Disclaimer: I don't own DP.
BGM: "Setsu-Getsu-Ka" composed by sista and Bumpy Urushi, sung by Yuzuki Yukari.
The Girl in the Tower
In a land far, far away, there is a tower. At the top of the tower is a big round room with a high round ceiling and wide round windows high on the walls. The room is all in a thousand shades of purple, from the curving walls the color of blooming orchids to a round bed like a fat squashed eggplant, from the thick carpet in a nearly black violet to tiny lacy pillows in the palest lilac. The only exceptions are the thick black curtains covering all but one of the windows, and a froth of multicolored herbs and flowers and even a little plot of tomatoes in the wide balcony outside the room.
From the single uncovered window, a ray of light slices through the claret shadows to settle on a heather-patterned writing desk strewn with books and papers in a half-dozen languages. Looking over the papers, sitting ramrod-straight even now in her room with no one else to see, is a thin pale slip of a girl in a fine silk dress dyed Tyrian purple.
There are two heavy wooden doors, painted just as purple, and they are unlocked only twice a month: Once, on the first night of the waxing crescent, when the girl is permitted to explore her gardens, and perhaps to pluck a single flower. Once, on the day after the full moon, when her mother comes to see that her daughter is, yes, still alive, and yes, she is still in the tower. It is for her mother's visit that her daughter has abandoned her usual flat blacks and deep grays, her simple dresses woven from linen or cotton or wool and her big black stomping-boots, for a delicate confection in royal colors in the hopes that perhaps her mother will think her less of a disgrace and let her see the world outside.
Sighing, the girl sits back and listens to the familiar shuffle of her maid puttering around the room.
"Mistress, you mustn't slouch like that," the woman chides. "You'll wrinkle the fabric. Think of everyone who worked to make that dress."
"Yes, and the thousands of silkworms that died for it," the girl sneered.
"Oh, well, silkworms. Now that's just horrible," the maid answers; their exchange as familiar as the monthly ritual of Visiting.
Unable to resist, the girl rolls her eyes and rises from the frail-looking wooden chair. "If I didn't know better, Nanny, I'd swear you had eyes in the back of your head."
"Gracious! Don't say such things," the woman yelps and clutches at her head, graying copper curls fighting their way out from under her cap.
The girl smiles and shoots back a well-used taunt about old wives' tales. If the woman had been less genuinely frightened, she might have noticed the girl's fists clenching, tendons standing out stark against the insides of her wrists.
At precisely twelve o'clock noon, a familiar chime resounds through the room, the echoes swallowed by the many layers of cloth covering every hard surface. The maid quickly and efficiently tucks the last of the folded shirts into a drawer and shuts it, just as quickly and efficiently bustling over to the inner door where she will wait for her mistress. The girl slowly and sedately puts her writing set away, looking for all the world as though it were an unexpected interruption, and just as slowly and sedately glides to the inner door, arriving just a pace behind her maid.
As she does every month, the maid reaches into a small bag hanging by the door and, with trembling fingers, pulls out a tiny golden key that she slides into a tiny keyhole dwarfed by the massive lock. Ah, but everyone knows that for a very large lock, you would need a suitably large key, no?
Well, no, because this lock was magical, just like the outer edge of the balcony gardens was enchanted to let air and water and light flow and keep all else in, and just like the ninety-and-nine other complicated mechanisms that let a girl and her maid live their whole lives in one room.
As the maid turned the key and felt the tumblers fall, she breathed a sigh of relief. The door slid outwards, revealing the Visitor they had been expecting. She was a vision in pink, subtle curves and soft ripples to her daughter's flat planes and sharp points. Her dress was a bright pink hoop-skirted thing that could hardly fit through the doorway, and her immaculate white shoes, gloves and hair ornaments shone in the semidarkness of the girl's room.
The maid shivered slightly, unable to help herself. This was always the most dangerous part, these first few moments when mother and daughter met and spoke for the first time in a month.
The younger woman frowned slightly at the gloom, snapping her fingers at the curtains and flooding the room with sunset light. Carefully placed mirrors meant to catch moonlight shattered the sunbeams, turning the many purples into a nightmarish riot of bruise- and blood-colored surfaces shifting at the slightest breath, almost as though one were trapped inside a massive misshapen creature.
The girl smirked as the first point of the day went to her. "Brighten the place up", my foot, she thought.
The woman's frown deepened, and then she turned to the girl and smiled sweetly. "Samantha, sweetie, let me look at you," she cooed.
Obediently, the girl stood absolutely still, save for unavoidable necessities such as blinking and breathing and the tiny muscle twitches as she swayed on pointed heels. Years of deportment training might have taught her to walk in them, but it would take a far greater force than courtesy to make her loathe high-heeled shoes any less.
The woman walked a cycle around the girl, clucking her tongue at the faint but unmistakable lines of muscle visible where the fabric of her dress clung and showed skin. "Samantha, dear, why do you never gain an ounce?"
Sam bit her tongue. I don't know, Mother. Maybe it's because I haven't been outside since before I can remember?
"I'm so jealous," she continued. "I can't have so much as a cucumber sandwich without it going straight to my thighs. Lucky girl." Here she tapped the girl on the chest with one gloved finger and a very disapproving glance. "Now if only you weren't flat as a plank, I wouldn't have to worry so about your looks." Or lack of them, went very pointedly unsaid.
Sam allowed herself a mental eye roll and a silent scoff while her mother looked away from her usual inspection. What about my looks? You and I both know I'll never leave the tower, she thought spitefully.
Seemingly oblivious to her daughter's thoughts, the woman stopped circling and gracefully settled onto a chair the maid had prepared. She gestured at the chair on the other side of the tea service, an expanse of gleaming silver piled high with sweets and finger sandwiches. Sam sat at the edge of her own, slightly smaller chair, back straight and eyes not leaving her mother's for a second.
The mother attempted to compliment the food, which the daughter pointed out was from the house kitchens and no different from the usual tea service at the house, save for the smaller quantities. The woman lowered her face for a moment, eyes unreadable behind a pale pink mask trimmed with gold and seed pearls and framed by flame-red hair in an intricate updo.
They finished the meal in silence, pausing only for the maid to refill their cups or add cream and sugar to the mother's tea.
Tea ended, and the mother rose to look at her daughter's room. With the ghastly lighting dealt with, it was a pretty enough place, all soft hangings and delicate embroidery over carved wood. She had wanted the room to be pink, and it had been until her daughter had taught herself to turn all the white to black and all the pink to purple seemingly overnight. She had been only eight years old, far younger than most children performed their first work of magic. Perhaps that was the world's way of compensating for her curse.
Suppressing a sigh, she took one last look at her daughter, as angry and disdainful as ever. Her mother-in-law had reported that the palace servants were in fact quite fond of her, despite the precautions needed to speak to her, and that she had struck up a friendship with one old gardener, happily debating the merits of ladybugs and gardening tools through the outer door.
Whatever she was like to others, ever since the girl's seventh birthday she had never once seen her daughter remotely happy. As she prepared to leave, the girl approached her and asked for what felt like the thousandth time, "Mother, may I please leave the tower?"
Now the lady of the house was a proud woman, and self-assured in her absolute rightness, but she was not heartless. It was for this very reason that she could not let her daughter leave the tower, not yet. Even if her fate is beyond saving, let Samantha's soul remain unstained.
And so, for the eighty-third time, Pamela told her daughter that she could not leave her cage. Not in so many words, of course, but that is what was meant and that is what was heard. As the maid escorted the lady of the tower down the winding spiral staircase, they heard the clatter and crash of objects flying and flowers bursting from their tidy pots.
The maid plodded back up the stairs and let herself in with the little golden key to find the room as neat and tidy as ever. The girl had gone back to her calligraphy, a few thickened lines of ink the only remaining indication of her upset.
Staring up at the balcony from his little shed just past the gatehouse, the old gardener wondered how in the world he was going to get the tower gardens back in order before the girl's fourteenth birthday.
A/N: The first chapter of another story, in a rather different style than my usual. Hope you enjoy it. Please read and review.
