Chaos, Contained and Otherwise

Chaos, Contained or Otherwise

Klarion groaned, pushing himself up, or at least trying to. He felt broken, and more than a little disoriented. He attempted to look around, but the world seemed to be spinning. Nothing he could make out seemed familiar. "Where the hell am I?" he murmured under his breath.

A voice huffed from across the room, sounding half annoyed, half relieved. "I don't know how you are already awake, but at least you woke up." There stood a man; he was on the smallish side, maybe not even quite five feet tall, wearing purple and orange clothes, and clearly elderly. He stood there looking authoritative yet with hidden depths of gentleness that made Klarion's stomach churn because it reminded him of his mother.

"Who are you?" Klarion asked, making no effort to mask his distrust.

The man sighed, "Telling you compromises me greatly. I suppose not telling you still compromises me, though... So if you don't know, I am known as Mxyzptlk."

"Mxyz- What?" Klarion exclaimed, already confused, "Well, whoever you are, what did you do to me?"

"Pardon?" Mxyzptlk asked in pointed tone.

"Well, I just woke from- whatever the hell happened, I don't know where I am, and you're the only one here. So I wanted to know, what the hell, man?"

Mxyzptlk blinked in surprise. "I did nothing to you. I found you like this, floating between dimensions. My best guess is that you were tampering with a spell of some sort you weren't ready for yet. You know, kid, you really should stay away from magic- at least until you are older."

"I'm an ageless lord of chaos!" Klarion growled, "I can do whatever I want!"

Mxyzptlk remained unphased by his words. "Whatever you are, and let it be known the you lying and telling the truth are of equal believability to me after all I've seen, you weren't ready for it. Not in that form, at least." He gestured to Klarion, who looked upon his own form with a mixture of pride and spite, an odd mix of feeling that he was familiar with. "What is an ageless lord of chaos, if I am to believe you, doing looking like that?"

Klarion scowled at Mxyzptlk. "It's just how I enjoy looking. People don't give a fuck about what kids do."

"Now, I know I've been lenient," Mxyzptlk murmured, still retaining his full composure, "But I would prefer it if we kept our vocabulary clean.

"No," Klarion snapped stubbornly.

Mxyzptlk shrugged, clearly not shaken by the boy's disobedience, nor any other thing he'd learned about Klarion. "I tried," he said calmly.

Klarion, glanced around. He was slowly gathering his bearings. He was lying in a bed in a strange room, with one window he could not see through for his position, even after he finally was able to push himself up into a seated position. The walls were bare and purple, the curtain obscuring the window even further were orange, and the blanket across him were also orange and purple, in a zigzagged pattern.

"Between his outfit and the decor, this Mxyz-whoever really likes this ugly color combo," Klarion thought to himself, "And even though I've never been here before, something is missing. Maybe I've been here before and forgot? No, this Mxyz guy would've recognized me then. Arg, if only my mind could stop spinning for five seconds, I could remember! Maybe Teekl can-"

"Teekl!" Klarion exclaimed suddenly.

"Come again?" Mxyzptlk asked. It had been a long time since he truly felt flabberghasted. In his opinion, this kid deserves an award or something.

Klarion looked up at him, and for the first time, Mxyzptlk saw something besides anger in Klarion's eyes. He saw vulnerability. "Teekl! They're my fa- uh, my cat."