3.2|TO WED A BUTCHER'S CONCIERGE

 

3.2|To wed a Butcher's concierge

 

The Queen turned to Gertrude in anger. With a single motion, the guards came and rapidly dragged her away. "Take our dear sugarplum to the Pentositentiary." She said, dragging her bubbly rubber gown away while poor sweet Gertrude kicked and squirmed all the way towards imprisonment. While she was dragged off, she screamed "No, wait PLEASE! IT WAS DELIVERED FROM THE VIOLET MISTRESS HERSELF!" Mommutie perked up and stood stunned for a second. One of them, Lady Tickle, the Queen's assistant, was watching the events of the palace, using her own tincan eye to monitor and assess. She received a call. "Tickle, tonight take care of her.."

Gertrude woke up in a dripping cell, chains attached to her ankles. The sour smell of vinegar, garlic and arsenic filled the air of the Pentositentiary, repugnant to her nose and making her sickly until she gagged. She spent an uncomfortable out of time in the darkness, lit only by a dim torch in the opposing hall. Before her mind reached delirium, clacking footsteps shuffled through the dungeon. She closed her eyes and covered them with her arms. "Mom?" She asked, seeing Queen Momutie arrive. "I'm so sorry for what went on back there! I didn't know the letter from the Prince would be set with a surprise like that?" Momutie scoffed. "A surprise? Dearie you nearly killed me."

"I'm, I'm so sorry.."

"Gertrude." Mother Momutie said. She knelt down before the young woman and gave her a sweet smile. "Let me see your face." She was gentle, and Gertrude gave her a weak smile in return. "It's alright dear. You were only trying to help. You weren't aware of the situation." Mutie wiped the blood off Gertrude's forehead.

She said as she took Gertrude's cheeks, licking her palms to rub them and examined her forehead, licking it across her scalp. It was warm, and she could see some redness around her left eye. "How do you feel?" "Sick." Gertrude replied. The Queen just shrugged.

"You're as sweet as ever, no worries."  The Queen seemed almost cheerful, as though she had found some kind of peace in that room. She turned to the girl. "Gertrude. There's something we must make clear." She put on a dignified front and cleared her throat. "The Moonlit Prince.."

"Isn't truly going to marry me, I know. But, he surely wants to right? Or was he simply a traitor all along, is that why the letter went off? The love letters he wrote-"

Momutie shook her head with regret and disappointment. "Are the handiwork of the Rainboyal Romanitiful Adoraganda commission. They’re a fable." She cleared her throat, letting there be no misunderstandng. "There is no Moonlit Prince. None. No dreamy boy waiting to take your hand away. He’s a fiction. We tell that to all heirs, it's a tradition! But most outgrow the need for such a fairytail much sooner.."

Gertrude's heart sank. "N-no, that's impossible! All those dreamy letters-"

"Were written by the Rainboyal improv writer, on commission. It's a story dear, meant to help you understand that one day, it will all be over. You must live in the light and the sun. And when you are ready, when you know you can trust yourself, when you see your own self as a woman, not a childish girl.” She placed her hand on Gertrude's shoulder. "But now, you must get better." The Queen looked at her. "Your blood is toxic. You used to be so sweet, we need to make you my sugarplum girl again! I don't know what to do.." She shook her head and stood up. "I'll see you tomorrow, do patiently wait just one more night. I'll sort this out and come to receive you back to the Clocktower in the morning."

Mutie turned her back to the young girl, to return to her castle.

Gertrude was alone again in her cell. She began to wonder what her mother had done to her, why she wasn't still there.. She didn't know, but she felt a little afraid. She knew the woman wouldn't harm her.. But was the woman lying to her? She was the Queen, her mom right? What could she do? Momutie did seem very much concerned though.. And that was why she hadn't just hurt her. But why?

These thoughts build up like a plague of locusts, swarming in her mind over a sugarcrop of twinklebeans. Hour passed after hour, she'd never slept anywhere so dark and cold. Suddenly, purple box flashed into her cell. "Hm?" She opened it up, revealing a shining two-sided axe glimmering in the darkness. She'd never seen these things before, but knew all too well what they could do, Grand Meister's used them occasionally. She grabbed it, and the thought of "How can I use this?" crossed her mind. She didn't want to hurt anybody. She’d never fought before. Maybe she could just...

Footsteps approached again. "Huh, Mom? It's morning already?! Finally, when I get home I want Carmel waffles with milktea shakes, and a shower with lavender shampoo and-"

The figure ahead hissed out steam. Wearing a mustard yellow hazmat suit, the grimy rubber drone ahead came close with a harpoon attached to the device on their back. "You're not mom.." Marching close with a menace she'd never seen before, Mercy felt fear rise up from her toes, paralyzing her everywhere. They closed the distance, pointing the harpoon at her skull. She'd seen that device elsewhere- an injector for an Dauphinobotomy, there to 'fix' the brains of the unruly, uncute and misbehaved, rendering most targets Moonshined without a thought.

"The Axe. Use it." A voice said.

In a moment of terrible instinct, Gertrude swing to her side and felt the axe sweep into the pitch. Her face went a little white, and she turned back to the drone, falling over in a pool of purple blood. "Why?" she asked. Suddenly, a voice spoke in her head. "Because you're going to help me."

Mercy's heartbeat quickened. "Where are you?" She asked.

"That's not important. Cut yourself free."

She held the axe high up and swung down, slicing her chains with the premium metals of her weapon. She took off running, running, running, running away. "Mom! Mom! Can you hear me?!" The Queen rushed up out of the dungeon, hoping to hear her mother's footsteps. It felt like an eternity in town, until they were in road that led to the Clocktower, at least. "It's been so long.." Gertrude said, a sob catching in her voice. "Gertrude. You must head to the Outer Escape station." "W-what, the place that leaves Glitter Kiss? No way! Why would I do that?" She put the axe on her back with a tied strap and climbed back up and finally arrived back in her room, seeing much of her furniture and pretty paintings gone. "What the?" "You must go, NOW."

"Why is all my stuff missing?" She heard a clack of metallic footsteps behind her. The mechanical clockwork dolls that tended to her every need were seen carrying an ornamented sapphire chair away. "Missy Aid! Butler Boltinton! Rodger Handy!" They dropped the chair and turned to her. "I'm so hungry, where is my mother? What's going on?"

The three made a series of electronic noises she'd never heard, glassy eyes turning pure crimson. One grabbed a glass bottle of happy juice, smashed it against a wall and pointed the sharded edge towards her. The three took started to push towards her reaching for her throat, she suddenly understood.

"No. No! This isn't real! What are you doing? STOP!" She reached her axe out defensively. "I've told you this before. Don't trust them. Leave the Clocktower. Now!" The trio pounced and charged at her. With a desperate series of swings she began smashing the servile droids, the bottle half-way into the side of her waist by the time she finished them off. She was breathing heavily, emotions running high, adrenaline poisoning her veins from the neck to her bleeding gut. She wiped the blue liquid from her chest. "W-what, what is this?!" She screamed, feeling the stinging pain.

"Blood." The voice said simply.

"What? It's BLUE, blood doesn't look like, that.." she sniffled.

"Why did they do that?" she asked.

"Your.. 'Mother' had them do that to you... She's not-"

"What? Mommy would never!" The princess interrupted. "You're crazy, I don't trust you!" Gertrude spat, taking some bedsheets and tying them around the wound, trying to ignore the misery and pain.

"I'm heading to the royal palace of the heavenly Rainboyals RIGHT NOW to

sort this out! She'll understand this is a-all a misunderstanding!"

The voice in her head protested darkly at the girl. "I know you. The Queen is

not your mother, and she has never been a kind and sweet woman."

"Shutup! You're lying!" The Princess refused to hear another word and started climbing back out. She made her way onto the streets and continued running from something she couldn't really explain. The citystreets, the stars right now, the eyes preying upon her from the sides felt hypnotically toxic, as if she couldn't trust a single thing she knew anymore.

 

 

"Momutie?" Gertrude asked, when she was already at the gates of the palace. She climbed in through a window and began to sneak in, finding the place oddly vacant and quiet at night. Inside the manor, the staff were nowhere to be seen. When she went across the halls, the girl saw the various paintings of the family lineage- every single portrait showing the same woman in dozens of rows.

"Gertrude, don't you find anything strange about these descendants?

Something rather special and uncanny."

The voice asked, hoping to impart some doubt.

Gertrude squinted, seeing they were all the same. Just like mommy told her.

 "What? They're beautiful!" She sped towards the Queen's bedroom chambers.

"I've never visited this place without permission.. I hope she won't be mad." Gertrude started to make her way through the palace, eventually making her way through to the bedroom. "She's not here? She must be b-busy.." The princess said, looking through the collection of books on the shelf. Gertrude had always found these strange, she'd peaked once at them before and they were in a language she didn't recognize. Picking up the biggest tome, she flipped it open and saw detailed charts of anatomy, organs and complicated diagrams. "What is.."

"Please. You need to leave now." The voice said again.

"Shutup!" She slammed the book and threw it at the wall- knocking down a

painting and revealing a switch. "Huh?"

Gertrude pulled the switch, turning the entire bookcase and revealing a downwards spiral staircase. The princess descended down into the dark depths, hugging the slick walls closely. Eventually she saw an entrance in the wall and peaked in. Within lay a large jar hooked to wires and tubes, a woman looking like the Queen rotting inside, hung up like a trophy.

"M-MOM?!"

"This woman is the real Queen, in case you hadn't noticed, she is dead.. This is what was left of her body. Her corpse's organs have been stored inside, along with her heart, soul, etc."

"W-what are you talking about? None of what you're saying is MAKING

sense!"

The girl screamed, feeling suddenly sick. "The Queen.. The real queen?"

"Yes. She was killed and stored here many centuries ago."

"That's not true.. She never was in my storybook.."

"The book is not yours. What you see in it are the writings of the Queen,

written to be read by others who are of interest. This is my story."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"To protect you."

"From what?! I don't even know you!"

"I've been with you all this time, we know each other."

"No. This is not happening. This is not real. This is not.." She clutched her head. "It's NOT!" She shouted. There was a thud from back out in the staircase below. Gertrude went out, then slowly descended again, tiptoeing more cautiously as she approached the bottom and snuck around a hall at the end. She could hear whirling machines and moaning on the other side. In the deep dark of the basement, Gertrude fought her anxiety, the paralyzing grip of death nipping at her toes every step. She peaked through the keyhole.

On the other side was a figure of meat hung by the wrists, a female skinned alive. Gertrude recognized the jade colored skirt, her eyes started to water. The pain welled up in her chest and panged so heavily, she felt like she'd been stabbed by the shadow of daggers digging like diamonds. "N-no..." When she saw the woman that was her mother, her heart. Shattered. “H-hershey..” Her eyes wept, stinging from the pain. The woman turned around, her face revealed to be a rubber prosthetic- on the other side lay a serpents snout with insect mandibles, her thorax twiggy and exposed with bony protrusions, her eyes green slits with black sclera. Grimy oil and liquids lipids dripped from her arm, thorax and out her mandibles, like a waxy statue melting- when they fell to the floor, the lethal substances created acidic steam. She could see her licking the meat of the girl that she had called her friend, gnashing her mandibles along it to nibble, and caressing her skin against a hung rack of flesh- the former girl's skin.

But Momutie stopped. She smelled something and smiled.

"Oooo GgggeertttTTTrruddDDde. Come out sweeeEEEeet dauughter."

Gertrude's heart felt like it stopped and turned to stone. Momutie wiggled her talons at the door, and the gears turned, splitting open automatically. Gertrude fell back. "W-what? What's going on?!" She screamed. But the voice in her head said it all.

"Run."

The girl didn't respond. She just screamed and ran the other way. Momutie leapt forward. It was upclose that her mandibles looked like a beak that cracked outwards, split vertically down the middle rather than horizontal, pitchblack feathers with the same oily drip of triglyceride along her neck and back.  She took the axe from her back, and pointed it at her mother.

"Mommy! Can you hear me?! I'm going to rip your heart out. You should've told me about this. You're a monster! A monster!" She swung at the Queen, only for a field of energy to cushion the blow along her chest. Momutie grabbed the axe and discarded it. Defenseless and without a weapon, she resorted to using sympathy instead of violence.

"M-mom.." she sniffed. "What's going on? I don't, u-understand any of this.."

"What a sssSSShammme, you worthless worthless creature."

The creature wearing her mother's face started to drag her towards a large   machine with metal pincers and sharp scythe like-prods.”YoooOOu’re not going to be Queen. You’re NEVER going tooOOoo sit on that throne. Hisssssss.” Gertrude flinched as her mother, or whoever she was grabbed her. “I’LL DIE BEFORE I EVVERSSS LET THAT HAPPEN!”

"Nothing perssssonal dEEEearie, you are so sssSSssweeEEEeet. But you weren't worth the trouble, no SWEET is worth a cavity like you yoooOOuu." She sniffled the woman, licking her cheeks with her dark purple oily tongue. "SssOOoOO much for the plAAaaan for a heir. What a disappooOoointment." The Queen slowly turned her around shoved her back towards the device. The metal began to SCRAPPPPPPPPPE and draw blood. Momutie licked her lips and spat a mouthful of acid at her shoulder, the girl screaming. The Princess shrieked and begged for mercy as she struggled, she didn't understand this degree of pain. The shock started to hit her and she started to lose her voice, she stopped struggling and her eyes were black pools of molten tears. Dozens of scars along her back bled, and the acidic spittle along her shoulder steamed like a spoiled, broiled hamburger.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" The young woman could hear the clattering of gears as the machine lifted and moved her. She was then thrust into an ice-cold basin filled with a white and black substance. A thin needle punctured the substance and pierced into the base of her throat. The liquid went down her throat, into her lungs, where it bubbled and sizzled, her throat burning with a fiery hot pain. Clamps began coming towards her, ready to harvest her like a harvest crop. The girl's sore screams echoed in the empty halls. In the darkness, a silhouette of a girl wearing a maids outfit appeared and reached out towards Gertrude. A bright series of beams shot out and scorch the machine, dropping her into the woman in maid outfit.

Momutie hissed, numerous violet beams were shot at the Queen. The energy was cushioned and absorbed, but by the time the flashes decayed into weak explosions, the two had finally left. The women carried Gertrude as far as she could, levitating up out the staircase, blasting the stairs into a crumbling inferno to buy them time. They ran out into the bedroom. The princess was slow to recover, the women turning her around and using a hex-shaped floating projection to rapidly heal her. Altho the bleeding stopped and restored her semblance of strength, the scars remained. "Apologies that I don't have time to heal you further, we must go!"

Gertrude nodded. "W-wait.." She turned around, hearing the crying of two infants. "Them!" She ran and looked down at the two who she'd once seen as her baby brother and sister. "We cannot leave them with that, thing." The girl picked them up, the women giving a reluctant saddened look. They began to flee shortly after and the queen finally arrived, seeing them flying away in the distance. The two reached the Outer Escape station, searchlights searching all throughout Glimmer Kiss. Mostly abandoned and remote, they hurried into a shuttle pod and set a course. "W-wait, who are you? You were the voice that helped me right? I feel like I've seen you before." She asked the women as she programmed the pod to ascend. The grown woman patted the girl's head. "You okay kid?" she fixed her purple haircut and took off her maid outfit, revealing a glossy skintight latex spacesuit underneath.

"The Queen's advisor.. Ex-advisor, you know me as Mistress Violet. I'm Madam Byte! But you may call me Amity." she smiled, pinching the girl's cheeks. "I knew your mother.." She sighed. "Your real mother."

"My, real mother?" Gertrude asked Amity with innocence unfurling. The pod had to be piloted out Glimmer Kiss's barriers, a hole opening in the sky as they dodging plasmic shots and missiles curving towards them on the way out of the moon's orbit.

She turned to the two infants.

"Lil bro. Little sister.." She sighed.

"We're going to meet our momma!"

Amity shrugged. "Well, just you actually. They were.. hatched, not born."

"Huh?!" "You technically kidnapped them from their mother, but considering what life's dealt you, it’s fitting really."