[002] tell me everything that happened

[themuseabandonsyou]

Who: Orpheus (themuseabandonsyou), Kyle, Bigby, Kassandra, and Michael
What: December 2021 catch-all
When: Throughout December
Where: In memory (the Road to Hell, the Underworld), Cellar Door (a fountain square, a small cafe)
Warnings: drug-like mental effects/mind alteration, dog attack

I. they had lights inside their eyes (cw: drug-like mental effects/mind alteration) (Cellar Door - a fountain square)(closed to Kyle)

It may be a pretty dreary day, even by Trench's standards - a light drizzle of rain falling down on the city streets and the sky gray and overcast, but to Orpheus, the city's never been more beautiful. He turns, slowly, circling around a mostly-empty fountain square as he a sweet little melody he picked up from Fern on his guitar while he dances, as if waltzing with an invisible partner. It's a bit of a sight, dressed as he is in a sharp brown tailcoat and a very strange top-hat, not to mention the fact that he seems to glow slightly, golden-toned as if the afternoon sun was hitting him despite the heavy layer of clouds overhead, but if he knows how much he stands out at the moment he doesn't seem to care. He's having a great time.

"Let me call you sweetheart
I'm in love with you
Let me hear you whisper
That you love me too," he sings, to an audience of crows gathering around the rooftops up above. It's cold and wet, but he sings and dances his way through it without a care in the world.

II. did you see the closing window (Cellar Door, a small cafe)(closed to Bigby)

Well, that was something. Orpheus takes... a few days to recover, from whatever it was that made the world seem so relentlessly bright and beautiful and easy, unsure of how to feel about any of it. In a way he sort of mourns the loss, but he knows by now that being so caught up in dreams like that can make it very, very easy to lose sight of what's real, and important. It's easy to let go (especially when it leaves him with such a tremendous headache in its wake).

Once that's over with, though, he gets back to work. The cafe's owner welcomes him back with open arms, thankfully, despite his multiple sudden disappearances - happier that he's safe and not dead than mad that they had to substitute in another act for him a few times. Once they've negotiated his pay, (as much of the spare food left at the end of the day as he can carry home, which includes, excitingly enough, a basket of oranges they're setting aside for him) he sets up on the little stage in the corner and begins to play.

He sticks to mostly classical pieces, as this particular cafe has a bit of an air of sophistication about it, though he can't help but dip into some light improvisation when his mind starts to wander, a flickering glow of little firefly-lights starting to accumulate like dust motes around him whenever he starts to drift off in his own direction. Ultimately it's not a terribly eventful day, and as the shop starts to close up he steps off the stage to some polite applause from the patrons, smiling and taking a shallow bow. As he slings his guitar over his shoulder and gets ready to go, he glances around the room, looking to see if there's anyone who seems to want to talk to him. It's not too uncommon for someone to have questions for him, or to have something else they'd like to say, and he's more than happy to wait around for that.

III. did you hear the slamming door (cw: dog attack) (The Road to Hell)(closed to Kassandra)

The desert stretches off into infinity all around, no mountains in the distance nor stars above by which to get one's bearings. The only things for miles are a vast expanse of sand, a half-buried set of train tracks, and the occasional telephone pole jutting up out of the ground. Orpheus, bedraggled and dusty and exhausted, treks slowly along the tracks, his guitar slung over his back as he watches his feet. Occasionaly he looks up and around, searching for some sign that he's making progress, but there's none to be had, and he goes back to the endless plodding of putting one foot in front of the other.

He's not sure how long he's been out here. Long enough that the sun should've risen again by now, he thinks? But there's no way of knowing for sure. All he knows is that he's tired, and thirsty, and that he can't stop for anything despite that. He keeps on - looks up again, and this time sees the distant lights of what looks like a city on the horizon. Surprised, he pauses, then steels himself and sets off again, a grim determination settled over him. He sings to himself, quietly, eyes forward.

"Wait for me, I'm coming."

IV. they moved forward, and my heart died (The Underworld)(closed to Michael)

"Young man."

A low and booming voice comes from the balcony above the factory floor, a man silhouetted against the bright light spilling from the open door behind him. Orpheus, standing among the rows of machines with Eurydice next to him, shields his eyes and squints upwards, catching his first glimpse of the Lord of the Dead. Hades watches him with a critical eye, and speaks again.

"I don't think we've met before. You're not from around here, son. I don't know who the hell you are, but I can tell you don't belong. These," and he gestures to the workers at their stations, heads bowed low but watching the proceedings as subtly as they can manage, "are working people, son. Law-abidng citizens. Go back to where you came from - you're on the wrong side of the fence."

Persephone, all in black and looking deeply concerned, strides into the room and surveys the situation, apparently having been summoned by one of the workers. Seeing Orpheus, her eyes widen in surprise, before she sets her jaw and looks up at her husband. "Hades, I know this boy."

"One of the unnemployed."

"His name is Orpheus."

"You stay out of this." Unimpressed, Hades turns back to Orpheus and Eurydice. "You hear me son? You better run!"

All but shaking with exhaustion from his long journey and facing down an unfamiliar and unsympathetic god, Orpheus hesitates only a moment before shaking his head. Alarmed, Eurydice grabs his arm and tries to pull him away.

"No! Orpheus, you should go."

"I'm not going back alone. I came to take her home."

For a moment, Hades seems taken aback. Then, he laughs - a low, bemused chuckle building into a loud bark of disbelief. "Who the hell do you think you are? Who the hell do you think you're talking to? She couldn't go anywhere, even if she wanted to. You're not from around here, son. If you were, then you would know - that everything and everyone in Hadestown, I own."

V. Wildcard

[ ooc: Want to do something with me this month? Let me know at questionableveracity on Plurk or quodVide#2951 on Discord!! ]

Comments

[themuseabandonsyou]

"Oh, I've never been better!" says Orpheus, predictably, twirling in place one last time before drawing his little waltz to a close and turning to face the person talking to him. His expression lights up in recognition with all the enthusiasm of someone seeing an old friend for the first time in years. "I know you! You're - um. Triple J?"

Or at least that's the name this boy used on the network, which... probably isn't his actual name? Come to think of it Orpheus isn't sure he ever caught that, but that's not important right now. He places a hand over the strings of his guitar to still them, the sun-glow accompanying his song fading out.

"It's great to see you! How are you doing? Isn't it a wonderful day out?" Throwing his arms wide for emphasis, he gestures upwards at the extremely gray and cloudy sky, before looking at the other sleeper expectantly.

[kyley_b]

Kyle nods. "Yeah. Uh, my real name's Kyle."

Yup. Orpheus is rolling.

"I mean, I've seen nicer," Kyle sys slowly. He doesn't want to piss all over his parade, but it's hardly a beautiful summer day here. Hell, it's not even a beautiful winter day. It's just grey.

"So, uh. Dude. I gotta ask... did you by any chance click on an attachment sent to you by a screaming troll?"

[themuseabandonsyou]

"That's a nice name," says Orpheus, brightly. It's foreign to his ears, like a lot of peoples' names in this place, but it's still nice. He doesn't seem too terribly fazed by Kyle's lack of enthusiasm over the weather, either, shrugging it off easily.

"It all depends on how you look at it," he says. "But - you mean on the Omni, right? I don't use it very often, but I saw a really weird message all in bright red, and it played really strange high-pitched music when I opened it? And I don't really understand what happened, but everything seems so much brighter now!"

It's like he didn't even know what it was to feel happy, before this. He barely has the words to describe it.

[kyley_b]

"The Omni, yeah." Kyle looks vaguely annoyed, but he can't be TOO angry considering he's partially to blame.

"Right. Of course. And you haven't, uh. Kissed anybody since you opened it, have you?" Because if he had, the goddamn thing could be spreading like the flu.

[themuseabandonsyou]

Orpheus proceeds to be entirely oblivious to any annoyance on Kyle's part, just smiling away in a state of mind-numbing bliss. He does look a little surprised and confused by the question, though.

"Oh, of course not!" he says. "I wouldn't kiss anyone except Eurydice, and she seemed, um. A little confused by all of this?"

To put it mildly.

"So I'm giving her some space while she figures it out. Why, though?"

[kyley_b]

"Okay, great." That's a relief at least.

"Uh, just asking. Okay, soooo. I think maybe we should go inside somewhere warm. It's chilly out, and you're not really dressed for it."

[themuseabandonsyou]

"Okay!" says Orpheus, brightly. "I've been enjoying the day, but if you'd rather be somewhere warmer then that's where I'd rather be too!"

Where his new friend goes, he'll go. He beams, making a theatrical 'after you' gesture, halfway into a bow.

"Lead the way!"

[kyley_b]

Oh boy. This is like being stuck with one of the musical theatre kids from high school.

Kyle leads him to the closest little pub they can find. Kyle just wants someplace that they can sit while he tries to work a way to snap Orpheus out of it before he hurts himself or someone else by accident.

"Okay," he says once they're seated. "How about, uhm... What were you doing when you opened Karkat's stupid message?"

[themuseabandonsyou]

Orpheus thinks about that for a moment as he takes a seat across from Kyle. It feels like a lifetime ago already, despite having been literally this morning.

"Just lying in bed being a sadsack, I think?" he says, dismissively. "I got kind of hurt when a bunch of us got kidnapped last month? So I'd been stuck inside for a while, but I feel fine now!"

He does not. The pain in his sides and along his back where the zealots cut him open is pretty acute, actually. But it's easy to ignore, with everything else going on. He's happy to power through it, if it means he gets to do more than just lie there recovering.

[kyley_b]

Kyle's look sharpens. "You got kidnapped?" he asks, trying to keep his voice neutral. It's hard because all of the spit in his mouth seems to have dried up.

"Uhm. So... if you hadn't bene feeling sad, might you have not read the message? Or if you'd slept in more?"

cw: reference to organ theft/surgical horror/throat injury

[themuseabandonsyou]

Orpheus nods, giving a quick "mhmm!" of affirmation.

"There was this whole tower full of other Sleepers who'd been taken too? I woke up at the bottom of a pile of corpses, and I had all these stitched-up cuts all over me and could barely talk?" He says it all matter-of-factly, the only real sign of any discomfort being the way he touches a hand to his throat gingerly. If anything he seems more vaguely confused by it now, than actually upset. "I think they took something out of me, actually? Besides the blood they were using, for some kind of experiments. But I must not've needed it, because I'm fine now!"

He shrugs, beaming. He's up and walking and only in moderate pain! Everything's fine.

"But probably not, no. Like I said, I don't really use the Omni much? There just wasn't much else to do, so I was reading what everyone else had to say."

cw: reference to organ theft/surgical horror/throat injury

[kyley_b]

Kyle listens, doing his level best not to panic at the description. It hits far, far too close to home and he can feel his skin prickle and his heartrate speed up.

"...yeah. Yeah, they. Take some of the organs. But you lived? You didn't die there?" If Orpheus weren't essentially E'd out f hsi skull, Kyle probably wouldn't ask.

He nods. "Right. So. Hm." He thinks, then nods again. "Okay, I'm going to try something. Just like... hang tight. If this works, we'll never know this happened."

Or so he thinks. He's yet to encounter any kind of time paradox from his experiments. Kyle settles back, his eyes going unfocused as he slows his breathing. Easy. This will be easy. He just has to relax, and look. See the shimmering, unreal surface of time itself.

It doesn't work.

Kyle gives it a few more tries, sitting there in silence that grows gradually more tense. But he can't summon his powers at all. Finally he snorts in irritation. "Fuck."

[themuseabandonsyou]

"Oh, no, Cynthia helped me escape!" he says, brightly. "It's really nice that she's still looking out for us, even if she's different now. Actually, I think she might be happier this way?"

He squints up at the sky, briefly, trying to see if he can spot her, before Kyle mentions that he's about to do something and gets his attention again. Curious, Orpheus watches as he concentrates, cocking his head to the side puppy-like as the boy swears in frustration.

"Did it work?" he asks, assuming the answer is probably no, but ever-hopeful anyway. "What is it you're trying to do?"

[kyley_b]

"Right," Kyle mutters, only half understanding. He has a vague understanding of how the figures from Deerington have moved to Trench, but it's purely academic and he has no real experience with Cynthia at all.

He sighs. "No," he replies, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice and mostly failing. "I was trying to see you in the past and get you to just not open the dumb message. But I can't see you."

[themuseabandonsyou]

Orpheus blinks - he doesn't frown, but his pleasant, slightly vacant smile wavers slightly as he tries to puzzle out what Kyle just said. He can't have heard that right, can he?

"You were... trying to change the past?" That makes that comment about neither of them knowing this had ever happened if he got it right make more sense, but in and of itself it makes very little. "Can you do that? Can anyone?"

There's no skepticism to it, despite Orpheus thinking that even the gods can't go back and undo anyone's mistakes, including their own. It sounds absurd, but why would his new friend say something like that if he didn't think he could do it? So he watches, wide-eyed and a little awestruck even if it didn't actually work.

[kyley_b]

"Yeah." He blows a tuft of curly hair out of his face.

"No, not everyone. Some Darkbloods can. I don't know exactly how it works for other people, but for me it's like..
Seeing some moment, and you can just tweak it if you know the right word? I'm still figuring it out."

[themuseabandonsyou]

“Wow, really? That’s incredible! Astounding! I wouldn’t ever have thought that kind of thing was possible, outside of books.”

And normally he might have some questions about the implications of all that, or be a little pressed over what he would do if he had that kind of power and the responsibility to use it well on his shoulders, but in the haze of candy-coated elation he’s experiencing right now that all kind of falls by the wayside.

“I’m sorry it didn’t work this time, though! But I’m fine, really. Never felt better!”

[kyley_b]

Kyle sighs. "Yeah, you're feeling good NOW. Trust me, in a few hours it's going to suck. I'll stick with you and keep you out of trouble, though."

[themuseabandonsyou]

"Oh? Why do you say that?" asks Orpheus, wide-eyed and curious and apparently not in the least bit concerned. "That's awfully nice of you, though! It's good to have company on days like this. Or any day, really."

He beams at him, clearly very happy with this new friend he's made. "Oh! If you want, I can buy you something hot to drink? Since you said you were cold earlier."

Or he'd made the objective observation that it was cold out, but same thing, really, as far as Orpheus is concerned right now. He's fine with the weather, so this is clearly a Kyle problem.

[kyley_b]

"Because I got infected with the same virus. You're basically rolling on molly right now, dude." He sighs.

"Yeah, sure. That'd be nice."

[themuseabandonsyou]

"It's a virus?" asks Orpheus, blinking at him owlishly. "I don't know what that second part means but - aren't those supposed to make you sick?"

He glances away for a moment to catch a waiter's attention and orders two hot chocolates, handing over a pearl he found on the beach while scavenging a few days ago. It's a bit of a steep price, chocolate and milk both being as rare as they are here in Trench, but why not, right? Kyle's being so nice to him, after all. The waiter brings two steaming mugs and sets them on the table.

[kyley_b]

Kyle nods. "Yeah. And you are kinda sick, you just feel really good right now. Don't worry, you won't like, get hurt or anything."

Kyle beams at the hot chocolate. "Dude, thanks. I owe you one. So, uh, you said your girlfriend doesn't know you're out wandering around right?"

[themuseabandonsyou]

"Oh, okay," says Orpheus. He doesn't sound skeptical, at least, happy to take Kyle's word for it, but he sure doesn't sound concerned either. It's totally possible that he's just entirely failed to absorb the implications.

"Don't worry about it, though! And, no, I don't think my wife knows? She was out scavenging for things to barter, so I went out looking for her!"

He beams, also oblivious to the possibility that Eurydice might really not like it if she comes home to find her injured husband has disappeared suddenly.

[kyley_b]

The crash will come soon enough.

Kyle bites back a sigh. That poor woman was going to have quite a mess to deal with later. He has no idea that Orpheus was injured previously on top of everything else.

Wanna start to wrap this/FTB?

[themuseabandonsyou]

And Orpheus will be entirely unprepared for it! Ha ha! Good times.

"She's the best," he sighs, dreamily, also oblivious to Kyle's exasperation. "I was so worried I'd never see her again when I came here, but then it turned out she was here before me? And now we can spend as much time together as we want! Even in winter here there's enough food and supplies that we don't have to spend all our time working to make ends meet! It's wonderful! I love her, and I love this place for giving me another chance with her."

It sounds like he could keep going like this for a while, left to his own devices.