Chapter Text
The beast had purposely pried the Recluse’s staff from the iron grip of his hands so as to blind him from their current venture. By clawed fingers and through hazy vision he was being led through the weaving layers and hallways of the spire; albeit, for what the beast had deemed to him a ‘small gift’.
This is how their relationship often felt to the Recluse; a labyrinth of indistinctness caused by purposeful misguidance.
The Truthless Recluse had lost his recollection of the last time he guided his own path, the last time he had chosen something that wasn’t first suggested or coerced by touchy fingers or bundles of giggles at a makeshift teatime.
Much like how this gift had first been suggested. He had been remorseful, of course. It didn’t do much anymore.
Originally, he had been dragged along by his palm like a used, ragged doll made of soft fabric and flour.
The force of the beast’s relentless pull had began to cause his feet to trip every now and again as he caught on the edges of his robes.
But now, as they seemed to be ascending a winding staircase, Shadow Milk has some common decency to guide him with genuine by taking both his hands as they reached their destination.
The Recluse believes himself to be thankful, somewhat.
It’s better than him gliding his forgotten hand against the curving cobblestone walls to try and gain balance, anyway. Feeling and tracking his gloved finger tips into the grooves of cemented stone, gliding along fast enough to generate tingles of heat against the cold spire.
You can’t give a dog a bone however, the Recluse knew; the beast would expect the whole carcass.
He could see delicately as a smile began to raise on the beasts face as they stop in their travels; his cheeks somewhat rosy and coloured sclera glowing like burning wicks in excitement, or maybe fluster.
“I’d say close your eyes but, you can’t see anyway!”
He lets out a chortle at his own joke as he removes one hand to gently push against what must be a door - it’s creaking signifying some kind of old age but, to the Recluse, who knows anymore.
White light bleeds into the scene as the it opens.
“Come…follow.”
Shadow Milk whispers, voice soft as velvet. The way his voice was able to fluctuate so easily always made the Recluse’s ears wince.
Whatever they enter suddenly causes a burst of bright light against his retina, so much so he has to squint to observe, and gaze upwards at its looming dome ceiling that’s allowing the warmth of the sun to blaze through.
The Recluse’s cheek twitches as he remembers how it had once felt to bathe in such a glow.
It appears to be a circular room, with its flooring layered as it builds up to different heights; the Recluse and beast seemingly stood in the lowest, but still most grounded area of the space.
“What..what is..”
Is all the Recluse can muster under his breath as he stands in the centre, spinning around as a ballerina in a music box would to better view his surroundings.
Shadow Milk disconnects from him.
There’s multiple structures of fuzz and haze built into the various areas around him; a notably large thing adjacent to the door they entered from being the most prominent formation. Its structure bright and reflective, almost monumental. Something pulls at his heart.
As he breathes, he can intake and smell a floral and fresh aroma filtering all around him.
It was definitely not an old area then, unlike the stairwell; it was clean, and new, and most certainly held foliages of some kind.
The Recluse had a hard time believing such a thing could live in the spire. He had a hard time believing any of this.
He turned towards the beast to his left; a whimsical tune of a snicker under the devils breath.
His cloak swings with him dramatically as he turns, heart pounding.
“You probably want this nifty thing back..don’t you?”
Shadow Milk holds the long vine of his staff in his spindly hands, appearing out of nowhere.
Held out on display with his palms like an offering, another gift he shouldn’t take for granted.
There’s a beat of silence in their stand-off.
The metal of the staff rings gently against the beast’s nails.
“Take it.”
The Recluse doesn’t wait. He swiftly moves to claim back his staff, and the static of his retina clears into a golden light of clean vision.
The first thing he sees, of course, is the devil himself; his slit pupils dangerously close and dilated, blue lips curled and long eyelashes batting softly.
The jester hat he wore over unruly hair framing his face in a sort of tiara, expanding his silhouette and making him seem all the more menacing, yet rather confusing to the Recluse. Another thing to add to the list.
Bells on the end of said hat twinkling as his body seems to shake in giddy.
The Recluse’s upper lip twitches in annoyance at Shadow Milk’s demeanour, all the most common state to find him in around the Recluse for reasons he’d rather not come to terms with; all smiling and observant, eyes wide and dark, full of insatiability.
It was a growing catalyst; one of violent infatuation.
When he’d first emerged and declared himself after his fall from the spire, and into the river of rebirth, the beast’s attitude had seemed to immediately blossom into something all the more demanding, and relative.
The Recluse had begun to feel like a hamster running aimlessly in a purposely placed wheel, whilst the devil watched all too close with claws waving celery.
Every movement and expression he made was carefully watched and calculated by Shadow Milk, who would find imperfect or perfect pieces of his clay that needed to be fixed, or contrastingly polished and praised for nurturing.
Everything was a game. A misguided labyrinth. A test for a false reward.
Even now, he knew - he is being tested somehow, someway. But in contrast at least, this was not a solidified game; they had not moved any pawns just yet.
“Getting a bit of…say, deja vu, are we there?” The devil finally says, breaking the quiet between them.
The Recluse doesn’t respond. Instead, he gives one last gaze into Shadow Milk’s eyes before turning his back, and viewing the room in a new, brighter light.
It’s a greenhouse.
A strangled noise escapes his throat, face contorting into horror.
It’s not any greenhouse.
His gloved hand flies from his open sleeve to cover his mouth.
It’s his greenhouse.
A copy of the one housed in his kingdom - a sanctum miles away, both in body and memory.
Everything is exactly as it was - is, a small, fragile voice reminds him to say.
All down to the various stations of growths of different and unique flowers and foliages he had once so enjoyed nurturing.
He realises that his minuscule garden is what structure he had previously noticed hails opposite the door, with its small pond and stream. His eye twitches from the flurry of buried memories. They call to him, almost.
Everything is as it was.
Except..
“What-…” The Recluse’s voice cracks in his shock, “have you done..?”
The white lily’s that grew in flocks surrounding his garden, were instead mass swarms of milkcrown’s.
Growing, curling, in shades of milky greys and whites. Slivers of whispers exuding in their nectars. No soft lullabies of lily dreams.
A wave of grief washes over the Recluse in an instant, body shuddering in a sudden cold.
“Hah! Ta-Da! Whatdoyouthink?”
The beast declares, his boots clicking against glass floor as he strides towards the Recluse’s shaking form, falsely oblivious to his visage.
He swings his arms out dramatically to further expand his grandeur. He looks as if he’s a sight to behold, an actor accepting a standing ovation.
The Recluse’s eyes grow dark as he meets the devil’s, hand curling down from his mouth to grip at his high collar.
“Why..have you done this?”
“Oh, you insult me so! Do you not think of me as a most generous man?”
“Greatest from the sort.” The Recluse snides.
Shadow Milk seems pleased at his anguish; he always has done. He smiles a sweet smile as he moves a few steps closer.
“I’ve concluded that if I’m to invite you into my spire, I probably should invite apart of you into my spire too.
And what better way than to also encourage this little ole’ hobby of yours? I enjoy the odd floral too, y’know.”
The beast taps the pointer and index finger of his hand rhythmically against his lips, creating a light strumming sound. White pointed teeth peak through his opening mouth.
“I’m particularly fond of…milkcrown’s.”
The Recluse clasps his hand tightly around his staff as the realisation of his foolishness overwhelms him.
He was naive to think that this would be a fair game, that the beast would give him a chance to play his own moves and not immediately pry into his weaknesses.
But rather, the game had already been played and won; the greenhouse was the beast’s queen, and the Recluse even following Shadow Milk in the first place was an awaiting checkmate.
The Recluse had lost, and this greenhouse was both his punishment and Shadow Milk’s killing finale move to his mentality.
He sighs knowingly, but nonetheless doesn’t square down against the devil.
“And what? Do you expect me to be happy with this?..nurturing a place I do not have any care for will not bring anything good.” He spits out, with a bitterness he wouldn’t have dared to draw in a previous life.
The air shifts, maybe literally.
The beast twitches at the Recluse’s outright rejection. In his cheek, in his face, in his body - something darkens.
“Oh, well..”
He begins low, leaning in further.
The Recluse has to bury his face into his collar so as to maintain some distance between them.
“We both know that’s not quite true, don’t we?”
He tilts his head one way dramatically, hat and hair swinging in bouncing waves like a puppet in a jack-in-the-box. His eyes are bright and wide, slitting pupils sharp enough to cut. Pale face expressionless.
The Recluse feels them slice into him.
“Don’t we?”
“Yes.”
He mentally heaves at his pathetic cowering; just another toll for the beast to add to his winning streak.
Shadow Milk swings his head in the other direction at the Recluse’s response, fingers still drumming against his lips albeit more erratically than before; the Recluse notices, and fixates.
He hated this aspect of how the beast treated him; he hated it all.
Ridding him of all emotion and plaguing him in his own despair, whilst still managing to weaken him and his sharpened tongue with intimidation and silent threats.
All for what?
He could feel himself shrinking more and more under the pressure, ready to crack like porcelain.
The Recluse could try to convince himself that there was no diamond under the ruff, no ultimate goal that the devil was trying to find within him, only torment to whittle him down; only, of course, there was.
Still flickering faintly, a bruise that runs deep, like roots waiting to blossom anew. Hidden under his shoulder cape, lying in wait.
He feels his hand move down to his chest at the thought as the beast falls away from him, finally.
“Exactly.” Shadow Milk sighs, yet with a charming smile as if he is a pleased teacher rewarding an answer. His previous eldritch demeanour forgotten in seconds.
He swaggers away with long steps, high heels adding to his dramatic sway as if intensely pleased, yet nonchalant.
The Recluse still gazes in horror, hand over his heart and chin buried in his collar.
The devil turns around at the last moment as he reaches the door, eyes shooting to lock with the Recluse’s as if they had a magnetic connection.
Curling lashes batted out to his cheeks, almost titillatingly.
“You know where to find me, my recluse. Or,..” Shadow Milk says, giggling softly. “I’ll just find you! ..Ciao!”
The Recluse remains stood in the centre of the greenhouse as the door slides shut behind the beast in an agonising creak.
The echoing silence solidifying the scene of his surroundings.
Even if he had physically left, the Recluse could never rule out if he was still there with him, hiding and watching from creeping shadows and corners.
The sun glazes through at the peak of the greenhouse, illuminating the greens and florals in twinkling soft colours, much unlike the colour palette of the rest of the dark spire.
The Recluse lets his head rise up towards the greenhouses peak; head tilted back, with his face finally basking into warm light.
He let out a sigh as he felt it soften against his cheeks, and grace his closing eye-lids.
A pleasure, he’ll admit, in this inconceivable dream.
Yet another bone he would not be offering Shadow Milk on a silver platter.
The milk crowns that surrounded the replica whisper to him in a language he’s only beginning to understand. Their silver blossoms spewing a false cold.
The haunting silhouettes of the white Lily’s still buried in his sub-conscious.
The Recluse’s brow furrows.
He groans, knowingly at the responsive milkcrown’s.
Shadow Milk had an unnatural way of getting under his skin, and infiltrating his mind.
Every minuscule thing he did created a poisonous root inside of the Recluse, slowly blossoming into flowers of deceit and despair.
The devil would eat the petals if he could, or maybe crush them and make the Recluse swallow.
The cycle of his anxiety and fall into duplicity churning again and again within him; the beast watching, flushed in enjoyment.
Or rather, perhaps Shadow Milk was simply the needle to this drug of misery; the unearthed memory of his greenhouse being the true drug now shooting through his veins, already hazing his mind with nauseous deja vu.
His eyes finally open. The damaged retina of his eyes blurring against the bright white sun.
A fake, the Recluse knew. It didn’t make the warmth any less real.