open | holiday spirits

[cozen]

WHO: Whoever, plus some spirits.
WHAT: Everyone spends an evening regretting the past. So basically a normal night.
WHEN: Wintermarch 5-6
WHERE: A castle in the mountains north of Kirkwall
NOTES: OOC post including less vague/pretentious haunting mechanic descriptions. Fantasy violence and swearing and so on are assumed, but please use content warnings in your subject lines for things like explicit gore or sex, slavery content, body horror, etc., if you go any of those routes.

THE CASTLE

Their convenient shelter from the unexpected blizzard that whips up around them in the mountain pass isn't too convenient. Anyone with a reasonable detailed map will find it marked there; reaching its clifftop location requires a slight detour. When they approach, it has no warm ethereal glow or suspiciously welcoming lit torches. The windows stay dark. The portcullis is raised just high enough to be ducked under, but the heavy doors of the keep don't swing open to welcome them.

The only immediate sign that something is amiss is the thorough, all-encompassing emptiness of the place, and it might take some investigation before that begins to feel strange. The fortress' abandonment seems recent and abrupt: ample firewood has been cut and stacked for the winter, nothing has been done to protect the furniture or strip the beds, the kitchen is fully stocked and even has some perishables that do not seem close to perishing, the stables are equipped to comfortably keep any animals along for the journey, and a chess board before the hearth in the (humble) grand hall seems to have been left mid-game. But there are no messages, no bodies, no footsteps dimpling the crunchy layer of old snow accumulated in the bailey beneath the fresh snowfall.

As they search, the castle's visitors may begin to find signs that the castle hasn't been entirely abandoned. It begins with whispers emanating from the dark ends of corridors, voices they recognize and others they don't, or faces both familiar and unfamiliar flashing in still water or window panes when firelight hits right, or forms moving on the edge of vision but vanishing before they can be looked at directly.

By the time this becomes worrisome enough to drive anyone back out of the castle, the portcullis has fallen shut and won't budge. Neither will any other doors to the outside. The windows won't break; doors won't give way even to makeshift battering rams. The only walls that can be climbed or reached by stairs face out over a deep ravine. It might be a survivable climb, if the wind and weather allowed, but it would not be a survivable fall.

THE SPIRITS

--so back inside, then.

The keep is built like the Gallows' towers, square and tall, and it won't take long for Riftwatch to notice that whatever is wrong is more wrong the higher they climb. The whispers and glimpses on the lowest floor become voices and lingering shadowy figures on the second. Someone might turn and find their hand briefly held by an unfamiliar man's, warm and real for the moment it takes him to say, "Come with me." Or behind them, a woman's shocked and seething voice says, "What are you doing?" Or maybe it's a hand they do know and a voice saying something they've heard before.

As people venture to the higher floors--whether intrepidly seeking the source or involuntarily herded onward by spirits--these moments will begin to last and linger and repeat. And those who don't dare venture higher won't be exempt, confronted by stronger spirits that emerge like ants from a kicked hive as the upper floors are disturbed.

As they approach the uppermost floor, reality will begin to slip away from them. They may find themselves lost in a maze of rooms, even though that shouldn't be possible in so few square feet, and ultimately enveloped in comforting worlds where they didn't do that thing they regret and that, like dreams, feel real until they suddenly don't--until something is too unbelievable, until someone interrupts, or until a demon is holding them under the water of the warm bath they were tempted into, shoving them off a balcony, or whispering into their ears and minds, let me in and you can keep it.

The hauntings will continue until morale improves the eldest, most powerful demon has been dealt with.

THE END

When it ends, it ends abruptly. Weaker spirits vanish; stronger ones retreat into the dark. The lesser demons on the upper floors linger, and some may put up a last-ditch physical fight, but without their superior, they've lost most of their mental pull and emotional sway. The castle has changed, too. Its abandonment no longer looks so recent. The food and firewood is gone, along with any sense of warmth or satiety anyone used them to acquire earlier. There is dust where none was before, mildew and rot, and a few scattered, unfortunate skeletons.

The sun is not quite up, the sky a faintly luminescent grey. But the weather is survivable, though it will be slower travel than it would have been without the fresh snow. The doors will open, and the portcullis will raise. Everyone can set off on their cold, hours-long journey back to the city. Talking about their feelings or avoiding eye contact the entire time: the choice is theirs.

Comments

[illithidnapped]

His laugh is slow. A throaty sort of thing that sees his stare sliding over to meet Hades' own— those pale eyes glinting in low light. Pretty as ever.

And then it ebbs, his expression. Just a little. Like the subtle differences before tide pulls away from the shore.

"What that spirit said. The one that pretended to be your..."

His what, friend? Beloved? Associate? Something more than that, even?

"It's not a bad thing you know, consorting with people like us."

[arkitect]

He decides not to fill in that blank, not overtly. Not when everything they had was lost, and any future that could have been was cut short; his fingers brush idly through Astarion's hair as they often tend to do, like this, as he contemplates.

"...no," he says eventually. "I suppose it has not been. Though I have ever found some company to be far more welcome than others."

[illithidnapped]

Astarion does not purr.

That said, there is a contented sort of way that he breathes under the slow slide of the Ascian's fingertips that might, to some, be a sort of throaty exhale. A contented sort of throaty exhale. Quiet. Slow.

Never to be discussed.

"Mhm. Mine, obviously." There's no hesitation there, no moment of unsurety or nagging need.

"But what about the others? Or...anyone else in this world, for that matter."

[arkitect]

"There are some," he says, after a few moments of quiet consideration, "who I also suppose to be tolerable enough."

Which is as good as a compliment, coming from him, regarding people he doesn't consider himself close to. It might be a compliment to closer companions as well, honestly.

"But not a great number of them, regardless."

[illithidnapped]

And to that Astarion doesn't say anything for a long while. Quiet in the stillness aside from one single, pensive hum of affirmation. A sign he'd heard. That he'd understood.

Not just what Hades confessed, but all its implications, too.


And then he smiles.

Reaches high with forced (practiced) ease to snare the Ascian's fingers within his own, planting a single kiss across their knuckles— thumb still pressed along the underside of them when he rolls himself onto his knees. His heels.

"Come on, then." He urges, all but tugging on that grip, now. "You were right: we shouldn't linger; the more we press our luck, the more likely something here's liable to take advantage of it."

[arkitect]

"You could certainly have listened when I said so the first time," he grouches, though without true heat to it-- a cover for any other reaction that kiss to his hand might have sparked, shoved underneath the veneer of annoyance. He follows, when Astarion tugs at him, allows him to keep their hands linked if he chooses once he's pulled himself up to his feet.

...he doesn't move immediately, though, just. Taking a moment for one more look around, despite the way this sight has remained fixed in his memory for eons already.

Then he turns his attention to continuing onward.

"Now. Back the way we came, do you think, or ought we press onward."

[illithidnapped]

"And deprive you of a few minutes longer in paradise?" He teases, though well beneath the surface of that wryly delivered humor lies the simplest of truths. "Perish the thought."

Some opportunities won't come again, most likely.

"I'm all for adventure, but...I think I've had more than enough for one day, thank you." And while it might not be strictly possible, better to try to draw away from the heart of the storm, rather than towards it when what this place seems to feed on is hope.

And tragedy.

He keeps his hold on Hades' hand, fingers tangled just across his own as his own footsteps carry him backwards by a few meager steps. The start of their departure.

"Time to let the past rest for just a bit longer."

[arkitect]

It's a tease, sure, but... coming from him, here, he thinks it isn't one all the way through. He knows very well how easy it is to speak the truth in ways that are simple to overlook, to disguise; it's rare for him to outright lie, after all.

"...as it should. As it rested ere we arrived here."

He exhales, slow, as he lets Astarion's grip on his hand tug him along to start with, his own footsteps matching pace within a step or two. There's no reason to let go, yet, when they're the only ones right here who are living, no one to see. Some indulgences don't come as often.

Another one follows, albeit brief: he draws level with Astarion, free hand coming up to rest at his chin. To tilt it up as Hades leans down, presses a kiss to his lips before straightening once more.

Moving right on, then, as he takes another step forward.

"I doubt we will be allowed to rest just yet," he says, as if he's done nothing at all.

[illithidnapped]

Hades catches up easily; the benefit of height ever catering to those uniquely long strides. Astarion hardly minds, of course, twisting his posture to remain facing as—

As a hand settles just beneath his chin, flush with living warmth and remarkably light. Prelude to the press of their lips against one another, catching just as quickly as it begins, and ebbing just the same.

Deliberate.

And maybe the answer to everything that spirit had asked before.

His own exhale is swift in the wake of that kiss. Low through his nose. A passing little huff before he trails on, trotting along in the Ascian's shadow.

"Lucky thing, too." Astarion breathes out, fitting his hands to his hips as the haze around them begins to fade.

"I'm not even a little tired."