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well, I hadn't noticed, but the people really noticed that they really didn't want us around
so, every single one of us hit the ground
The Purebreds set up the big stage.
Here it was, the grand finale.
Lime was theatrical by nature. A true villainess who loved to reveal her plans. She loved to talk, she loved the attention. All eyes in her as she ranted about this thing she never understood.
This thing called love.
The villain would reveal her heart in the end to have always been callous and black and hard.
A crowd gathered round.
They all looked upon her.
None looked with sympathy.
Lime was the most hated of the Haters. A demon who mocked their deaths in front of them. A demon should be able to draw the negativity from humans, should be able to see into their hearts and draw out the rage and tragedy for others to laugh over. In this aspect of demonhood, Lime was second to none.
She'd never been loved, negativity and cruelty was all she'd known, and she shared it. With a smile.
She alienated everyone she ever spoke to.
If you wanted people to listen to you, Charlotte thinks, maybe you should have shut your mouth a little.
But then, maybe Lime didn't care about others listening. So long as she could speak.
And besides, Lime never wanted to be someone else. Never wanted to hide her thoughts and feelings again, as ugly as they were. And so, everyone looked upon her as a witch being set to burn…
and no one cared.
She's such an idiot.
Should have been smarter.
Shouldn’t have been caught…
Idiot.
Charlotte resists the urge to press her palms into her burning eyes. Lime would find a way to crawl out of the deeper hell they were sending her to if she realized Charlotte hadn't been watching her in her final act. So Charlotte looks upon her and doesn't gossip.
She sees her slow, knowing grin when Rouge finally gets bored enough to pull the trigger.
She does not even blink, and so she's the first one to catch the blinking light behind Zizel, Rouge, and Lime. A pale pink that forms into that freak.
Tiara.
The apathy Charlotte had long mastered shuddered against her presence. Even Lime - currently facing the worst punishment a demon could give another demon in an unknown hell - looked more shaken and startled when she heard the newcomer’s voice. For once, she was struck silent while the Purebreds discussed her fate.
It was typical of them. They spoke as if they were the only ones here. None of the other Haters gathered, not even the subject of their conversation, was acknowledged. Even as high up in the hierarchy as Charlotte and Lime were, they had no place in this sort of talk.
It was made clear to them more than most, an upfront and personal view to how easily they could be shut out.
Charlotte believed maybe it was why she wanted the same with Lime. Lime who dragged her along and told her the passwords to her stupid fantasy worlds. Charlotte who kept Lime's secrets even now, who knew exactly who that girl was down to the bones. Who could use it against her but didn't.
“If you're going to exile her, at least give her to me!”
No one was looking at Lime anymore. Tiara had claimed the stage and stole the wind from her sails.
No one was looking at Lime but Charlotte.
Lime looked sick. She looked furious. Like the days she burned and someone other than Charlotte was there to see it. When Tiara approached her, Lime looked disgusted, uncomfortable for the first time since Charlotte had known her… the way this freak cooed all saccharine sweet. You can't win Lime with sweetness, you can't win her with empty platitudes, she loathes the concept of being won, of being kept, of being tamed. Deranged and rabid, that's how Charlotte knew her.
That's how Charlotte knew how to be with her… but…
“... LOOK AT ME!!!”
Tiara was more deranged, more rabid, the screech in her voice made even Charlotte grimace.
“I understand, I understand, I understand deeply! I know how you feel!”
Through that rant and rave. That promise of understanding, of being seen, of the happy life that awaited her if she gave in and became an object willingly under someone else's control. Charlotte would laugh if it wasn't delivered with such a fervor. This was not an aberration that could understand them - the Haters.
Lime knew this. Of course she did.
Lime hated these things.
No one looked upon Lime when Tiara's voice echoed through hell. Every eye was on Tiara.
Everyone except Charlotte.
Tiara made her shudder, but what made her feel so suddenly ill she wanted to turn and leave immediately…
There was a moment. Brief
where Lime looked so docile, so confused
a moment she wavered.
And then she turned to crystal.
***
Charlotte lingers near for longer than anyone else. No one pauses to see why she's stuck in place. No one spares her more than a glance. There's a glare in the crystal that, from this distance, obscures Lime's face.
Charlotte takes two steps forward, morbidly curious. She had to have imagined that… but why would she ever imagine a world where Lime would give in to such a phony expression of “love”? Lime's an idiot . But she and Charlotte were Haters who died every day so they would never forget distrust and loathing. They worked directly with the Purebreds who looked down on them. Lime's an idiot.
But Lime would never want to be seen as a true fool.
And Charlotte never wants to see this fucking crystal again.
There's no one in this space of hell anymore, even Tiara has abandoned her prize. Charlotte's throat burns to speak, to make an excuse. Some sweet platitude Lime would have laughed at her for, or would have showed that rare quiet consideration. What do you want, Charlotte?
I want you to stop being a stupid rock.
Her throat burned, and the words passed through: “Why would you look? That was so stupid. This whole thing is so-” Charlotte can't hold back the coughs that rattled her body, the rapid way her chest and ribs started to ache like she'd been coughing for days. She feels the fever start to build inside her. Would Lime at least be spared their curse for eternity? Or was her eternity to burn forever? It was red like flame, the crystal encasing her.
It was eerily silent.
She presses her palms into her burning eyes and wills the crystal to disappear. She feels the blisters start to sprout on her skin, splitting open.
It's time to die.
She'll let the fog of the plague help her forget what she’d seen.