[OPEN] Who put me in your way to find?

[hadnoright]

Who: Daisy Tonner (hadnoright) & you!
What: Catch-All for Daisy
When: August
Where: The forest, the hot springs, downtown, etc.
Warnings: Violence, animal death/hunting, intrusive thoughts, nudity, others added as needed



1. What right had you not to let me die? [the forest]

Those who travel out into the forest during the day may find themselves running into a short, relatively petite human-looking woman bodily slamming into a deer or boar that's almost as big as she is. The creature hits the ground with surprising force and when the woman rises, it's whilst wiping the blood from her mouth and rolling her shoulders.

Most of the time, she already knows someone's there before they say a word. So, the animal-like energy to her posture melts away like it was never there at all and she turns toward her audience and says something like, "Don't mind me. Working."

Unless, that is, you've managed to actually sneak up on her. It's not an easy thing to do, but when she's in the heat of a Hunt tunnel vision can take its hold and it's in those moments where a sudden noise might make the Hunter's gaze snap towards it like a beast startled. And it's in those moments where Daisy is most distinctly inhuman, the odd yellow eyes and the teeth and the animal way she holds herself.

And it's in those moments that it takes all of Daisy's restraint not to give into the sound of blood pounding in her ears, telling her to attack. With a growl, she shakes her head and takes a step back. "Jesus fucking christ. Don't sneak around!"

2. Ooh but did I even know what I was asking for? [hot springs]

She doesn't get aches and pains like most people in her profession would after a while, but that doesn't mean the hot springs aren't relaxing in their own right. So, occasionally Daisy makes the trip up to the springs, strips down and slips into the water with zero modesty nor shame about the nudity.

There are scars all over her body, many in places that should've killed her if she hadn't already been long on the way to inhumanity by the time she took the damage that caused them. The biggest, a starburst-like scar marring the back of her shoulder, is only visible if you're looking when she sits up.

3. If I had my way, I'd have missed you more [downtown]

There is a large blonde wolf lying in the yard of Daisy and Erin's house. The wolf may appear at first glance to be asleep, but in reality if you look closer she's a little too visibly tuned into her surroundings for that. Still, she is relaxing. Sunbathing, even.

Occasionally, a Mawhile appears from another part of the garden to try and bite her tail. She seems completely unfazed by this.

Wildcard

Hit me up to plot something or just throw something at me.

Comments

big ol' late game TMA spoilers from here on out

[hadnoright]

She recognises the subtle tricks of word choice, and she appreciates it. This one she'd rather try and explain in her own terms, even if it's not going to be easy.

"Well. That's because it is bad news." There's the more Daisy-typical bluntness finally coming back. "The last time I saw you, we'd just listened to a tape Blackwood left. On it. We heard Elias kill Gertrude. Or, I s'pose I should say we heard Jonah Magnus kill her."

[apocryphalarchivist]

"A tape th---" Jon starts to parrot her, to process it, but he can't help it. His jaw drops. He looks mortified.

"No. You're kidding. How did he...?"

[hadnoright]

"Not entirely sure. Best we figured he's body hopping like Rayner did. Sounded like his original body was down in the Panopticon. Which is apparently where the tunnels led. Millbank Prison. Right under us the whole time."

Which she's pretty sure Helen knew and never told them, surprise surprise. The Spiral tells lies and omits information, that's the MO.

"Lukas was going to try take it over somehow."

[apocryphalarchivist]

"Christ," Jon murmurs, quiet horror written all over his face as he tries to wrap his head around the notion. It's one thing to pick up the pieces slowly, follow the trail to these things, but having them laid out like that? It makes the mind reel.

A gear in his head turns, and his face drops again, just as he's recovering.

"Oh, god. Is... is that what Martin meant by him doing a favor for Lukas? Was he involved?"

[hadnoright]

"Blackwood was trying to stop it. Think his plan was letting Peter think he'd got him under his thumb and then... not being that." Which is hardly a fitting description of the machinations Martin went through in the long year and change he spent working under Lukas, but Daisy's not a wordsmith. "He left you the information that sent you after them. Them being him, Lukas and Magnus since the bastard had escaped prison."

Because of course he had. The police didn't stop being corrupt after Daisy left, after all. All he had to do was pay his way.

"Problem was. Montauk and Herbert turned back up and started shooting random Institute staff. And someone let the weird Stranger freak from the tunnels loose. So Basira and I had to stay back whilst you ran after them. To keep them from following you."

[apocryphalarchivist]

Jon nods, slowly, rolling each domino over in his mind. Everything's falling into place in a terrible, sprawling puzzle. If there was any chance she was bullshitting him (which he wasn't inclined to believe to begin with), everything seamed too closely together for that to be possible.

"...And that's the last time we saw each other," He adds, half-question half-statement of fact, as he understands it.

[hadnoright]

Daisy breathes a, "Yeah," and leans back on her hands. "You ran off. Basira started talking like we were both gonna die. And then—" she cracks a bit of an empty laugh, "I basically told her to shut up. Made her promise to kill me. And let the Hunt back in. 'Cause if I didn't. She would've died. And I couldn't—"

Basira, when this is over, you need to find me. And kill me. Promise me.

(immediately) No. No, Daisy, we’ll figure something out.

These last few months… it was always borrowed time, wasn’t it? Can’t outrun it forever.

Daisy…

Promise me.

I promise.

Thanks. Now run.

Run.

"—I couldn't let that happen."

[apocryphalarchivist]

Jon frowns, but there's no surprise that rises to his face this time.

"...I'm sorry, Daisy. It shouldn't have come to that." Though he doesn't know what other way it could've ended, no matter which way he turns it. Even if he's missing the time that she has, he saw how she spoke to Basira, worked with her, looked at her. If there was something she'd throw herself to that would leave her lost to herself, it'd be in the name of keeping Basira alive. "Fucking vampire hunters never did seem to know when to leave well enough alone."

A beat of consideration. All that leaves is, then...

"And that's not the last thing you know."

[hadnoright]

Another, "Yeah," as she tries to decide how to explain this. Her tongue drags over her teeth and she tastes iron, swallowing it after a moment's further thought.

"Things turned up on the ship, sometimes. Random stuff. Me, I kept getting tapes. Started off with stuff I knew. My statements. Us in the woods. So on. But they didn't stop when they should've. I got tapes from the future."

[apocryphalarchivist]

Jon blinks, deeply puzzled, folding his legs beneath him. Might as well find a comfortable sitting position for this one.

"The future? I mean... I guess I shouldn't be shocked, considering you're from the future as far as I'm concerned, but... what sort of tapes were they?"

[hadnoright]

"They were. Weird. Not normal statements. More like the tapes that recorded us doing other stuff. Even when we didn't start them."

She's stalling, she knows she is. That's not the important part of what those tapes were. She bites her tongue outright and huffs air out her nose.

"The world had changed, Jon. The Fears were there. Really there."

[apocryphalarchivist]

Jon pales. The tension in his shoulders tightens ever-further, and his heart's pounding starts to feel like it's risen into his throat.

"Wh... but... how? A ritual? But I--- I thought any given one could only draw the Fear at the center of it?"

[hadnoright]

Daisy has to bite her tongue again, let the taste of her own blood distract her from the sound of his heart pounding like a freight train. Breathe in, breathe out. Focus.

"...wish I knew. Didn't get a lot of detail. Tapes seemed like they were yanked from the middle of whatever was going on. All I got was it was Elias's grand plan. He'd been moving us around like chess pieces. And then he'd used you to start it."

[apocryphalarchivist]

Tension shatters like a pane of glass, and his heart drops into his stomach. He feels like he's going to be sick.

"...Every time we thought we were getting ahead of him, we were moving exactly where he wanted us to be," Jon murmurs. "I got out of the Unknowing, and I still wound up being a piece of another grand plan to cause an apocalypse."

He stares ahead; it's all he can do not to be crushed by the weight of the revelation. He understands, now, why Daisy was so avoidant of laying it out like this. Complications mount rapidly on the back of this revelation - any plans he'd tried to make beyond Marrow Isle come undone in an instant.

How could he ever consider going home, if that meant the end of the world?

[hadnoright]

For the third time, a simple, breath-like, "Yeah," is all Daisy offers at first, heavier sounding than the last that had already felt heavier than the one before it.

She sits up straighter, and visibly hesitates before an awkward but meaningful hand appears on Jon's shoulder.

"None of us saw it coming. Knew Bouchard was playing us, sure. That's his game. But... I dunno." It still crept up on them. And the worst part is she doesn't even have enough information to figure out how to avoid it. "...sorry. Know it's a lot."

[apocryphalarchivist]

The hand on his shoulder comes as a surprise, but not one he acknowledges out loud. He glances back, and despite the weight of everything still feeling as though it was doing all it can to suffocate him, he manages a weak smile. It's not much, but hopefully it's enough to let her know that he does appreciate it.

"It is, but... it could always be worse," He lets out a huff of a dry laugh. "I could have found out on the day the barrier goes down. Could you imagine? I decide I'm leaving, I'm already to go, and now I've got to stop and decide if going back to things the way they were before is worth ending the world."

[hadnoright]

"Mm. Yeah. That crossed my mind." She always knew on some level that it was better for him to know, but... it didn't make the question of how she was ever meant to bring this up any easier to answer.

Could he change anything, even if she had the knowledge to offer? Would going back make it inevitable, a story already set in motion that couldn't be changed? No butterfly wings flapping, just a railroad thundering ahead towards a set destination.

"If I knew more—" she starts and stops, because she doesn't. She sighs. "Most of it was you and Blackwood arguing with Basira. Some things never change."

[apocryphalarchivist]

There's another huff of a laugh - this one is more genuine, almost fond, even in the face of the bleak subject at hand.

"That sounds about right. Figures that we'd still be bickering with each other, even after the world's fallen apart."

He hesitates, for a moment, before speaking again. The question is there, but it takes some effort to decide to ask it. He isn't sure that the answer is going to be something that will be easy for either of them to hear.

"...Did any of your tapes from the future tell you if you made it? I don't suppose there was... much of you left, if you were as bad off as it sounds."

[hadnoright]

The hand on his shoulder finally falls away again, more out of concern that she'll claw him otherwise than anything else. Her teeth have already caught her tongue, again.

"That was. Pretty much all the tapes were, actually." Four tapes, sequential, from them finding Basira until... "When you and Blackwood caught up to Basira. She was Hunting me. Or, y'know. What was left."

[apocryphalarchivist]

Oh. Jon doesn't need to ask, nor to reach towards anything beyond himself, to make those pieces fit together. That doesn't make it any easier to say, however.

"...She fulfilled her promise."

cw: referenced cannibalism

[hadnoright]

"...yeah."

How many ways can you say a single word and have it feel different in your mouth than the last time? She groans, scrubs a hand roughly over her face as if she can wipe the memory away if she tries hard enough.

"I was Hunting old victims. Didn't matter which other Fear had 'em first. You caught up to me... gnawing on some poor bastard. She almost couldn't do it. Even after I nearly bit your leg off."

[apocryphalarchivist]

"That doesn't exactly surprise me, considering... everything."

He lets out a breath, slow and even. His heart isn't pounding so hard in his chest anymore - his nerves are fried, the strain bears down on him even still, but the inevitability sinks deeper in, numbing the stress slowly. Bitterness and something bordering on despondence isn't a great replacement, but it's better than terror.

"At least there's no rush to start looking in that direction. ...Martin is, though. During the dinner with Neil and I, the topic got brought up, and while we didn't stay on it long, it's clear he's expecting me to go back. How am I going to tell him about this?"

[hadnoright]

"I don't know," she answers frankly. Took her long enough to tell Jon, after all, and right now their relationship is somehow less complicated than his and Martin's in many ways. "When I said I was from the future. He sort of. Jokingly asked about it. I blew it off as spoilers. But we barely know each other."

From his perspective, she's mostly just the scary Hunt lady who interrogated him once and wanted to kill his crush. And from hers, the last time they talked he'd been pissed at her for being too friendly. It's a weird mix.

"Can't avoid it forever, though. Not any more than I could. You two are..." Mmm, she really doesn't want to outright tell him that they were definitely together on those tapes, not when things are already messy with Martin and Neil. "You're like me and Basira. In some ways. You and me— we talked a bit. About what to do about how things changed. Not sure we ever figured it out. But even then. Whatever happened to us, it affected them. No way around it."

[apocryphalarchivist]

...Huh. Well, that's one hell of a comparison.

He rolls that over in his mind for a quiet moment. There's a part of him that wants to joke back at her, Oh, so nearly-debilitatingly codependent, viciously protective of one another, occasionally feeling like a bit of a two-headed monster? It's for the best that he doesn't, however, even if he's still putting the pieces together on why that would be spectacularly hypocritical.

The perspective still prompts some gears to begin turning, however.

"No, you're right. Dodging it for too long will just put him in that same potential situation, if not a worse one, somehow," Jon agrees with a sigh. "I wish knowing it's the right thing to do made it any easier. None of this ever really gets any easier, though, does it?"

[hadnoright]

She said what she said, Jon. You don't want her making a blunter comparison than that because you'll both come out of it feeling weird about the parallels between your relationship experiences.

"Nope. Never. Always hard, always messy. But that's the price. For having a choice."