singillatim | but a strange light in the sky was shining right into my eyes

but a strange light in the sky was shining right into my eyes

JANUARY 2024 EVENT

PROMPT ONE — THE AURORA: NASCENCE: Following the strange dream at new year, a three-day Aurora takes place. During which, Interlopers discover a possible ally in the mysterious woman heard in the static and heard in the dream — potentially earning new abilities.

PROMPT TWO — ADUST: The Interlopers find out what happened to the owners of long-destroyed Milton House in the form of hauntings.

PROMPT THREE — THE VISITOR: Interlopers find themselves with an unwelcome visitor — a shadow doppelganger here to make everything absolutely worse.

THE AURORA: NASCENCE

WHEN: January 13th - 15th.
WHERE: Everywhere.
CONTENT WARNINGS: potentially disturbing dreams; dreams of being burned alive; some minor supernatural horror; some minor ‘ghost’ horror/hauntings; death of npcs in various ways including suicide, murder or exposure to elements.

In the middle of the month, it happens. A herald. The noise starts: faint at first, but then growing louder. An ethereal, high-pitched chorus of sounds difficult to place. There’s a kind of electrical buzzing with it all, a low, endless hum punctuated with cracks and pops. The sky is alive with sound, and with it comes the swirling streaking of colour against the inky black of night: The Aurora has come.

Much of what happened previously happens again: Streetlights, illuminating the town’s roads; lights in stores and homes will come alive, buzzing and flickering at times. Previously abandoned cars will turn on, their headlights blaring. Electronics that had previously seemed broken flick on — and whilst there are no broadcasts available on televisions, and the radio waves only drone on in static, both only occasionally blaring standard emergency broadcasts. Any computers and phones will turn on, but will have no internet or reception. Instead, Interlopers may find texts and emails — many of them unsent. The everyday lives of their users stored within, now readable.

There are still some instances of the ‘ghosts’ from the previous Auroras, but they are now only faint outlines, and far fewer in number. However, whilst the Aurora would usually only last until the next morning on sporadic nights over the month — this time it will last for a full three days. The world is plunged into darkness, a seemingly endless night with only the Aurora to light the skies.

On the second night of lights and noise, a voice calls out to you: static-like, and distant — as if someone speaks over a radio. A woman’s voice. It is the same one you’ve been hearing for a few weeks now, but finally it is far stronger than the scant whispers of name and the word ‘help’. She is far clearer now.

“You.” she says. She may whisper your name, too. “I see you.” You’re unable to speak back, the communication is only one way. She sounds upset, but there’s something more… a kind of wonder, perhaps.

”It’s not just a regular aurora borealis, but then you probably worked that out already, haven’t you? It’s so much more than that. Everything is… changing.”

”I don’t know how you can go back. But— but I can help. Maybe. Maybe I can make this place easier, somehow. I need help, but I’m stuck—” There’s frustration in her voice for a moment. ”It took from you. Took you away. It doesn’t always have to take. We can take, too. Sleep. I will help you take back. You will survive this. You will not go into the Dark. This is not the end.”

You have no idea what that means, for the most part. But you might just end up taking the chance and doing as the woman asked, even if it’s difficult with the noise and light with the Aurora. Sleep, and a dream may come to you.

FREE RUNNER: The colours of the Aurora dance around you in your dreamscape. You dream you are a magnificent stag, galloping through the snowy woods with ease. You seem to go on and on, never tiring, never slowing. You feel like the wind, or perhaps the very wind itself carries you. Not once do you stumble or fall, even when the snow is thick and deep, or the ground is shaky and uneven beneath you. You feel free.

When you awaken, you feel the most refreshed you’ve ever felt since you first came here. For the final day of the Aurora, you are bursting with energy and even when the lights in the sky fade — that revitalised feeling within you remains. There’s something within you that understands: you are the Free Runner. The ground will yield beneath you, your energy will not desert you, the wind will carry you.

LIGHT BRINGER: The colours of the Aurora dance around you in your dreamscape. You dream of sitting by a lonely campfire in the mouth of a cave at night, warming your hands. As you sit, a strange feeling comes over you, a desire to reach out to the flames. And so you do, reaching with both hands into the fire — gripping at the white-hot embers. It burns you, and for a moment there is blinding hot pain as the fire suddenly explodes around you, consuming you whole. But the pain soon stops. The fire doesn’t burn you. No, you have become the blaze — your body warmed. You burn bright enough that the darkness around you turns into day.

When you awaken the next morning, you feel warmed and comfortable. As if even the coldest of winters couldn’t reach your bones. The warmth remains even when the Aurora ends, and you are left with the innate understanding:you are the Light Bringer. The power of flame is at your very fingertips. You master the light, life, warmth.

AURORA CALL: The colours of the Aurora dance around you in your dreamscape. You dream you are standing in the very sky itself, at the Aurora’s height. Colour and sound twirls around you, within you — and you feel it curl into your body. Your head fills with noise, a chorus of voices calling out, snippets of conversation echoing within you. A woman’s voice calls to you, it is the same voice that spoke to you before you slept: “Don’t you understand it now? We are all connected. The Aurora connects us.”

And you do, you do understand it.

When you awaken, you feel connected to the world around you. To the very people who live amongst you. You feel less lonely, a kind of kinship with others. You have heard the Aurora’s Call and you have answered it, unlocked a connection with your fellow Interlopers. You will be heard.

NOTHING: The colours of the Aurora dance around you in your dreamscape, but only for a moment. The edges of your vision begin the blur with black, slowly closing in until everything goes dark and you fall into a deep, dreamless sleep. You awaken, and although you feel rested, as if the dreamless darkness has helped you feel a little more ready to take on the day — nothing else about you has changed.

ADUST

WHEN: From mid-month to month end.
WHERE: Milton House.
CONTENT WARNINGS: fire; house fire; death of a child/children; hauntings; ghosts; mental manipulation; illusions of burning/being burned; potential injuries via falling/unstable building collapsing.

There is a reason why it is advised to avoid Milton House other than the simple fact that it’s a miracle the house is still standing. Once one of the largest buildings in the town of Milton, it is now a former shell of what was once a fine and grand house. It has lain in ruin for many years, dilapidated and host to a great deal of fire damage.

While he is in town, Methuselah will not speak of the place, but he often looks sad when it has been brought up in conversation. “A great tragedy.” he will say before falling into a pensive silence. “A blackened mark on the town’s memory.” He does not wish to say much more of what happened: sometimes there are things that are just too painful. He will continue to advise the ruin is left alone, out of respect, and the fact that the place is a danger.

Of course, advice will not stop anyone from attempting to get into the ruins and exploring the house, even if it is in fact highly dangerous.

The sounds of voices and whispers may be enough to pique anyone’s interest. You're sure you heard something, maybe you should go to check it out?

It is true in the fact that the house itself is incredibly dangerous structurally: floors and stairs may give way and you’ll find your foot (and half of you) falling right through the floorboards. Damp and rot that have long since set in, and it will be dangerous to breathe in. But you’ll find that the house itself is pretty ordinary: this was once a family home. Just about the entirety of the house and its contents aren't salvageable, but you’ll be able to find out a little about who once lived here.

There are faded, half-destroyed photos that show a family of five: a father, mother, and three young children all under the age of ten. The father with warm, beaming smiles, the mother has kind eyes, the two oldest boys with toothy grins much like their father, the younger girl looks shy, wanting to hide against her mother. They look happy. Just a typical family. In a world where so many strange things are happening, it feels so strange to look upon these family photos and around this home to realise that they simply lost their home in a house fire.

But as you hold a family picture, or some half-destroyed trinket: a toy, a shoe, a book, a vase, you’ll find the item will suddenly catch alight, bursting into flames in your very hands. The flames do not burn you, and as you discard the item, it will fall to the floor as if nothing had happened.

Then, it comes to you. Here and there. Different sensations that stop and start suddenly: the house groans and creaks around you; the smell of smoke enters your nose; the sound of fire cracking and popping with a roar fills your ears; the sensation of heat against your skin; the clawing and suffocating feeling in your lungs that makes you cough and choke; the sounds of terrified shrieks of children echoing above you. Feelings flood you: fear, panic. When you next turn around, the entire house is aflame around you, and you can’t tell if this is real or if you’re reliving some terrifying memory.

You need to leave, get out of here. For some, it will be what comes naturally. You’ll have to fight through the flames and escape the house before it burns down completely around you. You’ll have to fight your way out, find an exit not already consumed by flames — through a window, perhaps. Crashing out of the house and into the snow, you’ll look back and see Milton House just as you entered it: nothing more than a half-burned ruin.

But for others, there will be another pull. You are drawn upstairs, to the screams of children. You need to get to them, to help them, save them. You will battle through the flames, heading towards the ruins of what was a child’s bedroom, or towards the bathroom. Inside either, you will find a figure cowering, engulfed wholly in flames: one in the bathtub or one in the closet. You recognise them as the two sons from the family pictures.

Mom. They will call you. Or Dad. They weep, terrified of the flames. I’m scared, I’m scared. I want the fire to go away. Help me. Stay here.

The tragedy of Milton House is before you. More than just a fire. What is more tragic than the death of a child? What silences voices? Breaks spirits? Leaves one helpless to act in the wake of such a passing?

There is something to be done here. You are not so powerless. Calm the child. Offer gentle assurances. They will get out. They are safe. You are there for them. You will stay. Embracing them will set you alight. Too hot. Too bright. It will hurt, but you won’t burn. But don’t let go; holding them will eventually calm them down enough for the flames to grow dim, to slowly ease their spirits to rest.

Soon enough, the flames will go out and the child will disappear, leaving you alone in a decaying, dilapidated room.

In the churchyard of Milton, there is a family grave by the name of Barker. Three lie within it: Thomas it reads, and his beloved sons, Patrick and Christopher.

THE VISITOR

WHEN: The month of January.
WHERE: Everywhere.
CONTENT WARNINGS: erything absolutely worse.
THE VISITOR — CONTENT WARNINGS: supernatural beings; dream-related horror/disturbing dreams; doppelgangers; themes of depression; themes of self-harm; themes of isolation; potential themes of suicide.

It seems the dream of the New Year and the Aurora dreams are not the only odd sleep-related instances occurring this month. You first notice that something is off when a strange dream pulls you from sleep. The dream may feel like any particular dream you have, whether it be a usual nightmare or strange concoction your brain has conjured up for you this night. Maybe it’s a dream you’ve had before, maybe it’s a new dream entirely. But no matter the dream, there is one thing that is odd about it. In tiny moments within the dream, you notice that there is something different, something that feels out of place. Something is there that shouldn’t be.

A figure, tall and silent, entirely made of shadow stands lurking in the background. It looks human, but there is not much more that you can really describe further. It is a sad, unsettling presence.

When you awaken, eyes bleary from sleep, and you look about the room, to the bottom of your bed, for a half-moment you see that figure standing there silently. That unsettling sadness permeates the room, and after a few seconds of blinking and sitting up — the figure disappears. Perhaps it was just some trick of the mind, some half-awake illusion.

But the next time you sleep, it appears again. The same figure, the same emotions surrounding it. And when you awaken, it stands at the bottom of your bed once more. Only this time, it lingers, and you find yourself staring down the figure before it disappears once more.

Over the next several days, the presence continues to linger more and more. It stands silently in the corner of the room of your home; it hovers by the window, staring out into the snow; it stands in the middle of the road as you go about your business. More and more, it is there. Always standing, always watching — silent and sad.

No one else seems to notice it, only you. And over time, the shape of it seems to change — the vague, undefined shape of it slowly shifts into something you recognise. The same hair, the same height, the same way it holds itself: it is exactly like you. A perfect doppelganger, a second shadow. And with it, it exudes an oppressive sadness, a particular kind of loneliness. It is suffocating, bleeding into you.

It makes you withdraw from the world around you, from the people around you. Perhaps you stop spending time with others, retreating into solitude. You hide from others, keep to yourself. You find yourself not sleeping at all or perhaps sleeping too much. Perhaps what little you already eat becomes nothing. The shadowy doppelganger draws ever closer to you, close enough to touch you - ever hovering at your shoulder. Its presence bores down on you, making you feel small and more and more alone even with its ‘company’. No one else can seem to see it but you, mentioning it to others will earn odd looks, or even concern. It seems you and your double are alone together.

Hopefully, those around you will notice the change in you. How you stopped reaching out, how you’ve stopped taking care of yourself. Hopefully they will see something isn’t right and reach out. You are doomed to the doppelganger's company otherwise.

However, those around you can push the shadowy double away, and can break its influence and hold over you. Genuine care and concern for you will have it shrinking back. Perhaps it is a kind word, perhaps it is the gentle but insisting coaxing to eat. Perhaps it is an attentive ear to listen to your thoughts, to how the presence has made you feel. Maybe it is even the simplest of touches, an embrace or the holding of a hand, the grip of a shoulder. Continued connection with you will slowly have the visitor’s power diminish.

And hopefully it is done before it is too late, or it may be all too easy to fade into the Long Dark.

FAQs

THE AURORA: NASCENCE

1. Aurora Feats are now unlocked! Please see the following page for more information. Aurora Feats are completely optional.

2. Interlopers will only receive ONE Aurora Event. The only time this is available is this month. After January, players will have to wait for the next Feat round for another chance at an Aurora Feat.

3. This Aurora will last a full three days. It will be a period of only night.

4. For more information on the ghostly loops seen during the Aurora, see this previous event, under 'The Aurora: Aftershocks' prompt.

5. For new players who would like a little extra context regarding the woman can look at December's Tales From The Northern Territories, under the 'New Happenings in December' section.

ADUST

1. Characters will not be physically burned in the fire, but only feel as if they have been. The effects of this illusion will last a short time after they're out the house before they will fade.

2. The only real injuries characters can sustain will be from fall damage, or if the floor gives way and their feet go through, etc. whilst in the house.

3. The children cannot leave the house. They will be too scared to leave. In addition, they are tethered to the house, given that this is where they died. Simply being calmed/comforted is the best way to help them and they will disappear after that.

THE VISITOR

1. An Interloper's Visitor can't be seen by anyone but the Interloper themselves.

2. The Visitor can be spoken to, but it will not speak back. It cannot be interacted with and is intangible.

PLOTTING POST

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Teenage boys, as a general rule, aren't the best at judging danger. They're so full of life and energy and themselves that they have a tendency to tunnel vision, certain things will work out for them, even if they're skimming along the ragged edge of risk. Of broken bones and I shouldn't have –s.

One would think they'd be able to learn a lesson when it's taught to them by way of a snowbank in the face and a bunch of girls laughing at their misfortune, but that's probably giving them too much credit. Wynonna's down, but she isn't out. She's never out. She's the goddamn heir, and in fact she's almost grateful to Tim for being such a little idiot because the hot rush of befuddled anger that floods through her system is enough to make the shadow step back, vanishing through the walls of her cabin. ]

You thought I wouldn't be here, and you decided that you'd make yourself at home anyway?

[ She's barefoot, pale and a little shaky from the cold and the lack of food, but none of that matters as she gets up and stalks towards him. She's done more with less, especially now that she's been training regularly with Dolls and Doc. Peacemaker's on the table. It's fine, she'd still rather not shoot him if she can avoid it.

Then again, sometimes boys just don't learn. ]

What part of 'I threw you out for breaking into someone's house and now you decided to break into mine' seemed like a good idea to you?

[ His staff is around, somewhere. She thinks she'd left it by the ladder up to the little attic space. She makes no motion to get it, just falls into the momentum given to her by her annoyance, this reprieve he's offered from the endless dull nothingness that has been her world for at least the last day. ]

What makes you think I'll give it back? Have you even apologized to Ruby and Kate yet?

[Always glad to be of service, the spark of excitement that follows at the heels of mistrust probably shouldn't be there. But Tim's a fundamentally a simple being: the woman stalking towards him is a victory over the bleak weight of deadened limbs and hazy, heavy thoughts. His eyes fly to the pistol again as if to confirm it is on the table and not in her hands.]

Uh.

[But she's barefoot, and he wonders if he's seen her drinking with the Grown-Ups before, on porches on calm and lazy days or in the Hall when the snowstorms kick up and there's nothing to do but wait.

He can't remember.

He stands his ground, more to lay claim to the proximity of the firearm than to be a righteously stubborn punk, but. Well, he kinda figures it'll all look the same from her eyes. His own voice is steady

like he's oblivious to the simmering ire and the danger.

Teenage boys, what can y'do.]

What if I say Please? Look- I get it. It looks bad. But that staff is dangerous. The spring-action itself is gnarly if you don't know it's coming.

[ Tim likes to try and talk around things, she's noticed. Even when faced down by a snarling wolf and a handful of startled and annoyed girls, he seems to think he can talk his way out of it. He doesn't back down, but all that means is that she gets uncomfortably close to him.

Which keeps her from having to raise her voice, and puts him in helpful proximity for any further grabbing and tossing, which, honestly? Is looking more and more likely, because he's talking but he's not answering her question. ]

Then you shouldn't have dropped it.

Did you apologize to Ruby and Kate or not? Because if you haven't, you can go ahead and get the fuck out of my house. I'll even let you go out the door on your own two feet, if you do it in the next ten seconds.

Ten.

[ She's just going to keep counting down, Tim. ]

[There's a whole conversation and half a day's worth of navel gazing for Tim to even begin to explain away the socialization of a privileged, white and wealthy upbringing.

Luckily for both of them, the discomfort of proximity throws a wrench in those plans of half-brained yammering, and Tim drops character to stamp down a very real grimace and save face by only twitching a hair of a fraction away from Wynonna.

It's the height, the dark hair. It's the rapid-fire heartbeat of his threatening to leave him lightheaded if he does anything more than viciously deny the soft warmth of life, mere inches away.

He pulls a face, and she about to start counting down, and he's not looking forward to hobbling along Milton with a broken leg, and then he brings a hand to rub apologetically at the back of his head.

(He needs to focus.)]

Uh, naw. Thanks.

[He tells himself it's the adrenaline kicking in,]

I can find the door myself but I'm not, like, asking you to get the staff for me?

[Three, two,]

I'll just get it myself.

[Game on.]

Edited (Typos galore lmao) 2024-01-24 03:00 (UTC)

[ So, here's how it's all laid out: Peacemaker is on the table, covered in dust. Tim is between her and Peacemaker. She's between Tim and the door... and everything else in the cabin.

(The last time she picked up Peacemaker during a home invasion, her father died. But she'd had to, because they'd dragged Willa shrieking out the window, the demons that came in the night, they'd grabbed Willa and she'd screamed as the glass shattered and the hands groped for her, and Daddy hadn't ever taught Wynonna to use Wyatt's gun –

She doesn't reach for Peacemaker.

Despite the cold, despite her exhaustion and the way her face is drawn and pale, she still moves fast as a blink, dropping her hand and lifting it again as a gleaming switchblade suddenly sprouts, icicle-sharp and just as cold, a hair's breadth from his throat.

Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Forgiven? Or not? ]

Guess what? You don't get to just do whatever the fuck you want. Not here.

[ Nobody here knows that she's the crazy chick of Purgatory, the one who cried demons and killed her own father, the one who needed shock therapy, who was committed at the tender age of twelve, who only spiraled further after that. What a shame. But then, every family has its black sheep.

With the look in her eyes right now, Tim might guess it. They're a clear gray-blue, clear enough to see something swinging loose and broken behind them. ]

Get the fuck out, you smug little shit.

[Tim. Breathes. It's the easiest lungful he's pulled in, and he remembers the smell of blood and the hurt and treacherous thoughts of all the people that old blood must have had to belong to. The Anubis scolds him, digs into his soul and demands only truths be spoken. And for something to be spoken, it has to be believed. With a moment stolen to raise both of his hands (with an adrenalized sort of tremor to his left hand for good measure) he stops himself from reveling at being in this state.

That would be weird.

He swallows and aborts a cough, and his eyes are suspicious of that knife and whether or not it's actually going to bite into his neck (this woman who knows hurt might even know what that half-moon of pale-on-pale scar says on his neck: she wouldn't even have the satisfaction to be the first to shut him up this way.)]

Okay.

[She means business. Tim experiments with one step back,
feet basically dragging. Is she going to escort him, will she... let him turn to face the door? the way he's now trying to do, with the fatigue that bleeds out of her like her rage does.]

Okay, I'm out. I'm out.

[To keep blabbing is a trained response as is everything else,

like,

say,

hands having been brought down incrementally for his own balance in this dark place, palms now on that blessed, dusty lonesome table which Tim

tips

rolls

because even if the knife gets flung to his stupid face (fair), distance is king. And uh, being all looming over him was, uh. Well. If her feet don't catch under the rim of it, then solid wood will come up to her hips at least, and that gives Tim enough of a reason to run.

So he runs in.]

But first, I need th'stick! Sorry!

[ Three things happen almost simultaneously – well, perhaps four, if someone might count her clocking the scar on his throat, the one that looks suspiciously like the one she's sporting from August Hamilton's razorblade –

One: Tim's hands go down and the table goes up.

Two: Tim jukes sharply to the side, evading the table as it topples forward, wood heavy enough to crush a foot if it were to land on one.

Two and a half: Wynonna steps back to keep said feet from being crushed, as noted, and –

Three: Peacemaker, covered in dust, goes skidding off the tabletop and careens over the wood floor in an unholy clatter.

Her attention goes to the gun immediately – nothing can happen to this gun – and she drops to her knees, reaching for it. Her fingers brush the edge of the ivory handle and nothing looks broken – and she'd blown it up once, so maybe the thing is actually indestructible – but her hands are still shaking as she draws it toward her, over the wood.

Just close enough to look at, before she falls back like a puppet with its strings cut, back against the table, hands loose over her bent knees. Head down. Her shoulders bowed, moving only with her breath as she says, dull: ]

Just go.

[ Who cares anymore. ]

[There's a time and place for curiosity for curiosity's sake: for Tim, it's nearly every waking moment. But to sacrifice a split second of time to glance back at the pure heaping mess he knows is behind him would be to risk his one current opportunity. So he slides to the corner of the room where the little ladder to the attic space lays, because he hadn't seen his bo staff on this section of the floor of the cabin and even in dim and lazy light he has the sense that he'd have known if it was near.

Like the pot o' gold at the end of a rainbow, the fighting stick is propped up there.

Two things happen at once, and Tim cringes with a full body when his hands finally reach his weapon; he's in no way about to lord a victory over someone who sounds like that and he's also not so eager to face said mess he had made. With half a mind making peace with the idea that he'll find a long-barrelled gun trained at his dumb head, Tim finally turns.

He sighs.

The mess is... well, it's...

he maybe might've gone overboard, but in an attempt to justify himself and mollify her, Tim is quick to shoot off that,] There's a blade in here that'll pierce metal and you're lucky you didn't catch the trigger for it.

[--he can do better, he promises, he's just,]

You don't have ammo for the...?

[Gun.]

I barely touched your stupid stick.

[ And if something that dangerous triggers that easily, it just seems like a bad design. She doesn't know if it's his design, and it doesn't matter anyway, because she no longer cares enough even to give him shit about designing a weapon as likely to take his hand off as anyone elses if he grabs it in the wrong spot.

It doesn't matter. None of this matters. Why won't he just take it and go? Is it because he needs to keep talking, like a shark that needs dumbassery instead of water constantly running over its gill?

There's just enough left of her own personal pride to have her lift her head – only to lean it against the table, lolling, her face twisting in a just-barely-incredulous expression. ]

Of course I have ammo.

[ Whatever brought her here gave her that much, at least: her gun, bullets to put in it, and the photo that's the reminder of everything she has to get home to finish. ]

[Of course she has ammo. If she's about to crack wise on the irresponsibility of a wannabe X-Acto knife then Tim can spar too, question the storage of a firearm that looks straight out of the Mexican Revolution.

Some guns are temperamental and like to go off with any small knock to their grip. Tim's cringe stays mostly internal this time. Because-- okay.

He frowns, and it's up in the air whether that's just his resting little bitch face making its reappearance or if there's a lingering effect of the magic that has, apparently, turned everyone who should be hard, soft.]

What does that thing even take? Is it a Colt?

[Tim knows guns. He's not a gun nut.

Tim knows cold homes.

Not a fan.

So he's stuck here, hovering and unwelcome.

He thinks back to...] Or Smith 'nd Wesson? Model 36, 5 shot, 38 caliber. 2 inch barrel, nineteen ounces. 1976 special.

[So like his dad's, but not because that was a compact little pistol, not like whatever this woman holds close to her chest. Tim shifts his weight.]

So, like Holland's. Mr. March's? It's like that gun's bigger and meaner cousin.

Why do you care? Wanna try and shoot me with it?

[ He could try. In this place, where Peacemaker is just a gun, it might even work. He might be able to pull the trigger and get more than a click and the probably familiar feeling of being disappointed in himself.

On another day, any day when a shadow of herself isn't leaning over the table to put a cold hand on her shoulder, she might tell him: it's not just an old gun, it's an antique worth probably hundreds of thousands of dollars. One of five Buntline Specials commissioned by Stuart Lake for the lawmen who helped him with stories for his dime novels, so the legend goes.

On another day, she'd jump at the chance to mock Holland's tiny little snub-nosed pistol; would extoll Peacemaker's value as the better, bigger, more powerful, more valuable gun. Today, she can't even bring herself to look head-on at his curiosity.

From here, she can just see the W.E. engraved on the bottom of the ivory grip. It's as dull as the look in her eyes. ]

If I tell you about the gun, will you go away?

[He can read into that bite a whole lot, can pad the assumptions with lived experiences. He can remember seeing a photograph of young girls on the mantelpiece, fresh yet fading from the precious time he had had to scout the cabin innards.

It's not his place to take the dive into that brand of privacy.] Actually, [With no immediate threat to his person (he says, with her hands on the gun), Tim makes quick work of collapsing the bo. Segmented, and one blink of the eye later, he's tucking the stick (now appropriately stick sized) into... hell, like, his back pocket? He furrows his brows, in between Here and Not.] I'd like it if nobody gets hurt. There's enough crap to wade through already. Working together, or at least not against each other, is the least we could do for each other.

[What did Hickey say?: a city boy who's in love with the sound of his own voice.

Tim's pretty sure he could go mute for all of this icy eternity and never miss having to open his pie hole again. But that's not the Brucie Wayne way of getting things done. With Robin now in purgatory too, thos is a sad decision that's been made for him. Tim-- sits.

Right there on a cold floor, and he wonders about his chances at survival if he brings in the emt bender and the... the frown of his stays, because his ideas are no good: he hasn't scavenged any useful pipe, doesn't have much firewood to spare. He should've done more yesterday. And the day before that. He says,] Sure, I've got time.

[Like it's the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth.]

That's some old service weapon. Your great-grandfather's or what?

[ She can't keep rolling her eyes this much, she's going to sprain something. ]

Thanks for the TED talk on basic human decency. Wow. Thank god you're here. What, did you just read Lord of the Flies in school or something? And by the way, since you're actually so against us being dicks to each other, are you gonna apologize to Ruby and Kate or what?

[ Wynonna stares at him, obstinate under the cold, distancing haze, hating that he sat down, hating that he's here, hating how she doesn't have the energy to kick him out the way he deserves. Hating his teen boy assuredness, his certainty that he knows better despite copious evidence suggesting otherwise. He says sure, I've got time like she asked him to stay instead of how she's told him the exact opposite multiple times now. Like he's doing her a fucking favor, gracing her with his presence, instead of handing out exactly the kind of hurt he just told her he didn't want.

If he won't listen to her when she tells him to leave, he's not going to listen to anything else she has to say. So what's the point? ]

It's not a service weapon.

[ The duh isn't verbal, but it's there all the same, tagging along. ]

It's a Colt Buntline Special. And yes, it was my great-great grandfather's.

[ It's cold in here, and she's so tired. Maybe, when he goes away, she'll just close her eyes, leaning here against her turned-over table, and go to sleep.

Look at that, she's already leaned her head back and closed her eyes. ]

There. I told you about it. Now go away.

[Lord of the what, a part of him wants to ask. Is that some 4Chan thing? A copypasta?

But there's only so much acting he can suffer, and Tim wilts in deranged satisfaction at not mentioning Family and still learning that what drives thos woman to straight-up dive against hardwood for an ancient pistol is, for better or for worse, family.]

Fascinating.

[All hail the deadpan snark.

If he keeps pushing he wonders if she'll barf all over his shoes like Kate had. With no words to describe how much he doesn't want to find out, he stands. Again.

Hyperactive, him? Not by a longshot.

He holds up a hand, brings up two fingers as he lists off,] Yes I'll apologize, [because she's not the only one who can spread duhh among multiple words and,] but you gotta tell me if you need wood?

[Firewood, screams his own voice back at him.]

I have a chainsaw and extra reserves, and I swear you won't get rid of me this easy if I come back here and the ambient temperature is the same as it is outdoors.

You can't possibly be comfortable.

I've got plenty of wood.

[ Things truly are dire. Wynonna Earp and a teen boy are in a room, talking about wood, and no one's making a dick joke. She opens her eyes just enough to slide a glance to the iron stove in the corner of the room and the neatly piled collection of logs beside it. She'd brought them in... when was it? Three days ago? A week ago?

Her little shed outside is packed full of split logs. She's even got a basket full of kindling. It's just that none of it has been touched in days.

Wynonna closes her eyes again, head back, hair rucked up between her and the table he'd pushed over. ]

Why should I think you give a shit about my comfort?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

but a strange light in the sky was shining right into my eyes

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cw: mention of patricide, child abduction, electroshock therapy

gotta love it

the boy lives! this time

(maybe)

~maybe~

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