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Chase and Deacon follow the procession of characters through a forest to some old ruins. Some test for the heroine to claim her full magical power. Deacon says it's an old temple, where the last part of the story happens. Chase looks at the moss covered rocks buried on either side of them. "Yeah, I see the old but not the temple," Chase says, kicking a few loose pebbles along the ancient path.
"It's up ahead I think. We're just supposed to keep walking and then we get separated." Deacon says the notes he prepared should be enough to get Chase through to the end of the story, then specifies something about having to be right. Or true. Something like that. If it's in the notes, he'll figure it out.
They walk through pairs of collapsed pillars that are overgrown with vegetation. The leaves and flowers weave between the fallen pieces of stone, connecting them. As they walk deeper, it's as if the vines themselves are knitting the temple back together. Like they are walking into a time when it was still clean and polished; taken care of. Chase continues down the stone hall, which begins to glow with candlelight from around the corner. There is a ceiling now, which occasionally drops speckles of dust. "Woah! Deacon it's like we went back in time!"
Chase turns his head to look for him but he is gone.
"Okay, not creepy at all," he says. No mystery how they get separated now. He looks for the note from Deacon. Did Silver even give him pockets? He brings a hand to slap himself in the face. It doesn't matter if he has pockets because the note is still on his nightstand. In the farmhouse. Awesome. What did Deacon say? Be honest and true? Easy! He stops in front of a hallway mirror. "This boyband prodigy is an open book!" He winks and flashes finger guns at himself.
"Is the title of that book 'How to Be an Idiot'?"
Chase growls. "What are you doing here?"
Buddy doesn't move from his spot against the wall. "This is literally the only place I get to be in this terrible book. I've been waiting this whole time."
Chase rolls his eyes at him. "Well you're always asking me to shut up so I bet you had a great time down here!"
Buddy swirls a ball of fire between his hands, and Chase's eyes go wide. "What are you even afraid of?" he asks, perhaps enjoying the power of the magic a touch too much. Upon release of it though, his face tightens like he's bracing for something unpleasant. The spell backfires, and melts his right hand and forearm.
"Buddy what the heck! Did you know that would happen?"
"Yes, it's part of the book," he says.
Chase runs up to inspect the arm. "Buddy your whole arm is missing."
"Not the entire arm," he corrects. "And the good thing about fire magic is the wound is already cauterized."
"I don't even know what that means." He holds the injured arm in his hands, and looks up at Buddy desperately. "Can we get it back? Will it stay like this?"
"No, you idiot, it's part of the book. My real arm is fine."
Chase's fingers itch with a new magic. "My character has like healing, right? Can I bring it back?"
"... Chase that's-"
"Nope! I don't want to hear it, Buddy. I don't care if you're supposed to lose this arm or whatever. I'm fixing it because that's stupid."
Buddy decides it isn't worth arguing over this. If Chase doesn't know he's already supposed to fix the arm because he doesn't read, that's on him. You are defying nothing you stupid little idiot. But the sentiment is endearing, and Buddy smiles.
Chase holds a hand to his chin. "Okay, I remember Deacon said my magic is strong in like a specific room, right?"
"That is correct."
"Do you ... know which room that is?"
"Obviously." When he says nothing else, Chase looks at him expectantly. "Fine, I'll lead the way."
They quickly reach a chamber with plants growing out of the floors and walls. A real earthy place that makes Chase feel powerful and warm. A few candles are lit on each wall of the room. "Kinda a fire hazard, don't you think?" He says to Buddy. A fire mage who just blew his arm off.
Buddy is not amused. "Can you just start the spell please?"
They stand in the middle together, and Chase casts the recovery spell. Vines curl from the walls and the floor to wrap around Buddy's feet. They climb his body and begin to form and heal his arm. It is a slow process. They wait in the room together.
But why is Buddy just watching him? What's his deal, standing there with that look. His hair falling effortlessly across his eyes. That crystalline blue, flickering with the candle fires. And he isn't saying anything either. Doesn't look like it hurts. He looks calm and at peace, but why? In this weird place, without a hand? No snide remark? What is he thinking about? Standing there with the faintest smile curled at his lips. The corner of Buddy's eyes betray a smile too. Affection, or a trick of the light.
"Buddy can you maybe not stare at me." As if he isn't admiring Buddy's beauty at the same time.
Buddy blinks, but his expression is the same. "Where else am I going to look, at the walls?"
"Um. Yeah," Chase says, grasping desperately for reason to add. "Because you like brooding so much, you can stare at the wall. Or the candles, or something."
He can't be serious. As if the brooding isn't only entertaining because of his dynamic expressions and idiotic antics. His incessant complaints about stupid self-caused things like missing the bus. "Need I remind you that you chose this situation?"
Chase glares at him, but Buddy doesn't budge. It proves to be too much for Chase, and he averts his eyes, blushing indiscernibly in the glow of the room. "So um, what else is supposed to happen then?" He asks, idly touching his own arm where Buddy's was severed. "You just, stand there in the magic stuff until it's finished healing?"
"Yes."
He looks at Buddy again. "And I just..."
"Stand there and talk to me," Buddy finishes impatiently. "Yes."
"Right." I just stand here and talk to his mean, lonely, fierce, pretty, face. "Right, easy." He repeats under his breath, glancing away. "How long does it take?"
"Until the end of the book, more or less."
"And you have to stay in this room?"
"Yes, I cannot move my arm until it finishes."
Chase shifts weight between his feet nervously.
"What is wrong with you, brat?"
“Nothing!" He says, facing Buddy head on again. "Nothing at all is wrong.”
Buddy inches his head back when Chase leans forward. "Okay?" He says, arching an eyebrow at the blonde.
Chase holds the gaze for as long as he can. What are they even supposed to talk about when the light is like this and Buddy looks so, so. Ah! "I'm gonna be right back," he says quickly as he turns and walks out of the room.
"You can't even follow the book when it literally only requires you to stay in the room."
"Bye!!!" Chase calls from the hall.
Buddy lets out a sigh and looks to the wall. "Unbelievable."
--
Why is he looking at me like that today? Is it part of the story? Wants to talk like we're friends all of sudden which sure, yeah fine, I want that but it's weird when he's totally not like that at all before. I can't go back in there I don't care if that's where the story ends I'll figure it out. Nope. Not going back in there.
Chase continues to march through the temple, in what he'd hoped was one direction that would eventually lead him outside. After a few minutes, the hall looks too similar. A loop somehow. He turns around, and much like how he entered the temple, what was once behind him is something else entirely.
He stands now in the middle of a large room. At the far end is an enormous standing mirror, foggy like evening frost has set over the glass. Chase approaches it slowly, and shallow pools of water ripple away from his shoes as he steps before it and into frame.
A wave of the villainess's magic runs across the mirror, and the image of Chase is replaced with Buddy. He waves him away, but the mirror image is still. "Okay, Buddy, I get it, you have cool magic in this story and you want to show it off." It does not respond. Chase reaches to touch the mirror. It is cold. And like a sheet of ice begins to melt away from where his hand was. The empty frame opens to a new hallway. He looks around and behind it. It's not hollow, but actually an entirely new hallway within the mirror. There are no other doors out of the room anymore. Chase steps through the mirror frame.
Like before, he paces down the hall, and again finds himself in another large stone room with a mirror at the opposite end. He turns around and the hallway is gone. "Magic temple walls. Cool, cool, okay." He approaches this mirror and sees Buddy again. A question written in the frost this time that he has to squint to read.
Why save her?
"I'm not going to let him not have a hand, you stupid mirror. That isn't fair."
The glass melts away on its own, and he steps through again. Irritated, he storms through the next hallway but finds himself stuck in the loop once more. He walks to the reflection of Buddy, and the mirror writes something else.
After what she has done, her judgement was fair. Why help her?
This is so stupid. What does this mirror know anyway? Where did it even come from? Deacon never mentioned a mirror at all in his recap. Of course, for the story, there's not really anything else in this weird temple besides that room either. Maybe Chase got it stuck. But the stories always find a way to get around to what they need to do anyway.
So what is it even trying to do? Get him back to the room with Buddy. "Which I would love to do now, by the way!" He turns to shout at the mirror. "If you didn't keep closing doors behind me." It remains unresponsive. What did Deacon call this place? A temple of truth and red- no. Reconsideration? That doesn't sound right. And that also isn't helpful. Truth maybe is, but Chase didn't even lie. Buddy doesn't deserve to lose his arm! He reads the mirror again.
Chase had said it wasn't fair. He supposes that in the story, maybe the mirror thinks it was. Dumb mirror. "I don't care if you think that's fair because I don't. I don't want him to lose his arm, or anything else, okay? Is that what you want?" The glass does not melt away. He stares at the words in the mirror. Why help her? A chill runs through the room, like the draft from a window. He turns around, but the stone wall is still solid. He sighs heavily.
"Alright, fine you stupid mirror. I helped him because I just, I just want to!" He pivots on his heel to face the reflection again. "I like that he joins the stories and I want him to like them too. So I don't want him to just, lose an arm or whatever because that sucks." The glass ripples with magic like the first time, but Buddy is still there. "I really messed this up leaving that room, didn't I?" Chase looks down at his toes, an inch from the glass. "I want to help him because I like him. I mean I don't- well, I want to like him?" He hangs his head forward onto the mirror. "I'm talking to a mirror. Ugh. Buddy would know what to do. Would insult me what to do, and we could at least finish this story."
The mirror slowly fades away, but Chase's head falls into something else behind it. Some- one? He takes a step back, and raises his head to see Buddy standing on the other side of the opened mirror frame.
"You know," he says, smiling maliciously. "It was pretty awful to wait in that room alone. But witnessing all of that just made it worth it."
Chase's face burns with an indescribable fear. He can never enter a book again. He has to. His body tenses.
Buddy reaches a hand out to catch Chase's arm when he makes a run for it. Buddy is too slow. He whirls around to see Chase bolting down an endless hall. A confrontation should be just about the end of the story. "Little idiot," he smiles and runs after him anyway.