The first chapter of episode twelve. The beginning of the end. *dramatic music* Okay, so this will probably be the longest episode of Märchen by the time it's done. I think I actually have enough material for this episode to fill out two episodes, but I want to keep the number of episodes the same as both seasons of the anime. Just because. Please no complaints this chapter about historical accuracy. I'm a fanfiction writer not a historian. This is just for fun.
For anyone interested, there are several Alice in Wonderland references throughout this chapter (well, one or two anyway). One of them is the thing about six o'clock - the Hatter and March Hare were trapped forever at six o'clock by Time, apparently, and if you recall a few episodes ago the clocktower in Lebensbaum was stopped at that time. I don't know why I bring it up, it's not important. Just little easter egg shoutouts I guess. Anyway, this chapter is something of a flashback of sorts. We return to our regular broadcast next chapter. In the meantime please enjoy.
Rozen Maiden: Märchen
EPISODE TWELVE
Hope
BOOM!
Mary Ann yelped with alarm at the sound of the explosion, arms flailing in an effort to retain her balance upon the stool on which she stood. Since she was holding a stack of plates at the time the end result was not pretty. Or quiet. Further startled by the plates smashing upon the storeroom floor, she promptly lost her balance altogether and joined the scattered fragments a moment later.
"Oww ..." the housemaid winced in pain as she got unsteadily to her feet. Not again. That was the third time this week. She was going to be in so much trouble, yes she was ...
The explosion had come from the direction of the kitchen. Of course it had. As Mary Ann rushed there to see what had caused it, she found her answer soon enough when a young blond boy emerged, grinning triumphantly at something glittering he held in his gloved hand. He was wearing a pair of goggles and a thick leather apron, and his face was stained with soot. Smoke curled off his sleight frame as if he were an overcooked turkey.
"Eureka!" he exclaimed excitedly. Mary Ann clutched at her own apron, her face contorting to show concern.
"Master Rozen! Whatever happened?"
"Success! Ha! And she said I was too stupid to do it!"
The maid was flummoxed. "Do what, Master?"
Rozen thrust the shiny object he held towards her, and Mary Ann was astonished to see that it was a simply marvellous blue diamond almost the size of his fist. The sight of it took her breath away.
"Flawless, d'you see? Perfect clarity. And she said I couldn't do it. I can't wait to show her."
Mary Ann was still hopelessly lost. She gaped at the young master, not following a word. "Who said? What have you done?" Peering over his shoulder at the smoke pouring from the kitchen and the accompanying acrid reek, she added, "You never blew up the kitchen again, did you Master Rozen?"
"Little bit, yes," Rozen admitted, not the least bit concerned by this fact. Mary Ann whined.
"But you know Lady Matilda said you weren't to do that no more, not after the last time. She'll be very upset, she will. What shall I say to her?"
Rozen waved his hand dismissively as he strode past the maid. "Tell her Ada did it."
He left her quivering and muttering outside the charcoal covered kitchen and made his way upstairs, shedding his apron and gloves as he went, draping them over the nearest available thing to hand. All the while he kept admiring the brilliant blue diamond he held, exhilarated by his success. It was sheer perfection. Where once there had been flaws, scratches, marks and veins, now there were none to be seen. He had tackled Pandora's little challenge and soundly overcome it. He couldn't wait to go see her and rub her nose in it.
"There you are!" an exuberant voice squealed with delight. The next thing Rozen knew he was lying flat on his back in the hallway outside his bedroom, his sister Ada pinning him to the floor. Despite inhabiting the body of a doll, she was remarkably strong. Rozen was also remarkably not.
"Ada!" he admonished, struggling to get up. She was like an overexcited puppy. If she had a tail it would be wagging back and forth right now.
"I've been waiting all morning, you promised you would take me out today. You do remember, don't you? Thirty nine hours twelve minutes fifty three seconds ago it was. I haven't forgotten you know."
"Yes," said Rozen, "I can see that."
"Well? You are going to take me out, aren't you? You promised."
He sighed. There was no getting around it. He was just going to have to take her with him. It was that or have her spend the next few days sulking. He didn't mind, really, it was just that people started to take notice when he went for a walk with his dead sister. Some of the gossip was quite far-fetched, ranging from a secret twin to necromancy. No one had correctly guessed that his sister's spirit was inhabiting the body of a doll made in her exact likeness which had mysteriously shown up the night after her funeral.
Not that he blamed them. It wasn't the first thing that came to mind.
"Of course I will. I'm going to the clocktower to see Pandora, you can come with me."
Ada gave another squeal of delight and began kissing her big brother repeatedly like a woodpecker tapping away at a troublesome tree. Rozen couldn't help laughing as he tried to fend her off.
"Stop that! You know Matilda doesn't like it."
Ada did stop, snorting derisively as she did. "Humph. Big sis is just jealous because I have you all to myself."
"Yes, I'm sure that's it," Rozen said when she finally let him get up. Their elder sister was jealous, and not freaked out to find that her younger brother shared a bed with a life-size doll possessed by the soul of their dear departed twelve year old little sis. Of course not. That would just be silly, wouldn't it?
"Oh! What's this?" Ada snatched the blue diamond from her brother as they entered his bedroom. She held it up to the light and examined it intently, mesmerized by its faceted surface.
"That's Pandora's puzzle," Rozen explained as he began scrubbing his face clean at the washstand, struggling to remove the traces of soot. "She gave it to me months ago and challenged me to remove the flaws and imperfections from it. I finally figured out how to do it last night when I saw Mary Ann sweeping up that glass she broke."
Ada's expression darkened rapidly as she lowered the diamond. She turned and pouted at her brother. "I wish you didn't spend so much time with her."
"Pandora?"
"Yes."
"Why?" Rozen glanced across at his sister and smirked. "You're surely not jealous?"
Ada scoffed and turned her nose up at him. "Certainly not! I just don't trust her. She's arrogant, pretentious and far too mysterious for my liking. No good shall ever come of her, dear brother, of that I am certain."
He couldn't argue with that, as Ada had summed up Pandora quit succinctly. He'd discovered an ebony black doll case in the topmost room of the clocktower, about a year ago it was now. Inside was a magnificent doll, smaller than Ada. Taking the winding key he found lying within the box alongside her, Rozen had wound the little doll up and his life had never been the same since.
Arrogant? Certainly. Pretentious? Oh yes, very much so. Mysterious? He still knew very little about her. Supposedly she was the same Pandora from ancient Greek legend, created by the gods themselves as a gift to humanity. Her name literally meant 'all-gifted'. Pandora was enigmatic to say the least, and any attempt on Rozen's part to try to understand her or learn more about her was met by obtuse riddles and nonsensical remarks.
Setting aside the blue diamond, Ada turned her attention to a sheathe of papers on the desk in front of the window. She spread them out on the polished wooden surface, gazing at the sketches with wide-eyed amazement.
"Who are all these girls?" she asked, resting her fingertips upon the paper. Rozen finished washing and dried himself off.
"Hmm? Oh, those are the dolls I told you about. My future daughters."
The Rozen Maidens. Seven dolls he'd met in the distant future, each one calling him 'Father'. He'd drawn them all so he wouldn't forget what they looked like. He wanted to one day make them exactly the way he remembered.
"They're beautiful ..." Ada whispered. Frowning, she picked up one of the sketches and examined it, glancing over the rest. "Which one is this?"
Rozen peered over her shoulder, recognising the figure in the drawing at once. "Shinku," he said, "The fifth Maiden. Her name means crimson. That dress she wears is red, and she has blond hair and blue eyes. Reminds me a little of Pandora sometimes, at least in terms of personality."
"You've drawn more pictures of her than any of the others," Ada pointed out.
"Have I?"
"Yes. And all of her pictures were on the top of the pile," she went on. She could be quite sharp sometimes, Rozen reflected. He turned away, saying nothing. Unfortunately she wasn't about to let it drop.
"She's your favourite, isn't she?" Ada teased, adding extra emphasis to 'favourite' in a way that made Rozen flinch. He could feel heat rising to his cheeks, and he tried to distract himself by fiddling with his ribbon tie.
"It's not like that," he mumbled. Ada giggled and thrust one of the sketches of Shinku in front of his face.
"Big brother has special feelings for number five, doesn't he? Oh yes he does I think ..."
Rozen snatched the sketch from her and hastily gathered up the other drawings, before shoving them all into a desk drawer. "She's my daughter, Ada," he pointed out, trying not to blush too much lest she notice, "Of course I have feelings for her."
Ada clasped her hands behind her back and rocked from side to side, grinning gleefully at his discomfort. "They're all your daughters, but you drew lots more pictures of her than you did of the others. You like her. You like her a lot."
Scowling now, Rozen scooped up the blue diamond and pocketed it, before rounding on his teasing sister. "Ada; stop it, or else I wont let you come with me," he warned. Ada bobbed her head once and then fell silent, though the expression on her face continued to taunt him as they set off together. After stopping at Ada's room to pick up her parasol, they proceeded to the entrance hall, informing a frayed looking Mary Ann that they were going out for a while.
Outside, they walked hand in hand down the garden path, and Ada spoke up once more.
"I'm not jealous of Pandora," she said playfully, "But I am of Shinku."
Rozen said nothing.
Every day Rozen visited Pandora at the clocktower, as she insisted he bring her snacks and make tea for her. She treated him like a servant, even though he technically held the title of Count. Complaints were met with either exasperation or, more often, a swift crack from her mallet. Rozen still had the bruises to show for his defiance. He put up with it because as evasive as she was about herself, Pandora was nevertheless a wellspring of knowledge relating to alchemy, the occult and N-Field physics. He learned a lot from putting up with her abrasive nature.
Nevertheless it meant that every day he had to climb the clocktower all the way to the very top, and his usual reward once he reached the summit was a sore kneecap as Pandora disciplined him for being late. Once, feeling especially flippant, Rozen donned a suit of armour he'd put together himself. After taking his sweet time to climb the clocktower, he'd mocked Pandora's futile efforts to ineffectually discipline him.
Whereupon she'd summoned her artificial spirit, Hope, which proceeded to magically transmute Rozen's suit of armour into solid gold. Unable to even stand whilst wearing so much weight, Rozen had fallen flat on his back and couldn't lift so much as a finger to get up. Muttering profusely as he lay there, weighed down by probably the most valuable suit of armour in the world, he was forced to wait as Pandora silently made herself some tea. Once finished she climbed onto his chest, opened his visor, and then upended her cup.
It sounded harsh, but it was after all only tea. Apparently the last person to taunt her so had not been as fortunate. Rozen still shuddered at the mental picture conjured by her vivid description. Anyway, she'd been considerate enough to put milk in her tea before doing it, so it didn't burn too badly.
Rozen reached the top of the tower with minutes to spare, and was scarcely out of breath. Though he might have the physical strength of a newborn baby, a year of climbing the clocktower virtually every day had made him fit enough to run a mile. Ada didn't fare so well though, and she was quite red-faced by the time they reached the top. Rozen was still baffled by this. She was a doll. Technically she lacked things like lungs and blood flow, so there was no reason at all for her to get tired or out of breath. Yet she did. She got hungry and thirsty as well, as did Pandora. Why this should be he couldn't fathom.
Living dolls were fascinating, really.
"You don't have muscles," he explained to his huffing and puffing little sister, "How on earth can you be tired?"
Ada took a moment to get her breath back before answering, wafting herself with a decorative and brightly coloured folding silk fan. "I haven't the faintest idea, but my ball-joints ache and my legs are trembling. My chest is burning quite fiercely as well. I do wish this tower would stop spinning so."
Chuckling, Rozen scooped Ada up into his arms without any warning, causing her to give a startled cry. She did not protest however as he carried her through the doorway and into a spacious, airy room beyond. He set her down upon a rosewood settee, took a step back and then gave her a gallant bow.
"Better?"
"Much, thank you," Ada smiled, still fanning herself.
The room was stocked with old yet well-crafted furniture, the bookcases filled with leather bound volumes, a silver tea set resting upon a fine table. There was the constant sound of the clocktower mechanism in the background, ever present, though Rozen had spent so much time here that he scarcely seemed to notice it anymore. In one corner of the room was an impromptu workshop and alchemy laboratory where Rozen sometimes occupied himself under the condescending eye of Pandora.
And there, standing before a stained glass window overlooking Lebensbaum, was the doll herself.
Pandora.
She was a sight to behold, wearing a black and crimson dress that was frilled, ruffled and beribboned to an excessive degree. Her long glossy black hair fell loosely about her shoulders and back. She stared out at the town below her with a pair of ruby red eyes that drank in the sight, taking in every minute detail. She did not turn or make any move as Rozen and Ada entered the room, and did not react in the slightest as Rozen set about preparing her tea. When he was done he brought her cup and saucer over to her and presented them to her, the scalding brown liquid giving off a sweet aroma.
"You're quiet today," Rozen observed as she turned and took the tea from him. Pandora sipped at it, staring off into space for a long while. Finally she lowered the cup back onto the saucer and blinked up at Rozen.
"You did it," she said, her voice elegant and rich, with just a hint of faint amusement about it. Rozen grinned and produced the blue diamond, holding it out for her inspection.
"Figured it out last night. So simple in retrospect."
"Yes," Pandora said, tilting her head slightly, "And yet it took you all this time. Really, if you had applied yourself fully you would have solved such a simple challenge in far shorter order."
Rozen wagged a finger at her, still smiling. "You're not going to provoke me, Pandora. You said I couldn't do it at all. You said I was too stupid to work it out."
"Actually," Ada interjected from the settee, "I believe you said her exact words were: 'Your limited cognitive functions are woefully insufficient to accomplish such a trifling feat. Take care you do not strain your brain unduly in the attempt'."
Rozen gestured at his sister. "Yes, that."
Pandora smirked, just barely. "I was merely endeavouring to instil the necessary motivation in you. It would appear I succeeded."
Rozen tossed the diamond into the air and caught it, so excited to have succeeded that he just had to explain how he had accomplished the feat. "No matter how I tried, there was just no way to refine a stone of this size. I thought to myself 'If only it were smaller I could do it'. Then our maid dropped a glass at my feet last night and it came to me. What if I broke the stone down into smaller pieces? So I did - I split it into seven fragments and refined each of those, before fusing them back together again. Result - one large, flawless blue diamond." He presented it with a flourish and a fresh smile. "I thought I might name it Hope. Seems appropriate somehow."
Pandora sipped at her tea, before casting a wry look at Rozen. "The Hope diamond? Really now Rozen, that is silly."
Over the course of the next few hours it became obvious to Rozen that something was different about Pandora. She seemed distracted, and passed up several opportunities to scathingly chastise him. She was also preoccupied with the time - indeed it seemed she was forever glancing at her pocket watch, fidgeting with almost nervous apprehension.
"Are you going to tell me what's bothering you?" Rozen finally asked, unable to contain himself any longer. Pandora bowed her head and sighed heavily, before directing her scarlet gaze at his sister.
"Ada, Rozen will be leaving presently. Would you kindly wait for him at the bottom of the clocktower? I wish to have a moment alone with him."
Rozen had to convince her himself, so overcome with suspicion and curiosity was she. When finally she departed, leaving them alone together, Rozen turned away from the door to find Pandora once more standing before the stained glass window overlooking the town. He sensed that she was deeply troubled by something, yet he couldn't imagine what it could be.
"You're starting to scare me, Pandora."
"Then you know how I feel," she replied mysteriously, "For I am also afraid."
"Of what? Are you in danger?"
Pandora sighed again and shook her head, eyes closed wearily. "It is not that. I ..." she hesitated, before opening her eyes and turning to face him. "I spoke to my father."
Rozen stared at her. Until now she had never once mentioned her father - her creator, presumably. Rozen had asked, but she had always remained evasive. Of course he had been curious as to who had really made her. He knew the legends. Supposedly Pandora had been built by the gods themselves. How could he not wonder?
Pandora glanced away from him, her gaze sweeping over the contents of the room that had been her home for the past year. "He told me that my time has come."
"For what?" Rozen asked, feeling uneasy about this whole conversation.
"For me to sleep."
He didn't understand. "I don't understand," he said.
"Of course not. You're a foolish human with frightfully limited mental faculties," Pandora replied haughtily, struggling to try and force some good humour into the situation.
"Pandora ..."
She faced the stained glass window once more, gently resting her fingertips against it, her expression one of resignation. "When the clock strikes six a few minutes from now, I shall wind down," she explained, "When that happens, you will not be able to wind me up again. If you try it will not wake me. I shall continue to sleep on."
Rozen still didn't fully understand. Well, he understood what she was saying, he just didn't understand the why of it. He took a step towards her, hands extended in her direction. "What are you saying? Did you do something wrong? Is your father punishing you?"
"Just the opposite, Rozen. I have done everything he has asked of me."
"Then what? Pandora, help me to understand this!"
She shook her head. "That I cannot do."
"Pandora!"
"It is simply time for me to sleep. I am sorry Rozen, that is all there is to it."
There was a loud clunking sound as the clocktower mechanism moved the hands on the clock face. It was now six o'clock. Whereas normally Rozen had learned to tune the clockwork sounds out and not hear them, this time they sounded deafening to him. The first strike of the hour felt like a knife in his heart.
"And there's nothing I can do about it?" he asked. Pandora lowered her hand and faced him.
"No. Nothing."
It struck again. Rozen flinched at the sound. He could scarcely believe it. Pandora had been his friend for this past year. They'd been on adventures together. She'd taught him things he never would have imagined. Seeing her almost every day had become such an integral part of his life that losing her felt like losing a piece of himself. The clock struck again.
"When will you wake up?"
Pandora crossed the room to where her ebony doll case lay. She knelt before it and opened it up, revealing the white cushioned interior within. As the clocktower struck for the fourth time, Pandora's artificial spirit emerged from her case to greet her, a tiny golden pinpoint of glowing light. It pulsed at her as it floated before her. Pandora paused for a brief moment before answering.
"When all seems lost. When all hope has faded. Then I shall awaken and embrace the light of truth."
As the clock struck for the fifth time, Pandora climbed into her case and curled up inside of it, her spirit, Hope, joining her once more. Rozen knelt before the case, his hand resting upon the lid as he gazed down at the doll within. Their eyes met. Pandora smiled faintly.
"Be seeing you," she said.
The clock struck for the sixth and final time. Pandora's eyes closed and did not open again. Rozen continued to watch her for a while longer. Finally he forced himself to shut the doll case. He hunted around the room for the key to it and then locked it, before tucking the key safely away about his person.
She would be safe. No matter what happened there was simply no way to break into Pandora's Box. It could only be opened with the key, and as long as he held onto it he needn't worry that something might happen to her. He would treasure it, keep it safe, until it was time for her to awaken. Whenever that might be.
As Rozen stood and turned, he found himself looking at the large stained glass window that Pandora had been drawn to so often today. It depicted a striking image.
A beautiful angel, standing amidst a field of roses.