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There’s an initial dread with Wickerbottom’s whole ‘supervision’ nonsense, but it disperses a bit when Wendy is chosen to go with him to collect materials. Summoning two of his puppets (a Logger and a Digger, because extra Fuel had been found in the past few weeks so why not take advantage of the extra resources), he can’t ignore the intrigue in his living niece’s expression.
“They’re made with the book, yes?”
The magician glances down at her, letting his shadowy doubles continue chopping and digging up trees in peace. Not that he doesn’t trust them--well okay, he trusts the Digger but despite his orders, the Logger always goes a bit… overboard with its task.
“Mostly just for the oral components,” he answers, watching the girl’s small fingers stroke the flower in her hands; from how pale and curled in the petals are, Abigail isn’t awake just yet. “Spells’re in a language I was only somewhat able to translate, and even then Latin’s a pain to memorize.”
Wendy nods silently, but Maxwell isn’t an idiot--even if she doesn’t hum after hearing a slightly satisfactory answer like Jack did, he knows the gears are turning under those blonde curls.
“And the physical components are the Nightmare Fuel? Hm.” Oh, nevermind, there’s that little hum of Jack’s. “Odd, the spells I came across usually involve a blood sacrifice of some sort.”
God he hopes the chuckle that escapes him sounds conceited instead of nervous…
“Eheh, well there was a… Loophole, so to speak. Only found it after a long time though.”
Another quiet hum from his niece, and they go back to watching the two puppets at work. He knows it won’t be the end of that though, but if needling Jack made it harder to know what he was thinking, then asking his daughter will reap no rewards for him.
“And how long was that?” Blue eyes are locked on him now, he doesn’t need to look at her to know for certain. The longer this goes the more he feels dread gather in the back of his mind. She’s going somewhere with this, isn’t she...
“Oh, years.” Partially true, he’d only mastered the double spell--and altered it--sometime after he had been freed from the Throne, but he’s not letting her know that. “Lots of trial-and-error when I started out, like with many crafts.”
“How well would you say you know it now?” He chuckles at her question when he briefly glances at his niece. This one at least he can answer easily.
“I know it well enough.” Finding new knowledge in all of it is a painfully slow process, but he’s hardly surprised by that. Another quiet hum from his niece, then silence until…
“Enough to teach me?”
His doubles usually act separate from him--motivated by one simple task, they are nothing more than puppets mindlessly obeying his mental commands.
However, the girl’s request is enough to give both shadowy doubles pause in their tasks--one’s shovel is half-dug into the ground while another has a shadowy imitation of an axe embedded into a tree--as they both stare at the Carters, their master staring at his niece.
“... say what now?” He’s trying very hard to sound skeptical, but the nervousness is much stronger than the facade and Wendy knows it, sighing through her nose and looking up at him with an eyebrow slightly raised.
“I said, I want you to teach me how to perform some of your shadow spells.”
“... Ah. Right. Yeah, I--I heard that.” Keep your cool Maxwell. Don’t panic. Not yet. “It’ll take a while to decide, what with the--limited resources… but.” Wendy’s expression goes from let down to slightly hopeful as he continues, “if you could wait till tomorrow night I should have an answer by then.”
There’s a brief moment of fear at Wendy’s frown, but it eases as she nods, though she still seems disappointed. “Very well. I await your decision.”
Her tone is subtle, but he knows she’s warning that only one answer will be accepted. If he answers otherwise…
“Wendy Wendy Wendy!!” Both Carters look over as Webber darts over, mouth of jagged teeth split open into a grin as he shouts to his friend. “We found a sad little ghosty! The Pippy ones!”
“Ah.” He glances over at his niece as she nods in understanding, light blue eyes fixing on him. “It seems I am needed elsewhere. The dead often need assistance to pass on, after all. I’m sure you can carry out the rest of your tasks?”
“No, I am completely incapable of gathering several logs into one pile.” Webber chitters in a giggle at the sarcasm, gesturing with his six arms as he talks to Wendy about the new ghost he’s found, the two children’s talk growing fainter as they walk farther away and his focus goes from them to her reque-
No. His hands ball into fists, creasing the black fabric of his gloves. You have a job to do. Either get the logs together and bring them to the group or have the librarian on your arse.
He looks up at his shadowy doubles, both of which nod to him simultaneously before helping him sort the logs, aiding his silent mantra as he busies himself with collecting the logs.
Don’t panic, don’t panic, don’t panic…
=
Okay, now he can panic.
Alone in his camp save for the two doubles and a new pile of logs (he’d been allowed one pile out of the few he’d assembled, with the lumberjack’s help), only now does Maxwell allow the anxiety to rule him, pacing around the fire pit as he turns Wendy’s request over in his mind.
“I clearly have to say no.” The two doubles sit opposite of him as he tries to use up the anxiety-ridden energy. The axe-carrying one nods vigorously, and Maxwell returns it with a sharp one of his own. “Yes good, glad to see we’re all in agreement! She’s only a little girl after all, teaching her that can only be a bad idea. Hell, teaching anyone that would be a bad ide--what?”
The Logger’s nodding stops as Maxwell’s attention turns to the shovel-toting puppet, who stops shaking its head in disagreement and shrinks a bit once Maxwell’s full attention (other puppet and master) has focused on it.
Now that it’s been noticed, the Digger waves its arms frantically, as though to dismiss its own thought--or rather, Maxwell’s own thought. Because if an extent of his consciousness thinks so…
“No no, you’re saying I should teach her, aren't you? I want to know why. ” The puppet withers at its master's tone as he crosses his arms, the Logger standing at his side and putting hands on its hips. A featureless face stares back at him, head shifting as it looks from one to the other; still, despite the pressing he can still sense the thought in the back of his mind. Hell, if anything the pressure makes it clearer, the thought now pushed to the front of his mind.
Teaching her might be a good thing. The Logger angrily waves its shadowy arms (probably because it can’t yell) as Maxwell just… stands there in surprised (and confused, slightly frustrated) silence, the Digger shrinking down even more, shadowy wisps of hands held up in surrender. Just the idea that getting her involved in what had ruined him, had started all of this to begin with , can-
No. He finally shakes himself out of the shock, glaring at the Digger as well.
“How would that lead to anything besides an absolute disaster?!” The Digger looks between its master and its angry comrade as Maxwell continues. “Do you not remember what happened last time?! Well let me remind you--we ended up HERE! On top of that, it wasn’t just me, was it?!”
The loud whack of an axe digging into wood causes the former magician to shut his eyes in pain as the memories claw their way back to the surface--
<<
As rickety as the axe looks, it efficiently chops through the log, splitting it clean in half before Charlie locks eyes with him. It’s been… a couple weeks now? At least a week for certain, since their performance resulted in… this. As far as either can tell it’s an underground cave of sorts--wide, empty and sparse.
“So. This is what you were playing with.” Their eye contact is broken as he looks down, supposedly weaving the grass into rope next to the… machine thing they’ve cobbled together, but instead his fingers rub along the already-woven texture as Charlie’s casual yet accusing statement reaches him.
“I-” Dry swallow, then an actual attempt at weaving the rope. His voice is weak to his ears as he pieces his words together. “I didn’t… I had Them under my control, I swear, I didn’t realize--I didn’t think-”
“Well obviously!!” He flinches at her tone and the loud THWACK of the axe embedding into the stump between them. “You didn’t think about ANYTHING, did you!? About whether you were in over your head, or what you were doing, what that might lead to, or how it would AFFECT PEOPLE!!”
“I didn’t want you to get involved!” He doesn’t mean to raise his voice, sound more angry than tired, but it’s been strenuous, trying to do whatever it was They wanted and ensure his and Charlie’s safety. “Your going to my rooms, finding the study--how did you even--nevermind, point is, They ALMOST KILLED YOU Charlie! You probably would have run once I told you-”
“I’ve been part of your acts for almost a WHOLE YEAR Maxwell! I could have left at ANY TIME!” God does he want to protest, point out she’s wrong somehow, and yet he lets her continue shouting at him as she now paces, axe dropped to the side. “Maybe this STILL would have happened, maybe not, I don’t know! YOU know the most out of us and even YOU didn’t know! But maybe, MAYBE it’d be different if you’d just--if you… I mean, I would’ve thought-”
“Oh god no, please don’t--” He reaches out to her as her cracking voice gives way to sobs hidden behind her hands, but she slaps his hand away, smeared makeup further ruined as she rubs at her face. Guilt winds its tentacles around his insides as he struggles to find the right words to say. He’s been great with words before, standing in front of crowds and waxing poetry as he dazzles an audience and all but takes them to another world, yet here he is, stumbling over his words in front of just one person. Just one, but damn if she isn’t one of the most important people to him.
“Charlie, I--I’m sorry. I just… I didn’t want you to get--I thought you wouldn’t-”
“Why?” He freezes, the choked word a stab in the heart as she looks up at him. Not with hate, or anger, or even betrayal. Just… hurt.
“Why didn’t you trust me?”
>>
Opening his eyes again is almost like nearly drowning and getting dragged out of the water--his lungs burn, each shaky breath bringing pain as well as relief, and the weight is both gone yet still present. Thoughts are still warring in his mind, swimming and picking at each other like fish in the ocean. But at least now, the biggest ones are more plainly defined, more better understood…
And, he realizes as he finally registers the two shadow puppets, fighting each other. The Digger is defensive, its silhouette of a shovel keeping the angry Logger’s blade from slicing it in half ( could it even do that? Maxwell’s never bothered to have the puppets fight each other).
“Oi!! Will you both cut it-!” He runs over to pull them apart, only to be thrown back. Shreds of black satin flutter down as the former magician stares at his bared hand, only the cuff of the glove remaining. The clearest sign of his mistakes stares back at him; purplish-black shaped into bony fingers, but merely a cheap imitation of what he'd lost.
Jagged teeth clench as the former magician looks up at the bickering shadows, his still-gloved hand reaching behind him.
“That is ENOUGH!!”
The pickax cuts through both puppets in one fell swoop, Maxwell panting heavily as he stares at the pile of Nightmare Fuel and broken tools. Pulling the pickax out of the ground with a tired huff, his ungloved hand plucks the Fuel from the ground, eyes fixed on the horizon as it slowly dims to nothing.
That’s it then--tomorrow evening Wendy will be here waiting for his decision. He tiredly tosses a log into the fire pit, poking the flames to life. Twenty-four hours to reflect on the decision he’s made, and the mess that it all came from.
It bothers him, the worry gnawing at his insides like a bug, the feeling crawling up his arms and making him rub at them, just out of habit by now. A reminder he’s not bound, not being controlled or threatened to do something… this decision is his alone, all based on what he did before.
Or rather, what he didn’t do.