i have not done less than duty requires.

[lyseandpurge]

There is a song in the flagstones.



It resonates, high-pitched, nonverbal, and arrhythmic, between the walls of the corridors and along the lengths of the old pillars and in the hollows of the alcoves.

It comes from a windowless hallway, from a door no one has seen before whose cobweb drapery is so old it has begun to peel away.

And even then it comes: from a little outside the world, from no room, from no mouth.

From the gap in the door a light has begun to bleed, vivid and violet and pulsing like a heartbeat. The song rises with it, falls with it, and harmonises with the whistling of the wind—the smell of hot metal mingling with something sweet.

If you open the door, it is because you have heard the sound, seen the light, felt the pulse—you have traced it to its source. It hangs before you, an immortal crystal of pure light, suspended in a shining, sickly abyss with no visible beginning or end. It is wounded. It is bleeding. A steady torrent of syrupy liquid pours from roots and pipes that have been forced through the wounds in its surface, and then been severed; the ichor streams down its lower facets and falls endlessly into the emptiness.

Its voice pierces your ears, louder and more melodic than ever.

And something dark and gaseous shifts warily under the glassy skin of the cell, watching you with its single eye.

= <o> =

a change. The ancient door has been altered recently: some wary soul has carved a message deep into the ageless wood, blackening it with heat. It reads: "DANGER, POSSESSION MAY OCCUR BEYOND THIS DOOR".

ooc. || hey everyone! this is Judgement or Ammit, the all-consuming vengeance of the immortal cell! she just got here, she's just a little lost, and she would appreciate something horrible happening so she can get back into the swing of things. anything's fine, though!!

nota bene—you can only get to the cell through this door, and Judgement can't see, hear, or perceive anything that isn't close to the cell. there's a little more information on these limitations in its bio​. sorry for the restrictions!

Comments

no worries~

[dustless]

Concepts, pushed forward tentatively. "Swords," the ones in her head, face, a few decorating the walls in rooms with metal blades eaten away by time, "doors," halls and halls and halls and halls, hundreds, thousands, doors where there can be anything, but sometimes they're just bedrooms full of soft things to jump on, "locks," doors have locks, but it's usually just blocking the way in and out with chairs and stuff, or at least that's what they do--and a tower with a door locked shut, their face leaning down and pressing against the keyhole Chara? Hello, it's me.

No manacles, not that Frisk knows of. There's no need for those, after all.

"There's not--" they shiver, rhythm of their feet changing over the stones and dislodging thoughts. Pink sound slipping down bones. That's nonsense, isn't it?

"...the ocean. Isn't here. That was home. This is somewhere else." They don't know how to communicate that as well, off-kilter again, and they try to move a little faster. The gardens are where they want to be now, but there's stairs and they hope they're not going to fall down them. "But there's blue in the sky, and it's nice too."

Who was killed? They were killed, but that's not what she means, is it?

Chara, again, pinning them down, face contorted with pain like they're the one being stabbed instead, silver dripping red in one and gold in the other--but there's nothing from Frisk there, almost nothing; an echo of frustration of a ruined voice and pity and complicated worry, snapped closed like a locket. That's not a memory they need to spill out in front of her.

"Nobody got killed for me. Here." A fuzzy fanged goatface, smiling and crying--does Asriel count? He's already dead but and alive in a different sort of way. No, he didn't die for them. "It's just a place to live. Some people think it's just a big prison." Locks, again, and bars flashing across the sky. But they only imagined that.

The castle's not really being free. Except from death. That's important for some people.

[lyseandpurge]

Judgement pages through image after image, studious. She understands, almost—she understands something. Locks too rusted to function, swords without hands to lift them, the absence of chains: she lingers on these figments, searing them with the heat of her eye.

Home, and here; different places. She understands that. She has hunted through many homes—through dens and burrows, through treetops and cliff roosts, through private dreams and sacred reveries. She once spread over a death-bed like a thick liquid shroud, crushing and drowning some one's last breaths.

And this place is—

a prison, she whispers, in her voice the thought of red skies and a cell's unbroken walls. No need for chains or locks, no need for war or terror.

so that is why i am here.

[dustless]

The Cell is a prison--the impression they're getting of it, if not the red skies.

"It's...like that. It's...bigger." Than the Cell, that Frisk could see--and if she's with them, then even that's less of one, right?

Stairs. Frisk clamps their hand over the railing. They don't want to fall now, and it would be easy to, listening to her. They're graceful when they need to dodge and they've been good about not tripping since midway through the underground, but that's still not a risk they want to deal with. No falling down, metaphorically or literally.

"The Castle takes a lot of people." Shapes, silhouettes: mostly a crowd of children creeping through the halls. "Don't know why." None of the rest are like...her. Whatever she is. Shifter, giant, monstrous but not a monster.

[lyseandpurge]

Double shadows flicker subtly on the steps as Frisk descends, as if cast by a second sun that cannot quite be seen. the Castle takes, Judgement echoes, coming nearer. why? how? where does it take from?

A soft breeze of staticky air signals her slowly passing in front of them, invisible and intangible. break the walls—end the prison. break the walls—kill the Castle. break the walls—set it free.

The cell pulses, rich and bright with blood beneath Frisk's skin.

as with me, always

[dustless]

Displaced air, displaced space. Memories of listening for spears behind their back make themselves known, and without conscious thought, their path goes crooked.

"Everywhere. Different times. Different worlds. Ones without people I know, or you do, or ones who aren't the same." Like the other Frisk, the one who can't see at all. A robot-ghost-man who's beloved by crowds and the same reviled by a kingdom without them saying so to his face.

"But I dunno why. Guess there's just...magic." They thought it took people to help them, once--kids from bad homes, monsters from dead timelines, either and both and more, but they don't think that so much anymore.

It's getting brighter. There's unblocked sunlight streaming through the windows now.

Frisk rubs their arms. Goosebumps.

"You don't...need to kill it. People don't. It fixes itself when stuff breaks anyway."

[lyseandpurge]

Judgement doesn't understand. killing is needed: it opens the door of death. world after world goes through, jaw opening and shutting.

The wall bends, grumbles, crackles as she passes through it, her body a faint tingling in a second sense of touch. She bends her head upwards and looks at the sun. She sees the sky cherry red and smeared with ash.

how not to enter? she asks, bewildered, hanging still in the air, her massive tail still protruding into the stairway. how to put out the calling flame? how to stop wanting? how to turn away?

[dustless]

Jaw? Frisk angles their eyes to where she is, in case she's preparing to open hers again--they take a few hopping steps to the side from that upset wall and slow down. "It's...not. Living's okay." A memory of golden flowers grows in the back of their head. "...maybe not forever. But there's lots of living to do here, and maybe it's not forever, it's just...more living than we might've got back home."

They aren't sure what the Castle wants or why it does what it does, and in all honesty, they don't care a lot anymore--they get angry sometimes, but it's as useful and generally satisfying as yelling at a thunderstorm.

The gardens aren't too far.

"You...can't? Nobody can get away or die, I said." And despite knowing of their own increased apathy, they add "The castle can't stop feelings, either. Not for long." Sometimes it directly changes feelings and thoughts for a while, but that's not forever. Frisk's own feelings are sort of side-effects.

[lyseandpurge]

Judgement is quiet for a while, swimming through and through the groaning stonework of the old stairway.

nobody can get away nobody can die? She speaks slowly, ponderously, indefinitely. living is the prison; the prison is living; i am to all prisons the lock, and the key is death.

A gust stirs the fog outside the window as she repeats: nobody can die.

And the fragment in Frisk's chest warms suddenly, like a fire flaring up as wood crumbles within it, like determination in the face of the unsolvable, like fear set loose from its bonds.

i would like to see the gardens, comes Judgement's voice, subdued and fractured.

[dustless]

Living is the prison. It's maybe not a good idea to scoff at a giant death-causing SOUL-touching being, but Frisk does it in a small noise in the back of their throat. At least you can do stuff when you're alive. Alive for real.

But if it was, they suppose the castle must be the biggest, best jail there could ever be.

"Okay," they say softly.

Frisk keeps going.

It's a straight shot there. The fog shreds under the weight of the sun, or through the strength of the gardens, or maybe just magic. (It's probably just magic.)

They hurry ahead before Judgement can maybe break the door down, even if they're not sure if she can actually fit through the doorway at all--it's hard to look at her long enough to get a good idea of her size, out here.

They step outside and plant their feet on some mossy rocks, standing in the speckled shade of a gathering of pear trees.

The rest of the gardens are spread out before them, though they can't see all that far. There's lots of other flowers, including the kinds that grow on bushes, and those block out most of everything except trees from their short viewpoint.

morbid aunt judgement

[lyseandpurge]

The doorway bends and the wall around it buckles, and the stone groans with unnatural pressure until it bursts, and Judgement passes through. The debris hangs suspended in midair, and then, like time reversing, folds back into shape after she has passed.

And Judgement finds herself floating cloud-like above a field of bright and verdant life. She stares, unseeing, bound by the limits of Frisk's eyes.

the surface, she says uncertainly. the air.

A tingling on their tongue. i can taste it.

this is new.

edgy auntie

[dustless]

...Okay. That was neat, whether it was the castle working fast or something she can do.

"The air's nice," they say. "Really fresh."

It definitely is. Compared to their home city, even with all the clean air acts there are, sometimes it's gross in the poorer districts. And they came from almost directly underground to the castle, years ago, and they noticed the freshness in contrast to the mostly-stagnant air beneath the mountain.

Tongue. They stick it out for a minute. They guess it tastes alright? But the pears are better, even with the freaky texture, so they skip forward to grab one from the lower branches and snap into it immediately. Not that hungry, but they did say they'd try for her.

"Mm-hmm. Re' diffnt 'rom your 'ome." Frisk doesn't have any qualms about talking with their mouth full.

[lyseandpurge]

The tingling spreads into their sinuses, a minty clarity through which scents are amplified. i saw flowers sometimes but i could never

the grass, Judgement wafts like white smoke, the blooming the sunlight-on-earth. saw it once from outside dreams a figment, backwards and upside down, but now i can

The crunch of the pear like stolen apples granting wisdom, the wind on Frisk's skin (static prickling leaping through it), an emotion near enough that she can almost

taste it.

The feeling works its way through Frisk's skin, deeper and deeper, sewing itself into their muscles, burrowing into their bones, soaking their organs. It grows from prickling to pins and needles to a brief wave of strange numbness.

i remember this, Judgement is saying, lightning in her words. new in a different age...

kinda short whoops

[dustless]

The tingling spreads from their tongue down, over skin and through their throat and deeper than they can--should--feel.

It's. A little much.

Maybe it's more than just sharing.

They stop chewing and hold their arms out, staring, waiting to see if...if... something'll happen. Something breaking out of their skin, or breaking into their bones...but it seems to be nothing. Just a feeling.

Frisk shivers and takes a deep breath--which is a bad decision, since a bit of unchewed pear shoots down their throat and needs to be coughed out onto the grass and stones, and that's gross.

A normal kind of gross, though.

"Could...never? Touch them?" Frisk asks when they can breathe again, and their voice barely wavers.

it's perfect!! <3 sorry for general shortness on my end

[lyseandpurge]

She is building up, she is swimming through their veins. When they speak her voice is the echo, rattling thunderously in their skull.

touch taste sight smell sound

the wind blowing and the sun shining! Frisk—when i was blue—when it was blue—once, then—

She passes overhead, four-fluked tail slashing the air, and this time she is perfectly visible, an armoured hulk whose thousand scars glisten like swollen bruises. Her shadow falls over them, cold, and she blots out the sun and forces a black ooze out of the ground beneath her.

She rolls, and her fin swipes the pear tree and there is a terrible crack. The broken trunk swings down until it strikes the soil, still clinging by a splinter of bark to the torn base. She doesn't notice.

through your eyes, through your ears; is this freedom?

what have i found?

She is an ache in Frisk's jaw and a thickness in their lungs. A blockage; she is forming.

The world is plagued by static.

u haven't been no worries!

[dustless]

She's huge and terrifying.

They dodge the pear tree--it's not a big one, it's easy, though branch-tips snag a sleeve and break off too--and Frisk almost slips. They see a flower her shadow didn't touch, and even then bend to try to pick it, but then they're doubling over and shuddering hard.

She's pretty and sad and painful, static hissing through their ears and singing in their bones.

They cough once, and pink-tainted spit falls onto the grass, followed by their knees.

"Ow." It's a sound of surprise more than pain. They would've thought everything would've hurt back by the Cell, if it was going to. "What?" they ask, looking back up towards her.

[lyseandpurge]

The fragment. It is the fragment of the cell, knit into their SOUL, which weighs on their heart as heavy as a millstone. It is a part of them, it has made them the cell, and the cell aches and labours with Judgement's every painful motion. It is agony, pulling taut on their ribcage.

She turns to look, swinging around—agony—her whole body scraping the soil and bending upwards and around to face them, and her gaze—agony—seems finally to fixate on them, in its heat (the heat of pain) a slow-shifting interest. She is too slow, too heavy, too massive for their body to bear. Not even a planet could carry this star-dense burden without strain, without agony, bowing bones, bleeding into lungs.

i found—

She was not made to move slowly. Her pitted jaws nearly engulf Frisk as she slams to a stop in front of them, her body ploughing through the dirt.

you.

Her eye shines too bright, like a figment of the imagination, visible even when they blink. Black tar pools out of the ground beneath them, slick and wet, and rains upwards into the sky.

broke the walls. let me out.

Squeezing, crushing, hammering sickness drowns out everything else; only she is there.

how else could this be?

[dustless]

Frisk jerks backwards to dodge and just ends up sitting, staring at her mouth-eye with their own open wide.

They are a Cell. They are the Cell. They hear the Cell, they hear the static and the song.

The world is going wrong. The stained earth runs up their legs and arms and hands and face, and it hurts, the static hurts, her stare hurts.

(The sickness consumes, and burns. They are being eaten, just as she said, but they don't know it--they only know it's painful.)

"I don't--" they curl forward until they're not looking at her, but she's close enough that Frisk feels their bangs brushing against her jaw "--don't--didn't break anything--it hurts," they whisper, and they don't know if this is real.

[lyseandpurge]

She is so close to them. There is something almost tender about how she drifts forward, forward, the earth cracking and crumbling with the weight of her.

didn't break anything—you didn't break anything—you didn't she groans, her ear-splitting voice splitting open again into thousands and thousands of intersecting planes and images, coming apart.

you didn't break anything you were what was broken she gasps, a great inrush of air, thousands and thousands of intersecting lives crushed into the pink of her eye in a great maelstrom, and Frisk just one more.

i am sorry she says, and then her jaws close around dirt and roots and she swallows them up.

= <o> =

It is over.

She is gone.

A black bird watches Frisk from a distant parapet, and with their first motion it spreads its wings, little wings, and flutters up into the sky.