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[crittersheep]

WHO: all
WHERE: all
WHEN: Day 9, evening into night

[the sun goes down; the two moons rise.

it all looks...quite different. the laundromat lengthens and transforms the silhouette of Woolietown in the distance. the lighthouse beacon comes to life for the first time, throwing strong, brilliant light and stark shadows across the meadow and into the barns. the lazy river encircles the pasture in a glittering band, the bobbing shapes of the pool toys a little bit eerie until they drift into full view.

perhaps some of you are winding down. perhaps some of you are just gearing up for a wild adventure in the shadows. perhaps some of you, regardless of if you sleep or stay up, find your dreams and nightmares crawling out beyond the bounds of your own head tonight, drawing others in...

the night is full of possibilities.]

Comments

[finalbows]

<sub>[ well, that's not good. stop doing that.

he sits down with the book that's bleeding in black, and starts trying to scoop up the pooling ink. when he has enough cupped in his hand it can pour, he opens the book up, and tries to dribble the ink back onto the pages. ]</sub>

[beathollow]

( ... it works, on some level. as it falls onto the page, it fills out again; not with words, but with pictures. the princess and three girls, standing before a large tree. the flowers resemble the one on the tree.

the princess, though hurting, smiles softly in it.

it feels warmer. )

[finalbows]

<sub>[ this you can almost understand.

no one likes to lose something that makes them happy. the free bleeding books will... probably tire themselves out eventually? listen, cuts scab. but once that real ink has set and dried, it'd be a whole production to try to salvage something of it, scraping shavings up from the floor and rehydrating them and all that bullshit. ]</sub>

...There, see? It wasn't too late. Here. _{[ he carefully holds it up. ]} Just because that old bookshelf couldn't hold all the weight that was put on it...

[beathollow]

( the princess stills immediately before she looks up slowly. she almost seems... afraid? ashamed? before she notices the book has had something returned to it. quietly, she brushes her fingertips across the paper, almost afraid to touch the ink lest it run free again. )

... I don't remember their names... and I fear if I stay in these woods, I'll lose their voices and faces, too... but the queen is still out there. And now, the wolves...

[finalbows]

...It's not impossible. People lose things, in this forest. And if you should meet a familiar face.. they may not be there as the ally you recall.

It's your choice to make. ...Though you may bleed merely as much to the fangs of those wolves, as to all these...

_{[ the other books, that is. ]}

[beathollow]

That-

( the books. the books, the books, the bleeding books. look closer and you'll find bones laying beneath them. bone skewered and snake scales and has she always needed the bandage on her arm? where did that come from?

(sometimes wolves don't want to hurt. sometimes they try to help. but their teeth and claws are still sharp as knives.

sometimes a wolf will try to help, but its still a wolf, and she is still a rabbit.)

the princess falters. )

I don't know what to do...

[finalbows]

When you find a puzzle and you don't know the answer... I like very much to sit and look at the pieces. I didn't know the answer why you were crying.

Did it all start when the shelf fell...?

[beathollow]

It... it always falls. Sometimes something knocks it over, or it just collapses on it's own, but every time I think I'm ready to put things back, it falls again. I have so many other things to do, too...

( its why you agreed to let her stay, after all. free board and protection, if she helps out. )

There's no other shelf for me to use.

[finalbows]

A shelf is for display. It IS the best place for them all.

<sub>[ of course he cares foremost for the aesthetics.

gingerly-- because he's wearing those long, flowing white sleeves, and he doesn't want more blood on them. his whole life is keeping blood off those pure sleeves. he moves around the books so they're all laid out in a row, the salvaged picturebook of her friends kept carefully separate. he holds it up again, as the blood from the other volumes start running down the lines between floorboards towards them. ]</sub>

But this seems.... a little more precious than a statement.

Where would you put a diary in this room, if you had to?

[beathollow]

I don't know. I... the queen would go through mine. From very early on. There was no point trying to hide anything, so I stopped trying to keep one.

1/3

[finalbows]

What a vile woman. One's creations at least deserve the basic dignity of privacy with their own thoughts.

2/3

[finalbows]

_{[ the first time HE found a black mage making personal notes, he totally ignored it because he knew whatever it was would be profoundly boring and irrelevant. parenting W ]}

3/3

[finalbows]

Did she... fear you, then?

<sub>[ that's got to be it, right? he was hardly afforded privacy until it was too inconvenient not to, because of all the Treachery Math his own King was constantly during with regards to him. rightfully, but still. it was a pain.

he starts glancing around the room, but... it's not going to work as a hiding place if he picks it out for her. ]</sub>

Re: 3/3

[beathollow]

She wanted what was best for me. Whether it was what I wanted or not...

( the princess pauses before looking up at him again. )

I never wanted the crown, but I would have done as she said. I always did. I loved her. I just... wanted to look at something other than her library.

Maybe she did. Because "I" am not what she wants. And I don't think I can love her as I am now.

[finalbows]

<sub>[ he opens the picturebook again. pages through it.


there's not one single sign of the queen in this book, as far as he can tell. the others, though...

he reaches out and opens each one, roughly to the middle. ]</sub>

[beathollow]

( tragically, the books aren't of much help. as they bleed, be it ink or blood, the contents fall off as well. entire swathes of pages are left blank, with only fragments of passages remaining. this, too, had brought tears to the princess to begin with.

there is only one image of the queen, from long ago. she sits beside the princess as a child, gently caring for her feverish daughter in bed, and not a single shackle or string can be found.

the next page shows the princess sick again, so feverish she's collapsing, while the queen pretends she doesn't see from the hallway. )

[finalbows]

<sub>[ oh.

he'd been falsely assuming those books were something completely other from the one in his hands. it's not quite like that, at all. it doesn't fit with the tidy boxes he like to arrange everything into to think about.


the stark imagery of neglect, set right next to that ideal of parental care irks him like nothing else. ]</sub>

If your destiny were so important she acted like all that, the least she could have done was played along a little bit for you the same as she expected you to do for her.

[beathollow]

... My destiny... is that what it was...

( the princess picks up one of the bleeding books. this one seems a bit newer, the leather binding shinier. and yet, it's one of the ones bleeding. it, like the others, is empty for the most part.

the first chapter details life in woolietown. )

... I don't want to remember any more. But I don't want to forget, either.

[finalbows]

If you got both those things at once, you'd become a riddle.

"I may know without recalling, and yet I may lose without forgetting. Who am I?"

[beathollow]

There is no answer. There's never been.

[finalbows]

Oh.

I was going to say "a book."

[beathollow]

( blinks

looks away, clearly flustered- )

[finalbows]

Hm, hm, hm. See, everyone can be something. Even if it's nothing at all, nothing is still something! She's a three headed something, or sometimes it's a very tall something with twisted wings and holes all through its face and-- anyway.

You can be a princess, or you can be a shy little bunny rabbit living in a hidden burrow. You can be a doll, or an angel, or a sheep or a fox or a villain or a-- book,

but you can never be nothing. Even though it all can vanish like dew in the light... or like paper melting in the rain...

It was still there.

[beathollow]

( the princess is quiet as she listens- she always is, always attentive. dried tears still stain her cheeks, but for perhaps the first time, she almost looks... hopeful. )

... Is it okay that I don't know what I want to be, yet...?

[finalbows]

Naturally. How else would we ever get anyone who is particularly specialized or at all refined in their role? And you don't have to pick just one. I'm at least seven.