#lillianne

@unwholesomeocweek Day 7: "Cannibalism/Codependency"

TW: Minor character death, blood/gore

Close enough, Juno thinks, as she examines the body yet again. It’s female, blonde, nearly the right height. No unfortunate scars or markings to ruin Juno’s mental image of who it’s supposed to be. The hair is missing those familiar red streaks, but... a bit of blood will do the trick, for now. 

She’s already removed the face— leaving a bloody mass of mangled meat in place of the wrong features, the wrong soul to attach to it. That was the first thing she did with the corpse, because seeing someone else was unbearable. 

Lovingly, Juno traces bloody fingers through the body’s short, golden hair. She clumps up red at the tips, trails crimson stains down from the crown of its head. She hasn’t seen the real thing in centuries, but she remembers Lillianne’s appearance as clearly as if a photograph was burned into her mind. 

She’d much rather have her dearest sister now, but beggars can’t be choosers. Close enough will simply have to suffice. 

For now, in a guest room in one of her manors, she and her stand-in sister are alone with each other, magificently isolated from the rest of the world. There’s no one to interrupt her, no one to take her precious sister away. 

With a sigh, Juno rests her head on the body’s chest. 

It’s too limp, too cold, but more appealing right now than another night spent with nothing but her imagination to comfort her. And she can fill in the blanks. Perhaps Lillianne would be this limp while regenerating from particularly nasty wounds. Something vicious enough to have damaged her sweet, pretty face, left her all torn up for Juno to dote on and nurse back to health.

If she takes good care of her sister while she’s weak and wounded, Lillianne will stroke her hair and praise her for it once she’s well. 

Good girl, Juno. Thank you for looking after me. 

Juno can all but hear the words already. She follows the syllables again and again in her head, shivering at the thought of Lillianne’s gratitude, at proving her own use. “I miss you...” she murmurs to the empty room, rubbing her cheek sweetly against the body’s corpse-cold chest. “I want to see you again, sister—”

Suddenly, her not-quite-perfect copy feels far from close enough. Juno wants the real thing. She longs for Lillianne to be with her again, desire so deep it aches like a wound. If only Lillianne could be a part of her, never separated... 

How nice it would be to consume her sister piece by piece, until Lillianne can never leave her behind again. How sweet it would be to have that eternal closeness, perfectly joined with the person who might as well be her other half. 

Juno thinks that, and turns her head to dig her teeth into the meat of the body’s chest. She rips off a chunk and swallows it whole, not bothering to savor a taste that doesn’t belong to her precious person. Her arms squeeze tighter around the body’s narrow waist. But this not-quite-Lillianne doesn’t curse or shove her away. It’s nothing but a hollow fake, in the end. Not enough at all. 

A fairy, a flower, and a princess walk into a bar

Lillith and Helena are the two sisters who fight against the tattoos bearers to tip the scale in favor of the evil. Of course, these aren’t their real names.  Both know how to conjure demons from the negative energy of the surround to fight for them against their opponents. 

At age fifteen, Lillianne’s course in life hasn’t strayed. 

She’s a full-fledged bandit now, treated the same as the rest of the adults. She has her own tent, her own weapons, and her own supplies. A few especially hefty payloads during the most recent spring even bought her own drake to ride, to carry her belongings from place to place. 

She doesn’t rely on the others, now. She doesn’t owe anyone here anything but her strength on their side in a fight. 

Now, she’s included in the group’s plans. On firelit evenings, seated in a lazy circle around the camp’s flickering fire pit, she listens with the others while Mervyn and Allat give the weekly speech about where they’re going, when the next raid will be, and who they might have to deal with along the way— Allat gives the orders as they are, while Mervyn fills in all the little details with the fastidious excess of a man who can’t get enough of hearing his own voice. 

“Lillianne, you’ll take the Western point. Clear the way for the others; no survivors, if you can help it,” Mervyn informs her, his wooden pointer stick highlighting the spot on the map that’s entrusted to her. 

“We can rely on you to take down at least three of them, yeah?” Allat asks, although her faith in the answer is already plain to see. 

People expect things of her, now. She’s one of the most capable fighters in their group already, and only getting better as the months tick by. Against rival bandits, she’s a force to be reckoned with. Against civilians, she’s a death sentence in the flesh.

Planning ahead isn’t her strong suit, but when Mervyn directs her at a target, she completes the objective without fail. Quick. Efficient. Ruthless, because her share of the spoils is always waiting after a win. 

Lillianne dresses herself in leather and ribbons, lace and chain mail and silk. She eats until she’s satisfied, and leaves her scraps to the chore kids without worrying about when she’ll get more. She sharpens her own sword and tends to the drake that faithfully carries her into battle, and every time she spills blood, she feels more alive than anything else. 

Sometimes, she even pictures a future for herself— a future where she’s the one who’s in charge. Where she makes the decisions, and lets Mervyn fill in all the fussy little details that turn them into functional plans. A forbidden, dreamlike future where she’s the strongest of them all.

They walk a ways out into the empty plains together, boots crunching through the frost, side-by-side even though one of them will be lying dead on the icy grass in the next few minutes. 

Out in the wide, rolling low hills, where the rest of the group is so far away that their camp almost disappears behind a dip in the land, there’s a dizzying, liminal sense that she and Allat are the only two people in the world. That there’s no one and nothing else, in the frigid silence beneath a hazy gray sky. 

They stand across from each other, separated only by a scant measure of yards. Lillianne draws her sword; Allat is already holding hers. 

Tunnel-vision closes in— that sudden rush that the life-or-death heat of battle brings. Lillianne’s heart thumps a steady one-two-three, one-two-three against her ribs, and her focus narrows to Allat. To her leader. To her opponent, now. An obstacle she has to overcome.

“You sure you want to do this?” Allat asks before either of them makes the first move. “You understand you might not win?” 

“Why does it matter?” 

“Running a group like this is tough, y’know. And you’re a real asset, kid. I’d hate to lose you.” 

“Same to you.” Lillianne pauses, before the next thought leaves her tongue. “…I wish I could win, and not kill you to do it. You’re strong too. It’d be a right shame if you died so soon.” 

Allat smiles back. It’s not a smirk, anymore. “Sorry, but I’m no one’s underling. I know the risks in this line of work— and so do you. You want to be in charge? You think you’re tough enough to run this bunch without me? Go on, then. Take it from me.” 

Lillianne lunges.

One summer, during a drawn-out sparring session that’s taken up the better part of the afternoon already, Lillianne is splayed out on her back in the dry, sun-warmed grass. Her bangs are sticky with sweat, and her tunic clings to her skin everywhere it touches— she’s breathing hard, sharp, in and out like furnace bellows in this brief stretch of rest. 

Allat, who’s been leading the exercise, leans back against a jagged rock jutting out of the ground just a few feet away. Her shoulders, arms, and forehead are sweat-slick, scars flushed rosy and glowing in the relentless mid-day sun. She’s catching her breath too, eyes closed. 

“How’d you end up in charge of us all, anyway?” Lillianne asks. It comes out of her suddenly, before she can quite puzzle out whether or not it’s a good idea to ask that question at all. 

Allat cracks open one wine-dark, crimson eye. “I killed the last boss. That’s how it goes, unless someone’s enough of a coward to run when they’ve started to lose.” 

“That’s all?”

“I’m the boss because I’m the strongest. If anyone has a complaint about how I run things, they can either take over or get the hell out.” 

“Huh. Didn’t think it’d be that simple,” Lillianne replies in a deadpan, brain-fried mumble. The heat is cooking her stupid, even before all of the grappling and dodging and running around. 

Allat laughs— a short, rumbling huff. “Yeah, it was. I thought so too. That’s why I tried, back then, just because it seemed like I could.” 

Lillianne keeps that thought, runs it over in her head time and time again like river water wearing down a stone’s bumpy edges. She respects Allat. She believes in Allat’s leadership, and has no reason to doubt a future under her reign. And yet, Lillianne can’t help but wonder if it would be so simple for her, too— what would happen if she tried. 

Living alongside her long-time leader as the days and months and seasons trickle past, Lillianne thinks more and more often about taking Allat’s power for herself.