She was going to be used as a sacrifice to become the vessel of an immortal sorcerer in order to keep them stable. [ it's a lot of anime bs i can explain in dms if you want ]
That group... viewed that process as tainting the divine nature of that sorcerer.
So they killed her. Her life meant nothing to them.
"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.
[ Ugh. The memory settles over like nausea, something unsettling and wrong all over his skin and in the pit of his stomach. It's like the buzzing of curses under his skin, each one that he consumed and now lives in the amalgamation of his cursed energy.
He hates it. ]
Why did she do that?
More spoilers/cw for mental illness, allusions to sexual assault of a minor
[God. This fucking week is a nightmare. Camille hasn't been so bodily humiliated in front of this many young boys since she was younger even than them.
She has her hand pressed over her eyes, breathing slow. Coming down from the queasy sweat her mother's work puts her in.]
...Ever heard of Munchausen's? [Camille swallows. Risks looking him in the eye.] How about Munchausen's by Proxy?
The police found a diary when they finally took her in. It sounded like she hadn't planned on killing her, but she wasn't too torn up about it. More concerned about how much weight she'd lost and how nice everyone was being to her.
[Like she'd dropped an egg making cookies. Oops! Sorry about that, can you clean it up for me dear?]
She was poisoning Amma, too. I didn't realize what had happened until I went back last year. I never liked letting her take care of me, so I never got the worst of it.
[Perhaps she's being unkind to Adora. Grandma Joya sounded about as bad, with different methods. There could have been a sort of love involved. Somewhere beneath the sickness.]
Listen, it's not...it's over. Like I said, she's gone from my life. Incarcerated. It's not something you need to worry about me for. I promise.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
[As if she weren't aware that the kids here were knee deep in the shit. The shock has rattled her back to prior sensibilities. Renewed horror.]
What did she do? For god's sake, she's just a baby. She was only asking for more time...
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That group... viewed that process as tainting the divine nature of that sorcerer.
So they killed her. Her life meant nothing to them.
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[God. She hates to even imagine it. Inured to cruelty as she is, there's always a new way to turn your stomach.]
What did you do after that? You didn't get hurt, did you?
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[ But he did get his ass kicked. ]
He only cared about his payment, so.
[ Kabby... my memory... ]
1/2
She doesn't get the chance to though.]
2/2 (EXCERPT) ((SPOILERS, CW: parental/caregiver abuse, self harm, autonomy loss, sadism, exposure))
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.
no subject
He hates it. ]
Why did she do that?
More spoilers/cw for mental illness, allusions to sexual assault of a minor
She has her hand pressed over her eyes, breathing slow. Coming down from the queasy sweat her mother's work puts her in.]
...Ever heard of Munchausen's? [Camille swallows. Risks looking him in the eye.] How about Munchausen's by Proxy?
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He meets her gaze, sympathetic, before looking down to grant her some privacy. ]
It's a mental health condition, right? Where you imagine illnesses?
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More or less. With the by proxy crowd, you're making someone in your care sick.
It's usually about the attention of it, being seen caring for someone. Or...grieving them. If you go too far.
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[ Ugh, his stomach twists at that. ]
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I had another sister. Before Amma. [Camille quiets. Jaw tight.] Marian was very good about taking her medicine.
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She killed her own daughter? How could—
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The police found a diary when they finally took her in. It sounded like she hadn't planned on killing her, but she wasn't too torn up about it. More concerned about how much weight she'd lost and how nice everyone was being to her.
[Like she'd dropped an egg making cookies. Oops! Sorry about that, can you clean it up for me dear?]
She was poisoning Amma, too. I didn't realize what had happened until I went back last year. I never liked letting her take care of me, so I never got the worst of it.
no subject
Didn't she love her daughters?
no subject
[Perhaps she's being unkind to Adora. Grandma Joya sounded about as bad, with different methods. There could have been a sort of love involved. Somewhere beneath the sickness.]
Listen, it's not...it's over. Like I said, she's gone from my life. Incarcerated. It's not something you need to worry about me for. I promise.
no subject
But it still hurts you, doesn't it?