Day 7 of the 25 Days of TF-mas! (Contains petrification themes and girl to snowglobe tf)

Elliott slumped back into her car. How was it that she was always just behind Kat? The barista had tracked the strange woman down to a pancake house based on a passing conversation of some patrons describing a similar daze and lack of short-term memory that she had felt during Carla’s disappearing act. She’d entered and talked with the workers and other customers who generally either blew her off or agreed that they’d sort of spaced out for a bit not too long ago. By itself it was hardly anything but fuel for Elliott’s growing paranoia, but then she noticed a table at a booth. There was a purse left in the seat, and evidence of a substantial amount of food being ordered and abandoned. If it were a dine and dash, or even just an unsatisfactory stack of pancakes, why would they have left their purse? Against better judgment, Elliott looked through the purse and found an ID. Another person to investigate for sure. If this Tori girl was missing too, it would almost certainly connect to Carla’s vanishing too. That had woman better watch her back because Elliott was coming for her.

Oblivious to, or perhaps uncaring of the investigations of the Barista Detective (trademark pending), Kat walked dutifully down the sidewalk. The pep in its step came from the progress it felt it was making with its duty to make good on the wish a certain former person made. In the bag Kat had gotten from the store was a boxed doll, formally known as Connie, and a stuffed toy, the result of Skylar and Tori’s relationship getting too intimate. The magical creature tossed its current form’s long black hair back in a flair of self-confidence, already hyped up for its next little adventure in the making.

Most of the city, especially in its heart, was pretty packed. Houses and apartments squeezed together to cram as many people per square mile as possible. Malls and individual stores stacked in various formations beside theaters and factories and all other sorts of buildings of various use and stature. However, just beyond the reaches of the downtown area there existed much less bustling locales. Offshoot neighborhoods and farmsteads here and there dotted the land in more frequency the further you went, but fairly nearby still to the heart was a series of estates. These homes were extravagant and sprawling, each with lawns and drives that very well could encompass dozens of homes in the denser areas of the city. The people that lived here were called detached by the less well off and enjoyed wealth that was functionally without limit. Children born into this type of household often developed traits that embodied this lack of connection with the world beyond their neighborhood’s gates in one way or another. Such was the case for young Maribelle. Miss Maribelle had spent the last twenty years growing up in her family’s lavish manor surrounded by land they owned, help they employed, and all the modern conveniences a young girl could possibly imagine. The only thing she didn’t have was any idea of how the world beyond this lifestyle actually worked. Sure, she’d taken classes and been shown proper etiquette, trained on a number of subjects and disciplines, and for all intents and purposes prepared by her parents for the life they expected their daughter to lead, but her world was incredibly small. Maribelle never dared stray far from the path laid out by her forebears and seldom even breathed out of line, but that did not stop her imagination from racing. Many a day did she stare longingly out of the window of the car that her personal driver chauffeured her around in and wonder what it would be like to live outside of the bubble she grew up within. Soon enough, she may wish she’d taken more of a risk with those daydreams.

Today had begun like most others for Maribelle. She awoke in her enormous, plush bed, dismissed the maid that offered to get her prepared, preferring to practice on herself the intricacies of hair styling and makeup, and set out to begin her long routine. She brushed her brilliant white hair, a distinctive trait her parents were quite proud of, and tied it up out of the way for her makeup application. As skilled as she was with it, the process still took the better part of an hour to complete. There was her foundation and contouring, perfectly accentuating her strong cheek bones, also a point of pride for her mother in particular, and creating a guide for onlooking eyes to the best features on her face. She applied a light amount of blush to give her cheeks color to counteract the equalizing nature of her foundation. All of this was pretty fast for the girl now. The real trick was her eyes. With the limited freedom she had in her day to day, the way she most often expressed herself was through the makeup she chose to use for her eyes. She played with different mascaras and eye liner styles, different eyeshadows, and even with overall looks that her parents would never let her leave the house with, just for her own fun. Those last kinds of appearances she would always start again and create a more proper look for herself, but it was fun regardless. With that done she moved on to styling her hair. Maribelle often preferred to run a small braid around the back of her head with the rest of her hair straightened and softened to fall down her back. Today she parted some of her hair to drape over the front of her shoulders and slipped these bundles into little golden clips to give her monochrome hair a bit of a pop. She painstakingly selected her jewelry for the day, her dress and winter top layers, and other accessories to make for a gorgeous final look of regality and poise. Just as mother and father would want.

She made her way to the garden, since she had some time to spare before she had to attend to anything, and her parents were tied up with preparations for the various galas and charity events that her family put on this time of year. Their absence did not sting Maribelle today, because today almost nothing could sour her mood. She moved fast enough for the maids to chuckle to themselves after she blew past them, exchanging knowing looks with one another. The reason for her childlike excitement was well known in the estate. It was snowing. For as long as Maribelle could recall, she had loved the snow. She felt at peace with it. Her nanny had told her fanciful tales of icy queens gaining power during the snow like a lycan in the full moon and she had always imagined herself the same way. She twirled and danced about frivolously in the gently falling snow.

"Ah, I wish I could simply stay in such a wintry paradise of a day forever..." She sighed wistfully, looking up at the gray sky. Maribelle did not realize how dire her simple desire would make her life. She decided to walk through the sprawling yard. It somehow felt even more plain than normal. Had the landscapers done away with the flowerbed out here already? For that matter, where was the gazebo? The more she walked, the more bizarre this felt. An endless expanse of untouched white landscape stretched out before her.

THUNK

Maribelle fell back into the snow, startled. She clambered to her feet and brushed her dress off of snow. She reached out and was shocked to press her hand against the open air. it was cold, like glass. She began to walk laterally along the invisible wall, and did not find any gaps in the solid barrier. Thoroughly disturbed, she turned to make the long trek back to her home, but was shocked to find that she'd hardly traveled a few meters from the back door. Maribelle hiked her skirts up and hurried to the door. Her shoes hit what should have been marble steps to the porch, but it felt a bit... off. She paid no mind to this and tried to throw the door open. She yanked and... nothing. Not so much as a jiggle of a locked door. It was as though the door had been welded shut. Maribelle yelled for a maid and banged on the door, but instead of the sound of her hand hitting a solid oak door, she heard a much less resounding sound of her hand punching plastic. This was impossible, and it was beginning to make to poor girl feel faint. Hurrying to the front door, she noticed that she could not see into the house's windows. It was like there was yellow-orange paint to simulate the warm lights within rather than an actual glass window. The yard was empty and there was no help in sight. She tried the door to no avail before falling back into the snow in disbelief. How was any of this possible?

Then her world began to shake violently. The sky turned an odd pinkish color and a massive earth quake shook the girl about, resulting in a flurry of snow that then began to gently fall around her. Once she managed to stand again, she looked up and around at the snow. She held her hand out to catch some and she did, but it was an odd clump that did not melt in her hand. Stranger still, she could no longer move her hand.

Or her legs.

In fact, she could no longer move her body. It was a strange feeling for Maribelle, like being confined in a straight jacket and floating in a sensory deprivation tank at the same time. Her world shook again, but Maribelle didn't even sway. She was firmly attached to the ground, and the snow fell around her once more. She got her wish - she would be spending a long time in this winter day of her dreams while Kat tucked the new, one-of-a-kind snow globe into the bag alongside the plastic doll and the plush toy.