Jude Sullivan (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
theintercessor) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
sixthiterationlogs2017-11-19 03:12 pm
theintercessor) wrote in sixthiterationlogs2017-11-19 03:12 pm
Entry tags:
[OTA] if you save your soul you will think you're happy now
WHO: Jude Sullivan
WHERE: 6I Canyon and village; The Inn
WHEN: November 19
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: Mentions of death/hallucinations in reference to his arrival.
the village
Clary had taken her sketches with her, but not the memory of them, or the conversation. Bad enough for the snows to drift in, bad enough for the feast to set him forward or back in time. Something about the winter air usually made him better. Clear, crisp. Solitude was easy, the mountains seemed to disappear beneath it--and all their spectres, their sulfur vents. Charlie made idle warnings of sinkholes, and Jude wandered out with barely a wave.
Before he got his license he'd walk out of the park into the woods, snow up to his thighs, a sweater under his denim jacket and a scarf on his shoulders. On clear nights with teal skies he'd be the only soft sound beneath trees cracking from ice, and he'd walk a spiral of the valley--daring the ground to swallow him.
No one talks about it, but between the hot spring and earthquakes, the ground here might be just as unpredictable.
Two days in the house proves too much: he finds an early morning lull in which to wander. The trees and snow groan, ice and wood crack, branches fall under the weight of icicles. The cave to the west that he'd crawled out of after the quake has a mouth of clear teeth, and the river pushes displaced ice into piles around the rocks. Jude walks the length of it, deciding at its end between a trek of the western wall, or heading back.
He doesn't want to go home. Even when he isn't sleeping now, something seems to sit on his chest, follow him room to room. He follows the sound of scratching in the walls, breath steaming in the bedrooms he's never used, closets investigated with wooden fingers. When he sleeps, he's back in the valley: the truck is idling out behind him, its front end folded up against the tree, smoke slipping under the hood. His steps go side to side, blood is hot down the side of his face. Footsteps crunch the snow, he lurches along as the ground slopes beneath it. He had to get out of the dorm, he had to get away from the people without faces, knocking at the door. He drove home, he crashed the truck, he walked into town.
When he looks at his hands in the dream, they're cut at the palms and bloody, and the shadows on snow are bodies hanging in bare branches--
So he leaves the house, he walks. He proves to himself that here and now, the trees are clear. His head is in one piece, his hands are clean. And if he falls into a sinkhole, at least he won't have to remember what he's left behind.
the inn
The weather decides him: spotty rain begins to fall, ushering him back toward the village. He doesn't want to go home, but he doesn't have to--there's a fire and company at the inn, and he knows he needs that. Fire, dry, something to eat--but also people. Something by which to measure his own sanity, someone to keep him out of his head.
He'd tried it the other way at school. That dorm would have killed him, he's sure of it. Half a semester without a roommate and he'd covered that side of the room in paper and ink, manifested the eyes he could feel on him. Manifested the teeth.
The dining room in his house isn't covered in teeth. It's just trees, over and over. The slope in winter, bare branches and shadows. He puts them up then he takes them down, afraid of looking up one day and seeing something between them.
By the time he gets to the inn doors, he's soaked through; he should have come straight here while the weather held. Another icy shower puts a shine back on the encrusted village, and all he can do is lean his weight into closing the door, denim and wool hanging heavy and dark from his frame. Jude sways a couple of steps to the right, then left, struggling out of his clothes until he's carrying a coat in one hand, jacket in the other, and aiming for the kitchen.
It's fine: everything is fine. He grits his teeth against a shiver and hangs his first two layers over the nearest chairs to the door, carrying on in until he's out of a sweater and using it to dry his hair, grateful for the fire already started in the grate.
[It's the last day of the ice storm; feel free to meet Jude out early between rain/sleet showers, or at the inn after he's been caught in one. He's starting to remember his arrival point and generally having a bad time, but it's not a bad time to meet him.]
WHERE: 6I Canyon and village; The Inn
WHEN: November 19
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: Mentions of death/hallucinations in reference to his arrival.
the village
Clary had taken her sketches with her, but not the memory of them, or the conversation. Bad enough for the snows to drift in, bad enough for the feast to set him forward or back in time. Something about the winter air usually made him better. Clear, crisp. Solitude was easy, the mountains seemed to disappear beneath it--and all their spectres, their sulfur vents. Charlie made idle warnings of sinkholes, and Jude wandered out with barely a wave.
Before he got his license he'd walk out of the park into the woods, snow up to his thighs, a sweater under his denim jacket and a scarf on his shoulders. On clear nights with teal skies he'd be the only soft sound beneath trees cracking from ice, and he'd walk a spiral of the valley--daring the ground to swallow him.
No one talks about it, but between the hot spring and earthquakes, the ground here might be just as unpredictable.
Two days in the house proves too much: he finds an early morning lull in which to wander. The trees and snow groan, ice and wood crack, branches fall under the weight of icicles. The cave to the west that he'd crawled out of after the quake has a mouth of clear teeth, and the river pushes displaced ice into piles around the rocks. Jude walks the length of it, deciding at its end between a trek of the western wall, or heading back.
He doesn't want to go home. Even when he isn't sleeping now, something seems to sit on his chest, follow him room to room. He follows the sound of scratching in the walls, breath steaming in the bedrooms he's never used, closets investigated with wooden fingers. When he sleeps, he's back in the valley: the truck is idling out behind him, its front end folded up against the tree, smoke slipping under the hood. His steps go side to side, blood is hot down the side of his face. Footsteps crunch the snow, he lurches along as the ground slopes beneath it. He had to get out of the dorm, he had to get away from the people without faces, knocking at the door. He drove home, he crashed the truck, he walked into town.
When he looks at his hands in the dream, they're cut at the palms and bloody, and the shadows on snow are bodies hanging in bare branches--
So he leaves the house, he walks. He proves to himself that here and now, the trees are clear. His head is in one piece, his hands are clean. And if he falls into a sinkhole, at least he won't have to remember what he's left behind.
the inn
The weather decides him: spotty rain begins to fall, ushering him back toward the village. He doesn't want to go home, but he doesn't have to--there's a fire and company at the inn, and he knows he needs that. Fire, dry, something to eat--but also people. Something by which to measure his own sanity, someone to keep him out of his head.
He'd tried it the other way at school. That dorm would have killed him, he's sure of it. Half a semester without a roommate and he'd covered that side of the room in paper and ink, manifested the eyes he could feel on him. Manifested the teeth.
The dining room in his house isn't covered in teeth. It's just trees, over and over. The slope in winter, bare branches and shadows. He puts them up then he takes them down, afraid of looking up one day and seeing something between them.
By the time he gets to the inn doors, he's soaked through; he should have come straight here while the weather held. Another icy shower puts a shine back on the encrusted village, and all he can do is lean his weight into closing the door, denim and wool hanging heavy and dark from his frame. Jude sways a couple of steps to the right, then left, struggling out of his clothes until he's carrying a coat in one hand, jacket in the other, and aiming for the kitchen.
It's fine: everything is fine. He grits his teeth against a shiver and hangs his first two layers over the nearest chairs to the door, carrying on in until he's out of a sweater and using it to dry his hair, grateful for the fire already started in the grate.
[It's the last day of the ice storm; feel free to meet Jude out early between rain/sleet showers, or at the inn after he's been caught in one. He's starting to remember his arrival point and generally having a bad time, but it's not a bad time to meet him.]
no subject
It was better this way.
"I'll see what they have." She spoke as she turned towards the pantry. Clary couldn't cook to save her life but there was usually cured meats or dried berries or something in the food stores that required no cooking. She grabbed some of the meat there and returned to Jude's side, offering half of it to him.
"Here."
no subject
Maybe it woke up his curiosity too, because while he had her there, he decided to ask: "That stuff we talked about before, those things being real. Is there anything else? Like, ghosts and shit?"
no subject
She hadn't actually been expecting him to bring it up. She was a little grateful but also a little cautious. "Yeah. Everything except mummies I think." She was still learning the inns and outs of the supernatural world. "They're called downworlders: werewolves, vampires, warlocks and faeries. Then there are demons and angels. I think some demons come over here as ghosts, if they can't keep their form." She pieced at another piece of meat but didn't eat it.
"I was still learning about it when I arrived here." Isabelle would be able to tell him more.
no subject
Then again, this place was real, and maybe the people in charge are warlocks or something. Maybe there's already something at play that keeps demons from being a part of it.
"I've seen ghosts, I think." They're harder to be sure of--legendary enough that they had explanations, but he'd never met anyone who he though had really seen them, the way he had. None here though, which seems strange. They said people died here, and that the whole place seemed emptied out when they first got here."
no subject
Jace pretty much scoffed at her when she asked about mummies. Jude had proven that she wasn't the only person who thought that there could be mummies if there were angels and demons and all that other stuff running around in the world.
"That's what I heard too." She paused before popping another small piece of meat in her mouth. She didn't really taste anything except the salt that clung to the outside of the jerky. "I was told that most of what people see are ghosts are demons in different forms. Not really the souls of people. I'm not sure what I think." She hadn't seen a ghost before.
no subject
He rolled in his lips, looked askance, took a bite of dried meat and chewed. Talking about it all was strange. Parker always seemed to know, but they didn't talk about it. Parker would call from a payphone upstate, say he woke up in a field with no idea how he got there. Jude would drive out and pick him up, get breakfast, and they'd just go on.
Clary didn't want to just go on, though, she wanted to know and understand things. Confront them, it seemed like. Even here, with none of them around to confront. "I think I did, back home. They weren't the same as, you know." The demons. "They were like, these old impressions of people, on a loop. Maybe that's all they were. Not souls, just, a kind of memory."
no subject
"Maybe your world has that. I'm not sure about my home." She paused thoughtfully before continuing. "I-"
Clary frowned. "I've been to other worlds before. Places that looked just like my home but without magic or Shadowhunters or demons. I believe that all sorts of places exist, even if I haven't seen them."
no subject
"Maybe we're just--in one of those places. That doesn't have those things, but has something else."
no subject
Clary had considered that. She had also considered that if they were in one of those places that someone would try and find her. Maybe not right away, with her father running around with the mortal cup but eventually... Clary hoped.
"I don't know." She exhaled and popped another piece of cured meat into her mouth. "This place seems more normal than a lot of things I've seen."
no subject
"I know I miss turning the lights on when I get home, and it's not the most convenient place to be, but, yeah. Those houses, where I live, they'd be the nice ones. Only difference to me is the people and not having the option to watch TV."
He hadn't really taken that one up much anyway. He and Charlie mostly fell asleep to it.
no subject
Not counting her friends and family, who she wished were either here or attempting to mount a rescue for her.
"What did you watch on TV?" It was a slight curve in topic but it was nice to talk about something relatively normal for a brief change. She had watched anime and cartoons with Simon. Sometimes they'd put in old crappy horror movies and make fun of the cinematography. None of that was possible while she was here and, even if it was, she didn't really want to do that without Simon.