‘What are you doing, Larkula?’
The named blonde winced as Rhapsody’s voice echoed inside her skull, inducing a painful throbbing that she knew would last for the next hour. She had almost been hoping that her prickly sister wouldn’t notice what the mage was doing.
“Living a little,” she shot back out loud with plenty of snark, and next to her, Aries stiffened at the sudden break in what had previously only been a monotony of footsteps.
“Is something wrong, Lark?” the rose haired girl asked as she ceased walking and reached towards the other female’s shoulder. The red eyed mage jerked at the contact.
“…Hai, everything is fine,” she muttered before tugging her arm away from the Zodiac spirit.
‘The heck are you saying? Go back to the garden right now!’
She stumbled at the voice that seemed to cut right through every ligament and measure of free will in her body. Like Rhapsody was the conductor who had deemed the performance over, and she was a puppet with broken strings. Her face so taut with tension that the skin looked ready to tear over her cheek bones, the mage came to a rattling halt, half bent towards the ground. All she wanted to do was curl up in pain, but she struggled to stay on her feet, knowing that Aries was watching unknowingly.
“Lark, are you okay?” the spirit’s voice rose as she too stopped and extended both arms to wrap around the suddenly frail looking blonde. “Lark, talk to me,” she ordered, although her tone was thick with worry rather than command. The mage shuddered in response, her mind overwhelmed by a sudden barrage of arguments that had been spurred on by Rhapsody lashing out.
‘Useless idiot…’
‘She’s not bad, just stupid,’ Pansy offered in half-hearted defense for the ghosts’ little sister, and Hya laughed.
‘You all are blind. Can’t you see that her recklessness is going to get us killed very soon if we don’t do something about it?’ Rhapsody hissed.
‘Well, we can’t actually die-’ sweet Aster protested before Hya slapped the gentle female into silence.
‘We’d be lost in the spirit world so it’s basically the same thing,’ she sniped.
“Lark, what’s going on?” Aries bit her lip as she held the girl tight. Reaching all the way around the slim figure, she enveloped the mage in a blanket of fluffy wool just now conjured. All of a sudden as she had almost connected the two ends of the velvety pelt, her ears picked up something strange.
‘If you love us at all, Larkula, you’ll go back to the garden right now,’ a solemn voice said. ‘It’s not safe out here for people like you.’
‘Won’t you ever shut up about that useless garden?’ interrupted Orchid with a bored tone. ‘Jesus, Lily, that’s all you and Rhapp ever drone on about. Fix those broken records already.’
“Stop it! Stop it right now!” the Zodiac spirit panicked as she noticed how the blonde in her arms was trembling, shivering despite the blanket and the shining sun.
There was a beat of radio silence, and then, pandemonium.
‘Gods, she can hear us!’
‘It’s another spirit, guys!’
‘Calm down, it’s not like this hasn’t happened before,’ Lily began, but Aries was already fed up with their nonsense and clung desperately to the blonde, whispering in an urgent tone, “Lark, whatever you’re hearing-”
“My sisters,” flew from the pale lips with a slight stutter as she squeezed her eyes closed.
“Right, your sisters. Is there any way to, um, get them out of your head?” the ram asked hurriedly.
The mage surprised Aries by gazing directly up at the spirit’s face with eyes that suddenly seemed to be bloodshot. “They’re always in somebody’s head,” she whispered hoarsely. “Mine or yours. And Rule Number Six,” she suddenly recited with a change of voice, “Do not impose upon guests.” Her eyes briefly flashed before the last bit of light seemed to drain away. “I can’t let you take them. Maman would be angry if I did.”
Utterly at a loss for what to do now, Aries tentatively bowed her head to place a careful kiss on Lark’s forehead. “What if I’m not your guest? I think I’m your friend,” she proposed. The blonde girl’s face became completely lifeless and robotic for a moment as more words tumbled out of her mouth, like a walking reference for all these strange laws. It hadn’t been the reaction that the rose haired spirit had hoped for, but at least she no longer seemed about to cry?
“All rules involving friends.” She paused, as if to read the entries in an encyclopedia underneath that key word or as though to read over results from a catalog search. “Rule Number Two. Friends are to be taken after a maximum number of acquaintance encounters, guest duties, or exceptional states are fulfilled or completed. All friends must not be applicable to Rules regarding authority. Rule Number Three. All friends are permitted to ask any task of a caretaker. Rule Number Four. Friendship age for the sake of precedents cannot be specified beyond the measure of weeks. Rule Number Nineteen. Friends are exempt from inquisition unless the friendship age exceeds the-”
“Enough!” Aries yelped, smashing her palms over her ears. “Lark, I am your friend, please just trust me.”
The girl’s right eye whirled around briefly in its socket before the blonde said in a monotone, “Rule Number Fourteen. Do not trust unless explicit rules dictate it is acceptable to use this term in conjunction with a relationship. Rule Number Sixty-four. Do not accept unauthorized information. Wait. A contradiction has been found. Rule Number Ninety-two states. Do not argue unless the following conditions have been met: A witness is available to testify to these truths…”
“And as your friend, you owe me, uh, a favor,” the ram suggested as confidently as she could, ignoring everything that had just been said. The mage blinked twice before her voice came out again, this time bright and eager with an accompanying smile so blinding that the Zodiac animal thought she ought to close her eyes.
“Of course. Miss Aries, qu’est-ce que tu voudrais?” flowed out gaily in that new voice.
“I, uh,” Aries swallowed once before demanding uncertainly, “Put your sisters’ voices in my head.”
As the girls expression grew blank once again, the spirit assumed she had made a terrible mistake.
But then Lark slipped off the heavy bracelet of keys that had always hung on her left wrist like a terrible weight. “Here you are Miss Aries,” the blonde said easily with a neutral smile.
The pink haired female reached out to grab it, and as soon as the metal lost contact with the mage’s skin, the red eyed girl slumped to the ground, lids slamming shut and lips falling into an abrupt line.
“Lark!” Aries began to bend down to try and help her, but voices, stronger than the ones she had caught wind of before, suddenly assaulted her brain. The ram toppled over next to Lark on the blanket, clutching at her hair before massaging her scalp with shaking hands. It… it didn’t exactly, hurt, but the sudden barrage was troubling.
“She’s fine, we’d never hurt her, but you’re an-”
“Idiot. We were feeding her all the information about the rules because she-”
“Always forgets them, stupid girl, but the problem now is that Rhapp has-”
“And Lily.”
“Yeah, Rhapp and Lilly have direct access to your mind now, and they-”
“You could only hear them through Lark before, they couldn’t be in your-”
“Brain. But now you’ve gone and-” Pansy was suddenly cut off by a scream, but it took a moment for Aries to realize it wasn’t coming from inside her head, from among these clamoring foreign sounding people.
No, it was coming from her. From Aries, from herself, and from her skull that felt as though it was splitting in two.
The named blonde winced as Rhapsody’s voice echoed inside her skull, inducing a painful throbbing that she knew would last for the next hour. She had almost been hoping that her prickly sister wouldn’t notice what the mage was doing.
“Living a little,” she shot back out loud with plenty of snark, and next to her, Aries stiffened at the sudden break in what had previously only been a monotony of footsteps.
“Is something wrong, Lark?” the rose haired girl asked as she ceased walking and reached towards the other female’s shoulder. The red eyed mage jerked at the contact.
“…Hai, everything is fine,” she muttered before tugging her arm away from the Zodiac spirit.
‘The heck are you saying? Go back to the garden right now!’
She stumbled at the voice that seemed to cut right through every ligament and measure of free will in her body. Like Rhapsody was the conductor who had deemed the performance over, and she was a puppet with broken strings. Her face so taut with tension that the skin looked ready to tear over her cheek bones, the mage came to a rattling halt, half bent towards the ground. All she wanted to do was curl up in pain, but she struggled to stay on her feet, knowing that Aries was watching unknowingly.
“Lark, are you okay?” the spirit’s voice rose as she too stopped and extended both arms to wrap around the suddenly frail looking blonde. “Lark, talk to me,” she ordered, although her tone was thick with worry rather than command. The mage shuddered in response, her mind overwhelmed by a sudden barrage of arguments that had been spurred on by Rhapsody lashing out.
‘Useless idiot…’
‘She’s not bad, just stupid,’ Pansy offered in half-hearted defense for the ghosts’ little sister, and Hya laughed.
‘You all are blind. Can’t you see that her recklessness is going to get us killed very soon if we don’t do something about it?’ Rhapsody hissed.
‘Well, we can’t actually die-’ sweet Aster protested before Hya slapped the gentle female into silence.
‘We’d be lost in the spirit world so it’s basically the same thing,’ she sniped.
“Lark, what’s going on?” Aries bit her lip as she held the girl tight. Reaching all the way around the slim figure, she enveloped the mage in a blanket of fluffy wool just now conjured. All of a sudden as she had almost connected the two ends of the velvety pelt, her ears picked up something strange.
‘If you love us at all, Larkula, you’ll go back to the garden right now,’ a solemn voice said. ‘It’s not safe out here for people like you.’
‘Won’t you ever shut up about that useless garden?’ interrupted Orchid with a bored tone. ‘Jesus, Lily, that’s all you and Rhapp ever drone on about. Fix those broken records already.’
“Stop it! Stop it right now!” the Zodiac spirit panicked as she noticed how the blonde in her arms was trembling, shivering despite the blanket and the shining sun.
There was a beat of radio silence, and then, pandemonium.
‘Gods, she can hear us!’
‘It’s another spirit, guys!’
‘Calm down, it’s not like this hasn’t happened before,’ Lily began, but Aries was already fed up with their nonsense and clung desperately to the blonde, whispering in an urgent tone, “Lark, whatever you’re hearing-”
“My sisters,” flew from the pale lips with a slight stutter as she squeezed her eyes closed.
“Right, your sisters. Is there any way to, um, get them out of your head?” the ram asked hurriedly.
The mage surprised Aries by gazing directly up at the spirit’s face with eyes that suddenly seemed to be bloodshot. “They’re always in somebody’s head,” she whispered hoarsely. “Mine or yours. And Rule Number Six,” she suddenly recited with a change of voice, “Do not impose upon guests.” Her eyes briefly flashed before the last bit of light seemed to drain away. “I can’t let you take them. Maman would be angry if I did.”
Utterly at a loss for what to do now, Aries tentatively bowed her head to place a careful kiss on Lark’s forehead. “What if I’m not your guest? I think I’m your friend,” she proposed. The blonde girl’s face became completely lifeless and robotic for a moment as more words tumbled out of her mouth, like a walking reference for all these strange laws. It hadn’t been the reaction that the rose haired spirit had hoped for, but at least she no longer seemed about to cry?
“All rules involving friends.” She paused, as if to read the entries in an encyclopedia underneath that key word or as though to read over results from a catalog search. “Rule Number Two. Friends are to be taken after a maximum number of acquaintance encounters, guest duties, or exceptional states are fulfilled or completed. All friends must not be applicable to Rules regarding authority. Rule Number Three. All friends are permitted to ask any task of a caretaker. Rule Number Four. Friendship age for the sake of precedents cannot be specified beyond the measure of weeks. Rule Number Nineteen. Friends are exempt from inquisition unless the friendship age exceeds the-”
“Enough!” Aries yelped, smashing her palms over her ears. “Lark, I am your friend, please just trust me.”
The girl’s right eye whirled around briefly in its socket before the blonde said in a monotone, “Rule Number Fourteen. Do not trust unless explicit rules dictate it is acceptable to use this term in conjunction with a relationship. Rule Number Sixty-four. Do not accept unauthorized information. Wait. A contradiction has been found. Rule Number Ninety-two states. Do not argue unless the following conditions have been met: A witness is available to testify to these truths…”
“And as your friend, you owe me, uh, a favor,” the ram suggested as confidently as she could, ignoring everything that had just been said. The mage blinked twice before her voice came out again, this time bright and eager with an accompanying smile so blinding that the Zodiac animal thought she ought to close her eyes.
“Of course. Miss Aries, qu’est-ce que tu voudrais?” flowed out gaily in that new voice.
“I, uh,” Aries swallowed once before demanding uncertainly, “Put your sisters’ voices in my head.”
As the girls expression grew blank once again, the spirit assumed she had made a terrible mistake.
But then Lark slipped off the heavy bracelet of keys that had always hung on her left wrist like a terrible weight. “Here you are Miss Aries,” the blonde said easily with a neutral smile.
The pink haired female reached out to grab it, and as soon as the metal lost contact with the mage’s skin, the red eyed girl slumped to the ground, lids slamming shut and lips falling into an abrupt line.
“Lark!” Aries began to bend down to try and help her, but voices, stronger than the ones she had caught wind of before, suddenly assaulted her brain. The ram toppled over next to Lark on the blanket, clutching at her hair before massaging her scalp with shaking hands. It… it didn’t exactly, hurt, but the sudden barrage was troubling.
“She’s fine, we’d never hurt her, but you’re an-”
“Idiot. We were feeding her all the information about the rules because she-”
“Always forgets them, stupid girl, but the problem now is that Rhapp has-”
“And Lily.”
“Yeah, Rhapp and Lilly have direct access to your mind now, and they-”
“You could only hear them through Lark before, they couldn’t be in your-”
“Brain. But now you’ve gone and-” Pansy was suddenly cut off by a scream, but it took a moment for Aries to realize it wasn’t coming from inside her head, from among these clamoring foreign sounding people.
No, it was coming from her. From Aries, from herself, and from her skull that felt as though it was splitting in two.
