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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Malcolm breathes a small laugh at the notion Peter would like him. “That would be a refreshing change of pace. When I was in the FBI, other agents did not like me.”

He called them out on their pretences and solved a lot of high profile cases.

As Neal expends on his view, Malcolm’s expression sobers and he nods.

“I’ve been in the ugly so long, I’m not sure I know what a not ugly world looks like. I like the sound of it, though,” he says softly. “Is that why art matters so much to you?”

"Peter likes smart." Peter also likes people who don't put up with Neal's bullshit, much to his occasional chagrin.

As far as the question of art goes-- "It's that. It's also more than that."

This, this is safe ground. There's nothing he can say here--he thinks--to expose more of himself than can be found by anyone with his file and a little imagination. "Art isn't just about beauty. It's about the artist, the viewer, the moment it was created and the moment it's seen or heard. An emotional dialogue. It's about people."

He might not think he's giving himself away, but the way he relaxes, the way his expression softens, makes it clear that art doesn't just matter to him. It's everything.

"I've stood in the Met in front of the Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints and watched a day's worth of people go by that painting. It's the only alterpiece by Raphael publicly displayed in the United States. It's older than the United States by almost three hundred years. It's amazing, seeing the ones who just glance at it, the ones who don't even do that. The ones who stop and can't look away. Every moment shared with art is creation all by itself. A construction of meaning, understanding, feeling." Neal shakes his head.

"And the history you can walk past in one gallery. The things those works have seen, the things that have happened around them. Art and artifacts - they give us an emotional connection to history. Someone painted that canvas. Someone carved that bust. They lived, they loved, they walked through a world no one will ever see again. What they left behind is the closest look we'll get."

He takes a long drink of tea, feeling parched. "Art is..." He lifts his shoulders in another shrug. "It's a glimpse of the immortal spirit."

Neal clear clears his throat. "Or something like that."

Malcolm smiled warmly, nodding.

“That’s a good point. It sort of speaks to why I collect antique weapons. Things that were created by human hands outliving those hands. ...Also a reminder that people have always killed people. There’s something in our nature that makes some people reject violence and others crave it.”

Neal grimaces. "Yeah."

Keller comes to mind. Maybe it's just because their last encounter was so recent.

What happened to you, Keller?

I could ask the same thing to you, Neal.

Neal can't stop himself from touching the bandage on his neck again. It makes him wonder what it must be like to be a vampire. If, once, the man who attacked him was someone who rejected violence. If the need for it broke something, or if the need was always there.

You and me, until the bitter end.

He shifts, trying to pull his thoughts back into some kind of order. "Do you think people can leave it behind? The craving?"

“If it’s a product of conditioning? Yeah. Conditioning can be undone. It takes time and work, but it’s possible, if they want to leave it behind. If it’s a product of psychopathy... no. It’s... a defect in the brain. People who have that defect.... they can’t feel remorse for the damage they do,” Malcolm explained.

Neal pulls the blankets a little closer around his shoulders. "How do you know? If it's psychopathy or conditioning?"

“Talking to the subject, mainly. Killers aren’t born, they’re made. Even with psychopaths, there are... triggers. Events or circumstances that put them on the path. What it took, how their murders evolved are all clues. Why? Do you know someone who’s... on the path?” Malcolm asked.

Neal shakes his head. "Just curious."

Keller doesn't want off the path, he's made that clear enough. Kidnapping Peter, then Elizabeth, taunting Peter with the fact that he would come after her again and again. Beating Neal into the ground with priceless art and artifacts like the victory of violence meant more than the history he was destroying.

Neal still remembers it with awful clarity, the first time Matthew Keller showed Neal the devil underneath. Pulling that gun from nowhere and putting their third crewmember down over the possibility of a mistake made. The crack of the gun, the mist of blowback.

Well. I guess now it's two shares instead of three.

Neal closes his eyes. Keller is on his way to a Russian prison for twenty years. He's where he belongs. The two of them will never see each other again--Peter and Elizabeth are safe.

This place has not been good for his ability to compartmentalize.

"Have you ever talked someone off it?"

“I usually meet them in the middle of a crisis moment, I don’t really... continue to work with them afterwards.” With one exception, in particular. “But I’ve talked hardened multiple and serial murderers into putting down their weapons and surrendering many times. If they can choose that once, they can choose it again.”

"Fortitude," Neal says, making a softly amused noise. "I could never do that. Face down people like that. Never been brave enough."

“People call it bravery,” Malcolm admits. “But by the time I catch a killer, I’ve been living in their head already. I’m not diving into an unknown. I get how they think. I understand how their process works. That’s what I use. It’s not... a puppy-eyed appeal to their better nature or something. It’s a form of manipulation.”

And he does have some concerns about where that intersects with his father’s own process. Dr Whitly is a master manipulator. He used it to hurt people. Was it okay to use the same tools if you were saving people?

“People do things for reasons. Basically, our brains weigh four factors; it’s usually not even a conscious process. Risk, reward, certainty and consequence. It’s a matter of figuring out what a particular person considers compelling reward and deterring consequence.”

That startles a soft laugh out of Neal. He gives Malcolm an appraising, amused look. "So you're saying you're a con man."

Malcolm looks over at him with equal amusement.

“Is it called that when I only use it on murderers?” He held up a finger. “There were a few I genuinely wanted to help!” he protested with a laugh.

Neal spreads his hands, grinning now. "I've run a few benevolent cons in my time. More since joining the FBI. ...Wait, no, I'm supposed to call them 'stings.'"

“See? They’re not cons when you’re arresting criminals!” Malcolm points out, laughing.

God, it feels good to laugh after the past three days.

"A con's a con. The only difference is whether it's sanctioned by law or not." How many times has he teased Peter with this very idea? It's enough to stunt the laughter, make amusement turn to homesickness again. At least Peter knows that Neal didn't want to leave New York. He knows Neal well enough to realize that he would never willingly disappear in the middle of an investigation. Particularly not when he's focused on getting back into Peter's good graces.

How hard is Peter looking for him? Do the others think he ran? It matters to him, he realizes. It matters that Diana and Jones and Hughes and even Elizabeth might think he bolted.

He drains the rest of his tea.

"What's the hardest case you've worked?"

“I suppose there’s some merit to that argument,” Malcolm admits, “though in the grand scheme of what I do, I prefer to think it’s part of my overarching role of using psychology to catch violent offenders...”

At Neal’s question, he raises his eyebrows a second. “Hardest case I’ve worked,” he murmurs, giving it serious consideration. “I suppose the most... personally difficult was a recent one. I was hunting a man who killed junkies and indigent people in a junkyard, using a car crusher.” He glanced at Neal. “For their sins. He killed undetected for sixteen years, as far as we can tell, because his victims were never reported missing. They’d been known to be missing already before he ever took them. It was hard to track his hunting ground. He started taunting us with phonecalls once we started getting close. We discovered he was actually mentored by the Surgeon. I... worked with a retired officer who worked on that case and we figured out his actual identity. Tracked down his childhood home. His grandmother still lived there. He snuck in while we were talking to her. Cut the officer’s throat. Abducted me. He knew who I was. He thought he could induct me into serial killing. Be my mentor like the Surgeon was his. He kept me shackled to a concrete floor. I had to break my hand to escape. But I put him in prison, in the end.”

"There's plenty of merit to it." He leans his head back against the wall, hands still cupped around the empty mug. "Everyone would prefer to see themselves as righteous. The truth is we're all liars. We all navigate the world by using others, manipulating our circumstances, choosing the battles we're most likely to win. Risk, reward, certainty, and consequence."

And morality is the tally of collateral damage left behind. Neal shrugs.

When Malcolm goes on... well, Neal isn't sure what to say. His look of curiosity slowly becomes disbelief, morphs into horror, stays there. "Jesus." No wonder Malcolm has PTSD. But there's something else that's bugging Neal, a half-thought that takes a moment of poking to fully form. He knew who I was.

"...Who was the Surgeon to you?"

“Not gonna buy ‘my first bust’ and ‘a fascinating case study’, huh?” Malcolm surmised, glancing at Neal sidelong. Part of him had been curious whether Neal would ask. He knew he’d said too much to be coy with someone as sharp as Neal, but sharpness was only part of the equation. The other part was taking the conversational risk of asking for what he’d outright declined to provide.

He took a breath, looking at his cup as he turned it around in his hands.

“Dr Martin Whitly, renowned heart specialist and notorious serial killer known as ‘the Surgeon’ is my father. And he’s been serving his twenty-three consecutive life sentences for first degree murder at a maximum security facility for the criminally insane since I was eleven.”

He looked at Neal. “I called the police after I found one of his victims in a travel trunk in our basement.”

"Can't con a con man." It's teasing, but gently so. Again, when Malcolm goes on, Neal goes quiet.

The fact that Peter knows this already is the only thing that gets Neal to say it. If it wasn't already in the open--if Peter, and by extension Elizabeth, didn't already know--Neal would keep this on lockdown. As it is, it takes a lengthy silence for him to build up to it. "Mine was a dirty cop."

He smiles crookedly at Malcolm. "No judgement here. You at least did something worthwhile with your history."

"I did the only thing I could, really. Lucky for me it was worthwhile." He looked over at Neal. "You're doing something worthwhile with it now," he pointed out. Neal had maybe taken a scenic route but... he was also a consultant to law enforcement these days.

"I would teach." He picks at a bit of string hanging out from the blanket. "If the commutation goes through but I can't keep working with the FBI. I would consider it, going back to school. Getting a degree the old fashioned way."

He hooks a smile in Malcolm's direction. "You're way too easy to talk to."

Malcolm laughed lightly.

"Well, conversation is a two way street," he pointed out. He canted his head slightly. "I think you'd be a good teacher, but... why can't you keep working for the FBI? You're just a consultant; not an agent."

"It's always good to keep your options open." That's the automatic response. The reality is that he'd have to think about the answer, and he doesn't want to. "What about you? If you had to do something else."

"Options, right. I did have to consider it, when the FBI fired me. It was Gil's idea to call me into the NYPD as a special consultant, not mine. I... thought about maybe writing. Or. I don't know." He looked at Neal. "I really don't know what else to do."

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