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quietplacememes2018-02-28 08:56 pm
bequiet) wrote in quietplacememes2018-02-28 08:56 pm
Entry tags:
TDM #003
TEST DRIVE MEME
You wake, standing. A thick, muddy red dust coats your skin and clothes - it sticks to your tongue and blocks your vision. Inhale and it chokes you, exhale and your breath puffs out in front of your face in a transparent maroon cloud. It tastes of copper, tangy and harsh. Movement is difficult, every limb tingles and aches. Look to your left, your right. Evenly spaced in each direction stands another person indistinguishable in every way from the next. You're disoriented and lethargic, unable to grasp onto a single thought. A pinprick of light blooms ahead and grows steadily larger; a door has opened.
Hands grip your wrists, push at the small of your back and guide you out of the darkness into a room with four walls and a thin, sagging ceiling. The plaster is peeling, the air is musty, and the floor is slick. White plastic piping juts up from the center and curves into multiple spouts, clean water flowing in uneven streams. Those hands pull your clothes off and clear the dust from your body, redress you in handsewn jumpsuits.
A finger is pressed to your lips. Kind eyes meet your own and a single word is whispered - hush.
Led out of the room in a line, you’re taken down a short hallway and into another, much larger room. There’s a woman waiting for you there, a child hugging her leg, and a cloth bag in her hands. She reaches in and pulls out a device, passes one to each of you. Once finished, she begins to move both hands in graceful gestures, a language. One of the people who helped you lifts their device and the screen lights up, tracks the woman’s hands. Letters appear on the screen and you understand the device’s purpose. She tells you what she knows and it’s not much.
This world is haunted. Noise attracts them, so it is not allowed. Communication is through body language, soundless writing, and the device. She tells you that your feet must be light and your mouth never used. There is a community outside these doors, where you can survive together, but only if you agree to one thing: complete and total silence. You'll have time to talk it over. Acceptance allows you to journey outside. The ground is marked in pathways of sand, lining the paths to each building and everywhere in between. You notice that the locals hold their devices always, aloft and glance to it often. It will not vibrate or make a sound to signal a message.
Notices appear. Rules. Guidelines. Feet on the sand and never anywhere else. To open a door you brush your fingers along the hinges - oiled and you may enter. If not, take the brush from the can sitting nearby and coat the metal with the dark liquid. You're to settle into your new home.
Caught me unawares
Content Warnings: Confusion, disorientation
Themes: Survival, horror, it's like groundhog day
The ending of the floor has caught me unawares. This must be the reason why I’m falling down the stairs.
That night, when you fall asleep, you dream of your life before The Quiet Place. At first it's the happiest moments of your life played on repeat, over and over. Everything good and sweet and fun. The second night, it's much the same. You go to bed anticipating another restful and pleasant sleep. But on the third night it changes.
For everyone, it starts the same. There's a long hallway with a door at the end. You walk towards it with nowhere else to go. You twist the knob and when you step forward, the floor ends and you fall. Falling lasts for seconds, minutes, or hours and when you land, it's with a jolt and a cloud of red dust all around you. There's someone else next to you, stumbling, coughing and choking on that familiar dirt that coats your tongue and mouth. When your eyes meet, everything blurs and you're falling again - this time, when you land, it's inside that dream from the first night. Only you're not alone. They're with you. The only way out is to experience the dream together. And when you do wake up, for real, that same red dirt is on your hands.
Falling down the stairs
Content Warnings: Confusion, disorientation
Themes: Survival, horror, it's like groundhog day
The ending of the floor has caught me unawares. This must be the reason why I’m falling down the stairs.
That night, when you fall asleep, you dream of your life before The Quiet Place. At first it's the worst moments of your life played on repeat, over and over. Everything bad and sour and awful. The second night, it's much the same. You go to bed anticipating another restless and dreadful sleep. But on the third night it changes.
For everyone, it starts the same. There's a long hallway with a door at the end. You walk towards it with nowhere else to go. You twist the knob and when you step forward, the floor ends and you fall. Falling lasts for seconds, minutes, or hours and when you land, it's with a jolt and a cloud of red dust all around you. There's someone else next to you, stumbling, coughing and choking on that familiar dirt that coats your tongue and mouth. When your eyes meet, everything blurs and you're falling again - this time, when you land, it's inside that nightmare from the first night. Only you're not alone. They're with you. The only way out is to experience the nightmare together. And when you do wake up, for real, that same red dirt is on your hands.
OOC
From your mods:
Please remember to mark your content in your starters or subject lines as material comes up. The threads on this meme can be used as game canon. Feel free to thread out arrival style meetings as well! If you have questions, pp the mod account, use the faq or comment below. Have fun!
UN: nymeria (hello sister! \o/ )
[Arya doesn't answer straight away, not wanting to dare to hope that this is who she suspects it might be. She's already met another Stark who isn't her family. Even if she liked Tony, he isn't a Stark of Winterfell. But there must still be a fraction of hope left in her somewhere deep because she finally types back.]
you're very articulate, lady stark.
ALL THE HELLOS \o/
She almost smiles a fraction at the reply - better a jape than an outright insult - until she fixes her eyes on the name.
The name.
Gods be good, I---
But who else might choose such a name, of all the names she'd heard in duplicate or more - Stark for sure, it'd been almost commonplace by the time she'd found herself in the world of Clock, but Nymeria? She can't be wholly sure, but she's so close to it - they're at least familiar with her world, even if just through hearing the name from...
...from Nymeria herself, or anyone who might have known of her. Or Arya. (Another Arya or the same? I...it doesn't matter.)
It could be. It could.
Her mouth is dry again as if full of dust, and her knees weaken as she shifts on the sandpath. Looking over her shoulder from the direction she had come: nothing. No one watching her. Everything still, silent.]
It cannot be said that I don't know my letters. But as to what order they fall in...
💩 💩 💩
[If she knew the faces, they might share the same memories of Clock and of Jon and of Lady Lyanna. Of...
...and if not, it still didn't matter. If mymeria was Arya, any Arya at all she was her sister. And though it can't be seen in the confidence of her words, she's trembling a little as she types this next part:]
Are you familiar with the tale of Nymeria and her Ten Thousand Ships? Or of the lesser known tale where she stuffed her elder sister's mattress with sheep dung?
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And then the next message comes and a grin spreads across her face and she also must furiously fight off a snicker. It is her! It doesn't occur to Arya that this could be another Sansa. Another sister from another life. She isn't aware that's even a possibility worth considering.]
Lesser known tale, perhaps. But no less important! I like to think she did it because she thought it would make her sister smell better. She was being thoughtful. And because her sister had made a snide comment about her stitching.
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Arya!
[Now Sansa's smiling. Thoughtful was one way to describe it - and it wasn't really a lie. She'd no doubt many thoughts had preceded the prank. (And many snide comments, if truth be told. It's been so long she can barely remember specific incidents, though she's well aware of how dismissive and condescending she'd been. For Arya, the memories could very well be fresh - so she addresses it.]
I'm very sorry about the things I said. I like to think I said them because I was a spoiled child who didn't know any better, and gods be good I didn't know you at all. If I'd wanted to insult you I should have criticized your marksmanship.
Where can I find you? Or should you find me? You're better at that than I am.
[If Lady were with her, she could surely do it.]
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[But Sansa is here. Not that Arya wants to subject her sister to this world either, but she can handle it far better than her wolf. And it's good to have someone rather than being alone yet again. It does mean Arya will have to protect her as best she can, but this isn't much of a hardship. Arya wants to do it as much as she buts heads with Sansa.]
You wouldn't have anything to insult about my marksmanship, though! [Arya's always had a very high opinion of her skill, even when she was younger and it wasn't nearly as warranted.]
Gods, I was always awful at sewing. But honestly I did a bad job on purpose. But that wasn't exactly a well hidden secret. I'm sorry too. I know I wasn't the easiest little sister. [Perhaps putting it mildly.] Oh, you'll never guess the job the natives have tasked me with here. I think someone was playing a joke.
Knitting. KNITTING. [She can probably change another role if she kicks up enough fuss, but thus far she hasn't really been doing this assigned job much to begin with, so it hasn't mattered.]
I can find you. Describe your surroundings. I know this place fairly well. I've been exploring.
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[It might seem strange to Arya now depending on what had gone before, the wheres and the whens of it. Sansa had not been so easy with her sister since they were both very, very small - and she knows she'll have to broach it eventually, though how much she might have to tell is an uncertainty. It's overwhelming when she thinks on it too long. I've done it before, I can do it again, even if I can't say it aloud. Maybe that's better, maybe---]
No, not the easiest sister. Neither of us were. You were so stubborn. But you also knew what you wanted and what you didn't, and you didn't care who knew it. You weren't a liar, and I always knew when you were displeased with me, even if I didn't know why.
Knitting? Truly? :-? (I don't know the little face for laughing, but I would place it here tenfold if I did.) Did they just task you without asking? That's not very sensible at all. Though, I suppose I could try my hand at it. Both of my hands, even.
There are many buildings nearby, but there's one that's covered in warnings not to enter. I've moved away from that one and have no inclination to go inside. I'm across from it. Am I safe?
[I might warn you that I may not look how you remember me. she almost adds, but it's not important. It may not matter at all.]
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[There's so much that's happened, it's easy to forget how important their squabbles had seemed at the time. Now it's all like a dream, all so ludicrous and unimportant. What did it matter who tripped whom or spat, kicked, or prodded... They were alive. They had each other. All of that didn't matter.]
The did assign it to me without asking, yes! Maybe I could ask to become a sandpath technician or a member of the patrol instead.
I know where you are. By the theatre. You'll be safe there as you are anywhere here, just don't go inside. Stay on the sandpath. I'll be there soon. [Arya doesn't waste any time. She gets on her newly returned leathers, Needle too, the Dagger at her hip. And she's off in the direction she expects to find her sister. What will she find when she get's there?]
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been quite a challenge - that latter thing - but she'd had great and varied instruction, and so many were keen on showing what they knew from their own worlds - both in symbol and word.
By the third time she'd found joy and humor in it - Noah and the little things she thought were snails but were really just a sort of hand gesture that meant peace (peace love and rock and roll) - the crowns and happy little dung faces and the intricate pictures she'd learned to draw by using letters in patterns - almost a form of stitching in and of itself.
She doesn't think on it anymore - and though this machine is a little different, she's managed to find a few of the familiar things. With time she might find the rest. Being unable to safely speak, it seems more necessary than ever.]
There's a patrol? That should be a better fit, I think. Is there a separate Search and Rescue? I'd think you would do well at that.
[I can't. Not without Lady, not without my blades and... Not important right now. It wasn't about her plight and what she mightn't and might be able to do - it was about finding her sister again - a sighted sister this time who may not yet have been blind, or perhaps that was long past done with and Arya would be older than she was. Or something else she utterly could not predict. So she waits where she is, throat tight and hands clasped - the jumpsuit covering the worst of her brands - her partly-dyed hair covering the smaller one on the back of her neck. The scar on the top of her left foot is not something one would immediately be drawn to - but the one on her upper lip, the marking above her littlest finger and the absent tip of that finger are impossible to hide - as are the ends of her hair, which look as if they were dipped in ashy, bloody ink. Mouth dry, heart thudding in her chest, she waits, unsure of what will find her as well, but hopeful.]
I shan't move. I shall be like still water.
[Just as you tried to teach me, Arya, even though I was a bit awful at it.]
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[The jobs here all seem kind of a joke anyway. There's no coin to be made. No one forcing you to do anything at all. The natives weren't exactly forceful with their requests. They were so very afraid all the time, Arya's sure she could boss them around if she saw fit. Her words cause her to start. Had they ever really talked about Syrio? About her dancing instructions? She didn't believe so.]
Fear cuts deeper than swords. Wait.
[Arya moves fast and in minutes after her last text she's by the theatre, eyes scanning. There's only one person there. At a distance, the shape of her is correct. But the hair... is odd. Coming up behind her, she is sure it is her, but something isn't quite right. Movements swift but silent, she reaches out to touch her arm to get her to turn around.]
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Turns, mouth open as if to say something - she knows she can't - but what is there to say, really, when she can bend to wrap her arms around the girl and hold as tight as she's permitted - she doesn't need words or gesture language for this.
Eventually she pulls away, eyes wet, her smile full of joy and relief and only a little sorrow.]
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Arya's older. Sharper, too.
When her sister's hand comes to rest upon her cheek her chest aches both with fullness from weight and from the freeing of it. She wishes she could speak with her own hands as she'd seen the people of this place do - it would be far faster than having to pause and tamp the little keys on the device to make letters. She knows she can't type fast enough. But she'll try. She frowns at the machine, as if it's responsible for the interruption.]
taller. older than when i last saw you. keener eyes, too. but you look well. fierce in your fine leathers.
[What she doesn't say is You look like her. Like Aunt Lyanna. Even moreso, now.]
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Not so much taller though, I'm sure. [She'd never really experienced a growth spurt quite like Sansa had.] I was with you at Winterfell before I came here. But you were older, not looking like this... [Her hand went from her face to Sansa's hair, lifting it into both of their view, clearly hoping Sansa might explain it.]
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Not long after Joffrey died Aunt Lysa tried to throw me down from the Moon Door. Next I was face down in the snow in a place like this. Another world. Called Anatole. A "multi-verse"?
[Is that even right? she's having trouble remembering some things once removed from them.]
I lived years there. A long time.
[She omits being reunited with her parents, with Arya - it's too much to throw at this Arya, had possibly been tto much to throw at the other, she thinks, and it's not relevant just now.]
And then another place. Less like that more like this, but a hell. One of the seven, maybe. I don't know. A year, maybe more. Another after that, called Clock, for another year. But then I went home.
[Was Westeros even home? She doesn't know anymore. It had been - and then after Anatole it had ceased to be - especially when she thought she'd died, and that everyone she'd known and loved were dead, too. But then...]
I thought I'd died by Lysa's hand, but I hadn't. I was hiding in near plain sight as Petyr Baelish's bastard daughter, Alayne, my hair stained dark with dye. Next thing I knew I was back in Clock. It was like a blink of an eye to the people who missed me, but I was gone a long time in the Vale. A long time as Alayne. Now I had all these memories, and I wasn't Sansa Stark anymore but Alayne Stone. I felt older, but I had not spent all those years in any other place, not in that ...version of time (?), so I was younger again, stuffed full of half buried memories from three worlds that suddenly had never happened. Until all my wounds came back and the memories became clear, and then I didn't know what to think. Or who to be. I was very wary and very confused, and I asked someone to find me dye there only it didn't rinse out, I had to wait or it to grow. And then this place.
[She holds up a piece of it with her maimed hand, inspecting it and letting it fall.]
I sound mad, but I swear I am not.
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But some of what she's says sounds familiar. Things that did happen to Sansa in Westeros. She did travel with Little Finger, did stay in the Eyrie, but she didn't think it was for so long. No, she'd been married off to Ramsey Bolton. And then there's her hand. Arya's staring at it openly.
This is doesn't make any sense at all. But she can tell Sansa is speaking truth. This isn't some fanciful lie. Still-- how?] Do those who're mad actually know they are? [They didn't usually, did they?] I don't think you're mad. I just don't really understand it.
[Part of her wonders. Is this Sansa even really her sister? If she didn't experience the same things. Was there an Arya out there, experiencing another set of events like her own but similarly askew?]
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I'd wager half of them do, at least. I don't understand the why of it, but I can say that I've met people more than once, sometimes in the same world, sometimes in the next, and they don't always come from the same time. :-?
I've met Jon three times. The very last time he was older. And when I saw Tyrion, to me he was still my husband, yet he had no memory of it. It hadn't happened to him yet. Or perhaps it might not have at all. That doesn't make it any clearer, does it?
[She sees that open stare, no longer self conscious, but aware of how out of place her injuries might seem.]
I gave up a piece of myself in exchange for Lady's life in Anatole. The scar above it is a brand, from the hell where we were marked for our supposed sins.
What was the last thing you remember?
[She could answer that, and she well might if asked. Yes and yes.]
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...how old are you now? [Are they nearly the same age now? How odd.]
[A piece of herself for Lady? But Lady is dead. But the dead can arrive here, she knows. Why not this other place she'd been too?] Could you give up a piece of yourself to bring back anyone? [She'd have brought back Father, Mother, Rickon, and Robb too... yes, she'd have cut off all of her limbs to do that.]
We were HOME, Sansa. You, Bran, me. Jon was on his way back... with Daenerys Targaryen. [The look on her face made it clear how dubious she felt about that situation. Targaryen's for as much as Arya idolized the dragon riders, they were not to be trusted. Especially for the Starks. ]
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Home? The three of us back in Winterfell?? But not Rickon? Are the Boltons and the Freys gone from it, then?
No, not anyone. There would have been nothing left of me my first week there if that had been so. Lady showed up all on her own after I prayed for her. But we'd gone somewhere dangerous and she was badly injured. I gave it up then.
I was nineteen, but now I'm ...I lost at least two years. I don't really know. I don't know if it even matters.
But Daenerys. Daenerys Targaryen is coming back with Jon? For what reason?
[WHAT EVEN. It's her turn to look utterly confused.]
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Rickon...[She does pause because she knows this will hurt her sister and she doesn't want to do that.] he's at Winterfell, buried next to father. Ramsey Bolton killed him.
[Arya listens to the rest. Lady back from the dead. Sansa's lost years. It's a lot but she's starting to move past disbelief and into acceptance.]
She came from Essos, landed at Dragonstone with an army of Dothraki and Unsullied. And now she's coming back with Jon to help fight the dead. [There's a gleam in Arya's eyes then.] With her dragons. [Arya doesn't know that one of the dragons is dead, killed by the Night King. that's information that's be kept from ravens lest Cersei or those close to her find out the Targaryan's loss.]
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