OPEN: Kirkwail

[faderifting]

WHO: Anyone
WHAT: Ghosts
WHEN: Wintermarch 20
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: OOC post. More content warnings than you can shake a stick at, probably, including allusions to slavery and violence in the body of the log post. Please use appropriate warnings in the subject lines for your own threads.

The storm sweeps in like an assassin: unexpected, in the dark, and throwing sharp pricks of sleet at exposed eyes and noses with expert aim and enough force to almost draw blood if the angle is right. Half an hour after the clouds crest the cliffs is all it takes for the city to retract indoors and huddle around fireplaces, settling in for a long night that will, unforeseen, turn into a long two days.

The Gallows, too, is pelted with ice; the walls of the cliffs and the fortress protect much of it from the worst of the wind, but when it can find a path over or through the walls, it slams through windows or doors to scatter papers and snuff out fires.

In the dark, in the rain, hurrying between towers or already accustomed to jumping firelight casting strange shadows and the wind howling like a wounded animal, people might be forgiven if they don't notice at first. But there's a hanging in the courtyard, a dozen translucent wisps of bodies dangling from the idea of nooses, and there's a girl's voice in the basement of the templar tower screaming for her mother, and there's a ghostly man in the library holding the blade of a knife to his palm and whispering this is it, this is it—or maybe there isn't, actually, when you lift your head to pay closer attention.

But as the night wears on they multiply, and they brighten, and even if you haven't noticed them, they begin to notice you.

Comments

[limier]

She sees by glimpses.

Descending the stair, first rising, then falling; each step bringing its own clipped view. Another parlour play, and if she doesn't recognize this one, it's engrossing as it's become abruptly typical. Another day's obstacle, rendered by now far too familiar.

Up: The man in the chair. Foreign clothing. Down: Composed, clean; the trappings of attentive hands. Up: Wrinkled as Courwin by the end, half as grey —

Down, and this didn't use to be such a trial, she takes this path every day. Down, and an urchin (scarred, intended). Down, and Tomas, she has time enough to think,

The shaft splinters off stone, sends chips of it spinning past her chin; instinct curses white threads of Veil about her. The world snaps closer — realer — for a moment only. The man and his child disrupted but a moment, parting incorporeal only long enough for her to cross their tableau, and re-form.

"Helena," That could sound happier. She isn't armored, hands splayed open far from the sword at her side. Easy. "Put it down."

[strangel]

"He hurts," she hisses, bow cast down, though not in strict obedience. It serves to free her hands, so she can draw a dagger, as the image begins to reform. Tomas, now, looks towards her.

"My child."

False. False, false, and her breathing is edging closer to the snarling exhale of something feral and threatened. "You made me this way." A mantra, once she has tried to learn and sometimes needs to repeat to herself.

The ghost of Tomas shudders a little, seems to grow taller, the shadows across his face more dramatic. "I gave you everything. A purpose. This is how you repay me?"

[limier]

"It is false," Steps aside the image (closer to Helena), just far enough to see she doesn't replace his face — Maker, she doesn't need to be stabbed again — "As before, yes? The Rift,"

Too complex. Helena isn't speaking, breathing, like anything rational. How do you make a monster?

"He wants this. Do not give it."

[strangel]

She remembers. The Rift, remembers Tomas attacking Queen-Lady in the crumbling room, remembers him telling her that Sarah was a monster, and with the memory the spirit has more to feed on, twisting and warping the horrors that are so deeply entrenched in her.

"She'll say anything to save herself."

Insistent and quiet, and behind Helena another ghost form, immediate and desperate in her response. Sarah. "He locked you in a cage! He lied to you your whole life. He's gonna do that to Kira. He's gonna hurt Kira, the way that he hurt you."

Tomas smiles. Kindly, gentle.

Helena grasps her hands over her ears, crouching down, trying to push the memories, the things that cling to her, away. She knows that she cannot; they are like tar, the more she tries to claw them away, the far it spreads over her. The filth, the shame of what she is, what she has done.

"You can see," Helena rasps to the Commander, back curled over so she more closely resembles a hiding animal than a person. "This makes it real."