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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.
Week 4: Living Endgame
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[The red-haired lady. She's pretty. But something feels...off.]
Where is Ish?
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I'm suddenly not too sure if we did the right thing.
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We all chose to believe we were saving something that wanted for saving.
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[ and andy has every right to be angry with him. he sees the way she trembles and knows that there are even deeper feelings that are inside of her that she is not expressing. ]
However, I don't want to think that the others would be quick to dismiss us.
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[She's still having such a difficult time articulating it. Andrew experiences her emotions in extremes, even when she doesn't show them. They spike and run so furiously through her. Sabo sees the shaking, and she sees him seeing the shaking.]
Do you feel bad? For trying to save them? [After everything... does he feel the price of his life was given justly?]
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[Grounded.....]
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[ ........ Yeah. Our moment of happy before Siffrin breaks it down. It being them. ]
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[Shiv doesn’t sound extremely shocked. Typical mom behavior, really.]
How do we knock her out again?
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If knocking her out doesn’t undo her magic, there would be a bigger problem.
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He's got nothing to say, at least right now, as he watches the proceedings. This is always the problem with gods and primals and whatever higher beings are up there.
What they view as good is not always what is for the best. ]
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But then... had she not started to realize the consequences of this kind of thing yesterday already, in front of this same tree, when she realized what it was like to force someone into a promise?]
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(You like the color red!)
What about us, they rightfully ask. Will we be able to recover the ones we lost? Ayaka puts in.
I can leave you all here with food and water, the goddess replies, and then to Ayaka: Nope. I don't know how to do any of that actually!
(... ... ..
She
doesn't?)
There's a soft, disbelieving laughter coming from beside G'raha, because who else would Siffrin sit with, G'raha and Yoru are his favorites here, they get to be audience more than anyone to his tremble and growing laughter, jagged and mean--
(She doesn't? Know how? She can't? She can't bring you back, can't send you home, can't--
You hate gods. They're as blinding useless as ever.)
A sharp inhale, seething coldly. ]
And here I thought... that the Change God was cruel.
[ That one made fun of Siffrin. But at least it didn't pull out the rug on a deal. ]
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Look, he gets it. He understands.
But... if there is one thing he knows, it's: ]
Do not give into despair, Siffrin. The battle has not yet concluded.
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[ Less despair, more anger. It's always come out that way -- where was Loop, to point them in the right direction? Why are they stuck-- stuck here, unable to do a blinding thing.
It feels
exactly
the same as when Ayaka confessed in the promenade, when every bit of acceptance retched itself out of Siffrin's heart and stomach, hate and burning anger in its place. Twice, now. Twice.
On
the other hand, on the other hand on the other hand if it's
(If it's your
fault anyway
like Raha thinks, says,
isn't it better this way? maybe
they're already done
beaten the king
saved vaugarde
split off
not a thought to you, suddenly disappearing never to return.)
The laughter has a different cadence this time, squeezing their joined hands tight. More broken.
(This!
Would!
Be!
Best!
For them, for the family members you love so blinding much, wouldn't it!
Let go, Raha says! Maybe you should! What choice do you have anyway! Those incompetent idiots on the other side can barely solve a murder, much less convince a goddess!) ]
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Sure, G'raha could admonish him, could tell him not to say he'll do such things but that wouldn't do any good right now. ]
Have faith, Siffrin. There are times when all we must do is have faith in those that can still walk forward.
[ All they can do is wait. ]
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And they'd do it, of course. Too easily. ]
No, no, this-- you said it's my fault, didn't you? Maybe this is better. For them. My family members.
[ Even if
stars
it hurts so much, head and heart and body wracked with pain at the thought. Even G'raha's embrace offers little comfort, cold cold cold as they are. ]
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I said your feelings were the reason. Not your fault. You want to retrieve them from the loop and now that you have an inkling of where to begin, you will.
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[ What holds them in place, if the reason isn't there anymore.
But something strikes them then, a memory, and they laugh again... relieved, a thousand emotions in this one. ]
Ah. No, they can't be. They're probably just dead. My family members can get through the castle without me, but Mira doesn't know the CARROT method. So they're frozen, along with the rest of Vaugarde. It's kind of pleasant. The world stops, like a nap.
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he didn't want to regret anything ever again—he had one regret in life. a single regret that haunted him—haunts him—to this very day. day after day... night after night... everything that sabo does, he does without questioning himself for he doesn't want anymore regrets. what he does, he does with full confidence of his decision whether it be the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do.
however, as norna speaks and addresses those who are still living and states how she can't (won't) keep up ish's end of the bargain, there's that feeling again.
regret. guilt.
...except there's no outlet for the anger that begins to boil inside of him. so he waits and watches. there are those on the living that he trusts to know what to do. people who want to go home (and want to save them). ]
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Why should her own fate be in the hands of these stupid assholes, after she and everybody else in the graveyard (Shiv can admit she isn’t exactly a fighter and the gate was a collaborative effort) worked so hard to secure their own way out?
It’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair for them to get fucked over because of one stupid bitch.]
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[ ok he never said idiot, but he’s editing that in right now to all of his past conversations. ]