sixthiterationlogs | 001 - Adding a bit more Flourish to it

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001 - Adding a bit more Flourish to it - [OPEN]

WHO: Clary Fray
WHERE: Fountain & Village & River
WHEN: August 1st to August 6th
OPEN TO: EVERYONE
WARNINGS: Drowning? (Note: Scrub color is black.)

Fountain: Arrival [Aug 1]

Clary inhaled, feeling a cool rush of water fill her lungs. Her chest burned while panic tightly constricted around her heart. She flailed wildly in the water, kicking her arms and legs out in a futile effort to swim. The water stung her eyes when she tried to open them. Clary had always hated opening her eyes underwater but she needed to see.

'I need to breathe! She thought, forcing herself to calm down enough to escape a rather pathetic watery death. After everything she's been through, she's not going to have 'death by water' on her tombstone. Clary saw a blurry smudge of light in the distance and swam towards it.

She broke the surface of the water, coughing and gasping for air. Bright orange hair plastered to her cheeks and neck as she made her way to the fountain's ledge.

It was only when she was pulling herself over the edge of the fountain that she felt the weight of the pack on her back. A groan of complaint vibrated through her torso, even as she managed to tumble herself and the backpack onto the pavement. Clary was laying on her back. The backpack was a surprisingly comfortable pillow though that might have just been in comparison to the water. The sun shined pleasantly in the sky, warming her limbs and face.

Clary decided that it wasn't worth getting up. She'd happily lay there until someone told her to move. Maybe she was in central park? That's the only place that she can think of with a fountain. Either way, Clary knew that someone would find her and she'd sort it out then.

Around the 6I Village [Aug 2-4]

Clary really didn't know what to think of this place. She had named the village Salem in her mind, the broken buildings and dreary feeling reminded her of a town where hundreds of girls burned at the stake. It probably wasn't the best name but the village was surprisingly less daunting with a name attached to it.

She wound her way through the houses, inspecting the ones that were broken and then knocking at the homes that looked like someone lived there. If no one replied, she'd peak inside to see what was there. Clary was naturally curious and not at all shy or hindered by the unknown. This wasn't nearly as scary as trying to get Simon out of the Hotel Dumort.

Clary would take the time to stop and stare at the houses or setting around her. She tried to figure out how she'd draw it: what colors she would use or how certain objects might appear out of focus. At the end of each day, she'd find herself at the inn, usually hungry and sitting at the bar like a ghost might come and take her order.

She was new at this whole survival thing and Brooklyn had pizza. She really missed pizza.

At the River [Aug 5]

Clary was both happy and sad to see Izzy in the village with her. She was happy to see her friend and to know that she wasn't alone but it also made her think about home. How was her mother doing? And Simon? What about Jace? She wondered if any of them missed her. She didn't particularly worry about Alec missing her; he was with Magnus and starting towards his happiness.

She missed her sketchbook. It gave her the ability to get all of her worries out of her head and onto a piece of paper. Without it, her thoughts jumbled together in a messy knot that she didn't know how to untangle. A groan pulled from Clary's lips as she took a seat near the water's edge. She watched the waves for a few seconds before pulling off her scrubs and jumping in.

Clary hadn't been in water since almost drowning in the fountain a few days before and as much as she wanted to avoid it, she felt gross. She had never gone this long without a shower. After drenching herself in water, she floated lazily on the surface of the river.

"This place feels too much like the Twilight Zone." She mumbled to no one in particular.

The Breach Between 6I and 7I: Small Earthquake [Aug 6]

Clary first heard about the mysterious second village at the inn, when she had eavesdropped on two people discussing their plans to cross the breach. She hadn't asked about it then but she couldn't stop thinking of the possibilities that lay on the other side of the ridge. Peeked by her curiosity and her ever-rampant thoughts, Clary decided to head to the breach to check it out for herself.

She wasn't completely unfamiliar with bouldering but the path was not as clear as she thought it would be. She took careful steps over small rocks and then slipping between larger boulders that stood like giants in the path.

Clary was halfway through the breach when the earth began to shake. She'd gotten used to the small tremors over the last few days but she hadn't been standing in a small crevasse in the ground back then. A surprised scream tore from her throat as she ran back the way she had come. Peddles and rocks loosened from above her, falling on her head like rain drops falling from the sky.

She ran out of the breach, stumbling to the ground as the earthquake ended. Clary's head was shaking as she tried to regain her balance. She tasted blood in her mouth and felt a soft sting along her cheek. If she had managed to get out of that with a bloody lip and a few thin cuts then she was happy.

"Okay. Maybe I won't go that way." Clary was talking to the rocks and seriously hoping that they could feel her displeasure.

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I've had worse is a rather alarming thought to Credence, casually said or no--but the stranger seems pretty fine with it, and Credence's worries are temporary mollified. Enough that he's able to look at her for three whole seconds before hunching in on himself again, his gaze fixed on her left shoulder instead of making eye contact.

Baby steps. He can at least hold a conversation now.

"I'm fine, miss, thank you for asking. I just saw you run in, and--well, there have been problems like rocks falling. I'm pleased you're only bleeding on your lips."

Oh. Wait, no--

"Not that I'm pleased you're bleeding, I'd prefer it if you weren't, but I mean that you seem like you're okay."

Ravi doesn't flinch, because he refuses to let himself look like a madman or an idiot who's rambling about things that don't exist because he has scientific findings to show that yes, indeed, the water can heal people, so he's not mad. Maybe he's a little bit to study something so intently that's so minor.

"I've thought of that, but can't find the connection," he admits. "Then there's the fact that the spring wasn't always around," he says. "From what I heard, it sort of appeared." He clears his throat, having to stumble through the awkward 'lab rat' conversation now with a stranger, who he can't predict how they'll respond.

"Well, I've got lab rats," he starts, "so I make small injuries and then use various water sources before taking an account of how quickly they heal."

"Jax," he offers, giving her another broad grin. If she knows Izzy, he'll give her the benefit of the doubt for right now. Besides, Izzy sports the same body art so clearly they have the same taste in something.

"I know Izzy some. Enough to know you guys go to the same guy for your work. I always appreciate a nice tat."

There is, in fact, a way he's found of filling his spare time here, but that's not really the business of someone he's just met. Besides, it's not really the kind of thing you bring up in polite conversation.

"They might be, but we haven't seen any indication of there being anything other than humans and wildlife in this place." Along with a cantankerous moose who seems to be better at surviving than some of the people here. "The town was never really full in the first place, and while new residents do keep showing up, other residents disappear, presumably back to where they came from. We've never come across anyone around here who wasn't a resident of the village. Except of course for new arrivals, who all arrive the same way."

"So, let me get this straight." She's going to recap real quickly. "You have no idea where you are, what's happening to people, what is even around here and you all just live in this village. This isn't some weird creepy ass Pleasantsville thing is it? I am not really great at sitting around on my hands while being trapped in a whole in the ground."

Clary stopped walking, "Oh shit. This is is Red versus Blue isn't it?" She ran to catch up to Erik with a freaked out expression on her face. Yeah, all of Clary's theories are not okay.

"Okay. Instead of focusing on what we don't know." The rational side of her mind began to work. "What do you know? Like, specifically."

She watched Jude sit and kept her gaze on him as she spoke. "Then you can draw me." It wouldn't change his subject for long but it was something that she could offer that didn't involve upsetting random strangers. She didn't mind being drawn, she didn't even have to see the outcome.

Clary was entirely the sort of person who would draw someone without their consent and then hide the drawing afterwards. Not for fear of reprimand but because it would be how she saw that person which could sometimes be embarrassing. "Unless you don't want too." She didn't think she was a particularly interesting subject.

"I've been to upstate New York and a handful of other weird places." Clary had no idea what to call an alternate timeline where your dad wasn't a crazy mass murder and there wasn't any magic. "A friend of my mom's would take us camping sometimes. It was always too quite. Do you like it better that way?" She took a seat next to him, resting her hands on either side of her hips. "Quiet, I mean."

"Hey, you're going to smother me if you keep this up." A part of Clary didn't mind the affection, she didn't have that many girlfriends, while another voice inside Clary's head was screaming in alarm; something was wrong and Izzy wasn't calm enough to tell her what it was. Did something else happen? What more could possibly go wrong?

'who else would manage to find their way here but you-' Clary was about to argue against that statement when she realized that it was entirely true. She always did have a talent for landing herself in tight spots though the others were usually a step or two behind her.

Wait-

"Months?" That wasn't right. "No. No. No. No. I just saw you. We woke up my mom. Valentine has the cup but we'll get it back and Jace too." She didn't understand what was going on and she felt panic grip her heart. She believed in Jace and she knew that they could fight whatever her father sent their way. They had too.

She should probably be more alarmed after facing off against an earthquake but a bloody lip didn't feel that important with her mind preoccupied by other thoughts. "I get what you mean." She forced her lips into a smile, hoping that it might help the boy relax some. He didn't look like a bad guy. Shy and definitely out of practice when it came to talking to others but she could hardly fault him for that. People generally sucked.

"I will heal." She pointed to one of the tattoo's that littered her skin. It was a swirling shape on her arm that looked like two interconnecting circles. "See this. It hurt a lot more than a broken lip." Clary wasn't going to say what the tattoos meant in accordance to being a Shadowhunter but tattoo or mark, she figured they both hurt about the same. The only difference was that her marks burned the skin.

Clary wasn't sure if that set him at ease or not. She hoped so…

"So," She spoke, looking back towards the breach. "Where does that lead anyway? Or is it just a random cave?"

There had been a time when Clary would have questioned everything. She would have thought that Ravi was crazy and that he was one of those homeless people that you don't make eye contact with. That was before meeting Isabelle, Alec and Jace; before she knew about Shadowhunters and her place among them. Now she can't consider anything completely crazy or impossible.

"Appeared? Like magic?" She sounded thoughtful as she spoke, as if running through facts in her head. The truth was, Clary knew very little about magic and it made her wish that Magnus was also here. Then maybe they'd be able to find a way out. "Can anyone here build a well?" Okay, that might be a stupid and unhelpful idea.

Moving on…

She looked over at Ravi with a frown. "That's barbaric-" Though Clary also understood. She exhaled before shaking her head. "Okay, I guess I get why. You find anything out yet? Or is it still pending."

"Thanks." It sounded like a compliment but Clary was annoyed and it made it hard for her to tell. She let her vibrant green gaze watch Jax for a few seconds before pulling her gaze away. He had muscles that continued to draw her attention but she didn't want to give him the wrong idea.

She imagined drawing the contours of his chest, the shading that would accent each scar. Every one of them would stand out, as if they were telling their stories in a way that someone looking at them could decipher.

"So, you swim out here naked a lot?" She was going to say something else but managed to bite it back. Clary kept reminding herself that this was Isabelle's friend, that didn't mean she had to play nice, but it was better that she did until talking to Isabelle. He's still rude. "I meant, do people swim out here naked a lot? I kinda want to know what I'm getting myself into with this place." She wondered if going to the hot springs was like this. Random people showing up and stripping.

It made her miss civilization. It was a stupid reminder that she was far from home. No public decency laws, no laws at all. What stopped people from just doing what they wanted? Maybe that's why all the homes were empty. Clary forced her mind to stop though it painted a different image of the village in her head.

"Some what thing?" There are bound to be references he doesn't understand, but they don't come up often. This is one of the times when he doesn't know what she's talking about. "Red versus what?" They're colors, obviously, but that's not what she's referring to right now.

"What we do know is that someone is watching us." He holds up a hand to stall any more questions. "We don't know who, or how, or where they are, but we do know there's someone watching. They've also been known to leave us things from time to time. Sometimes it's personal items. Sometimes it's an entire feast for everyone."

Clary really shouldn't be surprised when he doesn't know what she's talking about. She huffed a breath of air and decided to explain.

"Pleasantville is a movie from the late 90's about a black and white town that's super boring but slowly everyone sees in color. There is a lot to it actually," Social implications and all that, "But that's the gist. Red Versus Blue is about two groups who are camped in a canyon like this one and fight each other. It's based off a video game and how it doesn't really make a lot of sense." The old days when people actually played Halo. Except for Simon, Clary was fairly sure that he still played.

Clary's jaw snapped shut when she saw Erik's hand hold off her questions. He was clearly starting to understand her personality a little better. "That's really weird."

"I mean, we're also sort of lab rats, so it's like a giant ouroboros snake going around and around, eating us all up," he points out with a nod of his head, like he's compelled to share that if he's being cruel, it's only because someone is also being awful and cruel to them, as well. What goes around, comes around. Then around and around and around.

"I mean, we could try," he offers. "I'm not exactly fond of ditch digging. I did quite a bit of that back home for another extra-curricular project, I'd like to think I'm done with that for a lifetime." He wishes that she hadn't asked what she did next, because it means he gets to admit failure. "Unfortunately, my results are inconclusive."

Those do sound like they could apply to this situation, but that's not his concern at the moment. There's nothing that can be done about it, anyway. As much as he dislikes the idea, it is what it is.

"It is. We keep finding more information, but haven't yet found the answers we all want."

Clary made a face. It wasn't a good face and it looked like a twist between a squint and a grimace. She didn't really care for his explanation but they could return to that later. She didn't think that you could hurt someone just because they hurt you. Of course, if Valentine showed up here she'd probably try and stab him in the face. So maybe she was a hypocrite.

"Okay, I want to ask what extra-curricular project but after meeting a vampire I think I'll let things in the ground lie. We don't need zombies and mummies and who knows what else running around." She shivered remembering Camille's tomb. "Anyway."

Moving on...

"If I get any nasty scrapes I'll come to you. I don't mind being a test subject." She paused realizing how that sounded. "For the greater good." Clary attempted to clarify but it didn't sound much better. She just wanted to get out of here and get home. She'd do anything towards that goal.

"And all the information is put on this bulletin board. Kinda like college then." She hummed softly to herself, falling into the twist and turns of her thoughts. "That's really nice of everyone. To work together." She thought of Jace and her father and winced.

"So what about the people brought here who don't play nice?"

Oh, tatoos! Credence hadn't noticed them before, more panicked about the blood, but she points them out. He decides it's not rude to stare once someone draws an eye to it, and he shuffles just a little bit forward. They're beautiful. There's someone in the village he's seen before with something similar but had been far too shy to approach. This girl, though, she seems nice, and sweet, and comforting.

Credence nods.

"It leads to another village we just found--not me, but the rest of the village. I hear there's peaches if you can get to the other side. I've never had a peach before, but I hear they're delicious."

"We did when the sun didn't go down for a whole month," Jax says. "Got hotter than I ever remember it doing even in the desert and the sun never set. It was hot enough that we all got pretty desperate to find a way to cool off."

Up to and including naked swimming. "Getting in the water had been about the only way to deal with the heat. Be glad you missed that."

"I'll keep it in mind," he answers with a shrug. Plenty of people at school modeled for class, and if she's from a similar background, he doesn't take it like any kind of demand. He'd like better to render her hair in color, he thinks, but with his limited supplies, there's no telling what he'll manage.

Looking around at his landscapes, there's plenty of skill in them--but they're born out of necessity. "I didn't draw a lot from life, back home. I thought--my friend and I would make comic books or something. Seems silly to keep at it out here, though, with so much else to do."

He doesn't think the paper would hold up well, either.

"Nowhere's really quiet enough, I guess. We had earthquakes the other week, but--yeah, I'd rather be here than Manhattan."

Why is it always that people come at him with vampires? Honestly, Ravi is starting to truly believe that every other world that he doesn't belong in has some weird fascination with the creatures, one that he's not entirely sure he wants to know about, especially if this is the way that pop culture and existence is going.

"I don't treat my patients as test subjects," he says, lying through his teeth, but then, those patients had willingly volunteered, so he doesn't think that's his fault, truthfully. "I do appreciate though, any samples willingly given after the treatments."

"Whoa. Wait, back up." Clay waved a hand through the air as she spoke. "The sun didn't go down for a whole month and now it's just fine? Do you know what happened?" She didn't want that to happen while she was here because that sounds absolutely awful.

"I think temperatures drop below freezing in a desert at night." Not that she'd ever been to a desert but she's fairly sure that she had read that somewhere.

"And yeah, I am really glad I missed it." She wondered if Izzy was here through that. How long had it been for her? Clary felt an uncomfortable uneasiness twist in the pit of her stomach. She couldn't stay here that long. She had to stop her father and find Jace... who was her brother.

Then again... if she'd appear back at the same time she left then maybe she needed time away. Time to forget about her feelings for Jace.

Clary loved the marks of the angel. It wasn't just because they were a part of her now but she'd seen them in her dreams for as long as she could remember. They became a doddle that she'd scribbled in her notebook through grade school and eventually became a predominate piece in the comic she drew for Simon. They were also the tipping point to get her accepted to an arts program in New York, one that she realized she'll never get to attend.

She didn't know the full extent to her connection with the angel but Clary loved the marks that were painted like a find brush stroke across her skin.

Clary looked back at the breach and then grinned at Credence. "Guess we need to get to the other side then." He had given her a goal and now she wanted to complete. "Let's go."

Hey, Clary didn't just say vampires. She also mentioned zombies and mummies. The reason that vampires first came to mind was because her best friend was recently turned into one. It wasn't the sort of thing that strayed far from Clary's thoughts. Which was odd because she constantly forgot that Luke was a werewolf, maybe because he'd always been like that?

Clary wasn't sure.

She rolled her shoulders in a shrug. "I figured if it's to bad I can always get you to stop." She was very vocal when she wanted to be. "And at the same time I want to figure out more. It's worth it, sides." Clary tapped to one of the tattoo's on her neck. "This hurt and I lived through it. I don't think you can do anything worse."

It was probably not good to tempt fate but Clary was stubborn and if it meant helping she'd go to extremes with or without Ravi's involvement.

The offer was there and Clary didn't think that she'd have a reason to retract it. Jude was nice and not at all creepy despite having a map on his wall; which was traditionally a serial killer thing. Here it at least made sense.

She walked over to where he was sitting and took a seat at his side, her fingers curled over the side of the bench while a bright smile pulled across her lips. "Wait really? I was drawing a comic with my best friend. I couldn't write it. Simon said that everything I came up with sounded too cheesy. That or it referenced Star Wars and I think he got tired of it." She laughed, knowing that Simon had only been teasing her at the time.

Clary's head tilted to the side, a short huff of hair slipping from her lungs. She really didn't know if she could sleep in all this quiet but she also didn't want to put her problems on someone she just met. Everyone probably had problems here.

It's going to be awhile before Isabelle can bring herself to stop touching Clary entirely. It still feels a little like a dream, or maybe a nightmare, that the other girl is here at all. She's pulled back, giving Clary room to breathe, but Isabelle's hands slide down from her arms to her hands, gripping them in her own just as tight.

"Your mom?" she echoes, brow creasing deeply. "No, that was--"

Forever ago. Jace is back, Jocelyn is dead. Forget the cup, they got the Mortal Sword back in their possession. Valentine is in their custody, too, imprisoned beneath the Institute. Isabelle's mouth presses into a thin line. The last thing Clary remembers was waking up her mother. Either she has some serious amnesia, or something else is up. Knowing this village, it could be either.

Later. They can deal with that later. Isabelle gives Clary's hands a tight squeeze. "Come on, let's get you inside and dried off. I'll explain everything."

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001 - Adding a bit more Flourish to it - [OPEN]

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