There Are Only Ashes Here
Chapter Two

'Whiteout'


Something isn't right here.

For too long- longer, now, than she can remember- Clair has been trapped in a fragile world of undulating color and never-ending darkness. The flickering lights change over time; they distort and twist and trace strange patterns in the empty void, always moving, like stars in the night sky of humans. Everything changes in Clair's strange, cold, lonely universe.

The only things that remain constant are the darkness, and Clair.

Nothing else.

In the 'world' where Clair resides there is no sun. There is no moon. There is no breeze.

Just Clair, drifting, between bits of fragmented world like broken crockery; shooting stars and color and darkness.

But that's all different now.

Clair can feel a gentle caress against her pale face. The hem of her dress is rustling, stirred by unseen hands. Some strange force of nature- 'wind', Clair's mind manages to fix a name to it, even though it's been a long time (so many years) since she actually felt it for herself- is running through her hair, sending delicate, wispy tendrils flying in a hazy aura about her.

Clair is not in her universe anymore.

Something has changed.

As her non-existence (that, never the less, wouldn't stop existing) spanned an endless number of seconds, minutes, hours, days- but time has no meaning anymore when nothing changes and Clair never ages- Clair began to believe she would ever see anything beyond the dark, lonely toy box that child threw her into.

Clair is a doll.

A doll that child no longer needs.

She had been so sure- as sure as Clair vaux Bernadus could be about anything, with her missing mind and her head without thoughts- that she would never escape. And she never hoped to achieve such an impossibility, either; after all, Clair could not hope.

It was an alien concept.

Almost as alien as the wind that now brushes her face and plays through her skirts, fanning out her hair and making those beautiful pearls clink a strange melody.

Today is a strange day, Clair concludes- but she gives it no more thought than that.

This is unexpected.

However, Clair has never had any expectations- so maybe she shouldn't be too surprised. And she's not; not really. She lacks the emotion.

She lacks the ability to care.

Slowly, Clair opens her eyes. She hardly realises they've been closed; but, after many seconds minutes hoursdaysanage (it blends into one, like paint in the rain, chalk on the sidewalk) in her world of dust and cobwebs and piercing blackness Clair saw no purpose in keeping her blue, blue (but they're washed out now; the real Beatrice took any shreds of characters she might once have had) eyes open.

Clair knew she would never see anything new. So why bother exerting her eyelids for such a fruitless task?

Then again...

Clair has never thought a truly original thought before.

Clair has never felt any emotion that was truly hers before.

So why do her brain and heart continue to function?

Clair's existence is a mystery- but she is no detective, and it's not her place to solve it. Even though she has more answers as to the origins of her birth than most, she's never dreamt of putting them together- of forming a bigger picture.

Why should she?

She has no desire to. It seems pointless; almost as pointless as dreaming for something impossible that will never come true (he'll come back to me, I know he will).

Clair doesn't have dreams. It seems laughable, submitting oneself to the mercy of ones mind, with no control; almost suicidal.

Clair never sleeps, anyway; she never has the chance.

But, if she had...

Maybe her dreams (fantasies belonging to the witch-turned-princess dressed in white locked up in her dark, dusty corner of the universe) would be a little something like the meadow she was laid out in.

The sky is periwinkle blue, so bright it looks like it had been sketched with scrawling lines by a child in wax crayon. The sun is a round, perfect disc set dead-centre in the sky, stark white, casting half-formed rainbows into the cloudless blue.

The soil underneath Clair's fingers is warm and moist, filled with life. The grass is green; an impossibly bright splash of color that belongs to no scene in a human garden. It is just like the sky- too lovely and perfect to exist in any place other than a dream, or delusion.

Or... maybe in a fairy story...

Shannon knew about fairy stories, didn't she? She loved them so much she wanted to be in one herself; the princess demoted to a lowly servant, who sat on her island surrounded by tangled forests and gnarled trees, fearsome demons and white witches, waiting for her prince to ride in on his noble steed and take her hand, kiss her lips, and give everything a happy ending...

Of course, Clair knows how that ended.

But, simply by Clair's fragile existence being acknowledged in such an idyllic meadow scene, maybe Clair herself can believe... fairytales... might not be completely impossible...

Everything seems possible in this beautiful world; a world filled with blue skies and green grass. The tress tower about Clair like guards standing sentinel, and the flowerbeds are so filled with roses the sweet-smelling plants spilt over their borders as they turned towards the sun.

The grass is wet with dew under Clair's icy fingertips.

The light is warm across her sun-starved skin.

The wind cups her cheeks and teases her clothes more softly, more gently, than any lover could have done in Shannon's half-formed imaginings; her small dreams nurtured as she folded towels and made beds.

For one brief, fleeting moment, Clair feels a strange stirring of... something... bubble up in that hollow space of her aching, empty ribcage.

She can't place a name to the emotion.

But, even so, it makes her feel... warm.

Even warmer than the sunshine did.

Clair's eyelids flutter, doll-like, in a haze of half-confusion and a rush of intermingled pain and loss. She places her fingertips (still damp with dew) at that spot on her chest, over her heart, trying to trap some remnants of that warmth in place...

But, ultimately, it's useless.

Clair blinks, and she frowns, but she can't recapture that feeling- which already seems so distant she could believe she imagined it (if Clair had the ability to imagine anything, which she doubts).

The feeling is short lived; there one moment, gone the next.

Just like that boy and his promises he could never keep.

When the feeling leaves, Clair feels emptier than ever.

Hollowed out.

A dead body in a pretty dress.

At that moment, Clair realises- although, at the back of her mind, she always knew- that she does not belong in this beautiful world of red roses and blue skies. This scene is something from a stained glass window; an illustration in a children's book; a dream from the mind of a young maid who loved, if not well and wisely, then far too much for her own good.

This world does not belong to Clair.

In her own universe Clair is striking; her white dress, white hair and white skin contrast so sharply against her backdrop of nothingness it makes Clair shine like a star.

In her universe, Clair is the most important thing. After all, her world is just a toy box, or a shelf in the house of a doll collector; a place where that child can put her unwanted toys.

The unwanted bits of her.

That place was fashioned just for Clair.

This place, however, does not belong to Clair. This world is... not fitting for an illusion (a will-o-the-wisp) like her. The colors are so bright here, and the smells so sweet, and the roses so beautiful, that Clair looks drab and dull- barely there- in comparison.

She's washed out.

Ruined.

Already fading away.

This world is not a fantasy scene- and neither will Clair stumble across her prince in shining armour, sword sheathed at side as he faces down the legions of hell to win her hand.

This world will be Clair's demise.

Well... it's a good a place as any...

Already, she can feel herself- the very thing that makes Clair 'Clair' (though Clair's sure that's so flimsy it was already half-broken to begin with. Maybe even more than half)- being washed away. Like sandcastles on the beach, tremulous as the tide came in, Clair feels her body tense in anticipation.

She is going to die here, in this field of blood red roses; so beautiful, so twisted.

So deadly.

Just like the 'love' that turned a young girl into a potential murderer.

Clair's arms, skin papery, show blue veins too clearly.

Clair's eyes, too wide, sting and water- pierced by unyielding lances of glowing light.

Clair's body, too fragile- too delicate- too non-existent to truly exist anymore, in a world of such substance- is slowly weakening.

Clair's 'heart'- that useless, hateful organ, that keeps the dust pumping and her life going even though the curtain should have long since fallen on her tragic tale- is beginning to cease it's repetitive beating. Usually that reassuring, steady beat (the knowledge she's still alive, because sometimes Clair forgets) is regular, like clockwork.

Now, it's frantic.

Erratic.

Clair lets her eyelids fall shut, coal black lashes brushing against pale skin.

There's no point in keeping them open; of delaying the inevitable.

Inevitable...

Has this end- alone and broken, her weak nature fully exposed by a world too wonderful for her remain in- always been planned? Has it been mapped out in the stars, even before that child wished for her?

Even before that child threw her away?

Had this always been the predicted end for Clair vaux Bernadus?

Clair's breathing begins to even out. Her chest no longer rises or falls. Her lips purse, as though inviting a kiss from a prince who will never come (he never came for Shannon, the lowly servant girl. Why should he come for Clair, a near-nameless, purposeless piece, drifting endlessly?)

For what must be the first time in a very, very long time, Clair remembers a snippet of memory from her past life as that child's fondest dream.

As Beatrice.

Or, to be more precise...

This is the first time Clair has ever reflected on her past life and truly felt something- a vague, undefined something, yes, but still a 'something'- stirring in her chest, underneath the layer of expensive material and thin flesh and brittle birds' bones.

Clair used to love reading mystery stories. She remembers that.

She remembers it clearly.

It always... used to be so much fun, reaching the end of a good mystery story.

The endings are always the most dramatic parts, aren't they? The reason any mystery fan perseveres until the end? 'The big reveal'.

Even if Clair's deductions had been wrong, she had still- once upon a time, such a long time ago- found delight in realising they had been wrong, because it was (had been)... funbeing defeated in a battle of wills and wits between author and reader.

The old Clair- when she had been Beatrice- had relished every part of that battle; or maybe it had been that child who relished the battle, imparting that ever-present thirst for complex murders and satisfying ends into her living cage of flesh and illusion for her secrets and hopes and dreams.

If Clair had been reading her own life as a mystery novel, events sliced into pages and bound in paper- 'the Strange Case of Clair vaux Bernadus'- back when she still had the authority to call herself Beatrice and she still had importance to have a personality, she would have near-cried in anger and betrayal at the end of her own tale.

It's so... unsatisfying...

So the girl died and nothing was solved.

The end.

...It leaves a bitter taste in her mouth.

Does she really want to die like that- extinguished as easily as a flame on a candle?

Does she have a choice?

That is... almost funny... even though it's really a tragedy.

It must be cathartic, then; and Clair doesn't know where she's picked that word up from, but random syllable sounds are floating through her mind in a thick torrent now, like falling rain, until the inside of her head begins to hum and throb and, for a few moments, Clair remembers what it's like to feel pain.

Clair doesn't have a choice.

She's never had a choice.

And what she wants doesn't factor into it.

Clair doesn't want to die...

But...

That's ridiculous.

Clair has never 'wanted' anything before it, and it seems like an unfortunate time to start wanting now- almost selfish, because she's a doll, and she has no right to feel. Not without that child's permission. So Clair stifles this- shuts it up in a box and pushes it to one corner of her mind (and it's okay, it's all okay, because Clair's head is nice and hollow and there's a lot of space to put secrets she doesn't want to dwell upon) and she doesn't open her eyes.

She is beyond saving- Clair knows this.

But...

Clair can feel something strange; even more bizarre than the wind and the sun and the damp, warm soil.

There are fingertips on her arm. There is pressure on her skin- and her arm is so skinny, so unresisting, that it feels as though this intrusive stranger will surely push their fingernails straight through her flesh, out the other side; tearing a hole through skin and bone and blood.

A voice is calling to her.

Clair knows this voice- perhaps even better than she knows her own (because Clair can't remember when she last spoke, and she doubts she knows how).

"D-don't be condemn yourself so quickly to death, damn it! I didn't bring you here to watch you die!"

Oh... Clair thinks, the dusty, untapped gears in her mind slowly beginning to turn. They're thick with rust, and they screech quite horribly- how long has it been since she last had an original thought?- but they still work, and Clair is still thinking.

And Clair thinks she knows who it is.

It's that boy.

He came back.

He came back... for... me... ... ...?

...And then everything goes white.


a/n: This writing style is so different from my usual one I don't even XD Writing in present tense in a pain; I keep lapsing into past, and then I have to go back and edit a lot XD But if I don't diversify I will never improve?
I hope my writing is ethereal and strange and 'wispy' (XD) enough to compliment Clair's confusing, barely-there persona ^_^ This fic might be just a tad longer than I originally thought, too, but not by much XD

Listening to Hannah Fury songs when writing this is incredibly helpful, btw XD

~renahhchen xoxo