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!

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]

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?

[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.]

[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.

[veratrum]

A stingray? Oh, goodness, that's a fun choice.

[He laughs a little.] This is--well, you could call it a temple of mine. This one doesn't see much traffic though...perhaps it's more of a sanctuary? Ah, hum...

[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.

[rightwingman]

They were very cute stingrays.

[a temple, though... Dark brushes down his sleeves, half-glancing over his shoulder to be sure his wing isn't out, double-checking that his holy presence is thoroughly muffled. he really shouldn't get that all over someone else's sanctuary, not when he's not on business.]

My apologies for intruding.

[veratrum]

Oh, you don't have to hide it. I don't mind...you are what you are, Dark. And we were--are friends, yes?

[He can tell. He seems sharper, much more focused, than he ever was in Forest.]

And it's my temple, after all. Please, feel at ease here.

[yourwholetruth]

[it's not like their goddess foremother has wolf iconography?? they're still confused. but they'll take the basket, not flinching at it being handed to them by his hair. it is a thing, it happens.] ...I will do my best. [and they will go do that. carefully. at least they're good at ignoring supernatural voices telling them things. will it help? maybe???

And going to start gathering the roses. snip. snip.]

[veratrum]

[He's just thinking of the wrong Amaterasu, don't worry about it.

Anyway the roses, uh. Scream. When they're picked. The stems bleed. The roses sob, and cry, and shriek, and their untouched bretheren start murmuring under it all.

Telling him to run.

Telling him to hide.

Flee, flee, flee, from the soul-eater, the destroyer, the Nothing Man.

Run. Or fight.]

[yourwholetruth]

[they are frail. they have always been frail, from the moment they were born and now they are dying, inch by inch, but for all the strength and vigor their body lacks, they have in their will. their hands might tremble and catch on thorns, but they will not run. they will not hide.

instead, they sing, the same songs that they've used for two years to keep lulling the goddesses back into their slumber to sing the untouched roses to sleep as they fill their basket, with all the power of a true sorcerer behind it. it might not work, especially because their body isn't here, but they're still going to sing the roses a lullaby.]

[veratrum]

[If anything, that made it worse? The vines stir and struggle, trying to pull up from the rods and string that keep the bushes growing straight. Trying to pull up out of the shadows in the soil.

Their eyes open, and fix on him.

They see you. They see you. They see you. Sorcerer. Witch. Weakling. Deceiver.

The noise grows louder by the second. These roses--these souls twisted and bound into roses--they're not normal souls.]

[yourwholetruth]

[if they're not normal souls, what are they? and since their singing made it worse, they're going to stop. but they're not going to stop gathering the flowers, even as the eyes open.

(they are all those things. those are all things that they have told themself in the dark of night. truths about themself they have to acknowledge.)

this is a test. they will not fail. maybe they will wake up at any moment, but they have worse trials ahead of them in their future, and they will not give up. they can't. snip. snip. snip.]

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.]

[veratrum]

[The screaming is cacophonous now--murderer, murderer, murderer--

and then something claps over their ears. They're not hands. Their touch, their skin, everything feels wrong, horrifyingly wrong, a nightmare with a sweet, seductive scent. A thousand thousand voices suddenly--silent.]

Ah, that's enough of that.

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.

[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...