sixthiteration | Test Drive 18

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→ Choose one of the scenarios below or make up your own. Feel free to try multiple scenarios.

→ Write LOGS or TEXT prompts, or both.

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2. It cannot be the character's arrival into the game.
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Prompts

Summer is here, villagers! Sunny skies, warm weather and plenty of weirdness are on the horizon. Don't forget your sunscreen!

THE MILK FOR FREE - Somehow, someway, you have been wrangled into milking one of the GROFFLES recently rounded up by your fellow villagers. Maybe you felt guilty for not helping, or maybe you owe someone scary money. Point is, it's just you, a bucket, and your green milk-giving friend. Just a tip: Groffles are good-natured, but you probably shouldn't squeeze too hard.

LIGHTNING ROD - Earlier today, you made your way into the upper foothills — Were you hunting? Maybe just roaming? — and you came into contact with a BLUE LILY. Maybe you thought it was so pretty you've carried it back to the village with you. If your house didn't have electricity before, it definitely does now!

MEET CUTE - It's a classic: You've gone down into the 6I INN'S dirt-walled root cellar off the kitchen. Maybe you needed supplies or were dropping off some fresh produce. Whatever the case, someone's followed you down for a similar reason... and the door has jammed shut behind them. Seriously, it's not budging. Enjoy getting to know your new best friend in the cozy light of the furnace!

WILDCARD - Choose your own adventure. Maybe play powers roulette.

Texts

All characters are fitted with a smart watch-like device on their left wrist, which they can use to send text messages to other villagers.

- Texts may only be 140 characters long
- No video or voice, text only
- No usernames, everyone is listed by their name

Please list your CHARACTER NAME, CANON & PROMPT in your SUBJECT LINE.

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His first thought is How did Karen manage to lock her dog out and he's more upset about that than being stuck in here, the dog's distressed whining burrowing in under his skin unpleasantly. But then Karen screams and he can't help the way his hands clap over his ears until she stops, curling in on himself though he knows the monsters aren't coming. In any other iteration, he'd shake her, telling her no one was coming for them. Stop screaming, whatever came into his mind really. But in this one the only sound he makes is a murmured "Shhhh" that he hopes Aretha can hear. Poor thing.

When Karen calms and sits beside him, he breathes out a silent sigh as he wracks his brain for what to do next, looking around for a tool. He could probably knock the whole damn door down if he really had to, but it would be loud as hell - not that that matters, Castle. It doesn't matter here, how much sound he makes, and it only makes him hyper-aware of every noise he inevitably does.

He nods idly to her musing, staring forward at the furnace since the alternative is her face. She could always read far too much from looking at him directly and he'd rather avoid that altogether thanks. Her voice is still ringing in his ears and he has to wonder if its timbre was always so shrill. He's banking on it being his own hypersensitivity, but it's still a consideration he has to make. Of course, he can barely tolerate the sound of his own voice lately. Maybe he should just be the village mute and stop trying quite so hard. It would be far less exhausting than whatever this is.

"Just..." he trails off, as he so often does. It's not so different from how he starts and stops back home - or how he did when Karen knew him anyway. But what is different is what comes next. He types a quick message on his watch and holds it so she can see the display.

i'm thinking

So be quiet, is the implication therein. Everything about Karen Page is loud, even just her presence, not that he thinks she can necessarily tone that down. Well, maybe she could try. It's impractical and maybe even a little childish, but his hand drops as his eyes dart around the room again, formulating a better plan than Hulk smash the door and terrify the dog. Because even now, someone else's dog would be his priority.

Edited (WHAT IF I CARE ENOUGH TO EDIT FOR A DOGS NAME HUH HUH ) 2018-06-09 06:51 (UTC)

She wants to shake him. It's not an unfamiliar feeling, but since he's showed up here, since he's been this different version of himself, it happens more frequently. If he would just crack a smile, make a joke, or even get angry and yell at her, she could do something with that. With this, she feels as trapped by how different he is as they are behind that damned door, like her hands are tied, every move she makes somehow wrong.

She presses her lips together, reading the softly glowing display and then looking away. Once, she thinks, she could have sat on these stairs with Frank Castle and not even noticed the seconds, minutes, hours ticking away between the quiet conversation, the staunch sarcasm, the occasionally awkward pauses. But now, she doesn't even feel comfortable in her own skin.

Pushing herself to her feet, shaking out her hands in a restless motion, all that pent-up energy he invariably draws to the fore looking for a way out, a way through. There are rows of shelves down here, each packed with provisions kept lined neatly up by Kate and her kitchen minions, and Karen walks down one row and up the other, fingers skimming over shelves that are impressively free of dust. But there's no solution to be found among the jars of beans or linen-wrapped haunches of who-knows-what.

Wandering back, she pauses at the end of the row, arms sliding across her middle and hands cupping against her elbows as she leans against the shelf, staring back at him.

She isn't the only one uncomfortable in their skin, and he finds himself squirming under her apparent scrutiny. Of all the people on this island to get stuck with, it had to be Karen. It had to be the one person who hates the ways in which he's changed even more than he does. He hears a big doggy sigh from behind him and he squeezes his eyes shut, thinking of Max and where he is now. He took away that dog's only defense mechanism - his bark - in order to save him from that awful place. And now he's alone in Hell's Kitchen, the one place he needs it most of all. Frank wraps his arms around his knees as they draw up defensively against his chest, and his eyes slowly come open again as if he could wish Karen and this terrible day away. No such luck though.

"Looking at me like that isn't gonna get us out of here," he complains, which is progress unto itself, he knows. And knowing that annoys him even more. His voice is raspy and barely audible, but how done he is comes across loud and clear anyway. Maybe they could just have a staring contest until someone found them. That's about as good of an idea as he's got right now.

"Oh wow, a whole sentence," Karen replies, and yeah it's sarcasm, and yeah it's a little bitter around the edges, but there's a feeling that accompanies it, a counterpoint: A sliver of something like relief, like hope. That single sentence, terse and irritated, is one of the best things she's heard since she showed up in this place.

She pushes off the shelf and walks over to the furnace, thinking she might as well feed it while they're stuck here, keep the water hot for the people above. For a second she thinks she sees a poker propped beside the neat stack of firewood, but it's just a long stick, charred from stoking the fire. Stooping, she finds an oven mitt and pulls open the heavy iron door with a low creak.

"Frank, I—" she begins again and falters before reaching for a piece of firewood. She looks at it, licking her lips, and then shoves it through the little door, sending sparks up inside the belly of the furnace.

"You don't have to talk to me," she says, realizing it's easier to be honest this way, with her back to him and something to keep her hands busy. She ducks her heard and swallows roughly around the lump in her throat. "I know you don't really do that, you'll just shrug it off. But... you know you can, right?"

He just grunts in acknowledgment of her offer, and somehow the short sound manages to be sarcastic all on its own. Oh really? I don't have to talk to you? If only she took that directive to heart herself. This place isn't dangerous or scary like Reims, but there also aren't hundreds of people relying on him to fix anything and everything. New York had been hell after it, and this place is even worse merely by the product of David Lieberman's absence. He would thrive here, like Frank had in Reims. People would like him, count on him. It makes him miss his friend even more than he thought possible, but the last thing he wants is for another place like this to tear him away from his family. They were all better off without him anyway. Just like Karen is, but he knows that won't stop her. It never stops her.

Angling his body towards the door as he takes comfort from her laser eyes being off of him for the moment, he begins to murmur sweet nothings to the dog through its heavy bulk. She isn't Max, he can't tell her to go run for help. There are a lot of things he'd relied on Max for too and he's only now analyzing it even if he'd really rather skip it. "It's okay, girl, you're okay. Karen's right here, she's safe. You're doin' your job..." Some of it is more audible than other parts but he just keeps on like Karen hadn't just asked him to spill his guts. She couldn't understand what he'd just been through and he wouldn't want her to try. That was his burden to bear, right? Or maybe that's juvenile too. She had been inside his family's house, she helped him remember. That feels like a lifetime ago now though; that feels like someone else entirely.

Just when it seems like he's not going to say anything, at least not to Karen, he shrugs and looks down at his lap, the sudden roar of the flames causing him to press even harder against the step he's on. No more silent campfire, signed out stories - no more soundproofing houses and communal areas so a cough wouldn't kill them all. Everything in that town was one for all and all for one, a harkening back to his military days before things had gotten so hopelessly fucked up. He starts and stops a few times, looking at the wall still so he doesn't have to know if she's looking at him. He opens his mouth and shuts it dumbly over and over, but his teeth clack together loudly the last time and that's the end of that. He starts drafting a message on the smartwatch, yes he's going to text her from across the room. Yes, he expects that to piss her off. But the alternative is knocking himself out so he doesn't have to hear her judgments until they're rescued so maybe it's worth a shot.

you don't have to listen He swallows as he sends the message, the side of his head tipping against the cellar door so he can listen for Aretha at the same time. What he really wants to say is that she wouldn't get it even if he told her the whole story, but that isn't fair. She'd believed him when no one else had once. it's so LOUD here

There's a moment there where Karen thinks she really might cry, saline rising hot and swift behind her closed eyes. It's not the first time since he's turned up, but the first time like this, ever, feeling like he's punched her in the gut, choosing to talk to her fucking dog rather than to her. She doesn't expect the world, doesn't expect some kind of heartfelt confession, but how is she not supposed to feel insulted by that?

She gives herself a little more time to swallow the feeling roughly back down, fire hot on her face as she opens her eyes again, lashes damp, and pushes another couple of logs into the furnace. She swings the door shut with a soft clank and then pulls in a deep breath, still crouched, before the light from her wrist catches her attention.

At first she wants to toss something flippant back to him, something he might say like No shit, but I just said I would, but she's honestly too relieved to say anything for moment. When the next message blinks through, she's glad she didn't.

I wish you would just tell me what happened, she wants to say, but swallows that back too — It's too much. Those sort of questions always have been.

Instead, she pulls in a tremulous breath, tossing aside the oven mitt, and pushes herself back to her feet. Stepping up the stairs, she settles again next to Frank, watching him for a moment before looking away into the shadows of the room and gently laying her head against his shoulder.

His ears can pick up things now that they never could before - he's not quite on Matt's level but it's a near thing. He hears her breathing speed up and shallow out from across the room, anticipating the sob before it comes and long after it doesn't. Frank could never stand to listen to a woman cry and in this state, and especially with Karen being that woman, it would be nothing short of torture. But she stops herself, and he squeezes his eyes shut tight, knowing she so often switches out her fear and hurt for anger and he's prepared for it to be hurled his way. She flips the script on him a second time, approaching as quietly as she ever does. It's quiet enough for Frank to stay calm in the moment, though he draws in a sharp breath through his nose when her head hits his shoulder. He bows his head further, making her more room and not shrugging her off in the same motion, swallowing back a thick wad of self-loathing lodged in the roof of his mouth. He reaches over without looking still though his eyes are open now, even if they're glassy and unseeing, and taps a message in morse code against the inside of her arm. S-O-R-R-Y.

If she thought he was fractured when she first met him, he's only a humble approximation of someone who wants to be that man today. He's been shattered down to the ground and reassembled brick-by-brick, but none of it is enough. None of it will ever make him whole again. Frank leans his head to the other side in defeat, against hers so that their skulls knock just enough to be felt unpleasantly, and on theme it isn't enough to make much of a sound. Aretha's whimpering has petered off which he isn't sure whether to take as a good sign or bad, but for now he's just grateful for the silence. It's obvious he could stay this way indefinitely for the way he seems to calm merely for being left alone for five seconds. It was never something either of them were good at, but in Reims he'd learned the virtue of choosing when and where to speak. Words were their only currency there and were as rare and precious as tanzanite. Of course, the less they spoke the less they seemed capable of it, and soon he knew he would have been just like the Natives. So confident in their ability to stay silent that their homes weren't even soundproofed. When they spoke, it was with a scratchy voice, raspy from unuse. Frank knows if he were to speak aloud to her now, his voice would sound that way. There's nothing for him to say anyway that hasn't been said in some capacity - even if she doesn't understand his new means of communication.

The specifics of what he's tapped out onto her arm Karen doesn't know, but the sentiment she understands well enough. There's always been the place between the words for them, the things that stayed unsaid even though they both could pick them out so clearly — Words hard to give voice to, especially for him. With as little time as they've actually spent physically together, she's gotten surprisingly good at interpreting his silences.

Which she supposes is why all of this has been so upsetting. It isn't really the silence that bothers her, it's that wall, one she thought she'd pulled down brick by brick, the one she'd thought after the last time she'd seen him back home, he wouldn't be able to build back again. These last days she's felt like such a fool, like one of the few truths she thought she could truly count on she'd gotten all wrong.

The tightness in her chest begins to ease and she turns her hand over to reach for his, callouses rough under her roaming fingertips. Morse code she doesn't know, but she thinks maybe that's okay, and traces a message cross the flat of his palm: U + ME OK?

He freezes when she reaches for his hand, breath stuttering audibly, something he wasn't sloppy enough to do even days ago. She makes him forget himself, a chill running cooly up his spine as she draws into his palm. Frank drags his eyes open to watch the message, though the slight tickle of her fingers makes it hard to focus. Gleaning what's being asked of him, he nods, throat suddenly drying up as if to prevent him from speaking though it was the last thing he wanted to do. He does nod though, a vacantly wan expression coming over his face as he picks his hand up from hers to arrange his fingers into the universal sign for Okay. He remembers teaching Eleven that symbol, all the kids eventually picking it up from him like vernacular. Frank wraps one hand around his other wrist and pitches forward even a little more once he's sure his message has sunk in, drawing comfort from the contact of their shoulders and telling himself he isn't.

Karen should be the one telling him that anyway - he knows he's the one who's broken. The one who can't find a way to function in this place unless it's raining hard enough to drown the rest out. "Have, uh." As promised, his voice is raspy and dull, but he's determined to churn out a sentence this time, pushing past the unpleasant scrape to start at the beginning. Though he's lost track of where the beginning really starts, anymore. "You ever heard of a place called Reims - France. Well. Rouen." Whichever. He supposes it really doesn't matter either way.

The sound of his voice is so unexpected that it throws her, eyes rounding as they stare down at her hand, abandoned now, his own predictably drawn away under the pretense of answering her. It's a strange sort of question, too, and she falters, mouth briefly working before she manages to speak.

"Um," she begins, slowly, the syllable soft and tentative; he's asked her a question but she's still braced for him to cringe or draw away because she's dared to speak. "I think, maybe? It sounds familiar." Like it had been the site of a famous battle taught to them in school, or the setting for a novel she'd long ago forgotten, wartime struggles and hiding from the SS.

"Is that where you were?"

Is that where he was? No, not exactly, but also technically yes. His head starts a slow roll backward so he can meet her eyes, shifting his feet so they're sitting side-by-side again.

"Is Aretha gonna be okay out there?" Yes, he's still most worried about the dog. He couldn't go two steps without accounting for Max's whereabouts in Reims. But every noise he makes seems to hammer home that the Sound Eaters aren't coming. One of his boots lifts before slamming into the cement step. Not out of anger or frustration, but to hear the sound. The dog seems to hear it too and she barks, thinking her humans might be in danger. It's loud, but he doesn't flinch this time, instead knocking his boot again and getting her to bark some more. Maybe she can alert someone to their predicament after all, if only because Kate seems like she'd seriously hate him taking her door off the hinges. Even if he'd put it back together again. That can be Plan B.

Frank nods after a second, eyes darting around the room again but he stays close - mentally too. He's with her now, instead of trapped in memory. "Yeah. At least, I think so."

"She's fine," Karen says, glancing over their shoulders to the jammed doorway with a faint hitch of a smile. "You trained her, and then I apparently came in after and screwed most of that up. But she's good." She looks back to Frank. "She'll settle down and wait." And maybe someone will see her and will figure out they're trapped down here, call the calvary.

"So," Karen begins again, folding her hands safely in her lap. "France?"

He hadn't sounded sure, but after everything she's been through here, it isn't difficult enough to imagine a scenario that seemed like France but absolutely wasn't. It had seemed like they were all trapped in a canyon, but weren't. Most days she wonders if they're even really here now.

Frank sighs and stops trying to rile up the dog. He trained her, because he was here before. Except he has no recollection of that. No connection to this place or the man who had come and gone. Though he knows the way these places work, that people forget, that they come and go against their will. He can't help but feel as though that guy abandoned Karen though, so he's angry at him. And angry at himself for not being like he was.

He nods, but he's looking down again. That's closer. An approximation of France that wasn't. Similar to this place, it claimed to be something it could never be; a real place. A place like they had come from.

"How long have you been here, Karen?" he'd been afraid to ask before. Though he'd only been in Reims a few months, so much had happened in that time. By comparison, a few weeks here felt so much longer. He found himself needing to fill time more than ever before.

It takes Karen longer to answer than it honestly should were they anywhere else. She keeps track, has from the start, but time is strange here, and days get away from her more than entirely makes sense. The smart watch they have now helps some; the general idea of it she hates, of being tracked, but it does faithfully show the date.

She glances down at her wrist now in confirmation, then tilts her head, brow pinching as she calculates. It had been mid-December, she'd figured out, which means, "About six months. You were already gone, then," she adds. "In case you were wondering. Um. Matt was here, too, apparently."

Not for the first time, she wonders if he knows about Matt, who he was and what happened to him back home. That night with the Hand, and Frank suddenly simply there like some kind of dark savior on the next rooftop... She's never been convinced that was strictly on her account.

Six months. Not so different, then. If Frank was already gone, then he supposes he hadn't abandoned her, exactly. Or maybe that makes it worse, for her. He's afraid to ask that too. Matt. He pulls in a shallow breath and nods his understanding. His voice is becoming more whole the longer he uses it, but quieter by the moment. He's tired already from talking so little, but he knows these are important things. Things she'll want him to say aloud.

"But not with you." Matt and the Frank that wasn't him had both missed her, but now he's here with her. A version that probably isn't much help to her at all, but he still has to try and do what he can. She's still Karen Page, and even if it's by a technicality he's still Frank Castle. "There were people... where I was. Who had been to worlds? Places. Like this one, before they came to be where I was. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

He scarcely does though he'd had the conversation more than once on her side. His heavy gaze swings like a pendulum until it meets hers, only to nervously skitter away again.

"I do," Karen quietly confirms with a short nod, her gaze tracking the way his restlessly shifts. "I don't know if we have any more of them here right now, but I do." Idly, she wonders if he realizes he's officially one of those people now, too.

"The disappearances... Did they happen where you were?" She has theories for all of this, many of them vague and none of them particularly comforting. "People come and go. Sometimes they come back and remember nothing, like you."

Kira's been her only real touchstone for this, but she's glad at least for their talks. She has at least some idea of how unsettling it is to find yourself in a strange place with strange people, only to discover the remnants of a life you lived there with them before. Veronica's diaries had been thorough, though, with Mark taking over where she'd left off, so Karen has a pretty good idea of how many times the same faces have come back around.

Frank nods with a measured little grunt in confirmation. He's officially tapped out for speaking and exhausted besides by the brief showing. He's thinking of Eleven, who he'd shared everything with; spent nearly every waking moment with her or Mike -- and then she'd gone. Only to come back and recollect none of it. If he hadn't been told by someone else she didn't remember, he isn't sure what would have happened. Jessica's voice now filters in over the din of the memory of a downpour. Kids?! What was he thinking, hanging out with them, protecting them, when he couldn't even protect himself? He swallows past a dry spot in his throat and rests his chin on his knee for a moment. Karen's theories are probably a thousand times more complicated than his, but in Reims he had had Micro to bounce every whim off of. He isn't even sure how to function without him now.

All he knows is that he doesn't want to become a "world-hopper" like Lavi and Sora. He was glad they had each other at the time, that they shared consistent memories of former places that weren't their homes. But now, when it's happening to him, it's disturbing. He isn't sure whether it makes him want his mayoral mansion in Reims or his couchbed at the Liebermans more. If he had any type of choice right now, this is when he'd be on his way. He thinks Karen knows that by the way he's ditched out on their prior conversations. One thing makes him grateful: that she was never in Reims with him. That he never had to protect her from Kilgrave or the horrors of the Sound Eaters. He swallows dryly and goes silent once again.

It isn't a silence of merely not speaking, but the full-bodied quiet of someone who lived that way day in and out. His breathing shallows out and movement stalls, as if becoming a mannequin with his face. He doesn't even move his face much, the twitch in his eyebrow that had been there this whole time smoothing out as he leans away from her again to slump against the stone wall. It's plain to see that he's completely wiped, but he's not banking on her curiosity abating any time soon. He'll have to tell her the whole story one day, or she'll unravel it for herself.

Edited 2018-06-14 11:14 (UTC)

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Test Drive 18

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