Eratigan

The Cattail Dungeon

He wished that he could say that being kidnapped by a bunch of vaguely feline shaped fluffballs was the strangest thing that he ever had the misfortune to experience.

He'd be lying if he did, though.

After falling through the broken shards of a mirror in the middle of a warzone, however, he had quickly learned that strangeness was just another word for aesthetic or atmosphere in this place.

So when the floofs locked him in a dungeon, proclaiming war against all things that weren't cute, his face hadn't even twitched from faintly bemused.

"Hey, Misser, ya got any magic?"

He turned to look at who he was sharing a cell with. A dirt-covered girl with hair so greasy it was black. Her hands encased and bound together in rune-covered gloves.

He sat down against the wall and yawned, "Sorry, witch. Not on me. Not a crumb."

The girl went from meth-addict to toddler. She collapsed to the ground, shoulders drooping, and absolutely howled. Tears painting rivers down her abandoned face.

He sighed heavily, "Tomas Wesson. What's your name?"

"E-e-erati-gan." She sobbed pathetically. "I-i-i want my mummy!"

He turned his head curiously. "How long have you been down here?"

"Th-they took my mummy!" The girl cried. She didn't look that young. He knew looks could be deceiving, but magic tended to make people look younger than they were. And she looked like a young adult.

He rubbed his face, "The fluff things?"

"Cattitails." She sniffled, "They're mean, Misser. Took my magic. Took my mummy. Said I-i-i wasn't cute enough!"

"Said the same thing about me. One minute I'm picking mushrooms, next I'm being carted off. Faeur is going to give me a massive earful when she finds me." He sighed, "She might be able to help you, when she gets here."

"Faeur?" The girl stopped crying, "You know Faeur?"

"Yeah. She's my Spirit Guide. Heard of her, then?"

"You know Faeur!" Eratigan squealed excitedly.

The Spirit Guide had been another thing he just sort of stumbled along into. Literally.

He'd been trying to mind his business when he accidentally stepped into a circle of mushrooms. Not realising that fairy circles really did house fairies in this insane place.

The fire pixie living there had been about to blast him to ash when some hunter had mistaken him for a ghoul and tried to save the fairy by putting a crossbow bolt through his heart.

Grief-stricken by actually watching someone die, the pixie had replaced his heart with her circle. A clump of mushrooms growing inside his chest, a few visibly poking out.

It also bound them together for all eternity.

She could never stray very far from her circle. If he went too far, she'd end up dying, and then being reborn with one hand on his artificial heart.

Faeur didn't seem to mind for the most part. She treated him like a jarhead, but she also acted like a fiercely overprotective sister.

Odd that the witch might know her, though. What with the pixie being bound to the circle by mysterious forces of nature that was totally not magic, according to the creatures living here.

"How do you know her?"

Eratigan smiled sheepishly, "She's my twinning. Duh."

Not a word he knew. Or would even believe if he knew what it meant. Witches always had some strange compulsion to lie about things.

A puff of flame burned a hole in his shirt as an elegant woman burst out of it, tumbling head over heels. She muttered angrily as she adjusted her red dress, before standing on stilleto heels and turning to face him.

"Tomas stupid Wesson! Did you get freaking kidnapped and thrown in a dungeon, again!?"

"Hey, Faeur. Sorry. Apparently I'm not cute enough. Seems that's a crime."

The pixie sneered, her hair bursting into flames, "Cattails? You let bloody Cattails kidnap my circle!?"

"Sorry."

She glared at him, "Sorry just isn't good enough. What is the point of teaching you spells if you never use them?"

"I still can't do magic." He re-treaded an old argument.

The pixie stuck out her tongue at him, and then finally noticed the withc staring at her with what could only be described as a hunger. "Ew. What pet did you find, this time?"

"Eratigan, she's a witch. And misses her mummy." He introduced her.

"Faeur!" The witch shrieked at the top of her lungs.

The pixie shuddered in horror, "Oh, hells bells. This is where you ended up? Gross. I s'pose I have to bring you with us."

"You actually do know her?" Tomas cocked his head.

The fire-haired pixie nodded and rubbed her temples, "Stupid, stupid, stupid. She's family, sort of. My twinning."

"What's a twinning?"

The pixie glared at him, "Bloody hell, you're always so stupid. When a pixie gives birth to twins, one of them becomes an elemental fairy, and the other becomes a magical mortal. So I'm the one who is going to live forever, and she's my short-lived other half."

"This thing, is your sister. But she said the floofs took her mum." Tomas said in confusion.

"Mortal mum." Faeur rolled her eyes, "Like the Fae would put up with a mortal kid. She got adopted out. But... Fine. Fine. She's my twinning. How long they kept you here, Eratigan?"

"They took mummy!" The witch burst into tears again.

The pixie nodded slowly, "I vote... We leave her here. You ready to get going, Tomas?"

"You're going to leave behind your obviously half-crazy and fully-abandoned sister, in a floof dungeon?" Tomas said in surprise, "That's cold. Even for you. Aren't you supposed to be a fire pixie?"

"Shut up!" Faeur yelled, her entire body briefly igniting.

The pixie kicked the ground and turned to face the dungeon gate. She walked over to it and put both hands on the bars, which immediately began to glow red hot, before turning white and melting.

Tomas fanned his face as he waited for her to dissolve the gate.

Eratigan sniffled, "Sissy?"

"Call me that again and I'll shove a meteor down your mortal throat." Faeur growled angrily, and rubbed her temples. "Of all the luck, Tomas, you have the freaking worst. Crazy crap always happens to you. I never would have seen her again, weren't for you."

The witch held up her metal-encased hands, "They took my magic."

"Eugh. Druidic runes." Faeur shivered, "Gross. I'm not touching those. I don't feel like getting objectified by a bunch of living vines."

Eratigan's shoulders drooped and she sniffled pathetically, nodding silently.

Faeur crossed her arms, "Oh, you always do that. Make out you're the big victim, and try and convince everyone else to do the work to save you. I bet you just forgot that you were in prison."

"Does she even know... Anything?" Tomas whispered to his Spirit Guide.

The pixie shrugged, "I honestly dunno. She's always been half crazy. That's why no one went looking for her. She turns up eventually."

"I want my mummy!" Eratigan screeched, the walls cracking and the roof shaking down dust.

Tomas stared at the witch in terror, "What... Was that?"

"Eratigan." Faeur let out a frustrated sigh, "As powerful as she is immature. Sorry to say that between us, she's probably the more magical one."

"They took it." Eratigan stuck out her bottom lip, "They took my magic."

"Huh?" Tomas scratched at his head, "Didn't she just... Use magic?"

"Her magic. Her personal magic. It's just a guess, really, but I'm thinking they stole her fairy dust. What with her being a twinning, she was born with some." Faeur shrugged.

"Uglies!"

Tomas turned as he saw a series of ball shapes coming bouncing down the hallway. "Ah, no. I hate those things."

"Good. Means I can burn them." Faeur said sadistically a raised a hand to blitz the cat floofs.

"Not the kitties! They look too cute when they cry." Eratigan said, using her encased hands to knock down her sisters threatening grasp. Then the witch turned and did something... Odd.

She meowed.

Loudly.

"It's free! It's free!" The balls squealed, coming to a stop and bouncing in the other direction as quickly as they could. Screaming about Eratigan being free.

The witch nodded firmly, "That's how you make them scared, Misser. You make them scared before you cook them. So that they taste better."

He blinked at the creepy statement.

"Keep your claws out of my Tomas." Faeur growled at her twin.

The witch smiled innocently, and bounced from one foot to the other, "Can we go save mummy, now? I miss her. Pwease?"

"Do not try to sound like a child. You already do." The fire pixie snapped.

The witch shrugged and began to skip ahead of them.

Tomas shook his head and followed.

This was his life, ever since he'd ended up in this crazy ass world. Random crap happened, and he was just along for the ride.