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

[abrightboy]

Malcolm studies the set of his jaw for a moment. What he wants? Conversation? No, he's sure not making it easier, but that happens a lot.

"If I had to guess, I'd guess a bit of both."

He really just wanted to keep Dean chatting until the danger of alcohol poisoning passed.

"If you're always aggressive, nobody can get close enough to hurt you and nobody can be close enough to get hurt because of you." A beat. "And yet? You're not used to being alone."

[cholesterol]

"I'm not used to it?" he asks, shifting so he can drink from his cup without burning or dribbling down his chin. He's been alone plenty. It's called alone-time. He has a Dean Cave and everything. But, Dean knows what Malcolm is getting at. Can he really see his codependency from here?

[abrightboy]

He sees layers of defence mechanisms buried between layers of coping mechanisms. He wouldn’t label it codependence without context, but it’s clear Dean is missing something that balances this recklessness out. A person would make the most sense. Someone in his life that tempers his worst impulses so he doesn’t die in a snowbank.

“No. You’d be dead out in the world, if this was how you faced it alone.”

Nevermind hunting dangerous creatures; his own tendencies would have done him in.

[cholesterol]

"You don't think I'm capable of taking care of myself," he says, with a very small, shaved off leg to barely stand on. "I meant it. I don't die in snowbanks." He dies in other ways. Once, over a hundred times. He doesn't owe Bright anything. "I kill things in snowbanks. Or bury them. Kill them. Then bury them."

THat's what he does.

[abrightboy]

“That’s not really what I said,” Malcolm told him. “I think you’re perfectly capable of looking after yourself in a fight. Against monsters or... whatnot. A fight is where you’re comfortable living. Lots of soldiers go to war and do well and they think they’re fighting to get home. Then they get home and they don’t remember how to live without a fight to survive. While I think you’ve been self-medicating your PTSD for quite some time, I also think there are people or a person around you at home who reminds you what the fight is for.”

Malcolm took a sip of coffee.

“A family of some kind. Your actual family or one you built.”

[cholesterol]

"Both," he says, tersely. One thing he can be grateful for, he's not paying Malcolm by the hour. Dean has his brother, he has Jack, he has Cas. Here, now, even. And he has Claire, and Jody, and her family. And Charlie. Except, when he's from they're all gone. Chuck cleared off the board. It doesn't help that Cas is somehow from after that. They win.

But, Dean hasn't seen it for himself.

"Self-medicating. Is that an official diagnosis?" he gruffly asks, taking a sip from his coffee.

[abrightboy]

Malcolm shrugged a faint shake of his head.

"Just an observation."

He set his mug down on the counter. Dean seemed like he was doing okay. He didn't look like he was going to fall on the floor and choke on his own vomit or anything.

"If you're feeling better, I'm going to go. Maybe one of the cowboys will come check on you a bit later. They try to keep an eye on the neighbourhood."

[cholesterol]

"That's your schtick. Observations," he says, glibly.

"After this, I'm going upstairs." And he can make it. He's much steadier. He plans on showering, but really, he'll find his bed and pass out with the door open. "Thank you for making sure I didn't die of Stephen King frostbite."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm smiled down at the floor as he made his way to the door. Observations were, apparently, his 'schtick'.

"It would have just been normal frostbite," he retorted lightly, turning that smile just slightly over his shoulder before slipping out the door.