sixthiterationlogs | i've learned to lose, i've learned to win, i turn my face against the wind

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i've learned to lose, i've learned to win, i turn my face against the wind

WHO: Elena Gilbert
WHERE: The Inn
WHEN: July 7th & 8th
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: None currently, will update if needed.

July 7th - Arrival

Elena wouldn't have noticed her hand breaking through the surface of the water if not for the pellets of rain that hit her fingertips. Her face broke through a moment later and she sucked in a blissful mouth of air, grasping the edge of the well as she struggled to catch her breath.

It would have been hard to notice her there, the storm raging around her. She had no idea what was going on, the car she'd been trapped inside missing entirely and her surroundings so very unlike the bridge Matt had swerved off of, but she trudged along, looking for a place where she could get inside and dry off.

Her hair was plastered to her face when she found the inn and pushed the door open and managed to get inside. Maybe someone would be kind enough to help her get warm.

July 8th - Inn

By this point, she's gotten the rundown, but it's still hard to believe. Elena had been through a lot in the last year or so, but this was still completely out of her depth. Vampires, werewolves and witches were one thing, but this?

It was even harder to accept.

The worst part was that back home? She didn't even know if anyone she knew was still alive. She didn't know if she was still alive, or this was some sort of strange afterlife.

She didn't know anything. Elena couldn't even remember the last time she thought she did anymore.

Elena sat at one of the tables in the main room, leaning her cheek into her hand as she stared off into space. She couldn't get out of her head, couldn't stop thinking about Stefan, Caroline, Damon.

She was going to go crazy if she didn't figure out how to stop.

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In the days that followed Sam's unfortunate encounter with the lightning, she got a little bit better at keeping the past and the present separate. The days were a little easier than the nights. For obvious contextual reasons. But Sam refused to sleep. Her nightmares had always been pretty fucking awful before. She couldn't even begin to comprehend what they would become now. She'd long ago given up on the concept of 'it can't get any worse.' It could always, always get worse.

For one thing, you could get struck by lightning.

It helped to be around other people. Lately, she'd taken to spending an excess of time in the downstairs of the Inn. She still wasn't quite at the point where she was comfortable actually approaching people. But she could still watch. And, for whatever reason, their fucking Overlords had provided her with a shitload of colored pencils, so she could draw too. Drawing what she saw helped. It grounded her in the present.

She was working on a drawing of the Innkeeper's husband--his name was Benedict, but she'd started referring to him as The Old Spice Guy--when she saw a familiar face appear, one she hadn't seen in...shit, what? Months?

"Elena?" she said, sitting up straighter. Her bobby pins had left incredible burns on her forehead and temples--and even worse ones on her scalp--so she wasn't wearing her wig. Instead, she had a dark, black kerchief covering her hair. But in case there was any doubt about who she was, she of course let her mouth run off. "Where the fuck have you been?"

She barely remembers these last time she was here, the time a whirlwind of crazy that had gotten swept under the rug when she'd disappeared. The fact that her last memories remaining were of the car crash with Matt didn't help matter; it was nearly impossible to reconcile a second trip here when it felt like that crash had happened only yesterday and months ago simultaneously.

She'll get there, but it'll take a little bit of time.

So she recognizes Sam in a vague way, memories overlapping in her brain, but still calmed by something she can say that she knows.

"I don't know. Nowhere, maybe."

She wishes she had a good answer because then maybe things would make sense. It's easier to ignore herself in favor of the differences she sees in Sam instead. She frowns, her brows pulling together. "Are you okay? What happened?"

Oh, Elena wasn't looking good.

Well, that wasn't true. Elena was probably the most exquisitely beautiful woman Sam had ever seen her entire life. And she lived in LA. With vampires.

But there was definitely something out of whack with her.

Sam stood up, setting down her colored pencil. "The Overlords just tried to defibrillate me," she said, giving it an almost dismissive air. She'd only been struck by lightning. No big deal. Or something. It was easier to worry about someone else than herself. "Seriously, where were you?" She walked around the table to Elena. "No one's heard from you in...like, forever."

"I went home, I think."

But she's not really sure. Did she just think she went home when really she was stuck in some sort of emptiness only to show up again however long later? She didn't know, and she didn't think there was probably anyone who could really tell her.

"It feels like I died all over again or something. Maybe it's just this place screwing with me."

It liked to do that, after all. "What happened here, anyway?" Things sure looked different on her walk over here, to say the least.

Some people truly believed that the disappeared ones went home. Sam was more of a skeptic. She found it very difficult to believe that their Overlords would be kind enough to let them go. Elena was doing little to cast much doubt on her current theory.

But, unlike her parents, Sam preferred to treat people like people instead of lab rats.

She let it go.

Gently, she touched Elena's elbow, nodding her head toward the kitchen. "Come with me," she said. "You look like you could use a drink. I can try to explain, but to be honest, we're still figuring it out. The bottom line is that our Overlords decided to change the cage."

It didn't matter if Elena had really been sent home or not; either way it was a brutal mindfuck that did nothing to help her. That seemed to go right along with the whole Overlord thing.

They didn't let her go. They just messed with her more than they already had.

A gentle touch against her skin pulls Elena out of her head, momentarily distracted from her dark thoughts and focused more on something else. "Understatement." She could use any kind of drink from water to whiskey at this point.

"So, can we actually travel anywhere or is it some kind of illusion?" They'd been stuck in that canyon before, with no way outside. It didn't look like that anymore, not at first glance, anyway.

"To be determined," Sam muttered, leading Elena into the kitchen. One of many questions on a seemingly unending list of questions.

Sam had set up a still in the kitchen. It sort of looked like a Rube Goldberg Mouse Trap sort of device, with various tubes and glasses and decorators set up over a series of flames. The yield wasn't high, but there was no shortage of potatoes around the village, so Sam had been somewhat free to experiment.

The results were anything from slightly potato-y water to something so acidic you could clean your silverware with it. But people were pretty flexible about what they drank these days.

"My guess is something in between," she said, grabbing a bottle of one of her latest brews, which was closer to silverware polish. She offered it to Elena. "I'm thinking...elaborate fishbowl. The illusion of the freedom of the sea, but the reality of glass walls on all sides."

[Hers was one of the faces Rose had looked for upon returning to this place, something familiar when so much around her had changed but she'd gathered in the weeks since her re-arrival that Elena, like her, had disappeared and Rose didn't believe lightning would strike twice, not even with this weather.

This was one of those rare moments when she was perfectly okay with being proven wrong.]

Food doesn't seem to have improved much since the last time we were here. [Rose flopping down into a chair opposite hers, like no time at all had passed. In Rose's defense? For her? It hadn't.] Though I heard a rumor that somebody is planning to make wine, so I guess that's something.

[Rose was one of the intermingling memories that stood out a bit more, so when the familiar girl sat down across from her, Elena managed the first realistic smile since her arrival. It helped that there were no questions, just acceptance as she slid into a conversation like nothing had happened.]

At least something's the same, right? [It's a bad joke, but at least she was trying.] I'm surprised there isn't a regular supply of moonshine by now. That's supposed to be pretty easy to make, isn't it?

[ Rose lifts her gaze, a smile flickering on her lips as something close to relief touches her features. There had been the thought in the back of her mind that Elena wouldn't have a clue who she was. Wrong twice in one day and happy about it? It was a fricken Christmas miracle. ]

I'd gladly trade the woods for a Big Mac, though. [ Rose you'd trade your soul for a Big Mac. ] The people smart enough to do it prioritized all the boring stuff, I guess.

[ Sure. Boring. Like, basic necessities. ]

You disappear long after me?

[At least there was something to be happy about at all. Elena was having a shortage of that, so she'll take it and run with it.]

There's a lot I'd trade the woods for. But since we can't, has anyone gone out there and seen how far it goes?

[Could they actually go anywhere or was it just another form of canyon wall?]

I was going to ask you, so I'm guessing we must have gone around the same time.

[She lifts her shoulders in a shrug.]

I assume so? I've walked the perimeter but that's about it.

[Maybe she'd venture out there someday soon. It was almost comfortingly familiar being surrounded by woods again, but not quite enough for her to trust it just yet.

Rose nods thoughtfully as she processes that, not sure if she should be happy about the fact that she wasn't the only one who'd been gone for so long.]

You remember anything about the last six months? [Doubtful, but hopeful all the same.]

I haven't even gotten that far yet.

[Mystic Falls had its fair share of wooden area too, so it was familiar, but a lot of bad things had happened in those woods lately.

Elena shakes her head.]

Nope. If anything, I got to mentally relive my last moments back home all over again before dumping me back in the fountain. At least it wasn't snowing this time.

Right?! [Because of course they not only left and returned at the same time, but arrived at the exact same time as well.]

First time around was enough to put me off snow for good... and I'm from Montana.

[Where the Winter Wonderland was inescapable and anything but wonderful.

Rose didn't miss that though, Elena's 'last moments back home' and while she's shooting for light and easy, you can't hear something like that and not ask...]

As bad as the last time? [They'd talked. Some. Enough for Rose to know about the car. The bridge. The drowning.

It was one of those things she wishes they didn't have in common, though much like their personalities; Hers was fire to Elena's water.]

[Virginia has plenty of snow too, but it didn't involve a dip in the water, usually. Never again.

Not on purpose anyway.

Her expression seems almost distant as she looks away and answers her friend.]

I don't think it's one of those things that ever gets easier.

[In other words, yes. Just as bad as last time. Or the time before that.

Or the time before that...]

[What other sort of answer could there be? No, it was fine I love the whole perpetual drowning thing?]

One day... I figure we're going to get a chance to come face to face to the people behind all this.

[Her train of thought seemingly unrelated, until...]

And I'm going to see how many bones I can break until somebody drags me off of them.

[Elena caught onto her thought process before Rose even finished. She wasn't perfect, and she couldn't say that she wouldn't like a little payback for all of this.]

I can't think of too many people who would bother.

[Pulling her off, that is. The ones doing this...they were monsters. They didn't deserve better.]

I figured they might... if only so I didn't get all the satisfaction.

[Allowing a small smile to return, at least for the time being.]

With us being stuck here and all... one newly discovered perk? [Pointing towards a source of light that wasn't courtesy of the sun.] They moved out of the dark ages in our absence.

[That caused the corner of her mouth to lift.]

Touche.

[Elena lifts her eyes in the direction Rose points, eyes widening ever so slightly in surprise. Somehow, she hadn't noticed. Then again, she hadn't been paying all that much attention to details yet. Not when the big picture had changed a lot on the outside.]

Actual, real electricity? [She glances around then, looking more closely.] Is there more than just lights?

[All she can offer is a shrug in response, because honestly? Rose hasn't been paying that much attention either.]

I saw a fridge? [Well okay, so food would always win out.] Looked ancient though.

[She'd likely seen a half dozen other things that required electricity but hell would likely freeze over before Rose paid attention to things like Vacuum cleaners.]

And I figure if there was television there wouldn't be so many people outside.

[Just because she rarely watched it, didn't mean she hadn't noticed what people were like with them.]

An ancient fridge is a heck of a lot better than no fridge. And if there's a coffee machine? I'm sold.

[Her number one priority, tbh.]

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i've learned to lose, i've learned to win, i turn my face against the wind

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