closed

[satanicpanics]

Who: Eddie & River
When: January
Where: Nocwich
What: Questin’
Warnings: Corpses, maybe more TBA



[ Most of the jobs Eddie has been accepted here in Abraxas have been simple: toss a few fish back into the sea, cheer up some kids with some music—it’s always things he can complete in half a day without breaking too much of a sweat, and he’s happy to help. But this? This is a big job. An incredibly heavy, incredibly somber job.

Eddie would normally lean into the more comic side of his personality in cases like this, telling jokes to keep things light, but he doesn’t feel like that’s a particularly valid option here. He’s happy to joke at his own expense, about his own death, but this is different. The humor helps him cope, but unlike Eddie, these people died and are still dead. They aren’t even here to cope, so he makes a mental note to turn off the jokes until they figure out who these people were.

The more he dwells on it, the guiltier he feels about involving River in it as well. Ordinarily, he’d try to rope Steve in first, but Steve had actually been there on the island along with these people and still doesn’t seem to want to discuss whatever happened there. Afterward, he just happened to pick River at random considering how well they immediately seemed to get along. She’s so new, though, and when they meet up in Nocwich, Eddie vaguely wonders how much she actually knows about this entire thing. ]

Hey, so, you weren’t here for the whole…island thing, were you? Anyone catch you up on what went down?

Comments

[thoughts]

[ a soft exhale leaves her when eddie finds a direction to move in, a sigh of relief she didn't know was caught in her throat. it's hard to make sense of the noise in her head. too many voices, too many images that overlap, clouded further by her narrow grasp on reality. but eddie listens and figures out the most important clues to follow, so as he starts moving around the room with purpose, river follows.

but she's much slower as they walk through the rows and rows of disfigured bodies, hearing their stories too in an overwhelming tide. her fingers rub across the stone in his ring almost obsessively, trying to stay grounded in the present moment and the task at hand.

when he stops and gestures to the horrifying creature that the woman's sister has become, despair drops into the pit of her stomach and she ends up on the edge of panic again. ]

No, no no no. It has to be here! They're always together, never far from each other.

[ the way she and simon had been inseparable once upon a time. maybe that's part of why she feels so bereft on behalf of these siblings. river gets far too close to the body, just shy of touching it with her bare hands, to look around for the pendant.

not finding it there, she turns instead to frantically looking around the other bodies and then starts digging in the box of things the attendants had collected to be tested in a lab later. one of them sees her and calls out 'hey!' since they weren't asked to help with sorting their belongings - but river ignores them entirely.

the necklace isn't here either. but it has to be somewhere. they're supposed to be together. river looks around one last time, eyes wide and searching, then doesn't turn back to eddie when she just leaves the room entirely to go look somewhere else. the morgue assistant turns to him with a disapproving look, probably expecting some kind of explanation. ]

[satanicpanics]

[ He’s not about to insist they give up, but he is about to insist on a quick break to collect their thoughts when River takes it upon herself to go out of bounds. Eddie’s anxiety spikes as he hurries after her. He’s not exactly a stickler for the rules. In fact, he’s very much a believer that some rules are meant to be broken, but there are times when he would just prefer to keep his head down and stay out of trouble. Though, it seems like he doesn’t have a choice here. ]

Hey! Hey, hey, hey!

[ He hisses after her, but she’s already halfway down the hall, and she’s clearly not stopping for anyone, because she marches right past the morgue assistant, who fixes Eddie with a questioning and disapproving look.

Maybe he can’t fully understand River’s dedication to reuniting these two siblings. He has no siblings, and the only family member he feels even relative close to these days is his uncle, but he does know what a horrible feeling it is to be alone. And besides that, he doesn’t have to understand. It’s clearly important to River, and he’s not going to take that away from her.

So he quietly utters shit beneath his breath, and turns to the assistant with his most charming smile. ]

So, uh…she just needs some air. Pretty heavy shit in there, you know?

[ But that is clearly not the way to the exit, and when the morgue assistant mentions it, Eddie know he needs to buy her some time to look a round. It’s important to her, so it’s important to him. ]

Oh, you’re right. I’ll go get her, just—

[ He panics, just a little bit, contemplates roping him in with a half an hour of the intricacies of elven politics in Tolkien, but then he remembers that he has powers here, and he relaxes. ]

So, uh, real quick—what’s black and white and red all over? [ He doesn’t give him an opportunity to answer. ] Well, given how huge the universe is, dude? Probably a ton of items.

[ It’s not a funny joke, and that’s sort of the point. Because with a little focus, Eddie has the ability to twist anything he says into the most hilarious joke anyone has ever heard—and it works. The morgue assistant falls into a fully incapacitating fit of laughter, to the point he has to kneel on the ground clutching his stomach as he chuckles, tears in his eyes.

Eddie bows, grinning, and then calls over this shoulder: ]

Hurry it up, River!

[thoughts]

[ thankfully, it doesn't take long. if asked, river will never be able to explain how it is that she knew where to go. the information is just there - whether it's a memory or an emotion, if it's from the living or the dead, she really has no way to tell. but it calls out to her, a ringing that echoes through the noise in her head, so she follows the sound like a homing beacon.

down the hall, just a few rooms away, she finds another one filled with more boxes than bodies, an assorted collection of items retrieved from the island. she knows there are people in the room that are speaking to her, knows eddie followed after her and hears laughter in the hall, but it's all background noise. static fuzz cut through by a ringing that gets louder as she moves from the first box to a second and a third.

it all stops when her fingers finally find what her mind was reaching for; a sudden silence deafens her to the rest of the world as she pulls a necklace out of the box. the string snapped from a neck that grew to the width of a tree trunk but the bone charm is still there, beautifully carved to fit one half of a pair.

they're both caked with dirt and gore now, but at least they won't be alone.

river stares at the pendant for a moment longer before clutching it to her chest, letting the rest of the noise flood back in as she turns around. she notices the room's attendants first and gives them a quick bow in silent apology, then runs to eddie's side and tugs on his sleeve. ]

Eddie. Time to go home now.

[ not for them, at least not yet. but for these nameless sisters who lost themselves in the dark, they can help them be on their way. together, the way they're supposed to be.

although, now that she's next to him, the morgue assistant's forced laughter is much harder to ignore. river eyes him curiously and then blinks at eddie. she seems more focused than before, most of the distress simmered away now that she holds the missing puzzle piece. ]

Is he okay? Did you break him?

[satanicpanics]

[ He glances down when he feels the tug on his sleeve, and it’s not hard to see that River is in a significantly better emotional place than she was only minutes ago. He’s quicker to catch on this time too; she’s clutching something in her hand and while she says it’s time to go home, Eddie can piece together than she doesn’t mean them, not yet. ]

Huh? Oh, he’s fine. I just told him a joke. Guess it was a real side-splitter.

[ He grins, innocent as can be—which really isn’t innocent at all, but the morgue assistant isn’t injured. The only pain he’s going to be suffer is his stomach from all that laughter, but it’s slowly beginning to ebb now. ]

I’ll be here all week, man.

[ He dips into another bow and leaves the poor morgue assistant to pull himself together, turning to lead River back into the room with the two sisters. He can’t help but be a little proud that she actually found it, especially when Eddie himself was planning on giving up. Partly due to that and party because she’s so invested, he thinks she should have the honor of reuniting the two. ]

How did you know where it was?

[thoughts]

[ river almost laughs as they head back to the room like misbehaving children fleeing the scene of a crime. eddie's antics are as entertaining as the first time they met. she imagines the assistant won't be very happy with them, nor any of the other morgue staff that watched her enter a room unauthorized and take something.

but this is important to her. and as much as her overall demeanor has improved, the voices are still there in her head. the pressure is just less intense now that this one knot has been unraveled. ]

Sometimes lost things want to be found.

[ it's the best explanation she can offer. river bypasses the humanoid plant entirely to go back to the other body. ]

She wanted it back. The sister. Felt it slipping.l and wanted to give it back, hoping maybe she would escape and take a piece of her back home.

[ but they died together instead. river places the pendant on the body so the bone charm rests next to its other half. together again and irrevocably separated.

not a moment later, the morgue assistant storms right up to them, red in the face ( from laughter or anger or both ) as he demands to know what they were doing. river tucks herself halfway behind eddie, head ducked sheepishly as she says: ]

Duìbùqǐ, bié shēngqì. She won't touch anymore, I promise.

[ it's probably better that way, honestly. things only boiled over after touching the pendant. maybe they can take a break and try again? if they'll let them, that is... ]

[satanicpanics]

[ Despite everything--the horrific condition the corpses are in, River’s outburst, the general air of fear and anxiety—Eddie nearly laughs as well. He manages to contain himself, but he does flash her a mischievous grin when they duck back into the room.

He lets River reunite the two bone pieces. It’s important to her, and important to them. It’s a quiet moment, but then the morgue assistant barges in and Eddie nearly jumps out of his skin.]

Jesus Christ, man, I already told you my best joke. You’re gonna have to wait for new material if you want more.

[ Eddie holds up his hands defensively, but then reconsiders. There should be no reason why they’d be in trouble. After all, they haven’t done anything wrong, and what’s the worst that can happen if they just tell the truth? He shoots River a quick glance over his shoulder, and slowly lowers his hands. ]

Alright, so…these two—

[ He gestures between the two women. ]

They’re sisters. We just needed to confirm. See?

[ Now, he brings the morgue assistant’s attention to the bone charms. ]

We had one, we needed the other. River…saw it on our way in and recognized the other half here.

[ Now, that part is a lie, but it’s going to take significantly longer to tell the truth about River and her ability to speak telekinetically to the dead. ]

Just doing our job, dude.

[thoughts]

[ it takes a moment for river to realize eddie is covering for her. she didn't ask him to - didn't even think of it, really, but she's grateful. so when the assistant skeptically asks how they could possibly know they were sisters with the state of their bodies, she decides to lean into it.

maybe a little harder than eddie, though; her voice doesn't change in pitch, still contrite and thick with emotion as she stares at the body and outright lies. ]

They were neighbors. Saw them all the time in the Primary Settlement. They liked to set up at the same booth in the market, next to a plot of flowers and downwind from the bakery.

[ never mind that she's never been to solvunn. if he pays close enough attention, eddie might recognize the description - from the last time he was at the market himself. she isn't reading their memories but his, weaving the story of a life that never was based on what he knows and selling it as the honest truth.

she sounds fond, wistful, and devastated, the way anyone might witnessing the gruesome end of their "friends." ]

Their family was so sad when they were taken. Oh god, what are we going to tell them now?

[ she turns into eddie, hiding her face against him as she quietly sobs. the morgue staff seem to shrug it off at that point; they've seen enough emotional breakdowns over these horrible deaths already. they don't have the time to be moved, so the assistant just tells them not to go out of bounds of their assignment again, or else they'll be asked to leave.

river doesn't respond beyond a nod as she continues to cry. it's only once she's certain they're gone that she pulls away from eddie, her eyes red but dry as she smiles at him like all is well in the world. ]

Ràoguò tiān kēng, that was close. Thank you.

[satanicpanics]

[ Eddie nods solemnly along with River as she weaves a false tale for the morgue assistant, his eyes enormous and pitiful. It’s a convincing lie, though Eddie has been a visitor in Solvunn for over a year now, and he knows the details are off. He just hopes the morgue worker knows less about the Primary Settlement and doesn’t question anything.

He wraps a comforting arm around River as she devolves into tears, shooting the man a look that says “come on, are you really gonna make her cry?” Between the two, it seems to work. The man gives them a good talking to, leaves, and River pulls away with dry eyes. Eddie bursts into laughter. ]

Are you kidding me? That was all you.

[ And he couldn’t be prouder! ]

Alright, why don’t we take that break now? I think we’ve both earned it.