Author note: I do not own The Devil's Carnival. Nor do I own The Last Story.
After seeing trailers for The Devil's Carnival: Alleluia! and playing through The Last Story,
REALLY IMPORTANT NOTE: I have not seen The Devil's Carnival: Alleluia! movie, so any backstory stuff involved with the Painted Doll is completely nothing but my own speculation and said speculation is based off what I saw in the trailer and any other clips from the movie that I could find online. So please don't flame, thank you! *hides*
Warning: LOTS OF SPECULATION ABOUT BACKSTORIES OF Painted Doll, Count Arganan and Dagran, possible spoilers for both The Devil's Carnival and The Last Story, DagranxPainted Doll, Count ArgananxPainted Doll, past DagranxCount Arganan, past AgentxDoll/June, mentions of sex but mostly pondered about/talked about between characters, violence, cursing, more warnings to be put up later
After The Fall
1. Dagran
Dagran couldn't help but groan as he woke up, lying on his side. Vision hazy, he saw vertical bars of black, dim lighting, flickering torches..
What?
He blinked a couple of times, sitting up immediately and realizing where he was.
He was in a cage.
He crawled forwards, rattling the bars with his hands lightly, but they wouldn't budge.
"Damn it." He whispered to himself. Was in the Lazulis Castle Dungeon? Did he actually survive Zael's finishing blow and so they took him back to Lazulis Castle, only to throw him in the dungeon? So much for his friends.
But he'd betrayed them first, and he'd also killed General Asthar. If he was in a cage in the dungeon, it was probably for the sake of keeping the peace among hte people of Lazulis, probably to prevent riots because it was more likely they would riot if they let someone who killed General Asthar and betrayed Lazulis go.
Wait. Maybe he could find a way out of this cage. Noticing a padlock, shut tight, he quickly crawled to it, grabbing the heavy lock and gazing at the keyhole. He could pick this lock, no problem. He just needed a needle. Some thin metal object...something. And no, he had none of those in his hair, and after checking his pockets, he had no hairpins either. Sometimes Mirania had used those to help him with his hair.
Maybe there was something in the cage with him that could help him out. He did quick search of his limited surroundings.
No. Nothing but hay, unfortunately. Growling, he shook the bars again.
"Hello?" He called out, looking around. "Zael? Mirania? Calista? Syrenne? Yurick? Lowell?"
He rattled the cage bars once more. "Anyone?"
There was silence.
He couldn't help but swallow slightly, wincing at how dry his throat was. He needed water. He felt weak. How long had he been unconscious? He wasn't sure. Maybe he'd been out for a day, two days, maybe a week. He had no idea.
"Well then..." Maybe if he stuck around in this cage someone would come by and notice him. Or maybe not. Taking a breath, he sat down on the cage floor and waited.
Footsteps suddenly alerted his attention, and he straightened himself, turning to the left. "Hello?" He managed, hoping he was loud enough for the person to hear. "Wh-where am I?"
There was silence, but the figure simply came closer. It became apparent that this person was a woman—and certainly not someone that he knew at all.
She was a petite woman, curly light blonde hair between chin and shoulder-length with bangs and almost-white pale skin. Her beige, stitched corset had an opening in the middle (which nearly revealed her breasts, much to Dagran's embarassment as he did his best not to just stare at her chest), laced together with crossed strings. Burgundy tulle sleeves covered her arms, completed with a large cream colored ribbon around her neck, a puffy burgundy tutu, red tights under torn, black fishnets and brown high heels.
Her hands, covered withbrown fingerless gloves with cream-colored ruffled arm guards gently gripped the bars of the cage, gazing at him curiously with her two different coloured eyes (right eye blue and left one being brown). Dagran also took notice of the tattered bandage tied on her right arm and that she had a burgundy hairpiece made of tulle resting in her hair. The most noticeable thing about her, however was her face. A series of cracks ran down mostly on the right side of her face, but there were a little bit of cracks on the left side as well. She blinked, long eyelashes shimmering in the light. Lips obviously covered with pink lipstick pursed together, almost in imitation of offering a kiss, and her mostly undamaged side of her face was powdered pink.
To be honest, she really looked like one of those expensive, pretty porcelain dolls, but more lifelike than expected. Save for the cracks on her face of course.
Dagran wasn't quite sure how to speak to her. Was she mute? Maybe that's why he hadn't heard her speak quite yet.
"Um, excuse me, miss." He started, hoping that he wasn't freaking her out any more than her appearance was freaking him out. "I don't quite know where I am. Can you tell me?"
One of her eyebrows lifted slightly, as if giving him a little look, before she pointed to her mouth.
"Wait, what?" Dagran was not the greatest with sign language.
She seemed to give a little huff, one hand on her waist, before she tapped her puckered lips with her other hand once more to try to get her point across.
"Wait..." Dagran quickly figured it out. "You want me to kiss you first?"
She nodded, a little half-smile appearing on her face as she leaned forwards a bit more, giving him an excellent view of her face up close, and a little more of her corset-covered cleavage. He felt his face heat up slightly, and decided to hell with it before he kissed her. Her tongue slipped in between his teeth, and he felt her pull him closer to her, their lips locking more than he expected.
Then—ow. Wait, what?
Dagran could hear her smirk slightly at him as he put a hand to his lower lip.
She bit me!
Damn, no one he'd ever kissed before had intentionally done that, and he was more than sure that she had fully intended such a bite on his lips.
Not the worst of injuries, though. He'd had worse. And besides, he had other things to attend to.
"I kissed you," Dagran stated, giving her a little bit of a look, "And I assume that you have information you can give me, miss...?"
The painted woman gave him some sort of flirtatious look, a little bit of a leering smirk. For a moment, Dagran thought he saw the Count's face in his mind's eye, and then blinked and saw the woman again—
No, not the woman. A snake skinned man (or at least Dagran thought it looked like snake skin, because what else it could be?) seemed to almost chortle with amusement, ragged top hat and other clothes replacing the tulle and corset.
"Howww naiiiveeee." He murmured, grinning at him, his voice slithering through Dagran's ears. "Thought youuu'd beee betterrr than thissss..."
Dagran blinked, rubbing his eyes with a hand. What the hell had just happened? Did the woman just..was that an illusion? He must be seeing things!
"Who the hell are you?" Dagran felt himself nearly hiss in return, glaring at him. "What do you want with me?" He had the feeling that this one was surely not to be trusted, especially if it could shiftshape into something so eerily beautiful as the woman from before.
The other man merely gave a mockery of a bow. "Twinnnn, aaatt your seerrrrviceeee..." He crooned, chuckling a bit. For some reason, his deceptive demeanor seemed to remind Dagran of both Zesha and Zepha.
Before Dagran could speak, the Twin transformed into none other than Count Arganan, gazing at him intently, his one good eye piercing Dagran's golden ones, head tilted downwards slightly with a slight grin on his face, as if attempting to seduce him. Dagran recalled making a similar face to the Count during the first time they ever slept together.
However, just because Dagran could make a face so beauteous enough to seduce the Count of Lazulis, it did not necessarily mean that the Count could do the same.
Deciding that force would be a better idea right now to get some answers, he showed one hand through the bars, gripping the Twin by the throat. The Count's face in front of him wavered, and then returned back to the Twin's normal face, save for his eyes bulging out slightly from surprise.
"I need answers." The former mercenary leader stated, looking right into his eyes. He didn't want to be too hostile but sometimes he knew it had to be called for. "Where am I? And why am I here?"
The Twin merely smiled, pulling away from Dagran's grasp with little struggle, a throat chuckle emerging from his throat.
"I-in H-Helllll..." The snake-skinned man murmured, before he turned on his heel and began to walk away, turning his head to look at him, his face transforming into Dagran's own. "Darreee to tread in the faceeee of dangerrr, Dagran...?"
He then walked away.
"What the—hey!" Dagran rattled the bars, glaring at the Twin. "Damn it...you didn't answer why I'm here!"
He then heard a soft creak, and he turned to his right to see that the cage door was open, unlocked. It seemed to almost bait him to go outside the cage, daring him to venture farther through this place. Deciding to take a chance, the mercenary leader got out of the cage, looking around and standing on both feet.
In Hell. The Twin just said that he was in Hell. The very thought of it made Dagran shiver slightly. He didn't actually think that Hell was real. He thought that people just simply end up being nothingness after death. Well, he guessed he must be wrong, then.
Checking himself quickly, he realized he had no weapon. He needed to truly tread carefully. Anyone could attack him. And The Twin—how in the world did that strange man know his name?
Maybe if he followed him, he would get answers.
So he did just that. Taking a couple steps down the alley, the smell of cotton candy echoed in his senses, followed by strange bouts of laughter and...screams?...from nowhere. Then he noticed a huge Ferris Wheel nearby.
Well, if he was in Hell, why did it have to end up being some strange carnival?
That was when he heard singing.
He was used to hearing singing sometimes, when he walked around Lazulis at night. There could be drunks, or bards, or drunken bards doing the singing. It was fine. He was used to that.
But this was different. This wasn't some drunken chanty. Oh, no.
The voice was divine.
It was feminine voice, he was sure of it. Maybe if he found the source he could ask for help? Get his answers about why he was even here?
That sounded good. He did just that, closing his eyes briefly to listen, before he walked a couple steps to the left, then the right, then left one more time...
Oh!
The music stopped. He found a woman who looked exactly like the porcelain doll-like appearance that the Twin had on to trick him into kissing him.
Except Dagran was pretty sure that this living porcelain doll, cracks and all, was real this time. There was only so much one could do with tricks, and as far as he guessed, she didn't look like she was going to be harming him. At least he hoped this was a real person this time and not an illusion.
"Excuse me, miss?" He started, looking around before scampering over to her booth. "Do you mind telling me, uh...where I can find the boss of this place? So I can ask him a couple questions." He managed. There must be some leader down here in Hell, right? Dagran forgot said leader's name, unforunately. Maybe if he could find him, have a chat with him...it could work somehow. Right?
The woman turned, looking to him, before she gently tapped the sign above her, attached to her booth.
Kissing Booth.
Well shit.
He'd have to kiss her again. Well, at least it seemed like this was the real her and not the Twin person.
"Well," Dagran managed, smiling at her awkwardly, attempting to be enthusiastic in the hope of her being a bit nicer than the Twin, "Okay. I can do that..."
She simply, quietly smiled, before leaning forwards and pressing her lips to his.
She tasted better than the Twin, for sure. Still had that cotton candy air about her, her lips full and absolutely perfect to kiss.
Maybe he kissed her a little too much, though, because she pulled back and gave him a slight glare, her little hands on her hips.
"Uh, sorry." He managed awkwardly, shooting her a smile. Other women back when he was alive (and even the Count) would have found it adorable that he was acting so awkward and flustered, even if it was a mere act.
The woman looked a little amused, but not as amused as he hoped for, before pointing in one direction.
"He's that way? Hey, thanks." He smiled at her, giving her a wave before he left.
Damn, that woman was cute. She honestly was cute, but he sensed something alluring from her also. And she was helpful (or at least he hoped she was trying to be), so that helped his impression of her also.
He then realized where she'd pointed at.
It was a tent, with the words Mirror Maze on a sign nearby.
This could be my way to find the boss of Hell and figure out why I got here.
He went inside the tent without another moment's hesitation.
Or it could be a trap.
Only one way to find out.