deercountry | August Catchall

[D has had a few days to think about what happened in July now that his mind has cleared and he has arrived at perhaps not the best solution, but what he thinks is necessary. To prepare for it he has relocated the dimensionally expanded coffin to a new location where no one has visited him before and replaced the water in one of the fountains with sea water.

But there's no point in wasting what might be a potential opportunity either, and Nico was already high on D's list of people he could ask for this unusual favor.

Everything they need is here in the extradimensional garden and D has already stripped off his coat, scarf, and shirt. The only thing he still wears on his upper half is his pendant as he waits for Nico.]

[D has many unpleasant memories to fuel his dreams, but this one starts out tame in comparison to most.

The scenery is a bleak dusty road stretching on as far as even his spectacular eyesight can see. All along the barren dirt to either side are miles and miles of people. Just standing there, still breathing, their hearts still beating. Some have been there so long their clothes have begun to decay and they're caked with dirt whipped up by the cruel wind.

The wide stretch of lifeless badlands means that even though people dot the scenery like barren trees there's more than enough room for people to pass without ever going within thirty feet of one.

Even though it's clearly night, for D it might as well be midday. He rides a dark cyborg horse along at a calm pace, and beside him is a perfectly pale and dust-free white cyborg horse. The rider of the other horse seems to be D as well, they match to their clothing and even the blue-gemmed amulets on their neck. The Other D has a young woman riding behind him with the same vacant apathy on her face as all the people along the road.

The horse D's twin is riding stops, and unlike every time this happened before, his twin doesn't urge the cyborg to continue.]

That's a poor joke, even for you.

[But there's no response. D stares at his mirror image, his twin, and dismounts to walk over to them. There's no response from either of them as D carefully pulls them from the saddle to put them on the ground.]

He'll kill you, and then me.

[D remembers this, the assassin is coming for them. In the strange logic of a dream he both knows and doesn't know the fight that awaits him if he faces the blue-haired man alone. D reaches down with his left hand and pushes the little bit of life energy that his left hand has to spare into his twin.]

[ While Nico is not thrilled by the unusual favor, he also didn't balk at it. Rebirth is very loudly the theme of this world, so the individual that forms from the squid that's left behind will once again be D. So he moves to join D in the garden from his room on the top floor. He isn't carrying his normal sword, though it's typically now at-hand should he need it. Meaning: if D doesn't die under conventional means of a normal sword.

Nico comes out to the garden and looks around briefly before focusing his gaze on the taller and older male. ]

Should I give a eulogy before you become a squid? [ Just some dry, morbid humor. ]

Would it make you feel better if you did?

[D has prepared a very sharp wooden stake, and even brought along a hammer in case Nico feels it's necessary. It's a lot easier to stomach this if he views it as trying to go somewhere he might not be able to reach otherwise rather than simply dying. Easier to focus on what they might be able to do.]

When we die, if there's a body left a squid emerges from it, and if there's not we come from the sea. Physically our souls may not ever leave with this type of death, but on a metaphysical level, we might go somewhere during that time.

[Nico has a stronger connection to death than D, and some of the things he's done and said he can do offer interesting possibilities. Especially with the questions the 'ghost king' had asked when he arrived.]

If you can follow my soul and keep me aware while I'm dead, we might be able to see what's in that place between death and rebirth, and my soul coming back to be a squid should give you a path out as well.

[He also has a few jars around to collect samples of the crystals that should grow and the sleeper ink that should spill out when he's about to be a squid once more.]

Edited 2022-08-04 03:45 (UTC)

Maybe a little. If I give one after, you won't hear it.

[ Don't let him do it, D, it will be the worst eulogy he's given. As for the weapon of choice, since D isn't going to be fighting it, just the stake should be good. Being a demigod does give him a strength boost. ]

Hopefully, your squid self pops up here, seeing as how the ocean isn't exactly friendly lately.

[ He considers the next part curiously and hums. ]

I don't know if I can keep you aware, but I should be able to track it at this point. Unless someone more powerful prevents me. And I could even try summoning you during the process to see if you keep your awareness.

[ Nico will collect everything carefully and keep it stored in his own bedroom until D's return. ]

This isn't a funeral, I won't have a grave. Let's save the eulogies for those who need them.

I should come back here, every Sleeper corpse I've seen so far has had a squid emerge from it.

[He's said about as much as needs to be said so D gestures to the stake. Outwardly he's still perfectly calm, but his unearthly aura is leaking out more than it normally would.]

Not everyone does, but okay. I'll just say it in my head.

That's what someone else said, too. If their body was mostly intact.

[ Nico takes the stake in his left hand, his dominant one if D was keeping an eye on him at the watchtower. An eyebrow raises at the man. ]

Nervous? [ In contrast, Nico is a whole hell of a lot calmer about all this. His only worry: D won't come back. ]

This is the fastest and least painful way for me. I've died many times before, but not by choice.

[It's the fact that this has become the least awful option out of many awful options that D doesn't like. Doing this feels like admitting some kind of terrible defeat or failure, even if the alternatives are unbearably selfish and weak.]

[ He examines the stake once it's in hand, then looks back up at D. ]

If this is your choice, then it must be the only choice you're willing to make. You don't seem like a man who'd throw himself at this sort of conclusion without considering all of the others.

[ This is something Nico says seriously. ]

[August has only just begun, but L is already aware that something is not as it should be with his blood. Dreamwalking is usually easy for him, to the point where it's almost an escape from the trials and difficulties of a world that does not always understand or welcome him. Lately, it's been less like slipping on a silk glove and more like trying, with inconveniently uncalloused hands, to turn a rusted and pitted crank.

Once it's going, he can sustain it, but he's troubled by the new difficulty. It He's not finished with the old difficulties, after all, but this is the paradoxical predictability of Trench. A wrench is always in the works, even if the nature of the thing changes from time to time and can seldom be foreseen or prepared for even by those lucky enough to possess the gift of prophecy.

Once it's going, he's also noticed that the nature of the dreams leans darker and more frightening that the more balanced fare a dreamwalker can expect to encounter. In the months preceding August, he could count on chases and paralyzed hiding to give way occasionally to a gentle pasture or a moment of glee, a sparkling miniature firework in a child's outstretched hand. Whether because nightmares are more prevalent in Trench due to the beast moon, or because his wandering is weighted that direction, they seem to be all he's been finding since the end of July.

Nothing grows in this dark and desolate place. The dust his horse's hooves stir up tell him as much, though he's hardly a botanist or a farmer. If the people he notices are many, he wouldn't go so far as to call them a "crowd"; they'd have to be closer together to even court that definition. "Living effigies" is what he settles on, moving through and past them and taking slow moments to observe whether or not they change, whether they seem to notice him or perceive him as one of them, or hostile.

Faltering control over his dreamwalking abilities means faltering control as who he appears as, after all. He's honed that recently and come to appreciate the advantage it provides him with, more capable of slipping through the nighttime visions of others with control over how he perceived, but he'd started to take it for granted. He has to rely on other skills now, since the dream has doubtless chosen his appearance for him... as well as his companion and his pale steed. While he has no mirror, no eyes outside his own, he can tell that the man riding on a black, cybernetically enhanced horse at his side is dressed identically to him, has the same fall of hair that L notices alongside his own face and grazing his own shoulders, broader than they should be.

He glances back only briefly to the third set of hooves on their road, but the young woman doesn't seem to be here, the same way the Sleepers are. Like the others, she is a set piece, just scenery.

He chooses silence over answering, because he's learned, in trials by fire, that speaking too soon in a dream can raise suspicion. He has to learn a little more about their dynamic, first, and when he's pulled from his horse and finds his feet beneath him, he gets his first truly good look at the man whose dream he's entered.

D is unfamiliar to him; not for long, perhaps.]

We don't have any intention of dying, though. I'd call a conflict like that truly irreconcilable.

[Tell me more.]

[D's relief almost shows on his face, that his twin wasn't weighed down by the added contagious apathy of his passenger. There's something unsettling and it takes D a moment to place. 'We'.

But they'd already passed that, in the future. It was one of those uncomfortable differences of something that had happened and not happened, or maybe just D's perspective being reflected in his twin. It still felt strange.

But D doesn't pay that any further attention. His twin is good at getting under his skin. D can't let him have the upper hand.]

No, but don't do that again.

[D isn't going to take any chances so he turns to pick up the young woman. Except it's not Mia with them like she should be, and he pauses. It's someone he knows from Trench. Gaia. She's wearing the scarf he gave her.]

Pretending she's dragging you down won't get you out of looking after her. If I can handle it, so can you unless you're going to concede that I'm better.

[D sounds more certain than he feels about that, that his twin can handle it. But D knows how to goad and get under his twin's skin too.]

Edited 2022-08-04 19:44 (UTC)

[D's not going to admit he wouldn't make this choice if he was unable to return. That as much as he valued not having his bite on people, there were things he valued more than that and those things required that he continue to live.]

This is the safest option. There are things worse than death here after all and I've seen the horrors attempting to tamper with this can unleash.

With corruption in the mix it would be that much worse.

[Entire populations can be wiped out when the Kiss of Nobility goes awry, D has seen it happen more than once even just counting the past decade.]

[ Nico would probably still do it if D wasn't coming back, though he would absolutely hate it. Right now, he's accepting it. Most likely the only reason he wouldn't if is the reason was something akin to being tired of living. If that were the case, he'd suggest finding another way to die. ]

There are always worse things than death, I think. This place just has new rules.

Yeah, it would be a lot worse with corruption thrown in.

[ He isn't here to talk D out of it, just talk him through it. Maybe the eulogy would have helped... ]

That's right.

[And D has lived through a few of them, and would choose to again over dying to avoid it. Before now D has thought it odd that they think of this part of their squid lives as dying, but now that it's his turn he understands.]

When I get back, I'll tell you the only words you should ever need to recite over me. We should go, if you're ready.

[Like they're just getting ready to go on some kind of business outing rather than D dying. It's easier to think of it like that.]

When July ended D was faced with a number of surprising realizations about just how much he had been under the influence of something else. The urge for violence had been easy to identify and D had done quite well resisting that one, as well as the sea's influence.

But the feelings he'd had for people? D owed several people apologies for his behavior. Usagi had been a near stranger and D had avoided her, but he knew his omen hadn't shared his self control even if it had shared his preoccupation. His omen was part of him after all even if they weren't quite the same.

Which was why D felt the need to apologize to the young woman. The crow omen in question was on D's shoulder when he approached her, pointedly ignoring D and everyone else.

Usagi looked up from her grocery tote and blinked. She didn't expect to see D considering their last (and only) conversation was him stopping a corrupted man from hurting her and that had been it. She hadn't realized he was spying on her, oh, sure, she saw the crow often enough and even smiled at it, often, reminded of Rei's crow guardians. She hadn't thought anything of it and she certainly didn't realize it was an omen or even the same crow every time.

But now, D was here, with the crow, or a crow, again, there were a lot of crows in Trench.

But there he was, just standing in front of her and she pressed her lips together, looking around and then back at him since he wasn't moving around her and he definitely wasn't letting her pass.

"Uuuuh D, right? Can I help you?" She was preeeeetty sure this was Luke's snuggle buddy so maybe he was here about that? She hoped she wasn't about to get a "back off" speech cause oooh boy was she not in the mood for one of those.

[ He eyes D for a moment, making sure that he'll be able to recognize the dhampir's soul. The way he could sense Percy down in Tartarus. ]

Sure, I'll be here. Ready.

[ Nico doesn't waste any more time, tightening his grip on the stake, and moving closer to use it. The demigod is quick on his feet, his aim spot-on, his strength greater than an average fifteen-year-old's. There isn't a hint of hesitation in his strike, no sign of his concern or worries either. One might worry about a teen being able to do this so seemingly easy, except there is mercy.

He hasn't lost himself like when he killed Bryce, Nico will remember every single moment of this death. ]

The only mark that really distinguished D's crow was the scar along its back, something D was still contemplating the significance of beyond perhaps the obvious. That was where he and his twin had been cut apart after all.

"I came to apologize for avoiding you and for my omen following you. I'm sorry." D gave the crow a look, but his omen apparently thought that D's apology was sufficient and it's even less chatty than he was.

He wasn't even certain Usagi had noticed D was fleeing at first sign of her given that D could detect her from a considerable distance. Perhaps it would have been better to explain he'd been under the effects of last month's influences but that felt too much like a false apology.

"You... were avoiding me?" she blinked again. "Ummm why?" she tilted her head, looking back between the crow and D. "Did I do something to upset you?" her brows knitted together. "Or is this a revenge thing?"

Given how last month was about making people seek revenge, D could see why Usagi might think that. What she thought D would have sought revenge for he honestly had no idea.

"I was under effects that messed with my emotions. You haven't done anything to upset me or anything that I feel deserves violence."

[D is there for a moment as the stake pierces his chest and into his heart, and then all signs of life leave him. It's much faster and easier with wood and there's no risk he'll accidentally resurrect himself.

His soul lingers, but he also isn't aware. He's not so much the Dhampir now as he is the squid.

But soon enough he's pulled away without actually leaving. Caught up in a current both familiar and unknown.]

After recognizing how much he'd been under outside influence, D has stopped pushing himself nearly as much with how little sleep he gets. There are still days when he is at the staging point in the evening, but most he's upstairs asleep in one of the storage rooms with his omen down at the main area to handle questions.

Today is one of the days D is downstairs, reviewing supply inventory and planning for the next stage of construction once the outer wall is finished. Between Manabu and Duty the day operations and supplies and constructions have been running well without requiring D's direct involvement. That frees up more time for things D feels the need to see to personally.

[ He feels the body die and watches the squid, feeling the soul rubberband - honestly, that's the best description for it. The soul stretching from its normal position as if its being tugged.

Nico leans down to scoop up the squid with his free hand without caring about squishiness or any other unsettling feeling. Into the fountain D goes. ]

Hm...

[ For a moment, his gaze is on the remains of the man teaching him better control. Then tucks both hands behind his back to link together. His voice edging on serious but also bratty playfulness. ]

Today, the individual known as D has returned to squidlife. It was a quick and hopefully painless death. To be honest, I expected maybe something a little more dramatic - turning into ash or bats or just blood. That Dracula book is probably utter crap. Were this a normal death, I'd offer up his worldly possessions to those in need. For anyone who would want his collection of black-on-black goth clothing. Shame it's too big for me. Oh well, I'm dusting nothing.

[ A small hum. ]

In his absence, may people take up his duties at the Watchtower, and his little squid body remain safe in the coffin. If he doesn't come back, I will drag his soul back myself so that I can yell at him. Also, probably tell no one of this, because misunderstandings suck so much. No thanks on that. Nothing bonds a demigod and a dhampir like death, meaning, I get to remind him about this in the future when he's doing dumb things. May he enjoy time off for a little while from all this craziness.

Για τους θνητούς που εξαφανίστηκαν από το γλυκό φως της ημέρας δεν χύνω δάκρυ, παρά θρηνώ για εκείνους που μέρα και νύχτα ζουν με τον φόβο του θανάτου.

It's been a handful of deaths of late, not all directly connected but close enough it would be lying to say they are all... independent activities. Duty's old enough to be familiar with complicated relationships. Trench is still different than what has come before, and in Trench—

They've not talked about it enough.

D isn't difficult to find, though a small part of Duty's mind cannot help but note that it is a poor choice for a duel if he were so inclined. He isn't. Duty enters quietly but not silently and waits until D's attention shifts to talk. "How are you doing?" he asks calmly, slowly, seriously, far beyond the casual use of those words.

D shows none of the weariness that particular question causes him. He's doing the same as he always is, especially when he isn't. But D respects Duty and his dedication and work. "I could do without the weather, but with Mariana's month it was never going to be sunny and clear."

Daytime rain is the worst for him. It brings full vampires some relief from the effects of the day but for a Dhampir already very resistant to it's only an added problem.

The rest of his issues are far more personal and aren't his alone.

"She really does have a direct hand in our reincarnation."

August Catchall

[Closed For Nico] CW: SUICIDE

[Closed for L] D's Nightmare cw: mind control

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cw: deception

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[Closed for Usagi]

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[Closed for Duty]

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