Theodosia Planchette
Committed
Roleplay posts: 80
Appearance: Theodosia stands at a fairly average, unimpressive height. Her red hair and numerous golden piercings and ornaments are quite eye-catching, although her tendency to glare at people often dissuades a second glance. She wears a number of bright silks and elaborately patterned robes befitting a proper fortune-teller. The twisting, vine-like tattoos on her arms are actually just painted on, a fact that she tries to keep hidden from people.
Skills and Abilities: Theodosia is a trained fortune-teller, gifted with the ability to see through the mists of time and pluck upon the threads of fate...or so she claims. Whether she actually possesses any such skills can be questionable at times, but her knowledge of fortune-telling methods (from cards to ashes to chicken entrails) is unrivaled.
Registered: Mar 28, 2021 21:11:09 GMT -5
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Post by Theodosia Planchette on Jul 19, 2021 11:36:36 GMT -5
Theodosia's HouseDespite being one of the last residents of Port Argentium to actually receive a house due to some minor disagreement as to the validity of her occupation, Theodosia has been finally granted a place of her own. Due to the transient nature of her work back in the old world, she never actually had a house of her own before, and has taken to draping cloths over the walls to make it feel more like the tents she's comfortable with. The interior of the little house is heavily decorated with trinkets and tokens that she finds washed up on the beach, and the air inside is thick with fragrant incense.
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Theodosia Planchette
Committed
Roleplay posts: 80
Appearance: Theodosia stands at a fairly average, unimpressive height. Her red hair and numerous golden piercings and ornaments are quite eye-catching, although her tendency to glare at people often dissuades a second glance. She wears a number of bright silks and elaborately patterned robes befitting a proper fortune-teller. The twisting, vine-like tattoos on her arms are actually just painted on, a fact that she tries to keep hidden from people.
Skills and Abilities: Theodosia is a trained fortune-teller, gifted with the ability to see through the mists of time and pluck upon the threads of fate...or so she claims. Whether she actually possesses any such skills can be questionable at times, but her knowledge of fortune-telling methods (from cards to ashes to chicken entrails) is unrivaled.
Registered: Mar 28, 2021 21:11:09 GMT -5
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Post by Theodosia Planchette on Jul 19, 2021 12:20:35 GMT -5
As the sun dipped below the horizon and darkness fell over Port Argentium, Theodosia went through her nightly routine. Routines were important to her, as they offered some semblance of order to her otherwise-chaotic life. Without her little rituals to keep herself grounded, how else was she supposed to pretend that everything was fine? Her homeland was underwater, she was in a tiny colony on an otherwise uninhabited island, and she spent every day terrified that people would realize that she was a fraud before they all starved to death. What if the food ran out and they decided to eat her first? She probably wouldn't be able to outrun a hungry mob. Shuddering, she tried to put her fears of cannibals aside for the night and stirred her tea. The tea was weak, as always. She'd been using less and less of it every night as she tried to ration her dwindling supply, but it would soon run out regardless. Once the tea was gone, what then? Maybe she could buy or barter some from someone else, but that would only last so long. What would she do when all the tea in the world ran out? Would she be able to find something to make tea from here? What if she picked the wrong plant and it turned out to be poisonous? Her hand shook, and she hurriedly gulped down the rest of her cup before it got cold. The tea wasn't helping, and so she moved on to the next part of her routine.
Stepping into the main sitting room of her little house, Theodosia smiled up at the vast collection of dolls on the wall. There were dozens of them, all hand crafted from scraps of cloth and stuffed with straw. Each was in the likeness of somebody who had wronged her or somebody she cared about, although the first few were so crudely made that it was difficult to tell that they were supposed to be people at all. She'd been quite young when she'd made those. All of the dolls had a number of sharp pins stuck through them, mostly through the eyes or hearts (although a token few had pins sticking out of the crotch). The newest, a muscular little figure with embroidered tattoos, hung by its neck on a rope with no less than three pins in its head. She'd been quite proud of that one.
"Hello, my dollies," said Theodosia, reaching up to stroke the oldest one on the cheek. It was faded with age, but she still remembered the little boy it had been based off of. He had kicked sand at her when she was a child, and her mother had helped her stitch his face onto the doll that night. Such pleasant times...
"I hate you," she whispered, almost affectionately. "And you, and you, and you. I hate you too. Oh, I hate you most of all..."
She went down the line of dolls, gently stroking their little cloth faces and informing each one how much she detested them. This calmed her in a way that the tea never could have, allowing her to feel like she had some control over her life. All of these people had caused problems, either for her or her friends...actually, she only had one friend. That was a depressing thought. Sighing, she stuck another pin in the newest doll and patted it on the head.
"Goodnight," she said, smiling at the dolls before blowing out the candles and making her way towards her overstuffed bed. It was more like a nest than a bed, little more than a heaping pile of cushions, but she preferred it this way. It was comfortable and secure, and it wasn't as though she ever had anyone else over here anyways. As she laid down to sleep, she realized that there was a strange light in her room. Sitting up, she spotted the source: an odd little statue of a fat monkey that she'd found washed up on the beach. Frowning, she tossed a cloth over it and curled back up in her bed. She didn't have time to worry about glowing statues, her worry schedule was full enough already. It wasn't long before she drifted off to sleep, off to the one place where she could escape all her worries.
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Theodosia dreamed, as she often did, of her work. She found herself in her tent, casting bones for a cloth doll with scratched-out eyes that seemed to grow and shrink as with every raggedy breath. When she tossed the bones into the dish, they bounced and rolled, never settling down long enough for her to read them. She apologized, gathering up the bones in her hands and casting them once more. Once again, they kept bouncing, forcing her to go chasing after them before trying a third time. When they refused to settle, the doll before her puffed up to the size of a human, leaning over the table and glaring at her with its horribly scratched-out eyes. Theodosia shrank back, but the doll grabbed her hand in its rough burlap fingers and started pulling.
"Your bones don't work," it said, its voice scratchy and dry. "We'll have to use these bones instead. They're fresh."
Theodosia shrieked, pulling her hand away and running for the mouth of the tent. Unfortunately for her, the tent flap had been stitched tightly shut. She took a pair of tiny scissors from a table and began snipping at the stitches one at a time, but the little scissors kept slipping and falling from her hands. All the while, she kept glancing back over her shoulder for the doll, but it seemed to have vanished. Where had it gone? She cut desperately at the stitches, but they kept redoing themselves, as though someone on the other side were sewing it back up as she went. As the scissors slipped from her grasp once more, she bent down to pick it up, only to find the doll (once again tiny) standing at her feet and clutching them in both hands. It snipped at her fingertips, causing her to stumble backwards and fall.
"Fingerbones," it croaked, advancing upon her as she scrambled away. "A fortune-teller's bones always know the future."
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Gray
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 125
Registered: Jul 2, 2021 10:00:37 GMT -5
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Post by Gray on Jul 23, 2021 7:52:47 GMT -5
OOC note: Content warning for the spoilered section (torture)Rule #1: The Clocktower feeds on death and pain. Rule #2: The position of the Master of the Clocktower is inherited through death, more exactly by the apprentice daring enough to kill their master. Rule #3: Everything you know about the Clocktower is wrong. A rectangle of red moonlight slowly wrapped over the man’s body. He was lying on the floor in a circular room, with thick walls of stone and stained-glass windows. A filigree of plants had infested most of the available space. He heard the regular breathing of another, he felt in his bones the ineffable ticking of a clock. Above him, a glass roof opened to a sea of stars.
He was also in a circular room, with thick walls of stone and barred, deep-set windows. Any light that somehow escaped them was caught by the dust hanging thick in the air. The stone ceiling hung low, hammering into his temples. The room was filled with dusty metal implements that he knew too well. Among them, the Clock was eternal. Its heartbeat was the same. Not an identical copy, but the same between worlds. Its gears had rasped against his back until skin broke, until his muscles tore, until his bones sung with the terrible ticking of the clock. He hung suspended by chains, wrists raw underneath, an emaciated boy with thin white hair. Positional asphyxia should have gotten him long ago. But the Clocktower grasped him in its eternity. He looked down, at the spikes of black metal breaking through his chest.
It was the same room. It wasn’t the same time, or rather, the events belonged to times that mutually excluded each other. One was a man, the other a boy. One of them was reality. The other, a dream more real than that. He had lost track of which was which.
…The pain came and went. The human mind wasn’t meant to hold so much of it at once. It adapted, just as a constant noise became silence. To fully break someone, you needed to weave a symphony. He had said that once. Multiple instruments had to be arranged in a careful ensemble: blunt force, sharp objects, humiliation, hope, confinement. The boy had begged, jeered, cursed. Nowadays he mostly hung silent. On his concave abdomen, a red-hot iron had etched the word ‘TRAYTOR’.
The misspelling was intentional and killed him every time he looked.
That moment, the boy thought through his mind like a bruise. Distant steps were climbing the staircase of the Tower. That moment, when he’d hesitated, knowing that this time, his carefully-woven, long-prepared plan to kill his master had to fail. Not for him to keep existing in the ‘real’ time, not anymore; merely for his plans to come to fruition. He had to be caught and he had to endure the consequences. ‘This time’? ‘That time’? Did any other time ever truly exist? Or was his master right, and the Clocktower had merely toyed with his mind?
‘You’re looking at these gears and seeing power, but the clock swallows the unwary and rips them to shreds.’
If he shut his eyes real tight, he could almost feel the scent of a distant glasshouse.
The steps approached. Heavy steps on cold, damp stone. ‘I hope you slip down and die’, he thought. He remembered a different staircase, with better airflow to get rid of the mold, with steps of golden wood stuck onto the stone and painstakingly carved with floral arabesques. He imagined feet slipping, the edge of a step slamming into a very particular vertebra at the nape of the neck, paralysis, and a long, long death. He remembered the feel of a wood chisel in his hand, in that other time, and what it had felt to stop being afraid. Yet that idea was strange in itself for it had never occurred to the boy he was especially fearful.
‘So, too, have fish no word for water.’
The other Self inside him, which he sometimes grew aware of, was little comfort. Their inner world was as lonely as his own, their resolve monstrous.
The boy tensed, as the familiar grey cloak appeared through the trapdoor. The familiar glimmer of the executioner’s sword, on their back. ‘Mine,’ part of him said. He’d known who to expect from the pacing of the steps, yet he still tensed. The master assassin went past him, ignoring him as he rifled through a blackmail ledger or another. The prisoner tensed every time he moved closer. For a few hours nothing happened. Then he walked back towards the exit and, before the boy knew what was happening, his arms burned with pain. The chains were snapped open, leaving him suspended on the black metal spikes growing from the gears. Today it wasn’t a mere beating in anger or an Educational Experience for the remaining apprentice, he understood. Hope, he thought, then. He could feel the edge of that particular blade clearly.
Hope was the worst.
The master assassin supported the boy by his shoulders.
“Have you finally been regretting your errant ways?” He said.
“Yes. No.” The boy’s eyes nearly jumped out of their sockets. He looked at the grey-cloaked figure, trying to read every hint in his pock-marked face, and knowing the futility of it. “I killed you.” The words slipped out.
“Still with that fantasy of yours…” Calmly, the man slapped him in the face. “I’ve given you everything, and this is how you repay me?” He picked up his chin, gently at first, then pressed. “Answer!”
“No! Yes. Yes. No.” The hopelessness of finding the right answer, bubbled up into laughter. A trickle of blood went down his chin. He knew, they both knew, that by magic, the boy was bound to tell the truth. Both of them could chart his descent into madness by how erratic his replies had gotten. “And mixed your ashes with cat litter.”
“This hand…” Ignoring his words, the grey-cloaked man picked him up by the wrist. He rubbed the hand, and the boy cried in pain as blood flowed back into it. “I’ve worked so hard to train you. Throwing knives, drawing maps, pickpocketing…” The boy felt something he hadn’t felt in a long time…no, something that the Other hadn’t. The sense of being threadbare, at once both less and more than human. Oh, he’d done it to others, both him and his alternate future, the latter having written monographs on the matter, but the remarkable self-conceit of the one who trained him would always be beyond his grasp. “I’ve put so much work into it…It would be a pity to waste it.”
But there had to be a sacrifice, and so he’d had the Clocktower craft his hell. A life was energy, and so was pain. At first it had been a necessity, to allow the remaining floor of the Tower to cross the mists while the magic was constantly seeping out. Now he could no longer get out. His soul was threadbare, tangled between the gears. But whereas diabolical machinery might feel it had him caught, soul-threads pulled the gears in a game of his own choosing, for a purpose that he-…
…was beginning to forget.
So the boy hoped, feverishly hoped that his master’s sense of self-importance would work in his favor and he’d decide he was punished enough. And that energy was pulled into the gears.
The grey-cloaked man lifted his arm up and forced it back, to a silent scream from the boy. Though the prolonged confinement had dulled his senses, he could feel, with a slight delay, the brush of moving gears just behind his knuckles. His eyes went wide. He fainted in fear, and was brought back with a slap.
“Do you think I will crush it between the gears?” The master assassin smiled. Silence lingered, and this time the boy didn’t dare answer.
His hands were what made him a weapon. He could have his face misshapen, lose his tongue, some teeth, even part of a leg, and still be of use as a torturer, if not as an assassin. Part of him hoped that the torture was merely a way to strengthen him, to carve and sharpen him into the weapon he was meant to be. Into the best he could be. To lose his hands however…would be to be nothing.
“No.” The master said. He ruffled his hair.
The boy’s heart soared so high, that he almost didn’t hear the words.
“I’d like you to do it. One finger at a time.”
The clock continued to tick, reverberating through his bones. As the boy was bound to speak the truth, he was also bound to obey the Master of the Clocktower. Their eyes met. This wasn’t phrased as an order however. It would be something the boy would have to choose to do himself.
The boy’s hand fell. Then, shaking, it started to rise. Bruised fingers caught the edge of his master’s sleeve. Then they kept going. He heard as if through water the familiar steps going down the staircase.
Strangely, he’d thought that the despair would fade when faced with enough pain. But the two just twirled around each other in a howling agony, one that left his throat so raw that for an insane moment he was worried about awaking the other sleeper in the room with a glass roof. It was the pain of a life tearing itself asunder. It was complex, subtle, lonely.
It was art. And as it sometimes happen when one’s soul is overwhelmed by an art piece, it left his body and reached out for escape, still buzzing with the magic of the Clocktower. Sometimes, he stumbled onto consciousnesses in similar states of half-awareness. Dreamers, as he’d understood from his first encounter with Zasha. Dreamworlds. Or, as in this case, nightmares. A hand broke through the earthen floor of Theodosia’s tent. By chance, it flicked the murderous doll away for a moment. Or perhaps it wasn’t chance, but rather the man's tendency to be pulled to the core of events. Colorful rugs were pushed aside with perfectly polished nails. As it clawed its way up, shadows seemed to coalesce around it. They were torn from nearby objects, which even moments later would look flat and unnatural, and wove themselves into a long, soot-colored cloak, outlining a pale-faced man with dirty-white hair as he stepped out of the hole. He had no expression, and only his long fingers gave him a semblance of life as he constantly went over his cloak, brushing away the yellow dust. “What would you give in exchange for help, I wonder.” The man said, to the girl he suspected might be the dreamer. His eyes were piercing and colorless. One could never be sure, he thought. The perspective could be locked within the doll, or even the tent. “I can read the present.” He stated.
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Theodosia Planchette
Committed
Roleplay posts: 80
Appearance: Theodosia stands at a fairly average, unimpressive height. Her red hair and numerous golden piercings and ornaments are quite eye-catching, although her tendency to glare at people often dissuades a second glance. She wears a number of bright silks and elaborately patterned robes befitting a proper fortune-teller. The twisting, vine-like tattoos on her arms are actually just painted on, a fact that she tries to keep hidden from people.
Skills and Abilities: Theodosia is a trained fortune-teller, gifted with the ability to see through the mists of time and pluck upon the threads of fate...or so she claims. Whether she actually possesses any such skills can be questionable at times, but her knowledge of fortune-telling methods (from cards to ashes to chicken entrails) is unrivaled.
Registered: Mar 28, 2021 21:11:09 GMT -5
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Post by Theodosia Planchette on Jul 24, 2021 13:52:16 GMT -5
As Theodosia scrambled backwards away from the scissors-wielding doll, a new horror appeared: a hand, reaching up through the earth as though clawing its way from the grave. As it slapped the doll aside, Theodosia took the opportunity to snatch the scissors away, backing up and staring uncertainly at the pale figure that crawled up from the earth. This was something new, she could tell immediately. Something different. While the rest of the tent was cast in the swirling, shadowy blurriness that came with dreams, the newcomer was sharp and vivid. The scissors felt tiny and insubstantial in her hands as she clutched them to her chest, trying not to panic. What sort of nightmare was this? Who was this man? Glancing down, she was relieved to find that she was at least wearing her clothes. She'd been granted that small mercy, at the very least. Taking a deep breath, she tried to calm herself and assert control. It wouldn't do to act startled. Fortune-tellers were never surprised, after all. That was rule number one.
"Who are you?" she asked, eyeing the shadowy cloak and wondering how many of her secrets and insecurities had been sucked into it. "And what are you doing in my tent? I've no need for your help, and the present isn't especially difficult to read. That's like saying you can tell if it's raining by going outside and seeing if you get wet."
She backed up until she found herself at the wall of the tent, nestled between the strings of hanging charms and beads that populated the tent. Feeling something touch her face, she flinched, batting the little curse dolly aside. This one didn't seem to have a face and hung by its neck from the support poles, but didn't seem to have any intention of stealing her fingers. Speaking of which...Theodosia looked around hurriedly, searching the shadows for the little doll that had terrorized her. She couldn't see it, and that worried her. Where could it have gone? It could be anywhere in this cluttered tent, hiding and waiting for her to step close.
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Gray
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 125
Registered: Jul 2, 2021 10:00:37 GMT -5
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Post by Gray on Jul 28, 2021 0:48:20 GMT -5
“My name is…” For a moment, the white-haired man looked lost. “Gray,” he eventually said. His eyes fixated in the distance. He peered at the hole in the ground just as it was closing, and used the tip of his boots to arrange the rugs back. “By the looks of it, I have been climbing up from Hell.”
It occurred to him that his memories were growing more stable in this fractured form, and that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.
“Anyone can see things. Not all can read.” The man said, as he slowly spun around, taking in the inside of the tent. From the hanging charms to the runes misspelled just enough to be harmless, from glints of glass and beeswax drops and the way velvet curtains dampened his voice, the dream was streaked with remarkable detail. Could it be a copy of a real place?
He stared at the barely-guessed layers of trembling silk in the far corner.
“Fears, anxieties…There’s something you’ve been avoiding to see, isn’t it?” He asked the woman. His blank voice grew softer, if only by being quieter. “Secrets you’ve been trying to keep from coming up. You feel like you’re losing control over your future. And that you can’t escape.” Through the half-translucent earth, he’d witnessed part of the events. And though dream symbols were notoriously difficult to interpret, people’s fears were far less unique than they liked to think. He watched for a response. His eyes brushed over the hanging dolls, again, in his mind. Some had pins stuck in. “Maybe there are parts of you that you are judging very harshly?…No?” His lips curled in a faint smile. If she was truly a fortune-teller, then she’d probably realize precisely what he was doing.
In the deep quiet between his sentences, he listened. Listened for the faint rasping steps of a cloth doll.
“Far from me the thought of stealing your fight uninvited.”
On its own, there was no reason for him to get involved at all. The man looked around for a comfy chair, and found a ruffle-wrapped monstrosity which he poked with the sheath of the sword on his back, before sitting down, sword against the armrest.
“But I do intend to stay here for a while, and it would deeply bother me if someone removed your finger-bones and they proved anatomically incorrect.” True, but not the full truth, wasn’t it? Gray inwardly smiled.
If the nightmare got overwhelming, the stranger might wake up.
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Theodosia Planchette
Committed
Roleplay posts: 80
Appearance: Theodosia stands at a fairly average, unimpressive height. Her red hair and numerous golden piercings and ornaments are quite eye-catching, although her tendency to glare at people often dissuades a second glance. She wears a number of bright silks and elaborately patterned robes befitting a proper fortune-teller. The twisting, vine-like tattoos on her arms are actually just painted on, a fact that she tries to keep hidden from people.
Skills and Abilities: Theodosia is a trained fortune-teller, gifted with the ability to see through the mists of time and pluck upon the threads of fate...or so she claims. Whether she actually possesses any such skills can be questionable at times, but her knowledge of fortune-telling methods (from cards to ashes to chicken entrails) is unrivaled.
Registered: Mar 28, 2021 21:11:09 GMT -5
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Post by Theodosia Planchette on Jul 30, 2021 11:57:39 GMT -5
Theodosia stared in horror at the man before her, barely noticing as the hole he'd crawled up from closed itself up. Everything about him seemed too real, too substantial. He stood in sharp focus in a world of swirling shadows, a figure too solid to be just a figment of her imagination. And that name...where had she heard the name Gray before? Someone had mentioned it to her, confided in her, and there was only one person who would do that. The memory came to her in a flash, and she clutched even more tightly at her scarf.
"You," she said, raising a trembling finger towards him. "You're Nina's...tutor. The one who knows too many things. The one who turned her into a clockwork automaton. You're that Gray, the man in the tower...but I've never met you! I've never seen you before. Why are you here? You can't be here!"
She flung a cushion at him, trying to ignore his words. It was clear what he was doing, of course. A common fortune-teller's trick, asking vague, leading questions to make the rube tell them their secrets. If he knew the tricks, did he know about her? Could he tell that she was a fraud? Why did every word he spoke sting like the pins she stuck in her dolls? As the man sat down, Theodosia glanced down at herself, half-expecting to see a giant sewing needle embedded in her breast. Nina had been right, Gray knew far too many things.
"T-this isn't just a dream, is it?" she asked, stepping away from the wall. "You're not a dream. You shouldn't be here, you're a monster. You're worse than any nightmare. What do you want from me? Are you going to turn me into a killer like you did with Nina?"
A sharp pinprick at her ankle elicited a yelp, and she glanced down to see the doll with the scratched-out eyes wielding a pin like a sword as it stabbed her. The pain was real as well, not the muted memory of pain that she usually experienced in her dreams. Scrambling back, she kicked the doll, sending it flying behind a pile of half-melted candles.
"You're not going to leave me alone, are you?" asked Theodosia, turning back to her uninvited guest. "Well, fine. You're in my tent. A reading, then? Would you care for a glimpse into your future, Gray? See if it's as dark as your past?"
Pushing a table in front of Gray's chair, she sat down across from him and began rummaging for her fortune-telling supplies. The useless, bouncing bones were cast aside, and she pulled several small items from an ornate jewelry box.
"What will it be, Gray?" she asked, trying to quell the trembling in her voice with the calming, familiar ritual of her work. "Cards? Candle wax? Tea? They'll all point to the same place, you know. It's all a question of how you want to look at it."
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Gray
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 125
Registered: Jul 2, 2021 10:00:37 GMT -5
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Post by Gray on Aug 5, 2021 9:11:40 GMT -5
He watched her carefully, in silence. Hiding the extent of his ignorance had typically been lucrative for the spymaster, and so only a spark darting across the winter sky of his eyes when hearing of Nina betrayed the thunder that struck him. This girl knew too much.
“If Nina became a monster,” Gray’s monotone voice tolled, “-then all that I have been doing-“ He took in a sharp breath. “-has been in vain. But if she simply killed someone, then that’s on her.”
‘Clockwork automaton,’ she’d said. ‘You may have miscalculated,’ he told himself. If the Clocktower reached through the wire and corrupted Nina, then he had lost. All his careful notes on her psychological development post-operation, meaningless. His lifelong game, his calculated death, merely a footnote of a footnote in another’s plans. . And with all the information reaching him being filtered through the dew-sprinkled web of dreams, with memories that may evaporate as soon as he stepped out of this tent, there was no way of knowing for sure.
It was a game he would never know the end of, in which no one would know the extent of his role. And that was fine. But for now he was alive, and he was curious.
‘Strange that you’d fear that,’ he almost said. If it hadn’t been for the unstable reality, he would have almost suspected that the fortune-teller hadn’t been told the full story. “I simply offered her some specialized information. I have neither the reason nor the time to do the same for you.” Yet the fact that she had been told anything suggested that Nina feared him less, and was therefore more likely to stab him in his sleep. He accepted that as he did most things. “What is your name, stranger? I’ve been wondering…what your connection to Nina is.”
He set the cushion she’d thrown on another chair nearby, re-arranging the other cushions there to preserve symmetry. He wondered if she might actually be Nina, or rather a piece of her mind.
“What I want is…to kill time.” He carefully spoke.
He tilted his head noncommittally, as if amused by the insinuations of his past. People never shared quite as much as when they tried to prove you wrong, he knew.
“In another world, you may have been one of my eyes-and-ears.” He spoke, and meant it as a compliment. “Here…I’ll pick the cards, if you’ll have me. The root word comes from the one for ‘book’, did you know that?”
For a moment he allowed himself a glimpse in the past, at his airy library and the feel of washi paper. He’d never been that interested in futures he could not control, but Gray too was a being of order and ritual, and so despite the dark clouds the fortune-teller’s words cast above them, he found solace.
“As for payment…” He watched her. From one of his sleeves he took out a coin, then twirled it around his fingers before setting it face-down on his palm. “I don’t think Archipelago coin has much value left, and-”, even if one could one could carry trinkets to the waking world, “Nina might have a fit if she sees his Grace’s face again.” He mused. “Would you accept payment in information? I promise to be truthful. That is…”
The faintest smile curled his lips.
“If you dare.”
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Theodosia Planchette
Committed
Roleplay posts: 80
Appearance: Theodosia stands at a fairly average, unimpressive height. Her red hair and numerous golden piercings and ornaments are quite eye-catching, although her tendency to glare at people often dissuades a second glance. She wears a number of bright silks and elaborately patterned robes befitting a proper fortune-teller. The twisting, vine-like tattoos on her arms are actually just painted on, a fact that she tries to keep hidden from people.
Skills and Abilities: Theodosia is a trained fortune-teller, gifted with the ability to see through the mists of time and pluck upon the threads of fate...or so she claims. Whether she actually possesses any such skills can be questionable at times, but her knowledge of fortune-telling methods (from cards to ashes to chicken entrails) is unrivaled.
Registered: Mar 28, 2021 21:11:09 GMT -5
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Post by Theodosia Planchette on Aug 5, 2021 17:00:04 GMT -5
Theodosia inhaled deeply, letting the smoky, incense-laden atmosphere of the tent calm her frayed nerves. Even in a dream, she could do this. She'd practiced her craft her entire life and knew no other. To an outsider, a fortune-teller's work may have seemed to be of the hands and eyes, all about flipping cards and reading deep into the threads of fate. Anyone who knew anything, however, would be well aware that it was a game of the ears. The real trick of the fortune-teller was to listen, and listen she did. She dissected Gray's every word like an overeager anatomist, plucking out the unspoken words and veiled meanings. The man clearly was no stranger to killing, nor did he find the act itself in any way appalling. He recognized the possibility of Nina becoming a monster, though...but what did someone like him consider to be monstrous? She had no reason to believe him to be lying when he said that he had little interest in her, which offered at least some measure of comfort.
It was his next question, however, that brought Theodosia the greatest pause. She'd expected the visitor to know everything about her already, but it seemed that he was just as confused as she was...or at least, not as all-knowing as she'd expected. That was valuable information indeed, something she desperately lacked.
"Nina is a friend," she said, keeping her voice casual and noncommittal. "My name is Theodosia. The cards you request, so the cards it shall be. I must say, I've had a great many visitors to my tent before, but most come calling when I'm awake. I can't say I've ever had a guest come in such an unusual manner, especially one that doesn't so much as know my name beforehand."
The way he spoke of killing time sent an icy chill down her back, forcing her to suppress a shudder. The turn of phrase, while perfectly ordinary and innocent in and of itself, took on an entirely different air when spoken from this cold, unsettling visitor's mouth. Killing time...did such a thing have to do with the clock tower that Nina had spoken of? What sort of terrible machinations did this man have planned? All these questions, and none that she could ask. A fortune-teller had to know everything, after all. She drew the cards from the box and pulled them from their silk carrying pouch, letting the gold-flecked backs of the cards sparkle in the light of the many candles. It was with a steady, practiced hand that she shuffled the cards, letting them flicker and fall between her carefully-manicured fingers into an even stack on the table. This, finally, was something familiar.
"The cards are attuned to the threads of fate," she intoned, speaking the well-rehearsed lines with a smooth, steady voice. "The threads pull the cards into place, offering a glimpse into the future...if one knows how to read. I doubt that your dream-coins will buy me much in the real world, but your offer of information is...intriguing. That will be my payment, but for now...the reading."
She flipped the first card, laying it flat upon the table. A ghastly clown puppet sneered up at her, painted in remarkable detail upon the little card. It hung limply from its strings, head tilted to the side and arms bent to unnatural angles. The white-painted face seemed almost demonic with its black eyes and red-painted mouth, which contained far more teeth than any human mouth should. A knotted noose hung around its neck, the frayed end hanging like a necktie. Theodosia frowned, then quickly covered it up with a smile. This was not the cheery child's toy that the card usually depicted.
"The marionette," she said. "Facing away from you. You're exerting influence over somebody, whether you know it or not. It's a warning, a cautionary card. See how frayed the strings are? Marionette strings break, and someone once controlled may seek vengeance once freed. Treat them kindly."
The second card she turned over was warped as well, depicting a thin man strolling down a path. Unlike the usual bright forest road that she'd expected, the picture on the card showed the man walking through a dark, endlessly flat world beneath a starless night sky. Judging by the way the man's shadow stretched forward down the road, the only source of light in this desolate world seemed to be behind him.
"The journey," she said, once again hiding her surprise. "Facing towards you. You're going to end up somewhere you hadn't expected, but the journey itself may be of more consequence than the destination. Take care to pay attention to where you're going and don't forget that it isn't always all about where you end up, but how you get there."
The final card she turned over was so horrific that she couldn't stifle her gasp, raising her hand to her mouth in shock. The card depicted a severed head atop a silver platter, dark blood pooling on the plate and spilling over to stain the velvet tablecloth below. The face was frozen in a twisted contortion of agony, and the stump of the neck was ragged and torn. This was not a head that had been merely chopped off, but one that had been sawed from the body slowly and sloppily. It took a moment for Theodosia to recognize what the card was supposed to be, recognizing the bearded head from the original and spotting the shattered crown discarded off to the side.
"T-the king," she said, struggling to regain her composure and forcing herself to tear her gaze away from the awful card. "Facing you. An important figure in one's life. Who is your king, Gray? Is it you? Somebody you know or love? Recognizing the most important people in your life and protecting them will be invaluable in the coming days. Even if it's just yourself."
She left the cards on the table and folded her hands together, looking expectantly to Gray. Had the reading pleased him, she wondered? Was it simply a diversion to "kill time" as he'd mentioned, or would he find actual value in her words? The shuffling of moving dolls caught her attention, but she ignored it. Dreams were dreams, nothing more. Gray, on the other hand, was something else entirely.
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Gray
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 125
Registered: Jul 2, 2021 10:00:37 GMT -5
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Post by Gray on Aug 8, 2021 7:22:25 GMT -5
As the fortuneteller had promised, the cards held darkness under their golden rims. Their artful shuffle had not been crooked, as far as the Gray could tell, but in a dream that would not matter.
The first card. The Marionette. It provoked no outward reaction apart from the gaze as tough as steel stabbing right through it. That others saw him as a puppet-master was hardly a grand reveal of fate; it was the truth. Yet for a moment, the puppet’s broken posture made him pause, and he touched the little finger of his left hand as if to make sure it was there. He took the time to reflect. Did this vision in another’s dream mean that he still affecting Nina, even from this sorry state? Between him and the Clocktower, who pulled the strings? As for Theodosia’s perspective, he understood that she was trying to advocate for her friend, and he respected that.
“One should be careful, for vengeance is also a string.” He spoke. It wouldn’t influence the end result, of course, but he admired competence.
Once he had tried to shelter Nina’s hatred for him, to use it to help her grow, as one would shape a bonsai tree, giving its branches the illusion of freedom while clipping all that was undesirable. But that was long ago. Here, he had truly reached the point where all the strings were finally fraying. His strings of reason, too. He was forgetting things. He had forgotten why he had to go on, except that it had to do with Nina and the Clocktower, and that he had cared enough about it to have started on this path knowing there would be no way out. From here on out, all that was left was-
Darkness.
The second card unsettled him. Not only it mirrored his thoughts, but it raised a nagging doubt in his mind that he had seen this before. He seemed to gaze far down into the landscape. Theodosia spoke of journeys, and he knew that the end would be nothingness. He felt his heart beating and acknowledged that part of him was scared, and that a greater part of him was exhausted. Perhaps there might be some truth to appreciating the journey, as ironic as that was. These bubbles of time, granted to him in other people’s dreams, represented unique moments that Gray would have never gotten to live otherwise.
‘The king is dead’.
The third card. He grit his teeth so hard that the tension reached his temples. He clenched his hands, both in disgust at an execution done so poorly, and at the realization of what it meant for him. He remembered Zasha’s dream and the hanged man made of stained glass, the cake stamped with a moon, perhaps the same light left behind in the earlier card, the reflection of his head onto a plate. Patterns repeating. He reached to the back of his neck, where he had once been branded with the mark of the Clocktower, and his fingers came back bloody. Perhaps his time here was too little to solve this mystery.
Perhaps he didn’t have to, for once.
For a minute, he simply stared at the cards, in silence. So slowly he smiled, that one could not follow his lips moving.
“I am pleased with your reading. It’s been…Comforting.” He admitted. A chuckle escaped his throat, at how professional the woman was to talk a nightmare into self-care. While he doubted most who claimed to grasp the threads of the future, he believed in the power of the mind. It could be his mind, pinned on the cards, he imagined. For the spymaster to have his deepest secrets stolen so brazenly, and simultaneously treated with such gentleness, was a startling experience.
His fingers brushed over the closest edge of the cards, thinking that it might be the last time he got to touch paper. “As promised.”
His hand flicked into an open gesture.
“Three cards. Three questions. Ask away.”
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Theodosia Planchette
Committed
Roleplay posts: 80
Appearance: Theodosia stands at a fairly average, unimpressive height. Her red hair and numerous golden piercings and ornaments are quite eye-catching, although her tendency to glare at people often dissuades a second glance. She wears a number of bright silks and elaborately patterned robes befitting a proper fortune-teller. The twisting, vine-like tattoos on her arms are actually just painted on, a fact that she tries to keep hidden from people.
Skills and Abilities: Theodosia is a trained fortune-teller, gifted with the ability to see through the mists of time and pluck upon the threads of fate...or so she claims. Whether she actually possesses any such skills can be questionable at times, but her knowledge of fortune-telling methods (from cards to ashes to chicken entrails) is unrivaled.
Registered: Mar 28, 2021 21:11:09 GMT -5
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Post by Theodosia Planchette on Aug 9, 2021 13:21:49 GMT -5
Anybody with a passing familiarity with the art of fortune-telling would know that Theodosia's craft was not the reading of cards, but the reading of people. She watched Gray's reactions to her reading with a careful eye, noting every twitch of the mouth and tension in his muscles. Her words, as she'd hoped, seemed to have struck home with the man. The thought sparked a faint glimmer of satisfaction and she smiled despite herself, pleased at her own skills even when faced with such an awful nightmare. She may not have possessed any other useful skills or talents whatsoever, but at least she was a good fortune-teller.
It was difficult to see how anyone could find comfort in the twisted cards on the table before them, but Theodosia nodded regardless. In her line of business, the truth was whatever the client believed. Besides, the man sitting before her seemed almost more monstrous than human. Perhaps he liked frightening things, or maybe he had read some deeper meaning into her words. People often did, and typically felt all the wiser for it. Such insights often led her customers to come away feeling like they'd gotten their money's worth, and so she tried to encourage them as much as she could.
"Fate is a fickle thing," she said, nodding. "A glimpse beyond the veil can often bring comfort, though. As for my questions, though...well, I've got many, but three will have to do."
Reaching across the table, she tapped the last card with a polished fingernail, pushing it towards him.
"For this card," she said, "the first question. It's you. How are you here, in my dream? Shouldn't you be...asleep somewhere? Dreaming your own dreams, rather than disturbing the rest of others?"
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Gray
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 125
Registered: Jul 2, 2021 10:00:37 GMT -5
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Post by Gray on Aug 10, 2021 12:15:47 GMT -5
“Those are three questions, dreamer.” Gray’s smile glimmered like frozen mercury.
“Are they not?” He spoke. With a flick of his hand, from under her sleeve, he slid the remaining two cards near the last, their gilded edges sketching a staircase on the green velvet. He watched the woman from under white eyelashes. He was not going to make it easy for her.
He waited.
“How?” He eventually relented. “Magic. Magic and the mind.”
With silence, he teased. Then spoke again.
“Surely you, out of all people, must know the mind’s remarkable powers. It can unlock the secrets of the world, or destroy a person more surely than this sword of mine ever could. Some say that it can even bring happiness.” Gray shrugged. “Dreams are a threshold. Push the mind and magic enough, beyond what most would think sane, and the possibilities are staggering.” He raised one finger, very slowly. “I won’t give you instructions. Do not try to follow me, for you would surely be crushed between the gears.”
He wasn’t talking to her, not only.
His goal was simple. Theodosia may be the last connection he would ever have with Nina. The fortuneteller might forget, or she might be in fact Nina’s enemy. He wasn’t going to base Nina’s life on an assumption, even one as strong as it being difficult to lie when half-asleep. The spymaster had to spin a tale that was memorable, harmless enough not to be used against his apprentice, and still potentially of use if it reached her.
And he had to play it as a game.
For you see, the target values finding an ace more highly when they don’t realize the magician is doing his damnedest to palm it on them.
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Theodosia Planchette
Committed
Roleplay posts: 80
Appearance: Theodosia stands at a fairly average, unimpressive height. Her red hair and numerous golden piercings and ornaments are quite eye-catching, although her tendency to glare at people often dissuades a second glance. She wears a number of bright silks and elaborately patterned robes befitting a proper fortune-teller. The twisting, vine-like tattoos on her arms are actually just painted on, a fact that she tries to keep hidden from people.
Skills and Abilities: Theodosia is a trained fortune-teller, gifted with the ability to see through the mists of time and pluck upon the threads of fate...or so she claims. Whether she actually possesses any such skills can be questionable at times, but her knowledge of fortune-telling methods (from cards to ashes to chicken entrails) is unrivaled.
Registered: Mar 28, 2021 21:11:09 GMT -5
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Post by Theodosia Planchette on Aug 11, 2021 0:22:04 GMT -5
"Not so fast, intruder," said Theodosia, swiping the stolen cards back from his hands. "This relationship is one built on trust, is it not? You trust me to read the cards well and accurately, guiding you into your future to the best of my ability. In turn, I trust you to tell the truth and to obey the spirit of our agreement rather than try to swindle me with cheap tricks and word games. You'll answer my questions, Gray, because you agreed to and because you want to hear my questions just as much as I want to hear the answers. I've played this game before, you know. We both know that a question can sometimes offer just as much information as answer."
Gathering her two remaining cards tightly in her hands, Theodosia contemplated the strange man's words. Magic and the mind...a dangerous combination to be sure, especially if one knew how to use both. She had no doubt in her mind that Gray was more than competent in his craft, and so she reminded herself once more to be careful. This was more than just a dream, and she wasn't sure exactly how far the consequences of anything that happened here would go. Pushing mind and magic further than they should go...no wonder the man's body was catatonic.
"Forcing the mind and magic past the point of sanity leads to madness," she said. "Many might call you a madman, Gray. I may be among them, I'm not sure yet. A madman's words can still hold truth, however. I wonder how much happiness that mad mind of yours has brought you. I don't believe it's brought Nina any."
Setting the Journey card on the table, she slid it carefully towards Gray. It was time she cashed in her second question.
"The Journey," she said. "The path that leads to a goal. What is your goal, Gray? What do you mean to achieve? One does not push their mind beyond its natural boundaries just for a chat. You're here for a reason and I want to know what that is."
He wasn't here for her, Theodosia knew that for sure. The man hadn't even known her name when he'd arrived. It all had to be about Nina, then. What did he want with her? Was it not enough that her body had been infested by that accursed clock? He clearly some sort of information from her, probably to influence Nina further...somehow. Did he walk into her dreams as well?
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Gray
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 125
Registered: Jul 2, 2021 10:00:37 GMT -5
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Post by Gray on Aug 16, 2021 11:10:01 GMT -5
‘Clever.’ Joy crackled in his chest like a struck match. The little ways in which she prodded and probed. The repetition of the word ‘mad’, with the elegance of tin ladle striking a pan, not in an incoherent ramble, likely, but in a calculated quest for information. After all, someone who valued their mind might speak out of turn when their sanity is being questioned.
“I am as far away from sanity as madness. But simply in the opposite direction.”
He shrugged, as if regretting his slip, and raised his card to his lips, partially as if to study it closer. And partially as a way of reminding the girl of the rules of the game.
‘Take what you want, and pay for it.’ He watched her over the card edge.
And so she did.
He nodded at her question, and neatly placed the two cards side by side.
“I hate repeating myself.” He stated.
He took a breath, trying to weave the story he was meant to, when he had nothing. On the table, he saw it all in perspective. The flow of the questions followed a certain pattern, and it was not a direction he was opposed to. Yet inside he tensed, for that predestination held in it something of the nature of a clock.
“I can hardly fault curiosity. ‘Why’ is a question that can be answered at many scales.” If the Count of the Pawlonia House slipped down the stairs, was it because water is slippery, because the window was open on a rainy day, because he had one of the Duke’s accountants injured, or because of the larger economic shift between nobility and the rising merchant class? Which scale is the most informative, and which would hide what he needed to hide? “At the largest scale, my presence here is a result of events set in motion hundreds of years ago, that have since consumed thousands of lives. It is the story of the Clocktower and it includes, though it is not limited to, inheritance, a witch, mistranslations, genocide, hemlock, and the greatest detective in the world. It is a story of a story, one that left the hands of men and started walking on its own.”
He spoke nothing of the other scales. For he did not know. Apart for-
“At a smaller, more human perspective…” He added. “You can see this as a test. I wanted to see what weapon my apprentice had picked. You are sharp in ways that she is not. She’s going to need that.” He spoke, and it was the truth. That it became the truth just as it was spoken mattered not. “If you stick around. For you can also see my arrival as a warning. I suspect that the ending of the first story has been set into motion. I suspect I may have done that.” A slight tilt of the head. “You’re going to live in interesting times.”
He stopped, and brushed the air with the back of his fingertips, as if dismissing a troublesome fly.
“Oh, and on the off-chance that Nina starts behaving in an especially erratic and murderous way, I do recommend imprisoning and crippling her. Do get a proper medic for that; most wouldn’t know what to do with an internal infection if it jumped out of a ditch and bit their nose off.” His voice had remained equal; his eyes, equally cold. “That might at least delay the issue.”
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Theodosia Planchette
Committed
Roleplay posts: 80
Appearance: Theodosia stands at a fairly average, unimpressive height. Her red hair and numerous golden piercings and ornaments are quite eye-catching, although her tendency to glare at people often dissuades a second glance. She wears a number of bright silks and elaborately patterned robes befitting a proper fortune-teller. The twisting, vine-like tattoos on her arms are actually just painted on, a fact that she tries to keep hidden from people.
Skills and Abilities: Theodosia is a trained fortune-teller, gifted with the ability to see through the mists of time and pluck upon the threads of fate...or so she claims. Whether she actually possesses any such skills can be questionable at times, but her knowledge of fortune-telling methods (from cards to ashes to chicken entrails) is unrivaled.
Registered: Mar 28, 2021 21:11:09 GMT -5
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Post by Theodosia Planchette on Aug 23, 2021 2:17:41 GMT -5
The opposite side of madness. What could Gray possibly mean by that? Theodosia stared at her mysterious visitor, unsettled by the man's cryptic words. What could be on the other side of sanity from madness? She imagined a cold, calculating mind, able to develop ideas and solutions that the ordinary folk would never be able to even conceive. Was that the creature that sat before her? Was it something worse? She didn't know, a fact that frightened her very much indeed. She eyed him cautiously, as one would with a questionably tamed wolf. If he thought that killing her would further his mysterious goals, would he hesitate for a moment? His explanation of said goals didn't help settle her nervousness at all, but at it at least shed some light on why he was here.
"Your apprentice's chosen weapon," she repeated, hating the way the words felt in her mouth. "Is that how you see people, Gray? Weapons? Tools to be used to maim and kill? If you meant to frighten me away from Nina, you're not succeeding. I'll not run, Gray. We'll see how this story ends. You're not the one who can peer through the veil of time and read the thread of fate, after all."
His next words, however, brought the tremor back to her hands. He almost seemed to expect Nina to begin acting erratic and murderous, as though it were just a side-effect of his training. It didn't seem possible that such a thing could happen...but hadn't she watched her friend stab an injured man to death with her very own eyes? She shuddered, not wanting to think about such grim fates. Imprisoning and crippling her...how could she ever do that? The answer, of course, was that she couldn't. There was no way that she'd ever be able to do such a thing, and so she'd have to find a way to prevent it. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she pushed the third card across the table. The twisted clown puppet grinned up at Gray from within its paper prison, seeming ready to leap into life and begin its madman's dance at any moment.
"I suppose that brings us to the third question, then," she said. "The marionette. I'll bet you already know where this one is going, it doesn't take a fortune-teller to figure it out. Nina. How can she be freed from the clock tower's influence? There must be a way that she escapes the path that you've shoved her down and finds her way back into the light. She's not your little knife, Gray. Not anymore. The old world is gone, and the threads of fate point towards a new future upon this unexplored land."
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Gray
Dedicated
Roleplay posts: 125
Registered: Jul 2, 2021 10:00:37 GMT -5
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Post by Gray on Aug 26, 2021 12:42:12 GMT -5
Every second that passed was another step closer to the room in the tower. Darkness loomed closer. He walked that path, steps heavy, as a meditation.
“A weapon can protect, or cut infection out of a wound.” He said quietly. “If sharp enough, it can even cut strings.”
The question. Full of assumptions, emotional, and factually incorrect. Yet also right in being the just question to ask.
“Not mine.” He stated. Never fully his weapon. “And the Clocktower…I’ve been wondering that. Ever since before I crafted within Nina a masterpiece of engineering.” He shrugged. Images flashed in his mind. That girl, pinned like a butterfly on an operating table, while he figured out how to sew her soul back together with metal wire cast out of a molten gear. He remembered the pain, the fact that he’d had to build his greatest creation with several ribs broken by the victim herself. Yet to assume that it was kindness that drove his needle would have been laughable. He remembered being angry, furious. He remembered realizing that she had managed the unthinkable in rescuing his life, and for the first moment in a long time, feeling…hope. The memory faded away as he tried to grasp it. His eyes seemed to lose themselves in the distance.
“Once, I thought that if I made her strong enough to kill me, that might just do.” An exhalation, almost the start of a chuckle or a snort of exasperation. “It was so difficult to restrain myself at times…To pull on just enough strings to give my successor a fighting chance at staying alive, while not turning her into myself. Do you think I didn’t realize this? That I couldn’t hammer a glass knife into place.” He shook his head. It had been a monstrously difficult balance to strike. What made the traveler powerful, her curiosity, her wanderlust, her unparalleled sense for magic, was also what made her fragile. But...“In the end, it wasn’t as simple.”
He supposed that no one would ever know the full truth.
“I’ve forgotten.” He smiled. “Whether I meant to help her, or whether she was simply meant to be a sacrifice for a greater goal. I don’t know the way out.”
He picked up the last card and, for a moment, there was a pearly reflection on the back of it. Almost as if the card had turned translucent. But there was a difference. Though still broken, the marionette’s strings weren’t pulling it apart. They were orderly stitches holding it together.
“It is, as you say, a new world. Figure things out yourselves.” He mused. Then winced. “Unless Nina has already gotten herself killed trying to rescue someone. She’s got terrible habits. Terrible.”
Yet just as easily, his frown turned to a smile. His voice was deceptively soft.
“And, oh, Theodosia?”
She hadn’t asked him for help, after all.
“A few minutes in the light should help.”
For he’d seen the needle-armed doll in the shadows, sneaking closer, and for a moment, its button eyes had met his. He knew that his time in the dream was nearing its end.
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