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

[teethoftherisk]

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.

Comments

[businessorlibation]

"'Not meant to' is an interesting way of phrasing it." Johnny looks away from the werecougar toward the conveyor belt, picking an eel roll out. "Something to do with your mother, I'm guessing."

That's deliberately not worded as a question. He's trying to be delicate about this, but at the same time, he's still a little pissed about the helping of emotional damage served to a younger version of him.

Still, pissed or not, he's trying not to do harm to the Siffleur beside him.

[teethoftherisk]

There they are, the words that have usually accompanied the end of many of Siffleur's romantic relationships: 'Something to do with your mother'. And unfortunately, they're usually right. Especially in this case.

It's honestly a little reliving that Johnny is only a little pissed. Usually this is when people start throwing stuff at him.

"There are things I know about my mother because she told me. And there are things I know because she said them when she was sick." He gives a vague gesture towards his head. That kind of sick. "The things she told me when she was good are things I like remembering. Not everything was good, but they were all things she wanted to share. Important things. Family things. The stuff she said while sick... she didn't want me to know those things. It bothered her that anyone but her knew the things that had happened before I existed."

He finishes his glass, and pours another. "Not everyone's my mother. Some people probably like sharing. But I can't tell what kind of memory it will be until it's too late, and I know something I shouldn't - something they didn't want to share with me."

[businessorlibation]

“You’ve mentioned your mother a bit to me before. How there were times she couldn’t go outside.” Like him, he’s had the bees in his brain. Not as bad as her, it sounds like, but enough to sympathize with this woman just a little.

“It sounds like a lot to carry, Siffleur. Both the things she meant to share, and the things she didn’t. It’s all still affecting you now, how you’re reacting to the cracks. That’s pretty heavy.”

CW: non-graphic discussion of past sexual trauma

[teethoftherisk]

He shrugs a little, turning his glass in his hands. "We've all got heavy things to carry. Everyone I've ever met had something weighing them down. I'm luckier than most. Mother made sure I knew none of it was my fault. It would have been easy for me to believe it, wonder if my face was his, wonder if she would have been better off killing me or leaving me for dead. But she always made it clear that I was her child, and that she loved me unconditionally."

There's a slight smile on his face as he talks about her, a quiet fondness that comes through even his worries. "I used to guard the door for her when it got bad. The best rooms had cracks under the door that I could reach through, so she could touch her fingers to mine. It made me feel good to protect her. And she let me, because I needed to feel like I was doing something important."

He pauses and as he lifts his glass, he points his pinky at Johnny. "Anyway, sorry again about your memory. If I'd known it was a nice one, I would have taken the extra time to sneak outside."

[businessorlibation]

After hearing that, Johnny sets the vodka bottle down on the floor; he can pour more later, but this isn’t going to be a lunch of getting weepy drunk. A good bartender knows to monitor the mood in the room, and he is a very good bartender.

“I’d just bought the pub. The Blue Horseshoe. Within five years, I’d own the entire building, from the basement up through the apartments for rent to the champagne lounge and the penthouse suite. But it all started there, that night. Building my name, my reputation, myself.”

[teethoftherisk]

He nods. It's an impressive achievement and he can see why Johnny treasures the memory - even if now it also features a stranger coming in and killing himself in front of Johnny.

"Good place to start, impressive place to end up. Must have busted your ass those five years." Lots of long nights at his pub, longer days planning everything else. Siffleur didn't have the head for any of it, and he admired that Johnny did.

[businessorlibation]

"You know I did." He lets out a bit of a wry laugh. "Worth the effort, though. I miss it, here. That's why I spend so much time at Hurikane, tending bar. It's not mine; it'll never be mine, but it's still a reminder of the person I've been, the person I'm supposed to be."

[teethoftherisk]

He nods slowly, picking up another plate off the belt. "You lost a lot coming here. Most people did. In time, maybe you'll be that person again. Now with husbands."

And he lifts his glass to Johnny. "We make it out and you get your bar, I'll come drink there. No suicide this time. Won't even eat a single patron either."

[businessorlibation]

"Even if I ask you to? I could sic you on the Lord Mayor and Lady Hawthorne. Perhaps Lord Hawthorne, too, but he's probably undead and even more feral than you."

There's a warm smile there, though, it's great to imagine Siffleur in the champagne lounge or the pub. He'd certainly make the atmosphere more lively.

[teethoftherisk]

Siffleur chuckles, returning that warm smile. "If you asked me to, then I'd be ruder if I didn't eat them. I'll eat the Mayor and the Lady first, just in case the Lord's too much for even me. ... he must be a real bastard to be more feral than me."

Especially if he's someone with a title who still manages to be called 'feral'. Undead might be helping with that.

[businessorlibation]

"He's a mean son of a mother. The last time I saw him, I pushed him out the twelfth-story window of my building, while he was trying to murder myself and my nearest and dearest. He managed to get up and walk away after that."

[teethoftherisk]

Siffleur raises an eyebrow to that one. Twelve stories is nothing to sneeze at. That's the height where bodies start becoming paste when they hit the ground. Siffleur finds it hard to imagine himself surviving, much less walking off.

"Tough bastard then." And yet, even though Siffleur doubts his own chances of survival, he would still enjoy fighting him. Sometimes it's good to see a human hurricane in action, just to feel what it's like. He taps his fingers on the counter. "Many undead in your world? Or just him?"

[businessorlibation]

"He's the only one I'm aware of." The mad science nuns created him as a prototype, and will luckily be stopped before a mad tyrant unleashes a weapon of mass destruction on a battlefield to create a bunch more corpses for them.

Johnny's canon is a trip sometimes. They Frankenstein'd Tarzan.

"And undead is...perhaps an approximation. Mimley swears he'd killed the man, and his skin was rather grey when I saw him. And he hadn't the presence of mind to use full sentences--though I don't know he was much given to them before. His wife was the brains in that relationship."

[teethoftherisk]

"Hmm." Hard to say then, but Siffleur would guess that whatever he was, he had something wrong or changed about him if his skin was grey. There's no such thing as a healthy human with grey skin, and most he's seen that ashen colour were usually seconds from death. "Sounds dead enough to me if he was grey, words or not. His wife around still?"

[businessorlibation]

"Yes, though she's more of a political threat than a physical one. She's aligned herself with the Lord Mayor to grapple for power and prominence--her husband is one of the many tools in her arsenal." And that is his arena to fight in; he's certain she doesn't realize how he's been countering her in the parts of the city she finds less important.

[teethoftherisk]

"Hmm. Sounds annoying. I see why you'd like them both dead." And he'd be happy to do that much. Siffleur's not an assassin by any means but he enjoys killing and eating, so what's the harm in doing that for a friend? "If we ever end up in your world, consider it done. I don't have anything I need done in my world, but if we end up there, I'll show you some good waterfalls and mountains, if you don't mind a hike."