out into the dark expanse, terror flickering behind her still puffy eyes.

“That mess of hers killed everything in the kingdom within a few weeks,” he confirmed. “If you weren't caught by the ice spears, you were taken by illness or starvation or the cold or-”

“I get the point, Snatcher,” she sniffled, “Vanessa killed the forest.”

“Not just the place, kid,” Snatcher's tone softened a bit as he prepared to deliver even more bad news. “I meant everything...and everyone .” Hat Kid had somewhat expected that clarification, but that didn't make it any easier to hear it. He turned back to her, still grinning though it was more playful than frightening now. “I don't think you're gonna like what we're gonna see, kiddo,” he chuckled and swayed back and forth.

“I don't either…” Hat Kid brought her knees up to her chest and hugged them. 

A tense silence formed between them again before Snatcher plucked her hat from her head and waited for her to look up at him, hopefully annoyed and not pitiful. It worked. She glared at him and held her hand out, wordlessly demanding that he give it back. She was pleasantly surprised when he did. 

“Wait here for a bit,” he said as he strolled off.

“Where are you going?”

“I'm just gonna find out when we are.” He waved her off and continued into the shadows. “Stay put.”

Hat Kid glared at him as he blended into the darkness beyond the trees. She didn't really want to be left alone in Subcon anymore. It was fine before, but...things felt off. If she understood correctly, Vanessa had become the evil ice queen she knew, and there was no telling how much more dangerous she was in the rift compared to the one outside. She shivered as the wind tore into her. It was notably colder than it had ever been during her time in Subcon. Even the area around the manor wasn’t this cold. She switched to her ice hat, hoping that it would provide even just a little more warmth, before moving to get up off the freezing ground. Her progress was halted by a sharp pain in her leg. 

“Ow...right,” she whimpered as she gingerly removed her boot, wincing as the frigid air blew against her exposed skin.

She wasn’t quite sure what to expect. A bruise or mark from being stung by that vine would have made sense, but what was actually left behind was much more severe. Thick, black splotches covered the majority of her lower leg, and tiny purple veins were spreading out from the center of the larger spots, connecting them and seemingly infecting the rest of her leg. Touching it didn’t cause her any additional pain, but there was a strange sort of numbness to it that left her feeling worried. If Vanessa’s vines had done this, there was no telling how serious the markings were. She gently slipped her boot back on and debated whether or not she should tell Snatcher about it, but the idea that he might abandon her if he started to consider her a burden was too frightening. She could tell him after they escaped the rift. She could wait that long. She was certain of it.

Chapter Text

Snatcher was still plowing through the trees, narrowing his eyes as he tried to gauge how long they’d been affected by Vanessa’s magical outburst. He didn’t give it much thought when he couldn’t actually tell though and just continued in the direction of the village, letting his mind wander a bit as he did. “Why did I go back for her?” His face scrunched up. “I want her dead, why not let that ice hag do the dirty work for me? I don’t actually want to be the one who does it anyway…” His eyes widened a bit at the sudden self-realization, but he quickly shook his head and resumed his trek. “Nah, I’ll take care of it after we get out. She’s only here now, because she’s still useful to me. That’s all…” 

Fortunately, he was right about Subcon Village’s location, just a short ways from where they’d landed again. He spotted the bridge, already broken in the chaos. He drifted over it, staying concealed in the shadows as best as he could, so he wouldn’t draw any unwanted attention. But after a few moments of skirting around the edges of the village, he realized he probably could have swooped right into the middle of the square, made a complete fool of himself, and still leave unnoticed.

    It wasn’t that there wasn’t anyone there; in fact, it seemed like most of the village was present, but they weren’t quite...aware. Snatcher’s eyes scanned the dim snowscape, his gaze pausing every few seconds as he came across human-shaped lumps lying in the snow. Corpses and blood and discarded items plagued the blanket of white, staining it with these unsightly horrors. Glancing up didn’t reveal a prettier view. Pillar after pillar of sharp-tipped ice had speared the buildings of Subcon Village, seemingly torn through them effortlessly. Streaks of dark red clung to the outer edges, trailing down the sides until the ice disappeared into a roof...or a body. Even with the unsettling number of dead people present, Snatcher was far more concerned with the remaining live ones. A tight but upset smile formed as he turned back to collect the kid. He was pretty sure he knew when they were, and their timing could not have been worse. At least one week had passed since the last level they had been in, though he firmly believed it’d been a bit longer than that, meaning Vanessa was not only more adjusted to her powers now, but also that the cellar would now be occupied with an image of the prince Snatcher absolutely could not allow the kid to see. He grumbled to himself as he hovered back through the trees. As long as he could keep her away from the manor, he would be fine. Wouldn’t he?

    The trek back was shorter than his initial trip now that he really had his bearings, and it only took him a couple of minutes to pop back into the small clearing where he’d left Hat Kid. “Hey, kiddo! I’ve got some…” he faltered for a second as he caught her wincing and rubbing her leg, but he dismissed it. He couldn’t risk seeming like he actually cared. “I have some good news and some bad news! Which do you want first?” Hat Kid shrugged. “Bad it is! The Village is totaled!”

    “Why do you sound pleased?”

    “Because I know when we are now!” He beamed and moved to pull her to her feet. “Which brings me to the good news! Vanessa should stay in her manor a solid 90% of the time at this point. As long as we avoid her place, we should be fine.”

    “Oh, that is good,” she sighed as he picked her up. “I was expecting double bad news.”

    “Well, I can give you more if you’d like,” he sneered and hovered off into the trees a bit, waiting for her to catch up.

    Hat Kid tried to ignore the feeling in her leg and pursued him. “No thanks,” she grumbled. She’d already gotten enough terrible news from the rift’s far too detailed history lesson, she didn’t need Snatcher to tack on any more.

    “Suit yourself,” he grinned slyly before leading her to the village.

    It didn’t take Hat Kid very long to realize that Snatcher’s extra bad news was probably just a heads up about the Village’s updated look. Standing at the edge of the broken bridge, she could clearly see the dilapidated structures that used to house the Village’s citizens. Roofs were caved in, windows were blown out, street posts were toppled over, and everything was stained crimson. She was too short to see the skewered bodies on top of the houses, but she could see the red glinting off the ice spears like some macabre stained glass. Snatcher gave her a few minutes to take it all in, partially because he was busy observing it too. Or rather, he was busy observing the citizens. 

    He had forgotten how severe things had been for his people before he’d managed to get back to them. Human shapes flitted about aimlessly, their forms faltering as if they were composed of constantly shifting smoke. Their only real distinguishing features were now the tattered rags they wore and their bug eyed stares. Vanessa’s corrupted magic had poisoned them, weeks ago if he guessed correctly. Most of them wouldn’t make it until he could escape. Hat Kid didn’t know what to make of the scene. Everywhere she looked there was at least one frozen body lying somewhere in her line of sight. She unconsciously tucked herself away behind Snatcher, as if trying to shield herself from the village.

    “Pff,” Snatcher snickered before hovering over the gap, leaving the kid exposed on the other side, “come on, kiddo!” Hat Kid bit her lip. She didn’t want to follow him, but she guessed she also didn’t have much choice either. She took a few steps backwards before breaking into a sprint and leaping over the seemingly bottomless ravine, skidding and slipping when she landed on the other side. Snatcher caught her as she started to fall backwards, losing her footing on the slick ice. “Careful, kid! Can’t have you dying just yet!”

    Hat Kid stuck her tongue out at him and pushed him away before facing the village again with every bit of the despair she’d felt the moment before. “Vanessa...really did all this?” Snatcher merely nodded in reply. Hat Kid kept her eye on him for a bit. It was still hard to tell what he was thinking, but she couldn’t imagine how horrible it would be if she saw her home suffer the way Subcon had, and she couldn’t imagine that Snatcher was truly unaffected by seeing it once again. She patted his hand and smiled when he glanced down at her. 

    Snatcher was a bit oblivious to what she was trying to convey at the moment, but his smile returned nonetheless. “Time to get to work, kiddo,” he sneered and pushed her into the square, laughing as she stumbled a bit from the abrupt movement. 

    “Hmph, fine, but you better be looking too,” she called after him, though he’d already turned and started searching. 

    Hat Kid took off, darting down the streets and alleyway, careful not to slip or cut herself on the varying forms of ice. Every corner she turned seemed to yield another body, and on more than one occasion, she’d found a Subconite or two staring at a corpse with an eerie expression. The moment one would spot her though, they’d leave. She noted that the Subconites didn’t actually seem too different from the ones outside the rift, not in terms of personality at any rate. She did her best to ignore them and continued with her search. The rift pons were doing a phenomenal job of hiding, but the rift door was pretty easy to find. She found it resting halfway down a street connected to the square, covered in a thick blanket of snow as if it had been waiting there for them for several days. She moved to brush the powdery substance off enough to uncover the mechanism that projected the number of pons they’d need. 

    “Three,” she sighed and dashed back out into the square just as Snatcher exited a building. She held up three fingers, silently announcing her discovery and the count, and went back to looking after he acknowledged her with a curt nod.

    After wandering around for a bit, shaking blocked doors, and trying to peer through windows, Hat Kid realized that she wouldn’t be much help searching the village. She glanced over at Snatcher and watched him weave in and out of the dilapidated homes with ease. Not wanting to feel completely useless, she switched tactics. If her experience with the people in the previous levels still applied here, she figured that the Subconites might be able to help her find the pons. Of course, that was assuming she could communicate with them. It was difficult to tell which ones could still speak, but more frustratingly, they seemed to disperse whenever she drew near. Snatcher slowed down as he spotted her attempting to make contact with them and laughed quietly, but not so quietly that the kid couldn’t hear him.

    “What’s so funny,” she huffed as another Subconite fled.

    “They aren’t going to talk to you .” He hovered down to her and watched as a few more scattered. “Even if we ignore the fact that you’re mysteriously unaffected by Vanessa’s magic, half of them won't even be able to say a word for the next few months. You won’t get anywhere with them.”

    “What about the other half of them?” She crossed her arms and grinned, thinking she’d found a loophole of sorts.

    Snatcher’s expression faltered. “They’ll…” he hesitated as he looked into her unknowing gaze, “come on, kid, don’t make me spell it out for you.” Her confused expression only grew more quizzical. “They’ll be dead.”

    Hat Kid’s arms dropped to her side as her mouth fell open in shock. “Wh-what?”

    “Technically all of them will be dead by the end of the week,” he added, “but a lucky majority of who you see here will have the luxury of becoming my minions.”

    “You’re going to save them,” she asked as she looked back at the few Subconites who dared to venture out.

    “If by save you mean enslave, sure, kiddo!” 

    “So, does that mean you were still alive at this point?” 

Hat Kid’s question made his already dead heart stop beating once more. “What,” he rasped. “Y-yeah. I think I was,” he stammered, suddenly not sure. It wasn’t as if he could really go check, but considering they hadn’t run into another Snatcher yet, he guessed it was possible for him to still be alive.

“Maybe we’ll run into you,” she giggled and did a few cute skips over some patches of ice.

“God, I hope not,” he inadvertently said out loud.

“Aww, why not?” She asked innocently enough, but her expression quickly turned into a malicious sneer, “were you ugly?”

“What?! NO!”

“I bet you were bald!”

“I WAS NOT,” Snatcher growled and plucked her up by the collar of her cape, holding her at eye level in an attempt to be more intimidating. “Why would you even think that?”

Hat Kid made a waving motion with her hands, requesting he bring her closer to his face and started gently smacking the top of his head. “Because you look like a baldy now.”

Snatcher was very close to flinging her into the ravine. “Ha ha,” he laughed dryly and dropped her into a pile of snow. “I’ll have you know I was quite the looker in my day.”

“People were probably just looking because you were super bald, huh?”

Snatcher deadpanned, “yeah. Yep. That was definitely why.”

He overheard her whisper a very hushed, “I knew it,” before she finally changed the subject. Sort of. “Anyway, if we do find you, you’ll point yourself out, right?”

“I shouldn’t have to,” he scoffed. “If you’re so confident that I was bald, then I’ll really stand out amongst all these people with full. heads. of HAIR!”

“Are you jealous,” Hat Kid teased one last time before dropping it. She was pretty sure Snatcher would actually kill her if she kept it up any longer. A shrill scream interjected their conversation, making both of them jump and turn their heads. “W-what was that?”

Chapter Text

Snatcher didn’t respond to her question. His gaze was fixated on a section of the wall of ice where the scream they’d heard had seemingly originated. A few flurries of snow seeped out from a large crack in the structure and were quickly followed by a dark figure running for their life. “RUN,” they shrieked, their fear and panic evident in their desperate tone. Neither Hat Kid nor Snatcher had a chance to react to their warning before several spiked columns of ice erupted from the ground, skewering the dark figure from behind. Hat Kid couldn’t suppress the short cry of terror as the point of the column burst out from within the figure’s chest, spraying a slew of crimson that splattered and tainted the veil of white around them. Snatcher gasped and grabbed Hat Kid the second he spotted the wisps of black smoke emanating from behind the ice, already well aware of what was coming. Hat Kid watched the crack in the ice as she was whisked away, shuddering as the Vanessa she knew emerged and strode up next to the poor Subconite she’d impaled. She stared at it, emotionless and unblinking, for several seconds before jerking her head to the side to glare at the Villagers who were still scattering.

    “I-I thought you said she wouldn’t leave the manor,” Hat Kid hissed, her tone laced with fear.

    “There was a whole ten percent chance that she would,” he reminded her as he tried to quietly move the two of them out of her sight. With or without his magic, Vanessa was more than capable of crippling him. He couldn’t risk picking a fight at a time when he couldn’t even fight back.

    “What do we do,” Hat Kid whimpered as the queen’s shadow neared them. 

    “Just be quiet,” Snatcher pressed her against the wall behind him. “If this becomes the worst case scenario, I want you to run,” he whispered.

    Hat Kid looked at him incredulously. “What? No!”

    “Listen, kiddo,” he shushed her, “ I could probably take her if I had my magic, but even then, you’d be in the way.” He scowled as she looked away, disappointed. “I can’t deal with her properly if I have to worry about accidentally hitting you, capiche?” She nodded. “Then be silent.”

    Snatcher and Hat Kid backed up as far as they could, pressing themselves into the corner and shuddering as their backs hit the ice. Vanessa’s wipsy shadow slowly appeared in front of them, emerging from around the corner at a painstaking pace. Hat Kid covered her mouth with her hands to conceal her breathing and silently prayed that the evil queen couldn’t hear her heart beating furiously inside her chest. A single, inky foot stepped into their line of sight, the snow beneath it crunching before bursting into fragmented ice crystals. Hat Kid and Snatcher both held their breath, even though the latter didn’t need to breathe, and waited for the inevitable moment where she’d spot them and kill them, but the only part of her they saw was that single foot. Somewhere around the building someone let out a sharp cry, startling not only Snatcher and Hat Kid, but also the queen herself. Vanessa whirled around, flinging off bits of snow and shards of ice as she turned to face the source of the shout.

    At the sound of the scream, Snatcher’s eyes became narrow slits, the light behind them burning more intensely than before. Embers fell from the openings in his face as he slowly backed around the corner of the building so he could see the square. Vanessa was looming over two Subconites, her constantly shifting form occasionally blocking them from his view. Hat Kid gasped and tried to grab him as he drifted out into the open space, but he was too quick. She cowered behind the wall, trying to figure out what the heck Snatcher was thinking. She didn’t have to wait long for him to reveal his remarkably simple plan. He waltzed up behind Vanessa, silencing the two villagers by holding a finger to his lips. Vanessa was in the process of reaching out to grab one of them when Snatcher tapped on her shoulder. She whirled around to face him, poised to assault whoever had touched her, but she was met with a fist to the face instead.

    “I have wanted to do that for so long,” his smile twisted and contorted, curling up at the corners in a sinister and unnatural way.

    “Are you crazy,” Hat Kid blurted behind him, shifting Snatcher’s focus just long enough for Vanessa to recover and get up. 

    She lunged at him, frost gathering in her gnarled hands. Snatcher raised his arm to shield himself, but Vanessa took hold of him, unleashing a burst of ice magic that pierced through the spector and spread up to his shoulder. Snatcher didn’t seem bothered by it in the slightest and used his free hand to grab her by the neck. The two of them stood still for a moment, pain and recognition flashing in both their eyes before Snatcher thrust her back.

    “Get out,” he snarled and held his hands out at his sides as he closed the distance between them a little more. Vanessa backed away from him a bit, but rather than try and escape, she snapped at him and shot a spear of ice in his direction, narrowly missing his face. Snatcher twitched and a swirling vortex of neon blue flame shot out around him before burning a line through the snow and reigniting as a wall between the two of them. “I said. Get out. OF MY FOREST,” Snatcher roared, his voice shaking the still air.

    Vanessa scrambled to her feet and fled towards her manor rather comically. Hat Kid sprinted out from around the building, cheering along with the dwellers and Subconites who were slowly coming out from hiding now that the threat was gone. Snatcher waited until Vanessa was completely out of sight before turning his attention back to the couple that she had been targeting. They were still clinging to one another, although their fearful expressions had shifted into massive grins. Snatcher approached them quietly, waiting for them to notice him before extending his hands out to help them stand.

    “Are you alright,” he asked softly, trying to avoid being heard by the kid.

    “Y-yes…” one of them whispered hoarsely, their voice cracking from a lack of use.

    “Good,” he chuckled. “I’m really not sure how the two of you were supposed to make it out of that,” he added suddenly, gaining confused glances from them, “but you did survive it without me before.”

    “H-how-”

    “It doesn’t really matter,” he cut them off and started picking the flakes of ice off of his arm. “Point is, you two are gonna make it, and the reward is an eternal life of enslavement! Isn’t that nice?”

    Snatcher moved to return to Hat Kid, but the one who had been silent the whole time suddenly grabbed his arm. Snatcher yanked it away and whirled to face them, glaring, but his expression softened when he saw the devastated look in their glowing white eyes. “It’s...it’s you, isn’t it,” they asked in a hushed tone. “Prin-”

    “Shh!” Snatcher hissed and placed his finger over their mouth. He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly as he pulled away, not really answering their question but somehow confirming their suspicion silently. “Not a word, ok?” They nodded and backed away from him. Snatcher let his usual grin return as he cackled, “enjoy this while it lasts, you two! It’s going to get way worse before it gets better!”

    “Snatcheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer!!” He looked up just in time to see the kid barrel into him, knocking him back into the snow. “You big dummy! What were you thinking?!” Hat Kid pounded her fists against his chest and pouted. “What if she got you?! Then what?!”

    “Kid,” he groaned and pulled himself up, trying to pry her off of him. “Kiddo, come on. She didn’t, so let it go.”

    Hat Kid crossed her arms and huffed, “fine, but don’t do that again!”

    “Trust me, I won’t,” he shuddered as he plucked the last chunk of ice off of his forearm. 

“Why did you even do that in the first place?” She brushed the snow off of her clothes and stood up too. Snatcher inhaled and glanced at the two Subconites staring at them. Hat Kid looked between him and them and laughed. “Aww! You were protecting them,” she gushed, much to his annoyance.

“Was not.”

“Was too,” she poked him excitedly. “Are they gonna be some of your minions later?”

“Yeah, a couple of my laziest ,” he grumbled, scowling at the two of them until they scampered away. “Anyway, I only stepped in because I didn’t want Vanessa getting any more minions of her own.” Hat Kid gave him a quizzical look. “If she’d turned them into ice statues, we might have had to deal with them running about wreaking havoc. We’re going to have enough problems here as it is,” he clarified. 

“That was really stupid though,” she pointed out, earning her an annoyed look of her own from him. “I mean, your magic hasn’t been working. What if it hadn’t worked a moment ago?!”

“Guess I’d die,” Snatcher shrugged and smirked, but Hat Kid wasn’t amused. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I didn’t know it would work either. I’m still not sure it’d work if I tried to use it now .” He snapped his fingers a few times, producing a few sparks. The attack he’d used a moment before had felt really forced. It might have only worked out of sheer desperation. Now that the threat was gone, his magic might have gone too. But after a few brief test snaps and a couple flicks of his wrists, the little sparks turned into full fledged flames that he could manipulate. 

“S-Snatcher!” A slight grin crossed Hat Kid’s lips as she eyed the fire burning in his hand. “Can you actually use your magic again?”

“Would you look at that…” Snatcher had been able to emit short bursts and embers of the blue fire, but that was the first time since they entered the rift that he could actually use it to fight . He gathered head-sized balls of azure flame into his hands and tossed them around for a bit before swiping through them with his claws and putting them out, leaving little more than a few puffs of smoke to mark their existence.

“Can you do anything else,” Hat Kid asked eagerly. Having Snatcher’s magic back would be a much needed relief to both of them.

“Let’s see,” he waved his hand about for a few seconds and frowned when nothing happened. “Hm, no summoning still.”

“Summoning?”

“Contracts and potions, kiddo,” he clarified. “I can store other stuff too, but it’s mostly those two things.”

Hat Kid thought for a moment before excitedly asking, “A pocket dimension, right?”

“Bingo!”

She was glad that she figured that out, because she finally had an answer for him. “I know why that isn’t working!”

Snatcher looked mildly surprised to hear her say that. “Do tell.”

“Pocket dimensions are directly attached to other dimensions, kind of like when two bubbles get stuck together,” she tried to explain. “Time rifts are pocket dimensions too! It’s connected to our dimension just like your pocket dimension is, but the rift and the place you summon stuff from aren’t connected to each other. There’s a gap!”

“The gap being our whole dimension?”

She nodded excitedly, happy to know she was actually making sense. “I don’t think you can summon stuff while we're here, because we aren’t directly attached to your pocket dimension.”

He understood what she was saying, but still looked at her, utterly stunned by the slew of information she just fed him. “Where did you learn this stuff, kiddo?”

“Pilot school!” She laughed as his expression grew progressively more confused. “I had to learn how to navigate pocket dimensions before I could fly my own ship! It also helps me make sense of time rifts. Each door we pass through pulls us into a bigger shell. The more doors we go through, the further out of the rift bubble we are. And the further out we are, the easier it becomes to break back into the main dimension.”

“I see.” Snatcher couldn’t help but feel just the tiniest bit irked by the fact that the kid might actually be smarter than him, at least when it came to this sort of stuff. He’d never admit that though. “Well, that’s one mystery solved!”

“Hey, what about that really powerful explody laser beam thing you used in our fight?!” She hopped from side to side. “Can you do that?”

“Hm…we can find out.” Snatcher smirked as he held a hand out in front of him, placing his thumb and his fingers so they formed a 90 degree angle. A small crowd of Subconites gathered around him, curious about what he was going to do. “Wow, no pressure, huh,” he laughed as they huddled around him. “I don’t even know if this will work.”

“Just try it!” Hat Kid was a lot more thrilled to see the colorful beam now that she wasn’t on the receiving end of the attack. 

“Then stand back,” he said more seriously as he focused on the spot outlined by his extended hand. 

He stayed that way in silence for several seconds, concentrating on gathering the magic that had been buried by the rift for some time. After nearly a minute of waiting, Hat Kid let out a disappointed sigh, convinced that it wasn’t going to happen. She almost missed it. A flash of red light lit up the trees and ice in front of them. Then all hell broke loose. A devastating ray of energy shot out from Snatcher’s hand, colors swam through and tore apart the sky and everything that fell into its path. Its thunderous roar erupted in her ears as the violent waves of energy it expelled threatened to topple her. She could do nothing but stare at the immense release of power and cling to the nearby lamppost so she wouldn’t be blown away. The beam eventually faded into a solid white line that dissipated with one final surge of energy that pushed everyone in the vicinity back a bit. Horrified but amazed murmurs spread amongst the villagers as the light cleared and the damage was revealed.

Just a moment before, there had been a thick wall of trees separating the village from one of the outer walls of Vanessa’s icy domain. Now the trees were gone, reduced to ash if not evaporated in their entirety. That was impressive in itself, but the blast had pushed through the trees with ease and continued into the massive expanse of ice that sat beyond them. A hole of indeterminate length stretched out behind the freshly cleared trees, icicles forming around the edges of its gaping maw. The opening to the tunnel was almost as big as the houses in the village, leaving everyone present with the unsettling realization that Snatcher could have just as easily demolished their homes, let alone them. It was no wonder why they scattered and scurried away, seeking a place to hide before the initial shock wore off for the two unwelcome visitors.

“What was that ?!” Hat Kid stared at the colossal hole he’d torn through the wall of ice with equal parts terror and awe. She had thought she’d seen Snatcher use the fullest extent of his power in their fight before the rift formed, but the energy he exuded just now didn’t even remotely compare to anything he’d used then. She was certain that if he had attacked her with that, she would have died instantly.

“I...I don’t know…” her attention shifted to the trembling voice sounding behind her. A trench had been dug through the ground leading to the hunched over shadow. The force of his own attack had thrown him back, pushing him into the dirt and snow when he’d tried to ground himself. “That’s... very new.”

“Snatcher?! Are you ok?!” Worry flooded her as she spotted him cradling his arm. Deep yellow cracks that oozed with bright light had fragmented the arm he’d used to make the blast. Hat Kid dropped to her knees in front of him, her hands covering her mouth as she assessed the damage before letting them hover over his arm, uncertain of what she could do, but determined to do something . “What happened?!”

“It’s...I’m not sure…A magical surge?” Snatcher mumbled something else incomprehensibly, not really in response to her question, as he looked pensively at the damage he’d done. “They’ve never come out of my arm like that before, heh.” Hat Kid grimaced as she tentatively ran her fingers across one of the deeper cracks in his arm, trying to gauge how severe the injury was, or if it was an injury at all. “Hey!” Snatcher recoiled, his eyes flashing brightly as he pulled away, poorly hiding his pained expression. He realized his error the moment he saw the tears gathering in the corners of the kid’s eyes. “Wait, hey! Come on, kiddo! It’s not that bad, see?” He splayed the fingers on his injured hand and balled them into a fist, repeating the process a few times, barely concealing the involuntary wincing that chased each movement. “Barely hurts at all!”

Hat Kid didn’t look convinced, but had no room to argue. “D-don’t do that again,” she sighed, concern seeping into her forcibly frustrated tone. “We don’t know what’ll happen if you do.”

Snatcher got up and waved her off. He had zero intention of repeating that maneuver, certain he’d blow his arm apart if he was foolish enough to actually try it again. “Trust me, kiddo. I’ll be sticking to fire and shape shifting for now.”

Hat Kid looked him over once more before deciding that he was probably fine for the time being. “I don't think we'll have much luck finding the pons like this.”

“You want to try splitting up?”

“Will you be ok by yourself,” she asked, realizing a second too late how ridiculous it was to ask an adult a question like that.

Snatcher, quite frankly, found it hilarious though. “Sure, kiddo, but hey…” his light tone turned heavy, “stay away from the manor.” Hat Kid shivered and rubbed her arm, nodding seriously. “I’ll keep searching the village for a bit. I did get those two guys to talk to me earlier, so maybe I can get something out of the others if you aren’t around.”

“Do you really think they’ll talk to you after...that…” she frowned and glanced at the giant hole in the wall.

Snatcher chuckled, “probably not. Still, it’d be better for me to check the rest of the village. You can’t get into half the buildings, and I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t like a lot of what you’d see in them anyway.”

She flinched at the thought of stumbling upon another body. “Y-you’re probably right. I’m going to search the forest then.”

“Don’t get lost.”

“Don’t blow up.”

Snatcher scoffed at her quick comeback before hovering off and disappearing into one of the buildings, and as soon as he was out of sight, Hat Kid headed into the forest.

Chapter Text

Despite her abundant and recent experience with traversing those paths, she found the rugged, snow-buried terrain significantly harder to navigate. It occurred to her a bit late that Snatcher and his minions had probably cleaned up the forest outside of the rift to reopen important pathways, but for the time being, she was trekking through the freshly scrambled woods with very little sense of direction and even fewer landmarks to tell her where she was at the moment. 

“Tree...tree...rock...tree…” she whispered to herself, struggling to get a grasp on her location. “Tree...rock...is that the same rock? Peck.” A huffy, defeated sigh followed by a stomp of her foot, “stupid forest. Stupid time rift. Stupid Snatcher…” she grumbled as she looked around again. There wasn’t much asides from snow and trees. The occasional clump of ice and scattered stones were the only real variation in the scenery, but even those were starting to look the same to her. She took a few steps ahead, glancing up to scan the treetops for anything useful, before stumbling off a short drop in the ground and landing on the surprisingly warm forest floor. “What the-” she groaned as she wiped the uncomfortably damp sludge she’d fallen into off of her hands and stood up. “What...is this?”

Hat Kid looked ahead of her at the expanse of land somehow untouched by the snow and ice that plagued the rest of the forest. For a considerable distance just barely within her line of sight, the forest floor was completely visible. Deep purples and greens stood out against the blanket of white wrapped around the heated patch of ground. A puzzled look made its way to her face as she observed the way the snow piled around the edge of the expanse, separated only by a ledge that encircled the space. She realized that she was standing inside a hole or crater of sorts that might have been a small lake or pond before Vanessa’s magic corrupted everything. If that were the case though, the water was long gone and has been replaced by the strange soggy ground on which Hat Kid stood.

She shrugged and moved a little further into the center of the hole, silently grateful to be somewhere warmer, when a soft voice startled her. “...lost?”

Hat Kid jumped at the sudden sound, whipping her head to the left to face its source. Given how frail they had seemed, she’d expected to see a child, but standing beside her, fidgeting and crumbling, was a mass of shadowy figures. Hat Kid leapt back at the sight. Several Subconites who had long ago begun the transition to becoming dwellers stood clumped together as one solid body. They were a tangled mess. Arms and legs seemed to jut out at random; bulging eyes flicked back and forth, never seemingly being able to focus on one thing. A few, debatably, fortunate souls around the edges of the cluster still maintained a relatively individual shape. It was one of those that had spoken up a moment before. 

“Lost,” it asked again, twitching slightly as several more dwellers broke away from the cluster and dragged themselves towards her.

“I…” she shuddered and took a tentative step back, “yeah, I am. Where-”

“Oh,” the dweller sounded disappointed, speaking barely above a whisper as it sank back into the mess of bodies among which it was stuck.

“Hey, wait a second,” Hat Kid approached the cluster, careful not to trample any of the stray limbs poking up from the ground around it. “What happened to you guys? What is this place?”

A few more vaguely human shapes emerged from mess of body parts, pulling themselves free so they could speak. The first one who managed to break free sputtered, “dump…”

“‘Dump,’” she repeated quizzically. The dwellers nodded, low groans escaping the collection of bodies as they confirmed. “This is a dump...like, for trash?”

Another one of the more humanoid dwellers shook its head weakly. “Body...a body...dump.”

Hat Kid gasped quietly, covering her mouth with her hands as she looked around the disturbingly clear area. Suddenly the warmth and soft texture of the pit made sense. “I...I’m sorry,” she whimpered, realizing that she was likely walking on them in some way. 

“You’re...lost.” A dweller piped up before she stood up to leave.

“Y-yes,” she nodded. 

“Stay.” 

Hat Kid was about to protest, insist that she needed to get going, but the mass of dwellers had different plans. She yelped as a swarm of hands wrapped around her legs, snaking up her body and around her arms, pulling her into the soft ground. “Wait! What are you doing,” she shrieked.

“Lost lives...stay here…” one answered ominously.

“Lost lives?!” She shrieked and squirmed as she sank into the purple sludge, fighting against the several pairs of hands locking her in place. “But I’m not dead!!” All at once the hands released her and she was ejected from the strange substance that made up the floor. Hat Kid scrambled to her feet and put some distance between her and the cluster of dwellers, panting and shaking as she tried to calm down.

“Alive,” the smallest of the present dwellers asked timidly as it took a step towards her.

”Yeah, I’m alive,” she shouted, her voice quivering with anger and fear.

Something about her answer elicited a frightening change in their personalities. All of the dwellers suddenly began shifting and chattering and groaning, their collective sounds of lament and anxiety overwhelming the silence of the forest. Hat Kid jumped at the unexpected noise and tried to calm them down, but her words were lost in their screams.

“How,” she heard one cry.

“Spared...can’t be…” Hat Kid struggled to make out what was being said.

“Everyone’s...every...why her…” 

“I-I’m sorry.” Hat Kid grimaced and glanced at her feet but immediately stumbled backwards when she spotted the several pairs of hands reaching for her legs once again. “W-what are you doing?! Stop!”

“LEAVE,” One of them leapt at her, a desperate expression on their shadowy face as their fingers clawed at the space in front of her. “BE...FORE…”

“B-before what,” Hat Kid kicked at the mass of hands defensively as several more dwellers got too close.

    “Us…” another chanted breathlessly, their disembodied voice seemingly broken up by sobs, “us...you’ll be...like us.”

“R..un...you have to...run...RUN,” One of them actually pushed her as they commanded her to flee, their form shuddering violently with the last desperate shout.

“Lea...ve! Go! Get...out!” Another dweller approached her, its twitchy, bulging eyes boring into her.

“W-what are you doing,” Hat Kid tried to back away from them, holding her hands out in front of her to try and keep them back, but she misstepped and tripped over a small ledge, sending herself hurtling into the icy forest floor. She gasped as she slammed her elbow into a snow-covered rock and hissed at the surge of pain that shot up her arm. Panic overtook her as she snapped her eyes back up to look at the dwellers who were surely standing over her now, but she was surprised to find them standing exactly where they were when she fell. “What…”

One of the smaller dwellers approached her silently, ignoring her as she whimpered and vainly attempted to scoot away from them. It stopped as it neared the edge of the snow, casting her an apologetic look before glancing down at her injured leg. It made a series of strange clicking noises as it shook its head dismally and turned back to the cluster. “…soon.”

Hat Kid watched them hover and stagger, their forms flickering and dispersing as they sank below the surface of the murky purple substance that had once been solid ground. It took her a moment to process what she’d witnessed, then all at once it hit her. “The swamp…” her eyes widened as she peered over the edge of the bank, terror seizing her briefly as she realized that she almost got pulled under. Had they not let her go, and had she not fallen back on land… “no,” she whimpered. “No, it’s fine. I’m...I’m ok.”

It was a shame she couldn't believe that.

Chapter Text

With a bit of strained effort, she managed to pull herself into a sitting position, though her body swiftly made her regret moving at all. The pain in her arm had subsided to a dull ache, but her leg suddenly felt as if it were on fire. Every other part of her was just plain sore. She shivered again as she finally registered the cold dampness of the snow that had sunk into her clothes when she fell. She figured if she wasn’t more careful she’d make herself sick, though she wondered if she already were given how poorly she felt. She was bracing herself for the most likely agonizing ordeal of standing up when a pair of red threads ever so gently wrapped around her chest, carefully pulling her to her feet and holding her up until she was steady once more. Her face lit up with recognition as she turned around.

“Moonjumper!”

“Hello, young one,” he replied rather softly, remaining concealed in the darkness between the trees. “Every time I come across you, you seem to be in distress. We must stop meeting like this,” he chuckled wryly before slipping out into the light. Hat Kid covered her mouth to try and hide the startled gasp that escaped her lips, but Moonjumper heard it anyway. “Ah, should I go back? I realize my appearance isn’t exactly...appealing.”

The child couldn’t help but stare at the now clearly hovering being. While his attire didn't appear to be different from what he wore the last time she saw him, his cloak was now tattered and full of holes, but more worryingly, it was stained a sickening shade of red in several places and was positively festering with the same horrible substance that was eating away at her leg and the Subconites. His mask was also cracked and stained with the same red shade, especially around the eyes and mouth. 

“She...got you too,” she asked breathlessly, barely lowering her hands enough so that her voice wouldn’t be muffled.

Moonjumper seemed momentarily puzzled before glancing down at himself. “Ah, yes. You mean Vanessa? She ‘got’ me quite some time ago, I’m afraid.”

“Oh…” Hat Kid’s disappointment was evident in her tone.

Moonjumper sensed that however and made a small star out of one of his strings, bringing a slight smile to her sullen face. “Do not worry for me, young one! I will be quite alright!” Hat Kid perked up a bit. He seemed so sincerely cheerful; it was hard for her to remain upset in his presence. “Ah, yes, right,” he glided past her and seemed to stare at the spot where the dwellers disappeared. “Were they bothering you?”

“N-no,” she stammered uncertainty. Truthfully they had scared her, but she somehow didn’t feel like they had meant her any harm after they’d realized she was alive. “I...I think they were just confused, but...I’m not really sure what happened.”

“I see.” Moonjumper turned his head to look at her before briefly glancing at her leg, the same one the dweller had been staring at, the same one the vines had scraped. Beads of sweat gathered on her forehead and she shifted uncomfortably, moving her injured leg behind the other to hide it from view. “Well, I still don’t like the idea of you wandering out here alone. You may stumble into the dump again or different specters may appear, and I fear for what they might do if you are truly unattended next time.”

“Were…” she hesitated before stepping up beside him, “were you watching me?”

“Hm…” he looked away, seemingly flustered by the accusation. “I was merely...concerned.” Hat Kid laughed and started walking ahead of him. Moonjumper followed her from a short distance. “What is so funny, young one?”

“You could have just said something!” She flashed him a smile before returning her focus to the path ahead. “Searching for pons is more fun with a friend anyway!”

“A...friend?” Moonjumper smirked, though she couldn’t tell.

“Well, I mean...if you want to be,” she fumbled over her words as she realized that she might have misjudged the forming relationship.

“Friends would be nice, yes,” he replied mirthfully and sped up to hover by her side, “but did you not already have another friend?”

“Oh, you mean Snatcher?” He nodded. “You can have more than one friend, silly!”

“You provide a fair point, young one.” He stopped moving as Hat Kid paused to check the surrounding area. “I believe you mentioned that you were searching for something?”

She nodded, “I don’t know if you remember, but that little orb thing you helped me get last time…”

“Have you misplaced it,” he asked somberly. “It might be quite difficult to find it now. Much of the forest has been-” he raised his hands to his side to gesture to the sickly looking state of the vegetation- “indisposed. Quite a bit of it has been blocked off too. I fear access to the well was lost last week. I am not sure how much more has been taken by our ailing queen.”

Hat Kid pursed her lips, realizing it would be difficult to explain the nature of the rifts and rift pons to one who wasn’t familiar with them. She was already struggling with Snatcher, so it was much simpler to say, “well, I’m going to look anyway,” and hope that he wouldn’t question it further.

“Well in that case,” he bowed slightly, making her giggle, “might I accompany you on your quest, young one?”

“Haha, yeah, but you don’t have to call me that, ok? It’s Hat Kid.”

“My apologies, Hat Kid,” he corrected himself and pursued her as she walked off again.

“Oh, Moonjumper,” she frowned as they continued through the woods, “how did your party go? I should have asked sooner…”

“I’m afraid it was rather rudely interrupted,” he sighed.

Hat Kid cringed. “Oh, right. Vanessa messed it up, huh?”

“Quite spectacularly,” he added with an air of amusement. “I had not expected my entrance to be met so...coldly.”

She laughed slightly at the pun before frowning again. “I guess that’s why you’re still here then...because you got trapped?”

“Yes, it was rather unfortunate. It would have been nice to return home once more before-” he cut himself off abruptly and scowled.

“Before...before what?” She almost didn’t want to ask, though it appeared Moonjumper didn’t want to answer. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to tell me.” Moonjumper gave her a slight nod, one she took as a silent gesture of appreciation, before moving a ways ahead of her and floating at the base of a large hollowed out tree. “Oh, hey! I recognize this,” she cried and bounded up to the massive trunk, doing a quick lap around it to make sure she was right. “It looks way different here, but I’m sure it’s the same one!”

“The same...one,” Moonjumper asked, clearly puzzled by her excitement.

“This is where Snatcher lives!” She paused for a moment, “Erm, at least...it’s where he hangs out. I’m not sure what he calls it, but it seems like it’s his house.”

“Your friend resides within a tree?” Moonjumper made a sound akin to a laugh, though it sounded somewhat garbled. 

“It’s much nicer...later on…” she let her voice trail off, not really eager to have to explain herself to him.

“Well, I won’t judge your friend’s choice of residence,” he began coolly, “but it would seem he’s the culprit behind your missing possession.”

Hat Kid raised an eyebrow as he raised a pale blue finger to point to something lodged in the tree’s branches. She was pleasantly surprised to spot a shimmering red orb with a golden crown spinning inside it resting a short way up the large tree. “Oh! A rift pon!” Hat Kid didn’t think twice about trying to climb it and immediately moved to scale the side and pulled herself onto one of the lower branches.

Moonjumper watched her, chuckling to himself as she stumbled and nearly fell. He wordlessly used his strings to pick her up and set her down on the ground, ignoring her pouting. “I’m certain that you are more than capable of obtaining it yourself, Hat Kid, but please, allow me to make myself useful.” Once again, the red threads shot out from within his cloak and weaved their way through the now rotting branches until they came upon the rift pon. Within moments, he had the pon secured in the strings and slowly lowered the item into the child’s grasp. “There,” he chirped. “Was that not much simpler?”

Hat Kid took the rift pon with a delighted nod. Though she certainly wished she had been able to get it without troubling Moonjumper, she was grateful that she'd been spared the ordeal. She wasted no time in pocketing it, tucking it safely away, so she wouldn’t lose it before sitting down on one of the tree’s large roots. Misty eyes looked out at the dreary landscape as she sat and shivered. “How could everything have gone so wrong?”

After several beats of silence, Moonjumper floated up beside her and set himself down near her side. “What is troubling you, young one?”

"Moonjumper," Hat Kid bit her lip as questions brimmed within, "do you know...have you ever met Prince Thea?"

Chapter Text

Moonjumper had become rigid at the child’s question, an unsettling aura enveloping him as he too calmly said, "in a manner of speaking, yes," without turning to face her. 

There was a moment of hesitation before she asked, "do you know what happened to him?"

"Do you," he quipped without warning, flustering her.

"Wha...why would I be asking if I did?" She crossed her arms and scowled at him.

Moonjumper merely smiled at her response, though Hat Kid still only saw the mask. "I think you already know the answer to your questions, young one. These places have a way of telling you after all."

"These...places?" Hat Kid's shoulders slumped as a thought dawned on her. "Y-you...do you know what's going on here?"

"A time rift, no?" He chuckled, "I was rather hoping you wouldn't notice my awareness. I thought my acting was quite clever after all."

"It was too good," she whined. "Now I feel dumb for not asking stuff sooner. Or...I guess you already know..."

"Hm, no," he shook his head. "This rift didn't much form off of your thoughts. They are scattered, few and far between, so all I know is that this world is false and that you are very curious about the prince."

"But..." Hat Kid felt uneasy all of a sudden, "t-time rifts don't usually form from thoughts had inside them, so how did you..."

"Ah, I must admit that last bit of knowledge stems from overhearing you and your friend chatting some time ago." Moonjumper fumbled with the strings between his hand and looked away sheepishly. "I shouldn't have been eavesdropping; you have my deepest apologies."

There was something about Moonjumper that still left her feeling unsettled, but she couldn't quite pinpoint what it was and decided that she would let it go for the time being. "It's alright, Moonjumper, but..."

"You still seek the answers," he finished her thought for her as he coiled the thread around his slender fingers and returned his hands inside his cloak. "You already have most of the pieces, my dear Hat Kid," he began quietly, "all the pages of the prince’s twisted storybook but one. If you truly desire answers, you must go to the one place you are most forbidden."

"The place I'm most forbidden," She repeated, scrunching her face up at the riddle. 

Moonjumper hovered around her, circling her in a deliberately frightening and intimidating way as he announced, "go there and all the pieces will fall into place, stitched together by the threads of his dreaded fate."

"Why won't you just tell me what happened to him," she whimpered as she tried to get away from him. 

Moonjumper ceased his circling and cracked a sinister grin beneath the cover of his mask. "Telling you would only answer one of your many questions, but if you go and see for yourself," his shoulders shook as he laughed silently, "well, hehe, that would be much more prosperous!"

Hat Kid eyed him suspiciously, fighting back the sudden urge to run as she pondered the place he meant. Only one spot really came to mind. “The manor?” Moonjumper clapped softly. “If I go to the manor, then...I’ll find out what happened to Prince Thea?”

“Oh, you will learn so much more than that, young one!” He spun in the air, a few of his threads flicking about him as they caught in the breeze. “But do be careful, I’d feel quite awful if  something were to happen to you.” 

“I...will.” Hat Kid couldn’t tell whether she was meant to be terrified or relieved by his speech.

Moonjumper lowered himself so that the tattered tips of his cloak brushed against the ground. “Have I frightened you, Hat Kid,” he asked suddenly. His tone had softened considerably and become apologetic as if he already knew the answer to his question. “Please, forgive me. It would seem I got a bit carried away. As your...hm, rift guide, I suppose, I’m supposed to lead you to the manor, but the promise of answers seemed more tempting than what I was supposed to reveal.”

“Supposed to reveal?” She raised an eyebrow quizzically.

“Yes, the rift or whatnot wanted me to send you to the manor to get one of those pon things I fetched for you earlier.”

“There’s one in the manor?!” Hat Kid groaned and buried her face in her hands as he nodded solemnly.

“I was hoping you’d be more willing to enter if there were additional rewards awaiting you, though I might have overdone the dramatic bit.” He seemed to laugh again, but he remained silent.

“If there’s a pon there, then I have to go,” she sighed. “Thank you for telling me. Snatcher and I were really trying to avoid going back there, so we probably would have been searching all the wrong places for a long time.”

“Y-you’re welcome…” Moonjumper looked taken aback by her gratitude, though it was difficult to tell beneath the mask. “Hat Kid…”

“Yes, Moonjumper?”

“A final word of warning…” A long silence drawled out between them before Moonjumper cautiously grasped his mask with one of his bony hands and lowered it just enough that one of his eyes became visible. Hat Kid was mildly startled by the appearance of it, deep blue against a darker shade, highlighted only by the neon red circles that glowed brightly in the center, but she managed to maintain her composure. “At the crack of dawn, when the sun begins its ascent along the horizon, another rather unfortunate event will take place here.” Her eyes widened as dread crept up inside her. “It would be in your best interest to leave this place before such time.”

A gust of icy wind blew between them, picking up snow and dead leaves as it went. Hat Kid shivered and folded her arms across her chest, nodding silently in reply to Moonjumper’s words of caution. She was certain that something more needed to be said, but before she could find the words, a rush of snow-filled air swirled around her. And by the time it cleared away, Moonjumper was already gone. Even though she had somewhat expected the disappearing act given how he had done the same thing last time, she was still a bit dispirited at the fact that he didn’t even say goodbye. There wasn’t much she could do about that though, so she pushed the feelings away and started devising a way to convince Snatcher that they needed to go to the manor. 

“ He’s not going to like this.”

Chapter Text

Hat Kid darted through the trees, her cape billowing behind her as the icy wind blew past. The frigid air stung her eyes and skin, slowly numbing her body. She was so cold, the manor almost sounded welcoming, but she couldn’t go there just yet. She still needed to find Snatcher. She hadn’t seen him when she was running around the forest and wondered if he’d already returned to the village, but she couldn’t seem to find him there either. Subcon’s inhabitants still weren’t of any use. The few who even acknowledged her presence still refused to speak to her, though she couldn’t blame them. If she had gone through everything they had, she wouldn’t trust anyone either, especially not a stranger who’d shown up with another magical spector. 

While it seemed like the majority of the forest was available to her, Hat Kid felt compelled to check out the pathway leading to the manor. She didn’t really imagine that Snatcher would venture that close when he knew Vanessa posed an actual threat, but she wanted to check anyway, just to be safe. The main path was largely obstructed by massive blocks of ice, forcing Hat Kid to cut through the forest and go around. Vanessa was still working on her fortress of ice, so there would likely be an opening somewhere. It didn’t take her long to find one, a narrow crevice the queen probably used to secretly slip into the forest unnoticed. Hat Kid squeezed through the small opening and into the wider pathway, following it until it opened up into the large bowl surrounding the manor. The house itself was just barely visible, though the child didn’t dare wander closer out of fear that she’d be noticed. She was doomed if Vanessa found her while she was alone.  

Fortunately for her, the queen was nowhere to be seen. The only real feature decorating the horrid snowscape was the garden of scattered ice statues. Hat Kid observed them from a distance, admiring how the light leaking in through a hole in the ceiling reflected off of the sharp edges and soft curves of the all too realistic bodies. She remembered being warned to avoid them and how the one time she didn’t listen to that advice, she’d gotten attacked by one. She wasn’t completely sure how they worked, nevertheless, she made a point of staying as far away from them as possible. Her self made rule was quickly mocked though as she realized one of the statues near the edge of the garden was cradling a rift pon in its slender arms. A muted groan escaped her lips as she took notice of the shimmering orb, but that wasn’t the only thing of interest she saw in its direction.

“Snatcher,” Hat Kid gasped quietly as she spotted the shadow moving in the distance. She wanted to run up to him, to meet him at the statue holding the rift pon, but after taking the first few steps, her body froze in place as bitter recognition coursed through her. “N-no…” She shook her head and backed up as the image of the statue fully registered. Without the colors, she hadn’t quite acknowledged what she was seeing, but her slight shift in position had been all she needed to spot the long, flower-embedded braid flowing behind the slender frame of...

“Camellia…” Snatcher whispered faintly. She could hear and see him breathing heavily as he got closer to the statue with the pon, his body sinking into the ground as he moved. “I had...sort of hoped you actually escaped, heh,” he laughed weakly. Hat Kid shrunk back a bit, startled by the mortified expression he wore. His form flickered as he lowered his head into his hands and breathed, “oh god, you fool...what were you thinking coming here?”

“Oh no…” Hat Kid bit her lip. She wasn’t certain, but it seemed like Snatcher had been close to Camellia. Seeing her encased in ice, a look of terror still painted on her face, was clearly devastating to him. She felt compelled to approach him, but decided against it. She could tell he needed a moment to process things, though that didn’t stop her from continuing to eavesdrop.

“How many of you died because of me?” 

Hat Kid gasped as Snatcher muttered something while tucking the rift pon away, only catching parts of the muffled phrase, but her reaction spawned less from what he said and more from the realization that the Camellia statue was moving . She opened her mouth to scream, call out a warning, alert him somehow, but the quick inhale of breath caught in her throat and made her cough instead. Snatcher heard the somewhat distant sound and turned his head in her direction, giving the hunched over child a concerned glance instead of noticing the ice-glazed hands reaching for his neck. He didn’t have time to react before they grabbed him and froze him in place, helpless to do anything but stare into the painfully familiar eyes of Camellia as she tried to strangle him. Magic or not, her statue shouldn’t have been able to do anything to him, and yet he could feel his energy being sucked right out. His vision darkened and blurred as his consciousness was dragged into a sleep-like state. Hat Kid looked up, wheezing from the sudden coughing fit just in time to see Snatcher’s arms fall limply to his sides and his body slacken. 

“Snatcher?!” Hat Kid recovered quickly, burst out from her hiding spot behind the ice, and dashed across the frozen landscape, wind whipping past and tearing into her. “Snatcher,” she screamed again, readying her umbrella as she rapidly neared the statue strangling her friend. “Let go of him!”

The Camellia statue obeyed her, but only because Snatcher was no longer deemed a threat. The child brandishing an umbrella as a weapon however, that seemed just dangerous enough for it to shift targets. Hat Kid didn’t give herself any time to think about what she was doing, and rushed into the fight, ignoring the arm being raised to stop her. She swung the umbrella, snapping the extended arm off and sending it flying into a nearby bed of snow. Panic surged within her as she caught a brief glimpse of Snatcher’s paling form lying lifelessly on the ground. Rage mingled with fear as she turned her focus back to the Camellia statue. It made another attempt to attack her, this time lunging forward with the intent of knocking her off her feet, but Hat Kid didn’t let it. Another swift swing of her umbrella slammed into the statue’s head, shattering half of the face before breaking off at the base of the neck. The statue hesitated a bit, seemingly disoriented by the abrupt attack. Hat Kid burst forward again, raising her umbrella over her head before bringing it down between the statue’s shoulders. The sharp cracking of ice echoed through the largely hollow walls of the incomplete fortress, followed by the clinks and thuds of the broken shards and chunks collapsing into rubble. Hat Kid staggered backwards and fell into the snow, hugging her umbrella and watching the pile of broken ice with a wild look in her eyes as she tried to steady her ragged breathing and slow the painful beating of her heart.

“S...Snatcher…” she eventually rasped before turning to check on him. He was still lying in the snow, unmoving. “Snatcher,” She whispered again as she started crawling over to him, shaking off the clumps of snow gathering on her clothes. “H-hey! Wake up! Snatcher?!” She rolled him over, desperately trying to control the panic that seized her. His body had already turned a sickening shade of grey and the light from his eyes and mouth were gone. “Snatcher?! Get up!” She shook him even though she knew it wouldn’t do anything. He was already gone, lost in another world given to him by the rift. But Hat Kid didn’t know that . Tears streaked her numb cheeks as she laid her head against his chest. “We were supposed to get out of here together! Snatcher! Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!!”

Chapter Text

“It’s cold…” he heard himself think, but the voice was wrong. It was one he hadn’t heard in himself in years, or, that was the feeling he got anyway. In reality, everything he once knew felt so distant after being locked away beneath the manor for so long. What was real and what wasn’t no longer concerned him, because he already believed he was living in a nightmare.

A strong gust of wind blew in from his right, but he lacked the strength and resolve to bother looking. It was almost certainly Vanessa anyway. Had she gone out? He couldn’t recall. His gaze remained on the far wall, set fixatively on a particular crack in the stonework where the occasional drop of water would push its way out and slide down where it would quickly freeze just before reaching the floor. He was too busy staring at the frozen trail it left behind to notice the person creeping up beside him. Her soft, broken gasp startled him and made him jolt, quietly stirring the chains that bound him to the wall. Even in the darkness of the cellar, he knew the woman who stood before him was not Vanessa. He could just barely make out her worryingly pale complexion, the brown freckles that stippled her nose and cheeks, and the now muted, but once vibrant rose colored hair tied back into a ponytail laced with wilting flower blossoms.

“C-Camellia?” The Prince looked up wearily at the redhead who now shivered before him. Tears ran down her cheeks as she stood there covering her mouth with her hands. He could see her every shuddering breath as the puffs of warm air caught the pale moonlight that filtered in through the window. He had a thousand questions, but his head was so scrambled that he defaulted to, “How are you?”

“Oh god,” she sobbed, “what has she done to you?” He opened his mouth to respond, but all that came out was a pained groan. “H-Hold on! I’ll get you out of here!” She whispered as she frantically looked around for a way to break the chains. 

“Camellia…” his voice faltered as he felt a sharp pain in his side. “Camellia, please…”

“I’m working on it,” she said shakily as she found a loose stone. She picked it up, hoping that the cold and damp cellar had weakened the chains over time, which would make them easier to shatter. “This should work!”

“No, you don’t-” He was cut off by the loud clanking sound made by Camellia slamming the rock into the chain holding up his left arm. It immediately fell away from the wall, pulling his entire upper body forward slightly where it dug into the chains already embedded in his chest. There was an involuntary yelp of pain followed by several hushed apologies from the redhead. “Camellia…” 

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I should have known that would happen!” She began checking him over to make sure she hadn’t hurt him too severely, but with all the damage that had been done by Vanessa and by being left in the freezing cellar, she couldn’t tell how much of his pain was her doing. “Just a few more, Prince Thea.” She picked the stone back up and prepared to break the chains binding his right hand, but Thea placed his freed hand on her shoulder, stopping her. 

He took a deep, rasping breath before unsteadily turning his head to look her in the eyes. The sound of bones popping and skin crackling echoed through the stony room. It took everything in her not to back away from him in that moment. “You need to run,” he said as coherently as possible.

“Run,” she gasped, “no! I came here to find you, and now that I have, I’m going to get you out! The village has been too scared to face Vanessa since you disappeared, but if they see what she’s done to you…” she hesitated for a moment before carefully removing his hand from her and raising the stone once more, “there will be no more hesitation.” She thrust the stone into the loop supporting one of the chains by his hand and set the stone down so she could unwrap the rest of the linked metal that was coiled around his wrist.  

“Hesitation? Towards what?”

“Getting rid of the Queen.” Thea looked at her in utter horror as she finished untangling his forearm and lowered it gingerly so that it wouldn’t jerk him around the way his other arm had. “We’ve been discussing it for a while, but your subjects are torn. Everyone is tired of Vanessa’s reign of terror, but because she wasn’t always like this… because she was once so kind, some still have hope that things can be fixed. But this...this,” her voice cracked as she gestured to him, “this is unforgivable! If she doesn’t even care about you anymore then...then nothing will improve until she is gone!”

Thea fell silent, his weary eyes lowering as his vision and thoughts clouded. He could have corrected her, told her Vanessa's kindness was more often than not a mere facade, but he held his tongue. “Reign of terror? What has she done to...to everyone else?” He hesitated, almost afraid of the answer.

Camellia bit her lip, only worrying him more. “The night you disappeared...there was a powerful blast that cut through the entire kingdom, starting from here, the manor. With that blast came a heavy snowstorm that brought with it massive pillars of ice that obliterated everything within several kilometers. Subcon Village has been decimated.” Thea’s breath caught in his throat. “But that’s not all,” she began again as she retrieved the stone and steadied herself. “Those pillars of ice...some of them were...very sharp. Buildings weren’t the only things they caught.”

“N-no!” He stammered breathlessly, “You don’t mean-”

Camellia grit her teeth and hugged the stone to her chest as she fought back the tears burning in the corner of her eyes. “But even if you escaped the ice spears,” she sniffled and turned her back to him and undid the fastener to her cloak, letting it slip off to reveal a deep purple and black patch on her exposed back. Tiny veins of the marking snaked outward, as if they were spreading throughout her body. “Everyone who’s still alive has this...illness. No one knows what it is, but it has killed hundreds of us!” She knelt down to pick up her cloak, but wound up falling onto her knees as violent sobs rocked her frail form. “We’re dying, and it’s her fault!” She cried in a breathy whisper. “Everyone’s... dying, but I...I don’t want to die!”

Thea stared at the horrid splotch spanning across the woman’s back, unable to look away as her convulsions made it pulsate. He wasn’t certain what it was either, but he’d seen Vanessa positively covered in the stuff when she last visited him. If it was killing his people, then perhaps it was killing her too. That thought both pleased and terrified him.

"I know this seems hopeless," she whimpered, "and I can't imagine how much this hurts, but...Subcon is in trouble. Now more than ever, it needs guidance. It needs its prince."

A tense silence permeated the air between them as thoughts and foolish hopes bounced around inside their heads. It was a futile mission with odds they both knew weren't in their favor, but the faintest glimmer of hope was all they had left to cling to, and neither one of them wanted to let that go.

“Camellia.” He gulped as he shifted his weight, rattling the chains ever so slightly. 

“What?” She sniffled miserably and wiped her tears away before getting back up to finish freeing him. 

“Let’s get out of here.” There was a determined glow in his eyes. 

Camellia stared at him, surprised by the sudden shift in his tone. This man, who looked like a barely breathing corpse, seemed at that moment to be the most alive out of everyone she’d seen in days. With a newly found resolve, Camellia raised the rock and brought it down against the chain restraining his right arm. It didn’t break the first time, so she hit it again and again and again, each time with a more thunderous clap than the last. Neither of them were sure how many times she’d hit it before the chain finally broke apart, but they were both aware of the violent shift in the temperature and the far too close roar of the queen.

“Oh no…” Thea gazed at the space beyond Camellia’s shoulder, petrified.

“She...she heard us?” Camellia looked behind her, shuddering so much that she barely kept hold of the stone in her hands. Even though her terror was apparent, she turned back to him and moved to break apart the chains binding his torso.

“Camellia!” Thea shouted as she brought the stone down next to him. “Camellia! Go! You have to run!” He pleaded with her, grabbing her by the shoulders and poorly attempting to hold her back from striking at the chains again.

“No! We’re so close!” She shook him off and slammed the rock against the metal again.

Thea gasped as Vanessa’s pounding footsteps came into earshot just above them. She would be there within a minute. “Camellia, there’s no way I can run from here! Even if you free me, she’ll kill us both!” Camellia ignored him and struck the chains again. “Camellia!” He shouted and thrust his arm between the wall and the stone just before she hit it again. His anguished scream resonated throughout the icy chamber. 

Camellia stumbled backwards, shaking her head as she looked at the warped, bloodied mess she’d made of his limb. “W-why did you do that?!”

“You have to run!” They were both startled by how clear his command was, “Go! Get out of here! If she catches you, I’ll...I’ll never forgive myself. So please,” he hung his head and took a shaky breath, “ get out .”

Camellia shivered as she looked at him with a mixture of despair and resignation, but the sound of approaching footsteps made her break her teary gaze away. “I’m so sorry!” She whispered bitterly as she bolted out the exterior cellar door and took off across the snowy field.

Thea hissed as he grasped at the chains bound around his chest. The way they were positioned now was suffocating him, but he didn’t possess the strength to struggle against them and just wound up clinging to them uselessly. Vanessa stormed into the cellar, tendrils of shadowy, demonic energy flicking about all around her. He didn’t have the energy to be shocked by her appearance anymore, but a deeply ingrained fear still welled up when he laid eyes on her. But for once, her trip to the cellar was not for him, and they both knew that. Vanessa glared at him, smiling a vile, toothy grin as she strode past him. Thea’s heart raced for the first time in days, beating violently in his already aching chest. As Vanessa disappeared up the steps outside, all he could do was pray that Camellia had made it far enough away or that, at the very least, Vanessa wouldn’t find her before she did.

Everything was unbearably quiet for what felt like hours; the only sound was his raspy breathing and the howling of the wind. He shuddered as a gust of frigid air seeped inside and ate away at his already frozen body. Despite everything, he found himself smiling. It had been a while since Vanessa went out, and she didn’t like leaving the grounds of the manor. A sigh of relief escaped his cracked lips. Camellia had made it. Any second now Vanessa would begrudgingly return, and while he would almost certainly take a beating for nearly escaping with her, knowing that Camellia was safe from Vanessa’s grasp was worth whatever amount pain she would inflict. 

He closed his eyes for just a moment, suddenly exhausted by the unanticipated commotion, but his moment of peace was violently shattered by the ear piercing scream that came from outside. His eyes shot open as his body jolted at the sound. His blood ran cold as he whipped his head to the side, doing his best to disregard the almost unbearable pain the action caused. “No…” he whispered as another harrowing cry resounded throughout the ice-encased structure in which the manor resided. “Camellia!” He screamed at the top of his lungs, filling his throat with blood from the abrupt use. He didn’t care though and continued to scream her name as he desperately clawed at the remaining chains and tore apart his fingertips against the blisteringly cold metal. But after the second scream, everything silenced,leaving the broken, bloodied prince alone once more.

His unbroken hand unconsciously moved to cover his mouth as he choked back tears he didn’t know he had in him. The sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach rapidly became a rising lump in his battered throat, and his already empty stomach churned violently and sent up a volatile mixture of blood and bile. He choked and coughed up the vile substance helplessly, gripping the wall and his chest in a vain attempt to control his trembling. Tears mingled with the foul smelling liquid as it dribbled down his chin, and it took him a moment to regain enough energy to even wipe it away. 

“Camellia…” he brought his hands up over his eyes and dug his broken nails into his skin. “Oh god…”

Vanessa returned just in time to observe this and chose to watch him from the steps silently. Chunks of ice still rested on her jagged, claw-like fingers, each piece tinted a deep shade of red. After a moment she forced the cellar doors shut, startling the prince with the sudden noise and making him glance up to her.

“ You… ” he seethed, a hostile feeling overtaking his earlier grief.

“My prince,” her once mellifluous voice was now grating to his ears. He recoiled as she drew nearer to him, pressing his back into the wall, willing himself to phase through it. “Why are you trying to run away? Are you upset with me? Why are you upset?”

“Why?” He rasped, stunned by her ignorance. “ Why?! You killed her!”

Vanessa’s eyes flashed as if he’d upset her, but her expression didn’t waver. “That little whore was trying to tear us apart,” she said eerily calm. “I only did what I had to do to protect you.”

“ Protect me?! ” His impassioned outburst brought on another fit of coughing.

“Don’t strain yourself, dear,” she murmured quietly as she ran her bony fingers down his cheek.

“How could you,” he whispered pathetically as he tried to curl into himself.

“I did it for you.”

Her candid words awakened an indescribable rage inside him. This woman had given him the best years of his life. He had planned to marry her. But now, here she was, justifying the needlessly cruel genocide of their own people. He clenched both fists, ignoring the pain in his broken arm, and lashed out at her. She leapt back out of his reach, looking somewhat stunned, but what was more surprising was the murderous look in the prince’s eyes. Thea grasped the chain digging into his chest and pulled himself up slightly, not even flinching when the bones beneath the metal cracked from the pressure. His lower half was too tangled up for him to actually crawl over his restraints, but that didn’t stop him from trying anymore. 

“HOW COULD YOU?!” He snarled; blood and spit sputtered from his mouth as he lurched forward and screamed hysterically, shaking the now loosened chains. “THEY WERE YOUR OWN PEOPLE. THEY DID NOTHING TO YOU! NOTHING!” Vanessa backed away as the chains began to creak and gradually pull apart from the force he was exerting. “AND YOU KILLED THEM ANYWAY!” Blood dripped from his burning yellow eyes as he gasped for breath and continued to pull away from the wall. “AAAAAAAAH!!” Vanessa’s expression was unreadable, but that only pissed him off more. “FOR EVERYTHING YOU’VE DONE, FOR THE SUFFERING YOU’VE CAUSED, I’LL KILL YOU IF IT’S THE LAST THING I DO!” 

One second longer, just one second more, and he might have been free. But Vanessa couldn’t have that, and instead, she thrust her shadow-tainted hand into his abdomen. 

He hadn’t even seen her move. She had been standing a few meters away, and then suddenly her flickering red eyes were watching him mere centimeters from his face. He could feel every ounce of vigor draining from his body, but he couldn’t tell why. Everything hurt. Everything was cold. Had she done something to him? He couldn’t tell anymore. She slowly pulled her hand out, dragging out a slew of dark sludge with it, and shook off the blood and tissue that clung to her slender fingers. Thea shuddered visibly just before he slumped over into her cold embrace, the last tears he’d ever cry freezing long before they could fall.

“My sweet prince…” she whispered soothingly. “You must be so tired. We had a fight, but it’s alright now.” She ran her fingers through his matted hair as she formed new shackles for him out of ice. “If you’re good, we’ll never have to fight again. You can stay here with me forever and ever. Do you like the sound of that?” She waited for him to answer even though he was no longer conscious. “It’s alright. Of course you do. I love you.” She finished fastening him to the wall and gingerly lifted his chin before brushing her lips against his. “Sleep tight, my sweet prince.”

Chapter Text

“SNATCHER!” A scream, clear and shrill, pierced his veil of slumber, shattering the nightmare he’d been trapped inside once more. “Snatcher, please!” He could feel the kid shaking him, calling out to him with desperation in her quivering voice. “Wake up, you big dummy…”

“Ugh, kid,” his eyes flickered as they opened, revealing the misty eyed child burying her face in his chest. “Ew, gross! Don’t you dare get snot on me, you gremlin!” He carefully picked her up and sat her beside him, though he made no attempt at getting up himself.

“Snatcher,” she cried excitedly, her voice flooding with relief. “I thought you were dead, you jerk!” She smacked his hand, now more annoyed than frightened. 

Snatcher winced as he laid his hand against his abdomen, still feeling the phantom pain of the dream and the lingering nausea that came with it. “What happened?” A low groan escaped his lips as he moved to press his hands to his face, obscuring the pained flashing of his eyes from her view.

“You were standing in front of one of those statue things and being weird again,” she huffed and crossed her arms, but her demeanor shifted as she spoke again, letting her hands fall into her lap, “but then it attacked you, and it didn’t seem like you could fight back.” A pause and a shaky breath. “Before I could even get over here, you were already on the floor. I didn’t know what happened, but I broke the statue so it couldn’t get you anymore. Bu-but then you weren’t mo-moving, and I...”

“You broke the statue?” Snatcher pulled his hands away from his face and glanced at her, a look of surprise masking any hint of anguish he’d felt moments before. “But that was-”

“Camellia...I know.” She looked down at her hands. “But she might have...she was probably going to…” 

“Haha, what? Kill me?” Hat Kid grimaced at the word. “Come on, kiddo! I’m already dead! A little ice statue can’t hurt me!”

Hat Kid stood up and turned away from him, shivering as a brisk wind blew through the statue garden. Her eyes were once again pulled to the now headless statue of Camellia, whom she had no choice but to break apart with her umbrella. Even if Snatcher was right about not being able to die again, it was far too obvious that he was being hurt at the time, and Hat Kid couldn’t bear the thought of someone hurting her friend. She turned back to Snatcher, expecting him to be up and ready to go, or at least to crack some lame joke, but she found him still lying in the snow, his head now turned away from her so she couldn’t see his face. Not fully anyway, but she could see it well enough to know something was amiss.

“Are you ok,” Hat Kid knelt down beside him, her concern evident in her misty eyes. 

“Yeah, kid,” he wheezed sarcastically, “I’m fantastic!"

The two of them were silent for a moment. “Why are you crying then?”

Snatcher reeled back, then rolled to face her, ignoring the clumps of snow falling from the tufts around his neck. “Pff, kid, ghosts can’t cry,” he snickered and sat up, realizing that staying down was probably scaring her. She didn’t have the heart to argue with him. The corners of her mouth curled into a pained grimace as she pulled out a folded piece of cloth from her pocket and used it to gently wipe away the azure droplets streaking his face. “What are you doing,” he said as he grabbed her hand.

“There’s snow on your face...you should clean it off.”

Snatcher took the cloth and eyed her with a puzzled expression as she turned around. He rolled his eyes and scowled as he lazily wiped his face to appease the kid, not expecting to get much of anything from the action. Sure enough, there wasn’t much of the powdery snow on the cloth when he pulled it away, but there were several streaks and splatters of deep blue dyeing the once solid yellow cloth. Snatcher glanced at the kid as he reached one of his hands up to his eyes, feeling clumsily at the damp residue on his face. He stared at the substance on his fingers and the cloth for several seconds, uncertain of what to make of it.

“Are these...was I crying?” He shook his head. “That shouldn’t even be POSSIBLE!” He grumbled to himself as he forcibly wiped the rest of the blue tears from his face, silently praying that they wouldn’t stain him the way his potions did. The last thing he needed was to be made weaker than he already was in the rift. 

It took him a moment to clean himself off before he turned back to the kid, surprised to see her shaking uncontrollably. “Do-do you think we could maybe take a break,” her voice broke off a bit at the end. “I don’t...I can’t go in there- not- not right now.”

“There?” Snatcher glanced back at the manor, a deeply set frown masking his face. “What do you mean? I thought we were avoiding the place.”

An apologetic look crossed her face as she stared up at him. He already understood why they had to go, but he was really hoping he was wrong. “There’s a rift pon in there.”

“Are you sure ?” He groaned as she nodded her head, dragging his hand down his face. Who was he to question her; she knew these things better than him. “Yeah. A break sounds nice then. Let’s find you a place where there’s less wind though. Wouldn’t want to catch your death of cold now, would we?” He let out a wheezy laugh, but there wasn’t anything funny about it, not even to him.

The daunting reality that they had to go back there now of all times weighed heavily on their mental states, and conditions inside the manor were expected to be exponentially worse. Which is why, when prompted, Snatcher took the child’s hand and led her to a small alcove in the wall of ice for a much needed break.

“We can’t stay here long,” he reminded her, wringing out his hands as he curled his tail in front of them both to block out most of the wind. 

Hat Kid merely nodded in response, gripping her cape around her shoulders and leaning into him for warmth, not that he had any. Snatcher eyed her silently for a bit, taking note of her ragged breathing and the ice starting to accumulate from the sweat on her face. This place wasn’t good for her at all. A small huff of air passed his lips as he tried to shift topics, anything to keep her awake and focused.

“Are all time rifts this...informative?” Snatcher grumbled suddenly, making the kid sit up a bit with a puzzled gleam in her eyes.

“No, it’s really just the purple ones. Why?”

“Purple ones?” He paused, vaguely recalling her mentioning that before. “What, are there other colors?” He sneered.

“Well, yeah.” She shrugged, disregarding the somewhat surprised look on his face. “There’s lots of different kinds of rifts, but the main three are blue, green, and purple. The color you get depends on how the timepiece they came from broke.” She paused for a moment to see if he was still listening and continued when he wordlessly waved his hand for her to keep going. “Um, so if the timepiece just kind of gets cracked or chipped, it forms a blue time rift, which are usually really small and kind of weird pocket worlds. They don’t have much in them other than some platforms and whales.”

“Whales? Like...the giant sea animal, whales?”

“Yep!” Snatcher blinked, utterly baffled by the kid’s explanation. Maybe the cold had already gotten to her after all. “Green time rifts form more...recognizable places, but they're still really empty like blue rifts. They just have more stuff from the environment they formed in.” Hat Kid frowned, “And of course, purple time rifts recreate entire scenes from the past. But that’s all they are, ‘replicas.’ You can change whatever you want in here, but the actual events don’t change outside the rift. That’s why there’s no point in getting involved when bad stuff happens...though...sometimes it’s hard to not intervene.” Her voice dropped to a whisper as a crestfallen look masked her cheerful expression.

“Kid?” He shifted his position slightly so he could see her better.

“You can’t do anything to change the present inside a purple rift, Snatcher,” her voice cracked as she let herself fall against him. “I learned that the hard way, so...you can just trust me on that.”

Snatcher was silent for a moment, contemplating whether or not he should press the issue. It seemed like the kid had something to say though, and his morbid curiosity was starting to get the better of him anyway. “What did you see?”

There was a long pause in which Snatcher was convinced he’d made the wrong decision and pushed her away unintentionally, but after a second, she took a deep breath and began. “Back at Dead Bird Studio...when The Conductor and I fought, we accidentally opened a rift when I went to knock him out. I broke the timepiece with that last swing,” she explained. “While I was in the rift I met his family, and I found out what...happened.”

“What happened,” he repeated, though more questioningly.

She nodded. “Just like in here, there are some people in the rift who can interact with you in an almost... real way. They were like that, and I sort of made the mistake of getting close.” Snatcher grimaced as a sudden weight filled his chest; he could already tell where her story was going. “Anyway, The Conductor's family, they invited me to hang out with them in one level, and since I couldn’t find any other rift pons where I was, I figured, ‘why not?’ They took me to this big place where DJ Grooves was going to perform, and...later that night...during the performance…” she shuddered as her breath hitched in her throat. “During the performance,” she continued grimly, “there was an explosion on stage, and the entire building went up in flames. I was trying to leave, but I dropped a rift pon she had found there and had to go back for it. Then when I went to leave for real, I found a penguin who got trapped, and I tried to save them, but my hookshot badge broke and the beam I lifted off them just…” Her voice had grown higher and higher in pitch as the words spewed from her mouth without restraint until she got to that point and abruptly fell silent.

“Kid?” Snatcher’s glowing face scrunched up with concern.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry,"  she wrapped her arms around herself, hugging her chest tightly as her nails dug into the sleeves of her shirt. “I-I don't want to remem- I don't want to remember!” She sniffled as she folded in on herself, as if the action would defend her from the deeply embedded pain making its way to the surface once more. “Burning. Every part...was just...burning. And she had been all alone, probably calling for help that couldn’t come, and…” Her voice came out as a pathetic squeak, “there wasn’t anything I could do! There wasn't anything- hic... ”

How she had held back as long as she did was a mystery to them both, but there was no holding back now. Tears and snot dripped down her flushed face, but went neglected by the child who was too busy fighting off the urge to puke to wipe them away. Snatcher stared directly ahead of him, a hollow expression masking the emotions swirling around inside him as he loosely held the grieving child in his arms. He began unconsciously rubbing her back, an instinctive reaction he’d long thought he’d forgotten and mumbled something under his breath. If he ever met this Conductor, he’d probably kill him for putting her through that, though he realized that he was essentially doing the same thing. Now, more than ever, he had to keep her from finding out what happened to the last prince of Subcon. He made a silent vow that he wouldn’t let her be exposed to any more unnecessary trauma, not for his sake at least.

“I-I’m sorry.” She sniffed and wiped the snot accumulating on her face off on her sleeve. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. You don’t even care…”

“Hey!” Snatcher snapped, making both of them jolt. It was a reaction neither had expected from him. He almost sounded...insulted. He, of course, realized this error quickly though, and tried to cover it up by saying, “emotionally distressed contractors don’t do their work right, so if rambling for a bit fixes you up, so be it.”

“I thought you didn’t need me anymore,” she took a shaky breath and looked up at him, squinting from the too bright light from his eyes. “Isn’t that why you were going to kill me?”

Something about her words made Snatcher’s chest tighten as anger bubbled up within him. Hat Kid saw it too, in the way his eyes narrowed and curled. She’d struck a nerve somehow, but desperate to quell whatever outburst was on it’s way, she interjected him with another question.

“Are- Is your arm ok,” she stammered, taking the first legitimate question she had in mind and running with it. Truthfully though, she actually wanted to know. This was her first time even really thinking to look at it since the accident had occurred, and based on what she was seeing, the answer was rather grim. 

Snatcher grimaced, forcing back the anger with the sudden realization that his arm actually stung . Even he hadn’t been paying attention to it. He picked at the loose bits of flesh for a moment, scratching at the cuts, and wiping away the droplets of blood that rose to the surface. “It’s not too bad,” he said unconvincingly, wiping the last of the yellow away before poofing down into a clone of the kid, though now his sleeve was tattered and had yellowed rims.

“I didn’t know it did that-” she pointed to the fabric- “your injuries carrying over like this. I would have thought you could hide them by shapeshifting.”

Snatcher shook his head and adjusted the sleeve as best as he could to cover the glowing wound underneath. “Just like my face and color, injuries stay with whatever form I choose… It’s not too noticeable, is it? I’m not really looking to get us caught over a glowing arm of all things.”

“No, no, I think it’s fine.”

Snatcher stared at her quietly for a moment. “Are you?” Startled, and a bit embarrassed, Hat Kid merely nodded. “Good, then let’s get this over with- oh! Almost forgot.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the rift pon he’d taken from Camellia just before being attacked. “I meant to give this to you sooner, but I- hm.”

A soft blush appeared on his cheeks as he remembered his little breakdown, but the embarrassment quickly turned to flustered surprise when the kid’s arms wrapped around him and held him tight. 

“Whoa! What gives,” he griped and tried to pull back, but Hat Kid wouldn’t let go. “Come on, kid. It was just a pon. You’re acting like I gave you a pony or something.”

“...No. This is for Camellia,” she whispered softly as she squeezed him and finally backed away, taking the pon from his still outstretched hand. “She was your friend, right? I saw the way you looked at her before. I’m...really sorry she’s gone.”

Snatcher stood dumbfounded by the action, his hand still hovering in the air for a bit while her words processed. He’d actually completely forgotten about the ice statue, but he was realizing now his body certainly hadn’t. Deep welts had risen on his neck where Camellia’s hand had been, and his throat suddenly felt dry and raw, making every breath he took a pain to swallow. 

“Right, well,” he paused to make sure the collar of his cape concealed his neck, “it is what it is. Like you said, it doesn't make a difference what happens to her in here. The damage already happened ages ago.”

He was already walking off by the time she tucked the pon away, leaving her to run to catch up. “Wh- hey! Wait up! We need to stay together! Snatcher, you meanie!”

Chapter Text

Sheets of white fell before them, separating the two from the horror that lay ahead in a thin veil of snow that would only hinder them as time went on. Hat Kid’s grip on Snatcher’s hand was ironclad, fingers tightly interlocked in his as they approached the manor once more. 

    “Think you can handle this, kiddo,” Snatcher asked with a weak chuckle, though his signature smile did wonders for his demeanor. 

    “Yeah. Let’s do this.”

    With a loud creak, the double doors at the front of the manor opened, swinging wildly when the wind forced them inside. The duo flinched at the sound of the wood cracking against the inside walls, but there was no turning back now. With bated breath, they entered the bleak halls, stepping over patches of ice and throbbing tendrils that lined the rotting floors. The place reeked of a musty, decaying odor, even stronger now than it had been the day Hat Kid had first gone. Snatcher saw the look on her face and shook his head, nodding towards the library with the piano. The smell was the least of their concerns right now. Hand still locked in his, Hat Kid followed his lead, not letting go until they confirmed that Vanessa was nowhere to be seen.

    “Split up,” she whispered, “but don't leave these rooms...please.”

A nod was all she received in reply. Snatcher was already checking the shelves, behind the chairs, in the instrument cases, everywhere he could think to look in there, but as far as he and the kid could tell, the rift pon wasn’t there. Cautiously, they crept into the kitchen, grimacing as the sound of flies buzzed harder in their ears. The stench of rotting food assaulted them on entry; the pile of filthy dishes in murky green water was silently deemed the cause. A quiet search ensued as they opened cupboards and checked beneath the table. Snatcher even looked in the trash can, only to feel a pang in his chest at the withered bouquet resting on top. He closed the lid with disgust, glancing back around the room for any sign of the pon. Then he noticed it, a faint glimmer coming from within the sink.

“Kid-” he gestured towards it.

“I see it.”

The two of them stood over the sink, faces scrunched up as they peered into the coagulated liquid that nearly spilled over the rim. Chunks of meat and soggy food bits they couldn’t even hope to identify had hardened on the grimy surface, but beneath the vile gel were the inklings of light they could only assume were from a pon.

“Ladies first?” Hat Kid glared at his remark. “Fine, fine. I’ll get it. Eugh-”

With significant hesitation, Snatcher rolled up his sleeve and plunged his arm into the sink, but given his size, he wasn’t quite able to reach the pon well enough to pull it out, not with one hand, at least. A slew of family friendly curses were uttered under his breath as he propped himself up on the edge of the counter, using his chest for support as he stuck both hands in the disgusting slop in the sink and tilted his head back to keep his hair and chin out of the mess. He hissed as the thick substance oozed into his wounds and made his eyes water, but he finally had enough of a grip on the orb to pull it out.

“Got it!” He beamed excitedly as he tore his arms out of the muck, flinging the rotted food onto the counter and floor with a nauseating squelch . But with the pon came a slew of dishes, now misplaced by their lack of support from the pon, and before Snatcher or Hat Kid could stop their descent, several plates shattered against the floor.

“ WHO’S THERE?! ”

Snatcher yelped at the booming voice, the slimy ball dropping from his hands as the door to the kitchen swung open. Shadows sprung into the room, distorting the space by the door as ice crept ever closer to them, rising in peak and sharpness the closer and closer they got. Hat Kid screamed, but Snatcher’s mind had already shut down. Fueled by nothing but a primal fear, he grabbed her hand and yanked her back into the music room, sloppily transforming back into his normal form as he flung them through the door and they both spilled into the hall.

“THE RIFT PON-” Hat Kid screamed over Vanessa's deafening roar resonating in her ears.

“I KNOW! I KNOW! JUST FORGET IT RIGHT NOW!”

“ GET BACK HERE!! ” Vanessa’s shrill scream grew closer by the second as the pounding of her footsteps joined the cacophony of sounds already beating on their eardrums. 

A pathetic squeak sounded their movement, though neither was sure which of them had done it. But that didn’t matter. Slamming into the walls in his desperate escape, Snatcher flung the both of them through the doors to the second floor. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end as he tore down the hall and sped towards the third floor, but his progress was cut short when a burst of ice shot out of the wall beside him and slammed into his side.

“SNATCHER,” Hat Kid shrieked as he dropped her involuntarily and smashed into the adjacent wall before dropping hard onto the floor below.

“ WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY HOME?! ”

Snatcher wheezed and dragged himself upright, holding out a hand to keep Hat Kid back, but Vanessa had no intentions of letting either of them go without a fight. Snatcher’s tail just barely managed to throw the kid further down the hall as Vanessa lunged at him, black tendrils spilling out of her wispy form as ice emerged from her hands and overflowed onto the walls and floor. Snatcher desperately tried to fight back. Fire, lasers, shockwaves, anything, but nothing was working. And when Vanessa got close enough, he didn’t have the time to stop her.

Gnarled fingers that burned like frozen fire, bit into the scruff of his neck as the fingertips on her other hand lit up with magic. But where he should have felt a plunge of unbearable cold, he felt only the gentle flurry of her fingers gracing his chest.

“ My...prince…? ” 

Snatcher gagged as her hand tightened around his throat and pushed him into the wall with enough force to make it crack. His tail thrashed wildly as he fought and clawed at her hand, but between not having his magic, the suffocation, the distortion of the very air around him, and the nails gently stroking his chest, he was helplessly trapped.

Or so he thought.

Until a vase suddenly smashed against Vanessa’s head.

“ WHAT- ”

“GET AWAY FROM HIM, YOU CREEP,” Hat Kid shrieked as she chucked another vase at Vanessa, shattering this one right in her eyes. “Snatcher, let’s go!” She grabbed his hand and dragged him down the hall while Vanessa was busy wailing and tearing the shards of glass out of her face and eyes.

A horrendous scream sounded behind them as Hat Kid led them into Vanessa’s bedroom. She pointed at the fallen wardrobe with a shaking hand, silently telling him to hide. Snatcher didn’t need to be told twice and instantly turned into a Hat Kid clone before crawling under the massive piece of furniture and curling up in the far corner. Hat Kid slipped in next to him, trembling as the pounding footsteps drew nearer to them. She grit her teeth to stop them from chattering as the door creaked open and an incredibly agitated Vanessa spilled into the room. 

Neither of them moved. Neither of them breathed. Heavy footfall sounded from just feet away as Vanessa slowed her pace to a crawl. Deep beads of red splattered in front of them from where the vases had torn into her head. They could see her hair lowering as she peered beneath the wardrobe, and the two of them felt their hearts sink, but Vanessa only stared. Wide, hollow eyes dripped streams of crimson that splattered at Hat Kid’s feet and burst into little structures of ice. Too stunned to move, and too stunned to scream, Hat Kid looked the woman dead in her bloodied eyes for several moments when she abruptly pulled herself up and started to walk away.

She was blinded by the vase and hadn’t seen them at all.

Hat Kid almost cried in relief when she heard the door to the bedroom open and shut behind the shuffling of feet. The breath she’d been holding came out in a violent, choked sob as she clutched her hat and forced herself to breathe. Her eyes burned as tears pricked in the corners and her chest ached from the cold, but worst of all was the nauseating dizziness lingering from the encounter as a whole.

A nervous laugh escaped her as the feeling began to fade, and she wiped the tears from her eyes. “That was so close,” she whimpered, though her tone was relieved. “I really thought she had us for a moment there.” Silence overwhelmed the space between them, filled by the distant sounds of the storm that raged outside and the creaking of the house that came from within. The only other noise of note was the soft rattling of breath beside her. “Snatcher?”

Snatcher was huddled in the corner, clutching his chest tightly, letting his tiny clawed fingers dig into him and producing thin lines of light in their wake. His eyes were squeezed shut and his mouth was furled in a pained grimace. His whole body shook violently and uncontrollably. In that moment, he was lost in his own nightmares, cowering in the shadows as horrid memories flashed behind his closed eyes. Even without a true physical form, his heart pounded against his tightening chest, and he felt ill . Never in his death had he wanted to vomit as much as he did then. His chest still tingled where she’d stroked him, still burned from her cold touch. He was completely unaware of each deep, shuddering breath he took, but Hat Kid noticed.

“Snatcher,” Hat Kid scarcely breathed, “hey, are you…” She didn’t need to ask; the answer was obvious. 

She took a brief glance back into the bedroom, making sure Vanessa was really gone before crawling up beside him. She could feel his trembling through the wall of the wardrobe and recoiled, hugging her arms against her chest as she tried to find a way to calm him. For several seconds, the only sound that passed between them was Snatcher’s soft but labored breathing and Hat Kid’s occasional whimper and sigh, but they couldn’t stay like that, not when Vanessa could return at any moment. Hat Kid held her breath and put her arms around Snatcher’s shoulders, hoping he wouldn’t lash out. There was a quiet, clearly startled gasp as he stiffened, but the tension quickly faded. Hat Kid waited a moment to see if he’d say anything, but he didn’t. 

“I’m scared of her too,” she eventually confessed when his shivering had settled down. “She’s really mean and strong and...she’s really horrible like this,” her voice broke off a bit at the end as she recalled every narrow escape she’d had with the queen, “but we’re gonna get that rift pon back! And after we do, we’ll get far away from here and never go near this stinky manor again!” She tightened her hold on him ever so slightly before slowly loosening her grip, but before she let her arms fall to her sides, Snatcher wrapped his cold fingers around her clasped hands. “Snatcher?”

“Thanks, kiddo…” 

He sounded frail, like he was on the verge of shattering. Hat Kid genuinely feared he was, but that wasn’t something she could outwardly admit. Snatcher shifted his position, freeing her hands as he turned away from the corner and stretched out his legs. He laughed at the situation with a wry smile and awkwardly rubbed the scratches he’d dug into his chest.

“ There’s no coming back from that, ” he grumbled to himself. “ Way to go. ”

“Snatcher,” Hat Kid positioned herself so that they were shoulder to shoulder before continuing. “Are you feeling better, or do you need a few more minutes? It’s ok if you do! It’s just...I don’t know when she’ll come back, so…”

“I’m fine,” he interjected briskly. He didn’t want to stay there any longer than necessary, and at the moment, he was the only one holding them back from searching. “Let’s go.” 

Hat Kid watched him nervously as he crawled past her. His arms and legs were still shaking so badly that he could barely move without stumbling, but he gave no signs of backing down once he’d started to make his way out. Once he was free of the wardrobe, she followed him, standing up beside him unsteadily and stretching out her sore limbs. A soft whimper cut their silence, followed by a pained hiss as Hat Kid gripped the edge of the bed for support and raised her foot slightly.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s-It’s nothing,” she bit her lip and tried to walk it off, but her leg was painfully numb, and the moment she put her weight on it again, she stumbled forward. Snatcher was quick to catch her before she could hit the floor, but she felt little relief from the glare he was giving her. “I...probably just twisted my ankle,” she laughed unconvincingly. “Sorry, I’ll be fine.”

Snatcher’s skepticism was unwavering, but he wasn’t in an argumentative mood, so when the kid pulled away and limped out the door, all he did was sigh and follow.

Chapter Text

It had been a little over an hour since the two of them had narrowly escaped Vanessa’s clutches. Snatcher, a little surprisingly, had been completely silent since, and every time Hat Kid’s gaze rested on him for too long, he’d quickly smile and look away.

It was as if he thought she hadn’t seen the empty look  in his eyes the moment before.

They had started by going back to the kitchen, hoping to just grab the pon they’d dropped and leave, but by the time they arrived, it was long gone. Hat Kid suspected Vanessa. Snatcher had wordlessly agreed. Despite combing most of the house, they couldn’t find the pon anywhere. But more concerningly, they hadn’t seen Vanessa either.

“Do you think she left? I know you said she didn’t leave often, but maybe this is one of those times she did.”

Snatcher’s face twisted into a sharp frown as he glanced out the nearby window and out into the thick snowfall. “Maybe.”

“She might have taken the pon with her,” she lamented, but received no other reply. Snatcher was still fixated on the blanket of white outside, his hand absentmindedly rubbing the wounds on his arm. “Are you ok?”

It took him longer than it should have to process what she’d asked, but almost as if he’d rehearsed it a hundred times, he turned to her with his signature grin and said, “I’m fine.”

Hat Kid knew better than to believe him, but frankly, she was lying just as much. Neither wanted to be the weak link here, and she couldn’t blame him for it one bit. With a soft sigh, she pulled her hat off, sticking it in her pocket so she could fix her messy hair while they figured out what was next.

“I think the only place we haven't really looked is the cella-”

“There’s the attic-” Snatcher interjected hurriedly. “Not to mention the third floor.”

“What are the odds she passed by us though? We were on the upper level and came down almost immediately.”

“We,” he faltered, scrambling for an argument to help him here. “She might have run a circle around us in the kitchen. We did it to her right after finding the pon.”

She remained doubtful of his thoughts, but ultimately considered that he might be right. Leaving the manor without looking everywhere could result in them missing the pon and having to return later. She sure as peck didn’t want to do that.

“Fine. We’ll check the cellar real quick and then head upstairs-”

“No-”

“Ugh, what now?” She scowled at him and placed her hands on her hips. “You didn’t want to go down there in the other levels either. Why? What’s so bad about the cellar?”

Snatcher swallowed hard as he fumbled for an excuse, “It’s got nothing to do with the place! It just makes more sense to start from the top, you know? Our exit is down here, or has your little kid brain already forgotten that?” He recoiled at her offended gasp, realizing that he took things a bit too far, but in the end, it looked like he was going to get his way.

“Fine, we’ll look there last,” she grumbled as she stormed up the steps a bit too loudly for Snatcher’s comfort, “but if we dont find that pon up here, we are going to look in the cellar.”

Short lived relief washed over him as he glanced back to the trapdoor. He felt dizzy just looking at it. The claw marks that lined the walls and the floor around it only confirmed his suspicions about the time they were in.

But most staggeringly was the smell.

He’d hoped the kid had attributed it to the dishes, but if she’d been paying any attention at all, the scent in the hallway was different from the one in the kitchen. This one was stronger, older, and meatier. His stomach lurched, forcing him to turn away from the door and follow the kid upstairs before he made himself sick.

Hat Kid was waiting for him at the base of the stairs to the third floor, looking somewhat apologetic now that she’d had some time to think, but before she could say anything, Snatcher whizzed past her and up the steps to the third floor. He was clearly eager to begin their search up there, but whatever burst of steam he’d gotten was gone by the time she joined him. Hat Kid stood on the second to last step, silently watching Snatcher as he looked over the third floor. The newspapers were up, plastered on every inch of the walls and coated in a thick, fresh coat of ink.

Prince

Princess

Kingdom

The cryptic lettering left a sinking feeling in her gut, but she was far more concerned with Snatcher. He hadn’t moved since she’d ascended the steps, and his head made it seem as if his gaze was locked forward. Hat Kid was cautious approaching him from behind, but he didn’t budge even when she stood at his side. 

“Snatcher?” She followed his eyes to the room at the end of the hall. A set of large green double doors were there, boarded up and chained with more lettering insisting that they “go away.” Hat Kid had seen it when she’d first visited the manor, but the stacks and stacks of rotted food, mostly cookies and flat wine, that added to the barricade sealing it were new. “What...is that place?”

“...a bedroom.”

“Who’s-” she grimaced. The answer wasn’t actually that hard to guess. “Thea’s?” 

Snatcher didn’t answer her, but she took his silence as a confirmation. She had never really liked the third floor, but the chained up door left some heavy implications that she never wanted to think about, and the stacks of moldy food outside of it only made her concerns grow. Curiosity made her want to open the door, to confirm what she suspected was inside, but she couldn’t actually bring herself to make that move. Besides, with all the stuff blocking the door, it was incredibly unlikely that the rift pon was in there too. There was just no way Vanessa could have gotten through that mess without them hearing her attempt. And if Thea was really there...she wasn't sure she could handle that sight. It was far too likely that the prince she knew was long gone if he was trapped in there.

Hat Kid was about to suggest they get a move on and start looking, when she realized that now was as good a time as any to apologize, “Sn-Snatcher-”

“What.”

“Um, about what I said back there...on the first floor...I’m sorry,” she whispered and fiddled with the hem of her shirt. “I didn’t mean to snap at you, I just- I really don’t think the pon is up here, and searching here feels like such a waste of time! I just want to find it and get out of this rift-”

“You think I don’t want that too,” he growled at her, his face contorting in a way that made it look like his mouth had more teeth.

“Hng- Why are you being like this?!” She wailed suddenly, gripping the sides of her head as she fought back tears. “I’m just trying to apologize! Why are you fighting me?!”

“Listen, kid-”

“NO! You listen!” She pushed him back slightly and quickly wiped her eyes. “I know more about these stupid rifts than you, and I’m telling you the pon isn’t up here!”

“Kid-” Snatcher tried to interrupt her, but she wouldn’t stop.

“I don’t know why you’re hiding stuff from me! We’re supposed to be a team, you big dummy!” She sniffled and hiccupped as she tried to calm down. “Why are you making things so hard?”

Snatcher seemed momentarily taken aback by her words. Vanessa had often asked the same thing, though this time he suspected he was genuinely in the wrong. He fumbled around for some excuse, desperate to keep her out of that place, but he took too long to say anything. Hat Kid shook her head, unable to ignore how suspicious that room was, and started down the stairs again, keeping an eye out for Vanessa.

"Hey, kid! Wait!" Snatcher trailed after her hurriedly. "Where are you going?"

"To look for the rift pon," She replied curtly as they rounded a corner, wiping away the last of the snot on her sleeve.

"I thought we were searching up here."

"I already said it's not up here."

"How would you know that for sure though," His voice cracked as he struggled to catch up to her. He wasn’t even trying to hide the panic in his tone now.

Hat Kid stopped walking abruptly and turned to face him. "I don't know if it's really there or not, but you've been hiding something about the cellar, so that's where we're going to look next." 

Snatcher watched with silent dread as she spun on her heel and continued down the other set of stairs. Several waves of protest welled up inside him, but he couldn't find the words to say and wound up reluctantly following her, trailing several feet behind her while trying to keep his breaths even. He hated to admit it, but she was right about him avoiding the cellar. Of course he would, but she couldn’t have possibly known the reason why. Whether the dumb orb thing was there or not, he knew exactly what they would find there if they went now, but he couldn’t deny that there was a strong chance that the pon was there too. Vanessa had clearly gone down before them, and they had no clue which way she went. His body grew exponentially colder as the evidence stacked against him.

It didn’t matter how he argued it.

The pon could definitely be in the cellar, 

Right next to the fragment of his former self.

Chapter Text

Hat Kid sighed as she made her way through the maze of hallways that led to the cellar, careful not to slip on the slick, ice-covered floorboards that Vanessa had recently left in her wake. The amount of sculptures that lined the hallways seemed to increase exponentially the further down the first floor hall they went, though Hat Kid wondered if she’d only missed them because they were new; their twisted, pained expressions followed the duo with subdued malice. Hat Kid felt that at any moment, the well-preserved bodies might come to life and attack them. Despite her growing concern over how likely something like that could happen, she found herself far more distracted by the shadowy figure that had been tailing her. Snatcher had been uncomfortably silent since she'd announced their new destination, and his silence was sending her all kinds of red flags. "What does he have against going down there anyway? Did...did something happen? ...Come to think of it, he was...really scared to go there just to get paint that one time." She cringed at the thought before glancing back at Snatcher. He was keeping his distance for once. 

"What are you looking at?" He glared at her suddenly, his gravelly voice more unnerving and frigid than ever.

Hat Kid merely frowned and kept walking down the crystallized hallway. He probably wouldn't tell her even if she asked. All she could do was hope her hunch about the rift pon was right, though she had a bad feeling that the cellar would hold more than she wanted to find. She'd find out soon enough. As for Snatcher, he was silently bracing himself for the inevitable. He wasn’t sure how the kid would react if she saw…it, but at the same time, he wasn’t sure why he cared at all. She’d have the shit scared out of her, so what? Why should he care? Why did that kind of bother him? He shook these thoughts away as they arrived at the final flight of stairs leading into the cellar. Hat Kid hesitated at the top; there was a sudden, overwhelming sensation of dread that froze her in place. The stairs felt unbelievably hostile and the air seemed to void itself of any and all warmth. 

But for every ounce of fear Hat Kid felt, Snatcher suffered it tenfold. The nauseating smell was the strongest it had been since they arrived, and that coupled with the violent ringing in his ears left him feeling cold and weak. "Let's go, kid." Snatcher scoffed weakly, putting on a vain attempt at sarcasm to repress his own trepidation. "What's the matter?" He jeered before briefly morphing into the shape of a chicken and clucking at her condescendingly. "You scaaaared ?"

Hat Kid felt slightly relieved to see him acting like his usual, playful self and disregarded the sinister aura the room below them gave off. Even if he was faking it, she figured if he could put on a brave face, so could she. Snatcher changed back as she passed him and headed down the steps, flinching almost violently at the familiar sound of the creaking double doors. With Hat Kid already waiting at the bottom, he took a deep breath, pushing back the urge to gag at the revolting smell as he descended the steps.

“Gods, it’s even worse down here,” Hat Kid’s eyes watered as she poorly attempted to cover her nose. “What the peck is that?”

“Language, kiddo...Might be a dead rat?” Snatcher cringed, not wholly believing his statement to be false. He knew what the smell was, but god only knew what else was in there with them. “Just- look quickly.”

Hat Kid nodded. She definitely didn't plan to stay down there any longer than they had to. “You search too,” she added suddenly, “you can see a lot better down here than I can anyway- oof- ”

“Kid?”

There was a splash of water and the sound of something scraping against the floor. “Is...is this a table?”

Snatcher approached her cautiously, but the further into the cellar he moved, the less he was able to see, and in the end, he ended up slamming his elbow into it too. “OW, SHI-mng!”

“Are you ok?!”

“That certainly feels like a table.”

“Can’t you see it?”

Snatcher hesitated at the question, looking down at where his hand could so clearly feel the damp wood surface, but his eyes couldn’t see a thing. “Kiddo, can- can you see anything?”

“No, it’s pitch black down here.”

“Not even...me?”

Hat Kid was about to smack him for making her jump with a question like that, but before she could get mad at what she thought was a joke, she realized she actually couldn’t. “What the- is that you?” She placed her hands on his still wet and crumby sleeves and felt the cracks that had been left in his arm. Snatcher’s pained hiss answered her question. “What’s going on down here?”

“I...don’t know. But whatever it is, I don’t think we should stay here.”

“This place makes my head hurt…” she whimpered and massaged the sides of her head, “and it smells funny.”

“I know, kid,” he grumbled irritably before seeing a chance to get her to leave. “Let’s just go. We’d be able to see the rift pon if it was down here, so-”

“I can’t even see you,” she reminded him. “Somehow this room is so dark it’s...eating the light. It’s even taken the light from your eyes.” Snatcher winced at her statement, but didn’t dare say anything about it. “The pon could definitely be in here. What better place to hide a bright shiny object than somewhere you couldn’t even see it in plain sight?”

He didn’t want to admit that she was right. Again. “Alright, fine. Let’s just- feel around, I guess.”

Snatcher pushed past her, making sure to take the side he didn’t want her finding. The two bumped around for a few moments before Hat Kid grumbled something. “You know, sometimes when rifts do this it’s because there’s nothing to see here, so nothing shows but an empty expanse.”

“Like the village in the first area,” Snatcher asked, cautiously feeling around the wine barrels along the wall. “Where there’s nothing beyond the buildings?”

 “Mmhmm,” she confirmed as she reached for her dweller mask and put it on. “But sometimes, it just means there's a challenge we haven’t taken care of yet.”

Snatcher heard the dweller mask activate from the far back corner of the room, and a moment later, the deafening roar of a dweller bell sounded off. The whole manor shook with the sound as the black fog in the cellar lifted, but Hat Kid was too busy covering her ears and trying not to fall to pay it much mind. Snatcher did not have the luxury.

As the house shook, Snatcher fell forwards, grabbing onto the wine barrel beside him for support. The ringing in his ears grew exponentially louder with the raging of the bell, but not loud enough to drown out the sound of rattling chains. And as the fog in the cellar lifted, so did Snatcher’s gaze.

Chapter Text

Hat Kid was panting heavily as she slowly uncovered her ears. Just as she had suspected, a frozen dweller had been sitting in the corner, its bell still in tact and active. She gave it a sympathetic pat and a hushed thank you, even though she knew it couldn’t hear her, before turning around and searching the slightly less dark room for any signs of the rift pon. This was the same place she’d found the key to the cellar door on her first visit, though it was still much darker. The only light came from a tiny window near the ceiling in the other part of the cellar. It cast a weak sliver of moonlight into the frosty side room she was in, its pale beam catching on the tips of the ice crystals crudely erected throughout the space and making them glisten. Under different circumstances, Hat Kid might have found the sight to be alluring and serene, but her fear prevented her from seeing the frost covered cellar as anything more than another terrifying room in that forsaken manor. Still, she pressed forward, determined to find the rift pon and leave. Her fingers trailed along what might have been the ice coated table they’d bumped into  as she carefully made her way further into the main room, still mostly using her sense of touch to guide her. After several minutes of blindly searching the far back of the room where the light did not quite reach, she let out a defeated sigh. She wouldn’t be able to find the rift pon like this, even with the additional light; there was no way to even be sure it was down there at all. She grumbled to herself at the thought of having to tell Snatcher she was wrong about its location, but her attention shifted when she heard a faint sound off to her left.

"Snatcher?" Come to think of it, it had been a while since she'd heard him say anything. "Is that you?" There was no reply, but the faint noise she'd heard before was abruptly cut off by a sharp intake of breath. Hat Kid froze. "Snatcher?" The atmosphere in the room had become dense and unpleasant. She reached for her umbrella, bracing herself for a fight, but it wasn’t a fight she needed to be ready to see.

A sudden gasp tore Hat Kid from her jittery thoughts, making her acutely aware of the shuddering breath and choked whine that followed. "Snatcher?" She asked again, more tentatively this time as she felt her way towards the sounds. 

"Don't come over here," he snapped, but his voice was breaking, thick with the quivering tone of someone on the verge of tears. "Stay back."

"What? Why??" Hat Kid continued walking towards the sound of his voice, only stopping in her tracks at the sound of a heavy thud and splash up ahead. "Snatcher?!"

Snatcher could hardly hear the sounds of her splashing footsteps over the overwhelming beating of his pulse in his ears. The room was swimming with lights and sounds and smells that quickly overwhelmed him and brought him to his knees. His injured hand tightly grasped his temple as he squeezed both eyes shut, willing away the pain and tears before a certain someone saw. 

"I can't be in here. I can't be in here. I can't be in here. " 

Snatcher moaned as a blistering pain shot through his stomach and his head, making him keel over until his face just barely hovered above the water. Memories of what happened there replayed sporadically, overloading his senses and mentally tearing him apart despite his hopeless attempts to ground himself. Violent flashes of pain, anger, hope, and despair overflowed in tears and sparks of dying embers that lit the air around him until they too were snuffed out by the cold.

He thought he'd handle it better.

He thought he was over it.

But one look was all it took to send him spiralling once again.

Through the glare of the ice obstructing her view of the other half of the room, Hat Kid could just barely make out Snatcher’s crumpled form. Panic filled her to the point she started shaking, making her frenzied trek through the mess of a cellar significantly harder than it should have been. Her leg cried out with each step she made, screaming as the frigid water bit into her skin, but she didn’t care.

“Snatcher? Snatcher!” She cried out to him as she finally spilled into the division of the room he was in, but there was no relief in seeing him curled in on himself against the floor. 

And there was even less relief in seeing him .

“Kid,” his voice shook with the intensity of a thousand burning suns, “please don’t-”

Snatcher didn’t even have time to finish his final warning before she stopped walking and stood frozen in place. Her breath caught in her throat, and her eyes widened as the only sliver of light briefly reflected itself off of the icy landscape and onto the wall in front of her. As a thousand emotions and questions suddenly swarmed her small form, Hat Kid couldn’t tell what had surprised her more: Snatcher's sincere pleas, or his decomposing corpse hanging on the wall.

Hat Kid staggered backward, her mouth agape as if she’d meant to scream, but no sound came out. Instead she just stumbled over her own feet and fell backwards against the wall of the other room. Snatcher pleaded with her one last time, begging for her to leave, but she was too transfixed on the ungodly sight being illuminated before her; she just couldn't look away. 

It appeared as if he'd died crying. His eyes were wide open, though one was long gone, leaving a sickening hole in his head, and the other was crystallizing visibly with each passing second. Little shards of ice were growing out of it at varying angles, catching the pale moonlight and casting smaller specs of light across his face, only further highlighting the gruesome sight. His mouth hung open, his jaw slackened in an almost violent position. It was far too likely that his dying breaths had been anguished screams, though she still couldn’t imagine how anyone could make such a painful expression. Or rather, she didn’t want to imagine. His arms were still tightly locked in their shackles, although the skin and muscle around his restraints had long since been rubbed off and torn away leaving the bone exposed. His ribs stuck out of his tightly pulled, Aegean flesh, threatening to burst from his frostbitten chest at any moment. Hat Kid grimaced at the dark bruises that formed behind the chains bound around his chest, moaning softly as she noticed how the metal sunk into parts where his ribs had broken under the pressure. And then her eyes drifted to his legs, the mangled, horrifying mess they were, very nearly severed at the thighs to prevent any attempt at escape.

"No- NOOOO-" Hat Kid wailed beside Snatcher, shaking her head in utter disbelief. Her hands gripped at the sides of her head, tugging at her hair as tears spilled down her cheeks and blurred her vision of the scene. “No, no, no!” That horrific ache in her chest now swelled into a fire that encompassed her whole body before fading abruptly and leaving her staggeringly cold in an instant. It was only a matter of seconds before she too dropped to her knees at the sight ahead of her and stared at the body of Prince Thea with all the grief in her little world. “Why? Why- ”

Hat Kid's heart beat loudly inside her ears and against her temples. She could scarcely breathe. Even after it started to settle down, the deep ache in her chest continued to grow more painful the longer her gaze rested on his mutilated body. “How did this happen? Did she really leave him down here to die? Why? Why would she do something so horrible?!” 

Snatcher's pained gasps for air sucked her back into the reality of their situation, but it was all she could do to shift her focus to him. Trembling and feeling increasingly weak, Snatcher shivered on the cold cellar floor. His puffy eyes reflected back at him in the murky water below, rippled by the tinted drops of blue that streaked down his burning cheeks. Of all the places to fall apart…

"Sn-Snatcher?" Hat Kid reached for him, but reeled back as his form wavered and convulsed, rocked by wheezes and heaves brought on by another lurch of his stomach. 

She was quick to pull his hair back for him, using her free hand to rub his back as he coughed and sputtered for what felt like hours. Snatcher heaved and whimpered as his stomach and throat burned horribly, the sickly substance rising from the depths of his form singing his insides as he pleaded silently for it to end. Hat Kid was patient with him, wincing every time he groaned but never leaving his side. She was surprised to feel how warm he was, especially given how he normally had no body heat at all. Something was horribly wrong. Her eyes drifted to his arm where streams of yellow were beading up on the water's surface. The skin around the wounds looked hardened and crusty with splotches of orange and green clinging tightly to the warped flesh. If ghost wounds could get infected, she was certain that his wound had. 

But even if the infection wasn't at play…

She couldn't keep herself from looking between the two. His blackened body, empty eyes, and the way his hair sat around his neck. Even with all the differences, it was impossible not to see the resemblance. Hat Kid grit her teeth and choked back a sob as she clung to Snatcher, burying her face in his shoulder as he sat there void of all emotion and staring blankly ahead.

"This is too much," she whimpered. "Why? Why did it have to be- hg," she couldn't say it, not out loud.

He was slow to respond, senses long since dulled by the icy sensation splintering through his veins. He felt like he was going to die again, but gods, not there. He couldn’t die there. Trembling hands were placed on the child’s shoulder as Snatcher shakily pulled himself away. He took the inside of his tattered cape and brushed away the mess stuck to his cheeks and chin and slowly wiped his eyes with what little clean spots were left. When he finally deemed his haggard form to be slightly more presentable, he silently placed himself between the trembling child and his former body, shielding her from the unsightly scene. 

“I told you not to come over here." He croaked, his voice hoarse and shaking, though there was a hint of sorrow still lingering in his otherwise monotonous tone. Hat Kid shifted her gaze to the floor and struggled to conceal her shaking hands. Snatcher sighed as he glanced over his shoulder at himself, the light from his eyes only highlighting the vacant, dead stare on his corpse. He cringed slightly before looking back at the kid. It was clear that the rift was taking its toll on her mental state too. “If this takes too long…” Snatcher grimaced before standing up and shifting back into his usual shape, though he remained significantly smaller than she was used to seeing him. “Kiddo,” he took the cleaner of his two hands and brushed the tears from her cheeks. “The past is in the past. You said so yourself,” he sniffled and rubbed his face on his arm again, cursing under his breath. “There's nothing we can do here to change the present we know. The Prince is gone." Hat Kid glanced up with misty eyes, feeling even more pitiful after getting a pep talk from him of all beings. "Come on. Let's get out of here, kid." He mumbled something else under his breath, but she didn't catch it. 

"I'm sorry you had to see me like that."

Chapter Text

Snatcher picked her up and held her close against his chest as she reluctantly shifted her weight in his arms to get comfortable. At least for now she seemed more irritated than frightened, much to Snatcher's relief. He wordlessly waited for her to stop squirming before heading straight to the cellar door that led outside. Hat Kid wanted to protest this decision, but after seeing that...after seeing him ...she was silently grateful that he was leading her away. Subcon Village would almost certainly be safer than the manor, and even if there were other bodies lying around, none of them would be quite as upsetting as the one hanging on the wall. She shuddered again as the image flashed briefly behind her drooping eyelids, startling herself back into consciousness with her own gasp.

Snatcher grimaced at the almost pained sound that escaped her and unconsciously pulled her closer to him. Hat Kid noticed the cautious, almost protective manner in which he did this, and it made her smirk ever so slightly. "What're you laughing at?" He grumbled fraily as he made his way through the pillars of ice that towered over them and obstructed their path. 

"You do care." She sneered mischievously.

"Do not."

"Oh yeah? Then why do you keep saving me?" She shifted her position and cast him a smug glare. "You can’t even fight that. You’re doing it right now." Snatcher's expression didn't waver despite how glad he was that she’d already seemingly recovered, but he sure as hell hadn’t. Hat Kid noticed this though and her mood immediately shifted back. "W...what's wrong?"

“Nothing,” he replied curtly, though his tightening hold on her suggested otherwise.

The uncomfortable sensation that had fallen on the two of them earlier in the manor suddenly veiled them once more. Snatcher’s sullen expression was only rivaled by the gloomy landscape they trekked through. Hat Kid watched as flakes of snow fluttered past him, the light from his seemingly weary eyes catching them and illuminating them for a mere second before they returned to the darkness beyond her line of sight. She shivered slightly as a gust of wind blew between them. He shook too, but she knew that it wasn’t from the cold.

“...Do you think he was scared?” She whispered suddenly before trying to curl up further in his lanky arms, hoping they’d shield her from the rapidly dropping temperature.

“Who? Thea?” Hat Kid nodded. “That guy...had the common sense of a bag of bricks, kid. He was scared of his own shadow half the time,” he retorted, although he cringed slightly as he remembered his own panic attack in the wardrobe and...

She shook her head vehemently. “I meant in the cellar…when she…put him there.” Her voice trailed off at the sound of his breath hitching. “Snatcher?”

“...I think I know of a place we can stay tonight.” He muttered in reply. “I’m not certain, but…I don’t think anyone went in there after the…incident.” The corners of his mouth curled downward as he uttered the word, the mere thought of it riling up feelings of resentment and disgust.

Hat Kid poked her head around the fluff that circled his neck and gave him a sorrowful look. “It must have been awful.” Snatcher emitted a soft groan realizing she wasn’t going to drop it. “Why’d she do that? What did he do?”

He grabbed her by the cowl of her cape and lifted her in front of his face, completely exposing her to the bitter wind. His once weary eyes suddenly burned with rage. “Do you want to walk?” He snapped at her rhetorically, but whatever well he’d drudged that anger up from dried up the moment he saw her face. 

“I-I’m sorry!” Tears hung in the corners of her eyes, threatening to fall if the air didn’t freeze them first. “I was j-just…I’m sorry!” 

Her whole body quivered both with cold and fear, and the expression that masked her usually playful grin, was nothing short of harrowing. His eyes widened and dimmed considerably before he gently brought her back against his shadowy form, desperately trying to generate a little extra heat for her sake. Guilt almost instantly seized him as he felt her shivering uncontrollably in his arms; despite his efforts, it simply wasn’t enough. He had meant to apologize, even pumped himself up to do it silently, but the words died before they reached his lips, leaving only silence lingering between them. What remained of his consciousness berated him as they neared a small building tucked away between the trees, making him speed up as it came into view, doing his best to keep the wind and snow off of the girl huddling in his embrace. 

The door was flung open without hesitation, unintentionally welcoming a pile of snow inside. Snatcher hissed quietly as he barged in and closed the door behind them, disregarding the snow for the time being. He was relieved to discover that the place was in fact exactly how he thought it would be, touched only by dust and a slowly creeping chill that would soon envelope a large portion of Subcon. He flung a white sheet off of a covered chair, shielding Hat Kid from the dust he stirred up. After the air had cleared, he laid her down on the plush seat and hovered off to a smaller side room, returning moments later with a handful of blankets he’d kept there for times he had spent the night. He bundled the shivering girl up quickly before rushing over to the fireplace. Hat Kid watched in a daze as he seemed to teleport throughout the room, though she couldn’t tell if that’s what he was doing or if she was just blacking out. He didn’t seem to settle down until the fireplace was lit up and the scent of smoke and burning wood slowly pervaded the air. He slumped down in the chair across from her, not even bothering to remove the linen cover beforehand. 

“Where are we?” She asked softly, her voice trailing off as she struggled to stay awake.

“My study,” he replied quietly, “at least, that’s what it used to be. Outside of the rift, this place is just a pile of rubble.”

“You had a study?” She perked up slightly, pulling the blankets tighter as she sat up. “What’d you study?”

Snatcher gave her an incredulous look before making exaggerated gestures towards the many law books that were lying in plain sight. Hat Kid only stared at him, a somewhat lost expression in her eyes. He felt a twinge of worry as he realized her condition had gotten worse, and the idea that he’d facilitated the change with his outburst a moment ago only upset him more. “Law,” he sighed somberly. 

Hat Kid grinned, “That’s a good fit for you.”

“No kidding…” he replied sarcastically, though it was half hearted and lacked all edge. 

Hat Kid watched him from her seat for a bit as he finally settled against the chair. His exhaustion was evident now. Lidded, puffy eyes still stained from tears shed a while ago, crusty remains of food on his arms and bile near his mouth. His whole body was several shades lighter now than when they had come into the rift too, but after everything they'd seen, frankly she was amazed he wasn't crumbling even more.

"Snatcher?" She waited for him to acknowledge her, even if it was just a sigh. "Can...can I ask you some stuff?"

"That depends," his voice lowered. "What are you planning to ask?"

"Are you feeling better?"

Snatcher was a bit taken aback, and his face showed it, slack jawed with widened eyes. He had really been expecting something else. "Yeah, kiddo. I'll be fine."

"Are you sure," she pressed on, a worried look in her eyes. "You're still shaking."

A silence fell between them as Snatcher looked down at his hands. Sure enough, both were shaking against his will, though his left was trembling much more wildly. He gripped it with his other hand and placed them in his lap, hoping she hadn't seen, but the scowl on her face confirmed she had. 

"Don't worry about it." He shook his head the moment she opened her mouth to speak. "Even if whatever you're going to say is true, there's not a whole lot that can be done about it right now. We'll just have to be quick about getting out of this place. Was that it?"

Snatcher watched her with narrowed eyes that darted across her features as he tried to speculate what else she was going to ask. Once again, she surprised him.

"What were you planning to do with that last timepiece?"

He tensed up, a dull ache resurfacing in his body once again as he recalled what all of his efforts were really for:

"Nothing."

Hat Kid raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Nothing? Come on, Snatcher! I wasn't born yesterday-"

"I'm not lying."

She froze as he looked her dead in the eye. There was no signature smile, no fingers crossed behind his back, no fine print in a contract to be seen. As strange as it was to say, his words seemed sincere.

"I don't...understand then. Why keep it if you didn't have a use for it?"

"Well, I didn't say I couldn't find a use for it." He crossed his arms and closed his eyes in faux thought. "A lamp, a music box, or how about a paperweight?"

"Snatcher."

He opened one eye to look at her. There was curiosity in her eyes, but also fear. "Would you believe me if I said that I just genuinely didn't want you to have it? For no other reason than it inconvenienced you?"

"You mean- that spiel about it being your property because it landed in your forest was for real?!" She looked like her little head just exploded. "I thought that was just an excuse."

Snatcher shook his head and leaned further back in the seat, letting his tail coil around the legs. "There are a million things you could do with one of those, kid. But messing with magic like that," he hesitated, "Well, let's just say I misjudged you. You're no amateur after all."

Hat Kid's eyes widened and she leaned forward, nearly toppling out of her seat in shock at the compliment. Snatcher rolled his eyes as she quietly gushed to herself regarding the achievement, but the celebration was short-lived when Hat Kid remembered something else she'd wanted to ask.

"Hey Snatcher, do you understand how purple rifts work?"

It was his turn to freeze. Sitting up ever so slightly, Snatcher squinted at her from across the way, trying to discern if this was a trick question or not. "I know what you told me," he settled with the vague, "and what we've seen with the pons and doors."

"But do you know how these form?"

"...Something about memories and how badly the timepiece broke? Why? What does that have to do with anything?"

Hat Kid fell silent for a moment, wringing out her hands as she sat on her knees. "I thought...at first, that this rift formed on the memories of the land. So much had to do with the village, forest, and manor, it made sense, especially if you add that the timepiece shattered on the ground at the arena."

Snatcher's expression grew quizzical the more she spoke. "So?"

"Well that's...that's the thing." She lowered her gaze to idly watch her hands. "Purple time rifts rarely form off the land. Usually they'd be green rifts, but more...importantly-" a long pause separated them for a bit as she thought over her words. "Purple rifts that form off the land don't typically follow one person."

"...what are you trying to say," Snatcher asked as calmly as he could, feigning a sense of ease by propping his head up in his uninjured hand.

Hat Kid continued, "This rift was weird from the start, Snatcher. A broken timepiece that hit the ground was way more likely to rewind time for a bit or make a green rift, than it was to make a purple rift, but- for it to do this ." She gestured to the room, but Snatcher knew what she meant. 

"Alright, fine. The rift is weird. You've said that a hundred times already," he scoffed and picked at his hand. "What's the big deal?"

"Snatcher," Hat Kid whimpered. She couldn't tell if he genuinely didn't get it or cared, but either way, she couldn't see their conversation going very well. "Purple rifts usually form when they land on a person , and they follow the life of someone they were close to...or that person themself." Now Snatcher perked up, but he was quick to disguise it by adjusting his tail. "Snatcher, haven't you noticed something about all of these levels? Something they've all had in common?"

"They've all been in Subcon."

She rolled her eyes. "Think about it, Snatcher! Every level has had something to do with Thea!"

The air in the room dropped in temperature, almost to a stifling degree. The fire in the fireplace abruptly blew out, leaving a thick black smoke hanging in the air between them. Hat Kid shivered as Snatcher's eerily calm expression gazed back at her, exuding a sinister coldness she hadn't expected from him. 

"What are you talking about?" His signature grin reappeared on his face, but his eyes faltered and twitched. "What did he have to do with the first level? That was nothing more than the village."

"The letter that was with the rift pon," she reminded him gently. "Camellia...she knew the prince, right? He bought flowers from her, probably more than...just the once. And besides, the letter was all about his disappearance."

The grin remained. "That seems like a long stretch even for you, kiddo. Don't speculate. That doesn't necessarily mean anything other than that you are confirming your own biases."

"Mng, ok, but-"

"What about the second level? It was about the village and manor. It could have been part of the land's story. It was one of many events that led up to the forest's current state, you know."

"Yeah, but it was also an important time for Thea!" She gripped the sheets around her legs and grimaced. "He was going to get married, right? That ceremony- wasn't it a promise? That's what you said!"

"And what about the third? The Prince was hardly there at all." His smile stood fast, a distressing constant to the child trying to speak.

"Snatcher, he got locked away! Are you even hearing yourself?!" Warm breath hung in the frigid air as Hat Kid sat there panting. Snatcher's expression was dimming considerably, but the smile never faltered. "And the fourth," she began again, "this one, right now. It's- it's his death . Snatcher, are you really going to pretend like this isn't a possibility-"

"The timepiece didn't hit anyone, kid. You said the rift would have had to hit a person to be about an individual. You don't have an argument, so drop it." 

She inhaled, looking him dead in the eye and then lowering her gaze. She couldn't bear to look while she delivered the final verdict. "But it did, Snatcher. In the arena, you kept a part of your tail in the ground at all times. It helped you dive back in faster, right?" No response, but she expected as much. "But, when you do that, there's a...a pool of shadow that sits around you. You're even doing it right now." 

Snatcher glanced down at his tail, tucked away instinctively into the floor. Sure enough, she was right. The usual pool of inky black did sit around the base of his tail and spread out a short distance across the floor. 

"The timepiece hit that. I'm sure of it, Snatcher."

Snatcher was quiet for a long time, staring at his tail and wondering how he hadn't even considered that'd be damning evidence, but there it was for them both to see. "I already told you I knew him. Why does it matter if the rift formed off of me?"

A shuddering breath masked the silent tears dripping down her cheeks as she looked at him with the same dismal expression she'd given Thea's body. "The memories are too strong. Everything is too...life like. Even in other purple rifts I've been in, most aren't this detailed. This kind of thing only happens when..." Hesitation and hitched breaths from them both. "Snatcher-"

"Don't," he hissed, his expression flickering rapidly.

"It's you. It's been you all along, hasn’t it?" She hiccupped and pulled her cape around her arms. "The rift, the timeline, why you were so scared of Vanessa and the cellar-"

"Kid-"

"It's you! It's because it was you the whole time! You're Prince Thea! You're...you're Thea..."

It was silent.

The room was deathly silent. It wasn't hard to tell that she'd struck a nerve. She knew from the start she would, but she had to know if she was right, if what they were seeing was really Snatcher's life. A hard lump formed in her aching throat as she waited for Snatcher to say something, anything, but her only reply for a long while was the roar of the wind outside and the last pops of the dying embers in the fireplace. 

It was no surprise that she nearly jumped out of her skin when he started to laugh.

"You must think you're so clever," he cackled, but his smile immediately fell into an enraged glare, "playing detective with matters that don't concern you. This isn't The Conductor's movie set, kid ."

“I-I know that,” she sniffled and wiped her eyes. “But-”

“I said DROP IT !” Snatcher leapt from his seat, a burst of flame igniting around him, lighting a pile of papers and the fireplace on fire and singing his seat. “Just,” he panted, lowering himself back down as he tried to recollect himself, “let this go already.”

Hat Kid looked at him with eyes clouded by sadness. "How can I just let this go? How can you be so calm about it?" Snatcher scoffed and wanted to say something to the effect of, "did any of that look calm to you," but he held his tongue. "She just...left you to die."

His mouth opened, probably to correct her. After all, Vanessa had been so kind in visiting him every day. He was never as alone as he wanted to be at the time, but the words wouldn't come out. Hat Kid saw the struggle and the shift in his demeanor though and pressed him a bit more.

"You...she didn't just leave you, did she?" The answer was already clear, but, "You- you really didn't just...freeze to death?"

The fire crackled between them, sparks popping and dissipating in the air as a heavy silence weighed on them both. Snatcher knew what she was getting at, but answering her? He wasn't sure he wanted to. He wasn't sure he could.

"What do you want from me, kid," he sneered, though his expression still suggested he was concerned. "My life story? We’ve already established that you're living it."

"You can't tell me that all those- hh," she grimaced as she vividly recalled Thea's distorted face, glistening with ice and filled with holes. "What did she do to you?"

"I don't have to tell you anything!" He snapped at her, his fingers sharpening into claws. "If you’re so smart, you can go back and figure it out by yourself, but it's not your place to ask! It's not your right to know!"

"But- I’m just curious!"

“Well, stop being curious!”

“It’s just a question, Snatcher!”

“And my life isn’t just some storybook for you to flip through, so what do you want me to say , kid?!" He snapped and stood up again, the fireplace burning brighter and more violently, "Do you want to hear how she hit me? How she starved me? How she stabbed me?!” 

“Snatcher-,” Hat Kid recoiled as he gradually approached her, his voice wavering and growing in pitch as his form began to flicker. 

“Do you need every gritty detail? Is that what’ll finally satisfy you?! Is that it?! I bet you didn't know she forgot I had to eat after the first week. Or how about how hard it is to breathe when your tongue swells up because you're dying of thirst!”

“Snatcher!”

“Or maybe,” he slammed his hands down on the arms of her chair, effectively trapping her just inches from his face, “you want to know all about how she drove her ugly claws straight through my stomach and sucked the life out of me with her grubby little hands !"

“SNATCHER-” Hat Kid sobbed and threw her arms around him, forcing him to shut up by burying his face in her shoulder. “I’m sorry- I’m- I’m sorry,” she gasped. “Please just stop!”

It took him too long to notice. In all his frustration, all the pent up anger and pain, he’d neglected to remember that she was just a child. She didn’t need to hear any of that; he wished he hadn’t said. But Hat Kid didn’t fault him for it. She was angry too, for everything he’d suffered, and for god knows how long he had to keep it to himself. What concerned her most was what was happening to him now.

Snatcher was slow to move from his position, his nails still digging into the arms of the chair as he stood there quaking and cooling off. His mind and pulse were racing, fueled by a long coming panic that had finally boiled over. Several minutes passed like this and his breathing slowed to a crawl and the sweat on his face began to freeze. It was all he could do to put his weight back on his legs so he could place a hand on the back of the trembling kid’s head for support. He wasn’t sure which one of them needed it more.

It took him too long to notice.

But when he did-

“What the-” Snatcher jerked back, tearing himself out of Hat Kid’s grasp and stumbling over his own feet and back into his chair. His eyes were locked on his blackened hands, perfectly smooth and normal-shaped: for a human’s. 

He looked back to the kid who was sitting on her hands and knees at the edge of her seat, staring at him with her mouth agape and her eyes filled with recognition. His breath hitched as her mouth began to move and his hands began to explore the rest of his shadowy body, patting at thighs, clothes, and a face that shouldn’t have been there. Trembling hands carded through his long hair, distressed to find that it didn’t continue around his neck as it had for so long. The two of them exchanged horrified glances, holding their breath as they waited for one of them to break the silence until Hat Kid finally whispered:

“Thea…”

Chapter Text

A wisp of black smoke trailed behind the shadow of the prince as he jumped up and hovered to the window, trying to shift back to normal as quickly as he could. It wasn't working. He rested his forehead against the window pane, his breath fogging up the glass as he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think straight, pleading with himself to calm down long enough to make his magic work, but he couldn’t. This was just too much.

"Snatcher?" Hat Kid sniffled and rubbed her eyes on her sleeve, stifling a rising sob as she looked at her crestfallen friend. She had suspected it. All the evidence said as much too, but somehow she had begged for it to be a mistake. There was absolutely no denying it now; not after what he said, not after seeing him like this. "So, it’s true...You-you’re really...Prince Thea...."

"Don't call me that-" he cut her off, snapping his head up to glare at her fast enough to send tears and spittle flying. He cringed as he caught himself, smearing blue across his face as he glared at her with almost malicious intent. "Prince Thea has been dead for over 200 years, so let the dead man lie! He's not who I am!" His gravelly voice dropped to a hushed whisper, muffled by the fabric of his own sleeves. "He is not who I am."

Silence enveloped the two of them again as Snatcher tried to clear his eyes. This was disgusting, to him at least. Weak and miserable and as far from his element as he could be; he was a soul eating monster, for Pete’s sake! So why? Why was he still crying? Why did he still care?

Hat Kid noticed; of course she did, but even she could see her words had taken a toll far greater than she could have anticipated. If Snatcher didn’t completely hate her guts right now, she was certain that he at least didn’t want to speak, especially not to her. Besides, she was suddenly more concerned with keeping the blankets close. 

Hat Kid didn’t want to say anything, especially not after everything she’d just dragged up, but she was freezing. The wind had crept into her bones and seized her inside and out. Even just a few steps away from a roaring flame, she felt no warmth. She wordlessly wondered if she might be getting sick, or maybe she was just that unnerved by Thea’s and Snatcher’s undoing, but her thoughts were scrambled by the abrupt urge to sleep. Snatcher watched nervously as she shifted her position to lie on her side, wondering if she was that upset with him for cracking.

“You ok there, kid?” He asked, momentarily forgetting to hide his concern for her

“Heh…” she coughed slightly before smiling, her pale, clammy skin glistening in the light from the flames. “You do care.”

Snatcher would have normally frowned and denied that to the fullest extent, but he was too tired to argue. As far as he was concerned, the kid had won this round, and whether he’d ever say it out loud or not, deep inside, he knew she was right. He watched as she drifted to sleep, mumbling something faintly as her eyes closed. 

“I’m sorry, kiddo.” He grimaced as he stared blankly into the fireplace, irritated that he hadn’t been able to say that to her before she’d dozed off.

Seconds, minutes, nearly an hour passed in the span of three minutes as Snatcher stared at her sleeping form. He was exhausted, mentally, physically, and emotionally. He swallowed the dry lump in his throat and awkwardly stumbled towards the snow pile by the door, scooping up a small handful and letting it melt in his mouth before spitting out what he could of the sickly taste that remained there into a bin of papers by the desk. “I can’t believe I got ill over this.” He thought to himself, placing a hand over his eye and shifting it to massage his temple. “I can’t believe I...turned into this…”

It was now that he finally removed the sheet from the chair he’d been sitting in, forcing back a cough as dust spewed into the air. Even without meaning to, he ended up breathing it in, the thick clumps agitating his already sore throat. He was too tired to care. He flopped back against the cushions and looked to the kid once more. Still asleep. Then to the clock. Only 10 minutes had passed.

“Oh, this is going to be a long night,” he moaned and propped his elbows up on his knees so he could rest his face in his hands. 

A deep inhale,

and a shuddering breath.

Snatcher’s hands tightened around his face as he sunk further into himself, cursing the whole situation but especially cursing himself. For the time being, he was completely enveloped in his own dismal thoughts, unaware that his feverish ramblings had gained an audience across the room. Hat Kid rubbed her eyes wearily before sliding off the too big chair, wrapping the blanket around her neck, and padding over to him. She paused halfway to tie the sheet around her shoulders, freeing her hands up to grab a couple of blankets from the pile and the emptier waste bin by the door, setting the latter down by Snatcher’s feet with a clattering ring.

“Kiddo-” he jumped, looking immediately over to the chair before realizing she was directly in front of him.

“Do you feel sick again,” she asked and gently pushed the bin closer before climbing up into the seat beside him and awkwardly trying to unfold and lay the blankets over them both. “It’s ok if you do. My mmm mom says it's best to just let it out.” She started gently patting his back, though the process slowed as she gradually sank against him.

“Let it- no! Ugh-” he clutched his head for a moment as a flash of white-hot pain blinded him. It only lasted for a second, but it was more than enough of a sign to make him think twice about raising his voice again. “I’m fine.”

“You’re warm…” Snatcher grimaced, though less at the statement and more at the fact she was right. He did feel warm, and not in the nice comfy way. He was on the verge of protesting anyway though when she tugged on his arm and weakly pulled him back against the seat, crawling into his lap to seal his fate. “Sleep, you big dummy,” she scarcely got the words out whilst dozing off herself. 

He wanted to argue; he really did, but he didn’t have the strength to even move her anymore. He huffed, just a quiet, “fine,” under his breath and adjusted the blankets around them both before succumbing to the stinging urges to sleep far faster than he thought.

Chapter Text

Images flashed rapidly across closed eyes. A dream within a nightmare within a rift.

Snatcher wasn’t sure how long he’d been standing there, completely in a haze with eyes as out of focus as he was himself. It wasn’t until Hat Kid elbowed his side that he really woke up.

“Earth to Snatcher! Are you there,” she giggled and walked ahead of him. “Come on! This castle is huge! Don’t you wanna explore?”

Silence.

“Are you ok?”

Snatcher glanced at his hands, his wounds still evident, though he couldn’t feel a thing. He was morphed as Hat Kid again, but he couldn’t remember when he had changed.

Everything felt so out of place.

“S-sorry. Where are we?”

Hat Kid’s face scrunched up as she scrutinized his expression. “Wake up, sleepy head! We’re in a castle! The rift brought us here, so it must have something to do with Subcon, but I’ve never seen this place outside the rift. I was asking if you knew anything about it, but you’ve been too busy drooling against the wall, I guess. Hmph!” 

“S-sorry…”

“Well, whatever!” She took his hand in hers and started leading him down the hall, running off a little further ahead once she was sure he was following. “There must be a million rooms to explore here! ...that’s gonna make it hard to find the rift pons though, huh?”

Snatcher nodded, not really able to respond any other way as he awkwardly gripped the table beside him for support. Hat Kid froze and turned around, the hands on her hips lowering as she stepped closer to him. Snatcher had his palm pressed against his forehead, eyes tightly shut as he fended off a migraine in the making. Something about this place made his ears hurt and his head spin. What was it? What was it?

“Sorry. Where are we?”

A tight lipped frown tugged at the corners of her mouth as she reached out to place her hand on Snatcher’s cheeks. Whatever she was hoping for evidently wasn’t what she received however, as her expression darkened considerably. 

“You...really aren’t feeling well, are you?” She gently lifted his arm and wrapped it around her shoulders, supporting most of his weight for him while they walked. “This place seems nicer than the other areas of the rift. I’m sure we can find you somewhere safe to rest for a bit, so just hang in there!”

Despite her chipper tone, her eyebrows were knitted with worry. She’d never seen Snatcher break a sweat like this before, and the longer they walked, the less and less he actually moved himself. She didn’t know it, but his legs had gone numb, and his arms felt like they’d been set ablaze. The lights in the hall bounced around his vision, blurring and spinning out of control as their reflections danced off of the glossy floors and walls. They didn’t even stop when his body hit the floor.

“Snatcher?!” Hat Kid dropped with him, carefully rolling him onto his back to see if he was ok, but he didn’t answer. He couldn’t even hear her. “H-hold on, ok?! I’ll find help!” A second later, she was scooping him up in her arms and carrying him down the hall, very nearly running as his condition grew worse and his consciousness waned. 

He really wasn’t sure what had happened. He had been bouncing in her arms, his limbs dangling limply out of her grasp as the breeze from her speed rushed through his hair, but now he was lying in a bed. A cool cloth was draped across his forehead and there were thick bandages wrapped around his arm and chest. He sat up stiffly, stretching out the tension in his limbs as he finally looked around. Or at least, he started to, until the kid magically appeared at his side and scared the ever loving peck out of him.

“Kiddo- ack!” He reeled back from her too close face, clutching his chest as a surge of pain pierced him. “Wh-”

“Relax! We’re in the castle, like I said earlier, but you weren’t feeling well and…” she hesitated, tugging at the hem of her shirt. “You kind of passed out.”

“I what ?”

“But it’s ok! A certain somebody just so happened to be around to help!”

“Who...?”

“Me!” It was almost surreal, hearing himself from across the room, but the voice was too clean, too alive. “Look who decided to wake up! Welcome back to the realm of the conscious, young one,” Prince Thea beamed as he hopped onto the bed beside Snatcher, bouncing them both slightly. “I’m glad to see that fever of yours broke. Can I see your arm again? I don’t know what happened to you two or how you even got in here, but those cuts really shouldn’t go untreated.” Snatcher stared at him blankly, too stunned to move, but when Prince Thea offered him his hand, he was compelled to follow through. Thea smiled at him softly as he carefully undid the bandages, wincing when they were off and the mess of rotting tissue was exposed. Even Snatcher jumped at the sight of it, unsure of how it had gotten so bad in such a short time. “It’s ok. It’s fine,” Thea reassured him and carefully got to work, cleaning the jagged flesh with a damp cloth and gently applying a salve over the cracks.

Hat Kid and Snatcher both watched in silent awe as he wrapped his arm with ease, hands steady and well practiced, as if he’d done this a thousand times before.

Snatcher knew he had.

“All set,” he cheered quietly, flashing Snatcher a toothy grin. 

“..Thanks. I guess.” Snatcher jerked his arm back, scratching at it gently to satiate the itchiness the bandages gave. Thea laid his hand over Snatcher’s though, carefully prying it away from his arm with a serious, but calm expression. 

“No sense in agitating that, right?” He smiled warmly and ruffled Snatcher’s hair. “Well, do you think you can walk again? Or eat?” He cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck, as he flashed them both a sheepish smile. “Vanessa won’t take too kindly to finding strangers in our bedroom, so I’m afraid I can’t let you stay too long, but the kitchen staff are friendly. I’m sure they’d give you a bite to eat before you go. W̶o̷u̸l̵d̷n̶ '̷t̶ ̵w̷a̵n̷t̸ ̶t̸o̴ ̴d̴i̷e̸ ̶h̷u̴n̶g̷r̴y̴.̵” ((Wouldn’t want to die hungry.))

The hair on the back of Snatcher’s neck stood on end as a chill coursed throughout his entire body. “What?”

“I said you wouldn’t want to leave hungry,” Thea repeated with a gentle grin and an extended hand. “Come along, I’ll lead the way...Are you coming?”

Snatcher looked at his hand distrustfully, shaking his head and rubbing his eyes. “I-I guess. You ready, kid?”

“I̴ ̴d̴o̸n̵ '̷t̸ ̸w̶a̸n̷t̵ ̵t̵o̴ ̶d̵i̸e̸ ̸h̸e̵r̸e̸!̸” ((I don’t want to die here!))

Snatcher shot back as he caught a glimpse of her face, empty sockets where her eyes should have been, oozed a tar-like black liquid that had all but covered her skin. But the imagery was gone as fast as it had come. “You- what??” He rubbed his eyes harder and backed himself away from them, awkwardly climbing over the bed.

“Uh? I asked if they had pie here. Snatcher- are you alright?”

His feet hit the floor, but his eyes remained on them, waiting for something to shift. Nothing did. He laid his aching head against the mattress and let out a pained moan, “What the heck is going on?”

“Y̴o̷u̸ ̵d̴e̶s̸e̴r̷v̶e̴ ̵t̷h̴i̸s̵.̵” ((You deserve this.))

“Snatcher??”

“̷W̷e̸ ̶c̴a̷l̴l̴e̶d̴ ̷i̴t̷ ̵f̵a̶t̶e̷.̸” ((We called it fate.))

“Hey- are you ok?!”

“Stop! STOP! STAY AWAY FROM FROM ME,” Snatcher screamed and backed himself against the wall. Magic buried deep within surged and tried to surface, but the most he got were weak sparks.

“What? Hey,” Hat Kid moved around the side of the bed, flinching when he bolted to the doorframe. “Sn-Snatcher? Calm down. It’s ok!”

“P-please,” Thea knelt down beside Hat Kid and tried to quell his fears. “Whatever it is that’s frightened you-” he paused. “Was it us? Have I done something?”

“All you’ve done is help,” Hat Kid grimaced as she realized Snatcher wasn’t coming around at all. “What’s gotten into you all of a sudden?”

Snatcher gulped down air in deep, heaving breaths. His pulse was in disrepair, beating a mile a minute against his ears. He could practically hear the blood he didn't have, flow. Hat Kid and Thea hadn’t taken their eyes off him since he’d started acting off, but Snatcher’s eyes had drifted to the floor. It couldn’t have been more than a second, but when he looked back up:

“S̷h̵e̷'̸s̶ ̴h̵e̵r̶e̷.̸” ((She’s here.))

The floor gave way without warning, dissolved into ash that vanished into a void of darkness beneath his feet. It was all Snatcher could do to grab the ledge, slamming his ribs and chin into the ground as his lower body dangled off the edge. He coughed and choked as something gathered in his throat and kept him from breathing in, but that was the least of his fears at the time.

“Snatcher! SNATCHER- HCK!”

Shapeless eyes watched where idle limbs couldn’t move, transfixed on the child collapsed on the floor ahead. Thea’s shouts were quelled all the same until the faces of both mirrored his own. He was paralyzed, forced to watch the light in their eyes dim to dusk. It was without warning that their skin began to melt, their bodies fizzling, hardening, then crumbling to dust. Anger and incomprehensible fear bubbled as his lungs swelled with a scream he couldn’t release, the air in them thickening as the perpetrator of all bad things grew close, placing the heel of her shoe over his temple as she spoke.

“One in the same…” Vanessa cooed, pressing harder and harder until blood began to ooze. “The clock is ticking, Thea. Hurry up. S̷h̴e̵ ̷w̷i̴l̴l̷ ̷d̵i̷e̶ ̶j̴u̸s̸t̴ ̵a̴s̷ ̸y̵o̸u̴ ̸d̷i̷d̷.̶ ” ((She will die just as you did.))

And the darkness took him away.

Chapter Text

A sharp intake of breath signaled Snatcher’s awakening, coupled with the aggressive lurch forward that nearly rocketed Hat Kid from his lap. The sleeping child awoke with a start of her own, crying out as she very nearly hit the floor.

“Snatcher?! What is it?! What’s wrong?!”

Beads of sweat trickled down his face as he abruptly turned her, staring into her darting eyes and gripping her tightly as he tried to convince himself she was safe. Her wide eyes stared back at him, as gentle and tired as could be, and as soon as the haze of the dream faded, he relinquished her and sank.

“Forget it. Just go back to sleep, kid. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Hat Kid stared at him for a worryingly long time, a question pressed to her lips that never quite made it out. She knew better than to ask. He wouldn’t tell her the truth anyway. “If- if you start feeling bad, you’ll wake me up, right,” she asked hopefully, figuring if he wouldn’t tell her what was wrong now, maybe he’d let her help if things got worse.

“Yeah, yeah,” he waved her off while resting his head in his hands. “Go. Sleep. We have work to do in the morning...brat.”

Oddly enough, they both cracked a smile at the name, a slight weight lifted off their chests at the familiarity of it hanging between them. Hat Kid hugged him quickly and climbed back up beside him, though this time she planted herself on the chair instead of his lap. She wasn’t particularly looking forward to being launched again if he had another scare. Snatcher grunted as she kicked him a couple of times on her way up, but the playful grin on her face and the one eye left partially open to watch him dissipated the initial annoyance he’d felt. She seemed to be doing better. Despite everything, he felt better too.

It didn’t take the kid too long to drift back to sleep. Exhaustion had been pulling them both under since they’d arrived at this level, but paranoia and a still rapidly beating heart kept Snatcher wide awake. It wasn’t much of a surprise that he eventually started to pace. Time passed dreadfully slow as he paused at the desk, flipped through books on a shelf, stirred up dust in the closet. But his patience for that wore thin, and after about an hour, he caved and went back to watching over Hat Kid as she slept.

The gentle sounds of her breathing mingled with the popping and crackling of the burning wood and the whistling wind outside. The occasional mumble made him jump, but as far as he could tell, she was fine. It seemed he wasn’t the only one having dreams. He laid another blanket over her as the air gained another chill. Even with the fireplace, the room was too cold for the kid. He knew that, but even so, there wasn’t a better place in the forest right now. There wouldn’t be for another 200 years.

Something atop the mantle briefly glinted in the moonlight and caught his attention, prompting him to look up. Resting in the center of a dozen small figures and assorted curios was a picture frame. He didn’t need to examine it any closer; he remembered exactly what photo was displayed within. He and Vanessa were seated side by side on a blanket they had laid upon the ground. The sun had shone brighter than it had any other day of his life, and nothing had seemed more alive than it had that day. In a moment of annoyance, he snatched it up and prepared to toss it in the starving flames, but he hesitated. The glass gleamed in the light once more, only this time it was the light from outside. Snatcher whirled around, something akin to fear overtaking him as he flew to the window and looked up.

“Ah….hahaha…great,” a twitchy smile crossed his face as he laughed anxiously. “I almost forgot about you .”

Snatcher glanced back at Hat Kid, relieved to see that she was still fast asleep. It suddenly occurred to him that there was a way to make up for earlier, and it would be relatively simple for him to do it if he didn’t have to keep worrying about her...and if he could keep himself together. Besides, their final destination was in the town square anyways. If he could just find the rift pon before she woke up, then maybe...

He paused his scheming to take another fearful glance at the blood moon hanging ominously in the night sky and then back at the kid. There wasn’t any time to waste. He let out a soft sigh before floating over to her and tucking the blanket around her tightly. After checking to make sure the fire would hold out until morning and ensuring that she was still asleep, he exited the study, leaving Hat Kid to rest in peace.

Hat Kid awoke with a jolt, beads of sweat dripping down her cheeks and off of the loose strands of hair that weren't clinging to her clammy skin. "A dream..." she muttered as she rubbed her eyes wearily and took a few deep breaths. After collecting herself and pulling her hair out of her face, Hat Kid glanced around. She wasn't exactly sure where she was, but she did vaguely recall Snatcher talking about it. As far as she could tell and remember, she was in a study, but it seemed as if it had been vacant for some time. Books and papers were scattered about haphazardly, the furniture was covered in white linen sheets, and a thin layer of dust had settled upon the musty space, gradually overtaking everything in the room. The only places it hadn't touched were the two uncovered chairs by the fireplace, one of which she was currently resting on and the fireplace which was still weakly lit. She lowered her head as she remembered what had happened the night before. Memories of the fight were hazy, but she remembered enough for the grief to resurface. At least to her, it felt like an apology was in order, but her ghostly friend was nowhere to be seen now. 

"Snatcher?" She frowned as she gently laid the blanket she'd been wrapped up in, to the side. No reply. 

She slid off the seat and began looking around the room. The fireplace cast a warm glow on most of the small space, giving her just enough light to realize that he wasn't there. An uncomfortable feeling formed in the pit of her stomach as she recalled their conversation before she'd fallen asleep. The only work they had to do was get the last rift pon, but that meant going back to the manor.

"He wouldn't," her scowl grew darker as she approached the door to the study, "would he?"

Snatcher didn't seem like the type to go out of his way to protect someone, especially not her. He'd already shown complete disregard for her wellbeing, sending her off to complete unreasonable, dangerous tasks all on her own, and even going as far as to try and kill her himself. It seemed absurd to believe he'd risk his life, or lack thereof for something she was responsible for obtaining. But even as these thoughts formed in her mind, a part of her already knew those feelings had changed. Even if only slightly, she felt that Snatcher had warmed up to her as they traversed the rift. The ghost that had been trying to kill her had, on numerous occasions, gone out of his way to save her, and he’d already shown her that a, albeit deeply repressed, human side of him still existed behind his ghastly grin. Hat Kid almost didn't want to believe he’d really gone to the manor on his own for her sake though, because it’d only hurt more if she found out she was wrong.

“He probably thought I was holding him back…” a soft, disheartened sigh passed her lips as she moved towards the door. "Even if he needs it to get out of here too, he shouldn't be trying to get it on his own." She huffed and exited the room and was instantly greeted by a blast of cold wind. 

Hat Kid stared out at the forest, her eyes blinking as she slowly processed the fact that this study had only one door and that the door led straight outside. But hey, who was she to judge Subconian architecture? She shook her head before pulling her cape around her tighter as if the thin fabric would actually provide her any additional warmth. Ignoring the bitter temperature and feeling of dread, Hat Kid set out to find Snatcher before he did something stupid.

There was a narrow path outside of the study that was partially buried in snow. She wasn’t sure where exactly it would lead, but without having an idea of where she was, it was her best lead. She trudged down the path silently, shivering from the frigid breeze. She regretted not bringing along one of the blankets she’d been wrapped up in while in the study, but it was too late to turn back now. She could just barely make out the outline of the village ahead. A brief spurt of energy let her sprint the rest of the way there.

“Snatcher?” Hat Kid called out as she approached the center of the village, careful not to slip on the icy ground. “Hey, Snatch! Where’d you go?!” The only response she got was her own voice echoing off the trees. She looked around nervously, suddenly painfully aware of the fact that the village was empty. “Where’d...everyone go?”

For as far as she could see, there was only white and red. What could have been a perfect blanket of snow, was occasionally stained with a deep shade of scarlet. Her stomach lurched every time her eyes settled on those stains. She shook her head again, trying to blot out the scene, but the afterimages of all the horrible things she’d seen in the rift just flashed behind her eyelids. She was about to continue her search when she heard the distinct sound of footsteps crunching in the snow beside her.

“It’s you again…” someone whispered off to her left. “Why are you still here? You need to leave.” Hat Kid jolted, backing away from the spirit that was still trying to find its form. Its bulging eyes bore into her as it spoke, “Leave. Get out. Go home. Get lost.”

“I...I can’t!” She took a few shaky steps backwards, uncertain of how this soon to be Dweller would respond. “Snatcher...that big ghost guy who was with me yesterday...have you seen him?”

The figure stared at her, unblinking for a moment before slowly shifting its gaze off into the space behind her. Hat Kid gradually turned her head to look, keeping her eye on the figure before her for as long as she could, but when she finally took her eyes off of it and scanned the area in which it had been staring, she found nothing. The snowfall was too heavy for her to really see what was over there. She quickly spun back to face the figure, thinking she’d been tricked and that it might try to attack her while her back was turned, but it was gone. She did a full rotation, eyeing the surrounding area distrustfully, but she was alone.

“Stupid...stupid noodle ghost!” She muttered to herself as panic started to set in. “Where is he?!”

Just when she was about to give up and bolt for the manor, she heard that annoyingly smug voice of his accompanied by a soft shimmering sound. "Hey, kiddo! Look what I found!" Hat kid whirled around and saw him floating towards her, casually tossing the rift pon up in the air and catching it in his clawed hand. "This is the last one, right? We can leave now?"

Hat kid let out a relieved sigh and bounded towards him cheerfully, stumbling occasionally on thicker patches of snow. "Where was it?!"

"In uh...Vanessa's er...let's not." His face seemed to burn brighter than usual. Was he blushing? She didn’t really care. Hat Kid was about halfway across the courtyard, still smiling excitedly, thinking about how close they were to getting back, how close she was to going home, when disaster struck. 

She wasn't sure where it came from or when it had appeared, but that didn't matter. There was a brilliant flash of light that was briefly interrupted by a spray of strings that erupted from an indistinguishable source within the light. Panicked cries erupted around her. Several Subconites had apparently been hiding nearby, but they all came flying out at the sight of the strings. Several of them collided with Hat Kid, forcing her back and blocking her view of the scene as they pushed past each other and ran away. By the time she could see clearly again, it was too late. 

The ribbons had latched onto snatcher, wrapping tightly around his shadowy arms and restricting his movement. He naturally fought against them, unleashing a foul energy in an attempt to free himself from their bond, but his efforts seemed to be in vain. He was too tired, and his attacker was too strong. A figure emerged within the light, a mere silhouette against the stark white backdrop, but whatever it was clearly controlled the restraints that bound her friend. Hat Kid grasped her umbrella and made a motion to get up and help him, but something stopped her. 

"No, you mustn't!" She heard a strained voice cry out as she looked back to see a handful of dwellers holding onto her with their newly forming tails. Despite their disturbing lack of facial features, she could tell that they too were scared out of their minds. “It’s too dangerous!”

She tried to shake them off, "hey, let go of-" but she was interrupted by something bumping up against her foot. 

She glanced down to see the rift pon casting a weak light through a strange black substance that was staining its surface. A sudden panic seized her as she looked up just in time to see Snatcher get thrown around by the ribbon wielding silhouette as effortlessly as if he were a rag doll. 

"Snatcher?!" She cried as she struggled to move forward, but the Subconites pulled her back.

“RUN, KID,” Snatcher’s voice boomed, making both the air and Subcon’s inhabitants quiver.

“Get off of me!” She screamed and kicked a few of them away before running to him. “Snatcher!”

“KID, DON’T!” Almost as if the Subconites understood him, hundreds of them swarmed to grab her.

“SNATCHER!!” Hat Kid shrieked as her shadowy friend was slammed against the floor once more, eliciting a sharp cry of pain followed by shuddering, gasping breaths. She watched in absolute horror as the light literally drained from his burning yellow eyes, leaving him void of any signs of life. “NOOOO!!” She fought against the Subconites holding her back, struggling to break free from their tight grips but to no avail. She could do nothing but scream and watch as Snatcher was bound in crimson ribbons and dragged away effortlessly by the creature in red. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!”

“Shh, please!” One of the Subconites begged of her in a trembling voice. “If she hears you, we’ll be done for!”

“No…no!” She wailed pitifully, her hand still extended towards the horizon, “GIVE HIM BACK! SNATCHER!”

    The screaming stopped, died down as the wind picked up and the emptiness kicked in. The Subconites holding her let go one by one by one, letting her slowly drop to her knees as the last of the light faded. In her hands was the last gift he could give her: a chance to escape; a chance to be free.

    She didn’t want it.

    “AAAUGH!”

    Hat Kid tossed the rift pon away, screaming hysterically as she shook the last of the Subconites off and broke down, weeping loudly into her hands. Snatcher was gone. She was all alone. Again.

    Among the smaller of the Subconites gently picked up the pon, doing their best to polish out the blemishes in its glossy surface, but whatever darkness had touched it wouldn’t come away. That was fine. It would still work. With a gentle light leaking from their eyes, they squatted in front of the grieving child and pulled her hands away from her face before placing the pon in them.

    “...It is...what he wanted, miss. Sur...vive.”

    “Survi..ve.”

    “S...urv...ive.”

    A soft chant rumbled across the tiny bodies around her, growing in intensity until their mingled voices became a roar. “Stop it,” she pleaded. “No more! I don’t- I don’t want to! I can’t!”

    The Subconite crouched in front of her pulled her to her feet, clasping her hands in their as they led her to the rift door, taking care not to travel too fast for her unsteady legs. Hat Kid could barely see through her tears as they made the trip, but as soon as they were close enough, she could see the light of the opening door. All the pons they’d collected together vanished in a wisp of light, vanished into thin air without a trace that they’d ever existed, and Hat Kid now faced the daunting reality that the world outside the rift was about to do the same with Snatcher.

    She gripped the rim of the door, shaking far too hard to pull herself up inside until the Subconite helped her up. And just as soon as she was sitting on the ledge, a burst of magical energy overtook the level she was in, and pushed her through the door one last time.

Chapter Text

Lights swirled. Balls of color and a vast blanket of white poured over the frail body of a child too far gone to know what was happening. It was in this light that she finally burst free, leaving the rift behind in a clash of colors that scattered upon impact in the shadows of Subcon Forest. Dull blue eyes, once vibrant and full of life were barely pulled open, a surge of panic rising the moment she woke enough to remember what was going on, but she was far too late to change things.

    “Snatcher,” she gasped, sitting up abruptly and crawling on her knees. Her whole body ached as she pulled herself upright, scanning the space to see where she’d been deposited, but she saw none of what she expected. “Wait...what?”

    “It’s the newbie…” one of the numerous minions standing in the arena where the timepiece initially broke spoke up, their surprised gasp earning the attention of the other minions and dwellers nearby. “You’re back! You and Boss were taking so long, we were starting to worry that you wouldn’t make it out!”

    “Make it...out?” 

Hat Kid looked around her in a near complete daze. Her head was swimming with questions and confusion that all bubbled to the surface and left her mentally exhausted. Even through the haze of saturated purples and blues around her, it was abundantly clear that she was no longer in the rift. What lied before her was Subcon, their Subcon, not just some replica. 

“How can I be out? We never got the timepiece! There should have been- another level, or-or-” She glanced around frantically, taking in heaving gulps of air as panic and realization settled in on her frail form. “Where’s Snatcher?! Where’s the time rift?! SNATCHER?!”

    “Wuh- he-hey, newbie. Calm down.”

“What’re you saying?”

    “Wasn’t Boss with you?”

    Hat Kid clutched her chest as she felt the oxygen being sucked from her lungs. There was no trace of the time rift anywhere, and no sign of the timepiece either. “That-that ball of light! Where is it?!”

    “It disappeared after you came flying out of it,” another minion chimed in, tapping their hands together nervously.

 “No...No, that can’t be right! Snatcher was still- he was still- NO!!” She screamed and dropped to her knees, tugging at her loose strands of hair as she fought back tears. “He can’t be! He can’t be gone! I-I just left him to die in there…after everything-”

She choked on a sob, a wheezy coughing fit breaking up her wailing as she sunk into herself on the stone floor. Several of the minions ran to her side, patting her back or head and doing their best to console her. 

“What are you talking about, newbie?”

“What do you mean he’s gone?”

“You left him?!”

“What happened in there?”

“Newbie-” 

“Newbie-” 

“Newbie-”

A bolt of searing hot pain flashed behind Hat Kid’s eyes as question after question overwhelmed her. Her skin grew hot as her head seemed to swell, and beads of sweat trickled down her face as her body slowly fell to the floor. The last thing she saw were the eyes of a hundred dead children, and the light of a blood red moon.

    “Neeeewbie…”

    “Heeeey...wake up…”

    “It’s ok…it wasn’t your fault…”

    Hat Kid’s eyes fluttered open slowly, dull blue irises peeking out and tinting green in the dim yellow lights of the minions’ eyes. She was somewhere dark and terribly cramped. Even her legs felt crushed by the small space, though for all she knew, she was just too tired to move them. She watched as they blacked up a bit to give her some space, wincing as she sat up and a damp towel fell from her forehead.

    How long had she been out? Where was she? What happened?

    She honestly didn’t know.

    “Are you...ok,” one of the minions whispered, their voice warbling slightly as they spoke. “You started freaking out back there and just kinda-”

    “Collapsed,” another finished.

    Hat Kid stared at them blankly for several seconds, desperately trying to answer, but the words wouldn’t come out. She simply nodded, unconvincingly. 

    “Newbie-”

    “Where am I- Where’s Snatcher?!” She finally blurted, her voice cracking and breaking off as she unsuccessfully tried to sit upright. “I-I remember getting out of the rift, but-”

    “Would you sit down?” Another minion came up to her and grabbed her by the shoulders, forcing her to lean back against the wall. It was only now that she realized she was sitting in a very tiny bed. “We don’t know where Boss is, but he’s not double dead if that’s what you’re worried about.”

    “We’d like- just poof if he were,” someone else chimed.

    “You’ve got bigger problems though-” the other minion continued, tapping their hands together nervously. “Have you seen your leg?”

    The tiny gasp she made more than answered their question, but either way, she knew what they meant when she tore the blanket away. The lower half of her pant leg had been cut off, revealing the sickly black bruising that had coated her skin. The purple tendrils that laced it had snaked their way up to her thigh, everything below them almost completely numb. Some part of her wanted to scream at the sight, or maybe just the lack of sensation, but any noise she might’ve made was cut off in her too dry throat.

    “I...don’t know what you and Boss did in there,” the minion began once more, “but that...that’s the stuff that killed us ! And everyone that Boss didn’t get to in time, well they- they…”

    She didn’t need them to say it. Only the one talking to her would even look her in the eye. Everyone else stared at the ground. 

    “Am I- I’m just going to-to… no- ” 

Tears welled up in the corners of her eyes, but none actually managed to fall. She had nothing left to exert anymore. She was sick, Snatcher was gone, and she was going to die.

“Newbie! Hey, newbie! Come on, don’t cry-” The minion took her hands and pulled them away from her face. “We already told you! Boss isn’t dead dead; he’s just missing! All we have to do is find him, and he can fix you up! Everything can go back to normal!”

A chorus of excited agreements rang out amongst the children, more of them moving to pat her reassuringly. Their confidence worked wonders for her though, and after a few moments, she was able to dry her tears and give them the faintest of smiles as thanks. It didn’t last.

“We, um...do need to know what happened though.” There was a collective hush that fell over the group once again as they looked to her expectantly for answers. “I mean- you said you left him there…”

“It- wasn’t on purpose,” she sniffled and rubbed her cheeks, already embarrassed for crying. “He had just found the last rift pon we needed, and we were about to go to the last level. We should have been able to get the timepiece and come back then, but-”

“But what?”

Her breath hitched as she remembered the strings, the blinding white light, and the way Snatcher’s body hit the ground. The minion closest to her gave her hand a gentle squeeze, shaking it right after to encourage her to go on.

“There was this guy,” she scarcely breathed. “He had been...helping me all throughout the rift, so I thought...I thought we were friends, but then- Just before Snatcher could hand me the last pon, he showed up and grabbed him. He used his-his stupid magic strings and just dragged him away, and Snatcher couldn’t do anything to fight back, and just-”

Her voice rose in pitch as it sped up to an almost incomprehensible degree before abruptly breaking off. Once again, she buried her face in her hands, staving off the urge to cry once more. As miserable as she felt though, it seemed the minions were drastically more upset by that news. Every one of them stood rigid, backing away ever so slightly in terror as they looked her over, scanning for something like they thought she’d turn on them too.

“What? What? ” She gripped her arms tightly, bunching up the ragged fabric into her trembling fingers.

“You...met Moonjumper?”

Chapter Text

The tension in the air was beyond just palpable. It sucked the oxygen from their lungs and filled their chests with a suffocating dread. Hat Kid’s rapid, shallow breaths were the only sound, all of the forest’s ambience gone in an instant, gone with the uttering of that name.

“I...yes?” The collective, mortified gasps she got in response made her shrivel. “Why? What’s wrong? Do you guys know him?”

“We wish we didn’t ,” one of them seethed, little cloth hands balled at their sides as the light in their wide eye burned brighter. “He’s a monster and a killer, and he was supposed to be gone forever!”

“Gone...forever?”

The minion nodded, looking furious enough to burst. “Moonjumper was another creature like boss, but...he had a body-”

“He was a body,” another corrected.

“Yeah, yeah, a corpse,” they continued. “He showed up a couple of weeks after boss did and joined all of us in trying to make this place home again.”

“We thought he was our friend…”

“We thought we could trust him…”

“But we couldn’t,” they began again, their bitterness seeping into their voice. “Everything was fine at first. He used his magic to help us build our homes. We made bridges to cross the swamp safely. He even helped boss make some of our bodies. But then one day, he just...snapped.” 

Hat Kid jumped slightly, letting out an unsteady breath as she kicked her legs off the side of the bed and leaned forward. “What do you mean, snapped? What’d he do?”

“He went bonkers, kid! He started talking funny and saying all these weird things, and when boss tried to help him and calm him down, he attacked him! And then he started attacking us…”

“One by one,” another minion squeaked.

“He picked us off…” then another.

“Twentyseven of us kids, just gone in the blink of an eye. He killed them!”

A horrified gasp was only barely muffled by her hands as they shot up to cover her mouth. No. That couldn’t be. He had been so nice to her. How could he possibly do something so horrid? 

“You must have been at that point then,” they started solemnly, “when he lost it.”

Despite the horrors of everything they were telling her, that made her pause. Something didn’t quite add up. What was it? What was it? Oh.

“But...the p- Snatcher,” she corrected softly, “Snatcher hadn’t even come back to life yet. If Moonjumper didn’t come back until way after him, then how could it have been the rift’s Moonjumper? He shouldn’t have existed for weeks in there, unless-” She sucked in a breath, realizing at the same time as all of them what should have been obvious all along. 

“That’s...that’s impossible,” another minion cried. “Boss locked him up in The Horizon. It couldn’t have been- He can’t get out! He can’t hurt anyone from in there!”

“Even boss said he can’t get in there! There’s no way Moonjumper could have gotten out,” another screamed, panic filling their voice as they squatted and held their head. Several other minions wailed and followed suit, almost in collective agony.

“But that couldn’t have been the rift one,” she protested. “Even Snatcher didn’t exist yet! He-he was-”

“He was the real deal.” One of the older minions who hadn’t spoken yet whispered from the doorway. Their back stood to her, eye trained to the swirling sky overhead. “Everyone needs to calm down, ok? So Moonjumper somehow got in the rift and took boss. That rift is gone now, but boss sure isn’t. We can still sense him. This isn’t hopeless yet.”

“If-if he’s not in the rift though, then where is he,” she asked incredulously, standing up despite her leg and a few of the minions’ protests. 

“Where else?” They looked back to her and pointed to the sky overhead, waiting patiently for her to step forward and take a look outside.

To her horror, the sky was a deadly shade of red. Black clouds swirled and churned against a blinding crimson hue, all the stars lost in the light around them. Dark, almost pixel-like shapes glittered in the expanse, but nothing shone more frighteningly than the deep red blood moon.

“It’s said that the veil between our dimension and The Horizon is at its weakest at times like this. I don’t know how Moonjumper did it, but I’d bet everything he somehow dragged boss into The Horizon with him. We just have to get in there and get him out!”

“But how? You guys just said nothing could get in or out, not even Snatcher!”

“The Horizon was meant to keep Moonjumper imprisoned, but it was never perfect. I mean boss got him in once, so clearly getting in is possible, and he’s apparently found a way to sort of get out now too. Plus,” they sighed and glanced at the other minions. “Don’t you all remember the rumors? Someone else has gotten in before, and they came out of there once too.”

“Those...those were just rumors though,” another whimpered, standing up shakily and joining them by the door. “And even if it was true, it's not like we know who it was or how they did it! That won’t help us any.”

“Do you guys know anything about who it was?” Hat Kid looked desperate. Time was of the essence here. If Moonjumper was as vile as they claimed, Snatcher’s life was in grave danger, and despite everything he’d done to her, something about leaving him to rot didn’t sit well with her. Besides...she grimaced and shifted her numbed leg. Without Snatcher, she was a goner too.

“The rumor claimed they were some kind of business person, someone who was always jumping place to place like that to sell their stuff. They somehow got into The Horizon though and didn’t return the same as they were when they went in, saying that their ‘body went there and it left a permanent mark.’ Probably the corruption.” Several other minions chimed in agreement. “That place can be really unstable for the living.”

Hat Kid thought long and hard, wracking her brain for every face she’d met on her journey. Someone had to fit the bill. Mafia? Conductor? Mu? Wait...she deadpanned as realization struck her. No way. They couldn’t possibly mean them . She groaned and dragged her hands down her face as she looked down to her pathetic little money pouch.

“We are gonna need so many pons…”

Chapter Text

For once, grave robbing actually sounded like a completely excellent idea. They needed pons, more pons than any of them had probably seen in their (un)lives, and what better place to dig them up than the literal hundreds of bodies scattered around Subcon?! Clearly the answer was that there was no better place, because after a couple of hours of tossing brewing hat potions, digging, and mercilessly beating headstones with sticks, Hat Kid and the minions had collected the absolute maximum number of pons the poor child could possibly hold. For some reason, that limit was 99,999 pons. Weird.

    It was with their many bags and excited chatter that they all regrouped, handing off the pons to Hat Kid as they awaited further instruction. At the very least, they expected her to finally tell them what was going on.

    “What do you need all these for?” One of the smaller minions dumped the last of their bag into her massive pon sac, the last few teetering on the edge of falling out.

    “I think I know who that person in the rumor is, but they don’t really...do stuff for free,” she groaned. “I just hope this’ll be enough to convince them to help. If their last experience in The Horizon was so bad it hurt them like that, then even this may not work.”

    Hushed murmurs spread out amongst the children as Hat Kid’s confidence seemed to wane. Lucky for her, they had an abundance of confidence of their own. 

    “Relax, newbie.” One of them patted her shoulder reassuringly, giving her something akin to a grin even though she couldn’t see it. “We’ll do whatever it takes. If we have to get more pons, we will!”

    Hat Kid grimaced briefly, the thought that they may want something other than pons as collateral crossing her mind, but at the end of the day, what choice did they have? Who knew what’d happen to the kids if Snatcher never came back? And at least for her, her fate may well be sealed either way. Snatcher was her only hope, and she and the minions might be his. With that thought in tow, she gently ruffled the top of the minion’s head and flashed them all the brightest smile she could muster.

    “Come on. Let’s go get Snatcher back!”

    The giant bag of pons seemed to vanish with ease into her hat, the article seeming to contain some kind of hammerspace within. This brought the minions an almost hysterical amount of glee, a much needed reprieve from the doom and gloom the lot of them worried they’d soon face. Even with the momentary feeling of calm, the tension slowly returned tenfold as they made their way along the forest trail. Jet black pixels that shone like glass with thick white rims had started appearing around them, devouring trees, rocks, and dirt alike. Subcon was being eaten alive, and Hat Kid feared that if they didn’t do something soon, it’d be gone in the blink of an eye. 

    Their destination loomed up ahead though. Snatcher’s tree stood a dark silhouette against the crimson sky, black clouds gathering around the shriveling mushroom at the top. None of its usual light shone anymore, and in place of the usual orange glow in Snatcher’s room, there was a thick black mist that blotted out everything inside. Hat Kid and the minions alike froze at the sight of it, taken aback by both fear and awe.

    This was far worse than any of them could have imagined.

    “Oh, what a shame,” a familiar, suave voice lilted to their side. Leaves stirred in a gust of wind, rattling through the air and clearing away to reveal just the being they were looking for. “I had thought everyone left, but it would seem you children have not. Abandoned? A pity. Your...master, did not strike me as the type.”

    “Boss didn’t abandon us,” one of the minions screamed, a chorus of defiant shouts quaking the very air around them.

    “My apologies then. I am the Badge Seller, though I’m afraid I don’t live up to my name right now. You have already bought all I had to sell. If you were smart, you’d use your new powers to find a way out. This forest will collapse soon, and all those within it will perish at its side.”

    Hat Kid shook her head, gritting her teeth as she tried to steel herself for the request. “No! I- we need your help!”

    “My...help?” The Badge Seller twitched, looking about as surprised as a masked face could. 

    “Those pixels! That place you said you went to, that did this to you-” she shouted over the roar of the wind, gripping her hat tightly so it wouldn’t fly away, “it was The Horizon, wasn’t it?!”

    The Badge Seller froze, pixels rapidly appearing at their sides, tearing deep purple veins into their arms as their twitching resumed tenfold. “Who told you such a thing? The Horizon? I have never heard of it.”

    “Don’t pretend! I know it was you! It had to be you!” She glared daggers at them, but they didn’t budge. Well, she had planned for this. Taking off her hat with an annoyed huff, she whipped out the oversized bag of pons, throwing it down in front of the Badge Seller and storming around the side to face them. If they could have drooled over the sight of the money, she was very sure they would have done just that. “We need to get inside! All of this- it’s yours if you can take us!”

    They visibly hesitated, reaching for the bag only to have their hand smacked away by Hat Kid’s umbrella. “Perhaps...I know of a way to get inside.”

    “And?”

    They paused, looking her over, mask rotating in place. “You must understand, young one,” they began. “The Horizon is an... unstable place. The living do not bode well there. To get in is one matter, but escape is nigh impossible. The means by which you enter it will seal itself off the moment you pass through, and should you hope for some other means of getting out once more, you should know that only I have ever done it before.”

    “Well how did you do it?!”

    “I- do not know.”

    Hat Kid and the Subconites glanced at each other, skeptical glares turning into genuine concern. None of them thought the Badge Seller was lying.

    “My escape was one of pure happenstance. It should not be expected for any one of you should you go. Sending you, even for this amount, would be...unethical.” They paused. “You will almost certainly die a very unpleasant death.”

    She sucked in a breath and swallowed the lump in her throat. “I don’t care! I don’t! I’m dead anyway!” She pointed to her leg. The dark substance overtaking it seemed to have spread even further. This made the Badge Seller gasp. “Please! Please! You’re our only lead here!”

    They gripped their staff a bit tighter, neck craning to eye her leg with a frightening degree of intent as their twitchy behavior seemed to double. Whatever it was that overcame them faded quickly though, and with a surprisingly deep, collected sigh, they relented.

    “I suppose I cannot turn away such a large sum. As you wish, young one. I will take you to The Horizon, but only you.”

    “What?!” The minions clambered around the bag of pons as the Badge Seller began pocketing them. “No! We’re coming too!”

    “I have many an arrangement with your...‘boss.’ I am not prepared to sever a valuable business tie should one of you fail to return. As for you,” they looked back to Hat Kid, something oozing from their words, a feeling, something primal: dread. “Understand this. I will grant you safe passage into The Horizon, but that is all. Once you are inside, I will take my leave. You will be on your own. I have done my share of business with that plane’s sole inhabitant, and it was an experience I never wish to endure again.” They shivered beneath a spray of pixels, looking vastly more unhinged than usual. Even their mask no longer sat under their hood, supported only by a misty black cloud that made up an inhumanely long neck. “And, should you be fortunate enough to return,” they warned, tone dripping with something akin to fear...perhaps malice, “we will never speak of this endeavor again. Those are my terms.”

    “I...I understand,” she nodded sternly though her voice shook, making sure her badges, hats, and umbrella were all firmly attached and ready to go.

    “Very well then, young one. The deal is sealed.”

    “Newbie, are you sure about this?!” The minions grabbed her by her cape as she walked past, their eyes swirling and flickering. Somewhere in the distance, trees started snapping.

    “It’ll be ok,” she whispered, leaning down to hug as many of them as she could. There were tears in her eyes, but a smile remained on her face nonetheless. “I’ll get Snatcher back, and everything will go back to normal in no time, ok? I promise!”

    In spite of everything, her smile remained as dazzling as the first time they’d seen it, full of confidence...and naivety. The minions let her go reluctantly, standing by Snatcher’s tree as the Badge Seller led her away, beyond their sight, and far beyond their reach.

Chapter Text

“We are here.”

    Hat Kid gasped as the Badge Seller stopped their jittery march forward, peering around their flickering form with both curiosity and fear. She wasn’t sure what she would see. Perhaps a portal? Maybe another rift? Or maybe a teleportation device of some kind? What she saw was none of the above. In fact, it was absolutely nothing.

    “Is this some kind of dumb joke?” She scowled at them, puffing out her cheeks while waiting for an answer. “This is just forest!”

    “Look closer, young one,” they cooed, stretching out their staff until it brushed against something otherworldly.

    The air itself rippled at the contact, distorting the view of the forest beyond the crudely-cut diamond shape suspended in mid-air. With a loud grunt and what looked to be considerable force, the Badge Seller pierced the strange veil with their staff and tore downward. In its wake, opened a portal to a whole other world, bright and dark simultaneously, soft and sharp, day and night, land, sea, and air all at once. It was an anomaly.

    Hat Kid scarcely breathed as she peered inside, gripping the wrinkled edges of the portal as she placed her better leg in first and rested it on the smooth, glass-like surface of a transparent black pixel. All around her were several more of those, some upright, some out of reach, and others laid out like platforms to a path unknown. As if those weren’t clue enough as to where she needed to go, the further ahead she looked down that path, the thicker and more entwined a haphazardly spun web of red strings lied. 

    “This...is The Horizon?”

    The Badge Seller nodded, hesitating a moment more before speaking. “Hat...Kid?” The child looked back at them, startled to be addressed by name. “This is...your last chance, a special deal, from me to you. You can...still turn back. Your pons, I will return them to you if you wish, but there will truly be nothing I can do for you once this portal is shut.”

    As tempting as the offer was, she shook her head and smiled. “I’m going. I’ll be alright! Really!”

    There was a long pause before the Badge Seller sighed, regret already hanging in their voice well before their words could be aired. “Very well. I wish you the best of luck, young one.” As the portal closed, they uttered only one last thing: “You will need every bit of it.”

    Hat Kid kept her smile up until it was fully shut, no ripple in the fabric of space, no way back, no one around to see. It was only then that she let a choked sob out, gripping her arms as the bravado she’d put on display finally fell away.

    “I’ll be alright. I’ll be alright,” she hiccupped and wiped her eyes, sniffling loudly as she tried to calm herself down. “Come on, hattie. Get-get a grip already.” She blew her nose into the hem of her cape and steeled herself as she glared straight ahead. “You have a butt to kick and a ghost to save. You can do this!”

    A few deep breaths later and a hand tightly gripping her umbrella, and she was ready to move. Despite the straightforwardness of the path, The Horizon seemed to be made of contradictions. Gravity was limited one moment and a terrible weight the next, and, to her brief horror, she even discovered that in some random spots, the center of gravity pitched her sideways altogether. What would have been a vertical wall of a pixel suddenly became her floor, and there was never any way to be sure which way was up until she took her next step forward.

    As if that wasn’t discouraging enough, the further she went, the more tangled the strings became, until it was impossible to move anywhere without disturbing them. Her feet, legs, arms, hat, everything at some point managed to entangle itself in them, and the frustrations only grew from there. Rain rose from the clouds below. At times, even storms with high winds brewed. The sunset atmosphere had a penchant for turning dark or painfully bright without warning, and at any given point, she could expect to be struck by even hail. The only constant amongst everything she could see, were the hundreds of thousands of black pixels.

    These were what she focused on the hardest. Their sizes varied, but were almost always larger than her. Like tinted glass, she could see past them, though the scenery beyond was always dark and difficult to make out. Their thick edges were lined with a perfectly white light, painful to look at directly, but a beacon for her to follow nonetheless. What was truly fascinating about them though, was that not all of them were empty. Looking into some, she could see different parts of the world. Mafia Town, Dead Bird Studio, Alpine, all of them were there, each seen through the eyes of a different individual depending on which pixel she viewed. In one of them, she even saw an active rift she’d failed to repair yet.

    “Is...this how he found us?” She tapped the glass curiously, though jerked her hand back when the glass rippled at her touch. “Whoa...what?” Pressing her hand to the surface, she discovered she could push her arm through, into the time rift on the other side. “N-no way…”

    That was it, so she believed. That was Moonjumper’s secret to escape. Her mind swam with possibilities, explanations, anything to make sense of what she was witnessing, when slowly, it started to connect. If The Horizon was a connected pocket dimension to the one she was from, then a time rift, or any other pocket dimension created between The Horizon and hers could weaken the structure that severed them. In short, a time rift could break the fabric of space and set Moonjumper free. 

    She stared at the rift in the glass with a tight-lipped frown, shaking her head slightly. If it were that easy, he could have left the rift with them. Why would he go back to The Horizon if he could have escaped before? That was one of a great many questions. 

    A bit further ahead, she spotted a pixel showing Subcon, its state of affairs already much worse off than they had been when she’d left mere hours ago. To her surprise, the Badge Seller hadn’t left and was instead sitting with the many minions and dwellers in front of Snatcher’s tree. She couldn’t exactly tell, but it seemed that she was viewing the scene through the eyes of a dweller.

    “Did you see him?” 

    “Your boss? I am afraid I did not. The Moonjumper was absent as well.”

    “Right. Snatcher,” she whispered to herself, silently annoyed that she’d let herself get so distracted. Though in fairness to herself, she did have to question whether or not she was even making any progress traversing the horrid terrain. Where exactly she was headed was still greatly unknown.

    The last pixel she allowed herself a moment to pause at was one showing a very familiar blonde mustache and a super annoying amount of stolen timepieces. Oh no. Hat Kid’s frown dropped to a comical degree as she watched the hooded jerk add yet another timepiece to her pile and cackle wildly at her success. She’d have to deal with her very soon before she got herself in over her head playing with powers beyond her control. Snatcher came first though. Save Snatcher, Subcon, and herself, and then she could worry about what her latest barf-ch nemesis was doing with all of her timepieces.

    For as vastly empty and simultaneously crowded as The Horizon seemed to be, one thing she hadn’t expected to find in it was a rather normal looking cave. Hat Kid bounded across the last few pixels and stood at the entrance, gripping her umbrella tightly as she noticed that all of the tangled red strings led straight inside. She had found her destination. She was sure of it, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to see whatever was inside. Even so, she made her way forward, keeping her umbrella equipped and eyes forward.

    The inside of the cave proved to be even stranger than she thought, vastly bigger than the outside would suggest. Though frankly, this concept was about as foreign to her as squidburgers, which for a baby alien, was not foreign at all. The room itself was massive. The ceiling stretched so high that shadows obscured its peak. Tinier pixels like the ones outside cast eerie shadows from where they hung, rising and falling slowly as their lights danced across the uneven walls. Holes lined those walls and the ceiling and floor of the cave, each leading peck knew where. Even when the brightest pixels roamed past, she couldn’t see the end of them at all. 

This was where the red strings seemed to be strongest. No point of origin could be discerned amidst the tangled chaos, but a frightening number of the glowing threads hung loosely from the ceiling and spilled out into every tunneled hole. What struck her more was that some of them actually moved. She didn’t want to wait and see what shook them.

“Snatcher?” She cupped her hands around her mouth and whispered loudly, turning in place to look for any sign of him. 

Her heart was pounding, sweat making her clothes stick to her skin as she hushed her own breathing for fear of being heard. This felt like a trap, like she’d walked into the belly of the beast, and her only defense was effectively a stick. She whimpered softly as she held her umbrella closer to her chest, a slight tremor forming in her hands as she continued on. Only, that was when she spotted something in the corner of her eye: a large, ink black blot sprawled out at the bottom of a hole one level down. 

“Snatcher!”

How she had missed him the first time she’d looked was beyond her, but she didn’t care. She’d found him! That was all that mattered. Equipping her hover badge, she swiftly hopped inside, gliding down safely to his crumpled form. In her excitement, she botched the landing, tripping over her bad leg and slamming right into him. But where he should have yelped or scolded her, she received an earful of silence.

“Sn-Snatcher?” She shook him lightly, only realizing then that his face wasn’t alight. “Now’s a really stupid time to take a nap, you dummy. Come on! Get up,” she whispered shakily, swallowing her rising fear with a nervous laugh.

She honestly wasn’t too surprised when he didn’t listen. Moonjumper had thrown him around so much in the rift alone, and she had no idea what else he could have done in the time it took her to get there. Not good. With a bit of hesitation, she crawled up to where she thought his face was, patting his cheek gently and then with a bit more force.

“Wake up, fuzzy head!” 

Nothing.

“We’re going home. I can get you out of here!”

Still nothing. She tried smacking him with her umbrella.

“Snatcher, please .”

…

A few more whacks with her umbrella turned into jumping on him, and that quickly devolved into her yelling. But when no amount of force or noise even made him stir, her voice broke off into a whimper, her legs gave out, and she dropped her umbrella at her side. Little hands reached up to smush his cheeks, fingers slowly balling into fists as she gripped large swathes of his frill for support. 

“You can’t-you can’t do this,” she sniffled. “All your minions, and the dwellers, and Subcon...they need you to come back, and you- you can’t be-” she buried her face into his neck again, a muffled shriek barely piercing the thick fur. “THIS ISN’T HAPPENING! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE OK! WE WERE SUPPOSED TO GO HOME!”

“Uh...kiddo?”

“YOU CAN’T DIE AGAIN! THAT DOESN’T EVEN MAKE SENSE, YOU DUMMY! STUPID- STUPID-” She punched him repeatedly, each hit weaker than the last until she was barely striking him at all. “...stupid.”

“Kid!”

“I don’t wanna die... I don’t ...I just wanted to go home ...I want my mom…”

“HAT KID! RUN! ”

The voice finally registered, crystal clear with a sharpness that shattered her moment of gloom like glass. Hat Kid whirled around to face the speaker, eyes widening as she slowly raised her eyes and caught a glimpse of the actual Snatcher, bound in strings and thrashing violently several paces away. Her hands slowly unfurled from the other shadow’s frill, shaking and unsteady as her gaze slowly turned back to face it.

If Snatcher was over there, then who on earth was she holding? 

“What-” her voice quivered as she staggered backwards, scooting along the ground by kicking her feet to get away from the duplicate as it gradually began to move, the light within glowing bright as it stretched upwards and loomed overhead. Everything about it looked just like him, but what should have been yellow, now shone a sickening shade of red. As her breath quickened, all her thoughts turned to pleas to get up and run, but gods, she just couldn’t make herself.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! GET UP! RUN ALREADY!” Snatcher screamed and tore one of his arms free, hand reaching out for her even though he was much too far away.

“SNATCHER-” she shrieked as she finally scrambled to her feet, lunging for her umbrella only to get jerked back by a spray of red strings and a large, clawed hand.

“KID!”

“Tsk...what a touching display.” Slow, unamused clapping echoed around the room as a too familiar voice rumbled with it. “Truly, I underestimated your ability to find your way here, though I must say, your lack of perception with my puppet has been a bit disappointing. Shall I take it as a compliment to my handiwork, or are you truly just that naive?”

“Let go of me!” Hat Kid struggled in the fake Snatcher’s grasp, kicking and snarling as she did her best to escape. It was useless though. Even for a fake, it seemed like she couldn’t hurt it if it wasn’t blued. 

“Oh, settle down, young one. I’ll release you in due time. But first-” 

The very cloaked figure she’d been looking for emerged from the shadows, his voice bouncing off the walls and centering as he came into view. Gnarled blue and purple fingers unfurled to pry away the hood and cloak, revealing the tattered uniform of something vaguely...princely underneath. And as the familiar, bland purple dweller mask was thrown to the side, Hat Kid finally got her first proper look at Moonjumper.

“Welcome to The Horizon. Or to my prison home, if you’d prefer.”