out you go, shoo

[groundrules]

READY TO ROLL OUT

That awkward moment when even a brothel won’t have you.

Characters will end their sojourn at the House of Dew early morning, helmed by Haltham (and his murderous goat, chomping on his prosthetic wooden hand for splinter nutrients). Courtesans and attendants will send the group away with parting gifts: a few sacs of grains, handfuls of spice, a small barrel of brew, several of water, thin blankets and four fat chickens.

The decrepit farm stands an hour’s walk east of Sa-Hareth, bordering the forest at the foot of the mountain. ...and it has not wanted for company. Monstrously overgrown wolves prowl the region, with some of the pack settled inside the farm. The wolves are halfway between dead and living, instantly aggressive, sharper, faster, smarter and blue-eyed beyond natural expectation. The wolves are drawn to heat and fire-bearers. They can be slain, or pushed back into the forest. If the brawl drags on, the wolves may receive reinforcements. Distantly, characters can observe silhouettes of pale-eyed, humanoid creatures in the forest, covered in animal skins. They seem to speak to the wolves, though it is unclear if they soothe or set them to attack.

Once an elaborate woodsmen’s station, the 'farm' is a generous, sprawling outpost built, home to now-barren inner garden. The farm spreads across kitchens, bathing rooms, hefty storage barns, a handful of isolated rest halls and broader communal areas. A study room has been crammed with accountancy tomes, papers and other books, many torn alongside glass shards on the floor. A shakily furnished barn was coarsely repurposed for banquets. Set up, inspect, repurpose. There’s enough dust and mildew to go around, and several walls and roof stretches will need reinforcements. “Ah,” characters say innocently, “Surely the cold will keep away vermin —” You have rats. Large, uncuddly, distinctly violent, prone to swarming once the sun’s downed. Enjoy that first night. Haltham will provide some base construction supplies over a few deliveries, along with a personal gift: a herding dog, to watch over two fluffy sheep. Flex those green thumbs: many moons ago, enchantments were set in place to warm the garden to a tolerable level that will allow the expedited harvest of an arctic patch. These spells will need to be activated and periodically recharged every few days by characters donating recoverable amounts of magic or physical stamina, by touching a nearby rune. But, hey: potatoes, turnips, kale, mmmmmmmmm, a balanced diet.

“Never open your doors at night,” Haltham says on parting. Lend him an ear — and, once the moon rises, hear the forest whispers. Some voices will beg rescue from the cold, others will tease and taunt, a few will imitate enemies or kin. Some will even disrupt dreams. The voices will seek to lure characters out of their shelter. Those who heed will find themselves compelled to walk into the forest, entranced and ignorant of the cold that slowly envelops them. They will be vulnerable to the elements, tundra predators and the woodland creatures, growing increasingly feral. Those who survive the night in the forest will wake to find themselves floating in a chilled, but strangely not-yet frozen lake in the morning. They can have faint recollections, as if they themselves lived any of the following events: a friend taking a dark path, the loss of a dear skill, years in a coffin, a close friend parted, a beloved reunion, a lost brother, a tender romance and rare bliss in poverty. At the bottom of the lake, they may spot the still corpse of an undead that feels too heavy for anyone to lift. His arm has a tattooed red sleeve. During the day, characters who visit the forest will find it eerily silent, with some trees showing signs of scratches and lingering rope. The lake can still be found, but entering it during daytime will not allow characters to experience foreign memories.

Karsa will reconfigure everyone’s quartz pieces to translate outside of the House of Dew and communicate in a private channel. Still nothing like individual inboxes at this time! Up to player discretion if Karsa had the time and humour to change their usernames, or stranded them to their House of Dew identities a little longer. Characters will also be able to access a secondary local fishermen’s network and listen in on their schedules, local gossip and daily weather updates. Woodsmen, tradesmen and miners will be surprised to see anyone inhabiting the farm, with some men pulling away, calling the place cursed.

Comments

[darkeststars]

A. Cleaning... kind... of.

Like quite a good chunk of the group, Arche has been helping to clean the dusty, dirty old place since first arriving, in his case quite nonstop and obsessively for at least about the last day. None of you who've spent significant hours around him here have ever seen him skip a meal, but he's made time for a lot less in the way of personal care today, as every time his eyes land on something grimy or cobweb-strewn his hands seem to immediately start twitching to fix it again. In the dark street clothes he obtained for sneaking around Sa-Hareth rather than his battle robes, he's got his sleeves rolled up and has just been roaming from room to room with mop and bucket and cleaning rags in hand.

Right at the moment, however, it seems what's been getting to him the most are the rats. He's standing on the back porch of one part of the house in the midday chill, dumping another unpleasant little corpse into an even more unpleasant little pile, scowling down at the mess of dead rats he's made with dirty hands and an irritable glance as he tries to decide what to do with all of them.

"...ugh. Should I just cart these to the edge of the property and have done with it?..."

He mutters the words to himself with a scowl and -- hearing a faint cheep behind him -- turns to send another quick jolt of electricity through the chewed-out rat hole at the bottom of the outer wall. There's a single tiny screech before the outdoors is briefly silent again.


B. Training.

It's not too horrendously cold inside this big empty barn, and he's really let himself lax over the last month here. He used to get up and train and meditate for hours every morning as an apprentice... then at least an hour daily... then as he got busier, only a couple days out of the week... But letting himself go an entire month without properly disciplined practice is just getting unexcusably sloppy. His old master would be appalled at him -- stars rest her backstabbing, black little soul.

So he's out here before the farm entirely loses that watery pale sun for the day, and he sat for a good hour of meditation reaching out to touch the Force, and now he has his lightsaber lit -- filling the expanse with a neon purple glow and low bass buzz as he runs through familiar practice exercises, fends off imaginary opponents. For obvious reasons, he hasn't invited anybody to practice along with him; it would be a shame to ruin any of the other nice useful weapons they've brought here by putting a laser sword through them. Not that he's never trained with a practice blade in his life, but there's nothing quite like holding the real thing.

With a flick of his wrist he sends some little bits of debris up off the ground hurtling through the air in different directions, twisting forward and around to catch them with blows of the saber. Not quite as good doing it himself as having a partner or a convenient droid, but it'll have to suffice.

As the last one plops back down to the ground in smaller, jagged bits, he looks over his shoulder to raise a brow right in your direction.

"What? Not in your way, am I?"

((Unless you have no soul or the like, hi Winnie, in which case he hasn't sensed you yet.))


C. Night.

He's standing in that open back doorway of the big old farmhouse again.

He knows he shouldn't be letting out precious warmth. He knows he should turn around and go straight inside. This is incredibly foolish.

But it speaks to him.

Like the whisper of a powerful ghost or the lure of the Dark Side itself. It whispers. He's not entirely sure who he's hearing, right now. The second he thinks he has a handle on that tone, that timbre, it seems to change. One of the spirits who was most reluctant to leave him alone. Someone else who he misses very much. Someone else who's probably looking for him right now.

It's so hard to tear his attention away.

"...can you hear her, too?" he murmurs, a little hoarse, in your general direction.


D. Bring Your Own

Anything that comes to mind, or continuations of previous interactions, are quite welcome.

B.

[bearshermark]

They haven't had the space. Going out into the salt mines was all the practice he'd been able to get. And now, with all this land, it seems he isn't the first person to have the idea.

Eleven's happy to watch for the little he catches, admiring the way Archeval can call up debris and combat it. He's obviously quite skilled, and while the exercise and chance to practice forms surely is nice, he finds himself suddenly itching for a spar. Of course, there's an obvious problem, but there's also a very obvious solution.

He grins. "No, but... I have two swords, if you want one."

[darkeststars]

He gives a surprised blink. While Eleven's familiar presence was easy enough to pick up on, he hadn't expected that offer to be the first thing out of the other's mouth -- there's a second's consideration before he offers the other young man an amused look, spreading his hands.

"Think you can actually take me with that handicap?" he asks, the little taunt sounding relatively good-natured by the standards of the grumpy Sith uttering it. Despite the words he's already deactivating his lightsaber to hang it back on his hip.

"Though I'm just as likely to embarrass myself with something of that weight, but might as well keep my hand in, I suppose. It's been a long time."

[bearshermark]

He laughs and unsheathes his swords, flipping one over in hand to offer the hilt out to Archeval. It is a light, narrow blade, made for speed and pointed accuracy, though admittedly a little bereft without its twin in hand.

"I used only a single blade for a much longer time, though I usually had a shield then." And he certainly doesn't, now- at least not one that isn't a whole person. And when he doesn't, well- that just leaves his marked hand free for magic, not that this spar will call for it.

"It'll be good practice, anyway."

[darkeststars]

Archeval hefts the blade and takes a couple practice swings, carefully testing its balance and weight. It's pretty light as metal swords go, but the saber he's used to fighting with weighs practically nothing -- surely not even half a kilogram, if he were to guess -- and even way back in his Academy days the most substantial things he commonly worked with were light plasteel training blades and vibroswords. Holding actual forged metal in his hand for the first time in ages makes him feel a bit like he's inside the main vault of Sith historical artifacts, playing with some ancient Dark Lord's antique arsenal.

While apparently he's got enough muscle hiding underneath his clothes to spring into action in a combat situation, it's still plain just looking at those skinny arms that his physique is nowhere near resembling Eleven's trained and honed one; there's just the tiniest trickle of power in the air between them that suggests he's cheating a little as he circles around to nimbly raise the sword in an opening salute.

"For us both, to be sure. Come along then. I'll be delighted to fight something that can actually think."

[bearshermark]

It tells him more than he expects. While he has a slight height advantage, Eleven's still surprised to finally understand he's physically stronger as well. Of course, in practice, Archeval's force power can more than make up for it.

He shifts through a few stretches to limber up, then takes up a stance. His free hand is reflexive in the way it wants to stay spread as though he's ever going to cast anything more than a healing spell.

After a few moments spent quietly analyzing Archeval's guard, Eleven lunges forward to test him.

[darkeststars]

It's an old familiar dance, though it's been a few months since he last had time for anything as innocuous as a sparring duel. No, the last time he'd raised saber against saber it was far more serious indeed -- only a little over a month ago now he and his squad faced off against one of the most legendary Force-users in the galaxy, and somehow came out alive.

There'd been no room for error there. Not against that one singular man, so powerful in the Force that he'd faced down an entire team of Sith and Jedi by himself and still nearly lived to tell the tale -- Eleven is no Revan, and for all that he somehow won the day through superior numbers and strategy, neither is Archeval. He's vaguely grateful for these facts when they trade a few opening blows, sword sliding against sword, and he feels his footwork about to fumble slightly before he corrects himself. He's grateful for the opportunity to relax a little, to enjoy himself, to get things wrong. A little misstep like that would've been the death of him behind the stone walls of the Temple of Sacrifice, back there in that sweltering jungle.

Strange to find himself suddenly dwelling on it now, but -- this is the first real duel he's had in weeks, after all, and he'd barely come down from the high of managing not to die yet another time before he'd been whisked away here. Maybe it's only natural.

He twists away from Eleven after they've traded another couple of glancing, testing blows, circling the other man with an intent expression on his face, feeling him out a little in the Force -- it seems to him that El is going to go there and he should go here and he takes his own turn leaping inward now, trying to come in under the other's guard--

Hopefully Eleven doesn't mind shedding some blood in training, because with live steel in his hand it doesn't look like Arche plans to pull any blows.

[bearshermark]

It isn't a fight Eleven is taking terribly seriously beyond measuring skill; he enjoys the fight and flashes a smile with every successfully parried strike or narrowly evaded blow. Spars are a wonderful way to enjoy that thrill with low stakes, coming alive from his usual reserve and tempered shyness to put himself to the test. It speaks to trust beyond lending his own blade to someone that could have easily become an enemy.

He doesn't have any insight to Archeval's movements beyond his physical tells, but there's something about this fight that almost feels familiar, the way Archeval comes in closer, forced to fend him off. In dueling with real weapons, bloodshed is almost inevitable, and it comes as a shallow cut across his shoulder. Eleven winces, then laughs through the slight sting of it and fights harder to change the tide of their spar, to force Archeval back on defense. Content now that he understands the man's skill level as it compares to his own- a touch faster, more intuitive- so that he doesn't have to worry about holding back as much anymore himself.

"You fight like... someone I know."

[darkeststars]

He makes a lucky parry as El comes after him again, managing to just sidestep a powerful blow to slide it off his blade instead, instinctively twisting his body away from lightsaber sparks that don't come; and he looks toward Eleven with a raised brow at those words, starting to circle him a little restlessly once more.

"Oh? I only hope that's a compliment," he observes wryly over the top of his sword, his footwork indeed shifting back more defensively as he feels El winding up for something. 'Intuitive' is certainly one way to describe how he's been darting out to range and back in to strike with little rhyme or reason or pattern to his choice of forms; he seems to find it even harder than El not to instinctively reach for a ranged blow of lightning, but makes up for the occasional half-fumble by descending on his sparring partner in precisely those moments when El's intent attention has wavered a little. The influence of the Force, perhaps. Right now all his senses are trained on the other man as he braces for that next incoming blow.

[bearshermark]

"Of course," he grins through the ring of steel, shifting from swift footwork and matching lighter blows to more solid stances and powerful strikes. He isn't faster, but perhaps he can try to brute force through his defense instead. The strategy only sometimes worked on Erik, but Hendrik does it to him all the time. Granted, there isn't much defense against a Zwaardsrustian with an axe.

"My best friend," he elaborates, knowing he's easier to read for the slower strikes, but Archeval has already been reading him rather well, so he may as well fight to his own advantages. "Former thief. Slight. Very nimble."

A.

[topoiran]

"You don't, in fact, have to try to kill them all. I am here."

He's not actually stopping him, just pointing out.

[darkeststars]

"So you're, what, going to just politely ask them all to leave? Does it work like that?"

The bone-dry glance he gives Xunxian along with the words suggests Arche is pretty sure it actually doesn't, but he gamely waits for the other man's response as he reaches for a ripped and dusty rag nearby to wipe at least a little bit of mess off his hands. Maybe he could just Force-drag the whole pile off into the treeline, but it feels a little wasteful somehow.

[topoiran]

"Under normal circumstances, that would be more or less how it works, yes."

Xunxian shrugs, not disturbed by the dryness of that look.

Then he focuses on one of the rats trying to come at them to attack - in their way, rapidly talking to him until the rodent slows, tilts his head up at the large person, and comes to stand in front of him, whiskers twitching. Xunxian bends down and reaches, but that gets the rat to hiss and lower himself defensively, and they stay like this for seemingly a few moments before Xunxian finishes his motion and holds his hand out, palm up, and the rat climbs into it. Still not very peaceful, but at least not trying to bite or scratch.

"The rats here are cold, hungry, and angry, so it might take somewhat more than a polite request, especially as they see this as their territory. I will probably need to persuade enough of them, and likely bargain." One shoulder twitches up and then down again.

"I will not tell you to not kill them. Merely that you might not have to."

A few more of the rats gather around his feet, rising up to their hind legs to pay attention, though it's a small part of them.

C (for the sake of covering all the choices!)

[somebadnews]

Five is positive that he's not the person that Arch expects to be standing behind him when he speaks, almost to himself. It's obvious before he even walks by that he's intruding on a private moment. But he's seen the man everywhere lately. Always in passing, and usually when he's using his abilities to make himself useful. At this point he feels like he knows him as well as anyone here, just from paying attention, while Five has shared next to nothing about himself. That's really the way it's supposed to be.

Of course he's heard things too. Mostly late at night, because lately he only seems to sleep when he collapses from exhaustion. For him it's not so unusual. Five has been talking to his wife like she's still with him even before they came out to the barn. He's very cognizant of the fact that she's not really there, but he knows her so well that he can always imagine what she'd say.

And she'd probably be telling him not to bother someone who spends his free time zapping rats with their electric fingers. -- He doesn't always listen.

"You should close the door. It's cold out."

haha nice :D

[darkeststars]

"........but I hear her."

The words are soft, almost absentminded. As keen an observer as Five is, he'll be well aware by now that the guy telling everybody he's a "Dark Lord" is generally anything but soft. Acerbic, biting, confrontational, dour, occasionally contrary just for the sake of it -- this sounds nothing like any other time Five has eavesdropped on this particular man. Either something has gone horribly wrong, or Archeval is not himself right now. Or maybe those are both the same thing.

"...if anyone could come looking for me, she could," he continues in that same lightheaded mumble. "Could seek me out across half the galaxy--... She would. She has the power. I should know. I trained her myself."

He stares out into the darkness of the distant treeline.

"If she's out there... In that forest, alone, calling for me--..."

As the words trail off, however, a faint frown furrows his brow; slowly he turns, belatedly realizing he's not quite sure who's speaking to him right now, and he glances Five up and down with a look of muddled curiosity.

"..........you're shorter than me."

Pause. A squint from the Dark Lord for Number Five.

"No one's shorter than me."

[somebadnews]

Five had spoken up in part to get Arche to snap out of it, assuming he'd be embarrassed about being called out by a relative stranger, but he doesn't. It's almost fascinating seeing him so subdued; enthralled with whatever he's currently hearing. Enough that when he doesn't immediately stop when Five addresses him, he takes a few steps closer to get a better look.

Of course, he doesn't have a clue who he's talking about. He could reference his notes, but if it's all in the Dark Lord's head, he's not really sure it's relevant to anyone but him. An apprentice maybe, or a successor in whatever hierarchy exists where he comes from.

The sudden shift in attention when he turns nearly catches him off guard, and he frowns at what he focuses on.

"Yes, very observant." That reply might have had more bite to it another time. Right now, he's going to need him to explain before they move on. "What was she saying?"

[darkeststars]

His gaze had started to clear a little, staring down those few inches at Five's face and registering the world around him a bit more properly again -- but Five's words turn Archeval's attention straight back toward the whispers that still call out softly from the edge of the trees. A cold breeze whips around their feet from outside to vanish into the warmth of the farmhouse; Arche straightens a little at the reminder, slowly turning his eyes back outward into the dark.

"...I'm meant to come. I have to find her. She's looking for me--" At least, that's what it seems to be saying right now. It's been muddled here and there, cycling through acquaintance after friend after loved one, but-- but no, that must have just been his wishful thinking, it's always been just--

"Ashara. She has to be here."

In fact, what is he still doing here, in this doorway? Whoever else is talking to him right now is hardly of consequence, after all. She must be looking for him, and she's not safe out there-- his apprentice, his friend, his--

"...can't leave family out in the cold," he mumbles, and takes a step out of the doorway, only half-remembering the stranger is still there. Prepared to go alone. It's not like anyone else here would care about this.

"They must've-- tracked me here, but-- She's always been so good at getting lost..."

[somebadnews]

It's eerie. That's the only word for it. His behavior reminds him of someone under the influence of one of Allison's rumors, and he knows well enough how hard those are to break. When he gets up and takes a step out, Five is put in the awkward position of being the only person around to stop him.

Does he want to stop him? If he follows him out, he could get a better idea of who's been causing all this. He doubts that it's this 'Ashara' person, but... worse comes to worse, he can always teleport them back. They aren't really in any great risk with him around.

"Let me guess, she's in the woods?" That seems to be where most of these things are originating. He shrugs and takes a step to his side, and he debates for only a moment more before he moves to close the door behind him. Apparently he's going to entertain this for now.

"Okay then. You don't want to keep her waiting."

[darkeststars]

His lightsaber is on his hip as always, but he's left nearly anything else that would be of use behind inside the house. His battle robes, his helm, his comm, all squirreled away in various hidey holes. Arche apparently had enough presence of mind to wrap a warm cloak around his shoulders before sticking his head out the door, but he sets out with nothing more than that unhesitatingly now, urged on by that more corporeal voice as well as the ethereal one.

Unsurprisingly for Five, he drifts toward the darkness of the waiting forest. There's not really much of interest to watch yet as Five's test subject heads across the half-frozen grass, boots crunching softly, cold wind nipping at the edges of both their clothes once more. The voices, though, those remain. Perhaps Five can just barely perceive something in the atmosphere that wasn't there before as Archeval reaches out instinctually with the Force, feeling... a presence. Consciousness, perhaps, or perhaps not. There's something there and it doesn't feel quite right, not quite natural, but -- the Force has its mysterious ways and... and the whispers call to him. It has to be her. He's certain now, the certainty of a vivid dream where the illogical makes perfect sense. Obviously this strange feeling must be the girl he knows. She'd always done things differently from him, anyway -- those old Jedi teachings never really left her.

He continues onward into the night. The feeling of cold seems to increase abruptly as they pass under the first of the trees, the forest canopy drawing in over their heads to blot out what little light might have filtered down from the cloudy night sky. It doesn't seem to bother Archeval, visible now mostly only by his pale face in the dark as he continues wandering slowly, softly through the underbrush. The call is louder out here. More insistent. Perhaps even Five might start to find the whispering harder to tune out, or -- perhaps the rustling in a half-dead thicket nearby them will prove more distracting.

[somebadnews]

The temperature does seem to drop unexpectedly in the forest. It's fortunate for Five that he had his blazer enchanted, by someone far too trusting, before they relocated. While that does nothing for his lower extremities, he doesn't completely freeze as they continue on in the predictable direction. He crosses his arms around him, eyes occasionally shifting Arche, while trying to stay aware of their surroundings that dip further and further into darkness. He's not nervous, but it's definitely unsettling how silent the man beside him is. How sure he is of where he's going. The way the very air shifts.

This experiment, as it were, is flawed from the start. For one thing, Five hadn't considered that he would be in just as much danger of the thrall if they tried to find the source. It was probably only a matter of time.

What he first thinks is the wind turns into the unmistakable voice of a woman long dead. One he expected to return like a bad dream, come to offer him a new deal if he'll only agree to meet. The breath in front of him comes out in sharp puffs of air, and for a moment he nearly forgets that he's not alone. Every muscle tenses as he grapples with the reality around them.

The sound of rustling nearby grabs his attention with time enough to react, and he instinctively grips Arche's arm to stop him. He tries to clear his head when no woman steps out to greet them. Not yet, and he suddenly doesn't want to give her the chance. They need to jump. Get back where they started.

"Sorry. This is as far as we go." He shuts his eyes tight and concentrates, ignoring the sounds around him, while he tries to reach the right calculation.

I'm your only option, Number Five.

"Shit." His hands glow and he pushes for that tear in the fabric of space. If he doesn't do it now, he's not sure he'll be able to.

[darkeststars]

Even halfway lost in a dream, certain reflexes stay with a person, as Five is well aware. That touch jerking at him half-out of nowhere is a jolt to Archeval's consciousness, and in a split second he's whirled around toward Five's face -- the Force answers his instinct and there's suddenly an invisible hand at Five's throat, an uncomfortable grip starting to curl inward, distressingly similar to some of Vanya's worse moments--

There's a growling behind them from the thicket as their noise starts to attract more attention, but before the creature within makes itself known Five's pulling them away and, moments later, their feet touch down elsewhere.

Arche stumbles to his hands and knees on the ground, wide-eyed, bewildered and quite distracted from whatever he was doing two seconds ago. The pressure squeezing at Five's throat is, thankfully, entirely gone as Arche reaches up to mop a hand across his face, barely even having looked at his surroundings yet, trying to make sense of what just happened in his head--

"What in the-- What was I just--..."

A second after that he fully registers that he's not alone, and his gaze snaps up in Five's direction again. He seems to remember -- earlier, something about-- Something about this boy standing next to him, asking him... Asking him what?... The voice-- He'd heard it somewhere before--

"...You-- What did you do?"

C.

[sankta]

Alina has been avoiding the darkness. Avoiding the forest at night. It haunts her already haunted dreams more than she cares to admit. Dreams that have her wandering the house in the dead of night now. She can't sleep. She woke screaming, and she's sorry to whoever may have heard her.

A blanket is pulled tight around her shoulders when she hears it.

Hears him.

She stops dead in her spot and looks to the open door. Her heart drops and her fingers tighten hard enough her knuckles turn white.

"I hear him," she answers. "I don't hear her." She swallows the lump in her throat.

[darkeststars]

It changes, as the stranger speaks up from behind. I hear him. There are more than enough ghosts hiding in the Dark Lord's dreams too, after all, some more literal than others. A man's voice beckons, speaking a familiar tongue. Home, it whispers. They can just go home, the both of them. Is Darth Imperius not the master of death, after all? Can he not pull a spirit from oneness, reclaim it from the living Force if he so desires? All he has to do is find that voice out in the forest and he can fix everything--

But no, that can't be right. Reality breaks in on Archeval suddenly, a frigid splash of cynicism even colder than the winter wind outside. Rynn is gone. He left nothing behind, and he's not coming back. The truth is painful, but crystal-clear--

As he finds his attention wrenched away by those few simple words, he turns with a vaguely surprised glance toward the young woman who's just spoken, rubbing a hand over his face as he tries to snap out of that brief trance. An unfamiliar face, this one; but if she's here she must be one of the refugees, probably come in just recently. One of the many rescues from the ship, perhaps. He'd been too busy slaying corpses and cutting chains to take note of every last one. This particular woman looks... just about as unbalanced as he feels, right at the moment.

"...did it call to you even in your sleep?" he guesses in a murmur, taking in the look of her, powers searching out the feel of her in the Force just by instinct. "I thought--... But-- No. It can't be who I thought it was."

Deep breaths. She snapped him out of this all unknowing, and for that he owes the stranger at least a little bit.

"Who do you hear?... Whoever it is, he can't-- can't be here. That's... who I keep hearing. People who can't possibly be out there right now."

Belatedly, at last, he steps inside the doorway to turn and reach for the knob. Don't open it at night, Haltham had warned them all. Apparently it's apt advice.

[sankta]

She couldn't know who he thought it might be. But she gets the feeling. She feels it too. Something so familiar. Someone too familiar.

Like calls to like the voice calls out to Alina. Low and sultry, comforting and welcoming. Promising her a world where she might be accepted as she is, instead of whatever has been made of her now. All things she can barely take.

She sees it on his face, that he feels the same as her. She doesn't have to probe too deeply to guess at that.

"A man from home," she says, approaching slightly just to speak in a soft voice. "He's not here.

At least yet," she adds, a bit fearfully.

Her eyes drop to the floor as she settles on that thought a moment. After all, she's here. A second wave of entrants for whatever twisted games these are. Who else could come next? And how would they arrive? "Who do you hear?" She asks, looking back up and searching for some sort of distraction.

[darkeststars]

She doesn't reach for that closing door, thankfully for them both. Even as he pulls it shut, probably slower than he should, whatever's out there still whispers in his ear. Don't leave me behind, it begs him, a little desperate. You did it once before, how can you turn your back twice? Not on your partner in crime, your better half, your--...

The door slams shut a little too hard, the latch clicks, and it's much softer suddenly but -- not gone.

Archeval's eyes flick to the woman again as he gives a little shrug.

"...The dead, among others," he says softly.

"Apt, I suppose. I imagine someone's else dead are exactly who is trying to lure us out right now. This whole region seems to breed restless spirits."

He looks her up and down for a second, finding his own rattled nerves still reflected aptly in the look on her face. For a second, he doesn't know what to say. Part of him still wants to open the door back up and plunge straight into the cold forest, in fruitless pursuit of his heart's desire, and -- somehow he thinks she might feel the same. Like calls to like, indeed.

"......standing here won't do us any good, I imagine. If you can't sleep either--..."

He hesitates one more time as he brushes past her, awkwardly glancing back. Unused to offering little kindnesses like this, particularly to a stranger. But. It's too quiet and too loud a night to want to spend it alone.

"Come with me. I'll... make tea or something."