“…Oh. The Mirror-Marches.” Eglantine nods. “Sounds as though you’ve taken an unexpected jaunt into Parabola. It happens to most of us, sooner or later.”
“Unexpected, unless one is a cat,” their associate puts in, a little smugly. “We can come and go as we please. Whereas you are dependent upon losing your grip upon what your kind try to consider reality.” The cat’s tail switches. “You went mad,” she adds, helpfully. “At least a little. It doesn’t tend to be permanent, lizards or no, but it is certainly not just a dream.”
"Oh! Thank goodness, I was beginning to think my mind made that whole incident up!" Penny says with an air of relief. "The fact that there’s some aspect of reality, and the possible presence of cats, makes the idea of revisiting it seem a great deal less fearful. At least I’d know that I’m not going to starve to death in my sleep."
“Ware serpents,” the cat says, firmly. “If you go back there, do not listen to the serpentine, be they in the usual form, or a manlike one. They do not have your best interests at heart - or anyone’s.” She gives the lizard a disgusted glance. “Your little… friend there is probably about as close as you ought dare get.”
“She has her opinions, but that one’s pretty true,” Eglantine agrees. “The snakes beyond the mirrors are very, very dangerous.”
"Snakes? I seem to recall a snake I mistook for a vine; we had a rather lovely conversation, though I can’t remember the topic. Still, I’ll keep that in mind the next time I visit. You seem a trustworthy enough sort, and I can’t imagine how it would otherwise benefit you for me to stay away from snakes inhabiting another realm"
“Do you, by any chance, enjoy retaining control over your own mind?” the cat asks sharply.
Eglantine makes a pacifying gesture. “What she means is that the snakes of Parabola are generally an order of creatures that are quite happy to possess a human so they can walk in this world, to the detriment of said human and anyone or anything the snakes want killed.”
"Well, that would most certainly be detrimental to my affairs!", Penny says facetiously. "For now though, I think I must return to my lodgings - it’s getting a bit late, and I could do with some rest. I’ll be back in some time, assuming I don’t get possessed by any otherworldly serpents."
Quietly, slowly, Ryan the Friendly returns from his slumber. Caligula’s. What charming friends he made yesterday. Perhaps he’d see them again. Perhaps he’d make more. For now, he would wander and mingle, but he found himself drawn back to Table 3. Waiting and watching.
Arriving dreadfully late to the gathering, the elegant man with the violant skull mask finds the table mostly deserted, save for the assorted signs that others had been there. He leaves his hat and cane at an empty place and looks around the room when his gaze is arrested by the most amazing chiaroscuro vision at another table, glancing at the dance floor wistfully.
“That will never do,” he thinks, and makes his way over.
Ryan notices a sharp dressed man in a skull mask. Wonderful! He’d arrived after all! “Mr. Zane!” he called out. “I hoped we might run into each other!”
Krawald comes back to the table. Instead of the Harlequin mask they were wearing earlier, they are wearing a completely black mask with no holes for the eyes and a veil over their hair. They ask: “Confessions, Ryan? My mind is a well that shall never release them. What do you have to confess?”
“Krawald, wonderful to see you again! I’m afraid I’m a bit light of confessions at the moment. Currently I only have the Widow’s and 2 copies of Singing Jenny’s.”
Has Eglantine even left? They must have, at some point, but here they are again, and the dragon-mask is impassive. Where is the cat? Returned with Eglantine? Perhaps, or perhaps not.
The only movement is a slow picking at wax crusted on the brass claws Eglantine sports in place of fingernails.
“Woah! Eglantine, I didn’t see you there! Startled the e wits out of me!” Ryan laughed and patted Eglantine softly on the back. He got the feeling they didn’t like being touched, but what are friends supposed to do? NOT give high fives, back pats, and the legendary technique of the fist bump?
Turning back to Krawald, his voice became slightly more subdued. “Well, dear friend, my secret? I was on a hansom within the Clay Men’s Quarters. In the street, some ruffians were shouting slurs at the Clay Men, spitting in their face and threatening to fight. I should have stopped them, but I did not.” The shame he felt was clear across his face. “Too afraid was I to face a three on one fight against these tough individuals. Eventually the constables were forced to break up the fighting. In the end, nothing happened. But I was weak, and impotent.” With clenched fists and grit teeth, his whole body shaking with determination, he finished. “And it shall never happen again.”
“Never is a word of steel, friend Ryan.” Their voice is very quiet. “Always, never, forever: these are the chains that bind a man until he breaks.”
They give Krawald a long look. “I rarely give my secrets away for free, anymore. But if I must follow custom…” Eglantine straightens. “I have conspired against the living for the sake of the dead. I have turned my skills to vengeance, and to the weaving of such songs as might ensnare one who has wronged a Drownie. He will suffer greatly, and knowing this, I will deliver my song anyway.”
“Thank you for your confession of violence, Eglantine. And now,” Krawald says, replacing the black mask with the Harlequin mask, “would you honour me with a dance?”
A long time passed, and nobody spoke. It was almost as if all 3 of them had other lives to attend to before reinitiating conversation. Ryan finally broke the silence. “Um, I’ll dance with you, Krawald.”