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supremevaltor · 4 months ago

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DAMN I WAS MISSING THAT.

Small Tbhtbh Snippet!

It's two weeks past the end of my internship and I still haven't gotten much done in the way of fanfic, so as compensation (and proof that im still writing!): Have A Snippet!

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She walks through the Palace, past the portraits of past rulers and long-dead relatives, until she finds her sister.

The sculpture of her is half-crumbled. There must have been a window broken, in the walls of this tower, one that’s only recently been fixed, because wind and ice seem to have worn down the pale stone of the statue over time. Her face is unrecognizable, the edges of her mask reduced to jagged stumps. One side is worse than the other, like the wind came from her left.

But she knows it’s her. She’d know her anywhere.

“Talk to me,” Bloom says.

Her voice echoes in the room, small and alone. Bouncing off of glass cases and strange instruments, of paintings and smaller statues. It’s the only sound they’re introduced to – not even the howling of the wind can be heard from here.

“Talk to me,” she repeats. “Or am I boring you, when I’m not actively dying?”

It’s dark. No golden light weaving through the shadows, no otherworldly glow to disturb this artful mausoleum. The only light comes from behind her, through the doorframe she came through. Her shadow doesn’t even reach the podium Daphne’s sculpture was placed on, to loom over all else in the room.

“Is that what it takes to get your attention?” she asks into the darkness. “Tearing myself open? You used to haunt me day in and day out, once. Have you forgotten how?”

The worn down stone gives no answer; Daphne’s face remains blank. She looks away. At least some things stay the same.

“Or do you think it’s not worth it, anymore. Now that I know my powers, and am not bleeding to death.”

Her hands run over the dusty stone tables, past the mysterious utensils and metal instruments. She takes one up at random, but gets no closer to understanding its function. A strange assembly of metal plates and rings, with no discernible purpose. She runs her finger over the edge of it. It looks sharp enough to cut.

“You’re really unreliable, you know that?” she murmurs down at her own hands. The metal glints in the low light. Stray beams catching on its polished surface, travelling along its curves and edges. She places it back down.

“I guess it runs in the family.”

She breathes out, sinking to the floor. Her throat is sore and her nose is running, and the big woolen shirt she’s thrown on to ward off the cold looks ridiculous. Not that there’s anyone here who would mind. She leans back against the table, her head falling back against it with a thud. Her hand moves to cover the mark etched into her neck, always warm, no matter her surroundings.

“You’re mad at me,” she says. “Is that it? You threw your life away for me, and now I’m here.”

The silence doesn’t protest. It doesn’t accuse her, either. It ignores her, the way a good silence ought to. Stars. Her head hurts.

“No, you wouldn’t be,” she gives in, after a moment. It feels venomous, to blame someone who isn’t there to defend themselves. To accuse someone, when she knows better. “You never were.”

She sighs, and stares at her hand as if the red of Valtor’s Mark might have rubbed off on it, like blood. He’ll be looking for her soon.

“You should be,” she says. “I would be. In my place, you would have… I don’t know what you would have done. I can’t imagine you ever being in this position in the first place.”

Her hand curls into a fist. Nails digging into the soft flesh of her palm, one by one.

“I’m so angry at you,” she whispers.

There’s dust trailing through the air. Dancing through the feint light from the corridor. It’s candle light, buttery yellow, but to her it feels all wrong.

“You should have helped me. We were right there, at your doorstep. You should have stopped me. Known better.”

Her fist hits the side of the desk beside her, hard enough to make the wood crack and the metal tools clink, above her.

“Why won’t you talk to me?”

Frustration burrows into her like a splinter into flesh, deeper and deeper the more she tries to worry at it. There’s a warbling kind of growl in her throat, and she buries her face in her hands so she doesn’t have to look up.

“It’s my fault,” she struggles, “I get it. My choices, my consequences. But you were there too!”

The dust on her hands feels like sand, for a moment; the desk she’s leaning against like that rock she’d once been tied to. Roccaluce’s empty lake bed towering around them like the walls of a canyon, witnessing the most disastrous decision she’d ever made.

“You’re supposed to be older, wiser than me,” she rasps out, tasting salt on her tongue. “Or does that only count when it’s about the Dragon Flame? Is my life — my friends’ lives — just not part of your job description? Are we not worth the hassle for you?”

There’s no answer. No explanation. She’s not there anymore, in that drained lake in Magix, she’s here. In another lonely tower, housing another lonely girl. Granted, this one’s made of stone. She sighs again.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m like this. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Her hands sink to the ground, before she decides to hide them in her sleeves instead. She glances up at Daphne’s non-existent face, and wonders what she hoped to see there.

“But I did,” she tells her softly. “I’m the one who has to live with it. I can’t keep worrying about what you’d think of me. I’ll go crazy.”

Daphne doesn’t answer. A regular occurrence for dead people, she’s been told. She coughs out a half-laugh, rubbing her temples.

“Maybe I already did.”

She pulls up her knees. Up towards her chest, until she can hide them underneath that big sweater of hers. The cold is starting to seep through the fabric, but she hugs her legs to her chest and tries to preserve all the warmth she has left.

“That’s what I wanted to say to you, I think,” she muses aloud. Tightens her grasp on her limbs, sets her chin down on her knees. “You’re not here. You didn’t help me. There’s nothing I can do anymore.”

She closes her eyes.

“So it’s my life now, okay? You don’t get to judge me. Please.”

The quiet settles like the dust around her, once her echo rings out. Slowly, softly. This silence is a heavy blanket. She wonders what this room used to be. It’s been fixed up, so Valtor or one of the Trix must have used it, at one point. What meaning could it have held in the past, for Daphne’s statue to be standing here so prominently? Did she ever stand here, to look at her own likeness? Did she ever bring her here, those precious few days they had both existed in the same realm? She stares at the sculpture, and frowns a little accusatory.

“You really could stand to give me a sign, or something,” she mutters. “Ghosts shouldn’t be this stingy. Especially not royal ones. I’ve seen your treasury.”

Maybe this had been just another study, where old artwork was being kept. Maybe her sister had spent no more time here than she had. She lets her head sink again. Hides her face in her soft woolen collar.

“I miss you,” she says to no one.

She doesn’t say anything, after that. There’s a tingling feeling in her neck, and then a shadow cutting through the rectangle of light cast onto the floor.

“Bloom,” Valtor sighs. “There you are. You should be resting. What are you doing here?”

She looks up at the doorframe and waves at him, too long sleeves still dangling over her hands.

“Catching up,” she shrugs. Then she coughs again, making Valtor curse and stalk towards her.

“Catching another cold, more likely.”

“Well, this one is definitely your fault,” she reminds him, swatting away his hand when he attempts to feel her temperature. “So if anyone’s chiding anyone here, it should be me.”

“Yes, yes,” Valtor waves her off, sounding very un-chided. “You can still do that in bed, can’t you?”

“Oh hey, guess what else we could have done in bed? Instead of a dark, freezing corridor?”

His lips twitch in a way that implies he’s entirely remorseless. Whether it’s because he doesn’t regret getting her naked as quickly as possible, that night, or because he enjoys getting to fuss over her, she doesn’t know. She’ll sneeze on him first chance she gets, she decides either way.

“I do hope you get better soon,” he kneels down next to her, brushing the dust from her hair. “Being sick makes you very prickly.”

“Pah! I don’t need to be sick to– Hey! What are you doing?”

In one smooth motion, he’s used her distraction to pull her into his arms and stand back up, her legs dangling uselessly from his arms.

“You’re ill,” he smiles innocently. “Sick people shouldn’t exert themselves. I’m carrying you back to your room.”

She struggles vehemently against his grip, something that is made infinitely more difficult by those oversized sleeves of hers.

“If I walked all the way up here, and can walk all the way back do— Hmmmmm. Actually, never mind. You’re very warm.”

He is. Unfairly so, really. That floor was very, very cold, and whatever sneeze-related revenge fantasies she’s been harboring are promptly put on the back burner so she can burrow her face into the silky layers of his shirt. Valtor doesn’t move for a full five seconds. Then he looks up and promptly begins to walk.

“I rescind what I said,” he says, sounding far too happy with himself.

“You should catch a cold more often.”

She refrains from snapping back this time. That would require her to pull her face out of the very soft, very warm ruffles of his collar, and she’s decided that that has priority, now. It’s only when he pauses at the entrance that she deigns to look up again.

“…something wrong?”

She can’t see his face clearly. Half of her vision is taken up by pale swirls of silk and lace trims, but she can see his jaw above her, his lips pressed together pensively.

“I thought I locked this door,” he says, facing the doorframe. She doesn’t remember breaking a lock to get in, so she doesn’t answer, instead opting to burrow back into his warmth. If he wants to accuse her of snooping where she shouldn’t, he can wait until she’s back to fighting form. After a moment, Valtor shakes his head and walks on, lips brushing over her forehead.

“It’s nothing,” he says. “Let’s get you out of the cold.”

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