nanowrimo; green is gold
Title: Green is Gold
Claimer: These people are mine. Take and die. 8);;
Fandom: Original (Now tentatively titled 'Dusted Timestamps.')
Character(s): Tula, Li, Ilu, Halady
Word Count: 3178
Rating: PG-13
Author's Note: God this chapter was long. >>; Err, enjoy? 8D; AND RIGHT. WRITTEN IN NOTEPAD. Like the rest of this so far. |D I need to switch to Word Document already.
1874, N. Dolon
[5] Green is Gold
She used to to live on 423 Lecter Crescent Lane. Her room was pretty and adorned with her favorite things; sea glass rubbed smooth, feathers stained rainbow-colours. She had music lined on the shelf of every cupboard, cameras and paper piled on top of them. Her windows had a sky-blue curtain; the sunlight could peek through it and warm her skin if she closed her eyes.
But that was when it was only her. That was when she was safe.
[...]
There are good days, and there are bad days.
Good days are when she counts one two three straight in a row, or when she weaves a needle through fabric to make a daffodil pattern. The people will give her bright-colour crayons and she will draw a bird outside the window or the people watching her through the windows. Those are the good days. She likes the good days.
But then there are the bad days where she's shouting riddles only she knows and her sister begs her to snap out, come back, be herself again. The bad days are when the people stare in fear from the window as they watch her scream and cry in words they don't know. Those are days where she sees the faces of too many people she doesn't know or still knows and once knew, and there is the face of him and him and him and him and him and, oh, how she wants to see only him. There's barely anything of him and she treasures each fading picture of him she gets.
Worst of all, there is the face of the person who made sure she was never alone. And sometimes, that's all she sees and all she hears and all she feels.
That's when her throat is too tired to scream and cry and shout and all she can whisper is, "I want him to bring me a poppy."
[...]
Halady DeLaine sighs as she makes her way to the next room. She stops in front of the door, like always, reading the number before making her way into the room.
Room 214. Patient number 2314. Miss Lilianne Lin. A girl once called Li.
Now known notriously around the floors as the unfortunate, poor girl who was met with the most tragic circumstances. How saddening for her family, she would never find a proper job now, no one would ever dare trust her again, now that she was like that.
Halady wants to spit at ladies of North Dolon.
Opening the door, she pushes the cart into the room and towards Lilianne. There's no point in wasting time, and if she hurries, she might be able to get out before the girl starts in on one of her attacks.
"Miss Lilianne," Halady begins, picking up the teacup off of the cart and placing it on the dusty wooden table in front of the girl, "I've brought you your morning tea. Would you like anything with it? A biscut, perhaps? Maybe a cube of sugar?"
She never wants anything. Oh, she knows. But she still has to ask because she's seen patients change and it's always nice to try and help, no matter how helpless the case.
A mumble.
Blinking, Halady says, "I-I'm terribly sorry. What was that?"
Lilianne is smiling. She is also crying.
"You used to call me 'Ly.'"
There's a twinge of disappointment before she begins pouring the tea. "I'm sorry, but we've never met before, other than when you came here. You must have me mistaken for someone else."
"Oh, but I know you," Lilianne says, crying a little harder as her voice becomes a touch hysterical, "I know you, I do I do. You know me and you're a good, nice person."
Again, Halady sighs; at least she's done with the tea and can move on. "I'm sorry, Miss Lilianne, but I'm not who you think I am."
Lilianne smiles, bright and sunny, and Halady can see a shadow of the girl she used to be, "Don't worry. You'll know. But thank you very much for everything you've done. And thank you for everything you will do. Thank you."
"Er... you're welcome."
As she makes her way out, she thinks that perhaps there is hope for Miss Lilianne after all.
But then again, she doesn't hear the screaming.
[...]
"I'm off to visit Li!"
Her voice echoes off of the walls, repeating her words to her as a goodbye.
Ilu wants to cry at the sight of the empty chairs, the severe lack of noise and motion and living. Her house is like the house of the dead, and with each passing day, she feels like she will eventually become a part of it as well.
The walk to the hospital is sterile, silent. She thinks that, despite the activity of the streets and people around her, there is no living within her area. It makes her want to turn back the hands of the clock, to wind them backwards and yesterday to when living was being alive.
But she can't. She knows she can't. And she knows she never will be able to.
Still, she likes to think of those yesterdays with the sun.
[&;]
"Psst, Ilu!"
Ilu yawned, turning over in her bed. It was nice and warm and comfy and she really didn't feel like waking up yet. Besides, it was only one in the afternoon; plenty of time later to do other things.
"Ilu! Come on," there was someone nudging her now, "it's important."
She groaned, stretched, then finally sat up rubbing her eyes, all of which took precisely three-and-a-half minutes like always. "All right, all right, what is it?"
Li climbed onto her bed, sitting down in her preffered Indian-squat, even though it was considered "unlady-like." Her face was nervous, and she kept looking to the side, as if she wasn't sure of if she really wanted to do this. Which was probably the case; she knew her sister.
"Well," Li started, still fidgeting and moving and being all-around nervous, "okay. Don't laugh, because I'm being compltely serious. Totally serious."
Now, she had her attention. "All right. What is it?"
"I think I have visions. Of the past or the future, I'm not exactly sure."
It was hard to take this seriously, and if it was anyone else but Li, Ilu would have thought they were joking with the way her voice was getting near the volume of a police siren, or the way the scratching randomly during the talking. But it was Li, so those things meant that she was nervous and scared.
And Li was never nervous. And she was definitely never scared.
"At first, I thought I was going crazy! From what, I don't know, but you know how the papers always have those stories of people going nuts from anything. Anyways, they were so freaky at first, but now... I don't know. It's kind of wonderful," she said, smiling in a giddy light-hearted kind of way.
She was honestly curious now. Of course she believed her big sister; something like this could get her easily thrown in an asylum. "So? Why was it so wonderful?"
"Hahaha, Ilu," Li said, looking so positively happy and lovely that she probably couldn't think of any time she had seen her look more pretty, "a bunch of things. It was like I was in the past, when things were so much simpler. You know what the only thing I had to do was? Pick herbs from the garden for medicine. Things were just so much easier than now. And well..."
"What else, what else," she urged on, like a child awaiting the end of of the fairytale.
Her voice came out in a such whole-hearted happiness, Ilu thought she was about to cry. "I had a childhood friend. A boy. He was just so wonderful and nice and warm and..."
Ilu giggled, "Sounds like a love story."
"Oh, well," Li laughed, hopping off of the bed already, "maybe it is. Maybe I'll write it all down as a book one day."
"Come on, Li," she said, climbing out of bed as well, "you couldn't write to save your life!"
"Hey now! I can write a little!"
Sticking her tongue out before running away, she yelled, "If you call your writing a first grader's, then maybe!"
For the rest of the day, Li made Ilu help her with all of the chores and groceries. Needless to say, Ilu always stopped herself from making fun of her writing from then on. She didn't like losing her month's allowance for food.
[...]
Pause.
Like in one of those new devices, the recorder. You record something until you don't want something, so you pause and then skip.
That was exactly what Ilu wanted to do now. She wanted to skip to whenever she had her sister again, to whenever there would be motion in her life, to whenever there would be happiness again.
Or maybe even stop. Stopping before what happened would be better than continuing. Anything would be better than continuing.
Crossing the road, she still searches endlessly for his face, just so she can do something to make him sorry.
[&;]
It was a nice day, really.
The sun was barely shining, but it was still bright. The air was warm, but not muggy. It could have been better, but all in all, it was a nice day.
What was off, however, was that the air was as still as the dead. Silence pervaded the streets as she walked back home. The only sound that she could hear was the sound her footsteps and breathing, both of which sounded loud and awkward in the quiet.
It was even stranger that she was walking home towards a sunset. She knew that the time was coming for days to be short, but really, it was still early...
Despite the peculiarity of it all, Ilu continued down the road, swinging her bag in an attempt to liven up the air. It didn't exactly work, but it gave her something to do.
Nothing really clicked together though until she reached her house. Her hands dug through her bag, looking for her keys, when she accidentally bumped into the door. It opened without struggle.
'Li gets home before me. She always locks the door. So why...'
And then she started running.
She had never run so fast in her life; it was like she flying, with how she couldn't even feel the ground beneath her feet. Her heart was already pounding, and she could hear much too much now; pounding feet, labored breathing, the wind blowing, a bird flying, everything.
When she got to Li, it wasn't the worst of what she thought.
But it was still so very, very bad.
She was huddled in the corner of her room, her arms crossed over each other like she was trying to hold herself together, or cover something.
It turned out to be both, actually.
Ilu slowly walked up to her, like someone who wanted to help a wounded animal and not hurt it. Despite her soft calling of her sister's name, there was no reply. Once she placed her hands lightly on her arms though, there was a flinch, then thrasing about before realization finally came in her eyes. Even that was slow, like light reaching out to the sky from the rising sun, only slower and nowhere near as right.
Before she could even say anything though, her sister screamed, crying someone's name she didn't know, cursing him for not saving her before and now, shouting that he never kept his promises of raindrops and coming back.
It was then that Ilu knew that Li was gone, somewhere far away.
[...]
It was a nice day, really.
What made that statement completely true was that she, The Goddess of Rebirth, the Tula, was enjoying her once-every-few-centuries-or-so break from her celestial duties.
And oh, how she missed the human world.
It was entirely too amusing, really, to see the heads of countless mortals turn their heads to at least catch a glimpse of her. Her pride swelled witht the fact that despite centuries passing, her beauty was still admired by all. And, well, there was also the countless women who glared knives at her as they held their beau's arm. That was just another testament to her astounding features of which they were jealous.
Honestly, it was good to be a goddess.
Unfortunately for her, however, time was passing far too quickly for her liking. She decided that she'd stop buy the local pub, buy the place out, bring a few souvenirs back, and head on her way home. Despite her wishes of staying in the human world, she knew she had to be back by the day was over. She'd never hear the end of it from her brother if she wasn't.
But really, there wasn't much for her to do! People had slowly turned away from them. Not many people needed to be reborn that day anyways! It was only a few... thousand or so, nothing a quick snap couldn't take care of.
That's when she felt it.
The Tula stopped dead in her tracks, standing ramrod straight as she closed her eyes, willing her senses to find that spark again. Close by, within wlaking distance defintiely, in a building even... she could see her now. The girl was sitting on a chair, by the window, alone. There were flowers in a vase next to her.
She was crying, her eyes carrying a glaze that told of madness.
Blinking, she frowned. What in the name of the Realms' was the girl doing there? Brushing the thought away, she let her feet lead her to where she knew the girl had to be.
[...]
North Dolon General Asylum.
Seeing the sign, she could feel her pupils shrink in size, her celestial heart picking up tempo. Despite the optimistic words she told herself, she knew they were just becoming words in her head, fitted together to make a sentence.
There was a slim chance of it actually happening, she knew, and the laws actually forbade it, but she knew it could happen anytime. No matter how strictly they were enforced, there was always the chance of one slip-up, one over-looking, and it looked like she finally found it.
Not that it meant a good thing, of course.
Silently, she cursed the fact that her powers were so limited here - so she doesn't cause a ruckus, her brother said - as she couldn't just make herself invisible. It would have been so much easier than going up to the front office desk and asking for the girl. She didn't even know what she was called in this life. All she knew was the nickname.
As inconspicuously as she could, Tula walked to the desk, glancing around briefly (gray walls, gray celing, sterile hospital lights - how much more depressing could it get) before stopping at the desk, clearing her throat as she said, "Hello. I, uh, would like to see one of my friends."
The receptionist, quite possibly one of the saddest people the Goddess of Rebirth had seen in her entire existance, looked at her slowly before almost inaudibly whispering, "... and that would be?"
Oh, right. "Err... I call her Ly."
Making a point of blankly staring, the receptionist stayed silent until saying, "Ah. That one. Miss Lilianne Lin, I presume?"
"... yeah, of course."
"Very well then. She's in room 214. Check her patient tag to make sure; her number's 2314. And miss?"
She was already half-way to the stairs by the time the receptionist finished, "Er, yes?"
"Please make a point of staying quiet," they said, eyes glazing over with pity and sadness, "it's been a while since she's been able to calm down."
Slowly, Tula nodded. "Y-Yeah, of course."
[...]
At first, she was entirely determined to see the girl (Lilianne Lin, she thinks). Once she got to her room, however, she wasn't quite as sure as before.
Her hand hovered over the door, getting close to knock before stopping, then trying again. She knocks once.
Nothing.
Sighing, she put her hand on the knob and opened slowly, making sure to say clearly, yet softly, "Excuse me? Ly? I'm a visitor..."
Again, nothing.
The Tula walks slowly, almost sliding over to the girl who she had not seen in nearly seventeen years. Of course, the last time she saw her, Ly was quietly sleeping, her face calm and tranquil, as if enjoying a good dream.
She could start to feel herself stepping into a nightmare.
Ly was sitting in a chair, just like she saw, only this time the look in her eyes was vacant, like she was somewhere else and not in that room, not in that time even.
Thinking about it, that was probably exactly where she was.
Bringing her hand up to touch her shoulder, Tula used a tiny bit of power to gently bring her out of whatever vision she was having. As soon as she did, the girl smiled, and for a second, she truly believed that her being in the asylum was compltely and utterly unneeded. She could see the bright hope of someone so young in her smile, someone with a future beyond death and gray walls.
But then her eyes turned dark, recognition of the bad kind coming across her features.
Ly (Li, Myun'li, Kimberly, what does it matter anymore) stared at her in shock, her face utterly blank until it morphed into absolute fury and hate, so angry that it scared even her.
She stood up suddenly, violently, knocking down the vase of flowers. It crashed to the ground, the glass breaking apart into jagged pieces of cerulean. The flowers that spilled out were poppies, she noted.
"I know you. I know you I know you I know you," she says, over and over and over, a broken record that doesn't know how to stop.
"You're the one who told me," she says, walking towards her in uneven breaths, and the Goddess of Rebirth feels the need to take a step back, "who told me green is gold. Green is gold green is gold green is gold green is - "
Tula distantly feels a memory creep up. Her sister was bringing a soul who was supposedly "crazy," and she asked what they were like. Her sister only smiled, pain flitting across her features as she told her something she found out from this soul.
"People often think that madmen spout nonsense. Really, they're just saying rhymes and riddles no one else knows, hint and keys to the sanity that was once there."
But this time, she knows what the riddles are, she knows what hints they are and where they lead. Now, as she actually begins to cry, she doesn't want to know anymore, never have and never did.
'They all lead straight back to me.'
Li already has her hands around the goddess's neck, and she's shaking so violently even though Tula knows that Ly knows she can't kill her. But really, she wants to die right then.
"Let me rest, I don't want this anymore, I'm so tired, so tired so tired. Why won't you stop?! Your promises don't work anymore and neither do his but I want them to work but you just won't give me my happy ending or my fairytale story or my poppies and why can't I just die?!"
The door bursts open and people in white uniforms pass by with needles and jackets, and a young girl screams at the goddess, "What have you done to my sister?!"
And all she can say is, "I'm sorry."
Claimer: These people are mine. Take and die. 8);;
Fandom: Original (Now tentatively titled 'Dusted Timestamps.')
Character(s): Tula, Li, Ilu, Halady
Word Count: 3178
Rating: PG-13
Author's Note: God this chapter was long. >>; Err, enjoy? 8D; AND RIGHT. WRITTEN IN NOTEPAD. Like the rest of this so far. |D I need to switch to Word Document already.
1874, N. Dolon
[5] Green is Gold
She used to to live on 423 Lecter Crescent Lane. Her room was pretty and adorned with her favorite things; sea glass rubbed smooth, feathers stained rainbow-colours. She had music lined on the shelf of every cupboard, cameras and paper piled on top of them. Her windows had a sky-blue curtain; the sunlight could peek through it and warm her skin if she closed her eyes.
But that was when it was only her. That was when she was safe.
[...]
There are good days, and there are bad days.
Good days are when she counts one two three straight in a row, or when she weaves a needle through fabric to make a daffodil pattern. The people will give her bright-colour crayons and she will draw a bird outside the window or the people watching her through the windows. Those are the good days. She likes the good days.
But then there are the bad days where she's shouting riddles only she knows and her sister begs her to snap out, come back, be herself again. The bad days are when the people stare in fear from the window as they watch her scream and cry in words they don't know. Those are days where she sees the faces of too many people she doesn't know or still knows and once knew, and there is the face of him and him and him and him and him and, oh, how she wants to see only him. There's barely anything of him and she treasures each fading picture of him she gets.
Worst of all, there is the face of the person who made sure she was never alone. And sometimes, that's all she sees and all she hears and all she feels.
That's when her throat is too tired to scream and cry and shout and all she can whisper is, "I want him to bring me a poppy."
[...]
Halady DeLaine sighs as she makes her way to the next room. She stops in front of the door, like always, reading the number before making her way into the room.
Room 214. Patient number 2314. Miss Lilianne Lin. A girl once called Li.
Now known notriously around the floors as the unfortunate, poor girl who was met with the most tragic circumstances. How saddening for her family, she would never find a proper job now, no one would ever dare trust her again, now that she was like that.
Halady wants to spit at ladies of North Dolon.
Opening the door, she pushes the cart into the room and towards Lilianne. There's no point in wasting time, and if she hurries, she might be able to get out before the girl starts in on one of her attacks.
"Miss Lilianne," Halady begins, picking up the teacup off of the cart and placing it on the dusty wooden table in front of the girl, "I've brought you your morning tea. Would you like anything with it? A biscut, perhaps? Maybe a cube of sugar?"
She never wants anything. Oh, she knows. But she still has to ask because she's seen patients change and it's always nice to try and help, no matter how helpless the case.
A mumble.
Blinking, Halady says, "I-I'm terribly sorry. What was that?"
Lilianne is smiling. She is also crying.
"You used to call me 'Ly.'"
There's a twinge of disappointment before she begins pouring the tea. "I'm sorry, but we've never met before, other than when you came here. You must have me mistaken for someone else."
"Oh, but I know you," Lilianne says, crying a little harder as her voice becomes a touch hysterical, "I know you, I do I do. You know me and you're a good, nice person."
Again, Halady sighs; at least she's done with the tea and can move on. "I'm sorry, Miss Lilianne, but I'm not who you think I am."
Lilianne smiles, bright and sunny, and Halady can see a shadow of the girl she used to be, "Don't worry. You'll know. But thank you very much for everything you've done. And thank you for everything you will do. Thank you."
"Er... you're welcome."
As she makes her way out, she thinks that perhaps there is hope for Miss Lilianne after all.
But then again, she doesn't hear the screaming.
[...]
"I'm off to visit Li!"
Her voice echoes off of the walls, repeating her words to her as a goodbye.
Ilu wants to cry at the sight of the empty chairs, the severe lack of noise and motion and living. Her house is like the house of the dead, and with each passing day, she feels like she will eventually become a part of it as well.
The walk to the hospital is sterile, silent. She thinks that, despite the activity of the streets and people around her, there is no living within her area. It makes her want to turn back the hands of the clock, to wind them backwards and yesterday to when living was being alive.
But she can't. She knows she can't. And she knows she never will be able to.
Still, she likes to think of those yesterdays with the sun.
[&;]
"Psst, Ilu!"
Ilu yawned, turning over in her bed. It was nice and warm and comfy and she really didn't feel like waking up yet. Besides, it was only one in the afternoon; plenty of time later to do other things.
"Ilu! Come on," there was someone nudging her now, "it's important."
She groaned, stretched, then finally sat up rubbing her eyes, all of which took precisely three-and-a-half minutes like always. "All right, all right, what is it?"
Li climbed onto her bed, sitting down in her preffered Indian-squat, even though it was considered "unlady-like." Her face was nervous, and she kept looking to the side, as if she wasn't sure of if she really wanted to do this. Which was probably the case; she knew her sister.
"Well," Li started, still fidgeting and moving and being all-around nervous, "okay. Don't laugh, because I'm being compltely serious. Totally serious."
Now, she had her attention. "All right. What is it?"
"I think I have visions. Of the past or the future, I'm not exactly sure."
It was hard to take this seriously, and if it was anyone else but Li, Ilu would have thought they were joking with the way her voice was getting near the volume of a police siren, or the way the scratching randomly during the talking. But it was Li, so those things meant that she was nervous and scared.
And Li was never nervous. And she was definitely never scared.
"At first, I thought I was going crazy! From what, I don't know, but you know how the papers always have those stories of people going nuts from anything. Anyways, they were so freaky at first, but now... I don't know. It's kind of wonderful," she said, smiling in a giddy light-hearted kind of way.
She was honestly curious now. Of course she believed her big sister; something like this could get her easily thrown in an asylum. "So? Why was it so wonderful?"
"Hahaha, Ilu," Li said, looking so positively happy and lovely that she probably couldn't think of any time she had seen her look more pretty, "a bunch of things. It was like I was in the past, when things were so much simpler. You know what the only thing I had to do was? Pick herbs from the garden for medicine. Things were just so much easier than now. And well..."
"What else, what else," she urged on, like a child awaiting the end of of the fairytale.
Her voice came out in a such whole-hearted happiness, Ilu thought she was about to cry. "I had a childhood friend. A boy. He was just so wonderful and nice and warm and..."
Ilu giggled, "Sounds like a love story."
"Oh, well," Li laughed, hopping off of the bed already, "maybe it is. Maybe I'll write it all down as a book one day."
"Come on, Li," she said, climbing out of bed as well, "you couldn't write to save your life!"
"Hey now! I can write a little!"
Sticking her tongue out before running away, she yelled, "If you call your writing a first grader's, then maybe!"
For the rest of the day, Li made Ilu help her with all of the chores and groceries. Needless to say, Ilu always stopped herself from making fun of her writing from then on. She didn't like losing her month's allowance for food.
[...]
Pause.
Like in one of those new devices, the recorder. You record something until you don't want something, so you pause and then skip.
That was exactly what Ilu wanted to do now. She wanted to skip to whenever she had her sister again, to whenever there would be motion in her life, to whenever there would be happiness again.
Or maybe even stop. Stopping before what happened would be better than continuing. Anything would be better than continuing.
Crossing the road, she still searches endlessly for his face, just so she can do something to make him sorry.
[&;]
It was a nice day, really.
The sun was barely shining, but it was still bright. The air was warm, but not muggy. It could have been better, but all in all, it was a nice day.
What was off, however, was that the air was as still as the dead. Silence pervaded the streets as she walked back home. The only sound that she could hear was the sound her footsteps and breathing, both of which sounded loud and awkward in the quiet.
It was even stranger that she was walking home towards a sunset. She knew that the time was coming for days to be short, but really, it was still early...
Despite the peculiarity of it all, Ilu continued down the road, swinging her bag in an attempt to liven up the air. It didn't exactly work, but it gave her something to do.
Nothing really clicked together though until she reached her house. Her hands dug through her bag, looking for her keys, when she accidentally bumped into the door. It opened without struggle.
'Li gets home before me. She always locks the door. So why...'
And then she started running.
She had never run so fast in her life; it was like she flying, with how she couldn't even feel the ground beneath her feet. Her heart was already pounding, and she could hear much too much now; pounding feet, labored breathing, the wind blowing, a bird flying, everything.
When she got to Li, it wasn't the worst of what she thought.
But it was still so very, very bad.
She was huddled in the corner of her room, her arms crossed over each other like she was trying to hold herself together, or cover something.
It turned out to be both, actually.
Ilu slowly walked up to her, like someone who wanted to help a wounded animal and not hurt it. Despite her soft calling of her sister's name, there was no reply. Once she placed her hands lightly on her arms though, there was a flinch, then thrasing about before realization finally came in her eyes. Even that was slow, like light reaching out to the sky from the rising sun, only slower and nowhere near as right.
Before she could even say anything though, her sister screamed, crying someone's name she didn't know, cursing him for not saving her before and now, shouting that he never kept his promises of raindrops and coming back.
It was then that Ilu knew that Li was gone, somewhere far away.
[...]
It was a nice day, really.
What made that statement completely true was that she, The Goddess of Rebirth, the Tula, was enjoying her once-every-few-centuries-or-so break from her celestial duties.
And oh, how she missed the human world.
It was entirely too amusing, really, to see the heads of countless mortals turn their heads to at least catch a glimpse of her. Her pride swelled witht the fact that despite centuries passing, her beauty was still admired by all. And, well, there was also the countless women who glared knives at her as they held their beau's arm. That was just another testament to her astounding features of which they were jealous.
Honestly, it was good to be a goddess.
Unfortunately for her, however, time was passing far too quickly for her liking. She decided that she'd stop buy the local pub, buy the place out, bring a few souvenirs back, and head on her way home. Despite her wishes of staying in the human world, she knew she had to be back by the day was over. She'd never hear the end of it from her brother if she wasn't.
But really, there wasn't much for her to do! People had slowly turned away from them. Not many people needed to be reborn that day anyways! It was only a few... thousand or so, nothing a quick snap couldn't take care of.
That's when she felt it.
The Tula stopped dead in her tracks, standing ramrod straight as she closed her eyes, willing her senses to find that spark again. Close by, within wlaking distance defintiely, in a building even... she could see her now. The girl was sitting on a chair, by the window, alone. There were flowers in a vase next to her.
She was crying, her eyes carrying a glaze that told of madness.
Blinking, she frowned. What in the name of the Realms' was the girl doing there? Brushing the thought away, she let her feet lead her to where she knew the girl had to be.
[...]
North Dolon General Asylum.
Seeing the sign, she could feel her pupils shrink in size, her celestial heart picking up tempo. Despite the optimistic words she told herself, she knew they were just becoming words in her head, fitted together to make a sentence.
There was a slim chance of it actually happening, she knew, and the laws actually forbade it, but she knew it could happen anytime. No matter how strictly they were enforced, there was always the chance of one slip-up, one over-looking, and it looked like she finally found it.
Not that it meant a good thing, of course.
Silently, she cursed the fact that her powers were so limited here - so she doesn't cause a ruckus, her brother said - as she couldn't just make herself invisible. It would have been so much easier than going up to the front office desk and asking for the girl. She didn't even know what she was called in this life. All she knew was the nickname.
As inconspicuously as she could, Tula walked to the desk, glancing around briefly (gray walls, gray celing, sterile hospital lights - how much more depressing could it get) before stopping at the desk, clearing her throat as she said, "Hello. I, uh, would like to see one of my friends."
The receptionist, quite possibly one of the saddest people the Goddess of Rebirth had seen in her entire existance, looked at her slowly before almost inaudibly whispering, "... and that would be?"
Oh, right. "Err... I call her Ly."
Making a point of blankly staring, the receptionist stayed silent until saying, "Ah. That one. Miss Lilianne Lin, I presume?"
"... yeah, of course."
"Very well then. She's in room 214. Check her patient tag to make sure; her number's 2314. And miss?"
She was already half-way to the stairs by the time the receptionist finished, "Er, yes?"
"Please make a point of staying quiet," they said, eyes glazing over with pity and sadness, "it's been a while since she's been able to calm down."
Slowly, Tula nodded. "Y-Yeah, of course."
[...]
At first, she was entirely determined to see the girl (Lilianne Lin, she thinks). Once she got to her room, however, she wasn't quite as sure as before.
Her hand hovered over the door, getting close to knock before stopping, then trying again. She knocks once.
Nothing.
Sighing, she put her hand on the knob and opened slowly, making sure to say clearly, yet softly, "Excuse me? Ly? I'm a visitor..."
Again, nothing.
The Tula walks slowly, almost sliding over to the girl who she had not seen in nearly seventeen years. Of course, the last time she saw her, Ly was quietly sleeping, her face calm and tranquil, as if enjoying a good dream.
She could start to feel herself stepping into a nightmare.
Ly was sitting in a chair, just like she saw, only this time the look in her eyes was vacant, like she was somewhere else and not in that room, not in that time even.
Thinking about it, that was probably exactly where she was.
Bringing her hand up to touch her shoulder, Tula used a tiny bit of power to gently bring her out of whatever vision she was having. As soon as she did, the girl smiled, and for a second, she truly believed that her being in the asylum was compltely and utterly unneeded. She could see the bright hope of someone so young in her smile, someone with a future beyond death and gray walls.
But then her eyes turned dark, recognition of the bad kind coming across her features.
Ly (Li, Myun'li, Kimberly, what does it matter anymore) stared at her in shock, her face utterly blank until it morphed into absolute fury and hate, so angry that it scared even her.
She stood up suddenly, violently, knocking down the vase of flowers. It crashed to the ground, the glass breaking apart into jagged pieces of cerulean. The flowers that spilled out were poppies, she noted.
"I know you. I know you I know you I know you," she says, over and over and over, a broken record that doesn't know how to stop.
"You're the one who told me," she says, walking towards her in uneven breaths, and the Goddess of Rebirth feels the need to take a step back, "who told me green is gold. Green is gold green is gold green is gold green is - "
Tula distantly feels a memory creep up. Her sister was bringing a soul who was supposedly "crazy," and she asked what they were like. Her sister only smiled, pain flitting across her features as she told her something she found out from this soul.
"People often think that madmen spout nonsense. Really, they're just saying rhymes and riddles no one else knows, hint and keys to the sanity that was once there."
But this time, she knows what the riddles are, she knows what hints they are and where they lead. Now, as she actually begins to cry, she doesn't want to know anymore, never have and never did.
'They all lead straight back to me.'
Li already has her hands around the goddess's neck, and she's shaking so violently even though Tula knows that Ly knows she can't kill her. But really, she wants to die right then.
"Let me rest, I don't want this anymore, I'm so tired, so tired so tired. Why won't you stop?! Your promises don't work anymore and neither do his but I want them to work but you just won't give me my happy ending or my fairytale story or my poppies and why can't I just die?!"
The door bursts open and people in white uniforms pass by with needles and jackets, and a young girl screams at the goddess, "What have you done to my sister?!"
And all she can say is, "I'm sorry."