#ideal cfd

~

It was not the first time that Reginald had considered going back to visit Court Dorchadas, but it was the first time that he truly didn't want to go back.

Dusk had fallen on the outskirts of the Tangled Wood. It was pretty much always dusk in the Woods, the entire territory hidden under permanent twilight. But on the very edges the sun still rose occasionally, falling on the forest floor where the briars weren't quite so thick. Ironically, that only made the nights seem darker.

He moved through a dreary town square that seemed to have been built millennia ago, the ruins tangled with thorns. Dragons had set up camp within the shelter of the walls. Reginald had followed the clan for a short while, waiting for them to settle for the night, because that was when they would start actually trading with him.

To an outsider, he looked almost normal. With a thick black scarf to hide the void where his neck should have been and a patch covering his eye socket, he could have passed for one of the living non-shade dragons around him. His disguise wouldn't stand up to close inspection, but that was fine. There were a lot of odd-looking dragons in Shadow territory. Many had come afoul of tricksters and witches, resulting in altered appearances and abilities. The Shadow dragon who sold the black tulips, for example, exhaled copious amounts of steam with every breath, which she impatiently waved aside to count up the gems Reginald handed to her.

“Yeah, this looks fine,” she said, flipping open her saddlebags to reveal a collection of black tulip bundles. She extracted one and held it out to Reginald. “Who's the lucky recipient, hm?”

This brought a smile to Reginald's face. It was very likely that the dragons here already knew about Dullahan, or at least had heard stories of them. There was something unexpectedly fun about knowing something that the dragons did not, once he got past his instinctual confusion about lying and falsehood.

Taking his bouquet, he nodded his thanks and moved away again, stepping over a low, broken wall. Over here, the ruins had almost been swallowed up, plant-life bursting out of the ancient cobblestones and strangling the strange metal columns that were dotted around. The deeper into the forest Reginald walked, the less light managed to make it down to the floor. Soon, the only illumination came from the bioluminescent fungi, and the glowing embers Reginald shed as he moved.

He paused for a moment to rearrange the flowers to his liking. As he stopped, the tiny flickers and pops of sparks and flame around his neck stopped, too. Or, at least, they should have. An ember drifted past on one side and he watched it for a moment with a tiny frown. He had to be careful, or he'd set the whole forest on fire...

And suddenly he knew with utter certainty that he was being watched. He turned, but all he saw was black smoke, a trail he'd left in his wake. But – no – it wasn't attached to him, it was coming from somewhere else, and in its centre was a pair of glowing yellow eyes.

His first instinct wasn't fear, of course, but curiosity. He feared very few things, and some strange creature in the woods at night was not one of them.

“Hello!” he said, waving. “Hi! Who are you?”

The smoke cleared. Standing on the cracked cobblestones a scant few metres away was a creature whom Reginald did not immediately recognise, because what he saw made no sense. It was identical to him, which couldn't have been right because there was only one Reginald. Nobody else could be him.

He frowned, leaning back and examining the newcomer.

“Thierry Reginald,” it said. It flickered oddly as it spoke. “Don't be alarmed. I am-”

Reginald brandished his tulips angrily, raising his voice over the creature's. “I won't talk to you unless you take off that disguise,” he said. “Coming at me like this very rude.”

The creature flickered again, oddly, like it was just an illusion. There was something behind it, but Reginald couldn't get his eyes to focus properly on it.

The thing seemed taken aback, but it tried to speak again. “Calm down. You're in no danger here. I'm you, after all.”

It caught a blast of flames to the chest before it said another word. Dirty blue smoke wreathed the creature for a moment, hiding it from sight. The bitter smell of gunpowder washed through the air. Reginald extinguished his hands, wincing a little as the tulips went up in smoke. He cast them aside and ignited more sparks in one palm, just in case. And, sure enough, when the smoke cleared the imposter still stood there, unharmed.

“You're one to lecture me about manners,” it snapped, bushing itself down. “Let me talk. Anyway, I'm you – or-”

“Don't lie to me,” Reginald said. “I won't believe you.” He closed his fist around the sparks regretfully. It looked like fire wouldn't hurt this creature.

It flickered again, and for a moment the mass of its body seemed to unspool itself into the air around it, dissolving into lines or gold and black and flashing symbols and... and then it was back, as solid as ever. Which was the illusion, and which was real?

“Or,” it said, and now it seemed to have lost some of its patience, “this is what you could be.”

Well, that just made no sense whatsoever. The creature was identical to Reginald. There was no difference in appearance between them. But the creature was acting like there was.

“I don't understand?” Reginald said. “You look like me. I already am me. I can't be more me than I already am.”

This seemed to give the creature pause. “There is no difference?” it said, after a long silence.

“None,” Reginald said, “which is how I know you're fake. Leave me alone, I have to be somewhere soon.”

Colour slowly drained out of the figure, until it was nothing but a black paper-cut out of a person, without even the glowing eyes Reginald had first noticed.

“I can see why Rezann liked you so much,” it said. “I always wondered. I thought it would be fun to make a deal with you, but it looks like there's nothing I can offer you that you don't already have.” It shrugged. “That's a very rare thing, you should be thankful. What would I even give you? You're already immortal.”

Reginald was not in the mood to be flattered at the creature's words, only vaguely alarmed. The mention of Rezann was troubling, breaking through the past few weeks of carefree existence to remind him of what he had left behind.

“I won't tell him you're here,” it said. “That would be boring, it would ruin the tension. I've neglected you for long enough, though, so it's time for you to be of use elsewhere. All these romantic evenings in the woods? Boring. Dull. A waste. Your arc isn't even over and you've fucked off to god knows where, away from all the action-”

“I'm going,” Reginald said. “Goodbye.”

“Sure,” the creature said, “you do that. And when Rezann wipes the Starfall Isles off the face of the planet, you can stay here with Dullahan, safe and sound, with the knowledge that you were the only one who could have stopped him.”