Ride The Lightning

[seekingvinland]

WHO: Thorfinn Karlsefni
WHERE: The woods / House 8 / The Inn
WHEN: Valentine's Day And the 15th
OPEN TO: Thor then Everyone!
WARNINGS: Minor lightning injuries, bodily injury, cursing.
STATUS: Open!

---

Closed to Thor

It had been a little over a week since Thorfinn had come to realize Jo was really and truly gone. He was alone in the house he once shared with them. He was only slightly hopeful her and Kol would return, hope had never really gotten him far in life. So he went on like all was normal, purposely navigating away from questions of Jo or Kol, at least with Kol he was used to people not seeing the vampire around, but Jo was a known person in the little community. He knew he would have to handle it in time, but for now he wanted a sense of normalcy, so he returned to the woods daily felling trees and hunting.

Today, he had met with Thor with splitting some logs. The sight of the god always raised his spirits a bit, he knew he had been lacking in leaving tribute but he had been just to tired of late to go looking for more goats.

"Truly?" He asked in response to something the man had spoke. Lifting the axe up once more about to swing down hard but, faster than he could react he felt something at first tingle then everything shifted. A ball had floated up beside the axe, the crackle of eletricity flowing into head of the axe, and down the outside of the wood into Thorfinn's hands and down his arms before he could even drop the axe.

He didn't remember screaming, only the agony of the energy surging through him, at the same time that he screamed the fire swirled around him escaping with a moment of loss of control. Luckily the flames didn't last long. His knee's buckled as he started to tumble down, his brown eyes wide as his mind tried to process what just happened, as he looked at Thor as he started to fall.

"...What the fuck, Thor."

Had he offended with a lack of goat tribute?

House 8
The next thing Thorfinn knew he was in his house, laying in bed, the ends of his hair were charred, as was his tunic sleeves, Kate was going to be so pissed at him. He wasn't sure how long he had been out cold but forcing himself to sit up, his arms ached in a horrible way. Lifting his right arm he saw the strangest marks he had ever seen before, just under the burns on both wrists were patterns going up to his elbows, it looked like lightning laced over his mesh of scars.

He tipped his head a bit, his head still ached like the rest of his body. Realizing he was home he knew someone had to of brought him home. But who? Was it Thor? He shifted to try and get out of bed.

Feb 15th, The Inn
Thorfinn knew he was supposed to rest, but he was so bad at resting. It was around noon when he made his way across the back yard into the inn, with a small box under his aching arm. He moved over to Jo's book's despite the pain, he leaned over the table, setting down the box and opened it to a blank page. He started to jot a note in runes on the page.

What was different was that he had the sleeveless shirt from the summer on, his cloak just draped over his shoulders so his new found Lichtenberg scars were noticeable, but what stood out more than that, his long hair was gone. He had taken one of his knives when he woke in the morning and sheered the locks off. Cut unevenly and badly leaving only about an inch and a half in some places, and two in others it was a bad cut, but he had tried. The charcoal in his hand was a little unsteady, his nerves weren't acting as they should, he had been shaking a bit but not from fear, the longer he stood the worse his headache got as well, but Jo would have wanted the book written in.

strike me down

[bit_fairytale]

WHO: Amy Pond
WHERE: Outside the Mill
WHEN: February 13th
OPEN TO: OTA
WARNINGS: Temporary confusion due to lightning & unconsciousness
STATUS: Open

---

"Doctor?"

Something's happened to her, something that hurts and is making everything fuzzy. Amy stares up at the sky from where she's lying on the ground, not sure why it feels like she's coming around from a nap, her body covered in dirt except for her right arm, which has a strange pattern by the shoulder, like little tree limbs stretching out from her neck down her arm. It hurts to move, but the worst is that everything is fuzzy.

"Rory?" she ekes out, trying to sit up as she stares around her, panic beginning to well. She's not entirely sure what's going on, but she's not in her clothes, her ring is missing, and she's not sure how she got these marks on her arms. For a brief moment of panic, Amy's hands fly down to her midsection and she wonders if they've got her at Demon's Run, still, if all that time in between was just some sort of dream...

"Rory!" she shouts, a little louder, more panicked. "Doctor, where are you?" Her head is splitting and she's covered in dirt on the ground in what looks like an old little village? She knows it, though, why does she know it? Rubbing a hand to the side of her head, Amy tries to sit up, but she keeps her eyes closed because everything aches so badly.

Did she get knocked out? Why does she remember a bright flash and then nothing?

Wait. Did she get struck by lightning? Does that actually happen to people? Amy manages to get to her feet, stubbornly trying to keep her balance, but she's still a bit dizzy and ends up stumbling towards the nearest building, pressing a hand to it and rubbing at the mark on her neck, grimacing at how bad it looks as she wonders if this'll be permanent. Right, she decides, she's clearly got something wrong with her, which means she needs some medical help and maybe something strong to drink.

i’ve been putting sorrow on the furthest place on my shelf [closed to several]

[3ofswords]

WHO: Kira Akiyama
WHERE: The Inn, the riverbank
WHEN: Feb 14, midday and evening
OPEN TO: Casey, Benedict, Graves
WARNINGS: Grief and mentions of character deaths
STATUS: n/a

---

i. Benedict; Graves - leaving the inn or at Ren’s grave

Someone was fucking with him.

Deaths weren’t enough, leaving friends and family behind, being hurt, being afraid and without answers--none of it was enough. They kept adding to the notes and map left by the woman, already disappeared, they kept trying to have civil discussions about what was happening and what to do about it, but Kira had held the note in his hands and could only discern cruelty. Beyond the fact of life could be and into the fact of someone is trying to be.

Maybe their captors were like the wendigo: once captives, warped into something without care.

Maybe they were just assholes.

To Kira Akiyama: There are always more fish in the sea. He’d dropped the note back into the box of rose petals and pink champagne, moved enough of them to see the Durex label and taken his hands up entirely. If he’d any doubts of the time passing, or the consequences of being here so long--the box served to turn his stomach in confirmation.

He’s dead; he’s dead and that meant too many people now. It turned his stomach again that he would even think of Ren, staring down into that box. It turned his stomach to see Casey, head tilted with a dog’s curiosity, the box and the boy in his room and the note like an accusation. We see you, it said, clearer than piles of gifts, clearer than the fact of the pod in the canyon wall.

Maybe they weren’t just former captives turned cruel, maybe they had people like him. Turned inside out, using their impressions of people to design an ugly gauntlet. Maybe he’d be the latest tool in their belts, with the way he’d shoved the box at Casey, used the box to nearly shove Casey just to get away from them both. “Another one for you,” he’d lied, pushing out of the room and making for the exit, needing to get away from them all, the cloud of emotions he doesn’t want to feel, doesn’t want to know, take advantage of, filter into some database to be regurgitated as salt in a wound.

Casey had told him not to know anyone, not to ask or let them answer, not to let them ask about him. To imagine someone else in their place, someone dull and blank, and in this way, never get attached.

Before he hadn’t died, before he’d promised Ty a dinner, before he lost the cards that held the emotions of the city at bay: he’d been better at it. He’d have laughed at the note, and tipped the champagne down his throat, kept his pockets stocked and his standards low.

Now, wandering out the door and down the path, the air crackling over his skin and his pulse telling the powers that be do it, just do it, he wants to go back for it and toss the box in the river. There are too many people here he knows too much about, people he might not stay for, but who he would try to take home with him, to spare them something worse. There are people he would mourn, and one he already does, a knife slid next to the knife of Ty, and the note twisting them both in his side. It isn’t even conscious, to swing past the fountain and head south through the village, until he’s looking around at the trees, biting his lip, knowing he’s orienting himself toward one in particular.

They’d carved a four pointed star into the base of the tall pine, after they’d finished the grave. He’d made a joke in his head about letting Ren down one last time, as they’d carefully positioned the body, and he’d tossed one of the die in after him. He’s down to two, now, an odd set of talismans that let him feel like--he’ll know, if anything happens to Casey or Credence. He’ll know if anything happens to Ren’s grave.

It’s exactly the kind of shit he shouldn’t be doing, if he’s going to pretend someone picking up on his impressions of others is any kind of rational thought. In the absence of a rational world, did it matter? Has anything been rational since he was sixteen, or since his parents were driven out of their home, the city set upon itself?

Ren had been, he thinks, coming to a stop at the rocks piled over the grave. Ren would reject his emotional display over a box of bullshit and give him something useful to do, make him spar, hit him with a stick until they were both tired of getting nothing out of it.

And he’s rational enough to come here, not stare into the depths of the fountain again and wonder exactly how decomposed his ex is. A knife is a knife, and he’s bleeding out from the loss, but Ren is a cleaner cut than Ty. Ty is rust and fever; Ty is how he pulls the knives out of his guts and starts putting them in other people.

If he thinks about Ty right now, he’s going to jump back into the fountain and, one way or the other, not come back out.

“I can’t believe how much I miss you, you fucking asshole,” he breathes, staring at the star over the thick roots, finally releasing some of the tension that the gift had sung through him. If the aim of this place was cruelty and confusion, maybe the best thing he could do was walk away, calm down, and ignore it. “I have much better people to miss, you know. The least you could do is haunt me properly, bang some pans around and turn off the lights at the inn.”

ii. Casey - back at the inn

There is no hour early or late enough to ensure Casey and the box are gone when he returns to the room--but there is an hour after the sun sets, after Kira remembers he was out without his coat, overalls undone and held up by a pair of suspenders, cards and dice stuffed in the pockets--where he’s too cold to dodge someone for anything at all.

It isn’t Casey’s fault he walked in when he did, or his fault that Kira is so bad at taking his advice. Following his own rules, two months in a place and his roots finding literal representation south of the village.

He’s here. For better or worse, and he does no one any favors pushing Casey out of his way and never coming back. When he comes up the stairs, he doesn’t quite enter the room, leaning in the doorway. Looking at the coat left on the bed, the angle of the knife left in its deep pocket, and his eyes eventually finding the open window, the hammock swaying slightly in the breeze.

Casey has made the climb out the window and onto the roof enough times that there’s a trail: a scuff on a branch, a warp to the trim where a hand has grasped, a boot print on the wall, over a ridge of siding. Kira slips and grunts enough times on the way up that there’s a pair of eyes to meet when he gets his head above the roof’s edge, and he lays his arm out across it, hand palm up and open, a wordless request for help.

[Options specified for individuals. The box contains: one 187ml bottle Stella Rosa champagne, one 8" diameter, 2-3" deep box of chocolate covered strawberries, one 50ct Durex Condom variety pack; all empty 'packing' space filled with red and white rose petals.]

Beware of Strange Boxes

[thesavior]

WHO: Emma Swan
WHERE: The Inn, outside and her house
WHEN: Inn stuff takes place on the 6th, anything after that can be from the 7th-15
OPEN TO: Sansa, Casey and anyone
WARNINGS: None that I know of
STATUS: Open

---

T h e I n n- February 6th

Emma sat in the sitting area of the inn, staring at the box in front of her. She didn’t know who would give her a gift, but it made her sort of nervous. She kept running her hands over the top and sides, like that was going to tell her the mysteries of what was inside the box.

She laughed out loud at herself, because how ridiculous would that be? She surprised herself at the crazy things that went through her head. “Well, since I don’t have x-ray vision, I better open it,” She said, as she glanced around before opening the box and reaching inside.

“Oh my,” She whispered as she pulled out reams of lace and satin. She smiled softly, as she ran her fingers over the material. She still couldn’t believe this was happening, but she was holding ivory material, so it must be real. She thought that most people could use a gathering so maybe they would open their wedding to the whole village.

O u t s i d e

Emma left the inn and was on her way home when she heard the first pop of lightning. The last thing that she needed was to get struck by lightening. She was walking quickly towards her place she caught something out of the corner of her eye. She glanced up and saw a figure on one of the roofs.

“Hey, you might want to get down before you get hurt,” Emma called up.

The last thing she wanted was to see someone hurt.