sand in your eyes

[groundrules]

And onwards, through the cursed desert. The mini-journey Arc covers 6-21 January and doubles as a test drive meme. Participants do not need an invite to apply this round. Have fun!

SAND IN YOUR EYES

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TEST DRIVE TOURISTS | ONE SAND WASHES THE OTHER
A HOUSE UNITED WILL SAND | SOILMATES | A PYRAMID SCHEME

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A SANDING OVATION

Sand in your eyes, down your throat, stifling. You wake half-buried in high dunes, crawling towards helping hands. Thirst vanquishes you.

You are quickly offered a translation and communication pendant and introduced to the leader of the caravan that saved you — good Mazyar, who thanks the stars for your most incredible luck to be rescued by his generous and humble self. For he is not a man for idle praise, but he has sold salt to salt makers, he was courted by seven of the five great trade guilds and brought peace to the Stairs of Sighs…

Mazyar reveals you are in Akhuras, where undead lieges seek to weaponise you in their war for dominion. Mazyar’s good but less successful friend, the elusive Merchant ferries otherworlders east, where ancient beacons can transport them home.

Retire for now and regain your strength. Come morning, further otherworlders will arrive from Serthica — and your journey may begin.

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ONE SAND WASHES THE OTHER

The veteran party reunites with newcomers in the desert, and with the merchant Mazyar — who once guided them through the Stairs of Sighs. His caravan is protected by the Scavengers —deathly a tribe of hardened desert raiders. They bring water flasks, supplies, cooling suits and tents to share. Their snail-like carriage mounts can transport the weak.

You are bound for the seized citadel of Alem, swarmed on each side by undead battalions. To access it, you must obtain one of the enormous sand worms that trawl the deserts, which can be deployed to create underground passageways.

The Scavengers will lead the caravan through haunted dunes, the worms’ traditional hunting grounds and temple-fortress Uruksithar.

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A HOUSE UNITED WILL SAND

The group first reaches the Valley of Unchaining, bordered by high cliffs and fang-like stones. Here and there, discover bloodied footprints, half-buried shackles and red chains. You might even stumble upon an eroded tombstone inscribed, H R SL EP THE UNCH IN D. At its feet are dulled dagger blades and rough calcar stone.

COULD DIE FROM LAUGHTER

You fool, never eat alone. Happen by the camp’s outskirts with your dinner, and you might glimpse the silhouettes of starved desert hyenas, their eyes glistening green. They will come close if you bear raw meat or bleeding wounds.

■ Scavengers say, if you see the hyenas, throw them food or a cloth drenched in fresh blood, then run without looking back until you no longer hear their cruel cries.

■ Some hyenas mimic rasped human voices, begging help or calling your name. One feeble hyena wears a chain of red shackles around its neck.

■ If you look back while chased, you find the green stare of the hyenas fixed upon you. You are gradually overcome by starvation, violence and the urge to dismember prey and feast on raw flesh. Player’s choice on whether characters can resist this compulsion, which disappears at dawns, or if they taste blood.

■ Scavengers will deny you entrance into the camp if you appear possessed in this way.

SANDIMENTAL VALUE

You walk the Valley, Scavengers say, and Mother Death walks with you. A once handsome crone might appear beside you, bare-footed and dressed in clean linens. She remains silent unless spoken to and flinches if you move suddenly, as if she fears being struck.

■ Treat the Crone kindly, and she entrusts you with a small pouch holding a fraction of her ashes, which she wants scattered from the hills.

■ Use rope and climbing hooks and take cover behind stone formations. Beware the violent sand whirlwinds that batter the cliffs, threatening to plunge you down or choke you with sand.

■ If you succeed, the Crone appears to watch her scattering ashes and bless you with good luck for the rest of your journey. Your kindness, she says, reminds her of her daughter.

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SOILMATES

The three-day walk to Uruksithar traverses the sand worms’ hunting grounds, where dunes shift periodically in sharp, tectonic waves. Watch your step and don’t be surprised if your tent sinks at night.

■ The Scavengers organise daily reconnaissance parties in the desert hills. Stay with them to unbury dune treasures.

■ The brave & brazen can try to catch sand worms. The massive creatures erupt overground periodically, catching prey in their large mouths, or crushing it beneath their heft as they plunge in the depths — creating large sinkholes in the process.

■ On its back, each sand worm has a few darker scales that draw the shape of a rune. To tame a sand worm, you must find its rune, then write the symbol on the worm’s back using blood from your hands. Report your catch by 23:59 on 17 January!

■ The sand worm bonds with you for three weeks until the next full moonrise, or until you draw the same rune on your cut hand.

■ Those who secure a sand worm find it grudgingly follows them underground for the rest of the journey. The creature can only be steered or ridden.

■ Some sand worms are vicious, old and sufficiently magical to retaliate by taking the link over and forcing their bonded humans to experience their lives — briefly sensitive to light and strong sounds, or unable to speak. Some might experience mild fevers. All symptoms disappear when the bond breaks.

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A PYRAMID SCHEME

At last, welcome to Uruksithar, former jewel of the desert — now reduced to rusted gates and tattered walls of wind-lashed stone.

The abandoned palace-fortress features a row of minor temples and barren gardens that surround a great, ruinous pit. The state of residential furnishings suggests the grounds were lived mere years prior. Walk north to find a a large pool of thickened black water that exudes a cold, unsettling presence. Veteran party members know what to expect.

Nail scratches on some temple walls read, we, who did not sleep or i ask the wind to grieve our chains. By the pit, a stone plate helpfully says, drop by drop, even base water turns to poison.

The Scavengers disperse to raid the temples, advising you to carry water everywhere. One raider mentions that the local Temple of Ra’esh stores silver waters that can woo sand worms.

OCTOPUS PRIME

Uruksithar’s great gong strikes every two hours, to groans and shudders from the abyssal pit. Scavengers immediately take cover behind walls, bind themselves to columns or rush into crumbling residences.

■ For five minutes, as the gong sounds a pathetic dirge, a bouquet of tentacles erupts from the pit, sweeping nearby streets to capture living things.

■ Throwing water on the tentacles forces them to retreat, while black liquid from the northern pool burns them down. Further tendrils emerge until the gong quiets.

■ Should you fall into the pit, use your climbing hooks to latch onto the walls and don’t look down. A grotesque, sharp-toothed mouth awaits below to devour you, amid the squelching sounds of the tissue and material it has been masticating for decades. It won’t give up its lunch easily.

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TOMB AND GLOOM

Ra’esh the Bright-maker, he who saw but peace beneath the skies. His humble temple is anonymous among numerous worship grounds. Scavengers say, four years ago, a wanderer sculpted an eye with a sun for a pupil on the entrance door. Take a torch and head in.

■ Long-stripped of its glory, the maze-like Temple of Ra’esh is now cold stone, stale window-less corridors and heavy doors that snap down from the ceiling.

■ Distant susurrations of water point you towards your destination.

■ As you walk in, pay attention to the engravings near the entryway of each temple room. Some depict arrows, forecasting spikes will burst up from floors tiles. Sculpted drops hint pouring water in this spot will open a door. Open a door with an engraving of large serpents, and… well. The engravings can help characters navigate the maze and completely avoid its traps. Feel free to make up your own engravings & traps, if you want!

■ The altar room contains a pool with pearlescent waters that surround a woman fully bandaged in gauze, her sight obscured. She is bound to a column with chains and shackles akin to those found in the desert. Rare peeks of her skin show it rotting or sickly pale.

■ She asks either if you are her mother, come for her at last. Do you engage?

■ Take water from the pool, and you can lure a sand worm to you once you have exited Uruksithar. Hazed, but sweet-tempered, it will follow you underground and allow you to ride it for the three weeks until the next full moonrise. These sand worms won’t give you a hard time during the bond period. Report your worm too by 23:59 on 17 January!

NOTES

■ Test driving & in-game characters can top level logs here — test driving characters can also put up network posts in this space c:

■ Feel free to investigate the mystery of the chains and shackles, but no pressure — it’s not critical to Arc V.

■ Hit up NPCs!

■ Navigation top.

QUESTIONS

Comments

Wednesday Addams | Wednesday | Post Series

[woenderful]

insandsitive

( Suffocation, the half-tried version she'd suffered through as the rest of the fools brought from the places of their before to the searing sands of here, was more pleasant, more familiar, than what followed. Wednesday had been pulled out of the dunes with her hand locked around her cello case's handle, having been picking it up to open and play back at her home, newly returned after Lurch drove her from the early close of the semester at Nevermore.

She'd been given the waters she'd only taken a moment to calculate the relative worth of being poisoned or drugged, had determined she'd deal with those consequences to the ill-fate of any trying to visit them on her, and ended up with the scavenged survivors of what had happened, in the shadows of the caravan with the merchant and his loose tongue, his sharp eyes.

Sand had invaded every inch of her, a pleasant sort of friction that veered toward painful annoyance as it lingered. Negotiations for space in a cramped private moment had sene relief for the sand lodged deep in clothing; the negotiation for a brush had gone less well, which is why she sits in the lee of one of the snail-like mounts and carefully examines her cello in the afternoon light.

The skies don't bleed. They're too pure, a sunset that stretches into eternity, and she wonders, doesn't voice, in a world dominated by necromantic outcasts, has anyone bothered with a multinational industrial revolution? Instead, she runs her tongue over her molars, worrying yet another grain of sand loose before settling in, posture familiar, bow in hand.

And she begins to play The Sound of Silence.

When it ends, she stares at the one who'd promised a comb for a song, unblinking, until with a laugh and a nod, it's handed over. She keeps staring until the man leaves, tucking the comb into her coat pocket. )

Abducted to a world of the restless dead. Pursued for the dark purposes of others from the moment of our arrival, and perched to travel across a parched landscape, which may well seek our deaths faster than anything else.

( She cuts her glance over to one of those dune-found sitting at the same fire. )

It's almost exciting, if it weren't so infuriating.

( She doesn't like when things are so wildly, vastly outside of her control. Also, this is a terrible kidnapping. There wasn't even anything there trying to ensure they all drowned in sand. )

rest in pieces

( Wednesday crouches by the tombstone, studying the words. She doesn't reach out to touch it yet, not willing to discover that her ability to see violent past or future will take over, surrounded by strangers and unable to defend herself when she'll potentially pass out from the system stress. Her fingers hover above the letters left, tracing over the ones missing. )

"Here sleep the unchained." A question of who, or what, the unchained are.

( Her gaze drops down to the dulled dagger blades and rough stone. )

Or if it matters at all that we're crossing through their dead landscape, in this place where the dead rule.

( In a manner of speaking. )

sanding side by side

( Wednesday walks side by side with the once handsome crone, speaking not a word. She doesn't want to talk. She doesn't want to invite anyone to talk. She's hot, exhausted, and this old woman she doesn't know is walking with her in the stretching shadows cast by the snail-mounts.

Please actually address the crone, fellow traveler. Because at this rate, they're both just going to enjoy utterly silent company together. )

soil is silver and the temple's gold

( Wednesday, with a borrowed cooling gear layered over with a likewise borrowed black robe, studies the frieze with unblinking intensity. The idea of a cursed, deadly, booby trapped temple sends shivers of anticipation down her spine. This, more than much of what's happened so far, is familiar.

She doesn't smile. The corner of her lips twitch as she recognises the depiction, but she doesn't smile. Only holds the torch higher, to see more of the entryway's carvings. )

Puzzles. I love deadly puzzles. Do you?

( She looks abruptly away from the wall to her companion of circumstance. )

Because if you don't, leave. Now.

( ooc note: feel free to wildcard for anything related to the tdm event as well! )

temple

[speechy]

Love is a strong word, bit.

( he is dressed much in the same outlandish gear, layered more so ( if anything ) to keep him from the harsh licks of sunlight, which she may or may not have noticed the effects of during their journey. 'bit' always seemed more of an appropriate term than kid; he hopes it's well-received, but he can't truly be sure. can't be bothered in any real capacity when they're standing in both a world he doesn't know and a temple he has none of the lore on. spike pulls his hood down, now that it's dark eough. his eyebrows raise, one scarred and one not. )

But I'm much more difficult to kill than your average Joe. So.

( why the hell not?

in his defense, he doesn't know he ought to clarify that his declaration wasn't an invitation to try. )

[woenderful]

( a sharp glance his way, unblinking: )

Call me bit again, and we'll see about leaving yours behind.

( ... bits of him, that is. no specific ones. she states it factually instead of threatening, her attention sliding back to the frame, head cocked just so. )

Being harder to kill is an asset when things are coming after you. Let's go.

( she heads in, speaking as she goes: )

This room has scorpion pits hidden under the tiles without suns inscribed on them.

( wednesday holds her torch out enough to study the tiles as she goes, picking her way forward with her lips held closed and a sigh in her heart. she wouldn't mind seeing the scorpions, but she can't say that it's advantageous to meet them and learn they're stirred to uncharacteristic aggression while possessed of neurotoxin venom. it would fit the theme of this world, in a way she both appreciates and finds irritating, in unequal measures. )

Much as I'd like to see them, it would be inconvenient to die here.

( death comes for everyone eventually, but here, she apparently will either be consumed by powerful undead lieges and disallowed the finality she believes in, this trapped in the eternal torment of social forces even after death. utterly horrifying. )

[speechy]

( to his credit, he doesn’t guffaw in her face. one thing about kicking around as long as spike has, you come to realize that people are surprising. ( people being shorthand to encompass all manner of folks - ghoulies and humans, and everything in between. ) particularly once you’re positive you’ve got the cut of them. some of the most devastatingly powerful beings he’s encountered have been in the shape of seemingly harmless young women.

vampires, slayers, gods.

respectfully, he clamps his mouth shut to the dozen or so rebuttals. likes his appendages ( each of them ) attached, you know? and to be clear, he’s following her not out of some sense that she’ll be damseling ( because of her age, her size, or anything of the sort ), it’s because she’s already the most interesting person he’s spoken to in a matter of seconds. flattery warms some, threats of bodily harm are apparently his bread and butter.

he follows her lead, eyes sharp in the dark even without the glow of her torch illuminating his footfalls. it’s no expert advantage, but it is a perk that aids him in stepping where she steps.

( having pursued a gloomy lunatic for more than a century, he harbors quiet amusement to the fondness for lethal creatures. ) )

Yeah. Gathered that. Died a couple times, myself. Don’t recommend the part where mysterious forces trap you in one spot perpetually.

How’s this? If I happen across one of our dark and crawly friends, not submerged in a pit of torment, I’ll catch it for you. Then, we call the whole unfortunate nicknaming business even?

rest in pieces

[fixmyjukebox]

( It's a sickened thing, a tombstone in open land. Downright perverted. Whatever marshall's gone overcome by the sheer, smooth-brained stupidity of digging tombs in open desert, with the winds hammering down fine and willy enough to keep a dropship on her tippy toes and 'fraid of landing —

But then, terraforming, right? Climate change. Suppose maybe the tides turned, water resources shrank, and isn't here what was years ago. No man's land around them. This doesn't look like curated territory.

And Jimmy's seen his share of wilderness.

Crouched down by the girl, looming. Bad form, with a girl so slim, to be hovering
around like a great oaf. He sidles, absently, to give her distance. His mother's raised a decent man, and this damsel looks far from her distress. )

Yeah. Funerary plates. ( God bless. May the righteous hold their peace. So long and adios. He's shrugging, tender. ) Where I'm from, you don't mess with no good thing while it's standing.

( Ain't their place, dealing with someone else's dead. Ain't their history, either. )

You, uh... weathering fine here? Desert's no game for the... ( A wave her way, gentle, as if to indicate the overall quality of being Wednesday Addams. ) Pale folk.

( Get out some Crisco, this girl gonna be burning. )

[woenderful]

( Appreciation for someone recognising that homage to death is of itself a good thing; tombstones are not frightening. They're reminders, more immortal than the bodies which do or don't decompose below. Don't, often enough—treated bodies were unfortunately slow to surrender their forms. Useful for gravedigging truth purposes, less useful for those claiming ideals of environmental friendliness.

The stranger's question prompts her into a frown, reaching up to tug the hood she'd pushed back off her head up again. The misery of heat is lessened with less exposure, but aside from the quality of her ephelides slowly darkening, her skin remaining as dead pale otherwise as it inclines itself to be. If it simply takes her longer to burn, or if her skin objects to gaining more color than blood will splash across her face, she doesn't know.

Still, she feels her skin drying, her lips chapping, if she doesn't remember to take small sips of water, if the looser robed suit weren't wrapped around her as it is. )

If I am or I'm not, it doesn't change that we're traveling through desert. The... snails are difficult.

( They're cramped spaces with people she has no connection to outside of circumstance, and the bare recognition of growing understanding of how social interactions work, and why they're worth working with, not just ignoring. The tombstone is far more interesting, and who knows? The dead retain relevance in this place.

She stands, a sudden motion, hands remaining at her sides as she rises. )

You think this place held its dead when others rose?

[fixmyjukebox]

They're selling a lot of crap about their dead rising. Not sure I brought my bucket to buy.

( As pleasant, smooth and unassuming as a man embodying a career of military service inbthe great unknown can be. Every hellhole thinks it's different. Every damn one could do with a loosened air vent.

This place wants the AC cracking. Bad form, not starting up the climate gear before they trotted down. Worse one, not having any pieces to spare.

And then there's the 'myth,' the 'magic,' the local civ bullshit. Keep your head bowed, let the civvy enthusiasm for fire reading and crystall balls slip it, no matter how aching stupid — ...improbable. That's the word. No joy in cursing out local beliefs. They did what they could.

Even if that were — and Jim's heartache for the stim cig his fresh-out-of-beggars'-hell outfit is decisively not packing blooms — the dead rising. Right.

Against good sense, hia hand's reaching for the burial plate, touching it for heft. Real or last-minute? Feels heavy, crumbled at the edges but strong. Real enough. )

Begging your pardon.

( Absent-minded, but there. You don't curse like an animal before women or kids. That's two out of two offended. )

You a believer, ma'am?

sanding side by side

[westviews]

[Everyone is hot and miserable, but the girl Wanda spots seems to grab her attention. Perhaps she looks especially miserable to her eyes, or maybe it's because of the crone beside her, but Wanda approaches with a flask of water.]

Here, [She offers it to the both of them, whichever might reach for it first,] some water.

[woenderful]

( Wednesday turns her head, watching Wanda offer the flask; she doesn't move to take it, eyes shifting to the old woman, waiting for her to move first. She doesn't claim it as any particular act, but it is sensible enough, in her opinion. She's slight, but sturdy; healthy and young, and the sweat and misery of this walk, clothed in layers that help but don't disguise the stark nature of the desert landscape, is pleasantly miserable.

It lets her stew with her thoughts spinning at her own lack of control over the larger situation, and her own extreme control of what's directly on hand.

Which is why she accepts the water from the old woman, who hands her the flask after, with eyes that are too flat, too watching, to match the rest of her face. Or are they? She doesn't blink, and the expression is still fleeting. She stares at the old woman a beat longer, then turns her attention to Wanda, lifting the flask as if in toast. )

Thank you.

( As if startled, the crone, too pretty to really be a proper hag, no matter her wrinkles, jerks shoulders back and blinks, but still doesn't speak. After the measured swallows of water, Wednesday caps off the flask and holds it back out, the motion too fast for the crone, who flinches away. Without turning her head, she cuts her eyes back to the older woman. )

You move like you expect violence. From whom?

[westviews]

[A strange pair, the girl and the crone, watching the latter take the flask. When it's passed over, and the crone flinches, Wanda frowns at the sight.]

We won't hurt you.

[Not her, at least. The girl looks--harmless, she thinks, but she knows better than most that looks can be deceiving. Her eyes linger on her, as if trying to assess properly, before continuing to speak to the old woman.]

We just want to pass through this desert as soon as possible.

soil is silver and the temple's gold

[allforthecause]

[ Cassian is wrapped up in the strange skin-tight garb that keeps his skin cool and at least slightly more hydrated than otherwise, but he's long since abandoned the mask, replacing it with a loose scarf instead. So his dust-threaded hair is brushed over a dirty forehead and dark, amused eyes. ]

Sure, why not? If it's between love and leaving you hear to face deadly puzzles all alone, I can give the puzzles a little love.

[woenderful]

( She stares at him for a beat, then a second, then turns her gaze away again. )

Keep your delusions of heroic sacrifice to yourself. You wouldn't be leaving me to anything. I'm not a damsel in distress. Yet.

( She steps toward the doorway, the collection of fiery images from where gouts of flame will be coming through the floor in mind. )

When I start screaming, I'm most likely enjoying myself.

( Then through the door, onto the first ledge, separated from two others, and lined by... black sand? She cants her head, studying it for a moment. It'd be an interesting, deadly touch if that were gunpowder, but what are the chances? )

[allforthecause]

Noted. Any heroic sacrifice should only benefit myself. Might make the sacrifice part a bit tricky.

[ He follows her steps carefully - noting where her eyes go - and marking the same things she is, close as he can.

He steps up to the edge of the ledge when she stops, ducking down to get a closer look at the sand himself, but more importantly - ]

Look. That platform, just at the sand line. There’s a seam in the rock - safe bet these move when we do.

[ He stayed still, crouched where he was. ]

Which means there must be something to trigger it, right? A plate, a switch, a motion sensor - though this place seems pretty backward, in the way of tech.

☆ rest in pieces

[sathan]

The dead matter more than most would give them a care for.

( the forgotten, the discarded, few often thought about what happened after death and those that did... so many of those assumptions were as far from the truth as they were close to it, just never quite right )

There's always rules with the dead.

[woenderful]

( She turns her head to regard the woman standing nearby. Waits for a moment, then two, then three, in case there's anything else coming, but the statement settles as blunt and (to her) obvious, without anything useful to carry forward. )

The dead are as loud as the living at times.

( She says, voice dry as their surroundings. )

The problem with rules is not knowing which ones reign here, or which ones are worth breaking, to what effect. I'm not unfamiliar with the dead of my world. The ones here, I don't know. Do you?

temple

[slippin]

[ The great thing about Uruksithar is that it isn't the desert. Or, well, it at least gestures toward not being the desert, and that's enough to lure Jimmy away from the snail carriage he's spent almost the entire past three days in. He's taken the Scavengers' advice about water to heart—maybe too much to heart, with a jug strapped to his waist, a canteen slung from his shoulder and another hanging from his neck.

Needless to say, she's gotten here first. Jimmy—who doesn't look especially keen, or rested, or well—observes her longer than he does the carvings. A teenager in flickering torchlight, one he's never seen before. And who is way, way, way too calm.

Jimmy breathes out, something between a sigh and a laugh. ] Oh. Okay, then. See ya. [ He turns and, water glugging in its various containers, walks away. No backward glances, no nothing.

...but it is a bluff, and if she—insanely—decides to just go ahead alone, he'll eventually turn around. ]

[woenderful]

( Wednesday watches the middle aged man with his laden waters and his pleasingly slippery feeling. Maybe it's all the water. She continues to watch him as he sighs, laughs, or whatever it is that was, then turns and leaves.

Wednesday nods to herself. Good of him to know himself so well. Just as she knows herself, and so turns her head away, stepping forward and through the door with its decorated frame of bats and snakes, speaking to the two forces awaiting inside.

The smell of guano makes the one more apparent than the other, and so she makes her steps small, aiming to disturb next to no dust as she illuminates the area around her with the torch held in hand. Oh, look! There's a sudden drop into a pit filled with... are those vipers? She leans over the edge, staring down. She's not entirely sure, but those heads do look viper shaped. Definitely venomous snakes down there, then.

She almost smiles to herself, turning to walk parallel to the pit with its waiting doom beneath her feet. )

According to the doorframe, there should be a narrow bridge along the left wall...

( ... Have fun deciding to turn around for the teenager who just walked into a temple of doom to have a good time, Jimmy, because Wednesday is on her way, and she is living. )

soil is silver and the temple's gold

[blackscales]

[ Wrathion's red eyes are roving over the carvings too as he slowly walks up beside her, arms folded. He isn't in one of the skin tight cooling suits, but has layers wrapped over him like some of the other locals. They're in the loose, haphazard manner of someone who isn't actually too worried about the heat or sand. His dark curls are barely contained by strips of fabric, a strand or two falling loose. ]

It certainly adds to the excitement.

[ Deadly taps, that is. They do add to the fun. He moves closer, gesturing to one symbol above the door. ]

See this? A sun with an eye, the symbol of the Ellethia. That means an old friend of ours has been here ahead of us.

[woenderful]

( Appreciable, finding someone can also appreciate the artistry of a deadly trap without needing to notate that no, they don't seek death particularly faster for the admiration of it. She inclines her head toward him, not blinking, but conceding her acknowledgement and acceptance of his own words.

It does add to the excitement. )

I'm certain that means more to you than to me. Which old friend, and what Ellethia? Country, religion, cult? Sun symbols are common in at least seven cultures I can think of offhand, and none of them are relevant here.

( Share the information, or the pattern, that he recognises from time here she hasn't had. That much is apparent to her from his words. )

insandsitive

[starscollapse]

[ Until recently, Merrin had never known a life beyond Dathomir, her home filled with ghosts. The undead are familiar to her; they'd kept her company after all, her murdered sisters, her beloved Ilyana. She has little to fear of death—how could she—and considers the undead of this world to be a curiosity she's eager to know better. ]

Infuriating. Yes.

[ Her voice is slightly halting, accented in such a way that it would be easy to assume she's from somewhere in Eastern Europe, though her planet of origin is a long distance from Earth.

She'd only just begun to consider the Mantis might be a place to call home, a place to belong, yet now she's here, wielded for someone else's purpose. Merrin has little doubt in her ability to confront the dangers of this world, but—yes, infuriating. It's infuriating that they have been abducted here to begin with. Yet, she's not alone as she once was. And there is music to ease their troubles for a moment. ]

What was that song?

[woenderful]

( Wednesday glances up, the tension in her form settling into a less fraught one. When music holds her attention, she gives herself fully to it, even when she isn't one for as many deliberate performances as she is deliberate indulgences of her own moods. Here, it's a negotiation tactic, she supposes, or at least tacitly accepts as possible.

A social avenue, when she doesn't enjoy those, but has sussed out some necessities of them. A day of collecting thoughts and accepting that this abduction is thorough enough that she shouldn't expect family has any way to find her, and that finding her way alone is improbably self-defeating. She hates that, too, but begrudgingly or otherwise, can accept it's also true.

No point to dither over it, and so she answers, a social stab, with far fewer knives. Enid should be proud. )

The Sound of Silence. I don't sing its lyrics.

( Singing is not something she's prone to, unlike her father, regularly murdering operatic arias in the shower. She is, however, admitting it does have lyrics, and isn't strictly an instrumental piece. )

sanding side by side

[scrapgege]

[The stranger looks about a few years older than Wednesday at the most, maybe eighteen, but he's dressed in white as blinding as her clothes are dark. The wind is making his robes whip about actually quite prettily, and he's shielding his face from the sand with a bamboo had that has a veil on it.

He caught up from where he was climbing after seeing the two walking ahead, and he addresses the old woman first, because, well she's older and the other person is clearly a child.]

Auntie, isn't the way too difficult for you? Here, you can lean on me if it's easier

[woenderful]

( She glances their way as the young man offering his help while wearing the least and looking somehow comfortable in whatever it is he's wearing, a fancier simple match to the old woman's attire. The older woman shies away, visibly, her smile tremulous and present in the way of a fleeting moment. )

Not to difficult, no, but long, long. My old legs don't climb as they used to, young man, and leaning won't change that truth.

( Wednesday blinks, more for the glare of light off sand and the dust that kicks up in the wake of the other snail-caravan wagons, shifting her stance, ready to continue ignoring both older woman and the young man with his daoist look about him. )

temple

[traaaaaash]

Sheesh, kid, hold the attitude.

[ Despite the words, Eda grins, her gold fang glinting in the little bit of light that hits it, hands stemmed into her hips. ]

But dang, you're right! Ah, my sister and I used to be so into this kind of stuff. I got a bit busy for it, though.

[woenderful]

( She wonders if she's supposed to comment on this, when frankly, she doesn't care. People age, their interests shift, or their commitments do. Even she has to admit that as true for herself, from her younger years to her not terribly older years, but certainly her teen years.

Being true to herself isn't a compromise with learning how to better interface with the world, or the fact she realises little by little she not only has to, but she may, perhaps, just a little, find it tolerable to do so for herself. )

Enjoy the nostalgia. I'm heading in.

( ... and so she steps right inside, having no intention to wait out whatever nostalgia is striking the woman with her gold fang and her impressive hair volume actually plans to embrace her roots and head into danger with her. )