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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"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.

"...Okay from... oh." The nightmare. He sat up and made a gesture towards the headboard. "That. Yeah. Well." He laughed self-consciously. "While I wasn't thinking about it," he admitted. "I'm fine," he assured almost convincingly. "I'm used to it. This is... normal. That's a normal night. You know."

He wrung his hands in his lap.

Raylan pushed himself up onto his elbows in response, paying attention to the little glances and the wringing of his hands before he pushed all the way up to a sitting position.

"Hey," he offered gently, one arm extending out towards him in a silent offer for a hug. Well, maybe not as gone an opportunity as he thought. "Think about the fact that we're all here and safe instead, huh?"

Raylan wasn't normally a hugger but shit. He was only 45% ashamed to admit to himself that he needed on.

Malcolm took one look at that arm and leaned into it, wrapping his arms around Raylan's neck and holding on tight, tension easing out of him slightly, though not as much as it might have if he wasn't suddenly hyperaware of how good the Marshal smelled.

Here and safe.

After a moment, he let go almost awkwardly. Had that been too enthusiastic? Too desperate? Had he given himself away? He watched Raylan's face as he sat up again. "Good idea. Focus on what is, not what could have happened, right? That's... one way to try and stop a mental spiral, you know," he rambled.

There was no helping the smile that broke on his face as Malcolm lunged at him and Raylan wrapped his arm around him with a rub up and down Malcolm's shoulder, murmuring a soft "It's okay," in his ear before Malcolm pulled away.

"Good. Keep focus on it. And if you need reminders, both Doc and I are here, huh?" Raylan patted Malcolm's knee as he shifted to stand. "I'm gonna.. go stretch out for a while in a bed I can get comfortable in. Kick me if you need anything, okay? I'll be down in an hour or two for coffee and to see how far along the snow is."

“I’ll be okay now,” Malcolm assured him. “Get your sleep; I’m not going back to bed. I’ll have that coffee ready.”

His eyes followed Raylan as he got to his feet.

“If we go to look for more bungee cords, I want to try to find some with metal hooks. These are plastic. One of them snapped; not the cord.”

Raylan shook his head as he opened the door. "I'd rather replace some cord than have you cut your wrists open on metal. Maybe we can look at somethin' to cuff you with to attach them to. More points of failure, but if we get those knots tight enough, they should hold. Still lets you unhook yourself from the bunjee without havin' to stress the hook end itself."

Malcolm considered that, nodding.

"That's sort of what I have at home. A leather cuff with a release I can undo myself. If we can find a couple of leather belts in that clothing store, I might be able to make a cuff that we can hook the bungees through."

But he was keeping Raylan up for nothing urgent. He waved it off. "Anyway. Um. Sleep well. Thanks. Again. For..." He gestured at the floor where he'd woken up. He was starting to feel a few bruises from the fall, but he'd never mention it.

Raylan almost prayed a Sex Shop would never show up in town, despite the problem for Malcolm it might solve. He could almost hear the jokes now.

"We'll look then. Leather's better than rope or metal, in my book." He glanced at the floor and nodded again, giving Malcolm a small pull of smile. "I'll be doin' it every other night til we're all outta here. Don't worry about it."

Raylan gave him another nod and slipped out, padding back to his room. It was early but it was cold and before Raylan went down, he was going to take advantage of his en suite bathroom and shower.

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021-023 » the ghosts of fallen leaves

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