Chapter Text
Milo stood at the Edge of the World, staring. The stories told of a mysterious land beyond the end of this realm, where things beyond all possibilities existed.
Things a hundred times bigger than this world, or as many times smaller. Creatures that spoke with no mouths and people who lived without ever seeing another soul. So many things, and at least a few of them lies.
But with all the nightmares that it would come with, there were the dreamworlds, the promise of wishes coming true. And if Milo wanted any chance of saving Pawoo, then this was only option he had.
With a final glance back at his home, the great Island everything he knew existed on, he stepped into the rushing waterfall of the Edge of the World.
The water fell as fast as he did, catching in bright bubbles that reflected the light of the million stars all around him. The sky swallowed the world, its underside free of daylight and cloud, only those blinding specks of light that grew and grew as Milo fell down with the water.
He could have fallen forever, until he finally reached one of those stars a trillion miles below him, its heat burning everything away. Perhaps he had to wait for that before he reached Faerie.
An eternity could swallow him alive, and he wouldn’t know it. Time was the first thing to vanish at the Edge. Next went the sensation – the knowledge that he was falling, the shadow of the World behind him, and the emptiness that he drowned in. Sound had disappeared, too, but the water’s rushing had stolen the use of his ears long before he noticed the silence.
And, last of all, went the colours. The white of the stars and the black in between, the rays of every shade Milo had ever dreamed of. The swathes of his cloak that floated around him, and his worn satchel that held everything he could have thought of to bring. The grey mist of the water that floated alongside him, a companion that would follow him to wherever he landed, be it in the next world, or one a million lifetimes away.
There was nothing left.
***
Milo woke to something prodding him, digging through the sodden layers of his clothes to poke at him. A bright indigo sky greeted him, smattered with stars far more colourful than the ones he remembered. When had he been such an expert on the appearance of stars?
And then his memories flooded back in. Pawoo. Her illness. Faerie.
He sat up. Or, at least, tried to.
His body sank into the murky blood-brown water. A branch had caught at him, hooking him to the edge of the river as the main body of water flowed unhurriedly downstream.
With the stories of his childhood ringing in his ears, Milo pulled himself out of the water and onto the bank.
This River wound all the way through Faerie to the Afterlife. It was said that humans who ventured into Faerie and didn’t wake up in time would face one of two fates: being picked up by the beasts that drank from the River of Blood, or drifting all the way down to the Afterlife without a single chance to save themselves.
Milo had come to his senses long enough to have avoided becoming a snack for any creature, but he was still a long way from safety.
As he pulled himself up the bank and onto the firmer ground above, the horizon revealed itself – a mountain pulled itself out from the treetops of a dense forest, its peak white with snow and streaked red with something else.
Half the land was blanketed in the woods that sat like a doormat at the base of it, thick, almost black-green trees that crammed themselves in against one another. A trio of shapes glided in the sky between the mountain and the forest, so high up that Milo could see nothing but the vast blur of their distant outlines.
This was nowhere near where had meant to go – though in all honesty, the vague map he had of Faerie was next to useless now, as he pulled it, sopping wet and half-disintegrated, from his satchel.
Only his medical supplies had survived both the fall and the River of Blood, and only those because of his care in making sure each part was properly contained. Even the glass vials and syringes seemed undamaged by being thrown around.
With not a person in sight, and with not a single thing to go on but his guts, Milo delved into the trees.
More things would live there than in the great emptiness that rolled out in the opposite direction, barren and dry. And where there was life, there was a better chance of finding the cure that Pawoo needed.
The trees crowded in around him, jostling each other to fill the small space that he slipped through between trunks and dense underbrush. Not once did he see anything move, but when he looked behind him, there was no sign of the path he had crept through just moments ago. Such were the mysteries of Faerie, he told himself.
Trees that moved when one’s back was turned was hardly the most unusual thing that his parents had told of when they used to read to him and Pawoo as children. Still, he hoped it was the worst of what he would have to face. Anything much trickier to face, and chances were that he’d be home in time for Pawoo’s funeral, and nothing more.
But even as he fought his way into the depths of the woods, where no light breached the thick canopy above, there was no sign of life, or any hint of an elixir that might save anyone.
With the darkness came silence, and into that silence Milo went. Someone had to be here somewhere. He just had to keep going, until he found something. Faerie wasn’t the sort of place to leave one alone for long, and the bolder Milo was, he promised himself, the sooner it would happen.
He repeated the words in his mind, even as the remaining shreds of light vanished completely, leaving only midnight quiet. On and on, the sooner I get through this place, the sooner I can get out of here and help Pawoo. The words were stones weighing him down in the riverbed, saving him from the current pulling everything downstream over his head. They kept him from running back towards the light, or screaming at the branches, trunks, and thorns that seemed to creep ever closer in their attempts to hem him in.
Something cold and wet brushed the back of his neck.
Milo bit back a scream and shoved himself forwards, feeling for the narrow gap between this tree and its neighbour a few inches to its side. He willed himself to fit through the space, to contort and shrink and twist out of the reach of whatever had just touched him.
The thing brushed against him again, damp and icy, its touch sending shivers all the way down his spine. Its contact lingered a little longer, and suddenly the silence was gone, stolen, shattered in place of a low, almost inanimal growl that rippled through Milo’s ears and burrowed its way unwelcome into his brain.
He shoved himself through the gap, only just fitting his satchel in behind him, and fell.
After so long of only just fitting through the tiny pathway the trees had made for him, the clearing was gargantuan, at least a foot wider than him, and tall enough that he could stand without his head hitting any branches.
But the space meant that whatever was following him could fit in here too, at least enough to attack him. And even if the silence had been decimated, the blackness remained, fogging Milo’s vision with inky dark.
A sniff, and the growl repeated, so close he couldn’t tell whether it was right beneath or above him.
He had to run.
But there was nowhere to go, and that thing was there, somewhere where it could reach him and touch him and kill him if that was what it wanted. Or eat him alive or torture him or-
Milo let out a breath and forced his mind to still. No way would he survive if he kept thinking about all the things that could go wrong. He’d chosen to do this; there was no point in being paralysed by the potential consequences now.
Another breath, and he crept his hands along the tree trunk, feeling for some way out. He would make it out of here alive. Because he had to find the cure. Because he had to save Pawoo.
The trees relinquished nothing.
Tightly wound trunks gave not an inch of space between them, and not a shred of light to warn Milo of the creature that he could sense watching him, mirthfully enjoying its prey’s attempts to escape.
Nothing revealed itself.
His only hope now was to go back the way he had come, and pray the trees would part for him, would let him out of this place.
With a final whisper in his mind to any beings that might let him survive this, he darted away from the trees, diving through the black space in the direction of where he was sure the entrance had been.
He crashed into one tree, then slipped through the gap, only slightly worse for wear. A tunnel let him pass, sprinting for his life through the undergrowth, kicking through anything that tried to block him. He didn’t have time to regret the quiet he was disturbing.
Pawoo mattered more than the peace of whatever beasts dwelled in this place.
He ran and ran, even as a roar erupted behind him, even as something huge crashed along, louder and louder, nearer and nearer.
Still, the darkness blanketed him, and still he ran.
Thorns clawed at his hair and face; he pushed them aside without slowing. How long he could last before the thing caught up with him again, he had no clue. But he ran on, on and on.
Until finally he breached light. Finally, he could see again.
The forest gave up its appearance, deep emerald leaves and ruby-brown earth, just in time for more darkness to creep into the edges of his vision, half shadow, half creature.
He only turned halfway before it pounced, knocking him breathless to the ground.
Only, it wasn’t the creature that had jumped down, and it wasn’t on him.
Something had leapt onto the Shadow Beast and was wrangling it into the ground, a writhing mess of wild red hair and a white cape that floated behind them as they wrestled the creature into submission.
Milo could only watch from the ground as the newcomer dominated the beast.
When it had been effectively driven into the ground, the victor tossed back their cloak and unstrapped something from their belt before crouching down to dip it into the pool of blackish blood that made up the creature’s corpse. Then, as if they had done nothing at all, they straightened, turned, and strode over to Milo.
“You’re bleeding.”
Milo blinked. That was hardly the first thing he’d expected his saviour to say. “Am I?”
The man pressed a fingertip to Milo’s temple. It came away slick with blood. “How long were you in there with that thing?”
Milo shook his head. “I don’t know. I think…” he trailed off, trying to reassemble his memory of the forest into some semblance of a timeline. But it proved impossible. He could have been in there for minutes, or hours, or days. Or years, for all he knew. Faerie was known to stretch time like thickened honey.
“You won’t last long with this much pouring out of you,” he said, then looked up at something behind Milo. “Actagawa, get over ‘ere!”
Something rumbled up behind them, but Milo could barely summon the energy to keep his eyes open and staring at his red-headed rescuer. The man swept Milo up into his arms, and the last coherent thought Milo could summon up was that these particular arms were the most perfectly muscle-cushioned he had ever seen.
***
The ground shook in a steady rhythm as Milo came slowly to, as if a hundred horses were pulling the world along in perfect unison.
He cracked open one eye and spotted the man who’d saved him sat holding a pair of reins, face tense as he steered them along.
Milo sat up a little more and winced; his brain rolled like a ship in a storm inside his brain. He truly must have lost more blood than he’d realised. Once his mind settled again, he inspected their steed, then suddenly wished he hadn’t.
From atop it, it was almost impossible to tell what it was – the two of them were sat on an enormous saddle that sat across the front ridge of what otherwise looked like a tiny red island. But that didn’t account for the set of huge claws at the front, or the carcinised face that glanced momentarily back at him before turning back to the way ahead of them.
“This is a crab?”
The other man grunted. “You need to sit back down. You’ll fall off at this rate, with your head bleedin’ like that.”
"But it's a crab! A giant crab!"
"Yes, and the giant crab has a name. Actagawa. Now sit down." He reached over with one arm and forced Milo back down into the seat.
"And do you have a name?" Milo asked.
He grunted again, then grumbled, "It's Bisco."
"And I'm Doctor Milo Nekoyanagi."
"You're doing pretty shit for yourself, if you're a doctor."
"Well, I didn't exactly have time to treat my wounds with that thing coming after me."
"Why'd you even go in there in the first place? That's the most obviously deadly place in Faerie, an' you humans always end up stuck in there. Usually dead, too."
"You say that like you're not human yourself," Milo said. Perhaps Bisco had lived here long enough that the humans that ventured into Faerie seemed like complete idiots to him.
Bisco cackled, loud and unbridled. "You think I'm human?" He grinned right at Milo, revealing a set of shining white, and sharply pointed teeth.
Once it was revealed, it was obvious. The teeth weren't the only thing either - the pointed ears, and strength to simply obliterate that creature earlier without a trace of hesitation should have made it far more obvious than it was.
Milo leaned in, his studious mind taking the lead as he examined the teeth - sharp enough to rend flesh without even having to bite down, yet Bisco's speech remained unimpeded.
"Hey! What'cha doin' there?"
"Oh! Uh, sorry." A guilty warmth crept up Milo's neck. "You weren't hurt fighting that thing were you?"
Bisco shook his head, eyes still on the road ahead. "As long as you don't hang around in the dark it can't hurt you. Likes to prey on people when they're fully blind. Shoulda stuck to the parts where you can actually see what's ahead o' you."
"I'll remember that next time," Milo said, wiping at his face. His hand came away bloody again. "How much blood even is there? I should have stopped bleeding by now, right?"
Bisco shrugged. "Dunno. Probably had something in it to get you bleeding longer. Make you weaker when it finally eats you. But looks like you've stopped now. It's just your eyes that are all red now."
They continued in a more relaxed quiet as Milo mopped up the rest of the now mostly dried up blood from his face, begrudging the stains on his already well-worn faded old cloak. The thing barely kept a light shower out now, but it was the only one he could have taken with him without arousing Pawoo's suspicions too early to get away.
If she had figured it out before he'd gone, no way would he have even made it as far as the Edge. No, if she had known, she likely would have killed him herself and chucked his body off for the River of Blood to carry him all the way to the Afterlife.
"What’re you even doin' down here, anyway?" Bisco asked eventually.
"How about we start with where we're going. I've let you take me this far; you might as well tell me where we're headed now. It's not like I can stop your crab-"
"Actagawa."
"-Actagawa, from taking me there," Milo finished.
"If you ain't gonna stop us, then I don't need to tell you, do I? You'll find out anyway." Bisco grinned. "So let it be a surprise."
Milo hmphed. "Then let my reason for coming to Faerie be a surprise, too."
Bisco's smile twisted just a little at the edge. "You've come here for somethin' important. If you want any help with it, you're going to have to tell me some time."
"Earn my trust first, then."
"Saving your stupid life didn't do that?" Bisco said, incredulous.
"For all I know, you're taking me to your lair to eat me yourself. Looked like you enjoyed taking that creature's blood earlier. Maybe humans taste nice, too."
"I wasn't taking the blood to drink. It's for protection."
"From what? You killed it easily enough."
"That was not the worst thing you'll find in Faerie, Milo."
Milo swallowed his doubts; how much worse could you get than a creature that hid in pitch black to lure its victims to their deaths after toying with them until it got bored of seeing them run round blindly? But of course Faerie had worse. He had no intention of seeking out any examples of it, though.
Eventually, Actagawa changed pace. It was undetectable at first - the change so small that Milo only noticed that the landscape around them was shifting just a touch slower than before, and that Bisco's hold of the reins was a little looser than it had been. The path inclined ever so slightly, and they ascended.
The landscape had been mostly bare for so long. The red ribbon of river wound its way far off to the right of them, an artery thrumming its death-life through the earth. But the rest of the land was almost completely devoid of life - dead, burnt-out grass clung in yellowed remains to hardened soil, and occasionally a hollow yellow tree would drift by at a distance.
The only truly notable thing about it was Bisco's reaction. Or, more precisely, lack of. His face remained carefully neutral, and his head stayed, except when tilted to one side to mock Milo, perfectly ahead of him. The same couldn't be said of his eyes: his emerald irises flashed as he glanced frequently to either side, their colour so stark against the dust-coloured world around them that it was almost impossible not to notice each tiny alteration in his line of focus.
Milo could only hope that his own observations were more than a little less conspicuous.
They reached the summit of the hill, and the world transformed.
The far side of the hill could have been a whole different universe to the land they had just been travelling through. In place of barren wasteland, vibrant rolling hills sported all kinds of life, in colours that Milo was sure didn't exist on the Island.
Trees sprouted here, too, though far more varied and less threatening than the dense mass of woods Milo had blundered into before. Great mushrooms broke through treetops in a giant ring through a wide valley, demarking a large circle about a mile in diameter. The River of Blood didn't even snake along the horizon here, yet life thrived so brightly. There was even, nestled in the shadow of a blue mountain, the twinkling cluster of a town.
Something glinted in the edge of Milo's vision; he turned, finding Bisco looking at him with an unreadable smile written across his face.
"Is that where you're taking me?" Milo asked, gesturing towards the distant buildings.
"Nope." He straightened and tugged on Actagawa's reins.
The crab shot off from the hillside, leaping from the peak of it into the air and gliding for a few moments in the sky before their combined weight sent them rocketing down the slope into the valley.
A wide rut had been carved through the woods - the trees stood well apart, as if knowing the dangers of being trampled by a particular giant crab. Actagawa hurtled through it, sending Bisco's flaming hair streaming behind him, wild and unkempt, despite the strip of leather tied round his head in some sort of attempt at taming it.
Milo held on for dear life, praying the saddle wouldn't fall off and send both of them flying. The wind caught at his hair and cloak, forcing it to billow out like a parachute.
They kept barrelling right on until they reached the ring of house-sized mushrooms, barging through a gap between two of them before Actagawa abruptly stopped.
Before he could do a thing, Milo was flung from his seat. He half-flew through the air before Bisco grabbed him by the collar and reeled him back in, and they both collapsed onto the saddle.
Milo peeled himself tentatively off, still weary from the blood loss.
With much less apprehension, Bisco sat up and leapt from the seat, sliding easily down to the ground. "You need help getting down, doctor?"
Grabbing his satchel, Milo rolled his eyes and shuffled to the edge of the seat. Though Actagawa had shifted to tilt the front of his shell downwards, it was still a long way to jump. And with his head still so dizzy, it was just a little too far. "Fine."
Bisco grinned and waited from Milo to slowly, carefully, tip himself off the edge before catching him neatly and depositing him on the ground. "If you're still feelin' dizzy, I oughta be able to find you somethin’ for your head.”
He stomped off across the mushroom ring, heading right for the largest fungus that sprouted three times the height of all the trees around. Milo could do nothing but follow, craning his head back to take in the cap far above.
Each of the mushrooms varied in size and approximate shape, but all of them were the same bloody red as Bisco’s hair, as if he, too, were of the same species. They stood like guardians around that mile-wide patch of land, watching over the space in silence.
Bisco disappeared round the side of the mushroom, then reappeared with the bow that had been strapped across his back in his hands. He shot something up towards the underside of the mushroom’s cap, a length of rope streaming behind it.
A resounding thunk echoed down.
“You feelin’ up for a climb, or will I have to pull you up like a princess?”
Milo peered up the stem. Then tested the rope. It was a long way, but if he was going to survive in this place, he’d have to start pulling his own weight soon enough, head injury or no. Before he could let Bisco scoff at him anymore, he grabbed the cord and hoisted himself up, glad of the knots tied at regular intervals along its length.
By the time he reached the open trap door at the top, he wished he’d swallowed his pride and let Bisco carry him. The number of times he had almost slipped and seen his life flashing before his eyes was higher than he cared to admit, but he had finally made it up.
He looked back down at the ground. It was a long way, but still not far enough that Bisco’s shit-eating smile wasn’t blatantly visible on his face.
The second Milo detached himself from the rope and wriggled inside the mushroom, Bisco grabbed the rope and started climbing. Arm over arm, he pulled himself up, muscles flexing and eyes blazing emerald.
In less than a minute, he’d got all the way to the top, and reeled the dangling rope in with the same ferocious ease. He grabbed the end of the weighted arrow and hung it on a hook on the wall, alongside his bow, before depositing his bag on the floor and kicking the trapdoor shut.
“Not too bad, for a first climb. You still want something for your head?”
Milo tentatively touched his temple. His face was finally free of blood, and after that climb, he could barely feel whether his head was still reeling from the blood loss or the height that he’d been at holding that rope. Eventually, he shook his head. “I’ll be fine.”
“Then I’d best show you ‘round the place then.”
Milo followed Bisco into the depths of the house. The mushroom had seemed huge from the outside, but its interior somehow managed the feat of seeming close and homely. For all the trinkets and decorations that had been crowded in to fill up the unfinished walls, it felt almost like home on the Island. An unwelcome pang of homesickness passed through Milo, but he shoved it away as Bisco led him into the kitchen space.
The fire itself was a modest thing – with a stove setup so that food could easily be cooked over it, and a large pot that seemed as if it had survived more than a few burnt disaster meals, but the pantry that accompanied it was what caught Milo’s attention.
Row upon row of bottles and vials and dried herbs stood all crammed in together, a rainbow of powders and elixirs and thick opaque potions shining in the light of the window carved out of the meat of the mushroom. Some of them, yet only a discontenting few, Milo recognised.
“You have all this medicine?” He restrained himself from running right to the cabinet; for all he knew, there were a hundred volatile concoctions in there that would explode with the faintest tremors.
“Just a few bits gathered here and there. It’s more Jabi’s thing than mine, though.”
“Jabi?” Milo asked.
“Oh. I haven’t mentioned him yet, have I? He’s the old man that raised me. You’ll meet him soon, probably.”
“Probably?”
“Old fuck likes to go off on his mysterious adventures all the time. Used to say it’d build strength leavin’ me alone for a few days. But he left a while ago now. Should be back soon.”
“So you don’t know what any of this does?”
“Why’d you wanna know?”
“I’m a doctor.”
Bisco frowned right through the partial truth. “Were you looking for somethin’ specific?”
Milo swallowed. Maybe he should have paid a little more attention when Pawoo said he was a shit liar.
“If you’re gonna be hanging around Faerie for a while, you’re gonna need to have someone you can trust. And there’s definitely a lot worse people out there than me an’ old Jabi. Besides, you’ve already come into our house. If I wanted to somethin’ to you, I could’ve done it already.”
He very well could have. But he could also have done it at any point when they’d been riding back here. Or virtually any time at all since Milo had met him. And though Milo wasn’t quite sure when exactly he’d decided he could trust Bisco, at least this far, he found that the idea of trusting him just a little bit more didn’t sound as bad as it might have done a few hours ago.
“Fine, then. Have you heard of Rusting?”
When Milo saw the shift in Bisco’s expression, the sudden falling away of his cocky exterior to something vulnerable, doubtful, and more than a little self-hateful, his gut twisted. He knew he had come to the right place, but whether it would be enough to solve anything, he did not know.