11. Ivy and the Overwhelming Terror

[Corwin]

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[16:14] <Kallen> The liquid pours sludgily down the vial; despite it's glutenous texture, it seems to melt once it passes her lips and seeps into her tounge, throat, heart. Icy fingers clutch at the last; for a moment, it feels like it stops. Sweat pours down her forehead. She feels alive, more alive than she ever has since returning home.
[16:14] <Kallen> Her vision wavers, and her fingers begin to shake. Her knees threaten to give out. She is seized with an urge to run, to curl up and cry, to fight. She feels different. Ted seems strange; she peers up at him, and he seems much larger than before. His eyes are devoid of kindness; they stare down at her, cold and unfeeling. This is the man who will judge her fate.
[16:14] <Kallen> To one side, a dozen hatchetmen grin with ill intent. The crowd of flowers behind rises; so does she, but it's not they who may have their stems cut. Her only ally is a farce, she knows; he says comforting words she knows are lies. It's her turn to speak to them, but the words don't come out. Her breathing quickens as her impending doom draws nearer.
[16:19] <Ivy> Her breath comes out in quick, hurried gulps, but Ivy stays her ground. It's not bravery, and she would scoff if anyone called it that. A sense of fatalism settles over her. She has no allies, and she faces her end. Escaping is futile for such a small person, and she is surrounded, regardless. "Why must I die?" she asks the grinning hatchetmen. That's all it comes down to. She can accept that she will die and there is nothing she can do to stop it, but to die without knowing her crime makes her insides churn.
[16:24] <Kallen> "Because you are guilty!" they chorus as one. With a heavy crack, a gavel is slammed down. Ivy feels dizzy. It's all over. She'll be taken to the worst place. Back to Arcadia. There, she will be pruned. She can already feel the scissors, clipping off a finger. The knives, carefully peeling back her outer skin. Her arms are yanked up, tied back with cutting chains. (More)
[16:25] <Kallen> For hours on end, she stares straight at the sun. As her eyes bleed and burn out, she knows that it is only because she is so beautiful that there is nothing else worth gazing upon.
[16:32] <Ivy> Her cry for her farce of an ally to kill her while there is time is cut short with a gurgle as her fingers go, one by one. She's heard of throats being so raw from screaming that the voice is gone, a detached part of Ivy realizes, but this is different. It's just too much, and her mind goes numb too quickly. A normal person's mind can't handle Arcadia's pruning, and a normal person's body can't remain awake and aware through it. This could never happen to Celia, so Celia really really is gone, and not just as a pretense.
[16:35] <Kallen> There is nothing else to live for now but beauty, she intuits. Or she remembers? Having lost so much, one must seize onto the only thing they have. Invariably, the extra limbs regrow, and they must be cut. The scissors are in her hands, now. The burning comb that burns away the excess hair is dragged through by her fingers, even as she slices through them. (More)
[16:37] <Kallen> To be the Fairest, it is worth it. The mirror stands before her, awaiting the same question she asks it every day. Only through it's answer can she vindicate herself.
[16:40] <Ivy> "Who is the Fairest of them all?" Ivy asks with a dreamy smile, gazing coquettishly into the mirror.
[16:40] <Kallen> The mirror ripples. It shows someone who is not Ivy.
[16:41] * Ivy freezes in shock, the comb slipping from her nerveless fingers.
[16:44] <Kallen> They truly were nerveless and yet, a hundred to a thousand years of suppressed pain.. ripples. When one is the Fairest, anything can be endured, any pain ignored, any torture simply laughed off. The hammer hangs over Ivy once again, of an eternity of agony that will soon fall upon her!
[16:47] * Ivy wraps her arms around her, shivering. Her head shakes in disbelief. "No, not that. Please, anything but that," she whispers desperately.
[16:48] <Kallen> There was another world, she remembers. A world that is drab and grey. A world of regular patterns, where the only constants are death and taxes. A world of people who cannot appreciate true beauty. Did Ivy come from that world?
[16:48] <Kallen> And if she went back, who could outshine her?
[16:52] <Ivy> Ivy's mind seizes on those memories instantly. It's not all lost! She can be the Fairest again! Growing in a greenhouse, you can't show your true appeal, but if you stand out... let others fight each other! She can overtake them if she runs away! The she can be safe! She won't be discarded, she won't be in pain ever again!
[16:56] <Kallen> Running is difficult. Pulling her roots from the ground is the same as ripping off a leg- but that's nothing, compared to what she'd suffer. Tripping over, falling to her arms, she climbs over the spiked fence. It tears at her and leaves behind hideous gashes- but that's nothing, compared to what she'd suffer.
[16:56] <Kallen> The knives, she already feels them once again. They are the true danger.
[16:56] <Kallen> She drowns a dozen times when she swims through the moat, but that's nothing, compared to what she'd suffer. She drags herself through thorns, leaving behind a hundred scabs- but that's nothing. The baying of hounds is behind her- they want to keep her here, to make her endure her righteous punishment!
[16:58] <Ivy> They don't want to catch her as much as Ivy wants to escape! Those hounds could never understand the pain she endured, because she is the Fairest of them all, not some mutt. Even now, even the thorns and the pain of drowning, how can it compare to being made to prune yourself over and over for a millennium?
[17:02] <Kallen> She finds herself staring over a pool. A pool that would take her out of here, to the other world. She pushes it- it pushes back. Something keeps her here. She stares. She sees herself there, in that other place, but it is not herself. It is another, who would claim her rank as Fairest! It stares back- it, too, knows what would happen if it were to lose that rank- and it cannot be shared!
[17:04] * Ivy throws a terrified look back, and then stares pleadingly into the pool. "Please. Please! Let me go," she begs of the waters. "I'm real, not she! I'm the Fairest, not she! It has to be me!"
[17:07] <Kallen> The braying draws nearer. Ivy sees other beside herself within that pool. They stand by her; they share branches and leaves; they support her double unconditionally. They don't even see the real Ivy!
[17:09] <Ivy> "No! I'm here!" Ivy tries to call to them, pushing against the pool's waters. "That's not the real me! Help me, not that fake!"
[17:17] <Kallen> There is a soft growl behind her. One of the hounds approaches; it lurks in the foliage, with frighteningly long fangs that poke straight through it's own chin. "I can help," remarks a low voice. A shadow seems to loom over Ivy. "It's simple. You need some things destroyed, right?" They are sounds, she realises. They are forming words, which become sentences. Sentences hold meaning.
[17:17] <Ivy> "You'll save me?" she asks piteously.
[17:31] <Kallen> "I know one who can. Point at what needs to be destroyed, remember their names," he responds, and there is a hint of sadness. "The price is simple. Would you give me your tears?"
[17:33] <Ivy> "The Fairest doesn't need tears!" Ivy exclaims hurriedly. She points at the pool, her finger shivering. "That fake! It stole my place! It's her fault! It's all her fault! If only she didn't exist, I could be shining there!"
[17:37] <Kallen> The shadow looms for a moment, and then departs. A moment passes in stillness... the beating of heavy, red-slick wings echoes overhead. The pool begins to twist and churn, and Ivy finds herself pulled in from the outside- along with the other, something that she can only call a demon. (More)
[17:39] <Kallen> Carnage. Slaughter. It happens so quickly. Every time the claw is thrust forth, Ivy remembers another piece of Celia- a piece that is torn away just as quickly by the Spinegott's remorseless violence. The fetch was the first to die, but there, it did not stop. That dreadful figure, that twelve-foot-tall monster, with red wings and blackened skin; slits for a nose, and a mouth sewn shut. (More)
[17:40] <Kallen> It did not belong in this world, and before it could slay Karen, it vanished. The girl saw it clearly as well, saw it take the rest of their family apart; how did she forget, and live on as she does? How did Ivy forget? How could anyone push that event out of their mind? (More)
[17:40] <Kallen> Well, it is here to stay now, Ivy realises, as she slowly awakens within her own bed.
[17:42] <Ivy> "She wasn't at school, then," Ivy says quietly, staring at the ceiling. Does it matter? But she feels dead inside, and the only things she can contemplate are pointless trivialties. Because... "It was me after all."
[17:42] <Kallen> OOC: Roll 3d10?
[17:43] <Ivy> roll 3d10
[17:43] * Hatbot --> "Ivy rolls 3d10 and gets 23." [3d10=8, 8, 7]
[17:44] <Kallen> Nothing answers Ivy- but she is not alone in the room. Ted sits on a chair nearby, slumped over and apparently asleep. A heavy weight settles upon her, a guilt that cannot be escaped- as a well as a sudden realisation- the bargain wasn't for the lives of her family. That was never something she herself agreed to. Only the Fetch. Only her.
[17:48] * Ivy laughs, and once she starts, it is impossible to stop. It cheated. The demon broke the bargain. She wonders if that should make her feel better, and her laughter redoubles.

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