@omnifobia || Closed starter.
It's such an intolerably long distance, every time, between Miranda's castle and civilization.
It lies long and past the roads, past the city limit, past all the buildings and all the shops and all the stores. It sits, alone, isolated, on the edge of the coast, perched against the barrier between land and sea. No neighbors for miles, save for the dark pine forests that surround it, save for the animals that move silently through their understory. Far past where the buses run, far past where anyone would want to go without knowing exactly where they were heading. Further and further away, where no one can interrupt what happens there.
The how doesn't matter. A breakoff from the highway, at some point, and then long backroads from there, twisting and winding without any other houses along the way. Getting to the front gate — to the two leviathans intertwined on it, gilt and silvered both, interlocking their teeth into the other's flesh, sitting on a high wall and thick gate so strong and plated that it seemed excessive, reductive, planning for an attack that clearly no one would ever be able to throw at them — was a trivial matter. Getting into the gardens surrounding the estate after the gate swings inwards of its own accord is another, moot, irrelevant.
Spring has settled here in full thrust. Flowers bloom in wild sprays of color at every angle, pathways laid in stark white stones weave lazily between gazebos and statues and endless waterworks, artificial streams and ponds of saltwater that weave over landscaping designed, appropriately, for a princess. There are the sounds of birds everywhere, of movement, of butterflies fluttering with heavy wingbeats around each new bush and tree, insects buzzing through the air, of a saltwater breeze carried up from beneath the cliff that waits below all of this.
More movement still reveals the faces and passing shapes of serfs. Here a fish, there a mammal, another a crustacean, moving quietly among the gardens, the sunlight cresting over their heads. Something this large requires constant attention, an army of caretakers, and they attend dutifully to what is asked of them.
But none of them pay any mind to Oz. None of them even look his way, watch as he walks by, not stopping in their shears nor shovels, speaking in low voices that vanish beneath the leaves.
He is an interloper in this place, but there is something more to it. All this beauty, this place torn from the fairytales that Miranda loves, made for balls and garden parties and events of the upper crust, of people made of the same material as Miranda was, and there is a pervasive feeling that he is, and is not, meant to be here.
More aptly, it's the feeling of walking into an ant's nest. That's the better word for it, the better line of thought. That it seems busy, but busy in a way that Oz was not supposed to see, or, that if Oz was supposed to be here, supposed to be in this place, he would not see the serfs, would not see the upkeep, would not see the movement. There is the overwhelming presence of life and occupation around Oz, but it is not something for him, intended because he is being regarded properly. That there is something in this act alone, the implication of all of it: that no one is expecting an escape. Something else has already sprung shut, the threat already passed, and no one has to concern themselves with Oz nor presentability when he passes by, already condemned to some other fate since the very beginning.
There are so many statues in the garden. Each one lifelike, carved to a distressing amount of detail, all caught in the throes of action, but none of them familiar. There are animals, yes, scenes of more natural beauty. But other things lurk in the bushes too, posed so naturally as they peek out of the shadows, marble eyes gleaming as they watch Oz's passage, and do not interfere.
This time, it is on the front door to this place. High doors, wood on the outside, and thickened, reinforced metal on the inside. It sits there, and it stares down at Oz, large as the size of some other houses.
It is gold, the image pressed down into the wood to form the great mural of a three-chambered heart, achingly anatomical in detail. The same ventricles open up, towards the high towers that plunge upwards into the sky, pierce the clouds as they begin to blush in lavender and orange hues. They spew the same picture as before, the image of rising steam and billowing smokestacks, disgorging their great plumes like the hydrothermal vents that lay down below, closer to where Miranda was born. Still, there are dozens, hundreds, of tube worms clustered around and over the arteries, opening their feathery heads up to breathe it in, preserved forever in metal, in an emblem.
There is an importance to this. It doesn't matter if no one answers the door for Oz, the same as the gate opening on its own, doesn't matter the slow, soft hiss of hydraulics having to work something so well-armored for a war that surely will never be fought, so terribly overprepared for something unthinkable. It is important that it is seen. It is important enough to wait there, to impress into Oz's mind, to be a symbol of something that hasn't quite yet been explained.
The castle, so useful for Miranda's duties as an ambassador of her people, just outside of her people's borders is as cavernous and silent as an open mouth. The halls are large, the ceilings high, and it carries the distinct flavor of Miranda's type of decor. Aquariums stare out at Oz from centerpieces, from walls, kept full of cultivated corals and small sharks and climbing crustaceans and silvery schools, and none of them have any further answers. It feels wrong, that a place so massive, so swallowing and labyrinthine, should feel like it is hiding so much, that the corners should be so dark and so distant, that anything could move around in here. There may be no crowds, but someplace like this was built for them, and the feeling persists that they might still be here somewhere, in some deeper ballroom cavity, in some worrying fold of the architecture, creeping up behind like they were confused that Oz had gotten so lost from the party.
No one helps Oz further in. There are no more serfs here. The walls, armored as they are, muffle the outside world, close it out. Anything could be out there. Anything could be in here.
The pathway to Miranda's bedroom is clear enough. It is not laid out, not marked, not obvious beneath the massive nest of hallways and multiple floors and endless rooms, but it's clear. Nowhere else Oz would go in this place, in this castle, would lead anywhere else.
There's only the matter of using the key, given and gifted.
