Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Forgotten in the forest lies something ill-gotten;

A weathered stained glass journal,

Belonging to a monster who’s no longer eternal,

For when the pages are no more,

Her heart will fall to the floor.

Such a curse shall be assumed for the worst,

Lest she finds herself worthy of love first.

And this will be seen true in time,

‘Cause it was written in rhyme.

The night was ever so cold in this raging storm. A young hero clings to his cloak as he makes his way deeper into the forest, hopelessly lost here. 

Perhaps there is hope, he thinks to himself, as he sees a warm light in the distance. Heading close reveals it to be a towering castle with walls covered in thick thorny vines that almost give the illusion of squirming to escape the rain.

He heads towards a gate, giving a slight sigh of relief to see it’s unlocked as he pushes it open, and steps onto the castle grounds, pausing briefly to look up to a window giving off the warm light illuminating the destroyed garden he now stood in. In that moment he takes to stare up there, he catches a glimpse of a towering figure staring back down at him, giving an ominous glare as he continues his way into their cursed home.

Chapter Text

Several months later…

“You call this place ‘the forgotten kingdom’?”

Mayhem, a blue-haired young soldier of the Queen’s army, who recently returned home to help her mother out after her older brother had gone missing, sighs at the question. “Outsiders like to call it that, and anyways that’s like a collection of several towns and cities, this is just Brickstown.”

The man she’s talking to, a tall and rugged self-proclaimed hero who seemed to appear in the town out of nowhere, rolls his eyes at her response. “Yeah but like nobody calls this place Brickstown. I mean sure, they call the new town built in Systeria ‘New Brickstown’, but everyone just calls this place the forgotten kingdom since it’s so forgettable.”

People pass by the two at the outdoor market, without giving them much mind, and Mayhem wishes someone else would come distract Rex so she could finish getting food and head home. “Okay. If it’s so forgettable, why are you even here? Weren’t you bragging yesterday about how you saved a princess from being burned to death at the bar, which is like weird by the way, cause I don’t know any neighboring kingdoms that currently have princesses. Like the Queen doesn’t have any kids, and Gotham only has a prince…”

Rex lets out a cough at that remark, eyes darting away as he tries to keep his composure. “Well sometimes there’s more out there that you don’t know about, I mean you only recently graduated and got into the royal army, so surely you have a lot more to learn.”

Mayhem grabs an apple, and turns it over in her hands, not paying too much attention to the conversation now. “Oh so you know something about me?”

He shrugs. “I know a few things, like how your brother, that guy who stopped the Duke from freezing over the world, suddenly disappeared after saving the world.”

Mayhem almost drops the apple at that. Sure locals would know that Emmet’s her brother, but they don’t exactly look anything alike, and since she was sent away to Systeria at a young age to attend the knights’ academy, they spent their childhood apart, barely seen together. So exactly how did this outsider know?

She drops the apple into her basket and gives him an uneasy look. “Do you spend your time not saving princesses gossiping around the inn?”

He gives a fake laugh at that. “Well truthfully, I came to this boring town looking for him. Had a few questions I needed to ask.”

It was at this comment Mayhem felt her stomach drop a bit. She looks up to Rex, and looks at him closely for the first time, and she feels terrible emotion behind his almost inhuman bright green eyes. She does a small gulp, looks away, dropping her some coins on the counter for the apple before mumbling, “well hope you can find him,” before quickly walking away, disappearing into a crowd of townsfolk before Rex could get another word in.

She rushes out of the crowd and rushes to the small bakery around the corner, leaning against the door as she takes a moment to catch her breath. After giving herself a few moments, she notices the weird look she’s getting from the shopkeep and lets out a nervous laugh, rubbing the back of her head, giving a brief explanation. “Mondays, am I right?”

The shopkeeper shrugs at that response and turns their attention back to restocking the shelves with freshly baked bread. But there’s another patron in the shop, who hears her response and can’t help but laugh at it.

Mayhem’s head shoots up as she hears the laugh, a laugh that sounded familiar she can’t help but shoot up her head to look at the guy standing in the back of the shop, holding a small loaf. “Gods, Mondays, that’s a pretty funny joke,” he mumbles to himself.

She stumbles for words for a moment, before almost yelling his name, “Emmet???” And rushing up to him.

Chapter Text

As Mayhem rushes up to him, he seems to get a little scared, responding to her cry, with a quiet, “yes?”

“Uh-” She notices the shopkeeper giving her another weird look so she takes some coins out of her pocket, places them on the counter to cover the bread being held, and drags the confused guy outside. Outside of the shop, she talks in a more hushed tone, “Emmet where in the voids have you been?”

He tilts his head at her question. “Well today, I went and got some honey from the market, and then I was going to pick up some bread at this bakery, and that’s pretty much everywhere I’ve been today.”

She presses her fingers against her head as she tries to reword her question. “You've been missing for months, I had to come take care of mom cause she got in a fight with some wolves that showed up near the cottage and she couldn’t handle that without you. I’m asking where you’ve been for the last several months.”

Emmet squints at her for a moment, before saying, “ohhh, I see what’s going on here, you’re mistaking me for the Emmet guy who was a hero and stopped the duke from freezing the world. I’m just a guy from New Brickstown visiting here.”

Mayhem doesn’t respond for a moment, looking over this not-Emmet, and it just doesn’t make sense. “That can’t be true. You look exactly like my brother, and have the same name. You could be suffering from amnesia right now, that’s the only thing that makes sense.”

Emmet laughs at that. “Oh no, that’s not true, my friends thought that too when I showed up here, but like I have a whole life that doesn’t match up with the Emmet guy at all. My friend Benny was saying amnesia wouldn’t create a whole separate life, probably.”

“Huh, well I guess you can’t be Emmet then, he never had any friends,” Mayhem comments, her thoughts still up in the air over this.

Emmet opens his mouth to respond with, ‘that’s a rude thing to say,’ but before he could get a chance to, Mayhem gets approached from behind, and a firm hand lands on her shoulder.

She turns her head slowly to unfortunately see that Rex had a grasp on her.

"Wow," says the supposed adventurer, his voice sounding oh so dry, "didn't take you very long to find him."

Emmet shuffles around his bag of honey and bread to hold out a hand to Rex, not picking up on any ominous vibes going on here. "Well hello there! I'm Emmet."

Rex lets go of Mayhem, unaware of her clenched fists as he directs all his attention over to Emmet. "Oh I know, I know everything about you, which is why I think we need to have a little talk."

He moves quickly grabbing Emmet's wrist tightly, causing him to wince from the pain, but before he can make another movement, Mayhem lands a punch square in his jaw, forcing him to let go of Emmet as he stumbles back.

And in that brief moment of recovery, Mayhem offers her hand out to Emmet, which he does take, and she speeds off into the town, leading far away from that mysterious stranger with no good intentions.

It felt like hours of running, but it was probably closer to 50 minutes, before they stop. Emmet is leaned over struggling to catch his breath as Mayhem scouts their surroundings. "We should be good for a bit," she comments looking down at Emmet, and notices he was probably more of a sprint runner than an endurance runner kind of guy. "Oh, do you want to go rest up inside?"

Emmet stands back up straight looking at the house they had themselves at. "You think we can just go inside here? Won't the owner be upset we're trespassing?"

"I brought us to my mom's house. She's expecting me, but like not you, well she is expecting her son, but you're assumingly not her son, but she'll understand we're trying to avoid some weird guy who wants to kill you."

"Wait, you think that guy was going to kill me?" Emmet's voice breaks, as that panic inducing thought hits him.

"Ohhh yeah definitely, he had this look in his eyes I've only seen before in one of the Duke's knights right before he broke a guy's spine in half. Was pretty bloody."

"Oh dear gods," Emmet murmurs, following Mayhem inside as she opens the door for him.

"Mom, I'm back!" Mayhem yells into the tidy little cottage, making sure to close the door behind Emmet.

"Oh you're back early!" Her mother yelled from her room, stepping out to greet her daughter, as she carried a decorative sword she was working on polishing. Though her greeting is short lived as her eyes fall on the guest accompanying her, and that sword it, just falls to the ground with a clatter as she runs over to Emmet to give him a strong hug.

"Oh thanks the gods you came home, I was so afraid that-"

"Mom, that isn't Emmet," Mayhem speaks out, looking a little awkward as she watches her mother release him from a hug, "er, he's not our Emmet."

The mother looks over to Mayhem for a more detailed explanation, but Emmet is the one who speaks up. "She's right ma'am. This is a little awkward but it's been happening a lot since, who I assume to be your son, stopped the Duke. Back in New Brickstown I kept getting mistaken for him, but I'm really not him."

The mother stepped back, looking at Emmet closely before sighing, "you're right, I see it now."

Mayhem glances between her mother and Emmet, raising an eyebrow at this. "Wait, you can tell he's not Emmet?"

"A mother can always recognize her child, or at least she can most of the time, and our Emmet had a tint darker brown hair, and a scar on his chin from when you tried to stab him as a toddler."

Emmet glances over to Mayhem and whispers, "you tried to stab your brother?"

Mayhem nods to that. "That's just like normal sibling behavior."

Emmet opens his mouth to argue, but never having any siblings himself can't find a reason to disagree, so he closes his mouth.

Mayhem's mother now sighs, retreating to the kitchen. "Well how about you two take a seat, and Emmet perhaps you can fill me in on yourself while I make us all some tea."

Emmet sits down on the light blue couch, admiring a small plant in the window sill. "That sounds nice, miss, um, I'm sorry I don't know your name, or uh," he looks over to Mayhem sitting next to him, "I don't think I got your name either…"

The mother quickly returns with with a tray of tea, kicking that sword she dropped back into her room. "Well you can call me Doris, and my daughter there is Mayhem."

As she takes her seat, Emmet gives a small smile. "Well nice to meet you Miss Doris, I'm Emmet Brickowski, er that's the name the orphanage gave me, I grew up over in New Brickstown and they usually gave the kiddos some sort of brick related last name after turning 18."

Doris bites her lip as she hears that, looking to the floor. "So you grew up in an orphanage? It must have been hard losing your parents as a child."

Emmet gives a small shrug to that. "Never knew them, I was always told I was just dropped off as a toddler, which I never wanted to hold against the people who left me there, maybe they just weren't ready to be parents. I always had food on my plate and a roof over my head, and I was grateful for that."

Doris’ eyebrows press together as her head swarms with thoughts and she quickly excuses herself from the couch. "I'm sorry, I need to go get something."

Doris had rushed into her bedroom, leaving Emmet and Mayhem to awkwardly sit on the couch.

"So uh," Mayhem tries to break the silence, "you like New Brickstown?"

Emmet gives a hearty nod to that. "It's such a great town, probably why the Queen is choosing to get married there."

Mayhem looks over to her mother's bedroom door, wondering what she could be looking for. "Right, she's getting married to the Man of Bats rather soon."

"Yeah!" Emmet perks up at the mention of that. "I was part of the building crew to construct the wedding pavilion for her!" And as quick as the sudden wave of excitement hit it disperses. "Or well, at least I was. I'm probably fired by now."

"Why would you be fired?"

"I've been living in the forest for the last few months."

"The cursed forest?" Mayhem questions, but before Emmet can respond, Doris comes out of her bedroom, carrying a rather large book, and plops it down at the tea table in front of the sofa the two sat on.

"Here!" She proclaims, as if the two knew what she had given them.

"Mom, what is that?" Mayhem asks, never having seen the worn leather covered book in her life before.

And Mayhem wasn't expecting her mother's expression to fall to something so somber. "It's hard to find the right words to explain everything, and I wish I was able to tell you sooner, but I just wanted you and your brother to have a chance at some kind of normal life." She laughs as she says that, pushing some hair out of her face, "but as soon as my back was turned Emmet had to run off to save the world didn't he. Guess you two never had a chance at that."

"Mom, that doesn't explain anything."

"Right, Mayhem, there's a letter in this book-"

Doris is cut off as a loud knock comes from the front door.

"Is there a chance Rex knows where you live?" Emmet whispers to Mayhem.

Mayhem glances to the door and then back to Emmet. "It's a small town. Even if he didn't know it wouldn't take him long to find us."

Doris sighs, picking up the book and placing it on Mayhem's lap. "If he's here for what I think he is, he's not going to get it. You two sneak out the back and I'll distract him to give you time."

Mayhem stands up to protest, but is only given a hug, quickly ending any arguments circulating in her brain.

Doris lets her go as the knocks continue, growing louder as the seconds pass by, and turns her attention to Emmet, taking his hand for a brief moment and says to him, "it was great to finally meet you."

And without giving Emmet a moment to unpack that at all, Mayhem takes his hand, and rushes him towards the back of the cottage, book in tow.

Doris makes her way to the door, opening it to see a startled Rex.

"Well hello, I don't think we have had the chance to formally meet."

"Right um, I mean I've been here long enough to know about you M- Miss Doris. Hey by the way your daughter hasn't stopped by has she?"

"Oh why, I haven't seen her since she left for the market. How about you come and sit down if you're waiting for her, she should be home any moment."

Rex starts to protest but is dragged inside by the unexpectedly strong grip of this maiden.

Chapter Text

Mayhem and Emmet run out of the house, narrowly escaping a run-in with Rex.

But as the two put distance between them and the cottage, Emmet has to stop and ask, “where exactly are we running to?”

Mayhem turns to him. “Obviously we’re going to- uh…” She realizes she doesn’t really have a place for them to be safe at. “Say where are you staying at?”

“Oh I’m in a ca- I’m camping.” Emmet had started to say something else but quickly covered his tracks for some unknown reason, but Mayhem wasn’t all into buying that.

“How about we just chill at your campsite, Rex probably won’t know where that is.”

“You can’t!” Emmet shouts out, getting an eyebrow raise from Mayhem. “Because, um, it’s not my campsite, it belongs to my friends, and they are really nervous about meeting new people.”

“Well Emmet, someone has to protect you from Rex, so unless you got some other place you think we can lay low for awhile, heading to your campsite seems like the best bet.”

“Well maybe I don’t need protection,” Emmet counters, repositioning his bag of bread and honey so he can cross his arms in annoyance.

“Uh dude,” Mayhem looks up to the sky as she speaks, “like you’re some lost twin or something of my brother, that my mom knows something about, and I’m not going to let anything happen, or you out of my sight until I get some bricking answers.”

Emmet drops his annoyance at that, his expression becoming a bit soft. “Wait you think I could be like a twin or-”

“There is literally no reason for you to look alike and have the same name, unless the Gods just wanted to do some cruel prank, so yeah.” She stops her rant, looking back at Emmet, running her hand against the back of her head as she speaks again, talking a bit quieter now, “I think it would make sense for that…”

Now Emmet, a young human who had long figured he would never have a family and had made peace with that, was suddenly presented with this piece of information that this pretty much stranger had suspicions they were in fact family. And that opened up a hole of hope in his heart that would let him agree to anything.

“Well, um, if we might be family, I think my friends would be okay for you to come with me, just um, they’re all really apprehensive around people so you just gotta be like super non-judgemental.” Emmet gives a small shaky breath as he says that, seeming really not sure if this is the right thing to do.

“Oh are they gay?”

“What?” Emmet totally loses his nervousness as bewilderment takes over him, “no, I mean yes some of them are- but that’s not what I meant, why would that be- let’s just get going.”

Emmet turns around after saying that, heading towards the cursed forest, Mayhem jogging to keep up with him.

It was a long walk, consisting mostly of Mayhem asking lots of questions about Emmet’s life, and he was happy to give long answers of everything he had done up to this point. Not a lot of people had taken an interest in him before. It always feels nice to be listened to.

But the small conversations grow quiet as Mayhem notices a castle they’re approaching, and she turns to Emmet. “So this is where you’re camping.”

“Yeah, sorry, I wasn’t sure if you would believe me about a castle being here.”

They step closer to the castle, and Mayhem can see the windows flicker with lights.

Emmet apprehensively opens the front gate, and Mayhem can’t help but notice the thorny vines covering the gate move out of the way to let him move forward.

“Well,” Mayhem starts to speak now, unable to stop herself from looking around this strange abode, “I was always told stories about this cursed forest as a kid, about a monster that lived in an abandoned castle that would kill people-”

Emmet quickly spins around, quickly waving his hands trying to get her to stop, “Nononono, don’t say that, she’s really self conscious about those stories about her, if she hears you she might-”

“Who’s ‘she’?” Mayhem questions but before Emmet can answer there’s a loud crashng sound from behind the two, like a thunder bolt hitting the pavement behind them.

“Oh bricks,” is all Emmet gets out before Mayhem looks behind herself, to see a towering 9 foot creature looming over her. Their skin looked so pale and thin, causing the veins in the face to almost pop out. They squinted their glowing white eyes that looked to be bleeding ink at Mayhem, and before the human could react, the monster’s scaly gauntlet of a hand grabbed Mayhem’s neck and slammed her into the wall castle, holding her there as she glared down at her.

“Emmet, it seems you had some worm follow you back here.”

Emmet quickly runs, and pulls on the monster’s free hand as Mayhem has several conflicting thoughts about this situation. “Wyldstyle, please don’t hurt her, I brought her here, she only wanted to protect me.”

Mayhem tries to pull at the hand holding her up, but her efforts are pointless.

Wyldstyle glares over to Emmet. “Outsiders aren’t allowed here.”

“But I’m allowed here!” Emmet protests.

“You’re not,” Wyldstyle sighs at that, giving her attention back to Mayhem, and loosens her grip, dropping the human to the ground. “Why did you come here?” She questions her.

Mayhem rubs her neck, and the first thing that comes out of her mouth is not an answer to the monster’s question, she simply goes, “that was really hot.”

And that causes all three individuals there to glow red in the face, and Mayhem quickly tries to back track, pretending that didn’t happen as she jumps to her feet. “Some weird guy in the village wanted to kill Emmet, I was just accompanying him to safety.”

Emmet, always one to quickly change to topic adds in, “and she thinks she might be my lost sister! That’s cool right.”

Wyldstyle sighs once again, rubbing her temples at all of this. “I knew letting you go to that village was a bad idea. Emmet, even if she is your sister, she needs to leave.”

“But I just got a piece of what could be my family, can’t she at least stay for a few days!”

Wyldstyle glares over at Mayhem, causing the human to do a small gulp. “This is a castle of a monster, no one would want to stay here. It would be better if she went home.”

“I don’t mind, um castles or monsters,” Mayhem tries to speak, not aware of how red her face was growing. “I mean like if you seem cool, and you have very nice horns, ma’am.”

Wyldstyle seems to not be expecting that response. “Oh you like my horns?”

“They’re very, se- they’re very pretty.”

The monster lets out a small cough, looking away now, and directs a response to Emmet, trying to hide her faint blush. “Well, perhaps it would be okay to let her stay a few days. It’s good for you to have family, probably.”

“You’re the best Wyldstyle!” Emmet pulls the monster into a tight hug, and she lets him do it for a brief moment before pushing him away.

“Well bring her inside and help her find a room, I need to let the other residents know we’ll be having a guest.”

And with a blink the monster vanishes leaving Emmet and Mayhem alone at the front doors of the castle.

Emmet can’t help but look over and smirk at Mayhem and she gives an incredulous, “what?” to him.

Chapter Text

Mayhem follows Emmet into the castle, staying quiet as she takes in the interesting decor of the place.

The long hallway they walk along had pitch black carpet with a repeating skull pattern on it, while the walls were a dark pink, with interesting paintings placed upon them, ones that looked as if the artist had just dumped buckets of paint upon them to see what would happen. The plants along the hallway were almost all certainly hazardous, all pointy, and one seemingly dripping with a toxic substance. And the candles lighting up this path dimmed with each step taken, their blue light flickering as if it was about to go out.

She was so taken aback by all of this she almost doesn’t hear Emmet speak up. “So I guess we should probably get dinner and then figure out more complicated stuff?”

“Complicated stuff?” Mayhem questions, assuming he's talking about the strange book her mother had given them.

“Yeah like if you’re spending the night and where you’re going to sleep,” he responds.

She doesn’t think that’s too complicated to figure out, but she doesn’t say so, she simply nods and follows him into a large dining room.

She barely has time to glance at the giant chandelier dangling above the room, before she sees Emmet tackled to the ground.

Mayhem jumps back, hand hovering above the holster on her belt, but she drops her guard as she hears Emmet laugh.

“Haha- Unikitty stop-!” The creature that seemed to have pounced on Emmet was a weird giant cat/horse thing that was currently nuzzling him as she purred.

“Okay okay,” the creature laughs, stepping away, allowing Emmet to stand up. And then the creature looks over to the side and gives a small gasp, “Emmet!! You didn’t tell me you brought a guest!”

“Well I did literally just walk into the room-”

“Shshshhhhh.” Unikitty raises a paw to Emmet, effectively shushing him, “no need for excuses I forgive you, but you!” She jumps closer to Mayhem causing her to glance towards the entrance way of the room, wondering how fast she could make a bolt for it if she needed to. “Who are you!!”

“I’m uh, Sweet Mayhem, I just, I’m uh, friends with Emmet,” she kind of points towards Emmet, to be like, hey that’s my friend, Emmet.

“Yeah! I think we’re family!” Emmet pipes up, causing her to raise an eyebrow.

“Waitwaitwait WAIT, Like Mayhem, like Emmet Mayhem, the Special that saved the kingdom from Business, like you’re related to him?”

“Well yes he was my brother, and he’s missing now, and that’s why I’m here, cause I think this Emmet might hold clues to finding him.”

“Oh well there’s no finding him,” Unikitty says bluntly, backing up a bit, “but hey how about you two take a seat and I’ll get started on serving dinner!”

“I, um-” Mayhem is broken off as Emmet rushes over to Unikitty, holding a basket.

“Oh I was able to get some bread from the town today!”

Unikitty smiles at that, taking the basket on top of her head as she heads off to prepare dinner leaving Mayhem alone with more questions than she had before.

“Wait,” before Mayhem can call out to Unikitty to come back, her attention is grabbed by loud clanking metal coming from the doorway, and her head turns around to see a very large man walking in.

He’s wearing a rather large coat, covering most of him, but the bits she can see appear to be covered in metal. Though the weirdest thing about him would have to be his eye patch and pirate hat.

This metal pirate turns to Emmet and speaks out, “matey who be your guest here?”

Emmet clasps his hands together, excited to do some introductions. “Oh MetalBeard! This is someone who might be part of my family, she’s Sweet Mayhem, but just goes by Mayhem!” He looks over to Mayhem now introducing his friend, “and Mayhem, this is MetalBeard! He’s a really nice guy.”

“Is he some sort of pirate?” Mayhem asks, unable to stop focusing on his hat.

“Aye lass,” he raises up a hand to that, or well or a hook, but quickly waves to dismiss her question, “or at least I was, haven’t sailed the seas in quite some years, sad as it is.”

“Okay um, so this castle, that belongs to the tall hot goddess lady, has a magic unicorn cat, and a pirate?”

“And a wizard!” Emmet adds in, “But I don’t think you’ve had a chance to see him yet.”

“Did ye just call Wyldstyle a goddess-” MetalBeard’s question is ended by a bang down the hallway, followed by the sudden appearance of another of the castle’s inhabitants.

“Heard there was a new guest!” He shouts, quickly taking notice of Mayhem, who is in much shock to see this blue clad stranger floating in front of her. “Oh you must be her!! Wow, you look not like a human!”

She coughs at that not expecting- well she’s not expecting anything right now, but that might have been on the top of the list of comments she was not expecting.

Emmet steps between the two, “hey Benny this is Mayhem, she’s maybe part of my family, and Mayhem this is Benny, he’s a wizard who lived here.”

“Live here, infest here, it’s all the same,” Benny shrugs, floating up so he can rest his hands on top of Emmet’s head, “so what kind of magical creature are you?”

“I’m human,” Mayhem says incredulously, crossing her arms as she does so.

“Hmmm, I don’t know, humans don’t have blue hair and pronouns.”

“Benny I think every human has pronouns,” Emmet says to his friend, pushing his hands off his head.

“Not me,” Benny points to himself, “I’ve evolved past the need for pronouns. I still let my friends use them for me though, but only my friends. Everyone else is on thin ice.”

Emmet lets out a little awkward laugh trying to not be too nervous about the angry and confused glare he’s getting from Mayhem. “Hey, maybe we should go take a seat at the table while Unikitty gets dinner out.”

Benny zooms over to his chair, and the rest follow to the table, Mayhem taking one that Emmet pulls out the seat for, as she was hesitant to take any seat.

“So if you’re human,” Benny starts, causing Mayhem to roll her eyes, “are you cursed? Is that what makes you look different?”

“Benny,” Emmet says, afraid to make Mayhem anymore angry, hoping saying his name would be enough of a warning to stop the conversation.

But alas, it isn’t.

“No I’m not cursed, I would know if I was cursed.”

“No you might not,” Benny says, pushing himself back in his chair, “a lot of people don’t even know they’re cursed, magic in this time period is kind of messed up like that.”

The conversation is ended momentarily as Unikitty busts back in with several platters of food floating around her, “dinner’s ready!” She shouts, sending the flying platters to everyone sitting down, the plates carefully landing on the table.

Unikitty pulls out a chair and takes a seat at the table looking around, and noticing some wack vibes going on here. “So did I miss something?”

“Oh I was just asking if Mayhem was magical!” Benny says, “but she keeps insisting there’s nothing magical about her.”

“Well some people don’t even know they’re magical,” Unikitty adds in, tilting her head to think, “like changelings, they can go their whole lives without ever knowing their true origins.”

“Wait, those are real?” Asks Emmet.

“I mean yeah, a lot of magical beings are real Emmet, man we need to get you caught up on your magical biology. But changelings can shapeshift, so Mayhem could choose to just not have blue hair if she was one of those.”

“Can you like not discuss what I am?” Mayhem says really growing tired of this conversation.

“Aye,” agrees MetalBeard, “there be more important news to be discussin’. Such as Mayhem here finding Wyldstyle hot.”

A silence falls over the table as Mayhem coughs at that, blush rising to her cheeks. “I don’t- when I said that earlier, I just was running out of words to describe- I mean, well okay she is tall to be fair, and like I’m six feet tall, and like I never had anyone like pin me to the wall like that- brick okay why would you bring that up.”

Everyone at the table gives one another knowing glances, but no one seems to want to speak up, so finally Emmet breaks the silence. “It’s just um, Wyldstyle, she’s um, uh,” he kind of seems to be touchy about whatever he’s trying to explain, “she could um, really use someone to date.”

“What.”

Everyone at the table nods at Emmet’s explanation.

Mayhem sighs, rubbing her temples. “you can’t just say something like that and not elaborate, like I get this is a magical castle in the woods filled with fantastical magical beings, and Emmet, and that you’re all probably used to be extra mysterious and bricks knows what else, but like I just want some answers on my brother and now you’re like throwing stuff at me like, ‘oh yeah the tall monster in the castle really needs a girlfriend,’ like this is right after you all were pestering me about my appearance, which like by the way is super uncool.”

Benny puts down his bowl of soup he was slurping to comment, “you sound stressed.”

“You don’t say,” she snaps back, and with that being the straw that breaks the camel’s back she pushes her chair back and stands up. “You know what, I don’t think I’m going to get any answers here about my Emmet, and you all seem weird and strong enough to protect this Emmet from Rex so I’m just going home, I need to keep searching for him.”

She turns her back to the rest of them and Emmet quickly gets up and rushes towards her, “wait please don’t go, you could be really important to-” he stops himself, and replaces what he’s about to say, “before I came to this castle it had been years since I dreamed of having a family of own, and if you could be part of that family, I don’t want to miss out on knowing you.”

Mayhem knew her mother knew something about this Emmet so she just sighs, looking away from this guy’s big pleading eyes, which were weirdly the same ones she usually gave to people when she tried to get them to feel bad for her, “listen, I can, come back. If you want, visit if the owner of the castle is okay with that. But I really should be getting back, I need to be there to help my mother, and look for my brother.”

“You promise you’ll come back?” Emmet asks.

“Yes, as soon as I can I’ll stop by, just stay safe here and don’t go into town for a while, especially not alone, that Rex guy could be waiting to ambush you.”

“Ambush?” Unikitty asks, sharing a concerned look with the rest of the people at the table.

“Oh a guy tried to kill me in the town today,” Emmet says nonchalantly. He then moves to give Mayhem a big bear hug causing her to let out an awkward laugh.

“Okay big guy, I better get going,” she pulls out of the hug and gives him a pat on the back, before stepping away and disappearing down the hall.

—-

She’s so deep in her own thoughts as she marches through the castle she doesn’t even notice she’s walked right into Wyldstyle until she’s stumbling back.

“Oh gosh, I’m so sorry,” she goes to quickly apologize, looking away from the glare the monster is giving her.

“You should be,” the monster sneers at her.

That comment knocks some sense back into Mayhem as she scoffs at that response, “well now I take it back, screw you, you should watch where you’re going.”

Wyldstyle doesn’t even bother to respond to that, she just glances to the door behind her, “so you’re leaving?”

“Yes, Emmet is safe here, so I’m heading home now.”

“Glad you’re finally leaving,” Wyldstyle says, moving past Mayhem.

“Oh my Gods I was here for like 2 hours max, why do you got to be so mean to me?”

Wyldstyle looks to Mayhem before turning her head and walking farther away, responding with, “you’re too much like him.”

Mayhem is left unsure of who that exactly is, and as she leaves the castle, she figures it’s better to just not care.

—-

Her journey home was uneventful, but as she reaches her childhood home she finds her mother is nowhere in there. She had left, leaving behind a note reading something about leaving to get answers from someone, and that she would be home in a few weeks.

Mayhem sort of remembers that she left the book at the castle and curses at herself. Though after getting angry at herself she figures there’s nothing left for her in the town, and with no more leads on her brother’s mystery here, she decides now may be a good time for her to head back to Systar for a bit, just for a visit before she needs to check in with the new Emmet again at least.

So she heads to the town's stable and gets on her horse, The Formidable, and heads off.