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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
Okay. [ ... ] How's your tongue?
[ Since it got. You Know. ]
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Intact. You can see what the living are up to, from here?
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[ The whole spectacule of it all. ]
We could see your meeting this time, too.
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So you're all caught up to speed then. Convenient.
[ He looks around, taking in the scenery... It's spooky, but it's still an improvement from the arctic. ]
What have you been getting up to here? Wherever we are.
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[ ... ... ...
Are they being serious? (Yes.) ]
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[ GARDENING IS BORING. ]
cw suicide mention
[ Sue him, gosh. ]
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Did you ask to be executed in such a manner to goad Ish into vulnerability? Clever of you, I must admit.
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When I said I wanted no one else involved... I meant it. The other me was a surprise, since I let him hammer out specifics -- part of the deal -- but I thought... after Hwy, that if it was the same... then I could drag whatever out long enough for him to get bored.
[ Heheh. Siffrin seems to puff a little in pride. ]
... And decided that, if he got close enough... I would see what happened. Since no one would've been able to otherwise.
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You're more conniving that anyone gave you credit for.
[ He says it as a compliment. ]
If you had killed him, however... What do you expect that might've done to us trapped in his world? The palace started to shake around us after you landed your blow. You might've killed the whole lot of us.
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Manipulation.)
... Siffrin shrugs. ]
Maybe you'd all fall back home.
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In other words, you had no idea. Maybe. Sounds to me as if you hadn't thought on it much. Your eye was fixed on... what, then? Revenge?
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Part of me thought... that it was probably like how my resets work, where if I die I come back. If it didn't, then maybe you'd all be free somehow. If it did, then it proved that The Witch wasn't untouchable.
[ A bid of hope, in a way. To lighten the moods of the people who'd doomed his fate.
(You remember the first time you defeated The King.
It hadn't mattered in the end, but it was proof that you could. And you would, again and again and again.) ]
I didn't know what was gonna happen. Didn't really think about the bad consequences. I just... wanted to help.