villagelogs | 021-023 » the ghosts of fallen leaves

021-023 » the ghosts of fallen leaves

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: Eastern/Central/Western Mathias.
WHEN: Days 021-023
WHAT: A cold storm approaches.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. PM this account to have a warning added!
NOTES: Plotting post over here!

RECOMMENDED ♫ Emily Kinney & Lauren Cohan "The Parting Glass"

DAYS 021-023
THE WORLD TURNS WHITE
“Are ye the ghosts of fallen leaves, O flakes of snow,
For which, through naked trees, the winds A-mourning go?”
— John Banister Tabb
The howling wind is what wakes the residents of Mathias each day now as the world turns slowly into a bleak stretch of white. Snow continues to fall in thick curtains of flakes that accumulate on trees and rooftops, swirling sideways in the gusts of wind that bow trees and whistle through any crack they can find. The drifts of snow grow taller against the buildings and the wind makes the already freezing temperatures feel bitterly cold.

By day 022, the far ends of streets begin to resemble the hazardous fog with how little becomes visible as the winds pick up. Buildings can still be discerned as dark shapes but the weather's warning becomes clear — a storm is coming. And by day 023, the storm arrives properly, the wind still screaming through the streets like a winter banshee announcing so many deaths to come. These conditions are far from hospitable and only the truly mad would be foolish enough to venture outside in weather such as this.

THE NEWLY ARRIVED
With an embrace of wintery white, Mathias offers a chilly welcome to its newest residents. They awake along the southern treeline bordering Mathias, near the small makeshift cemetery containing a handful of wooden markers erected without names or signifiers of those buried within. And not far from them is the schoolhouse, where in a snowdrift they will the frozen corpse of a young woman named Rey.

LIGHTS IN THE DARKNESS
“A lantern can give you light only when you light it”
— Munia Khan
When residents wake on the morning of day 021, they will find outside in the snow the abandoned lanterns of those shadowy spectres who have moved so silently through Mathias. Each nestled in a patch of frozen white outside their door, the lanterns are now cold to the touch, the half-burned candle within each one seeming to have been lit so very long ago. Inside the glass encasement is a small rolled piece of paper, upon which is written:

keep it lit
There is nothing more, and the prior owners of these lanterns will not return within these days.

There is one lantern waiting outside the building for each resident wherever they are sleeping — the exception for this is those who may have already claimed a lantern as their own. Removing a lantern from its resting place results in no apparent reaction, nor does lighting or not lighting it. However, whatever residents ultimately choose to do with these lanterns should be reported.

CONDITIONS UPDATE

— SNOW continues to fall, resulting over the three days in upwards of a foot of accumulation. The winds blow in gusts over 35 mph.

— VOICES are not openly haunting our residents, though they may still be occasionally encountered in the more heavily decayed buildings where some rooms seem to almost swallow whatever light tries to enter them.

— THE FOG has still receded from the town proper and much of the eastern and northern beach, with the path through the northern forest to the lighthouse still clear on day 021. On day 022, however, as the storm worsens, the fog returns to the paths in the forest, urging residents to stay huddled within the town proper or else.

— DISAPPEARANCES continue to plague the town. While Zed Martin has returned, Rey's corpse will be found in a snowdrift near the Schoolhouse; she disappeared on day 018.

— THE STRANGER is gone.

— THE SPECTRES are gone.

OOC UPDATES

— DISCOVERIES have been collected and collated for your review. Please note that this is OOC information only, put together for the purpose of helping you as players see connections and possibilities for CR and your own character's potential avenues of exploration and investigation. (If we are missing something, please report it so we can add it to the list.)

— AP REWARDS have a new option now — Ideas may be requested if you find yourself stuck. You may now claim up to 2 rewards per log: (1) idea and (1) other reward.

— SANITY may be regained in two ways: self-medication and treatment. In Mathias, this means such coping mechanisms as drinking or drugging oneself into a stupor that allows them to face their fears and issues, or talking to someone about those fears and issues. Since both of these will take some time, best get started. (A form will be added to the Sanity page.)

— REMINDERS — Don't forget about the bulletin board. Please continue reporting your updates to locations, plots, and discoveries. The map of Mathias has been added to the locations page for ease of reference. Make sure your character's sanity level is kept updated. Prospective players are still joining the TDM, so it's recommended to track new top-levels so you don't miss them.

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I suppose that would be quite expected if they were both living in the same place. I'm sure she had friends.

( while elena's excited, elijah is more subdued but he's always been that way. she's getting swept up in the history of this place while he's been more focused on how to get out of here.

still, he's glad to see she's feeling better especially after arriving with a wound on her neck and dealing with the death of the spectre. he steps behind her, looking around the familiar house. )

What are you expecting to find here?

( hopefully no dead bodies. )

[ she wants to keep her hunt for a suit for him to herself. if he knows, she suspects he'd try and talk her out of it, corner her at the door and push them both out and lead them back to the boarding house. elijah hasn't struck her as the type to want for anything. he stays on the floor in their room and he refuses to so much as exist in the same space as her if there's the threat of impeding on her space. it's nice in a way that she's not used to, and it's frustrating in the sense that she's putting him out.

she offers him a shrug. ] Some clothes, maybe. A book to read. Maybe something that can tell us who was here before.

[ scarf now unwrapped from around her neck, elena takes a step and walks slowly from the foyer into the living room where she deposits her scarf and begins to shrug off her thick, heavy coat lined with snow. ] I went into a few houses with Five, but we found nothing. That doesn't mean we can't find something here, right?

It doesn't.

( and he knows that he's been limiting himself to places like town hall, the library and their room so actually getting out and exploring this place is a somewhat welcome breath of cold air.

he peers out one of the windows, watching the snow continue to fall and blanket the area before he peers back at her. )

You've met Five as well? Did he tell you about him?

( because five and elijah had done quite a lot of talking and had come to quite a lot of common ground about a great many things. )

That he's been here for a bit?

[ his abrupt and brash nature had made her feel comfortable. she'd known as soon as he had spoken and welcomed her to tag along with his exploring and ransacking that he was going to cut through all the bullshit of this town. someone being honest with her was more rare than she'd like to admit.

with her coat off, she folds it over the back of the dusty couch. crossing her arms against her chest, she turns to face him, watching as he stands by the window. she wears a long-sleeved flannel shirt that she's tucked into her pants. it's a little big for her, but it's something. ]

Do you really think his name is Five? It sounds like a nickname.

( hm, so she doesn't know. elijah's just going to keep it to himself for the time being because he imagines it'll be an amusing and impossible thing for elena.

so, he nods. yes, he's been here for a bit. the time traveling bit is five's to share. )

Perhaps his parents were just...out of names by the time they got to him. Or perhaps it's a nickname and he doesn't care for his real name.

( he turns away from the window and comes back to stand in front of her, half smiling. )

Are you warm enough in here?

It's okay. [ she shrugs, brushing her hands against her arms. it's a little warm; it's nothing like sitting in a fire or being at home with jenna and jeremy heating up the house.

elena walks over to a table and picks up a photo, eyeing the two young children who beam up at the camera. it surprises her that such a keepsake would be left behind. wouldn't they have wanted to take it with them as a prized possession?

she turns to look at him with a smile. ] Do you have any nicknames?

No.

( don't even try and call him eli, elena. not even his siblings called him anything but elijah. he's sure that people he'd killed had called him names other than his own but he's not going to share that since elena seems like the type to use whatever name he might confess.

he shakes his head and moves away, peering into an open doorway a few feet away. he half expects to see someone else in there but it's empty, quiet. )

Just Elijah. I don't really think I'm the type for nicknames.

[ she does consider calling him "el", but if elijah doesn't want to be called by a nickname, then she'll respect that. briefly, she wonders if his klaus has a nickname for him that isn't "brother". ]

Well, Just Elijah... [ elena grins brightly, obviously in a good mood. ] I think I found something.

[ she waves the photograph, faces first, back and forth against her chest to beckon him over to where she stands by the couch. ]

You found a photograph.

( at her gesture, he does come back towards her, reaching out to take the picture from her so he could get a closer look. of course, neither face is familiar to him but it speaks to this place not always being a snowy ghost town.

he hums before he passes the picture back to elena. )

I wonder how long ago that was taken. It doesn't look too old and there's not a film of dust on it. I don't think it's been here for too long.

[ elena feels proud by her find, liking the fact that elijah doesn't disregard her. he's much like stefan in that regard. on the tips of her toes, she stands beside him and looks at the photo as if it's capable of changing based on them looking at it. ]

They look happy.

[ that's the most important thing she's taken from it. it may look recent and the condition of the frame may prove that the people who owned this photograph were here recently, but she can only focus on how happy they seem. ]

I wonder what happened that made them and whoever else lived here leave without taking this photo.

Well, if the current weather conditions are any indication, they might have gone out and been unable to return. I've been in cold, snowy places before but nothing like this.

( he passes the photo back to elena and starts combing over the room a little more carefully, looking for anything else that might give off clues as to who the people in the picture were. )

I've heard stories during my time of towns and cities buried under great mounds of snow. I don't know if that's what happened here but I wouldn't be surprised.

( except he hadn't heard anything about bodies or remains from anyone. )

Or perhaps there was an emergency and they meant to come back but couldn't.

[ elena looks at the photo one more time before returning it back to its place on the table. inhaling deeply, she lets it out, feeling her shoulders sag. with her hands behind her back, she moves away from the couch at a slow, leisurely pace, looking around the room to see if there's any hint of what had happened. ]

I really want to know what happened.

[ she lets out another sigh before pulling her arms from her back. brushing her hair behind her ear, she regards him with a curious furrow to her brow. ] Don't you think it's strange that there's no newspapers in the Boarding House? No one works there, yet there's nothing there that could clarify where we are and what happened.

I think the entirety of this place is strange, Elena. We should be able to find historical records of those that lived in town but I've been through town hall and haven't found much. There are no ledgers or anything that most towns have.

( it's as if everyone vanished and took all the records of their presences with them. it shouldn't be possible and it doesn't make sense.

he shakes his head. )

But that picture proves there were people here. Whoever or whatever made them leave didn't take everything. They did leave some things behind.

( breadcrumbs, really. )

So yes, I think it's strange but it's hard to figure out what to do. I don't know where exactly we are.

What if it's a stock photo?

[ she highly doubts it, but with no proof in sight, elena knows that she needs to look through the house to dig up the other photographs—and she has to hope that this family left a trail of thick breadcrumbs that could hopefully lead her to discover their identities.

frowning, she turns on her heel and walks over towards the small side table with the photo. picking up the frame, she glances down at it and holds it with both hands as she stands and looks around the living room for more. ]

There has to be other photos with these children in it. Can you see any? Who doesn't have photographs in their living room?

Not everyone has family that they can have photographs of, Elena. Some people are on their own.

( he does have pictures there, both old and new but he tends to not display them, wanting to keep those things for his own.

the compound back home is ostentatious and pretentious with its portraits of the mikaelsons but, at least, they're not displayed all over.

he moves around the room, opening drawers here and there but doesn't find another picture. )

Perhaps that's the only one. Whoever was here left in a rush and wasn't able to collect that.

A family packed every photo but this one? [ she laughs lightly, incredulously, and arches her brow as she looks at him in amusement. if she was in a hurry, she'd only take a few photos—most likely the ones pinned to her mirror. ] I doubt it. [ no offence, elijah.

no, that doesn't feel right. this room doesn't seem like the one that would contain all the photos, either. he's right in that respect, even though his commentary had been more general than specific.

standing still, she purses her lips and surveys the living room. ] Maybe there's a photo upstairs.

[ she begins to move out of the living room and to the staircase. ]

Maybe they didn't have time to pack this photograph, Elena. If they were rushed and hurried, it's very possible they just missed it. If there was something urgent happening that required you to leave, do you think you could possibly pack everything you wanted?

( he's seen your house, elena, and he knows that you wouldn't have time unless you had a vampire with you. and considering stefan salvatore tended to be around her, maybe she would get what she wanted.

still, he doesn't think his theory should be completely ignored. )

Be careful, Elena. I don't hear anyone in here but that doesn't mean this house is all together stable.

( after one more moment of looking around, he follows her upstairs. )

[ elena shakes her head, disliking his rationality. there's no way this photo would've been left behind as a sacrifice. she can still hear him when she's upstairs, walking down the hall in search of something. ignoring the rooms she walks by, she has no plan on which one she ventures into. stopping abruptly, the one on the left calls to her.

pushing the ajar door aside, she steps in and finds herself in a bedroom. from her framed photo, she'd imagine it's the daughter's—the room is light purple and the bed is a deeper shade. the room is a messy sort of clean, the bed made. the dress thrown over the desk chair is what gives away this being the daughter's room.

elena stands in the centre of it, looking around, unsure of what to look at next. ]

( elijah thinks to follow her so he can keep an eye on her but decides against so she doesn't think that he's hovering.

instead, he wanders downstairs, finding himself in what he guesses is the kitchen. the cupboards are mostly bare save for some dust and the refrigerator and oven are both rusted and creaky from disuse.

he peers out the window, trying to imagine what whoever lived here might have seen while they'd been here. once he finds that there's nothing here, he walks back out and starts checking into some closets off the hallway. )

Elijah!

[ elena knows she doesn't need to shout, but it's a force of habit when she wants someone's attention. sitting at the desk of the young girl's room, she flicks through a calendar that had been stuffed inside of a drawer. some of the squares signifying the dates have been coloured in like a patchwork of remembering dates.

pressing her fingers against the smudged out year, elena tries to touch it as if the mere press of her fingertip can wipe the smudge away. ]

( elijah really wishes she wouldn't shout because he thinks something's wrong and thus ends up beside her in the blink of an eye, looking around to try and find the source of her shout.

but there's nothing but elena and that's who his eyes land on after a moment, eyes narrowing. )

What's the matter? Why did you shout? What happened?

( had she seen something else? )

[ she gasps, surprised that he's there when she turns around in her chair. really, she should be used to it by now, but elijah's a different sort of surprised presence.

heart racing in her chest, she slaps her hand against her collarbone before she swallows, inhales and drops her hand. turning around, she noisily grabs the calendar—paper sliding against desk—and holds it out for him to see the dates.

she smiles excitedly up at him. ]

Look at the year. It's smudged out.

All right.

( elijah says the two words slowly, looking at the calendar and then up at elena to see what that could possibly tell him. he rubs a thumb across his lips. )

That tells us nothing, you realize. If the year is smudged out, what are we supposed to do with it? Do the pictures or notes tell you what year it could possibly be?

It tells us something!

[ it's clear to her elijah likes to look at glasses half-empty rather than half-full. she understands that perspective, considering she used to think that in the aftermath of losing her parents.

but, right now, the glass is a little full.

at his question, she shakes her head and parses through the pages to show him a calendar of cute ragdoll cats. the pictures are close-ups and nondescript. ]

How many times do you cross out the year of your calendar until you can't see it? Someone doesn't want us to know.

But what does that tell us, Elena? Someone doesn't want us to know the year for...what reason?

( the question isn't solely focused on her. he's speaking out loud, trying to figure out what about a year would be so significant. he shakes his head. )

It tells us that they don't want us to know, yes. But why wouldn't they want us to know? What about the year these people disappeared is so important that they wouldn't want us to know?

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