the end

[productions]

murder manor end



servants' wing

20 players alive.

[The walls of the servants' wing shudder and groan, but do not give out. Inside, the servants' wing is pitch dark, lit only by the glow of Kanaya's skin. Very slowly, the energy field flickers and vanishes, the great machine stops humming, the keypad goes dark, until it is simply a cold piece of metal.

It's difficult to tell what is going on; outside, it sounds as though a powerful storm is raging. The sound of heavy winds and crashes that could be thunder can be heard, and sometimes the walls themselves tremble as though in danger of giving out. Occasionally, bright flashes of light seem to light up the building for a moment, seeping in between cracks in the wall. It certainly sounds like a storm powerful enough to destroy the shack everyone is huddled in, but the building remains standing.

Inside, it is incredibly crowded. Twenty people, two dogs, a horse, and a dove are all sharing the space, not to mention the rodents, miniature panda, and Rin's lifeless body, and the space is only one room half taken up by a large machine. It is also gradually growing bitterly cold.

Gradually, the lost abilities and memories (including reunion memories) will return to everyone inside. The storm continues on for about a day; you'll have to wait it out.]

Comments

[hollowheart]

[Seated on the floor between Kanaya's legs and back to her chest, Annie toys with the ring on her index finger absently, exhaustion hardly catching up with her, but the rush of adrenaline is gone.

The memories have come in waves, the odd and the familiar faces and voices of her comrades blurring until they emerged into clarity in her head. They weighed heavily on her shoulders for a while.

And then the searing hot recollection of the week past, washing over her with a quaint sort of relief. It's like coming home in someone's arms.]

[speakveryclearly]

[She can feel Annie's body melting into hers again; it's an accelerated version of the process that overtook them before. Is she at the same place, then? Cradling her cheek in one hand as Annie's hair brushes against the back of her hand, she makes a little test.]

I know you told me to be more greedy but I should have figured this would only go so far.

[hollowheart]

[Annie hates waiting. She's never been fond of uncertainty and hesitation, and beyond this rooms was very little space for certainty. And yet, this is the safest she's felt since her arrival. She hardly protests at the light fingers against her skin but she remembers snapping at Poland for getting too close.]

Sometimes you have to be greedy because no one else can be greedy on your behalf.

[she tilts her head so that the top of it brushes along the underside of Kanaya's chin.] but maybe you like me fighting for you.

[speakveryclearly]

A little. [Now that there's no confusion, can she hide the thrill she felt watching Annie and Minatsuki duke it out? Probably not.]

It's not as if either of us suffers from a lack of advocacy, anymore. [Though outside there are still questions - how viable is an Alternitan master race plan? - she can share this small measure of certainty.]

[hollowheart]

Don't be dense; as if there was ever any doubt. [it is the closest she comes to a sappy love confession, following Annie's school of awkward flirting. The girl who's holed herself literally and figuratively away for weeks is still able to place and separate her anger from her relief, always he saving grace and her downfall.]

I think I can finally rest, now. I've been chasing something for so long but now I can finally give up. [whether it's struggling with what awaits her at home or in the past of her mind, she doesn't.]

It's a perfect fall.

[speakveryclearly]

[She lets her fingers linger on Annie's skin; no matter how warm she is Kanaya can't feel the ground underneath her legs.]

You would understand that theory of muscle control better than me. I never understood the evolutionary advantage of registering relaxation as a relief.

[hollowheart]

[She's given up on correcting Kanaya's quite literal understanding of their conversation at this point. Spreading Kanaya's legs further, Annie settles on the floor in between, instead.]

I've been fighting someone else's war and following someone else's ideals for the longest. I was just thinking I should start fighting my own and following mine, now.

Unless you want me to keep fighting for you.

[souredsweet]

[Annie and Kanaya look so content together that it almost sidetracks him from his initial intent. he wants to talk to Annie; she's someone he had written off from the start who had a hand in saving him at the end.

but with his limited emotional capacity he's already exhausted, so instead of starting out with anything heavy, he picks up where they left off in the theater during the reunion week.]

You really might as well, now. [get married, of course. throwing caution to the wind is part of having a new lease on life, isn't it?]

[hollowheart]

[It takes Annie a moment to separate the sanitized, saccharine image from the young man standing before her. She's regarded the former with mild loathing, and the real Kaoru was all too different.

She doesn't know how to respond to this particular proposition from this new Kaoru, so she shrugs.]

Why not? No time like the present. [with that she pokes Kanaya with her elbow] Hey, Kanaya. Stand up.

[souredsweet]

[he actually looks a little surprised at that, not having expected his suggestion to be taken seriously. the surprise leaves almost as quickly as it had come though, and the look on his face is softly amused instead.]

Everyone else has been talking about "seizing the moment", so it seems fitting.

[hollowheart]

[For now, it's play-acting, and Annie doesn't mind it as much. She could do with some playing. She stands up for the time being.]

Now that's something I wish I had done more of in the weeks leading to this. It would have accomplished more rather than skulking in the shadows, waiting for all of this to come to an end.

[And look at what it cost us, she wants to add, but she refrains.]

Too bad there's not much space here for ease of seizing.

[souredsweet]

I'm surprised that we can all fit. [so many people and animals...

but he'll do his best to sort of scoot out of the way before standing up as well, dusting his hands off. between him sitting and standing, his hair has shifted back to its normal color and his inhuman features have vanished.]

But we can make our own room. You two don't take up much space, anyway.

[hollowheart]

Not when I'm in human shape, at least. [It's easy to fall back to old habits, half slouching against the wall, skimming the room through the flickering light helpfully provided by Kanaya.]

Now that I remember the rest, I really did mean it when I said you look better this way.

[souredsweet]

What did you say you were - a giant? [he looks vaguely intrigued! there are only humans and demons where he comes from.

but the compliment a second time around has him looking a little surprised, and the smile that follows is strange in its bittersweet quality.] I never thought I would meet someone who would prefer this me to that me, but so many of you here seem to...

[hollowheart]

More or less. That's the description most accepted here. My race is big and ugly, I assure you, but not all of it can shift into a human form. [And the fact she may have started out as a human bears a quaint sort of irony, considering whom she's speaking to.]

Are you kidding? You were downright obnoxious when you were a dainty flowers. But when you're like this it's like talking to an actual person.

[souredsweet]

[he makes a softly curious noise at that, brows arched and expression curious.]

So this ability that you have to appear human isn't something everyone can do? [the idea seems strange to him. humans still slaughtered his village even with their ability to blend in physically; he can't even imagine how difficult it must be for a race of big ugly things that aren't even able to blend in.

that last bit actually has him laughing, though. DAINTY FLOWERS...] I— Hm. Most people seem to really prefer that, even so. "Obnoxious" is not so common as "docile" or "pleasant company", but I would find a person like that obnoxious, too.

[hollowheart]

Just the people in my village. Others out there might possess it, but who knows? [She did know, but it was neither here nor there, a rarity on the margin of careful calculations.] The rest of them, they don't like us shifting, either. They can tell we're different even when we're all lumbering around like hulking beasts. It's like having a target on our back. [And for some reason this doesn't seem to bother Annie, as if she's come to terms with it.

She digs her heel into the dirty floor at Kaoru's mirth, seeing if she can wear out the sole of the finest boots she's worn in her life.]

You were obnoxious. I couldn't wait for you to get out of the kitchen whenever you monopolized it.

[souredsweet]

Hoh... Scorn from both sides? [he knows how that feels, but his expression lacks empathy by virtue of him not really knowing how the whole empathy thing works.] What an unpleasant way to live.

[he hadn't actually expected that Annie found him that obnoxious, though, and he laughs again.] Really? Did you? I could never really tell what you were thinking, always wearing that face... I'm a little surprised.

[hollowheart]

You mean this delicate, concerned face of an angel? [Of course, Annie doesn't mean a word of that, but old habits die hard. It's good to hear laughter here again after weeks of terror.]

I did keep my distance from everyone, if you can blame me for that. We all try to survive in our different ways.

[souredsweet]

[it's almost as funny to hear that as it is to hear her call herself a frail girl. the smile on his own face remains, only barely petering out toward the end.]

I could not blame you for it at all. We do what we need to survive; you were wise to keep your distance from most, considering how morally righteous with anger people were at that point in the game.

[hollowheart]

It was like screaming into the void. [and this is perhaps the first genuine show of frustration Annie shows in forever.] But we're only human, aren't we?


...Well, not quite, but you know what I mean.

[souredsweet]

Close enough. [the sentiment was conveyed, anyway.]

We were talking about that once, actually... [he doesn't specify the who, considering who it was - someone who is not among them currently, who Annie had switched her vote from.] How unfair your treatment was for a while. Watching morals shift from that point on, though... That was something I didn't think would happen.

[hollowheart]

Hey, I knew what I was getting into when I planned that murder. [She's acknowledged the hypocrisy and even pointed it out, but Annie doesn't see herself as a victim. It's past the time for defensiveness, though.]

I will be honest. I'd have been happy with sleeping the rest of our confinement away while the rest of the players finished everyone else off. Chalk it up to laziness or apathy; I've been accused of worse. But that's not human nature, is it? The thing separating us from pawns is our feelings. You can move a pawn across the board, but you don't expect it to fight back.

I wonder if they ever expected us to fight back. Their notes on how Sonia and Yuzu behaved were so... Clinical.

[souredsweet]

Didn't you sleep for most of it, anyway? [until Rin became involved, at least... which was only two weeks, not that much at all. it's clear he means it as an exaggeration, though; something of a playful jab.]

You and Spain both. Between the two of you, you really could have slept through it all. [the mention of the notes, of humanity on a whole - which he does not consider himself a part of - has him looking thoughtful.]

...I don't think they did. I doubt they would have given us the final trial if they thought Felicia could convince us to ruin it.

[hollowheart]

It's my coping mechanism. Spain is just lazy. [And she would have been content to spend the rest of the game in bed had she not made friends to talk to.]

Heh. And to think I bragged about not playing soldier in someone's shitty game right before I woke up in the mansion. That sure showed me.