Work Text:
She woke up at the same time she always did. A thought flickered through her head – (timeless it’s timeless here it’s) – and her lips briefly lifted in a mockery of a smile. Her life was many things, but timeless was not one of them. The air she breathed was so thick and syrupy with time that she was always surprised when she glided through it smoothly and effortless. Surely, it seemed, she should be slogging through it, like a child in a swimming pool.
She’d never been in a swimming pool, true, but it couldn’t be so different from a lake of blood.
She got dressed with the same movements she always used, and ate the same bowl of tasteless gruel that was always left on her table. Privately, she wondered if it was literally the same bowl of gruel every day – nothing was impossible here.
It took the same amount of time to eat as it always did.
She ran her brush through her hair, her strokes practiced and mechanical. Makeup came next. She didn’t even need a mirror anymore, which was perhaps fortunate. She’d lost her mirror privileges after slitting her throat for the fifthteenth time.
Sometimes she considered doing something different. Perhaps she’d scream out random words, perhaps she’d break every hateful, cold, indifferent piece of furniture in her little cell. When she ran out of things to break, she’d turn her rage on herself, pulling out hair and clawing skin and gouging out fucking rainbow eyes, burning and kicking and biting and breaking and breaking and breaking and breaking and breaking…
She snapped out of her daydream at the time she always did, down to the second.
It was a relief, really, when she was given a task. An outsider, one who somehow knew her whole story, might think she was reluctant, just being forced into her role. Then again, an outsider who knew that much about her would also have to know the truth: she reveled in her job, as much as she could revel in anything. Without it, her life would be a perfectly sterilized wound, a flawless clockwork dance.
It was quite cathartic, she mentally concluded, to break others the way she wanted to break herself. They were lucky, and she hated them for it. They had lusii, and matesprits and moirails and auspitices and even kismesisi. They had choices, and freedom, and life. Some denied it when she confronted them. They claimed to have been oppressed, moaned about never having a choice. They were liars.
They could chose to die.
For a few glorious seconds-minutes-hours, she could express herself. She could show her emotions in a magnificent orgy of destruction, jealousy and bitterness, rage and despair. The ones who begged were the best, pleading for their lives or the lives of their loved ones as if she had a reason to care. She paid special attention to those, toying with them until they begged for death, then leaving them bloody and broken and breathing, leaving them alive to spread word of the Demoness, the beautiful lady without mercy or joy.
She sat down on the hard wooden floor, in the spot she always sat in. Time pressed down on her, squeezing her a little tighter than it had the hour before, which had been a little heavier than the hour before that. Time! Time was all around, and she thought, as she always did, that this was the moment it’d finally break her, that she’d surely go insane right then if nobody came to give her a job.
She bore it, like she always did.
There was nothing to do to pass the time but wait. She’d lost her chair privileges way back when the time was but a light caress, and never earned them back. She’d lost her book privileges shortly after coming into the full care of Lord English, after an incident in which she attempted to make the phrase ‘death by a thousand papercuts’ literal. It had hurt.
She didn’t mind pain anymore.
Jigsaw puzzle privileges only lasted eight sweeps, up to the time where she ate an entire four thousand piece puzzle, hoping to choke. If she strained her mind back past the centuries, she could just barely remember losing window privileges when she was two, and had turned an unexpected flight into a slyly planned plummet.
She used to think it strange, how many convenient ways to kill herself had been left lying around. It was only when she reached ten sweeps of age that she realized the truth: her employer didn’t care what she did, when she couldn’t die anyway. It amused him to see her try to escape the only way she knew how, and fail every time. It amused him to see the dying little spark of hope in her eyes as another option was removed, and the growing fire of desperation as she tried to think of an option to replace it. The realization had burned inside her mind for a full five sweeps before she brought it up with him, and lost her speaking privileges for a century.
It hadn’t mattered as much as she thought it would, in the end. There was never anyone to talk to.
She dozed off for the same amount of time she always did, and woke up to the same bowl of lunch gruel. She ate it quickly with her fingers, forgetting the taste of each bite as soon as she swallowed. She hadn’t held a spoon since the tenth time she’d gouged her own eyes out and attempted to stab her own brain with the handle.
It occurred to her, for the first time in ten sweeps, that perhaps she was in no danger of going insane. It seemed quite possible that she was already there, and had been for a long time. Maybe she’d never been sane.
She didn’t care. She had this thought every ten sweeps, and it wasn’t interesting anymore.
She wondered if she could hang herself with her own hair. Logistically, it’d be a lot more difficult than it had been when she had a full head of long hair, but it was interesting to ponder. Useless, by now, but…interesting.
She was still thinking when the piece of paper fluttered down into her lap.
----
Faithful Child-
I’m writing this note in advance to congratulate you on reaching your 612,413th sweep of service to Lord English. As a special present to you, today’s job will be your last. I know you’ll so adore the violent jobs, but I’m afraid to inform you this final task won’t be quite so spectacular. It’s nothing special, I fear. Just a simple recruitment job. I’m confident, however, you’ll perform splendidly. Happy Wiggling Day!
~D c Scratch
----
She laughed.