And I don't want to let you go; August Catch-All

[manyone]

Who: Beatrice and others!
What: August Catch-all
When: Throughout August.
Where: Around Trench

Content Warnings: Psychological trauma, references to past murders and other bad stuff, more to be added.

Mostly stuff for extant CR, but if you're interested in something, feel free to write-up a starter or poke me via PM or on Discord. Starlight#5914; I'll include a couple of open starters as well!

Comments

Pale Moonlight; OPEN; Sanctuary

[manyone]

Unable to sleep thanks to some strange affliction and not wanting to disturb a sleeping Battler, Beatrice retreats to Sanctuary.

Ever since being brought there by Sansa, it has become a sort of refuge for her. It's soothing, wandering amongst the cloisters.

If one is also having a late night visit to the Sanctuary or is getting a midnight snack in the dining hall there, she can seen pacing about the corridors, sitting in the dining hall contemplatively smoking her slender pipe or simply staring at the large sakura tree in the center of the courtyard. She's a strange, ghostly figure and tends to wear a simple robe or a shawl draped over her nightclothes instead of simply getting dressed.

[chessboardturn]

Battler is awake, despite himself. He woke up and he's... well, a little hungry. But mostly curious because Beatrice has gone. He throws a shirt on and goes padding through the halls. This reminds him a little of the mansion on Rokkenjima to some extent. But grander, in a way. And also not nearly as familiar. He turns into the dining hall and for a moment has the strangest sense of deja vu.

Then he walks, footsteps carrying him on.

"...hey. You're up."

[manyone]

"Ah, well..." She hadn't wanted to wake Battler and yet here he is all on his own. That's just the way he is, isn't it? She gives him a little smile over the cup of tea she clutches in both hands.

"I couldn't get to sleep and I didn't want to disturb you. What are you doing awake?"

[chessboardturn]

Battler pulls out a chair and sits down next to her with a little smile.

"You didn't disturb me. And I woke up and noticed you were gone, so I thought I'd come looking for you. Can't a guy do that without getting weird looks?"

He's teasing.

[manyone]

"Some people would say it's weird to wander around in the middle of the night, you know," Beatrice points out with a gentle barb, unable to resist smiling at the man. It's just... Battler. How can you not smile when he starts talking?

[chessboardturn]

"That makes you just as weird as me, Beatrice!" He laughs and draws out her name just a little, "Since you were wondering around before I even got out of bed!"

He's glad to see her again. Even after everything. Maybe especially after everything.

"What's on your mind? Really."

[manyone]

"Don't start that, you'll wake everyone if you start bellowing like an ox, Battlerrrr--" Beatrice starts to draw his name out and then drops into faint giggles as she has to follow her own advice. It's late and others are probably sleeping, thanks.

"Nothing, I swear. I'm only having trouble sleeping, that's all. I can't seem to manage it, and I don't know why. It's bothersome, really bothersome... though it's not like I needed to sleep in the cat box either."

Diamond skies; OPEN; Odd End

[manyone]

The prospect of 'other' magic is of course, fascinating to Beatrice. Certainly the blood magic of this place is powerful, horrifying, and magnificent in its own wondrous ways but to find something else... that's equally interesting as far as Beatrice is concerned. Regardless of the shop's reputation as a place of hoaxes and superstition, a young blonde woman can be found here poring over the shelves with a keen eyes. She's peering at a shelf full of knick-knacks and occult paraphenila and finally picks up a small, sharply curved knife with a wavy pattern etched into the blade and turns it over in her hands, lips pursed.

"...What do you think?" She asks someone nearby. "Ritual dagger? Worth it?"

[adaine]

Adaine comes to this shop quite often to look at all the magic that isn't tied to this world's (frankly kind of gross) blood magic. It's a nice relief between converting every single one of her spells into different blood rituals to be imprinted into her spellbook and tethered to her sword.

It's exhausting. Which makes this collection of curiosities a lot easier to fathom, just as a break, and as a way to remember what she's working towards.

She glances at Beatrice similarly going through everything, holding up the dagger to inspect, and smiles.

"Do you know what it does?"

[manyone]

"No clue whatsoever," Beatrice says gleefully. "I just like how it looks. And it's quite sharp, I imagine! It might be useful in the garden or cutting herbs or something..."

She glances over at Adaine with a gleeful smile.

"This place is wonderful! So many interesting things."

[adaine]

Adaine laughs a little at Beatrice's answer. Her enthusiasm is a bit infectuous. Magic's never really been a source of wonder for her, more a rigorous practice that her entire life was built off of since she could so much as talk.

It's easy to forget how wonderful it can be when you look at it like that.

"I can find out what it does for you, if you give me a minute with it," She says.

"I like to come here a lot. The magic in here just raises so many questions, even more than all the other arcane mysteries in this place because it follows none of the rules as this world understands it," She shakes her head, letting out a short laugh. "I found a tea-pot that turned tea into orange juice, for some reason."

[manyone]

"Tea into orange juice? Why would you ruin perfectly good tea like that?" Beatrice asks in mock horror as she returns the dagger to its scabbard and offers it over towards Adaine with a bright smile.

"Oooh, could you? I'd be so grateful!" Magic breeds enthusiasm in Beatrice, she really can't help it whatsoever, if she's honest.

"I know most of the magic here is blood magic, so I was surprised to find a place that wasn't that!"

[adaine]

"It seems pretty ridiculous, yeah," She grins. "I think someone made it just because they could. As a boast."

In truth, this is part of what she's been researching all along. Useless contraptions are one thing but there's doubtless artifacts brought by sleepers here that could improve the quality of life by a ton. Maybe this dagger is one of them, who knows. She holds her hand out to take it.

"Let me just get..." She brings her hands into her jacket pocket and brings out a fine bottle of white crystal powder. "There we go. This'll be a minute."

And the dark comes to take control; CLOSED to Viktor

[manyone]

Beatrice finds that sleep is not coming easily to her these nights. At first, she blames it on the summer heat, on Battler's presence (though that he keeps her awake is for entirely different reasons), on her nervous mind but nothing seems to help cure her of it, even when she ends a day exhausted. She simply cannot sleep. She takes to pacing Sancutary into the small hours of the morning, much like she once was reputed to haunt the halls of the Ushiromiya Manor, her wanderings going on and on.

She is ignoring it as best she can, though she hears whispers and rumors among other Sleepers that some new curse or affliction is descending on them once again, must like the absurd happenings of the previous month.

Viktor's invitation to join him for more discussion and study of magic is a welcome distraction. Because almost certainly, she is not afflicted. She cannot be. She is Beatrice the Golden Witch of Rokkenjima. These sorts of things simply don't happen to her. She is the affliction visited on others, isn't she?

Of course she is.

Her knock on the laboratory door is sharp, a little perfunctory. She doesn't wait for an answer before nudging it open and starting inside.

"Viktor? It's Beatrice!" She's dressed for the summer in a light dress that bares her arms. The patches of grey, scaley skin are nothing to worry about, she's certain.

[mehanizovati]

"Ah, welcome, I-" Viktor starts, turns to greet her with a quirk of the lips when he notices the patches first. Surely nothing to worry about, except he clicks his tongue as his gaze goes concerned, lifting from his seat to grab his cane and move over.

"Been in the ocean I take it? It looks like you've come down with the curse as well," he says, gesturing to the grey patches. "Let me take a sample of your blood to be sure, if you will. This curse business is actually something I wanted to hear your opinion of regardless."

[manyone]

"I haven't. Swimming deep down into the dark of the ocean isn't my thing, though Battler has gone. I've looked over some of the artifacts others have brought back, of course..." Beatrice says with a wave of her hand, trying to dismiss Viktor's concern.

"If you wish to take a sample, then I shan't stop you. I don't think it's anything to be worried about..."

[mehanizovati]

"I'm not sure how it transfers- has this Battler shown similar symptoms?" Viktor asks as he moves to rifle around for something- something that ends up looking like a weird little gun with a vial attached. It looks like it might be used for injections only here repurposed to get a small bit of blood. Necessary, given how damn finicky sleeper blood was.

"Who is Battler, by the way? That is a name I have not heard before," he asks as he fiddles with it.

[manyone]

"Ah, not that I've seen? But I'm sure it's nothing to worry about," Beatrice says with a degree of flippant disdain. Look, she's a Witch, curses are for other plebs not her, Viktor! She raises a brow as the needle gun is produced.

"A... friend, I suppose you call him? Someone from home. Battler Ushiromiya. He was my opponent on my game board for a while."

[mehanizovati]

"Then I will gladly allow any mockery about how fussy I am and how wrong I was," is Viktor's dry reply. Device ready he gestures for her arm, and if offered yes, she'll get it pressed to the crook of her elbow and a little pinch as the small vial fills with blood. If not offered she'll get a raised brow.

"A witch too? Or do men get called something different." He has several questions about what the hell a game board is.

closed; for ange and beato!

[entreats]

Of course Ange has absolutely no idea of what is about to happen. Even if maybe going down into the water wasn't the greatest idea in the first place, something about the glowing water had been so weirdly alluring in a way she couldn't quite resist. Maybe it was just the promise of having a moment to herself. Having a moment of quiet and peace, after all of the ridiculous things she had gone through over the past month.

And it does seem that way. At first, anyway. As Ange slowly descends the path into the water, going deeper and deeper until there's nothing but water surrounding her sole figure, she slowly realises that she's not so quite alone after all.

It's a realisation that's just a tad too belated though. The path back to the surface behind her is already gone.

Instead all Ange finds when she turns her head to look behind her is the familiar form of that blonde witch. It's something Ange clearly didn't expect, because she doesn't even have the time or energy to slip her pokerface on. She just stares at the witch with wide, surprised eyes, not even saying anything quite yet.

.. though that entire reaction might also have something to do with the changes in the other's appearance - like the greyness of Beatrice's skin.

Re: closed; for ange and beato!

[manyone]

Beatrice doesn't like going down under the sea, at least not normally. It reminds her too much of something that was, the sensation of slipping down, down, down beneath the waves around Rokkenjima. Yet as the curse as taken its course, she finds herself drawn inexorably towards the waves, a desire to see what's waiting beneath tugging at her mind. Perhaps it's simply the way the curse is effecting her mind in the same way it changes her body. Maybe it's just morbid but she goes all the same.

She floats along the path, hair tangled about her head in a blonde cloud in spite of her best efforts to keep it contained. She had thought that she was alone here, herself, simply communing with the sea and listening to the urge to swim further and deeper.

She isn't, though.

Ange is here. Watching her.

Her head turns towards the other and she speaks.

"Ange-chan. You're out here too?" Her voice is raspy, distant. Not the usual vivid cackling or the restrained sadness or any of the things that Ange has seen from her before.

"You should be careful. You don't know who or what you'll meet down here..."

[entreats]

Usually Ange would hit right back with some deadpan remark - especially since an opening for it is right there in what Beatrice says. It'd be so easy to just say like you? back at the witch in the most dry tone possible.

But this is different. Beatrice isn't here like the usual, after all. She isn't cackling, or gloating, or doing any of the other usual witch stuff. Things already wouldn't have been that exact same way in the first place anymore after that other conversation they had in this place, making everything feel awkward.

In the face of what she's seeing right now though, there's only one thing Ange can say, all other circumstances be damned. She even still looks surprised as she says it, though said surprise is perhaps mixed with a frown at this point as she stares at the other's altered state.

"What's going on with you?"

.. okay, so maybe it is still a little direct, but Ange wouldn't be Ange if she wasn't ridiculously to the point most of the time..

[manyone]

Beatrice's skin is gray and black, cracked with the curse that runs through her blood. Almost absently, she reache sup to try and corral her hair, but it's hopeless in the water. As Ange asks her questions, Beatrice stares at her almost dully for a long moment, not quite comprehending the question.

"I'm not certain. I... I think something happened when I was close with some of these artifacts that were brought back," she says in a dull tone. "I haven't been able to sleep. My skin..." She lifts her hand to show off the cracked, mottled grey.

"And I felt drawn here. To the water. Normally I don't like going into it. Not this deep, in any case..."

[entreats]

The girl wordlessly tries to process the information the witch is giving her. It's probably not really the ideal location for this sort of talk - really, it feels like a small miracle that they even are able to talk like this, like it's nothing to be able to just exist and talk underwater on this path - but on the other hand, Ange is well aware after all her experience that places like this often don't give you many chances at ever having the perfect circumstances for things.

Sometimes you just have to make do with what you're given. Even when it's a weird underwater conversation with a witch you really don't like, for a variety of reasons.

"Are you corrupting?" Ange asks, to the point.

After all, that's going to be Ange's problem too, especially with how far the other's changes already seem to be. If Beatrice beasts out here, then it's going to be hard for Ange to escape too.

It's not like she realises that it's something a little more specific than that, especially since she has no idea what Beatrice's regular signs of corruption would be, so she can only assume things by going off what she's seeing here as she looks at the other.

Regardless, her body language is becoming more guarded in every single way now. Since it's Beatrice, sure, but also since Ange wants to be ready to defend herself if necessary. You never know when corrupted people lash out, after all, and even less so when the corrupted person is unpredictable to begin with.

[manyone]

"Am I corrupting? What an absurd question. I'm a Witch. I would never---" And yet, every piece of evidence argues against Beatrice's insistent denial. Her skin is cracked, black, and gray. A few suckers have already formed on her arms while in other places her skin swells with potential for more. This is her first time being truly effected by this place and she refuses to acknowledge it. It's not a curse. She's fine. She's the Golden Witch.

"I'll be fine. I'll be fine," she insists and waves a hand imperiously. "Why am I even down here? There's nothing--it's just water and darkness and...." She shudders at memories rising unbidden to her mind.