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.

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Both men take the opportunity to scramble away (the Englishman: "Oh shit--"; the American: "oh no no, you stay away--") from the cougar (? lioness? listen, neither man is a biologist).

The barman, a tall and solid guy who's used to dealing with anything from violent drunks to police raids, instinctually pulls out a cudgel from behind the bar. Then the rest of his brain kicks in, and he turns and runs from the roughly 125lb of big cat that's seemingly leaping at him.

Bottles and glasses fall, exploding into a muddle of glass and alcohol that covers the floor like half-melted ice. There are plenty of large shards in there, sharp and long enough to breeze through an artery. And, since this is a newer building, the back wall is also home to a couple of nice incandescent light fixtures, should the lure of ungrounded AC current tempt Siffleur in his quest for death.

The trouble with paws is that while he's got all these wonderful glass shards to use, it would be easier if he had a thumb to help steady them while he impales himself. But he makes do, slamming his body through the glass and slicing himself open. But though he gets some of the long shards into his body, they don't have quite the right angle, so it's just stuck in the side of his neck instead of through the throat. And it hurts.

Part of him wishes the barman hadn't been cowardly enough to run away and had just bludgeoned him. Might have been nice and quick. There's some various things on the bar - cockscrews, an ice pick - but again, he'd need to change to human to use a hand and he wants this done quickly - and he's already mad enough of a scene.

Bleeding and panting, he lifts his head to look around. There's lights, maybe he could electrocute himself. But there's a chance that won't work either. He's had enough experience with Jack's electrobolts to know how to handle them, so he might instinctively pull away instead of staying grounded.

What a pain. There's no other easier way, so fine, fuck it, we ball. With the sound of crunching bones, the bloody cougar behind the bar rises as he swaps to his halfway form, flesh and fur and too many teeth. He grabs the ice pick the moment he's got a thumb, and he drives it through his right eye socket hard as he can.

There's pressure, a pop, and then it's all black and he wakes up back in bed.

Edited 2023-04-09 21:11 (UTC)

That was a memorable night already, and now it's even more so; Arthur recalls it in flashes as sharp and shattered as the glass itself. Seeing the cougar, and wondering for a crazed moment if there was something wrong with the drinks. How close it got to his face as it leapt forwards. A young woman wailing that they should call the police and getting shouted down. The sickening, wet sound it made as it changed, and as it killed itself. More than one person vomiting.

Now that he's on the ship, the event is less of a mystery. No-- it was never a mystery, because it never happened like that. He remembers it as clearly as he remembers sitting in that bar getting drunker and drunker, and everything else afterward. But he's not fucking fooled, he doesn't-- it doesn't make sense that a werecougar would turn up in his life like that and he'd just never think about it again. He had definitely never heard of one before one came here.

Which leaves only the question: what the fuck was that stunt??

So he makes a trip to Tommy Bahamas, to get an answer right from the horse's mouth. Maybe it's reckless of him to do this, but maybe he doesn't give a shit. He's already hit the roof over his memories being fucked with, and this is just icing on the cake.

"Siffleur?" he calls sharply to the empty aisles. They've never met, but he sure knows the name.

Huh, that's a new voice. Though, now that he hears it, it also seems familiar. It's not until Siffleur steps out from one of the displays that he sees the man and recognizes him. It's the one from the bar - the blind man before he was blind.

"Yes, I'm here. About 10 feet away." He announces himself, a move that is a struggle against the part of him that still wants to hunt the vulnerable and devour them. But he's not doing that now. "My apologies for entering your memory."

"Yes, I'm getting a lot of that lately."

Is it harder or easier to not hunt Arthur if he's also really obnoxious?

"Care to explain why you came in just to maul yourself to death?"

Great news Arthur: obnoxious people taste even better than polite people.

Siffleur crosses his arms over his chest, and though he doesn't enjoy the tone, it's not an unfair question if you assume he did it on purpose. "There are lots of cracks hidden in Tommy Bahamas, and I have stumbled into a few. One of them was yours. I try to leave them as quickly as I can. Unfortunately, everyone saw me in the bar and things got... messier than usual."

It was to leave? An attempt not to see -- Siffleur couldn't possibly know this, but -- not to see what would become one of Arthur's most shameful and panicked and happiest moments?

His face slides from accusing, through surprised, into actually impressed.

"Are you serious? That- that was all in the service of my privacy? Christ, I--"

Is it wild that he's kind of floored? Maybe it's just because he's fresh off yet another fight with Crichton over Crichton doing the polar opposite of this, but he's honestly kind of floored. The last thing he was expecting here was the relationship ++ to appear above his head.

"I," he mutters, with the decency at least to be embarrassed, "I seem to have come in a bit-- strong, then."

Well... that's better than he expected. Siffleur relaxes some, glad that at least the misunderstanding has been cleared up and that Arthur has also grasped why Siffleur did what he did.

"It's fine. I would be upset if I thought someone came into my memory on purpose to change it in an ugly way." He sighs a little, glancing around. "I think the ship knows I don't want to go into the cracks, because I keep getting pulled 'accidentally' into them. It's exhausting. And nearly all of them are incredibly personal."

It is very clear by the tone that Siffleur can't stand that part especially. He takes a few more steps towards Arthur, stopping near enough to make talking easier for them both, but not getting too into his space. And, just to make sure Arthur doesn't have to feel bad about Siffleur killing himself (because some of them do), he makes it clear- "I do it for nearly every memory I'm pulled into."

Arthur's face is kind of going in and out of doubt, because-- okay, it's not like he's never known anyone who would act that selflessly. But he had a second-hand impression of Siffleur, the homewrecking mountain lion who eats people, and this is... not quite matching it. So is the thoughtful Siffleur an act, or did the rumours have him wrong?

Well fuck, don't ask Arthur, he doesn't fucking know.

He notices the footsteps approaching, and his reaction is subtle, but maybe still noticeable: slightly more upright and light on his feet, head turned fractionally to track the sound. The instinctual movements of a guy who's been prey a few too many god damn times.

But more than anything else, he is an ornery man with an active grudge, so when Siffleur says that he does this for everyone, Arthur responds with "Well, christ, I wish more people had thought of that."

The hardest thing right now is resisting the urge to chase Arthur. He's very good at controlling many aspects of himself but the prey drive is one that is always a bit tricky. And the more nervous they are, the more excited he is-

Siffleur is fine. He just stays where he is and lets Arthur have a chance to relax. He also quickly realizes why Arthur came in so angry, and he's glad to have someone else who gets it. "Agreed. Everyone is too comfortable barging into people's memories and treating them like a video game." A pause, as he thinks about the way Arthur talks and if he even comes from an era with video games. "Or like a book with empty pages to write yourself into. I don't understand it. People will tell me secrets if it's important. I can spend time with them now. The memories don't actually change anything that happened in the past, so you can't actually save anyone. It just... I don't understand."

Imagine if Siffleur knew what a hypocrite Arthur "I Need To Interfere To Live, It's Like Oxygen" Lester was being right now. Anyway,

He has... extremely approximate knowledge of what a video game is (something to do with princesses being in other castles, though under what larger circumstance he couldn't guess), but the book comparison is much clearer and, he thinks, more elegant.

"Oh, it's not about actually saving anyone." And while he doesn't want to get into details, there's a deep curdled well of anger inside him that hasn't had a lot of chances to make itself known, and that forces its way through many hairline cracks into his voice. "It's about proving you could have-- have handled this or that situation better," yes good that's a little less specific, "if only you'd been there. It's fucking ego."

"What the fuck?" Siffleur, having no reason to doubt Arthur's interpretation of the situation that happened in his own mind, reacts exactly as one would expect someone who is both intensely private and also has his own feelings about people who think they have a right to comment on how to 'handle' anything 'better'. "I would kill anyone who came into my memories and tried to prove they could handle anything better than I did in the moment. That's disgusting of them."

Maybe the killing part shouldn't be, but that reaction is so unbelievably gratifying to hear, after the shock of realising what happened, after stomaching all of Crichton's grovelling apologies.

But at the same time, Arthur is skating entirely too close to maximum-security-level forbidden lore; he doesn't want to share what happened any more than he wants to think about it, and he pulls back from the subject like a hand leaving a hot stove.

His mouth warps briefly into a mirthless smile, and then he huffs one equally mirthless laugh; and then, a few moments later, another. His left hand makes a fist, and loosens. Then he mutters: "Yes. Well. That's hardly your problem."

Beat. In a tone that's less 'thanking Siffleur' and more 'scolding someone not present':

"Thank you for not forcibly making it your problem."

Edited 2023-05-18 19:20 (UTC)

"I never will." A promise and reassurance all wrapped up in one. And then, an offer. "If you want them dead, you can slip me a name. I won't ask anything else, or give them a reason why I did it."

A reason would prompt explanations from the person. And if they felt comfortable barging into Arthur's mind and changing memories clearly too private for Arthur to be able to even vaguely talk about in any way, then they'll likely happily spill any information about what happened in them to prove a point.

What an asshole. He huffs softly. "I've been lucky so far. The people who went into mine went in by accident, and they didn't change anything on purpose."

"...Is that a genuine offer?"

Not because Arthur's thinking of actually taking him up on it, but because he's remembering the 'sometimes a killer mountain lion' side of the man in front of him, and because he's suddenly wondering what the fuck has happened to him on this boat that his first reaction was to be entertained rather than horrified.

Maybe dying multiple times in multiple worlds starts to leave something important behind when you come back, hey. Maybe something that it's unsettling to reach for and take more than a moment to find.

"Yes." Siffleur says, completely sincerely. "Death's temporary. I die all the time playing my game. You just lose an evening and wake up refreshed."

Edited 2023-05-18 19:58 (UTC)

Hmm.

"I'm aware. Believe me, I've had the pleasure."

Arthur's tone is rather dry.

"...It's true about the game, then?" he adds. Not that Arthur doubts its existence, but he's curious to see how Siffleur himself sells the endeavour. If his fingers close around the handle end of his cane... no they don't.

"I've heard it talked about, though I've not yet read the advertisements myself."

Each time Arthur reacts in some small almost imperceptible way to Siffleur's simple existence, it makes him shift silently from bare foot to bare foot, tempted to come even closer and to watch Arthur startle when Siffleur's voice shifts position.

"It is. It's open to everyone. Escape me for an hour, win a prize. Or a favour, if we talk before we begin and I agree. But if I catch you, I kill you and eat you." A pause, and then his tone changes to flirtatious. "Sometimes in the other order, for just the right person. Had a few people win by killing me. Had a few win by hiding. It's a coinflip."

God damn it, of course. Of course if someone seems like a nice and reasonable guy he's actually involved in a bloodthirsty death game. God, Arthur needs to start talking to more people and increase his odds of meeting someone normal.

He exhales uncomfortably at the explanation. He, well, he supposes he's glad that it's all voluntary -- yes, he is glad about that, of course -- but also: what the fuck. What the fuck?

The flirting, though, he ignores. Flirting seems endemic to this ship, and now that he knows he's not going to be hatecrimed for it, he doesn't care nearly as much as he used to.

"Thank you," with flatly exaggerated politeness, "but I'm not looking for an opportunity to kill or die today. I will keep you in mind if that changes."

(He does not expect to ever in a million years to volunteer for this.)

He can't help being morbidly curious, however. "God, how- how many people do sign up, though? Is it many?" How many of them are people he knows??? "You'd have to be a certain sort of..." Arthur remember you're talking to the mountain lion who runs the operation. "...A very particular kind of person, I-I don't know if I can picture it."

He chuckles low in his throat. Arthur is being polite which is very funny. He wonders what he would think if he knew that he wouldn't be the first blind person to attempt the challenge - though Siffleur wasn't entirely sure how much Erin could see. Certainly enough to kick his ass.

And yet, despite Arthur's obvious distaste, he's like most of the others in that he wants to know more. They almost all want to know more, if they're willing to bring it up at all. "A handful. And yes, you have to be insane, or suicidal, or reckless, or all three. I have always been insane, but this place has made me far more reckless than I was before the ship."

"I had the biggest number after those murders at the Christmas lodge. Some of them felt guilty. Or they wanted to feel alive. Or maybe they were bored." He shrugs - then catches himself and says it out loud. "I don't usually ask for people's reasons."

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

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