RP [Illi] Doki-Doki Channel!

“I’m here,” Yuina said, her voice feeling so soft against the clamor of the room. She didn’t turn her head to look back at Monarch but Yuina could feel the brush of her gaze as it flicked between the two of them. Smoke drifted as she moved, black and clinging as curled down her shoulders and one dress ate the other. She reached her hand out for Karen, a touch of her fingertips between the plates of armor on her shoulder, almost touching where the wings had fallen away before she drew her hand back. “Always here.”

The crowd parted as they passed, they muttered this or that but Yuina didn’t pay them any mind. But, there was a glow to them now, wasn’t there? A golden light just behind the eyes or in the glint of teeth. One to watch Monarch? One to sing her praises? Would such things vanish at her touch if she just reached out for them as she passed?

“I’ll manage the crowd and I’ll come find you once that is done.” Monarch’s voice trailed after them, so crisp and cool that it might have been a bitter winter wind with how easily it cut through the crowd. Yuina felt her spine stiffen as she refused to turn her head to look back.

Then, the crowd was gone, and they were at a door.

“I’ll be only a step behind you.” Yuina said. Her lips moved, her voice quiet as if she didn’t wish to be overheard. “Be careful around the corner.”
 
Of course.

Karen felt a smile touch her face, soft and incongruous with the bone, the blood, the wild golden glow. For that fraction of herself, though, whatever piece that was, whatever small remnant - she was just a girl, with a friend. Was that small fragment enough? Could anything ever be enough?

Never, and always. This was Yuina, and she was... always enough. Always here. The only thing that could ever be whole. The crowd faded with the smile, and the door stood before them, between Karen and the abyss. It clamored for her, calling, crying. Would she ever be enough?

Monarch was behind them, watching, waiting. She was... oh, so lovely, and Karen wanted - but... no, she wouldn't be enough, either, would she? But it didn't stop her from pausing with one clawed hand on the door, from looking back over her shoulder, hoping to catch one last glimpse...

Yuina was there. Not Monarch. Karen tore her golden gaze away, and rent her claws through the door latch, kicking it open in a splintering of wood and bone, the mimic's smile perfect below her twisted eyes, tinted with blood that dripped onto her lips, staining them crimson bright.

Look, look, look at me. It hummed in her, beautifully adored in the midst of all this horror. They would all look at her now, and she wouldn't hate it this time. She'd revel in it, because she would be - just this once - their ruler and not their pawn.

Just like her, of course.
 
A scent, sticky and sickly sweet, drifted through the open doorway in lazy clots of vapor so thick Yuina was almost certain she could see it quiver as it mixed with the air of the room. A drone buzzed in the hallway just out of her reach, its shimmering black eye focused on Karen for who else was more important in this moment for it to take in? Yuina slid out the doorway behind Karen, a shiver trailing its way up her spine as she felt the air squirm around her as it sluggishly parted.

Pearls of water clung to the walls, and long crooked vines snaked their way across the ceiling. Small yellow flowers stared down, and was it just a trick of her eye that they seemed to shift towards Karen? That the air seemed to reach for her even as Yuina felt it peel away from her own skin.

The vines grew thick at the end of the hall where a large yellow flower loomed with drooping petals. It too seemed to lift itself towards Karen.

The sweetness of the hallway left Yuina feeling dizzy as she looked at the flower, as the drone that hovered overhead churned the air around her head, as, as, as, until she reached a hand out to rest the tips of her fingers against Karen’s back to keep herself pointed in the right direction.

“It might try to catch us with the vines” Yuina said, her own voice feeling so laggard as it escaped her lips. Was that a warning, a premonition, or a fear? “I can try seeing if I can cut through it.” She added, flexing her fingers against the puff of her skirt.
 
Flowers...

Little ones, nearby. Karen twisted the thing that had once been her arm, scything one of them off and reaching down with her other hand to pick it up, soft and yellow. She tucked it into her hair, where it would bring out the gold in her eye. The flowers seemed to creep closer to her, just like she wanted to creep closer to them.

There was... a larger one. Karen paused, staring at it for a moment, listening to Yuina's words of caution, realizing that until her friend had spoken, she had been walking towards it, realizing that even with the words of support right behind her, she still wanted to walk towards it.

Pretty.

Perhaps they could bring one home, for their room.
 
Yuina reached up as Karen paused, the flower in her hair glittering as if someone had dabbed it with bits of foil gold, and her fingertips brushed one of the vines. It didn’t slice easily through, but she could feel the rough bark of the vine smearing as she touched it. Like touching a painting before it had finished drying and turning a fine face into a smear. The flower at the end of the hall quivered, petals shivering as if they had caught a wind, leaves waving as if they were beckoning for Karen to approach. She was the one they were all watching, the one the little flowers turned towards as if hoping to bask in the warmth of their own private sun.

Yuina felt dizzy again as she pulled her hand back. The air smelled so sickly floral, the sort of sweet that left an odd chemical taste in the back of her throat. She looked back to Karen, back to the largest flower and found only vines filling the space between them.

“No!” Her voice sounded in her ear like it was coming to her through water as Yuina lurched forward, her fingers grasping at the vines but not slicing through them. The little flowers stared at her now as if they had found themselves with a secondary little fascination in her as she tried to pull the vines apart.

The largest flower exhaled another lungful of sweet, and perhaps that was Karen’s name in that creak. Perhaps that was the only name it felt worth knowing.
 
So pretty...

Karen hesitated, wondering why she had stopped. There had to be some reason, but... oh, the flower was right there, and it was so beautiful. She could have been closer, if she just walked forward. She could... why had she stopped? There had been...

...something...

The vines stretched forward, closer and closer, with the promise of embrace if she only stepped closer. They could draw her to that beautiful flower, close enough that maybe she could be beautiful too, if only she were close enough. She could be close enough, if she just stretched out. She could... why had she stopped? There had been...

...someone...

Karen exhaled, whispers of golden pollen on her breath, intoxicating, but she let it go, because she wasn't moving closer, she was moving away - away from...

...mine.

Oh, yes. That one. That one was hers. The vines wrapped her up, but that one was hers. The bloom burst from her, scarlet rot and bone spur, twinkling in gold and crimson and ivory. Her shears reached out, bone-blade carving its way through the vine beside her.

Not that one.

An insistence, unspoken but not unknown - it reverberated in the silence, creeping through the vines, rooting itself into their nature, twisting it, grafting itself in, growing, stronger - stronger - it had to be strong enough.

That one is MINE.

The flower couldn't take her. It couldn't have her - it could only adorn her. She was more beautiful than it would ever be, more perfect, more wanted.

Yuina.

You're mine.
 
Her fingers slid through the vines, tangled themselves into knots and here a twig snapped, bleeding out golden blood, and there was a leaf that sizzled upon her skin, turning from green to black to nothing at all. As they died more vines slithered and split, reaching to entangle themselves with her fingers. Yuina could feel it in every cracking branch or wilting bud that watched her through the edges of petals, how much it needed her to witness it, to adore it. It thrummed in her chest even as she thrashed away as its touch. It wanted her to love it. It needed her to love it. Her lungs ached with every breath that was so cloyingly sweet you couldn’t help to take another deeper gasp.

The flower shuddered as vines came apart in a glittering mass of shredded plant. Look at me, look at me Yuina was certain she could hear the little flowers singing as they fell to the ground and smoldered under her heel. Yuina too found herself tumbling, her fall cushioned by a tangle of vines around her knees. She could feel them squeezing as they wrapped around her legs, and then they were gone as bone sheared through them. Karen was there, tearing at the plant as if stained her claws with glittering golden sap.

Yuina coughed, and gasped, and felt the sweetened air burning in her lungs.

“The pollen.” Yuina wheezed between coughs. That brought back the feeling of dizziness, and Yuina wobbled in her nest of broken vines and wilting leaves. She tried to pull a hand away from the writhing mess, to pull her shawl up over her nose. To catch Karen’s eye. The flower was drawing its bulk back as Karen sliced through, and with an effort Yuina pulled her hand free and hold it out for Karen to take.
 
There she was- the only one Karen needed to look at. The little flowers begged and pleaded, strewing petals to the ground in their despair, but they hardly mattered any more, did they? They were beautiful, but they weren't her. Yuina was coughing, gasping out a statement. Pollen? Perhaps. It did seem to sparkle, didn't it? Dust in the air. Yuina covered her face, which was disappointing. Pretty flower- ah, gone. Or hidden. Or perhaps-

A hand extended, and Karen smiled. Bone splintered away from her hand, and only a girl's fingertips reached out to brush another, joining them together as all the things that she might have been cascaded away, discarded like so many lost petals on the ground. She was-

-Only herself now, wasn't she? But no, she was never only herself. Yuina was here, and Karen couldn't possibly be only with her nearby. She twined her fingers through her friend's, squeezing like ivy, rooting herself in position beside her.

"Hmm..." Soft. Perhaps unspoken, perhaps merely in a chord. "They don't understand." No, not at all. "He didn't, either."

Desír. He'd been... so beautiful. Perhaps he should have been a flower. Karen reached up, untangling the one she'd placed in her hair, twirling it between her fingertips, sweet and inviting.

"I wonder where the butterfly has gone."
 
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