villagelogs | 028-029 » the winds of change

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028-029 » the winds of change

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: Eastern/Central Mathias.
WHEN: Days 028-029
WHAT: A town meeting is called.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. PM this account to have a warning added!
NOTES: Plotting post over here!

RECOMMENDED ♫ Deadly Avenger "Ikiryo"

DAY 028
SOMETHING ON THE WIND
Another day dawns in the fair town of Mathias. The sky is a blanket of light grey, tiny specks of snow lightly falling as the hours pass. It makes the town feel almost quaint, the scenery quite peaceful in its winter garb. But beneath the veneer of peace there is a pervasive dread of something approaching. Something inevitable is on the wind, something that has come before and will come again...

Throughout the day, residents will consistently experience feelings of deja vu, that sense of having done or seen or said something before that can never be fully recalled. It happens again and again, tugging at the back of their minds, the memories just frustratingly out of reach.

Residents will also notice a note pinned around town:

The note can be found on the town hall's bulletin board and the front doors of many town establishments, including the Grey Gull, the library, and the boarding house. At the bottom of the note it is specified that the meeting will take place "tomorrow, when the sun is over the town square."

NEW ARRIVALs
The newest arrivals to Mathias will wake on the frozen lawn of the town hall atop a snowdrift. They had best hurry inside and get warmed up before hypothermia sets in.

DAY 029
A GATHERING OF MINDS
In the late afternoon when the sun hangs over the town square, residents will converge upon the Town Hall, where a larger meeting room has been filled with rows of chairs. After most people arrive, John Constantine stands and addresses the room... and then sits again. A grand introduction, truly.

Residents are encouraged to share their experiences and information they have gathered in the town while holding questions until the end. Rather than getting tangled in the intricacies of each person's tale, it seems better to absorb the broad strokes and try to connect the puzzle pieces to get a look at the bigger picture that is the mystery of Mathias Township.

THE INEVITABLE
As the meeting comes to an end and residents begin to converse among themselves, the feeling of something approaching and sense of deja vu begin to build, becoming almost oppressive as night falls. An hour after nightfall, residents learn the reason for these sensations that cease immediately as the earth begins to rumble. The buildings shake, furniture tumbles, and breakables crash to the floor as the earthquake sets in without warning.

The tremors last around a minute, far longer than a normal earthquake, and then the town settles again. There are no aftershocks, which many may note is quite unusual. Residents will find quite a bit of mess in their homes and other locations around town, but there is no structural damage to be found despite the intense shaking.

CONDITIONS UPDATE
— THE WEATHER is fairly typical of a northern winter. The sky is grey, the temperature hovers just below freezing during the day (colder at night), and a light snow falls during both days. Residents should bundle up when going outside and not venture too far into the dark night...

— THE FOG remains blocking the paths in the forest, urging residents to stay huddled within the town proper, and it also now blocks the northern section of town, beginning just before where residents know the chasm in the earth to be. Venturing into the fog is ill-advised.

— DISAPPEARANCES continue with Sherlock Holmes being the latest victim of the town's unsettling whims.

OOC NOTES
— TOWN MEETING STRUCTURE The town meeting section of the log is designed for characters to share any information they would like to with the other residents in attendance. ICly, characters should "hold questions until the end" with the intent that they can get the Big Picture first and connect any dots they see. OOCly, this means players should post their character's information sharing tag in the Meeting section, but the actual conversation about whatever they share happens after the meeting proper in the Mingle section. That way, these conversations can happen however players prefer, be that one-on-one or in small or large groups.

— HOUSING Please be sure your character's housing arrangements are up to date on our list. We're missing a few people and it really helps to know where everyone is for planning. Frequent updates for wandering characters are perfectly acceptable.

— THE BULLETIN BOARD has been updated. Players should note there is a change to the wall near the board that may be of great interest to some residents.

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Living with the cowboys, there are a few simple life rules that they wish to impart before their time together is through. One of them is that when it comes to moonshine there are no strictly advisable limits. Only suggestions.

He wanted to ask Neal what was wrong. He had noticed those little moments in the kitchen. Those telltale little fissures that signal an impending dangerous sort of crumbling. They try to be snowglobes here. Chaotic when they are shaken but always able to calm back down, given some time and some space left alone. Cracks in the globe, the occasional spillage, they are both troubling and troublesome.

Instead of broaching the topic during dinner, not wanting Neal to feel self-conscious seated in front of all these people, Doc waits until they're alone before leaning over and topping up his glass. If Doc starts approaching the delicate issue from the long way around and can stay sober long enough, he might be able to get there after three changes of topic.

"He sings, he cooks, he draws, he plays poker. Is there anything the great Neal Caffrey cannot do? You're making us all look bad."

"Sing--oh." He laughs a little, self-conscious. "Thought I was just... thinking. It. But I can't do plenty of things. Lots of things."

Yeah, he's definitely drunk. He takes a moment to try and pull his thoughts back together. "Can't fight. Terrible at self-defense. Situational awareness isn't great when I'm distracted. Swear I've almost gotten shot so many times because of that."

He tilts his head, considering. The silence is a little too long. He points at Doc with the hand holding his glass. "...I'm bad at thinking of lists off the top of my head."

Edited 2021-01-30 18:25 (UTC)

"Well I would offer to teach you to fight but I'm not much of one myself." He's much better with guns, as Neal knows. Hasn't needed any reason to get up close and personal although maybe he should start around here. He is woefully underprepared should any external forces attempt to lay siege on this house.

"Not sure you need to be good at listing things in order to survive around here." Doc's not going to let Neal see the bottom of that glass, not really cognizant, currently, that only Raylan and himself can drink the way they do without throwing up everywhere or curling up rolling on the floor screeching and crying. But at least Neal seems to be pacing himself.

"I have to say, dinner was- was quite sommin'." Raylan and Malcolm never complained about warm canned beans and beef on a bit of toast but clearly Doc doesn't know a thing about meals requiring more than the one fork. "Where did you learn your way around a kitchen?" He wouldn't mind picking up a skill or two should Neal wish to impart any knowledge, but it was... not a thing men did, in his time. Everything he knows is from living outdoors between towns and when he had open and run his own saloon.

"Everywhere." He'd started young. Learned to navigate the basics from his mother. But everywhere is a safer answer. "I always liked it, but when I started traveling, it turned into a way to meet people. Learn about where I was staying. You can pick up a lot about a culture from the traditions they have around food. And it was fun."

Neal takes a drink from his glass, makes a face, and goes on. "I learned to make paella in Cadaqués, in Catalonia. Picked up recipes for risotto as I moved around Italy. I stayed in France for a while, learned to make ratatouille, socca, a half-dozen kinds of daube." He smiles, his eyes distant. "There was this little Ottoman town in Turkey, known for its communal restaurant. The whole town cooked for it, all traditional Ottoman foods. I charmed my way into the kitchen and got to help these little old grandmothers make muska boregi. I couldn't understand a word they were saying and they laughed at me the entire time, but I learned how to roll filo dough. Badly, at the time, but I learned."

Like a shark casually and lazily playing with his food, Doc circles back around to the original point he wanted to bring up. Has it been three topic changes? Probably, by now. He's not keeping count.

"Don't think I would have the opportunity to go quite that far." Even if he did travel farther than many others would have, back in his time. It would have taken him years he did not think he had to go to half the number of places Neal had been, and he has always preferred travelling over land than by sea, just for the sheer familiarity of it.

"I thought I might be able to learn sommin' from you, in the kitchen today. You had Malcolm's help though and I figured you wouldn't want me spoilin' anything," he drawls. "Couldn't help but notice though you... seemed a little distracted, at times." Doc raises an eyebrow and flashes a twinge of a smile that just barely reaches his eyes as he takes a small, measured sip of his drink.

“You could now, if you wanted to, when we all get home.”

Neal is about to expound on the virtues of travel when Doc goes and talks about his moment in the kitchen. Neal clenches his hand defensively, like that will somehow stop it shaking if it starts again. He swallows around the knot in his throat.

“I’d be happy to teach you next time,” he says, voice quiet.

Neal takes a deeper drink.

"Not yet," he replies simply with a small smile. He has a few loose ends to tie up, still. And then, well. Who knows. Maybe he will make it that far offshore.

"Next time," Doc agrees simply, and lets the topic rest for a little while while they drink in relative silence.

"If there's something you wish to talk about. Just between the two of us. We've still half a bottle to get through, and the floor is open."

The moonshine makes his tongue loose. Neal flexes his hand, watching his fingers. “I...”

He takes a deep breath. “I’m scared of what this place is doing to me.”

Okay. That's a good starting point. Better than the tiny increments he has to make with other people in this house, like Raylan, or Five.

"I think we all are, to some degree. It is one thing, to be able to see your adversary. See how they are wounding you. Here we are unable to." Doc had said when they first met that Neal was going to need some time to adjust here, and not just to the small town life. He seems to have come to terms with a few things. Perhaps they can progress to the next steps now.

"What has it done to you, so far?" They don't need a list, since Neal has mentioned being bad at rattling one out off the top of his head. They can just discuss one or two things.

Neal can’t keep the bleakness from his face, though at least his voice stays steady.

“I just... I can’t seem to do it. What you can do. Let things pass, not focus on them.”

"Heh. Well I'm flattered you believe that." It certainly adds to the image of the unflappable gunslinging legend, to let the disquieting experiences in this town just roll off his back like they're nothing.

"I drink plenty and I pour my energy into other avenues. I'm not unaffected - just. Preoccupied." Although if he seems more unaffected than most then, well. You need to have seen some shit to get to that level of being able to stomach the grotesque displays of Mathias's exhibits. It is not something Doc would recommend.

"Are you referring to something in particular? Maybe I could help." He probably can't. But it's worth a shot.

"It's all of it," Neal says quietly. "It's the voices in particular. Hearing things when I was in the Gull, and then again in the library yesterday..."

Yeah, he hasn't mentioned his trip to the library until now to anyone but Malcolm. Even odds as to whether he was hiding it or just trying not to think about it.

He knocks back more of his glass than is probably wise.

"...And it's Rey," he says, feeling strange at the admittance. He never met the woman. Doesn't know anything about her, except that she came from another world, that she was Ellie's friend, and that she's dead. "I've seen bodies before. I've seen people get killed. It's not that it's easy for me, it's not, it's just."

There was a particular kind of horror to finding her body there in the snow. "Her eyes were frozen open. Her fingers... If she'd still been alive, I don't know if they could have been saved. The tissue damage--I'm not a doctor, but. She was frozen. She had frost in her eyes, and I kept waiting for her to blink, but."

Neal doesn't know why it bothers him so much.

"The library?" Doc doesn't know what happened in the library. "Do you wish to talk about what you heard, in the Gull and in the library?" he asks quietly. He has a rough idea, if it's similar to what was in the house he was in. Still it doesn't hurt to have Neal talk about what's bothering him.

As for Rey, however, that is difficult. Even for someone like Doc who creates dead bodies.

"Forgive me for initiating inappropriate dinner talk, but. Perhaps it is not simply a matter of being confronted by a reminder of our mortality." A memento mori shoved in your face when you least expect it in amidst all the confusion is one thing.

"Perhaps it was her loneliness, frozen in time. This... feeling like she had been abandoned, left to the elements, like common refuse left on the side of the road. That no one cared for her. That some stranger would perchance stumble upon her on an aimless roam and feel completely inept, unable to help her. Maybe it is that which is bothering you?"

"Just... voices," he says, his own voice very quiet. "I'm not sure what there is to talk about, really. None of them said anything I could understand. It wasn't even a language I recognized, in either place, which believe me, that's unusual."

Neal takes a deep breath as Doc speaks, closing his eyes as the man goes on. His tone drops to a whisper. "Maybe. Yeah."

He shakes his head as the image of Rey half-covered in white rises up in his mind's eye again. "Yeah. The fact that it would have been so easy to just. Miss her. That if it had snowed a little more before I showed up, she would have been covered. Just left there. And in a place like this... who would have known where to look? What even happened? And she didn't come back."

Neal hasn't really adjusted to the idea of the dead returning, not really. Somehow it only makes the fact that some don't that much worse. "No one where she's from will ever know what happened to her."

Doc takes his time refilling his glass and setting the bottle back down, giving some time for silence and reflection in their conversation before picking up his glass and continuing.

"I honestly don't know what to tell you, Mister Caffrey. I did not know her well, and she did not deserve to die alone so far from home." He can see for himself how easy it is to get caught up in everything happening in 1306 to struggle to try and extend their watchful eye beyond the house without being stretched too thin.

"But she was cared for. I have spent hours looking for missing persons. Daisy Johnson and Quentin Coldwater returned, mostly fine. Sometimes they are not quite so fortunate. I would not use the number of daylight hours or the things we get caught up in in this house as excuses for our failures, but we care for everyone all the same." Doc takes a drink of his moonshine and points at Neal as he swallows and keeps the burn down, a more casual toned down gesture than the bad habit Raylan has been imparting.

"We found you when you were hurt. And if you ever disappeared from this house I would come find you. Even if I have to grab our shovel and dig deep into the snow covering every square inch of town, I would come looking. This much I can promise you."

"I'd look for you too," he says quietly. "All of you."

Even Negan, and Neal doesn't know the man that well. The idea of any of them being out there alone makes his heart ache. No one deserves to die here. No one deserves to be so thoroughly lost to their home and the people in it.

"I'm..." He's not sure how that was going to end. "None of us are equipped for this. People aren't meant for this kind of thing."

Not that Doc would leave Negan out there to die, but the man hasn't been doing himself any favours to gain Doc's favour.

"The people still around are more important. Especially Malcolm, and the young ladies. And if it's between me or anyone else, don't bother with me." He's meant to be dead for a hundred and thirty years now. It's fine if his time is finally up. He would not place his own life above anyone else's.

"People are meant to survive, Mister Caffrey. I have done a great many things I am not proud of, but I would do them all over again if I could ensure everyone gets off this sinking ship." He can't promise that they would be able to leave, or that they would still be in one piece and of sound mind if they do. All he can do is try to shoulder the burdens that he wouldn't wish upon anyone else.

"Let's just take things one day at a time."

"Meant to survive," Neal repeats softly. He agrees with that. He does. Life is the most precious thing in the world, the most precious thing in any world. He's not used to seeing life pushed this way. He's not used to seeing people bent to the edge of breaking. There's always been a solution, an ending, a warm embrace waiting at the end of the day and the relief of knowing the worst is over. Yes, sometimes there were sharp pieces left to pick up, and yes, sometimes the only way to do it was bare-handed and alone. But there was always someone waiting with bandages and booze significantly better than the cowboys' moonshine.

He studies his glass, the admission coming slow and only with the help of the alcohol: "I've never known so many walking wounded."

"Maybe you've just never looked that closely before. I know I wouldn't want anyone coming too close, were I one of them." He is most definitely one of them. He just. Musters up as much courage and energy as he can manage to try and keep soldiering on, hard as it is with no finish line in sight.

"We have your back here, Neal. I know it is easy to say, difficult to accept, impossible to believe. But I hope you will keep it in mind, the longer you stay here. With a few more good days under our belt, we will come to be in a better space to deal with all this... cruelty that befalls us." A few more good days and a few more glasses of moonshine never hurt, either.

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028-029 » the winds of change

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