006 Video; UN: Filledwithsunshine

[onebadapple]

CW: Violence against a teen, past child abuse and neglect

[The fairest of them all was certainly not looking that way today. Her left arm was in a sling and cast, there was a bandage on her left cheek and a bandaid over her left temple. There are bruises on her right arm but the major damage is very clearly on her left side. Her omen, Faramund, the giant stag was staying right by her side and all the animals that perpetually come and go and live in her home all seem a bit more uneasy, as if they're glaring at the camera, ready to fight for her sake.]

Oh my! It got so cold so quickly! We're just jumping right into fall! I hope this won't affect the harvest!

We'll just have to pickle and preserve some things a bit earlier than expected! It's such a shame, it feels like we skipped right past the last bit of summer... oh dear, I'll have to check on all the baby animals in the forest. [What if they don't have their winter coats in time? Well, they can stay with her, she can ask her cult the people who consistently linger around her house to help with getting the little ones into her home if winter proves especially harsh.]

Oh ah... which does bring me to my next thought.

While I know it's important to preserve, cure, dry, and pickle things for winter, well, we need some levity too! The boardwalk had all sorts of food and games, but perhaps we can extend that into the town! Help... ease some tension and rebuild bridges.

[She idly rubs her cast.]

If anyone has any ideas on a festival or... anything, do let me know. Perhaps a festival is asking for too much, but perhaps a giant... ah, what is it called? Potluck? It seems a shame to end summer on such a [violent] tense note!

Comments

[onebadapple]

Luz, dear, it's a magical apple capable of luring people to take a bite and kill them. Even now, months later, it hasn't shown an ounce of decay or rot. I don't want to keep it at all, but better to know precisely where it is at all times than to throw it out and guess what might happen to it.

[imaglyphwitch]

Oh. I didn't even think of it. I just figured you might throw it in the garbage and no one would even want to touch it afterward. But if it doesn't rot...eventually someone WOULD try to eat it.

Do you have, like, a lock box to keep it in?

[onebadapple]

Well, of course I do, Luz. I'm not foolish. I'm well aware of just how dangerous that apple is. Don't you trust me?

[imaglyphwitch]

Of course not! I didn't mean to imply that!

I figured you might have just kept it in a closet or something though, if you didn't have it in a box.

[onebadapple]

You don't think I'm foolish, but you think I would just have put a dangerous apple that killed me in the closet like a piece of clothing?

Luz, that's quite unkind of you. I've had that apple for a year since I've been here, not once have you heard of my biting into it or someone else suffering its effects.

[imaglyphwitch]

I mean...if you didn't have a box...only you would know it was there, stashed away?

But then I guess anyone WOULD see it and might want to take a bite.

[This was definitely the last conversation Luz thought she'd ever be having with Snow].

I didn't mean to say you wouldn't think of a safe place to put it. Obviously you know what it does better than anyone! Honestly, I didn't even think it would come with you at all. It's a strange thing for this place to bring with you to begin with.

[onebadapple]

Why is it strange? It was in my hands when I died and it people arrive here with possessions all the time.

But regardless of that, Luz, I took precautions with it. It's locked away and no one but Faramund and I know where it is and while others have been told about it, I've certainly not pulled it out or shown them its location.

You may not have meant to say it, but you also aren't apologizing, Luz. You're continuing to tell me everything I already know like you don't wish to apologize.

[imaglyphwitch]

I didn't think they'd consider that a possession once you took a bite? But maybe I shouldn't have been thinking it in that sense, it is magic.

Right, of course.

...

Yeah. You're...you're right. I'm sorry. I honestly didn't mean to imply that, but that doesn't mean you're not right. Of course you'd make sure no one would get a hold of it.

[onebadapple]

[It's also an apple literally created for "the fairest" and she holds that title in her world, even in death.

She nods as Luz apologizes. She knows she's right, that's why she said what she said. She smiles and inclines her head.]

Thank you for your apology, Luz. I would never let something my stepmother made to harm me harm anyone else.

[imaglyphwitch]

[Luz was taking that moment to remember something she had learned a long time ago: you never left your world unimpacted. You always took a bit with you, whether it was physical, emotional, or mental, and most of the time it was all of them. With Snow White, Luz partly realized she couldn't get over how much had been done to her by that stepmother, and Snow was still so sweet and gentle. Knowing now that the apple, the thing that killed her, was still there, looming, seemed too cruel for Luz to understand, that Snow would have to still have it as a reminder of what happened to her].

I should have figured you wouldn't want anyone else to stumble on it. We can all technically come back as squid things but dying is not something anyone wants to happen more than once.

[And while she didn't say it aloud, she was thinking it: they BOTH knew that the hard way].

Out of curiosity, how many people know about the apple still being a thing?

[onebadapple]

Because of what it is... somehow I feel like biting the apple would not mean a regular death. [Not with the way it felt, not with the way it tempted. She wasn't sure what sort of death it caused, but it while it was swift, it was painful.]

Including you and myself? Three, four if one of them even remembers.

[Others had known but they were gone now.]

[imaglyphwitch]

Really? Well, maybe not. I mean, I can do magic here, which should be impossible. So maybe Trench finds a way to enchant things that might normally not be meant to exist.

Oh. That's good, in case something weird happens. This place can sometimes bring out some pretty bad situations, where we might find ourselves pitted against each other.

[That whole thing with Ochako came to mind, and some of the horrible stuff she said at the time].

[onebadapple]

[Snow looks down at her broken wrist and then pressed her lips together. Is... Is Luz taunting her? Is she teasing her with that comment? After what Snow literally told her earlier?]

Luz... dear, I think you need to put on some listening ears. I am aware that this place is capable of bad situations where we're pitted against one another.

[imaglyphwitch]

I know, I know. I probably sound like a broken record. I don't mean to! It's just...

[She trailed off. How should she phrase this]?

It just feels like HOW it does it sometimes that completely throws me. It shouldn't, I KNOW its capable. I guess I still carry that hope of what was said before we got here, when we were in Deerington. That things would be different.

Sometimes it feels like there's no real way to even prepare for it. You could be well versed in magic, or like, trying to stop something bad from happening, and then things just somehow get worse.

[onebadapple]

I was never in Deerington, Luz, I don't know what was said. But more than that, you can't always stop bad things from happening, no matter how skilled you are or how prepared you try to be. Bad things will happen. What is important is how we respond to them.

If you spend all your time trying to answer every what if, you will only be spending your time on what ifs and then you'll wonder where all the time had gone.

And I don't know any magic, but I don't see why knowing magic would change what this world can and can't do. It only changes how you feel about things.

[imaglyphwitch]

That's pretty true. I guess if there was really anything that you learned from Deerington, it was how to roll with the punches when something DID go down.

[Not that you were always prepared, which was the point Snow was trying to make: you couldn't always BE prepared, because it would only make you a nervous wreck. No one could know what would happen next. That was the nature of Trench most of the time].

I don't know if I'd go that far. Knowing magic isn't required, sure, but it can definitely come in handy when this place throws you into one of those kinds of situations where you have to actually make things happen. Like, if you get thrown into a world where you have to go undercover to get something, or heck, if you have to actually go toe to toe with something much bigger than you.

[And Luz couldn't begin to recount how many times those situations had come up].

[onebadapple]

[Snow White sighs, not bothering to point out she couldn't have learned anything from Deerington because she had never been there. The list of places she's been can all be counted on one hand. She tilts her head.]

Luz... I don't have magic, nor do I know any magic, that is why I cannot, for any reason, depend on it. There isn't some way for me to have it suddenly come in handy. But I've made do just fine with who I am and how I go about the world.

[imaglyphwitch]

[Right. There really were starting to get less and less people from Deerington as the months went by. Even she was starting to take note.

Luz opened her mouth, then closed it. There WERE some ways, but chances were that Snow would likely not be into how they came about, since that was either blood or body augmentations].

I guess you have a point. And you have lived here pretty well. This isn't like the really bad forests that are deeper into Trench. In that case, I guess I haven't been too helpful.

Even with MY magic, I'd have to take precautions too, and probably different ones so the animals in the barn wouldn't be at risk.