Dawn's Descent

Queen of the Castle

The house around her began to morph and shift again, rumbling and creaking like a monster about to awaken from a deep slumber. The pinkness faded from the walls, replaced by an inky black. Bright pink towers turned into eerie, black spires. Gold turned to iron and the entire house continued to contort, physically changing, switching over from an overly large dollhouse into a Victorian-era castle that would've made Dracula happy. The girl responsible for the change, the owner of the house, sat alone in her bedroom with a cross expression. It was Dawn Crumhorn, the newly-turned teenager. She was suffering through another bout of angsty-teen frustration, the mood swings driving her up the shifting walls.

Dawn's essence was a very powerful thing, and it had only grown stronger after one of her favorite possessions fell into a vat of personality-amplifying mind gel. After being exposed to that gel long enough (by proxy of the object that had fallen in in the first place, a tiara) Dawn had begun to absorb some of that power too, and it seemed to reside right within the very core of her soul. Whether she knew it or not, whether she meant to or not, her very being had fused with this power, and her subconscious dreams and desires could come to life whenever she so decided to bring them up.

Back in the day, she had used this power to lavish all sorts of fun things upon herself. Shiny, new things, like crowns and dresses and jewelry. Her simple mansion turned into a castle, a dollhouse brought to life. The house had grown in size and the simple plaster walls turned into sparkly pink bricks. The squareness of the house morphed into the intricate shape of a castle, with tall towers spiraling above the bulky body of the main fortress of the castle. The windows grew larger and more beautiful, turning from simple square panes into stained-glass windows of all shapes and sizes. A gate of solid gold now blocked off the property and the entire house was elevated as Dawn's personality power was strong enough to shape the very Earth itself, causing it to rise up beneath her new castle in the shape of a hill. Now she literally was above her neighbors, perched on high as the queen of the castle, able to stare down at from her place on top of the hill, her bedroom existing in a tower protruding out from the rest of the house to give her a better view of the world below.

But that wasn't the only thing Dawn used her powers to change. Her clothing transformed into outfits befitting of a real princess. Her toys came to life, filling the large halls of her castle to act as her royal court. And for a while, she had reveled in her godlike powers, capable of bringing her very dreams to life with just a simple thought. Her personality bled out of her body and filled up the world around her. Like ink staining across a page, Dawn's dreams and personality bled into the real world, blurring the lines between fantasy and reality until they were one weird mishmash. She became the queen of the castle, the creator and ruler of her own little world!

But then the world began to turn dark. Dawn's irrational irritation grew stronger and stronger every day. Too much emotion bottled up inside of her and it began to bleed out again just like always. Even though she had long-since ditched the tiara possessing the personality gel, the powers were already encoded in her very genes. As such, she no longer needed the crown to bring her fantasy into reality. But this time, she hadn't really been trying. Unlike the olden days, when she reveled in creating new and fun things to gorge herself upon, her new creations were not intentional. She still controlled what they were, but not the fact that they had come into existence at all. That much was out of her hands, her own mind and personality betraying her as they overflowed with negative emotion. She was no longer creating for the sake of creating. Her foul tempers and moods were overloading her system and the way she expressed was not only through tantrums and mood swings, but through creation.

Her dollhouse began to blacken and twist, sharp spires replacing bright pink flags. The glitter turned into cold stone and creeping vines. Big, bright, beautiful windows became faded and old, suddenly covered by long, thick, black drapes that kept any sunlight from entering the house. A pink throne of cushions became a pitch black throne, highlighted with dark purple streaks. A beautiful bed with a pink canopy became a simple and almost coffin-like resting place, a black mourner's veil replacing the pink canopy. All the bright and shiny jewelry became dull and hard, black leather and silver spikes replacing comically large jewels and flashy, glittery gold. Pop music became harder, slower and darker. No more bright, bubbly lyrics heavy with autotune. Now they were only songs of rage, backed up by wailing electric guitars.

The very house conformed to every little last one of Dawn's whims, intentional or not. The very house conformed to Dawn's emotional state, whether she wanted it to or not. The golden gates were now iron and spiked. The tiles looked scaly instead of glittery. The gardens were no longer luxurious, but barren and empty and gray, like they were awaiting a shipment of tombstones any day now. And Dawn, herself, had undergone a drastic change as well. Her curly hair became long and straight and it darkened into black until the only color left in it was one white stripe towards the front. Her skin became paler, tinting with dark purple instead of bright pink. Her eyes, which used to be either brown or pink based on whether or not she was using her "Princess Powers" had turned purple. Her fluffy pink ballgown was a Victorian era dress, long and black and flowing, highlighted with silver accents and completed with a tight corset. The gothic look was complete.

But as Dawn's personality continued to mesh with reality, warping everything around her, her mood continued a downward spiral.

"Urgh! I hate grownups!" the young poodle glowered at the door as her father took leave of her room. He had come to demand why everything was so bleak and black and her only response had been to shout at him until he left her alone again. She crossed her arms and growled lowly. Her growls used to be high-pitched, sounding like that of a chihuahua, but with this new edge in her life, her growl was finally starting to sound ferocious, like her Doberman father's. It filled her with a dark satisfaction.

"You could at least wear your tiara!" he had complained, ears twitching a little as he chastised her new aesthetic.

"Ugh! That girly thing?" Dawn had sounded repulsed, and that had been the end of that.

"Stupid, stupid, STUPID!" Dawn continued to growl as she crossed her arms and dug her paws deeper and deeper into her own arms. The house began to rumble and moan and creak again. By the end of this new little fit, something new would've popped up somewhere. She felt the foundation rumbling beneath her, a growling beast waiting to devour someone. The curtains seemed to tighten and all the silver looked brighter while all the spikes looked sharper.

After a few minutes, then, the restless rumbling of the house ceased and it fell as still and silent as a graveyard once more. Dawn continued to sit on her throne and glare down at the rest of the petty little world beneath her feet. She was the queen of the castle here, the ruler of her own little world, her darkened kingdom. She loathed and loved it at the same time and she continued to scowl as the walls of the house turned blacker and blacker and blacker.

AN: Random fic about Dawn's descent into an angsty teenager, inspired off Zarius' theory that the house is somehow tied to Dawn directly, hence why it seems to reflect her mood so well (because there's no way magic was NOT involved in Dark Dawn when DM and Penfold waltz into her house only to find it COMPLETELY renovated. No house can go through such a dramatic shift that fast, unless the house changes and respond to its owner's mental and emotional state. Which is more fun to think about anyway).