She had dreamed some days that she had roamed someplace pink and smelling of sugar, and on the dusk of these hazing journeys she would awaken with a nose risen to pastels that danced lazily into darkness. Gray was so common here in the roaring of fluorescents, and the stillness curated great sheaves of violence with each raking shuffle on cement – perhaps, she wondered, as encouragement towards inaction, or perhaps to making effort not to travel with the gait of a corpse.
There was no memory of restfulness here, not amongst cocoons of crumpled cloth or in the chilly blackness of above, and mental rhetoric had overly often been witnessed in melodrama that echoed too shrilly of adolescence.
Well – she was an adolescent, went the trial, or they all were, though the very concept seemed distant. She did not particularly enjoy the feeling of dreams being lost to the wastes. Every doorknob was cold there, and the metal walls gave disgruntled groans with each graze of the fingertip or cane. Tired and old. All things tired and old.
She hated tired things. Old ones, too.
Her lusus had been old, though. Must have been tired, too, until that day of rude awakening. But that was so long ago, and so was smelling summer, and in a rush to sequester a rising angst she decided to not think so much. Thought roused so slowly and abstract in those metal walls that it seemed precarious to approach, each memory proving ambiguously geyserite. Every cycle, now, threatened to become avoidant of or wrought with these perhaps-dormant volcanoes. Still often came the disgrace of being forced to witness others on the ship writhe in their own sore baths of lava. With this would come tears and lashing-outs at any prey close or far enough to resent, and the construction of drama putrid from any distance.
But there were less of them now, and too few stragglers to expend effort on deserting. Really, she knew, old practices of evolution had ensconced them in their confidence. She had tasted grimed pages of the natural order, licorice letters tough with knowledge: A group of a species is free in its wild until exposed to the world unwarned, and then go the strongest or cleverest towards the test of survival. Those not remaining are victims of pampering or ill fortune, more prone to or less deserving of the test.
It seemed, contextually, that volcanoes and hormones had been much to blame for the dwindling of population within those walls. Yet she had tasted that book and wondered herself wizened. Did this make her stronger than they, then? The metal protested against her cane, she halted. Was she more clever than the lost? There had been braveries and punishments, but these are not features of logic. Those closest to kin with her, yes, had perhaps made missteps. The princess had been defected, her liege roiled by rejection and puberty – the servant-monger knelt too far beneath them to stand, and then – well, a coin was flipped, and what book could foretell its answer – and the warm blood that the coin had claimed was spilled, and then – oh – and then –
In a moment of great profoundness, she realized that she held no intention of destination. The air lent tastes of stale emptiness to her palate, walls muttering once more. She had thought that she had remembered something. Pink, maybe, or maybe grass and – vanilla?
The wisp was gone untraceably, and she scratched her nose in silence. Maybe she would go lie down. Pondering at a daze, she thought she would go lie down.
Shoes etched new course into the grayness, and a cane delivered her unto shrinking clothes that still smelled like summer when she was tired.
She was walking with sugar in her shoes and golden light on her tongue. This had been it, yes, that realm of something – an awakening bombardment of sweet, easy hues drifting like sheet music down. Now she recalled the risen plateaus and ziggurats that had wafted to her before in peculiar serenity, surfaces dusting palms with flakes of snowy grit.
One hill called to her now, granting traction to her feet with reluctance, and cooled her touch on its feature. Porcelain had a scent not unlike vanilla, the robust pot trying a sea of harsh sweetness. She sneezed.
"Hello?"
Something pink turned her, and in the rush of sudden euphoria she slid unceremoniously down the hill. Perhaps sensing trepidation, her cane formed in hand to steady her. The light set world awash in honey.
"Your land smells like I am being punched."
"You always say that."
Pops of buzzing laughter burst before her, memory dragged awake by sprays of salmon. They began to walk.
"Is anybody else here?" she asked, sniffing.
"Purr-obably." She liked to use that one, and speaking it seemed to have reminded her of something. The pattering of her footsteps halted. "A.C. wonders what brings G.C. back to her den so soon."
"Soon?" Somewhere, a groan was buried. The roleplaying gimmick took some time to solidify through the ears. "Was – uh, G.C. asks when she was here last?"
"You don't remem-purr?" A pause, then a frenzied huff. "I mean – A.C. crinkles her nose and asks –"
"No."
A dismally indigo yowl sounded, stomps peppering grains upon its witness' wilting form. "You played last time!" the pink voice cried, placing a sudden and firm hand upon speckled shirtsleeve. "I'll show you if you don't believe me."
The matter did not appear pressing enough to form faith towards, but the guidance of a calloused hand was hardly dismissible. Her cane floundered lazily at her other hip, scraping against white sands with a sound like rain. It seemed right to have been baffled by existence then, clumsy wandering by the grip of saccharinity – for had she not been somewhere lousy with gray just before, and listless with wakefulness? Here was a pocket of odd color, whipped in dollops so alien from the stale and burdensome tin that insomnia wrought.
"You had better not be leading me to my doom," she strained to level her body.
The snickers came golden. "A.C. suggests that G.C. should think more paw-sitively!" The terrain grew steep. "If A.C. wanted to kill G.C., she would have pounced on her while she sneezed."
The threat enigma. She lifted her head. How long had it been since she'd last tasted this sky's broad honey? The scene felt nigh familiar, with face upturned above bruising arm and logged sneakers. She may have dared to think that it had happened all before, and yet – well, nothing yet. There was no strict recollection to be held, the colors slipping from her to compound in some porridge of abstraction. A vague uncertainty settled in her, like sugardust on shoulders.
With this drifting blanket of wonderment there came a widening crop of grapevines before her, seizing and burrowing in unguarded nostrils. What sudden sour! The golden light was dimmer here, and ground more forgiving. Her nose tingled.
"Here!" She was at once granted freedom of her arm, the veins of which surged in imitation of the nose. Shaking the limb in telling, she traced the scent of grass that had been imprinted upon it.
"A.C. welcomes G.C. to her den!" A pause. "Again."
The visitor sneezed widely and without grace. Air was no duller here, still wafting with offensive sweetness.
"Aren't dens supposed to be inside?" She rubbed her nose against her free hand, grinding sugar at the cane-tip of the other. Around her was a vibrancy that threatened to tilt to cavity.
"A.C. thinks G.C. sounds like a scaredy-cat," floated the muffled pinkness.
"Well –" seizing the sugar rush "– G.C. takes offense to such outrageous accusations," palms met a smooth and shortbread surface as light dimmed to caramel, "and she may just decide to burn down this forest as retribution."
A prolonged cry of protest directed her forward with taffy shrill. Adventures in Candyland, or a hike into mania? Her sinuses would be clear upon wakening, she was certain.
Soon the biscuit towers at her hands grew sparse, and the scent of grapes once more translated green light. Something rustled nearby; clumsy humming dashed strawberry in the haze.
"Why is the river green?" She knelt beside the grapevine, palm hovering above babbling. It murmured in ripe disposition, yet taste had before betrayed colorful expectations – perhaps it was acidic. From the letters she had tasted she knew of certain plants which drew their hungry prey by candied scents – clever plants. She had traveled other lands, ones formed of tricks and traps in this way, and did the grassy girl nearby not paint with blood upon her walls?
Lacking response from the hunter, she drew an imprecise coating of the liquid on what was determined to be her least vital finger. A sudden chatter of dishes had a way of encouragement in its voice, and, with quantity of unmutilated hand-matter found to be satisfactory, the sample was delivered to perception.
"Oh –" Poison? "Weird!"
Cheered by a smattering of claps and yowls, she rolled until seated towards her audience. She had never heard a hunter so jovial towards its prey. This may have seemed apt to be mentioned, yet a stone of pondering sunk in her and nudged to surface old tomes' licorice. The humming carried on again, lilting in squeaky prisms as she settled the china. She spat the taste to sugar.
"A.C. reminds G.C. that she eats chalk." Something was dunked in the river.
She reclined, pressing her elbow into grit. "You do?"
Forewarned and welcomed, another frenzied call denied the accusation with pink severity. It seemed right to smile then, yet the ambiguous water had left a coat, and she rather teethed her cheek to survey it. Weird, yet – familiar, and strange in this nature. She had been here before, of this she knew, waggling slobber from her hand and lounging in sugarcubes. Her grassy companion arranged vanilla porcelain between them, and she thought again of strength or cleverness.
"A.C. admits that she didn't expect the mighty dragon to return so soon!" Two cups filled. "Thank-fur-ry there's always plenty of tea for both of us."
A brow rose above an experimental sniff.
"I mean – both of them."
A snicker soothed the silence, and for a time they idled wordlessly in the warm breeze. She was not greatly disposed to tea, especially those flavors masked by leafy hues, but the chalice's brim was painted in creamy white, and she savored this carefully. The observer may have suggested something about drinking what's inside of the cup; it went undigested.
It was curious to sense repetition in each subtlety, but more so to do this unperturbed. She wondered when she would wake, and which colors she would forget.
"How long has it been?" She tapped the lip of the cup against her teeth. "Since I was last here, I mean."
Her reflection sipped messily, perhaps in thought. "It's very easy to lose track of time here." A dish tinkled with contact. "How long has it been fur you?"
She had been hoping to receive the answer to this question instead of it, and now she begrudged the sky's stagnant honey with a groan. Grayness and titanium were recalled only in twinges of scent too faint to stomach. She brought a palm to her chin and breathed.
"I guess this is going to be one of those dreams."
Movement rustled, shifting sugar in its wake. She started towards it. "We'll make it one!" cried the guide abruptly, and married a torrent of sharp clapping with cheerful yelps.
Again the guest found her body subjected to a gruelingly sure grip, this time at her shoulder. Considering the course of change, she philosophized that the hands would next guide her by the throat.
At the conclusion of an interlude involving wobbling awkwardly to feet and brushing pursuing grains from clothes, the two once more moved unevenly through the glen. She had no reliance on the compass at her shoulder, and yet she did not shake her away – perhaps still weary of clever plants, or the more lasting threat of wounding any humble feelings. They trekked past a great banquet of scents, milling over jaden streams and powdered dunes, which drew a terrific bout of sneezes from the visitor. Not at any time did the pathfinder of this realm release her ward, causing at certain intersections a clumsy knocking of elbows – though the grip neither forced her direction nor left her in aimlessness.
Above the cusp of another slope rose new aromas. Her nostrils flared at instinct, cane depressing sugar in sudden pause. Again that dusting of reservation weighed her. There was an acquaintance atop the hill, starkly perceivable in its fermentation – she turned quizzically to her company, who pealed excitedly.
In her puzzlement she was released, then to be tugged by the elbow in spurts of movement. The coaxer babbled something of last-times, unstifled by the perplexed faltering of the one beside, and edged forth to king the mound.
The familiar was unarguable from here, at once humbling her with a wash of – yes! – scarlet tang. Her legs found anchor in finer cubes, tongue delighted behind toothy exhibition.
"Applescab!" The call came automatic, nigh summoning. The precious red had overcome, and she now sought her subject's body with guide in tow. At the level of her collar she felt its form before her, and with the touch of sullied plush an old reverie did visit.
It was memory, stuffing leaked from trialed seams. She could not remember which crime had earned him the rope that now groaned taut at her suggestion, though she was sure it was not his first mortal sentence. With a whiff of biscuits trees appeared, and she turned with measured vigor to what grass accompanied it.
"I told you we played be-fur," the green spoke, vibrant with pride.
She supposed this would explain the appearance of the persecuted doll, then pondered at the consistency of dreams. Briefly she considered abandoning the pursuit of analysis.
"You and me, or A.C. and G.C.?"
A guffaw responded wordlessly, then fell to pause. Perhaps it looked like sacrilege. Fluidly she reclaimed her cane from the sugar where it had slipped in her haste, and, returning it to her belt, scrutinized the canopy for other mates of the gallows. "What did we do?"
Without warning a cacophony of scratching jittered near her; she followed its course to the ascent of a tree. If she had not known to name it, she may have mistaken the green mass there for an unnaturally leafy branch. (She imagined that she'd go unastonished upon it speaking to her, the clever beasts.)
"What would you like to do?" The mass seemed to be hanging by the nape of her knees on the bough, swinging assuredly. Its leaves bloomed with pink flowers.
She considered this, tilting again to sniff treeward. There was an unsettled sense of knowingness with the wind, carried in wisps from – from which direction? Unthinkingly she yanked the rope, catching red cloth in a swing towards her back. It seemed a danger to leave it hanged there, sponge of its hide worn by unclear tribulations. The rope of its demise found home around her wrist. With this she rose her cane, and touched its tip gently to the face upturned before her.
The gesture must have implied trajectory, and the graced flipped loudly about, clinging to the branch for few snickering moments. Upon landing they were off again, with strange new vigor in the toy bobbing at their shins.
"A.C. paw-nders the meaning of Petty Of-fur-cer Applescab's early freedom," sang the one less encumbered by the doll's thrashing. They maneuvered over a fallen tree. "Could this pur-haps be the start of a new scandal?"
The voice spoke with life, its owner teetering in breathless wonder. Some twinge to it set its listener's head abuzz, again drawing pointed smile to light.
"The Officer has indeed been released from death's clutches," her voice responded as if by habit, "but does the Legiscalerator responsible have his salvation in mind?"
Her co-narrator gasped, a great inhalation that spurred exaggerated hacking. Another stream passed, and the threatened toy caught a soaked tail as its owner crinkled her nose. The mulch of sugarcubes crunched underfoot.
"While the great and lawful dragon gives others no chance," still her chest rumbled with unguided words, her brow knitting gradually, "she believes the Officer may have been wrongly accused."
"A.C. gasps really loud from the crowd in the courtroom," excitement made her swift, sugar crackling rapidly. "She wonders what unexpected events could have paws-sibly caused this shocking revelation!"
She thought of her words, and they remained clear. Yes, assuredly, this must have happened before – or else the story would be loose, and she would not be retelling it. Yet in pulses of thought she knew this to be untrue: there was a lightness in her limbs, a peculiar certainty of uncharted course.
"G.C. does not form suspicions without evidence," Her cane traced paths beside. "And in fact, she believes that a member of the jury may know the truth."
This development excited her listener, who huffed in rapid thought. "A.C. looks at the jury in total shock, sort of nervous!"
"No, I –" She paused, and coughed. "It's you. You're on the jury."
Hesitation hung.
"Oh."
Again.
"Oh!"
Once more a hefty gasp blew, answered by the stifling of a sigh.
"You see, G.C. sends many criminals to the gallows." She pressed her palm to biscuit bark. "So many, in fact, that she sometimes loses track of them all."
Her new defendant gave a cry projecting awed fear, breathing vowels in act.
"One such forgotten schmuck was this delicious fellow right here," she gripped the rope to waggle its charge, "who G.C. once assumed she had rightfully executed some time ago."
She had found no room for estimation on the subject. Her companion trotted in quiet attentiveness, weaving through trees; when the occasional abnormally large cube of sugar approached she made vantage to hop upon it.
"But instead of hanging dead in the gallows with the usual scum, the Officer's twitching form was found in a most unexpected place." Tasting the air to gauge the space around her, she made a calculated swivel on her foot. "The home of none other than juror A.C.!"
Perhaps too audibly came the stunned response, a belated gasp that set loose an unacknowledged echo. "No!" The accused stomped in place (a reaction, the witness recalled from texts, not dissimilar to many famously sentenced troll criminals) and waved in green defiance. "Juror A.C. testifies no!"
"You –" The accusatorily pointed cane limped, now targeting the defendant's boots. "You can't do that."
"Well," she rushed to absolve, "I mean purr-or A.C. has her own evidence."
The cane was brought back to sugar, hands poised atop its cherry head. "Very well," she drawled, and quite suddenly felt awake. "The prosecution agrees to hear the defendant!"
"De-fur-ndant?"
"Fine."
What glee brought by this was expended in a giddy laugh, which then turned to a stony clearing of the throat. She smelled the green straighten, still from her own place, and breathed whisks of color in a passing wind. The forest, ever placid, listened for testimony.
"Well," it began, "fur starters, Mr. Applescab is far too cute to hunt."
The accuser chuffed. "You slaughter adorable creatures by the hundreds."
"Yes, but –" Again feet pattered in place. "But he's cuter when he's alive!"
Empty eyes rolled, elbow pressing weight into cane's hilt. "Care to share any more convictions?"
Wind rustled grass to hum thoughtfully. The trial-bearer's head shook from behind a palm.
"Oh, yes!" Cried pink suddenly, jolting the questioner to attentiveness. "That's right. You hanged poor Mr. Applescab there a long time ago!"
Rush. The words impacted earth, felling breeze to silence.
Breath. Sickness wrought knuckles, pressing balmy palms to cane's head.
"What?"
"I'm sorry," came hasty bumbling, "I mean G.C. did."
"No, I –" No words arrived to be spoken, and she lowered her head in strain. No, that was certain.
Gone was the feeling of vibrancy. There was a quarrel beneath her, somewhere by stones under water, and as she felt the notion a bubbling set her gut empty. New fabric cloaked her fingers, a smooth discomfort wrapping her. She remembered. There was red and rubber, curved atop shades too similar to bruises – she had worn this once with duty, or some thought of its existence, though she could not remember what either of these things had meant. The bulk pooled around her shoulders. This was truth.
Of course it would happen, she now recalled, and of course she would not sense it. No prediction graced her here, senses boiled to the foggy daylight of present.
This was certainty. She bowed.
"Okay. Go on."
There was an uncertain pause, quizzing eyes sensed upon her. She remained still.
When the flowers spoke, they were in pastels.
"He's been here for a while," they drifted. "I don't know what his crime was."
Quiet.
That's it, then.
Decisively she broke her pose, perhaps fervently drawing the rope at her collarbone. The doll swung high and towards her waiting hand, and, though repelled by the slippery red of her glove, was gripped with dedication by its tail.
She pressed her voice to the open air, and as it rang tremulous her bones shook brittle.
"Officer Applescab will be criminally tried once more in response to new evidence." Voice snapped. The material squeaked with movement, atrociously remindful. "We will decide for certain if he deserves execution."
This was met with claps and soft cheers, their keeper swinging again into movement. She skipped along, yet the traveler in gummy robes remained motionless, weighed by a sickly withholding. There was an evolved reluctance in her now, not born but revived, a resistance to proceed in the other's direction. Maybe the clothes were too heavy, or she was newly tired; maybe she was wrong to have arrived in this place of foul syrup at all. She was tired, she now remembered, she was very tired.
Yet in lullaby alarm the flowers called to her, and the sky kept sweet. A brook murmured somewhere, faintly perceivable, trumping of features ahead. The doll remained in hand.
Instinctually she breathed in, throat awash in bright flavors. The role of her kind was to assess and judge.
Like anchors she lifted boots beneath her, and turned towards rustling leaves. Breath.
The red of the prosecuted limped at her side, held at bay as if of uncertain toxicity.
When she found her guide again she was amidst a narrative, clamoring ahead on rocks of sugar as if unaware of her pupil's absence. It was jovial banter that she wove, or perhaps spewed drivel, though the thought of the latter made skin prickle under latex. It did not seem right to be there then, and indeed many things did not seem right, sporting such stark colors against candied landscape.
The threads were not yarn, but woven leather, biting at collarbone and kneecaps at each movement. It was pain to sport it, but an evolved pain, ready and known. Her teeth clenched lips and comment.
The braver voice had grown in volume, and at its peak she found herself halting abruptly. A clearing had approached them, and now the toy at her arm swung helplessly, pendulum slowing.
All footsteps had paused now, one head drawn upwards by the point of her nose. Recollection willed to teeter.
Ah. An icy trace – tart and blue, strips of dusted candy – shrugged in breezes above, shivering icicles of sour taste. This was the blue meant to compliment her gloves, now suspending cane in hesitative ascent beside her. Its twin clutched the doll with quick firmness.
The shade of the odor was certain, and yet she inhaled in pursuance. Had she the memory? Without time her legs carried her nearer, touch seeking buttery bark. Some dangled above, lilting in air like flags. She found her soles testing the tree, cane tossed at unseen roots beneath and red suspect still clinging behind. With some trouble she found hold on the branch, awareness of bemused eyes dismissed by precedence, and – yes – found the knot that she had smelled.
Leather threatened to betray her unsteady balance on the branch, and with hold on the newfound rope she shifted her knees to sit. It was clear and confusing. She had wrung the rope close, and, as suspected, been granted no anchor at its end. Keen unsettledness powdered like flakes within her, twisting innards.
Crackling shocks of pink suddenly jolted her, and she wobbled precariously in her position. The voice had been silent, presence muffled by scenario, but now it boomed with rising echo.
"Dragons must not climb trees fur-y often," it purred now, after a quick scrambling. She faced it perplexedly with a sniff, neck crooked towards the trunk.
"That is because they can fly above them," she grunted with half-effort through the uncertain cloud about her. "Why are the ropes empty?"
A significant pause set towards growth. Leaves whispered in place of response. She leaned to be sure of the placement of the questioned, who seemed to be swinging once more by the knees of a branch. Their pink voice began to hum clumsily.
The one opposite the trunk turned with hesitation to the nigh-noose in her glove. It was wound in turquoise cord, the weight familiar against red rubber – yet it offered no reason at either of its ends, nor clues within twine. A panicked heat was spreading through limbs like syrup.
"I told you we played be-fur."
So she had. The accused doll bobbed at her spine, remindful, as the forgetting knit her brow. She sniffed at the rope's kinked end, and it returned with murky reflections – maybe, she thought, of purples, or of indigo in fading.
With some consideration she trusted the rope with her weight, landing in cubes and wavering confusion. She travelled to the other's branch, cane returning to hand from beneath the two.
"I am beginning to think of your naïve tendencies," she declared creakingly, "as infuriating political tactics."
"In-furry-ating! Politi-claw-l!" The guilty tumbled down, landing in a puff of sweet dust. "You're the one who's in charge here."
"But –" She had held a thought, but new contentions buried it. The heat became rash. "Why?"
Only a sigh answered. "I think a Legiscalerator would know more than some silly kitten like me." Steps churned cubes.
A heat had been rising since the tug of that rope, and now it twinged her chest with bristling flame. Once more the banter had batted her down, and once more she floundered away from reveal. She could not remember, not any reason at all – nothing but a sulfurous wave of that oppressive taste and odor, at once so tyrannical as to bring swift tears to her rotten eyes.
Ah, the walls! What had happened? Where had she gone? A bursting pocket brought hands to brow, balled and pounding, and launched a strangled cry from her throat. Colors cobbled in a nauseating mask. It had to make sense, somewhere within it, perhaps in subconscious or extension – somewhere, surely, there was some light that could be explained by way of science, pigments reflecting on prisms sprouting on taste buds, surely somewhere.
Those fabrics squealed. It was eruption. She could not judge it, nor assess its shadows. Gloves wheezed over undersized hands, pressed against her scarred face. Grey and dark and scraping metal. The heat had grown furious, and its lashes punitive. There was nothing right then, not sugar nor shade nor small bones under uniform, and a fear eased about her that this frenzy may trigger awakeness – yet there was too much that had yet to be solved, and too few instructions – surely this plot could not be severed now, surely too much had been drawn to be broken?
It seemed she could breathe fire, or wouldn't she? It was revolt. Again her fists knocked her temple, and then only one found contact. From the pool of swirling sensation she realized it, though it at first went translucent against screaming sugars and honey. A streak of new feeling dashed a line through the chaos – she regarded it at length, at distance.
Color, vile color, screaming color, disturbed by this wound, shuddered with reflexion. Through muddied paints the many soldiers in the fusion began to wobble. Her eyes blinked rough against lids.
Those soldiers crawled towards their rightful stations. It was gifted salvation, perhaps mechanic, and at once she gained the realization that she did not wish to become consumed by mystery.
She found the thread. Her hand discovered grass at its head, callouses and distant warmth through heated rubber. She had not gone anyplace in form, stranded in sugarcubes with her charge complacent behind, and colors had, upon further inspection, been similarly placid. Still, she thought – no – patiently perception realigned itself. She sighed cyan.
A breathing, expelling steam.
"I hate not knowing." The voice that spoke came in disturbing grumbles, one that reset her resistance towards tiredness. It had sizzled final, terminal. She lifted her head, reminded of a hatred.
"But you do know," the grass rustled, bright. Her hand was held with strange tenderness, breakable or – delicate. Disgust had disturbed adhesion with the rearing of its head, and now she thought the touch at her wrist to be questioning, as if awaiting to be dismissed.
This was repulsive. The steam huffed, expired. Before a rush had taken hold with panicked frustration, whipping all into singular fervor. Now, grumbling, rubber squeaking, bent at the waist with remnants of hindrance – now it swallowed what it had spat, now one was all, a fire in the alley before her. How sudden the temperatures came! But it was not the soft hills that churned now, nor golden lack of solving – one empty fist clutched again, and body drew defensively – it was not red playmate or green guide, not the rivers or buttery trees – good god, how latex stuck to skin like oil – it was not this, it was not anything – nothing, nothing wrong at all but her!
Ah, the fact! A gate had been toppled, and debris clattered in her skull like shame. Now she felt a yearning blue fill her, juice in a pitcher – a ray breached leaves, or some other cover, to wash her cheeks in tingling warmth. Of course the mirror showed the perpetrator, that villainous thief of memory – of course the tastes soured with age, brittle in the bark – of course she held true to the suit, rubber chafing upon shoulders! Oh, and it reviled then, or it remembered to – leaves likely drifted in embarrassed escape away from her, she thought with quiver. Her charge, the empty rope – yes, it must have fled when it sensed her approach. A mighty beast, spewing flame, flame to be conquered by cool green rivers.
She remembered green and gasped. This was an old beast, awakened from stasis, yet it did not fly as she recalled another doing – its wings fanned to sever trees violently, uselessly – it thrashed with jolting movements at the soil in the masquerade of flight. Its scales were jagged, though no tender prize lay in their shield – scales on scales, armor through its body, stabbing sensation and sensation stabbing.
This was no genus. It was made of faux rubber, the collar chafed and weighed. She bid it to be gone, prayed it to be gone, and clasped hands at the natural roughness of grass, grasping weathered blades.
"I'm sorry," she said, and the trees passed tone to rivers with whispers. Ash graced arms like nothing, hands held hands in balance. Sorry, yes, sorry to all, to the grains and the green and the sweetness of the sky she was sorry.
Leaves gossiped in trees, scent of blooming. With effort she willed life to trickle into the world's veins, a spreading of palate and attention.
One dash curved within it, the yellowed script of grinning teeth.
"You sure are dramatic," they scribed. A moment of consideration. "-itty."
She sniffled, nose brought to memory by the ripeness of grass. "What?"
"Dramati-kitty."
Her brain surged, a teasing of burnt nerves. Familiarity tickled her throat. "I'm not feeling it," she managed.
"Yeah, that one's kind of a stretch." Her knuckles were patted by the sage palm. "I guess cats just aren't meant to be drag-matic!"
"'Drag'…" A sneeze threatened to rise, but was lost to an exclamation as the earthen hand tugged her weight forward. Nauseatingly the colors whirled again, swirling in the weightlessness of movement.
"Like 'dragon', silly!" A tongue blew spittle in mocking ahead. "I have really got to teach you better pun skills."
A groan was dredged to surface by this, and her knees wobbled coldly in their rush, yet – well, yet she moved, and in color, and at the persistence of a nagging incongruity she thought her arms felt fresh in the air, and the breeze encouraging in passage through her collar.
Steps moved cubes with delicacy, nerves surging through churning legs. She may have dashed sneaker against her guide's heel, she may have been forgiven without word – it was a flurry of movement, a rising light of dawn to make shadow and reflection. The hues were sickening with passage, but in a whirl of festivity – candy, she thought, a diet of candy.
She recalled a burst of fever, back in a grove of empty ropes, but considered this from the cloud of stuffed sinuses and assumed its mildness. The repeated battering of her calf struck true, nose huffing in acceptance.
The cool metallic of her cane kissed her palm, the other pulled by precedence. She thought to ask where she was being towed, but overturned this to taste the passing air. The trial was not yet over, spoke a tendril of thought, and the accused not yet freed. She had been steeled.
"I thought you'd stay." Flowers blossomed pinkish, drifting to her shoulders. "Now we can really play!"
She grunted, stumbling to keep hold of her rope. "Isn't that what we have been doing?"
The expectation of response had been discouraged some time ago, and she treated pink laughter with a retaliatory blowing of her tongue. Once more she considered accusing the safety of their destination, but she paused in the spirit of originality, or of surrender. Perhaps the new persuasion of the flowering trees left little shadow for dark words to sprout in.
Summer's scent unraveled to weave cloaks for each of them, and they stood in broader sugars with hands mingling. She breathed, her lungs reminded of effort. The excited precipitation of perception coated her mind, reluctantly slowing to admit this fresh clearing, and at its settlement her breath grew sharp.
Was it – yes? Crying out, she moved to study the new glade's inhabitants. Her nose puffed eagerly, hand forfeiting cane in appreciation of plastic eyes. The eccentric zest of lemon, indiscriminate zap of blueberry, sharp tang of orange, green lively as grass – rows of them, a procession of taffies to set her sailing above!
In her study she nearly tumbled over a block, towering from its cubed relatives. She tested it with her fist, then swerved to take place behind it, and bellowed with thrill. Her lips hung open, drafting the desserts surrounding, teeth wet with appetite.
Her triumph was returned with a grassy shrill, hollering of having made it. She traced its path as it bobbled nearer, slumping in sugar and poising attentively amongst the audience.
This brought with it ideas, and she patted her finger to her chin with exemplified consideration. "The prosecution requests the defendant to take her place at the trial booth," she bid smoothly, pausing amidst dictation to taste the air. Something in the glen was clear, a pocket of cool breath and buzzing heads. She felt a smile.
Colors sighed through her throat, and in their comfort she neglected to monitor response. The suspect murmured uncertainly.
"Uh –" She turned once, sniffed, and turned again, lifting remembered rope from her side. "Just – over here."
She motioned generously nearby with one hand, the other granting wind to guide the doll to sugar. It landed with little protest before her, leaving an arc of scarlet behind. The shade set her mouth askew again, though now, too, her form seemed to lean towards the color expectantly.
"Purr-or A.C. can't wait fur this undoubtedly intense trial!" chattered the subject beside her suddenly. She shook her head.
"Yes," she agreed, and cleared her throat. "The prosecution promises that the courts will grow hot with…" With… "…the flames of justice.
"But," she breathed deep to ingest the colors, tart yellow finding hold, "who will stand behind the flame, and who crisped within it?" Her fist slammed the cube, habitually. "We shall tell!"
This performance, though flushing her face with suggestions of embarrassment, set loose a rousing cheer in green. Had she said what she'd heard? She scratched at her nose, coughing, and turned to her side.
"You are being criminally tried in a court of law," she noted.
The cheers faltered. "Just being paw-sitive."
She chuffed, what could have been sequestered laughter. "Very well." Hands took grip on either side of the granular podium. "The court is declared in session!"
Cheers were substituted for breathy oohs, perhaps thought to be more appropriate. She finagled her cane from her belt loop in the quiet cycling of thought, trailing the cube's perimeter. The spot of great redness once more called to her and drove posture to her measured strolling – she breathed deep in her turn to the defendant.
"Missus A.C.," she began, hands perched upon cane's head. As if a door had given, pages of procedures tumbled forth to her mind. She raced to perceive them. "Tell me of your usual activities."
A classic entry, the washing of the canvas. Set the rate of normalcy to which deviation is compared.
The questioned gave a small gasp, as if pleasantly surprised. "Oh, sure!" pink sang. "Lately I've been exploring more than usual. It's fur-y fun!"
The declaration of this left an echo, and she rubbed her thumbnail to her index finger as she awaited its leave. "Is there any reason for this increase in escapades?" It was cool, a pleasingly smooth dictation. "Perhaps some suspected diversion or reward?"
"Well," the response hesitated. "You've been coming by a lot, so I've found a lot of places for us to play." She quieted, but gained fervor momentarily. "By the way, I found more caves to the east of –"
"The prosecution will not be tempted!" She lifted her palm suddenly. Memory served the claims only in blurred effect, a conglomeration of evidence. A grin found way to her. "Not even by cool-sounding caves, or the probable treasure they hold."
The pink voice darkened with exclamation. "You think there's treasure in there?"
Certain of it, she would have sworn, but in a commanding utterance she cleared her throat and turned her heel. "In time. Defendant A.C., do you claim to hold any acquaintance to one by the name of Petty Officer Applescab?"
"Well –" Unexpected questions, the stirrings that bring truth to the surface of the pot. "Yeah, he's one of your funny scalemates. I like him the best!" A pause. "He's right there."
Perhaps the suggestive arm was later lowered in realization, but she was not pressed to make matter of it. With two strides she attained him, grasped by the neck.
"So he is." The red examined her, bringing dimples to her. "And do you claim to be certain in your accusation of his attempted murderer?"
"You mean, you?" She turned to face the green, and may have smiled without thought. "Well, duh. Who else around here pretends to execute little dolls?"
She nodded understandingly. "The prosecution acknowledges that this is a pretty good point."
Yet it was unsharpened, testimony only quickening. "Also, if I really wanted to hunt the harmless criminal critters, I'd have used all of their cushy viscera to make a nice bed instead of hanging them in the biscuitbark trees."
She sniffed upwards to the cookie tin of trees. "Is that what those are called?"
"And it would be paws-sible, but ultimately unlikely, for the cul-print to have been me, because you're the one who hung –"
"– hanged –"
"–all the other cute candy lizards on the branches beside Applescab be-fur."
This oath brought her to sudden halt. Scarlet held her, close before her face, yet at the completion of the defendant's speech there rose the marks of its family. She turned in rapid huffs, urging landscape to adjust. Still, yes, sat the patient colors that had greeted her, each watching in confident symmetry from the sugar of court pews.
"I did?"
A snicker. "I repeat: Duh."
"And I tried them again?" She swerved about to face the teller, fruity plush held in the crook of her arm. Shearing the distance of two steps brought clarity to the path of the green, who appeared to be swinging from a branch while humming confirmation.
There was something growing in her, a radiance from the abdomen. She returned appraisal to the button eyes of those watching, the sure rise of shortbread and the near vined babbling of tea, the creaking of branch behind and the clapping of her on it, honey above and sugar below, red like summer in her arms and in her eyes, and at once she erupted in a burst of laughter abound, that compass of color, washing bark and streams in candy champion.
"Case dismissed!" She whooped breathlessly. Joints lent to movement easily in her removal of the rope from the freed. In exaltation she collapsed unto cubes, hair in grains and red in hands, and shook her head with realization.
When that suit had weighed her it had not been fitted, and now she thought perhaps this was right. Light again breached leaves, warming wetted face with sweet noontime glow. Her arms were free of sticking synthetics, hairs moved by breeze and motion, and sugar dotted blushing ears with the wizened youth of snow. Yes, she thought, she could take her own measurements, wear robes of many colors. Her hands could feel the ropes this way, the ropes that matched her jolly tears, but perhaps for a while more she wouldn't need to knot them. She recalled that she would wake, any moment she would wake, but from the safety of sugar she knew this to be temporary.
At her toppled shoulder there were smaller rivers, carved by canes that made sound like rain in the cubes when their owner walked round her podium. Here the reediness of the brook grew clearly, or she thought – though at the opening of her leaky nose she found what vanilla contributed to its passage. Porcelain tinkled in signature, green figure and cupfuls beside. The odor of leaves settled in her, and she clucked her tongue bemusedly.
"It's really good," her companion assured, slurping from her own china. "We'll celebrate the fur-eedom of the gallow-mates!"
She pressed her elbow into cubes, crushing edges beneath her weight. "Only because they are innocent," she cautioned, and took the handle. Her hand brought it close, but halted. "And we will need energy for exploring those caves."
The cheers rose high, at last blossoming scarlet. Her cup was given a sniff that soured her, yet the nearby bloom curated pause with its messy slurps, and with thunderous flourish she downed the tea.
She breathed fresh. "I think I'll stay awhile."