teethoftherisk: (Default)
Siffleur ([personal profile] teethoftherisk) wrote in [community profile] come_sailaway2023-03-07 01:05 pm

then I found a place, it's dark and it's rotted [memeshare - open]

Who: Siffleur and you
What: Memory sharing & an opt-in
When: throughout March
Where: various
Warnings: Body horror, medical gore, cannibalism, death, suicide, suicidal idealization, child neglect, possible discussions of past sexual assault in first prompt, unreality



1) The River

On the banks of a newly defrosted river, a young women who looks to be in her mid-twenties kneels by the ice cold waters. The snow has melted, but there's a chill in the air that can't be shaken. Her hair is dirty and matted, and she's wearing a stained dress that's too big for her. Beside her is a freshly birthed baby, half-transformed between human and cougar, screaming in pain.

The woman isn't handling it well. Siffleur is about 10 minutes old and he's also not handling it well either.


2) The Forest

In an old growth forest in the height of summer, a small cougar kitten has left the den where his mother sleeps to play in the grass and chase the large dragonflies that dart around. Siffleur is very young and very curious, and though he usually avoids other people, today he's feeling brave enough to investigate anything new and novel. He's climbing a old fallen log in pursuit of a particularly shiny dragonfly that's resting on the end.

But he loses his grip when he sees someone new in the clearing, falling back and going head over heels, rolling back a few times before landing paws up.


3) The City

In a rundown city just across the Canadian border, a teen boy sits outside a convenience store. His clothing is dirty and stained, and he hasn't washed in at least two weeks. His stomach growls and he watches carefully as people slowly trickle in and out of the store. Siffleur's shaggy hair hangs in his eyes and he doesn't ask for help - he just watches each person as they exit their car.

There's someone here who wasn't there before. His yellow eyes snap to them, quickly looking them up and down.


4) The Small Town

In a place with a population of less than a 1000 people, less than six half-paved streets and one bar, Siffleur sits at the bar with a beer. His cellphone buzzes now and then but he's left it laying face down, not bothering to check it. There's plenty of empty stools around him - less of an invitation and more of a warning.

On the TVs, Ottawa is playing Anaheim, but from the dour mood of those folks watching the screens, it's clear that a Canadian team isn't going to win this Stanley Cup. Occasionally, Siffleur glances back, looking for someone who isn't here yet.


5) Killing Myself In Front Of You To Change The Trajectory Of Your Life Forever (Opt-In, TW: Suicide)

This isn't Siffleur's memory - it's one of yours.

Perhaps it's something personal, something traumatic and private, the kind of thing you would hate to have seen by anyone. Perhaps it's of better times, good days, drinks, laughter, that kind of thing. Maybe it's just another quiet mundane day.

It doesn't matter. The moment he realizes he's in your memory, Siffleur acts instantly and decisively, and kills himself. There's no hesitation. If there's danger he can use to do it, he does - throwing himself against the obvious monsters, picking a fight with something that's ready to rip him to shreds. Or, if not that, then he'll do the job himself with a kitchen knife if available, or anything sharp.

And in the most dire of circumstances where there's nothing for him to use at all? Well... here's your front row seat to a memory of a complete stranger looking around, grabbing his head between his hands and snapping his own neck.

He'll be back on the ship the next day, carefully avoiding the cracks as he attempts to shuffle away from his cabin and over to the buffet to eat breakfast. Feel free to ambush him for an answer then.
configuration_birdwatcher: A red-eyed Omnic Crisis Bastion unit looking downwards across the frame, alarmed. (omnic crisis: wait what)

5

[personal profile] configuration_birdwatcher 2023-03-08 08:42 am (UTC)(link)
Saxony-Anhalt, 2049

A human takes a step out from behind a broken tram and walks directly into CA6941EB5256's line of fire. He's dead in seconds. D4C730AA78AD observes that despite the tram's large windows, they didn't observe the human approaching their squad's position. Strange.

The Serena Eterna, year undefined

A lot of things happened during the Omnic Crisis and Bastion tries to think about as few of them as possible in the course of a day. It's not even the only memory they have of humans spotting hostile omnics and neither attacking nor taking evasive action. However, unremarkability isn't enough for the details to fade from their digital memory. The next time they see Siffleur, meeting his eyes as the elevator doors open onto the hallway of cabin doors early in the morning, they realise with a physical flinch that he's identical to the human their squadmate killed twenty-eight years ago.

They don't get out of the elevator, so the ride to the buffet might be a tad awkward.
configuration_birdwatcher: Bastion holding their arm up nervously and looking around. (anxiety)

[personal profile] configuration_birdwatcher 2023-03-09 10:01 am (UTC)(link)
They get that a lot. Watchpoint: Gibraltar had its own set of people who didn't react well to a combat omnic making sudden movements in their peripheral vision, but unfortunately they haven't managed to squelch their startle response enough to solve the problem. Bastion holds their mechanical palm out vertically as Siffleur shifts position, as if to simultaneously hold him off and convey that they meant no aggression, then drops it when he slides back out of that fighting stance.

// Morning. It can't possibly be a real pre-ship memory. Not the part where a relative of Siffleur had a counterpart in their world who they watched die, but the part where they didn't notice that they'd seen that face before until they'd already seen him in his human shape multiple times. They've dealt with data corruption, encoding problems, encrypted files they're not sure they want to decrypt, but not in a way that would spontaneously restore a corrupted or redacted memory at an arbitrary moment. And the ship just happens to be full of cracks in spacetime right now.

// Did you die on purpose?
configuration_birdwatcher: Bastion tilting their head to the camera's left (headtilt)

[personal profile] configuration_birdwatcher 2023-03-10 05:56 am (UTC)(link)
Siffleur's actions usually do make logical sense once you learn his motives. Those are the part they have difficulty predicting.

// Why is remaining in a memory worse than death?
configuration_birdwatcher: Bastion next to a wall, looking to the camera's left. (looking out)

[personal profile] configuration_birdwatcher 2023-03-10 08:00 am (UTC)(link)
They don't have a counterargument for that, honestly, since dying in what must be several memories hasn't left Siffleur any worse for wear. Bastion hasn't seen anything that was clearly compromising so far, but they don't know the context of any of it (in at least one case they couldn't even tell which passenger it belonged to) and that could change the significance. They nod.

// Many humans from my world have seen approximately what you saw. Except for the part where they got shot and died. Well, some of them saw that part, but the ones who were still around at the end of the war are the ones who found cover or were lucky enough that the shots went wide. // If I could choose I'd rather share peaceful memories, but we can't control which we share or enter.
Edited 2023-03-10 11:02 (UTC)