ℬ𝑒𝓁𝓁𝑒𝓁𝓊𝓇𝑒𝓉𝓉𝑒 ℳ𝑜𝒹𝓈 (
lesmodsalouette) wrote2025-03-16 03:54 am
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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.
final carnival
Siffrin is still so exhausted. On top of all else that happened the past-- however long, there's another one of these showing in the brilliantly, blinding petals of the tree.
(It's very pretty, at least. A shade Mira likes. You decide you like it too.)
At least it's easier to sit outside and see what's going on now. Right everyone? Surely there's no one we know and love that's been killed! Even though that hope slips away every week there's one of these blinding things!
Well, they're better than they were before, with the visions. ]
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They aren't anymore, as their eye flicks across the faces miling about in the damnable carnival they haven't been invited to since their death and they don't see they don't see
until
they do, laying so so still
hurt
so so badly where the corpses usually sit
G'raha Tia. ]
2/4
it clicks, suddenly, what this means. ]
3/4
The grief dissipates the more he thinks about it,
(you'll be with him forever,)
and replaces it with a burning warmth of gratitude,
(they don't know how happy they've made you, whoever did this,)
and it's hard, so hard, to stop laughing, there's a tightness in their throat, a hard lump as they battle between the horror, anger, adoration, of what this all means.
(you won't have to see him die. he can wait forever for you. that friend of his will age, waste away, and you'll still be there, you'll still have raha, he'll still be yours forever, and ever, and ever.
even after your family members die. even after the world begins to weaken and rot. he'll be there, you'll have someplace and someone to belong to. forever.
you're so happy.) ]
4/4 a normal one in gy
But they don't, and even their hyena-level laughter settles to a burst, bubbling giggles, cheeks flushed in exertion and happiness as they stare at the tree.
(Raha, oh Raha, he's handsome even in death, you'll make whoever hurt him feel the same pain he did before he passed, that's for certain, but maybe you'll kill them as a mercy.
As a thank you, for ensuring that Raha'll keep his promise, that Raha'll always be at your side. Oh, Raha.) ]
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Hickey is equipped to deal with many, many things, and this is not one of them.
His tongue pushes against the inside of his cheek as he watches Siffrin's meltdown, trying to make sense of this reaction. He's finally cracked, but the specific flavor of crack is to be determined.
But then he's distracted by the carnival itself. Two bodies, one killer... For one short moment, his mouth twists into an expression that might be worry—but he quickly straightens himself again. ]
Siffrin.
[ Hickey settles himself in the dirt next to his former roommate, though his attention is still locked on the tree's projection. ]
We've already ended this. What happens with the living is of no consequence. G'raha and Sariel will return with the rest of us.
[ Comforting? Debatable, but he's not here to soothe emotions, just to state facts. ]
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[The fire poker definitely got left behind after it did its job, but the knife... is still in her lap.]
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cw abuse
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yoru catches siffrin's face and turns them away from the tree. he cradles them, feeling the apples of their cheeks under his hands as they giggle and giggle. and though they're in his hands, he feels as though they're lost, drowned in their own feelings. whatever is spilling out of them, he doesn't know if g'raha would recognize that.
but yoru does.
he presses his forehead to theirs and waits. will they see him? ]
Hey.
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He'll be back with a hot cup of tea, setting it down next to them quietly.
Gotta keep hydrated after the crashing out and the maniacal laughing.]
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normal day in the graveyard (cw suicidal and general death ideation and implied spousal abuse/sa)
She's done what she could as the being she's become, she thinks, and then they are lured to the tree. And she... was supposed to look for the living, wasn't she, even as a stuffed capybara, but she was looking out for them here, not thinking that the twenty-four hours of trust and cooperation she afforded other human beings would ricochet back the way misplaced trust always does.
Is that how Sariel felt, too? Or was he too hurt and sad and gentle to ever feel anything beyond that, even, was he too trusting the way she thought she had learned never to be?
She feels like she is suffocating. The miasma and the headaches from the befouled hedge maze are gone, but she might as well be locked in a cold stone cell with no view of the sky or the stars. Andrew might as well be eight years old in the Room of Atonement. Maybe she'll go back to her house and get locked there forever, now. And it would really be forever - ]
Ah…? Ah-
[She hears that G'raha's dead before she sees it, but when she sees it, it really sinks in. Her chest feels like its drowning in its own blood again; the Blue Star is back, if only in how she feels. Immortality is a tricky thing to hand someone who had already buckled herself in for her own death. It's tricky to conceptualized for someone who's only had a few months outside of an empty shell or who's become a different person in those short weeks.]
Then what did I… do any of it for? [Her death. Her planned death. The poison. Bleeding Bella out on the floor of her stolen office. Her arrangement with Ish. Her arrangement with G'raha to take Herta's family where her father couldn't chase them down even if Andrew didn't die on her wedding day. Agreeing before she knew she was cursing herself to this kind of existence. Saying she would help the people who were still alive. Realizing that maybe, just maybe, this once, she understood what it meant to have a parent?
What did any of it matter?
... And she's going to get left alone again, isn't she? G'raha will come back, and he'll come back to someone else who has been ensnared in this unholy salvation. And everyone has something that's worth living forever for, but her happiness will melt away in decades, and who will care about a people that were already almost wiped away and reduced to nothing when forever is in the balance? And forever, for her now, when time might pass so differently between worlds, could mean being trampled on for eternity, chained to the violent men of a royal family and a dying bloodline who will use her and use her and trample upon a thing that cannot break.
And Siffrin is laughing.]
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You did it to give them a chance. His chance is still there. [ he's seen g'raha with the cappy, though maybe she means sariel. ] And who's to say he can't still bargain for something else?
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Her failure hurts, but the possibility of eternal loneliness is like a chasm swallowing her, vacuous and devoid of air. She feels it threatening to open up and swallow her whole. Too short a life. Too much of one. She knows now what it's like to be on both sides.]
How can I face him...? [She wonders.] How can I face her? He shouldn't have to bargain for anything.
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He's back to watching, though in a way different than he had been before.]
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Andrew holds the cup in shaking hands and doesn't drink from it. It might eventually slip from them over the course of the trial, but at least she doesn't ever end up throwing it at something or someone.]
... How do you handle it?
[He's a sword. He's always been like this.]
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...
They're still a little... happy, but... it's frustrating as always. His fists clench, unclench, then clench again.
After a moment, he'll come to lean against Yoru. Won't be punished? Being given the chance to give up without consequence? No, no, no-- they need to be punished, they have to be hurt. ]
... How d'you feel? Being on this side, this time.
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he's bad at letting go. ]
It'll never feel fair. I don't really care about that stuff and so far, I don't think anyone's gotten anything from chasing what's fair. I care about what's mine and I have what I love.
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Speaking of which...]
Cain said he wanted a message passed on.
[He really should put a preamble on these things, but they've all been sitting here for a while, in between the weird silences and the crashouts.]
He wants you to go back... so he can cook for you.
/2
[ for the tea. since the naming of the group, yoru has considered yamanbagiri temporarily his. theirs. (yoru you were one of the last to arrive - SILENCE, antis.) ]
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no, he... doesn't want to put together his heart again, though somehow, it beats faster. it should be dead. ]
Oh. He said that, did he? Mm. Thank you.
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reveal
Wow. Norna looks so kind, so-- alike to the Garuda that The Witch had showed him, the same flowing shades mimicking the bird's long feathers, the darkless pure as can be.
... Secondly, then,
a child? But Hwy's to blame? Children aren't supposed to fight. Aren't supposed to worry, they should be protected -- this, Siffrin thinks, anyone can agree with. Or most. Looking at the living.
There's some conflict going on -- at least Junior hadn't battered them so much, but-- in that case, had...
...
Why?
Don't worry they can get to Hwy's reasoning in a minute but for right now, the whole shebang's a little much for one marshmallow. ]
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Mm. He'll worry about Angelo later.
In any case, he shoots Siffrin a glance. See? ]
Do not touch him.
[ That is a threat—though a mild one. They've already come to an understanding, but he's underlining it now that the culprits have been revealed. ]
Hwylryn, however, I have no love for. Do what you will with him.
cw suicide/self harm ideation
[ Simple and factual, there. And... Hickey said the culprit hadn't done all of that to him either, so...
(... You're still angry. But you can't look at Junior's face and not see Bonnie, terrified of Sadnesses and still wanting to run back to their frozen sister. The horror and guilt of your eye, the confusion of your quick, merciless blade at the start of a loop.
But Hwy... Hwylryn. Him?) ]
... But I don't understand.
[ The reasoning. It's nonsense. To protect them, he had to kill them?
(You could never. You'd turn your blade on yourself first, you'd never even have nightmares of hurting the people you love so much.) ]
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ok but chara
I've always liked talking to them.
[ he's exhausted (emotionally), but this kind of hatred? it feels so good to even just listen to. hate really is the best emotion, fuck love.
nvm who chara is saying it to. yoru is selectively blind due to conflicted feelings (ugh) ]
tearing up
don't understand hwy but you understand what chara is saying and
isn't that
what you've been doing, too?
playing with your toys. your family members, knowing the lines they'll say over and over again, like pulling the string of a beloved doll. you do love them. you love them so much it hurts to lose them, but you know a lot of what you do and feel is learned -- re-learned, from that decade alone.
you still make mistakes. you still say the wrong thing, and then try to fix it. even before the loops. but it didn't seem to help much. you'd never hurt your friends, that doesn't apply, but much of what they say, here, to hwylryn
feels so pointed that)
Siffrin exhales shakily, picking at the ends of his gloves. Trying to get to the nails beneath.
(andrew's right it isn't love it's a mockery even what you feel for raha's nothing but a play isn't it you've tricked him too you've fooled yourself you're a horrible disgusting despicable monster you're no different than hwylryn you finally,) with the start of soft laughter, (finally deserve that guilty sentence you got, as far as you're concerned, you're a terrible person and you deserved what you got, facing yourself and then having this stupid
blinding
heart torn right out of you.) ]
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