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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Doc cants his head to one side and his smile widens as he folds his arms over the countertop and leans in a little closer. "You're gonna make it weird, Malcolm, panicking and overthinking like this. He made you a promise, and he'll stick to it. Now you should know, with your-..." Doc lifts a hand and lets it fall somewhat limply.

"'Behaviouring'. He would be the kind of man who would shut anyone out. He doesn't want people climbing his walls. But there is no 'and then what' with him. He will talk to you, in his own time. And he won't leave you alone if he can help it."

His ‘behaviouring’ felt like it was short circuiting. He was definitely in the realm of a panic attack.

“But you don’t think he was awake before that, right?” Malcolm pressed in an almost theatrical whisper. He put his hands flat on the counter and squeezed his eyes shut, taking a deep breath that was, granted, a little shaky but did make it all the way in and all the way out. He attempted another. It went slightly better.

He opened his eyes and very studiously pushed the plunger the rest of the way down on the french press. He pushed the two coffee cups towards Doc without lifting them off the counter.

“Can you pour these, please?”

He didn’t trust hands that were shaky when he wasn’t freaking out not to get it all over the counter.

He glanced up at the ceiling.

“He probably didn’t hear, right?”

Okay, well, he doesn't think that Malcolm can really hear what he's saying. First thing's first - Doc's moving around the kitchen counter and taking care of the coffee before it can become an accident waiting to happen. He doesn't know how to respond in these kinds of situations beyond slapping Malcolm and telling him to pull his shit together. That kind of tactic might only work on Raylan.

Placing the empty coffee plunger into the sink, he reaches over to rest heavy, warm hands on Malcolm's shoulders.

"Malcolm," Doc says slowly, quietly. "Just breathe. Count - in through your nose - one, two, three, four. Out through your mouth - five, six, seven, eight. In... two... three... four. Out... six. Seven. Eight." He reaches up to cup Malcolm's jaw, brush his thumb over his cheek while he covertly feels for a racing pulse with his little finger.

"Focus on your breathing." His hand drops again to Malcolm's shoulder, trying to keep him steady, tethered, grounded.

Doc's voice and the grounding touch and the focus on his breathing brought him mostly back to the moment and out of his spiralling mind.

He closed his eyes for a second and took one more deep breath before opening them and scanning Doc's face, concerned he was an awful lot of trouble now. Maybe he was making him mad. But that wasn't what he saw there, with his behaviouring somewhat functional again.

"Times like this I'd about sell my soul for half a Xanax," he admitted with a huff of a self-conscious laugh.

If he could make Xanax he'd have already started throwing together an assembly line making it out of spare bedlinen and sanded down logs if he had to. As it is, all he has to offer is his patience, and forcing himself to talk a lot more than he usually does. So far it seems to be working, even if it's not as effective as popping a pill.

"All we have is yoga, and coffee. I suppose we will have to make do." In Doc's case, just coffee, but he'll probably end up dropping off asleep soon. He gestures towards the coffee now that he's feeling a little more reassured that Malcolm won't spill it everywhere, determined to be able to at least get through one cup together without incident.

Malcolm wrapped both of his hands around the cup to bring it to his mouth, partly for the warmth and partly because his less unsteady hand helped shore up the other one.

"The snow is falling harder," he said, glancing out the window. The previous day's incident, trapping him inside the clinic, was fresh enough that he had no intentions of going outside in even harsher winter weather if it could be avoided. "I hope we have enough firewood."

"That you won't be needing to sell your soul for." Raylan's gone and gotten some, kept them pretty stocked up while Doc almost cleared out the general store and the Grey Gull yesterday, topped up the food supply here and for a few other houses.

"I was planning on going out for a bit, a little later." The coffee is too hot to gulp down so he takes his time with it, holding the cup by its rim with one hand. He turns to watch the snow blowing around outside the window.

"Could fetch some more. We might have a few hours before the storm really hits."

“What?” Malcolm said, putting his cup down a little too hard. “No. No no. That’s a bad idea. Nobody should go out in this. It’s dangerous. Is it an emergency? No, don’t go.”

Doc wasn't expecting that reaction, although he supposed he should have anticipated it. He had only recently come home later than he should have, and refused to talk about the events that led to that predicament. And then, yesterday. Malcolm handled it well, all things considered. Doc wouldn't have. Being trapped, buried in the dark, not knowing if anyone was coming - he's been through a heap of shit but he can't go through that again.

"No, it is not an emergency. But it's just a bit of snow, Malcolm. I'll be fine." He sets his own cup of coffee down, concern in his eyes as he leans in a little closer.

"Did you... I mean. Are you okay? From yesterday?"

"...From yesterday? Oh. Well. They still didn't have any medication I need. I had time to really look," he explained. With the little penlight he keeps in his coat. He looked at Doc. That hadn't been what he meant. He pressed his lips together. "This is going to sound like... dumb hero worship or something. But. I knew you'd come. You and Raylan; I knew you'd look for me. And I was someplace that you'd check if you were looking for me. And that the entrance would be obviously blocked." He looked down into his coffee. "I knew eventually you'd come."

It's just the smallest, briefest of stutters, a blink and you'll miss the fact that Doc hesitated moment that came and went faster than the gust of howling wind rattling the window pane. He manages a half-smile. Forces it bigger, and nods. Finishing his coffee too quickly, he moves around Malcolm and sets it in the sink, running some water through it before busying his hands dumping out the coffee grinds and washing up.

"You got lucky." Doc glances over his shoulder at Malcolm. Smiles again, somehow, before returning to being hunched over the sink. "Real lucky." And they can't live their lives being around each other all the time, but they need some way of communicating when they're out. It was a luxury unheard of back in Doc's day but now that Wynonna's gotten him a smartphone, can reach him when he's miles and miles away, get him dropping everything and come running as soon as she calls, he misses having that technology. Misses her too, if he thinks about it too much.

He had thought people would come and find him too. Even though he was somewhere they would never think to look. He thought of a dozen things he would have said to Wyatt. A hundred different ways to apologise. And Kate. He had loved her so. Before he pushed her away so she couldn't leave him first. But nobody came. They... probably didn't even look.

Clenching his teeth and sighing through his nose, Doc slides his poker face back on, snatches up a tea towel and turns his back to the sink, perching against it while he dries his hands.

"We were worried about you. Maybe that should be our next project for the garage. Radios or... sommin'."

Malcolm watched Doc carefully as he moved around the kitchen.

"We might be able to fashion rudimentary radios," Malcolm told him. "I wonder what it would take; it's not complicated technology. We can look into it."

He paused and considered Doc a moment longer, even if his pokerface was back in place. That told Malcolm things too. He'd been nervous in the clinic when they were there. Looking at the ceiling. Edging towards the entrance. Malcolm had been in a state then but, in retrospect, he saw it. And Doc had been highly concerned about Raylan falling into the chasm, too. Specifically about him being trapped in the chasm.

"Are you claustrophobic?" he asked curiously. There was no bite at all to the inquiry; only a desire to understand Doc better. "Did something happen to you? A cave-in or a building collapse, maybe? Or... a fall into a well or a mineshaft?"

He tosses the towel aside, feeling selfish for a moment, thinking if maybe he can talk his way out of this one. It's easy enough to read him, even if he doesn't seem particularly chatty. The way his grip tightens on the edge of the counter, the way that smile doesn't quite reach his eyes when he turns his head away and crosses his ankles, trying to look casual.

"I'm not a... big fan of small, dark spaces." That's what claustrophobia means. He knows. He just doesn't- want to come off as vulnerable, or weak, whether it's because he adheres to some albeit dated gendered notions about what's acceptable for grown ass men to have phobias about or because he doesn't want anyone using it to pick him apart.

"Towards the end of my mother's life, we weren't allowed to go see her. I was only... this tall. I didn't know what got her, how contagious tuberculosis was." He hasn't even told Raylan this, and it probably shows. He straightens up a bit, lowers his weight against the edge of the sink again, uncrosses his ankles, seems to find the floor particularly interesting, scratches under his bottom lip, and when he catches himself doing that he's tapping his ringed finger against the edge of the counter. If he had his hat he probably wouldn't be able to stop touching it. He's uncomfortable talking. It's foreign. He's not like Malcolm, who makes it look easy.

"Used to crawl under the house. Heard her worries, listened to her prayers while she was- coughing her insides out all over her sheets. No one else was listening, after all. There sure as shit isn't a merciful God upstairs, downstairs or sideways. And then she died. Alone. Shunned. Outta sight, outta mind." He swallows the lump in his throat. Ancient history, right? Doesn't bother him, does it? He's only telling Malcolm, because he said, he's just pretending. And because Malcolm can't hide these things the way he does.

"Anyway. There was a woman. Knew I wouldn't be able to stand it. Put me in the bottom of a well, covered it up, a hundred and thirty years ago." So, you know, yeah. The snow doesn't really bother him. Neither does the strange voices he had heard in the forest or in the Boarding House a couple weeks ago. And he thinks he can handle a bit of fog.

"Could we talk about sommin' else, Malcolm? I 'on't wanna start drinking at five in the morning."

Malcolm was deeply curious how this woman knew that Doc wouldn't be able to stand it. Had he told her this story? Had she used it to betray him? Was that why he was so incredibly uncomfortable relaying it now? Doc had explained the code of manhood, as it were, to Malcolm upstairs. What they did to protect themselves. He knew Doc wasn't comfortable talking about his own vulnerabilities, period, but he seemed extra uncomfortable talking about this one. So he didn't push it. He nodded instead.

He wanted to give Doc a hug, but he didn't know if it would be welcome. He took an aborted half a step towards him before reconsidering it and staying where he was.

"My therapist suggested yoga. She was the same person who suggested the restraints to mitigate the... problems associated with the night terrors, so she'd been one for one so far. I figured I'd give it a try. It works better in conjunction with my medication, but... it still helps me still my mind a little bit." He gestured out towards the town. "I used a bit of the breathing to stay calm in the clinic when I was waiting for you to find me."

He can't help but laugh, then, a hollow, empty kind of sound. And just like that, akin to a magician's snap of the fingers, he walls himself off again. Shuts off the faucet. Cuts any residual emotion off like he's severing rot to save the rest of the tree.

"'ppreciate the thought, Malcolm." But he's not really a yoga kind of guy. And, just as expected, he doesn't feel any better talking about any of the past. It must be eight in the morning somewhere in the world, right? Little less wrong to be hitting the bottle at eight.

"You should do that closer to the fire, where it's a little warmer. I'm going out for a smoke." Yeah. Out onto the porch where it's starting to blow up a snowstorm. Not a terrible idea, or anything. "I'm not going anywhere," he promises before Malcolm can protest. "You will still be able to see me out the window."

He hadn't been suggesting yoga for Doc's problems when he'd already refused it. He had just... been talking about literally anything else, as requested. He could see he'd said the wrong thing when Doc's demeanour changed. He saw the walls go back up. Would a hug have made the situation better or worse? He wasn't sure.

He wanted to grab his coat with an emphatic 'I'll come with you!' but another aborted half step and he stopped. He wasn't unfamiliar with 'I need to get away from you for a bit because you're A Lot' evasions. He appreciated the attempt to spare his feelings. He nodded, picking up his coffee up in both hands again and stepping around the counter to slide up onto one of the stools there, his feet curled on the highest rung, where he could see the window. Just in case.

"Do you want more coffee when you come back? I can make more coffee."

Unfortunately Doc isn't enough of a subject matter expert on yoga to have any meaningful contribution beyond the fact that it looks uncomfortable but he's happy that Malcolm is enjoying it, that Malcolm thinks it works for him.

"Sure." He doesn't necessarily want one, but. It would give Malcolm something to do - hopefully without burning himself or breaking anything. He finds himself worrying about these things with increasing frequency these days.

Swiping the box of cigarettes and lighter from the counter, near the last bottle of moonshine he touched last night, Doc ambles over towards the door towards where their coats hang above their shoes and boots. Three coats for the three musketeers, still alive despite a hairy few days, almost buried alive, almost blown into a hole in the ground, almost infected.

He could put another layer on but his long coat's enough for just ducking outside. The most he'll venture out is maybe to check if anyone's left them any other presents other than the three lanterns with any further instructions.

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do," he jokes on his way out, trying to lighten the mood. Okay it's- said half-jokingly.

Malcolm huffs a little laugh at the joke, but before Doc gets out the door, Malcolm calls to him, getting his attention and hopping off his stool to throw his arms around him in a tight hug.

He doesn't apologize again or thank him again. Just lets go a moment later and pads back towards the kitchen to make the coffee.

Doc stiffens up, as though the only time people ever jump him like this is when they're trying to tackle, disarm and kill him. If it was pity he would have rejected it outright. As it is, he doesn't know what to do with kindness. It feels entirely different from when Malcolm is waking up in the morning.

He gives Malcolm a few pats on the back with one arm. For once Malcolm doesn't rush in like a burst river trying to fill the silence, and he is eternally grateful for that.

Letting Malcolm slip away wordlessly, he just breathes out a sigh and lets his head hang before opening the door and getting a face full of chilling clarity blasting in through the gap between the door and its frame.

Right. Let's... never talk about any of that, ever again.

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021-023 » the ghosts of fallen leaves

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