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Tweak says, "mwah"

Bellum Anon (bellum_anon) wrote in bellumlogs,
@ 2010-03-12 23:02:00

Entry tags:

plot: fables

Fables Plot Public Post!
Who: Public
What: The Open Post for Public Threading for the Epic Fable Plot
Where: Throughout the building.
When: 12:01
Warnings: Any number of crazy things could end up in here.
Notes: Alright! This post is for public threads only, and will be run party style. Anyone can jump into a thread at any time--just use your judgment! Feel free to hop around, go to different parts of the building, and mingle through the madness.

12:01. The beginning of a new day, just broken in, still fresh. Most of the building was sleeping, as decent people ought to be at such an hour.

The building, down at its foundations, was restless. A storm had been gathering for the past week, in its joints and its doorways, in its windows and its keyholes. 12:01, the storm broke over Bellum.

It was as if the building stretched, yawned, shook itself. There was a shudder in reality, as if the air itself was nothing more than a funhouse mirror. Faster than you could snap your fingers and the thing was done, set into motion before the darkest hours of the morning had yet come around.

A twitch, a snap, a static shock.

And then the changes started.

((OOC: Alright guys, go crazy! Feel free to post your location in the header of your comment so people can do a quick visual scan for the right comment and the right location. Mingle! Chat! Fight! Tackle one another!))

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Re: 10th floor stairwell, 12:05 am

shebringscurses
2010-03-15 11:38 am UTC (link)

The witch liked hearing the name, particularly when spouted from the soft, innocent tongue of another. Vaughn. Yes, as unfamiliar as the name managed to feel, there was a rightness in it. It echoed through her mind with the comfort of nostalgia. Vaughn was as much her name as any of the others that wary travelers gave her over the years.

"You're too kind," the witch murmured, a little breathless from the climb, when they reached the top of the stairs together. Not only had Hannah seen fit to help the old woman, but her compassion recognized that a rest would be in order before continuing. Hannah was indeed as sweet as she was beautiful, she'd make a good princess.

Gathering the fabric of that heavy cloak in her grizzled hands, the witch gestured for them to take a seat on the top stair. It seemed like the perfect place to rest, and she eased to the floor. The old woman's sigh of relief was gentle, but it vibrated the shadowy fall of her cowl.

"Tell me about this prince of your's.." The curiosity in her question was real. After all, what kind of prince neglected his maiden in such dangerous woods? The Black Forest was no place for such innocence to wander freely; many foul things walked these lands that stretched along the border of France and Germany. Never mind that they were quite obviously not in the woods right now, and instead in some form of castle. And never mind that the very idea of France or Germany felt obscenely foreign for a split second.

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Re: 10th floor stairwell, 12:05 am

noglass_slipper
2010-03-15 09:16 pm UTC (link)

Part of her did wonder when she'd become this trusting, so willing to help a stranger and put their needs before her own. It felt right, though, despite the occasional lapses in which none of this made any sense. It was too difficult to think, and all it did was give her a headache and confuse her even further. "It is the least I can do after you offered to help me," Hannah said softly. The mice waited for them at the top of the stairwell, scurrying to the side as she gently eased the old woman into a sitting position.

It was a touch difficult to sit in her dress, but somehow she managed to keep the skirt from spreading out too much. Her feet did hurt, granted, but taking off the glass slippers never occurred to her. Hannah paused as she considered the woman's request, barely noticing how the mice huddled around her feet on the stair below. Why was she finding it so difficult to remember him? One minute there was a vague image in her mind of a well-dressed young man with whom she danced around a ballroom, but it seemed like a distant memory that stretched across an impossible amount of time. Then there was the memory of someone much more familiar and... recent, but he wasn't a prince so she must have been mistaken. "He's very kind," she began slowly, trying to sort out the true memories from the imagined. "Generous, intelligent, and handsome-- I think that's why so many women are desperate to marry him. They don't know him like I do, though." Her voice turned wistful. "I'm really very foolish. He could never love me, because--" She paused abruptly, frowning. "He thinks I'm someone that I'm not." It didn't feel quite right, but the words came on their own.

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Re: 10th floor stairwell, 12:05 am

shebringscurses
2010-03-16 12:41 am UTC (link)

Now, there was conflict. It began with the urge to smoke, and only spread into other avenues from there.

The thought seemed out of place to her -- smoking? -- but when the witch glanced into her cloaked lap, there was a pack of cigarettes suddenly resting amongst the dark folds of velvet and fur. Her cigarettes. The pack felt strange in her wizened hand, but Vaughn easily folded back the lid and pulled one thin staff loose from it's group coffin. She was still listening to Hannah, although the witch found such a romantic tale quite dull. Kind, generous, intelligent -- what fun was that? Those kinds of princes rarely needed to be punished.

The witch lifted the cigarette to her mouth, and it barely protruded from the dark of her cowl. Although Vaughn did not light it, and the end did not burn, a plume of fresh smoke curled out from the fall of her hood in exhale.

With the taste of smoke came the second conflict. There was a strange desire to climb the stairs, go to the roof. But why? The witch pushed the urge away for the moment, turning toward Hannah with a new question.

"But where is he? Why has your prince left you here?"

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Re: 10th floor stairwell, 12:05 am

noglass_slipper
2010-03-16 12:55 am UTC (link)

Even though it was a struggle, Hannah was trying to think. It wasn't her who was pretending to be someone else, that much she knew, even with the dress and shoes. But why would a prince need to pretend? Unless... unless he wasn't a prince, but that didn't make any sense at all. Why did everything have to be so jumbled up and confusing? She barely even noticed that the old woman was smoking - which might have struck her as strange if she had - too absorbed in her newest questions.

"He did leave me." That much seemed right to her, and she nodded to herself. "He left me, Vaughn, because... because something happened. Something bad." It didn't fit with her fairy godmother and the prince's ball, but something inside of her was urging her on. "I can't remember what, though. I don't even know where he went-- but I think he's here, now. I just have to find him." Hannah wanted very much to find him, despite whatever it was that happened - she couldn't remember anyway. It made sense, sort of. She'd been at the ball looking for him, because she only had until midnight, but she hadn't found him. Maybe that was why the magic had lasted.

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Re: 10th floor stairwell, 12:05 am

shebringscurses
2010-03-16 02:01 am UTC (link)

"Something bad?" The witch straightened with real fascination then. Her disconcerting interest with climbing to the roof was gone in that moment. The rising obsession didn't make sense to the witch, and she was eager to brush it aside in favor of this fresh detail. Something bad, Hannah said, and that was exactly the kind of thing that Vaughn could work with. The hollow drum of her heart rattled with an excited beat, oh do tell her.. was it something completely horrible?

"What do you mean, Hannah?" The unspent cigarette was flicked down the stairs, it bounced all the way to the 9th floor landing, and she reached for one of the princess' gloved hands in support.

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Re: 10th floor stairwell, 12:05 am

noglass_slipper
2010-03-16 04:45 am UTC (link)

Something was telling her to keep quiet, but the problem was she wasn't even sure what she was supposed to keep quiet about. Nothing that bad could have happened, right? He wouldn't have hurt anyone, never mind her. Maybe... maybe he hadn't meant to. Yes, that had to be it.

"It's hard to remember," she said carefully, smiling slightly at the feel of the woman's hand in her own. "It must have been while he thought I was-- well, like this." She gestured down at herself. "The rest of the time he would never even glance at someone like me. I couldn't believe he wanted to see me alone, and at first it went very well." The memory was fuzzy, but she did remember that it had started off nice. "It was nice, to be away from all the other people at the ball. But then... then..." Hannah frowned, horror dawning on her. "He changed. He was cruel, and frightening, and he hurt me." She probably wasn't making any sense again, but it didn't seem to matter. She had to be wrong, mixing things up as usual, unable to keep anything straight. Her stepmother was right about her.

"No. No-- I must be mistaken. I'm just confused..." She closed her eyes for a moment, exhaling heavily. "I need to find him, and then he can explain everything, and we can go back to the ball and I won't have to worry about the magic wearing off and having to go back."

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Re: 10th floor stairwell, 12:05 am

shebringscurses
2010-03-16 09:48 pm UTC (link)

"I understand," the witch consoled Hannah as she struggled through the memory. Vaughn, herself, was having a difficult time with sorting through the strange myriad of conscious thought she found herself in. She wasn't confused, only conflicted. Part of her wanted to think about Daniel, but the witch was vehement that Daniel -- whoever he was -- did not matter. He was to be punished, not mused over. Just like the Beast; what worry was The Beast to her now? He'd made his choice, and she'd paid him well for it, in the form of a curse that she was fairly certain would never be broken.

Strange, how just as she was thinking this through, Vaughn could have sworn that she heard the echo of an angry roar from some floor above them. Her chin rose for a glimpse up the stairs, thoughtful. A brief cut of light illuminated the deep wrinkles of her face, but then her chin dropped, and it was gone beneath shadows once more.

As Hannah vaguely outlined the cruelty she'd met at the hands of this prince, the witch lifted her fingers. An experimental touch to such delicate, blonde hair. But something Hannah said gave the witch pause, and her withered hands returned to the dark folds of her lap immediately. "What do you mean, the magic will wear off?"

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Re: 10th floor stairwell, 12:05 am

noglass_slipper
2010-03-17 02:46 am UTC (link)

Part of her wanted to get up and actually look for the prince instead of just talking about it, but she couldn't just leave Vaughn here alone - nor could she make the woman follow her all over the castle. In fact, she probably shouldn't have wandered this far in the first place. The idea of this being an apartment building seemed very absurd, and she wasn't sure why she'd thought it in the first place. Was Vaughn this confused? For that matter, why was she in the castle?

When she felt the woman beside her touch her hair, Hannah turned to face her with a faintly quizzical expression. For some reason the action brought forth a long-ago memory faded by time, of someone - her father? - stroking her hair, and the recollection brought with it a sense of warmth and safety. But her father was dead now... no, he was still alive; he just didn't pay attention to her anymore. Her stepmother and stepsisters had him charmed, except she couldn't quite conjure up an image of what said stepsisters looked like.

"The magic..." For a moment she went completely blank, but then it flooded back to her. "Oh, yes. This magic." She gestured down at her dress and shoes. "The King and Queen decided that it was time for the prince to marry, you see, so they decided to hold a series of royal balls to find him a bride. My stepmother wouldn't let me go, but my fairy godmother came to me and turned my rags into this dress, and the mice into horses and footmen-- oh, and a pumpkin into a carriage." Hannah beamed at Vaughn, cheered by the remembrance. "I danced with the prince for nearly the whole night."

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Re: 10th floor stairwell, 12:05 am

shebringscurses
2010-03-17 08:47 pm UTC (link)

Distantly, Vaughn was aware that this was an apartment building. Although the concept of apartment building seemed slightly foreign. She knew that she lived here, or near here.. so this building must have resided somewhere in her forest. As the only possibility, even that seemed scarcely plausible. After all, the only large structure that met with the outlying fringe of her woods was The Beast's castle. Was it possible that this was The Beast's castle, then? With that wonder, all former thoughts of apartment buildings were erased. Yes, the witch realized. Her eyes strayed up the stairwell again, that explained everything.

But as for Hannah's tale, that made no sense to the witch at all. Fairy godmothers? Pumpkin into a carriage? What kind of generous magic was this? Where was the point in it? No curses, no terror, no trickery?

Rather than remind Hannah of her prince's alleged cruelty, or question why Hannah was in this castle in the first place, the witch simply nodded her head. "It all sounds very beautiful, my dear, but are you sure that your prince is here?" Reaching for the stairwell's banister, the witch pulled herself with some effort back to standing. Again, her attention slid up the stairs. Now, she knew what her destination was.

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Re: 10th floor stairwell, 12:05 am

noglass_slipper
2010-03-17 09:04 pm UTC (link)

The prince's - or whoever she thought was her prince - supposed cruelty was already fading from her mind, replaced by a warm glow of happiness. Yes-- the ball had been wonderful, and the prince only had eyes for her; it was like a dream come true after years upon years spent as a slave in her own home. If the magic hadn't worn off, why did she have to go home? She could stay here, where her stepmother could never find her.

"I'm sure." Hannah didn't know how she could be so certain, but for some reason she was. He had to be here, and she was going to find him... but Vaughn wanted to go up, while she had the distinct feeling that the prince wasn't up there. There were only four floors above her, while there were nine below-- but how did she know that?

"Do you... I feel terrible, but I need to find the prince." Her face was earnest, almost naively so, as she looked at the old woman beseechingly. "I won't leave you if you can't climb up the stairs on your own, though."

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Re: 10th floor stairwell, 12:05 am

shebringscurses
2010-03-17 10:21 pm UTC (link)

"I will be fine," the witch assured. As she took one step across the tenth floor landing, her posture seemed different than it had on any of the floors below. Upright, shoulders peeled back stiff and regal as headstones beneath the dark cut of her cloak.

"Your compassion is a rare thing, Hannah. I enjoyed your company, and will spare your beauty." If those were unusual parting words, the witch gave no inclination of noticing. She was already starting up the next set of stairs, this time with vigor. While a curse was always an underlying possibility with Vaughn, she liked this princess. This one was a very rare glimpse of true innocence, and despite Vaughn's personal affairs, even she understood that was something to be rewarded.

"Until next time, Hannah."

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Re: 10th floor stairwell, 12:05 am

noglass_slipper
2010-03-17 10:44 pm UTC (link)

Hannah got to her feet as well, watching the woman curiously. There was something different about her - she just couldn't quite put her finger on what. Instinct told her to insist, but she wisely stayed quiet. If Vaughn said she would be fine, a voice whispered, then she would indeed be fine.

She didn't know what 'spare your beauty' meant, but it wasn't something she dwelt on. After all, Vaughn had been nothing but kind to her, and it was nice to be treated like that. She only took a step forward, but the woman seemed to be handling the stairs fine on her own, and it was then that Hannah knew she could take care of herself.

"Goodbye, Vaughn." For some reason she had the urge to add Good luck, although she didn't know why. Instead she turned to the - her? - mice, wishing once more that they were still human - or at least that they could talk.

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