come_sailaway | then I found a place, it's dark and it's rotted [memeshare

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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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She sighs a little, a satisfied sound as she's warmed by the wolf, as her body finally starts to feel again. "Pins and needles." The woman mutters to herself, and gives Siffleur's little feet a shake. "Look at how tiny those toes are! Never saw those tiny little toes or fingers before. Those itty bitty nails. Like a perfect little doll."

Her hands move to his hands, wrapping his little fingers around each index and smiling at him. "Oh yes, I can be a cougar too. But it's like with him. Awful, awful change. Worse than childbirth. I still tense up every time I change, and it makes it so much worse, but I can't help it. You have to break your own bones, and you have to keep breaking them, keep tearing yourself apart. Everyone else we did it to died, and of course they did, because they didn't have a stopping point. They just kept breaking and breaking and breaking and tearing and bleeding until they died. Just a horrible mess of meat leaking out everywhere."

She grins, big, bright, leaning down to kiss Siffleur's hands. "Oh but your mother was a smart cookie, she figured out everything just in time for you and me to go through that. You had to have a shape in mind, something to become, or you'd never become anything. Never ever ever ever. Never ever ever!" The kissing becomes a little frantic, her voice a little high pitched. "You just become meat! Meat meat meat! Oh, so much meat, so much meat! We buried tons of it! Tons and tons and tons!"

The giggling gets high pitched, shrill-

And she lifts her hand to her mouth to bite it, digging her teeth in hard and making herself be still and quiet. The breathing through her nose is laboured, but it grows more relaxed in time, until she can finally remove her hand. The blood leaks from it, slow and thick, and she lets her head drop back against that thick black pelt.

"Sorry. It's just... you know. The madness." She waggles her bleeding hand at her head. "It gets better and worse. You're helping though. Very appreciated. Very warm and grounding. I've been so lost in his memories that I'd gone half to sleep in them."

Evidence of the woman's insanity simply continues to grow, but Valdis stays calm, for Siffleur's sake.

Are you a memory, or are you conscious in his memories.

Disturbing either way.

"Tragically and unfortunately conscious, my dear Valdis." She squeezes her bleeding hand into a fist, letting it drip on the ground. "It's a long and sordid story but I wasn't meant to be here like this. I wasn't meant to be anything but an anchor. Apparently, I was too good at it, and I came along for the ride when your piss-ass Captain copied my son."

Her lips curl back but there's no uncontrollable tantrum this time. She might have insults for him, but there's no real rage in her heart, not like with the others. All she does is watch the blood form a little puddle before dragging a finger through it, drawing in the bloody dirt. "You know, I've been waiting for something to come in here, but I was expecting a psychic of some kind. And when I saw you at first, I thought ah here we are, something's come to steal him from me, rip me out. But you're not of course... this is an accident, isn't it? Some kind of accident."

She finishes drawing in the dirt, staring down at a sigil she's doodled and sighing to herself. "Well, even if it wasn't, none of my old tricks work here. Can't call on something when all the phone lines have been cut. Doesn't even give the busy signal, doesn't ring, doesn't go through, just... emptiness. Terrible emptiness."

Valdis doesn't move, doesn't show anything other an a flick of an ear to acknowledge what she has heard. She breathes deeply, blowing out a long, misty breath into the cold air, considering her next words carefully.

What are you an anchor for?

"Myself. Not me-myself but her-myself. The other-me, the one left behind." She closes her eyes for a moment, and gestures vaguely in the air. "When you see God's face, when you survive it, then you can go backwards you know. You can walk the path the other way. So, I did, I cut a hole in the world and crawled through it, and and now I'm outside of it, eternally untouchable." A pause, a sigh, and her eyes open. "She's untouchable. I'm here."

Then she leans in and presses her mouth against Siffleur's tummy, blowing a raspberry on him and laughing in delight. "Oh, this is such a treat, I really have to thank you. He was never human for me. The moment he touched the water, he changed into a little kitten, and that was so good of him because it was easier to be a cat when I cared for him. But I never knew he had such tiny little features..."

Hackles stay flat, breathing stays even, eyes stay green. But the overwhelming urge to kill this broken soul who should not be here fills her with a need to act. She turns her gaze onto the tiny baby, knowing that to kill her now could compromise whatever memories he currently has. But this creature, anchoring herself to a half-life through Siffleur cannot be allowed to live.

Do you know what I am? The question is calm. So much calmer than she feels, but the woman knows her name and potentially what she is. If Siffleur actually understood their discussion.

"Hellhound. Soul-eater." She giggles a little, amused by that deliciously grim title and purpose, and she tips Siffleur forward to rest on her chest, cuddling him close. "I worried the first time you ate him up, thought that might be it for me too. But here I am. Here I stay. Safe, finally safe, finally finally safe."

"I only wish I knew if he could remember this. He worries about me so much, all the time. Poor boy. You were so good at hiding it, but now that I'm here, I see it, and I feel it." She rubs his back when he makes a soft cranky sound, making soft 'oh oh oh' sounds. "I know, I know. I'm sorry. I promise, I would have told you sooner but I wanted you to have your own life too, Fleur. I wanted you to be your own man. I didn't know you wanted your children to be like you. But they didn't look at the artifact, they didn't see God, not like you and me. They were always going to be human..."

The woman sighs again, long and wistful, and turns her head to look at the wolf. "So, did you come here for me, or for him?"

So she does know anything Siffleur knows, makes things a little more complicated for when she returns.

I crossed the river to ensure my friend and his mother stayed warm in this cold memory.

Valdis did not expect to find an insane, twisted soul existing alongside Siffleur and she's certainly not kissing Siffleur in order to remove it without taking his soul. Bad enough she may have to kiss Crichton.

Does he know you are here?

She chuckles softly, the most relaxed laugh she's had so far. "Good... good good good. He's got friends now. Always struggled with that. Makes me so happy. He's got friends... you've got friends, Fleur!"

The woman presses her nose against the side of his head and smells him. Then she shakes her head, just a little. "Doesn't know. I was going to tell him, I was, I had a whole... I had a whole plan. But the thing is- the thing is, the thing is that I got dischronolated. Time is linear, so you have to be linear to experience time, and when I became lineared I also became untimed, and I was everywhere, always everywhere, always now and then and soon and far. I had to find a point that would ground me, so I picked him, but I was still untangling myself from all the here now then whens when he got scooped up, and took a liiiiittle bit of me with him."

She holds her fingers up for Valdis to see, making a tiny little pinch. "Just this much. Just a sliver. But, if you could tell me, if you can make sure he knows I'm here, oh I'd be grateful. I can't pay you back here, but if you all ever get away and you crack through this bubble, I'm out there. And I'll know he's here, and I'll give you a lovely reward of your own naming. Once me and I chat about it, we'll be so grateful about all of this, you know. Fleur finally got a place to be happy."

The explanation, and the offer, do little to assure her that this woman will not be a threat, but she speaks the truth at this moment. And it is exceedingly difficult to lie to her empathetic senses.

I will tell him, and I hope he will be open to having you here. But if he is not, I will help him remove you if he wishes. This is all I can promise you.

She lowers her head to her paws. For now, they can both be warm in her thick fur, but she does it for Siffleur, not this half soul who calls herself his mother.

A thin giggle escapes her, and it turns into a torrent of laughter, manic and delighted and ever so amused by the very thought of asking Siffleur if he wants her removed. Her bare heels beat on the ground and she throws her head back as she cackles into the clear sky above them.

"Oh good, good good good, go ahead and ask him oh please, please do. Oooohhh good. Promise him and not me." She chuckles and then sighs, curling her and Siffleur into Valdis' warm side. "Good good good. Heh. Oooohhh, how stern! How sensible. I see why you've lived this long. You're a smart cookie too."

And chuckling softly to herself, she closes her eyes and lets herself rest there quietly until the memory comes to a quiet end, sending Valdis back to the ship.

The memory spits her back out far less peacefully than it had ended and her legs shudder as they take the weight of her Hound bulk.

Damn.

She honestly has no idea how Siffleur will react to his mother leaving part of her inside him. If she could still soul walk she could go back in and ask more questions, because she has more, but she hasn't been able to do it. It must be something the Captain didn't want to contend with, though knowing what she knows about the ghosts, and herself, well, moving her soul around would be unwise even if she did have the ability.

She needs to find Siffleur as quickly as possible.

Siffleur is in human form at the moment, carefully walking back to the Tommy Bahamas and avoiding the cracks. He's gotten a decent amount of practice by now so he's not easily sucked in, but he's still overly cautious since he's learned the hard way that some of them like to hide behind things.

He spots movement out of the corner of his eye, the kind that makes his brain raise it's hackles and he turns quick to see what it is. It's Valdis moving with intent and he steps aside to make way for her.

Except that as she approaches, it becomes clear that she's looking for him. He raises his eyebrows. "Everything okay?"

There. Valdis moves toward him, she hasn't bothered to shift just yet, but she lowers her head as she approaches.

Siffleur. A long pause, and she decides to shift, but amongst the ugly cracking and rearrangement of her body, shadows wrap around her and she's wearing armor when she straightens to look up at him.

"I met your mother." She begins, "But it wasn't a memory."

All the expression drains out of his face. He stares at her, trying to make it make sense.

He makes the logical jump in conclusion, his voice husky as he asks- "Where is she on the ship?"

"Well, to be more precise I met a piece of her soul in..one of her memories. The memory of your birth." Or, it would seem that way. "She is aware and separate, conscious in your soul but unable to really act. She's also about as sane as a fragment of a soul can be."

Which is, not at all. And based on her words about being nearly asleep, she was now wide awake.

That pulls him up even shorter, confused by everything Valdis is saying. He doesn't doubt her - he has no reason to doubt her - but... how? He reaches a hand up to touch his temple. He doesn't feel any different. He doesn't hear thoughts. How could she even get in his mind? It doesn't make any sense.

But Valdis met her in one of her memories. Which means-

"Can you take me to the crack you fell through?"

It's not the worst reception of her words, but his response seems rather calm.

"It's not far from here. But Siffleur, she is not well and she is not all there."

But if he insists, she will lead him over to where the crack was. She's not certain what will happen if they both go back in, or if they even can, she's not sure if it is even still there, but if that's what he wants...

Of all the things Valdis has said, it's hearing that she's not well - and not all there - that makes him relax and even makes him smile a little. Something could pretend to be his mother, but would it know enough to make even something as old as Valdis worry? Probably not.

"That's my mother. She has never been well, and she has never been all there. But if she could talk to you, then I can talk to her." And he needs to talk to her. He has to understand how she's here - if she's really here, or if this is part of his own mind. Valdis says she's a separate being and he believes here, but he also wonders if she is mistaken. Siffleur is also hardly the picture of mental health. He knows this. But...

"I have to see her." He says, softly but insistently. "I last saw her five years ago, and I thought she might be dead. I need to know what happened."

"I don't think you should go in alone, but if you don't want me intruding, then I won't."

The rift is just around the corner, if it hasn't closed.

"Siffluer, whatever she's done, I'm not convinced she is alive in the way you want her to be."

Siffleur looks at the rift. He hasn't voluntarily gone into a single crack so far. It feels like a gross violation to do this - and to do it to his mother - but... but he has to know. He has to see if that's truly her.

Valdis is likely right. He can't imagine any way for his mother to truly be in his mind. But he couldn't have imagined most of the things that have happened here as well.

"I would prefer that you come with me." He says, eyes still on the rift. "If you're right, then you will be able to do what I can't."

He steps forward and touches the crack, letting himself be pulled through-

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-

The woman lifts her head and shock spreads over her face, followed by delight. She scrambles to her feet, and as she does, she changes. Her hair goes grey and she ages nearly forty year in the span of a few seconds, that dirty oversized dress replaced with good boots and worn jeans, and an oversized hunting jacket. She's beaming, tears in her eyes as she runs forward. "Fleur! Fleur!"

The moment he hears her voice, Siffleur charges forward, crossing the dirty ground and scooping his mother up in his arms, flinging her around in a spin that has her screaming with laughter, her arms tightly grabbing to his shoulders. "Mama-"

"Fleur!" She kicks her legs behind her, digging her fingers into him. "Oh my Fleur, my Fleur, my boy, oh god oh god, Fleur! You're here, you're-"

Her head comes up as she spots Valdis, and she just smiles. "You're here too! Your friend, Fleur, you have friends!"

Siffleur is out of words. He just grips her tightly, finally slowing down and staying still, holding her against his chest.

On the beach, the baby keeps screaming, unaware of anything but his own pain.

Valdis isn't sure she wants to do what he would need her to, but his mother's insanity might be easily hid. He may decide his mother is fine and choose to not listen to her, and she won't mess with his head and soul without his permission if the threat isn't imminent. With a sigh, Valdis follows him through, standing aside as his mother changes and greets him. He sounds so happy, but Valdis still feels ill.

The poor baby still cries by the river, so Valdis scoops him up from the ground, holding him against her. The armor isn't as soft or warm for him as her fur had been, but she purrs at him, bouncing him softly and continues to watch Siffleur and his mother.

The baby doesn't stop screaming when picked up, but Valdis will still be able to feel some of the worst of the fear ebb as he's held. It's just the fear of the pain that he's in, body trapped between two forms, unable to pick which direction to transform in.

"Fleur, oh my boy, my boy, my boy." His mother mummers over and over again, grabbing at him and patting him until he finally sets her feet back down on the ground. "I'm sorry I worried you, I'm sorry, I was trying to tell you but it was all mixed up, all so hard to find the threads of the world. But-but I'll never be hurt again, never ever, never ever ever! I wanted to tell you more but it hurt so badly, just- just molten iron in my veins, in my skull, burning and burning-"

"Mother." Siffleur quickly hushes her, a hand over her mouth. He can feel her lips moving, but he's stopped the words for now and slowed down the spiral. It won't last though. He can nearly smell it on her. She's at the peak of her mania. No wonder Valdis was so worried... "You don't have to tell me. I just need to know that it's you, and that you're safe."

He carefully drops his hand. She sighs, her head dropping against his chest. "... it's me. I'm safe. Both of me are safe. The... the version out there, she's untouchable. And the part of me here, I'm- I'm in the memories. It never hurts anymore. I'm just with you, over and over again, just with you..."

"Good." Siffleur kisses the top of her head. That's enough for him. There's more he'd like to know, but he's not sure she could tell him it. He can already see her grasping at the explanation and cutting herself on it. "And never in your memories?"

"Never, never never. Those are-" She gestures behind her vaguely, at somewhere further than the river. "I'm the anchor. I'm- I needed somewhere to ground myself. Somewhere safe. Couldn't be an object, you can possess an object, you can control it, mount it, keep it and use it, you could own me then and make me do things and never never never again, never again-" Her feet twist as her hands twist and quiver. Siffleur strokes her head, holding himself still as she twists and twists, and then finally collapses against him. "Had to be you... you're the only one who'd never use me."

In Valdis' arms, the baby shudders as well, and then with a crunch of tiny bones, he turns to a cougar cub, his screaming turning to squalling. Siffleur's mother lifts her head. "Oh no no, I forgot- I forgot you, I forgot you-"

"I'm fine." Siffleur turns her attention back to him, careful to keep her here - to keep her grounded, like she said he was meant to. "Is there anything you need me to do for you?"

"You're doing it already. You're- you're my shelter from the storm. Just... stay happy, stay so happy, that's all I need. I like to see your new memories. I like to see you happy." She keeps trying to glance at Valdis and the baby, but she finally gives up, patting his cheeks. "I like that you have friends now, Fleur. You're doing so good. I wish I could have given you that before..."

"You gave me what I needed." He leans down to give her another tight hug while he can. And he meets Valdis' eyes. She still looks concerned. He isn't sure there's anything he can say to change that feeling, but he'll try. "She's my mother. I'm sure of it."

"Is she- oh, of course she's worried." She giggles with her fingers patting Siffleur's beard. "She must think I'm some horrible worm here to eat you up. But I'm- I'm the shadow of God. I can't do anything but dance away from the light."

Valdis continues to purr at the baby, even after it shifts into a cub. The squalling hurts her ears, but she keeps her eyes on Siffleur and his mother.

"I know it's your mother, but that doesn't mean she should be here." She replies, "Even shadows can eventually gain enough strength to devour God."

She should know.

"A body cannot share two consciousnesses, it's not designed to do so. And she hasn't explained why she has done this either."

That just gets a shrill giggle out of his mother, like Valdis has stumbled into a very funny joke. Siffleur looks down at her, and he carefully moves a hand to her shoulder. "She doesn't have to. I accept whatever comes from this."

"Oh the dramatics. Stop stop stop, I'm not eating you, I'm never eating you. I wouldn't put myself here if I was dangerous." She gives his chest a few pats and then squats down, staring at the dirt. "I'm... trying to explain. I really am. I really really am. I need to. Because I never did before, because I didn't need to before, but I need to now."

Her arms wrap around her knees and she turns those vivid yellow eyes on Valdis, and with care, she says slowly and methodically. "I'm what your Captain wants to be. She's- she's what your Captain wants to be. She became God, kinda. Sorta. And I'm- I'm the anchor. Was the anchor. Before the chain got cut. Now I'm just- I'm just here, in the sea, watching the waters and the little fishes and the corals and listening to the whales sing. He's an ocean, do you see? I'm an anchor in an ocean, I can't replace him, because he's so much bigger than he looks like on the outside. Because we both looked into the eye of God and we were changed, and we were shaped and we became more than only meat, we became a thing between meat and God."

Siffleur very carefully lowers himself into a squat too. "Mom... deep breathes. Slow breathes."

"Shh. Later. I'll calm down later. I have to- we have to do this." She puts both hands on the ground and digs her fingers into it, slowly digging a hole. "It's- it started before I was born, you know. They dug in the dirt for years and years and years, for so many years. Old men looking to find something to make them wealthy and immortal and divine. They found so many things down there, in the depths of the old cities, the places time forgot. When they found the eye, it was closed. That's the only reason they survived. They found it and carried it to the surface, took it to a place that was clean and tidy and they opened it, they opened the eye of God, and it saw them, and it changed them. B-but it wasn't- we're meat, we're meat, so it- we just, we kept- we didn't know how to stop, we didn't have the way to stop it, so in it's gaze, in it's sight, we- we broke, we broke and broke and broke, and we never stopped breaking, never never, not until it was just meat and meat. Meat-" The shrill giggle comes back and she claws at the sand, sloshing it everywhere.

Siffleur holds his hand out against her mouth and she bites him hard, bites him deep. He doesn't flinch. He just holds his hand steady as she tears at him again and again, splattering blood in the sand, until finally her eyes clear, and she pulls her teeth out of him. Her voice is soft and broken. "No Fleur-"

"My arms grow back now, mother." He assures her, holding his mangled hand to the side. "Tell your story."

She huffs. There's blood on her teeth and she licks it off, then she licks her mouth, and then she sags backwards, flopping on her back and staring at the sky. "They found a piece of God and they wanted to know how to use it. And I helped them, until the day they put me in front of it, and made me stare into the eye too. That's the story, long and gory. I saw God, and it split me into two. A-and... and I spent years, years trying to sew myself back together. But you can't unsplit the atom. All you can do is finish the job. So... so I did. I went back. I went back. They were lesser now. They never solved it. They died off, moved on. The eye was- the eye was easier to reach. So I- so I reached it. I looked into it again, knowing what I know now, understanding what it wanted and I- I changed. One more time."

She lifts her arms up to the sky, palms flat and pointed. "I became like it. Like God. Everywhere and anywhere and all the time. Which is- it's very confusing. Being all times. You get lost. You lose yourself. It's- you're a little boat on the ocean, and then you become the ocean and it's- it's always moving, moving moving moving, everywhere and anywhere and allwhere and alltime and anytime and everytime, you see? So-so, you need an anchor. You need something to tether yourself too. It- it could have been a thing. L-like the eye was for God. But I wasn't- I can't. I can't. I can't be that. I can't- I won't! I won't be caught and kept I fucking won't I fucking won't-"

Siffleur tries to offer his hand again but she refuses it, digging her heels into the sand and then kicking at it, throwing dirt everywhere, screaming furiously and indignantly, until there's two huge tracks dug by her feet and her voice cuts out, all of her going limp like a puppet with cut strings.

"Sorry." She says weakly. "It's- the memory makes it hard. I'm s-so fucking angry here. Oh Fleur-"

"It's okay mom." He sits with her, lifting her head from the dirt and setting it against his thigh, brushing the soil from her hair. Siffleur's heart hurts. He didn't want her to ever explain anything, and he feels guilty to know any of this now. It wasn't his to understand. He wasn't owed anything. She let him live - that was enough. That was more than enough. "I want you here. I want you to be safe."

She sighs again, huffs, rolls her head to the side as he keeps brushing her off. "It's fine. You're still back there, with me and me. No matter what happens, I'm safe. I'm safe... I'm too big to hurt now."

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

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