Queens of Higher Mystery // [Bird vs. Helle, Day 4]

[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

Hellemine Cauchemar, freed of her earthly bonds and demonic possession, found peace.

Stillness.

Eternity.

All that she had prayed for, searched for, sacrified for a better, safer life for her family. The debt was paid. Her life was forfeit. Nothing would divide her from the stars.

Except, apparently, one fucking thing.

Her cleansed soul collided into her battered body with a violent shake. She sat bolt upright in a locule, carvings of bones arrayed around her. The catacombs had a strange half-darkness to them, a light's edge, a corona -

She jerked one arm, elbow first, upward. Laid her scarred palm across her eyes and pressed gently.

One eye gave.

The other - glass or wood or cybernetics, she did not know - was cool and firm to the touch. Wrist, fingers, wrist, fingers, her hand skittered down her pale face until it came to rest between two blanched lobster claws.

Her token remained, untouched.

But her knife - her offering - was long gone.

Helle slapped the cold stone floor. "No no no!" She cried petutantly.

It echoed: no no no, no no no, no no no.

When she spoke again, it was but a whisper. "We had an agreement. My life for my sisters'. The debt is paid." She lifted her knees to her chest, her hands to her hair - only to find it chopped, cauterized. Helle groaned, gripping the lobster's exoskeleton instead. For a time, she rocked.

The music came faintly at first.

A whisper of an echo, threaded between no's.

Then louder. Commanding. Not a vision or a ghost, but present.

Helle stood, heart thundering in her chest. She studied the faces and felt sure they had been in the Training Center with her, though she could remember neither one. Dead?

"Dead dead?" she asked of the tomb, and sent the terrible curse echoing.

What did that make her?

She scrambled over the carved bones, checking every crack and cranny. Nothing. She craned her neck down the hallway to see it splinter and splinter again. Open pathways, branching possibilities.

She gripped one of the lobster's claws, unsure if it had survived as she apparently had, and almost stepped into the hall.

A crackle of static.

Helle lifted both pale claws to her ears, letting the sharp tips rest against her temples. "What's been done to me?" She asked shakily. Static like a summer storm. "Hello?" A crackle. A fissure. "Can you hear me? It's Helle. Oberon? I think - I - is this better?" She paced the half-circle of her locule, climbed onto the carvings. "Please answer, did the boy and the girl die? I'm -"

Static.

All night she tried. Little squeals and clips of words made it through.

She had no more answers.

But she felt grounded nevertheless.

She felt free.

So when Hellemine Cauchemar, the exorcised, heard the footsteps of someone else, she did not flee. Seated, she crossed her legs over the alabaster bones, let the white claws rest face up on her shoulders, and hugged her arms across her chest.

"Who dares disturb me?" She demanded, voice booming, stretching the limits of the echoing catacombs.

Title Quote by John Ruskin:

“And whether consciously or not, you must be in many a heart enthroned: queens you must always be: queens to your lovers; queens to your husbands and sons; queens of higher mystery to the world beyond, which bows itself, and will forever bow, before the myrtle crown, and the stainless scepter of womanhood."

[D6f Carmen Cantelou [aza]]

bird ivy

I wake up and my neck aches. It hurts a lot. It hurts so bad that I run my hand along it and feel a deep incision that has healed to a scab, a slash, a slice that seems to have closed up over night. Huh.

Did I die?

Because I can't remember how I got here. I close my eyes and try to trace my footsteps back to where I was. There was a very tall spire, clouds circling above and Callum still smelt like sick. And we both started to walk up it, and then there were trees that started to attack. Their fingernails like knives and their hands strong enough to strangle. Callum and I were in it together — except, when I look around me now, I'm alone.

There's a weird darkness. It's surrounding me. I open my eyes and it's still there, whole as ever, darker than it was when my eyes are closed. I want to call out to see if there is anyone else here but even my breaths echo back to me. An eerie yet faithful companion. And I wait for a few moments in between my breaths to see if the echos can still find their way back, and when they do — I feel, I feel... I feel?

There's no pain. There's no sadness. There's not even emptiness. I don't think I can feel anymore.

And that makes sense to me. The last memory I have before waking up is a light being eclipsed by a skeletal hand that was warm and familiar to the touch, a source of happiness that felt eternal and beautiful. I think I touched it, I think I touched it and tainted it somehow because even when I replay the memory in my head, I can't yearn for it in the same way. The feelings I had are forbidden. Locked away, somehow. Everything I'd ever felt consumed within folds of darkness that swallow all light in the most unforgiving but comforting way, everything I'd ever felt becoming cherished by everything I'd never wanted to experience.

I am hollow. Completely. A shadow on a burning ground; I am dead.

Yeah. I died.

I sit cross-legged on the ground and start twisting my fingers together out of boredom. I guess this is just a continuation of all I have ever known. Loss. This is just the loss I've known before but worse. That old charm bracelet, all my homework, my baby teeth, control, my Mom — and now, my life. The only difference with this new addition is that I don't have the energy or power to cry. Every story I'd ever been told has prepared me for this moment.

I am okay. I mean, I'm dead, but really, I'm okay.

I guess this is just the story Mom would've written for me. I've always been just as horribly normal as the people she wrote about and I remember telling myself that if she ever got the chance, she's turn my myth into legend. Heartbreaking. Heartwarming. And whatever this moment is — acceptance? Realisation? Rebirth? Whatever it is — it feels like it has been written into history by her hands. My life has already been read aloud, the pages have turned and the book is closed.

This must be the sequel. My death is being written in her handwriting. It's a work in progress, but I think it means that I'm finally lost. Because there's nothing to even try to feel, there's no Callum, there's no stench of vomit, there's no tension, there's no fear, there's no relief, there's no pain, there's not anything.

The room I find myself in is ornately dark. A paradise that has been carved with murder in mind; pillars are tall and grand, somewhat imposing in their height but not enough to make a dead girl scared. The walls are decorated and encrusted with small gemstones that are beady and malicious, watching me eagerly as if I'm some sort of miracle.

I'm not a miracle. If I died and am somehow still alive, it's amazing, sure, but it's also bad luck.

I start to walk around, my footsteps echoing just as my breath does, the sound beating back to me acts only to remind me that I really am still alive because my heartbeat is inescapable. The walls become home to mementos from the past: a large skull of a mythical creature, polaroid images of shadows and painted faces, a pretty wooden necklace, flat caps, flowers — and a small vial of urine.

Gross.

The pulse continues as I move but it is a rhythm that I sort of wish wasn't there — because it means that I'm going to have to die again and be twice as void, twice as full of nothing, twice as dark. Edging closer to the centre of the room, there is a fellow shadow seated on the ground. Sat tightly, its body possessing the fragility but danger of a thousand needles.

"Who dares disturb me?" The echo of the beating voice is just an inescapable as my pulse. I follow the echo with my eyes and swear I can see it bounce off a door in the distance. An exit — to freedom? Home? Back to life?

I don't know. But I think I want to find out. I'm lost, completely, but now I have to find myself.

"Oh," I say bluntly. "It's me. Bird. You don't look too good... but I probably don't either. Are you... uh, okay?" I mean, I'm dead but I'm fine but I'm probably an anomaly. I've had my whole life to prepare for a moment like this — but I'm not sure it is something that crosses everyone's mind.

This is my sequel.

[ bird ivy attacks hellemine cauchemar ; knife ]

BieTmZdjIEknife

[ 2051 -- Shallow Cut on Right Thigh -- 3.5 damage ]

knife

[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

If Hellemine had escaped death's cluthes by a demon's curse, surely Bird Ivy had escaped with an angel's blessing. She looked maybe a little tired, a little frail, though if memory served she was from Twelve. But otherwise Bird looked ethereal, ringed in soft blonde waves, pupils dark and full of the bones on which Hellemine perched.

"It's me. Bird."

Bird.

The echo of an explosion, staccato between no, no, no. Hellemine flinched.

"You don't look too good... but I probably don't either. Are you... uh, okay?"

"Never better," Hellemine purred as Bird's knife glanced off her folded thigh. A little trickle of blood - the first evidence that she was still mortal - traced a crimson line over her white robes.

Hellemine jerked upright, vertebrae clicking into place as she stood. She shook out her airy sleeves, clenched her hands into fists. "You didn't happen to send me a little gift? You know, before?"

She licked her lips. "Something that went boom?"

[Hellemine attacks Bird; unarmed]

i9mbdgpEgMunarmed

[Black Eye -- 3 damage]

unarmed

[D6f Carmen Cantelou [aza]]

bird ivy

There's a thickness in the air. It hangs itself in my blindspot along with my skeleton that seems to have escaped by skin. Because the air is the complete opposite of the body I now have: scarred, void, the blackness and the bleakness in between the stars. I try to locate a part of myself that feels normal — but everything is twisted beyond recognition, glazed over with a dark syrup that hides the lights I used to see in myself.

I don't think I'm alive. I think I'm just breathing. Hell and holy. My love, my life, my all is gone.

It wasn't my body that death took, it was my soul.

I stand in front of Hellemine as an empty shell. And when the knife comes down against her skin, I so desperately want to feel something, some sort of regret, some sort of anger, some sort of frustration — but I can't; it's like I am immune to everything I have ever known and was yet to discover. I could be holding Hellemine's heart in my hands, I could squeeze it, I could twist it — and my eyes wouldn't flicker. My blood wouldn't have the chance to run cold because it already is.

"Never better," Her voice sounds warm, silky like an ethereal dream that fades sweetly into the sunrise peeking through your bedroom window. Her body rattling, creaking, screaming as if it holds captive the soul I've seemingly misplaced. "You didn't happen to send me a little gift? You know, before?"

She begins to move like a predator seeking her pray. And like a devil that has found not a sinner nor a saint, I can see that she wants to drag me under. "Something that went boom?"

"Boom." I repeat the word back to her. "Yeah. I bombed you. You want revenge? You've already got it. I'm dead. Cold. There's nothing inside me. I'm a void."

Boom repeats itself over and over again in my head. Is this trauma? Probably. It repeats in my head and exits into the room, boom exploding through the open space, the echo of our voices chiming in time with one another to create a harmony that has a deadly beat. Hellemine stands in the sound waves, untouched, unfazed — unable to escape whatever vision of hell we find ourselves in.

"Is that what you wanted? Is my everything enough?" Her fist goes straight to my eye, but I don't feel the pain. There's no reaction, only action.

[ bird ivy attacks hellemine cauchemar ; knife ]

OAdqhDPEkOknife

[ 2122 -- Shallow Cut on Cheek -- 3.5 damage ]

knife

[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

Boom.

Her heartbeat in her ears.

No, no, no.

A tickle of flame along her ribcage.

"Yeah. I bombed you. You want revenge? You've already got it. I'm dead. Cold. There's nothing inside me. I'm a void."

Having connected with Bird's eye socket - which was at once satisfying and reallyyyy painful - Hellemine backed off. She intended to crown herself Queen of the Damned, and she couldn't exactly do that without any subjects. There had to be the damned for her to lead, for her to be worshipped by.

Although it was troubling that her first subject seemed reluctant.

"That is what happens when one's soul is separated from one's body," Hellemine said, as gently as she could. Not everyone was versed in the pagan arts. Probably it was better for Bird Ivy if she didn't know what was coming next.

No vessels remained empty for long.

"Is that what you wanted? Is my everything enough?"

This time, Bird's weapon glanced off Hellemine's sharp cheekbones. More blood, dripping, speckling the stone bones. As primly as she could manage, Hellemine wiped the cut clean and said, a bit regally, a bit snidely, "yes, I suppose that will do."

[Hellemine attacks Bird; unarmed]

kGOMho86ufunarmed

[Fat Lip -- 1.5 damage]

unarmed

[D6f Carmen Cantelou [aza]]

bird ivy

She retaliates with a punch in the lip; the cold blood inside me rushing to my head and I start to see stars. But I would be stupid to think they are anything worth calling beautiful — their five sharp spikes point directly towards the girl who has seemingly fallen in love with her own dead self. I look at her for a moment: there's something inside her that screams so piercingly that even in the silence, I can hear it rattle between the bones within my skin. Something sinister, something seeking more darkness so that it can consume itself in the thick bleakness.

I look into her eyes. There's no light reflecting in them, there's no way of seeing a vision of my own self in them. There's nothing. And I wonder if that's what she sees when she looks at me, or whether the death that stole my soul is a distant friend to the one that took her life. Because when I look into her eyes, I'm not sure I want to accept the reality that I am just as sinister, just as dark, just as completely broken and dead as she is.

Between the pillars that keep grace from crashing down around us, our voices continue to boom endlessly around us. Like ghosts, they whisper to one another as they extend beyond the shadows in my sight, hushing themselves into silence before biting back and returning as a haunting lullaby. This place is the worst place I've ever been to — but somehow I manage to convince myself that this is an in-between worth fighting for because I don't know know if you even get your soul in Hell.

I may be dead, but parts of me are still alive.

"That is what happens when one's soul is separated from one's body," she says softly, her words carried around the room like a sweet song. The Helle before me seems more twisted than any conjuration of Hell I could ever think of; the gentle waves of her voice must surely be able to turn themselves into something stronger. Perhaps like how an ocean wave becomes a tsunami — does that make me stupid for not running for cover?

No. That doesn't make me stupid. What does make me stupid is the fact I'm dead. What makes me stupid is the fact I'm dead and Callum isn't. I wanted to lose myself in the Hunger Games, I wanted an escape — I didn't want to really lose.

I suppose those are the best stories. A little bit of turmoil there, some trauma here, mixed together with false hope and a pinch of euphoria to create the most perfect illusion of a page turner. I'm not sure where the pinch of euphoria comes in my own story, but the demon before me acts only as an obstacle that stands in my way.

Her halo is long gone, she's sharpened it on her iron tongue. Her fingers move to wipe the small cut I make on her cheek, and something inside me tells me that Hellemine Cauchemar isn't as dead as she looks.

"Yes, I suppose that will do." Her voice twinkles with attitude.

"My soul is long gone. Lost. I'm not sure I even remember what it feels like to have one. It's so... far away." I tell her, readying my knife once more. "But that's fine. No, actually, it's great. I mean, as long as you're satisfied, that's all that matters. No one cares about souls anyway, not here."

[ bird ivy attacks hellemine cauchemar ; knife ]

LhXrPaYe98knife

[ block ]

accuracy

knife

[ 2080 -- Shallow Cut on Left Bicep -- 3.5 damage ]

knife·knife

[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

The static crackling around her ears went suddenly, ominously quiet.

"It's so... far away."

"Did you hear that?" Hellemine whispered.

When Bird spoke again, the lobster's telephone line roared.

"I mean, as long as you're satisfied, that's all that matters. No one cares about souls anyway, not here."

"We care," Hellemine replied, offended. "We care that your soul has been sent onward. We care that it's just you and I here." She readied her fists. Then hesitate, head cocked so that her ear nearly rested against the telephone's claw. "Though I think someone else is coming."

[Hellemine attacks Bird; unarmed]

2eiWz85lvFunarmed

[Bruised Right Hand -- 2 damage]

unarmed

[D6f Carmen Cantelou [aza]]

bird ivy

The tomb echoes with the sharp slice of my blade against her skin. It booms and beats back to me, slowly but surely, a sick kind of surround sound that heightens the entertainment not only for the people watching back home, but the people caught in the story too.

I look at her and wonder how it can be so difficult to kill someone who is already dead; fragile bones and paper skin, a heart that has been emptied of its inside and its strings have been severed. A skull that holds captive shadows and silence, eyes that tunnel to the darkest aspects of her core. We both have nothing left, yet somehow we still fight for something.

"Did you hear that?" Hellemine says softly. And then there's a crashing sound from the telephone that has latched itself onto her head; the silence that made the place so eerie and gloomy cast aside in favour of something with more life. It is a vibrant sound, a sweet sound, a sound that makes me realise that life is still out there, and that life is something worth fighting for. My eyes widen at the new sound that joins us in the chamber.

"We care," she says in response to me. I'm not sure I was really expecting an answer. "We care that your soul has been sent onward. We care that it's just you and I here." Her head shifts to the side. "Though I think someone else is coming."

"Well great, thanks. That makes me feel so much better." I reply quickly, before falling silent for a few moments. Someone else? I don't want someone else to come here. It's bad enough as it is.

"Wait... who's the we?" I look at her, the world around her unable to provide even a shadow for company. There's just me and her, her and I and the only thing that stands in between us is a desperation and a tension that moves through the air, possessing the both of us like a restless ghost. 

It comes to me.

[ bird ivy attacks hellemine cauchemar ; knife ]

DVK18WNs4cknife

[ 2190 -- Shallow Cut on Right Forearm -- 3.5 damage ]

knife

[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

Finally, Bird ivy is listening.

Finally she hears.

Hellemine grins, part maniac, part cheshire. The catacombs may be an endless labyrinth of stone locules, but they are not quiet. When the dead speak, they do not roar.

"Wait... who's the we?"

Hellemine licks her lips. "You'll see," she promises, flicking a strand of white blonde out of her eyes, before pressing her advantage. "I'm going to show you."

[Hellemine attacks Bird; unarmed]

QR7C7gKsR4unarmed

[Bruised Ribs -- 3 damage]

unarmed

[D6f Carmen Cantelou [aza]]

bird ivy

When I ask her that question, I feel something. Finally. Something to remind me that there's still a chance of being someone again. But with the pit in my stomach that comes with the realisation there's something even darker than death at play. Hellemine smiles, and it's a twisted smile, as if her teeth are guarding a tongue that dares to spit fire. 

I don't think I'll ever rest in peace.

There's malice in her movement. A lick of the lips like she's sealing the entrance to where her secrets are kept. "You'll see," she murmurs, her hair being cast aside so that her dark gaze can infiltrate the emptiness inside me. "I'm going to show you."

I twirl the knife between my fingers, desperate to strike in a way that frees me from this realm. Because the feeling that I feel is fear, once again, and though I really wish I didn't have to feel it, it's there, and I'm grateful because it reminds me I can still be a person again. The strings in my heart may be severed, but they are not gone — they can be tied back together.

Hellemine punches out at my core, my ribs taking the hit but the pain escapes into the shadows around us. There's just emptiness and fear — emptiness and fear — boom — emptiness and fear. And I wonder if a life where all that's left are the sad things is a life that's worth living.

But I think any life is better than being dead. Being dead where there's no chance of resting in peace — I close my eyes and imagine walking the same dead walls, the same dead floors, seeing the same dead faces, replaying the same dead memories. A prison. 

"Fine. Show me. But I'm dead. You are too, and one of us is going to die again. People like you and me... nah, we don't get third chances."

[ bird ivy attacks hellemine cauchemar ; knife ]

8m4gFM1D1Vknife

[ 2162 -- Shallow Cut on Left Bicep -- 3.5 damage ]

knife

[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

Hellemine had meant to reach through her soft skin, slip between her delicate ribs, and rip her dead heart from her chest.

Instead, her knuckles glanced off of Bird's chest. Weak. Unworthy. For the first time since her awakening, Hellemine felt cold. It was a minor nuisance, but it signified something much greater: a vulnerability. All at once she felt every one of the little cuts Bird had laid across her flesh, every drop of reanimated blood that had been spilt.

"... third chances."

Hellemine recoiled. Not fast enough -- Bird caught her left arm. Another little cut, dripping.

No, no, no.

She touched the soft spot of her third eye.

"I think you might be right. This is the end."

[Hellemine attacks Bird; unarmed]

42_DXgF6TGunarmed

[Broken Left Wrist -- 6.5 damage]

unarmed

[D6f Carmen Cantelou [aza]]

bird ivy

He fist collides with mine and it gets crushed upon impact. But there's no use in begging for sympathy when there's no hurt to cry over, and there's no use begging someone for mercy when we've already had more than enough. Because this is so similar and so different to all the stories my Mom had ever told me: rise and fall, love and loss, grace and infamy — normal people, normal motives, normal lives. Normal.

And I am normal too, in the worst way, apparently, because I seem to have been punished with something so extraordinary that it feels otherworldly. Punished? I don't know if that's the right word to describe it because sure, getting to try again is nice but the prospects of being eternally empty until time becomes a twilight zone is a daunting thought indeed.

Her wounds shed red teardrops as the open with my knife strikes, perhaps the only tears dead people will ever be able to cry. Because emotion feels the most void in this tomb, and though the walls are laden with treasures that want us to remember and reminisce — how can we when our hearts have been tainted by the curse of life?

Boom, I think, hearing my pulse in my ear. It's a big boom.

Hellemine moves her fingers to press against her skin. Her white porcelain looking cold to the touch because there's no way that blood can run warm in a place so dark. I frown a little because there's so much about Hellemine I don't know, and there's so much about her that I wish I could know because perhaps it would offer some sense of peace to the dead to at least have their story told. To grace voices and whispers until the world goes boom. To be remembered.

Yeah. I want to be remembered, too.

"I think you might be right. This is the end." Her words are like fool's gold trying to lull me into a false sense of peace. But I'm almost certain that the dead will never rest as easily as the sleeping. When you are full of emptiness, there's no space to dream. There's no place to get lost in, and for a girl who just wanted to escape Twelve — Hell is not an option.

"I don't want to die again," I tell her. I'm honest with her because if I'm going to live, she has to die — and I only trust the dead with my secrets. "I can't die again," there's bitterness that bites through the air when I speak. I don't want to die again and I can't die again because if I die again then that's it. Death makes the book close so abruptly, so quickly, so suddenly that there isn't even time to say goodbye.

But wouldn't a story of rebirth be so fun to tell? Mom's stories were too realistic for anything of the sort, but this is life, this is real life — and getting to live again would be an even bigger adventure than dying.

[ bird ivy attacks hellemine cauchemar ; knife ]

T9m7MwtnbDknife

[ block ]

knife

[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

"I don't want to die again."

Hellemine, affronted: "well, neither do I!"

But she felt it, at the edge of the cold lump where the demon had had resided. He was gone, his purpose served with her death. But he left behind a familiarity.

He left behind a knowing.

"I can't die again."

A boom far away, resounding in both of their broken bodies.

Hellemine dropped the hand from her third eye. She met Bird's gaze as she best could in the half-light. "I can't die either," she whispered like a prayer.

Or maybe more like a curse.

[Hellemine prepares.]

[D6f Carmen Cantelou [aza]]

bird ivy

"Well, neither do I!"

I sigh. Boom.

"I can't die either," she tells me, but somehow it feels in a different sense to my own meaning. There's a lack of desperation and an eerie sense of content. There's a melody to her words that threatens to pull me in and force me to drown in the beauty. But her words hold an impending doom that resembles that of the bomb I had attached to a bird. And somehow, Hellemine's words and actions become payback for what I did to her.

Because if I can still hear that boom, if it's closer now than it ever was — then she probably can too.

Tension echoes through the air so much easier than our voices. And even though it is so much heavier, it manages to soar with wings around us. And I can feel the beady eyes of the Capitol waiting and watching our every move. And if I listen really closely, I swear I can hear my Mom telling me that happy endings don't exist for normal people.

I'm a normal person. I just wanted to get lost. I just wanted an escape. My stupidity got me killed.

"I don't want to be empty anymore."

[ bird ivy attacks hellemine cauchemar ; knife ]

s5ONXYKFajknife

[ result ]

knife

[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

Hellemine shifts. Hip to hip, settling. Her body no longer feels like her own, like it's something she's fighting for. Probably she should have ceded this sack of flesh and bones to the demon a long time ago; it might have spared her considerable suffering. But that lesson could only be learned here, in the below, in the between.

"I don't want to be empty anymore."

Hellemine nods in solidarity.

She reaches out her hand. "I promise you won't be. Never again."

[Hellemine attacks Bird; unarmed]

zdrURfRYDnunarmed

[Bruised Left Forearm -- 2 damage]

unarmed