hellonspectacles: (A human mind cannot live this way)
Palamedes Sextus ([personal profile] hellonspectacles) wrote in [community profile] come_sailaway2023-03-05 04:23 pm

In her sepulchre there by the sea

Who: Palamedes Sextus and his cavalier, Camilla Hect, the rest of the House Heirs, a gaggle of spooky monks, some skeletons, a murderer, and you!
What: Memshare adventures! All memories are open to all.
When: Anytime in March
Where: Canaan House, Earth!
Warnings: Canon-typical blood, violence, and mild body horror
Notes: Below the cut you will find some scene-setting and descriptions/notes for each of the prompts. Prompts themselves are in the comments!

In general, characters will assume that you arrived with the other visitors to Canaan House a few weeks before any of the events described below, but they will have no idea who you are and why you’re there, and will be extremely suspicious of your presence.



Canaan House rises out of the sea like a castle, a tower, a crumbling mausoleum. Outside the small island on which it stands, the ocean stretches as far as the eye can see, sparkling under the bright rays of Dominicus. The building itself is clearly old, crumbling in places, windows cracked and bricks pitted; even on a thanergenic planet, where life must fight for its existence, nature is slowly overtaking one of the last symbols of humanity on the planet all people once called home.

Inside, the sense of grand decay continues. If you squint, you might notice the way it resembles a university building, some wings made up with wood floors and elaborate bannisters, fading paintings and rotting tapestries on the walls, while others are full of large, light-filled spaces, all glass, and steel, and concrete. There is a large courtyard with a dry fountain, broken elevators and flights of stairs that end halfway up, and dozens of doors with numbers above the threshold, each with its own unique lock, each requiring a key to open. Listen closely and you might hear an ambient hum of electricity, or the quiet clatter of bone from the dozens of otherwise-silent skeleton constructs that clean, and cook, and gather food for the planet’s first guests in nearly ten thousand years.

Welcome to the First House. Don’t stay any longer than you have to.

The Wind Came Out of the Cloud By Night
Investigate a murder scene! This is the best chance of meeting lots of other characters or exploring Canaan House more broadly.

The Demons Down Under the Sea
Solve a puzzle, fight a skeleton monster, hang out with Palamedes and Camilla

We Loved With a Love That Was More than Love
Experience Palamedes death! Please note that unless previously discussed, characters will not be able to interact with this memory, only observe.
skaikru: (pic#11920580)

[personal profile] skaikru 2023-03-15 06:30 am (UTC)(link)
His world is, and always has been, so strange to her. Necromancy, thanergy, thalergy — all the little bits that have slipped through in the time they've known each other, all the parts she'd committed to memory and tried to understand the practice of if not the actual concept. But truth of the matter is so much had been glossed over that she wasn't prepared for the magnitude of Canaan House, nor the full unveiling of events as the woman who is not Dulcinea spells them out. And this is a hell of a way in which to find out. The situation feels more dangerous than their calm discussion is appropriate for, the baby hairs on the back of Clarke's neck standing up just as the blood begins to drip from Pal's. Her teeth set and grinding as the muscles in the side of his jaw tighten. Goosebumps flare up across her arms and a shiver runs down her back that has nothing to do with the temperature of the hallway.

And then he says he's going to kill her. And Clarke's feet unglue, she wants to push into the room and help

Only to be met with an invisible barrier right in the doorway. Which is confounding and infuriatingly horrifying all at once. It's not unlike any other door she'd encountered in life — something strong and impenetrable right in front of her; the bridge, the blast door of mount weather, the airlock glass behind which her father had been executed and her friends had almost been suffocated, the door in the bedroom at Polis after Lexa's body had been taken out and she and Murphy had been locked in. There have been many doors she's unable to open in Clarke Griffin's lifetime and this, like every single one before it, strike a chord of dread and desperation deep in her gut. Added insult to injury, this time she can see right into the room! It's like she ought to be able to walk through and be there, can even hear them talking and see the expressions wash over their features, but can't be seen or heard herself. It's like drowning in a frozen lake and pounding on the thick sheet of ice while you can see people walking across the top of it.

"Pal... Pal. Palamedes!"

She tries to push at it first, and when that fails, hits with a balled fist and kicks with the steel reinforced tip of her war boots. All to no avail, the two of them are in their own little world and it's one in which she doesn't exist. Has no business barging into or trying to change things, like she'd done with Natsuno and the shiki, or Skulduggery and the murder of his family.
skaikru: (pic#11920606)

cw: suicide ment

[personal profile] skaikru 2023-03-19 04:01 am (UTC)(link)
He looks at her like he ought to know her, and that births a fresh wave of resolve in her chest that sees Clarke throwing her shoulder against the barrier. The soundtrack playing in her mind on repeat is — wait. wait please. you're going to die. Logic is obviously not winning out over emotion here, because she knows in her heart that he means to do so but still wants to do something. Anything about it. Doesn't want to see it, doesn't want it to happen, cannot fucking fathom being kept on the outskirts when he kills himself for a cause.

But, worlds away, this has already happened. Her intrusion and all her good intentions aren't going to change that fact.

Gideon, tell Camilla —

Sightline locked or not, Pal's still about to follow through. Something in Clarke's chest seizes up, then shatters, and she takes a step back from the doorframe.

Oh, never mind.

There hasn't been enough time for her to begin to cry properly, but her eyes are wet and her mind's at war. Stay calls to her, but gut instincts reign and she's died enough. Doesn't want to again. And doesn't think Palamedes would thank her for staying put in a static memory just for the sake of burning alongside her.

She shakes her head once, then turns sharply to run.

She knows what to do.

This faux cut out of a world is suddenly engulfed in white light and the heat of an explosion. Clarke barely makes it a few paces before she has to close her eyes against the burn in her retinas, and maybe makes it a step or two further before the world shakes and shatters. She doesn't remember falling, but feels the impact of the ground right in front of Gideon Nav's feet. Then, before the rumbling is even over and the bones of Canaan House begin to settle —

The scene shifts.
skaikru: (pic#15637674)

bubble time!!!

[personal profile] skaikru 2023-03-23 08:11 am (UTC)(link)
More accurately, the scene lurches.

It's a strange sort of discombobulating; she goes down in a cloud of white heat and the first wave of dust falling from the ceiling, and pushes herself up in an all around pristine room. Not caked in ashes, but still coughing up the residue of the explosion. For a second she feels safely (subjective but true) back on board the Serena Eterna, and indulges the coughing fit. There's a voice several feet away, dampened by the ringing in her ears but it doesn't sound angry. Clarke hacks so hard it brings tears to her eyes and leaves her stomach in knots, but once she looks up and takes in the space around her... well, the knot tightens.

And once she rubs her eyes enough to focus on the figure seated in a chair at the other end of the room, the tears well up all over again.

She hadn't really focused on the interior of Cytherea's room enough to immediately place it, and honestly doesn't care. It's whole and quiet and they're alone, and Pal is smiling — though even through the haze of emotional grief, Clarke can figure it's not directed at her like it usually is. It's still not right, but she's so happy just to see him intact.

"Pal?" She finds herself asking, while pushing from hands and knees all the way to her feet. "Palamedes?"

Can he at least hear and properly see her now?
skaikru: (pic#8799080)

[personal profile] skaikru 2023-03-31 03:22 am (UTC)(link)
He doesn't recognize her, but that's fine. Distantly, Clarke can line up the logic of these shared memories and acknowledge that he has no reason to; that this isn't real, it won't matter, and nothing can be changed. Even if she could have gotten into the room with Palamedes and Cytherea, somehow talked him out of blowing himself up and managed to get them both out of harms way, once she returns to the Serena Eterna, Pal would still technically be dead.

But god did it feel real. From the settling dust to the reverb of voices; from the oily smear of sweating paint on Gideon's jawline to the ache in her chest when faced with an immovable barrier. Sometimes logic needs to take a backseat to emotion, and a strange mix of grief and relief currently have her in a chokehold, so.

He acknowledges her fully this time — not just a sad little side glance — and Clarke's subconsciously confident enough there's no barrier to prevent her from reaching him this time. She's up and off sore knees in a heartbeat, crossing to where he's seated in an instant, and — brace yourself, memory Pal — immediately crashing into his personal space with a desperate hug that puts her half in his lap.

Her lungs rattle with a wet, painful inhale; a swallowed sob. Cheek sandwiched to the side of his face, Clarke notes: he smells wrong, here. There's no scent of the standard issue Serena Eterna soap or shampoo clinging to his clothes or hair, but maybe she can delude herself into thinking there's still the faint aroma of tea hanging around his mouth. Not her Palamedes, but still familiar. A few tears prick at the edges of her eyes, but don't fall yet, and Clarke's voice is so thick it chokes her to say —

"I just watched you die."

...well, yeah, obviously. It's just going to take her a little while to get over that.
skaikru: (pic#11782167)

[personal profile] skaikru 2023-04-05 05:13 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah, the back pats are nice and wholly professional. They're surface level comforting, and so very much not enough right now. The tight hold in her chest, like an invisible hand encircling her entire ribcage and crushing it to bits — that's sort of what she imagines Pal had felt finding her in the hallway the day after Halloween. The dead are alive again, and seemingly whole. But that hadn't made it easy for him to look at her covered in gore, right? And it certainly doesn't make it easier for Clarke, who can still smell the dust after the explosion, and whose ears are still ringing slightly.

Poor Gideon. Yeah, poor Gideon but also — in a short lived flurry of utter selfishness Clarke can't help but think poor me, too! She hadn't known, she'd walked into this memory blind, only to then watch one of her most cherished people on the ship die, and — and —

She finally unglues the sides of their faces, leans back. And the grief snaps, turns over on itself — becomes something more like anger. Her hands are on his shoulders, fingertips biting through fabric hard enough to bruise. And she shakes him a little, just once or twice.

"You never told me this is how it played out. You never told me that's how it happened, you —" Whatever sentence is stuck in the back of her throat turns on itself; cannibalizes itself until she's left with nothing to say, and only moderately aware of the fact her eyes are wet and swimming with tears.
skaikru: (pic#8799210)

[personal profile] skaikru 2023-04-07 04:50 am (UTC)(link)
He'll need to be rather firm hand to undo the stranglehold of her fingers in his clothing. But once accomplished and he starts thinking aloud, it's like she was slapped in the face.

"What?" Logicially, Clarke knows they're strangers to him; shouldn't fault that, shouldn't take it personally, and should shift the curtain of emotion aside. But illogically, Pal not knowing her now is a little like Jade and Rita thinking she'd murdered them near Halloween. Only it's worse, because it's not a burning anger he's looking at her with, more a gentle sort of practical indifference. It hurts, to cut to the chase.

And sucks way more when she realizes he's about to throw her out of the Bubble. Is that even possible? Would that even work in a memory? On the off chance it's entirely possible, the River sounds scary — too much like the Nothing. It's a little funny, how in most other memory cracks she'd fallen into, she'd been desperate to get out of. But in Palamedes', she doesn't want to leave.

"What? W — no. No no no." If Pal's still holding on to the hands he'd pried off himself, Clarke's now trying to wriggle her fingers free in order to grasp at his wrists. Desperately:

"We know each other! We meet — after this, after you died."
skaikru: (pic#11920602)

[personal profile] skaikru 2023-04-09 04:48 am (UTC)(link)
This feels a little like being asked to plead her case in order to avoid a death penalty. Which... given the River around them, it may actually be. And which she'd never been allowed to do before being consigned to solitary in the Skybox, but she's actually ready for this time.

Even if she stammers through the beginning.

"We're — It's —" Complicated? No, buckle down Griffin, you know this man appreciates facts, even if they sound nonsensical to the ear.

"You're going to leave this Bubble and be interdimensionally transported onto a haunted ghost ship. We're going to meet there, we're not going to trust each other at first, but you're going to end up being the first person I go to whenever I have questions. The whole thing's powered by magic you're not familiar with, and I don't even understand — but you teach me, and I listen. And we go through a lot, we die a lot. I die a lot. But between all of that —"

Her voice breaks here, one can only impassionately plea for so long before it feels like their larynx is shattering against a swell of emotion. And Clarke doesn't sense it against her cheeks, but a few tears have finally broken loose of her waterline and are slipping down her jawline.

"We're friends."

But it's not just that, is it?

"And I — I walked into a rift that has me stuck in your worst memories, and can't leave you. You're important to me."
skaikru: (pic#8799078)

[personal profile] skaikru 2023-04-11 06:26 am (UTC)(link)
Pal commands her to breathe, and Clarke tries. But it's easier said than done, all that she can manage at first is an ugly, shuttering half inhale that doesn't come close to filling her lungs. First attempt, abysmal. Second, painful. Third, a little easier. Fourth, just relieving enough that she can get back to herself a little. She's cried over boys before, but only ever allowed brief stints of shameless emotion before folding hurt over on itself and compartmentalizing.

It's harder this time, somehow. But is still done. She's reduced to a few wet hiccups, but finally manages to peel her hands off his wrists. Extricate herself from his personal bubble (of the personal space variety, not the only thing keeping them from plunging into an abyss variety) and step back. This was so, so selfish, and she ought to be ashamed for making his afterlife harder just because she hurt.

"Sorry."

It won't matter in the end, Clarke tries to remind herself. But god, in the present? The present is a nightmare.

"...sorry."

Give her a few moments longer to harden her resolve. To lift her hand and vigorously drag her sleeve across her eyes. To sniff once, then force herself to stop. It doesn't matter.

"I'll go."

Maybe being shoved into the River would actually be her ticket home anyways, but the fact of the matter remains that Clarke doesn't know how to try that and... really still doesn't want to leave him. Her eyes are still damp, and pinch around the corners at the prospect. How long is he fated to stay stuck here himself, alone?
skaikru: (Default)

[personal profile] skaikru 2023-04-16 05:16 am (UTC)(link)
The politeness of his rejection just continues to smack. Cold but not too cold; warm but not warm enough she could melt into it. A moment is offered in which to further compose herself and Clarke takes it; half turns away from him and exhales a ragged, rattling breath. Her eyes still burn, but the tears have been firmly locked away.

And it's then that she reminds herself how these memories usually come to an end. Another rift will open up, and touching it will drag her back through space and time, depositing her unceremoniously on a carpeted hallway of the Serena Eterna. If she could will one into existence right now, she would. Would paint it against the wall of his Bubble and willingly reach out, just to save them both the headache.

But at least for the moment, the room just looks like a room. Uninterrupted, whole. Flimsy maybe, but still a safe haven. It strikes her that she has no idea why or how this whole place was manifested in the afterlife.

"What are you going to do next? How do you plan to get out of this?"