Chapter Three: Signs of Solitude
There were a dozen scorch marks on Jeanne's desk where a flare of temper had charred the wood black. She'd added three more in the last week because of this stupid fucking book. Huffing, she briefly rose to throw another handful of her old drafts into the fireplace. It hurt a little, seeing hours of work blacken and curl before dissolving into white ash. But getting rid of useless shit that never went anywhere felt at least a little productive.
Speaking of useless shit…
Her gaze returned to the teal volume—Anne of Green Gables—looking insolently at her from its resting place on the desk. Even with the dictionary next to it, Jeanne had only managed to reach chapter three. A week of laborious reading, and only chapter goddamn three. At this rate, it was going to be half a year before she was done with this shit.
She dropped into the seat and irritably turned the page, then took another glance around her room. Wistfully she looked at her shelf of manga, the personal stash she'd accumulated through shady bargains in Chaldea's back rooms. She could be reading Berserk right now, something full of vicious battles and blood spray and vengeance served cold. But instead she stuck with fucking-Anne-with-an-E, dippy orphan girl without the self-respect to set fire to the farm of assholes she'd been sent to.
So what if they'd been expecting a boy for the farmwork? That old crone Marilla had no business sending Anne back to misery, even if the stupid girl couldn't shut her fucking trap. Better than cowering from the sun and calling it "discipline". And that idiot Matthew! Why the fuck was he being nice to Anne if he was just gonna let his bitch of a sister chew her up? As useful as bestowing sainthood on a pile of tortured ash—completely worthless.
The scent of burning wood had her pulling away from the table, finding yet another scorch mark engraved in it.
Goddamn it, not again!
And the fucking book didn't even have the decency to burn with it. Not a single blemish marred that cover. She could almost hear it laughing at her.
How many more chapters do I have to… She flipped back to the table of contents. Thirty-eight! Thirty-fucking-eight! This is such bullshit!
All the more because she'd meant to read a single chapter and maybe a summary somewhere, just enough ammunition to make the Monster cry. But the first chapter barely went anywhere, with all the stupid repetition—"you getting a boy from the station?" "Yeah, I'm getting a boy from the station." "A boy from the station, eh?"—that she had to keep going. She had no choice.
Then she'd struggled through the second chapter, with Anne's nonstop delusional babbling, and she'd needed to see reality hit her in the face. She needed to see the brat break down in tears when it turned out nobody wanted her, after all. But inexplicably, Jeanne found herself in the girl's corner when Marilla told her not to get comfortable. Fuck you and your inhumanly clean parlor and whipped brother, the fuck would you know about being alone and friendless!?
This is all that stupid Monster's fault.
Gritting her teeth, she reached for the dictionary. Scalloped... scalloped... that's the seafood that smug apron-wearing asshole Archer makes sometimes. That doesn't make any goddamn sense, they're on a farm. Why would they be talking about seafood?
The dictionary informed her it meant some kind of ornamental bullshit. Supposedly from French, but no French Jeanne had ever encountered. Probably the kind that snobby knight used when they slobbered at their precious queen's boots.
You're putting a lot of effort into reading something you say you hate.
The thought came unbidden and unwelcome.
"Shut up," she replied. "I didn't come this far to give up."
Why are you doing this?
The chair scraped on the floor as she stood up and smacked a hand on the table. "Because she pisses me the fuck off, that's why!"
So you want to hurt her.
Jeanne scoffed. "No, I want to hold a book club over tea. Of course I'm going to hurt her!"
Then just burn the book in front of her. That would be far easier.
"Don't be stupid. It wouldn't be the same." She strode over to the fireplace and watched the last of the embers die. "It's just a book. She could always get another copy. I want to rip apart the story itself, so it'll hurt every time she thinks of it. I want to see her dreams burn and crumble."
Why?
"Because they're disgusting," she snarled and began to pace around the room. "The world doesn't fucking work like that. All she's doing is setting herself up to be hurt, again and again. These fantasies of pretty white streets and smiling people and a home that welcomes you… they aren't for monsters. They're for people who actually have a life ahead of them, with something worth living for and maybe dying for—"
She stopped, glaring around the room. Nothing greeted her but silence.
Growling, she dropped into her chair and yanked the book open again.
Shut the fuck up and get back to reading.
The frustration bubbled up inside her, like smog stuck in her throat. It took everything she could to focus, sounding out a word at a time.
I can do this. I'll get to the end of this stupid chapter, and then I'll smash those dreams to pieces.
[Nothing left after all]
"This book is hot garbage!"
Jeanne brandished the book with a hint of triumph. The Monster's eyes tracked its movements from her place under the tree, her expression carefully neutral. It was a pity she didn't make a grab for it, so Jeanne could enjoy snatching it back out of reach. But she was at least a little placated by the tension in the gloved hands clenched in her lap. Jeanne was good at smelling anguish.
She might have smiled in cruel anticipation if not for the packet of seeds she spotted lying a few feet away. Seeds and a trowel. That brought the sneer back to her face.
This bitch's trying to start a garden. Even got her gloves dirty.
And then the Monster had the nerve to tilt her fucking head to the side, as if this was just some curiosity to her. Another bug to consider under her magnifying glass. The irritation threatened to ignite into anger, but she quickly remembered that she came with a weapon in hand. It was time to make use of it.
"But I guess that's why you like it," she continued, shrugging in mock pity. "Trash begets trash, after all."
The girl glanced at the book, then back at Jeanne. Though she said nothing, the mismatched eyes were bright under the pink bangs.
"You know, this dumbass story would have been over by now if Anne had just torched the place as soon as Marilla started bitching at her." Jeanne jabbed a finger into the cover twice. "The author fucking teased it in the first chapter, all that good shit about orphans poisoning wells, but she was too pussy to follow through. Bet that doesn't change, either."
The Monster didn't even blink.
"And speaking of that fatass piece of shit," she continued, "the fact that she had the sheer gall to want to throw Anne out just because she wasn't a boy just takes the fucking piss. These two inbred hicks that make it to the triple digits in years combined—they think they can be picky about the help? In a good story, Anne would have put cyanide in their dinner and started running the farm herself the next day. But I bet this shit ends with a happy fucking family, doesn't it?"
A grimace crossed the Monster's face. Not enough, but the scent was growing stronger.
Now to bring it home.
"Little orphan girl shows up, has a bunch of sugary-sweet misadventures, then they all hug it out, right? They accept her just the way she is?"
Jeanne smacked the cover hard and noted the wince she got in response.
"Bull! Shit!" she roared. "In what fucking fantasy world does life work that way, huh? The one you keep dreaming about while playing pretend at being normal whenever you're not losing your shit? News flash, idiot! It didn't happen then, it won't happen now!"
The Monster's hands clenched in her lap, the mud smearing in the white dress.
"You're delusional if you think it will," Jeanne added, just to drive the nail in deeper.
A hiss of breath, and the grip on the dress tightened further.
"I... don't... c-care..." muttered the Monster. "I... like... it..."
"You're not Anne, you fucking moron," Jeanne snapped. "You're not some quirky little girl with a big heart and a bigger imagination. You're a fucking hideous monster."
"I... don't..." the girl started, but Jeanne just spoke over her.
"If—and that's a big if—they accept you here, it's 'cause Chaldea needs a club to beat the shit out of other monsters. That's what suits you best. You on a farm? Don't make me laugh!"
Her chest tightened. It was getting hard to breathe. But Jeanne didn't give a shit. She kept going.
"You'd kill the chickens the moment you touched them—assuming they didn't just keel over in terror at the sight of you."
The Monster looked down, hiding her eyes behind her bangs, and Jeanne started to taste triumph.
"You're... wrong..." she uttered, curling and uncurling her fingers in the muddying frills of her dress.
"Pathetic." Jeanne crossed her arms. "You're so desperate to escape from reality, you'd reach out to anything, even a book for children—particularly stupid ones at that."
The girl's shoulders slumped, but the expected rush of victory didn't come. Growling under her breath, she cast about for another weapon. Her gaze fell on the trowel, still caked in rich brown earth.
"And speaking of escapism…" Jeanne crouched down in front of the girl, who flinched. She shaped her voice into a shrill sing-song. "What happened to the last batch of flowers? Didja plant 'em upside-down? Didja have a moment and you tore 'em up?"
"No," the Monster growled and turned her head to the side.
"Then what? You can't tell me this is the first time you tried."
Another shaky breath.
"The... ch-children... t... took... them..."
The living book and the knife-happy kid, then. Giggling in the grass, surrounded by pretty flowers. Jeanne knew the casual cruelty that occurred between kids and flowers.
"And did they thank the nice monster once they stripped your garden bare?" she sneered. "I bet they did. But they didn't look back once they had your precious blossoms in their grubby little hands, did they?"
A tremor rocked through the Monster. She took a deep breath, as if that might steady her.
"It's… f... fine..." she ground out. "They… were… h-happy."
"They did you a favor," stated Jeanne, leaning in to close the gap between them. "You would have destroyed them sooner or later. Now you can blame the children instead of facing the truth. Lucky you, huh?"
The Monster finally faced her once more, mismatched eyes glaring at her.
"Do you... enjoy... h... hurting... me?"
The response was ready, but Jeanne couldn't say it. The more she tried, the more it got stuck in her throat until she was close to choking on it. That cruel delight she had so been looking forward to had vanished, leaving nothing but an empty hole in its place. But she couldn't think about that now.
"If I did, would that make what I'm saying any less true?" she managed at last.
The Monster shuddered, and her face fell.
"It's in the nature of your Saint Graph," Jeanne continued relentlessly forcing out each scripted word before she could reconsider. "You're a Berserker. You're always one bad day away from smashing everything."
She waved an arm at the tilled soil.
"Sooner or later, you're going to lose them. So why bother?"
The Monster set her jaw and caught Jeanne's gaze, locking it down.
"I... love… them..." she struggled out, each word costing her a twitch of obvious agony. "Even... if… c-can't…" She gasped out a breath, nearly bending in half before she recovered. "...can't... last... still... w-want to... l-love..."
"Love?" demanded Jeanne, sneering into her pale face. "You say you love them, but you end up killing them anyway—every single time! Just imagine them screaming in pain whenever you trample on them." She jabbed a finger into the Monster's chest. "And you want to do it again and again? What kind of sick fuck are you?"
At that, the Monster let out a cry and clutched at her head. This would have been the part where Jeanne grinned, because she was right there, walking on the cracked glass of the girl's heart, and all it needed was one more kick to shatter.
But why doesn't it feel good?
Jeanne bit the inside of her cheek as the worst of the shaking slowed. The Monster choked through a sob, her voice raspy, tears dripping down onto the ground.
"...d-don't... h... have... any... thing... e-e-else..."
The hole in Jeanne's stomach became a gaping abyss, sucking in the last shred of satisfaction she'd wrung from this. There was none of the triumph she'd wanted, none of the sadistic ecstasy. Only a blanket of numbness that slowly settled over her.
This isn't working.
A wave of exhaustion crashed over Jeanne. The last of the fire she'd stoked up for this moment sputtered and died out. She let herself collapse back on the ground, then drew her knees after her so she was sitting a little distance from the girl. After a moment, she looked away from the other's crying face.
"That's disgusting," she muttered, not even sure what she was referring to. Whether she meant the fat tears staining the girl's face, or Jeanne herself, just fucking sitting around passively instead of pressing her advantage.
When did my fangs get so blunt? A few blades of grass died, ripped up by her fingers. And why can't I bring myself to give a shit?
She wanted to get up, wanted to walk away and leave this mess behind so she could forget this ever happened. But her legs were unresponsive—the abyss had gnawed on them until she couldn't even move. That cold feeling intensified with every sob, and she could barely hold herself back from curling into a ball.
Who's pathetic now? You got what you wanted, why are you so upset?
Not like this. I didn't—
Why don't you own it? You did this. You should be proud.
Jeanne glanced at the girl once more. Her fingers dug cruelly into her arms, blood streaking down in thin red lines to join the mud stains on her dress. Her cries stuttered, gave way to a few harsh gulps of air, then died away entirely. The silence was only marginally better than the crying, and the abyss didn't shrink an inch.
I can't take this anymore.
But still Jeanne's legs wouldn't move. Her fingers clawed into the earth, and she looked everywhere but the girl in an effort to find something, anything at all that could pull her from this pit.
Nothing. Just useless grass and a fake sky. The abyss yawned wide, until it felt like she was being swallowed whole, drowning in it.
Then the girl wiped her eyes. Ignoring the bloody smear it left on her cheek, she shakily got to her knees and picked up the trowel. Jeanne blinked as the girl dug another hole, before she blindly reached for the seed packets.
The girl seemed to notice her gaze. She glared back over her shoulder then stubbornly dropped a seed in. She patted earth over it before moving a small space down and repeating the process.
Still planting flowers. After all that, she's still fucking planting them.
But even her idle thoughts had no bite to them. The option of turning to physical violence by burning the whole garden down flitted about her mind momentarily, but it held no appeal. It felt too much like throwing her manga collection into the fireplace.
Jeanne's heart stopped.
The girl in the wedding dress hunched over the dirt seemed so much like another girl hunched over her desk, struggling to do her inking properly. And every time her concentration broke, the brush jerked and carved a long, thick black line through a drawing she had worked hours on. All her effort, reduced to fodder for the hearth.
A grunt, and the trowel stabbed into the soil once more. Jeanne watched the girl place a seed in, the occasional tremor running through her arms. The seeds were tiny black orbs that could only be spotted because of how they contrasted with the dirtied white of the girl's gloves. From here, she couldn't recognize them.
"Not that I give a fuck or anything," she said, forcing the words past the thickness in her mouth, "but what the hell are those?"
The girl said nothing, only throwing a near-empty packet toward her general vicinity. Indignation crawled up Jeanne's spine, but she was too tired to let it bind her. Instead, she picked up the torn paper and turned it over. An impossibly long word confronted her, some Latin bullshit.
"H… hya… fuck this," she muttered to herself, crumpling the packet up and tossing it aside. "Hey! I want to—"
Hear it from you, she meant to say. But another spasm of pain in the other's bent shoulders stopped her. She thought of the ragged gasps and tears that had accompanied the girl's previous efforts at speaking.
"Never mind."
The girl briefly glanced back over her shoulder, then huffed and returned to her planting. Jeanne leaned back in the grass and watched her.
She remembered the twist of envy that struck her when she first saw the Monster under this tree, effortlessly turning the pages of the very book that it took Jeanne hours to struggle through. She had to know what these packets said, fancy Latin and all. And she clearly had at least an amateur's idea of what to do; her planting was methodical and precise, if cautious. Had she read that in a book too?
It's not fair.
The fire briefly flared in her chest, but fell before the lines of tension in the girl's face. She had already said that speaking was difficult for her, and watching the girl struggle through her defense earlier, Jeanne could believe it. But she could read, she read for pleasure, and she read to learn, and she put that learning into action. There was a mind behind all the growling dog bullshit, and a sharp one at that.
But for all her intellect, nobody seemed to notice. Jeanne had been watching her over the past week, and it was impossible to miss. Master didn't have the time to wait for her to struggle through her words, and most of the other Servants didn't give a damn. How many times had the girl started to say something, only for the conversation to plow on without her? How many times had she been shouldered to the side, without anyone even realizing it?
She was a prisoner in her own mind.
Just like—
"You know," she drawled, hastily throwing the thought away, "you're not as shitty at this as I thought you'd be."
The girl paused, turning to glower at her once more. But her brow raised in confusion when she saw Jeanne's expression. She tilted her head to the side with an unspoken question, a now familiar gesture.
"What?" Jeanne shot back. "I grew up on a farm, dumbass. You think I wouldn't know what I'm talking about?"
The girl's mismatched eyes narrowed in suspicion. Jeanne took the seed packet in hand once more and tilted it until the last few seeds fell out onto her palm. At this distance, it was far more obvious what the girl was planting.
"Bluebells, huh," she stated. "Yeah, they grow well in shade."
Before she could think about it, Jeanne found herself moving to inspect the tilled rows. "But you're not planting them deep enough. At least..."
She marked two segments of her index finger. "At least this deep. And make sure the soil doesn't have too much clay, or they'll come in stunted."
The girl's eyes widened beneath her fringe, and Jeanne felt equally small ripples of pride and irritation run through her.
"Don't look so fucking shocked," she grumbled. "My... Jeanne d'Arc's father grew a lot of different crops, and her mother kept a garden. Whatever it is you're planting, I can tell you where you're screwing up."
The girl considered for a moment, her mouth twitching like she was shaping words before she had to force them out. Her hands briefly rose, the fingers starting to shape into ideas Jeanne couldn't grasp. Then she grimaced and grabbed the trowel again.
She's not about to start talking shop with you, dumbass. Not when every word is razor wire for her, and she's got good reason to think you'll use them against her.
But after realizing the cracked glass was a mirror, Jeanne didn't want to leave things like this. She didn't want to just walk away, and she didn't want to make the cracks worse, or break the shards into even smaller pieces. It would be... wrong.
So fix it, idiot.
I can barely talk to her.
So your first step is to fix that.
Where the fuck do I even start?
She looked at the girl's hands, one clenched hard around the trowel and the other seeding the soil. The only things that made the girl different from the Monster.
Fuck. Guess I gotta go back to the library after all.
But not just yet. For now, it was enough to watch the girl bury the last of the seeds under an afternoon sun peering out from behind a clouded sky.
I did say it was going to be angsty, no? This is only the beginning, too. There's a lot to work through for both of these people, but by the end of this... well, something will have changed. Whether it's for the better, who's to say?
Your ending theme is Easier to Run by Linkin Park.
As always, thanks for reading.