(FIC)The Bramble Prince
Dec. 24th, 2011 07:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lindenmaeTitle: The Bramble Prince
Fandom: Inception
Pairing/ Characters: Arthur/Eames, Mal, OFC, OMC (minor)
Rating: PG
Words: 3.5k
Summary: He's come here, wherever here is, for someone, but he doesn't know who. He knows there are many obstacles in his path and that he has to keep going, but he's at a loss until a little girl with dark curls and dimples finds him and shows him the way.
Notes/Warnings: Limbo fic with a twist. Sleeping Beauty inspired. Possibly ambiguous. Sad. Canon character death and other character death but none of it in fic and not Eames or Arthur
He’s traveled a far way, he knows that much. But he doesn’t know where he came from or how, exactly, he came here. What he knows is this is not the end of his journey, that he has a far longer way to go, but he doesn’t know where it is that he’s going, now that he’s at least made it here, nor does he know where here is. The world around him is dark and gothic, spiraling steeples and gargoyles and stained glass windows. The air is thick, almost palpable, the clouds thicker still, blotting out the sun if it even exists here. They are low and gray and lightning illuminates their frothy forms every so often. Here is a terrible place, he knows that.
He takes a path that leads him into a city, a foreboding, unwelcoming city, but he knows too few things to continue his journey blindly, though he’s sure that’s what he’s been doing until now. Beyond the city there is a forest of brambles, wildly overgrown and curling around the trees like barbed wire. He doesn’t know what barbed wire is, but he thinks he should. The bramble makes the forest seem impenetrable, but it also makes him certain that is where he needs to go. There is a point beyond the bramble, the pinprick of a tower piercing the clouds. It is as if the tower has torn a whole in the sky and all of its fury is raining down on that one spot. The tower is mercilessly attacked by lightning, and it glows white with every burst of electricity. The tower is the only white thing in this whole world.
If he watches for very long, a shape weaves in and out of the clouds over the tower, massive and black and impossible.
He keeps walking and he realizes he is cold, but he cannot tell if it is from the air or the frigid nature of this place. He sees no people, but the gargoyles watch him intently from their perches high atop the roofs. They turn their great stone heads as he passes and he shivers. He reaches the bramble forest without seeing a soul and it is as he thought it would be. He cannot get through. To try would tear him to pieces. He knows that this is wrong, that the bramble shouldn’t be suffocating the trees as it is, but he doesn’t know why he knows this.
“You need a sword.”
“I’m sorry?” He pricks his thumb on a thorn when he tries to tear the bush with his hands and blood blooms bright on his skin. It is the only thing of color he has seen.
“A sword, to cut your way through.”
He turns away from the wood, toward the voice, and then looks down.
“I don’t have one,” he says to the little girl who has stolen up beside him. Her dress is very bright and blue, and she nearly glows against all of the dank and dark of this world. She is very young and very pretty with chocolate curls that fall to her shoulders and sparkling brown eyes. He thinks she is familiar, but he knows he’s never met her.
“You have to get one. You need a very special sword.”
“Where do I find it?”
“The king has it. But he won’t just give it to you. You’ll have to earn it.”
“How?”
“You’ll see. Come on.” She takes his hand and her little palm is warm in his, and pulls him away from the bramble, away from where he knows is the right direction.
“Who are you?” He asks. It makes him incredibly sad to see this little girl all alone in this horrible place, but he doesn’t know why.
She looks back and she smiles at him and she has a dimple in either cheek. It makes him want to smile too. “Allison.”
“My name is Eames,” he says, because he knows it is.
“I know,” she says. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
“Have you?” He asks, and then, “why?”
“You have to save the prince.”
That seems right. He knew he had to do something, and now he knows what it is.
“Tell me, Allison. Does the prince look very much like you?”
She beams and nods and tugs on his hand. “He’s my brother.”
Eames looks back to the bramble forest and the tower beyond it and he wonders. He thinks he knows this story, of a fair but cursed princess locked high away in a tower.
“How do you know who I am?”
Allison rolls her eyes and the gesture fills him with warmth. Someone else, someone far away and almost forgotten, looks at him that way, or used to. He doesn’t know.
“Because he tells me. When he brings me flowers, big, white peonies because they’re my favorite, except in the winter he brings me poinsettias, because they’re special. He said he wants you to meet me. He never brings anyone to meet me.”
“He doesn’t see you very often?”
“Only on my birthday and the other day.” Her face darkens and she looks away. “I don’t like to talk about the other day.”
She takes him to a tavern in the city, which is not where Eames thinks he should find a king, but he pushes inside, and hears the first sounds besides thunder and Allison’s voice that he has heard since he can remember, which is not very long. There are more people in the tavern, but they are sullen and slow and sad. They look up to see him when he enters and there is surprise and wariness in their eyes, but no joy.
“The king has the sword, but you’ll have to play him for it.”
“Play?”
“Cards,” she says. “But, be careful. He cheats.”
She takes him by the hand to a table in the back, cast in shadows. There is a man at the table, shuffling cards back and forth
between his hands, barely paying attention. Allison drops Eames’s hand and crawls into the man’s lap and he smiles and everything seems slightly brighter.
“Hello, pumpkin,” the man whispers to the girl.
“I found the hero, daddy. He’s come to save Arthur.”
Arthur… Arthur. Arthur.
Yes, Eames thinks, he’s come to save Arthur. That is why he’s here.
“Has he?” Asks the king of his daughter and he must be Arthur’s father also, because he looks so very much like Allison and Allison looks like Arthur. Eames knows this.
“I’ve come to wake him up.” He doesn’t know why he says this, except that he suddenly knows that Arthur is sleeping, and not just here, but somewhere else too.
The king appraises him quietly and then gestures for Eames to sit with the hand not around his daughter’s shoulders.
“Very good,” he says softly.
The king deals the cards and he’s not sure what this game is, but somehow he knows how to play it. He also knows, thanks to Allison’s warning, to watch the ruby red dice being cast and he notices when the king slips new dice on the table and palms them once his turn has ended. Eames knows the dice are loaded. He knows it, somehow, before the king rolls several impossibly lucky rolls.
“You have a way with the bones,” Eames says, keeping his eyes on the king’s hands. He thinks the king is not much older than himself, and yet somehow it’s as if the man has lived for ages. But not lived, not really, because this world isn’t real. He knows this.
“Luck,” is all the king says in response, but there is a glint in his eyes made dull by the shadows, something resembling excitement.
But Eames cheats too, maybe better, or else the king wanted to lose, but Eames palms his cards and makes good hands out of bad ones and keeps his face straight so the king can’t know if he’s bluffing or telling the truth and Eames wins. The king gives him a sword and it isn’t very impressive, but Allison nods at him to take it and he thinks she might be the only one who knows the rules. It feels heavy and awkward in his hand, but he suddenly feels a desperate yearning to be back on the path to the tower in the distance, so he hefts it over his shoulder and makes to be on his way. There is only one thing.
“I know someone who had a loaded die like that,” he says to the king and the king doesn’t flinch to be caught cheating.
The king holds out his hand and drops one of the dice into Eames’s palm and says, “I’ve been keeping it for him, but he might need it now.”
“You gave it to him in the first place, didn’t you?”
“I gave one to both of my children. My son has one and the other is lost.”
Eames nods and does not question the king’s cryptic message and then he leaves the tavern.
“I knew you would win,” Allison says, close at his heels. He hadn’t heard her clamber out of the king’s lap nor follow him across the tavern’s wooden floor.
“How did you know?”
“Because in the stories Arthur tells me, you are the Prince of Thieves. There is nothing you can’t steal and no one you can’t con. You are the greatest cheat that ever lived and you never back down from a challenge.”
“Is that a good thing?” Eames asks, amused despite himself at Allison’s enthusiasm.
“Arthur thinks so. You’re always the hero too.”
They fall silent until they reach the wood. Eames lifts the sword over his shoulder, unfamiliar with this type of weapon, though he’s not sure what type of weapon would feel more comfortable, only that there is one. The first stroke of the sword sends a large section of the bramble to the forest floor and although it is not easy work, soon enough there is space wide enough for a grown man and a little girl to get through.
“This could take forever,” Eames says, wiping at his brow once they are deep within the wood, the way back out invisible.
“That’s okay. The prince will wait.”
They reach a clearing of sorts and when Eames looks up he can just make out the shadowy shape that guards the tower.
“Is that a dragon?” He asks.
“Of course it is,” Allison answers.
There is a name for this world, Eames thinks, but he doesn’t remember what it is.
After forever they reach the edge of the forest. Here the storm is stronger and the world is even darker. Eames is tired but he knows he must keep going, that there are harder challenges ahead. The tower gleams white with every burst of lightning and they are so close that Eames can see the scales on the dragon’s body.
“Am I supposed to slay it?” He adjusts his grip on the sword hilt, ready to swing even though his arms are tired and his shoulders ache. He can keep going though, because he has to. He has to get to the tower, to Allison’s prince, to Arthur.
“No! You have to tame him,” Allison shrieks, wrapping her arms around his leg as if she can hold him back.
“I don’t think that’s how the story goes,” he says, but she knows the rules, so he lowers the sword.
“The dragon is protecting the prince.”
The dragon is very big and it flies lower and lower with every step that Eames and Allison take. She clings to his wrist once he lets the sword tip drag along in the dust.
“He’ll let you pass if you can make him trust you.”
The dragon lands in front of the tower just as they reach the base of a very narrow path. There is not enough room for them to walk side by side, Eames can see chunks of rock crumbling from the sides of the path and falling into the foggy chasm below. He does not want to cross, but he knows that he has to, because Arthur is on the other side and with every inch closer he gets, the more he knows that he has to keep going. But he can’t leave Allison behind, she knows the rules. But it is not just that.
He drops the sword, because he can’t carry both and keep his balance, and he sweeps Allison up into his arms.
“If it attacks, you get behind me,” he says with more confidence than he feels.
“He won’t,” she says, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck. It’s uncomfortable, but he doesn’t say anything, just holds her tighter.
His heart is in his throat with every step, but he reaches the end and the dragon is so close, he could reach out and lay his palm against its snout. It is as inky black as the scarce bits of sky Eames can see through the cloud cover, another shadow in a world made of them. The dragon sniffs them and his breath is nearly strong enough to blow Eames backward, but he keeps his footing because Allison is still in his arms.
“He likes you,” Allison whispers just as the dragon attempts to butt its head against him almost like a dog looking for a pat.
The dragon lets him pass and he lets the girl down onto her feet. She kisses the dragon just below its massive eye and it wags its tail lazily.
“Good boy,” she says, and then she places her tiny hand in Eames’s again and pulls him toward a large oak door at the base of the tower.
“What now?”
“Now you have to convince the queen to let him go.”
“Your mother?”
Allison shakes her head no and peeks up at him through her curls. “Maleficent.”
“I thought she was a fairy,” he says, and Allison smiles sadly at him.
“Not here.”
“Is she evil?”
“No, I don’t think so. But she’s very sad. She knew him, in the other world, the one you’re from. I think she’s very lonely here. That’s why she won’t let him go.”
He tries to remember the other world, the one he’s supposed to be from. He knows that Arthur is sleeping there too, that he needs to wake up here to wake up there, but he can’t remember how he got here or how to get back there.
They climb the stairs, spiraling around and around until Eames think he should be dizzy, and they’ve reached the very top. There is a faint tone that gets louder and louder as they ascend – a chronic beeping that doesn’t make sense here, but he thinks it might be from the other world. It means something there. There is just one room and Allison stands hesitantly outside of it.
“I don’t know her,” she says softly. Eames pets her hair as he walks past her and at the last moment, he presses a kiss to her crown.
“Thank you, Allison. I do hope I still get the chance to meet you in the other world.”
He doesn’t understand why her lower lip begins to quiver or why her eyes fill with tears. She throws herself against him, pressing her face into his thigh.
“Please save him, Mr. Eames.”
He doesn’t promise her anything, but he’s going to try. He’s going to do whatever he can. She lets him go and he steps into the room and his steps echo against the stone. There is a bed in the center of it, and he knows that the man lying prone on it is Arthur. Eames’s breath catches in his throat, and he knows he’s made it. He was looking for Arthur and now he’s found him, but it isn’t over yet.
“Eames.”
“Oh,” he says. “Oh, I see.”
“Do you, Eames?”
There is a woman perched on the bed, running her fingers through Arthur’s soft curls. He looks like an angel asleep, but that isn’t right. Arthur is no angel, but Eames loves him anyway or maybe because of it.
“This is limbo,” he says.
She shakes her head, stilling her palm on Arthur’s forehead. “This is purgatory.”
She’s beautiful, he’d forgotten how. Her eyes are so large and sad, but he doesn’t know what he can give her to make it better.
“Mal,” he whispers.
She strokes her fingers down Arthur’s cheek then curls them around his neck. It’s an elegant threat.
“You think I’m a projection,” she says softly, no longer looking at him. Her other hand lays curled in her lap, idly fingering a familiar poker chip. Eames didn’t know he was missing it, but suddenly and surely, he knows it belongs to him.
“You are,” he says, she has to be.
“Isn’t it odd that Arthur would build for himself a fairytale, one in which he is the damsel?”
He hadn’t thought of that before, so focused on finding Arthur, but it is odd.
“He’s in a coma,” Eames remembers.
“How?”
“He was shot,” he recalls and it punches a hole in his gut. He wants to double over with the pain of the memory, of Arthur bleeding out beneath his hands, his life spilling over Eames’s fingers.
“This is purgatory, Eames,” Mal says again, and he doesn’t want to believe it, he can’t.
“You can’t keep him, Mal. I’m sorry. It’s not his time yet.”
“You mean, you’re not ready to let him go. Does he even know that you love him? Do you know how long he’s pined for you?”
“Please, Mal. He can’t replace Dom… or your children.”
He doesn’t want to hurt her, but she has to see. There are tears in her eyes, on her cheeks, and he aches for her, but Allison is just behind him and he think he knows why she’s the only one who knows the rules now. She made them. If this is purgatory, really, then all of this has been the creation of a little girl who didn’t get her chance and doesn’t want to see her brother lose his.
“Allison,” he whispers and he is almost surprised when she comes to him, her eyes on Mal, her little hands trembling against him when he picks her up. He kisses her cheek and whispers into her ear. “How long has Arthur told you stories?”
“Since the bad day,” she says, never taking her eyes off of Mal and her brother.
“How old was Arthur, on the bad day?”
“Eleven,” she says, and she can’t be more than six. The bad day happened a very long time ago.
“Did Arthur tell you about Maleficent?”
“Yes. She hurt herself, and then she was bad.”
“But what about before, when she was good?”
Allison smiles softly for the first time since they approached this room. “He loved her. He said she was as beautiful as I would have been, and that he thought of me every day when he was with her and it didn’t hurt as much as normal. He smiled all the time then.”
She’s sniffling now, burying her face in Eames’s shoulder because she’s embarrassed to cry in company. Eames hears the quiet clatter of his poker chip hitting the stone and when he looks, Mal is sobbing softly into her hands, her shoulders shaking. It hurts him to see her like this. He didn’t know her well, not like Arthur did, but he knew her and she was too lovely a person to suffer like this even after what happened in the end.
“You’re not alone here, Mal. You don’t have to be alone.”
She looks at him, her eyes are red-rimmed and swollen and she’s still impossibly beautiful. She looks like she might want to protest, argue with him about her fate. He never met Dom Cobb’s projection of his wife, but Arthur told him how wrong she was. He can’t help but hold on to the idea that this Mal is a projection as well, but she’s too sad. Allison squirms out of his arms, but when he sets her on the floor, she only looks at Mal shyly.
“Hello,” Allison says softly, and Mal laughs, suddenly and sharply, a broken-edged thing, but there is a small smile on her face, as
much as she can manage through her tears.
“Bonjour.”
Allison goes to Mal with the kind of courage that only a child can muster and lays her head in Mal’s lap. Allison’s dress is still the brightest thing in this world, but as Eames watches, Mal’s muted violet sheath begins to shimmer and glow brighter with the growing warmth of her smile. Mal pets the girl’s cheek and cards her fingers through her hair until Allison takes her hand and gently pulls her away from Arthur.
“I’m sorry,” Mal whispers to the sleeping man and then she looks at Eames, and he knows it was meant for him too. “Will you tell him I loved him too? So very much.”
Eames just nods, afraid to speak around the lump in his throat.
“You have to kiss him now, or else he won’t wake up,” Allison insists, still holding tightly to Mal’s hand.
“Right,” Eames says hoarsely and approaches the bed. He takes to a knee and brushes Arthur’s dark curls away from his face. He is not used to seeing Arthur so soft. It’s unsettling, how lovely he is. “Wake up for me, darling. I love you.”
He brushes his lips against Arthur’s and then presses them firmly together, chaste but deep. He’s barely aware of Mal kneeling at his side and pressing a kiss to his cheek once he’s pulled away, as he waits for Arthur’s eyes to flutter open, or of Allison’s arms wrapped tightly around his waist.
“Goodbye, Mr. Eames,” she sobs and it feels like the tower is crumbling around him.
Arthur opens his eyes.
The beeping grows faster, louder.
Arthur opens his eyes.
The tower falls.
“This is the kick, darling,” Eames whispers and Arthur nods and grasps his hand, gasping deeply.
They wake up.
Fandom: Inception
Pairing/ Characters: Arthur/Eames, Mal, OFC, OMC (minor)
Rating: PG
Words: 3.5k
Summary: He's come here, wherever here is, for someone, but he doesn't know who. He knows there are many obstacles in his path and that he has to keep going, but he's at a loss until a little girl with dark curls and dimples finds him and shows him the way.
Notes/Warnings: Limbo fic with a twist. Sleeping Beauty inspired. Possibly ambiguous. Sad. Canon character death and other character death but none of it in fic and not Eames or Arthur
He’s traveled a far way, he knows that much. But he doesn’t know where he came from or how, exactly, he came here. What he knows is this is not the end of his journey, that he has a far longer way to go, but he doesn’t know where it is that he’s going, now that he’s at least made it here, nor does he know where here is. The world around him is dark and gothic, spiraling steeples and gargoyles and stained glass windows. The air is thick, almost palpable, the clouds thicker still, blotting out the sun if it even exists here. They are low and gray and lightning illuminates their frothy forms every so often. Here is a terrible place, he knows that.
He takes a path that leads him into a city, a foreboding, unwelcoming city, but he knows too few things to continue his journey blindly, though he’s sure that’s what he’s been doing until now. Beyond the city there is a forest of brambles, wildly overgrown and curling around the trees like barbed wire. He doesn’t know what barbed wire is, but he thinks he should. The bramble makes the forest seem impenetrable, but it also makes him certain that is where he needs to go. There is a point beyond the bramble, the pinprick of a tower piercing the clouds. It is as if the tower has torn a whole in the sky and all of its fury is raining down on that one spot. The tower is mercilessly attacked by lightning, and it glows white with every burst of electricity. The tower is the only white thing in this whole world.
If he watches for very long, a shape weaves in and out of the clouds over the tower, massive and black and impossible.
He keeps walking and he realizes he is cold, but he cannot tell if it is from the air or the frigid nature of this place. He sees no people, but the gargoyles watch him intently from their perches high atop the roofs. They turn their great stone heads as he passes and he shivers. He reaches the bramble forest without seeing a soul and it is as he thought it would be. He cannot get through. To try would tear him to pieces. He knows that this is wrong, that the bramble shouldn’t be suffocating the trees as it is, but he doesn’t know why he knows this.
“You need a sword.”
“I’m sorry?” He pricks his thumb on a thorn when he tries to tear the bush with his hands and blood blooms bright on his skin. It is the only thing of color he has seen.
“A sword, to cut your way through.”
He turns away from the wood, toward the voice, and then looks down.
“I don’t have one,” he says to the little girl who has stolen up beside him. Her dress is very bright and blue, and she nearly glows against all of the dank and dark of this world. She is very young and very pretty with chocolate curls that fall to her shoulders and sparkling brown eyes. He thinks she is familiar, but he knows he’s never met her.
“You have to get one. You need a very special sword.”
“Where do I find it?”
“The king has it. But he won’t just give it to you. You’ll have to earn it.”
“How?”
“You’ll see. Come on.” She takes his hand and her little palm is warm in his, and pulls him away from the bramble, away from where he knows is the right direction.
“Who are you?” He asks. It makes him incredibly sad to see this little girl all alone in this horrible place, but he doesn’t know why.
She looks back and she smiles at him and she has a dimple in either cheek. It makes him want to smile too. “Allison.”
“My name is Eames,” he says, because he knows it is.
“I know,” she says. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
“Have you?” He asks, and then, “why?”
“You have to save the prince.”
That seems right. He knew he had to do something, and now he knows what it is.
“Tell me, Allison. Does the prince look very much like you?”
She beams and nods and tugs on his hand. “He’s my brother.”
Eames looks back to the bramble forest and the tower beyond it and he wonders. He thinks he knows this story, of a fair but cursed princess locked high away in a tower.
“How do you know who I am?”
Allison rolls her eyes and the gesture fills him with warmth. Someone else, someone far away and almost forgotten, looks at him that way, or used to. He doesn’t know.
“Because he tells me. When he brings me flowers, big, white peonies because they’re my favorite, except in the winter he brings me poinsettias, because they’re special. He said he wants you to meet me. He never brings anyone to meet me.”
“He doesn’t see you very often?”
“Only on my birthday and the other day.” Her face darkens and she looks away. “I don’t like to talk about the other day.”
She takes him to a tavern in the city, which is not where Eames thinks he should find a king, but he pushes inside, and hears the first sounds besides thunder and Allison’s voice that he has heard since he can remember, which is not very long. There are more people in the tavern, but they are sullen and slow and sad. They look up to see him when he enters and there is surprise and wariness in their eyes, but no joy.
“The king has the sword, but you’ll have to play him for it.”
“Play?”
“Cards,” she says. “But, be careful. He cheats.”
She takes him by the hand to a table in the back, cast in shadows. There is a man at the table, shuffling cards back and forth
between his hands, barely paying attention. Allison drops Eames’s hand and crawls into the man’s lap and he smiles and everything seems slightly brighter.
“Hello, pumpkin,” the man whispers to the girl.
“I found the hero, daddy. He’s come to save Arthur.”
Arthur… Arthur. Arthur.
Yes, Eames thinks, he’s come to save Arthur. That is why he’s here.
“Has he?” Asks the king of his daughter and he must be Arthur’s father also, because he looks so very much like Allison and Allison looks like Arthur. Eames knows this.
“I’ve come to wake him up.” He doesn’t know why he says this, except that he suddenly knows that Arthur is sleeping, and not just here, but somewhere else too.
The king appraises him quietly and then gestures for Eames to sit with the hand not around his daughter’s shoulders.
“Very good,” he says softly.
The king deals the cards and he’s not sure what this game is, but somehow he knows how to play it. He also knows, thanks to Allison’s warning, to watch the ruby red dice being cast and he notices when the king slips new dice on the table and palms them once his turn has ended. Eames knows the dice are loaded. He knows it, somehow, before the king rolls several impossibly lucky rolls.
“You have a way with the bones,” Eames says, keeping his eyes on the king’s hands. He thinks the king is not much older than himself, and yet somehow it’s as if the man has lived for ages. But not lived, not really, because this world isn’t real. He knows this.
“Luck,” is all the king says in response, but there is a glint in his eyes made dull by the shadows, something resembling excitement.
But Eames cheats too, maybe better, or else the king wanted to lose, but Eames palms his cards and makes good hands out of bad ones and keeps his face straight so the king can’t know if he’s bluffing or telling the truth and Eames wins. The king gives him a sword and it isn’t very impressive, but Allison nods at him to take it and he thinks she might be the only one who knows the rules. It feels heavy and awkward in his hand, but he suddenly feels a desperate yearning to be back on the path to the tower in the distance, so he hefts it over his shoulder and makes to be on his way. There is only one thing.
“I know someone who had a loaded die like that,” he says to the king and the king doesn’t flinch to be caught cheating.
The king holds out his hand and drops one of the dice into Eames’s palm and says, “I’ve been keeping it for him, but he might need it now.”
“You gave it to him in the first place, didn’t you?”
“I gave one to both of my children. My son has one and the other is lost.”
Eames nods and does not question the king’s cryptic message and then he leaves the tavern.
“I knew you would win,” Allison says, close at his heels. He hadn’t heard her clamber out of the king’s lap nor follow him across the tavern’s wooden floor.
“How did you know?”
“Because in the stories Arthur tells me, you are the Prince of Thieves. There is nothing you can’t steal and no one you can’t con. You are the greatest cheat that ever lived and you never back down from a challenge.”
“Is that a good thing?” Eames asks, amused despite himself at Allison’s enthusiasm.
“Arthur thinks so. You’re always the hero too.”
They fall silent until they reach the wood. Eames lifts the sword over his shoulder, unfamiliar with this type of weapon, though he’s not sure what type of weapon would feel more comfortable, only that there is one. The first stroke of the sword sends a large section of the bramble to the forest floor and although it is not easy work, soon enough there is space wide enough for a grown man and a little girl to get through.
“This could take forever,” Eames says, wiping at his brow once they are deep within the wood, the way back out invisible.
“That’s okay. The prince will wait.”
They reach a clearing of sorts and when Eames looks up he can just make out the shadowy shape that guards the tower.
“Is that a dragon?” He asks.
“Of course it is,” Allison answers.
There is a name for this world, Eames thinks, but he doesn’t remember what it is.
After forever they reach the edge of the forest. Here the storm is stronger and the world is even darker. Eames is tired but he knows he must keep going, that there are harder challenges ahead. The tower gleams white with every burst of lightning and they are so close that Eames can see the scales on the dragon’s body.
“Am I supposed to slay it?” He adjusts his grip on the sword hilt, ready to swing even though his arms are tired and his shoulders ache. He can keep going though, because he has to. He has to get to the tower, to Allison’s prince, to Arthur.
“No! You have to tame him,” Allison shrieks, wrapping her arms around his leg as if she can hold him back.
“I don’t think that’s how the story goes,” he says, but she knows the rules, so he lowers the sword.
“The dragon is protecting the prince.”
The dragon is very big and it flies lower and lower with every step that Eames and Allison take. She clings to his wrist once he lets the sword tip drag along in the dust.
“He’ll let you pass if you can make him trust you.”
The dragon lands in front of the tower just as they reach the base of a very narrow path. There is not enough room for them to walk side by side, Eames can see chunks of rock crumbling from the sides of the path and falling into the foggy chasm below. He does not want to cross, but he knows that he has to, because Arthur is on the other side and with every inch closer he gets, the more he knows that he has to keep going. But he can’t leave Allison behind, she knows the rules. But it is not just that.
He drops the sword, because he can’t carry both and keep his balance, and he sweeps Allison up into his arms.
“If it attacks, you get behind me,” he says with more confidence than he feels.
“He won’t,” she says, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck. It’s uncomfortable, but he doesn’t say anything, just holds her tighter.
His heart is in his throat with every step, but he reaches the end and the dragon is so close, he could reach out and lay his palm against its snout. It is as inky black as the scarce bits of sky Eames can see through the cloud cover, another shadow in a world made of them. The dragon sniffs them and his breath is nearly strong enough to blow Eames backward, but he keeps his footing because Allison is still in his arms.
“He likes you,” Allison whispers just as the dragon attempts to butt its head against him almost like a dog looking for a pat.
The dragon lets him pass and he lets the girl down onto her feet. She kisses the dragon just below its massive eye and it wags its tail lazily.
“Good boy,” she says, and then she places her tiny hand in Eames’s again and pulls him toward a large oak door at the base of the tower.
“What now?”
“Now you have to convince the queen to let him go.”
“Your mother?”
Allison shakes her head no and peeks up at him through her curls. “Maleficent.”
“I thought she was a fairy,” he says, and Allison smiles sadly at him.
“Not here.”
“Is she evil?”
“No, I don’t think so. But she’s very sad. She knew him, in the other world, the one you’re from. I think she’s very lonely here. That’s why she won’t let him go.”
He tries to remember the other world, the one he’s supposed to be from. He knows that Arthur is sleeping there too, that he needs to wake up here to wake up there, but he can’t remember how he got here or how to get back there.
They climb the stairs, spiraling around and around until Eames think he should be dizzy, and they’ve reached the very top. There is a faint tone that gets louder and louder as they ascend – a chronic beeping that doesn’t make sense here, but he thinks it might be from the other world. It means something there. There is just one room and Allison stands hesitantly outside of it.
“I don’t know her,” she says softly. Eames pets her hair as he walks past her and at the last moment, he presses a kiss to her crown.
“Thank you, Allison. I do hope I still get the chance to meet you in the other world.”
He doesn’t understand why her lower lip begins to quiver or why her eyes fill with tears. She throws herself against him, pressing her face into his thigh.
“Please save him, Mr. Eames.”
He doesn’t promise her anything, but he’s going to try. He’s going to do whatever he can. She lets him go and he steps into the room and his steps echo against the stone. There is a bed in the center of it, and he knows that the man lying prone on it is Arthur. Eames’s breath catches in his throat, and he knows he’s made it. He was looking for Arthur and now he’s found him, but it isn’t over yet.
“Eames.”
“Oh,” he says. “Oh, I see.”
“Do you, Eames?”
There is a woman perched on the bed, running her fingers through Arthur’s soft curls. He looks like an angel asleep, but that isn’t right. Arthur is no angel, but Eames loves him anyway or maybe because of it.
“This is limbo,” he says.
She shakes her head, stilling her palm on Arthur’s forehead. “This is purgatory.”
She’s beautiful, he’d forgotten how. Her eyes are so large and sad, but he doesn’t know what he can give her to make it better.
“Mal,” he whispers.
She strokes her fingers down Arthur’s cheek then curls them around his neck. It’s an elegant threat.
“You think I’m a projection,” she says softly, no longer looking at him. Her other hand lays curled in her lap, idly fingering a familiar poker chip. Eames didn’t know he was missing it, but suddenly and surely, he knows it belongs to him.
“You are,” he says, she has to be.
“Isn’t it odd that Arthur would build for himself a fairytale, one in which he is the damsel?”
He hadn’t thought of that before, so focused on finding Arthur, but it is odd.
“He’s in a coma,” Eames remembers.
“How?”
“He was shot,” he recalls and it punches a hole in his gut. He wants to double over with the pain of the memory, of Arthur bleeding out beneath his hands, his life spilling over Eames’s fingers.
“This is purgatory, Eames,” Mal says again, and he doesn’t want to believe it, he can’t.
“You can’t keep him, Mal. I’m sorry. It’s not his time yet.”
“You mean, you’re not ready to let him go. Does he even know that you love him? Do you know how long he’s pined for you?”
“Please, Mal. He can’t replace Dom… or your children.”
He doesn’t want to hurt her, but she has to see. There are tears in her eyes, on her cheeks, and he aches for her, but Allison is just behind him and he think he knows why she’s the only one who knows the rules now. She made them. If this is purgatory, really, then all of this has been the creation of a little girl who didn’t get her chance and doesn’t want to see her brother lose his.
“Allison,” he whispers and he is almost surprised when she comes to him, her eyes on Mal, her little hands trembling against him when he picks her up. He kisses her cheek and whispers into her ear. “How long has Arthur told you stories?”
“Since the bad day,” she says, never taking her eyes off of Mal and her brother.
“How old was Arthur, on the bad day?”
“Eleven,” she says, and she can’t be more than six. The bad day happened a very long time ago.
“Did Arthur tell you about Maleficent?”
“Yes. She hurt herself, and then she was bad.”
“But what about before, when she was good?”
Allison smiles softly for the first time since they approached this room. “He loved her. He said she was as beautiful as I would have been, and that he thought of me every day when he was with her and it didn’t hurt as much as normal. He smiled all the time then.”
She’s sniffling now, burying her face in Eames’s shoulder because she’s embarrassed to cry in company. Eames hears the quiet clatter of his poker chip hitting the stone and when he looks, Mal is sobbing softly into her hands, her shoulders shaking. It hurts him to see her like this. He didn’t know her well, not like Arthur did, but he knew her and she was too lovely a person to suffer like this even after what happened in the end.
“You’re not alone here, Mal. You don’t have to be alone.”
She looks at him, her eyes are red-rimmed and swollen and she’s still impossibly beautiful. She looks like she might want to protest, argue with him about her fate. He never met Dom Cobb’s projection of his wife, but Arthur told him how wrong she was. He can’t help but hold on to the idea that this Mal is a projection as well, but she’s too sad. Allison squirms out of his arms, but when he sets her on the floor, she only looks at Mal shyly.
“Hello,” Allison says softly, and Mal laughs, suddenly and sharply, a broken-edged thing, but there is a small smile on her face, as
much as she can manage through her tears.
“Bonjour.”
Allison goes to Mal with the kind of courage that only a child can muster and lays her head in Mal’s lap. Allison’s dress is still the brightest thing in this world, but as Eames watches, Mal’s muted violet sheath begins to shimmer and glow brighter with the growing warmth of her smile. Mal pets the girl’s cheek and cards her fingers through her hair until Allison takes her hand and gently pulls her away from Arthur.
“I’m sorry,” Mal whispers to the sleeping man and then she looks at Eames, and he knows it was meant for him too. “Will you tell him I loved him too? So very much.”
Eames just nods, afraid to speak around the lump in his throat.
“You have to kiss him now, or else he won’t wake up,” Allison insists, still holding tightly to Mal’s hand.
“Right,” Eames says hoarsely and approaches the bed. He takes to a knee and brushes Arthur’s dark curls away from his face. He is not used to seeing Arthur so soft. It’s unsettling, how lovely he is. “Wake up for me, darling. I love you.”
He brushes his lips against Arthur’s and then presses them firmly together, chaste but deep. He’s barely aware of Mal kneeling at his side and pressing a kiss to his cheek once he’s pulled away, as he waits for Arthur’s eyes to flutter open, or of Allison’s arms wrapped tightly around his waist.
“Goodbye, Mr. Eames,” she sobs and it feels like the tower is crumbling around him.
Arthur opens his eyes.
The beeping grows faster, louder.
Arthur opens his eyes.
The tower falls.
“This is the kick, darling,” Eames whispers and Arthur nods and grasps his hand, gasping deeply.
They wake up.
