Chapter Text
Fairytales have been the basis of modern story-telling for children.
Just think about it. What type of stories do teachers and parents read to them before they go to sleep? Tales of dashing knights, beautiful princesses, dark woods, magic and fairies, where people traversed in a village “Once upon a time” and ventured into a “Happily ever after…” these are the stories that are the foundations to those who love a good book.
I am no exception.
The story I am about to…”become involved in” reminds me of the Twelve Dancing Princesses. I was always a lover of the Brothers’ Grimm before I even began my path as a curious soul who collected tales like a child collects cards.
(Of course that’s not a simple analogy to make since I myself collect cards and use them to unleash retribution on blue-cloaked and blue hearted soldiers)
Back to the story though, the tale of the dozen dancing damsels talks about how their father, a grand and wise king, could not understand where his daughters went off to when they slept. Every evening he locked the door to their bedchambers, but when he opened it he found them all tired and their shoes worn out.
The king was confused and he asked for any and all knight to try to uncover this mystery. Each of them had three days and three nights else they would either be sent to jail or worse...executed.
Many tried, many failed. Three days and three nights passed by in rounds until it seemed like it would be impossible to find out what was going on.
That is, until a war hero stumbled upon a kind enchantress and found a means to see what happened to them.
Now, how exactly this happened isn’t important. What should have been more important was the secrecy that the princesses had. Did it matter to those poor knights in love what happened to them? Did it matter that they were sentencing innocent people to their deaths just so they can keep their love of all-night dancing all to themselves?
Perhaps there was a reason for the secrecy. Was the king a tyrant? Did they feel so constrained being princesses with their tea parties and smiling and waving to the adoring crowds?
Those are very interesting questions, but that’s not what we’re here for.
So, let me get to the point of what I’m about to get into. I’m about to lead you into a story I found long ago. But instead of twelve princesses, we have lost children who wish to slumber in each others’ arms, traversing through darkness and mirrors into one another’s memories and reveries. How romantic.
Lie down, take a deep breath, let your tensions go, listen to my voice. I will not lead you astray. Just as long as I can keep my curiosity at bay, we should be able to see the door that will lead us to this magic tale. The door is open. Just take your hand on the door knob and…
Oh, wait! I just remembered to do something.
…
Oh, don’t look at me like that. It’s very simple. Here, let me show you…
…
There we go, isn’t this music lovely? It is. It’s one of my favorite tracks.
There, just listen to how it twinkles like stars at night, and the melody lulls you into a world of happiness, light, shadows and...if you would permit, connections.
Give me your hand if we are friends, and let The Curious make amends.
Off we go…
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Lullaby of Obedience
A Sequel to “Lullaby for Lost Children”
Written by Green Phantom Queen (with help from GRiDGALAXY if she is willing to join in on this reveur)
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Prologue - The Curious Beginning
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It is quiet, except for the air conditioning and the constant drumming of fingers on a laptop.
Dawn Fujiki sighs as she watches the people on the screen, asleep, eyes closed in a dream of love and comfort. The four have just finished a round of night activities that she has been “monitoring” while her roommates for the hotel room they are staying in already asleep, hands wrapped around each other and their ears covered with earplugs.
Dawn giggles as she looks at the time at the bottom corner of the screen. 3:10 AM. It’s getting late, and she, her roommates, the four people on the screen and four others have to get ready.
Paradise is going to have a dark awakening very soon, and it was all the more important that she got some rest before…
A knock on the door interrupts her thoughts. Dawn narrows her eyes, curls her hands into fists and rises.
“Who’s out there?” she asks.
The only response she gets is an eerie whistle. Her eyes widen at the answer. She knows what this signals…
And, to be honest, a good story makes it easy for one to sleep. She’s too hyper, too eager, too exhausted, anxious and downright nervous after what happened prior to the traverse through darkness and mirrors to where she is now.
Besides, the person with the whistle tells some of the best stories.
Or rather, he collects some of the best stories.
At the end of the whistle, Dawn makes her way to the door, her footsteps silent like shadows. She grasps onto the door knob and opens it, staring face to face with a grey face like stone with black holes for eyes, a sloping nose and a smile that looks neither happy nor sad.
“Trip,” Dawn states. “Or rather, ‘The Curious’...what are you doing up this late?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” Trip answers, voice like the flutter of a moth’s wings. “I was reading this fantastic story and I grew...curious.”
He shows Dawn a collection of papers stapled together with crayon drawings of a being with purple hair and a black opera cape on top, eyes closed as if in a dream. Beneath him are purple strings of music that wrap around the bodies of many figures like blankets or puppet strings. The title is in a soft cursive with black looping lines like smoke.
“‘Lullaby for Lost Children’,” Dawn states, reading the title.
She frowns. ‘Lost’ and ‘Children’ together resonate within her like a gong and with enough force that she wants to punch the wall in anger. However, she can’t do that. One because she’ll wake everyone up with how hard she punches. And two, her punches will lead to her paying for the damage.
(And if not her, Kaiba was going to have to pay it from her and he’s not willing to pay for that. An Action Duel School yes, but not the rage of a repurposed girl.)
Trip chuckles from within his curious mask. “It ends with the hint that seems like this won’t be the end of this adventure. And I’m tossing and turning to see how it ends.”
“So The Curious is becoming too curious for his own good,” Dawn summarizes. “What does that have to do with me?”
Trip smirks as he enters the hotel room and seats himself onto the couch. He then slaps the stapled papers onto the table, the sound like a pillow hitting the ground. “I want to see how the story goes.”
“How are you going to do that?” Dawn questions, closing the door. “I mean, don’t you need an author to make a story?”
“You need an author to write a story,” Trip corrects. “But one can make a story just by being there.”
“What do you mean?”
Trip pulls out something from the pocket of his orange jacket. From the dim moonlight, Dawn can see that it looks like a feather from a large crow.
“Did you get that from one of Ash’s ravens?” Dawn questions.
“Not Ash’s, but from one of a higher power,” Trip answers. “This is said to belong to a raven of one of the most infamous figures of the Nightmare Realm...the Phantom of Infinite Realms. I could go on and on how my family worships this figure -- for it is said that she creates the multiple worlds that house the Nightmare Realm, guarded by her dragon knight -- but to even obtain such a wonderful relic for what I’m about to do is something that should not go to waste.”
“What does that even do?” asks Dawn, scratching her head.
“With this feather, I can enter a story and interact with its characters. Or, even better, I can alter the contents of the story and let it continue. Think of the possibilities! Stories that were never finished, ideas that were scrapped, tales that could not have been made possible...and I have that power in my hands.”
“But why do you need me?” Dawn inquires. “Tomorrow is a big day for us all and…”
“Aren’t you curious as to what I’m about to do?” asks Trip with a tilt of his head. “I promise you that it’s not going to that the characters aren’t going to leap out of here in a desperate search for a new author to write their tales. I just want you to observe what I’m going to do. That’s what all stories want; they want an audience .”
Dawn swallows. Of course, being a repurposed soul means she has more time to do more than the average person has the time to live for. Curiosity for the unknown comes part and parcel to being resurrected like how vampires always have a craving for fresh blood or werewolves transform under the light of the full moon.
“Well...how do I know what I’m going to get into if I haven’t read the story?” she asks, resisting the urge to admit that yes, she is just as curious as Trip.
“Then get to it right now,” says Trip, twirling the feather in his fingers like a certain puppeteer they both know twirls a knife. “It’s a short read and while you do that, I’m going to enter that story and see who the protagonist is.”
Dawn opens her mouth to say something but stops when Trip raises his feather into the air and stabs the cover of the bundles of paper. The figure with purple hair and purple strings of music glow and the pages begin to morph into a proper book with a hardcover and illustrations. Dawn can get a better look at the sleeping figures and doesn’t know whether to be excited or just plain sick at what she’s seeing.
“No harm ever happened from reading a book,” Trip coos as he opens the book to the very last page just by waving the back of his hand. “Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
Trip takes the nib of the quill and stabs it into his pointer finger. Even in the darkness, the drop of blood shines with a color that could be mistaken for ink. Trip then squeezes that droplet and places his finger over the page. The drop splashes onto the page as a gasp of air is heard within the silent bedroom.
“ In Somnis Veritas… ” Trip recites. “In dreams is truth.”
Dawn stays silent as Trip places his hand over the drop of blood upon the papers. The eyeholes of his mask glow like flames from a jack-o-lantern before black letters from the book itself curl towards his hands like snakes until it becomes a thick vine for him to grab onto. Trip takes one look at Dawn before he grips onto the vine.
“I promise to send a souvenir once I’m done,” he says, waving at Dawn with the hand that grips the feather. “Good day. Or rather, good night.”
Then, with the sound of a howling wind, Trip is sucked into the book. Dawn gasps when the book closes itself shut before staring at her oblivious roommates. After hearing nothing, Dawn approaches the book and picks it up. It feels cold to the touch, despite how it was glowing like Venus in the night sky just a few minutes ago.
Dawn flips to the end of the story and raises her eyebrow at the watercolor illustration of the purple-haired man petting a teenage boy with hair colored blue and pink looking utterly confused at the stranger with green hair, orange jacket and grey mask staring at them. What is her brother doing in a story like this.
Of course, if she wants to know how it got there, she has to start at the beginning.
But does she really want to be reading at a time like this? When she can catch up on beauty sleep after everything that happened?
….
…
…
…
...Well, no harm ever came from reading a book.
Dawn seats herself down on the couch where Trip sat minutes ago and starts at the beginning. There, she sees the illustration of a boy with lavender hair tilting his head at a duel disk glowing purple on his bed. An illustration that, somehow, has movement of little music notes floating above the duel disk like bubbles. Curious…
Seeing as she isn’t going to get anywhere without reading the story that made Trip curious enough to venture into the realm of stories, Dawn begins to read as a soft and haunting lullaby plays from her laptop…
...Even though it is a track that Dawn has not downloaded.