“I can’t live in that house with her.” for miranda :)
there is a long, unravelling silence. then: "once, there was a mother and a girl," the priestess wraps one golden-taloned hand around the girls hands. her grip isn't hard or unrelenting - but it is insistent. "they were separated by something they could not cross." her eyes flick to yukako's. death. what else could keep mother and child apart? "they searched for one another. they banged their fists against this invisible wall. they wept." her grip tightens. "they vowed to stay close to that initial separation. the incision that kept them apart. here." a ghost of a smile passes over her mouth - for a girl she found bleeding in the snow? desolated by the death of her mother? mother miranda summons all the approximations of kindness to flesh this story's true skeletal purpose. "do as you will, child. but the castle is where your mother died. if you stray, she is lost to you fully." her gaze does not break. she does not blink. she is lying, of course, when she says 'do as you will' - for miranda will always say something and find a way to tip the table, change the game - but not about the grief. the priestess' hand presses against the flat of her breast bone. a finger hooks under yukako's wrist, feeling that bright pulse. their heartbeats were one.
"i can hear her, child. the glut of the castle runs into the ground, and here she remains." and it was true: the BLACK GOD stored every soul as a murmuring husk, inert and untouchable, but here nonetheless, pulsing in the ground. every terrified maid, every severed soldier. all here, groaning eternally in the fungal root that grew beneath this place. miranda's hand falls to join the other. her grip slackens. her eyes narrow. "are you going to leave your mother again?"
