weep not for the memories

[brushoff]

WHO: Everybody!
WHERE: all cities
WHEN: March 4 - March 6
WHAT: it's a catch-all log, sucka! Tag here and thread around for the Dorian Ruins Everything Guilt Extravaganza part of the overall March plot. Please check out this ooc post for details!
WARNINGS: Traumatic memories. Possible talk of murder, death, blood, other nasty things. I'll try to update if the warnings needed but please use content warnings if it gets super nasty!

It starts off on March 4th, the early morning before the sun's even risen. You know those weird mirages that were hanging around the day before? Well now it's getting a little personal.

These mirages come and go seemingly for no reason. They might stay for a minute, they might stay for an hour. The images vary between person but the unifying factor is that the mirages consist of people the player characters have hurt, whether people in-game or from their homes. Whether they murdered them, slandered them, or even had a petty little argument, the unifying factor is the guilt each character feels towards or about this mirage. After all, you know you hurt them somehow. You know their existence somehow makes you feel guilty.

Another unifying factor? The creepy way these mirages just seem to stick to you. They'll follow you if you try to leave, staring you down with their creepy unblinking mirage eyes. And whoops: everybody can see said mirages. Hopefully you're not being stalked by someone you and somebody else both know, wouldn't that be awkward?

Have fun confronting your traumatizing past and/or wondering why your buddy's got some creepy ghost guy following him, imPorts!

( ooc: this is a catch-all log! Make starters of your characters getting haunted by their creepy mirages, have other people react to said creepy mirages, ???, profit. Hit me up on the ooc post if you have any questions! )

Comments

[song_of_ice]

Some seem to, others don't.

[So what decided who would receive these visions? Why Ygritte? Why her out of all he knew? The pain of it was still a fresh wound, sharper and deeper than the daggers that had pierced his heart.

It at least wasn't his imagination, otherwise he might fear for his sanity.

He held no animosity towards Magnus for being spared this torment. There was a part of him that could appreciate and wish to share his luck. No one should be forced to confront the painful memories of the past.]

I don't know. I have seen others followed by figures that they tried to outrun. It can't all be creations of our mind.

[He bore guilt, but it was never to this level.]

[burlyboy]

I dunno... my guess is still ghosts. Maybe they're mad, maybe they're sad, maybe there's just something they want to hear - something you never got the chance to say, before they died.

[ He thinks about Noelle and Maureen, the first of which who just wants to continue on fighting against that which caused her death, Maureen, who just wants to keep her son safe. All of the dead have left something behind, something they still want to hear, or do. ]

It must be something you've already thought of, but if you wanted to tell her something? I'd say this is your chance.

[song_of_ice]

[It was a better answer than any Jon could give. There had been a number of things he had wanted to say to Ygritte, so much to apologize for and all of the things that had remained unsaid.

But it seemed too simple. This, seeing her like this, it was cruel.]

If it is about acceptance and moving on, why show them like this?

[burlyboy]

[ He shrugs. ]

It doesn't necessarily have to be all about acceptance and moving on. Just making sure that whatever they left behind gets done, but that's something people who're left behind tend to want to do anyway.

[ Making things right have nothing to do with moving on. Magnus Burnsides is an expert at never moving on, thank you very much. ]

But if I know anything about ghosts, it's that sometimes they come back wrong.

[song_of_ice]

[What did she have left to do but to show Jon his mistakes? It's a nice thought to imagine it is to finish whatever was left undone, but that seems too simple, too kind. Ygritte didn't speak, didn't show any signs of wanting something beyond staring at Jon.]

You have seen something like this before?

[He doesn't want to latch on hope for real answers. He had seen as well that the dead could come back wrong.]

[burlyboy]

...yeah, actually. I have. [ He's not sure if he should say anything, but - the bracers don't work here, they're in another world, this part isn't actually a secret, and Magnus is still pissed. He doesn't see why he shouldn't talk about it. ]

This little piece of shit decided to screw around with necromancy. [ He's a naturally friendly person - a naturally happy one too, but hell if Lucas didn't piss him right off. He wanted to snap the whelp's neck by the end of the day. ]

He wanted to bring his Mom back, but she came back wrong, as a ghost. Tried to kill him, which isn't something she'd ever do in her right mind. She got her right mind back eventually, and she was obviously horrified, but - point is that this? [ He raises one hand, gesturing towards Ygritte. ] I don't know what's going on, but if this was really her, she probably wouldn't just be following you around.

[song_of_ice]

[It's starting to hit a little too close to home for Jon's tastes. Who was to say he wasn't brought back wrong by whatever magic the Red Woman used? If no one else could see Ygritte, he might wonder if this was all due to that magic at all. But Magnus seeing her as well eased that fear.

Even without an answer.]

It is how she looked, but she doesn't speak, she isn't herself.

[She was just dead, which made it harder to stomach. The ghost lacked all of Ygritte's life and fire, it was just an image meant to hurt him.]

This isn't necromancy. [He felt certain of that.]

[burlyboy]

[ It sure looks like necromancy to him. He looks slowly between her, then over at Jon. Who's in mourning, he's sure, and probably needs a hug (he has the self-awareness not to hug someone uninvited underneath these circumstances, at least), which would lend itself to a certain hesitance to believing in the necromancy of his dead... whatever she is to him.

But then again, he sounds awfully certain. ]

How d'you figure?

[song_of_ice]

She is more like a shadow than someone raised from the dead.

[He doesn't know what necromancy might look like in other words, but he has seen the dead walking. There was a difference between that and this. It was small, but he felt certain he would know it, if he saw it.]

Even the dead have something in them. I can't explain it, but there is some spark, some magic that pulls them back from nothing.

Ygritte. She's more of a shadow, an image. I can see her, but I can't feel her.

[He's not doing a good job of explaining.]

[burlyboy]

Um, okay! I think I'll trust your judgment on this one, fella.

[ He doesn't see it, precisely - people who come back from the dead aren't like themselves, that's the whole point of why it's so fucked up - but he's not invested enough to push the topic to someone so clearly in pain, and he's certainly not confident in his own knowledge of it. ]

You've see necromancy before?

[song_of_ice]

[He really doesn't know what he's experienced. Necromancy, magic, the god's work. There were so many ways it could be described, but none of them felt right. He only knew the end result, being the end result himself.]

Of a sort.

[He is silent for a moment. There were other dead aside from him.]

The dead walk in my world, but I don't know why.

[burlyboy]

[ That's a painful thought. Magnus is, for a moment, glad that what he saw was an anomaly, not a strange occurrence to expect. If he knew that the dead could walk, once upon a time, things... things would be much harder. ]

What do you mean, the dead walk? Are they themselves, or..>?

[song_of_ice]

No. They have no thought, no consciousness. Only the drive to kill.

I don't know how or why.

WHOOP sorry for the html bork there!

[burlyboy]

Well, those were my two first questions. At least that's not happening here.

[ He frowns, glancing over to Ygritte, then back over at Jon. ]

And if you kill them again...?

[song_of_ice]

It requires fire to kill the walkers.

The ones controlling them, it will take something else.

[burlyboy]

Oh, so - you don't know what's going on, but you do know someone's controlling them? Sounds like they've bought themselves a ticket to someone getting out and killing 'em, if you ask me, [ Magnus remarks with a small frown. He doens't have much of a moral problem with killing other people, provided that it's well deserved, but he does have a problem with necromancy, generally speaking. Especially the sort that does nothing but bring terror onto those who have had the indignity of being left behind. ]

I'm guessing that the people behind these, uh, these walkers must be made of some pretty powerful stuff.