October 2025 Test Drive Meme

[singmod]

OCTOBER 2025 TDM

PROMPT ONE — ARRIVAL: METHUSELAH'S FEAST: A new group of arrivals find themselves lost in the frozen wilds and vulnerable to the dangers of nature. With luck, they make it to the town of Milton, and to a friendly face offering food, warmth and shelter — and the current inhabitants, their fellow survivors.

PROMPT TWO — POWER IN WORDS: Interlopers gather around the campfire and decide to tell stories: only to find their stories begin to come alive right before their very eyes.

PROMPT THREE — FRONTIER COMFORTS: Interlopers come across a surprise baker in Milton, offering up tasty treats — with unexpected effects.

ARRIVAL: METHUSELAH'S FEAST

WHEN: Mid-month.
WHERE: Milton, Milton Outskirts.
CONTENT WARNINGS: potential animal attacks, potential injuries, potential cold injuries/hyperthermia risk.

'You are the Interloper. You are not part of nature’s design.'

It’s the last thing you hear. A dark, deep voice. Impossibly ancient. You feel afraid. Maybe you’re dreaming, maybe you’re wide awake. You saw the lights, and then your world went dark. But you hear it in the blackness, you won’t forget those words.

These are the words of the Darkwalker, you’ll soon come to find.

You awaken. You are not where you were before. It’s different for everyone, there doesn’t seem to be much of a pattern in where you find yourself. You may open your eyes to find yourself in a cold, dim and dank cabin. The air is stale, dust hangs in the rays of weak sunlight that shine through the tiny windows. Someone lived here once, but they aren’t to be found. This place has been ransacked, abandoned long ago. It is quiet. The wood creaks around you.

Or perhaps you may awaken to find yourself shivering in the yawning maw of a cave, the freezing stone below you. Or maybe you’re unfortunate enough to sit up to find yourself lying in the snow, in the middle of the wilderness. Snow lies thick around you. It’s freezing out. You haven’t felt a cold like this before in your entire life. Cruel and biting. You have no idea where you are, and what’s worse — you are completely alone.

The sun is bright, enclosed in light fog. It is a strange kind of twilight.

You may feel different, too. Any powers or magics you may have feel... absent. Disconnected. Things that may not have affected you previously now do. Something in you has changed.

You know you can’t stay where you are. You’ll need to move, try to work out where you are and how you came to be here. So you walk, head out into the unknown, in hope of finding a trail or a road. You’ll find one soon enough. It’s here you may find someone else in the same boat as yourself, equally freezing and confused. You’ll both need to keep going. It won’t be easy. You hear howls of wolves around you, and the terrain is difficult: slips and falls are likely. You’re completely vulnerable out here in the open.

Or it’s possible you may come across someone else here. Someone who looks far better prepared to deal with the freezing cold and frozen landscape, out hunting or gathering. They’ll likely offer help and get you into town. However, for the unlucky ones who don’t come across anyone, you’ll carry on until you see it: the lazy trail of smoke rising in the air. Fire. Not just one, but several. Civilization...?

Follow it, and soon enough the way you’ve taken will certainly become a path or road. Unfolding before you in the mountainous forests, you’ll see the most welcome of sights: a small mining town tucked up in the valley. Battered, rusted road signs will direct to “MILTON, POP. 947”. You’re almost there, you keep going, and it looks like other people have had the same idea as you. In fact, you’ll hear the muffled sounds of life. People! In the town!

As you head into the outskirts and then further into town, you’ll find it’s a little easier to walk but the cold has gripped you hard. You’ll find the buildings, both shops and homes, some are dark and lifeless, some of them are boarded up, some of them are occupied. People are going about their business, or stood watching from their tiny porches of their small, timber homes. For a town this big, there doesn’t seem to be many people. Several dozen at most, but no more.

Towards the center of town, you’ll find the building from which the biggest of the smoke trail rises: a school-house of sorts, or some kind of community hall. Perhaps both. You’ll find more and more people all drawn to this place, each and every one of them in the same position as yourself (and your companion, if you’ve found one). Some are in worse states than others: some are bloodied, nursing bite wounds or cuts; others might have some other kind of injury sustained in the journey here from falls. Others may look as if they could faint from the cold at any second.

The door opens, and you’re greeted by the gnarled, wizened face of an elderly man, dressed in thick furs. He has a kind face. He smiles warmly, and with pity, ushering you in with haste.

“Ah. Once more, you poor souls come.” he nods gravely. No, this is not the first time that this has happened. “I am Methuselah. I welcome you, Newcomer, although I’m sorry for how you’ve come to find yourself here. You are not the only one, the lights are changing things. Come. Mother Nature has not been kind to you, but there are plenty here to help.”

The room is dim, lit only by natural daylight through the windows. A roaring fire sits at one end of the huge hall. It crackles, bright and cheerful... and warm. Even as big as this place is, the room is pleasantly warm. You’ll also find basic cots set up down one side of the hall, and while it seems there's a few people already living here, there's enough space for those in need of them. There's places to rest for a moment and get your bearings, or just trying to recover from the cold. Down the other side are tables and chairs, and long tables laden with food, drinks and bottled water similar to one might find at a soup kitchen. Once again, Methuselah offers a feast, aided by some of the other Interlopers.

There are canisters with hot herbal teas, mostly. But some coffee can be found. There’s also soup and stew and trays of charred deer and rabbit meats, plus some grilled fish. It’s very basic, but it’s hot and filling. A feast for those who have battled the cold to come here.

Methuselah will continue to busy himself, still; there is plenty to do. He will fetch blankets, tend to wounds, serve food and drinks — aided by a handful of others in the Hall. Your fellow survivors, but those who have been here for some time now. He does not have much time to talk. More and more people seem to be coming in from the cold. He will not stop to sit and rest until everyone is seen to, taking up a place by the fire to gaze silently into its flames.

He will encourage newcomers to get warm and eat, and when they are ready to — they can explore the town and find one of the many empty homes to call their own. He will not speak much, but gesture to your fellow survivors. They will have better answers than him.

POWER IN WORDS

WHEN: The month of October.
WHERE: Everywhere.
CONTENT WARNINGS: reality warping; potential fourth-walling; horror monsters/creatures; potential character injury; potential character death.

They say there’s nothing more powerful than stories. Tales of caution told to little children to mind the great and terrible things out in the darkness of the world. Accounts of folk horrors or great adventures to thrill and entertain. Or perhaps stories of valour and hope to help inspire the hearts of the downtrodden and destitute. Words have been spoken over campfires for eons, passed down from lips to lips.

In the Northern Territories, there is plenty of time on one’s hands. The hours seem to crawl by, and there is very little in terms of entertainment to keep one’s mind busy after the chores and business needed to survive is done. Sometimes all there is left to do is to sit by the fire and talk. And with winter quickly approaching, huddling around a fire certainly isn’t a bad idea after all.

And certainly, Interlopers have found themselves compelled to gather around fires as of late. To spend time with their fellow Interlopers, to enjoy the sense of community and togetherness.

Considering the time of year, it’s October — a favourite time of year for some. Halloween draws close, and what better way to celebrate it in a world where nothing much can be celebrated by telling some of your favourite spooky stories for the evening? It feels like as good a time as any, after all.

So you gather around a fire with your fellow Interlopers and begin to tell one another stories. They might be retellings of your favourite horror movies, folktales from your country, stories that freaked you out as a kid. Stories of cryptids or the monsters under the bed. Maybe it might be some supernatural encounter you once experienced. Something to really spook your fellow Interlopers for fun.

… only it isn’t just for fun.

In a world where there are bigger powers at play, there is so much power in words spoken. As you tell your story, something… unexpected happens. Interlopers will find that the horror stories they tell around the fire will start to become a reality. The cryptid from your hometown may just start stalking you from the shadows. The werewolf from that favourite horror film of yours? You hear it howl in the distance. The ghosts you swear you saw once as a kid will appear before you.

You have brought these stories to life, accidentally.

How do you deal with such a thing? Well, how does it end in the story? Your creations only have as much power as the stories that hold them. Stake through the heart for a vampire, a ring of salt for ghosts, silver for werewolves. And you better deal with it quickly, less you become just another victim in the story.

Fortunately, if you’ve talked yourself into a bit of a jam, the monsters you’ve spoken into life will eventually disappear into nothing by the time the sun rises again. You only have to survive the night first.

FRONTIER COMFORTS

WHEN: The month of October.
WHERE: Milton.
CONTENT WARNINGS: altered/magical food items; severely altered/warped behaviours; potential personality switches/animalistic behavioural characteristics; minor body horror; loss of senses; physical age changes; precognition/future visions.

In the month of October, Interlopers have been practically plagued by the delicious scents of homebaking that fill the air in and around Milton. Following their noses, however, has turned up nothing,and no one’s been able to find the source of those smells no matter how hard anyone’s tried to look. Interlopers aren’t exactly living on the most luxurious of diets, and often the most basic and simple of meals is what’s on the table for them in the general day to day. Whatever this is smells practically divine, and no one is immune to being enraptured by them.

One particular day, as you walk around Milton, the scent is particularly strong and this time you’re determined to find the source of the baking. Maybe whoever it is might be in a particularly charitable mood, or might be willing to trade for whatever it is you’re baking.

You see lights on in one of the cabins that had once otherwise been empty, or maybe you’d just never noticed someone lived there. But as you draw closer to the front door, the scents of home cooking are overpowering and you knock, hoping and praying for an answer.

The man who answers the doors isn’t someone you recognise. There’s nothing out of the ordinary about him: he is middle-aged and tall, with a thick beard. Behind him is a busy scene: a roaring fire and the ongoing process of baking. He chuckles at your staring and invites you in. Inside, you find the source of the smell: home-cooked pies of varying types; some more rustic than others, with golden pastry and rich-smelling fillings.

You’re not sure if the man is a fellow Interloper, or perhaps one of the folks from Silverpoint — a Milton native who’s returned home. Or maybe he’s neither. He doesn’t speak much, and only beckons you to pull up a chair at the large kitchen table and eat.

He offers a selection. The choice is yours, Interlopers. But trying out one of these pies might have you biting off more than you can chew.

STALKER’S PIE: A rich pie made with Bear and Wolf meat. Dangerous, mysterious filling. This pie gives the Interloper eating it an animalistic instinct. Your senses are sharp, keen. You hear, smell and see as an animal would. Your nails are sharp like claws, your teeth are now fangs to bear and snap. You see the world in black and white: predator and prey.

PREPPER’S PIE: A dense pie made from foraged vegetables. Rough around the edges. After eating this pie, you feel your mind is clear and untroubled. You feel prepared… in a way you didn’t think possible. For a time, you are able to see things in the immediate future around you. And with that, you are ready for anything.

DOCKWORKER’S PIE: A satisfying pie made from the day's catch. The taste of the sea. As you eat this pie, you feel a sensation of waves washing over you. A gentle rocking, as if you are a vessel on the ocean. With each gentle rock, you feel yourself shift. You’re still you, but another kind of you. Maybe if you’d made another choice, or maybe you hadn’t been chosen. In this world, this timeline, things had gone differently. And now so are you. Different. An alternative version of yourself, rippling through.

BREYERHOUSE PIE: A pie any meateater would love. Lunchbox-ready. Chowing down on this heavy, meat-filled pie reminds you that you too are just meat. And like the game butchered and broken down to make it, the same can be done to you. This pie will temporarily take away one of your five senses: sight, touch, smell, taste or hearing. You may find yourself feeling completely numb to touch; or unable to hear or see anything.

PEACH PIE: A pie filled with sweet, canned peaches. Reminds one of warmer seasons and brighter days. Eating this pie will change your physical age to a younger version of yourself. It will be of a time when things were simpler, happier. The world around you did not feel so empty and terrifying, and you now see it with eyes of wonder and an unbridled heart.

Afterwards, you’ll find you can’t find the man or his cabin again. Once you leave the area and try to return, you’ll find the cabin empty, with no trace of the man or his baking to be found.

FAQs

ARRIVAL: METHUSELAH'S FEAST

1. Arrival threads can be treated as game canon.

2. Items characters have brought from home can be found either strewn around them when they awaken, or in the community hall — as if someone left them out for them to collect. Methuselah will not know how they got there, and will be quite bemused by the happenings.

3. Reminder that all characters are now depowered upon arrival. They can choose not to notice it at first, or can immediately sense something is different about them.

4. If asked any personal questions, Methuselah will smile and say "Oh, you don't want to know about an old man like me. But I have lived all over in these parts for all my life." He will be more concerned with trying to help Newcomers, and is genuinely concerned for them and their well-being. Other Interlopers will say much of the same — there's little to know about him.

5. More information about Milton can be found here.

POWER IN WORDS

1. While any monsters are fine to bring in, we do ask that players are mindful of bringing in gigantic monsters (ie. Godzilla) that could potentially break the game's setting.

2. Players are welcome to go with monsters from their character's canons, or make up their own ghost stories or go with real-life examples of ghost stories.


FRONTIER COMFORTS

1. The effects of the pies will last between eight hours to a week, depending on how much was consumed. Nothing can be done to alleviate symptoms. You will feel incredibly hungover the day after the effects have subsided, like you've eaten something way too rich, but feel completely fine after that.

2. Dockworker's Pie can be any kind of AU, whether that's a canon AU (ie. Endverse in Supernatural) or a player-made up AU. Genderswaps would also be acceptable in this instance.

3. Peach Pie is flexible in how it can be played out. Characters can keep their normal mind/memories, or they can revert themselves to their literal child stage. Or even an in-between point where they find others around them (ie. CR/canonmates) familiar but can't really truly suss out their current situation.

TALES FROM THE NORTHERN TERRITORIES NEWSLETTER

Comments

Billy Prior | The Regeneration Trilogy

[fissure]

Power in Words

cw: description of real world events relating to war, including (but not limited to): chemical warfare, death, guns, physical & emotional trauma, violence; specific trauma related to the eyes; social manipulation

Arriving with a smile as thin as a razor, as a man who belongs, Billy Prior takes a seat very near the blazing warmth of the fire. Those who have been in and around Milton for some time may recognize the man: The pale, proud face, the blond hair hair and its slight curl, the ice-like eyes that keep their sharp focus, and the officer's coat that bears its significance in deep wool and shining buttons, all belonging to a once-familiar visage skulking between cabins and copses.

Given the opportunity, he seizes the ear of the small audience, sharing a tale of a time and place altogether detached, but still very much a part of Prior:

It's a great war he speaks of, (later, dubbed The Great War, as if anything great could come of such things): Ypres, a city in Belgium, is being held at great cost. Where dirt and debris once sunk boots inches deep into sucking mud, winter has paused the churning of the earth. In the frosty layer every manner of gruesome solidifies into one horrific crunch underfoot.

"You stop wanting to look after a while," Prior says, a manner of glibness entirely out of sorts with the subject at hand. "Whether it's ice or spectacles or bones, you don't look because the moment you do–"

From the forest, the report of a shot. A heavy rifle, if anything, and Prior raises a hand, gesturing into the darkness between the trees as if a perfect illustration of his point.

"That's the way you survive it: You've got to see, yes, but only what you must. Through any means necessary," the young man explains eagerly. There's a wildness in his wide eyes, the whites flaring as he spins his unfortunate yarn. Going on, a few more shots whizz in the trees. He has no idea he's inviting this chaos when he says, "You look, but you don't look because the moment you do, you can't unsee the things man is made to do."

Underfoot, his boot squishes something and it certainly doesn't feel the same as the snow they're used to. Behind, several more reports of gunfire – a hunting team, perhaps? Prior is busy plucking a part of something altogether too pink and vital from beneath his foot, lifting a soft orb fit with the very same striking blue shade as his own irises.

It's offered, palm flat, to the collected group at large, Prior's smile now wide and quite manic.

"Anyone fancy a gobstopper?"

Dockworker's Pie

cw: mentions of dissociative states; descriptions of emesis/vomit/vomiting

It wouldn't be his first choice, or even his last choice for that matter, but Prior clutches the Dockworker's Pie in his hands nevertheless, the thick pastry familiar beneath his fingertips. Having escaped a coastal town and a lifetime of casting the same family lines into the sea, he'd sooner starve than savor the salty despair made into a reminder of home.

If he'd done the choosing, it wouldn't have been this, but he hasn't done the choosing, has he? Simply coming to with a pie in hand isn't a choice and in staring down at the hearty bites taken, he feels the churn of his stomach.

"Fucking hell," he gags, the back of his fist coming up to his mouth. Where he was pale before, he might as well be green now as he turns and heaves at the ground. Nothing comes up, but it doesn't stop his body trying, bent double on himself at the belt-line with the half-eaten pie held as far at arm's length as possible.

It's nothing against the food, and certainly not meant as an insult to the host, but nevertheless, Prior is making every attempt to paint the ground with it.

Wildcard!

The obligatory "anything goes" option, with a caveat that I'm less interested in the Stalker's Pie and Peach Pie, but would still play them with someone who is eager to explore these specific themes. Note that a Breyerhouse Pie will trigger mutism 100% of the time.

[[OOC: Billy Prior is a fictional World War I era British soldier from The Regeneration Trilogy by Pat Barker. He has appeared in-game once before. If you have any questions or want to request plotting or starters, feel free to PM this account.]]

Power in words

[nicehobbit]

As a Hobbit, Frodo may be particularly susceptible to the urge to gather around the fires for stories. He greets any newcomer with a warm smile, whether he knows them or not, and so Billy obviously gets that too.

And as a Hobbit, he has no experience with war, not even the kind before the technological advancements of the 20th century. While he's not ignorant of the war approaching his friends back home, he was always so caught up with his own problems and it was such a distant concept. Billy's story remains the same.

That is, until the first shot rings through the trees. He flinches, and leans down to make himself even smaller on the log. As Billy says, the last thing he wants to do is look, especially when there is only more and more noise. This isn't right. There are weapons on this island but people generally try not to use them, wary of wasting precious resources. Who could it be that is shooting?

Wondering about that keeps his mind occupied and he doesn't realise what Billy is doing until the orb resting on that open palm is more or less right in front of his face. It takes a second for him to properly register what he's looking at, but as soon as he does his face turns pale, and his stomach turns as he straightens up with a jerk, then stumbles onto his feet to back away.

"Wh-where did that come from?"

That was not here before.

[fissure]

Prior – this version of Prior, at least – has a great power of dissociation that doesn't come with the more contemporary, known version of himself. He's the Mr. Hyde to Dr. Jekyll, so to speak, and while hearing those things happening around them, there's nothing to fear because this part of him feels no fear. Nor pain, nor compassion, and especially not empathy. He's merely a vessel for words – words the other Prior is too proud or pained or angered to speak.

"That's a good question," he agrees, lifting the spheric object to the level of his own. Squinting, he either doesn't care that it's a severed eye, optic nerve and all, or he doesn't see it that way.

Prior sighs. "I might say they're usually found at the local shops, but since we haven't any, I suppose it may have come along with me." The shrug he issues says about as much as Prior does in slipping the offending eye into his pocket as if it were, in fact, just a sweet from behind the counter, displayed in one of those big jars meant to draw the- Well, you know.

"It's all right," he adds, "there's plenty." Dipping down to pluck up a second and a third, as if gathering jacks without the bouncing ball, he holds out the new eyes – more gobstoppers – and smiles without it reaching past his teeth. A closer inspection might suggest these eyes are more familiar to Frodo than they are to Prior. Friends, perhaps? Remnants of, at least.

And in the distance? A great whomp of earth being forced out, one distant mortar round enough to shudder leaves for miles and shake the earth beneath their feet.

Prior, who appears unfazed, gestures his free hand to now a half-dozen more eyes, all resting where they hadn't been before, pops of color peeking out of trodden or pure snow alike.

[nicehobbit]

Although the story left Frodo with an uneasy feeling from the beginning, it wasn't to this level. The longer Prior talks, the more that uneasiness switches from being about the story to being about Prior. What does a man have to go through to be so uncaring in the face of this?

Morbid curiosity gives him the urge to look down, to see these plenty of eyes, but when the second eye Prior picks up looks somehow familiar--

He closes his own eyes instead, backing up another few steps so quickly he almost trips, then promptly squats down. His stomach rolls in protest as the image of eyeballs everywhere on the ground flash through his mind for all that he tries not to think of it.

"It's-- It's not real," he says, his voice thick. "It can't be real."

[fissure]

If Prior senses he's causing this, he makes no effort to amend or remedy it, instead finding his way over to where Frodo crouches. His obsession with eyes — or their obsession with him — has everything to do with being of a particular class feeling as if he's parading as a charlatan among a different caste. A low-class officer is nearly as unheard of as a world without war, and trapped between places, watched with disdain from all sides, is it any wonder he's haunted by the most mere and concise representation of that?

Truthfully, though, the eyes are simply catalysts in Prior's life. As if every time he sees two (or fewer, in notable cases), something terrible is bound to be lurking nearby.

"It certainly feels that way," he admits, crouched next to the strangely proportioned young man. "And yet, here we are." The last bit has emphasis, as if driving the point of a bayonet deep into soft flesh.

His hand finds Frodo's shoulder and he grasps, clenching fabric. "Now tell me, have you got your mask? You need to have that at the ready," Prior says, and from nowhere at all, he produces a gas mask. "Here," he offers, as if he has a steady supply of his own.

[nicehobbit]

Things here are frequently not real and he tries to tell himself this must be one of those things. Anything else would be far too terrible to think about. Where did the eyes come from? Who did they belong to? He doesn't want answers to either of those questions.

It's when he tries to talk himself down, tries to take a few deep breaths, that he feels Prior's hand on his shoulder. The presence of it is bad enough to begin with and he begins pulling away, but then it grips and instead of pulling he tries yanking himself free. Chances are Prior is stronger than him, though, and when he opens his eyes wide he's distracted by the mask. It takes a second or so for him to gather his wits about him and speak.

"What-- What is that?"

Dockworker's Pie

[astrogator]

Tayrey, standing a short distance from the man, notices his distress almost immediately. She suspects the food. Of course she suspects the food, spacer Tayrey for whom the very idea of eating meat is quietly abhorrent - but she isn't here to pass judgement. She steps forward, stands at his side, and reaches out to touch his shoulder.

'Steady,' she says, at a low pitch meant for reassurance. She knows it won't help, not physically, but this young lieutenant has seen enough cases of space sickness - nausea, hallucinations - that it seems to her that any presence is better than none. 'If it needs to come up, you'll feel better after,' she adds.

Her compassion has limits. She's keeping herself and her very smart blue officer's coat completely out of potential spewing range.

[fissure]

In all of his heaving, red-faced with lip hanging spittle, he barely catches the sound of a voice let alone the words. A face to put to barely-there encouragement is even less within reach, as Prior's whole being twists aggressively under his single gripping hand, the other refusing to let loose (and therefore waste) the pie.

If it needs to come up, it bloody well should. By all rights, short of shoving a finger in (Not like that, you sod, a voice reminds), he's left to fight against the urge or simply allow it to wash over him. Neither seems to be helping, and in the spinning of his head, Prior's only fascination beyond it comes with Tayrey's coat.

Like Prior's own, the deep dye and thick ply of woolen fabric represents officerhood, so much so that it overrides the sensations and before Prior can contextualize how fucked up that happens to be, he's standing at attention and messily settles into an eyes-forward salute.

In the British military, in Prior's time, a salute is the right hand, palm facing outwards, fingers and thumb aligned over the right eye – the bastardization of the tipping of a cap. Feet together, chin up, Prior attempts not to sway, but the half-demolished pie feels heavier than it should and he feels himself stumble towards Tayrey when another roiling wave of cramping muscles crushes around in Prior's guts.

"Sir–" He says, but it's all reactionary and none of it's making it back to Prior, whose lips puff with each attempted breath out to avoid more, whose lungs begin a high register wheeze on each breath in to help steady.

pie

[desperate_times_right]

Chloe is hungry for one thing or another pretty much all the time these days, and there's only so much her greenhouse can do to alleviate that. This baking scent that has been floating around for the past few weeks has been driving her wild, and she's spent more time than she’d like to admit out in her wolf body searching for the source.

To say that she's shocked to find Billy Prior at the end of that scent trail would be an understatement. Most people who disappear from this place don't come back, and that seems to go double for people associated with her.

He's holding a pie, likely the source of the baking smell, but he doesn't seem happy about it. Chloe slips behind the cabin to put her human body back on and changes into her emergency outfit. Yoga pants and a T-shirt aren't exactly high fashion (or even warm) but they fit in the bag she wears as a wolf, so they'll have to do.

“Hey,” she says as she emerges. “What's going on?”

It would not be shocking to find that a pie in this place was evil.

[fissure]

cw: hunting-related violence and animal suffering; blood; dissociation/cognitive dissonance; emesis/vomiting

When last Prior had seen Chloe — properly seen her — he'd still stalked Milton like a lone figure, not that of a (typical) wolf but perhaps more a sheep of brackish wool. At some point after, during a particularly sedate hunt of a fawnless young doe he'd picked from amidst a small herd, a switch had flipped within him.

It wasn't a particularly clean shot, in some part due to Prior's own hesitation. After years on the front lines of a brutal, bloody war, he should have known better, but mistakes happen even in the most careful circumstances, and he was (at least) humane enough to see its suffering end. But walking up on the wailing, frightened, maimed creature, gruesome with its own vital fluids, it hadn't been a doe Prior had seen, but a woman instead. No one person he recognized, but like that of every woman he'd known, from his mother who birthed him, to Sarah who promised herself to him, to Chloe who had given quietly and generously in ways never demanded, but always appreciated.

He should have felt the need to end it. To do the right thing. Instead, Prior had stood for too long in the snow, skinning knife in hand, glazed over as the doe had continued to hurt, continued to writhe and call to them all manner of hungry beasts.

The... person who had taken over that day – a fractured piece of Prior devoid of pain and compassion, the parts of him made harsh by a cruel, unjust world – wasn't unknowable or foreign, but shared few interests with his gentler contemporary.

The Other Prior had done what this version couldn't, and whether it had been shame or stress or trauma or bad luck altogether that had kept everything at bay, the Billy Prior that Chloe knows enough to recognize now hasn't returned until now. To him, one moment ago had been that doe. Not months had passed.

He heaves all the more, reeling until Prior's knees find the crunching ground, face the color of an agonized beet while he wheezes past the great waves of sickness.

"Chloe, it's fine," he gasps, too proud to be truthful. The half-mangled pie is still in hand, but the moment Prior tries to acknowledge it by offering it, he's forced to turn his head away and gag. "It's not– the damn pie," Prior growls, not at her, but in general as he fights off... whatever it is he calls this.

A reawakening, perhaps, in the rudest manner possible.

[desperate_times_right]

It does not look fine. Still a bit wolf-brained, running on instinct, Chloe tears the pie plate out of Billy’s hands and throws it like a frisbee into the forest behind the cabin. As soon as it’s left her hand this registers as a bad idea - someone else could eat it or it could draw in scavengers - but it's a little late for that now.

“Don’t eat anything here that's cooked by someone you don't know, that's rule number fucking one!”

Though now that she thinks about it, he’d arrived some time after the most egregious incidents, with the mushrooms that had temporarily paralyzed her arms and the tea that had forced her to tell the truth.

She moves to help, try to get him to stand, but stops knelt next to him on the ground, frozen in indecision. Billy Prior is not the only one who has changed in the months that have passed since they've last seen one another. Chloe has been touched by the Darkwalker in a way that has made her into what one of their contemporaries had described as a monster who hunts interlopers. She can't feel a power from him, but if she starts draining the life from him he can't exactly fight back in this state.

She winds up just sitting there as he heaves next to her.

[fissure]

Of course, there are a great number of things Prior should know, least of which is rule number one. While he had certainly stumbled through his beginnings in Milton, there had been no shortage of warnings all around, including tales of past meals that hadn't agreed with the Interlopers in the strangest of ways. He'd been told of humans turning to animals turning to humans over again, and were he to see it with his own eyes now (something he's yet to observe himself), he wouldn't be surprised, per se. Not after all he'd seen here. But in the time since last he was aware, it's clear some has changed, even if the beats feel familiar enough.

Muzzy from the effort, when he finishes his retching, it's surely ended because Chloe had freed him of the pie. Not the fault of the pie, not even the fault of the doe, but Prior was (and remains) stricken nonetheless.

Butt to the ground finally, he groans at the acidic burn and wipes dutifully at his mouth. Nothing's come up but bile, inexplicably bizarre, as is Prior's stomach deciding to hold fast what he'd gobbled down in another state altogether. Swaying in the snow, he swallows and winces and finally finds his voice.

"Bloody hell," he manages, over-hot from the coughing but chilled from the sweat evaporating. He mists from his bare skin from the effort, the bulk of the heat pouring from his face along with his slowly evening breaths. "Must look a real mess if it's got you out here half-dressed." He quirks a smile, adding, "Not that I'm complaining," but for once its got none of the charm Prior often plies against others.

The truth is, this front is what little armor Prior can scrape together in the aftermath of his crisis, a small piece meant to prove he's not as helpless or afraid as he looks, while still acknowledging he knows he can't do this alone.

[desperate_times_right]

“Yeah.” Chloe smiles too, though hers is also a pale approximation of her usual charm. “Got my tits out just for you.”

In this cold, the thin material of her shirt isn't leaving much to the imagination.

She has so many questions - they don't know much about what happens to people who disappear, or has he simply been hiding out in the wilderness somewhere? - but doesn't want to overwhelm him in whatever his current state is. Also she gets sick in the sun and is still nervous about being human in public after what had happened last month when everyone had lost their minds once again to the Darkwalker.

“Do you want to come back to my place? I’ve got a bit of ginger I can boil up for you. Ease your stomach.”

power in words

[flambeaux]

Loneliness is the enemy of the vampire. The years stretch with no end. Louis can only be a recluse for so long. The proprietor of the General Store slowly began to tend to it again after burning down Lestat's house (long story). Husband gone, daughter gone, he is empty as any corpse. Louis de Pointe du Lac turns up by the fire looking like a shabby prince fallen on hard times. He hasn't pomaded his hair or brushed down his wool jacket, his well-made one from the '30s. His eyes are a very bright green.

He had a friend who was shipped off to the Great War. A man in uniform cuts a very fine figure indeed. The horrors of the battlefield were lost on Louis, hardly anything more than radio announcements. He had his own horrors to deal with at home.

A shot rings out in the forest, but Louis only spares it a glance. Louis watches with more interest the bodily changes in the human telling the story, how Prior's eyes widen and his nostrils flare. The offered... morsel... doesn't interest him as much as the man with blood flowing fast in him. Louis is a bit peckish; he'll have to hunt deer later.

"No thank you, different dietary needs," he says politely, all New Orleans charm. Then he breaks the spell with, "Who the hell's shootin' at this time of night?"

[fissure]

Prior appears unbothered by the comment, perhaps feeling it's entirely valid, all things considered. He tilts his hand towards the pocket of his own fine wool coat, allowing the eye to drop in without a second thought. He has different dietary needs as well, but who's to say someone else won't be interested?

Along strikingly similar lines, Prior observes Louis very much as someone should when they have particular tastes. Were he in his right mind (he very much is not), Louis would receive a mirror of that charm; unfortunately, Prior's far too deep within himself to acknowledge the brilliantly colored eyes or the exotic, American-flavored accent that might otherwise pique his interest. That so rarely lasts, and if he's seeing Louis around and hasn't made his approach, it's likely for reasons outside of Prior's control (such a sense someone's eye won't wander no matter how foolishly Prior places himself within sight).

"Sounds British," he remarks, acerbic. "So I wager the English. My kind," Prior adds, pointing a thin finger at his own chest. Any accusation works, as he feels uncharitable towards himself in this state (and near every, but that's neither here nor there).

More bullets whizz and this time a low branch nearby is cut clean from the trunk, splintering into dozens of toothpicks at the break. Prior notes the woodchip that lands on his sleeve and gently brushes it from the cuff, a ginger act amidst more gunfire, less distant now.

cw: cannibalism and gore talk, toxic vampire marriage

[flambeaux]

Louis can just hear Lestat's blithe commentary. Wonderful, we have a cannibal in our midst! Pocketing souvenirs like our darling sister. Louis's eyebrow quirks irritably, more annoyed at the thought of Lestat than this man, who is clearly out of his mind. Priorities. Louis has an eye for a handsome man, but he has two for his ex-husband, and Louis has been on a bit of a bender about him disappearing. Out of his mind.

"We're in Canada," he complains dubiously. "In the middle of an apocalypse."

He rises and finds cover behind a tree trunk but without urgency. He's been feeling low of late, so self-preservation comes slow. But his eyes dilate. Attack, defense, hunger, it's all the same. He fingers his fancy walking stick, essential accoutrement of a gentleman from the '10s. It has a knife inside.

"Last time we were attacked by people, it was the Forest Talkers or somethin' like them, and they're done."

They were defeated. Louis drained quite a few of them. Now he faces a decision. He doesn't like the whole town knowing he's a vampire. So, he doesn't like being watched while he eats. But what better way to slake his hunger and forget about his sorrows than to enter the oblivion of the hunt? He has a drinking problem.

"What are you gon' do, eat your way through their eyeballs?" says the vampire who cut off a man's ear and strung him up with his guts hanging out. But Louis is a gentleman.

cw: mentions of chemical warfare, human body parts

[fissure]

Prior could no sooner eat the eyeball than he could the delicious smelling pies wafting through the area these days. It's likely only because he's been inexplicably missing that he's not little more than bones under his heavy coat. He had survived a while on a doe — some weeks — but that was before. Now, if his stomach rumbles, it does so less out of hunger and more out of aggravation.

This version of Prior doesn't need to eat — at least as far as he and his stomach are currently concerned. It will change, but for now he considers the question as if it's nowhere near out of place.

"Well, they're not after me," he points out. British guns mean Prior's not apt to be seen down-barrel — he's got all the hallmarks of an officer without the full uniform — but the unkindness of the war reminds him of the gas attacks, where their own chemicals blew back in their faces, literally creating a cliched phrase for unintended, perhaps intentionally unforeseen circumstances. "Although that's not stopped them before," Prior adds, finally finding his own feet.

Smoothly, he chooses the tree next and nearest Louis, a flash of a thin, but straight smile.

"We've found our way to Canada, why shouldn't they?" Shoulder pressed to the trunk, he's nodding his head in the direction of the commotion, and the whistle-whump-whump-whump that responds makes Prior reach, one hand over his head, the other at Louis' sleeve, pulling them both towards the earth that begins exploding into craters around them, showering dirt and snow and pieces — small parts of people who once were and now scatter like wet, red pebbles around them.

power in words... (trench whistle) LET'S GOOO!

[faa]

[ Freddie isn't unused to feeling odd, sidelined, when war stories are exchanged. Most of the other captains flying under the same corporate umbrella as himself learned in the Iraq War, something named and organized and known, not in Iraq fighting different terrorists five years later, without huge land armies, just groups of ISIS fucks running all over the place. Those who did learn to fly under the banner of his Operation and not their seniors' War were usually in fighter jets providing close air support, or piloting helicopters, maybe medevacs. They saw real gore; Freddie and his copilot saw a black-and-white picture of gray squares becoming towers of black smoke on the screen at the center of a BUFF's instrument panel. He doesn't really have any stories of close scrapes with death in the sky, other than a landing with two engines on fire thanks to a birdstrike, and the only time he was wounded, it was minor, and it was while he was standing around on base doing fuck all.

So he sits off to the side, listening in silence—but this is interesting, and he does want to hear it. This man came straight out of World War I, and while he's seen old videos, BBC documentaries and things, in which its veterans were interviewed for their contributions to collective history, it's very different to hear it from someone sitting across from him in the flesh, just like it was when he'd spoken to Captain Fitzjames himself of the doomed Franklin Expedition shortly after he'd arrived here.

Perhaps it's how intently he's listening that plunges them into this, but Freddie realizes almost immediately what's happening when their environment changes. This place has spilled his own memories without his consent, and dragged him into others' memories of combat—like Tim's. That's what's happening now, except—it's more immersive than Tim's memory of the child in Afghanistan was. He watched through Gutterson's eyes as a bystander in that one. He's in this memory, an actor, not a witness; it wraps around him; he's aware of his own body and the fact that it's in uniform.

It's not clear how real this is, or how he's supposed to get out. But death is permanent here, and it might be in this dreamscape, too. ]

Fuck. Fuck. Drop that. [ He lifts a hand and quickly shoves Prior's arm down. It's strange and immediate, the way that his year or so as a civilian vaporizes as soon as he's got both feet planted in a combat zone again. ] Pay attention. This place pulls us in. Your memory's real now and my ass isn't getting shot because you're making jokes. How did you get out?

[fissure]

[ All of this is very new to Prior. Not war – of course not that – but this kind of war. It's new to the world when and where he's from, a new beast with new weapons, many of which aren't as obvious as the gas or the bullets or the wet slide of a bayonet. It's part of the reason Prior now doesn't seem to respond to the accusation that he's quipped up something in the wake of military advancement.

He isn't quite himself when he looks down at the eye now redeposited to the earth and it looks back, an accusatory glare if he's ever seen one: How dare you. ]

Well, that's an easy question, isn't it? [ He huffs. ] Through the clearing station, man. How else?

[ The edge upon his voice, though sharp, has little relevance to Prior's reasoning beyond the obviousness of it. Looking upon Lavoie, he moves without persistence or fear, a frustrating steadiness to the his steps, like a metronome crunching between boot and snow. ]

You're not far from home–

[ Cut short by the splintering of boughs overhead, Prior raises a lazy arm just in time to avoid being rained upon, pine needles and toothpick-like shrapnel taking its time settling all around. He gestures Lavoie towards him, ushering but in no great hurry. He can see the uniform and it only makes sense in that he knows from context clues that Lavoie is not British. Canadian in some regard – that's his safe bet – but he finds himself not caring much to be more distinct than that. ]

So. How did you get out, then?

[ If this isn't meant to be a friendly conversation – not panicked introductions during an all-out assault – Prior has not received the message. ]

[faa]

How did I get out?

[ It’s like the storyteller didn’t hear a word he said about this place pulling them in. It’s like he’s convinced it’s real, like he was never in Milton at all. That realization fills Freddie with almost as much dread as their current situation does. This man can’t help him get out because he doesn’t understand that they are in at all.

As he answers, Freddie is already keeping his head down, moving low and quick toward a recent treefall, no doubt initiated by the mortars that already passed through this area and left their tracks and black soot. As soon as he’s close enough; he dives for the protection of the partial cover; the ground rocks with another blast somewhere further away as his body collides with it. He motions frantically for Prior to join him. ]

No. This isn’t real. You arrived in a place called Milton. In Canada. Right now you’re in a flashback and somehow you brought me with you. It’s—shellshock. We can still get hurt here, or maybe killed, so I need you to think about how this memory ended. I think that’s what we have to recreate to get out of here.

[fissure]

[ For Prior — this version, at least — the answer springs forth a sharp grin, as if this is all some kind of game they're playing. And why shouldn't it be? Prior, who has lived his months in Milton and certainly knows better than to create havoc, also concedes that the hours run long without distractions and other forms of entertainment, and that he himself (again, some version) has quietly expressed boredom as a symptom of this strange happenstance.

Smoothly, without the demanded haste, he plants a hand on the fallen tree and slips over it to drop down crouched next to Lavoie. ]

How unreal could it be if we're still apt to be its victims? It's real enough, I say.

[ Figuring now is the best time to make his salient point, he offers out a cold hand in greeting as a few more bullets pass by, far too close for comfort. If he isn't enjoying this, then he must be an incredible actor for how he does this like they're both sitting down at the pub on a Friday night. ]

Billy. Billy Prior. And you are...?

Power in Words

[ricochetingbullets]

Dex doesn't scare easily. His brain just isn't wired for it, not in the same way most people who have healthy emotional responses feel it. He's been quietly listening to the stories people are offering up without contributing anything of his own. When Billy begins his tale, he sits up a little bit straighter, and pays closer attention. Now this is a story he likes. Someone like him isn't meant for a civilized era. He's always belonged to a more gruesome one where he could have reveled in the chaos and mayhem that death always brought with it.

It's why there is no screaming or freaking out from him when he sees the lone eyeball the man is holding in his palm. "That looks fascinating." It's said with the same sort of emotional detachment a person usually has upon seeing something mildly interesting like an unusually colored sunset or a dog with a weird haircut. There's nothing but a cold look of curiosity on Dex's face. It's most certainly not the reaction of alarm or disgust a normal human being would possess. The mask of normality Dex usually wears is definitely slipping.

[fissure]

Were he a bit more in his right mind, Prior may find himself sopping up the disturbance Poindexter lacks; unfortunately, he's only spurred on by the interest, getting to his feet and moving to a closer seat where he can speak more intimately with the man. He may not normally be a storyteller himself, but in this shattered state, he thrives on the reactions gained from others, be that positive or not.

"Many wish for a glimpse," he notes, speaking mostly of his own experiences. During the war, especially when he was assigned home service, hardly a day passed where a civilian didn't stare on with wide eyes hoping to live on scraps of glory. They never consider the blood and pain, nor the affect it has on those who had no choice, those who couldn't look away.

Like the lidless eye in his hand, Prior must see because anything short of looking will get him killed. Or, worse yet, it will get someone else killed on his watch, and he can't have that.

"What have you seen? With eyes like that, I'm certain it's something."

He offers to tip the eye into the other man's hand, hand flat like feeding a horse.

[ricochetingbullets]

Oooo, he gets to actually touch the eyeball??? Nice! Dex accepts the eyeball without flinching and holds it up between two fingers for inspection. Interesting how it's a sphere but not a perfect one. Instead, it looks slightly elongated. That makes it perfect for what Dex does next, which is have it walk across his knuckles like another man might do with a silver dollar.

He turns his attention back to Billy as he does so to answer the question. Normally, the mention of his eyes would have bothered him. Dex does a good job at faking being normal but the emotions never reach his hazel eyes, especially when he smiles. There's just nothing there behind his eyes but a coldness that will never thaw out.

"Lots and lots of death. Starting when I was a kid and continuing on when I joined the Army." Perhaps he wouldn't have ended up so fucked in the head if his parents and parental figures didn't keep dying. By the time he'd turned eighteen, Dex was already up to four that had died on him. He was just born under a very unlucky star. The Army is where most people would think his issues had started but instead it had actually been a stabilizing force for Dex, giving him the tools to transition from being a teenager into an adult. "By the time my tours of duty were up, there was nothing in the death and destruction that I saw which could affect me anymore."

[fissure]

In a similar manner to Poindexter, Prior stares on with his face far too blank considering their circumstances. If the trick of the eye (ha) is any indication, in fact, it may be easy to guess that Prior has no feelings at all. That the dearth of response is as deeply seeded as the bloom now disturbing the distance between his mind and eye: it's still a gobstopper.

"So, no different than any of us, really," Prior reasons, mildly. It's not true, of course — not entirely — but still true enough that when he thinks back to his contemporaries, there are more than a few he could count who might say the very same.

Stretching out his legs, he's only mildly interested in the sounds from the forest, the movement of troops and troop-movers that rumble the ground for the feet, but can barely be detected by the ears. Enough to be a small nation moving over the earth, a churn only mankind and create.

"Camaraderie must have been in short supply before all of this," he adds, twisting his finger in the air to indicate war, as a whole. "But even this far apart, we're somehow brothers in arms. 'Somehow,' I say, as if it weren't the purpose of war to start."