Arthur Lester (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
theotherright) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
come_sailaway2023-03-05 11:47 pm
theotherright) wrote in come_sailaway2023-03-05 11:47 pm
When you flew out of the nest, you made a mistake
Who: Arthurs Lesters and YOU!
What: Memory share, all OTA
When: Throughout March. Prompt 2 can happen any time but it's extra super available on the 11th.
Where: Wherever strange cracks in the air can be found
Warnings: For the third prompt, death. For the first prompt, potential mention of war and suicide. For the second prompt, getting talked at by a proud dad for four hours straight.
1. You can't, can't count on a second chance
The landscape in which you find yourself belongs on a postcard. Spring heathers dot the slopes with carpets of pink and red. Outcrops of rock peek out of the moss and grass like a sleeper from his blankets, and a tumbled drystone wall meanders down an endless hill.
In the lee of the wall is a twelve-year-old boy, looking arguably stylish in long socks, knickerbockers, and a grass-stained flat cap. He's sitting with his arms around his knees, hugging a leather satchel, and doing a shit job of trying not to cry.
2. The second chance will never be found
You find yourself in a broad train-car, moving gently side-to-side in time with the chooka-chooka of its wheels. It's luxuriously appointed, with wood panelled walls and thick soft armchairs, as if someone picked up an old-fashioned parlour and set it down on a track doing about sixty miles an hour.
Outside of the windows, green forest races past, and the distant, wheezing engine leaves its odd-smelling smoke-signals hanging in the sky.
There's quiet murmuring fore and aft, presumably from other carriages, but the only occupant of this one is a little brown-haired girl of four or so. She absolutely saw you appear from nowhere, and she's staring at you like she's waiting for your next amazing trick.
(The two suitcases on a high shelf, the man's overcoat on a chair, and the scribbled papers strewn around, suggest that she isn't travelling on her own.)
3. The second try is such a comedown
You're on a small wooden dock, though there's no boat to be seen. The air is wet and sharp with salt, and cold, keenly feeling the loss of the sun as dusk sinks into night.
Up a steep gravel path from the dock is a graveyard. Hundreds of ancient stones stand about like cracked old teeth, their inscriptions long since worn away, and fog clings to the ground around them. A wrought iron fence, eaten by rust and half sunk into the ground, circles the graveyard, but gives little indication that it could keep anything out. Or in.
At a distance, in every direction, the fog rears up into a dense wall. Besides the moon, the only source of light seems to be the single spinning bulb of an ancient-looking lighthouse, perched nearby at the end of the gravel path.
A man with a thin greying beard is hurrying down this path, a long coat wrapped around him and a lantern held aloft in his other hand. He spots you and stops abruptly.
"Who are you?" he calls. His accent is thick and French, and his tone alarmed. "He did not say he was here with somebody else."
[ There are hostile spirits in the mist, held at bay by the light, if that's something your character might sense. Relatedly, there's a chance of dying in this memory. There will also be bonus John, but he's stuck in Arthur's head, so your character will only hear him if they can read minds or something. Please feel free to hear/sense him if you think you would! I have god permission for John-in-memories. Grab me on discord/plurk for any questions :] If you're visibly nonhuman and you want this prompt, ignore the bit with the frenchman or assume he hasn't spotted you yet, and I'll personalise his reaction to you. ]
What: Memory share, all OTA
When: Throughout March. Prompt 2 can happen any time but it's extra super available on the 11th.
Where: Wherever strange cracks in the air can be found
Warnings: For the third prompt, death. For the first prompt, potential mention of war and suicide. For the second prompt, getting talked at by a proud dad for four hours straight.
1. You can't, can't count on a second chance
The landscape in which you find yourself belongs on a postcard. Spring heathers dot the slopes with carpets of pink and red. Outcrops of rock peek out of the moss and grass like a sleeper from his blankets, and a tumbled drystone wall meanders down an endless hill.
In the lee of the wall is a twelve-year-old boy, looking arguably stylish in long socks, knickerbockers, and a grass-stained flat cap. He's sitting with his arms around his knees, hugging a leather satchel, and doing a shit job of trying not to cry.
2. The second chance will never be found
You find yourself in a broad train-car, moving gently side-to-side in time with the chooka-chooka of its wheels. It's luxuriously appointed, with wood panelled walls and thick soft armchairs, as if someone picked up an old-fashioned parlour and set it down on a track doing about sixty miles an hour.
Outside of the windows, green forest races past, and the distant, wheezing engine leaves its odd-smelling smoke-signals hanging in the sky.
There's quiet murmuring fore and aft, presumably from other carriages, but the only occupant of this one is a little brown-haired girl of four or so. She absolutely saw you appear from nowhere, and she's staring at you like she's waiting for your next amazing trick.
(The two suitcases on a high shelf, the man's overcoat on a chair, and the scribbled papers strewn around, suggest that she isn't travelling on her own.)
3. The second try is such a comedown
You're on a small wooden dock, though there's no boat to be seen. The air is wet and sharp with salt, and cold, keenly feeling the loss of the sun as dusk sinks into night.
Up a steep gravel path from the dock is a graveyard. Hundreds of ancient stones stand about like cracked old teeth, their inscriptions long since worn away, and fog clings to the ground around them. A wrought iron fence, eaten by rust and half sunk into the ground, circles the graveyard, but gives little indication that it could keep anything out. Or in.
At a distance, in every direction, the fog rears up into a dense wall. Besides the moon, the only source of light seems to be the single spinning bulb of an ancient-looking lighthouse, perched nearby at the end of the gravel path.
A man with a thin greying beard is hurrying down this path, a long coat wrapped around him and a lantern held aloft in his other hand. He spots you and stops abruptly.
"Who are you?" he calls. His accent is thick and French, and his tone alarmed. "He did not say he was here with somebody else."
[ There are hostile spirits in the mist, held at bay by the light, if that's something your character might sense. Relatedly, there's a chance of dying in this memory. There will also be bonus John, but he's stuck in Arthur's head, so your character will only hear him if they can read minds or something. Please feel free to hear/sense him if you think you would! I have god permission for John-in-memories. Grab me on discord/plurk for any questions :] If you're visibly nonhuman and you want this prompt, ignore the bit with the frenchman or assume he hasn't spotted you yet, and I'll personalise his reaction to you. ]
1
They walk a little before spotting the boy sitting there on the wall. There's a twinge of discomfort and anxiety as he internally flaps around for something to say to a kid.
WHO LET HIM IN A MEMORY WITH A MEMORY KID?
They sigh a little, stopping out of reach. "Uh...hey...there...um. Buddy?"
no subject
...Then he really properly looks at Klaus. Like, stares at Klaus.
"What are you wearing?" he says, and okay, maybe he's being a bit over-defensive because he just got caught crying, but Klaus is still very much having their fashion sense questioned by a child wearing actual knickerbockers.
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"It's the highest fashion in the future. It's not my fault you don't know about it."
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"That's impossible! I bet nobody's ever going to want to wear that. Not even a- a hundred years from now."
Both Klaus's shirt and Klaus's statement are delightfully outlandish, which seems to be distracting the boy from being upset. Great work, Klaus!
no subject
no subject
"You're lying."
It's not been 2019 yet. Logical fallacy. Busted.
no subject
There's a frown. "My dad used to make us wear embarrassing outfits, too, so don't be too embarrassed about it."
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"I'm not embarrassed," he insists. "You're just wrong."
Deep childhood trauma doesn't stop him from trying to get the last word, of course!
"Are you a conscientious objector?" he asks suddenly.
no subject
"I'm so right."
But the other question makes them look up, confused. "To what?"
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Not a joke? Okay then:
"To... the war?" he says, though it's less an explanation and more in a tone of 'what else? would it mean??'
no subject
"What year even is this?"
no subject
He pushes himself up off the ground, then hops up to sit on top of the wall instead, oddly reassured to have figured out the key to this stranger's whole deal.
"You're a lunatic, aren't you?" His tone is completely matter-of-fact, almost to the point of being flat. "It's okay. Some of the other boys' dads are like that too. They reckon it's from being shelled."
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“Listen, kid. I’m not a lunatic. I fought in Vietnam, but I don’t know if you mean the world wars or Vietnam or the Cold War or the…well, it’s not the Civil War or anything like that. Probably not the Cold War either based on your clothes.” There’s a sigh.
“I’m not pro-War anyway.”
no subject
"Okay. Neither's my aunt. Um... it's nineteen-eighteen, if you really don't know."
Now that he's formulated his theory about Klaus's mental state, he kind of feels less like arguing with him and more like he should... assist somehow. His very serious eyes grow faintly anxious.
"Do you... need help finding your way home? Or anything?"
Subtle as a brick, this one.
no subject
"It's..." He squints. "The visions of the future cloud my mind sometimes. I've seen so many wars to come. So many after this one."
There's a small squint as they try to come up with a lyric, something they can quote. "Another head hangs lowly, child is slowly taken." It's said in a soft but dramatic way as they move closer, hands on Arthur's shoulders. "And the violence caused such silence. Who are we mistaken?" A very serious and pointed look.