For Sara. This is in the same universe as "Elephant Graveyard" and "Hellraiser."
/
acidKisses;
.
.
She's standing on glaciers, with nothing but a violet, starless sky to keep her company. The wind is merciless, scratching at her porcelain skin, kissing her lips until they're blue and tangling in her hair like a lover.
She closes her eyes and inhales, soaks it all in and feels at home.
She notices she wears nothing to cover her up as she sinks to her knees, her arms encircling her thin body, her soul demanding she becomes one with the ice.
It's soothing, she tells herself as she lies on her back, stares up at the sky with crystal blue eyes. The ice feels soothing against her skin and she smiles at the feeling.
She's never felt this way before and, oh, how she wishes she could stay here, like this, forever.
Her back arches and a guttural gasp rips out of her throat. Her eyes roll back, body convulsing as she begins to spit out water, coughing and hacking and clawing at the snow, demanding help.
Save me, she wants to scream but she suddenly doesn't even remember who me even is. She let's out a piercing scream just as the world grows black.
And suddenly she's sitting up and selfishly gasping and gulping all the air she can, her lungs aching as they expand as far as they can go. She looks around with wild owl eyes, stares at her mother staring back at her, at the butler, at the maids.
"Ami?"
She curls up and throws her arms around herself, blinking her blue hair out of her eyes, lips trembling.
This is death.
.
.
.
Ami doesn't leave her room in days, she doesn't touch her food and she doesn't take her medication. She curls up on her too big bed, staring out her window at the lighthouse by the sea.
And she craves to be away, to not be here, to simply stop existing and she doesn't remember when its suddenly got to this point. When did the lines blur and all the negative spilt over the positive until she's converted into a ticking bomb.
She closes her eyes and thinks about the way the water caresses her, the way the ice cold makes it feel like a thousand shards are prickling her skin at once, killing her instantly.
She's enamored with the feeling.
Sniffling, Ami reaches up and wipes the tears from her cheeks as the knocks begin at her door.
"Mizuno-san?"
She doesn't reply; they come in anyway.
"Ami?"
The door is slowly opened and one of the maids, her mother and an unidentified woman step into her room. Ami spares them a glance before she slowly turns back to stare at the sea outside her window, at the horizon where she continues to hope a ship will appear and her papa would return to her.
"Ami, this is nurse Beryl."
"I don't care," she drawls softly.
"Ami that's—"
"It's alright," the woman, Beryl, says and her voice is like a grater in Ami's ears. "It takes time."
Ami stares at her for a second—at her caramel colored skin, her fire-red hair and that glint in her eyes. If Ami weren't so sure she's drowned herself enough on the inside, she'd probably be scared.
But Ami isn't scared of anything anymore. Only herself.
.
.
.
"Why are you here?"
She stares at Beryl, watches the slow smile on her lips as she approaches her and sits at the edge of the bed. Ami feels her skin prickle and it's not the way the ice cold water does.
She curls into herself and tries to disappear. But it never works, and she hates it. She feels that familiar feeling in her chest, the usual clenching of her throat and the way her eyes water and burn. She can't even cry properly. Not with this woman here.
"To keep you from drowning, little pixie," Beryl replies as she leans back on her seat, her hands supporting her weight. "Though, by all means. Why don't you try it again? I promise I won't look this time."
Ami pulls her sheets closer to her chest, legs bent and pulled close. "You're awful."
"It's what you want, isn't it?" Beryl tilts her head. "Drown and follow after your precious daddy. How silly. The water isn't going to hurt you, you know."
"W-what do you mean?"
Beryl smiles all sharp teeth, "The water loves you."
.
.
.
Ami thinks about it for days.
The water loves her.
Water loves everyone, it's beneficial for the entire world. She knows this because she's studied and, oh, she's falling back on her researches but it's been months and she can't find it in her to care.
But the water loves her.
And Ami tries to decipher what it means. Nurse Beryl is probably insane and at the thought Ami smiles; how fitting. The insane treat the insane.
Still, she thinks about the water and how it could possibly love her.
She's in a trance when she stands up, too large sweater engulfing her small figure as she makes her way to her bathroom. She isn't allowed to bathe alone, not when she's tried to drown herself three times already. But Beryl is nowhere to be found and no one is watching her.
Ami exhales and sits on the edge of the tub, turning the water on and turning the knob so it goes to its coldest. She places her hand into the falling water and inhales, a smile on her thin lips.
They feel like kisses, dozens of them for each of her fingers, open mouthed on her palm.
"It missed you."
Ami gasps and looks over her shoulder, blue eyes wide, pixie hair in tangles. Beryl stands at the entrance of the bathroom, her arms crossed in front of her chest.
"Go on," she grins at her, "Kiss it back."
Ami stands from her seat and takes off her sweater. She feels alive as the water begins to fall over her, matting her hair to her head and pressing kisses to her lips.
.
.
.
Beryl doesn't do anything but roam her bedroom, bring out things she doesn't even remember she owns like an old string of pearls that her papa gave to hear just before his fatal trip to the seas.
Ami spends most of her time in her bathtub, staring at the way her skin wrinkles up when she lifts her hand out of the water, but smoothens out when she dips it back in.
One day, she looks up and stares as Beryl walks in, wearing the pearl necklace around her throat.
"I want to visit the sea," Ami whispers, sinking down and breathing the water in.
Beryl doesn't do a thing.
.
.
.
She stands at the shore, her too-big cardigan dancing with the violent breeze, pixie blue hair kissing her cheekbones and her eyes squinted as she stares at the horizon.
Ami feels her veins freeze under her skin, causes her flesh to rot into purple but she can't break her attention away of that which is not there. Yet she sees it, Ami does, sees the telltale shadows of a ship going away, disappearing before her very eyes and leaving nothing behind.
She feels something like rage consume the never-ending sadness that numbs her and with her wrath the waves of the sea begin to grow violent. They rise up in the sky and slap back down with vigor, they part and make room for her to pass through but Ami is rooted in place, her hands shaking, her fingers frozen and breaking as she tries to curl her small hands into fists.
She feels a hand around her throat and a serpent's hiss in her ear, "Yes, Mercurian pixie. Let it all out. Show the seas who rules them."
"Give him back to me," Ami whispers, tilting her head downwards and staring up at the violent, reproaching waves from under cobalt lashes. "Give him back to me… Give him back to me… Give him back to me… Give him back to me!"
Ami gasps for air as she feels something crawl up her throat, her back arching as she begins to choke. She stares long enough to watch the clearest of blue smog curl above her. In a second, she rolls her eyes back and crumbles to the ground.
The sea calms down.
.
.
.
"How exactly was she poisoned?"
"I have no idea Mizuno-san—"
"What was Ami doing outside to begin with—she isn't allowed to leave this house! She's not stable, she'll do anything to take her life away!"
"Mizuno-san, I was on my—"
"You were brought here to do a job, Beryl. You're not doing it!"
"…Forgive me."
Ami groans and allows the ice to sequester her once again.
.
.
.
Ami has a dream of a land covered in ice and a castle made of crystal and she finds herself standing in a bedroom watching a blizzard from a window without any glass. And she looks beautiful dressed in hues of blue, a gown that trailed her, a strap dangling from a bony shoulder, and a tiara adorning her pixie hair.
She looks regal and beautiful, wise and all knowing and simply unafraid of the bone-shattering cold that she seems to reign over.
Just as she begins to drift away in that familiar sensation of waking up, she watches this elegant version of herself turn her head, blue eyes clear and crystal-like, lips dark and contrasting against her pale, translucent skin. She stares off to somewhere Ami can't see but she sees the beautiful version of herself smile.
When she wakes up, she's drenched in water and half of her room is frozen.
On the ground, one of the maids laid dead.
.
.
.
"What is wrong with me?" she asks Beryl one evening. The sun is setting and the sky seems to be set on fire and Ami watches her reflection, the way her pale eyes seem to glow orange against the sunset.
Beryl comes to stand by her side, tucking strands of Ami's blue hair behind her ear and poking at the three piercings that adorn her ears. Ami stares at Beryl's long nails; they look like claws.
"What could you possibly mean?"
"My room is still being fixed from the flood and… and… Tsubomi-san died—"
"Accidents happen, little pixie."
"Why do you call me that? That day at the shore, you called me a Mercurian pixie. And… And… I've dreamt of a beautiful woman that looks like me, a land of ice around her and… What's happening, Beryl?"
She feels the tears that stream down her cheeks and, feeling angry and sad and confused, she hugs her knees tighter. Her entire world has fallen around her since her papa died and no one listens to her desire to disappear.
"I just… Want the world to forget me," she whispers. "Instead, I'm growing crazy."
Before Beryl can even try to soothe her, if soothing is what the redheaded woman is attempting to do, Ami feels her blood freeze at the sight of the woman that stands on top of the railing of her balcony.
She has violet hair and fire pits for eyes and her lips are marred the most brilliant of red. She looks like the bringer of hell but Ami forgets everything as soon as the woman drops the body on the balcony.
His skin is coral-like, different kind of sea urchins and critters stuck and becoming one with his flesh.
Yet she recognizes him.
Her papa.
She looks at the violet-haired woman with a horror-struck expression, mouth open wide. The woman merely laughs before she disappears and all Ami can do is scream.
.
.
.
One day, Ami yawns and a fog protrudes from her opened mouth. It kills the plants around her and makes her sleep for the rest of the day.
.
.
.
"You should just let go, little pixie," Beryl strokes her hair and Ami tries to keep herself awake. "Let it consume you. Ice and water and poison—they're all part of you. Sweet child, you're only making it harder on yourself, killing everyone around you."
Ami's eyes snap open and she stares at the midnight blue sky littered with stars, all as dead as she wishes to be. The incident with the violet-haired woman is one that her mother refuses to speak of, throwing her papa—what her mother considers a sick joke—out and sent away in a garbage truck.
It all makes Ami sick and she's feeling like she's holding onto the very last of her sanity, feeling that bubbling feeling in her chest grow so strong, like high tide, ready to sweep her away, wash everything that defines her and leave nothing but a mossy vessel for it to do what it wants with her.
"You'll end up killing yourself before you can ever become Merc—"
Ami slaps a hand onto Beryl's caramel forearm, wraps the small fingers around the limb and digs her nails in.
There's a crackle and when she looks down, Beryl's forearm is frozen.
.
.
.
That night, Ami stands at the shore, naked as a jaybird, the wind picking up speed and force, the sea growing angrier and angrier.
She cracks her lips into a broken smirk, her eyes rolling back as she lifts her head up, her legs blindingly leading her into the ice cold sea.
It freezes her skin in the most pleasant way and Ami inhales sharply and continues to inhale and inhale as she walks, the sea splitting in half and granting her access.
She exhales and the sea clashes, swallowing her whole and not leaving a single trace of Mizuno Ami.
The sea calms and the wind dies down.
And suddenly there is a storm, the waves crashing against the shore, rising up five feet up into the sky, crashing down and letting the world shake at its force. A form lifts from the water with a piercing shriek.
She puckers her blue lips and blows a kiss and the lands behind her die, her home crashing to the ground, bringing everyone within it down with it. When she snaps her eyes open they are the clearest of blue.
As a ship-killer storm takes place around her, she smiles.