ᴛʜᴇ ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ ᴜɴᴅʏɪɴɢ (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
necrolord) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
deercountry2021-09-03 09:19 am
necrolord) wrote in deercountry2021-09-03 09:19 am
o1 . like an old enemy
Who: necrolord and you!
What: A necromancer comes to town.
When: Early September.
Where: The docks, Gaze, and anywhere.
Content Warnings: Undead, implied murder of NPCs, and all the usual warnings of this character.
(1) ghost ship.
Maybe, in your wandering, you've come to the harbor. There are fishing boats and trading vessels here among the dark, choppy waves.
One of them looks like astonishingly bad news.
If at any point you got dredged up by pirates, you will recognize it immediately. The hull is dark and oily; the sails are tattered and grim; the crew are all horribly corrupted. They are scaled and tentacled and barely-human. But they seem to have lost all aggression: they move in rote, mechanical ways, taking no notice of their surroundings.
Only one man stands out from them. He looks remarkably average: dark clothes, dark hair, dressed in a captain's coat of black and gold. What might stop you, though, are his eyes. They are black from edge to edge, sclera and all, with an oily shimmer that feels wrong to look upon.
"What do you think," says the captain, to whoever has stopped to stare. "Corpses or skeletons? Skeletons are a classic, but I do hate to get rid of the tentacles; loses the novelty."
(2) weak and weary.
Gaze is absolutely drenched in ravens. Dripping ravens. He's pretty sure ravens don't flock, typically, unless they are scavenging the dead on a battlefield; so that's promising. Regardless: there is a man before you trying to coax one of the ravens onto his wrist.
It perches there, and he looks briefly, utterly delighted. He reaches out a few fingers to stroke its feathery breast, and the raven lets him. His voice drops low, soft, somber:
"Is there balm in Gilead?" he murmurs. "Tell me; tell me, I implore."
The raven considers this. It cocks its dark little head towards him. It leans forward, the shaggy feathers of its throat bristling, to speak.
FUCK OFF, croaks the raven. It pecks the Emperor Undying on the forehead, takes a shit, and smacks him with a wing on its way out.
The man, left in the wreckage of this situation, does something vaguely impressed with his eyebrows. He chews his lip. He says, "Welp."
Then he turns to you, the poor sap who witnessed this, and spreads his hands in defeat.
"Worth a shot," he says. "Did you know the collective term is an unkindness of ravens? I see why."
(3) wildcard.
[ Happy to match formatting! ]
necrolord and you!What: A necromancer comes to town.
When: Early September.
Where: The docks, Gaze, and anywhere.
Content Warnings: Undead, implied murder of NPCs, and all the usual warnings of this character.
(1) ghost ship.
Maybe, in your wandering, you've come to the harbor. There are fishing boats and trading vessels here among the dark, choppy waves.
One of them looks like astonishingly bad news.
If at any point you got dredged up by pirates, you will recognize it immediately. The hull is dark and oily; the sails are tattered and grim; the crew are all horribly corrupted. They are scaled and tentacled and barely-human. But they seem to have lost all aggression: they move in rote, mechanical ways, taking no notice of their surroundings.
Only one man stands out from them. He looks remarkably average: dark clothes, dark hair, dressed in a captain's coat of black and gold. What might stop you, though, are his eyes. They are black from edge to edge, sclera and all, with an oily shimmer that feels wrong to look upon.
"What do you think," says the captain, to whoever has stopped to stare. "Corpses or skeletons? Skeletons are a classic, but I do hate to get rid of the tentacles; loses the novelty."
(2) weak and weary.
Gaze is absolutely drenched in ravens. Dripping ravens. He's pretty sure ravens don't flock, typically, unless they are scavenging the dead on a battlefield; so that's promising. Regardless: there is a man before you trying to coax one of the ravens onto his wrist.
It perches there, and he looks briefly, utterly delighted. He reaches out a few fingers to stroke its feathery breast, and the raven lets him. His voice drops low, soft, somber:
"Is there balm in Gilead?" he murmurs. "Tell me; tell me, I implore."
The raven considers this. It cocks its dark little head towards him. It leans forward, the shaggy feathers of its throat bristling, to speak.
FUCK OFF, croaks the raven. It pecks the Emperor Undying on the forehead, takes a shit, and smacks him with a wing on its way out.
The man, left in the wreckage of this situation, does something vaguely impressed with his eyebrows. He chews his lip. He says, "Welp."
Then he turns to you, the poor sap who witnessed this, and spreads his hands in defeat.
"Worth a shot," he says. "Did you know the collective term is an unkindness of ravens? I see why."
(3) wildcard.
[ Happy to match formatting! ]
no subject
The King Undying asks, bone-dry: "What do you recommend?"
no subject
It's bread.
"Birds back on Earth seemed to like it. Might not hurt to try."
no subject
He's not used to it.
On his face, though, this probably looks like a distant incredulity to be handed bread.
"Thank you," he says, gravely, as though this is a vastly important gift. The Necrolord Prime is now standing around holding a piece of bread, still faintly aware of the spot on his forehead where the raven had tapped him, and it is a really uniquely surreal experience. He tries to at least appreciate the novelty. "When poetry fails to hold the attention, turn to snacks; I should have thought of that. The same approach does occasionally work on teenagers."
no subject
He glances over at the other man again, a bit surprised by the statement.
"You have a lot of experience with teenagers?"
no subject
"'A lot' would be a vast overstatement," he confesses, utterly earnest. "I've come into the care and mentorship of two young people, over the past year, which I will not pretend is my area of expertise."
(Ianthe might, he recognizes, be just past her teenage years. The difference, against his ten thousand, is negligible.)
(He opts not to mention the secret long-lost daughter.)
no subject
"Only two?" he asks. But there's no challenge in the question. None whatsoever. It's amusement, pure and simple. "I'm almost jealous."
Almost. He wouldn't trade the ragtag pack of teenage heroes for anything. Especially not now. Them, or the kids who'd grown up in town with him.
no subject
"More than two would probably be the death of me," he says, which he thinks is moderately funny. (It's the unmentioned third who had been the death of him, in the end.) "Dare I ask how many yours number?"
no subject
No, really, it does. If you ask Shiro, it's maybe eight. If you ask anyone else who knows him, the number probably passes into the double-digits easily enough.
"Some of them are my teammates. Others I've been keeping an eye out for here."
He's adamant the only actual adoptions were under five.
no subject
This is all good information. He is learning more about this place, and Deerington by extension, piece by piece. He is equally curious about the places they came from before.
no subject
"Team Voltron," he says, easily enough. The raven accepts its prize, strutting away. "We were defending the universe from destruction and conquest."
no subject
This place has a wild sense of humor.
"Destruction and conquest," he echoes, while the raven struts off and does not peck anyone even a little. "Sounds like a big project. What threatens the whole of the universe?"
(He's used to one of two answers, depending on who you ask. Impossibly powerful cosmic horrors, chewing through whole star systems on a path of vengeance; or, by the same general description, him.)
no subject
It's easier to talk about now. With some distance. Talk about it in the abstract - it's far away. In the daylight, sitting here on his heels watching ravens eat bread and peck at stones in the street, the war feels too far to touch.
"They've either conquered or destroyed most of the known universe. We were the only ones standing up to them." Were. Until they found rebel allies.
no subject
John does not laugh. He does get angry, but only a little, and only very quietly.
This man isn't an Edenite. They don't have the tech for that arm, for one thing; they don't have their references straight, for another. The Edenites are a lot of tragic and undeserving bluster, a couple nukes and a couple martyrs. They don't really know or care about the planet they accuse him of ruining. They hold up the Earth like she isn't the mother they poisoned and left to die. He rebirthed her in flame.
No, this is not one of his enemies. But he doesn't love the comedy of whatever gods set this up.
"That's an impressive resume," he says, mildly, and he dusts his hands as he turns away from the ravens. "It seems most of our neighbors here have never left the atmosphere."
no subject
But they'd just been students. Teenagers. And he'd just been a pilot. Before the war fell onto their doorstep, and they hadn't had a choice anymore.
"Yeah. There's a lot of people here like that. It's why I was teaching science in the dream world. Kids wanted to learn, and I couldn't let the dreamed up school take it on."
no subject
There is a great deal he could say about war. About children and war. Fourteen is the earliest age for enlistment in the Cohort; he did not set that number, but he has stood by it for hundreds of lifetimes, thousands of years. Any number they set seems tragically young to him, and he sees no way forward but through tragedy.
He takes up the topic of teaching, instead.
"I see how you've found so many chicks under your wing," he says, gently amused. "Will you teach here, as well?"
no subject
"Well, you know what they say about birds of a feather." Get it?
Because he remembers joking on the boat. The air seemed heavy for a moment there. It seems like there's too much weight in the words. So... stupid jokes.
"I don't know yet. Maybe. Depends on if the locals want Sleepers to teach their kids."
no subject
"Sleepers seem downright popular," he muses. "Verging on sacred. I think any parent would entrust a child to someone they thought would keep them safe."
no subject
The word feels sour in his ears. Heavy on his mind. Like there's something wrong with it. "I'm still not sure how I feel about that."