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.
 
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