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“And you’re fine with this?” she repeated.
“If it makes you happy!”
“Right…” Patient snapped on nitrile gloves. She had a feeling they were unnecessary, but she’d rather take the precaution. “Why don’t you give me an example of what you’d look like when you feel uncomfortable?”
“If that makes you happy!” And Pliant didn’t do anything that Patient could see.
“Well.” Patient towered over the paper princess. “We’ll see.”
She grabbed onto Pliant’s thin arm and squeezed. It crumpled easily.
Hypothetically, if it were anyone else, say The Piercing Heart, she would laugh and then stab her. The Tender Heart would laugh and then kill her. The Overwhelming Heart would kill her and have another crisis. The Bold Heart would be impressed, and then try to match her imaginary strength.
Those who wouldn’t kill would be Vibrant, Beautiful, maybe Curious, maybe Yearning.
And Gentle. Honest. Not Bright because she might do so accidentally.
Patient herself would kill anyone who did this without asking. And if they asked, would that make it better? If every single step was explained one by one, would she have gone ahead?
She would have done it herself.
She was doing that right now, wasn't she? Patient stared down at the vessel sitting on a wooden chair. Pliant didn’t even blink. Maybe Patient hadn’t been paying attention to that. But she didn’t feel bad for hurting her, if it even registered as such. She knew it was wrong. Factually. Morally. Objectively. So many other ways. But apparently it didn’t matter.
She ripped the arm out. Five seconds.
Pliant didn’t flinch.
“Did you feel that?” she asked.
“If that makes you happy!”
“All right, perhaps it will. Can you describe the pain to me?”
“If that makes you happy!”
“Go on then.” She was still holding onto her arm. It could have been any other piece of paper and no one would think twice.
Pliant opened her mouth. “It feels great because you’re happy!”
“What about not having an arm attached to you, how is that different from usual?”
“I can still make you happy!”
“Hm…” She made a mental note of that. Still believes in her capabilities.
She crushed the paper into a ball and stared into Pliant’s eyes, waiting for a reaction. Just something, curiosity, pain, disgust, fear?
There wasn’t even any light reflecting in her pupils.
“Can you feel this?”
“If that’s what’ll make you happy!”
“Can you still move this limb?”
“If that’s what’ll make you happy!”
“And you’re fine with all this?” she pressed on.
“If that’ll make you happy!”
Should she have been recording the different variants of ‘make you happy?’ No, it shouldn't matter. Time and time again Pliant proved she had nothing more to her.
So why was Patient still twisting her arm?
Take a look at Pliant’s background. The first meeting with The Long Quiet, believed she was going to be saved but then regretfully killed her hero. Second meeting freed, but then questioned until only… Her current self remained.
It was so easy to walk down that path, wasn’t it? It’s what Patient would have done.
But she was more interested in the ‘bit and chopped arm off without pain’ part that occurred in her ‘life.’ Supposedly the same arm she was holding now. Those who might have also had the same experience contained half of them, meaning Patient was also on that list. But she chalked that off as shock. Overwhelming said it was her pure power. Tender said she hated him more. Cunning said instinct overrode the pain. Righteous said it was a trick he somehow did. Gentle said it was because she believed he wasn’t going to hurt her.
“What if I said I was actively trying to hurt you?” she asked. “What if I said I wanted you to die?”
“Then I’ll die if that’ll make you happy!” Pliant smiled.
“What if I want you to hate me? What should I do?”
“I can hate you if that’ll make you happy!”
“Okay,” Patient nodded. “Hate me. Prove that you do.”
“Okay! I will!” Pliant continued to smile. She was never not smiling.
“Do you see this?” Patient presented the useless piece of paper. “Do you see what I did to you?”
“Yes!”
She stared at her dead-on. “What do you think?”
“I just want to make you happy!”
No matter what, huh? Because at least she wasn’t killed? Because she wasn’t being left behind?
Pliant needed to stop trusting her, and she won’t. Either from sentimentality or that she just plain couldn’t, and the conclusion Patient was forming was alarming.
Each and every one of them was a vessel. They couldn’t change that. The vessels all stem from the same basement, splitting as soon as there was a turning point. Patient could have been Overwhelming if she was backstabbed. She could have been Deep if she was stabbed in revenge. All those possibilities from one being. One princess.
She asked The Shifting Mound what would happen if she didn’t want to be a vessel. She replied with something metaphorical, a branch falling from a tree could blossom into another yet it had still experienced growth from the old. Roots buried underground connecting all the time. Leaves feeding each other. Or something like that. Frankly, she would have been more accepting of a plain ‘it could never happen’ or ‘go ahead whenever you like and find out’ answer. But as it was, she was a vessel for The Shifting Mound and so was Pliant.
What did that really mean, though? If The Shifting Mound was meant to be the culmination of all of them, were they all the same or inherently different? As soon as Patient took her head off, she was suddenly ‘The Clever Heart’ but could have branched into ‘The Open Heart’ or ‘The Watchful Heart.’ She didn’t feel any different with or without a head. At least she knew she did not act like the other princess covered in chains and she never wanted to.
But apparently she was her and they were her. Apparently it was easy for Patient to become hopeless or filled with vengeance. Okay, maybe, it was a possibility she’d accept and she wouldn’t let happen.
Back on topic. Each of them supposedly showcased something fundamental about The Shifting Mound. The Patient was stubborn and so was She. The Clever was trusting (in a very limited way of course) and so was She.
The capacity to change, to be shaped into something someone else saw, was something found in all of them. But it wasn’t as if they changed personalities every five seconds, even The Vibrant Heart had a set of personalities that they rarely strayed from.
This meant it also applied to The Pliant Heart.
She is the prime example of changing to meet other’s expectations. Her personality (if it could even be called that) was to please everyone with no regard of self-preservation. Maybe it was, once, but it didn’t seem to work, did it? Her self was stripped away again and again until there was nothing but a voice that cheerfully said her arm ripping in front of her was great because someone else was happy.
In conclusion, if they are the same, or at least had the capability to become the other, that meant inside all of them was a little voice in their hearts begging to conform. To be shaped. To make everyone happy, even if nothing was given in returned. Especially if it's only hurt given back. All of them, a tiny Pliant Heart.
“Disgusting,” she couldn’t help but whisper outloud. Pliant didn’t mind. Her mind wasn’t hers anymore.
She needed to get out.
Patient closed her eyes and tried to believe that Pliant was put back together again with no marks, no cuts, no more harm that she may or may not have even felt.
She tried to feel bad about it.
It was much easier to reconstruct her than doing so. It took a long time, but she forced her eyes open, and Pliant stood there in one piece as if nothing happened. But Patient still held a piece of her. It would be easy to say she didn’t know what it was, given that Pliant had all her limbs.
“The experiment is over,” she said. “Get up.”
Pliant did so.
She opened the door. It was bright outside.
“Go,” she said unemotionally. “Go out and find someone who actually cares about you.”
“Okay! If that’ll make you happy!”
She shut the door. It was empty, inside. And she was alone with her thoughts.