"You're not meant to be a martyr. Why is it death you crave?"
"Death is all I know."
It was a dark reflection, but one that had crossed his mind before. Death was the only justice in this world. It did not discriminate. No amount youth or age could save one from its dark embrace. Saint or sinner, there is an end for all. An end waited for him, one day. The thought didn't scare him. It was simply a truth, the only truth. Everyone dies. Every person dies.
But was he a person? Did death await a sick thing like him? Would death take something that defied it so?
Or was he death? Was the chill of his skin and stillness of his heart a symptom of some unknown destiny? Was he not the antithesis of death, but the embodiment of it?
He hoped one day to meet death, if only to prove that it wasn't inside him already. He wished to one day greet his end with a sigh of relief. He awaited that finality so at last he would know he was not above it, that at least he had some small piece of humanity.
Finnian wanted to die, just to know that he could.
"I still find myself lingering in the past, lamenting over what was....because of what will never be. I'm so stuck on things that I can't change, and I hate it... Things won't return to how they used to be, not even a little bit. I understand this, yet I cannot accept it..."
So I don’t talk about Sadie much on this blog, but y’know what, just for the heck of it, here’s the monologue I wrote and performed for her in Drama elective.
~
Sadie: “I wasn’t expecting visitors tonight.”
“You picked some time to come. I’m in the middle of a very important spell that I don’t have much time to finish.” [slightly more under her breath] “Don’t want a repeat of that whole affair with the faerie king last year...barely managed to have everything ready before it was too late, and even then I had to scramble to make sure it would be accepted...”
[muttering to herself as she alternates between checking the spellbook and doing her spellwork, arranging items, sprinkling things, etc.] “A touch of this...a little of that...”
“What’s that Chester? Oh. Thank you.” [takes an ingredient from him, like a bottle that she then sprinkles the spellwork area with.]
[long pause, maybe 7 seconds while they explain why they came--she keeps doing her thing, drawing invisible symbols on the floor, sprinkling things on them, maybe glancing at the visitor once or twice, but otherwise focusing on what she’s doing. Then she stops]
“You want me...to give you a charm, that will give you the spine to talk to the girl next door.”
[short pause, she makes a few more marks and sprinkles a few more things, whispering a few more words under her breath]
“I don’t sell my services to people. I don’t like to spend my days dealing out magical remedies to help the townsfolk with anything in their mundane lives. I concern myself with the wishes and affairs of the spirits, the fae, and various deities.”
[1 second pause as she stands and keeps reading her spellbook]
[then she looks up with a start, stiffening, then turns to the visitor with a glare]
[sharply] “Give me that bottle. And stop touching things like that. You don’t touch anything you see in my house unless I say you can. Understood?”
[pause]
“That is NOT Patrón, and I’ve never touched a drop of alcohol in my life. That is a potion I’ve made. And I’ll be using it to help soothe the creatures that’ll be on the rise this full moon, and will bring down an early Armageddon upon us if I don’t perform the proper ritual that night without a hitch.”
[examining the potion and maybe shaking it a little] “I would’ve used a more suitable container for the potion if I had remembered to stock up on those. I had to settle for an old empty bottle of my mother’s from a box in the cellar. My mother, she was an alcoholic.” [under her breath] “Look where that got her.”
[places the bottle down somewhere] “I have nothing but disgust for her memory.”
[grabs something from inside of somewhere and hands it to the visitor]
“Here. Rub this charm on your skin in the morning and evening.” [sternly because this is important] “Keep it away from animals and children and lock it somewhere safe and out of moonlight after dusk.”
[returns to her spellwork]
“Now leave me alone to finish this spell. I don’t have much time before the full moon.”
[pause, imagine the person is leaving]
[after checking to make sure they’re gone, she removes her hat as she looks at the spell book, and sighs]
Jasper and C.C. are visiting the rest of the OC squad for the day. Jasper was laughing to them earlier about a minecraft village he burned down the most recent time he played. Eliote’s been giving him death glares ever since, shoving him every time she walks past, refusing to let him have any food she’s made, and speaking to him in the most bitter tone possible. She acts like this anytime he brings up burning villages. He honestly finds it hilarious, though he’s a bit confused as to why she gets THIS upset over it. Even Jewel and Penny and Twig don’t act this hostile around him for this long over burning villages, and they’re the ones who're always react with the most abject horror and screams and tears, and go as far as holding funeral services for the villagers. Today, while Eliote’s finishing up washing dishes, he goes up and asks her about this out of curiosity. She’s the most comically serious out of any of them, he’d expect her to let it slide the easiest knowing it’s just a game.
“’Just a game?’” She asks as she puts away the last of the just-washed dishes. She turns to him, still glaring. “If it’s just a game, why do you go about treating villagers in it just the same way you treat people in real life? Like any of us have been doing in a way, except YOUR way of treating people in real life is to terrorize them instead of just, y’know, treating them like people. You know what happens when you burn down villages in real life? People, real people with lives and memories and friends and families, people who worked their butts off to build their homes see those homes go up in flames and burn to ash, see everyone they know and love die screaming in the fire before they die screaming as well. And those that manage to escape are scarred for life with the memories of how they lost their homes and their families forever, lost everything and everyone they ever knew and loved. There could be little girls who lived in those villages you burn down, little girls who barely made it out alive who have to cry themselves to sleep at night now knowing they’ll NEVER see their parents’ faces again. Little girls with no home to go back to who have to travel and search god knows how long to find a new one, and maybe never find it. Or maybe find several new homes but be too scared to stay too long in any of them knowing how easily the same thing could happen to any of those. Little girls who’ll try to find families again, but know none of them will ever replace the family they lost, and anyone they manage to get close to anyway could just as easily get taken from them as well. Little girls with no one left to take care of them, who have to learn to take care of themselves instead younger than they should ever have to. Little girls too scared to get too close to anyone or anything, who’ll teach themselves for years to rely on themselves and themselves alone, to push away anyone who tries to get close, to push down the pain of isolation because the pain of getting close to someone only to lose them would be far worse, who’ll spend years and years alone before they FINALLY manage to start opening up again. Little girls who’ll have nightmares about burning buildings and terrified screams for the rest of their lives, who’ll remember those terrified screams every time they see someone light a match for the rest of their lives. Little girls like ME, eight years ago, who’ll never be the same again, all because some heartless JERK like YOU decided destroying everything and everyone they knew would be a fun - little - GAME." She’s jabbing him in the chest with her finger now, glaring daggers into him worse than ever before.
Jasper stares at her in stunned silence.
She steps back and scoffs. “But then again, you’re YOU, you LIKE making people suffer, that’s the whole point, why would I expect you to care? Why would I expect anything I say to make you stop? Why did I bother wasting my breath?”
She closes the dishwasher. “I can’t make you stop doing anything. But I swear if I hear about you burning villages again, I will take my bow and arrows and use you as advanced target practice.”
She shoves past him on her way to the door.
“I... I had no idea that happened to you,” Jasper says, sounding like a totally different person without any of his usual smugness and bombastic dramatic flair. “I’m sorry.”
“Well, now you know,” Eliote deadpans from just outside the doorway. “And save your breath.” She continues walking away.
“No really, I’m sorry. I never would’ve done it if I’d known.”
She continues walking away.
“In fact,” he says, before clearing his throat and speaking louder and more dramatically with one hand behind his back and the other pointing a finger up, “I, Jasper Lukas Von Rosenburg, hereby solemnly swear on my parents’ fortune to never burn down another village as long as I live!”
Eliote stops around the end of that sentence, then turns around and squints at him a little with suspicion.
“Doubt me all you like, Miss Eliote, but that is a solemn vow I fully intend to keep. I may be a supervillain, but I’m also a gentleman who keeps his word. I can write down and sign a paper contract right now and give it to you to if you like!”
“No need.” She says. “I think I can remember that.” She turns and starts walking away again.
“Burning down villages in minecraft is such a cliche anyway,” he remarks. “I can come up with schemes FAR more creative than that to carry out when playing minecraft! I don’t need fire to cause mayhem. There are plenty of other methods, some of which aren’t even necessarily lethal! It’ll be a fascinating challenge! You know, I really should be thanking you for opening up my eyes!”
"Save your monologues for C.C. on the battlefield, Jokester,” Eliote says, rolling her eyes and trying not to laugh.
For a lot of my posts on this blog I like imagining all my OCs (though they exist in different fictional worlds in their narratives) are living together in one place, like the Disney princesses in the Pocket Princess comics.
Now, I imagine that Eliote is kind of the Only Sane Man a lot of the time, as well as the resident Deadpan Snarker. She’s a Sour Outside Sad Inside kind of person and--oh heck, I’m gonna stop with the TV Tropes dumping and just say she’s entirely based of off Branch from Trolls, okay??
Penny on the other hand has a lot of similarities to Poppy. She’s the most energetic and goofy personality of the bunch, she’s the one who most loves bright colors and glitter and singing, she’s the one who always tries to find the positive in everything. She’s not meant to be based off Poppy the way Eliote’s based off Branch, though. One of the first facts to know about her actually is that she’s a vampire--and she wasn’t born that way, she got bitten when she was 12, and that shook up her life and threw it across the rocks in a way that took her a long time to MOSTLY recover from. She’s actually a bit of a Stepford Smiler on some level. And she’s not even particularly trying to hide that. But you still might never realize it looking at her.
So in this Pocket Princesses type universe, I picture Penny waking up to watch the sunrise, dancing around the kitchen singing along to the radio while getting breakfast ready for some other OCs, and Eliote getting up looking like a zombie with messy hair and dark circles under her eyes grumbling in annoyance at Penny and going straight for the coffee machine. I picture Eliote rolling her eyes and making snarky comments when Penny’s painting a face on her hand and making it talk. I picture Eliote complaining when Penny’s singing because she wants to focus on whatever else she’s doing. I picture them getting into arguments over the good and bad in just about every situation or in just life in general. You get the idea.
BUT. And here is the thing. I imagine that late at night when it’s just the two of them in the kitchen having one of those arguments, when Eliote’s going at Penny about the whole “life isn’t all cupcakes and rainbows” thing, Penny does tell her that she KNOWS it’s not all cupcakes and rainbows...but rather than skipping right to the “but i’d rather go through life thinking that it mostly is instead of being like YOU”, she first goes into just how well she knows this considering all that she’s been through.
And Eliote’s skeptical at first, thinking that the way Penny acts what can she POSSIBLY have been through in her life?
And Penny sighs, sits on the counter, and starts a whole monologue about it.
(i put it under the cut because it’s VEEEEERY long)
“I wasn’t born a vampire, Eliote. I was 12 when I was bitten, and my life’s never been the same since. I used to love to run and play outside on sunny days, and suddenly I couldn’t anymore without getting burned. Besides, one of the things I used to love most about running around was how out of breath I was afterwards and how I could feel my heart beat super fast and hard and it just made me feel so ALIVE. After I got bitten, my pulse just...stopped. As if I wasn’t really alive anymore. It just hammered it home that I wasn’t HUMAN anymore, and it just hurt so much thinking I was never gonna be again. Plus suddenly I couldn’t see myself in mirrors anymore, and I didn’t show up in photos anymore. Almost as if I wasn’t really even there, didn’t even exist. Wasn’t alive, wasn’t a real person. Do you KNOW what that’s LIKE?”
By this point, the way she starts to look and sound genuinely upset kind of starts making Eliote start reconsidering her assumption already.
“I used to love goofing around with all my friends, but as soon as they found out about the bite, some of them were more nervous around me, and others had parents who were super scared of vampires and didn’t want them to spend as much time with me. Plus if I hadn’t fed for awhile when I was with them I’d start having to fight off cravings for THEIR blood. Do you know what blood cravings are like, Eliote? Can you imagine, just being with your friends and then your stomach starts rumbling and you smell blood and you start having this primal URGE to just jump on them and bit into their neck and suck? It is TERRIFYING. If I didn’t already get enough reminders I was some kind of inhuman undead monster now, that was more than enough.
“Oh, and don’t even get me STARTED on the blood-drinking thing itself. I never wanted that. At first I tried to keep eating like I always had, but suddenly everything tasted like dirt. All my favorite foods tasted like dirt. I had to start getting used to the idea that I’m never get to enjoy eating candy or cupcakes or pizza ever again. All I could feed on was blood. Freaking BLOOD. That came from actual, living beings. It was just so WRONG. I didn’t want to do it. I used to starve myself, Eliote. I used to try and go as long as I could without eating, until the hunger was killing me and the cravings were scaring me out of my wits and I just had to make it stop. THEN I would drain any dead mice the cat dragged in or some samples my family had taken out from themselves. Which was really nice of them, actually. And I’d still feel so guilty afterwards. So sorry for them, so disgusted at myself even though I knew I didn’t have a choice. I’d lock myself in my room all the time, I was too scared to be around people in case I started having blood cravings and couldn’t hold myself back. I cried so much that year, Eliote. So darn much.” At this point, she starts curling up on herself and tearing up. She takes a moment before wiping her eyes and continuing.
“I learned to make myself think about other things, like songs and stuff, while I was feeding, to keep my mind off of the guilt. I learned to spend as much of my time as possible doing things that made me happy--singing, dancing, painting, anything to keep me smiling and keep some joy in my life so that everything else wouldn’t get to me quite as much. I kept wearing all the friendship bracelets my friends had made me so I’d be reminded of them, of when I was human. I learned to have fun with my new super strength and super speed, because it was something GOOD about being a vampire that I actually COULD have fun with. I started watching every sunrise and sunset from my window and getting as many kinds of artificial lights indoors with me as I could because it was the closest I’d get to being outside in the sunshine. I keep trying to find ways that I can ACTUALLY be outside in the sun without getting burned too. Nothing’s worked yet, but I have to try, I can’t give up on this, I just CAN’T give up on this...” she clenches her fists with determination, then goes on a moment later.
“I wear bright colors because they make me happy, I sing and dance because it makes me happy, I joke around and find as many things as I can to smile and laugh about so I can distract myself from everything that makes me miserable. I have to find the good things in life, in everything I can. I have to. Because otherwise, all the bad things will just weigh me down and leave me miserable all the time again, and I don’t know about you, but I can’t live like that, Eliote.” She turns and looks at Eliote. “I have to give myself reasons to be happy, things to enjoy in life. And I have to try and spread that joy and brighten people’s day, not just because it’s fun and it also makes me really, really happy to see people smile and have fun, but because NOBODY should have to feel like I did when I was 12. Ever.” Her expression looks more determined at this point.
“I have to look for the cupcakes and rainbows in life, Eliote. Because I know how bad the darkness and suffering in it can be. And I can’t let that keep me down anymore. And no one else will either, if I have anything to say about it.” She gets down from the counter and leaves the room.
And Eliote’s just left standing there, speechless.
