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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.
no subject
[She knew he was hiding something. That snake.]
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Time loops, huh. You're from a different loop? That explains why I haven't seen either of you before.
[ he sounds way too cheery for someone who's well. dead. ]
You can call me Joshua.
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The ones you left behind I mean.
[The sword shifts a little with Joshua’s bouncing between objects. Stop making him exercise, being an object is harder than being a shady shade—]
... Joshua. I don’t know about that either. But most of those in the castle are the same people between loops.
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Tia.
[If they're going to be introducing themselves, she might as well get hers out of the way. As soon as that's done and over with, she goes back to addressing Yamanbagiri.]
So we've been repeating the last week . . . ? How long has it really been, then?
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[The sword acknowledges her name, since she acknowledged his.]
It has been longer than I’ve been here. But...
[A slight shift towards the whetstone.]
Long enough that their spiritual energy is quite weak. There are a few possibilities I can think of: the Witch’s magic has been slowly losing power, or each time loop is a different timeline, or they are no longer useful to the Witch.
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it's strange, but not unfeasible—but the fact that they've spent a pretty long time here... that's concerning. ]
Did Witchish hide who he was in the other loops? [ tilting his head down to look at the sword in his hands. after a second, he steps over to a chair (hopefully not bon bon) and props it up, then steps back. ]
And the "execution," did that happen to?
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Witchish, huh...
[Sort of comforting, on his end, not to be the only one with a butchered name.
Yamanbagiri sounds almost amused for the briefest of moments, leaning on the Not!Chairbelia.]
But yes -- this was the first loop I know of where he showed his face. The steps... the killing, the trial, the execution, those were the same. It is very ritualistic.
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[ if so, he guesses he owes tiamat an apology? killing her an indefinite number of times is pretty rude.
he sends a quick glance to her before focusing on the sword again. ]
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That I'm... not so sure about. I can't always see through to the other side.
Though it's become easier, lately, at certain times.
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When did he show his face?
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There was a trial -- though the Witch, after he revealed himself, called it a carnival, which might be more fitting. A trial after your death to catch the culprit.
And he was caught and executed for his crime.
[A slight tilt towards Chu Wenshan, careful so as not to overbalance. The life of a sentient blade is a precarious one.]
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so, he doesn't say, and he just moves on. ]
That's what happened. [ all of it, really. ]
So it's easier, sometimes... [ when ish is particularly affected? emotions matter when it comes to energy, so it probably matters with magic, too. hmm. ] Well, just let us know if something else seems off.
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No, she wants to know more than just something seeming off.]
What does the Witch stand to gain from any of this?