[MINGLE] PLOT: Siren's Call

[sixthiteration]

WHERE: Anywhere
WHEN: August 25-26
OPEN TO: ALL - MINGLE
WARNINGS: Mental manipulation, drowning, death
NOTES: Details here. This post is for EVERYONE, not just the affected. Please make sure and note if your thread is locked for plot purposes.

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It began slowly.

A wisp of song or familiar sound on the breeze swept in from the lake. No source to be found, only the uneasy feeling it had been heard before as it coiled itself steadily inside the minds of the chosen. The sound was a mantra, pulsing soft at first and then louder, growing over days until it seemed to fill the skull, relentless. Come here, the lake whispered, cajoled, shouted. It is cool and quiet beneath the waves.

Come here, it presses now in time with the melody until there is nothing but to blindly follow. The water is calling.

Comments

[underachievement]

They pass by the path that exits off to Haymitch's house, leaving one domicile in the distance to be Castle Casa Jones. Jess's paranoia is starting to subside, with her not sneaking a glance at their six every other minute.

Frank draws a line at cute animals all right. He draws it all around them in a circle with himself inside. Not for the first time, Jess wonders if Kamala is aware of his identity back home and concludes that she can't be, sparing the Punisher a gale force yelling. Kamala's assessment is on point regardless: He is a pushover.

"So he already named it and gave it its own room."

[morphogenia]

"He named her Whitney and built her a place to sleep." Kamala confirms. She's obviously on board with all this. She cries every Eid over her father having to slaughter a goat. She's thrilled they can keep an animal and love it until it dies of very natural causes!!! She glances ahead at the home she can only assume is Jessica's. She tries not to look too thrilled because Jessica's house!! So exciting. She never saw it in Reims. "You really know him." Kamala tacks in. She gets the impression everyone else still thinks he's tough for some reason. Probably the muscles.

[underachievement]

She scoffs. Aretha and Whitney. Cute. Good to know there's a hutch she can crash in the next time she's shitwrecked in the middle of town.

"Unfortunately." She checks over her shoulder one last time but no one is in pursuit of them. The road feels more barren than usual, though she knows it as a lonesome road.

[morphogenia]

"If you say so. I like how totally ridiculous he is obviously." Sure moving in with him was a lot about hiding from another kidnapping scenario. Frank is the ultimate crutch for a terrified child. Time proved they actually make really good roommates even if one clearly does more than the other around the house.

It's about now that Kamala realizes just how far out they're going. The question she should have asked a really long time ago springs to mind. "Why do you always live so far away?"

[underachievement]

His total ridiculousness can be selectively endearing, in theory. They haven't spent nearly as much time around each other as they had to in Reims and back there she didn't have the patience to suffer others' levity. She can't remember anything funny ever happening there, or any occasion on which she laughed.

She shrugs to Kamala's question. There's a whole other village full of empty houses, so Jess doesn't think of herself as living far away. No farther than she lived from Trish when she dazedly walked out of her first abduction and closer than she was to the community in Reims, though not by much. "If someone comes looking for me, there're fewer people around to get caught in the crossfire." Though the utter dearth of sapient life, the deadly silent lack of foot traffic has gotten and low-key stayed on her nerves since night one.

[morphogenia]

"That makes sense." Kamala admits. She should really know better considering what went down. She hugs herself as she wonders if maybe that was insensitive to ask. No one needs a reminder how scary Jessica's villains are. She quickly finds a positive thing to comment on because even while scared out of her mind and wondering about her soul she's good at that. "Especially with your bubble! You'd knock all your neighbors down."