glassaxolotl: (Do it for him)
rusted_flowers ([personal profile] glassaxolotl) wrote in [community profile] come_sailaway2023-09-08 10:10 pm

That’s It, It’s Split, It Won’t Recover. Just Frame The Halves And Call Them Brothers. (OTA)

Who: Dedue, Dimitri, OTA
Where: Various Places Around The Ship
What: Regains and Flower Event
When: Throughout September
CWs: Body horror, paranoia, delusions, PTSD flashbacks, grief, remembering a genocide. Potentially more to be added later.

Find your fathers and your mothers. If you remember who they are. (Regains, OTA)

From Sundries, Dedue receives a new package. He recognizes the journal instantly and flips it open to find pages and pages of familiar handwriting. Naomi used this to practice her writing, both in the Duscur language and - albeit at a lesser skill level - the Fodlan language as well. Entries document trips to the capital that she took with her father and brother, games and arguments with other children of the village, anecdotes about the family. Mundane moments, but they’re what Dedue craves - the simplicity of a life long-since blocked off from him.

There are drawings as well. Sketches of people Dedue remembers and some he doesn’t. It’s strange to think she had a life outside his own. He’s always thinking about how much of his life she didn’t get to witness.

He’ll be reading through the journal nearby Sundries when he gets it. Later, he brings it to the library and starts to copy the Duscur alphabet in a journal of his own. It has been a long time since he has written in the language, but he’d like to try once more, now that he has a reference.

Over and over, they call us their friends. Can’t we find something else to pretend? (Flowers Pt 1, Closed to Dimitri)

After what happened with Eleanor, Dedue knows he should be wary of any flowers he sees growing on the ship. But even so, the first time he sees that burst of color, out on patrol with Dimitri, he can’t help but rush over.

He kneels down by the cracks in the floor and runs his fingers through apricot petals and spotted leaves of begonias, along the vines that grow across the wall, bringing with them a medley of passionflowers in reds and violets. A tear lands on the ground next to Dedue’s knee.

They’re real. The flowers are real.
No one will take them away from him again.

Like nobody won, and we’re safe at the end. (Flowers Pt 2, OTA)

For the first part of the month, Dedue will go about his days as normal. He will be experimenting with dishes in the kitchens, he will train on the sports deck.

But every so often, he will lean over and cough into his arm - simple coughs at first, but soon enough huge violent fits of hacking that sometimes result in him wiping something from the table (was that blood? or a leaf?).

He’s jumpier than usual, quick to check who’s coming and going. And he finds himself more impatient, irritable.

Maybe your character has noticed. Maybe they haven’t. Dedue is very good at hiding emotions and pain, even from himself.

We’ll be out in the street before anyone knows that we’re gone. (Flowers Pt 3, OTA + Dimitri)

There comes a point when Dedue stops showing up. He’s not at any of the usual places where he pursues hobbies, trains with friends, or joins patrols. At odd hours he appears in the dining hall. He wears full armor and has his axe in his hand as he acquires food, taste tests it for poison, and leaves wordlessly. Something about his gaze is... wrong. Like he isn’t really present.

Otherwise, it is hard to find him.
He is not in his room.
Nor is Dimitri in his, come to think of it.
Wherever they are, they are together. They don’t want to stay apart for long. It hurts to be apart.

If you seek them out, you might catch them in odd locations.
Pressed against the side of the stairwell and glaring straight at you.
Setting up camp deep within Tommy Bahama’s. At one point, they have barricaded the side of the library with furniture and hidden themselves behind Dimitri’s favored armchair.

In all cases, you can hear muttering and reassurances. Sometimes it’s from both of them. Sometimes just Dimitri, as Dedue is often in his Arcadia form now.

They are both armed, and they do not care for visitors.

A shot rings out. Nobody wants it. Nobody wants it to stop. (Flowers Pt 4, OTA + Dimitri)

Eventually, even the dining hall visits cease, and the rotating locations too are abandoned. There is one place to find them. Should you enter the morgue, you will hear whispers. And where there are whispers, vines with spotted leaves grow from behind the small door.

What lies within is not exactly two people.
Nor is it one.
mistertwister: (confused)

[personal profile] mistertwister 2023-10-05 12:22 am (UTC)(link)
not lately, no
i need to start looking?
not_the_last: (Default)

[personal profile] not_the_last 2023-10-05 12:56 am (UTC)(link)
I have been. If you'd care to help me I would certainly appreciate it.
mistertwister: (Default)

[personal profile] mistertwister 2023-10-15 11:05 am (UTC)(link)
wanna look together or fan out? i think ill head to the promenade first either way just to get in the middle of things
not_the_last: (Default)

[personal profile] not_the_last 2023-10-15 06:46 pm (UTC)(link)
I'll meet you there and we can discuss.

Fanning out certainly makes more practical sense, but for no reason she can pin down, she has an uneasy feeling about searching separately.
mistertwister: (chill)

[personal profile] mistertwister 2023-10-19 11:17 am (UTC)(link)
"Has no one seen 'em lately?" Okie asks when she reaches him.

"I'll admit I haven't kept good track 'a most folks this month."
not_the_last: (Default)

[personal profile] not_the_last 2023-10-19 08:51 pm (UTC)(link)
"You're not alone. The flowers have been ... distracting, I think, at best. And no, no one I've spoken to yet has seen them for at least a week. The texts I've sent haven't been returned, so they must still be here, but ..."

She shakes her head. "I don't know what to think. Except that I'm worried."
mistertwister: (friendly)

[personal profile] mistertwister 2023-10-20 10:51 am (UTC)(link)
"Nothin' to do but find 'em, then." He offers a quick smile in reassurance.

"First we just gotta choose where to start. Any leads, ideas, whims?"
not_the_last: (Default)

[personal profile] not_the_last 2023-10-22 12:36 am (UTC)(link)
"I've already knocked at their doors. I know they both use the sports deck a good deal, perhaps there?"
mistertwister: (consider)

[personal profile] mistertwister 2023-10-22 01:03 pm (UTC)(link)
“Sounds like a plan.” He starts the walk there immediately, with just a slight lag to the first step or two to make sure they keep close.

“They act strange at all last you heard from ‘em, or was it just normal then nothin’?”
not_the_last: (Default)

[personal profile] not_the_last 2023-10-23 10:24 pm (UTC)(link)
She quickens her pace until they're side by side, then falls into step with him.

"Nothing strange that I noticed. I know there are all manner of strange things happening because of the flowers, but ... I don't know of one that would make them just stop responding."
mistertwister: (Default)

[personal profile] mistertwister 2023-10-27 10:54 am (UTC)(link)
"I don't either, but I wouldn't doubt if it was a flower either." He chews on his thoughts as they walk.

"I just feel like there'd have to be something wrong for them not to talk to us. Is that selfish?"
not_the_last: (Default)

[personal profile] not_the_last 2023-10-27 06:11 pm (UTC)(link)
"No, I think you're right. Especially as it's both of them."

The sports deck isn't far. It also isn't hard to take in at a single glance, once they arrive. No bright blond head in sight, and no bright white one either.
mistertwister: (annoyed)

[personal profile] mistertwister 2023-11-01 12:07 pm (UTC)(link)
“Might as well check the gym.” Okie walks across, slowly succumbing to a kind of anxious inertia, building up nerves.

“I swear if we find out they’re just on some lovers’ retreat, I’m disappearin’ into the cheese shop.” He hopes she knows that’s a joke. He really hopes he knows that’s a joke.
not_the_last: (Default)

[personal profile] not_the_last 2023-11-02 02:51 am (UTC)(link)
"I might join you," she says, in a sort of tense sigh that suggests a similar struggle with the question of whether this is a joke or not.

Neither Dedue nor Dimitri appears to be in the gym, and Cassandra breathes out.

"Do you think we should check the infirmary?"
mistertwister: (Default)

[personal profile] mistertwister 2023-11-02 09:49 am (UTC)(link)
"I think we should check everywhere, personally." Not that he's desperate.

"You know if anyone else is lookin' for 'em right now?"
not_the_last: (Default)

[personal profile] not_the_last 2023-11-02 11:04 pm (UTC)(link)
"I don't know. It seems likely, I just ... haven't tried to organize anything."

A breath. "Right, then. The infirmary, and," very resolutely, "the morgue is very nearby and we ought to rule it out."