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Chapter 20
Mizumi strained against the ice, trying to free herself. The harder she resisted, the stronger the ice felt, as though her tears only served to reinforce her prison. A clunking sound made her glance towards the throne. Behind the large object appeared a small, knee-high mechanical creature, made of different metallic odds and ends. It ambled warily across the throne room, stopping just a few feet from the imprisoned Mizumi, looking up at her with empty iron sockets. Mizumi could sense water churning in its head. With the little freedom her hands had, she commanded the waters inside it to waft up to her, forming a misty cloud. She gasped when she saw a much older version of herself, sobbing on the throne. Such loneliness, such despair … what had caused this?
She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes, letting the mists imbue her with the images she needed.
A brief flash of bluish-green caught her eye. She looked up and noted a peacock fluttering about the throne room, shaking its tailfeathers around clunky bronze robots. The woman stood, stifling her tears, clenching her jaw. “Reveal,” she hissed under her breath.
A torrent of mist swirled around the peacock, which grew into a six-foot-tall woman with chocolate skin and shoulder-length turquoise hair. The visitor smiled warmly, brushing away the mist from her thin sea-green dress. Her folding fan headpiece glistened with frozen dew. “Goodness, Mizumi – your welcome could have been warmer.”
“What do you want?” Mizumi asked bitterly, glaring at the woman. “You will find nothing to scavenge here in Moraine.”
“Well, there’s your pride,” the woman noted with a playful smile, clasping her hands behind her back. She rocked side to side and blew Mizumi a kiss. “You’ve thrown that away.”
“If you don’t want the entire Trash Kingdom washed away, I suggest you return there immediately, Eshe, for I have no time for you,” Mizumi retorted, returning to her thrown and staring at a distant frosted window.
Eshe sighed, shrugging. “It’s been a year, Mizumi. He beat you. Get over it.”
Mizumi refused to afford her a glance. “So you can obtain him on the rebound? Hardly.”
Eshe crossed her arms, frowning. “You know very well he’s still pining over that, what is she now? You know, that school teacher, S—.”
“Your survival requires never saying that name in my presence.”
Eshe laughed. “He spurned us both, Mizumi. He’s tossed us away.”
Mizumi’s lips quivered. “You fail to be inspiring, my dear.”
Eshe approached. “You fail to understand, dear Queen of Cups. He threw that woman away as well. He let her get away from him.”
“She chose the life of a servant,” Mizumi noted with a tinge of bitterness and admiration. “She might as well have slapped him in the face.”
“I thought Jareth was into the whole ‘appreciate the different’ thing,” Eshe offered.
Mizumi chuckled, glancing at Eshe. “If that were true, he would have chosen you. Indeed, he still does not seem to know what he wants.” She paused, letting acid drip into her next words. “And the Labyrinth cannot function so long as his heart is conflicted.”
Eshe nodded tenderly. “Neither can Moraine.” She sat on her knees in front of the throne, the frigid temperatures giving her goosebumps. “My dear Mizumi, Ruler of pristine Moraine, a heart divided cannot beat well.” She took a small mirror from her dress and held it out. An image of a thin athletic girl with long black pigtails and a scar over her left eye appeared, as did the image of a rotund girl with short black pigtails and dark freckles covering her cheeks. “Release your daughters, Milady.”
“You would have me without hope?” Mizumi asked sadly, her tears streaking down her cheeks and freezing before they can fall from her chin.
Eshe shrugged. “You’d also be without regret.” She put the mirror up. “They don’t have to be bound within your heart to support your soul.”
Mizumi growled at her, angrily jabbing a finger. “How dare you burst into my castle and attempt a coup?”
“Pardon?” Eshe asked, seemingly shocked as she stood quickly, stepping back a few paces, placing a hand over her chest. “What gives you the right to accuse me?”
Mizumi grinned darkly. “I am not Jareth. Yes, I am distraught with lost opportunities, but you are no peacock, but a vulture, soaring in arcs around our destinies. You can’t wait to swoop in and take advantage of the situation.”
“Hello? I am trying to salvage your relationship,” Eshe protested in an offended tone, tilting her hip slightly as she crossed her arms. “That human wouldn’t marry Jareth if the fate of the universe depended on it. You’ve got a much better chance than she does!”
“You will never get Jareth,” Mizumi replied in a deadly tone, her eyes filled with loathing. “On the other hand, if you help me try to win his heart once more, you are certainly assuming my attempt will fail, allowing you to succeed me as his latest conquest.”
Eshe chortled. “Conquest? Hardly! Jareth isn’t the only one who knows his way around destiny, Mizumi. I give life to the lifeless.” She glared at Mizumi with a dark grin. “And nothing is more lifeless than his love for you.”
The vision dissipated and Mizumi coughed, finding herself free of the ice. She bent down and picked up the strange mechanical creature, staring at it, pondering the kind of magic needed to bring such trifling objects to life.
Staring at the ceiling of the throne room, Mizumi tried to sense the presence of her father. She could only feel a void, but she decided that it betrayed the location of Hunger Incarnate. Her rage could no longer be contained and she felt her form explode around her, transforming her into a massive geyser, rushing up and through the ceiling to the top-most tower of the castle. While she hoped to battle her father, she found herself too upset to regain her form and instead she slammed the full force of the torrent into Maldis’ smiling body.
Mizumi crashed, her form returned, into the wall of a tower.
“Now, now, Mizumi, I am the River that Feeds the Lake,” Maldis mocked, waving his index finger at her. “I am also the River that Feeds from the Lake! You cannot defeat me! I spread my presence all over the Underground since before you were born!”
Mizumi grumbled as she stood, wavering, and managed a chuckle.
“Oh, so now you’re amused?” he asked her.
Mizumi nodded. “I understand, now, father,” she told him. “I destroy the universe in a quest to merge with the powerful waters of the King of the Universe, but I forgot such a simple thing: that the river may be powerful but it is the riverbank that shapes its course!” She brought her hands down to the stone floor and soon the entire castle was saturated in water pouring from her, freezing as it did so. Throughout the castle, ice began to crack and spread and everything threatened to destroy the refined elegance that was the castle of Moraine.
Maldis frowned. “You destroy everything I’ve built? What gives you the right?”
Mizumi felt a spiky crown grow upon her head, formed of ice. A single image of a drop of water appeared on her chin. “I am the Cup of Moraine,” she growled at him in a dark tone. “I give the waters its shape. I ease the suffering of the thirsty.” She grunted as the castle began to shake. “And by throwing the cup, the waters are spilled back unto the lake from which it came!”
Maldis screamed as ice surrounded him, sharp spikes of frozen pain tearing into his flesh. He looked upwards and noted the skies seemed to lower themselves toward him. No, he realized, the castle was heading out there, out into the darkness of space, where nothing much lived. No fear, no screams, no hatred … just an empty vacuum of nothingness. “You can’t do this! You cannot throw away everything like this! You hunger!”
Mizumi, her form pulsating from the amount of energy coursing through her, nodded. “Even the largest fish in the sea can get eaten. I hunger … I hunger for power and love and finer things than you could ever grant me. I hunger for my dreams to come true, father. And I hunger for the right to protect the universe from you!”
A blood-curdling scream tore through the air as the ice slashed away at the Black Heron, black feathers flying off his cloak and twitching in their own agony. Maldis felt the resentment and the hope of every citizen of Moraine, now intimately bound under his daughter’s power as his had been. Somehow she had corrupted his influence to bind herself to everyone he’d ever touched, as though she had spread poison in the mouth of a river only to watch as it distributed to every tributary and stream in just a few heartbeats, whereas his river had taken centuries to form his bed.
The agonizing squeals ended as Maldis disappeared, leaving only a large blue gem.
Seeing her father thus stopped, Mizumi collapsed.
Bright sunshine met Mizumi, the warmth making her inhale deeply. She felt a soft towel on her forehead and opened her eyes. A female with sea-green hair and a gentle composure hunched over her, surrounded by creatures made of all kinds of different objects. Behind her loomed the giant hairy forms, brown and blue and golden, of Gorgish soldiers.
The female smiled. “Did you plan to leave your love between the stars?” she asked, winking.
Mizumi sat up and surveyed the castle. Below the castle were large, thick chains, binding it to the lake of Moraine though the boulders on which it stood floated far above it, the waterfalls then created sparkling majestically in the sunlight? Mizumi turned to the female. “My father ….”
The female, who according to her vision was named Eshe, shrugged. “I think I know the perfect place for such a pretty thing.”
Mizumi sniffled and wiped tears from her eyes. “Such a beast that lives in that blue rock.”
Eshe nodded and walked over her to comfort her. “Yes, but such a flimsy thing when you no longer fear it. These Gorgs and my own troops came together to help out the Cup of Moraine, for surely you remember trying to approach my Kingdom, Milady.”
Mizumi stared at her in wonder. “But I could not obtain for you a nirvana leaf.”
Eshe laughed. “But the Gorgs knew of some. In return for magic radishes I obtained a nice vintage of such wonderful golden leaves. They told me a force for Hunger had invaded their territory, but Hunger itself came and turned against you.” She shrugged. “I am on the side of anyone Hunger seeks to devour.”
Mizumi caressed Eshe’s forehead tenderly. “Milady, I ….”
“… ended up a sad puddle on the floor,” Eshe interrupted. “It tore apart everything throughout the River of Time. You are Moraine. You deserve nothing but life.”
Mizumi’s eyes misted over. “And you give life … life to the … lifeless.”
THE END
Epilogue:
The Former King of the Universe had made for himself a pleasant cottage in the heart of the flowering plain. The last thing he wanted was to build a castle, for kingship had never brought him joy. Months had passed and he had become more familiar with the terrain. The sparkling river stretched far to a majestic lake, guarded by a newly-crowned queen, whose silver hair matched the light bouncing off the water. He had barely set foot on the lake’s edge, his feet starting to dampen from the moisture on the shore, when an elegant female form slowly rose from the water, shining drops falling from her graceful figure, clothed only with a thin gown that left little to the imagination. Her curvaceous form reminded him of breaking waves.
The female smiled and stretched out her elegantly tapered hand. Steam rose from her upturned palm, forming a chalice made of highly polished silver, engraved with lines suggesting breaking waves. “Quench thy thirst, Traveler," she said in sultry tones. “Take off thy ravaged robes and let the sun bring life to a long-hidden visage.”
“What is your name?" the former King asked bluntly, his own voice deep and sensuous.
The queen laughed. “You’re not much for small talk, are you, Traveler?" She lowered her head while keeping her bright sharp eyes upon this new arrival. “Do not rebuff my offer so easily … I merely wish to be hospitable.”
The hooded former King kept his smirk hidden. She certainly thought much of herself, he thought. He wondered if she always seduced weary visitors. She reminded him, in fact, of the sirens of old, who sang their way to men’s hearts, only to devour them at their leisure. “Those that know me know me as Sir Hubris.”
The female smiled and nodded her head. “But is that what you REALLY want?”
Sir Hubris was taken aback.
The female pressed onwards. “To be known for such arrogance and yet you threw your own crown away. Even now you come to me, dressed as some simple peasant.” She stepped forward and the robed figure stepped back. “You lack guidance, my liege. Your powerful waters know not where to flow. Let me be your riverbank. Let me help you find the sea.”
Sir Hubris removed his hood, revealing chiseled features and blond feathery hair. “I don’t need anyone.”
Mizumi laughed. “You find yourself not part of something bigger? You depend on no one?”
Sir Hubris looked away.
Mizumi nodded. “I see someone who creates others around him. He threw away his wholeness because he realized he needed others.”
Sir Hubris scoffed. “You believe you see me so well? I move the stars for no one. It shall NEVER happen.”
Mizumi smirked. “But, maybe it’s not too late, after all.”
Mizumi strained against the ice, trying to free herself. The harder she resisted, the stronger the ice felt, as though her tears only served to reinforce her prison. A clunking sound made her glance towards the throne. Behind the large object appeared a small, knee-high mechanical creature, made of different metallic odds and ends. It ambled warily across the throne room, stopping just a few feet from the imprisoned Mizumi, looking up at her with empty iron sockets. Mizumi could sense water churning in its head. With the little freedom her hands had, she commanded the waters inside it to waft up to her, forming a misty cloud. She gasped when she saw a much older version of herself, sobbing on the throne. Such loneliness, such despair … what had caused this?
She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes, letting the mists imbue her with the images she needed.
A brief flash of bluish-green caught her eye. She looked up and noted a peacock fluttering about the throne room, shaking its tailfeathers around clunky bronze robots. The woman stood, stifling her tears, clenching her jaw. “Reveal,” she hissed under her breath.
A torrent of mist swirled around the peacock, which grew into a six-foot-tall woman with chocolate skin and shoulder-length turquoise hair. The visitor smiled warmly, brushing away the mist from her thin sea-green dress. Her folding fan headpiece glistened with frozen dew. “Goodness, Mizumi – your welcome could have been warmer.”
“What do you want?” Mizumi asked bitterly, glaring at the woman. “You will find nothing to scavenge here in Moraine.”
“Well, there’s your pride,” the woman noted with a playful smile, clasping her hands behind her back. She rocked side to side and blew Mizumi a kiss. “You’ve thrown that away.”
“If you don’t want the entire Trash Kingdom washed away, I suggest you return there immediately, Eshe, for I have no time for you,” Mizumi retorted, returning to her thrown and staring at a distant frosted window.
Eshe sighed, shrugging. “It’s been a year, Mizumi. He beat you. Get over it.”
Mizumi refused to afford her a glance. “So you can obtain him on the rebound? Hardly.”
Eshe crossed her arms, frowning. “You know very well he’s still pining over that, what is she now? You know, that school teacher, S—.”
“Your survival requires never saying that name in my presence.”
Eshe laughed. “He spurned us both, Mizumi. He’s tossed us away.”
Mizumi’s lips quivered. “You fail to be inspiring, my dear.”
Eshe approached. “You fail to understand, dear Queen of Cups. He threw that woman away as well. He let her get away from him.”
“She chose the life of a servant,” Mizumi noted with a tinge of bitterness and admiration. “She might as well have slapped him in the face.”
“I thought Jareth was into the whole ‘appreciate the different’ thing,” Eshe offered.
Mizumi chuckled, glancing at Eshe. “If that were true, he would have chosen you. Indeed, he still does not seem to know what he wants.” She paused, letting acid drip into her next words. “And the Labyrinth cannot function so long as his heart is conflicted.”
Eshe nodded tenderly. “Neither can Moraine.” She sat on her knees in front of the throne, the frigid temperatures giving her goosebumps. “My dear Mizumi, Ruler of pristine Moraine, a heart divided cannot beat well.” She took a small mirror from her dress and held it out. An image of a thin athletic girl with long black pigtails and a scar over her left eye appeared, as did the image of a rotund girl with short black pigtails and dark freckles covering her cheeks. “Release your daughters, Milady.”
“You would have me without hope?” Mizumi asked sadly, her tears streaking down her cheeks and freezing before they can fall from her chin.
Eshe shrugged. “You’d also be without regret.” She put the mirror up. “They don’t have to be bound within your heart to support your soul.”
Mizumi growled at her, angrily jabbing a finger. “How dare you burst into my castle and attempt a coup?”
“Pardon?” Eshe asked, seemingly shocked as she stood quickly, stepping back a few paces, placing a hand over her chest. “What gives you the right to accuse me?”
Mizumi grinned darkly. “I am not Jareth. Yes, I am distraught with lost opportunities, but you are no peacock, but a vulture, soaring in arcs around our destinies. You can’t wait to swoop in and take advantage of the situation.”
“Hello? I am trying to salvage your relationship,” Eshe protested in an offended tone, tilting her hip slightly as she crossed her arms. “That human wouldn’t marry Jareth if the fate of the universe depended on it. You’ve got a much better chance than she does!”
“You will never get Jareth,” Mizumi replied in a deadly tone, her eyes filled with loathing. “On the other hand, if you help me try to win his heart once more, you are certainly assuming my attempt will fail, allowing you to succeed me as his latest conquest.”
Eshe chortled. “Conquest? Hardly! Jareth isn’t the only one who knows his way around destiny, Mizumi. I give life to the lifeless.” She glared at Mizumi with a dark grin. “And nothing is more lifeless than his love for you.”
The vision dissipated and Mizumi coughed, finding herself free of the ice. She bent down and picked up the strange mechanical creature, staring at it, pondering the kind of magic needed to bring such trifling objects to life.
Staring at the ceiling of the throne room, Mizumi tried to sense the presence of her father. She could only feel a void, but she decided that it betrayed the location of Hunger Incarnate. Her rage could no longer be contained and she felt her form explode around her, transforming her into a massive geyser, rushing up and through the ceiling to the top-most tower of the castle. While she hoped to battle her father, she found herself too upset to regain her form and instead she slammed the full force of the torrent into Maldis’ smiling body.
Mizumi crashed, her form returned, into the wall of a tower.
“Now, now, Mizumi, I am the River that Feeds the Lake,” Maldis mocked, waving his index finger at her. “I am also the River that Feeds from the Lake! You cannot defeat me! I spread my presence all over the Underground since before you were born!”
Mizumi grumbled as she stood, wavering, and managed a chuckle.
“Oh, so now you’re amused?” he asked her.
Mizumi nodded. “I understand, now, father,” she told him. “I destroy the universe in a quest to merge with the powerful waters of the King of the Universe, but I forgot such a simple thing: that the river may be powerful but it is the riverbank that shapes its course!” She brought her hands down to the stone floor and soon the entire castle was saturated in water pouring from her, freezing as it did so. Throughout the castle, ice began to crack and spread and everything threatened to destroy the refined elegance that was the castle of Moraine.
Maldis frowned. “You destroy everything I’ve built? What gives you the right?”
Mizumi felt a spiky crown grow upon her head, formed of ice. A single image of a drop of water appeared on her chin. “I am the Cup of Moraine,” she growled at him in a dark tone. “I give the waters its shape. I ease the suffering of the thirsty.” She grunted as the castle began to shake. “And by throwing the cup, the waters are spilled back unto the lake from which it came!”
Maldis screamed as ice surrounded him, sharp spikes of frozen pain tearing into his flesh. He looked upwards and noted the skies seemed to lower themselves toward him. No, he realized, the castle was heading out there, out into the darkness of space, where nothing much lived. No fear, no screams, no hatred … just an empty vacuum of nothingness. “You can’t do this! You cannot throw away everything like this! You hunger!”
Mizumi, her form pulsating from the amount of energy coursing through her, nodded. “Even the largest fish in the sea can get eaten. I hunger … I hunger for power and love and finer things than you could ever grant me. I hunger for my dreams to come true, father. And I hunger for the right to protect the universe from you!”
A blood-curdling scream tore through the air as the ice slashed away at the Black Heron, black feathers flying off his cloak and twitching in their own agony. Maldis felt the resentment and the hope of every citizen of Moraine, now intimately bound under his daughter’s power as his had been. Somehow she had corrupted his influence to bind herself to everyone he’d ever touched, as though she had spread poison in the mouth of a river only to watch as it distributed to every tributary and stream in just a few heartbeats, whereas his river had taken centuries to form his bed.
The agonizing squeals ended as Maldis disappeared, leaving only a large blue gem.
Seeing her father thus stopped, Mizumi collapsed.
Bright sunshine met Mizumi, the warmth making her inhale deeply. She felt a soft towel on her forehead and opened her eyes. A female with sea-green hair and a gentle composure hunched over her, surrounded by creatures made of all kinds of different objects. Behind her loomed the giant hairy forms, brown and blue and golden, of Gorgish soldiers.
The female smiled. “Did you plan to leave your love between the stars?” she asked, winking.
Mizumi sat up and surveyed the castle. Below the castle were large, thick chains, binding it to the lake of Moraine though the boulders on which it stood floated far above it, the waterfalls then created sparkling majestically in the sunlight? Mizumi turned to the female. “My father ….”
The female, who according to her vision was named Eshe, shrugged. “I think I know the perfect place for such a pretty thing.”
Mizumi sniffled and wiped tears from her eyes. “Such a beast that lives in that blue rock.”
Eshe nodded and walked over her to comfort her. “Yes, but such a flimsy thing when you no longer fear it. These Gorgs and my own troops came together to help out the Cup of Moraine, for surely you remember trying to approach my Kingdom, Milady.”
Mizumi stared at her in wonder. “But I could not obtain for you a nirvana leaf.”
Eshe laughed. “But the Gorgs knew of some. In return for magic radishes I obtained a nice vintage of such wonderful golden leaves. They told me a force for Hunger had invaded their territory, but Hunger itself came and turned against you.” She shrugged. “I am on the side of anyone Hunger seeks to devour.”
Mizumi caressed Eshe’s forehead tenderly. “Milady, I ….”
“… ended up a sad puddle on the floor,” Eshe interrupted. “It tore apart everything throughout the River of Time. You are Moraine. You deserve nothing but life.”
Mizumi’s eyes misted over. “And you give life … life to the … lifeless.”
THE END
Epilogue:
The Former King of the Universe had made for himself a pleasant cottage in the heart of the flowering plain. The last thing he wanted was to build a castle, for kingship had never brought him joy. Months had passed and he had become more familiar with the terrain. The sparkling river stretched far to a majestic lake, guarded by a newly-crowned queen, whose silver hair matched the light bouncing off the water. He had barely set foot on the lake’s edge, his feet starting to dampen from the moisture on the shore, when an elegant female form slowly rose from the water, shining drops falling from her graceful figure, clothed only with a thin gown that left little to the imagination. Her curvaceous form reminded him of breaking waves.
The female smiled and stretched out her elegantly tapered hand. Steam rose from her upturned palm, forming a chalice made of highly polished silver, engraved with lines suggesting breaking waves. “Quench thy thirst, Traveler," she said in sultry tones. “Take off thy ravaged robes and let the sun bring life to a long-hidden visage.”
“What is your name?" the former King asked bluntly, his own voice deep and sensuous.
The queen laughed. “You’re not much for small talk, are you, Traveler?" She lowered her head while keeping her bright sharp eyes upon this new arrival. “Do not rebuff my offer so easily … I merely wish to be hospitable.”
The hooded former King kept his smirk hidden. She certainly thought much of herself, he thought. He wondered if she always seduced weary visitors. She reminded him, in fact, of the sirens of old, who sang their way to men’s hearts, only to devour them at their leisure. “Those that know me know me as Sir Hubris.”
The female smiled and nodded her head. “But is that what you REALLY want?”
Sir Hubris was taken aback.
The female pressed onwards. “To be known for such arrogance and yet you threw your own crown away. Even now you come to me, dressed as some simple peasant.” She stepped forward and the robed figure stepped back. “You lack guidance, my liege. Your powerful waters know not where to flow. Let me be your riverbank. Let me help you find the sea.”
Sir Hubris removed his hood, revealing chiseled features and blond feathery hair. “I don’t need anyone.”
Mizumi laughed. “You find yourself not part of something bigger? You depend on no one?”
Sir Hubris looked away.
Mizumi nodded. “I see someone who creates others around him. He threw away his wholeness because he realized he needed others.”
Sir Hubris scoffed. “You believe you see me so well? I move the stars for no one. It shall NEVER happen.”
Mizumi smirked. “But, maybe it’s not too late, after all.”
