I can’t even bring myself to be happy about the Homestuck number she was assigned.
Tag: Arc 15
Well.
At least she’ll be reunited with her other family this way.
She left the question unfinished, and the fragment of it on its own was a hard thing to hear.
Carol stared as Amy shuffled forward. The cuffs weren’t necessary, really. A formality. Amy wasn’t about to run.
Are you…?
Sorry?
“It’s your last chance,” Dragon prodded.
“…going to go and say goodbye?”
Carol nodded. She pushed the door open and stepped into the parking lot.
Amy turned to face her as she approached.
For a long minute, neither of them spoke.
I don’t think the pain is over yet, guys.
“Prisoner 612, please board for transport to the Baumann Parahuman Containment Center,” the announcement came from within the truck.
Yep. There she goes.
Fuck.
“I’m sorry,” the digitized voice spoke.
Digitized? Dragon?
Or is it just that it’s coming from a phone or video or something?
Carol watched Amy through the window.
Amy seemed to have changed, transformed. Could Carol interpret that as a burden being lifted? Relief? Even if it was only because the very worst had come to pass, and there was nothing left for Amy to agonize over?
Wait, fuck, is it Dragon, talking to Carol because they’ve arrested Amy for what she did to Victoria?
Don’t you fucking dare send her to the Birdcage.
There was shame, of course, horrific guilt. That much was obvious. The girl couldn’t meet anyone’s gaze.
“Everyone’s sorry,” Carol spoke, her voice hollow.
Or maybe it’s Amy talking, digitized to prevent powers like Paige’s from affecting the visitors.
“You were saying something about that before,” Dragon said. “Are you-?”
Ah, no, I was right the first time.
“I don’t know what to do.”
Yeeeah, you kinda fucked this up.
The big difference between Amy and Bonesaw is that Amy didn’t mean for it to turn out like this. Bonesaw would do this on purpose.
It’s still massively wrong, and Amy’s not blameless here – she seems to have gotten carried away with unethical changes for her own benefit, turning Victoria into a thing that reflects Amy’s appreciation for Victoria’s bodily features while not considering what she as an individual would want. Bonesaw has no sense of bodily integrity, and she set Amy on a downward spiral that compromised hers.
Betrayal. Brandish had known this would happen the moment Sarah had talked about her taking the girl. Not this, but something like it. Brandish felt a weapon form in her hand.
“Please tell me what to do,” Amy pleaded.
Please do. This doesn’t need to get even worse.
It can stop here, without any auto-cauterized wounds.
Brandish turned, arm drawn back to strike, to retaliate. She stopped.
The girl was so weak, so powerless, a victim. A victim of herself, her own nature, but a victim nonetheless. A person sundered.
YES, THANK YOU
For noticing, I mean.
And with everything laid bare, there was not a single resemblance to Marquis. There was no faint reminder of Brandish’s time in the dark cell, nor of her captor. If anything, Amy looked how Sarah had, as they’d stumbled from the house where they’d been kept, lost, helpless and scared.
This is beautiful.
She looked like Carol had, all those years ago.
Yes. Do see yourself in her. Thank you.
The weapon dissipated, and Brandish’s arms dropped limp to her sides.
■
That was a scene, alright.
I’m not entirely sure if it was because of what I was reading or just from eye strain, but I even teared up a bit there towards the end. That was so good.
Brandish clenched her fists.
“I lost track. I forgot how to change her back.”
Well, fuck.
A caricature. A twisted reflection of how Amy saw Victoria, the swan curve of the nape of the neck, the delicate hands, and countless other features, repeated over and over again throughout. It might even have been something objectively beautiful, had it not been warped by desperation and loneliness and panic. As overwhelming as the image and the situation had been in Amy’s mind, Victoria was now equally imposing, in a sense. No longer able to move under her own power, her flesh spilled over from the edge of the mattress and onto the floor.
Art.
She’s a coddamn sculpture of the beauty Amy saw in her.
Bonesaw would approve. This, this right here, is why she could relate to Amy.
And you know what? I’m sure Victoria is happy like this. Because Amy wanted her to be, and made it so.
She didn’t move as Amy’s spoke from behind her. “Please, let me explain.”
I don’t have high hopes for Carol accepting the explanation, but hopefully Amy gives it anyway while Carol’s stunned.
Brandish couldn’t bring herself to move or speak. Amy seemed to take that silence as assent.
“I wanted to see her smile again. To have someone hug me before I left forever. So you wouldn’t have to worry about me anymore. I- I told myself I’d leave after. Victoria wouldn’t remember. It would be a way for me to get closure. Then I’d go and spend the rest of my life healing people. Sacrifice my life. I don’t know. As payment.”
Is Victoria permanently, unnaturally smiling now?
Lady Photon had made her way upstairs. She entered the room and stopped just in front of Brandish. Her hands went to her mouth. Her words were a whispered, “Oh God.”
Except everything suggests something much worse. Much more… Bonesaw-y.
Amy kept talking, her voice strangely monotone after her earlier emotion, as if she were a recording. Maybe she was, after a fashion, all of the excuses and arguments she’d planned spilling from her mouth. “I wanted her to be happy. I could adjust. Tweak, expand, change things to serve more than one purpose. I had the extra material from the cocoon.
The cocoon that was made of stray animals. How is that different from using bugs as extra materials?
When I was done, I started undoing everything, all the mental and physical changes. I got so tired, and so scared, so lonely, so I thought we’d take another break, before I was completely finished. I changed more things. More stuff I had to fix. And days passed. I-“
Oh jeez. How much did she change, ultimately?
Is Victoria even the same person anymore, with the mind changes?
A cornered rat will bite. Amy realized what Brandish intended and reached out, a reflex.
Uh oh.
A weapon sprung into Brandish’s hand. Not so dissimilar from the first weapon she’d made, an unrefined bludgeon of raw lightstuff.
Well, this is going all kinds of wrong.
She moved as if to parry the reaching hand and Amy scrambled back out of the way, eyes wide.
You do realize you’d fry her hand that way?
Where to go? Brandish glanced to the rooms to the left, then down the hall in front of her. She looked back and saw Amy with her back to the wall. She moved toward the staircase, glanced back at Amy, and saw a reaction. Fear. Trepidation.
Well, that’s an answer, it seems.
Before Amy could protest, Brandish was heading up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
“Carol!” Amy shouted, scrambling up the stairs. There was the sound of her falling on the stairs in her haste to follow, “Stop! Carol! Mom!“
And Amy finally calls Carol Mom right at this moment my heart
And Carol’s reaction isn’t gonna be any less painful, is it?
Only one door was still open. Brandish entered the room and stopped.
She doesn’t. She doesn’t react.
I’m not sure if that’s less painful or more.
“I didn’t want her to fight. And I didn’t want her to follow, or to hate me because I used my power on her again.”
“again”. The cat’s coming out of the basket and Carol isn’t going to be happy.
So… did you do something meant to temporarily restrain Victoria?
Again?
“So I thought I’d put her in a trance, and make it so she’d forget everything that happened.
Oh. Ohhh.
That’s.
Hrm.
Everything that I did, and the things that the Slaughterhouse Nine said, and everything that I said to try to make them go away. Empty promises and-“
Her voice hitched.
“What happened?” Brandish asked, for the Nth time.
Unless she asked it off-screen, I’m pretty sure this is actually the first time she asked this exact question. She did ask similar ones, though.
“She was lying there, and I wanted to say goodbye. I- I-“
…did you try to kiss her?
Something in Amy’s voice, her tone, her posture, it provided the final piece, clicking into place, making so many things suddenly come together.
Brandish marched forward, fully intending to walk right past Amy. Amelia. His daughter. She could never be my daughter because she’d never stopped being his.
ow ow ow ow this hurts.
“Carol-” Lady Photon spoke, her voice gentle. “Take it easy.”
They stood in the mist of a ruined neighborhood. Amy had stepped outside within a minute of their arrival, blocking the door with her body. There was no resistance in the girl, though.
Ahh, I guess she doesn’t want them to go in and see Victoria’s, uh, cocoon?
It was more like the obstruction was a way of running, of forestalling the inevitable.
It’s this kind of thing that makes me compare Amy to Lapis Lazuli. The sense that the bad things are inevitably coming and all they can do is run away. From their enemies, from their friends, from themselves.
The girl hugged her arms against her body, her hands trembling even as they clutched her upper arms. Her teeth chattered, as if she were cold, but it was a warm evening.
Was the girl in shock? Carol couldn’t muster any sympathy. Amy was stopping her from getting to Victoria.
But if Victoria hasn’t left after chewing out Amy, why is Amy like this? Or rather, why was she like this already when the rest of the family arrived?
What happened between her and Victoria just before this?
Victoria, who she’d almost believed was dead.
“Amy,” Lady Photon spoke, “What’s going on? You won’t let us inside, but you won’t explain. Just talk.”
If it wasn’t clear by now, I like Photon Mom (or Photon Aunt in this case) Sarah a lot more than I like Carol, even if Carol’s struggles are painfully understandable.
Amy shivered. “I… she wouldn’t let me help her, she was so angry, so I calmed her down with my power. She’d been hurt badly, so I wrapped her up. A cocoon, so she could heal.”
And then?
“That’s good. So Victoria’s okay?” Lady Photon coaxed responses from Amy.
Of course she’s not okay, Brandish thought. What about this situation makes you think she could be okay?
There were options that would have Victoria being okay, but Amy’s behavior suggests otherwise.
“I… I had to wait a while before I could let her out, so I could be sure she had healed completely. I-“
Amy stopped as her voice cracked.
Alright, past tense, so we have gotten to that point.
“Keep going,” Lady Photon urged.
Amy glanced at Brandish, who stood with her arms folded, stone-faced.
If I change my expression now, if I say or do anything, I’ll lose it, I’ll break, Brandish thought. Her heart thudded in her chest.
If you lose it, try not to take it out on Amy, please?
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