the hunt is on

[groundrules]

HOUNDS, HOWLING

---

Summary: To the injury of Taravast’s failure to deliver the fee of magical weapons that protects it from undead invasions, add the insult of breaking the mirror that sealed half of rival warlord Anurr’s strength. The undead coalition that takes tribute to preserve Taravast’s freedom sends their herald to remind the citadel the benefits of their alliance.

The Huntress, a horsewoman followed by horrors, rides into Taravast. Until she leaves freely, she must be diverted from lingering in one place and corrupting it.

His powers returned, the warlord Anurr calls the dead of Taravast to him and enshrouds a district in ghastly cold — leading to hostilities with one of the Huntress’ masters, the undead Three. The Beastmaster unleashes his hordes into Taravast to confront Anurr.

Facing creatures of nightmare, characters must reactivate at least two of Taravast’s fortified towers, to reinstate wall defences and deny the Beastmaster’s legions further entry.

Taravast’s sorcerers and nobles gather in shelters that need reinforcement, while humble residents require help to survive.

Feel free to tag into this log or make your own posts!



THE WICKED COLD

CONTENT WARNING: ghosts, suicidal ideation, undead

Undead warlord Anurr regains his missing power, after Five and Winnie break the mirror that absorbed it.

Unseen but heard since his arrival in Taravast, Anurr engulfs the largest, southern residential district in a nearly impenetrable mist of wretched cold, which expands incrementally over time.

■ Temperatures in the district drop sharply, with normal fire quick to perish. Roads drown in snow, while winds howl bitingly.

■ Trapped inside, locals beg characters for deliveries of supplies and for deathless fire from the witches of Bessis.

■ Characters who spend extended periods (>2h) outdoors find their limbs frozen for hours. They hear the voices of those they have failed, encouraging them to end their lives.

■ Anurr calls out to the undead through whispers in the wind that spread through Taravast. Those who have died or come close to death are especially vulnerable to the summons and drawn to the district.

■ Any undead that enter the district fall under Anurr’s command. Necromancers find their control of these dead brutally severed.

■ Anurr cannot be reached over the NPC inbox during this event.

THE HUNTRESS

CONTENT WARNING: undead, ghosts, nudity.

Within days of resurrecting Anurr’s power, characters receive a message from the Merchant:

”She comes! You face the Huntress, scout and emissary to the Three. She is a harbinger, not an executioner. Where she lingers long, sickness and the dead follow. Stone grieves. Life withers. The earth crumbles. Taravast once lost a district to her.

She must not loiter in one place. Fire and sorcery lure her. Run with her on your trail. She will leave of own accord, within days. We do not know which of the Three follows her. If it comes on pale horse, flee Taravast without a parting glance.”
As the merchant foretold, a rider appears in Taravast within hours — an exceptionally beautiful woman, bare but for her long hair, atop a large stallion. She travels at great speed, unarmed and weeps silently, never raising her eyes. Where her steed steps, its hooves crackle ground and sunder grass.

■ The Huntress starts her journey in the healing district, but travels throughout Taravast. She avoids Anurr’s location. The Huntress must be prevented from staying in the same place, or the sicknesses spread by her stallion infect crops and greens, suck the life from nearby residents and crumble stone.

■ The Huntress is distantly pursued by strings of dead she summons awake and by ghostly apparitions — including a monster or monstered adaptation from the home world of existing characters. These creatures stalk and attempt to kill their 'creators' — along with anyone else. Submit a monster here.

■ Meeting the Huntress's gaze pushes characters to relive their deepest tragedy.

■ Any undead in the Huntress’ vicinity join her retinue. Any necromancers or those who have come especially close to dying feel compelled to do the same.

■ The Huntress can be lured on a mad chase with torches, candles, fire or sorcery. Casting magic will especially draw her attention, but simply being highly magically powerful can attract her.

■ Run fast. Her monsters will pursue you. Ideally, work in teams: baits and those opening roads for them, or directing their travel efficiently. Sign up here.
■ The Huntress disappears within three days. Her creatures linger in Taravast another day after. Characters who joined her go free. Any necromanced undead remain forfeit.

SHELTER SOUGHT, SHELTER GAINED

Amid the chaos, Doxe Bonaccorso, Vannozza and Macaluso withdraw to offer sanctuary to the city’s finest in Artes Mundi, the sorcery district defended by the witches of Attaryl and Bessis.

■ The sorcerers undertake 12h-watches to uphold ward walls of the elements (fire, water, stone, air) or pure, crisp energy. These wards repel most infantry but remain partly vulnerable to magic.

■ Refugees vie for scant makeshift sleeping arrangements and camp fires. The tower of the Bessis is ruined, but its twin spire of Attaryl can be explored.

■ Characters can donate their (replenishing) life force or magical energy to the witches to maintain the ward walls, feed and heal refugees, complete services for the gentry or explore the Attaryl tower.

MASTER AND COMMANDED

CONTENT WARNING: xenomorphs, opt-in body horror, parasites

Once the Huntress has fled, one of the Three — oath brothers to the deposed warlord Unhalad, who have conquered most living citadels — enters Taravast. He is the horseless Beastmaster, who stays at Taravast’s periphery to lead in xenormophic creatures: large organic mutations that are surprisingly agile and silent, but weak-sighted. Many hunt in packs.

The Beastmaster’s legion primarily heads to the southern residential district to clash with Anurr. Humans in their path become collateral. While not animals, the Beastmaster’s creatures are living. If killed, they can be necromanced awake.

In all their variations, they are highly nimble and have excellent hearing. Their hard carcasses give them additional, but imperfect, protection from blows and missiles.

■ Evacuate the southern residential district.

■ Avoid the Beastmaster. Undisrupted, his and Anurr’s forces will carry out two days of intense battle.

■ The Bessis witches propose a gambit: given their previous prowess, characters should infiltrate at least two of the abandoned fortified cardinal-point towers at the north, south, west and east of Taravast. Once at the top of the towers, characters must speak passcodes — two towers online will revitalise the wall wards of Taravast, bolstering the sorcery of the witches of Bessis, as they mount the battlements and rain fire down on the Beastmaster’s incoming creatures. Further activated towers bolster the defences.

■ Reach the towers amid the Beastmaster’s legions and go up the spires, which are infected with smaller, semi-humanoid creatures that spring out from the dark to capture prey. They communicate with shrill shrieks and utilise echolocation. Be silent.

■ Those captured in the tower awaken hours later in a web-like cocoon, their limbs and spine starting to contort and develop the sheen and hardened shield-flesh of the creatures. They are vulnerable to light, drawn to humidity and sensitive to sound. If they cocoon extensively, they experience agony as their bones contort, their fingers develop sharp talons, and teeth extend to fangs. They obey the Beastmaster and attack former allies, painfully returning to “normal” within 6-12h of leaving the Tower.

■ Sign up to activate towers. Once active, a tower must be held for two hours, with at least one passcode speaker staying alive throughout, until the witches of Bessis reach their wall positions.

■ If two or more towers are activated, further Beastmaster forces cannot enter Taravast, with the Bessis burning down incomers from the defended walls. The Beastmaster withdraws from Taravast after a violent clash with Anurr. Some of his creatures require hunting down. Anurr also flees Taravast, with the undead under his protection.

■ If two towers are not activated, the event outcome will be covered in another update.

QUESTIONS

Comments

lan wangji | untamed

[downswing]

i. necromantic district | open, bloody hands, dementor

[ The necromantic district, house to each horror, an accident of arrival after ending his dues as bait, then protector of others who took on the mantle.

Lan Wangji prepares himself: cannot linger here. Knows so. They were warned, and the words or prophecy turned true, and he watches each way, reading the crisping shadows between broken pillars and thundered bridge parapets, seeking out the enemy-animal in its hiding places. The Huntress brokered her path in this region extensively, sowed her creatures and harvested the land of its dead — those waiting and them woken, and their screams howls, their crawl a battering of the bones and flesh that friction sunders further in anemic fragments.

They gave her chase from the grounds, but enough of the lady’s infantry loitered. If nothing, Lan Wangji knows this: they wait as he walks with shivers and fevers of fatigue that visits him, overdue. Wait as he calls out the white skin of his sword again, watered in red and the foul odours of gutting. They wait —

And spring forth, pale hands that dig out of rubble in pairs to tear at his calves, shackle his ankles, even as he summons his sword out, silvered, to stab at their knuckles, their spans — and he hisses, when a third pair rises cackling, bound for the knees he stiffens, before he collapses down, his weight flattening their finger bones in a shrill rustle. ]

Fall back.

[ Sound, they say to beware it. The creatures come drawn. He turns his sword on the claws with reedy cuts, careful to avoid toppling stone and unweaving ground, separated from the music the sect holds lethal and sacred. And he neglects —

First, the sullen, molten breeze, charged like summer’s breath before the first storm, heat-breaking.

The silky wisps of veils, dancing the air like midnight dark, for all they barely crowned the twilight hour.

And the ill-formed coils of it, a creature like a shifting tide of fear that clasps Lan Wangji’s nape, a doubt that descends and paralyses, just as a ground-risen hand coaxes his sword of his cold hands, and he breathes, and only breathes, and shrivels before the flickered shape of a Dementor ]

ii. anchor | emilia

[ Better lone wolf and vicious on his feet, efficient between turns and pivots and the starvation of care that trains man — gaze tight and affixed like a wet knot — on his purpose. Better to have neglected the witches’ instruction and set upon the task alone, than to wear the guilt, now, of knowing: he has failed, miserably, and condemns two.

His body — treasured possession of a sect, distant, of a son who may not even be spared the gift of his father’s sword, hot and silvered and blinding, drawn at Lan Wangji’s side to greet and faintly reflect the midday hour. And the woman Emilia, assigned as his accomplice, a finer rider than either of them had anticipated, dependent on Lan Wangji’s guidance and advance.

They prevailed for three hours, between brisk murmurs of instruction, traversing the better part of the healing district with the Huntress in wild chase. A different thing, foreign, to step in a role of mindfulness: to speculate Emilia’s needs of travel and see her path carved out between the foreign architectures of a citadel’s segment, summing knots and intestines of road, proof that Taravast was a young thing and brittle once, and it grew through simple and thoughtless infrastructural addition.

The styles of construction ill match: houses tall and sites of ministry squatting, stone pale and weathered against the decadent golden filigree of fresh-faced establishments. The district lacks harmony, but for the great, reeking equaliser of blood spattered in large, visceral artistry, gore trickling down in thickened clusters. Mere red would make a mockery of carnage: the age of slaughter is in its dark, solidifying nuance.

He had intended to drive Emilia to an intersection of three pathways, to spell the location over the pendant that hangs thick on his chest, like a second heart, beating — to give her space between the narrow veins of two roads, leading in, and a clean third path for withdrawal, once he disrupted the scant few creatures that assembled in an obscene, organic barricade: united at both their ribs and their arms, dark and fleshy things that seemed to have yielded sovereignty of their individual beings to combine, instead, as gateway.

A simple instinct, to cut them through, and sever their union, when they are more lifeless thing than animal. Until they trapped him, drawn to his core, his qi, the magic he exudes in pulses of misplaced strength, cold. He wonders, when the swarm circles, and he looks at wide, unhinged mouths and feels the hot breath of their hunger’s ache, the crawl of their shadow tendrils and the incoming reach of their claws his sword Bichen barely deflects —

He wonders, more fool he, how his voice coagulates still, stale and limpid, in a last transmission over the pendant to Emilia: ]

Ride north-west. [ Far, he need not say, from where his first instructions had originally indicated. Withdraw. ] Leave the healers’ quarters. [ And he swallows, fends the dive of a creature half-man, half-spider — ] Return my sword to my son.

iii. bait | sansa

[ Waiting between the chasm of downed effigies and the yawn of blind, deaf or tortured creatures, bodies part rot and what lingers on the bone, dark and small and humble — animated.

He does not ask himself if the beasts know the agony of their backs bent to angles no healthy anatomy can prevail upon, however great the artifice. Beneath their jaws, glistened trickles of sun-kissed sulphur no more thick-blooded than lamp oil, but sizzling hot when it eases down to cascade and pool on open ground. Some wear the glory of their fangs like long rakes scratching hard ground for death’s long harvest, others trail claws with better heft and clutch than their stubbed hands.

It must ache, surely, to live so distorted, amorphous flesh bound and knotted in braids over instincts predatory &mdah; and it festers and infects and spreads like sickness that sings Lan Wangji’s own skin awake, pebbled and curdled under a sheen of ignoble sweat, fairly won from the chase of it all, the obfuscation.

Two hours into the hunt, and he the moment's quarry — the horse he had commissioned first, abandoned some ways past, when the narrowing thinness of the corridors corseted too small and fickle to grant him passage. Better to spare the animal, released back to the frenzy of its stride southbound, where the beasts did not seem to agglomerate. Where it may hope to reach a stable or the sorcerers’ district and common refuge with its limbs intact and only the swollen madness of the day blinding its lifespan.

The run has worn him like whipping, stranded him in the deceiving midst of an emptied piazza — between, he suspects, the healing district and the neighbouring necromantic vicinities. He listens out in the distance, where the trot of hooves might be the lady summoning her pursuers in rally, or her host whole, each more monstrous — and a stillness descends in him, feeds him to calm, spurs him to stoke the ebb and flow of his qi outward, wrenched from the greed of its instincts to focus on nurture and replenishment. Later, when his duty is done, later we heal.

Dusk settles down, rusted. He feels himself a half-finished mould of the red spilled at each step of road carnage. And he honours their arrangement: recall, every tenth of a shi, to speak in his pendant, to alert the girl &mash; and how have they come to this, whittled so, reduced to weaponizing children — Alayne of his whereabouts, his safety. Does so now: ]

South-west of the healing district. Pursued the path suggested.

iv. southern tower | open, xenomorphs

[ Light, blight and holy. And his name of civility, born. The southern tower is a sibilant inevitability. Tugged, red string nooses his neck, styles the pick of his destination fated.

He goes at disadvantage: late, delayed by early chases, skin walked and crawled by the hot-ion air of sorcery and horror, the sublimated grease of blood and flesh’s fat, burned. To walk the city between hordes of animals, feasting, is to drench in dregs, to marinate in disaster.

They have no graves. Later, it will haunt him: so many dead, and no kindness hoped for their burial.

At Taravast’s periphery, the tower is a stout, mean growth, grotesque for the stubbornness of its survival. Burned at the lowest ground, and the blunt nails of Lan Wangji’s idle hand peels away skin of crust and powdered embers of its gates here, when he sets cloying wards on passage doors that creak and nearly grind to motes. A foolish thing: strength spoiled, rites desecrated. He doubts his wards here will keep.

Inside: humidity and lichens, no ruin, but the tower quarters grieving a watchman’s idle hand. Tapestries savaged and torn, frayed ends a wet knot netting his feet. Lamp oil and water flooding the floors, stench briny. Walls thick and dark and looming, groaning under bouquets of scratches.

Silence disrupts expectation, tempers glass. He had assumed, if the towers surrendered to the creatures, then they would be —

...present, as a second heartbeat, within the keep. He hears them, step easy, when he slows to a treacle, when his breath dilutes itself, and he sets the white light of his sword at his side, and his ear greedy against the first rising of blunt-cut stone, and what greets him is — a cacophony of timed, organic sound. Not in the halls, not crowding the passages: inside the walls, slipped in at some dark turn that Lan Wangji, tattered trinket and senses raw after the day’s excursions, cannot investigate.

They sleep in the walls, then. The ceilings, all gash and mounted dark, are too distant to tell whether they hide limbs or sculpted protrusions. When the stairs open up, he pivots, draws his blade to blitz by —

And stumbles, pushed back and down by a barreling, cold waft of incoming momentum. The creature launches down upon him, and its kin and kind wake with sharp, clenching teeth and the shrill hissed trill of their strange tongue, their anger pulsing —

Lan Wangji raises his sword to shield himself, and he cannot say if the smear of shadow behind him is man or creature, but he accepts the gamble: ]

Climb, the corridors are too narrow to suit them.

[ He sees, now, gaze torn between the rotting stench of the creature’s great mouth bearing down to wail over him, and the proud length of the corridors, what prevented them from conquering the levels above, keeping them at low ground: the stairs are too slim to fit their bodies, the escapeways narrow.

Light and blight, and nothing here, holy. But good men, at least, may run. ]

( ooc: drop me a line here, if you want a custom starter, wooooo. I'm so sorry for this tl;dr )

i - dementor you say

[reparo]

[However long the Huntress and her hoarde lingers in a district, illness and death follow swiftly. So the plan, however hasty, is for now simple: chase her out.

Up until now, Hermione has not had the pleasure of an encounter with the naked horse-riding lady, and that's likely a good thing. She's found herself alone, running down familiar and unfamiliar streets, Taravast turned into a labyrinth; her breath comes out visibly in the cold air, and the grip she has on her wand is stubborn, at this point.

The bag she charmed to fit the bundled up blankets for the citizens of Taravast that cannot run, it is nearly empty at this point. Long gone are the days of samaritan work: again, now, it is war.

Everything is unfamiliar, until very suddenly, it isn't. The joy gets pulled out of her, a memory of Bellatrix's cackle as she aimed the same wand now in Hermione's hand. Before the memory of Bellatrix utters crucio, ahead on the street she sees it.]

Oh...fuck. [The curse slips, but it chases her bad memories away. Her heart is in her throat now - how is a Dementor here, why is a Dementor here? - but she springs forward into action.

Wand aimed, voice steady and booming, she pulls from memory - her mother's Christmas cookies, her father's laughter, receiving her prefect badge, Harry not being dead -]

EXPECTO PATRONUM!

[She hasn't done this spell in as long as she's been here, but her Patronus is still corporeal, thank god. Bright blue light turns into an otter, whizzing through the air at the Dementor; the creature produces an inhuman screech, and floats off, runs, injured and angry.

Her Patronus lingers, floating above the hunched person on the ground.]

ii.

[valeas]

( The thestral yields.

Perhaps the horse sensed that Emilia di Carlo has not only seen death, but wed it, and still remains. Its leathery wings remind her of a different beast, and a different time. Enormous gates crafted from bone and this leather, an obsidian throne room, some vengeance promised. And she, unconquered.

Today, her body recalls that feeling. Recalls what her mind keeps failing to: the promise of safety and power at her own hand. A different mission. It stirs and demands of her, deep in the blood, and she does not turn away. Leans in to what she was created for, until guardian and horse hurtle over tenuous ground.

Every conversation between herself and Lan Wangji before now, it turns out, was practice. She follows his instruction and her own raging instincts, tearing through the uneven patchwork of the healing district with him steadfast at her ear and the Huntress at her back. The Huntress spreads sorrow. And Emilia, her fury.

She gallops toward the intersection at Lan Wangji's behest. Her unbound hair lost all orange blossoms long before they began. In their place, clusters of burning flowers throughout locks that do not singe. Gold flames hover high above her head as if to mirror them, burning bright and taunting —

Ride north-west. The change in directive is enough to bring her to an abrupt stop, hooves digging brutal into the dirt. The mention of his son is felt swift and just as hard, her stomach sinking. A quick assessment gives way to understanding, and for the first time today, Emilia disregards her anchor. Not out of reckless sentimentality, but calculating certainty. She can save them both. Her heart beats like a war drum, and agrees.

The thestral unfurls its skeletal wings, flying its rider full force toward Lan Wangji as opposed to away. Several of the flaming orbs hovering above Emilia are sent right at the creatures she has within sight. Her thighs tighten around the horse and it plunges them back down to the earth, though not to a complete stop.

Wordlessly, Emilia sticks out her hand to Lan Wangji. He will return the sword himself. )

iv.

[somebadnews]

[ Five has been running near empty for a while now, but he's got enough of a conscience to know when it's his responsibility to fix something. Especially when that something threatens to take his entire family down. When he hears about the towers, he knows he can probably get them activated better than people who don't have a natural ability to blink into possibly-guarded areas and get back out before they're attacked.

And even when he's not at his best, he's still exceptional at killing things. He's only left with a dagger in his hand to fend off whatever he comes across, but he's confident that he can find something else along the way. The instructions they were given seemed simple enough, and he doesn't ask for help before he heads inside.

So of course Lan Wangji is there waiting to greet him. He hadn't noticed when Five teleported behind him, and he doesn't think he knows who he's addressing when he responds while fending off an attack. ]

Is that your whole plan?

[ Five looks up and around them, noting what's around them and calculating the jump. He could get them there. ]

hermione granger (harry potter)

[reparo]

the wicked cold - a few days; open to YOU whoever you are (2 options)

[reparo]

[If she hates one thing in this world with a passion, it's a bad grade Voldemort people who make noise when they stir sugar into their tea injustice.

There are people, living people, down in the residential district that are suffering from this cold. People who have reached out to her, as the apparent seamstress, begging for scraps of fabric that they can use to fight the cold. Meanwhile, the nobles fled into the richer districts, and left them behind.

Seething, but efficient and quick, Hermione's transfigured every roll of fabric in her room into blankets. Dressed in her jeans, a woolen robe thing, and a cloak on top, she's made her way outside.]

a. [The first day, she takes the route on foot, because she does not know this place well enough. The principles of Apparition require her to know her destination, or risk splinching - the last thing she needs in this place, honestly. It's cold, hard work, and in spite of the warming charm on her shoes and her cloak, her nose is red soon, her eyelashes white from frost soon.

She should get inside, but see, she dropped two blankets off in the first house, and with a glance over her shoulder for caution, she moves to the next.]

b. [After, after the first near frosts, she's memorised the streets enough to apparate. The street will be empty at one point, and in the next the air will shift and with a suddenness, Hermione will be standing there, appearing out of thin air.

It wears on her every time, so at this point her reflexes are dulled a little, but she still spots the person nearby, who turned to look as she apparated. At this point, luckily, she's stopped caring about being caught performing feats of magic, so she just lifts her finger to her lips and indicates:]

Shh.

[And listens for any undead.]

the huntress - multiple options & monsters :)

[reparo]

1. dementor (& ally; open to one)

[She doesn't know what possesses her to say she'll act as bait to draw the Huntress and her forces out of the city. Maybe she saw how the creatures chased the flames and magic, maybe she put two and two together, maybe she just really wants to help? Or maybe she has endless supplies of pent-up anger to vent out, and running into battle (again).

She's not surprised to find a Dementor this time, not really. There is no time. She turns to the other person running with her, lips pressed together, and nods.]

Let me handle this one - I've met them before.

2. dementor (rescue; open to more)

[The longer she uses the Patronus, the easier it feels. To control the spell, to control the wand, to wield it, and most importantly to drag up happy memories for it. Having spotted two Dementors in Taravast already, she has decided to turn into some form of a hunter for them, armed with the one way to defeat them - or at least to chase them off the unsuspecting victims.

Like that one, straight ahead. She aims, shouts:] Expecto Patronum! [And a blue otter shoots out of the tip of her wand, translucent and bright, and corporeal, swimming through thin air to chase the Dementor away.

With some luck, she still has chocolate.] Don't get up too fast, they make you dizzy.

3. thestral (open to one)

[She practically stumbles into them. Their anchor has spotted activity in this corner of the district, of some sort of a haunting, locals running screaming, and Hermione's followed the trail.

They practically stumble into them. Four horses, black and skelatal with black wings, preocupied with sniffing and eating something - the carcass of some long dead animal, maybe - not yet noticing they have company.

For a moment, Hermione stands there, wrecked.] Thestrals... [She turns to her ally, throat tight.] They're - from my world, too. I - can you see them? Don't make a sudden movement.

4. bring your own prompt

[Hey, sup. (plot here)]

wrath | kingdom of the wicked | open

[inferus]

( cw: for lots of monster violence in the last prompt. )

Cold

A perfectly tailored demon moves across the snow with ease, seemingly unaffected by the ice and wind that surround him. He moves through it as if it does not slow him down, seeking answers, seeking any that have gotten lost.

Mortals do so often get into trouble especially those within this Group.

Huntress (before)

Wrath would like to unleash all his pent-up tension on the monsters he hears have been brought with the Huntress. However, he feels it like poison seeping into his veins- worse than poison. The Huntress is like Death itself, and he has been called Death before (introduced himself as such). She calls to him, and he fights it off for the first day. He is one of the Wicked, a Prince of Hell. It will not claim him.

But there are moments where he is in a daze, unaware of his- unaware, moving without realizing he is moving towards it through the city, toward the Huntress.

Eventually, he is stopped. Emilia stops him when he nearly made it to the Huntress with all her power and her own fury (as if this means freedom from the curse, but he knows it's more complicated than that). He is sometimes bound to her, sometimes shackled in a room as he fights with all his ancient willpower against the compulsion to follow.

He'll need guards, need people who can... try to stop him or contact those who can.

Huntress (after)

On the final day, Wrath regains control over himself again- no more mind control, no more choices ripped from him. His rage that has built up over three days of fighting this compulsion explodes. He becomes the beast he ordinarily keeps on a leash, making his way through the district with inhuman speed, sharp blade in hand. Rage radiates out from him affecting anyone near. Bloodlust overcomes him, and he takes joy in tearing monsters apart limb from limb and watching their blood spill over him and onto the street. His grin is wicked as the blood sprays up against his face. Shadows follow and swarm and surround him, rising up from him and following like a flood as he moves through the streets like his namesake sin incarnate.

When he finds his hellhound, his puppy at the end of the final day, they become a team, annihilating every monster in their path. His swiftness makes him difficult to track, and the hellhound tears apart any foe that gets close.

Wrath reaches out, quaking the ground beneath him with the power of his magic, bringing some wreckage on monsters who cannot be defeated otherwise so he traps them instead. Other people near will feel the tremors. He charges forward with the horse-sized, three-headed hellhound at his side, tearing into anything that remains, jumping in front of monsters about to give their final blows to those within the Group.

They stand on top of monster corpses in the end. The puppy feasts on limbs Wrath tosses its way with a brutal, furious look in his eyes. But something calmer, too. The immediate and unbridled rage has passed, the beast contained once more.

Cold- cw: suicide ideation

[bearshermark]

He's lost count how many doors he's gone to in service of those beseeching warmth and protection. It's after leaving one such house that he feels his strength ebbing, leeched by the cold and slowing his steps until they stop altogether.

Eleven shivers and slumps against a wall in a narrow alley, eyes losing focus as whispers invade his mind. A thousand souls cry out, but among the cacophony of riotous accusations, one word stands out, a ceaseless echo:

Darkspawn.

Rationally, he knows he's been outside too long. His toes and fingers are beginning to numb as the familiar, biting cold overtakes his flashfire of internal energy. He should get inside- move for the next house then keep going. But his limbs are loathe to move. And maybe it's only right that he freezes here, to sink to his knees in the snow and let the cold take him.

in the huntress' wake

[downswing]

A man like a fury, a storm broken. Familiar in his geometries and contortions, the purity of flesh moulded to human fit. Wrath, Lan Wangji names him from the one eerie night, weeks now passed, when accident and contrivance and a wealth of embarrassment paid his passage into Emilia's quarters, Jiang Wanyin crass in his footsteps. Wrath, a strong and shuddering mass, fangs bared, no better than the hound he feeds now jubilantly with deep-stained hands — and but for the animal, Lan Wangji might mistake him for Wei Ying, driving the rapid vicissitudes of Sunshot war, when they nipped at his heels and he showed them his fangs, turning. Wrath, worthy of his name.

( And how there is something aged in Lan Wangji, shrivelled and tired. How he knows tyrants by the depth of their step and the steel of their spine, how he looks upon them and finds the round-moaned cacophony of the carnage that shrouds them wanting. )

There is a moment, after shrieks that rupture lungs, of indecision before silence germinates. A heartbeat, where the world must determine painfully if it will tolerate slaughter. In this district — a cross, Lan Wangji suspects, of the merchant's roads leading to the gaping ports — Wrath has led hours of these gasped seconds. Granite glistens with red, wept. The dark ebbs to give modest cover to rubble that quickens under Lan Wangji's step, nearly tripping him — ricochets, then drowns in puddles of animal bile. He does not stay himself, until he is within the reach of Wrath, the scenting of his dog. Entombs his sword in her scabbard, fair Bichen filthied with every manner of matter, the blood toll paid for her draw.

Better, he recalls, to come to rabid things empty-handed — a penitent, a beggar, a fool. Better to droop his shoulders just so, to yield battles unfought, to reduce himself — the shreds of a threat, palatable. Insignificant. Once an enemy is acknowledged, it must be annulled. Wei Ying taught him so, once. Come, if Lan Wangji comes at all, with a bare and waiting throat.

"You've won." A simple thing, winning. Red-anointed. To capture and keep the spoils. "May I play for you? To ease the hour."

To dispel all the blood hate coiling around Wrath, or to shallow its waters.

after

[somebadnews]

Five saw him. Once earlier, when he was frantically searching for his siblings and he seemed to be in a trance before he lost track of him in the snow. Then nothing again for days, when Five is so exhausted can barely keep from falling as he's making his way down a strangely quiet street. Pieces of monsters are littered around him and he finds Wrath there in the middle of all of it with a giant three-headed dog.

Evidently he hadn't simply missed one. The dog, or dogs, seem to be entirely under his control. The two of them covered in blood, not that Five is all that clean himself. For a moment he doesn't say anything. Only eventually, tense and still keeping his distance.

"Is that one yours?" He sounds tired. He must be, if even a hell-dog barely phases him.

before.

[valeas]

A small garden's worth of rose-gold flowers burn high above Emilia and serve as torchlight in the darkened evening. Where a horse might have long spooked by the wild flames that she carries ever higher, the thestral appreciates ferocity. Despite its dragon-like features and the sharp fangs it wields, the winged creature offers nothing but aid to her rider for hours.

Clever and loyal, the thestral is quick to learn what some words mean. Turn, up, down. They remain low enough in the air that Emilia can plummet back to the ground if need be, and high enough that she can appreciate a view of the district from an elevated vantage point. This is all familiar to Emilia: blood remembers, even when she does not.

Her awareness of Wrath too, intensified by talisman and marriage bond and long suppressed memories, alerts her of the danger at once. Because she's just finished giving the Huntress chase, Emilia is close enough to catch sight of him approaching the damsel and what is left of her retinue. Her lip peels back in half-snarl, fingers curling into the thestral's mane to veer them off course once more.

There's no refinement to it, too abrupt and rough to leave room for grace. Emilia leans forward in her seat to prepare for the sharp drop-off, hooves colliding with dirt as she places herself directly between Wrath and the lure of Death.

The Huntress will not have him. Not if she's anything to say about it.

eleven | dragon quest xi

[bearshermark]

1. Southern District- Cold

[The spell is holding, for all the good it's doing him. Hand clasped in prayer, a ring of runic light holds a handful of grotesque spider-looking heads at bay. They skitter along the edges of it as though waiting for the magic to fail- as though knowing it will- and use that moment to seize the first opportunity to launch themselves at him.

Eleven grits his teeth and weighs his options. Already knows he won't manage another spell before they're upon him. His swords could take care of them without too much trouble, but he'll need to have time enough to draw them first]


2. Evacuation- Mansion Safehouse

It was a beautiful, private home, though swiftly abandoned as its owner sought refuge with the other noblemen and sorcerers. Chosen for its comparatively small number of windows and entry points in addition to a fair bit of space, trickles of refugees from the southern district were escorted inside to an abundance of warmth and relative safety.

Food and linens being the currency of the moment found themselves distributed among civilians and 'borrowed' from neighboring properties that had also been abandoned where the supply ran dry.

Eleven treated the wounded in the main hall, then walked in idle moments when the injuries were minor enough to clean, bandage, and set to rest.

He drew up a smile for those working to help or else might look out of sorts.

"Do you need help with anything?"


3. Northern Tower

Just the look of it was off-putting- dark and looming. Under normal circumstances, Eleven would heed to that feeling of unease, but as was often the case, needs must.

His skin crawled in the semi-darkness. The fire held in his hand didn't illuminate much, and the way the shadows danced in a mockery of human figures was almost worse than the dark. The creatures, such as they were, seemed to sleep for the first two floors ventured, behooving silence.

But the first cry when it came, awoke shrieking chaos.


4. Wildcard

[ooc: as always, any prompts adjacent to these are perfectly welcome! or plotting comment is here if you'd like to suggest something else. of course, blanket permission for anything we might already have spoken about in some capacity. any format is fine, happy to adapt!]

2

[elfuego]

Zuko had made several trips into the frozen part of town, delivering the fire from the Bessis tower. Bending it had felt weird, but he was glad that he could lend his energies to the flame and spread it around made all the difference for the families he was taking it to.

It had made the difference here in this house too. Zuko could see it on everyone's faces when he used the flames from the lantern he'd been given to carry to light the large hearth in what he guessed was supposed to be a ballroom. Now it served the shivering residents of Taravast's overrun southern district, and they huddled around the fire, trying to shut out the cold.

Carrying the empty lantern away from the fireplace he looked toward Eleven when he approached and hook his head. "They're good in here. Cold, but better than they would have been."

Zuko exhaled a breath, warming himself up beneath the heavy coat he'd taken from one of the houses they had gone through for supplies.

"I'll go back out soon, once I'm warmed up again. How are you? Need a break?" He was no healer, but Zuko could apply a bandage, and he would stand watch over the injured if El needed a break.

zuko (atla)

[elfuego]

1. The wicked cold (open, cw for suicidal ideation)

”Prince Zuko”.

He knew his uncle wasn’t here, no matter how many times he wished for the opposite - but every time he heard Iroh’s voice there was a stab of shame that pierced him, and his uncle had been calling for what seemed like forever.

It felt like any moment he’d round a corner, and there Uncle would be, his kind expression hardened by anger and resentment that Zuko knew he deserved. Zuko would fall to his knees like he knew he should, close his eyes, and just let the cold win.

It was what he deserved - he had made so many mistakes. It was stupid to think his uncle would consider forgiving him. Zuko could right all the wrongs of the Fire Nation, of the whole world, and in that moment - the gnawing bite of the wind colder than anything he had ever felt before - Zuko believed it would never be enough reason for Iroh to forgive him.

That shame would eat him alive in time, so what was the point of trying? He had misjudged nearly everything in his life up to this point, was he even fit to make an effort?

The controlled breaths that had been keeping him warm became shallow as his steps seemed to lose their muster and whittle down to a slow, defeated trudge.

2. The huntress (open)

[ That crying naked woman kept some terrible company, and Zuko was doing his best to outrun what he was pretty sure was a swatch of bleeding hands that came up from the streets and glid along like waterbenders on the ice.

They had been sliding through the streets like a ghoulish group of sharks when they veered suddenly in his direction. He sent out a blast of fire to cover his retreat before taking off down another street.

He turned swiftly trying to run backward as he thrust his fist in the air in front of him, sending another ball of flame at the hands. While a few were hit, one skirted forward quickly, putting on a burst of speed, catching up with him enough to grab his boot and bring him down. ]

3. The bait (for alayne)

“It sounds like the world is ending behind me,” he sounded tired but still alert, speaking into his pendant as he charged up the street, the galloping noise of the Huntress’s horse frighteningly close.

Without waiting for Alayne’s reply he cut to the right down a short alleyway and scurried up the side of a building, finding handholds where he could until he reached the roof, the cobblestone streets below him quaking under the rush of The Huntress and her terrible entourage.

“Alayne? Can you see me?” Knowing it would catch the eye of the Huntress and her creatures he sent a wide arc of flame in the air before sprinting for the edge of the roof he stood on, leaping for the one on the next house over, small jets of flame coming out of his heels briefly - enough to push him into the air and give him the height he needed to make it onto the roof in front of him, and the one beyond it. He was bending wildly as he ran, unable to see where he would land when he ran out of roofs and had to go down again.

“Tell me where to get back on the street.”

4.Fire in the east (the eastern tower)

[ That the tower was burning, was an advantage in Zuko’s eyes - it meant that when he swept his arms out and drew them back towards his body, looking as though he were trying to direct an invisible wave. The flames at the base of the tower responded instantly, pulling away from the building to blaze their way towards him.

The xenomorphs were alerted, sure, but he and the rest who had come to take back the Eastern Tower stood back and uphill enough to have the advantage. Those things could hear everything, stealth was never going to be the card he chose to play.

Fire, on the other hand - was something he knew he could work with.

The flames of the tower solidified and surged, becoming a wall of fire sweeping towards the creatures from behind them, solid and collected, leaving nothing behind it as it burned its way from the base of the tower, cutting fast along the ground, on the verge of overtaking the beasts as they scurried forward with their terrible speed.

It would bowl enough of them over to buy the others who had come to the tower time. ]

5. wildcard

[ something else? get at me in the plotting post and let’s think up something awesome to get up to. and as always i am good to match format! ]

4. fire in the east

[in_theworks]

[while Wrench can put two and two together and guess that the guy making the bizarre hand gestures is probably controlling the fire, he still can't help but call -- ] Please tell me that's you and this place hasn't decided to, like, dump fire elementals or whatever on us, on top of everything else!

[he's too tired to deal with fire elementals, and the mask he's wearing flashes a bright (¬_¬) to convey that]

The Doctor | Doctor Who

[funnylittleclown]

The Wicked Cold - OTA

It was snowing, light at first but after a few hours the snow seemed to drop down in mounds rather than as single flakes. But the small group trudged on regardless. They carried with them the supplies requested by those poor villagers trapped out in this abominable cold and a burning flame of an inextinguishable fire.

One of the number stepped towards the nearest door and rapped on it a good few times with his knuckle until it opened for him.

"Hello," The Doctor spoke cheerily, "We've brought some supplies and things for you and your family. If we could just come in briefly we could drop them o--..."

The home owner squinted into the gloom but instead of inviting them inside he paled and shook his head as quickly as if death himself were standing outside.

"No! Sir! We don't need anything! Please...!"

And the door closed so swiftly it very nearly took the Doctor's nose off. He was left to sigh into the wood before moving back to the rest of the group.

"You had better take this one I think. The rumors about me seemed to have made it out here before I did."


Macra - OTA

There was very little light in the alleyways and the air grew thick with foul smelling purification, so much so that anyone passing through here needed to shield their mouth and nose from it.

Far better to turn around than to try and proceed ahead, or so the Doctor thought as he did just that. Wheeling on his heels he took a step toward the clearer air he had just come from he heard it. A distinctive skitter, like nails on a desk just tapping away, only this was coming from the buildings around them. There were five in total and their glowing eyes grew ever nearer until he was hopelessly surrounded. A giant claw lashed out from the shadows only just missing it's target when the Doctor dropped to the ground.

"It can't be... Macra!"


Anchor - OTA

It was like an odd game of hide and seek... only if you lost an entire city block was sucked entirely dry of all it's life and poisoned with sickness. Fun. He would rather be playing tiddlywinks.

The Doctor frowned from his vantage point above the main artery of the street before plucking his recorder from his pocket and setting it up to his eye like it might just act as a telescope to give him a better view of what was going on down below. And perhaps it did for after a while he began to see the first signs of the approaching horde. The Huntress rode at the head of the pack now as the hooves of her steed far outpaced those of the undead army that followed her. Only those ghostly Dementors with their ability to fly seemed to be able to keep up with the lady and her steed.

"Nearly there..."

The Doctor spoke into one of the communicators, directing the poor person playing Bait to this evil horde.

"You will need to turn right when you run past the bakers."

That had been the plan; A right turn and the group could set a signal fire further away to draw her right back the way she had come, only when he checked again...

"No! Wait! You'll have to go left! The Dementors have gotten ahead of you!"

Wildcard - Bring your own plot - OTA

wicked cold

[downswing]

A... frosty reception, crowned with snow, flickered and frail and breaking when it dances the rim of Lan Wangji's lashes, like an extravagance of broderie. He blinks, and the wind remembers this one, lone moment to quiver them, whispers of dead and the living estranged catching in his ear, crawling, but lingering indecipherable — not yet an hour into their arrival, there is time, he knows, there is time before the cold takes roots a man's idle hands cannot savage free of his heart's soils.

They put that time to service: the doctor, sharing blankets, dried foods. Lan Wangji, holding vigil.

The door slams shut before them, creaks. The hinges, Lan Wangji notes with absent interest, glisten dark in the way of iron poorly crafted by a lesser forger, an apprentice. No workmanship, this, to withstand the trials of time or of Anurr's long, chilled breath, or of the Huntress' coming disaster.

The doctor wears the plain, pale face of a kindly creature, a welcome elder. In another world, he would not struggle to sell dumplings on the road-side, or folded paper cranes to children, or nuptial gifts to giggling soon-brides. There is in him a genial lightness that Lan Wangji twitches — length of his sword dragging long stabs on snow that's mounted, scrying shapes of dreams and cipher and play — and steels to defend.

Flash of his teeth, he means to hiss when the door rewards the man with cruel discourtesy — but then, the doctor turns to him, urging a substitution, and Lan Wangji...

...does not fall back, barely negotiating balance, when a pale of wind erodes his step. Does not raise his sword, or tilts his head, or leaves gravity to murmur the natural endearments that eases a body into the forms of surprises.

How to explain this. Diplomatically. Soulfully. One man, glaring horror at the supplies the doctor intends for him. Perhaps, if brother were present, the task might tease itself done within heartbeats. With Lan Wangji as their last recourse, the storm brewing harder, white, then:

"Apologies. I lack the... warmth of manner that invites welcome."

Should the kind doctor have perhaps failed to notice. People do not crowd towards Lan Wangji.

lily evans (hp)

[lancifolium]

1. They did the mash! (the huntress, dementors, open to all)

The cold from the south of the city almost appeared to be following her as she darted through the streets, checking houses for signs of people who hadn’t yet made somewhere they would be safe from harm’s way. She could hear the dreadful sounds of that horrifying woman on the horse only a few streets over while at her heels the temperature seemed to be dropping.

Like a cold, evil plume of dense dark smoke one dementor cut in front of her, making Lily turn on her heel, her shoulder connecting with the wall to the left of her as her hand went to her pocket, grabbing onto her wand.

Just by hovering in front of her, the dementors felt like they were squeezing her heart dry of joy and love, and the intensity of it was enough to make Lily hesitate, her eyes becoming wide and mournful, as though the pair of dementors were conveying bad news to her rather than feeding on her memories and every happy feeling she had ever felt.

[ note all the following starts fall under the master and commanded prompt and have cws for xenomorphs, body horror, gore, violence, and the mention of killing and eating animals. ]

2. They did the monster mash (southern tower)

[ The pain had been incredible. Lily had dwelt in what felt like a hazy, thin version of unconsciousness right up until things began to change and she could no longer avoid coming to her senses. It felt like her body had been filled with molten metal like all her bones were breaking over and over again and when she tore through the webbing of the cocoon she had been held inside of she fell to the floor with a hard thud.

Landing didn’t hurt - there was no room in her mind for any more pain, not while her skeleton seemed to stretch inside her, and her flesh went hard, becoming more armor than skin, and she could feel every inch of the change. When she screamed it hit the air like a thousand nails against a thousand chalkboards, and though she knew she should feel repulsed by the sound, it all hurt too much.

Everything had gone dark again at some point, and maybe it was a mercy they had stayed that way. Her face was gone, wiped clean save for her nostrils and the grinning maw of her mouth, now filled with razor-sharp teeth, framed by ragged red hair that hung down past her shoulders, obscuring some of the tears in her dress she had made with her new hands. It didn’t matter - what mattered was the sudden, all-consuming immersion into what she could sense and know while her eyes, wherever they were, didn’t want to work the way they used to.

There was something else, something close - the sound of footsteps that painted a clearer picture than just looking would have ever gotten her. Others were coming to the tower. The thought pulled at her that they were coming to accomplish something she had not - but as she moved into the shadows, like a silent, skittering insect - Lily couldn’t remember what else there was beyond stalking, hunting, and capturing. ]

2a. It was a graveyard smash (for slick)

[ Dimly Lily could recall that she had not come alone, but when she tried to open her mouth and call for the other, the air was filled with a grating, chittering shriek. It didn’t sound like a name, but that was inconsequential. Who needed to run around calling for someone when she was sure she could hear them anyway? And what was the point of seeking them out, save trying for one last raw call to them, she assumed he would find her again.

It was always time to hunt after all. ]

3. It caught on in a flash (open to all)

[ At some point after brutally feasting on the residents of a duck pond, she splintered away from the familiar one. Skittering across the rooftops of the city as she followed the pull of the Beastmaster. Even with the sound of the wind, she could feel it, and she could hear absolutely everything around her, aware of all the prey surrounding her.

She was practically spoiled for choice on what string of sound she was going to follow.

The decision to tail this particular set of footfalls came from somewhere instinctive. It moved her, and so she, buoyed by the demands of The Beastmaster - who she could never recall questioning, bounded silently along the spine of one of Taravast’s rooftops, jumping and climbing her way down to the street to meet them with a bone-withering, inhuman scream of a roar. ]

4. If you can’t handle me at my carapace you don’t deserve me at my carabest (for el with my apologies)

Oh. Now that was a smell she knew.

Fondness was a concept a bit beyond her, and forget about affection, but she could parse out want where it separated from the sort of hunger that found her feasting on waterfowl fresh from the pond. This was different. Maybe.

She wanted to get closer - she could hear him and smell him - and while she wasn’t sure she wanted to try and rip his head off (though it was a strong contender for possible courses of action) she was certain she wanted to get closer.

Her hands had become terribly slender, each finger tipped in a knife-life talon that helped her climb over the roof of the building, moving in silence as she followed the trail of familiar sounds and smells. Following along as the Beastmaster’s hypnotic command warred with the urge to be curious and lured by the sense of distant familiarity those noises tugged at.

Maybe she could keep him, like a pet, or wrapped up safe in a cocoon.

A creature under a ragged dress, gaunt with skin that had begun to section itself into an inhuman sort of plate armor met him finally when it jumped from the wall it had crawled along silently to track him, to land in front of him.

Despite the way she had failed to contain herself, pouncing out in front of him with a whirring growl, she was no more certain what it was she ought to do with him, and the thing that used to be Lily held her ground, long-clawed fingers twitching in excitement.

She had really wanted to say hello.

2a mONSTER PALS

[sergeant_slick]

[The air was too bright. He kept his eyes half-closed against it, staring at the world through a sliver. But he could hear everything. There was no silence, not when there was an entire world around him, needing to be taken apart.

Yet somehow it wasn't overwhelming. And so he could hear the call distinctly. Familiar. Different? Better.

He called back, the sound catching and rolling through his throat as he started searching for the source.]

Wrench | WATCH_DOGS

[in_theworks]

I. RELEASE WHAT'S BROKEN UNDERNEATH (WICKED COLD)_

[being a california native, cold isn't really Wrench's jam. (at least he's not wearing shorts, like Ray did, does, whatever a lot of the time) he would, that in mind, like to stay inside where it's at least margnially warmer, but unfortunately for him, the locals needs supplies, and while he may sometimes be an asshole, he is not 100% a dick, and so out into the cold he goes. at least, if he stays moving, maybe he'll stay warm]

[even he's not sure if that logic is really working for him, but -- ]

Yo, Wrench!

[but he wheels on whoever happens to be nearby, the expression on the mask managing to read as haunted as it runs the gamut of (O_o) (?_?) (o_O)] Did you hear that? [he pauses, the laugh that follows a little nervous] For a minute there, I thought this was gonna get all A Christmas Carol. [he thought he'd heard Horatio's voice, and while the two of them never really got along -- well, Horatio was DedSec. Horatio was family and they got him killed]

[at least, for now, he seems to be shaking the whole other kind of chill that's settling over him. let's see how long that lasts]

II. FEEL THE SPARKS OF THE FRIENDLY FIRE (THE HUNTRESS)_

[later, once he's come down, come inside, had a chance to get his head back on straight -- well, now they have another whole set of problems. so, that's fun. once again, he lets himself get talked into helping. at least this time, he's not getting in over his head. maybe. probably. at least this time, what he's being asked to do -- run -- is in his wheelhouse]

[tucking one of the stamina potions into his vest for later, Wrench grabs a torch, and approaches whoever he's been pointed to, who's supposed to help him get through the city safely] Hey, man. [(^_^) nice to meet you and all that, if he hasn't met you already] Are you my exit buddy?

III. VERY CAREFULLY LOOK OVER YOUR SHOULDER (EASTERN TOWER)_

[he's tired, at this point, but apparently, there's more to do. he ends up at the Eastern Tower, then, and -- ]

Oh, holy shit, that sure is on fire.

[ -- and also swarming with monsters, but priorities. (o_O) either way, he ducks behind a low wall, nearby, staring up at it, seemingly dumbly. what he offers after a moment, though, is surprisingly intelligent] Yeah, I don't think that's gonna stay standing for much longer, so we're gonna have to make this a quickie. [ ... mostly intelligent] Lucky for me, I have a lot of experience with that kinda thing!

[a beat]

No, but really. If you can get me past the brute squad, I can probably get to the top.

[even if the tower's falling down around him]

IV. AIM STRAIGHT FOR THE FEED (WILDCARD)_

[have something else in mind? hit me up @ knightinqs / knightinqs#1243]

I

[scrapgege]

... Hear what?

[It's difficult enough to hear themselves over the freezing, whistling winds that batter the place, and Xie Lian has to hold onto his hat to make sure it doesn't fly off. He looks woefully underdressed for the weather too, in his white flowy robes, but the cold doesn't seem to bother him much.

He keeps peering through the darkened window of the stone house, but there is no feleing of anyone alive inside.]

This one is empty. Let's see if there are any supplies we can get from inside, and... if there are any bodies that might need to be laid to rest.

[It is, unfortunately, a possibility, with how cold it's been. Casualties cannot be completely avoided.

Xie Lian tries to open the door the normal way, which of course doesn't work. It's locked, and the frost has sort of glued it shut. So instead, he hits the center of the door with his palm... and the wood panel just flies inside, crashing into the back back wall with a dull thud as it's ripped from its lodging.]

Xie Lian

[scrapgege]

A.The Wicked Cold (Open)

[Well, Xie Lian isn't too happy with Anurr right now. Here he has been trying to explain to people to keep a bit of an open mind and look at this now. Something happened, Xie Lian thinks, because the amount of power he can detect is tremendously bigger than what he felt previously from Anurr - although the undead lord is good at masking his presence and appearing ordinary when he wants to. Still, this feels too coincidental, and he's felt the scope of Anurr's power before and it was nothing compared to... this.

There's honestly not a bit of hesitation in what he has to do, so at any time, he will be wandering the Southern district, trying to find a way to either get people out, if at all possible, or bringing them food and helping them melt ice with his qi so they can have some drinking water for a while. He notices the way his extremities seem to freeze over after a while, so he starts timing things better. As for the voices... well, they're not pleasant to hear, but at the same time, it's not the first time this has happened to him, and this is... maybe not easy, but it hits differently, when you are in a better state of mind than you were the first time it happened, and you know it's not real. After a while, he even starts simply talking back to them, which makes for a strange spectacle for anyone who comes across him, walking through icy streets holding onto his bamboo hat with a slight smile on his face and seemingly talking to himself.]

.... You don't really mean that, Mu Qing. Or else, you'd have killed me yourself before you left, and you didn't.

White No-Face (Open)

[It's on his way back to defrost that he catches a glimpse of white robes that aren't Xie-daozhang's... and something squeezes in his chest.

... That can't be. he can't feel the power that the creature would normally carry with it, but... no, he has to check for himself and he takes off after it.

For a while it seems to play with him, running just a bit too fast for Xie Lian to catch up, but then it stops abruptly and turns around.

The mask is still the same, half smiling, half crying. The voice too, when the creature bows to him obsequiously.]

'Taizi Dianxia.'

[Xie Lian realizes he's forgotten to breathe, and his words are choked out.]

I killed you. I killed you with my own hands. You're not real.

Am I not? How many people thought I was dead, over the years? And yet...

Shut up! I killed you! You are dead! You can't be here!

[White No-Face spreads out his arms, his sleeves flapping in the cold wind.]

Maybe you didn't hit hard enough, Dianxia. Why don't you try again?

[OOC : trigger warning for Xie Lian's past that might come up - genocide, suicide, some gorish illnesses and murders.]

white no-face

[elfuego]

[ Zuko hears the familiar voice of Xie Lian shouting at something and changes his path immediately. He wasn't about to let one of their number fall to any of the terrible things that crying, naked lady brought into the city with her.

Just as the thing - which bore an uncanny resemblance to the young man Zuko was rushing to assist - opened its arms and challenged Xie Lian to hit them, Zuko swept his fist up from his side, sending fire slashing at the air to the side of the creature. ]

How about we both try?

[ His pale amber eyes dart to the side, giving Xie Lian the briefest of nods before he turns his focus back to the creature, bringing his fists up to stand at the ready. ]

Slick | Star Wars: The Clone Wars

[sergeant_slick]

[ooc: I'm good with brackets or prose, take your pick. Also contact me for a wildcard at PaleAntiquarian or at Cellarspider#9984!]

1. EVACUATION

[It just figured this city would go to shit for some reason.

It still wasn't clear why this was happening, or even what was happening. All he knew was that it was fucking cold in the southern district, and everyone who could be relocated needed to be directed to safety.

Preferably without his nose freezing off his face.]

Alright, keep at a walking pace, people! This isn't a race, it's a march. Head for the ninth bridge and into the square. You'll feel better once you can feel your toes.

[That was a lie. Their toes were going to hurt like a ronto had stepped on them, but he wasn't going to tell them that.

He'll be found across the district, taking elevated positions to direct traffic, or searching for the stranded, and trying ignore the voices of clones he can hear in the wind. It's just like the farmhouse back in Sa-Hareth, nothing to worry about. Nothing to listen to.

When he can't take anymore, he'll retreat out of the district for a break, shivering despite his armor. Why can't he get warm?]


2. ANCHORING

[Alright, if he'd been making predictions about this, "naked lady on a horse" was not have been his guess for the next major threat.

But he was just going to roll with it. Had to keep her on the move, apparently. Wasn't clear why artillery wasn't an option, they had enough magical bullshit here to take down a small army.

But the civvies did need to get kept out of the line of fire. Those rotting buggers were following her, and if they had enough time to stop and chew on the scenery, then they'd just end up with more zombies to deal with.

He's taken up a position on the rooftops, keeping low and using his translator to send updates to the teams on the ground]

Alright, Bait team, listen up--You've got a clear shot down to the fountain square, with three solid options to slip them if it gets too hot. You feeling good about this?

2b. DROIDEKAS

[Eventually though, he's forced down to street-level to continue the chase, descending to cross a wider avenue. He's keeping distance from the shamblers, but that's no guarantee they won't make a go at him. And he doesn't like some of the things he's been seeing moving among the horde. It's not just zombies this time, he's seen little glimpses of arthropods, dogs, stuff with tentacles--

And there's something rolling between them all, clattering over the paving stones.]

Oh shit. Fall back. [Forget about climbing up to the next block, that'd get him killed. Just run.] If any bait crews are on the line, fall back.


[OOC: CONTENT WARNING for the prompts and links below for xenomorphs and body horror, with gore and violence likely in any threads off of these.]

3. TOWER

[Pain. Pain haloed around his joints. Arching off in agonizing shocks when he moved, when he twitched, even when he lay still and exhausted in the suffocating cocoon. Everything was growing and shifting, muscles and tendons and nerves pulled too tight against lengthening bones, then too loose. All shot through with a desperate desire to flee. Tear the walls open and run from this. Kill anything he had to and escape. Find the others and bring more to tear the whole damn tower to the ground.

Run. Tear. Kill. Find. Bring more.

His mouth gaped open, wide enough to bite at the cocoon, his face cracking open to accommodate the motion. His claws were stronger now too, ripping through the silk. Bit by bit, he could move again, pulling his way free, falling in a heap, panting.

Too impatient to rest. He crawled, slow and shaking, but his limbs were growing steadier by the moment. Movements more sinuous.

He felt whole now. Long and gleaming and ready to hunt.

And he could hear something below him. Feel the sounds through the stone. Something was coming.]

4. HUNTING

[So much was too bright. He shut his eyes when it grew to be too much, but even then it was not enough. He could avoid them on the roofs, in the dark places further from the sounds of huddling prey. Further from the shuddering quiet that fell when he called to the rest of the pack. So close. But so painfully protected.

The frustration of that denial was only soothed when he caught scent and sound of things shuffling clumsily through the dark. Creatures that walked on flat, ungainly feet, saw with light-blinded eyes or groped with delicate hands. So strange. So alien.

So vulnerable.

He stalked through the shadows, waiting for the right moment.]

For Aang!

[sergeant_slick]

Still shivering. It's probably been half an hour, but he doesn't feel any warmer. Might be moderate hypothermia, though how it got to him through his bodyglove is baffling. Sure, he doesn't have his helmet anymore, but he shouldn't have gotten that cold.

He's going to blame it on more Force stuff. That always seems to be the answer to everything on this planet.

Still, he can do something to try and fix it. The streets are a mess right now, people setting up lean-tos and tents in the plazas as they pile in from the south. No fires yet, but everyone looks at least as cold as he feels. Somebody's collecting scraps for firewood, piling it up next to the feet of a statue depicting somebody-or-other. A civvie's presently trying and failing to get it started with the old hand drill method, but they're struggling. All they've made so far is a bit of smoke and char.

"Here, let me help. I've got a starter." He kneels down, pulling out the flint and steel he'd got. That should work better.

Or at least it would, if he could keep the shivers down. He's only got a few sparks, and they don't catch. Come on, this should be easy!

"Oh, screw it. I've got something else for it, give me a second." He sits back, taking a deep breath. Draw in the components. Concentrate them where they're needed. Pull in a bit of the heat from the hand drill, and hold it there until...

Yes! The air in amongst the firewood suddenly catches. A few more seconds of concentration, and it manages to grab onto the wood. "There you go. One fire, as promised."

Lan Sizhui | The Untamed

[paperbutterflies]

The Wicked Cold

Lan Sizhui... is among those more durable to the cold than most; and he also has lived for a while in the Anurr-caused cold. Between his cultivation and not-that-long-ago memories, he can probably handle the low temperatures far more successfully than many.

So he goes out of the palace to help the locals. Because of course he does. He will go check on the places where he took lessons on healing; he will go check on anyone trapped, and bring what he can. And if he hears the voices of Grandma, of Fourth Uncle, and so on... well, he knows that they wouldn't actually want him to join them. So he only smiles and keeps going.

Should he see someone struggling, whether local or one of the other worlds, he'll come closer without hesitation.

"Let's get you inside first."

Bait for the Huntress

Fast, strong, and agile, Sizhui has taken up the task to keep the Huntress occupied at least for a while. He can keep moving, and he is fairly sure he can keep her moving, as well. That should be enough, shouldn't it?

The advantages of a cultivator - he doesn't have to keep to the streets or ground alone. Trees, rooftops, balconies, all are fair play for him to get out of tight places.

But, even he might run into a place that is difficult to see the immediate way out of.

Western Tower

Sizhui only stands for a moment, looking up at the damaged structure. Two hours...

Two hours after it is activated.

He grips his sword, and murmurs to himself, "he looks upon skies vast and men cruel." Just to make sure he remembers it right.

Wildcard

If you wish for / think of something else, hit it up.

Western Tower

[funnylittleclown]

"Almost makes you wonder who 'he' is."

It was a grim sight. The tower itself looked in fairly decent shape but if one looked to the short flight of stairs which lead up to the main entry they looked dark, caked with what looked like thickening blood.

"And also what might have happened here..."

He stepped forward cautiously, keeping his eyes on the tower and then on the door to the tower in case it decided to pop open and some horror which was now hidden behind it popped out at them. Fortunately nothing did and the Doctor made it safely to the foot of the stairs.

"Did anyone warn you of this when they mentioned passcodes?"

five | the umbrella academy

[somebadnews]

i. it's not the end of the world (but it's not great) - (closed to Vanya)

Five didn't need anyone to point out what a poor decision it was to break the mirror — though he had appreciated Winnie's input. If you could call it a decision, which he likes more than calling it a childish outburst, even if that puts more of the blame squarely on him. This time it only took seconds to realize his mistake, seconds he should have been able to reverse, but he couldn't. He let the moment slip through his fingers and beyond his grasp and now he's got a bigger problem than a curse that only affects him. Now he doesn't know if one small act is going to start a chain reaction that throws this entire world on a track that leads them straight into another apocalypse.

Probably not. But it's hard for him not to jump to that conclusion when he sees how quickly things change, and it all brings him back to his one crowning failure that he spent forty-five years trying to undo. The cold that seeped into his bones when the mirror broke did nothing to ease the symptoms of a curse that was the result of his other bad decision, and his thoughts are too erratic to come up with a rational solution. He's failing at doing the one thing he's supposed to do. He needs to find his family. Warn them and hope that he has time to figure out how he's going to fix this.

He clings to whatever threads of sanity he can hold onto and appears in Vanya's room in a flash of blue, briefly frantic until he spots her. It's not until he confirms that she's alright that he swiftly moves in front of her to break the news.

"You're here," he says, slightly breathless, trying and failing to look composed. This is a shit show and it's all because of him and he doesn't have the words to tell her. "Something happened."

ii. or maybe it is (hell frozen over) (open)

Five is all too used to seeing everything going to hell in an instant. That's why he's tried so hard to get things right with his math these days, which doesn't fucking matter when he keeps pushing this timeline further into chaos so he has to rethink every one of his equations. When the rest of his siblings aren't as easy to track as his sister, he goes searching in the one place he figures they'll turn up. None of them know how to stay away from danger, and as soon as they start calling for help in the southern district, he decides that must be where they are.

Of course he doesn't take the time to think about dressing for the weather, and he hasn't felt warm since the second that mirror shattered. He teleports as far out as he can, never staying more than a few minutes at a time and just long enough to shout after them, though most of it gets swallowed up in the howling wind. It doesn't really matter what kind of toll it takes on him, he'll keep searching until he finds them all.

With every blink he's prepared to find one of them frozen in the snow, but he's prepared to drag anyone else he finds inside and stays only long enough for his bony limbs to thaw. There's very obviously something not right in the air, and he's quick to question whoever he runs into if they heard anything. The longer he searches the more it sounds like death.

iii. merchant's warning (huntress) (open)

Days later and he's all but expecting things to get worse. The Merchant delivers on that with an ominous message that signals another horrible consequence that's almost laughable at this point. After he receives it, Five wonders what else he knows. He was the one to warn Winnie about the mirror, but he never said what would happen if it broke. But there's no time to ask and it's not important right now.

Still, if he wants them to survive, it feels like he could have given them more of a warning about the creatures that they would be facing. The monsters aren't at all like the undead he's used to seeing, or even the harpies. All the while he's trying to prepare himself for the solution he's always returning to; but going back without his family means stranding them in this timeline, and he's not confident enough in his math to think that he can find them again. It could take years. The only solace he has is he's in a younger body, so he might have the time to figure it out.

Of course it's hard to prepare when he has to keep on top of what's happening around him. They manage to organize better than he expects, and he finds a place up high to watch them try to follow the Merchant's instructions. He's not the only one watching, but it's not long before he notices the group below running too fast to see what's approaching them.

"Shit." When someone looks like they're about to get trapped by something that instantly reminds him of the grim reaper, he waits a few seconds to see if anyone else is going to do something about it. When they don't, he sucks in a breath and teleports down to fish them out. They aren't family, but the odds are slightly more in their favor if they aren't all killed over something stupid he did.

v. wildcard

Whatever else! If you'd like a custom starter or want to plot something specific, Five's plotting post is here or just hit me up on plurk.

ofc will match format action or prose as you like.

[remugient]

She startles immediately, though she's grown more used to Five's frequent dropping in and out at a moment's notice. "Jesus," she wheezes softly as she scrambles up from where she'd been sitting on the bed.

There had been a chill in the air, but it wasn't like Vanya knew all the shit that was going down immediately following Five's breaking of the mirror--it had happened too quickly and Five came too soon after the mirror breaking for her to really notice anything yet.

"What? Yeah, I'm here--" She begins, confused, and takes a step forward in alarm as she notices how absolutely frazzled Five looks. Her stomach drops and she looks a bit shocked. "...What? What happened? Are you okay?"

marcos | the gifted

[soloritur]

i. here we go again (closed to Lorna)

Marcos didn't think it would be long before something else came along and turned their relative peace on its head. When word starts to spread that they've been invaded by monsters, he wastes no time in breaking the rules keeping him from being seen associating with Vannozza's side of the palace. He makes a beeline for Lorna's room, and knocks roughly on her door.

He looks up and down the hall while he waits for her to answer, growing more anxious by every second she takes to answer. This is definitely her room, but he knows she might have already gone off looking for him and he really should have told her to wait. Whatever they're facing, they're going to do it together. With any luck these won't be as hard to take down as the dragon was.

"Come on, Lorna. It's me."

ii. the lady on a horse (huntress) (open)

These streets are still easy for him to get lost in, especially when he's trying to draw the attention of a woman who keeps summoning the undead to her. He catches a glimpse now and then, and it's impossible not to even from a distance. Fortunately his powers are useful for the monsters and undead abominations that come at him, and his beam attacks work well as long as he can keep up with them.

He isn't alone. In another circumstance when they weren't facing horrific monsters, he'd even enjoy fighting alongside Lorna again. And even besides the two of them, there's an impressive amount of teamwork going on for a group of mostly-strangers. He tries his best to watch their backs for them. None of them have attacked the Huntress directly, but who could? She doesn't even look like she's capable of what she's obviously causing around her.

So it's no wonder that when she passes by, he's distracted enough to leave himself open to a creature rushing towards him; he barely has time to throw up a flash of light to try to blind it as it lunges.

"What is that?" It falls and he peers down at the... weird gremlin with too many eyes and keeps his hands up in case it attacks again. At least he had a word for a dragon.

iii. warm your hands (open)

When he'd gotten word that they were in need of a safe house, Marcos was eager to jump in to help. Not only is he experienced with the concept, more than he is fighting the undead, but he's happy to be able to keep them from freezing. Whenever someone new comes in, it's not long before he greets them and asks if it would be okay if he used his powers on them. He takes time with those who agree and summons a warm glow in his hands so they can get their body temperatures back up. Other times he tries to find ways to extend the heat, heating up soap to eat and anything else he can that might be able to last if he walks away.

Thankfully no one has seems outright hostile at his offer, and most are grateful. He knows there's still a lot going on that he could lend a hand with outside, but there's a need here for those who couldn't reach the other shelter. Ultimately they might need to transport them to the Artes Mundi once the streets seem safe enough. In the meantime he tries to keep their sprits up and not show his worry that things are getting worse out there.

He's still new enough that he doesn't understand everything he's seen, but he eavesdrops on conversations in passing, hoping one of them will return the favor and shed some light on what happened.

iv. wildcard

Anything you'd like! Marcos' plotting post is here if you want to work out specifics or just hit me up on plurk.

action/prose whichever will match

[chromiums]

His timing turns out to be perfect. Lorna only hasn't left her room yet because she's been gathering up whatever she can use to throw at whatever they're being attacked by, any possible scrap of metal that she can manipulate or throw in just the right direction. Marcos's knock comes just as she's shoving it all into a bag, and once she opens the door she forgets all about the cover they're supposed to be maintaining.

Well, almost. She pulls him inside and makes sure the door's secured shut before she embraces him, arms going around him tight as she presses a kiss to his cheek, then to his mouth.

"God, I'm glad you're here," she mutters, kissing him again before she goes to retrieve what she's been gathering and a coat. The bag of trinkets she's assembled is handed to him as she starts to pull the coat on. "What have you heard? Have you seen anything?"

allison hargreeves | ota

[rumorate]

the wicked cold (a) ~ closed to lorna + marcos

[The whispers fill her consciousness, drawing Allison closer to the point where she can’t say no. If she had the time to think about it, she might have considered all the times she’s nearly died, all the times she felt the edges of her grasp on living slipping away, of course she would be vulnerable to the call of the undead.

She may be able to bend the will of others, but that doesn’t mean her own is protected.

She doesn’t know how long she’s been wandering, but it’s longer than she should have. She can’t feel her legs, yet somehow they keep trudging forward. She knows that she can’t be out in the snow for much longer. Cold wet slush is seeping into her boots, weighing down her clothes, and she stumbles under the weight, sinking down into the snow.

Falling doesn’t hurt. She would have to feel something to hurt. But getting up seems impossible. She thinks she sees a shadow on the edge of her vision, something that could be a person, but she can’t say for sure.

Maybe she should just sit here for a little while. She needs to rest. Maybe things will be better when she wakes.]

the wicked cold (b) ~ closed to wrath, later diego

[You would think that withstanding it once would be enough to keep her out of it, but Anhurr still calls to her, and she still comes. She finds herself in the snow again, with the same heavy limbs trudging forward into whatever waits for her on the other side of the storm. She doesn’t stumble this time, doesn’t give herself a reason to stop. Allison doesn’t want to get caught in the same predicament twice, and there has to be a fire of some kind on the other side, doesn’t there?

“Mom?”]

Claire?

[Her head snaps in the direction of the sound. Then, she closes her eyes, looking away. This place has tormented her with her daughter before. She’s not going to fall for the same trick twice.]

No. It’s not real. It’s not real.

[Claire’s voice continues to call after her, but she will not allow herself to be fooled. Not again. So naturally, the snow tries to apply another tack. It will not let her leave without claiming it’s prize, one way or another.

In the distance, she catches a silhouette. Tall, broad shoulders. Familiar. For a moment, she thinks she sees a fedora, sitting at a jaunty angle. His hands rest in his pockets with a casual ease. It feels like her husband, and she can’t help but gasp out the name all the same.]

Ray?

[“Allison? Where have you been?”

She stumbles forward, getting closer and weakly reaching out numb arms to him, wanting to fall into his arms just as desperately as she’s falling for this ruse.]

Baby, you shouldn’t be out here. You’re going to freeze—

master and commanded (a) ~ ota

[She’s barely recovered from her runs through the snow, but she’s not going to sit there and do nothing. There are hundreds of innocent people in the blast zone who are going to get hurt, and while she’s not well enough to take on one of the towers, she can help people evacuate. And she’s not going to go without help.

She trades in pants for her usual dramatic dresses, and scoops her hair up and out of the way, before turning to the person next to her.]

You. Are you doing anything?

master and commanded (b) ~ ota

[The streets are chaos, but this is the kind of thing Allison was trained for. Running head first into situations most sane people probably wouldn’t and helping them get to safety. With her crystal in hand and Alayne giving direction from above, she headed into the streets, finding whoever she could and directing them back towards the safer areas of the city.

She slides into an open space as something crashes nearby. Her arms come up instinctively to shield her face, before reaching out to the person nearby.]

You okay? Are you hurt?

cw: mentions of ideation thoughts

[chromiums]

[ allison's not the only one who's heard voices. lorna's been hearing them at the edges of her mind, reminders of sonja and sage and the others she's failed over the years, whenever she spends enough time outside, but she's been distracted, trying to find new ways to help fight and bring people into safety. she's about to head back in when she spots allison walking further away, already too far for her voice to carry over with the weather conditions being what they are, so she starts after her instead.

the whispers grow louder the further she walks out, but lorna grits her teeth and balls her fists, doing her best them. it's nothing she hasn't thought herself when her brain starts to turn on her, and in the case of sage, she knows there's something behind it she hasn't had time to deal with. but she can't pay attention to them now, not when there's someone else out here who could be having the same sort of dangerous thoughts.

she squints in the dark, trying to see through the snow, and spots allison just as she falls. she breaks into a run, sinking to her knees and placing her hands on the other woman's shoulders, trying to get her to look at her. ]

Hey! Hey, come on, stay awake. Look at me, okay?

Diego Hargreeves | OTA + Closed

[gladiokinesis]

the wicked cold | wrath

Diego has had some close calls in his his life, including two apocalypses, but that's not what draws him out this evening. No. He originally comes out to look for Allison who had disappeared twice already but once he starts heading out in the direction with his five wolves who are much better prepared for this kind of cold than he is he finds himself drawn in further too. Whispers filling his head.

Diego

He would know that voice anywhere. He whips around, trying to find the woman he named his wolves after. Grace.

"M-mom?"

Maybe it's the cold. Maybe it's the shock of hearing her voice. It's probably not real -- he remembers vaguely that Allison warned him that sometimes this place makes you hear and see things that aren't there. Uses your memories and loved ones against you. And yet he's so surprised by the sound her voice he stutters like he used to, totally thrown off.

Picture the word in your head, Diego.

But no matter how hard he tries to find Grace he can't -- instead he finds himself confronted with the cold (no pun attended) figure of his father, Reginald Hargreeves. He looks down at Diego with the same disdain and disgust he has always had.

Really Number 2, you can't even get a simple rescue mission right? It is remarkable how you find new ways to disappoint me.

There's a whine from one of the wolves, Grace Three, as things get worse. She takes off to try to find someone who can help. She can move through the snow and slush better than human legs can. It's not long before she finds Wrath. Friend!! Or...friend of a friend. He hangs out with Emilia a lot and that's good enough for her animal brain right now. He might recognize that she's the wolf Emilia has taken a shine to from the flower tucked into her collar. She nudges him her nose, whining again.

They need to go get him.

master and commanded | open

Things keep happening and Diego does what he does best: tries to be a hero. His skills aren't going to be helpful for the bigger tasks at hand -- but he can help evacuate people and get them out of tight spots.

Which is why he'll be running around to try to get people out as much as possible, to help evacuate the area before people get hurts. You might find him grabbing your arm, and tugging you towards safety because Diego is as subtle as a sledgehammer and doesn't have time to waste right now.

With his other hand he grabs one of his knives, throwing it so it hits one of the Beastmaster's legion, causing it to fall to the ground.

"You're welcome. That was a close one."

Charming, isn't he?

(ooc: if you want something else, feel free to pm me or pplurk me. i missed the ball on the plotting post but i am still down for other things too.)

[in_theworks]

"No shit, dude."

That was, in fact, a close one, and the mask flashes a (x_<) to convey his alarm and displeasure. Yikes.

Resisting the urge to kick the monster, just on general principle, he pulls away from Diego and steps in, instead, reaching for the knife. He pulls it free, not particularly worried about getting his hands dirty, literally, and holds it out to him, affecting a ridiculous accent. "Your knife, good sir."

He wishes he had a knife. He wishes he had any kind of weapon, but no one seems to want to give him one, the bastards.

wei wuxian | the untamed

[weifinder]

the cold steals in

The compulsion begins as something small, innocuous, infiltrating a mind and systems honed to strength under the duress and weight of spirits which could only shout their regrets, press hard for their rightings of wrongs real or simply perceived, or whisper sweetly in voices he knew that giving in, handing over, placing self down and embracing unknowingness and the lack of pain that came with the drowning, that moment of calm could sustain him, could be his reward. Wei Wuxian knew voices in his head as real and tangible and dark, and they were all those things, and cold beyond them.

This call was not like those, even as it was like them, in an earlier life. The wind bearing swords his mind grasped for then lost, but the compulsion within it, the cold that formed crystals in his marrow and pierced his lungs to pouring out air in shallow gasps, that he knew.

Come. A direction with direction, a pull magnetic where he before was magnetic to the curse of his curiosity, to his own insatiable need for life up to the moment where it had turned to equal insatiability for death, damn the consequences and what few living he left behind. Time taught him it had done none of them favours, that even his death was not his own, was not allowed, was collateral to hold against him until his usefulness bled through again, and Wei Wuxian was Wei Ying, three and stumbling, trying to peer over kitchen counters while balanced on the tips of ten imperfect toes.

He wasn't three, but older, decades etched into a mind and left lacking in evidence in flesh, and he stumbled still the same. Gasped, fingers clutching convulsively around one of the twisted iron fences decorating the narrow fronts of buildings on this street, feeling the cold, knowing the early shifting dynamics that sent him to the streets, to wanting to help ( and damn him, damn his consequences, damn that he's never yet learned how to help without bleeding himself in the process ) and caught on the outskirts, where snow flurried and scattered like foam flecked waves against the dirt and stone and wood and smoke-stained buttresses of Taravast's less densely populated districts.

Come.

He stood, clutching at railings growing colder underhand, and fumbled for the pendant around his throat, his half-skirts swirling in wind both natural and not.

"Lan Zhan..."

Lifting his other hand, aiming one finger at the sky, and coalescing that qi, a burst of bright blue shooting skyward in the brown-dark skies, a spiritual firework of rabbit within a lantern. Help.

all the pretty little ponies

Her tears and hair worn as cloak, the maiden rides, Huntress with her consumptive steed, striking death and a death beyond dying into the stones beneath his hooves.

To ride, it occurs to him in that narrow band of thought brought by the pale expanse of her skin, worn as faithfully as moonlight in reflection of silvered water in onyx bowl, to ride is the only answer, to match her speed where two legs, where fast steps, will flag and fade. It is why, in his unconsidered way, he'd parted with bread and flesh, and uncaring of the wound on his arm, bound in torn strips of his half-skirt rendered all the more ragged, he sits astride a horse more bone than flesh, gaunt enough to leave him looking plush in comparison, visible to some, invisible to others, and they run in her wake, the weeping maiden, the huntress of endless pursuit, leech of life from the sumptuous mass of Taravast:

In her retinue, Wei Laozu rides.

[downswing]

He does not spy the signal first.

Does not gaze past the hoary, silvered span of snow-swollen clouds in congregation, does not swivel on his heel, sleet shrieking, squealing underfoot. The children of Anurr's seized district glimpse it, a plaything distorted by the heavens to reward their hungry hands, where Lan Wangji — encumbered by a stark penury of legumes and meats and grains, against their gaunt bellies — fails them.

They show him — the rabbit, blued like their fingertips, for the man in white and blue also, and isn't it pretty? Will it come to play? He whispers the press of his hand on a darling one's nape, lends the rest of his food and blankets at the doors of a handful of other houses, haunted by austerity. And he knows well enough to flee and chase.

This, sorties with the junior disciples have taught him through repetition: never seek the nascent point of the signal beneath it, but within the twentieth part of a li's radius. In this, the rabbit helps him: he recalls the shape of it as Wei Ying once drew it, knows where he might have stood to cast it, so the animal's prettily smeared muzzle might face as it does.

He encounters Wei Ying as he expects him: bloodless, dark-eyed, a wraith king among ghosts, lording. But absent the collapse of his body, the wound of his gut, the irreverent but omnipresent fixtures of Wei Ying, when he allows himself the diluted weakness of calling Lan Wangji.

Whatever lends Wei Ying hurt now — and Lan Wangji travels his soulmate's wrist with soft, breezing fingertips, beats the mute drum of his pulse — is not born of the body's hurts. He does not speak so. Waits, winter's gelid lapses of fresh snow crowding on his lashes, slipping down his cheeks. Accosting Wei Ying, like a man hounded by wolves, as if the frigid wind knows also those who are weak by the design of their flesh, deprived of its core.

"Your hand is cold," he murmurs by way of greeting. Trust in me.

Weeks of sheets shared and silences like oversteeped tea, cloying, have earned him this one privilege: to grasp Wei Ying's hands and clasp them between his own and rub until friction sparks life again — and know the intrusion not entirely unwelcome.