SEPTEMBER TEST DRIVE MEME!

[reddosmod]

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]

[NAVIGATION]

TDM Questions • Reserves • Taken • Applications • Full Navigation

[Jump to Comments]

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."

[JUMP TO TOP] • [JUMP TO COMMENTS]

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.

[JUMP TO TOP] • [JUMP TO COMMENTS]

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.

[JUMP TO TOP]

CODING

Comments

alecto | the locked tomb | major spoilers for nona the ninth

[monsterwife]

0. genesis. closed to john gaius.

[ In the beginning, the world drowned.

She is given another body, but at least it is not nearly as ugly. She is soft-bodied and many-limbed, and if left alone, she will grow to swallow an entire ocean. The salt tastes right, on her tongue. (It is wrong that she has a tongue.)

Ordinarily, the sea is a comforting thing. The weight of the water bears her instead of that horrible spine. But this time, the sea betrays her, because she loves it. Because it loves her. It misses who she was, and coughs up this thing that she is not.

Upon the shore lies an ugly sack of meat, curled on her side, as if holding her toy. She is not alone. ]

Is this morning?

1. boardwalk. cw: mild gore (teeth-related).

[ If you're in line for a caramel apple or donut, you might get to see a middle-aged, ordinary man accompanying a tall, statuesque blond in line ahead of you. When the blonde is given her cornucopia, she regards it with a look that is mostly dispassionate, as if she has seen this sort of thing many times before. ]

You appease them through me. [ It's not a question. ] You reek of detestable intention.

[ The woman turns to you, and fixes her golden eyes on yours. ] You are not hungry for what they are offering. Your appetite cannot be bought or sold.

[ Whatever that means! ]

[ Or, you might find her on the shore, accompanied by the same ordinary man. This time, she's quiet, her focus intensely trained on the waves. She does not move until a metal hand washes up on the sand. The hand barely lays there a second before she picks it up and bites into it, with the terrible crack of teeth breaking. She mends them. She chews. She swallows.

She takes another bite. ]

(ooc: these threads have the opportunity to be three-person threads with alecto, your character, and john gaius! let me know if you'd like to include john in the thread.)

2. a faded memory. cw: blood, gore.

[ You've reached the lighthouse. And you're not alone.

The wind howls through broken glass like a girl in mourning. Shards of that same glass litter the floor, mixed into that sickly-sweet blood. The person who loves Alecto would call that fruit punch; Alecto is proud that she remembers the silly name. She hates the silly name.

Alecto sits cross-legged in the center of this mess, damp with saltwater and covered in that same sticky green blood. Her ugly blond hair hangs in wet clumps, threaded through with seaweed and glass and bone. Her golden eyes are offset by a ring of pale, and in her arms, she cradles what was once a skull. Someone's meat-without-their-meat. She thinks of Anastasia. She would like to see Anastasia.

Whoever is trudging up the stairs is not Anastasia. Alecto greets the unwanted stranger with a scowl and a tilt of her head, as if to say: why have you come? ]

2.

[acidjail]

[ Numinous yellow eyes meet dead flower dark ones, the hazy subtlety of their shade lost in the dimness of this gore-filled tower.

Mercymorn stands before God's first beloved as a pallid impression in the doorway, wan as one sickened unto their deathbed. The pastels have been drained from her flesh, her listless tangle of hair fit to match the womanthing in the tower, and she may barely be distinguished from the swathes of loose fabric about her body. The only vivid stain on her is blood, a virulent hue that soaks her slippered feet and splashes up to her knees, that slicks her hanging palms.

She is dressed like a sick child or a mad adult, bereft of button or fastening to snag the skin or frustrate the fingers. No long, thin ties for her feet, or pins in her unbound hair. She is dressed like someone else has done it for her. She hates this, among the many things she hates, in dull and distant fashion.

As if this horror cares one bit about fashion. ]

There you are, First.

[ She says, with a quiet and terrible satisfaction, her heart stuttering dumbly in her chest next to a hollow where only the faintest gleam of anything burns. She holds herself together at the fingernails, at the mouth, at the creases of her knees. ]

At the end of all things.

cw: gore, nona the ninth spoilers throughout

[monsterwife]

[ The child consumes her beloved, and yet she is still sick? Alecto cannot understand. There is nothing nearly as filling. But Alecto was always one to misunderstand the need of meat, how it takes and takes and takes, never satisfied. John said that before she had a mouth, Alecto had told them to stop. That always made sense, to her. What good is a mouth for telling? ]

Liar. Everything ended for you well before I slept.

[ Alecto rises, and heals the wound. It is the least she can do. John has always said they were her children. When she reaches a claw-nailed hand into the child's chest, scraping skin and fat and muscle, she is doing a kindness.

The skull clatters to the floor. It is so horribly loud. ]

You don't even look for her. You stole her eyes and you don't even look. Useless.

[ If the child does not pull away, Alecto will bury her hand into the cavity of its chest and pull. ]

2

[the_obedient_servant]

[The fallen child's feet click against the sounds of the stairs, and they make their way to the top with a single minded purpose. Their cape drips saltwater onto the stairs behind them, but they are unbothered.

When they reach the top of the stairs, close enough that their face is visible, it is a very peculiar and pixelated sight that meets the eyes of the girl caked in blood, staring back with a hollow curiosity.

They stop as they reach the top of the tower, glancing at the surroundings and the foul blood surrounding them. What a mess. They can see why the sailors refused to sail out here. For hygiene reasons alone!

But the surroundings don't interest them for the moment, not as much as the girl.]

Greetings. [Their tone is polite, every bit as regal as you would expect from the second prince of the underground and the herald of the Delta Rune.]

How long have you been here?

[monsterwife]

[ Alecto has never seen anything like this child's face. It is unreadable to her. It is ugly, but nearly everything is. All the beautiful things are gone.

The greetings are useless; the question even worse. Alecto ignores both, crossing the distance to reach out in curiosity towards the child. If not stopped, Alecto will lie a hand upon their face, and she will cock her ugly head to the side, trying to understand. ]

Since morning.

[ What is morning? ]

Who made you?

[ Because Alecto certainly cannot, and neither can her sisters. Not anymore. ]

0. spoilers for Nona the Ninth

[necrolord]

[ John Gaius pulls himself from the water on hands and knees, clumsy with rebirth and coughing up brine. For the second time in existence, he does not do it alone.

He keeps touching her, as they come out of the surf: his fingers brush fretfully at her palms, her wrists, her shoulder. He touches her like he's afraid she'll go away if he doesn't keep contact, like he's as much searching for a tether as shepherding her along. There is a wound through his chest that a blade might've made, but it closes by the time he draws breath.

Is this morning, she says, and he rattles out a wet and ragged laugh. Fuck: it had been. He remembers it all, now, and it had been. He can still taste iron through his heart and the look in her eyes. He'd been so close to it all just being done.

The sky above them is clouded over, blanketing half-familiar stars. He can't see them from here, but still he closes his eyes as though hurt by the light. ]

No. [ His voice is soft with unguarded despair. ] No, this is some bullshit with squid.

[ He runs salt-slick hands over his face. He scrubs fingers back through his hair just to remember the shape of fingers and of hair. He touches her elbow, her arm. He could laugh or cry with little difference between the two. ]

Annabel.

spoilers for nona the ninth throughout

[monsterwife]

[ John remembers that hands are for touching, that a mouth is for speaking-eating. That much Alecto knows as well, but here, upon the beach, she struggles with things like the elbow and the ankle and the rib. She tests one limb, and then another, and it is such a horrible, fractured way to move.

Alecto drags herself across the sand. She reaches up, a mirror to John's gesture, and runs her fingers through his hair. They scrape his scalp, so that blood mixes with protein mixes with salt, and Alecto licks it like wine from her fingertips.

At the taste of salt, her eyes go horribly, awfully wide. Her cousin is here, long-lost and crying.

Alecto pulls back, horrified. Then she makes a fist, and strikes his heart, over and over. ]

You hurt her. You hurt her.

( 1 )

[hacktivated]

[ The tall, blond woman turns and makes her very odd proclamation. Penny's response is a startled blink, followed a moment later by a friendly if slightly confused smile. ]

That's right! I'm getting some for my friend.

[ Penny has no appetite, let alone one that can be bought or sold. The real question is: ]

How could you tell?

[ This isn't the first time Penny has successfully identified Penny as a robot, but it's probably the fastest. ]

(ooc: happy to have john tag in if you've both got the bandwidth for a three way thread!)

[monsterwife]

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. ]

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

[martyrofduty]

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.

cw: cannibalism (sort of)

[monsterwife]

Alecto puts down the metal hand, so that she might watch the human's performance. She knows the human's name already, of course. She was there when Alecto awoke, but she did not hear Alecto over the noise.

This time, Alecto is silent. The human fashions a gift out of her borrowed blood and body, as if to appease Alecto. The gesture is noble, of course, but it is not Pyrrha who has sinned. Alecto takes the gift anyway, and brings it to her lips, and closes her eyes. This is how meat welcomes meat.

"You are Pyrrha." Alecto takes a bite, and allows the flesh to linger on her tongue. She understands. "He ate you, but not all the way. He loved you. You miss him horribly."

She swallows.

"Do you know who I am?"

2

[hauntedsavior]

[whoever is trudging up the stairs is certainly not anastasia. it's a woman, tall but not very much so, wearing a coat slick with rain and dried with blood. she would usually wear a tricorn, but she's not feeling it so much these days. the wind blows her hair in her face, a mess of dirty white obscuring one sky-blue eye and one thick, heavy eyepatch.]

[she sees the sight before her, and there is something inside her that aches. this is not a person she has seen before, and yet the two souls within her... do they recognize her? can they ever? there is a longing there, an echo with no initial noise, a spiral like lighthouse steps into past and future at once. and here before her, the collision.]

[she strains her ears. she. hears. a. sound.]

Annabel?

[monsterwife]

[ The child knows her. It is a strange thing, being known. All the humans John loved were terrified of her, all except Anastasia. They never listened. They never wanted to see her.

How could Alecto blame them? She does not want to see herself either, as terribly ugly as she is. She does not hate them for that. What Alecto hates is that the humans saw what she was, feared what she was, and wanted it anyway.

She does not know what this child wants. There is something different about her body. ]

Are you hungry?

1. I'm late but open to a 3 way if you want.

[slightlytaller]

[Lord El Melloi II was only here looking for someone important to him. Someone small, with a delicate face that was hidden by a heavy cloak and a scythe that laughed viciously while it dropped scathing commentary when it thought no one was listening. The ordinary man and the statuesque woman in this squidly world barely caught his attention, until the woman directed her commentary at him.

He was by no means short anymore, and it was rare to find himself face height with someone's chest. Sipping delicately at his tea (with sugar and milk, as is proper), he craned his neck to look up at her.

"Your appetite cannot be bought or sold," she has uttered. Well...]

Its true. Any mage worth their salt spends their lifetime building towards someone in their bloodline finding the Root of all knowledge and magic. I find that I don't have that particular luxury.

[He sighed, mulling over his tea. ]

I'd be satisfied with having a day to just drink my tea and dream of the endless sea while knowing that my kids are safe enough to be themselves.

[monsterwife]

[ Root is a word Alecto knows. It is a good word, full and hearty, ripe for eating. The fact that this child puts it near a poison like knowledge is a travesty, a sacrilege. He ought to be instructed. It is such a shame that none of these children understand anything.

Alecto raises a hand, and strikes his tea. ]

The roots are not for you to know. Does it feel good, for you to think you can eat at the soul? Does it make you feel strong? It is a poison, for you, and your children, and your children's children.

[ Alecto has long since forgotten what she and John are standing in line for, too consumed with the fire of rage to think of anything else. ]

1 w/ John (cw for misogyny in ianthe's thoughts, cw for ianthe.)

[necroprince]

[Ianthe watches the strange doll of a girl at John's side. Blonde and picturesque, she looks a great deal like Coronabeth, and thus she's certainly very beautiful. What a shame that she's a frozen lunatic monster slut that seems hellbent on ruining everything Ianthe has ever planned.

She got out, then. All of Ianthe's hard work is for nothing. And then she has the gall to glare those hideous eyes at the Lyctor Prince and all Ianthe can do is smile a strained and seething smile.

You are not hungry for what they are offering. Your appetite can't be bought or sold.

Correct on all counts. What a shame that by existing this freak of nature has left her to starve forever.]

You know me so well.

[She raises her drink, which is some cider beverage that tastes like ass but worse and decidedly less sexy, and regards John with that same smile.]

Are congratulations in order for the happy couple, my Lord?

[necrolord]

[ John, for his part, looks awkward the moment he sees Ianthe. He clears his throat; he shuffles; he edges just a little bit between Alecto and the young Lyctor, with the air of a man who fears he might bear witness to a fistfight. ]

Something like that.

[ He smiles, but it does not reach his worried eyes. Still: the overall change in him is easy to see. He looks awake and alert, bright with attention in a way he never has. A fug of depression has lifted. He is finally, for the first time in millennia, dialed in. He seems to have rediscovered the concept of giving a shit. ]

Ianthe, this is A.L. May she live up to the hype. Annabel, this is one of my new kids.

1 with a side of John Gaius, please!

[hearthebell]

[L's not a strong swimmer. Even if it was a good idea to venture into waters that are known to be laced with corruption, he wouldn't be out in it. His orca whale omen, Lycka, manages it with ease, and indulges L's curious compulsion to investigate by assisting him in collecting prosthetic body parts, snatching them, often, before they even reach the shore.

They can only cover so much area by themselves, though, and it's only so much time before they happen upon a couple. The "ordinary man" is certainly anything but to the sharp-eyed detective, who recognizes him even at a distance and goes immediately on-edge as a result. The woman is wholly unfamiliar, but in an eerie way that he can't actually be as certain about, called further into question by her clear association with John.

He's never seen Alecto, after all, at least not from this side of those golden eyes. Lycka picks up on his uneasiness, shrinking and returning to circle his wrist so that she isn't far from her sleeper's shallow breath and racing heart.

Intuition is never wrong, only interpretation. So... what is there to interpret, here? He thinks, for a moment, that it could just be the result of approaching a man who dismantled him on a molecular level, but if so, wouldn't he have locked up on the beach when that man's omen was actively attacking him?

No, it's more than that. He thinks back to the dinner that he saw through Augustine's eyes when Mercymorn had tried to tear that marketplace book from his hands. The people around the table, he would all recognize; this woman wasn't present. She may be one of the beauties of times bygone, or perhaps...

He really should resolve, in his dark cloak and with his small basket of prosthetics, to keep a wary distance. Nothing great can come of this, but then she moves, and that terrible, visceral cracking would probably turn a weaker stomach than L's to the point of violently emptying.

He supposes he's repulsed. He supposes he still can't name what feels like they've shared something, because, oh, haven't they? And he sees where he misstepped, now that he sees her in the flesh; she's mad, she must be, and he approached the study of her place in John's life with method and meticulousness. Would it have gone on longer if he'd just known that he needed to make his incisors lose a match to something sharp, hard and metal?

The omen at his wrist naggingly tugs him back. She would rather he keep his hand, rather that the events of the past aren't dredged up in a way that will only hurt her sleeper, threaten the stalemate, rattle something irrevocably out of place.

Stagnancy is so much worse than all of those things, to the detective. It's his fatal folly. He swallows, and approaches.]

Congratulations might be in order, but I've chosen to assume nothing at the moment.

[necrolord]

[ Even as he approaches, the change in John is immediately evident: he seems awake in a way he hadn't, before. There is a new, brighter energy to the way he carries himself, the way he takes in the beach and the sky and the people. He walks in her orbit, and she his, as though they are binary stars. When she veers towards some scrap of glass or metal, he follows; when he leads her, she goes. It is apparent to anyone looking that he loves her.

Of course this guy's here to ruin the honeymoon.

Lazarus approaches, and the real telling change is that John's expression does not ice over; it only closes a bit, with low-banked irritation. John takes Annabel's hand in his, smooths a thumb over the bumps of her knuckles, as though he could leash her by it. Or anchor himself. ]

We'd all hate to assume. [ As though Lazarus doesn't have a better idea than nearly anyone living; as though presumption isn't what John killed him for. ] Lazarus, meet Annabel. Properly, this time.

1. shore

[noniad]

[ Ortus has seen stranger things in his life than a woman devouring metal on the beach. Not many, as some might reckon it, or a rather large amount, as he does. But he is not left entirely petrified by it, which is the critical thing.

He cannot see her eyes well from the angle he approaches her at, squinting against the glare off the ocean even through his tinted glasses. (Not nearly as dramatic as Gideon's, but they serve him well in place of his veils, which flutter too much in surface winds.) He hopes very much that they are sane. Perhaps this is a custom of her people. ]

Hello?

[ He calls, softly, unassuming in plain every day skull paint and black garb. ]

Are you... [ Already, he half-regrets coming this far; he once knew how to mind his own affairs. ] ...hungry?

[monsterwife]

[ The boy marks himself as one of Anastasia's, and for that alone, Alecto deems him worthy enough of her regard. But only barely. She tilts her head, as if to get a better look at him. ]

Would you offer me something, if I was?

[ Alecto can read the regret and fear in his body. It is plain and obvious for all to see, and old, etched in like wrinkles. Such a thing must be horribly heavy, like chains. Alecto wonders where he sleeps. She wonders what he thinks morning is. ]

You are a Tomb-keeper. You need not fear me like the others do. [ Alecto rises and approaches, her movements ugly. ] You are not like Anastasia. [ Alecto continues, mostly to herself. ] You are like Samael. I am sorry.

2.

[terriblepurpose]

[ There is a boy in the doorway, and he looks at the woman cradling the skull as one stricken. Fear licks up his bones like the rasp of a lion's tongue and puddles in his blue-green eyes, but it's not the fear of - it is the fear for.

His hands come up palms outward and empty in appeasement, and he flows down to one bent knee with the practiced grace of a knife fighter. His breathing holds to a rhythm even while his pulse kicks in the hollow of his throat. He stays intent on her sunset golden eyes, that much loved color in the wrong face, again, as his own shine with light not in this butcher's chamber.

(There is no one behind him in the doorway, no dark haired, many limbed churn of salt and tide, and if there was, no one is already gone.) ]

Do you know me?

[monsterwife]

[ Alecto's visitor is ugly. So horribly ugly, and nothing like Anastasia at all. She hates it, although this is nothing new. It is so easy for the humans to anger her, these days. It is so easy for them to hurt.

He kneels like a person trying to make himself beautiful, and that is the worst part of all. Alecto's golden eyes flash with displeasure, and she stands, so she might tower over him. She is not appeased. ]

Stop lying. You think I do not know you are scared?

I know you. [ Said like an insult, a tragedy. ] I know so many like you. But you cannot have me, for I am already bound.

[ She is looking at him, that ugly boy, and for the first time in thousands of years, Alecto knows she has made a mistake. There was someone else she should have seen. Her gaze snaps up, looks to the door behind him. ]

Cousin?

1, beach-flavored, INTRODUCE ME TO YOUR WIFE, JOHN

[unsheathedfromreality]

[The Pthumerian Sea takes away, and the Pthumerian Sea gives.

It isn't quite correct to say Illarion's been tirelessly combing the beach since a certain black godling disappeared from the Imperial household. He has other commitments, as Disciple and Hunter and sometimes-adoptive-parent, that keep him busy in Trench. But he has made a point of spending an hour or two every day down on the sand, keeping idle watch for the unmistakeable Presence of a Monarch and gathering the prosthetics washing ashore. (Waste not, want not, when it came to Mariana's capricious bounties--though he hasn't been turning them in himself. There's other Sleepers who need the reminder of home more than he does; he gives them away to those who don't have the time to spend on the beach.)

Today, there are two Presences, one familiar and one not, that bend the world strangely around them and draw the wandering shrike rapidly down the beach into their gravity well.

He does not recognize the ??woman?? sitting beside John, but he has a guess.]

Is this she, then?

[His expression's one of faint awe; all his golden eyes are wide, and he bats not a one at the crunch of teeth on metal.]

1; without john since i probably can't keep this canon!

[wingstosee]

[ "statuesque" is one way to put it. "incredible" is another. "kind of intimidating" is yet another. venus has been stealing glances since he got in line - a few moments of uninterrupted stare, a bit longer staring ashamedly at the ground, and then the cycle repeats all over again.

she's... beautiful? he thinks. a lot of girls are beautiful, even the ones that aren't really pretty. he knows that much. this woman is beautiful in the way where she isn't pretty. or maybe she's pretty in the way where she isn't beautiful. like a doll, or a corpse at a funeral.

there's a light at the corner of his eyes. maybe, if he just...

barbie. that's it! she's beautiful the way barbie is beautiful, way too tall and a bit stretched out and kind of freaky but still pretty nonetheless. he thinks for a moment of playing with one of his mother's old barbies. then he thinks of the way his father yelled when he came home, and he stops thinking. tries to. it's hard, with the way the light keeps distracting him-

she's staring at him. for a moment, he just stares back up at her - eyes wide, like a child with their hand caught in the cookie jar. and then, after looking over one shoulder to make sure she's talking to him, he clears his throat. ]

Um. [ it's a weak start. then again, he's not sure how else to respond to that accusation. ] I am a little hungry, though? I mean, not that hungry, but. Kind of? Hungry?