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

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

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.

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After their conversation with Frisk, things continue to be- boring. Hot, and far too boring. One can only see so many ancient ruins with semi-magical implications before they've seen them all, and in this instance, they're not interested.

Especially after last night.

Which is why inevitably, Chara breaks away from the rest of the group. There's plenty of less interesting temple to see; side chambers and small buildings completely bare of anything of note. The likelihood that they'll have any significant time to themself is infinitesimally thin-- and yet, they're willing to take what they can get.

Tired, haggard, and uncomfortably hot as they are, Chara moves with a combat knife in hand- repetitive sets of motions that are looped over and over, until they're red in the face.

If you can't beat a hallucination-- train, until you can hardly breathe.

These new unknown ruins sitting kinda ominously on top of the mountain are probably a prime spot for choice looting and helpful arcana checks. Shame that Lup's heart isn't really in it today. She's wandering the complex with some heavily broadcast disinterest, snacking on an old bag of oats she found, just generally done with the heat and the dust and the lack of any actual fucking clues for how to get back home. Just a stupid door a Fireball couldn't even scratch. What a bust.

She's also just, really damn tired. Her shift hadn't been over yet when the attack happened, and later, when everything was over and she'd holed up somewhere with Taako, the best she could manage was some fitful dozing until the first light of dawn. Flinching at every rustle, every hoot of some bird, even once the phantom screams and shadows had stopped.

Flinching as she catches movement in one of the chambers out of the corner of her eye. Shit, what? Jolted out of her tired daze, she freezes and stares for a moment until the flashes of green and silver solidify into a familiar sight. And they're really going at it, wow. In this heat, huh? It's not hard to figure out what they're trying to fight and she sighs, shuffling her foot to make herself heard.

It had been a relief to see them acting normal, at least from a distance, leading everyone on once they'd all regrouped in the morning. But she remembers that panicked titter, the frightened child and their sputtering soul just fine. "D'you want some water, pumpkin?" Seems like the cagey bullshit quips are on cooldown too.

Excuse you miss 'look at my cool stick', it's called training and some people have to continuously keep their skills up to standard.

That said, she's not the only one who flinches at abruptly becoming aware of someone in the vicinity. The scuff of a boot cuts through their concentration, an immediate heel-turn that has their knife pointed towards her.

Really, it's a good thing she announced herself.

"If you have some to spare." They offer her a casual enough smile, tucking the knife back into it's hilt. Frisk had been the one to advise them she'd even been there at all, last night- they hadn't been paying attention. Seeing her now- she looks about as tired as they feel, if not as overheated.

A fun night for everyone, seems like.

Nice reflexes there, kid. Lup raises an eyebrow and an ear at their instant reaction, precise despite their clear exhaustion. Yeah, that's about how she thought that would go. She returns their casual smile and shrugs off her knapsack, putting away the bag of oats and pulling out a canteen instead. "Yeah I'm good on water," she says and hands it over. It's not like she can't refill at that waterfall on the way back down.

While they freshen up, she wanders over and settles down on an overturned stone column. She doesn't know how much note of her they even took last night, but at the very least Kittu will have told them about it, and obviously everything that happened was kind of a Thing. Unfortunately they got found by the wrong twin to have all of it conveniently ignored forever.

It's just a question of how to check up on someone who'd probably rather die than admit a vulnerability. She knows how it goes. But maybe they're both too tired for a whole song and dance around it, so fuck that actually. "Did you guys make it through the rest of the night okay?"

It surprises them, how thirsty they are. Even over a month later...and it still catches them off-guard, sometimes. Their body having needs. Having to eat. Having to drink. To sleep.

Still less so than most, but in a place like this, there wasn't any avoiding it. Wetting their throat is almost painful, and they sneak a small handful to wipe across the back of their neck.

Their fingers freeze in the midst of screwing the cap back on- momentarily. They give an offhand shrug as they ensure it's stoppered correctly, offering it back with pleasant, if reserved expression.

"We survived. Did you have any issue, locating your brother?"

Lup would have a thing or two to say about how weird having a body is, too, if she were privy to those thoughts. Although she's got a little more practice switching in and out of corporeality a couple of times between cycles, it's still an adjustment every time. The first night here, she straight up fell asleep on Taako during her watch because she'd forgotten just how powerful a combination of exhaustion and a snuggly brother really is.

Well, survival's a great start, but it's not super reassuring. There's a lot of room for misery between surviving and being okay. Their question gets a quick snort anyway, as she takes back the canteen. "Let's just say Taako's proficient in getting the hell out of dodge. It took me a while, but I found him." It's tempting to act like it wasn't a big deal, to gloss over the fact that he was as haunted as everyone else who'd been exposed to the gas. To shrug off what her messed up brain came up with when she saw him. But the point is to offer the kid a different way of coping.

"He wasn't doing so hot either," she admits and there's little of her extravagant cadence in her voice now, just bare honesty. "It was... a rough night for everyone who got exposed to that gas. I saw stuff that I uhm, I'd really hoped I would never have to see again. It's not... shameful, to have been terrified, you know?" She glances over, trying to gauge how they take this bit of ~~hypocrisy~~ wisdom.

"Good for him." Their tone is wry- but truly, they mean it. Now if only Frisk had that same sense for self-preservation, then perhaps their story may have gone very differently, up to this point.

The rest of it isn't as easy to respond to. As she- what? Conveys a sense of vulnerability? Acts as if she's imparted words of wisdom upon them, they're sure she's looking for some returning sentiment. Agreement, or solidarity.

"On the contrary, I would describe my own feelings towards the situation very differently, once the gas had lessened in its effect."

Or rather, after they'd LOADed the effects away.

Well sure, pretty much everybody was ready to burn down that section of jungle to turn those fucking shrubs into ashes, once the hallucinations had stopped. Mad as hell, is how she'd describe that. Or was that just her? Whatever, she's trying to talk about before that, when the panic had wrung a frantic laugh from them, had made her fling cantrips every which way and it was pure luck that she didn't hurt anyone. That she didn't hurt Kittu when they came at her with a knife.

But mainly she's just trying to hear them out. So Lup shakes her head a little as though shoving away those grim thoughts of her own, and glances back to them with a wry smile in return. "Oh yeah? Shoot."

Chara's smile widens into something far more fixed.

"I was displeased." As if that isn't the understatement of the century. As if they wouldn't have walked off into those woods and hunted down every single one of those creatures, had Frisk not needed them. Had Tim not needed them. Had Muffet not presented a threat.

Had the effects of the poisonous air those things excreted not caused so many additional issues, there's plenty Chara would have done in response.

"Unfortunately, I imagine you understand the obligations of an elder sibling."

Sooo it wasn't just her, then. That creepy smile is honestly a Big Mood and she can't help matching it with a sharp smirk of her own. Affected vocabulary aside, they're speaking the same language. Between her spells and their flaming knife, they could have lit that motherfucker up. It's pretty heartwarming.

As is their understanding of certain obligations, and she chuckles knowingly. "For sure. Those younger siblings, always making us stay out of harm's way, huh. And I know there's an obligation to like, put on a brave face sometimes, make them feel like... like things are more okay than they really are? I'm not knocking that, it's gotten Taako and me through some tough times. And nobody knows you better than them anyway. But..." she pauses, gaze drifting down to her boots as she's remembering people she has been missing desperately. "We were on our own for a long time, never needed anyone else. But we did make friends eventually, a family even. And I figured out that sometimes, when you don't wanna put something on your sibling's shoulders, it's kinda nice to talk to someone else? Sort of a fresh set of ears, y'know. Doesn't have to be these beauties," she adds quickly with a teasing twitch of an ear like a wink, "but doing that once in a while comes with high recommendations from this elder sibling."

A soft scoff, though they nod to acquiesce her, at least slightly. It's kind of nice to talk to someone else. I'd rather die, is the honest answer. Why bother allowing someone to know what it is that would be best to use against them in future- the vulnerabilities that would catch them off-guard and ruin them before they had a chance to stop it.

No thank you.

"We'll pretend that I'm considering it, shall we?" They had a friend, they had a family. One could almost say they had friends, plural, and all of those are gone now. There's no point in pretending such things are worth a fourth attempt.

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

Cloooosed to Lup!

as one Chara thread closes, so another one opens

you think I'll ever let you be rid of me?

i would hope not

consider it fact.

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