CONTINUED FROM: this comic page and this post.
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The Tatzelwurm was hoping to relax after a long, taxing, difficult day dealing with all sorts of awful riff-raff.
He set the memory of Twiggy, that little ginger imp, out of his mind. There was no need to fret over her any longer. She had been sent away, so very far, far away, and he giggled as he remembered that terrible scroll he’d read concerning her intended whereabouts.
She’d never survive where she was going.
Cecile, for his part, had also gone home, and he was probably doing just fine now.
In any case, the Tatzelwurm took his latest wooden prize out from a nook between two branches, a half-carved peacock, which he intended to finish that very day if his claws didn’t fail him. There was something in the eyes on the feathers that was taking ages to finish, but finish he would. He swore it.
Dozens of carved wooden knickknacks lined the branches around his strange, snakelike body. All this carving was a labor of love, of course. The World Tree, which was his house and home, besides being his most treasured possession, was also his most beloved bride. In the nights, he would tend to her extra limbs and unruly twigs and carve these leftover pieces lovingly into fine new shapes as gifts for her.
How peaceful it was for him — to make knickknacks and bric-a-brac — little ponies and cats and birds on pedestals — and all out of the wood of the tree-woman he loved most.
This peace was, however, short-lived.
The trouble began when a rift suddenly tore open in the sky, and the Dread Daemon Pluto fell out. The Tatzelwurm screamed. Without thought, he threw the peacock figurine at her head. She grew silent.
All at once, Pluto’s body lit up with fire.
While the Tatzelwurm was now immortal and inhuman, he still remembered being human once and the fear that daemons instilled in him. Pluto was, after all, the most capricious — the most petulant — the most bratty daemon in all the cosmos.
He had to act quickly if he wanted to save his bride.
“Get — BACK!” cried the Tatzelwurm, his claws poised for attack. “I won’t let you hurt my beloved one!”
“Put your filthy paws down, beast!” cried Pluto. “I’m not here to attack you!”
“Then what is the meaning of your coming?” he said. The scroll flashed in his mind again. “Is this about that girl you’re supposed to kill? I’ll have you know, I’m not taking that little menace back! She ruined my day quite enough! She’s your problem now!”
“What? What are you blathering on about? I don’t deal with Earthlings!” said Pluto.
“You liar! You just attacked my friend, Cecile!” said the Tatzelwurm.
“Who? That little courier? I barely scratched him!” said Pluto.
“He told me you took his arms!” said the Tatzelwurm.
“Well he had six as it was! I was basically helping him,” said Pluto, rather boorishly.
The Tatzelwurm sighed — a flashy, performative sigh. “Well if you don’t know what I’m talking about, then what are you doing here?”
Pluto sighed herself, and the fire on her body was suddenly put out. It was a heavy sigh, deep and dark, from the deepest pits of her being. A lonelier cry, one must suppose, had never been uttered in all the world.
The Tatzelwurm’s ears twitched. He nearly even felt compassion.
“Mercury sent me,” Pluto finally confessed. “She said you would do me a favor if I asked. I need... something.”
The Tatzelwurm’s ears twitched even more madly.
“Don’t lie about Mercury!” he said. “She’s a good woman! And I won’t be manipulated by that woman’s good name!”
“She’s a rock, I’ll have you know,” said Pluto, “and a tedious one at that! Now either tell me if you have a hiding place for me or not! They all just — they — they just made up some fake title for me, and I’m too angry to stay in this solar system! And I can’t hide in Deep Space, either!”
The Tatzelwurm stared at her with bulbous eyes.
“Well?” said Pluto. She felt her embarrassment rise like bile. “Don’t just stare at me! Do you have some secret dimension to hide me in or not?”
“Yes,” said the Tatzelwurm, breathlessly.
Pluto once again felt her inmost being run cold. His voice was too giddy — too pleased. There was some sick joke at the end of all this, she knew it. But what?
“There is a secret realm that none of your sister planets know about except for Mercury,” said the Tatzelwurm. “I can send you there now. No catch at all.”
“Really?” said Pluto, and the Tatzelwurm nodded eagerly.
Images of a certain ginger imp burning to death flashed in the Tatzelwurm’s mind. Or would Pluto freeze her? Or turn her bones itchy?
He giggled until he choked.
“Well? What are you doing, just standing there?” he said, still clearing his throat. “Go through the door in my tree! Chop, chop!”
“Hey!” said Pluto. “Don’t clap your paws at me, you tree-nustling knave!”
But the Tatzelwurm just smiled his smug little smile, and he watched as that most hated of dread daemons walked into a fate she would soon very much regret.
