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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Had it continued any longer, Raylan would have upped his tactics, but he was glad that he didn't have to. It wasn't easy to hear your own name screamed like that by anyone, much less with the raw terror with which Malcolm screamed it. Like he was screaming after someone he loved.

He didn't pull away or avert his eyes as his face was stroked, dark gaze scanning Malcolm's as his right, gripping hand loosened. It was the stress in Malcolm's voice, the underlying plea in the question that had Raylan reaching over to prop his weight on his elbow so he could free Malcolm's wrist and shift back and up onto his ass proper before he helped pull Malcolm up to a sitting position himself. Raylan pulled back a little but stayed close, hands hovering around Malcolm's elbows until he was sure it was okay to drape one over a raised knee, face full of attentive concern.

"You okay?" An inquisitive finger gestured at the wrist that had broken through the restraint before he gingerly grabbed it and turned it upside down to check for himself.

Malcolm’s breath was still rapid from the shot of adrenaline and fear but was starting to slow. He swallowed hard at the question. “It...” He forgot to breathe for a moment when Raylan took his wrist to inspect it, staring at where the contact warmed his skin before snapping out of it and lifting his gaze to Raylan’s face, swallowing again with an uncertain nod. “It’s a bit early to tell but I’m pretty sure nothing is broken.”

He glanced around.

“How did we get down here?” A beat and he looked at Raylan with faint alarm. “Did I hurt you?”

Edited 2020-12-23 01:31 (UTC)

Raylan nodded in return, running his thumb over where the cord must have broken, judging by the slight tear in Malcolm's skin and released his wrist back to him before propping his weight back onto his hand with a sigh.

"You must have busted the bunjee on that side. I found you on the floor, but no, I'm fine. You're gonna haveta work harder than that to hurt me, trust me," he offered with a tired smile that he turned into his lap. "We'll get you a new one later today. If it doesn't hurt now, I'm sure it's fine but have Doc look at it when he gets up anyway."

Raylan kept his eyes on Malcolm, the sound of his name being screamed over and over again.

"Can I ask you somethin'?"

Oh, that made sense. Malcolm nodded, looking at his wrist where the damage was done. Hurt. Oh. It kind of did. Physical pain had to bad to ease past the mental pain.

At Raylan’s question, though, a pit formed in his stomach and he lifted his eyes slowly to Raylan’s face.

“Sure,” he said in an unconvincing attempt at nonchalance.

"You were screamin' my name." Again. He wouldn't directly reference last night because he didn't want to make any of this worse. Even though part of him wanted to just lay back on the floor and invite Malcolm to join him. And he'd bet money that Malcolm would.

But that would be taking advantage of him and Raylan couldn't bring himself to do that.

"Wanna tell me what you were dreamin'?"

“...I did that, huh?” He looked down at his injured wrist, rubbing his thumb over it. “I. Um. I saw you trying to cross the bridge. And the wind blew it into the chasm. With you.”

He looked up to meet Raylan’s eyes. “I didn’t mean to...” His voice trailed off. He wasn’t sure what he didn’t mean to. He dropped his eyes again.

Raylan looked down again with a nod. He supposed, in hindsight, it was good that the new lady, Helen, yelled him out of doing it like a rational bulldog trying desperately to save him from himself.

He looked back up again at the unfinished sentence. "You don't have to apologize for what your brain suggests. I ain't afraid to say that I'm not particularly looking forward to any possibility of havin' to bury you or Doc. Can't imagine I'm alone in that. But it was only 50 deep. Survivable... You sure you ain't psychic?"

He huffed a laugh.

“Not psychic. Just paranoid.”

He looked at Raylan again. “I don’t know what I’ll do if you and Doc get killed. I.... like to think I can look after myself but. This place...”

As much as he wanted to tell Malcolm what happened to the bridge, now wasn't a good time. Maybe tomorrow. Or never.

"Well apparently, half of us come back, so odds are one of us will." He offered a soft smile he wasn't sure Malcolm could even see in the darkness. "You uh.. Mind if we take this conversation up onto the bed?" He started pushing himself up with only a faint grunt for the effort.

"The floor is uncomfortable as hell," he said, dropping down on the side of the bed to run one hand through his hair and lean his forearms on his knees. "This place is a mind fuck, pardon my language. Can't imagine it's easy on anyone. Means its probably worse on you. We been looking for pills for ya, you know. Hoping to come across.. anythin' that'll help."

Malcolm followed suit, climbing up onto the bed, too. He twisted as Raylan talked, reaching across to find where the restraints had broken. The hook broke. He wondered if there were any in town with metal hooks.

Then Raylan mentioned they were on the lookout for medication for him and he sat up and looked at his profile.

"I really appreciate that," he said. He paused. "And that you came looking for me the other day. In the snow." He looked down at the broken end of a bungee cord in his hand. "And that you didn't try to cross the chasm. I know you really wanted to. I know not being able to do anything about this... situation is particularly hard for... men of action."

"No way we were comin' home without you if we could help it," Raylan assured with a firmly unmovable tone of opinion before giving into his impulse again and laying back on the bed. He didn't do thank yous or your welcomes in such a way and regardless, there was now a hook of guilt in his chest. He'd caused these nightmares, even if he wasn't in Malcolm's brain generating them.

"It woulda been fine," he continued in a quieter voice, hands laying over his chest as he stared at the ceiling. "Nothin' to be done about it now, except move onto the next idea. The next possibility." He shifted his head so he could look down? Up? at Malcolm from his spot on the bed.

"I'm sorry that it started all this. That it scares you so bad." That Malcolm was so invested in a stupid, quasi careless man who relied too heavily on luck. It'd likely happen again and Raylan didn't know how to stop that either.

Malcolm stretched out alongside Raylan, on his hip, propping himself up on his elbow to look at Raylan's face at an angle that would be easier for Raylan.

"You didn't start all this. You didn't make me this way. The nightmares... they steal from all kinds of fears. Largely designed to humiliate me in front of my roommates, lately, it would seem" he joked with a huff of a self-conscious laugh. "I. Um. Feel safe here. With you guys. And I have trouble finding that feeling so... I have a hard time considering moving outside of it. My therapist? Is the child psychologist I started seeing when I was eleven. I can't talk to a new one. I tried. You didn't do anything wrong; it's my brain connecting safety in this place to you and Doc."

Raylan shifted his head as Malcolm laid down, grateful in the neck for the easier position.

"Didn't make it easier either. But there's no shame in havin' nightmares." There was a shot of pleased adrenaline that came with Malcolm saying he felt safe, a reassurance that even here, Raylan was doing the job he was supposed to be with or without the law behind him.

"I can't be any kinda therapist if that wasn't clear already but.. Safe is a good place to start. With a few reassurances that I'm not at the bottom of a pit. It's sorta nice that someone gives a shit for reasons that don't have to do with me doin' somethin' for them in return."

Keeping Malcolm safe, even from himself, was not Raylan 'doing something' for him. It was just Raylan being Raylan.

Malcolm considered his face for a moment after he said that. It wasn't normal for him, any level of affection without strings. Malcolm frowned faintly.

"Really? You're such a good person. You deserve better than that." A beat. "...There can't be nobody."

There couldn't be nobody that loved him unconditionally. There couldn't.

Raylan scoffed. "I'm an alright person. Most people would call me an asshole, but then again, most people I can arrest and have, if they feel that way. Everyone else I just work with. It is what it is." Winona couldn't figure out if she hated him or she loved him or she just wanted to sleep with him, and it didn't seem to matter much what he wanted.

"Aunt Helen came the closest, I suppose. Always had a hug when I woke up from my own nightmares. Course, she's dead now but.." That was one person. That counted, right? "She didn't want or take nothin' from no one."

He missed everything that she'd stood for and all the shit she knew about him. About Arlo. That much was clear.

Malcolm smiled at the clear affection in his tone.

"She sounds like an amazing woman. Did she raise you? What happened to her?"

His closest arm shifted, hand tucking up underneath his own head to give himself a little elevation as he started stringing out more of his complicated family root system.

"My mother's sister. She followed Frances down when she married Arlo. Good thing she did too. Helen couldn't stop Arlo from beatin' the shit out of anyone but she sure wasn't scared of him. As likely to shoot him as punch him herself, for what little good it did her. When I was younger and she knew he was on a bender, she'd come over to the house and wait in the driveway for me to run out. Spirit me off to her house for a bit of peace. Hot chocolate in the winters when she had it."

He felt oddly comfortable spelling all this out to a perfect stranger by all accounts, but 20 days in hell had built them a community. And since Malcolm wasn't keeping Raylan safe but was trusting him, to say nothing of the slight comparisons of their fathers, Raylan didn't see the harm.

Malcolm wasn't the type to use it against him, he didn't think. Maybe 20 days had started to get to him. Maybe it didn't matter.

"She's the reason I got outta there. Gave me the money to go to college, make somethin' better of myself. Saved me from a short life or a ugly death in a mine or by black lung.. Said 'someone deserved to get outta this damn dustbowl' as I recall.. She married Arlo a few years after Frances died. Still can't figure that one out for the life of me."

Edited 2020-12-23 17:05 (UTC)

Malcolm's smile broadened a little.

"I told you that you deserved better," he pointed out. "See? Aunt Helen agreed."

He hadn't known just how bad it was, Raylan's home, but the expansion on the evil deeds of Arlo explained a lot about the way Raylan was.

"Did you ever ask her why she did it?"

Edited 2020-12-23 17:11 (UTC)

"Mm, well I ain't in Kentucky by choice." It was the first time he'd been back since he left at 19 but he didn't feel the need to share that. It would only bring up questions about his mother and Malcolm would find that conversation as dead end as he had with Doc. Mothers were tender subject, evident by the way Raylan wouldn't even refer to his by a familiar name.

Raylan shook his head. "Never got the chance and once I came back, it was too late to bother. Wouldn'ta changed anythin' so there was no point. Alro told me after she died, that they 'suffered well together', stripping pieces of one another off day in and day out. Weird kinda relationship but to each their own, I suppose. He seemed happier for the viciousness of it all, either way." Arlo liked the fight, but it was not for him. Raylan got and saw enough viciousness in his job and interactions with people that confrontation, for however well he handled it, was not what he wanted to come home to every day.

"I'm guessin' there was no rush for you leavin' home, was there." It was a gentle turn of the conversation, before Malcolm could get too far down his question hole. Regardless, Raylan felt pretty confident that he'd distracted Malcolm from his nightmare well enough.

"Umm. I don't know that I'd say that. I wanted to get away from New York. I wanted to get out of Malcolm Whitly's skin. I wanted to get away from him."

His eyes wandered Raylan's face.

"I didn't go back for ten years."

Raylan looked over again at that, trying to judge what he could from the bare light coming from the windows. He couldn't see much, but it was nice to know that someone else was, in fact, there. At least for the moment.

"I didn't go back for near twenty," he admitted quietly. "Why'd you go back? Just cause you got fired from the FBI?"

"I think... after I got fired from the FBI, I sort of... lost direction. There wasn't ever anything else I wanted to do, besides catch killers. I told myself and my family that it was fine... that I was fine... But I really didn't know how to move forward, so... I guess I went backwards."

He considered Raylan in the dim light.

"Why did you go back?"

"Home ain't necessarily backwards." But that made sense. If Malcolm had sunk himself into the job with everything, having it suddenly ripped away was a hard spot to be in. Raylan isn't sure quite how he'd handle the first few weeks of not being a Marshal. Likely by getting arrested for trying to Marshal anyway.

"Reassignment. Marshal's Service is lookin' to capture one Boyd Crowder for generally robbin' people and blowin' shit up. But Harlan is secular. Half the roads and paths ain't even mapped, and they couldn't get anywhere with the investigation. Harlan'll talk to its own though. So I was useful."

Edited 2020-12-23 23:24 (UTC)

"So you were the only man for the job," Malcolm noted. "Is that why you agreed to it?"

He smiled crookedly. He was the only man for the job. "We don't get those kinda choices. The jobs the job, no matter where are."

He let a beat of silence pass before continuing. "You okay now? Settled from.. before?" Raylan felt like the right time to offer a hug had passed and he was starting to slip into a self-awkwardness that he didn't quite know what to do with, not with the idea of inviting Malcolm to curl against him floating around in the back of his head.

He missed the solid heat of a body next to him.

021-023 » the ghosts of fallen leaves

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