singillatim | A beautiful fiction I invented to keep out the cold

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A beautiful fiction I invented to keep out the cold

Who: Chloe Frazer & others
What: Catch-all; open prompts
When: March and April
Where: Around Milton

Content Warnings: Self-injury content related to the echo effects. Descriptions of canon typical violence and murder. Talk about hunting/eating animals.

Chloe doesn't trust Methuselah as far as she could throw him, and a trip through a mine where she's forced to rely on the goodwill of a bunch of cop types does not sound like her idea of a good time. Also, sticking around Milton when most of the people who 'patrol' (imagine her air quotes) are away is a great opportunity to snoop in people’s houses.

Anyone who remains in or returns to Milton may find her either doing her usual wild running in the woods, checking her snares for snacks, or sneaking around newly empty locations to see what's been left behind.

Aurora nights are a different thing, however. Chloe likes to think that she's done her best to do right by the people that she cares about, but the truth is she's cut a few throats in her day, stepped over others to make sure that she would wind up on top. Something about the aurora this month brings every one of those memories roaring back. It has her running faster, drinking until she can't see, and doing risky climbs onto (and jumps between) rooftops, trying to escape the feeling.

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This is a question that is somehow difficult to answer. She's seen zombies (of a sort) and evil bugs and tree sap that makes you immortal and hallucinogenic water. Any of those could be an alien thing.

“I don't know. I've seen weird stuff, but… how would I know? Did you see writing or anything?”

Again, he considers how to answer this. There's no harm in revealing this part of it, is there?

"Right before I was kept in the facility, I was on a mission into space. That's where I... made contact with it. It definitely wasn't anything of Earth."

The story unveils; he was infected with something, then experimented on. It's still such a strange thing to try and process.

"Weird stuff like.... supernatural?"

“Oh.” She hadn't really thought about that. What do you do in a closed system like that if your air gets contaminated? “Do you think they knew when they sent you out? Or they're just taking advantage of an opportunity.”

Which is worse, at this point? Though if they'd deliberately infected him it might point toward similar fingers stirring a pot here, even if it is 2014. Marlowe’s stupid secret society had dated back to Queen Elizabeth and John Dee, hadn't it?

“I guess, yeah. I always tried to come up with explanations for what I saw, but if all this is real then why not, right?”

Is a yeti really that crazy in the face of this?

“I did not tell half of what I saw, for I knew I would not be believed.” She says this like she's quoting someone.

"I don't think they knew, no. The shuttle crashed, and I was hurt — ended up in medical recovery, which led to the whole lab rat thing." A little smile. "It was all very convenient for them."

A nod at that; he understands — "I still don't even know how to gauge what's real here, or not. Monsters, ghosts, mutated wildlife...." A soft scoff.

"Those are wise words... That's how I managed to stay alive as long as I did in the facility, probably. Letting them think I was oblivious." He smiles. "A friend of yours?"

“Ah. Fell into their lap, then.” Still bad for him, obviously, but maybe better for everyone else here. “Unfortunate.”

Chloe shakes her head with a fond smile. “I really didn't think the djinn were real - the water in the city had hallucinogenic properties, he knew that! - but after seeing that ghost fire, I don't know.”

Maybe there could be nearly invincible guards with burning skulls in a world like this.

“Marco Polo, actually. Had to read a bunch of his journals for work a few years ago.” He’d have been a better friend if he’d been better at identifying gemstones, that's for sure.

Another grim smile at that — fell into their lap couldn't be a more apt way to describe. Looking back, he can see what a rare and ideal opportunity he was for them; no wonder they wouldn't let him go.

"Hallucinogenic properties in the water... I was wondering if something like that might be happening here. Limited resources, someone could easily control a group of people." His mouth tightens a little. "They could have drugged us at the 'welcome feast' all newcomers get."

It would make sense, but then again... some things do still defy that logic here. He sincerely doesn't know what to believe, but Chloe's next words have him lifting a brow curiously. Knowing the context puts the quote in a new light. "Ah, the explorer.... Makes you wonder what kinds of things he saw that he knew people wouldn't believe."

Chloe shakes her head. At least this is a question with an easy answer. “I didn't eat that. I don't trust those people.”

She had taken the much safer and more sensible route of stealing food from Lalo and convincing random men to give her stuff. And this, of course, eating raw meat in the woods.

“If they can make us have dreams and stuff, though, who knows? The old man’s not talking.”

Speaking of people Chloe doesn't trust.

Maybe it's easier to talk about her own unbelievable stuff. “I saw it, some of it. You wouldn't believe it either. His own people killed each other.”

"Smart," he remarks with a faint smile, meaning it. He hadn't eaten much of it either — mostly because he couldn't stomach much for a long time, couldn't hold anything down. Even now he struggles with it; no matter how much the creature bonded itself to his body, the fact remains that a human isn't meant to house something so big in the gut. "I don't trust him further than I can throw him."

Sorry, Methuselah.. but you're goddamn suspicious.

"They went crazy? Or... killed each other to get rid of one another?" Maybe some kind of competition, turned on one another. Maybe to protect some secret. Either way, Chloe clearly has her own amount of experience with "learning about the unknown", and it's interesting to chat. (Again, never mind she has blood drying on her face and he's probably going to have to head back soon so he can feed his alien parasite blood, too. Just a pair of monsters having conversations, as they do.)

Edited 2024-05-23 03:46 (UTC)

“Right?” Chloe feels the same and she's not sure either of them could even lift him. “Way too many convenient coincidences with that guy.”

“It was something they ate too, actually.” Kind of a weird coincidence. “This blue amber. In Shambhala there were men called Guardians who ate it as part of a ritual. It made them strong and long-lived, but aggressive. When Marco Polo’s crew were shipwrecked they were starving, so they ate it without ritual or guidance… over five hundred people, killed in a matter of hours.”

He couldn't agree more, giving a purposeful nod. It's unsettling how many people do trust the man, though it's understandable that they'd want to put their trust in someone. He seems to have answers, he brings more food every month.... but all of that is only suspicious to Konstantin; how could it not be? He won't cause problems about it, though. Won't say anything outside of remarks to someone like Chloe. Better to lie low and not seem like trouble.

That next bit, though.... That does sound familiar. He's giving a soft scoff— "Sounds like things like that could happen more than once."

He can joke about it on the surface, but it's actually.... pretty worrisome. "Maybe the next step is we get like that too. Aggressive."

Chloe rolls her eyes. “Oh, it did. El Dorado was the exact same thing, super aggressive immortal creature-guys.”

The one upside to everything that had happened in India was at least there hadn't been any immortal guys throwing things at her.

“You’d know, I think. If it was like that. The physical changes were pretty severe.”

"El Dorado." He blinks, startled. "The place that isn't supposed to actually exist?"

Who are you, Chloe Frazer? What exactly did you do, before here? Konstantin couldn't be more curious as he watches her. Clearly, she's someone with her own experience in the bizarre. Maybe between the two of them they can stay prepared for whatever the fuck's happening here, whether it's parasitic aliens or food and water that might be changing people here into monsters.

"They changed physically, too? What should we watch out for?"

"It was a gold statue. A coffin, I guess. 'The golden man'." It must have been exciting to see it but Chloe's still glad she and Nate had been on a break when all that had happened. "The people there had inhaled the dust from it or something - the mummy, I mean - and they were all like, bald and elongated. The cognitive effect was pretty immediate, too, apparently. Foaming at the mouth and stuff, black eyes. They were immortal too, maybe. My friend said some of them were Conquistadors."

Some of them had been Nazis too but that's not as old.

"Biggest thing you notice on the guys who ate the amber was black teeth. They were also huge and muscular and loved roaring but I don't know how much of that was from the ritual training they did."

What the fuck?

Konstantin runs a hand back over for his face for a moment as he processes this. It all sounds fantastical, of course, but then — so does his own situation. So does all of this shit happening now.

"...Sounds like both of us have some experience with.... things that humans probably weren't meant to discover." A wry sort of laugh, and he lowers his hand again, but he's still stunned by it all. And still afraid of the changes that might keep happening to them here.

"Maybe we should keep an eye on each other. Make sure neither of us starts getting worse." Worse than routinely and gruesomely eating raw meat, that is.

Things humans weren't meant to discover… Chloe laughs a little, feels the drying blood pull at her smile. “Yeah, it happens.”

She's not sure she wants anyone keeping an eye on her, but at the same time, none of the people she’s talked to about it know if they're going to keep changing.

“What happens if we do, then?”

That's the question that's maybe been lingering for a long time, and Konstantin already knows what his own answer should be. He shouldn't have woken up again at all, after the cold barrel of a gun pressed to his shirtfront and the subsequent blast to follow. Shouldn't still be living.

But he doesn't know what he'd choose to do, this time. Now that he's been given some kind of... second chance. Maybe this time he's able to actually reach Aleksei.

He smiles, a little, and gives his head a shake.

"I don't know. But I'm not letting any of those people here capture me again. Or put me down like some animal."

It's a heavy thing to say — he smiles more, almost as if to counter the severity. But at the same time, he's watching Chloe carefully. Could be that some people wouldn't like his answer to keep on living even if he becomes something actively dangerous and hostile.

Chloe nods, decisive. "I want to live, too. No matter what I might become, I want to live."

Maybe that's selfish, but it's not like that's an accusation she's never heard before. She wants to live, to go home to her friends. Even if she might be unrecognizable to them, never seeing them again isn't something she's willing to settle for.

"I know a lot of people don't feel like that. About people like us. But I think wanting to live is the most normal thing we're both doing."

Konstantin stares at the other, surprised by the words. Surprised to hear somebody else say them. It goes against everything he represents, everything his culture, his role, is meant to embody. He's meant to be selfless.

But he wants to live, too. At least long enough to... do what he needs to do. To achieve what he needs to achieve. And like Chloe says... isn't that normal? Human? To want to live?

His jaw stiffens in thought, and he looks down at the snow at his feet for a moment. "Then if either of us do end up... getting worse, maybe we can help each other." It's good to have allies, people to rely on. Konstantin's eyes return to Chloe, and he nods. "Someone tries to come for you, I'll stop them."

Chloe looks at him for a long moment, her throat swelling with an emotion that she can't bring herself to name.

“You see me like this and you’d still defend me?”

It's a lot easier to talk about it as a hypothetical.

Konstantin lifts his eyes at that, looking her over — sticky blood drying, the remnants of an act that seems almost inhuman. He's reminded again of Bigby and Kieren. And what he would look like if he fed the way the alien does — if he didn't try so hard to use cups and bowls and pretend like the pulpy mix of brains and blood he has to feed to the thing can be a normal, civilised act.

"I would. It's not your fault. You're doing what you have to do." He does sincerely believe that, and he nods, before risking a little smile.

"Blood looks scarier than it is, anyway. If you smile even when you're covered in rabbits, you're sure to win everyone's hearts."

Chloe smiles again. “Well, I don't know about that, but thanks for the thought. We’ll look out for each other, yeah?”

It's a strange feeling, but she wants to protect them, the people like her. The ones who could be hurt just for trying to live.

“Want me to walk you back? We can see if we can find any good herbs for your cooking.”

"I'd like that." There's some weird persistent guilt, some pressing thing that knows he should tell her more about what's wrong with him, and just how dangerous it can be, but maybe soon. Right now, he has a handle on it; it isn't going to just emerge and kill anyone in sight. It's too smart for that, and he and Vasiliy are keeping it fed.

But... she could be someone to tell it to. Clearly, she's seen her share of wild shit. He'll keep an eye on things, see what... progresses. Hopefully nothing does worsen, but if it does, it's good to have people on your side. Everything could go south around here, fast.

"Please, I could use all the help I can get." Konstantin laughs, holding up his stupid basket in gesture. The company would be nice, too. "I don't want to poison myself if I can help it."

“Yeah,” Chloe laughs at the memory. “I think we all had enough of that at the general store opening. Couldn't feel my arms all night.”

"Your arms?" Konstantin's brows lift as he starts walking slowly back the way he'd come, nudging the basket up on one arm. He'd been at the opening too, but hadn't actually eaten any of the apparently poisoned soup.

"What happened?"

“Uh-huh. I ate some of that mushroom stew and went numb from fingertips to shoulders!” It's kind of funny now but at the time part of her had really believed that poison was going to reach her heart and kill her.

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A beautiful fiction I invented to keep out the cold

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cw: suicide introspection

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