Chapter Text
Sandrone awoke in an extravagant room, sitting at a table piled high with all sorts of lavish delicacies. To her left sat a tall woman with long, flowing blonde hair and to her right, a boy with an oversized hat and a scowl. Sitting around the table were people of all sorts of ages and appearances. She herself was… what, no, who was she again exactly? She knew what she did— she was an engineer who worked with Clockwork Meka. She knew how to repair technology. But she couldn’t remember a thing about herself other than her name, not even her favorite food nor something as simply where she had lived.
She picked up a card sitting on the table directly before her. It read ‘Sandrone: The Marionette’ and below that, in glittering gold lettering, ‘Seventh’. Seventh of what, though? She glanced up at the rest of those around the table who were all equally silent, gazing at their own cards. The person sitting directly across from her was a ginger. The number ‘11’ was carved onto the back of his chair. For some reason, it satisfied her, knowing that she placed above this strange man.
A quick glance to her right showed the hatted man clutching his own card, the words on it written in a script she didn’t recognize. Whatever it said must not have been pretty, because he was gritting his teeth with an expression of clear anger.
Sandrone turned her card over. The text on the back read “The unknown is but a fog to be dispersed. Knowledge is the true pillar of the world.” The phrase was… familiar, as if she had heard it, or had even said it herself at some point before, but like most other things, she couldn’t remember where from.
The man sitting at the head of the table, who she had admittedly not quite noticed before spoke, his voice low and authoritative.
“This dinner is over. Everyone, please return to your rooms. Your names are written on the doors.”
For a few moments, none of them spoke. They had all woken up here, at this table, with practically no memories of who they were. Then, the first to leave was the boy sitting beside Sandrone. He stood up, card having been slipped into his pockets and tilted his hat down slightly before walking off. One by one, everyone followed, even the man at the head of the table, until it was only Sandrone and the girl sitting in the ‘3’ chair left together in the room.
The girl had been humming slightly the whole time and only now most people were gone did she truly begin to sing, voice carrying through the banquet hall. The lyrics were in a language Sandrone didn’t recognize but were beautiful, if not haunting. Well, the whole thing was haunting, from the setting in the strange building, to this girl, singing with her eyes closed and a smile on her face.
How can someone be so calm? None of us remember who we are… how can she sing, of all things right now?! Sandrone dug her nails into her palm. This girl and her singing were, for some reason she couldn’t quite pinpoint, horribly annoying. Sandrone pushed her chair away from the table, its legs making a scratching sound against the floor. The girl paused momentarily, looking in her direction, despite seemingly not being able to see. She waved.
A moment later, the chair was pushed back in, minus the one who had been sitting in it. Sandrone left the hall, which was now almost truly empty, only the girl remaining in the wide space, sitting at the table. Her heels made a very slight noise against the carpeted floor whenever she stepped and Sandrone found herself doing her best to make minimal noise. She eventually stopped in front of a door with the word Marionette etched into a small gold plate attached to the door. She opened it.
Inside the room was a collection of vaguely familiar items— a dresser, nightstand, bed. There was even a small table with chairs around it and a fully stocked tea set sitting atop it. She ignored it for the time being.
The closets held all sorts of elaborate dresses that again, felt vaguely familiar. Sandrone picked one off the hanger and inspected it before looking down at what she was currently wearing. The dress in question was brown with yellow lining around the edges, while the one she currently wore was black with red lining and puffy white ribbons and frills. She hung the dress back up and instead picked up the nightgown beside it, inspecting the sleep cap it came with. It was soft and fit surprisingly well on her head, as if it had been custom-made just for her. Actually, given the strange trend of this house, perhaps it really was. Not exactly a fun thought to have. Sandrone set it down on the room’s bed along with the accompanying nightgown.
The bed itself was a simple thing, with a cover of the same color of the nightgown and a few pillows. Somehow, a part of Sandrone she couldn’t quite put her finger on was vaguely disappointed. By exactly what, she couldn’t tell, much like everything else that had happened in the past hour or so. She considered the others who were here. The ginger, the hatted boy, the blonde woman, and the strange singing girl. There was no rhyme or reason, no constant to any of them that could have been the reason they were robbed of their memories and dropped here.
At some point, almost unconsciously, she had begun to drum slightly on one of the wooden shelves of the closet, a tap-tapping that should have been accompanied by words, but she had seemingly forgotten those too. Why was it that what she could remember was only what she did and how she did it, but not why she did it? Why was it all she really knew about herself was her name? Presumably it was the same for everyone else in this strange house, none of them having recollection of who they were and what they had done.
What they had done. Was this some sort of punishment for a crime they had committed? Sandrone wondered. Then why take their memories, if they were repenting for something? That and the fact she couldn’t see herself ever becoming acquaintances with any of the strange individuals here. If anything, she wondered if she somehow got roped into something against her will that ended up with her being stuck in here. She clicked her tongue in annoyance. Somehow, this whole situation was, to some part of her subconscious, nothing more than a simple annoyance, something that happened often.
The card from earlier was pulled out of her pocket. According to this, she was ‘The Marionette’ and according to her seat, she was, for whatever purpose ‘Seventh’. The boy with the large hat, the one who had practically destroyed his own card, had been sitting in the chair with the number ‘Six’. The only other people she knew the exact numbers of were the singing girl, who was ‘Third’, the ginger, who was sitting in the ‘Eleven’ seat and through the process of knowing where she sat, the blond woman who had been seated to her left was ‘Eight.’ That was four individuals other than herself Sandrone knew the numbers of, whatever they were for. She slipped the card back into her pocket.
The first person to ask, the one who seemed to have the most telling reaction to the whole situation was, of course, the one to ask first. It was simply the most logical conclusion. Sandrone set off for the door with ‘Six’ engraved on its nameplate.