JUMP TO MONTHLY PROMPT ↓
A TRAIN COMES INTO THE STATION.
You wake up on a train.
Your phone is buzzing. It's in your pocket, in your hand, on the seat next to you. It's a normal phone, and you're on a normal train car. One of the lights flickers, a little further down. The world is very quiet. It feels like you're right where you're meant to be. On the phone's surface is a white screen and the words—
WELCOME TO THE CITY. BEGIN ORIENTATION?
▶ NO
Please take a moment to complete your orientation.
Once you're finished, the subway doors slide open to let you out onto the train platform. To your right, the platform continues on and eventually ends; to the left is a set of stairs that will lead you up into the station itself. The platform is quiet, clean, empty—there's no one else around, and the only sounds you can hear are your own footsteps, your own breaths, and the occasional faraway sound of a creaking pipe or rush of air. The train you disembarked will stay there as long as you do, its doors still open, until you finally decide to venture up into this new locale.
As you make your way up the stairs to your left, you find yourself in the belly of City Hall station. The station is large, a sprawling underground mini-metropolis of corridors and storefronts. Here, you may find others like you, freshly-arrived city residents from other realms (or even your own). There is also a subway map, which will give you an idea of the layout of the neighborhood, and ticketing machines, which can currently only be used to buy tickets to a handful of stations located on lines 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 9.
If you're hungry or in need of any kind of supplies, there are plenty of storefronts inside the subway station as well—snack stands, convenience stores, restaurants, clothing stores, a pharmacy, and a variety of empty shops that may or may not have ever been in use. Everything is unlocked, and you can take whatever you need.
Characters may stay on the train platform indefinitely, and may re-board and re-disembark from the subway as many times as they like, but the train will not depart nor will the doors close. Once they go up the stairs into the train station, they may hear the train doors closing and the train departing. Another train will not arrive, no matter how long the character waits. Only once they come up the stairs into the station itself may characters encounter their fellow newly-arrived residents and take advantage of what the city has to offer.
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WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD.
The station is located in the city center. It has three major exits that lead to areas of interest in the district, but there are several other smaller exits that lead in other directions around the neighborhood. You are welcome to use any of them, but may find the north, southwest, and east exits to be the most welcoming.
TO THE NORTH
The northern entrance to the station leads up into the sunlight and puts you out in a brickwork plaza. There's a modest building in front of you, three or four stories of stone with a welcoming facade. There's a sign above the entryway—it says City Hall. You may be tempted to explore, if you're interested in learning more about the city and how it functions, but prepare to find yourself disappointed—the folders in the records rooms are full of empty, blank sheets of paper, and the logbooks and balance sheets are similarly devoid of information.
Immediately to the southwest of City Hall, you will find a small building that houses the tourist information center. It looks welcoming, with an inviting glass facade and a sign above the entryway announcing it as the "TOURIST CENTER." It's a humble building with a receptionist's desk on the back wall opposite the entrance, empty magazine shelves lining the side walls, and a few spinning brochure racks full of blank pamphlets. Anyone is welcome to peruse the tourist literature, though they won't offer much information, being primarily filled with pictures of the surrounding area—City Hall, the park, a statue garden, and the surprisingly heavily-featured cemetery. There are a few sentences sprinkled throughout about basic offerings of the city, such as apartment complexes and office buildings, as well as a few maps with the same limited scope as the larger version on the wall behind the receptionist's desk.
TO THE SOUTHWEST
The western exit of the station takes you up into a city park, lush and green with a very light fog still hanging about the trees. There are lampposts on the walkways and benches where you could rest, and plenty of flora, although you can neither see nor hear any signs of animal life. You walk the paths that meander idly through the verdant grass and you feel a sense of peace, some of your unease about this place easing into a pleasant calm. The air smells fresh, like it's recently rained, and you'll find the grass ever so slightly damp should you decide to take a seat.
As you make your way deeper into the park, the trees grow denser and the smell of soil and plant life grows stronger. This is the older part of the park, very nearly a forest, with ivy climbing the trunks of the trees and plants and shrubs growing riotously around their bases. As you turn a corner, you find yourself first in the statue garden, although the statues are harder to see now, choked as they are with ivy. There are many statues, some partially obscured, some fully—very few of them still stand free of the vines and clinging roots. (It doesn't feel quite as peaceful here.) If a statue's face looks a little bit familiar, you may not want to look at it too long.
Continue down the path and you will find yourself in a graveyard, one that seems centuries old. Most of the headstones are worn away by time and covered in moss, rendering them impossible to read. The few that are free of moss are blank, or bear only suggestions of names too faint to be understood. (Was that the name of—no, it couldn't have been. Could it?) Many of the headstones stand at an angle or are toppled over completely, having been subjected to either strong winds or the roots of the trees that grow up from some of the graves, spreading branches toward the sky.
TO THE EAST
The final exit of the station, to the east, puts you out on a quiet surface street. Are you hungry? Or are you paralyzed by choice? There are plenty of restaurants, offering options of almost any food you can imagine. You could try a convenience store—it's well stocked, and the items there seem free for the taking. How about a restaurant? There's no one to take your order, but when you look in the kitchen, there's something on the stove, and it's just what you've been craving. Imagine that.
A few blocks down, you come in through the lobby of a tall building and find yourself in a corporate office. The fluorescent lights are steady and unforgiving, and the cubicles and offices are empty. There are a few pieces of paper on desks, a few folders left in organizers, but everything is perfectly blank. Despite how empty and quiet the office is, it nonetheless gives you the feeling that just a few minutes ago, this place was bustling with workers going about their daily business.
You enter another building and find yourself in the lobby of an apartment complex—finally, a place to rest. The first door you try opens easily into a completely empty living room, freshly vacuumed but without a single piece of furniture. It's a nice apartment, quiet, but with a little too much echo for your taste, maybe. Still, and perhaps oddly, you have no trouble envisioning what life here would be like.
The second door you open leads to an apartment that feels lived-in. Why does it feel lived-in? It's fully furnished with items that seem to go together perfectly, true, but the feeling is more than that—the room feels like someone was just here, maybe standing right in the kitchen only moments before you swung the door open. The air is a perfectly comfortable temperature, and it somehow smells like home despite that you've never once set foot here before. The refrigerator is stocked, and the cabinets are full of spices and flatware and kitchen utensils.
As you look around the living room, you find that there are pictures in frames on the walls and some of the flat surfaces—a seascape, a field, a shot of a city park bench. In each of the photos there's something just slightly wrong with the angle, as though the photographer were aiming for a subject that can no longer be seen.
Characters are welcome to explore the district around the City Hall subway station to their heart's content. The City Hall building itself contains several floors of offices and file rooms, but none of them contain any particularly interesting information. Nonetheless, characters may wish to team up with other newcomers and try to find some hints about the nature of the city. They can also spend a while in the park, the statue garden, or the graveyard. In the blocks surrounding the station there are plenty of options for food and housing, as well as office buildings, storefronts, and alleyways to look around. There are no workers in any of the buildings, and there does not seem to be an honor system for payment, nor any consequences for taking food from the stores or setting up camp in an apartment or office building.
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IT IS THE ULTIMATE SHADOW, THE DEFEAT OF CREATION.
In one section of the newly accessible portion of the city, nestled in among normal looking residential and commercial buildings, is a wide and relatively short and industrial-looking building with no windows and only one grand set of black glass doors set into one side. Above the entrance is a neon sign that plainly states ART. with smaller letters sm added to the front in metallic paint. Hopefully, this simple signage will give passersby the impression that this is an art exhibit of some kind, with a twist.
DO NOT TOUCH THE ART…
Once stepping through the front doors, guests will be greeted with a lobby with walls covered in vertical neon lighting that pulses in a rotating rainbow, and mirrored ceilings that make the space feel surprisingly small. To one side is a bar where various cocktails await pickup. They don't have any special effects, but being a bit tipsy might help enhance the experiences waiting for you beyond. There's also a rack of bottles behind it, stocked with the typical liquors and mixers, if you'd like to play bartender for a while. Thanks to the disorienting amount of colored lighting and dark corners, it may be easy to get lost and turned around in the large building, and guests may be surprised to find that they're unable to locate the exit (or entrance) while alone.
After leaving behind the lobby and stepping into the exhibit proper, you'll find yourself walking through a central winding hallway with large rooms branching off from it in both directions at regular intervals. Some of them are more interactive than others, but all of them are dimly lit except for the "art" that guests will find themselves in the middle of, encouraged to touch and participate in creative collaboration. A few of the simpler rooms include:
Hanging ropes that will light up where touched, changing color with the amount of kinetic force applied: purple for a brush of the fingers, red for a crushing grip. These pulses of light will travel out to either end of the ropes the longer touch is applied, and considering that the room is pitch black and seemingly endless thanks to the mirrored walls, you may want to find some help in lighting up the dark.
A sunken floor filled to the brim with translucent plastic balls. This ball pit is a literal bath of color with every-changing light shining up from the floor of the ball pit and diffusing through the balls. A wall of cubbies at the room's entrance awaits belongings and shoes that are asked to be removed by a polite sign at the top of the stairs that descend into the ball pit. Be careful, for the pit is deep and it's easy to sink beneath the surface if you sit or lie down; you may see some shadows of people a ways away from you, but if you wade through the balls to their rescue, you won't find anyone tangible there.
A small theater of benches all facing the back wall that is a single large screen. The display is a moving series of lines on a black background that give the audience the sensation that the room is moving, or they themselves are traveling through the space. Atmospheric music—mostly heavy bass and noise that's been timed with the movement on the screen—hums through the room and adds to the sense of immersion.
... IT MIGHT TOUCH BACK.
One of the more interesting rooms is actually divided into three smaller rooms, each with a heavy, sound-dampening door that only has a small square window set into the top of it. Through the window, you can see that there is a red room, a green room, and a blue room. Stepping into any of them will be a different experience where guests will be entirely immersed in the color—even the window is a one-way mirror from the inside, blocking out any sights from beyond. The longer guests stay in these isolating rooms, the more disoriented they'll become, and it's entirely possible that moods will shift from the experience. Be careful stepping back out into the exhibit itself, your eyes and ears may need time to adjust.
In the green room, guests may feel like they've stepped into a concentrated and unfiltered essence of nature. The speakers play a variety of animal noises layered with leaves rustling and branches creaking as they move as well as wind, rain, and other kinds of weather. Looking at yourself, or your companions if someone stepped inside with you, you see their eyes and teeth pop clearly in the bath of green, somehow more obviously animal than ever.
In the red room, the temperature is higher than the rest of the exhibit, not uncomfortably so but noticeable all the same. Looking down at your skin, you can see more of the blemishes, the dark spots or pale scar tissue that contrasts much more starkly. From hidden speakers in the ceiling comes a mixture of sounds that are hard to place as they're so layered over one another, but the overall noise is inorganic, discordant, unsettling. It's hard to focus, let alone look at anyone else you might be sharing the room with.
In the blue room, there is almost an absence of experience. The only sound is a low, steady hum that vibrates through you as you stand and close your eyes almost on instinct. Everything gets erased in the layer of blue that covers everyone and everything in the room, skin looking almost gray from the lack of any other colors that are so often associated with life.
The last room of note is completely black and empty except for three massive umbrellas of flowers and other plants that are suspended from the tall ceiling, illuminated by lights shining on them from above. Each umbrella is about as high off the ground as the average human and varying by a few feet or so, so that it's possible to stand or crouch beneath them. Once standing in their shadows below, guests will be able to hear whispers coming from above…
These whispers tell real secrets of city residents—past, present, and future—though names are never included. The secrets are told in their own voices, though, almost like confessionals to a confidant or their pillow in the dark of night. These secrets can be positive, negative, or simple fact. Some may be shocking revelations of guilt, or shy mutterings of love, or secrets spilled as if the speaker has never thought of this part of themselves before. There is a hush throughout the room, and if guests were to whisper to each other beneath the umbrellas, conversations would not be easily overheard.
Residents are encouraged to meet up in the bar with friends, grab some drinks, and then head into the art exhibit. It's also a great place to meet someone new as there will be plenty of interactions happening as everyone hopefully discovers a bit of their inner child. There's no right or wrong order to exploring the rooms, but residents will not be able to find the exit without the presence of another with them—even if you came alone, you're leaving with a friend!
For the Secret Garden whispers, players are encouraged to make up something scandalous to discuss with others or even have their own character's voices whisper to them from the flowers. Please remember to discuss with other players before including any information about existing and potential characters that may affect their gameplay.
Inspiration for this location includes 9 Lights in 9 Rooms as well as Hopscotch. Title is from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?.
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WILDCARD.
The city is by no means small, and there are plenty of things for you to see. There are even some places that other residents have created! There's no rush in exploring, so feel free to take your time looking around and peering into various nooks and crannies and alleyways—and don't worry, you're not very likely to find anything peering back.
If none of the above prompts appeal, feel free to check out the Locations and Maps pages and write your own freestyle prompt using one or many of the available locations. We highly recommend checking out the Character-Run Locations as well - they might be great places for new characters to get started!
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citylogs2023-11-01 09:00 pm
no subject
He takes in the details of Onni's campsite. When Onni tells him to have a seat, Nikolai hesitates, remaining standing. ]
I'd like to help, if I can.
[ Then, because he doesn't want to appear ungrateful, he explains: ]
Never been much good at sitting still.
[ It's something of an understatement. Nikolai makes himself useful, helping to unpack the ingredients and then prepare the meal. He lets Onni take charge, working along with him, mostly in silence.
Once the pot is ready and settled over the fire, Nikolai finally sits and asks: ]
Any family back home?
no subject
[For all that Onni sounds non-committal about Nikolai helping him, it is a point in his favour that he wants to, rather than just sitting and taking advantage of Onni's hospitality. He tilts his head when Nikolai says he's not very good at sitting still, but doesn't comment.
The time while they make the stew passes mostly in companionable silence, which is one of Onni's favourite ways to pass time, doing something with his hands and a silence that doesn't feel awkward or weird. The stew comes together easily, with all the practice that Onni has had making it over the fire, and he settles back on a log to chat while it bubbles away over the fire.
Then Nikolai asks his question.
For a moment, Onni feels a lot of things at once. Anger at being asked the question in the first place, grief at remembering all the people he's lost, a more intense and sharp grief at the loss of his sister, panic at how to answer without losing his cool. For a few moments, he's quiet, and then leans forward to stir the stew, his face expressionless.]
Yes.
[It comes out a little rough, his voice slightly hoarse.]
I have one cousin left. Lalli. He's just turned 20 this year.
cw: alcohol [ongoing from here]
It doesn't take a genius, to put it together. Nikolai might not know the details, but the shape of a tragedy is there. Onni's world sounds so harsh, with its disease and its monsters. Why hadn't Nikolai anticipated that he might be an orphan?
Apologizing for asking would only draw more attention to Onni's distress, and that doesn't seem kind. Nikolai instead does his best to smooth over the moment, keeping his eyes intent on the vegetables he is helping to prepare. ]
I don't have, really. My parents are alive but we haven't spoken in years. It's always so complicated, isn't it, with family? I asked because, well, this stew! It made me think of a story I once heard, from a palace guard, about two families that practically went to war over a disputed old book of recipes...
[ He smoothly transitions into an amusing anecdote, something to get them past the awkward moment. It's a lie, of course - that hadn't been why he asked. He'd simply wanted to know more about Onni. And, well, he'd gotten his wish. Now he knows that if he asks about family, Onni will become still and careful. Useful knowledge, though he regrets any pain he may have caused in learning it.
Once his little story is done, Nikolai lapses into silence again. They get the meal cooking, and eventually Nikolai tells Onni a little more about the different types of Grisha, about the landscape in Ravka. By the time they have eaten and cleaned up, the sun has dipped halfway behind the horizon, and Nikolai is so tired he can feel it in his bones. He hides it the best he can, hefting the bottle he'd acquired and the bag with the chains. ]
Well, as pleasant as this is, I suppose there's no putting it off any longer. If you would, kindly lead the way to my basement.
[ Nikolai is feeling grim enough as they set out that he twists the cap from the bottle and begins to drink straight from it as they walk. It burns on the way down, and he swallows most of a cough, saying with admiration: ]
Oh, that tastes like shit! I think I like it.
[ He offers it to Onni, with a quick: ]
I know, I know, you're mostly staying sober. But you should at least try it.
no subject
Instead of drawing attention to it, he just goes on to talk about his own family, explaining that he's not in contact with his parents, something Onni can barely conceptualize as something someone would want, and then going on to tell a light-hearted story about stew. The anecdote serves to settle Onni a little, to get his mind off of what's troubling him, and he's not sure if that's what Nikolai intended or not, but the effect is good either way.
By the time they're done eating, Onni feels balanced again, and more educated on Nikolai's home. He feels ready to do what they need to do now, and almost at the same moment he was about to suggest it, Nikolai does.]
Alright, let's go. I know just the place.
[They make their way to a large apartment building he knows of that has an empty room in the basement that looks like it should've been used for storage or something. There are no windows and the walls are concrete, the door is a sturdy 'fire door' and they can easily bring a mattress for Nikolai to sleep on if he wants it.
He looks over as Nikolai sips from the bottle and makes a huff in his throat of amusement at his comment that it tastes like shit but he likes it.]
Sure, I'll try some.
[Taking the bottle, Onni pulls a swig from it and winces as it burns his throat on the way down.]
It's awful, but it'll get the job done.
[He leads the way to the building, and pushes the door open, then down to the basement and the small room he'd been thinking of.]
Here it is. Cement. The door is sturdy, I think it's meant to withstand a fire. What do you think?
no subject
The little room is pretty much what Nikolai had been expecting, if even drearier than he'd anticipated. The walls, floor, and ceiling are all the same dull grey. The lights - fluorescent, though he doesn't know the word yet - are bright and buzz unpleasantly when he flips the switch.
His voice is rich with dark humor as he quotes: ]
Awful, but it'll get the job done.
[ Nikolai drops the bag of chains onto the floor with a clatter. He kneels and begins to haul out the heavy metal links and the tools he'd brought. ]
You said you could put up some kind of a shield. Maybe- if you don't mind, you could set that on the door, while I install these?
[ He doesn't see any way the monster could get out except by the door, so he'll feel more secure if there's an extra layer of protection there. ]
no subject
It is awful, but you're right, it should work.
[As Nikolai starts to get the tools out, Onni puts his hands on his hips.]
Should I get a mattress from upstairs? And no, I don't mind setting something up outside the room. You might have to tell me more about the monster, though.
[A pause, and then-]
I'm sorry for that. But it will help to know what I'm warding against.
[Shifting, he pulls the kantele from his belt and strums a few chords, eyes still on the other man.]
This will help me to focus my magic.
no subject
[ That shows Nikolai's priorities: chains first, mattress after. His own comfort comes second to protecting everyone else. Not that different to how things were before the monster, a bitter voice in the back of his head chimes in. Nikolai shoves the thought aside. It's selfish and self-pitying; he has no time for that kind of thing. ]
I'll tell you whatever you need to know.
[ He has to swallow back the temptation to be glib, to joke and minimize. It's so foreign to him, just talking openly about the beast in this way. Nikolai lets out a slow breath. ]
The person who made me like this could manipulate darkness. That's what the monster is, fundamentally. He made darkness... alive, which is merzost. An abomination. Grisha power isn't supposed to be able to create life. But he made an army of living shadows, and he- used that same power to put a shadow inside of me.
[ Nikolai's voice has gone cold, his expression hard and his jaw tight. No point in trying to talk about the nature of the monster without bringing up the Darkling, unpleasant as it might be.
He sets down the tools, taking a few steps closer to Onni and that fascinating musical instrument. Nikolai holds out his hands for Onni to examine more closely. The tips of his fingers are fully black, with snaking, scarred tendrils of black curling up his fingers towards his palm. From close enough, it's visible that the scars continue past the pigmentation, only fading into his skin around mid-wrist. ]
When I transform, my entire body becomes covered in scars like this. My eyes go black and I grow fangs that are black, as well. The wings I grow are made of shadows. They aren't solid, they don't- have bones, or blood, or muscles.
[ He'd caught glimpses of his own reflection in water, during those months in the civil war when he was stuck in his monstrous form. Nikolai won't soon forget how he'd looked, then. ]
For your wards, if it helps - the beast is very stupid. It can't read, or reason, or even recognize patterns. It's mindless. Physically strong and voraciously hungry, but mindless. Even a goose is smarter.
no subject
He knows exactly who to call upon.]
Päivätär, then.
[His voice is soft as he says it, and he nods, watching as Nikolai holds his hands out to show Onni. Hooking the kantele back onto his belt, he takes Nikolai's hand in his and traces the scars with his fingers, trying to see if he can get a read on any energy from them, his own hands soft from wearing gloves all the time.]
Alright. Thank you for telling me.
[It's genuine, because he knows it can't have been easy, to talk about something so personal and so obviously traumatic.]
Päivätär is the goddess of the sun and life. She rules light and life, and it seems she would be a good counter to this thing created that shouldn't be alive, and is made of darkness. I can sing to Päivätär for you.
[A definitive nod, and he takes the kantele from his belt again, moving to the door and holding the instrument against himself. He strums a few chords, finding the proper tune, and then starts to chant. The poetry comes out of him like a living thing, he spins the words together in metaphor and simile, calling to Päivätär and entreating her help to create a barrier, a ward against the shadow thing that his friend is to become, entreats her and calls upon her love of life to protect it now, her love of light to defend against the darkness.
When it comes to a stop, he opens his eyes, and exhales heavily. The feeling of his own magic is heavy in the room, around the door, and he nods.]
I think this will hold. It's not as strong as what I could do at home, but it's something.
no subject
The sensation itself is faint. Nikolai's hands have full function, but there is a numbness along the scars that has never gone away. It's not the actual feeling of Onni touching his hands as much as it is the idea of it. In Ravka, Nikolai wore gloves any time he was outside his own chambers. He didn't want anyone even looking at the scars, much less feeling them like this. ]
Päivätär
[ He repeats the name, testing it in his mouth. The pronunciation is challenging, but he gets close. Strange, but Onni's description of her makes something in Nikolai's chest feel tight. He thinks, naturally, of Alina. His voice is just a little tight when he speaks next. ]
Yes, she sounds like the right choice.
[ Then he watches, in increasingly rapt silence, as Onni begins to play music. At first Nikolai doesn't understand, but then Onni is chanting. It is so different to anything he has seen before. Grisha used their hands to summon, yes, but it was a silent process. This is something else entirely. Nikolai truly feels it, then, just how alien Onni is to him.
His voice is lovely. Somehow, even though he has had no preparation, Onni seems to know all the correct words and how to sing them to his goddess. Even after he is finished, Nikolai is left speechless and wide-eyed. Onni has looked at him, is expecting a reply. He forces himself to swallow and come up with some kind of a coherent response. ]
That was your magic? It's- so lovely.
no subject
Nikolai's attempt to reproduce Päivätär's name isn't quite right, but Onni doesn't correct him. He just does his magic, leaving himself feeling a little weak, a little worn out, but nowhere near as bad as he's been in the past. He doesn't feel ready to pass out, though he's a little dizzy.
It shows in the slightly unsteady way he moves as he puts the kantele back on his belt and smooths his hands over the front of his sweater.]
Yes, that is my magic. The magic of my people, the Finns. We sing to the gods with runo to ask their assistance with things, or demand it, depending on the situation and the god. The strength of the spell depends on the strength of your luonto, which is a part of the soul.
[He exhales, looking around the room.]
We should bolt in some of these chains, or get them wrapped around you. Have you drunk enough?
no subject
But he doesn't ask. Onni is already doing so much for him, and Nikolai has never been all that good at asking for things for himself, unless absolutely necessary.
After that, Nikolai and Onni divide tasks. Onni, who is more familiar with the building, goes to find a mattress and some blankets. Nikolai, who already feels a little uncomfortable leaving the room now that the magic has been cast, stays behind to bolt the chains to the walls in several places. They are heavy.
There's something comforting, he thinks when Onni returns, about being able to work together with someone in comfortable silence. They position the mattress and blankets in the area with the chains. Nothing left, then, but the inevitable and awkwardest part of this arrangement. ]
So does everyone have a luonto? Or just the followers of Finnish gods?
[ Nikolai asks the question in part because he's curious, but in part because he wants to distract himself from the feeling of intense vulnerability as he strips off his jacket and then boots. When Onni asks if he's drunk enough, he laughs. ]
Not nearly.
[ He sits himself on the edge of the mattress and gets to work on fixing that, taking several long swallows from the bottle, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. If he'd thought this whole process was uncomfortable with Zoya, he'd had no clue how much moreso it could be with a
handsomekind stranger. ]If I do break out...
[ Nikolai breaks off, shaking his head. They'd already talked about this. Going over it again won't dim his anxiety any, so why waste his breath. He takes two more long drinks, just to delay the inevitable, and then sets the bottle aside, far enough away from the mattress that hopefully none of the monster's thrashing would be able to break it. ]
Okay. You should - do my hands first.
[ He says it, eyes closed, but makes no move to lay down or hold out his hands for Onni to bind. Nikolai ought to be used to this, but it turns out, he'd only grown accustomed to his very specific routine. Here, with someone he barely knows, away from the palace... it's considerably harder. ]
no subject
Just the followers of the Finnish gods. Though you probably have something similar, some way to do magic by calling on your gods, it's just a matter of whether you believe and are trained.
[He watches as Nikolai undresses for a moment, and then averts his eyes, wanting to give the man a little privacy as he gets ready for bed, though he looks again when the man starts to drink from the bottle again. Onni sighs, and runs his hand through his hair, when Nikolai mentions breaking out again. He wants to say 'you won't break out' and comfort the man, but it's just not in his nature to be optimistic about these kinds of things.]
If you break out, I'll take you down.
[Then it's time to bind Nikolai, and Onni comes over closer, his mouth set in a thin line of determination. This isn't much more comfortable for him than it is for the other man, it's not something he's used to doing and his hands shake a little bit as he picks up the chains and starts to wrap them around his hands, around his ankles. He's gentle and careful as he does it, but the tension and strength of the chains isn't compromised. He doesn't want Nikolai to get out any more than the other man wants to get out, doesn't want the pressure of having to kill someone, doesn't want that on his conscience, even if Nikolai does come back the next day.]
Is this secure enough, do you think? Where else should I put chains?
no subject
Thank you.
[ He lets Onni take charge, then, holding out each scarred hand in turn, then lying down so Onni could secure his ankles as well. The chains are cold even through the fabric of his shirt and socks. Nikolai does his best to control his breathing, even when all of his limbs are secured. He gives a few tugs - gently at first, and then harder, testing the strength of the restraints. Each of the padlocks has its own key, and he watches as Onni snaps each one shut and then tucks its key away. ]
Across my chest. Those ones.
[ He gestures with a nod to some chains he'd bolted into the floor, wide enough that they could be criss-crossed over his torso. ]
But- not too tight, please. Or I won't be able to breathe.
[ Nikolai lets his head fall back, eyes closed, not wanting to watch as Onni secures the final restraints. The alcohol he'd chugged is hitting him fast. It's possible he shouldn't have had quite so much. The intoxication and exhaustion and humiliation of all this are making it much harder for him to keep a straight face. Nikolai keeps his eyes shut, resolutely ignoring the heat building behind them. He is absolutely not going to do something silly like start to cry. ]
I don't have any magic. Or any gods.
[ He definitely should not have said that. His voice wavers too much, gives him away. This is why Nikolai does not get drunk around other people. It makes it much too hard to censor himself and carefully craft his words into the correct ones. ]
People pray to saints, in Ravka. Only the problem is, there's a girl I know. People thought she was a saint. They prayed to her. But she's just a person. She hated it so much that she pretended to die so she could get away from it.
[ Nikolai wonders what Alina would think, if she could see him like this. Drunk and choking back tears, rambling in such an unguarded way to someone he's only just met. He's not sure if she would laugh or snap at him to pull himself together. ]
And there are people who think the man who did this to me is a saint. They pray to him. So I'd say I'm better off without any saints.
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[It comes out before Onni really thinks about it.]
Have you?
[His voice is a little shaky, thinking about the prospect of killing someone, the idea of it feeling abhorrent as much as it might be necessary. When Nikolai says that he should thread chains over his chest, he does so, not hard enough or tight enough to restrict his breathing, but enough to keep him restrained.
He's quiet while Nikolai says that his world doesn't have magic, or gods, that they have saints that people pray to. That one of them is a girl he knows. That one of them is the man who'd done this to him. Onni frowns deeply, threading some chains over Nikolai's pelvis and thighs, his hands still shaking a little. He isn't sure how to answer that at first, so he thinks about it for a while.]
Maybe your world is very different from mine, then, or perhaps people have identified the wrong saints. I don't know. I can't know. All I know is how it works on my world. I'm sorry this has happened to you.
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Evidently, it means something very, very different to be in the military in their two separate worlds. ]
As the monster, not that I know of. But there's a lot I don't remember from back when I was first changed. Maybe I did. Maybe lots of them. I don't know.
[ He swallows, adding: ]
As myself, yes. Many people.
[ Nikolai does not elaborate. If Onni wants to ask more, that's his prerogative, but he's not offering anything else on his own. Especially not when he's already drunk and emotional. ]
Don't worry. The monster isn't a person. If it takes me over, if I get out and you have to protect everyone from me, it won't be any different than... than with trolls.
[ It's a little different, of course. Nikolai knows that even as he says it. Onni had made it clear that trolls were beyond saving, that once they turned there was no cure. For him, he shifts back to human as soon as day comes. But he wants to absolve Onni of any guilt in advance, before he potentially loses his nerve. Especially if he's never taken a person's life before. ]
Can you-
[ The words spill out before he can stop them, an edge of desperation audible even as he tries to bury it. ]
Can you stay, just a little while? Just until I start to fall asleep.
[ Nikolai feels shame at the back of his throat. Pathetic, to ask that. Like a needy child. He closes his eyes as one of those tears finally does slip free, sliding down the side of his face. ]
Tell me about your other gods. If- you don't mind.
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For a moment, he considers the fact that Nikolai has killed many people, but he decides that it doesn't matter, just like it doesn't matter for Brook. Nikolai is a good person and wouldn't have done it without good reason. Just like Onni is going to have to if he escapes from this room.]
The monster is still you, it's your body, your soul.
[A frown, because it would be a lot easier to think of it that way, that the monster isn't a person, isn't Nikolai, it's a brainless beast just like the beasts he fights back home. But he can't think of it that way, not when that beast will turn back into Nikolai in the morning. He likes Nikolai, he wouldn't be someone Onni would ever choose to kill, but he might have to.
It's best to accept his fate and understand that he'll have to do this, if it comes to it. To protect innocent lives, to protect Nikolai from having the guilt on him of killing someone innocent.]
Of course I'll stay. I'll stay all night if you like.
[His voice is uncharacteristically soft, and he knows he's signing up for possibly something terrible, to witness the transformation and be in the room while he's transformed. But he's probably experienced worse, can't help but think those days on that tiny island while his village died had to have been worse.]
Ah. My gods....I'll start with Ukko...
[And so he starts to explain the gods and goddesses of his pantheon, speaking in a sort of instinctive chant, his voice rhythmic and even, and he speaks in metaphors and similes speaking their stories, much like he had while he was singing his magic.]
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He doesn't want to think about that.
Nikolai almost tells Onni not to stay all night. He doesn't want to be alone, but he can't stop thinking about how Zoya had looked on the awful ride back to the palace. She hadn't been able to look at him for more than a second at a time. His ferocious, unstoppable general had been afraid of him. Nikolai doesn't want to be looked at like that ever again.
But isn't it what he deserves? Onni should know the truth. It will keep him safer, in case something does go wrong. And Onni's safety - along with everyone else's - takes priority over Nikolai's sensitive feelings. ]
If you don't mind. Just... to be sure the chains are enough.
[ He exhales shakily, grateful for Onni's presence, his quiet voice, his generosity. Nikolai had been expecting it would take him some time to sleep in this foreign place, with the heavy cold chains wrapped around him. But Onni's voice is remarkably soothing; the alcohol doesn't hurt, either. Nikolai is soon fast asleep, breaths coming slow and even.
The monster does not overtake him right away. For a while he sleeps peacefully, still and serene. After twenty or so minutes that changes. Nikolai's hands clench and unclench, fingers curling and spasming. Then his fingers begin to grow, lengthening and sharpening at the tips, each morphing into a sharp, black talon. Those dark scars on his hands begin to grow, veins of black seeping across his skin like ink. They spread up his arms, the muscles beneath tensing as they go.
By the time the black scars reach his neck, Nikolai is beginning to struggle against the chains. He pulls at them, heels scuffing against the mattress, trying to get purchase. The chains hold fast, heavy links clinking as they are shifted.
Once the black veins have spread across Nikolai's face, his eyes snap open. They are pure, inhuman black. He growls, showing off a mouth full of long, needle-sharp black fangs. The monster turns its head, spotting Onni at once. The growl in Nikolai's chest grows louder, hungrier. The monster begins to yank at its bonds in earnest, snarling and snapping at Onni, its hunger all too obvious. When Nikolai twists to his side, Onni may catch a glimpse at the wings sprouting from his back. They are made of shadow, shifting and swirling like fog, flapping impotently as if they will be able to propel him free.
There is no recognition in Nikolai's face, no sign of sapience in his eyes. Just a trapped beast, malevolent with hunger. He continues to thrash, those too-long fangs snapping at the air as if he could take a bite of Onni even from this distance. ]
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[He says it with a sort of foregone determination - he wouldn't have offered, if he would mind too much, if it would bother him too much. Whatever it is that Nikolai changes into, Onni is sure he's seen worse. More disgusting. More dangerous. Just as hungry for human flesh. And then he talks about his gods, describing them and their domains to the other man until he settles off to a drunken sleep.
It takes about 20 minutes before he changes, and Onni watches with a sort of sick fascination as the scars spread up his arms and grow, taking over his torso, his neck. He grows claws, dark and vicious, and wings that seem to be made of shadow. His eyes snap open and he starts to test his chains almost immediately, bucking and snapping and thrashing, as if trying to get to Onni to devour him.
Onni stands, taking a few steps back, his eyes wide. It's...not the worst monster he's seen, though it's more...sleek and streamlined than what he's used to. It's vicious, meant for violence rather than the festering things Onni is used to. For a moment, he watches, his breath coming fast and hard, afraid that the thing will break the chains or wriggle out of them, but the chains hold fast, the padlocks straining slightly against the strength of the creature they're binding.
Once he's sure the chains will hold, he circles the bed a little, looking at the thing from various angles, finding weak points just in case it escapes at a later date. Some way to subdue it, hopefully without having to kill it. Without having to kill a man he's thinking of as a possible new friend.]
You're not in there anymore, are you, Nikolai?
[His voice is soft, and the thing's head whips toward him when he speaks. Lifting both hands, he shakes his head.]
You won't get me.
[The night passes like that. Onni keeps observing the creature as it thrashes and struggles, never relenting, never giving in, relentless. For a while, he sings to it to see if that will settle it. For a while, he dozes off sitting against the wall, the hood of his furry cape pulled up over his head. When he wakes up, he's amazed he could sleep in the presence of the thing that had been Nikolai.
And when the sun rises, the thing starts to revert back to Nikolai.]
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There are no windows in the room to allow sunrise to creep in, and yet the monster recedes as light returns to the world. The black scars fade and sink back beneath Nikolai's skin; his eyes slip shut, his lips close around shrinking fangs. His body goes boneless and relaxed.
Then Nikolai is fully himself once more, sleeping soundly on the mattress. Compared with the beast, he looks downright angelic like this, golden hair falling across his eyes, mussed from sleep. There are faint marks on his wrists and ankles from where the chains had dug into his flesh, but the places where they had been bolted to the floor and walls remain intact. ]
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But eventually he wakes, and crosses the room, still a little groggy, to start taking the chains off of Nikolai with careful hands. If it wakes the other man, he's not too concerned, considering they've both gotten probably a couple of hours of real sleep unencumbered by the monster.
When Nikolai's eyes open, Onni offers him a half-smile and finishes taking the chains off without a word at first. Once the other man is free, he steps back and nods at him.]
What do you call it? That thing you turn into?
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Thanks.
[ He doesn't even realize yet that the one releasing him isn't Zoya. Not until his words aren't met with one of her usual sarcastic comments. Only then does Nikolai wake up enough for the memories to start filtering in. Right. This isn't his bed, isn't his palace, isn't his world. And the person unlocking the padlocks is Onni.
Nikolai wakens quickly, then. As soon as his hands are free, he pushes his hair from his face, trying to finger-comb it into some semblance of order. His head is pounding with the start of a rather nasty hangover, and he can feel the places where the chains have bruised his wrists and ankles. Nothing he isn't used to.
What's in the forefront of his mind is that Onni had stayed. He'd seen the monster without fleeing and without recoiling from Nikolai as he freed him. That overwhelms Nikolai a little; he's grateful Onni asks a question, giving him something simple to respond to. ]
It doesn't have a name. Usually, I try not to talk about it at all. When I do, I just call it... 'the monster'.
[ Nikolai rubs at his forehead, composure coming back to him as he wakes up. The most immediate crisis posed by his presence here is solved, for the time being. The restraints had been sufficient, and he has Onni's protective spell as a backup. That still leaves plenty to manage, however. He has to contact the doctor about a sleeping tonic. He has to - he realizes this with a grimace as he lowers his hand - find some gloves so that he can cover up his scars. And then, of course, he has to figure out a way out of this place and back to his home.
Nikolai smiles at Onni, small but genuine. ]
Thank you. For all of it.