villagelogs | 028-029 » the winds of change

Entry tags:

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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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Uh-huh..." That's not quite answering what he remarked on, but he can respect a guy's privacy, occasionally. Maybe.

"No harm in it at all, nah. You ever deal with kids all that much?" A pause.

"Meditation? That sounds like fucking torture. In case you haven't noticed, I'm not one for sitting still and doing nothing. Reading until I pass out-- well, at least that gives me something to focus on."

"No. I was a dentist before I became too ill to practice, but children were a rare sight in the halls." And the professions he moved onto were... not friendly to children. You don't see children at the poker table or in the bordellos and saloons. And Doc has never gunned down a child. It goes against everything he believes in.

"Might do you some good, given all the things that happen here. But it does not work for me either." He has a restless heart, yearning for more than what he has, always on the move, always chasing, reluctant to settle. He has been made to be still and put up with his own misery for too long.

"You said you were a teacher. You must have plenty more experience in that department."

"No shitting, huh? Man, you were a dentist when dental work was fucked up, weren't you?" Just a bottle of whiskey and rusty piles or something. He'd have pissed his pants if he'd had to see that.

"I'm not sure what can help our current situation." With everything it's becoming. He's pretty sure giving himself a chance to think back on old memories isn't going to do jack shit though. It'll be a useless waste of time and Negan doesn't like to be fucking useless.

"Yeah, I was." He smiles for a moment before he shakes his head. "Their parents weren't always fond of me, but I knew how to connect to their kids whatever they said. Sometimes I miss it. Hell of a lot easier dealing with kids than keeping adults in line sometimes."

"It was all we had, at the time." He was a pretty good dentist too. Maybe he would have died as one of the most reputable ones if he had the rest of his life to live.

"Just want everyone in the house to make it through the day okay. It's all I can do. Anything else is a bonus." It gives him some focus. And when everything is going fine, when said focus is too narrow, he doesn't end up wandering far before he's running into somewhere where he can find something to spend the rest of the day occupying himself about.

"I do hope there will not be any children here. We have enough problems as it is."

"Hey, I'm not judging. We're practically back to that where I'm from and toothpaste is getting seriously low." Gonna be a mad house soon.

"Yeah," he agrees after a moment, his expression sobering up, getting more serious. "You and me both."

You gotta protect your own and all that. It's all they can do.

"With any luck, there won't be. They definitely don't deserve this shit... It messes them up. They never get to be kids."

Well. It's the end of the world. Toothpaste is likely going to be the least of their concerns.

"I would hazard a guess that Miss Ellie is the youngest among us." And that girl has seen some shit. She didn't need to give him the full story for him to be able to surmise that much.

"With any luck she will outlive us all. That is all we ever want, I suppose. For the young ones to have it better. Be kind to each other."

"It's a tough balance... you don't want'em to be pushovers either. They gotta be tough, know when to stand up and fight. For themselves, for each other..." You might want it to be easier for them, but realistically, there will always be assholes who'd rather piss on you than help you out, screw you over any chance they get.

"But any luck, we leave them a world that's worth whatever comes next, I guess."

He's afraid that Wynonna's baby won't even have that chance. Their world is too dangerous as is. Lowering his gaze, Doc breathes out a sigh and falls quiet as he tidies up the mess in the corner. The kitchen has the worst damage done.

"We should salvage what we can. Bring it over to our house." Smashed dinnerware and other appliances would not repair or replenish themselves anew.

Picking up a crate, one he normally uses to ferry bottles of moonshine back and forth, he starts filling it with items still intact from the kitchen.

"I may outlive them all. It was not something I had considered too deeply, at the time."

"Yeah, alright..." At least that gives him something to focus his attention on, a nice little distraction now that he inadvertently got them thinking about mortality again.

"There's never any guarantee that you won't outlive everybody you love anyway. Take it from the guy in the middle of the apocalypse." He's seen a lot of good people die. A lot of idiots too, granted, but some good.

"Still, it's not an easy burden, especially when it's family."

That is true. And that is fair. There are no promises in life. Not even death, at this point. Not for him anyway.

"It's not really family. Just- a family friend." He's not sure if that's what they think of him. He finds that artificial distance easier to navigate, somewhat.

"Stop going through my things and make yourself useful," he gripes, pushing an empty crate into Negan's hands.

"I was looking for reading material!" He insists, though he takes the empty crate when it's pushed at him.

He huffs out a sigh before he just gives a grin -- and a wink. "You know me, always good giving a hand."

At least Doc is hopefully too hungover to think about shoving him around. There's no shower to catch his fall here. "But alright, let's get back to work. How much did you manage to salvage from your half of this mess?"

"If you were any good with your hands we would be finished by now." He's talking about the cleanup of course, not. Whatever ungentlemanly thoughts Negan is having.

"The furniture's mostly alright. A few scuffs and chipped paint here and there. I think the uh... music b- radio. Is broken." Doc gestures towards it. The plastic casing is definitely shattered, but there's probably parts that can be salvaged from the inside. Maybe Negan or some other folks know how to tinker with the electronic components. Doc is kind of a lost cause when it comes to electronic anything.

"We lost a few plates and cups, glass bottles for storing moonshine, but nothing we can't live without. How did you fare on yours?"

"Ouch. You do love busting my nuts, don't you?" Hey, Doc has no right to comment on how good Negan's hands are in any other situation when he's not tested them properly. But he does go to start filling up that crate, kneeling down to put whatever he can in it as carefully as he can.

"Fared about the same. Guess I can take a look at the radio, see if I can get it going again if you want." He's not making promises, but.

"The important thing is I don't see anything structural at least. Could have brought down a lot of the places here, caused more damage than we could hope to fix. I've slept outside a lot, but man. A house is better any day."

That feels like a trap kind of comment that Doc is just going to deftly sidestep around.

"You know your way around a radio?" he asks, surprised. It's not that he automatically assumes that tinkering with such fiddly things is more likely to be a pasttime for the younger folks in the house but he just figured Negan might have not picked up those skills between surviving the end of the world and teaching children... not-tinkering skills.

"Maybe it's not the first time it's happened, and the foundations are built for it." Mathias seems awfully prone to strange natural phenomena. Maybe quakes and fog and endless nights are par for the course in this town.

"Well, I'm not a tech genius or anything. Had other guys around me for that. But after the world ended, sometimes you had to learn to tinker around with shit and try to get it working. There were broadcasts in the beginning when we thought there'd be places to go." Not that it ever really worked out. Shit collapsed quick.

"I'd imagine it's not. We can't have that bad of luck, right?" They show up and the whole earth starts quaking around them, c'mon.

"Let's just hope a bigger one's not coming."

"I suppose there was nowhere to go," he says quietly, leaning back against the countertop watching Negan work after finishing filling his own crate. Beneath the veneer of 'annoying asshole' is someone who has been through a whole lot of shit. Doc probably shouldn't feel bad for him, but it's impossible not to.

"You seem to have fairly terrible luck," Doc observes. Chancing upon a house of gentlemen willing to take him in and put up with his antics aside. "I wouldn't rule it out."

"Not really. Went world wide." But hey, at least they've got remnants here and there, groups to build something back up. It's an ugly world, but at least they're not all dead yet. If he notices Doc watching him, he doesn't seem to say anything about it.

"I don't know about that... I'm still alive. Some would call that pure goddamn luck." If he hadn't had Lucille, then he probably wouldn't be though. He shrugs his shoulders though, moves to get to his feet.

"Or maybe I'm part cat. Nine lives, whether I want'em or not. Either way, let's not jinx ourselves with talk of a bigger earthquake just yet."

"Okay." Every gambler has their own superstitions. He is okay with not giving voice to a potential cleanup effort round two.

Doc pushes off away from the kitchen counter, and grabs a few more things to bring over, forks and spoons and the like, putting them into Negan's crate. He would start a separate box for more socks, undershirts and other clothes they can use. He's been meaning to do this for a while. Now is as good of a time as any.

"Did the two of you want children?" Doc asks while his head is down. It might seem abrupt, but. Given Negan's interest in the subject and his talking about it to Doc. Must be a subject they can talk about, that Doc can ask him right back.

He's surprised by the question because hey, he assumed the topic was shut down before it even started. It's also not something he's ever really talked at length with many people, if he's honest. "Yeah, we really did. We tried before she got sick, but it never happened. Probably a good thing, all things considered."

He rolls his shoulders, debating letting the topic drop or continuing on. But Doc asked. "Have some women to try with back home right now too, keep humanity going a little bit longer, but so far it hasn't happened with them either."

He won't bring up wedging himself in, or attempting, as a pseudo-father figure to his enemy's children. But damn, the kid needs some guidance he's not getting at home and the little one's fucking adorable.

"Never wanted any, myself." Since he's asked, he might as well answer. "It would have meant having to settle down. Living long enough to be responsible about it wasn't in the cards." But even now when it's in the cards, when he's actually started to settle down a little bit, he still hasn't changed his mind.

Of course, they don't always get to choose.

"Maybe you aren't getting any on account of being an asshole," Doc quips. It's just too bad Negan isn't in the mood to receive any pearls of wisdom because apparently Doc is in a giving mood right now.

"You had your reasons." There's no judgement in his tone. Doc had been sick and well, some people have other priorities. But no, you don't get to choose if it does happen anyway.

"For the record, I've seen shitty dads plenty. You don't seem like you'd be one if you put effort into it." He's a coach and it's the Apocalypse. He's seen shit parenting a plenty in both situations and usually, they're easy to spot.

He snorts at the comment, but hell, Doc wasn't wrong in saying they might know too much about each other right now. Negan confessed shit he shouldn't have that night and it feels like Doc sees right through him sometimes. "Probably is why, you're not wrong."

God or whoever's got every right to fucking punishment him time and again just for what he did to Lucille, forget the rest of the shit.

"Look, now that we're not both drunk as fuck, I just want to say I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable or piss you off last night. Being an asshole is what's kept me and other people who aren't irredeemable assholes alive, but that said, I cross lines I shouldn't. And hell, I like you, so I'd prefer there not being hard feelings." He gets it if there are though.

If he had to pick between parenting talk or last night, it's hard to see which is the lesser evil, but Doc is going with last night.

"You sure looked like you had some hard feelings," Doc scoffs. He had been sitting on the floor a while longer as Negan got to his feet. Half-drunk as he was, it was kind of difficult to miss. But he won't hold it against Negan if Negan isn't holding anything against him.

"I haven't- done anything with another man worth keeping dirty little secrets over in a hundred and forty years." This he is giving away freely, no impending death required. "I care not what lonely men want to do at night. You do what you want with whoever you want. As long as they want you to."

"Excuse the fuck out of me... you get to stare at my stuff but you pitch a fit if I look at yours?" How is that even fair? He thought it was an eyes above the waist type of deal for both of them. He's not actually that irritated about it, not enough to keep fighting.

But maybe he is slightly annoyed.

"Yeah, well... I'm usually with women too. But sometimes I don't say no to a little sausage if the guy catches my eye." Why not? Different dynamic, different games to play, and Negan's biggest weakness is pleasure for however long it lasts, with anyone.

"Well, I hope you're not implying you think I'm capable of anything else. I've been called an asshole, a monster... but I'm not an animal. I don't touch anyone unless they want it. They have to say yes." It's the one goddamn code he sticks to, right up there with never hurting or killing children.

"I was not staring. You stuck your crotch in my face," Doc retorts irritatedly. The cowboys have a bit of a lean when their hands are on their canted hips, usually because there's a gun in the way, but but there is absolutely no reason why Negan has to stand like that.

"I am saying no to talking about sausages." Request refused. Declined. Vetoed. Doc isn't even hanging around the kitchen. He has bedroom closets to empty.

"Oh, my sincerest fucking apologies for standing up wrong, how thoughtless can I be?" He got to his feet to go wash up, like Doc requested. You know, he felt kinda like a jackass, but now? He's just irritated.

"You're the one who brought it up... You could've said apology fucking accepted and dropped it there. Or you could have told me a big old fuck you, and it still would have been over with!" He shouldn't follow. He should let him go and go fuck off somewhere else until he cools down, but his feet are carrying him before he thinks the better of it.

"You don't get to tell me I'm the asshole and then act like one yourself... I mean, Jesus fucking Christ, man. I'm not even trying to fight with you!"

... Except where he totally is, but before, he hadn't been.

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