Closed Where Crowns Rest (Madeira)

[Allassanachassanya]

"Speech"
"Others"

Ssanya went along with his tugging insistence, rather fearful of what he would do if she, if Rose, said no. She thought that perhaps he wasn't used to people telling him no. There were no signs though that he had other people in his life. His home looked lonely and strangely empty, but his demeanour was the loneliest of all. She was repulsed by his grasping hands and his sweet scent, but she couldn't help but feel a tiny amount of sympathy for the odd man. Madeira wound up the box and all of a sudden tinny music rang out from within its broken interior. Dandelion was singing a different tune that clashed spectacularly with the waltzing music from the box. Ssanya lurched with him, her feet tramping awkwardly as she tried to predict his choppy movements. She was held loosely but firmly by the portly man, and she was dismayed to realise that they were roughly the same height. He stared into her eyes with that incessant, eerie smile playing over his puffy lips, but she couldn't pull her own gaze away. She was looking for something there, maybe a small something that showed he was under their spell, but all she could see was a man in an insane dream.

Or a man whose mind was in two places at once.

Something tickled across her face. She blinked from staring as her hair began to move of its own accord. Was there a draft somewhere, lifting and pulling her? She could feel nothing but a force that was pulling, and all of a sudden she felt a spike of true fear as she became certain there was something terribly wrong. Dandelion was humming the same tune, over and over, a six note ditty, but his hum had grown louder as his eyes had grown less focussed on her. And there was something in the fireplace. Something behind her.

Ssanya tried to wiggle from the man's grasp, but his hands tightened around her and he pulled her closer so that she was pressed against his belly.
"My friend and I really should go now." Madeira's voice wavered, and Ssanya absorbed her fear into her own, making it grow in strength. If Madeira, being the woman she was felt scared, then what terrible thing was about to happen?
"Pleasse let go of me, Dandelion. You're hurting me." He wasn't, not yet, but she hoped her words would frighten him as she was almost sure he was smitten with her. Nobody liked to hurt what they loved. But the man simply smiled wider, and spoke with a slurred voice that sent chills shivered down her spine.
"Don't worry Rose my lovely Rose, you'll be safe in the Rose garden soon. There will be no other ugly flowers to hide your beauty there."

She felt Maddy's hand gripping her, and her warmth and strength filled the Dhani woman with determination. Ssanya's arms were looped loosely around the man's waist whilst she'd been complying with his wishes, but now she wasn't going to stand for it. His overwhelming scent was filling her nose and she choked as he pressed her closer to him, but she struggled and wriggled as best as she could. The tugging sensation was growing stronger. Dandelion grunted and snorted as he tried to keep his Rose in place, but Ssanya would be one hell of a thorny rose, if that was what he wanted. Her gaze flew over to the fireplace as they spun in a circle, and then she wished that they had never planted Catherine's skull after all, because what she saw there... she never should have seen it.

"Madeira!" She shrieked, not bothering to keep the charade up any further, "What issss it!" Dandelion's grip was growing weaker, and they still struggled together, a trio of clumsy, deranged people who were brought together by nothing but chance and curiosity. The swirling, growing thing in the fireplace seemed to suck the light from around it, and tiny drifts of debris from amongst the man's newest haul were being dragged towards it inexorably. Her own foot was caught in its magnetic pull, and she yanked it back. The force of her terror and the man's already weakened grip was enough, as long as Madeira was still struggling, to free Ssanya from his enthusiastic embrace.

Then before she could regain her wits (or even figure out where the exit was after her delirious spinning), the man spoke in a terrible, dead voice. "Rose belongs in the garden. Rose will be in my garden. Rose belongs to me." Suddenly, the fierce tug of the mysterious, whirling hole grew horribly stronger and Ssanya slipped and fell over, starting to slip backwards towards the gaping hole that would surely spell her demise unless she had someone to save her.

[Madeira Dusk]

Madeira watched with horror as something grew. No, it wasn't growing, it was tearing. A rent in reality getting wider and wider. On one side of the tear was the ordinary gray stone at the back of the fireplace, and on the other was an eclipsing, endless nothing. An emptiness more complete than a starless sky, or the darkness at the bottom of a well. It was a hungry, sucking blackness and it was pulling them towards its hungry mouth.

It took Ssanya's shrieking to snap her out of it. The tear was the size of a human child and only getting bigger, the pool was now something that was lifting more than hair and clothes, it was becoming something she had to struggle against. Desperation let her forget the burning in her muscles and the bruises on her skin as she kicked and clawed the Isur away. He was strong, and it took both women together to rip Ssanya out of his grasp.

The loss of his precious Rose twisted Dandelion's features. The dopey, lovesick madman smiled wide and terribly, and spoke in a voice that made the very floorboards tremble. "Rose belongs in the garden", he said. "Rose will be in my garden. Rose belongs to me."

The force redoubled, and the tear ripped open wide enough to swallow a grown man. The heavier junk still dumped in front of the fireplace was dragged into the void, and even the heavy half-Isur was leaning heavily into the drag. But the tiny Dhani, dizzy from dancing, toppled with the force.

"San!" Madeira threw herself to the floor and Catherine's skull skittered away as she grabbed Ssanya by the upper arms. Her extra weight slowed them down but they didn't stop. Madeira dug her heels into the wood, but there was nothing to brace against. She threw one hand behind her, reaching for something, anything, that would stop them, and her fingers closed on the leg of the chair she had been sitting on. Of course, the furniture in the cottage was nailed to the floor!

There was a popping in her shoulders as she held to Ssanya with one damaged hand and the chair leg with the other. What little strength that could be found in her skinny arms was being powered by desperation and no little amount of horror as she wondered what would possibly happen if they disappeared into that blackness.

Furious to be deprived of his precious Rose, Dandelion stomped over to them, his legs wide apart and leaning away from the pull. He was putting faith in his diminutive size and stocky build. Madeira saw him coming and knew there was no way to stop him. She couldn't move her arms to protect herself, and if she let go of Ssanya it would be over.

From where she lay on the floor she kicked out hard with her feet, aiming for his ankles. She caught him mid-step, and he went down hard to his knees. Then she was kicking, stomping, connecting from his groin to his chest and upwards to his face as he wrapped his arms around his middle to protect his core. There was a cracking sound like gravel as she knocked out a tooth and a spray of blood as she smashed his nose. He reached forward for Ssanya's hands and she broke his fingers with the heel of her shoe.

One lucky kick to his adams apple snapped his head back, and another to his solar plexus pushed him over. Without conscious thought she was pushing him towards the fireplace with all her might. His violet coat was snapping in the source less wind and his yellow trousers were speckled with blood from his nose. Soon Madeira began to feel the bones moving in his skull as she smashed her heel over and over onto the top of his head.

[Allassanachassanya]

"Speech"
"Others"

Her heart pounded as Madeira leapt in to the rescue. Her grip was tight and painful, but she knew that without it she would likely be pulled towards the fireplace. She moved her own hand to clasp with Madeira's fingers, but watched as Catherine's skull skittered from their hands and began to half-bounce, half-roll across the smooth flagstones towards the fireplace. Without thinking about it, she reached out to grasp it as it rolled past. To her horror, her fingers glanced off the rounded dome of the skull and she fumbled the catch. She reached again, stretching as far as she could physically go without becoming disentangled from Madeira's lifesaving grasp, and to her intense relief she just managed to scoop her little finger into one eye hole.

Ssanya spent a few, sweating ticks trying to shuffle the skull so it was in a firmer grasp. She finally did so, desperately ignoring the alien pull of the void, but watching with alarm as Dandelion approached them. The look in his gaze was awful and shuddering. Ssanya held on tight as Madeira fought, and watched as blood splattered. Her heart thudded, and she hissed through gritted teeth as she could do nothing but watch, her position too untenable. Dandelion was buckled over and a high-pitched moaning was coming from somewhere within his crumpled state. Madeira, in return, was vicious.

It took a few, bloody moments to realise that the man was unmoving and that the strange portal was diminishing. Ssanya was almost too worried to let go of Madeira's hand, but she quietly said, "Hey, Madeira, ssstop. Look, the thing in the fireplace isss ssstopping, I think. I think you got him."

She released her hand and braced herself to grab on again, should she feel that tugging sensation. But to her extreme gladness, the air was still and only remained taut with the residual brutality of their encounter with the ruined Dandelion. Ssanya scrambled to her feet and helped Madeira to stand too, should she look like she needed it. The Dhani woman shook a few worried tremors from her frame, and looked down at the broken man.

He was a pitiful sight, a broken, wretched man clenched over and cradling his broken body. She couldn't see any movement, not even breathing. With her breath held in her throat, she knelt down beside him and pressed her fingers down to his heart, seeking the feeling of life there. She waited, concentrating. Then... There. "He's ssstill alive, I think. Though, maybe not for long." She looked at his scalp, and then at the heel of Madeira's shoe, with a sideways glance she tried to hide.

"What have we done..." Ssanya murmured under her breath. Her eyes shifted to the fireplace, and she walked over wonderingly. She pressed her fingers to the back of the fireplace, but she was awarded only with grit and ash from many years of burning wood and cooking. "What wass that?" And was all of this worth it? That question was an internal one, as she turned the eyeless skull upwards and gazed into the eye sockets where Catherine had once looked from. Had Dandelion been affected at all, or was he merely crazy to begin with?

With indecision burnt into her eyes, she turned to look at Madeira. Their experiment was not a success, but perhaps it wasn't a failure either. After all, Dandelion might have been crazy, but he had been in possession of the skull when he'd proclaimed his affection for her.

"Listen, Madeira. We should leave here. I can't thank you enough for sssaving me from whatever that wass, and from him. I don't think it would be a good idea to tesst the ssskull again, but I think it worked. Yess, it worked." She smiled, and blocked out the dying man's suffering from her mind. If she ignored it, then it would matter whether it was the right thing to do or not. Dandelion was on the edge of death, she was sure of it. Maybe it would be better to let fate deal with him. The thought was a little sickening, but Ssanya steeled herself, and raised her brown eyes to Madeira's blue ones. "I don't think Catherine's sskull is a ssafe thing, but we did it. Our malediction worked." She grinned a little more wildly, and wrapped her arms around the Spiritist in a victory hug. Into her ear, she whispered, "Let's leave before anything worsse happens."

[Madeira Dusk]

"Hey, Madeira, ssstop. Look, the thing in the fireplace isss ssstopping, I think. I think you got him."

It was only when Ssanya spoke that Madeira found the will to stop. Her breath was coming in painful, panicked gasps that were almost sobs of fright. Dandelion was crumbled and broken at her feet. Her heels were dark with blood.

She accepted Ssanya's hand and allowed herself to be pulled to her feet. Her bruised body was screaming in pain, and her head was filled with a horrible, numbing static. Most of the bandages on her fingers had unraveled. She lent over and succumbed to a coughing fit as Ssanya inspected the fireplace, and a little more of yesterdays sand was left in her palm.

The Dhani wonder allowed what it was they just saw, and Madeira had to fight the sudden baffling urge to bust into tears. She steadied herself and pressed her fingers through her hair as if she were trying to keep it together with the pressure. "I don't know! I don't know! Gods, I've never seen anything like it."

She looked at the man lying on the floor, a little man with his bright clothing and his charming piles of junk. He brings it all home and tosses it into whatever that emptiness was. Had he found his 'Rose' before? Was there an entire garden of his pretty little flowers in that blackness?

Ssanya was talking to her, and there was a low, simmering victory in her voice as she proclaimed that their malediction worked. Its effects weren't truly knows, and it could be dangerous, but it worked. She thanked Madira for saving her life and wrapped her in a hug full of warmth. Madeira held her tight and buried her face in her hair.

How dare he try to hurt you.

"Let's leave before anything worsse happens", the Dhani whispered in her ear.

"Yes, yes, ok", Madeira pulled away and nodded, casting her eyes around the sinisterly sterile cottage as her mind turned. "You go first. Take Catherine and go home as fast as you can. Wrap her up as soon as you get the chance and put her somewhere safe, ok? I'll fix this up a bit and find my own way home." she motioned to the bloody footprints she was trailing.

She hugged her friend one last time, and all but pushed her out the door. As she left she demanded she stay safe.

Then, quite suddenly, she was alone with Dandelion. As she closed the door behind her and turned to face him, she could feel the residue of her panic flare into something hateful. This was the second person to try and kill her and her friends in as many days. She was sick and in pain and so tired. She nearly lost her best friend to a crazy man who could open wounds in reality, and she hated him.

Her shoe made tacky sounds as she strode across the room and picked up the discarded music box. It had stopped singing, but was still open to the field of wooden flowers, with the dark haired girl and the blue man stuck posed in the center. She held it away from herself by the tips of her fingers as she brought it back to him. Touching it felt dirty, somehow. Her mouth was dry with the mere memory of the thing. At her feet Dandelion was barely breathing, his eyes fluttering as he watched her feet slide into his view.

She paused, holding his precious box in her hands, as she watched his crushed nose leak into an ever widening pool of blood. This was the first time she had ever hurt a living person. She was not prepared for how wrong it felt. There was a nausea in her soul as her entire being recoiled. This would never leave her.

Slowly, as she watched, his eyes rolled to look at her. They were brown, she noticed. Just like Ssanya's.

She raised the music box over her head.

------------------------------

Twenty chimes later she stepped outside into the fading daylight. Brushing a few shattered pieces of wood away from the door jam she locked the now stone cottage behind her with a little silver key. Her leather shoes shone like new, her bandages were tightened, and her dirty hair was smoothed down and retied. Lastly, making sure nobody was looking, she threw the key into the bushes across the street.

There was a horror in her soul and it shone out of her pale eyes. She was tired in a way she had never been tired before. Smoothing down her skirt, she steeled herself with a breath and tried to find her way home.

[Madeira Dusk]

Grades Awarded!

Don't forget to edit/delete your grade request!

Allassanachassanya

Skills

• Observation: 5xp
  Socialization: 3xp
  Intimidation: 1xp
  Teaching: 4xp
  Rhetoric: 2xp
  Meditation: 4xp
  Malediction: 4xp
  Planning: 1xp
  Leadership: 1xp
  Drawing: 1xp
  Carving: 1xp
  Investigation: 3xp
  Stealth: 2xp
  Logic: 1xp
  Dance: 1xp
  Unarmed Combat: 1xp
  Endurance: 1xp

Lores

• Location: Madeira's cottage
  Malediction: passing on the family tradition
  Malediction: neither good nor evil
  Lore of learning strange Common phrases
  Maro: Dira-blessed Eiyon
  Malediction: human remains are difficult to handle
  Drawing: finding your own style
  Teaching: using leading questions
  Malediction: there is no 'right way'
  Malediction: bringing trust out of remains
  Lore of Malediction activation
  Malediction: testing a Fetish
  People: 'Dandelion' the junk collector
  Lore of Voiding
  Medicine: finding a pulse

Awards & Retribution
+ Maledicated Skull (unknown properties)

Notes

Madeira Craven

Skills

• Socialization: 2xp
  Malediction: 4xp
  Meditation: 4xp
  Drawing: 2xp
  Rhetoric: 2xp
  Planning: 2xp
  Observation: 5xp
  Carving: 1xp
  Endurance: 3xp
  Investigation: 3xp
  Stealth: 2xp
  Unarmed Combat: 1xp
  Leadership: 1xp

Lores

• Ssanya: refreshingly rude
  Ssanya: Malediction teacher
  Malediction: human remains are difficult to handle
  Malediction: making your intentions clear
  Malediction: giving a circle meaning
  Malediction: activate using dijed
  Malediction: carving a circle
  Lore of learning through observation
  Malediction: testing a Fetish
  People: "Dandilion
  Lore of Voiding

Awards & Retribution


Notes