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apocalypsehowcomm2022-05-16 08:09 am
- !event,
- !finale,
- !npc,
- bucky barnes (mcu),
- cornelius hickey (the terror),
- cortana (halo),
- edalyn clawthorne (owl house),
- hunter (owl house),
- kate cordello (original),
- katrina (siren),
- manji (blade of the immortal),
- zz_addison montgomery (grey's anatomy),
- zz_ade bennett (the wess'har wars),
- zz_ainsley whitly (prodigal son),
- zz_andrew jaeger (original),
- zz_beauregard lionett (critical role),
- zz_bruno madrigal (encanto),
- zz_callisto (xena: warrior princess),
- zz_donna noble (doctor who),
- zz_garner cinderbrooke (original),
- zz_george milton (of mice and men),
- zz_jeff calhoun (original),
- zz_john carter (er),
- zz_jonathan sims (tma),
- zz_luka kovač (er),
- zz_malcolm bright (prodigal son),
- zz_misty quigley (yellowjackets),
- zz_neal caffrey (white collar),
- zz_nick valentine (fallout),
- zz_orpheus (hadestown),
- zz_rye kalibash (original),
- zz_tim drake (dc comics)
Event - Appalachia: Into the Pines
Footage plays on the television as a new story comes on, showing a series of sweeping vistas, intercut with clips of wolves that have clearly been filmed at some local wildlife sanctuary. "As far as anyone knows it, the last wolf to ever freely roam the Allegheny Mountains was slain in West Virginia in 1897. Daniel Stoffer Hamrick saw to the beast's passing, and the woods in our part of the world have gone quieter ever since. Appalachia does not forget its history, though. It buries it beneath coal and flyash, debts and white powder and pills. And the blood of people taken before their time, by the mines, by the mountain, by things we don't have names for, just hurt. But Appalachia does not forget.
"This is Cindy Parsons with Channel 5, Wolf News." Footage cuts to a newscaster standing outside a gated apartment complex with FYRE's logo emblazoned on it. "As we know, our beloved Wolf Pen is home to one of the biggest FYRE worker housing complexes in Wyoming County. It is a monument to the history of our town, and this week, we'll be on the lookout for visitors from all over the country, coming to see the grand re-opening of the historic Bluestone Mine as a museum."
Footage cuts to a nondescript businessman, identified by the news footage as Carl Watts, CEO of FYRE. He's smiling blandly as he stands at a podium and gestures to the entrance of the mining tunnel behind him. "The Wolf Pen community has been a partner to us for decades now, and we knew it was finally time to give something back to all y’all. We'll have our soft opening on Monday with a full Rumble Down Under party in the old mines scheduled for June 15th. We'll have a live bluegrass concert and anticipate a huge influx of tourists to the area to help out our neighbors itching for a few more pocketbooks to tend to." A wink.
The footage returns to Cindy. "FYRE has stated that this new museum will provide an educational tool and tourist attraction for those wanting to learn about West Virginia, Wolf Pen, and the hard-working men and women who have made this beautiful part of our nation their home. Time will tell. Time is always telling when it comes to the promises of people who have used our land and our bodies to line their pocketbooks. They fill our blood and our lungs with black tar and-"
Cindy cuts out and is replaced by in-studio anchors. "Thank you, Cindy!" a blonde woman says, smile just a little strained. "I think we're all looking forward to seeing the big opening by FYRE on Sunday and that rocking good party next month. It should be a gneiss one! Now to Tim with the weather. Tim?"
hiking trails
Without any further ado, Callisto finds the nearest good handhold and starts to climb after him.]
What do you think I'll do when I catch you?
[It's technically a threat, but one delivered without any real malice or intention of follow-through. Sorry, Ade; she's just incapable of being normal.]
no subject
He gives a nervous chuckle, more worried about her falling than he is about the strange threat. ]
Dunno. [ He thinks about the leather armor she wears. ] Skin me, maybe.
[ That'd be a tall order given the rapid healing granted to him by c'nataat, but she could certainly try. After another moment or two of watching her, in which he ascertains that she is at least skilled enough to not be in any immediate danger, he turns his attention back upwards and keeps climbing. ]
Kind of hoping not to find out.
no subject
Is that a challenge?
[Despite her lack of real goal or intent to harm, she's certainly happy to take it as one.]
no subject
[ Said with a small, mischievous smile as he, too, begins to ascend faster up the rock face. Even then, he's methodical, testing handholds and footholds before putting his full weight on them. He's determined not to have a repeat of the climbing incident he'd had on Bezer'ej, in which he'd ended up lying on his back for hours while c'nataat repaired his broken spine. Just because he'd survived—and would survive again—doesn't mean it hadn't been unpleasant.
He's more than halfway to the top now. Looking down, he sees that Callisto is gaining some serious altitude as well. ]
You're good, [ Ade says, sounding genuinely impressed—and maybe a little relieved. Technically, he could heal her if she took a fall, but given the side effects c'nataat seems to have on other people here, he's hoping it doesn't come down to that. ] Where'd you learn to climb?
no subject
[She says, swinging from one handhold to another, farther one, fearlessly letting go of the first before she's able to grab hold of the second.]
Myself.
[This isn't strictly true: Callisto's progress in all physical pursuits, from climbing to fighting to riding horses, had always taken some amount of observation of or instruction from others, at least at the start. But no one had ever taken her under their wing; no one had ever decided that they wanted to help her. Everything she'd learned from others, she'd learned because she'd sought the lesson out of her own volition, and as far as she's concerned, that makes the learning her doing, not theirs.]
no subject
Not that he's going to let it distract him too much. Seeing that Callisto is gaining on him, he instinctively begins to push harder, reaching for higher, riskier handholds and relying on strength and luck to see him past the follow-through. Soon, he's near the top of the rock face, Callisto close behind.
He reaches for the ledge and levers himself up, pulling up one leg and then the next until he's sitting on top of the precipice. He turns to offer a hand to Callisto, but it's more than likely she's already clearing the ledge behind him. His hand drops to his side and he grins at her, glad to see she made it unharmed. ]
You probably would've had me beat if it weren't for that headstart, [ he says. ] Don't suppose there were Royal Marines in your world?
[ Because she'd be a shoe-in for the Corps. ]
no subject
There might have been.
[She says, dropping down to sit at the cliff's edge, her legs dangling over the side.]
But not in Greece, and I've never been anywhere else - except Tartarus, of course.
no subject
Or used to be. Callisto's armor, though well-maintained, is old-fashioned to say the very least. He wonders exactly how out of time she might be—she's likely even more so than he is. ]
They're the ones who taught me how to climb. The Marines, I mean.
[ He eyes her curiously, wondering how best to go about figuring when she's from. ] You ever hear of the FEU? Or Britain?
no subject
[She repeats, clocking the expression on his face.]
The Underworld; Hades' domain. Very far away from the FEU and Britain... wherever they are.
[In other words, no, she has not heard of them.]
no subject
With this world being what it is, there's no way to tell for certain. So, keeping his expression as neutral as possible, Ade deadpans: ]
Can't say I've been before. How's the weather there?
no subject
How do you think? Whatever is most uncomfortable and hateful at the time. Sometimes, it's blisteringly hot. Other times, it's cold enough to make you think you might freeze to death, if it weren't for... well.
no subject
Shit. I didn't think—
[ Didn't think what? That she was talking about an actual afterlife? As much as Ade can believe in the supernatural in vague terms, somehow, life after death had seemed a bridge too far. The surprise on his face changes to a wince as he reconsiders his question in that context. ]
Sorry. I didn't know Tartarus was... well, real. Or afterlives at all. Don't think they are in my world, anyway. [ His brow furrows as he looks at the woman with a renewed sense of confusion. She sure looks awfully alive for someone who's gone to Hell. ]
no subject
[Callisto turns her gaze towards the view that stretches out in front of them, falling silent for a few long moments - long enough, maybe, that he might assume that she's done talking by the time she deigns to speak up again.]
If there aren't any afterlives, what happens to all the dead people?
no subject
[ People tend to have certain expectations when they hear words like "Royal Marine" and "commando." They imagine someone imposing and forceful, someone violent. They never expect someone as soft-spoken and friendly as Ade to bury a knife in their guts. But it happens.
At her question, he shrugs. ]
The way I figure it, it's probably just a lot of nothing. Your brain falls apart and you just... stop existing.
[ He follows her gaze out over the edge, towards the trees and the mountains far in the distance. ]
Some people in my universe believe there's something after—a heaven or a hell—but I could never really wrap my head around it.
no subject
[She punctuates this with a shrug, never really having considered that there might be another alternative - either in other places, or in other people's minds.]
Who knows? Maybe you'll come to Hades.
no subject
[ Gods don't like mass murders that aren't in their names. He doubts any would approve of the one he'd been complicit in for Lindsay Fucking Neville.
...Except maybe the gods of this world. Given what he's learned about the Entities, it wouldn't surprise him if there was one that's the patron saint of genocide. ]
How's it work exactly, if you don't mind me asking? Is it like... your soul leaves your body and goes somewhere else? Or does your body come along, too?
no subject
A bit of both.
[She says, after a pause.]
I felt...
["Whole" isn't the right word. She never feels whole.]
... solid. I had a form. But I didn't need to eat, or drink, or sleep.
no subject
[ Is that a soul, then? Just a body that doesn't need to eat, drink, or sleep?
Actually, it doesn't sound that different from being infected with c'nataat. ]
So that's just the way it works in your world? People die and go to Tartarus and there's nothing anyone can do to change it?
no subject
[She says, barking out a laugh at the thought of it.]
Not everyone goes to Tartarus. Tartarus is only for the most wicked souls, like me; other people go somewhere else. The best of the best go to the Elysian Fields, and everyone else ends up in the Asphodel Meadows.
[Obviously!]
no subject
[ So he's talking to a damned soul, then. Suddenly, he is having second thoughts about the "joke" about her skinning him. He does his best to keep his tone impassive, not wanting to seem intimidated. ]
Not so different from Heaven and Hell, then.