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( mini-plot post: open to all )
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jawdacity & all of cerealia!
When: towards the end of the event (so this won't conflict with any event threads you may already have going). 2-3pm.
Where: Abandoned village + surrounding jungle
What: THERE ARE EXPLOSIONS. And mushrooms.
Rating/Warning: Possible NSFW for gore?
Details about this mini-plot HERE
(theme song of this post, courtesy ofmoribound.)
[ it's another muggy, meandering day in the jungle; nothing seems to be out of the ordinary. ]
IN THE VILLAGE
[ if your character is near the center of the village, they'll bear witness to the curious sight of a herd of shuffling mushroom beasts. in terms of threat level, to the experienced hunter they may have ranked low on the scale: slow, lacking an external fang or claw, they seem to be interested only in their endless march forward.
but, if your character is close enough, they may catch sight of a red-haired young man, a manifesto of anger written across his face. one breathless moment, the calm before the storm, and then he hurls a metallic pair of gloves at the closest beast, the gloves trailing arcs of flame.
what may strike your character first is the searing heat, the thrum of the earth below their feet. the whole village is demolished in a moment, the dying cries of the beasts rising above the din. the explosion lasts much longer than it should, the line of mushrooms going up one after another.
if you're too close, you might be torn in two. you might lose a limb, or two, or three. you might go deaf, you might lose your sight. you might lose all your eyelashes, your clothes. maybe the bag of mushrooms you'd collected for dinner is now little more than ash.
keep running. the smoke trails into the air. someone is screaming. the smell of charred meat follows you even after you disappear into the jungle. ]
IN THE SURROUNDING JUNGLE
[ if your character is close enough to the village, they'll feel the blasts, one after the other. the jungle is on fire, quickly spreading. maybe you'll hear the screaming, too; maybe your lungs will fill with smoke. maybe you'll run into one of the last mushroom beasts, fleeing from the explosion only to trigger a lesser one in the depths of the jungle.
it came from the village, didn't it? maybe someone you love was swept up in the explosion.
if you manage to escape the stampede of terrified jungle beasts (some of which may stop to crunch you up as a quick meal as they dash away from the blast), maybe you can venture closer to see what's happened.
or maybe you should get as far away as possible. ]
jawdacity & all of cerealia! When: towards the end of the event (so this won't conflict with any event threads you may already have going). 2-3pm.
Where: Abandoned village + surrounding jungle
What: THERE ARE EXPLOSIONS. And mushrooms.
Rating/Warning: Possible NSFW for gore?
Details about this mini-plot HERE
(theme song of this post, courtesy of
moribound.)[ it's another muggy, meandering day in the jungle; nothing seems to be out of the ordinary. ]
IN THE VILLAGE
[ if your character is near the center of the village, they'll bear witness to the curious sight of a herd of shuffling mushroom beasts. in terms of threat level, to the experienced hunter they may have ranked low on the scale: slow, lacking an external fang or claw, they seem to be interested only in their endless march forward.
but, if your character is close enough, they may catch sight of a red-haired young man, a manifesto of anger written across his face. one breathless moment, the calm before the storm, and then he hurls a metallic pair of gloves at the closest beast, the gloves trailing arcs of flame.
what may strike your character first is the searing heat, the thrum of the earth below their feet. the whole village is demolished in a moment, the dying cries of the beasts rising above the din. the explosion lasts much longer than it should, the line of mushrooms going up one after another.
if you're too close, you might be torn in two. you might lose a limb, or two, or three. you might go deaf, you might lose your sight. you might lose all your eyelashes, your clothes. maybe the bag of mushrooms you'd collected for dinner is now little more than ash.
keep running. the smoke trails into the air. someone is screaming. the smell of charred meat follows you even after you disappear into the jungle. ]
IN THE SURROUNDING JUNGLE
[ if your character is close enough to the village, they'll feel the blasts, one after the other. the jungle is on fire, quickly spreading. maybe you'll hear the screaming, too; maybe your lungs will fill with smoke. maybe you'll run into one of the last mushroom beasts, fleeing from the explosion only to trigger a lesser one in the depths of the jungle.
it came from the village, didn't it? maybe someone you love was swept up in the explosion.
if you manage to escape the stampede of terrified jungle beasts (some of which may stop to crunch you up as a quick meal as they dash away from the blast), maybe you can venture closer to see what's happened.
or maybe you should get as far away as possible. ]
b!
like a record needle stuck in one groove, the fire trickles recursively along wood and spindly underbrush, eating into the darkness of the foliage. veined leaves, green and distended, shriveling in, dropping sickly-sweet from their stems; rot and crackling shells split and trampled underfoot. the resultant crack splits the din in visible desperation. a sound so glassy with whistling disrepair it'd chime brokenly if struck. screaming, loud and sharp, incising to the bone.
(haru, haru, haru —)
and then makoto's off, sprinting with the air metallic and rusting away past his ears, heading toward the fire like it could be a beacon that fed into his greater misgivings. an indulgence for the same self-savaging, hysterical fears that have kept him sleepless for weeks on end. inertia carries him through the implausible distance, and it's only upon reaching the outskirts of the clearing that he slows.
blinking the ash from his eyes, makoto shakes off the wobbling unsteadiness about his movements, as if his body is something entirely foreign, and starts forward. it's slow progress, meandering past the dereliction, the doorways with their slanted, opening mouths, holding nothing, no longer capable of anything else.
his childhood friend is beside the cavity gouged out of the earth, the residue of soil and something incendiary leaving him entirely dispossessed. the mangled pair of gloves littered in his lap, deprived of their decals and liquid brightness that no longer clung to his extremities. ]
Rin! W-What are you doing ... ?! It's dangerous to space out in a place like this!
[ he registers the disproportionate absence where rin's right arm should be with a numbing grief, standing beneath the shredded light that could make any of them capable of disaster.
being his friend for as long as he has, it comes intrinsic that there are certain boundaries makoto never crosses. he isn't a part of rin's dream. he won't ever be, fated for the sidelines, but he can't ever leave well enough alone.
for once, makoto doesn't bother with formalities. he eschews politeness and courtesy alike to make the first step, the crepitating snap of branches beneath his heels, and then his hands spanning the width of rin's shoulders, bent down close enough to gaze at him the only way he knows how. ]
We're going together. We'll find our friends, so ... there's no way I'm leaving you alone.
[ there should be tears. there should be shock, but there's only shrill, ceding selfishness irradiating his throat, past the detritus of solemn imprecations and exiled panic. ]
Please don't turn me away.
[ rin has no practice at staying in one place for too long, but makoto's never been one to stray, either.
that much holds true. ]
no subject
even now, he seems incorporeal. broad shoulders, eyes too green for the ashen air between them. sometimes, when rin was caught in the bowels of australia in the night-time, he'd thought of his childhood friends like characters in a fairy tale. far and away from rin's reality, living out a life that rin would never be able to understand. not someone like rin, who threw himself into the water, day after day after day, and still couldn't step forward into the future.
he shudders away when makoto leans to him. that touch is anathema. not because of rin's branded-hot nerve endings, not because of his shorn arm or the plastic smell of his burned hair. it would be easier for makoto if he left. ]
You should be out looking for Haru.
[ it doesn't sound like rin. it sounds like someone has run a palm down the surface of a mirror to wipe away the steam, a slip-slide of sound, too soft and too shapeless for rin's sharp mouth. he usually bites away the softness of words, giving cutting edge to even the sweetest of sentiments. here, reality has been spun on its axis, one-eighty degrees. an inverse of reality. rin, wanting of nothing but a quiet moment to feel the weight of his twisted metal gloves and blink away the exhaustion. until - perhaps - his surroundings resolve into a picture more easily understood.
--he hadn't seen haru amongst the bodies. he hasn't seen haru at all. ]
I'm fine. [ and he sounds it. he has to. it's not so much an act as one that rin, too, has bought into. ] Go find him.
[ what does makoto think he can do for rin? when he doesn't belong in this ruined landscape in the first place?
better, then, that makoto-and-rin and the friendship implied therein should be cast to the wayside.
for now, rin tells himself, hopeful even when he's uncertain of its place. just for now. ]
no subject
it's as if he's regressed, shifting back into the boy along the wharf with his sister clutched around his wrist, following his father into the burial mound. anger completely sapped. ]
... How can you say that?
[ no excuse exists for the inscrutable blotchiness to makoto's demeanor. a trade of dispositions.
if the horizon hadn't been eaten up by shadows and the line of receding trees, makoto would've deduced him as yet another delusion, the same as all the others. so many nights spent on unabsolved loss, haru gone out of sight but never out of mind. the fissuring smoke might be undergoing a nicotine fit around them, bilious plumes of smoke a sequel to the near-inconsolable fire, but all makoto sees is the pretense of a drowning man.
he forgets to release his grip even as rin flinches back. bad to worse. makoto can't entirely absolve him for giving up. ]
Listen to me. I'm not leaving you.
[ it's the simplest thing in the world, recognizing guilt in someone else. ]
I can't let you do this to yourself. Isn't that what you told me when I didn't want you to understand? You saw right through me. No matter what, you wouldn't leave well enough alone.
[ a low blow. ]
I need you too, Rin. You have to keep going.
[ his fingers graze the burnt fabric, snagging in with no discernible intent in release. ]
You're important to me.