3. LIGHT — There was no escape from the dark and dreary, it seemed.
After all, the Provincial Town — she could see it over the mountain there, just the edges — was where she had been before, and there, it had been dreary. Oh, so very dreary. The sun had always set early over there, she noticed, which was strange. Belle's books had all informed her that the sun went down differently depending on where she was in the world, but inevitably, that one would go down first, no matter the time of year (despite the fact that the time of year was also supposed to effect the time the sun went down). And here… well, this castle had never been particularly well-lit, but lately it had gotten even worse than usual.
This was mostly because for the past few weeks Belle had been locked in her bedroom.
She couldn't come out, oh no she could not — there were two people out there who would have her head for even daring to venture out into the world beyond. One of them was the Beast, who was certainly not one to be crossed, and the other wasn't far behind beastly himself — he easily dwarfed Belle, towered as tall as the Beast, and had the sort of voice that made one very uncomfortable because A., it didn't exactly fit the man's physical stature, and B., it was constantly talking about dunking you into a dark and bubbling tar-pit of despair. Belle wasn't quite sure what a tar-pit was, but if it was dark and bubbling and filled with despair, then it wasn't a place Belle wanted to be.
Where was the light? Where was the light?
—
"Oh, dear! Looks like she missed a spot!"
"One spot? No! There's another one over there!"
"But that was the spot I was pointing to! You can't take my spot, I called it!"
"I can take whatever spot I please!"
The arguing sisters failed to realize that the spot had by now vanished, scrubbed clean by a rag that looked like it could do with some cleaning itself. The blonde girl who had done the honors took another glance at the two, suppressed a dainty sigh, and exited the room. Most of her time was spent on the floor somewhere, either cleaning up after her three mistresses or having riveting discussions with the barely-literate vermin that hounded the castle walls. Such was the life of Cinderella, and though she knew she could have been happier, there wasn't an ounce of blame in her heart for anyone. Not the truly wicked woman she called 'Stepmother', nor the only-slightly-less-wicked stepsisters that she had just bared witness to. No one. She was not exceptionally good at denying — in fact, she had always felt a compulsion to tell the truth — but it just… didn't… happen.
She had never been able to blame, that was always what everyone had said — everyone who paid enough attention to notice, at least. Of course Stepmother and her daughters could see highly conspiratorial meanings to her kindly gestures which were never even there, and of course only they were the ones who saw her talking to herself about her vile companions. "Obviously she's cracked," would say one. "Cracked like an egg," would say another. The third would be silent, but take a swipe at a nearby vase that they never really liked anyway, just as an excuse to give the servant girl something to do. That was just it, a servant girl was what she was. Cinderella would come and clean it up obediently, and take whatever stings the others would send at her this time; she had heard them all, and none of them ever truly bothered her. Ever. She was just that way sometimes. Of course, Cinderella confided all of this in her little mousey friends, who would all wonder what she could not.
Where was the light? Where was the light?
—
(SLEEP) was all Aurora had going for (SLEEP) her. Some people were into (SLEEP) that kind of thing.
She slept, and she slept, and she slept. Once or (SLEEP) twice, Aurora felt a presence near her (SLEEP), either a vile (SLEEP) and (SLEEP) disgusting (SLEEP) one, or a somewhat more pleasant (SLEEP) one. She had no way to (SLEEP) know who these two beings were, but (SLEEP) she had never felt anyone (SLEEP) else, so she reveled in their (SLEEP) brief (SLEEP) presence and (SLEEP) remembered (SLEEP) it once they were (SLEEP) gone. (YOU) She (SLEEP) had nothing else (BUT I) to hold on to but those two minor (WANTED) occurrences, and she held on to them (I JUST). She was very good at holding (WANTED) on to things, being in a (YOU TO) perpetual state (FOLLOW) of suspended (MY) animation. (ORDERS) But there was (AND) one (HURT) thing (NOTHING) she (BUT) wondered.
Where was the (GO) light? Where was the (AND) light?
(DIE)
—
The hulking beast sat on his carpet, watching the night to ensure that it didn't come alive and try to rip its mistress limb from limb. Obviously, if it did that, he would do the same thing right back, except giant tigers were much more powerful than darkness. Obviously. Rajah wrapped his tail to lie on top of Jasmine's stomach, which she quickly put her own hand over.
The great tiger was really more like a docile elephant, Jasmine figured of her animal friend. Large and frightening, ready and able to kill most anything in his way, but he wouldn't because he's just too good a soul for that. Unless Jasmine told him to, in which case he would, and he would well. Jasmine had only needed to pull that tactic once, and the robber who had entered from her bedroom had never seen the light of day. The closest thing he would have seen was a violent flash in the eyes of a tiger, and then that was it. …Jasmine shuddered, just thinking about it. Of course he deserved to be punished, just for daring to break into her room (and the rest of the palace afterwards, doubtless), but even through all of that, the thought of causing someone else's death unsettled her. Maybe he could have been captured and used for other purposes, like being a worker in some sort of simple, physical job that didn't require the brains that he had clearly lacked.
Jasmine got to wondering. "Oh, Rajah…" she muttered.
The tiger looked up, blinking.
"I've been wondering lately," she said dejectedly. "We've truly let it get out of control lately, don't you think?" At the confused stare she received from her feline companion, Jasmine sighed. "All this time, we've been getting so… cruel. All of us." Rajah made one of his tiger-frowns and continued to look at her, still confused. He felt it was probably not worth it to try and explain to her that he hadn't the slightest idea what she was saying.
"Where was the light? Where was the light?"
—
The bars began to whirl in Alice's head.
She was sitting in a little ball, huddling inside the threatening metallic structure that had held her for the past few days. Most of the time they had happened to forget (or simply decided against) giving her the rations she had been promised at the beginning of this hellish existence, and her mind was beginning to go foggy from fatigue; even if she wasn't doing a lot of walking in a space where she couldn't even stand up straight, the girl was getting hungry, staring helplessly at the passing guards as they wore their mysterious caps and staffs, watching them waddle around on flimsy card bodies with little feet sticking out the end. It didn't make sense to Alice, but then again, nothing in this place did. Lately the world had begun to spin so dramatically, and so literally, that the bars appeared to be blocking out all the sunlight that she knew should have been coming in to her cage. She knew it would end soon, if the spike-haired boy below and his epic battle was to be trusted, but even so, it seemed that the illusions were sneaking up on her… forming physical bodies…
Actually, Alice noticed as she attempted to clear her head for a second, that was no effect of the fatigue. Alice observed for a few seconds, dazed and confused, before bothering to scream. Her wail was lost in the sounds of battle, as Sora fought to rescue her from below, and sitting above it all, suspended in her cage, Alice screamed and screamed where nobody would hear. Eventually, the darkness (which was beginning to come closer now, drowning the sound) touched her, but soon sprang back again as if it had been burned. A second later, real physical forms came out of the black cloud surrounding her cage, two strange winged creatures with funny helmets.
Alice was about to ask what part of Wonderland they came from when they grabbed her arms and flew off, heedless of minor difficulties like sturdy metal cages. As Alice flew away, she looked at the demons and realized that they were not Wonderland beings, oh no — they looked too dark for that. They must have been creatures from some other place, a dark twin of Wonderland, maybe. Or her own world. Imagine! Such things walking around in London! Preposterous. But then again… Alice stared at the dark beings, and watched as more began to fly in ranks above and below them. She looked at them all, and one question went through her head.
Where was the light? Where was the light?
—
The apple looked so good.
Snow White had been given this nice-looking apple by an elderly woman in a black cloak. She had introduced herself as the wife of a nearby farmer who loved nothing more than to help young women in need, and, well, the young maiden did have to admit that she had been hungry at the time. She still was hungry, and looking down at the small red fruit, the feeling only got worse. She wanted nothing more than to devour this thing immediately, but she saw two problems with that: one, that would be terribly unladylike, and two, it would last longer and make her fuller if she drew it out. So Snow White sat down on a nice little log and polished the apple with her hands, so that it looked more acceptable.
Now, there was thing about Snow White. She could trust anything and everything. Including shady old women. And apples. She had sensed something funny coming from that old lady, an unpleasant feeling that burned her stomach, but she chalked it up to the distinct lack of food within it. Now, though, she remembered it again, making quite sure to think of the feeling as she ate the apple so it would know and she would triumph over it. She remained completely oblivious that both of those actions were ensuring that it had triumphed over her.
Snow white toppled to the ground, and being the sort of practical young woman she was, immediately noticed a problem.
Where was the light? Where was the light?
—
Kairi snuggled in to her bed, clutching the giant plush dog she had held on to for the past couple of years. It was night time. Today she had met a new friend, a nice lady who acted super sweet to everybody, and her mind was still on her — but that changed in time, as it always did, because Kairi's mind began to wander onto different things. Other things. Like… her wall. It looked like it had changed since she had been there this morning. Not for the first time, Kairi held on to Puppy (her originally-named plush) and stared thoughtfully at first the wall, and then the window. Where did the sun go when night came along? It seemed like it was gone forever, replaced by the moon (or maybe turned into the moon?), but the next morning, there it was, shining all sorts of colors that people generalized as yellow.
She thought more. Where did the light that the sun made go when it wasn't just… there? Where the sun went? What kind of people got the light when she didn't, assuming someone got it at all? Kairi thought about this. Maybe she would ask her friend tomorrow, the one who knew everything, if she could get an answer out. Yes. That was what she would do. Tomorrow… or no, he wasn't there on the weekends. Monday, then? Monday.
Oh well. For now, Kairi thought: where was the light? Where was the light?
Oh yes bitch did.
A story about the Princesses of Heart! This is blasphemy!
- Gira