deercountry | (open) you're looking at me like you don't know who i am

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(open) you're looking at me like you don't know who i am

Who: Ange, Ruby, Break, and anyone who knows any of them.
What: Corruption turned Ange into a true Umineko witch who decided the best way to keep the people she loves safe from this town is to drag them into a pocket dimension.
When: For a while in March.
Where: Ange and Ruby's house-turned-small-pocket-dimension.

Content Warnings: Potential violence if anyone acts particularly antagonistic. Potential talk of violence or gore. Other warnings will be added when things pop up.

Perhaps you have seen Ruby's odd network post and decided to check things out. Or maybe you're just wandering around Trench and notice that Ange and Ruby's house suddenly looks.. different.

The house has been completely overgrown by way oversized roses, big thorns growing out of all the stems, completely obscuring the structure that's supposed to be underneath it. If you get close enough to the cluster of roses, you may feel your connection to any of the three people inside suddenly pull you in. (Please note: only people who know either Ange, Ruby or Break will be able to enter the pocket dimension because of this!)

If you give in to the sensation, everything around you might go black, and when the light returns, you seem to find yourself in.. a hedge maze. A rather odd one, though. As you stumble through it, you may suddenly find yourself in random rooms, and then back out of them into the hedge maze once more. The Moss King's wild plants seem to have even invaded corners of this place, so you might want to watch out you avoid having those snap at you. Retracing your steps through the labyrinth feels impossible, like the way is changing up behind you with every step. Some rooms make perfect sense - like a neat and elaborate kitchen, or a library - and others seem to consist of nonsense with stairs leading upside down or to nowhere, or gravity not working in a specific room at all.

Flying throughout the entire maze are golden butterflies. They seem to fly with direction, and if you follow them, you might find them leading you to one of the people you were looking for..

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Sooner or later you'd be up to your ears in debates about who has the right to judge who should be let in to paradise, you know.

[If everyone moved to their little garden, he means. Because it wouldn't be everyone. It'd be the people Ange liked, and those she was willing to tolerate on behalf of someone she cared for. But it wouldn't actually last, given the sorts of people she calls friends.

Break has a vague recollection of gloating with her about excluding Ozpin from this place. Now, he looks at the situation and can understand that depriving Qrow of someone he loves, no matter what he and Ange think of him, would just be another cruelty in the long list of betrayals Qrow has suffered.

That isn't a point he intends to bring up at present, however. It'll just lead to questions about why Qrow would care for someone who has hurt him in the past when he has Ange and Ruby and his lover right in front of him, or so Break thinks. That's not helpful. Instead, he leans back in his chair with one knee propped rudely on the table and idly sends a few cookies floating in the air, following a juggling pattern. Playing carelessly, to all appearances, as though the fussing of hero-types about morality doesn’t concern him at all.]

I think, perhaps…if there is one thing that makes Trench worthwhile, it's that it allows for the possibility of unexpected miracles.

I hate miracles.

[ She doesn't even stop for a beat to consider those words before they already fly out of her mouth. She moves to lean on the table in front of her with her arms, and then buries her face against them, not even looking at Break's little idle display here. She sure doesn't look like a witch like this - despite her outfit still being the same as before, with all the golden feathers. Ange looks much more like a sulking child.

But maybe that's what she is, to a certain extent. There's only so many times you can have your good intentions thrown aside by the people you care for before it starts to break your heart. ]

I always wondered why the witch that was supposed to grant miracles was just the worst. [ Thanks, Bernkastel. Thanks for nothing!! ]

But I figured it out. It's since miracles suck.

[ Granted, it may be a very specific thing that makes Ange say that, given that the 'miracle' of her family returning to her, the one she wished for her entire life, turned out to be one of the worst things she ever had to go through.

And that's coming from a girl who was torn apart while still alive. ]

If you want something to happen, you have to do it yourself. That's what those people don't accept. They'd rather wait forever on Trench to throw them a scrap of anything, even when it's buried in a pile of garbage.

[ Sure, her tone is mostly sulking, but there is some genuine hurt in it. In fact, the more she speaks on, the more the hurt overtakes all other hints of emotion present in her voice. Break of all people can easily pick up on that, as used as he has to be at this point to Ange's nuances. ]

.. I hate it. I hate them. If they don't need me, then I don't need them anymore either. [ Inhaling a breath, Ange finally moves to sit up again. ] This place is fine with just us. You, Ruby, me.. I don't know why I ever thought I'd need anyone else, if they don't understand me the way you two do.

[Break snaps to attention when her negative response is so immediate. But he takes note of two things, as he lets her rant. The first is that she seems to be thinking of miracles only in terms of wishes, which he doesn’t actually blame her for even a little. In such a circumstance, the first problem is the inherent failings of the person making the wish, and the second is that the miracles are dependent on the whims of the one granting them. Break knows better than anyone how such things can go horrifically wrong.

The second is that despite her witchy trappings, Ange is being dramatic all over the table in a fit of woe about how annoying other people are, just as she often does in his kitchen at home when someone is posting stupid sentiments all over the network again.

She's still in there.

He closes his eye once he's heard her out, collecting his thoughts. After such an impassioned set of declarations, he's going to have to speak delicately. The last thing they need is for Ange to believe he's turned on her, too.]

…that isn't what I mean at all. I don't doubt you for a minute, that she would have been the worst of the lot. But the sorts of miracles I mean are the ones nobody is directing at all. The truly beautiful sort, the ones that are left entirely up to chance.

[Carefully, he directs his floating cookies into a neat little tower on the plate. If this weren’t such a serious situation he'd make the cookie tower shoot blueberries, as he is not done heckling Ange about her magical sniper tower. Alas.]

I think about it all the time. I have for months. All of us had to cross a cosmic ocean from different dimensions to be together here like this in the first place. And then, what if Qrow hadn't happened upon me when he did? What if I hadn't said yes when he asked if I might help to find treats for his niece's birthday party? What if we hadn't been on the same side of the room that day, and what if you hadn’t had your butterflies out for Baltus to show me? When you take a proper look at it all, it really would have been so easy to miss one another entirely, and never come to know how much we need one another.

[Break nods to himself. Yes. All this is suitably disgusting, and he means every word.]

Mm…you can groan at me if you like, for being all sappy and old at you. But, even though Trench is a godforsaken hellhole…I'm so grateful to have met you in that place that I really can't regret my life there. You know…?

[ There's something to be said for the fact that Ange - at least - seems to be actually listening to Break, rather than interrupting him.

But her reaction in the end does seem to be that groan. In spirit, anyway. Ange isn't quite groaning the way she usually might have if she wasn't stuck up to over her ears into corruption, but something about the core of the reaction is there anyway in the way her facial expression shifts as she looks up at him before letting her head drop onto the table once more. ]

Why are you saying this?

[ There's no suspicion in her mind of Break here. Even with this, Ange doesn't figure out that he's snapped out of corruption well before either she or Ruby has. Break is just like this, after all. Even as her furniture, Ange doesn't expect him to be totally obedient. It'd just be wrong. Break has to still be Break.

Even if it means that sometimes he says stuff that sits uncomfortably within her. Like this.

The last thing she wants to hear after everything that's already left her hurt and bitter today is more praise of Trench, even if he's wrapping it up in a nice package. It won't change the turd that's inside. ]

It's fine if you don't regret it. [ She does mean that. Ange wouldn't lie here - having no reason to manipulate Break, not even in her corruption. Everything she's done, including tying him to her, has only come from good yet twisted intentions. ] But it's not as if we ever have to go back there, so why even talk about all of this in the first place?

Because people have been really annoying about what you're doing, right? All "this place is a prison" this and "this isn't the right way" that. In the midst of all that, I need for you to know that — for me, the place is something secondary. I'm not here because you've built me a peaceful new home. I'm here because Miss Ange is Miss Ange.

And, wherever you decide to be, no matter the reason…I mean to be at your side.

[This may not have the effect Break is hoping for here. After all, he doesn't actually sound all that different from Ruby at the moment. To anyone outside the situation something like this would probably sound like more addled vows from brainwashed furniture.

Unlike Ruby, though, Break hasn't had to have any of his essence replaced in order to keep him alive. He does retain a great deal of his independence, and he’s thought long and hard about whether he'd be able to say this honestly. His conclusion is that it's a promise he can make. Of course there are things he would grieve if Ange did shut this place up for the three of them alone, chief among them the relationship he's built with Qrow. But he and Qrow have always agreed that they'd place family above all else, and it's not like Ange will go anywhere without Ruby.

Break will do what he can to ease Ange out of this before things get that far. If worse comes to worse and Qrow is left behind, however, his lover will want someone he trusts looking after the girls. So, here he is.]

[ Well.. Of course he'd want to be where she is. That's the entire point, isn't it? In Ange's mind it's not like he didn't agree to this in the first place. Break knew what he was getting into, and he went into it all the same.

It's why they're sitting here together.

Or maybe it's just because Ange has higher expectations of Break than most people. Of course he wouldn't ever reject her, or hurt her as simply as so many people who have entered this world did. That's just how Break is. He stands by her side, no matter what happens.

She's left quiet for a moment or two as she seems to consider all of this, but then she speaks up again. ]

Yes, but.. you are also too smart to think this place is a prison in the first place.

[ Granted, Break grasping Ange's intentions and the right way to go about treating her while she is like this has a lot more to do with his understanding of her than general intelligence - but it's harder for Ange to see that while she is in this state. ]

That's just it, isn't it? Even for me, it could be a prison, if you wished it so.

[Break is under no illusions about this, and says as much with a careless, unflinching shrug.]

Perhaps that's another thing complicating matters for them. To be dressed up so grandly, and to be so casual about having the power to craft whole dimensions…I wonder if the troublesome ones are seeing only the Golden Witch, and fretting over what she could do, if it suited her.

[He watches Ange carefully, to gauge how she'll take the notion that the people she loves could be frightened of her.]

Certainly I'm terribly clever. This time, however, I think it has more to do with experience. Knowing Miss Ange and the Golden Witch will always be one and the same, deep down, I’m not afraid of what you can do any more than you're afraid of the Red-Eyed Ghost.

.. how would everyone else not know?

[ Apparently this is impossible for Ange to figure out, even in this form - or maybe especially in this form. But even outside of it, it wouldn't seem like as big of a deal to her. Isn't the proof in the pudding exactly in the way she treated Break when she found out about his past?

As far is concerned, all you need is faith in a person. Then little things like this don't matter.

Though, if she were to follow that thread of logic..

Ange's finger moves across the rim of a teacup. ]

Doesn't that then mean that no one trusts me the way you do? [ If even her own friends aren't able to see the obvious truth the way Break does. ]

Well, yes. However, I wouldn't hold it against them, if I were you.

[There's no reason to deny that the sense of trust Break has in Ange is different. It is. But it's because Break has a clearer idea of the directions Ange leans in, even corrupted. Perhaps especially corrupted. However, that's certainly not to say that the trust others have in her does not exist at all.]

After all, the friends you've made tend to be hero types, right? Helpers. Since that's the case, even if they aren't able to see eye to eye with you just now...if I had to hazard a guess, probably they aren't thinking "Ange is wrong".

[Break takes a sip of his tea.]

Rather, they're probably thinking something like, "To give up on a whole world this way...Ange must be very hurt."

[ She frowns just a touch when Break tells her to not hold it against them. It feels hard, after all. Even if Ange doesn't really blame any of them personally - maybe just because they are her friends - she can blame them as a collective, at least. For not believing in her more. For not trusting her. For not even seeming to realise how much that hurts her.

Break's luck lies in the fact that he's quick to move on to something else, or rather a different angle on the same thing. It makes Ange's mind move right along before the witch can throw any sort of tantrum over here, even if she still doesn't exactly look happy. ]

Of course. I'm hurt. I'm tired of Trench.

[ She made that very clear to everyone. And she knows that Break knows that almost more than anyone else. ]

If they want to help me so bad, couldn't they help with this world? What good would it do them to drag me kicking and screaming out of here?

It would not do them any good at all.

[If it is necessary to drag Ange kicking and screaming, it will mean she is still corrupted, and thus nothing will be accomplished! The ideal will be for Ange to make the decision to back down on her own — and, Break is realizing, that's going to require a group effort. He's never going to be able to bring her around on his own, with his valiant knightly words.

Break is not especially put out by this. She may not be halfway to beasthood this time, but her condition is very clearly much worse, a result of multiple traumas all building up over time rather than the one trigger of the house fire. It's no surprise at all, then, that it might likewise take multiple appeals to help her heal.

Which means his effort will be better spent catching her other friends before a Ruby does, and manipulating them as best he can into being a little less obnoxiously heroic.]

Perhaps you might leave the barrier open just a little longer…? I'll see if I can't bring some of them around on your behalf. Dear Qrow's gone off to brood about something or other, too, so I'll want to go catch him properly before you close us off for good.

[He is not at all above using his boyfriend to play the "do it for meeeeeeeee" card.]

.. I will, if that is what you want.

[ Thankfully this card is extremely powerful to use on Ange. It's extremely powerful when it's Break, anyway. Even if he wouldn't be laying it on thick, the girl just wouldn't be able to resist granting his wish.

Sure, keeping the barrier open for longer is a risk, but not a big enough risk that she doesn't feel confident in granting his wish for a little while longer all the same.

Hence why she says it, seemingly even without having to think about it - just going by her reaction speed, anyway. ]

Just.. [ For a moment she pauses, and there's something a little more vulnerable in her gaze, even if the girl - the witch - would not own up to it right now. ] .. don't leave for too long?

[ Especially if he's going to chase after Qrow. It's not something she'd deny him, but the idea of him potentially leaving this place even for a little bit is scary in its own way. What if the Pthumerians try to keep them there, having caught on to her plan? ]

I won't. However, if you think it'd help, I can be horrible and obnoxious before I go. Then, it will take longer for you to miss me.

[He is teasing, but it would probably work.

He himself is not worried about getting stuck outside. He can find allies out there too if he must, and it's not as though he hasn't been skipping around between dimensions he shouldn't have been able to access half his life. With this strange link to Ange and her magic intact, he has no reason to believe he couldn't rip another hole between the other reality and hers if he really needed to.

Hopefully, they won't have to test that.]

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