[open] 004 † i cried out heaven save me, but i'm down to one last breath

[ottimismo]

WHO: Sonny Carisi
WHERE: The Fountain, the Inn, other places in the village
WHEN: September 4th
OPEN TO: OTA
WARNINGS: Sonny trying to drown himself, mentions of religion

---

Fountain

Sonny bounces back. He always bounces back. He did in high school, after years of relentless bullying, and in law school, when he thought the course load was going to be enough to kill him. He's bounced back from every single case he's ever had, even the toughest ones. Even the ones where the victim didn't make it. Coming back from a hard time has never been difficult for him. It's only ever taken some quality time with his siblings and his niece and a little bit of church.

Those are all things he doesn't have here. No sisters, no family. He has his little makeshift church, but it doesn't make much of a difference. It's been weeks since he's felt God in the village.

And now, Queenie's gone. He's spent the last two days searching high and low for her, but nobody else has seen her around, either. A lot of people have left lately, with no pattern or rhyme or reason. There's no telling who's next, or when it'll happen. if it will happen. They don't know how it happens, or if the people who leave are safe, if they go back home. There's too many questions and not enough answers and Sonny is so tired. He's never felt so tired in his life.

He wants to go back home. Back where things make sense, and he can connect the dots and solve the case and nobody is going to stumble upon any strange pods or discover weird rooms with blood vials.

Probably, anyway.

It's late in the afternoon now, and his feet hurt from trekking across the village looking for Queenie. It's hopeless, he decides as he sits on the edge of the fountain. She's gone from this God forsaken place, and he wants to be gone from it, too. The water ripples, showing him his wobbly reflection in its surface. This is where they all crawl out of, somehow, without fail. It's the only sure thing that happens in this place. Everyone comes out of the fountain. That never changes.

Sonny kicks off his boots, peels off his socks. He doesn't bother with anything else as he slips over the edge of the fountain, into the cool water. A single breath, and he slips beneath the surface, heading straight for the bottom.


Inn

There's no fire in the fireplace, but Sonny sits in front of it anyway, wrapped in a spare blanket from the storeroom. Since being dragged out of the fountain, he's eaten some food and dried off a bit, though his white scrubs are still damp and unchanged.

In retrospect, it was obviously a stupid idea. He's always encouraged victims to get help, find someone to talk to, be open about what they're feeling and going through. He never realized until now that he's terrible at taking his own advice.

He probably needs to apologize to some people. He needs to pray and get some sleep and figure out how he's going to pull himself back together.

For now, he sits, sipping on a cup of now luke-warm tea.

[ Stella will be pulling Sonny out of the fountain, but other than that, interaction is entirely open! Feel free to find him wandering the village before, or sitting at the fountain immediately after almost drowning himself, or chilling at the inn!

Also to be noted, Sonny has been pretty withdrawn and absent the last month or so. ]

wear it like armor [open]

[tooktheblack]

WHO: Jon Snow
WHERE: woods; House 25; weirwood (locked to Starks only)
WHEN: 18 August (plague prompt); early September
OPEN TO: all; weirwood prompt locked to Starks only
WARNINGS: usual sad bastard warnings.

---

a. bring out your dead

It had only taken a few days after visiting his lord father for Jon to fall ill and he tried to ignore it and push past it as much as he could. He did what he could to keep going, to maintain his routine, but after three days he fell to the fever and the rash and took to his bed.

Jon couldn't ever remember being ill like this. Once, during the False Spring, he'd fallen ill with a flu that all the rest of the Starks had fallen ill with one after another in succession. While Sansa and Robb had the touch of Catelyn Stark to soothe them when they thrashed in the sheets, Jon only had broth from Old Nan and the fevered dreams of a boy who wanted his mother more than anything. He wanted his mother to put cool cloths against his forehead and to brush his hair back from his brow.

His mother never came.

Now, as a man grown, he wouldn't do anything so weak as beg for his mother but he did, in passing, wish to be put out of his misery a handful of times. He hoped that none of his other siblings had fallen ill with this and that only he and Father had gotten it. Perhaps the girls and Robb had been spared and Jon would be better in a few days. Didn't it pass? All things passed in time.

So, for the first time since that illness as a boy, Jon Snow took to his bed and didn't rise for a week.

b. but i'm feeling better!

After laying in bed for a week and a half, Jon finally felt well enough to venture out into the woods. His traps were all a loss, considering they hadn't been checked while he was ill and he spent a few hours redoing the lot of them. It was tedious work, yes, but he was just glad to be out of his bed and moving around again. He hadn't been the best patient while he'd been ill and he'd been really glad to be out of the house; he had the idea that he'd spend the whole day out of doors if the women in his life would let him.

Once he'd reset all of his traps, he took one of the bows to actually hunt, feet silent against the leaves. It was times like these that he missed Ygritte. For all that he was good with a bow, she was better, and she could shoot further and cleaner than he ever would. Still, he had a duty to feed those in the village and he wouldn't manage that if he was lost in a dream of days past. Seeing a rustle out of the corner of his eye, he nocked an arrow and let it loose, pleased when it struck a grouse. It'd make a fine dinner for someone, whether it was his family or up at the Inn.

c. you have found...the shrubbery!

The weirwood was still a tiny thing but even as a sapling, Jon knew what it meant. He occasionally said prayers in front of a heart tree for his family who hadn't come here to this village - for Bran, for Rickon whom he knew was dead and gone. He said them for Catelyn Stark, that his siblings might have their mother again. He said them for Ygritte, for the brothers he'd lost at the Wall and the brothers who had betrayed them. It was a time to think and reflect, to remember the Old Gods and the First Men and how they'd given rise to the man he was today.

It seemed so far away from him now, the snows of the North and the battle that they had yet to fight. There was a war to wage against the dead and yet he was here in a place that was summer-green, a place that winter lasted only a few turns of the moon before it became spring and then autumn. It seemed like madness that seasons would last only a few moons' turn but he guessed for those not from Westeros, the opposite must seem true.

He knelt for what felt like an eternity, his lips moving without sound escaping as he gave his prayers to this fledgling tree in hopes that House Stark would take root here in this village and be strong once again.