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𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟑: 𝐟𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 :

Trails of thoughts and flashes of memories flew in front of Eris' eyes as she stared at herself in the mirror. It had been a good few days since her little escapade and the weight of the situation had finally truly dawned on her.

She hadn't looked at herself properly in a very long time. Eris never was one to hold her appearance up to high standards, she never needed to. The body and face she was given when she was born were simply there, not much to be either insecure or happy about. But even she had to admit she didn't look too well in that moment.

Dark bags laid under her blue eyes, the colour of her irises a little dimmer than she remembered. As a nice addition to her obvious insomnia were the slightly hollowed cheeks and pale skin that made her look more like a ghost than human at that point. She even felt like one.

Eris crooked her head slightly to turn her left cheek to the mirror a bit more, and there she spotted the scars she had for as long as she could remember.

One thin line of a slightly darker shade of pink trailed from her jaw up to about the height of her nose. She couldn't remember how she got that one.

The other one, which was placed on her eyebrow, she could definitely remember. Eris had been very young when she got it, around the age of seven. Tommy and her had been little demons all day, as Wilbur had called them, and had managed to steal a crossbow from Technoblade's armoury. The two had sneaked off into the woods and started practicing shooting. As Tommy started to fiddle around, trying to properly place the arrow in the frame, he had accidentally pulled the trigger, sending the arrow flying in the direction of Eris, who stood a few metres away. She had been blessed by the gods that days as the should-have-been fatal arrow only scraped the side of her face, leaving her with a dark scar running through her eyebrow, to the side of her face. Tommy had been inconsolable all day as he kept apologising to Eris as Wilbur stitched her face back together, promising he would do anything to make it up to her. Eris had laughed it off, thoroughly enjoying Tommy's suffering. Eventually the two settled on a promise. Tommy had promised her a favour, a favour she could inn whenever she wanted. As the two grew up, Eris never ended up using her favour, always afraid that a better opportunity would come along where she then couldn't use it.

He still owed her to that day.

A small smile tugged on Eris' dry lips at the memory, something filled with youth and such innocence. Unfortunately, the children they once were had to grow up quickly, their innocence and joy too precious for such a harsh and vile world.

The brunet sighed, turning her head to the other side, coming face to face with another scar, a new one. She let her hand trail the swollen line on her cheek, a frown setting on her dark brows.

It still stung a little as her fingertips touched the tender skin, making her almost retrieve her hand, but she resisted the urge. This would become the second scar caused by an arrow, there was no denying that fact as she looked at the scarred skin.

Then her eyes fell onto her hands, littered with burn marks and cuts, accumulated over years of recklessness.

She turned her hand over in front of her, looking at her burned fingertips, they were starting to heal as well.

Every bruise on her body started healing, meaning that time was passing, time where she was alone, locked away in a room, away from the ones that shared her precious memories.

Eris turned away from the mirror and marched back into the room she forcibly had to call her own and sat down on the bed.

As she sat down, a small crack was heard and she cursed under her breath.

Lifting the pillow, she found a broken piece of ceramic, previously disguised by the thin pillow. The other ones seemed to be intact however, which made the smallest form of relief wash over her body.

After Dream had thrown her back into her room and she managed to wriggle out of her bounded hands, she had collected a few pieces of the broken plates and hidden them under her pillow, in case of emergency.

She was glad she had, because the morning after, George had come in her room and cleaned out the rest of it. He had done it quietly, practically not acknowledging that Eris was in the room also. The only way she knew he was aware of her presence was the fact he had shot her the smallest ghost of a smile when he had walked out of the door again, something she hadn't really expected.

Later that day Sapnap had tried to bring her food, but just the sight of the bandana sparked a sense of fury in the brunette as she thought back at the way he had treated Tubbo, and so she had thrown a plate at his head the moment she realised it was him at the door. He had screamed at her and thrown the piece of bread on the ground, leaving it for her to pick it up herself. she didn't mind much.

It had been the same with Eret, who had tried to bring her dinner. When he appeared in the hallway, she had made sure to throw a glass that had previously contained water against the doorframe next to him, yelling for him to go away. She simply couldn't be in the same room as him, she refused.

Eris refused to be cooperative with anything that happened, she simply refused to be compliant to a situation she was forced to be in. The only person she had started to tolerate had been George. He never had done anything against her, besides being against L'Manberg. Every time Eris made a mess, he would be the one to clean it up. The first few times she saw him, he didn't say anything, except for the small smile, but as he became the only person she wasn't violent with, they occasionally spoke a few words.

Every day had been slow, so painfully slow. Eris was left entirely alone, only a few negative interactions scattered around the day, including the occasional visits of the masked man himself who questioned her about L'Manberg, asking about any secrets. Eris despised those visits.

The nights were no better. After Eris tried to escape, the window she had used to leave the building had been made significantly smaller, making sure she couldn't use it to escape again. So, the space that was usually lit up by the light of either the sun or moon, had become a lot less bright, almost equalling Eris' state of mind.

Sleeping had been awful too. Rest never came easy to her, but the fact she sat still most of the day, giving her no space to be active and letting out some much-needed energy, did not help.

She laid awake for hours, letting her mind succumb to increasingly dark and nasty thoughts and feelings, spiralling farther and farther down. Eris had problems with this since she was a child, but she always had somebody to stop her from doing such things. She never slept alone, either Technoblade, Eret or somebody else always were with her to guide her through the night.

Eris realised how dependent she was on other people for mental clarity.

A knock on the door shook her out of her dazed stare at the ceiling and she sat up from her bed again.

She hadn't realised she had laid down.

The brunette immediately reached over to a leftover plate and aimed it at the door, ready to throw it against anyone that dared to disturb her.

But the moment a thin brunet appeared in the doorway; she lowered her improvised weapon, sighing.

George looked at her with a cocked eyebrow, confusion written in his dark eyes, "Why are you holding that?"

"Thought you were somebody else." Eris replied curtly.

George shrugged, dismissing the comment.

It was only then when Eris noticed the book he held in his hands, "Why are you holding that?"

"Here," The brunet only replied, handing her the leather object.

She accepted the item hesitantly, almost expecting for it to be a trap, "Why are you giving me this?"

"Dunno."

The conversation was awkward, slightly forced, but Eris did not particularly mind, even when she was very sceptical of it. She eyed the slightly taller man, trying to read his intentions, but his practically black eyes seemed to conceal every piece of thought he had on his mind.

She looked down at the book itself;

The Village That Went Mad. It was a story she knew by heart. Wilbur had read it to her many times when she was younger, always acting out parts of the story that were too dramatic to just put in words. Another childhood memory gone to waste.

Eris frowned, placing the book to her side, standing up, "What do you want from me, huh?!"

George took the smallest step backwards, "What do you mean?"

"This book. It's a trap. I know it is." Eris replied sharply, a dark tint falling over her eyes.

"How the hell is this supposed to be a trap? I just thought I'd give you something to read because you've been sitting in this room for five days straight!"

It had been five days then.

The, now, obviously misplaced anger Eris felt left as fast as it came, and she sat down on the bed again, a small headache starting to form at the back of her head again, "Oh."

"Yeah.."

Eris took the item in her lap again, tracing her finger over the title art, "Well, thank you, I suppose."

George scratched the back of his neck, silent for a moment, before he replied, "It's no problem."

Then he left without a word. Eris opened her mouth to say something else, but realised she didn't know what, and so promptly shut it again.

She eyed the cover of the book. A small illustration of two howling wolves were engraved in the leather front of the book, those had been her favourite animals growing up.

She didn't really have a favourite animal anymore.

Opening the book, she let the paper slide between her fingertips, the slight friction creating heat in her scarred fingers. She let the page slip through her fingers, cringing at the tender ache.

Several thoughts ran through her mind to find a reason George would have given her the book. It didn't make sense, at all. He was at Dream's side, his best friend no less. To add to that, Eris had also managed to injure his other best friend, on multiple occasions. He shouldn't be showing her any form of kindness, none.

Kindness without a price was something Eris wasn't used to. Growing up, especially with a person like Technoblade, she learned that being kind, just for the sake of being kind, often ended up in disappointment. Kindness had to be earned, by either actions or material possessions, otherwise you set yourself up for vulnerability and exploitation.

Eris sighed, pushing a loose strand of her mousy hair behind her ear, before she picked up the paper again and turned it to the first page of the story, scanning the black ink as she started to read the fictional tale for the first time in many years.

Time blurred as she sat cross-legged on the bed, the ray of light that came through the small window growing dimmer and dimmer as the hours went on, the only viable source of light now being the crooked lamp that hung on the ceiling.

Then, when Eris was almost at the climax of the story, she recognised the sound of footsteps down the hallway.

As if on instinct, she put away the book, hiding it under her pillow.

She then reached over to a glass that laid on the foot of her bed, placed exactly there to throw at any person that dared to enter.

Sounds of the door unlocking made Eris ready herself. She stood up from the bed and took a few strides forward, while still aiming the glass at the door.

But when the door opened, she halted for a moment, not expecting for the two black dots to stare back at her.

The moment of hesitation ended quickly however and she pulled her arm back slightly to throw the object at the man in front of her. But before she could, he caught her arm, trapping the glass between their two hands as he stared down at her.

He said nothing for a moment as he held a firm grip on both the glass and Eris' hand, while he just stared at her with an emotion Eris couldn't place due to the lack of any facial expression.

"You know what?" Dream eventually said, tightening his grasp slightly, "I'm done with this."

"I give you food, water-, you even have your own bathroom, and you're still acting like a little brat. Every time I send somebody up here to get you your food or whatever the fuck, they keep coming back, saying they had plates and glasses thrown at them." He continued lowly.

Eris' jaw clenched as the firm hold Dream had on her hand and the pressure of the glass started to hurt.

"Now, I don't like it when people mess around with or break my property, so I suggest you knock it off."

"And what if I don't?" Eris replied through gritted teeth, the pain of his hand crushing hers against the glass almost becoming unbearable.

The answer had been a fool's response as suddenly the glass between Eris' hand shattered with a crack, a broken puzzle of glass piercing through her skin.

A wince escaped her lips at the stabbing pain and she pulled away her, now bleeding, hand, and instead shielding it against her chest with her other hand, tears of agony pushing against the back of her eyes.

"I will make you regret it."

For the first time, Eris looked up at the man in front of her with the slightest hint of fear over her glazed eyes, the mental pressure of being confined in a small room, combined with the overwhelming pain, finally cracking her seemingly unbeatable confidence.

Dream dusted off his hand on his jeans, ridding it off any left-over pieces of glass, before sighing, "I wondered why they're taking so long, but now I finally understand why they don't bother to try and find you."

He said the words in such a nonchalant way, like Eris wasn't even supposed to hear it, even when the silence that hung around the room otherwise was almost deafening, and boy, did those words sting.

"That's not true." Eris replied, a deep frown displaying on her features.

Dream looked up again, arms folded over his chest, "Well where are they then, huh? I don't see them."

"And I wouldn't have bothered anyways, seems like they already have some new people."

New people.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Eris asked, pure confusion laced through her syllables as she stared up at the mask.

Dream chuckled, "Oh, I guess you wouldn't have heard. Two people arrived in L'Manberg a few days ago. Guy and a girl. Seemed nice, especially the girl. They all seemed to have fun last time I checked."

For once, Eris didn't have a witty remark ready at the back of her tongue, she just averted her eyes to stare at her bleeding hand.

"Well, I'll be off. George'll clean that in a minute and I'll ask him to fetch something for your hand. Goodnight."

Airy and light were the last words he spoke before he stepped out of the room again, locking the door promptly behind him.

And even though his physical presence had left the room, his words taunted Eris' mind as she looked at the crimson blood that dripped down her wrist onto the floor.

They wouldn't leave her here, would they?

____
A/N:

finally an update! i'm so sorry everything is taking so long. my final exams begin next week so i'm really busy- but after my exams (2/3 weeks) i will try to upload every other day again!

i wrote like the half of this while being a bit wine drunk lmao- so i'm sorry if this are a bit weird.

i tried a more personal chapter today where it's really more written from eris' mind a bit- i like that :] lemme know if you guys do bc i like feedback

aLSO THANK YOU SM FOR THE SUPPORT!! 13k READS BROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO <3

you matter so much,
Blue