I Dream of Disney (One-shots)

Fire in the Court of Miracles [ Clopin Trouillefou x Reader] Part IV

"Do not threaten us!" Archambeau snapped.

Blinded by the colours, dazed by the sounds that echoed across the brick and stone, (Y/n) stumbled. The drums were pounding for her death now, she could feel the vibrations echoing through her as a tremble. There was only one thing that she could see: wings. Black wings of soft downy feathers, joined at the spine to a sinuous figure draped in a black robe with the hood drawn, feet covered by the dark robes. The figure was moving through the crowds, though people paid it no mind, almost as if they could not see that Death was moving among them. The figure touched no one with his death-bringing grasp. Instead, as her hair billowed around her sweat-beaded neck and froze her in place, she understood. This was the end of the line.

"Please," The word trembled on her lips, but she knew it was useless.

Death's hands were reaching out for her, seeking to caress her into the blackness of oblivion. It was seeking a dance partner for his macabre dance and he was going to ask her to be his partner. 

It had been all too much as she felt her knees finally give to the punishing blows of the gypsies that surrounded her. The joints melted like butter and oozed. Her balance weakened as she was jarred forward, but there was nothing to save her this time. Only one thing would catch her: the noose.

As she swooned, the violins stopped their playing and she knew that her journey into the next life would be passed silently. There was a snap at her neck and a breathless cry panted at her lips as she felt the knot burn at her throat as if she was being purged. The cold hands of Death sought her out in the darkness and she could feel it holding her, cradling the battered shape of her body as her mind reeled. There was a throbbing in her head that felt like her soul was a rat scratching and clawing for a way out of her head.

The crowds were roaring again. Louder than the bellowing of volcanoes, more violent than the hisses of storms and cyclones interweaving into a body of mass destruction that would strike its fist of rain and thunder on the world, obliterating that which had been. (Y/n)'s low, terrified breath did not pierce that heinous sound and she could not make sense of the hellish cacophony. Her ears had been damaged when she'd fallen from earth, she was sure of it, but so long as the noise rattled her, she gripped onto Death's figure with a hope that the promised oblivion would be swift and merciful, even if those people were not.

"You honourable liars, generous thieves, guiltless murderers and chaste wenches!" There called the voice of Death, "Here me as I proclaim this: the King of Truands has returned!"

She was about to be ripped apart by sheer paradox. Inside her skin, which seemed so brittle that it was hardly more durable than paper, the blood rushed and pumped: it sought a place where the skin had broken, pooling blood from down her slashed throat. Trembles were present everywhere: especially her hands, which quivered in Death's grip. She tried to reach up and touch that busted skin, let the blood trace her fingernails, but the trembling prevented it all.

Death reached up, his fingers grasping for the hood.

The screaming did not stop, nor did it change to the bloodcurdling cries of those who would witness the true face of the life-taker, instead the harsh rush of blood pumping through her ears became all that she could hear. Drums were not as palatable as violins, she discovered. When that blackened hand reached for that hood, wrenching it back, she fainted. 

When she awakened, the scene had altered. 

(Y/n) was in a small room, paved with rough-hewn sandstone and panelled with wood. From the pallet on which she lay, she huddled desperately for warmth in the scruffy woollen blanket with which she had been provided. The oval shape of the room made her feel trapped, cornered in like a caged animal.  There were only the most rudimentary of furnishings in the room: a single wooden table, small enough to be a writing desk; a paraffin lamp on the bedside stool; a ragged cloth, blackened with age, hanging over a cracked washbasin.