open / no, we ain't choose this life

[currysseur]

🧙 WHO: Izumi (currysseur), Century Egg (fellsound), and Kate (morns)
⚔️️ WHAT: TDM shenanigans, quest taking, coffee breaks with comedians and much more!
🕒 WHEN: Throughout February!
🗺️ WHERE: All over the shop
⚠️ WARNINGS: Prompts relating to the Land of Rot, the Forest of the Fisher King, Dark Magic, I'll update as necessary


Izumi

» Trust Trinkets
» Chocolate Cupid
» Prompt

Century Egg

» The Dragon's Graveyard
» Sashimi Slayer
» (to the tune of black magic woman) Dark Magic Food Soul

Kate

» Well, Sssshit
» Coffee with Comedians (closed to Sasara)
» Prompt

Comments

am i supposed to be grateful to have survived this? /

[morns]

( CW: mentions of zombie curse effects, PTSD, self-harming behaviours, references to assault, possible sexual content )

( the days come and go in a thick cloud of fog, Camelot’s usual bustling activity dulled by the battle before it.

Kate works. too much. Off Limits opens for longer hours, from before the sun rises until well after it sets and its owner remains there for all of them. remains there longer, in fact, cleaning and rearranging things almost compulsively — the layout of equipment seems to change every other day (sorry, regulars). lunches — typically taken outside, used as excuses to visit businesses of people she knows and chat — turn into solitary affairs where Kate locks her office door and nibbles crackers, podcast blaring meaningless drivel in the background, noise that doesn’t do quite enough to silence the itch, the pulsing of blood under skin, wriggling, writhing—

something warm and wet brushes against her fingertip, and red greets her as she lifts her fingers out from under two layers of sleeves. )

Shit.

( one more injury to add to the list, she thinks as she wraps a bandage around her wrist, pulling fingerless gloves over top and flexing, the ache of fabric wrapped tight magnifying that writhing pulse until it echoes in her ribs and there are pieces of skin drip

d
    r
        i
           p

dripping into blackness, into the shape of a hand pressed flush against her mouth, bitter rot and ruin spreading across her lips, her tongue, into her veins—

the knock at the door jolts her awake and Kate scrambles to drag clawed fingers away from her lips, to steady her heart rate and breath. but the alarm spills out in her words before she can stop it; )

Who’s there?!

( it’s fine, this is Avalon. this is Avalon.

this is Avalon. she’s the only person from her world here. she’s safe. )

i guess i have a lot of feelings about this

[hitokiri]

[ knocking feels weird, for a few reasons. ordinarily, he doesn't want in badly enough to bother. or the part where he sneaks in. it also reminds him, uncomfortably, of other times spent standing outside dreading the moment someone answers because then he's going to have to figure out what to say.

izō is not proud of how long it took him to make it here. in his defence, he could only be in one place at a time but it doesn't make him feel any better. compared to how he usually is, he's determinedly kept at it since everything went to shit, trying to make some sort of reparations for—... he's still not even sure how it happened. izō is long past worrying about the blood on his hands but all the pain and suffering he's ever caused has been because he'd chosen to. he wanted to do it, whatever that says about him. so what? he's a shit human being. he's accepted that, more or less. but this? the people he can't keep pretending he doesn't care about suffering because of his stupid mistake? it's just unfortunate that morganna couldn't use the hate he has for the man responsible for the whole thing because he's got plenty to spare.

maybe someone less attuned to it or someone who didn't know her as well might not have thought anything of it or what does he know? but izō can hear the fear in kate's voice which says plenty. none of it feels good. he probably should've come around sooner. or texted? phones sure do exist. he's bad at this and considers how much he's told everyone that they were fine with him at the time but he just hadn't disappointed them yet. sometimes it really fucking sucks to be right. ]

It's me. Got yer brand an' everythin'.

[ just doing the only thing he knows how to do: show up bearing liquor and hoping for the best. it's good stuff too because they've gone drinking often enough to make a note of what she likes when they've splurged on better than shit booze.

he's not judging if she looks like hell either since he looks exactly like what several days of no fun, guilt and extremely little rest do to a person. ]

~suffering~

[morns]

( ... oh.

Izō's voice knocks the air from her lungs and some of the tension from her shoulders, relief pooling in her stomach for a split second

(this is Avalon. this is Avalon and she's fine. the rot is long gone and she's stupid to be thinking of things even older than that—)

and then she realises that opening the door means letting Izō see her like this, bundled up in layers to keep even the smallest sliver of skin from showing, despite how warm the building itself is. but he knows she's here now, and those words hold a very tempting promise:

distraction.

so, perhaps from the outside it feels as though she takes an eternity to decide to open the door, but the point is she does, eventually, her hood pulled tight around her face, shadows under her eyes worse than usual, her lips chapped, cut and cherry-bright. )

Shouldn't be drinking on the clock.

( which is rather undermined by the fact that she grabs the bottle from him before she's even let him step inside, unscrewing the lid and knocking a mouthful back. droplets sting her lips, the flavours she usually enjoys not even noted as the burn cleanses away remnants of a nightmare which stained every crack of her facade. )

[hitokiri]

[ whatever he might've said dies off in his throat, and he stands there, like an idiot, feeling like one. the familiar feeling turns out to be everything he thought it would be. ]

Guess I ain't gotta ask...

[ it's debatable if he realises he's said that out loud. in any case, other than calling attention to the elephant in the room everyone already knows about, there's no judgement. that would be wildly hypocritical of him. izō finally steps over the threshold to close the door behind him. he's wearing what he wore to the winter party, and with the jacket properly on and not just draped over his shoulders like an asshole he almost looks half-respectable if you overlook how wrinkled it all is. scruffy as he usually is and smelling like stale coffee and cigarettes, he'd realise he's approaching an embarrassing cliche of a detective if he were more genre-savvy. ]

Why ya on the clock anyway? [ stupid question. ] Whatever is, bet it can wait.

succubus problems...

[morns]

( she doesn't miss cigarettes, never really liked them in the first place, but somehow — perhaps because the scent seems to follow her, through the army, to her friends here in Avalon — the scent offers a kind of comfort. smoky and heady and—

ah.

the thought blinks in and out of her mind so quickly Kate thinks she's imagined it, weird and frankly impossible as it is. maybe if it was Ryouma's body she was in—

Kate shakes her head, barely listening to Izō. something's wrong. off. something under her skin, skin that's flaking away, dripdripdrip onto the laminate flooring...

wait. what was he saying? )

What else is there to do?

( she has to do something. something to silence her mind, to stop the screaming and this wrongness she feels. this pervasive sensation that her body isn't her own, that something sunk in under her veins and taken over when Pien touched her—

she realises all too late that she's digging her nails into her other arm, scraping at flesh once more. fuck )

I—

( shit. quick. she needs a distraction... )

How've you been?

( that was shit, but maybe Izō'll take that bait. )

:') its FINE

[hitokiri]

[ izō just makes a face because yeah, okay, she has a point. ]

How's it look like I've been? Don't matter.

[ he's not subtle, so she probably noticed him notice her gripping at her arm. it's not like he's trying to pry; he just has a good eye for that sort of thing. ]

Look—...

[ his voice trails off, and his expression looks pained because wow he really chickened out after only one word, didn't he? ]

Ain't gotta explain it t' me 'bout whatever happened—.. er... I mean—... what I'm sayin' is it's usually easier hatin' somebody for shit, right? It's my fault what happened, so... do whatcha gotta do.

[ if she wanted to hit him or kill him, izō wouldn't stop her. they're enough alike that izō has considered the possibility, even if he'd at least hear her out if their situations were reversed. not because he's hoping for the same, but mostly because he doesn't think it's something kate would ever do willingly. even so, there are plenty of things he doesn't know, so he's resigned himself to accepting whatever he deserves. ]

[morns]

( he isn't subtle, but Kate isn't exactly here, so even if she sees his gaze shift down to where she's scratching, she doesn't seem to comment or even fully notice it the way she should.

and he's talking about shit, stuff that sounds important that just can't really break through the fog of things cycling through her head. the image of pieces of her skin dropping from her body like flakes of ash, cracks and crevices revealing layers of muscle, dipping down into bone...

she blinks, some of the words finally seeming to penetrate the way she focuses too intently on the desk, getting her to lift her head and look at him. )

What?

( hate? but why? )

[hitokiri]

[ well. that's a little more anti-climactic than he was expecting. ]

Huh? I said it was me! It was my fuckin' fault all this shit happened, so jus' do whatever ya gotta do an' get it over with! Shit.

[ he doesn't like repeating himself, especially over things like this. he wishes he could just say things once and then never again, but hadn't accounted for if he ended up being overly vague. ]

Dunno how t' make it up otherwise... this was real bad, right?

[ he seems smaller somehow, even though he's not changed at all physically. it's more his energy and his posture — neither of which are ever particularly outstanding — but he's not usually so withdrawn. it had been a long couple of emotionally draining days before the ritual and the ritual itself had sapped as much magic as he could give like it might repay a debt. it's taken a visible toll and still doesn't feel like enough. ]

[morns]

( trying to navigate any conversation is like pulling herself out of the quicksand at the tomb right now, thoughts and memories clamped around the pieces of her mind that would latch onto the distraction and let it take her over. as Izō speaks, Kate pulls her legs up into her chest, curling herself up onto her chair in a pretzel that is hardly comfortable, picking idly at the skin around her nails.

what's under there, pulsing and awful and alive— )

... Wha— ( all her words come out slow and small, soft-spoken contrasts to how she normally is. neither of them look right, some distant, muffled part of Kate's mind can recognise that as she looks at Izō and the pieces knit themselves together.

this shit. there's only one thing that could be referring to, right? )

How?

( all she knows is she yanked that emerald and the Fisher King's body disappeared sometime during other people's arguments. )

[hitokiri]

[ he shrugs because its his most natural inclination, but he knows he can't get away with that. ]

It's a long story. Point is, I let some asshole talk me into somethin' I shoulda said no to when I had the chance. He said his brother got killed an' he needed help bringin' 'im back with some kinda ritual thing. Wasn't like I knew this was gonna happen! Wasn't that guy's brother at all, jus' some kinda bad news dead guy whose body he stole or whatever the fuck. This shit's all over my head, I don't fucking know!

[ izō is always louder than he strictly needs to be, but he gets louder as he goes on because it doesn't take much to get him worked up about this. he'd probably look way more anxious if he wasn't so exhausted instead. is that better? it's debatable. he does get a certain almost panicky edge to his tone that he tries to dial back by shutting up altogether, at least for a few seconds. watching kate be the way she is makes it all that much worse and he looks guilty about yelling, even if he wasn't yelling at her.

he's a lot quieter when he continues. ]

Dunno how t' make it right though either, which is what I'm askin'. If somebody put me through hell I didn't ask t' be gettin' dragged into, I'd be wonderin' who it was.

[morns]

( luckily for Izō's natural inclinations, they're far enough away from the gym proper that his voice won't disturb anyone working out downstairs. unfortunately for his guilt, Kate doesn't so much as flinch at the way his voice raises, her eyes don't focus, she doesn't fully snap back to the present moment. )

Don't know... ( she can't even begin to guess what would make this right. even if she could hear anything but her own body screaming out its wrongness, she's not sure she'd have an answer for him.

they can't turn back the clock. this wrongness may fade, eventually, but it'll always be there, same as the scars of war or the fear of being trapped which still permeates her bones to this very day.

how can she tell Izō the way to right a wrong when the effects of wrongs far older are still stamped across her like a map of all the ways she's been hurt before this? )