martyrofduty: (Default)
martyrofduty ([personal profile] martyrofduty) wrote in [community profile] deercountry2022-09-09 09:59 pm

Stop assembling this bewildering cartography

who: Pyrrha Dve | Duty & others
what: Various September happenings
when: All month
where: Bone House, Outpost, Staging Point, Around Trench

content warnings: see individual starters
justoscar: (marked -- worried)

[personal profile] justoscar 2022-09-11 01:53 am (UTC)(link)
"Me neither-- but I think I've heard of this."

Oscar sat quietly in the canoe, looking as much like the lost and confused teenager that he felt like. He had managed to avoid the falling feathers of Never Mind's birds by a stroke of luck last year-- a rarity for someone that lived with and worked alongside a literal bad luck charm. Stilling himself in the little boat, he looked around at the other passengers and tried not to panic. Palebloods were on a sensory roulette that month, and for the moment Oscar was having a hard time feeling what his body was touching. There was a certain detachment to it; he felt the pressure of it, but none of the attending details.

Stillness was the only sure way to be safe.

Cautiously, he shook his head-- and watched as a black feather fell out of his hair and onto the bottom of the boat.

"Boat, feathers, and a river... this sounds an awful lot like something I heard people talking about. It was something about... personal fears?"

A shrug. So much had happened. At that point, he was focused on learning to filter his new telepathic and empathic abilities that he didn't pay as much attention as he should have.

"We should probably stick together. No one I heard stories from sounded like they enjoyed their boat rides."
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[personal profile] wapples 2022-09-14 04:06 am (UTC)(link)
Overall, Billie has been enjoying his time at the farm over the summer. It's a bit like being back in the halfling lands at home, except no one stops him from eating as much as he wants, or makes him do anything really. There haven't even been any fires, or chicken fights.

He's outside when Pyrrha arrives, just laying in the grass, and watching the wind blow the leaves around. He grins when he sees her and hops up and goes to greet her with a hug as she approaches the chickens, free roaming across the lawn.

"Pyrrha! Hi!"
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[personal profile] wapples 2022-09-16 03:21 am (UTC)(link)
Billie laughs with joy as Pyrrha scoops him up, and spins them around. She is quickly becoming one of his favourite people in Trench. It is always a good day when she turns up at the farm.

He has to think about the question, though, not for long. It's not too hard to pick out a spot that reminds him of her. Of course, it's perfect.

"I know just the place, come on." He grabs her hand to lead the way to the cherry blossom tree growing behind the greenhouse. He looks from the tree back to Pyrrha. "It's a Guardian Tree. It protects people, animals, and nature, but we have to look after it, too."
unsheathedfromreality: (on this vessel as it carries me)

[personal profile] unsheathedfromreality 2022-09-18 09:47 pm (UTC)(link)
"Regret," says the third figure in the canoe. The unworldly voice with its echoes of walls and spaces not present is surely familiar to both Pyrrha and Oscar, even if its owner is presently huddled up beneath his heavy cloak (ornamented with raven feathers) with an uncharacteristic moroseness. Like all of his obvious moods, Illarion's current black one has an air of pretense and overacting to it; this is something he has to put on for it to be seen, even if the emotion beneath it is genuine.

Might be, in this case, very genuine. Both he and the Omen huddled unhappily beneath his hood are sporting flashes of dawn-pink, hoopoe-pink, in their feathers--a giveaway the shrike's corrupted, if the visible feathers themselves weren't.

"It is regret we are here to confront, and confess, to be shriven of. Then the ravens return to take us from Hell's River." He pauses the space of a mortal breath, then adds, "Or not. This is not one of these places that forces the truth from one, though I am not recommending ignoring what we will see. It is a worse way to leave, whatever secrets it is keeping intact."
justoscar: (marked -- worried)

[personal profile] justoscar 2022-09-18 10:44 pm (UTC)(link)
Oscar looked between his newfound parent figure and the mysterious bird that sometimes roosted under the same roof as the man who would be God with a gravity that I'll befit a teenager. The situation was unexpected, and the company-- though kindly enough-- provided their own kinds of perils with these challenges.

Oscar didn't doubt they had painful secrets. He had his own, as well.

"Agreed," he said solemnly.

"This world has a way of tricking people into speaking even when they don't want to. I've worked hard to make sure that people have the option not to speak if they don't want to. "

A sigh. This had caused him a few headaches in the last couple of years...

"Sometimes other people are involved, too. The stories aren't always just our own."
unsheathedfromreality: (as the darkness closes in again)

[personal profile] unsheathedfromreality 2022-09-18 11:43 pm (UTC)(link)
"Agreed," Illarion replies in nearly the same breath as Oscar--then falls silent to give the younger man space to speak on. It's a kind philosophy the human expresses; the shrike inclines his head in mute approval.

"Then I would propose further that none of us seeks redress or explanation from anyone whose secrets these also are--whether they are in Trench yet or not--unless, as before, permission is given."

Many of the worse secrets that lay between Lyctor and Lord had already been given away in Gideon's spasm of contempt for her negligent god. But ten thousand year's a long time even as elves reckon time, and Illarion's sure that myriad hides a thousand other black secrets that Pyrrha wouldn't want turned indiscriminately on her Monarch.

And those of Oscar's relations Illarion knew certainly deserved their secrets guarded as carefully.
justoscar: (questions)

[personal profile] justoscar 2022-09-19 02:03 am (UTC)(link)
It's a lot for a young person to take in.

A part of Oscar had witnessed horrors such as this-- had witnessed the death of armies with a single choice that his Crown revealed to him, witnessed villagers form a Circle around him across multiple lifetimes and wage war in his name, had witnessed the face of the woman he once loved slaughter their children... and himself. That part was, however, not quite Oscar. Not yet.

The sixteen year old that was supposed to carry the weight of lifetimes and centuries was struck breathless with the sight. He found his heart aching in a sympathetic reaction to Pyrrha's words.

For the moment, he didn't know what to say. With an unsteady hand, he reached out and grasped for her's.

"So, you never knew what happened?"

Oscar ventured finally, hazel eyes flashing gold in the dim lighting like a small woodland creature.
Edited 2022-09-19 02:04 (UTC)
wapples: by <user name=nirnroot site="plurk"> (06)

[personal profile] wapples 2022-09-19 04:26 pm (UTC)(link)
There's not much the boy is afraid of, and that includes the Bugge. Let the monster come. He will fight it. The farm has become his home now, of course he will defend it.

Billie stands with Pyrrha, still holding onto her hand as he looks up at the tree, and nods. He feels an affinity for the trees in Trench, especially the Guardian Trees that, like the Sleepers, have found themselves in this place, so far from home.

"Yeah. Everyone needs someone to care about them and take care of them. No matter how big or strong they are," he says quietly.
unsheathedfromreality: (spent among the slain)

ongoing cw: there will be mention of war crimes

[personal profile] unsheathedfromreality 2022-09-19 11:07 pm (UTC)(link)
They round the curve. Iskierka--who has been here before; they've both been here before--sticks her head out from beneath Illarion's hood, craning her neck to follow Pyrrha's gaze with faceted red eyes.

Her Sleeper flinches like he's been struck. A scraping of clenched talons on wood fills the space of silence before Pyrrha speaks.

He has seen dead children before. Dead infants. War didn't spare the young; he has even seen infants killed in this particular vile way. (He has been accused of killing them in this particular vile way, something no shrike would do and no outsider would believe they didn't.

The Unearthed were another story.) It does not make them any less of a blow to the gut to see one, and think of--think of--

Who? There is a hole in his memory labeled my beloved, my firstborn; labeled dead, murdered, and it doesn't have a face to it or a name or even bright plumage. But the dead child on the stake reminds him and he has a heart soft enough now to be shaken by the reminder, as the Martyr is.

He clamps his fangs on a keen, waiting to a count of ten. "Or you are knowing, but much too late?" he rasps--barely above the lap of water against the boat.
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[personal profile] wapples 2022-09-20 12:31 am (UTC)(link)
He returns the squeeze of her hand gently, and watches as she crouches to press her hand against the soil. The Guardian tree helps keep the earth here free of corruption, and helps the plants nearby grow and thrive.

He nods a little. "Yeah, I heard people talking about it. You bury something to let go of the past, right? And a cool flower grows from it."

He hasn't done it himself, not yet anyway, but he doesn't have much trouble letting go of the past. He does his best to keep the past at bay himself.
justoscar: (grim)

[personal profile] justoscar 2022-09-20 02:24 am (UTC)(link)
There was a lot of details in this that Oscar was still catching up on-- but he had heard the basics of the core of the problem from Pyrrha during their first meeting at the boardwalk over the summer. Her partner, her other half, the original owner of that body had not entirely known of her continued existence even a myriad after the pact was made. She had existed alone, save for one other.

And, this baby.

Oscar lowered his eyes, watching unidentifiable bits of bodies bob in the water while they drifted past. He held tight to Pyrrha's hand, both for the anchor that the grasp allowed for him and the hope of providing one for her.

"Is there any way you can let her know now?"

He asked, not knowing exactly who this baby was. There were a handful of possibilities, but he was still outside the core circle of those who understood the politics of that timeline.

All he wanted was to support his people; that number included Pyrrha.
wapples: by <user name=jtaidraws site=instagram.com> (Default)

[personal profile] wapples 2022-09-22 06:46 pm (UTC)(link)
Billie has a bit of an understanding that there are deeper implications behind looking after someone else's flower. After all, it's a part of themselves, and a window into how they are faring here in Trench with their goals of setting the past aside. At the very least, as well, it will give him warning should she need help, and after everything she's done for him, of course he wants to help her as much as he can.

He gives her a smile, and solemn nod. "Of course I will."
unsheathedfromreality: (as we make our way through starry night)

[personal profile] unsheathedfromreality 2022-09-24 04:20 am (UTC)(link)
The infant's death-clouded eyes gleam gold in the unrelenting sunlight. Elven-gold, shrike-gold, but gold in (bloodshot) human pale instead of lightless black. Still familiar, hideously so, and for a reason Illarion thinks he can place--not one in thrown down the vast emptied well of his memories of home. This is a new memory, a new familiarity; it is something from Trench, and maddeningly unplaceable.

It is also Pyrrha's secret to tell.

The shrike pulls Iskierka's eyes from the infant on the stake and toward the Martyr who would gladly claim her--who had, who does, ferociously taking back what she'd been denied by not knowing. (Were any of the regrets he couldn't name by-blows? Were any children he'd neglected?) He cannot move up to join the other two at the front without risking the boat, but still stretches out of his miserable huddle to touch fingers to Pyrrha's shoulder in wordless support.

"Love cannot begin too late, for those who did not know it." As well he knows. (But not how, not by whom.)

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