"I'm not doing this."

Mr. Brighten set the small vile of red liquid down on his desk that seperated him and the dog sitting across from him.

"Either you give it to me, or I have it killed," the man dressed in a wolf skin jacket growled, "I can't have Frank getting attached to a human without facing serious consequences for disobeying me."

"Unlike Frank and all your other freaks of nature, it has a family that would look for it until either its found alive or a body is found. Its sister will also be marrying a cop and, unfortunately, my money can't buy him." Mr. Brighten explained, disgusted that he had ever allowed people like this into his home.

"It won't have to leave the human world completely," the man began, "I simply want it turned so that I can have its fur as a... Precaution should Frank go against my wishes again. Punishments must be made if my subjects can't follow a simple order. If Frank wants a human to be apart of his world, then so be it, but if he doesn't do as he's told then I must make an example. If that means causing physical and mental harm to a human than so be it."

Mr. Brighten stared at the vile. He'd only seen the vile be used once before and the effects were rather cataclysmic. It had been one of the most disturbing things he had seen in his life and the person who drank it was never quite exactly the same afterwards. Not that he cared about having done that to someone so far below him in class, but thinking about doing that to someone he actually knew for some time, didn't exactly make him want to pour it down their throat.

"Oh, come now, Harris," the man growled with a roll of his eyes, "don't tell me that you actually care for this... Thing? It's too beneath you to get sentimental about something so useless to this world."

"I don't care," Mr. Brighten replied sharply, "however, I cannot say the same for my wife and son. For some reason, my wife has grown a fondness for it over the years and my son sees it as his best friend."

"Oh, please," the man scoffed, "enough of this family man bull shit! Who cares if your wife and child care about that thing? What matters is our positions in our very different societies. You have power over this entire city and I have authority over the entire forest. Should you and I have a disagreement that can turn violent, I can ruin the power you have by bringing war to the human world and tell them that you knew of our existence and our plans to attack. Imagine what that could do to you; to your whole family."

Mr. Brighten glared at the man from across his desk, clenching his fists tightly until his nails broke skin. He regretted allowing his wife and son talk him into hiring the little brat. Had he known it'd get itself into trouble with the world in the forest, he wouldn't have taken it in. He would have forced Chet to break his ties with it the moment they graduated high school, forced his wife to never play the piano for her, forbid Heinrich from having a relationship with it, kept Bear from allowing Chet to go out and enjoy only a few hours of freedom so that he could rebel and see it without Mr. Brighten's stern eye.

Unfortunately, he couldn't do that. As much as he despised himself for it, Mr. Brighten couldn't keep his family away from it. Heinrich and Bear could've accepted his disapproval of it, but Mrs. Brighten and Chet would find ways to bring it back into their lives. It wouldn't matter how much Mr. Brighten tried. He was permanently stuck with that thing.

Unless...

"Very well," Mr. Brighten sighed, "I will take care of it, but," he added immediately before his guest could respond triumphantly, "I wish to speak to Frank privately, I may have a job for him that can keep him from it for a while. This way, we both can kill two birds with one stone."

The man's frown deepened as he glared at Mr. Brighten. Mr. Brighten knew he was trying to read through him to see if he was lying or had more plans in mind to keep one of his own close. When he saw nothing, the man relaxed, though kept his eyes narrowed in skepticism.

"Fine," the man growled, "but only after the job is done."

"After the job is done," Mr. Brighten agreed as he picked the vile back up off his desk. He stared into his reflection on the glass, the ruby red of the liquid inside turning the world around him in the mirror world red. Soon, he imagined when he'd have to do what he had no choice but to do, it'd see the same world. Only, while Mr. Brighten could look away and he'd be freed from that world of red, it would never be able to escape.