Poison Apple
"Never take the antidote, before the poison." -Latin Proverb
The Poisoned Apple, the means of death, or at least, near death, to one beautiful princess. It's a simple thing really, on the surface. A shining fruit, plucked fresh and ripe. It glistens in the sun as white teeth bite into it's crisp, firm flesh, red lips caressing the same red skin, sliding slickly, capturing the piece of white flesh in one's mouth, to be chewed...destroyed, irretrievably lost.
But that same apple, that same innocent thing, can become more complex, more deadly as one swallows, not quite crushing it completely. It lodges in the throat, un-moved by force or command. And as the eater falls to their knees, desperately clutching at their throat, scratching long marks down their necks, desperate to get air, that tender fruit becomes a murderer.
Long ago, a princess had but to wait, to be freed from her pain and slumber by True Love's Kiss.
But that was a time long past, and this, is no longer a fairy tale.
--
The mirror before Saguru was distorted, cracked and warped. The mirror to his left was wiggling, the image ever changing, unable to stay steady. The mirror to his right was true, but reversed. The mirror behind him was blank, waiting for an answer. Through it all, as he turned slowly, examining each one, a whispery voice was floating around the room, Mirrors to travel, mirrors to spy, mirrors to remember, mirrors to forget, mirrors to rule the world.
On the table before him stood a bottle, the liquid red and rusty inside, a fading black ribbon tied so neatly around his neck.
Saguru reached for the bottle and popped the cork, holding the lip up to his nose and allowing the scent of cherries and blood to wash over him before he drank the liquid in a gulp, seeing more then feeling a wind rush through the room.
The mirrors spun around him, before settling, now with the blank one before him. He set the bottle back on the table, once more whole and pristine. Suddenly darkness swept through him and he felt himself falling backwards, through space, through time, though everything and nothing, darkness claiming him every time he tried to grasp at something to halt his fall.
He landed on a soft bed of some sort, his head resting against a cushion before falling to the side, eyes staring out at an image distorted by glass. He hands came to rest on his upper abdomen, and refused to move even as he brain ordered them to.
He could see, blearily, a forest of trees around him, birds fluttering around, animals occasionally scampering by, off to live their lives. He tried to open his mouth, tried to cry out, but no sound came, no movement of his lips, and suddenly, he could feel something lodged in his throat, hard and un-movable. He felt like gasping for air, even though he wasn't breathing, hands refusing to move to his throat.
Twice, she came, once with a corset to crush my rubs, and once with a poisoned comb to drug me. But the last time she came, she brought the most beautiful basket of apples that I had ever saw. And this time, she stayed, to watch me die. And to be sure, she held me in her arms until I died, choking on a piece of apple.
His chest started to tighten, something pressing on his lungs, once more causing him to want to gasp, unable to as his body was frozen in stillness. Suddenly, the glass around him shattered, blinding him for a moment as he fell again, through the darkness and this time, clocks.
He landed hard on what should have been a soft cushion, the chair the cushion was attached to forcing him upright, staring at the lounging figure across from him. He stared, almost in shock, almost in expectation, a detached part of his mind wondering why the man had a size tag stuck to his hat.
"Tea?" the man offered, pushing a cup towards Saguru.
Saguru blinked, looking down at the cup before picking it up and taking a sip, gasping as his head started swimming, flowers and cats dancing across his vision. His chair tilted back and once more he was swallowed by darkness, this time with singing numbers and tangoing playing cards.
"Bai, Tantei-san." the man said, smiling his Cheshire cat grin as the darkness swallowed the drugged detective.
This time, when Saguru landed, it was not on cushion, but on stone, where he spied a young woman, sitting on a pillow, a small top like object twirling between her fingers as she slowly spun a thread from a pile of sheered wool next to her. As the thread slid between her fingers and onto the spindle, the thread turned from pale white to a blooded red, paling back again into a rose colour as it slid onto the object, winding it's way up the wooden pole.
There was no sound in the room, silence heavy and thick, falling over the pair like a visible cloud, muffing everything. Even the spindle and thread were silent, something that should have been impossible for a moving set of objects.
The girl looked up, her blue eyes tainted with a sleepy expression. She smiled at Saguru, before lowering her head back over her work, switching hands as her fingers turning the spindle grew tired, resting her wrist for a moment. She laid the spindle on the ground, carefully spinning it like the top it resembled, keeping it moving with an occasional flick as she turned the wool.
Saguru stepped closer, his footsteps silent, un-matching his movements. What had seemed a bundle of fabric, mis-matched and mis-dyed, was in fact two small children, a boy and a girl, looking for all the world, utterly dead.
Saguru knelt, horror struck, resting his finger against the children's neck's, one after another. Relief swept through him as he found them alive, but asleep. He shook them, frowning as neither stirred, shaking harder.
"The King's daughter shall, in her fifteenth year, prick herself with a spindle and die!"
"They won't wake up, neither will everyone else...they all just sleep and sleep."
Saguru jumped at both the whispery voice, and the more solid, real one that came from the girl, still spinning next to him. "What?"
The girl didn't answer, just spinning. Saguru watched the spindle turn round and round, as darkness closed over him, sending him into the enchanted sleep that plagued the castle. Saguru never hit the floor though, falling through it and into a more familiar darkness.
Landing this time, once more on a stone floor, he was automatically struck by the heat of the room, loosening his tie and shirt, staring at the beautiful woman across the room from him, her long black hair cascading down her back as she sat at a wooden table, a cauldron of thick, clear liquid next to her on her right, a wooden bowl of apples to her left.
She sat, staring at the mirror across from her, watching her reflection as she ran a comb oh so lightly over her cheek, the thick tines of the metal pushing down on her cheek, almost piercing it as she drew it across her flesh. "The laces broke and the comb has failed, she still lives over the seven hills and seven mountains."
The woman waited, almost for a reply, before sighing, stretching out her arms, resting her head on her arms. "She is growing wiser as she grows older, tricking her is growing harder." The woman raised her hand, gently brushing it over the mirror, tracing the outline of her lips. "My sweet, beautiful, wicked little girl." she murmured, seeing her daughter's features in her own face. She went silent for another moment, just staring at her reflection, before raising back into a proper sitting position, selecting an apple from the bowl, studying it, turning the rich red fruit over in her hands before selecting a brush from the table, dipping it into the thick liquid, swirling it around, coating the bristled before carefully pulling it out, letting it drip a bit before placing the bristles against the apple, carefully 'painting' the flesh with the liquid, making sure to only paint half of it, gently blowing as she did.
She picked up the comb again, in the tiniest of movements, marked the side without poison, smiling as she placed it back in her basket of apples, before standing, grabbing the ragged, worn cloak from the back of her chair, taking the basket with her as she left the room, the torches putting themselves out as the door closed, plunging Saguru into darkness.
And with that, the floor opened beneath him, drowning him.
This time, Saguru landed on a mushroom, slipping off to rest on the grassy floor. He looked around himself, groaning at the sight of the forest, laying back on the grass and staring at the canopy of trees above him, wishing this was all over...whatever it was.
He finally sat up again, noticing this time, there were two paths in front of him. He blinked, staring at the well-trod paths, before standing, looking around him again to see if anything else had changed.
"Where do you want to go?"
Saguru jumped at the voice and spun around, finding a fat, purple cat curled up on the mushroom, blinking at him lazily before raising a paw and licking it, eyes never leaving Saguru.
"I...I don't know. I don't even know what's going on."
"Then...it doesn't matter."
The voice came from the air around him, and the cat jumped off the mushroom, tail twitching in the air as he padded down a path. The cat paused, turning to look at again as Saguru before rolling onto his back, wiggling in the dirt, causing a cloud of it to raise into the air, before he rolled back to his feet, running down the path.
Saguru stumbled after, wondering what he was doing before he tripped over the spot the cat had been rolling around, staring at the small bottle in the road. It was the bottle from before, filled with the red, rusty liquid and the black ribbon (now dirt stained) wrapped around his neck.
He sat in the road, picking up the bottle, staring down at it.
"Better read it first, for if one drinks too much from a bottle marked 'Poison', it's almost certain to disagree with one sooner or later."
Saguru turned the bottle over in his hands, before un-corking it and drinking from it again. He fell back almost immediately, body falling slack, the once again full bottle rolling out of his hand. The ground slowly climbed over him, dragging him down, grass and plants sprouting from the spot where he had been, a red rose bush springing into life.
--
Blue and red lights were flashing around the room, chasing each other around, reflecting through the window and off the mirrors and metal, illuminating the scene. Various men in suits and uniforms wondered around, almost running into each other in their attempt to gather evidence and find crucial clues.
A young man sat, huddled in an armchair, answering questions that were put to him haltingly, his eyes distant as he watched the crowd, still in shock from what he had found when he came for the evening. Nakamori sighed, rubbing his eyes, a bit of shock effecting him, as he turned to look down at the scene.
Saguru Hakuba, famed international detective, lay dead on the floor of his study, obviously having fallen from the chair. A book lay open next to him, an etched drawing of a girl sleeping staring up at the detectives, blood splattering the pages from when the book had fallen. An apple lay next to Saguru's hand, a large bite taken out of it, the white flesh browning from the air.
Blood pooled around the detective's head, staining his pale skin and blond hair, colouring his lips a deep rose colour. It was still leaking, though slowly, gravity pulling it down where the heart's beating left off.
"Preliminary cause of death is hemorrhagic bleeding from the mouth, resulting in him collapsing." the corner said, sitting back on his calves, trying not to lean into the blood pool and disturb the evidence.
"Any cause?" Nakamori asked, turning his attention away from the body.
The corner shook his head, standing. "We won't know until we get him under the knife, but I have a suspicion it could be an anti-coagulate ingested orally."
Nakamori turned back to the body of the young detective, watching as he was lifted into a bag, the zipper sliding over Saguru's face, hiding him from the world. A forensic team member lifted the partially eaten apple, dropping it into a plastic bag.
Finis