27 - Catch/Game

"Mom, why?"

"Well…"

Reclined in a pine wood chair —tasteful, although by no means luxurious—, a motherly woman held, in her pale hands, —like fields of snow, cut up by pale emerald serpents and glaucous vines—, a leatherbound book, marked in chapes of blackish, nondescript metal.

It was riveted, and reliefed in in flowery, frivolité, detailing. Faux-gold letters blazoned its title page: Loigier's Fairy Tales. A Collection.

"Just like small animals, fairies and elves, and pixies are skittish, and timid… They're afraid of people."

She answered back to a child, tucked in repose into a large bed, drowned in colored blankets in matte colors and a palish-blue quilt, adorned in rhombuses of varying tone, as a patchwork of spilt paints. 

Only his head and the tips of his fingers peeked out, over the edge of this deluge of warmth.

It was clear, the woman, his mother, read him a fairy tale, so as to coax him into sleep.

His bright, discerning eyes, however, spoke of the futility of such a task, as the strange, marvelous tale had all but roused him, flared up his attention. 

"I've told you before, Yve, all these… magical spirits and such, don't like showing themselves much." She smiled, as she poked his nose, flowering a pouting frown on the entombed youngster's brow.

"Why?"

"My, my… What would you do if you saw a little pixie, Yve?"

"Hum…" His eyes rose back as he thought, as if the roof held in it the answer he already knew by heart. "Catch it!" His unashamed smile, as he proclaimed his wish, a source of laughter for his mother.

"See? That's why they hide… Especially from curious boys like you." She closed the deep, maroon covers of the fairy book, to a pleasant thud. "Or maybe they go about where people are… but invisible, so they can prank us, for fun, without being seen…" The woman giggled.

Yve's eyes shone. "Really?"

"Maybe… you know they're little tricksters, like in the story, are they not?" She rose. An oil lamp snuffing out as she poised her hand on it.

A kiss goodnight, quick and placating, loving.

"Now, go to sleep. Maybe the elves will visit you in dreams. What if you make them wait by staying awake…?" She grinned. "You wake early tomorrow." The quilt and blankets adjusted by her movements. "G'night."

"Goodnight."

Even with a head full of fairies, young Yve soon drifted into dreaming sleep.

The night's hum a lullaby.

*

"Fuck!"

Something, soft, had caught his shin, staggering his leap and forcing him to the ground..

"C'me 'ere!" Brought to his knees, the officer stuck out his arms, like a pleading bum in need of alms, and curved back, pivoting, hoping to catch the invisible figure holding the file, attempting to run past his side.

His fingers grazed a soft fabric-like membrane, which he, decidedly and unthinking, grabbed ahold of.

Pulling, as a possessed oarsman, he felt the weight of the figure displace itself into the air, and back onto him, as it was yanked by his strength.

Soon, inexplicably, he felt the paneled-wood ground below evanesce, his hand rip away from the fabric. Like a giant taking him as a toy, by an immense hand, he was flung atop one of the mahogany desks. Dossiers and files, pages and trinkets, quills —an unknown glass implement, noted by the crashing sound of its bursting against the ground— fell about and around; the momentum of the throw curling his lower back and legs up, as the desk skidded against the creaking floor, hitting a bookshelf, causing its uncertain trembling, the tomes inside shivering like rattling teeth.

Immediately, his neck swung, as the floating black-cover dossier made its way, carried by the wind of magic, closer to the door, which, thank God, he had, surprising even his own consciousness in quickness, closed before the lunge.

As a rabid hound on ice, Mons-Vido adjusted himself on the desk, as he could —bringing down the remaining stationary… rattling the bookshelf with his shoulder blade's impact— and half-jumped, or more so slid, and tackled the figure, making contact with its transparent form.

The dossier jumped back, lunging from the apparition's hand and across the room, now under the far side window.

His skull shook as it hit the hard-panel wood floor, his elbows scraping, his arms tensing round the elve, as a man wrestling a lion.

He noticed its bony, light frame. He could not imagine how a creature this fragile —as he felt— could lunge him 'cross the room. 

"Ah! Gotcha'."

An invisible something-or-other crashed onto his air-wise side; like a feather covered baton of stone. It had probably cracked a rib or two.

"AH! S-Shit!"

His grip lightened from the pain, — the radiating sting like a shooting star, cutting up his nervous system as it passed by—, and the elve wormed his way out of his arms, surely going for the dossier.

The officer attempted to trip it with his outstretched leg.

Feeling something collide with the hook of his foot, he scrambled — as a four legged spider— , and threw himself over the empty space where he, assumed, the shrouded being had fallen flat.

"HAH!" There it was!

The elve was pinioned between his upper body and the wooded ground, what he assumed to be its feet kicking against his chest.

One of his arms coiled beneath, and held the apparition, in a lock, once again.

A strange thought crossed Mons-Vido's mind… Perhaps this —as he did now— was how, once, speckled across the steppe, men had tamed wild horses, made the beasts their own. Or maybe… he had heard one time that, in the loegrian colonies, some had for a custom the chasing-after of hogs, which they wrangled in muddy pens…

For a moment, scheming, he calculated the position of the coroner's office respective to his own… The fort's outline lay flat to his inner eye.

'Yes…' It would, perhaps, do.

Be it what it may… he used his free arm, as with the other he held the creature, to remove the leather shoe which held his left foot, and, blindingly fast, without a look at that, threw it across the study, hoping it would fly unimpeded and crack, into pieces, the far-side window-glass.

A loud crash, like a million wind-chimes being crushed apart by world-ending winds. 

Mons-Vido's lips split, slightly, only to then…

"DÚRKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIND!!!"

It had all been but a moment. And, now, he held the elve with even greater force.

"GENDARMEEEEEEEEEEEEES!!!"

Like the vengeful shouts of a specter revenant, cursing the names, in wretched, baneful wailing, of those who had claimed his life. 

"A-Aah! Fu-"

Something, like the oppressive body of an immense jungle snake, attempted to wrench him free of the elve.

A heavy breath, as if it were his last… he pulled in enough air to cloud his head and make of him a dizzy mess.

"DÚRKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIND!!! THROUGH THE WINDOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!!!"

'Like a fucking hog… hehe…'

He was going to corral this fairy-tale creature.

Praying his partner had heard him, he awaited, as whatever snake-ish form wished him pulled off made steady progress, tugging at him… somehow, even if touched only by an invisible appendage, he felt this feathered, articulated, limb of stone… did not care…? It was trying to be… gentle…?

"Wha-"

As if what had shattered were the thoughts his own, another crash alerted him, sobering his mind. The accompanying scream alighting a smug, labored grin on his lips.

"YVE!!!" The voice traveled a distance unclear.

It was Dúrkind, crossing the meadow-garden that adorned the inner parts of both fort wings, like a courtyard.

Now, as well, boots shuffling, marched —in pleasant cacophony to the inspector's ears— nearer and neared to the office door.

"H-he-hehe… you're trapped!" Mons-Vido's haughty airs were kicked —more allegorically than anything else— out of his chest, as a force of impact hit the rightmost side of his back. The emptying of his lungs and chest drained his arms of force, forcing them open, like the tired jaws of a recoiling animal. Gliding, his body slid over the wooden floor and, with force, onto a bookshelf's base.

As a rain, the tomes within it pitter-pattered onto his slumped form, until the large, almost empty, case —very much similar to his own voided ribcage— fell onto him; like a gravestone, set.

"Aa-argh!" Barely expelling the heaves. "Ah… a-aha… a…"

Mons-Vido saw, through his flickering eyelids, as the dossier was lifted into empty air, and levitated, with steady rhythm, toward the door, as if pulled by the wind itself. An unstoppable march.

Another dizzying breath. His chest filling with strength, chafing painfully against the broken ribs, like crushing needles of glass with its inhale.

His knees bent, his hands pushed against the earth, wishing, with their creaking strength, to leave the weighing sphere of the world's pull.

The strain on his bruised back… In time it would be as a puddle of purpure, a field of blooming violets, compacted and spread across the upper wings of his body's mass.

Paring pain… as if his skin were peeling against the bookshelf's pressing outline.

He looked an insect, painfully emerging from his cocoon, a crustacean of some kind, encumbered by an immense shell, as his ailing, soft body pulled apart at the impulse of leaving its crust behind.

It was all too funny… a thing like this bookshelf, crushing him under… the pain, the trembling breaths of his diaphragm still recoiling at having been wringed clean of air.

It fell by his side, as he was finally freed. The dossier had not yet arrived at the door, it had not been opened yet… the gendarmes approached, as did Dúrkind.

The apparition's fate was sealed, he believed… no, the other window… if they did not arrive!

One more second. It needed to be utterly surrounded.

'Hehe… look at me, catching a fai- no, an elve… hehehe.' An imbecile's grin, as he jumped, slid, more like, and blocked the door with his body half-stood, half-crouched.

He could not see the creature's eyes… yet, he was sure, it must have been panicking right about…

"Huh?"

*

Vasse trotted toward the screams. It was the officer's voice he had heard; and had not been the only one, as a number of gendarmes approached the office, some startled, others profoundly confused… it was as if growing near to hallowed ground, or an inauspicious earth, with heavy, dense airs of premonition… much unusual was this feeling. Even in the Rue des Larmes, ancient and foreboding, haunted, as some said, this strange sizzling static was not present… perhaps if in the dead of night, or if washed in absolute, by the bloodied rays of a vespertine sun…

Screams as these, in a fort of the gendarmerie… most out of place.

The wooden panels creaked under foot, the office was there, close to the middle point of his sight, between his own body and the vanishing horizon…

He was only a door down when…

"WHAT!"

He had not the time, even, to curse, as the office door was blasted off its hinges… a fragmenting grapeshot of splinters, slats, bursting up as if trounced by the violence of antiquated siege machinery. 

It was, of course, not the most astounding object shot through the now empty ingress.

The inspector's body, glued by motion onto the main board of the jagged, cracked door —what was left of its form— shot along, and accompanied the piece of crackling wood as it blasted the opposing window into pieces, caught under the lower wall, unable to shoot through and out.

Mons-Vido was barely able to cover, with flopping forearms, his features.

Vasse noticed, somehow, amidst the cloudburst of sharpened dust, how the inspector was missing his left shoe…

A few gendarmes fell on their behinds, startled into a fall, hearts unnerved by climbing rhythm… others, stupefied, froze, as prey caught in sight of an opening maw.

It was Vasse who, after a second-long stutter, ran up to the downed Mons-Vido.

Like the spasms of a recently departed soul, the inspector's arm rose, to point, shakily, at the office, from where he had, little more than counted moments ago, been ejected.

He gurgled, although understandably, attempting to rise all the while, ignoring his evidently pained and battered body.

"E-elve!" Then, with more strength, the pushing vibration of bubbling sound launched through his pained trachea. "ELVE!" 

"Elve…?" Was the last word gendarme Vasse expected to dribble out of the inspector's lips… really, he did not know how to act, even, in presence of whatever…

What had even happened?

His confusion was swirled into near catatonic reprehension when, as if in a play… yes, a play, that must be it —a black-cover file floated out of the ruined threshold, and toward the downed inspector.

Something, like the indent of little steps… as the paws of a bunny, climbed up the body of Mons-Vido, hopping, leaving small indents in his mangled overcoat, undercoat, and , finally, on his hairs —under wherever the file floated—, as the sparse glass left on the window was rustled, and fell — bits here and there, like thawing icicles ruined by the coming spring… 

Even as the inspector had raised his arms —or attempted to— to catch, to the eyes of all gendarmes, little more than empty air, the dossier had marched on, undeterred.

Whatever that was, had left through the broken crystal…

Vasse was made a statue.

"W-wha… wa-"

A flash of gold.

Dúrkind flew past, running, in a most efficient form, arms raised and palms flat like knives.

He jumped —avoiding, magisterially, the downed inspector—, balancing for a moment on the glass-adorned ledge of the previously intact window, to then continue, behind the dossier, as a bullet-like, tawny feathered bird, organic, diving artillery, to catch its prey.

Mons-Vido, yet, and unsuccessfully, attempted to rise, like a drunk, splattered out against the curve, and drooling still the spirits of a previous night. The sharded glass dug into his palms… a middling pain, in comparison to being launched as a trebuchet's ammunition.

Vasse stood… yes, he stood. Was he dreaming…?

*

The officer would catch him… What could he do? Even with magic his legs were too short, his body too meek to outrun an adult. He cradled the dossier, like a mother her newborn…

Fun…

"HA! Hahahahah! Heheheheh…" So beautiful a tone of voice, as always, singing, the spectral singing of a mute swan near death…

This day had been of a terrible fun… laughter streaming like tears down his cheeks, like the dew of gold that sages live off of, instead of drinking, or eating anything at all…

His feet dug into the drizzled grass, tickling him as he ran…

What to do, what to do…?

All thoughts went by as birthing and dying stars to the eyes of God, that is, as the flickering light of a millisecond long burn.

He heard the marching steps of the officer… it sounded like war, yes, like war… He knew now what war was, what it smelt like, what sound chapped its surface, emitted from the clashing of bodies against the world. 

Dazzling… the sunlight inflamed and pouring as spraying blood, refracted in the myriad mirrors of a spring shower. 

It was a game, a game of enervating stakes, where once it asked only surrender and laughter, it now asked for his life…

Or maybe… Be he caught… What would happen? It was too strange to think… he knew not enough of the world to surmise what trembling future his failure would abandon him in…

And that abyss, the danger of a lustrous abyss, opening, dancing, threatening to sink his very being in the unknown waters of a near-nothingness: the unknown…

Was it not similar enough to death?

That is why, flushed, pearled by sweat, panting… he laughed, running, blistering the nascent muscles of his childish legs… like the stumps of a caterpillar scuttling, about to be…

"HAHA! HAHA! Hehehehe…!" Fun!

A sudden idea, as a sucker punch birthing a thousand lights into his skull, sprawled by pain, like marbles, like the dice and pieces of a street-side gambling game, toward the cavity of his eyelids.

A world of light… yes…

Still invisible, he grabbed the air, a curtain ahead, steps away from crashing into stage.

And pulled! Above, his arms rising as a supplicant asking the whole world of God!

A veil of mercury, on one face, flew, blotting out a scale of heaven… he had cut out a piece of the world. Yet, on the other, nothing existed, as if it were all a dance of light curved and unceasing. Like a plume of smoke rising, like wings sprawling open, like a flag torn from its post and carried by the wind.

"SHAPE!"

An immense moth, two dimensional and immaterial, it opened and flew, stamping itself against the officer's skull, coiling, then curling, surrounding it unending, like the sun-shroud of a southern barbarian. 

"WHAT THE FU-!"

Dúrkind stumbled, his feet entangled by confusion made palpable. He fell, face first, yet with no face to call his own…

It seems he had lost his head, misplaced it that morn when readying himself for the day!

"HAHAHA!"

Heos laughed, as the headless man, still animated, still grunting and cursing, inexplicably so to all who would at him look, perturbed, clawed at his face, unable to remove an immaterial veil which sunk him into a quicksilver world.

"W-wha-what! I c-can't see…!"

Yet he found nothing on his face.

"I WIN. HAHAHAHA!"

Swan, indifferent this entire incursion, soundlessly chuckled…? Or something of the sort… clearly pleased by Heos's enjoyment.

Dúrkind still writhed on the ground.

Mons-Vido stumbled, somehow able to stand on two feet, walking, struggling… he would not yet arrive.

The prince stood, still, panting, yet adorned with a smile as a wreath of golden laurels, as he watched.

He felt like dancing… he danced… or more jumped, pranced, twirled, to the sound of a strange music —much like a bird's chant—, the warlike, saccharine cacophony of his own laughs, Dúrkind's struggle and the fort's commotion, all, floating into the sky.

And when his craving abated, he felt fulfilled… patting Swan's feathers, he heaved, in the pleasant tide of his own victory.

Steps later, the silver gates of the fort were split apart, blown in two, but only slightly bent —as if whatever struck them wished to not destroy the beautiful artifact— by a phantasmal force which the guarding gendarmes could all but cower against… a floating dossier accompanied the tremors, to soon turn translucent and disappear.

And, as if leaving wild roses where he threaded, spring water steps coursed 'cross the Rue des Larmes… as a sweet, summer-rain laughter trebled… 

"Now… Swan, where were you pointing just now…?"