ℑ sixth contract

[onlythesong]

[Merry Christmas, Mayfield! Of course, Mashiro still doesn't quite get Christmas, but traditions you've never followed often seem a little odd. She had submitted that letter the other day because... No, she's not even sure why. She had felt compelled to for some reason. But she wasn't expecting her request to be granted

Comments

[crystalrazing]

[Shitshitshit that doesn't sound good at all.]

Your Highness!

[onlythesong]

[It's difficult to focus on anything through the pain that fogs her mind, but Natsuki's voice is one Mashiro knows well, and she seeks out its source. The phone. If she could just reach it... It takes the struggle of a few minutes for Mashiro to drag herself close enough to the phone and press it against her ear.]

Head...mistress...?

[crystalrazing]

Hold on, I'll be right there.

[There's a click. Seems like Natsuki hung up.]

[onlythesong]

[While Lena's voice is less familiar than Natsuki's--after all, Mashiro has had frequent contact with Garderobe's headmistress--it's no less recognizable for all that it has been engrained into her memory.]

Y-yes. This is...Meister Lena?

[onlythesong]

In the box, Arika, she... She shattered. [Even in her not-entirely-lucid state, it sounds ridiculous. She takes a deep breath--even that hurts--and tries to steady herself.] We are in need of--medical aid.

[onlythesong]

[Fresh blood stains the carpet, not in one large mass but in smaller spots, from the box to where Mashiro has dragged herself near the phone. She's managed to prop herself up against the wall, where she sits slumped and hunched over herself.]

[onlythesong]

[She sucks in a breath and looks up at him.] Zidane.

[peonymarket]

-Mashiro? What going on?

[There's a strange eagerness in his voice despite her sounds of pain, subtle and sick; Mashiro didn't betray him, mock him, never miss him.]

[onlythesong]

[It's much later, after Lena and Natsuki have patched her up, that Mashiro answers, her voice threaded with pain.]

I did something foolish.

[peonymarket]

You and the rest of the world. [bitterness has laced his words by now]

[onlythesong]

--So you wrote a letter as well.