Work Text
Prologue - The Swap
*
Comic Cedric
*
Where is he? Cedric thought, pacing nervously back and forth in front of the mirror.
He glanced from time to time at each side of the narrow corridor of the blue palace. If anyone came now and found him - no, if anyone found them, the whole thing would be over in a minute. Luckily this area of the palace was not very frequented.
But if his friend did not appear as planned, the games wouldn’t even start.
Cedric had been so excited the whole day that it had been nearly impossible to keep the secret from Orube. He knew she suspected something - she was not able to read thoughts with magic, but with Cedric she didn’t need to do that. There was literally nothing that could escape her eye. But she hadn’t said anything, not even when earlier he’d made up the excuse that he had to do some errands for the Queen and had been too hyped to pretend to be annoyed by that.
The sound of steps made his heart skip a beat. He looked left and right, expecting someone to appear in the corridor and crush his plans for the day. But the steps came from the other side of the wall - beyond the mirror.
Excitement frizzed through his body as he saw the figure approaching from behind the glass. Tall, in a black robe with green edges and accents on the shoulders, violet eyes, blond hair as long as his own, but of a lighter shade and tied in a low ponytail. And that face - Cedric’s own face.
“Finally!” Cedric said. “I thought you were going to stand me up!”
The other man raised an eyebrow at him. “I wouldn’t miss this for anything in the world. I just had to stock up Larvek’s food for while I’m gone.”
Cedric almost started to jump on his feet from the impatience. “So let’s go, before anyone arrives!”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” the other man asked.
“Are you nuts?” Cedric said, “I’ve never been so sure of anything in my entire life! And you know how long we live, so it’s a long life.”
If he was sure, he asked. Cedric shook his head - how could his counterpart even doubt that? Cedric had never made a single prank in his life, always playing the diligent and behaved pageboy and then the Champion and then the - well, let’s say the ‘not redeemed but not evil either’ former villain, always careful not to do anything that would lead anyone to believe he had to be removed from the position he was in and which he had to defend with gritted teeth.
But now, it was enough.
Cedric had thought about this prank since the day he had found by pure accident the mirror in the palace where something was moving on the other side - and that something had turned out to be him. Only it was not exactly him.
He had found another version of himself - Cedric. Yeah, surprise, his name was Cedric as well. The Cedric on the other side of the mirror was a little different than him and Cedric was pretty sure that at least Orube would notice the difference - but she would understand that it was just a prank. Also, his counterpart from the other side didn’t really seem to be interested in women, at least not now that he just came from a too long relationship with Phobos - how had he even managed to stand him for that long?! - so Cedric was not worrying too much that the other would try to hit on her. Well, anyway if there was anyone in any universe who could defend herself, that was Orube, so…
Yes, Cedric was ready to do the swap and exchange his place with his alternate version for one day. He wanted to see the other Meridian, the dark Meridian, while here literally everything was always blue or purple or green, and he wanted to see the other Cedric’s pet - he said his name was Larvek and Cedric had promised to take care of him, and he was so excited even just for that, as he had never had a pet. He was curious to see the other Phobos, too - from what he’d heard, the other Prince had his feet a bit more on the ground than the Phobos of this side, although Cedric doubted that there could be any Phobos in any universe who did not believe to be a God.
“Hurry up, before someone comes!” Cedric urged the other.
The other Cedric glanced again behind his shoulder, then took a step towards the mirror, and then through the mirror. It had taken Cedric weeks, but he had managed to make the enchantment that would open the mirror, and it was working!
As he came to this side, Cedric scanned his doppelganger from head to toe. Damn, he had not noticed that the other was taller than him.
“You’re… shorter,” the other said, echoing Cedric’s thoughts.
“Hopefully nobody will notice…”
“I think that’s the last thing they’re gonna notice, my friend,” the other side’s Cedric said. He was right - his hair was lighter, and he had violet eyes. In Cedric’s universe, his alternate version could easily give it away as a ‘phase’, just a change of look, because everyone knew Cedric was able to do such things, even though he had never changed a single detail of his human appearance in ages. But in the other universe… The other Cedric was a shapeshifter, too, but with a more limited range. He had admitted that his true form was the naga one, and that he could only switch from that one to the human one. The two had discussed whether Cedric should just take the other’s appearance, but first, his instinct as a shapeshifter kept him from taking the appearance of another one, and second, the reason they were doing this prank was exactly to see if anyone would notice that something was off, so he had to keep his usual honey blond hair and aquamarine eyes.
“Alright, I’ll go then,” Cedric said, and he moved to the mirror. He had already one leg across when the other said behind him, “Don’t forget that Larvek is lactose-intolerant!”
“Yeah, I understood. No milk, no cheese. Only raw meat.” Cedric crossed the mirror and started to walk away in the dark, looking for any source of light.
“And strawberries!” he heard the other Cedric calling after him.
Yeah, sure, a dog that eats strawberries, Cedric thought, shaking his head, as he entered the other Meridian.
*
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The Gift
*
*
Cartoon Cedric
*
The blue Meridian stank.
Cedric was not sure if it was really something foul or if it was just the different smell of a different universe, but for him, it stank.
As he turned the third corridor with walls of yet another shade of blue, light blue marble tiles on the floor and greenish columns, he almost felt nauseated. The palace of his world was dark and grim, some would have said even creepy, but at least Phobos had enough of a good taste to decorate it in such a way that it did not look as if someone had just stumbled on a bucket of blue paint.
Phobos - his Phobos - was excellent in keeping the palace perfect and elegant, not like these blue walls of emptiness.
Cedric shut down the usual feeling of longing that bubbled up in his stomach every time he thought about Phobos, and forced himself to come back with his mind to his plans for this day in the other Meridian. After all, this was why he had accepted to do the swap - to stay away from Phobos’s palace and all those memories for a day.
He was confident that the other Cedric would not try to do anything that would make him regret leaving him with Phobos. Apparently, after a tragic and disastrous relationship between the two, the Prince of the blue Meridian had become one of those ‘oh don’t look at me, I’m a God and you’re unworthy of laying your eyes on me’-types of tyrant and the other Cedric barely saw him, and when he did, he basically had to look at the ground the whole time. Then, the Elyon of their side came and did her girl-bossing, and Phobos was now living confined in a tower, with the bare minimum magical power that Metamoor people needed for surviving. Which was not that different from the fate of the other Phobos. Apparently, both Elyons liked to feel morally superior by keeping their brothers alive and by hiring their lieutenants to work for the Crown and to keep company to the Prince in his prison.
Back to the plan: the first thing he wanted to do was-
“What the hell happened to you?!” a young female voice made him startle. He looked up, as he was so lost in his thoughts he was walking looking at the floor, and he flinched as he found himself in front of five familiar, irritating, obnoxious faces - the Guardians.
Cedric looked at them wide-eyed, mirroring the same expression they had painted on their faces as they studied him. They did not look much different than their counterparts in his universe, but they looked older, even transformed as they were now.
His pulse quickened - he couldn’t believe his journey to the other Meridian was already at its end because he’d been already spotted as an imposter, and that it was the fuckin’ Guardians to catch him red-handed. He did not speak, waiting for them to sentence him to go back and to start kicking his ass while doing so.
“Orube and Vathek were looking for you the whole day, where were you?!” said the Keeper of the Heart.
“Oh, and she’s so mad at you, man,” said the Water Guardian.
Cedric had to make an effort not to sigh in relief. Did they really not notice? And why was Vathek looking for him? Oh - right, they were friends over here.
“I was- uh…” he had to think quickly about something. Something that would free him from the presence of those bugs. “I was looking for a gift for her.”
Nailed it!, Cedric thought as the five girls blinked and their eyes lit with curiosity and interest. There was nothing better for distracting a bunch of teenagers than talking about gifts for girlfriends.
“A gift?” Hay Lin asked. “For what? It’s not her birthday, right?” she said, turning to the other girls for confirmation.
“Do I need a reason for giving my woman a gift?” he said.
“Your woman?” Cornelia repeated, shooting him a pointed look. “Be careful what you say, she’s already mad enough at you.”
“Anyway,” he went on, “maybe you could help me find something for her. I think Earth has better options for this, and who better than her five friends could help me find the perfect gift?”
The five looked at each other, perplexed, as if they were surprised that he was asking them for help. Yet he’d understood from the other Cedric that they somewhat tolerated each other for Orube’s sake - surely it was not that out of the blue that he would ask them for help to find a gift for her?
“Alright, but we have an open budget and you do not have any decisional power on what we buy,” said the Keeper of the Heart, pointing a threatening finger at him.
“Uh… open budget?” Damn, he had not thought that they would need money. Earth money.
“Don’t worry about that, lizard boy, we know where you keep your money in Heatherfield, so there’s no need for you to look for your wallet in those weird gloomy robes you’re wearing,” said the Water Guardian as she patted him on the shoulder with much more energy than necessary.
“Yeah, since when does he wear black?” he heard the Fire Guardian telling the others as they walked past him.
“Maybe he was bored and went for a makeover, I mean did you see his eyes?” he heard another one say. As they walked away from him, Cedric kept hearing them chatting excitedly about where they could go shopping first.
I hope you have a generous bank account over there, Cedric, he thought as the girls turned at the end of the corridor and disappeared. He almost felt bad for his counterpart, but then he shook himself and went on walking his way. The other Cedric had said he could forge terrestrial money with magic, after all. His Orube would get an expensive gift, and Cedric got rid of the five girls for a while. This was going to be an amazing day.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Larvek
*
*
Comic Cedric
*
It turned out that Larvek was definitely not a dog.
It did not take Cedric long to find him - or better, for him to find Cedric. As soon as he’d crossed the mirror and had gone to the other side, he did as the other Cedric had instructed him and headed downstairs, and then down, down, down, until he found an exit. The first thing he wanted to do was going to see the pond where the other Cedric had said he could swim as naga undisturbed, and where usually he went to feed Larvek. Cedric had never had a pond or a pool or a whatever space with water where he could do the same and he was looking forward to turning into the naga and trying it out.
He did not look much at the inside of the palace as he almost ran downstairs towards that small side exit, but from what he saw, the palace indeed looked darker, as the other Cedric had said. The other had told him that the palace had always been like that during Phobos’s reign, and that Elyon had at first thought about giving it a makeover, to make it look less like a vampire lair, but then she’d apparently been affected by the gothic vibes of the place and had embraced it for what it was - much to Phobos’s satisfaction and approval.
He’d have time later to explore the palace and perhaps go to see Phobos in his tower - he was curious to see how different the Prince was in this world. Surely he must have been different from his Phobos, if the other Cedric had suffered him for so long. Not that Cedric was much different in that regard - the Elyon of his side pitied Phobos just as much as the Elyon of the dark Meridian did, and had started to visit her brother herself to have tea with him and walk in the room of the tower she had transformed into a garden for him, and soon she’d convincingly asked Cedric to do the same. And that was how Cedric had reluctantly found himself going to that tower every week, bringing pastries the Prince stubbornly refused to eat but that Cedric knew were his favourite and he would devour later when left alone, and drinking tea - or occasionally wine - while telling Phobos the latest news from the city.
He finally reached the exit the other Cedric had told him about and after he’d left the palace he found himself walking a cobbled path that kept going down, down and down. He stopped his descent for a moment as he lifted his gaze and realized where exactly he was: the palace of Meridian was on the top of a steep mountain and from the point where he was, he could take in the whole breadth of the Meridian city. The palace of the blue Meridian was also on the top of a small hill, but it was not at such a high altitude and such a landscape could only be seen from the highest points of the watchtowers. One could certainly not see the whole land and catch a glimpse of the next city from the ground floor.
Cedric kept walking down the path looking at the landscape that extended under the mountain of the palace, gaping at the vastness of the city - he had never really seen how big Meridian was, and he was not sure if his Meridian was as big as this one.
As branches and trees started to interrupt the magnificent view, he understood he was close to the pond.
There it is!, he thought as he saw the sparkle of water gleaming under the sunlight that filtered through the leaves.
The pond looked like a little corner of a colorful heaven as compared to the dark atmosphere of the palace. The water was clear and revealed a bluish bed with white stones beneath, and was surrounded by grass of a vibrant green and trees of all shapes and various colors. He recognized a tree with a branch so big and bent in a way that it could only serve as a resting place for a naga.
A flutter of excitement danced through him and he regretted not having taken Orube with him - she would have definitely liked this and would have enjoyed climbing on one of those trees and watching him swimming as the naga. Maybe if this experiment went well he could-
A deafening shriek made him almost scream. He didn’t even have the time to look and search where did that come from, as with a rush of leaves, a giant thing - something like an enormous worm launched against him from nowhere.
He staggered back, but the thing was faster than him and started to slither around him, the creature’s shrieks becoming less loud but quicker, almost resembling the chirping of birds. It almost sounded like the creature was… happy to see him.
A dreading thought appeared in Cedric’s mind as he observed the giant worm drawing circles around him.
When the worm stopped, only to nudge Cedric’s shoulder with his giant and horrifying head, he understood.
“You… you are Larvek?!”
The worm responded with another series of excited squeaks.
For Imdahl’s thunders…
Apparently, the other Cedric’s pet was not a dog, but a giant, scary worm that dripped a strange greenish ooze from his fanged mouth - a greenish ooze that now was splattered on Cedric’s robes.
As Larvek kept nudging Cedric’s shoulder and stroking his arm with the head, Cedric tentatively reached out with his hand and patted that part of the worm’s head that could have been called a forehead.
“If you want to eat, you’ll have to let me free though,” he told the creature. Again, Larvek squealed excitedly and moved his body so there was an opening between Cedric and the pond.
Finally!
Cedric closed his eyes and let the naga shape take the place of his human mask. Larvek made a sound that could almost have passed as a cheer. That was nice - nobody ever cheered when Cedric transformed into the naga, and even Orube had stopped being impressed by that.
He dove into the pond and a wave of pleasure crossed his body and his tail as the cool water touched his scales. He swam to the bottom of the pond, where the other Cedric had told him to look for Larvek’s stock of raw meat. He found the hard surface of wood and opened the casket. There, what looked like the stock of meat that would feed an entire village in the suburbs of Meridian looked back at him, carefully portioned into what looked like bubbles. Cedric grabbed one and closed the casket again, then carried it with him to the surface. When he re-emerged, Larvek was looking at him with his body half up from the bank, and moved the end of his body just as excitedly as a dog would do with his tail.
Cedric threw the bubble with the meat towards Larvek, who promptly jumped. The bubble went directly into his wide opened mouth as if Cedric had just thrown a basketball into the hoop.
“Good boy,” Cedric said, and he dove into the water again.
He could not blame the other Cedric for not revealing that his pet was more on the monster side than on the dog side, Cedric thought as he swam in the pond. After all, Larvek was not really that different from a dog.
Oh, if he had only known what the other Cedric had really kept from him about Larvek.
He was just about to find out that the little squishy fellow did not eat once a day. Not twice a day. Not three times a day.
He was about to find out that that casket that was as big as the cargo of a ship was Larvek’s food ration for one day.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Hands off me!
*
*
Cartoon Cedric
*
Gone to Earth, read the message written in English on a scrap of paper that Cedric found on the desk in the chambers of his counterpart. All that wandering around that sickeningly blue palace - jolting every time he heard footsteps coming from behind a corner, thinking it may be the Guardians again or worse, Queen Elyon - and then, the other Cedric’s girlfriend was not there.
Not that Cedric had any ill intentions, of course - he was just curious. He’d never seen a Basiliade native - the planet existed also in his universe, but as far as he was aware, nobody had ever had any contact with it. He was fascinated by the story of how the other Cedric had encountered that woman, and how they’d ended up together, and he was just curious to see her and talk to her.
Well, apparently he had to find a way to go to Earth to fetch her. He searched in the drawers of the desk. The first drawer only offered parchments, bottles of ink and quills, nothing that could help him open a portal to Earth. Surely his doppelganger must have a way to join his girlfriend, or she would not have gone to Earth leaving him with just that note. Cedric opened another drawer and he frowned as his eyes landed on a chaos of balls and threads of green yarn and, laying on the top of that, an unfinished square crocheted with the same yarn, and a crochet hook threaded through the wool. He closed the drawer, raising his eyebrows, and opened a third one. The glare of a piece of a broken mirror caught his attention. Yes! A magic mirror! They had those in the dark Meridian as well, although Cedric had never used one to travel dimensions - damn, why had Phobos never thought of that?! That would have saved them so much time chasing those Guardians…
Cedric took the mirror and was about to put it in the pocket of his robe, but froze mid-air as he realized he was wearing Metamoor clothes. From the Guardians’ remarks from earlier, those clothes weren’t even compliant with the usual colors that people wore in this blue Meridian, and certainly they were not appropriate for Earth. Damn, had he known that he would also visit their Heatherfield, he would have brought terrestrial clothes with him.
The mirror still in his hand, he went to the bedroom, where he found a giant wardrobe. And not only that - the rest of the wall was decorated not with paintings like one would expect from any normal bedroom, but with swords, daggers, and spears hanging at the wall. There was even a flail. Cedric swallowed. Those must be the weapons of the Basiliade warrior. Was it really a good idea to meet her? The thought that the other Cedric’s girlfriend was a warrior capable of using all those weapons, perhaps more than one at the same time, made a shiver run along his spine. At the same time, the thought made him even more curious and intrigued to see this woman.
He opened the wardrobe. “Hm, this must be her side,” he muttered as he took in the hanging beige blouses, brown pants with golden decorations that did not look like they could belong to Meridian fashion in any universe, red robes edged in gold, and-
“Yeah, definitely her side,” he said as he pulled out the edge of what looked like a laced nightgown in red silk that would leave nothing to the imagination if worn by a woman.
When he opened the other side, his eyes almost hurt at the cacophony of blue and green shades of the robes hanging next to each other. He surveyed robe after robe, wondering who ever decided that literally everything in that planet had to be of a shade of blue or green, until finally he found some terrestrial clothes. Ugh, even on Earth he wears only blue and green, he thought as he took out a green V-neck pullover. Doesn’t he have a goddamned white shirt?!
Finally, after having almost emptied the closet looking for something other than a knitted sweater, he found a plain white shirt. He grabbed a pair of jeans and changed into what he decided was an acceptable terrestrial outfit. In a drawer inside the wardrobe he also found a belt and a pair of glasses. “I see you understand me, Cedric,” he said, “it wouldn’t be a convincing terrestrial outfit without fake glasses!”
Now I’m ready, he thought as he checked one last time that he had everything he considered appropriate to pass for an earthling.
As he wasn’t sure of the size of the burst of magic that the mirror would generate when in use, he decided to go outside and look for a quiet place where he could use it. He’d just finished turning the other Cedric’s room upside down looking for a decent outfit and he certainly didn't want to ruin his furniture.
Cedric left the room and hurried to the corridor, hoping that this was the right direction to find the exit of the palace.
He was lucky again and only encountered some servants on the way. Cedric didn’t even glance in their direction and they seemed to ignore him as well - all of them except a tiny woman with green skin, black eyes without whites and long dark red hair, who gave him such a murderous look that made him almost want to turn into the naga and show her who she was daring to look like that.
Outside, he found himself on a gravel path that surrounded the palace and extended through smaller paths towards numerous circular gardens. He looked around, trying to make a decision on which garden he would head to. What was he even doing? It didn’t really matter if the flowers of the garden were yellow or blue, for what he was about to do.
“Cedric!”
A male voice calling his name made him jolt. He knew the voice, but could not connect it to a face. He turned and his mouth instinctively curved in distaste at the sight of the giant blue Galahot happily walking towards him.
“We’ve been looking for you the whole day!” Vathek exclaimed. “Orube has gone to Earth, did you see her message?”
Cedric blinked at him. He looked different from the Vathek Cedric knew from his universe - his face was… rounder. Friendlier. The kind of face that makes you want to give him a pat on the cheek.
“Oh, whatever,” Vathek went on, “now you know. Come here, I haven’t seen you in a week!” he said, and ventured toward Cedric with outstretched arms, as if to hug him. Before Vathek could even touch him, Cedric shoved him away.
“Hands off me!” Cedric snapped.
Vathek froze with his arms still open, looking at Cedric with his jaw dropped. Cedric saw surprise flashing in the Galahot’s eyes, followed by sad disappointment. Vathek took a step back, away from Cedric, and rummaged in his bag, without looking at the shapeshifter. Vathek pulled out a smaller bag of white fabric that looked like it was full with something like medallions of some kind. He stuck a big hand into the bag and pulled out a golden brown cookie nested with some brownish pieces that looked like nuts.
“I made those cookies you like!” he extended his arm toward Cedric, offering him the cookie. “Take it!”
Again, Cedric could not control the distaste that curved his mouth. Cookies. What was wrong with people here?
“I don’t eat cookies,” Cedric muttered.
This time, it was not surprise or sadness to cross Vathek’s eyes. This time, his gaze hardened.
“I knew you were not him,” the giant snarled. “He would change his eyes and his hair, but would never say no to my cookies.” His fangs snapped open and his face mutated instantly, his jaw becoming squarer and his grin angrier. Now he looked like the Vathek Cedric knew from his world. The Galahot shoved the cookie back into the bag and then pointed a threatening finger at Cedric. “What did you do to him? Where is he? Who are you?” he growled.
Cedric staggered back, opening and closing his mouth a couple of times, taken aback by this sudden burst of anger by that version of Vathek that looked like he couldn’t hurt a fly. “I uh- I am him, kind of. But from a parallel universe. We just swapped places for today. He’s in my world.”
“He’s where?!”
“In my world! Doing the same as I’m doing, just looking around to visit a different version of Meridian. He’ll come back tonight, we have an appointment. I swear!”
Vathek furiously held his gaze for some more moments, but then his face relaxed. The fangs slowly closed again, and his jaw went back to round. “Is there… another Vathek, where you come from?”
“Yes,” Cedric said. At the sudden fear painted on Vathek’s face, he hastily added, “but we’re not friends. I promise, nobody will take your place!”
Cedric had no ties with this Vathek who was now looking at him with those hopeful eyes, and yet the giant’s face was one of those sickeningly friendly faces that made it difficult to be mean with him.
“Alright, I’ll keep your secret, so you can have a look around,” Vathek said in the end. He scanned Cedric’s outfit. “Are you going to find Orube on Earth? You’re not going to try to steal her from him, right?”
Cedric pulled the mirror out of his pocket. “Of course not. And from what I heard she would make me regret trying. They live in Heatherfield, right?”
“Yes. 37, 6th Avenue. It’s not far from the bookshop - I guess you have a bookshop in Heatherfield also in your world, you look like the kind of guy who would pretend to be a bookstore owner.”
Cedric was not sure if he should have felt offended or flattered. But at least now he knew where to find this Basiliade warrior the other Cedric always talked about.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
I call bullshit!
*
*
Comic Cedric
*
Cedric left Larvek eating his tenth piece of raw meat in peace on the grass around the pond, and after having shifted back to the human form, he headed back to the palace. His next stop was exploring that castle that from outside really looked like the home of a vampire. It was strange to think that Elyon would not change the grim look of that palace, but at the same time Cedric could totally feel how contagious and fascinating those gothic vibes could be. He almost regretted not having borrowed a black robe from his counterpart - with his blue robe he’d probably look like a cloud of cotton candy in contrast with all that black.
He took a different gravel path to go back to the palace, heading towards the main entrance. The path was surrounded by colorful trees and branches and the air was crispy and fresh. From that height, he could not hear any sound coming from the village beneath, unlike in the blue Meridian, where one could hear the chatter and the sound of carriages crossing the streets from the gardens of the palace. Up there, the only sounds were the singing of birds, the rustling of leaves and the rush of water, perhaps from a river somewhere nearby.
It was wonderful. Cedric closed his eyes for a moment, savoring that moment of peace.
When he reopened his eyes, suddenly he saw only black in front of him.
He gasped as he realized that something that looked like black fur was blocking his vision.
What the-
Four blue-green fluorescent eyes snapped open in the middle of that black fur, making Cedric jolt. He staggered back, away from this thing. Was this another one of the other Cedric’s pets?! How many monsters did they have in this Meridian?
As he backed, he took in the thing and realized it was like a ball of black fur hanging from the branch of a tree upside down from what looked like a spiderweb. The thing rotated on itself and in doing so it detached from the tree and jumped down, four unsettling limbs snapping out of its body.
“Why so surprised to see me?” the thing crooned. She had a female voice.
Cedric opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, unable to take his eyes off that creepy creature.
“I uh-“ the creature seemed to know him, so he had to play as if he knew her as well. “I was just uh… distracted, and haven’t heard you coming, that’s all.”
The creature did not really have a face, but he could see her fluorescent eyes changing shape as if she was frowning. She cocked her head - or whatever it was that resembled a head - studying him. Before Cedric could take a step away, the creature ventured towards him on her fours, and when she was close enough she started to sniff his robes like a hound. She circled him, still studying him. It was amazing how one could see her skepticism, despite the fact that she did not really have a face.
“What are these clothes you’re wearing?” she hissed, taking an edge of his blue robe between the fingers of one of her limbs. “Since when do you wear… colors?”
See? A cloud of cotton candy. Cedric shrugged, faking carelessness. “For a change.”
“Hm…” the creature kept circling him until she was in front of him again. She raised on two legs, taking a strand of hair between her fingers. She sniffed it and she frowned again. “And what’s up with your hair?” she tossed the hair strand, making it fall flat on Cedric’s chest. “You never wear it open.”
The creature snapped forward, making Cedric gasp, finding herself a few inches from his nose and glaring at him with those eerie eyes. “And your eyes… since when can you shift your looks like that?”
“Sounds like you know me well, my friend,” Cedric said, “but perhaps not so well.”
The creature let out a deafening screech, jumping away from him. “Your friend?” she hissed. “So that’s what I am now, uh? You didn’t seem to think the same the other evening.”
Cedric frowned, mentally scanning all the information he’d received from the other Cedric to see if he was supposed to know that creature.
Shit, he thought as the information clicked in. That must be Miranda.
He scanned the creature with new eyes, knowing that this must be the woman the other Cedric had gotten close to after his breakup with Phobos. He thought they were just friends, but apparently something else was happening between the two. A sudden rush of jealousy crossed him from head to toe - his counterpart was apparently not so neutral to women after all, and he was in his world, likely talking to Orube…
He shook himself. Judging from the appearance of this Miranda, Orube was likely not even his type. Actually, dude, what’s wrong with you…
“I mean uh,” Cedric stuttered, “I’m just learning some magic. You know, new life, new me. And I thought you would uh… like my hair like this.”
A twitch where the creature should have had a nose made Miranda look as if she was looking at him with disgust. “I don’t buy it,” she said. “Bright gowns, open hair, blue eyes… I call bullshit!”
Cedric started to sweat cold. “What are you talking about… it’s… me.” Maybe he should transform into the other Cedric and call it a day. Miranda clearly knew his counterpart well enough to notice the differences and to know that the other Cedric could not shapeshift like that, but if he could take the appearance of the other, maybe...
Before Cedric could react, a movement in Miranda’s fur made him flinch - the hair of her body turned up and closed on her skin beneath, disappearing and leaving space to a different body. A human one, Cedric noticed as she shifted.
And within seconds, a woman was looking at him from below with wide blue eyes. She was so tiny she just reached his chest.
Cedric studied her with curiosity. Another shapeshifter, then. She was pretty. She had fair skin sprayed with freckles and shoulder-length black hair, and she was looking at him with the air of someone who was losing their patience. And those eyes… those eyes were just hypnotizing. Cedric wouldn’t have been surprised if she actually could use them to enchant people and then eat them alive.
“And you’re shorter,” Miranda said.
Cedric sighed. There was no use in trying to fight back. “Alright, I’m not really him,” he said, “I’m-”
“I know,” she cut him off, waving with her hand as if to shoo away the justifications that were coming next. “You’re the one from the other side. Cedric was so excited when he’d found you and just couldn’t keep it for himself, and of course I had to listen to his rambling about the blue Meridian and his oh-so-cool mage counterpart, since I’m the only one who tolerates him after he broke up with the Prince.”
Cedric blinked. The woman was damn pissed of being the other Cedric’s rebound. A flutter of pride rushed through him as the description oh-so-cool mage counterpart sank in. Nobody had ever called him oh-so-cool, not even as an insult.
“So uh… you know about me.”
Miranda sighed in exasperation, as if he was only wasting her time. “Yes, genius,” she sneered. “I know about you, about the obsession for blue in the other Meridian, and that you have a badass girlfriend who is not my counterpart. Do I even exist in your world?”
Cedric swallowed, somehow frightened by those two inquiring eyes. Shit, did she exist in his world? He mentally scanned all the people he knew, to see if there was anyone who looked like her or was called Miranda. Tiny, blue eyes, black hair, freckles… Miranda’s look gradually shifted from pissed to hopeful. How could he tell her that she did not exist on the other side? He could not recall anyone with that appearance and called Miran-
He snapped his fingers as the name struck him. “Yes!” he exclaimed. “Yes, I think you exist!”
Her eyes widened. “I do? Who am I? What do I do? Am I rich?”
“You’re a shapeshifter like me,” Cedric said. He did not have much information about that Miranda from Idier and had never encountered her personally, but it had to be her. “There are only six of us known in Metamoor. We have never met, but I know she’s a mercenary from Idier, she’s one of us and goes by Miranda. It must be you.”
“A mercenary!” she exclaimed, her eyes now gleaming with a new light. Cedric couldn’t help but smile at her. She was indeed cute when she was not looking at him as if she wanted to claw his heart out of his chest.
“Then I must be a badass!” she went on.
“I’m sure you are,” Cedric said. “Shapeshifting mercenaries are well renowned in Metamoor for being the smartest and most skilled of all.”
She beamed at him. “Oh, that’s so cool! Do you think I could meet her one day? Maybe Cedric could bring me with him next time!”
Cedric’s smile dimmed a little. He doubted there would be a next time, and certainly it would not be easy to find this Miranda. But she looked so excited at the idea, and Cedric really needed her not to throw a spanner in his works while he was still in their world, so he smiled brightly again. “Of course. I would be happy to show you both around in my world.”
Miranda clapped her hands together excitedly. “So cool!” she squealed, then she came next to him and took him by the arm, motioning him to walk with her on the path towards the castle.
“So what are your plans here?” she asked. “How long are you going to stay?”
Cedric let her lead him on the path. “Tonight I’ll go back. I just want to see your world a little, your palace, you know. And maybe, well…”
“You want to see Phobos, uh?”
Cedric lowered his gaze to the cobbled path. “Well, yeah. I would be curious to meet him.”
“I can bring you to him.”
Cedric’s head snapped at her. “Really? You have access to the tower?”
Miranda snorted, as if outraged by Cedric’s doubts on her privileges. “Of course I do. Doesn’t mean he likes it when I go there, but if I bring you with me he will definitely be intrigued.”
“Do you think he’ll notice the difference?”
Miranda cackled. “First, one has to be blind and deaf not to notice the difference. And even then, you even smell differently.” She sniffed the sleeve of his robe again, like she’d done earlier while she was still transformed. “I mean, what is it, vanilla? And second, Phobos always knows everything. It takes more than just the walls of a tower to keep gossip away from him. He probably knew about you the day Cedric found the mirror.”
Cedric chuckled as well. “That’s very Phobos of him.”
Miranda giggled, but then abruptly halted them to a stop. “Wait, and what is he doing in your world?” she asked, her tone suddenly alarmed. “He won’t go to see this other Miranda, right? Or your Phobos?”
Cedric shook his head. “I doubt he’ll find the other Miranda. And our Phobos… Nah, I don’t think you have to worry about him,” he lied. Everyone should worry about their Phobos and his madness.
“Hm.” Thoughtful, Miranda resumed walking. Somehow, Cedric felt sorry for her. She clearly had feelings for his counterpart, but she knew they were not returned in the way she would have liked. Perhaps it was only a matter of time, and one day the other Cedric would let Phobos go and appreciate what he had in front of him. Or the other way round, if this Phobos was really his soulmate, he’d be honest with Miranda and let her free from this state of uncertainty about their relationship.
“Tell me about you, Miranda,” he said as they kept walking, to distract her from what the other Cedric was or was not doing. “You seem to have some pretty good shapeshifting skills there.”
Miranda beamed again, as if nobody had ever shown her some appreciation for what she could do. He let her speak and tell him about her story and her world, and he answered her questions about what he could do with magic, about the blue Meridian and about Orube. Until they found themselves in front of the door of a sinister black tower at the north side of the palace.
Cedric looked up. It did look like a prison. “So this is where he lives.”
“Yep. But it’s not that bad,” said Miranda, also looking up. “He actually did a good job with the interior. You can say what you want about Phobos, but the man has style.”
Cedric chuckled. “Very Phobos of him indeed,” he said, and he followed Miranda inside the Prince’s tower.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The Coffee Break
*
*
Cartoon Cedric
* If the blue Meridian stank, Heatherfield was revolting. To be fair, Heatherfield was also revolting in his world, so Cedric could not really complain about that. He decided to go and see the bookshop. He was curious about seeing the other Cedric’s terrestrial home that he shared with Orube, but he figured that he would have a hard time explaining to the woman why he did not have the keys without compromising his identity. Not that he had any chances of passing for her Cedric anyway - if Vathek had recognized him, Orube would probably understand in no time that he was an impostor. Only five girls as naive as the five guardians could be so blind. The bookshop was pretty big. Much bigger than the one Cedric had pretended to own in his universe and most importantly, it was still a running business, while his bookshop may as well have been burned to the ground for how much he knew. Who runs this thing?, he thought as he stepped inside. He instantly recognized the smell of coffee. Wait, coffee? Here? He looked around, looking for the source. He could hear the clang of cups and spoons, the typical sounds of a terrestrial cafeteria. He followed the sound, walking into the bookshop. The place was indeed huge, the style as old school as the one of the bookshop in the other universe, but it was lively - there were students sitting at the table, bent on their books, as well as people sitting on padded chairs and reading, and many others just snooping around the titles of the books on the shelves. And then, he reached a wide space with round tables and people sitting there, drinking coffee or tea or eating pastries, and a counter with a glass shelf exposing those pastries, muffins and bagels, and behind the counter, a young woman and a young man bustling with the coffee machine and cleaning up mugs and cups. Who are these people?, Cedric wondered as he approached the counter, his eyes attracted by the blackboard hanging at the upper part of the wall behind the counter, listing all the coffee specialties, teas and smoothies - what the hell were smoothies? - that the cafeteria offered. “Cedric!” Hearing his name made him jolt. He blinked at the young woman behind the counter, who was looking at him with a wide smile. Was he supposed to know her? Hazelnut eyes and shoulder-length light brown hair, some freckles here and there on her nose, a bright smile. No, he had no idea who that woman was. “I didn’t know you were in town!” the woman exclaimed. She looked… happy to see him. Alright, then perhaps she was not an enemy. “You’re here just at the right time, we need some signatures from you for the annual report, we already prepared all the documents. Business is going great this year so far, you should be happy!”Cedric understood half of what she said. Annual report? What business? Was the other Cedric… the owner of this place? Even if he lived in Metamoor?“Are you alright?” the man behind the counter turned to look at him with a questioning look. He was a good looking man, with short dark brown hair and a well groomed beard and dark green eyes, but again his face did not ring a bell in Cedric’s mind. “Yeah, sorry,” Cedric said, trying to buy time. “What did you need my signature for?”The woman raised an eyebrow at him. “The annual report, for the taxes. Like every year. We need the signature of the owner. It’s not due until next month, but since you’re here…”“Oh, yeah, sure,” Cedric said. He didn’t even know what cover name the other Cedric used on Earth, but if he was the owner, that name should have been printed out somewhere in those documents, right? And since he was there, why not get some coffee? It had been ages since the last time he’d had some - the only thing he liked on Earth. He did not have money with him, but surely being the owner of that place must have had some perks, like free coffee for life. “Can I have some, uh, filter coffee, please?”The two colleagues both widened their eyes at Cedric’s request. “Uh… coffee?” the woman asked tentatively. “Are you sure?”“Yeah. Coffee.”The two exchanged a puzzled look, but then the male turned to the counter with the coffee machines at the wall and grabbed the kettle with the filter coffee, then poured it into a mug. Good, meaningless terrestrial, Cedric thought. Never question the orders of your boss. Oh yes, it felt good to be in charge here. He took the coffee mug to a table isolated by the bookshelves from prying eyes and grabbed a random book. What’s that… he wondered, as he realized that the pages were not filled with text, but rather with drawings, the text being only inside white balloons. Interesting. He sipped his coffee. Oh, coffee! Why had nobody ever invented it in Meridian? Such a marvelous discovery, even if it came from useless creatures such as the humans!Cedric kept flipping the pages of the strange book with drawings for a while, without really reading what the people in the panels said through the white bubbles. It seemed to be about a man who went around at night all dressed in black, with a mask on his face and a symbol of a bat on his chest. He was at the end of the book when he finally raised his gaze. Cedric almost jumped on his chair as he found two orange eyes staring at him from the other side of the table. A woman was sitting there, her elbows on the table and her chin resting on her knuckles, looking at him with interest. She was very beautiful. Pitch black hair cut in a chin-length bob with bangs, high cheekbones, full lips. She looked human, but the orange eyes with slits as pupils betrayed that she was definitely not one of them. It must be her!, Cedric thought, and his heart skipped a beat from the excitement. He held her gaze, trying not to make his sudden restlessness too evident. A Basiliadean warrior! Was this her real look? Or was he looking at a glamor of some kind, except for the cat-like eyes? For sure she looked like she could pin him at the wall and beat the hell out of him with her eyes closed. Good catch, Cedric, good catch.“Coffee, uh?” she broke the silence, nodding at the coffee cup. She spoke English. That was not too surprising - perhaps she didn’t speak Metamoor, or Cedric did not speak Basiliadean, so the two spoke the terrestrial language with each other, as the note written in English in Cedric’s rooms had suggested.“Need to check what our employees give to the customers, after all,” he said, curving up his lips in a smile. She raised an eyebrow. “Oh is that so?”, she mused, and she scanned him with that inquiring look, almost making him feel as if he was naked. They stared at each other in silence for a while, much longer than what was deemed appropriate for humans. Luckily nobody was paying attention to them or even seeing them, as they were surrounded by bookshelves. Suddenly, she let out a low chuckle and stood up, revealing a breathtaking body - not that Cedric had any doubt that a Basiliade warrior would be perfectly toned, but he did not expect anyone to look that stunning in terrestrial clothes. Orube trailed her index finger along the surface of the table as she circled it and came to sit on it, right next to Cedric, so close that her legs touched his arm. What is she doing?, he wondered as she scanned him again, now a sensual smile painted on her lips. She brushed her fingertips along his arm, then took a strand of his hair from his low ponytail, briefly looking at it and then letting it go. “You look good today,” she purred. “I like the violet eyes.”No way!, Cedric thought. She was buying it! Triumph bloomed in his chest. He summoned his most charming smile. He had to play along. “I knew you would like them.”Again, she let out a low sensual chuckle. “Oh you did? Is there anything else you changed that I should be aware of?” she asked, casting an eloquent look down between his legs. A laughter bubbled in Cedric’s chest. Oh yes, she really believed he was the other Cedric! “That’s for you to find out, my dear.”“Hm.” Orube leaned forward, until her lips were almost brushing his ear. Her scent was good, unlike any human’s, crisp, reminding him of citrus fruits. He closed his eyes, trying to pretend to be excited at what filthy words she would say next. Which he was, but mostly because finally his play was working on someone. Her breath was tingling his ear when she spoke. “If you are a shapeshifter who dared taking his appearance, you better start running now,” she hissed. A rush of terror crossed Cedric’s body. Crap. The terror only intensified when claws sprang out from Orube’s fingertips on the table right in front of him. “I- I’m not, I swear!” he stuttered, unable to keep his eyes off that menacing clawed hand. “I mean, I am a shapeshifter, but I did not-”With a snap, the clawed hand took him by the collar. “Who are you? And where is he?”It was the second time in a very short time window that someone snarled at him like that, hissing like a cat, and Cedric started to regret this whole swap thing. He wondered if people in his world were so protective about him like Vathek and Orube seemed to be about the other Cedric. He swallowed the bitterness at the thought that neither Phobos nor Miranda would lift a finger to know what happened to him. “I’m… Cedric. From a parallel universe. We met by chance through a magic mirror and decided to swap places for today, you know, just for fun,” he said all at once, the fury in Orube’s orange eyes making him want to melt and disappear forever. Orube let him go with a grunt. “I knew it!” she blurted, crossing her arms over her chest. “I knew he had something like that going on, and I asked him so many times if he’d found a parallel universe, and he always denied.”Cedric swallowed. Was he sticking his nose into some relationship quarrel? Hopefully not - he had enough of his own in his world, with two people at once no less. “I’m sure he did not tell you so you wouldn’t worry,” he said tentatively. She looked somewhat protective after all. “I promise, there’s no danger in my world. We don’t have such powerful mages there, except for the Queen. He’ll come back unharmed.”Unless the Queen finds him, I guess, he thought with a shiver.She snorted. “He didn’t tell me because he wanted to run away from wedding preparations, and he knew I would have run away faster through the mirror because I hate them even more, and then nobody would be taking care of that.”“Oh, you two are getting married?”“Yeah, don’t make me start on that, if I hear another time what colors I want for the flowers I’m going to burn down all flower shops in Metamoor,” she said. “And they’re gonna be blue anyway, like everything else!”“Well, congratulations,” Cedric said. Was this the right thing to say? Whatever. He found himself surprisingly happy for his counterpart. Orube crossed her legs and leaned on the table on one hand, now studying him with curiosity rather than fury. “And what about you? Are you… are we married in your world?”Cedric sipped his coffee, now relieved that the conversation had come down to civil tones and he was not anymore risking his life - or at least it seemed so. “No, we don’t know each other in my world.”“Oh?”“Basiliade exists, but we never interacted with their inhabitants.”A flash of disappointment crossed her gaze briefly, but then curiosity came back. “And is there anyone else, then?” Before he could answer, she inhaled a sharp breath, as if she was hit by a sudden realization. “Phobos!”The name was like a cold knife in Cedric’s chest. He lowered his gaze to the coffee cup, stirring its content. “Oh,” Orube said, following his gaze to the coffee cup. “I’m sorry, perhaps I shouldn’t have asked.”Cedric took another sip. “No, it’s alright. It’s just… fresh, let’s say.”Too fresh. Or maybe it wasn’t even that fresh, but it still hurt. Mostly because he still had not figured out why. They still looked for each other the whole time, even now that Phobos was locked into the tower, and yet neither of them wanted to swallow the pride and finally speak. Orube studied him with the look of someone who knew him better than he thought. From the shift in her eyes, Cedric knew she’d already understood - she already knew that he was still in love with Phobos. Was it just so blatant or was it because Orube could read the little details of his expression so well, being used to doing the same with his counterpart?If one second ago he’d been happy for the other Cedric, now he was envious. His alternate version had everything - he had a great set of magical skills, he was on at least civil terms with Phobos, and he was getting married to a badass warrior who clearly knew him well and could read him like an open book.“Do you… want to see our Rapunzel?” she asked. He raised his eyebrows. “Your what?”She laughed. “Come on, were you not pretending to be a bookshop owner in your world? Rapunzel, the girl with long hair who was locked in the tower.”He blinked at her. “Alright, our Phobos.”Cedric swirled again the remaining coffee in the cup. “Yeah, I would like to. I understood from Cedric that he is… different. Maybe not entirely in himself anymore. But I would like to meet him.”“Not entirely in himself anymore? I think that man always had a few screws loose, but one cannot deny that he has charm. I can bring you to him.”Cedric emptied the coffee cup, as Orube detached from the table and stood up. He did the same. “Thanks. So I guess it’s already time to go back to Meridian.”Orube took him by his arm, leading him towards the entrance of the bookshop, in a motion that oddly reminded him of Miranda every time they went out for a walk together. “I can show you our house first, if you like.”“I’d be happy to see it.”Cedric let her lead him outside the bookshop and they walked for a bit in silence, before he finally asked her the question he’d had in his mind since when she’d recognized him. “What was it, the hair or the eyes that gave me away?”Orube cackled. “The white shirt. He wouldn’t wear that even under torture.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Big Boy and Old Pumpkin
*
*
Comic Cedric
*
The entry hall of the tower was nothing different from a stock room or a cellar. The air was damp, the place was dark, with light coming only from small grated apertures here and there on the stone walls, and the furniture mainly consisted of wooden storage boxes or barrels.
“You said he did a good job with the interior,” Cedric observed, taking in the details of the environment such as the spiderwebs at each corner and an unsettling skull of some creature laying on one of those boxes.
Miranda shrugged, as she led him towards a corridor, following the glimmering of a light. “Well, he doesn’t come here. Here is only where the guards sit.”
“There are guards here the whole time?” Cedric asked. “Our tower is simply locked with the Queen’s magic and only some people have access.”
“This one is locked with magic as well, but I think the guards like to spend some shifts here to have an excuse for a break, because there’s nothing to do.”
Miranda led him to the narrow corridor, following the light, until they reached an opening to a wider room from where the light came from lanterns hanging at the stone walls. At the center of the room, two large figures were sitting at a round table, playing cards and with drinks in their hands. Cedric recognized them instantly - the bigger guy wearing an olive green coat and a dark purple scarf, blue skin with white fangs contouring his jaw and his headcrown. A smile curved his lips spontaneously as he took in Vathek’s alternate version. The other one was also quite big, although not as much as Vathek was, and was wearing an armor of metal with fur edges, his shoulder-length straight blond hair clearly not having seen a comb for a while. Frost, the hunter.
“Hello boys,” Miranda chirped. The two raised their heads. Cedric’s smile froze a little as he distinguished Vathek’s features - he did not have the round friendly face he was used to seeing smiling back at him. His jaw was square, his expression more serious, and his fangs were pointing out, like the Vathek of his world used to do only when he was really angry.
The two flinched as they saw who was accompanying Miranda and they jumped to their feet, taking defensive poses.
Cedric knew that his counterpart was not exactly on friendly terms with this Vathek, but he had no idea how far their distaste for each other went, so he just smiled at the alternate version of his friend. Since he was there, he may as well have some fun.
Cedric advanced towards Vathek, the other following his movements with the attention of an animal ready to flee or to attack. As Cedric patted his shoulder, he could see the giant flinch. “What’s up, big boy?”
Vathek remained silent, his only reaction a curve in his mouth in a sneer. Cedric heard Frost cackling behind him. “Hehehe. Big boy,” the hunter repeated.
Cedric turned to look at him. Frost immediately winced and turned serious. “And what about you, old Viking?” He addressed him as he used to do with the other Frost, after he’d explained to him who Vikings were on Earth.
Frost widened his eyes. It was clear that the other Cedric had never addressed them in a friendly manner, if he’d ever addressed them at all, let alone joked with them.
Cedric turned to look at the table, the cards sprawled on it and the bottle of amber liquid half-empty.
“Oh, you’re playing Snares,” he observed. “I haven’t played in a long time.” He chuckled as he passed his fingertips on Vathek’s cards displayed on the table and saw the hand he’d just played.
Spectre, Chimera, Gargoyle. Vathek always played the same hand when he had one of those, and always forgot that the Wraith would beat them.
“Let me guess, now you’ll have to bake apple pies every week for a month for Frost as a payment for losing this game,” Cedric said, grinning. As he turned to look at the two, Frost’s ears had prickled up in excitement at the naming of his beloved apple pies, while Vathek’s forehead knitted in a dark scowl.
“How do you even know I can bake?” Vathek asked skeptically.
Cedric went towards the two and patted Vathek’s shoulder again, while passing him as he headed towards where Miranda was waiting for him, close to another corridor. “I know many things about you, big boy.”
He felt the questioning stares of the two on his back as he joined Miranda and he followed her to the second corridor, also illuminated by lanterns on the walls.
“Did you hear him?” he heard Vathek saying from the room they’d left behind. “He called me big boy.”
“And he called me old pumpkin!” Frost exclaimed. “What does that even mean?”
Cedric heard a clap and chuckled at himself, knowing that Vathek had just given Frost a slap on his nape. “Old viking, Frost. He called you old viking.”
“Oh.” Frost quieted for a moment. “And what does that mean?! Do you think it’s a compliment?”
“How should I know?” Vathek cried, exasperated. “Come on, let’s finish our game.”
Cedric and Miranda walked a few more steps further down the corridor, before she talked. “Was that really necessary?”
Cedric looked down at her, smirking. “Did you have fun?”
She giggled. “Oh yes. They will talk about that for a month.”
They walked the rest of the corridor laughing, then Cedric fell silent as he saw the black wooden door waiting for them at the end. As they finally stood in front of it, he noticed it was surrounded by a white halo, locking it with magic.
“Look, uh-” Miranda started, “I’m not really on good terms with the Prince right now. I’ll open the door for you, but I will not come in, if you don’t mind.”
Cedric was not surprised by that. Actually he was even wondering how and why did Miranda even have access to that door. “Sure, I understand. I guess this is where we part, then. I’ll head back to my world after I’m done here.”
Miranda lowered her gaze, suddenly looking like a shy girl. “Yeah. It was nice to meet you, Cedric from the other Meridian.” She reached out with her tiny hand. “Maybe we’ll meet again?”
Cedric smiled at her as he shook her hand. “Maybe. Farewell, Miranda.”
After she’d taken back her hand, she seemed to hesitate for a moment, looking at him with her mouth open, as if she wanted to add something. But then, she cleared her voice and she just said, “Farewell,” before waving with her hand at the door.
The halo around the door disappeared. Cedric was about to open it, when Miranda spoke again behind him. “Oh, I almost forgot. Don’t bring up the time Cedric ate him. He doesn’t like to talk about that.”
Cedric’s head snapped at her. “He did what?!”
“Oh, you didn’t know?” Miranda bit her lower lip, as if she’d just realized she’d spoken too much. “Well, uhm. Perhaps it’s better if you know - Cedric swallowed the Prince whole once, but you never heard this from me, alright?”
“But-”
“Bye!” she waved with her hand and she ran away.
What the hell am I getting into here?, Cedric thought as he finally opened the door to Phobos’s quarters in the tower.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The Mad Tailor
*
*
Cartoon Cedric
*
The tower where Phobos was kept was not that different from the one of the dark Meridian. Only it was not black but - surprise surprise - made of blue stone.
“What’s this obsession with blue?” Cedric asked, as Orube touched the dark blue wood of the door of the tower, and the blue halo of its enchantment suddenly dimmed, allowing her to open the door.
She shrugged. “Don’t ask me, I’m so sick of this color,” she said, as she kept the door open for him to pass. “They tried to put me up with a hideous blue Metamoor gown for the wedding, but luckily I could play my Basiliade card and will be allowed to wear my armor as my tradition wants.”
“I’m glad to hear that, a sad blue gown would give you no justice,” Cedric commented, as he entered the tower. And he really meant it. They had changed clothes before going to the tower, Cedric wearing his black and dark green robes again, while Orube was now wearing a cream colored blouse closed on her waist by a leather belt and dark pants with golden swirls and decorations, tucked into dark red boots which clashed with the nauseating blue of that Meridian and made her look as if she was a reincarnation of the sun. She had also turned to her natural form, which to Cedric’s surprise was not that different from the mask she wore on Earth, the main difference being the pointy ears and the magenta mask around her eyes. She looked good in terrestrial clothes, but in Basiliade garments and with her native appearance she was literally shining.
Cedric took his eyes off her and took in the inside of the place. It was similar to the entry hall of the other tower, being essentially a storage room with boxes and barrels, but there seemed to be no guards lazily playing cards and drinking spirits. He followed Orube along a corridor, and then they started to climb the narrow stairs.
“Are you… coming with me?” Cedric asked after a while, as it was clear that Orube would come with him to Phobos’s chambers. In his world, Phobos would start to screech like a bat if Miranda would show up with him in the tower.
Orube let out a chuckle. “I wouldn’t miss this for anything in the world. He doesn’t like me much, but it’s not like he likes anyone else. I love to tease him, and I think he secretly enjoys it as well.”
Cedric was nearly out of breath as they reached a door - another sickeningly blue door - at the top of the stairs. As they halted in front of it for him to catch his breath - the Basiliadean warrior seemingly unaffected by the climb - Orube looked at him seriously in the eye.
“He’s not as dangerous as he used to be before,” she said, “but you should be careful nevertheless.”
Cedric reciprocated the seriousness in her gaze. “I know. We have a Phobos in my world as well.”
Orube put her hand on the door handle, but hesitated before opening the door. “Oh. And don’t stare at the tattoos. He’s… self-conscious about those.”
Cedric blinked. That was surprising. His Phobos was very proud of his forehead tattoos, why did this one have a problem with those? “Understood.”
Orube made to open the door, but hesitated again. “Actually… it’s better if you don’t stare at all. He’s just a bit skittish these days.”
A light wave of fear frizzled in Cedric’s chest. What was wrong with this Phobos? “Alright. No staring.”
Cedric inhaled a breath and exhaled slowly as Orube opened the door and they entered Phobos’s chambers. The Prince was nowhere to be seen, but from the state of the room surrounding them, Cedric could see that those chambers did not belong to the same Phobos he knew.
Of course, nearly everything was of a shade of blue, green or purple, with silver accents here and there on some trinkets or book decorations or the structure of furniture such as the couch or the padded chair.
What made his jaw drop was that the room looked as if a tornado had just entered from one window and left the room from the opposite window, leaving chaos and destruction behind.
There were many books in the room, and not a single one of those was in its place on the desolated bookshelf. They were sprawled on the floor, piled on the chair, some were open and their pages torn apart.
There were clothes, or pieces of clothes, hanging formless on the couch. And nearly everywhere, leaves and branches of some plants were growing and twisting around the objects, claiming every single inch of the room as theirs.
Orube sighed. “Nothing to worry about, it’s just that his plants get bored sometimes.”
“They get… bored?”
Orube did not respond, and advanced in the room, seemingly unaffected by the chaos that reigned in there, and confidently walked through the vines, careful not to stomp on any leaf, so he did the same, although his steps were significantly more uncertain.
They reached another room, this one in a much better status than the previous one. Plants were still occupying nearly every free surface, some growing from pots or directly from the stones of the floor, others hanging from the high ceiling and flowing freely in the air like curtains.
Beyond a curtain of vines, a man was sitting on a padded chair, staring at them with his elbows on the arms of the chair and tapping his fingertips together. The vines that hung from the ceiling suddenly all shifted and moved, opening the space between them and the man sitting on the chair.
Cedric did his best not to stare, as Orube had told him, but it was impossible. His heart thundered in his chest as he took in that version of Phobos that was so unlike him. He recognized the square jaw, the high cheekbones, the insanely perfect nose, and the shape of his eyes. But it was as if someone had mixed with his color palette all at once, and the result was a man wearing blue robes and a blue headpiece, with unruly and impossibly long light blond hair nested with silver rings, falling on the chair and on the floor around him in a similar way as the vines of the plants did. His eyebrows had a peculiar shape, as if they were made of dots instead of straight lines, and they were red, like his beard. Cedric did his best to not stare at the red tattoos that marked his throat and his hands with symbols, acknowledging their presence and trying to focus on something else.
But what made it impossible for Cedric to look away were his eyes. Surrounded by thick smudged kohl, so unlike the perfect eyeliner strokes of the other Phobos, his eyes looked as if they were made of ice, and they stared back at Cedric, making him prickle with the urge of turning and running away.
“How are things, Big P?” Orube saved him from that piercing stare, making Phobos’s head snap at her and fix those eerie eyes on her.
His face was immediately distorted by a grimace. “They were excellent, until you appeared on my doorstep.”
Orube laughed, and went to the side of the room where a table was set with a teapot and some cups. “Oh, and you made tea already.”
“I always know when guests are coming, you should know that,” Phobos muttered. “Too bad that it’s always one of you two or my lovely sister.”
Orube poured some tea into three cups, then brought one to Phobos. “That’s not true, Naexi comes every day.”
Phobos snorted, taking the cup. “And she’s the only reason I’ve not gone mad yet.”
As Orube turned her back to Phobos to return to the table with the cups, she made an eloquent expression directed to Cedric, which he interpreted as to mean that ‘not gone mad yet’ was likely an euphemism.
Orube brought him the cup with the tea. As there was nowhere else to sit, except for an austere dining table at the other side of the room, they both just stood. Phobos gave no sign of wanting to move to the dining table so everyone could have a seat. Cedric glanced at the tea cup and recognized that it was black tea and almost chuckled. At least this Prince had something in common with his Phobos.
Phobos’s head snapped at him, making him flinch. Did he always move like that, in snaps? “And what about you? How are you so silent? Usually I’d be already numb from your pointless rambling by now.”
Cedric raised his eyebrows. His counterpart did not seem like an excessively talkative guy, but Cedric could see how at times he could get lost in his paranoid discourse. But not him. “I talk when I have something meaningful to say, my liege.”
He bit his tongue immediately after he’d pronounced the words, my liege, instead of addressing him in a more neutral way. There was no time to correct himself, as Phobos’s eyes snapped wide open, looking at him with surprise. His pupils dilated for a second, devouring the gray irises and making him look even creepier. In the corner of his eye, Cedric saw that Orube was trying hard to suppress a laugh, confirming that my liege was definitely not the way the other Cedric addressed this version of Phobos.
Instead of asking for an explanation, Phobos’s gaze returned to normal as he sipped the tea. He seemed to consider him for a while, looking at him from under thick lashes. “So, what’s new from Meridian?” he asked.
The question was clearly directed to him, so when they exchanged a look, Orube just nodded in Phobos’s direction, encouraging him to make up something if he wanted to go on with his play. Cedric bought some time by taking a sip from the tea, then straightened his back. It was time to be creative, if he wanted the whole thing to work at least for a while, before Phobos would understand that he was not his Cedric.
“The villagers in the outer rim of the city protested that they do not have enough from the Heart- I mean, Light, to grow their crops,” he said, with the same tone he used in the past when reporting on the situation in Meridian. “Your sister sent me to negotiate and buy some time, since she could not distribute more Light for the next quartal. I told them they’d survived on mud for decades under your reign, so they could go on with mud stews for a while longer.”
This was an utter lie. Elyon would have killed him if he’d told something like that to any Meridian citizen. But the lie seemed to pleasantly surprise Phobos, who sipped his tea again before commenting. “Sounds like my sister has eventually learned that these people eat, and quite a lot. That was a surprisingly good move of you, I’m impressed.”
Surprisingly? Cedric fought hard to suppress the frown that knitted his brows. What did this Prince believe he was, an amateur? He’d commanded legions for decades and suppressed villagers’ complaints and revolts for at least as much. Or was his counterpart so utterly incompetent that Phobos was really surprised?
“I have always completed your missions as you commanded, Phobos,” the words left Cedric’s mouth before he could think twice, his hurt pride prevailing over his common sense.
Phobos let out a soft snort, without responding. He set the cup on the low table next to his chair, then stood up. Cedric gaped at his figure - as he was sitting, he hadn’t noticed how tall the man was. Much taller than his counterpart in the other world. As the Prince advanced towards Cedric and Orube, the vines that were hanging from the ceiling or growing from the floor swayed towards him, brushing his shoulders or his arms or the lower edges of his blue robe, caressing him affectionately. With each step of the Prince, Cedric felt smaller and smaller, overpowered by the magnificence that the man exuded, even though he was now reduced to the state of a prisoner. Next to him, Orube did not seem to be as affected as he was by Phobos’s magnetic stance, and she followed his movements with an eyebrow raised, as if she knew the Prince was just putting up an overly dramatic scene.
Cedric expected the Prince to come closer to him and study his features, noticing all the differences with the Cedric who inhabited this world, but Phobos suddenly changed direction instead, focusing his attention on a pot with a plant blooming with purple roses.
“How are the wedding preparations going?” he asked, as he took the blossom of a rose between two long fingers adorned with rings.
“I convinced them to let me wear the armor,” Orube said from above her cup of tea. “No blue gown for me.”
Phobos chuckled. “Thank the Gods,” he said. “You would be wasted in that. Good that you sent Cedric to try out that insult of a gown in your place. Our customs, our suffering.”
Cedric winced at the Prince’s words. Was he… giving Orube a compliment? And what did it mean that Cedric tried out the gown for her? Did the other Cedric take her looks to do errands that she did not want to do?
Orube smiled sheepishly. “It was a good idea to play the Basiliadean card.”
With a movement of his fingers, Phobos drew a faint blue streak of light in the air around the rose blossom, which instantly answered by growing double in size until it was a full-grown purple rose. “I know my people. You’re welcome.”
Phobos let the rose go and turned to look at them again with another snap. He surveyed Cedric’s robe from head to toe. “And what about you? Since when do you wear something… tasteful?”
Cedric cocked his head to the side, torn between feeling outraged by the veiled insult - which was aimed at his counterpart, he knew, but still was hurting a little - and flattered by the compliment to his own outfit. He had no idea how far the conversations between this Phobos and the other Cedric had gone concerning the wedding, but apparently, the two were in enough neutral terms that Phobos could have a say on what Orube was going to wear. “I was hoping to receive your valuable advice on the topic as well.”
Phobos’s strange eyebrows shot up, and so did Orube’s. He brought a tattooed hand under his chin, weighing him. From their reaction, Cedric knew that there was no way Phobos would still believe he was the same Cedric he used to know. But again, Phobos’s expression turned back to neutral, amused even, and he paced back to his chair, the vines following him and caressing his fine pointed slippers.
“I’ll draw some projects for you, then,” he said, dropping into his chair again. “I’d be delighted to tailor them myself.”
Tailor? Cedric wondered. Did this Phobos design and tailor clothes himself? Perhaps it was his way to cope with the boredom of being locked in a tower with limited magic at his disposal.
“That would be wonderful,” Orube said, and she sounded almost honest. “We’ll leave you to it. I should probably go now, are you coming along?” she asked Cedric.
Cedric glanced again at Phobos, who was now sipping his tea again, his gaze seemingly unfocused and lost somewhere far away from here. Was this a sign that he wanted them to leave, so he could ponder in his solitude? Or maybe he was seriously already thinking about the outfit he would make for the other Cedric’s wedding.
The more he looked at him, the more he missed his Phobos. The one who had a temper, yes, but did not look so eerie, as if he could strangle you with his own thoughts any moment now. The one who rarely gave out any compliment, but that Cedric knew cared for him deeply and was sincerely happy when he visited. The one who desperately needed him, even if he would never admit it.
“Yes, I should go too,” he said. “See you next time, Phobos.”
He turned his back to Phobos, who did not react at all to their goodbyes, and walked next to Orube towards the door, and then again carefully crossed the entry room with all the vines nested on the floor. They had already reached the exit and Orube had pulled the door open, when they heard Phobos’s voice again.
“You should marry this one, Orube. He’s much more competent than ours - had I had him as my right hand, we would have conquered the universe by now.”
Cedric flinched. He knows. Again, he was torn between the disappointment of his disguise having failed again, and the flutter of pride at the praise he’d just received. It was the first time he’d heard anything like that pronounced by Phobos’s voice.
Orube merely chuckled. “I’ll keep that in mind, P,” she replied, and then nodded Cedric to follow her down the stairs.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
No rawr?
*
*
Comic Cedric
*
After he climbed an impossible number of stairs, Cedric found himself in front of an open archway. Not a closed door, like in the tower of his Meridian. He crossed the archway, accessing what had to be the entry hall of Phobos’s chambers in the tower. It looked nothing like the plant-dominated chaos of the blue tower on the other side. There were plants, and they did look as alive and sentient as those of the other Phobos, but these were growing from pots and from the ceiling in a tidier way, forming intricate patterns of leaves, thorns, vines and roses that decorated the walls like tapestry, leaving the rest of the room alone.
The furniture had clearly been picked with care by someone who was very attentive to detail. The entry hall only offered some tables with decorative statues or globes on them, two chairs made of fine silver twirls and padded with black velvet cushions separated by a low glass table, and elegant lamps made of the same silver twirls and leading the way to a closed door that looked like it was made of dark crystal.
Cedric advanced towards that door, and had the impression that some flowers of the plants that decorated the walls turned to look at him as he passed them.
The door opened with just one push, and Cedric was welcomed by another room where one wall was decorated with the same kind of plants and vines that extended up to the high ceiling. The room looked like a wide parlor, just like the first room after the entry hall in the other tower, only without the jungle of vines falling down from the ceiling and with more elegant furniture - matching chairs and a sofa, another low table made of crystal, bearing a silver tea set, and more statues and decorations at the walls, as well as an extensive bookshelf stuffed with tomes decorated with silver accents. And just like nearly every time he visited the other tower, the man who lived in those rooms was waiting for him, sitting on one of those chairs, his legs crossed under black robes with red accents, his elbows on the arms of the chair and the fingertips joined in front of him.
Phobos and Cedric surveyed each other in silence patiently. Phobos did not share many physical traits with the version of him that Cedric had always known. Even as he sat, one could see that this Prince was shorter, and his hair was strikingly white and well-kept in an elegant updo that flowed in posed waves around his arms and down along the chair. His eyes were piercing green, framed by perfect strokes of eyeliner, in contrast to the gray eyes surrounded by smudged kohl of the Phobos in the other Meridian. What made him look so different and perhaps made his features look somewhat gentler was the fact that his eyebrows and his beard were as white as his hair and - what made Cedric’s jaw finally drop - he actually had normal, full eyebrows, only accented by a series of small black tattoos on his forehead.
One could see that this was Phobos, and yet it was not him. He was stunningly handsome, no doubt about that. But even the look in his eyes as he surveyed Cedric was different from the glare he was used to. If the Prince of the blue Meridian always looked nauseated and disgusted by the utter incompetence of the people surrounding him, this Phobos rather looked like the kind of guy who was eternally pissed by that and made it everybody else’s problem.
“I was waiting for you, Cedric of the other Meridian,” Phobos addressed him.
Just as Miranda had predicted. He knew. Cedric chased away the slight disappointment - he would have liked to put up a play for this Phobos, pretending to be the other Cedric, but perhaps he could have some fun by being himself too.
Phobos waved at the chair at the other side of the low table. “Please, have a seat. I made some tea.”
“Let me guess, black tea?” Cedric mused, as he took a seat on the chair. It was comfortable.
Phobos chuckled. “So you really come from an alternate Meridian,” he commented while he poured some tea in two cups. “And let me guess, my counterpart is also locked in a tower for eternity, with the only company of his plants and of the visitors who are allowed to come for tea.”
“Correct,” Cedric confirmed, taking one of the cups. “But I’ll admit you did a better job with the interior design. This place really shines.”
A proud giggle escaped Phobos’s lips as he took a sip of tea, looking at him from under thick black-dyed lashes. “Oh, please, you flatter me.” He cleared his voice, setting down the cup and the saucer on the table. “So tell me, how do you think your counterpart is doing in your world? Any… interesting encounters?”
Interesting, thought Cedric. He’d thought Phobos would mostly ask about himself, about what the other Prince could do or not do, and assess whether he’d done a better job in trying to get the throne for himself. Instead, he wanted to know about the other Cedric.
“I guess some people noticed the difference,” Cedric said, and tasted the tea. “But he seems to be a smart guy, he’ll manage.”
“Hm. I suppose he is.” The Prince paused, then glanced at him again. “And what was your impression of him? How do you think you’re different?”
Cedric gauged Phobos’s question. He knew the relationship between the other Cedric and this Phobos was complicated, and their breakup was fresh and not entirely resolved yet. He had to be careful not to say anything that would put the other Cedric under a bad light in the Prince’s eyes. But he had nothing negative to say about him either way, so he decided to go for the truth. “He is very loyal. To you, most of all. I believe he would be willing to let this planet burn, if the choice was between you and Metamoor, despite everything.” He had the impression to see a slight flush of pink tainting Phobos’s cheekbones as he lowered his gaze and took his cup of tea again, as if to distract himself. “As of how am I different… I guess you heard enough rumors to know that my strengths lay somewhere else.”
Phobos seemed to pick on this last sentence as a chance to change the subject. “Right!” he exclaimed. “Enough talking about him, tell me more about you. I heard about remarkable shapeshifting talents. Do you do the naga too?”
Cedric raised an eyebrow at him. “I am the naga.”
Phobos blinked at him, taken aback. “Oh, sure, of course. Um,” he hesitated. “Would you… show me your powers?”
“Here? You want me to transform into the naga here?”
Phobos shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the first time. Yes, I would like to see what these famous talents with shapeshifting entail.”
Cedric glanced at the room. It was very wide indeed, and there was more than enough open space for him to transform into the naga without damaging that precious furniture. He put the cup back on the table and stood up, straightening his robe. “Alright, I’ll show you.”
He paced to the widest space without furniture, right in front of Phobos’s chair. He suddenly felt like a jester in front of a royal, preparing for his show, but he didn’t really care. He loved to show off his powers and never had the chance to do it, since everyone in the other Meridian was used to him changing looks as he wanted. He closed his eyes and summoned the image of the naga in his mind. It required him barely any effort to let the image shape his body and make it grow double in size, as the naga was his preferred form to take. Powerful, scary, beautiful.
When he opened his eyes again, he was looking down at Phobos from a much higher point. Phobos was gaping at him with lips parted. Disappointment flashed through Cedric’s new body as the Prince’s expression was not as marked by wonder as he’d expected it to be.
“Not to your liking?” he said with the raw guttural voice of his naga.
Phobos shook himself. “Oh, no, you look great. You’re… different, that’s all. And you’re so quiet when you transform. No rawr? He always does it for me.” he asked, with a note of expectancy in his voice.
“He does what?”
Phobos dismissed the topic with a wave of his hand. “Nevermind. Is it true that you can transform into anyone else?”
Cedric straightened his back, rising in all his naga height. “Of course I can. Should I show you?” Please, say yes, he thought. He could not stand the idea that in another universe there could be doubts as to the extent of his precious talent. He wanted to show it off.
“Please do!” Phobos replied excitedly, a wicked light flashing in his green eyes.
Cedric closed his eyes again and summoned another image in his mind. He let his body shrink and take a humanoid shape again. Red hair, green skin, black eyes with no whites. In a few seconds, he was looking at Phobos through Naexi’s eyes. He grinned at himself, knowing how pissed off Naexi would be if she knew he’d taken her appearance.
Phobos wiggled excitedly on his chair, clapping his hands together. “Marvelous! Who’s that? Did you make this up?”
Cedric cocked an eyebrow. “This is Naexi, your personal maiden in our world. Doesn’t she exist here?”
Phobos’s eyes widened in awe as he heard him speak with a female voice. “Oh, you even do the voices! But no, I’ve never seen her. I never had a personal maiden. Now that I’m in the tower I have Blunk coming in now and then, but I wouldn’t call him a personal maiden or servant, rather a personal…” he sighed, “annoyance.”
A world without Naexi. That must be heaven.
“What else can you do?” Phobos went on, “Can you do… him? Cedric?”
Cedric wriggled Naexi’s hands together. He was willing to transform into anyone, but not another shapeshifter. “I could, but he’s another shapeshifter and we don’t… we don’t do that.”
He did not miss the sad disappointment in Phobos’s face. The Prince evidently really craved seeing the other Cedric and talking about him. “Oh. That’s alright. What about… me?”
“You?”
“Yeah. How do I look in your world?”
Cedric hesitated. He had never taken Phobos’s look, ever. He had always been too scared of him knowing and making a scene about how he did not do him justice. And back then, when Phobos was at the prime of his obsessions, he’d had all paintings of him destroyed and the painters banished or killed. The thought of what he would do to someone who would dare take his face and his body in the flesh had always kept Cedric from transforming into him.
But the other Phobos was not here, and anyway those times were long gone. And there was no law explicitly forbidding shapeshifters to take the appearance of an Escanor, although Cedric would think twice before taking Elyon’s identity ever again. “Alright, but brace yourself, because you’re… different.”
Phobos nodded vehemently, his gaze almost feverish with the curiosity of seeing his alternate self.
It did not take long for Cedric to mold his body with Phobos’s features. He knew him like the back of his hand, whether he liked it or not.
When he opened his eyes, Phobos was gaping at him with his mouth open.
“And this is how you speak,” Cedric said with the other Phobos’s voice, which was identical to this Phobos’s, but their Metamoor language had a slightly different accent.
“Wow.” Phobos stood up from his chair, revealing that he was, indeed, much shorter than the other one. He came towards him, circling him, studying him. “He’s so… majestic. So tall. And the eyes!” he exclaimed as he came back to Cedric’s front. Then he took one of Phobos’s braids adorned with rings in his hand, studying it. “Though someone needs to give that man a comb.” He looked into his eyes again. “And teach him how to use eyeliner, perhaps. Although this style suits him… almost… bohemian. I like it.”
“Bohemian,” Cedric repeated, unable to keep a grin. He had to remember this for the next time he’d visit his Phobos.
Phobos took one of his own white braids and distractedly pulled at its ends. “And in your world, are we… I mean, are you two…”
“Together?” Cedric completed the question for him. He shifted back to his human looks and spoke again with his own voice. “No, I’m engaged to a Basiliadean Master.” There was no point in telling much more about his past with the Prince.
Phobos’s gaze flicked at him, curiosity flashing in his eyes. “Oh? From Basiliade? Really? Fascinating. Would you show me?”
“With pleasure,” said Cedric, as the Prince went back to sit on his chair. It was no big deal to take Orube’s appearance. Cedric was used to doing it, as he did it every time Orube wanted to see how she would look like with a different hairstyle or hair color, using him as her canvas. Being engaged to a shapeshifter had its perks, she always said.
In the blink of an eye, he took her appearance. Cedric was able to create the illusion of any outfit he desired as well, although it took a larger toll on his magic than just changing the shape of his body and the texture of his skin, and for Orube he went for the ceremonial Basiliadean armor. Orube was beautiful regardless of what she wore, but in that armor she was undoubtedly stunning.
And his choice paid off, as Phobos gaped at him again in astonishment. “Fascinating,” he said, studying Orube’s features and the details of the armor. Cedric knew he shouldn’t care about the judgment of any Phobos, but a mixture of pride and love bloomed in his chest at Phobos’s look of approval for Orube.
“And… can you also change things of your own look? Like, your hair, or your eyes, stuff like that?” Phobos asked.
Cedric was halfway between excited at the opportunity of showing what a shapeshifter could do in front of someone who clearly had never met anyone like him, and annoyed by how Phobos seemed to believe that there were any limits as to what he could create. If he could change details of his aspect, he asked. He could change literally anything he wanted and how he wanted.
“Of course I can,” he responded politely nevertheless, with Orube’s voice. He glanced around, searching for random inspiration about what to change, and decided for something that would fit the style of that place. He morphed back to his usual human form, but changed his hair to black and even his robes to black with red accents, echoing the robes that Phobos was wearing.
Phobos gasped, looking at him with wonder. “Gorgeous!” he clapped his hands, and stood up to come closer again and see him better. As he stood in front of him again, he frowned slightly. He hummed as he brought a hand to his chin. Irritation started to stir Cedric’s stomach at the thought that the Prince would dare being dissatisfied by his shapeshifting abilities, even after his perfect display.
Then Phobos snapped his fingers, smiling brightly as he seemed to have a sudden revelation. “Hold on!” he exclaimed, and leaped to the drawer at the wall, pulling the top drawer open. He rummaged inside the drawer until he came out with a small crystal jar and a thin black brush. Cedric eyed the tools with suspicion as Phobos came back opened the jar, revealing that it contained a black paste, and dipped the brush into the paste.
“Close your eyes,” the Prince said. Not an order - just a promising invitation.
With a last skeptical glance at the jar, Cedric closed his eyes. He felt the soft and cold tip of the brush on his eyelids as Phobos drew some strokes on them, first on the left one and then on the right one.
“Alright, open,” said Phobos after he was done.
Cedric blinked his eyes open, finding Phobos beaming at him. “Perfect!”
Phobos turned on his heels to head again to the drawer. He put back the brush and the jar and pulled out a hand mirror, which he gave to Cedric as he came back. Cedric almost bursted into laughter at the sight of the black hair, but had to acknowledge that the perfect lines of Phobos’s eyeliner were intriguing and made his eyes glow. “Looks good,” he said, handing back the mirror.
Phobos went to put it on the low table and nodded him to sit again, as he did the same.
“Your powers are really impressive. We could have done so much together, here!”
Cedric casted him a side glance as he sat on the chair again. “Something tells me that my Phobos is telling the same to the other Cedric.”
He had the impression of seeing Phobos stiffening, but the Prince spoke with a neutral tone. “Is he… visiting the other Phobos?”
Cedric studied him closely before answering. This Phobos was as good as the other one in masking his emotions and his thoughts. But he had the same microexpressions as the one Cedric knew well, and from those, he could read the anticipation, the fear and the jealousy in the Prince’s face. The man was still madly in love with the other Cedric, he was sure of that. And the other Cedric was no less head over heels for this dark version of Phobos who sat in front of him, only they seemingly had to find a way to communicate it to each other. “I wouldn’t worry about that,” Cedric said in the end. “I’m quite sure that meeting our Phobos will only help him to confirm what he already knows.”
And again, he could read Phobos’s face so well, thanks to his years of experience with the other Prince, that he could see how his face had relaxed, reassured by the veiled message between the lines. Never like in that moment did Cedric feel so incredibly lucky for what he had with Orube. He was sure that the other Cedric and this Phobos could make up things and have a fresh start, if only they would talk to each other and set their pride aside. It was not his job nor his business, pushing these two into each other’s arms again, but he wanted the other Cedric to find happiness as well - to have the same as he did in his world. As he stayed in the tower for a little while longer, drinking tea with this Prince, he decided to tell his counterpart. The other Cedric deserved a chance, and this Prince deserved one as well.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Scale Face*
*
Comic Cedric
*
By the time Cedric had reached the exit of the tower, restlessness started to take hold of him. He wanted to go back home. He had enjoyed his visit to the other world, but it had somehow left him with a feeling of longing for his own. It was as if now he appreciated even more what he had in his world - Orube, the other half of his soul, and Vathek, his best friend. He even appreciated his Phobos more than before, including each of his tics and the creepiness that had only exacerbated since when he’d been imprisoned in the tower. Not even a day in the other Meridian, and he missed them. He didn’t even see Vathek and Phobos every day, unlike he did with Orube, and yet knowing that they were not in the same universe where he was now had made a sense of emptiness expand in his chest.
Yes, he was ready to go back home.
As he walked the grovel path surrounding the black palace, directed at the main entrance from where he could reach the wing with the mirror, he raised his gaze to glance at the wonderful landscape extending under the mountain where the palace was nested. Such a pity, that they did not have such a view in his Meridian. And he didn’t dislike the gothic vibes - perhaps they could add an interesting touch to their infinity of blue, purple and green on the other si-
With a gulp, Cedric fell forward, stumbling against a rock. He barely managed to keep standing and only scratched the grovel path with his hands, and he pushed himself up averting a dramatic face-first fall.
“Ouch!” the rock behind him cried. He turned to look at it in a snap.
The rock is talking? he thought. He staggered back, as he noticed the foul smell coming from it. And it stinks awfully.
“Everybody always overlook Blunk, even though Blunk no transparent!” the rock complained. And then it moved, stretching out a pair of bony, wrinkled and green-skinned arms with occasional white patches of fur, and two gnarled short legs. When the creature turned on its heels, Cedric distinguished a bald rounded head, pointy ears and giant brown eyes.
A passling, Cedric thought, glaring at the small goblin-like creature dressed in rags, so small that he was barely as tall as one leg of his.
The creature gasped as he looked up at Cedric. He immediately raised his palms up in sign of defeat. “Blunk was good!” he pleaded, “Blunk only bring cookies to the Prince!” he picked up a ragged bag from the floor, and pulled out a decaying cookie from it, half of which was being feasted by a family of flies. “See, Lord Cedric? Cookies for the Prince!”
“Ew,” Cedric uttered. Then the name pronounced by the creature struck him. “Wait, you are Blunk? I thought you were… No, actually I thought you were exactly like this.”
Blunk shove the rotting cookie into his mouth and chewed it, making a humming sound as if it was the best delicacy the palace’s kitchens could offer. “Blunk always meets expectations. Never exceeds them,” he said with pride.
“Stop whatever you’re doing there!” a female voice cried from somewhere behind Cedric.
Cedric froze, recognizing the voice. He rolled his eyes, his shoulders dropping in resignation. “Of course it couldn’t end without me encountering the Guardians on my way,” he snarled the last words while he turned to face the five girls. They were standing on the way, in full formation and transformed, all with their arms folded at their chests, looking at him as if they were about to save the universe by just standing there and annoying him.
Surprisingly, they looked extremely similar to the five plagues he was used to encountering in his world, if anything slightly younger.
“No harm was done to Blunk!” the little creature peeped from behind Cedric’s legs. “Blunk was only talking to fancy blue Cedric!”
“Stay out of this, Blunk!” shouted Cornelia, waving with her arm as if to shoo him away.
“Yeah! This is a matter between us and turtle face here!” said Taranee.
Turtle face?! Cedric wrinkled his nose at the name. How dare they!
“Go hide somewhere there, Blunk, while we kick the scaly ass of Mr. Freak the Salamander!” yelled Irma.
Cedric flinched at this other new name. “Excuse me, since when are you allowed to call me all these names?”
The girls all blinked at him, losing their resolute heroin expressions for a moment. “We thought you were fine with it, you always sign your blackmailing letters with Scale face when we play enemies and you pretend to kidnap Blunk.”
“I do what-”
“Come on, scaly pet!” Hay Lin urged him. “Do the naga and let’s play this round, we have to go back to Earth! Tomorrow we have school.”
Cedric looked at the five girls with his mouth open, unable to tell whether this was something the other Cedric played along with or if they were joking. They looked rather serious.
“So let me get this straight,” he said, “we play enemies. Like, pretend to be enemies again to beat each other up.”
Will grunted in exasperation. “What is wrong with you today?! Usually by this time you already went full monster!”
“Maybe something’s really wrong with him today,” Hay Lin offered. “I mean, did you see the blue robes?”
“And the hair…” Cornelia commented, eyeing Cedric’s hair, as long as hers in her Guardian form, and then checking the ends of her hair.
“Maybe Miranda has finally decided to poison him…” Taranee said.
“You know what, I say we play!” said Irma, and before anyone could react, she threw a ball of blue light at Cedric.
Without the time to think, Cedric reacted by instinct by raising his arm and opening a temporary magic shield with his forearm, making the light bundle bounce away and go splash somewhere else on the ground.
The five Guardians all gasped in unison.
“No need to fight over Blunk!” Blunk intervened, still partially hiding behind Cedric’s legs. “Blunk likes pretty Guardians and pretty lizard boy, there’s a piece of Blunk for everyone!”
“Did you see what he did?!” Will asked the others.
“Miranda’s poison must have some side effects!” said Cornelia.
“Let’s try again!” said the Keeper of the Heart, and she shot another ball of light against him. He dodged it, and it went to vaporize a tree.
“That’s what we do? You throw light balls at me and I have to dodge them?” Cedric asked, unable to mask the irritation in his voice.
“Well, but usually you are so big that it’s impossible to miss you!” Taranee shouted back.
“Fuckin’ Guardians…” Cedric grunted. They wanted the naga? Then they would get the naga. “Stay away, Blunk,” he warned the green creature. As he did not seem to have intention to move, Cedric impatiently gave him a kick and the passling jumped away to the side, leaving him some space to turn into his signature monster. Cedric summoned the naga again, for the third time that day - that was a win! - and raised in all his new height, looming on the Guardians from above.
He froze as he saw that the five girls were looking up at him with an eyebrow cocked, their arms crossed again at their chest.
“WHAT NOW?!” he growled at them.
“Maybe what’s wrong with him is that this is not Cedric, it’s his little brother!” Cornelia teased.
“And why did he not say RRHHAAAAAAHRRR?!” said Hay Lin, imitating a roar with her voice and distorting her face in a grimace.
“Pretty lizard boy must eat more cookies!” Blunk added, chewing another disgusting cookie from his bag.
Alright, evidently the other Cedric’s naga was louder and much bigger. Still, Cedric was starting to grow impatient. He was not there to play the Guardians’ punching bag - he wanted to go back to his world, to his soon-to-be wife, his friend, and his crazy Prince. A world where the Guardians were annoying, but they would never ever call him Mr. Freak the Salamander. Or would they?
“Could we please move on, ladies?” he snarled. “I’m a rather busy man and I happen to have an appointment.”
“Ohoh, listen to him, he has an appointment!” Irma jeered.
“Girls?” the Keeper of the Heart called the others to attention. At her nod, their wings started to flutter. The Air Guardian lifted in air immediately, as always.
Cedric started to summon his magic to prepare an attack, but it froze midway through his arms as-
“YOU ALL CAN FLY?!” he yelped, as the other four Guardians imitated Hay Lin and all floated in the air, their wings fluttering furiously.
“You’re right, girls, something’s really wrong with him,” Taranee conceded.
Irma made a twirl in the air, showing off her flying skills, and gave Cedric her back, turning to make fun of him with the other Guardians. “Maybe he forgot to take his steroids today!”
That was enough. Cedric detested doing that, but extreme situations required extreme measures. It had been a while since the last time he’d heard those sounds. The crack of bones as they formed and extended from his shoulder blades. The popping sound of the membrane unrolling with a snap and forming dragon-like wings on his back. Cedric hated adding wings to his naga, as it felt like staining his masterpiece, making it impure. But these Guardians needed a lesson.
“Irma, WATCH OUT!!” Cornelia yelled at her friend, as Cedric batted his wings and launched against her in the air.
The Guardians all screamed in unison and darted away, spreading into five different directions. The perfect occasion for him to fly over to the palace and enter from a window, so he could finally get to the mirror.
“Farewell, young ladies,” he shouted at them as he had put some distance between him and the five girls. “Maybe you’ll need to find a new name for me.”
The last thing he heard before disappearing behind a tower of the castle was Irma’s yell after him. “You can bet on it, SCALE CHICKEN!”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The Leafy General
*
*
Cartoon Cedric
*
Orube parted from Cedric as they left the tower, with the recommendation that he’d tell the other Cedric that she was
really
mad at him. It was clearly not true, but she had said her Cedric deserved to at least run panicking to their quarters to make amends with her, after having kept this whole ordeal with the parallel world from her just to avoid wedding preparations.
While walking back to the palace, Cedric had mixed feelings about nearly everything. His experience in this world, and what was waiting for him in his world. Phobos. He was surprised to find himself wanting to go back to him,
his
Phobos, the one who looked at him in awe when he transformed into the naga, even after the hundredth time. The one who wanted him by his side even if he could not do all the fancy things the other Cedric did.
But at the same time, Cedric felt small, knowing what his counterpart could do. What if the other Cedric had visited Phobos on the other side and now his Prince thought he had wasted his time with the wrong Cedric all along, just like the Phobos of this side had implied?
Cedric entered the blue palace almost running, and was indeed running when he crossed the large entry hall. He didn’t even pay attention to the swirls and decorations and the paintings of the Queens at the walls. He just wanted to get to the mirror
now
.
“That’s him!” he heard a male voice shouting behind him, echoing in the large hall. A familiar voice. A
detested
voice. One that made him want to turn into the naga instantly and snarl back at him.
He turned and let out a low hiss as his suspicion was confirmed: Caleb was running towards him, flanked by Vathek.
“I’m sorry, man,” Vathek whimpered, directed at Cedric, “but he insisted he wanted to know. The servants saw you and rumors started to spread that there was something wrong with your eyes and-”
“It’s fine,” Cedric cut him off. He raised to his full height to face Caleb. Ready to transform into the naga at the first threat. “So this is the mighty head of the rebellion in your world,” he purred, surveying Caleb from head to toe with a purposely condescending look. Caleb was significantly smaller than him, just like the one in his world, and had the same stupid haircut and the same stupid green eyes that made all stupid young ladies in the other Meridian sigh. There were two differences that jumped to the eye. One were the green streaks extending from his neck and turning on his jaw, marking his cheeks. Tattoos? Birthmarks? Warpaint? Difficult to say. The other was his outfit. He was not wearing the usual
mister rebel-
attire with the brown coat on an impossibly tight top and the
oh-I’m-so-badass-
boots. He was wearing a blue robe embroidered with silver swirls and blue little gems here and there, with shiny spaulders, and even had a headpiece - a simple silver chain falling on his head with a blue stone in the center. Was he… some kind of noble here?
Now that he was looking at him closely, he also noticed that his ears were pointed. And that they twitched under Cedric’s scrutiny.
“What do you mean
mighty rebel leader?
” Caleb asked. “What am I in your world, a gargoyle?”
Cedric’s mouth twisted in a grimace. “No. You’re just as small and
troublesome
as you look like here.” He cast a glare at his robes. “Though what are you here, an ornament?”
Caleb followed Cedric’s gaze on his own robes and snapped an outraged look at him. “How dare you! I’m the General! I’m-”
“He will be the Consort!” Vathek cut him off, earning a scowl from Caleb. “He’s engaged to the Queen!”
Cedric’s gaze flicked to Caleb. “You’re what-
engaged
to Elyon? And are you not too young for being engaged? Or for being the General, for what matter.”
Caleb scratched the back of his head, looking almost embarrassed. “Well, I’m twenty, she’s nineteen, it’s not too young for Meridian standards, and there was no army left with a General, so…”
Cedric raised an eyebrow at him. “And what do your parents have to say about this? They must be both thrilled… for different reasons, but certainly thrilled.”
Both Vathek and Caleb stiffened, giving him a wide-eyed look. “Parents? I don’t have parents,” said Caleb, then his expression suddenly turned into a scowl. “Or is this one of your puns because I was once a plant?”
Cedric’s jaw dropped. A plant? How? What did it mean? And what did it mean that he didn’t have parents? Was he not the fruit of that absurd coincidence that put a loser like Julian on the same path as a powerful being way out of his league such as Nerissa?
A plant. Queen Elyon Escanor of Meridian was going to marry a plant.
Before he could control it, Cedric bursted into laughter.
“Hey, that’s not cool!” Caleb protested.
“What’s going on here?” a different voice made Cedric’s laughter die out instantly. He turned to see… himself, coming from the direction Cedric was running to earlier.
“I was waiting for you,” the other Cedric addressed him. “Did you decide to move here permanently? And what’s there to laugh about?”
“He just discovered about Caleb…” Vathek explained.
“Your Queen is engaged to a plant?” Cedric asked.
The other circled his shoulders with an arm, making him turn with him. “Well, a
former
plant,” he corrected him, and Cedric could see him casting an apologizing look in Caleb’s direction before turning with him and leading him towards the wing of the palace where the mirror was.
“Come, friend,” the other Cedric said, “we have a lot to talk about.”
Suddenly, a foul smell hit Cedric’s nose. “Let me guess, you found Blunk.”
The other Cedric let out a grunt. “Well. I would rather say he found me, but yes, I had the honor.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The Reswap
*
*
Cartoon Cedric
*
“So what do you think of our world?” the other Cedric asked, indicating the surroundings with a wave of his hand - another corridor flanked by light blue marble columns and walls of dark blue wood decorated by silver swirls.
“It’s neat, but…” Cedric sighed. “Well, I’m a bit sick of all this blue.”
“Yeah, I know. It takes a while to get used to it. Orube was so sick of it at some point that she went to hide in the woods for a day, just to see something different. I did not make it in time to tell her that the forest closest to the palace has blue trees.” The other turned to look at him as they walked. “Did you meet her, by the way?”
“Oh, yes,” Cedric said, nodding. “We met on Earth. Nice place you’ve got there.”
“You went to Earth? Did you see the bookshop?”
“Yeah. Good coffee. And she… she’s a keeper, man.”
Cedric saw his counterpart lowering his gaze, a splash of pink on his cheeks. “I know,” he said, “I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve her.”
Cedric suddenly remembered about Orube’s recommendation to make the other one sweat a bit for having left her alone with the wedding preparations. He patted the other on the shoulder. “Oh, and congrats on the wedding. But I have to tell you, she did not like that you left her to take care of the flowers.”
The other Cedric raised his gaze to the roof. “Ugh, yeah. How mad is she?”
“Hm,” Cedric paused, pretending to gauge the level of Orube’s anger. “Let’s say ‘I’m glad I can run to that mirror and jump to the other side’-mad.”
The other Cedric sighed. “Damn…”
Cedric gave a squeeze to his shoulder, unable to keep from grinning. “It will be fine. And what do you think about my world?”
“It’s… interesting. I like the gothic vibes, I wish we had something like this here as well. And you seem to have at least someone who is eagerly waiting for you to come back,” he said, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Cedric did not need to think too long who the other was talking about. A fond smile curved his lips at the thought of his loyal squishy worm. “Larvek is a very loyal pet, I told you.”
As they reached the mirror, the other Cedric halted and turned to face him. “I’m not talking about Larvek, Cedric.”
Cedric’s eyebrows shot up.
“I mean, Larvek will be thrilled,” the other said. “By the way, how can you afford all that meat? That must cost as much as feeding an entire village.”
Cedric shrugged. “Elyon pays me well.”
The other gasped. “You get paid?!”
Cedric blinked at him. “Yeah. I mean, I was bad, but not so bad to deserve working for free. It’s not like I burned a city or something.”
The other Cedric reacted with an evidently nervous laugh that made Cedric’s stomach shift with unease. What the hell did you do, man…
“May I ask you a question?” Cedric asked, if anything to stir the conversation away from this.
“Go ahead.”
“If you can transform into anyone, why didn’t you ever use it to mess up with Phobos? You could have taken his place and had Meridian at your feet.”
The other raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, like you did…” he muttered.
“I did what?”
The other Cedric gave him a knowing look. “You know what I’m talking about.”
Shit, Miranda told him, Cedric thought. Why did everyone always have to bring that up?! “I… I wasn’t really myself that day and-”
“I know, I know,” the other said, “sometimes Phobos can be so obnoxious that the only thing left to do is what you did. Speaking of which - I was really not referring to Larvek when I said that someone is waiting for you.”
Cedric’s heart fluttered. He knew who the other was referring to. Or at least he hoped he did. He stilled, waiting for the other to elaborate on that.
“You have to go to that tower.”
Cedric lowered his gaze. “What did he tell you?”
His counterpart laid a hand on his shoulder. “It doesn’t matter what he told me. Not much, actually, if you really want to know. But I can read Phobos like an open book, regardless what color his eyes are. And that one, over there,” he indicated the mirror with his thumb, “that one is crazy about you. Only he won’t say it because he’s, you know…”
“...Phobos.” Cedric sighed. He was not sad or annoyed, though. There was a sparkle of hope in his chest - hearing that Phobos was still crazy about him had made his heart flutter. He had been avoiding the tower for a long time and this was probably the longest period he’d been away from Phobos. Perhaps he should go back to that tower, after all, and speak with the Prince. “Alright, I’ll think about it,” he said in the end. “By the way, your Phobos…”
The other Cedric immediately stiffened, straightening his back. “What did he do?”
“Um, well…” Cedric looked down at the floor. “I may or may not have set you up for having your wedding outfit tailored by him.”
The other Cedric’s eyes widened first in surprise, then in horror. “What-”
“But I’m sure it will be gorgeous!” Cedric offered. “The man is… creepy, but he seems to have taste. He’s still Phobos, after all.”
The other man sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger. “Alright, at least he has something to do. Did anyone buy the disguise at least? I guess Phobos recognized you, he’s a bit crazy, but he knows me too well.”
“He did, just like your giant blue friend and your fiancée. The only ones who thought I was you were…”
“...the Guardians,” the other Cedric said in unison with him.
They both bursted into laughter.
Suddenly, the memory of how Cedric had gotten rid of the Guardians struck him. “Oh, by the way… about the Guardians…”
Panic flashed in his counterpart’s face. “The Guardians what…”
Cedric let out a nervous chuckle. “Uh, I had to get rid of them somehow, so…” he found himself sneakily moving towards the mirror. “Well, everyone was looking for you today and I said I was gone looking for a gift for Orube and…”
His doppelganger frowned as he followed his movements towards the mirror with his gaze. “And?”
“I told them to help me find one, so they went to Earth to look for a gift for her, under the condition that they’d have an open budget,” he said all in once, and with a swift move he crossed the mirror.
The other Cedric’s head snapped at him. “Oh come on, man!” he complained, but from his tone, Cedric could hear that he was more amused than pissed. “They’re going to spend a fortune on something that Orube is going to hate with all her heart!”
Cedric shrugged. “I’m sorry, friend. But it seems your bookstore activity is doing quite well, I’m sure an expensive gift for your lady won’t be a big deal.” He turned to look around, now that he was back in the other Meridian. Nobody seemed to be there. It was not safe, though, staying there for too long, talking with the other Cedric through the mirror. And he definitely wanted, needed, to go to the tower. “It’s better if I go now. But let’s meet again sometime in the next days. What about next week?”
“Alright,” the other said. “Same time, in a week from now. Oh, Cedric,” he called him, before he could turn and leave. “That Miranda. Don’t hurt her. She doesn’t deserve it.”
Cedric nodded. He knew the other was right - the thought that he would hurt Miranda if he would bring their relationship too far kept him awake nearly every night. “I won’t hurt her,” he said, then detached from the mirror and made to walk away. “See you in a week, then.”
He was already walking away, when suddenly another thought flashed in his mind. He froze and turned on his heels, looking at the mirror from afar. The other Cedric was still there. “Hey, isn’t it a bit strange that neither of us bumped into Elyon?”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Epilogue
The Two Queens
*
*
Comic Elyon
*
It was a lovely sunny day, yet not too warm - just the perfect temperature that Elyon enjoyed when she wanted to spend some time outside, sitting in the gazebo in her brother’s rose garden. Of course it was the perfect weather for when she wanted to be outside - she controlled the weather, after all, so she decided when it had to be perfect.
She loved to sit in her brother’s garden, which was the only garden of the palace to have a high hedge protecting it from prying eyes. Unfortunately, being the Queen of a planet was quite a lot of work - too much work, if you asked her - and she could only afford spending some hours a week there, when she was done with most of her meetings for the week and could send the Council members to do something more useful than following her like shadows with their stupid papers to be signed.
And most of all, she loved to spend those hours every week sitting there with her friend.
Elyon.
The one from the other Meridian.
Her alternate was sitting at the other side of the table in the gazebo, while they both stirred their spoons in the cup of tea where they’d both just put the same exact amount of honey, making the spoons clang against the porcelain.
“That was such a brilliant idea, to put the mirror in the East wing of the palace!” the other Elyon was saying.
Elyon’s counterpart was nearly identical to her, at least in her face and body. She also had the same shade of light blonde and a similar haircut, her braids being only shorter and thicker than hers.
“I knew Cedric would be the only one hanging out in that wing of the palace,” Elyon said. “That area is so creepy and depressing it must be irresistible for him.”
“That man is so sad and gloomy the whole time I knew he would jump into the other world to see if his life was any better on the other side!” the other gloated.
Elyon took a sip of tea. She had switched from green tea to black lately. One of the few things she’d picked up from Phobos during her visits to the tower. “Oh come on,” she scolded the other from behind her cup, “I don’t think either of them is doing that bad anymore. They both have all their limbs still attached to their bodies, after all.”
The other Elyon giggled. “Yours also has that wonderful badass girlfriend who is way out of his league!”
Elyon nodded. She would never understand how Orube could accept settling down with that cranky shapeshifter. She could definitely have better. “And I allow him to go play with the dolls with my brother.”
The other Elyon took a sip of her tea as well. Incidentally, she had switched to black tea as well thanks to her brother. “Mine is the richest man in Metamoor and has a fuckin’ oasis all for him and his expensive pet. Though I don’t think that what he does when he visits my brother is playing with dolls.”
They stilled for a moment. The thought of the other Cedric and the alternate version of her brother doing unspeakable things in the tower made a shiver run along Elyon’s spine. She could not think of any version of her brother doing unspeakable things with anyone without shivering.
“Ew,” they both said in unison.
They looked at each other in silence again, then both burst into laughter.
“But you’ll have to admit they are a cute couple,” Elyon said. “I mean, your Cedric and Phobos. Mine were a disaster.”
The other shrugged. “Hm. Yeah. If anything, my brother is more bearable when Cedric is around. I hope they’ll figure it out.”
“I hope that too, for them,” Elyon said, and somehow she really meant it. “Oh, and did you see when my Cedric thought he was the one making the mirror work?”
The other laughed. “He looked so proud of himself!”
Elyon laughed as well. “That was priceless!”
They both laughed again, and then drank the tea. It was such a marvelous idea, pushing the two Cedrics to swap places and visit each other’s Meridian! Elyon and her counterpart both had another mirror, with which they could follow the movements of both shapeshifters. Given that they were both very busy Queens, they had not been able to watch them together as if they were watching a movie, only glancing from time to time between meetings, but it had been one of the funniest experiences Elyon had ever had since she'd moved to Metamoor.
“So, who do we swap next?” she asked. “Do you think we could swap brothers?”
The other pursed her lips. “Uh, I don’t know. I think those two could either become best friends or mortal enemies and start an interdimensional war.”
Elyon pursed her lips as well, mirroring the expression of her doppelganger. “You’re right. It’s such a shame that we cannot swap places!”
Their first thought when they’d found each other had of course been swapping places. However, as magic in their universes worked differently and they both were the sources of magic of each planet, their sense of duty as the Queens had prevailed and they had decided that it was too much of a risk for the two planets, and they only went to each other’s world for a couple of hours each time, always alternating.
“I suppose Caleb is still off the table, right?” the other Elyon asked, cocking an eyebrow.
Elyon gave her a scowl. “Nope, I’m not going to lend you my betrothed in exchange for one with an excessively tight t-shirt and a superhero complex.” Not that her Caleb did not have a superhero complex, but he’d become definitely less annoying about that since he’d understood that the Queen of Metamoor did not need anyone’s protection.
“What about I send you Blunk for a day?” the other Elyon asked.
Elyon sighed. “We already talked about it. I don’t have anyone to send you for Blunk, and you only want to get rid of him for one day!”
The other crossed her arms at her chest, leaning back into the chair. They both stilled, considering who could be the next.
They both gasped at the same time, a sign that they were both struck with the same crazy idea.
“You know who would be awesome to swap? It will be difficult to make it happen, but who else can do it if not us…”
“...The Oracle!” they exclaimed in unison, then laughed again.
It would be probably impossible to make the two Oracles swap, and the consequences on the universe would be likely much worse than those of a swap between the two Queens of Metamoor, but Elyon already knew - they were going to try. Seeing how each Oracle would be disappointed at the other’s job at keeping the universe a tidy place would be even more priceless than seeing Cedric nearly pissing himself from fear when Orube had told him to start running.
The other Elyon emptied her tea cup and stood up. “Alright, I guess my duty is calling me,” she said with a sigh. “Same time next week, but in my brother’s garden?”
Elyon beamed at her. “You can count on it!”