[ Marcille's consciousness is black at first. Then she opens her eyes to a blanket of grey skies above her, framed by a neat rectangle of dirt high above her. She's lying flat on what seems to be an uncomfortable plank of wood, and someone's arranged her hands over her stomach, her fingers latticed together as if in prayer.
She lifts her head, furrows her brow, and blinks hard until everything comes into focus. Beneath her sandaled feet—she's in her usual dungeon-diving garb, thankfully—is another plank of wood. In fact, she's boxed in by wood on all sides.
Marcille is in a lidless coffin. Okay. But isn't she the one who killed someone?
The thought is abrupt, jarring, flooding down her body like freezing water. Yes, she killed someone she hardly knew at all—Rosamund, someone comically strange and sweet and beautiful, who didn't deserve to die. One night, Marcille's clothes had transformed and turned inky black. Her legs sprouted into a circle of black tentacles, hiding a maw with a thousand little teeth at the center. Exhausted, crying, spouting nonsense about failing Falin and Laios and everyone she knew, Marcille chased Rosamund to the theatre, tendrils squirming through the dense fog and over wet dirt. They finally arrived at center stage, she remembers, both of them lit in the cross-section of two spotlights.
She'd broken Rosamund's legs first before one tendril stabbed her through the heart. Then, consumed with a sudden and insatiable hunger, she fed Rosamund into that mouth with those thousands of little teeth until hardly any of her was left. There was just enough to convict Marcille and have her subsequently executed in the middle of the graveyard.
Marcille's stomach lurches, and she reflexively grasps the front of her chest with both hands. There's no pain, no gaping hole where an axe wound should be. It's just Marcille. ]
[Rosamund is in her old tattered gown. As it was, when she fished it out of the wooden box from the swamp. As it was when she vanished from the Neverafter, a place where she might have died bloodily more than once, but at least went down fighting at full strength.
In this village, there had been no bow nor arrows. No magic at her fingertips, no summon. All she came with was the dress and the Book — capitalization necessary, except even that doesn't feel necessary here. To anyone who'd looked at it, and a few had, they only saw a copy of Sleeping Beauty with blank pages after the princess falls asleep. Nothing otherworldly or untoward about it.
And so the thing that Marcille became cornered not a formidable foe, but a lost girl in rags and prickled with pain. The only weapon left to Rosamund was the thorns, and they never once moved in her defence. They barely made Marcille bleed.
She'd watched the show. This in-between place lets her see things rather than read them, and it's styled oddly, and the mist is wholly uninviting but not half so spooky as her home could be. It's the anachronisms that bother her. It's the insight into the nonsense-world she'd just left behind that bothers her. It's Marcille who bothers her. The whole week, she'd spoken to her maybe a handful of times. It was an awfully big crew and she'd been curious about each one, and there was never enough time in the day to spend with them all. So maybe she missed something. Maybe that fretfully sweet countenance had been obscuring a sadistic streak, a monstrous possession. A plain old monster, made to gobble up young girls and never think twice about why. The ranting and raving didn't clarify anything, and any plea Rosamund made had gotten trampled in the verbal chaos.
At the trial, this nebulous evil had manifested so suddenly and violently that even Rosamund, drinking whisky and booing the screen and throwing food at it in impotent fury, had gone shock-still. The execution today was even worse. She was reminded of Miss Muppet while Marcille was on death's door. Except they didn't have to kill the little girl after she came to her senses. No such mercy for Marci.
Rosamund frowns, standing a stone's throw from the coffin. There's a long strip of metal in her hand, curved and subtly clawed at the ends. If she had the words for it she'd recognize it was a crow bar. All she needs to know is how the heft would dent a skull if it were swung just right.
The late afternoon light is at her back. Which means her stretching shadow is the royal proclamation, announcing her arrival with a dreadful silence. Her time in the woods taught her the trick of noiseless footsteps. So it's a long black spectre creeping over the wood of the coffin that greets the newcomer in this, their un-graveyard. Welcome to the After Life. We hope you enjoy your stay.]
[ Despite the furor of her fear and all of her questions, Marcille's eyes finally hone in on the oddity in front of her: a long shadow stretched over her coffin, flanked by white sunlight, cold as metal. (The sun isn't bright and yellow here, as if the fog didn't make this place eerie enough.) She looks up on instinct without a second thought.
The dirt-clad hem of a tattered dress. The long hair. The willowy person underneath. And she's holding something long and dangerous and shiny in her hand.
Marcille's heart almost stops. Her mouth and eyes come wide open and terrified, and she scrabbles for Ambrosia, wherever it is, her hands are suddenly clammy and have minds of their own in her desperation. So she kind of crab-walks, heels slipping against the coffin and the heels of her hands grabbing anything for leverage as she crowds up against the back of the coffin. ]
R-Rosamund...!
[ She says it hoarsely, without her voice. Her throat is too tight to form words. She holds a hand out in front of her in defense, as if it'll do anything to save her. Rosamund was dead. So dead. She was mangled, broken into pieces, a slurry of gore and bone— ]
P-Please, I— [ Her voice suddenly works as tears spring to her eyes. Her ears droop down, almost folding against her head. ] That wasn't me! It wasn't! I promise! Y-You have to believe me!
[She'd like very much to be brutal. It had been brutal, being devoured, more bloodily and slowly than the Dogfish had managed, and no Little Red to pull her out before the killing crunch.
The trial had been brutal, too. So had the execution. So had everything that had gone wrong at home, twisting around worse and worse until the sane went mad and the kind turned cruel. So will everything here, if the promise of sacrifice is seen through. If what happened to Marcille keeps happening to other people.
Rosamund stands above the other girl now, watching those ears droop and panic blow her pupils wide. Her mouth thins. She takes a long, deliberating breath through her nose, the grip on the metal shifting.]
I saw. [She should be clear about this much. Before she decides to swing the bar or set it aside. Her eyes never leave the other girl's, marking her with a hunter's keen sight. The second she moves to the offensive, Rosamund will act.] There's a thing here — a little box, like a magic mirror. I watched the trial yesterday. And I watched you die today.
[A pause. Her jaw clenching. She didn't enjoy it, not one bit. Not once the threads of doubt started weaving too big a tapestry to brush off.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scawwy au yeehawww
She lifts her head, furrows her brow, and blinks hard until everything comes into focus. Beneath her sandaled feet—she's in her usual dungeon-diving garb, thankfully—is another plank of wood. In fact, she's boxed in by wood on all sides.
Marcille is in a lidless coffin. Okay. But isn't she the one who killed someone?
The thought is abrupt, jarring, flooding down her body like freezing water. Yes, she killed someone she hardly knew at all—Rosamund, someone comically strange and sweet and beautiful, who didn't deserve to die. One night, Marcille's clothes had transformed and turned inky black. Her legs sprouted into a circle of black tentacles, hiding a maw with a thousand little teeth at the center. Exhausted, crying, spouting nonsense about failing Falin and Laios and everyone she knew, Marcille chased Rosamund to the theatre, tendrils squirming through the dense fog and over wet dirt. They finally arrived at center stage, she remembers, both of them lit in the cross-section of two spotlights.
She'd broken Rosamund's legs first before one tendril stabbed her through the heart. Then, consumed with a sudden and insatiable hunger, she fed Rosamund into that mouth with those thousands of little teeth until hardly any of her was left. There was just enough to convict Marcille and have her subsequently executed in the middle of the graveyard.
Marcille's stomach lurches, and she reflexively grasps the front of her chest with both hands. There's no pain, no gaping hole where an axe wound should be. It's just Marcille. ]
Wh-What...
[ Her voice shakes. She feels sick. ]
Am I dead...?
i could have ghost-written this header
In this village, there had been no bow nor arrows. No magic at her fingertips, no summon. All she came with was the dress and the Book — capitalization necessary, except even that doesn't feel necessary here. To anyone who'd looked at it, and a few had, they only saw a copy of Sleeping Beauty with blank pages after the princess falls asleep. Nothing otherworldly or untoward about it.
And so the thing that Marcille became cornered not a formidable foe, but a lost girl in rags and prickled with pain. The only weapon left to Rosamund was the thorns, and they never once moved in her defence. They barely made Marcille bleed.
She'd watched the show. This in-between place lets her see things rather than read them, and it's styled oddly, and the mist is wholly uninviting but not half so spooky as her home could be. It's the anachronisms that bother her. It's the insight into the nonsense-world she'd just left behind that bothers her. It's Marcille who bothers her. The whole week, she'd spoken to her maybe a handful of times. It was an awfully big crew and she'd been curious about each one, and there was never enough time in the day to spend with them all. So maybe she missed something. Maybe that fretfully sweet countenance had been obscuring a sadistic streak, a monstrous possession. A plain old monster, made to gobble up young girls and never think twice about why. The ranting and raving didn't clarify anything, and any plea Rosamund made had gotten trampled in the verbal chaos.
At the trial, this nebulous evil had manifested so suddenly and violently that even Rosamund, drinking whisky and booing the screen and throwing food at it in impotent fury, had gone shock-still. The execution today was even worse. She was reminded of Miss Muppet while Marcille was on death's door. Except they didn't have to kill the little girl after she came to her senses. No such mercy for Marci.
Rosamund frowns, standing a stone's throw from the coffin. There's a long strip of metal in her hand, curved and subtly clawed at the ends. If she had the words for it she'd recognize it was a crow bar. All she needs to know is how the heft would dent a skull if it were swung just right.
The late afternoon light is at her back. Which means her stretching shadow is the royal proclamation, announcing her arrival with a dreadful silence. Her time in the woods taught her the trick of noiseless footsteps. So it's a long black spectre creeping over the wood of the coffin that greets the newcomer in this, their un-graveyard. Welcome to the After Life. We hope you enjoy your stay.]
Marcille.
same and also NOT THE CROWBAR AGAIN
The dirt-clad hem of a tattered dress. The long hair. The willowy person underneath. And she's holding something long and dangerous and shiny in her hand.
Marcille's heart almost stops. Her mouth and eyes come wide open and terrified, and she scrabbles for Ambrosia, wherever it is, her hands are suddenly clammy and have minds of their own in her desperation. So she kind of crab-walks, heels slipping against the coffin and the heels of her hands grabbing anything for leverage as she crowds up against the back of the coffin. ]
R-Rosamund...!
[ She says it hoarsely, without her voice. Her throat is too tight to form words. She holds a hand out in front of her in defense, as if it'll do anything to save her. Rosamund was dead. So dead. She was mangled, broken into pieces, a slurry of gore and bone— ]
P-Please, I— [ Her voice suddenly works as tears spring to her eyes. Her ears droop down, almost folding against her head. ] That wasn't me! It wasn't! I promise! Y-You have to believe me!
crowbar is eternal. accept your fate
The trial had been brutal, too. So had the execution. So had everything that had gone wrong at home, twisting around worse and worse until the sane went mad and the kind turned cruel. So will everything here, if the promise of sacrifice is seen through. If what happened to Marcille keeps happening to other people.
Rosamund stands above the other girl now, watching those ears droop and panic blow her pupils wide. Her mouth thins. She takes a long, deliberating breath through her nose, the grip on the metal shifting.]
I saw. [She should be clear about this much. Before she decides to swing the bar or set it aside. Her eyes never leave the other girl's, marking her with a hunter's keen sight. The second she moves to the offensive, Rosamund will act.] There's a thing here — a little box, like a magic mirror. I watched the trial yesterday. And I watched you die today.
[A pause. Her jaw clenching. She didn't enjoy it, not one bit. Not once the threads of doubt started weaving too big a tapestry to brush off.]
That thing you became. Is it still with you?