ph_logs | December TL -- A Triptych

December TL -- A Triptych

Who: Pyotr Stamatin and players like you <3
What: Open post for those who would like to meet Artemy and Daniil's castmate!
When: December
Where: See below
Warning(s): Depression, alcoholism, and suicide ideation, including references to a successful attempt pre-game.

Panel One -- The Oak & Iron

A new ghost has come to Pumpkin Hollow.

His heart may beat, his skin feels warm, but he is a ghost all the same, one with clenched jaw and burning, agonized eyes. Coming here was a mistake; he'd opened his veins in anticipation of oblivion. Finding himself in a mundane office instead so bewildered Pyotr that he'd participated in the following conversation by rote, agreeing to everything the strange woman said so he could get away. And now he's stuck here, in a place where he can't die.

Nothing could be worse -- except for the fact that he's also sober. No, even worse than that: he feels healthy, in a way he hasn't since boyhood. Steady hands, clear eyes...if he cut himself open he'd probably find his liver fresh and regular in color, free of the cirrhosis that used to fret Andrey so until he rejoined Pyotr in architecture.

His thoughts follow one after the other in steady procession, without interruption or pause. Agonizing. Intolerable -- and he knew from long experience that wine would not be enough to soothe his soul, but it would make a fair enough anesthetic. If he could just stop thinking...

A ghost in the shape of a man sits down at the bar at the Oak & Iron, looking no higher than the level of the counter as he orders a bottle of wine.

Panel Two -- The edge of the woods

Eventually the noise of the bar gets to be too much for him. All those people coming and going, and even when they do him the courtesy of ignoring him he struggles to do the same. There was a reason he always avoided the Broken Heart...

No surprise, then, that he eventually walks out in search of a little quiet. He winds up on a track leading west out of town, through a thin patch of wood that opens out into farmland. There by a wooden fence, an interesting sight at last: a fallen kite, built in the shape of a bird out of colored paper and sticks. He turns it over gently and finds one of its wings crushed beneath the body, its bones snapped in twos and threes.

"Don't be sad," he tells it softly. "A bird can live quite well without its wings, so long as it takes care to avoid the cats."

Panel Three -- The Temple

The Cathedral was a loathsome sight, a great dead block of stone with neither love nor the will to seek it. He'd never understood Eva's infatuation with the cursed place; he'd boarded up all the windows in his flat that faced that side of town, so he wouldn't see even a speck of it by accident. The Temple...is not like that. Even standing outside, he can tell: this is a building with a soul.

Possibly four of them, if you listened to the locals.

It makes him sick, the way these people talk about their goddesses. Like they're people who can be just walked up to and touched --! It's not the first time Pyotr's wondered how much simpler his life might have been -- if he'd born one of the Kin, for instance -- but now the question burns him like a stomach full of coals. If he'd been born in a world like this...

What is he even doing here? Do these goddesses long for death? They could have satisfied themselves with Burakh in that case; he's the experienced god-killer. Pyotr Stamatin's talents lie more in the area of divine maiming. And besides, his useful days are over for everyone. What did they bring him here for?

Supposedly, he might be able to just walk right in and find out. Supposedly...

Fuck it, he's freezing his balls off out here. Pyotr pushes the heavy door open ahead of himself, passing through -- and immediately loses his nerve, sitting down on one of the nearest pews. This is fine.

The Frame -- Wildcards welcome

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Pyotr shrugs. "Come drink with me, old boy," is his answer. "Some conversations aren't meant to be sad sober." He turns to take a long pull of his wine, conscientiously wiping the lip off with his sleeve before passing the bottle over to Daniil and signaling the bartender for another. He's already drunk, but if he has to talk about this then he intends to get much drunker.

"I couldn't leave well enough alone," he finally says. "I'd already intuited that the Sand Pest was somehow the fault of my Polyhedron -- the timing was just too precise. An entirely new, unique disease, emerging mere months after my brother and I pierced the earth to steady our creation? It wasn't a coincidence. But I needed to know more. Where had all the blood come from? Why was it the key to curing the Pest? How had Burakh known to knock the Polyhedron down? I badgered him about it, made myself into a second pest. By the the time he gave in I'd started camping out outside his house at all hours, and that little girl of his was throwing rocks at my head every time she saw me...that's probably why he gave in at all. Andrey wouldn't scruple at beating a child if she made herself enough of a nuisance."

He shrugs again. "Credit where it's due, I think Burakh knew the truth would end me. For a Ripper he doesn't seem to like killing very much, does he?"

Dankovsky takes an inelegant swig of the wine, letting out a deep breath before something clicks in his mind at Pyotr's words. Something that makes his head shoot up in disbelief.

"What?" He says, quietly. "The Polyhedron was the cause for the Sand Pest?"

How could it be? That thing was a tower. A man-made construction. Whatever materials it was made out of, there was still no sense in accusing it of being the origin of the Plague.

Pyotr's next words should have felt like the man's usual level of incomprehensible, yet they didn't. He spoke of the events as if he'd seen them happen with his own two eyes, the expected manic tone in his voice completely absent. He speaks like he's seen the end of the Polyhedron. Like Burakh had chosen to knock it down, for whatever reason. The same Burakh that he saw die with his own two eyes... surviving the Second Outbreak.

What the hell?

"Slow down. For the love of God, Pyotr, slow down."

The wine couldn't have gone to his head this fast. Moreover, as drunk as Pyotr sounded, Dankovsky was well-versed in differenciating his nonsense from his sincerity. Still, just in case he's having some brain fog, he speaks the next words slowly, as intelligible as possible:

"Burakh... knocked the Polyhedron down? And that is what ended the Sand Plague?"

"...Yes." Pyotr freezes as well, staring at Daniil with wide, troubled eyes. "Don't you remember, Bachelor? You were there."

Dankovsky's face falls.

His eyes immediately move to the other side of the inn, trying to find something else to focus on. How the hell is he supposed to break the news? Oh, so your world, and my world, and Burakh's world, they're all different outcomes to the Sand Plague. Different 'universes'. Crazy, yes? Isn't it also so crazy that I survive, in yours? And yet, I'm still here?

"I..."

Dankovsky swallows nervously. It's not a good idea to break such news to Pyotr when he's just arrived-- it might make him lose his mind a little. A little more than he already has, which is never good. Instead, he chooses to make up a bad lie in order to satisfy his own curiosity:

"I don't remember much, to be quite honest. My recollection of the events has faded a bit from my mind since I've arrived here. Perhaps you could refresh my memory?"

Have I gone back to the Capital? Have I made my dream come true? Have I found a purpose? Have I accomplished anything at all?

In all the time Daniil's known him, Pyotr has always been inclined towards detached melancholy. He might suffer fits of madness and rave in his delirium, but overall it's like a curtain hangs between him and the rest of the world. Safe in his reliance on Andrey to intercept and prevent anything that might hurt him, he keeps his gaze on his own inner world, his art and his visions, and lets everything else pass him by.

It may well be the first time the Bachelor's seen Pyotr's face crumple in genuine distress. "You don't remember?" he asks, less disbelieving and more shocked at the blow to his companion's precise mind. It was like taking a fine china plate out of the cupboard and discovering it had been chipped all around the rim. "Oh, Daniil...I'm so sorry, old boy." He reaches out unsteadily, delivering three or four comforting pats to Dankovsky's arm. "Never mind then, it doesn't matter anymore. Memory is for the living, so why shouldn't we dead men forget it all? Here, have another drink." He nudges the bottle in Daniil's hand.

Pyotr's reaction deeply unsettles Dankovsky. If he had picked himself back up, surely Pyotr would have simply said so.

What happened? What the hell happened to him?

Against his better judgement, he takes the bottle offered to him. He's always been quite weak against alcohol. The shiver of unease that ran down his spine at the expression Pyotr just made promised him a long, unpleasant evening of drinking.

"...in vino, veritas."

He chuckles dryly before drinking away. He doesn't care what Pyotr thinks of him— knows he won't be judged. They've been well past that point for a long time, now.

"I assume you weren't killed," he eventually says after pulling away from the bottle. "You're here because the Polyhedron was knocked down."

"I'm here because of what Burakh told me," he correct gently, and squeezes his eyes shut in remembered pain, blinding raising his own bottle to his lips. After he's drank, he groans and says, "There was so much blood after she fell. A great stinking lake of it. Burakh said it came from deep underground. He said that when Andrey and I drove the Polyhedron's foundation into the Earth, we pierced this big underground chamber, which was actually the chest cavity of the Kin's goddess?"

He laughs, rubbing his face. "Doesn't that sound completely mad? I know you don't think much of my mystical leanings old boy, but even I never dared to imagine there might be an actual, physical god under the Earth. But Burakh believed it...and there was so much blood..."

What?

What?

What?

Dankovsky stares at Pyotr, unsure whether he wants to tear his hair out or laugh hysterically. What even did that mean? The Polyhedron's foundation, piercing into an underground chamber-- the metaphorical heart of the Kin's deity?

"That doesn't sound right. I hope you're aware you shouldn't simply believe Burakh's every word?" he answers quietly. "Are you sure you didn't simply hallucinate the blood, mate?"

Dankovsky has never bothered to look into the Kin's beliefs, but he did know the basics of it. The Earth is sacred, and so forth. If there was a heart to that Goddess, it would have to be in the earth...

Edited 2024-12-15 21:24 (UTC)

"Why shouldn't I believe him?" he asks casually. "He's the one who cured the plague...and I'm not the only one who saw the blood, either. The whole town was there, everyone who wasn't dead or down sick...hauling it around in buckets to make his panacea. It took hours...not even my hallucinations last that long."

Pyotr's words feel like a punch to the gut. He's the one who cured the plague.

Pyotr is not mad enough to hallucinate the end to the Plague. He is not mad enough not to know who made it happen. He is not mad enough to hallucinate an event of this scale.

So, he did it. The madman. Artemy Burakh... not him. Perhaps that was what Pyotr wasn't willing to tell him about.

Dankovsky knows himself. He knows he'd surely go insane, having failed so pathetically at the one thing he had such faith in. He knows he'd lose it if a small town surgeon who specializes in alternate remedies managed to win in his stead. After all, Dankovsky is used to being the winner. And, honestly, had Dankovsky died of a more natural cause, perhaps the knowledge would have broken him, right here, right now.

But the Bachelor can't help but think back to his days with Artemy. They were so far, so distant in his mind, but he'd had so long to reimagine them, over and over, while he was reliving the tenth day. Perhaps it's been so long his memories of those first nine days weren't quite right, but still.

What he does remember, is that he thought Artemy could do it. If anyone other than him could cure the damn plague, it would be Artemy Burakh.

"Incredible."

Dankovsky shakes his head, raising a hand to his forehead to support himself.

He knows for certain he lived through that tenth day for months. And he knows it's not something he can explain with rational thinking. So why wouldn't the cure to the plague be something just as insane?

Dankovsky can't help but laugh. It's a small, pathetic laugh, but it's a genuine laugh nonetheless. Because of course. Of course.

Of course.

"...was I there?"

He eventually asks, out of curiosity.

"Of course you were, old boy," Pyotr assures him, patting him on the shoulder a second time. "We all were...everyone chipped in, even Saburov and his wife." Although they couldn't have been working too hard, if they still had the energy to steal his daughter while he was distracted...Pyotr pauses for a moment, lips pursed in a painful sneer, before picking back up the thread of the story.

"You really can't imagine the smell...and then afterwards, once the last victim was cured, Andrey and I dragged you off to the Broken Heart to wash and get black-out drunk. You really needed it by then."

Sounds about right. Although, perhaps not the part about Katerina. He can't see her doing anything worthwhile with her two hands. She was impossible to reason with, last time he met her. Wouldn't budge an inch, no matter what he said.

Dankovsky slowly closes his eyes, feeling impossibly tired. He had always avoided imagining a world like this one; an 'alternate universe', of sorts, where Burakh survived. Where he lived to see the end of the plague. He hated the mere idea of it, because what did it mean for him? What could he have done that he didn't that could have changed things?

Surely, if there was a universe where Artemy managed to save the town from destruction, managed to save the people from the plague... there had to be one where Daniil managed to do the same, right?

...right?

"I'm sure you also needed it," Dankovsky says with a friendly laugh. "Andrey... oh, Andrey was probably furious with Burakh, wasn't he?"

"Mostly it was the soldiers who were the targets of his wrath," Pyotr agrees. "He was ranting and cursing up a storm, swearing vengeance on them all alphabetically and in order of seniority. Burakh even told him to his face that it was his hand that gave the order, but by then I think my brother was too drunk to remember." But not Pyotr, clearly. He'd had little taste for twyrine at the time.

"...I did leave a note," he says, more quietly. "Telling Andrey to leave Burakh alone. The fault was ultimately mine. I built the Polyhedron wrong, put her in the wrong spot...Burakh was just cleaning up after my mistakes."

Dankovsky slowly shakes his head in disbelief. "You fool... a note would only make matters worse."

By pointing a finger, even if it is to try and keep Andrey from doing something he shouldn't, he's giving Andrey a target. Someone to lash out on. And, while he knows Burakh can defend himself, there was the matter of...

"...!" Dankovsky looks at his friend, eyes wide. "The children! Were they okay?"

It's becoming increasingly clearer that Dankovsky is discovering Pyotr's world, instead of only having forgotten about it. Still, he seems almost desperate to know the answer.

"My brother listens to me," Pyotr insists. "He's never once gone against my will. I'm his one weakness that way, you see."

He does jump a little, though, at Daniil's sudden vehemence. "What children?" he gasps, clutching his chest in shock. "Grace is fine, the Saburovs are probably spoiling her rotten and letting her do as she pleases, just like they did with Clara." He grimaces, drinking deeply. "Or did you mean Burakh's little ragamuffins? They're fine too. The girl has shockingly good aim." Did he mention that already, how Murky likes to use his head as a throwing target? He's not sure at this point, they've been talking for a long time now.

Dankovsky knows for a fact that there is a limit to Andrey's patience.

He also knows, so, so well, that the man would snap the second he lost his brother. A note wouldn't make a difference. He'd lash out at anyone he believes responsible for it, he's sure of it. But...

Well, if that's what Pyotr believes, who is he to argue? It's not like Dankovsky gains anything by insisting.

"If you say so," he says, sounding rather unconvinced, but not pushing the issue. "I hope, for his sake, that you're right."

Dankovsky relaxes in his chair at the mention of the children. He still wonders about the rest of them, but if some are fine, why wouldn't the others be as well? At least, God, thank God, there is a world where Dankovsky didn't fail them.

"Good."

He takes a drink, closes his eyes for a moment. The feeling of familiarity he gets from drinking with his old friend grounds Dankovsky a little.

"...it's good to have you here, Pyotr."

Pyotr simply shrugs. There's not a shred of doubt in his mind that, shed of his dead weight, Andrey will be just fine, if not even better. He was the one with 'freedom of action' after all, wasn't he? Without his weaker younger brother to take care of, the world will be his oyster. Arguably Pyotr did him a favor by dying.

(And he would react poorly to being told otherwise, so really it's for the best that Daniil let the subject go...)

"You as well, old boy." He smiles slightly, raising his bottle in a toast. "The circumstances are certainly strange, but...I can't deny, it's a comfort to see your face." He sighs, resting his head on one hand.

"...So, tell me what you've been doing here. Is there more or less work for a thanatologist, in a world where death no longer counts?"

Dankovsky stills.

Oh.

Ohhh.

Right. Yep. That.

Dankovsky... may have neglected to think about how to announce his current employment situation to his friend. In a way that would, well... not embarrass him.

"Well......"

I'm a farmer now. I dig into the dirt and clean up cow dung. That is my life now. Oh, and I chose this for myself, by the way.

"That's..."

I lost my mind. I went momentarily insane. I forgot who I was and woke up having signed up for that job. Haha, I know, I know...

"Not exactly, indeed..."

Thanatology? Ha ha ha. Ha! Good one. There's no point in studying death anymore, if there's no glory to be found in it. So I farm now.

This is who I've become. I will never be anyone again, so this is the life I have chosen to go with.

"....." A deep sigh. He looks at Pyotr, resigned. "I have become a farmer, Pyotr."

There is no joke in his voice. No amusement in his eyes. He means it.

Pyotr...stares.

For a very long couple of minutes. Slowly, he tilts his head to one side, as if trying to observe Daniil from a different angle.

Another minute passes before he finally says, doubtfully, "So...do they do farming conscriptions here or...something?"

Edited 2024-12-16 02:28 (UTC)

God, just kill him. Anyone, anything. Kill him already. He has suffered enough embarrassment for seven lifetimes, at this point.

"No... they do not."

Dankovsky's blushing. A lot.

"......"

Pyotr's stare has always felt piercing, but it was a new level of unbearable now. He had forgotten how it felt to be scrutinized in that way.

"...I signed up. To become a farmer. It was my decision."

"...Huh."

Pyotr finally breaks the intense stare, reapplying himself to his wine. After a moment he finally gives the verdict of, "I don't think I'll be doing that."

He passes no judgement on Daniil's decision. The celebrity thanatologist is dead; who is he to dictate how Daniil spends his afterlife? Maybe he'll even find some peace, out there in the weeds and dirt.

...Pyotr still thinks he'd rather stick with drinking.

Dankovsky lets out a sigh of relief, when Pyotr finally allows Daniil to breathe. It was a relief that Pyotr was hardly the type of mock others— if it had been Andrey, he would have never heard the end of it.

"Well, what will you be doing, then? Do they hire architects here?"

"I don't care if they do or not," is Pyotr's answer, more sharp than he'd meant it to be. He gives Daniil a sheepish smile, explaining, "That is, I'm done with buildings. It's over, there's nothing more to say."

His own preference would be to simply stay at the inn drinking himself into a stupor, but...he's going to need to get more money from somewhere, as his tolerance exceeds the limits of the stipend. Fuck...

"I guess...I could make a few paintings to sell..." he suggests doubtful. Daniil should know the reason why; Pyotr's artistic output is not known for its 'commercial appeal.'

"Considering the average level of insanity around here, you'll find a market. That, I guarantee you."

Dankovsky can even think of a few people he could suggest Pyotr's art to. Daniil finds it mostly unappealing, preferring more classic fine art to Pyotr's more experimental pieces, but... someone like Sheogorath might find them interesting.

Yes, he would. He's quite sure he would. Chaos meets chaos- Sheogorath would surely enjoy Pyotr's company. He can't help but snicker to himself at the thought.

"Is there something funny about that?" Pyotr asks, curious rather than offended. He knows Daniil isn't a fan of his work...and it doesn't bother him. Pyotr doesn't paint to be liked, after all. It's a mode of self-expression...but he is curious about this 'level of insanity' Daniil's referring to.

"Would you say this town is more or less insane than the one on the bank of the Gorkhon?" he asks, almost playfully. Trying to spur his friend into a round of exposition, as they've both enjoyed in the past.

December TL -- A Triptych

cw: discussion of violence against children

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