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The room seemed to shake with the force of the Voice. Sun started from where she lay on the floor, sitting up and wildly looking around before she remembered she couldn't see. And then she realized the room really was shaking. It felt like the sky breaking all over again! Sun tried to scramble to her feet, but the chains tripped her up. She fell again, one hand hit the floor, and the most peculiar sensation traveled up her arm as the hand unraveled. Her hand was not so much gone, as it had never been. Had she really just folded a torn page a few minutes ago? The concept seemed impossible now. But that was only the first part of her to go.

Her arm fell apart as though she were a knit sweater and someone was pulling a loose string. Even though she was being unmade, the experience fascinated her. The ludicrous situation actually brought a smile to her face once more. She felt her tail begin to unravel, and her remaining hand reached back to more fully investigate the sensation. Bits of her, just gone. Gone back to the energy source the Voice had created her from. Well. She bet she'd been more than the Voice bargained for!

Sun staggered back to her feet, and propped herself up on the edge of the fountain as one foot disappeared. The void was pulling at her with more energy now, and now it was taking other bits of her. In her mind's eye, she saw flashes and bits of her own memories, spilling past her like a flood of golden coins. Here she was held in the arms of her murderer. Here she flew down the stairs on a shield. Here she practiced fighting in the shifting shadows of her home. Here she received a necklace from a friend. Here she received her name.

Faster and faster they went, and Sun fell to the floor again, as her body chased her memories into the void. She was almost gone, and perhaps she should feel fear, here at the end. But she'd lived a full life, by her own standards.

No regrets.

And then there came a final memory. She was falling. Falling toward a black land. She was just a bit of energy, with hardly a form to her. Before the Black King had even named her. And yet she still had a name. She remembered now!

All that was left of her was her mouth, but the lips moved, curving upward. They formed one word.

Canon.

Then she was gone.

Justice had accepted what she was as a fragment.

She had already died once.

When the Voice spoke to them once again, and decreed her fate, Justice's first thought was, This is it. This was the end of her life as a fragment of someone else; that other girl she had gazed at in the mirror at her feet. She did not fight the emptiness; this was what she was, wasn't it? A small little part of her was terrified at her skin peeling away slowly, as though it was something important, but Justice reminded herself that this was her Fate. She remembered her life as a Shadow, having been battle ready, having conversed with few. Having thought everything of her King and her Kingdom, that devastation she felt when she had watched it all fall.

It didn't matter. It had never mattered. Her feelings were nothing to the Voice. Nothing ever significant. It was something none of them could have controlled, could have stopped.

She closed her unseeing eyes as she--

Gone. Nothing.

That was all she ever was.

Her last thoughts were of that girl in the mirror, wishfully hoping that she would have a better fate than a fragment did. She probably would.

She greeted the darkness one last time.

Rosy felt her body go still as she heard the Voice once again all around her. As the ground shook, she gasp grabbing a hold of the chair's leg for a moment out of fear. What was this talk about deciding? Who won the war? She balls her fist up, just wishing she could see something, hear something, or even scream at this point. But none of that seem to matter, as she felt it slowly begun.

So...this is what he meant....

It didn't hurt, but inch by each she felt herself peeling away from the world. It started at her fingers and toes, working its way upwards, She sat there, as far as she knew alone by the chair. Her forehead pressed against its side as she allows her eyes to close. She felt the tears falls then, not out of anger, but because she just needed to feel something one last time.

She really shouldn't be this upset, she wasn't real. Yet, she was wishing just for one moment that it all was all very real. The Red Kingdom, Spinar, they were everything to her. But now, she was losing it all.

Taking in a slow deep breath, she felt the peeling climbing higher up her body, her eyes even if she had them close, were tired. Her head, she felt the need to just allow herself to sleep.

So...this...is what it feels....like...

She didn't have a regret, she just wish she could live her life. But now, now she was just a figment.

With a chuckle no one would hear, she smiles as she takes in her final deep breath. And with that...

Rosy....disappeared.

Shun turned his head as he heard the Voice. He didn't entirely understand what was being said, but he could tell it wasn't good. He tried to look around for what was happening, but it was a futile attempt. While he couldn't see or hear anything, he certainly felt something. Everything felt like it was being shaken violently. He lost his balance and fell onto another form, though he couldn't tell who. He sluggishly reached to try and see who it was, only finding a pair of soft ears. He moved his hand down, but he soon realized something else was happening to him.

After he fell, he furrowed his brow as he could feel something strange come upon him. Something was being pulled, no ripped, from him. Or perhaps it was the other way around. It didn't hurt. Not physically, but it certainly wasn't a comfortable feeling. What was being taken? Or rather, what was he being pulled from?

There was a brief moment where he could finally see something. Before him was a mirror image of himself. Not his true self... but his kingdom-self. The man clad in leather armor. The way he saw himself, it was like the other him couldn't see what was before him. He was in a daze, though it was hard for the Reaper to tell if he was coming out of one or falling into it. That was soon the lesser of his concerns as he watched the Knight begin to slowly dissolve before his eyes.

The man who fought and lived for his kingdom. The one who had met and fallen for a certain figment from another kingdom.

There was something disturbing about seeing yourself fading away piece by piece, especially when that other you wasn't so different from yourself. Was this... happening to him right now? The Reaper couldn't tell as his gaze was fixated upon the Knight. If it was happening to both, what did it mean exactly? A long time ago, he wouldn't be too concerned of what the implications of this may be. But now... he had people he cared about, and who cared for him in turn. No. Even now, he didn't have to worry. Not too much at least. Things would turn out alright. He would be able to see her again.

Something was ending here.

But it wasn't him.

And so he watched the rest of the Knight dissolve with some sense of determination within him. When nothing was left, he felt a blast. It was as though something was knocking him back. There was no questioning of what happened, for all was black.

Acerium was sure that the table would do something.
Something. Anything.
Nothing happened, though. It was still dark and silent.

"Dad, I..."
"No time to talk now, little sapling..." Her father stared sadly around at the memory. She knew she was remembering.
Everything bled to silver, even her fathers face. It blurred. Dark lines like fractures began to appear. They were small, but...
"No...

time!!!

E N O U G H

She felt light. Lightheaded. Strange.
Acerium rubbed her hands together, seeking the comfort of their feeling.

It was cold in the ice mountains. She had wanted to see them, just once. And to ski. The moogles were selling skis..
Why was the snow silver?
Snow was white!
Right?
She looked down. The memory blurred and twisted. She was on top of the mountain looking down at the ice.
The ice was silver too. Cracking into blackness.
She screamed as the memory shattered into silver smoke

The lack of sound jolted her. Her throat felt raw. She couldn't feel her hands anymore. She was shaking. The ground was shaking.
An intolerable pain ripped into her stomach, her sides.

vines vines VINES. Tangled, twisting, silver vines. They reflected faces and memories in their silver leaves. It struggled to grow, tendrils twisting together to try to stay connected and strong. It was all it could do against some... force pulling at it, tearing at it.

The reflections, gold... silver... green... red...

All blurred.


Something was eating the vines.

She didn't know why she was worried as leaf after leaf fell, until she realized that she was a part of the vines.
And she was running, running.

But the thing that was eating the vines came closer and closer.

With a terrified cry of nothing, she fell to the ground. Too light! too light! she was too light to be real, too light to be her, too light to be!
She felt, not saw, silver leaching away from her body.
What was going on? what did it mean?

Soon there would be no vine left. No leaves. Nothing. The thing was black.
No.
It wasn't black. It was absence. Something she had never even contemplated. Absence. Nothing. Zero.
Deeper than death, it ate the leaves, corroding the silver vine bit by bit.

Soon there would be no leaves left. They were important. She couldn't remember why.

Desperate, she looked in the leaves themselves that danced around her body.

A memory of gold. Of an offer.
She couldn't remember why that offer was important, why she cared. But she had. Then. It had been important.
Had she accepted? Had she refused?
She didn't know. It whipped by her, into her wake.

Another leaf.
A tarnished man in a tarnished crown threatening... someone. Someone who made the leaf shine with gold glitter. a King. a peacock king, gaudy and regal. For a moment she felt pride.
Then the gold tarnished too, and the leaf crumbled in her hand.

Acerium gasped for air as lungs, organs, NEED ceased to be. Her name vanished, everything vanished. There was no past, no future, no present.
She was all there was, the sense of being her.

The vines were gone. The tendrils consumed.
It was not a beast, but a fire. It was not a fire. It was blackness. Nothing.
Nothing meant nothing anymore.
She didn't know why she was running.
It didn't matter.
The beast/not beast, fire/ not fire, pulling, irresistible, devouring, swirling NOTHINGNESS pounced.
She had one last scream as herself, one last assertion of memory.

She tried to conjure a memory, her defense against nothing since the stairs.... since she didn't know.
Since there was silence. Since there was darkness.

There was a flicker. A single flicker of thought, of will. Of the fragment's will against the force that created it, trying to exist in its own right.

And then only a silver screen remained.
And blinked out.

The last remainents of the fragment that had been Acerium unraveled away.
The last to go was a silver leaf.
It fluttered a while in the breezes of unraveling, before it too disappeared, a whisper in the wind.

Being put down again, she couldn't help but give him a little smile, and a little shrug. It was starting to get so hard to concentrate, and the words rang through her conscious with a tin-ny painful echo that vibrated through her very senses, making her feel a little nauseous. Lifting an aching hand, she lightly pressed her palm to her face, eyebrows curving downward, blind eyes closing, hoping for a little reprise from the ripping feeling, the noise, the sound.

Then, she saw it.

She saw herself, staring forward with mis-matched eyes, watching nothing and everything at the same, and for a split second, she had this sense of endlessness, like as if she was stuck, forced in this second for an eternity, before the woman shattered lightly, blinking and falling forward very lightly, almost as if she had not breathed for years.

Gasping openly, she knew what this meant. Turning over to look, she attempted to catch sight to see what was to happen to the Gold King - in her mind she felt that even if there was another Lifen, she . . . owed it to her to look, and with that moment, she exhaled slowly, a soft breath and a sigh, the pain of the wound at her side distinguishing instantaneously.

Smiling softly, she laid back, in to herself, hoping for the best of this world's Gold King, whatever comes of him. Giving a quick though, she tried to reach out with her mind to her troupe, a last thought of the Empress.

Let's go home.

The darkness wrapped in tight, cloyed the faerie's senses and contended for attention against the hand on her arm that dug in painfully. Her feet twisted underneath her in attempt to stand properly, but the hand roughly steadied her and then was gone. With her own hands now free, Belladonna reached forward to find the source only to brush against fabric that had been inlaid with an intricately woven pattern. The material was at once thick but soft and the seamstress that was not scared of this darkness or the monster that had found her within chimed up that it was a waistcoat. But that answer made her already frantic heart skip and then stutter as a hand, most likely the same one that had pulled her up, brushed against her waist. It pulled down on the tattered, dress that was green when it was not soaked up in the blackness of the blind. Once again feeling a bit like a doll, the faerie slid her hands up, tentatively searching for a clue as to who this was. Who would angrily pull her up and then smooth out her dress?
Who would brush a hand through her hair, tousle her curls off her shoulder and find that familiar, well fitted hold on the back of her neck?
Who would breach her with the point of a sharp sword, continue to hurt her while holding her close and tenderly?
Why, the man who still had a flower in his vest pocket.

The sword seemed to not only have cut through fabric and flesh but a lifetime it seemed, as Belladonna felt herself pulled out from that wound in her stomach, stretched apart and forgetting.
That flower her groping fingers had found surely was still a white rose, a symbol of undying love she had promised to her King and yet... And yet that wasn't quite right. The flower came apart in her hand as she felt herself moving backwards and the girl clutched the petals against her palms, crushed them into the crevices of skin that foretold one's future. But which future was right? The one where she was a faerie, run far away to a magical land where everyone was given the option to recreate themselves, where she had fallen in love with a grinning, teasing king and then felt the sting of his sword with their mingled betrayal?
Or the one that stood before her? The ghoul in a tall, pointed hat with a too large dress and a sad smile on her face?
That ghoul is all in profile, fingertips raising to press against the spot between her eyebrows right under bright red bangs. They need to be trimmed, they've gotten too long since she started worrying, for they cover up the neat crease she's begun to wear too often.
The faerie can see this, can see the witch tap one heel of her shoe against whatever ground they're both sharing and begin to dissolve. It starts slowly, from that place she clicked against in the darkness, all wispy and insubstantial but faintly like rose petals dropped in incense. The witch shakes her head, drops her hand and sighs, but plasters back a smile to her mouth. One hand reaches up to the brim of her hat, brushes against the pin fastened there and then she's gone.

Belladonna took a breath, not at all sure where she is or what she is when earlier she was so very sure. But everything is darkness, everything is fading and inconsequential. There is no dawn, no morning that comes safe and curled up tight, warm and loved and content.
There is only a small, confused creature who calls herself Belladonna with a crushed white rose in her hands.
And she goes back to sleep.

For the moment he was trying to figure out how to call out to answer the engraving. Maybe he could rip up pieces of his shirt and spell the word Pride? Or, standing idly in the way of practically everything he let out a soundless yelp when something stepped on his tail. Reeling his wounded tail in and around his waist he cursed because why not. About to soothe over the wounded appendage he was startled when a gust of wind hit his face then something hard and firm followed slamming into his body roughly and knocking him to the ground.

His breath was knocked from his body on a soundless gasp, he laid still as the heavy flailing thing that pinned him to the ground thrashed. In a panic he flicked his tail swatting the thing hopefully somewhere to get its attention.

Feeling the pressure from his chest lifted he rose slowly, shakily and drew in a deep breath hoping whatever had just hit him was gone. But much to his dismay only mere seconds passed before something curled around his tail. It felt warm and slender, scaly? Breath! Spinar flinched as breath hit his skin. This wasn't a thing at all, for a moment his sightless eyes narrowed with sorrow, an expression of such taking up place on his lips as well. It was another blind, mute and deaf civilian wasn't it?

A cold hand reached and bumped into what felt like another, though there was something, something dripping from what felt like the hands fingers? Spinar shook his head and curled his fingers tight against the other hand pulling slowly to offer comfort not only to the other the hand belong to but himself. In the air he smelt it as he drew closer, ink. The strong scent of ink was more than present in the air but before he could be overjoyed about the strangers possible accident with ink The Voice interrupted the pleasant moment.

"Enough." He winced at the call and waited for the Voice to continue, "I have decided my fate and yours. It is time you take what is not yours and return it to me, all of it, my power I have given to you, reclaimed finitely as mine." No. Not now. He hadn't found her! Unintentionally he drew closer to the person he held hands. Under his feet the ground started shaking terribly, the familiar sensation bringing back sickening memories of the several bad things that had happened.

Wind was swirling all around him, his hair kicked with it and body instinctively drawing closer still to the one he locked fingers with. What was happening! Before he could think much further something started to pull at him an emptiness, his memories started to flash before him then blur turning into a mess before they flickered out one by one. No, he would have shouted the word if only he could have. Spinar could feel himself becoming weightless as his skin peeled up and limbs started to disappear. This was it. But he had never gotten to say goodbye...

For only a moment was he frightened and feeling angered by not being able to fulfill the promised favor but when he forgot the favor and who or what he was it was bliss. Nothing mattered anymore, nothing at all and with that came relief. When he felt the last of his limbs that had held on to something become nothing it was over and he was was gone.