NEW ONE SHOT FINALLY!
@Pete @Manny
The corridors of the fortress stretched long and dim, torchlight guttering in iron sconces. It was in such shadows that he saw them again, skittering, silk trailing like cobwebbed lace, their Victorian dress coats musty with age yet draped with unmistakable dignity. Agatha and Edith. Half-women, half-spiders, his old enforcers, once governesses to Amaranth, now little more than whispering wraiths in his halls.
Evil slowed his stride, spun, and drummed his talons against the stone wall. “Agatha. Edith.”
The sisters halted in unison, black eyes catching the dim light, their smiles brittle and knowing. They dipped the faintest of curtsies, spider legs folding and unfurling behind them in elegant menace.
“My lord,” cooed Agatha, her voice as sweet and cloying, as over-sugared tea. “How rare you are to seek our company,” added Edith, her tone a thin lace veil over condescension.
“I saw you slipping by,” Evil said smoothly, though he already regretted the impulse to speak. “Thought to… inquire. How fare my faithful spinstresses?”
The sisters exchanged a glance, smiles sharpening. Agatha smoothed the dusty ruffles of her bodice. “Oh, we fare as ever, my lord. Spinning, watching, whispering. Keeping the threads of your domain tidy.”
Edith’s eight legs shifted delicately, the faint scrape of chitin on marble. “Though I daresay it has grown livelier since your precious flower took bloom,” she said sweetly. “Your… paternal instincts have been most unexpected.”
Evil’s talons flexed once behind his back, the only sign of irritation. “Ah. You’ve been watching, then.”
“Oh, one cannot help but notice,” purred Agatha, tone faux-maternal. “She thrives beneath your… fatherly hand.”
Edith’s smile grew sly. “Indeed. Though we, in our way, were her mothers, were we not? And children,” she added with deliberate sweetness, “often favor their mothers over their fathers.”
The challenge hung like a spider’s thread in the dark.
Evil stood perfectly still. Then, in a voice low and measured, he said, “…But my Precious Flower was never a child in the true sense.”
His gaze burned as he stepped closer, the torches guttering at his passing. “Nor was I ever a father in the normal sense, was I? I was there the moment she came into being—breath, thought, and form. I made certain she knew her creator, her father,” he said the word with deliberate relish, “from day one.”
The sisters’ smiles wavered, their talons twitching faintly.
His smirk crooked upward. “And yet, even I—yes, I—forgot myself for a moment. Let a trace of affection slip in. Allowed her to call me ‘Father’… or was it…” His lips curved in dark amusement. “…‘Daddy’? To this day, I’ve no idea where that one came from.”
He gave a low chuckle, deep and dangerous. “Still, I answer to it all the same. Until… well—” he gave a halfhearted shrug, talon flicking toward the shadowed end of the corridor, “by then, she had already ensnared me.”
Agatha cleared her throat delicately, folding her hands. “And now you…
play house together, do you not, my lord?”
Edith’s voice followed, syrupy and venomous. “It is curious. The creator and the creation.
Father and daughter. A most… eccentric arrangement.”
Evil’s expression did not flicker, but the air grew heavier, darker, pressing down like storm clouds. “Matters of
my house,” he said, tone deceptively polite, “should not concern creatures who live in corners.”
“Forgive our curiosity,” Agatha murmured, bowing her head in false contrition. “It’s merely that—even we, wicked as we are—recognize that such… affection borders upon—”
“Do tread carefully,” Evil cut in, his smile thin as razors. “Since you pry—tell me, who are
you to lecture Evil himself on moral boundaries?”
His tone dripped mock civility. “If you wish to play judge over proclivities, go knock upon Olympus. Ask Zeus about his hobbies… then return to me.”
Neither sister dared speak.
Evil continued, tone smooth as polished obsidian. “I may be evil incarnate, but I am not without— let us call it—
principle. Even among the wicked, consent remains… paramount.” He grinned towards the two women “Now tell me, Agatha, Edith—have you ever heard of Zeus asking first?”
A sharp laugh escaped him, brittle as glass. “But of course—not. He was a god, so mortals forgive him. Whereas
I—Evil—I am scorned for simply loving what I made.”
Neither moved.
“Exactly,” he hissed. “Every empire needs an empress. Mine merely happens to be born of my own essence—sired, yes, if you wish to be poetic. Dubbed daughter by whim, but tell me…” His grin turned strangely fond, almost wistful. “What’s that saying?
The heart wants what it wants. Adam had his Eve. And I…” his smirk curved darkly found my Lilith. Or more precisely—my Amaranth.”
A long, cold pause followed.
Then Agatha, recovering her composure, tilted her head coyly. “And where, pray, is our terribly wicked mistress now?”
Evil smiled, slow and knowing. “So the doting mothers finally notice their darling’s absence.” He tilted his head, mock sympathy curling his tone. “How typical. You accuse me of caging her—yet you’d bind her in silk if you could.”
He folded his hands behind his back, stepping toward the great arched arabesque window at the hall’s end. “I gave her knowledge to defend herself. Power to rule in her own right. And then—I kissed her brow and set her loose upon the world. Tell me, which of us cages her now?”
He turned, talon pointing lazily toward the darkened window. “She’s out.”
Both sisters tilted their heads, mandibles twitching. “Out?” they echoed.
“Playing in town,” Evil said mildly. “Being as wicked as ever among the rabble. But worry not”, his grin sharpened. “I have an eye on her. Should any fool even dare breathe wrongly around her, I’ll be there in two shakes of a black sheep’s tail.”
Edith blinked. “Isn’t the saying ‘two shakes of a lamb’s tail,’ my lord?”
Evil turned, glare cutting through her like a blade. “Don’t correct me.”
Silence fell heavy and absolute.
The sisters dipped their heads quickly, smiles faltering just enough to betray that, for all their hauteur, they remembered, he could unmake them in an instant. Despite their towering forms, he could still crush spiders easily.
Evil let the silence stretch. Then he stepped closer, voice dropping to a velvet growl. “Do not mistake me, Agatha. Edith. You exist here not because I need you… not because I cannot crush you.”
His talon lifted, tracing idly through the air as though plucking unseen strings. “But because
she values you—her ‘mothers’—and I indulge her whims. Nothing more.”
Their black eyes blinked in unison, nervous smiles stitched hastily back into place.
“If ever she should tire of you…” His grin widened, terrible and thin. “…then so shall I.”
He straightened. “So keep spinning your little webs. Gossip, if you must. Judge, as you always do. But remember who rules this fortress—and whose essence runs in her veins.”
With that, Evil turned on his heel and began to stride away. Then, halfway down the hall, he spun back. His clawed hand shot upward and with a crackling hiss of power, he unleashed a bolt of darkness. It struck the arch above their heads, splitting stone, showering dust and sparks down around them.
Agatha and Edith flinched, just for an instant. The twitch of their spider legs betrayed them. But they quickly straightened, brushing at their musty dress-coats with the dignity of dowagers in a parlor, eyes wide and innocent, as though nothing at all had happened.
Evil’s burning gaze lingered a moment longer, savoring the silent contest. Then, with a satisfied smirk, he pivoted once more and vanished into the fortress’s gloom.
Agatha and Edith remained where they stood, their talons tapping in uneasy rhythm. Only once he had vanished into shadow did Agatha whisper, half hiss, half sigh: “Still, he is besotted.”
“And besotted men,” Edith replied, adjusting her sleeves, “make such… amusing prey.”
They shared a thin, satisfied smile, even as the weight of his threat lingered, sharp as venom in their throats.
