I don't wish to evade the world | OTA

[unsheathedfromreality]

Who: Illarion, Ives, and anyone else sucked into the chaos vortex
What: A yurtwarming party + memories and misadventures (in comments)
When: Whenever
Where: Wherever
Shakira: Shakira

Content Warnings: Will warn per prompt!

November had been a cruel month for all Trench, mired in corruption and sacrifice; December had opened no better with its piercing chill and Sleepers pit one against the other by an ancient and echoing folly. Darkbloods in particular had been afflicted with the compounding feeling of control slipping through their fingers, and even Illarion--whose dead heart was beyond most emotions (so he thought)--couldn't escape the sense that everything was about to go horribly, irrevocably wrong if he didn't rein it in.

So he'd vanished into Trenchwood to get control of his life existence and somehow ended up building a couple of yurts with Ives. Funny, how that worked out.

Forever my home (OTA-ish, with Ives, early January, Trenchwood)
With the start of the year and the advent of the Egg Moon, life (and undeath) is suddenly looking a lot more positive. Once they'd finished their house-building, Illarion noted (and Ives agreed) that there were certain forms to be upheld: They should invite other Sleepers over to visit. Invitations trickled out over Omni and Omen to people they know, informing them of a new Lamp location and offering an opportunity for food, camaraderie, and conversation away from the heated and busy confines of the Snake Den.

The square for their odd little village of two (sometimes three) is where all the action's at, for any who come looking in response to the invitation. The fire pit is the center of attention: Large enough to contain a bonfire, lined with hand-laid stone, and often host to a simmering stewpot with food enough to share. Several logs surround it at a comfortable distance from the heat, allowing ease and conversation. Ives' yurt stands nearby, just large enough to give the Giant a sheltered place to sleep, and a small covered well with attendant pail offers fresh water. The Lamp, and its Lamp Friends (decorated with ribbon for the season), are opposite the fire from the yurt and a little ways into the trees. Discreet incense burners ring the clearing in a faint pall of smoke, with scents of pine and wet moss that pleasantly smooth Trenchwood's harsher odors--and more importantly, keep the beasts away.

A path leads away from the fire, off toward the distant mirror of the Salt Lake, permanently red this month thanks to Moon Presence's... presence. Sleepers with very sharp eyes might make out the mounded shadow of another yurt in that direction.

One or both of the Giant and the shrike might be found hanging around the place if expecting guests. Ives may be tending to a fine vegetable stew, attending to various little maintenance tasks, or simply sitting at his ease by the fire. He's also acquired a pan flute at some point and is looking for any excuse to play it. Illarion's often keeping incense lit, mending gear and cleaning weapons, or when he's in the mood--and that's often, this month--holding forth in story or song to anyone around to listen.

((OOC: Let us know if you want one furry, the other, or both on your tag in!))

Comments

[unsheathedfromreality]

[A quiet, humorless chuckle escapes Illarion at that.] Relatively, then, let us say that I am a more-bad, a worse influence than many. But I am taking your point.

[Iskierka turns her head sharply as Liath folds his wings, keeping her faceted eyes on the other Omen in watchful wariness. For himself, her Sleeper is content to relax his guard against the pegasus. Even were he to get bitten or kicked out of the blue, it's not as if he would suffer much for it.]

I--thank you, again. I was not tricked, as such, [and certainly he'd been ghosting about looking in on others' memories, so turnabout was fair play,] but perhaps was not expecting my devotions to reveal me at such depth.

[He appreciates the decency; it is itself a step toward his trust in the future.

Thancred's next question is far easier to answer.] Here in Trench, as a Sleeper? I could not die permanently did I wish it. Though this aside--

[The word trails off into the whispering silence. That brief sound of sobbing is gone again.] --I do not know I wish it, any longer. There is much that is left undone, that I must do, and I cannot so lightly abandon my post.

[grandtheftperson]

I wouldn't be so sure. There's always ways.

[That they might not be commonly known is another matter. Death did not elude life forever, not even for his kind. And there were very few rumors of people over a dozen decades old, if Trench didn't allow people to die that number would be very different..]

Living merely to accomplish a task isn't much of a life, [Notes the raging hypocrite, who is perfectly content to ignore that fact.] Though of course I can't well counsel you on what you SHOULD be doing with it, but there is more to existing, even ... as prey of necromancers, than mere duty. Is there naught else?

[It suits Thancred's life and Thancred's voice even if it was a dire insult to everything Amaurotine, who lived only to accomplish something and then went gratefully or even eagerly to their eternal rest.]

[unsheathedfromreality]

This is so, that there are being ways. Though perhaps it is not right to seek them. Many of the Sleepers, here, who were in Sodder's nightmare before this place--they are taking comfort in death having no real hold on them, and no great consequences.

[Seeking and finding a permanent death for himself would throw that all in doubt. To say nothing of the specter it raised of Sleepers murdering each other permanently. Beasthood or corruption would provide ample excuses, were the method easy.

Were it not, could it be done in such secrecy that no one would ever know... There is still his duty, even if Thancred quite aptly points out the problem with that.

It gets a wan, reflexive smile out of Illarion.] This is wisdom I would use on anyone not myself, who has said what I do.

[It does him no harm to admit it.

And, with someone who has already seen a hint of the worst of his life, there's no harm to admitting a little more--] I do not know if there is aught else, for us. We have not been at leisure to discover it, back home. And Trench, mm.

[Trench had opportunities he could explore, if he wanted. Chances to reclaim an identity beyond his role as teacher, advocate, guardian, hunter--if he wanted.

"If he wanted" being the key wrinkle, and it is so hard to want something he cannot cast as an objective. Much easier to make the good of others his goal--it had been one already--and work at it with all the focus of one undead.]

I do not think I have given Trench much of a chance. [That didn't mean he will now, but Lahabrea's not the only hypocrite here.]

[grandtheftperson]

[That's something he's going to have to circle back to - Sodder's nightmare. It's not something he'd heard discussed before but it sounded importantly relevant.]

Do you want to? Give it a chance, I mean.

[It's a bit more of a prying question, though it's still carefully steering away from the nightmare that surrounded them, a past he had no place in.]

If I might be so bold, if you are concerned about ...not punishing yourself enough for assumed sins, that may be awaiting you upon returning from whence you have come. Here, is there harm in a reprieve?

[unsheathedfromreality]

[The shrike considers that question in an overlong silence. If he could want something, would he wish to give Trench a chance? It puts the question at an additional philosophical remove, making it all the harder to give it an answer even approaching truthful.

(It's long been his practice to stick to the truth where he can. Among all the other ethical considerations, it also made it harder to cross oneself later.)

Even with the reformulation, the question's intractable, so--he defaults to obligation.]

I do not know "want" enters into it, [he finally says, slow and thoughtful.] If the Waking World has taken me as its own creature, I am expected to make something of my time here. This is what we woke up knowing, not so? In this, I am obliged.

[It's still a task to be accomplished, pathetically. He knows that, and knows, if Thancred's in any way attentive to what's being said, this limitation in the shrike's thinking will be obvious.

So be it.]

But there is no harm in reprieve, no. Or it would not matter, if there were, for I cannot return myself to it. What will be, will be.

[It sounds hollow to his ears. Resigned.

But then resignation had tainted his every action since the moment they're standing in.

Something's finally moving out there in the black, gathering itself and stumbling away through that state more profound than mere darkness. He did survive, after all.]

[grandtheftperson]

[When the Ascian speaks again, his tone is bemused, something mimicked in the thoughtful cant of the pegasus' equine ears and slow flick of silken tail.]

Hm, and what is that 'something' you're to make your time out of, I wonder. Who is your champion here? .. No, your. ... Oh, hells. Your patron. I can't get the word right, it has sounds that aren't really found in my star. What do they do? What do they think you should be doing? If that's why you're here..

[Then perhaps that should be pursued! Whatever that may be, from feral savagery to dancing naked in spring-flower fields, or anything else.]

If 'tis spreading despair and misery then you have great experience in it by my guess. But mayhap they're not so harsh, like Madam Generosity and her winding warm paths in the snow. And even if your task is bringing suffering, then going about your business with a merry heart sees to that task more whole-souled than unwillingly dragging heels, and see your 'something' done sooner and better.

[But Lahabrea's willing to bet it's nothing so dismal. The wolf perhaps, or some patron who favors grim reminders.]