deercountry | you can keep on getting better [open]

Entry tags:

you can keep on getting better [open]

Who: Anna Amarande and you!
What: May catchall
When: May
Where: A bar in Cellar Door, other locations to come

Content Warnings: Light alcohol use, conversations about humanity and murder, blood, vampirism

a. if you want, you can buy yourself a drink [at the bar]

[anna's made plans with a couple people to hang out this month. it's not a tense environment at all, and sometimes she can even be seen on the tiny little stage playing some chilled out bass grooves for the patrons. no concrete songs, really, mostly just improv for vibes. when she's not on stage, and most of the time she's not, she's nestled herself down into a booth down near the end. it's quiet, well-lit but not obtrusively so. people around here know her and know that that's basically her seat, so any conversations that happen there are as private as they're gonna get.]

[she's expecting a few people to show up as she nurses a beer that's so weak she might as well not be drinking anything at all. probably for the best that she's sober for these talks, whatever they end up bringing with them.]

Hey. Glad you could make it. [she tilts her drink at her guest.]

b. no you'll never drink like me [for kainé]

[there's always been a few problems with going out and hunting beasts, no matter how confident and comfortable it makes anna feel. no matter how many lives she saves, she's always putting herself at risk of corruption or injury or beasthood or all three, and one of these days it's gonna sneak up on her. all at once, extremely loudly and incredibly close.]

[anyway, when she comes back home this time, it's clear that she's been in better shape. she limps her way into the house, and she's at least cognizant enough to fix her roommate/girlfriend with a sheepish little look as she holds her side. the cloth there isn't dripping yet, but it's clear that it didn't start as red as it is now.]

Motherfucker out there got the best of me. [she's talking like she's not in pain, or like she's trying very hard to pretend she isn't.] I think I stopped most of the bleeding myself. Don't suppose we've got anything here that can help seal it up before I go to the doctor?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

What would you do if the man who you ruined your life over and then died because of you six years later showed up here?

[Sayo wipes her eyes again, ineffectually, and glares at Anna, also ineffectually given how defeated she looks... then sighs and practically deflates, almost sinking beneath the table.]

S- Sorry... I know that isn't fair.

Sayo.

[she says it genuinely, with a lot of actual concern in her voice. even before she's sorted through the sentence in her head and actually deciphered everything. she can't tell who sayo could mean, but maybe by the end of this conversation she'll understand more. while she gets settled, anna slides a napkin across the table to help sayo dab her eyes.]

I don't care about what's fair or not. I know you have a lot on your mind, like. All the time. That's why we're out here. So the next time something massively earth-shattering like this happens, I can actually be here to try to understand it.

...that's always been my problem. [She laughs, the noise scratching at her already raw throat and making her wince.] I stew in my own thoughts until I feel like I'm about to explode, and it seems like nothing I do gets rid of the pressure.

Other than talking to people, I suppose. But I was even worse at doing that before I came here, believe it or not. [She snorts. The one credit she could give to Trench's tendency to wrench secrets out of its inhabitants and show their guts to a shocked crowd was that learning how to communicate became a matter of physical survival. Her experience with Mother Mercy's "blessing" taught Sayo that, if nothing else.]

Then... let's begin. At the beginning. If I don't start there, then I know I'll avoid it forever, and you still won't know why I'm...

[She shakes her head as she sits down, ordering a drink.]

Like this.

You'll have to, um, forgive me if I beat around the bush a little bit. This part of the story is the most upsetting. Just... keep that in mind.

[Deep breath. In and out. Some of Sayo's obvious anxiety melts away as she settles into the role of the Reader, showing the knot of poisoned intestines that reached almost a half century into the past when untied.]

The idea of being a princess in a tower appeals to many young girls. Or maybe that was just me. I always found ways to romanticize my loneliness.

But... the reality of it was much harsher for my mother. Beatrice. She was the daughter of a man named Kinzo Ushiromiya, a twisted, wretched man who thought he was saved by the love of his mistress Beatrice, who died in childbirth.

In my opinion, it hardly counted as being "saved" when he orchestrated the slaughter of both the staff at the military base he was stationed at and the elder Beatrice's remaining retinue of guards in 1942 so he could run away with her, but... their love was genuine, despite him cheating on his wife at the time. I can begrudgingly admit that from what I've seen of his writings. No wonder losing her drove him mad.

[A sigh.]

Sorry. I'm losing the point again. Trying to divert. Need to stop or else I'll waste all night on trivialities like that.

...Beatrice the younger was raised in a hidden mansion on Rokkenjima from when she was an infant, and forbidden from ever going anywhere else. The only people she knew were Kinzo's most trusted servants, Ronoue Genji and Chiyo Kumasawa, who were functionally her father and mother, and of course Kinzo himself. She was an innocent child, as you'd expect of someone who was raised in such isolation. Naive.

Gullible.

What little comfort my mother had in her life was poisoned when she grew up and started bearing a startling resemblance to Beatrice the elder. Kinzo became convinced that she was her reincarnation- no, he must've thought as much from the moment he named her after her mother. He used magic, conducted strange rituals, treated her as if she was his mistress to try and "restore her memories."

When all of that failed, he snapped and raped her when she was... about my age now, I think. Odd how things like that work out. [Sayo's voice is numb.]

That was when I was conceived.

Edited 2022-05-15 21:02 (UTC)

[anna... is trying to be much better at listening. she is trying not to react much beyond eyebrow movement and subtle turns of the corners of her mouth. inside, this is all too much—not for her to handle, no. it's too much for someone else. it isn't fair; she agrees with sayo there. everything that happened so far has loaded this girl with too much for one person to bear alone on her shoulders, and that's just... starting conditions. that's just how she was brought into this world. from day zero.]

[god help her, she might have orchestrated the same thing if she were in sayo's shoes.]

[maybe not really. maybe not completely. but it makes the shocking drunken admission of sayo's make more sense to her. it feels less like it came out of nowhere—and it feels much more like the result of a lifetime of terrible trauma instead of indiscriminate murder, as anna had initially thought.]

[when there's a break in the words, only then does anna speak, and only after a weighty pause.]

Jesus. [she would love to have more words.] I... want to ask something, but I don't want to skip ahead. And I think I know what the answer has to be already.

[she opens her hand palm-up in sayo's direction, returning the floor to her.]

[Sometimes, catharsis isn't someone hugging you and telling you deserved better, beating away your demons by insisting that you had worth, that you deserved to exist.

Sometimes, catharsis is letting someone watch as you conduct a vivisection on yourself, cutting through the skin of your lies with a scalpel, pulling out your own guts, and showing in detail where they've been poisoned, worn through, eroded, until there wasn't even a person left inside. And in those moments, more than "you deserved better," which Sayo knows by now, so much so that it would only add to the hurt... instead, she needs to hear, "that must've been awful, being filled with so much poison."

Even though she isn't saying anything, Sayo can tell in all the subtle changes and flickers in Anna's expression that she's only not to respect the story being told. And that's better, in a way.

So, even though she hesitates for a moment after Anna's interjection, she continues.]

Nine months later, Beatrice gave birth to a beautiful, bouncing, baby boy. Lion Ushiromiya. I... don't know what my first few months of life were like. Nobody ever told me. [Sayo shrinks back, clutching her arms as if to ward against the cold and closing her eyes to blind herself to what she can already see in the theater of her mind's eye.] But it must've been lonely.

I think... I think she must've hated me.

Because she didn't even think about taking me when she ran away.

[A deep, shuddering breath.]

Just a few months after I was born, one of Kinzo's legitimate children—Rosa, the youngest sibling—got lost in the woods of Rokkenjima and somehow found the hidden mansion that Beatrice lived in, Kuwadorian.

It must've seemed like a miracle to her. Both of them. That the "witch of the forest" that Rosa had been warned to stay away from was real... and to Beatrice, that there was world beyond the walls of the mansion. One that was safe enough for a twelve year-old to stumble through and reach the mansion. Apparently, Kinzo had told Beatrice wolves were in the forest, and she took him at his word, never leaving until Rosa proved that it was safe outside.

That must've been the moment where the last of the illusion that he really loved her, not just the ghost of Beatrice past, fell away.

I don't really know what Rosa and Beatrice's conversation was like. But from what Genji and Kumasawa told me... it must've been something out of a fairytale. A naive girl teaching an even more naive witch about the outside world, telling her about everything from school to aquariums.

Beatrice wanted to see it. Wanted to escape the island, escape me. Or what made me exist. She asked Rosa to take here there, Rosa obliged, and...

And then in trying to make their way back to the family's mansion, Beatrice fell off a cliff and died. Leaving the infant Lion Ushiromiya in Kuwadorian, all alone. Not me. Not yet. But almost.

[Sayo pauses for a moment, contemplating her drink before taking a big swig of the alcohol. Somehow, she looks like she's dreading this next part even more than the last.]

A coincidence worked in Kinzo's favor, at least. He wouldn't have to raise the child himself, nor would he have to leave it to his servants to take care of him in secret. Kinzo's daughter-in-law, Natsuhi, had married his eldest son and prospective successor to the headship, Krauss, but had been infertile for several years. So Kinzo dug his fingers into the worst of Natsuhi's open wounds, all her insecurities about not being enough, all her loneliness at being a hostage in what was supposed to be her new family, and handed me off like an unwanted present. Why should Kinzo have to deal with the consequences of his actions when he could have somebody else take care of the hard parts of raising an infant, meaning he could wait for the good bits and groom him when he finally-

[Sayo bites her tongue, looking away. That wasn't fair, was it? And that was what pissed her off the most.]

No. That isn't true. I know for a fact that if what happened next... hadn't, Lion Ushiromiya would've lived a charmed, happy life, with none of my father's predations intruding on them. I should know, I got to be them for a week the first month I came here.

...that's the worst part. I was so close to a happy ending, to a life that felt worth living, but then she-

[For a moment, Anna can see a hint of that terrifying anger in Sayo again, but she forces herself to take a deep breath and calm down.]

Natsuhi hated Lion. I know that for sure. The baby was a reminder of everything that she loathed about her place in the Ushiromiya family and herself. So when the maid that was carrying Lion lost her balance by a cliff, in an impulse decision, Natsuhi pushed her and the baby off. Not an accident that time.

It was the same height that killed my mother. It definitely killed the maid. But Lion- no, I- somehow survived. At a cost.

Genji managed to find and rescued me, taking me to the family doctor, Nanjo, and forcing him to keep me alive. But the damage to my infant body was severe. Particular... below the torso.

Nanjo was a hack doctor on the best of days. He wasn't a reconstructive surgeon.

And so a bouncing baby boy became a miserable, wretched, incomplete little girl, who didn't know why she was "born" that way until it was far, far too late.

[Sayo stares into her mug again, expression haggard.]

...

S- Sorry. I need a minute.

Edited 2022-05-16 04:06 (UTC)

[oh, god.]

[she's listening carefully, because she doesn't know what else she can do. but to hear all of this come from sayo's mouth, to see the way recounting it all must be killing her inside no matter how well it seems to come out... it's harrowing. it's so much. day zero was terrible enough, and every day afterwards just became worse and worse. as sayo finishes, begs for a moment, anna thinks she has more to say.]

I'm sorry, Sayo. [not enough.] I'm sorry you had to be the product of all of this. It's so much to ask of one person... and just a kid, too. Christ. [she feels exhausted listening to it as the weight of knowledge presses down on her.]

I'm sure you've heard this a lot, but I can't imagine how terrible all of this was for you to live through. And still having to live with it today... Gott in fucking Himmel, dude. I can't even guess what you're living with.

That's the thing. I didn't want to live with it, back then. That was my problem. [She sighs, staring deep into her mug as if she could dive into it and escape this conversation entirely—but no, as long as she was the one who took up Anna's invitation to bare her heart, she couldn't abandon her with half a tale. That was the duty of a storyteller.]

Which I decided to make everyone else's problem. But we're not there yet. [She shakes her head, leaning back.] ...strange. It's one thing to hear words like yours from someone who's like me. Damaged. A self-designated villain. It's another entirely to hear them from you, someone who actually tried to be a hero. I... don't know what to make of it.

[It's not validation, exactly. But something similar, the burrowing thought that nobody except fellow witches could possibly understand quieting, if only in this instant.]

Why, though? Why... why did you decide to listen?

I can't figure that part out, no matter how hard I try.

I didn't know that it was so hard to figure out.

[she's not trying to put sayo down or anything. she just... it feels easy to think of the answer—or at least it does at first, but then putting it down into the right words, that's always the hard part.]

I felt like we connected at the party, and the next time we talked, I just... showed you how much I didn't really understand about you at all. And I could tell that that hurt you. And on top of all that, Ange is a friend, and I know that she's hurting a lot, too. So yeah, I'm partially listening because of her. But really, I'm listening because I want to know more about you. I don't want to get the wrong idea of who you are as a person.

[she feels. embarrassed, maybe, to admit this. her brow furrows and she looks down at her glass like it's going to provide the right answers to her.]

And... just from everything you've said so far, there's a part of me that knows it would've done the same thing that you ended up doing. Just to make other people feel the same pain you're feeling.

Friendship, then. I've always had a tendency to overthink things, I guess. [She chuckles, voice still scratchy, and takes another sip from her beer- and she's very glad she fully swallows when Anna makes that admission, because there's a chance she would've choked on it and embarrassed herself otherwise.

Sayo's always thought that she was weak. That it was by her own fault that she cracked under all that pressure instead of turning into the beautiful diamond like all the stories said she would. So something fractures when Anna says that, releasing not yet a flood, but a trickle.

She wipes her tears away, and looking down at the table, simply murmurs,]

Thank you.

[A half minute later, Sayo takes a deep breath and straightens.]

I think I'm ready now.

[She slips into the shoes of the storyteller again, now more confident in her steps now that she knows she has a truly attentive audience.]

It was almost like a fairytale, if you didn't know the history behind the words. Like an even more morbid story from the Brothers Grimm falling into the realm of saccharine cartoons. The young, sickly orphan, given special treatment from the headmaster and sent off to work at the tender age of nine.

Or six, as Genji told me to say my age was. To throw off Natsuhi in case she became suspicious of me. That was my first real lie, I think.

Life at the Rokkenjima mansion was difficult. I had no human friends. I was young, and clumsy, and slow, and every time I was put on shift with the other orphans who were twice my age they hated me for holding up the work. I had to juggle my mandatory education with my duties on Rokkenjima, which everyone else thought was a reprieve from the work I should've been doing but really doubled my stress. Even Jessica, the only other girl my age on the island, wasn't much relief at first—her mother hated the idea of her mingling with the common masses, so we couldn't play together except at school, where I was already overwhelmed.

It was all too much, especially with my tendency to lose things as soon as I took my eyes off them. Keys. Lists. Brooms. The last one is what did me in, I think. I had to stay behind looking for my handbroom in the chapel as the sun was setting, and...

I can't really show it with words, what it felt like. But to my young mind, I was riding the border between life and death as the shadows deepened, stumbling and tripping over a balancing rope where I'd plummet into the world of witches and be eaten by the legendary ghost of the mansion, Beatrice, if I fell.

I was convinced that Beatrice herself was taunting me, putting my broom somewhere else every time I looked for it. I could even hear her, imagining her as one of those demons that the pastor at Gospel House warned me against when he taught us how to pray. And then... I met her.

I imagined she must have a pretty red dress, so she did. I imagined that she spoke formally, like a noble from centuries ago, so she did. I imagined that she had long blond hair, so she did. I wanted to make friends with her, to make peace with this witch that was taunting me... so I did.

That was how it went. I bargained with "Beatrice" to find what I had lost. I learned charms from Kumasawa—the spider-thread charm, to tie my keys to my pocket so I couldn't lose them, the animation charm, which reminded me to put things back in their home when I was done with them—I debated with the witch over the mystery novels that I'd taken to reading...

Until I was one of the senior maids at the tender age of eleven. Or eight. Depending on how you counted it. I got so fed up with one of the other maids on my shift making all the mistakes I used to make and trash-talking my good friend Beatrice that "Beatrice teleported her master key to her locker."

Which is to say I removed my master key from my key ring ahead of time and swapped mine with hers since they were interchangeable.

[Sayo smiles bittersweetly.] That was the day I became a witch. When I learned how intoxicating that power could be, how good it felt when someone fully believed in my magic... that was the day I became "Beatrice" in full, and the other witch became one of my best friends.

[A happy interlude, before things went downhill once more.]

Edited 2022-05-19 17:13 (UTC)

[anna is nodding and listening intently, and she's... well. to say that she's enchanted by the story would be fairly appropriate, wouldn't it? but there's something about the way sayo tells it that just makes her want to lean in and listen. she's not even drinking as sayo talks. when there's a break in the words, when it seems like sayo is collecting herself, anna nods a little.]

So when you said that you could feel Beatrice pressing inside of you at the party, this is how you meant it. Her and all the others.

[it's not much of a comment, but it clears up some questions that anna had had. it's not necessarily separate souls—it feels more like... a shattering of one soul. she can't tell if there's any actual magic involved or if it's just a lie that she got very good at telling, but there's more coming. she knows that.]

Sorry. I don't want to interrupt. You're really good at storytelling.

Exactly. [Anna isn't... quick on the uptake, necessarily, but when she does find the mental wherewithal to up the take she can at least process it. Unlike Battler.] On a different layer of reality than the one I came from, Gaap, Shannon, Beatrice, and all the others are real people, with their own thoughts, dreams, and aspirations. But "I," the person who wrote their story, don't exist. If the curtain is pulled back and the reality of the lonely girl who created them is revealed, then the characters in the fiction just become that, characters, all played by the same actor. Yet if I'm not there, then they're in a world all their own.

...they got a happy ending, and I was a stepping stone... Wait, no, no. I'm getting ahead of-

[The bitterness creeping into Sayo's tone stops short and vanishes entirely when Anna compliments her, and Sayo blushes to complement the buzzed flush across her face.]

Th- Thank you. It's... one of the few things I'm good at, really...

Right. Where was I?

[Back into the story.]

Of course. That was when I fell in love.

Every year, the rest of the family would come together at Rokkenjima for the family conference. Natsuhi was insistent on everything being absolutely perfect, so the first time it came around after I started working I was having a nervous breakdown right alongside her. But between my shifts, Kumasawa pulled me away, telling me that "Beatrice-sama would make sure her favorite devotee won't get in trouble for taking a break every now and then, hohoho!" Then, she pushed me in the direction of the cousins.

Before that first conference, Jessica was friendly, but there was a distance between us. One that couldn't be crossed, no matter how hard she tried. Her mother was insistent on disallowing her from "fraternizing with the lower classes," and she was so bright I was afraid of her. George was so much older than me—or what age I said I was—that the few times he'd come to Rokkenjima I was too intimidated to even make eye contact with him. And I hadn't even met Battler yet.

That day, though, when we all came together for the first time... it was magical, in the truest sense of the word. Even though I was too nervous to do anything more than squeak out a few words at the three of them at a time, I learned what real friendship felt like. I was always either too ahead of the curve or too behind to get to know other people at my school, too young to connect with anyone my age at work or at the orphanage, but then...

It was like a whole new world opened up for me, one that made life bearable even outside the sweet fantasy of witches. Especially with Battler. He mentioned struggling with a mystery novel toward the end of the first conference I attended, and I somehow managed to stutter something about having a few hints, if he'd like. After that, every time he came to the island—not just for the conferences, but whenever Rudolf and Asumu visited—we'd trade mystery novels, talk about our own interpretations... I finally found a way to express the parts of myself that I'd only indulged in as "Beatrice." I got to be witty, I got to be intelligent, I got to be something other than Shannon in my everyday life.

We grew closer, and closer. Shy glances traded in lulls of the conversation. Stumbling metaphors, reaching out through the guise of clumsily-threaded interpretations. It was young love, I think, but we were too afraid to come out and say it in case the other person didn't see it either.

But... as this was all happening, as I found a reason to exist as "myself..." My life at the Ushiromiya mansion grew more miserable. I finally saw that there was something beyond that everyday toil and drudgery, and it made the misery, the starvation, the scolding, the loneliness, even worse. I wanted to escape, I wanted to quit, I wanted to leave Rokkenjima altogether, yet I could never find the courage to tell my guardians any of it.

It was when he was twelve, and I was thirteen—Shannon, of course, was only ten at the time—that he said it. Some dumb, irresponsible line that he'd probably cribbed at least some of from his father.

"If, someday, you decide to quit... you can come over to my place. Then we won't need to worry about our time running out anymore. When that day comes, I'll come riding for you on a white horse."

[Sayo's already bittersweet smile takes on an even more sour quality as she stares down at her beer.]

That was when I knew I was head over heels, and that Battler felt the same way. So I decided. I'd quit in a year, leave with Battler, and have the happily ever after I'd always wanted.

And then...

[battler. ange's older brother. sayo was in love with him? they were in love with each other? this grows more complicated by the second, but there's absolutely no way that a story like this could be told any other way. she's certain of that.]

And then. [it feels like this is the point in the story where everything changes again. it feels like they're finally at the point where anna knows the ending goes. but she's been wrong before. either way, she's practically on the edge of her seat.]

He never arrived on that white horse, did he. You never had the chance to quit because something just... changed. So suddenly that nobody could predict it.

[will sayo appreciate anna trying to take guesses on this last missing piece? will that stop anna from doing it anyway?]

[Sayo appreciates the engagement, even though discerning the trajectory of this tragedy is trivial. It's another sign that Anna is truly listening, looking. That Sayo's story is being heard instead of just told.

Even now, revisiting these memories clogs Sayo's throat, as if she could pretend her suffering never happened if she never talked about the knives that she drove into her own guts over and over again. But if she stopped now, what would be the point of telling the story to this point?

She had to keep going. Forward, always—that's the ideal that Sayo strives for in Trench.]

Soon after, Battler's mother, Asumu, died after a long illness that left her bedridden for most of the year. A few months later, his father's mistress, Kyrie, gave birth to his little sister: Ange.

Battler couldn't begrudge Kyrie, despite her playing an equal role in the affair with Rudolf. But he absolutely could not forgive his father for cheating on Asumu while she laid dying in the hospital. The argument escalated, the two of them refused to back down because apparently bullheaded buffoonery runs in the family, and Battler decided to leave the family and live with Asumu's parents.

No more visits to Rokkenjima. No more family conferences. No more meetings beneath the arbor. No white horses.

...I convinced myself it was a trial from God, at first. [Sayo determinedly maps out the whorls in the wood instead of looking Anna in the eye.] That He knew that I wasn't determined enough to commit to Battler's offer, and that I had to strengthen my faith in my prince and my will to leave to find a new life before he'd come for me.

I prayed, a little bit each night. First directionless prayers, thoughts into the void. Then I was convinced it wasn't working because I wasn't doing it right, so I dug out the hymnal that all of the Gospel House orphans left unread in the dustiest corner of their rooms and read from that. Still nothing. I kept doing it, though, because what else was I supposed to do? And when nothing came of it I felt even more unworthy.

Funny, isn't it? For the girl who'd made friends of witches and demons to start turning to God. What a hypocrite.

Years passed. Everyone in my class started changing, talking about puberty, getting interested in boys, and each of their words felt like daggers stabbed into my heart. All the other girls filled out but I... it was like I was frozen in time. I grew a few inches, sure. But I never got curves, I never had my period, and I was so deeply sure that there was something fundamentally wrong with me that the doubts began gnawing at my brain every night that it was me who kept Battler away, that I was cursed somehow, and that's why God never answered my prayers and why I was so lonely every night.

Still, I held fast, even as work got more miserable with the dream of freedom just beyond my grasp. Every time a family member forgot about Battler even in passing I felt like grabbing them by the lapels and screaming at them that he was still out there, he existed, that he was coming back. That I wasn't blowing things out of proportion, that it wasn't just some cheesy line, that he really loved me even when nobody else did.

[Sayo scoffs.] I don't think I was really in love with Battler after he left. I was in love with the idea of Ushiromiya Battler. The prince on a white horse who would sweep me off my feet and carry me away and make the decision to leave for me since I was too much of a coward to do it myself. That's the most pathetic part. I could've walked away at any time. Being a servant of the Ushiromiya family pays well, and I'd been earning money since for more than half a decade by that time. Genji and Kumasawa and Nanjo would've protested, but I have no doubt that eventually they'd cave and help me find a life elsewhere.

I was just too terrified of the world to act on that idea, and... I think, even back then, I'd already convinced myself that I deserved the torture.

[A long pause.]

Then, the family conference of 1983. It felt like a miracle. Kyrie brought letters from Battler, and George handed them out.

And...

[Sayo's eyes are hollow.]

[she could talk a lot right now about her own relationship with god. about how she was raised in a catholic family and how her parents adhered so grotesquely to its principles that she ended up disowned when she came out. about how, in her own darkest times, she remembered throwing prayers His way as though it would help her in the slightest. as though she hadn't been abandoned by two Fathers.]

[it's in the middle, before sayo returns to the conference of 1983, that anna says something in passing.]

We should talk about God together one of these days. I think we'd have a lot to share.

[but she doesn't want to interrupt much more than that, and she's looking at sayo carefully as the story comes to another peak, like a roller coaster about to plunge her heart into ice.]

What did yours say? Or... did you even get one...?

[Sayo holds up her empty hands, smiling grimly.

It was absurd, looking back on it. How that one final indignity had shattered everything for her—no, not even something, the lack of something. How funny it seemed looking back on it is the only reason why she's not bursting into tears now.]

It was to be expected, of course. For all Battler knew, the maids quit after just a few years of working at the mansion. He had no reason to believe I was even still on Rokkenjima—from his perspective, sick of the family as he was, he must've thought that I probably took the first opportunity I could to get out of there just like him.

But I couldn't think of it that way. There was no future for, "Shannon"—no one loved her, no one remembered her; she couldn't even be a woman properly. [Even now, the venom in each of Sayo's words is deadly as she recalls that awful night.] When I looked at my reflection, not even the witches of my fantasies could show themselves to comfort me. There was only the harsh, ugly truth of a lonely not-girl.

That was the first time I broke my mirror.

I thought, looking at the shards of myself, this wretched thing rotting away as it pretended to be a woman... maybe there was a reason why I couldn't be a girl, no matter how hard I tried. That it'd be easier if there was another "me."

Next week, a new servant arrived to work at Rokkenjima. A surly young man named Kanon. Rude, standoffish, cold... he could say everything I wished I could say, was everything that Shannon couldn't be. Being him was another kind of torture, one that forced me to feel every last one of my imperfections, but... there was release, too. In both being able to speak what was on my mind, and in not having to play the role of the perfect, demure woman.

It may sound odd, but, [Sayo laughs, something bittersweet in her eyes,] those were the best days of my life, I think. That brief year between the '83 conference and my eighteenth birthday. Shannon and George began to notice each other as a man and a woman, delicately moving toward romance. Jessica was infatuated with Kanon, and as much as it was embarrassing, it was... nice, getting her attention. I think part of me realized that I loved her as myself too. And Maria was old enough to be enchanted by Beatrice, and the magic of witchcraft helped her escape her own awful home even if it was just for a brief while.

Then, one day...

[Her fists clench, and Sayo stares down at the tablecloth.] I don't remember the exact date, but looking back on it, that's when Kinzo must have known. I was serving him tea as usual, tripped as usual, fell, got hot tea all over my shoes, Kumasawa had to take them off to make sure I didn't get burns...

Polydactyly is a common trait in the Ushiromiya family. It's a sign of good fortune—why Kinzo was chosen to be the head after the Great Kanto Earthquake, actually.

None... of my scars during the... procedures that were done to me as an infant were given proper aftercare. I've been scarred my entire life.

So I know he saw the scar where my extra toe should've been.

It wasn't long after that when Beatrice's portrait and its epitaph were hung in the main hall.

[it sounds like sayo's mirror never truly got pieced back together, not by the end of this. it's so many different personalities, different people to try to keep track of, and god help her there's a little bit in there that resonates with anna, too. the idea of... well, the gender stuff, yeah, just a little. she's not going to bring that up right now, though, because not even she's sure about it yet, but. it doesn't sound foreign. it doesn't sound as confusing as it could be.]

[well, that's wrong. it's still very confusing. but it's a little more relatable than it would've been otherwise.]

So it was just... this one tiny thing that took everything down around you. In the end, that was all it took. Everything you lived through, everything you suffered for... all the things you tried to build for yourself came crashing down just because one person saw one little thread and knew enough to pull at it.

[she's had her talk with palamedes by now. she could take this information and run with it. but sayo is more important to her right now.]

Does it feel like that could happen here, too? [she asks it like a friend might, even though she knows it's going to upset someone else.] That you're always just teetering on the edge of something like that again?

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you can keep on getting better [open]

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cw: talk of wwii, neglect, incest, rape

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cw: talk of infanticide, genital mutilation

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