singillatim | this place wants us dead

Who: Francis Crozier & Open to All
What: Captain Crozier comes to town
When: Early days of November
Where: About town, along the outskirts

Content Warnings: Potential mentions of lead poisoning and scurvy, cannibalism, starvation, violence, body horror, murder, alcoholism. Just #Franklin Expedition Things

I. Along the Main Road - Crozier Comes to Town

Crozier's breath rattles around his caribou-lined hood, the steady sound of crunching ice and rocks underfoot familiar music to his steady trudging. How many miles are behind him now? How many miles has he apparently forgotten? Even now the lead must still swim in his nerves and veins; how else could he explain the sudden appearance of trees and an entire North American-style village? Surely he's hallucinating now.

A pale ghost in Netsilik furs, Crozier holds fast to his ice knife in his only remaining hand and begins to explore the buildings. What he's searching for he doesn't know -- a sign of human life? Something to eat, a place to stay? Something to wake him from this nightmare?

II. The Church -- Uncovering the Graves

Milton couldn't be more different than King William Land, his home by accident and then by choice. Things grow in this place, there are pockets of warmth, hills and caves and homes to hide. The ice isn't all-consuming, looming and screaming and groaning as it shifts and moves and destroys.

But he feels the breath of something Wild and Divine on his neck. Something lives in the darkness of the trees and speaks through the pops and hisses of the Aurora. Are their souls at stake in this place too?

Crozier touches the amulet sewn into the space above his heart as he wanders the churchyard. As he looks for the names of the dead of Milton he idly recites the names of his own dead. They're with him even now, even dragged away as he is from their bones and makeshift memorials of scattered papers and silverware.

III. The Basin -- Ice Fishing

There's so much plenty here, an embarrassment of riches to be found in the wilderness and little town. Once he's found a place to live he sets about making himself useful; they should be gathering fresh meat while they're in between storms.

There's no seal to be found, but apparently there's a decent spot for ice fishing nearby, and so off Crozier goes to bore a hole and try his hand at catching some food.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She nods back, taking a few steps closer, but still leaving a respectable distance between them. You never know what someone has been through before ending up in a strange world. It’s only polite. “I suppose you can at that.” Some of the newer burials, both here and elsewhere, had been done by those who’d arrived before. It had only been right.

Zoey nods, a slight smile flickering across her lips briefly. Exploration is a good way to go about things. “Best way to get the lay of the land, as it were. What have you been told about this place? Has anyone taken the time to fill you in on what little we know so far?” Spoken with the air of someone who has been through this sort of strange situation before, and wants to make sure that those who are newly arrived have an idea of what could come in the future.

"For the most part. As far as you've seemed to gather in any case." He's getting the sense that many things are very much a mystery still. "Interlopers and Methuselah and the mysterious Aurora."

Though there is something that's been nagging at him. "Are you aware that there are people here who have died?"

“That’s about the long and short of it. We haven’t learned much at all about this place and what it wants with us so far.” Which is immensely fucking frustrating.

It takes Zoey a second to figure out what he probably means. There’s like three ways it could go, but the oddest is probably “You mean, there are people who have been brought here that died in whatever world they were brought from? I didn’t, but that’s honestly not terribly surprising. Anything, any place with the power to drag people here against their will would find death not much of a barrier.” A pause. “I take it you know some of them that are here who have died?” It makes sense. He’d made it a point to bring it up, and she’s not sure he’s been here long enough to learn about that being the case for others who are here.

He nods very gently. He won’t give their names away; that’s their business to tell. But it does make him wonder what powers hold sway over such an incredible place, what gods or demons or spirits have called them all here.

Crozier’s never been a religious man, not in the sense like Sir John had been. Devout, a true believer. But he believes now in amazing things, wondrous and terrifying in equal parts.

“Some of us are connected, yes. Are others not?” Did others come in pairs or small groups as well?

Zoey doesn’t press. She understands all too well that that’s not his secret to tell. Knowing that there were some that had been brought here from death, or the brink of it. Or from some moment before it. That’s enough. She can add it to her wall of information and theories.

“I think you and your fellows are the exception, rather than the rule. More of us than not are… alone. Unconnected. Not that I’ve pressed the subject with anyone. But at first glance…” She certainly had arrived alone. Not a familiar face to be seen. From home or any world since. “I am. And I know there were others.” At least, Five hadn’t mentioned there being anyone from his world before he’d left.

The exception rather than the rule, that sounds about right for the Terrors. Hadn't the rule for polar exploration been misery but not guaranteed deaths? It suits them now, as horrible as that may sound.

"Unconnected, but not for long." How else are they to survive in this place?

“Not for long, hopefully,” she agrees. “We need to survive. We’ll stand a better chance together, not alone.” Particularly with what this place has thrown at them so far.

And speaking of…

“Have you found somewhere to stay? And do you have enough blankets, warm clothes?”

He hasn't found a place to stay, but he's considering his options. Does he once more rely on strangers for his own survival, or does he try to navigate this whole situation on his own? It seems like an obvious choice, does it not?

"No blankets, but my clothes keep me warm enough. I've been hold up in one of the abandoned houses in town, but I'm not certain I'll stay."

“I… have some extras. Should you need them.” Five wasn’t here anymore. He didn’t need them. She’s taken most of what he’d gathered before he’d left, been taken away, and moved it to the house she’d claimed as her own. His wall of theories (one might almost say conspiracy theories) had been the first thing she’d moved. Everything he’d written down and the formulas and equations he’d been working on. He’d explained it to her, and she’d had an idea of what a lot of it had meant, anyway. “There are plenty to choose from, if you decide to move. I wouldn’t recommend not staying in a house. It’s safer. As safe as is possible, here, at least. Especially at night.”

"What dangers lurk in the dark?"

As from nearly everything, as he's been led to believe. A house doesn't seem better off than a well-built igloo, but he'll concede that he's a newcomer and knows very little.

"The Aurora. I don’t know if it outright causes something, or just thins the barriers between this world and another to allow other things to happen, or something else entirely. I honestly don't know WHAT'S behind it. But when the Aurora fills the skies... Things change. Wolves, and maybe they were natural once, but they're sure as hell not always natural. It might be the Aurora's influence, or maybe it's whatever emptied this place of the people who used to be here. I don't know. But they're not natural anymore."

She tugs her coat tighter around her. "And whispers in the dark. In your head. Mocking and insidious and VERY intent on driving you to despair. Or worse." She'd seen more than one person come dangerously close to walking off into the snow to their death. "And the problem is, we don't know if it's going to be the same with every Aurora, or if it'll be different every time. Not yet, at least."

this place wants us dead

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject