teethoftherisk: (MOTHER THEY SWALLOWED THE REST)
Siffleur ([personal profile] teethoftherisk) wrote in [community profile] 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)
abhorrently: (ask.)

[personal profile] abhorrently 2023-11-24 09:39 pm (UTC)(link)
"Spoken like someone who's come to expect the hells around the corner."

It's still mildly said, and Fever walks closer to also look at the circle, but giving enough respectful distance that the woman would have every chance to scurry away if she wanted.

"Will you tell me a little about what kind of ritual you're after? I'm a sorcerer - I might be able to help you. Or at the least, I won't look at you strange if you explain it."
abhorrently: (just.)

[personal profile] abhorrently 2023-11-27 11:30 pm (UTC)(link)
Fever nods, since that explanation is straightforward enough for her. Whether she knows Siffleur or not, the concept is actually really smart, to preempt your other self from making vast mistakes.

"I get it. The other me, if she finds out I exist, she'll be intent on killing me. Which isn't really ideal since I plan on killing her, if I get a chance, but..." She shrugs, and crouches by the circle, looking it over. "Is the magic just not taking to make it a proper message? Could be a matter of components."

Where is a wizard to bully into explanations when you need one.
abhorrently: (staff.)

[personal profile] abhorrently 2023-12-01 11:59 pm (UTC)(link)
"No. We don't hold that kind of power. She'll leave everyone else alone - it'll only be me she wants. Only people who stand in her way would get involved." And the thought of another her coming in, shredding the connections she's come to build here...it's another reason why she has to kill her double before the other realizes she exists.

"Strange idea, but humor me for a moment." Fever raises her head, looking over at the stranger - a warlock, she now thinks. "If the problem is the power source, then there might be something on this ship to substitute. Hells, we've got several gods wandering about, one of them might be willing to lend you a connection to make it work. All you'd need to do then would be to tap in to their borrowed power, and since they're here same as us, it wouldn't get cut off."
abhorrently: (sort.)

[personal profile] abhorrently 2023-12-09 10:58 am (UTC)(link)
"That does complicate it. I suppose I've been so turned towards thinking about what it would take to leave that I didn't think about what the barrier might keep out in the first place."

Or why their jailer was content to trap himself in the place. But if there's already something trying to get in and kill all of them...that's actually a more familiar place to be, if she's honest. Yet, all the same, she'd like to live, along with everyone else on board.

"I'm Fever, by the way." She can't think about her as the stranger forever.
abhorrently: (light.)

[personal profile] abhorrently 2023-12-12 11:02 am (UTC)(link)
"Then I'll call you Devon in here, and nothing at all when we're out there." Simple enough solution, to her. "There's enough to be said for a lot of people having many names, but I've never met someone clever enough to un-name their self. Even if I had my memory, I think that'd still be true."

Look, Devon told her about her other self being intent on killing, she more than earned that particular fact from Fever. It's no great secret, anyway, it's just her current state of being, slowly filling up that hole in her head with new experiences, day by day.
abhorrently: (Default)

[personal profile] abhorrently 2024-01-04 06:16 pm (UTC)(link)
"So far, I haven't been able to find a path towards fixing it." She shrugs, because she doesn't think it's likely she's going to run across some sort of healing god or a master chirurgeon in this place. Or any place, really. "Little pieces sometimes come back, if I can find them under all the...muck, really, is the best word for it."

The problem being that every piece that returns makes her all the more certain that she was the exact sort of person whose head you want to empty out.