021-023 » the ghosts of fallen leaves

[villagemod]

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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Comments

[conning]

"...That isn't funny." He doesn't even know how to take what Malcolm is saying. The utter ridiculousness of it. Why he would make up something so ludicrous about a dead girl.

[abrightboy]

“I’m.... not joking,” Malcolm told him earnestly. “I thought you met John Constantine. His demon stuff is way weirder than intelligent extra-terrestrial life.”

[conning]

He stares. Just stares, trying to get his mind around this latest bomb dropped into the middle of his life. A faint laugh. He really needs to stop making that noise.

"Right." Somehow, he'd pushed it out of his mind. Constantine's theories, Dean and his... everything. Somehow, with the comparative normalcy of a bookstore conversation and something to do with his hands, he'd almost managed to forget.

He can handle this. He can handle this--

Neal leans forward, elbows braced on his knees. "Right."

Breathe. Just breathe.

It isn't even the revelation itself, not really. It's one more impossible thing. It's the fact that everyone he relies on, everyone he can bounce theories off of is quite possibly a reality away. It's the fact that the impossible things haven't stopped happening, and every time he thinks he's got a step up, the next part of the stairway goes missing.

Get it together, Caffrey. Falling apart in front of a perfect stranger isn't something he does.

Deep breath. Soft exhale. He sits up in his chair again, shakes his head, puts on a smile that doesn't need to pretend at being dazed. "I really need to stop expecting anything from this place."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm steps around the island and puts a grounding hand on Neal’s shoulder. It’s something Gil does for him at home. Something Raylan has done here to help him feel calm.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” Malcolm advised softly. “It’s your first day and this place is A Lot.”

[conning]

If he imagines the contact is Peter, it's okay. If he pretends he's sitting in the Burkes' kitchen, that he's not being touched by a stranger. It is something Peter would do. It's not that hard to pretend.

Neal fakes a grin. "I'm fine, really. Like you said, it's just. A lot."

[abrightboy]

Neal did not like that. Malcolm withdrew his hand and moved around the island again, on the pretense of picking up his coffee cup and taking a sip.

"You're not. I can see that you're not. But that's okay, you know."

Profiler.

"I, um. Am not as okay as I look, either." He glanced around. "There are things you can normalize, but. You'll run into more people who think 'magic' is a realistic explanation for things. More people from weird places or who've... traveled between dimensions or who have some kind of super power. But you know what? In this place? They're not any better off than we are. They don't have an advantage; they're just as stuck."

His hands tightened around his cup a little.

[conning]

Neal doesn't like being called out so bluntly. He also doesn't have the energy to keep up appearances when it's clear there's no point. So instead, he just avoids looking at Malcolm, fussing with a pencil and drawing a tiny rose in the corner of the sketchbook. He manages to keep his voice wry, at least.

"If you're trying for comforting, you're hitting a bit shy of the mark." He taps the point of the pencil against the paper, then finally looks Malcolm's way. "You're not-- You don't have anything like that? In your background?"

[abrightboy]

"Yeah, I'm..." He looked down into his cup. "Sorry."

Was there a way to be honest about their situation and comforting? If there was, he wasn't sure he was the one equipped to work it out.

He looked up a the question. "Superpowers and magic? Oh, god no. Monsters, yes. But... the human kind."

[conning]

"No, you don't have to--you really don't have to apologize. I was joking. Mostly joking. Joking enough."

He picks up his own mug, focusing on the simple act of drinking the coffee, tasting the acidity, the flavor such as it is. Grounding himself in the details.

"Yeah. Constantine thinks we're dealing with a vengeful local deity, apparently. The biggest vengeful deity I've ever dealt with was the White Collar ASAC."

[abrightboy]

“Yeeeaah no offence to him, but he thinks everything is a demon or something. That’s his comfort zone and he’s going to make sure everything fits in it,” Malcolm observed.

He watched Neal’s face for a moment.

“Have you found somewhere to stay? You need to find shelter before it gets dark.”

[conning]

"Confirmation bias is a many-splendored thing."

He's used it to his benefit often enough.

Neal tries to keep his expression blankly friendly, his relaxed default. But the tells are there. The slight press of his lips, the fact that his eyes are just a fraction too wide. He's holding it together, but barely. As soon as he's alone, he's going to crack.

"I've availed myself of the boarding house for the time being. Seemed a little like overkill to commandeer and entire house for one person."

[abrightboy]

"I suppose so," he conceded. He gestured towards Neal with his cup. "You're already do better than I did on my first day," he admitted. "I sheltered in a corner of the library for the first couple of nights."

[conning]

"I pride myself on my adaptability." He turns his cup in little increments on the table, smiling faintly. "Of course, my adaptability is typically geared more toward unexpected alarm systems than trips down the rabbit hole."

He takes another drink of coffee. "You seem to be faring better now, though. The roommates helped?"

[abrightboy]

Malcolm took a breath and considered how much he should let slip. In the end, he considered that Neal would have an easier time coping with not coping if he knew what people were managing and also that there were people here who wouldn’t prey on him for it.

“I have a... very pronounced case of complex post traumatic stress disorder and normally I take a heavy regimen of medication to mitigate the symptoms,” he explained in an even, almost clinical tone. “None of which are available here in even the smallest quantity. Early in my stay I suffered...intense benzodiazepine withdrawal and now my symptoms run unfettered. The cowboys have... kept me level on the bad days. They... sort of took it upon themselves to make sure I didn’t hurt myself.”

[conning]

Well. Neal hadn't been expecting that. It's vastly more than he would have said to a stranger, vastly more than he would have said to anyone. Even Peter. Even if it meant trying to deal with the fallout from withdrawal alone.

"Oh." He can't imagine being forced to rely on strangers like that. Strangers here. "I'm glad you found yourself with good people."

[abrightboy]

If he could have hidden it, he would have. Hence attempting to live in the library. Nobody had to be a profiler to spot his level of Not Okay.

He waved that off. “Yeah, terrible things could have happened. My point is, if you come to a place where you need help and you don’t feel like you can trust anyone to help you, you should come here and talk to them. And they’ll help you. No strings attached.”

[conning]

Neal doesn't say anything, his expression doesn't change, but it would still be easy enough for someone like Malcolm to read between the lines of his silence: There's always strings attached.

"I do all right. But thank you. I'll keep it in mind."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm nodded.

“I do all right, too. At home. I’ve lived alone since I was 18. I’ve never had a roommate in my life until here. You know that adaptability you mentioned? It’s going to get a workout in a lot of ways.”

[conning]

"Seems like we were both precocious." Which is as much as Neal will say about his own childhood. Still, it feels fair, to give Malcolm at least that much in exchange for what he's said himself.

Neal taps his fingers against the side of the cup. "Look, I appreciate what you're trying to say. And I'm happy to work with people to figure out whatever's happening here, and to figure out a way home." He takes a deep breath, trying to pull his words together. "I'm not really a kumbaya kind of guy."

[abrightboy]

“And I’m sure you have your reasons for that; we all do. But what if there isn’t a way back?” he asked, adding “Just as a thought exercise.”

[conning]

Neal grip on his cup tightens. "I don't accept that."

[abrightboy]

“I don’t accept it either, but I think it would behoove us to consider it as a possibility. The tiger doesn’t understand where the door is in the tiger enclosure at the zoo,” Malcolm pointed out. “So how’s he going to learn how to open it?”

[conning]

"The tiger doesn't have thumbs or a lock pick set." Which isn't the point, Neal knows it isn't, but he doesn't care. "There's always a way out."

[abrightboy]

“I hope so,” Malcolm said earnestly. And not only because he hadn’t been able to scrounge so much as half a Valium in his two weeks there. “But in the meantime, it’s good to know that you shouldn’t go out in the dark or in the fog. And if you avoid those... maybe having someone to rely on won’t be so important.”

[conning]

"There's always a way." Neal tries not to show how unsettled he is at the very idea of being trapped long-term. Not here. Not now. Not when he's finally, finally ready to stop running. It seems like some kind of cosmic joke, the suggestion of being well and truly trapped here when he'd just finished telling the commutation committee that he wasn't going anywhere any time soon.

Not for the first time today, he thinks, This can't be happening, except he trusts his faculties enough to know that it is. Neal takes a deep drink of coffee, the kind of drink normally reserved for booze on a bad night. "It'll be my pleasure proving it."

Relax, Caffrey. Relax. "I'll be careful. I don't plan on getting myself killed here."