piper90npcs (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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goneawayworld2020-12-01 08:29 pm
piper90npcs) wrote in goneawayworld2020-12-01 08:29 pm
HERE, HAVE SOME SPIRIT
Who: Three Ghosts and the little New Hires
What: Sharing the Christmas Spirit
Where: Good question
When: Post-Rose Tattoo
Warnings/Notes: Possible violence, angst, likely visions of death.
Are you sleeping?
Maybe. Maybe not. It's hard to tell. This could be another ARE, after all. What you can tell is that the halls are filled with mist, the smell of pine, and the sound of jingling bells off in the distance.
And then comes the wailing.
Tearing past you, screaming like a damned soul, skeletal figures flood through the halls. Some of them wear business suits, weighed down by chains crafted from ledgers and money boxes. Some of them are soldiers, bound by their own twisted weapons. Police, politicians, no one seems spared. Someone whispers, warning you, begging you to pay heed. For you will be visited by three ghosts who are on an errand of great import.
And then something charges with a howl and all goes white. Slowly, the light dims, and the mass of spectral entities is gone. Instead there stands a figure, or maybe two or three of them. For each person, it's different, as they'll have different messages and purposes for each.
One is neither male nor female, the only certain features being a well-muscled, well proportioned body, wearing a white tunic and a beautiful belt of pearl. Its hair is long, white, as if ancient, but no matter how its face changes, there's no sign of age upon it. There seems to be an aura of white flame around its head and, in a voice that belies nothing but charitable warmth, introduces itself as the Ghost of Christmas Past. It will show scenes of someone's past, offering enlightening details with little judgment.
The middle one is a large man on a veritable throne of food, tantalizing and delicious, wearing a fur-lined red robe and a crown of holly upon his head. The Ghost of Christmas Present is a big man, with brown hair, and a booming, jovial voice that can turn blisteringly harsh and back in a single sentence. He'll show what the character was doing immediately prior to their arrival upon the rig. Perhaps what they're doing right now. But he'll also be content to walk either the character's home world or this Gone Away World, viewing the sights and people enjoying Christmas with the character.
And the final one, a phantom in a dark, green robe, green smoke billowing around it. Its skin is pale, pulled gauntly around whatever body part it exposes. The gaze underneath the hood is as cold as the grave, and it would be wise not to try to match that for too long. It remains utterly silent, simply guiding its guest through the Christmases Yet To Come with a pointed finger. It will show how a character dies and how they'll be remembered by others after. It acts cold and merciless, but this very visit is a mission of mercy, one it silently prays will succeed.
The surprise, though, is that they aren't showing the character that history. Instead, they'll be guiding their guest through someone else's life. Maybe just a fraction of it, maybe a full span. But when it's all over, it's as if no time has passed. In fact, no. The characters are returned to an hour before the ghosts visited them.
[[Remember, this isn't your typical memshare. The ghosts are NPCs, but they'll be controlled by the players. They will not show characters their own histories, presents, or futures, only those of different people. They can show the same scenes to different people or different scenes to different people. One person might not even see all three of the Ghosts.]]
What: Sharing the Christmas Spirit
Where: Good question
When: Post-Rose Tattoo
Warnings/Notes: Possible violence, angst, likely visions of death.
Are you sleeping?
Maybe. Maybe not. It's hard to tell. This could be another ARE, after all. What you can tell is that the halls are filled with mist, the smell of pine, and the sound of jingling bells off in the distance.
And then comes the wailing.
Tearing past you, screaming like a damned soul, skeletal figures flood through the halls. Some of them wear business suits, weighed down by chains crafted from ledgers and money boxes. Some of them are soldiers, bound by their own twisted weapons. Police, politicians, no one seems spared. Someone whispers, warning you, begging you to pay heed. For you will be visited by three ghosts who are on an errand of great import.
And then something charges with a howl and all goes white. Slowly, the light dims, and the mass of spectral entities is gone. Instead there stands a figure, or maybe two or three of them. For each person, it's different, as they'll have different messages and purposes for each.
One is neither male nor female, the only certain features being a well-muscled, well proportioned body, wearing a white tunic and a beautiful belt of pearl. Its hair is long, white, as if ancient, but no matter how its face changes, there's no sign of age upon it. There seems to be an aura of white flame around its head and, in a voice that belies nothing but charitable warmth, introduces itself as the Ghost of Christmas Past. It will show scenes of someone's past, offering enlightening details with little judgment.
The middle one is a large man on a veritable throne of food, tantalizing and delicious, wearing a fur-lined red robe and a crown of holly upon his head. The Ghost of Christmas Present is a big man, with brown hair, and a booming, jovial voice that can turn blisteringly harsh and back in a single sentence. He'll show what the character was doing immediately prior to their arrival upon the rig. Perhaps what they're doing right now. But he'll also be content to walk either the character's home world or this Gone Away World, viewing the sights and people enjoying Christmas with the character.
And the final one, a phantom in a dark, green robe, green smoke billowing around it. Its skin is pale, pulled gauntly around whatever body part it exposes. The gaze underneath the hood is as cold as the grave, and it would be wise not to try to match that for too long. It remains utterly silent, simply guiding its guest through the Christmases Yet To Come with a pointed finger. It will show how a character dies and how they'll be remembered by others after. It acts cold and merciless, but this very visit is a mission of mercy, one it silently prays will succeed.
The surprise, though, is that they aren't showing the character that history. Instead, they'll be guiding their guest through someone else's life. Maybe just a fraction of it, maybe a full span. But when it's all over, it's as if no time has passed. In fact, no. The characters are returned to an hour before the ghosts visited them.
[[Remember, this isn't your typical memshare. The ghosts are NPCs, but they'll be controlled by the players. They will not show characters their own histories, presents, or futures, only those of different people. They can show the same scenes to different people or different scenes to different people. One person might not even see all three of the Ghosts.]]
no subject
This is a much better death than the first one she saw. Old age, surrounded by the type of friends who'd bust you out of a hospital so you could die somewhere pretty? They should all be so lucky.
(She almost certainly won't be. She tries not to be jealous.)
Stacia starts giggling during the heist and doesn't stop until it's all over, though it gets damp there at the end. She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand and looks around for her escort.
"So, I'm guessing what I'm supposed to get out of this is that something's wrong with Wash and it's fixable?"
no subject
The image shifts again and both Stacia and the spirit are standing on the roof of a building, looking down on a street that leads to what may be the capitol building of a country or planet. There are an abundance of flags waving in front of the capitol building.
The spirit points down.
A funeral procession is passing through. Its moving slowly. Carolina and the others are acting as pallbearers, each of them with a hand on the hovering platform carrying the casket, the work of lifting it taken care of for them. The procession is going at the speed they can actually move.
Thousands of people are filling the streets. The outside walls of the building have had countless flowers and wreathes heaped against them, so much they might have to be bull-dozed later. His casket is draped with three flags, one red, one blue, and one that matches the flag on the capitol building, the official flag of Chorus.
When they reach what is very obviously some kind of capitol building, the flags are taken off the casket by an honor guard and folded with great ceremony, taken away to be preserved. His friends will receive the red and blue flags. The other will be stored in the Capitol building and someday be kept in Chorus' history museum.
The casket is lifted to a place of great honor on a dais covered with yet more flowers. A holographic projection of Wash's face the size of a billboard plays over her head, shifting through pictures. Some are goofy, some are candid, caught during times he was laughing with his friends. In others, he's wearing his armor, pondering over maps with a woman in grey and blue-striped armor.
The older woman that steps up to the podium to speak is wearing sharp, dark clothes that look like you'd expect a politician to wear.
A man introduces her, "First to speak will be former president, Ms. Kimball."
She is handed the mic. She takes a deep breath, steadies herself. Clearly this is hard for her, actually personal, like she knew him.
"We are gathered here today to honor the passing of a great man," Kimball says. "He had another name, but on Chorus, we all knew him as Washington, and he...never asked for anything else over the years. A long time ago, as the general of the New Republic, I wouldn't have been caught dead without my armor, due to fear of snipers. On Chorus, during the Civil War everyone wore armor, because those who didn't quickly found themselves killed."
"Today, I stand before you armorless as your ex-president instead of only an ex-general. Today, the people of Chorus go armorless too. Today, this funeral procession passed through a city and a world that has rebuilt itself, instead of one that destroyed itself."
"We were able to survive the Civil War we had been tricked into by selfish and greedy individuals trying to drive us to destruction for their own personal gain thanks to the heroes that helped us save our world: the Reds and Blues."
"While they were all heroes to the core, Wash always stood out as a leader. After the Reds and Blues helped us realize we had been duped, I was officially in charge of our combined armies with the late General Doyle. But to pretend we weren't in over our heads would be wholly dishonest."
"We had, as a people, spent years at each other's throats. We had just learned that the mercenaries we thought were aiding a lost cause had been the ones to cause us to fight in the first place. Doyle and I were the only leadership that was left, after all our superiors were killed, one by one by a war that was meant to tear us apart."
"Washington stepped in, and helped us plan our battles. He adapted in the field, helping us survive when everything went wrong. He trained our troops, never ceasing in his efforts to help us join together as a cohesive whole. But it wasn't just tactics that he helped us with, or team-building. When the Reds and Blues came, they gave us hope, but it was Washington that gave us inspiration. He made the people of Chorus - and his friends - believe in ourselves, at a time we needed it the most."
"It meant something when he believed in you because he was effortlessly selfless, thoughtlessly brave -" A slight shadow of a smile, like they're all in on the same joke - like they all knew that all of them were a handful. "- and infinitely patient, with friends who were learning to be heroes, and two factions of people who were learning to stop being enemies."
A pause.
"Okay, that's not entirely true. He was patient up until you messed up a drill for the sixth or seventh time because you were too busy slap-fighting with the soldier next to you because they used to be in the opposing faction. And I say this as someone who used to slap-fight General Doyle."
There is a light murmur of amusement from the crowd.
"Then Wash could be a tyrant, only because you deserved it, because you needed it. But when we weren't driving him crazy, he was encouraging and kind. He was relentless when trying to protect others, something that allowed himself and Agent Carolina to prevent a genocide by keeping the temple of the Purge from being activated."
"He refused to turn his back on a world that the rest of humanity had forgotten. There were many heroes during the battle against Malcom Hargrove's forces, but without Wash, it all would've fallen apart, and we would not be standing here today. Chorus would've just been rust and dust, its people long forgotten."
"So let us take three minutes of silence to say goodbye to a great hero, a respected leader, and a good friend. One minute for each group he inspired during the war: a minute for the Federal Army, a minute for the New Republic, and a minute for his friends, the Reds and Blues."
The silence makes room for the crying, from a people that have let themselves feel things again, thanks to the battering machine of war having been stopped. The older people seem most affected.
After the silence, others step up to the podium but the vision flashes to evening, a setting sun. Only after the long day is through has his funeral run out of speakers apparently. The casket is borne by the Reds and Blues into the capitol building and set on another dais there, to temporarily rest in state. Kimball keeps talking to her people.
"For those who want to show their gratitude, flowers have been brought in from the farms in the countryside." Though she remained composed for the speech, a few tears finally drip down President Kimball's face. "Let this be our last token of gratitude to Wash. We were a people that were facing doom and near starvation - and now we've become a people that grows flowers again."
Massive trucks filled with them are near the dais. His friends are given time at the casket first, Carolina linger first and the longest, her head pressed for a long time against the closed casket.
After his friends, the former president places her flower down next, with quiet words meant for Wash alone. Then other mourners stream by in neat lines curling around the dais, paying their respects. Many of the first to do it are survivors of the war, like some of the lieutenants.
Young children are lifted up to place their flowers. Families fell apart during the civil war. Children and teens lived long enough to either become adults with guns in their hands or didn't survive at all. No children came after them until the war was over. Just like the flowers, Chorus is a world that got to have children again, too.
Even after the trucks run out of flowers, the line doesn't stop. It stretches off down the streets, around a corner and out of sight.
The spirit gives Stacia a long and significant look. If it has eyebrows it might be raising one under there.
This is all she needs now, to know for sure. The man on the rig is not kind, not encouraging, and certainly not inspirational. He is not the kind of person who would have a state funeral. He is the kind of man that might get killed for being a traitor because he did something shady. And it is important that someone can see that things really have gone terribly wrong.
no subject
"Don't you give me a judgemental look, you're the one who brought me here and refuses to communicate beyond pointing and significant hood movements," Stacia says, mostly without heat. "I've literally talked to chattier rocks."
She watches the funeral in a contemplative silence, every passing minute making it more and more clear how different this Wash is from the one she knows from the Rig. This may be a possible future, sure, but it's clearly not the possible future of the version she knows. Something's wrong, something's been twisted, something needs to be put right. When the Ghost gives her a significant look, she rolls her eyes.
"Oh come on. You have to know that I was already planning treating his head like a puzzle toy. Metaphorically, not literally, literally would be gross."