[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

[underpinnings]

It's a struggle, crossing the first village. She almost gets him at the first bridge, feet catching in planks and his energy flagging. What kind of luck keeps someone from crossing their path and questioning him, he isn't sure--he could use the help, once explanations were settled.

She could use the help. He's just tired and a little bruised, the kind of sore spots he might get walking through a whip of young branches.

On the second bridge, she's quiet, almost walking on her own. He expects a lull, some false stop and a break for it--but when he turns she looks--different. Worn out, but present enough. Upset in a way that isn't about the water. "What," he asks, not quite catching the words. Turning cuts some of the slack on the rope, but he puts a second hand over hers, ducking a bit to look her in the eye. "You with me here, kid?"

[morphogenia]

She nods stiffly at the question. Her eyes are definitely welling up with real tears now. Kamala is surprised she actually made it this long. "I'm with you." She squeezes his hand fiercely. The tears are definitely in free fall now. It hurts so badly. She can hardly stand the shame her actions have brought her. "You helped me even though I was acting like a lunatic. Owen, I'm sorry. I was so awful to you." She breaks into full sobs at that.

[underpinnings]

Owen wouldn't say he was uncomfortable with tears: he's had a long time to get used to the ways people can crack under pressure, or leak just enough to keep going. Kamala crying is good, even--it would be worse if she just stood silently, if she went into shock.

But Owen's always approached it like a thing that isn't happening. When his mother found her own hole on the ship to hide in, and it wasn't safe to go to her--her crying was like a storm, or a ghost wailing in the hull. Something too big, and not quite real. Nothing he needed to deal with. On the roads and paths between settlements, if a straggler wanted to cry, if a kid wanted to have a fit at the unfairness of the world, all that mattered was the noise, or if they kept walking while they did it.

Here: does it matter? He can't be sure, not after the Wendigo, not with some unheard call trying to walk people into the lake. Owen leads her in by the hand and lets her have his shoulder, cups a hand to the back of her hair and crouches. "It's fine," he tells her, and if she leans into him he'll lever her up, ready to carry her into the next village if it means she won't go back.

"You haven't been awful, I'll get you home, it'll be alright."

[morphogenia]

She goes in without a second of hesitation. Kamala rests her head on his shoulder and cries silently. The shaking of her shoulder is the only real indication of how broken up she is by how she behaved before she snapped out of it. "I shouldn't have hit you! It doesn't matter if it didn't hurt. I had no right to treat you like that." She had no right to treat herself like that either. All Kamala can think in this moment is how ashamed her parents would be. They wanted her so badly they gave Kamala a name that translated to perfection. How could she betray them by giving into some whispering devil who told her to drown herself and hurt her friend? She should have been stronger.

[underpinnings]

"No right," he can agree, shifting her up in his grip, feeling the bite of the rope pressed now between them. If she weighs a thing it's from the water not yet dried on her clothes, and whatever he does or doesn't believe--he wants to tell her, her soul's too light to go anywhere but up.

"No right," he repeats, up close. "But a reason. I know you weren't acting right, kid. I forgive you."

[morphogenia]

The sharp pain from the rope pressed against her feels deserved after what happened. That morbid thought doesn't actually stop Kamala from seeking out more comfort from Owen. She buries her head against his shoulder as she's shifted up.

It's something that he forgives her even if she's still upset with herself. She spares him the melodrama of not being ready to forgive herself yet by at least acknowledging what he said. "Okay.... okay." She lets out a sharp exhale. "I just want to go home."

[underpinnings]

One thing you don't do, even if you fuck up the first thing you don't do by getting involved in the first place--is make promises. He's fucked for that first one, he's still dripping lake water from his clothes and hefting her up to settle in his arms.

But it's such a small thing; it's a walk, despite all the things that could go wrong along the way.

"I promise, we'll get you there soon."