yes I knew it was no moonshine, it is real

[faceblocks]

Who: vi and various people
What: a catchall for october feat. vileblood anxiety things, animal shenanigans, facepainting things, non-event things. starters will be in the comments. ping me at eisdamme or eisdamme#7495 if you would like one.
When: throughout the month of october
Where: the rookery kitchen, ursulas, cellar door, willful machine, the outpost, the entertainment feed, other places.

Content Warnings: tba

Comments

[strongroots]

[ Robby has lived well at blotting others out, that he doesn't even think about anyone who's looking. He's not looking until he is, mostly attracted by the sight of Vi's own movements to do so; but he doesn't linger to see reactions when walking means that the person is already close to out of view. But he does hear Vi muttering under her breath, catching some of the words but not others.

That's my blood gift this month, she tells him, and it sounds like everyone's being hit with the shit. At least he can internally commiserate on it -- misery loves company, and all.

The most he offers is a (throat thick, but still) dry: ] Welcome to Trench.

[ City of bullshit. Why don't you join them?

Robby doesn't have it in it to ask more or to go on, but he does listen to Vi and her nose, no arguments on where they go. He could be pulled like a ragdoll despite the way he's head down, walks with faux purpose beyond the message of Don't bother me to the outside world. Not including Vi, who he doesn't answer immediately, but just so he can swallow, clear his throat. His hands balled fists inside the pockets of his jacket, except for when one needs to come out to wipe his face. ]

I got taken to some fucking church. There was-- some fishermen from the boardwalk. Old guy who'd tell him if my net was looking shitty -- he was alright. [ He'd say he was more than alright, but the lump in his throat doesn't let him, and he needs to swallow again, wait to start speaking again. ] I never even got his name, but-- he'd been there. Him and another guy.

[ And this is the part, isn't it? The part that kills him all the time to remember, that makes the pain be renewed, spikes him from the inside. Hitches his voice a note higher. ]

I was the one who told him-- we'd get out. We argued about it 'cause he can't walk right, but I told him--

[ He convinced him, and led everything into action that came next. If he hadn't been so sure, if he'd just agreed they should keep their heads down--

Robby isn't quiet with the way his breath exhales sharply from his nose, a noise or two that chokes in his throat, but he doesn't continue, not right away. Riding the wave, waiting for it to let him come back down again. ]

[faceblocks]

[it wasn't very long ago that he'd been a kid on the boardwalk with a ration of arguably shitty food, and now he's saying welcome to trench like an old pro. she kind of hates it. yeah, there's a lot that doesn't suck about trench, but this? isn't it.

she has no problem waiting for him to speak, whatever spaces of silence happen are fine. maybe even needed.

and then, two things:

one, he says taken. it can mean a lot of things, and it doesn't always come laced with menace, he could say right now that she'd taken him on a little tour of lumenwood, but ...that's not the read she gets on him - especially with everything else.

two, he mentions a church. it's the reddest of flags, and when he says i was the one who told him we'd get out it's all hammered home. he's the first person she's talked to about it outside her own little group (just she, faith and manabu, and the few trenchies faith had managed to get to relative safety) - he's the first person she's spoken about it to that had actually been there. she feels it in her bones: he's talking about the wrong trench.]

Shit.

The churches.

[she thinks she might know the man - more than one of them had commented on the quality of her nets, but she didn't think of how many of the trenchies she knew and saw often could have been there - she'd lacked a full picture - lacked the scope of the whole thing. but now she sees it, and it's terrible. for every sleeper there was probably what ...three trenchies taken?

five? more than five?

her face says she knows what he's talking about, and it's all she can do to not clench her hands into tight fists.]

[strongroots]

[ It hadn't crossed Robby's mind to explain the beginnings, the actual beginnings; because if people are being taken, if random warping into bizarre and nonsensical places is such a norm that it's happened twice for him in a single month, then it's obvious it's one of those places he's talking about, right? He doesn't clarify right away, doesn't ask more from her, needing a moment (needing a lot more than a moment); but, eventually: ]

Yeah, I dunno. [ It's mumbled, but still loud enough to be heard. ] Some weird fucking freaks -- talking about some Riteoir.

I don't even know what they wanted. [ That's the kicker, isn't it? The disgusting, ugly kicker, words that Robby close to spits out. ] It's like they just wanted to gather people and -- kill the first one who stepped out of line.

[ Like it empowered their faith, made their way more righteous, correct. As if anything in that place made sense, built on nothing but violence.

He draws his arms closer to him, but the chill comes from remembering them and recalling everything that happened. He stops abruptly in his walk, but turns to face Vi, his voice stronger. ]

What the fuck was it? What was that place?

[ Why was it? is the question he's seeking under them: why did it happen? Why did they have to go through that? But he'll take anything he can get, standing there with a searching gaze bruised by the exhaustion and emotion worn into his face. ]

[faceblocks]

[vi is nodding grimly as he speaks, and she's full of answers - has to think carefully about the ones she gives.]

A fucking crazy shithole. I've been calling it Wrong Trench. I dunno if there's a word for it, but it's ...well you know, because you saw it. It's not supposed to be part of ...this. Something about it being connected to the place before Trench, but I'm not an Oldtimer---

[pinching the bridge of her nose, exhaling. word choice change.]

---a Veteran, whatever. They took me, too.

[a hard swallow, the memory of it just a blur of trying to get fang out - an order of protect my sister that was more thought than speech - she hadn't had time for speech. she can't remember how long she wandered around that place before finding the burned out remnants of the rookery.]

It's a cult of crazy people. Riteoir was part of it, but it was all---

---"The True World" this and crown of dead leaves on my head that. I met up with a friend from the Outpost, and someone else I knew. She'd gotten some people into shelter underground, but it was just...

[he knows what it was like. if he's here, that means he'd know about the ritual, would have completed it.]

Both of them knew more than me, but I think those freaks wanted to make their Trench the real Trench. And yeah, a little blood sacrifice along the way didn't seem to be out of the question, and they weren't the kind of people you could reason with. It's like they could smell dissent.

[why. vi would like to know why. she wishes she had a better answer for that part other than fragments.

we couldn't get everyone out and i couldn't find a way to get back. maybe she hadn't tried hard enough. that's what's on her face now: guilt.]

[strongroots]

[ It's the madness of it all that's the problem, an absence of logic. Try to search for it, and it'll just slip from your fingers; or so it does for Robby. Because how can a place like that exist? How can it pull people in, and what does it mean? If he thinks too hard about it, his head just hurts. ]

So it was one of those...dream spaces? You said, that other place -- that was the dream one of those Pthumerians made.

[ It's the only part he can hold onto, right now. Neither of them know anything, the bare details, and it isn't as if either of them can do anything about that place now, what's done.

Robby doesn't even know what satisfaction an answer to that question will bring, but it's also a question that isn't as upsetting as everything else. His sinuses already ache, his lungs, the rest. He already knows the end result to any of this, called it before:

Shit happened, people died, and there's nothing that can change that.

What would be the best outcome, then? To not care. To draw in that weakness, and to shut it away, just like Kreese had taught him. ]

[faceblocks]

Something like it, yeah. I'm new, I don't know the Dream like they do. But I know that place was---

[she presses her lips together, trying to think of a better word for it than bad or wrong, but lets it hang and only winces again - maybe her face conveys the word better than a word can. oh, wait - she's got the word.]

---hell. It was some kind of a hell.

It doesn't matter what it was.

[she's quiet again - walking where he walks, stopping if he stops, as unlikely as he is to do that.]

But what happened there matters.

[she thinks of her parents. of the memorial on the bridge. of vander and benzo and all of the others. ekko's mural. it might help robby to do something like that. to ...do something.]

[strongroots]

[ It's true, it doesn't matter what it was. Not whether it was a dream -- whatever constitutes as a dream or reality here -- but that it was. What was happening, the people there, those left behind. Robby thinks about the bodies, lifeless and left there. They couldn't bring anything back to bury, put to rest, and he's never thought about a thing like that so heavily before. He's never thought about his body after death, but he thinks about the one he and 2B left behind, and it drives him crazy.

Their walking have led them far, to where a small bridge crosses over where a river runs. Lumenflowers bunch together near its start, the sweet smell being carried along the water, the colour an oddly red-tinged. It's here that Robby does slow his walking, to come to a stop. Hands resting on the rough brickwork, and he isn't sure what he's doing anymore. It's just always like this, when he lets his head get fucked up, waging a war between the need to remember, and the part of him that doesn't want to. ]

You were at work. You didn't have to come out with me.

[ He might finally be acknowledging how crazy it is to drag out Vi like this, even if she came by her own volition. But people shouldn't do that, not for him. It's stupid, he's wasting her time -- it's no as if either of them can change anything.

He just needs to ride this out until it stops. That's how this works. ]

[faceblocks]

I don't do a whole lot of things I don't want to. So, I'm out here because I want to be. That's what friends do when shit hits the fan.

[it could be a glib response, it could be casual, but the hardness in her expression, the softness around her eyes and in her voice tells a different tale. she looks down into the water, leaning on the edge as she offers:]

What you saw, it ...it can change a lot.

[she doesn't elaborate, he doesn't need that - it's not useful. but it's true. the aftermath of revolution, her parents' broken bodies? that hadn't fucked her up nearly as much as watching helplessly as mylo and claggor were struck down - or watching vander make a choice about her that ended in watching the life leak out of him along with blood and shimmer. she still feels responsible, when she digs at it. she digs a little now and there it is.]

What if you did something for him, for them ...now? Something to put a pin in it, shine a light on it, let people know that it happened and---

[her fingers idly pick at the brickwork, fingernail edging out a little bit of mortar.]

---maybe they don't have to feel like they should forget.

[strongroots]

[ It's not a surprising response. Of course Vi's the type, I do what I want, but there's worth to the mention of friends. Unnecessary to some people, false to others; and Robby leans towards the latter out of experience, but here, with her, he takes in what she's saying.

It's good to have friends that believe it, and act on it. He'd come to her in the first place because she's one of the few comforts he has in this place. Laughably, he might have a few more here than he ever did back in the Valley.

But it's why he listens without impulse pessimism. Staring at the water, not trying to overthink anything; not letting the truth of it can change you give him reason to dig into the ways that's true. There's what comes next that gives him more pause, what she's suggesting -- a possibility he's never thought about before, and even now: ]

What do I do? [ How do you shine anything on an event like this? When: ] I didn't know the guy-- I mean, we just talked and I did some work for him, and I didn't even know the other guy. How do you bring something like that up?

[ To other strangers, people you don't know? Because who else is there to tell than the people who might've known either of them. Just, hey, this guy died, just like so many people here die.

(Because the thought of telling anyone he knows -- it doesn't occur to him as a possibility, or a potential. Why would it?) ]

[faceblocks]

[she can be fake if she wants, but man, does she have to want it. there's even less of a reason to be guarded in trench - fragments remain, and sure, she can put those walls back up any time she wants, but it's easier like this. she has less time for maintaining an appearance of anything now that she has to maintain ...her sister.

she means what she says, and she'd risk her neck for any of her crew here, and on the right day she'd risk it for a stranger.]

What's knowing him? You talked and you did some work for him. That sounds enough like knowing him to me.

[then there's the whole part where you tried to help him in that place instead of just worrying about yourself. a lot of people might have taken that route. and she wouldn't have blamed them - it was a hellish place. it was hard to even think straight, let alone worry about someone else's back. some people might have shat their pants and ran. lost their minds. just ...hid. she wonders sometimes if there are still people trapped there, because places don't just ...cease to exist, do they?]

Back home, after the revolt, people made a memorial on the bridge. Portraits, notes, candles, trinkets. Whatever they could find. But it stayed there for years, and we were always reminded.

[there's a softer tone in her voice as she relays all of this, a cautiousness - she doesn't want to pick too much at it. she's learned to accept it, she thinks. even with the possibilities that trench offers. she doesn't think her parents will be washing up on the beach any time soon. she sometimes hopes so hard for vander she can't breathe - but then she lets it go like she's let so many other things go - and she's able to breathe again after all.]

Years later, when I was locked up and people were still dying, one of my old crew---

---my old family---

---he painted a mural on a wall of all the people they'd lost. Another way to remember.

[she'd been on it, too.]

Maybe you just ask the other fishermen? His name, I mean. Maybe I go with you, if you want. Maybe you build something on the boardwalk. Doesn't have to be fancy, just ...honest.

[strongroots]

[ Robby's heard about those: the small memorials that people put together, even if it's just a car accident, an unfortunate passing. Flowers gathered in the place that it happened, the ways they mark the memory of someone gone, even if you only see that it's occurred than by knowing a name.

He notes the mention of a revolt, the personal quality of it. Vi's life has been hard, he knows -- for her to even think of this, to know just through experience. And more than this, her time locked up more than his own stint in juvie. Their talk of how even good bread is a joy to her. Robby doesn't know if it's her experience that comforts him, or just Vi alone -- the one he shares American snacks with, the parkour, the odd jobs. One of his nice things about being here, and it's why he'd come to her in the first place, hadn't it?

There'd been no particular expectations, except for Vi herself. And this time he doesn't feel the need to protest, or to question her offer. ]

...I'd like that. If you could help me find the names.

[ Because he's been too ashamed to go down there himself, and he admits, breathing out- ] I don't know how to do it. I mean-- without looking like an idiot.

[ Feeling like one. And then there's the question of what to leave, and Robby isn't certain he can think of anything right then. One thing at a time, maybe. ]

[faceblocks]

Of course.

[it comes out almost before he asks - because there's no way she's going to just send him on his way for this. she knows how to break bad news - she'd heard vander do it countless times - that was life in the lanes. firm, but compassionate, sympathetic but ...not too emotional. all of that, she can do.]

They'd probably like it, too. Even if it makes them sad, or angry. They have a place to ...put it.

[their grief, their rage. whatever else they want or need. she's been on the other side of that, that helpless feeling of needing an outlet and having nothing but four walls and no closure.]

I can be the idiot.

[it's not a joke, but she just gives another small shrug. she's made some headway with a few dockside trenchies, but it's hard going - and they've never been kind or welcoming. she's had a trenchie or two spit in her face, fearful, rageful; vengeful. grief? she can handle that.]

Maybe we could leave some ...nets? [the implication being: we're both bad at it, but it's honest.] I could probably draw him, if you want. Maybe just their backs, looking out at the ocean as they make ...better nets.

[strongroots]

[ She won't be the idiot. At least, Robby doesn't think. The idiot is the one who approaches people not knowing what to say, or being unable to say it. To own up to it, what happened, the truth. He doesn't say that now, knowing he's hiding behind her figurative skirts with this, but he'll take that place this one time. Just so he doesn't coward out of it entirely. ]

Some nets could work. [ Maybe her art? He doesn't know, but he wouldn't stop her. Nets though, that's something he can do. Wonders as well-- ] Those crazy crabs still around? The other guy-- I think he had a family. I mean... crab meat doesn't bring a husband back...

[ But it's something, right? He hopes, and he wonders if the limping man had a family too, despite seeming such a loner even amongst peers.

It's a shrug in his voice, an idea. ]