I want God to come and take me home [OPEN]

[teethoftherisk]

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)

Comments

[teethoftherisk]

She huffs out a laugh. At least he's sensible. At least he understands. She gives her thigh a pinch to stay focused, and takes a breath. Names, always names.

"Devon. It works. Already gave it to another one here." And it's her turn to give him a twitching crook of her mouth. "I traded my real n-name long ago. Burned it up, tore it from every mind that once knew it, so no one could ever use it against me."

[prince_of_beasts]

"Devon," Dimitri repeats. "Wise. I had to learn that lesson the hard way."

But he won't be dwelling on Arcadia now, so he turns his eye to the spiralling sigils. "Is there anything I can do to help with ... this? I don't expect there is, but I may as well offer."

[teethoftherisk]

"We all l-learn the worst lessons the hard way." Her mouth crooks again, looking back down at what she's written so far. "N-not much, I'm afraid. It's all... it's pointless. Nothing g-gets in or out. But I had to try, or I w-was going to- to hurt someone."

Her fingers trace along one of the smaller sigils. "I'm still out there. And s-she's worse than me, worse b-by far. She'll swallow us whole. B-but she can't, she can't, he's happy here, h-he's finally happy somewhere and I n-need her to know to leave us be."

[prince_of_beasts]

Is this how it feels to be on the other end of one of his episodes? Dimitri tracks the stranger's speech as best he can. It's plain he's missing too much information to make sense of it, and a barrage of questions just seems cruel, not to mention unhelpful.

One point does stand out to him, though. "'He'? You mean someone on board?"

[teethoftherisk]

"Siffleur." She says, and sits back with her hands in her lap. "My boy. M-my son. He's happy here. H-he was never happy anywhere else before. I can't let him l-lose that."

[prince_of_beasts]

...

Siffleur.

Dimitri goes visibly blank for a moment while that thought cycles.

You know what, sure. After Daisy, Demona, and Helen, and Grace even if it was only the one time, Dimitri's come to appreciate the cannibal were-cougar who keeps his hunting to marked volunteers within a known area. Goddess. How did his life come to this.

"I understand. A few passengers have set up a ... a mailbox of sorts, for messages we'd like to send to those on our home worlds, but we have no no way of making sure they'll ever reach their destination. Still ... perhaps it's better than nothing?"

[teethoftherisk]

A mailbox... yes, that could do. Between what she's put on the ship's desk, and writing this down with other messages, she nods. "Y-yes, yes that- that's good, that's something. Anything is b-better than nothing. I've spent so much time doing nothing."

Getting a hand underneath her, she carefully gets to her feet. She's still aching from her fit on the deck, but it's not nearly as bad as before. "It's frustrating. I-I try to make him care more about all of this b-but he just... he insists on staying out of it all."

[prince_of_beasts]

Dimitri starts to offer the woman a hand, but she gets up on her own. "It's on the next deck up, by the signposts," he says, pointing. One of the wooden arrows is visible over the edge of the partial deck. "The stairs are this way."

He detours briefly to scoop up his sword. The remainder of the woman's speech gets a sympathetic sigh.

"It is the way of children not to listen to their parents until it's too late. Speaking as one who's been the child ... it's good that he has you."

[teethoftherisk]

"Y-yes, I remember seeing him g-going by the signposts... he didn't have anywhere to put, so he... he didn't." She follows Dimitri to the stairs, his sword no longer making her nervous at all. Even though Siffleur and Dimitri had kept their distance from one another, Siffleur had only ever heard good things about the other man.

She laughs, a broken little thing. "O-oh, I don't- I don't know about that. It's g-good I have him but I... I think I w-wasn't so good for him. I did the b-best I could do, but I wasn't a very n-nice person before him, and I was..." She flutters her hand. Clearly, this isn't new. This is just how she's been for years. "B-but I love him, I love him s-so much, he was... h-he was perfect from the start, t-those tiny paws, the li-little pads and his n-nose and claws... he was perfect. He's a g-good boy, he really is, and this place has been so good for him. It's been- he c-could rest here, just live quietly..."

She looks to Dimitri's sword and adds softly- "It's the s-same for you, isn't it?"

[prince_of_beasts]

"Ah. Hah. No." Dimitri brushes the hilt of his sword. The weight is comforting, even if it's desperately insufficient. "At home, I knew war. I -- " His head twitches to the side -- "I am not proud to admit that I was good at it. This place gives us ... the sort of horrors I'd hoped to witness only once in my lifetime. Without warning or pattern, each time something new I never could have imagined, a-and again and again I find myself helpless to protect anyone let alone the people I -- "

He stops himself, and draws in a slow breath.

" -- I'm sorry. You didn't ask for ... " Another breath. "I wouldn't have thought someone could find peace here. But I'm glad Siffleur has."

[teethoftherisk]

"N-no, no, no it's- it's fine, you're f-fine." She assures him, her shoulders hitching a few times. "O-of course, I should have known f-from the sword - f-from the way you came up to me. S-should have been obvious. Poor boy. Y-you couldn't learn to be selfish if you tried..."

What a terrible way to live here. Every death must feel like a personal failure on his part.

"I was- I was always very, very good at selfish. My m-mistake was unlearning it. Made me question w-what I was doing, if it was right..." Her hand flexes and she takes a deep breath. "Mmm. Paid for that. Paid for it a t-thousand times over."

[prince_of_beasts]

You couldn't be selfish if you tried, the woman says; it's kinder than Dimitri thinks he deserves, but he won't start that argument now.

Those last few sentences could mean a lot of different things. Cautiously, he says, "May I ask what you mean by that?"

[teethoftherisk]

She gestures to herself. "T-this. I... I w-was very smart. I am- I am very smart, a-a genius. Brilliant. And l-languishing. They didn't k-know what to do with me. Someone like me. I felt s-stiffled and suffocated. I c-caught the attention of a place who wanted v-very smart people to work on v-very strange problems. People who wouldn't c-care that there was a body count, or if anyone deserved it. I... I didn't care. I just wanted to f-finally have someone see how brilliant I was, how- how wonderful, how smart, how special I was, and they did... and it was good, it w-was so good, until I started d-dreaming of the people who died. T-the way they... their bodies betrayed them. The way they became meat."

"And I was- I was smart, I was smart, but I was fucking stupid. I was s-so stupid, I thought- I thought I could c-change things." She has to stop to breathe, has to fight through the anger bubbling beneath the surface. The tantrum's left her tired, so she can push through it without falling into her agonies. "My b-best friend... I t-told him m-my plans, thought he'd... he- he d-didn't. They. Hurt me. And t-then they put me where everyone else w-went to be turned to meat."

She reaches for her hair, grabbing it, pawing her hands over it a few times. "It d-didn't work, n-not the way they wanted it to. I w-was smarter than all of t-them. I f-figured out how to s-survive it. But it- it s-still- it hurt me. C-changed me. Broke me. M-made me into this."

[prince_of_beasts]

It's a difficult story for Dimitri to follow. What he can understand rouses the dead to snarling in their dry whispers, frozen hands clawing at his back. There is remorse, though, he can recognize that. Whatever this woman has done, she's haunted by her own dead, and she's suffered more than enough for it. (Nothing is enough for Dimitri's ghosts, but it settles them, a little.)

-- but Dimitri's upset her, and the last thing he wants is to trigger another attack. "You were taken advantage of," he says. His voice is cold, but level. "And when you challenged them, they discarded you."

"They never found my body," says his stepmother. "Alone, of those who died that day. Haven't you wondered why?" He's tried not to; more often the dead are angry with him for doubting them. He's not going to dwell on it now.

"I'm sorry. I ... there are no words."

[teethoftherisk]

He's a good boy. She can tell. Got his own ghosts and monsters chasing him. Probably will the rest of his life. The monsters of the mind are the hardest to shake.

Because he's good, because he's a knight with a moral compass, he can't see her for what she is. She saw the meat grinder and was happy to turn the wheel, right until the moment she felt sorry for a few of the dead. She still turned it, knowing in her heart that it was a meat grinder.

"It's- it's past. Years past." And she giggles softly, a manic little high-pitched sound. "Got t-them in the end. Got them all. Took y-years b-but... I d-did it after all. Patience is the h-hardest thing of all but... but d-don't let anyone tell you revenge isn't s-sweet. Even ice c-cold, it's the sweetest thing I've e-ever tasted."

[prince_of_beasts]

"All of them? To the last?" The air around Dimitri prickles. An eddy stirs against the sea wind on the deck. He turns to the woman with a glimmer behind his eyes, a fixed, hungry stare. "Did you make it hurt?"

[teethoftherisk]

Oh. Oh, there it is. A good boy, but that hunger in his eyes. Yes, she sees it now. Sees him clearly.

"I made it hurt." She speaks slow and soft, pausing instead of stumbling through her words, making them last as she tastes them in her mouth, wonderful even now. "I made them hurt the way... the way they hurt me. I had... I had to go back. To be whole. To be free. I h-had... I had to face it again. All those years and I... I was still. I was the only one who solved it. Only I had the answer. So I... I came back. One by one, I took them down t-to the place they'd hurt me. They were... begging, crying. Trying to repent. H-he..." She shudders and her body clenches in at the thought of him. It takes her a moment to push past the rage and disgust. "He had excuses. S-so many excuses. I... lost myself for a bit. Ate some of his face. B-but he was alive still w-when I put him in front of the Eye. When I made them all look. When I t-turned them into meat too."

She flexes her hands a few more times and gives another giggle. "I-I left it in ruins. No survivors. No p-proof it was- was ever there. And I... I took the Eye with me, when I became more than meat."

[prince_of_beasts]

Dimitri's expression splits into a grin. It is not a happy expression. It bares all of his teeth. The admission of cannibalism doesn't faze him; his grin only sharpens. "Good."

Sometimes, in his nightmares -- all his dreams are nightmares -- he holds down his uncle, or the viscount, or someone else his mind has fabricated as responsible for the slaughter in Duscur, and uses the strength of his Crest to peel away strip after strip of flesh. Slowly. Starting with the least vital. He has thought more than he'll ever admit about how to make them suffer even a fraction of what they wrought on others. In the woman's raw and bloody hatred, in the way she savors her story, Dimitri hears hope: one day, he will take those people apart, and it will feel exactly as good as he imagines.

They've reached the upper deck by now. Dimitri's stopped in his tracks amidst the signposts. If the sun weren't so bright, his eyes would be glowing. "Thank you for telling me. Truly. I've heard far too often that vengeance isn't worth it. It is ... a relief to finally meet someone who understands."

[teethoftherisk]

She laughs, short and ugly but honest. Yes, very good. What a good boy. She hopes he gets his vengeance too. She hopes he puts his sword to good work and butchers all of his enemies one day.

Under signposts pointing at dozens of locations, some familiar but most strange, she nods. Her hands worry with her hair but she feels better despite it all. "Yes. Yes I... it's a lie. Maybe s-some people don't feel better b-but they- they aren't like you or I. They had a life left, afterwards. They were wounded b-but they could just... go away. Lick t-their wounds. Recover. Live again. I had... I had nothing left, after t-they hurt me. Nothing."

And with her fingers knotted in her hair, she adds- "A-and the lie, the lie is convenient f-for those who deserve vengeance. Those w-with the power. They spread it, and it p-passes down, trickle by t-trickle. Give up. Accept w-what they did to you. L-learn to love a boot pressed on y-your face, and b-be proud that you're s-s-so forgiving of t-their violations."