The memory takes place in an opulently decorated dressing room. The focus is on a dressing table makeup and some cup filled about a twelfth of the way with a scented oil set out there - Aradia is sitting down in front of it, reflected in the mirror fixed to its top. If you look, you can see more of the room in the reflection; a bathtub at the far end, and a dress closer by, propped up by wire framing. It's white in color, embroidered with patterns of vines and flowers, with a voluminous skirt. Nearby you can see other garments - shapewear, hosiery, shoes, a long, transparent veil.
And standing behind Aradia, a human figure, too tall to fit in the frame of the memory while she sits. They dip their fingers into the cup before threading them through the length of her hair - this was done moments earlier with her body, she remembers, just after the bath. A vital part of the process, but you don't know what that means. When the oil is depleted they brush her hair out with meticulous care, letting it hang, long and fully loose, over the chair. They speak to her gently through the whole of it, in a soft, smooth voice - she's a good girl, they're so happy she understands what she's meant to do, it's for everyone's sakes that she's doing this, but she's happy to be doing it too, isn't she? Aradia herself is silent outside of the occasional assent, eyes shut - "yes" and "I understand" and so on.
And she is, really. This is the thing that she was born to do. She can't imagine doing anything else.
The memory opens into what looks to be a bedroom - at least there's a bed there, anyway, a large one. The space outside of it is hidden by the curtains of its canopy attachment, so for the purposes of the memory there are only the soft pillows and several warm blankets.
And a hefty collection of books. Aradia sits in the bed pouring over each book she's selected diligently, with rapt attention - but the selection is eclectic, to say the least. There is the occasional adventure novel but a good chunk of what you see her read is non-fiction - psychology, biology, zoology, anthropology, theology. Astronomy, physics. Magic. The magic you know very well to be real - those books she chose are real grimoires, none younger than the first print run, some just stacks of paper bound together - all, you know very well, the crystallization of knowledge passed down from the divine.
She can even hear them as she passes over those volumes - a flash of iridescent light that blocks all other senses. A noise like television static that does the same. It's intermittent as the memory goes on - she reads, sometimes there's a spark of light and a noise and it's the only thing she can sense in that moment - and then back again. This is normal. It isn't strange to her at all. If anything she's happy to receive it.
( cw for references to child murder, child abuse )
The world in this memory feels much greater, and you are small. You walk, no more than six years old, a tiny pale wisp of a child—down a hallway decorated with expensive carpeting and portraits, from the washroom to your bedroom. A nanny, too tall from your point of view to fit in focus beyond the austere skirt, holds your hand in a light grip. The woman, whoever she is, doesn't really want to be touching you—
You hear them sometimes. Even at your age you know: all of the domestics think they'll catch what you have, they’re all unnerved by you, all perceive this venture as fruitless, but this is their job. To feed and wash this troublesome child, to dry you so your illness isn't aggravated, and to put you to bed, now.
But in that hallway, along the way, there is a distinct thud from behind a door. The manor has a few of them, lots of floors and lots of doors on those floors, but you know the source for certain—the study your father has taken up. Your feet go still in the hall, head craning to glean the remaining information—what the noise was, what his status is.
"But I think—Charlie, it's far too important for you to go without a second thought." A voice you'd heard once before. Your uncle’s tone beyond the door is plaintive, mournful. "How has it grown? You know as well as I do, it can only be done today. Tomorrow, only the Lord could tell, but today—tonight."
He continues, volume unchanged but an unmistakable tenderness to his tone, "I have an unshakable faith in you—that you are not so gone from us, just yet... Nowhere is it written it has to be this way, and there is time, still—I would wager there is a year remaining before she's grown beyond it."
"I will even make the journey with you. Into town, or out to [REDACTED]. Here on our property where no one will notice. I will ensure everything is taken care of. But for your own sake, Charlie, you simply must get rid of that thing—"
And you tremble. Not from the words—facts you have long since accepted to be the truth, how he has suffered because of you, how everyone has suffered because of you—but a small cough that rocks your body. The nanny is quick to yank you from the scene by your wrist, hurrying towards your bedroom at the farthest end of the hall. When you arrive she tucks the you into bed and leaves for the remainder of her business; neither of you say a word.
NOTES:
- To anyone viewing it it is pretty apparent from body language and briskness that the nanny is less worried about Aradia and more worried about getting caught eavesdropping on a private affair. - What can be seen of people's clothes would date this memory as happening... vaguely sometime either at the end of the 19th century or the beginning of the 20th. Likewise, the styles are vaguely western. - The bedroom she ends up in most prominently has a canopy bed in it, like the only thing visible in this memory.
Aradia, here, sits around looking very much the same as she does now - she's dressed for bed, with a long nightgown and her hair braided back, but she's not exactly in it; her feet dangle over the edge as she chats with a young man who appears to be around her age, if not a little bit older. He's tall, with short black hair and thick eyebrows, lean and tanned from work outdoors, wearing a simple shirt and trousers, all haphazardly buttoned, but the thing that makes him handsome, objectively beautiful as far as Aradia is concerned, are his wounds. Bandages at his jaw and nose, a vertical scar across the corner of his lips that's already determined to take up permanent residence there, a few others on his chest she can barely see when he moves, momentarily visible under his open collar.
He sits on her windowsill, back to the light, and fiddles with a lighter in his hands as he talks. He's telling her a story, a lengthy diatribe about his work at a mechanical repair store in the city, and how his last remaining coworker decided to terminate their stay there. It wasn't just a bicycle accident, but something that happened serially, and the boy himself had almost been caught in the crossfire. But he throws in an insult that Aradia fails to understand, and -
"Jerk-off?"
"Yeah, you know..." shifting the lighter to his right hand, he makes a loose fist with the fingers of the left - plenty of room for something to fit in the center - and moves his wrist up and down, briskly. Aradia stares for a while, the gesture lost on her - in response he just repeats it, lower on his body, near his legs -
"Oh, are you referring to masturbation?"
And he loosens back up at her comprehension, stretching his legs.
"Took you a while. I'm surprised you even got it - it would've made sense for your character type to get lost when it comes to these things. [Aradia]'s still a pure girl after all."
"However incongruous it is with the particularities of vaginal masturbation, the concept itself is regardless well within my understanding. Of course sexual education remains well standardized within this country, and when thinking of him, I myself frequently -" Aradia is calm, explaining her situation the way she'd talk about the weather, but a panic sets in within her friend:
"- I really didn't ask! You know I didn't ask! Don't be weird!" The boy nearly jumps from his seat at the window, color rising to his face. Aradia is surprised, momentarily, but her face otherwise remains stuck in that same impassive smile.
"Ah. Is that so?"
"Yes! Normies are so gross!" He starts, but he's quick to calm once it fails to get a reaction, then adds, "Whatever. Can I smoke here...?"
"Ah, smoking. Yes. Yes, if that is what you would like to do, then the smoking lounge located in our home certainly is available to you. Do make use of it as you would like."
His smile grows thin at her reply, brow furrowing in the very picture of incredulity, barely restrained - "You... Ok. So I just want to make sure. You know I'm breaking into your house right now, right?"
NOTES:
- The boy is going to show up more later so here is a PB. - Aradia is undoubtedly speaking in her own voice, but the tone and style are completely off - more than talking, she sounds like she's narrating or reading off of a teleprompter. Badly. In general, everything about the way that she expresses herself seems much more hollow, even when there is some energy to it something just seems kind of fundamentally off, or wrong. She has definitely changed. - Same bedroom as the other memories.
Aradia lies prone in her bed, body wracked by pain and fever. Her limbs feel as if they’re made of stone - her mouth feels full of cement, and she sees as if through a tarnished glass. The visuals of this memory are blurry - humanoid shadows dart to and fro on the other side of the canopy, warbling phrases she only sometimes grasps as her mind sways with them. Bits and pieces of interaction - a maid to fetch her water, a maid to feed her, a maid to air out the sheets. A maid to wipe the sweat from her body, a maid to medicate her. A doctor to take her vitals. Bits and pieces of conversation -
“If [...] doesn’t stabilize [...] “ “[...] looking like this might [...] her, huh [...]” “[...] It’s been three [...] hasn’t [...]” “He has more important [...] than [...] daughter…”
Not a word of it is unexpected. Not a word of it is untrue. Painful as it is, cold as she is, Aradia accepts her death with dull, numb relief. If this is the course of her life, then so be it. Let what remains of their line find something greater, when the curse is dispelled.
But as her consciousness ebbs and flows, she dreams. More freely than her waking movement, more vivid than her waking vision.
Outstretched before her was a yawning, endless abyss, pierced only by the man that lay within it. Clad in motes of light floating within the pitch - myriad bubbles, cabochon stones, spheres; worlds, galaxies, universes suspended in infinite time - he, great and bright and golden-eyed, shone with an enrapturing iridescence. Emanating such light and warmth that even the most brilliant of fires seemed to be a pale imitation.
She understood it herself. Indeed, the man in her dream could only be the very first flame in the world; the very essence of immaculate divinity, poured forth from the threshold. The god her family had devoted themselves to. The god that she had been devoted to. His heat radiates as far as her realm, scalds her beneath its weight, sublimates flesh and bone alike.
Even as she winces, she understands. She understands that her grandmother’s efforts have been recognized in the end, after all; in as much as Aradia’s birth was divine punishment, this surely could be nothing less than providence. All that she needs to do is maintain the path provided for her. All that she has to do is maintain the path provided for her, and she can atone.
True to her belief, when she awakens days later the illness has receded from her body - the way she envisions snow in spring, foreign heat sunken deeply into her core, stirring within her breast for the first time, and she tells no one.
SUMMARY:
- dia is stuck in bed with a pretty nasty illness and seems to be like, dying, or that’s what people believe. - she languishes in bed for days. In as much as she remembers, her father never comes to visit her, and the servants are all but openly relieved to get rid of her. - her consciousness comes and goes over the course of the ordeal and while she’s out, she dreams about a mysterious figure spread out infinitely across infinite space, and all of the different worlds and dimensions and times that compose his form. - she recognizes him as the main god worshiped in her family - the god that she was betrothed to when she was born. Important god x2. - fortunately she also thinks he’s like super hot. This is the first time she has ever felt attracted to anyone! Ever! - this vision is a sign that she’s on the right track with everything she’s been doing; someday soon she’ll be able to repent for that uh, terrible terrible crime of having been born? - eventually, her fever breaks and she recovers, but she doesn’t tell anyone about what she saw.
NOTES:
- she looks younger here: if the dia in imeeji looks ~18, this one looks ~14, give or take. - while there probably aren’t literally 8 maids waiting on her in this memory, there is definitely more than one, but they definitely all look and sound exactly alike. all of the servants sound the same and have the same silhouette in part because she’s not like super present but also because they are completely indistinguishable to her by this point. This will be relevant later! - her new boyfriend, despite whatever any text above this might imply, actually just looks like this. But like, iridescent and glowy and stuff. No eyes to speak of or like… any…. thing... - for anyone that would recognize him, it’s Yog-Sothoth!
Her lectures aren’t meeting today and her father has been away on business for longer than she may recall; the staffing of the manor is down to a sparse few servants to ensure the place stays clean, and to make sure her needs are seen to. She eats on the schedule provided for her, dresses in what is put for her, and speaks to no one. Generally, she’s content to keep to her studies, but the pace that she makes her way downstairs with, past the old schoolroom and into the parlor, is a brisk one.
There’s something that she believes she wants to try. There’s something that she has been trying, recently. She’d asked her friend a few weeks ago - to his shock, for some reason that was lost on her, something about her reaction seemed strong to him - to fetch her some songs from a few towns over, and she’s been working on it since then. In and of itself it’s no different than study: for hours a day she sits down at their piano and plays.
It’s no different from studying.
Aradia excises all possibility of failure from her mind, and studies the keys, their shape, the wires, the sounds they all make, with the same fervor she used to pour through their library. She intimates herself with the anatomy of the piano, and plays. She plays, and plays, and plays, and plays - she has to. This was something that was lost to her, something that she should have had, but who would she be if she were to miss even a single component? If she wants to make herself whole, if she wants to be to her family’s liking, if she wants to be to her god’s liking - the only choice left to her is to cleanse all lingering monstrosity from her body. She hones it, over time, from noise to a song, then two, then more, but -
SUMMARY:
- Dia learns to play the piano. It’s a montage. - She may or may not have always had these problems?
NOTES:
- We’re back to Dia as we know her! - This memory takes place over several months. The amount of time she spends just playing the piano is objectively unhealthy. - No, her dad does not come home once in all that time. - The maids all look and sound alike at this point even when she’s in good health.
The memory opens in an unfamiliar place. Aradia is standing in an alleyway late at night, dressed for bed. The boy, her friend, her familiar, brought her out here; he stands behind her with his back half-turned, an unlit cigarette between his lips, gaze following her own as it traces up to the dim sky, dulled by clouds and the city lights, down the alley walls, and onto the ground. There’s a man there, hastily bound and gagged, hidden off in a corner, and Aradia leans to reach out and touch his shoulder - she remarks, dully, that there’s rope in his mouth.
There is. Her familiar preens a bit, saying that tying guys up is a skill of his, but it falls on deaf ears as she shuts her eyes, murmuring an incantation under her breath. Heat rushes through her arm, down to her hand, invisible - but a few motes of light, small and bright and iridescent, shine in the darkness before disappearing, indicating the spell’s success.
She crushes the man’s throat. The tissues and cartilage give like putty in her augmented hand, and she turns her head - “Rather than binding their mouths through the use of rope, to silence them in this manner would be more efficient, certainly…” she remarks to the boy in her usual tone, completely placid, as if correcting a mistake on a piece of homework. Without meeting her eyes he shuffles his feet and grunts in reply, noncommittal, as the cigarette trembles in his mouth.
And then, with that seen to, she pauses, grip freed from the man’s throat to hold onto the back of his head, onto his hair. The first time was a mistake, an accident, but when the man that died then fell, it was the head wound that was responsible. That means - that if she wants to make sure, she should hew close to that idea. She should hew close to that idea, so she lifts his head, augmentation still running through her arm. His skull cracks against the wall, spilling and smearing flesh and brain and bone along the surface as she drags it against the stones, up and down. Idle, thoughtful. Hard whites and a strange red and pink yolk, chunkier than anything she’s ever seen. No, it’s more like a scramble than anything else, she thinks, but this man’s died, so there’s no way of asking him.
“[xxx],” she murmurs, no differently than before, “Would you say that these contents are somewhat akin to a scramble?”
A tense “Haha, wow,” is all he manages to reply after a few moments of silence, expression a deep grimace.
Another incantation has the body disappear, in those same motes of iridescent light - gone is the corpse and the scramble that fell out, and he takes her home - more than an hour’s ride, then back to her bedroom through the window - where she washes up and heads to bed.
When they return the following week, he’s gotten a different man. This one is quiet. She treats him the same.
Two weeks later, there’s another. She treats him the same.
By the fourth time, she’s decided that it might not be enough to replicate the original death, so she uses magic. The fist of Yog-Sothoth consumes the man piece by piece, corroding his body with the same light as before, erasing him.
And so, on the fifth attempt, she determines that the physicality might be important. She peels at his skin. She breaks his fingers joint by joint. She twists them off. She erases a few. She sets a few aflame. The extremities are convenient because there are so many of them, because there are lots of different attempts available within them, but she’s genuinely stumped.
It isn’t scary. It isn’t fun.
It isn’t disgusting. It isn’t arousing.
All that her expression betrays - all she feels - is the vague ennui of a child holding a magnifying glass to ants on the sidewalk.
SUMMARY: - Dia commits some murders, cannot be fucked to feel any kind of way about it, is confused about that, while her friend looks concerned in the background. It’s a montage. - She definitely has always had these problems.
NOTES: - Dia as we know her. - That’s real magic! - Her friend, despite being thought of as a boy, is actually a good head or so taller than her now that you can see them both standing. Physically, at least, they are decidedly around the same age.
The corridors of the house outside your bedroom are unlike anything that you have ever seen. They're vast and wide and tall and each tottering step you take feels like miles, legs short, muscles atrophied from misuse, connection dulled by fever. The ailment this day is mild, enough that you were pulled from bed earlier, by your wrist, to dress and meet the day.
This is the first time you've left. Light streams in achingly bright from the windows, dappled through the forest that envelops your home - a place far larger than you had ever known. This is the first you've left it; what you had assumed to be the entire world was nothing more than three rooms, a set of windows, and a corridor to connect them.
After washing you up, the maid dresses you in long, thick sleeves, barely obscuring the red marking already forming above your hand. Honestly, she wonders aloud, echoing alone through the dressing room., how could you be so delicate? As if her job isn't already difficult enough. Well, it's to be expected since the "incident."
But you remain still as she pulls your arms up and over into the sleeves, quiet as she roughly coaxes your legs into their stockings and shoes, and think nothing of it as she wrangles your hair into behaving. You don't want to make her work any more difficult than it already is.
Shifting uncomfortably beneath your gaze, she guides you down a flight of stairs, through another hall, and -
In what you learn to be the drawing room, on one of the couches, sits an unfamiliar shape; he is tanned, hair bleached a pale color, clothing hanging off of his body in a way that reminds you of the sleeves on your dress forms. His mouth looks strange on his face, lips and brow tight, fraught with worry, and he gives you a look that you're unable to recognize - just once.
After that, he doesn't seem to look at you at all. His gaze penetrates beyond, past you and through the maid, into the wall nearest the door as he trembles, finally averting his eyes altogether, covering them with a hand.
You're returned to your room after that for some reason; later, you overhear he is staying the night. He will live here now if your grandmother will permit it - his chambers in the old summer home, so it would seem the sum of these rooms are called, have remained untouched for the past five years, ever since the incident. But the women beyond your door are all beside themselves with laughter. How could he treat his own daughter like that? It's not so surprising, after what happened to his wife. After what she - you - did to him - who wouldn't be cold?
Truly, they feel bad for him.
Idly, in your bed, you can't help wondering what you did.
SUMMARY: - Dia, very young and kind of unwell, gets dragged out of bed and made presentable by a maid who really does not care about her and really does not want to be there. - AN INCIDENT?? - Which later turns out to have something to do with her parents? Something happened to her mother because of her, that made her father upset? - Speaking of, the occasion she's up for is meeting her dad, who does not handle seeing her well, but decides to stay in the house anyway. - She spends a lot of time wondering about that thing she did.
NOTES: - Dia Smallest; no more than 5 here, but looks as if she could be even younger. - Her father's features aren't quite clear enough for a PB in this one, but he's a lanky, youthful-looking guy in his late teens or early twenties, with tanned skin and pale, wavy hair; similarly to Dia, his eyes are red, and there's a mole beneath one. - He literally just starts crying in front of her and she doesn't get it.
(cw mentions of women getting kidnapped and murdered)
Dia looks about the same as she does now in this memory, her hair braided and pinned in a heavy bun that rests at the base of her neck. Dressed in a thick black cape that swallows up her arms, obscures the entirety of her outfit, she travels in a carriage away from the manor and the snow-covered forest encircling it, up through the valley into a city brimming with activity - until she reaches a lake, a number of imposing buildings along its shore, the ruins of pale white structures dotting its surface.
Inside the lecture hall are a number of others who appear to be close to her in age, all dressed in the same uniform, chatting away with no regard for her entry. Her cohort all lives on this campus, as is customary, but she commutes only occasionally and rarely speaks.
Without any greeting, she doesn’t see much reason to speak here, either. She takes her seat and after allowing her hands some time to warm, reviews her notes - neatly written, all concerning burgeoning studies in the quantization of radiation. To her side, she overhears two students talking. She can’t recall their names, and their faces struggle to breech the surface of her mind, but the boy animatedly recounts a story:
He had overheard it himself while out with his mother years ago, and a conversation he had at dinner the other night reminded him.
In the forests deep in the Temphill area, a good walk from the university, there’s an old house. Construction on it should have been postponed a long time ago, and there shouldn’t be anyone living there after it was bought by the ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮. Even so, people have noticed carriages traveling in and out of the glade, usually with girls -
But even though the drivers always come out, the women never do. So, they say, the ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮ were driven mad by the curse brought down upon them, and they started to bring girls in to murder them.
He’d heard that they would be forced to dance on hot coals, to feel the way ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮ had felt during the scandal. (“Was it that big?” says the girl next to him, but he has no answer.)
He’d heard that their flesh would be eaten, with their bones fashioned into furniture for the manor.
He’d heard that they would string them up and cut their throats, draining their blood into bathtubs. (“What for?” says the girl next to him, but he just shrugs.)
He’d heard that their remains would be strung up in the branches of the trees in that valley, held up as an offering to the goddess living in the woods.
The girl next to him pretends to be unimpressed - “That’s obviously a lie,” she replies as she stretches her legs in her narrow seat, but the tremble in her voice is unmistakable to anyone that could notice it, and her friend teases her in kind, trailing his fingers along an ungloved hand just lightly enough to elicit a startled laugh.
She hasn’t seen her father face to face in years now, and it goes without saying the servants are all alive, but Aradia is not one such person, and even in her dim realization it doesn’t occur to her to correct any of his information, or to speak up.
SUMMARY/NOTES: - It’s dia regular, going to ??? university? It’s just built on a lake for some reason. It’s hard to see with the focus on Dia’s point of view, but what you can see of the ruins on top of the lake seems to be somewhat Roman. - Some kind of exception was made for her to commute every once in a while while living at home. Something to do with her condition? - Anyway she doesn’t have any friends but also seems content to not take the first step - She’s studying… phys...ics?? - Two students nearby gossip about rumors surrounding a Spooky House where women mysteriously disappear - something something goddess living in the woods something propitiatory sacrifice - Overhearing it, she recognizes it as her own house, and most of that information is fairly untrue, but she can’t be moved to correct them either.
( cw child abuse, there's also a mention of vomit fyi )
Aradia is young again here, no older than ten, lying in bed, a mass of pillows and blankets far too big for her. The curtains are firmly shut in her room, but even the dimmed sunlight that reaches her eyes is too much for her to endure - but even movement has become difficult by this point, her muscles weak, a numbness spreading through her body so thoroughly she struggles to breathe.
Accompanied by her grandmother, a servant enters her quarters with a platter in hand, upon it a silver cup. Her grandmother is a serious-looking woman who Aradia nevertheless seems to admire greatly, putting ample effort into focusing and righting herself once she hears the sound of her voice, her vision no longer all that reliable. But, though Grandmother greets her - a terse yet gentle “Good evening,” - speaking is likewise beyond her at this point.
It’s been this way for some time now. The regularity of it is the only thing that holds the memory in her mind - Grandmother, without fail, comes to visit her at this time on this day in this place, accompanied by a servant, and gives her her medicine. For as far back as she can remember. Her condition was never so bad as to leave her bedridden before, she reflects distantly, but she can’t really recall.
After all, such a thing would definitely be her own fault, regardless. She’s always spilling the medicine or vomiting it up, Grandmother has long since explained to her, and so she fails to get better, or else perhaps it is her curse that directs the course of it - what she brought onto this family through her birth.
It could be both or either, and even in this state she earnestly hopes to be good, so she drinks dutifully as the cup is pressed to her lips, even though the pain that wracks her stiff neck and swollen throat. The liquid inside is vermilion in color, viscous with a taste she has never been able to place even though it remains on her tongue long after each treatment. When she coughs she goes unaided, and the three part.
And that night, as with the night following every treatment, she drifts deeply, endlessly through the ether as if afloat in a boundless sea, brimming with light and color and life so great it threatens to swallow her whole.
NOTES/SUMMARY: - It’s Dia Small, but even considering that her grandmother looks conspicuously youthful. - She gets her 9000000th weekly dosage of Special Medicine™ for her illness, which has gone on longer than she’s actually able to remember, but for whatever reason she’s only gotten more and more sick as time has passed. She thinks. On top of everything else, her illness has also affected her memory, so it’s hard for her to know for sure. - Her grandmother’s said before that she’s had trouble keeping the medicine down, so it’s no wonder, or maybe it’s the whole “you’re being punished for being alive” thing. Who knows. Either way she always drinks it all and is quick to fall asleep after, having some nebulous spooky space-floaty dreams. - While she has no frame of reference for it by virtue of being like 9, a person watching the memory would be able to understand that the medicine tastes kind of metallic-y, but while the texture seems weird it doesn’t seem to be blood or anything. Who knows.
You had a treatment yesterday, so today is a day of rest - your grandmother will not be coming with the governess until tomorrow, and you won't be eating until your stomach settles. The servant that enters your quarters brings only water and a large of books. They're thick, dusty tomes larger than you are from the way they dwarf your lap when set there, chiefly filled with mathematics and magical theories. As you finish reviewing each, some effort has you push it to the side in favor of its successor, tugged laboriously into your lap, but you pay it no mind. While you struggle to turn the pages, pain wracking your body, vision always difficult to come by in the wake of your treatments, understanding them is a trifle.
These are what your grandmother has assigned to you for today, and so, you read. A servant enters on occasion to hold your glass to your lips, the cold grip of her hand holding your head steady relieving in a way that you cannot understand, and you read.
When you make it to the last of them, it doesn't appear to fit in with any of the others in any way that you can determine - save, perhaps, for being a book. It is smaller, and the contents appear to just be that of a story. Although the others rarely ever appear to repeat, reappearing only on occasion, this one is always included in your readings. You can't recall a time that it wasn't.
But these are what your grandmother as assigned to you for today, and so you read.
Once upon a time, in a country far to the north, the Lady Shalott sat within a tall tower. It rose high above the clouds, and the air was thin and cold. Frost lay light upon the stones of her bed-room floor: they glistened like large round jewels. When she would move she would slip on the sodden ground, and she chose to stay still. Rime had made the hem of her dressing-gown quite stiff, but she did not mind, and sat there at her window watching the city below.
The snow, thick like layers of down, lay undisturbed, for no one had come to visit her in some time.
Her father, the Court Astrologer, was very diligent in his craft. He would chart the sky tirelessly and without end, and met with his lamb-eyed gaze swift Night rushed to embrace him; for none had ever looked at her for so long or so fearlessly, for it was considered a foolish thing to so, and the thousand veils woven on her loom intended quite the opposite. Blessed though their union was, it passed with the blooming of dawn, and she soon returned to her own realm.
The Court Astrologer grieved, for he had never before loved any thing other than his work. Unable to look at her, and unwilling to be looked upon, he gouged out his eyes, offering to her that part which she loved most; unable to look upon his plight any longer, she soon sent down to him a child, clad in ebon threads of her weaving.
The child grew quickly and became quite fair, but saw visitors rarely and was much reviled indeed.
“She is quite malformed up there, and must be vile,” claimed the Judge, who hoped to cultivate a reputation for his scientific mind and shrewd perception; “though she is at least of ample means.” he then added, for he was in the presence of the Banker, and feared appearing harsh to those with greater wealth than himself.
“The stone must have come from the southern country,” interjected the Architect, who knew only of appearances, but understood that judges and bankers were best befriended.
“You will do well that you do not end up like her,” said the Mother passing by, for she was pious and severe, her sharp eye seeing sin in any place, “any one that would remain indoors every day can only be slothful.”
Rumors would always surround her tower, for it was the tallest of the buildings in the northern country, and its people could not resist anything which appeared to be great, but in truth the Lady could not leave; born from the sky, the air of the world beneath was hateful to her, and she knew from her mother that she would die if she set foot there. Night bloomed flowers like heaven-bright jewels upon her windowsill; “Hold tight to these,” She proclaimed, Her voice an ambrosial wind, “and your prayers will one day lead you to your beloved.”
And so the Lady remained and prayed daily, for her mother had told her so, and all proper children knew always to be obedient to their mothers.
One day, a Vagrant traveled through the city and approached the tower heedless of the citizens’ warnings. Indeed, each determent served only to hasten his advance, for one who had already forsaken his work for travails had no need for such precautions.
“Ah!” he would say at each turn, “If there is truly a cursed maiden imprisoned at the border of this land, so twisted and sinful that her father would blind himself and lock her away, then she must be a most interesting woman!”
Then the tower came into view, and later the far away figure of the Lady, fair to his apt gaze. Climbing the tower, he could see her dusk-pale skin, her cheeks dyed dawn-pink by the cold air; her face was so beautiful that the Vagrant’s heart, which had long grown hard, was filled with emotion. He believed himself to be a man of high learning, and could not conceive of anyone so dignified ever being affected by a curse.
“What exactly are you doing here?” he asked.
“This is my home,” she answered in a soft voice, for it had gone unused for some time, “I am meant to be here.”
“And why is that? There is no indication that you should be kept away from any-one else, and I have my doubts that you truly intend anything.
I have decided that I no longer believe in curses; for I have looked upon you with my own eyes and found you to bear no marks of any misdeed, and there is no need for such antiquated thoughts in the realm of learning.” the Vagrant paused then, touching with his hand a moon-colored flower; “And these plants, furthermore, do not grow in this field.”
The Lady was shocked. She had never imagined that she would hear of the flowers again, but was too polite to direct her outburst at some-one else.
Still, her excitement had shown in her lamb-like eyes, and the Vagrant continued, “Shall I show them to you? This realm is so wide, and its inhabitants so very thrilling.”
She did not quite believe that she liked realms, or inhabitants, and her mother’s words still held fast to her heart, but she thought that she did like to see things, and took the Vagrant’s hand.
The flowers grew on a neighboring hill far away from the city. So the Vagrant explained, it had been blessed long ago, and all flora that grew there held the ability to bind the hearts of others, or to cleanse impurities; “If you are truly cursed,” he told her, “you shall not be.”
(The next few passages appear to be missing. You notice a jump in the pagination, but pay it no mind.)
After many trials they arrived to the garden, but overcome by their ordeals, they both fell ill. They had barely the strength to stand, and fever wracked their bodies; the Vagrant grew colder and colder, but could not bring himself to leave the Lady Shalott to her own death, for he had grown fond of her in their time together, and felt for her too well.
“Use these,” he said to her in a lower voice than she was accustomed, for he could feel his death was at last near, “and see to yourself. There is more for you to do by far, and I would like to see you as you once were.”
(The next few passages appear to be missing. You notice a jump in the pagination, but pay it no mind.)
But the Lady did not listen; she gathered the pale flowers and covered him as one would to a corpse, shoveling healing blooms over his body with the last of her strength, and then fell dead.
(The next few passages appear to be missing. You notice a jump in the pagination, but pay it no mind.)
The wide-seeing Sky, the king of men, had watched everything. He was moved by the act, and extended His cloud-gathering arms, taking her into the sky and returning the Court Astrologer’s sight (The next few passages appear to be missing. You notice a jump in the pagination, but pay it no mind.); “In my far-reaching kingdom shall she live as my bride, and her father shall eternally observe me.”
(The next few passages appear to be missing. You notice a jump in the pagination, but pay it no mind.)
For whatever reason it seems to catch you; once you have read it, you read it again. You don't know why. When it appears the following week, you do the same.
NOTES/SUMMARY: - Dia small, as usual, appears to be no more than like 10 - She reads a lot in this memory. It's primarily math way beyond her grade level (if she's even school-aged?) and complex-looking magic rituals, but the last one is... a storybook? Question mark? - She likes it for Some Reason (tm) but does not understand why it's here or for what purpose or what it makes her feel.
You’re sitting in a chair in a greenhouse’s garden. The thick winter cape of your uniform is hung up behind you. Shrouded by various plants and furniture, through the panes of glass you can make out the buildings of your university, the lake, and its accompanying ruins. In front of you -
In front of you, nursing a cup of tea she soon sets atop one of the many books they've brought, is a lecturer. Not one of yours, but you have seen them in passing often. Professor ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮ is tall and beautiful, pale blonde hair tied back low, golden eyes set deep behind a curtain of eyelashes; their appearance leaves you affected in a manner beyond your ability to articulate, the gentle edge of their smile coaxing you into conversation.
“Miss ▮▮▮▮▮▮-▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮?”
You’ve been meeting like this for some time now. Rather than other duties they could attend to, they've taken to hiding here in the conservatory on grounds in the colder months; it’s a secret they've requested be kept between you two, not that it occurs to you to tell anyone. When you were invited to sit with them, it didn't occur to you to refuse.
And so, once a week, you shirk your lectures in favor of conversation with a professor that does not teach you. It is unheard of for you to have the opportunity to speak to others beyond ▮▮▮▮▮▮, and each word of yours is met with esoteric anecdotes or praise. They call you erudite, learned, wonderful, setting a fuzzy sort of heat in your body -
But on this day, while idly discussing a topic the two of you had wound up on - based upon a certain proposal that a large right triangle made organically could be utilized to signal communication visible to extraterrestrial life, the same could be done through other means to signal the divine - the fever has grown ever stronger over the course of your meeting, leaving you faint as it goes on. This, at least, is unmistakable to you, and is perhaps to be expected - though it has been some time, the seasons have changed. What you have been experiencing surely must be related.
It doesn’t, however, change the state that you’re in - ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮ reaches to catch you as you nearly faint, brows furrowed deeply.
“My - Miss ▮▮▮▮▮▮, are you alright?”
But you aren’t certain that you’ve heard them right.
“You poor thing -”
And as they continue, holding you close before propping you up in your chair, your confusion only grows.
“You must have been in pain. Here -”
You don’t really understand. Of course you’ve been taken care of your entire life, by your grandmother and father and the servants - despite their best interests they have always looked after you, but this is the first time that anyone has shown concern for your condition.
When they help you to return home, you are no less lost for it.
NOTES/SUMMARY: - Dia regular - Skipping class to hang out with a... teache....r.....? Who told her to skip class? - They've done this before. They have a schedule. For some reason talking to them makes her face real hot and she doesn't get it because this is a human person with a human bodyplan and not a tentacle blob larger than the observable universe so she can't possibly have a crush. - In this specific instance today, where they're talking about ???????? weird shit, she is actually, or at least also, ill. - She gets shown the barest minimum of human decency and has no idea what to do about it.
- Professor [REDACTED] does not especially look like Aradia but anyone other than her viewing the memory might notice that their voice sounds very similar to hers - like a “same actress playing different characters” kind of thing. Don’t worry about it.
( cws death, loss of agency, some dehumanizing language and allusions to violence and/or gore but it's in bulletpoints still)
- in this one it’s nighttime. You instinctively know that it’s sometime in summer, but despite there being no true night this time of year - even though there should still be twilight remaining all through the night - the sky is pitch-black and moonless. - dia is sitting in a bathtub in an unrecognizable room; her hair is covered in leaves and brambles and her body and nightclothes (folded over a chair, off to the side) are bruised and caked with dirt and mud, sodden with dirty water. She must have walked here somehow, but out the window viewers can see a body of water, the university campus at the far shore, on the ground below - somehow, she’s in the middle, in one of the towers that looked to be ruins from outside, but seems well-kept now, somehow, like it was never destroyed. - she can’t swim. She knows that she does not know how to swim, and she has never seen nor heard of a boat that goes out onto the lake, but she is here anyway. - the professor that she's been in talks with for the past few months (cw student -> teacher) is there too, bathing her, washing her hair and scrubbing away the mud intently. It’s the temperature of the water, lukewarm in fact but cold against her feverish skin, that shocks her aware - when did she come here? How? - she remembers an argument with her friend - a disagreement, rather, as to her behavior the past while and where she had been sneaking out to go, how little she’s slept or eaten, how little they’ve spoken, but nothing past that. It got heated for both of them (for the first time, from her end; he's gotten angry with her before plenty of times but she has never, ever taken anything but a neutral tone with him before that) but she doesn’t remember what happened next. - but she can trust her professor - a hand at her shoulder assures her so before she can become too suspicious - and getting her bearings she believes that she arrives at the why of the matter, so she chooses not to question it, and thinks nothing more of it. - when she’s cleaned and dried she’s made to sit in a chair, now - lifted, actually, bodily and into that position - and dressed with scented oils, then clothing, all put together in a full wedding ensemble. - when she tries to move to dress herself her hand is pulled away. There’s no need for any of that, her professor tells her, they will take care of her - and any protest she would make dies down there. - once that’s done, finally she’s allowed to walk - holding her professor’s hand she's led up the tower to its pinnacle - a conjuratory building fitted around the bell, with wide windows open to the cardinal points.
- there they do the ritual - Dia takes the drinking cup she’s apparently been using for a bit and separates it cleanly into two halves, turning it into a clasp for ringing the bell in front of them. this seems to be part of its function as a “grimoire,” as she remembers it being referred to, even though it is clearly not a book. - According to her professor several months ago, the cup is an ancient relic made from a mineral from the heavens. When a bride drinks from it, her essence mingles with the gods’ and bolsters her ability to communicate with them. Part of ascending involves converting it into a clasp that empowers the bell to ward off calamities and call forth the gods. As you do. That's how marriage works!
- so she does all that and then says an incantation to summon yog-sothoth. The air warps and undulates at the sound of her voice and the ringing of the bell and her excitement is, emotionally and physically, electric. - needless to say dia is beyond pumped to actually see him in the - he doesn’t have flesh but you get it, she’s moved to tears and reaches out to touch him. He is there in his full yoggy soggy bunch of rainbow spheres with occasional tentacle glory. - there is no need for her to understand the mechanics of her function, only to fulfill it. She doesn’t know how the story she read as a child (which she thinks now might have been based on the ritual that she’s doing now) continued, or what her grandmother’s suggestions would have been for her moving into the future, but she feels no need to question it - - only, she does think briefly to her friend. How she wishes, still, despite everything, that he could be here for this day. She’s going to be doing something to make the sinful existence she’s lived worthwhile; ideally, it will even be helpful to him.
- but her hand slips right through what form she can see. The tips burn and fester and freeze all at once and crumble to the ground miles below, but painlessly - - painlessly, is the thing. if it had felt good, then that would have been fine. If it had hurt, then that would also have been a reaction that she could have lived with, but somehow she instinctively understands that he has instead rejected her completely. - behind her, her professor expresses their condolences, but she turns to see their gaze focused only on yog-sothoth, expression - sad, yes, but anyone looking that isn't her could recognize it as a disappointment more reserved for when the supermarket is out of stock of your preferred brand of paper towels. - but they go on to offer him sincere apologies; they’d thought that a cultivar (?) from the augereau (??) line would be more to his liking like last time (???) so that’s what they worked on, but since it seems like there were ultimately a few too many inclusions in the end product for him to stomach, so they’ll do him the liberty of breaking “it” down for him and get to workshopping a replacement. Whatever any of that means? She doesn’t fuckin know. she barely knows where to start with processing any of that, as shaken as she is by the rejection. - and unceremoniously, as placid as they have ever been, they strangle her and toss her over into yog-sothoth not unlike a sack of potatoes so like. All of that happens. - and then the memory cuts out. She’s fuckin dead dude
NOTES/SUMMARY: - I'll proseify it later I'm tired - tl;dr Dia wakes up in a weird belltower and gets cleaned up by her weird professor and does a weird yogurt-summoning ritual that goes wrong for reasons that are completely unclear to her and then she gets killed and is dead
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1
And standing behind Aradia, a human figure, too tall to fit in the frame of the memory while she sits. They dip their fingers into the cup before threading them through the length of her hair - this was done moments earlier with her body, she remembers, just after the bath. A vital part of the process, but you don't know what that means. When the oil is depleted they brush her hair out with meticulous care, letting it hang, long and fully loose, over the chair. They speak to her gently through the whole of it, in a soft, smooth voice - she's a good girl, they're so happy she understands what she's meant to do, it's for everyone's sakes that she's doing this, but she's happy to be doing it too, isn't she? Aradia herself is silent outside of the occasional assent, eyes shut - "yes" and "I understand" and so on.
And she is, really. This is the thing that she was born to do. She can't imagine doing anything else.
2
And a hefty collection of books. Aradia sits in the bed pouring over each book she's selected diligently, with rapt attention - but the selection is eclectic, to say the least. There is the occasional adventure novel but a good chunk of what you see her read is non-fiction - psychology, biology, zoology, anthropology, theology. Astronomy, physics. Magic. The magic you know very well to be real - those books she chose are real grimoires, none younger than the first print run, some just stacks of paper bound together - all, you know very well, the crystallization of knowledge passed down from the divine.
She can even hear them as she passes over those volumes - a flash of iridescent light that blocks all other senses. A noise like television static that does the same. It's intermittent as the memory goes on - she reads, sometimes there's a spark of light and a noise and it's the only thing she can sense in that moment - and then back again. This is normal. It isn't strange to her at all. If anything she's happy to receive it.
3
The world in this memory feels much greater, and you are small. You walk, no more than six years old, a tiny pale wisp of a child—down a hallway decorated with expensive carpeting and portraits, from the washroom to your bedroom. A nanny, too tall from your point of view to fit in focus beyond the austere skirt, holds your hand in a light grip. The woman, whoever she is, doesn't really want to be touching you—
You hear them sometimes. Even at your age you know: all of the domestics think they'll catch what you have, they’re all unnerved by you, all perceive this venture as fruitless, but this is their job. To feed and wash this troublesome child, to dry you so your illness isn't aggravated, and to put you to bed, now.
But in that hallway, along the way, there is a distinct thud from behind a door. The manor has a few of them, lots of floors and lots of doors on those floors, but you know the source for certain—the study your father has taken up. Your feet go still in the hall, head craning to glean the remaining information—what the noise was, what his status is.
"But I think—Charlie, it's far too important for you to go without a second thought." A voice you'd heard once before. Your uncle’s tone beyond the door is plaintive, mournful. "How has it grown? You know as well as I do, it can only be done today. Tomorrow, only the Lord could tell, but today—tonight."
He continues, volume unchanged but an unmistakable tenderness to his tone, "I have an unshakable faith in you—that you are not so gone from us, just yet... Nowhere is it written it has to be this way, and there is time, still—I would wager there is a year remaining before she's grown beyond it."
"I will even make the journey with you. Into town, or out to [REDACTED]. Here on our property where no one will notice. I will ensure everything is taken care of. But for your own sake, Charlie, you simply must get rid of that thing—"
And you tremble. Not from the words—facts you have long since accepted to be the truth, how he has suffered because of you, how everyone has suffered because of you—but a small cough that rocks your body. The nanny is quick to yank you from the scene by your wrist, hurrying towards your bedroom at the farthest end of the hall. When you arrive she tucks the you into bed and leaves for the remainder of her business; neither of you say a word.
NOTES:
- To anyone viewing it it is pretty apparent from body language and briskness that the nanny is less worried about Aradia and more worried about getting caught eavesdropping on a private affair.
- What can be seen of people's clothes would date this memory as happening... vaguely sometime either at the end of the 19th century or the beginning of the 20th. Likewise, the styles are vaguely western.
- The bedroom she ends up in most prominently has a canopy bed in it, like the only thing visible in this memory.
4
Aradia, here, sits around looking very much the same as she does now - she's dressed for bed, with a long nightgown and her hair braided back, but she's not exactly in it; her feet dangle over the edge as she chats with a young man who appears to be around her age, if not a little bit older. He's tall, with short black hair and thick eyebrows, lean and tanned from work outdoors, wearing a simple shirt and trousers, all haphazardly buttoned, but the thing that makes him handsome, objectively beautiful as far as Aradia is concerned, are his wounds. Bandages at his jaw and nose, a vertical scar across the corner of his lips that's already determined to take up permanent residence there, a few others on his chest she can barely see when he moves, momentarily visible under his open collar.
He sits on her windowsill, back to the light, and fiddles with a lighter in his hands as he talks. He's telling her a story, a lengthy diatribe about his work at a mechanical repair store in the city, and how his last remaining coworker decided to terminate their stay there. It wasn't just a bicycle accident, but something that happened serially, and the boy himself had almost been caught in the crossfire. But he throws in an insult that Aradia fails to understand, and -
"Jerk-off?"
"Yeah, you know..." shifting the lighter to his right hand, he makes a loose fist with the fingers of the left - plenty of room for something to fit in the center - and moves his wrist up and down, briskly. Aradia stares for a while, the gesture lost on her - in response he just repeats it, lower on his body, near his legs -
"Oh, are you referring to masturbation?"
And he loosens back up at her comprehension, stretching his legs.
"Took you a while. I'm surprised you even got it - it would've made sense for your character type to get lost when it comes to these things. [Aradia]'s still a pure girl after all."
"However incongruous it is with the particularities of vaginal masturbation, the concept itself is regardless well within my understanding. Of course sexual education remains well standardized within this country, and when thinking of him, I myself frequently -" Aradia is calm, explaining her situation the way she'd talk about the weather, but a panic sets in within her friend:
"- I really didn't ask! You know I didn't ask! Don't be weird!" The boy nearly jumps from his seat at the window, color rising to his face. Aradia is surprised, momentarily, but her face otherwise remains stuck in that same impassive smile.
"Ah. Is that so?"
"Yes! Normies are so gross!" He starts, but he's quick to calm once it fails to get a reaction, then adds, "Whatever. Can I smoke here...?"
"Ah, smoking. Yes. Yes, if that is what you would like to do, then the smoking lounge located in our home certainly is available to you. Do make use of it as you would like."
His smile grows thin at her reply, brow furrowing in the very picture of incredulity, barely restrained - "You... Ok. So I just want to make sure. You know I'm breaking into your house right now, right?"
NOTES:
- The boy is going to show up more later so here is a PB.
- Aradia is undoubtedly speaking in her own voice, but the tone and style are completely off - more than talking, she sounds like she's narrating or reading off of a teleprompter. Badly. In general, everything about the way that she expresses herself seems much more hollow, even when there is some energy to it something just seems kind of fundamentally off, or wrong. She has definitely changed.
- Same bedroom as the other memories.
5
Aradia lies prone in her bed, body wracked by pain and fever. Her limbs feel as if they’re made of stone - her mouth feels full of cement, and she sees as if through a tarnished glass. The visuals of this memory are blurry - humanoid shadows dart to and fro on the other side of the canopy, warbling phrases she only sometimes grasps as her mind sways with them. Bits and pieces of interaction - a maid to fetch her water, a maid to feed her, a maid to air out the sheets. A maid to wipe the sweat from her body, a maid to medicate her. A doctor to take her vitals. Bits and pieces of conversation -
“If [...] doesn’t stabilize [...] “
“[...] looking like this might [...] her, huh [...]”
“[...] It’s been three [...] hasn’t [...]”
“He has more important [...] than [...] daughter…”
Not a word of it is unexpected. Not a word of it is untrue. Painful as it is, cold as she is, Aradia accepts her death with dull, numb relief. If this is the course of her life, then so be it. Let what remains of their line find something greater, when the curse is dispelled.
But as her consciousness ebbs and flows, she dreams. More freely than her waking movement, more vivid than her waking vision.
Outstretched before her was a yawning, endless abyss, pierced only by the man that lay within it. Clad in motes of light floating within the pitch - myriad bubbles, cabochon stones, spheres; worlds, galaxies, universes suspended in infinite time - he, great and bright and golden-eyed, shone with an enrapturing iridescence. Emanating such light and warmth that even the most brilliant of fires seemed to be a pale imitation.
She understood it herself. Indeed, the man in her dream could only be the very first flame in the world; the very essence of immaculate divinity, poured forth from the threshold. The god her family had devoted themselves to. The god that she had been devoted to. His heat radiates as far as her realm, scalds her beneath its weight, sublimates flesh and bone alike.
Even as she winces, she understands. She understands that her grandmother’s efforts have been recognized in the end, after all; in as much as Aradia’s birth was divine punishment, this surely could be nothing less than providence. All that she needs to do is maintain the path provided for her. All that she has to do is maintain the path provided for her, and she can atone.
True to her belief, when she awakens days later the illness has receded from her body - the way she envisions snow in spring, foreign heat sunken deeply into her core, stirring within her breast for the first time, and she tells no one.
SUMMARY:
- dia is stuck in bed with a pretty nasty illness and seems to be like, dying, or that’s what people believe.
- she languishes in bed for days. In as much as she remembers, her father never comes to visit her, and the servants are all but openly relieved to get rid of her.
- her consciousness comes and goes over the course of the ordeal and while she’s out, she dreams about a mysterious figure spread out infinitely across infinite space, and all of the different worlds and dimensions and times that compose his form.
- she recognizes him as the main god worshiped in her family - the god that she was betrothed to when she was born. Important god x2.
- fortunately she also thinks he’s like super hot. This is the first time she has ever felt attracted to anyone! Ever!
- this vision is a sign that she’s on the right track with everything she’s been doing; someday soon she’ll be able to repent for that uh, terrible terrible crime of having been born?
- eventually, her fever breaks and she recovers, but she doesn’t tell anyone about what she saw.
NOTES:
- she looks younger here: if the dia in imeeji looks ~18, this one looks ~14, give or take.
- while there probably aren’t literally 8 maids waiting on her in this memory, there is definitely more than one, but they definitely all look and sound exactly alike. all of the servants sound the same and have the same silhouette in part because she’s not like super present but also because they are completely indistinguishable to her by this point. This will be relevant later!
- her new boyfriend, despite whatever any text above this might imply, actually just looks like this. But like, iridescent and glowy and stuff. No eyes to speak of or like… any…. thing...
- for anyone that would recognize him, it’s Yog-Sothoth!
6
There’s something that she believes she wants to try. There’s something that she has been trying, recently. She’d asked her friend a few weeks ago - to his shock, for some reason that was lost on her, something about her reaction seemed strong to him - to fetch her some songs from a few towns over, and she’s been working on it since then. In and of itself it’s no different than study: for hours a day she sits down at their piano and plays.
It’s no different from studying.
Aradia excises all possibility of failure from her mind, and studies the keys, their shape, the wires, the sounds they all make, with the same fervor she used to pour through their library. She intimates herself with the anatomy of the piano, and plays. She plays, and plays, and plays, and plays - she has to. This was something that was lost to her, something that she should have had, but who would she be if she were to miss even a single component? If she wants to make herself whole, if she wants to be to her family’s liking, if she wants to be to her god’s liking - the only choice left to her is to cleanse all lingering monstrosity from her body. She hones it, over time, from noise to a song, then two, then more, but -
SUMMARY:
- Dia learns to play the piano. It’s a montage.
- She may or may not have always had these problems?
NOTES:
- We’re back to Dia as we know her!
- This memory takes place over several months. The amount of time she spends just playing the piano is objectively unhealthy.
- No, her dad does not come home once in all that time.
- The maids all look and sound alike at this point even when she’s in good health.
7
The memory opens in an unfamiliar place. Aradia is standing in an alleyway late at night, dressed for bed. The boy, her friend, her familiar, brought her out here; he stands behind her with his back half-turned, an unlit cigarette between his lips, gaze following her own as it traces up to the dim sky, dulled by clouds and the city lights, down the alley walls, and onto the ground. There’s a man there, hastily bound and gagged, hidden off in a corner, and Aradia leans to reach out and touch his shoulder - she remarks, dully, that there’s rope in his mouth.
There is. Her familiar preens a bit, saying that tying guys up is a skill of his, but it falls on deaf ears as she shuts her eyes, murmuring an incantation under her breath. Heat rushes through her arm, down to her hand, invisible - but a few motes of light, small and bright and iridescent, shine in the darkness before disappearing, indicating the spell’s success.
She crushes the man’s throat. The tissues and cartilage give like putty in her augmented hand, and she turns her head - “Rather than binding their mouths through the use of rope, to silence them in this manner would be more efficient, certainly…” she remarks to the boy in her usual tone, completely placid, as if correcting a mistake on a piece of homework. Without meeting her eyes he shuffles his feet and grunts in reply, noncommittal, as the cigarette trembles in his mouth.
And then, with that seen to, she pauses, grip freed from the man’s throat to hold onto the back of his head, onto his hair. The first time was a mistake, an accident, but when the man that died then fell, it was the head wound that was responsible. That means - that if she wants to make sure, she should hew close to that idea. She should hew close to that idea, so she lifts his head, augmentation still running through her arm. His skull cracks against the wall, spilling and smearing flesh and brain and bone along the surface as she drags it against the stones, up and down. Idle, thoughtful. Hard whites and a strange red and pink yolk, chunkier than anything she’s ever seen. No, it’s more like a scramble than anything else, she thinks, but this man’s died, so there’s no way of asking him.
“[xxx],” she murmurs, no differently than before, “Would you say that these contents are somewhat akin to a scramble?”
A tense “Haha, wow,” is all he manages to reply after a few moments of silence, expression a deep grimace.
Another incantation has the body disappear, in those same motes of iridescent light - gone is the corpse and the scramble that fell out, and he takes her home - more than an hour’s ride, then back to her bedroom through the window - where she washes up and heads to bed.
When they return the following week, he’s gotten a different man. This one is quiet. She treats him the same.
Two weeks later, there’s another. She treats him the same.
By the fourth time, she’s decided that it might not be enough to replicate the original death, so she uses magic. The fist of Yog-Sothoth consumes the man piece by piece, corroding his body with the same light as before, erasing him.
And so, on the fifth attempt, she determines that the physicality might be important. She peels at his skin. She breaks his fingers joint by joint. She twists them off. She erases a few. She sets a few aflame. The extremities are convenient because there are so many of them, because there are lots of different attempts available within them, but she’s genuinely stumped.
It isn’t scary.
It isn’t fun.
It isn’t disgusting.
It isn’t arousing.
All that her expression betrays - all she feels - is the vague ennui of a child holding a magnifying glass to ants on the sidewalk.
SUMMARY:
- Dia commits some murders, cannot be fucked to feel any kind of way about it, is confused about that, while her friend looks concerned in the background. It’s a montage.
- She definitely has always had these problems.
NOTES:
- Dia as we know her.
- That’s real magic!
- Her friend, despite being thought of as a boy, is actually a good head or so taller than her now that you can see them both standing. Physically, at least, they are decidedly around the same age.
8
The corridors of the house outside your bedroom are unlike anything that you have ever seen. They're vast and wide and tall and each tottering step you take feels like miles, legs short, muscles atrophied from misuse, connection dulled by fever. The ailment this day is mild, enough that you were pulled from bed earlier, by your wrist, to dress and meet the day.
This is the first time you've left. Light streams in achingly bright from the windows, dappled through the forest that envelops your home - a place far larger than you had ever known. This is the first you've left it; what you had assumed to be the entire world was nothing more than three rooms, a set of windows, and a corridor to connect them.
After washing you up, the maid dresses you in long, thick sleeves, barely obscuring the red marking already forming above your hand. Honestly, she wonders aloud, echoing alone through the dressing room., how could you be so delicate? As if her job isn't already difficult enough. Well, it's to be expected since the "incident."
But you remain still as she pulls your arms up and over into the sleeves, quiet as she roughly coaxes your legs into their stockings and shoes, and think nothing of it as she wrangles your hair into behaving. You don't want to make her work any more difficult than it already is.
Shifting uncomfortably beneath your gaze, she guides you down a flight of stairs, through another hall, and -
In what you learn to be the drawing room, on one of the couches, sits an unfamiliar shape; he is tanned, hair bleached a pale color, clothing hanging off of his body in a way that reminds you of the sleeves on your dress forms. His mouth looks strange on his face, lips and brow tight, fraught with worry, and he gives you a look that you're unable to recognize - just once.
After that, he doesn't seem to look at you at all. His gaze penetrates beyond, past you and through the maid, into the wall nearest the door as he trembles, finally averting his eyes altogether, covering them with a hand.
You're returned to your room after that for some reason; later, you overhear he is staying the night. He will live here now if your grandmother will permit it - his chambers in the old summer home, so it would seem the sum of these rooms are called, have remained untouched for the past five years, ever since the incident. But the women beyond your door are all beside themselves with laughter. How could he treat his own daughter like that? It's not so surprising, after what happened to his wife. After what she - you - did to him - who wouldn't be cold?
Truly, they feel bad for him.
Idly, in your bed, you can't help wondering what you did.
SUMMARY:
- Dia, very young and kind of unwell, gets dragged out of bed and made presentable by a maid who really does not care about her and really does not want to be there.
- AN INCIDENT??
- Which later turns out to have something to do with her parents? Something happened to her mother because of her, that made her father upset?
- Speaking of, the occasion she's up for is meeting her dad, who does not handle seeing her well, but decides to stay in the house anyway.
- She spends a lot of time wondering about that thing she did.
NOTES:
- Dia Smallest; no more than 5 here, but looks as if she could be even younger.
- Her father's features aren't quite clear enough for a PB in this one, but he's a lanky, youthful-looking guy in his late teens or early twenties, with tanned skin and pale, wavy hair; similarly to Dia, his eyes are red, and there's a mole beneath one.
- He literally just starts crying in front of her and she doesn't get it.
9
Dia looks about the same as she does now in this memory, her hair braided and pinned in a heavy bun that rests at the base of her neck. Dressed in a thick black cape that swallows up her arms, obscures the entirety of her outfit, she travels in a carriage away from the manor and the snow-covered forest encircling it, up through the valley into a city brimming with activity - until she reaches a lake, a number of imposing buildings along its shore, the ruins of pale white structures dotting its surface.
Inside the lecture hall are a number of others who appear to be close to her in age, all dressed in the same uniform, chatting away with no regard for her entry. Her cohort all lives on this campus, as is customary, but she commutes only occasionally and rarely speaks.
Without any greeting, she doesn’t see much reason to speak here, either. She takes her seat and after allowing her hands some time to warm, reviews her notes - neatly written, all concerning burgeoning studies in the quantization of radiation. To her side, she overhears two students talking. She can’t recall their names, and their faces struggle to breech the surface of her mind, but the boy animatedly recounts a story:
The girl next to him pretends to be unimpressed - “That’s obviously a lie,” she replies as she stretches her legs in her narrow seat, but the tremble in her voice is unmistakable to anyone that could notice it, and her friend teases her in kind, trailing his fingers along an ungloved hand just lightly enough to elicit a startled laugh.
She hasn’t seen her father face to face in years now, and it goes without saying the servants are all alive, but Aradia is not one such person, and even in her dim realization it doesn’t occur to her to correct any of his information, or to speak up.
SUMMARY/NOTES:
- It’s dia regular, going to ??? university? It’s just built on a lake for some reason. It’s hard to see with the focus on Dia’s point of view, but what you can see of the ruins on top of the lake seems to be somewhat Roman.
- Some kind of exception was made for her to commute every once in a while while living at home. Something to do with her condition?
- Anyway she doesn’t have any friends but also seems content to not take the first step
- She’s studying… phys...ics??
- Two students nearby gossip about rumors surrounding a Spooky House where women mysteriously disappear
- something something goddess living in the woods something propitiatory sacrifice
- Overhearing it, she recognizes it as her own house, and most of that information is fairly untrue, but she can’t be moved to correct them either.
10
Aradia is young again here, no older than ten, lying in bed, a mass of pillows and blankets far too big for her. The curtains are firmly shut in her room, but even the dimmed sunlight that reaches her eyes is too much for her to endure - but even movement has become difficult by this point, her muscles weak, a numbness spreading through her body so thoroughly she struggles to breathe.
Accompanied by her grandmother, a servant enters her quarters with a platter in hand, upon it a silver cup. Her grandmother is a serious-looking woman who Aradia nevertheless seems to admire greatly, putting ample effort into focusing and righting herself once she hears the sound of her voice, her vision no longer all that reliable. But, though Grandmother greets her - a terse yet gentle “Good evening,” - speaking is likewise beyond her at this point.
It’s been this way for some time now. The regularity of it is the only thing that holds the memory in her mind - Grandmother, without fail, comes to visit her at this time on this day in this place, accompanied by a servant, and gives her her medicine. For as far back as she can remember. Her condition was never so bad as to leave her bedridden before, she reflects distantly, but she can’t really recall.
After all, such a thing would definitely be her own fault, regardless. She’s always spilling the medicine or vomiting it up, Grandmother has long since explained to her, and so she fails to get better, or else perhaps it is her curse that directs the course of it - what she brought onto this family through her birth.
It could be both or either, and even in this state she earnestly hopes to be good, so she drinks dutifully as the cup is pressed to her lips, even though the pain that wracks her stiff neck and swollen throat. The liquid inside is vermilion in color, viscous with a taste she has never been able to place even though it remains on her tongue long after each treatment. When she coughs she goes unaided, and the three part.
And that night, as with the night following every treatment, she drifts deeply, endlessly through the ether as if afloat in a boundless sea, brimming with light and color and life so great it threatens to swallow her whole.
NOTES/SUMMARY:
- It’s Dia Small, but even considering that her grandmother looks conspicuously youthful.
- She gets her 9000000th weekly dosage of Special Medicine™ for her illness, which has gone on longer than she’s actually able to remember, but for whatever reason she’s only gotten more and more sick as time has passed. She thinks. On top of everything else, her illness has also affected her memory, so it’s hard for her to know for sure.
- Her grandmother’s said before that she’s had trouble keeping the medicine down, so it’s no wonder, or maybe it’s the whole “you’re being punished for being alive” thing. Who knows. Either way she always drinks it all and is quick to fall asleep after, having some nebulous spooky space-floaty dreams.
- While she has no frame of reference for it by virtue of being like 9, a person watching the memory would be able to understand that the medicine tastes kind of metallic-y, but while the texture seems weird it doesn’t seem to be blood or anything. Who knows.
11
You're sitting in your bed.
You had a treatment yesterday, so today is a day of rest - your grandmother will not be coming with the governess until tomorrow, and you won't be eating until your stomach settles. The servant that enters your quarters brings only water and a large of books. They're thick, dusty tomes larger than you are from the way they dwarf your lap when set there, chiefly filled with mathematics and magical theories. As you finish reviewing each, some effort has you push it to the side in favor of its successor, tugged laboriously into your lap, but you pay it no mind. While you struggle to turn the pages, pain wracking your body, vision always difficult to come by in the wake of your treatments, understanding them is a trifle.
These are what your grandmother has assigned to you for today, and so, you read. A servant enters on occasion to hold your glass to your lips, the cold grip of her hand holding your head steady relieving in a way that you cannot understand, and you read.
When you make it to the last of them, it doesn't appear to fit in with any of the others in any way that you can determine - save, perhaps, for being a book. It is smaller, and the contents appear to just be that of a story. Although the others rarely ever appear to repeat, reappearing only on occasion, this one is always included in your readings. You can't recall a time that it wasn't.
But these are what your grandmother as assigned to you for today, and so you read.
Once upon a time, in a country far to the north, the Lady Shalott sat within a tall tower. It rose high above the clouds, and the air was thin and cold. Frost lay light upon the stones of her bed-room floor: they glistened like large round jewels. When she would move she would slip on the sodden ground, and she chose to stay still. Rime had made the hem of her dressing-gown quite stiff, but she did not mind, and sat there at her window watching the city below.
The snow, thick like layers of down, lay undisturbed, for no one had come to visit her in some time.
Her father, the Court Astrologer, was very diligent in his craft. He would chart the sky tirelessly and without end, and met with his lamb-eyed gaze swift Night rushed to embrace him; for none had ever looked at her for so long or so fearlessly, for it was considered a foolish thing to so, and the thousand veils woven on her loom intended quite the opposite. Blessed though their union was, it passed with the blooming of dawn, and she soon returned to her own realm.
The Court Astrologer grieved, for he had never before loved any thing other than his work. Unable to look at her, and unwilling to be looked upon, he gouged out his eyes, offering to her that part which she loved most; unable to look upon his plight any longer, she soon sent down to him a child, clad in ebon threads of her weaving.
The child grew quickly and became quite fair, but saw visitors rarely and was much reviled indeed.
“She is quite malformed up there, and must be vile,” claimed the Judge, who hoped to cultivate a reputation for his scientific mind and shrewd perception; “though she is at least of ample means.” he then added, for he was in the presence of the Banker, and feared appearing harsh to those with greater wealth than himself.
“The stone must have come from the southern country,” interjected the Architect, who knew only of appearances, but understood that judges and bankers were best befriended.
“You will do well that you do not end up like her,” said the Mother passing by, for she was pious and severe, her sharp eye seeing sin in any place, “any one that would remain indoors every day can only be slothful.”
Rumors would always surround her tower, for it was the tallest of the buildings in the northern country, and its people could not resist anything which appeared to be great, but in truth the Lady could not leave; born from the sky, the air of the world beneath was hateful to her, and she knew from her mother that she would die if she set foot there. Night bloomed flowers like heaven-bright jewels upon her windowsill; “Hold tight to these,” She proclaimed, Her voice an ambrosial wind, “and your prayers will one day lead you to your beloved.”
And so the Lady remained and prayed daily, for her mother had told her so, and all proper children knew always to be obedient to their mothers.
One day, a Vagrant traveled through the city and approached the tower heedless of the citizens’ warnings. Indeed, each determent served only to hasten his advance, for one who had already forsaken his work for travails had no need for such precautions.
“Ah!” he would say at each turn, “If there is truly a cursed maiden imprisoned at the border of this land, so twisted and sinful that her father would blind himself and lock her away, then she must be a most interesting woman!”
Then the tower came into view, and later the far away figure of the Lady, fair to his apt gaze. Climbing the tower, he could see her dusk-pale skin, her cheeks dyed dawn-pink by the cold air; her face was so beautiful that the Vagrant’s heart, which had long grown hard, was filled with emotion. He believed himself to be a man of high learning, and could not conceive of anyone so dignified ever being affected by a curse.
“What exactly are you doing here?” he asked.
“This is my home,” she answered in a soft voice, for it had gone unused for some time, “I am meant to be here.”
“And why is that? There is no indication that you should be kept away from any-one else, and I have my doubts that you truly intend anything.
I have decided that I no longer believe in curses; for I have looked upon you with my own eyes and found you to bear no marks of any misdeed, and there is no need for such antiquated thoughts in the realm of learning.” the Vagrant paused then, touching with his hand a moon-colored flower; “And these plants, furthermore, do not grow in this field.”
The Lady was shocked. She had never imagined that she would hear of the flowers again, but was too polite to direct her outburst at some-one else.
Still, her excitement had shown in her lamb-like eyes, and the Vagrant continued, “Shall I show them to you? This realm is so wide, and its inhabitants so very thrilling.”
She did not quite believe that she liked realms, or inhabitants, and her mother’s words still held fast to her heart, but she thought that she did like to see things, and took the Vagrant’s hand.
The flowers grew on a neighboring hill far away from the city. So the Vagrant explained, it had been blessed long ago, and all flora that grew there held the ability to bind the hearts of others, or to cleanse impurities; “If you are truly cursed,” he told her, “you shall not be.”
(The next few passages appear to be missing. You notice a jump in the pagination, but pay it no mind.)
After many trials they arrived to the garden, but overcome by their ordeals, they both fell ill. They had barely the strength to stand, and fever wracked their bodies; the Vagrant grew colder and colder, but could not bring himself to leave the Lady Shalott to her own death, for he had grown fond of her in their time together, and felt for her too well.
“Use these,” he said to her in a lower voice than she was accustomed, for he could feel his death was at last near, “and see to yourself. There is more for you to do by far, and I would like to see you as you once were.”
(The next few passages appear to be missing. You notice a jump in the pagination, but pay it no mind.)
But the Lady did not listen; she gathered the pale flowers and covered him as one would to a corpse, shoveling healing blooms over his body with the last of her strength, and then fell dead.
(The next few passages appear to be missing. You notice a jump in the pagination, but pay it no mind.)
The wide-seeing Sky, the king of men, had watched everything. He was moved by the act, and extended His cloud-gathering arms, taking her into the sky and returning the Court Astrologer’s sight (The next few passages appear to be missing. You notice a jump in the pagination, but pay it no mind.); “In my far-reaching kingdom shall she live as my bride, and her father shall eternally observe me.”
(The next few passages appear to be missing. You notice a jump in the pagination, but pay it no mind.)
For whatever reason it seems to catch you; once you have read it, you read it again. You don't know why. When it appears the following week, you do the same.
NOTES/SUMMARY:
- Dia small, as usual, appears to be no more than like 10
- She reads a lot in this memory. It's primarily math way beyond her grade level (if she's even school-aged?) and complex-looking magic rituals, but the last one is... a storybook? Question mark?
- She likes it for Some Reason (tm) but does not understand why it's here or for what purpose or what it makes her feel.
12
You’re sitting in a chair in a greenhouse’s garden. The thick winter cape of your uniform is hung up behind you. Shrouded by various plants and furniture, through the panes of glass you can make out the buildings of your university, the lake, and its accompanying ruins. In front of you -
In front of you, nursing a cup of tea she soon sets atop one of the many books they've brought, is a lecturer. Not one of yours, but you have seen them in passing often. Professor ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮ is tall and beautiful, pale blonde hair tied back low, golden eyes set deep behind a curtain of eyelashes; their appearance leaves you affected in a manner beyond your ability to articulate, the gentle edge of their smile coaxing you into conversation.
“Miss ▮▮▮▮▮▮-▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮?”
You’ve been meeting like this for some time now. Rather than other duties they could attend to, they've taken to hiding here in the conservatory on grounds in the colder months; it’s a secret they've requested be kept between you two, not that it occurs to you to tell anyone. When you were invited to sit with them, it didn't occur to you to refuse.
And so, once a week, you shirk your lectures in favor of conversation with a professor that does not teach you. It is unheard of for you to have the opportunity to speak to others beyond ▮▮▮▮▮▮, and each word of yours is met with esoteric anecdotes or praise. They call you erudite, learned, wonderful, setting a fuzzy sort of heat in your body -
But on this day, while idly discussing a topic the two of you had wound up on - based upon a certain proposal that a large right triangle made organically could be utilized to signal communication visible to extraterrestrial life, the same could be done through other means to signal the divine - the fever has grown ever stronger over the course of your meeting, leaving you faint as it goes on. This, at least, is unmistakable to you, and is perhaps to be expected - though it has been some time, the seasons have changed. What you have been experiencing surely must be related.
It doesn’t, however, change the state that you’re in - ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮ reaches to catch you as you nearly faint, brows furrowed deeply.
“My - Miss ▮▮▮▮▮▮, are you alright?”
But you aren’t certain that you’ve heard them right.
“You poor thing -”
And as they continue, holding you close before propping you up in your chair, your confusion only grows.
“You must have been in pain. Here -”
You don’t really understand. Of course you’ve been taken care of your entire life, by your grandmother and father and the servants - despite their best interests they have always looked after you, but this is the first time that anyone has shown concern for your condition.
When they help you to return home, you are no less lost for it.
NOTES/SUMMARY:
- Dia regular
- Skipping class to hang out with a... teache....r.....? Who told her to skip class?
- They've done this before. They have a schedule. For some reason talking to them makes her face real hot and she doesn't get it because this is a human person with a human bodyplan and not a tentacle blob larger than the observable universe so she can't possibly have a crush.
- In this specific instance today, where they're talking about ???????? weird shit, she is actually, or at least also, ill.
- She gets shown the barest minimum of human decency and has no idea what to do about it.
- Professor [REDACTED] does not especially look like Aradia but anyone other than her viewing the memory might notice that their voice sounds very similar to hers - like a “same actress playing different characters” kind of thing. Don’t worry about it.
13
- in this one it’s nighttime. You instinctively know that it’s sometime in summer, but despite there being no true night this time of year - even though there should still be twilight remaining all through the night - the sky is pitch-black and moonless.
- dia is sitting in a bathtub in an unrecognizable room; her hair is covered in leaves and brambles and her body and nightclothes (folded over a chair, off to the side) are bruised and caked with dirt and mud, sodden with dirty water. She must have walked here somehow, but out the window viewers can see a body of water, the university campus at the far shore, on the ground below - somehow, she’s in the middle, in one of the towers that looked to be ruins from outside, but seems well-kept now, somehow, like it was never destroyed.
- she can’t swim. She knows that she does not know how to swim, and she has never seen nor heard of a boat that goes out onto the lake, but she is here anyway.
- the professor that she's been in talks with for the past few months (cw student -> teacher) is there too, bathing her, washing her hair and scrubbing away the mud intently. It’s the temperature of the water, lukewarm in fact but cold against her feverish skin, that shocks her aware - when did she come here? How?
- she remembers an argument with her friend - a disagreement, rather, as to her behavior the past while and where she had been sneaking out to go, how little she’s slept or eaten, how little they’ve spoken, but nothing past that. It got heated for both of them (for the first time, from her end; he's gotten angry with her before plenty of times but she has never, ever taken anything but a neutral tone with him before that) but she doesn’t remember what happened next.
- but she can trust her professor - a hand at her shoulder assures her so before she can become too suspicious - and getting her bearings she believes that she arrives at the why of the matter, so she chooses not to question it, and thinks nothing more of it.
- when she’s cleaned and dried she’s made to sit in a chair, now - lifted, actually, bodily and into that position - and dressed with scented oils, then clothing, all put together in a full wedding ensemble.
- when she tries to move to dress herself her hand is pulled away. There’s no need for any of that, her professor tells her, they will take care of her - and any protest she would make dies down there.
- once that’s done, finally she’s allowed to walk - holding her professor’s hand she's led up the tower to its pinnacle - a conjuratory building fitted around the bell, with wide windows open to the cardinal points.
- there they do the ritual - Dia takes the drinking cup she’s apparently been using for a bit and separates it cleanly into two halves, turning it into a clasp for ringing the bell in front of them. this seems to be part of its function as a “grimoire,” as she remembers it being referred to, even though it is clearly not a book.
- According to her professor several months ago, the cup is an ancient relic made from a mineral from the heavens. When a bride drinks from it, her essence mingles with the gods’ and bolsters her ability to communicate with them. Part of ascending involves converting it into a clasp that empowers the bell to ward off calamities and call forth the gods. As you do. That's how marriage works!
- so she does all that and then says an incantation to summon yog-sothoth. The air warps and undulates at the sound of her voice and the ringing of the bell and her excitement is, emotionally and physically, electric.
- needless to say dia is beyond pumped to actually see him in the - he doesn’t have flesh but you get it, she’s moved to tears and reaches out to touch him. He is there in his full yoggy soggy bunch of rainbow spheres with occasional tentacle glory.
- there is no need for her to understand the mechanics of her function, only to fulfill it. She doesn’t know how the story she read as a child (which she thinks now might have been based on the ritual that she’s doing now) continued, or what her grandmother’s suggestions would have been for her moving into the future, but she feels no need to question it -
- only, she does think briefly to her friend. How she wishes, still, despite everything, that he could be here for this day. She’s going to be doing something to make the sinful existence she’s lived worthwhile; ideally, it will even be helpful to him.
- but her hand slips right through what form she can see. The tips burn and fester and freeze all at once and crumble to the ground miles below, but painlessly -
- painlessly, is the thing. if it had felt good, then that would have been fine. If it had hurt, then that would also have been a reaction that she could have lived with, but somehow she instinctively understands that he has instead rejected her completely.
- behind her, her professor expresses their condolences, but she turns to see their gaze focused only on yog-sothoth, expression - sad, yes, but anyone looking that isn't her could recognize it as a disappointment more reserved for when the supermarket is out of stock of your preferred brand of paper towels.
- but they go on to offer him sincere apologies; they’d thought that a cultivar (?) from the augereau (??) line would be more to his liking like last time (???) so that’s what they worked on, but since it seems like there were ultimately a few too many inclusions in the end product for him to stomach, so they’ll do him the liberty of breaking “it” down for him and get to workshopping a replacement. Whatever any of that means? She doesn’t fuckin know. she barely knows where to start with processing any of that, as shaken as she is by the rejection.
- and unceremoniously, as placid as they have ever been, they strangle her and toss her over into yog-sothoth not unlike a sack of potatoes so like. All of that happens.
- and then the memory cuts out. She’s fuckin dead dude
NOTES/SUMMARY:
- I'll proseify it later I'm tired
- tl;dr Dia wakes up in a weird belltower and gets cleaned up by her weird professor and does a weird yogurt-summoning ritual that goes wrong for reasons that are completely unclear to her and then she gets killed and is dead