END GAME: THE COUNTDOWN STARTS

[sailmods]

[the prisoners wake up on cold, hard floors.

the lights are bright, glaring, a sterile cell with sterile bars facing a sterile hall. the prisoners with you, across from you, and no one else. no rocking of a ship in waves, nothing. just the prisoner and their prison.

time passes, one assumes. the rhythmic click of Friday’s heels down the hall. it’s almost like the ticking of a clock.]

Comments

[yourexoduslaughing]

[Flan's more than happy to keep holding Fever since she clearly needs the break, plus it's good to feel useful after the various panic attacks she's been having about being trapped in one small single space, unable to leave the very second she decides she wants to go.]

Oh nasty! Sounds like something from Coraline!

[abhorrently]

Is that a nation where you come from?

[do they take eyes out there?]

[yourexoduslaughing]

Nope! It's a children's movie, I'm from Canada! Wait, do you guys even have a Canada? Oh maaaan we're probably going to miss Canada Day! You should have seen it last year, me and April threw a rager!

[As the group starts shuffling ahead, Flan carries Fever with the crowd, working to lower her voice a little just in case.] Anyway like, it's a kid's story about a monster who lures in children by pretending to be an even better version of their mom, and once she's got them hooked, she wants to sew buttons over their eyes and like, slowly devour them until she can lure in the next child.

[abhorrently]

Oh, so like some weird button hag. That makes sense - we don't have movies where I'm from. Or Canada, which is a shame.

[she knows about hags, a little bit. that sounds like something they'd do. she hopes Mayrina's safe and sound - even if she did have the undead husband to deal with.]

Do you think we can use the buttons against her? Because I can do my best to come off really strong, laughing in the face of her abilities, all I broke your hold over gods, Malin, you can only delay the inevitable, no mortal may chain down the storm if it'll work out for us.

[yourexoduslaughing]

Awwww, you're off the beaten path! Anyway don't worry about it, when this is all over, I'll totally show you around Canada! It'll be great!

[Can they use the buttons against her? Great question. Flan thinks about it and since she can't make a wiffly hand gesture, she bobs her head back and forth a bit.] Maybe? I mean, if they work here, then they probably still have their powers in order to work! But also maybe she could take those powers away? Either way, you totally should lead with that speech because it fucking rules! I mean, might as well go out cool as possible!

[abhorrently]

I do try. I had a pretty good one for Kevin, when we met him, even though he tried to act like he wasn't scared shitless.

[she's smiling now, until she sees someone in the crowd.]

Hey, hey - could you take me over there? To him.

[she's pointing at a man that seems unfamiliar, but that Fever knows as Macaelius - he needs to know she's back.]

[yourexoduslaughing]

Absolutely! [Flan is happy to carry Fever over, giving a wave to the man she doesn't know - but Fever does, so that's enough for Flan!] Beep beep hot girl delivery service!!

[blindwatchersees]

He's a little distracted, his clothes marked with fine, shimmering stardust, and he looks so very, very tired. But at Flan's announcement, his attention is immediately on the Madgod's daughter.

"Fever, love... how...?"

[abhorrently]

"I promised, didn't I?"

She'd promised she'd live and come back. Even if she is worse for wear. And when she wriggles out of Flan's arms, it's so she can go over and hug him, careful to avoid too much pressure on her burned hands. Still, regardless of her condition, it soothes something in her to embrace him properly, like she'd wanted to so much earlier. A girl reuniting with her uncle, or something like that - he's connected, the same way Sheogorath is connected to her.

"I promised I'd live, and come back to you."

[blindwatchersees]

She can’t possibly know how much hidden meaning there is in what she’s saying. He can see himself in her place, promising a safe return to his husband. He can feel the weight of a promise fulfilled, something his husband held sacred above all. He knows the marks and scars of a hard-fought battle, and the unseen scars that usually accompany them.

And the most he can think to do is wrap his arms around her and say, “Thank you.”

[abhorrently]

Some invisible weight is off her to see him again, even if he's not supposed to be here - he is, and she is, and that's what matters. They would find each other. That's what family means.

"Are you all right? She didn't hurt you?"

They aren't fixed, they're still weaker. But they're alive, and they can leverage that.

[blindwatchersees]

"I've been hurt worse." He's not sure that hurt is the right word for this, having been robbed of the very identity he's worn for epochs of untime.

"And... at the same time, it's perhaps the cruelest thing she could have done. I can't imagine what he'll feel, when he has a mind to call his own again, when he realizes he was robbed of the existence we fought so hard to gain for him."

[abhorrently]

"Then I'll shelter him and you both again." The words are whispered, but fierce. "As I did before, so I will anew. And there will be a vengeance to call ours, in retribution - a reckoning, that she thought such was capable of being bought and sold. Listen to your heartbeat, you know it to be so."

That steady pulse of freedom. Of defiance, refusing to lay down and die.

[blindwatchersees]

"I might not have my magic, or his mantle, but... if you have a weapon to spare, I'm more than willing to lend a hand to that reckoning now."

[abhorrently]

Pulling back, she nods, reaching into the makeshift pocket she made from her shirt. She winces when her burned hands brush against something too roughly, but what she pulls out is the equivalent of rope - one of Flan's long, long braids that had been severed and wound together.

"If you can find anything to pierce with, even better. I know we'll be facing that eye again - that's why she had to silence him, because it's his domain. But the eye is key. If something happens, either go for her eyes...or stop me, if I cannot see the way."

The last whispered only to him. If that outer madness sinks in, there's no telling what she'll do.

[blindwatchersees]

He takes the braid in hand, already feeling the familiar instinct of readying to wrap it around someone's throat from behind. When... when did he become an assassin, in all of that chaos? When did it become second nature?

"Understood."