ᴛʜᴇ ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ ᴜɴᴅʏɪɴɢ (
necrolord) wrote in
deercountry2022-09-17 06:05 pm
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13 . autumn catch-all
Who: John Gaius and company.
What: After a rough summer, the King Undying lays low.
When: September - October
Where: Mostly Gaze.
Content Warnings: Tagged in headers as needed. Note all the usual warnings of this character.
What: After a rough summer, the King Undying lays low.
When: September - October
Where: Mostly Gaze.
Content Warnings: Tagged in headers as needed. Note all the usual warnings of this character.
Latter part of October-- definitely after the middle!
Though they had never met, he was aware of this man. From the network, from conversation with various people in town--
And from Anna Amarande, who had left him a chilling note before she ran up a hill to make a deal with God. If he seemed a little pale-- no, he didn't. If his canines looked a little sharp while he frowned and dug out a cigarette for the nth time that afternoon-- no, they didn't.
Instead of immediately commenting, he lit a cigarette-- and offered one to the man who would be God.The piece of a clockwork device that he had in his hands when he woke up amidst the foliage was glowing in recognition of a similar piece. Their fates were sealed.]
Suppose so, [He commented mildly, not even bothering to mask his natural accent that was as muddy as the Thames in his clearly exhausted and corrupted state.]
I've been out here for hours looking for a trail. What's it take to get to town and get a cuppa, hm?
[He wanted to believe that tea would be enough to temper the jolting static that felt like it was crackling in his veins.
Tea wasn't going to be enough.]
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He can catch the tension, if not the cause. But he's not exactly popular, and he's not exactly subtle; so he rolls with it, draws no attention to what would be a reasonable fear response. It's the eyes, he knows, that put people off. The eyes and the skeletons and the reputation of genocide.
Normal stuff. ]
Probably a partner activity.
[ He says this sympathetically, like: Pthumerians, man, what can you do. ]
Maybe we'll get lucky and it'll be a short one.
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I was never any good at tennis,
[He hummed, grasping for a semblance of dignity. He was a Lord; he could act like it, even if it cost him everything.
...God, did God smell good.]
So much running, and serving. [He continued, succumbing to the urge to ramble about the little inane details. ]
Could we do an Escape Room instead?
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[ You should've seen the volleyball massacre of mid-July, he doesn't say. Rough stuff. ]
Escape Room would be more up my alley... and seems like this town in a nutshell.
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[He was taller than the man-- taller than he was in his youth-- but still slender as a reed and only about as strong. Ortus wasn't far off in his comparisons of Waver with a Necromancer; he certainly had the build of one. Leaning back as well, Waver quietly studied the man-- the plain clothes, the eyes gleaming like twin suns in the void.
Taking a breath, he finally broke the tension between them.]
I've heard a lot of stories about you, John.
[A beat. Waver watched him with a cool academic distance, understanding now what it was that Anna had seen in the man. It was as if God really were just... A guy. He had met mages who were more striking on first impression than this man-- but with the stories was also the impression of his misdeeds.
He was curious. However, he knew he was in no shape to deal with dramatics. ]
Don't worry. I'm not going to put you on blast. Enough of that has happened on the Network already.
... Let's just get through this without dying on the other side. I have my reasons for liking Trench, and I'd prefer staying there for a while.
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Good to hear it. I've been cancelled as long as I can remember.
[ He holds up his piece of the compass, offers it out for Waver to take. He's not fussed about being the guy to hold their way out. ]
Lead the way, then.
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... It's not a true compass, [he uttered quietly.] Fascinating.
[Waver met the man's gaze with his own eyes that were as green as the ocean, bolstered by his own academic interests for the moment. Puzzles and intrigue was always a balm for him in stressful times. It seemed corruption was no different.]
We are still going back to Trench, correct?
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[ He spreads a hand like lead on. ]
Knowing the local sense of humor, it probably takes us wherever we want to go— no, sorry, wherever we need to go. Runs on the power of friendship with a pinch of nightmares. The usual.
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[He heaved a sigh and stared at the arrow until it be settled into position with the setting sun.]
Hm. West it is.
[He said ambivalently, and set off without waiting for John. West, he could do. Even as deep in the woods as they were, he could still distantly small the musky, salty air of the sea.
If his pace was a tad slow-- no it wasn't. His feet and legs weren't hurting or anything, either.]
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Any guesses what we're meant to be doing out here, other than making smalltalk?
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Not sure. I went to bed with my better half, but woke up out here. Its probably a test...
[He glanced over his shoulder briefly. ]
Or, an opportunity.
This is Cloverfield's month, and he's lonely. Maybe you weren't far off about 'the power of friendship'.
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[ She's been interesting to him for a while now. ]
You might be onto something.
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-- no, he wasn't going to say that. Waver compulsively but his lip. Revealing Patrons was akin to selling someone your Sun Sign, but he wasn't ready to take risks. Instead, he picked out something more neutral. ]
... Haven't you heard that stories from the Sleepers who arrived here from that child's dream?
They don't trust Mother Mercy. I bet they have good reason not to.
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[ This is a vast understatement, but also kind of true. ]
Fair enough. I missed out on the dream, though it sounds like that wasn't my loss.
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[ Funny understatement if this guy knows about July. ]
You been in town long?
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I got here in time for my first month to be straight out of Thirty Days of Night. I asked if it was a Vampire kind of darkness or Werewolf kinda of darkness.
[A wry chuckle, dry as a cough, met his throat. ]
It was neither.
It was a Moonlight Butterfly, Go Into The Water kind of darkness.
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And how's it treating you so far?
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I have my better half,
[He commented, his voice warming at the thought. ]
That's more than I have on my Earth.
cw: NtN spoilers, reference to tdm thread
I was with you for a moment there.
[ Waver's met her. There is no gold-haired woman at his side now. ]
But, hey, congratulations.
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Waver knew to tread careful, but Gods were still people-- and they could be as emotionally fragile as Anna was. As he was.]
... The only time I've seen a union between a man and one of the Fae work was when the man rejected the dimension he knew entirely. He gave up everyone and everything he knew, with full understanding that he could never return.
[A strong gust whipped in from the sea that was as yet unseen, from behind the rise of the cliff's edge and the boulders that marked a path upwards to see. The salty air caught his hood and ripped it down before he could react--
He was ordinarily fair, but the pallor he currently bore carried a cast of green. Waver was tired... But didn't really care about the danger at this juncture.
He understood loss.
In a low voice and with an unwavering gaze he added:]
Honestly. I didn't blame him.
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Yeah. You know, yeah, neither could I.
[ It's not that this guy understands the situation, not in its hideous and layered complexity— but the broadest strokes, the gesture of sympathy? He can appreciate what's being offered, there. ]
And yet here I am, surrounded by the echo of familiarity... like a funhouse mirror... and she couldn't stay longer than a day.
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...That happened to me, at first.
[He said thoughtfully, still riding the tails of sympathy despite not having grasp of the full situation. Anna, surely, would have a fit if she knew he was showing a thread of understanding for the Emperor of the Nine Houses that slaughtered life throughout the whole of their solar system.]
The person I spent my life trying to hold again appeared before me for a day over the spring, when those ghostly lighthouses reached out over the horizon. I was overwhelmed-- but before I knew it, he had returned to the sea.
[A sigh shuddered his shoulders. Those early months without Iskandar or anyone he knew had been dreadfully difficult on every level.]
That was the month where we had no sun. I was so aggrieved that I fell for a trick and tried to walk into the sea. Obviously, I didn't. And it was only the following month, after the sun had risen, that he arrived once again and stayed.
[He gazed at the man that was God without wavering, feeling the teacherly-urge to clarify for unruly students in case he had left any room for doubt:]
What I'm saying is that it's possible she might come back to you. We don't know how the seas here works-- not that you haven't tried to understand, from all that noise on the Network.
...It's hard, but trust the process. And-- maybe keep a steady supply of glassware, in case she's hungry.
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But he doesn't like the conclusion drawn. It shows in the twist of his mouth, the flinty gloss of anger in his black and inhuman eyes. ]
And that's fine by you? Being at her mercy for all that?
[ Mariana, the arbiter of which lost loved ones they get dangled like carrots before them, and which they get to keep like rewards. ]
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Was the London he knew, with its crowded cobblestone streets and muddied river that was so full of poison that they couldn't eat the fish from it anymore, really just the dream of a small little squid that had washed unceremoniously ashore?]
...She represents that which my King conquered Persia, Mesopotamia, and Babylonia for, that which he even pressed into India seeking out for himself and the people who believed in him. That being: the freedom and limitless possibilities of the ocean at the edge of the world he understood.
[He smiled softly-- rueful, bitter, but also sweetly sad for the years he had wasted and lost in pursuit of more realistic, attainable goals. If he were honest with himself, the ideal of Okeanos was still infinitely more tangible than the possibility of him being a great magus in the twenty-first century.]
My life became intertwined with the unknowns of the endless sea the moment I stormed out of my classroom and booked a ticket for Japan. It was the Nineties-- not an easy feat for a college kid from a working-class family and barely any money to speak of.
....If anything, giving up that kind of control in my life has been a small mercy on myself.
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