06 . the sleepy town expedition.

[necrolord]

Who: necrolord, Gideon, Harrow, Paul, Kaworu, "Shannon," Mako, Ford, Shiro, Ruby, Luna, Faith, Willow, Ezra, Zhongli, Perell.
What: An intentional family-and-friends roadtrip to a forbidden holy ruin. A less-intentional catacombs adventure.
When: 3/14.
Where: Sleepy Town and the Catacombs.

Content Warnings: Sleepy Town-typical themes of grief, loss, and surreal landscapes. Catacombs-typical horror per the March event. Also, note all the usual warnings of this character.

[ See this doc for info! ]

Comments

[necrolord]

[ Here is the difference between them: she falters, and flusters, and tries with a raw and painful sincerity to say something to him that matters. She peels herself open for the chance that he will catch his reflection in her exposed heart. That it might help him, if he did.

But John knows what he is. That's the sad, old trick of it. No one knows what he is better than he does, bar one person, and she's not even really a person. She's a monster in a box.

He has never needed the mirror; anyone who offers it doesn't really see him, not in his full scope. I have a lot of ghosts is funny because it is blasphemy, full and profound. Against him, against her, against a whole dead and forgotten world. Sometimes he cannot bear Trench for the ways it rubs all three in his face.

He cannot tell her I am every one of my ghosts; I am their sum total; there may be no man left beneath the haunting. She would think he means it like a man and not like a god. She wouldn't comprehend the scale of it. ]

I think it was kind of poignant, actually. [ His smile is a small, sad twist without humor. He has retreated to the other side of that vast chasm between them; on his face, it looks horribly like pity. ] I think you're on to something. There's a power in ghost stories, you know? It matters how we tell it.

Still. [ He is closing off, with the smile and the pity and something cold and faraway behind it all. ] It was a good bit. Rough timing, maybe... but don't beat yourself up on my account.

[forwantofahorse]

[It's only too late that Sayo realizes that she made the exact same mistake that Jessica had, one that chased her to the other side of the abyss that Sasha was fleeing to now.

What rank myopia. Had the Golden Witch, whose core was bitterness, really fallen so far? Into such perverted sentimentality to reflect herself onto everyone else?

But that was always her problem, wasn't it.

Sayo's face falls as The Necromancer tries to keep up the momentum of the bit, not bothering to keep rolling with it.]

...I probably should've learned to stop being so egotistical by now, huh? After everything.

[She can't reach him now, yet she can still apologize for her mistake. He'll know what she means.]

I'm sorry. [There's a difference in quality between that apology and the previous ones that she'd stuttered out in a chain. Those were genuine, but their nature was an intellectual understanding of how she had trespassed, having not known the sacred ground she'd trod upon.

This was wholehearted regret of an error she comprehended all too well.

Sayo considers reaching out one last time... but no, no. That would only go to show one final misunderstanding, one that she could ill afford to make.]

...c'mon. The other team will be back soon.

We need to get the place ready. I'll help.

[An act of service, freely given instead of self-compelled.]