END GAME: THE COUNTDOWN STARTS

[sailmods]

[the prisoners wake up on cold, hard floors.

the lights are bright, glaring, a sterile cell with sterile bars facing a sterile hall. the prisoners with you, across from you, and no one else. no rocking of a ship in waves, nothing. just the prisoner and their prison.

time passes, one assumes. the rhythmic click of Friday’s heels down the hall. it’s almost like the ticking of a clock.]

Comments

[hate_gettin_older]

Edgar takes a moment to process that. And yeah, it holds together; if the Front could have magicked up a way to make the Tail-sectioners not need food, they'd probably have done it. On the other hand ...

"Could always magic the food in here same way she magicked us in," he offers, without much force. "But. Y'could be right."

[ossie_oswald]

"Mm."

Ossie does not argue against it directly. Because who is he to take away someone's hope, even if it is entirely more work to magic individual meal portions into a collection of jail cells than it is to just not feed them.

"I've had prettier prisons than this," he muses instead.

[hate_gettin_older]

Edgar makes a noise somewhere between a scoff and a sigh. "Yeah, din't we all just leave one?"

Seems like all he's ever been in is prisons. Except Milliways; he misses it suddenly, achingly.

[ossie_oswald]

"My apologies, usually I am delighted by poetic vagueness, but do you mean the Village or the ship more broadly?"

[hate_gettin_older]

"The ship," he says, "I wasn't at the Village. Sounded like it was worse. Not as much worse as this."

[ossie_oswald]

"Eventually it becomes pointless to rank them. The Village had eccentricities of its own, but captivity is captivity, no matter how pleasant. Although it wouldn't have killed her to give us a bloody bed, now, would it. That awful man, may his name be struck from every record, gave us that much. Even if he was watching us sleep."

[hate_gettin_older]

"Not even junk to make a bed. Not even fuckin shelves ..."

He paces down the length of the bars as he speaks, and back again.

"Hope you were right on the first guess and it's cause we're not gonna be here that long."

[ossie_oswald]

Ossie waits for some cynical motion of despair to cross him, but finds that one simply doesn't arise. Even if he is correct in his assertion, which he likely will be, even without the familiar mantle on his shoulders, even without every advantage that his first time in captivity gave him. Maybe he finally is a decent Spring after all.

"May it be because of our escape and not our transfer. As Bluebeard's wife from his clutches, as Jack from the giants, as Donkeyskin from her father."

[not here]

[prince_of_beasts]

Maybe he finally is a decent Spring after all.

Several cells down, Dimitri feels suddenly vindicated, and doesn't know why.

[hate_gettin_older]

"Yeah," he says, "all of that."

A beat.

"Don't know those other ones but Jack killed the giants, din't he?"

[ossie_oswald]

"Technically yes, but he did flee the castle first. I don't think that the Wyrd will complain overmuch about the specifics."

... well he can't offer Edgar some tea, but he can do this.

"Would you like to hear the others?"

[hate_gettin_older]

A longer pause.

Then, lower than before: "Yeah, all right."

[ossie_oswald]

"Alright."

Ossie clears his throat. They used to do this back at his Freehold- big eisteddfods for storytelling and poetry and song, which he always attended but never participated in. How could he? Between the Scheherazades and the Johnnies outfiddling the devil, his mundane abilities would have been laughable. But here? Well, there's hardly anyone else, is there.

"There was a nobleman once- went by the name of Bluebeard- and he was a charming sort, but the small problem was that he'd married no less than six times. Each time, his wife disappeared, leaving not a single trace behind. Now it happened that one day Bluebeard was visiting a small tavern, run by a kindly man and his two daughters and five sons, and there Bluebeard fell so fastly for one of the daughters that he insisted on taking her for his wife. When they returned to the castle, Bluebeard gave her a ring of keys, and a very firm instruction. The keys unlocked every room in his fine castle, including his vaults of treasure, his room full of hunting trophies, the kitchens stocked with every ingredient imaginable, every fine bedroom with beds stuffed with swan-down. But one key unlocked a room in the basement, and she must never, ever, ever open it."

[hate_gettin_older]

Edgar leans his forehead against the bars and listens.

Bluebeard insisting on taking the girl for his wife gets a small cynical scoffing noise.
Because of course he did, isn't that how it always goes when the people with the power think they own everyone else --

"Wait, he gave her the key and told her which fuckin room it opened, and then told her she wasn't allowed to?"

[ossie_oswald]

"Just so. In no uncertain terms, either. And for a while, she obeyed. Even when he left to sort out some business. And even when the wife hosted a grand party for her siblings, and her sister asked what was in the basement, the wife was good and obedient and did not look."

Ossie shifts and gives Edgar an almost mischevious look.

"But of course, one can't obey forever, and a nagging voice in her head asked again and again what was down there. What didn't her husband want her to see? So one day, at last, while he was still away, she opened the basement. Do you know what she saw down there?"

[hate_gettin_older]

Hearing a story like this as a kid, he would have tried to prove how smart he was by guessing. Something good he didn't want to share; something bad he didn't want her to know. Maybe both.

Here and now, though he has a suspicion, he doesn't want to voice it.

"No, what?"

[ossie_oswald]

"The other wives," he leans in a little, to impart the gravity of her discovery.

"Each of them on a hook, with a basin of blood at their feet, overflowing. She screamed, and in her panic, dropped the key. She knew that Bluebeard would know by the blood on the key that she had disobeyed, so she tried to clean it off, but the key- it bled, beyond the smear of blood from where she dropped it."

Lowers his voice just a little, "and who then would walk back in the front door, than Bluebeard himself, back early from his trip?"

[hate_gettin_older]

His hand tightens on the bar, despite himself.

Either Bluebeard kills the girl or someone else shows up and saves her, or she somehow finds a way to fight him. He doesn't see another way for this to end, unless -- those other wives, on hooks and bleeding, are they still alive? Could they be saved, could they fight?

It's harder to keep from guessing aloud this time, but he makes himself say "What did she do?"

[ossie_oswald]

"She tried to hide the key, but to no avail. Bluebeard already knew, and set upon her. She begged for one last moment to pray with her sister for her soul, and whatever hesitation this caused in his foul heart, it was enough- her sister and brothers burst through the door, and together, they severed his head from his shoulders, never again would he take another bride."

Ossie folds his hand in his lap, "And they lived on his wealth happily thereafter, so I'm told."

[hate_gettin_older]

"Good," says Edgar, not happily but with grim satisfaction.

And after a pause: "Those other wives ... they were dead? And he kept them hung up like that? Why?"

[ossie_oswald]

"Already murdered. And there's some dissent in opinion about that- it might be to serve as a warning, or there may have been some other purpose to it, something to do with the blood, perhaps. By my count, I would say it's simple punishment for disobeying him."

[hate_gettin_older]

"Sick bastard," says Edgar, though without any particular heat; it is just a story, after all. "But they got him in the end."

[ossie_oswald]

"Quite," Ossie agrees, quietly grateful to have such a good audience.

"I will warn you, Donkeyskin isn't much more pleasant, but it does also end happily, at least."

[hate_gettin_older]

"Tell me that one later, maybe?"

If there's a later.

[ossie_oswald]

"Of course," he agrees, "and thank you for listening. You were a wonderful audience."

There has to be a later; when else will he get to tell the other tale, after all?