westwhere | the unwinding

the unwinding

Heya! Let loose for Serthica’s Unwinding — our event spanning 24 September-15 October that doubles as a test drive.

This round’s test drive participants do not require an invite to apply. Applications open over 8-14 October. Enjoy!

THE UNWINDING

TEST DRIVE TOURISTS | OLD TIMERS | DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE
SPILL THE TEA | DRIP BY DRIP | ALL A DREA —

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✘ NEWCOMERS | BARRELING IN

Soaring seagulls and splintered silence. You awaken on the shoreline of steampunk citadel Clockwork Serthica, recovered by the irritable witch Karsa.

She shares translation and communication devices, scarce healing and a rapid briefing: you have reached a world where undead forces seek to weaponise you in their battle for dominion. Karsa’s employer, the Merchant leads travel to beacons meant to return you home.

Other otherworlders have already infiltrated Serthica. Karsa steers newcomers into the impoverished underworld of the Mouse House, to board a rickety coal train serving the citadel.

■ Silver tongues can win you passage.

■ ...alternatively, hide in the obscenely large whiskey barrels the train also smuggles in.

■ Mid-voyage, the train quakes, slamming you into walls and windows. Around you, the stench of bleach, the warm crackle of embers and static magic that builds thick, nearly electric.

You feel faint and fainter, when you overhear Karsa’s murmured, “It’s too early” — “find” — “find” — “it’s like a drea” — “don’t unwind” — “all child’s play.”

And then you’re U n w i n d i n g.

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✘ OLD TIMERS | INHALE-EXHALE

Eidris, Minaras, the Neutral Zone: all abuzz with residential whispers of imminent Unwinding — an annual fixture natives dread without fully remembering.

■ In the two days leading to the Unwinding, characters struggle to tell apart or remember the physical features of natives.

■ Some locals steal you into dark alleys, where they become suddenly stiff, emitting a rusty, guttural Ke-ke-ke sound. They do not recall this after.

The Unwinding kicks off at 6am, when both Eidris and Minaras are overground. Jim Kirk’s fixed music box begins to play, its chipper rural tune overtaking your thoughts: “Up the mountain, in the grove, hand in hand to Ke-ke-ke — Ke-Waihu, fresh harvest’s a treasure trove, each fall we feast anew.”

Earth shatters seismically underfoot, magic depletes, the citadel’s clock tower strikes 6:00 — and an urgent communication from the Merchant is interrupted by static, “You can we-we-we-…-stand it, the white man come — remembrrrrrrrrrrrr live, you are alive, do not be convinsssss —ssss — ssssd otherwisssssss —”

But you’re already U n w i n d i n g.

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✘ DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

Down and down, you tumble, Alice — through a cavernous tunnel that widens and chokes arbitrarily. Sometimes you float and fly, sometimes you’re thrust sideways. Mostly, you keep falling.

■ Beware objects falling into you: from grand pianos to mystical balls of fire, stray beds, love letters and sharp-pointed weapons. Even a blood-spattered umbrella that shields against anything.

■ You’re dropped unceremoniously into an underground lair, as items keep falling down. Unclaimed, they disappear within minutes. Three jackalopes smoking opiate pipes point you indifferently towards a locked door. On its handle sit a bone dice and a note instructing, ROLL FOUR TO OPEN.

■ The dice can only be thrown every 10 minutes and feels too monstrously heavy to lift otherwise. Each roll makes the effect of the previous throw disappear. If you get:

one: gravity fades, the dice floats out of reach. ( The jackalopes enjoy the breeze. )

two: the floor, barring a few narrow steps at great jumping distance, is lava. ( The jackalopes check ‘hell’ off their vacation list.)

three: an irked dragon coils beside you. (The jackalopes prepare to tan.)

five: the thrower grows and grows and grows, until they must contort creatively to fit inside. ( The jackalopes charge rent. )

six: the room fills with water that nearly reaches the ceiling. (The jackalopes are competitive swimmers.)

seven: everything about your companion irritates you. They even breathe wrong. ( The jackalopes find this awkward. )

eight: The floor slowly expands into quicksand. ( The jackalopes hoverboard. )

■ Roll four and the door creaks merrily open. A second note slips loose, I’m sorry. Head in, your newfound possessions abandoned — and keep U n w i n d i n g.

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✘ SPILL THE TEA

You wake, dressed to the steampunk nines, at a tea party, alongside a companion and a slew of eerie guests: cog droids, faceless people and animated human-sized burlap mannequins. You only hear static and white noise when they speak.

When you leave the table, a fox butler passes you the empty kettle, asking you to, ”Make tea and finish here”.

■ You’re inevitably stuck in a decrepit dollhouse. Heavily boarded doors and windows ultimately open to show plague sickness in the streets. The fox butler closes them, reminding, ”He’ll make it go away.”

■ Travel a corridor of repeating rooms to reach the kitchens, and don’t dally. Every time the clock strikes a new hour, the partygoers grab their sharpest knife and stalk down the house to pursue you. The frenzy lasts 10 minutes before they return to their seats — barricade in deserted rooms, hide behind curtains or climb up the chimney…

■ For tea, the mannequin cook directs you to retrieve juniper and rosemary leaves from the greenhouse, where plant tendrils try to trap you, leaving marks of mould; rescue the milk container from a cat that’s running on the crumbling staircase, and sugar from a dish in the lavish nursery room, where ghostly hands might seek to drag you into walls and send you back down the rabbit hole.

■ Supplied, the huffing burlap cook prepares tea. Just as you’re about to taste the black brew at the party table, a man in white takes and spills your tea out in a plant pot. You only hear, ”You don’t need this yet” — before you’re U n w i n d i ng.

■ On exiting the Unwinding, your pockets burst with plants or leaves of juniper and rosemary. They can alleviate McCoy’s sickness.

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✘ DRIP BY DRIP

You wake up in bloodied clothes in a filled bathtub. You are hounded by urgency, as if you’re hunted. The unease never wanes, as you gather your bearings and join the bustling city streets, armed with a blood-spattered white umbrella. In your pocket, two paper notes: CHILDREN LIE and WHAT IS HIS NAME?(

Your memories are confused: half of you is certain you are a content citizen of Serthica. The other riots that you don’t belong. An excruciating migraine strikes when you try to remember how you arrived here.

Gravity’s a loose concept: you walk, or you float. The city is either perfectly still, or inundated with the screeching of hearses and criers. Locals — all faceless, or man-sized burlap mannequins — mill busily, despite the forlorn rain.

■ Hold on to your umbrella: linger uncovered in the rain, and your facial features slowly fade, while you desperately try to convince your teammate that you should stay here forever. You recover once dry.

■ The inhuman locals grow increasingly more hostile with time: carriages want to run you over, friendly burlap shopkeepers push you into a ditch. They chase if you ask their name.

■ Happily, this world is vulnerable to your desires: wish gravity undone, and you can walk on walls. Think a river into being, and it bursts ahead. Imagine buildings, and they pop up. Playing God comes at a price of bad luck: the staircase you envisage thins and breaks just as you cross it, your knife rusts after the first swing.

■ Your pursuers abandon you, when you reach a deserted marketplace and encounter a drenched, battered boy wearing a fox mask. He is playing with paper boats in the middle of a large black puddle. You feel deep and building hatred for him.

■ Seeing you, the child mentions one of you previously tried to kill him. He offers his name, in exchange for your umbrella:

a. Refuse or dally, and dark hands rise out of the puddle to pull you and your partner in, scratching you bloody. The last thing you see, before you wake up in the bathtub again (or out of the Unwinding), is a man in white who collects your umbrella. He holds it over the child, scolding, ”Did you forget again? This one never hurt you.”

b. To surrender the umbrella, step on the paper boats as you cross the puddle to the boy. Walking straight on water feels like stepping on knives. The child accepts your umbrella, whispering his name is ”Hyang-Won”, before you start to fade out of the Unwinding.

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✘ IT WAS ALL A DREA —

New or old, as the Unwinding ends, you wake up in Ma’am Mariol’s modest orphanage in the Mouse House. Mariol, the orphans and Serthica at large recall nothing about the Unwinding. Karsa, who dragged you in, is pale and exhausted, her memory patchy. She urges everyone to recuperate before heading back overground.

■ Your body shows only a fraction of any damage sustained in the Unwinding.

■ Ma’am Mariol’s labyrinthine home offers limited accommodations: share beds, floors, and household chores, while the orphans led by curious Gavroche, peer in.

NOTES

■ You can make network posts outside of the Unwinding.

■ Feel free to mark if you're a test drive tourist or an old timer in your top level!

■ The Unwinding is a shifting of realities not a dreamscape.

■ You can opt out of the Unwinding by keeping characters in the Mouse House. Here, nothing seems amiss.

■ QUESTIONS!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

BARRELING IN

Alec has a knack for politics, but not really much of a silver tongue outside specific circumstances, so luckily he also has the ability to cheat—namely, with an invisibility rune—because all 6'3" of him would absolutely not have fit comfortably into a whiskey barrel.

For anyone else trying to board the train, it more than likely looks pretty weird that Alec ignores (and is ignored by) whoever is at the doors keeping otherworlders from just boarding the coal train, but even looking as out of place as he does with a bow and quiver of arrows hung on his back he just sidesteps any natives and walks on in. One might think that he's a little hard to miss, what with taking up so much space, decked out head to toe in distinctly modern black clothes with a massive tattoo on the side of his neck that makes it clear he's never had to worry about interviewing for a day job even once in life, but nobody working at the tracks seems to be bothering with him. Or even seeing him.

Once the train starts going, Alec finds himself in the car with the smuggled whiskey barrels just in time for all hell to break lose as the quaking of the vehicle sends everything flying. Alec can't stop himself from getting flung into one of the walls, but the second he gets his feet back under him he draws his bow and an arrow from seemingly nowhere with a quick flick of light. He knows magic in the air when he feels it, prickling against his skin... but it probably admittedly looks a little stupid that he's summoning weapons like he's about to try to throw down with turbulence itself.

SPILL THE TEA

Alec is initially deeply annoyed about being asked to make the tea, but that very visible displeasure is almost alleviated when, while trudging down the hall to the kitchen, he suddenly has to start fighting for his life at the top of the hour.

Listen, not a lot here feels familiar. But this? He can deal with a bit of armed combat in the living room (just Shadowhunter things), and the frenetic danger of dodging a bunch of sharpened knives in the cramped, disheveled hallways of some cursed little dollhouse. Except for the location, it's practically homey.

If anyone else comes barreling his way to escape violent tea party guests, he'll immediately lower the pair of knives he's gripping. There is blood spattered across his pale hands, hinting at what exactly he had to do to get his own weapons, but any other red on him disappears into the black fabric of his frock coat so hopefully he doesn't look too terribly unhinged. If anything, he appears calm and not even particularly out of breath, and he jerks his head back over one shoulder to indicate direction. "Get behind me, there's no other entrances to this hallway." There are two doors beyond where he currently stands, but both rooms are completely empty, he checked.

WILDCARD

If you have something else in mind that doesn't fit either of those starters, go ahead and throw it at me, I'm flexible! Alternatively if you'd like to plot something else first hit me up by PM or at Cris#4369 on Discord.

...There was a brief moment when Magnus had woken up at a tea party, dressed in a suit he never would have been caught dead wearing (even as a self-professed lover and connoisseur of frills), that had him already convinced this was all an elaborate dream. That feeling is now being further exacerbated as he comes face to face with a very familiar figure he hasn't seen in what feels like months, so he's 100% sure he is in fact conjuring up this nightmare scenario from the part of his brain that has been over-worked and deeply stressed ever since he'd arrived at Serthica. The homicidal mannequins had really been more of a palate cleanser, and he's quite certain that his very lovely boyfriend is going to turn around at any moment and try to stab him too.

Why not?

That's just how these messed up nightmares tend to go, and Magnus is hit with the distinct feeling that he'd chosen poorly when trying to pick the one door that would lead him out of this veritable hell hole. All his fault really. That's on him.

And yet all he can manage is a stilted, very confused– "...Alexander?"

The illusion of Alec is preposterously accurate, save for the clothing, and he's almost tempted to childishly pinch himself or Alec just to be extra sure. At any rate, it's nice to see Alec again, blood-covered, oily, unfairly handsome as he is. Even if Magnus isn't sure if he should hurl a fireball first or just run.

By contrast, because he has not had the chance to grow accustomed to Serthica's mind-games himself, Alec's relief at the sound of Magnus' voice is bone deep and instantaneous. "Magnus!" He doesn't drop his knives and immediately gather up his boyfriend in his arms, they're still in immediate danger after all, but he very much wants to. Granted, he kinda always wants to do that. That's neither here nor there. He watches the unguarded opening at the end of the hall for another valiant moment, before finally turning more fully towards the Warlock in all of his frilly glory and doing his best to not get distracted by the fit while giving him a once-over to make sure he's at least relatively unharmed.

Alec himself was, at the very least, gifted something more conservative to wear, certainly not something he'd ever pick out but aside from the inherent unease that comes with not knowing where any of it came from, it's not terribly uncomfortable to have on (or be seen in.) He's got the aforementioned frock coat, with straight-legged, high waisted black pants that tuck into the black leather gaiters wrapped over his dress shoes, a stiff collared dark gray dress shirt and a lavishly brocaded waistcoat, shining silver thread over the black velvet. He admittedly did wake up with a poofy little cravat on, but he promptly tore that off and stuffed it into one of his pockets, thank you. And we are not talking about the top hat that he ditched back at the table.

Either way, if he ends up smiling a little indulgently at Magnus' current attire despite himself (once he's fairly certain there are no open wounds present on his body of course), shhh. Wrestling any wayward mirth off his face, he straightens up and gravitates a few unconscious steps towards the man like he's getting pulled in by magnets. All Alec's earlier caution slips away in the face of one of the few people that he actually trusts to have his back. And spectacularly. "Are you okay? Do you know what the hell is going on here?"

Alec is very used to weirdness and magic, that's what Shadowhunters are for, but this is on a whole other level. Like, maybe even beyond the fae level. He's had a very bizarre time in town so far.

Even with the makeshift adjustments, there is still a level of cognitive dissonance in seeing Alec dressed up in something that came from the questionable half of Magnus' closet –at least not without Magnus goading him into wearing something with a bit of adventurous flavor just for kicks.

But. He keeps telling himself not to get excited because this is dream!Alec, and his mind is clearly conjuring some ridiculous things to make up for the fact that Magnus misses him. That he's been missing him ever since he'd woken up on in another world with no way to portal back home nor any conceivable method of sending a fire message to at least let Alec and the others know he's relatively fine and in one piece.

Basically, the urge to hug him hard is a feeling that is very much reciprocated, but Magnus has trouble overcoming his own skepticism. All he can do is play along with the dream for now until he'll eventually snap out of it and wake up on someone's couch with a bottle of brandy clutched between his fingers.

With a mustered half-smile, he nods. "Better than I was seconds ago now that the robotic server isn't trying to cleave me in half."

He has dream!Alec and his quick reflexes to thank for keeping most his own flesh intact. His hero.

"Oddly enough, this isn't even the worst tea party I've been invited to, although the theme is a little overplayed, don't you think?" Probably not what Alec needs to know at the moment. "Right, we are– I was in Serthica, solving a mystery involving several supernatural oddities, and before that, there was a kraken, and before that, a cult and a volcano... it would probably take a few hours to explain everything to you, but please know before you disappear back into my subconscious that I do miss you."

That's a much longer list of things he's been up to than Alec was expecting, considering how recently he last saw Magnus. His brow pinches together in thought immediately, as he tries to figure out what that might mean: maybe it's like the fae realm, where time passes differently? Good thing he didn't eat or drink anything at the tea party, just in case.

Whatever calm he'd felt at the sound of Magnus' voice starts to erode under the weight of the melancholy in his smile: maybe it wouldn't be immediately obvious to anyone else, but Alec knows him well enough to spot it right away. He feels awfully self-absorbed for thinking it, but it's definitely not the level of joy he was expecting from his boyfriend when they found each other again. He thought there'd maybe be at least a little bit of gushing (Magnus really has spoiled him), or some light teasing about the ridiculous clothes, or—

Hang on. "Magnus, what? I'm not going to disappear." He should definitely not be making proclamations like that considering he's had approximately no control over his location while here so far (thanks, Unraveling), but he's ready to fight whatever crazed robots he has to to stay at Magnus' side now that he's here. Though, perhaps fighting isn't their only option: with increasing worry over Magnus' response to his presence, Alec decides that there are more pressing matters than his eagerness to throw down with the strange inhabitants of the dollhouse to relieve some stress. He suddenly steps the rest of the way into Magnus' space, pressing them both against the rickety wall and into the dusty shadow to stay out of sight as one of the faceless people goes careening past to make it to another room, knife swinging. Only once they've been gone for a few moments does he let out the breath he'd been holding. "I was on a... coal train." He sounds very dubious. "Trying to get to Serthica, I guess. A Citadel there, anyway. Then it started shaking and..." he gestures around them. "How does a train even shake? It's on tracks."

That is probably a rhetorical question. He pushes open one of the doors to a room he already checked and found empty, and holds it for Magnus to go in first. He feels like a rough sneeze would be able to knock down any wall in this house, but it's better to have some barrier than to have none. "Can you ward the door? You don't need to tell me everything right now, but we at least need a plan to get out of here." Out of the dollhouse, at the very least. And then, after a beat because he belatedly realized that he let Magnus' proclamation hang there in the air in his confusion and he refuses to let anything sweet Magnus says to him go unreciprocated: "I missed you too." He leans in for a greeting kiss because they're (relatively) safe now and he's making up for so much time lost to Edom!!!

Admittedly, there are a lot of visceral aspects to this dream that is making Magnus severely doubt whether or not it is, in fact, a dream. The memories of how he got here are still extremely sketchy, and he maintains he had no hand in dressing himself up for this excursion, but there are a lot of factors that are too precise for his usual fuzzy-edged subconsciousness to messily stitch together in his usual sleep (and sometimes inebriated) state.

Alec's smell, for instance. Blood-coated yet still unique and unmistakable. The inflections of his voice when he speaks. The worry permanently stitched into his brow. The fact that even through his panic at the situation, he's still concerned over Magnus' well-being.

It's probably why Magnus' body responds so automatically to the kiss, leaning in to meet his lips, fingers twitching around Alec's biceps with the strong urge to needle their way into Alec's clothes and skin to prove to himself this is real. That he won't wake up alone and clutching a throw pillow instead –which honestly wouldn't be the first time.

The kiss doesn't last as long as he wants it to because priorities. Homicidal droids are still a very pesky problem them have to deal with, but luckily, his magic still works in this ...dreamscape. Whatever it is. A quick gesture gathers magic to his fingertips as he pulls himself away before wisps of his magic travel around the room, surrounding it in a protective layer to hopefully provide some safety.

"The wards might only be a temporary bandaid. This world tends to operate on its own set of logic, so I advise you hold onto your weapons a little longer." Obviously, if his own magic were still perfectly functional, he already would have portaled them out of here to safety. "More importantly... and you are not going to like the sound of this, but I really have no idea how I got here. A large, ill-placed hole was involved and not the good kind."

Alec's mouth opens and his brow twitches as his brain takes off without his permission trying to imagine what a good kind of large, ill-placed hole would be.

Whatever innuendo that was there is completely lost on him. He shakes his head to bring himself back to the moment, rotating his wrists and then his shoulders to limber them up and prepare them to go another round if he needs to. "Alright. So we don't know how we got here," he cracks a smile and gives the absolutely frilliest part of Magnus' lapel a playful tug with the fingers on his least bloody hand. "Or got dressed." He's assuming, anyway. Alec has seen Magnus wear some pretty wild things, but he just doesn't think that this is his style. Even if he still somehow manages to look very handsome in it. But the thought of the world itself circumventing Magnus' powerful magic is still a little disconcerting, admittedly. "Is there something here draining you? Would it help if you took some of my energy?"

It wouldn't be ideal, but Alec can still fight while a little depleted of energy, especially since he can't currently even activate any of his runes due to his Stele being back in his non-Steampunk Chic pants pocket. Inconvenient, that.

Then, as though just remembering the encounter that led him out into the hall to reunite with Magnus in the first place: "The fox said something about making tea and finishing up here?" That just seems like a very Fae thing to demand in order to be released from their realm, which does not particularly dissuade his earlier nebulous, half-formed assumptions about the cause of their joint stranding in this mess.

If only it were that easy, but Magnus has been wrestling with magic issues since the other world they were in before this one. He doesn't expect any amount of angelic energy to clear it up, no matter how appealing it is to hold onto Alec right now –mostly because he's still desperate to maintain the connection in case he really does wake up from this alone and disoriented.

Speaking of which... "The last thing I do remember is sleeping on a sofa that belongs to this charming couple. They let me stay a few nights in exchange for autographs. Oh–! I am well-renowned author in this world. Very famous from what I gather. It's a cover story that I will be delighted to tell you more about later."

Once he figures out how the hell to get out of here. Magnus recalls the fox saying something similar as well, but their task can't be that simple, can it? On the other hand, if this really is a dream, then there's no reason why absurd theatrics would be out of place.

God, he almost hopes not. Solely because he doesn't want to lose Alec again and hasn't stopped thinking about him for what already feels like an eternity.

He mentally shakes himself out of the despair in an attempt to re-focus on the task at hand. "Returning to your earlier point, being out of magic isn't the issue. The way realms function and how they're oriented to another differs significantly from our own world. I can only travel small distances, but if your theory is correct, then all the necessary ingredients to escape should be here." He gestures to the kitchen around them. "You didn't also murder the robot-chef, did you?"

Alec gives a guilty little grimace. "I wasn't asking anyone's job titles," he hedges, which could very well mean yes, oops. But also: "The kitchen was already clear when I checked it, though." So hopefully the chef is just out there running through the halls, trying to stab people as they speak! Maybe hopefully is the wrong word. "It's tea, how hard can it be? Just a teabag and some hot water." Please forgive this terrible coffee guzzling man, Magnus.

Alec reluctantly takes a step away from his boyfriend so he can start opening cabinets and peering inside, looking for little cardboard boxes of breakfast tea or earl gray or whatever. He lacks Magnus' reservations about leaving because he hasn't considered that escape might actually separate them. He just really wants to get somewhere safe so he can properly fret and make sure Magnus is alright, he wants to chase away the lingering hesitation and fear coloring the edges of his gestures and words, and he wants to hear all about that cover story.

...Alright, and maybe he also wants to give Magnus something more than a quick and cursory kiss, get him out of that frilly suit and—

No, focus. Alec cannot follow that train of thought when there's a magical house full of strange creatures trying to run them through with knives just outside of the apparently fallible wards. "So this is like the Seelie realm?" He asks, to force himself back on track. It's obviously not the Seelie realm itself, which has a very particular aesthetic that this rickety old dollhouse absolutely does not, but still. After another cabinet is checked and dismissed, Alec adds on: "how long have you been here?" At least a few nights of time spent on someone's couch, which already seems unfair to Alec. They've spent so much time apart lately.

Magnus isn't going to pretend Alec's apparent concept of tea-making doesn't wound his soul deeply.

"Remind me to educate you on the finer points of tea preparation when we get out of here."

Yes, when. He's trying to think positively here because he does want to wake up with his head pillowed on Alec's nice chest and not pressed into a scratchy, stale-smelling cushion covered in cat hair. Some luxuries and indulgences he's missed more than others, and Alec's body is on the very top of that list.

Focus, Magnus.

With an ardent flick of his wrist, the cabinets and cupboards Alec hasn't already ransacked come open, and while there are plenty of dishes stored within, he's not finding any tea leaves or tea bags. He really wishes the two of them hadn't lost track of that chef.

As he continues to pick through the small kitchen, he finally answers Alec– "In Serthica? Probably over two months at this point. Touching on three. Everything has been a bit hazy due to occasionally being dragged into situations like the one we're in, so you'll have to forgive me if I've lost track." Besides, what is time to a warlock? "I assume you didn't even notice me gone. I was told by others who had ventured to and from their worlds that several months of absence basically amount to a nanosecond in our own homeworld, so I definitely don't blame you for not noticing."

Alec is not fighting a grin at his boyfriend's reaction, honest! But hmm, if there aren't any teabags, then: "Maybe there's a recipe around here somewhere?" Alec does love his recipes. For better or (much, much) worse.

He'd start looking, himself, but he gets totally sidetracked by Magnus' answer. Two, almost three months?? That's... "Magnus," Alec sounds appropriately aghast by the revelation, even as casual as Magnus appears to be. He sets down his knives on the nearest counter (Alec, that is not sanitary!) and makes his way back across the kitchen immediately. Danger around them be damned, he's tugging Magnus into a sudden but fierce hug: his fingers are still tacky, but the blood has dried enough that it doesn't transfer all over the fabric of Magnus' clothes, which is good because Alec is grabbing them by the handful, bunched up by his shoulder blades, and holding on like his life depends on it.

He should have just done this before. Hopefully Magnus hadn't been particularly attached to whatever it was he'd been doing a second ago.

But he finally gets it, he thinks. Maybe it's a blink of an eye to a warlock, but Alec can't imagine how it must have felt—he'd been so concerned over just a few nights. "I'm sorry. I said I'd never leave you again and then I—" Well, he didn't actually really do anything? Even at his most-self flagellating, Alec can acknowledge that. But it still feels like a failure somehow. After Asmodeus, and Edom, and— He squeezes Magnus a little tighter, for a moment. "I'm not going anywhere now. Okay?" Words don't mean much, but that's not going to stop him from saying them. And then from doing everything he can to prove himself too.

His own shock at being hugged throws him off again, although he's not sure why. Maybe the long absence of Alec in his life and hugs in general had made him forget how good it feels to be swallowed in by someone's arms.

His fingers slowly rise before digging into Alec's shoulder blades, wanting to immerse himself deeper. Let the moment chase away every fearful and somber thought that had whispered its way through his brain these past few months, but then he hears Alec start to apologize, and Magnus is quick to shake his head.

"It's not your fault. It's really not your fault. How could you have known?" Even Magnus hadn't been aware how he'd wound up in this world or the one before it. "Prior to waking up in Serthica, there was also...the House of Ravens, a place that was covered in angry spirits and an even angrier volcano. If I add it all together... it feels almost like half a year."

Again, his memory is a little hazy on all the details, but he's also well aware that saying this will just make Alec worry even further, so he pushes himself away just so he can clutch Alec's face between his hands, meeting his gaze eye for eye as his thumbs stroke Alec's cheeks.

"I'm fine. I've been fine." Mostly fine. He still missed Alec more than words can convey at this moment and had his own moments of overpowering grief. "There were others in a similar state, trapped here away from their loved ones. We've made do together, and you know me– I can never stop from entertaining others or doling out fashion advice. I'll be happy to introduce them to you when we figure our way out of here."

When Magnus starts to pull away, he almost doesn't let him go... but good sense does manage to win out and Alec unclenches his fingers from the back of his jacket, only for them to migrate to his lapels instead and hang on there. After a moment of eye contact, his eyelids flutter closed as he takes in the warmth of Magnus' hands on his face, the emotion in his voice, even if the words aren't the most comforting.

Is it silly that he misses Magnus in retrospect now? Probably. (Definitely.) He can't help but think of all the meals they didn't share, the talks in bed they didn't have, the missed chances to offer him a shoulder to lean on in his moments of need. "Okay," he murmurs, finally opening his eyes again to dart around Magnus' face and make sure he's not just putting on a brave show for Alec's sake. What he finds there reassures him enough that the corner of his mouth carefully ticks up at the corner, not quite a smile but certainly not his default scowl. "I love you," he tacks on for good measure, and just because he likes saying it. He'll have to find a sufficient way to thank the people that helped his fiancé while he wasn't around, and—

—Is that... knocking?

Alec's attention jerks suddenly to the door, warded shut as it is, where the knocking only gets more insistent. Has ten minutes passed already? Apparently! "Hey!" Comes a disgruntled, huffing voice from outside. "This is my kitchen, let me in!"

"I love–," he starts to say back before the knocking draws his attention sharply towards the door. So much for having an intimate moment, not that he's very upset once he realizes that's probably the robot chef on the othe rside.

His body separates from Alec's to allow the frazzled mannequin-droid-thing through, eyeballing it as it rushes towards the cabinets. Before it can start lambasting them about the mess, Magnus grabs its attention fast by gripping the chef by its shoulders.

"If we could have just a brief moment of your time. It appears we've been charged with making tea and could use a little guidance before my fiancé ends up using his tea bag in hot water method."

The robot looks just as appalled by that statement as Magnus had been, and the judgmental expression thrown from the chef at Alec is well-deserved in Magnus' opinion. But that statement does prompt the robot to start rattling off a list of ingredients for them to fetch.

"Alright, I believe I saw the greenhouse on the way here, so I can take care of the tea leaves if you want to fetch the rest," he offers to Alec. As much as he doesn't want them to separate right now, it'll be quicker this way, and it's only for a few minutes... Surely, Alec will be waiting for him when he gets back.

Please be waiting for him.

Allison has been trying to escape her own mechanical pursuers, though they don't look as though they're in great shape. She doesn't have knives, but she has used well timed doors and a stick that she found along the way to her advantage. But it's not slowing them down quite enough, so when she meets up with Alec, she doesn't argue the point of getting behind him.

"It took some of them out but they just keep coming."

Something about his face is familiar, but she files that away for problems for Future Allison to deal with. Instead, she squares off behind him with her stick, ready to beat some tea party goers as best she can.

"I take left, you take right?"

Alec figures that if she's made it this far she can clearly handle herself, and doesn't bother to protest when Allison stakes her claim on half of their pursuers. "Deal." Otherwise, he's not very talkative during the next few grueling minutes as different guests come careening out of the dollhouse's nooks and crannies at them: he usually leaves the witty mid-battle banter to others. At one point one of Alec's stolen knives gets shattered in the grinding gears of a particularly tenacious cog droids' arm. Then he has to trade a shallow slice to the shoulder through the thick fabric of his frock coat in order to haul a burlap mannequin across his hip and slam it into the ground before it can get past him into Allison's space where she looks very busy fending off her own faceless—but not knifeless—opponent. At least he gets a second knife back out of it, though stabbing into a human-sized creature made of burlap as the follow-up feels very weird and disconcerting. Especially when it goes still after, laying in an insensate heap on the ground.

All in all, it's a bit of a sloppy showing, but truthfully his expertise in crowd control is at range and not in close quarters. Also, this is just a very weird day all around and he's maybe not totally in top form.

Then, as suddenly as it all began, the frenzy is over. Alec waits for a few more moments, standing still like he doesn't quite believe the struggle is done, before throwing a glance over his shoulder at the stranger. She fought as well as any Shadowhunter would, considering the array of tea party guests laid out around them. "Are you injured?"

She shakes her head, before actually glancing down at the rest of her to make sure she actually is still in one piece. She knows what blood loss feels like, so she doesn't think she's in any danger, but it's the little things that can get you.

"No, just aesthetically." It is what it is, unfortunately. This was a rather nice steampunk-y outfit before the robots tore holes in it. "My outfit won't live, but I will."

She holds out a hand to him. "I'm Allison."

Alec huffs out what might be a laugh if he weren't too Tough and Stoic for that sort of thing. (Around anyone but his fiancé, that is.) He copies her by glancing down the length of his own strange steampunk clothes, following the look with a hand because the black fabric obscured any particular holes.

His frock coat is not long for this world either, apparently. But better the coat than his skin.

"Alec." He tosses one of his knives into the air and catches it with his other hand in order to free up one to shake when she offers. "You're pretty good with that." You know, that stick. Alright, so maybe he's fishing for an explanation without trying to sound as outright nosy as he's being.

Allison glances over at the stick in her hands before shrugging. "Not my usual weapon of choice, but you make due with what you've got."

She probably should elaborate more, but she's side tracked by the face and the name clicking into place. She's only seen his face once, and she was slightly drunk at the time, but she does remember Magnus asking her to keep an eye out. Maybe it's a coincidence, but it's still worth asking. Better to be safe than sorry:

"You wouldn't happen to be Magnus' Alec, would you?"

Alec perks up immediately. Not that he was being his usual dour self even a moment ago, but any familiar name in the middle of this bizarre set of experiences would be welcomed (okay, maybe not any name considering the kind of shit he's gotten up to over the last year), and that's the one he wanted to hear most anyway.

"Yes," no shame in his game, he'll take that claim any day of the week. He put a ring on it and everything! "Does that mean you've seen him?" If they were still in New York he wouldn't immediately assume that she didn't just recognize Magnus by reputation, but here he gets the feeling that's not what's going on. "Here?" He realizes he's coming off maybe too eager, but he can't bring himself to care.

She brightens because oh good! This is good news even if where they are is currently terrible. She and Magnus had been waxing poetic about their missing loves, and she's so glad that Alec has actually showed.

"Yes!" There's a pause. "Well. Not here in creepy Alice in Wonderland, but in the real world? We're friends."

Is the unwinding the real world? She doesn't know and she's not sure she can really tell him, but she's willing to assume this is a giant mass hallucination.

"He showed me a picture illusion thing." She'll include a nice flourish, just like Magnus usually does with his magic. "Just in case you happened to show up."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

the unwinding

Alec Lightwood | Shadowhunters (TV) | Tourist!

spill the tea;

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spill the tea

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