Chapter Text
“I won’t let that happen!”
“Well then, perhaps we better make a deal.”
Wirt staggered a bit, lantern swinging slightly in the cold, winter night. “Deal?” he asked hesitantly.
The shadowy figure of The Beast raised a hand in offering. “I can put his spirit in the lantern. As long as the flame stays lit, he will live on inside. Take on the task of lantern-bearer or watch your brother perish,” The Beast stared at him with unmoving eyes. “Come here.”
Wirt took one look at Greg before sighing in defeat. “Okay.”
The sound of Beatrice flapping her wings desperately barely caught his attention. “Wirt!” she protested.
He set the lantern down in front of the demon, eyes down cast. Then it hit him. He was done; done being a push over and letting others make decisions for him. Greg’s life was in his hands, not this weird creature’s. “Wait,” he stopped, picking the lantern up. “That’s dumb.”
“What?”
“That’s dumb,” Wirt continued, feeling braver than he ever had in his life. “I’m not just gonna wander around in the woods for the rest of my life.”
The Beast apparently did not like that answer. “I’m trying to help you!” he (it?) snarled.
“You’re not trying to help me,” he was pushing it; he knew the creature in front of him could kill him at any moment. “You just have some weird obsession with keeping this lantern lit. It’s almost like…” it dawned on him right then and there. “Your soul is in this lantern.”
The Beast moved forward; and he couldn’t see Beatrice and Greg anymore. The Woodsman disappeared too and everything felt cold. He just knew it was The Beast emanating his power, giving Wirt an inkling on just how fearsome he was. “Are you ready to see true darkness?” The Beast asked and the only thing he could see was its glowing eyes.
“Are yo-“ his voice cracked and he cleared it, the lantern steady in his hands and his feet firm on the ground. “Are you?”
He opened it, inhaling air and his lips forming a shape to blow the flame out. The wind was suddenly knocked out of him. He was thrown to the ground, his head almost hitting the Edelwood his brother was slowly forming into. “Wirt, you idiot!” Beatrice flew towards him and he could see her worry. “You could have been killed!”
The lantern was gone and The Beast seemingly disappeared. The Woodsman was out cold, but the older man wasn’t his concern right now. He grabbed the axe left precariously on the forest floor, trying to chop away the Edelwood. “Come on!” he ground out, but the wood wouldn’t budge. “Why won’t this work?”
The Edelwood kept growing, and Greg made a noise of suffocation. He panicked, anxiety now the only sense he was aware of. His brother was going to die! Greg was suffocating! He had to do something; something fast! The axe wasn’t working and as much as Beatrice tried to help, nothing she did worked either. He dropped the axe, hands shaking. “I’ll do it!” he called out. “Beast, I’ll do it!”
Two eyes appeared against a dark silhouette. “Do what?” he asked, almost mockingly if he didn’t know any better.
“I’ll take the lantern; be the lantern-bearer,” he could hear Beatrice protesting, but he didn’t listen. “I’ll do whatever you want; I don’t care. Just let me take my brother home. Please, that’s all I ask.”
“Very well,” The Beast agreed after a long moment of silence. “You may take your brother home, but you will never leave this forest. Your life for his. Do we have a deal?”
“Yes,” Wirt sighed in defeat.
“Wirt, no!” Beatrice snapped. “There has to be another way; there has to!”
“There is no other way,” Wirt snapped back at her, feeling just as upset as she was. “But Greg’s life is more important than mine.”
“Greg needs you, Wirt!” she flew right in front of his face, dark eyes narrowed. “Greg wouldn’t want you dead!”
“I wasn’t very good to him alive,” he let her perch on his finger. “Hey, maybe it won’t be so bad. As long as Greg is safe, then I’ll be okay. Here,” he fished in his pocket and pulled out the scissors. “Take these to your family.”
“You had them the whole time?”
“Well, I used them to escape Adelaide and…yeah, I was sort of mad at you.”
“Oh you wonderful mistake of nature!” she wrapped her feathery wings around him, tears pouring out of her eyes. He hugged her back.
“Let’s free Greg,” he told her and grabbed the axe again. The wood chopped away easily and he perched Greg on his back. The little boy stirred and his eyes opened wearily. “Wirt?”
“I’m here,” he answered. “Let’s get you home, Greg.”
The boy closed his eyes again; too tired to do anything else. The Beast stared at them. “Remember our deal, boy. Once you get your brother home, you must return.”
“I know,” he snapped at the monster. “I’m not stupid.”
The path he didn’t know existed cleared for them and he followed it straight forward; making a few turns here and there. Beatrice had taken off in a different direction; swearing very loudly she would do whatever it took to help Wirt. A few minutes later, he could see their house. The candles lit and smoke coming from the chimney. He could see his mother’s rocking chair near the window, but no one was in it. He swallowed hard, fighting the tears back. “Wake up, Greg,” he shook his little brother. “Come on, wake up. We’re home.”
“Home?” Greg asked, perking up when he saw their little cottage. “Mommy and Daddy are there, right?”
“Yeah,” he answered, setting the boy down. “Now go, Greg. Go home to Mom and Dad; they’re missing you very much.”
The little boy took one step forward, a giant smile on his face that soon fell when he realized Wirt wasn’t following. “Come on, brother o’mine,” he pulled Wirt’s hand. “Let’s go home! Wirt, why aren’t you moving?”
“I’m not going home, Greg,” damn, this was harder than he thought it would be. “I…I can’t go home. You have too, now go.”
“Not without you!”
“Greg!” he was fighting the tears back the best he could. Greg looked at him before his own tears started falling down his cheeks. His lower lip quivered and Wirt knew the little boy would start to have a sobbing fit. He knelt down, wrapping his arms around him. “Hey now, don’t cry. I’ll be fine. I got us home, didn’t I?”
“But…but you said we’d come home together,” Greg looked at him with watery eyes. “You promised, Wirt!”
“I know,” he stroked the boy’s head. “Maybe one day you’ll understand, but I can’t go home with you. I traded my life for yours and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
Greg threw his small arms around him and he hugged the smaller boy fiercely. Greg cried; now soaking Wirt’s shirt with tears. “I’ll miss you,” the boy cried. “And Jason will too!”
“I’ll miss you too,” he felt vines wrap around his body, suddenly jerking him away from his brother. “Greg!” he called out. “Go home! Tell Mom and George I’m fine!”
“Wirt!”
He closed his eyes, not wanting to see his brother’s heartbroken face. Twice the boy tried to run after him, but several vines held him in place. Wirt watched helplessly as his brother cried; the sounds of his sobs alerting their parents. He watched with a watery smile as his mother scooped Greg into her arms, the vines around the boy disappearing. Good. At least, Greg was safe.
However, the presence of the vines and roots around him were very alarming. He struggled and every time he did, they pulled tighter. The Beast watched him amusement. “All this for that pitiful brother,” the creature cocked its head to the side. “You’re so loyal to him. Why?”
“He’s family,” Wirt managed to breath out from the vines enclosing around his neck. “I wouldn’t expect a demon like you to understand the meaning of family.”
The Beast let out a low laugh that sent chills down his spine. “Demon? Hardly,” The Beast scoffed. “Your human misconceptions truly are amusing, boy.”
He wanted to say something truly nasty, but nothing came out. Instead, he was silent as The Beast moved around him. “You are the new lantern-bearer. The Woodsman did his job, but he is useless to me now,” Wirt didn’t want to know what that implied, but he now feared for the Woodsman’s life. The Beast chuckles. “Despite this, I do not trust you enough to do your end of the bargain. An incentive, I believe, is needed.”
“What are you talking about?” Wirt gasped as a vine pulled back his right sleeve, arm stretched out in front of him. The Beast moved forward, gnarly hands grabbing a hold of his flesh. “Let go of me!”
“Hush,” The Beast commanded, a vine pulling around his mouth to silence him. “There’s no need for you to talk.”
He began to protest when he felt it. Hot, searing pain that made him scream into the vine against his mouth. Blood trickled down his arm; a deep gash now replacing his once smooth skin. The pain was throbbing and the damn creature in front of him just watched in amusement as he shook in pain. The beast opened the lantern, saying something in an old language and adding the blood from his arm into the canister.
He was starting to feel woozy and his vision was beginning to blur. He was losing blood too quickly from the deep wound in his arm. It would scar and be noticeable if he showed it off. The roots and vines trapping him held him steady. All he wanted was to sleep. Or throw up, both sounded really good right now. “What are you doing?” he managed to ask in a raspy voice, face now strikingly pale.
“Blood is the life force for almost every single species,” The Beast started on calmly. “The Woodsman swore to chop down Edelwood trees for me, so I never needed to take his blood. He had an incentive; his daughter. But you are different. I do not trust you, so I am taking your blood to bind it with my life source.”
“What?” he asked, barely lucid.
“Pay attention,” The Beast growled. “Your life is now bound with mine. You will not age and technically you’re immortal now. Not invulnerable, but ageless since your life is tied with mine. You’ll still need to eat and such, but you will remain fifteen or however old you are forever. The lantern will still need Edelwood, but since I have your life in the lantern, the Edelwood is just like icing on the cake.
The Beast trailed a finger down his cheek, a nail digging into his flesh painfully. He flinched, but everything was becoming too much. “Get…get away from…me,” he protested weakly. The Beast just laughed.
“Foolish boy,” The Beast chuckled again. “You’re mine for eternity. Unless you want to blow out the lantern, you’ll live forever. I don’t peg you for the suicidal type.”
The Beast threaded its hands through his hair before disappearing. The only thing Wirt could hear before falling unconscious was the sound of its voice.
“TRALALAAAA, TRALALAA, CHOP THE WOOD TO LIGHT THE FIRE…”