reddosmod: (Default)
Deer Country Mod ([personal profile] reddosmod) wrote in [community profile] countryclub2022-09-25 09:57 pm
Entry tags:

SEPTEMBER TEST DRIVE MEME!

SEPTEMBER 2022 TDM
Another month, another test drive meme! Our test drive memes are open to anyone interested - regardless of whether or not you join our game!

All Test Drive Memes are game canon. Players can choose to keep their TDM threads canon or not. TDM threads can be used for AC and can be used as your writing sample for your application.

Our TDMs serve as a way to build into the actual lore and worldbuilding of Deer Country and we strongly encourage everyone to enjoy and participate! Current players are always welcome to pull prompts from the TDM to reference on the Network or bring into logs as well as tag out to new characters top-leveling on the TDM itself.

Characters will always be able to actively die during TDMs as this is an extremely dangerous world. You can still have this be game canon! Check out how character death in Deer Country works here.

If you have any questions about the TDM, please ask down below!

IMAGE DESCRIPTORS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE

Prompt One
[Image One: Bread Cornucopia filled with fruits and veggies]
[Image Two: Creepy glass eye embedded in sand]

Prompt Two
[Image One: A Lone Lighthouse by night]
[Image Two: Ghost Ship in dilapidated condition]

Prompt Three
[Image One: Wasps, Wasp Nest made from human Mask screaming terror, swirling eddies in wasp Nest]
[Image Two: Horribly mutilated Cenobite in Latex gear with exposed teeth]

STANDARD ARRIVAL
WHEN: First Week of September
WHERE: The Farther Shores/The Boardwalk, Koz's Orphanage
CONTENT WARNINGS: Creepy Prosthetics buried in the sand


On some level, you are one of the fortunate ones. The storms of August are now a distant memory. It is the waning of the Blood Moon and the tempestuous state of the Beast Moon this year is fading finally while the harvest is being collected. Sleepers arriving find no particular difficulty in actually reaching the shores for the most part, and transformations back into their natural state of being are relatively easy. They are met by happy Trenchies and fellow Sleepers with robes of white and their bags as normal, and motioned towards the waiting tents set up along the

What is strange, however, is that when Sleepers arrive, they may find their eyes drawn to something disturbing amongst the sand. Water washes with the waves and tide, and reveals a body part! They are always prosthetics of some variety, and many are glass eyes that eerily stare at the person. They can be retrieved with some ease, though they're in bad need of cleaning. Perhaps they belong to someone in town? If not, however, asking around will get a suggestion to bring those to Koz's Orphange in Crenshaw. They have a Lost and Found there, and it is the season of finding what and who is lost. If they do, they might catch a glimpse of Koz floating mournfully through the area, and one of the children will gratefully take the item, saying that they will add it to the rest of the Lost and Found, before coming back with a photo in hand. "Here, I found this, and I think it might be yours?" The photo is, indeed, of the giver and someone from their past. Perhaps it is an actual photo taken, or one they cannot remember having been taken. Regardless, it is offered to them in a cheap wooden frame. How it got there, the orphan does not know. It was probably there when they arrived.

SEASONAL DETAILS ON THE BOARDWALK

The Boardwalk is quite the spectacle this time of year, and those who were here the prior year will remember many of the decorations and festivities. Pumpkins have been stacked on spikes lining the Boardwalk with grotesquely realistic carvings of faces decorated on them. Massive white linen has been hung in the air to look like ghosts floating back and forth against the ocean wind.

Delicious smells waft from the Boardwalk as fresh donuts, candied apples, and hot apple cider are sold at every other booth, along with complementary cornucopias given to each new Sleeper made out of bread that has fruits of all varieties but always seems to have a small jar of the favorite fruit, seed, vegetable (or even meat) of the person receiving it. If asked where it is from, the Sleepers shrug and say "The Orphans took up a collection to give a welcoming gift to new arrivals." If what is in the jar is eaten by the person given it, it will help to ease their mind and give them a calm that can last up to a week as they acclimate.

Preparations are in order for this year's Black Parade. An annual celebration, it is promoted among the excited locals as something that people can participate in. Face Painting booths and costumes are available to those who wish them, with the statement by the Trenchies, "We do it to disguise ourselves from roaming spirits and hungry beasts."
A FADED MEMORY
WHEN: Mid October
WHERE: In Swimming distance (Barely) of the Farther Shores
CONTENT WARNINGS: Ghostly Ship & Lighthouse, Threat of Corruption, Remains of Ghastly Murder and Dismembered Corpse


It is by accident that your eyes chance to look towards the Farther Shores. There, you happen to see a lighthouse, but you know for certain that it cannot be the lighthouse that is normally there and manned by the fishermen. You can't usually see that from this angle. The moment that you see it, a feeling of mounting dread falls upon you, and you realize that there is no light in the lighthouse. Though the compulsion to investigate can be resisted, there is an almost overwhelming urge to go, to investigate, to re-ignite the flame before it is too late!

The question is getting out there. The fishermen, when the lighthouse is mentioned, will make warding gestures and look terrified. All will resolutely refuse to sail out, muttering incomprehensible curses and lashing their boats securely to the shore. There will be no fishing tonight. The lighthouse, from the docks and shores, is out in the water on a rocky outcrop that nobody remembers being there, though any Trenchy asked will pale at the mention. The only way to get out there is to swim. It is a hard, dangerous swim, but the tide is coming in, rather than going out, so the riptide is not pulling down. It can be done, or a raft can be hastily made. When clambering up the stone steps to the lone lighthouse, it is apparent its door is ajar. And within? Horror awaits.

The insides of the tower are caked in viscuous, green blood. The Lighthouse itself is barely standing. It looks as if a thunderous, colossal fist has battered it repeatedly, the building nearly collapsing at every step. It does not actually break apart, but those who ascend the steps find themselves fighting not to slip on old, caked and thick blood that smells of roses. The contact with the blood isn't doing anything good to the person's sanity and hallucinations of the screams of the dying can be heard, along with shrieks of "What is it?" at the top of someone's voice. An increase in corruption is possible here, though not required. The more one contacts the blood, the greater the risk is. In the top of the lighthouse, dismembered, skeletal remains lay in gobs of what may once have been flesh. One of them holds desperately a torch in their hand, and there is a lighter present. One look out into the night will see a great vessel approaching, broken, its sails tattered and ruined. there is little time, and hopefully the lighter works!

The moment the torch lights the lamp in the lighthouse, the ship veers away from a collision course that would have destroyed the lighthouse and likely the flimsy rock outcropping on which it stood. Shades of dead sailors stare in horror at those who man the lighthouse today, the ship sailing away into the night. All are pointing beyond, and if you look over your shoulder, you can barely see a collosal figure in shadow walking into the town beyond, seemingly confused and wailing. Nothing further happens, and when the people in the lighthouse reach shore again, they will find upon turning back that it is gone, as is the outcropping, though a close inspection does see the remains of a shallow of stone there where the island once stood.

Note: The Ghost ship cannot be interacted with. If someone has the ability to reach it, they will pass through it only to realize it is nothing more than a memory in the land. Fragments of rotted wood and broken masonry can be found in the water below, covered in countless barnacles. Nothing within them shows any proof of what once transpired. There is a risk of corruption from blood exposure, though this is very much up to the players if they wish to incorporate it.

No Trenchy will willingly speak of what transpired, though a careful investigation at the Pale Sanctuary may find a tome among the sacred texts associated with Cloverfield. Reading from it, one might find a forgotten marking that the first sighting of Cloverfield, long ago, saw the collapse of the original lighthouse. No Disciple recalls the incident, and none will speak of it.

FRIEND OR FOE
WHEN: Anytime in October
WHERE: At the frindges of the main districts
CONTENT WARNINGS: demonic bugs, Bug Horror, Grotesque death, Self mutilation, Bug Infestation


The first thing that alerts you to the danger is the screams. They are agonizing, gut-wrenching and full of naked horror. When traveling near the edge of any of the districts, particularly the Crenshaw district, it is possible at times to witness a truly horrifying sight. The screams, if investigated, come upon the grisly attack of a horde of not exactly wasps but closer to demonic insects swarming over a person. They shriek, their whole form shrouded by the terrible creatures as they're being stun and the things seem to be extruding some sort of substance to cocoon them while still alive to one of the trees. There is no cry for help, as the person is clearly unaware of who is there, but do you reach out to save them?

If you do not, the scene is horrific and grisly beyond reckoning. The wasps trap the hapless victim against a tree, grafting the extruded paper all over their screaming visage to form a new wasp nest before they ultimately begin crawling inside of them, devouring them from the inside out and implanting their eggs in the new 'home' created for them. It is at this time that the palpable danger may dawn upon you. The infernal bugs have not yet seen you, but they seem to be aware that there is other life around. Do you take this moment to try and beat a hasty retreat, or do you fight it out with the bugs? They can be destroyed, but only by means of abilities and powers that destroy multiples at once, such as great gouts of flame. Hopefully you have a coldblood present! Fleeing them is easier, but can you leave this person to their fate? Still, if instead you observe and take no action, eventually the bugs seem to notice you, and though they swarm near, as long as they are not attacked, they seem to do nothing.

Strange.

If, however, you try to save the victim, a very different scene plays out. The same rules apply to fight the swarm, and if you stop them short of killing their victim, you will see just who it is that you have saved. There, mutilated through self scarification and brutally altered in horrible ways that seem almost fetishistic, is one of the blood crazed zealots. Despite being weakened and badly injured, they lash out at you, their defender. The power that they wield with their blood is incredible, and they demonstrate an ability to wield it that is well documented. The only note is that no Cold-blooded Zealots are present, and so their powers are not represented this time. However, they are drained and though they pose a threat to your life, they can be killed here with a bit of care, can be resisted with great difficulty and certainly be escaped. Either way, there is no true reward for having killed them other than knowing that you have done so. Why are they here? Alone?

It is almost as if they were an advance scout, and the wasps were someone's defense against them, someone's early warning.

CODING
martyrofduty: (g1deon!face profile; suit)

1. shore | CW: body horror, it's not cannibalism and it's not not cannibalism

[personal profile] martyrofduty 2022-09-30 12:21 am (UTC)(link)
By the time Pyrrha reaches the beach, she no longer feels Alecto hurting John. John is— elsewhere. John is back, but John has lost center stage on his fifth return to the company he keeps. His heart beats with Pyrrha's, and she knows how he is well enough to trust it to be well enough alone.

Her smile grows out of her gaunt face, cracking that shaved head, and beaming through red cracks in brown color. It's not the face most people think of her with, not that Alecto has once thought the way most people think. It's with joy and the weight of sadness that defies easy explanation that she brushes back a golden lock.

"Do you recognize me?" Pyrrha asks. She stabs the palm of one hand with the tip of her spear, condensed in its shorter form. This she spins around and jams into the wound before her blood freezes entirely. In moments, the wound closes up and her pale blue green blood solidifies on her weapon. Extending it to full length, something she can only do because of John's help, she breaks off the end, much as Duty did to demonstrate to D, only this end is her blood as well as her bone. Her story in the shape of her body, ten thousand years and ten seconds old between them. This fragment of herself she holds out in offer to Alecto.
earthworms: (Default)

[personal profile] earthworms 2022-09-30 12:22 am (UTC)(link)
[So it's like the jellyfish in the ocean back home: most likely deadly to everyone except Nona herself.

She tries to think of an excuse.]


I can... swim ahead! Look for monsters! I'm good at swimming.
earthworms: (Default)

[personal profile] earthworms 2022-09-30 12:32 am (UTC)(link)
I get motion sick. But... maybe the air is different!

[She tries to sound hopeful! She likes being hopeful.]

If not... you can drop me. I'll swim for it.
earthworms: (Default)

[personal profile] earthworms 2022-09-30 01:00 am (UTC)(link)
Yes. I just woke up here but at first I had... no hands! [She waves them in the air. In case either of them have forgotten about hands. (Nona wishes she could forget hands.]

Just suckers!
earthworms: (do the noodle dance)

[personal profile] earthworms 2022-09-30 01:31 am (UTC)(link)
"Pyrrha!"

Nona tries to right herself in the water so fast that she nearly flips herself right over. She surfaces, spitting out water and bobbing on the balls of her feet to be upright in the surf.

"I didn't much mind them! I could swim much faster!"
monsterwife: (sixth)

cw: blood, dysfunctional relationships, violation of bodily autonomy

[personal profile] monsterwife 2022-09-30 01:39 am (UTC)(link)
[ The ones with the gift were never very strong. John's young human collapses, and Alecto is not so false as to let her fall. It would not be fair to the blood below their feet. The blood did nothing wrong.

Alecto stands tall, a terrible and ugly column of flesh, and before she can wrap her arms around the human to fix it in place, she pushes away. A show of strength. Aleco inclines her head, very nearly respecting the human for it. ]


You still want her? I gave you back the dead. I gave them all to you, and they are not enough?

[ Not really a question. Alecto knows by now that nothing will ever be enough for these children. They are so hungry. And here goes the child, demanding more and more. More answers, more words formed out of ugly mouths. More things to eat.

Alecto picks up the human's hand, the thing that is supposed to hold. She puts it in her own, like so. Alecto's language is the tooth and the nail and the eye, and it is exhausting that no one else speaks it. ]


I told you. I showed myself to you, and you did not listen. I begged you to stop with the words from my lips, the words that you use, and they were not good for you.

[ Tears. Saltwater. Alecto wipes them from the infant's face, for they belong to her. ]

You still do not know what I am.
Edited 2022-09-30 01:41 (UTC)
martyrofduty: (g1deon!face oh?)

[personal profile] martyrofduty 2022-09-30 01:44 am (UTC)(link)
Pyrrha smiles. She steps into the water, as deep as Nona, deep enough to transform. It only takes a thought, a memory of Nona in danger, to flash adrenaline through her system. Her legs split and split, growing their own suction cups on legs without bone. Without that bone, she sinks deeper into the water, still taller than Nona but not nearly as much.

"Me too," Pyrrha replies. She doesn't mind them, and she swims much faster. Keeping her head, however, has been a sticking point for a sense of control, so it stops near her waist, where her head would start to grow if she truly became a squid.
acidjail: rights to use paid by me; do not take (03)

cw: gore, body horror (imagined)

[personal profile] acidjail 2022-09-30 02:08 am (UTC)(link)
[ One of the most exhausting things about the young is their certainty. The so-called Saint of Awe, her title as apt as Mercymorn's was, rakes her eyes over her elder, and believes that she sees. The little Lyctor stakes all her temerity on this, oozes her casual, contemptuous pity on the very premise of it.

Mercy thinks of plucking her shining arm from its socket. She entertains thrusting her fingers through the thin bone of her temple and coming away dripping the putrescent slime of her too-clever brain.

She is so impossibly young, this juvenile monstrosity, as she reclines against the wooden boards and speaks of living. Her petty hurts all cluster so close to her surface, as thinly sheathed in gilt as her elegant bones, and she does not begin to understand pity. Not yet.

Mercy plants her foot back on the sand. ]


You must think your elder siblings very foolish. [ Mercy studies the pale, peaked points of her pinched face. ] ...of course you do. You, with a myriad before you? All that time, for anything you ever wished to do...and all the better for my absence. It's so dreadful to have sisters. Always the competition.
monsterwife: (eighth)

[personal profile] monsterwife 2022-09-30 02:26 am (UTC)(link)
Your eyes.

[ Alecto says, simply, as if this is a perfectly sensible answer. Alecto points to her own eye, in case the young creature does not understand what she means.

She steps closer, gift still in hand, because despite the eyes, the girl is still harder to understand. Alecto has no idea why. Once she's up close, however, she smells the wonderful scent of metal. ]


You are not human.

[ This is a good thing. You can tell because Alecto's voice is not angry. Instead, it is very nearly soft. ]
necrolord: =+ (a million years away)

[personal profile] necrolord 2022-09-30 02:52 am (UTC)(link)
[ The man at her side has his brow crinkled in faint, perplexed concern. He turns back to them with two caramel apples in hand, and offers one to Alecto, stick tilted towards her so she doesn't take it by the sticky part. He does this with the unspoken ease of a man who knows, from experience, that she will try to take it by the sticky part. ]

She's very perceptive. [ For his part, he thinks he's looking at a fascinating construct. Anna's cousin? Who knew Trench was so heavy on androids with bits and pieces of soul jammed in. ] Could've fooled me, really.

[ She couldn't have, but it seems polite to say. ]
in_loveless_memory: (Hallo kitten)

Ritsuka Aoyagi | Loveless | Coldblood (maybe?)

[personal profile] in_loveless_memory 2022-09-30 03:33 am (UTC)(link)
I. Standard Arrival - Initial Arrival: CW: Severe past child abuse, malnourishment, and neglect
When Ritsuka first formed on the beach, naked and shivering, he was covered head to toe in scars, some small, some large, some shaped like bite marks, all of them littered one on top of the other all over his body as he was trying to catch his breath, his tail swishing back and forth, hating that he was drenched and naked.

It's easy to count every vertebrae and rib along his thin back. He coughed up salt water and rested his head against the sand as all the memories came quickly. His fists curled in the sand as the memories that he could never grasp remained out of reach, the difference is he didn't care about not having them while in the ocean.

His cat ears perked up and he looked up when feet came into his peripheral. He stayed crouched with his knees beneath him, hating his nakedness and more hating that he was here.

His tail swished back and forth as he took a deep breath.

"Oh for fuck's sake," he whispered before lifting his head completely to face the person nearing him. "Please tell me this isn't where I think it is," he immediately asked.

II. The Boardwalk
Are you enjoying that treat? Are you buying something for yourself? Maybe you suddenly felt something lifted out of your pocket?

Welp, now it's floating in the air all by itself, if you reach for it, it will float even higher. If you try to use any powers it just seems to dodge out of your grasp. A giggle surrounds you with no discernable source.

"Oooiii! Give that back!" Ritsuka, now clothed in something more to his tastes, has a hand on his hip and he scowls as he looks at the person. It's easy to assume he's yelling at you, the person who was just stolen from... except, right in front of you appears a Mismagius pokemon who is causing the item she took to hover in her aura in front of her.

The Mismagius seems to wilt in sadness before giving back what she stole and moving back towards Ritsuka, nuzzling him like a scolded kitten.

"Yeah, yeah, all cute and sweet but you need to go apologize," he was stroking her... hat? well, the part of her head that looked like a witch's hat. Ritsuka came over to the person and lightly pushed the ghost behind him as if to protect her. She snickered behind her veil, deeply amused by him doing so.

"Hey, I'm sorry she did that. She got pretty mischievous while I was gone."

III. Wildcard
[OOC: Feel free to come up with a prompt of your own or you can reach me at [plurk.com profile] snickersnack to plot something out if you would prefer.]
Edited 2022-09-30 03:54 (UTC)
hacktivated: + ᴘᴏsɪᴛɪᴠᴇ (ɪ'ʟʟ be right here)

[personal profile] hacktivated 2022-09-30 03:36 am (UTC)(link)
[ Wow, people in Trench sure are good at telling she's not human! She makes a note to let Rin know later. Her eyes giving her away, though, that's something that tracks in Penny's mind. She remembers Pietro talking about how difficult it could be to make eyes convincing, so John's follow up comment about her being perceptive just cements that possibility in place for her.

So her smile gets a little brighter, and she gives the two of them a nod.
]

You are perceptive! I'm actually an android!

[ She'll offer her hand out for one or (hopefully) both of them to shake. ]

Penny Polendina. It's a pleasure to meet both of you!
broodofone: (Tore flesh)

cw: eating insects

[personal profile] broodofone 2022-09-30 04:11 am (UTC)(link)
Terran standards of lethality could not be uniformly applied to Zerg. However. "Neurotoxin." Numbing agents were almost all neurotoxic at some dose. Capable of dangerous effects on Zerg.

Sampling would have to be postponed until suitable containment was possible. "Yes." Perhaps not all his sequences were fully Zerg, however. That would also require investigation.

But he would not pass up these insectoids now. He advances forward toward the little swarm, the creatures bouncing off his flesh without aggression, preoccupied by their prey. One lands on a clawed finger.

He eats it, the motion so fast it doesn't have time to signal danger to the rest of the swarm.

The taste is immediate, potent, and unpleasant. A dose of unidentified toxin. He retreats in a sinuous motion, considering the little hive. A valuable resource. One he cannot safely sample with basic methods.

"Hmm. More required." He will need to return with a collection pod. Or simply eat more, once he determines the noxious compound and his tolerance for it. That will require a few minutes of his time.
pinnedwings: (pic#14629169)

i

[personal profile] pinnedwings 2022-09-30 04:58 am (UTC)(link)
A white robe drops over Ritsuka's skinny frame - including his head. But, quickly enough, a gentle hand nudges the fabric back and takes the opportunity to brush through Ritsuka's dark, wet hair as it does.

Soubi crouches in the sand, also in a white robe, which is probably for the best. It's loosely tied and there is no hiding the scars on his throat - he lost his bandage somewhere and has not been able to get his hands on another. His glasses seem to be missing as well. But the nightmare of arrival fades quickly when faced with something far, far more important than any hardship could be.

Ritsuka is cold, and wet, and he looks so very small there curled around himself and shivering. Everything else can wait.

"Where do you think it is?"
Edited 2022-09-30 05:00 (UTC)
in_loveless_memory: (Please don't be sad)

[personal profile] in_loveless_memory 2022-09-30 05:06 am (UTC)(link)
He's quick, and grateful, when the robe covers him, quickly wrapping it around himself. He lets out a long breath and the tension in his shoulders ease at the sight of Soubi. He winces at the sight of Soubi's scars well aware who gave them to him. His ears press back and his tail goes limp. Soubi being here takes the fight out of him because at least they're stuck here together.

"That nightmare again..." he looks down at his hands. "Or worse... home."

He was a child of nihilism. So, floating and existing and being nothing more than what he was? Even if meant he was a squid? It was, well, not NICE but it was the first time in such a long time since he's known any semblance of peace.

"I don't want to be in either place." One hell for another, made only tolerable by those he cared for, but who knew what time had passed? What if everyone... what if they were all gone and they were alone again?
itknowsyou: used with artist permission (! had a vision tonight)

arrival.

[personal profile] itknowsyou 2022-09-30 05:28 am (UTC)(link)
Jon is out on the cobblestone streets when it strikes him: he Knows, wholly and abruptly, that someone is waiting for him on the beach.

He goes in a hurry. The weather has been horrific, and the streets of Gaze are still flooded; he has soaked hems and squelching socks as he tries haplessly to weave his way through the market crowds. The oppressive feeling of being watched, that hideous deep-sea pressure upon his soul, doubles and redoubles as he reaches the long jumbled slope of the boardwalk. It shouldn't be that way; Gaze should be the worst of it; but he thrives in its vice grip, his whole being alight with it.

The pressure builds, builds, builds. He could die of how badly he needs to know what is on the beach.

Over and across the black sands, now, and his Omen follows as a shiver of smoke and a pair of luminous yellow eyes. Jon is breathless, the impression of an owl gliding behind his shoulder, the sea crashing loud and steady just beyond. It forms a pale seething backdrop under the moonlight, one figure silhouetted upon the sand.

It hits him like a tidal wave.

He remembers the way Martin hates the worms, the way his voice pitches up when he talks about them. (He remembers the creases of Martin's palm when they walk hand in hand.) He remembers how he sounds when his voice has gone rough with smoke and panic, hemmed into a burning building. (He remembers tucking himself against the crook of Martin's shoulder to cry.) He— the fog, the way he looks with his eyes gone dim and distant— the way he looks with tears in his eyes and a knife in his hand, oh.

John has raised a hand unthinking to his own heart, clutching at nothing, flexing mutely over the scar there. He remembers.

He moves forward as though in a trance, uncertain and then mindlessly fervent. He stumbles through the sand with the owl at his back, hand still clasped over his heart.

"Martin?"
pinnedwings: (pic#14680758)

[personal profile] pinnedwings 2022-09-30 05:28 am (UTC)(link)
"I don't think we're home."

Soubi doesn't have a more satisfying answer. He remembers the nightmare now that Ritsuka has called it something. Did it begin like this? The thought comes and recedes again like the waves down the beach. In the end, it doesn't matter to him where he is as long as Ritsuka is there.

His fingers slide into Ritsuka's hair again, gently ruffling before they slide along a cute little ear. Even half-drowned, Ritsuka is cute. With a quiet sigh, Soubi shifts so that he can sit in the sand. For the sake of his Sacrifice, he is careful not to flash too much bare skin as he does. Though, maybe making Ritsuka blush will warm him up.

"Are you hurt?"

He didn't see any fresh bruises, but he also can't see all of Ritsuka.
gotaknife: by <user name=everchased site="tumblr"> (40)

[personal profile] gotaknife 2022-09-30 06:22 am (UTC)(link)
The way the girl stares openly at him, like she's just come across something with two heads makes him instantly awkward. Does he - does he have something on his face? Does he still look a little squidy? It's an effort to resist the urge to run his hands over his face and through his hair to check.

She calls him by name, and she clearly knows who he is, but he's sure he's never seen her before in his life. His brow furrows in confusion. This is going to get really embarrassing really quickly if she turns out to be someone he ought to know that he just doesn't remember.

"I- I'm sorry." There's half a beat of hesitation from him. "Do I... know you?"
survivalthroughhate: ([TPM 36] Impatient close-up)

I

[personal profile] survivalthroughhate 2022-09-30 10:13 am (UTC)(link)
Maul had a curious feeling that had persisted throughout the entire day. It felt like an old connection, something not in the Force and instead more like the bonds he could form here with people, was coming alive again. It tugged him down towards the beach and once there as the squids began to reform, the connection became much more clear. It was familiar from his time in Deerington.

Bu there was no way his young nemesis would have ended up here.....Or could he?

Maul asked one of the natives for a robe and went searching along the beach. Ritsuka had always been distinctive looking by virtue of his ears and tail, so Maul had little trouble finding him. In one graceful movement, he covered the boy with the robe, and then took a few steps back. His metal legs sunk deeply into the sand. His voice was a combination of resigned and irritated as he spoke. "Unfortunately, this place has decided to be cruel to both of us." Maul squinted at the catboy's form. "Unless you are only an illusion as I suspect you might be." It wouldn't be beyond this place to bring him a figure from the past in order to torment him.
thunderingcourage: (That's new)

II

[personal profile] thunderingcourage 2022-09-30 03:59 pm (UTC)(link)
Makoto had been down at the boardwalks to relax a little and check out what was going on and what the booths had. She'd been picking up a candy apple when she caught the glimpse of her wallet leaving her bag.

"Hey wait a sec!"

Reaching for it, she barely missed grabbing it the first time. Following the unknown pilferer until she heard a familiar voice telling it to stop. When the Misdrevious showed up along with the cat-eared boy, there was no way that Makoto was doubting who he was. She stopped for a moment looking down at the boy,

"Ritsuka-kun, you're back? Are you alright, do you need anything?"

Any thoughts about the candy apple or wallet were gone, as she waited on his response. It'd been so long, she wondered if he remembered her at all.
terriblepurpose: (095)

[personal profile] terriblepurpose 2022-09-30 06:56 pm (UTC)(link)
[ The needle of interesting pricks at an old uneasiness. Paul glances over his shoulder with an uncertain tilt to his mouth. It's not suspicion; there's nothing yet for him to suspect, with what he knows, but there is a whisper-light thread of intuition.

He is on the cusp of a decision about what to do with it when his eyes flash over with silvery moonlight and his head snaps to the left. There's nothing there, but Paul flows into poised anticipation in a moment, a dozen tiny alterations to his stance. The boy who had been polished the last time they sparred is one who has now been tempered, and it shows. ]


Excuse me, sensei. [ He says, apologetically. ] If you would go back to the boardwalk, and -

[ The sand to their left a dozen meters out stirs, and there's a knife in Paul's hand from somewhere, and a string of curious black bells in the other from yet somewhere else. Paul sighs, irritably. ]

- wait for me there?
acidjail: rights to use paid by me; do not take (08)

cw: blood, dysfunctional relationships, violation of bodily autonomy

[personal profile] acidjail 2022-09-30 08:40 pm (UTC)(link)
[ The monster takes her hand in her perfect own. She could take it off her wrist with all the ease of twisting a leaf from a branch, but she does not, and Mercy's traitor fingers are curled sticky and small against the lovely palm. She heaves silently as the creature takes her due of what comes of her eyes, wretchedness in all the fibers of her.

She wants to deny her, once, twice. A thousand times over, as she denied her before, and conspired to cast her away, contemptible thing that she is. She cannot bear it, or cannot bear down on it - cannot set her weight against the fulcrum to move the world.

But she must, and she has always been a child of necessity. ]


I want the truth...the real truth, after all of this time...if there was ever anything true.

[ Her hand is hot and itching in Annabel's hand. Someone's nails dig into her skin, and she does not know whose. She beholds the perfect, hideous face, the death mask stretched across God's unnamed, unbelieved sin. ]

We were wounded - we were lost - and you condemned us, you hated us, you stood in accusation - and we hated you for it. We hated you so badly, for knowing our sin...I couldn't stand for you to look at me, so I would not look at you.

[ It had been so much easier to look to John, their God and friend and confessor. They had loved him as desperately as they hated her. He had been human, and her a horror, the misbegotten sentimental token of an old, dead time. So they looked to him, and they believed.

Cristabel's lovely eyes look up at Alecto, at the glass in her hair like stars, at the splatter of Mercymorn's blood along the graceful arch of her throat. Her voice is very small, and very frightened. ]


I would look at you now, if you would let me...I would listen.
saltyadam: (adam-016)

I

[personal profile] saltyadam 2022-09-30 09:53 pm (UTC)(link)
Adam had taken to doing patrols on the beach for arrivals -- it's what had saved him, after all, and it gave him something to do that felt at least vaguely helpful -- and he'd thought he'd seen it all. People washed up in all states, not all of them human, lost and confused.

He almost missed the young man despite the contrast of his ears and hair against the sand. He was small, so small. And not solely because of his relatively slight frame.

He looked like a child that had been starved.

Rage bubbled in his mind, doubled as he felt Takashi's own rise to meet it in their link. His muscles tensed in attempt to clamp it down, instead hurrying to pull off his jacket and cover the boy with it. They didn't all feel the cold at first, but they all did eventually.

"Unless you're psychic, you're probably in luck." Adam tries to keep his voice even, calm. Maybe even a tiny bit wry. "Though I'm not sure you'll be any happier with where you've landed."
saltyadam: (Default)

I

[personal profile] saltyadam 2022-09-30 09:58 pm (UTC)(link)
[Adam needed to stop assuming he'd seen it all out here. How he'd missed the man in the sand was beyond him, but the comment almost had him jumping out of his skin.

A hand came to his chest instinctively as he willed his heartbeat to slow.]

You scared the shit out of me.

[The prosthetic though? That's as familiar as anything to a man married to someone with one arm.]

I'd hold onto that if I were you. Around here you might need it.

Page 5 of 37