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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.
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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.
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[ 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.
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[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?]
1/2
[ 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. ]
2/2
......................... ]
Did you say poison?
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Several minutes ago, yes.
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[ Hello??????????? ]
canon spoilers
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.
canon spoilers + cw suicide mention
... ]
To... speed them up? [ ... ] Were you trying to kill yourself?
canon spoilers + cw suicide mention
To finally, perhaps... bring her happiness I was too cowardly to give her before.
canon spoilers + cw suicide mention
... Still, he doesn't like it on someone else. Hypocritical. ]
Your death is her happiness? Her freedom?
[ That doesn't sound right, but--
(You don't know anything about her, after all. She said so herself.) ]
I... want to understand you. So... I'd like to hear, about Herta. That's part of friendship.
BIGGUM canon spoilers + cw suicide mention/enslavement
She's aware that knife of friendship is being pointed at her for answers, but what is there to hide about a death that's already happened? It doesn't even matter now, but there are things she still wants to keep all to herself - the things she kept from G'raha and Sabo and all the others. Herta's blue eyes like a frozen lake. Her laugh and smile. The way she would bring her gifted pieces of cake to her mother to share even though she was also going hungry. How much smarter than Andrew she is.]
The Sanrit people are afforded no rights in my country, and many are forced to serve powerful families. There's a nearby country that accepts their refugees, but it's dangerous to get there. Her father serves mine as his doctor, and her mother is in a workhouse where Father could have her killed any day. Herta is safe with me at school, for now, now that that repulsive Headmistress is out of the picture.
If any of them ran individually, Father would hunt them to the ends of the earth and punish them all. They have to go together under a suitable distraction. If Father is distracted -- for example, by a humiliating disaster on my wedding day...
[Then Siffrin should be able to fill in those blanks.]
I doubt I've ever really been living. [She did take to her death here in the garden quite quickly, he'll recall.] I might have wanted to, to see her one more time, but...
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... I only started living after meeting my family members. [ Every time it's said with that term in particular, and it's from this sentence she might get the idea of chosen, rather than born into. ] I was kind of drifting before.
[ Not grounded anywhere, by anything. It isn't the same as Andrew's -- her is a lack of life, a languish rather than a matter of survival or aimlessness -- but Siffrin shares it regardless. ]
... I think she would've been thankful for your help. There's nothing wrong with sacrificing yourself for the ones you love. Care for, if that's too much.
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[She says it so instantly, even though it, like any other feeling, is one that she's only distantly familiar with. Having never been the recipient of it herself, Andrew knows that what she feels as love might not be what other people experience, and yet she cannot conceive of it in any other way.]
I...simply hope that she remembers what I did for her as love. I asked that she return my love in exchange for helping her see her mother. [Herta doesn't even know the plan; she's kept her in the dark for her safety, so her heart doesn't hurt.] ...I suppose it was childish of me.
G'raha and I have arranged for him to help her if I can't go back. It doesn't matter now.
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At the mention of G'raha they pause, trying not to smile (of course he'd help, he's so kind, so thoughtful, so good) and fails. ]
Childish or not, I get it. I don't think your own feelings will have any trouble getting across. But... you can't force someone to like you if they don't already, even by favor.
[ (Unless you're using timeloops to get the responses just right, anyway.) ]
... So, um. How is Raha? Since you talked to him recently. More recently.
[ Cool... and... casual........ ]
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Tired, I think. And I'm sure he grows more frustrated by this grisly play by the day. He misses you, at least. He said he'd think of you for quite a long time. [Aren't you lucky, Siffrin. There is a ball of jealousy in her chest that she doesn't let turn molten this time.]
I'm not good at minding the emotions of other people. I can barely manage my own. But he isn't alone there.
[And she knows G'raha minds her like a child, which means that G'raha certainly witholds things from her. In her selfishness, they do not often speak of him, as the topic always somehow drifts to her. It's how he protects himself, and she's bad at asking after others. She isn't a child and doesn't like to be seen as one, but there's a part of her that craves the childhood care she never received, too.]
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Siffrin flushes, unsure of-- why, what they'd done to deserve that, and takes a sip of their wine. Ahem. Mm. ]
Okay. Thanks. I'm glad to hear that -- that he's just... tired and frustrated, that he isn't alone. [ Skipping over the rest. ] I'm sure they all feel that way.
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[Well, even at her most tender of times, she can be a bit pointed. They might be holding hands, but verbally, Andrew is here to throw one or two. (Not really; it isn't nearly so aggressive, the way she says it. There's even a little curve to her smile.)
Her hand curls in there's. It's a squeeze but also a tensing.]
Isn't it nice to be thought of by someone?
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(And yet you don't let go.) ]
... Mmhmm.
[ Ah, they can't help it. Can't help the warmth that curls in their chest, that flushes their face, that causes the smile on their face to be filled with fondness as small as it always is. Siffrin squeezes her hand gently, carefully setting aside his drink to lean back on his free hand, staring up at the sky.
Always wanting to catch a glimpse, just one, of that familiar, beautiful shade. ]
He's someone... that I can't fall asleep next to. I miss him too.
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But the comfort of someone whose presence could carry you softly into sleep speaks to her heart so much more. Andrew longs to be a fragment of someone else's dreams - all the fragments.]
I think that making someone's heart beat warmly is the strongest sign someone can have of being alive. If you can't do that, aren't you just a worthless ghost? [So even Siffrin, in a way, still lives, even in the strength of love that can be had for a memory.]
Does that make me a murderer, I wonder... [She muses it while staring at their face in profile instead of at the sky. But then she turns her attention to the side.] Your feelings are strong for such a short amount of time.
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... I've liked him since... he came to see me, that Monday.
[ After the timeloop reveal, the exhaustive talk. Siffrin plucks at the grass, half-buried in the snow. Even if they'd lashed out, he hadn't... left, he'd stayed and talked things out with them. Wanted to understand, wanted to hear, and it was so--
He exhales softly, wistfully. ]
Um. I do... kind of like people pretty easily, just as far as making friends go... but he kept reaching out, and... we got along well. That night, before Shiv died, we talked until it was lights' out. You know, the magic one.
[ The forced one. ]
It just sort of... collapsed. In on itself. When he came to visit me in the mirror hall.
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He's annoyingly good at getting you to talk about yourself.
[She craves that understanding and thoughtfulness, so she leans into it every time, baited even as she's aware of it. It drives her insane. She hates it. She knows relatively little of G'raha's life, partially due to her own selfishness. It'll happen again the next time they talk. What a pain.]
The separation must be difficult. Who do you usually talk to now?
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... I mostly keep to myself, but... Tia and Shiv, I guess.
[ Just the girls....... ]
I've a lot about them both. And love. It sounds pretty difficult.
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She can't help but laugh.]
Hah. It is. And yet... there is something so simple about it, all the same.
[At the very bottom of it all, love is singular, and to Andrew, that makes it simple. It's everything else that's complicated because love spills out into everything.]
We really only spoke like this once before. We both keep to ourselves like that. [The other times had been a little more guarded, a little more circling. She'd told them not to make her gifts.]
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... Yeah. You remind me of Odile, because of that. Neither of us have really... talked, the way Mira and Isa get along -- they're open books -- but we understand each other anyway. Because we're both outsiders.
[ And to him, Andrew is something of that. The last time they spoke like this... they held hands, too. Maybe that's the key. ]
It doesn't bother me. I told you, didn't I? That I liked not-talking with you, too.
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