Fable the First: Fuck this shit I'm out

[breakaleginhalf]

WHO: New beastie boy Gil!
WHAT: Memory share event!
WHEN: throughout March
WHERE; Everywhere while he gets his settle on, also memories in Arcadia
WARNINGS: Memories may include: Body horror (potential for mutilation, dismemberment, disembowelment, decapitation); cannibalism; cruel/unusual torture leading to death; forcible sedation; mind control/manipulation/commands to murder; Faeries but like, old school Gaelic horror stories. Please let me know if there's anything you'd like to hard opt out of!


I. Where's the beef (OTA, everywhere)

Alright, well. That was a stupid-ass safety drill. And Gil can't say he's fond of Friday either, with the whole No Face thing, but at least he's free and can do what the fuck he wants.

So at least step one is easy: work out what the fuck this place is. Cruise ship? Easy. Specifics? What the fuck. Also he's never been on a cruise ship before so it's very... new.

It's pretty easy to find him: he's the new guy, what's there to say. He's short, he's jacked to the shithouse, he's got a black buzz cut, he has thick scars covering every inch of his visible body in his singlet and cargo shorts and bare feet (some thick and ropy, wrapping around limbs and his neck like the pieces got melted back together, some are small, narrow and deep, and yet others are just shallow and superficial, and everything in-between), he has bare feet as he wanders the decks.

(For those with special eyes, though, he looks a bit different: the same height but a monstrous beast, his knuckles nearly dragging on the floor, arms almost half as broad again; thick, dark fur where the scars glint through like streaks of silver and flesh, the fur short but deliberately clipped down to the same length around his neck and chest, where there was clearly a mane at some point; his face is more like that of a bear or hyena, with jutting fangs and huge, bat-like ears; and his bare feet are now cloven hooves, oil-slick black and almost serrated at their tips.)


II. Thks fr th Mmrs (CW: ALL OF THE WARNINGS ABOVE)

If you're unlucky enough to fall into one of Gil's memory slips, it immediately and intensely feels...

Wrong.

There's a brilliant force of emotion in the air, like the buzz of an audience anticipating a stellar performance, made tangible in the air, like breathing through glitter, a sparkling hit of energy and life that feels like wading face-first into a dream. Or maybe the best high of your life, where everything is surreal, beautiful and overstimulating and intense.

And in every one there's a huge behemoth, black as sin, eyes like burning embers - sometimes it's like a wolf, all teeth and hunched shoulders, prowling - sometimes it's almost a bear, claws and thick fur and a roar that burns through to the soul with unbridled fear - sometimes it's no longer a human, disproportionate, foul and fury.

And in all of them, there's blood.

Comments

Re: II.

[breakaleginhalf]

The patch of forest she's found herself in is dense and dark, though there's a clearing visible a few metres away; it's hard to make out clearly through the leaves, but it certainly looks like some massive hulking beast is menacing a young woman.

In the immediate area, however, slumped against a tree like his legs are weak beneath himself, there's a young man - an adult, undoubtedly, but it's to tell whether it's a statue or not: he's more than seven feet tall and pure gold, even to the whites of his half-closed eyes, except where he's got burnished brads freckles and hair swept up in a bold style that can only be called heroic. He's also naked, the only item on his person a viney leather belt with a short dagger attached to it.

So, who to help first? The woman being menaced, or the man about to collapse?

[decohere]

It doesn't seem wise to interfere at all. This is simply a memory after all, not her own, and whatever happens already has. Of the three individuals present, she doesn't recognize any from the ship, no idea who to prioritize.

But she shifts invisible and goes for the golden man first. Not with any interest in helping him, but to go for his dagger. She's a rather swift and stealthy thief, and though the trees and leaves are dense, she's able to phase through them without making so much as a sound.

[breakaleginhalf]

The man doesn't react at all. Not even a flicker of his eyelids or a twitch where her hands brush against his bare skin, as she removes the knife with no other resistance.

It feels... heavier, than it looks. Not just literally, because what looks like a toy wooden dagger has the weight of a metal sword. But metaphorically, it has a Purpose, capital P, inevitable and unkind. The weight of blood on your hands that cannot be cleaned, sin on your soul that cannot be absolved.

And when she grips it, suddenly the cover of the forest falls away, like a curtain rising on cue, and she stands in the clearing with the spotlight burning down on her with the weight of expectation.

And the woman and Beast both stare at her with open uncertainty.

[decohere]

Ava turns the weight of the dagger over in her grip, the Purpose it carries is one she already knows quite well.

But she hisses under the spotlight, their gazes when she's used to being unseen. Ava blurs in and out of focus, feeling the expectation itch under her skin. There's no time to deliberate, she has to make a choice with the minimal details she's able to pick out.

It's the woman she lunges for, in an eerie flicker of movement and a real life jumpscare, ending with a slash of the dagger aimed for her throat.

CW you chose Bad

[breakaleginhalf]

The look in the woman's eyes (and up close she is, disarmingly and without compare, the most beautiful woman Ava has ever seen, in that same surreal dream-like lust that permeates the rest if the world in turns, a ball-jointed doll painted a deep night blue with vitiligo swirling across her skin like a Chinese vase, her hair in thick box braids that hurt the eye to try and comprehend) changes as she suddenly appears - the uncertainty in her glazed eyes is gone, and now there's real, genuine alarm, and she pulls back sharply as the knife swings towards her throat--

And then Ava's world goes dark - because the last thing she'll see, before the knife makes contact, is the bulk of that bearish monster coming down on her, and serrated claws don't hesitate in slicing her head clean off.