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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"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.

"Without a doubt, more. Much more."

There is finality in his voice. Regardless of the things he's witnessed in Town-on-Gorkhon, nothing compared to the absurdity of Pumpkin Hollow.

"Walking corpses, temporary death, monsters and human-sized animals of all kinds... this place is far worse than I could have ever imagined. The Gorkhon town almost seems welcoming, in comparison."

Almost. Even if he'd felt Eva's warmth when he'd arrived. Almost, even when the kids started calling him 'Uncle Bachelor.' No, he was sure of it— nothing about that town was welcoming.

He closes his eyes. Remembers how he last found Eva. He would not let her memory fade from his brain, no matter how hard it is.

"Like something out of a storybook," Pyotr murmurs, his gaze distant. Glancing over Daniil, he asks, "It's frustrating, isn't it? All that time we spent at labor, working to break the Law of nature...and here people take miracles completely for granted. It's enough to drive you mad."

"That, we can certainly agree on, mate."

Dankovsky smiles at Pyotr, his cheeks slightly reddened by the drink.

"What is there left to do, in a place that has no need for me? You can satisfy yourself with a few drinks, but that's not the life I seek, Pyotr. I need something that drives me."

He shakes his head, resting his palm against his forehead.

"I don't know if I can find such a thing here," he confesses quietly.

"You've always been a man of vision," Pyotr sadly agrees. "It's one of the things I've always liked about you."

It bothers him far more to think of Dankovsky moldering, his intellect going to waste, than it does to think of himself in such a state. Pyotr's never seen himself as an especially intellectual man, certainly not like Daniil or his brother. His prowess lay in a deeper realm, the realm of the mystical. For a while he almost fancied himself a sort of oracle, interpreting the will of a higher being...but that was before he understood the true depth and breadth of his failure. Now he sees that it would have been better if he'd never tried in the first place.

But Daniil's work, his mind...it isn't like that. Something precious would be lost if he gave up his struggle.

"You could always try becoming a magician yourself," he suggests whimsically. "The feats people can perform here are miraculous to us, but there must be some kind of underlying system to it, a scaffold of rationality. Otherwise everyone would be able to do such things -- but instead there are specialists and experts, haven't you noticed? Magic is something that has to be studied and trained for, like mathematics."

"Don't be ridiculous," Dankovsky spits out resentfully. "Don't you dare even suggest the idea. Magic is precisely that-- magic. It is not supposed to make sense. The mere concept of it implies the impossible - the usage of higher forces. How in the world would you make sense of that?"

Of course Pyotr would find the idea endearing. He is not the right person to talk to, when it comes to this specific subject. It makes Dankovsky's head pound to just try and explain it to him.

"I'm sure you would do wonders," he says, quietly. "The Polyhedron was, in its own way, a miracle. I'm sure you'll find a place of your own in this community of insane men who play with sorcery."

Great. Now, he's bitter and angry. The drink is making it worse, too.

Pyotr doesn't want to fight Daniil, he'll avoid it for as long as he can, but when the man needles him right in the sore spots like that...

"Wow," he says gruffly. "And how exactly can you bear to say such things to me, Daniil Dankovsky? You know which hopes I pinned on my rose -- or did you go and forget that conversation too?"

He glares spitefully into his drink. "There will be no more miracles from me," he murmurs. "I have no wish to be the death of anything precious to this world."

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December TL -- A Triptych

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