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

[downswing]

Nor timid, nor prone to disclosure. Gripped close, Bichen yet hums with the quiet thrill of a bite deferred, the prospect of tasting her. The woman lives, still. Close, and her excuses meander, her reasons lose themselves.

Slow travel to encampment. Courtesy dictates his step slow, aligned with her advance. Littered on drenched ground, the hungry mouths of snapping flames, where the watch stood early ground. He joined this shift without intent, but the heavens grinned down, teeth white-blinding, and there's a meanness to divine order he does not contemplate long enough to question. It was willed that he should meet the riddle, Allison Hargreeves. So be it.

Ghosts walk between them, absent, trickled, pale. Etiquette again — this time, when he brings out the sword, it's to keep Bichen a barrier between them and the passing infantry, its gleam white-cold. Whatever the woman's missteps, she does not deserve their haunting.

"Perhaps they consider you marked prey." Alone for their cold enjoyment. He hesitates, teethes at his lower lip. And softer, "You may wish for vigil."

An escort more patient than Lan Wangji, more suitably applied. Perhaps, another woman.

[rumorate]

There is always her sister. Anyone who crosses Vanya would likely regret it, harpy or not. Not that she wants her sister to be her personal bodyguard, put that weight on her. They're still in the process of rebuilding their relationship, after all.

Good thing Vanya isn't the only Hargreeves here.

"I have family here," she replies. "If they decide to come for me, my brother and sister will help protect me."

[downswing]

"Your brother and sister," he echoes, softer at his edges, thinking and thinking, and the thought — catches. To the name, he is indifferent: a confusion of sects and adoption and the same appellative spread oftentimes among men who never crossed the same generation, let alone path, or bloodstream.

But a brother and sister. Only two among them, and Allison of the Hargreeves speaks of recent arrival. She is not of the caravan, no dreg of the citadel Sa-Hareth, nor paid beauty of swelling pride, collared by the merchant Mazyar. Inexorably, she shares of Lan Wangji's fate: brought and chained to a new world, adrift but finding purpose. So, then, her family are known.

Another phantasm flickers beside them, blinks slow and to his heads, and seems to signal they should stay, oh, stay. Hear him. Mercy blooms in Lan Wangji's heart too close to harvest, too easily culled down. He shakes his head and walks them on.

"The child and the woman Vanya." The possessed monster and the mystery, the only possibilities. The only siblings among them, barring the brothers Wei Wuxian and Jiang Wanyin.

[rumorate]

"I'm sure he loves you calling him the child."

But that's not a no. She's much more concerned about his opinions on Vanya than Five, because Five is more thank capable of taking care of himself. Not that Vanya isn't, but her feelings are a little more volatile.

"But yes. That's my family."

[downswing]

"He is a child." This, tainted with the blunted edges of curiosity, of sensing a riddle afoot. Is the boy perhaps so single-minded in his independence that he loathes the admission of his years, tallied on a bead string? Does he think them slight and ridicule? He is so distorted?

The prospect was ever there. Five, likely named to honour the four other sons before him. A spare, no matter death's twisted, potential fortune of removing one or two inheritors before him. Accident and cruelty cannot claim four predecessors. Five will never inherit. And — here, Lan Wangji turns slowly to behold the woman — sisters, at least a pair. It strikes him, inevitably, that a family so blessed with children must number either great coin in their coffers or the bold unaccountability of parents unrestrained.

Suppose Five and Allison and their sister Vanya, and Five's other four brothers, if not more — suppose they were all born to hunger and teeth grinding against their own flesh and mouths dry and bellies unfilled. That would explain so much of the boy's fractious behaviour, twisted like vines growing without pillared direction.

"You will want for safety, but no necessities here."

[rumorate]

Actually, the one thing that Reginald Hargreeves had going for him was that he wasn't completely sexist. Given that all the children were born on the same day, there was no opportunity for seniority by age, only through the manner with witch Hargreeves acquired them from their biological parents.

Allison is Number Three.

But given that he doesn't say any of this, he'll never know. She also doesn't comment on Five's age. That's not her fun tidbit to share.

"Safety's never really been a thing before, so I don't know why it would start now." She's mostly sarcastic there. "But I'll figure it out."