Lotte was more human than him, the most human thing in this room, if nothing else. There was little doubt Alastor wasn't acutely aware of that, but still. Whether or not that put her at a disadvantage currently was less clear but certainly a card worth playing, if it were.
Alastor, clearly looking to earn his bed time tale, settled back into the bed of his own accord. Finally. If she'd known bed time stories was all it took she would have come up with a dozen things to lull him to sleep. This one, for what it was worth, was wholly and entirely true as far as Lotte remembered it. Memories were a tricky thing, she often thought, but she remembered this enough to make a story out of it for Alastor's sake.
She had a choice then, between staying where she was or getting up and accepting the offered cigar, dangled from Alastor's fingers in his new and cozy position against the wall. The more horizontal, the better, she reasoned and pulled her legs under her before pushing herself up and over to sit on the edge of the bed, one palm sinking into the mattress near his knee as she plucked the cigar from his hand.
"Once upon a time..." Lotte drawled with a smirk, taking a puff of the cigar much more gracefully this time before passing it back, "and all that other nonsense that accompanies stories about a child of fairy tales," Lotte tilted her chin up and exhaled the smoke out into the room, watched it curl toward the ceiling.
"A farmer and his wife were cursed with a child with hair the color of the devil's flesh." Lotte leaned back on the arm planted on the mattress. "They tried to love their unfortunate daughter, maybe, but before long odd and unusual things began happening around the farm house. Objects moving for no reason at all. And the little girl was often found sitting in a corner, talking to nothing - or something, and well, I don't have to tell you how farmers and their wives and their pastors react to children who speak to things that don't appear to be there."
Lotte looked again at her fingertips, her palms, dusted black.
"So, one day her mother dresses her up in the prettiest white dress she has, and braids her hair up like they're going to church, though they're not. Instead, the doting father takes his little girl to the river to go for a swim. They wade out into the water in all their clothes, which she finds very odd... but they wade out until her little feet can't touch the ground anymore. And it seems all very according to plan until her father makes the mistake of trying to drown her himself, instead of letting the river sweep her away and probably accomplish the task all on its own."
"But she doesn't drown. That's odd too, isn't it? No, she doesn't drown, because her hands turn black and anything she touches burns. So she grips onto her father's arms and hands and she burns him up until he lets go of her hair and her white dress and her throat and she burns up the water around her until it boils and she drags herself back to the shore and burns up all the water she swallowed too."
Lotte plucked the cigar from Alastor's hands and took a puff, exhaled harder.
"She figures out that she made it happen, and she starts making other things happen, on purpose." Lotte handed it back again. "You know the rest, more or less. They let her make things happen as long as it's convenient to them, the town looks the other way, until they find a more effective and lucrative way to get rid of her, and so it goes."
no subject
Lotte was more human than him, the most human thing in this room, if nothing else. There was little doubt Alastor wasn't acutely aware of that, but still. Whether or not that put her at a disadvantage currently was less clear but certainly a card worth playing, if it were.
Alastor, clearly looking to earn his bed time tale, settled back into the bed of his own accord. Finally. If she'd known bed time stories was all it took she would have come up with a dozen things to lull him to sleep. This one, for what it was worth, was wholly and entirely true as far as Lotte remembered it. Memories were a tricky thing, she often thought, but she remembered this enough to make a story out of it for Alastor's sake.
She had a choice then, between staying where she was or getting up and accepting the offered cigar, dangled from Alastor's fingers in his new and cozy position against the wall. The more horizontal, the better, she reasoned and pulled her legs under her before pushing herself up and over to sit on the edge of the bed, one palm sinking into the mattress near his knee as she plucked the cigar from his hand.
"Once upon a time..." Lotte drawled with a smirk, taking a puff of the cigar much more gracefully this time before passing it back, "and all that other nonsense that accompanies stories about a child of fairy tales," Lotte tilted her chin up and exhaled the smoke out into the room, watched it curl toward the ceiling.
"A farmer and his wife were cursed with a child with hair the color of the devil's flesh." Lotte leaned back on the arm planted on the mattress. "They tried to love their unfortunate daughter, maybe, but before long odd and unusual things began happening around the farm house. Objects moving for no reason at all. And the little girl was often found sitting in a corner, talking to nothing - or something, and well, I don't have to tell you how farmers and their wives and their pastors react to children who speak to things that don't appear to be there."
Lotte looked again at her fingertips, her palms, dusted black.
"So, one day her mother dresses her up in the prettiest white dress she has, and braids her hair up like they're going to church, though they're not. Instead, the doting father takes his little girl to the river to go for a swim. They wade out into the water in all their clothes, which she finds very odd... but they wade out until her little feet can't touch the ground anymore. And it seems all very according to plan until her father makes the mistake of trying to drown her himself, instead of letting the river sweep her away and probably accomplish the task all on its own."
"But she doesn't drown. That's odd too, isn't it? No, she doesn't drown, because her hands turn black and anything she touches burns. So she grips onto her father's arms and hands and she burns him up until he lets go of her hair and her white dress and her throat and she burns up the water around her until it boils and she drags herself back to the shore and burns up all the water she swallowed too."
Lotte plucked the cigar from Alastor's hands and took a puff, exhaled harder.
"She figures out that she made it happen, and she starts making other things happen, on purpose." Lotte handed it back again. "You know the rest, more or less. They let her make things happen as long as it's convenient to them, the town looks the other way, until they find a more effective and lucrative way to get rid of her, and so it goes."