ph_logs | September Mini - Ghost of the Past

September Mini - Ghost of the Past

GHOSTS

THE

PAST

The Visitor's Center

Just where the sands of Tawny Beach begin to fade into soil, grass, and cobbled roads, there is a new building. Much like the House of Cards, it seems to have appeared from nowhere overnight. A large and round structure of tastefully stacked stone, it seems to fit perfectly in between the town and the marina, with an exterior door facing each side and at both entrances. It reads, "VISITOR'S CENTER," in bold letters.

In mailboxes throughout town, there are flyers, advertising "offworlder visitation" running from September 6th to 19th. "Make appointment today!" it advertises cheerfully.

Regardless of which side you enter, the same receptionist sits at the desk on either side--- a pretty-faced young man with braided black hair, wearing dozens of pieces of delicate golden jewelry. He is working hard on some sort of paperwork or taking some phone call when you come in, but he quickly sets it aside to welcome you. "Hello! Welcome to the visitor's center! Would you like to make an appointment?"

Your host artfully dances around questions regarding the place, its abrupt construction, its purpose, and what your appointment actually entails, assuring you it's "self-explanatory." He'll gladly inform you that "people you know" are here for a visit, but won't say who or why or for how long. But you'll sign up for your appointment anyway, for one reason or another. Perhaps you don't even really know.

At the time of your appointment, you are sat down in a tasteful meeting space of your choosing (the options are listed below) and your guest is brought in. But it is not who you expect. In fact, in all likelihood, you do not know this person at all. But don't worry, they've been briefed, and they'll pass the information along to you if asked.

You see, you are not here to meet someone from your own past, at least not at first---- you're here to meet someone close to one of your friends or neighbors. And they're here to speak about that person to you.

Take as long as you need. The Visitor's Center does not close.

How It Works

Visitors.
Each offworlder on the island can have up to 2 "ghosts of their past." This is not meant to be literal, as these so-called ghosts will generally be no more dead than any other offworlder. Your ghost can be anyone who "haunts" you in some way, which can mean whatever makes sense to you. It does not necessarily need to be someone with a negative opinion of you--- it can be someone who loves you very much! This person can be from any point in your timeline, including after the incident that brought you to Pumpkin Hollow. It can also be a past version of yourself. Regardless, your own visitor is not actually the person you are here to meet. Your visitor will be meeting with one of your friends or loved ones from the island, and you will be meeting with someone else's "ghost."

When speaking to a "ghost", you will notice a few things about them. The first is that they do have a sense of where they are and what they're doing---- they know that they're here temporarily, and that they've been asked to speak about or on behalf of someone they know. They're aware of who the person is that they've come to speak about as well, and they seem to have all of their memories intact aside from being a little fuzzy on the actual process of getting here. The second is that in most cases, they seem to have regular needs like any living person. The upper floors of the visitor's center have hostel-like sleeping areas, bathrooms, a cafe, everything a person might need. The third is that they seem to be weirdly forthcoming when asked questions. Perhaps you're not familiar enough with the individual to notice such things at first, but it becomes evident that they're pretty open about the person they're there to speak about even when they don't seem to want to be.

Want to speak to your own visitor? That can be arranged--- but your ghost must speak to someone else first. But not to worry, there's plenty of time. (Despite the IC dates, OOCly this can be backtagged as long as desired!)

Locations.
There are plenty of places to meet with visitors within the Visitor's Center. If you'd prefer a more public meeting space, some lounge areas have been set up on the beach, or the cafe or recreation area within the center are all available. The beach meeting spaces consist of clusters of folding beach chairs or picnic blankets, and while swimming season is largely over, the view from the beach continues to be stunning this month. The cafe is a quaint bistro on the rooftop of the center with a round serving station in the middle and outdoor tables around the outer walls, which feels both spacious and intimate at the same time somehow. And the recreation room is an interior space on the second floor full of spaces for communal games, some of which are too modern to be there. (Not electronics, but definitely Cards Against Humanity.)

If you'd prefer a more private space, there are a number of tasteful meeting rooms, including those with tables as if for a more formal meeting or those with couches or chairs. One of the latter sort even has a fireplace!

However, visitors are not able to go further afield than the beach. If they attempt to go into town, their feet will plant themselves firmly to the ground outside. They will not be able to be pushed or lifted to get around this, and anyone who attempts to force it will be summarily accosted by the staff and their appointment will end immediately. They may not be eligible for another.

Rules.
As far as OOC rules go, there are a few perks and limitations worth knowing. Any "ghosts" that you write are eligible for AC bonuses for the characters they are attached to. If you are writing a ghost for another player's character, you may decide where the AC bonus goes, but please make a note on your activity check indicating what you're doing. You may write your ghost from your existing journal (with or without a unique icon for that ghost, just as long as you make it clear), or create an independent journal for the character. As mentioned before, you can absolutely play a ghost for someone else. If you would like to have a non-member friend drop by to play your ghost, you may absolutely do so if you clear it with a mod, preferably by having said friend send the mod journal a PM. Be aware that if you recruit an outside player to write a ghost for you, you are responsible for their behavior, and any AC-length threads on their end will not be eligible for transfer because that will just kill Drake probably.

Characters appearing from Ghosts of the Past can also appear in the Villain's Lounge or be apped in later as permanent characters (but not both, as the two are mutually exclusive) and will have some unique lore from entering the game this way!

Ghosts are not capable of lying and will generally feel more compelled to be forthcoming when speaking to anyone OTHER than the person they're here to represent. However, they cannot be forced to meet with anyone they do not want to see or to answer questions they adamantly do not wish to answer. The compulsions are relatively subtle. They also do not have to volunteer information they weren't asked for if they don't want to. None of these compulsions are present if they speak to the person they are there to see. Their memories are generally accurate to whatever point you bring them from, meaning that they can be whatever you want.

If you're visiting with your own ghost, please be aware that threads between two characters played by the same person are never eligible for AC and this is still the case in this instance.

Staff.
Last but not least, there's a chance that you may encounter the staff of the Visitor's Center around. There are two men and two women--- Daanon, Caspian, Reyelle, and Nephera, respectively. Those here in February may recognize them from Merrymeet. They look fairly normal, generally appearing as humans (or an elf, in Nephera's case), but in reality they are the members of the Court of Betrayal. Whenever they speak about their "Manager," they are referring to Eligos. However, this is not immediately obvious, especially to those not familiar with these particular demons. If you know, you know! [ I will be keeping my demon thread load super light, so please feel free to handwave interactions with them as you see fit! If you want a demon thread, please reach out to me for plotting. -Rose ]

CODE BY MARWOOD

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Isn't that funny? Because most days I'm elbows deep in it."

He steals the slice of pie back across the table.

"Anyway. I don't know what you're talking about, and I still won't unless you cut with the ominous crap. For all I know with all this magic bullcrap everyone has going on, you're someone who hates her and are wearing her face to try and make people mad at her for no reason. Crap or get off the pot, kid."

No, that dubious honor goes to her blood-kin, who, thank the Dread Lord, isn't here. She can just imagine the headache her screeching would cause. Or she'd be unbound and left to cause her havoc, and that'd be bothersome on its own.

"Hm. You being a fellow murderer would explain why she allows you close at all, actually."

He doesn't look it, but then again, she doesn't always look it either.

Edited 2024-09-11 10:09 (UTC)

...

"What do you mean, murderer? Fever's an adventurer. I mean- she's probably killed people there, but there's a difference."

Oh. He didn't know, somehow. Something deep and dark feels content, the way she does when she slides a thin dagger into flesh to swiftly end it.

"You're right. Which is why I'm not speaking of adventurers. I'm speaking of the most ruthless killer on the Sword Coast."

With complete serenity in her attitude now, she's watching him and his reactions.

"Did this never come up?"

(Fever's voice, in a distant conversation: "Some parts of this place are deeply confusing and strange to me.")

No.

"That's not- no, why am I?- You stop talking about her right now," Hawk growls, "alright? She isn't 'the most ruthless killer on the Sword Coast', or the Knife Coast or the Spear Coast for that matter, you don't know her and I don't know why I'm even entertaining this-"

He's taking the pie with him as he stands from his seat.

He's so certain. But she's found the crack in him. As long as she can feed his doubt, that's enough. Enough to make him think about it, enough to make him ask her other self. She won't even need to encourage him to do so. Unfolding her hands, she raises one, deliberately, in a universal signal for pause.

"I'm not allowed to lie in this place. Most of us visiting have already figured that out." Still peaceful, still calm. She makes her voice measured, words that will be heard and can't be dismissed as ravings. "If she didn't tell you, I can only guess as to the reason why. Perhaps to make it sting all the sharper when she decides to take your life too."

Or perhaps because she didn't want it to be known, like there was any hope of escaping that trail of blood. Pathetic. Weak and cowardly and so, so lost. But she won't suggest a merciful end to this one - he doesn't seem like he'd take well. Push too far, and he'll reject everything out of hand.

Dimitri. Potentially Gaeta. Who knows who else.

But the remorse, the intimacy of stitching her up, what he's seen of her. Hawk can't be that wrong about a person. He refuses. His ego won't allow it.

"I don't know what it's like where you're from, but I think I'd be pretty cut up if anyone murdered me," he starts, "And if she did, all she'd be doing is losing my fantastic company. We don't die here. On the other hand, if I went on the word of some stranger who looks like her and pretty clearly wants me not to like her, and treated her like a monster just on your word, I'd be a pretty awful friend. So, thanks but no sale today, I'm gonna go call her and let her know someone's stealing her look."

"Feel free. Call her. See if I'm as much a stranger to her as I am to you."

She smiles like serenity and gestures that he can go. The rest will be in the hands of her other self. Oh, she can lie about it - it would be more intriguing if she did. But what if she doesn't? What if she tells him, watches those blue eyes fill up with heartbreak and betrayal, to realize?

What she would give to see it for herself.

Hawk leaves with his pie. He doesn't, not at first. Not until he's all the way home and set up in his apartment, on the couch with his knitting. Glances to the telephone, then after a few long moments, goes over to ring Fever.

"Hey- Fee? I just had the weirdest run-in- do you have a minute?"

"For you? Naturally."

The tones of the voice are the same, but where the woman in the Visitor's Center was all cutting, sawteeth pointed out, this is the voice he knows better. Something lighter, something that knows him - a voice that's more at ease.

"What happened? What's on your mind?"

Hawk drags a chair over so he can sit with the phone wedged between his shoulder and his neck and continue knitting.

"I'll tell you- it was just the craziest thing. I met this girl who looked just like you, but she had the worst attitude I've ever met, and I've met some rotten eggs in my day. All weird and spooky and mysterious. Kept acting like she knew you but wouldn't tell me how- you didn't happen to have a bad break-up with someone who looks exactly like you, did you?"

It's funny, the sense you get when you go to take a step and there's no more ground left. As if you were lifted up, and your legs left to dangle, and some lurch twisted in your center. Utterly weightless. Like your skin is too big, will slide right off your body, leaving the nerves exposed to the cold.

It's funny when you look down and realize you've been walking on glass. Hairline fractures forming where you're standing. It's all going to give way. There's no edge to hold onto. Not for miles and miles in any direction. You're going to fall. You're going to keep falling. Who knows when you'll hit the ground?

The murky fog, and a surge of something else. If she's harmed you I swear I'll kill her I'll rip out her heart with my hands I'll keep her alive and make her drown in her own bile I'll-

"...I know who she is. This...isn't something I want to talk about with the stones. Mine or yours, either."

What has she said. What did she say. What else could she have said?

There's a sigh on the end of the line.

"Come to mine. Have I mentioned lately I hate all this magic crap?"

"No more than the usual amount. I won't be long."

Somehow, there's still a note of warmth in that, even as she barely recognizes her own voice as coming from her mouth. She doesn't know how she manages the walk over, she barely recalls a moment of it, moving automatically. But this day has been coming, hasn't it. Radar's started to treat her differently at work, like he thinks she'll unhinge her jaw and eat him alive. And she knows why, what must have been said. Gods only know what's going to happen now, when Hawkeye knows.

Maybe this could have been avoided, had she gone when Valdis told her she was there. But it's equally likely it couldn't have.

When she's at his door, seeing his face makes that strangely light feeling come back, waiting for the glass to break. She tries to smile, but it doesn't quite make it to her face. Waits until the door shuts before she can ask the question she needs to.

"What did she say to you?"

He's back on the couch knitting, and he doesn't look up from what he's doing. With all the weariness that the war has put on his shoulders-

"That you're some kind of mass murdered looking to wait until my drawers are down to stab me in the back. What- what's going on, Fee?"

Should she even sit? Not touching him, when she does. That way he won't have to pull himself away from her when the disgust sinks in. Her head prickles with pain, and she remembers distantly a time when she had to do this before, lifetimes ago. Wrists rubbed raw and bloody from a fitful night, and not even having an answer as to when this could stop. And for some reason she wants to say sorry, I'm sorry. I should have stayed away from you when I knew you were a man of life.

"Hawk...she was wrong. But she was also right. What she told you, save the part about ever hurting you-"

Freefall. Waiting to hit the ground. Words that will sear everything. And for some reason saying them feels like dying, even though she knew this would happen all along.

"I have killed so many people. I remember enough to say that for certain."

Tiredly, always tiredly-

"So what- the adventurer thing was a lie? The amnesia part? What- does Phil know?"

Of course a surgeon knows where to cut. The same skills that can mend a body, restore it to wellness, seal them up so well there's no scars - it's the same skills would let you take someone apart.

"None of it was a lie, Hawkeye." There's something strained in her voice, and she feels like her body wants to fall apart. That same longing for a single fucking tear to escape her and prove her sincerity. "None of it."

And she doesn't know if Phil knows. She doesn't know if he figured it out with enough of what she said or if somehow that godsdamned restored version of herself got to him too, and she's set to tear down everything. Gods. She knew this day was going to come, but she didn't want it to come now. It's too early, it's not the right time.

(It would always be too early.)

Here's what Hawk thinks.

Those Goddesses put him on this God-forsaken island specifically to do this to him. Dangle people in front of his nose, and gut him with them. That nice man and his lovely wife, murderers. That girl he likes, mass-murderer. He'll probably get a call from Phil or Radar or Rambo or Gaeta or someone saying 'hey Hawk, by the way, I eat babies to live', and he'll just have to deal with that. Feel his sense of morals and decency twisting in his chest like metal in a train wreck. Hell- depending on the day and how generous he's feeling, Hawk is a murderer now! He led people in the style of the pied piper to their deaths twice now. That's all that seems to be on this island, just... death and more death, a grotesque mockery of the world he's from. Sure, they were up to their knees in wounded there too, but at least there things made sense. There was a home to go back to, where people mostly died of old age or misadventure and not murder, not guns, not- not-

Ah hell.

Fever almost sounds like she's really sad about it. In a moment she'll say something about how everyone she mass-murdered was a terrible awful person and Hawk will just have to believe her and pretend like it isn't strangling something in him. Better cut to the chase, even with his stomach churning.

"Hey- Fee, it's alright," he reaches to comfort her, "it doesn't matter."

The exhale of air from her is the closest thing she can get to a sob, something disbelieving and unreal, and there's what hitting the ground feels like. Like everything's splintering inside her and cutting on every edge, and how does it not matter, it matters with every breath she takes and everything she does and every day she wakes up and lies there sweating from another nightmare and every time she sees the end in her head like it's taunting her-

"Please." Her head minutely shakes. Don't pretend it's fine. Don't act like it's not disgusting. Don't act like it's not the complete antithesis to everything he stands for, everything he is, everything he was trying to do in the war and before and after and here as well.

"I need to talk. And I need you to listen to me until I'm done, and then say whatever you want. Whatever questions, anything."

Do whatever you want. Tell her to leave, and never so much as glance his way again. Curse her name, blacken her reputation to the entire town. It doesn't matter. She'll live out in the woods or something and have one of the few people who are also monsters bring her supplies.

It hurts so much, and she can't figure out why. Why, when she was planning for it all this time.

"It's fine," Hawk snaps in a way that makes it very clear that it isn't, "everyone on this fucking island is a murderer except me, so it's fine. I'm the weird one! I have to just get used to it- when in Rome, y'know? Do you have any tips for a first-timer? I was thinking of tying someone to a set of train tracks."

"It's not fucking fine!"

The statement bursts from her, and her head's jerked up, some mix of anguish and frustration in her eyes, gods she's got to calm down, she's not the one wronged here-

"It's not and there's nothing at all that makes it better or palatable or fixes one bit of it! Nothing about it is okay or forgivable and I know that. Okay? I know that, and it's not as though I came in here ready to ask you if you'd abandon every principle you ever possessed and somehow excuse it. It matters."

She's as tense as if she's going to spring up and start pacing. Maybe she will, if she can't calm down enough.

"It's going to have to be if I want to keep seeing you, isn't it?"

Hawk rubs his face with his hand. His freak-out isn't entirely over but he needs to ride this depression in it if he wants to have any chance of finishing this conversation and not just curling into a ball like a pillbug.

"Alright. Fine. Tell me they were all assholes who had it coming, please just get it over with, I can't handle the suspense."

Edited 2024-09-28 00:19 (UTC)

There's a flash over her face when he mentions potentially wanting to see her again - of all the things she expected to hear, that wasn't one of them in the slightest. But it's still early. She hasn't said the whole story. And there's no possibility that the whole story won't change his mind.

"I don't know. I don't know if any of them had it coming. I'm willing to bet that a lot of them didn't."

Her eyes drop away from his, more unable to sustain more eye contact than trying to avoid him. This feels like she has to perform a surgery on herself, opening herself up layer by layer until he can see that the rot's in her core, too deep for any scalpel to remove, any medicine to cure.

"There is something wrong with me. It's...bound up in a lot of magic crap. But the simplest way to explain it is that I have these thoughts that tell me to hurt people. Torment them, violently. They pressure me toward pain and bloodshed, impulses that would sicken you if I said them aloud. There's always this lurking sort of urge that's somewhere in me and wants to hurt everyone. Of my past, what's come back has been enough that I can piece something together. It's never gone away. Never really gets quiet. Sometimes it's been so strong that I'm no longer the one telling my body what to do. And at some point, I started listening. Stopped fighting them. Realized what I was made for."

Her hand's crept up to fiddle with her pendant, while everything else stays still. Destruction's what I'm good for, she's said to him. She's never wavered on that point.

"I don't know how many people. I don't know how long this went on. I just have enough pieces to say I was someone with great power who used it in the worst ways. Even if not every corpse in my pile was felled by my hand, they were still my responsibility. Getting stabbed in the head was probably the best thing to happen to me, for the sake of everyone else."

It needed to happen. It probably should have killed her, if she'd had any dignity or shame.

"Losing my memory made me start fighting it all again. Trying anything, everything that's come across my path to make it stop, to get it under control, to do something. Anything. Even now, there are plans for things to try. And safeguards for everyone else."

Edited 2024-09-28 01:55 (UTC)

A feeling creeps up in Hawk's chest. The same he sometimes got when operating on a general or someone else with any kind of brass. The human body has about six litres of blood in it, depending on the person. Couple of hundred people, that's about a thousand litres. At his point of the war, which feels like a long year and a bit until he's told it ends, the casualties are already up in the hundreds of thousands. How much blood is that? How many gallons? What's Fever's casualty count? Like a war in a woman's skin, and for what? It's not like she could even justify it- she didn't murder people because of a police action, not like what some of the softer hearts called his war back home. It was just murder. Proper murder. Because she could, because 'the voices told her to kill'. Any bed he tries to share with her will be a water-bed of blood. Any time he tries to touch her hand, how much blood will flake off? It would almost be too much to comprehend, if his damn day job didn't involve weighing bags of blood. Thicker than water, that's for sure.

"Why?" is all he can ask.

September Mini - Ghost of the Past

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cw: parental abuse, thoughts of self harm

cw reference to gore

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cw metaphors of unsanitary nature + graphic disease descriptions

cw: graphic injury descriptions

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