Today was an uncharacteristically warm day for the tail end of winter. Therefore, the once-roaring fire, which had seemed to you an unmoving fixture of Remilia’s study, had been extinguished, the flames giving way to cold and unfeeling coals. It is, you think, a perfect reflection of your mood – from intoxicating power to… fear? You really don’t want to accept such a thing. Trepidation, then. A prettier word.
Remilia has that effect on you, it seems.
You sigh. The vampire has left the chamber for her bedroom, citing the need to retrieve something essential for a proper snack. Left alone, you find yourself with nothing to do but stand and wait.
This provides an interesting opportunity, at least. As you find yourself still slightly too stoked by the rush of adrenaline to simply sit in silence, you dedicate your time to exploring the room; something you’d not had the chance to do before, pressed into a seat under interrogation every other time you’d been here.
Beyond the usual arrangement of plush seats and a fancy table, the rest of Remilia’s antechamber is ornately decorated. Under the electric light of the ceiling chandelier, switched on in lieu of the fire, the shadows melt away, revealing paintings hanging from every wall, each following the same motif as the ones in the rest of the mansion, each riddled with religious iconography. Glittering knights and shining angels, glaring down at you as though passing judgment on your sins. Though incredibly well-conserved, now that you can inspect them closely you note that even the newest looking painting must be centuries old – the bottom corner is marked “April, 1788”, and right below that
“pour Mademoiselle Rémilia, du le Chevalier de Seingalt.” That gives you pause. Remilia is a vampire who has lived for over five hundred years. Somehow, you’d never doubted that, her sheer presence banishing all questions about it from your mind. However, this painting before you is hard proof, and it sends your mind wandering. How much could she have seen in five hundred years? How many places could she have visited? How many adventures had, how much knowledge gained? A tiny grin tugs on your lips, and you realize that you find the idea rather romantic.
After a second, you tear your gaze away from the painting with some difficulty and turn to inspect another prominent fixture of the chamber – Remilia’s books. To your right, at least four bookshelves are lined up beside each other, and an additional two more on the opposite side of the room, each stocked to bursting with dozens of ornate tomes. If not just for show, then you figure that these must be books Remilia keeps especially close, the kind one takes to reading over and over again, not only out of necessity but also out of love. The kind which, for the sake of sentiment and convenience, could not possibly have been left at Patchouli’s magic archive.
You freeze at that thought, fingers lingering a hair’s breadth over the spine of one of the leather-bound tomes, a cold trembling running down your arm. This is, then, one of those times, like you’d been experiencing since Meiling and Sakuya rescued you from the cold, not too long ago. The feeling of recognizing a concept and understanding its meaning, but, when looking to your mind for a comparison, drawing a blank wall. You’ve no such thing as a favorite book; no loved stories to go back to. Indeed, with a tinge of dread you realize that the book you read along with Koa is for all intents and purposes the only one you’ve ever finished. The knowledge that you’re a being without memory, a blank slate of a girl, that sickening realization which you’d tried your best to push to the back of your mind; it comes forth, washing over you like cold water, leaving you feeling sick, ignorant, empty.
A strange dizziness overcomes you, blurring your sight and making the room spin. With great difficulty, you stumble away from the bookcase and plop yourself down onto one of Remilia’s plush chairs with a moan, burying your face into your delicate hands. Suddenly you feel tired – like a karmic exaction of balance, the rush of impossible power you’d felt during the fight now replaced by a depleted emptiness. The sudden change in mood leaves you disoriented, and you lack the will to move.
But then, don’t you lack everything? Even the triumph of your magic back in the garden had to be punctuated by a dark question –
”how?” And the answer is, as always,
”I don’t know.” ’My name is Alice.’ This is all you understand about yourself.
You are Alice. This you know. You have nothing else. Your memories begin less than a week ago, waking up in the cold snow.
Your name is Alice. That is all you have, and that fact is the source of your revulsion.
You are empty, yes, but what truly unsettles you is how
natural it feels to be empty, as if you had never possessed anything to begin with. As if your awakening in the snow had been your moment of birth. But no, not only is that impossible, but something about the idea itself fills you with an irrational, stomach-churning disgust, almost the same as when you met that girl, that monster.
At that last thought, a flash of anger swells up in your chest, slicing through the haze of your confusion before turning into that emotion you try to never outwardly reveal but which you know all too well – a seething hatred for everything not going your way.
To hell with your turmoil – hadn’t Patchouli pieced it all together already? Magic had erased your memories, leaving you what you are, a being with no knowledge of who she is, with no past or care, with power that seems to come from a hollow void, an empty girl.
That monstrous thing in the forest obviously had to be behind it, yet another sin to add to the list of reasons why that aberration needed to die.
But somehow, that accusation rings hollow in your soul. Having some unseen enemy slice your memories away is the first thing one would think, given your condition. But no matter how much you want another reason to hate that beast, it is too easy, too simple, and it pales in comparison to the fear that had been festering in your heart and which now blossoms out – that you have been an empty girl forever, that there are no memories to recover because they never existed in the first place. It is an irrational thought, to be sure, but it has a strange ring of certainty that leaves you scared, confused, and more frustrated than you’ve ever felt, and all of a sudden you feel alone, more alone than you’ve ever felt, and a cold desperation invades your every thought, and in your desperation you do the one thing you know how to do well.
You lash out.
Your right hand flies out, reinforced with the same kind of power that helped you crush the beasts’ skulls in the forest with cruel ease. Surely, when it slams against the table nothing will be left, and you will be given the satisfaction of having taken something, anything, from this stupid, cruel situation.
Except your hand never gets there.
Obligatory BGM: Golden Sneer[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0yYXgnSwmE&fmt=18 ] Your senses slowly return to you, the haze of frustration and hatred giving way, and you find yourself standing on your own two feet, your arm still set in that downwards motion, your gloved fist still clenched, but unmoving.
Remilia Scarlet smiles at you, baring her tiny fangs as her eyes glint with mischief. You feel her grip on your wrist tighten ever so slightly, bright green eyes going wide at the sight. You’d poured every single drop of anger you had into that blow, enough to crush bone and reduce muscle and skin to a fine red paste. And yet Remilia stopped you,
is stopping you. Your blind rage was no match for even this slight effort from her, and her movements were so quick you did not even notice her until her hand wrapped around your wrist with a soft, almost loose grip that nevertheless feels as strong as a vise.
“…milady?” you mutter, dazed.
“You were crying,” Remilia notes. The smirk on her face leaves no question as to her grand amusement, but for once it doesn’t seem like she’s mocking you. Indeed, her tone is soft, almost soothing. “What a silly, moody girl,” she whispers, not taking her eyes off yours, once again enthralling you with that unnatural ruby red. “I swear, I take my eyes off of you for a bit and when I turn to look, you’re always worse for the wear.”
Shaking her head, she reaches out, a dainty finger brushing the cold tears off your cheeks. Her touch is surprisingly warm on your soft skin.
“Oh,” she giggles, looking at the wet tip of her finger with a strange eagerness, “I wonder what your sorrow tastes like.”
Then she does something that nearly makes your heart stop. Slowly, deliberately, she brings her finger to her ruby red lips, her tongue darting out to slowly lick your tears off her skin. Then, just when you think you couldn’t blush any harder, her finger disappears between her lips as she sucks on it for a few agonizing seconds before releasing it with a delighted smile. “Delicious, of course. But then what else to expect from a girl so pretty?”
“I… you… milady…” you mumble. Caught weaker than ever, you realize that you’ve fallen completely for Remilia’s vampiric wiles… or have you? Gazing upon her, so beautiful it seems as though she was sculpted by a higher power, the influence she exerts is not the oppressive temptation that she has exuded all those other times she’s played tricks on you, so alien and obviously fueled by magic. Rather, it is her own charisma; the smile on her soft, perfect lips, the spark of mischief and deadly intellect in her gaze, the sweet smell of carnations on her pale flesh. It is a charm you don’t
want to resist, for it comes not from a dark, coercive power, but rather from Remilia’s own beauty.
“Oh my,” she says, pouncing on your weakness, “did that just warm your blood a bit, Alice? Even though I look
so young…”
“Please stop this,” you manage to mumble out, throwing Remilia a half-hearted glare. “I’m not in the mood to play with you… milady.”
That last phrase is said in a harsh, almost insulting tone, and you grimace, not for the first time wondering if you aren’t pushing the line a bit too much.
But Remilia sighs, letting go of your wrist. Your arm falls limp to your side. “Heh, you’re no fun,” she mutters, looking vaguely displeased, “though at least you don’t get all snippy about it, like Patchouli does.”
You barely hear her, letting yourself collapse back on your seat with a groan. Not for the first time, you feel utterly drained, and your frustration is reflected in your gaze as you look up at Remilia, who stares down at you with a calm, vaguely inquisitive look.
“Why were you crying?” she finally asks, softly, after a few seconds of silence. She seems to sense your distress, for her smile is quite uncharacteristically gentle.
At that question, you tear your gaze away from Remilia, looking down at your knees. The mess of feelings inside your chest is hard to put into words. Indeed, you’re not even sure if you even
want to do so.
For a long time, there is silence as you try to formulate a response. Remilia waits, patient.
“I,” you finally speak in a weak voice that is almost a whisper, “don’t know who I am, I don’t know why I’m here, and I don’t know what am I’m doing. But… moreover… I can’t shake this feeling that I never really
was anything or anyone in the first place. And… I try and think back to what my memories might contain, but when I do so, all I dredge up is the same kind of fear and disgust and anger I feel when I think of that girl… whoever she is. And… and I can’t stand it! I can’t stand it and I can’t stand myself!”
Once more, you bury your face in your hands. You’d been bottling that up for a long time, and while you’re not quite sure why the dam had to burst at such an inopportune time, you’re almost glad you’re finally able to say all these things aloud. “I don’t know what to do…”
“Eat some cake,” Remilia’s voice softly commands you.
You look up. “What?”
“Eat some cake,” Remilia reiterates, stretching her great wings as she settles herself on her ornate high-backed chair. With a smooth movement, she pushes a fork and a plate topped with a gigantic slice of chocolate cake towards you from the giant pile of snacks Sakuya laid out on the table. “It’ll do you worlds of good, since you clearly overstrained yourself from that last fight.”
You stare at her, a sharp eyebrow raised as a look of incredulity settles on your face. Is this a joke?
Remilia stares right back. “I’m not talking until you eat. You need help, but I’m not about to deal with someone who’s so exhausted they can barely even string their thoughts together.” She looks dead serious.
You throw her a suspicious look, but Remilia does not budge. Finally, with a tired sigh, you pick up your fork and start eating, eyes widening in surprise as you bring the cake to your mouth. It’s fluffy and sweet, but the frosting is made almost entirely out of dark chocolate, giving it also a rich, bitter taste that clashes wonderfully with the sugary sweetness of the bread. Before you notice, you’ve devoured half the slice, and the rush of sugar has replaced at least some of your energy.
Feeling invigorated, if only very slightly, you look up from your food and smile at Remilia.
“I want to kill her,” you state faintly.
Remilia cocks her head to the side, a tiny smile forming on her lips. “Oh?”
“I want to kill her,” you repeat, “that girl.” Unthinkingly, you reach out, your hand clasping around a crystal glass and bringing it to your parched mouth. It is absinthe, that horrible drink Remilia loves. You don’t care. In three gulps, the glass is empty, and the burning in your throat is ignored for the sake of the warmth spreading throughout your chest. “I don’t know who I am or why I am like this, but I know it’s her fault. I want to kill her. Just for daring to exist in the same world as me, I want to kill her.”
“But you don’t know where she is or who she might be,” Remilia says, “the state of your mind back in the forest was far too warped.”
“Yes,” you agree, “yes. There’s nothing I can do.” Grimacing, you clench your fists so tightly you think your hands might break. “Over and over, there’s nothing I can do…”
Thoughtlessly, you reach out for the absinthe decanter, only to have Remilia’s hand reach out and stop you, softly poking at your palm with the tip of her index finger. “No, Alice, I don’t think so,” she smirks. “Drinking out of desperation is a terrible habit, fitting for peasants and commoners and the lower dredges of society, but not for us ladies. Leave that be, or I’ll get mad~.” Her smirk widens into a grin that is as lovely as it is mocking, and is if to drive her point home, she softly intertwines her fingers with your own. It is a warm, caring touch, which nevertheless prevents you from moving your hand without struggle.
You stay like that for a moment glaring sulkily at Remilia for a while before losing strength and melting back into your seat as she lets your fingers slip away. “How did I do it, milady?”
“Do what?” Remilia asks in fake innocence as she uses her fork to take a minuscule bite out of her own slice of cake. Her gaze never leaves your face.
“The magic,” you mumble, “back in the gardens, with Sakuya.”
“Would I know, Alice?” Remilia smiles wanly before bringing another piece of cake to her lips. “My… delicious. But as I was saying, I was actually hoping you could tell me that, Alice. That’s why I called you here, after all~.”
“But I don’t know…” you whisper, “I don’t know anything. I couldn’t even kill that girl… that thing, back in the forest. I saw her. She was right in front of me, but I froze up. I was afraid.”
“You would be,” Remilia asserts, taking a sip of absinthe from her own glass as she scrutinizes you with her eyes, her scarlet gaze roaming over your body as though she were trying to capture every detail about you in her memory, “considering how you tell me you saw her in the forest, fear would be a natural reaction. What matters, of course, is that you forced yourself past that fear and went to rescue those faeries… a worthless waste of energy, of course, considering that faeries barely class as living beings, but…”
She nods solemnly. “To be able to master your fear like that is still quite commendable.”
“…thank you,” you whisper. Though you’ve learned Remilia is a sweet, compelling talker, you have a feeling that she rarely hands out real praise like this. “But I still couldn’t kill her, and still, nothing’s changed…”
Remilia pushes aside her half-finished slice of cake as she regards you with a strangely satisfied smirk. “Anybody else would say you talk about killing too lightly, Alice.”
“I’m being serious, milady!” You perk up, biting your lower lip. “I know it doesn’t sound… right… but when I think of that
thing…”
“Oh?” Remilia smiles. “Your resolve is admirable, but let’s assume for a moment you really were hallucinating her appearance. The magic resonance we’ve established between you and the beasts definitely raises the possibility.”
“I wasn’t-“
“Let’s
assume, Alice,” Remilia cuts you off, raising a finger. “And please, don’t interrupt me. It makes me want to rip your throat out.”
You grow silent. That last threat, though spoken softly, sounds unsettlingly serious.
“As I was saying, dear,“ Remilia goes on, “let’s assume this. Remove the monster from your sight. Imagine, instead, a beautiful face, with skin soft and pale, imagine blonde hair as soft and wavy as your own, imagine beautiful lips that form a smile that stops your heart, and imagine bright green eyes as wide and expressive as your own.”
“Now, Alice,” Remilia stands up, stretching her wings to their fullest extent. The sudden action startles you, causing you to draw back in surprise. In her right hand she holds a long, thin cigarette, which she lights in a practiced motion with a spark of magic, sending smoke billowing around her. “Now, imagine the cold steel of your rapier, imagine its reflection in her eyes, imagine the blade as it pierces her soft breast, imagine the sweet virgin blood gushing from her chest, and imagine yourself taking everything, absolutely everything, not from a monster but from another human being. Can you do that, Alice? Can you imagine it? Can you carry it out?”
“Milady-“
There is a blur of motion, and Remilia is standing not a step in front of you, and her scarlet eyes seem to fill the whole world as she casts down her terrible judgment. “Can you do that? Can you?” Her smile turns positively demonic, baring the entirety of her razor sharp fangs. “You can’t do it,
right, Alice~? You can’t do it, how saaaad~…”
You look down, grimacing. How can your resolve last against such overbearing might? And yet…
Fists clenched and trembling, you force yourself to look back up and again meet those incredible crimson eyes.
“I…” you choke out… “I can.”
Remilia draws back. “What?” she asks mockingly, eyebrows raised in disbelief. “It’s not just a matter of words, Alice!”
“I can!” you repeat, standing up yourself, your willpower returning to you with each syllable you speak, your previous sadness forgotten. You’re not going to give in to the vampire. “I can!” You look Remilia in the face, green eyes blazing, “Even if she isn’t as monstrous as I might have seen her in the forest, even if she is as human as I am, if her actions are clearly evil, if her soul is as rotten and disgusting as what her presence made me feel… I can! And she would deserve it!”
Once you say that, Remilia stares at you in silent disbelief for a few seconds. Then, she takes a long, deep drag from her cigarette, exhales, and starts to giggle uncontrollably, clutching a hand to her stomach as she bends down from the effort. Eventually, her giggle turns into a laugh, and then she arcs her back, wings and arms spreading as she stares at the ceiling and descends into full blown cackling.
“Really, Alice?” she chokes out between bouts of laughter, “Really? How… how splendid!”
At first, the derisiveness is such that you can’t help but react with anger, fists clenching and unclenching as your face grows red from the embarrassment. But as Remilia continues to laugh, it seems more and more like she’s not just laughing at you, but at something else, something too subtle for you to grasp. Just what is going through her mind?
After some time, Remilia’s laughter finally winds down, and as she recovers her breath she looks at you with a mixture of pride and amusement. Then, before you can quite process what is happening, she walks up to you, stands on her tiptoes, and plants a soft kiss on your cheek.
“Milady!” you draw back, half angry and half flustered, “What are you doing?”
“Splendid,” Remilia repeats softly, smiling at you in satisfaction, “and you really meant it, too… Alice!”
Remilia reaches out, a soft hand caressing your cheek as she giggles contentedly. “To be honest, dear, I don’t think you quite know what you’re talking about.”
That sets you off, but as you open your mouth for an angry reply, Remilia raises a hand to stop you. “
However, seeing that kind of resolve in a girl like you is truly pleasing. Alice,” Remilia once more locks her gaze with yours, and her expression turns solemn, “I can guarantee you one thing, if nothing else. After what I’ve seen…” Her smile widens. “When you face that girl again, Alice, you will hold no fear of her anymore. Your fear will be gone, and in its place will be your bravery, and your rage, focused and solemn if you believe your cause is righteous. And your hatred, too, if your enemy’s soul is as rotten as you believe. And you will fight, and your strength shall be like lightning. And then, then we will see if you can make good of your claims. I guarantee this, Alice.
This is the word of the Scarlet Devil!”
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