shadow over dreamwidth [open post]

[veratrum]

[This is an open post for Rune/Solomon/Ilhatar/Liam O'Rian/Freckled Garbage Monster. Here are some scenarios for you.

A. Baby It's Awful Down Where it's Wetter
A few seconds ago, you were doing...whatever it was you were doing, in the place you expected to be in. Now you are not. This is...it looks to be a basement or something, marble floors and glass walls (which makes it fucking freezing, by the way, I hope you have a coat). The light is very dim and sickly green; what's worse is that it flickers and dances and leers like a drunken, living thing. Also those glass walls? Aquarium walls. Some of the fish swim in and out of view, and they're all horrible deep-sea monstrosities, of course they are. There are little placards beneath the glass, listing all the awful, awful species.

Also, there's a young man, sitting on a sofa, the only furniture in the room, reading a book. In this light? He'll ruin his eyes.

B. A Little Bit Of Gardening Never Hurt Anyone (We Cared About)

As a contrast, this is a garden. It's a beautiful garden! It's peaceful, and in full bloom, and the sun's shining in through the glass. Ignore things like the skull-shaped pots for some of the smaller plants, and the fact that every single flower in here is poisonous or has thorns or both. Also, there's a freckled...person with a giant floppy sunhat staring at you. All his hair, poking out from under the hat, is also staring at you.

They would like to know why you're in their garden?

C. STOP SUMMONING FOREIGNERS GODDAMMIT

Like. Whatever Holy Grail War this is, however completely fucked the greater grail is this time, a summoning circle probably shouldn't vomit black ooze and your command seals just turned bright green and all the shadows have eyes. Have we learned nothing from the Einsenbergs? Have we learned nothing from Chaldea?

Anyway the shadowy mess coming out of the circle seems to have turned to regard you, what do.

D. Make up your own prompt, live freely, I'm not your Dad

Comments

A

[rightwingman]

[awful, i think you mean AMAZING. Dark is going to go straight to reading the placards. he's knows a little bit about fish, but between memory loss and just y'know not spending his free time underwater in the cold terrible deep, it's not a lot. time for learning new fun facts!!]

Oh my, look at you, look at all those teeth!

[veratrum]

Oh, don't tap on the glass, you'll disturb her--

[The young man pauses. Squints.]

...Dark?

[rightwingman]

Ah— I'm sorry, I didn't even think.

[he apologizes to the fish too, sorry for tapping on the wall of your house, that was very rude of me]

Rune, hello!

[veratrum]

Goodness. I never thought you'd end up here...

[He shuts the book, and gets up. Something about the way he moves is...different. More fluid. More...weightless. Like he's not entirely here, or something.]

Rune...ah, right. That was the name you gave the me in that place. How have you been?

[rightwingman]

[The same as ever but well, as to where here is, I've no idea. The last I recall, I was still in the Forest. We were actually going into people's hearts the other day, and one of the Marigolds had fish tanks there, too! She imagined me as a stingray.

B, god I need to find an actual PB for them

[yourwholetruth]

[it's so bright, and Aisling Jun bows in apologetic respect to the...freckled person. they're a tiny person dressed in shrine maiden clothes, about 4'11".] I'm very sorry. I don't know how I came here. [very gentle stoicism. Liam can sense several things about them: 1) they aren't actually here, they're dreaming, 2) not only are they descended from a sun goddess they're next in line for ~earthly avatar bullshit~, and 3) they've made themselves into a barrier maiden for a triad of primordial goddesses and that connection is obvious.]

[veratrum]

...Aren't you a piece of work, little lost puppy.

[He squints for a while--and there's a sense that all the shadows here are squinting too.]

Well, if you're going to dream your way into my garden, you're going to help out. Only fair, isn't it?

[yourwholetruth]

...puppy?[mild confusion. usually if they're compared to an animal, it's a kitten. but if they're bothered by the shadows squinting - their gaze falls onto the shadows curiously, for a moment- it doesn't show.] Ah, of course. [not that they have any idea how to garden, but they'll do their best. and going to step forward, carefully.]

[veratrum]

Puppy. Little baby welp of a great bloody shiny wolf, no? You don't have to be coy.

[Shoving a basket and some shears into his hands. With, um. With his hair.]

It's simple. Go down the row till you find the flowers that look like roses, and gather some of the flowers, until that basket's full.

And don't listen to whatever they tell you.

A

[unaffective]

[ If it's awful it's largely because of the feel of the place - what's physically here is unimportant, but the spiritual sense she gets from the place stands her hair on end, makes bile rise in her throat. Even if distinguishing between them is still easy, even if she knows this isn't one that she has heard, not one that she saw or gave homage to, there is exactly enough similarity to dredge up memories of her indiscretions. Her blasphemes. What makes her uneasy isn't her surroundings, or the looming eldritch aberration just ahead, but plain old guilt.

So she shuts her eyes to give herself a breather, even if it's just a little, and reaches into her pocket for a cigarette, pulling it to her mouth with a trembling hand. And trying to light it up. ]

[veratrum]

Don't do that.

[What snuffs her lighter resembles--well, the shadow of a hand. He doesn't try to take it, but the source of light is removed easily. His voice, posture and tone sound human, but her senses don't lie.

He hasn't looked up from his book yet, either.]

Who is it you belong to, anyway? You've clearly been delivered to me in error.

[Like she's a lost fucking package. Ilhatar, pls.]

[unaffective]

[ Just kind of grasps for it, a little feebly, before looking down. Her voice is soft and thin, forcibly even. ] There... I am not, particularly...

[veratrum]

'Not'? [He does look up now, and his eyes glow in the gloom. Green. the color of those sneering candles.]

I can smell a few different ones on you. If you'd like to express a preference for any of them, that'll make this simpler.

B

[debrided]

[ Meanwhile, this one stares back, an expression almost like she's found a fly in her soup, like it happens constantly - affronted, with boredom and disenchantment steady on the horizon. She doesn't pay the surroundings any attention, just addresses the owner of the hat directly. ]

What is it?

[veratrum]

Why is something like you in my garden? I didn't sign up to babysit.

[Aggressively pointing a gardener's trowel at her. His hair's unwinding and unraveling more from under the hat--he wants more eyes on her. What is this? He thought he'd eaten all the gods that did this kind of thing.

...Ah, causality. What a pain in the non-euclidean ass.]

[debrided]

I beg your pardon? I am no infant - and further still, certainly no "thing."

[veratrum]

You're a child, stinking of Nyarlathotep and fuck knows what else, in my domain.

[Actually...sniffing...the air?] Ugh, what even is that? Like flower scents over corpses.

A

[withalltheuntold]

[no coat, unfortunately, but they're wearing a sakura-pink furisode, so all those layers are at least somewhat warm. Kazue isn't touching the glass, but just regarding one of the fish (?) thoughtfully.

the two things they ping for: descended from their setting's goddess of the sun and carrying divine mantle of authority as her avatar at the time of their death. also they're absolutely loaded with corruption, since they're on Sakura.]

[veratrum]

[Something large and ancient and hungry opens an eye and regards Kazue back. Um.]

You shouldn't stand so close. They've developed a taste for divinity.

[withalltheuntold]

[they're going to back up, very carefully.] Divinity? I was a shrine maiden. Does that truly cling so much? [...they literally don't remember the whole 'earthly avatar of their goddess foremother' thing. kind of sucks having only one memory, doesn't it.]

[veratrum]

Do you not realize...? Ah, well, nevermind that.

[turning a page.]

How'd you get in here, anyway? I usually have wards up against dead people.

A - time for an alter

[revelare]

My, what a chilly reception!

[Pun intended. Holmes stretches his gangly arms high above his head, the birch white skin dyed sea-green by the aquarium waters. The room is dissected in a second. Unearthly pets. Some prick on a sofa. He's made up of enough fantastical pastiches to know where this may go. The only question was which role this mysterious host was looking for.

Fluid, as if his muscles were water - Holmes gives a flourish with his hand and bends forward in a mocking approximation of a half-bow.]

I'll have you know I don't perform for free. Why, I can hardly be expected to work when I've received no script!

[veratrum]

[He does pause for a second or two, hands on the books. There's an unmistakeable sense of an audience, a thousand eyes turned onto this new intruder, but there are none visible, and no one else here.

Ilhatar is thinking.]

A script...for someone such as you?

[He snaps the book closed, stands up, reopens it, but it's a different book. Some unauthorized spinoff. A serialization. A play. A screenplay for a tv series, some truly godawful movies, a hundred thousand snippets of sparked imaginations--he flips through it, and then drops it back on the couch.]

I'm afraid horror is more my genre than mystery...I'm not entirely sure what to give you.

[revelare]

[Magical. Definitely magical. Whether the magic is native to Earth is another matter. Holmes remains patient and still until an answer is given.]

Then I'd very much like to be sent back, if you please. If you've no business for me I've no interest.

[veratrum]

That I can't do for free. To move around a patchwork being like you costs energy...far more than however you stumbled in. This place is designed to keep things here, you understand.

[He tilts his head to one side, smiling, perfectly innocent. Harmless. Possibly a freckle singularity. ]

So, a fair price must be agreed on.