[ open ] I reach towards the sky I've said my goodbyes

[towerjunkie]

WHO: Roland Deschain
WHAT: a man with no memory explores everyone else's domains
WHEN: A week or two after every got the fuck out of Thorne
WHERE: the Horizon


He feels the pull deep in his gut. To create something like home and safety and familiar around him. It's a compulsion, almost.

But the gunslinger walks away from it. Home is far away, a source of hard failure, pain, and mistakes that do not serve him. He can't call any of those mistakes to mind, but the feeling is enough. He must leave. He must wander. He has a sense that he must find what he's searching for and that this is far away, in the distance, behind a long and hard road. Home will not lead him to what he's looking for.

It doesn't concern him that the gunslinger does not know who he is. Names come and go, they have little meaning. Meaning comes from-- the destination? From finding his purpose and resolving it? Yes, that seems right. In his mind's eye there is a tower, he thinks. A tall, dark shape far, far in the distance that he does not see but he feels deep in his soul. The heavy, overlarge guns on his hips will help him in his quest.

He is dressed for a journey. His boots are worn but sound. His hat will protect him from the sun and the wind and the rain, as will his coat. In the gunna slung over his shoulder he finds food and tobacco and bullets. So many bullets. These will help him journey well.

And so he knows it is out there. His goal. His quest. The resolution to his being. He was formed to be this. So he turns from the feeling of home and comfort and walks out across the desert.

Sand shifts under his boots. In fact, everywhere he walks there will be sand underfoot, no matter the domain. He brings it with him. The gunslinger seems oblivious to this, or finds it completely normal. Sand underfoot is an indication of progress, he's sure.

So he pursues his aim, confident it will be found.

It's likely he finds others, in their own kingdoms that do not feel like his home, but also do not feel like the failure and pain of home. It seems worthwhile to linger; explore.

"Hile," says the man, when he encounters someone else. And, if they seem a friend, "Long days and pleasant nights". If he has a feeling danger, he'll draw the sandalwood guns instead.

[ooc: heyyy please assume roland has wandered into your character's domain! I'll leave it up to individuals whether they want the domain to come across as threatening enough that he'd have chosen to draw his guns. Please feel free to link descriptions of your domain if you don't want to write them all up again, or to reach out to me (sprakles) if you want a more detailed/specific meeting :).

I will likely be slow in responses so please keep that in mind. ]

Comments

[the_archive]

Jon's domain is a prison, tall and fortress-like in its thin ring of scruffy green field. There are no bars in the windows, no door in the entryway, but what it should be remains unmistakable. And atop the outer wall, above that gaping entryway, is a broken gallows. Jon is up there, atop the wall in the bright sunlight, contemplating the listing heap of timbers with a scowl on his face while a gray cat twists around his ankle.

[towerjunkie]

The sound of footsteps on sand and concrete echoes through the building as Roland approaches, gun drawn. He knows a prison when he sees one.

The gallows at the center gives him pause, as does the cat. The confusion doesn't show on his face, but his mind is entirely unprotected. Cautious, but not hostile, he calls up to the figure:

"Hile, stranger. What is this place?"

[the_archive]

The noose vanishes from existence a moment before Jon looks down. Because he recognizes Roland, the gun's not a surprise, only that it's drawn.

"A minute, I'll come down." He disappears down off the edge, hopping to the walkway around the uppermost layer of cells, and makes his way down the clanging metal stairs. The cat follows along silently, and is still at his heels when he reaches the bottom.

"Hello. Exploring?"

[antichristsplusone]

One domain Roland encounters is entirely contained within a single building. It's warm when he steps inside, emulating the sense of coming in from somewhere briskly cold, and the narrowish halls are filled with... mannequins. Smartly dressed ones, varieties of fashion largely befitting Martin's own time period, but all of them are faceless and hairless, only animating when Roland turns his face away.

There's a long line of doors down the corridor, but only three seem to stand out; the huge library's huge double doors, a plain dark wooden one with the grain forming a wide open eye where a plaque would go, and an actual door with a plaque on it, Prof. Blackwood in English, ajar with an audible voice inside, though the words aren't clear through the quiet susurrus of shifting fabric.

[girl_at_the_window]

The long grass starts to bleed into the surrounding domains, so that this domain comes into view little by little rather than all at once. There's rolling fields, golden in the sunshine. There's a little creek, running through the gravel. There's a herd of horses, grazing not so very far away. On the hillside, there's a ranch house, and on its stoop, there's a girl, sitting with one knee curled up to her chest, her hand twisting idly in front of her as she makes and remakes the flowers in the planter nearby to her satisfaction. She's dressed in jeans and a baggy men's shirt, the sign of the Lovers embroidered on the breast pocket and again, larger, on the back of the shirt; the same design is on the buckle of her wide-brimmed hat. Her blonde hair is braided down her back.

She looks up at his approach, and her smile is sudden and bright as she jumps to her feet, bootheels loud on the slatted wood.

"Finally!"

[nadine_he_loves]

Nadine's domain has been remade, now a quaint little New England town bordered by farmland and autumn forest. The streets are devoid of life, but that's just the nature of the Horizon. It's not much of a town, only a handful of blocks around a town square, but there's something charming about it. The white church steeple, the old barns, the red and gold leaves.

And then there's the skeletal carousel on the town green.

Nadine herself is at the little red schoolhouse, regal gown replaced with a high necked white blouse and black pencil skirt and practical flat shoes, her sign displayed on a pendant around her neck. The door is open and she's standing on the stoop, peering inside with a thoughtful expression. But the sound of footsteps draws her attention and she turns.

It's the old cowboy.

"Hi...can I help you?"

[unnecessaryflourishes]

This particular domain is... hard to miss, the great spires of the city swooping up to meet the skyline. It doesn't seem an unfriendly place though, for that. Melancholic, perhaps, with the ghosts of tall robed figures that drift in and and of view as they go about what seems to be the mundanities of day-to-day life, snippets of conversation following them as they go, but nothing beyond that.

That said, neither will it take long to realize that the city is not built with humans in mind - the echo-ghosts stand easily twice the height of the tallest man, and every inch of the city is built to a similar scale; doors are too tall and wide, benches look as if they might require some effort to get up onto and even what few stairs there are look a little outsized (though they are, at least, often paired with ramps.

Emet-Selch himself, however, is not immediately visible. Or rather, not by any form that would be recognizable to anyone who had even so much as spotted him outside of the Horizon. But in amongst the robed and masked figures of the city there is one who is not wearing a mask; tall like the rest, and pale-haired but real, in a way the others are not.