lifeaftr | [closed] where you're from, you might be the one who's running things

Entry tags:

[closed] where you're from, you might be the one who's running things

Who: Kravitz and all parties of camp BASE, aka Taako, Lup, Magnus, Ren, and maybe Seto!
What: Kravitz arrives, is shown around camp, makes a few horrifying realizations.
When: Backdated to April 4th, after Kravitz' intro log threads
Where: Enso E6 (aka elf camp)
Warnings: Should be fine!

It has already been the longest day of his life.

For most people, it's rather hard to say that confidently. The majority of people have been alive for a significant amount of time, and therefore it's hard to say if they're having a particularly long day in conjunction to the many they don't remember in their lifetime. On the other hand, if you've been dead for a thousand years and are now finding yourself horrifyingly Not, you've been attacked by a few monsters, and picked up by one rambling man and his dog, you could be pretty confident that this day in particular has been long and relatively horrible. Magnus is, at least, a familiar face; it brings some comfort to know he's not entirely alone in wherever this is, even if it makes him uneasy that most of the people he's met here have been dead before or were dead last time he saw them. He's been able to get in very few questions, despite Magnus being adamant on talking his ear directly off, and after a confusing trip through the mana pool he still doesn't feel any closer to figuring out what the hell is going on.

At this point, most of what he knows is that this place is made of a number of different island and ruled by a god known as the Storyteller, whom Kravitz has already resolved to have a number of words with about the amount of dead people walking about in the wrong plane. But as the camp comes into view, he concentrates back on whatever Magnus is saying, assuming this is going to be important.

"Is this it? Your, uhm, camp you mentioned."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Here's the thing: Magnus could be really useful and practical and give Kravitz all of the basic information he needs so that he could take a minute or ten to just try and wrap his mind around it, at least a little bit. And, well,to be fair, Magnus did have the intention to do so. But then he got entirely too caught up on talking about all of the stuff that's happened on the, oh, two months he's been here. It's crazy! It's just like home!

"And they-" He pauses when Kravitz speaks up, looking towards the camp. "Oh, yeah! See the sign?" He points at it, way too proud, as Johann trots ahead through the threshold.

"Whaddya think?"

“Camp… Base?” He has a million questions, but suddenly, they have All been replaced by this. “Is it a camp, or a base? What is the point of even having a sign?” Kravitz shakes his head, waving his arms a little as if to dismiss his questions and the answer Magnus is likely already giving. “No, no, forget about it. Don’t answer that. Just… who is here, Magnus? How is it possible you’re all in this space and not back in our plane?”

He’s thankfully tied his scythe onto his backpack, at this point, so he’s able to make a sweeping gesture towards the tent setup. “This looks established. You had to have been here for some time. This can’t just be you, it’s—“

Kravitz squints a bit towards the camp, trying to survey who else might be there. “What have you dragged me into?”

The camp's pretty lively these days, people coming and going like all the time, various animals doing their animal business, it's not generally a very quiet place anymore. So Johann coming into the tent to nose at her in greeting isn't weird, and Magnus' enthusiastic voice booming over from one of the paths is practically background noise, like really gruff birdsong.

But it's the second voice that has Lup's ears perking up in alarm and she unfolds from the shade of the tent into the sunlight, rising to her full elven height. The sight that greets her is a lot to process in just, so many ways. Not only is the Grim fucking Reaper hovering at the edge of the camp like a carrion bird that needs to be forcibly removed from somebody's living room, but she knows that super handsome face. She really shouldn't, she's pretty sure? Besides that one weird dream she had a while back where-- Oh shit! This is about to get wild as hell, isn't it! Thank god she's here for this.

They lock eyes from across the camp. For one tempting second, she wonders how long she could play him before the commotion awakens Taako from his hammock nap. But that's prooobably not gonna fly anymore, what a bummer.

Know who's not gonna be bummed, though?

"HEY TAAKO! GUESS WHAT THE DOG BROUGHT IN!!"

It's not like Taako isn't used to this by now. Like Lup, he's able to tune out a veritable buffet of critter, orphan, and Magnus-generated sound. Or at the very least, put up a very convincing front of doing so. Fake it til you make it, right? More like ignore these losers until you pass out for real.

Unfortunately this strategy leads to a kind of arms race of doing wholly unnecessary shit exactly like this. Like holy shit, Lup, he's napping, not dead. For a second he considers doubling down on the nap, like maybe they'll give up if he frowns his eyes shut hard enough, but that strategy doesn't really end up much better. There'll Be No Peace until he acknowledges whatever hell Magnus is about to inflict upon them all. He can express some vague approval or outrage and then slink out of camp.

He escapes the hammock with the grace of eight months' familiarity and takes two long, stretching steps before the full reality of what's happening sinks in. When it does, it's like a face full of cold water, washing all the sleep right out of his system. Kravitz, last known whereabouts: an untold number of planar systems away, drowning in horror goop. Yeah, that's a configuration of bullshit he's been refusing to make eye contact with for over half a year. And hope has always been a four letter word at the best of times. So sue him if he's maybe caught a little flat-footed, staring at Kravitz in something he barely recognizes as relief.

"Hey, you're not dead," he says, full of brittle enthusiasm but still very genuine. "Uh, not more dead. I saw-- I didn't mean to leave you hanging, in the soup there." The nerves are starting to win out over the elation more every second, but not enough to make that a real apology. Maybe this Changes Everything, is the thing. "I'm-- It's good to see you."

There are so, so many things happening to him right now.

First, Not Taako is back. He doesn't register how he knows her at first, his mind not making the connection of seeing her in a dream, because dreams don't happen to him much and certainly haven't in any recent timeframe. All he knows is that it still doesn't feel like Taako, and that's incredibly odd, even if she's carrying the same odd necromantic signature that he did during their first date.

Which leads him to point two: what the hell is that. Kravitz has already met quite a few people on the island, and the vast majority of them have been dead before; admittedly, his sense are a little off. He might find more information in his book, which for a moment, he thinks about getting. However, she speaks first, and that brings him to point three.

Taako. Taako, who walks out from the sidelines like nothing has ever happened, who smiles at him and talks and is happy to see him. He doesn't even recognize that he's grinning back, some mixture of disbelief and happiness, until he's forgotten anyone else was even in their vicinity. He's practically running but doesn't keep the force as he meets Taako and pulls him into his arms, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. He's alive. He should have known when Magnus was the one to greet him, but he's alive and bright and everything is a little less scary with him around.

The only thing that's still odd is his reaction to this, but not in his movement, in his body- it's things he's used to feeling when he and Taako touch, but not things coming from himself. The feeling of his heart quickening as they got closer, the soft rise and fall of breath to his chest, the pulse of blood under skin and bone. More than that, Taako can probably feel his skin isn't clammy or cold; the lips pressed at his hairline are warm and very much alive. But Kravitz doesn't seem to care, holding Taako so carefully, so gently, but absolutely unwilling to let go.

"Taako, I-- I'm so glad you're alright. I saw you as a soul about to enter the Astral Plane, I thought you were dead." The words tumble out of him in a messy sort of string, the feedback loop of thought that's been running continuously since he made it to the Stockade. "Something is happening, I haven't been able to figure out what, I--"

Something else occurs to him, and he cuts himself off, pulling back just enough to look at Taako's face. "How long have you been here?"

How long was he trapped?

Oh. Well obviously all of his unvoiced uncertainty seems pretty dumb now, from the vantage point of being held like something alarmingly valuable. There doesn't appear to have been some kind of unspoken expiration date on the whole relationship thing after all, what the fuck. Or like, a really specific ToS that he violated by hopping planes? And then cooling his heels on an island for the better part of a year while the apocalypse is on hold? Probably an oversight tbh.

Those are garbage thoughts for idiots actually, and Taako retroactively had none of them, thinking can take a number and wait. He's good, he's absolutely golden in fact, he just needed Kravitz to bridge the gap, and he clings back with absolutely none of the care and gentility, because he can. That's the best he's got on short notice, because he's a stubbornly well-insulated live wire of bullshit feelings. This is what happens when you procrastinate emotional processing, but joke's on fate or whatever because this is great! Just a lot! Too much, in fact, to leave any room for clocking all the perfectly normal alive-person stuff, just yet. Kravitz is warm, the jungle is warm, his face is burning, who's keeping score.

Being put under direct scrutiny is less great, and he resists several simultaneous urges, all centered around re-hiding his face or Blinking into the ocean and the like. Plenty of time for that and any other rock sculptures later. Cool thing about being stuck on an island, you can actually just get right in the ocean and never come out, that's always a real option.

"You know, a while," is his unnecessarily circumspect answer. He just kinda feels like Kravitz won't like hearing this very much? He certainly doesn't like it much, himself, but he puts the most nonchalant spin on it he can, though he's doing a terrible job on that front. "Seven, eight months?"

Lup watches this tender reunion with equal parts surprise and delight and maybe a little bit like a spectator sport and she's just missing the popcorn. This shit is tender as hell, actually, and she can't help feeling the warmth of genuine joy for the both of them in her heart, as uncool as that might be. Taako should always be held like that, is the thing. Not bad for some thug who'd originally tried to kill her brother.

And maybe if she was distracted by like, the end of the world or something, she could even give them some space to catch up and make out about all their adorable feelings or whatever. Unfortunately, in the current scenario she literally has nothing better to do than to be the worst, as is her Istus-given right as Taako's sister. Which, hey, that's just one of several realizations she'd be happy to help Goth Boy along with.

So what Lup ends up contributing is an ear-shattering wolf whistle and a smug grin like she'd somehow orchestrated all this in the first place. At the very least she probably said some super comforting shit to Taako's worries back when they were hella plastered a couple months ago that all turned out to be totally true. "You boys need us to hang up some socks and evacuate the camp, or is this gonna stay PG?

Months. On one hand, it's good, good it hasn't been years, and while he doesn't have a very good internal clock something in him doubts it was really that long. But that's a long time to have left Taako alone. Thankfully (or not) he doesn't actually seem to be, if the woman who's begun to harass him again is any indication.

He finally takes his eyes off Taako to shoot a displeased glance her direction, mouth in a grimace. "Do you mind??" Somehow, he already thinks he knows the answer, but he's gonna look back towards Taako anyway, hoping one of them will fill in the blanks here. There's really only one option forming crystalline in Kravitz' mind, but he's not going to confront that directly until he absolutely has to. One Taako, that's the appropriate amount of Taakos. That's how much he can handle here. So he's going to spend a few more seconds pretending that number hasn't changed and this island isn't actually hell.

He still hasn't taken his hands off Taako, though. One hand rests at the small of his back, the other on his shoulderblade just below his neck, as if if he needed to, he could pull the other man into his arms and shield him from the world.

It's still incredibly tender, really. Kravitz isn't sure he really has another setting when it comes to Taako.

Wow, way to go Lup, ruiner of moments. Taako lays his ears back, as much a belated attempt to protect his delicate hearing as express all the scandalized vexation Lup deserves for her bullshit. There was probably a good way to ease into this explanation! He was gonna find it! Like, that could have happened. It was a possibility. He shoots her a warning glare, to which she is undoubtedly long since immune. At least Kravitz doesn't hesitate to stand up to her heckling, which is a skill he will sorely need in the coming trials.

He steps back a little, albeit with obvious hesitation, and takes Kravitz' hands in his own like he's about to really deliver some News. Or at the very least slow him down if this is the last straw between him and bolting. There's something just a touch off, niggling at the corner of his thoughts as he does so, but he's still just way too busy to hone in on it. Kravitz' aliveness problems will have to continue to wait in line.

"Soo, remember that time my umbrella tried to kill you for no reason?" He doesn't actually leave space for an answer, this is the Band-aid method, informational lightning round. He's spinning this like it's a fun you'll-never-believe-this story they're all gonna laugh about here in a bit, and doing a decent job of keeping a lid on his trepidation considering that it's not actually that kind of story at all.

"Yeah, get this: not a curse! That was my sister Lup, who as you can see doesn't know how to act, like, ever. There were other extenuating circumstances, 's fine now. Also that was all just a misunderstanding and she's sorry." He has a very strong feeling that that specifically is a lie, even aside from all his careful omissions about undead lichness, but she's too far away for him to kick her ankle warningly. Not like it would work anyway.

It would just be really great if Kravitz could not be a real stickler about the hell jail thing just this one (more) time. Like, one of those daytime tv bootcamp visits where she has to eat hell prison food and suffer through an unflattering uniform? Sure, hilarious, a compromise that gets his stamp of approval as of about thirty seconds ago. But any actual execution of his god-charged duties is off the table, obviously. Taako's gonna make this chill by force of will alone if necessary. "Cool how that all worked out, right?"

It was never a possibility. Everything involving Taako quickly becomes disaster zone alpha, and as Kravitz is quickly learning, that goes double when there's Two Of Them. Regardless, he lets Taako move, but is certainly happier for the fact that they're still connected. Above all else, he is still worried about this- all of this- and the familiarity of Taako is something he sorely needs right now.

Of course, this immediately gets horribly worse in the ensuing ten seconds.

Kravitz listens, pressing his lips into a tighter and tighter line as Taako speaks and everything starts to slot into place. You're not a lich, are you Taako? Do you suspect you may be harboring an undead spirit? Well, fucking fantastic. Because suddenly, the connections are made very, very clear. The same signature he felt on the moonbase, similar ones coming from the lab, and now, here, as well. But it's not Taako. Aside from his previously known death count, Taako is clear.

His head tilts, and then swivels slowly over to look at Lup. He doesn't even look angry at this point. He is just tired. He is just so, so fucking tired.

He looks back to Taako with all of the grace of a parent who just found their myriad of horrible children with their hands in the cookie jar.

"Taako." Kravitz tries to keep his voice level, and leans in to keep it hushed, but it is undoubtedly not quiet enough for Lup not to hear. "I would hardly say this has just 'worked out'. You know we're going to have to have a real discussion about the fact that your sister is a lich, right? You know I can't just, just let this keep happening?"

Well, looks like it's fuckin' go time already, who would have thought. Like, Lup would've been cool with just some more friendly ragging on the two love birds, show the Grim Reaper what to expect of his stay on Stank Island right out of the gate? At least for like, another good five minutes or so. She could have kept things chill, probably!

But Taako, perhaps to his credit, puts their entire shared history straight up just out there in an attempt to immediately swipe it under the rug. Yeah, that was never gonna fly with this tightass. Since when was the Law ever particularly forgiving to them? C'mon, Taako.

Kravitz may be, thankfully, kinda real bad at his job, but he's not that stupid. She watches him put the pieces together and meets his gaze, deceptively easy smile still on her face but her eyes are stone cold. Ready. Yeah, she'd tried to kill him, and you know why? Because she was fucking terrified. Because he could have taken her away from Taako, could have dragged her to the Astral Plane and nobody would have ever heard from her again, nobody would have even remembered her ever again.

She's not sorry.

Sure, all of that is behind her now. She's not trapped anymore, she has a reasonable if hella limited amount of power. She's not alone. There's no reason to think he's any less nerfed all to shit than the twins were upon their arrival, and the planes in this reality are a fucking mess. No way there's an Astral Plane around here, there isn't even any death. Or, not the permanent kind anyway. So it's likely fine, on that front. She's not afraid of him.

Thing is, she's not down for being hassled, treated like an escaped convict, lumped in with bastards like Lydia and Edward. Looked at like his next prey, or however Kravitz is in the process of handling this. He's not even, he's fucking stage whispering to Taako, about her, like she's not even here! That's not great in many, many ways and she takes a step forward before she can stop herself, her smile sharp enough to cut glass.

"Hey, bucko? I guess you might not have noticed, lots going on, but like, I'm not an umbrella anymore? So if you've got some shit to say about liches, you can actually say it to my face, right now."

Hey, he had to try, right? Taako is the very model of guileless chagrin, already opening his mouth to say something super appropriately chastened that will smooth this whole situation out. Lup, of course, steps in to ruin everything, and he shoots her a betrayed look, silently entreating her to be cool for just once in her life. This is not a thing, he was handling it, and as the more alive and romantically involved twin he's the most qualified to do so. Lup is actually anti-helping right now. No, nope, this is the exact thing he was trying to head off at the pass.

Kravitz is, to his credit, being mostly reasonable here? Maybe kinda rude, the stage whispering was a misstep for sure, but Taako really appreciates all the patience going into this otherwise. But, y'know, that's Death for you, right? Discussion, sure, that's a reasonable request, and a problem for Future Taako, as so many things are. Maybe also a problem for Future Lup, who is much less known for patience.

Why is she so determined to square up with Death, anyway? What is her damage. Everyone's tried to kill everyone, more or less, and gotten pretty much over it. Kravitz is a lot more fair than death tends to be, in his experience. Whatever doubts he's afflicted with on other fronts, that isn't one of them. It doesn't occur to him that Lup is acting on belated fear, or that Kravitz has probably been worn to the bone, no pun intended, by his introduction to island life already. Empathy isn't his strong suit to start with, and trying to get this on the right track from the start is pretty preoccupying, as well as seemingly impossible. Tension is one thing, but they can't just be like this for the next forever, he will literally die. Taako's not the peacekeeper, that's someone else.

"Hey you know what's a way better idea than any of that? Literally anything! I was just trying to be honest! See if I do that again." Taako recenters himself in both their attentions with an expressive, expansive gesture, then crosses his arms. Because this is a conversational dead end, and he will enforce that with spells if necessary. Not many, like four, tops? But he will. What's like, a quarter of an intimidation check called? Like just a 'quit it' check, what's that.

"Lup, not really putting the most, not really being a good lich ambassador right now, that's a choice you're making." That's probably going to cost him, but he can't back her up on this unreservedly. "Krav, just-- keep an open mind? Turns out there are a lot more edge cases than I thought. But I promise it's still, it's all for a good reason."

Excuse all of you, he's fantastic at his job, it's just not every ding dang day someone slipped a lich into an magic umbrella of all things and then have it try to kill him. He's seen a lot in a thousand years, and for everything Taako says about edge cases, this has flown off the edge and somewhere into the sun. It's certainly where he feels about fucking now.

Kravitz purses his lips, closes his eyes, and exhales for just a moment, before squaring up again and looking her direction, letting Taako's words chill in his head but maybe not enough to stop him, exactly.

"This is less 'shit to say about liches', and more that when you speak like that, you don't give me much faith that you had any idea what you were doing in the first place." If either of them can believe it, this is the comparatively nicer version of the speech he could be giving right now. "If you want to have a rational discussion about this, if anything regarding making yourself undead can be considered rational, I'm happy to have that. But right now I think it's hardly the time."

He looks towards Taako as an acknowledgement, not wanting to worry him, but obviously very worried himself, but tilts himself so he can acknowledge them both. "I'm not going to attack her, if that's what you're concerned about. I'm perfectly capable of understanding that she is still your sister and we are utterly outside of a place where I can do anything about this, seeing as I can't make contact back to the Astral Plane. I am capable of... dealing, with this. There are circumstances I can't control, and frankly, I'd rather not be doing this right now." Not when he's just-- tired, in a way he can't even say is down to his bones because suddenly there's a lot more meat he truly doesn't want to account for. "Can we just-- can we just not? Can I key in a single favor and we can just not right now?"

It's hardly the first time Taako's stepped in to try and diffuse her righteous anger, but that doesn't make it any more welcome. She narrows her eyes at him as he makes himself the center of attention again, real fucking close to getting pissed at him too. The thing is, this isn't about him. It's her existence under fucking scrutiny here, her decision and her reasons for it and she'll damn well defend herself. Scolding her for how she's choosing to handle this is just the cherry on today's Fuck Up Sundae and her ears snap back sharply, now even more ready to throw down. If he's insisting on a spot in this fight, the fucking least he could do is have her back!

The Grim Reaper's contribution isn't much better, it's pretty much exactly the kind of shit she was expecting. And oh no, is the matter of her very existence an inconvenience to him right now? Is he gonna, does he need a nap before he can deal with her? Hey maybe he's just gonna flounce if she just says some more rude shit!

But Taako's still holding onto him. She saw how he'd clung to him a moment ago, heard how worried they were for each other. For better or for worse, this isn't somebody Taako is just snuggling up to for some spa tickets or a get out of death free card, even if that's certainly a benefit. She's almost certain he's not gonna drop this dude like a hot potato the moment it becomes inconvenient to be attached to him.

It'd just, it would end up hurting him, if she escalated this. She doesn't wanna be the one to do that. And maybe there's no good way out of this that won't lead to him getting hurt at some point down the road, but it doesn't have to be right now.

She looks between the two of them, finally pinning down Kravitz with a fire still burning in her eyes. "You have no fucking clue why I did what I did, or--," her eyes flickering briefly to Taako, "or what I lost because of it." She's under no illusion that this is the first time he's heard this, or even the hundredth, but it needed saying anyway.

And then she releases her tension in an overexaggerated shrug, plastering a pleasant enough smile back on her face. "But sure! We're on Island Time here, my man, plenty of time for you to like, come to terms with the fact that you're never gonna get a piece of this gorgeous soul."

You ever been at a sleepover and watched a couple or a family argue in front of you, and just sat there nervously and incredibly uncomfortably munching away on snacks, trapped in the sidelines? That's pretty much how Magnus has felt in the last few minutes, excited grin of seeing more friends and happy reunions giving away into a gradually intensifying grimace.

He usually at least tries to leave the twins' business to themselves, at least when it comes to the more personal subjects, but this situations escalated fairly quickly, and maybe it's better to step in before magic-imbued fists start flying.

"Sssssoooo." He claps hands together once, lips pursed into an awkward line underneath his beard, voice pushed into a higher pitch than normal. "Welcome to camp?"

He glances between the sour faces, trying to come up with a plan to defuse this situation. Taako attempted to, and nothing says Magnus even has a semblance of conflict resolution skills, and, for a moment, he really, really misses Merle.

"Maybe we can all sit down and have some, huh, some tea and, talk some stuff out?"

He struggles down the urge to roll his eyes at Lup's display, meeting her gaze and refusing to break it until she does. Of course he has no idea. The why doesn't matter, the how complete with pomp and circumstance. He just knows what it's going to mean. The fight that will come as a result of her decisions, and a fight he, not anyone else, will have to have. The rift his position and the laws of the world will have to cut between this tenuous thing to protect the entire world.

She, she had a choice. One she took from him for the fate of her future by her decisions. Perhaps, more than anything else, he mourns that.

Magnus cuts in, and Kravitz raises his hand to wave it off, though the motion isn't as sharp as he normally would. "I don't need to force any conversations about any of that if it doesn't need saying this second. I'm a little more concerned at the moment about where or what this is and why I can't contact anyone outside of this plane." He looks towards Magnus, a little apologetic. "I'm sorry if you explained and I missed it, you were-- you were going very fast, and not a lot of it made sense without context of who was here."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[closed] where you're from, you might be the one who's running things

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject