Chapter 24: Mirror Mirror On The Wall….
“Um….”
“Wow, Maxim, you lucky son of a gun.”
“Is this a human thing?”
“Guys, you’re… not helping. Neither are you, Selan.”
“Quiet you, oh sensible one.”
“Oh, I trust Maxim just fine. It’s you I have a problem with.”
“So you say, but you’re the one bristling over the fact that I want to see him privately. What’s the matter? Afraid?”
“Oooooh!”
“I honestly don’t know what to say to this.”
“Honestly! What’s Iris’s next move? Going ‘boooooc boc boc boc boc boc’ while waving her elbows like a little chicken?”
“A simple, stupid dare might do it too.”
“But will she take the bait?”
“Normally, I’d say no, but… after this exchange, I’m not so sure anymore.”
“Don’t mind the fact that I married you and had a child with you or anything. Let’s all answer the baiting of the troll woman who called you a chicken.”
“Shut up! I’m going to show her a thing or two.”
“Like you showed me a thing or two… or three… on our wedding night?”
“Ohoho. Maxim, you corndog.”
“Well… you know… we DO have a kid.”
“Excuse me, honeeeeey. We got somewhere to go.”
“Well… at least it’s given us a destination. Better than aimlessly wandering about, I guess.”
“Sounds marginally more sensible than just following mysterious lights too. I’ll give it that.”
“Farewell, tiny single-apartment hamlet. We hardly knew ye.”
“It’s even got a well and a picket fence too.”
“And 1.7 kids.”
“One emerged just partially. He was missing a leg and three fingers.”
“Oh, we were coming, not going.”
“That’s what she said.”
“Yyyyeah, I bet you’ve heard ‘you’ve gotta try a little harder’ fairly often too.”
“Well… I think we’d be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t told at least a little white lie throughout their lives. So… how would anyone ever show in that mirror?”
“Uh…. I dunno?”
“But… whether you stick together doesn’t have anything to do with whether you or your boyfriend — well, ex-boyfriend — is a liar or not. This mirror business makes no damn sense.”
“I WAS angry, but now I’m just curious. What kind of lies does this mirror judge by? Relationship lies? How does that even work?”
“Probably because most stupid fools in love are lying to themselves. They just don’t know it yet.”
“Let’s hear it for Mr. Romantic. Wonder why the ladies consider your people the top of the mating food chain.”
“I plead the fifth.”
“Oh, nothing. I just feel really stupid now for some reason. Not entirely sure why yet.”
“Well, here we are.”
“The Tower of Truth, which is totally not like those other, lying, asshole towers that just wine, dine and leave you… behine?”
“Uh… I’m sure it was something different, but let’s not raise the age bar on this story now, OK?”
“So… where do we begin?”
“We already fought those giant lizard things before, I think. So let’s go for that humanoid enemy.”
“Kind of looks like a lamia. Okayado would not approve.”
“Well, we can’t all subscribe to weird fetishes.”
“Seirein? What is it with this place and their weird spellings?”
“Are you all trying to be trendy? Is there something wrong with the more traditional spelling of ‘Siren’?”
“Coulda been worse. Throw in apostrophes and a penchant for exchanging ‘I’s with ‘Y’s instead, and things get considerably dumber.”
“Sy’rin. S’yr’yn.”
“…..”
“Yeah, it works as I thought it would; it makes me come across as a pretentious ponce.”
“And you get enough of that from being an elf, huh?”
“Oh, shut up, you.”
“And you decided to fight the giant lizard things anyway, huh?”
“Well, a fight is a fight. And good to see you with us again.”
“Hmph!”
“So… who’s got an ear for music?”
“We’ve done this before, haven’t we?”
“Hell if I know. Let’s see how it works.”
“Right. So it’s not the tune of the song that counts this time, but the size and the motion.”
“That’s what she said.”
“……”
“Arty, is there any fun context for the ‘that’s what she said’ line over at your neck of the woods?”
“No, not really. We’re too pretentious for stuff like that, remember?”
“Well, someone’s getting a bit ahead of themselves.”
“Haven’t we met these guys before, though?”
“Well… no, we met regular Hidora. You know, the green ones.”
“So, there’s SEA Hidora inside a tower up on land.”
“……”
“MAKES PERFECT SENSE TO ME!”
“But what the hell is a Moray Vine? Shouldn’t they live in cracks in the wall or something?”
“Looks more like a pitcher plant to me.”
“They attack by hoping we’ll get close enough and we’re clumsy enough to fall into its cup to boot.”
“And stupid enough to not just climb back out of it, even if we do.”
“Well, that was… very enlightening. I hope we won’t get ambushed while we stand around so deep in thought.”
“Especially Selan. She has hardly said a thing this entire time.”
“Shut up. I’m contemplating.”
“Seriaco? I have no idea what that is supposed to be in the first place.”
“Well, it’s… some kind of bird. Yeah, that’s literally all I have to go on.”
*sigh* “OK, let’s play the other tune.”
“Wow, it almost looks like it’s flipping us the birdie.”
“Or doing threatening motions with a fist.”
“Well, two can play that tune.”
“It’s a duet of fisticuffs.”
“So, you done playin’ it, Sam?”
“Yeah. Wasn’t really my song to begin with, so….”
“I don’t think she’s gonna let us pass.”
“Well, not without a fight anyway.”
“Well, let’s just fight her, then. What’s the worst that could happen? Well, aside from us having more lives on our conscience?”
“Oh, poopie!”
“I know the ol’ saying goes ‘two heads are better than one’, but there is such a thing as taking that too far.”
“OH GOD SOMEONE STOP THE RAM CAROUSEL I WANT OFF!”
“Throw up, I shall, and plenty times.”
“Hey, is it true what I heard? That when elves throw up, it’s in all the colors of the rainbow?”
“NO! NO MORE COLORS! I AM SUFFERING FROM COLOR OVERLOAD!”
“Thank you for that, Maxim. And no, of course not. Where did you hear that, Guy?!”
“Oh, some guy on the internet.”
“Ah, the internet. Purveyor of absolute truth since…. well, never.”
“GUYS SERIOUSLY! ARE YOU SEEING THIS?! IF THIS DOESN’T STOP SOON, I’M GOING TO SHOVE MY HEAD DOWN INTO THAT BUCKET OVER THERE!”
“What bucket?”
“Yeah, Max. There’s no bu-..WHOA, WAIT, MAXIM! That’s… not a bucket. It’s that… plant thing. Whatever it was called.”
“Oh man, that was… extremely unpleasant.”
“It was hella amusing see you literally pick that plant up and use it as a hat, though.”
“Ugh! Not for me. I literally poured that liquid it contained onto myself, and it REEKS!”
“Thou shalt heretofore be known as Pope Stinky.”
“Blah! This isn’t the top of the tower at all.”
“Nice fakeout, though.”
“Maybe we can ask this big guy for directions.”
“Ask for directions? How unmanly.”
“I would normally have added ‘…and smart’, but… I don’t think this huge, blue guy is going to be particularly helpful.”
“Well, not unless you were looking for a fight, no. Thankfully, that’s just what I was doing.”
“Looks more like they’re keeping an eye on us.”
“……”
“Say, Selan… you’ve been fairly quiet so far. What are your thoughts on all of this?”
“I’m still contemplating stuff. Shut up and leave me alone.”
“Cracks everywhere.”
“And we totally have to enter them all.”
“This better not be some kind of dumb innuendo, Guy.”
“Well, it’s… pretty super, I guess.”
“But is it super enough for any of us?”
“We all use swords, right? So… who’s gonna take it?”
“I’m fine.”
“I wouldn’t be caught dead holding that thing over my head.”
“Back in the box it goes, then.”
“This isn’t the top either.”
“Maybe that ladder over there’ll help.”
“Eh, or maybe there’s something better inside this place.”
“Buh!”
“Something better, huh?”
“Looks like it’s time for musical chairs again, except there’s no place to sit.”
“IT IS FORBIDDEN TO STEP ON THE BUTTONS!”
“Well, helloooo Thunderbeast.”
“Looks like a huge yeti to me. So why it doesn’t live in the snowy regions of the mountains is beyond me.”
“Most stuff is ‘beyond’ you.”
“Look at the red nails. He’s been prettying himself up for this encounter, methinks.”
“Either that, or he’s dating Mr. Monocle over there.”
“Um… he doesn’t HAVE glasses.”
“He’s probably using lenses, then. Or A lense.”
“Haven’t we met this guy before?”
“You might. Did his face have a different color?”
“Look at that greying hair. We’ve met another kind of senior citizen here.”
“Um… yeah. I guess regular Tengu aren’t really all that clever, huh?”
“That’s probably why they painted their masks and colored their hair. It’s all about the image.”
“Nothing quite like weird-ass switch puzzles to get to a single chest.”
“There better be something really super inside that chest.”
“Oh, please, no. Let it at least be something we can use.”
“I’m… not sure how to describe this.”
“How about ‘they’re fighting back’?”
“Did we ever fight the chests, though? We only took what was inside.”
“This moving, fighting chest puts a new spin on that, though, doesn’t it?”
“It’s almost like an organ harvesting.”
“So, how does the sword organ work?”
“Well, we should know, shouldn’t we? I mean, all three of us are swinging ones, aren’t we?”
“Urgh! Is this your idea of deep thought? You’re only making my headache worse.”
“Aaaand we’re back to the beginning.”
“Hey, this might sound like a crazy idea, but… let’s just head back outside. This trip is pretty meaningless, after all.”
“I concur. While Iris has been some kind of help so far, there’s no reason to answer this taunt of hers after all.”
“UNACCEPTABLE! We will go inside here, and we will show her.”
“Yeah, well… there you have it, guys. Nobody challenges Selan’s competitive streak and gets away with it.”
“When she says ‘jump’, you say ‘how high’, huh?”
“Not really. Only if I’m taunting her about her jumping abilities.”
“Und zhe other vay.”
“Um…. what the hell is that?”
“Sonic the Hedgehog?”
“Yep. And he brought Knuckles with him.”
“I don’t think I’d want to take a falcon punch from THOSE fists.”
“Oh, for…”
“Yeah, we’ll be spending some time in this room.”
“There better be some loot here to make up for that.”
“These clothes, that ring… they’re only for dead people.”
“Or maybe wearing them can give you the ability to see dead people.”
“That would be a clever plot twist.”
“But also the last one you’ll ever make.”
“HEY! TEENAGE SPIKY SONIC TURTLES!”
“Yeesh, this place is full of generally aquatic beings.”
“And if you think that’s the weirdest thing; we’ve met eagles inside caves.”
“Uh… right. Never mind.”
“Not to mention plants inside caves. You know, the kind you’d think required sunlight to some extent.”
“I got it! OK?!”
“And so, we’re locked in yet another deadly struggle of ‘which switches shall we press’.”
“Eh, it’s not that deadly.”
“No, I meant deadly violent.”
“That makes even less sense.”
“Oh, for the love of… ANOTHER one of those guys? How about some variety here?”
“Yes. They should at least throw some more of those bucket-like enemies at you.”
“I’d pick one up and pour its contents over your head.”
“At last. The final jar.”
“Oh, how we have longed for this day.”
“Our long journey is finally over.”
“Yes. Let us bring our prize and place it correctly, so that we can continue our journey of enlightenment.”
“And so it begins.”
“Truth key? Should we be glad we didn’t find the lie key?”
“Or does it warn us if we try to open the wrong door? ‘NOT THIS DOOR, IDIOT! LOOK UPSTAIRS!'”
“It’s the sarcastic truth key.”
“STILL not the top floor? Jesus Christ!”
“There’s two of those tengu guards too. I don’t suppose you two would just let us pass by any chance?”
“Well, whaddya know? They did.”
“Personally, I’m disappointed.”
“Well, deal with it. We’re here for stupid reasons, so the quicker we get this done and over with, the quicker we can move on to more important stuff.”
“……”
“So, riddle me this, then, Iris: how can I have a false feeling for Maxim? Because whatever I feel at any time is the truth. What I say and what I feel doesn’t necessarily always coincide, but that’s beside the point, isn’t it?”
“You’re not supposed to give it deep thought, Selan. You’re just going to take it at face value.”
“The ‘don’t worry your pretty little head about it’ principle, huh? Do you want me to tell you how I feel about that oh, so condescending philosophy?”
“No, not really.”
“Well, tough luck, because I’m going to do so anyway. See, I’m willing to admit I fell for your stupid baiting — yes, I let it get to me — but I’m mostly here to call you on your stupid BS mirror thing and tell you how it doesn’t make any sense.”
“Yeesh, Selan; you’ve been saving up for this encounter, haven’t you?”
“Seething it up, more like. So, do tell, Iris; what did you bring us here to test?”
“But that’s not the issue, is it? If I really had come here to lay my fears to rest, I would already have failed, wouldn’t I? I’d be like those people who rely on fortunes or the damn horoscope to keep their relationships alive, because they want and wish and hope that they don’t have to work to keep it that way. And then they’d be all surprised when it falls apart on its own.”
“Does that mean you aren’t going to go inside?”
“Oh, I will go inside and look at your mirror. And then I’m going to put my fist through it.”
“You want the truth? Given how your knees are quivering, you couldn’t handle the truth.”
“And I love how you say you didn’t want to push them, but your subtle jabs at Selan’s courage couldn’t exactly be called subtle. To tell you the truth, we kind of expected you to do the bird dance and go ‘booooooc boc boc boc boc boc’.”
“But I still gotta know the truth.”
“What about the truth?”
“I’m starting to think you just discovered a new word in the dictionary, and you’re just aching to try it out. As if you ran over here in advance and just wrote ‘truth’ in front of everything. Surely, I can’t be the only one who thinks ‘truth key’ sounds like a really weird thing to say.”
“I wonder how Maxim and Selan are doing in there.”
“See? That’s the truth. That was part of what I was looking for.”
“Yeah, well… here’s another piece of truth: you’re full of it.”
“Full of truth?”
“Amongst other things.”
“I was just so angry at that stupid, condescending bitch. But I’m also kind of angry at myself for allowing this to unfold the way it has.”
“Yeah, well… it’s not like I don’t understand how you feel.”
“That’s probably because we never really know whether they’re actually sensible people, or just douchebags who don’t know anything else but throwing bile around.”
“It’s extra bad when it’s the woman who’s been sending us on important quests, and then she suddenly turns into a trolling asshole.”
“Ain’t THAT the truth.”
“Hee hee.”
“It can call itself a something of truth all it wants; it’s a lying piece of gamblin’ randomness.”
“Hmm. I wonder… now that that’s settled, and the others are waiting outside, do you think we’ve got some time for…”
“…I guess not.”
“Curses.”
“I’m sorry. Did we interrupt something?”
“You really are a trolling troll, aren’t you?”
“Pardon me?”
“Oh, fine! I’ll accept three white dragons as a suitable excuse for interrupting our sexytime.”
“You humans sure have an odd way of taking advantage of a mirror’s reflective properties.”
“At least if it means less pilgrimages from stupid people, anyway.”
“I didn’t get to put my fist through it, though.”
“She be trollin’, we hatin’, she rollin’.”
“Anyway, we’re done here, right? We can leave now?”
“Sure. I mean… we came mostly for your sake anyway.”
“Good. I’m done. Let’s go.”
“Well… at least one of them. But I probably have to go bait them some more, because this story ain’t over yet.”
Contemplating the mystery of the situation, the woman known as Iris gazes into what used to be the mirror of truth. If it was repaired, what would it show? What would we learn?
“Man, I can’t believe they didn’t even think of asking. Then again, they don’t really know a lot about the Sinistrals yet. They’ve only met two of us yet. Or rather, three. They just didn’t know yet.”
“I’m not in the mirror right now, but please leave a message. Your call is very important to me.”
“Gah! Damn it!”