Mohg, driving and singing to the Little Einsteins theme song: We’re going on a trip-
Varre: In our favorite piece of shit!
Baku: Doing 95!
Morgott: We’re gonna fucking die!
Morgott: Where art thou going? Mohg: To either get ice cream or commit a felony. I'll decide on the way.
Morgott: Whom wouldst thou kill out of the four of us, Raine?
Raine: Varre, easily.
Varre, incredulous: What the fuck, man.
Raine: Well, Baku would be too easy. He’d probably be into it.
Baku, now standing in the doorway: What the fuck, man!?
Baku: When I first got my autism diagnosis, my first thought was “woah… it’s canon” and I think that maybe thoughts like that is why Raine made me get tested.
Morgott: H-how doth thee asketh someone out?
Baku: Well, first-
Varre: Don't ask him, he asked me out in a McDonalds parking lot.
Morgott: …And thou accepted?
Varre: Hey, can we stay in your palace tonight?
Raine: Why?
Varre: Baku fiddled with an ouija board and cursed ours.
Varre: Lord Mohg doesn't know how to banish spirits, so he just threw salt at them and yelled "DOES THIS LOOK LIKE A HOTEL TO YOU?!"
Raine: WHOEVER CAUSED THIS MESS IS GOING TO-
Morgott: Twas I…
Raine: …Is going to be forgiven because everyone deserves a second chance.
Raine, walks into the kitchen, ignoring everyone :
Baku: Hey, Raine, how was your day?
Raine picks up an onion and bites into it, staring at Baku: Hell.
Morgott, watching this unfold, whispers: Who hurt thee?
Baku, Raine & Mohg: *screaming*
Varre, runs into the room: What's wrong, my Lord Mohg?!
Baku: Wait, why are you asking Mohg that when Raine and I are also here?
Varre: Because Lord Mohg wouldn't scream unless it's an emergency. You two scream whenever you have the chance.
Mohg: The waiter at Olive Garden has been grating my cheese for 6 hours now, waiting for me to say when. Customers are screaming. Three people have died.
Mohg: I will not yield.
Varre: I'm not that stupid! Baku: Varre, you literally ate the wax from a babybel.
Varre: LORD MOHG TOLD ME IT WAS EDIBLE!
Baku, looks at Raine: Baby boy. Baby. Baku, looks at Varre: Evil.
Morgott, holding a rock: Raine gaveth this to me and hath said "I feeleth like thee des'rve the moon but all I can giveth thee is a rock"
Mohg: If you don't marry him, I will.
Raine: Why is Varre crying on the floor?
Mohg: He's drunk.
Raine: And?
Mohg: He saw a picture of Baku's husband.
Raine: But he's Baku's husband.
Mohg: I know.
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Gene Pool
(Read Anne as Courtney!Anne)
Word count: 2917
Prompt: Speaks in a terrible Shakespearean/Elizabethan style to woo/make the other laugh
———————
A loud groaning noise vibrated through the walls of the theater, catching Anne’s attention as she was getting dressed to leave after that day’s evening show. To her left, Aragon wrinkled her nose in distaste.
“They still haven’t fixed those damn pipes?” She said. “Some high quality theater this is.”
“I think it’s fine,” Cleves shrugged. “It’s fun to tell young fans that it’s a ghost.”
“Of course you would do that.” Anne laughed.
“Shall we wait for you?” Aragon asked the green queen, as she and Cleves had finished changing.
“Nah, go without me,” Anne said. “I’ve got some things to do.”
In which, those “things” were cheering up a certain blonde girl.
Anne noticed Joan acting rather stressed and aloof for awhile, but it wasn’t until she spiraled into a panic attack out of nowhere the day before that she finally decided to really do something. She was going to treat the poor music director to a dinner of her choice and just be there for her, and hopefully get the truth of her current state out of her in the process.
“Oh, m’lady!” Anne chirped, prancing into Joan’s dressing room. “Gath'r thy belongings, mine own lief! It’s timeth to wend!”
She stopped in the doorway, noticing that Joan was still in her costume.
The girl didn’t acknowledge her...or maybe she didn’t even hear her. She just remained hunched over her desk. Anne thought she may have been asleep, as she did sometimes nod off, but she saw the subtle twitch of her shoulders and heard the smallest sniff emit from her timid music director.
“The young wench gaveth nay cleareth response.” Anne narrated. She dramatically leaned against the wall. “Ign'r'd by mine own owneth kin! Thee curs'd robe stealeth'r! How couldst thee doth this to me?!”
No response.
Anne pursed her lips and stepped closer.
“Prithee! Doth not doth this to me! Pri— Joan?”
Anne stopped her charade when she heard the tiniest whimper. In an instant, her maternal instincts are kicked in and she sets a hand on Joan’s shoulder, which causes a second whimper to bubble up. Then, Joan is twisting around in her chair and burying her head against her stomach, weeping.
“Anne— Oh, Anne, I-I messed up! I-I thought I could—” Joan’s strange babbling broke off into incoherent sobbing.
“Hey, hey,” Anne wrapped her arms around the trembling girl. “Hey, shh... Shh... It’s okay. Whatever it is, it’s okay.”
“No, it’s not!” Joan ripped away. Her eyes are wide with terror. “I-it’s not okay! I-I...”
She looked down at her hands as if they were drenched in blood and broke down into a fresh fit of tears.
“Come here, sweet girl...” Anne gathered Joan back into her arms and held her tightly. She rubs her back comfortingly. “Shh, shh... I’ve got you, baby. I’ve got you. I’m right here.”
“A-Annie,” Joan squeaked out. “I-I’m s-so sorry...”
“It’s okay, Joan. You’re allowed to cry.”
“N-no—“ Joan sniffled. “N-not...not about that. About...”
Anne furrowed her eyebrows in concern.
“What?”
Joan leaned back. She’s hugging herself tightly, not making eye contact. Then, her gaze shifts to her desk, and Anne follows.
Joan’s work table is always a mess, but now it just looks like a hurricane had blown across it. Dozens of papers are scattered across the top, and there are several more that are crumpled into balls or ripped or completely shredded. Ink of various colors is splattered on the white wood, staining it permanently. Books are open and leaned against the wall- books about human anatomy and skeletons and body parts.
It takes a moment for Anne to realize that this was not music director work.
“Joan, what’s all this?” Anne asked. She picked up the nearest paper and read it over.
The paper had a crude drawing of a human at the center with notes written all over the sides, several of which were scribbled out, seemingly incorrect. The person had an animal skull over the head, which Anne assumed to be a deer’s. On the top, a few words were written, “Cadaver?? Deer??? Stag??”
“Are you taking up an interest in forensics?” Anne laughed slightly. “Joan, sweetheart, that’s nothing to be ashamed of! Bessie already—”
“No!” Joan cried. “Y-you don’t...” She gripped her forearms tightly and rocked back and forth in the chair. Something was making the poor thing very distressed. “I-I can’t... I can’t hide this from you anymore, can I?”
Anne blinked. She slowly set the paper down and cupped Joan’s tear stained face.
“Joan, baby, what’s going on? What’s wrong?”
A few fresh tears slipped out of Joan’s eyes. Anne gingerly wiped them away with her thumb.
“Talk to me, darling.” Anne murmured to her. “Please. I’m worried about you.”
Joan sniffled. She pulled away from Anne and scrubbed at her eyes before standing up.
“Okay,” She whispered. “Do you have any food?”
“Food?” Anne blinked
“Yeah.”
Confused, Anne dug through her purse and pulled out an energy bar. Joan smiled weakly and took it from her, then also swiped a small journal from underneath a pile of papers, causing it to topple over in an avalanche of white.
“Thanks. Come on.”
Anne followed Joan out of the dressing room, down a hallway, and towards a back section of the theater that nobody really went to just because it seemed creepy. And they were right to think that, because Joan opened a set of double doors that were usually always locked with a key she slips out from her back pocket.
“Where are we going?” Anne asked as they walked down another corridor, this one much more rundown and dim.
“The basement.” Joan answered grimly.
“This place has a basement?”
“...Yeah.” There’s anxiety flashing through Joan’s eyes. Anne tried to calm her by placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder, but it did little to help. “Anne— I-“ The words die. Joan has to think for a moment before she tries to speak again. “I was...alone for a long time before you came along and took me under your wing. I had a lot of time to think. And one thing I could never get out of my head was how we got here. Reincarnation, I mean.”
“Yeah...?” Anne said, not really understanding.
Joan stopped at a staircase that seemingly led into a pitch black void. She spun around to face Anne. An unreadable emotion has replaced the anxiety in her bloodshot grey eyes.
“If we could be brought back to life, could the same happen to other people?” She said. “I— I was so fascinated by this that I started coming up with all these scenarios.” She opened the journal and showed Anne a page scrawled with pictures of humans and skeletons, triangles, beams of light, and other strange symbols. She’s smiling slightly. “I call it the ‘reincarnation theory.’ It’s what I’ve been using as an answer for all of this.” She points to three lightning bolts. “Think of it like Frankenstein. With enough electricity, a person can be revived. But what about a person who’s been dead for five hundred years?”
Anne wasn’t sure how to answer that, but Joan wasn’t looking for a reply.
“And do they have to be important? Like you and the other queens! Perhaps you being here is the ‘electricity’ that me and the ladies in waiting needed to come back. So would that work with other people, too? Other- other people from our time? People close to us?”
Then, her grin fell. A look of guilt and fear twists her features again.
“I...I haven’t been staying late to work on music director stuff.” She whispered.
Joan spun around and promptly walked down the staircase, nothing bothering to turn on any lights. If there were lights at all.
Anne hesitated, then followed.
“What are you talking about?” She asked. She had never been so confused and unnerved in her life.
Joan doesn’t answer. All she does is look at Anne pitifully, then turns her gaze forward again.
After a few seconds of walking, Joan opens another locked door at the bottom of the staircase, and they step into a nearly pitch-black room. The only light inside was a furnace-like piece of machinery in the back, which glowed a soft orange color. It seemed to be a boiler room of sorts.
“Joan...” Anne whispered warily.
She quickly realized why Joan hadn’t been speaking.
The low groan of the leaky pipes rumbled from somewhere in the darkness.
But it wasn’t the pipes.
Anne watched in frozen horror as something slinked out of the shadows. Its greyish skin and misshapen figure was like anything she had ever seen before. Inhumanly long fingers with hooked nails scratched quietly against the cracked tile in front of it. Long, disjointed feet pushed the rest of its scraggly, naked body along. When it raised its head, it had no eyes, just black sockets, and an stubby, elongated nose and mouth, like a bat snout of sorts. Patches of wiry brown hair that seemed more like fur stuck up along the head. It almost looked like a very large hairless dog in a weird sort of way.
The thing crawled on all fours out of the darkness, sniffing loudly as it went. Then, it jumped up, nearly making Anne run out from the scare of the jarring movements, and perched on a low hanging pipe. It extended a bony hand towards the pair, making loud noises as it waved it in the air. Joan gently squeezed the hand and then let the creature feel her head and face. It seemed to recognize her that way and let out a delighted hum, leaning over to nuzzle her cheek.
“Hey, Johnny Boy,” Joan murmured, smiling softly. “Sorry I’m a little late.”
“Joan—” Anne choked out. She’s backed up to the doorway, ready to run. “What the fuck?”
“Anne-” Joan whirled around to face the queen. The creature above her head began to growl. It sounded like when a human tried to imitate a dog, which made it that much more terrifying. “Please don’t run.”
“What the fuck?” Anne whispered again. Her eyes don’t leave the thing sitting on the pipes like a jungle bird.
“Anne, listen to me,” Joan said. She walked forward and took Anne’s hands. “You— You have to let him smell you. Or else he’ll think you’re a threat and—” She broke off.
“And what?” Anne asked fearfully.
“You...don’t want to know.” Joan said grimly. “Now please. I promise he won’t hurt you if you do this.”
Anne looked at Joan, searched her eyes for the same malicious glint Henry had in them when he sent her to his death, but found nothing. The girl was genuinely trying to help her.
Tentatively, on wobbling knees, Anne took a step forward. Joan helps her along, keeping on hand on her elbow and the other on her wrist. They slowly approach the creature on the pipes.
“Hey, Johnny,” Joan murmured sweetly. The creature turns its head in her direction, rumbling in acknowledgment. “I have a friend here to meet you. Her name is Anne. You remember Anne, don’t you? The queen?”
The creature chuffed in recognition.
Anne’s hand is held out to it and it sniffs her gingerly. Then, it leans forward, fingers and toes curling around the pipe for stability, and begins to smell the rest of Anne. It took everything in Anne not to run away when it feels her facial features and hair with one of its cold, bony hands.
“See?” Joan said to her, smiling in relief. “Was that so hard?”
“I-I don’t... I don’t understand.” Anne whispered.
“I’m not expecting you to,” Joan said. “This is my brother. John. I tried to bring him back when the loneliness became too much and it...kinda worked.”
“Why does he look like that?” Anne asked, earning an offended snort from John. “Sorry.”
“I...I don’t know.” Joan admitted. “I’ve been trying to figure that part out. So...I’ve been...testing more...”
Anne’s breath caught in her throat.
“Oh, Joan, no-”
A clicking noise cut her off. She slowly looked over her shoulder into the darkness of the boiler room and searched the shadows. It took her a moment, but she eventually found what had been mimicking the sounds The Predator would make.
It lunged out at Anne, screeching inhumanly. Anne screamed, too, as she’s knocked back against the wall. The thing was clinging to her body, nails pressed into her shoulders and thighs as it raised above her hand and-
“Juana, stop!!”
Joan shoved the creature away and it toppled backwards. Its long brown limbs flail widely in the air before it manages to roll over and back away on all fours, arching its bony spiny up like a cat.
The thing is humanoid like John, but not as bony, has darker skin, similar to Aragon’s tone, with a yellowish-bronze tint, and its legs are more noticeably hock-jointed. Its shoulder blades are grotesquely stretched out to inhuman lengths like wings that are waiting to sprout. The tailbone is extended, too, and waved back and forth in the air as some kind of warning. Tufts of something are sprouted along the nape of the neck, collarbone, elbows, and knees. A gas mask is attached to the face, shielding any facial features.
“Will you cut that—” Joan sighed and looked at Anne, who is horrified all over again. “Sorry. Juana is a little cranky sometimes.” She makes sure that’s directed to the creature, who clicks angrily. “Umm. This is Juana. Aragon’s sister.”
“Ara— What?!”
John hisses and Juana clicked when Anne yelled. She quickly shut her eyes and just stared at Joan with wide eyes. The music director anxiously rubs her sweaty palms against her pants.
“I didn’t have anyone else from my life I could test my theory on.” She said. “So...I started using others. Because maybe if I could bring back down siblings then everyone would like me.”
“Joan, that’s— that’s insane!” Anne exclaimed. “Why would you—”
“I don’t know, okay?!” Joan snapped. Tears were brimming in her eyes again. “I don’t know! It was stupid, I get it! But there’s nothing I can do about it now! They’re here. And I can’t just get rid of them. They’re alive, Anne.”
Anne is silent for a moment.
“Who else is here?” She asked quietly.
“There’s four in total.” Joan answered. “Isabel is another.”
“Isabel...?”
“Leigh.” Joan specified. “Kat’s sister.”
From further back in the room, there’s a creaking noise, followed by a low grumbling.
A tall creature with shiny black skin with grey speckles lumbers out of the shadows. It’s so large it bonks its head on one of the pipes, causing it to rear back in surprise before ducking under the oppressive piece of metal. When it gets close enough, Anne could see horn-like formations curling out of the top of the bald head. The only facial features it has is solid, piercing blue eyes.
“Here she is.” Joan said. “Isabel, this is Anne. She’s Kat’s cousin.”
Isabel tilted her head slowly, almost like a dog. She lifted one of her clawed hands, which is as big as Anne’s face, and tentatively touched one of Anne’s spacebuns. She makes a low cooing noise and then waved her head to look at the other two malformed reincarnated creatures nearby.
“Are they...in pain?” Anne asked. “Does this hurt them?”
“I don’t think so,” Joan answered. “They aren’t bad, I just— I messed up.” She lowered her head. “I want to help them, I just don’t know how and I-I keep making it worse. I can’t bring them out because-“ She gestured vaguely for the trip. “You know…” She raised a hand and Isabel pressed her cold, black cheek into it. “But...they’re my friends.”
John clambered across a pipe and leaned over to nuzzle Joan’s temple with his bat-like snout. Joan smiled weakly and gave him the energy bar she had gotten from Anne. His empty sockets widen when he realizes what’s being offered to him and he snatches it up, devouring the treat with the wrapper still on.
“You have to tell the others.” Anne said.
“What?!” Joan looked at her, startled. “N-no! I can’t! Do you know how they’ll react? Especially Aragon! This— this is basically black magic!”
“They can’t arrest you or anything for it.”
“But they can shun me!”
“They deserve to know!” Anne argued.
She was getting angry. Joan knee she shouldn’t have told her.
“No, they don’t!” Joan cried. Her tears spill over. “Why don’t you deal with your family member before you tell me what to do with theirs!”
Anne froze. Her eyes go wide. There’s a low, but harmless and curious growl from the darkness behind her.
“Wh...what?”
Joan sniffled and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. John hangs over her head, and she can hear Juana and Isabel’s claws clack against the tile floor as they stand behind her, watching Anne.
“I told you there were four.” She mumbled hoarsely.
Anne was frozen for a tense half second before she slowly turned around and watched as a humanoid with a deer skull head, the thing from the drawing on Joan’s desk, stepped out of the shadows towards her. It tilts its head like a puppy and the bony jaws open up in a small smile.
“Anne... This is George.”
Tears start to rapidly fall down Anne’s cheeks.
“Your brother.”
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