Entangle

Mush soon grew restless in her gilded cage. The food was delicious and the bed was very soft, but she knew that there was good food and soft beds to be found elsewhere, as well. When this thought occurred to her, she was standing on a balcony outside, looking out at the forest below as hoarfrost on the bare branches sparkled in the afternoon sun. How beautiful it would look to be down among them, she thought, and resolved to leave the castle.

However, even though Vasilond had not kept his word to visit her during her sort stay, he had given her the room, and she felt that it would only be polite to say goodbye before her departure. After questioning a handful of passing servants, she found one who had a few minutes to show her to Vasilond’s rooms, where she intended to wait. She hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him since that first day, but she figured he must have to come back to sleep at some point.

The door was unlocked, although Mush did note the acute discomfort on the face of her guide as she opened it and entered without hesitation. The guide did not follow her.

The room beyond the door was… astonishing. The entire castle so far had felt much like the enclosed nest of some birds, the walls stuck full of warm and beautiful things; cozy, in a strange way. This room, however, was far more like the rocky shores of southern Saoirsen; difficult if not painful to navigate, littered with the ruins of ships and creatures dashed upon it by the ocean’s strength.

Mush carefully picked her way through the clutter, gently kicking some of it aside from time to time. None of it seemed to be… garbage, necessarily, though the room did have a musty smell that reminded Mush of the ruins of old houses she’d slept in once or twice. Perhaps this room really was abandoned, and Vasilond had somewhere else that he returned to when he needed to sleep. But then, wouldn’t the servants have known, and shown her to that place, instead?

She managed to reach a large couch with a bit of free space on the arm, more than enough for her to sit comfortably. She laid her staff across her knees and settled in to wait.

Mush had just opened her bag to take out one of the dinner rolls she had smuggled from the kitchen on her last trip when the door opened. It rebounded from the wall with a strength that should have produced a loud bang — but it was silent, and nobody seemed to enter for a moment.

Then again, like a drop cloth being pulled from a polished table, Vasilond appeared before her. He was breathing heavily like he’d just been running, the buttons on his collar were undone with at least one hanging from a thread, and his hair was working its way out of its styled confines to float over his head in a twisted heap. He stared at her for a moment with wide eyes and his fangs showing. “You—“ he started to say, then abandoned the thought to rush around her to a door she had not noticed.

“I came to tell you I am leaving the castle,” Mush said. “But I am also liking to know why you have the look of a cornered fox just before it bites.”

“What a coincidence,” he called through the open door. The sound of drawers rapidly opening and slamming shut along with the soft shifting of fabric followed. “I am also leaving the castle.”

“Oh,” Mush said. “Yes, I leave my home sometimes as well. Where are you going?”

“Not sure,” Vasilond said, and his voice carried a light and casual tone with a heavy undercurrent of panic. “Perhaps I will enlist. That seems to be what everyone does when they want to make a name on their own merits.”

Mush frowned. She slipped from her perch and picked her way across the room to look in through his door. “Something bad has happened,” she said.

Vasilond was bent over a large suitcase, frantically attempting to fold things tight enough to fit with the clumsiness of someone who had clearly never done this on his own before. He glanced up at her, his eyes still feral, and did not answer.

“What was the bad thing?” Mush asked in her best gentle voice.

Vasilond continued to ignore her, shoving a pair of boots into the last cranny of the suitcase and leaning on it until it latched shut. He stood, ran his hands over himself as if realizing what he looked like for the first time, turned around a few times haltingly as he processed and discarded several thoughts in quick succession, and finally picked up the suitcase to head for the door.

Mush put up her staff to block his way. When he pushed it aside, she cast her strength into it, producing a bloom of tiny toadstools along its crook, and smacked it into his chest with a mighty thwack. He yelped and staggered backwards, and Mush reached out again. The marble floor cracked, releasing long, woody vines that twined around his feet and legs to hold him in place for a moment.

“Answer my questions!” Mush snapped. “I am asking many, and you are answering few. I only want to understand!”

“Fine!” Vasilond snarled, the vines creaking as he struggled to free himself. “I made a mistake. That’s all. I miscalculated, and now Natvia is running me out of the castle so she can continue with her ridiculous attempts at weaseling her way back into the family, for some reason, as if it ever loved any of us in the first place—”

He freed one foot, planted it on the stone, and managed to wrench the other one out as well. “A mistake,” he repeated in a calmer tone, picking up his suitcase again. He pushed his way past Mush, and she allowed it, this time. “That’s all. I can recover from this, in time.”

“You are unhappy,” Mush said quietly, and he flinched, but did not stop. She raised her voice a bit so he could hear as he got further away. “Leaving the castle will make you less unhappy, Vasilond. Someday.”

He pulled the door open and ducked through it without acknowledging her again.