Filth
The Castle liked to keep filth. The kind that pleased the entity holding these fragile beings in rooms under roof. It delighted watching their games, treachery, lusty secrets and misinterpreted gestures. It had the power to sterilize, to rend empty and still. But there were spiders to please and dust to watch lazily change colors while falling down stained glass panels. There were mice to fatten and cats to hunt them.
The Castle shrouded itself in twisting vines of heavy black roses pulsing with purple arcane. Pollen was everywhere, a glimmering dust barely perceived but coating it all.
There was dirt, but it was beautiful. Towering heights with impossibly high archways adorned painting ceilings, flaking softly with wear. It made the figures look tragic, even in jubilation as they grasped fingers and arched sculpted bodies meant to represent gods, heroes long lost to time. These flakes could be found on the velvet couches below, clean of cigarette ash and sweat but still leaving a pair of used panties draped over the back for someone to find later.
Food never rotted but the roses did, leaving petals to curl and feed the iridescent beetles that made silent footfall to devour their last offerings on the ground.
Then there was the lab. A warzone of chemical competition. The amines fighting for dominance as ammonia and cadaverine assaulted the nose first, followed by formaldehydes and butenols. All this mixed with the sickly sweet scent of roses, not for the faint of heart. Inside, it was a madman's lair. Shelves piled with jars of beasts in every variety, half-used lab equipment piled in half-finished experiments on every surface. It was completely unrecognizable as a work space. Journals and books littered the place like leaves. Blood and dirt were everywhere. Some items high-up looked untouched for centuries.
Strange vats of liquid, body parts simmering like forbidden ramen in a rainbow of poisons made walking a straight line impossible. The shackled operation tables, the cages with human-sized beds were curiously always clean. A chemical distillation setup bubbled with a gentle boiling next to a body chute, near the cooling chambers for fresher storage, and then reflected off the impressive stasis chambers in the back of the lab.
A large oak desk in a corner was laden with things that were probably once beautiful. On one side, the arching greenhouse windows were shadowed by the heavy cloak of roses above and stained the glass green where dim light filtered through. It appeared the bottom windows could open, but they had vials and jars piled on the sill. Behind the desk, ornate shelves filled with the same plus bones, dusty glass equipment, test tubes, beakers, burettes, and pipettes in various sizes. It was littered with personal paperwork and empty wine glasses, beakers that once held wine, bloodthistle butts and ash everywhere, unlike the rest of the Castle. To the side, a long surface area with cabinetry was filled with more dusty beakers. Some had tiny vermin skeletons inside, completely bone as if they'd been there for decades.
The bedrooms numbering in the hundreds held romantic piles of artful fabrics draped from elegant window and waterfalling to the floors, shielding the precious darkness of the Castle from the burning Light. Shadows lived here, not to be disturbed. The rooms lived in were arranged with beauty with only the sentimental messes found like naughty clues here and there. The smeared lipstick from her mouth on black sheets, a silk hair from a dark head on her discarded lingerie. All these things left as comforting reminders that living happened here—love and the dreams of poets—and it would always be dirty. (castle painting by Ruth Sanderson)
