apocalypsehowcomm | let it all burn down, burn it to the ground

Entry tags:

let it all burn down, burn it to the ground | October Catch-All

Who: Aelwyn Abernant and you, perhaps.
When: October, early November.
Where: In dreams, ADI, around Gloucester.
Summary: Local girl turned 20, completely forgot about it. Also created an imaginary hellscape within her unconscious mind and participated in the murder of a girl even younger than her. Event prompts + some slice of life prompts.
Warnings: Emotional abuse and neglect, severe sleep deprivation, torture, burning, destruction of whole cities, depression, underaged drinking, hypersexuality.

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[After all is said and done, and the child is mangled and dead, Aelwyn is sat on a bench in front of a liquor store, just like she was after the first ordeal they all collectively went through. She doesn't want to speak to anyone, not after the things she did in her dream. The things she wants to do in reality.

The things she doesn't feel guilty about in the slightest, in a refreshing change of pace. It was so beautiful, for just a minute, to be herself. To have her power again. To be out of the orb at long last.

She's tired. So, so tired. And she has a bottle of vodka in her hands, holds it up - considers it - puts it to her lips and starts chugging. She'll stop before she passes out. Probably. Her elven constitution makes her more resistant anyway, she just wants to feel the welcoming burn.

Someone should probably stop her, though!]

Neal sees someone who looks barely legal to drink chugging vodka outside of the liquor store and almost tries to slight-of-hand the bottle out of her grip. He could probably do it, tilt it up and away in just the right angle that makes it hard for her to keep her grip. But he's learned. He's learned that things here can go badly fast, and he doesn't know who has magic and who doesn't, and he's even more aware of that fact now than he was before. Now that he can feel the... itch on his psyche of possibility. What he could do if he'd just let himself try.

Instead, he goes and buys a bottle of water, and a large jar of pickles, bringing both back with him to where she's--hopefully--stopped chugging.

"You're going to want this," he says gently, holding the water out. With his other hand, he lifts the pickles. "A friend of mine swears by pickle juice as a hangover cure, too."

I wouldn't be drinking if I wanted to be sober.

[Aelwyn takes the bottle away from her lips but shows no sign of putting it down.

Her throat is raw and her inside feel like they're on fire. Aelwyn laughs lowly, staring up at the sky.]

Don't you have something better to do?

Neal considers it, then shrugs. “Probably.”

He looks at the free space on the bench, judges there to be enough room that he can sit on one end without crowding her, and does so without asking. He’s pretty sure she’d tell him to go the hell away otherwise. He sets the pickle jar and the bottle of water down by his feet. “But I recognize you. You’re one of us.”

And you're Malcolm's boyfriend.

[She sits back against the bench, staring up at the night's sky.]

You know, back in - god, summer of last year? When the kelpies showed up? I got wasted on this bench then too.

Neal smiles at the mention of Malcolm's name, almost reflexively. He can't help himself. It's brief, though. He can manage that.

"The kelpies were right before my time," Neal admits. "I got here in September, for the first round of lullabies."

But he recalls Meredith's dream about those kelpies. The nightmare of the seal skins. "Malcolm was here then, though. How well do the two of you know each other?"

Not particularly well, I would say. But we've had mutual acquaintances.

[If she were less distant and emotionally fragile, she might even say mutual friends. Meredith, Jeff, Tim...

Well. All gone now. Probably all dead.]

September... I suppose that's a little better than arriving in October. God, I hate Halloween.

Did you kill her in your dream? The little girl behind it all? I did.

[He winces, first at the mutual acquaintances, then at the frank admission of murder. Dream murder, but still.]

No. I didn't find her. [He doesn't know if he'd have been able to attack her if he had found her. Maybe it's just as well.]

I used to like it. Halloween. But between this one and the last one, not so much.

[After a moment, he holds a hand out toward the bottle.] Mind sharing?

[She offers him the bottle wordlessly. The alcohol helps her feel less like she has to sanitize her personality, so he's getting the frank admissions of murder unfortunately.]

We never had it in my world. There was Harvest's Eve... but that was a human holiday that my parents sneered at.

Killing her felt horrible. It always feels horrible.

[He cleans the mouth of the bottle with a handkerchief, as though that will do anything for germs, before taking a swig. At least he's polite enough to then also wipe his own germs off just as ineffectually before offering it back.]

You've killed before. [Not really a question, but an invitation to talk about it if she needs to. She's the one who brought it up.]

Is that surprising? [She can't imagine it is. Although, people in other worlds are... weird about killing.] I sunk a ship. With a lot of people on board. Because I was scared.

[She takes a swig of the vodka directly, letting her mouth and throat burn.]

Have you?

[He shakes his head.] No. I've hurt people, but I've never killed anyone directly. Indirectly, yes. I have something of a body count there.

[He can say it with a mostly-neutral tone, though internally it makes him sick.]

People do a lot of things because they're scared. [It's not an offer of forgiveness or understanding, really. He's not arrogant enough any more to think either one of those things would be welcome.] People do a lot of awful things for worse reasons.

[She scoffs. It's not forgiveness but it's not something she can accept either. Worse reasons? She had no reason. That's what makes her so horrific.]

Reasons don't matter. I could come up with some ideological cause if I tried, my partner did. But I never really gave a shit, I guess. I just wanted... something.

[She smiles thinly. She's aware that she was just a kid, scared and lonely and desperate, but she still can't bring herself to forgive that kid either.]

Doesn't matter now though. We're a long way from home.

Edited 2022-12-14 21:34 (UTC)

It matters. [The why of things matter. Maybe not to anyone else, in the end, but as a part of himself--his whys have always mattered to him.

A pause, then:]

Hungry?

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let it all burn down, burn it to the ground | October Catch-All

Aftermath - (underage drinking, aelwyn's very normal mental health)

a perfect introduction.....???

Re: a perfect introduction.....???

Hope it’s okay to stick to straight prose on my end—tagging from phone so it’s easier

all good!

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