Karlach

[scrapdraught]

Bigge woman

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WEEK 0: First Sunday

[scrapdraught]

[In the void! Camille is sat down and rubbing the bridge of her nose, missing when life was simple. Simpler. Then along comes Karlach from parts unknown.]

...Hey. [Oof. All right, another bridge to mend.] You clean up well.

[ablazement]

[this weekend karlach has been yelled at and screamed about and also stabbed so she's maybe just a little wary, but if nothing else, her spirit is willing, so. she stands a couple feet away in her default outfit, tail flicking back and forth anxiously. she is no longer covered in blood, yay!]

Thanks, I guess. You look less like you're going to piss yourself.

WEEK 0: Tuesday ((spoilers, cw: child abuse, mental illness))

[scrapdraught]

[Camille has made herself scarce again. To the swamp she goes, sat at the water's edge and running a finger through the water, letting the leeches give chase. Give them a little enrichment.

She's waiting out the writing. They always fade, it's a matter of minutes or hours. She's hoping for the former.

A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort.

A poetic thought that came to her when she needed words. Needed an explanation. She has no need for them now.]

[ablazement]

[leech enrichment... they're gonna get buff.

karlach has been doing her best to avoid invading people's privacy with these things, but sometimes... sometimes they just jump out at you. when she's wandering over to make sure karma isn't restocking his leech supply, she catches those bright words. and pauses like she can turn and scoot away without camille noticing.

but she's not particularly sneaky, so. you know. she's like a bull in a china shop.]

w0, FRIDAY 2

[ablazement]

[here is karlach! she is hard to miss, she's just. pacing. pacing back and forth, talking to herself under her breath. her tail is waving in agitation, so be careful not to get Smacked.]

[scrapdraught]

[She is hard to miss!!

Which is good because Camille needs her warmth.]

Karlach.

[The voice is hoarse, coming from a hunched and sodden figure emerging from the fog. Also there are leech bites all over her.]

w0, SATURDAY 2

[ablazement]

[she's hard to find tonight! but. she can be found in the mortuary basement, if carmille would look. she's curled up in the corner, glowing soft.]

[scrapdraught]

[Well i have no real reason for Camille to be there so I suppose she is looking for Karlach, specifically. Their space heater!!!!

She treads softly down the steps and spies the glow. Her heart seizes for a moment, before she remembers.]

Karlach?

WEEK 0: Sunday are you sick of me yet

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[Where is this time?

The fingers. Did someone get them? Did one of the doctors stitch them back on? Are they infected?]

Karlach?

[Camille rushes, poking her head in everywhere. Where does she find the girl?]

i will never be sick of you

[ablazement]

[daan like, stitched them back on but i don't know how viable this is going to be like. theoretically she will have fingers but i am going to be VERY surprised if they work properly, if at all.

anyway, she's sitting in her stupid coffin in the mortuary with a blanket around her shoulders. when she hears her name, she looks up, but this time she can't manage a smile. she just looks.]

... Hey. [she is a little hoarse.]

w1, MONDAY

[ablazement]

[how is it only week one

anyway, hello, she's on the beach today! she's a little less cheerful than normal, but it's not like it was yesterday, at least. she's standing with her feet in the waves, tail swaying back and forth. she's probably wearing a sundress, actually, i'm too lazy to go look for one just assume it's something nice and beachy.

when she sees camille, she waves with her not-bandaged hand.]

[scrapdraught]

[i really couldn't answer that for you.]

Hey.

[Camille is....in a dark sweater and jeans. It's like she bought a second copy of her original duds.

At least she matches the unspoken mood. Camille's hands are tucked in her back pockets as she approaches, eying the new dress.]

You look nice. Dressing for the occasion?

w1, FRIDAY

[ablazement]

[HEY EVERYTHING SUCKS FOREVER

you can find karlach by the horrible nihilism building, staring up at the sky, flat out on her back! hooray!]

[scrapdraught]

[At least it's hard to lose her.

Camille pads up softly. Then she comes to a sit at the woman's side, fighting for the breath to say anything.]

Fuck.

[Well. That's what she's got.]

w1, SUNDAY

[ablazement]

[today, she is just out here chilling, carving something out of wood... what's up.]

[scrapdraught]

You're taking it up for real?

[Camille's got that same middle-schooler shuffle going, arms around her middle and shit posture.]

It's cathartic, working with your hands.

WEEK 2: Monday (1/2)

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[They are walking around minding their own business and enter A TERRIBLE VOID. please hold for memory.]

2/2 (TRANSCRIPT) ((SPOILERS, CW: self harm, suicide, dead children, rehab, mental health, gore))

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For those who need a name, there's a gift basket of medical terms. All I know is that cutting made me feel safe. It was proof. Thoughts and words, captured where I could see them and track them. The truth, stinging, on my skin, in a freakish shorthand. Tell me you're going to the doctor, and I'll want to cut worrisome on my arm. Say you've fallen in love and I buzz the outlines of tragic over my breast. I hadn't necessarily wanted to be cured. But I was out of places to write, slicing myself between my toes— bad, cry — like a junkie looking for one last vein. Vanish did it for me. I'd saved the neck, such a nice prime spot, for one final good cutting. Then I turned myself in. I stayed at the hospital twelve weeks. It's a special place for people who cut, almost all of them women, most under twenty-five. I went when I was thirty. Just six months out. Delicate times.

Curry came to visit once, brought yellow roses. They chiseled off all the thorns before he was allowed into the reception room, deposited the shards in plastic containers—Curry said they looked like prescription bottles—which they locked way until the trash pickup came. We sat in the dayroom, all rounded edges and plush couches, and as we talked about the paper and his wife and the latest news in Chicago, I scanned his body for anything sharp. A belt buckle, a safety pin, a watch fob.

"I'm so sorry, my girl," he said at the end of his visit, and I could tell he meant it because his voice sounded wet.

When he left I was so sick I vomited in the bathroom, and as I was vomiting, I noticed the rubber-covered screws at the back of the toilet. I pried the cap off one and sanded the palm of my hand—I—until orderlies hauled me out, blood spurting from the wound like stigmata.

My roommate killed herself later that week. Not by cutting, which was, of course, the irony. She swallowed a bottle of Windex a janitor left out. She was sixteen, a former cheerleader who cut herself above the thigh so no one would notice. Her parents glared at me when they came to pick up her things.

They always call depression the blues, but I would have been happy to waken to a periwinkle outlook. Depression to me is urine yellow. Washed out, exhausted miles of weak piss.

The nurses gave us meds to alleviate our tingling skins. And more meds to soothe our burning brains. We were body searched twice weekly for any sharp objects, and sat in groups together purging ourselves, theoretically, of anger and self-hatred. We learned not to turn on ourselves. We learned to blame. After a month of good behaviour, we earned silky baths and massages. We were taught the goodness of touch.

My only other visitor was my mother, who I hadn't seen in half a decade. She smelled of purple flowers and wore a jangling charm bracelet I coveted as a child. When we were alone, she talked about the foliage and some new town rule that required Christmas lights to be taken down by January 15. When my doctors joined us, she cried and petted and fretted at me. She stroked my hair and wondered why I had done this to myself.

Then, inevitably, came the stories of Marian. She'd already lost one child, you see. It had nearly killed her. Why would the older (though necessarily less beloved) deliberately harm herself? I was so different from her lost girl, who—think of it—would be almost thirty had she lived. Marian embraced life, what she had been spared. Lord, she had soaked up the world—remember, Camille, how she laughed even in the hospital?

I hated to point out to my mother that such was the nature of a bewildered, expiring ten-year-old. Why bother? It's impossible to compete with the dead. I wished I could stop trying.

WEEK 2: Friday

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[Washed up and washed out, Camille can be found back in her beloved abandoned theatre. She is sprawled out on the ground, staring at the ceiling. Breathing deep. The smoke smell lingers.]

[ablazement]

[yeah mood girl

karlach isn't even going to pretend like she hasn't been crying. she's still crying, actually. it's that sort of dejected, horribly exhausted crying where you still have to like, move, and do things, but you can't stop.

she comes over to sit down. she doesn't say anything, just rubs at her face in frustration.]

w2, SATURDAY

[ablazement]

[comes to sit next to her and keep her company. she knows she's gonna get screeched at, but.]

[scrapdraught]

[Perhaps not screeched at.]

Ah! Hello! Welcome!

Please make yourself comfortable...

WEEK 3: Monday

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[They are walking in the woods and their phone is dead.

Anyway at one point Camille pushes through a bit of low-hanging branches and finds herself stuck to something. Her sweater's caught. She twists, and then her hand sticks to something string-like. Silky. Sticky.]

Karlach, can you give me a hand here?

[What the fuck is all of this.]

[ablazement]

[the way i went to pull that up to watch it

karlach blinks, looking over - and then wanders close. there's a sort of easiness to her today, like she does not give a single fuck about any sort of danger around them.]

Yeah, sure. The fuck is that? [reaches to grab her wrist, pulling it away from the sticky stuff so she can examine... hm, maybe her claws can cut this.]

WEEK 4: Tuesday

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[They're in one of the camp cabins!

Camille has probably calmed down some and has a hot beverage in a mug between pale but no longer shaking hands. She still looks haunted but a slightly more normal amount.]

I didn't think...why me?

[ablazement]

[comes to settle down next to her, tail gently easing around her like a support.]

Because people care about you, obviously. [...] Welcome back. It's good to see you breathing.

WEEK 4: Friday

[scrapdraught]

[They're at the Refectory. Camille's head is on her hands.]

It just ran off with him. I don't know what we're supposed to do now.

[ablazement]

[that's fair she also doesn't know what to do about this

she's obviously been crying - she looks awful. exhausted.]

I don't know either. [a warble.]

WEEK 4: Saturday

[scrapdraught]

[This sucks, I'm sending my manservant to serve you your papers, I'll see you in court flurry

She is. Miserable. When she comes.

Just looking at the thing that has absorbed her friend and finding no words to start.]

[ablazement]

[can't catch me courtman

that's cool, karlach doesn't need words. she's still hulking, horns sharp, third eye open. she grins widely, but it's more like baring rows of sharp teeth. and as she sees camille, she growls, animalistic, and starts beating her fists against the bubble. like she did that night, like she did against bone and white fabric. the growls almost sound like laughter - hysterical, almost sobs.

there's not a lot in there, right this second. just the urge to fucking destroy.]

w6, WEDNESDAY

[ablazement]

[after everything has calmed down, she's still here! she's sitting somewhere in the vineyard, staring up at the sky. slightly transparent, and if you touch her she's cold and your hand goes through, but. better than nothing, right?]

[scrapdraught]

[It's a fool's errand. She knows this all too well by now. Still she reaches for her shoulder as she approaches, and watches it phase right through.]

Bummer.

w7, late tuesday

[ablazement]

[sometime waaaay later post party, or maybe even early morning wednesday, she comes along to find camille. i would not mention this normally but she is very marked all over her neck and shoulders, it's just a mess there's no way people wouldn't notice it help.

anyway, that's not important - what is important is she comes to find camille, and rests a hand on her arm.]

Hey, you.

[scrapdraught]

[A blip of awkward embarrassment glides over her unshakeable melancholia. Camille smiles, but it's still more of a grimace.]

Hey you.

[Eying the mess. Something more prickly skates through her. Then a sharp shame.]

Left the party early, did you?

WEEK 7: Saturday

[scrapdraught]

[WE'RE DONE IT

Honestly Camille can just be found splayed out on a nice patch of grass somewhere, gazing at this freaky, freaky night. There is so much to process and her brain is only so big.]

Your heart's all fixed, I'm wiped clean. What's left for us to agonize over in the long and lovely lives we have ahead of us?

[The emotionshare says this is partially sarcasm there is always room for misery, but. Also? There's a sort of stunned relief here. Lots of miracles worked in a very short time, huh?]

[ablazement]

[bro that's a mood though, karlach has just stopped thinking about it entirely. no more horny monsters! no more cult? kind of? and... they can maybe go home.

karlach comes over to flop down in the grass next to her, honestly.]

Wiped clean, huh. [a beat. and then, with a laugh:] Holy shit, Camille, we did it.