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Realistic or Modern Phantom Voices | ellarose & Syntra

Oof. Fucking oof, actually. Couldn't the demon, like, fuck off? Obviously, the answer to that was 'no,' but hearing those words from Clara... nope, nope, nope! Thea couldn't even imagine what that must have felt like, and usually, her mind was pretty good at conjuring up that kind of stuff. "What an asshole," she said, squeezing Clara's hand. You know, hopefully making her feel more supported? 'Cause her gf (!!!) did need all the support now. (They both did, in all honesty. Luckily enough, support wasn't a limited fucking resource, and so Thea could provide it and enjoy it.) "A weakling, too. For all of his 'hurrr durrr, look at how cool I am' spiel, he still can't do shit without overriding two girls' wills first. I dunno, I guess that's... disappointing to me? Kind of like finding out that Satan kind fucking destroy the world without filing for his tax returns first." In a way, Thea found that realization to be soothing. Like, yeah, the demon's power was real-- her state of, uh, single-armedness (?) made that hard to deny, even if denial was her favorite place to be. Still, the bastard couldn't do everything. Couldn't, couldn't, couldn't! He wasn't a deus ex machina villain from a cheap-ass horror movie, where the only source of dread was the tired 'you can never escape' cliche. Just, nah. There were very clear rules to how he operated, even if she hadn't really grasped all of the nuances yet.

"...I know it wasn't you," Thea said, her voice uncharacteristically quiet. "I didn't believe the fucker for a second. He just... didn't sound like you at all? 'Cause your bitchiness factor isn't nearly as high. Like, you can be pretty damn merciless, but he wasn't able to portray the exact brand of your mercilessness. It stems from you saying things that are true, though in mean ways? Pretty fucking effective," Thea gave her a small smile. "The demon, on the other hand, threw literally everything in his arsenal at me, hoping something would stick. I'm not used to this kind of carelessness from you, Clara."

As they talked, it dawned on Thea that they hadn't really had the opportunity to do it often. Just... talk, y'know? Without running away from crazed cultists, slaying dragons, or dodging one of the numerous childhood traumas that FateTM had decided to bless them with. (It was nice. Nice, in that sugary sweet, 200k words coffee shop AU fanfic way that she'd never really thought she'd get to enjoy, because she was Thea Holloway and thus too fucked up for nice things. What did it say about her, that she considered this to be comfy? You know, them literally coming up with strategies on how to beat the demon stuck in their heads? Nothing too good, she'd image. Nothing too good, and yet Thea couldn't help herself-- the change of pace was just too fucking relaxing, as was lying in a proper bed. And, uh, Clara's smile helped, too. It was a small, shy thing, but man, did she know she'd love coaxing it out of her!

***

So, the thing about arms? Nobody fucking told you how important it was to have two (2) of them, and Thea was beginning to uncover that harsh fucking truth. Like??? How was it possible that just her trying to live her life had turned into this complex af logistics operation? Shit, eating breakfast alone could be a goddamn ordeal! (...at least Clara and Raoul were there, though. Thea half-expected to wake up alone one day, discarded like a used trash can bag, but both of them seemed to want to stick around. Huh. Love did that to you, didn't it? That was still wild for her to think about, for so many reasons.)

Soon enough, their days settled into a semi-comfortable rhythm. They tended to start with breakfast with the Loveless siblings, and then it was time to talk Clara into playing one of the videogames she'd never touched-- her and Raoul made a surprisingly fucking good team when it came to that, each bringing a different set of arguments. ('It'll be fun,' her older bro claimed. 'C'mon, gotta train for the future demon encounters!' Thea said, while coaxing her into trying out the Resident Evil series. ...what? You never fucking knew when a zombie apocalypse was at your doorstep, and judging by their track record, it was more likely to happen, rather than less than.)

Detective Park, too, had become a semi-regular visitor in their safe house. To Thea, he looked like the typical overworked clerk, with dark circles under his eyes and a troubling caffeine addiction, but the shit he said? Yeah, it quickly turned out this guy was the Real DealTM. (Apparently, the cult had some crazy background. Thea didn't know how the fuck he'd tracked that info down, but it turned out that a literal corporation was funding it? Like??? Couldn't they just stick to, dunno, manipulating the fucking stock market? Each and every day, big companies found a new way to be Fucking Worst.)

Annoying as it was, Park also insisted on interrogating them. 'Memories are unreliable,' he'd said once. 'I'll ask you about the same thing multiple times, in case some further details emerge.' He was doing exactly that when, all of a sudden, the ghost of the armless little girl materialized on an empty chair. "Clara!" she demanded her gf's (omg!!!) attention. "Why is daddy being so boring? He always used to play with me, and now he just talks, talks and talks. About those nasty people, too. Will you please tell him I'm lonely? It's so annoying when he... when he won't even look at me. Why can't things go back to the way they were before?"

"Is something the matter?" the detective, ever observant, asked. "You seem quite distracted, Ms. Loveless."
 
Clara tensed as the attention of both daughter and father turned to her at once. Was she really the one to ask about mending a relationship between daughter and father in the first place? She shifted uneasily in her seat as the weight of both of their expectant gazes settled on her shoulders. Detective Parker was used to dealing with the supernatural on a level that surely he wouldn't take it as an ill-timed joke... right? That was what the patterns had shown throughout those times she'd opened up and regretted opening up, though, so of course there was room for hesitation. It wasn't as easy as their little ghost friend was making it sound, either. It went without saying that the subject of dead daughters would be a sensitive subject to a father who actually cared. To a father who was willing to work himself to exhaustion every single day to find out what happened to her so many years ago. (Nothing like her own. The man couldn't be bothered to bathe or feed her most of the time. Since her mother died, he'd pushed everything on Raoul. Raoul, who was only a kid himself.) And yet she saw the tragedy of what'd happened to them for what it was-- enough that she genuinely couldn't find it in her heart to be jealous of them. All she found was sympathy. They'd suffered in their own way, thanks to the demon and his corporation cult. The concept of having that familial love torn away so cruelly was...

"Clara?" Raoul spoke up from his seat across the room, appearing noticeably tense himself. Seeing her tense was probably part of it. Once again, he'd dropped everything to come here. For her. Because he loved her, he kept insisting, and she did believe him. But it was hard not to think about all of the things he'd sacrificed for-- (She didn't know what she'd do if she ever lost him. He was involved directly now by staying here. He was involved and it wasn't too late for their long prolonged tragedy to arise.) Another part of that tenseness was undeniably due to terms of possession being thrown around about her again. Whenever she paused for too long, when she zoned out, visibly let her mind wander... someone always reigned her back in, perhaps to make sure that she was still her. She couldn't blame them for that. But being constantly monitored, like she was a fragile bomb ready to go off at any given moment further instilled the fear in her that everyone who loved her feared her. It reminded her that she could lose control, that she could really hurt them. And that hurt could go much, much deeper than a scar that would eventually heal. That reminder was present in the same way that Thea's arm was absent. When she struggled with an everyday task and laughed it off, she could sense the sadness underlying her reassuring smiles.

"Clara!" The little girl-- Brianna, she'd learned from asking her other night-- insisted, pursing her lips and dangling her legs loosely from her perch on the arm of her father's chair. Her eyes were big and pleading, extra expressive as if to make up for her lack of hands to gesture with. "Will you ask? Pretty please?"

"Ms. Loveless?" The detective repeated. Clara's gaze flickered between the two and then glanced shyly at Thea, hoping that might help her bolster the courage to speak up.

Nevertheless, Clara couldn't leave the hard conversations up to her, ah, her girlfriend all the time. Every time she thought about it, a blush rushed over her cheeks like a wave. Thea had let the word girlfriend slip once in the heat of the moment while she'd been trying that video game (and Clara's character died directly afterwards-- not because she was horrendous at the game, but because it'd understandably distracted her) perhaps it went without saying that that was what they were, because they'd already confessed to loving each other... but it was nice to hear it. The spoken confirmation that they were indeed exclusive. She never got anything remotely like that from Ivy, who preferred not to use labels specifically so she could bend all of the rules of what being in a relationship was supposed to be.

"I'm... I'm sorry. I just don't want to sound, ah..." Though it was difficult, Clara managed to speak at last. It might have been her imagination, but it felt as if everyone in the room took a collective breath of relief that she was not, in fact, in the process of transforming into the demon's killer puppet. "I don't want to sound insensitive."

"Ms. Loveless... in the two weeks I've known you, you've never struck me as the insensitive sort. There's no need for concern, all right? You can talk to me."

The detective would be one of few, in that case. Although he was in a unique position to have helped them the way he did-- one of few who wasn't on the receiving end of her dull sarcasm. As a matter of fact, no one present in this room was. There were so many unknown variables, so many things she was frightened of... and yet oddly enough, she was also safe here. With Thea and Raoul and this man who was trying to take down the very cult that'd made them suffer so much.

"We've already told you we've been seeing the ghosts of the other children who were there with us ever since we met in the cemetery. But, ah, your daughter is... she's here. In this house." Clara broke the news, watching as the detective's expression changed with it. "She's been telling me to tell you that she wants to play."

The word 'play' worked like a magic spell. Suddenly, the furniture of the very real house they were sitting in morphed into cut-out, construction paper drawings... which then fell away around them to reveal the four of them standing on what looked like a giant, life-sized game board. (Every square was a different color of the rainbow-- and some had cutely illustrated symbols on them.) Currently, the four of them all stood on a big green 'go' space. And around them, various cutouts of different locations sprung up across the board like daisies... a shop made of gingerbread, a lollipop forest, a sparkling ice cream mountain, a marshmallow swamp and a big pastel castle looming far, far away. It was whimsical and charmingly childlike-- like some knockoff version of candy land. The environment wasn't the only thing that changed, either. Clara looked down to find herself wearing a cloud-like blue and white ballgown. Raoul was wearing a green suit that bore the design of gumdrops, the detective was in a sleek yellow and black suit of his own that was somewhat reminiscent of a banana split in suit form.

"Hm. For red, I cannot decide!" A pink gummy bear perched on a cloud bearing a smiley face materialized in front of them. Clara turned to see what the bear was referring to and noticed that Thea's outfit was flickering indecisively between a red lollipop dress and a red lollipop suit. Ah. (Despite the weirdness and all the confusion, her heart thumped wildly in her chest.) Both of the outfits had their own different appeals, in a fun costume party sort of way. "Which do you prefer, Thea? Suit or dress? The game is about to begin!"

Clara could tell from their distinctive color-coding that... they were clearly meant to act as pieces on the board. They were about to play a game. And Raoul and the detective somehow got roped into it along with them. Were they seeing all of this, too?

"What the fuck!?" Raoul exclaimed. "What the fuck!?"

Yes. Yes, they were. Oh goodness gracious. Clara wasn't sure whether or not to try and smooth things over with an explanation before a purple gummy bear on a similarly smiling cloud appeared next to the pink one to do just that. Explain, that is. Except not in the way that was warranted for Raoul and the detective's sakes.

"Let's see. We have blue, green, yellow and red! Wonderful! Every player is present and accounted for." The purple gummy bear sang cheerily. "The goal of this game is simple. The first player to reach princess Brianna in the candy castle wins! To accomplish this, everyone will take turns spinning the colorful spinning wheel here!" And as if coaxed out of hiding with that prompting, said spinning wheel materialized before them with a bouncy flourish. "When that is done, you must proceed to the colored space the arrow lands upon! Along the way, you will be tested with challenges, rewards or penalties. The game itself will explain for you what you are to do when you land on your designated space. We do not want to bore you, explaining all of the rules at once. That is no fun!"

"Ah, I just received word from princess Brianna! She said she would like red to go first." The pink gummy bear informed them. "That means you, Thea! Ready? Spin the spinning wheel, if you please!"
 
'What the fuck?' Ah, yeah, this was clearly Raoul's first fucking rodeo! You know, since this wasn't even scratching the surface of their personal top ten wtf moments. "Just go with the flow, okay?" Thea recommended him. "Fighting this shit is like... dunno, like trying not to sneeze. The impulse just returns with vengeance, and before you know it, everything is covered in snot. You find yourself wishing you'd brought your handkerchief, but, too bad! Too fucking late." Sooo, just checking in, was it wise to talk about snot with your gf (!!!) around? Farting was considered the universal litmus test for intimacy, but Thea wasn't at all sure re: conventions surrounding that. But eh, whatever! Their relationship wasn't weak enough not to withstand some bodily fluids-related awkwardness.

In a weird way, seeing Raoul freak out Like That helped Thea not fall down the same rabbit hole. Something about others' misery feeling sorta uplifting, y'know? Well, it was that, and also the fact that Brianna didn't seem especially hostile. Like, yeah, she should work on adding phrases like 'consent' and 'not being weird af' into her personal dictionary, but all things considered? All things considered, Thea didn't really blame her for missing a few marbles. Not when those bastards had stolen them. (All of them were like that, to an extent. If not for that weird-ass cult, after all, would she have been the person she was now? Silly little Thea, with the coping methods of a half-baked potato? To cite the immortal Linkin Park, 'these wounds will never heaaaal'! And tbh, she was just... learning to accept that. That they'd had a much, much, much bigger influence on how she'd turned out than she would have fucking liked. Maybe it could be spun as some sort of poetic justice? 'Cause, basically, they'd helped to temper the weapon that would fucking destroy them one day. Yup, that was right! Thea Holloway, the chronic responsibility dodger, had decided to Do Something About ThisTM. The conflict had turned personal-- not just because of her arm, or the way her shit life had turned out, but because they'd fucking dared to... well, to do something like this. In the 21st motherfucking century, no less! Cringey-ass cosplayers with questionable rolemodels should not get to hurt fucking kids just because the demon they worshiped asked them to. Just, nah.)

"Ooh, gimme the suit, please!" Thea made her best puppy eyes. "Red suits are so metal. I'll feel like a fucking vampire queen." Yeah, and the sleeves would also serve to mask her stump a little better. It wasn't that she was ashamed of it per se, but... well, that didn't mean she needed to flash it, okay? Thea also wasn't ashamed of her asshole, and she wasn't fucking shoving it in other people's faces. You know, good manners and shit! An underrated fucking skill.

"Cool, cool," the brunette nodded, probably a little more excited than she should have been. (So what? Fucking sue her for wanting to have some fun! Had this been a game at the local Disneyworld, they would have had to pay thousands and thousands of $$$ for something this elaborate. Should she act like a scared horror movie protagonist now, solely because the ghost that had dragged them there happened to be real? Sounded like fucking capitalist propaganda, if you asked her.) So, yeah, Thea did spin the wheel. Round and round it spun, to the point that following that movement with her eyes made her feel a little dizzy-- until it landed on the violet blotch of color, that was.

"Ooh, how exciting!" the gummy bear clapped. "Kind of like myself, even if my coloring is much more exquisite. Well, do go on, Red!"

Upon actually stepping on the space, the tile beneath her feet lit up. "Challenge! Challenge! Challenge!" An annoying, robotic-sounding voice exclaimed, because fucking duh. No shit she wouldn't get any fucking reward! Misfortune stuck to Thea Holloway like flies to honey, and that she hadn't scored a punishment immediately was a small miracle in itself. "Leeeet's see," the unseen presence bellowed. "Thea, Thea, Thea. Sounds almost like 'tea,' doesn't it? When you really, really think about it.

"Uhhh... it fucking doesn't?" Thea raised her eyebrow. "You sound as if you'd benefit from having your hearing checked, though."

"And there is no better thing to go with tea than a bunch of marshmallows, of course."

"Listen, robo lady," Thea's frown deepened, "the correct protocol is to pair marshmallows with cocoa. I won't stand for this fucking aberration!" She might as well have praised the idea, though, because the game didn't bother to deviate from the fucking script. Ugh. Was everyone going to act like a badly programmed NPC here?!

"Ah, yes, yes! Contain your excitement, though, because things are going to get interesting. Marshmallows aren't for cowards, after all." The game board grumbled, and suddenly... uh, Thea was sitting on a giant fucking marshmallow? As was everyone else, actually. (The tiles flickered, poofing out of existence-- instead, they were replaced by what looked like a racing course, with fans screaming their names and everything. "Go get 'em, Thea!" "Beware the quiet ones, huh, Clara?" "I've always loved you, Raoul!" "Can you detect how much we root for you, Mr. Park?" It, uh, certainly was fucking something.) "And, for that reason, you will compete for Thea's tile. The one to reach the finish line first will get it, along with a glorious marshmallow prize! Naturally," no, Thea did not like where this was heading, based on that fucking tone, "the rest of you will receive a punishment. It's only fair. Now go, go, go!"
 
"Uh, question." Raoul politely raised a single hand like he was a student addressing a teacher in a classroom. He looked around at the race track bewilderedly, visibly still grappling with everything about all of this. Funnily enough, his cheeks were blushing red from the random love confessions being thrown his way from the crowd. Hehe. Clara wore a subtle little smile. As his younger sister, it would've been her rightful obligation to mercilessly tease him for this... had they been in any other situation right now. (This place was bright and happy, yes, but it was still one of those ghost realms. She had to remind herself that she couldn't trust it completely.) It seemed she didn't have to say anything at all, though, because he threw a scandalized little glare at her anyway. Her brother could read her expressions a little too well. That... probably came with the territory of trying to read her those six years she wouldn't speak to anyone. "Hey. Knock it off, you!" He pointed his accusatory finger dramatically at her, as if he were starring in that game with the spiky-haired lawyer. She shrugged, obviously the perfect picture of innocence, but he wasn't buying it for a minute. "Don't think I can't see the look on your face!"

Clara giggled and Raoul slowly lowered his finger. He did a poor job of hiding his own relieved little smile at the sight. After this, though, he remembered his question and quickly amended his expression to one of the dutiful student again.

"How are we supposed to race on marshmallows? Are these, uh, gonna turn into go-karts or something?" Raoul finally asked his question. Instead of receiving an answer from one of those gummy bears, though, a cheerful chiptune song began to play from a speaker overhead. Then cutesy little faces appeared on the surfaces of their marshmallows... and instead of turning into go-karts, each of them sprouted arms and legs? The one her brother was sitting on began talking to him. "You ready!? We're about to go fast!"

"What... what!? Oh fuck!" Raoul was back to freaking out again. His marshmallow raised its fists in the air and let out an adorable battle cry. "Go fast, go fast!" It chanted. It took a stick of chocolate out of nowhere and determinedly drew lines on its cheeks like it was warpaint.

At that moment, all of their marshmallows began speaking to them. Although it seemed that they all didn't share the same competitive spirit. In fact, it seemed that each of the marshmallows had distinct, individual personalities of their own.

"Miss Clara! Are you ready, you adorable little creampuff?" The one Clara was on wiggled excitedly and grabbed it's blushing cheeks? It swung her around in such a way that she had to clutch on tightly to the front edge for dear life, afraid to fall off altogether. Uh, yeah. So that fear of heights she'd confessed to having before? That hadn't been a lie. Watching the colorful world swirl around her like a kaleidoscope was not doing her any favors, either. (And if it dared to call her an adorable little creampuff one more time--) "No. Not really." The dark and stormy expression on her face juxtaposed that of her marshmallow's greatly. "Aw. Cheer up, buttercup! You're so pretty when you smile!"

"Please-- please stop, the race hasn't even started yet!" Meanwhile Raoul was pleading with his marshmallow, clinging on for dear life as well while it (still screaming) ran in circles. Beside him, the detective's marshmallow was calm and snoring soundly, asleep. And Thea's? Thea's was vibrating intensely, like a child hyped on way, way too much sugar.

"On your marks..." The purple gummy bear floated down before them, waving a checkered flag.

"Wait!" Raoul's panic ensued, but the gummy bear didn't seem to notice.

"Get set..."

"Are there any rules?" Clara spoke up this time, genuinely concerned about where this was going. Because ahead, she could see different symbols and obstacles popping up. Would hitting the boxes give them items like in one of those racing games, or were they dangerous obstacles? "O-or safety measures... like seat belts? Helmets? This is seriously unsafe!" Especially for Thea, who only had one arm to hang on with! With that thought in mind, her heart began to pound like a sledgehammer.

"Go!" Ignoring their concerns, a confetti pop went off and the gummy bear threw the flag down, starting the race. The chiptune picked up into an appropriately competitive (but still distinctly cute) song. Raoul's marshmallow took off like a lightning bolt, running down the path in chaotic zig-zags. Still screaming.

"Win, win, win! Win, we will? Yes we will!" Thea's marshmallow laughed maniacally, stopped vibrating for a moment, and then before anyone could blink it rocketed off at a daredevil speed behind Raoul's. "Thea, we will WIN! For honor! Praise! Pizza! Cute girls!"

...What?

Far behind Raoul and Thea, Clara's marshmallow started the race skipping, like a child on a stroll in the park. Mostly because it was too busy admiring the flowers on the side of the track. "It is not about the destination, dear, but the journey!" Essentially right there in the back with her, the detective's marshmallow rubbed its sleepy eyes and slowly began to stand. It started off at a very leisurely jog. So leisurely it might as well have just been walking. "Well... I suppose I should be grateful mine is, ah, calm?" He said slowly. He was clearly still locked up in his own world more or less. Processing all of this. Knowing they were more or less in the imagination of his dead daughter must have also been...

Clara didn't know what to say. She never did. And she was too concerned with what was going on with Thea and Raoul right now to focus on anything else. Those marshmallows were wild and there was no telling what sort of accidents they could get into... and they were getting smaller and smaller on the horizon as they sped ahead. Worry had her heart in a vice grip. "We need to catch up to them!"

"Smell the candy roses, dear!" The marshmallow sang. Clara facepalmed.

Far ahead on the path, where Thea and Raoul were in the lead, they were close to approaching a row of glowing boxes. Each one flashed with an assortment of different symbols. Stars, rainbows, wings... pizza? In the pastel skies above their heads, a text-box appeared like a tutorial. "Grab one of the boxes for an item!" A computerized voice read the text, to accommodate those who could not read or might have trouble reading while racing. Very considerate! "You can use items to get ahead! Give it a try!" And then, "Make sure to avoid the ice cream puddles and banana peels up ahead! They're veeeery slippery! You wouldn't want to fall into the milkshake lagoon!" Another obstacle the tutorial didn't mention? Dollops of whipped cream oozing around with monstrous faces. They had grabby hands which seemed very intent on grabbing any nearby racers to drag them into said milkshake lagoon. Yikes!
 
A person more cautious than Thea might have wondered how, exactly, she was going to survive this clusterfuck with one arm only. She would have been concerned about all those safety rules that were about to be violated, too. You know what label that hypothetical person would deserve, though? A goddamn coward! Just, talking marshmallows? Organic ones, without any GMO-related bullshittery? Sign her the fuck up! "Man oh man," Thea giggled, "you've got your fucking priorities in order! I approve. Clara, my dear," she turned around and sent her gf (!!!) an air kiss, "I will dedicate this victory to you. See you behind the finish line, and don't choke on the dust I'm gonna leave you in!" ...what? Thea Holloway was familiar with the whole 'graceful winner' shtick, but she also thought it fucking pointless. Like, the losers knew that they lost, didn't they? Pretending that you weren't happy about it wouldn't erase the memory of their humiliation! Might as well rub their noses in it, for the additional FunTM. "And gentlemen," Thea waved at the detective/confused older bro duo, "don't fucking cry too hard when I beat you. I haven't brought any fucking handkerchiefs."

"Hahahaha, that's right, Thea! Fiiiight for your honor!" the marshmallow laughed. And, you know what? The thing was right. It at least knew how to pick a winner, so like, that ultimately meant that she could trust it on literally every single issue under the sun. If the marshmallow prophet told her who to vote for, for example? Why, Thea would be whipping out her fucking ballot! And maybe, possibly, forging other people's votes, if only because they just weren't EnlightenedTM enough. Clearly, they were unbeatable, destined from the very beginning to kick other contestants' asses, and--- wait. Wait, wait, wait. Was that Raoul? Raoul, who had fucking passed them by with the speed of a fucking pursuit plane? Oh no, he didn't! Raoul may have joined the 'almost family' category in her mind, but that did not buy him any special privileges outside of... uhh, outside of her letting him have the last slice of pizza, maybe? If it was one of those gross mushroom ones.

So, Raoul's screaming? Thea considered it to be her fucking battle song, and she urged her marshmallow to rush forward. "I'm coming for your ass, Raoul!" she shouted. "Clara's bro or not, I'm going to fucking end you."

"Yes, please, end it!" Raoul whined, hanging onto his marshmallow for dear life. "Oh my god, the thing won't slow down. I'm going to die here, I kno-- aaah!" Just barely, his marshmallow missed the large chocolate bar that emerged from the ground, but it seemed that nothing would heal the psychological wounds for him. "Oh geez, you want to lose?" Raoul's marshmallow sounded scandalized, almost as if he had just announced that he wanted to eat his fucking grandmother for dinner today. "That's not a very nice lesson to take away from this, Raoul. It's all about effort, effort, effort! But, luckily, I'll put it in for you. Feel free to kick back and enjoy the ride!" ...did the marshmallow just wink? Thea didn't think that they could fucking do that, but then again, she also hadn't thought they could cosplay horses. The entire paradigm of marshmallow-ness was getting redefined before her very eyes, and... shit. How did it speed up again?! Some extremely fucking illegal drugs had to be involved here, Thea was sure! The one (1) solace about this was that they blazed right past the boxes, so quickly that flames were licking at the trail they'd left on the cotton-candy surface. (Were, uh, milkshake lagoons supposed to be flammable? Because they sure as fuck were burning now. And as if that wasn't concerning enough on its own, a new message appeared on the pastel skies: 'Beware the milkshake zombies," it said, in a font obnoxiously similar to Comic Sans. "Yes, they are burning, too." But, haha! Nothing to Worry AboutTM, surely.)

"Okay, okay, okay," Thea said, with the expression of a scientist ready to construct The Artefact of Doom. (It was an intense fucking expression, alright.) "I'm choosing the might of pizza. Open it, Marshy!"

"A girl after my own heart," the marshmallow nodded. The lid of the box jumped away on its own, and instead of delicious, delicious pizza, there was... a rocket? You know, the same fucking kind rocket that could be seen in those Looney Tunes cartoons that she'd watched obsessively as a kid. Al-fucking-right, but what did that have to do with literally anything? Thea didn't see how-- "Awesome, an upgrade!" the marshmallow sang. "Hold on tight, because the real ride is starting." Which, yeah, it did. Mostly because the rocket fucking attached itself to the marshmallow's belly, and haha, then they claimed the fucking skiiiiies!

"Wheeee!" Thea laughed, enjoying the wind in her hair. "Man, this is the best. Don't slip on your stupid banana peels, Raoul! The real badasses don't even fucking bother with those."

"Uh huh," her noble steed agreed. "Anyway, do you happen to have a parachute? 'Cause this thing doesn't have a remote control. Or any form of control, really. Once it runs out of juice, we're going down. But, hey, I hear humans don't need bones that much!"

Wait, fucking what?

Meanwhile, Clara's marshmallow continued at a snail's pace. To its credit, it did guide her safely around the burning milkshake lagoons, and the few times the zombies tried to attack her, it... uh, whipped up a cross made of popsicle sticks? Little Bria might have had her mythology a little jumbled up, but they did back off! A small mercy. "Oh, brother," the marshmallow sighed. "I believe we might have exceeded the speed limit. My conscience can't deal with this burden. It is time to return back to the starting line, I fear! Ah, at least you'll get to enjoy the scenery some more. Wonderful news, isn't it, Clara?"

It might have looked as if the marshmallow was unironically asking her for her opinion, but that was a mere facade. Instead, the thing turned around and started walking back, infuriatingly slowly-- it almost looked as if time itself had frozen around them, solely to fuck with Clara's sanity.

"Psst! Psst, Clara!" Where was that voice coming from? From the field of lollipop flowers? Ah, yeah, come to think of it, its source was pretty obvious-- a giant fucking butterfly, too heavy to sit on any of the plants without breaking them. (Around him, there was a little cemetery of crushed blossoms: a testament to his stubbornness.) "You seem to be in a pickle here. Might I interest you in some steroids? You feed them to that useless marshmallow of yours, and that *bleep* attitude of theirs will change fast! You only gotta sell your soul to me. A bargain, really."
 
Clara was of the firm opinion that insects would make for terrifying monsters when enlarged. (Looking at them under a microscope or in a zoomed in photograph, they were straight up lovecraftian, whether the were slimy and squirmed or skittered about with their fuzzy, creepy crawly legs and antennae.) This philosophy did not by any means exclude butterflies. No matter how pretty the patterns on their scaly wings were, it wasn't nearly enough to distract from the soulless eyes and twitchy proboscis. It made for a face she did not want to encounter in a dark alley... or on a cartoonish race track either for that matter. The censor noise was jarring, it'd offered her drugs (all at the cost of her soul!) and it went without saying that everything about it was sketchy as hell. It was like encountering a haunted horror virus in a game made for kids-- or finding evidence of one of those edgy creepy pastas that one part of the internet used to rave about. Might as well have been wearing a sign around it's neck that said 'danger, do not touch.'

"Nope. Not interested." Clara bluntly refused the offer, her tone and expression equally bored. Not even going to humor herself with that nightmare. The last time she 'sold her soul' it hadn't exactly worked out. Sooner or later Thea or Raoul would win and it would be all be over. And unlike her girlfriend (whew... that one was still sinking in) she wasn't all that invested in winning this race. It was probably better for all of them if Thea kept her space on the board and they made progress towards that castle on the horizon, anyway. And, okay... maybe she wanted Thea to have this win. While she'd been hyped getting her into playing video games and watching her experience them vicariously, she could tell that underneath it all she was coping with the fact that playing her favorite video games one-handed was...

A resurgence of guilt rose in Clara's chest. Thea told her multiple times it wasn't her fault. But that reassurance still hadn't completely sunk in yet. The wounds that night left, physical and mental weren't going anywhere anytime soon. Still. She had to be mindful not to cross into that dreaded treating her delicately out of pity territory (because she knew firsthand what that was like, being the girl in class with a dead mom) but...

"She's right, you sleazy lepidopteran. Slow and steady wins the race." The marshmallow agreed sagely. But no... no it wouldn't. Especially not in this case. Did it matter, though? No. Neither Clara or her marshmallow spared the insect another glance after that. It was kind of nice to go slow. Take in the sights... if she memorized it well enough, she could try and recreate it in a painting later.

"Neeeerds." The butterfly gave a theatric yawn just as another lollipop flower snapped beneath it. Grumbling, it shook itself off and tried to perch itself down on another one.

That of course was the same time another screen appeared on the sky beside the glowing tutorial menus. It flicked one by one through camera footage of each of the contestant's progress. Raoul's marshmallow continued to bolt ahead and was just bursting through one of those mystery boxes... the detective's marshmallow was still ambling slowly down the track... and Thea's? Clara stared with horror as Thea rocketed up into the sky. What!? That couldn't be real, right? Whirling around on her marshmallow, she could make out the small spec of her flying across the pastel skies ahead for herself. So high... so fucking high... the fear she felt secondhand just from watching nearly caused her to pass out.

"Thea, you absolute punk..." Clara exhaled under her breath with a curse. Then she repeated her name, the unsurmountable worry inevitable bleeding through the second time. "Damn it, Thea!"

Clara thought about using her wings. An inkling of them appeared, flickering only to vanish as soon as they had come. The last time she'd relied on the powers the demon had given her... who was to say that wasn't what led to her possession that day? Each time she used them, each time her power grew, his voice-- his presence-- grew louder and closer within her. Too risky. The goal here was not to get possessed again. That and well... okay, she was also scared. The last time she flew she'd been shot out of the sky with a crossbow. The bruises from that mess still hadn't healed, either. Thanks, Ivy.

Baby steps, right? Clara bolstered the courage to jump off of her marshmallow, hugging tightly onto one of the lollipops and sliding down the stick. Her skirts billowed out around her and-- if she hadn't been worried sick the experience might have felt very charming and whimsical. Then, against her better judgement, she ran down the racetrack towards the butterfly they'd left behind. Ugh. This is her only shot, all right? She wasn't getting anywhere on her marshmallow and the insect, however terrifying, at least had wings.

"Well, well, well! Look who came crawling back--"

"I'm not here for drugs." Switched onto survival mode, Clara's brow furrowed as she grabbed a sharp shard of broken lollipop flower and shoved it towards the butterfly's chest. (Like this, she felt somewhat like a vampire hunter poised to shove a wooden stake through her target's heart.) With her other hand, she pointed towards Thea. Thea, who was zig-zagging out of control through the skies. "I need a ride and you're going to give it to me for free. We need to catch up with her and make sure she doesn't fall."

Clara's marshmallow turned around, hesitating with whether to go back to grab her rider or to resume heading to the finish line. (No doubt debating which option might get it in more trouble.) Seeing that her racer was prepared to stab the butterfly, it did neither of those things and fainted on the spot.

"Now that's more *bleeping* like it!" The butterfly barked a raspy laugh. It turned and lowered itself to allow her room to climb on it's back. Clara ignored the shiver of discomfort that rushed down her spine when she jumped on and clung tightly to it's fuzzy back. "I like your moxie, little lady. You're really tiny, you know? Even by human standards--"

"Keep talking and I'll stab you when this is over." Clara grumbled, trying to ignore the terror rising in her belly as they took to the skies. It took some time and quite a few sickeningly sharp swerves to finally catch up to Thea, but by some miracle they did catch up eventually.

"Thea!" Clara struggled to shout over the wind roaring in her ears. The butterfly made a very admirable attempt to stay aligned with the chaotic marshmallow in the sky. "What happened? Are you okay? C-can you land like this or--?"

"Where is your marshmallow, blue!? You should be disqualified! Dis-quali-fied!" Thea's marshmallow stressed. It didn't have eyebrows before, but it certainly grew them to furrow them in a 'v' shape of pure anger as it swept to the side to slam against Clara and her butterfly, throwing them off balance. Scattered scenes of her life flashed before her eyes as she almost slipped off. Almost. But not quite. Oh god.

"Ah!" Clara yelped, her heart pounding, and clung on so tight that she was digging her nails into the insect's side. This was a terrible idea. Heights were officially the worst. They... they were the worst, but Thea was worth facing her fears for. 'Don't look down, just don't look down.' "S-stop! I don't need to win, I'm just worr--"

"You will not win! We will win! We are superior!" The marshmallow continued. It slammed again, harder this time, causing Clara to slip... and now she was falling through the soft pastel clouds. "Right, Thea!?"
 
Thea didn't hear her gf (!!!) at that time, of course, though if she did? She would have to admit that 'damn it, Thea' was a staggeringly accurate summary for this entire shitshow. "What the fuck?!" the brunette exploded. "Don't need bones that much? I mean, I guess that's true if you don't give a shit about not dying, but like, it's not my turn for corpse-ification yet. I'm too fucking pretty to be a corpse!" Especially since corpses lacked a few, uh, key functions. It was hard to kiss when your brain was too fucking dead to send out that impulse, y'know? And, like, judging by Clara's reaction to the zombie that had been antagonizing them in the schoolyard, she was not into those, anyway. (Would Zombie!Thea get some special privileges? Hey, maybe! The 'maybe' was a shaky little thing, though, and Thea didn't particularly want to build her romantic aspirations around it.)

"Don't be so dramatic about it," the marshmallow waved its metaphorical hand. "Life isn't all that great, anyway. Don't you guys get to go to heaven when you die? Seems like a pretty swell place to me! If it's anything like the marshmallow heaven, I'd go there in a heartbeat. Do you also get tea lakes and cocoa oceans?"

"The Bible doesn't fucking mention those, if that's what you wanna know. But like, I don't even believe in heaven!"

"Sounds like a you problem, missy."

Ugh. Fucking ugh! What was this, the consequences of her own actions? Thea had genuinely never felt so upset, so attacked, as she did now, staring that ugly-ass concept right in the face. (...it scared her, too. The wheee-factor was pretty high here, but for what? For that momentary fucking thrill? For a few seconds of 'whoa, so badass' before everything she'd been working for collapsed, like a house of cards? 'Cause, get it, Thea actually was working towards something now! It might not have been anything grand, such as an ivy league acceptance, or the invention of time machine, or the world fucking peace, but it was something, at least. Something that was hers. Just... it wasn't easy for her to strive towards literally anything, okay? And yet she'd promised, without ever saying it, to make Clara happy. To always bring a smile to her face. Which, duh, a corpse couldn't fucking do that! (...unless it was, like, a corpse of someone you happened to hate. Thea could think of a few people who deserved the cadaver treatment.)

"You little marshmallow fuck," Thea dug her nails into its soft candy flesh, "either you'll get me down safely, or I'm taking you down with me. Nobody fucks over Thea Holloway and lives!"

"Oh, yeah? Do I have to give you an anatomy lesson, Thea? Because we really don't need bones! We don't need to-- ouch!" So, her theory that the marshmallows had pain receptors? Fucking tested, 'cause it sure as hell didn't like it when she took a bite. (Hmm, delicious. Tasted like a cloud, but like, less rain-y and sweeter. Cotton-candy-ish? Haha, man, Clara would sure as hell... Clara. Almost felt like she could hear her voice, didn't it? A funny auditory hallucination for sure, and one that some dumbass therapist would probably interpret as a 'sign of unhealthy attachment.')

...except that, you know, when she opened her eyes, Clara was actually there. Like, there there, not just in her head. Riding an overgrown fucking butterfly, too. Alright. Alright, why not! "Clara," Thea managed to say, amidst thoughts such as 'wtf, wtf, wtf', 'those are some pretty fucking colors' and 'shit, gotta add Clara driving a butterfly on my List of FantasiesTM.' Sometimes, life just served you a whole-ass new perspective on a silver platter, didn't it? "How did you... no, nevermind. I don't know? Guess I fucking gotta try." No other way to find out, right? And while the distinct lack of ground under her feet scared her, the 100% certainty of her head getting smashed against the pudding hills later was infinitely more terrifying. "Shit, I'm so glad you're here. Remind me to read the small fucking print before taking a deal next time, eh?" The thing was, her marshmallow didn't share the sentiment. Not at all. Like, seeing Clara there made it about as happy as if she had been the personification of the bubonic fucking plague!

"What?" Thea's eyes widened. "No, stop. I don't know where you get your info from, mate, but I don't want to kill my girlfriend over a stupid-ass race. Knock it off, you sugary, pink piece of shit!"

Now that seemed to touch the marshmallow's non-existent nerve. "What!" it gasped. "There is nothing more important than victory, Thea. Don't you want to bathe in the blood of your enemies?"

"Well, fucking sure, but Clara--"

"--is an enemy. An opponent. A cheater. I will destroy her, and you'll thank me for it." Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit! The stupid-ass marshmallow fucking rammed into the butterfly, throwing it off balance again. If this continued... well, Thea didn't have to be a fucking mathematician to see that Clara's chances weren't good. Whether a snowflake in hell melted wasn't the question, after all-- the real question started with 'when'. So, instead of waiting for it to happen? Thea stood up and jumped into the emptiness. "Bye, bitch!" To the butterfly's credit, it reacted fast. Before she could even enter another 'oh shit' stage, the creature took a sharp turn and allowed her to land on its wing, right next to Clara.

"Welcome aboard, princess!" her savior grinned, though she paid little attention to it. Automatically, her arm wrapped around gf's (!!!) waist. "Yeah, yeah, thanks. You okay, Clara? Sorry for this shitshow. I, uh, think we need to bolt. I swear I will never fucking trust strange candy again."

"Bolt?" Now it was the butterfly's turn to be offended, it seemed. "I'm not gonna stand for this *bleep*-ing insult! What does the *bleep* think it is?! I'm not gonna be humbled by the main cause of tooth cavities in children. Now that you're here with us, princes, we will make it pay." And, with that? With that, a goddamn cannon emerged from its tiny body. "Okay, admiral Clara. Lead the assault!"
 
Clara blinked bewilderedly when she fell off the butterfly, watching the pastel clouds rush by her. The way her hair and dress fluttered in the wind reminded her of a scene she might have found whimsical in an animated film... and sure, she might have appreciated that more on some level had she not been falling, had her stomach not been dropping, and had the tight noose of panic not wrapped itself so tightly around her neck that she couldn't even scream. A flash of her capture played behind her eyes. Still, consciousness was taken from her soon after the impact of Ivy's shot. Whereas this sky seemed strangely endless, like the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland. Creating her own wings was an option other than death, yes, but even then, when confronted firsthand with these decisions forming right before her eyes... the idea of hitting the ground was vastly more appealing to her than allowing the demon to take control of her again. Even if there was a part of her that didn't want to die yet, that wanted to save herself, those desires never triumphed over the risk of losing herself again. Like they always say, better to die as yourself then let a demon kill your girlfriend.

No. No one actually says that except for her, because her trauma was so deeply rooted in the realm of absurdity that the concept of ever finding somebody that could relate to it specifically was an impossibility. Sheesh. What Clara really needed a supernatural therapist. Too bad that they didn't exist. If anything, that was the role she and Thea had been designated the second they began wandering into these ghost worlds. Closing her eyes, she tried to listen for voices. Sometimes they gave little sprinklings of hints, right? Maybe they'd give her an alternative route... as in one that didn't involve relying on demons for help? The bastard was taking advantage of the fact that they needed his help to escape the danger he was responsible for putting them in the first place. Under the guise of 'help', maybe, and at times it did save them in a pinch. But somehow that was also furthering his own goals, by way of strengthening his hold on them. And desperate for solutions to her problems, she had reached for his hand over and over again... well, no more. Even at the cost of her life, she wasn't going to make that mistake again.

'You're still there, right? I know you are.' Clara thought, closing her eyes as she sent a plea to the children. Might as well initiate the conversation, right? When she looked at this from afar, it did make sense to pay more mind to the voices of the victims of this mess than the demon that put them there in the first place. 'I'm listening.'

But then there was the sensation of being caught as Clara landed on the back of the butterfly, who had maneuvered in a loop to catch her. Whew. And seconds later, Thea was also there and wrapping an arm around her waist.

"Mhm." Clara hummed softly in reply to Thea's question, the direness of their situation inspiring the courage to give her a gentle little peck on the cheek. (Ah. Where did that come from!? Now her heart pounded even harder. And okay, it was just a peck on the cheek. But for her? For her this was a massive thing, okay? And yet somehow it felt casual, too. It felt automatic. Right.) Either way, she knew that her attempts to say anything other than that would come out in clumsy stutters and fragments. Because she wasn't really okay, per se. (She would be, to be sure. The butterfly caught her and Thea, they were both still alive... and it was only a matter of time before they landed again and proceeded to play this game. She would be okay then.) Just... heights. Heights. She pressed her eyes shut again, pushing down on a bout of nausea. It was fine. She'd be fine. She'd be okay when they were standing on precious, solid ground again.

"A-a-assault!?" Clara snapped her eyes open again, gazing incredulously at the cannon. "No!" She scolded the butterfly like a mother might scold her toddler for coloring on the walls with crayon. "This is a race, not a s-s-shooter."

"Aw, c'mon! Live a little. You're acting like a buzzkill again. Like your lame *bleep*-ing marshmallow!" The butterfly sighed and then blew a raspberry. "Neeerd."

"Land right now... you hear me? Right now you bleeping butterfly..." Clara didn't have her lollipop shard anymore, but she knew the thing received her threats positively. That and she was absolutely at her limit when it came to soaring the skies. Her heart pounded so wildly that she was going to be sick. "Or do you want me to stab you? That m-marshmallow wants to win more than anything. The best way to get revenge is b-by winning the race."

Of course, it was too late for either herself or Thea to win anything now. Because a large screen appeared across the sky, accompanied by triumphant fanfare, as a confused-looking Raoul was crowned the winner of the race. Even the detective, whose marshmallow had walked the entire race, was crossing the finish line as well to take second place. Oh well. Clara had figured on some level that she and Thea had broken the rules at some point by ditching their marshmallows anyway.

"*Bleep*. You're right. But it's all over!" The butterfly huffed. With a sigh of resignation, it swooped down and past the finish line as well and officially tied Clara and Thea for third.

"Congratulations Raoul!" The gummy bear announced happily, sprinkling confetti over a (still confused looking) Raoul. Yeah, it'd take a while for him to process this one. But Clara was relieved to see he'd made it through the race unharmed. "And so sorry, Thea. That means he gets to take your spot!"

Clara barely got her feet back on the ground, dismounting from the butterfly when she found they were standing on the game board again. Raoul was now on the purple space while she, Thea and the detective were standing on the green starting space.

"Now it's green's turn!" The pink bear said, producing the spinning wheel in front of Raoul. Since he was at a distance from them, she couldn't see what color he landed on... but whatever space it was, it took him far. So far that he had to round a winding corner that took him out of her range of sight. Clara tilted her head, leaned to one side and stood on her tiptoes as she tried and failed to see what was happening. Apparently it wasn't another challenge-- otherwise they would've been informed by now. No... there was no way of knowing what was happening with him and that was nothing short of terrifying.

"I-- I wonder why they got pulled in here with us...?" Clara whispered to Thea while they waited. There was no better way to distract herself from the fact that she was scared as hell than by playing supernatural detective, after all. "Detective Parker and Raoul, I mean." If that had been the case in the hospital, she would've imagined a few confused employees would've been swept in there with them. But maybe the detective and Raoul were exceptions for some reason? After all, Parker was Brianna's father... Raoul her brother. The connection there was obvious. She tapped her chin, lost in thought. "...Is it familial relationships, maybe? Emotional connections?"
 
Mwhahahaha, yes, fuck yes! Revenge may have been best served cold, but Thea Holloway was way too hot for the usual fucking rules. Just, nah, mate. Only cowards waited till their opponent forgot about them before they struck back, and that was no way to live. What was next, huh? Eating off a trashcan lid, just because it kinda sorta resembled a plate? Wearing a potato fucking sack for your wedding, since it technically was made of fabric as well? Let me tell you, it wasn’t a coincidence that ‘compromise’ and ‘con’ began with the same fucking letter! Nah, never. The bitch of a marshmallow had wronged them today, and today, they were going to… what was the phrase? Bathe in its blood? Thea kinda doubted that candy even had blood, so sugary water had to do. Oh, yeah. Her wrath would be fucking legenda… ah. Were those, ah, Clara’s lips? Clara’s lips, brushing against her skin? Alert, alert, alert, first kiss alert!!! (Well, not really, but, you know. A kiss-adjacent activity! An almost-kiss! According to Thea’s personal analysis, it was, like, only an inch away from being actually kissed, and once that sank in… Yeah, game fucking over. Brain: signing out. Hormones: logging in. Rose-tinted glasses: put the fuck on.) “Ah,” she said, because anything with more syllables probably would have caused her entire system to overheat. “Um, thanks? I can kiss you better than that, though. I-I mean, not that this wasn’t good! The best peck I’ve ever gotten, I swear. But, like, it was competing in a different category than kissing kissing, wasn’t it? And since you’re now my girlfriend, you’re, um, eligible for that category. Congratz.” Wow, wow, wow! Move over, Casanova, ‘cause Thea Holloway was redefining what the word ‘romance’ meant. Fuck, was it even possible not to crawl into her bed five seconds after meeting her? The pheromone cocktail was irresistible.

“Uh,” Thea scratched the back of her head awkwardly, “sooo, I guess that Raoul won? Good for him. I mean, I’m going to beat him in everything else, so I guess he can savor the victory for now. It’s only fair.” Her, being a graceful loser? Why, it was more likely than you might think! Especially when she was using it as a way of drawing Clara’s attention away from, you know, the total fucking clusterfuck that was her reaction to the PeckTM. (Couldn’t they, like, lose their memory of what had happened? Please, please, pleaaaase, with a cherry on top? Not to complain about any of this, of course, but Thea felt that they deserved something more ~romantic~ than her just... freaking the fuck out. Like, rose petals and ice-cream and shit, instead of the marshmallow trying to kill them? Yeah, that would have been fucking swell.)

“March ever forward, green!” the gummy bear saluted, tears in his eyes. (Were those tears, or just some glucose syrup? Thea felt a mighty need to lick his translucent, delicious-looking cheeks, but in the end, she suppressed it. Not every fucking secret in this galaxy had to be unraveled! Mystery was the fucking spice of life, it was said, and Thea liked her life super spicy. Well, that, and she’d also come to the conclusion that not antagonizing the guy who (presumably) controlled the burning milkshake lagoon zombies might have been better than… uh, doing just that. Yup. See? And they said that ‘character development’ was a goddamn lie.)

“Alright, sooo, whose turn is next?” Thea tilted her head aside. “Clara’s? C’mon, let’s get this over with.”

Bleep, bleep, bleep! A red fucking button materialized in the pastel-colored sky, large and angry-looking. Someone’s disembodied hand was pushing it furiously as well, which, of course, was the source of the aggressive-ass sound. (And, in case you were still wondering about the interpretation of the signal? The following emoticons appeared above: (ಠ ∩ಠ) (ಠ ∩ಠ) (ಠ ∩ಠ) Man oh man, Brianna’s commitment to being absolutely, one hundred percent clear was fucking admirable! Too bad that she had died before she had managed to, like, write a bunch of textbooks. With guidance as transparent as hers, Thea might have even conquered the challenge of logarithms.)

“Not so fast,” the gummy bear raised his arms, probably to block their way. “While green earned his reward, you are yet to reap your punishment. No need to panic, though! This is a family friendly board game. I can guarantee that no child-inappropriate elements will ever appear.” Uhh, a question. Why the fuck did that sound like a suspiciously specific denial? You know, the kind of denial that was about to be revealed for the bullshit it was? “Besides, I’m pretty sure that you have signed the informed consent form. With that out of the way… Mrs. Guillotine, please!” Thea kind of hoped that it was some obscure-ass metaphor, but nope-- an actual fucking guillotine emerged from the ground, a big smile on its… blade. Uh oh. (Also, why the fuck was it pink? Pink, with little blue bows tied all over it? If that was supposed to make it better, then, spoiler alert: it didn’t fucking work!)

“The first round of punishment, ladies and gentlemen?” she smiled. “It’s fine, everyone needs to start somewhere. To ease you into it, you can choose what you are going to lose. A piece of advice: save head for last!”
 
"This is..." Clara couldn't find the words to finish her sentence. Her heart was stuck in her throat and she couldn't speak even if she could find them. It was still too soon, wasn't it? Brianna herself had seen firsthand how disastrous that was for them, had even shown remorse for the way it had happened. So why in the world would she orchestrate a situation like this? (The little girl had wanted to play games... so if the goal was to have fun, why introduce such a grotesque punishment that'd touch on a no doubt painful part of her past? Typically people weren't particularly eager to drag this kind of thing up to the surface with quite so much... well, eagerness. It was only the first round and she was already throwing her trauma in their faces with the directness of a sledgehammer.) Or was it that this part of the vision was completely beyond Brianna's control? It was hard to gauge just how much power the ghosts actually had over their individual worlds. Lizzie did seem to have some power of her own by the time they met, when she changed that lava-filled room to one full of ice cream. But contrarily... there was also that moment in the classroom, where she looked terrified to get caught giving them more information. As if she was afraid of getting caught breaking some unspoken rules. Then there was Ian and his ongoing feud with that high-strung fish who persistently kept things hidden from him in his afterlife. Perhaps the fish represented an overbearing parent in his mind and that had taken on an external identity of its own? These theories, however interesting they might have been, were still only just that. Theories. There was still much they needed to learn about these worlds. And once they did? Maybe it'd become easier to navigate them.

"Now... oh, right. There was a tie for last place, wasn't there? Hm. We might have to look at the footage again to see which of you two should be punished." The gummy bear tsk-ed, lowering their gaze from herself and Thea to check over their clipboard with a monocle.

If Clara had known more (or if she wasn't currently panicking quite so much) she'd have been able to puzzle them out of this punishment. It was too much too soon, okay? Thea had just lost her arm. And it had been her fault. Her fault. This situation was so bizarre, so all-encompassing and whimsical that she almost forgot about it for a moment. Now her guilt had returned with a vengeance, biting at her insides with teeth and claws. Guilt so insurmountable that it made her say something impulsive.

"It should be me. I... cheated." Clara stepped slightly in front of Thea. Though her head felt stuffed with cotton when she examined the sharpness of the guillotine blade, she was sticking with her story. Thea was not going to lose her other arm if she could help it. It couldn't make up for what she'd done, it never could, but... "I left my marshmallow behind on the track and, ah, distracted Thea before she could win. She was in the lead for most of the race, remember?"

"Oh. Okay, then!" The gummy bear grinned and chucked the clipboard haphazardly over their shoulder. "Right this way, then!"

The gummy bear steered their cloud behind Clara and began pushing her eagerly towards the guillotine. Gulp.

"Wait! I don't recall signing any such forms." Detective Parker cut in, trying to reason through this much like Clara used to in the beginning. He stared warily at the scene in front of them. No matter how candy-coated it was, no matter how sweetly it smiled, it couldn't hide the fact that the machine was responsible for ending thousands upon thousands of lives. "Nor is this what I would consider child friendly." Then he picked awkwardly at his tie, putting on a very... fatherly face. Or at least that was Clara's impression of fatherly from the wholesome fathers that appeared on television more so than in real life. A sternness that was subdued with gentleness and concern. (And that he'd spoken up on her behalf? That wasn't lost on her, either. The feeling that he actually gave a shit was...) "Isn't there some other way we can do this? After all, how are we supposed to reach, um... princess Brianna if we lose a limbs with every turn? Before long... well, what happens when we lose our legs?"

"Well that's simple! You'll get your own personal cloud to ride on, yellow! Like this!" The purple gummy bear spun on their cloud in a way that could only be described as chaotic. "Don't knock it before you try it. It's just a game!"

Clara was shoved towards the guillotine. Before she was shoved underneath it, though, a doll created in her likeness floated down amidst rays of light in the pastel skies. Um. Weird. Then a text box appeared over the doll's head, with instructions to tap which limb she should lose. Hesitantly, she poked her doll's left arm. It flashed a few times and in a matter of seconds, the doll appeared beneath the guillotine... smiling just like the guillotine smiled as it's blade rose and fell, taking doll Clara's arm clean off with a loud 'slaaaash'.

"...What?" When this happened, the real Clara's left arm flickered and then turned... completely see-through? Furrowing her brow, she lifted it and wiggled her fingers as a test. So her arm was still there, then? Capable of movement, too. Just rendered useless, apparently, considering that it was essentially a ghost arm now. (She tested this theory by attempting to clasp her hands together and watching with bewilderment as her left phased right through her right.) Okay. Well that was a relief, at least. Otherwise this whole game would've turned into a bloodbath right from the get-go.

"Clara! Are you... all right?" The detective asked, tilting his head as he studied the phenomenon that was Clara's, uh, new arm.

"Just tingles a little, I guess... but I'm okay." Clara assured. She was okay. She might have felt a bit faint from the jarring change, sure, but she was okay. She'd be okay. (Strangely, though, her sacrifice felt cheap because it wasn't real. Because some part of her said she deserved to lose her arm, the way that Thea lost her own.) Drowning in these conflicted feelings, she could only stare at her feet. Somehow, she felt too ashamed to look at Thea right now.

"Alright! It's yellow's turn, then blue." The gummy bear attempted to form finger-guns as it produced the spinning wheel in front of them. "You ready, detective yellow!?"
 
A guillotine? Was it there to, like, sever some metaphoric-ass links between them and their victory, or some similar anime nonsense? Because that Thea could deal with. Anything else, though... (The hand that was and wasn't there stung, as if it was submerged in acid. But, hahaha, that was fine, wasn't it? The acid didn't exist, much like her limb. None of it did. It was just her brain retracing the old pattern, in the same way you might scratch, scratch, and scratch at a scab, till fresh fucking blood started pouring out again. Except, surprise, surprise! The blood didn't come, either-- the stub remained a stub, an unfeeling thing attached to the rest of her body. To the rest of her. Or, like, was it still her? The shape sort of checked out, but when it came to these things, you didn't fucking want to settle for no dusty-ass 'sort of'. Just, nah! That was like wearing shoes that only sort of fit, except that, instead of shoes, it was her own damn skin. ...yeah, Thea had never really addressed it. You know, the whole 'not feeling like herself' thing? Seemed kind of relevant to one's well-being, come to think of it. Hehe.) "Clara?" her eyes widened as her girlfriend (!!!) offered to sacrifice herself. No, no, no! That... that was all wrong. Not how any of this was supposed to turn out, certainly. Like, what kind of fucked up boardgame forced their players to lose their fucking limbs? The replay value would be a fat damn zero, given that nobody could roll the dice after a few rounds!

'Why is it so wrong when she does it, though?' Duh, of course that the fucking demon chose to make an appearance now! (Privately, Thea had kind of hoped that his demonic colleagues had shoved his head into the toilet and laughed him out of the ninth circle of hell, but she had known even then that that had been just a fantasy. A way for her to distance herself mentally from... well, from the moment he inevitably returned. From now.) 'You sure did sacrifice herself for her, back when you so foolishly tried to shield her. Why shouldn't she get to be as broken as you are, hmm? Deep down, you want this. You know you do. Because crows, my dear Dorothea, do depend on their flock.')

'No,' Thea defended herself, her own voice sounding incredibly weak to her. (A shadow of its usual, thunderous form. She was supposed to be the sun, the energy that fucking lit the world on fire, and yet, yet she only felt cold now. As if she was drowning in an icy, icy lake, the surface freezing over above her head.) 'Fuck off. I would never want that for her!'

'No?' the demon grinned. 'Why do I feel the sting of disappointment in you, then? Care to explain, Thea?'

'Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up!'

And, the worst fucking thing about it? He was right. She didn't really want Clara to suffer, but like... what was that? (A game. Make-believe. Totally appropriate for, you know, a kid's twisted fantasy, except that this hit way, way, way too close to home. For her, this wasn't a fucking game! Whereas all those status effects would expire eventually, hers just... wouldn't. She'd never be fucking normal. This was her life now, for the rest of her days, and in a strange way, it felt as if the game was mocking that. 'Come closer, ladies and gentlemen, and try out being Thea for an hour!' Except that nobody had ever asked her whether she wanted to be Thea.) "Good," she said, uncharacteristically curt. (She, too, wasn't really looking at Clara. What would that be good for, huh? The shards of resentment in her glare felt too fucking sharp even for her, and aiming them at her girlfriend didn't feel fair. It wasn't like she'd known what would happen, for fuck's sake!) "I guess we can move on now."

The game world, at least, demanded it from them. Knowing better than to protest, the detective spun the wheel, and... uh. What the fuck was that? The whole-ass board turned upside down, with the sky assuming the position of the ground and the tiles shining brightly above their heads. What was worse, they turned upside down, too! Meaning that Thea had to balance on her one (1) arm, the weight of her body threatening to topple her over. Oof. Fucking oof, actually!

"A balance game!" the gummy bear shouted, apparently ecstatic for some godforsaken reason. (Uh, a question. Was it illegal to strangle gummy bears, and could you pull it off with one arm? Asking for a friend, and by that, Thea fucking meant herself.) "Everybody loves those, so I've prepared one for you as well. Fun for the whole family! Using your arms only, you have to walk across the sky and push the self-destruct button. Don't worry about the name," he waved his hand nonchalantly, "that's just a formality. Oh, and make sure not to push any of the self-create buttons! That, as the grown-ups say, could be a problem. Can't have multiple Theas and Claras running around, after all. Multiple detectives Parkers, though... hmm, that could be nice. You are rather effective, so I cannot imagine the heights you would reach if you had multiple copies of yourself at your disposal!" As he spoke, tons and tons of identical buttons started popping up, like fucking mushrooms after a rain. What. the. fuck.

"The one who can push the right button first wins! And, oh," the gummy bear smiled, "I guess the arm-less folks may support one another. If you guys win, the final victor will be decided via a game of rock, paper, and scissors!"
 
Clara gasped sharply when the board overturned itself. On instinct, she reached out to support herself with her new ghost arm and only accomplished to throw herself completely off balance when it phased through the game board. As a result, she fell flat on her face and laid there for a solid minute while the gummy bear gave instructions. Ugh. That must have been what Thea felt, every time that she needed her arms for some mundane task. Just because she'd lost her arm didn't mean she'd forgotten what it felt like, the impulses and muscle memory that came with the simplest tasks needed to be relearned and adjusted over time. All throughout the past couple of days, she'd had to watch firsthand as Thea grappled with these changes in her everyday routine. (Always putting on a brave, smiling face for her sake. But there was no sugarcoating the reality in this instance. It must have been hellish. Just like the guilt was hellish. How did she even live with herself, after being responsible for that anguish?) And this game's mechanic only served to kick them while they were down. Brianna might not have intended it that way, the poor girl had lost her own arms, but... it was unnecessarily cruel. "Doesn't he have to move to his space first? I thought this was a board game." She tried to focus on the task, the way she felt like the scum of the earth every time she glimpsed her ghost arm. The sooner they got out of this place, the better. But with the way this 'game' was going? They were still standing on the starting space. (Or in Clara's case, lying on it. Because, really? She didn't have the super strength to balance on her right arm alone! This 'game' was a fool's errand.) Rather than progressing linearly, making progress across the colored spaces this thing reacted unpredictably and threw random, unrelated nonsense at them. They'd never reach the castle at this rate. It could take years. And maybe that was what Brianna was hoping for... to have playmates for the rest of her afterlife. Huh. That was a viable theory. "Not a mini-game simulator."

"Our game, our rules! And those are the rules, Clare bear. Tough it out and find the button!" The purple gummy bear insisted as the pink one nodded in the background. "The one who finds it first will get to progress to the red space our dear detective yellow has spun!" Then the bear winked and shot the equivalent of finger-guns with its thick gummy paws. "Toodaloo, buckaroos!"

Buckaroos? But this game had nothing to do with cowboys-- ah. Whatever! If Clara had learned anything about these ghost worlds by now, it was that not everything had to make perfect sense.

Anyway... those were the rules, huh. And Clara was usually the type to read over every rule with a keen eye and order them alphabetically to boot. So clearly that was her incentive to shut her mouth and do as she was told, like the good girl she was. The gummy bears disappeared, then, and a chaotic 8-bit track began to play as background music to their new task. Looked like they didn't have a choice, huh? (Rather than get right to work, though, she shuddered as a viscerally creepy sensation scurried over her. It was a scratchy skittering over her back, reminding her of insect legs. And just as soon as the feeling came it passed, fleeting enough to make her wonder if she'd only imagined it. Her heart pounded and she tensed, bracing herself for the demon's presence. She waited to be absolutely sure that the presence was gone before she finally allowed herself to breathe and move again. False alarm?) Maybe she should lose the next round on purpose? Lose her other arm in this game world to ensure that she-- the demon-- would be incapable of hurting Thea again.

Uninvited, Clara thought about the dark little trailer closet. The burn of the ropes tied tightly around her wrists, when papa claimed he was too paranoid to sleep with her 'loose'--

Detective Parker sighed and experimentally hit one of the buttons, providing a much-needed distraction from her own mind. Two of him appeared and also sighed... and the real one revealed himself with his wide eyes of disbelief as he stared at his newly created clones. "Oh. This is... quite peculiar." Yep. That was an astute observation. Clara might have made a sarcastic comment if he was anyone other than detective Parker. He was a decent guy... a good father. (What would her life have been like, if she had a father like him instead? The thought was accompanied by a twinge of pain, burrowing a hole in her. Was it possible to miss something she never had?) He was allowed to cope with all of this weirdness at his own pace. "Quite peculiar." One of his clones parroted his words. "And they talk, too. Fascinating."

Clara settled for rolling her eyes at the detective instead of commenting before crawling her way over to Thea's side. Although she did have trouble looking at her girlfriend while searing shame stuck to her skin like hot glue, she was starting to hatch a plan. A plan that one Thea Holloway would be a certified expert in helping her concoct. (And if she was lucky, maybe it would help to distract from... well, from all of this.) It wasn't even some weird, convoluted attempt to make her feel better out of pity or something like that. In this situation, Thea genuinely possessed the knowledge that they would need to turn this particular situation in their favor. It was about her, who she was as a person, and not about her arm or lack thereof...

Sure, Clara had used the world's weird logic to help them make progress. But Thea's endearingly chaotic, alternative perspective had also saved their lives on multiple occasions now. Hell, she'd solved the last one as a freaking mouse! The point was, the demon feared them when they put their minds together for a reason. No matter how many unpredictable obstacles were thrown their path, she could trust that her bond with Thea would serve as a reliable compass.

"Thea... I can't believe that I'm about to say this. But I think we need to break the rules." Clara said with a conspiratorial little glimmer in her eyes. That was honestly the only way that they were going to get out of here in the next century or so. "But, ah, I'm not sure how yet." Shyly, she peered at her girlfriend through her eyelashes. Then with a voice like silk, with a smoothness so smooth it was almost shocking, she continued, "I think I need some advice from a handsome, certified badass." Then she broke into a lopsided little grin, whispering like it was a secret between them. "I'm talking about you."
 
While everyone else seemed awfully preoccupied with discovering the quirks of this new fucking minigame, Thea was too busy seething. Like, what the actual fuck? What the fucking fuck? To her knowledge, the concept of ‘disability awareness’ revolved around making all the fuckers around her understand how hard shit was for her, instead of rubbing the salt in her own wounds! ‘Cause, newsflash-- she hadn’t forgotten. When the absence of her arm dominated every single aspect of her already fucked up life, it was kind of hard to pull that off. ‘See, crow?’ the demon chuckled. (For some reason, she could imagine him opening a bottle of old, obscenely expensive wine. Did her head contain wine? In the name of all the hygienic regulations, Thea sure as fuck hoped that it didn’t!) ‘Dove will never really grasp it. You sacrificed yourself for her, and what do you get? A facsimile of sympathy. Something as fake as those commercials you mortals complain about all the time. Well, well, well! Who would have thought?’ he paused for a while, probably to put more emphasis on whatever gem he was getting ready to share. ‘Wait, I did! Don’t say I didn’t warn you, crow. I have pointed out, numerous times, that someone like you could never hope to have an actual relationship. For that, you’re too broken. In a way, I suppose that your new image matches your true self? At least you can advertise to the world just how fucked up you are.’ And, blah blah blah, more discouraging nonsense. Except, you know what the demon hadn’t counted on? On Thea not giving a single flying fuck.

‘Says the fucker who is stuck in the broken idiot’s head. What does that say about you, hm? That you can’t even get a better apartment, you broke-ass bitch?’ That seemed to stun the demon into a shocked silence, but Thea wasn’t done with him yet. Oh, not nearly done. ‘Yeah, that’s right! I bet your demonic colleagues laughed your sorry ass straight out of hell, seeing as you’re incapable of even securing a proper fucking vessel. Plus, you managed to do what? Control Clara for whole-ass three seconds? Cong-fucking-gratz, you pretentious, good-for-nothing, ball of hot air. Even those fucking commercials stick with you for longer! ‘Cause the people who invent them study this shit at college, and they’re actually good at staying in your head. You fucking amateur!’ There, that should make him shut up for at least three seconds. Knowing him, he was probably sulking in the corner-- sulking in the corner and trying to think of some Terrifying RevengeTM. The positive side effect of her losing her arm, though? Odd as it was… well, she found that she was no longer afraid. Or, like, yeah, the fear was still there, but what was also there was the knowledge that, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t fucking break her. Not for long. Never once had she lost the instinct to pick herself back up, you see? So, short of killing her, Thea didn’t actually think that the pathetic excuse for a demon could stop her. (They were coming for his ass, sooner or later. On some level, she sensed that he knew it, too-- that was the reason he was so fucking bothered, like a pretentious high school kid who was trying so hard to prove that they didn’t want to be one of the popular kids. And, you know what? They always wanted to belong to that fucking club. Always!)

But, fine, fine. You just had to trudge through sometimes, okay? No matter how much it fucking annoyed you, and how much your feet got stuck in the mud. No matter how much it hurt, too. (Yeah, Thea didn’t need a fucking crystal ball to know that she would lose here. Might as well let a bling person compete at an archery championship, huh? And them losing wouldn’t be their fucking fault-- it would be the fault of the idiot who had looked at them, considered all the options, and then been like: ‘I guess this shit is fair.’ …stupid Brianna. The girl was dead, Thea knew, but didn’t she know what it was like? To lose so many pieces of yourself that your original shape felt hard to recall? That she decided to cook up this fucking brand of hell specifically to spite her was strangely vindictive-- the equivalent of sending her the head of her beloved dog, with a bow and everything. With its bloodied collar, too.) So, yeah, Thea was ready to grit her teeth and suffer through it. She was ready to swallow her anger, too. None of it would have pleased her, but it would have been a Solution TM, and thus the key to leaving this behind. Except that, ta-dah! An alternative solution emerged, from the lips of none other than her Clara.

H-handsome? A handsome badass? Me? For a second or two, it looked like Thea might spontaneously combust. It was, like, a total brain death simulation-- a red, neon sign was flashing in her head, overriding all of the usual functions. The sing said roughly this: Oh my god, Clara thinks I’m cool, Clara thinks I’m cool, Clara thinks I’m cool! And, yeah, that kinda was a foregone conclusion, given that people didn’t usually date chicks who they thought to be dumpster fires. Still, hearing it just hit different! The difference between, say, knowing that strawberries were good, and actually tasting them. “A-ah,” she stuttered, her eyes wide. “I, um, haven’t actually received my official certification yet.” Excuse her, but what the actual fuck? Had someone hacked her fucking brain, in a villainous attempt to ruin her love life? Because, spoiler alert, looking uncool in the eyes of your gf (!!!) was the beginning of the end! “But I’m so ready to earn it. Let’s fucking go.”

So, for one? Fuck that ‘walk on your arms’ nonsense. Not caring too much what the gummy bear thought, Thea let herself fall on her ass, and then stood up. Yup, on her feet! Just like the god intended. “The first rule of cheating,” she raised her finger, just like an overly enthusiastic teacher might. “Aim for the fucking top. When you’re breaking the rules, make sure that the reward is damn worth it. You know what, then? I propose we go to Brianna’s stupid-ass castle directly.” The issue with that, though? It was super super high up, and no conveniently placed ladders were there to facilitate any sort of ascent. Except… hmm. “The second rule of cheating,” Thea grinned, and walked over to the sea of buttons, “is that you gotta do the shit the rules don’t want you to do.” In hindsight, that would have been the first rule, but correcting herself like that would have been lame. With a flourish, Thea pushed it, and… Pop! About ten Theas poofed into existence, checking each other out.

“Wow, you’re a handsome lady!”

“Why, thank you, thank you! It’s obvious that you have some good fucking taste.”

“I love your hair, man.”

“Have you played the latest Resident Evil? It’s great for scaring your gf.”

“Ehm, ehm,” the real Thea coughed, earning everyone’s attention in the process. “Ladies, ladies! Thank you for coming. I’m real glad to see you-- I, of all people, know how to provide some much-needed Thea appreciation. There’s too little of that in this shit world. That being said, you up for building a Babylon tower?”

“A… Babylon tower? Man, I don’t know how to break it to you, but we’re not in the fucking Babylon.”

“It’s the principle, dude! Don’t get overinvested in the small fucking details,” Thea waved her hand. “That shit shortens your life span. Anyway, me and my girlfriend are trying to get to that castle over there, and I was thinking we could, you know, use your help. Like, I would sit on one Thea’s shoulder, and she would let some other Thea lift her, and a different Thea would lift us. Blah blah blah, and so on and so forth. Eventually, we’ll reach the castle!”

“Well, I mean…” the other Theas exchanged glances, “I’m not one to reject myself. That would have been too fucking cruel. Alright, Thea and Clara, welcome aboard the Thea express!” The button was pushed again and again and again, creating a whole-ass army of clones, but then--

“Oh?” the gummy bear’s eyes sparkled. “I’m sending some insubordination over here. You don’t like to play within the rules, you punks? I guess I will have to teach you why they are so important. Without any rules, you see… your opponent can do this.” Shit, did he just fucking pull a bazooka out of his pocket?!
 
Heh, what the heck? What gave Thea the right to be so cute? Because she was adorable (and adorable in a way which did not, in fact, diminish her handsomeness or badassery in any way whatsoever— which was something that none other than Thea Holloway was capable of pulling off with ease) with the fiery blush on her cheeks complimenting the color of her suit. When Clara acknowledged that she was the one responsible for flustering her that way? That sure was— ah— interesting. It doing things to her. Butterflies, and not the kinds that sold drugs by the side of the road in this world, but the fluttery, excitable feelings butterflies sprang out of some cage she once kept firmly locked up in her heart, soaring high and free. (And unwelcome as Ivy’s presence was in her mind, it vaugely occurred to her that she’d never said anything to make her blush that way. For a while, she just wasn’t thought she had it in her to flirt. But maybe Thea just inspired a boldness from her in a way that Ivy couldn’t.) It was a new side of her… and a side that she kind of liked, actually. Especially if it got her girlfriend to blush this cutely.

But of course, Thea wasn’t meant to be defined purely on the surface level. There was so much more to her than that. And when Clara watched her mash the buttons to create Thea clones and take charge of this narrative, she had to admit that it was an inventive idea. Wow. It hadn’t occurred to her to try and utilize the game’s mechanics like that! Now there were so many Theas and she found herself bewilderedly inching closer to her Thea to make sure that she didn’t get lost among them. She squinted like a cat might at something that confused it wondering silently if there was some telltale way to tell the real Thea apart from her clones. From what she could see thus far, they were near perfect copies. Especially as they began conversing with each other exactly as Thea might.

“Very creative.” Clara praised the plan with a sensible nod. A tower of Thea might have sounded ridiculous on paper… but for all extents and purposes, these ghost worlds were fundamentally ridiculous. They had to go big or go home and Thea certainly knew how to go big in these instances. Her plans were larger than life and that was exactly what they needed! The gummy bear did suggest they could reach new heights with the clones, after all. It was very clever. (The thought occurred to her that she could give her a better kiss, a little something more than just a peck. However, it was probably best to do that when they didn't have a mission to focus on. In case it, ah, completely scrambled her brain or something like that. Because just the thought was doing that rather fantastically right now. Thea consumed her thoughts and she was all around her, thanks to all of those clones...)

Clara watched the Theas multiply and took a deep breath. Thea was essentially her whole world. But on some level, she wasn’t sure if the world was ready for this many Theas. Before she could comment any further, though, she arched an eyebrow at the mention of Resident Evil. “…Great for scaring your girlfriend, hm? I had a feeling you were scheming when you handed me that controller.”

Of course it was just as they were setting their plan into motion that the gummy bear took notice of what they were doing.

"Oh. And what rules have we broken, exactly? You've ever given us the proper rule book for this game. All we've done so far is press those red buttons, just like you've asked." Clara challenged, defending the army of Theas. Instinctively, she would have crossed her arms in that moment. When she remembered her ghost arm, though, she had to settle for placing the one hand she still had on her hip. "If it's because we're not balancing on our heads, then that's... silly. It'd be physically impossible for us to participate in this game otherwise. That said, you should really make some revisions to your existing rules to consider the needs of every participant involved."

And then the gummy bear pulled out a bazooka, causing Clara to choke on the rest of her argument. Mainly because it was a freaking bazooka! Essentially in the same wheelhouse, considering it caused her heart to thunder violently in her chest. Ba-dum, ba-dum, it rattled through her in forceful vibrations. The gummy bear pulled the trigger and... thunk, thunk! Instead of launching rockets, it launched nets. The one that sprung towards them ended up capturing a handful of the Thea clones who had valiantly jumped in front of them just in time. Upon impact, the clones vanished in candy-colored puffs of smoke.

"Your rules are a bunch of claptrap." Clara accused, button-mashing out of desperation to create a bunch of Clara clones to throw the thing off. (Unlike the Theas, the Claras didn't talk. Mostly, they just tilted their heads at each other and glared. Except for one of them, which was sneaking bashful peeks and the Thea clones and blushing.) "Thea, run!"

"Not so fast!" Unfortunately, outrunning the gummy bear proved to be an impossibility when it shot a larger net this time, effectively rounding up all of the clones (and the real Clara and Thea) causing the clones to disappear in one fell swoop while singling them out. "If you girls want to go to the castle so badly, we can arrange that."

Naturally, the fabric of the world rippled and opened up a hole that pulled them through, ferrying them through the dungeon of the candy castle. Clara watched it go by, seeing that it was fashioned with spooky gothic architecture that greatly contrasted the bubblegum-pop palette of the candy-covered world outside. (The aesthetics of the two clashed the same way a frilly princess’s aesthetics might have clashed with a witch’s darker, sharper aesthetics. Theoretically it could be done right if executed correctly... but in this case? It was sloppy. Obviously a child's work... because it was just that. It was Brianna's world. Either way, the idea that the colorful castle had such a shadowy underground was somewhat jarring, like discovering an underlying layer of darkness to a beloved childhood film.) The gummy bear carried their net through narrow tunnels of stone, illuminated by flickers of torchlight— until finally Clara was shoved into one prison cell and Thea was shoved into the one beside her.

"Them's the breaks, ladies." The gummy bear informed them solemnly before disappearing down the dark corridor.

Before Clara could comment on that, a pumpkin headed man strode into view in front of their cells. He pushed an old, boxy television in on a cart with a squeaky wheel. The screen was displaying footage from the board game persisting on outside the castle walls. Currently, Raoul and the detective were being informed that their four-player game had just narrowed down to a two-player game. They both looked... understandably panicked over this development.

"Your entertainment. Princess Brianna would not dream of leaving you in the dark!" The pumpkin headed man bowed politely. Tiny pieces of hard candy spewed from his mouth while he talked. "I will be back in an hour with dinner! I hope you like licorice pasta!"

"...It was a good plan." Clara told Thea when the pumpkin man left them alone. Not that they got the chance to enact it or anything, thanks to that irritating gummy bear. On the plus side, though, they did make it into the castle. That at least brought them one step (or rather several game spaces) closer to Brianna. "But now I guess... we need to plan a prison break instead? Figures." She glanced curiously around her cell, which was empty aside from a simple cot. The walls between her prison and Thea's were lined with bricks... bricks that had a sugary sweet aroma, now that she thought about it. "Hm. Thea, I think the walls might be made of chocolate. If we could get our hands on one of those torches outside, I bet we could melt our way out of here."

Clara paused, then. Hatching an escape plan was all well and good. But it might take a while for them to figure out the torch thing until the pumpkin man returned. With a sigh, she leaned against the wall standing between them. "Hey. Are you okay? It... it goes without saying that that 'punishment' mechanic from before was--" How to word this. "--it was shitty." Yep, there it was. Geez. Was it wise to remind her of this right now? But pretending it never happened also seemed viscerally wrong somehow. Like witnessing an accident and looking the other way instead of calling for help. "It's okay if you're not okay. It makes sense to not be okay." She bit her lip, at a loss. Yeah, she was a real poet with that one. Ah, geez. "I'm just saying, I'm here if you want to talk about it. If not, that's fine too. I... just wanted to put it out there."
 
Hahaha, go get him, Clara! No pathetic-ass gummy bear with sugar for brains could beat her gf (!!!) at rules lawyering, that was for sure. Thea didn't know her academic background, but, like, she must have studied it at Harvard, right? 'Cause her take downs were just so fucking precise and methodical and-- and, shit. "Uhh, I'm pretty sure that's against the Geneva convention." Which, yup! Thanks to her careful study of the thesaurus, Thea was now capable of using the phrase semi-correctly. (That you needed an actual war conflict for that? Oh, fuck off! Nobody liked sticklers for details-- unless, of course, those sticklers happened to be a) cute as hell, b) named Clara Loveless, c) both. Definitely both.) Anyway, let it be known to the world that Thea had learned her fucking lesson re: playing the hero. Nah, not anymore. Not for this shit pay, which, by the way, was a fat, round zero! So, instead of trying to challenge the bazooka to a duel? She did exactly as Clara suggested, and ran for her miserable life. ...not fast enough, though. Not nearly fast enough. "Hey, man, what the fuck?" Thea exploded. "A bazooka is supposed to shoot rockets, not these lame-ass nets. If we are to be taken down, then I demand the authentic fucking experience!" Um, a question. Whose side was her motherfucking brain on, huh?! 'Cause, like, if she happened to kick the bucket here, the little shit would stop getting the precious nutrients, too. The bitch was stuck in her network, so it better act accordingly! Thinking of a way to get them out of this shit situation would be an acceptable apology, for instance.

...yeah, except that nobody had taught her brain any fucking manners. As they were being thrown into their respective cells, and rather unceremoniously at that, it only managed to generate a few generic insults-- you know, shit like 'you'll see,' 'we'll be back,' and 'wait for me to develop a taste for candy, you glucose-filled motherfucker.' The typical thwarted villain spiel, only they were the dashing heroines! The dashing heroines who now were, quite obviously, in deep fucking shit. Sigh. "Stupid Brianna," Thea rolled her eyes. "Who does she think she is, fucking Baba Yaga? Like, I dunno how she missed it, but when I read that Hansel and Gretel story, she did not seem like the rolemodel to emulate." Yeah, yeah, Brianna was dead, blah blah blah. How did that make her more entitled to receive the empathy points, though? Tons of people were dead and yet, miraculously, they managed to avoid antagonizing her. It wasn't even fucking hard. Step 1: 'Be dead.' Step 2: 'Stay dead. Step 3: '???' Step 4: 'Profit!'

All of that was true, but there was no time to mope around. Thea Holloway's brain had to work, work, work, and hatch some epic-ass plan! ...Clara didn't seem to think so, though. Instead, she spoke about ~feelings~ and feeling all ~vulnerable~, and, like, who did she think she was? Some weak-ass little bitch who cried just because she'd... lost her arm... Yeah, that was a valid reason to cry. (You know, it dawned on her in that moment that it wasn't a matter of what Clara thought she was. Rather, it was about what she knew she wasn't-- an unfeeling fucking robot, only existing for the convenience of others. 'Beep, boop!' the Thea in other people's hands went. 'Don't mind me, I'm just here to make you feel good. Want a joke? Insert a fucking coin, and you may get it!' ...not Clara, though. Never Clara. Clara actually wanted to know how she felt, and also to make it better, and, and, and!!!)

"Yeah," the brunette agreed, her voice uncharacteristically quiet. "I, um, suppose it was bad. Like, not losing-your-arm level of bad, but bad enough. Maybe I thought she'd have more fucking empathy? But a lot of it really felt like some fucked up 'let's make fun of Thea' contest. I..." she inhaled sharply, "...there's not much to talk about. I'll get over it. It's just, uh, fresh." Pink creeped into her cheeks, and this time, Thea didn't even try to hide it. "Thanks. For letting me talk about it, I mean. I didn't think you'd like, judge me or anything, but I guess I forgot I could open up? That's new for me, too." Yeah, just like the whole 'loving your girlfriend' thing. It wasn't that she didn't like her exes, but it was sort of like... well, like bread. Nobody hated bread, though it also wasn't pizza! And Clara totally was the pizza-est pizza to ever pizza of the gf world. So, through the bars, Thea offered her her signature shining smile. "Love ya. Time to figure out how to get out of here, don't you think?" Using the torches was a good idea, but there was a catch-- namely, that they couldn't fucking reach them. Ugh. Experimentally, Thea tried to lick the wall, and, yup, it was indeed chocolate! Endless, endless amounts of chocolate, too thick for even Willy fucking Wonka to get through.

Just when despair was beginning to seize her mind, someone's shadow appeared across the hallway. That shadow was huge and sprawling, and, as it turned out, also belonged to a certain Good BoyTM. "Cerberus!" Thea shouted, recognizing the wet dog smell. "Cerberus, is that you?"

"Why, tis me!" Cerberus, the nerd, replied. (With his terrifying eyes, he watched them, and Thea got the distinct impresion that he was judging them.) "You know, it's not nice of you to break Brianna's rules. Do you know how hard she tried to come up with them? That being said..." he looked them up and down, and gave them... well, a dog version of thumbs up. "... a little bird tells me you finally got together. Such good news! I knew you had it in you, you two." Was... was a single tear sliding down his fucking cheek? Okay, the level of melodrama was officially unprecedented here. "I suppose I can let you out-- I don't have the key, but these walls can't resist my might. Just, can you give me a poem about your love first? Now that you're a couple. See, I'm always starved for a good love story."
 
As always, when Thea spoke Clara listened. Mainly because she always wanted to hear what she had to say, whether she was giving her comedic anecdotes, opening up like this, or perhaps dishing out her opinion of mushrooms on pizza. Selfishly, there might've also been a part of her that wanted to be the first person that Thea went to with any thought that happened to pass through her head. Whether that thought was good or bad, she wanted to know-- and honestly at that-- what was on Thea's mind. Because she deeply resented the demon for having access to Thea's thoughts similarly to her own. Not that she wanted to take his place and live in her girlfriend's mind or anything outright creepy like that (okay, to some extent she wanted to exist in her thoughts, but not in the way the demon was-- callously knocking down personal boundaries and sticking his nose where it didn't belong!) furthermore, the more they knew about each other the higher their chances of survival-- their hope-- seemed to soar. If the demon treated Thea anything like how he treated Clara, though, she knew that he would twist his words like knives and use them against her. The world had kicked her when she was down when it-- she-- he-- had cut her arm clean off. Robbed her of a part of herself. Of course she was hurting. It had to be excruciating. That mechanic made her sick-- so she couldn't imagine how it must've felt for Thea. And the demon, the bastard he was, could've very well been rubbing salt in her wounds all this time for all she knew. And as corny and villainous as the demon could be, that constant jeering could wear a person down. She knew from experience.

Love ya. Thea said the words so casually, but they still managed to obliterate all of Clara's thoughts on impact. The acknowledgment made her feel warm and fuzzy and all the good things for sure... but there was an underlying layer of hurt there, rooted in her own insecurities. If only there was more that she could do. She owed her more, didn't she? Because all she had really done was prompt her to talk. That wasn't enough, was it...

No, not now. They had to escape. Clara knew that technically she could use the shadows. After everything she had accomplished, it'd be laughably simple to use one to creep through the prison bars and snag one of those torches, use it to melt the walls of their cages. But she didn't want to rely on the shadows again. Because the shadows undoubtedly had demonic roots. Her over reliance on the demon and the powers he granted her was exactly what... or what she theorized allowed him to turn her into his puppet. (On some level, he'd been right before that she became arrogant, thinking that she could wield it. That she was important enough to be entitled to any semblance of power when she was only human. And for all her reasonings and deductions on everything they'd been going through, there was still so much that she still didn't know about any of this.) Even while she made the conscious decision not to rely on the shadows, though, the back of her neck began to ache as it so often did in those instances before she relied on them before. That ache was beginning to claw further down her back, towards... Breathing shallowly, she rested her hand there and hoped that it would go away. Hoped that it would go away? Yeah. A real expert strategy there! It was abundantly clear that where Thea shined and found solutions through her creative perspective and bravery... all Clara could do was rely on those shadows. What did she have to offer without them?

The scratching pain deepened to a stabbing pain. With a light sheen of sweat gathering at her brow, Clara opted to ignore it as she leaned against the wall of her prison and Cerberus appeared.

Ultimately, escape meant either relying on the demon or composing poetry. Ordinarily this was where Clara would insert an unenthused quip that it was a difficult decision. But their wounds from that horrible day were still horribly fresh, and so... ugh. Poetry, though? Seriously? The unimpressed glare on her face must have done a fine job of conveying her opinion eloquently without her having to say anything at all, because Cerberus sniffed pretentiously at her.

"Hmph. If you don't like it, I can leave." The three-headed dog challenged with a huff.

"Oh, go easy on her. Remember that artistic fellow who loved syntax more than her?" One of the dog's other heads chimed in. "Left her with nothing but a pretentious poem about..."

"Stop." Clara huffed irritatedly, bringing a hand to her temple. This was headache inducing. And maybe she had told Thea about it the first night they met... that didn't mean she wanted a three-headed dog dishing out utterly meaningless gossip. That guy was so pointless that she didn't even--

"Oh, but she didn't love him, either. She couldn't even be bothered to remember his name!" The other head continued. Geez. Were they doing this on purpose? "Normally I would say that was extremely coldhearted of her... but then again, we all know the real reason why she didn't care."

"'Cause she's gay as fuck!" The last head bellowed with a raspy laugh. The other two heads nodded sagely.

Kill me now. Clara thought, slowly sinking her reddening face behind her thighs. Ugh. Once again proving how useless she was! But finding the right words after all of that embarrassing jeering would be... she felt the sensation of sharpened claws raking over her back again. With a sudden whoosh, the torchlights went out and the television crackled with static. A second later, the lights flickered back to life as if they had never gone out at all.

"Chin up, Clara! We are only trying to prepare you. Because if you can finally open your heart, you see--"

"Stop." Seriously. What did 'opening her heart' have to do with any of this? It hadn't worked in Ian's world. To her knowledge, it also hadn't done anything of note when it was forcibly torn from her chest in that hellish hospital. Besides, if she carelessly left her heart wide open like the front door of a house, there was a probability that a scheming demon might break in and rob her of everything she held dear inside of it. Like Thea. "You want a poem? Fine." Steeling herself, she lifted her face again. She'd have seemed perfectly composed if not for the fact that her cheeks were still stained a bright pink. "I'm gay as fuck and feeling shit out of luck... because my poetry sucks."

Two of of Cerberus's heads looked scandalized at her sudden use of profanity. The third, who cursed before, looked like he was into it.

"But when I look at you, I'm completely... moonstruck." Clara glimpsed Thea shyly through the bars and quickly looked away. Because, yeah... she was gay as fuck. "And Thea, I..." Oh geez. What rhymed with Thea? When she thought about her girlfriend, her interests, and the limited pool of words she could think of that at least somewhat rhymed with her name... "I know you'd have preferred to meet in a pizzeria, but..." Okay, obviously poetry was not in her wheelhouse. She held her face in her hands in attempt to spare her any more embarrassment. "Oh my god."

"Ahem. Thea, maybe you should help her out...?" Cerberus suggested, clearly seeing this attempt for the oncoming train wreck it was.
 
Hey, hey, hey, what the actual fuck? The three-headed dog might as well have forced them to put on clown shoes and dance the 'I'm an idiot' dance, 'cause this was the damn near 100% equivalent of that! Was this, like, Thea Holloway character assassination? Were the bitches recording the stunt, and getting ready to upload it to YouTube? Because you could bet your ass she was fucking suing! No dork-ass Cerberus was going to make fun of their LoveTM, and-- hehe. Wait. Wait, wasn't this actually fun? The line between hilarity and embarrassment could get dangerously thin at times, and the phenomenon was now straight up punching her in the fucking face as she was confronted with the sight of... Clara. Suave, smooth Clara, who was blushing like that one kindergarten kid who was about to receive her first kiss. Sheesh, how the fuck was she so adorable?! Thea was pretty sure that it was like, illegal. Shit must have ignored all the regulations and such. "I didn't know you were secretly the fucking Edgar Allan Poe, Clara," Thea teased. "Like, I'm fucking shocked you haven't composed a sonata or two for me."

"Thea!" one of the heads reprimanded her. "We've devised this game specifically to teach you about the wonders of cooperation, not to make you laugh at each other. That's not very nice of you."

"Me, laugh at Clara? Fucking never. C'mon, I'm just having some fun with this. You're not angry, are you, babe?" Thea winked, momentarily forgetting about... well, all of that. The cell, the mythological fucker holding them hostage, even the arm that was missing in such a painful, visceral way-- for a moment, it was just her and her gf (!!!), joking around like a normal couple. (A normal couple and not, you know, a duo of Chosen OnesTM, picked specifically to be fucked over. Couldn't they have, like, gotten some cheap-ass YA plot where they'd struggle against the tyranny of ~soulmate marks~, only to fall in love with their supposed soulmate in the end? No? No, of course not. Instead, they were stuck with a lame demon and years worth of psychological fucking issues.)

"I do believe," the other head said, "that whether she's angry or not would depend on the babe herself. For someone who got around so chronically, Thea, you can be rather clumsy." At that, it was her turn to blush.

"Chronically? I was just, like, generous with my affections! If you wanna shame me, go back to the Victorian fucking era." That, and none of them had ever compared to Clara. They hadn't been bad girls, of course, because Thea did and always had had exquisite taste, but the connection just... uh, hadn't been there. Where she and Clara had a large bonfire now, there had only ever been sparks, dying in a rain.

"Yeah, yeah, we don't need to hear your entire dating history. It's almost as disastrous as Clara's, and that says a lot."

"Geez, thanks." Poetry, poetry. Hmm! Thea also wasn't a poet, but she did have one thing that Clara distinctly lacked-- an absolute lack of shame, for one. That, as she understood it, was the defining fucking quality of word mastery!

"I don't give a fuck where we met; without you, I would now be dead." There, see? A solid start. It was also true, more or less-- without Clara and her smart plans, the cultists would probably be dancing on her corpse now, or... or doing some depraved shit with it that she did not want to imagine. Grinning like a fool, Thea pressed herself against the bars. Go big or go home, eh? Again, the brunette wasn't some fucking nerd, but even she had noticed that the Good PoemsTM tended to be... well, over the top. Dramatic as fuck, you could say. Why not emulate those qualities, then? With some luck, Clara's knees might buckle! You know, as revenge for that one time she'd made her face feel like a hot fucking stove.

"They call you the moon, and yeah, you make me fucking swoon." That... uh, sure was an attempt. Hellooo, Thea's brain, speaking to Thea? Epic poems shouldn't sound like pick-up lines uttered by the grossest of frat bros! The one (1) lesbian commandment was: "Don't sound like a frat bro, sis." Shit, had someone heard her, they sure would have taken away her Good Gay points! What should she say, though? 'I wanna hold you?' Yeeeeah, better not go for a) the biggest cliche under the fucking sun, b) something that drew attention to the fact that she did not actually have two arms to hold her with. Damn, why did art have to be hard?!

Biting her lip, Thea thought hard. And, just when it looked like she was going to remain silent for the rest of the eternity?

"I know a lot of words, and I like to talk shit,
but before you, I didn't know my greatest hit.

"What is that word? The one thing that is never lame?

That word, Clara, is your fucking name."

"I, um," Thea scratched the back of her head, suddenly looking sheepish, "I like to say it. Because I love you, I guess. I mean, I know I love you-- the guessing part is about the name thing. Since, uh, without you, it would be ordinary? But still pretty. Better than Dorothea."

The three heads of Cerberus said nothing, looking at her with unspoken judgment in their six eyes, but before Thea could even think 'go fuck yourself, bitch?' They burst out in tears, quickly filling the cell with a small river of salt.

"Theaaaaa!" one of them howled, doubtlessly regretting that they hadn't brought a handkerchief. "That... that was so beautiful. I knew you were a romantic at heart. What's your response to that, Clara?"
 
"I--" Clara was speechless, her face turning bright red. She glared at Thea for laughing (though it was clearly all in good fun) and blushed even fiercer yet when she went as far as to wink at her on top of everything else. There wasn't enough time for her to collect herself and think of a comeback at the same time as Cerberus chimed in with another dig at her dating history and Thea proceeded to... to recite a poem about her? (And okay, she shouldn't be so surprised about that development. Not totally. She was just doing what Cerberus asked her to do, the same way they'd had to come up with that fairytale before.) However, it wasn't like she was being fed all of the words to say by a romantic, pre-written script or a set of cue cards. Speaking from the heart, Thea had successfully managed to prolong Clara's speechless state. The unimpressed, ice-queen expression on her face softened into what could only be defined as an affectionate gaze. Because it was touching and sweet and really fucking adorable. And it was probably a good thing that she had been sitting down for that one, because her knees would have jellied and dropped out from under her otherwise. She made her swoon? Her name was her favorite word? (Thea did, in fact, love words.) And she loved her. There was that word again, that four-lettered word that sent all those butterflies loose.

"I..." Clara stammered. Thea's poem made her heart pound. The prospect of following that up with an improvised poem of her own only made it pound harder yet. "I lo--"

"Ahem. Remember to respond with poetry, Clara." Cerberus cut in unhelpfully, drying their tears with the swipe of one of their giant paws. They probably sensed that she was going for the natural 'I love you, too'-- considering the situation warranted it and everything. Of course she wanted to say it back! She loved dogs, she did, but... this moment would have been more romantic if they were granted their privacy. "Speak from the heart."

Clara looked pointedly at Cerberus and rolled her eyes before turning her attention back to Thea. Oof. Here goes nothing.

"I never believed in love at first sight. But when it comes to you, it just… feels right." Clara began, making a sufficiently awkward start as arrows of pure embarrassment struck her heart with every word she uttered. "You’ve got me breaking all my rules. Now we’re writing poetry like fools." She breathed a nervous laugh under her breath. Well, at least it made her feel like a fool. Thea, though? Comparatively, Thea didn't look at all like a fool. Maybe because she embraced this ridiculousness so casually? In that brazen way of hers, she made it appear effortless in a way that Clara couldn't help but aspire towards. Even then, it was much easier said than done... so she continued to stumble, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "I’m sorry this is so cliche. Words aren’t exactly my forte. I'd rather paint your portrait... I'd, uh, be better at that, because I can't think of a rhyme for portrait."

Right. Words weren't Clara's forte. Unlike Thea, who had somehow made her own poem so sincere, so sweet, so Thea. Hm. That was what she had to focus on, wasn't it? Not the unbearable heat prickling over her cheeks, nor attempting to save face in front of a sentimental, three-headed dog... she needed to focus solely on Thea. The person that this poem was meant for. Clara had been pressuring herself to perform here... but in reality, there really didn't have to be any pressure. Because no matter what she said, Thea wasn't going to hold it against her. Surely her girlfriend wasn't expecting her to become the next Shakespeare in the next five minutes with willpower alone. (And even then, with her extra levels of hype and encouragement-- as well as the way Thea looked at her like she put the stars in the sky? Clara could probably recite the worst poem in the history of mankind and Thea would still tell her she had surpassed the legendary playwright in brilliance.)

"Though they call you the sun it’s not just because you’re really fun. You’re warm and caring. You're very daring. Never one to half-ass, because you’re such a badass. You’re my knight, my light…" Clara sincerely tried and thought that it was going okay until... did she essentially just call Thea a nightlight? Great, nice one.That wasn't necessarily what she was going for there but-- shit. Maybe if she didn't point it out no one would pick up on it? "For a while it was hard to get by. Thea, you inspire me to... try." Ah. That admission in particular hit something tender in her.

Cerberus supplied a gasp at this and Clara inhaled a sharp breath, opting to shut the three-headed dog out of her mind. For her sanity.

"These bars might keep us apart, but you've got my heart." Had Clara been a more dramatic person she might have reached her hand through the bars in that moment. Instead, she kept them clenched in her skirt, still coping while her heart threatened to pound right out of her chest. "If we didn’t have an audience… I think I’d like to kiss you senseless. I know that’s not a rhyme, but that’s not a fucking crime. Because poems, like love, don't always have to be dictated by rules. And I love you, too."

And with that? With that, the bars on both of their cells were abruptly blown to bits with a blast of pink, heart-shaped candies. It made a big mess, getting flecks of chocolate and shattered candy-heart in their hair. At first Clara was so stunned that she couldn't speak. But then when the cheesiness of it all set in, she... snorted? And then she couldn't help it. She keeled over and burst out laughing. "...What."
 
You know, Thea didn’t really think that this was the way to do it. Like, what kind of wacky-ass therapy was that? Exposure was all nice and dandy, but she did not believe that someone who was chronically afraid of public speaking should be stripped naked and forced to give a fucking inauguration speech. And, wasn’t this the equivalent of that? The gay equivalent of that? Which, sure, gay shit was automatically better than non-gay shit, but its shitty nature remained unchanged! That was linguistics for you. “Alright, alright, you’ve had your fun. You can see that our love is the deepest love to ever love, or some shit. Can you stop bothering my fucking girlfriend now?” Thea lifted her chin. “I’ll play the clown for you if you want, but leave her the fuck alone. We’ve been through some traumatic nonsense lately, so I think that she’d prefer not to add ‘dogs’ to her ever-growing list of phobias.” …what? Being a good girlfriend involved more than just scaring her with Resident Evil, or laughing at her shortcomings-- you had to protecc, not just attacc, and Thea was sooo ready for that. (Plus, what if Clara collapsed here? Unconscious bodies were heavy, and difficult to maneuver around with one arm only. And, like, not sure about you, but she didn’t want to drag her limp girlfriend by her fucking collar! Clara wasn’t for dragging. Clara was for kisses, and caresses, and some xxx-rated stuff that she wasn’t crude enough to discuss, and--)

--and then Clara shattered all of her expectations, in one fell swoop. Thea could only stare, wide-eyed, as her gf (!!!) put the fucking Shakespeare to shame. Just??? That she'd said anything at all was a miracle, considering that words were her fucking Kryptonite. The verses coming out of her mouth, though? They were Real PoetryTM, certified by the one and only Thea! (Oh god, oh god, oh god. A pretty girl, composing a poem for her? A pretty girl who also happened to be her girlfriend? Shit, the chances that she'd died and gotten to heaven were fucking sky high! Still, death was preferable to the girlfriendless, miserable wasteland she'd dwelled in before, so Thea wasn't exactly complaining. Nah, mate. Between all the het couples searching for their unicorn and the notorious ghosters, the lesbian dating market was in fucking shambles-- a prime example of the homophobia they were facing. Literally any sort of deliverance was a blessing.)

"Aww," Thea put her hand over her heart, practically melting. Yeah, she could have added more, but what would the point in that be? This was Clara's moment to shine, and being the perfect fucking audience was the best reward for every artist. (She inspired her!!! She inspired her to try!!! Thea hadn't thought that she inspired anything in people-- not aside from all the 'oh, Dorothea,' moans, uttered in that signature 'you're a fucking failure' tone. Yeah, thanks for that, mom. Clara, though? Clara was not like all those NPCs. She actually listened when she talked, and encouraged her to talk some more, and, and, and! ...with her, Thea didn't feel like an annoyance. Like someone whose presence had to be endured, akin to your fucking tetanus shot. Except, see, at least your tetanus shot was useful, wasn't it? 'It's really sad that you'd embarrass me like that, Dorothea. You've got it all, and yet this is the effort you can muster? All those people... I can't believe you.') A trip down the fucking memory lane was not needed right now, though-- not now and not ever, so Thea shoved it back under the metaphorical rug. There, now everything was alright! Hoo boy, a good thing that they weren't like, stuck in a nightmare that forced to re-live them their traumas. That would have fucking sucked.

"Geez," she laughed, her cheeks burning bright red. "I'm as clueless as you are, love. You want to kiss me senseless, though?" Thea walked over to her and leaned forward, meaning that their faces were dangerously close now-- she could feel Clara's breath, the closeness of her lips, the faint smell of chocolate in hair. Kiss alert, kiss fucking alert! ...or maybe not, 'cause she pulled away. "Okay. You can work on that. I wanna see those fucking fireworks. Think you can make it happen for me, Loveless?" Nope, the emergence of Thea 'The Tease' Holloway wasn't something that she'd expected, but maybe it was what they all needed! Hoping that she looked cool as fuck, the brunette turned around, and... stepped on a pressure plate. Naturally.

Wheeee!

The bitch-ass mechanism shot both her and Clara up, up, up, forcing them to break through several ceilings with their heads (ouchie!), but... uh, no ambulance needed, thankfully. Thea didn't know what exactly they were made of, but if she had to guess, then maybe gingerbread? A fairytale fucking classic! And speaking of fairytales... Well, they found themselves confronted with the sight of Raoul and detective Parker, both locked up in the same wooden cage. The look in their eyes? Dread so thick it could be used as a basis for broth-- if you wanted to eat dread-flavored soup, that was.

"Why, why, my dear children!" a large woman in a stained apron crooned, trying to force a bunch of lollipops through the bars. "You have to eat, otherwise you won't be fat enough for my goulash! And everyone knows that goulash made from lean meat is a tragedy. A cultural slap in the face. What?" she frowned, massaging the wart growing on her big, big nose. (Gross.) "Don't look at me like that! You brought this on yourself when you disrespected Princess Brianna's rules."
 
"Yes." Clara's breath hitched (and audibly at that) when Thea leaned in real close. There was no hiding the way her gaze slipped to her lips, her very kissable lips, and lingered there with purpose. Oh. Okay. Yes, yes, she sure as hell wanted to kiss her. And she wanted to kiss her now, to kiss her so fervently that it'd replace their messy 'first kiss' with a mind-blowing one that they could remember instead. She wouldn't have said so otherwise! But she continued to stand there like that, staring at her like a starstruck fool as she tried (and failed) to calm the fuck down before she could dare to close the remaining, minuscule bit of distance remaining between them. Goodness gracious. That was the moment she had to wonder what the hell had inspired her to speak so brazenly in the first place. She wasn't the type of person that people would readily describe as 'all bark, no bite'. (If there was an alternative version of that phrase, those who knew Clara Loveless were more likely to describe her as 'all bite'. Her actions always said much more than she could ever articulate with words.) Then again, she hadn't necessarily been lying when she'd said those lines back there. 'If we didn't have an audience,' she'd started with. And in her peripheral, she was still very much aware of the fact that Cerberus was watching them closely... and watching them as if they were the stars of their favorite soap opera at that. They had an audience and that was what was messing with her. Obviously. And if they counted their resident bastard demon then they always would, too. (Yeah. Nice going, bringing him into this! Way to kill the mood.)

'You can work on that.' Thea teased and Clara watched her step away with her voice still trapped in her throat. Her girlfriend really did have a way of making the rest of the world disappear. Of ensuring that she was the only one she could see when the world felt like it was imploding all around her. Was someone like her even capable of bringing fireworks bright enough to impress someone who was already as bright as Thea was? Impressing someone who embodied the sun itself would be no small feat. But, ah, like she'd also said... she did inspire her to try. And so she promised herself to try before giving up on herself-- on them-- before they had even just begun.

With Thea, Clara could finally act like an actual person instead of a ghost that floated in the background of other people's lives.

Before Clara could respond with anything remotely as smooth in response, Thea triggered a mechanism that sent them flying up, up, up through wafer-thin ceilings. She squeaked with surprise (kill her now) and latched onto Thea's waist like a frazzled cat hanging for dear life on a branch above a raging river. It seemed in their time away from the game board, her 'ghost-arm' had turned back into a normal arm. She was, ah, trying to hold her girlfriend steady of course! This had nothing to do with her fear of heights or anything like that.

And now they were being prepped to be eaten. Somehow, this development actually made a lot of sense. No, really. Nonsensical as these ghost worlds were, when people thought of candy and fairytales... they normally envisioned old women who baked people up into delicacies of all kinds. There was something oddly comforting in the familiarity of that logic. (Or maybe entities had threatened to eat Clara and Thea so many times now that reacting to it was beginning to feel kind of like second nature? That could be part of it for sure.)

"Well... that's unoriginal." Clara deadpanned, gingerly releasing her hold of Thea now that they were steady.

"Tut, tut! I know your angle here, missy! Those sarcastic comments might have worked on Ian. That's because Ian was in his angsty teenage phase. But princess Brianna knows her fairytales. They're classics for a reason!" The woman finished shoving lollipops between the bars and wandered around to grab a big wooden spoon, which she used to stir her burbling cauldron and sip on the broth. "It's unfortunate, but this is how it must go. When you break the rules you must be prepared to face the consequences of your actions."

"...Okay, sure. I guess. But Raoul and detective Parker have done nothing wrong." Clara tilted her head confusedly. Ugh. Were they getting punished for their stunt. Looked like it was time to add more guilt to her conscience. Unless--?

"Actually..." Detective Parker scratched his chin awkwardly. "Raoul might have, ah..."

"Green tore off the heads of your gummy bear hosts! And Yellow was his accomplice in the crime." The woman gesticulated at the cage with an accusing wave of her spoon. "And do you have any idea how long it took to clean up all of those clones of Red and Blue? The whole game has been ruined!"

"Those piece of shit gummy bears had it coming. They kidnapped my sister!" Raoul argued with the woman, crossing his arms as he seethed. It was rare that he was anything but gentle, but... ah, apparently his 'protective brother' mode had been triggered. "And her awesome girlfriend!"

"Raoul." Clara sighed, dragging her hands over her (blushing) face. This was hitting a new level of stressful. Normally it was enough just to worry about herself and Thea in these weird worlds. With her brother added to the equation, though, and even the detective... there were so many variables to account for now that she could hardly keep track of them all. Amidst all of the scenarios, though, she also heard the faint sound of the voices in her head. 'Take it to court! Take it to court!' Oookay then. Was that a hint?

"Okay, okay. I get it. But shouldn't we get a fair trial before facing the death penalty?" Straightening back up, Clara placed her hands on her hips. "...Does princess Brianna even approve of this? I mean, I don't think she'll be particularly thrilled that you're planning to eat her father."
 
Wooow! Thea hadn't thought that Raoul could get even more Good Brother Points, but the bastard (noun, affectionate) was collecting them like normal people collected Pokémon cards. "Good going, Raoul! The bitches definitely deserved that. I mean, if they didn't want to be killed, they shouldn't have added all those impromptu fucking rules. Like, imagine playing poker and suddenly being told you had to do it naked. In front of your fucking parents, too! That's the level of bullshittery we're dealing with here."

"No, it's not," the witch rolled her eyebrows. "This game is very PG."

"Uhh, yeah? And what about all those fucking deaths?"

"Have you read literally any fairytale, missy?" Which, Thea hated to admit, was a great fucking point. Touché. (Maybe children's brains were just wired differently-- you know, to make them more resilient and shit. It was the parents who had been the cowards all along, with their 'hurrr durrr, little Timmy will be traumatized by blood' shtick. Like??? Little Timmy routinely read stories about cannibalism, murder, and creepy fucking princes kidnapping unconscious princesses. Some perspective was in order!)

And, no, Thea had no idea how to deal with any of that. Like, what did one even do when being confronted with the possibility of being eaten? Claimed that they had shit genes and thus would give the bitch ulcers? Shit, that was so fucking transparent that it would give glass a run for its money! Fortunately, her gf (!!!) was there-- her beautiful, hot, and always-knowing-what-to-do gf, who resorted to... diplomacy. Wowx2. Who knew you could, like, do things with words? Thea usually preferred to let her fists speak instead, but given that her right arm had recently left the dynamic duo, she should probably re-evaluate that approach. "Yeah!" the brunette pointed at the witch, Ace Attorney-style. "Do you even have any evidence that they've done it?"

The witch blinked, as if she couldn't quite believe the tomfoolery she was witnessing. "Yes? They admitted to it. Like, approximately five seconds ago. You heard them. You even congratulated them for the cold-blooded act of murder!"

Whoopsie! Foiled by her big mouth again. ...or was she? Thea narrowed her eyes, feeling much smarter than she (probably) was. "And can you prove that? Obviously, you're fucking biased. You're a lady with a long, troubling history of eating people, and I bet you'd do anything for a fresh bite. Wouldn't you, lady Cannibalism?"

"Oh no, no, no, don't even try! I went to rehab. I got those urges under control, Dorothea--"

"--Thea," she protested, her lips pursed.

"--and," the witch continued, as if she didn't even hear her, "I only eat humans ethically now. Troublemakers, such as Raoul and the detective here. Princess Brianna doesn't know about this particular feast, but she knows that rules are of utmost importance."

"Fuck your rules!" Raoul shouted, probably still stuck in his 'protective bro' mode. "Touch Clara or her girlfriend, and I swear I'm going to... uh, kick you in your stomach. That's right! Not even your digestive fluids will save you from my wrath, you old hag." (Okay, a note to self: don't fucking anger Raoul. It wasn't that Thea was planning to do anything that might trigger that, but like... yikes? Beware the quiet ones, indeed. Come to think of it, she could observe a similar effect in Clara-- Clara, who could fucking slay you with a single word if she so chose. Another attractive-ass quality of hers!)

"Do you really think my daughter won't mind?" Parker finally spoke up. "Because I'm sure there will be consequences. I bet that your, uh, license to eat people will be revoked!" ...which was a little sad, if Thea were to be honest. Like, did Real Grown UpsTM really think of nothing but work? Had capitalism sucked their brains out and replaced them with those cartoonish-ass money bags? At this point, that was the only explanation that even remotely made sense!

"You don't get it," the witch pointed her stirring spoon at the man. "It's about the integrity. About making sure that the right people get devoured. Even if princess Brianna punishes me, I will rest easy, knowing that--" Yeeeeah, that was roughly the point where Thea decided that she had had enough. In fact, she had had enough for quite some fucking time now. Respect your elders? More like punch the shit out of your elders! Little bitches, always monologuing about 'good old times' and 'the corrupted youth' and, apparently, also 'eating wrong-doers'. Clearly, peace had never been an option! And, sure, she may have had only one arm now, but that didn't really influence her ability to land a good hit. The witch found out the hard way-- her nose cracked under the impact, spraying everything with blood.

"Wha...!" she howled, trying to cover the injury. (Maybe to observe all those precious fucking hygienic regulations? Y'know, 'cause the drops were falling all over her candy.) Thea didn't stop to try and hand her a fucking questionnaire re: her experience with broken nose, and instead seized the key that was fastened to her utility belt. With a flourish, she then threw it high into the air. "Catch, Clara! We need to get the fuck out of here." ...yeah, that was her brilliant plan. Got any fucking problem with that?
 
"Badass!" Raoul cheered Thea on while she proceeded to choose violence, nodding his head with respect. Clara pursed her lips as she glanced incredulously between the two of them. (Of course they would bond over this of all things. Of course! Even as she tried to hold onto a serious expression to match the severity of their circumstances, the tiniest smile began to twitch at her own lips.) It was a pretty standard course of action for Thea-- but a particularly impressive feat considering she only had one arm to do it all with. Wait. Catch?

"Why you-- that is the only key! If you lose it you'll... you'll have to cut off your finger and use that as a key!" The woman fretted. "Because that's how it works here!" Of course it does.

Either way, Clara had been so preoccupied with watching Thea (And just Thea. For, um, reasons.) that the key sailing through the air caught her completely off guard-- hitting her square in the face. Oof. From there, it bounced off and landed unceremoniously into the palms of her hands. Everything went silent. She wrapped her fingers closed around the key and closed her eyes as she fought to hold onto her composure, counting softly and slowly to three in her head. One, two... This was on par with screaming and punting the zombie head the first night they met. If there was a meter for her embarrassment, like one of those strength-testing carnival attractions, it was dangerously close to hitting that little bell right at the top. Three.

Clara released the breath she'd been holding onto and darted across the cage to reach the lock on the door, shaking off the remnants of her embarrassment along the way. She had to dodge the woman's fingers and the giant lollipops she thrust through the bars. Then the cage itself started to wobble and she held her arms out while she took those last couple of steps, keeping her balance as the old crone shook the cage in attempt to slow her progress. And then at last she managed to unlock the door. That didn't mean they were free yet, however, as the large woman pressed her back against the door to hold it closed by force. Okay. Really? That strategy was only going to work for so long before she had to move, right? Even then, waiting around for the woman to get tired or bored wasn't an option they had to entertain. The woman's resilience no doubt possessed the capacity to last forever in a world like this.

"On the count of three, push!" Clara recommended. Considering they had the detective and Raoul on their side now, this option could actually work. The option being pure, brute force. Simple but effective, as Thea had shown with her punch earlier. "One, two..." She checked with a sideways glance to see if everyone was ready. "Three!" In the end it took three pushes (because of course, everything in threes) to throw the woman off, screaming and tumbling into her own burbling cauldron. The door croaked open and they were finally free. Raoul hopped down first and helped all of them out of their cage like the gentleman he was.

"So you two are really pros at this by now, aren't you?" Raoul observed, his voice tinged with a hint of wonder.

"...We're just trying to live." Clara said matter-of-factly, shrugging her shoulders. While she held firm to an air of nonchalance, a warm sensation of pride rolled over her at her brother's acknowledgment and loosened something that had caused her to tense up earlier. Because she hadn't had to rely on the demon that time, did she? Neither she or Thea did. She'd been so wrapped up in the frenzy that she'd forgotten that, just by being thrown into these worlds, surviving them alone was a feat in and of itself. "I imagine that Brianna's at the top of the castle. Knowing how these places work, we'll probably have to scale a few more floors and pass a few more trials before..." She trailed off as they came upon one of said scenes. Naturally, the castle wasn't full of actual rooms. From experience, the interior of tents, dark rides, or castles could contain forests within them. Now they were standing in a graveyard of all places.

"...Aw, this is nostalgic." Clara commented, throwing a bold little smirk at Thea. "Let's hope there aren't any axe wielding zombies in this one." Just pretty zombie slayers, like Thea. Geez. If her brother hadn't been standing just a few feet away she might've brought herself to say that, but as it was... she had to settle for this. Quickly she reminded herself not to get lost staring at her girlfriend again lest she lose focus and make a mistake larger than getting hit in the face with a key.

"Rook di goo, rook di goo! There's blood in the shoe. The shoe is too tight, this bride is not right!" Two pigeons sang in a tree above a grave. Clara furrowed her brow, wondering for the briefest of moments if this setting had something to do with the bird symbolism that the demon was so fond of. It took a moment later for her to figure that probably wasn't the case when they heard the clop-clop of horse hooves and a prince came riding into view. Bloody shoes that don't fit... now why does that sound sort of familiar?

"Drat." The prince riding beneath it unceremoniously shoved the gaudily dressed woman accompanying him off his horse. (But not before yanking the golden slipper from her foot, which was indeed covered in blood.) The woman sobbed, trailing blood behind her as she limped her way home. It could only be assumed that she had either cut off her toe or heel to fit the shoe... only to be belatedly rejected by a prince who couldn't recognize a person without first confirming their shoe size. Why did she know this? Well, if the world was trying to fit the fairytale theme then it was obvious that they had just found themselves in Cinderella. And not the glamorous, Disney-fied version of Cinderella either. "Must I turn around to see if that woman has any more daughters in her household? Unless... you there! Yes, you."

"...Me?" Clara asked, arching a brow. He was indeed walking up to her. Oh. Great.

"Yes. You've yet to try the slipper on. You could be the fair maiden I've been searching for!" He wore a winning smile, flashing his perfect teeth, and dangled the bloodied shoe in front of her as if she were a dog and the shoe a piece of meat.

"That's... incredibly unsanitary." Clara's expression twisted with disgust. Raoul snorted and had to hold his fist to his mouth as if to stop himself from laughing. Traitor! "And I seriously doubt that I'm the 'maiden' you're looking for. No, actually, I'm certain of it."

"Please, do not be modest. I only ask that you try it on once. We shall never know unless you try it on." The 'prince' was probably high. That was Clara's conclusion.

"I suggest you go back to the woman's house. Call it a hunch, but I think you'll find her there." Clara crossed her arms, her impatience leaking into her otherwise flat and unimpressed tone.

"No. I have tried twice already. The women in that household have a penchant for mutilating their own feet. I insist you try it on!" He dipped to a kneel and began to pull at the hem of her skirt. "I see no blood upon your stockings. That is already a good sign!"

"I'm telling you I'm not her!" Clara proceeded to kick him in the face before he could pry her shoe off by force. Maybe he'd be able to gauge her shoe size from the print it left on his face? That would be an ideal alternative to humoring his weird request! "And I'm already in love with someone else! I have a girlfriend." She blushed immediately after the words came out of her mouth. She, uh, sure said that with a lot of conviction in the heat of the moment, hadn't she? But that was what she felt, so... Raoul looked touched and also torn between wanting to step in to kick the prince's ass.

"Why... I am the prince. My bride cannot already belong to someone else. That grave over there belongs to your mother! And that grave also belongs to the mother of my bride. That is how the story goes. If I so decree it, you shall marry me instead. That is how it works." The prince clutched his bloody nose. What. Clara just kicked him in the face... hadn't tried on the shoe... and now she was his 'bride'? "Who are you in love with? Tell me and I shall challenge them to a duel!"
 
Wooow! Talk about asshole fucking keys. The metallic bitch had no business landing in Clara’s face like that-- especially since it touched her lips, which were the official property of Thea Holloway. Well, not property, but you get the sentiment! (Was she getting jealous of an unthinking, unfeeling object? Maybe. Look, hormones often provided a confusing fucking cocktail, and aside from the whole discount Snow White fiasco, Thea hadn’t really gotten to explore that avenue with her gf (!!!). Don’t get her wrong, she liked the new tease role, but why did the god have to tempt her so? This was worse than, like, those forty fucking days in the desert! Having Clara there, knowing she would appreciate the touch, and still not fucking going for it? Scandalous. Maddening, too. The waste of the precious gf-time! And yet also… uh, strangely wholesome? There was something appealing about conceptualizing this as a marathon instead of, you know, fucking sprint. Which, yeah, Thea had done that before! Not because she’d been so desperate to ~taste the forbidden fruit~, but because she hadn’t really thought they’d stay along for the usual relationship stuff. No way that silly, comic relief Thea could hold anyone’s attention for that long, right? Except that, with Clara, she could believe the opposite. The demon might have filled her ears with lies and poison, but… well, the more he lied his ass off, the less she was inclined to accept that narrative. The bitch had a reason to be so fucking forceful with it, and that was because it wasn’t true!)

“Don’t worry, babe. You’re doing great!” Thea shouted, wearing the role of the cheerleader as if it had been made for her. (…a cheerleader? Heh. How would Clara react if she, like, bought one of those cutesy costumes and dressed up for her? It wasn’t really Thea’s style, skirts this short and shit, but she could see one environment where this would be entirely fucking comfy for her-- you know, their bedroom. Yes, their bedroom! Her cheeks flushed, and she got that tell-tale vacant stare in her eyes that implied that nobody was home, but… yeah, probably not the best idea to fantasize about that in the middle of their action-filled chase sequence!) “C’mon, it’s called strategic fucking retreat, not a leisurely stroll. Less talking, more running.” Pros, though? That caused her to break into her signature sunny smile, bright enough to light up the entire room. “Yeah, you might say that. Holloway and Loveless industries, at your service! We exorcise ghosts for free, ‘cause fuck capitalism. Also because you can’t really send a ghost a bill, I guess. Unless there are ghost bills?” In that case, Thea would have to rethink their entire strategy! (…it did feel nice, she had to admit. Not the Business Plan UpdateTM, but the realization that, ultimately, not that much had changed. Yeah, yeah, not having her arm fucking sucked, though so what? She was still Thea, and her rate of badassery hadn’t gone down by even one fucking iota! If anything, accomplishing all those epic feats only made her look better-- ‘cause, see, she was holding her own despite everything. You’d have to be a certified (handsome) badass for that.)

Not even handsome badassery could save you from an encounter with an idiot, though. Like, what the hell? Did the prince have fucking bubblegum in his skull instead of a brain? Because, generally, it wasn’t that fucking difficult to determine that someone was bleeding. It also wasn’t difficult to determine when a chick didn’t fucking want you! And, yeah, being denied the gf privileges was hard, but you coped with it by, like, consuming copious amounts of ice-cream. That was the Socially Acceptable WayTM. “Pal, I think you need to fuck the hell off,” Thea frowned. “She’s obviously not the one you’re looking for, and--” Wait. Wait, wait, wait! Had the bastard just declared her his bride? Her, as in her Clara? Because if someone bothered to write a ‘How to Make an Enemy out of Thea Holloway in One Easy Step’ guide, it would describe exactly that! And now he wanted a duel, too. A duel, as if Clara was some fucking trophy to be won! Something told her that the guy who couldn’t even interpret a kick in the fucking face correctly had a snowball’s chance in hell to understand why it was fucked up, though. Oh fucking well! (A note to self: Don’t forget to praise Clara for her badassery once you’re done murdering the fuck out of him.)

“Hey, bitch,” Thea lifted her chin. “You wanna know who Clara’s girlfriend is? That’s her name, by the way. One would have thought you’d be a liiiiittle more interested in that, but fuck getting to know her, right?”

“I mean,” the prince shrugged, “she is not going to need that. Clara is so boring, too! Queen Clara sounds like someone’s grandmother, not my glorious bride. I was thinking I’d call her Cinderella-- a reminder that I found her in such squalor. Pretty, don’t you think?” Ooookay, so was there, like, a competition for the world’s biggest douchebag? Since Prince Not-So-Charming would be the top fucking contender! “But yes, I would appreciate some information regarding that.”

Thea opened her mouth to announce that it was her, actually, but then she noticed a disparity-- you know, the fact that he had two fucking arms and a sword. Would the bastard give her an impromptu prosthetic and a weapon, or would he just stab her and call it a day? Judging by her vast experience with cowards, the latter was exponentially more likely. Fine, fine, time for plan B! (Too bad that ‘plan B’ consisted of ‘inventing a plan B.’ Shit, would it kill her to think more than five seconds in advance?)

“She, um… she’s right behind ya, prince.”

“Thank you, unremarkable peasant. Your contributions to making my happiness possible will not be overlooked.” The prince turned around, drawing his shiny, shiny sword, but, the joke was on him! He wasn’t going to need it in his deep, deep grave-- which, you know, was where Thea pushed him from behind. (What? Its rightful owner hadn’t been lowered into the pit yet! As far as she was concerned, it was free fucking game.)

“Aaah!” The characteristic crack suggested that he had broken several of his bones, and Thea beamed.

“The girlfriend? Me. And something tells me you just lost the duel by the virtue of being a pathetic fucking idiot. What is it like, being beaten by ‘unremarkable peasant?’ Maybe watch your mouth next time, your highness!” After that, Thea grabbed the shovel, and… uh, discovered that operating it was considerably more difficult in her one-armed form. “Raoul, wanna help me bury him?” After all, what was sociopathy in the real world was often common fucking sense in the bullshit demon dimensions-- you really, really had to make sure that no enemy could come crawling out of anywhere, full stop.

“Alright,” Raoul shrugged, not even bothering to question it. (Another note to self: Your future brother in law totally would help you hide a dead body. Marry the fuck into this family!)

“Thank god,” someone proclaimed. That someone, as it turned out, was a hot chick with sunset in her hair-- a chick not as hot as Clara, obviously, but Thea could still appreciate other women’s aesthetic qualities. Apparently, she’d… been watching it all happen? Her position suggested that she had been able to see through her half-opened door. “That guy was a complete psycho. Total stalker material. I went to his ball once, to flirt with one of the princesses, I might add, and he somehow thought I wanted to marry him! I guess it’s because I looked at him once without being too contemptuous about it. I will never make that mistake again. Nice kick, by the way,” she nodded towards Clara, respect shining in her hazelnut eyes. Shortly afterwards, though? The triumph turned into sorrow, with the speed of a beautiful summer day devolving into a storm.

“I just wish you’d come sooner than this, though. I… wasn’t able to help her.” Her? Her, who? It only took Thea’s eyes following her gaze for a moment before she registered a giant-ass, glass coffin in the background. No way. No fucking way! It seemed that the trope was going to be played straight, though, because once they looked inside, they could see a deathly pale, raven-haired beauty sleeping inside.

“That’s the girl I flirted with,” not-Cinderella announced, clearly dismayed. “I can’t believe the insecure asshole would just poison her. Shit, if only there was some way I could save her!”
 
Clara dropped her head in her hands at the image of Thea and Raoul nonchalantly burying the prince's body together. Geez. While she had genuinely hoped that they would get along, she wasn't quite sure that she envisioned it like this. Burying dead bodies in the middle of a fairytale graveyard. It was moments like these that forced her to confront, once again, the obscure brand of absurdity that her life had spiraled into recently. (Okay and maybe she was also hiding her face to prevent anyone from seeing just how flustered she was. Like she was fully capable of fighting her own battles-- she knew that Thea knew that, too. Deep down, though, it made her sort of happy to be defended like a princess in an old movie. Thea cared enough to get riled up on her behalf and it did make her feel seen and cared about. This whole scenario was a big romance cliche, sure, and the mentality of having a duel when the character in the middle should be allowed their own agency to decide their own fate was messed up on every possible level. Make it gay, though, and sprinkle it with the underlying reasoning and mutual respect that neither of them considered their partner inferior or incapable of deciding for themselves... and she could let herself enjoy it a little. It was plain to see that she wasn't struggling even remotely to choose between Thea or the prince. Her decision was indisputably Thea. She had made that abundantly clear and the prince wouldn't take no for an answer. So? Yeah, he deserved what was coming to him! Shame the guy didn't have a brain. If he possessed one, then maybe he could have used it to avoid making an enemy of them. Alas.) Along with that, though, she was also relieved at how everything transpired. Rather than charging right into the fight like she might have in the past, Thea devised a plan that kept her from getting hurt in the process. A fraction of the impulsivity that caused her so much worry in the past was gone. (Considering what else she had lost along with it, though, it made perfect sense... that change was brought on by a sacrifice that no one should ever be forced to make.) It was smart, too. But Thea was always smart. She reminded herself to commend her on that later, though, when a new voice sounded nearby and gripped her attention.

Oh. That was Cinderella? She had a neat, alternative look to be sure. Not at all what Clara was expecting when dealing with that fairytale prince with his coiffed hair and punchable face. Based on the way she was talking to them, sounding generally grounded in reality for the standards of the usual figures these worlds cooked up, it was safe to assume that she might act as an ally. (Only might. They could never be too careful. With there luck, everything tended to try and sabotage or kill them eventually.) She went on to compliment her kick. And she was also gay. Those provided more points in her favor. Gay fairytales... now why did that sound familiar? Did a certain three-headed dog have a hand in creating this scene for them? (Internally she thought that if this were a movie, she would hands down watch it. Hollywood was full of cowards for refusing to make any gay fairytale films when instead they mass-produced copies of the same old shit. Over and over, as if they had a secret vendetta to melt their brains. Okay. This was beginning to sound like a Thea-esque tangent.) Waving off her thoughts, she observed as her attention was directed over to the glass coffin.

"Snow White?" Clara bit her lip uncertainly. Well, all right then. Looked like they had a crossover on their hands. The lines between fairytales were beginning to blend. (She would not put it past that prince to do something so underhanded out of jealousy. It solidifies that he had it coming.) She knew where this was going on some level. But the common means of saving Snow White was admittedly a bit dicey if the usual tropes were being challenged here. Once again, they were in a situation where following the usual rules might hinder them more than help them. "Well, you might still be able to save her. Um. Would you consider her your true love?"

"Snow." Cinderella said thoughtfully. Then she fidgeted, seeming shy and uncertain. "And I just met her. I-- I mean. I like her. Obviously. I flirted with her! But I'm not sure if it's, uh, 'true love'."

Clara found herself fidgeting at this response, almost like a reflection of Cinderella. Maybe because she saw a mirror image of herself in her uncertainty? (Not right now, of course. To be more accurate, it was like seeing a vision of her past self. Because she was able to say that she loved Thea without hesitation just a few seconds ago! She meant it when she said it, too.) But she could relate to the hesitance that came with feeling too much too fast. She could relate to what it felt like to doubt the concept of 'true love' when it sprang out of nowhere and snowballed out of control faster than you might ever believe after enduring years of loneliness and trauma. It could feel too good to be true. Too good to accept, maybe, when you felt you were undeserving...

"Does it really matter how I feel? She thought I was another princess. She doesn't know the truth about me yet." Cinderella continued to spiral. "She can't possibly love me when she doesn't even know who I am... can she? I'm nothing more than a scullery maid."

"That shouldn't matter. But I, ah, can't answer that for her." Clara massaged her temples, trying to think. Everything was twisted up, so she genuinely couldn't say whether or not the princess sleeping in that coffin would care. And suggesting she kiss her while unconscious also had a, uh, funny way of reminding her of that kiss she and Thea had in the woods. The one where everything started to... spiral. The anger that flared up in her. The fear. Her insistence that they weren't on a movie trajectory. And then the mess that followed afterwards. This whole thing was complicated, touching on a bruise that was still in the process of healing. "I-- I don't know..."

"I mean, true love's kiss usually does the trick in these stories. If you like her, I say go for it. It can't hurt, can it?" Raoul shrugged, confused as to why she was overcomplicating it. Geez. Raoul didn't get it at all!

"...No, wait. There is one version of the story where, ah, the piece of poison apple lodged in her throat gets jostled out when the coffin is moved. No kiss required." Clara offered. "We might be able to save her that way. Let's try that first. Detective Parker, Raoul... do you think you could?" She nodded towards the glass coffin by means of finishing the sentiment of her question and the two got to work. From both ends they lifted it, tilted it at an angle, and... nothing. Shoot. It was worth a try, she supposed.

"You said the prince did this to her, right?" Clara held her chin and then looked at the prince's recent grave. "I wonder. If the prince took a page from a spell book to accomplish this, then there's a possibility that he has it folded in his pocket. That might tell us what we need to do about this. I'd be willing to wager that it's some kind of poison. If you don't want to kiss her, then maybe there's an antidote." The problem was that the prince was properly buried under the ground at that point. "Which means we'll have to..." Gross. The dread was plain in Clara's tone. "Dig up his grave. Ugh."

Before anyone could comment on Clara's idea, however, a hand shot out of the grave. The prince's zombified hand, as a matter of fact, grotesque and twitching. (Clara jinxed it with her zombie comment earlier. She totally jinxed it!) He began to dig his way out of his own grave, face bloodied and mouth drooling. Um. At least it saved them the manual labor? Shit! "...Or not."
 
"I mean," Thea inserted herself into the conversation, being her usual tactful self, "does it fucking matter that you weren't born with, like, a little crown? I've got news for you, girl, and that news is that you are you. You've always been you. If she flirted back, it means she liked something about that. Yeah, yeah, 'true love' might be a bit of a long shot, but so fucking what? If you don't try, you will never know how true or false it is. It's fucking ridiculous that they want you to know right away in fairytales, anyway. Like, hellooo? It can be difficult to pick the right pizza for an evening, let alone your goddamn life partner!" Besides, wouldn't Snow prefer not to be dead? Not to make any assumptions here, but Thea wouldn't mind if someone kissed her because of that. It was, like, the fantasy equivalent of CPR! CPR that bypassed all the inconvenient problems with broken ribs and shit. "But, sure, we're not gonna force ya. If you find it uncomfy, I guess we can dig the asshole out."

"We?" Raoul asked, a little bitterly. "I guess that, by that, you mean me."

"Oh wow, you developed clairvoyance? I swear, you get more and more awesome by the second." Clairvoyance, clairvoyance... hmm! Like, Clara-vision, basically? Did it mean that those who were clairvoyant could only see Clara, or that they saw through Clara's eyes? Thea would need to have a Deep ThinkTM about this, 'cause it seemed like one of those unexplored topics science could seriously benefit from. Yep, her grand contribution to the humanity, bitches! You could mail her the Nobel Prize once she wasn't, you know, hiding due to her little murder problem. Hehe.

Anyway, it seemed that the god existed, and that he was on Raoul's side. You know how Thea knew? Why, the prince began to dig himself out!

"Shit," Raoul jumped backwards, his face whiter than the average wall. "Shit, I thought this was fairytale-inspired, not survival horror!"

"Be careful what you wish for, I guess," Thea rolled her eyes. Couldn't the fucker have, like, stayed dead for five minutes? No? Okay, then not. It did make sense on some level, though-- fucking spoiled monarchy and their need to have everything right now, regardless of the conventions. Commoners had to wait at least fifty fucking years before they got their 'mythological creature' pass, but nooo, the princeling had to have his vengeance immediately!

"Braaains," he muttered, crawling from the fresh dirt. "Briiiides." Of fucking course. Thea supposed that some congratulations was in order, though-- the objectification of women aside, it was kind of nice that he'd learned a lesson about the benefits of not being a fucking imbecile. "I guess that this is the moment we start running, eh? Since I kind of feel like my axe-wielding days are over." Maybe they could devise some nasty-ass trap, too, but Thea felt like not having her brain devoured would be the cool first step here. (How did the old wisdom go? 'Run away now, stab them in the back later?' She may or may not have invented it right now, but she did feel like she was channeling some Sun Tzu energy while doing so.)

"No," someone behind her declined. "You don't run away from zombies like that, Thea. Have all those years of playing Resident Evil taught you nothing? Leave one alone, and it will multiply faster than cockroaches! Trust me, I would know something about this." The voice felt oddly familiar, and once Thea turned around to find out who it was that was giving them this (absolutely fucking brilliant) advice, she was confronted with the one and only Claire Redfield, the RE2 protagonist! (...whoa. Shouldn't detective Parker have, like, monitored the content Brianna had consumed? 'Cause Resident Evil 2 was some gruesome shit. This kind of screamed 'parental failure.')

"What you've got here, gals, is a patient zero situation," Claire explained, in the tone of a seasoned zombie-slayer. "Gotta exterminate the bastard before it gets out of hand. Behold, the wonders of videogame inventory!" From her pocket, she... proceeded to pull out a literal fucking flamethrower? Wow, convenient! "Fire is your best friend under these circumstances. The axe wasn't bad for your debut, Thea, but if you want to join the real pros, you need to burn the remains. And you pay attention as well, Clara! You killed me so many times during your playthrough, and like half of them were because you covered your eyes. Well, sorry to disappoint, but you don't have infinite hit points!" Like the indisputable heroine she was, Claire pointed the weapon at the shambling corpse, and... click! Clicking was all the flamethrower did, though, because it wasn't loaded. "Whoopsie," she giggled. "Seems I forgot my ammo in the inventory box. Could have happened to anyone, really. Can you craft them for me? You only need some gunpowder and chemical fluid." (The prince, meanwhile, seemed content amusing himself via chewing on Redfield's arm, but it didn't look like she noticed. Videogame character privileges, anyone? Yeah, they didn't feel pain, either.)

"Fucking hell, where the fuck do I find gunpowder here?!" Thea shouted, taking a few steps back.

"I don't know? Just cook it. Crafting has always seemed like guesswork to me. And, like, if you can prepare stew, I don't see why it would be different with weaponry." Which, ??? Thea Holloway happened to be an Olympic fucking champion at jumping to conclusions, but this one seemed too distant for even her to reach. You'd need fucking wings for that, not legs!

"Ugh. Clara, not-Cinderella, any gunpowder recipe ideas?" Again, not a sentence that she'd ever expected to say, but lately, the shitstorm her life had devolved into was granting her a lot of new linguistic opportunities. Lexicography majors would have been fucking overjoyed! And, as if her question was some sort of cue? From the bushes, a fox with a bomb instead of a tail emerged! (...alright. Just between the two of them, what the fuck had Brianna been reading? And was the dreamworld logic implying that they were meant to cook the animal? Cold, man.)
 
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