Hues of Intrigue

Viorel found that living in the same house with a denizen from hell didn’t put as much mental toll if he chose to actively not think about it.

He hasn’t heard anything from the tittering demon ever since she boldly planted her flag and declared her temporary residence in his house 3 days ago. In an under-the-wire practice of decency, Nina asked him if he consented to the idea. Even if he did refuse and stomp his feet like a stubborn brat, he doubted he had much say in the matter.

The contract he signed didn’t twist his arm, it had his entire body locked in a chokehold.

Housekeepers made quick work of preparing a room for their eccentric houseguest from Europe (as was their convincing cover story). Unfortunately, the story of his own life seemed to be entering its comedic phase as the only guest room not completely ridden with dust and half gnawed away by moths from the lack of use was the one right in front of his.

It would have been completely expected if Bombon was as boisterous asleep as she was awake. Viorel had even mentally prepared for such a case.

But the witching hour following her merry ‘good night’ had been eerily silent.

The soundless darkness kept him awake when it usually chaperoned him to dreamland, his wish for peace and quiet the thing that steered his sleep away.

Perhaps the knowledge that some eldritch entity occupied a space just a shuffle away from the place he laid to rest perturbed him more than he initially thought.

The tow-headed man then forced himself to spend the few low-stakes days afterwards in an absolute state of relaxation, mostly outside of the house.

He stole Nina’s membership card and went to the spa. Visited a local critter cafe, and got himself flower smelling candles.

Breezing past errands and chores, he took advantage of the favourite Diamanté sibling’s much-anticipated wedding as an alibi to dilly-dally about town like the sybaritic heir he ought to be.

Freshening himself up and dressing in a comfortable combination of loose collared shirt and soft linen culotte, Viorel snatched up a random car key, fully planning on continuing his leisurely spell with a nice midday lunch in a secluded river bank, canopied by thick trees and full clouds.

It wasn’t until he was jumped by a very wide eyed, and manic looking demon woman on his way to the garage with a triumphant ‘Caught you!’ that he was given the painful reminder of every lunacy brewed from the past week.

                                                                              —

He was a sedate presence to her restless pacing.

They stood on the cobblestone path of his expansive driveway, Bombon’s eyes glued to her watch while his was aimed at the sky, absently searching for any sign of amusement from some waggish higher power.

“Alright pretty boy, write this down!” She suddenly ordered with a finger pointed at him.

“I am not going to—“

His uncooperative whinging was forcefully stuffed back in his mouth when in a blinding crack of light, a pen and paper made itself comfy in his hands.

Viorel displayed civility when he begrudgingly clicked the pen and readied the tip above the parchment, even if the scowl he worn could outdo a bulldog’s jowls.

Bombon continued walking in circles as she spoke, occasionally pausing to glance down at the watch hidden under her wide cuffs.

“66 Millstone street, fifteenth store on the right, blue lantern pendant, 12:00 on the dot.”

The man lifted his head from his reluctant writing with a brow raised.

“That’s an address.”

“So?” She didn’t express her indifference, eyes still on her watch.

“I was already headed to my car, we could take it there.”

To that, Bombon fully adjusted her sleeves, not having anymore need for her watch, and shot him a giddy grin he was none too excited to know the meaning behind.

“We don’t need a car, I’ve been there loads of times!”

“Then what on earth is this for?” He held up both pen and paper.

“They’re so you won’t grab me when I do this.”

A sudden slithering around his shoulders alerted him of shiny fabric moving across his collarbones.

He followed the long material stretched through the ground and led his eyes all the way to Bombon’s neck.

Her scarf stiffened until it tightened into a snug wrap, where it then retracted and yanked him forward with it.

Bombon’s entertained giggling responded his surprised yelp as his world shifted and blurred along with his careening body.

What was actually a single, stumbling step felt like a minute or two in an airless void where realities meet and clash like a terrible train wreck he couldn’t rip his eyes off of but made him nauseous all the same.

Trimmed bushes and elegant metal dividers morphed into a faraway busy street secluded in the shadows of night.

Feeling dark stone pavement under his tennis shoes and rapidly trying to blink away the sudden night filter that fell over his eyes, Viorel took two stuttering breaths, until he noticed the animated scarf still swaying about his chest.

The blonde barely scrambled a pair of steps away before an invisible claw grabbed his stomach and rattled it about, churning and spasming like a shook soda can.

“Sweet mackerels, I’m gonna puke— hurk!” His head hung low between the hands on his knees.

“Ah, you’ll get used it.” She waved off his heaving in favour of admiring the new scenery.

Reinvigorated ire overcame his stomach discomfort, and he started advancing towards her with a chastising planned in his snappy glare.

“I suffer from motion sickness riding a bike! Do you think I’ll survive some trans-dimensional jump through—”

A behemoth of a creature displaying a disk like mouth lined with razor sharp, triangular teeth the size of his palm shouldered through between them with a polite, “Excuse me.”

“Mother of—!” Viorel nearly cursed, staggering backwards like an uncoordinated toddler.

Realisation struck that surrounding them, dotting the partially crowded avenue as passerby and loiterers, are not regular people.

His horrified stare sped from a human-headed hexapod beast in a cable knit sweater to a pair of eight foot long felines drinking smoothies and exchanging gossip beneath a lamppost.

“A-are we in hell?” He couldn’t help with but ask, another kind of stomach dropping dread invading his senses.

“No, we’re in London.”

That easy answer was best expressed, due to the situation they were in, as a load of poppycock!

London, in his own personal experience, has been gloomy, sure, but it was also grand, and modern, and he was sure was devoid of these acid trip induced characters.

Streams and twinkles of light caught his eyes, directing them to a looming, yet brightly lit building.

In the middle of the street stood a tall, magnificent arch acting as the gateway to a shopping centre that went on as far as his eyes can see, its curved awning expanded above the entrance and displayed curling patterns of black vines and scattered leafs, ornamenting an unreadable title that looked more like claw marks than words.

With a beckoning of her hand, Bombon motioned the awestruck human to follow as she neared the elegant construction.

“Every 6 years, at the 6th of June, a special spot for us night lurkers appears in this very street.’’

Viorel skipped a step when a massive, featureless urchin rolled past too close for comfort.

“We call it The Basilisk Ark.” She said.

“ Why? ” He sounded justifiably wary and suspicious.

“Cause of that.”

She points at the top of the bright entrance where he only just noticed had a gigantic snake perched on it, occasionally leaving its shadowy nestle to sniff about the gates.

Its head swayed left and right, seemingly examining every entity that entered the marketplace with large, amber like eyes.

His body recognised danger and quickly shuffled closer to Bombon, alarmed gaze stuck on the monstrous reptilian.

“Is that real?” He hissed to her ear.

“Very.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“It will be if you keep staring at it.”

Her words matched the exact same time the snake noticed their presence nearing its supposed den, its head reared and crept down towards them, Viorel doing as he was suggested and ducking down his head, staring tersely at where Bombon’s white boots led him.

He didn’t know if it was his fear-ridden imagination, but he could almost feel its tongue flicking his blond locks.

The serpent lost interest as soon as they passed the gateway.

But Viorel’s taut muscle stayed that way as he continued to be enclosed in a marketplace walkway with beings that ranged from curiously shaped to nightmare-inducing.

Though that’s not to say the objects being displayed on the storefronts looked any better.

One had an unadorned shop-owner whose spherical shape nearly made him think they were a product until they moved to fix up a limbless mannequin that exhibited arms and legs of various species, not excluding humans; severed pink and brown limbs hung about like clothes and hats, ones he hoped didn’t cost the proverbial an arm and a leg.

Another featured a dinosaur lady with feather hair and spiky fingers selling sweets on jars and containers that upon further inspection was closer to the underside of a log than sugary snacks; candied bones, beetle popsicles and fried bird beak crackers.

The traffic gets more crowded and he focused so much on avoiding accidental brushings and touches that he almost didn’t notice Bombon straying away.

Spotting her distractedly walking further, his hand reacted on instinct and reaches out, wrapping around her arm and pulling her back to his side.

“Careful.” He muttered, only for her to hear.

Twenty seconds his anchoring hold remained as they traversed through the bustling market, until he felt curiosity radiating from his companion.

Bombon eyes him, a type of bemusement in her small smile that had him dropping his hold like it was on fire.

“Ah, sorry. Habits.”

She scrunched up her nose, then hooks her arm to the crook of his elbow.

“Does Nina wander off a lot?”

Her genuine question distracts him from the fact they were the closest they’ve ever been in the span of more than a minute.

Viorel sighs. “Unfortunately. Her head’s either empty or stuffed to the brim, there’s no in-between.”

The silent mulling she did went unnoticed with the lively chaos around them he decided wasn’t as life-threatening as he originally presumed.

Quirky looking sellers interacting with equally colourful patrons, peculiar knick knacks that would only belong in fantasy books and fictitious movies.

They all had a weird… appeal to them, one he’d only acknowledge in passing.

“Sweet girl though, isn’t she?”

Bombon’s soft lilt had him looking at her with a funny frown.

She was sagely gazing ahead, at something familiar but… distant, and ancient.

She looked back at him and her straight lips grew into a knowing grin.

“Messy, but, well-meaning.”

Understanding was the last thing he expected her to be able to express, next to a friendly glance, which was what she was giving him from the corner of creased eyes and what gave him a minor whiplash of mistaken identity.

Surely he didn’t detect comfort and sympathy from this creature whose range of emotions only expressed pity and pride as far as he’s concerned.

Fortunately, his mind didn’t get to form anymore incoherent thoughts that’d surely confuse him as Bombon stops them in front of a store.

“Here it is!”

In a large cream collared plank with hand drawn paintings depicting clouds and butterflies, laid the writing in blue and black;

Madame Moonlight’s Materials.

                                                                                —

The giggle of the door bell was accompanied by a merry call

“Yue!” Bombon sang, akin a little child peeking from their friends’ front gates in search for a playdate.

A silky voice came from underneath a wooden-framed, glass counter.

“Bom?”

Round, black eyes on a pale plane of skin appeared, and widened once they saw Bombon in all her shiny and multicoloured glory.

The white haired head rose with the rest of its form, which happens to be sections of circular torsos repeated along an elongated body.

Two rows of short, black tipped arms accompanied each opaline segment in pairs and Viorel was faced with an enormous caterpillar donning a topknot and bangled with jade bracelets.

She beamed and leaned her top half over the counter to embrace Bombon with all six of her upper arms.

“Gosh, it’s been a while!” He watched her use the highest left arm to sweep a short fringe from her eyes, as the rest of the arms folded in waiting.

“What is it? Another gala?”

“A wedding, actually.”

“Fun. Last time you did a wedding didn’t it make the news?”

As they exchanged pleasantries and catching up, Viorel stood by with a strict reign on his legs, he felt like if he didn’t they would start inching for the door.

Bombon noticed his lack of sound, could probably sense his trepidation from the other side of the walkway. So she waved him over like a timid new friend.

“Blondie! don’t just stand there! Come over and say hello.”

There was approximately ten seconds of silence as Viorel stood his ground and made no move to approach either beings.

Then the man mentally shoved himself and proceeded to near the counter.

Once he was right beside Bombon, Yue flashes a smile between two mandibles and lifts up a hand that’s level with his torso, somewhat of a polite gesture that invoked more nerve than comfort.

“I’m Yue.”

Hesitantly, he raises a hand and grips her surprisingly velvety palm with a firm handshake.

“Viorel.”

Bombon threw an arm around his shoulder, a shameless head thrown on the crook of his neck.

“He’s helping me plan the wedding.”

Yue expresses surprise with raised eyelids on her pupil-less obsidian eyes.

’’That’s a first. Usually, clients would just sit back and let her loose.”

He allows her to land a hard slap to his shoulder blade, knowing there was nothing he could do to increase comfort in such a situation.

“The guy doubts me! Can you believe that?”

Yue hummed indulgently. “Don’t worry, you’re in good claws.”

He’d rather not be in any form of claws if he can help it.

Bombon looks over the rows of fabric rolls that line the walls and the ones folded neatly under the glass countertop.

“Where’re the pearls and sea foams?” She says and he belatedly realised those are colours and not literal objects she requested.

“They were just delivered. Let me get them from the back.” Yue leaves through a back door, taking with her an abundance of hands that taps as they brought her along the floor and sweeps past the doorway.

He could at least move more freely now that no type of disrespectfully sized insects are in his immediate vicinity.

Viorel finds a distraction in the series of colourful fabrics on all four of the modest shop’s walls, the neutral white paint on them making the hues stand out.

Blue, lighter blue, bluish green and yellow…

A cream colour ended the shelve he walked along. Its surface felt soft and light to the touch. Viorel picked up the roll gently, feeling like if he were to recklessly flail them around, they’ll rip apart with the slightest breeze.

He presented it to Bombon, who had been drawing flowers on the glass countertop with a bored finger.

“Isn’t this the color you were looking for?” Viorel doubted he knew what pearl meant, but basing it off a guess couldn’t be that difficult.

Pearls adorned his fellow snobs’ necks, lines the curtains in their holiday home and was a part of the tiara he got Nina for her fifteenth birthday.

If anyone could spot an expensive bauble’s shade, it’d be him.

Bombon tilted her head at it. “That’s ivory. We’re trying to find pearl.”

Gauging her face, he found no trace of deceit and figured she must be serious in opposed to messing with his lack of knowledge.

“I don’t think Nina will be able to tell.” He raised his brow at it, failing to see its…

not-quite-right-ness

Yue comes back with two set of rolls on two pairs of hands, putting it on the glass counter with a passing promise to come back with more as she returns to the storage room.

Two looked nearly identical to the one he held and the others were a calming greenish blue.

Bombon grabs one of it and his fabric roll, holding up one to shine it clearer with the bright glow of a pendant light hung right above them.

“Okay, tell me. What do you see in this color?”

Viorel had no idea what that question wanted to prompt, so he answered with half an effort.

“Uh— thread?”

She chuckles a ‘no’ that wasn’t lined with mockery.

“What do you see when you see this particular shade?”

Narrowing his eyes, he had the vaguest idea that what she was asking had nothing to do with the physical realm.

A soft brush of lithe fingers cradled his nape and ever so gently nudge his head forward until all he could see was the colour that he didn’t know was his or hers.

“Really look, and focus on the things starting to appear inside your mind.”

In his mind?

“I see… texture.” Coarse, yet belonging to a sleeker figure.

“Bone?”

Then that texture turned microscopically grainy, thin surface moved with a gentle waft of air.

A crumpling sound.

“Paper.”

His vision was then filled with a different colour.

“How about this one?”

This one looked… lighter, but not in sight.

Like he could feel its difference.

There was a flash of bristling plume in his head.

“Feathers— doves,”

White splashing of downy, cold liquid.

“Milk,” or maybe it was soap?

That lightness manifested in his fingertips, tiny threads bundled into a single blob.

“Cotton.”

Bombon’s pleased grin replaced the monotone hue of the fabrics.

“Do you feel their difference?”

Viorel did feel the gritty and earthly touch of the Ivory he was handed back, while the Pearl Bombon held radiated smooth comfort and iridescent luminance.

It didn’t matter how similar they look, he realises. You can almost picture their differing identities in your hands, if you focused.

Instead of saying that, he only nods.

Bombon smiles wider, easily flipping the roll in the air, then cradling it like a baby in her arms.

“My job is to make sure everything becomes exactly like your sister’s best hopes and wishes. And in her dreams, there was pearl.”

He supposed that color did go with Nina’s overall... aura.

“Why don’t you try looking for your favourite color?” Bombon suggests as she sets down the rolls in a stack.

Viorel continues his earlier expedition through the prismatic collection of this monster-owned store.

Green, pink and brown were many in numbers, but he has yet to find the bluish purple shade of his favoured hue of choice.

“How many rolls do you want?” Yue stacked more rolls on the ones she first brought out.

‘’I might need everything you’ve got. This one’s a pretty big shindig.”

Viorel returns to the counter with empty hands, eyes doing a final scan of the entire shop.

“Did you find it?” Bombon tilted forward with interest.

He turned his head, hoping he didn’t look too disappointed over such a trivial matter.

“No, it’s—“

And then he found it. That bluish purple color.

“—not… here…”

Only it was on the body of this wide eyed, devilish acquaintance.

Viorel never realised her skin donned the exact same hue that always draws his eyes.

Maybe a layer of fear and intimidation that always went over them whenever she’s near made sure of that. But he wondered how he could miss such a crucial detail.

Hell, he was named after that color!

“Your skin color, what’s it called?” He absently questioned to no one in particular. For all he knows, in his dazed state, he could’ve even been asking himself.

Bombon’s eyes honed in on the back of her hand, the only other patch of skin she could immediately see.

“Periwinkle?” Yue chimed in, she herself curious of this line of conversation.

“Periwinkle.” He repeated in a gentle drawl.

Sharp, hazel stare never left Bombon’s face.

He looks at her ears.

There were bluebells in his mind, lined with soft petals and a blushing lobe.

Her cheeks; like blankets. A darker shade of periwinkle, apples round and sweet, framed by two tufts of vermillion locks. Possibly soft, he didn’t know how to find out.

And her lips.

Immediately there were ribbons. Long and thick, leading right up to—

Her eyes.

Unnatural eyes.

Terrifyingly big eyes.

Hued a dark magenta made dreamlike by the gleam of the moonlight lamp above them, framed by glittering dusts that needn't movement to blink and twinkle like sprinkles of stars had fallen over her eyes.

He had feared their boldness and petrifying glare.

Viorel wondered where that fear went now that there was a curious glint in her golden irises, an oddly innocent tilt of her eyebrows and an unspoken question in her pouted lips.

Suddenly aware of the pretty colors that made up her entire being, he was struck unexpectedly by both a weight in his lungs and bountiful swirls of air in his head.

There was a buzzing in the back of his ears, his palms felt balmy and he could see—

“Hey.” Bombon snaps her fingers in front of Viorel’s face.

“Are you having a heart attack?”

The realisation that he must have been gawking flushed his face an embarrassingly warm red.

Viorel quickly regains his bearings and picks up the rolls Bombon bought, pointedly ignoring her prying eyes and his flustered jittering.

Back at the counter, Yue looks to Bombon in question.

She stretched a polite smile too tame to be characteristically Bombon.

“I think he was just practicing some colour imagery.”

“On you? Why?”

The eyes he so keenly stared into lingered on the human man.

“Dunno.”

                                                                                       —

Even finishing a task and returning home didn’t save him from grievances as a creature shoved past Viorel on their way inside Yue’s store.

What a brute, he openly scowled.

“I hope we can go home now, I don’t think my mental capacity is able to comprehend anymore disgraces of nature.”

His prayers once again goes unheard.

“You! In the pink tights!” Someone barked at their direction.

Viorel kept his annoyed groan inside, unwilling to show how tired he really is.

“You got the last sea foam fabric.” The deep, gravelly voice stated.

“Yeah? What about it?” Bombon challenges, arms full of rolls yet no less menacing.

“I need it. Hand it over.” From the tone he used, that was an order, not a request.

Before Bombon could throw an insult at his ugly mug, a hand pulls her by the arm in a similar manner as it did earlier that day.

Viorel kept her close beside him, his shoulder touching the back of hers.

“We bought this fair and square, sir, I suggest you move along.” His confident timbre was a pleasant change from petty comments or snarky complaints.

Bombon liked this moxie he was suddenly struck with.

“Yeah! No chance buddy, move along!” She frivolously added.

The creature did not take kindly to their defiance, as shown with the aggressive stomps of his feet and animalistic growls that came from his throat.

“Give it to me or I’ll tear both you and your human parasite to pieces!” He roars.

Viorel turns and nearly fell to his behind.

Their opposer was a burly mass of furred terror, with a brazen cow head donning twisted locks and disproportionately small wings of a bat on his muscled back.

In layman’s terms; he’s way bigger and scarier than both of them combined, and could probably beat him into a literal pulp.

Bombon scoffs, leaning her torso forward mockingly.

“Yeah? Well this human parasite ain’t scared of your little tough guy act. So why don’t cha—“

She was cut off by Viorel’s insistent hand on her shoulder.

“It’s not worth it. Let’s just run.” He whispered, terror obvious on his features.

The demon felt her own haughty air receding. “But I thought you—“

“Oi!” The monster snapped.

“I’m sorry! Please don’t kill us!” Viorel screams and jumps behind Bombon, pushing her forward like a non-human shield despite his head jutting above her own, their height difference making him look extra… pathetic.

Bombon’s half lidded, disappointed stare fell to the side.

Humans, she sighed.

“I said, give me the—“

His words was finished by incoherent gurgling, as her golden scarf had shot out and slashed the annoying creature’s neck clean through, leaving his head to wobble on its detached perch before falling forward and rolling on the freshly dyed red path, stopping steps away from where its attacker stood.

Bombon's dripping scarf hung in attention to her left, examining its kill with her.

She spun and didn’t wait for Viorel as she walked away from the scene, her scarf ridding itself of filth with a swift cut through the air that had the remains thrown off with a single swipe, the murderous accessory returning into it’s lifeless state and trailing behind its owner.

Nearly everyone had been staring at the violent exchange but none seemed too keen on butting in, now more than before.

Viorel had splatters of life essence tainting his shoes, and yet, that wasn’t what worried him most at that moment.

He whispered, “Bloody hell.”

                                                                                    —

Nina had been chatting with Jasper about their recent development and bidding him a lovely farewell for his trip to France through a call when she came across Bombon and her brother just returning from an errand run.

“We’re back!”

She smiled kindly, maneuvering past tall materials to give Bombon a friendly side hug.

“We got the drapes! Super cheap by the way. Got it only for a bag of cow blood and banana leafs.” As Bombon left to deposit them elsewhere, Nina noticed a badly disguised frown on Vi’s face.

Not to mention he had been standing there motionlessly with rolls of fabric clutched tightly to his chest.

“Are... you okay?” She placed a meek hand on his upper arm.

He blinked his awareness back, nodding slowly. “Yes. Yes, of course.”

“Just tired, I think.” The blonde stepped back, limply placing the materials on a random chair.

"If you’ll excuse me, I think I might just go burn my shoes and soak in my bathtub for the next… 6 hours.”