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middaeg2020-04-13 11:42 am
incinerating) wrote in middaeg2020-04-13 11:42 am
Entry tags:
[open] i really don't care about nothing at all but i think the world of you
Who: Emil Västerström and whoever!
When: During the "Dream A Little Dream" event and/or other times in the month.
Where: Emil's memories, or wherever else
What: Memory sharing and catch-all for any other random threads.
Warnings: animal suffering mutation/violence and death, gun and knife violence, general body horror via infection/rot/mutation
Prompts in comments.
I will post a couple of starters with various 'phases' or parts of the memory sequence, since complete arcs in SSSS tend to be on the longer side. If you'd like to join in at any one particular phase of the memory or just want to go through the whole thing from the start, let me know in the subject line. I'm only going to post the first couple minutes of the memories and then we can walk through more in the thread! Emil will likely be watching the memory with your character, making commentary or trying to distract them if he thinks that what's happening is too embarrassing.
I genuinely don't mind going through the same memories with multiple people because who he's with will change his reactions, so feel free to tag one even if there's another taker.
Memory One: Let Them Eat Cake (on the mingle log) - In which Emil is a spoiled teenager snarking at his nanny, but conveniently providing a place for anyone needing a bit of levity and cake among all the misery.
Memory Two: Cthulhund & Kitty - In which Emil encounters a Rash-infected dog Beast, tries and fails to put it out of its misery, and then assists with the attempted rescue of a family of cats. Only Kitty survives.
Memory Three: Left Behind - In which Emil and his friend Lalli stay behind as the rest of the group moves on, and Emil ends up having to drag Lalli's unconscious body halfway across Denmark with no food. Also they are almost killed by dusklings.
May add more if I think of notable moments!
When: During the "Dream A Little Dream" event and/or other times in the month.
Where: Emil's memories, or wherever else
What: Memory sharing and catch-all for any other random threads.
Warnings: animal suffering mutation/violence and death, gun and knife violence, general body horror via infection/rot/mutation
Prompts in comments.
I will post a couple of starters with various 'phases' or parts of the memory sequence, since complete arcs in SSSS tend to be on the longer side. If you'd like to join in at any one particular phase of the memory or just want to go through the whole thing from the start, let me know in the subject line. I'm only going to post the first couple minutes of the memories and then we can walk through more in the thread! Emil will likely be watching the memory with your character, making commentary or trying to distract them if he thinks that what's happening is too embarrassing.
I genuinely don't mind going through the same memories with multiple people because who he's with will change his reactions, so feel free to tag one even if there's another taker.
Memory One: Let Them Eat Cake (on the mingle log) - In which Emil is a spoiled teenager snarking at his nanny, but conveniently providing a place for anyone needing a bit of levity and cake among all the misery.
Memory Two: Cthulhund & Kitty - In which Emil encounters a Rash-infected dog Beast, tries and fails to put it out of its misery, and then assists with the attempted rescue of a family of cats. Only Kitty survives.
Memory Three: Left Behind - In which Emil and his friend Lalli stay behind as the rest of the group moves on, and Emil ends up having to drag Lalli's unconscious body halfway across Denmark with no food. Also they are almost killed by dusklings.
May add more if I think of notable moments!
☆ cthulhund & kitty (cw: cats and dogs suffering infection, violence, exposure, euthanasia, death)
phase 1
he remembers a mention of the illness that had spread across emil's home of sweden, and as the rain pelts him— he hisses. steam rises off from his scaled frame, and he makes for some shelter. perhaps, not without stopping for a moment, just a bit, ]
What's happening?
[ said with a leveled tone and a head that cranes a little too close to the dog. ]
Re: phase 1
Oh...
[Not exactly the person he would have chosen to see this scene, but this place didn't really give him an option. So he just follows Eren over to where the hulking wreck of a building offers some small shelter from the pelting rain.]
I saw this beast, and it looked so miserable...and it was attacking the cats, you see? So I wanted to put it out of its misery.
[He can't help looking back toward the past version of him, who is apologizing to the animal now, while it howls in agony and squirms on the ground.]
This is going to get ugly, fair warning.
no subject
I meant the dog. [ it wouldn’t be the first time eren’s seen mercy killing, having done plenty himself when it came to titanize brethren. there’s something odd about the way it’s . . . moving. ]
☆ left behind (cw: comatose character, gun violence against monsters, mild emeto in phase 5)
phase two.
it's not that it's not awful to watch. she only dimly remembers emil, can't be sure if they exchanged names or not; one of many people she encountered at one of aefenglom's many social events, those things she keeps telling herself are probably worth it even as thus far she has not found that to be the case. someone whose memories she did not intend to intimately pry through, but this is a dream, and shit happens in dreams, whether you mean it to or not.
so she's here. she's on the ice with him, in the water. she trails them along the long walk, the we have to keep moving of it all even though 'we' seems generous when one of 'we' is only doing as much moving as emil is capable of dragging him for. and she can watch that, even mostly dispassionate, because she doesn't know him very well and it's terrible but lots of things are terrible every day.
it's, )
Wait here!
( that lodges somewhere between her ribs, despite herself, and even as emil runs ahead and she could follow him—this is his memory, there's probably something interesting in the house, maybe, or he'll just figure out it's safe, and anyway, progress is motion—but what she does is kneel down next to the unconscious boy who can't do anything but wait wherever emil leaves him and hovers her hand gently over his face, like she'd touch him or tidy his hair or something if she weren't confident her hand would just go through him. )
We'll wait, ( she says, to someone who wouldn't have heard her even if this wasn't a memory. she sits down. )
no subject
It isn't what he's doing, but it feels that way.
For a moment, he's frozen in place, just staring at Lalli, and then he sees the girl that's visiting his dream. This time, he's not embarrassed about what someone is seeing about his past, he's not misbehaving in the memory. He just feels bad, looking at Lalli and looking at her looking at him too. Then she kneels next to his best friend and moves as if she could touch him or smooth his hair back.
Emil can't help but let out a throaty laugh at that, a little choked up.]
He hates being touched. But thank you for wanting to wait with him. He means a lot to me.
Phase 5
Is this where it ends?
[ She sounds a little saddened by that, although her tone is carefully controlled. She doesn't know Emil, but she can still respect the struggle that it took to get as far as he did and recognize that such a unfortunate ending would be painful. ]
no subject
No. We made it out of here. Watch...
[In the memory, Lalli is getting to his knees, bending over to throw up and then looking around, assessing the situation, pulling himself up to a high, narrow window.]
And here I go, being dumb...
[As if on cue, the Emil in the memory tells Lalli he's tried that already and it's no good, only to follow as Lalli beckons him up and peer out the window together.]
See? If he hadn't woken up, I probably would have died there.
no subject
What happened next?
☆ Phase One: Undeniable Proof of Magic
[The black dragon finds himself a spectator of the memory, standing a ways away on the ice but not so far that the conversation fades out of earshot. The first thoughts that filter through his mind flow as follows: Emil. He recognizes Emil, which is why all that warm glimmer and fire tempered by moonlight bordering his mirror stood out to him so much more than others. The landscape sprawls into a frozen, treacherous wasteland, far colder and more inhospitable than any place he's ever been. As a reptilian creature, it renders him uncomfortably sluggish.
This must be what Sweden is like, he surmises.
And that hooded figure over there, the twiggy one scurrying back to Emil's side — the blonde wedged in broken ice calls for him, and Lalli becomes more than just a name to him.
So when the horrendous mass of tentacles disturbs their progress, Soren anticipates exactly what will happen when the mage he'd heard of before throws his arms out like that: a flash of bright... force.
But what devastation springs between him and the monster is far more catastrophic than his imagination led him to believe. He watches entranced as the blinding surge of magical energy annihilates their foe with enough power to rupture their very surroundings. ]
no subject
But this was something else. He remembers the shock and the blast of light and then Lalli's body falling limp to the ice beside him after...what? Decimating the giant? Blasting it away? Burning it to nothing? He still doesn't exactly know, because in the days following that, he'd had a lot of more important things to deal with. Protecting Lalli, protecting himself, foraging and finding safe places to sleep, making sure that Lalli didn't develop frostbite in his fingers or toes, learning to shield his mind from the trolls.
Now, though, looking back at it, he can feel all those feelings again, so intense they claw their way up into his throat and leave him breathless. More than the danger they'd been in, it was Lalli's complete failure to respond to him when he'd tried to shake him awake that settles the fear in him again. They'd come so close to dying. He knows, intellectually, that Lalli is fine now, that they came through it and got closer because of it, but seeing it again, something recent enough to still be fresh, watching himself cradle Lalli's head between his hands and use his body to shield Lalli from the debris of ice and water and residual magic that had been flying through the air just drives home how very, very close he'd been to losing his best friend.
It's probably his shallow, difficult panic-breathing that alerts Soren to his presence in the dream. Standing there, hands clenched in fists at his sides, his eyes wide and his expression stricken.]
He almost died. To protect me. He almost burned himself out.
no subject
It looked like... felt like incredibly powerful m-magic. You were lucky.
[His voice trembles as his teeth begin to chatter. As this is only a memory, present-day Emil and present-day Soren find themselves isolated in a similar manner to how the figments of the memory do, a sheet of ice unseen to those in the past and real only to those who relive it. Unfortunately, the cold feels real, too, and Soren tenses up against it. How are they going to proceed through the memory if they're here? Should he give flying a shot if they're stuck here, or would this weather punish him for trying? He's probably strong enough to scoop Emil up if he has to...]
W-What was that monster, anyway?
no subject
Without really thinking about it, Emil slides off his jacket and hands it over to Soren, eyes still on his past self, and Lalli.]
It wasn't luck. He almost died to save me...um. He used too much magic and his mind or spirit or whatever makes him...well, him...was thrown out of his body because of it. He could have died.
[A shiver of his own, completely unrelated to the cold. But he finally turns and looks over at Soren for a moment before he starts moving back toward shore. Thankfully, it seems as if they're walking just over the surface of the water now, because there's no ice left, all of it shattered with the blast of magic.]
I rowed us over there, to where you can see those buildings. And um...that was a giant. Big mass of trolls and beasts all infected with the Rash until they kind of meld into each other and become one creature. They're really dangerous, as I guess you can see.
no subject
As Emil treads across the surface of the water, Soren follows along, deciding at last to tuck his wrist fins in and worm his arms into the sleeves. He wears his coat backwards. It would be no easy feat to get over his wings, if not impossible. But even this extra layer imbued with Emil's warmth still inside is so much better than the chill before. This is just a memory, for crying out loud. Why does it have to feel like anything? He looks over to the shore with the buildings they are heading toward.]
Yes. And disturbing. [A pause as he decides to elaborate on the first thing he said.] By luck, I meant something more like... you were fortunate to have a friend like that with you. Fortunate that he didn't die.
no subject
[Emil is oblivious to Soren's discomfort with how to handle his coat, still preoccupied with what's going on in the dream, with his exhausted past self rowing them slowly and painfully toward the shore. It's almost making him cringe, watching it, watching his past self talking to himself, saying they have to keep moving. He isn't sure if the cringe is in sympathy for that version of himself, or embarrassment at Soren seeing what is one of the lowest points of his whole life, miserable and sweaty and exhausted.]
Oh, yeah, I guess that makes a lot of sense. He's...a really good friend. I miss him a lot.
[A little breath, and he rubs his hands together. He's feeling the chill, but he remembers how cold Soren had been by that bonfire before, and this is way colder. Obviously, Soren needs a jacket more than he does.]
This is going to sound weird, but after that happened, when he got expelled from his body, somehow he ended up in my dream that night. Trust me, it was weird to live through, too. Not much different than this though.
no subject
There's no shame in it, just sense. He has every right to his frayed nerves, but he handles it in the best way that he can manage with what he's got, the pressure bearing down on him to help not only himself, but his friend's survival. Lalli looks like a corpse already, and after what Emil explains, that all but confirms the impression as harrowingly real.]
That expelled him from his body? How did he make it back?
[Maybe this is what he meant by 'spirit' magic. Did he wander lost until he found his way to his body again? Mentioning that he could enter dreams gives this very dream of a memory a haunted touch, like Lalli himself could be lurking somewhere unnoticed, a ghost like he would have been at the time of this memory. But that would be outrageous — the Looking-Glass House must be worlds away from him. He could never reach here.]
no subject
Looking back on these moments, Emil feels acutely how inadequate he'd been then, and probably still is.]
Yeah. I'm not sure how it works, I don't know a lot about mage stuff...man, I wish I'd paid more attention now, but what can you do? Anyway, yeah...
[His expression softens.]
After the first night...this one, I mean. After I saw him in my dream, then I could hear him talking in my head. It was really weird. Really weird. But it was nice to talk to him. We couldn't understand each other before then.
[Now he watches as his past self finally makes it to land, sloshes off the ice into hip-deep water and drags Lalli to shore, sits for a minute to gather himself, Lalli's head in his lap. He remembers the bone-deep exhaustion that he'd been feeling then - wet and cold and worn down from physical exertion.]
I don't think I was ever so alone as I was right then.
[His voice is small, quiet, and he crosses his arms over his belly and chest, self-protective.]
no subject
Enough pitying your past self. You say he's your friend, but you can't even understand each other?
no subject
Yeah, yeah, okay right. And yeah, we speak different languages, back home. I speak Swedish, obviously. He speaks Finnish. We're finally starting to learn to talk to each other now, or, well before I left. But back then, we couldn't understand each other at all. It was all, you know, body language and actions and how we looked at each other and stuff. He's pretty good at making himself understood.
[Emil watches as that past version of himself drags Lalli through the snow, and finally slams a door open with his shoulder, pulling Lalli inside. Reaching out, he tugs lightly at Soren's sleeve.]
Come on. There'll be a nice big fire in there in a few minutes.
no subject
I see...
[It's hard to imagine, befriending someone who can't even speak your language. Then again, Princess Leanne only spoke the ancient tongue, yet she was able to befriend those of other kingdoms rather easily. A lot could be conveyed without words. He thinks of himself for a moment, back when he was small and knew how to speak nothing but spells, when he met his very first (and only) friend. Perhaps it's simply harder to imagine making friends when his own problem is rooted much deeper than just language.]
How did you two m-meet?
no subject
It was hard to do, he remembers that. Hard to just leave Lalli there mostly defenseless. But if there'd been trolls or whatever inside, the last thing he needed was to fight them while holding Lalli's unconscious body. So he pauses for a moment or two, watching Lalli as his past self checks the house, unable to just leave Lalli alone this time.]
We were on the same expedition together. Hired, you know, to go out into the Silent World and scavenge Old World books. They're very valuable, where I come from. Skalds will just spend their whole lives transcribing them so we can learn from them.
no subject
He keeps his arms close to himself, eyes Lalli's lifeless form with an unreadable expression as he draws near Emil. Even standing next to him, he can feel him radiating a suggestion of heat from where he's positioned, making him want to close in even more than the meter or so of distance. His attention begins to shift to the Emil from the past as he sets about on his tasks to ensure their mutual warmth and safety. ]
What s-sort of lost knowledge could be found in these books?
[If he had to stake a quick guess, it might have something to do with finding ways to combat the Rash.]
no subject
[Emil keeps looking at Lalli until his past self comes back to drag him to the lit fireplace in the living room, and trails after as the memory goes on. Memory Emil drags over a couch and some chairs, puts them with their backs inward to make a sort of enclosed space with a blanket draped over the top. It maximizes the warmth in the small space, the heat of the fire reflecting off the backs of the furniture. After he gets Lalli situated on a mattress in front of the fire with a blanket draped over him, Emil starts stripping down to his tight black undershirt, hanging his outer clothing to dry, and settles down to look mournfully at Lalli.
Emil shifts a little, glancing downward.]
This is where I go to sleep. With the dream thing I mentioned before.
no subject
This is all something he should never have been able to see. But here he is, standing beside the person who lived through this moment. Soren glances at the present Emil for just a couple of seconds and privately registers that again, like a thief might reach into his pocket to thumb a looted gem. He would feel like more of a trespasser if Emil weren't so oddly... welcoming of him being here. Sharing and narrating one of the harder moments of his life like he had invited what amounted to an intruder here in the first place.
Both Emils head toward the fireplace, and Soren is grateful to follow. Unfortunately, it's hard to settle in as close to the flames as he'd like when Lalli is stretched out directly in front of it. As a product of a memory and not a living body, chances are Soren would phase through if he scooted over him, but... he cannot bring himself to do that. Both because it gives him the creeps to contemplate, but it's disrespectful. Soren crouches where he can with a sigh, musing wryly as his wings fan open just a bit to embrace the radiating heat.]
I wonder if the memory will change to accommodate your experiences, or if we'll be stuck here watching you sleep for a while.
[Because that sounds delightful. Maybe they can all have a slumber party here in freezing troll dreamland.]
no subject
Moving a little, he tugs at one of the couches, now that the past version of himself is asleep, makes some room near the fire so Soren can get in closer to the fire for a bit.]
I don't know. When I was watching Lalli's memory before, he could blink and move time forward. I can...let me try, once you warm up a bit.
[Crossing his arms, he takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and tries to remember what had happened next, what the next 'important' thing had been. He hadn't eaten when he'd woken up...there wasn't anything to eat, really. So the next thing had been...the map.]
no subject
I'll be fine. Even if I heat up, I'm bound to just get cold again.
[He says that, but he wedges in to keep taking advantage of the heat. Now everyone in the furniture-blanket fort has their eyes closed save for Soren. With no dire rush impelling them (in the present, anyway, as far as he can tell) nor immediate desire to go anywhere, he waits on Emil patiently.
(Don't look now, but he may be nabbing a fire-warmed blanket off the fort to see if he can actually use it later or if it just disappears eventually. Surely no one will miss this. Lalli? Got any complaints? No? Thought so.) ]
no subject
If you say so, you're just shivering a lot. I don't want you to get sick or something.
[It's said in a sincere enough tone, just an expression of concern. But after he sees Soren take the blanket, he feels satisfied enough to close his eyes again and focus on moving time forward. And when things start to change around them, he feels it in his gut more than he feels any real change in his surroundings. But when he opens his eyes, the scene has changed. It's daytime again, and the past version of Emil is squatting in front of a road sign with a map spread out in front of him, and talking. In fact, holding what seems to be a one-sided conversation with no one.
Emil feels his cheeks warm a bit.]
I'm not talking to myself, just so you know. This was when Lalli started talking to me in my head. But we were...we were really lost. I didn't think they would wait for us...the rest of the team, you know. They'd think we were dead.
no subject
He listens at first to the memory's Emil, then the present version's mildly sheepish explanation.]
Don't worry. You mentioned before that he would start talking to you, so I was expecting I might see something like this. [And they had no way of contacting each other like via the handy watches that the Coven gives out. The communications technology must be more like what he is used to. What dire but unusual straits.] For how long did you have to wander this way?
no subject
For a moment, he stands there, wallowing in that moment, remembering that moment of misery before he'd steeled himself and moved on to assert that they'd meet the group at the pickup point instead.]
That was a pretty bad moment. We were far away from where we needed to be, the current brought us in exactly the opposite direction, and like Lalli said, they'd be stupid to wait for us. They'd assume we were dead.
[Emil shifts uncomfortably, momentarily unable to explain why that had bothered him so much, why being left behind and given up on had hurt so deeply for a few moments before he'd pushed on. It had made him feel small. Unimportant. Reminded him of all the times his parents hadn't shown up for dinner or holidays or forgotten his birthday.]
Anyway, that sucked, but we kept going. No big deal. It isn't like we'd just give up, you know?
[It isn't perfect, but the brave, confident front is pretty convincing.]
no subject
If it were me, I would probably say the same thing.
no subject
It's called Denmark, where we are.
[Leaning in further, he points out the spot they're in right now, and then slides his finger just above the surface of the map until it's hovering over the pickup point.]
This is where we are right now, and we have to get over there. It's about a two day walk, at my pace. I'm not the fastest, but I was really determined to not be left behind, and not to leave Lalli either. I'm really glad I didn't give up.
[A pause, and he exhales a little shakily.]
You'd say the same? You mean about not giving up?
no subject
Oh. So it's not Sweden.]
I would say that, too, of course. But I would also tell you not to count on them waiting if you're easy to presume dead.
[The Greil Mercenaries have needed to make the same sorts of choices in the past, choices to minimize losses while achieving objectives, even if it meant some members of the group would be put at greater risk. If the expedition crew needed to get moving under the duress of time and dangers like the one Lalli felled, it would be best to begrudgingly move forward while accepting loss — loss they should already be prepared to face. But Soren has seen that no matter how prepared one may think they are to lose someone they love, someone they've grown attached to, they will never be ready when it happens. That sort of grief can weigh even heavier on a close-knit band... but a close-knit band can also provide effective support during that period of heartache. It brings him to wonder about the part of Emil's team he hasn't seen.]
How was your team cohesion? Were you close with your group, or...
no subject
Soren's confirmation that he would have also told him not to count on them waiting if he's presumed dead. It hurts, leaves him with that sinking feeling of being left behind that he'd had before, and this time he puts his finger on it - as much as he knows better, it felt like not being important enough to wait for. That feeling concerns him enough that it doesn't really register that the people leaving him behind might be hurting as well.]
Yeah. I guess you're right. Either way, it doesn't matter because we did end up making it back in time, as you can tell, since I'm in Aefenglom and not dead in the wastes of Denmark's Silent World. And...
[A pause as he actually considers that question.]
We're a good team. It isn't as if we're super emotional, crying all over each other all the time about our problems, but we took care of each other and had each others' backs.
no subject
[It's only a brief description, but it paints enough of a picture for Soren to decide that a team like that would be grateful for their return, even beyond the mere utility of having more teammates to bolster them. His eyes rove across foreign land and names of cities until the Emil who spread it open to begin with picks it up off the ground and shoves it in his face.
It... phases right through him, of course, but it's enough to make him instinctively flinch and back off a little and bump right into the very corporeal Emil with a soft 'oof'. Embarrassed, he frowns, backs off, and murmurs a quick apology while watching... Emil show an unconscious body a map?]
Uh... What are you doing? He can't see that, can he?
[He's a little peeved at this Emil, even though it's in the past and logically has nothing to do with him, so Emil couldn't have possibly been trying to offend him by making a fool out of him by making a fool of himself. Still... c'est la vie.]</small.
cthluhund & kitty, can start with the first and hit all briefly?
a dog. it looks like a dog, he recognizes what one is: they would chase shapeshifted kitsune and humans would use them to track them down. it looks like it's in poor shape and kaden has very little sympathy--- most of it is used on the cat that looks trapped.
and then kaden has to cover his ears. his tail tucks between his legs and it takes all of his strength to not go to his knees. so loud, that gunfire, and the kitsune shivers. he squeezes his eyes shut. )
works for me!
Sorry! I'm sorry! I told you not to move! I'm so sorry!'
[And that's what's making him flinch now, more than the sound of gunshots. He's used to gunshots and chaos, because that's a large part of his life back home and, to some extent, here, at least when he's on missions. What's hurting him now is the guilt. He still feels it, the intense guilt at trying to put that poor animal out of its misery and only managing to hurt it more, to make it wail and scream in pain as it writhed on the ground. It didn't matter that its fur split to expose its skull, that it chased him and terrified him.
He'd failed to help. Failed to make it better. Failed an animal that he'd promised to help.]
I really am sorry...
[It's soft, barely above a whisper, just loud enough to be heard past the wailing of the animal on the ground.]
no subject
for emil's sake.
and as he finally reaches him, kaden feels comfortable enough to pull his hands away and loosely wraps them around his shoulders; just as a reminder that someone is there. those words are easily heard with keen senses like kaden's, though he continues to wince at the baying of the injured and ill hound. )
Look, you... it's fine. I know you were trying to help, right? I probably understand better than most.
( after all, though kaden may look mostly human? he's not human. he'll never want to be human. )
... that was a gun, right? What you had in your hands?
no subject
But Kaden just wraps his arms around his shoulders and tells him he knows it's fine and that he knows he was just trying to help. Emil takes a deep breath, trying to let go of the guilt, and nods.]
It just couldn't keep living that way. I know I'd rather die than have the Rash...
[A pause and then Emil nods.]
Yeah, it's a semiautomatic rifle. And um, you might want to get behind me or close your eyes or something, because this next part is going to get just awful.
[And then it does, as the wailing beast gets shakily to its feet and lunges, the line of its spine splitting open so a set of white bonelike appendages can shoot out from inside the creature. There's only very little blood, mostly old and dark red, and while they look like bone, the appendages move more like spider's legs as the creature runs at an impressively fast pace for something that was just shot, toward his past self.
Emil can remember his panic, and he's reliving it again, even as his past self turns tail and runs away from the creature as fast as he can, screaming for Sigrun.]
Do...do you want to wait here or follow?