OOC: I generally prefer memshare threads if the memories alternate between the characters so they both get to know each other, so I'll presume that's how our threads will be going unless otherwise specified! Let me know if you'd prefer otherwise.
[Dan's heart seizes up the second he realizes what's happening. It's been nearly a year since the powers that be decided to deep-dive into his memories and take Bunny with him, to rip open all those old injuries that he so diligently distracts himself from feeling during the day, and here it's come again.
He tries to cover his ears and close his eyes so as not to intrude on anyone else's memory and, more importantly, to not have to see his own.]
I. Meteors
[It’s out in the middle of the desert, next to a one-lane highway that stretches off into the distance in either direction, and the sky is lavender with the just-set sun. The brightest stars are only just now starting to poke through the fading daylight.
Either Dan and the little girl with him have been living in this car, or they’re on a very long road trip. The back seat has been converted to a bed with a pile of blankets and a lump of pillows, and little plastic baggies in the back hold toothbrushes and bars of soap. YA and fantasy books with dog-eared pages are wedged between the dash and the front window. Knapsacks peak up from behind the backseat.
“Do you think this can take pictures of the meteors?” The girl, maybe eleven or twelve years old, has long dark hair in a braid, all black clothing and strangely pale eyes. She hops out of the passenger’s seat of the car and grabs pillows and a disposable camera from the back.
“Meteors move mighty fast, El. You’re more like to catch one by accident than on purpose.” Dan gets out of the car too; he’s wearing a t-shirt that says #1 Dad. He lays down a blanket on the ground and puts a coat over her shoulders, then he hands her a thermos and takes a drink from a bottle of vodka. “How’s the cocoa?”
She pops open the thermos and takes a sip. They both sit down on the blanket and wait for it to get dark enough to see all the stars. “Lukewarm. We should have kiped a more expensive one.”
“I’ll have to teach you to slip one next time. Here, here’s your telescope.” He places a cheap handheld one next to her. “Alright, enlighten me. What’s the story behind these meteors?”
El grins. “Well, these are the Lyrids, and they’re named after the story of Orpheus taking his lyre to the underworld…” ]
II. Monster-Hunting (cw: mild gore)
[They’re in a house of some sort, one that was once a big friendly cabin build but has instead been semi-consumed by the lonesomeness of the outside forest. None of the lights are on, and the only illumination comes from a full moon beating down on the fight taking place in the dining room.
Dan crashes through some dining room chairs, grappling with an elderly woman who seems to be fighting him for her life. She shoves him against a wall, and he struggles against her grip to paw at his holster, and as she rips bloody lines down his neck with her fingernails he gets the barrel of his revolver under her chin and pulls the trigger. Her brain splatters against the ceiling and her body, missing a chunk of her head, falls to the floor.
Dan, too, drops to the floor, no longer animated by desperation, and catches his breath, chest heaving as he presses a corner of his jacket against the bloody wounds running from his jaw down to the collar of his shirt. He doesn’t take his eyes off the corpse pooling blood on the floor, nor does he lower his gun from being aimed to shoot her again.
From out of sight, rushing footsteps and a woman’s alarmed voice that sounds both youthful and about as raspy as Dan’s does. “Danny? You hurt?”
“I’m fine, Tab. Just banged up a little.” Dan gets into a crouch. He’s young, maybe late teens, maybe early twenties, with shaggy hair down to his jaw and a patchy beard.
The woman – really just a teenage girl, with pixie-short hair and stained jeans and a camo jacket, who must be his sister because their eyes and noses are identical – comes into the room, a gun of her own drawn, which she immediately trains on the corpse. “Did you kill her?”
Dan shakes his head and scoots over to the body, pulling a canister of Morton’s salt from his pocket. He starts to pour it in a circle around the body. “No. Stunned. Help me restrain her, I want to talk to her before we decide what to do.”
The girl nods and keeps the gun aimed at the body as Dan finishes pouring the salt circle and zip-ties the old woman’s wrists.]
Dan Sagittarius
[Dan's heart seizes up the second he realizes what's happening. It's been nearly a year since the powers that be decided to deep-dive into his memories and take Bunny with him, to rip open all those old injuries that he so diligently distracts himself from feeling during the day, and here it's come again.
He tries to cover his ears and close his eyes so as not to intrude on anyone else's memory and, more importantly, to not have to see his own.]
I. Meteors
[It’s out in the middle of the desert, next to a one-lane highway that stretches off into the distance in either direction, and the sky is lavender with the just-set sun. The brightest stars are only just now starting to poke through the fading daylight.
Either Dan and the little girl with him have been living in this car, or they’re on a very long road trip. The back seat has been converted to a bed with a pile of blankets and a lump of pillows, and little plastic baggies in the back hold toothbrushes and bars of soap. YA and fantasy books with dog-eared pages are wedged between the dash and the front window. Knapsacks peak up from behind the backseat.
“Do you think this can take pictures of the meteors?” The girl, maybe eleven or twelve years old, has long dark hair in a braid, all black clothing and strangely pale eyes. She hops out of the passenger’s seat of the car and grabs pillows and a disposable camera from the back.
“Meteors move mighty fast, El. You’re more like to catch one by accident than on purpose.” Dan gets out of the car too; he’s wearing a t-shirt that says #1 Dad. He lays down a blanket on the ground and puts a coat over her shoulders, then he hands her a thermos and takes a drink from a bottle of vodka. “How’s the cocoa?”
She pops open the thermos and takes a sip. They both sit down on the blanket and wait for it to get dark enough to see all the stars. “Lukewarm. We should have kiped a more expensive one.”
“I’ll have to teach you to slip one next time. Here, here’s your telescope.” He places a cheap handheld one next to her. “Alright, enlighten me. What’s the story behind these meteors?”
El grins. “Well, these are the Lyrids, and they’re named after the story of Orpheus taking his lyre to the underworld…” ]
II. Monster-Hunting (cw: mild gore)
[They’re in a house of some sort, one that was once a big friendly cabin build but has instead been semi-consumed by the lonesomeness of the outside forest. None of the lights are on, and the only illumination comes from a full moon beating down on the fight taking place in the dining room.
Dan crashes through some dining room chairs, grappling with an elderly woman who seems to be fighting him for her life. She shoves him against a wall, and he struggles against her grip to paw at his holster, and as she rips bloody lines down his neck with her fingernails he gets the barrel of his revolver under her chin and pulls the trigger. Her brain splatters against the ceiling and her body, missing a chunk of her head, falls to the floor.
Dan, too, drops to the floor, no longer animated by desperation, and catches his breath, chest heaving as he presses a corner of his jacket against the bloody wounds running from his jaw down to the collar of his shirt. He doesn’t take his eyes off the corpse pooling blood on the floor, nor does he lower his gun from being aimed to shoot her again.
From out of sight, rushing footsteps and a woman’s alarmed voice that sounds both youthful and about as raspy as Dan’s does. “Danny? You hurt?”
“I’m fine, Tab. Just banged up a little.” Dan gets into a crouch. He’s young, maybe late teens, maybe early twenties, with shaggy hair down to his jaw and a patchy beard.
The woman – really just a teenage girl, with pixie-short hair and stained jeans and a camo jacket, who must be his sister because their eyes and noses are identical – comes into the room, a gun of her own drawn, which she immediately trains on the corpse. “Did you kill her?”
Dan shakes his head and scoots over to the body, pulling a canister of Morton’s salt from his pocket. He starts to pour it in a circle around the body. “No. Stunned. Help me restrain her, I want to talk to her before we decide what to do.”
The girl nods and keeps the gun aimed at the body as Dan finishes pouring the salt circle and zip-ties the old woman’s wrists.]