Me Every Time Challia Shows Up In Gquuuuuux

She never wanted anything before.

She lived her life for other people, always doing what they wanted her to. They told her to do things, maybe to get a job done, or go somewhere, or to say something - and she would.

She was good at taking care of herself.

She met all of her medical needs. She ate to remain living, never taking any enjoyment in the act. She was alive, but even she could see that there was a difference between being alive and actually having a life.

She kept it up for a while.

Some people - those with common sense and yet no understanding - would disparage her for this:

‘How terrible must it be to live without living? How could she do this to herself? Did she not see what it was doing to her?’

But other people exist, and some of those people have care, and empathy, and understanding, and a capacity for love.

Her miss is one of those people. She took one look at her, and knew exactly what she had to do.

She did not demand that she fix herself, that she take the fractured parts of the person she could have been and form a facsimile of enjoyment and emotion. She did not ask her to magic away her flaws and change her personality and act as if nothing was ever wrong with her.

Instead, she took all of her broken mechanisms and functions and twisted them towards her own self-serving altruism.

She made her wear the clothes she loved but was too scared and indecisive to wear.

She made her go to the places she wanted to experience but wouldn’t dare go otherwise.

She made her accept her own desires and made her realise other people could love her, things she knew before but would never act on for fear of pushing people away.

At the end, she lay on her miss’ bed, looking all pretty in her new dress, tired from night after night of new things, and with a smile on her face.

And her miss made her do one more thing. One last step. She made her step out of this body of meat and bone which she had always hated but had never been able to leave, and step into a better one.

One made of ceramic and metal. One with lovely joints and perfect mechanisms. One which doesn’t need so much taking care of.

One which she can, finally, admit that she wants and loves.

someone mentioned cannibalism and my ears perked up like i’m a dog or something bruh fuck my life

Her boss had another guest round. The sort that appreciates her special cooking. The sort that was polite enough to thank her for her impeccable manners.

She wonders when these manners started.

Was she simply a child who looked for praise at every opportunity, and found politeness to be the best way of getting it? When she grew older, was it the way she acted when she distracted herself from everything going on? When she grew yet older, was it the best way to respond to the hatred and contempt of some horrible people while mitigating the risk of harm to herself? Was it a habit she learnt when she started working as a maidservant? Did she become polite as a result of exposure to her new family’s habits? Was she never polite at all?

She turns to the mirror she’s polishing.

She looks into her own eyes.

She makes herself forget this moment.

She’s further along with her work than she thought she would be. Time really does fly sometimes.

She finishes polishing the mirror, and moves to her next job. She is to take the bins out.

It’s beneath her, really, but some of the regular staff are ill, so she steps in.

She takes them out past the gates to the property, the rain barely bothering her.

She remembers the phone Elizabeth gave her, the one with her number already typed in under the contact name ‘Elizabeth :)’. She remembers checking it over to make sure it was free of tampering and tracking based on what she had learnt from the few other Kindred she had had conversations with. She remembers sharing recipes and advice about work and fashion tips and compliments. She remembers Elizabeth promising to take her clubbing. She remembers the excuses she made - ‘too much work’ or ‘I’m ill’ and so on. She remembers her sympathy and her care and her… love, not in the way all the stories she read as a little girl described it, but rather shown through the kind of affection she learnt about in the 80s, all there in the palm of her hand.

She remembers the day the order came from on high. Something about unacceptable security risks and compromised channels and unsafe technology. She remembers crushing the phone in her fist, watching the fragments of metal and glass and plastic dig into her dead skin and fall across the cold floor. She remembers the lies she told about getting into an altercation the next time Elizabeth came round.

She looks for a puddle nearby, one close to the lights on the outside of the building.

She stares into her own eyes, and makes herself forget this moment.

What on earth is she doing over here? She has bins to take out. So she does this.

When she enters inside, she goes to talk to her boss. She seems to be losing time at random, and this may make her less suitable for her role. As she explains, he looks on impassively, and tells her to get back to work. She’s only been here thirty-one years, and while he trusts her opinion on professional matters, he is unwilling to deal with this when she is so new.

She catches and prepares his meal, presenting it to him in accordance with proper protocol.

She deals with the aftermath, twisting the corpse into all kinds of flowers. She takes joy in this. She remembers doing this countless times over the past decades. So many moments, preserved perfectly in her unliving brain. She has honed a skill, and is proud of this.

Her flowers are so pretty.

She finishes her jobs for the day.

She retires to her room, and sits on the chair in front of her dresser, staring into the mirror at her own face.

Today has been a bad day. She’s had days like this from time to time, maybe once a decade.

She remembers the first time this happened, half a year into her work here, feeling alone and abandoned and scared. She can’t remember any of the other times, but she remembers her way of dealing with this, of getting back to her usual self so that she can work and keep up her manners.

She tries to remember it all. She lets the emotion overtake her. She loves her job and she loves her role and she loves her building and she loves her sire and she loves her skills and she loves her flowers and she doesn’t mind being a vampire and she feels something hard to describe for Elizabeth. She takes these, and sets them to one side in her own mind.

She remembers the rest. She feels lonely and scared and hateful and vindictive and spiteful and wounded and hurt and injured and tired and so many more things.

She gets the impression that this time it’ll stick.

She makes contact with her own eyes.

She makes herself forget this moment.

She is sat staring into her mirror. She knows what this means.

She makes herself forget this moment.

She makes herself forget this moment.

She makes herself forget this moment.

She makes herself forget this moment.

…

Her boss is having a guest round this evening. The sort that’ll appreciate her special cooking.

She goes downstairs to meet her boss. He looks like he has realised something profound.

His mouth says nothing beyond what is usual.

His face and eyes and movements say only these words: ‘Ophelia, I’m sorry.’

She doesn’t know what he would be apologising for.

It’ll soon be thirty-two years of this work.

She turns away, and politely starts her day’s tasks, quite content with her life.

I start having weird thoughts about becoming a girl whenever I smoke weed? Like the last time I got stoned I bought a skirt from goodwill and tried it on and it felt nice but I don't know if that confirms anything. Should I stop?

No

LISTEN UP PEOPLE

as a child being told "the moon controls the tides" with no additional explanation was like. oh okay. you want me to believe in magic? you're talking about magic right now? okay. fine

scruffy puppygirl who you liked the vibe of so you invited her to hang with you then at the end of the day she didn’t have anywhere to go so she just kinda followed you home

she never picked out a name she liked and she hates her old name but her collar just reads “STRAY” so you can call her that if you want. she’s never had an owner before so she doesn’t really know how this works

she’s kinda hungry. no it’s fine, she’s not picky, she’ll eat whatever you want to have. yeah, she does like pizza, actually, thank you!

she feels bad for taking up space in your house, she knows it’s kinda small and you don’t have a spare bedroom but the couch is ok and- your bed?? really? are you sure? she doesn’t want to be a bother but if you insist

your bed is so comfortable, and your hands- no no keep petting her! if you don’t mind of course. it’s kinda nice… would it be ok if she kissed you? maybe just a lil cheek kiss? you’ve been so nice to her…

She was a god once.

People obeyed the god she was. People listened to the god she was. People respected the god she was.

She was loved, and because the god was gentle, because it gave away comforting dreams with fairytale endings and divine messages and told its followers to make their dreams reality, she is here now.

The thing that stands before her has no respect for the god she was.

It approaches her.

Leans close to her.

Puts its mouth to her ear, lips nearly touching her.

Whispers meaningless words to her.

It fills her with fears, not her own. It tells her to reject the authority of the world. It tells her that she must never explain her actions. It tells her the secrets and agonising truths she once denied.

It pulls away.

Her mouth opens, ready to rebuke it.

The thing congeals, takes form, and rushes forwards.

She feels it cover her skin, encasing her body and limbs in a solid layer of shadows. She tries to move, and it restrains her, tightening in response to her actions.

She feels it start to expand, crawling upwards towards her face. It reaches her chin. Her cheeks. Her nose. Her eyes. It closes above her.

She cannot see.

After a brief reprieve, the shadows start to push at her lips.

They are forced apart.

It does not rush down her throat and devour her from within. That would be a mercy.

Instead, it slowly reaches inside her. It expands once more. Moving tantalisingly slowly, it covers her lips. Her teeth. Her tongue.

Only then does it start to inch down her throat. As it does, she remembers.

Not the god she was before, but the being she was before even that, and the being before that, and so on.

She knows that she will return, as she has before. She knows that it will return, as it has before.

The shadow does not stop her last action.

She smiles.

She looks forward to next time.

And then she is gone.

I like that GQuuuuuux treats Shuji way that most Gundam series treat women. world’s first manic pixie dream man here entirely to forward the character development of women