so sickly sweet it burns

Dominique smiled at a stranger, in a world far away from home.

Magic - oh, how brilliant it was! The way it could bring her across worlds, and twist reality around her like thin paper. There was nothing more sweet than that rush of power that came when people stared into her gears and wavered on their feet before the most dazzlingly beautiful smile stretched across their faces. It was the greatest of treats for Dominique: to watch them feel such joy from her hypnosis even as she took a step forward with her own smile, sickly sweet, and opened her very special kit. “Very, very special indeed, the things you’re doing for me. Thank you very much,” she said to the air. The kalon in front of her was quite thoroughly enraptured in her illusion, after all.

And her illusions were so simple! Theme parks, ferris wheels that stretched to the limit of the sky, giving the most grandiose views of the sunset, the sunrise, the Himalayas of Earth; whatever they so desired! She gave them bubblegum skies, cotton-candy clouds, just like her homeland. She gave them love, in the form of a man or a woman or something else entirely, in any form of love any sentient being could wish for. And oh, how simple a thing it was to do. The people of the Vekar Empire and of Earth or anywhere she wandered could be so endlessly simple. Such illusions could have never satisfied someone from her homeland.

Perhaps that is why she ended up so messed up, after all. She was taught that nothing would ever be enough, one way or another.

With a thrill held only by the most self-destructive, self-hating of souls, Dominique jabbed a syringe into the hypnositized’s kalon’s arm with a menacing half-growl of a smile. “Thank you for your contribution,” she offered as they collapsed onto the ground with a shudder and a jerk. She watched the goop on their paws shrink away and flake. Dominique’s grin grew even wider, her hand reaching up to pull her hat down to hide the glee on her face.

“Finally, a success.”