Remember Me: A Nutcracker Story | ✔

VI. Captive

The Rat King's manor was easily the biggest structure in the land. It was drab and made of the same unpolished grey stone as the rest of the buildings, but it was the only one not spewing dark smoke into the air. 

The guards dragged Mary into some sort of drawing room with a pompous seat up on a dais, and dumped her unceremoniously into a chair in the middle of the room. The thinner mouse-man latched her wrists and ankles onto the chair to prevent her from escaping. The Rat King entered soon after that, and he circled the chair like a hungry cat.

"You are dismissed," he told the guards, and they saluted him and disappeared behind the doors. The Rat King turned his attention back to Mary, and if his eyes could change color, they would have been dark red.

"It's good to see you again, Miss Mary," he purred. "How have you been? And where is your impertinent little brother? I quite liked the little chap."

Mary heaved breaths under the dingy rag in her mouth and gave the Rat King a glare that could have burned a hole through his head. The Rat King took one look at her and laughed out loud.

"Oh, silly me, how could I expect you to talk with that rag in your mouth?" He yanked the rag and Mary couldn't resist gagging and spitting, then she looked up at him with an even more ferocious glare.

"You are the foulest creature to ever walk this earth."

"Now, now, let's not get nasty, yes?" said the Rat King, but in a flash he was gripping her jaw tightly between his fingers, digging his claws into her skin. He leaned in close and sneered at her. "You wouldn't like to see me nasty, would you?"

Mary, helpless as she was, could only return his sneering look with a wordless glare, and then she mustered up the words: "Why are you keeping me here right now?" She didn't taking her loathing eyes off the Rat King, but he only snickered.

"Is that really what you want to know, Mary, dear?" he replied as he gazed at her like a tiger waiting to pounce on its prey.

Mary paused to think. "NC... What did you do to him? This was where he'd gone, wasn't it? That's why he's changed when he got back to the Land of Sweets. What did you do to him!?" 

As she spoke Mary's voice rose with panic and anger at each word, and the more she struggled against the leather straps that bound her on the chair, scattering red welts on her pale skin.

The Rat King let go of her jaw at once and sat himself on the throne. "I didn't do anything to him, and I could swear it."

"Well then, why? Why is he so cold, so stoic? Why doesn't he recognize me?" 

Remembering NC's cold shoulder and blank eyes when she met him, Mary's own eyes instantly began filling with hot, angry tears. She heard the Rat King get up and approach her, so she lowered her head and tried to dry her eyes.

"Oh, poor dear," he cooed. "You loved him, didn't you?" He tried to lift Mary's face, but she harshly turned away from him.

"Don't you touch me," she spit out, still with her head lowered. "I didn't love him; I still do, and I would stop at nothing to give him back what you took."

The Rat King smiled sarcastically and lifted his arms up in mock surrender. "But I took nothing of his, my girl."

This time, Mary looked up at the Rat King squarely; her eyes were rimmed with red from tears and fury. "Yes, you did. Whatever you've done to him, whatever you've said, you've taken away something that should never be taken from anybody."

"And what is that?"

"You've taken his childhood away."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

The candy guards have begun digging around the cave under Sticks' direction. Some were complaining at the lack of logic, saying that the entire mountain might collapse of top of them, but Sticks had nothing of it. He himself was digging around the very spot where Mary disappeared, but after a couple of feet, he still found nothing. 

He wanted to dig up some more, but even he knew he would put them all in danger if the excavation grew any deeper. Due to exhaustion and desperation, Sticks sank onto the ground and fell asleep beyond his control, where he had a dream.

In the dream, he was running in the darkness when he heard a voice from somewhere up ahead. It was Mary's and she was calling out his name. But the sound came from all directions that he didn't know where to turn.

"Sticks, can you hear me?"

"I can hear you, but where are you?" he called back.

"Can't you see me? I'm right here! Look: I'm right in front of you."

Sticks immediately stretched his arms out into the darkness, only to be disappointed when he touched nothing. "There's nothing in front of me. Where are you? I really can't see you; it's so dark in here —"

But his speech was cut short by a high-pitched scream that echoed all around him; Sticks covered his ears to block it out. Then Mary's voice called out again, but it had changed into how it would sound like if she were running. A strange squeaking sound followed that sent shivers down Sticks' spine.

"Help, somebody! He's after me! Help me!!" The rest of the words were drowned out by the strange squeaking sound, and all Sticks could do was run and call out Mary's name helplessly.

"Mary!!"

"Sticks!"

Sticks bolted awake, his shirt drenched in sweat. He was still on the cave floor, but all the candy soldiers were looking down at him with concern. One of them was kneeling by his side, shaking his shoulder. 

"Are you alright, boy?" he asked, and another extended his arm to help Sticks up. But Sticks waved him off and got up on his own.

"I have an idea as to what we're fighting," he said breathlessly. "We have to find her, and fast."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

The Rat King laughed loudly. "Me, take away his childhood? It's the first I've heard of that. Is that possible, after all?"

"There was something you did that ruined it," continued Mary, feeling so sure of her conclusion. "You could've done anything, anything at all, to ruin his childhood and thus take it away."

"My dear Mary, all I did was told him the truth," said the Rat King in mock innocence.

Mary blinked. "What truth?"

The Rat King grinned mischievously. "Oh, there's so much you don't know, Miss Mary. To start with, I should have been the king of the Land of Sweets, the Snow Kingdom and NC's realm; not by conquest, but by marriage."

Mary scoffed. "You're lying; I know you are. How in all earth would that ever be possible? Who would be so unfortunate as to marry you?"

"It would have been very possible, my dear, because the Sugar Plum Fairy was once my betrothed."

Mary's eyes almost popped out of their sockets, and she was at a loss for words in a few moments. But then she laughed incredulously. "That's impossible; insane, even. Why on earth would the beautiful Sugar Plum Fairy be pledged to marry you?"

"Do not be so quick in judging me, you insolent child," snapped the Rat King. "I wasn't always like this, a man with a mouse's face. I used to be a prince, and if it weren't for that Sugar Plum Fairy of yours — my own betrothed! — I would have stayed that way. It all started on the eve of our wedding day."

And so, the Mouse's true tale began.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-