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ashintheairlikesnow · 6 months

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The Low Road

CW: Gender dysphoria, some references to murder

Kiraya woke up in someone else’s clothes.

At first, with eyes gummy and feeling like sandpaper from crying and a dim throb of headache still teasing around the edges of her awareness, she didn’t notice. She yawned, so wide her jaw ached, and winced from the way the sun shone against her eyelids, warm and strong.

There had been no more songs from the sirens, there had been no answer to her calls. She had given up, gone to bed, and while she'd expected to toss and turn she'd instead slept like the dead, waking with muscles aching from being in the same position she'd laid down in.

She arched her back, moving to stretch her arms above her head to ease them into waking, too, and then stopped when she felt fabric stretch nearly to its limits that hadn’t been there before.

She sat up, then, going in a single solitary breath from still half-asleep to fully, horribly awake as she stared down at herself and realized she was already fully dressed. She'd been laced so tightly that there was no room for her to fix her body to suit her mind - the low neckline simply showed collarbone and skin, no gentle curve... and her skirts had an old-fashioned volume to them as she eased off the bed and slowly stood up.

“Gods above,” She whispered.

She was even wearing stockings and boots.

Heart in her throat, she slowly looked down at her body.

She was corseted, the sort of corsets no one had worn in a hundred years or more, with a scandalously low neckline instead of the high necks that were stylish now. Long sleeves had such tight cuffs around her wrists they felt like prison restraints that were simply lacking the chain between them. Heavy petticoats and skirts swung as she shifted from side to side. Her boots were solid brown, equally old, and the leather was shining but still worn and a little cracked at the toe.

“Someone dressed me,” She whispered, and unease slithered up her spine like a worm made of ice, making her shiver as she crossed her arms in front of herself. "Someone dressed me while I slept."

Someone had come into this room, arranged her body to their own liking, taken all of her clothes off - someone had seen her naked, while she slept - and then redressed her like some boneless doll, to be played with at their whim. She had thought she was cried out, but at this new tears tried valiantly to sting her eyes with fresh heat.

The siren must have sung again, right? She must have been forced into sleeping so deeply, magicked into it. The siren, doing the bidding of Wentworth-... oh gods, had it been Wentworth to take her clothes off and look at her body?

Had it been-

Her eyes went to the pitcher of water on the table next to her bed. She'd drank plenty before becoming tired and falling asleep. Perhaps... perhaps it hadn't been the siren.

Maybe it had been something tasteless slipped into the water.

She moved quickly, stumbling a little in the unfamiliar boots, to pick up the pitcher and pour the water right on the floor, tipping carefully and not dumping, one hand holding her skirts back to keep them from getting splashed.

When she looked at the bottom of the fully-emptied pitcher, she saw tiny grains clumped there, undissolved evidence.

She'd been drugged into depthless sleep.

She could trust nothing in this house not to harm her.

Outside, birds sang to each other, and squirrels leaped from tree to tree, leave rustling and branches swinging wherever they went. The world went on as normal, while inside, Kiraya Losna had been… drugged senseless, touched and moved and manhandled, and she had absolutely no idea if they had done only what was needed to dress her or far, far more.

There was a knock at the door and she jumped, hands trembling as she touched her swollen lower lip. It still stung, but at least it seemed to be healing. “W-who is it?”

Her voice was shaking. Kira cleared her throat, tried to steady herself, to stand up straight with her shoulders back. Courage, she told herself. If she was going to make it out of this house with her mind her own, she would have to have courage against every horror thrown her way.

“Who is it?” She asked again, more steadily this time, her hands gripping her skirts tightly to steady her fingers. “Who knocks?”

“Mr. Babbage, Miss,” The butler's voice came from the other side of the door. “Nadette is here to aid you with your hair before you sit down to breakfast with His Lordship.”

“Like hell,” Kira whispered, viciously, but then put her hands up over her face and tried to think. “I would like to decline His Lordship’s invitation,” She managed, and was proud of herself for how strong she sounded, how her voice in no way echoed the terror within her soul. “Do thank him for it, but I think I should prefer to eat in my room today.”

There was a pause.

“His Lordship will dine with you,” Babbage said eventually, “Whether in the dining room or in your bedroom. If you would… prefer he come in here, I could remain as chaperone-"

“No! Absolutely not!” Kira groaned internally at how quickly she answered. Damn Babbage and his propriety. She moved to the door as if drawn to an early grave, and once more found the doorknob moved easily under her hand, swinging it open to see Nadette and Heinri Babbage on the other side. Nadette seemed placidly content and Babbage, to her surprise, actually showed a bare hint of the misery she had seen reflected in his eyes when they had briefly cleared before. His smile was strained. "Good morning, Miss Losna."

"Good… morning, Mr. Babbage, Nadette. I should-... I should of course be glad to accept the lord’s invitation. My hair is a mess, though, quite a fright really…”

“I’ll have it lovely-looking in moments, Miss,” Nadette said cheerfully, moving into the room without waiting to be officially welcomed. She paused, pulled up short as her eyes took in the subtle changes and shifts in Kiraya’s face now that her jaw was more angular and strong, her lips thinner, the way her dress was flat at the bust now and hung off her narrow hips. The dress did nothing to hide any of it. Kira had false busts and hips pads, of course, plus she knew all the cosmetic methods needed to soften her face… all women who had need of assistance in creating a certain sort of figure or set of expressions had such knowledge, no matter the circumstances of their birth - but she needed them so rarely, thanks to the spell, that she almost never bothered to unpack them.

Now… she wished she had.

Kiraya swallowed, though, and raised her chin to meet Nadette's gaze evenly. No matter how it sent a shudder of unease through her when people saw the wrong body, she refused to show it for a second. Let them see Olen Losna’s body.

Kiraya was still who they were speaking to.

Nadette moved again, pulling a chair over by the window and then humming as she drifted around picking up a hairbrush and ribbons, as if nothing had ever happened. “It’s my special talent, of course, doing hair, Miss.” Kira exhaled in relief. Miss. Whatever Nadette might think, she was good enough to keep to herself. If she'd said anything else, Kira might simply have begun screaming and never stopped. “It’s why His Lordship was so set to hire me, I turned him down twice but the money was so good... well, and I was so lucky to get to ply my trade on Lady Marguerite before she passed…” Her voice trailed off, sorrow making it plaintive and small. “Terrible thing, the tuberculosis…”

“Yes, quite terrible.” Babbage shook his head mournfully. “Quite terrible indeed. The way she suffered… in any case, Miss Losna, please do not dawdle. His Lordship does not like to be kept waiting.”

He turned to leave, and Kira reached out to grab him by the arm, startling him - and herself - at the strength of her grip. “Please, Babbage, before you go…”

“Yes?” He blinked.

“Who… who chose these clothes for me? I-I woke up wearing them, you see…”

“Oh. Hm.” Babbage gently pulled himself free of her hand. “I couldn’t say, Miss. No one has been in your room at all, so you must have chosen them yourself. These old rooms are full of so many things, you know, His Lordship never could stand to get rid of anything. He’s terribly sentimental that way...”

“But I didn’t,” Kira pressed, hoping to see that flicker of realization and conscious thought she’d seen the day before. “Mr. Babbage, I woke up wearing these clothes. Someone was in my room, someone-... put me in these. Someone did that while I was asleep!”

“No one was in your rooms,” Babbage repeated, more firmly. "No one." His voice shifted gradually into the haze she was beginning to recognize with loathing. “Perhaps... Miss Losna, perhaps you were sleepwalking.”

“But-... No. No, of course, you must be right. Sleepwalking." Kira told herself not to argue, not to force them to dig any deeper into their thrall to hide from truth they weren’t allowed to face. She took a breath, steadying herself, pressing a hand over her stomach as her corset fought her attempts to breathe. “I should-... have Nadette loosen these laces, I-I think-”

“Of course,” Mr. Babbage said smoothly. “I’ll leave you to it. Please let me know when you are ready to head downstairs to dine and discuss your terms of employment with His Lordship. I shall be just outside."

The door closed in her face, and Kira stared at the patterns in the wood for a few seconds before turning in defeat to cross the room to where Nadette and her hairbrush waited. “Nadette…”

“Yes, Miss?” As she sat, Nadette began to brush out her hair, carefully working through the thick, slight waves to bring it to a softness and shine Kira rarely managed on her own. “I’m thinking of a simple braid today, to keep to His Lordship’s favorite styles.”

The moment she heard Wentworth liked braids, Kira wanted to never, ever braid her hair again. She wanted to rake her fingers along her scalp until it stood up straight, become a frightening thing, bare her teeth like the siren downstairs had bared his fangs.

And yet when he'd sung her into a spell, all he'd said was please help me.

She only smiled, thin and false. The serving-girl didn’t seem to notice. “Of course. Can you tell me, Nadette, whose… whose clothes am I wearing?”

“Oh.” Nadette made a sound like a happy little chirp and began to separate her hair into sections, running soothing fingers through it. “Oh, those are very old, Miss, but His Lordship says he could never bear to part with them. He’s so sentimental that way!”

“So they’re… whose, though?”

Talking to Wentworth’s servants was an exercise in speaking in circles. Kira wondered if something about the siren’s spell did that on purpose or if it was a side effect, since they had to think in circles to avoid understanding their tenuous, terrible reality.

Nadette gave a simpering, apologetic little smile. “Sorry, Miss. I get a little worked up, His Lordship is so kind even to his possessions…”

Kira thought of the imprisoned siren below trying to scratch his way out of heavy wooden doors and his unkempt, tangled hair, his bruised body and shadowed eyes… the way he had flinched back from her touch and fled from her despite his superior strength, his sharp teeth and claws…

She shuddered, but said nothing as Nadette’s nimble fingers began a complicated six-part braid, seemingly effortless. “He is indeed. Quite kind.”

Somehow she kept the sarcasm out of her voice even as it screamed through her mind.

“Your clothes belong to Lady Eliza Howe Wentworth,” Nadette said, voice soft and oddly nostalgic for a woman she certainly did not remember. “The very first Lady Wentworth… Oh, they do say she was quite a vision, you know, very delicately made… Terrible shame, what happened to her.”

Kira swallowed. Outside, a little sparrow alighted on a close-by branch, and she watched it, envying its freedom of flight, as it sang to all and sundry a tale of the tree being its personal belonging. She thought the siren downstairs must understand the feelings of the tree. “Let me guess,” She said, feigning idle curiosity. “Tuberculosis?”

“Hm? Oh, no, that sad family curse came later. No, they say Lady Howe was sailing back to the colonies to see to her estates, and she… well. There was an unsteady wind, and… she fell, Miss.”

“She fell?”

“Into the ocean, Miss. She went into the water, they say, and was never seen again. I'm sure those heavy skirts dragged her right down below. Lady Montgomery, her companion, was still here and they say she went mad from grief and had to be put into an institution. She and the first Lord Wentworth had gone to an opera during their mourning period, you see, and supposedly Lady Montgomery began screaming terrible things to anyone who would listen, mad ravings about the first Lord Wentworth… things none could credit to be true. It was a terrible scandal, nearly ruined the Wentworth reputation before it was all patched up again by a few good marriages and, well, mostly by time. King William himself supposedly met with the first Lord Wentworth about the matter and declared him officially innocent of wrongdoing."

So he'd had the siren sing to King William, too.

“Wait, wait." Kira's mind was racing. "Lady Montgomery? I don’t… I don’t remember any such name?” Her mind raced, remembering the portraits on the wall, but nothing came to mind.

“Oh, Lady Montgomery wasn’t family, exactly… Atabei Montgomery.” Nadette hummed. She paused at her work, holding tight to the braided hair that hadn’t yet been tied off. “You can see her right there.” She gently urged Kira’s head to the left, and Kira turned to look at a portrait on the wall.

The woman in the portrait appeared to be in her late forties or early fifties, staring directly out at the viewer. She was painted in strokes of cool and warm browns, with the brilliance of her eyes standing out all the more thanks to an otherwise monochromatic palette.

There was a terrible sadness in those eyes, as they met Kira’s. As if the woman herself were still in the picture, trying to speak but kept mute by the passage of time and oil paint smears that never let her mouth open even an inch.

Nadette tied the braid off with a ribbon. It made Kira’s neck feel far too vulnerable and bare. “Atabei Montgomery was the first magician to serve the Wentworths. The one who gave him the sea serpent. It was all very romantic, Miss, they were childhood best friends who spent their whole lives together. She and Lady Howe had become quite close as well, hence the madness when Lady Howe died.”

“I see.” Kira thought about the sweet, simple smile of the woman in the Eliza portrait downstairs as compared to the complicated grief worn so openly in the eyes of the portrait of this Atabei, and wondered if Atabei Montgomery had remembered everything, and just been unable to speak… unable to act, to disobey, to rebel… until her love was dead. “And she died in the asylum?”

“She came home for the last few days, but the story goes that she really died when Lady Eliza did, and they only brought her home to bury them together. They’re side-by-side, you know. Like-” Nadette leaned down, whispering, “Like husband and wife.”

Kiraya stared down the portrait of Atabei Montgomery and wondered what sort of man keeps women captive to be wife and servant for decades, then buries them together, acknowledging their love only after their deaths. Or…

There was too much here she didn’t understand.

“Nadette…” She took a slow breath, then winced as the fabric of her dress protested. “The magic on the s-... the serpent must be redone once per decade, right?”

“Right, Miss.”

“So… it has been eleven years. Was there no magician to be found a year ago?”

Nadette swallowed, her eyes moving away. Kira turned and looked up at her, catching the way the serving-girl’s expression briefly cleared and then fogged over again. The siren’s power over them was waning as the magic controlling him waned. If they could only delay long enough, or free the poor thing, then Guilford Wentworth would face a rebellion from everyone he employed.

If she could only hold out…

“There was one,” Nadette said, softly. “He is buried in the family cemetery, too.”

“What-... what happened to him?”

“The monster tore out his throat. It took us ages to scrub all the blood from the tile...” Nadette shook herself, then, and her sweet empty smile was right back on her face. “We must finish getting you ready, Miss. His Lordship will be waiting most impatiently to dine with you.”

Kira nodded, letting the line of questioning go for the moment. She got to her feet in a long-dead woman’s dress, wearing a dead woman’s boots and dead woman’s stockings, her hair plaited in a way far out of fashion and wearing ribbons that the same dead woman no doubt adored, once upon a time. She looked at herself in the mirror and shuddered. Not only was she in the wrong body, the wrong clothes were on her as well. “Nadette, please-... loosen my laces.”

“Miss?”

“They’re just a bit tight, if you could loosen them…”

Once it was done, she moved to stand in front of the window, her hand already moving to draw the magic and make things right. If she'd been new at the spell, it would have been hard without the mirror reflection to guide her, but by now she knew every single motion by heart.

Each piece of the body she made was armor against the darkness that wound around this house and its inhabitants. Her face smoothed and softened, eyes widened, neck lengthened, curves drawn and then settled into her body like they should have been from the start. Her eyes closed as the magic settled, like a blanket when the night outside is cold.

"Oh, lovely," Nadette whispered behind her.

Kira smiled, opened her eyes, and turned. "Let's go," She said, voice firm. If she had to face Guilford Wentworth wearing his dead wife’s clothes, make small talk and know that his eyes were on her, then she would at least do so in the body she deserved and with every weapon she could give herself through thought alone.

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For @whumptober day 30: borrowed clothes

#whump #whumptober2023 #no. 30: borrowed clothes #borrowed clothes #magic whump #magical whump #fantasy world #original fantasy #original writing #captivity #implied creepy whumper #whump writing #whump story #trans oc

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