[hallowe'en] blood and apples

[lyseandpurge]

The fearful mist descends on the garden in the middle of the night, on tireless pink light hidden in the depths of the water. Refracted through the myriad mist droplets the immortal cell is visible, a million brilliant pinpoints, a will-o'-the-wisp glow, stars floating over the fountains, secret no longer.

All at once there is a great inrush of air, a clap of thunder, and the light flares once, screeching static, the earth heaving beneath the mound of glass—and goes out.

= <o> =



This is the sight in the garden in the morning: a creature slumped at the foot of the glass hill. She is covered by a thick layer of downy golden feathers that trail along the ground like a great cloak, like great wings, too heavy to fly. She

is human-shaped, lying still on her side, the thick dark tresses of her hair matted and ragged around her head, her pale palms stained with mud. From her own arms, tearing through the shoulder of her garments and reaching to the ends of her little fingers, grow the feathers, rows and rows of them bursting starkly from her dark skin, so that it swells and bruises around them.

There is only one sight in the gardens, the feathers, bright and beautiful and perfect. There is only one feature of the gardens, the feathers, lovely and precious and worth anyone's fortune. There is only one odour in the gardens, the odour of the feathers, as sweet and as delicious as the best thing you have ever tasted.

This strange bird, flightless, stirs.

She opens her eyes—sclera of molten gold, beautiful, squinting narrow as she rises in the dull grey morning; her feathers are as bright as any firelight. She gasps a shuddering, difficult breath; golden teeth flash in her mouth, precious.

She struggles to her feet: first one knee then the other; first one foot and then the other; first one stumbling and giving way and then the other—she cannot bear the weight of the golden mantle—she falls hard, panting, blood dripping from the bruised pores of her arms: bright, golden, and delicious.

Golden feathers sweep across the ground as she plants her hands in the grass to support herself, and remains there for a while. Then at last she heaves back and falls, almost supine, at the base of the hill, to listlessly watch the sun rise.

ooc. || hey everyone!! here's a little explanation, in case my silly post is too confusing.

i've basically transformed Judgement into a human for the hallowe'en event, with the small change that the feathers she grows from her body (and the other golden parts of her) have magical properties.

the feathers are profoundly alluring, although not irresistibly so: just by looking at them you know that they taste delicious and can fill you up for weeks, that any clothing you sew them into will become beautiful, that if you trim them and set them to paper they will write beautiful poetry and music. they can be powdered and cure any illness, they can be cut and turn into gemstones, they can be melted and forged into magical weapons and tools, they can fletch arrows that fly true and come back, and even just having them with you will bring good luck.

that's not all—basically, they can help you in almost any way you can imagine! and best of all, there's no limit to how many there are! even if you pluck all the feathers, she'll grow more in just the blink of an eye.

so come one and come all! take what you need, what you want, and maybe some spare just in case. you know you want to!

Comments

♥

[lyseandpurge]

Red listens silently, because the story is familiar, because the story, she thinks, is hers. "I understand," she says at last, and coughs on the last syllable, her throat dry. "Wolves—I know wolves. But in a story, a wolf doesn't have to be a wolf, does it? No one's afraid of a wolf in a story. When it comes to life, and they see it, it isn't a wolf any longer. It's something real."

The wood of the door, too, is dry and dead, as she reaches for it, her hand trembling a little from the slight effort she has to make. Dead wood, old stone, this ruined castle is just that. It is like a corpse that still breathes, or a living thing that has slept too long.

Lost in her own thought, Red pauses just before touching the broken door. "Every story is about something real. Usually it's fear. Fear eats up grandma, although a wolf might not... that's why people started telling stories about me—about plagues, and invasions, and machine rebellions. I scared them, so they turned me into a wolf, and they hugged their axes for comfort..."

She stretches out again and this time, with a quiet grunt, just brushes the edge of the door with her fingertips. The last hinge bursts open with a loud crack, sending metal splinters flying; and the door crashes to the ground.

From the side of it that faced the hinge, tendrils are slowly growing, waving lazily towards the low light, and barky knots have swollen up, digging into the ground with their roots.

"Sorry," Red says.

[dustless]

'Wolves're real. They--the stories just made them scarier to people, so...people just thought they were scary. Monsters too, a long time ago. Everyone gets scared of what they don't understand.'

(Frisk thinks they're immune to that. Not quite, but fear's warped into anger and anger into determination, so it isn't always so bad.)

'And wolves got hurt, and monsters got hurt, and you got hurt. But people know wolves now, and they're gonna know monsters aren't so bad, and maybe you will too.' Maybe, maybe. There needs to be a way for her not to be so...dangerous, once everything goes back.

--and Red's stronger than she looks. Frisk flinches to duck in a half-cower at the noise that rings in their ears.



'Thanks,' they say instead. She did what they asked, didn't she? It wasn't her fault.

They skirt around the door anyway.

The halls are dark. Frisk sticks their nose in the air, trying to catch the scent of...something. A Chara found disinfectant stuff in a bottle for them once, maybe they can find it now, somewhere in all the rows of doors.

'You should have a room,' they tell Red as they start again. 'Floors and ground are bad to sleep on.'

this is a long one sorry......

[lyseandpurge]

"I shouldn't sleep," Red protests weakly. The wooden tendrils, thickening gradually into branches, continue to bend and grow towards her as Frisk carries her around them. "I'm not finished yet, it isn't time to rest."

She frowns into the dim hallway, as if her shining gaze will pierce the walls and find whatever Frisk is looking for. But there's nothing hiding in the walls, no sickly stolen light tapped from her flesh and imprisoned in a battery of metal. It's dark—and the only motion is that of a rat skittering stealthily across the dusty floor.

A little spider drops from the ceiling right into her lap as she sits up. She watches it gradually up her robes, towards her exposed shoulder, the light red joints of its legs flashing.

"I don't think monsters are bad," she murmurs, "or wolves. They're just living things—hungry, but innocent... they become the victims of stories that are told about disasters, about sicknesses, about me."

She leans forward, exhaling. The little spider is on her forearm now, the tips of its legs sticky with little beads of blood that it has slipped in. "It's my fault, those stories. But no one ever hurt me because of them. When they wanted the cell..."

She frowns. "I... remember. They wanted the cell, and all the cell could do was give... like me, like now. I couldn't hurt anyone. But when I was born... no one ever hurt me. No one has ever hurt me, since then. No one has ever wanted me. They all ran, they all tried to hide. And they told these stories, pretending I was something else, or some one else."

The spider is spinning a thread of gold between the tips of two feathers.

"I saw into their thoughts... when they died, I heard their stories. I've seen wolves killed, and monsters; a little part of them rotted and became a little part of me. They died because some one told a story about how they were me, about how killing them would let people live without fear again. Living things dying for the fantasy of killing me—it's just another kind of the poison I was made from, I infected their stories, I made them hate and destroy, until they killed each other. Judgement."

✌️

[dustless]

'Finish what?' they ask, a drop of irritability sliding over their thought-voice's edge again. 'You're hurt, you're bleeding, we...there's a month of this jus' like last year, and you're not gonna be up the whole time, that's stupid.' Even Frisk tries to rest when they've got active wounds. Unless it's an emergency. Red shouldn't have any emergencies, except maybe running away if someone else tries to hurt her, and they can do that for her anyway.

Tell me what you want, she said before, and she wants to help, so they add a half-truth of 'I need some sleep too. Should be beds big enough for both of us.' Even if they end up being those mats on the floor, those're better than the floor only, bare and cold and getting colder. And if they don't feel tired enough to try resting yet, the weight on their back could change that in a little while.

They wander, and listen, though warm instinct directs their attention towards blood or pack or, in general, others now that they're not full of empty, and it's hard to ignore. Chase the rat, bite it or sniff it, explore it, this is their territory now, just like it always has been.

No. They're looking for alcohol, and not the beer or wine kind, those won't work, will they? At least being able to smell so strong means they can pass by doors instead of trying to nose every single one open.

Red shifts. They pause just long enough to be sure she's not going to slide right off.

Gentler. 'Not all the stories are your fault. You're not where my monsters are from, and people killed and locked them up anyway. It's not your fault you're...usually big and scary, is it?'



Frisk looks over their shoulder.

Judgement.

'Don't know,' they venture, 'what people here think you are.' Frisk never asked anyone. They never wanted to aim eyes her way. Some friends would try to kill her if they knew the truth of Frisk's illness, and they'd probably just get killed trying. Or infected, which would be worse. Or even try to steal her power too, and neither of them want that.