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The Show Goes On

38: Fabrication

"How much longer do ya think we should wait for 'em?" Heiji asked.

Kazuha peered around the heart-shaped bush that she and Heiji had taken up residence beside to where Kaito and Shinichi still sat at the foot of the clover. The two were very much entwined, with Shinichi's head tucked under Kaito's chin and the magician's arms wrapped protectively around the detective's slim frame. Both their eyes were closed as they murmured to each other in voices too low for anyone else to hear. The two had been deep in conversation for nearly an hour already, but neither looked ready yet to move.

The ghost girl's lips curled into a soft smile. She could only imagine how they must be feeling right now. Retreating back to Heiji's side, she shook her head.

"I think we can give them a little more time. It's not like we're in a hurry."

The scarecrow snorted. "That's true. We got nothing but time in this place."

And so the two settled down again to wait, letting the clucking of the hens in their hamper provide a little privacy for their two friends who had finally found their way back to each other despite everything that had striven to drive them apart.

"So this queen wanted you to stay with her," Shinichi echoed. He tried to picture that surreal, crystal forest with its floors ever hidden beneath shifting veils of mist and the shape shifter that dwelled within. "So why did she let you go?"

Kaito took a long moment to mull over the question before he answered. "I can't say for sure. But I think that, perhaps, she regretted her actions, though I know she'd never admit it. Or maybe she just finally got it through her head that I wasn't interested in living the lie she was offering, and she was afraid of what might happen if she pushed too hard."

Shinichi pondered his response before letting out a quiet sigh. "She sounds like she was lonely."

Part of Kaito wanted to scoff and say that the queen had only been bored, but he refrained because, deep down, he suspected that Shinichi was right and that his own reflexive animosity towards the woman was due to her attempts both to take Shinichi's place and to trick him into believing that his detective was dead. He would never forgive her for that. But here, with Shinichi alive and well and safely with him again, he could admit a bit of sympathy for the shape shifter, alone in her palace, spinning lies to make herself believe that she was the master of her own empty existence.

"If she is, it is a state she brought upon herself," he said finally. "She has power, but she chooses to use that power only to amuse herself."

Shinichi didn't disagree.

"So," Kaito started again as he absently ran the fingers of his free hand through Shinichi's hair, flattening the detective's cowlick only to watch it spring up again. "You've told me how you all found your way to the Court and how you ended up playing Sleeping Beauty in this castle, but that doesn't explain why you freaked out when you saw me. I thought you would have been pleased," he added in a mock wounded tone.

Shinichi winced, flashes of his nightmare surfacing in the darkness behind his eyelids. He shuddered and curled closer to Kaito without thinking. "It was just a bad dream."

Kaito frowned. He let his hand drop and laced his fingers with Shinichi's. "What about?"

"It's not important. I had a lot of weird dreams. I guess it's probably part of this castle. Everything here seems designed to make you want to stay put."

The vampire arched an eyebrow. "Why would giving you nightmares make you want to stay put?"

"It was only one nightmare. And that was only right before I woke up," Shinichi explained. "Before that, I was dreaming about home. I honestly thought we were home. Only I still had these ears, and you were still a vampire, and the café was run by cats."

"That sounds just like home, I'm sure."

"I thought it was a little strange at first," Shinichi admitted. "But then it started to feel like it had always been that way."

"And the nightmare?" Kaito pressed.

Shinichi's ears flattened, but he could tell from the tone of Kaito's voice that the magician wouldn't be dropping the subject any time soon. Eventually, he surrendered and told Kaito about it in as few words as possible.

Kaito remained silent for a long moment after he was done. When he finally did speak, it was in a grim voice that Shinichi rarely heard from him.

"The Queen told me that there used to be other vampires in this world," he said.

"Used to be?" Shinichi echoed. Wherever this was going, he had a feeling he wasn't going to like it.

"Yeah. According to her, they all went mad after killing everyone they cared for. Or, well, maybe it's the other way around. Anyway, she called it the vampire's curse."

"Are you worried?" Shinichi asked softly.

Kaito exhaled sharply. "I can feel it. But it's not like we hadn't figured out for ourselves that this place is messing with our heads."

The detective nodded slowly. It was like his own urge to chase after bouncing balls and the way he had come to rely more and more on his sense of smell. It was disconcerting. How much more might they change? How deep could these changes run? Would they lose themselves to those changes one of these days?

Would they even realize it had happened if that day came?

It was a terrifying question. Although, in all honesty, it was not a new question. They had all been pondering it for some time now. But this latest reminder was the sharpest yet.

"I won't let it come to that," Kaito declared as though he had read Shinichi's mind. His grip on the detective tightened. He would not lose Shinichi again. And he knew the detective felt the same. Never again.

"I guess we'd better start heading back to Hakuba and the others," Shinichi said reluctantly, though he couldn't make himself pull away from Kaito's embrace. "I just hope they're ready to leave."

"This place is awful good at ensnaring the unsuspecting mind," Kaito agreed with an exaggerated grimace. "You should've seen them all when I found them. You'd have sworn they'd completely forgotten our whole situation. Some of them weren't even surprised to see me."

Shinichi frowned. "I wish I could say I was surprised. But I'm not. It worries me though."

Kaito chortled—most inappropriately, in Shinichi's opinion. "Obviously. Nothing good comes out of muddled minds."

"True. But I was just wondering how many people will actually want to leave."

"Oh." Kaito considered the problem for a long moment then shook his head. "I suppose this place would be paradise to some people. But that may not be a bad thing. We can't guarantee that we can get them all home. And even if we find the way, it may take a good long while and cover some dangerous roads. And frankly, our world isn't exactly all honey and roses. If there are people who feel like they're better off here, well, they could be right. Either way, it'd be their choice. Provided, of course, that they're given the chance to think things through clearly."

"That's the crux of the issue, isn't it?" Shinichi let his breath out in a sigh. "It would help if we knew more about this place. It makes me uneasy."

"What, too many people having too much fun for you?" Kaito quipped. When Shinichi drew back to glare at him, he laughed. "Just kidding. I know what you mean. There's got to be some design to all this."

"I was told that the Court was created."

"Told? By one of those creepy guides?"

Shinichi shook his head. "It was a masked man I met at the ball. He…reminded me of you, actually. But I knew he couldn't be because he had no scent."

"…Oookay, I'll take your word for that. Did he say anything else?"

"He showed me the kitchen. I tried talking to the staff, but they wouldn't respond. He told me that everyone working there had been created to work there. It was like they weren't real people."

"That seems straight forward enough to me. Magical servants created to perform designated tasks."

Shinichi made a face. "I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that that comment sounds logical to me right now. But anyway, I asked who had created the staff, and he told me that it was the Lord and the Lady."

"Does this lord wear black and white robes and carry a treasure chest full of pearls? We saw a man like that walking through the garden maze—and when I say through, I mean literally. He walked right out of the wall then through another like he was some kind of ghost. A different kind from Miss Kazuha though, since she just bounced right off the bushes. Since he moved so freely through the maze, I figured he might be someone in charge."

"That sounds reasonable. Were you able to talk to him?"

"Nope. He ignored us. But when we broke into this castle to save you, I noticed his image on one of the windows. There were five images in all. Do you want to go see them? Maybe it'll mean something."

"Let's do that. Around here, everything seems to mean something. We might as well try to figure out what."

Finally, with a more immediate goal ahead, the magician and the detective got back to their feet.

"Oh, before I forget, you might want to know that the whole breathing thing really is optional."

Shinichi stared at him. "What?"

Kaito shrugged and grinned. "I found out while I was being washed out from under the mountain. I guess it's part of that whole undead thing. I don't actually have to breathe if I don't feel like it."

"But you're breathing now."

"What can I say? Breathing is a difficult habit to break. Besides, you can't talk without air in your lungs. Just don't wig out on me if you find me not breathing."

Shinichi sighed. "All right. I'll leave the wigging out to the others then."

Kaito laughed. "That's the spirit. One more thing."

Catching Shinichi's chin with his hand, he crushed their lips together in a fierce kiss that left Shinichi breathless and clinging to him for support.

The magician flashed a satisfied grin. "Now we can go."

X

The stained glass windows stood tall and arched in a row across the looming front wall of the castle's entrance hall. Though the light shining in through those windows was much hampered by the thorny draperies outside, it was enough to illuminate the pictures picked out by the variously colored and shaped pieces of glass.

There was the man Kaito and the others had seen with his box of black and white pearls. To his left stood a woman with flowing blue hair to match her flowing blue dress and a pair of blue butterfly wings. To his right was a man with black bird wings and no face. A single tall, leafy tree filled the window to the far left, while the window to the far right sported a serpent so colorful that it could have passed for a tropical bird.

With his head tilted back, the detective studied each picture in turn, fixing them in his memory.

"I feel like I should know what they mean," Kaito remarked.

"The second and fourth windows are larger than the others," Hattori observed. "Maybe they're the Lord and Lady that Kudo heard about."

"But that man in the middle's the person we saw," Kazuha said, drifting higher for a better look. "I would have thought he'd be the Lord."

The scarecrow shrugged. "He could be an important subordinate."

"What, along with the snake and the tree?"

"Wait a moment." Indigo eyes narrowed. "A man, a snake, and a tree… And this castle…"

"What is it?" asked Shinichi.

"I was just thinking about how this castle is all about sleep," Kaito explained. "So sleep, a man, a tree, and a snake." He ticked each item off on his fingers as he spoke. "It occurs to me that I've heard them all together before. There was an old Greek poet who wrote about the sons of the god of sleep."

"I remember something about that," Shinichi mused, one hand rising to his chin as he thought. "One specialized in taking on the forms of animals. One tended to use the forms of plants and other inanimate things."

"And the one that was best at imitating human beings was Morpheus," Kaito finished. "Who is sometimes depicted carrying a box of dreams and nightmares."

"Guess that makes the winged dude Sleep," Hattori concluded. "Somnus, right? But I don't remember anything about him having no face."

"Well, we're really just guessing here," Kaito pointed out. "Though it seems to be like just the kind of aberration whatever forces created this world would enjoy. In any case, it would fit in its own twisted way."

"But what about the blue fairy?" asked Kazuha. "How would she fit in?"

"That's it!" Shinichi exclaimed. "The Blue Fairy!"

"What?"

"From Pinocchio. Someone with the power to make things real!"

Kaito let out a low whistle. "Combine them all and you can create your own paradise."

All four of them fell silent as this new possibility settled in their minds. With it came an upwelling of wonder touched with trepidation.

It would explain a great deal, Shinichi thought. From the splendor of the Court of Stars to its half-there staff and innumerable amenities. This place was a fabricated paradise existing on the edge between reality and dreams where all things become possible. Like dreams, it drew its creations from the hearts and memories of those who walked within it. And the more open to the fantasy you became, the deeper you slipped into its glamour.

His own dreams while he had slept in the castle were just the same, only the dream world had been more complete. No wonder the new releases he had purchased in that dream bookstore had told stories that sounded so much like the lives of people he knew. They must have been drawn from his own memories as well—scrambled and embellished to create seemingly new tales. But it had all been so systematic and all the details so clear that there must have been intelligent design behind it all.

"I guess that would explain why this place feels so surreal," Hattori said finally. "Provided we're not barking up the wrong tree. It would also mean that the people in charge here are a pretty decent lot."

"What makes you say that?" Shinichi asked.

"They'd have to be good people to spend all this time and energy on trying to create a place where everyone who visits can have fun in their own way," the scarecrow reasoned.

Shinichi frowned. "Maybe…" The Court was a beautiful dream for the most part. Shinichi would admit to that much without reservation. But the way that the place muddled your thoughts and lulled you into complacency made him uneasy. It was all well and good to encourage everyone to have fun, but at what cost and to what ends? "I don't think we can afford to make assumptions like that just yet. Not unless we can talk to them."

Kaito let out a bark of laughter that made them all jump. "I'd say it's about time we did just that. Come, my fellow travelers, if our conjectures are accurate then I do believe I know where our lovely hosts await." That said, he pivoted, grabbed Shinichi's hand, and strode right back the way they'd come at a brisk pace, forcing everyone else to follow.

TBC

A.N: Sorry about the slow updates. It's been difficult to find inspiration. In any case, I hope you're all doing well. Take care and stay healthy!