deercountry | March Catchall

[ The last couple of days have been the worst in Jessica's whole, pathetic self-deluded life, as the shrouds covering her vision were forcefully ripped away, revealing the horrors that had lurked in every facet of her life. As she learned that her closest friend and her first and only love had betrayed her in the most nightmarish possible way.

Those days were a horrible blur. She managed to find shelter with a sympathetic inn keeper, but she'd spent much of her time alone with her thoughts, with everything she'd turned away from to protect herself. At some point she'd wandered down to the beach, staring out at the water and thinking of throwing herself back in, never to return to this world.

All the while, Ange sending message after message, trying to reach her. But she can't. The thought of seeking comfort in an another Ushiromiya... she can't bring herself to that. Or to return to the place where she lived with that hateful, beloved traitor. But eventually Ange's messages cease. And... she can't leave her alone, can she? No, Ange has been alone far too much. ]

i'm coming back in a few minutes.

Edited 2022-03-10 02:06 (UTC)

[ The confession totally made her forget.

Ange has spent days in worry about Jessica, figuring that the other wouldn't just leave the house for no reason at all - and yet she hasn't been able to get in touch with the other. All her messages and calls have gone unanswered, and she hasn't been able to find her cousin while looking around town either.

And yet all that worry, built up more and more over the days, is reduced by nothing when the sheer pain of the past twelve years hit Ange like a truck after hearing the truth from Sayo. The messages stop. The situation makes it hard to think about absolutely anything else, and Ange just spends the rest of the day crying her eyes out, unsure how to deal with the emotions that wash over her anew.

It takes a good few moments before Ange even realises that her Omni gave off the ping of a new message, and it's only when her gaze rests upon the text that Jessica's existence in this place hits her once more.

.. she doesn't know what to do. Ange figures she's got to be looking like a mess by now, but Jessica says a few minutes, and Ange already wasted some by only noticing the message belated. And finding the energy to actually do something about her appearance is doubly hard.

It renders her able to do little more than just brush a hand through her messy hair, realising very well that her eyes have got to be completely red and puffy from how much she's cried.

Yet she sucks in a breath, and despite her mood and appearance, somehow manages to at least drag herself out towards the porch - sinking down into a miserable heap as she sits down there, waiting for her cousin to show back up. ]

[ Jessica still isn't sure she's ready to go back. To be around people, to inevitably acknowledge what has happened. But as she trudges up to that house, she sees Ange slumped so pitifully on the porch, and she curses her own selfishness (that's always been her problem, hasn't it?). Ange must have been beside herself with worry, but more than that, she had left her behind with— that murderer. It makes her sick.

She hurries over, but she looks no better herself, exhausted and haggard, wearing the same clothes that she left in. At least she's had the presence of mind to bathe. She's pale and disheveled, the usual light in her eyes utterly snuffed out. ]

Ange-chan! Oh, Ange-chan, I— [ She sucks in a breath trying to steady her shaky nerves. ] I can't believe I left you alone— did she hurt you?

Edited 2022-03-11 07:26 (UTC)

[ It's not quite like Ange. Not under regular circumstances, anyway. But with everything that's happened, with the way she feels right now, with the way Jessica looks, immediately inducing worry in her.. she can't help it.

She does the only thing that feels natural for her right now, and that's that Ange somehow manages to get up on her feet and stumble halfway over towards the other girl enough to wrap her arms around her, clinging to her in a fierce hug.

It's just so awful. All of this is.

At first she can't even verbally reply, too overwhelmed by it all. All she can do is shake her head against the other's shoulder at that last question. ]

No, I..

[ Suddenly it dawns upon her that Jessica's words suddenly make so much sense now. Sayo must have told Jessica days ago, upon which the other got startled and shocked enough that she just must have run off. And Ange didn't realise that was the cause at all, until right now.

It makes her cling a little harder. Because she wants Jessica to feel like she's not alone, for one, but also because Jessica does still feel like her older cousin. No matter how much older Ange has gotten at this point, it's just an instinctive view of the other that still exists within her--

And it means that she at least derives some comfort from clinging to the other like Jessica is a liferaft. ]

How about you..? I-- I didn't realise..

[ Jessica clings to Ange for dear life. She's always been much more comfortable about showing casual affection, but this is completely different. She needs this, she needs contact and somebody caring about her to know that she's alive and real, still part of something around her.]

I— I ran, after she told me. She didn't even tell me everything, just— God, I've been running for years!

[ Running from every inconvenient piece of evidence that threatened to tear apart her boring, often miserable, absurdly privileged little life. Running from everybody around her. From her parents. From "Shannon" and "Kanon" and "Beatrice." From herself. ]

I still don't know. I don't want it to be real, I want to believe she was lying and this is some weird joke, or she was corrupt, but...

[ Those words carved themselves into her. Every time she tried to shake them off, they cut through her flimsy self delusions, mocked her attempts to run. But every time she tried to think about the reality that they represented, she threatened to drown in the despair of it all. ]

It's all real, isn't it? Everything... is tainted. I am too. How... am I supposed to live, now? Who am I?

[ She thought that she had no tears left, but more manage to come. ]

[ Even though her hurt, Ange can feel a different emotion starting to bubble up within her at those words. Something about them just doesn't feel right. If Jessica is already hurting, if she's already having such a hard time wrapping her mind around the idea that she and her entire family are dead, and that it was all caused by the person she loved, that the person she loved wasn't exactly who she thought it was..

Then she shouldn't have to deal with this on top of anything. That's not fair. It just isn't. ]

Don't say that. [ Ange's voice still shakes with pain, but she doesn't let go of the other. Her voice even grows a little stronger, a little more determined. ]

How is everything tainted? You're still Jessica onee-chan, aren't you? Nothing about this changes that.

[ Ange refuses to let it. ]

What did you even do wrong..?

[ This shouldn't be her fault, right? After all, she isn't the one that committed those horrific crimes. Raised in that sheltered environment, never good enough to meet her parents expectations and ambivalent towards the future they planned for her, she'd just wanted to live through her youth to the fullest, while she dreamed of an adulthood far away from that dreary island. She didn't want to think about how complicated things really were. She didn't want to see the rot beneath the surface. Isn't that to be expected? ]

There's... really so much that was messed up in our family. How much... did Sayo tell you? I— [ When she closes her eyes, she can picture her mother pushing that servant off the cliff, and she wants to scream. ] They made me who I am. And so did Sayo. All the people in my memories, how can I remember them happily?

[ She was so close to everything. Surely there's something she could have done. Maybe not where the adults of the family were concerned, but maybe for Sayo... But she did nothing. Blinded by her own problems, she just acted like everything was okay, and when it wasn't, that it wasn't serious. Maybe it was to reassure herself for her own powerlessness. The fury she feels towards Sayo and (despite a lack of confirmation) Eva, she also felt towards herself. ]

And I... I just ran away... instead of seeing how messed up it all is. I hate her for what she did, but when she needed me most I just... [ Her voice cracks under that unbearable sadness. ] She was calling herself furniture Ange-chan. For about a couple years before it happened, and I never asked what that meant, or why she felt that way, or... anything.

Or asked about my suspicions about "Kanon." [ The quotation marks are practically audible. ] Or ask my parents about why I haven't seen Grandpa in two years. Maybe if I did something... it wouldn't have happened.

[ Ange doesn't answer the other's question about how much Sayo told her - which is nothing, really, since Ange already knew so much that she didn't need words, and didn't want to ask the other anything on top of it. It's kind of awkward to admit where all her knowledge comes from, between a mix of looking way too much into stuff in the future and then all that stuff about the witch's game, so she doesn't.

Instead she just focuses on what she can say here. A feeling that bubbles up within her almost instantly upon hearing Jessica say stuff this.

She releases her cousin, but just so she can actually look at Jessica while she's speaking. ]

It's not like I'll refute that last part. [ If she's being entirely honest. Sure, there's a lot that could have been different. Even if one person had made a different decision somewhere, would things have been different? Could there then have been a world where none of this happened? ] But.. how were you supposed to know?

[ Genji also called himself furniture, normalizing that weird thing on the island to a point where a kid like Jessica might never have asked. There were so many weird things in their family all the time that they might have seemed normal, especially as sheltered as the other was.

But more than anything the thing that feels like it sets a flame ablaze in Ange's chest, is-- ]

She could have told you.

[ That's what gets her. Ange knows that it wasn't that easy, that it's not like Jessica was in a position to definitely help the other with everything, but.. ]

She could've told you. I know what you're like, Jessica onee-chan. If you knew, you would've done whatever you could to help! [ When has Jessica ever been the type to just sit still when another person needs help? It's just that she needs to be aware of it in the first place to be able to do something. ] How is it your fault when she never even tried to communicate? When she lied to you?

[ Sayo had people right there who cared for her. Loved her. She could have reached out.

If Ange had even had one person like that, she might have been okay.

But she didn't. That's what hurts so bad. ]

[ Ange isn't wrong. Jessica's negligence may have been self, cruel even, but she hadn't murdered anybody. She didn't instigate that massacre. She never in her wildest dreams would have wanted something so horrible to occur.

What was it that Sayo had told her? "Please see me?" That infuriates her. As though she hasn't been trying to break through in her own way for ten years! Maybe she'd been a bad friend but... she'd tried, hadn't she? And she would have supported Sayo the best she could if she came to her for it.

Ange is right, but... when she can remember so many times that something was off with her parents, or Sayo (and Kanon), with Maria and her mother... that's what she can't help dwelling on. It would be even more selfish to forgive herself for it, right? ]

...Yeah. I know, I know. There was so much weird stuff going on, I couldn't even tell what I was supposed to be spooked by. And every time I got curious about it, somebody shut me down. [ That's how her parents had raised her, from an early age. Stay in the box we've defined for you, have the freedom we'll dole out to you. ] But... I really should have said something. There's so much that just wasn't right. I'm so stupid. Everybody is dead because I'm so—

[ She breaks into sobs again, unable to voice that line of thinking. ]

Edited 2022-03-22 21:10 (UTC)

[ Maybe all she can do in this moment is to just hold Jessica. To let her know that she's here for her. Not that Ange doesn't have plenty of her own pain in this moment, so many painful memories being dredged right back up by this situation, but.. well, she can try to at least shove those halfway down so she can instead focus on helping out her cousin, right? It's not like she hasn't done that before - pretty much all her life at this point.

She tries to hold the other tight, just letting Jessica cry for a moment without Ange interrupting it with words.

But after a few moments she does speak up again. ]

It's not your fault.

[ And even more so not just Jessica's fault, because it sounds like the other's spiralling sure is making her think that. Which is just a ridiculous idea. Of all people who could have any blame in this, for it to be Jessica.. Ange refuses that. ]

If you're going to say that, you might as well say that it's my fault everyone is dead, because I didn't stop mom and dad and Battler onii-chan from going to the island that day.

[ Because that would have stopped it too, right? If Battler hadn't come that day, for the first time in six years, then maybe.. ]

That sounds just as ridiculous, right..?

[ It's true that it's not only Jessica's fault. Even now, dragged down into this mire of despair, she can only think of the smallest of cruelties that she was actually responsible for. Hell, she wasn't even conscious of most of what she was doing wrong at the time she was doing it— or, to be more accurate, not doing.

That's what Jessica can't stop punishing herself with. All of the times she could have helped somebody. All the strange things she saw, staying silent each time. Not all of it to do with Sayo, for that matter. She remembers seeing Rosa slap her daughter once, and she just walked away. She'd asked her father later, worried and upset, and he barely seemed perturbed, just making a snide comment about his little sister being irresponsible. That was the sort of family she tried to just take for granted.

She doesn't think she can ever escape this guilt. ]

You were six! I was right there, and I did nothing...! [ Her words are hoarse, choked out around subsiding sobs. ] I know... I can't change it now. And... she's the one who— [ She can't get the grotesque scenes out of her head, imagining one that she loved standing mocking over the bodies of her family. ]

I— I wish I just hated her. But even now, I...

[ Once she'd burned with love, and she still does. But that love has left her heart blackened and scorched, a ruin never to be rebuilt, she thinks. ]

...She's one of us. Did you know that? She's grandpa's kid. [ Was it okay for her to still have those feelings for her, even then? ]

.. yeah.

[ At first that's Ange's entirely answer. Just that singular word, as she still stands there, holding her cousin. It's likely she has just momentarily shut off her own emotions entirely to deal with Jessica's, because there's absolutely nothing left in her tone.

Or maybe she just doesn't even have the energy for anything other than this right now. Not after how much she's cried and screamed already. ]

I knew. Not that it was her, not until just now, but.. I knew grandfather had another child. [ Ange already put most of the puzzle pieces together, after all.

It's just that the final one that revealed the full image of the puzzle didn't click in place until Sayo showed herself to Ange.

On the other hand - she knows it's what makes all of this even more complicated for Jessica. Her love makes the entire thing so much messier. It's so much easier for Ange to just hate her when she wasn't the one who was in love with Sayo. When she doesn't have to come to terms with the fact that she loved her own family romantically.

What can she even say in the face of that? Nothing, right? The only thing it does is make her dislike Sayo even worse for having lied to Jessica like that. Even if it was hard under her circumstances, shouldn't she have found the courage to just tell Jessica..? If she truly liked the other? ]

I'm sorry, Jessica onee-chan. I know I can't say anything to make it all alright again.

Yeah, she— she said that she had three fourths of Kinzo's blood...

[ She swallows hard, shuddering. There's only one thing that math could add up to, and it makes her skin crawl. That blood runs in her veins too. ]

And for some reason, she started ranting and laughing in this weird voice, it... [ It reminded her of those stories her dad would tell that scared her so much when she was little, about Beatrice. Kumasawa would even do that damn laugh! ] Yeah. All the weird stuff around the mansion, the servants said was Beatrice, but it was Sayo. But why?! Does she really think she's Beatrice?! That's just a stupid ghost story!

[ But... whether she wants to understand or not, the pieces are rapidly clicking into place after years seeing and turning away from the clues, suppressing her intuition. Illegitimate children has to tie into Beatrice, Kinzo's mistress. And... supposing that his love had been that warped and twisted...

She feels sick. The more she understands, the worse that knowing feels. She doesn't want to keep unraveling these threads, but neither can she bear the thought of remaining any longer in ignorance. ]

I... I know. I just don't know what to do with it, Ange-chan. [ It's not just that she can't put back together what she once had. She genuinely doesn't know what foundation she can make for herself, what to remember, what to cherish. ] How— How am I supposed to remember mom's face?

[ That's been one of the things that she can't let go of. Even if she clings to the hope of several worlds, that Sayo in her world still had had that accident horrible accident. Jessica had always had a complicated relationship with her mother, but never doubted that she was loved. She doesn't doubt it now, either. Nor had Jessica ever wavered in her love for her mother.

But like her feelings for Sayo, her love is now irrevocably mixed with horror at her crime. Nothing remains innocent. Everything that she loved so naively cast frightful shadows. ]

Edited 2022-03-31 05:11 (UTC)

[ Ange has no idea what to say.

Even when she's locked down her own emotions to try and help Jessica, it's still too much to ask for something profound to come out. She could talk, try to explain, maybe try to be nuanced here. To try and advocate for Jessica to come to her own view on her mother, just like how Ange had to adjust her view of her own mother after reading Kyrie's diary - and ending on the conclusion of loving her mother, even though she clearly wasn't 100% good and innocent.

But can she work up the energy for that when she has spent the entire day crying? When she's had 12 years of awful memories and feelings dragged back to the forefront of her mind?

Of course not. As much as she wants to help Jessica.. It's too much. It'd already be too much under regular circumstances, but with the weight of everything on Ange's own shoulders right now.. it's impossible.

She wishes more than ever before that her brother was here. He'd know what to do, how to handle this. Why does it instead have to be her, an awkward girl who already doesn't know how to deal with emotions under the best of circumstances..? ]

I don't know..

[ Everything starts to feel harder and harder, more crushing, until Ange just can't take it anymore.

She collapses, sinking until she's squatting on the ground, starting to sob as the tears burst through the dam she erected. It's all too painful already. She can't deal with the burden of someone else's pain on top of that. ]

How am I supposed to know..?!

[ Jessica has nothing to be ashamed of right now. She's grieving the loss of her family and (albeit in a different way) of her love. She has no idea where she's supposed to go from here, or even who she's supposed to be. So she shouldn't feel guilty for that outburst.

But when Jessica sees Ange break down again, broken under the weight of the emotions she pushed on her, she can't help but erupt in more ragged weeping and whimpering, guilt compounding her misery. She really is selfish, isn't she? She ran away when Ange needed her most, just like she spent long years running away from things that scared her. ]

I'm sorry, I'm sorry—

[ She hadn't been ready to see another Ushiromiya. That selfish, irrational feeling had worsened Ange's misery when she was already hurting. ]

God, I really am an idiot...

[ Everything feels so cropped up in her chest. It feels dark, and overwhelming, and for a moment Ange worries that this could be the feeling of corruption threatening to burst through, making her shut her eyes to try and force it back.

She thinks of Ruby. Of their bond. It's been just about the only thing that could calm her down moments after Sayo told her, and even now she can feel it helping, making that awful feeling slightly better, slightly lighter.

Ange breathes out, managing to slowly look up at Jessica. ]

.. it's fine. [ The words come out as a breath, as a sigh. She sounds so tired, even after she helped herself calm down. ] We're just-- we're both hurting right now..

[ And that's what makes it hard to help each other in this particular moment, isn't it? They're both so hurt that it's hard to be comforting to the other. ]

[ Jessica is at a loss for what she should do, except in one respect: whatever the way forward is, she won't find it alone. Ange had been waiting for her, for 12 lonely years. It's only now that she really has an idea of what it might have felt like, to be so alienated.

She kneels down, puts an hand on Ange's arm. She doesn't know how to help her. All they can probably do is simply be with each other, and hope that that offers enough solace for them to rebuild with. ]

Yeah... [ Her voice is weak and hoarse from crying. She's barely even able to hold herself together enough to deliver them. ] Let's... go inside. I'm sorry for running.

[ She doesn't know if she has anything like a home anymore, but she's so tired. She has to rest, even if it's in this strange place, where everything was shattered. At least her family is there. ]

[ Ange looks up when that hand lands on her arm. For a moment she says nothing, just staring back at the other girl in silence, even after Jessica is done talking.

She could say a lot here. That the other doesn't have to apologize for running, because they're both barely managing to still exist with this weight pushing down on them right now. So much more than that, too.

But Ange doesn't. Instead she slowly nods, and then stands up. If Jessica moves up alongside her, Ange will take the other's hand as she starts moving back inside. ]

Let's.. let's just drink something.

[ It's not like sitting down and drinking tea will calm them down when they're dealing with this, but.. at least it's a start. At least it's something. ]

[ Jessica gets up with Ange, loosely holding her hand. She hadn't realized just how much she missed her presence until she saw her again, too numb and exhausted during her brief exodus. ]

Mm. Tea would be good...

[ Jessica follows her back in. She's hardly slept at all in the last couple days. Based on how heavy her limbs are started to feel, maybe that's catching up with her. But she's not sure she wants to know what her dreams will be like. ]

[ Jessica has had a difficult time since receiving several horrifying revelations about her family and childhood friend on the 10th. She rarely leaves her room, and its even more rare that she leaves the Clockhouse at all. Her previously energetic and bubbly personality has given way to a deep depression that she does nothing to hide.

She barely eats of her own volition, her once bright eyes sunken and red from crying, and she can sometimes be seen shuffling through the house with a flat, dull expression. Somebody might want to check in on her. ]

Edited 2022-03-11 00:44 (UTC)

[This whole situation was awful. She had wanted so badly for Ange to be reunited with her family. She hadn't imagined that it would end up spiraling quite like this. But from what Ange had told her about her family maybe she shouldn't have.

...But Ange wasn't the only Ushiromiya that she had to check in on. Ruby was going to be there for the both of them as best she could.

She gives a little knock on the door but doesn't force herself in.]

Hey Jessica.

You in there?

[ Jessica was devastated by the revelation of what Sayo had done, the betrayal all the more brutal when coming from her close friend since childhood. But that had not been the only blow. All at once, Jessica was forced to acknowledge the most vile things about her family, leaving her without any refuge in her past, no sweet memory that was not tainted. Ange had already known about her family's corruption, but Jessica had naively turned away from it for years.

Unmoored from herself like this, she has no idea how she's supposed to pull herself back together. Maybe she doesn't have to know right now... but she hates the idea of being a sheltered princess, unable to carry her own weight.

After a few seconds, there's the sound of footsteps, and the door opens. ]

...Hi, Ruby.

[Ruby could not imagine being in Jessica's shoes right now. The pain she was going through must have been on the same level but different from Ange's. She wasn't really sure what she could do lessen it but she knew enough to abandon a friend or family member in a time of strife.

She doesn't quite step all the way in when Jessica greets her. She can definitely understand if the other girl wanted to be alone.]

Mind if I come in?

I know there's a whole lot going on at the moment.

I just want you to know we're all here for you.

[ It's hard for Jessica to be out and about, performing the sort of daily social interactions that most people have. But that doesn't mean that she doesn't want anybody around, either.

She sits up on the bottom bunk of the bed she once shared with somebody responsible for taking her family, her world away. ]

Yeah... come in.

[ She stares up at Ruby, miserable and disheveled. ]

I... just don't know. What I'm supposed to do now.

[Jessica didn't seem to be taking the news any better than Ange, and honestly Ruby hadn't expected anything different. Both of their lives had been completely upheaved by this revelation.

She steps into the room and moves closer to the bed, taking a seat down on it.]

I wish I had a good answer for you there.

I've... I can't say I've been in the exact same boat before but I've had my life turned upside down by people I thought were my friends before.

It's awful and no one expects you to be okay after it.

Just take things a day at time for now.

[ Jessica nods to acknowledge Ruby, and closes her eyes, resting her head in her hands. Just when it seemed like she was starting to get used to life in this world, everything got thrown into chaos again. ]

It's just... it's all so messed up. My mother she... she tried to kill her when she was a baby. Before I was even born. And my dad has been covering up grandpa's death for the past two years. Grandpa... [ She shudders at remembering Sayo's words about him, not wanting to even vocalize that part. ]

...I loved her, you know? Like, I really loved her. I didn't understand then, but... I'd have run away with her, if she was suffering that much, but she never said anything to me. I... I really tried, you know? Even if I looked away from how bad she had it... Did she really hate all of us that much?

[Ruby listens to all of that and honestly she has no idea where to even start unpacking all of this. She had heard little bits of what Ange had figured out from her own time but it sounds like her family was more complicated than even she had known.

But there are parts about what she says that Ruby does understand. She's grown up with a broken and recovering family. She still remembers the way Raven looked at her when saying that Ruby reminded her of her own mother.]

I wouldn't know where to even begin with that. Honestly.

She pulled the wool over our eyes for months and... All I can really ask is why? Was she trying to get close to Ange to hurt her? To make up for what happened?

...The message she left with us when she left was filled with such vitriol.

I kind of wonder if she even knows why or what exactly she's doing.

[ That confession had been so strange and awful, and yet it feels like every word of it is burned into her mind for all time. She feels compelled to grasp them, even though doing so threatens to cut her to pieces. Is it atonement? Or an attempt to search for what is left for her among her wreckage? ]

I... I really don't know. When she confessed to me, she was desperate for me to understand, so that I couldn't deny it or... look away, the way I always did.

[ What is she failing to see, even now? That thinking threatens to lead her down roads of fevered paranoia. ]

Everything she said was filled with such bitterness, but I think she hates herself the most of all. No, I... I know she does. She started ranting in this... weird voice, about all these awful things. [ There was no mistaking all of the bitter self-disparagement that kept leaving her mouth, undoubtedly inflamed by years of misery. Years when Jessica had looked the other way. ] She called it an unforgivable sin. She called herself... a horrid freak of nature.

[ She swallows hard, strangely guilty at sharing those words, no matter what Sayo had done to her. ]

I think that... she was so miserable and bitter that she wanted to take all of us with her. Even the ones who loved her.

[ Someone really should check in on her. Make sure she's feeling okay, heard, lots of comfort and the like.

Too bad she just ran into Glitch and he's not going to be doing that at first. He's in the kitchen with a half a bread roll sticking out of his mouth when he see's this girl walking in. He stares at her for a long moment before he slowly takes a bite and takes it out of his mouth before saying;]

Uh.

Who are you? Also why are you crying in our house?

Like. I know Ozpin's taste is garbage but it's not worth crying over.

Edited 2022-03-13 02:28 (UTC)

[ Jessica has seen this boy around, but she'd never gotten a chance to talk to him yet, especially not now when she's sunk into this deep melancholy. She stares at him with her dull, sad eyes, irritated by his presumption.

She just came here for a snack. Jeez!]

Well excuse me for being sad when I found out my best friend murdered my entire family, except Ange-chan, who were all way more fucked up than I thought!

[ There's a long pause when this girl addresses him like that and his face just blank as he looks at her. He might've been trying to cut the tension with a joke...but that's not the way to go it seems.

There's a long pause before he slowly says; ]

Right...uh.

So it's not Ozpin's decorating.

Um...
It's okay to be sad about that other stuff?

...do you wanna talk about it? [ Great save, right? ]

[ The days since those traumatic revelations have been difficult for Jessica, to say the least. She'd fallen into a deep depression, struggling to even find reasons to keep going among the grief, even with the support she's found from new friends. Her whole life filled with falsehood, tragedy lurking behind every familiar thing and all that she loved. Sayo and her alter ego most of all.

Still, she trudges on, still going through the motions but eventually able to get out of her room and busy herself. What a cruel joke it is then, that she should find herself in this miserable place. Whatever miserable gods and meddling witches are out there directing her fate must really have it out for her. Well, too bad. She's not going to get broken any more than she already has been.

When she sees that burning House, she doesn't even stop to consider the impossibility of such a thing in this dank crypt. She rushes in immediately, heedless of the smoke or licking flames. She won't allow another tragedy to happen if she has the power to stop it. There's somebody she can save. There has to.

But with her coughing in such a familiar way and becoming increasingly dizzy from smoke inhalation, maybe it's somebody else that needs to save her... ]

[Sayo had discovered an interesting property of video games when she'd been allowed to mess around with Dragon Quest on Sakuka's Famicom (thus saving her from having to struggle through talking to Jessica's aggressively extroverted friends) when Jessica dragged her over for a mortifying "girls' night" one year: no matter how thrilling a game was the first time, when you had definitively solved it with all optimal moves in play, it could be excruciatingly boring.

A similar principle apparently applied to mental trial-based catacombs. Sayo had practically pirouetted through all of the myriad pitfalls of the dungeon when she'd been yanked inside the second time, the familiarity with it gained during the Sleepytown expedition serving her well in avoiding danger while also making everything intensely boring.

She was prepared to pass by the burning house without breaking her stride... until she saw Jessica. For a few precious moments, Sayo is paralyzed, staring at the blaze like a deer in the headlights. Or bonfire, in this case. It was a trap. It had to be, right? This place had to have more sophisticated mechanisms for people who weren't self-sacrificial idiots like Jessica; of course it would play on Sayo's guilt to try and draw her in.

What a foolish, childish ploy.

Sayo rushes to the side of the door, mind racing as she reasons out a way to draw Jessica outside. Jessica would likely do the opposite of whatever Sayo advises if she saw her, and even with her Cobra Kai training Sayo doesn't like her chances if it comes to forcibly dragging her outside—especailly in a burning building. She'll have to be clever.

Jessica hears the voice of a young boy, entirely unfamiliar to her, coming from near the entrance this time; right next to the door, in fact. How did she miss it before?]

Help! Please! I'm- [hacking and coughing] over here!

[(Sayo lies in wait, thankful for the umpteenth time since she arrived in Trench that if nothing else, she is very, very good at hiding.)]

[ Jessica should really know better than to fall for any of this, but isn't this typical of her? Feeling with all of her heart and acting on those feelings without second thought. Jessica is surprised herself that she's been able to act with such alacrity while still broken from the ways her world has changed, but she has no time to muse on it. And it's not like looking the other way has done her much good as a general course of action.

So when she hears that boy's voice, she's already charging that way, heedless of how her lungs burn and muscles ache. She doesn't quite understand. She hasn't heard a voice from there yet— weren't they further into the house?— but there's no time to analyze that confusion when there's life to be saved. ]

Hold on! I'll get you out!

[Even with her hormone regimen and Cobra Kai training, Sayo's physique has only improved to "slightly below average" rather than "downright pathetic." She has no illusions about being able to wrangle Jessica outside the building...

Conventionally, that is.

The moment Jessica is at the correct angle, Sayo rockets out of the shadows to tackle her with all the force her scrawny body can bring to bear, hoping that the laws of physics will make up for her deficiency in muscles.

As they tumble outside, limbs interlocking and flailing, Sayo attempts to scramble onto Jessica's back to put her in a rudimentary armbar, pressing her knee down on the small of her back so she doesn't struggle before leaning down to hiss (and pant slightly, that maneuver expended a lot of energy) in Jessica's ear.]

Jessica. Look and THINK. There is no one inside there. Why would a house even be on fire someplace like this?

[ One moment Jessica is rushing toward the entrance through smoke and flame, and the next she's being bodied by some unknown assailant, tackled onto the hard ground of the catacombs. Already bleary from smoke inhalation, her world blurs and spins as Sayo forces her into that hold, her leaden limbs unable to resist.

Not that she even recognizes her attacker until that horribly familiar voice whispers in her ear, fierce and beautiful and belonging to the last person in this blighted world she wants to hear. ]

Wh— [ She's interrupted by a wheezing cough, gasping for air. What is she saying? Is this even real, or one of the Moss King's tricks? ] Didn't have enough killing me once, huh!? Come back for a second helping!?

[ But no matter how she writhes, or screams in frustration and rage, she can't escape, can't escape the killer who had been part of her life for more than half of it. As if this day could get any worse. The screaming turns to coughing again, and she suddenly wonders if she's going to die down here.

But if so... why did Sayo get her out of there? ]

You, you just want those people inside to die! Or did you set the fire!? It wasn't enough killing one family, so you had to go for another!

Edited 2022-03-14 06:32 (UTC)

[Sayo could bear it if Jessica just hated her. If what little platonic love they had kindled for each other over the course of those ten years had burnt away to a crisp, along with the rest of the Ushiromiya mansion. She'd expected that, she'd braced herself for that.

But being reduced to some cackling, cartoon villain, even though that's what she's always presented Beatrice as... it stings. Sayo flinches for a half-second.

Then she grimaces, tightening her hold on Jessica.]

While I'd love to indulge your fantasies of me being some kind of juvenile manga villain, you'd realize if you actually used whatever is rattling around inside your skull that you typically ignore that if I really wanted to do all that, the most efficient way to accomplish it would be through pure inaction as you're almost unconscious from smoke inhalation anyways.

I've been through here once before. It's amazing how every time, some brave idiot charges right in with no critical thought whatsoever... if you'd examine the situation for a moment, you'd find it makes no! Damn! Sense! That a homey dwelling like this would be in a nigh-inaccessible deathtrapped catacomb in the first place!

I swear...

Why the hell should I believe anything you say?! You killed George! You got all of the rest of us killed! So why... why would you save me now!?

[ Jessica tries to sound angry when she shouts that, but it comes out almost desperate and pleading. Begging the murderer to make it all make sense. This doesn't even feel real, but what has since she got here? Before she'd even gotten on stable emotional footing, she's been reunited with the person who fractured her entire world.

She doesn't know how to begin to separate all that she feels into discrete emotions. Terror, hate, love, grief, guilt. And yes, Sayo is technically correct about the current situation, but that's not really what Jessica is thinking about right now. ]

If I could reach out and save just one person from a tragedy like that, then I don't care if I die!

[ Still she squirms, but she's not going anywhere, and the resistance grows more feeble. The great mass of those emotions cannot be constrained, and come out now as wretched tears. ]

I don't... understand you! I don't want to believe it's real, but... [ But her disbelief just made everything harder. Made everything around her worse. ] it is, isn't it? I... you were my best friend, and... my first and only love. I know you had it hard, but how could you...

[ The faces of her family flash through her head. Mom and Dad, strict but always devoted to her. George, who was going to begin a new life with Sayo. Battler, who'd finally come back to the family. Maria, eccentric but sweet and innocent. All snuffed out by a face she'd seen almost every day. She feels sick even thinking about it. ]

Don't you dare, Jessica Ushiromiya!

[Sayo's roar sweeps through the cavern, its echo overpowering the crackle of the flames. Yet the tone of her yell isn't anger or simmering frustration that's been in her voice since the start of this "conversation."

It's pain.

She drops to a strained whisper as her hot tears drip onto Jessica's neck.]

...don't you dare make the same mistake I did.

[Sayo releases Jessica, stepping back and rubbing her arms in a manner that's achingly familiar to both her and Jessica. A massive golden butterfly flutters out of her shadow, the pattern on its wings reminiscent of human bones, and hesitantly floats towards Jessica.]

You've always been so self-centered. Not selfish. You were never selfish. [She laughs, mostly to mask the quiet trace of bitter affection in her words.] But you could never see outside yourself either.

I had the same problem. I simply thought that everyone else was as miserable and trapped in sin as I was and that the only way for everyone to find happiness in the living world was through a miracle. Otherwise, we were all better off dead and in paradise than living and in hell. That's how I justified it to myself, at any rate.

Well, that miracle came, and then...

[She trails off, shaking her head. No. Let Jessica think her the sole villain of this tale. She doesn't want to taint her memory of Eva too.]

And don't say you loved me, either.

You just loved my shadow. Who I was to vent my self-loathing where nobody else could see it. You never looked close enough to love Sayo Yasuda.

Edited 2022-03-18 06:59 (UTC)

[ Jessica pitifully scrambles away on her hands and knees, but doesn't flee, or move to return to the burning house, even as she can still hear those muffled screams. She leans on one of the cold stone walls and erupts in another fit of coughs, even as she continues to cry. As she does so her golden eagle Omen appears to perch on her shoulder, protectively spreading its wings.

Jessica can hardly even manage the words to confront Sayo with, crying and coughing with a nuclear meltdown in her heart. So she just listens to her. Those pathetic, tragic, infuriating words. She gulps deep lungfuls of air before she responds, only able to see the killer, the witch, through the blurred veil of tears. ]

That's wrong! Maybe there were things I didn't want to see, but I— I always wanted to break through to you, and if you didn't notice that, you're an even bigger idiot than I am! It's pretty hypocritical to blame me for not playing all your stupid little riddles instead of just talking to me. All those "Beatrice" pranks, and the VIP room with the stupid doll! It was you, I... sort of always knew.

[ Jessica knows how Sayo could fall into such a deep despair— she'd seen it herself, and she has no reason to believe that she's lying, and least not about the things that had hurt her the most. But what she can't understand is how she could go so far as to actually inflict that perverse mercy on everybody around her. ]

I... was selfish. [ Her voice raises, still strained and hoarse. ] I was an awful friend, and if you hate me for it, I earned it, but that doesn't mean I can accept you murdering my family, or think that's fair or anything! Or how you lied to Ange-chan and I!

[ She's furious and heartbroken, and even now there's a plaintive note to it, as if somehow her shattered world can be mended by pleading with the shattered fragments. ]

There... there was hope. I would have listened to you. I'm sure George would have too! He was ready to make a new life with you! If you just split up the gold, heck, I'm sure you could have gotten with either of us, or Battler, and our parents wouldn't fight it! And if you thought we were all so messed up, and you hated us so much, you could have just taken the money and left us...!

Edited 2022-03-19 01:02 (UTC)

Can't you see that I know that by now?!

[Each of Jessica's words hammers a stake that has long been lodged in Sayo's heart deeper and deeper in, the blows drawing more tears out of her eyes. It's one kind of agony to berate herself about how it could've been different if she wasn't a coward; it's another, volcanic variety to hear it from her beloved.]

There were endless ways that all of this tragedy could've been averted! But I was too self-absorbed to see any of them. [She cackles derisively. There's none of Beatrice's perverse joy in it. Just... exhaustion. Her shoulders curl inward, tears falling from her eyes. If the contents of her heart were emptied out, it would be enough to quell the fire, but alas a mortal frame has its limitations. Her Omen hesitantly flits around Jessica, taking up an almost protective stance like her eagle.] You say that you're selfish, but we both know that I'm the real Narcissus out of the two of us. Too trapped in myself to make a decision, too convinced that everyone would hate the real Sayo Yasuda as much as I did to see how much you and George and even Battler adored me...

And at the end of the day, it was me who decided that my only recourse was mass murder. That was my decision and mine alone. No matter what else happened on October 5th, I was the one who cast the ritual and shrouded Rokkenjima in the witch's darkness. There is no one to blame but I for the deaths of your family.

[The grandiosity of her speech fades, and all that's left is shabby Sayo Yasuda. Tired. Regretful.]

...all I wanted was to be solved. For someone else to see me. I could've just talked to you or George, but...

I was afraid of the hate I saw reflected in the mirror every day being in your eyes. So I made puzzles that you could only solve if you saw me instead.

That's it. Pathetic.

Edited 2022-03-23 04:43 (UTC)

[ Sayo's explanation hurts. It makes Jessica's blood run cold, hearing somebody that she had once trusted so absolutely explain her reasoning for that atrocity that she still struggles to comprehend. That Sayo regrets her crimes is the most meager of balms. It doesn't bring anybody back. It doesn't erase the rot that festered in her family. It won't stop the nightmares.

But what truly enrages Jessica is that grotesque flagellating self pity. Perhaps it is genuine remorse that Sayo feels, but she's too angry and heartbroken to care. She glares at the Golden Witch and the phantasmal Omen flitting around her. ]

Well good for you! You feel bad enough about it to throw a masochistic fucking pity party! So imagine how much fucking worse me and Ange feel! She waited 12 years, while you took the easy way out and took all of us with you!

[ Why can't Sayo just be a remorseless monster? It would never be easy to tear apart an emotional connection that had grown so strong, but perhaps there could be more left of her with that. Instead Jessica, even in her white-hot fury can't help but grieve and sympathize with the miserable girl she's known for so long. She would have nothing less than her full, awful truth, and she will still love her despite that, and that love will core her out.

With a cry of anger, she tries to swat that ephemeral butterfly away. ]

I'm not that stupid! Eva oba-san always hated my mom and dad, and she was the only survivor! She wouldn't kill George, but hey, you already owned up to that, you crazy bitch!

[ Every lash of rage just turns back on her with the same sadistic potency. This is her fault. She didn't notice everything around her that was so horribly wrong. Or rather, she just pretended not to. With everything going on around her, it was difficult to single out any one thing, especially when she felt powerless to change any of it. But Sayo's suffering had been right there in front of her (as had Maria's, who she'd always shamefully turned away from). She let down the person who needed her most in the world. She balls up a fist, strikes the hard wall with it. ]

I... I loved you, damnit! And I never loved you more than when I saw you here, and I finally felt like I could really connect to you for real! I would've run away with you, I'd have given anything just for you! Okay!? It wasn't just a shadow! And if I did love Shannon and Kanon, that's because that's you also! But I was always so happy when you showed me more of yourself. I just thought that if I pushed too much, I'd hurt you...!

[ She collapses, burying her face in her hands, unable to keep looking at her beloved witch. ]

Edited 2022-03-23 23:22 (UTC)

[Protests and explanations well up in the back of Sayo's throat, propelled by an unstable admixture of love and guilt. Pushing so much pain onto Ange is one of the reasons why she can't sleep at night. There were ways to solve her riddle if everyone just looked and listened. Sayo stopped when Eva found the gold, she kept her word!

But Sayo pushes them all back down. She faces the sizzling pain of Jessica's words head-on without leaning on the false relief of her pathetic excuses. Because when the storm clouds cleared away and revealed nothing but a crater where her family used to live... when the seagulls cried... Sayo was the cause. Nothing could change that, no matter how much she wished she could go back in time and put her past self out of her misery to fix it all.

There's one thing that she can't let go unchallenged, though, one thing that remains a gaping, open wound that she's been trying to ignore for her entire time in Trench. One thing that Sayo outright flinches at when Jessica brings it up, the almost physical impact of her tirade making her retch and cough the truth up out of her throat.]

It was an accident!

[Her strained, grief-stricken yell echoes through the catacombs.]

After Eva had killed Rosa and Krauss and Natsuhi and- and- M... Maria... [Sayo nearly doubles over when she says that name, tears gathering at the corner of her eyes. Maria, neck broken in the garden, rain beating down on her corpse, far away from the peaceful (SELFISH) death that Sayo wanted to kill her.] I...

I think George suspected. From the start, he had a feeling that I wasn't dead. So when everyone was looking elsewhere and he saw me cowering in the arbor, he... he chased after me. I ran into the parlor, gun still in my hands because I was afraid of what Eva would do if she found me, because even on that witch's island I was still so fearful, and he found me, and he grabbed me by the shoulders and he looked me in the eye and I was scared and wanted to step back and talk to him but I tripped, and... and... [She breaks down, sobbing and only barely able to stay on her feet.]

...I didn't mean to. That's the stupidest thing. In any other world, I would've grit my teeth and killed both of you for the sake of my twisted game, but... all I could think for a few seconds, when I stood there, him slowly bleeding out, was... That I didn't mean to. But it's... it's still my fault. All my...

[She trails off, lost in the fog of her own grief.

Then Jessica makes her confession, and Sayo can feel her strings, the blue threads of denial even more laughable than what Jessica had argued on that moonlit night, being cut. The only thing that was holding her up was the irrational thought of, "she doesn't really love me, she never really loved me, she just loved who she thought I was," that Sayo Yasuda's true face being revealed was no great loss to her.

Sayo sways, her back slamming against the cave wall.]

...I'm such an idiot. You... you always saw me. Despite everything. I was just too wrapped up in my own fears to realize that. [Her voice is hollow, all emotion and will drained from it with that revelation. Dead.

Despite Jessica's swatting, the butterfly Omen determinedly tries to drape himself over her like a blanket. Sayo looks at him and sighs bitterly.]

Get her out of here, Kanon. Please.

...you deserve that, at least. [It's unclear which one she's talking to.]

Edited 2022-03-24 01:11 (UTC)

[ Jessica has no reason to believe this horrific confession, not after Sayo has already lied so much and done so many horrible things. There are seas of magma far far underground, giving warmth to the entire world, the remnant of a long gone explosion. They could not burn as hot as Jessica's rage right now, or the tears scalding her cheeks. Why should Jessica believe her now, when she comes up with a story to exculpate herself?

But for some reason she does, or at least thinks it likely. Maybe it's the utter misery with which Sayo delivers that story. She doesn't know where pity ends and contempt starts, much less the insidious creepers of sympathy choking her heart like weeds. It's unbearable. ]

...You would have killed us anyway, if things had gone a little different! You didn't even stop Eva when she...

[ Jessica seems to have lost what little strength it had, slumped down with her head in her hands. Each detail of that story feels like a stab in the heart. She visibly winces when Sayo lists off the people that Eva murdered. The confirmation that her aunt was one of the culprits in that atrocity (and Hideyoshi oji-san too?) is another brutal blow, but one that no longer surprises her.

What's far worse is hearing Sayo's despairing resignation, the collision of both of their self-centered delusions. It's all so stupid. Even now, it feels like Sayo is putting her up on some kind of pedestal, and it disgusts her. Her Omen pecks and claws viciously at the butterfly, but they are insubstantial. It cannot truly touch anything. ]

No, I didn't. I just wished I could. But I guess that won't stop you from idealizing me again, huh? [ There's a sharp bitterness to her words, now that she finally understands something from years of their interactions. ] Get out of here. I don't want to see you again.

Have a nice life. Try not to murder anybody else.

[Sayo had known that not killing Eva when she had the chance had been the ultimate selfishness. She'd already had the blood of three people on her hands when Eva began her rampage; the weight of one more life was nothing compared to the infinite sin she had drowned herself in when she began her twisted game. If she'd had the courage she could've saved someone, anyone.

But Sayo had convinced herself until just before the end that it was Eva's right. That Sayo herself was a discarded piece without any use. Her problem always was convincing herself that she couldn't do anything when she was the only one who could change, wasn't it?

It's difficult to bite back those words. To not bleed more of her pitiful self-flagellation onto Jessica, to not get on her knees and plead with Jessica and say that she was better than she thought she was, that she shouldn't blame herself for something that Sayo ruined.

That won't change anything, though. Jessica needs a clean break, one that Sayo had robbed her of that night.

So she sways to her feet and nods.]

...goodbye, Jessica-san.

[And turns and walks away. Kanon reluctantly follows, fluttering around to face Jessica one last time before vanishing into a wisp of gold.

Let it end. Let her feelings be put to rest one more time.]

[ Jessica doesn't move. She doesn't say anything. What's left to say?

That's a foolish question. There's so much to say. Jessica could talk for hours, days, a lifetime about all that she feels right now. But none of it will change anything, none of it will rebuild what she's lost. So she watches silently, eyes boring into the back of her beloved as she vanishes into the darkness.

Somehow that feels just as unfair. For her to enrapture Jessica in affection and love, to shatter her into pieces finer than sand, and then after all of that to simply disappear from her life. Can she ever really be rid of Sayo? Be free from her?

Alone in the dark, she cries again. ]

[ Great. A puzzle, and on a topic that she knows nothing about. As being trapped in some giant maze-y underground crypt wasn't awful enough! And to rub it all in, this is exactly the sort of thing that would be solved in half a heartbeat by somebody that she was recently, a very bitterly, estranged from. ]

Alright, this month is the Moss guy, I know that, but who the heck is everybody else? Why didn't they give us a damn brochure when we got here?

[ Her sulky irritation is doing a bad job of covering fear. If they can't solve this, it's back to squidtown for them, and that's the last thing she needs right now. ]

[ Later in the month, Jessica is trying to pick up the pieces and start to establish a new life in Trench. She starts taking a few classes in Mutter, ventures out to the safer parts of town when she can, and takes the first steps toward a career. Music was one of the few things she could claim to be good at, so that's what she settles on.

Tonight she can be found at the Raccoon Room music club, doing her first ever set. It's just her, in front of the mic with an electric guitar, and it's just a handful of songs. She's very obviously nervous. She's never sung in front of absolute strangers before, even her previous performances were for her school. But once she gets going, she's surprisingly good, having gotten quite a bit of practice in.

The songs she sings are all from her own time. Mostly from Japan. But she also slips in a popular western song.

By the time she's done she's got the small audience applauding, and when she steps back out from behind the stage she's beaming brightly, hair plastered to her forehead with sweat. It looks like she's regained some of her light. ]

March Catchall

March 13th, Late Night | Locked to Ange (cw: mentions of murder, suicidal ideation, more later)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

cw: child abuse, implied incest

cw: implied incest

cw: implied sexual abuse and incest, attempted infanticide

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Throughout Mid-March | Locked to Clockhouse Residents

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

cw: attempted infanticide

cw: attempted infanticide

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Calling Fire | Locked to Sayo

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Chronology of Seasons | Open

Remember Summer Days | Open