villagelogs | 059-061 » the place where you stop the story

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059-061 » the place where you stop the story

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: Eastern/Central/Southern Mathias
WHEN: Day 059-061
WHAT: Time returns to "normal" and Mathias grants a reprieve.
WARNINGS: (PM this account to have a warning added!)
NOTES: Plotting post over here! The next log will be posted the weekend of ~~May 15th~~ May 22nd.

RECOMMENDED ♫ Nathan Johnson "Foul Play"

DAY 059-061
A BRIEF REPRIEVE
“There is no real ending. It’s just
the place where you stop the story.”
— Frank Herbert
Residents awake to a peaceful morning with the sun shining and earth remaining still. There is no unsettling shaking to rouse them at dawn, and time has continued moving onward as they slept. Whatever state they were in the night before, they remain that way now, for good or for bad.

On the surface, there seems to be little lasting effect on the tiny town from that strange series of days, save for the memories of any traumatic experiences residents may have faced — but there are always consequences within Mathias. The perpetrators of acts against the town are tormented by nightmares of those acts being used against them, and those who did not raise a hand to stop those acts of destruction may yet face consequences of their own. For now, however, the unwilling townspeople should do their best to rest and recover from the disturbing ordeals of late, for this reprieve from the madness shall surely be shortlived.

THE NEW ARRIVALS
The newest arrivals to Mathias will wake up on the beach near The Grey Gull. It's a bit chilly out with their wet clothes, but surely there's something to help warm them inside the restaurant. They may even find some alcohol within — and not just the cowboys' homemade moonshine.

CONDITIONS UPDATE

— THE HISTORY MUSEUM has not fared well with the return of "normal" time. The once esteemed wooden building is now a charred ruin, the recent fire leaving behind little of the contents within for study. The structure is unstable and it is not wise to venture into the ruins for long.

— THE WEATHER conditions remain fairly typical for early fall: warm days and cool nights. It feels almost like spring arriving except that there fewer red and orange leaves on the ground and more of them oddly returning to the trees and slowly fading to green. It's like watching one of those nature documentaries that have a timelapse of the seasons, only it's going in reverse.

— THE FOG has retreated from some areas!
— Residents may now wander the southern stretch of the forest surrounding Mathias Township — it is possible to leave the paths but potentially unwise to do so.
— The fog has also retreated farther into the western section of town, now stretching across town between Stine Road and Shelley Drive. This has revealed the Chasm in the earth that stretches from one side of town to the other between Stine and Hill Lane.
— Access to the northern section of the forest is still blocked beginning a few dozen yards past the treeline; this section of fog will urge residents to stay huddled within the town proper by inducing a physical reaction of panic and fear.

— DEATHS & DISAPPEARANCES continue! Max Guevara has vanished into the fog. Claire Novak's body can be spotted on Day 059 facedown at the bottom of the Chasm between Hill and Stine, near Phillips Drive; by the morning of Day 060, her body will be gone. (Attempts may be made to reach her body but will likely not end well for those involved. Such attempts should be reported under Exploration.)

— ALCOHOL is still in Mathias! Just barely. (Supply is running very low after recent town events.) 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 was also restocked with its lower-end offerings of a variety of alcohol types. (Alcohol does not replenish as food does.)

OOC NOTES

— PROJECT HELP Your mod needs help with some projects!

— FUTURE PLANNING If you haven't, please answer the questions here for future log planning. I will almost definitely need some of these answers for the log going up the weekend of May 15, so act quickly! Late submissions will not be considered for that log.

— UPDATES Don't forget to report updates as they come up! Changes to locations (like toppling a few bookshelves in the library), big plots you have coming up that will affect the game (parties, major property destruction, etc), or exciting discoveries that may tie into the game's mythology (even the things provided by the mod) are very helpful to have in one place so relevant page updates can be made.

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

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

When Neal wakes up on the bed in the garage of 1306 where he went to sleep, something hard and guilty and tense unwinds in the pit of his stomach, leaving him feeling tired enough to go straight back to sleep. He hasn't done it much in the past few days.

Still, he forces himself out of bed, walking into the house. He doesn't know what time it is--the sun is up, which means Malcolm has long since completed his own morning routines. Neal smiles a little when he finds coffee made and ready in the kitchen.

Back. He's back in 1306, and whatever that time loop was... it's over. He can breathe. He can think. At least a little. At least for now.

He pours himself a cup of coffee, fixes it with cream and sugar, and just stands in the kitchen a moment, elbows balanced on the island, cup held close to his lips. He stares into space for several seconds, not thinking about anything in particular, before he catches himself and straightens up.

"Home sweet home," he murmurs, and takes a sip of coffee.

Malcolm comes in from outside and spots him as he heads for the stairs, detouring into the kitchen with a big smile.

“Look at you, all... here!” he exclaims, stepping around the island to give Neal a hug.

A tired but genuine smile breaks across his face at Malcolm’s arrival and the hug. He sets the coffee aside so he can return the embrace properly, letting out a long breath as he does.

“I’m all here,” he says, only a little ironic.

“You woke up here, right?” Because Doc and Raylan weren’t both in his bed that morning. He let go to get a look at Neal. “Are you okay?”

"I did." His smile warms a little bit. He keeps one arm around Malcolm as he picks up his coffee again, focus drifting down to it for a moment. "And I'm not."

He doesn't think he will be for a while. He gives Malcolm a little squeeze before letting go. "But that's okay. I guess. Someone told me it was, anyway."

"It's definitely okay. Are you going to stick around here or..." Maybe Neal wants space after all that. "At night, I mean," he clarifies quickly. "I know you're not under house arrest."

“I don’t think I’ll be going far for a few days.”

At least not far enough to run into people. “But yeah, I’m staying here.”

“I’m glad. You know, I have the chess board. We could take it easy. Drink tea. Play chess. Talk about which of the masters really captured the essence of existential despair,” he teases.

He makes a softly amused noise. "That... sounds too nice for Mathias to let us do it, but I'd be game to try."

A sip of coffee. "And if we're talking masters of existential despair, are we limiting by medium and time period, because I could make a case for either Tracy Emin or Géricault."

"The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless," Malcolm reminds him. "I guess we get to decide what the limits are, since we live in an imaginary place."

"Jean-Jacques Rousseau," Neal says, almost automatically. He smiles a little more at that. It's almost like New York. "I wouldn't say no to a game of chess."

“I was sure you’d know that one. Imagination is the realm of the arts.” He gives Neal a hug. “Chess it is.”

Ainsley is in an oversized t-shirt and a pair of sleep pants, wandering out in search of coffee and comes to a pause when she finds Neal standing there, coffee in hand, staring at... nothing?

She hopes it's nothing.
Oh, God, what if it's not nothing.
No, he looks distracted, not like when Malcolm talks to fake-Dad.

"Hey," she greets as she grabs a mug. "popped back in for the day?" She's honestly losing count of when anyone is around this house, at this point, and that whole Groundhog Day... thing that kept happening over and over didn't help matters, either.

He blinks and looks over at her, for a moment his expression bare and exhausted, then the smile comes up. "Hey. No, I'm back for good this time."

Neal gestures toward the garage with his mug. "Good thing the spare 'rooms' got finished."

He studies her for a moment and the smile fades. He's real with Malcolm. He's real with Doc, with Raylan, with Negan. Ainsley has to be at least as in need of the openness.

"I'm sorry," he says. A pause. "Malcolm told me about the fight you two had. It's..."

He looks down at his mug. "I've never known Malcolm any other way. I didn't think about what it must be like to come to place like this and suddenly have your brother surrounded by strangers who..."

Neal shakes his head, looking up again. "Anyway, I don't think I've been fair to you."

A tiny smile. "The offer to teach you how to make crepes still stands."

"Oh?" There's a questioning note in her voice, but she leaves it up to him whether he feels like elaborating or not. She doesn't know him well enough to press very hard, especially not in a house she already occasionally feels like she has to walk on eggshells in.

"Yeah, they were pretty adamant about that." She huffs a soft, amused sound. And apparently, just in time.

The apology creases a frown into her features. "For...?" Her face shifts into understanding at that explanation. "Oh. Well- it was a long time coming, we had a lot.... we never really got to talk about." She's not sure they ever would have, back home. Maybe they needed the bullshit of this place to pitch them over that edge.

She almost says no one has really been fair to her, but something in his demeanor makes her bite her tongue. Everything about him is soft around the edges, genuine in ways she's not used to seeing. Not just from him, or the people here, but in general. Ainsley is so frequently surrounded by people with sharp edges, it's hard to remember that some people aren't like that.

So, instead, she just lets a smile slide over her lips. "I would really like that."

He very much doesn't feel like elaborating, so he focuses on the rest.

"We do love him," Neal notes softly. "Your brother. We all do. He's been good for us, for all of us, more than he seems to realize."

He draws in a deep breath, acutely conscious of the way he's starting to gather his armor again. Just as acutely conscious of the way he forces him to let the breath and his defenses go. He's too tired. Too raw. A month and a half ago, that would have had him pretending even harder to be fine, but...

He flexes his fingers a little as his right hand starts to tremble a little, dropping that hand to his side and holding onto his coffee with the other.

"How are you doing?" There's genuine concern in the question. "The looping--that was... annoying, infuriating even, but it's not nearly as bad as things can get."

She sips at the coffee she had poured herself as she tries to sort out what she says. She's so on edge with everyone but Malcolm lately, but she doesn't feel like anyone should blame her. All things considered, she hasn't had the best time since showing up here-- and she doesn't even have Mathias-related trauma to really blame for it, either.

She frowns when she sees the all too familiar attempt to hide the tremble in his hand. Her eyes follow his hand dropping to his side and then sweep back up to his face. "You have it too."

Ainsley rolls one shoulder in a shrug. "I don't know. I think all of Malcolm's friends hate me." Her eyes cut up toward the ceiling in not-quite an eye-roll. "Especially Raylan." She wonders how many people know about the arguments the pair of them have had.

He looks down at his hand, then back up to Ainsley, though it takes a moment for him to meet her eyes. "It started here, actually. Makes trying to paint interesting."

Not the entire truth. Malcolm knows the whole truth about it--that it happened before, how it happened before--but even if he wants to be kinder to Ainsley, he's not ready to bare himself like that. Definitely not ready to do more than call it interesting, the effect it has on what he can do.

"I don't hate you," Neal says, smile a little crooked. "I just expected a certain kind of person, given who Malcolm is, and you weren't that. Which isn't your fault--it's mine."

Something he never would have said, never would have even known how to say before meeting Malcolm. He takes another deep breath, setting his coffee on the counter for a moment. "Hungry? I was thinking about making omelettes."

He gets one of the frying pans regardless--he needs to eat, even if he doesn't feel hungry. He's not sure he did eat yesterday, and now that things aren't rolling back on themselves, he should probably make an effort toward that again. Neal glances Ainsley's way. "Why would Raylan hate you?"

"Oh." She nods a little. She's heard the Mathias horror stories, but thus far, it hasn't been terrible to her just yet. Mostly just a little unnerving and highly annoying. "Yeah, I bet."

She smirks back, "Well, that's good to know." One less person to feel completely backed into a corner with, maybe? Maybe. "If you really want to blame anyone, feel free to blame our father. He's kind of the root of all evil in our family." She shrugs.

"Sure," she nods a little, shifting so she's not in the way. The question about Raylan is one she takes a moment to consider, around another sip of her coffee, mug held between both hands as she let the heat from it sink into her fingers. "He thinks I'm dangerous because I showed up here with blood on my clothes." That... feels like the most honest, but still not totally complete, answer she can give.

"If I ever had the chance, I would break your father's nose," Neal says bluntly. "Need to get Malcolm to show me how, but I would."

He fetches the eggs and the rest of the basics before glancing her way again. "Toppings?"

Then she explains about how she showed up and he startles a little. "What happened? Were you all right?"

She laughs and puts a hand over her mouth. "You wouldn't be the only one, I think."

"Cheese, onions-- ham or something?" She shrugs. She's not picky, nor does she have the food issues Malcolm is saddled with. He really did get the short end of the stick, despite being oldest.

She sets her mug down and slides to sit up on the counter, legs dangling over the edge. "I don't really remember... just pieces. Malcolm was there, and this creep, Nicholas Endicott. I'm pretty sure he's dead, and I don't know what happened."

I'm pretty sure he's dead, she says, so casually, and the hair on the back of Neal's neck prickles uneasily. He can see why Raylan wouldn't take well to that kind of attitude.

"Malcolm said you weren't from the same..." He gestures vaguely at the air as he digs into the fridge of the ingredients she mentioned, pausing to consider what's there. "How do you feel about feta, Kalamata olives, onions, and black pepper with some spinach and chopped ham? If I had any mint I'd do feta and mint, but it doesn't really work if it's not fresh."

Right, what was he saying. He's having such a hard time focusing, the past few days. "You aren't from the same time?"

"Sounds good." she nods a little at the ingredient list. He sounds like a chef, by all accounts for all he can seem to throw together at a moment's notice.

"Yeah, apparently I'm from after what he knows. I still can't really wrap my head around that, but..." She shrugs. "I guess it's a little easier to manage now that I've seen a day repeat itself...I don't even know how many times."

“Seven,” Neal says. Not that he was counting.

He was definitely counting. “I wanted to make sure I kept the calendar in the master accurate. As accurate as it can be, anyway.”

He sets out his chosen items, staring at them for a moment as his brain seems to give another one of those little disconnect-hiccups that leave him grasping for what he was about to do next. “Who is he? Endicott?”

He’s too uncomfortable to say was.

"Oh, are you the one that keeps up with that?" She nods a little. It's useful, smart to have on hand, especially with things like that. She knows she certainly lost track during the repetitiveness of it all.

She frowns a little as she watches him pause, almost like he forgot what he was doing. Weird... "A business mogul with big arts endowments who operates in a lot of shady ways. He put a hit out on our Dad and he was trying to frame Malcolm for murder."

059-061 » the place where you stop the story

Morning of 59 - Closed to 1306

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