I’ll take my throne, lay it on a mountain

[achievementhunter]

Who: Our volunteer mountaineers
What: Two parties split up to scale the mountain from two sides, planning to meet at it’s peak. Shenanigans occur along the way.
When: September 13th to 16th
Where: Group 1: G3, H2, G2 || Group 2: F3, F2, G2
Warnings: Please note any warnings in your subject headers!


Word spreads quickly in a small community such as this. What was originally intended to be a small party turned into something much larger- and on the day Chara planned to leave for the mountain, it’s not one, but two parties that make off for it’s peak.

Group 1, led by Chara, moves off during the early hours of the morning, seeking to search the furthest part of the mountain by following the river upwards. The path is longer and more winding- however, they are unhampered in when they can travel.

Group 2, led by Ardyn, takes off after the sun has set- due to the needs of multiple members to avoid the sun’s harsh glare. Their route takes them up the closest side of the mountain, which provides an easier path- however, they may only travel whilst the sun is set.

---

OOC: Welcome to the mountaineering open post! Keep in mind the following;

♆ RNG was happily done blind by our wonderful Guzma mun, with our animals RNG'd by Wade Wilson's! Thank them both for all your misfortune.

♆ Prompts have been provided for each group below! Simply toplevel wherever you wish and treat this like a normal open post!

♆ Since each group will generally be in close contact with one another, consider asking others if you can threadjack here and there; nothing says team-building like being a nosy parker.

Comments

[souldeterminant]

[He crouches down to their level. They can tell, because of the way his shadow moves, spreads and compacts at the same time, the way anything seems to when it's becoming small. They can tell because of that, but not because they look up at him. You're never supposed to look up. The ash in their hands feels thicker than it ever was in the castle; maybe because of how empty and silent and familiar everything about this abandoned home is.]

[But Tim is coming down to their level to be nice. To be different from the exact clench of familiarity in their middle. They appreciate that.]

[He tells them that it's okay to cry. They don't appreciate that quite as much.]

[Because it's stupid, it's stupid, why would permission from an adult -- out of nowhere, when they were just fine -- make them want to do exactly that?]

[Hugging their knees tighter, Frisk gives a mute, harried shake of their head. It's a moment before they can unglue their tongue from the roof of their mouth. The first response that leaps to their mind is the one they say -- even knowing that it's as good as taboo these days.]

... so does Asriel.

[postictal]

Yeah. Yeah, he does.

[He knows. He knows, because he's seen it - been privy to memories that weren't his to peer into, yet another invasive spike of someone else's head unfurling through a child's soul. He hasn't seen him since they showed up - is he even still here? Does it really matter? He's got no clue what Chara said to him, but whatever it was, it must have been effective in getting him to stay away.]

[He's still not entirely certain how he's meant to feel about that. Relieved, maybe. And then guilty for that relief, because it means the explanation he has no idea how to pull out of his gut doesn't have to come.]

[Pulling tighter around themself, referencing a name and a face that they probably aren't meant to be referencing - ]

[Chara's easier, in some ways. They're easier, because he always knows, with them, what it means when he's said the wrong thing. When he's made a misstep, they make it obvious. They don't tolerate his bullshit.]

[Frisk tolerates entirely too much bullshit, and something's taught them to shut up before they can make it as obvious as Chara does.]

Crying doesn't make you less tough. Just means...[He almost seems to lose his momentum for a moment, lost in a recollection of something he doesn't enumerate.] It's not on you, if things get to be too hard for a bit.

[It feels obvious once it's said aloud. But it still needs to be said.]

[souldeterminant]

[Ha, ha.]

[Frisk doesn't laugh. They can't laugh when LV presses up into their throat, hot and smoking; when the horrible thing inside them that looks like a heart but feels like a clump of barbed wire twists itself up, scraping the insides of their ribs, digs holes through their lungs until everything in them feels deflated. They're not like Chara, who laughs and smiles to let others know they've done wrong.]

[All Frisk has learned to tell is when Frisk has done wrong. And that, these days, they aren't too sure of anymore, either.]

[Like how they can't look up at Tim. How he's being so nice to them, so soft and... tolerant. Of them and the fact that they're talking about things they're sure Chara would ban him from mentioning to Frisk, if they haven't already. They don't understand. Why is he acting like he owes either of them anything? Like he isn't just some adult with his own life who got wrapped up in them? Like he's really, truly obligated to tell some eleven-year-old that they can cry if they're sad.]

[Why is he being so nice to them?]

[...]

[Frisk swallows. It sticks down in the barbed wire, like they knew it would, and their vocal chords quiver with the pain of it.]

I don't know what you want from me.

But I don't want to cry.

[postictal]

[He shakes his head incrementally, a tilt of his chin that might not be the least bit reassuring, because he has no idea how to go about being reassuring to anyone, let alone a kid.]

I don't want anything. I just...figured that it's okay. If you need a reminder.

[There's every chance they wouldn't really believe him. Why should they? He's just some person - some adult fogging their life and making things more complicated than they have to be. Why should he be the deviation from the norm, the person that doesn't want something from them? What reason would they have to believe that?]

[He wouldn't have. At their age, at his point in time - he wouldn't have.]

[He'd have gauged the advice for some kind of subversive backdoor. He would've suspected it for a ploy. Someone trying to worm their way into his head and get a look at the workings there, to see if he's really getting better or if he's just telling lies again. Wrong answer means an adjustment in the hot burn of whatever medication they pick to go down his throat, and the weeks-months of jittering nausea and grayed-out vision while his body acclimates to the shift in the chemistry of his brain.]

[No reason to trust something like that, is there?]

[No wonder they're looking for an ulterior motive.]

I just know it's tough to feel like you always have to be way stronger than you feel.

[souldeterminant]

[In the sun-checkered silence, it bursts from them like a jutting bone.]

I don't.

[They don't need a reminder.]

[That someone as nice as Tim knows how it feels to be like this -]
[or that he doesn't want anything from them, this is really just -]
[that they don't have to be strong.]
[Or feel anything.]

[That they're alive, that they have to think about this because they have to be reminded]

[Frisk stands, and the barbed wire stretches inside them, tugs all of their insides like stretched sinew. They turn away from Tim, their face red, and they don't want to cry. They don't.]

[They don't.]

Sorry.

[Tugging their knapsack, Frisk shuffles towards the door.]

[postictal]

[If he said a wrong thing or if this was just inevitable - he can't really say. It's not as hard to hear the red when he's heard it so often already, even if the parts of him that can identify it as red are the parts he's most ashamed of; the parts that robbed a child of agency and used it all against them.]

[Either way.]

[If it hits with any kind of impact, it doesn't show in anything besides the slow contracture of the muscles in his throat. Slowly, he straightens, and he grips his hatchet, and he stands.]

You got nothing to apologize for.

[Whatever it is they're afraid they might've effected, whatever they think they might've said that drilled into him, that could leave some kind of lasting mark - ]

[He's had worse.]

[He's always had worse.]

I'm the one who's sorry. [For intruding, yet again.]

[souldeterminant]

[Frisk stops. The weakness shows in the way their shoulders jerk, a quiet intake of breath that deafens them with shame in the total silence. Shaking their head violently, Frisk scrubs their sleeve over their face, letting out a loud and disagreeable huff.]

... you don't, either.

[Have to apologize, they should elaborate.]

[Have to be tough, they should say.]

[But the barbed wire is making it hard to breathe in a way that doesn't hurt. It's a signal to Frisk that it's time for them to do one of the few things they know how to without ruining everything.]

[They shut up.]

[So just like that - without showing the kindness of someone who was really sorry - Frisk pushes open the door and leaves.]

[postictal]

[He doesn't answer that one. He has the feeling that if he does, it'd be taken as the deft confirmation of what they'd rather not hear - what they'd rather not accept, or what they'd rather not adapt into the framework of their thoughts. That they'd rather not, but always end up doing so.]

[They're like their Partner, in that way. Too quick to adjust to what others think, or say of them. Maybe it's expectation. Maybe it's consequence. Maybe it's something else entirely.]

[Maybe it's the fact that it was an offer and not a command that threw them. Maybe it was the fact that it opposed everything they've come to accept.]

[Maybe it was just the wrong thing to say.]

[Maybe it's the fact that they're still here at all, and that they have to sit around and listen to adults, to people who can't know very much at all, tell them how they ought to think and ought to feel, as if someone else knows better than they do, what Frisk thinks and feels. What Kittu thinks. What Kittu feels.]

[You'd think the decoupling from the title would save them from that. But with what little power they had, maybe they chose for it not to.]

[He can't fix it, and he can't say.]

[He just sighs, and lets his ruination of what should've been a reprieve come to pass.]

[That's what he's good at.]