2019-11-01 - Lilies in the Mists

Lilith is wearing a beautiful white designer formal gown that clings and flares and drapes and falls in every single right place, embroidered with lily flowers and butterflies in the white silk. The mask she wears is a white and silver stylized version of a lily decorated swan with standout pure white feathers for flair with the painted half-piece. The brunette woman's hair is curled and long and loose and her lips are painted with splash of crimson for color in all that white decorating the fair silk of her skin where it's left bare. And though her slippers aren't glass, the heels of the satin pumps are, a modern twist on a walking storybook princess.

There's a problem with being a storybook princess in the real tales, the ones outside of Disney movie arcs. Often, the original princesses in the old tales met bitter or gruesome ends. Lilith expects this is going to be a problem because there's a shift that happens while she's traversing the mists in full regalia to go meet with Byron for the masquerade opening. She'd been delayed some by work as a business owner and she wishes she had grabbed the outerwear she picked to go with this outfit because she's quite chilled in all this Mist and it's hard to get around properly. Safer than driving and hitting festival goers, though.

She remembers she was about to take off her mask. Then she realized it wouldn't come off. It was a part of her, somehow, and she wasn't cold in the mists anymore, the currents are swirled through with shimmering heat effect between slips of remaining cold. It's a little like standing somewhere between and it stops her to look around.

Suddenly, she hears a giggle and it's such a familiar noise...

It's her, of course it's her. She's hearing a tiny version of herself through the mists swirling and she doesn't like the idea of her little Lily doppleganger running wild in the middle of all this blinding confusion. Her wariness for things feeling too strange or wrong, it starts prickling up on her skin and there could be any manner of monster in this place, any manner of stranger or dangerous echo of the past. It's strange. But suddenly she starts to call her own name to look for... herself.

Lily! Lilypad, come this way! Come to my voice! Don't run!

There's more giggles that sound like they're getting further away and the girl is, in fact, running. Then it becomes clear why. A little girl's voice finally pipes up in acknowledging that the older, actual version of Lilith is there.

Hide and seek, Lily Rose! Hide and seek!

There's winds and turns through the mist where some of it becomes solid swirled marble form, like walls, and suddenly, Lilith realizes she's floating through a labyrinth of mist in this white dress, looking for a tiny piece of herself to keeps protected and safe. It's the innocent part, the part that still gets hope and faith at the core, the piece that knows how to safeguard-- Little Lily remains ignorant enough to keep her from living too bitter because she doesn't want to believe in adult things like hard truths all the time. She should be safe and protected and found and initially, she's not entirely sure if she even has the patience for playing along. Panic is starting to set in to some degrees with disorientation and the feel of everything shifted to wrong.

But play along, Lilith does. After picking a path that lets her keep progressing with the Mists swirling and parting fog, she starts to count aloud slowly with child-suited tone and warning.

six... seven.... eight... getting close to ten, you better hurry up and hide!

Lilith takes another path that's a clear shot ahead, but really, that's not particularly reassuring. It is, however, hopeful feeling, because maybe this is one of those dreams that doesn't have things trying to kill you she's heard about. Maybe it really is just a messed up mental game of playing hide and seek with versions of herself so she doesn't lose them and become someone else in all the danger and chaos her life has become.

Looking ahead, she sees darkening shadows where the winding paths between the misty allowing walls, structures in the fog, and they soon clear to be a collection of tree houses set low, like she's in some kind of strange Ewok territory. In fact, that's kind of what comes out of one of the rounded tree huts to look at her, but it's a teddy bear missing an eye instead of a full Ewok. Looking out of another hut, there's a Ken doll carrying his head under an arm where it was never put back into place.

Then suddenly one of the bases of the structures ticks a good few times when she gets near it. After whipping her eyes over to quickly look at what she's noticing is a jutting spike or archery device on wind-up to let loose from whatever above at the nearest treehouse tower, she not only moves out of range with sidestep, but she puts her hand out to focus on what's making the whole mechanism tick and breaks it down in a crumple and clatter inside the wooden house base, bringing the house above caving in when that support is gone and the branches move with impact.

Out dumps a floppy rag-style doll with strand hair and button eyes and stitched mouth. It has pins sticking all out of it, like someone's made a voodoo doll out of the once-innocent stuffed doll and it makes a noise of 'oomph' when it hits the ground by where Lilith stands clear of falling debris. While eyeing it warily, she yells to try and get a hint out of the girl for a hurry-along to this process. The treehouse town of broken toys in the Mists is starting to get creepy and it's clearly not friendly given there's Indiana Jones style traps being set or activated with her presence. Thankfully she has size on her side, still, they aren't giant toys, they're just... creepily alive and apparently have a grudge.

Lilypad, give me a hint, you hide too good!

Duhhhhhh! Use your head, not your eyeballs! Bein' adult makes you stupid!

There's a moment where Lilith stops worrying about traps set by broken toys, because she's moving away from that passed out little makeshift voodoo doll in a hurry instead of offering to help. In fact, she could offer to help all of them, and maybe that's what she'll have to do in the end, but maybe not. Maybe healing them as things will trigger just as much ire inside the... the... the ones that came for her. No. She can't deal with them, not like this, not alone. Last resort to get out. First she had to find the little version of herself, she needed to find Lily.

Anyway, there's a sign there through the fog at the crossroads, suddenly and Lilith all but runs over to look at the etching that's scrawled and worn on the pointing directives from the sign itself: BUT--RFL- G-RDE- --->>> <<<---- PU--K-N PA--H.

Standing there for a long moment, the embroidered train and skirt of her formal dress tells her where to go in the end. Lilith turns and takes the Mists pathway through to the butterfly garden.

It doesn't count as a hiding spot, surely, but that's what the giant pulsing and rainbow-hued chrysalis encasing a morphing butterfly is at this moment. It is so delicate, it almost seems made of opaque glass and seeing the shadow of the little girl in through weak and thin spots where it didn't develop properly, she's... immediately tempted to tear it open to get little Lily free. But the girl inside doesn't seem distressed so instead, Lilith pauses and breathes for a long moment, tilting her head. Giving life to a butterfly pupae when it's failing isn't healing and attracting anything, now is it?

Except, when she lashes out with flare of power and willful focus to make that Chrysalis containing little Lily, it glows with life and energy and mends in thin places, and somewhere, far far far away in the consciousness, it's a bit like those terrible things from an old dream that came to haunt her... they know what she's done. A couple snap their heads up like deer hearing a branch snap, she's not sure how she knows it, but she knows it. But it doesn't matter right now. She's also doing something good here in this wrong place.

She's bolstering little Lily to turn into a butterfly and not be trapped as incomplete. She wants to watch the little girl she was blossom and flourish as if nothing at home were ever wrong at all, like it was all water off a duck's back, like she rose above and didn't let it leave marks. But what comes out of the Chrysalis isn't a butterfly or a little happy Lilykins, it's a surly teenage Lil, complete with eyeliner and an affected, flat or agitated expression that she once adapted. When this version of her is out, she makes a scoffing noise and wonders, "Oh. You think you earned a heart to heart here with that little move? Think again. You won't find me so easily. I'm good at hiding and slamming doors."

Doors, doors, doors, that's exactly what Lilith wants and that's exactly what Lilith knows this particular version will be slamming in her face.

How long has it been? It feels like she's been searching hours, now she has to search for this version of Lily and make her come out of hiding.

When Lilith blinks, the younger teenage version of herself is already gone and there's no countdown hints, no giggling, no landmarks, there's just a whole lot of fog, discomfort, and self-esteem lashes of uncertainty. More and more hours begin and she wonders, faintly, what time really is when these things happen. But nevertheless, the brunette swan in the elegant dress and mask prowls on into the Mists, ready to fight and flush out herself as an enemy if needs be.

Lilith may have had patience to find little Lily, the bravery and hope to try and make her bloom, but she's not sure she can draw out this dark part of her past self without a long haul search and tussle. But damnit. It's just going to have to do. The problem is, she needs a hint. And the only sentient anything that might be able to direct her are the broken toys. And so, on a preparatory detour, she goes to the little treehouses again where all the creepy, vindictive broken toys are. And they have a conversation.

Meanwhile, time in Gray Harbor moves and moves and no one can find Lilith. If she only knew about Byron...