Arthur Lester (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
theotherright) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
come_sailaway2023-09-07 02:13 pm
theotherright) wrote in come_sailaway2023-09-07 02:13 pm
[OPEN and one CLOSED] I shall not forget how his laugh rang out.
Whomst: Arthur and you!
Whenst: September
Wherest: About
Whatst: Canon update, fraying at the edges, a rescue mission that's doomed before it begins, and also some flowers
Warningst'dve: Starvation/imprisonment, man going through it, more as they come up.
Visual Note: Arthur's come off a canon update where he sustained some injuries and was starved for a while, so he looks Bad. For the sake of brevity, I didn't describe him in full in every prompt, but there are details in the first one should you need them.
[CLOSED to Crichton] it was just as the light was beginning to fail
At 6am, in cabin 127, several things happen:
The record player, which hasn't been wound in some time, lets out the last of the tension in its spring with a noise that's more 'old music used in a horror movie' than 'cosy crackling gramophone'.
Arthur turns — or has turned, perhaps, sometime in the night — from a miserable but healthy man into a guy who looks like his last square meal happened before the first world war. He slept without a shirt, and so there's nothing to hide the prominence of his ribs — the livid blotches that might be bruising — the plethora of new scars. There's a nasty circle on his belly that must be what the bite Tendi healed would've eventually curdled into. There's a zigzag of electrical scars, scrapes as if he lost a fight with sandpaper, a pale and pitted chunk out of his throat, and one finger reduced to what looks like blackened bone. There's a good inch of dark, brittle beard flavour-saving dust and blood on the bottom half of his face.
Arthur wakes up, lets out a breath like he's suddenly in a lot less pain than he was a moment ago, lets out another breath like he's confused, and says aloud, accusing, afraid: "Wait— what did you do? Where the hell did you send me?"
And then, and only then, he realises that he knows the answer — that he knows, that he remembers, more, so very many more, people and places and events than he did when he was talking to Kayne just a moment ago.
[OPEN, deck zero] that I suddenly heard all I needed to hear
Ya boy has a mission. It's one he has no clear idea of how he's going to achieve, but what's new?
Arthur looks absolutely fucking godawful: see the prompt above, though he has, thank goodness, shaved since then. Nevertheless, he's energetic, borderline frantic, running both hands over the bulkhead door that seals the crew quarters, muttering to himself. They all came out this way once. There must be a way back in.
Anyone hovering nearby may catch key words such as 'drill', 'shapeshift', and 'explosives'.
[OPEN, around the ship] it has lasted me many and many a year.
Is it a bird? Is it a plane?
No, it's Arthur: floating unmoored across the deck a few feet in the air, clutching a half-blown dandelion like it's the only sane thing in an insane world.
He's located a wall with his cane and is trying to find some way of hooking himself closer, but tragically, all he manages is to push himself further in the other direction. "No, oh no nono come back-- ah, damn it."
If there's a very subtle note of hysteria behind his voice, it's because there's something weirdly funny about -- about going through everything he has, and then having to deal with floating. Not imprisonment, not almost dying every five minutes, but drifting on the breeze like a bubble. Not torturous, but ridiculous. He's almost tempted to remember how to have fun, just for the occasion.
[WILDCARD] wildcard
Wildcard!
Whenst: September
Wherest: About
Whatst: Canon update, fraying at the edges, a rescue mission that's doomed before it begins, and also some flowers
Warningst'dve: Starvation/imprisonment, man going through it, more as they come up.
Visual Note: Arthur's come off a canon update where he sustained some injuries and was starved for a while, so he looks Bad. For the sake of brevity, I didn't describe him in full in every prompt, but there are details in the first one should you need them.
[CLOSED to Crichton] it was just as the light was beginning to fail
At 6am, in cabin 127, several things happen:
The record player, which hasn't been wound in some time, lets out the last of the tension in its spring with a noise that's more 'old music used in a horror movie' than 'cosy crackling gramophone'.
Arthur turns — or has turned, perhaps, sometime in the night — from a miserable but healthy man into a guy who looks like his last square meal happened before the first world war. He slept without a shirt, and so there's nothing to hide the prominence of his ribs — the livid blotches that might be bruising — the plethora of new scars. There's a nasty circle on his belly that must be what the bite Tendi healed would've eventually curdled into. There's a zigzag of electrical scars, scrapes as if he lost a fight with sandpaper, a pale and pitted chunk out of his throat, and one finger reduced to what looks like blackened bone. There's a good inch of dark, brittle beard flavour-saving dust and blood on the bottom half of his face.
Arthur wakes up, lets out a breath like he's suddenly in a lot less pain than he was a moment ago, lets out another breath like he's confused, and says aloud, accusing, afraid: "Wait— what did you do? Where the hell did you send me?"
And then, and only then, he realises that he knows the answer — that he knows, that he remembers, more, so very many more, people and places and events than he did when he was talking to Kayne just a moment ago.
[OPEN, deck zero] that I suddenly heard all I needed to hear
Ya boy has a mission. It's one he has no clear idea of how he's going to achieve, but what's new?
Arthur looks absolutely fucking godawful: see the prompt above, though he has, thank goodness, shaved since then. Nevertheless, he's energetic, borderline frantic, running both hands over the bulkhead door that seals the crew quarters, muttering to himself. They all came out this way once. There must be a way back in.
Anyone hovering nearby may catch key words such as 'drill', 'shapeshift', and 'explosives'.
[OPEN, around the ship] it has lasted me many and many a year.
Is it a bird? Is it a plane?
No, it's Arthur: floating unmoored across the deck a few feet in the air, clutching a half-blown dandelion like it's the only sane thing in an insane world.
He's located a wall with his cane and is trying to find some way of hooking himself closer, but tragically, all he manages is to push himself further in the other direction. "No, oh no nono come back-- ah, damn it."
If there's a very subtle note of hysteria behind his voice, it's because there's something weirdly funny about -- about going through everything he has, and then having to deal with floating. Not imprisonment, not almost dying every five minutes, but drifting on the breeze like a bubble. Not torturous, but ridiculous. He's almost tempted to remember how to have fun, just for the occasion.
[WILDCARD] wildcard
Wildcard!
no subject
...
....
~If I had been raised as a girl rather than a false god, I would be a woman by now. As it is...I don't know what I am. The god of the lake never understood this, vermin that he is.~
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She was a human. She was a living girl. No, no, no, no, no.
No-one should ever have to say that they died at nineteen.
Arthur catches himself before he starts swearing about it.
"You were the god they raised, whose raising provoked the wrath of the god of the lake," he says, pulling threads together, his tone quietly horrified. Then: "But I thought you said he made you... People did this to you?"
It's not that that surprises him. He's seen human sacrifice. He's been a human sacrifice. But there's always a part of him that wants to believe someone wouldn't be as cruel as they can possibly be, and it always takes that hit when he's wrong. It's been much quieter lately, for better and for worse.
no subject
Light pressure on the frog; Grace has reached out to touch its head. ~When famine came again they cried, the false idol deceives us! To earn the love of the god of the lake again they made sacrifice of me; they broke me, and tied me to an anchor, and threw me into the Depths. My last wish was for vengeance, and the vermin god was stupid enough to grant it. Now I am this, and the village is gone, and done, and never more. No thing living remains.~
~...So you see. The god of the lake never should have granted wishes to begin with.~
no subject
The idea of the King granting wishes jostles oddly against Arthur's idea of him, but that's really not the part he's focused on.
He remembers to draw a breath.
"I, I'm so sorry," he says. The words feel hollow and small next to what they did to her. "You deserved so much better from all of them. So much better than any of it."
Feeling the slight weight on the plush frog, he loosens his arms around it. Not pushing it back on her, but: "You're, um. Sure you don't need this more than me?"
It's an awkward attempt at comfort. The frog is better at it than he is.
no subject
She hums, briefly. ~You seem less confident in your perception than radiant Helena. Is there anything I might do to help you be aware of where I am?~
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He lets out a long breath and hugs the frog closer again, feeling strangely okay with just cuddling a toy for the rest of the conversation. "Thank you," he says, the way he would've used to, and: "Well met, gentleman Jack," he tells it quietly.
"You know Helena." Not really a question, just noting it. "Well. I have gotten rather good at going by footsteps, since most people seem to think that's sufficient, but I..." He's realising something. "I don't think I've heard you walk. Have you been flying as well?"
no subject