HEARTS IN DARKNESS: EPILOGUE

[yourkeepers]

When dawn finally comes, you find them.

They're hanging in the grand hall, bound - almost cocooned - in inky black thread. The bodies of the victims, the ones without their hearts, are now miraculously whole. Cold and untouched, as if those terrible wounds had never been carved into their flesh.

They hang in various positions of rest, some limbs tangled and suspended, others simply hanging limply. Their eyes all all closed. The searchlight's body is still dull silver. The singer's hair dangles long and dark. The oracle's robes pristine.

It's like they've been left here for you, within your reach. The rest is in your hands.

Comments

THE ORACLE

[yourkeepers]

Re: THE ORACLE

[hand_of_courage]

Having watched Brimestone put the hearts back in just by putting them on the chest and pressing a bit, Tick Tock carefully set the Oracle's heart on her chest and did the same. He was hesitant to press too hard. He didn't want to make her heart pop like a-

...something.

[sageprincess]

Thankfully, there is no popping of any sort. As with the searchlight and siren before her, the oracle's heart shimmers more brightly as it is urged to return to its body, then dissolves into little more than light as it pours into her chest like molten gold. For a moment, there is silence...

Then her eyes fly open. The oracle shudders into life violently, her first breath of air coming as a sharp gasp. Her hands shoot to her neck shortly thereafter, covering it, protecting it... and finding it and the rest of her body covered in the remnants of the inky black thread her body had been cocooned in. Disoriented, confused, and above all scared, she clumsily scrambles away from the gathered group, yanking and tearing at the threads and coughing when her shortness of breath doesn't allow for such sudden movements all the while.

[hand_of_courage]

She woke up... she was alive!

He backed up to give her space as she moved away, but followed in case she needed help, "Miss Oracle? It's okay. You're alive now."

[sageprincess]

Alive, maybe. Okay? Oh, most definitely not.

The fairest girl stops her panicked flailing when she registers another's voice, though so overwhelmed with the sudden presence of sound and touch and sight where there had been none for what seemed like an eternity, the timekeeper's words remain beyond her for the moment. She stares at him with wild, terrified eyes, and it's only between short, quick breaths that she manages to whisper a single word.

"What..." What happened?

[hand_of_courage]

"Please, take a deep breath," he replied slowly, in as soothing a voice as possible. "A slow one, okay? You're awake and you're alive and you need to breath properly to stay that way. I'll tell you what happened when you've calmed a bit."

He wanted to reach out for her, but held himself back. She was disorientated and upset. Touching her wouldn't help.

[sageprincess]

The longer he speaks, the more her fright seems to subside, at least. One she's actually gotten her mind in order enough to recognize him, the timekeeper's presence offers an inexplicable sense of safety none of the others in the room seem to provide.

Though she's still making no move to get closer. She hugs her knees to her chest, one hand still protectively covering the front of her neck, and tries to force her breathing to slow. Though she's only mildly successful, one word he continues to use at the forefront of her mind.

"I... I was killed..."

[hand_of_courage]

He hesitated before giving a nod and walking closer. He still didn't touch, but now he was kneeling near her. Within arms reach. Seeing her like that made all his chest feel constricted, his hearts aching.

"You were. The kitchen fire took your heart from you. But we got it back," he tried to sound reassuring. "We put it back in you."

[sageprincess]

"... My heart?" she repeats, looking at him with confusion. Obviously, she doesn't remember that much. Just the cold bite of a dagger at her throat, soul rending pain, and then...

Nothing.

"It was... It was nothingness," she says quietly, something far-off entering her gaze as she finds the words to describe her experience. "I couldn't hear, or feel, or see anything. And then— and then something was pulling at me. Something evil. B-but I couldn't get away, and—"

She stops there, biting her lip and trying very hard not to start hyperventilating again as the roar of thunder and the deafening gallop of hooves on cobblestone fills her mind.