Siffleur (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
teethoftherisk) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
come_sailaway2023-11-01 01:16 am
teethoftherisk) wrote in come_sailaway2023-11-01 01:16 am
I want God to come and take me home [OPEN]
Who: You and... Siffleur?
When: 3-days after the end of the Oct expedition, into November
Where: Daisy's cabin, various places around the ship
Warnings: Gore, body horror, cosmic horror, self-harm, CPTSD/trauma, etc.
1. who am I supposed to be? (Closed to Daisy)
It’s common for Siffleur to show up in the room after expeditions, his body dragged in by Friday sometime in the night and left to finish waking up. They’ve got a system by now - he wakes up, grabs his emergency clothes, and takes off. It’s fairly predictable and simple.
Today, Siffleur starts breathing like usual. His body twitches as he’s on the edge of waking up. Then spasms. And then, with a terrible crunching sound, his ribcage splits wide open and blood splatters over the walls and furnishing. The split doesn’t stop there, quickly spreading up his throat and skull, his face opening like a book until even the bone splits and his pink throbbing brain is on full display. His eyes roll and slither, no longer held in sockets, and his lower-half kicks and twists as it splits in two as well. All of him folds open, and keeps opening, keeps turning until his insides are outside, his organs sliding out of the cavity, his intestines writhing and crawling and still, he keeps turning.
Until finally, with one last wet crunch, all of him inverts again and from the gorey mess on the bed comes flesh - hands and arms and a torso, a whole body birthed from the mess that was Siffleur. It’s an old woman with white hair, scars all over her, and missing toes on one foot. She’s somehow sound asleep despite it all - despite the entrails sliding inside of her unseen back, until the only trace remaining of all of that chaos is the blood still flecked everywhere, and the puddle underneath her.
The woman’s chest rises and falls a few times, and her eyes slowly open.
2. the illusion that you feel is real (Assorted - Open)
There is a stranger on board the ship. She gives a wide berth to people, carrying a nervous and somewhat frantic energy as she ducks out of corridors instead of sharing them, or quickly puts a table or shelf between herself and whoever has come in. She’s older, weighed down by layers of clothing taken from the Tommy Bahamas, but she wears no shoes as she pads silently wherever she goes.
A select few who have the ability to see what others can’t will notice there’s something in her skull, a long sharp sliver of something that glows with a sickly deadlight, an oily shimmering sheen that flickers. Looking at it directly for too long causes an awful headache to form right behind the eyes. She sometimes swats at it, though her hands always go through it.
Occasionally, she’ll stay in one place and not scurry off when others come near. This is mostly at the buffet or bar, where she’ll guard her food or the bottle of vodka she’s drinking from. Occasionally, she has a book in front of her instead - the book Siffleur almost always seems to be writing in. The page she’s on is blank and nothing appears, no matter how much she glares at it.
Anyone who does approach her will get a wary look if they’re a stranger, or a more nervous look if they’re someone who knows Siffleur - and who knows her. She’s older than those who met her in dreams will remember her being, but her voice will be much the same as she tries to fend off the inevitable questions with a- “I don’t know how I got here.”
3. I survived. I speak, I breathe, I'm incomplete (Sports Deck - Open)
Despite how apprehensive she is, despite how much she shrinks in on herself, that’s not her only mood.
As those unfortunate souls who come up to the sports deck will find, emotional regulation is not something she’s capable of. In fact, some poor soul’s first introduction is likely to be of the woman muttering furiously to herself while drawing intricate ritual circles on the deck with sharpies taken from Sundries, her irritation quickly and violently boiling over into screaming, full-body tantrums. She howls and thrashes, slamming her hands and face against the deck, contorting her body and clawing at herself until she draws blood, until she exhausts herself enough that she has no choice but to be calm as she lies on the deck, panting while her wounds slowly heal.
And when she’s calm enough, she starts over, trying desperately to finish a SOS call that can go nowhere.
4. Does anyone ever get this right? (Wildcard - any prompts welcome, DM me if you have any questions)
When: 3-days after the end of the Oct expedition, into November
Where: Daisy's cabin, various places around the ship
Warnings: Gore, body horror, cosmic horror, self-harm, CPTSD/trauma, etc.
1. who am I supposed to be? (Closed to Daisy)
It’s common for Siffleur to show up in the room after expeditions, his body dragged in by Friday sometime in the night and left to finish waking up. They’ve got a system by now - he wakes up, grabs his emergency clothes, and takes off. It’s fairly predictable and simple.
Today, Siffleur starts breathing like usual. His body twitches as he’s on the edge of waking up. Then spasms. And then, with a terrible crunching sound, his ribcage splits wide open and blood splatters over the walls and furnishing. The split doesn’t stop there, quickly spreading up his throat and skull, his face opening like a book until even the bone splits and his pink throbbing brain is on full display. His eyes roll and slither, no longer held in sockets, and his lower-half kicks and twists as it splits in two as well. All of him folds open, and keeps opening, keeps turning until his insides are outside, his organs sliding out of the cavity, his intestines writhing and crawling and still, he keeps turning.
Until finally, with one last wet crunch, all of him inverts again and from the gorey mess on the bed comes flesh - hands and arms and a torso, a whole body birthed from the mess that was Siffleur. It’s an old woman with white hair, scars all over her, and missing toes on one foot. She’s somehow sound asleep despite it all - despite the entrails sliding inside of her unseen back, until the only trace remaining of all of that chaos is the blood still flecked everywhere, and the puddle underneath her.
The woman’s chest rises and falls a few times, and her eyes slowly open.
2. the illusion that you feel is real (Assorted - Open)
There is a stranger on board the ship. She gives a wide berth to people, carrying a nervous and somewhat frantic energy as she ducks out of corridors instead of sharing them, or quickly puts a table or shelf between herself and whoever has come in. She’s older, weighed down by layers of clothing taken from the Tommy Bahamas, but she wears no shoes as she pads silently wherever she goes.
A select few who have the ability to see what others can’t will notice there’s something in her skull, a long sharp sliver of something that glows with a sickly deadlight, an oily shimmering sheen that flickers. Looking at it directly for too long causes an awful headache to form right behind the eyes. She sometimes swats at it, though her hands always go through it.
Occasionally, she’ll stay in one place and not scurry off when others come near. This is mostly at the buffet or bar, where she’ll guard her food or the bottle of vodka she’s drinking from. Occasionally, she has a book in front of her instead - the book Siffleur almost always seems to be writing in. The page she’s on is blank and nothing appears, no matter how much she glares at it.
Anyone who does approach her will get a wary look if they’re a stranger, or a more nervous look if they’re someone who knows Siffleur - and who knows her. She’s older than those who met her in dreams will remember her being, but her voice will be much the same as she tries to fend off the inevitable questions with a- “I don’t know how I got here.”
3. I survived. I speak, I breathe, I'm incomplete (Sports Deck - Open)
Despite how apprehensive she is, despite how much she shrinks in on herself, that’s not her only mood.
As those unfortunate souls who come up to the sports deck will find, emotional regulation is not something she’s capable of. In fact, some poor soul’s first introduction is likely to be of the woman muttering furiously to herself while drawing intricate ritual circles on the deck with sharpies taken from Sundries, her irritation quickly and violently boiling over into screaming, full-body tantrums. She howls and thrashes, slamming her hands and face against the deck, contorting her body and clawing at herself until she draws blood, until she exhausts herself enough that she has no choice but to be calm as she lies on the deck, panting while her wounds slowly heal.
And when she’s calm enough, she starts over, trying desperately to finish a SOS call that can go nowhere.
4. Does anyone ever get this right? (Wildcard - any prompts welcome, DM me if you have any questions)
no subject
"Mm. Said to Siffleur once that in my day, we'd already have the ship back to full power. But we were all bitter bastards. Wouldn't be for any worthwhile reason."
Everything would have just gotten worse, she's sure of that. And that's not even going back over the reality that they would never have made the choice that caused this at all.
"Anyway, even if you're not a passenger the normal way, you've got your son to worry about. So. Makes sense to me," she continues with a shrug. "If you manage to talk to him. You think that'll help? Getting back, I mean."
no subject
Her hands twist in Daisy's jackets and she bites her lower lip. "I... I don't know. But it- it has to. If I c-can talk to him, we can figure it out. F-figure out why I'm- why I'm here and he's not. It doesn't m-make sense, I don't- I don't want to be here!"
The rush of energy stops her dead in her track and her hands keep tightening into fists. She breathes in deep and pushes the worst of it away. She has to keep it together. Just for a little while.
no subject
Daisy stalls a few steps ahead of her, turning part-way back to keep her in her eyeline without facing her head-on. Waits, idly rocking back on her heels.
"I never stop hearing the blood." Casually as anything, it's said. Frank and simple. "Might get better at ignoring it, but it never goes away. Got this list in my head of just about everyone. Ranked. Easy prey to satisfying challenges. Some of the people I love most are on the easy end."
Giving into it would be as easy as breathing. Every day she has to make the same choice again, the choice to listen to the quiet instead of the blood. The violent monster exists alongside the traumatised victim, intertwined messily but loosely enough, these days, that she can make that choice.
Daisy sighs.
"One thing at a time, I guess."
no subject
But you take it one thing at a time.
She shakes off the worst of the feeling, then starts to move again, grateful that Daisy waited so casually. "One t-thing at a time. That's... that's life. That's life..."
Then, after a long quiet moment, she adds- "Thank g-god there's booze here. I d-don't do well dry. And if h-he's... if he's s-slow to figure out his w-way back, then I... I c-can hold it together, until he does."
no subject
"Mm, that's easy enough at least. Watch out for the non-alcoholic versions of stuff. Not sure how well Johnny keeps those separate."
Probably pretty well, it's Johnny, but even so. Daisy doesn't tend to pay much attention to how he organises things, with how little she actually drinks the alcoholic stuff.
"It's funny. Didn't ever even think about how there must be more going on in your world than just werecougars. There's never just one weird thing. There's always more. But I just..." she shrugs. "Might be too used to just. Going with it."
no subject
Her hands ball up and explode outwards. "Meat. You b-become nothing b-but meat. Churning and bloody. I s-saw many, many people g-go that way. That was m-my fate. B-but. I was smarter."
She tucks her hands back into the borrowed jacket. "You and him, y-you're survivors because you g-go with it, all of it. You k-know better than to be nosy like me. That's- that's vital. I didn't... I didn't learn. Until it was too late."
no subject
"...huh." Like that, it suddenly feels so much more familiar to Daisy than just the idea of a world of were-creatures. The call and threat of Flesh. The danger of Looking into something you shouldn't have. "Sounds like a friend of mine. Couldn't leave well enough alone. Wasn't in his nature. Lost his humanity to it."
Jonathan Sims and the perennial case of too nosy for your own good. Not sure she could say he got smarter about it, mind you. He did go and start the apocalypse.
"Then again," she snorts, "so did I. Doesn't always save you. Not getting too nosy. Suppose nothing's foolproof."
no subject
The Tommy Bahamas feels strange to see. It takes her a moment to realize why - because she's in her shape, not seeing it from Siffleur's point of view, which is only very high up, or very low.
It's hard to keep walking steadily and so her brisk walk becomes a jog as she reaches the till, drags out the book and pen, and quickly slaps it open to a page. She touches her pen to it, waiting for some motion...
The pen is still. It doesn't move in the slightest. Still... Still. She screws her face up but makes herself stay calm - calm as she can anyway. "I-it... it m-might take time..."
no subject
Daisy doesn't match her pace fully, as she jogs off, but she's not far behind regardless. She comes up on the other side of the till as the pen fails to move, and leans against the edge on her palms.
"Probably will. It's not been that long and this is new. You're getting used to being out here. He might have to get used to being in there."
It's definitely not reassuring that nothing's happening, but this is all fresh and weird. It being that easy would've been nice, but it's never that easy.
no subject
But Daisy's been good to her, very kind, and she... she knows Jack is here somewhere. "I'll... I'll f-find Jack. He... he might help too. I had n-no one but Siffleur here. And he's- he's got many people."
no subject
"Yeah, he's got friends around." A lot more friends than you'd expect a cannibal to have, honestly, but this boat is strange like that. She's still surprised so many people tolerate her. "Well. You know where to find me, yeah? Until this gets sorted."
She's not actually a hard woman to find, so long as she doesn't mind you finding her.