037-040 » the reason for time

[villagemod]

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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Comments

[thering]

Though he could feel Raylan's gaze settling upon him, at that point he refuses to turn to face Raylan, letting him only see his profile, only see the one side of him. It's a shitty pep talk, to put the weight of the house upon both their shoulders when they are already so burdened and weary with no promise of a higher power to provision them any rest. The only higher power around here would see them dead over and over and over again.

"The man I was is dead." He had left him behind in Colorado a hundred and thirty years ago. He might have tried to start over, in Purgatory, but here he is a gunslinger with no guns, a gambler with no chips, a doctor with no tools, a barkeep with no alcohol. He can't even do alcoholism properly without distilling his own drinks to give himself a drinking problem to contend with. Take everything away - and everything has been taken away; his guns, his cards, his whiskey, his woman child people - only the monster that cannot die remains. He had hoped to leave his demons behind in Purgatory also, but here they are, taunting him from the wavering reflection in his cup of coffee.

"All I am is a name. An idea. Some old memories." Those things don't really need rest. He doesn't even know who or what he is anymore. If there's any part of him left or if too many hands have tried to write his story for him and left him an empty vessel to be filled with all their desires and ideals. Doc lifts his gaze and works through his drink, draining half the cup. Usually there's moonshine in the other half. This morning he is painfully sober. Setting his cup back down, he turns to look at Raylan's coffee, his hands, gaze never lifting off the countertop.

"I buried the man you were. It is okay, if you do not remember. You can decide who you want to be, from here on out."

[tinstar]

It was a weight they'd both already collected, there wasn't any need to dance or parse that fact into something else. That didn't make it any less shitty of a pep talk. There's a reason Raylan generally doesn't do these, he wasn't good at them, not having heard many good pep talks himself.

"Oh bullshit," he replied with a soft scoff, pushing off the bar but not going anywhere as he shook his head, one hand propping on his him while he gestures with the other, brow pinching in a faint incredulity. "An idea didn't take care of all the people here. Old memories didn't board up windows or put up notes. I don't know if you did this kinda welcome wagon stuff when you were back home but these people don't know your story or who you were back then and even if they did, that's not why they accept the help. You mighta buried that part of you in Colorado but what remains is still you." Maybe not the best of him - that Raylan could grant. He didn't know the details, the nuance of that part of John Henry's life, but he knew that the man was still capable of a lot of things. Soft, human things that had little to do with how to kill or bury an enemy.

"The only way I decide who I am is from day to day choices. You're doin' the same. Dyin' doesn't change that." His guns, proverbially speaking, were still forever loaded. Mathis might adjust a lot about him with the experience she foisted onto him, but there were things she wasn't ever going to break from him. "Nothin' will."

Shit he needed a drink. Raylan scrubbed his face with his free hand.

"I'm just sayin' that even if you didn't do any of the shit you do for us, we would still want you to take care of yourself. For yourself. To hell with the stories that were written about you. Let people who mind them take care of themselves." They cared about the man in front of them, not the stories, not what the stories said and not because he was taking care of them.

[thering]

Nobody had ever aggressively sung his praises or proclaimed his love like Raylan and honestly it takes Doc a little by surprise. He finds himself leaning just a little bit away from Raylan, fingers entwined with his elbows on the countertop, cheek resting against the backs of his curled fingers and chin on his wrist.

He didn't do shit back in Purgatory, come to think of it. Kept his head down and his guns loaded. He latched on to Wynonna and she took up his... well. His everything. So much of his renewed lease on life had revolved around her. Her family, her friends, her curse, her life. The Earps have always been this anchor to which he has remained tethered. Here where he doesn't have an Earp to hang around he has found other things to occupy himself with. Maybe it is unhealthy, to be latching onto other peoples' problems like this. Maybe he should carve something out for himself. Day to day choices and all. Try and be this good man that Raylan is painting him out to be. And accept that they only care about the man they're sharing the house with, not-- who he's supposed to be or anything else.

"You know Wyatt was kinda feisty too, like you," Doc observes quietly, glancing over up at Raylan before looking back down to his almost empty cup of coffee. He misses him sometimes. The people they used to be - the friends they used to be. Lowering one hand, he runs his finger one round around the rim of his cup before picking it up and finishing his coffee. He takes his time pushing his hat back on, adjusting it before letting his hand fall. Raylan had stuffed a lot of things into the hat and it sits a little heavily on his head. He would need some time teasing apart all those pearls of wisdom, polishing and processing them.

"Thank you for the coffee." Doc would bring the empty cup to the sink and do some washing before he leaves. "I'm headed back out. Maybe I'll find the Winchesters passed out drunk under a bit of shrub. We did get lucky with Malcolm, after all."

[tinstar]

The lean back suggested to Raylan that, despite his best efforts, he'd still come off too blunt, too harsh and final in the way he'd decided he saw things. That's not how he'd wanted it to be taken. If that was the case well, he could only do his best without putting on the kid gloves that John Henry was better than.

He'd seen bad men. He'd seen 'Alright' men, being one himself. Doc was a decent man, decent in all the ways that mattered, to Raylan's mind.

The compliment in it's own right was unexpected and Raylan wasn't sure how to take it, doing so only with a slight softening of his expression and an equally slight tilt of his head, like he was nervous to take it. "You probably need someone feisty around just to keep things interestin'."

Not that.. Raylan really was.

"Yeah," he answered, unsure what he would even stop Doc with. "Maybe it'll extend to the brothers. The angel too, he didn't seem bad. You uh.. Come back anytime. Coffee's on the house anyway," he joked lamely.

[thering]

"I came for you, not the coffee. I'll always come for you," Doc assures. For better or worse he can't seem to rid his bleeding heart when it comes to Marshals.

"But I suppose you don't make half-bad coffee as well," he adds, just in case Raylan is thinking he's getting too sentimental. Or jonesing for another few sweet twilight hours of rough and tough love, behind closed doors.

"Will I be seeing you tonight?" They haven't been drinking on the porch or in the garage a few nights in a row now. Surely Mathias will have something to say about that.

[tinstar]

I came for you. I'll always come for you.. There were no fleeting thoughts of Raylan being a damsel in distress or anything, but people didn't dedicate themselves to Raylan's safety or wellbeing. Granted, he'd said something similar to Doc before, a promise that they weren't ever going to leave him to rot somewhere, but hearing it returned was. Charming. Endearing. Unexpected. He couldn't decide.

There was a passing question of if this kind of intent existed before last night, but Raylan figured that it did, or last night wouldn't have happened. Regardless of what he might have wanted, Raylan wasn't going to do any assuming about if it would happen again. Maybe it had been only a break for the Gunslinger, maybe not.

"Be happy it ain't the coffee served in my Marshal's office." It was presented as levity, but there was still a soft surprised question in Raylan's tone that he was trying to shove back under the casual affability he normally carried.

"Yeah. Yeah, if you're home and itchin' for a drink.. I'll probably post up in the garage if you go lookin'.." He'd be found reading and drinking by the time Doc got around to getting to drinking time himself. "Hey, I-.."

His mouth worked and then closed. He probably shouldn't have even started that sentence, but now he had and he had to get out of it or say what he meant to. "Thanks for makin' this place a little more tolerable."

[thering]

"I'll be home," he promises. Not much of a view staring at a closed garage door but with the weather warming up the way it is, maybe they'll open it and spend a few hours in their usual plastic chairs with their legs stretched out holding a glass atop their thighs.

That sounded... sentimental, coming from Raylan. Maybe Doc needn't worry about being too sentimental, himself. He knows not to drag the awkward out too much though so he's leaving it at that instead of protesting that really, he doesn't do much around here. They're all limited by Mathias's draconian abuse.

"Tonight then," is how he says goodbye as he heads for the door.

[tinstar]

Raylan didn't expect any real answer to it; he, himself, was incapable of saying You're welcome or taking credit for any thanks given. That made giving one all the weirder, but the compulsion to say it, to make sure that Henry knew wasn't one Raylan could stop. They wouldn't talk about it again, either way. No need to beat dead horses and all.

He nodded at promises, at the goodbye.

"Tonight." Until then, he had things to keep his hands busy. Like checking on Dean's prison wine, since the man might not be coming back to do so himself.