ᶾ 001 ; open } { when are you gonna come down?

[rumorate]

WHO: Allison Hargreeves + YOU
WHEN: July 1-14
WHERE: Traveling around
WHAT: An arrival + some monthly shenanigans.
WARNINGS: N/A but will edit if that changes


july 1st - an arrival (ota)

Allison Hargreeves is having a very challenging day. Nothing is going as it's supposed to, and she's a little peeved about it.

Not that she should be surprised at this point, that Five trying to time travel them somewhere landed them somewhere else. But she's not thrilled by the idea of being alone again, having to start over again, having to find her siblings again. All she had wanted was to get home to her daughter. And now, after the explanation she was given by Kasra, Claire seems even further away.

Still, she plays with the small bit of quartz she was given as she makes her way through the crowd, intending to make the best of a bad situation. If Reginald Hargreeves taught them anything, it was how to survive. She hangs Luther's locket around her neck, tucks Claire's photo carefully into the middle of From Earth to Moon, and begins wandering through the caravan to see who she can meet and what she can find.

If you happen to cross her path, she'll greet you with a smile, taking the time to introduce herself.

"Allison." She smiles. "Have you been here long?"

july 6-7 - a ghostly interlude (ota)

Allison's never tried to rumor a ghost. She's never really had the opportunity. Ghosts were usually Klaus's department, so she doesn't even know if it would have worked. Right now, though, she wishes she had a bit more than fact.

One night, she stumbles away from a pair of soldiers, starting to come to ahead. As a result, she loses track of her footing in the dark. She forgets where the edges of the cliffs are, only wanting to stay clear of the spectral trouble and finds her way to the precipice of a ravine instead. She feels her balance slip, arms waving in the darkness (Five is going to kill her if she dies like this), but before she can tip over the edge, she feels a presence at her back.

Wide wings stretch out behind her, a physical form forcing her back onto the path. She turns once she settles on her feet again, safe and sound on the ground, and looks back at the tar-covered creature that's become increasingly familiar.

She meets it's eyes, before nodding in acknowledgement. "Thank you."

The harpy doesn't acknowledge her one way or another, before it flies off to do whatever it is it does.

Sometime later, it also might drop off a dead animal for her to eat, almost like a cat leaving their owner a present. Allison, though, is convinced that it believes she can't take care of herself.

(It might be right.)

july 10th - the thing you want most (ota)

The person Allison had wanted to see, more than anyone in the world, was Claire.

Even when she was trapped in 1961, building a life for herself with Ray, Claire never strayed far from her thoughts. She never thought she would have something so tethering beyond her siblings, something that draws her back, no matter how far she wanders or how into herself she gets, but she finds herself, as the caravan moves along, coming back to the photo that she arrived with. She can't help but feel herself wanting to apologize for failing her, even though this particular stop isn't her fault.

She hadn't intended to study the tar so closely. It just keeps coming up, over and over again. The same substance appeared in the temple where she arrived and the hands of the ghost general, and now it seems to be everywhere. Part of her should know better, should be able to see the trap, but she misses her daughter so much she never stands a chance.

She sees Claire's face everywhere she goes, and by the time Claire becomes a fully formed tar construct, Allison is lost, hook, line and sinker. Claire extends a hand to her, luring her further out into the canyon to search for something she can't put a name to.

Part of her knows it's not real. But she can't find it in her heart to say no.

Comments

Arrival

[bearshermark]

He's with the horses when he hears her approach. They're biddable animals, but he has a feeling that the undead disquiet them just as they do him, so when the gelding he's brushing gets nervous twitches in his ears and turns his head, Eleven turns with him.

But the stranger is alive, near as he can tell, and he offers her a relieved smile in turn as he pats a soothing hand along the horse's flank.

"Eleven," he answers with a nod, though her question throws him for a moment. He doesn't recognize her as one of theirs, but he can't be sure how much that means. "Ah, with the caravan? Only a few days.."

[rumorate]

"Me too. Only ... less, probably."

He seems to have ingratiated himself with the horses already, which is a step farther than Allison's gotten. She still feels a bit turned around most of the time but she's learning the lay of the land one way or another.

"This place is very different from what I'm used to."

[bearshermark]

Eleven tips his head, giving the horse one more soft pat, then turns his attention toward Allison more fully. It almost sounds like she might be one of them after all, and that's an odd thing if so.

"Different," he echoes, then laughs shortly. "Yes. There are less undead where I'm from, for one thing."

[rumorate]

"Undead?" She raises her eyebrows curiously. It's such a specific word that it's hard to doubt the meaning, but she can't really say it's one she ever expected to hear in real life. At all.

"You mean like zombies?"

[bearshermark]

Ah, so she is, then. If the other eastern provinces are mostly ruled by Unhalad's kin, there's hardly any way she hasn't heard of them otherwise.

"Yes," he answers simply enough, before expanding with a very vague wave in the general direction of what may or may not be an undead army on the other side of the caravan. "Zombies, ghosts, skeletons, wraiths.. undead wolves, not too long ago- that sort of thing. This place seems to have far too many of them."

july 1st

[somebadnews]

Five hated everything about their caravan. There were too many people, the method of transportation did nothing for how miserable he felt, and his patience for eerily ominous scenery was stretched thin. Nobody had to tell him of all people not to trust anyone, but he used the excuse to hang back and only keep an eye on who he needed to. Which mainly meant Vanya, though he was barely talking to her either after how the siege went down. He didn't really know what to say.

As soon as they stopped and he saw the opportunity, he broke away to get some air with some vague excuse that he was going to scout ahead. His impulse was to be gone in a flash before anyone else could notice. -- It was halfway to the cliffside that he lingered long enough to catch a glimpse of someone in the middle of the crowd that immediately halted him in his tracks.

Allison?

He had a faint memory of the last time he saw her. Logically, he knew it was most likely a hallucination brought on by extreme stress during the attacks, but the image of her lifeless corpse was too scorched in his mind to erase. Now she looked alive and well, and he thought he might have seen her smiling.

How was she here, of all places? Even though he had been convinced that he would find the rest of his siblings, it never once occurred to him that they would find him first.

By the time he comes up behind her he's able to put on a reasonably calm front. He can't totally ignore the part of him that expects her to vanish in thin air the moment he clears his throat, but he works up the nerve anyway. Head held high with his hands in his pockets, as if he's been expecting her miraculous reappearance any day now.

"I guess I can't say anything about keeping us waiting."

[rumorate]

Honestly, Allison is relieved to see him.

It took less time for her to find him than the last time they stranded themselves in another place via time travel. The more of them they manage to find, the sooner the world will probably end and they'll find a way out of here. It's becoming the pattern of their lives.

However, she can't be too happy to see Five, because, well, it's Five, and also she's still a little angry about being stuck down in that cavern in the first place.

"What the hell happened to the briefcase getting us home?"

[somebadnews]

He should have anticipated that question, and he looks off for a moment while he tries to explain something that he still doesn't have a good answer to.

"It didn't work." Obviously. And he gets how frustrating that is, really. He trusted Herb, and his family trusted Five that they could. Either they were double-crossed, or they were intercepted. He's not going to go into all his theories right now, he just takes a breath and continues.

"I hung onto the briefcase, but it's broken." Probably beyond repair. For some reason, he's been too stubborn to get rid of it. "Somehow it scattered you all through... well. Whatever this place is. But I'm sure you already figured that out."

[rumorate]

"I don't know what I've figured out," she mutters, and it's the truth. She has information, threads of things that might be relevant, but she hasn't been here long enough to piece any of it together. All she knows is what Karsa told her and she's not sure it makes sense.

Still, the anger flags just as quickly as it appears, knowing that unlike the last time they got scattered, this is a bit beyond Five's control. She just takes a breath and tries to focus on the present. What they can control?

"Are the others here? Or is it just you and me so far?"

[somebadnews]

It's because he can understand her anger that he lets it pass. When he landed here more than two months ago, he was furious that they managed to catch him so off-guard. He still is, and seeing his sister is a fresh reminder why. After all they went through, they deserved to go home.

"I found Vanya. The others are still missing." Before Allison can ask, he clarifies and glances over his shoulder. "She's fine. Just at the other end of the crowd."

There's a few things he'd like to know before they get to the rest of their family reunion though. As happy as he is to see her, people are usually more... restrained when they arrive here. Now he's suddenly wondering if she can rumor the undead. Or maybe it has something to do with the warlord they killed in the siege.

"How long has it been for you? Did you land here?"

1.

[plentystrong]

As it happens, the person Allison stumbled upon is Catra. Who is mostly obscured by the large cloak she's wearing to disguise her cat features. However, she will still stand out by the fact that she's currently engaged in an argument with her donkey. Who is standing still and refusing to budge, no matter how much Catra pulls the leash she has it on.

"Oh come on, you stupid animal! Move!"

But then her ears tell her someone's talking to her, and could they not? She's about to snap a reply, but -- wait. This is someone new, someone she hasn't seen before.

The thing is, Catra could use some real allies here. So she decides to play nice (well, nice for Catra), in case this stranger is someone she can manipulate into working for her. She turns toward the stranger and snorts. "Way longer than I ever wanted to. You're new, huh?"

[rumorate]

"Guilty. Maybe only have been here a day or two?"

She can't help but eye the donkey that Catra is having a problem with, her expression is curious that the beast of burden is being that stubborn. After glancing forward to survey the road ahead, she offers the ever so helpful:

"Maybe you need a better carrot for your stick?"

ghostly interlude

[downswing]

Flickered violence is the beast in motion. At night, only the white of its teeth glisten-blinds, and the sullen silence of Bichen's pallor, the blade drawn and searching the red-rained horizon. Lan Wangji moves unmoored, unbidden, before he can stray into uncertainty, half slipping in the blood-slick that coats the cliff's mouth. The woman sits too close. The animal descends upon her. And he knows well, too well, that if the winged creature grasps its prey from behind, it will either surge with it into the skies, unfettered, or plunge the woman into the abyss.

These things have never assaulted victims of such stature before, and she, nameless but coaxed out of balance, a woman grown. Distantly, Lan Wangji remembers to loathe the sketch of bodies before they fall, lines breaking, geometries cored of their purpose. Now, the creature draws on her back — she will collapse, she will fracture, she will be mourned —

...only, the woman is relinquished, the fluid, viscous nest of the beast's claws and wings and beak withdrawing once she is set straight on trustworthy ground. After (a heartbeat, whole), Lan Wangji swings down on the creature, and Bichen barely grazes the tips of its retracting claws. Thrown after the animal, the sword hardly pretends to give chase; only seconds before momentum yields, gravity conquers, and the blade swoons back down in his hand with the dull, aching resonance of failure. A shudder booms and bursts within him, cripples his posture: blood, streaming; no, anger. He wipes the sword on the flat of his palm, thin red line giving Bichen her honourary feeding, payment for unsheathing the blade without giving her compensation.

Above, the fleeing creature is a long-winged spatter of shifting, tremulous flesh. Beyond, the thrumming, empty chatter of the deadened army, a landscape of dark against the blood-rained white of Lan Wangji's silks. Nearby, the woman, spared against the odds of the encounter.

He thinks, this moment was only water, and she must be as spume, drifting and shallow and at the mercy of powers beyond her, and Lan Wangji should reach for her now, reach and reassure her, and offer what little is theirs yet to give, the blankets, the wine, the congee —

And instead, he turns his sword on her, a polite hand's distance from her chest. "Our enemy was your benefactor."

She must know the implications. Must understand.

[rumorate]

The blade comes quickly out of the corner of her eye, and were Allison faster, she would have attempted to put herself between the blade and the harpy. Not out of any particular sense of duty, but the idea of standing by while the creature that saved her was attacked by someone near by her didn't seem like a great plan. Fortunately, the harpy is faster.

Then, the sword is turned on her, and she raises her hands, showing that she is unarmed (at least physically) and she doesn't mean anyone any harm. She's become accustomed to having a gun drawn on her, rather than a sword, but that doesn't mean she isn't weighing her options, calculating the moves it would take to disarm him, wondering if she would be fast enough, or if rumoring him would be the better option.

But she'll at least try to use her words first. "They're not my enemy." That much is true. They haven't done her wrong at all since she arrived, and while she is new to things, she believes in taking things at face value.

"Are you sure that they're yours?"

[downswing]

Bichen, straightened, a graveyard for the thinning deluge. The blood rains dilute with each passing hour, exorcised by dawns. He knows — has known — for days of journey, and still his stomach roils, revulsion like thick bile when he see the sword so stained.

For the blade's sake, he should yet sheathe her. The woman looks the part of innocent or sorceress, her skills elsewhere placed — not in her thin arms, or narrow waist, or the loose economy of her footwork, impractical in swordsmanship. If she means to attack, she will call on her magic or her allied creatures, and Lan Wangji will need to retaliate with the full, white wrath of a different arsenal than the blade. Bichen is useless to him now, only a harsh dissonance of shifting air, when he turns or straightens the sword to follow the woman's breathing.

No point in crude cruelty. No honour in the greeting. The sword stays, Lan Wangji's grip lax on her hilt. They are too laden, rain-wet and off-balance, for ceremony. He blinks, and his lashes drop blood from above.

And is Lan Wangji certain that the beasts are foe, sooner than friend? Attacks indicate it. ​At length, the only constants of the journey have been the army that haunts them, the canyons unending, the blood rains of each night, and the winged creatures engaging in hostilities from above. "Your name."

[rumorate]

"Allison Hargreeves."

She doesn't know what kind of reputation Five is building for himself, or Vanya, but she keeps the last name in there just in case it's enough. Estimating her as a sorceress isn't wrong, but it isn't completely right, either. She was raised to fight just like the rest of her siblings so while she might not be a swordsmen, she can handle herself.

She watches his grip go slack, but doesn't lower her hands, wanting to be prepared, just in case the tables turn.

As for her creatures, they are just that. Creatures. She's sure that they can't be happy that these strangers are wandering into their territory.

"You?"

i am so sorry for being late and the oh-so-latest

[downswing]

"Wangji, sect Lan." The easy, castaway introduction, adrift in a slaughter of pleasantries. And this, at her throat, in meandered hues of reflected light — the only wife he'll ever name, Bichen.

He thinks (knows) the truth of trading threats, no different than coaxing the cooperation of a babe: wave your leverage too often, it pales and thins and withers like snow in quiet-warmed hands. The woman — Allison of the Hargreeves — has tasted the blade at the periphery of her neck's cosmos long enough now that if it does not bleed her, she will expel it with a tender hand.

Better, for the pair of them, that he should lower the sword first, step of that dance slow and discarded. He hesitates, the great, bright shrieking wails of the red storm a deaf ambiance; then, Bichen descends, to his side. He should sheathe her, but she is red, and her fetters motley and wet, and he has served the world enough dishonour this night already.

"If the creatures return." When, and the dark trail of the recent beast still shifting above, within sight's distance. "Will fault lie with you?"

a ghostly interlude

[lancifolium]

While she hadn't been near enough to catch sight of Allison's close call and subsequent rescue, she was close enough to see the harpy drop a snack off for her later on in the evening. From her clothing alone Lily got the sense that the woman wasn't a traveler who'd come with Mazyar's company, and the curious appearance of a helpful harpy made her keen to find out more.

With two cups of freshly transfigured tea in hand, she approached the woman, peering down at the harpy's gift before looking at the stranger with a tentative smile on her face. "They certainly seem to like you. Tea?"

Lily couldn't speak for everyone, but a nice cup had become rather vital at the end of another day on the road (or any day, really).

[rumorate]

"Please."

She never thought she would be one to appreciate tea of all things, but at least it's something familiar, and likely would be soothing. She reaches up to take the cup from her gently, and nods her thanks.

"Yeah, and I can't seem to figure out why. It's like they've decided I'm one of their own."

[lancifolium]

Looking in the direction the harpy had flown after leaving Allison her gift, Lily sipped her tea with raised eyebrows. "Have you a particular talent with magical creatures? Or were you fortunate enough to make a very good impression?"

Lily turned back to Allison as she lowered her cup, an apologetic smile on her face. "Sorry, I'm Lily. We've not met yet," not everyone shook hands to say hello here, or so she'd learned, and so instead she lifted her free hand and gave a small, friendly wave.

[rumorate]

"Allison. Nice to meet you." And she does mean that, despite the circumstances. She offers her a smile as she uses the tea to warm her hands a bit. "I'm gonna guess it's the latter? We didn't really have magical creatures where I'm from."

Arrival!! comes in 15 min late w/starbucks,,,

[remugient]

You know those days where you're like, 'this might as well happen. Adult life is already so god damn weird'? Except instead of being a day it's felt more like her entire life after waking up on that ship.

It's been her and Five-- and, admittedly, everyone else they've befriended (for a given value of what Five considers 'befriending'), so Vanya hasn't felt lonely, exactly. She's been improving on her control over her powers in little ways, small things that she hopes will go a long way eventually. But of the siblings it's just been her and Five and she loves Five, really! But she can't help but wish the others were around, especially Allison. She can't quite picture Allison living at the farmhouse they created, but Allison's been in and out of worse situations and it'd be kind of funny trying to see her clean after the goat or tend to the chickens.

Sometimes her longing and daydreams are strong enough that she can almost see her sister coming towards her through the people--

Wait.

Wait.

"Allison!?"

[rumorate]

"Vanya!"

Five told her that Vanya is here, and she sought her out immediately, wanting to make sure that her sister is in one piece. Given that the last time they improperly time traveled Vanya lost her memories, it's a relief that Vanya recognizes her on first glance.

She steps around the people passing her, making a beeline so that she can hug her sister. Because it's criminal that Klaus and Luther were the only ones who got a good Allison hug in Season 2.

"Five told me you were here, but I wanted to see for myself."

[remugient]

She throws her arms around Allison, nearly bowled over by the force of it all and laughing brightly. She's tiny compared to her more statuesque sister, but it's never bothered her before and won't do so now. She hugs tightly, soaking up all the hugs she should've gotten from Allison and the writing hadn't formerly allowed.

When Vanya finally pulls away, she grips at Allison's arms, looking her up and down. "You're here! You saw Five? I can't believe it!" She grins, relieved and a bit overwhelmed, but in a good way for once.

"You look-- Amazing. As always." Inevitably though she begins to look around, half-expecting to see Luther's hulking form ambling over. "Is it just you?"

[rumorate]

If only Luther was ambling around behind her. It would be one less sibling for them to track down later. But no, it's just Allison for now, and that's probably for the best, given their situation.

"Just me. At least for now. Five's convinced the rest of them are out there somewhere, and he might not be wrong."

They all landed in the sixties the last time they did this. Klaus, Diego and Luther are just going to take a little more finagling to find.