scawwy: pc: camille

[trashprince]

[ i'm gonna be your friend so hard ]

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weekend0 saturday;

[trashprince]

[ hello lady. perhaps they cross paths by the pyre, not only for the alliteration, but because it's warm after such meager, blandass food. caelus has recovered his threads and his bat, but it hangs loosely at his side. no dangers here. ]

Hi there. We haven't talked yet.

[ that couldn't possibly be by design! :) ]

[scrapdraught]

No we haven't.

[She takes a seat and gives him a smile, half-cocked though it may be. Her eyes do run over his clothes and especially the bat, but hey, at least someone's armed. She's feeling a little naked herself despite her lack of expertise.

Whatever. Some people fight wars and brawl in bars, others type up slander and simpering about it the next day. Where would the world be without both?]

And why is that? Do I intimidate you?

[As a woman, as a reporter, as a stranger. Some people are just naturally stand-offish.]

[trashprince]

[ caelus flounders and chooses the (remain silent) dialogue option, not intimidated at all until the idea has been planted in his head. should he be? he skimmed the profiles earlier but didn't memorize anyone's information. is the lady a killer for hire? a mafia boss? should he have remained distant?

another dialogue tree appears where the first failed him. a beat of quiet, then ]

I'm sorry. I spent yesterday in the clown theater.

[scrapdraught]

[Light snort.]

Sorry I didn't drop by. I'm Camille, by the way. If that helps any.

[Relax my guy.]

week0 sunday; post-execution

[trashprince]

[ caelus has cleaned and refilled one of the troughs back by the barn. he removed his jacket, splashing water over his face and neck.

he was standing stupid close to the not-having-it veil throughout execution. gotta cool down. ]

[scrapdraught]

[Watches him strip a second time....

No she approaches softly, rather without intention to speaking frankly. She tilts her head from some yards away, calling out.]

What're you doing?

[It's cold as a witch's tit out here?]

[trashprince]

[ go ahead, camille. nobody is here to judge you and we're less than 24-hrs from affection week. ]

If you tried to get past the veil and weren't Karlach, it felt like your insides were on fire.

[ and someone dumb stayed toe-to-toe with it out of pure indignation at the denial ]

[scrapdraught]

[They meet at the same trough tomorrow to make out]

...Glad I held back then.

[Especially after Boothill took a swing at them. Barrier or not, that spooked her good.]

You were pretty incensed, huh?

week1 sunday;

[trashprince]

[ it's all over. asa has already been carried away by the clown squad and the rest of them are let to mill about and absorb what they witnesses. caelus sits upon the fence near the perimeter of the ranch, seated there, absolutely staring into space.

until he sees camille and simply must give a wave. ]

Hey.

[scrapdraught]

Hey.

[She sounds hoarse. Is hoarse. She'd committed less dramatics today than she had last week, but that's only because her mouth stayed shut. Her conniptions had been corked, leaving her eyes to bulge and her face to pale and her stomach to flip and flop and threaten to punch out of her gut altogether.

She assumes the spot next to Caelus, hopping up easy for a sit. Just like old times.]

What a fucking week.

[trashprince]

[ you know what else caelus has? a spicy weedpeach. wordlessly holds that out to her if she'd like to take a bite. ]

All the murders. These Sunday rituals. We're also taking each other out without a vote.

[ he gets why vin did what she did. he does.

but how can they all stick together through this? none trust. ]

[scrapdraught]

[oh thank god.

Camille leans in and takes her bite, not bothering to reach for it herself. Call it another casualty of this touchy-feely-week. Better this than the writing again.]

I can't say I saw that last one coming. It was over and done with quick as a wink. [She shakes her head.] What if Nona hadn't been the killer?

WEEK 2: Tuesday (1/2)

[scrapdraught]

[PUTTING THIS BEFORE ALL OF THAT MESS WOW we don't have to know ishtar is dead

Anyway they are chilling, and suddenly A VOID SWALLOWS THEM WHoooaOOAOOooa]


((NOTE: keep in mind that caelus will be able to see her scars in this, though they are not mentioned.))

2/2 (EXCERPT) ((SPOILERS, CWs for parental/caregiver abuse, sadism, loss of autonomy,body exposure))

[scrapdraught]

"Camille. Open up." My mother, but not angry. Coaxing. Nice, even. I remained silent. A few more jiggles. A knock. Then silence as she padded away again.

Camille. Open up. The image of my mother sitting on the edge of my bed, a spoonful of sour-smelling syrup hovering over me. Her medicine always made me feel sicker than before. Weak stomach. Not as bad as Marian's, but still weak.

My hands began sweating. Please don't let her come back. I had a flash of Curry, one of his crappy ties swinging wildly over his belly, busting into the room to save me. Carrying me off in his smoky Ford Taurus, Eileen stroking my hair on the way back to Chicago.

My mother slipped a key into the lock. I never knew she had a key. She entered the room smugly, her chin tilted high as usual, the key dangling from a long pink ribbon. She wore a powder blue sundress and carried a bottle of rubbing alcohol, a box of tissues, and a satiny red cosmetic bag.

"Hi baby," she sighed. "Amma told me about what happened to you two. My poor little ones. She's been purging all morning. I swear, and I know it will sound boastful, but except for our own little outfit, meat is getting completely unreliable these days. Amma said it was probably the chicken?"

"I guess so," I said. I could only run with whatever lie Amma told. It was clear she could maneuver better than I.

"I can't believe you both fainted right on our own stairs, while I was sleeping just inside. I hate that idea," Adora said. "Her bruises! You'd have thought she was in a catfight."

There's no way my mother bought that story. She was an expert in illness and injury, and she would not be taken in unless she wanted to be. Now she was going to tend to me, and I was too weak and desperate to ward her off. I began crying again, unable to stop.

"I feel sick, Momma."

"I know, baby." She stripped the sheet off me, flung it down past my toes in one efficient move, and when I instinctively put my hands across myself, she took them and placed them firmly to my side.

"I have to see what's wrong, Camille." She tilted my jaw from side to side and pulled my lower lip down, like she was inspecting a horse. She raised each of my arms slowly and peered into my armpits, jabbing fingers into the hollows, then rubbed my throat to feel for swollen glands. I remembered the drill. She put a hand between my legs, quickly, professionally. It was the best way to feel a temperature, she always said. Then she softly, lightly drew her cool fingers down my legs, and jabbed her thumb directly into open wound of my smashed ankle. Bright green splashes exploded in front of my eyes, and I automatically tucked my legs beneath me, turned on my side. She used the moment to poke at my head until she hit the smashed-fruit spot on its crown.

"Just another little bit, Camille, and we'll be all over." She wet her tissues with alcohol and scrubbed at my ankle until I couldn't see anything for my tears and snot. Then she wrapped it tight with gauze that she cut with tiny clippers from her cosmetic bag. The wound began bleeding through immediately so the wrapping soon looked like the flag of Japan: pure white with a defiant red circle. Next she tilted my head down with one hand and I felt an urgent tugging at my hair. She was cutting it off around the wound. I began to pull away.

"Don't you dare, Camille. I'll cut you. Lie back down and be a good girl." She pressed a cool hand on my cheek, holding my head in place against the pillow, and snip snip snip, sawed through a swath of my hair until I felt a release. An eerie exposure to air that my scalp was unused to. I reached back and felt a prickly patch the size of a half dollar on my head. My mother quickly pulled my hand away, tucked it against my side, and began rubbing alcohol on my scalp. Again I lost my breath the pain was so stunning.

She rolled me onto my back and ran a wet washcloth over my limbs as if I were bedridden. Her eyes were pink where she'd been pulling at the lashes. Her cheeks had that girlish flush. She'd plucked up her cosmetic bag and began sifting through various pillboxes and tubes, finding a square of folded tissue from the bottom, wadded and slightly stained. From its centre she produced an electric blue pill.

"One second, sweetheart."

I could hear her hit the steps urgently, and knew she was heading down to the kitchen.

[trashprince]

[ what caelus has for a mother is a kafka and she's not actually anything like a parent. same for himeko, the de facto 'mom' on the astral express. it's fun, it's a joke, it's not the same as having an actual mother, and it's certainly not the same as having an actual mother you can't trust.

within her memory, caelus sits behind camille's eyes and has her thoughts inside his skull. then her pain within his body, the agony of a jabbed ankle wound--scrubbed, afterward. what the fuck? what the fuck kind of mom does this?

cocolia, maybe, but post-corruption. yukong, never--she loves her daughter so sincerely, so completely. that's what camille should have had.

he wakes up, head swimming. they are somewhere in the outside area of the gas station. caelus breaks out into a cold sweat and seeks camille's hand to hold if she'll let him. ]

Miss Camille--did you make it out of that place?

WEEK 3: Monday

[scrapdraught]

[They are at...spins roulette, the hallowed city!

Camille presents a scrap of parchment for Caelus to read. Some treatise on life and death and the inner workings of both.]

What do you make of all this?

[trashprince]

[ so many words. so many big words. so many words and so many of them uniquely big. ]

Life and death are two sides of the same coin...?

[ definitely a question ]

[scrapdraught]

[The way i can't hear that without thinking of the one season of d20 that barely anyone has seen bc it's covid zoom era....shakes]

...Well, guess neither of us majored in philosophy.

[Camille tucks it away to bring to smarter people than the pair of them. Maybe.]

Does it seem a little pointed to you? Every place we visit gets a little bit weightier. Weirder.

[trashprince]

[ well now i'm just curious ]

It does.

[ something lights up behind his eyes. synapses firing. ]

I wonder if it's related to...

[ shuts himself up. unsure!!!! miss camille, can he talk to you still?? ]

week 6, wednesday

[trashprince]

[ waving as he approaches. this is post-pardi and seems like caelus is able to leave that area. hooray! untethered! ]

Hello again.

[scrapdraught]

[Post-pardi....]

Fancy seeing you here. [Camille smiles.] Looks like your scrap of trash paper had something to it.

[trashprince]

[ opens mouth then quickly shuts it. shifty eyes. hmmmm. ]

Let's not talk about paper.

[ time for a change of topic ]

I want to know how you're holding up.

week 7, saturday

[trashprince]

[ does she want a drink? that would surely be okay after such a long day. they could be at the graveyard stripper bar. cozy. caelus knows how to mix a mean whatever she'd like, even a n/a version if camille needs to resist the temptation ]

[scrapdraught]

[Yes please. She wants a diggity dang drink.

She's kind of oozing against the bar, social decorum be damned. Watching Caelus work his magic.]

You used to bartend?

[trashprince]

[ a drink for you, miss had to learn and then lose magic in a day. deserved.

he's already straining a delightfully amber mixture into a glass over ice. ]

For a while. I'm not as good as Daan, but I'm not bad.