May Event - All Too Familiar

[pumpkinhollow]

May Event - All Too Familiar

Content Warnings: Walking dead, character deaths, potential for gore | Special Thanks to Meghan and Kalineh

It was a fine spring day when mysterious letters began cropping up all over Pumpkin Hollow. Letters whose apparent senders do not remember writing them, whose recipients or discoverers were harmed by reading them. Eventually these mysteries, though still unsolved, come to a quiet halt as stealthily as they began, but not before a mail carrier in a cowboy hat trots out to Elsie’s tree with a letter in hand, unmarked aside from being addressed to her.

She gleefully rips open that letter, hoping it's another message from her father. It isn't and, at first, she's crushed. But only until she starts to actually read it.

Elsie,

River la Croix has been hiding something in her forge for a while now. It is called the Book of the Dead. In its pages are hundreds of spells from across time and space with the power to give life to those no longer with us.

Your father is doing his best to revive your mother. But this island’s barrier is blocking his will, resisting his magic. I can no longer watch you suffer in solitude when a solution exists. All you have to do is decipher the text, and its powers are yours. Your mother will be returned to you.

River does not want to part with it. She will become suspicious of you if you ask, and it will become harder to acquire it. You will have to take it without her notice by levitating it out of her forge. She, like many others, is fearful of the Book’s power. This fear isn’t entirely unwarranted for them, but for you, your connection to the Feywilds’ magic will be enough to grant you access to that otherworldly power.

Good luck, and all my love to your dear mother when she returns.

Fond regards,
A friend

Could this be it? Could this be the miracle she's been waiting for? Hope swells painfully in her chest as she clutches the note close. She mustn't celebrate too early. She still needs to get the book. At least her mysterious friend has already told her where to find it. Her jaw sets in a look of determination, and she speeds away into the dusk.

It doesn't take long to reach the forge. River has defended it well, but Elsie slips into her own shadow and sneaks beneath the door without so much as a whisper of sound. Only her hand extends from the puddle of shadow on the floor inside, like a disembodied arm hovering before the flames. Mustering her will, she reaches out to the ancient book and commands the winds to lift it. Sweat beads her shadowy brow while she concentrates, the flames flicker and dance around the slowly levitating book. Just a little more, a little more… There!

It's heavy in her hand, and remarkably cool to the touch despite having been pulled from the fire. She retracts her arm and the book back into her shadow and slips out the way she came. Her heart thumps in her chest as she races back to the safety of her tree. To her mother, who will soon be able to wrap flesh and blood arms around her like she once did. All that's left now is to read. Her friends have been teaching her how. Her mother will be so proud of her.

Carefully now, she opens the book, feeling her skin crawl as a sudden unease grips her very core. No, she will not be deterred. The language is unlike any she's ever seen. The letters, if indeed they can be called that, feel jagged and painful to her mind. Still, she will Not Give Up. She screws her eyes shut, thinks of her mother, and holds tight to her desperate hope to be reunited.

When her eyes reopen to behold the page before her, understanding strikes like lightning. Suddenly, she knows she can speak the words. As they escape her mouth, an unknown magic swells into the space around her, then beyond her. The ground shakes. The air turns foul. And as the trinkets in Elsie’s tree chime together in the unsettling breeze, ringing out with notes more sour than usual, it quickly becomes clear that the advice she received was not from any friend.

The forms of people begin to pry themselves loose from the ground all over town, as if emerging from water, leaving the ground unbroken as they lift themselves out of the ground. They bear horrid injuries, shambling along grotesquely, telling a story of death. However, these are not skeletons from the graveyard, housing the souls of long-dead locals. These are things of flesh and blood, however exposed they might be, wearing newer faces.

Much newer.

Since the barrier went up, many people have died, only to have their bodies vanish and replaced by a new one. Those bodies now walk the town, seeking to unleash a wrath brought on by the corrupted magic of the Necronomicon. Anyone who has died inside the barrier will have a violent, undead copy of themself representing each death wandering the island looking to increase their ranks. Which means that there will be many, many, many Yoricks.

Destroyed copies will remain destroyed for the standard overnight period of any other person. But there are too many of them to defeat this way, and their destruction is impermanent. Thankfully, help is on the way!

In the midst of the undead and their attack on the citizens of Pumpkin Hollow, tiny glimmers of hope appear in the form of folded paper birds. The little gold birds flit from fighter to fighter, small whispers promising that if enough enemies can be felled then the High Priestess can intervene. The necessary number is unknown, but if a bird alights upon someone, they will feel their weariness vanish for a short time, and perhaps, should she feel like it, they may receive a temporary boon to use against the undead.

Eventually the High Priestess will show herself, making good on the promises of the little birds. With a smile, her magic will wrap around the remaining undead, returning them to the unseen graves and binding them into Death once more, leaving the living to pick up the pieces.

Comments

[lordoftheozarks]

He notices. And, suddenly, his insides twist with the realization.

"I am sorry that I pushed you. But that's not the part that truly upsets you, is it? Please, don't try to lie..."

[hate_gettin_older]

Edgar bristles as visibly as an angry cat.

"All right, first, I'm not fuckin upset, got it? Second, why the hell would I tell you anything about it? And third ..."

He trails off, flounders for a moment, and finishes roughly, "shut up."

[lordoftheozarks]

The urge to roll his eyes is unbearably strong but, by some miracle, he resists. This one won't be winning any awards on the debate team, that much is apparent.

"First, you both sound and are acting upset," he points out coolly. "Second, I struggle to imagine who else are you going to tell? And third: no, I will not just shut up. You are someone Max cares deeply for. If we are both going to stay in Max's life, long-term, we have to at least be able to talk to one another, let alone look each other in the eyes."

[hate_gettin_older]

"We are not fuckin talking about this out in the open --"

His voice rises harshly, cuts off, resumes in a much lower tone. "Already making too much noise, you want another of those to sneak up on us?" Even quieter, there's venom in his voice when he says those, and contempt in the jerk of his head toward the downed corpse.

[lordoftheozarks]

"There won't be another like that one." His voice is lower to match Edgar's. "But I take your point. Where do you suggest we go?"

[hate_gettin_older]

Edgar seethes silently for a moment, then says "There's a shed," and turns to start walking toward it. Erik can follow or not, as he likes.

[lordoftheozarks]

How sordid he thinks to himself, but bites his own tongue so he won't say it. He simply follows along as he is silently bidden.

[hate_gettin_older]

The shed's a few yards from the back of the barn; the interior is dim, and small enough that there isn't a lot of room to stand far apart.

Edgar puts his back to a tall shelving unit, crosses his arms over his chest, fixes his gaze a few feet to Erik's left.

[lordoftheozarks]

Erik can see perfectly despite the lack of light, so he's careful to hold himself away so he won't brush up against Edgar if he can help it.

"Do you feel that what you did was wrong?"

[hate_gettin_older]

None of your fuckin business is what he wants to say, except of course it is Erik's business, how could it not be, and that makes it worse.

"No," he says, and that's too simple for how he does feel, so he tries again. "But I don't like it."

[lordoftheozarks]

The petty part of him thinks you really seemed to like it, but that is not a productive thought for the conversation. 

"I'm glad you don't think it was wrong. You couldn't have hurt me there, you know that?" The consent was implicit despite the war they waged in that nightclub; magic would have prevented real harm.

"What part do you not like? Please, I would like to understand."

[hate_gettin_older]

He shrugs, roughly, less to communicate uncertainty and more as though he's trying to shake something off his shoulders.

"I don't do that."

[lordoftheozarks]

His voice is nearly monotone as he asks, sharply, "Do what? I want to hear you say it."

[hate_gettin_older]

His arm flies out to point at Erik, forefinger stabbing at the air. "Do fuckin that," he snaps. "Want to hear you say it, christ almighty, what the hell was wrong with me."

[lordoftheozarks]

"You were enjoying dominating me, or so it seemed," Erik says with a mild shrug. "A word that comes to mind is... cathartic."

[hate_gettin_older]

Edgar folds his arms again. "What's that mean, then."

[lordoftheozarks]

Ah, yes. He forgot the caliber of education he's working with here. He does his best not to make this explanation sound overly condescending.

"Cathartic is when something provides emotional release, typically by expressing or purging strong negative emotions like anger, fear, or trauma."

He will leave Edgar to decide if that definition sounds relevant to now.

[hate_gettin_older]

Edgar looks away, his jaw tightening.

If that definition sounds relevant, he doesn't seem about to say so.

[lordoftheozarks]

He can't say he's surprised by the silence, but he's not going to let it rest.

"I take your silence to mean I've hit the mark. I understand that this is something difficult to grapple with, especially because I'm grappling with it, too, from the other side."

[hate_gettin_older]

"What d'you m," Edgar starts, then clamps his mouth shut.

[lordoftheozarks]

He's wearing a patient smile as Edgar starts the question and seems to abruptly realize the answer. But Erik wants no misconceptions here.

"It is exceedingly rare for me to assume the submissive position that way during personal intercourse." He's allowed it more when it's his professional role, but this one wasn't.

"But, with you, I badly wanted to. In reflection, I think what I felt was a sense of ...justice served. If you felt I deserved punishment, I also felt the same. I'm ashamed now to realize I used you in such a way to assuage my own guilty conscience. Whether you choose to forgive me or not, you deserve an apology for that."

[hate_gettin_older]

A rising groan that turns into a rasp of harsh laughter, more a sound of pain and rage than anything like humor. "Suffering Christ Almighty, I do not fuckin CARE about your guilty conscience --"

There isn't enough room in this shed to pace, but Edgar shoves off of the shelf at his back and tries anyway, hands flinging into the air as he makes for the opposite wall. "What the fuck are you telling me this for, man? What do you want?"

And he wheels about to face Erik, like a hunted creature at bay.

[lordoftheozarks]

The hurt reflects in Erik's eyes and expression, but he resists biting back because he recognizes that laughter for what it really is, and in this one moment he is afraid. And then he realizes, so is Edgar.

Yet, his mouth seems to move before his brain can tell it not to. "I want you to understand me!"

Just as soon as the words are out, he turns his back on Edgar again because, god fucking help him, he cannot withstand seeing whatever look that admission is going to put on the man's face.

[hate_gettin_older]

"I don't!" he shouts -- and again, smaller: "I don't."

He knows Erik can probably hear his breathing, ragged and uneven, and it galls him like a sore.

"I'm not fuckin educated like you, right? Let alone got your thousand years or whatever. But tell you one thing right now, you don't understand me either. And you didn't fuckin use me."

[lordoftheozarks]

"I know." He answers softly, before he finally works up the nerve to turn back around and look.

"But those things do not matter. I'm older and wiser, yes, but that's no excuse. I am trying my best to meet you as an equal here and now. I want to understand you. I want to respect you. I have no other way of proving it."

He throws his hands up in frustration. "If you don't think I used you, then I'm glad but I'm telling you, candidly, what was going through my mind then. Nothing more and nothing less. I may be a monster, but I am also just a man."