Visiting Hours
Genres: Fantasy, Horror
Summary: From the top of a hill she can see a castle and a forest, a funeral procession and a masquerade that never ends. / Pervadeshipping Amane x Cyndia, Fractured Fairy Tale
A/N: Written for the YGO Fanfiction Contest, Season 8.5, Tier Five. The pairing is Pervadeshipping (Cyndia x Amane Bakura), and the story is a fractured fairy tale. This fits into (pre)canon, but it is a bit AU-ish in its construct. The story is listed as horror, please don't take that lightly as this contains some pretty dark and potentially gruesome subject matter. I hope you enjoy!
Come, darling, take my hand, we're going on a trip. All of us, the whole family, see, it'll be nice to all be together—
All of us, yes, that's right—
My darling, what's wrong? Is there something wrong? Something you cannot see, but feel—
Nightmares again? Tell me about them—it is the same one, isn't it? About the crumbling castle, and the vines. Do not worry, I am here, they cannot harm you, they are not real—
Save her, save her, save the girl don't come to me, just let me die only save her, let her live or if she cannot live let us both die together—
Visiting Hours
The girl lies on the operating table. Her eyes are open, but the doctors know from the vast amount of drugs they've been feeding into her system and the massive blood loss that she cannot possibly have any idea of what is going on around her. When she was brought in there was so much blood, the brightness of the red all the more shocking against her white hair, her pale skin, and the starched whiteness of the lab coats that bustle around her. She stares at the white ceiling and the white noise from the beeping machines and hurried whispers and low sobbing. She hates the last sound, although she does not mind the others as much.
I do not want to be here, she says, although the words only come out as a soft exhale, and the settling of her shoulders into a padded table. Somewhere above her ribs there is a sharp pain.
Then where would you like to be? A voice answers her, so different from the usual murmur of the humans and machines that it stands out for it. She tilts her head—no, perhaps it is the gloved woman standing beside her, tilting it for her—and her vision shows her stars instead of a white ceiling.
White stars, impossibly bright stars, hovering over a forest and a castle, she can see it all from the top of a hill. She wriggles her feet to feel the loamy softness of the dirt underneath them, and offers a laugh that the wind snatches up in a second. Her mother was always angry with her for not wearing shoes out-of-doors.
The girl walks down the hillside with steady steps, only slipping a few times on the grass, wet with dew. At the base of the hill is a wide, winding river, and she peers closer for a moment, catching her reflection in the clearness. White hair, pale skin, a white dress in the oddest of cuts, something unfashionable, with wide shoulders and knotted ties at the waist. She blinks twice, watching the reflection mirror the action, before glancing up to see a man in a boat paddling towards her.
"Hello," she greets him with a smile and an awkward bob of her head, unsure whether to curtsy or to bow, to wave or to offer a handshake. The man pulls the boat far enough out of the water so it won't be pulled back in, and approaches her with an outstretched hand.
Handshake it is, then, and she slips her tiny hand into his much larger one. "Might I ask who you are?" she asks, attempting to sound polite while asking a question that certainly isn't. "Do you live there?" She points at the castle, which looks even more crumbling and decrepit at this distance than it did from the top of the hill. She wonders what it would look like, then, glancing up at it mere inches from the front door.
"Do I live-?" And the man laughs in a way that sounds like he is simultaneously clearing something from his throat. "I'm sorry, miss, that we have no need for jesters at the castle, otherwise I'd hire you."
"Did I say something funny?" She stares at him through too-large eyes, wide and nearly unblinking. He looks away after a moment, glancing down into the river. She watches his reflection, and the way the rippling motion of the water makes his nose appear to move and twist. She laughs, too.
"Apparently you did," and the man straightens his coat with the words. It's elegant, a dark black with a kind of pinstripe in the pattern, with a colored tie—she cannot quite tell the color in the mid-darkness, but it could be a kind of jewel-tone. "Everyone knows the castle is just for the Queen. No one else lives in it, not even the servants, not even me—she keeps all the rooms open, for her King and her children."
"How many children?" She asks, already thinking of tiny princes in gold crowns and princesses in gold dresses, marching down stairs with rich red carpeting, dancing under chandeliers lit by a hundred flickering candles. "Are there any close to my age?"
The man shifted his posture from one foot to the other. "She, ah—she doesn't have any children. The rooms are empty—for the children she would have had, if she had any." He sighs then, and the gesture makes him look strangely older. "I shouldn't have to explain all this. You must be a visitor, then, to be so ignorant of our kingdom."
"A visitor?" She laughs again, clasping her pale hands together. "What does that mean?"
"A visitor is someone who visits. More with the stupid questions."
"I'm sorry," she says. "I can see I've made you uncomfortable."
"Hmph." The man glances back at the boat as if suddenly remembering why he had pulled it ashore in the first place. "Do you wish to go to the castle?"
"Yes, please!" she says, beaming at him. "I would love to see it, and meet your Queen. Is she lovely?"
"Yes, quite." The man reaches for her hand and she gives it to him, letting him keep her steady as she climbs into the boat. It is a simple rowboat made of a dark wood, and she sits on the farthest plank, drawing her knees together and clasping her arms around then, settling her cheek against one arm and letting her hair fall into her face. Through the curtain of hair things look silvery instead of dark.
"Do you have a name?" The boat moves underneath her as the man pushes it into the water, jumping in with a fair amount of grace to settle himself into his own seat and reach for the paddle to carry them across the river.
"Why," she says, sitting up, puzzled. "I don't know. Do I have a name?"
"Why ask me?" He rows leisurely. "Is that an ID bracelet on your arm?"
There is a tag around her right wrist, a thin cord tied to thick paper. "Amane Bakura," she reads aloud.
"Then there's your answer," the man responds. "That wasn't so hard."
Amane laughs. "I guess not."
"No more guessing," the man says. "There is no time for that."
"Do you have a name?" she asks politely. "I know mine, and you know mine, but I don't know yours."
"I am a rower," he tells her. "And I am also Magier. I am capable of small feats of magic."
Amane leans forward in her seat, excitedly clasping her knees with both hands again. "Show me."
He obliges her, releasing the oars which continue to row themselves. Casting both hands over the water on either side of the rowboat, the reflection in the dark water begins to shimmer, and Amane excitedly leans over the edge to see. Instead of a darkened sky and her pale, drawn face, she can see herself in the lightness of day in a shimmering ball gown, a crown made of stars sitting atop her orderly hair. She leans back into the boat with a smile.
To the magier, the water is still dark. "What did you see? Did you like it?"
She starts, turning her head to glance first at the now-still water and at the man with his arms crossed over his chest, the oars turning as if weightless in their oarlocks. "Did you not see the same thing?"
"I do not think so, but I will never know unless you answer my question."
"I saw my reflection," Amane says. "I was beautiful—I was wearing a crown. It was like I was a Queen."
Is it just her imagination, or do the oars hesitate for a moment, the creaking of the wood turning into a physical sigh, one of lamentation and regret? The magier does not smile, nor does he frown. "I wouldn't tell the Queen that, if I were you."
"Why not?" Amane asks. "Reflections change every day."
"Perhaps," he says. "We are here." He steps out of the boat quickly, drawing it up to the shore as well before helping Amane out with a firm grip on her arm. "Do be careful, miss. I am sure the castle and all its wonders are…different than you might be expecting."
"I am expecting nothing, so it must be everything!" She spreads her arms out wide before laughing, turning away to walk up the path of matted grass that wove its way up the hillside to the grand entrance of the castle.
Standing on its doorstep feels very much how she thought it might. Even before her eyes the thick stone slabs seem to be crumbling away, so strange and desolate. She sets one hand against the pitted stone. Amane has heard of houses settling before, so why should that not apply to castles, too?
The door is large and sturdy, constructed of a dark wood that reminds her of a small, unsteady rowboat. With small but steady hands, she reaches for the brass door-knocker before lifting it and letting it fall, repeating the action twice. As the door opens the light from inside makes it appear illuminated from all sides, growing wider and brighter until she can barely see, raising her hands to shield her eyes from the light.
When they adjust, Amane sees a small man dressed all in black in the center of the doorway, giving her the oddest of stares. She asks to see the Queen.
In the throne room, the Queen stands before mirror, an oval piece of glass inlaid into an intricately carved scene of crisscrossing flowers and vines, the whole of it carved from a single piece of wood. To her, the beauty of the piece is not in the woodworking, but in the reflection displayed in the glass. She uses it now to adjust the silver crown that rests on her head, tucking her bangs to one side. She tilts her body, but she is still only able to partially obscure the two empty chairs behind her from view. It all but breaks her heart that the only thing she can see is the one empty chair; it is all she can ever see. One person cannot fill two chairs, just as one person cannot create an empire all on their own. Not one that lasts, anyway.
"Cyndia my Queen," one of her attendants calls from the front of the room, standing at attention by the doors. "A visitor to see you."
"A visitor?"She steps away from the mirror to move to the center of the dais. "How can we deny such a rare bird entrance into my court? Let them in."
From the other side the two double doors open and a young girl walks in, her head instantly twisting from side to side to take in every detail of the opulent throne room. Amane takes in the gold leaf covering just about every surface, from the candlesticks to the supports for the arching ceiling, itself painted to look like the night sky, with twinkling lights and stars glimmering as if real, in constellations she had never before seen.
The Queen herself soon takes up Amane's attention, as she knows that there is no one who could look as comfortable and at home in her role and her surroundings. Surely the woman is the most beautiful she has ever seen—blonde, her hair long and free like Amane's, but in a richly dyed gown of red to compare to Amane's own colorless, simple gown that ends halfway down her legs, exposing her bare feet and ankles. She wiggles them anxiously, suddenly aware of how she must look in comparison to all of the finery around her.
"My dear," the Queen says, stretching out a hand. "Please, join me on the dais."
Amane takes her hand, and pale fingers tighten over paler ones as she is pulled to follow the Queen as she moves past the throne chairs, empty, to stand before a large mirror. In it, Amane can see herself and the Queen, even as she watches the Queen through her own eyes. She has never seen someone twice before like this, and supposes it is what the other must also see, but in reverse.
"Is it magical?" she asks. "The mirror, and…the stars in your ceiling, and…"
"Everything is magical here," the Queen tells her. "Everything. Even this castle, this very building, is made from magic."
"Truly?" Amane's eyes grow wide, and the Queen fondly strokes her hair, tucking a loose strand behind one ear.
"Surely you noticed?"
Amane reflects on the smoothness of the river, the starkness of her friend the magier, the stone slabs that seem to carry more emotion than any human she has met. And the stretching tendrils of green, the dark vines snaking their way over the surface, the very same that she could see crawling over the westernmost side of the castle near the turrets, the very same that had haunted her nightmares of a sand-colored castle very similar to the one she stands in now.
"And the vines?" she asks.
The grip on her hand tightens, and Amane's gaze focuses on only one Queen now, not wanting to see the flash of anger in her eyes twice through both the mirror and the real thing. "Such silly questions. But I forget you are only a visitor, and must have many questions about our kingdom here."
"A visitor," Amane says. "The magier called me that as well. What does it mean?"
"It means you are not here to stay, dear girl," the Queen says.
"Then"—and she puts her childlike, rational mind to the test—"does that mean that those who live here cannot leave?"
"You would be correct." The Queen returns to staring at the mirror, raising a hand to brush against the carved wood.
"How sad," Amane says.
"Only if there are things one desires that cannot be found in this world," she responds. "Do you have a name, child?"
"It is Amane." She volunteers the information readily. "Do you have a name? The magier went by such, although it is not much of a name. Should I call you königin?"
The Queen nods appreciatively. "You are well educated, child, but that is not my name. I will call you Amane, and you must call me Cyndia. You must stay here with us for awhile; I will have a room made up for you. This kingdom is full of things that I am sure will delight you."
"Cyndia." She tries the name and finds it as pretty as its bearer. "Thank you—you have shown me such hospitality!"
"It is nothing." She waves the words away with a hand, and Amane follows the motion, wondering where words that are cast off like that go to. "This is a wishing mirror. Would you like me to tell you about it?"
"Yes, Cyndia," Amane says politely, although she would have preferred to stay away from reflective surfaces, given her recent experiences with them.
"I can use it to see my deepest heart's desire." Cyndia's voice is strong, too strong for the two ears that have to hear the words. "I miss my husband terribly, but he is on the other side and cannot come to me." She strokes the glass, and Amane almost believes for a second that she sees it ripple. "He did promise, and he is working, but not as hard as I would like."
"The…King?" Amane glances up at her for confirmation, but finds only bitterness in Cyndia's eyes.
"The King, any children I might have had, my future…"
"Surely you love being Queen!" Amane says. "When I was a little girl, I desperately wanted to be a princess. I would get dressed up in elaborate costumes, and sometimes I would even wear them to bed!" At this her smile falters, as she remembers her nightmares again, the ones that started when she was little, when she wore a crown to sleep, and when the sand that should've fallen in her eyes and given her good dreams instead built up a world for her to helplessly fall into, sinking quickly beneath the surface. Sleep was never kind to Amane.
"Would you like to be a princess now? You can be, if you want." Cyndia's hand once again straightens Amane's hair. "It's so much like his," she murmurs. "I could almost believe…"
Amane draws back a few steps, the floor suddenly cold on her feet. "I can't," she says with a stilted laugh. "I can't stay here, I have to return to my home, to my family. I have one already so I cannot be a part of yours! They are waiting for me!"
"I'm sure they are," Cyndia turns, for the first time placing her back to the mirror and offering her undivided attention to Amane. "They wait with every breath they have for the last of yours to run out."
"What do you mean?" she asks.
"Stay," Cyndia repeats. "You promised you would stay. You're no more than a visitor now, it's true, but in time"—and she reaches again for Amane, who again takes two steps backwards—"in time you could become a princess."
"No." The single word escapes her mouth before she can realize just what it might mean. She knows she shouldn't tell a Queen no—it's probably not even allowed—but she cannot help it, the word was meant to be free.
"I can't," she continues. "I won't stay with you. I…must go." She falters over her words but not her feet, spinning on her heels and running for the doors, throwing them open and sprinting past into an impossibly long hallway lined with red carpeting and stained glass windows as high as she could crane her neck to see.
As she runs she catches sight of the moon through the glass, and then she jumps back with a shriek as the vines encroaching upon the castle begin to slither past, blocking out the light with their spindly, fingerlike reach. The stained glass windows appear to move, the subjects within twisting their arms, dropping their heads in defeat, running with her as the main door is finally within her sight. There is no one else to stop her, no one even close enough to try, and the magier's words echo in her ears as if he was whispering the words right beside her, no one else lives in it, not even the servants, not even me—she keeps all the rooms open, for her King and her children. Next is the Queen's voice, and Amane runs even faster at the memory, you must stay here with us for awhile; I will have a room made up for you.
Her feet practically cry at the disparity between the plush carpet with the hard ground of the outdoors, but she keeps going, feeling almost dizzy from the exertion as her heart beats even faster within her chest to keep up her momentum. Before her stretches the forest, she knows this from the view from the hillside and the windows, and from her many nightmares as a child.
She knows it is usually the forest that hides the most dangerous, threatening things, the things that wish to eat you instead of merely feeding you honeyed words to lock you away. In comparison, Amane decides that the castle is a dozen times more terrifying, and runs between the trees until she cannot see the sky from the branches.
Inside the throne room, Cyndia calls for her doorman. She has only one command for him: "Bring me the wächter."
"Yes, my Queen." He leaves silently, and she returns to her mirror, watching the glass ripple beneath her fingertips. She has only one command for it: "Show me the girl."
A man dressed in a green so dark it could be black enters, his tanned skin and hair nearly covered by a low, elaborate helmet. "You called for me, my Queen?"
"This girl is mine," she says, pointing towards the mirror. The wächter leans forward to see, his eyes widening only slightly when he catches sight of her. It is easy, the whiteness of her face, hair, and dress standing out from the dimness of the forest.
"You know it best," Cyndia continues. "You will find the girl, cut out her heart, and bring it to me. I want what is mine."
"She is a visitor." The remark is made without inflection.
"Such a rare bird. What do you do to birds, wächter?" Cyndia asks.
"I do not know, my Queen," he answers.
"Clip their wings."
Amane runs until her feet can run no more, and then she sinks against the side of a tree, huddling in its hollow as she watches the stillness of the forest around her.
When she next opens her eyes, she thinks it might be morning, as the air above her seems to be a few shades lighter than it was when she first arrived, with the moon overhead. Now, instead of a moon, a man dressed all in green stands before her.
Certainly unexpected. Amane screams, and the man flinches in response.
"Would you be quiet, girl?" he hisses, his voice harsh even in its softness, like he is unaccustomed to whispering.
She stops screaming. "I'm sorry."
"And don't apologize!" he hisses again. "You have nothing to apologize for! You're just a visitor, you're not meant to be caught up in all of this."
"Perhaps I am," Amane says, more to herself than to him. She stands on steady but aching feet, wincing a bit at the memory imprinted in her skin of crushed branches, rough ground, and sharp splinters.
"You look pale. If you are injured, I know where you should go," the man continues. "There is a woman in the forest, an elfe, who can help you."
"Yes, but will she?" There is another, sharper memory, of a mad, bitter Queen and a man in a rowboat who did nothing to stop her from visiting the castle.
"If you tell her the wächter sent you, she will."
"Did the Queen send you?"
There is a moment of silence, before the wächter gestures her forward. "Follow me and I will show you the way."
They walk together, Amane's hurried steps barely matching the man's much longer ones. Where his voice is loud his movements are silent and effortless, each footstep blending so deeply into the forest itself that she has to question whether or not she heard anything that wasn't already there in the first place.
It is easy to place him, from the knives at his belt to the arrows slung in easy reach on his back. "You were sent to bring me back, weren't you?" Amane asks. No sooner are the words out and she revises her question. "She sent you to kill me, didn't she?"
"My Queen is eternally resentful, eternally cynical," he says. "If she cannot have you she will try to ensure that no one will."
"What about you?" she asks. "A wächter does more than just hunt, he defends. He guards. I wonder if you are that kind of guardian."
"I am." He stops, and it takes Amane two paces to even realize it. He points forward, at a thinner cluster of trees in the distance. "If you walk that way you will eventually pass a large rock. If you turn left from it, you will come to the elfe's house. Do not follow the stream; it will try to set you off course."
"Aren't you coming with me?" she asks.
The wächter sighs deeply, more a regretful action than a needless one. "I will find a deer and bring its heart to the Queen. This should appease her."
Amane nods, reciting the wächter's instructions in her head. "Good luck."
"And to you as well," he says. "I hope you are one of the lucky ones."
"Left at the big rock…" she mumbles as she walks, placing one foot directly before the other to ensure that the line she walks is as straight as possible. She can see it far before she actually comes to it, looking almost like a monument of sorts in the way it both blends in to the natural environment around it and rises above it through sheer scale and prominence. The rock was not merely large, it was giant, taller by far than she was.
Amane trudged ever closer, and by the time she finally came within reach of it she did just that, reaching out her fingertips to brush against the stone, wondering if it was from stone like this that the castle itself had been built. It was a funny image, imagining the forest covered in similar, giant stones, each mined and broken up to build a kingdom.
On second thought it wasn't funny at all, and Amane withdrew her hand in an attempt to give the rock some privacy from her touch. If she were a rock, she wouldn't have wanted to be used to build a house. A statue, that would have been a much better use, she decides—a way to give life and expression to such a porous material.
Left. Immediately off to the side the ground begins to slope again, driving down as she walks. The trees grow narrower, and before long the wind begins to grow sweeter and she can almost hear laughter on the breeze. It's a high, light sound, like a wind chime, and more than once Amane finds herself glancing backwards to be sure that the sound was a product of her imagination and nothing more.
Over here, love, head this way…
There it is again, and Amane spins around, looking at the sloping hillside around her. There is nothing but trees and fallen leaves and no one but herself.
That's right, I'm right here, turn this way!
She hears them almost like an echo, just faint enough to ignore, remembering them only in half-attempted moments, getting the feel of the voice more than the words themselves. Down to the left—there! She sees it finally, the curve of the brook as it winds around rocks, dropping down over miniature waterfalls to continue its swift journey through the forest.
She is enamored by it, suddenly; it has been ages since she has felt clean, and the dirt from the forest combined with her own sweat colors her skin and makes it sticky to the touch as she runs one hand along her arm lightly. Surely it would feel good to spend a few moments washing? Wouldn't she like to be clean again?
It is as if the brook has gotten into her head now, and Amane spins again as if that will help clear her head. The sound of the water rushing across the ground fills her ears, so much louder than it should be. Above it all is the lilting voice, vaguely female, laughing as she clasps her hands over each ear.
Yes! Come to me! Follow me—what do you imagine will await you at the stream's end? You know you want to know. Follow me, girl, and find out for yourself!
She screams something unintelligible to block it out, random syllables to cover its own structured words. It works and the sound recedes. She stumbles away, remembering the wächter's words. It would try to set her off course, and she needed to be stronger than that if she ever hoped to reach the elfe's house.
"I am strong enough," Amane says, curling her fingers into her hair, the palms still pressed to each ear. "I will not listen to you. In fact," she adds, straightening, removing her hands, "there is nothing to listen to."
Her pace away from the stream is more stumble than walk, but the voice is gone, the musical burble of the stream replaced by nothing at all. She smiles, triumphant, crossing the hill to put it out of view entirely. It is banished from her mind just as easily.
At the hill, she can see the valley stretching on before her, noticing as she begins to walk down it that the trees in this part of the forest bear flowers. She stretches out her fingertips to brush the edges of one pale purple blossom, its softness both surprising and comforting her. She is almost there.
If only it was so easy to banish the castle from her mind or its Queen, and return to the familiar world of her youth, the world that she's used to. Her bare feet crush leaves underneath them, and in the distance she believes she can see what looks like a house.
A wide path of carefully neat gravel leads to the oversized, circular door of the house. She supposes it is the elfe's house, although it isn't like there is a mailbox with the owner's name or a street address she can consult to confirm her suspicions. Beside her, tall flowerboxes with green stalks poking through the dirt line the walkway, and as she passes them the stems instantly spring into full bloom, winding up and opening the tightly closed buds into full flowers, poppies and peonies in almost impossibly bright shades of purple, red, and pink. She reaches to touch one, closing her hand around the base of a flower to bring it closer to her nose, snatching her hand back suddenly as a sharp pain thuds through her thumb.
She stares at her hand as a small circle of red begins to bead on the surface of her thumb, the blood welling to the surface before a drop drips over the side, running down the length of the appendage.
Amane steps back from the flowers, unsure what to do. Her dress is still white, and she doesn't want to ruin that by wiping her hand over the cloth, so with lingering hesitation she approaches the large door, rapping twice with her uninjured hand.
The door opened on its own, and a voice from inside calls, "Come in."
She does, and the first thing she notices is the smell. The air is filled with something heady and rich and dark, something that makes her next inhalation deeper than the one before it. The elfe stands before her, a disapproving look on her blue-tinged face, and with quick fingers she snatches Amane's injured hand, studying it.
"You've made the flowers bloom early," she comments. She waves an arm half-heartedly, and as the door closes Amane catches a final glance of the rows of flowerboxes, and the blooming flowers crumbling into themselves, drying up and decaying before her sight.
Inside the house, Amane can see large cauldrons lining every wall, some bearing lids, others without, but she attributes the smell to the large cauldron atop a healthy fire in the center of the room. Inside something deep red bubbles away, and she breathes in again, giddy with it.
The elfe smacks her arm, lightly. "Stop that. It's poison, you know."
Startled, Amane draws back, her breathing now turned shallow and panicked. "I didn't," she says.
"Well, now you do." She holds Amane's hand over the cauldron and lets a single drop of blood fall inside. It hits the mixture with a hiss, and only then does the elfe finally let go of her hand.
"If your blood is inside this poison, it will have no effect on you," she tells Amane. "You have nothing further to fear within my house. Unless you ingest one of the others, although I doubt you'd do something that stupid."
"No," Amane agrees. Before she can say more the woman intrudes further.
"What are you even doing here? And who are you? No one knows of this place." Cupboards banging, she removes a jar of some herbs and sprinkles some of it into the cauldron. "You interrupted my work, too. At least this is done, now. The greatest poison I can brew. Coat a knife in it and the bite of the blade will be the least of your problems."
"The wächter sent me," Amane says.
The elfe stills, one hand frozen over the cauldron of poison. The very air seems to still with her, and Amane feels that if she had lifted her head to glance inside the cauldron, she would have found the very bubbles had frozen in place, some half-popped, others forming unmoving domes of air.
"Where is he?" she asks.
"The Queen, she—" and Amane chokes on the words. It's suddenly so difficult to say, but the elfe gathers her into her arms and strokes Amane's head lightly.
"Tell me." She waits while Amane sobs.
"The Queen sent him to kill me. He refused, and is returning to face her in my place." She turns a tear-streaked face up to the elfe. "I don't want to go back, but I must!"
"It is too late for him now." She does not appear disheartened, but she must be, Amane can tell. "And you are right, you must return. And quickly."
"Why?" she asks. The elfe releases her from her arms and returns to the poison, stirring it with a large ladle of the same dark metal as the cauldron itself.
"I am not surprised you have not heard. The Queen has thrown a lavish ball, and has gathered all of her court to dance for the arrival of the visitor"—she pauses—"you. They have already been dancing for three solid days, morning and night. Their shoes are about to wear out, and that is only counting their soles."
"All day-!" Amane cries, turning wide, shocked eyes towards the elfe woman, and finding the barest of compassion in her dark eyes. "They'll die! They'll…and she's doing it all for me?"
"Yes. All for you—you are the guest of honor at her ball. You must return." She turns a critical eye to Amane's wardrobe. "But not like that. At least let me fix your hair."
She returns with a brush and a battered tray of cosmetics, moving behind Amane to begin brushing her hair. "You have beautiful hair. If it were blonde instead of white, it might look like the Queen's."
Amane reaches for the cosmetics, opening a palette, searching for a particular shade.
"Do you need help with that?" the elfe asks.
"No," she says quickly. "In fact…could you leave me alone? I'd like to do it myself, if that's okay."
The elfe nods, setting the brush down on the counter. A few strands of Amane's snow-white hair stick to the bristles.
"Find me when you are done, and I will show you the quickest route back to the castle," she says.
Amane plucks a tube of red lipstick from the tray and studies it.
The elfe leaves her further instructions spoken from a hollow face and blank eyes, like she knows something that Amane did not. It is the face of someone who had either received bad news or had to give bad news to someone else, and Amane herself wonders if, in this case, it was not both that affected her.
Apparently the same river that she had first crossed to arrive at the castle's door wound its way around to this part of the forest, and she would have to cross it again to make it back by nightfall, in time for another evening of dancing.
"That is not all," the elfe had told her. "You must cross the River of Tears, yes, but that is easy in comparison to the vines." Amane had started at the words, sudden recollections of too many nightmares forcing their way into her mind. She dropped a hand over Amane's forehead, and commented about how cold her skin was.
"The vines, the thorns—they have built up a wall, cocooning that side of the castle from the forest, keeping everyone inside it from getting out. You must find a way through it if you want to get to the castle. Only then…"
"But that is not what I want to know," Amane had whispered back. "I want to know how to go home! I am only a visitor…just a visitor-!"
The elfe had looked at her sadly, ran a hand once more over her ash-colored hair, nearly all the curls brushed out, her eyes lingering over the wash of bright color on her lips. "You will have to discover the path, I'm afraid."
Amane trudges down the hill, knowing her feet will soon be covered in dirt again and that it is only her dress she needs to worry about keeping clean. The wind picks up as she walks, humming a tune in the back of her throat. Once, she had been excited to see the castle. Now, the same excitement emerges unbidden, coiling in her stomach. A ball, for her! Just for her—but she thinks again of what the Queen really wants, the one thing she can never have.
It makes her skin itch, the uncomfortable sensation that accompanies the realization that she is neither subject nor servant, family nor friend to the woman called Queen. As if her own mother could be so easy to replace. As if children could be so easily found for a woman without one.
"River of Tears," she says to herself, noticing again how the trees are becoming taller, more clustered, the closer she is to the castle and the farther she moves from the cottage. Before long, she thinks she can hear the sound of rushing water in one ear.
She is hesitant to listen to it after how the brook had almost ensnared her, but the elfe had assured her it would not—"It is called a river, not a brook, so why would they operate the same even if it is the same body of water?"—and while the logic made no sense to Amane at the time, she thinks she is beginning to understand it now.
The river is wide, very wide, and it looks so deep that she wonders how crossing it is even possible. There is no magier to guide her across in a rickety rowboat, only a few large rocks at the water's edge. There is no shoreline like before—no beaches pebbled or sandy, just the edge of the grassy riverbank and then water, too deep to see the bottom.
She dips in a hand to clean her feet, finding the water surprisingly buoyant, almost aggressively so. Once the dirt has been cleaned from her feet and ankles and the water dried her skin begins to itch, so she dips her hand again into the water and brings her fingers to her mouth, testing for salt.
Just as she has suspected, it seems almost more salt than water—it's impossibly briny, and once the taste is on her tongue her own eyes water from the strength of it. With nothing else to quench her thirst she must bear it, waving her hands in the air to dry them rather than wipe them on the skirt of her dress.
She creeps closer to the riverbank, finally sticking a foot over the edge and setting it lightly on the surface of the water. If no other way of crossing was going to present itself, Amane figures the only thing left to do was to try walking on the very surface of the water itself.
The salt is so thick that her foot is barely submerged, resting on top of the water. Her other foot soon joins it, and without further hesitation she takes her first step, following it with a dozen others as she walks as steadily as one can in a river composed entirely of shed tears, for what else could be salty enough to hold the weight of a small girl?
The opposite edge of the river seems no closer, but as she chances a quick look behind her she finds she has in fact crossed more than half of it. When she finally stumbles out of the water on the opposite riverbank, she collapses onto the green grass, letting her tired feet rest.
Amane can see the barest tips of what looks like thorns poking into the sky from behind the cover of the forest, and she knows that beyond that is the castle. Carried on the breeze, just barely audible, is the sound of music. One quick glance to confirm the placement of the sun, and she realizes that to make it by sundown she must move quicker. She stands instantly, feeling sick at the thought that she would feel discomfort from a simple walk across a river when there are people waiting her arrival who have been dancing without rest for days.
It strikes her then as she walks that Amane does not know how to dance. She supposes it would be fun, and practices an odd, lilting skip as she rushes barefoot through the forest. It helps her move faster, and she even raises her arms high and twirls once or twice, envisioning an imaginary partner to waltz her along.
"Ow!" She recoils, jumping back as her foot lands on something sharp. She lifts her foot, glancing at the skin to see a thin line of red sloping down the instep. On the ground, a series of thorns poke out from a half-buried vine. She gingerly returns her foot to the ground, walking on her toes, favoring her right over her left with only the barest thought of infections or cleanliness on her mind. She has nothing to bind it with, and it is not deep, more rebuke than wound.
The crackling sticks and rocks underfoot are gradually growing sharper and more pointed, until she glances up to realize that the vines from before, the vines from her childhood nightmares, have knitted themselves together across the treetops, obscuring the sky save for a few rays of burnt orange piercing through to keep the air bright.
Her steps are even more diligent, her waltz turned wobbly and filled with more twists and ducks as soon she becomes completely enmeshed in the dark cocoon of vines. The thorns are longer, and as she hesitantly skirts a dangling vine, she notices the spines only inches from her shoulder must be at least as long as her smallest finger.
She almost trips twice, but the third time her foot catches on a clod of dirt she brushes against a cluster of thorns, ripping the right sleeve of her dress and leaving the cloth covering her shoulder in tatters. Her skin is unmarred, and she considers herself lucky until she brushes too close to another group, leaving scratches on her ankles from the needle-thin spines.
It is becoming too close, the vines harder to avoid, and she notices with growing alarm that the vines themselves are moving, coiling like snakes as they tighten ever so slowly around her. She reaches out to brush vines aside to pass, mindful of the thorns, but on the next pass her hair catches, destroying the elfe's hard work. Her skin is already covered in sweat, dirt, and the faintest of scratches near her elbows and shoulders; she cannot comprehend arriving at a ball dressed like this, but she reminds herself again that she must, and if the ball is in her honor then no one can say that her attire is inappropriate for the occasion.
She twists but a vine has crept closer, and the hemline of her dress is the next to catch on it. The music is growing louder, and Amane thinks that deep through the clusters of vines dark as licorice, she can see the castle.
The renewed hope brings her energy, and she surges through the last few knots of vines, fighting their grasp on her as she breaks through them to a carpet of clear, neat grass. The feeling of it is so divine that she almost sinks to her knees again, but another thought of the dancers and she resists.
Amane follows the music—festive and bright, something old-sounding but not dated, vaguely Italian to her ears?—and crosses a wide, lighted path that eventually grows and merges into a square filled with dancers and partiers, most dressed in bright reds or blacks.
It becomes obvious from the first glance that this is not an ordinary ball but a masque, and as the only one without one the others turn to stare. A couple dancing near her stops altogether, the woman bending closer, and Amane observes her mask with confusion; it is white and lined with gold trim, displaying an exaggerated, downturned mouth, the eyes blackened underneath so as to look absent. Her partner's mask is also white, its trim silver, but blue tears of glitter and silk drip down the length of it to curl underneath his chin.
Some are half-masks, some are full, and others hold the mask to their faces with a hand, balancing protruding noses like an elephant's around downturned mouths lined with deep red or violet, or painted-on teeth in a downward snarl. Glittering tears flow freely down black and blue masks, prominent in silver, the colors whirling together as Amane becomes dizzy trying to catch sight of them all. The only thing more lavish than their masks are their clothes, with wide skirts to the floor and jackets with epaulets and enough gold trim that she wonders how they don't all fall over from that alone.
Amane wears her tattered clothes with pride, acting as if her bare feet and white dress are every bit as much her own mask as the ones the masquers wear. She doesn't notice as the sun dips below the horizon and darkness spreads over the once-crimson sky. The music continues into something deeper, slower, and bolder, and a man taps her on the shoulders and asks her to dance.
Amane accepts, taking his hand and allowing the masked stranger to lead her in a waltz more practiced than her feeble attempts in the woods. She doesn't step on his feet, thank goodness, but for lack of eyes to stare into—the skin around his is also darkened beneath the mask, revealing only the whites and pupils, a dull green that seems a bit out of place amongst the bronze detailing of his mask, stiff to give the appearance of a statue. She is twirled once and dipped, and in her slanted vision she catches sight of the Queen, reclining in a throne before an elegantly set table.
"Excuse me," she says, trying to break free from the dance, but the man grasps her wrists in an almost iron-like hold, continuing the waltz even as she begs him to end it. She is whirled away from her path to the Queen, hidden behind other rows of dancers, and beneath his half-mask she can see the jaw muscles of her partner tighten.
"Stop this!" she calls again as the music grows quicker, louder. "Let me go!"
"I cannot." His voice is richer than velvet and darker than chocolate. "It is only fair that you share some of our torment, is it not?"
"I came to set you free! I want…to set you-!" Dizzy, she is twirled again, her feet tripping over themselves in her newest attempt to escape. Strong arms keep her steady, and her partner bows as the dance ends.
With the music absent it is almost as if her entire sense of balance has been put into disproportion. From her throne, the Queen stands.
"The guest of honor has arrived!"
Her voice is louder and more manic than she remembers, and like Amane she wears no mask to hide her gleaming smile. "The prodigal daughter has returned to us!"
The dancers step back, most on unsteady legs, and Amane spares them no mind as she walks down the path they have created for her. At the head of the table the Queen pauses, gesturing towards the empty chair at its opposite end. Amane refuses to sit.
"Sit," Cyndia says. "Eat. You are the guest of honor, dear heart. You look pale, you could use the nourishment."
"No," Amane says, although the food does look tempting. A gold, domed lid rests by Cyndia's place setting.
"Look at everything around you! All of it I have done for you…to celebrate you! And yet you still will not join me? You will not stay with me? You will not be mine?"
"I will never be yours," she says. "I cannot give that to you—I am someone else's child! Isn't there anything else you want?"
"There is," the Queen says, her voice dripping with contempt as she reaches out a manicured hand to grasp the tiny handle of the dome. "Your heart on a platter."
She whips the lid off, allowing it to fall to the ground and clatter noisily against the stone. She laughs, triumphant. "Like I wouldn't recognize a deer heart when I saw one."
Amane claps a hand to her mouth to cover her gasp, but the Queen's proud, triumphant sneer only grows as she catches sight of the contents of the platter. Amane has never seen a heart before, but she recognizes it from pictures, observing the curved aorta, the ventricles, the soft tissue.
Two hearts rest on the platter, one deer, one not.
Seeing the life-giving organs presented so crudely alongside elegant but long-cool dishes of meats, fishes, and vegetables and teeming centerpieces of flowers makes Amane's own heart break. The human heart could only have one owner, she realizes, swallowing down the threat of bile.
"That heart did not belong to you!" she finds herself saying. "It belonged to a—" an elfin woman who brews poisons and gardens in the middle of the forest, but she does not finish the sentence. "But not yours."
"His service was mine, and his heart was forfeit to me along with the trophy he brought. It will become me," Cyndia says. "For I intend to consume them both."
Amane stares, agape, unable to close her own mouth, unhinged by shock. On the opposite end of the table, she cuts into it with a fork, and Amane cannot tell from her angle which heart the Queen is eating. She puts a piece of the cooked flesh inside her mouth.
A second bite follows. "Delicious. Would you care to try it? I guarantee it's better than you think."
A disgusted whimper leaves Amane's throat, and Cyndia wipes her mouth with a napkin of gold-checked cloth before standing.
"I may have acquired his heart through force, but what I would really like is to be gifted yours. You would make a lovely Princess, you know." Her walk around her chair and the length of the table is casual, pausing at every step to glance at a dish or examine the slightly drooping flowers. Amane is struck, suddenly, of an image of a garden bursting to life only to wither and die just as suddenly.
"I would make a better Queen," she says. "You treat your subjects terribly! They do not deserve it—"
"What do you know of anything, my love?" Cyndia asks with a hollow laugh. She stops at the table's center to dramatically sniff a rose, its petals so deeply blood-red they look painted. "You are just a visitor, after all—you know nothing, not yet, not ever-!"
"I don't want to be!" Amane cries. "I want to be home!"
"Ah," Cyndia says, looking at her with barely-concealed derision, "then you have discovered why we hate you so much? There is still a chance, for you. Not for us, not ever, not—"
For Amane, it is an unusual realization. People can die here. The wächter is dead. Somehow, she thought that someone deceased would just bubble up again, buoyant, the air serving as their very own River of Tears. She glances down at her arms, streaked with lines of blood from the scratches, her white dress ruined and ripped, her hair a limp mess around her shoulders. If she was to die, she would not want to die looking like this. Not like this.
She feels cold and almost weightless. Impulse drives her to dash the few steps needed to reach the Queen, but the ploy is her own. Amane tilts her head up, pressing her lips against Cyndia's for a whole second before withdrawing, pride surging in her eyes even as the deepest self-revulsion seeps through her limbs. She tastes bitter.
The effect is immediate. The lipstick she had dipped in poison and carefully applied, smudged on her own lips, shines in patches against the Queen's. The strongest poison possible, fatal to anyone whose blood was not included in its preparation. Gasping, Cyndia falls against the table, calling for help.
"Someone! Help me! Amane, my dear, my…my…"
The rest of the court, standing silently behind her, is unmoving, their masks inert in mock sorrow. Not a one moves to her aid.
"Help me! You must!" Pleading eyes are turned towards her. "Amane…my own…"
She collapses completely, her body half-draped by the tablecloth, the fall dislodging her crown to roll within Amane's reach. She has never wanted something less in her life.
I do not want this—I do not want to be here, she says, although the words only come out as a soft exhale, and the disbelieving glances thrown to the still-silent masquers, witness to her premeditated murder. Somewhere above her temple there is a sharp pain.
Then where would you like to be? If the Queen is dead, who is calling out to her? She tries to tilt her head again, to observe the fallen Cyndia through a slanted perspective of her own, but her entire body is too cold to move. She blinks once, focusing on the lifeless, half-consumed hearts, before she loses her balance and goes tumbling backwards with nothing but the white stars to focus on once again.
—Her eyes are open! Look at us, Amane. Don't let go—
She's bleeding out on the operating table, there's nothing we can do—
I'm so sorry for your loss—excuse me, losses—the two of you are quite lucky you escaped uninjured.
—Would you like me to put you in touch with our director for funeral services?—
Amane stands on a hilltop, the same hilltop, overlooking a small, winding river and a castle with vines creeping ever-so-slowly across more of the stone than before. She wriggles her feet in the dirt, and she contents herself with just feeling the action instead of directly seeing it. Her skirt is in the way.
Her body is tucked into a white gown of gossamer satin, beaded at the waist and neckline and sparkling with something unearthly. She can feel the heavy weight of a necklace beneath her chin, and her arms and fingers sparkle with clear jewels.
As she stands, she can see a line of courtiers, dressed all in white—the masquers, for while they still wear masks they have swapped their brocade ones for masks in solid white—each carrying an ornate box or a banner. She can see six in the lead bearing a strangely shaped palanquin.
The first of the courtiers has reached her—and now that she can see the masks clearly, Amane can tell how ornate they are, creations of fabric and glittering gems, hovering silver teardrops beneath each eye, silent mourners to her cause. Towards the side, she can see the magier standing, hands clasped behind his back, looking solemn and out-of-place in a white suit jacket.
The palanquin bearers kneel before her, and the magier offers his hand in helping Amane into it.
"Why are you all here?" she asks.
"Why, we are here to bring you to the palace," the magier answers.
She suddenly wants her mother and her older brother and her father, if only to help explain why her skin feels so cold and why, when she lifts questing fingers to investigate the heavy weight on the top of her head, feels metal in the shape of a ring. She's barefoot again, although she can see a courtier kneeling, a box containing a pair of glass-encrusted slippers open and in his hands. It is an offer, and one she does not accept.
The weight of the crown, she finds, is easier to bear as the seconds tick by, but that does not make it easy.
"It can't be me," she says, almost desperately. She exhales sharply; the wind snatches the sound and buries it. "Please, not me. I can't have..."
"But you did." Once again he offers his hand, and this time Amane takes it. "…My Queen."
As he releases her hand, she is struck by a vision in the water, a small scrap of magic, which showed her regal in white with a crown of stars on her head. The palanquin is barely wider than her shoulders, and made so she can recline within it. As it is lifted and the procession moves in reverse back to the castle, she is struck by an uncanny similarity.
Reclining, with the unusual shape of the palanquin, it appears that she is inside a coffin.
As her funeral procession crosses the gates of the castle, she can hear one of the bearers begin to sing.
"—Die Königin ist tot, es lebe die Königin—"
She is not familiar enough with the language to understand the translation, but the magier beside her provides it in a low, unwavering voice.
"The Queen is dead. Long live the Queen."
End.
Notes:
1) For this story, I was able to use my all-time favorite genre of magical realism. As there are far too many references of the genre and various fairytales (including inversions and AaTh numbers), I've written an essay on the subject that can be found here in my LJ (mymisguided(dot)livejournal(dot)com/4202). German translations and pronunciation can also be found there.
2) For further clarification, the world that the Queen and her subjects live in is based on the idea of people who didn't die from natural causes. Each of the named subjects corresponds to a particular duel monster and AE character—I don't think I have to tell you which ones they were! xD Although now I really do need to come up with a name for AE!Obscureshipping.
3) It's funny, I've never actually been more tempted to name a story "My Misguided Fairytale" before. xD
4) Thank you for reading! I would appreciate and value your reviews.
~Jess