High in the Tower / They Sit by the Hour
Mar. 26th, 2016 10:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
buttercup_eater posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
castle_perrault((trigger warnings for things like suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, and general mental instability. chara is not a happy camper in this.))
At some point after Tauriel locks them up, Chara falls asleep. They don't remember doing so, nor are they sure how long they sleep. All they know is waking up swathed in sheets and a worn blanket, with the light of a sunrise falling across their face.
At some point after Tauriel locks them up, Chara falls asleep. They don't remember doing so, nor are they sure how long they sleep. All they know is waking up swathed in sheets and a worn blanket, with the light of a sunrise falling across their face.
The sunlight pisses them off.
Everything seems to make them angry at first, even things that they know on a logical level are inconsequential. The bedside stand with the wobbly leg annoys them, so they smash it against the wall. An empty flowerpot kept on the windowsill irritates Chara with its sheer pointless emptiness, so they throw it across the room, where it shatters into hundreds of clay shards. The spare candles in the closet fall to the ground and make an aggravating rattling noise when they roll across the floor after Chara accidentally dislodges them, so they scrape a few against a corner of the room until they're reduced to nothing more than a pile of wax shavings and wicks, then toss the rest out the window in a fit of frustrated impatience.
Eventually they run out of things they can easily break, so they work off their constant simmer of rage by spending the days pacing around and around the tiny tower room, slamming themselves into the walls whenever the urge takes them. At one point they notice a hangnail on one of their fingers and bite it off, and that slowly turns into a regular habit, biting and chewing the skin around their nails until their fingers grow quite raw and unpleasant looking.
Anyone who tries to visit them during this period is met with nothing but hostility.
They stay awake for long periods of time, silently prowling their room until they grow too exhausted to stand, and then they sleep, restlessly dreaming of dust and poison and chasing and being chased.
(A few dreams manage to stand out, however, ones where things aren't entirely awful and, strangely, they usually involve speaking with the residents of the castle, such as Frisk or Grune. Chara doesn't mention these dreams to anyone.)
* * *
Bit by bit, the exhaustion manages to even overtake the rage.
Chara ceases their pacing entirely and stops trying to break the furniture, although they do push their bed right up to the window so that they can sit there and lean on the windowsill. They spend their days watching the clouds drift through the sky and biting their fingers, until one of their guards- a big hairy beast with wings called the Batman- gives them a pair of brown leather gloves to help them stop. After that they work on curbing their tendencies and spend their time staring out the window sans finger biting.
And while they don't become amiable, the boredom grows bad enough that they stop putting deliberate effort into driving any visitors away. Watching someone talk at you is better than nothing, they suppose.
Chara wonders if that's a sign that they've been in the tower too long.
* * *
They come to the decision that they need to start experimenting. They already know they can't force their way out of the tower, but they know a possible loophole they can test: What happens if they die? And maybe, just maybe, they receive the odd visitor to distract them from the growing pains in their stomach.
Chara's not sure if they will wake up outside the tower or not, but they at least know they don't necessarily wake up in the same location as their body and it's not as if they have anything to lose by trying.
Of course, finding a method is difficult. There's nothing to poison themselves with, the bars prevent them from jumping out of the tower, and the guards are careful to keep sharp objects away from them.
In the end, they choose a rather passive suicide method: they stop eating and drinking.
Any water and food they get given is ignored until Chara's guards turn their backs, after which Chara calmly scrapes everything into the privy. They think they read once that a human will die after three days without water and food- or was that three weeks? Three months? In the spirit of scientific curiosity, they decide to pay more careful attention to the passage of time.
Oddly, their decision seems to cheer them up. They start to find little things to keep them occupied. They push their bed back against the wall and save crumbs of bread and similar things to scatter on the windowsill, in the hopes of attracting birds to watch. When they have the energy, they do push-ups. On the occasion that neither of their guards are around they sing snippets of songs they can remember- or even when their guards are around, albeit under their breath.
frisk u are 2 chill
Date: 2016-09-11 03:48 pm (UTC)But they don't really know how to ask about it and anyway, Frisk has other stuff to say, so Chara just ignores it.
The first thing the other child brings up is that ever important subject, Determination. They describe it as something humans have, something that monsters don't- another part where their timelines differ. Chara thinks of Undyne the Undying, and they almost smile.
Then Frisk goes on to describe how Dr. Alphys somehow obtained some Determination, for experimental purposes. Although they don't know where exactly she got it. The first logical seeming answer that jumps into Chara's head is the six human souls that were in the underground before Frisk, although if true then the exact method of how she could have extracted Determination from them- especially without risking damaging the hopes and dreams of monsterkind- is yet another mystery.
More disconcerting is what Determination apparently did to the fallen monsters. Melting isn't entirely unexpected (they remember Undyne again) but melting into each other? Chara can't even picture that.
And then, apparently, Dr. Alphys tried something else.
Something involving a golden flower.
"Flowey."
They feel strangely calm. Like they're floating in warm water, watching a few more bits and pieces of information click into place. Asriel, now a soulless golden flower. A flower, like the ones which had had seeds sticking to them when they'd dissolved into dust back home in the throne room. The flowers which had been able to take root in various places in the Underground. And Determination, a substance that gave you control over time and death. Flowey.
v(-_-)v
Date: 2016-09-11 04:30 pm (UTC)They don't know how much Chara knows about that. Flowey thought Frisk was them--he probably thought the same with...Chara-as-the-maybe-dead-Frisk. Asriel didn't call them anything but idiot until the end of their second RESET, after all. He probably tried to kill them too, just like he did Frisk.
Except this time it really was Chara.
...They'll save asking about that for a little later.
"She didn't know. 'Bout Flowey, that he existed. Just one day, the flower disappeared. Then she had all the Amalgamates to take care of."
(no subject)
Date: 2016-09-14 12:27 pm (UTC)Their voice is flat- Chara's voice is usually on the monotonous side, but right now it sounds entirely toneless.
Funny. They'd known on some level that they should have cared about everything that Asriel- that Flowey was telling them, back at New Home. About losing his SOUL, being a flower, not feeling anything. About dying. About killing. About how only Chara, somehow, would be enough. But they hadn't. And with the end in sight, and Flowey still going on about the past...
"How much did Flowey tell you?"
(no subject)
Date: 2016-09-14 12:42 pm (UTC)"Tell me?" Frisk isn't sure what Chara might be looking for. Flowey didn't really tell them anything except all the kill or be killed stuff. Asriel told them some things, but...
They'll be honest. "Not...lots, I guess. Who he was, near the end. And then that was just 'cause he thought I was you for a long time." There's an undertone of question in their voice--what did Chara think Asriel might've told them?
(no subject)
Date: 2016-09-20 05:43 pm (UTC)But by the sound of it, Frisk's timeline's Flowey didn't wind up telling Frisk the... things they talked to Chara about. Things that are a little more personal than Chara supposes would be appropriate- well, it's not that they care about that but they can't think of a point in bringing it up anyway.
"Hmm." Chara thinks for a moment, before adding a non-committal "Understood." They can tell there's a questioning undertone in Frisk's voice, but they don't have to tell Frisk anything. In fact, Chara falls into silence afterwards.
(no subject)
Date: 2016-09-20 07:20 pm (UTC)"...maybe the castle has its own kind of Determination," they say, once they eventually remember what they'd been talking about before, mostly. "In everything. 'Cause we died and came back later. And stuff that gets ate is...sort of reset, so all the cake in the big room and the fruit in the gardens comes back."
(no subject)
Date: 2016-09-24 11:55 pm (UTC)"It's a building," they say, their tone waspish. "It shouldn't even have a SOUL."
They immediately flush at their words, spoken more out of irritability than actual thought- Flowey didn't have a SOUL, stupid- and hastily amend, "Alright! So perhaps someone was doing experiments of their own here, once. I don't know."
They pause, still embarrassed, then add: "What's the big room?"
(no subject)
Date: 2016-09-25 12:15 am (UTC)Ah. Now that's a slightly less frustrating thing to talk about, the castle's weird functions. "Big--ballroom, that's what it is. There's cake and stuff on the tables in it. And they're weird, 'cause there's jewelry in them, like earrings and stuff, and you can hurt your teeth or choke, so you need to be careful."
(no subject)
Date: 2016-09-29 01:25 am (UTC)Chara bites into the side of their tongue, wishing it was Frisk's nose or something. They already know what they just said was dumb, they don't need Frisk poking more holes into it, thanks.
"Is there really a point to speculating?" Chara says. "If you want to figure out how the castle works, look around yourself. At least one of us can."
Their brow furrows. Okay, a ballroom with cake full of jewelry. "Sounds like someone's bad idea of a prank," they comment. "Trick your friends into breaking their teeth."
(no subject)
Date: 2016-09-29 01:52 am (UTC)Frisk runs their tongue over their teeth, wincing silently. Learning how to be completely sure they'd gotten all the jewels out took a few tries. "Maybe that's what it's supposed to be, dunno. I think it's new stuff a lot, too, 'cause I kept some of it and none of it's gone."
thread end soon, d'you think?
Date: 2016-10-04 04:49 am (UTC)"We shall just have to see, won't we?" Chara says, airily.
Hmm. Even cake with jewelry in it would be nice... so far everything the elf and the bat have been feeding them has been healthy. Not a taste of sweetness anywhere to be found.
probably /o/
Date: 2016-10-04 05:01 am (UTC)"...guess we will."
Frisk considers what else they'd tell somebody new. Chara already knows they're in the sky, about the timeline stuff, about the monsters here...
"An' watch out in the gardens," they say finally. "There's a trap door in the garden. 'F you fall, you can't get up without help again." That's something they should probably know, even if they hadn't heard of anyone else falling in.
(no subject)
Date: 2016-10-20 03:24 pm (UTC)Sarcasm aside, they do file that bit of info away for later reference. Probably a lot later- they've poked around their room enough to know that escaping under their own power is going to be... difficult. LOVE, it seems, has no effect on a bolted door that's several inches of solid wood.
Perhaps they should start doing push-ups.
Meanwhile, Frisk seems to be running out of things to say. "Are we done here?" Chara asks. "I don't think you should stick around until the elf comes back."
(no subject)
Date: 2016-10-20 04:46 pm (UTC)Their eyes flick to the stairwell, and they breathe a short huff of a sigh out through their nose. They kind of want to stay, even if Chara lapsed into silence, they don't mind quiet--but. Tauriel wouldn't be happy about them being up here, they're sure. She might even try to argue with them, or ban them from ever trying again. They'd do it anyway if they wanted to, but it'd still be kind of frustrating to have to work around.
"Yeah. Guess not." They press their palms against the door, sort of dragging their way up until they 're standing in front of it and staring into the wood, as if they'll suddenly be able to see straight through it. "...Be seeing you?"
(no subject)
Date: 2016-11-03 06:50 am (UTC)...Other people are just more trouble than they're worth.
They hear Frisk move about, and the other child offers Chara a tentative goodbye. A few questions flit through Chara's mind: Do they even want to see Frisk again? What else would Frisk even have to say to a demonic little murderer? Do they get a choice? Will they even be awake if they see Frisk again?
They settle on something blither than a question for their reply.
"As much as one can see a person through a door," Chara says. "Ciao."
(no subject)
Date: 2016-11-03 07:01 am (UTC)"...Ciao," they echo, and whirl to clatter down the stairs. (If they hesitated any more, they might've ending up convincing themselves to stay.)
thread end now~?
Date: 2016-11-03 07:25 am (UTC)When they can't hear Frisk anymore, they curl up on the floor and resume glaring at the bowl they were tossing around earlier.