villagelogs | 037-040 » the reason for time

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037-040 » the reason for time

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: Eastern/Central Mathias
WHEN: Day 037-040
WHAT: The dead return and the living wake to changes within Mathias Township.
WARNINGS: Some explicit sexual content in threads. (PM this account to have a warning added!)
NOTES: Plotting post over here!

RECOMMENDED ♫ Kammarheit "Sleep after Toyle, Port after Stormie Seas"

DAY 037
THE DEAD RETURN
“The only reason for time is so that everything
doesn't happen at once.” —Albert Einstein
The dead return to Mathias forever changed by their experiences. Waking along the beach, near the tree line, or among the graves, they will find that their bodies are not as they remember them. They are whole again and not torn to shreds by the shadow creatures that cannot be described, but they are also not as they were before the Hunt. These residents will find, so strangely, that their bodies are in the physical state in which they first arrived in Mathias — any injuries or recovery they have made since their initial arrival no longer exists, as if their time in Mathias has simply been a horrible nightmare. Except they all now carry a last reminder of the Hunt with them: spiderweb-thin healed scars marking their injuries from the Hunt. Those who were injured by fire in the other realm also carry those burns with them.

The dead are not the only things that have returned to Mathias. Inexplicably, fall is back, with the temperature finally reaching above freezing and snow falling from trees to reveal beautiful autumnal colors. As the sun rises higher in the lightly cloudy sky and the day warms, the snow begins rapidly melting, puddles growing in the slowly revealed grass and little rivers forming in the streets. And with that snow comes the frozen blood from the deaths to the Hunt, tinting the street river on Phillips Drive a sickening shade of red.

Another oddity that residents will notice: houses with broken windows from the encounter with the fog on Day 015 have now been completely repaired, though any boards put in place are still there somehow. A small bit of good news, at least? And truly, how kind of Mathias to clean up its own mess.

Finally, alcohol is back. Enjoy in moderation, friends, for more will not be arriving the following morning.

THE NEW ARRIVALS
The newest arrivals to Mathias will wake up on the beach near The Grey Gull. It's quite chilly out with their wet clothes, but surely there's something to help warm them inside the restaurant. Indeed, their timing is perfect, for alcohol has finally returned to Mathias Township — and not just the cowboys' homemade moonshine.

DAY 038-039
THE CHANGE OF SEASON
The continued warm weather proves that the unseasonable shift of the previous day was not merely a fluke. Once again, the sun rises and brings with it a temperature that feels almost spring-like, save for the fact that each day there seem to be more and more leaves on the trees in hues of red and orange. For those who have been in Mathias for some time, this new type of weird may be almost normal at this point, but newer arrivals will likely find it quite odd.

The gently trickling river running along Phillips Drive is still somewhat pink in color as the snow continues to melt and refreeze each night. By Day 040, the bloody snow will finally be gone completely, though the relief will be... short-lived.

DAY 040
THE BLINDING WHITE
In the late morning of Day 040, when the sun is visible through patchy greyish clouds, the fog sweeps into town like a like a tidal wave. It moves in quickly and without warning, not from the waterfront but the forest, cascading through every street in a thick wave of white. Rather than a soft blanket enveloping the town, it is a heavy weight pressing down, blotting out the sky in a way that almost feels suffocating, for none can see further than their outstretch hand.

Those outside when it rolls in are left wandering blind, stumbling toward shelter as you're unable to even see your feet beneath you, let alone any obstacles in your path. Perhaps you call out for help, hoping for another voice to guide you toward shelter or simply another living soul. Or perhaps you were lucky enough to already be inside when the fog descended, quickly closing doors and windows to keep it from creeping in.

Unlike the last time the fog swept into the town, residents who encounter it are not immediately killed. Instead, they are simply disoriented, possibly losing their sense of time and place, and it is only after prolonged exposure that they will begin to feel off. A sense of being ill will cling to them if they are in the fog for too long, including dizziness, lightheadedness, or nausea — the time it takes to manifest varies from person to person, as does the duration it will last after leaving the fog.

By nightfall, the fog still has not dissipated.

CONDITIONS UPDATE

— THE WEATHER conditions are fairly typical for late fall: chilly "sweater weather" days and nights that can dip just below freezing. You don't want to be outside without a coat, but it won't kill anyone if they bundle up. Probably.

— THE FOG remains blocking the paths in the forest beginning a few dozen yards past the treeline, urging residents to stay huddled within the town proper, and it also now blocks the western section of town, beginning just past Hill Lane, before where residents know the chasm in the earth to be between Hill and Stine Road. Venturing into the fog blocking these areas is ill-advised.

— DISAPPEARANCES continue. Castiel and Sam Winchester have vanished, and Dean Winchester has not returned with the others after his death during the Hunt.

— THE GRAVEYARD has now seen around a dozen burials, both below and above ground. With the weather warming, though, something may need to be done about the handful of temporary graves aboveground...

— ALCOHOL has returned to Mathias! A small stock of beer and cheap wine may be found at the General Store, and some homes may have a small store of alcohol in the fridge or pantry. The Grey Gull has also been restocked with its lower-end offerings of a variety of alcohol types. Alcohol does not replenish in the same way as food.

— THE GREY GULL has been cleaned up and stocked with moonshine. Along with the newly restocked usual offerings, the place almost seems like an actual bar again.

— THE GENERAL STORE is in a bit of a state following the brutal slaughter of two residents during the Hunt. Cleanup on aisle 3, anyone?

OOC NOTES

— FOOD is now being mysteriously restocked as per usual, including inside homes and at the General Store. Alcohol is not being restocked. Use those rationing skills, friends.

— REWARD REDEPEMPTION is back and will soon have a new option for anyone looking to spend big AP and learn a bit more of the lore of the town.

— MADNESSES due to the Hunt have been earned by Klaus Hargreeves, Ellie, and Malcolm Bright and may now be claimed. Players may also claim additional sanity loss from the aftermath of the Hunt; only losses from the Hunt itself have been deducted from totals thus far.

— SANITY REGAIN is now available! Players will submit a form with some details of the progress their character has made and the mod will review and decide on the numbers of points that will be regained.

— MOD STATUS The usual reminder that it's mostly just Amy steering this ship for now, so things will probably be pretty slow for a while. Apologies in advance, and please don't feel shy about pinging me if you're stuck waiting for something.

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"Maybe in a shower," Raylan granted, lips ghosting towards a smile before that too fell away. Shifting his legs here and there, knees going up to the side, Raylan wrapped his arms around Malcolm and rested his lips on his head. It was the weirdest comfort he'd ever gotten, but it was effective, letting some of the worry weight that hadn't moved off his chest since he'd died the first time start to dissolve at the edges.

He took a deep breath and let it out, almost contentedly, at the question, eyes closing as he let the warmth of the water and Malcolm sink into him. Yes, this was perfectly okay.

"Is that my shirt you were wearin'?"

Malcolm pressed his lips together for a moment, feeling the prick of tears he'd shed on and off since the massacre threaten again.

He swallowed them.

"I missed you."

It wasn't, he supposed, too forward a thing to say when they were curled around each other in a bath.

"I looked everywhere for you and Henry," Raylan whispered in response. It was sweet and heartbreaking all in the same breath, that Malcolm would wrap himself up in one of Raylan's shirt while he was gone. Like he was being kept close just in case. Raylan was glad it could help someone.

"Until I realized neither of you were there. Til I accepted.." The fact that he had legitimately died. That they weren't ever going to be there in that red, odd in between world.

"I missed you too darlin'. I'm sorry for.." All of it. "Makin' you worry so much."

Malcolm's hand tensed slightly where it lay on Raylan's chest.

"Please don't be sorry. What happened couldn't be stopped; not by any of us."

He lifted his head and looked at Raylan's face for a moment, his own eyes a little watery, his own expression a little fragile, then leaned in and kissed him gently.

What if he was anyway? It wasn't something he could so easily discard; he could only imagine the shit he'd hoisted onto them because he decided to stand outside at that wrong time. It wouldn't have been so bad if Death wasn't the consequence.

He lifted his head as Malcolm did so he could look down into his face and take in the held back tears in Malcolm's eyes. As he was kissed, he brought a hand up to cup Malcolm's face, keeping him there so Raylan could steal an extra few when it broke.

"It's okay," he whispered. "Everything's fine now."

It wasn't but it was a lie he could accept telling.

As Raylan kissed him back, then kissed him again and again, Malcolm melted against him, hand sliding from his collarbone up over his shoulder, like he was holding on to a life raft.

"I know you... have a lot to process, but. I'm glad you're here. I'm... " He frowned faintly. "You looked for us?"

His brain was just catching up to some of the things Raylan had said.

"How did you... where were you? I thought you were dead. You... looked for us?"

When the last of them broke, Raylan kept his hand along Malcolm's face for a long moment before sliding it over his shoulder and down his arm. 'A lot' felt like an understatement, but he wasn't sure there was an accurate word for the loom of it all. Here though, he could shove all that on the other side of the bathroom door until he crept out of it again.

Raylan nodded a fraction. "We.. did. Die. We died." It was hard to say, which is why it had taken him 10 hours, two deaths, and a hot bath (apparently) to wrest it loose from his lips. If he said it, it had to be so. It was real, it wasn't some never ending nightmare.

"But there wasn't any.. white light or empty darkness. Just Mathis.. Covered in red.." His voice got faraway again as he took an unevenly drawn breath, brow pinching faintly. "The sky, the moon, the light, the-... the air," he emphasized with a sudden intense kind of focus on Malcolm's eyes, like he could just push the memories over somehow. "Like we'd soaked the place in it."

"They soaked you in it," Malcolm told him, his grasp on Raylan's shoulder tightening. "Th..." He trailed off.

You're doing it again, he told himself.

He gave Raylan another kiss. "I'm sorry. That's a lot to go through."

Raylan shook his head, fingers coming up to Malcolm's face again. "Doesn't matter. Soaked it in us, we soaked it." It wasn't about who did the killing, who deserved blame. Whoever was, the world had been soaked in it.

"I found it. The lodge," he relieved quietly, not content to end it with apologies and attempts to move through it. There was too much. He had to linger. Malcolm, stuck here with him, was forced to suffer the linger with him. For all it had inflicted, it hadn't come without some small prize.

Edited 2021-03-02 03:39 (UTC)

Malcolm would suffer a bathtub of piranha with him if that was what he needed, but the information? He was interested in that. His face lit a little as his eyes scanned Raylan's face.

"You did? Where?"

"Across the chasm. Not where we can get to it here but.. The fog wasn't there. In the In-between. I followed it north for about a half hour and there it was. I'm sure it's the mansion that I was stuck in. I know it was." He knew in his gut but he trusted his gut.

"I couldn't get across but.. It still exists. It's there. If the fog is still here, we know some of what's behind it."

Edited (IT NOT HIM) 2021-03-02 03:50 (UTC)

"It seems like they must be hiding it for a reason, but they let a bunch of you inside it," Malcolm said, his fingers fidgeting absently at Raylan's shoulder as the wheels of his mind turned. "If the fog lifts..." He looked at Raylan's face again. "We're going to need a bigger bridge." His expression faltered a little. "It might tell us something more definitive. Instead of just. Wild guesses."

"My bridge would have been fine if you and Henry woulda backed me up," he argued. "We coulda gotten over, but the moment passed and I wasn't allowed to do it myself." He was still a little pissed about that, to be quite honest.

"But a few more feet on it wouldn't have hurt," he granted. It was a concession, the only one he was willing to make.

His face pinched. "Wild guesses are half of the reason I'm as far as I am in this." He'd noticed the stumble before - "What happened, somethin' happened."

“But the Shadow Man...” he protested weakly.

He didn’t have the wherewithal to really argue against Raylan’s anger. Not anger he caused, anyway.

At the question, he sank back down against Raylan’s chest, fidgety hand sliding back to his collarbone.

“It wasn’t... it’s fine. Doc just. Pointed out how much all the... all the bullshit talking bothers everyone. I can see that. It doesn’t help. You don’t need me putting my coping mechanism on you along with everything else.”

"Was the reason we were goin' in the first place." No, there was no real fear of the being itself, despite the anxiety and dread it filled Raylan with. Or perhaps that was the fear itself, driving him to try and resolve the thing causing it - tomato/potato.

But that was the past, didn't matter anymore.

Malcolm sank back into him and Raylan's hand ran back up Malcolm's arm to circle around his shoulders. "'Cause we're all doin' so well not putting our coping mechanisms on each other," he clucked out with a soft sarcasm. "We say a lot when we're too wound up." Stressed, frustrated, grief-filled.. "He didn't mean everyone and he didn't mean all the time. Don't take it too hard."

Of course, Raylan had been gone, he could only guess but he and Doc Holliday had found a wavelength somewhere along the way. He'd trust Doc to speak for him, if he needed to.

“I didn’t... take it hard. I mean, it surprised me, because we talked about it a lot. ....But then I realized that I talked about it a lot. And I just. Talk a lot. But I can be easier to live with. I’m working on it. It was good feedback.”

"You do talk a lot, I'm not gonna try to lie to you about it. And maybe that could be toned down about two notches, but don't let it shut you down completely. That's not what he meant, he doesn't want you to shut up. Talkin' is the only reason we're as far on as we are these days." And not just in trying to unravel the secrets of Mathis.

Malcolm shifted so he could look up at him.

"I just.... I don't want him to leave. Or break. Or leave because he breaks. He won't let us help him. I asked him to let me," he admitted. "Because he took all that..." He waved towards the street. "He took it really hard. I mean. We both did. But. It was worse. But he said he'd be happy if I could just... take care of myself. So I tried. But I can't. And now I don't know what to do for him except... not bothering him with all my nonsense. That's the only other thing he's asked me for."

"Helpin' men like him.. like me, ain't as easy as you askin' for help, us sayin' yes and then pouring our hearts out over your boots. And I know that's not exactly what you're askin' for but.. It's also exactly what you're askin' for. It takes time. Space. Silence. Room enough to figure out how to let a little out the top... In not so clinical terms."

They were not an exact science.

"I can't say exactly what he meant. I can only guess and I don't like doin' that in things like this. Normally, a man's business is his own but.." Raylan studied Malcolm's face. "I'm not gonna let him leave or break. Not without a fight. Not without a say for my part." Which included his feelings, though he hoped that it was something that Malcolm would naturally assume.

"Don't leave a man that suffered the bottom of a well for a hundred years to himself. Even if you don't say anything at all. No words to fix anything, no attempts to take the weight of it when you can't. The idea otherwise is a lie. Heavy ones to shoulder and keep up. Find a way to be okay with some silence. It'll get you a long way with him."

A way to be okay with some silence.

"So... just stay with him? But. I thought he didn't want me to stay. He looked into my room but then he left. He didn't come in like... like you guys usually do. I went to his but he said the only thing I could do to help with his burdens was to take care of myself. He didn't... how do I know if he wants me to stay or if he wants to be alone?"

"He didn't stay, so he wanted to be alone or didn't feel he had the patience to comfort you at the expense of suspendin' his own I'd guess. There's no textbook that comes, you play it by ear, one step at a time and understand that thakin' care of yourself doesn't necessarily mean doin' it in the other room."

Raylan shook his head, hand coming up to cup Malcolm's face.

"Give everyone a few days, me and him included. I don't know what it was like on this side-" Flashes of Arlo's kitchen painted in Helen's blood splattered across his mind and Raylan closed his eyes briefly with a breath before opening them halfway to continue. "And I ain't got all the answers. But I will talk to him at some point, I promise. Sort it out. Just.. be cool."

Edited 2021-03-03 01:55 (UTC)

Be cool. Give them a few days. That was sound.

And the hand on his face was grounding. Malcolm's gaze searched Raylan's face.

"I-is it okay that I'm here now?"

Raylan lifted his eyebrows at him. "Because why, you're so influential and cute that I wouldn't have had the sense of mind to stop it before I got naked and climbed into a tub with a man ten years my junior?"

He knew that wasn't the case but maybe, just maybe, the question being posed would give Malcolm something to chew over.

"Well. Technically, you climbed into the tub by yourself. Then I... invaded," he joked, but his tone was lighter. But after a moment, his expression grew serious again. "It's not you or Doc... my... trust issues predate this place by a lot. There's never been anyone I couldn't run off with the depths of my problems. Always with an assist from my personality. I don't mean to... I'm not trying to test you. I just don't want to overstay my welcome to the point that you resent me. Better if I ease things up before then. Maybe we can still... talk sometimes. Maybe I can still see you guys."

"Malcolm, I'm not lettin' you leave or break without a fight or a say in it either," he assured with a stern but somehow soft look, gaze tilted from under his eyebrows. He would fight for and with Malcolm as hard as he would for Henry or for Neal. These people that he'd adopted. These people that he believed really did care about him.

"As long as I've got sense in me, you're not gonna be left alone to this place. You or him. No one's goin' anywhere and it's gonna take a lot more than some screams and some conversation to make me resent you. You ain't gotta worry about that."

Edited 2021-03-03 02:54 (UTC)

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