come_sailaway | I Was Looking for a Breath of Life

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I Was Looking for a Breath of Life

Who: Valdis and Open!
What: New Arrival tries to cope with being dropped into a new place after a massive bloodbath
When: November
Where: All over
Warnings: Headaches, grumpiness, will warn if it gets worse than that.

1) Arrival: Her head screamed at her, sharp pain cutting into her vision with every breath. Eyes closed tightly, Valdis does her best to breathe. The heavy death in the air, filled with lingering desperation and trauma tightened her chest. Of all the times to fall into a new world, it would be just after a massacre. With her head in her hands, her black hair hiding her face, she leaned against the railing of the walkway, trying to drown out the pain. This was definitely where it all happened. The pain was worse here.
"Haven't felt this bad since the last war," she muttered. "How many people died?"

2) Revelations: Valdis worked her way through the ship, avoiding her cabin as much as possible, seeking to memorize the layout of the ship and maximize her ability to move quickly should it be necessary. The Void is silent, a fact she should be grateful for, and in some ways, very much is. But now the silence is simply silence, and the feeling that the dead are around every corner sits in her gut. She can’t see them, except maybe flitting out of the corner of her eyes from time to time, but she can sense that they aren’t alone. Footsteps sounded from behind her, she’d been so focused on the dead that she hadn’t paid attention to the living. She turns around, hand on the hilt of the rather impressive sword hanging on her hip.

"Hello?"

3)Buffet: Without the ability to draw on the dead, Valdis must find something to soothe the very human feeling of hunger. She’d known the feeling from home, before her memories had begun to return, but now she found it highly annoying.

“What’s the best thing here?”

Second Week of November and Onwards

4) Library: Valdis has finally taken Erin's advice and found the black binder in the library. She is not thrilled with what she's reading and the tension is visible in her usually elegant jawline and the glowing red in her eyes. Fear isn't found anywhere in her demeanor or soul, but rather a thoughtful, yet tense, aura radiates from where she sits. She's so focused that almost anyone not touched by death could approach without her noticing. If they are touched by death, she may react poorly, so tread carefully.

5) Hurikane: She can't get drunk, but she sure is trying her best with pure vodka and whatever else she can find that's strong. She's not even really trying to taste it, just downing it as fast as the invisible bartender can deliver, and exhausting her healing abilities as she goes. It's still not enough to even give her a buzz though. Disappointing.

6)Wildcard round: Your turn!

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Valdis manages a small laugh when the woman offers her Tylenol, not in a rude way, more of an 'oh gods has it really come to this?' kind of way. She winces when she straightens up, the part of her drawn to the weight of death out of balance with the part of her that feels for those who suffer.

"Thanks," She replies, reaching to take the bottle, wondering just how many hundreds of pills she would have to take to silence the pain, or if her powers even let it be silenced. But, it was kind of the strange woman to offer. It takes her a moment too long to get the lid off and she's very tempted to just take them all out of curiosity, but she takes two, swallows and holds the bottle back out.

Even if it was going to work, which she isn't hopeful for, she needs to get away from here.

"I need to get away and I'm rather dizzy and I really hate relying on other people, but despite how odd you feel, I need your help and will just have to hope that you aren't going to murder me."

Ah, the ramblings of pain.

Erin bites her lip. The idea of letting this stranger touch her -

(Ah, but we would be the ones touching, right? Holding her up, like. You got this, Peters.)

...Okay, point.

(Also, how odd we feel?)

There's the asshole we know.

"Just try not to touch me more than is strictly necessary," Erin requests, going to offer Val her much more literal support. "I don't know your deal yet but if it gives you any ideas, the epicenter of the previous disaster is the pool up on Deck Six, and the current misery is down in the cabin halls. The theater's basically never used by anyone that isn't me and a friend of mine, would that help?"

Valdis does not have time for attitude, her hackles would be up if she weren't in so much pain.

"I don't need to touch you," she hisses, "I just need you to tell me the fastest way to the further point from this general location and perhaps make sure I don't...."

Don't what? Lash out with death magic? Like anyone could stop that from happening even if they wanted to. She breathes in slowly, feeling the Hound creeping across her consciousness. Shifting could give her the center she needed. Her own pain instead of that of others. Scarlet colored eyes lay lightly back onto the other woman before Valdis blinks them away.

"Just tell me which direction will take me furthest from here."

"Unless you're about to insist stridently I'll lead the way. Folks are on edge right now and I'd rather your welcome here not get any worse than it already is. C'mon, this way. We'll take the elevators."

Erin sets off, an itching feeling between her shoulder blades -

(How odd we feel)

- but ready to commit to what she just said by, to wit, not actually giving the directions. If Valdis does in fact follow her she eventually gets: "Would talking be a welcome distraction or just hurt more?"

If it weren't for the agony splitting her skull, Valdis might have refused the further aid, but the fact is, she doesn't know where she is going yet, so she follows the strange woman.

"Sound is fine," she replies, "Noise always distracts from the pain."

As they move away the pain noticeably lessens, but it could take weeks before she can walk past this place without pain. Damn this ship.

"Glad to hear it. Uh, well, courtesies first - I'm Erin Peters, do call me Erin. Been aboard since only September and, well. The first month was honestly really nice? Second one's been a bitch."

(Peters. Slow down.)

Erin catches herself and moderates her stride; she'd gone into Emergency Mode without thinking about it and hadn't made sure Valdis was keeping up. She looks over her shoulder to check.

Erin. An easy enough name to remember. This woman is very strange through, she seems nice enough so it doesn't matter. For now.

Valdis is nothing if not stubborn, so she's keeping up fairly well, but she's more pale than normal, a side effect of the headache.

"I certainly hope this month gets better," she manages to reply, "Sounds like everyone could use a break."

Not that she's met very many people yet.

"Understatement of the year," Erin agrees with a heavy sigh. "Of the goddamn year."

She stops to open the elevator and crosses her arms while she waits for it, foot tapping impatiently. It's not that Valdis's pain is hurting her exactly but the internal war between snatching at that free Glamour and feeling absolutely crass for doing so under the circumstances is...

Irritating.

"Is there a name you'd prefer to be called?"

(Peters. When do we bring up what she said?)

When we're not in the giant agony field? You dick??

(Fine! Fine.)

The further they get, the more the headache wanes. It's frustrating to be at the mercy of someone she doesn't know, but she feels if Erin meant her ill, the time to strike was past. It's still unsettling, however.

She hears the impress of the elevator button and senses the irritation of her guide, but the sound of her voice doesn't match the sensation, so perhaps it's directed at something else.

"My name is Valdis."

She hears the elevator wizz and shift into place.

"Pleasure to meet you Valdis. Wish the circumstances were better but...I dunno, it's nice to welcome folks into my new home."

"...Wish the circumstances were better there too but one problem at a time."

Erin's into the elevator the moment it opens so she can hit the right button and pick a corner. Her personal space is...larger than the space provided. She does not like sharing elevators.

"If heading this way is helping at all I do need to ask you to explain what you meant by me feeling off there. That's ah, that's still one of those concerning statements, even here where we've got a dozen different worlds of magic colliding. People like their privacy."

Valdis slowly enters the elevator, feeling Erin's apprehension, but unable to determine what it relates to. Luckily, Valdis also values her space and she moves away from Erin into the diagnonal corner. She sincerely hates elevators, nowhere to move, trapped in a small space, essentially no escape.

The door slides closed, and the pain becomes bearable enough that she's able to properly evaluate Erin. For the first time she sees the blindfold, and slight confusion sets it as it seems she was just guided by a blind woman. But the magics here had to have some sort of explanation.

It seems Erin did in fact catch her slip and is also cognizant of conflicting magic between those who live on the ship. A direct question, once Valdis doesn't exactly feel like answering.

"Your soul feels incomplete...and I also sense a barrier. Beyond that, I can't explain."

And she can't even see it, the soul plane isn't responding to her sight at all, a very frustrating fact of her 'new' life.

"Incomplete...yeah, I suppose it would." Erin's face shadows with old pain. "I had something else grafted onto it a long time ago, like a citrus tree but with significantly more butchery. Am what I am now. Kinda like what I am now? But I'm afraid I can't exactly turn it off. I can pull a hat trick to make the new element smaller but that won't make the straightforwardly human part of me any bigger, so." Erin shrugs.

"If it causes ongoing discomfort you don't gotta be around me. I won't go beating down your door or trying to sell you cookies, but I'm not going to apologize for it. It wasn't my fault."

Her ears twitch, just once. Erin turns her head towards the elevator door and sighs. "There are stairs, stairs exist, I just figured...y'know. Speed might be of the essence."

Erin's honesty means a lot, and Valdis can truly empathize with the events the woman is describing. Even without all her memories, she knows that the pieces of the serpent haunting her are not of her own doing, and no matter how much Michael might wish differently, her soul is too scarred to ever go back to...wherever...whoever that had been.

"It was just a surprise," she manages to reply, the pain continuing to fade, "Though I get the feeling it won't be the last one."

Perhaps this place really is a version of Hell and Amos won after all.

"You don't seem to be an enemy at least."

"I try not to be but just wait for me to keep talking. I usually do something clown-ass at some point."

The elevator stops. Erin gestures for Valdis to go first. "Theater is down the hall, can't miss it. Watch the chandelier, it's been...killing people lately and I'm not rightly sure if it's actually stopped doing that. I can take my leave here, if you prefer, or I can stay. Either way, avoid the pool and the cabins for awhile. The Promenade, on Deck Five...might also be bad. The fighting wasn't over when the floor collapsed, but also all the fuckin' food is through Deck Five so you may be at what we call an impasse there."

The directions are welcome, as is the sensation of pain that fades into a more appropriate, or at least bearable, level. She steps out of the elevator, glancing around.

"It usually takes more than words to become my enemy."

She still has questions, but she also needs time to adjust, so she quickly weighs her curiosity over her actual needs.

"I have more questions, but I don't wish to pry too deeply when we've only just met. So I will just ask one and promise to not be offended if you don't wish to answer." A short pause. "How do you see?"

The second part goes unspoken And how much?

Erin touches the blindfold as she steps out, relieved that her presence seems welcome despite what she still thinks of as it being... aggravating.

"With this. It's good at picking up people, what they're wearing and holding, the things truly precious to or loathed by them, but not so much...stuff. Most of my world is a badly done watercolor."

It's an explanation she keeps having to give. She can't even muster real annoyance at it any more, honestly.

"And you? Why souls?" A beat. "Wait - did you maybe work as a psychopomp? We've got one aboard already, real chill guy."

A magical blindfold, well, even if it wasn't perfect, it still got the job done for her. Valdis resists the urge to ask about what happened, why Erin had come to need that kind of magic, but she's redirected by the question, and the the news that there's another similar to her on the ship.

"I suppose you could call me that." she doesn't really see the harm in admitting that much, it seems Erin is already familiar with the concept. "But my kind do not guide the dead into the afterlife. Perhaps we were meant to, but something went wrong with our creation."

She doesn't remember much of anything about before...perhaps she had been an Angel of Death, perhaps she could still be called one. But the souls she hunts never find Heaven or Hell, only Oblivion.

"...That sounds rough, lass." The sympathy is genuine, even if it doesn't come from a place of true understanding. Erin tucks her hands into her pockets and takes a couple of deep breaths. "I'm afraid you're out of work here either way. We just got a hard lesson in where the dead go here when they don't get back up, and it's just...Nothing. Presence of time, absence of sensation as far as I can tell. The survivors who just returned are dealing with that and it. Very much seems to suck."

Valdis can sense the sympathy in Erin's voice and soul, though she can't say she isn't relived at the idea of nothingness.

"I've died before. Many times. A break of nothing sounds like a relief compared to the usual nightmares. I suppose as a creature of death, my own holds little importance."

The tragedy of that statement isn't exactly lost on her. It's not an opinion most have. Yet the pain of death is reserved for the living, the dead no longer feel. But to those who do not experience death as she does?

"I do understand though, their feelings...it permeates everything."

A rueful smile. "The ship is only so big. You might find it hard to sell the idea that your death isn't important once people get to know you. Life's a bitch like that - ah, that door for the theater."

Christ how many people are we gonna hear that from?

(And SecUnit.)

And SecUnit, yeah.

Her death having meaning to others is their own fault, attachments always end in pain, so she does her best to not form any of her own. (However much she always seems to fail).

"I'm sure someone will care, and I'm sure I will be forced to feel that if or when I come back, but I do my best to not think about it."

She glances at the theater door.

"Well, if you must move on with your day, I understand. I can handle it from here."

A pause.

"Thank you."

"I'm trying to stay busy. Welcoming a new passenger is the least I can do, and it's a welcome distraction from losing what's left of my mind after...anyway. When you're feeling better, you're gonna want to hit the library. Aside from the otherworldly collection of stories, hit up the Black Binder." Erin pauses. "...Maybe wait a few days even if you're feeling better first. Bring a friend. Bring liquor. You'll want both."

"...And, Valdis? Welcome aboard, again. I won't say it's nice to have you here, given the situation...but it's nice to meet new people."

Despite the circumstances, and the headache, people here have been kind. A few even know what she is and haven't seemed to care. It's something that she can't have at home. Perhaps friends aren't out of the question here? No. Best not to get her hopes up and feel the pain of loss again.

"I love libraries, and 'Black Binder' sounds like an interesting thing, so I'll definitely check it out."

When she feels better of course.

"And yes, it is nice to meet new people. Until we meet again, I'm sure it won't be too long, take care."

She heads into the theater, thinking to look around and perhaps meditate to find a center. She can't suffer that pain again, and it seems those events, or at least the death part of it, are commonplace.

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I Was Looking for a Breath of Life

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