Can't Fight Time Ch. 16

"Huh!" Grim gasped awake, freezing cold and drenched in water.

Felicia's voice oozing sugary sweetness. "Good morning, Grim."

Rolling his head, Grim tried to figure out where he was. Metal chains clanked around his wrists and ankles, sharp stone stabbed into his back, and the smell of mold and dried blood infiltrated his nostrils.

The sensations and smells were painful for Grim; everything was heightened to an almost unbearable degree, and he had to wonder if this was how Nina felt all the time.

"Come now, my king, raise that handsome head of yours." Felicia stuck her finger underneath his chin and tilted his head up.

The events of the last few hours came back to him slowly, in bits and pieces. Grim remembered being in bed with Nina, waking up without her, being drugged by Felicia, and finally being dragged away.

Grim slowly rotated his head, fighting the pain swimming in his vision and clouding his mind. It looked like a dungeon. Looking up at the ceiling, Grim saw the Castoff insignia: sixteen daggers of varying size positioned in a circle, pointing outwards in every cardinal direction.

Grim knew the symbolism; it was meant to show that no matter where Castoff enemies went they would always be found and killed. It was also a reference to the past, to demonstrate that the Castoff kingdom was always prepared for an attack.

But for Grim, it was the symbol of a kingdom full of traitors.

"Oh, good," Sarcasm dripped off her saccharin sweet words, "you're awake."

Grim finally forced his eyes to focus on Felicia. The Castoff Princess couldn't be missed in her lime green dress, trimmed in black lace. It was the same length as all the rest of the dresses she'd worn, just above her knees. It also had the same long sleeves, gloves, and stockings, the only exposed flesh being her face and neck.

Grim's voice was raspy and his throat sore. "You'll have to forgive my appearance, sweetheart, I wasn't expecting company."

Felicia smoothed her skirt and scratched at her knees. "Are you hungry, Grim? I had our chef make you something. Your body is more like a human's now, and will need food to sustain itself."

Grim narrowed his eyes, as his stomach seemed to agree with Felicia. For the first time in almost millennium, Grim felt hunger clawing at his gut. Before the shedding, before he'd come into his power, he'd been like most humans, feeling varying degrees of hunger and pain... But Grim couldn't remember the hunger ever being like this.

"I'm fine, thank you." Grim responded through gritted teeth, using formalities as his only weapon.

The formalities allowed him a measure of comfort, a measure of control that he didn't possess just then. It also allowed him to distance himself from the pain in his heart and his uncertainty over his wife's, and his family's fate.

Felicia flicked her black curls back and delicately scratched at her neck before snapping her fingers loudly. "No, I'm sure you're quite hungry."

A cart was wheeled in, and a table and two chairs were set up on the other side of his cell. Grim watched as the maid ignored him and set the table, working as if she came down to the dungeon and set up meals for prisoners on a daily basis. The maid took out two covered dishes and placed them in front of either chair.

Grim watched as the maid curtsied to Felicia, never meeting her eyes, and exited the cell. "Are you hungry yet?" Felicia asked as she went and sat at the table, unwrapped her napkin, and placed it over her lap.

As if on cue, Grim's stomach let out a very loud and long groan. Felicia's tinkling laughter aggravated him, but he was starving. Aside from poisoning or drugging him again there wasn't much she could do to the food.

Grim could see her poisoning him, but only mildly. She'd already drugged him, and he didn't think she'd do it again. Carefully, Grim weighed his options, not sure if he should trust that she had not tampered with the food, or eat the meal knowing that it could burn his stomach and kill him slowly.

"There is no poison in it, if that is what you're wondering," Felicia scoffed, as she removed the lid from the plate and revealed an almond-colored soup. "I will swear it on my mother, if that is what you want."

Grim wanted to cut that smile right off her face, but he knew with his distinct lack of power he probably couldn't even lift a knife to try.

So then what are my options? his consciousness asked pointedly. Starve or eat.

Unable to stop himself, Grim watched Felicia pick up a spoon and begin to eat her soup. He was so hungry, the feeling burned like acid through his middle.

"How can I eat if I'm chained?" Grim asked angrily, too tired to even rattle the chains.

A snap of Felicia's fingers had a guard coming to Grim and unlocking him. Immediately Grim collapsed onto the ground, and only after several attempts was he able to get up and stumble over to the table. Every step felt like a mile, and the cold was still mind-numbingly painful, but he was trying not to pay too much attention to it.

Collapsing into the chair, Grim stared at Felicia as she took another bite and delicately patted the corner of her lips. "Please, Grim." She reached forward and uncovered his dish. "Eat."

Suspiciously, Grim sniffed at the meal, still not positive it wasn't poisoned. He could have been wrong and she could want to drug him again. Then again, what was the point of either of those things besides pain? Grim didn't doubt that she wanted to torture him before killing him, but poisoning him in the state he was in was pointless.

So then what was wrong with the soup? Grim refused to believe it was simply soup. Felicia wouldn't have corrupted his guards, dragged him from his bedroom, drugged him, and locked him in a dungeon just to feed him.

"Since you say that I should be more afraid of you than the kingdom, what is it that you want, Felicia?" Grim asked as he carefully picked up a spoon and began to sift it through the dish.

Residual spices or powder lay at the bottom, darkened the color, but Grim couldn't smell a change in the soup, or see any kind of glaring problem with it.

She could just be toying with me, messing with my mind. He wouldn't put it past her.

"What everyone wants, Grim," she said simply, continuing to eat her soup as if they were in a formal dining room instead of a prison cell.

Carefully, he took a sip of the soup, preparing for the worst. When pain didn't immediately seize his body, Grim knew she was probably just messing with his mind. There probably wasn't really anything wrong with the meal; Felicia had just wanted him to think there was.

"What is that?" Grim asked with strained politeness as he took another bite.

"I want it all, Grim. The control, the power—everything," she whispered.

Grim paused and looked up at her. Cerulean blue eyes danced with mirth and a mocking smile graced her perfectly pink lips. "How do you propose to get this power, by taking over my kingdom?"

Felicia smiled and set down her spoon. Grim took another sip of his soup and watched her carefully. "By killing everyone who stands in my way." She smiled wide and stared directly at his dish.

Grim dropped the spoon immediately, and stared at the almond-colored liquid. She wasn't saying what he thought she was saying. She wasn't saying that—

"They put up a good fight—your mother and father, but in the end... they lost."

Grim pushed back from the table and fell off the chair. Still, he scrambled back until he felt the wall of the rocks cut into his back and the smell of blood entered his nostrils.

Calmly, Felicia rose from her seat and went to the place he'd just vacated, and picked up his bowl. In a flash she was in front of him, crouched low, holding the bowl between her hands. "Don't you want to say goodbye to your family, Grim?"

"No." Grim whispered shaking his head. That couldn't be his father and mother. He refused to believe it. He refused!

Balancing the bowl in one hand, Felicia reached into a pocket of her skirt and pulled out his father's cravat pin and his mother's choker, then dropped them into the soup. Her smile was cruel at best. "Yes, Grim. Now, say goodbye."

***

Dying was a weird process for Nina—not that it probably wasn't for most people, but her case was particularly strange.

At the age of ten, Nina had loved anything and everything Frankenstein. Not for the scare factor—in fact the whole plot scared the bejesus out of her—but for the laboratory. There was something about creepy laboratories that had always caught her attention, always struck a chord with her.

So it came as a bit of a shock when Nina found herself laying down, suspended on a metal slab in what looked to be Frankenstein's lab. Am I the monster here? Nina wondered as she peered down at the sixty foot drop and decided to keep laying there looking up into the nothingness.

Heaven, Hell, or wherever she was, wasn't exactly how she imagined. What Nina had imagined was being either reincarnated, or just slipping off into a black void. Ending up on the set of some Frankenstein horror flick, laying on the bed where a monster should have been, wasn't even one of the top billion ways she'd thought she'd end up.

And yet, here she was.

"Anyone there?" she asked out loud, needing to hear something.

The pain that she should have felt in her chest was gone, as were all of her clothes, and the only thing that she was sure of what that she was still in her body. Reaching over, she pinched her arm, and yelped as pain shot through her.

If this wasn't her body, then it was a damn good replica. Same color skin, same unmanageable curly hair, and same platinum and blue diamond wedding rings on her finger. Nina lifted her hand to her face and stared at the only connection she still had to Grim. She was happy that she'd been able to take it with her to the afterlife; it would have been hard to live without them.

You're not alive! Her conscious reminded her.

There was no mistaking the feeling of that knife as it had pierced her heart. Even if she remained in the creepy lab forever, she would never forget that feeling. It had been a combination of immense pain and triumph, but one she'd rather not ever feel again.

"Hello!" Nina yelled again, this time with more vehemence.

With a jolt, the machine began to lower her, and Nina just about had a heart attack. The creepy factor only rose as the eerie sounds of the crank moving greeted her ears. She hadn't heard anyone enter, or even a machine start. It. Was Freaky.

Rolling gently on the table, Nina was able to get the sheet under her and move it to the side so she could tie it off. Leaning forward with the sheet firmly in place, she repeated the action until three knots ran up her side, and the sheet looked something like a dress.

With a final lurch, the slab stopped and Nina peered over to the side to find the table suspended only a few feet off the ground. Swinging her legs over, she looked around the room for any creepy mad scientist lurking in the shadows with a henchman. And that's when it hit her, mad scientist.

"Yin and Yang," Nina grumbled under her breath, knowing that it had to be them.

Who else would stick her in the lab of a notorious mad scientist right after she'd died? Maybe Iris had taken her soul to them, and they'd wanted to hype up the drama. She wouldn't be surprised if that was the case.

She knew two things for sure: she wasn't on Earth—her death had made that impossible—and she wasn't in the Underworld, because she didn't feel the same energy that flowed there. It was strange, but Nina felt something in the air, something that was familiar, yet different. She wasn't sure what it was, but it was there.

"What is that?" Nina turned her head and listened closely, hearing the beginnings of a song. A niggle in the back of her mind reminded Nina she'd heard the notes before.

Humming along with the tune, she finally figured out the song. It was one of her favorites, one that Nina's mother had played throughout her childhood: Night and Day, sung by Ella Fitzgerald.

Hopping off the metal slab, Nina carefully walked towards the sound, noticing a door on the other side of the room slightly ajar. The music sounded like it was from a record player, the unique chords drawing her through the door and into a long, brightly lit hallway.

Gently flaring light scones lined the walls, spaced every couple of feet. The floor looked to be made out of white marble with two sides of cork running parallel to each other. It was strange to see the clash of modern and antediluvian workmanship. The two were part of time and yet timeless.

Behind her, Nina heard the door shut, and turned to catch the lock turning as if someone was on the other side locking it. Goosebumps crawled along her skin as the song grew louder and Fitzgerald began to sing.

Nina knew she couldn't go back so, straightening her shoulders, she began to walk down the hall. Unable to help herself, she began to hum the song, the lyrics dancing through her head.

... Like the beat beat beat of the tom-tom

When the jungle shadows fall

Like the tick tick tock of the stately clock...

Another door appeared in front of her, and Nina paused and looked back over her shoulder. It had only felt like a few steps, but the door to the laboratory was at least fifty feet behind her. If Nina hadn't known better, she would've thought Uri had just flown her over to the door. But it was just her in the hallway, just her.

The door opened with an ominous creak, and Nina caught Fitzgerald's voice loud and clear.

... a voice within me keeps repeating you, you, you

Night and day, you are the one

Only you beneath the moon and under the sun

Whether near to me, or far

It's no matter darling where you are

I think of you...

Drawing in a shuddering breath, Nina pushed the door opened, surprised at how heavy it was. Crossing the threshold, she shielded her eyes as sunlight blinded her. Heat washed over her skin as the scent of magnolias hit her with the subtle impact of a punch in the face.

Stepping out further, Nina heard a creak and felt worn wood under her feet. Blinking back, Nina capped her hand over her eyes and adjusted to the blaring sun.

"Oh my God!" Nina's jaw dropped as she looked at the stretch of trees and flowers. She only recognized the magnolia trees, but those in themselves were impressive.

Nina blinked again and realized that she stood on a white-painted porch, weathered wood columns protruded from the porch.

"Don't just stand there. Come over here," a female voice called to her from one side of the porch.

Nina turned to the voice and saw a woman sitting in a maple rocking chair, with a wide brimmed hat over her head. She wore a tan linen dress that came down to her knees and a pair of brown suede slip-ons.

Stepping with care, Nina moved to the woman, noticing an ancient-looking phonograph sitting on a side table beside her. As Nina drew closer, the woman reached over to the stenograph and picked up a glass of iced tea. Almost imperceptibly, the woman took a sip of her drink, most of her face still hidden by the wide brim of her straw hat.

Nina drew closer, but stopped a few feet away. "Are you Yin?"

"I am many things, and Yin happens to be one of them," the woman responded, and waved Nina over to a rocking chair next to her. "Take a seat, Nina."

Furrowing her brows, Nina went and took a seat, perching on the edge of the chair. The environment might exude calm, but that didn't mean there wasn't still danger lurking around. Nina found it hard to believe the mad scientist gods would just bring her here to stick her in a creepy Frankenstein lab and then have a sip of sweet tea. No, there was more in play here.

"Why am I here?" Nina asked her voice a little louder because of the music.

"Shh." Yin shushed her. "This is the best part."

Nina watched Yin's hands move like a maestro as Fitzgerald's voice became louder, the song drawing to a close.

... Night and day

Under the hide of me

There's an oh such a hungry yearning burning inside of me

And its torment won't be through

'Til you let me spend my life making love to you

Day and night, night and day...

The blare of trumpets and the swift beat of the drums herald the ending of the song, until it all faded into nothing.

"Why did you pick this song?"

She doubted that Yin did anything just for the hell of it. The song had meaning; Nina just needed to figure out what it was.

"I thought it was perfect for the occasion." Yin reached up and took off her hat. Thick, wavy dark brown hair flowed down around her. "And who doesn't love Ella?"

Nina stared at Yin's creamy complexion, a light dusting of freckles on the bridge of her nose and underneath her eyes. Crow's feet around her soft brown eyes made it look like she smiled a lot, and high cheekbones and full red lips made her look regal and elegant. Yin was beautiful in that sort of ageless way; she reminded Nina of an older Audrey Hepburn.

Nina opened her mouth to ask where the infamous Yang was, when Yin interrupted her. "Magnolias, bay leaves, and edelweiss." She gestured to the flowers, trees, and the tall bushes on either side of the porch stretching out to the horizon. "Beautiful, aren't they?"

They were beautiful, but that wasn't the point. "Why am I here?"

"Sorry I'm late," a voice behind Nina said, making her jump out of her chair and whirl to face it.

A man in his early forties was smiling at her. His hair was blonde and his skin slightly tanned, like he'd been working out in the sun. Nina looked up into his eyes, a beautiful shade of brown, almost as deep and dark as coffee.

This must be Yang. Nina thought as she sized up the man. He was lean and had the body of a runner, and Nina was pretty sure she could take him in a fight. In fact she was pretty sure she could take both Yin and Yang in a fight. They two looked like the poster couple for the USA's nuclear family—all they were missing were the 2.1 kids and white picket fence.

"That's all right." Yin's voice said conversationally. Have a seat, I was just telling Nina about our wonderful plants."

Forcing herself to sit back down, Nina tried to get back on topic. "Back to my question; Yin, I was—" Nina stopped and looked over at where Yin was supposed to be. Only a small, ancient-looking Chinese woman was in her place, wearing the exact same clothes as Yin. Age sagged off the woman as she rocked, her feet not anywhere near the ground.

"Can you repeat the question, Nina?" the old woman said in Yin's voice.

Nina blinked and pinched herself. That couldn't be Yin, and yet the voices were the same. Is this some joke? Am I going crazy? Is any of this real? The questions pounded against Nina's head as she blinked again—a little black girl with pigtails now sat in Yin's seat. The clothes were exactly the same, just fitted to a different form.

"Who the fuck—"

"Language," the little black girl said sternly, wagging a finger at Nina.

"We constantly shapeshift if we're not focusing," Yang said beside her, and Nina turned and looked at him sitting in a rocking chair like Yin's. Yang didn't look any different, same blonde hair and tan skin.

Sitting back so she could look at both of them, Nina turned her head and looked at Yin. "Can you focus then? I'd like to start the conversation."

"Of course," Yin and Yang said simultaneously before they both began to chuckle. Nina looked between the couple and felt a strange sense of Deja vu.