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lesmodsalouette) wrote2025-03-16 03:54 am
lesmodsalouette) wrote2025-03-16 03:54 am
Graveyard
Graveyard
The garden is still sprawling and green – despite having entirely lost all its riotous flowers and colors, along with any sign of wildlife or birdsong – though one thing stands out more than anything else: from Monday to Thursday, you can’t see the castle anymore. All that remains where it once stood (or perhaps, usually stands) is an incongruously large tree that towers over everything else and somehow looks larger and more imposing than the castle ever did. The tree’s branches are bare, without any hint of life nor leaf – however, on the weekends (that is to say, Friday through Sunday) a faint projection of the castle appears around it, cradling the only things that the denizens of this alternate garden can see in detail from the other side: the flurry of activity around the investigation, the circus-like dimension that holds the trial, and the mirrors and the grassy dimension that display the execution.
For those curious what the land of the living are up to, a mirage-like and upside-down reflection of the castle garden in its original arrangement can be spotted occasionally overlaying the sky. This strange illusion may sometimes show those in the garden on the other side, flitting in and out of view like stray clouds; but much like the weather, their appearance is mercurial – they cannot be reached and cannot be heard.
Water, Flower, Everywhere
The fountains remain active somehow, though their features seem to have eroded, obscuring the identities of the deities and the wings of the birds, cracking pottery down into nothing but worn shards and handles. At night, only maybe half the lights work (and here they are real candlelight, rather than magical), plunging most of the garden into crepuscular darkness. The trellis walkway looks quite overgrown (mysteriously, bamboo is taking over), entirely covering some statues and other features along its length, and it’s no longer walkable – a miniature canal runs the whole length underneath the arches, feeding into other new waterways around the garden that cut off footpaths seemingly at random. There are small footbridges here and there, but the lack of logic to the whole arrangement makes falling into one of the streams or canals a real hazard.
The waterways do all manage to converge at the pond by the pavilion – neither of which are all that soothing or classical anymore. The pond is only half-full, and entirely lacks water lilies or any dragonflies; its banks sit jagged above the dark waters, and perhaps that’s why the pavilion, too, is half collapsed down into it all. Gone are the curtains and ivies; only dead curling vines and half-collapsed columns are left, but there’s still someplace to sit if you put your mind to it.
Most of the flowerbeds sit fallow or overtaken by weeds – there’s signs here and there that someone might have tried to clear them out, but the bulk of the effort seems to have gone to the orchard by the gardener’s cottage. It might be more accurate to say cottages, given that there are a few of them dotted around that area for some reason. None of them are locked, but all of them have only minimal furnishings apart from the original; they’re also all provided with the full complement of gardener’s tools. Next to them, there are new saplings and half-grown flowering trees: some pear and apple, but also some not. There are new shoots in the kitchen orchard that have just barely taken root, the dirt recently turned.
The waterways do all manage to converge at the pond by the pavilion – neither of which are all that soothing or classical anymore. The pond is only half-full, and entirely lacks water lilies or any dragonflies; its banks sit jagged above the dark waters, and perhaps that’s why the pavilion, too, is half collapsed down into it all. Gone are the curtains and ivies; only dead curling vines and half-collapsed columns are left, but there’s still someplace to sit if you put your mind to it.
Most of the flowerbeds sit fallow or overtaken by weeds – there’s signs here and there that someone might have tried to clear them out, but the bulk of the effort seems to have gone to the orchard by the gardener’s cottage. It might be more accurate to say cottages, given that there are a few of them dotted around that area for some reason. None of them are locked, but all of them have only minimal furnishings apart from the original; they’re also all provided with the full complement of gardener’s tools. Next to them, there are new saplings and half-grown flowering trees: some pear and apple, but also some not. There are new shoots in the kitchen orchard that have just barely taken root, the dirt recently turned.
Hedge Maze(?)
The other most eye-catching feature is what once was an ornamental hedge maze: instead of being a tame height here, it has seemingly grown wild and completely unchecked, towering above the rest of the garden almost like its own overgrown mountain. The hedge walls go up and up and up, making it entirely impossible to see the center or even how far it goes despite the fact that sections of the hedges have also died, reduced to the branches underneath, bristling with interlocked thorns.
Part of it had even spilled over into the garden itself, huge gnarled branches spreading out like burnt-blackened fingers all the way to the edge of the pond – wherever the branches touch, even the greenery is withered, and any statues look more ruined than those in the rest of the area. As of the end of Week 3, however, the branches have retracted entirely and the way into the hedge maze has opened even more. However, there is now a storm brewing over what might be the center or the general area of it. Getting close to the hedge maze or any of the hedge(?) branches is... unpleasant, though it doesn’t usually go beyond a buzz of wrongness and a slight headache.
Part of it had even spilled over into the garden itself, huge gnarled branches spreading out like burnt-blackened fingers all the way to the edge of the pond – wherever the branches touch, even the greenery is withered, and any statues look more ruined than those in the rest of the area. As of the end of Week 3, however, the branches have retracted entirely and the way into the hedge maze has opened even more. However, there is now a storm brewing over what might be the center or the general area of it. Getting close to the hedge maze or any of the hedge(?) branches is... unpleasant, though it doesn’t usually go beyond a buzz of wrongness and a slight headache.
1/3
(You
remember, suddenly, something you'd forgotten -- had it slip out of your fingers, time rewound to cover your sudden lack of speech -- and
you wish you could forget it again, but--
"■■■■■■, dinner'll be done soon. Come on inside."
You hadn't wanted to, because it was-- vegetables, and you hadn't wanted any. The face is obscured by light. You don't remember who said it anymore.
The boat lay not so far from your ■■■■■■'s pier, ■■■■■■■■■ painted darkless on the side to better catch at night, the deftness of a ■■■■■■ born and raised on the sea making quick work of the rope that lashed it. A gentle push, bared hands wrapping around the smooth wood of the oars, and you watch as slowly
slowly
slowly
the island grows smaller in the distance, the heat from the sun having little effect on you thanks to the cloak your ■■■■■■ had made for you, something that had grown with you, had always kept you warm and cool when the temperatures dipped and risen as they ever would on your island, with its lightless beaches striking against the darkless snow that dragged down mountain peaks, houses and community stretching from the seashore to the inner woods.
You laugh to yourself, seeing your ■■■■■■ on the pier with ■■■ hands on ■■■ hips, exasperated as ever at your tricks, and turn the boat like always, starting to push back) ]
2/3
You turn your head, staring at
nothing
the sea
you don't
know your name
you don't
don't
know anything
remember where you were going
or
what were you doing out here?) ]
3/3 cw suicide ideation
(You think you would've preferred that.) ]
Please, please, I just-- I want to remember, I want-- I can't say-- I know it, I can't say--
[ Choking, half a sob among the rest going on, shaking as they crumple on the ground, possibly some of the most emotion that anyone's seen out of them so far -- anger aside, but this-- this isn't that. ]
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The ghostly warriors that had been driven back a little by the combination of Chu Wenshan and Yamanbagiri's onslaught surge forward again as though called by that diminishing gap, howling furiously in protest. At least two of them manage to grab Chu Wenshan, throwing the physical headache and the mental assault of regret vision upon him. Yamanbagiri promptly cuts down one of them, but that still leaves the other...
Chu Wenshan and Siffrin must flip a coin; landing on Heads will free them from the vision.
As for everyone else, while you're stuck at the gate you'll have to contend with the incoming warriors that Yamanbagiri and Chu Wenshan haven't manage to push away.
Everyone must roll over 10 to evade the warriors.]
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[And that's a NATURAL 20, BABY.]
DON'T TOUCH ME!
[It's at this moment that every single pent-up thing the Andrew has been clinging to like a desperate child finally bubbles to the surface. The pounding aches, the fear of being grabbed and dragged into some dark and suffocating place, dark and windowless and punished - she wrestles herself away from them all.
She will close this goddamn gate, even if it kills her.]
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cw anxiety attack. he won but he still suffers
Curling up on the ground, shaken beyond belief, it's not the warrior's influence anymore but their own lack of control, even as they try (you have to be useful) to gather themselves (you have to do something) it's hard, it's so hard, he feels his mind buzzing and his breath shortening, heart pounding and a queasiness that rolls through his body as he tries to stand--
fails, falters, and
at least now, there won't be violence enacted if someone tries to touch him, considering how desperately Siffrin's reaching for anyone, anyone with a wide, panicked look in their eye.
(you can't breathe you can't breathe you can't breathe) ]
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[ ok nvm the plan.
yoru rushes over to them as they crumble, attention fixed only on them - all that matters is them, only them, defenseless. he won't lose them again. he's not paying attention (6) to the warriors coming his way. ]
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Something starts to brew under the surface, a feeling that starts as a bubble before it comes to a full boil. There's sorrow—but more than that fear, so sharp that the pangs in his chest are practically all that keep his heart beating. He knows there's something underneath this, some indistinct, dizzying worry that lives in his dark past. The problem is, he doesn't know what. He doesn't know what, and the vision comes slowly, flickers of something (Brown hair? Blond?) before his eyes, too fleeting to catch.
And then...
Light and color burst like fireworks in front of his eyes, and suddenly he's back in that little inn with a modest bowl of noodles in front of him. A pair of chopsticks flash by and man speaks, confident and regal. "Friend, there was a fly by your bowl."
With a broken noodle hanging from the corner of his mouth, all he can say is:
"That was my meat dish."
It's a memory of little consequence, yet—something about it pierces his heart like a spear. ]
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Hickey breaks off from the gate as the warriors converge on Sabo. There's little he can do to fight off their attackers, but he can at least keep them at bay while the others close the door. It's their best shot.
Hatchet in one hand and knife in the other, he pushes in between his companions and their attackers, swinging with all the strength he's got left (20). Whatever's coming, he can handle it. ]
FINALE END
And between all the efforts at the gate, even those who have been torn away halfway through, and the frankly absurd power of fire pokers -- the gate finally slams closed with a loud bang. The moment it does, every ghostly warrior on the battlefield lets out a ghastly wail and turns to a fine mist. The mist gathers itself like a tornado and is sucked through the seam of the gate, all of its terrible effects draining away like water down a pipe.
Equally suddenly, the storm above them goes eerily, completely silent -- and a split-second later, all of the low clouds and the artificial night they've created are swept away like they've never been. Sunlight glimmers down with the rain that has turned fine, throwing multi-colored sparkles of light everywhere. It's absolutely blinding.
As for their personal nightmarish hedge maze, all of the vegetation has died, but that's probably what happens when you get infected by a murderous miasma gate.
--Sometime while everything around them was changing, the gate itself has vanished too, like it was never there at all.]
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Quietly, just before the gate closes and perhaps to himself, perhaps not:]
I'm sorry. I won't be able to see you yet.
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... Do you mean to enter it one day?
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[But the way he says there is much less weighty, a matter-of-fact declaration to whatever declaration he was making before.]
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[ there was that 'yet'. ]
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Not even swords will last forever. That's the fate of a tsukumogami, too.
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[ the person who he was made for perhaps. ]
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[Still said with a completely incongruous lightness.]
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[ since, like they established in the other thread, this is temporary. ]
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cw: mention of siffrin's execution
he shakes the worst of it off with the help of hickey and andy closing the gate, though by all means, it should stick like the way his clothes stick to him, like the way his hair sticks, like the blood that lingers even through rain and mud and indifference.
he shakes it off because it is not their turn. and now as everything's over, though the loops play in his mind like phantoms, he crawls over to siffrin and draw them in. his hug is one-armed, but still, he tries to shield them from the rain that's gone and the sun that's here.
his eyes flick to the others, making sure everyone's ok and nodding slightly if any meets his. but otherwise, he's where he belongs - with them. ]
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The warmth helps. The touch helps. The scent, beneath blood and mud and wet, helps too.
(y you
b
breathe in
harshly, you breathe
in
all you can do is breathe in right now) ]
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This small field of dead vegetation really matches his mood though. Thanks for the bad vibes. ]