lesmodsalouette | 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.

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.

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[ Cup to one hand, their own to the other. Gentle as ever. ]

I'd be afraid of drowning you.

[ (You

have something you want to ask so badly--) ]

It's quiet here. Without everyone around.

[She laughs when they say they're afraid of drowning her, as if to say, "Seriously?"]

Good.

[Just. Directly.]

I thought death would be peaceful and a relief. I'll take one of the two. [She finds a way to sip while still mostly supine, then does, extremely grudgingly, sit herself up.]

You like being around others much more than I do.

... I got used to it. Or, I've always liked it -- I got used to being alone instead, since I don't remember being surrounded.

[ But if it feels good and right, and they like it so much, then maybe they were. Most likely they were. ]

It's nice to fade into the background and listen to others talk.

[Right, they'd connected after a large group gathering before, hadn't they... And Siffrin had said something very similar then, too.]

I got used to only being able to rely on one person, so I prefer the company of small groups.

[She sips her wine, no longer feeling much concern about needing to silver test or sniff or suspiciously meet out food and drink she gets from others. What would they do to her?]

You killed him, you know. Or you incapacitated him, at least; a human would have died. For about ten seconds. The castle shook.

[ Tia had mentioned as much -- that he hadn't died for long at least, which isn't the part that surprises Siffrin. ]

It did?

[ (...

Much to think about now, isn't it. The castle itself...) ]

... He said he'd stolen it from some noble when I asked [ bullied ] him about it. I wonder, if... maybe in that moment, what was stolen could've been taken back.

[ If he hadn't returned to life -- like being reset, back to the stage. It gives them something to chew on at least.

But for now: ]

Nothing bad came from it, did it? I wasn't... really sure, if something would or not -- I thought he might come back, since that's how my loops reset too, but I didn't want anything bad to happen to the rest of you just because I took a risk.

It's likely that almost everything here is borrowed from somewhere else, which would explain the lack of servants.

[She did not hear the food conversation at her own trial, but other things have gotten her to this conclusion.]

He was...offended. I think he thought he did you a kindness, sincerely.

I was very sick, [she admits,] so someone else can tell you more about the explosion in the grotto. [She was not running anywhere last Sunday.]

[ Oh, right. A small squeeze of their hand. They can get back to the other thing Siffrin wants to say about their execution in a second but-- ]

How do you feel now?

Tired. [in an existential and physical way both.] But I'm not ill right now.

I suppose death is more than enough to stop both disease and poison.

[Which, to be fair, had been exactly what'd been counting on, under much different circumstances, before she ever was here.]

[ ... Okay. A nod. ]

The favor he did for me was letting me do it on my own. I asked him not to let anyone else be involved, and he granted that wish by making me fight myself instead. I think he just... wanted to feel what I did, with my heart. He's very into that. Feeling things.

[ ... Now then, um. ]

What... do you mean, explosion at the grotto? Everything just-- gone?

I see. So he is. Though he didn't enjoy my offer of regretful feelings for others to keep your carvings. He was in a mood, it felt, after everything.

[Both Sunday when he stormed off in a huff and the following week. Hm... There are many things she doesn't know what to make of Ish, no matter what or how much she hears.

The meeting revealed a few more things; perhaps Siffrin should know those. She listened quite carefully. Andrew files that thought away, for when she has a good sense of how he's feeling.]

There's a greenhouse there now... the grotto was one of us, I think.

[ (... Hahaha.

You reaaaaaaaaally pissed him off.

That makes you so happy.) ]

... I wonder where he's located, here.

[ Sorry, there's a thought there. Hold on. Siffrin will point around. ]

We have the pond, and the pavilion... but it's in disrepair. The gardener's hut, too. But our cottages are just here. They might be... the villa that the suites were in, though. Um. It's kind of mirrored, and kind of not.

[ Plenty of differences, of course. But it's roughly the same enough, as Andrew will come to see, that there's a point to be made. ]

Have you seen him at all?

[Even if Ish was around, she wonders if he could stand to show his face around Siffrin for a while after that...

She looks to each location as Siffrin indicates them.] The fruit trees at the castle grounds became saplings, and there are waterways now. Little moats. What about the rest of the place?

[Staring straight at...well, the tree.]

No. Yaman said he's... not as aware of us, as he is of Yaman. He probably knows we're here. But as long as we don't cause too much fuss, then The Witch won't see us as a threat.

[ But Siffrin definitely does want to be seen as a threat, so pin that thought.

That's pretty interesting though, and Siffrin stares at the places she mentions, glancing at the canals that run... not so cleanly through parts of the gardens. Waterways, little moats. ]

... That's all that's... left of the castle, I guess. It lets us see you all during, um... when you're looking at evidence, and the carnival... and execution. But no other time. That's the clouds' job.

[ With a vague gesture up. ]

But only in the gardens. It was a relief, seeing you and... the others step out every morning.

[It may have been a shitpost, but unfortunately for Siffrin, the "gayass" look she gives him is all too real and it's happening this very moment in response to "(DRAMATIC PAUSE) THE OTHERS."

A tree where the castle stands now... before or after, mostly after. But this could be any time at all. All right. The exact time and place didn't hold any meaning, so she'll put it aside for now.

Her eyes flit to the clouds, but her attention remains on the tree. She has a million thoughts, some of them questions that might come later, but from that explanation alone, she can gather the tree is a locus of...something.]

Then it sounds like we need to be thinking about making a fuss.

[ Ignoring that stare what could she POSSIBLY mean by it-- ]

I think so too.

[ (You're glad you're on the same page.

...)

Siffrin stares at the tree still, eye focused at the top as a swirling warmth settles into his stomach. ]

I really missed you, Andrew.

[Maybe she's been focusing on the wrong things... This has never been a game about or between the people who are condemned here, goading into killing one another, and trying to play it the same way she'd plotted Herta's freedom has only caused problems.

She cradles her wine in her unoccupied hand, unsure of her feelings.]

You barely know me, and I got you killed. Don't forget that. How can you miss someone you scarcely ever knew? I don't even know how to be your friend.

Because I liked talking to you, and not talking to you too. I liked how carefully you'd hold my carvings. I think that's enough, to me.

[ Because Siffrin is simple and likes people almost immediately. Because he likes to be around others, likes to make them smile, likes to help out even if he's going out of his way to do so because it's right--

of course, even if he scarcely knows Andrew, he missed her. ]

I wanna get to know you more, too. And we can teach each other to be friends.

... I'll never care about any of you as much as I do her.

[Just to be clear. Andrew doesn't actually know why she feels the need to admit it to Siffrin.

If things had been different, if she hadn't resolved to run through as many lung-crushing loops as she had to in order to reach the end of this ordeal, she might have killed if Herta was at risk of dying.

Darkly, she wonders if Herta would be jealous of how many people seem to care for her here, for some reason the way it sometimes pains her to see how other people make her laugh.]

But if my future was different...then maybe... [Could she learn to be surrounded by people, like Siffrin?]

... That's okay. I'm not asking you to.

[ But as long as Andrew cares a little, then Siffrin's happy. That's enough, for them.

Let them sit in silence. Just a pleasant vibe. Like in the observatory, their first night together. ]

[ Before something that's been nagging at them hits anyway and his head turns sharply to stare at Andrew.

......................... ]

Did you say poison?

[Huh?]

Several minutes ago, yes.

You've been waking up poisoned?

[ Hello??????????? ]

I took poison to accelerate the onset of my disease symptoms shortly before arriving here.

This was just a test run, but I didn't have access to the sedative I needed to take to counter it in the castle.

[ Wh...

... ]

To... speed them up? [ ... ] Were you trying to kill yourself?

To die sooner. [It's a distinction she's making, though she's also obviously making the choices that drive it. She is resolute.] To free myself and Herta from our respective cages.

To finally, perhaps... bring her happiness I was too cowardly to give her before.

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cw a little death ideationy just in case

mood queen

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death ideation. continued.

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1/2

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canon spoilers

canon spoilers + cw suicide mention

canon spoilers + cw suicide mention