The Descent

Those few days that followed had been a daze for Marigold, she was all the more aware of the boy and the girl. How they acted with each other, the small distances between them and how they would disappear for hours on end in the middle of the night only to return, filling the suite with the lingering stench of sex. It was uncomfortable, much too uncomfortable for a woman her age.

The day following their first return, she had struggled to leave the room to go to the pool like every other day before. Not for any particular reason like a lacking of Bleu's order, she knew he couldn't give her one so she was free to do what she wanted, but because Parc was seemingly intent that she wear a swimsuit and not her dress.

It was ridiculous really. Not the swimsuit, she knew that was more appropriate than a dress that hid her entire body when the sun blared down warmly over the deck. Just the idea that she wasn't wearing something that hid her marks was odd… offputting even. She'd spent so long cowering from the sun that it felt weird to feel it caressing her stomach and legs. It was even cooler than she had expected. When dressed up she always felt like she was dipping herself into a boiling pot of water during the summertime.

She was just grateful that the bikini—which Parc had bought from one of the vendors on the ship—hadn't been overly revealing or sexy. Just a nice, simple yellow string top and bottom. There had been more than a little struggle getting used to tying those knots after several decades of not being used.

Whenever she'd go out, following Parc and Blake like they were mother geese and she a baby, she'd always catch Bleu's astonished gaping out the corner of her eyes. Was it shock that she was dressed like that? Showing off her body that drew eyes yet no one knowing that just days earlier that deathly pale skin had been covered in splotches of blue?

Twists of almost giddy mirth ran through her seeing his gaze. There was a fervour to it, something he'd lost long ago. Though whenever one of the younger girls wandered past he'd always be taken to them with a more hungering expression.

If something could toss her self worth out the window, it was that. Her husband didn't see her as beautiful anymore, he may have fervour but that was just him being pent up since he forced her to leave for whatever reason there was. The younger bodies were just tighter, more pleasurable to his eyes while she was thin with just the barest bit of flab to her belly and bottom.

Parc hadn't touched her since that first day. He'd struck up conversations, offered her snacks and things to read but he didn't touch her. Blake on the other hand… when they hadn't disappeared one night, she had heard them going at it. The girl didn't sound human let alone like a Faunus. There were too many guttural squeals and moans that in the morning it was a compare the calm faced girl to the undoubtedly orgasmic faces she'd seen in those derisable pictures.

Since then, she'd not had the confidence to go prying around. That phone and its contents had left her mind in a haze. When they'd leave she'd sneak out, lingering by the door to the room, hand hesitant to rise and twist open that handle like she was about to push a boulder up a hill, yet she couldn't bring herself to do it. She knew that satchel was in there, he never took it with him when they went to the top deck. Always kept it in his room cause it would just get in the way.

Come the end of the first week of the cruise, the masses of people flocked to their balconies to watch the clouds break and for the ship to descend to the verdant continent below. There was a city there, large and famed for its culture and a perfect tourist trap. It wasn't quite close to the capital, Mistral, as it was on the western end of the continent about halfway down the Hook of Anima just before the peninsula opened up.

Marigold gripped the railing, watching the ship descend to the airport whilst chewing her cheek. Her expression was unsteady, even as she turned her head to the side to see Blake and Parc also looking down at the bird's eye view of the second largest continent of Remnant. Land expanding far into the distance, further than any human eyes could peer and even farther than a Faunus' as well.

They were huddled hip to hip. Parc's arm around Blake's back, holding her close while the girl leaned into his side. If she didn't know any better, she may have very well mistaken them for an actual couple.

Seeming to notice her gaze, Parc twisted his head with a curious expression and met her gaze only for Marigold to swiftly turn away. He lingered on her a bit longer, lips curling down and into a frown as she hung with weights pulling her down. Truly a pitiable woman, he considered. Still, plenty of work to do to get her confident in herself.

Luckily there'd be plenty of time for that.

With the descent likely to take another hour or two, Parc peeled away from the railing, uttering as he did, "we should start packing." Blake quirked her head up then nodded then nimbly fled Parc's hold and made way to their room.

"Pack?" Marigold questioned confusedly.

Parc turned to her, mouth hung before realizing his folly, "ah. I didn't tell you did I?" he laughed awkwardly, "we're stopping the cruise early. Going to be heading for Menagerie for a bit before making our way back in a week and a half."

There was no proper way to react to that as something told her she wouldn't just get to stay on board. "I… Am I going with?" she fidgeted on the spot, nervous and uncomfortable that she'd be so far from Bleu."

"Of course you are." It was a shot to the heart, a demoralizing statement that sucked the breath out of her lungs and caused her eyes to shiver. "I'd rather not leave you here on your own. Just doesn't seem safe for you. Not while you're in the state you are right now." She knew exactly what he meant to say. That she was too pathetic to be left on her own.

"What about Bleu?" she lifted her limp head, eyes blaring with hopefulness.

"What about him? He's an abusive asshole. He's got nothing to do with you anymore, Marigold. You don't have to think about him anymore."

Pursing her lips together, she sucked them in and said nothing.

Parc stood there, scratching his temple then let out a little exhausted sigh. "Marigold," he leaned his back onto the railing and looked to Blake who was collecting up a few of her things from the lounge. "Bleu doesn't deserve so much time in your head."

"He's my husband." She tried to argue, though the sound that came was weak like herself.

"And a husband who hit his wife till she was black and blue. That's not something good people do. And I'll reiterate this as many times as it takes until you understand that. But being here with me is better than being there with him." He waited for a response that wouldn't come, "I get that he's your husband. That you're a little more than dependent on him, but that's not because you love him. It's because he made it so you couldn't live without his input. These last few days you've been with me, I've been watching you and you don't act like a person. You act like a robot waiting for orders. You sit around looking at books, never reading them till either me or Blake say you can. You don't watch something on the television till we say you can. You don't eat till we say you can. You don't go to the bathroom without asking first, I can name a hundred more things, Marigold. That isn't normal."

Chewing her lips she couldn't reply, to say he's wrong because well, he just wasn't.

"Bleu did that to you. He bullied you and ripped away everything that makes you human. You don't think for yourself, you think for him. I've seen how when we go to the pool, you look so prideful and happy that he looks at you with almost yearning eyes, almost. But then get depressed when he looks at another woman that isn't you.

"I know it's going to take a long time for you to get used to that, Marigold. That you no longer need Bleu or anyone telling you what to do. It's going to be slower than a snail in a race. Take months, even years to get to the point where you're comfortable to be your own person. I hope to help you get there one day. Until then, I just can't trust you or Bleu to be stuck on this ship for another week without supervision. Going back to Bleu would just start up this horrible cycle once more and I'm not sure you can be saved then."

He could see every word hitting her like a freight train, it lowered her head further, sucked the life from her face and brought misty tears to the corners of her eyes. It was a horrible sight to see, physically causing guilty convulsions across his body and made guilt feel like a nigh requirement after that little speech.

Parc scratched his cheek, looking down to the approaching city then back to Marigold before deciding to move closer to her and set his hand atop hers in a show of solidarity and empathy. "I just want to help you, Marigold." He softly whispered. "I hope you'll see that soon."