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tw: animal abuse

Leslie feels it, the sway of memories coming free from their secured place inside the prison of his mind, and he braced himself for the crash but he never managed to hold on tight enough that it wasn't completely and utterly ******** disorienting.

--

You are ten years old, and the mangy dog your family has is limping again. It is a friendly thing, or at least it used to be, but it has a way of getting underfoot when it shouldn't. It cries and begs for people-food just long enough to be annoying, because there's not always enough doggy-food to go around. You like it a lot, as much as you can like an animal, and you think its name is "b***h" from what your brother calls it, but you like the name "Daisy" instead. You are uncharacteristically solemn as you hook the worn out leash to an equally worn out collar, and the animal licks your hand, comforting as it can be, even as it shakes and shakes because it is afraid.

It is a lot like you, sometimes, but it doesn't do a very good job of hiding it. You hope you do a better job.

Your mother is in the kitchen, fixing dinner, and your brother and your father are in the living room, doing the things that make them angry at you if you interrupt. The TV is on, and while it just gets the basic channels, there's a sports game on, playing in the background as you say you're gonna go walk the dog.

This is not a surprise: this is your thing, even though you had not actually ever wanted a pet. You don't know why. Daisy is nice, but you resent it for the amount of time it takes, even if you know that it's not the dog that you should be resentful at.

The dog isn't that old, but it moves like it is, creaky and stumbling. You know that its got bruised ribs, considering how Dan had kicked it when it had gotten in the way of him and his anything, for the second, seventh, fifteenth time. Steadfast, you take it to the next block over, tugging it along with too much force as it gets (timidly) interested in this bush or that rock. You walk for a long time, through neighbourhoods just as bad as yours, until you reach a good enough stopping point. An idea that had blossomed earlier this morning now a plan in action.

Go, you tell it, brows furrowed, and Daisy stares up at you, unblinking, uncomprehending of what you are asking (telling) it to do. Go, you say again, voice louder. There are no forests around, just the broken windows of a foreclosed home and a car on cinderblocks across the street. Get, you say, your temper rising, because you just want what's best for it, it is better off out here where it won't get yelled at and stepped on and hurt, over and over again.

But I love you, Daisy seemed to say, wagging its tail and hesitantly looking up at you.

You are ten years old, and you want the one thing in your life that seems good to not suffer, so you kick it once, right in the ribs, and Daisy recoils, betrayed, ears back. You jump at it, trying to scare it, and it takes two more before the dumb creature understands, scampering off to what has to be a better life.

You want to run after it, to do the same, but instead, you turn back, and the black eye and subluxated ribs that follow are worth it.

--

Leslie emerges, the memory draining away, and doesn't meet Taym's eyes, jaws set tight.

Everything he had experienced seemed like a distraction.

He wasn't the only one struggling to land a hit on the White Queen either. Others seemed as lost as memories surged through them, and the movements of some seemed rather sluggish and stiff. He couldn't exactly blame them, seeing as how he too had been hit by the strange effects of being close to the white figure.

It took all his concentration and strength to lift up his weapon again when--

"There you are again, Erebus." The librarian smiles as he pads in. He is just a young puppy, and is considered an adolescent, but he has already taken a shine to reading, and thus, frequents the library in the vicinity of his home.

The library there is run by a gentlemanly vampire, who looks like he is in his early 30s by human standards, but has assured Erebus that he is much older and has gathered many experiences and books in his years. Here, it is like a haven here away from home, where he can just read whatever he likes. He is especially interested in tales from the human world about them, and encyclopedias about other beings that live in their world.

If he were bold, he would tell Dorian that he had long considered him to be a pseudo-uncle of sorts. Dorian encouraged his love for books and thirst for knowledge, and though Erebus thought that was certainly nothing to be ashamed about, he also seemed to sense his apprehension in regards to the weight of the family name.

"I need to tell you something." And so, he nods, sits on a cushion as he stares expectantly up at the vampire. Slowly, his ears droop, as he realizes that Dorian is leaving because, as he explains, he has always been a travelling librarian. Before being housed here, he had taken his vast collection to many other parts of Halloween.

And who was he to stop him?

[ Wheel of Fortune // anyone can see! ]


The timing was strange, but Mimsy sympathized with whatever conclusions Shadowstep had come to that caused the sudden barrage of questions. That happened to her with relative frequency, and often left her as bewildered as he appeared, so she did her best to clarify.

"It is not a fascination, really - more of a need, if anything," she explained with a shrug. "I have been searching for Wonderland since I was very young. After reading about all of Alice's journeys through it, I became convinced that it was the world that I was meant to exist in, instead of the one that I was stuck with. I understood it, when I could not understand my world. This just happens to be the first I have ever actually located."

She glanced up at Robert, who was fully capable of answering on his own, but couldn't manage to stop her compulsion to respond.

"He is not dumb. You just must not be asking the right questions, if you think so." Then she frowned, and tilted her head--

"I'm telling," Mimsy said, so soft that it was barely audible. But Clerise still heard, amid her destruction. The bookshelves were empty and the books were in pieces on the floor, torn up and written on, but she wasn't quite done.

"Who?" When her cousin laughed, it was always so loud, always hurt her ears and made her skin crawl. She hated her laugh, so Clerise laughed all the time.

This time, she did have a point. Her daddy would still be at work, until well after the sun had gone down, and her mother wasn't there. Not really. She lived in one locked room in the corner of their house, and had not come out in a very long time. She used to scream and curse and cry through the door, words full of fright as she claimed that it was all to stay safe, protected from her monster of a child. It was only silence now, though; cold and empty, like she wasn't there at all.

"Mother," she bluffed, and should not have. Clerise grinned like a cat and latched on to the raw underbelly she'd made the mistake of exposing, all claws and teeth and that disgusting laugh.

"You're such a dumb baby, Milly!" The other girl was older (and taller and stronger), and had no trouble pushing her down. "No you won't, 'cos she doesn't care about you. No one cares!"

She jabbed one of her fingers into Mimsy's cheek. Her skin stung beneath the touch, but she said nothing. Did nothing. Just sat there and tried not to cry.

"She won't help 'cos she's smart enough to know you're not special, just broken and wrong. She doesn't even want to talk to you or look at you! Who wouldn't want to abandon you?" The laugh was back, and it felt worse this time. It was too hard to not cry. "Really, it's a wonder you haven't been put up for adoption!"

Mimsy stopped saying anything, and stared at just one spot on the floor. She stayed there, silent and lost in the midst of torn pages and strewn books, past sunset, past Clerise's father coming to get her, until her daddy finally came home.

When he saw her in that room, he was silent too, for a while. Then he picked her up and carried her into his library, where she was usually not allowed to go, and gave her a present he'd kept saved in his desk drawer. A new book, all hers, to replace what was lost.

The fancy cover said 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' in shiny gold, and it was already the best book she'd ever owned in her life.

As the memory faded, she said nothing, just squeezed Robert's hand a little harder.

"...She's around." He said to DreamWatcher. Shadowstep wasn't too certain if he should say much more than that. A lot of things were going on right now. If she knew Xiu, there was somewhat of a chance that she was someone he was familiar with as well. For better or for worse. With the danger looming very close, he didn't really want to distract himself with potential enemies around.

Speaking of such, he soon stilled as he realized that Mimsy overheard his little confession earlier. She seemed familiar with Stacey which, combined with the knowledge she had about various subjects, meant she was either a veteran student or a hunter. He was somewhat more obliged to think of the latter.

She did something unexpected however, as she...patted him on the shoulder in approval?

This confused him. Not that he regretted what had transpired. No, that was far from the case. Given the choice to revisit that point in time, he would not have changed anything. It just was not a reaction he would have seen coming from another hunter.

In response to her, he sort of nodded slowly. Perhaps Stacey wasn't too popular among his own...

Or it was a strange sort of facade.

Leslie's Hanged Man

The Red Queen fell and White rose up not in victory, but with a patience that said she had been here before. She would be here again. And if she had her way (and oh, how she intended to have her way) they would be here as well. Or part of them at least. Phoenix readied her weapon and glanced at k1ng, an encouraging smile freezing on her lips.

It was the sort of bitter parting she'd seen in movies before, the sort where you hurt someone for their own good . She hated those moments, because no matter what you did you were wrong and terrible, tainting any sort of happy ending that followed.

Phoenix heard Slain's bitter bark but she was already turning away, letting the battle separate her from the other two, just for a moment. It was always the suffering that got to her. And Leslie, tinier and younger in ways she'd never bothered considering, and that poor old dog of his were as alike as anything. She wondered, briefly, if anybody had done the same to him, and then she remembered the vision with the staff and realized that, no, at least not with any success.

This shouldn't be the place for tears, and yet all around the Queen unraveled the walls and safeguards people has placed around themselves and their pasts. Gathering herself together, she looked up to give Leslie some reassurance, but the battle had moved forward and barriers of other people's memories blocked them from her sight. The only clear point was the Queen, and it was that she focused on as she surged forward.

10 DMG



Groggy and sluggish as she was, the ghoul raised her scimitar and delivered a strike at the White Queen. That vision.... of a recollection of a memory she had .... did she just have a dream within a dream?

She was tired. Moving was tiring. The scimitar felt heavy. Was it funny that she wanted to sleep?

A lapse in her consciousness brought back another memory - the memory of her first field trip with the school to the Haunted House. Captured, caged, stripped of every bit of freedom. Helplessness. Despair. Those hunters had nearly turned her into something that was simply... a thing. Everything had changed since then. She had found something scarier than death.

The nightmares didn't stop after that day. And the horsemen trials would only twist them into something worse.

She learned how to fight. In this dream she learned how to kill. Everything she was - gentle, kind, naive - had given way to a hardened heart, anger, and a thirst for revenge. Those terrible memories and experiences had awoken something equally terrible within her. She was all ready to walk down the dark path of vengeance.

But she would choose to run away, and turn back to where she came from. All this time, she had been looking for a way to reverse on that turning point in her life. It was not because she felt empathy for the hunters - she would never forgive them or change her mind. It was not about the fear of tainting her hands with blood. She had simply decided that it was just not worth it. Let the hunters and horsemen have at each other, and hopefully the latter might just eliminate the former. She had a whole life to live without concern for either.

What would she have done had she not come to Amityville? Who would she have met instead? Would she be happy - or even happier?

It wasn't too late to turn back. She could still find out, once she woke up from this dream. A life removed from Amityville. A life of normalcy, away from all the conflict and battle. She would graduate from school and begin a new life as a citizen, doing the things that she loved, living her life peacefully. There would be no more worries or fear. She could start all over again.