deercountry | Mayerling November Catchall

CW: references to bloodlust/addiction themes

The temperamental architecture—specific, it seemed, to sleepers—in Trench meant factoring in a greater amount of time for transit. Sometimes transit took no more time than a brisk walk, but other times could trap one outdoors. In the early hours when the sun grasped at the structures in Trench to haul itself sluggishly into the sky, someone on poor terms with daylight's bright must shrink back into whatever shadowy recesses they could find.

Lover of books and artifacts and philosophy, Mayerling more than once found himself weighing the odds of returning toward the dwelling where he stayed as D's guest against what cursed wonders might happen, for once one's feet crossed the threshold, should the world twist and bend upon itself, the way back would be barred. A death sentence. At worst, he could find some dark recess forgotten to time built by an arcane scholar long past and sleep. Sleep, however, was an uneasy concept in a public setting, even one so twisted. Someone else could follow their gut instinct toward the vulnerable vampire dead to the world.

Deep in the folds of the archives, far from any of the windows, Mayerling continues to read all he can about Trench, about the Tower, about the Pthumerians, and about the dangers that have set up ecosystems within their wakes. Alone in this part of the archives, he could almost feel at home. The scent of blood is everywhere, Mayerling's mouth occasionally twitches but no fangs flash in his mouth. That, at least, is under control.

Edited 2022-11-05 13:13 (UTC)

Nara'a spends a lot of time curled up at the Archives, reading about different worlds and different solutions to their problems. Sure, no other world he's seen has aether like his own, but there still might be ideas. Maybe some of these are fantasy, but they still have valid ideas.

He turns a corner and spots a man he hasn't seen before. He stops and waits for him to see a natural pause in his reading before raising a hand in greeting. "Ah, hello there. Are you new?" Sure, there's still people he hasn't met in Trench, but he still recognizes a fair few more than he doesn't. "I'm Nara'a. It's nice to meet you."

Mayerling considers the person before him with some curiosity. Though he is not so rude as to stare, he cannot help but notice the uncommon feline shape to the person's ears. Compared to the Barbarois it's hardly worth noting (except that in this new place where such clues may signify something greater than the shape of one's ears, Mayerling notes what details he can).

In a smooth movement, Mayerling stands, book still in hand, and sweeps into a polite if shallow bow that sends his cloak out in a flourish behind him in the windless archive. Returning to standing, Mayerling says, "I am Mayerling. A pleasure." Manners dictate the introduction comes first since this is a civilized conversation.

"I have recently washed upon these shores, yes," he answers. New, what a concept after all these years. Yet he still reads to learn his history, where before he lived it.

CW: Nightmares, Bloodlust, NPC dream loss of autonomy, Blood, Wounds that won't close

With the return of sleep, Mayerling hoped that his days, when he slept, at least might be his own, a small rest from the blood saturated environment of Trench, a variant of personal hell few truly understand. Alone, laying on his back like the dead, within a massive cushioned coffin, he closes his eyes and leaves the fast moving world of daylight behind.

He dreams.

Though he starts in the Frontier, his old life bleeds away, blood soaking into the ground and the buildings and the sea until it transforms into Trench. No matter where he turns, everything smells like blood. People phase into the scene, previously an unpopulated wasteland. In this place, this dream, Mayerling knows with the sinking surety of dreams that if he stays near these people, it will end in tragedy.

He turns around for the way he came to find himself in the middle of Trench. Music sounds in his ears, the sounds of beating hearts creating a chorus around him. Desperate he turns down an alley. Like the waking world, it gains impossible geometries. He ascends stairs only to end up where he started. A woman with a pale throat and long sheets of hair like water passes, and his mouth shudders as the feeding fangs descend. In an echo of a movement completed thousands of times, Mayerling turns his head away and throws himself against the wall of a building.

Adrenaline spikes. He needs out. He needs away. If he stays—

It's not his safety he fears for.

His tail wiggles in interest. There's some kind of scent to him, but he can't quite tell what it is. Where has he smelled that before...

He puts the thought from his mind and focuses on the person in front of him. He is... quite big. Wide shoulders... he almost reminds Nara'a of a Garlean royal, but he's definitely not one. His ears flick to the side for a moment before returning to standing at attention atop his head.

"I see. I've been here a few months, though there's many people who have been here longer. I can try to answer some questions if you still have any."

Time has not felt so pressing, so particular in its shortness, since the terrible chase across the Frontier. Each hurdling moment shortlived and eternal. They live on and on in his mind. As with learning anything, one starts new and unstudied, inexperienced, and foreign.

Mayerling motions toward the armchair near where he had been sitting. "Please, let us sit to converse," Mayerling suggests. The bipedal shape still suggests sitting is in this man's repertoire. "I still seek to understand the basics, how this world came to its current state and the history that informs what happens today."

Crisis came to his world thousands of years before he was born, but they continue to shape it, the first and all those that came after it.

He sits down and gets comfy, settling in a little bit and scratching his chin a little bit. "Well, let's see. I did read a book about it - I know they have a copy at Sanctuary, but from what I can recall..."

How to explain it? "The people here believe that the Pthumerians were the first race capable of emotion and reason. When people finally started existing, they were admired and the Pthumerians tried to blend in with people. One of their Queens brought some of them to a planet called Earth, and her granddaughter was born a hybrid between the two species. Her name was Sodder. She could dream many things, including a connection between many realities known as The Great Sleep."

"Those she pulled through from other realities inter her dreams were known as Sleepers. But her powers were wild, and she infected the world around her, twisting it into what's known now as The Waking World. But now the Great Sleep brings people here, instead of to her dreams. I know there are some here who were in her dreams, and they could answer things better than I. But that's how this world came to be, as far as I'm aware."

Ange spends plenty of time in the archives. It helps that it feels like there's always something fresh to read there. Though she has been in Trench for such a long time now, well over a year, there are enough books here that she isn't even close to having read everything - and the way the books seem to move around, never quite found twice in the same place, helps with the sense that she might never finish consuming all the knowledge hidden in this place.

Though that's fine with her. It gives her something to spend some time on.

But the frequency of her visits to the archives also make it pretty clear to her when there's something odd - or different, at least. Ange has memorized the faces of most people who also spend a lot of time here, but the one she's spotting here now in the very back.. this one is new. She wouldn't be able to immediately pick out new people on the street, doesn't have the social network for it, but in a more controlled setting like this-- it stands out to her more.

And since the other does just seem to be calmly studying the texts here rather than being all obnoxious and loud about it, Ange also doesn't mind speaking up when she sits down at the same big table he's at with a book of her own.

"I haven't seen you around here before." Her face is a true pokerface, and even her voice doesn't betray any particular emotion - so flat that it seems devoid of them at all.

His time in this place is early yet, and Trench, this whole world, is rich in lore. The archives not only capture information about this world but speaks of others—some of them as real, some of them as fiction. Surely some of them are real and some are fiction, but the accounts may not entirely align. A healthy dose of skepticism along with an open mind must be held in balance. Where is the point of balance? Mayerling cannot entirely say.

His first reaction to the idea of the Pthumerians, not the Sacred Ancestor, as the first capable of emotion and reason is that of the close minded and unchallenged, comfortable in what they know (surely that is not the case). His second reaction wonders how similar the Pthumerians are to the Sacred Ancestor (a merging of the two easier on the mind). The third... the third wonders how related they can even be and what the relations of time across dimensions truly are (what is 'the first'?).

A brief summary it is, and Mayerling should like to read the book for himself. "Thank you," Mayerling says, "Surely we all ask many similar questions when we first arrive,. Like teachers with each new class of pupils, the answers must be shared time and again, changing perhaps as we learn more." We. Sleepers. That includes him.

Sodder is easy enough to accept, seeing what dhampirs are like, D in particular. Why should some similar measure from some other ancient and sacred... personages be so odd?

Mayerling exhales. "We are changed but much the same," he says. Unlike those who walk in daylight without second thought, Mayerling cannot leave this building without suffering terrible burns and potentially death. "We gain new blood, new abilities with them. Should you forgive the personal nature of the question, what of those you already had? Have they changed?" Each person may have a different answer.

Though Mayerling has not lived among so many people in more years than he troubles himself to count, Trench is very much a small town for all that, small enough that he seems to stand out for his newness when doing nothing to stand out at all, nothing beyond mere existence in a new location. He appreciates that when people notice it in Trench, the reaction range across a broader range of emotions—not oscillating between fear and hatred.

Without the eager rush of a young animal nor the self-important wait of those who deign to respond but not interrupt their own activities, Mayerling finishes a paragraph and looks up at the person whose presence he heard and smelled even as he read. The person is young, reaching adulthood within the last few years, with the comfort of someone who belongs where they are.

Mayerling inclines his head slightly. "Nor I you," he replies, with mild humor, for they both know who has come here longer, "What is your affiliation with this august institution?" He finds himself fond of it and all it holds.

He's not convinced of them being the first either, but that's what they say here. He's not going to argue with them - it's kind of pointless to have that kind of argument without the ability to go and see. They don't have that ability here as far as he knows, so he doesn't really care to dwell on it.

"Exactly. I keep thinking we should make a pamphlet of some sort to hand to new Sleepers... but such organization isn't my strong suit. I tend to be more of a man of action than bureaucracy." Much as he wishes he had the temperament for it sometimes, he simply doesn't.

"But yes, we are all changed. I admit, I haven't done much with my abilities - I'm only just beginning to explore them." As for his previous ones... "I can still use the skills that I had before. I have a bit of a unique situation where I can switch to different sets of abilities. They're unchanged, save for the fact that drawing on aether is a bit more difficult here. ... Aether being the 'substance' that makes up everything in my world. I can use abilities with aether here, despite the fact that no one else save those from my universe seems to know about it."

The girl shrugs.

"I read here."

.. not exactly the most elegant way of putting it, and even more so in the face of the way the other speaks, but it's not like it's exactly untrue either. Ange just comes here to read. Out of necessity, sometimes, but also just to relax. Not having to deal with overly social people, and instead just dealing with books and people who are calm and reasonable enough to appreciate them? Sounds like a great way of spending her time to her.

"It's really the only way to learn about this place that doesn't involve experience." There's a faint pause, and Ange makes a slight hand gesture as she adds: "And you usually don't want to have to learn through experience here."

Because it's Trench - which means that said experience is often bad, if not outright deadly. Ange would prefer to stay ahead of the curve and know what she's dealing with before she's already dealing with it.

The difference in speaking styles, the casual way she speaks, reminds Mayerling that he's not dealing with vampire civilization. That's incredible, even in a small interaction.

"Hmmm," Mayerling ponders the statement. His introduction to Trench has come with multiple near death encounters, even his arrival. It is certainly a dangerous place.

"The store of records is enormous," Mayerling says, "How have you developed, are you developing, a program of learning that proves useful when experience inevitably comes?" Because he doubts anyone has avoided it altogether. If it were that easy and doable, more people would study in this place, even those not entirely fond of books.

Mayerling smiles softly. Though he knows of the wakers, those who help new Sleepers from their earliest moments on the beach as squids until they return to knowing themselves, he did not experience them directly. D told him much, focused on what was most relevant to him. The benefit of that welcome, along with not burning to death before someone figured out what to do.

"We have managed to come here," Mayerling says, "perhaps aether comes as well." Not as part of everything but in lower concentrations. Accessible with greater efforts. Something large and discreet might be notable to someone familiar with the substance. Water amid the ocean, grains of sand along the beach... such small things could be missed perhaps.

"What brings a man of action to the archives?" Mayerling asks with light teasing. For hunters are often the best educated on the beings they hunt, and Mayerling himself had to be every kind of man. The distinctions are not sharp and clear.

"Perhaps. It's an interesting situation, one I'm sure many scholars would like to study... if the right equipment came with them. Which it did not, with me." Instead he got the equivalent of a confetti cannon. Not all that useful for him, though he supposes he should be glad some of his job stones came with him at all.

Well. He set himself up for that one. "Though I'm bad at bureaucracy I happen to be good at studying. My first area of intense study for self-defense wasn't the bow as my family would have wanted, but the manipulation of elemental forces. When I was old enough I set off to the city where the Thaumaturge's Guild is located... and they have quite the collection of books. I was a fair reader up until then but I learned to love academia - and so I've found this the closest to their stacks of books."

He looks around at the shelves and back to Mayerling and chuckles. "Though the contents here are much more varied than the histories and instructional books that made up the bulk of their stock." He's yet to find a good solid book from home, but he's still looking. There's so many worlds represented here in both fact and fiction that it's difficult to find anything on purpose.

"When something seems off during any given month, I usually try to get here as quickly as possible to try and look up stuff that could be relevant to it."

.. emphasis on try there. Maybe not in her tone, but in the way she means it - since it's not always easy to find what you're looking for in this place, and sometimes you just have to get lucky. Or exchange information with other people who are trying to do the same thing.

"And when there's nothing in particular I'm trying to look up.." Ange pauses for a moment, and then the girl moves to pick up another book that's laying open on the table next to the archives book she was reading. It's pretty clear that book doesn't belong to the archives - if not just because there's a sticker of some.. sort of.. dolphin.. on the front. Very elegant. "I try to take notes here of all the important stuff I come across while reading through this stuff. You never know when you'll need some piece of obscure knowledge in a place like this, after all."

Mayerling nods, thoughtful of his own focused reading. It's good generally, more broadly, yes, but some sort of harvest, of what he broadly suspects will be people, comes. They need to know more, and the obvious questions, the most obvious questions, haven't led to the answers he's looking for. That's why he's trying a different approach.

"In advance of the blood zealots' harvest, I seek to learn more about corruption and beasthood," Mayerling shares in a whisper, though they are not immediately surrounded by company, "I seek to understand how they tolerate such corruption without beasthood, how the mechanics they use work, and how that ties into all that they do."

He looks at the woman intensely, hoping that she is not somehow one of them, "Have you experience with or knowledge of how they work?" he asks.

Mayerling smiles, his question having been half in jest. Clearly this man studies with devotion. All the better he loves books, but even were he as naturally disinclined toward books as bureaucracy, the commitment to it would have been honorable and worthwhile. No bad answers lay there.

"Knowledge is the finest weapon of all," Mayerling replies, "though it is far more than merely a weapon. Through knowledge, we need not all repeat the same mistakes to learn from them, nor must we develop solutions wholly from scratch."

He sighs, sitting back. "Philosophy is one of my passions," he admits, "but I desire to learn more and to delve into whatever subjects through which I may proffer my small measure of support to all of Trench." Sleepers. Trenchies. Pthumerians. Anyone else too. It is a small and lonely community that looks as though it has risen and fallen nearly to ruin many times.

"It is. I like philosophy as well, though I've not read a great deal of it in the past. You'll find some of it in here but... well, as I'm sure you've seen this place isn't properly organized. The people who work here don't seem to mind, but it does mean it takes time to find books on any one subject."

Not repeat the same mistakes, huh? He's seen examples of that over and over, so he can understand the appeal of trying not to repeat it. "I do wish I could find some books from my world - there's a few that might be helpful for some people here. Especially primers on aether, which makes up my world... people keep asking. I don't mind explaining, but some help sometimes would be nice." He chuckles a bit ruefully. "But I do like reading books from other worlds... they're so different and it's fascinating."

Edited 2022-11-14 02:56 (UTC)

The bridge of Ange's nose scrunches up entirely the moment he mentions the zealots. It's the sort of expression that's stuck midway between a pout and just utter disgust. If Ange dislikes anything at all in this place, it's definitely that group of people.

"I don't think there's too much information in here about that specifically," she replies, sounding like she is trying to be helpful here, despite her expression and initial reaction.

The more people know about those creeps, the better, after all.

"Unless someone left it here. I don't know if anyone ever tried capturing some of them and interrogating them to drag that information out of them." Ange definitely wouldn't put it past certain people in this place. "But I do have experience with them, yes. They've dragged me and people I know off to their weird farm operation last year. It was the worst."

The news that specific information is light hardly surprises Mayerling. Extremist insular groups typically keep a tight gripe on information; there's been no word, written or oral, as to anyone leaving the group. As identifiable as the few he saw were, Mayerling is sure they would stand out.

"Information would only be as useful as the individual who provides it. Given they are Sleepers with blood powers and whatever other gifts they may bring with them," Mayerling shrugs, "I doubt it would be easy or that the most knowledgeable place their safety and wellbeing, as they consider it, at risk."

He looks at her with great focus. The worst is quite a claim where he is from, and Trench has a reputation for trouble and difficulties. What must it take to stand apart from all the rest?

"I am glad you escaped," Mayerling says, "With all due respect to the trauma and torment that must have come with that experience, what—if anything—did you learn while there—of the stable corruption, of the narrow timing of their harvest, of matters that have not even occurred to me but which you know are significant?"

He is so very new and concerned.

Mayerling looks around the archive they occupy. The archivists he's seen are either local humans or Sleepers of various sorts. "Considering the scope of the archives and the career lifetimes of those in it, I am hardly surprised," Mayerling says. He pauses, "I've heard encouragement that they find new wonders for the archives but nothing on organizing what resides within."

Wholly new feats could be discovered within. Perhaps Never Mind can find it all and need not care about others. He predates everyone here. "I have not sought any from my world," Mayerling says, "I shall have to search sometime." Just to see what others have access to, even should there be no novel information within it.

"No, no organization here... I wonder if it's in the order that they've found them? I'm not certain. It's hard to tell, and there is much and more to learn about this place. It's fascinating, but also frustrating at times." Enough to drive a bookkeeper mad, in his opinion. But Never Mind probably doesn't care much for his opinion on his archives, which is... fair.

Nara'a nods and smiles. "There's quite a lot of fiction here... that's how I've learned about the worlds of many other people. Or at least understood some of their turns of phrases... which is a good thing, since I have only a single person from my world here." Or... worlds. Whatever. "But it's good to broaden your horizons, even if I'm not much of a fiction person."

"A lack of understanding does not always reflect an understanding of a lack," Mayerling says simply. The organization makes no sense to them. Never Mind, like the birds who associate with him, has a mind far different from their own. The ability to exchange words with him and come away with some understanding does not mean they fully understand each other. He's seen it time and again with humans—between them even.

He enjoys novels well enough, though much time has passed since he read any new story. His focus has been on the world around him, new and foreign as it is. That these stories could introduce common ground with others is a valid point. Entertainment can be more than relaxation and reflection. "Perhaps if they can be checked out," Mayerling muses. Sometimes he does stay in his coffin, even if he does not sleep.

"They always seem most active this month."

If Ange has any trauma related to what happened back there - which may seem likely, considering what she confessed to only a moment ago - then she isn't really showing it. Her tone is still even, almost purposefully emotionless, like she's reading from a textbook, rather than recounting her own experiences and what she learned from them.

There's no way she's going to let a total stranger in to the emotional side of it all, after all. Ange has a hard time letting friends do that half of the time already.

"Those zealots can be seen outside of the month too, of course, but the abductions to that place only really seem to happen during this month. I imagine it's since each specific Pthumerian seems to be most active during one given month, and this month it's the Tower. They seem particularly interested in that one."

Mayerling November Catchall

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