Title: Manor of Sleeping Tattoos
Pairings: L/Light ; Light-centric
Part: Third Hour: Sleeping Priestess
Words: 1198 words
Beta: elliott ashes
Warning[s]: Major character death
Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note or Fatal Frame; Death Note is the property of Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata while Fatal Frame is the property of Tecmo (and others, I think).
Summary: The dream is always the same. He follows him deeper and deeper into the manor, even though he knows that it's going to trap him in this nightmare forever.
Third Hour: Sleeping Priestess
With each passing night, Light finds himself wandering further and further into the manor. The entire place is like a maze and sometimes he realizes that he's back-tracking and has been going in a circle for what seems like hours. The halls are serpentine and winding, with dead ends and multiple doors leading into rooms or into other long hallways.
There's moonlight, strangely, filtering in through the windows.
He's still alone, he feels, but he keeps thinking that he sees someone else in the manor – a woman – but she seems alive. Maybe she shares his fate.
Light thought about trying to follow her, but then he spots him again and he can't resist chasing after him. So he's travelling deeper and deeper into the manor, unravelling the mysteries as he goes. If this is his last act, then he will solve it.
Even if it consumes him.
– – –
Waking up is getting more and more difficult; it's as though he's clawing his way out of a well or some sort of cocoon. He doesn't want to wake up, he feels like he's slowly figuring out what's going on in this manor and every hour he spends awake takes away from the riddle it presents.
It's a distraction, it keeps him from focusing on what he's lost; it keeps the pain at bay, at least for a little while.
When he wakes up, there's a small notebook sitting on his desk that wasn't there before. A post-it note is stuck to the cover in his sister's writing.
'You left your computer on last night. I thought this would help.'
Inside the notebook is a series of detailed notes about the cases of 'lost patients' and of this manor he always dreams of. Sayu had actually gone out and done research for him; it's a touching gesture and it causes a lump to form in Light's throat.
His sister really does love him.
– – –
That night is a little different. He's still in the manor, he knows this much, but it somehow seems different.
The area he wakes in is different. His body refuses to move; all he can do is blink and glance around. It's an unfamiliar room, one that he doesn't recognize, but he's sure that it's in the manor and that it's important.
When he looks down, Light realizes that he's dressed in white and blue.
It doesn't feel like his body.
– – –
Light can't remember the last time he ate. He doesn't really feel very hungry anymore and he's hardly awake so he doesn't think that it matters too much.
His mother is worried about him; she thinks it's some sort of illness that he caught and that's why he spends so much time upstairs sleeping. Sayu seems to have an idea of what's happening to him, but it hurts her too much and she says nothing – their parents wouldn't believe her anyway. His father thinks that it's simply the grief, eventually Light will be fine.
And Light chooses not to say anything. He's afraid that if he does, they'll be dragged into this too.
This is his burden and his mystery. He has to solve it, in order to protect his family and because it's eating away at him.
Maybe if he solves it, he'll be able to see him again.
Let me say I'm sorry. Let me see you again.
– – –
What Sayu's research tells him is interesting and it helps. Mostly it's tied up in urban legends and old folklore. Nothing inside of it is particularly helpful towards unravelling the mysteries of the manor itself, but they give him some clues.
The song that he hears echoing through the house is called 'The Sleeping Priestess.' He hums the lyrics, he knows the tune of them too well, it's carved into his memory. But he can't find anything about it, no matter how hard he searches.
It seems to have a deep connection to the manor, if only he could figure out what that was.
Maybe the 'sleeping priestess' is the woman he sees walking through the manor, covered in tattoos. She wanders through the halls as though she's trapped in a dream, her eyes empty and unseeing. Her touch gave him the tattoo.
Light can't help but notice that it's winding around his hips, like a snake.
– – –
He spends his few waking hours flipping through the notes that Sayu brought him; he thinks that she would make a very good researcher one day. Maybe she would be a writer.
Whatever the case is, he hopes that her life doesn't take the same route that his did. He wants her to be happy.
Light doesn't know if he has it in him to be happy anymore; his smiles are faker than ever before and it feels as though a part of him has been stripped away.
He wonders: Why does love have to hurt so much?
– – –
The manor he finds himself in each night is known as the 'Manor of Sleep' according to the urban legend that it's a part of. He's dreaming of it because of grief, because of his feelings.
And he followed the one he had loved and lost in. There is no way out for him. But if he keeps following him, keeps trying to piece together what happened and what secret was contained within the manor, than maybe he can meet him.
He's already been having the same dream for weeks now and he has dreamt of the manor. If he had a proper map, than maybe he could figure out just how deeply he's penetrated into it, but he knows that he's at least at the fifth stage of the so-called 'illness' that accompanies the manor.
The tattoo is taking more shape, beyond the dark bruise that it had appeared to be before. Now it has a shape and an image to it that's recognizable.
It's a tattoo of snake and holly. There must be some significance to that and maybe he can find out.
All that's left is to wander further into the manor.
– – –
The Camera Obscura has no effect on the tattooed woman – the priestess, Light tells himself – she simply teleports closer and reaches out for him.
Now, though, the dreams are a little different; it just isn't the manor he dreams of any more. Sometimes he just dreams of the manor, of exploring it further and finding diaries and notes left by who he assumes are its former inhabitants.
They tell a worrying and interesting tale. One of a priestess engraved with the pain of others who sleeps in a shrine for an eternity. Each tome or diary he picks up adds a little more to his knowledge of the sorts of rituals that went on in this manor.
On the nights where he doesn't dream of the manor, he finds himself in what feels like a prison. It isn't his body, he feels, but there's this strange feeling of connection. He isn't sure what it means.
But he wants to find out.
– – –
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Twilight.