Hey hey guess who's back.
Me, but kind of, not really.
CAUSE NOW I'M ADDICTED SO HARD TO SWEENEY TODD AND I'VE FALLEN IN LOVE WITH THE ANTHONY-JOHANNA SHIP AND SO NOW I'M GOING TO WRITE FANFICTION ABOUT THAT.
No, but for reals, I am really bleeding (HAH) addicted to Sweeney Todd. And I'm probably now going to start writing for that fandom (which is going to be weird 'cause I've only ever written for this fandom before) now, and I doubt you'll see much of me on this fandom in terms of writing or reviewing (though I don't really pop into this fandom much anymore anyway. Lots of new faces. I wonder if anyone still knows who I am). Although I have been thinking about writing a fluff fic between Puck and Sabrina cause I haven't done that in a while, but we'll see where my procrastination will take me.
I'll still be on FFN to PM and beta, if anyone wants me to look over their story or just talk to (though I have a memory like swiss cheese, so I can't guarantee instantaneous response). I'll just be writing for Sweeney Todd until I inevitably get over it (or get further entrenched in it, who knows).
Disclaimer: I do not own Sisters Grimm (why do I even write this, does this even mean anything?)
Warning: This story's kind of dense. It's not as metaphorical as my other stories; there's a lot of plot and dialogue in it (except for the end, then I go back to my old style). And I fumble my way around some philosophical topics quite clumsily too, but only for a little section. So apologies if my story works more like insomnia drugs than actual entertainment.
Oh yes, and to OctaviaWithStarsForEyes, this story's dedicated to you, as an apology for awkwardly ditching you by accident (sorry once again). Sorry, it took so long, and sorry this story's not as polished as I'd like it to be, but it was either post it now, or toss the computer screen through a window, because I am sick of this blasted thing (as I am of all my stories). That being said, if anyone's got any advice or suggestions on how I could do better with this, feel free to let me know.
Right, super long waffly PM with too many asides over, let's begin.
He closes his eyes, and breathes in ice needles.
Grass rustles.
And all around him is the beat of the night, the rhythm of the soul swaying, dancing. He tilts his head and it's as if the notes themselves have wings, and quavers and crotchets soar through the sky.
From up here, the arson fires might simply be glowbugs.
From up here, the staccato of gunshots might simply be the heartbeat of the soil.
For his kingdom is at war. His beloved kingdom, his home, his Birthright, is tearing itself to pieces.
And the bright sparkle of Faerie's blood might simply be the premature smear of dawn.
Mustardseed cries. His tears flow, his voice screams. His beautiful city is mired in people who despise their king, and ensnared within a king who should be despised, and entangled within a poisonous web of a king's insanity.
And the people are right. Oberon must fall, for his dethronement is this kingdom's only salvation, and the Crown Prince secretly dances with treason.
He is conflicted by guilt, and haunted by feelings of familial betrayal, and the necessity for change.
...
"Let them come!" Oberon roared jubilantly, "Let them tremble at the King's might!"
Mustardseed nodded, his brain jammed with rebel plans. He beckoned for a man to come forward. "Father, this is General Heartwood. He's here to report on the battle at Evergreen Glade, which took place this morning."
The King grunted. His eye twitched, a sure sign of his annoyance. How mercurial this man was, to go from infantile-destructive to infantile-unhappy in the space of a second! It's no wonder the rebels have surged up as they have.
"Alright then," he said gruffly. "Let's go." And they adjourned to a private room.
Mustardseed sighed, rubbing his arm. A bad cut he had received on the battlefield had left him with dark bands of bruising and nausea bouts that he was still trying to recover from. Today had been a trying day.
He heard a thump. Fantastic. Oberon was not taking the news of the sabotaged artillery lightly. Today would persist in being trying.
Sighing, Mustardseed walked down the hallway towards the main meeting halls. He had a meeting with the Agricultural Ministers in two hours, to discuss ration passes while the war continued, and he had to collate his notes and collect his thoughts.
Something vibrated in his pocket. Mustardseed started, but thankfully the corridor was empty. Looking around furtively, he carefully pulled a tiny silver wand out of his pocket, and rapped it against his hand.
"What do you want," he hissed, to the flickering smoky image that had spurted from the wand's tip.
"Your Highness appears to be in a poor mood."
"Your Highness is in the Kingdom's central corridor which lots of people use, and needs you to hurry up and say what you have to say."
"Perhaps Your Highness should consider relocating."
"Don't get smart with me and give your report."
"Yes, perhaps comic banter some other time." The figure cleared its throat and straightened its shoulders. "The procedures have all been planned. I have been tasked to brief you on everything you need to know."
"Everything?"
"Everything."
Mustardseed looked around again. He heard the clack of footsteps nearby, and the sound of distant conversation. Cursing under his breath, he slipped into a nearby room, closing and locking the door behind him. It was a small antechamber, but the adjacent room looked empty.
"Ok. Run it through me. Quickly."
He looked around again. From the wand came the rustle of paper, and another clearing of the throat. "Procedures regarding Operation Dovetail," the figure read out, "to be read only by authorised personnel.
Primary objective: The long-awaited assassination of His Highness King Oberon Goodfellow, Ruler Of Faerie and surrounding territories."
...
Brushing his tears away, Mustardseed lies flat on the grass. It's soaked with dew, and the cold air permeates his skin, but what is pain and pleasure to a man numb with grief?
Another glowbug spurts to life in the distance. A rumble through the air; gunpowder of thunder.
He rolls over in the grass, kicking his feet violently, and retracts his hands into his sleeves. A great pain thrums through him. Tasting like stormclouds and blood, it tangles into his brain, dances with stiletto spikes on the pit of his stomach, in the tips of his fingernails. What's wrong with me, he thinks.
Superlative pins and needles sweep through him, like that archaic swarm of locusts. A pain unlike anything he's ever felt, in equal parts swordslash and heartbreak, like steel tinged with dynamite, ice flickering hot. Why. He fumbles clumsy fingers over his body; is it the bruising of his arm? Yes, perhaps that's it. He inspects the depths of his soul, and multitudes of painful silent secrets come to him. Yes, perhaps that's it. He traverses all the familiar and usual avenues of thought, runs through his encyclopaedic knowledge of wounds and medicines, and finds a thousand dark memories, a thousand medical maladies, that could culminate into this enormous agony within him.
What's wrong with me, he thinks again.
A glowbug flickers and dies. Another rises in its place.
...
"Secondary objective: To end the civil war via. weakening of the King's military forces.
To preserve the secrecy of this document, no times or names have been given regarding the expected implementation and completion of aforementioned procedures. These will be individually recorded and communicated to the necessary peoples at the necessary times, so that no individual person may divulge operation secrets outside of their given task in the event of capture and torture.
Nonetheless, in the interests of reference and collation, a general overview has been given here:
Assassination target is His Highness King Oberon Goodfellow, Ruler Of Faerie and surrounding territories. The assassination is planned to be as clean and sterile as possible, to be performed swiftly and without delay. Agents are to enter their designated procedure zones, perform their designated procedures, and leave their procedure zones as quickly as possible.
Modus Operandi: Poison— specifications of which will not be disclosed in the event that this document is seized and an antidote synthesised before Operation Dovetail takes place. It can be told that this poison produces fatal effects provided there is system entry, and is difficult to detect without specialised equipment or magic.
Time: The operation regarding the physical administration of the poison, including setup and exit of all agents, is expected to take no longer than twenty two minutes, but may be as quick as fourteen. The poison will take effect approximately eighty-five minutes after system entry, but will give no symptoms prior to death, giving the opportunity for delayed-action murder. Nonetheless, all agents must act to leave their designated procedure zones as swiftly as possible.
Aftermath: The King's death will cause instability within the Kingdom's military structure, weakening their forces and chances of victory. The ideal situation is that a truce will be declared and peace negotiations arranged, under the influence of our inside contact, thus prompting a peaceful end to the war. If our inside contact's efforts are unsuccessful, then the ramifications of Oberon's death within his armies will pave an easy victory for our forces.
"That's all that's written on this sheet. But in terms of the poison, I can tell you its a synthetic compound, created by analysing the chemical makeup and particle arrangement of several other obscure poisons. That's the problem with the Kingdom, you know. They apply too much pressure on facilitating magical innovation, and leave no room for scientific development.
"The poison (and the vial it's being contained in) has been infused with shamanistic magic, so it can avoid magical detection and scrying spells. It's essentially a highly-specialised nerve agent, designed to implement its effect only approximately 1.5 hours after system entry. Method of system entry is oral ingestion. Essentially, we're going to poison his food."
"Seems a rather lackluster approach."
"Commenting on the simplicity of your father's assassination? You are ice-cold, Mr Crown Prince."
"I meant that my father is highly paranoid. He has all his food tasted first."
"Of course. We've managed to infiltrate their staff; one of our agents will be his food-tester that day. He'll have taken the antidote beforehand, so the poison won't affect him. He'll be the only agent still in the field after the poison has been administered."
"You have an antidote to your assassination poison?!" That seemed rather counter-productive to Mustardseed. What if Kingdom Soldiers got a hold of it before the assassination took place?
The figure glared at him. "Our mission here is to assassinate Oberon, not kill his staff or one of our own. Of course we have an antidote."
"Awfully strong morals for people who initiated a civil war."
"And I could say the same to you, Crown Prince. Don't try to goad me with your hostility. My soldiers are not the bloodthirsty brutes your royal propaganda make us out to be. I would have thought that you of all people would understand that."
Mustardseed faltered. A flicker of pain crossed his face. He sighed. "You're right, I'm sorry. I'm under stressful conditions."
A nod. "As am I. I suppose we all have our ways of coping."
"When will it take place?"
"That's not for you to know."
"I don't get to know when my father will die?"
"This operation is assigned on a need-to-know basis. Very few people know key information like times and dates."
"I wish to know the exact time."
"Your procedure isn't to start until after the assassination." Steel crept into the figure's voice. "I will not say that a second time."
Mustardseed sighed. He knew there wasn't much point trying to pry further. "Very well. It will take time for me to organise peace talks. There is much ceremony and business that follows a king's assassination."
"The intensity of my forces will match yours. If your army retreats, then so will mine. If they do not, then neither will we."
"I have your word that you will not attempt an 'easy victory' until all diplomatic opportunities are exhausted?"
"Of course. Honour among thieves, you may call it."
"Thieves?"
"In the eyes of my 'bloodthirsty brutes', we are simply stealing back our freedom."
In spite of himself, Mustardseed's lips twisted into a wry smile. "How droll."
"You have your ways of coping, I have mine."
"Will we have another talk after today?"
"No. You know everything you need to know."
"Very well. Goodbye then."
"Goodbye."
...
What use is there in the power of our thought? What benefits are to be gained from the procession of our logic, the entanglements of our philosophy?
All aspects of human life stem from thought. Our politics, our social sciences, our paradigm shifts, our histories, all spring from the power of thought, that transcendent intrinsic quality that elevates man above beast and defines within Him morality.
But what good is in there in goodness if evil is sure to follow? If the net sum of good and evil eventually equilibrates into zero, if the tiger cannot do wrong if it does not know what wrong is, then why should man seek the righteous path?
Old heroes of Greece had fought for Achillian glory. They died, and their names which do not rejuvenate their bones have been remembered.
Martyrs were crucified and starved for their beliefs, yet their blood dripped onto cold rocks, and now they are no more than names.
The mark of a hero is permanency. The mark of a hero is fertility, to breed and live on. It was Plato who argued that if the body were ephemeral, then the soul is amarantine. But Platonic philosophy, like all philosophy, is far from watertight —their ironclad statements are rained on and rust— for the human mind is ill-equipped to wrestle with crises of existentialism and divine powers. For all his pretty arguments, Plato cannot prove that the soul is immortal, just as how Camus cannot photograph the Sisyphean boulder.
So then, if there is no soul, is there a point to go on? Is there a purpose?
What is there to say that our existence isn't merely the perceptions brought on by a special level of neurological balance? In the void filled with fallen stars, are the concepts of glory and sacrifice little more than numbing agents, hallucinogens we pull from the brittle air to justify our meaninglessness? The schematics of humanity is a child's drawing. It is a dot-to-dot, a colour-in-the-lines, with cheerfully written instructions telling you to 'copy out the skeleton', 'colour in the blood', and nothing more. No soul to draw, no mind to trace.
All constructs of the mind, all structures of thought, rest on foundations of glass quickly turning back to sand. Love is no force. Time is just a unit. Ethics is no code, and morality is no science. Our history books memorialise a world sunken, a world disabled, whose authority we compromised when we struck the fatal blow to god's throat and killed him, earthquaking our ethics to the core. And so now there is no god, and therefore now there is no death, no life to speak of, but only us, only presence. The only thing that is sure is that when i touch my body i am touching a construct that i have named flesh, and that when i walk i exert a force onto the ground that i call my weight. Everything else is but shimmering smoke, everything else is just a candle, dripping hot wax while i shine it over my head, promethean, to cover My Falsities in silence and shade.
...
"Do you understand?!"
"Sir, I—"
"No!" Oberon's hand crackled blue with magic. General Heartwood whimpered, and mustered what little energy he had left to throw up a feeble shield. It shimmered weakly in the air, pathetic, and Oberon's fury flared. With a snarl, he smashed it aside, rushed towards the man, and lifted him up by his collar. His other hand burst into blinding white flame.
"You listen to me one more time, soldier." He spat the word out like it was poison. "I will not tolerate insubordination in my ranks. You are a soldier, and I am a king! No, I am the The King! You do not oppose me, you do not challenge me. I am King! I am God! How dare you even lay a finger on me!" He slapped Heartwood across the face and the unfortunate man screamed, as fire licked across his cheek, and a crackling burn mark seared through.
"To think, that you thought you were strong enough to fight me? To defeat me? I am of royal blood!"
"You're insane..."
Oberon slapped him again, and pressed flaming fingers to Heartwood's neck. The soldier choked, as blistering brands appeared on his skin, and he kicked his feet futilely against The King drunk with rage. The smell of burning flesh filled the room, a thick oily smell that clogged the lungs.
"Don't you dare think you have the authority to tell me what I am." Oberon's voice had suddenly become deadly quiet, gravelly and menacing. Over the years, Oberon had trained himself in mental manipulation, and had learnt how to hone his voice down to a knife edge, a chilling lethal tone that sliced through a man's confidence, and distilled from within him fear. But his brain was sunken with fury, and his knife edge became cracked, distorted, like a dagger made of granite, a sword crumbling concrete. His fingers flared hotter, hotter, the General screamed louder, louder, and the oily smell was pungent. "When I tell you to break the WarPeace Agreement, you break the WarPeace Agreement. When I tell you to start using nuclear magic, you start using nuclear magic. You do not hesitate. You do not negotiate. And you certainly—!"
Fire leapt up from his fingers, and the general screamed louder, and Oberon's imperial fury exploded like a monstrous grenade, "DO NOT draw your sword AGAINST ME! I AM KING! YOU CRETIN, YOU SOLDIER FOOL, I AM GOD, DO YOU UNDERSTAND! How DARE you—"
"Father!" Mustardseed stood in the doorway, eyes bulging. The silver wand lay flat inside his coat pocket. "Father, what are you doing?"
Oberon turned burning eyes at the unwanted intrusion. "Leave us!"
"Unhand him!"
"Boy, I said leave us—!"
Mustardseed sliced his hand through the air, and Oberon went flying back. He slammed into a wall and crumpled down, stunned. Heartwood dropped to the floor. "Oh, Skies above," Mustardseed cursed, and ran to the General's side. The smell radiating off him slicked Mustardseed's throat with nausea, and he quickly unbuttoned the man's collar.
Several ugly burn marks smouldered back at him, weeping and oozing fluid, and along Heartwood's chin and jaw the skin had begun to blister and peel, flaking off to reveal raw red flesh. "General?" He felt for a pulse. "General! General Heartwood, are you alive!"
Heartwood mumbled, his eyes rolling under his eyelids. Vaguely, he was aware of a cool silken feeling running along his neck and face, but his brain had sunken into a mist, and his thoughts dissipated into aether.
"Oh, Good Sun, help." Mustardseed moved his hands away from Heartwood's neck, healing magic dripping off his fingers, a futile attempt. He pulled a gold wand from his sleeve, and rapped it against his hand. A flickering, smoky image appeared. "Cobweb," he said urgently. "Cobweb!"
The image sharpened. The doctor started at Mustardseed's panicked tone. "Your Highness, what is it?"
"Cobweb, I'm going to Flicker you a drop. Get a bed ready. General Heartwood's been badly injured; there are burns all over his neck and face."
"Burns? Can't you just heal them..." he faltered as Mustardseed rapidly shook his head.
"I've tried, but it won't work. Judging by the colour and depth, the burns look magically done, probably infused with a torture curse of some kind. They're so dark... I've never seen burns this colour..." For once, Mustardseed, a renowned scholar on the maladies of the body, found himself at a loss. His head was filled with the oily smell, and panic started to churn inside him. "I don't know, Cobweb... Cobweb, I don't know..." his voice tailed off, as his mind pulsed with a thousand grim possibilities.
"Alright, alright, Mustardseed, relax. How long will the Flicker take?"
"Oh! Oh right, of course." He fumbled around inside his coat. "I'm setting the crystals up now; it shouldn't take too long. Oh... Oh, dear Skies, he's spasming, oh Sun I think he's going into shock—!"
"Mustardseed, get a hold of yourself! Are the crystals in place?"
"Yes, I think so."
"Ok, Flicker him over to my personal chambers, I'll handle the rest."
"Ok."
Muttering softly, Mustardseed placed the final crystal down, and flicked it with his fingernail. The crystal pinged, ringing with a rich humming noise, and Heartwood's body began to glow. There was a flash, and he was gone.
"Did he arrive? Did you get him, Cobweb?"
"Yes. Let me take a look... Oh, Moons Above, oh no..."
"What? What is it?"
"This is... bad. The magic used isn't even legal, I'm certain. Do you know who did this?"
Mustardseed shot a quick look at his father, who was slowly becoming to come to. "Yes. Yes, I think so."
Cobweb nodded. "I have to go; this is an urgent situation. But Heartwood's a good man. Whoever did this, Mustardseed, I want you to make him pay."
The fairy nodded gravely. "I'll try my best."
...
Beauty belies savagery. Cyanide tastes sweet. It is from splashes of light and flashes of colour that the apocalypse is born, and the living soul is a tartarian void filled with gravity and despair.
...
"He... he tried to kill me."
"What? Heartwood?"
"Yes. He went into my office, and when you left the room, he pulled a knife to me and demanded I abdicate."
"No. No, don't lie to me."
"I'm not lyi—"
"You are lying. You always lie, Father. Tell me the truth."
"I am."
"No, you're not." His fingers curled into a fist, and it was as if an iron weight had suddenly shot itself around Oberon's neck. The King choked, clawing at his neck.
"How dare," he rasped out, "you use your magic against the King."
Mustardseed sneered, and threw his fist up. The invisible weight around Oberon's neck went with it, lifting him bodily off the ground, and Mustardseed slammed him back against the wall.
"I can't even touch you, Father." Mustardseed's words were like acid. Never before had his smooth veneer of ice and diplomacy been eroded away so quickly. "I'm physically repulsed by you. Tell me the truth, or I will make you."
"I... am..." The King flicked his wrists slowly, lightning gently gathering in his palms, but Mustardseed merely blinked, and Oberon's hands were pinned back against the wall.
"Very well. Force it is then." Mustardseed closed his eyes, the fingers on his free hand darting in a flutterwing of movement. Oberon gasped, as a sharp lance of pain suddenly speared itself into the centre of his brain, and his mouth began to move of its own accord.
"heartwood came into my office, and gave me the report of the battle at evergreen glade. he then told me about how the rebels had tampered with our gunpowder, and destroyed most of our equipment. this angered me, and i threatened to demote him for incompetency. he nodded, and told me to do as i pleased. i asked if it was likely we could win the war now. he said that it was difficult to be certain. i was angered by this, and, again, he nodded. he handed me a folder, with documents detailing potential actions we could take.
"i glanced through it, threw it to the ground, and said that now we needed to take extreme measures. he asked me what i meant. i ordered him to break the warpeace agreement, and to begin using nuclear magic. he did not respond. i commanded him to speak. he spoke. he refused to break the warpeace agreement. he said that doing so would be unnecessarily aggressive. his insubordination greatly angered me, and we argued. he would not do as i ordered. finally, i used magic on him, and forced him to kneel in front of me. i commanded him to stand down. he refused, and managed to break the spell.
"he drew his sword and charged at me, cutting my shoulder. this greatly angered me, and i used a torture curse on him. this weakened him. i lifted him up, and burned him with dragoneye fire." Mustardseed started at the name. His upper lip curled. "as i was burning him, you entered, and stopped me. that is all i know."
One beat of silence. Two beats of silence. Mustardseed opened his eyes. He looked at his father with fresh disgust. "Oberon, you are a traitor to your country."
Clarity had been restored to The King, and his cheeks flushed hot with outrage. "You do not talk to me like that—" Oberon spluttered for air as Mustardseed's fist tightened. It squeezed knuckle-whitewater.
"You are a traitor, and a decrepitly immoral example of fairy swine." Into his voice crept the molten fury he suddenly felt, rapidly crashing down. The hard veneer of his self-restraint fractured. It cracked. And through the gaps slid demons, through the holes oozed poison. An undercurrent of lion's roar ran through his speech, as his inflections morphed themselves into spearpoints, and tinged themselves steel-blue.
Mustardseed felt roiling emotion churning through him. Building like a bomb. He let it slowly gather inside of him, felt his eyes begin to spark, his lips begin to tingle. He opened his mouth. And the double-barrel-shotgun-blast of his imperial rage slammed like shooting stars onto Oberon's resisting body.
Because never before had he felt anger like this, an explosive resurgence of the volcanic fury he had repressed for so long. His father, his fool, his MONSTER, was a frankenstein of his own creation, who he should have curtailed when curtailing was needed, should have tied back when he began to bite. But he didn't. In cowardice, he shrank in fear before his father as one would before a rabid dog, for fear of infection, for fear of retaliation. His deference cost Faerie its lifeblood. In a time of steel he assumed the form of glass, and so the walls that held back the horrors of the soul were shattered.
All this carnage, the glowbugs, the heartbeat, that man burned in Cobweb's office, all were done because he had failed in his duty, and the shame burnt through him like bile.
His revulsion swallowed lightning and poured out into his breath, so that what came surging out of his maw was the articulate clarity of a broken man's disgust.
"You are a violation. A hideous tumour, growing on the cancer that you have turned Faerie into."
He opened his fist, and let the King drop to the ground. He could feel The Rage beating into his brain, slitting the throat of his diplomacy. Oberon sat there, defeated, as Mustardseed hurled disgust at him, vomiting out the blood of his self-control, a verbal cornucopia of filth and excess. It was like some brutal purge of his soul, stripping from him everything he had. Gone now was the lightning of his breath. Gone too was the ice of his lips. No, all that pumped through him now was dirt, dirt that had been soiled upon by the brutalities of his lineage, and dust to dust, ashes to ashes, my friend, he heaped heap upon stinking heap of rage onto the father who had corrupted him. As he spoke, his savagery escalated.
His ferocity, rather than finding release, found purchase, and clung onto the roof of his mouth, so that every word that was jettisoned out left filtered through this toxic, feral mesh. His heart became stone. It morphed into a gargoyle. As he approached his emotional climax, it roared; as he neared the orgasm of his abuse, it screamed. His arms began shaking, his fingers danced magic. He screamed louder and louder, and his fury hardened itself into a force, an uncontrollable shockwave of supernova, that set the teeth on fire, and caused the blood to rot.
"I hate you!" he roared. "You've oppressed these people for so long, you've raped the country I love; how could you, how dare you!"
All throughout, his father sat there, head bowed.
Mustardseed sneered. "Look at me, Oberon!"
The King did not stir.
"I said look at me!" He pushed on his father's chest with his boot. As soon as his foot made contact, there was a sickening crack. His father rolled onto his back, moaning, and the words died in Mustardseed's throat, though the gargoyle cackled even louder.
What the.
Oberon hadn't been silent out of shame. In the half light, with The King's head bowed, and the animalistic carnage waging war inside, Mustardseed had been blind to the plight of his father.
Choked, guttural whimpers splintered off from the King's throat, a quiet ca-ca-ca sound. Foam bubbled out of his mouth. There was a depression in his chest, where Mustardseed had unintentionally shattered the royal ribcage, sinking deeper and deeper in. And yet, in a perverse twist of events, it was as if by breaking those bones did Mustardseed relieve some internal pressure inside The King, restoring to him the power of breath, and shattering that silent catatonia he was lost in before.
What happened.
For now he breathed, and he breathed desperately, gasping in heaving lungfuls of air, clawing at his heart, an explosion of sound and horror. The Crown Prince watched in nauseating fear at this rabid dog succumbing to its disease.
As The King breathed, he began to shake. Like a million instances of rigor mortis were occurring simultaneously across his body, Oberon began to tremble, to quake, spasms piling higher on spasms, terror mounting terror: death convulsions, premature death throes. (Here be Dragons. Here be Demons). Yet underneath this nightmare dance, Mustardseed could see flakes of skin sloughing, and pervading the room were the sounds of snap-snap-snapping fibres, as millions of muscles broke inside Oberon's limbs.
The poison had already been administered by the time they called me, Mustardseed realised. But it wasn't a neurotoxin.
He gazed in horror at the wreck of his father, as finally the pain receptors in Oberon's skin activated (numbed for so long as they were by the stealth agent of the poison he had taken), and The King began to cry, to curse and scream and flail, as he was seized with unimaginable pain; the pain of a body slowly falling apart. Tears tinged red flowed from his pale irises. Mustardseed fought the urge to vomit, then turned and threw up over the carpeted floor.
The poison the rebels gave was a tissue disintegrator. Oberon's voice vibrated into a death-rattle. It breaks the body apart.
Oberon's voice devolved into a gurgling scrawl, as the ligaments of his skull finally tore, and his jawbone fell to the floor. I did this. Even his arms and legs had stopped moving, their tendons dissolved.
I made this happen. All that was left was that quiet gurgle, and tears seeping out of eyeballs half-eaten. Dear gods. Soon, that was gone too.
No. No no no.
And the reign of Oberon Goodfellow was over.
...
Let the fires burn. Let the guns roar. Soon, the news of Oberon's death will spread, and celebrations will be underway.
Mustardseed, earlier that day, had bought freedom for his people. Who knows how long it will last, because the freedom of bullets is short-lived at best, but he has opened up the future of Faerie for compromise. At the cost of one man. At the cost of countless soldiers.
Dawn breaks. The smear of red becomes a blazing ball of heat.
Sunrise. A new beginning. A new hope.
It feels warm and healthy on his skin.
And then he opens his eyes, and sees The Falsities Of His Soul gleaming in the light.
Like all writers who start new fandoms, my first story in ST is going to be weird fluff I wrote while in a mild haze caused by too much fangirling about Johanna and Anthony (PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD IF THERE ARE ANY SWEENEY TODD FANS OUT THERE, PM ME, AND WE'LL TALK ABOUT WHAT'S QUICKLY BECOMING ONE OF MY FAVOURITE THINGS IN THE WHOLE WORLD) (though not quite as amazing as les mis was, that was my first flame).
I'm not really advertising (ok I suppose I kind of am), 'cause whether you read my ST story or not doesn't affect me too much. Hell, I mostly wrote it to cope with the heartbreaking fact that these characters aren't real, and that I'm investing far too much emotion and agony on people who cease to exist after the curtain closes. But it'd be cool if you'd drop by and leave me a review telling me how I did, or just to say hi.
Thanks for reading this, though. I'm surprised you managed to slog your way through.