deercountry | o1 . january catchall

( 1. winter mourning; memshare )

[ A human handed it the housing decoration, okay, it's not like SecUnits are known for their arts and crafts. And it definitely did not expect this.

Congrats, Sleeper: you're standing in one of your memories. Is it an embarrassing one? Is it a personal one? Either way, you have company.

And your company looks absolutely floored to be here. ]

Uh.

( 2. cozy coldbloods; enclosed space / body heat )

[ The weather hasn't seemed too bad, lately. Which makes this sudden flurry all the more annoying.

It should have known exploring like this was going to backfire. Sleepy Town is just as eerie as it expected, and it wanted to get out of here before running into the monster that apparently guards this place. But with the storm up and no HubSystem to guide it home (fucking planets), there's no way it should try to cross the wall back into town until visual improves.

This is the least-collapsed of all the dilapidated buildings on this block. It looks like an abandoned human domicile, now thoroughly rotted and halfway smashed by something worryingly big. Whatever. Murderbot sits down heavily in the corner to wait for better weather. ]

( 3. wellness; horror / enclosed space / monster fight )

[ You know which local monster hasn't been too active lately? You know who has just the luck to get dragged into her lair anyway?

Murderbot has very little time to process what's happening, and then it's scrambling for a grip in a shaft of dark water. SecUnits are heavy, what with being more shock-resistant metal than organic components, so treading water isn't a comfortable option. It clings to the slippery stone walls of the well, instead.

A stone rolls into place overhead, and darkness settles. ]

Fuck.

( 4. the things they carried; rescue / monster fight )

Don't move.

[ Hello, stranger. You are suddenly being commanded by a tall, imposing person with readily-visible metal components in their head and arms. Their gaze is fixed on you, and their expression is somewhere between baffled and horrified.

Except Murderbot isn't really looking at you. It's looking at the drops of blood drifting upwards from the snow just in front of you: the sign of something just under the surface. ]

( 5. the things they carried; gore / parasite horror / hurt-comfort / healer or vileblood needed )

[ So.

That went badly.

Murderbot staggers into Lumenwood looking half-dead. It's covered in blood and other, more mysterious fluids, but at least it's no longer actively leaking. That's not the problem. The problem is the glazed, feverish look in its eye, and the odd roiling sensation of infection it doesn't know how to articulate.

There's something inside it, and it needs to get it out. ]

[The scene opens in what may be a distressingly way for Murderbot: a gunshot, and the sound of a body hitting the floor.

A portly old man in a doctor's labcoat topples backward, collapsing onto a blood-slick floor. Most of his skull is caved in from the force of the shot, and a fragment of bone zips past Murderbot and embeds itself in the wall behind it.

Standing over the corpse is a young woman in a gore-spattered maid's uniform with a hollow expression on her face and a Winchester M1984 aimed precisely at where the doctor's head used to be. She lowers it slowly, looking at the gun with what appears to be blank disinterest at first but is in reality all-consuming rage only held in check by soul-rending despair. But the former quickly fades, leaving only the latter.

She gives the doctor's corpse a vicious kick, then one more, and perhaps a third before she hears crying coming from the door leading out of the hallway. That blank expression changes into something mournful as, after hesitating for a few moments, she creeps her way inside, not making a single sound.

A girl with bandages wrapped around her eyes sits under a table, clutching her head and calling for Kanon-kun. The culprit looks down on her with something approaching pity, raises the gun, levels it at her next victim's head...

Then pauses.

She breaks. Her formerly-numb, now-melancholy expression becomes just plain exhausted. Carefully, she lays the gun down on a nearby table, kneels next to the sobbing girl, and in a voice that's totally incongruous with her entire presentation—sounding more like a moody teenage boy than a maid—says:]

"Milady... I am always waiting by your side."

[On the other end of the room is the same person as the one clumsily attempting to calm the girl beneath the table, although Murderbot would be forgiven for not realizing that for a few moments, given the change in outfit to something significantly less bloody and more androgynous in a simple white button down and slacks, as well as the lack of enormous breasts.

Sayo stares down at the scene replaying itself from her memory, not even realizing Murderbot is there as tears fall from her eyes until it makes itself known by clearing its throat.

She looks up, locks eyes with it for an interminable moment... then laughs hollowly.]

Van Dine's Eleventh, [she says, without any explanation. It's clear from just those few words that the voice the memory-Sayo is putting on for Jessica is an affectation, albeit an expertly-crafted one, but the real Sayo's voice is still rough around the edges and exhausted. A little bit deeper than Murderbot would expect by looking at her slight frame, but not by much.]

Edited 2022-01-04 03:22 (UTC)

[Ruby freezes on the command and her eyes glance up at Murderbot but she catches the horror in his eyes and realizes he's not looking directly at her. Her eyes follow his gaze down below and she catches sigh of tentacled creature beneath them.

Instead of looking terrified there's a hint of a smile on her face.]

Woah that's so cool.

Want to kill it?

[It's too cold. His whole body aches. Especially the joints of his arm - the right arm. The one that isn't supposed to hurt at all. He just needs to get out of the cold, out of the wind. Hole up for a minute with his omen until the aches subside.]

[He doesn't realize he's not alone in the empty space, not until the lioness growls, low and humming. It's not a warning. Not a threat. It's the sound meant to alert her human of another presence.]

Hello? [He calls out, pulling the hoodie tighter around himself under the coat.]

Jesus. [Is all she says as she claws herself to the surface of the water and grabs hold of the wall like it's a lifeline. Luckily her knife is still tightly gripped in her hands.

She peers out into the dark. Of course Slayers don't get nightvision, that would just be an immensely useful ability for them to have.]

Hey, where the hell are w – [And then she's being dragged and the fingernails make contact with her skin and her poisonous blood starts to leak.] Motherfucker!

[Jason must just be a magnet for falling into places infested with monsters. He hits the water and mercifully doesn't break any bones. The moment he recovers from the impact he takes in his surroundings. Unease stirs in him. Alone in the dark... He listens hard but he can't hear any of the tell-tale noises of the vampires. Which does nothing to assure him since they could just be off in the distance somewhere.

He hears movement and another voice, saying the thing that is on his mind]

Yeah, what you said.

[He taps at his flashlight until it comes on, letting him get a better look at their surroundings. He turns to shine the light on the stone walls looking for hand-holds. Jason doesn't know where they are but he does know he isn't about to be stuck in a hole again]

Eric had the fuckin' climbing gear. Gotta make do with what we got. You good up there?

[ Oh, great. Now it has to share its shelter with, apparently, hostile planetary fauna and—

Oh. An augmented human? It's actually kind of a relief to find something familiar. It was starting to think every single human on this planet was unaugmented, which would mean the visible metal and lines of light in its own head, neck, and hands would make it awkwardly visible to literally everyone.

That means the fauna is a pet, or a weird smoky nonhuman intelligence like it own drones. It just needs to announce its presence in a clear, nonthreatening manner, so it doesn't provoke the augmented human into overcautious panic. ]

Hey.

[ Nailed it. ]

[ Oh, great. This situation has now gotten distinctly worse, because it includes a human with a knife. At least it's only a knife, and only one human.

Except then something drags the human under the water.

No, really, fuck.

The bloom of Vileblood makes Murderbot's visual input go spotty, which is kind of terrifying because normally that only happens when something hits it really hard in the head. But there's no time to second-guess the plan, which currently amounts to Don't let the hostile keep the human.

Murderbot launches itself off the stone wall. This turns out to be a horrible idea, because, again, SecUnits do not float. But it manages to swing a solid kick into the hostile, which might be enough to jar its grip. ]

[Oh, good, it's another person. Shiro relaxes almost immediately, and so does his Omen. The low warning in her chest turning to a softer, more inquisitive sound. Shiro holds his hands up, palms outward. See? He's not armed - ]

[Okay, he doesn't have a traditional weapon.]

Hey.

Sorry, didn't mean to barge in. Just - needed to get out of the wind for a minute.

[Hopefully it'll be okay to hang out in here for a bit until he warms up.]

[ Murderbot doesn't have access to a MedSystem, so it can't get a good read on the augmented human's medical status. But as they step further into the shelter, it can see the hunch of their shoulders and how they hold their augmented arm in close to their chest. When the augmented human puts their hands up in a nonthreatening gesture, Murderbot is already frowning and thinking hard about severe-temperature exposure.

Until now, the cold had barely registered as a problem. It's operated on shitty little snowy planetoids and badly-terraformed moons. It's been way colder. SecUnits can regulate their own body temperatures, and right now Murderbot is probably giving off heat like a furnace.

But the augmented human shouldn't be out in this. ]

Sure. [ It fumbles awkwardly for something to say, and lands on the obvious: ] I'm just waiting for the weather to stop.

Thanks.

[He decides it's probably best to give them some space. Can't just drop in on a stranger, crowd them, and expect it to go well. So he moves to sit against an opposite wall, shoulders hunched, arms wrapped around himself.]

[His Omen, having made up her mind about the entire situation, promptly crawls into his lap. An entire Lion has just deposited herself on him, so, naturally, Shiro yelps.]

That... that's... great. You're a great help.

[ Wait, is the human actually leaving it alone? This never happens. Maybe it can ignore the unwanted company and just sit here surreptitiously watching stored media files until the storm dies down. It actually sounds like a not-that-sucky way to spend an evening.

Except it can't take its attention off the fauna. The creature is big enough that its threat assessment module won't shut up about it, and Murderbot keeps half an eye on it, half wariness and half concern. This spikes up to full concern when the augmented human yelps, then dims back to a bemused little frown. ]

Is that your Omen?

[ It's only seen one other. The creature had the same number of legs in the same arrangement, but that seems like a weird consistency for... whatever Omens are. ]

Yes. Yes, she is.

[Said in a slightly muffled voice. The slightly muffled voice of a cat owner whose pet has just sat on their face, and they know it absolutely will do that again. Like the pet in question isn't a fully grown lioness.]

[Said Omen just chuffs, proud. Her tongue drags across Shiro's face, spiking up his hair in the process.]

... she's proud of herself.

[ The only other Omen it met talked, and this one doesn't seem inclined to. But the augmented human doesn't seem worried about it, even if it's currently... tasting their face. ]

Does it actually provide heat?

[ There's a beat before it realizes this is a terrible mistake. It probably sounds like Murderbot needs help regulating its temperature, instead of just being... concerned. For a stranger who seemed otherwise content to leave it alone, and that is not a blessing it should look in the mouth. Or however that saying is supposed to go. ]

[ Murderbot looks down, and thinks: well, shit. This is going to be a lot harder with a fragile human in tow.

Having worked a lot of shitty mining operations, Murderbot knows its way around a horrible dark hole in the ground. This is definitely one of those. It frowns down at the light below, and carefully shifts its grip on the stones. ]

I'm fine. Are you injured? [ A beat, and, with an air of resignation: ] Do you have any other equipment on hand?

[If she does talk, the Lion has never ventured the information to her human. Now is no different. With her apparently deciding Shiro's hair needs a wash - something Shiro has no say in.]

Yeah. At least for me, anyway. But...

[He finally pulls his head back, looking at the Omen. Something passes silently between them, and she reluctantly pulls back. It's hard for a lion to look nonthreatening, but, hopefully, the slow pad across the room, and low purr is enough. She doesn't flop on the stranger. But sits close enough to offer her own body heat, if they need.]

[Faith lets out a growl as she gets loose, and with a ridiculous show of strength she grabs the monster by the hair and starts slamming the monster's head into the wall with a vicious crack.] Big fuckin' mistake.

[She can see clearly now, and she raises her knife, intending to slash her throat, but the creature slashes across her face this time and the pain is enough to make Faith lose her footing and stumble back into the shallow parts of the water. She stays standing but she has to punch the creature back into the wall to avoid being mauled.]

You know how we're supposed to kill this thing?!

Edited 2022-01-05 09:24 (UTC)

I'm good.

[Nothing's broken and he's not bleeding-- yet. He does not question the feeling that blood is important. After all, he just spent a lot of time underground with vampires. For the other question, he hefts his backpack and makes a mental checklist of what he has inside. He took out the dynamite when they were all doing inventory of weapons, and even if he hadn't Nick said the shit was unstable. Likely to blow Jason and his new companion up along with their exit.

But then he notices another bag floating in the water. He makes a grab for it-- you work with what you got-- and starts looking for anything in there that might be useful. Nope, nothing that will help them climb out of this hole. Except... Jason's lip twitches a bit as his fingers close in around the tent peg. Never know when you'll need a sharpened stake, he'd said when he had taken it off the dead body]

I got this. Got a knife, too. Maybe we can use 'em to make hand-holds and climb up.

[ It is rumbling in a threatening manner.

But these things are meant to be under the control of their... person, and the augmented human doesn't look worried. Murderbot frowns at the creature with a building edge of alarm, but it drops out when the creature sits down and stays put.

Oh, no. The augmented human is giving up their source of heat out of totally misplaced concern, and Murderbot can't just let that happen. It's too painfully awkward. ]

I'm, uh. I actually— run pretty warm. [ That's a thing, right? Like, objectively it is not a thing, all humans maintain a base temperature within a few standard degrees of each other unless something is dramatically wrong, but it's a thing humans think is a thing. There was this whole episode in Timestream Defenders Orion where the team got trapped on a snow moon, and— ] You can sit closer. If you want.

[ Shit. Shit, shit, shit. It could deploy energy weapons but the odds of friendly fire are too high, the space is too cramped, and also it keeps nearly drowning. ]

Destroy its head!

[ That usually works, anyway. Murderbot manages to get its footing, and grapples for the thing before it can launch itself at the human (human? augmented human? whatever) again. It manages to catch the monster by the hair and then the elbow, and slams it up against the wall to pin it in place.

Which is definitely going to get Murderbot mauled at close range, but that's less important, and it might give the human an opening to deal a blow that matters. ]

[ Oh, no.

Oh, no, why are humans like this? ]

We don't know what it is. Or how long the hostile's reach could be.

I will handle it.

[ Tone of: please let me handle it. ]

[ Okay. So. A lot happens at once.

In one moment, Murderbot is on the street among a throng of humans. One is offering some kind of decoration, and in a moment of stupidity or just a willingness to make this interaction end more quickly, it touches the creepy wreath of bone—

And then there's a gunshot, and gore, and Murderbot throws itself backwards before it can think to. Its threat assessment module is screaming. The human on the ground looks super dead. There's a human with a gun.

The human with the gun is dressed like a character from some really boring historical piece. And from one look at their face, they're what Murderbot would professionally categorize as pretty fucked up right now.

It starts forward, intent on getting the gun away from a rampaging human (why do humans always think AI want to go on murderous rampages when it's always them) before it realizes: it just walked through a table. Through a table. The human with the gun doesn't look up at the startled SecUnit in the room, which is so baffling and suicidal a move it actually stops Murderbot in its tracks.

Nothing here feels... real. It feels like watching media. The sense of distance is the same.

Except for the human watching with it.

Murderbot stares at the newcomer for several flat, baffled beats. It's still off-kilter, frozen half a step into approaching combat, not sure what to do with itself or its posture or its hands. The maybe-real human is still sobbing on the ground, the maybe-real murderer now crouched beside them. Only the person in white seems to genuinely be here, and genuinely be aware of it.

The look on their face also rates as pretty fucked up. ]

What does that mean?

[ It's meant to come out like a harsh demand, not... half-desperate. ]

( 1. snake den; socializing / the rare possibility of cuddles )

[ How the fuck did it get here.

Murderbot finds itself in among its least-favorite situations of all time: it is at a human party. Specifically, it is sitting in a pile of huge soft bedding items, holding a skinny little glass drinking receptacle on a long glass stem, and looking completely out of its element. Someone handed it this drink, and now it has to keep holding it and hoping no one will notice that it refuses to consume any.

Murderbot awkwardly puts the champagne flute down, but its movement causes the pillows to squash around and nearly knock its drink over. With startlingly fast reflexes it snatches the glass up again, still looking kind of mortified that it's here at all.

All it can do is avoid eye contact and wait for this to be over. ]

( 2. wildcard )

[ Hit me! ]

"Servants—such as butlers, footmen, valets, game-keepers, cooks, and the like—must not be chosen by the author as the culprit. This is begging a noble question. It is a too easy solution. It is unsatisfactory, and makes the reader feel that his time has been wasted. The culprit must be a decidedly worth-while person—one that wouldn't ordinarily come under suspicion; for if the crime was the sordid work of a menial, the author would have had no business to embalm it in book-form."

[She enunciates it clearly, with all the theatricality of a practiced orator, but breaks into a hollow cackle afterward. Beneath the table, Past-Sayo is murmuring to Jessica in a voice more suitable for sweet nothings than instructing a blind person how to avoid furniture (both kinds, really). After the laughing dies down, Present-Sayo watches the two of them with a bitter smile on her face.]

One of SS Van Dine's Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories. This scene violates the eleventh item.

...I've always hated Van Dine. Excellent understanding of the form, but knows absolutely nothing of the craft.

Knox, on the other hand? I went to painstaking lengths to follow his commandments. Perhaps I bent a few of them, but if any member of some great heavenly court for murder mysteries wishes to judge me, I think I have enough grounds to plead my case.

[She's rambling, grasping for something, anything to keep herself afloat in the sea of despair that wells up as she watches "Kanon" gently guide Jessica out of the table's shadow. The desperation makes itself clear in her expression and leaks into her voice.]

[Pauline had sometimes fantasized about being able to attend a social engagement incognito, acting as if she was any one of the other Bene Gesserit sisters invariably flitting through the social waters like the ancient predators they are. This wasn't quite how she pictured it, but never mind that - she's not one to miss an opportunity, however it comes to her.

The pleasure of doing what one does well is one of her favorite kinds, so she's in good spirits as she strolls through the celebratory atmosphere, sipping at a tall glass of sparkling alcoholic wine, and she witnesses the startlingly quick recovery of a similar glass with a quirked eyebrow. Well - why not?]

Are you waiting for anyone?

[A small human in a dress stands in front of Murderbot, her tone lightly friendly.]

o1 . january catchall

ARRIVAL.

1. cw: umineko spoilers, gore

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