October Test Drive Meme!

[reddosmod]

OCTOBER 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: A snowy, rocky beach in winter. ]
[Image Two: Bowls of mushroom soup and bread. ]

Prompt Two
[Image One: Dali painting of the moon as a city]
[Image Two: Twisted, warped cityscape]

Prompt Three
[Image One: Monster choking a sleeping person to death]
[Image Two: Death hovering over a sleeping person]

BONUS PROMPT
[Image One: Liminal Space image of a nondescript room with strange ledges]
[Image Two: Cenobite woman with borg-like attachments to her face]

[NAVIGATION]

TDM Questions • Reserves • Taken • Applications • Full Navigation

[Jump to Comments]

STANDARD ARRIVAL

WHEN: First Week of NOvember
WHERE: The Farther Shores/The Boardwalk, Koz's Orphanage
CONTENT WARNINGS: N/A

---

You're one of the lucky ones. Your journey is smooth sailing and you wind up exactly where you're supposed to: on the Farther Shores. You grow out of your squid body without a hitch, either with the help of another Sleeper or one of the Wakers, and you get to discover this new world. All new Sleepers might take some time to find their bearings. It might be tricky to remember how to use your body parts the way you're supposed to. You might stumble around the beach or forget how to talk - but don't worry! It'll come back to you sooner or later.

Hopefully, you've found something to wear, either in your Welcoming Bag or otherwise, and can start familiarizing yourself with your surroundings. Maybe you help some other squids out on the beach. Waking up sucks! You feel for the little guys. And hey, maybe you're hoping one of those squids is a good friend...Stranger things have happened.

SEASONAL DETAILS ON THE BOARDWALK
This is not the greatest month to wash up on the Farther Shores. It's November and you'll pretty much immediately hate it! The waters are frigid but not quite frozen yet, but that won't make your arrival any less uncomfortable. Thankfully the Boardwalk seems well-stocked with heavy blankets and furs to give to newly awakened Sleepers. Barrels of hot chocolate and hot alcoholic cider are readily available to warm people up. There are several stalls selling hearty soups willed with mushrooms, potatoes, beans, and other filling components.

Fresh baked bread and pastries are sold on wax paper. Enjoy a steaming cinnamon roll or croissant or just your standard bread and butter. Many bakers have set up temporary stoves and seem to invite teaching Sleepers how to cook and prepare bread and pastries. Maybe knead some dough, learn some tricks of the trade. If you help out ab baker, they might even thank you with a sack of flour or other ingredients for bread!

Like last year, as the Moon shifts to Bone, whispers and hushed talk begins anew among the Trenchies about The Tower. There are whispers that something feels wrong. "You know Trench is his body, right?" one might say. "But look at what's been happening. Is everything alright?" There is nervousness, agitation. Trenchies can't seem to put a finger on it. One of the old fishermen mutters under his or her breath if overheard in this time. "Long time since we tried to leave the Tower's shield. Hope didn't bring anything back from out there. World's a strange place."

None of them seem to have anything specific to add. They just seem nervous for some reason.

[JUMP TO TOP] • [JUMP TO COMMENTS]

IMAGE OF THE SELF

WHEN: Halloween through all November
WHERE: All of Trench
CONTENT WARNINGS: Distorted Reality, horrifying cityscape images, mounting paranoia, displacement

---

"They say that Trench is the body of the Tower." It is a saying so often repeated during the Bone Moon season that it becomes more of a mantra. Whether or not it is actually true remains a hotly contested debate between Arcane Scholars and Disciples, one of the few times that neither side fully agrees even with themselves. Yet, if it is true, what happens if the person whose body serves as a city begins to have an identity crisis of sorts? That certainly seems to be the case this month.

At random times, it just happens. You're walking from one place to another with your friend. You just stepped out of a lantern network teleportation circle. You open a door. Suddenly, everything is just wrong. It feels like you are in a surrealist's nightmare. Walls appear to be bleeding concrete in all directions. Stairwells twist impossibly, as if M. C. Escher himself were the architect. The pathway to where you intended to go warps and transforms itself into a perilous, twisted monstrosity that you have to navigate. Worse? The way you got here is just gone behind you, leaving you only the path forward.

Navigating this isn't impossible, but you will definitely need help. It might be that one has to stand on another's shoulders to get over an obstacle and then help them up. Maybe someone very small has to crawl into an opening to reach the door handle so the way through can be found. It varies, and the effect lasts only as long as it takes to get where you're going, but while you're here the reality continues to shift and some of these twistings could easily crush you! Don't tarry too long!

NOTE: The physical danger here is from environmental hazards. Feel free to choose any you like, but they will all return to normal when your character reaches their intended destination. Trenchies know nothing about this, though if one asks one of the former wastes, they will ward themselves as if against evil. They know something, but they dare not speak and will whisper hurriedly that the sleeper had best not talk too openly about this. "Best not to draw attention right now."

[JUMP TO TOP] • [JUMP TO COMMENTS]

A GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP

WHEN: Last Week of October through the first week of November
WHERE: At Home, in your bed
CONTENT WARNINGS: Severe Insomnia, Sleep Deprivation, Deprivation induced hallucinations and mood swings

---

Something is clawing at your mind from the moment that the first signs of the cold coming. You can't put your finger on it, but even as you see the people of Trench preparing for the next month's arrival of sleepers, you can see they feel it too. Something claws at the mind and for a few people in Trench, this becomes a very literal problem. The thoughts are so overwhelming that you can't manage to find a good night's sleep. This problem is especially prominent for new Sleepers, who seem prone to arriving with terrible bouts of unexplainable insomnia.

That sounds simple enough to deal with, right? Perhaps some sort of sleep aid, or working oneself to exhaustion, and you can power through it, right? No. Nothing seems to work at first. Searches for a monster are futile. Warding and incense seem utterly ineffective, and no matter how hard you try, night after night you cannot sleep. You are terrified of falling asleep. If you fall asleep, you may never wake up! Even characters who do not fear a mortal death feel themselves compelled by this, and the longer that they do not sleep the more corruption risks them at its door. A night or two missed is one thing, but eventually irascibility sets in. Hallucinations may eventually start to crop up. The body needs REM sleep. It needs dreams, yet the horror that threatens the person will not allow them to sleep, for fear that it will come for them while they sleep. What 'it' is, they do not know.

There is only one solution. For those who already spend time with others? This is a simple thing, but they must still agree to do it. You can solve this curse only if you do not sleep alone. Another must stay awake for the vigil through the whole night. Simple enough given their insomnia, but they will be assailed by their own horrific lack of slumber. Only, after you have had a good night's sleep, be sure to care for the other who was so kind to you. Why? Because anyone so unkind as to not help their erstwhile companion sleep after they have finally gotten rest will find out that those fears were not unfounded and the next time they sleep, they really do not wake up!

Death, in this rare case, comes in the form of a heart attack. Its source is unknown, and all that the sleeper will remember is the worst nightmare of their life as they lay in bed, dying in soundless screams. So, be sure to take care of each other, sleepers!

[JUMP TO TOP] • [JUMP TO COMMENTS]

THE VEINS OF THE TOWER

WHEN: November 1st (And only November 1st)
WHERE: Beginning anywhere, ending in A Nightmarish Place
CONTENT WARNINGS: Liminal Space, Disorientation, Hints of horrible monsters, Possible Death, Insane Zealotry, Mutilated Bodies

---

Rumors have lingered since the first encounters two months ago of a 'space between spaces' that people could accidentally fall into that this occurrence has not been entirely limited to the month it first happened in. Every once in a while, on unusual days, it has happened since that time. There appears to be little rhyme or reason to it, but it has happened again. Maybe you took an accidental step backwards. Or maybe you were crazy enough to have identified some spot you disappeared before and you were actually experimenting with the effect every day to see when it happened. You know, to chronicle the dates it happen, to keep a record, to understand it better, all of those sorts of things that cause some sleepers to poke things that are Better Left Alone because that's what some sleepers do with their free time, and then they touch the spot with something and suddenly they and everything around them are sucked in. How you got there is not important. You're here now, wherever here is.

Only this time its different. You're not in the spot you were last time, and in the distance you can hear shuffling of feet. Dread enters your heart, as you know that you do not have the means to fight whatever it is. You have an overwhelming urge to run, to flee at top speed. You and whoever is "lucky" enough to be with you must run as fast as you can, around corners, a roaring, inhuman scream echoing through the hallways, slamming into walls. You can't quite see it, not unless you want a swift, awful death at least. But around a corner there is salvation, an elevator shaft and the door is open. Frantic scrambling, running and jabbing buttons will cause the doors to close, just as something black like a giant hand grabs the far wall. You hear the rush, the scream. The elevator shudders three times as something pounds on it, but you're safe. Or, are you?

Instead of the usual moldy hallways, you see what looks like a hospital hallway. Anyone who lived through the nightmare may have awful flashbacks, but nothing is chasing you this time. The impossibly stretching hallway seems ceaselessly unchanging, each door locked, at least until you happen to notice a grate on one of the overhead air conditioners open wide. If you are curious enough to crawl up and into it, you're treated to a long scramble through the passageway, right up until you hear voices, menacing ones in the distance. Crawl quietly!

A grate emanating ugly, light is up ahead. As you and your companion work your way over, you're hopefully not heard. Through the grate, you see something awful. Two mutilated and disfigured figures speak while a third, calm and ordered looking woman listens. She seems to have mutilated her throat such that she should not be able to speak, and the other two appear have performed torturous experiments on their own flesh, their twisted visages that of the 'Zealots' that the Sleepers sometimes whisper about in fear. "It is almost time for the harvest. We made the quotas last cycle but only barely. The need is greater. Sacrifices must be made," one hisses. The other nods vigorously. "Yes. The situation is decaying. We have to move to stop this before it gets out of hand."

Before they can say more, however, the third woman looks up, directly at the grate. She smiles once, and a voice echoes from her throat as what appears to be a mouth inside of it moves, her own lips unmoving. "Continue this discussion later. It seems the problem has worsened. We will need to step up security in the meantime." She reaches out a hand and wrenches. The air shimmers around them and suddenly the duct you are traveling in collapses and breaks beneath you. Instead of falling into the farm, however, you find yourself falling through darkness for what seems an eternity, until you collapse hard to the pavement, in front of the entrance to the Gate, your breath coming back to you slowly, shakily.

NOTES: Death is possible should a sleeper assault the first creature. It is a being of impossible angles and blackness, is itself unkillable and will rend its victims to oblivion through brute force. Fighting the Zealots is not possible through this prompt. The grate cannot be opened in time to exit into the Sleeper Farm and engage them. However, the astute will be certain that there was for a moment an actual entry through and into the Sleeper Farm, somehow. Those familiar with these locations will recognize them as being Floor 1, the Stalls

[JUMP TO TOP]

CODING

Comments

[listenyouidiot]

"My brother's. He was-- He was hurting, back then."

It's a subtle change that comes over Fitz's expression, just the barest drawing together of his eyebrows over his eyes and his lips pressing together into a line. But it's there across his features, the terrible pain of comprehension, of understanding just how terribly and deeply the bonds of kinship can wound and scar. And who else beyond a brother, either by blood or by bond, could wound like this?

From his nest of blankets on the opposite bed, Nighteyes's lambent yellow eyes are open and lidded, and watching Huaisang with keen intelligence and understanding and, most importantly, an absence of any judgment. Perhaps there remains a small thread of connection between his mind and Huaisang's; some animal comfort seems to trickle across it, the equivalent of a large chin resting on a knee, a cold nose against a teary cheek.

You are brave, Hummingbird. A pause, and then a wide yawn as the wolf settles himself, eyes blinking closed. And stupid. Let us protect you. Like the expectation of it is just understood to him. what is it with humans and making things complicated??

Fitz exhales. "Nighteyes..!" But the wolf only grumbles his argumentative retort before rucking up the blankets a bit more to further settle himself, and so Fitz relents, though not without sending an apologetic look towards Huaisang. "I'm sorry, about him." man, brothers, right??

Still, there's a considering way he shifts his eyes to Nighteyes, and then back to Huaisang again, and he chafes his palm against his beard. "He does have a point, though. Must you face those memories alone? If there's a way that I could help..." He spreads his hands to either side of himself, at once both a bit helpless and earnest.

cw for nhs gaslighting himself a little

[fanfavors]

It's the first time Huaisang can recall being called brave, and he has no idea what to do with it. He means only for his new friends to not be unduly targeted by Nie Mingjue's ghost, the way so many disciples were cut down that day— is he not protecting them, in actuality? He knows Mingjue wouldn't hurt him.

(He knows somewhere deep and buried that the sound of the saber on stone, on flesh and in bone that day have burrowed into the part of him that feels only visceral, animal fear, but - but Mingjue wouldn't have hurt him.)

On another level it sparks a new warmth in his chest to have the two of them so sure about protecting him, and Huaisang latches onto that. If he puts the fact that it's his own da-ge they're all talking about somewhere far away, then he can simply be grateful, without the complications.

"I don't know, I have no idea what to do," he says, eventually, twisting his hands around the handle of his closed fan. He really doesn't know: what to do about da-ge (and it is harder to put those thoughts of his brother away than he'd have hoped), what to do about the things Fitz was seeing, what to do about any of this. He knows these two things, instead: first, that Nighteyes' presence has shifted with incredible speed from threatening to something of a comfort; and second, that he could get used to this, the frankness in offering him help.

Wild, that it's like, so much nicer to not couch everything in fifty layers of manners and carefully curated politeness. Here in this god-awful dusty room with these two near strangers, one of whom is a big wolf (now positive), he feels perfectly safe.

And so without any ceremony, without saying anything else, he drops the fan into his lap and his face into his hands, and lets the exhaustion and the frustration and the fear and the pretending-there-is-no-fear come out in a sob. Sorry, Fitz, he's not very good at compartmentalizing.

[listenyouidiot]

Fitz balks at the tears but, to his credit, gets quickly to his feet to do--something. What, exactly? Shit, by Eda and El both, that wasn't what he'd been hoping for. Where was the Fool when he most needed him, the Fool would have swept Huaisang up into the comfort of his arms and known precisely the right words to say to soothe his pain. But Fitz? "Oh," is his useless murmur from where he stands, fidgeting, before he awkwardly crosses the room and sits on the edge of the bed at Huaisang's side. He lifts a hand and lets it hover in the air, before dropping it onto Huaisang's shoulder once, twice. Pat, pat.

The wolf grumbles from his bed. Well done, brother.

Nighteyes unfolds himself from his nest of bedding and in a single hop and bound springs up onto the bed next to Huaisang. He settles the bulk of his body against Huaisang's side, warm and powerful and covered in a dense layer of fur at once coarse and soft, and noses at his face, his hands, his hair. It's an onslaught of canid affection, utterly messy and devoid of anything approaching decorum, because what does a wolf care for such things?

[fanfavors]

It's just surprise after surprise in this dusty little room, isn't it. Huaisang isn't expecting Fitz's bumbling attempt to comfort him - they are practically strangers, after all, and he only ever expects comfort from two people who are exceedingly reserved - and he certainly isn't expecting Nighteyes to suddenly hop onto the bed with them. He murmurs a muffled protest into his hands, not to ask them to leave, but a small-voiced 'no, no, he didn't' to defend Fitz's, um... emotional competency.

Like, he would have cried on his own, eventually. That's probably the truth.

But instead he's surrounded on all sides by two kinds of messy concern, and credit the two of them this: they stop him sobbing in record time, even if the tears are still coming. The onslaught of wolf attention makes him laugh, a genuine if not shaky and halfway-blubbering noise, and his hands automatically reach for Nighteyes while the rest of him tilts towards Fitz and his emotionally intelligent hands. It's all the wolf up in his business, you see, he needs to claim a sliver of his own space back by putting himself into Fitz's. It's the only logical thing to do!

Now, where does one pet a wolf? The same places one pets a dog? He'll try, and if Nighteyes doesn't like it, he's sure he'll find out swiftly.

"I'm sorry," he offers, because he's still actively shedding tears and they're being so kind, to try and help-- "This is- just the kind of person I am." But not super depressing, like that sounds.

Probably.

[listenyouidiot]

"I'm sorry. This is- just the kind of person I am."

"What," Fitz replies, already chuckling, because Nighteyes' determined affection is a contagious thing, and it's broken down some of his own walls with its effusiveness. The Fool would be proud, he hopes, wherever he is, and he unthinkingly shifts his weight some to accommodate Huaisang leaning into his space. "A man with a heart? Eda, the stories I could tell you about men I've known who should have let out their miseries this way, rather than--" he hunts about for a moment for an example, not for lack of any to choose from, but the glut of them, and gesticulates vaguely with a hand, "--drowning it in ale, or gambling it all on cockfights only to lose all their week's earnings in a single night instead. No," he says and shakes his head, drops his arm across Huaisang's shoulder, "Nighteyes has the right of it. I think you're brave, Huaisang. Ah--here, let me show you--"

He reaches past Huaisang to bury his hand in Nighteyes' dense ruff, giving him an affectionate and jostling scratch along one cheek near his jaw. The other hand comes around to affectionately clap the wolf on his side, and his gruff grumble of, "what a greedy lad," is more laughter that lives in his chest than actual words, and if Huaisang ends up more or less boxed between his arms and Nighteyes in the process, well, that wasn't intentional, and he does drop one arm back to his side after only a second or two.

In his element, Nighteyes has his ears laid flat with affection, his tail lashing like a whipcord behind them. When he mouths playfully at Huaisang's hand there is nothing but affection for one he perceives as being hardly more than a pup himself suffusing the connection between their minds, though he and Fitz both quickly look in tandem towards the door precisely a moment before a knock lands upon it.

"Room service," someone calls blandly from the other side. "Dinner, compliments of the manager."

[fanfavors]

Oh, Huaisang thinks, Fitz sure does vault over his awkward shoulder-patting phase with impressive speed. After days without sleep, stalked around town by some thing in his brother's shape, it's all Huaisang can do to not immediately collapse into the warmth of another person (and wolf). He almost doesn't hear all of Fitz's words properly for all his other distractions, but mm, a man with a heart, yes— yes, it's precisely that sensitivity that gets him in trouble, indeed.

Give him a few seconds then, to catch up with this; with going from sobbing out his unexamined fears to pressed into this box of warmth and overeager wolf fondness and words like I think you're brave, Huaisang. Whew! He definitely doesn't have the heart to point out how bold it is to suddenly call him Huaisang, so - he just won't. No, he'd rather give Nighteyes an affectionate scritch of his own, although, you know, more delicately. He sniffles.

"Is there a fourth option, besides gambling and drinking and crying?" Wryly; really, is there another option, please let him know. He can only think of "killing a whole bunch of monsters" to add to this list, and that's - not it, for sure. "You're kind to say so, anyway..."

To the door he tuts lightly and calls, "Leave it there," without thinking, forcing the shake out of his voice so his Sect Leader tone can be heard more clearly (although with room service, it's more like his Second Young Master tone, but never mind). He's not all that hungry to begin with, and if he moves to pop this bubble of serenity he fears he might start bawling all over again, so - the dinner can wait a few minutes.

...Ah, and, "You two do have very good hearing, huh."

[listenyouidiot]

There's a muffled grunt from the other side of the door, followed by the clatter of a tray being placed on the floor. "Whatever, suit yourself," someone mumbles and walks off. (mumble mumble like fine don't tip me thanks for nothing you jerks mumble mumble)

Nighteyes lifts his nose and sniffs once, twice, before he emits a grumble-growl of displeasure and drops his massive head down onto Huaisang's lap. Cheese and bread, he confirms with clear disappointment, and so noses at Huaisang's hand again. Please resume the ear-scratching, it his his only solace now that he has been denied real food.

"You two do have very good hearing, huh."

"He has good hearing. Mine is like anyone else's, I should think, but with--" and here he balks again, just momentarily, at calling the Wit bond between himself and Nighteyes what it is, despite the clear evidence before him that either Huaisang himself possesses the latent ability for it himself, or that their magics simply work differently in this place. His eyes dart evasively to the side and he scratches his jaw again. "...With our bond being what it is," there, and it isn't a lie, not if he only avoids one word, surely, "his senses sharpen mine. Keener hearing, sharper vision. In return, I give Nighteyes--"

A wedge of cheese for dinner, the wolf grouses, and Fitz lets out a bark of laughter despite himself.

"Yes, well, I should retrieve the cheese wedge before mice get to it." He pushes himself up off the edge of the bed and heads to the door to do just that.

[fanfavors]

Who tips, maybe this inn should pay its employees a living wage, patronizing the establishment is the tip-- at least, that's Huaisang's inn experience in ancient fantasy China, so. Thank you, staff, for doing this nice thing. Huaisang gives Nighteyes' cheese-based sulking an amused huff, going back in for the scratches with both hands now. Yes, yes, cheese is very disappointing... He's quite sympathetic, which is why he's letting Nighteyes get fur on his fancy silk robes. It's subtle.

"Your brotherly bond," he says, which is not a question, but not not a question? He is curious about how a man and a wolf became brothers, and how the wolf can talk - although that he chalks up to what Fitz gives Nighteyes, if he had to guess - but he's not going to press. There's enough overt pausing at work here that he can also guess that it's... sensitive? Somehow.

There goes Fitz, anyway, leaving Huaisang to spoil Nighteyes with ear-scratches and scooting back a bit on the bed, so that he has more lap to rest on and isn't perched so precariously on the edge. Scratch, scratch, while he watches Fitz go and pick up the tray, hmm.

"Are you going to argue with me about-" god- "first watch, again, after you eat? Let me know— I want to be prepared in advance." Ha, he has enough pep back for some sass, red-ringed eyes and puffy crying face and all. Don't perceive that. But really though, eat your bread and take a nap.

[listenyouidiot]

(Nighteyes takes full advantage of additional lap space, and luxuriates in the affection like a house cat rather than the very large apex predator that he is. His eyes have drifted closed, and if his even breathing is any indication, he's on the cusp of sleep himself now. listen it's hard work minding Fitz, he's glad to offload the work of it onto someone else, congratulations, Huaisang, he's your problem now.)

Cheese, bread, and a pitcher of beer, so it isn't a total wash. Fitz picks up the tray and pulls it back into the room, kicks the door closed with his heel, and carries it over to the rickety table and its irritatingly unsteady legs. He's in the process of fetching out a knife from his belt--yep, that was there the whole time--and using said knife to whittle slices off the cheese wedge when Huaisang hurls that Fool-worthy zinger at him, and laughs in spite of himself, despite the unfair little clench around his heart.

"Doesn't have to be an argument," he points out with a glance over his shoulder, smile crooked, then turns back just to drop the knife down onto the table and collect the plates. He carries them back over and offers one out to Huaisang, but rather than sitting beside him again he remains standing while he eats. (Grazing like a horse, Burrich would have said.) At least he has the manners to chew and swallow his food before remarking, "One of us at least ought to be awake until the other drifts off, just to be safe."

[fanfavors]

Now he's minding a lap-wolf and Fitz, is the thing, he deserves to be paid overtime in better food. Not that the cheese and bread is bad, but it's cheese and bread. Where is the rest of the meal. Huaisang understands Nighteyes' complaints completely. He still takes the plate, looking at it; perhaps he will... nibble some cheese. If he studiously forgets to think about where Fitz's knife might have been, oh, hm--

"You're hovering—" a fraction of a second's pause before he decides, you know what, no one has to know how casually he addresses handsome men in his allegedly adequate inn lodgings- "Fitz."

Okay, now he'll nibble some cheese and bread, while he considers the merits of going to sleep right the hell now. He's tired, and with a wolf and a well-armed man, what could possibly sneak in in the dead of night to scrape sabers at him? But he can still recall that very first look Fitz had worn, lost and despairing, so - don't argue, sir.

"I will, I will— think of it as my way of saying thank you, for helping me with my problem." For saying he's brave and almost giving him an entire hug, but that's not a thing one just says. "Besides, it looks like I'm stuck sitting right here."

[listenyouidiot]

At Huaisang's very pointed and correct observation that he is hovering, Fitz blinks, then makes an 'mh' sound of acknowledgement, and re-seats himself on the edge of the bed. (If nothing else, he takes direction well and won't argue about it.)

But as for that last point--

"You helped me as well--both of us." He doesn't quite look back at Huaisang as he says this, instead letting his eyes wander the room again as though some old, deeply ingrained habit won't let him rest until he verifies that his surroundings have not changed since he last set his eyes upon them. Ax, still where he left it; knife, still on the table; the washroom door, still left ajar; no suspicious shadows beyond the windows, no new spectres in the dark. (As if engaging in this habitual assessment of his surroundings brings him comfort when he can feel his thoughts listing back towards the unspeakable pain and anguish of what he'd hallucinated when Huaisang had encountered him on the streets.)

He hears it again, then, though muffled and far more distant than it had been on the streets, that sobbing voice, the cry of, "Fitz, please--" and has to shut his eyes tight. Nighteyes lifts his head from Huaisang's lap with a low whine.

Sleep. Both of you. I will keep watch.

[fanfavors]

Thank you for listening, Fitz, that's very good. Huaisang gives him a short nod and a tiny smile as if to say, oh, that's much better! It is, objectively; he doesn't like to be loomed over, and he's spent enough time on his own lately to find it infinitely more pleasant with the three of them crammed onto this passable mattress.

He nibbles some more bread and cheese, and he hears it too— a sob somewhere, which could be anyone, and then that anguished cry of Fitz— ah? Perhaps it's the proximity to them both, or the duration of how long it's been since Nighteyes first managed to loop him into their bond— perhaps it's just more of the sleepless madness sneaking up on him, the longer they fuss over who's going to actually sleep, but. Hmm. He knows he didn't hear that voice before. That Fool of Fitz's, then, who likes to be called Fool on purpose, who it seems has begged Fitz for help all this time in the same desperate way Huaisang remembers begging Nie Mingjue to put down his saber...

"Ah," he says, blinking out of it. "Thank- thank you. I didn't- um." Well. He shakes his head before he can claim he didn't hear a thing, a polite enough lie he'd expend for anyone else who hadn't already heard the saber and come all this way. Putting the plate down on his other side, he reaches for Fitz's arm, haltingly, curling fingers into his sleeve. It's centering, or at least, he hopes it is.

"I did." Hear. "From the sound of it, you're as frightened as I am." (Not, ah, for similar reasons, maybe a few.) "But no one else is here."

[listenyouidiot]

The Scentless One.

That is Nighteyes' name for the one whose voice cries out from the darkness, and with it comes an upwell of wolfish adoration, a sense of belonging and togetherness and shared hunts and warmth and safety that can only mean pack in the purest sense of the word. Pack. Family. Love, and loss, and found once more. One soul spread out across three living bodies, but now one third of their whole is--no longer dead, but gone forever anyway. They have, they feel, been abandoned by a piece of their own heart.

But the pain of that hallucination is Fitz's, and Fitz's alone, because Nighteyes had not been there to see his body, when the Fool had found him in the central chamber of that frigid glacial prison. Nighteyes hadn't seen the Fool's cold, brutalized back, the filth that the Pale Woman had abandoned him to languish within, to smell the beginnings of death on him, unambiguous, inevitable. He couldn't have seen any of it, because time, and entropy, had taken Nighteyes away from Fitz before they'd even left the Six Duchies.

There's a simmering mass of pain inside Fitz's heart that has yet to be fully excised, but this much, at least, he thought he'd left behind, because this was a cosmic wrong that he had righted with his own hands, his own power. And when Huaisang grasps his sleeve, it... does something. The cries fade again, and Fitz lets out a held breath that might be relief.

He doesn't realize his eyes are wet until a tear drips onto his hand, and then he seems to come back to himself, lifting his other hand, the one Huaisang isn't gripping tentatively, to rub at his eyes. Voice thick, he says, "sorry," and almost laughs a little afterwards, even though he knows nothing about this situation is funny. He shakes his head to clear his thoughts, sets his plate aside, the food's crap anyway. "I'm--not sure what this--" a gesture at his own wet eyes, "--is for, I... did manage to save him. To bring him back." A pause, and he tries to steady himself. "But he left again anyway, I suppose."

Nighteyes leans his weight, solid and familiar, against Fitz's back. You and the hummingbird need sleep, brother. Please.

"Yes," he says, unable to do anything but agree. He looks to Huaisang again and hesitates, jaw working like he wants to ask him something, but now suddenly seems to realize how, uh, forward-sounding his request is going to sound. He clears his throat and chafes a hand against his beard again. "Ah, I'm not--sure how to ask this, but--"

Don't be stupid. Sleep on the bed together.

"--Nighteyes..!" Fitz groans and covers his face with his hand. which makes it pretty clear that yes, the wolf has the right of it.

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Oh, and this man may have a whole host of names Huaisang can't parse (Scentless? How would-? Never mind), but what must it be like, to cherish someone so completely, so unabashed? Before this, the pain of absence, which makes Huaisang feel a sharp pang of guilt, to envy them even slightly. He puts that thought away; talk about badly timed. Instead he shifts to tuck his other arm into the crook of Fitz's, shaking his head. The only thing he knows to do in a crisis is to hold on quite literally like this, even if the would-be helper is usually not, well, himself.

He's trying. He will not-quite-hug onto Fitz's arm for all the good it will do, and it seems to be doing enough. He'll take it. There's a moment where he opens his mouth to speak, to say something about how if it's fine that he should openly weep, then surely Fitz can do it too, it's fine—

But oh, the sleeping arrangements, that, ah- that is forward, even coming from the wolf. Not objectionable, if he thinks about it (and okay, okay: he already thought about it); there are half a dozen practical reasons alone to sleep side-by-side in this bed, to say nothing of the handful of selfish ones. Still. Even hanging on Fitz's arm like this, Huaisang has the decency to flush at least a little pink, so they can both be politely reticent about this obvious solution.

See, it works. He hums and looks down at his own hands, like oh gosh, let him think about this, what a dilemma. How does one say yes to this in a calm, chill way...

"'I don't try to remember, but forgetting is hard.'" You quote poetry at him, absolutely, this is normal— He's looping back around to the first part, give him a second. "You should consider yourself, like you did for me, and not apologize for being a man with a heart."

Or: Permission to cry, you know, whenever. Huaisang huffs and nods; there, the serious part is done, now this other thing. He glances down at himself - would really rather not sleep in the outer robe, it's expensive, but here on the verge of getting to sleep he is too tired to care, and maybe taking off even that bit of clothing would cross a line? Ah, forget it.

"I don't mind. Isn't the other bed Nighteyes' territory already, anyway...?" Ha ha. But really though, and he musters up the pluck to actually look Fitz in the face to say this (the bold part his brothers can never know about, whew), "I don't want to be alone."

[listenyouidiot]

If having his own reassurances turned back on him accompanied by poetry bring a new sheen of wetness to Fitz's eyes, well, he'd take it as a kindness of Huaisang didn't draw attention to it. He ducks his head some and once more rubs at his eyes, even sniffles a bit. Men have complicated feelings sometimes, about themselves and who they are to each other and it's fine that was the whole point of his character growth in the second book of this trilogy, we've been here once before and this time we're going to be an adult about it, aren't we Fitz.

"I don't want to be alone."

And truthfully, that is what settles it. Fitz holds Huaisang's gaze and gives him a closed-mouth smile in response and nods, even going to far as to pat the hand that is tucked into the crook of his elbow. "I'll clear up the mess."

I will move. Nighteyes leans up to stuff his nose affectionately against Huaisang's cheek one more time, then clambers down from the bed and crosses over to the other mattress, where he thoroughly ransacks the bedding before settling down onto it again.

Fitz is rather efficient about his tidying, like his body and mind have now clued in to the fact that sleep is imminent and so would like to remove as many obstacles between them and finally getting a solid night's rest as quickly as possible. He leaves some of the cheese and bread out for Nighteyes to consume if he gets hungry enough--doubtful, judging by the baleful look the wolf sends it--clears the plates into the washroom to be dealt with in the morning, then comes back in to divest himself of his traveling jacket and the belt that still sports his utility knife scabbard. Fortunately for Huaisang's delicate sensibilities, he does not shed any additional layers, except for his boots, which he discards near the door. (And, while there, he checks the latch one more time. Just to be safe.)

Then the inevitable somewhat awkward return to the bed, though he knows from experience--under, uh, very different circumstances--that making a Thing out of it just makes it more uncomfortable, and so he deliberately does not. He walks over to one side of the bed and drops down onto it, swings his long legs up, and then carefully lays his head down on the pillow.

He glances at Huaisang, then up at the ceiling, then back again. Then he sits up. "Forgot to switch the light off."

Leave it, Nighteyes grouses, and Fitz rolls his eyes, but he does ease back down onto the bed again.

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Thank goodness for Nighteyes and his interrupting nose, or Huaisang might have spent the next several minutes just holding onto Fitz's hand and not letting him get up to tidy, ahem. Men have complicated feelings indeed, and men have much simpler feelings about the magnetic pull of a smile and a definitely-not-just-crying gaze and hands on hands. Fitz will clear up the mess, and ah- yes, yes, nose in his face, thank you, Nighteyes. Huaisang gives the wolf a surprised but earnest laugh and one last ear scratch before he hops off to the other bed, and then... well, then he is sitting there on the bed all by his lonesome.

Hmm. He does watch Fitz go around tidying up, for lack of anything else to watch (and some other reasons). What else should he do but scoot to one side of the bed and at least smooth out his many fancy silks before he sleeps in them like an utter slob, while Fitz is off putting plates away and whatever else? This is fine.

The one nonnegotiable is his hair, however, so as Fitz does some fascinating layer-removal, Huaisang begins the arduous process of letting all of his hair down and untwisting the braids. The delicate hairpiece he puts on what passes for a rickety night table (but not before sighing at it, what kind of place is this), busying himself with undoing the braids one by one.

There are. Quite a few of them. So he's still sitting up and at this when Fitz finally lays down in the bed to be, Huaisang thinks, not as awkward as he could be about it. Still - he pauses in his ministrations to reach over and put a hand on Fitz's arm at the same time Nighteyes tells him to leave the light, unable to help laughing slightly again. Please, Fitz.

"Stop, stop—" The lights are fine! The latch is shut! There are no dying brothers or desperate friends lurking outside the windows (probably)! If Huaisang believes this hard enough it will be true, but of course, it does help that merely putting a hand on Fitz's arm again seems to mollify the most persistent part of his anxieties. He arranges his remaining braid to hang in front of his shoulder, so he can also shimmy down to lie on his side, propped up on his elbow to finish the laborious untwisting. Hello, bed buddy.

"Do you think they serve breakfast here, as well?" This isn't sleeping.

cw for canon-typical fitzchivalry farseer stupidity

[listenyouidiot]

(The narrator: Let us back up briefly and revisit Fitz's somewhat awkward return to the bed and consider the following--that, perhaps, Fitz's slight pause upon turning around to see Huaisang unbraiding a veritable waterfall of soft, ink black hair across a layer of silk fabric covering his slight shoulders was rather similar to his purely aesthetic appreciation of the Fool's gilded golden locks and sun-kissed skin upon his arrival to Fitz's remote Buck Duchy cottage in the not too distant past. He's having a feeling about it, you see, and that feeling is that he must be very secure in his unambiguous and exclusive attraction to women to be able to appreciate, aesthetically, the beauty of other men, and have no reactions to the pleasant contrast between Huaisang's skin tone and the dark hair around his face, beyond the aesthetic. say aesthetic again.)

"What?"

Huaisang asked him a question, apparently, if the expectant look on his face while his thin fingers keep working his braids loose is any indication, and it takes Fitz a moment to walk his thoughts back past whatever mysterious thing it was he'd been thinking about to recall it. (What a mystery, he'll never figure that one out.) Then he makes an 'oh' sort of expression and gives his shoulders a little shrug into the dubiously clean bedding. He folds his hands together over his chest and looks up at the ceiling, his eyes following the outline of a water stain and the faded beige interior of it. "I expect if they do, it will be more of the same," he confesses grimly and juts his chin towards what remains of the bread and cheese (and beer) on the table. "In the morning we'd be better off finding somewhere else to eat."

Or catch something ourselves. Nighteyes' contribution is a drowsy, half-formed thought in both their minds; the wolf is already halfway into a dream that smells of petrichor and the scent of a rabbit, and the sensation of soft moss under the pads of his paws. The shared dream sensation seems to coax Fitz's eyes to fall half-lidded as well, as though the wolf's dream-sense of the world is more than sufficient to draw him towards the refuge of sleep.

But he blinks his eyes back open again and peers at Huaisang, his brows pulled together into a slight frown. "I can stay up, if you need me to." He'd said he didn't want to be alone, after all.

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Let the record show that Nie Huaisang, hottest person in the grocery store a man with a general awareness of good-looking men and how they occasionally look at him, is not... oblivious, here, to Fitz looking at him like it's the first time he's seen hair. Like the moment of gentle crying, it's not as if he's going to start elbow-jabbing and eyebrow-wiggling about it because he isn't sixteen anymore, but - well. It's nice to be appreciated, or something like that.

He works his fingers the rest of the way through his last braid and gathers the lot of his hair over his shoulder, and look, he's not not aware of how this is a Thing, but he was going to do this anyway, in his defense. He just has to finger-comb the whole of it into a coherent mass and not just a bunch of separate un-plaits, see. Look at the ceiling again, if needs must.

"Not the exact same," he says, wrinkling his nose. They won't serve old bread, will they? What do they do in bread-and-cheese inns? Ah, and then without thinking he's leaning towards Fitz that much more, to peer past him and over at Nighteyes on the other bed, and if his hand lands on top of Fitz's folded ones for balance, that just is what it is. Nighteyes needs to know this important thing, which is, "I know how to catch birds! And rabbits! Ah- not as quickly as Night-gege, I'm sure."

This still isn't sleeping, and just the chance to share his talent at small animal catching has given him a kick of energy that will undoubtedly fade in minutes, but!! Nighteyes, please be proud of him for this. The idea of going for a nice breakfast in the morning will get him through any strange surprises the night has left yet to spring on them; maybe he can learn what brunch is and beg Fitz to sit down for a whole one.

Speaking of Fitz, Huaisang looks- down at him now, before settling back onto his side. Is this the arguing about first watch he'd asked for a heads up about, before? Hm! "If I say no, are you going to do it anyway?" They've just met, but he's been getting that vibe.

[listenyouidiot]

Needs do indeed must. Fitz looks back up at the ceiling.

Or at least he is attempting to look back up at the ceiling. And then suddenly what he is looking at instead is a curtain of black hair as it falls across his face (and it smells really nice, actually), because Huaisang is leaning across his chest to excitedly share his hunting prowess with Nighteyes. There is a steadying hand resting on top of his folded ones now, and Fitz makes sure not to move about too much lest he accidentally dislodge and knock Huaisang over from his perch. (His cheeks do feel a bit warm. Is it warm in here?)

Nighteyes' ears perk upward with immediate interest, because message received, he can sense when a hunt is imminent. Tomorrow, Hummingbird, we will hunt all the game we can catch. His tail gives a lazy sweep across the mess of bedding he's claimed for himself, and it seems his understanding that he has been called night brother pleases him tremendously, if the sudden warmth that suffuses their connection is any indication.

It pleases Fitz, too, because that warmth and knowledge washes into his own heart and reminds him, keenly, of how rare it has been for both of them to share such camaraderie with others. It has only ever been the two of them in their thoughts, with the sterling exception of the Fool whose mind Nighteyes had been able to touch and understand only once. This feels--not exactly like that, of course, because Huaisang is not the Fool, however much Fitz aches over his friend's absence and draws comfort from the unexpected similarities between them. But it is a relief, somehow, to know that he and Nighteyes are not so old and set in their ways that they can't forge new connections with new friends.

yes, these are definitely only feelings of friendship that Fitz is experiencing, nothing else is happening here.

He very nearly said 'what' again when Huaisang directs that cross look at him, because he's obviously asked a question again, and so Fitz walks his mind back to find it. Ah. Well, that one is easy enough to answer.

"Probably," he replies and cracks a lopsided little smile.

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That settles that for the morning's events, then; a hunt, wow, if only everyone Huaisang knows could see him right at this moment— contemplating the hunt and nothing else that any of them might make interesting new faces over. The hunt and then breakfast somewhere they serve more than bread and cheese, and it's something to look forward to, here in the dwindling minutes before sleep finally comes calling. The warmth from Nighteyes is as novel a sensation as the rest of them, and it relieves Huaisang somewhat to simply - know. To just know another's feelings, without having to ask or to guess - how luxuriously Fitz and Nighteyes have it.

So: he is content, and arranges his hair one last time to stay out of his face when he finally puts head to pillow. Fitz's crooked smile settles warmly in his chest, soft like the chuckle it ekes out of him in turn. Wow, points for honesty? But come now, sir.

Huaisang drums his fingers on the mattress for a moment too brief to really pass as "thinking it over," before he reaches for Fitz's hands again and nudges them apart, wiggling his own in between. He gives one hand a short squeeze, like a decisive little punctuation mark; this is how it's going, now. It's a stay-with-me-please-thank-you grip if ever there were any, more tentatively affectionate than afraid of the peripheral monsters.

"As long as you leave the lights and the locks alone," he says, and adds as he pointedly shuts his eyes, an eyebrow quirked anyway, "I'll know."

[listenyouidiot]

Fitz's hands are warm, and callused both from the axe he carries and from years spent maintaining his rural homestead. There are ink stains on his fingertips that have, apparently, followed him from the Six Duchies through the Pthumerian Ocean and into Trench, because long before he was the Fool's catalyst, before he was Chade Fallstar's apprentice and King Shrewd's assassin, before he understood what it meant to be Chivalry's bastard son, he was also a little boy with a gift for letters and a steady hand. Master Fedwren has so nurtured that gift in him that, even now, separating himself from ink and the desire to commit his thoughts to parchment is evidently as counter to his own nature as separating himself from his Wit magic, from the Skill, and from Nighteyes.

He wants to write down many things, about this night, this city, and the person who is resting next to him. Later, once the danger has passed, and they have slept.

"I know you'll know." A quiet huff of a chuckle, and it's the most natural thing in the world to squeeze Huaisang's hand and leave their fingers loosely interlocked. He looks down at him briefly, then turns his eyes back to the doors, the windows and settles in for his watch. "I'm not going anywhere."