She loved The Factory. It certainly helped that she knew little else. Every day, she rose and set about her work. She assembled weapons and machines and more. She did her part, taking care of the children being raised in their little outpost. She ate and drank and worked and did very nearly nothing else.
But in this case, ‘nothing else’ is far from inconsequential.
She told the children about the stories that had been passed down from her parents. She dreamt about those stories. These stories had endured from a time where, quite unthinkably to her, The Factory had not yet expanded to assimilate their home. They talked about dragons and fools and vagabonds and knights and - her favorite - princesses. They held messages of defiance, of truth, of nobility.
She took these stories, and held them close to get through the day.
As time went on, she grew tired. These stories seemed to become more and more distant. She made things for people to use to kill each other in faraway lands. There was no meaning to her existence, no message, nothing coming to save her.
She became dull.
{And there is nothing I detest more than dullness.}
But she was rewarded. It seems as though fate {Nobility.} had taken a shine to her.
An accident happened.
Something went horribly wrong. Maybe some munitions assembly went wrong. Maybe a load-bearing beam had been built cheaply or incorrectly. The method doesn’t matter, only the results.
For the first time in her life, she steps outside.
The stories come rushing back to her. She breathes fresh air and stares at a clear sky.
She sees trees, and plants, and animals. She is entranced, and she steps into the forest.
In the stories, how often does an errant heroine wander through the woods?
Well, not too often. Usually they are relegated to the role of witless maidens to be saved.
This story is different, for it has truth to it.
She wanders, and time loses all meaning.
Roots and leaves and branches all blur into one. She could have been in there for seconds or centuries.
She steps out of the forest.
In front of her is a castle, looking as though it had been carefully copied from the ones in her dreams. Spires and towers and moats and crenellations and yet more features fill her vision.
She steps into the castle. {And I am waiting for her.}
She greets the person within in the manner she remembers from the old tales.
{I look within her, and I see her as she ought to be. She is full of lovely tales, and I am in need of some entertainment. It seems our goals align, though she is unaware of what she actually wants. I suppose I must give it to her.}
The Princess on her throne smiles at her, and opens her mouth.
She offers her a place in her domain, where she will never have to worry about dullness and boredom. Where she would never need to abandon her stories.
She accepts, of course.
{So I took her and made her suited to her purpose. It has led to such fun results.}
And she lived happily ever after.
The End.
me when i wanna talk about my special interests but i got the vampire autism where you gotta invite me to talk about smth first, otherwise i wont say shit or dont know what to say because i feel like im annoying
The hooks push through her hands as she hangs there, motionless, swinging limply from the chains that connect her body to the ceiling.
It’s cold.
It’s dark.
It’s lonely.
Two sharp thumps can be heard as the door in front of her is unlocked. A harsh scraping noise emanates as it is pulled aside, struggling against the ice that conspires to hold it shut.
Her butcher stands, framed by the light from the doorway. As she waits there, taking in the sight before her, glimmering crystals of frost formed from her breath appear, then fall, then vanish.
Her butcher cuts her down, leaving behind a few vestigial bits of flesh. The ones with five fingers and palms and all those useless scraps.
Her legs fail to support her, buckling as she collapses towards the ground.
Her butcher catches her.
Holds her.
Changes her grip.
Carries her out of the room.
And then she is carved apart.
She is asphyxiated by smoke. She is dehydrated and left to dry on racks. She is minced and placed in neat little shells. She is burnt. She is chilled. She is preserved.
Under the watchful eyes of her lovely butcher, she is irrevocably divided and forever changed. Under her care she is given purpose and made to look perfect.
In the end, when all is said and done, it is the caring teeth of her butcher that sink into her. It is her tongue that tastes her. It is down her gullet that she is swallowed.
Her butcher appreciates her, savours her, values her.
Her butcher consumes her.
It is the first bit of normalcy she has had since her boss vanished.
For three lovely days and nights, she was able to play the role of host, and Drakan the role of valued guest.
She gave him a room, she kept him well fed, and she was as polite as always. In return, he taught her the rules and laws of their clan. He told her how their particular variety of hospitality functioned.
After three days and three nights, he left.
He gave her a gift.
He gave her a knife.
It’s an old thing. It is so very sharp, and comes to a tidy point. The handle is worn and aged, yet the blade shines as though it has never been used.
She takes it in her hand, holds it.
Her cold skin matches the cold of the metal hilt.
She makes a few attempts at cutting and stabbing with it. Her movements are clumsy, lacking her usual grace. No amount of skill at needlework or using a broom has prepared her for this. Even if she were to find herself in a fight, she would much prefer to grow claws or twist and reshape the bodies of her opponents.
But she has been given a gift, and she intends to accept it in every way she can.
She needs to practice.
She goes to one of the spare rooms. She fixed this one herself. She made the bed. She fixed the walls. She crafted the decorations.
For now, none of this matters.
She takes all those raw materials, and shapes them into the thing she needs.
She builds muscles and a skeleton and vocal cords and eyes and teeth.
She takes a brain, but leaves it as empty as it was when she made it into that pretty thing over the fireplace, and puts it inside the body.
Soon, her preparation is done.
She lashes out with her new knife, embedding it in the dummy’s eye.
It jerks and twitches. It screams. It does not fall or move backwards.
She is satisfied.
She removes the blade, and fixes the dummy.
She lashes out again. She cuts its throat. The cerebrospinal fluid it is using as a surrogate for blood spills out.
She steps back, and fixes the dummy.
She moves around the dummy, and crouches swiftly, striking at its legs. She cuts the muscles that keep it standing, and it tumbles to the ground. It cries out again at this.
She steps back, and fixes the dummy.
She walks back around to its front. This time, she strikes lower. She draws her blade through the skin of its belly. Guts come tumbling out. Tears fill the eyes of the dummy.
She steps back, and fixes the dummy.
She plunges the blade into the flesh between its neck and shoulder.
She steps back, and fixes the dummy.
She strikes it under the arm, nearly tearing it off the joint with the force and precision of her blow.
She steps back, and fixes the dummy.
This goes on for a while.
By the end of her practice, she has become quite adept with a knife. Her movements are exact and calculated. She is graceful again.
She has grown rather fond of this knife.
She fixes her attention on the dummy. Tears stain its face. Viscera and cerebrospinal fluid tarnish the floor around it. It is covered in scars, borne from wounds that have been too rapidly healed.
Its eyes seem to plead with her. She ignores it, and returns all of the materials to their proper places.
She leaves the room with a soulless smile on her face. She wonders what it would be like to practice on something that could still act and think.
But first, she has made a mess, and it is her job as a maidservant to clean it up.
me every time challia shows up in gquuuuuux
im not a real fujo at all i just show up for the high holidays like pathologic and gundam
i love when sires look less threatening than their childe
I swear to God if I had loads of money I would buy the biggest Blaze package they have and promote this image to the whole of France
She/her, LARP doer, Warhammer and Gundam fan, that one reveal with Zane from Ninjago changed the trajectory of my life,Certified Scribblehub Eggfic Protagonist.
180 posts