Warning: this fic contains blood, violence, misogyny, and other sensitive topics.


Although certainly not for lack of trying, there is not much that Daniella enjoys. Or causes her to experience some vague approximation of enjoyment, anyway. One of the few things on that pitifully short list is gazing at the sky up above.

Every night, she lays down on her thin mattress after Master sends her off. She remains there for hours, but she doesn't sleep much. Hardly ever. Her bare-bones room offers nothing to do and she isn't allowed to leave until Master says, so she simply stares out the small window.

She'll wonder what lies beyond the estate, the endless trees, and the mountains that seclude them from everything.

She'll let her eyes glaze over. Try to quiet her thoughts with little success.

Or, most often, she'll simply watch the sky.

Currently, it's the blue hour. The soft light is pretty.

Gentle.

Soothing.

Like…

…a lullaby…

It's enough to make one drift off.

Daniella has a lovely view of it through the observatory's broken skylight.

She's already drifted off, though.

Her eyes are open, but darkness has settled over her vision.

She stopped breathing about ten minutes ago.

It's alright, though. Daniella decided that if she could not obtain Fiona's Azoth—if her last chance to fix herself fully slipped through her fingers, then she was prepared for her miserable existence to come to an end.

No more menial chores day in and day out.

No more bitter insults.

No more beatings.

Only nothingness.

It's all over. The end.

Fiona descends the steps of the curved staircase with Hewie at her heels.

She has yet another key. Another door to open.

She lets out a shuddery breath.

Another step closer to freedom. Another obstacle out of her way.

No… That doesn't sound right…

The horrid stinging sensation radiating throughout the entirety of Fiona's hands seems to worsen. The scraps of cloth she wrapped around her palms are already turning scarlet.

She doesn't regret it.

She's sorry. She's so sorry, which is why she doesn't regret it.

The moment is still seared into her brain.

The glass rains down.

The maid cries out as a particularly large shard sinks through her middle, pinning her place like an insect on display.

Blood runs down the glass in thick streams, pooling on the floor.

Purple lips pull back into a

"Gah!"

Fiona startles at the cold nose that presses into the back of her knee. She had stopped walking. When did she stop walking?

Hewie stares up at her, tilting his head and letting out a concerned whine.

"Sorry, boy." Fiona reaches down to scratch behind his ears. "We'll keep moving."

They have to. That's all they can do.

She hates this place. She really does.

Tick-tock.

It's over.

Tick-tock.

Why does the grandfather clock continue to tick?

Tick-tock.

Tick-tock.

Honestly, truly, it's nothing but cruel to finally give Daniella something she desires and then rip it away like this.

Tick-tock.

Tick-tock.

Why does the flower refuse to wilt? To die? Even after being pulled from its roots and deprived of everything?

Shut in.

Closed off.

Uncared for.

It wants to die.

Can't stand another day. Another hour. Another minute. Another second. She can't.

Daniella just wants to die.

She doesn't. Instead, she opens her eyes.

The sprigs of lavender resting in her hands appear freshly picked. They're vibrant and healthy. She holds them tightly, confused.

The sky is a new color. A dusty purple.

There is no shard of glass in Daniella's field of vision. Nothing is impaling her.

She's lying supine on the floor. The reflective surface beneath her is positively saturated in blood—surely more than should be outside of her body while she's still alive.

Not that Daniella was ever truly alive.

…Perhaps if she continues to lay here, she will eventually die.

…No, no. Daniella shouldn't be so useless. She's always so useless. Why waste an unexpected second opportunity?

Miss Fiona might still be wandering around, searching for a way to escape.

Fiona doesn't know where she's going. The trees, the paths… they all look the same!

"Do your best, Fiona!"

Hewie—poor, precious Hewie—is hurt.

Riccardo is right on her tail.

"There's nowhere to run!"

BANG!

"Agh!"

Fiona's shoulder begins to burn. Like someone decided to smack her with a red hot metal rod. She stumbles forward, just barely catching herself from falling down the steep, unexpected drop before her. This is a dead end, dammit!

BANG!

Something whizzes right past her head. Not good. Not good. Not good. She wheels around with every intent to start running again but finds the barrel of Riccardo's pistol pointing right between her eyes.

He's blocking the path. If she tries to get past him, the next bullet certainly won't just graze her.

"Why are you doing this?" Fiona asks. "What did I do?"

"You inherited your father's Azoth," Riccardo answers flatly. And there's that word again. Azoth. The 'essence of life'. Whatever that means. Fiona wants to pull her hair out.

"What Azoth? I don't even know what that is!"

"That Azoth belongs to us, Fiona. Don't you see? You are our child…"

What.

Fiona refuses to even try and wrap her head around that one. It's too ridiculous. Even after everything. It can't be true. She knows who her parents are—were (don't dwell on it right now). She tells Riccardo such.

He sneers at her beneath his hood, then lifts his free hand to remove it. His face, although marred by glass-like cracks, is disturbingly similar to that of her father. The sick feeling already roiling in her gut rises up to the back of her throat. She tries and fails to swallow it down.

This can't be real. This is insane.

"We are clones!" Riccardo lowers his gun slightly. "Ugo is no more—"

Fiona seizes the opportunity and rams into him with all of her might, toppling him over.

BANG!

The gun fires, missing both of them.

Fiona takes off.

"Fiona!"

She must have gotten far, Daniella thinks. Perhaps against all odds, Fiona did manage to escape.

A shriek echoes down the corridor. "Let me go!"

Or perhaps not.

Daniella follows the cries. She thinks she knows where they might be coming from.

There.

She is not fond of this particular room. She has never been fond of it. Not after all that has transpired within it. All of the poking and the prodding and the cutting and the anger and—

No more. No more false ends.

Quietly, Daniella twists the door handle and pushes open the door.

"Don't worry, I do not intend to kill you."

In the gap between the drawn medical curtain and the floor, she can see a familiar pair of sandals and brown trousers. She begins to creep closer, silent as a phantom.

"I've decided you shall give birth to me."

For the first time, she is aware of her heart beating in her chest. She hears her own breathing and feels something stirring deep within her. A dark, twisted excitement tightly wrapped in anxiety.

Fiona struggles against the restraints keeping her on the dirty operating table. "You…" her voice is high and strained, "y-you can't—!"

"I can do whatever I wish!" Riccardo proclaims. "I told you, you're mine. I own you!"

There's a variety of medical instruments sitting on a small, wheeled table. Daniella picks up a scalpel.

Riccardo is still too busy blathering with that painfully smug voice of his to notice her, but Fiona does. She opens her mouth to speak again, then snaps it shut, eyebrows shooting up behind her bangs and eyes widening even further.

"—this time, with your Azoth…" Riccardo pauses. "What on earth are you looking at?"

Daniella doesn't hesitate. Not even for a second. She knows that this will likely be her only opportunity. She can't waste it. She won't. She wants to do this.

Before he can even manage to turn and look at her, Daniella grabs Riccardo's face and cranes his neck back as far as it will go.

She digs the scalpel as deep into his throat as she can and drags it across, splitting it wide open. Red spills forth. It pours out like a waterfall. Riccardo collapses to the floor, choking and gasping for air.

Daniella wipes her weapon clean with her apron.

As Riccardo writhes, he clumsily grabs at her, weakly tugging at the end of her skirt, clawing at her legs. She only watches him.

…It is… alien seeing his features contorted in terror and shock rather than a smirk or snarl. And after everything, after all of the times Daniella has been laying pathetically on the floor just like he is right now, beaten or worse…

There is something enjoyable about this. A deep satisfaction settles in her bones. She smiles and, surprisingly, not for the first time since Fiona's arrival, it feels genuine.

When Riccardo's movements still, when he is nothing more than a corpse on the floor, Daniella tilts her head up. Her attention is now on Fiona.

Impossibly, Fiona begins to struggle even harder. The operating table rattles and shakes, but the restraints remain unyielding.

She can't get away. She can't move. She can't breathe. She can't breathe.

The maid begins to close the distance between them with even, measured footsteps.

Fiona's going to die. She's made it so far and she's going to die here!

The maid looms overhead. Her lavender curls are matted with blood. Dark stains creep from the back of her clothes and onto the front.

And her eyes… Those silvery, glassy eyes of hers are studying Fiona so very intently. She feels as though needles are slowly and methodically being pushed into her skin.

She should say something. Anything. But no words come out. There's an invisible block lodged in her throat and all she can do is sputter.

The maid tilts her head ever so slightly.

Cold steel presses a light kiss against Fiona's cheek. She jolts and tenses up.

The flat side of the maid's scalpel traces along her jaw and down the column of her neck.

Then, the blade finds one of the straps binding her wrists and severs it.

Huh?

After it sinks in, Fiona wastes no time in trying to free her other wrist. The maid pays her sharp movements no mind and makes her way to the end of the table, working on the straps at Fiona's ankles.

She's free. The maid freed her, despite her multiple attempts to kill Fiona earlier.

The overflow of questions in Fiona's head is only increasing.

How is the maid still alive?

Why did she help her?

Her expressionless face offers no answers.

Is she… Is…

Finally, Fiona notices the sprigs of lavender. The ones that she had left in the maid's cold, scarred hands before leaving the observatory. Their stems have been woven through a few tears on the front of her jacket (Hewie's gnashing teeth and raised hackles cross through Fiona's mind), holding them in place.

She kept them. She's wearing them. That's… unexpected?

Fiona manages a shaky smile. "...Thank you… er, I don't even know your name, do I?"

"Daniella," the maid eventually says. "I would like to be called Daniella."

"Daniella. Thank you."

Daniella simply bobs her head in response.

When Fiona finds it in herself to continue on, Daniella follows her. And Fiona wants her to.


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