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soddersays2018-07-01 06:30 am
sodder) wrote in soddersays2018-07-01 06:30 am
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July 2018 Test Drive Meme
JULY 2018 TEST DRIVE MEME
Welcome to July's Test Drive Meme! This is our first Test Drive ever so let's make it a good one. This month's Test Drive's theme is: JAPANESE BASED HORROR.
All Test Drive Memes contain at least one clue to the Deerington's upcoming in-game events for the month! Keep your eyes peeled! But...not literally.
Characters may die during TDMs, but you do not need to count it towards a game-canonical death unless you want to. Consider it a freebie. All TDMs can be considered game canon as TDMs introduce minor aspects about the world of Deerington that can be revisited by characters later on in the game. You may also use TDMs for your application writing sample as well as AC.
CW: Psychological horror, supernatural horror, body horror with stitches, potential gore, potential burning.
Don't forget to tag content whenever necessary. Have fun!
THE SISTERS OF KOJI POND
The streets of Deerington are hazy this fine summer evening in July. Buzzing drunkenly through the tall wild grass on the sides of streets are the speckled dots of fireflies as they fly about. It's a bit muggy, the kind that makes your clothes hang from your body and cling against the slopes of your shoulders and arms. It's easy to feel lost in the tranquility of that perfect summer night. The stars are bright overhead, and there's a full moon in the sky that looks as big as a quarter from where you're standing. Distantly, it smells like somewhere someone is having a late night bonfire. If you listen hard enough, you could almost hear the crackling of the wood as it splinters and burns.That's when you can hear the soft laughter of a woman. It's the appealing kind of laughter that maybe reminds you of a distant lover, a sister, a friend, or maybe even your own mother. Turning towards the laughter, you might see the shining glow of the moon tucking itself behind a nearby building. But no, the moon was still up in the sky where it belonged. Wasn't it? The moon has halved itself. That's all right. That's how it had been when you last looked. Wasn't it?
The laughter distracts you from the halved moon, sounding closer now. The exhale of a sigh and you feel that prickling sensation that you are not alone. That's when you see a white cat. The creature is sitting neatly in front of a street lamp, and it's positively otherworldly with its luminescent glow. So that's where the moon had gone. The cat appears perfectly normal except it has twin tails winding slowly back and forth behind it.
When the cat finally looks your way, it opens its mouth and a woman's laugh comes out of it, bright and cheerful.
The cat stands up and pads down the sidewalk, its tails twirling about in an almost mesmerizing motion. Behind you, the moon has gone from a half down to a thin crescent, the stars blacking out one after the other.
If you follow the cat, it takes you down winding streets. The cat takes you to Koji Pond. Above the sky has gone completely black, and there are no fireflies to see. The street lamps have gone completely out. It's just you and the woman-.
The woman? What had happened to the cat? No, it had always been a woman you were following, right? You can't mistaken a cat for a woman.
But there's not just one woman. There's two, you realize. Two at opposite ends of the pond. Each are wearing an identical moon-white kimono. One is laughing softly, but the other is staring blankly across the water. The grave woman wears her long black hair up in a tight bun, whereas the laughing woman's hair is flowing free and filled with soft flowers. The grim woman turns her flat, black eyes and gestures to you.
"Come here. Now."
The laughing woman tucks some hair behind her ear, looking your way. She radiates warmth and that summer sweetness you remembered feeling before the world went dark. "My sister is so cruel. Ignore her. Sit beside me."
Which woman will you go to? Neither of the women will pressure you, but you'll find that if you try to leave, your sight will grow darker and darker, though you won't be blind exactly. It's more like the light from all the worlds in existence have been stolen away and put into these two women. Everything beyond them is cast in darkness.
If you go to the stern woman, her tight expression will smooth out and she will bow her head, cupping her hands against her chest. From her sleeves, she will remove a silk bag of roasted soybeans. She hands them to you, not smiling, but not looking quite as severe as she had moments ago. "Scatter them."
Once you do, you'll notice the more you scatter, the more stars you bring back into the night sky. By the time you're done with the bag, the women will have both disappeared, and the white cat from before will be sitting where the stern woman once sat. Only this time, the cat has one tail.
However, if you decide to go to the laughing woman....
As you come closer, you'll notice that her hair is parted to hang evenly over her shoulders, and at the back of her neck is ...a mouth. A snarling mouth with sharp teeth. The closer you walk to her, the hotter and more stifling the air around you becomes. All you can hear is the woman laughing. Her face is reflected a million times in the water's surface in Koji Pond, all laughing, an entire auditorium's worth of laughter hurled at you.
You must overcome the laughter. The woman's hair will grow, wrapping itself around you wherever it can to drag you towards her. The moment you assault the woman, her laughter will turn to screams and the world all around you will feel as if you've been placed into an oven. Small fires will spark live in nearby bushes and across the grass.
It doesn't seem like regular objects can truly kill her though.
The other sister can't reach you, but she is throwing raw soybeans to you. They scatter all over the place. If you're quick on your feet, you'd think to pick them up. If you're even quicker, you'd think to throw the soybeans into the nearby fires to roast them. This seems to be the only way to really hurt the woman- and the only way to eventually banish her. But it'll take some time.
The worst part? The longer you stay near the woman, the sicker you'll feel. Maybe you'll come down with the cold, or maybe you'll grow blisters on your tongue. It doesn't matter: you'll grow terribly sick with some illness in the world and nothing will cure it until the woman has been abolished. And when she finally is? You will be left terribly weakened, but the stars will slowly come back as will the full moon.
I LOVE YOU: PLEASE LOVE ME BACK
It begins as a regular day in Deerington. The only problem is that there's really no such thing as a regular day in Deerington. When you come to, you'll find yourself feeling particularly emotional. Whether that's overly sad or happy, it doesn't seem to matter, because you're feeling everything so intensely. Maybe you just didn't sleep right, or maybe it's this weird dream you're having. Hopefully if you ignore it, it'll go away.Except it doesn't go away. It's beginning to feel isolating being alone with your thoughts, even if they're happy, because it feels like you're near bursting to express yourself to someone.
When you finally cave, it's to the nearest person. The urge grows even louder inside of you until finally you're exclaiming loudly to the other person how you're feeling. Then you think to ask something that seems perfectly natural to you: you ask for a hug. Or maybe you ask for a handshake. Any contact.
Maybe the other person is sympathetic, or maybe they're feeling this emotional onslaught as much as you are. Either way, the moment your skin makes contact with another person's body, you'll feel a sudden swoop of sensation slide through your skin. It doesn't hurt, necessarily, but you've never felt anything quite like it before. And you don't want to stop touching this person wherever you may be touching them. As a matter of fact, you want to get closer. This urge does not need to be felt on both ends.
But the closer you get, the more yourself you begin to feel. Until at last you decide to look to where you have touched the other person.
Securing the two of you together are thick, coarse black stitches. Try and tug yourself away will result in atrocious pain on both ends. Anywhere your skin has touched the other person's will have been stitched to it. Careful getting hysterical though- the more emotional you become, the more likely you'll be to crowd closer to the person you're sewn into, and the more you'll fuse together. Better try and calm each other down first.
The solution is simple: you need to cut your way out of the bond. The tricky part is finding something to cut it with...and, well, the fact that the moment someone tries to cut the stitches, you'll both feel a hysterical urge to stay together forever.
It's possible to overcome that urge- but boy, do you need to have an iron will. Cutting the stitches is a miserable ordeal that hurts every snip of the way- but each time you cut a stitching, it fades away entirely as if it had never been there to begin with.
There is another option, of course. You could always jump into some water and get the stitches wet. Once you do, they'll melt right off you, not even leaving holes or dots behind. Surely you hadn't just imagined that, right?
THIS IS MY HOLE, IT WAS MADE FOR ME!
It is certainly a nice day for a refreshing hike into the woods! Or perhaps you have decided that a little exploration is in order for this new, strange town you have woken up to. At some point along the way, perhaps you find someone else on the trails of the National Park. No such thing as bad company, right? As you traverse towards Mount Rheum, the wind begins to pick up and you hear a low moaning. You could swear that you recognize that voice. Before you can place any names, the moaning stops and it's easy to think that maybe it was just the wind. Winds pulling through the trees always did make the strangest noises. Except when the wind picks back up, you're more certain that you know this voice. Maybe it's the voice of your companion, or a loved one, a hated one from back home...Maybe it's even your own voice that you recognize. Each time the wind blows, the voice seems to change. It can't be the wind? It all seems to be coming from one direction: Mount Rheum.
You never quite reach the base of the mountain.
Even if you head straight on towards the mountain, when you pass through the line of trees that should technically open up to the base, you'll find no such thing. Instead, you'll find an enormous looming wall of gray slate. You can't even see the mountain behind it, it's so immense. How did you not see that from the forest? The wall seems to be tipped towards the mountain, and you think, just maybe, you could climb it. It crosses your mind for just a second before you notice something odd about the wall. From far away, it looks like a bunch of black smudges. But as you grow closer, you realize they aren't smudges at all. They are holes.
Holes the shape of human beings. And every single hole looks completely different from the next. There's hundreds of them, maybe even thousands, and they climb all the way up the slate wall. And there is one hole made specifically for you.
You may even find the hole that belongs to someone you know, or your companion, and every time the wind blows, you can hear the groaning voice of that person coming from within their hole.
It is impossible to get over the wall of gray slate. No matter how hard you may try. But it seems possible to find your own hole. You'd swear that the holes are moving. Examine the inside, and they seem to go on indefinitely. Put your hand inside any of them, and they will feel oddly warm. As warm as a human body. If you put your hand into the hole that belongs to the person you're with, they will feel a terrible coldness overcome them. Keep your hand in long enough, and you'll begin to see them die right in front of you. Better keep your hands to yourself....Or that'd be easier said than done if you didn't feel yourself grow in power, in intelligence just from stealing their life force.
Climbing into your own hole? You'll feel exhilarated! Alive! Like you have truly found the proof of your own soul. You don't want to leave your hole. It was made for you!
It is almost impossible to get out of your own hole. Chances are good you'll be slowly pulled into it, your body steadily crushed and stretched out, but you'll be conscious the entire time, and at some point you'll begin to moan horribly from the pain of it all.
Of course, you can always be saved. If someone climbs into your hole after you, it'll break apart the rock structure clenching down around you and they might be able to pull you out in time. You'll be left terribly weak, pale, and incapable of proper speech for a couple of hours...But at least you're not dead.
Character Arrival
You can read how all characters arrive in Deerington here.There is not a collective "all these characters showed up at the exact same moment" occurrence in Deerington. Since characters fall asleep, die, or pass out at various times throughout all their worlds, it wouldn't make too much sense if they arrived in game all at the exact same time. There should be some discrepancy between character arrival, whether by a couple minutes, hours, or even days up to a week.
The players are entirely in control of how/when they want to play their characters arriving in Deerington. For TDMs, you can play it like your character has just arrived and that can be maintained as your game canon, or you can wait until game events for that moment. Or you don't need to acknowledge it at all. The flexibility for character allows a bit more of an organic feel to the character arrival situation, so please play it to whatever feels right for you.
If you are interested in having an "arrival" introduction for one of your TDM prompts, you are more than welcome to explore that option.
a cat-sized violin plays softly
Not talking suits her just fine; in fact, Henry turns her back and walks to the other side of the road to head it off, taking her conspicuous silence and nausea with her. Concern would imply something's wrong--and she's fucking peachy here, thanks. Her hand slips from her mouth to her collar, fingers sliding beneath her shirt to rub the perpetually tense knot in her shoulder. Digging her fingertips in makes it ache; it takes a little away from the ache in her chest.
There's a rattle and a plastic pop as she pries the lid off her pills. Her back to Sean, she swallows one dry. It takes a moment to pack them and the rest of her reaction away, and then she continues walking on her side of the road, doing as advised. She can't tell if he's looking her way or not; she looks head or to the side, never quite in his vicinity.]
Did a horse really do that? That's fucked up.
[It takes longer to resume speaking than it does to resume moving, if only because it takes more time to ensure her tone is even-handed, if a bit grim with their discovery.]
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it's like a whole other world as far as sean's concerned. ]
He's a capall uisce. It's his nature. [ it's not an apology for corr, nor an excuse for it—just a statement of fact. corr is what he is. ] At home they'll come up out of the sea and find a land horse or a sheep. Or a man, if they're not careful.
[ it's probably not helpful for him to be talking about this in detail?? sean shuts up for a moment, contemplating a way to change the subject.
thankfully, or maybe not, he's saved from a less-than-graceful segue by the familiar smell of thisby brine and seawater, carried on the wind as it blows by them. sean's head whips toward the source, and he crosses the road and hoists himself over the barrier separating the street from the land around it. in the soft dirt at the side of the road are several distinct hoofprints. ]
You were right, he followed the river. [ he looks back at henry, studying her for a moment. ]
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Given that, who is she to be the morality police right now? And yet...]
What?
[Something in what Sean says drags her back to attention, and she glances at him sharply from across the new found distance. Perhaps he doesn't mean to, but he gives her an outlet by planting a seed of irritation that distracts her from everything else.]
That's all you have to say? Aren't you the guy who said he trains these things? That, by the way, still sounds like a made-up word no matter how many times you say it. Did you skip the lesson on not eating the mailman and Mittens the cat?
[Which is it, is it totally normal and expected they tear shit to shreds because it's their nature, or is it Sean's responsibility to stop them from tearing shit to shreds? All she's hearing at the moment is the discrepancy between nature vs. nurture and where this supposed monster horse fits in.
Henry could go on, but Sean grows alert all of a sudden, as keen as an animal scenting the air. It strikes her how much he looks like a meerkat from the Lion King in that moment, perked and bright-eyed, before he's bounding over the rail like a track athlete taking a hurdle.]
Wh-- [Um, where is he going? Come back? Her nose isn't as primed to catch the smell of saltwater; she's slower to register it and approach the barrier.] What the hell are you doing?
[The horseshoe-shaped divots in the soil are pretty hard to miss, even for a rookie magic horse wrangler, and her expression shifts to a knowing apprehension at seeing them.
Oh, shit. Dude, do not go chasing those hoofprints like she thinks you're about to do.]
What are you going to do bare-handed?
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he regards her quietly for a second, again without judgment. how can he best explain this? that on thisby he feeds the capaill with meat and blood from the butcher, that they live in stalls with iron gates and handles that only turn counterclockwise, that sean takes them out with salt and iron and red ribbon in his pockets so as to be in control?
that he's lost horses back to the sea, and that each one cuts him to the quick? ]
A tiger in the circus is no less a tiger for having been taught to jump through hoops. [ is what he settles on. ] I train them, but I don't tame them. Nothing can tame them.
[ and if there's a butcher here, there was no chance sean would find him before corr found that cat.
the question, which sounds about as appalled as sean had expected it to, prompts him to reach into the pockets of his pants and jacket where his things are. he withdraws a few things: fingers covered in salt, and a red ribbon with bits of iron woven into it. the holly berries stay where they are. ] Not totally bare-handed.
[ a pause. ] We can part ways here if you like... [ not that he doesn't appreciate her company, but he also doesn't want her to die and also isn't entirely convinced she has any desire to see corr in person. ] Thank you, for helping me look.
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Oh, okay, I take it back. I see you've got it totally covered.
[Sarcasm, thy name is Henrietta.
What she really wants, he can't give: answers to explain the last month of her life, and why it only seems to be getting weirder and weirder as time passes. She's talking to the equivalent of Hagrid who claims he raises and races water horses for a living, for Christ's sake. Any answer Sean could give is doomed to fall short next to her considerable pile of questions.
And now he's trying to ditch her and run off alone? Her expression pinches. That if you like annoys her; it's an out, but a passively polite one that makes it sound like it's her call to let him go do something stupid.
Goddamn it. With an inward groan, she (less gracefully) climbs over the rail.]
All I've seen so far is some roadkill and hoof marks that could be from anything. You could still be some guy off his meds. Haven't discounted that possibility.
['Cause honestly, that'd explain a lot more than this Bigfoot enthusiast vibe Sean's got going on.]
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he considers her for a moment longer, then nods. if she's going to come along it's better that she's with him, instead of sneaking down another way. ]
Alright. But if I tell you to run, just trust me and run. [ because it only takes a split second for a capall to rip your arm off.
she seems to more or less have the hang of this, so he doesn't offer her his hand, but he does check to see she's found her footing before he leads the way down the embankment towards the river. ahead, sean can see the place where it widens into the lake, and he's already searching the surface of the water for the telltale ripples that would indicate a horse below the surface. ]
Keep an eye out for something moving under the surface, [ he suggests. it is a suggestion, not an order, although it's a good idea for her to do anyway so as to not get eaten.
there are more hoofprints in the dirt as they get closer to the lake, which both heartens sean and makes him nervous. he has the ribbon wrapped tight around his hand now, holding it close. ]
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Sean's right in more ways than one, surmising she'll follow if left behind. However foolishly she might be flying by the seat of her pants on this one, she's committed, for better or worse. And she wants to know what Sean's sincerity is worth--just what the fuck she'd followed him this far for.
If that particular rainbow happens to end in an actual cannibal horse... Allowing for that possibility, she's as ready as she'll ever be.
A low-hanging branch threatens to snag her hair, and she brushes it aside, nodding in response.]
Fine. You tell me to run, I'll break a new land-speed record. Happy?
[As easy said as done--easier, in fact, since if she's truly in any danger, she'll probably be long gone before him, her, or the capall have time to blink. Perks of being a teleporter.
That blend of tenuous courage and skepticism carries her most of the way to the lakeside in silence, the hoofprints their steady, constant companion. A part of her had been resting on the expectation the prints wouldn't actually lead into the water, but the longer they arrow straight down, past hard-packed dirt to soft, muddy shoreline, her skepticism starts to waver. Shit. This thing is going somewhere by the water, that much is certain.]
in this comment, a bridle appears bc i forgot to mention it several tags back sry
any potential teasing fades the closer they get to the waterline, especially once it becomes apparent that the hoofprints don't stop at the edge. the lake is bigger than sean expected, somehow; he can see the other edge of it, but not well. it's a good thing, in that it gives corr a place to swim. it's a bad thing in that sean isn't sure he'll be as easy to find.
sean's not entirely sure he needs to tell her to stay back from the water. ] Myr shegin dy ve, bee eh, [ is what he says aloud. a manx blessing: "what must be, will be."
he walks into the water up to his knees. the soft earth under his feet is all wrong, not the grit of sand he's used to, but the water is familiar in its own way. from the distance, a ripple begins to move in their direction, the only indicator of something large moving under the surface of the water. ] Found you.
[ henry is only on the periphery of his awareness now, his focus keen on the shape moving toward them. it takes but a moment—a capall uisce is fast—before the lake shallows out and corr emerges from the water, all seventeen blood-red hands of him. he rears up, his feet cutting through water and the air in front of sean, and makes the kind of noise sean has only ever heard from a water horse—a noise not unlike a scream. ]
a magically appearing bridle for a magical horse, it works
It doesn't really matter; what he's doing is more important than what he's saying. Removed from what's happening down by the water's edge, she linger in the shade of a tree, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling to life when no amount of scanning the lake or its shoreline reveals a hooved animal of any sort.
Where's this horse, then? Sean's following the trail that leads into the water, but where's the horse?
It's just the glassy surface of the lake, the fresh tracks, and...
Found you. She swings her gaze around, looking, but she's still searching for the obvious--a land horse above the surface of the water--not a disturbance in it. Holy. Shit.
It's the kind of unsettling streamlined movement that should have a shark fin attached, or the flat head of an alligator or something, but it's no alligator that comes blasting out of the water, all kicking legs and screaming like a possessed orca whale. To her speechless disbelief, the motherfucker is just as advertised: red, muscled, and the size of a small house.
She isn't sure she can fathom a thing like this coming out of any ocean, but she especially can't picture Corr in relation to the tropical beach she'd been on. He's not pretty starfish and palm trees, warm water and those drinks with the little umbrellas in them. There's no doubt in her mind this is something else--something out of colder, darker depths, those places where giant squids live that nobody visits or understands.]
Oh, fuck me.
[The oath is all that squeezes out of her. Fortunately for her dignity, she doesn't fall down on the muddy bank, but her jaw does the falling in place of the rest of her.
That is... indeed a giant fucking ass horse.]
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much of what he does when he gets there probably looks absurd to henry. with the toe of his boot he draws a perfect half-circle in front of corr and spits in it; the salt in his pocket comes out, or at least some of it does, and he flicks some in corr's face. it looks absurd but it also works. corr doesn't step over the line once, and he tosses his head, looking offended at the spray of salt. his teeth snap, right at sean's shoulder, and sean bites out a tense, ] Take it easy— traa dy liooar, wild thing.
[ that's to get corr's attention. the ribbon comes next, when corr's feet touch land again. sean darts in, takes hold of his mane right behind his ears, and presses the red ribbon over the bones of corr's nose, holding him close. he can feel corr trembling, all two-thousand-odd pounds of him, but he holds tight and walks corr in slow, tight circles—counterclockwwise—until some of the trembling fades and sean is reasonably sure that corr isn't about to eat him when he pulls away.
he murmurs to the horse as he does, but keeps the ribbon pressed against corr's nose until he's got the bridle out of his pocket, until he can slip it over his face (careful at his mouth) and fasten it up along his cheek.
only then does he move into the view of corr's good eye, where it's safe for him to turn a bit and look back up at henry. ] Henry Coles, this is Corr.
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It might just be the most strange and beautiful thing she's seen outside of a piece of art, and also she's never going swimming in deep bodies of water again.
She flinches in Sean's place at the gnashing of those unnaturally, wickedly sharp teeth, though they're nowhere near her. They're near enough to Sean for her to be afraid for him. But the boy in question does something that's almost as miraculous as the water horse in and of itself--he stays rooted right where he is, showing no fear, working the blood-red monster through a series of small, ineffectual-looking rituals. Any moment she expects Corr to knock him down or take his head off, and every moment he doesn't is another shock.
He's throwing stuff in its face and wrapping string around its snout! It's insane, and Henry already has a healthy appreciation for insane--or she thought she did.
God, and now they're both looking at her (is Corr looking at her or just rolling his eye menacingly? It's so hard to tell). She's a little sorry they remember she's there, since now she has to pretend she's not gaping and quietly losing her shit.]
... Hi, Corr.
[Hilarious inadequate, but it's all she can think to say on the spot.]
I'm... sorry I thought you weren't real. You're real, all right. And big.
[There's a whole fill in the blank list of things Corr is, and that's the biggest understatement of them all, but it'll do for now while she hovers there, hands clasped in front of her.]
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He's something to see, all right. [ the pride in his voice is six years of backbreaking work to make corr the creature he is now. or, indeed to allow corr to make him the man he is now.
sean tugs at the reins, leading corr up at least out of the water, although he maintains some distance between them and henry. corr is calm now, but he still may spook easy, and the last thing sean wants is to set him to someone on accident. still, it's clear he's pleased, dripping wet though he is from the waist down. ] There weren't any stables on that map, were there? [ but he's already shaking his head like he knows there aren't. ]
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[The almost too-blithe answer is for Sean, but her gaze is all for Corr, drinking him in. She does a passing job at keeping her amazement out of her voice. There's no hope for keeping it off her face--Corr is too much of everything she'd believed wasn't real, like Santa Claus or fairies.
Incredible, the transformation that's come over them both. Sean's smiling, and Corr almost doesn't look like the monster from a hot second ago that would tear a cat to shreds--or Sean's face off along with his satisfied smile.]
What was all that? That you did. You, like... calmed him down.
[Not in any hurry to give Corr a reason to test the slender young man's grip on the reins--the bridle looking just as fragile as the ribbon by her standards--she tries not to make any sudden moves. Like a tiger, Sean had said. That's apt, when what he looks to be doing is nothing short of lion taming.]
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not that he needs it. aware he's being admired, corr stomps a few times in place, kicking up clods of earth as he prances and then settles. ] Showoff.
[ he considers what he'd done, what he knows about the water horses and how they're best handled. ] The water horses... they won't cross a circle if they can help it. The— spitting, that's for territory. [ he busies his free hand in corr's mane, braiding strands of hair together as an extra reassurance. looking up, sean meets corr's eye. ] They don't care much for iron or things of red, so it gets his attention to have it on him. The same for turning him widd— counter-clockwise. Just to get him to focus. He knows me well enough by now.
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Now I really have seen it all.
[She'll have to rely on Sean's translation skills, being about the same level of fluent in horse language as she is in Manx--that is to say, not at all. The horse could just as likely be stamping because he's gearing up to run loose, for all she knows, but she gradually steps out from beneath the shade of the tree all the same.
That said, she doesn't try to get too close. There have been plenty of times where someone told her to go left and she went right, but this is one of those instances where she's fine taking Sean's advice and avoiding the reach of that sinewy neck.]
I was sort of following along until the part about not liking the color red. Your horse realizes he's red all over, doesn't he?
[The rest sounds like superstitious mix of OCD quirks and old wives' tales, not something you'd routinely hear on Animal Planet... but maybe there is a kind of magic at work. Thanks to Corr blowing her preconceptions out of the proverbial water, she's not sick to her stomach and her chest doesn't feel as tight anymore. Small miracles.]
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I'm not sure he does, actually. [ but the question does make him smile again, his hand resting against corr's neck now, keeping both of them grounded. ] Maybe it's different when it comes from us and not from the sea.
[ despite his many long years of training the water horses, sean can't say he understands the full breadth of what motivates them, what frightens them, what calms them. or, rather, he understands the what but not the why. most magic is afraid of iron, he knows, and of things that move widdershins, but red? threes? sixes? he couldn't say.
the old magic of the ocean is far deeper than he could ever learn, he thinks. ]
I suppose we'd better get back up to the road. [ this is spoken almost as an afterthought. ] I'll have to find a place to house him.
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Or maybe it's led to some self-esteem issues and that's why he's acting out. I mean, at this point I'm willing to believe almost anything. Does he have gills and grow flippers, too?
[Posed as a joke more than a question--but honestly, she is a little curious about that. How does an animal swim that fast without, like, fins? She has so many questions.
Probably for the best Sean reminds her there's an entire town of unanswered questions to get back to, or else there's every chance she'd spend the rest of the day goggling at Corr the water horse and wondering when the line between fantasy and reality disappeared. She starts to turn, but then reconsiders. Maybe it's better to let Sean and Corr go first and have the run of the path.]
Finding a farm in rural Maine? Probably the least fucked up thing that could happen.
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with the iron-tied ribbon still wrapped around one hand, sean takes corr's reins and leads him up the bank, keeping himself between the body of the horse and henry. ] Maine, that's right. A bit northeast of New York?
[ sean's american geography isn't great but he has looked at a few maps in his time. he seems to remember maine being sort of in that area. ]
You can go up first. [ up the bank, he means, toward the road. ] He doesn't see well in one eye and he'll spook if something's behind him.
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Why, did something happen to him?
[She can see he's real just fine, but it isn't until Sean throws light on his behavior, applying a dose of reality to the fantasy, that the water horse starts to feel real for the first time. No gills, no flippers, no mermaid scales. Just a bum eye. And he spooks like any normal horse. It's strangely... humanizing.
Well, she doesn't want to find out what a solid kick to the ribs feels like any more than a bite from those teeth. With a last glance over her shoulder, she starts back up to dryer land, habitually scraping mud off her boots and onto the grass as she goes.]
You know your geography better than me. Never heard of a Deerington or you're island until today. [Her tone floats back to him, a little weary by all the things she doesn't know. At least after what she's just witnessed, hopping the rail again is barely a thought.] You said it's the only place they come ashore, right? Where's that again?
[Her ears are getting a little more attuned to his accent to follow his words, but not enough to place him on a map.]
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sean lets her get a few yards on them and then brings corr up as well. it might be easier if he were riding, but it seems rude to climb up and not offer a ride to henry. ]
Thisby? [ he hops the rail himself, then tugs corr over; he steps as if it's nothing, one foot after another, barely even needing to jump. ] It's in the Irish Sea, between England and Ireland. Just a bit south of the Isle of Man.
[ he adds, after a second: ] That's why I speak Manx.
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[An eye, that is. Or worse. The way Corr had snapped his jaws... But he'd said he's been working with these since he was ten? Insane. Insane and ballsy.
Back on the even terrain of the asphalt, she eyes horse and boy speculatively. She wouldn't fault him for getting up on Corr's back--hell, if she had the Disney princess touch to calm a mythical beast and ride around without a saddle, she'd do it, too.]
Like the cats with no tails. [Yeah, she's playing that card. She gets the sense he's expounding for her benefit, propping up her shaky understanding of... just about all of this. Secretly, she appreciates the effort.] So he's a word I can't pronounce, and that makes you... Manx, then? [Again:] Like the cats.
[It's too bad Corr here doesn't know how to play nice with furry friends. Now that she's seen him, though, it makes a little more sense why he'd find them snack size.]
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[ he says this casually as he works corr over the fence. there's not a great deal of emotion in his voice; his father's death was close to a decade ago and not something entirely unexpected, given what he did. his father had ended up drinking the sea the same way so many had before him, and so many will yet to come.
once they're all on the asphalt, corr takes another moment to prance around, this time seemingly testing out how his hooves sound on the different surface. there aren't many paved roads on thisby, except in skarmouth, and corr's never been on any of them. ]
Right, for both me and the cats. [ he nods, then nods again. ] Capall uisce. That's singular. Capaill uisce is plural. [ copple ooshka. coppail ooshka. a minute difference. ]
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To riding the water horses, you mean?
[That's a much higher cost than a dead cat in the road, and yet Sean still holds onto Corr's reins with the ease of second nature while Corr prances around like a newborn pony having discovered his feet for the first time.]
Capall uisce.
[Thirty seconds ago, she might not have bothered, but she takes the term his tongue wraps around so easily for a test drive, inflecting it with her own accident. It doesn't come out as butchered as it could be when she takes the time to hit the right syllables, though it's not as well-pronounced as it could be, either.]
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[ the wound is so old by now it barely aches, but it's also not something sean talks about often. he's not sure why he's talking about it now, to be honest, except that henry—for all her sarcasm and brashness—is the first person sean's ever gotten a chance to know without all the baggage of his name and reputation getting in the way. ]
He died when I was nine. He fell from— [ he pats corr's shoulder. ] It was during the races. Over in a heartbeat.
[ for a second, he sees the unrecognizable black-red smear of his father's body in the sand and his hand tightens on corr's reins. breathes in, breathes out, banishes the image.
hearing henry try her best on the unfamiliar word helps to distract. sean smiles a little, nodding. ] That's good. [ she sounds american, but he can't fault her for that. ] Now try boayl nagh vel aggle cha vel grayse.
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Given her own reticent tendencies, she sees the piece of information Sean shares for what it is: personal. Honest. He didn't have to be. He could've assuaged her curiosity another way, but instead he chose to share a piece to a larger whole, and that's not something to take lightly.
Corr. It's a surprise, what he says--that his dad wasn't just killed, but killed partly on account of this very water horse--but she forces herself not to do more than let it widen her eyes.
Shit. That's fucking awful.]
And you still wanted to keep doing it?
[Why would someone want anything to do with the animal and the sport that killed their dad? Someone else might have asked that particular question in that particular way, but Henry figures he has a reason. A personal one that's not hers to pick apart.
It seems like the least likely moment to find anything funny, but then Sean slams his foot on the gas to their little language lesson. She laughs unexpectedly. Nice try but no.]
Sure, if you want me to butcher your language. Even if you repeated that more slowly, there's no way in hell I'd get through it without sounding like a tourist reading out of an English-Manx dictionary and you know it. What's it mean?
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