deercountry | Luca catchall post - Fun vileblood issues!

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Luca catchall post - Fun vileblood issues!

Who: Luca Paguro and open!
What: Luca's memory flashback, as well as generally sneaking around the Disaster House/Town/getting caught in snares because he's a vileblood and there's two blood types hunting him this month
When: Throughout the month
Where: The Disaster House or anywhere in the Trench

Content Warnings: A thirteen year old boy getting hunted like an animal, both in his memory and in the 'present day' prompts

Luca's Memory – Trying to escape Ercole (OTA)

Whoever touches the Winter Mourning will find themselves witnessing a hunt. Maybe they'll see out of Luca's eyes, a passive observer forced to make the same choices he made, or maybe they'll take on the role of someone else in the setting. Alberto, perhaps, or one of the people trying to catch Luca. Maybe they'll even be able to do their own things, make their own choices.

Regardless, the memory starts with Luca and Alberto in sea monster form racing through the streets on a bike. They're terrified, desperate. Ercole has gotten in front of them, but the hill's too steep to try and turn back and go up. Besides, they need to get back to the water to be safe, and to do that, they need to pass Ercole. Luca stares in horror as he keeps pedaling forward, and Ercole lifts his spear, ready to throw.

"You should have left when I told you. Now...I'm going to kill some sea monsters!" Ercole says, and his cackles fill the alley as he balances on his bike, his spear raised in the air.

Then, just in time, Giulia, a red headed girl who had caught up on her own bike, rams her bike in to Ercole's own, sending both of them tumbling to the ground. Luca and Alberto race past on their bike, but Luca glances back. Giulia bounces roughly on the cobblestones several time, rolling down the steep and rocky pathway.

"No!" Cries Luca.

"Giulia!" Alberto calls out to her.

Not willing to just leave her like that, not knowing if she's okay, Luca stops the bike and he and Alberto race over to her, helping her up. This was a mistake. They're surrounded now. Many of the townsfolk are just standing there, watching to see what happens next. Others seem more ready to participate in this hunt. Some have harpoons. Some have nets. They whisper.

"Look at that," says one villager.

"You're not going anywhere," says another.

Ercole, however, is quick to call dibs. "Guys! I saw them first! The reward is mine!"

Luca tries to be brave. "We're not afraid of you!"

"No," responds Ercole, "But we're afraid of you. Everyone is horrified and disgusted by you, because you are monsters."

The memory may end here. Or it may continue on for a few more seconds, so the viewer sees Giulia saying that they aren't monsters, and Massimo coming out of the crowd to tell them that the boys are Luca and Alberto. Either way, the memory wraps up soon unless the viewer is an active participant and was able to make a different choice in the course of events.

The Disaster House – Open to anyone who would be at/around the Disaster House

Luca's skittish. He's been hunted before, he knows the feeling. He knows the mortal terror, the constant hiding, the fear of discovery. The worst part is, this month even people he loved and trusted seem to be turning on him. Nowhere is safe. But this house...it's still home.

He sticks to the shadows, staying out of sight, easily startled if anyone spots him. Still, there are times he lets his guard down. Enamored with all the pretty antler decorations around the house, Luca decides to make his own. He takes a couple of antlers he's found tying them up with ribbons and decorating them with little twigs and springs from the greenhouse. At one point he even starts having enough fun with his crafting to relax enough to hum a little tune, enjoying himself as he pretties up the antlers, holding them up to see how they're coming.

Other times he can be found grabbing things from the greenhouse or the kitchen to eat. He doesn't know how to cook, though, and this month...this month he's too scared to find someone around the house to help him, so he might just start eating raw ingredients as is just to avoid coming out of hiding.

Out And About – OTA

But of course, living in a household with all bloodtypes can be quite stressful to a young boy during a season where he's doomed to be hunted by two of them, so he ends up spending quite a bit of time away from the house this month. Of course, he heeds the warnings he's been given about cold weather and bundles up. A dark grey wool coat, gloves, boots, a hat...dressed up as well as he can be as he heads out into the harsh winter.

Still, as unused as he is to this sort of winter weather, Luca does stop to marvel at the snow. It really is pretty, and he never imagined it looking quite like that. He stomps it down to crunch it, squeezes it in his hands, experimenting and examining it, fascinated...until he hears anyone else coming by.

Like a prey animal, he's likely to hurry off to cower in the nearest hiding spot, before staring in horror at the obvious tracks he's left in the snow.

Trapped – OTA

Luca is trying to be careful, staying out of sight, avoiding other people and obvious traps. Not all traps are obvious, though, and there are so many this month that he's bound to get caught at some point.

He panics when he feels the snare tighten around his leg, pulling him up. He struggles, and he wants to scream, but he doesn't dare to. He's helpless now in a place filled with people who want to hunt him. If he wrong person comes...he has no hope of survival. They'll just slaughter him right there. He has to get himself down.

He can't get himself down, he soon realizes. He can't get up to his leg. He can't do anything here. Tears well up in his eyes, and he wants to cry, but he's too terrified to be anything but silent. He'll die if anyone sees him...and he'll likely die here if they don't.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Luz had spoken with Luca earlier about making sure he had food, but suddenly she spots one of the glowing antlers and touches it, and whoa, no wonder Luca had reservations about showing who he was. There were definitely some people who were to blame, what with their nets and harpoons, but Luz was zeroing in on this monstroso who was trying to shame her house buddy for being himself.

"Hey! Since when did one big nose, loudmouth jerk speak for everyone in the village? In fact, when did going to help a girl who got hurt make you a monster? And I heard you, yelling about a reward! Is that what you guys prize around here, over helping out kids? Money for capturing those different from you?"

Luz stood erect, and stared Ercole down.

"You ought to be ashamed. You're nothing more than a bully."

"Captured?" Ercole laughs. "Oh, piccolina, you misunderstand. There's no reward for capturing sea monsters. There's a reward for killing them!"

Luca, Giulia and Alberto are grateful for the intervention, but just continue to glare at Ercole. They're not surprised by this revelation. This isn't news for them. Some of the people in the crowd look ashamed of their reaction to the boys, others still look like they might be interested in the prize. Ercole, of course, looks just as eager as ever, only seeing Luz as an obstacle.

Ercole continues, "Besides, look at them? If they aren't monsters, then what are they, then? Hm?"

"Killing?"

Well now Luz's Pale Blood is coming into play: she has Eda's staff in hand, her witches' cloak around her, and she's drawn herself up and set a glare at Ercole that would wither cheese.

"You touch them over my dead body. The only monster I see is the big nose baboso in front of me!"

"Really? And what are you going to do to stop me, hm?"

With that, Ercole just tries to shove past Luz to get to the others. He has no problem bullying, beating, and starting fights with kids, but he knows if he straight up harpoons a young girl in front of all the towns folk, he'll definitely be seen as a monster by everyone else, too. He has no problem, though, with trying to get past Luz, attempting to shove her to the ground as he does so.

"Give you the slip!"

And she taps a glyph to the ground, intentionally making his walk space nothing but ice, Let him try to walk up and kill anyone like that!

"Look, all of you. Do you really want to do this? Kill, just because you're scared? Look at Luca: he's got hopes and thoughts and wishes, just like all of you! Would you really want to take that away, HURT HIM, just because he looks different than all of you?"

Ercole lets out a scream as he slips and slides straight into the ground.

"What? How?!" Ercole gibbers as he lays there, bewildered by the sudden ice.

The crowd seems more uncertain. Some seem afraid of Luz now, others seem uncertain they really want to kill a kid, and a couple still seem like they might go for it. The three kids seem to have their own things to say about all of this.

Alberto is the first of them to pipe up, "Hey, only Luca?"

"I don't even know how she knows my name," adds Luca, who, in the context of the memory only has the memories he had at this point in time.

At the same time as all of this is going on, a massive, one armed man is pushing his way through the crowds, before grabbing a harpoon out of the hands of one of the individuals that still looks like he intends to use it.

"Give me that!" the man growls.

Edited 2021-12-11 22:08 (UTC)

Luz sticks his tongue out at the guy. Ha ha.

She looks up apologetically at Alberto. "Sorry. I mean you too, you know. I know he means a lot to you."

Sorry to not include you Alberto, whom Luz knows a fair bit about because of Luca. He seemed pretty nice. Oh, and there's that girl Luca mentioned a few times. She's a cutie, and Luz gave her a small wave before turning her attention back to the crows.

Oh, whoa, who was this cool, one-armed guy? Thanks very much for the assist!

"They want to live, with you all. Is that so wrong?"

"But I still don't know who you are?" Luca says quietly, bewildered.

After all, he's only been on land a few days. He's completely certain he remembers every single human he's met in that time. And now here she is, knowing his name, talking about his hopes and thoughts and wishes, which is nice! He's glad someone's talking the crowd out of killing him! He's just...very, very confused.

After her question to the crowd, Ercole, who has managed to (carefully) get back on his feet, says, "Well, what if we don't want to live with them? Besides, who even are they? To show up here and just move into our town?"

Massimo, the aforementioned massive one armed man, tosses down the harpoon he'd just taken from one of the would be sea monster hunters and moves over to the boys.

"I know who they are," he says, "They are Luca and Alberto, and they are...the winners."

He holds up Alberto's arm, then gestures at the race line. Luca's bike had crossed it, even though Luca and Alberto hadn't realized it themselves. At that point, they weren't even trying to win, hadn't even been in the lead when Ercole had begun to chase them, but sheer adrenaline and fear for their lives had spurred them past everyone else in the race and put them in the lead.

"You will. One day."

Look, you're killing Luz's speech here Luca, shush. She was on a roll, darn it.

But luckily, she doesn't have to continue talking because the cool one-armed guy was able to silence the slimeball by saying their names and declaring them the winners. Luz grinned and started clapping, pretty sure that it was important that they's won, and people joined suit. Ercole glowered while the crowd seemed to benevolently descend on Alberto and Luca. Lux gave them a happy look, then threw up her hood and seemed to melt away from the crowd, so they could go and congratulate the boys.

It was a good memory! All of the people there had seemed like they were deciding on Luca and Alberto, but that they had already halfway made their minds up. Good for them!

It reminded Luz, though, that she'd always make sure she'd have Luca's back, no matter what! She wondered if he knew she was in this memory though.

Luca is still confused by the last cryptic statement, but that confusion is soon wiped away by the excitement of everyone cheering him on. They won the race! They weren't going to be murdered! They could buy a vespa!

And, of course, once Luz fades away the memory will end, as she's seen all she was meant to see.

Aw, look at them! So wholesome. She gave one last mocking sticking out of her tongue to big nose jerk face, and walked out of the memory, smiling pretty happily.

Too bad Luca wasn't actually there to see, or that there wasn't a little more Guliana. She seemed like cool people.

When the memory fades, Luz will find herself back where she was before she touched the Winter Mourning. If she looks for Luca, she'll find him pretty quickly if she looks in the Tower, because he's sitting next to the telescope, reading a book on astronomy.

Luz, who was looking for Luca, found him and immediately gave him a hug.

"You didn't tell me there was some creeper trying to kill you, or that you had a super cute friend besides Alberto! Shame on you!"

Luca returns the hug, even though he's confused about what sparked that. Until Luz said something about Ercole and Giulia.

"Oh. I think I mentioned I knew a human that showed me what a phone was, though."

That's...not quite the same thing as saying he knows a 'super cute friend besides Alberto', though. And he certainly hadn't mentioned Ercole.

"I'm guessing you saw the memory through the Winter Mourning, then?"

By this point, he's seen several instances of people seeing memories by touching those things, so it's the most logical conclusion. Either that, or maybe someone else who had told her about it.

Look, she was worried about him even if it was just a memory recollection. She could definitely relate to feeling the fear of being rejected, and the idea that something bad was going to happen to you and no one would do anything about it.

"'A human' is not the same as describing them at all! You know that adjectives go a long way in visualization, right?"

Maybe she should get a hat like Guliana. It looked pretty nifty.

"Yeah. That was a pretty tense moment. I thought you guys were really in trouble, so I...kinda got involved? Luckily the one-armed guy really saved the day."

"Oh. Right. But I never really paid attention to whether she was cute or not. Just that she's nice! And helpful! And knows a lot about the surface!"

Because he really does like Giulia and value their friendship, there's just something different about his feelings for Giulia compared to his feelings about Alberto.

"Massimo. That's Giulia's dad. He took Alberto in after that, too."

"Of course, you wouldn't! You were experiencing the human world for the first time anyway, right? She happened to be someone to give you answers to those questions. She sounds and looks nice, honestly."

It did seem like Guliana was all about helping Luca out. That was really good of her.

"He seemed like a quiet, but caring guy. I could tell the people in that place respect his opinion. He definitely made the difference being there. After him, you barely needed me!"

Luz knew all about good parental figures.

"Yeah, she is really nice! She even gave me an astronomy textbook!"

Which is honestly the best gift Luca could ask for.

"Well, I mean...of course he made a difference being there. He's the one that stopped us from being killed in the original memory."

After all, while everyone who saw the memory intervened, the truth was, he'd survived it all without them once. But not on his own. He'd have never made it without Massimo.

"Ooh, Astronomy! Space science!"

That had to be pretty cool for someone who had only lived in the sea for a long time.

"I guess he's always going to be the one to save you guys since that's the true memory. Also, I'm willing to bet it meant a lot to you at the time, so you cherish it a lot. I have memories like that too, now."

Heck, she made a few of them in Deerington if she was honest with herself.

"Yep!"

And he loves space science!

"And yeah, it did mean a lot to me. Although...it wasn't really that long ago. That was the day before I showed up here."

Which he feels the need to clarify, since the 'at the time' makes it sound like she thinks it happened a long time ago. Granted, it feels like forever ago, since his life then and now are worlds apart, but in the scheme of things, it's only been a few months.

"Heh, we have to have a few scientists around here who specialize in that! Maybe we can continue those studies there?"

Luz, you need it too, you went to school remember?

"Oh right, right! What am I even talking about? For you that would have happened right before you were here, so it doesn't feel that long!"

Compared to the year it had been since Luz left the Isles and had gone from Deerington and then Trench, which felt WAY too long.

"Oh, I'd love that! I want to learn all about space! And...honestly everything, but space seems pretty amazing! Just knowing there are a bunch of other planets and giant balls of fire out there..."

Luckily, there's a school here, so he can definitely keep learning for as long as he wants to. Which, honestly, will probably be forever.

"Oh yeah, it gets SO much cooler! And keep in mind, there are people here who have TRAVELED into it and seen it up close! Ask Lance or Shiro, they'll tell you a lot! They're both super smart too!"

Hunk was too, but Luz thought of him more as a cooking companion she still had a lot to learn from.

"But of all of us, I think Fern's probably seen some of the wilder stuff."

"I want to ask them everything! I mean, I've never met either one of them, but...isn't Lance that crazy guy I saw ranting on the network?"

After killing Reaper? He's...not sure that's who he'd want to ask.

"I should ask Fern about stuff he's seen, too! I've already asked Dib a bunch of stuff, and he's seen space, too!"

"He's not crazy, trust me. He's just been through a lot. He and Reaper have a...complicated relationship. But yeah, talk to Shiro, he's probably one of the most straight forward guys you'll ever meet!"

They knew plenty, and Luca would want their information.

"Fern's more of a play by ear kind of guy though. You'd probably want someone who's really versed in how all of that stuff actually works."

Ercole is going to get beaten

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