EVENT #10: AFFLICTION - IC POST

[abraxasmods]

Event #10 - Affliction

go to the OOC event info & plotting post

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With tensions heavy across Abraxas and all the destruction that's happened, it's no surprise that the dark shadows which sweep over the land go unnoticed...at first.

Winds initially stir in Solvunn, where the influence of the Old Gods remains the strongest. Slowly each Herald infects Thorne and the Free Cities, as well. The Summoned are the first to feel its effects and are the most heavily impacted.

Though no one will realize it until well afterwards, Nocwich remains unaffected. After all, the Summoned don't reside there.

NOTE: This event will deal with themes of death (people and animal) and horror imagery.

Emergence

It begins sometime in mid-October, around the 18th. Not everyone will experience it at the same time. You might even believe you're spared until days afterwards when you're visited by an unusually vivid dream.

The dream starts the same for everyone: you are going somewhere, anywhere, walking to your bedroom or enjoying a stroll on the beach. You might be driving down a familiar neighborhood. Wherever you're headed, you eventually come upon a stone tablet engraved with your Arcana. Laid on the tablet are three objects:

◎ A dead moth trapped inside a wilted rose, symbolizing Koth of Festering Lands
◎ A teacup inside which sits a single nightshade berry, symbolizing Adlewyrd of Poisoned Tongues
◎ An ornate cracked hand mirror that contains no reflection, symbolizing Sannleikr of Many Faces

Make a choice. Something inside your soul will be drawn towards one of the objects. Maybe you spend hours in the dream deliberating, but sooner or later, you'll pick one of the items up. The moment you do, the other objects vanish and the chosen Herald appears before you. Where one might expect a god to seek subservience, the strange figure instead extends a friendly hand towards you - as though it's greeting you as an equal.

Whispered around you, you hear its name. Then it fades and with it the dream. You awaken.

Affliction

You go about your day as usual. That's when you realize something isn't right. Creatures and people around you behave strangely. You begin to sense that you are the cause.

Depending on your chosen Herald, you'll experience at least one of its afflictions. The effects might start small, then grow. They might rush you all at once. You can't shake what haunts you, though you can try. Spells, potions, and willpower can help keep the afflictions at bay but you won't ever be completely free.

As the afflictions seep into your mind, you start to find shadows of it following you: a dead moth here, a nightshade bloom there, a cracked mirror elsewhere. You may even wonder if it's following you in the first place. What if instead, you are the one leaving these signs behind?

Corruption

The first time you inflict your ability on someone else, you don't mean to. It might be a stranger, some unsuspecting soul, or it might be another Summoned. Regardless, the afflictions that ail you seem to spread through you into another. Someone falls down as if in the throes of an invisible death or secrets spill. You brush by someone and they're suddenly upset and confused.

The more this happens, intentionally or not, the better you feel. You may grow full of life and energy, gain a renewed strength of heart, or radiate a charm that turns heads and garners compliments. The afflictions haunting you could even start to fade or completely vanish. And if you use your newfound power deliberately? You'll feel better even faster for longer. Of course, these boons are temporary, lasting at most an hour or so. When the feeling wanes, you might miss having it.

You are not possessed. You can't control this power that spreads through you, but how you respond or behave is up to you. You could be attracted to the allure of power, enjoy the boons you are granted, or realize you can gain relief from your afflictions if you choose a victim. Not everyone will fall headfirst into the pull. Some are not easily swayed by power, some struggle to overcome their dark impulses, and others would rather endure their suffering than inflict it on someone else. But others still might succumb to temptation and turn on those around them with purpose: once, twice, multiple times. The choice you make is yours alone.

Blight

With the call of the Herald at your fingertips, the world around you twists. No one knows whether this stems from you and your newly imbued afflictions, or if the Heralds are exerting power on their own. It's for sure easier to think of what occurs as the influence of something monstrous beyond your control. No matter the cause, the earth is changed all the same.

Omens

The omens arrive shortly after the initial Summoned receive their dreams, but they don't come to every faction at once. SOLVUNN is first, being home to the Old Gods' shrines, before THORNE and the FREE CITIES follow only days afterwards. Depending on where you are, the omens will affect things a bit differently.

Solvunn

In Solvunn, the ground stirs. A desiccated hand breaks through the grass, a cloven hoof. Human or animal, they crawl forth, animated against their will. Some might attack, but most do not. At the same time, crops around the settlements begin to fail. Some chickens lay rotten eggs while cows produce spoiled milk. Any livestock that perishes overnight will surface in the mornings with empty eye sockets - pecked out by crows or gnawed on by rats. From a distance, the ocean can be seen bubbling as leviathans beneath thrash.

Worth noting is that many of the dead are concentrated around the shrines, especially the ones deep in the woods. They're too decayed to recognize, and some might not even move from the site, as though they are waiting for the earth to take them again...or as though they once chose to give up their life at this very spot.

Summoned can assist by helping to cast spells or place warding charms around shrines, farms, and gardens to protect crops and livestock. As a commune, the Solvunnites will share their resources as much as possible and would appreciate those who might lend a hand bringing supplies, herbs, and offerings to neighbors who are lacking. The Summoned can also brew a common herbal remedy to aid any animals who have fallen ill or to help purify the well water.

Free Cities

In Libertas, the dead buried under the rubble dig themselves out. More crawl forth from graves in Cadens' cemeteries. Beasts and bandits slain in the desert wilds rise, hungry or searching for the ones who killed them. At the same time, dead fish wash up onto the shores of Aquila while birds fall dead from their perch, dropping like flies from an unknown illness. Vultures and other scavengers begin to prey upon the eyes of the dead, leaving behind hollowed-out corpses.

Worth noting is that in the Badlands, a few very old and skeletal corpses rise with a metal plate or two screwed onto their bones, which are also oddly elongated. Only one or two make their way near the city. The army is quick to dispose of them before many can notice. They will not disclose any information about this and will claim these are just monsters like anything else.

Summoned can assist by going on patrol with the soldiers to put down any risen dead. Merchant caravans are also hiring escorts for their journeys. Additionally, they can help look through any received supplies and packages to make sure the food isn't rotting or worse, use a special dissolving compound to purify the waters, and donate staple food items to refugees and the less fortunate who can't afford the rising prices.

Thorne

In Thorne, the dead emerge only from the outskirts of the castle city. Thanks to information from one of their Summoned and their recent monitoring of the Singularity, Thorne was able to act swiftly and was able to ward any royal or otherwise significant burial sites. Graves and tombs of less importance, though, will not be protected in the same way. There are fewer encounters with eyeless corpses, though some animals might appear outside the castle in such a state. Normally extravagant dishes from the Castle's kitchens use simpler ingredients as they struggle to ration their food stores.

Worth noting is that a few unexpected corpses make their way up from deep under the castle in places beyond the dungeons. These are twisted and mangled, missing limbs, heads, fingers. The castle guards are quick to dispose of them before they get too far into the rest of the castle, but one or two may be spotted.

Summoned can assist by contributing to the wards around Castle Thorne and the city, using spells to put down the dead without mangling the corpse, and taking inventory of food stores. Further, in Nott the situation is more dire for anyone who is traveling there to continue assisting with repairs following the attack. Nott will welcome help with any problems caused by the omens. It'll be clear the kingdom has neglected the city somewhat. Thorne will claim the Castle takes priority, of course, due to King and Queen residing there along with the entire royal court.

Apprehensions

Across the factions, locals are beginning to catch on that something isn't right with you, the Summoned. No one will say it outright, but there's an air of caution and wariness around you where you go. Merchants might be quick to hand you your wares so you'll leave or locals give you a bit of space when they walk by. Chatty innkeepers are more reluctant to hold lengthy conversations.

Much of the time, it may not be conscious. The natives might simply sense something off that instinctually makes them want to put some distance between them and you. The only exception? If you've chosen Sannleikr of Many Faces, you'll continue to exude your charm towards people you encounter. At least for as long as you continue to inflict that ability you've been gifted.

Displacement

Everyone responds differently while in the Horizon. You might exert better willpower over your afflictions or you might feel its effects more strongly. It all depends on the individual and their mindset. Regardless, the Heralds are only one part of the equation. There's a much bigger disturbance going on.

It could happen as soon as you enter or it might be as you're stepping over the threshold into another's domain. Whatever the case, you are suddenly not where you're supposed to be. Instead, you're in one of two places depending: transported into a domain you never meant to go into or in a foreign setting altogether.

Visitation

Whether you're the one transported or someone teleports unexpectedly into your space, the Horizon becomes unpredictable for the next little while. Rooms normally locked to strangers, areas you yourself may not even realize exists - you and your fellow Summoned continue to pop in and out despite your intentions.

The effect isn't painful, just disorienting, like missing a step you didn't see or stumbling through a door into a too-bright room. The person whose domain you've inadvertently visited might sense an unwanted presence, whether they're inside the Horizon or not, or they may be completely oblivious. This will depend on the strength of their connection to the Singularity and the Horizon.

Not to worry. You won't be trapped or anything in these cases...unless the domain you land in happens to seal from the inside. You might stumble on secrets you weren't meant to find, though, locked away in someone else's mind.

Ensnared

The less fortunate will be pulled into a space that they've never encountered before. The bizarreness of it resembles the glitchy visions that flashed through a few months ago, but rather than an image flickering by, you are now inside the space itself.

Trapped between minutes to hours, you can't use the Horizon's creation magic as normal. Attempts will falter or go sideways: trying to fly out might cause you to tumble, tools and objects are broken or not quite right, wounds don't vanish or heal completely, etc. More significantly, you can't seem to send or receive messages through your connection. Anything that manages to come through will be garbled and distorted. It's as though the place you are in is just out of the reach of your control.

Luckily, you may not be alone. Someone else may have gotten lost alongside you. They might already be there when you stumble through or they might arrive after you do. They might even fade out sooner than you, unintentionally leaving you behind.

Eventually, you'll be released back into the Horizon proper, spat out in a random place in the Horizon. While you're stuck, though, you can try to survive, explore, sit and wait it out, or make friends with your fellow trapped partner. Each area has its challenges and quirks that you'll need to deal with.

Scenes to Explore

JUSTICE ◎
FULL IMAGE

High in the clouds, these snowy peaks are as cold as they look. Giant marble hands reach out, though their sheer scale means you might not recognize them as hands from up close. You can scale the mountain, but if you try to go down, the hands will flip the mountain, which sends you tumbling to the top again.

It's up to you whether you can be injured when you fall. Maybe the snow will feel like marshmallows, or you'll break a bone on the jagged rocks. No two experiences are the same. If you have a partner, they could end up faring better than you despite being in the same place.

Conjure some warm clothes or a log cabin even if you wish - they might not manifest perfectly, but it'll be better than nothing. At least the view's fairly nice...while the sun is up. A blizzard will come through by nightfall. With it arrives a strange hovering light that entices you or your friend to follow it into the frozen darkness. What draws you out depends on you. It could be a familiar voice, an image, or a simple compulsion. If you're lucky, the person with you is unaffected and can try to stop you. Or maybe you're the one desperately chasing after the other person?

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THE CHARIOT ◎
FULL IMAGE

From a distance, it's hard to tell if they're shipping containers or houses stacked atop each other. A gooey mess covers the ground below. Oddly, the smell isn't as unpleasant as the goo looks. It smells like bubblegum or cotton candy, artificial and sweet. When you first fall in, you might land inside one of the homes, on top of the stacked structure, or the ground. You can try to reach anyone else who's there with you, but be careful: the ooze is spreading. Climb if you must or move from room to room. If you don't keep moving, you risk getting sucked into its sticky mass.

Each block of a home is different. Some are furnished, whereas others are empty or filled with strange knickknacks. Some might even have subconscious creations spawned by you. Keep ahead of the gloopy substance, and you'll be fine, probably. Or you can try to fight it back or block its path by sealing yourself in a room or otherwise, which can slow it down significantly. Mostly, you'll have to hope you fade out before the pink mass completely consumes the landscape.

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THE WORLD ◎
FULL IMAGE

The hazy neon glow obscures a nothingness that seems to extend forever. In the middle of the wet ground are several stacked television sets with wires plugged into nothing. Inexplicably, there's also a cat. At first, it appears perfectly normal, but keen observers will notice that its behavior is on a loop where it will walk a certain path, pause at specific intervals to lick its paws, and meow at set points. It does not acknowledge any of its intruders. You can break its loop by picking it up, at which point it'll go limp as a ragdoll. As soon as you set it down, it'll resume its actions as before.

While you can see the same images as someone else on the screens, it's also possible you'll each see something different despite being in the room together. What you see is up to you. It could be an old fuzzy movie, home videos of your childhood, trivia questions you have to answer correctly, or even a memory or vision you wouldn't want to share. Words or faces taunting you could appear between staticky flickers, or maybe your very thoughts are projected onto the screens for anyone with you to read.

Break the televisions if you want, but given a few short minutes, they'll reform between one blink and the next. Looks like you'll have to keep watching until you're released.

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THE FOOL ◎
FULL IMAGE

Sprawling and massive, you're unlikely to recognize at first that you're trapped in a labyrinth. Stone walls rise around you, and your surroundings are pitchblack. Manifest a torch or a flashlight if you can, though these will be prone to going out at inopportune times. Escaping over the walls will only send you into another section in the maze.

As you navigate the twisting corridors, you'll encounter any variety of trials and troubles: gaps in the ground, spiked traps, haunting whispers, monsters, decaying corpses. Some of these might've formed from your mind, others might've spawned from anyone else who's trapped with you.

If you aren't alone, do your best to locate your fellow Summoned. Voices do carry and echo over the walls, and there could be landmarks that help you find each other. Finding the exit, however, is another matter. Walk and climb all you want. A way out is impossible until the Horizon chooses to set you free.

Players can pick any scenario that interests them from the four choices above. Unlike the visions from before, characters can accidentally be trapped in as many of the scenes as you want, as many times as you want. Another option is that they can stay trapped in only one scene while a variety of characters fade in and out to join them, or some combination of the two. Choose what works best for your plans.

Each scene will once again carry an associated Arcana etched somewhere inside it, which can change from person to person or instance to instance. It might be on a wall, a table, or on the ground. Characters with a stronger connection to the Horizon are likely to be trapped for longer but the extent of this is your choice and it won't ever exceed a few hours. It's also your choice whether the afflictions continue to haunt them or not. If you want characters to deal with both problems while stuck together, you're welcome to!

Generally speaking, there are no restrictions other than that they won't be able to communicate with anyone outside the area, they can't escape it until the Horizon chooses to release them, and their creation magic will go wrong just enough that it'll make things tricky.

Comments

[tobeclosetohim]

Jo is staring at that dark, fingers on the gun covered in that black body sludge that isn't blood, trying to press hard enough, slipping just slightly. She can't see anything. It's just darkness. Just that sound. The slap of paws and scraping of claws has her frozen. Not even a gun this time. No other weapon. Her brain won't agree to move, slam into action. Even the weight of the sludge on her shirt feels too right. Soaked through, heavy-slick. Dipping everywhere.

Something happens suddenly, and Jo swings to look at Geralt (even as her brain s c r e a m s that's the wrong move, don't look away, don't look away, don't look away). His hand is out, and the ripples of magic are visible even when the hellhound isn't. Waves slam through the air, all too clear compared to the nothing still in the space the magic flares into, as the hound yelps, and the body can be heard rolling, hitting the wall, scrambling hard in its attempt to get back up, to fight back, that growl turning full-throated into barking.

It's not there. But it is. It's just a series of noises echoing.

Geralt still has his knife and canvases the dark in a rush. But, somehow, the sound of the feet, claws clicking, is between them next, nothing in the air at all still, but it's there, and Jo scrambles back into the wall, as small as possible suddenly, terror an unquenchable spike, hands dropping the gun as she's instinctively, desperately wrapping her arms around her stomach, her mind reproducing in every cell the violent pain ripping her wide open before it's even started again.

[gynvael]

The unseen creature charges—not at him, but at Jo. Paws pounding on the ground right past him. As though it hardly even notices he's there, a hound on a trail. He's expecting her to roll out of the way, grab her weapon, something. But she's pressed against the wall; her pulse spikes, thrumming.

He moves on impulse, dives in its path. Brings the dagger down blindly, wet fur under his hands. It yowls, a noise that pierces the air. Jaws snap, blood spilling hot and heavy. He holds it down until it stills, panting breaths silent.

(Invisible hounds. That's new.)

Shit. He pushes himself upright. He's sticky with blood, his own and the wolves. No injuries deep enough to worry about, though. His eyes go back to Jo. Has he got questions? Yes. But. They need to get the fuck out of here first. And he's not certain she'll appreciate being asked. He knows what genuine fear looks like. Whatever that thing was, she clearly recognized it. Encountered it once, likely.

He picks up the fallen gun. Offers it back to her—a gesture that functions almost as a hand to her feet, but not quite.

Are you okay? circles his mind before he settles on, "Can you stand?"

[tobeclosetohim]

It goes down. Geralt is on top of a pile of air, and if she could think outside of the shame (and relief when that heavy rattle of breath makes it dead), it would be comical. But it's not. Nothing is funny now. Every laugh, every smile, every deep silence is demolished utterly and stripped to nothing but her skin and even less than that.

Jo's jaw is locked, teeth pressed so hard there's pain radiating into her neck and head. Too certain if she released it, they'd be shaking, chattering inside. It's hard to say if it's hate or shame or fear that has the more brutal hold of jaws around her neck. One part of her yelling to get back up, spine straight, shoulders level. The other wants to burn these last five minutes to the ground, take back any proof she could ever be this weak. Another is desperate to curl up tighter into herself until the Horizon makes her disappear.

There are tears in her eyes, and that pressure is keeping them only there, too. She doesn't cry, doesn't do tears; another weakness. Her fist is pressed against her mouth, but there's not a single sound coming out of her (just that still speeding sprint of her heart; that too forced rhythm of her breath muffled against that curl of fingers, trying to escape her and being granted, forced into, only even breaths).

It's his feet she can see first. It's worse at that, though. It's worse that it's him. It takes her seconds—nearly makes her nauseous to try swallowing; hot, sticky, clinging shame is so much worse than fear, suffocating in her blood; this isn't her—to even make it to four words. More breath than sound in them, like any more force, might crack her voice, too. "I need a moment."

[gynvael]

A pause. Something in his expression shifts. And yeah. He does get it. Knows this is not really something to solve with talk. That isn't his nature, anyhow.

Dead wolves surround them. The body of the strange wolf or hound remains, even if it's unseen: a lump that he can nudge with his foot. There's nothing left to kill, no further threats looming.

So he sits down with her. Not close, but not too far. An easy distance between them where she can ignore him if she wants. It is not difficult, if he gives it some thought, to begin to piece together what may have occurred. He doubts any regular monster would bother her so. And this maze has proven it likes to spawn what they least want to face. What is it then? Her death or another's? (The one he made her witness without meaning to? Dean's?) Both?

Silence hangs over them. Not uncomfortably, not on his part. More a lack of need to fill the air with words for the sake of it. He stays that way for a while. Manages to conjure a scrap of cloth to at least wrap his arm so he stops dripping blood on himself.

That's what he's doing, tucking the ends of the cloth in, when he finally says, "At least you didn't vomit."

There's a softer edge to his words, deadpan but with a kind of understanding alongside it. Because they've both had their turn, have they not? Being thoroughly fucked with? And here they are. With the person they least would have chosen, but since when does the fickle mistress of life care about what they might have preferred?

[tobeclosetohim]

Panic and fear are not rational playmates, and asking for any patience of Geralt feels akin to some level of forfeit she did not come into this day, no less the Horizon, ready to shed. But her heart is only starting to slow, and she takes a long deep breath in her nose. Takes that fist and opens it up, using both hands to rub her face, and she's right on the cusp of saying something like—

sorry

—when he speaks,
and Jo snorts despite herself,
not prepared for that at all.

For Geralt to be self-deprecating. It's raw, and she swallows around the space it leaves, startled up from who knows where. Jo licks her lips and lets her head finally come up if to rest it on the wall. There is that, she thinks, and doesn't know if she should be grateful for a segue of something like compassion or a reminder it could be worse.

(It could be. She could be dead again. Right here.
Guts ripped open, blood pouring out of like a foundation.)

Jo swallows against dryness, sour sticking to the back of her tongue, blinking her eyes back dry by focusing on the bodies around them. The ground and the wall can't have anything worse on them than she already has all over her, and it is everywhere. Blood and black and fur. "Didn't have anything clean left to put it on."

[gynvael]

He huffs, quiet. Yes. There is that small detail. They're sitting in a sticky pool of rapidly congealing guts and gore, and frankly he can't give a fuck. Is there a lake in this maze? A bath? He tugs idly on his hair, coming away with a glob of slimy flesh. Flicks it away to join the rest of the mess on the dirt.

It's almost companionable between them. Almost. If you squint. Maybe being too fucking exhausted will do that.

Another minute or so passes. Then: "You've come across that creature before."

It's not a question, but it is. Underneath it lies a, What was it? and What happened? He knows better than to ask outright. It's not his place, anyhow. Not any of his business. But there's room for her to explain if she cares to. There's no real expectation one way or another.

[tobeclosetohim]

It took Jo an extra second to realize she'd nodded an affirmative without saying it. She should get up. It's biting at the back of her neck. She should push herself off this ground and get up. But Geralt isn't moving; hadn't castigated her for keeping him here, falling apart, being utterly useless in the last few minutes.

"Yeah."

The stinging in her leg is a riot of ants, but she's leaning into it. It's real, or as real as anything is going to be here. Pain means she's alive. It's bent, but she almost wants to press down harder on all those cuts. Want a wall of red to cut the fog sharp in her head. Let the pain ride her like a coat and get her nerves all firing into one fine razor point she'll drive into whoever made her go through all of this.

"They're called Hellhounds."

"It's all really there, right on the tin."

Demon dogs from hell. Plus, invisible. Obviously.

[gynvael]

He's no plans on moving any time soon. He's been clawed and scraped and bitten to pieces; he isn't eager for what else lies ahead. Especially not when none of this makes a damn bit of difference. Where the Horizon is concerned, he imagines it is not a case of finding a physical exit.

It's more complicated than that. Isn't it always?

"Mm." Certainly is. They do die, though. So that's a comfort. He looks ahead rather than at her, though he's listening, pulling together the details that lie in the spaces she isn't saying. Hellhounds, hell. The realm that is apparently only reached when one dies. "Dean tried to explain once. Angels and devils."

Perhaps explain is a generous term. Either way, the implication is there: these things do not exist for him the same. Not hell as a singular place of significance, not the devil as a being rather than a term applied to whatever manner of monsters folk can't define nor understand.

Witchers included.

[tobeclosetohim]

It's cobbling back together faster as the seconds keep ticking, and her eyes go back to the darkness the wolves, and the hellhound came from, but it's silent. Not she can trust that, but it, or they, have decided not to put round three up on deck immediately.

"Only met one of each of those." Jo's gaze flicked to the spot Geralt had been hovering in the air. "And two of these now." There's a frown at the air. That empty, empty air and it guts anything that wants to take a tendril of victory in it being dead. Because she can't fucking even see it to take that much back to the hollow shakey things she's starting to push down inside her ribs. "Or one twice."

Fuck. Jo doesn't even want to know what the math on that answer is.

(She wonders, sideways, at the empty spot, if it can burn.)

[gynvael]

One twice is a turn of phrase he catches. Geralt glances at her briefly.

"You think it's the same one."

As what? The wolves are him, he imagines: white fur, sharp teeth. Mountain wolves. But that hound had been all Jo, and it isn't until she says so that it strikes him this place may not have dreamed up just any hellhound from her memories. Instead, it's a specific one.

The one that took her? He hasn't given her death much thought. He knows it happens, knows it can't have been pretty, but the details were not for him to pick at. They aren't now, either—but considering that hound nearly tore into him, too, it's a tad more relevant.

[tobeclosetohim]

"I think this place is taking things from us and using them against us."

A magical mental hideaway where your dreams were reality, and you could make anything appear at the twist of a thought, turn mental fuckery jack-in-the-box, where shit they didn't want was the prize. And there was no saying no because the hand holding your prize had already shoved it into your mouth and down your throat, up to the elbow, before you could even blink.

"Like that smell from your—" There's a tiny pause. "—childhood." It's decisive. No undercurrent of another emotion or twist to the word. It's just an odd correlation in her mouth. It happens and says the other just as blankly. "And this one is mine. Obviously."

Jo rolled her head back up into the wall, running a hand up her face. "That I still haven't actually met for the first time, if we want to fuck that up even more." Because she doesn't meet it until only minutes before everything goes downhill. Who the fuck even knew what was and wasn't off the table if it could use something she didn't even know until arriving here.

[gynvael]

"Didn't need a maze for that." The reply comes wryly. The Horizon has twisted his thoughts long before they fell into this place.

Thus. That room.

He grows quiet. No. She would not have. He's aware of that much, from his brief conversation with Dean. That Jo arrived before she experienced her death. There's a moment where he almost apologizes—for losing his temper, for causing a vision he had not intended—but the sentiment feels trite, or just not quite right, and it dies on his tongue.

Still. For all that she'd been out of line—and make no mistake, for him she had—he's aware he was, too. Perhaps a little of that shows in his demeanour, if not his words.

"I'd say you get used to it." How the Horizon can fuck with you. "But you don't."

[tobeclosetohim]

Jo had stopped rubbing her forehead with her fingers, just looking at the mottled stains on her palm, her fingers, a mess getting itself everywhere, and one not likely to be done with itself if this place had anything to do with it. She lets it fall back to a similarly grim-soaked pant leg over her knee before tilting her head against the wall to look in his direction.

This might be the longest they've been civil.

"Think you're a little late on that pearl of wisdom."

It's already a half-debate whether she should say she's fine now;
they can get up and keep going now. Take whatever the fuck else it wants to try.

[gynvael]

He gives a vague noncommittal grunt. It is in fact the longest they've been civil. He isn't sure how he feels about that. It's not as though there's not been an uneasy truce between them, but that had always been for Dean's sake. And his own desire not to be caught in human squabbles over what makes a monster.

This is different.

Maybe it's why, after a long few minutes, he says, "Did Lucifer have something to do with it? Your death?"

It's as much a question as a guess. Jo had not recognized Lucifer at all, but he wonders now in hindsight—between the hellhound now and those woods—if Dean's insistence they stay away from the demon is more than worry, more than that brand of overprotectiveness he's beginning to recognize from the man. If it lies deeper in some fear that history will repeat.

[tobeclosetohim]

Jo's eyes shifted; that question weighed against the memory she'd tried to push down so hard, and that had swallowed her whole the second it sounded like the hellhound had run at her. It was stupid, but it'd already happened, and he hadn't said a thing about that part.

That question is easy enough. "No."
"There was a demon, this girl, Meg;
she brought the hellhound with her."

Her sly, slick, slimy as fuck smile. All pleased with herself when she looked down at her side, and the dog finally made itself known. The way Dean had reacted so fast to it. The way the three of them hadn't moved away from him. "But no Lucifer."

Jo frowned. Her brow furrowed. "But."

"She did want to take them to her father?"
"So maybe not entirely not part of it."

It feels like there should be more. More Jo should know. More actual context. More understanding. Between the last time she saw them and suddenly having the memory that started striding in a pack of four down that street. It was a puzzle of missing pieces, where it didn't have to do with. The rest.

[gynvael]

"And Dean. He was there?"

Makes him think about what she saw. If she's yet to experience her death, what were the pieces it filled in? Based on what she learned from Dean? (Had he watched it happen?) Things she envisioned could have been? Or is this deeper—some twisted gift of prophecy granted by the being that appeared in his dreams?

Where the Singularity is involved, anything feels possible.

"Had I known what might happen," he flexes his fingers, stained red and black, "I would not have..."

Touched her. Forced the vision on her. He doesn't explain further than that; it is not exactly sympathy or guilt. It's more—however he feels about someone, he does not toy with people or fuck with their heads. That's not who he is. Part of him hates that he was made complicit in it against his will.

He's fucking tired of the Singularity.

[tobeclosetohim]

Jo glanced over again as he said the second part. An apology is not something she's expecting at all. Not even one placed to center on a quiet admission of what kind of choices he'd never have made himself, and it felt insane that it was still only a few hours ago Jo found herself in that room. What she'd thought. The flash of full black eyes, the rage that slammed into a wall. What still felt like it would make more sense.

Or be easier to hold on to.
But she didn't look away from him.

Thinking about the words she'd said. Why.

"Yeah. Dean was there." Him. Sam. Her mom. Some part of her feels like that list is incomplete, but that's alt. Them, and Meg. The only faces. It feels like an itch she can't reach. But it comes to that question. She focused on the wall. "Dean said no to Meg's tea party invite by shooting at the hound. We all ran."

"It jumped him. And he went down."
Jo was staring hard at that wall.


She can hear Dean yelling.

She can hear the gun firing.


"I couldn't leave him there."
She hadn't even thought about it.

[gynvael]

She doesn't answer that part, though he's not expecting her to. Probably for the best. His own personal lines are a complicated matter, occasionally mutable, and it's a large reason why he often does not explain himself. He knows who he is. Whether others do, or are willing to know, is not something he chases after.

He starts to wipe the blood off his dagger with a scrap of cloth. Habit, and for something to do while he listens.

"You saved him."

He remembers what Dean said. So I went and got her killed.

Yeah. He can fathom why Dean sees it so. When it comes to things like this, truth has no bearing, in the same way he both understands Renfri's death was her doing as much as his, and yet he still feels a certain weight from it decades later.

[tobeclosetohim]

Jo doesn't answer immediately. Trying to figure out what she even thinks (feels?) about that word. Saved. Had there even been a handful of seconds to think that? A few? Even one? She hadn't stopped firing. She hadn't listened to Dean. Then she was slammed into by a hellhound that felt like a train and looked like nothing, falling hard before everything was a crescendo of red-hot and screaming. There was not much looking back after that.

Jo doesn't know what to say to that. If there is anything to say to that.
It's written in blood. It's written in stone. It's etched itself inside her head.

( I'll see you on the other side,
probably sooner than later.


Make it later. )

For someone else, anyone else, she might have a line, spun golden with sparkling attitude. But Geralt's never gotten more than the flat bluntness of her at her edges, she doesn't lie and smile for him, hasn't ever, and she doesn't want to know if she can plunge her hand into the center of herself, find her spine, and squeeze hard enough until her mouth makes itself something else to remember instead.

When it's this real, this close, this bare.
What she will do, and why she will do it.

[gynvael]

The impermanence of death in this place is an odd thing. He's aware for Dean, it isn't unusual. For Geralt, it is. He's not ever known death to be anything but the end. She takes you by the hand and that's all. There are no other realms to speak of where souls go to continue their existence. People do not return.

Then this world came along.

Jo is not the only who he's aware met their fate. Julie was first to confess it to him a year ago. And more and more, he suspects something similar lies in his future years ahead. Something Ciri is reluctant to speak to him about and which he has learned not to ask.

What does it mean when grieving comes to an abrupt halt?

He falls silent again, conversations with him rarely extending past a scant few minutes. There are things he could say—about the nature of death, about the age he learned there are worse things that await and yet somehow the fear of death lingers strongest (because you can survive the worst; you can't survive death)—but he's said too much about himself as it is.

So he sits. Tries to think if there's another option instead of endless walking. They've tried going forward. What if they go down? Up?

[righteously]

There aren't many things that make Dean's blood run cold in an instant, but a certain kind of howling definitely does the trick. It's a ways off, and he's tempted to steer them in the direct opposite trajectory — until he hears the sounds that follow. The snarls, the whines, the tussle of something dying. That's not the kind of ruckus he can ignore.

They move closer, and closer — and then the sounds go silent.

He murmurs a soft wait here to Ciri, complete with a gently appealing, pleading look if it doesn't seem like she's keen to listen, and then heads off down a dark corridor as silently as he can manage.

The blood comes into view first, the carnage, the animal corpses, the otherwise invisible body he only notices because of the way blood clings to something where there should be nothing — and then the exhausted duo slumped against the wall. It's knee-jerk panic that has him scoping out Jo before he says anything, tracking his eyes over her stomach just to make sure it's not-

But she's fine.

They both are.

They're both fine, and sitting in companionable proximity? On... purpose. What the hell.

That's a weird enough realization to prompt him into ambling forward again, and he announces himself with a grim, "You two look like crap."

[gynvael]

The last thing he expects to hear are footsteps. Geralt freezes, attention snapping up immediately. Over the stifling smell of blood and gore and wet fur, he catches a familiar scent—relaxes again even as his expression takes a flash of surprise.

How the fuck—?

No. Forget it. The Horizon being what it is, he can't expect any rhyme or reason as to who arrives when or why. Instead, he looks back up at Dean: equally grim, an edge of wryness beneath. He can't decide if he's relieved to see Dean or not. Three of them trapped in this place can't bode well for their chances of leaving, but...

Another hunter couldn't hurt.

"Someone's late to the carnage."

[tobeclosetohim]

Jo doesn't think to question it. The steps, the appearance, Dean being Dean, even in this place where everything has been fucked upside down against them for hours. There is no stop, no pass go, no collect two hundred dollars. One second it's the faintest shuffle of steps, and she's tensing, and the next, it's Dean's voice, and Jo's pushing up off the ground, a straight shot in his direction before he's finished those words. "Dean."

If she took a second, she might have checked a lot of things, including the sudden blossom of relief too big and broad and overwhelming or that strange current of something too sharp, too tragic to compare it to the candle-flicker shadow that was 'sadness.' But Jo doesn't. All Jo knows is one moment, she's scrambling up, striding fast past piles of bodies, and the next, she's nearly collided into his chest already.

Like, somehow, he's the one that isn't real,
more than would make sense about her.

[righteously]

For a second, the bodies on the ground don't matter. The toothy, bony, viscerally uncomfortable blade in his hand doesn't matter. The mark on his arm, his bad attitude, the way things have been going to shit, the fact that they're in an impossible maze, none of it matters.

What matters is her sprinting at him, and the mindless, automatic response of winding his arms around her tightly, and full-on lifting her off the ground an inch or two. A moment passes, and he pulls back to cup her cheek, to get a better look at her close up. Scanning for any injuries that he might've missed from across the distance.

"Hey. You okay?"

[tobeclosetohim]

Oh. That's all her brain seems to have once she's inside Dean's arms. Oh. The least profound, yet overwhelming, yet relieved, feeling. Solid. Warm. Safe. In one piece. Her fingers ball into his shirt without caring if it is in any better, worse, or similar state. Like maybe she could ball the entirety of herself into the space of Dean Winchester's arms.

When he pulls back, she has a second long enough to feel an odd stroke of déjà vu—about his face being this close?—before his fingers cup her cheek. She has only half a millisecond to feel the battering ram that pushes through the edge of her, about to drag her with it. Even as the last ditch understanding sirens behind it, and Jo tried to make her hand let go of him, it was already too late.

Her eyes go wide, and then her back contorts with a shudder. And then another.

( It's a weird overlap this time.
Jo's not utterly obliterated by the unknown.

She knows it now; even still bleed-burned from the first time, it's not foreign. Her weight doesn't free fall, and her legs don't plummet out from under her right after Dean yells for her to get back like that was a skill Jo was ever going to learn. Retreat. She doesn't lose the texture of that shirt knotted under one set of her fingers when Dean sweeps her off the ground and goes running off with her down that street.

She can still feel the weight of her body on her feet, even when she's unable to do more than half-situp. Everything is the same, and it's not. Or it is, but it's like Dean's in starker relief. The fear in his eyes inside the store. The inability to argue that her plan was a good one. When everything is fuzzy, except her refusal to be made useless, worthless, capable of at least this much more before the darkness swallows everything.

Except it is coming, and the memory catches up with the déjà vu.

With Dean this close. With the joke, that isn't funny. That she won't have, even as she tries to push through it for a smile. The detonator. The gun. The cup of his hand against her face and her hair, and the press of his lips against her forehead, just the strike of too long, decimating that last few inches of will that have kept her eyes mostly dry and her chin up for hours. More exhausting than bleeding out and almost more necessary than that blood.

Dean kissing her until he wasn't, until it was just his forehead resting against hers, the pressure of both of them leaning into each other, tears in her eyes, and the feeling of something so much bigger than her dying between them, too. )