hadriel_logs | Event Log: Bad End

Entry tags:

Event Log: Bad End

Who: All characters participating in the event
What: The event log for the Bad End event
Where: All over the city!
When: August 23rd-September 5th
Warnings: Bad futures, awkward conversations, smashed mirrors

You wake up to find a mirror at your bedside - a pretty nice one, too, a silver hand mirror perfect for fixing your hair in. Only when you try to do that, it's not your gorgeous reflection that you see. It's something else - a terrible future, just about as bad as anything you could imagine for yourself.

Maybe you see your loved ones dead on the ground, and you know it's your fault. Maybe you see the goal you've been working so hard for pulled out of your reach forever. Maybe you see someone you've hurt in the past ruining your life. Maybe you see your hot girlfriend leaving you to shack up with your worst enemy. Whatever you see, it really sucks, and you know that it's possible. This future could happen if you make the wrong choices, give in to your worst impulses.

Break the mirror if you want, but you'll see the same vision in any reflective surface in the city. You can't break them all, but you can sure try. And what will you do when you see your best friend's vision - and it features you betraying them?

Seek reassurance, give reassurance, lash out, vow to yourself that you'll never let it turn out that way, sink into the depths of sorrow because you feel like the future you see is inevitable. Whatever you do, it won't take away those visions - not until the event is over.

► This log covers August 23rd-September 5th.
► Feel free to make your own logs, as well
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► If you can't handle the idea of your dark future, or maybe you just accidentally slip and fall on a mirror shard, let us know here.

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Lu--[Lup recognizes the woman's voice before she actually focuses down at the figure standing in front of her. The soft pressure of Lucretia's hand on her arm drags Lup back to her senses, grounding her, her own hand automatically moving to the other woman's shoulder to steady herself.] Shit, I didn't even... I don't know how I didn't see it was you.

[She takes a second to reorient herself, purposely turning her back away from the nearest shop front, it's glass still intact, creating too big a reflective surface to reflect back their futures.] Okay, that one was definitely on me. I'll take the blame for that. My bad, man. [Her gaze drifts down just enough to catch Lucretia's wrapped hand.] Uh, are you starting a new trend or looking for our cleric? Cause both are terrible ideas.

It's fine, I'm fine– are you okay?

(She hasn't quite seen Lup like this before, or at least not in recent memory: hesitant and confused. When she turns the both of them away from the mirror-glass of the shop window, Lucretia puts two and two together: so she isn't the only one, seeing things in surfaces. Excellent. It must have been specifically tailored to her, just enough to hurt, and judging by their recent conversations about the future Lucretia had hazard a good guess at what she must have seen.)

Hmm? (She glances down at her hand, turning it. Thankfully, the blood doesn't seem to have come through the cloth yet: she had bound it quite tightly.) No, I was– I was just looking for some first aid. I cut it on that stupid mirror.

Yeah. [It's an automatic response. Clearly neither of them are very okay, but even with her dearest friend, Lup has trouble admitting just how shaken she is by her lack of reflection. What if it continues to progress? What if she just disappears completely? How does anyone fight against something like that? For once, it's not a problem Lup can just blow up and be done with.

But Lucretia is here and she's hurt, no matter how minor an injury it may be, and so Lup slips an arm around her friend's shoulders and immediately leads her away from their reflections. She's just being a good pal, she reasons with herself, but the arm around Lucretia may have benefited the slight shake left in her legs more than she'd like to admit.] There's a clinic not far away, we'll get you patched up in no time. Having some mirror troubles? This place can't figure out how it wants to torture us. Last month we got all these messed up fake memories and now this. Someone needs a new hobby.

(Ninety years is a long time to know somebody, get to intimately know their little ticks, how they work. Lucretia can hear the disconnect in Lup's voice, her muted discomfort apparent. In a twisted way, it's a little reassuring to know that Lup is shaken by all of this. Lucretia would have found it this entire situation a lot harder to deal with if she'd been trying to laugh all of it off instead.)

Thanks, Lup. (She exhales sharply in agreement, shoulders hunching.) No kidding. It's a cruel joke.

(It's only a reflection. She can keep telling herself that, as much as she likes, but the vision still picks at the edge of her mind, threatening to overwhelm her.) So these type of things happen often, then? Great.

Pretty sure 'it's a cruel joke' is stitched into the fabric of our lives, Luce. [Some celestial being must taped a permanent 'kick me' sign on all of their backs at least a century ago. This level of bad luck is kind of surreal.

Lup's shaken, sure, but it's so much easier to pretend nothing is wrong when she has something else to focus on. A goal in mind. Getting Lucretia to the clinic and getting her hand stitched up is a welcome distraction and Lup's greatest purpose in life currently.] Yeah, sounds like these things pop up once a month or so. The assholes who run this place do shit to fuck with our emotions so they can suck 'em right out of us. They feed off of messing with us. Pretty twisted.

[And maybe it's incredibly inappropriate to even ask, but hey, if you can't ask your best friend, who can you ask?] What's it showing you? Your journals getting wet? [Definitely a shitty time for jokes, but that was the Taaco brand to a fault.]

Oh, that's a good one, (she says idly, rolling her eyes.) You should put that on a mug or something. I'd buy it.

(Honestly, she's taking comfort in the fact that they have an abject goal, too. She doesn't much want to think about her vision, especially now that she knows what the future really does have in store for her. But it wasn't... it wasn't true, though, right?

If she wanted to dodge this particular line of conversation, perhaps she should have chosen to run into somebody a little more emotionally closed off than Lup. Lucretia gives her a humourless smile, then glances away.)

Sure. Wet journals; no ink left in my pens; my friends suffering insurmountably by my own hands; watching myself slowly turn to dust and knowing that I'd doomed them all? Typical fare.

Nah, I swiped it off a t-shirt I saw in the Hadriel gift shop. Lots of other great cave city slogans too like, 'Namaste here' or 'Keep calm and Hadriel on'. Pretty sure I'm gonna nab the 'Y'all are fucked' one in blue for you. It'll bring out the color of your eyes and remind you of how fucked this place is. Dual purpose.

[The joking with a side of truth is comforting as always to Lup, who laughs humorlessly as she makes a very quick u-turn once she spots another large window ahead of them on that particular path to the clinic. They can just take the long way around.]

Ah, the trifecta. Er, quadfecta? Either way, yeah, sounds pretty normal to me. I'd be a lot more worried if it had showed us as having a nice, quiet day cause that would be really out of place for us. [Still, the arm around Lucretia's shoulders gives her a light squeeze. They've been through worse than this. They'll survive.]

Edited (go to sleep me) 2017-09-05 14:45 (UTC)

Great; it'll pair perfectly with my 'I don't want to be here' baseball cap.

(Yes, using humour to cope is always good. Despite the heavy bouts of sarcasm, Lucretia is feeling a bit better. That, and her hand is starting to throb a bit, so that's something for her to concentrate on, too.)

Sounds a little too normal to me, (she mutters darkly: she's still thinking about Taako's face, contorted with anger as he pointed the umbra staff at her. Why can't the 'ultimate bad end' ever be something like dying of old age? That would be really boring, probably. Lucretia bumps her hip against Lup's companionably as they make their way ~~downtown~~ toward the clinic, strategically avoiding building windows as they go.)

What did you see in yours?

Hell, I'll even throw in a 'Would rather be Starblasting' scarf. Now that's a look you'd deffo rock.

[Lup can't know for certain what's on Lucretia's mind, what images are haunting her, but she has a a few ideas and none of them are very pleasant. Then again, what part of this whole Hadriel experience had been pleasant to begin with?]

Nothing. Like, actually nothing. There's nothing there but whatever's around me. [She smirks despite not finding too much funny with her predicament.] That's the end of the bit. Sounds boring compared to yours. I should ask for a refund.

I dunno, I think it's getting to be a complicated look. Like, what kind of weather am I dressing for anyway?

(Not one bit of it has been pleasant, really. This situation with the mirrors is really the icing on top of her visit and Lucretia hasn't been here a week yet. Is it time to leave now, or.)

Nothing? (Oh, what with... her having been erased from existence. By... her. Lucretia chews her lip, brow furrowing as she gives Lup a little squeeze around the shoulders with her arm.) No, I don't– if you refund it, they'll just have another go most likely.

I'm sorry, Lup.

For our glorious cave weather, of course. [Meaning, no weather. Just delightful.] Really just sounds like you're dressing to make a statement anyway. The statement being 'Fuck this place, Lucretia's out.'. Or maybe just simplified down to 'Later haters' while you skateboard away.

[An image that Lup will forever keep in her mind.]

Nothing, [she repeats, trying to keep her tone level and as cheery as possible, despite the unpleasantness her reflection brings. Still, the squeeze around her shoulders earns Lucretia a soft, far more sincere smile from the elf. Honestly, she'd rather have a go for a second try at this reflection thing, though seeing them all getting gobbled up by the Hunger and the whole universe getting extinguished probably wouldn't make her feel that much better either.]

Hey, I thought we had this good bit going. Don't ruin it with apologies, cause then we have to air out your shit too. [Which Lup would listen to, sure, but knows Lucretia probably isn't too keen on discussing right now.]

Yeah, seriously. (She glances up at the roof of the cave for what feels like the umpteenth time that week. She's so tired of looking up, expecting sky and instead seeing rock. It makes her skin crawl.) I'm starting to seriously feel that statement, so I doubt it'll be long before I'm boarding out of here in search of something a little less... claustrophobic. You should come with.

(She's never thought of herself as hating small spaces, but then, she'd never been stuck in a large cave before. For the record: it sucks.

She heaves a big sigh, but smiles weakly all the same just to reassure. It's cool that Lup doesn't want to get into her shit: there is, in all fairness, a lot of it.) I know. Do you think it's going to last for long, though? The mirror stuff, I mean. I'm officially over it.

[Lup hates looking up now. After a lifetime of being able to tilt her head and see some kind of sun above her, to feel wind on her face, now it's just... that. But she follows Lucretia's gaze upwards anyway and scowls, like she could scare the roof of this cave away if she threatened it enough.] You say that like you'd even have to ask, babe. I'd be there with you before you even mentioned it.

Really though, being trapped here wouldn't be half as awful if we weren't stuck in this damn cave. I feel like I'm wilting or something. [a beat] But maybe that's just the turbo-liches sucking me dry. Who knows?

[Why couldn't they have been trapped on another beach planet? Couldn't they gods of this place get the emotions they needed out of them there, out in the sun instead of this awful, dark prison?]

Lucretia's weak smile just means that Lup is bumping hips with her this time, giving her shoulder an affectionate squeeze.] The nice thing about facing the apocalypse ninety-two times in a row is that we've seen just how bad it can get. But this? Well, it bites, but it's survivable. Whatever this place throws at us, we've got it. Can't fucking knock us girls down.

I know what you mean. It feels like a... cage.

(She wishes even a little bit of the ceiling could be left uncovered. Without the sky to look at, she can't tell what time it is and it makes being down here feel disorientatingly endless, something of which Lucretia isn't a fan. Besides, this place is the anomaly, after all. Perhaps it will be endless.

Disturbed, she tries to shake this awful feeling off as Lup bumps her hip, and thankfully makes her laugh.)

Agreed. (She hunches her shoulders up and down to make Lup's arm about them bounce with the movement.) I don't know what I'd do if you weren't here. Just– be really bored, I suppose. Nothing quite like girl time.

[It's not the best thing for Lup to pick up on as a commonality between them, but it's comforting to know that Lucretia feels as trapped as she does. Some of the people here seem so content underground, the sun and sky nowhere in sight. It's been only a little over a month of Lup and she still can't get over how dark and dismal this place seems. Sure, her friends make it livable, Lucretia arriving has certainly been a brightness through everything, but she just isn't sure she'll ever feel normal till she's above ground again.

One day. They can't be stuck here forever. Lup has to believe they'll get out.

Lucretia is as good a distraction for Lup as Lup is back for her, the elf laughing so much easier now as her friend hunches her shoulders like that, looking absolutely ridiculous. This is the side of silly side of Lucretia that she adores.] Lucky for you, you'll never have to find out. Life without me would be awful, that's for fucking sure. [She reaches down with her free hand to poke Lucretia in the side, tickling her in retaliation.]

But you're stuck with me. Probably forever, knowing our luck.

Forever?

(She tries to make a shocked face, like she's dismayed by this information, but at that precise moment Lup pokes her to make her laugh and it works. Lucretia sputters and sniggers helplessly, batting at her hand. Lup coaxes this goofier side out of her and it's a side that Lucretia secretly likes about herself because when she is silly, it always makes Lup laugh.

A good laugh is something a lot of people down here probably need, too.)

Don't poke me! Maybe forever doesn't sound terrible. In my defense, I've been stuck with the lot of you for practically forever already, so what's a little more?

[Taako will always be the person to make her laugh most--when you live for nearly two centuries together, the inside jokes practically write themselves--but Lucretia comes in a close second. When they first met, Lup never would have imagined getting so close to the quiet, shy woman who preferred to spend her time buried in her journals than interacting with the awesome bar fight going on around her, but now that she knows what a laugh riot Lucretia is, getting to spend time with her is always a delight.

But Lup feels that way about all of their companions. They all managed to become something so much more to the elf. And so, after a lifetime of only her and Taako, now she had five other unique and interesting people so closely intwined in her life.

Being told to not poke her just has Lup's fingers itching to do it more, but she just sticks her tongue out at Lucretia instead, guiding them around another corner until the clinic was finally in sight. Once they make it to the door, she holds it open for the other woman to duck inside.] Better us than some other group of assholes, right? At least we're a little lovable.

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Event Log: Bad End

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