winnie and faust are in a (boredpursuit) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-05-25 06:32:00 |
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Entry tags: | door: tales, faust, snow white |
Who: Faust and Snow
Where: The Queen's castle in dream land
When: Dream time plot
What: Explorin and then Faust touches something evil
Warnings: MMAAAGIICC dark maaarrggggiiccc
Snow White raced down the castle corridor, a soft laugh escaping her as she turned the corner. Night blanketed the castle though the darkness didn’t bother her, torches marking the hallways and moonlight streaming through the narrow windows. She slowed her steps as she heard the echo of armored boots, and she pressed herself against the stones, waiting with bated breath until they faded away and she could explore once more.
The Queen always frowned upon her explorations, though the queen seemed to frown at her always, no matter what she was doing these days. The sense of… something, something amiss, was hard to shake but there was little that could be done but try and remain in her good graces. That did, however, mean for a very boring day, and it was at night, when everyone was asleep, that she would try to run free about the castle.
There was much to be seen and understand, at least it felt like there might be. Rooms that were unoccupied, doors that had never been open. Why, she even thought she heard a voice coming from a mirror once…
The thought struck a chord in her, making the hair on the back of her neck stand, making her feet stop, and she ran pale fingers across her neck wondering why it all felt so familiar and wrong all of a sudden. Snow looked at her surroundings, dark stones all around her, and wondered why this felt amiss. There was something about a table, an office, a building that was far away and nothing like this place she called home…
Footsteps approached, as did a pair castle guardsmen. A terse exchange of words confirmed they had heard her, or heard something that bore investigation, and she tiptoed as best she could away. Gathering the dark blue of her skirt, she nimbly raced away, ducking into another room and quietly closing the door behind her. Taking a moment to slump against the wall, the rush winding through her body in soft gasps, Snow quietly laughed at her own good fortune, taking a moment to fix the small crown nearly fallen off her raven hair, before taking a good look around to see where she was.
“Oh, I was just leaving. I-.” A tall, ginger haired man looked up from his work table alarmed like he was caught lingering where he wasn’t supposed to. Then, he watched her fix the crown and catch her breath and he relaxed. As if there was someone else in this castle who wasn’t completely unfriendly. “I got carried away with all the supplies here.” He explained, sweeping a hand back at a shelf of potions. They didn’t look like anything special, but the lightness in his eyes proved that they were.
Faust was dressed as he always was. Top hat and a brown sort of suit that looked academic on his tall and lean frame. He didn’t seem to be from here, but no one seemed to mind or even comment. In fact, there wasn’t anything on his playful expression that suggested he thought something was amiss. To him, this was just another castle with another queen who wanted another something. When he took a step closer, she could smell rich magic. Clay, lavender, wineberry and saltwood. A naturally sort of fragrance that clung to his clothes like the smoke of a pipe and rolled in his hair as if he’d never really get all of it out. And, there was a friendliness to his smile. Nothing swindling like the kind of men who came and went from royal meetings or daft like the groundskeeper. A smile like nothing she could do would ever amount to the kinds of things that drifted around in his murky past.
“I know you.” Faust said after a moment, trying to shrink his shoulders down enough to look her in the face. “Snow. I know you.” He repeated kindly, though there wasn’t very much recognition in his voice. If anything he seemed confused, delighted, but confused that she was here laughing and skirting around like her sister would. Faust tapped a finger up to his chin, black sparkling dust stuck to the sides that must have been there so often that he didn’t even think of washing it away anymore. “You look like something was chasing you.”
His confusion was met with her own, a furrow of brow over blue as her mind tried to reconcile a somewhat familiar face being unfamiliarly in this place. “Faust?” The name came with a giggle at the tail end, light and youthful, so unfamiliar for anyone who had known Snow in recent memory.
As for his assessment, she looked a moment before looking back at the door. “Oh, yes, the guards. They get all get upset with me when I walk about by myself. The queen always wants me watched.” A frown crossed her features a moment, angry and dark and not understanding of why things were one way, only that she didn’t like them. “But the castle has mysteries to uncover and rooms to see, even if the queen doesn’t want me to see them. Is that why you’re here?” The words came out in an rush, breathless and awed by this new revelation. Pushing herself off the door she walked closer, eyes growing wide as the rush of magic wafted over her, skin prickling with sensations that she had felt in… She had felt it before, hadn’t she?
“You have a bit of, hm.” She gestured with her fingers, rubbing them together, hoping he’d see the dust that had caught her eye and clung to his hands. Then she flashed him a smile before moving past him, wanting to see these potions on littered the walls up close. “Are you doing magic?” Curiosity dripped from every word, no wariness or worry, not for this Snow.
He glanced at his finger, giving a slightly embarrassed look and then rubbed his chin to see if any of the black dust got on his face as well. “Magic. Precisely.” Faust decided quickly that he liked this side of Snow and in fact liked it so much that he wouldn’t tell her in fear it would shatter into something more serious. He was not the kind of man who would go out of his way to ruin something good. “I’ve been called because the Queen overheard I’ve been working on a formula for-” Faust lowered his voice, moving one hand around in the air in a funny wiggle of his fingers and then gave a thinking sort of hmmmph. “The last castle I visited had invisible magic spies. Little orbs that moved between walls and picked up information like balls of lint.”
But, he seemed satisfied they were alone and waved her over to the worktable. “The Queen heard I was working on a formula for portals. Right now it’s tricky. Some days I can make a portal go exactly where I want, but not the right time. Sometimes it’s too small or too large.” He unraveled a piece of parchment that was already covered in black dust and gave a very faint feeling of vertigo. Almost as if staring at it too long was akin to looking over a very tall cliff. “But, I think I mastered portals that are in close proximity. Is there a place in the castle you can think of that you’d like to see?” Faust rummaged through a couple vials full of dust and started measuring them by eye into a small, stone bowl. He was so naturally excited by magic, living up to his reputation of a young wizard experiencing new and interesting ways to warp reality every day.
As he rubbed his chin she discreetly helped him, motioning this way and that with pale fingers for all the little parts he missed, only looking up as he finished, as if she hadn’t seen everything. When he urged her to the worktable she moved close, leaning in, immediately feeling like this was some grand secret she was privy to. The parchment made her dizzy, immediately grasping the ends of the table but she didn’t dare close her eyes or look away, in case anything dared to vanish before her.
The prospect of going somewhere, anywhere, other than walking was an exciting one, not particularly dangerous. She tapped her fingers thoughtfully against her blood red lips, suddenly at a loss of where to go when moments before she had a terribly long list of hidden rooms. “There’s a locked room, one floor below...” She took a moment to survey her surroundings, quickly walking towards the door, turning around slowly as she tried to recall the revolutions of the stairwell, before pointing to the far wall next to his potions. “There. The queen goes there sometimes. I’ve never seen anyone else enter or leave it, but I could swear I’ve heard someone else there talking to her. May we try there?”
Faust looked where she pointed, touching his forehead under his top hat and mentally built their wing of the castle in his head. Yes, he had heard this Queen was mysterious, hadn’t he? “Yes, that’s where we’ll go.” He nodded and turned to the parchment, lightly pouring his mixture of dust in a large circle that was big enough for the both of them to climb through. In a second it wobbled like black ink, stretching and bubbling in defiance of reality as magic tended to do. Finally, it opened slowly, a black curtain being pulled back to reveal stone barely lit by torches. Something didn’t seem right, the angles of it all, so Faust held his hand up to show he’d climb in first to test it out. His long legs stretched and broke through the portal with a watery noise and without any hesitation at all he tumbled through, holding onto his hat as he went.
He landed on his back looking up at the portal with a bright smile and whispered. “I accidentally put it in upside down, here-” Faust reached his hand through and helped her crawl in slowly, moving himself up and away like a long-legged grasshopper trying to navigate a topsy turvy plant. When she finally made it through he laughed a little, then remembered they were supposed to be sneaking and muffled himself with the back of his hand. “It looks empty.” He whispered, rising to his feet slowly and carefully as he took a moment to dust off his shoulders and his hat. The room was anything but remarkable. Stone bricks, sparking torches and a long, dark couch that the Queen must have lounged on. On the back wall was a circle mounted and covered with a large sheet and Faust’s curiosity got the better of him instantly.
With another cautious look around he grabbed the cloth and yanked it down with a flourish, finding nothing but a simple mirror behind. “Hmm.” Faust looked back at Snow, missing how the mirror started to slowly grow eyes, lips and a mouth out of a smokey ethereal light.
Snow’s laugh was a soft, tinkling sound behind her hand as she watched him fall through and land, and she gingerly followed suit she was far more careful, holding his hand tightly as she crawled through. She was awed as she looked around, but only for a moment, the novelty of traveling with magic dimming a touch as there was little to look at their new room. Her fingers quietly danced along the edge of the couch when she heard Faust pull fabric and spun around.
He hadn’t noticed it, his back turned, but she did, her eyes growing wide as she raised a finger, pointing to the mirror behind him.
“Ah, the Fairest,” it crooned, a low rumbling voice that tumbled from its jagged mouth. “Have you come for answers as well?” Snow frowned, the light in her face darkening as she strode to it. She brushed past Faust, almost forgotten him completely now that the mirror was there. It watched her watch it, a sardonic lilt to its lips despite no real face, and Snow’s fingers touched the frame momentarily before turning to look Faust.
“We need to destroy it.” It was a simple declaration that came with a serious little nod and she looked around or something to wield.
Faust gave a slightly worried expression at her surprise, turning around just in time to hear the thing speak and causing him stumbled back a little. Well, this was interesting. The stories of the Queen coming in here alone and speaking to another voice made sense. It must have taken some serious dark magic to create this thing. Maybe out of an actual soul of someone the Queen had executed. That was fascinating, indeed. He circled behind her as she stepped forward, pacing the length of the couch before taking a seat on the end of it. “Now, now wait a moment.”
He raised a hand, head slowly tilting to the side as his hat went lopsided. “Aren’t you curious as to what it can tell you? If it is evil, we should consider testing it out first. Why waste something so unique?” Faust said reasonably, but he couldn’t hide the curiosity fueling his suggestion. After all, when would he have the chance to see a specimen like this again?
“Because it destroys everything,” she said, reaching over and straightening his tilted hat for him. “I’m not curious. I know what it will do and it will ruin me. That’s how this goes.” She turned away to stare at the mirror, a knowing smirk lifting its disembodied lips, as if hearing the curious musings of Faust, and the – albeit faint – wonderings of Snow.
She shook her head to try and clear them.
“If you could change everything, wouldn’t you? Every bad thing that happens, and everything bad after, because of them, stemming from one decision that one mirror suggested, wouldn’t you break it? It stands here, perfectly fine, and I had more than seven years bad luck because of it.” She scowled at it and it never changed, no fear or remorse, just a smirk of knowing its power hadn’t been contained to smoke and words in a gilded frame. Turning back to Faust, she asked, “How would you even test for evil?”
Faust’s eyes were struck with a realization that she couldn’t read, but there was a hint of familiarity about it. Like he saw something in her he recognized that he hadn’t before. Certainly Snow and Rose were the sun and moon of sisters, but just then he saw a little of that woodland witch he knew so well. It wasn’t in the faint wonderings or the cold rejection of something dark and misunderstood. But, the naivety. Both of them must have been so ancient. Had they gone that long without learning anything? Perhaps Faust was the naive one. Willing to step into a trap just for the sake of learning what was on the other side.
“No.” He said, a little more firm than he intended. “Every bad thing has made me who I am now. If I erased it, I’d still be a simple alchemist dreaming of other worlds in a tiny town. Ask it something, Snow.” Faust insisted, looking to the mirror without fear or even resentment. Just curiosity. “I know it’s evil because I carry darkness around with me. It’s evil like that which gave me my powers.”
“You’re not evil, Faust.” There was no placating undertones in her voice, no teasing, no joking, no sugar coating. It was all very matter of fact as she glanced over at him. “I’ve sat at dinner with evil, watched her stare at me as she cut open a steak. I’ve seen it loom over my excuse of a bed in seven faces. I’ve watched it raze villages and murder bystanders and burn my kingdom to the ground. We all have darkness in us, Faust. You, me, others with more, yes, but it’s there in just about everyone. We’re not evil. But that,” she turned back to the mirror, the face delighted it had attention once more, “is a catalyst for something like evil. It’s a means to an end, and a bad one at that.”
But he wanted answers and, sadly, her own curiosity was growing. Gown dragging behind her, she strode forward, standing before the mirror and gazing at it, shoulders squared back as she imagined the queen must have so long ago. The mirror only winked at her.
“Mirror,” she started, scowling as it shifted into a mockingly serious expression, “does my beauty truly stem from my heart?” He chuckled, a low rumble of thunder in the smoke.
“Your power is centered there, Fairest.” The wording made her frown, a soft shiver tingling her spine. But that was merely a test, trying out the questions to see if they were right, and if he’d answer correctly.
“And are you evil, Mirror?” Though she asked it – and in her experiences, it rarely hurt to ask – she flicked her gaze quickly back to Faust to watch his face as it answered, hoping it would satisfy his curiosity, just as she knew it wouldn’t.
Faust listened quietly, deciding that Snow and Rose had a mercurial sort of wisdom that he had never encountered before. It was if they had studied every folktale and fable in earnest to see the true meaning behind the morals, but didn’t obtain any of the common sense that life threw at them. Snow might have been closer to the exception since she had certainly grown up more than Rose, but the thread between them still held. He gave an appreciative nod, a slight bow of his head when she explained the difference between darkness and evil. It was insightful of her and something he wanted to believe as truth.
Watching her interact with the mirror, he knew that his own curiosity would likely lead to hurting her or allowing the mirror to survive so that the Queen could use it maliciously. It was hard to resist that pull of magic, that desire to see just what the mirror could do. “I was made with evil intent.” The mirror taunted, eyes set on Faust as if it could see that addiction to knowledge and power intertwined in in tall man. It haunted him, reminded him of his deal that brought him his great wizarding powers and for a moment Snow could see fear. Fear. An emotion that Faust swore he could never feel.
“I-” Faust slowly got his feet, long legs stretching out towards the mirror. “I simply want to kn-” He started, a long arm reaching to touch the cool, reflective glass. As his fingers brushed the flat, knowing gaze, his skin turned black and crackling with open wounds made of fire and smoke that travelled quickly up through his arm to encompass his entire being. Large, stone wings sprouted from Faust’s back, his hat vanishing in exchange for demonic horns and in a blink he was completely unrecognizable. The stone foundation shook as the demon hit the ceiling, the rumbling catching the attention of guards outside of the door who started shouting and rattling to get inside.
Faust’s transformation was startling, making Snow take a step back with a gasp, tripping on the long hem of her dress and falling flat as she stared up at him. Her hands shielded her face as debris rained from the ceiling and as the shouts from the guards came she scrambled up. “You have to run,” she insisted, hands pressing at his back between his wings. He was a demonic thing but she felt no fear at his new appearance, seeing the transformation firsthand helping quell what little fear there was to begin with. This was still Faust, albeit taller, and decidedly less human, but Faust nonetheless. And he didn’t deserve whatever the Queen would do if they found them here.
“They’ll come for you. You have to escape.” With careful but firm fingers she tugged on his wings, loosening them from where they scraped against the ceiling and pushing him towards the window. “You need to fly away now. Before they find you.”
With another inhuman howl from the demon, it clawed away at the mirror and stonewalls around it, but didn’t touch Snow. In fact, it seemed to take extra care with all its firebreathing and skull crushing strength not to come anywhere near her. Her voice was almost lost in all the struggling and howling, but the creature seemed to hear it and after a second look down at the princess with dark hair and an almost too big crown, it smashed through the window. Too big to fit, but strong enough to leave a gaping hole in its wake. Castle guards attempted to shoot him down, but their arrows only bounced off the rocky skin or sank into the licking fire. Just as quickly as Faust transformed, he was gone. Lost in the grey clouds around the castle. The only thing left was the slightly charred, black dust covered top hat at her feet.