2023 catch-all

[sterngaze]

Who: Liem & various
What: Catch-all for non-event threads
Where: Various
When: Throughout the rest of 2023
Warnings: Will be in headers as appropriate

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[sterngaze]

[As Liem hurries on, gambling on his companions following after him whether they feel like they know him or not, the streets and alleys around him change, just a little. The brick and asphalt paving remains, and the blocky buildings with their many glass windows don’t disappear, but the layout of the streets and alleys shifts to accommodate his memories. He is transported back in time, to the streets of Oppara, years ago, before the war for Taldor’s throne had begun brewing, when all he had aspired to was to help keep order in his home city.

There had been a colleague: a young, gifted inquisitor with a good reputation and possession of information that Liem couldn’t afford to have get around. “Blackmail” was such an ugly word, so the colleague dubbed them friends, and came to rely on his friend’s help quite a great deal.

He hadn’t known that bad things tended to happen to Liem’s companions.

Up ahead, through the mist, come the faint and echoing chitter of tiny creatures and the shrieks of someone in distress. Liem quickens his pace without meaning to, turning a corner with the echo of a memory in his mind: the stink of blood, a body made unrecognizable, torn apart by rats. In his desperation, he cannot imagine finding anything else.

He pelts through a broad, shallow puddle lying in his way — and plunges straight in, as the road seems to crumble and melt away all at once, revealing a steep drop down which he tumbles, straight into a river hidden beneath the illusion of a city thoroughfare.]

[no19]

[ Keitaro gives Link a nod, and vanquish to hide any inkling of worry or doubt on his face as he looks at him. If there's any way to keep up with Liem, there's no time to question his comrade about his momentary confusion and apprehension right now.

The words on the paper hinge on something sinister and Keitaro feels a sudden lurch in the pit of his stomach. ]

Nothing good, I'll wager. Let's hurry.

[ He sees Link in front and Liem, even further ahead, barely still visible through the fog. This fog... it's too much and it doesn't seem to settle. For a moment Keitaro thought it the dusty mess of rubble, trampled in the Deimos' path. However, even as they keep going he doesn't find the destruction he's looking for. Sector 4 seems quiet in every sense of the word, abandoned. Except for another scream that tears through the silence. ]

Liem?

[ Keitaro looks in the direction, stares ahead the same way they are going. He isn't sure that he can see Liem anymore– was that him?! That worry leads him a few paces ahead of Link, breaking their rank. He only gets close enough to see Liem disappear, as if the ground swallows him.

Water splashes beneath his shoes. In the moment it takes him to register the trap ahead, Keitaro loses his footing too. His head is reeling, looking between their leader—he reaches for him, but his arm swings down without much aim—and the world falling upside down. Keitaro claws at the dirt under his other hand, fingers turning white against the fractured asphalt. Somehow he caught himself. ]

Link! Help!

[bakedapple]

[ One second, Liem's silhouette is in front of them, footsteps splashing through a puddle as he hurries through the fog. The next, he's gone, suddenly tumbling downward as if walking off a cliff. But there is no cliff. As far as he can see, they're still surrounded by boxy buildings on all sides. His boots still thump on the strange, flat rock covering the road underfoot. There's no doubt that this is an illusion at this point, but Link has no chance to ponder on it more than that, as Keitaro pulls ahead and trips into nothingness just as quickly.

He dives to catch him and finds himself at the precipice of a long drop, appearing out of nowhere at all. Blinking, Link crouches at the edge and reaches down to clamp his hand around Keitaro's wrist. ]

I've got you!

[ But from this vantage point, he's able to look deeper within the drop. At the bottom, Liem is laying in shallow water at the bank of a river. And the sight stirs something within him — concern...? He feels, suddenly, as if he needs to save Liem too. Like needing to save a friend. But he still does not recognize Liem himself, does not know him, and the impact of this dissonance makes him feel dizzy. ]

Can you... can you climb down? We've got to get down there...

[ Squinting, he looks to the man he's clinging onto — and does not recognize him anymore, either. ]

[sterngaze]

[Liem’s fall sends him skidding and tumbling down the sheer bank of the river, bringing loose stones and dirt along with him as the river hurtles up to swallow him with a sudden slap of cold water. The shock of it stuns him for a brief, bewildering moment; rushing water jostles him and turns his vision into a confusion of muddy, incomprehensible shadows as he his mind catches up with his new situation. It takes another long moment for him to thrash back to the surface and drag himself half out of the water, clutching at the muddy bank in defiance of the current trying to pull him further downstream.

Where did this river come from? It smells like water, not sewage; he can’t have fallen into a sewer tunnel. The confusion is enough to make him realize in a moment of clarity that the city he was running through is an unfamiliar one, and that the familiarity of the streets and alleys around him had been an illusion. He isn’t back home, after all; he’s… he still doesn’t know where. A city far from home, far from any of his old church colleagues.

But somehow, despite that, he is certain his father has found his way here too.]

Stay where you are! [he calls up the riverbank, dragging himself onto his hands and knees. He aches from the fall, and stings in a few places where he’d been scraped up on the way down, and he thoroughly soaked with muddy water, but nothing feels broken.]

If you climb down too, we’ll all just make targets of ourselves.

[no19]

[ Wherever Keitaro tries to grab on for more support, and keep himself from taking the same rapid fall into the river, it's nearly impossible to find sure purchase elsewhere in the loose dirt. He's thankful for Link's hand grasping tight at his wrist, just when he'd felt like he needed to brace himself for a dive into the roaring waters as well.

A glance up at him, behind Link the high rise buildings are still looming. How did this deep gash in the road come to be in the middle of the city? Keitaro looks back down, searching along the bank when he hears Liem. Thank God, he's standing. But what now? ]

...Then you need to get out!

[ He's of the same mind as Link. They can't let themselves get separated at this point. Liem is their leader, though, and there's no uncertainty to his command.

After pulling himself up with Link's help, Keitaro can see that the river follows the ravine some way, imbedded in the forest that runs underneath the cityscape. Perhaps up ahead they can meet up. He turns back. Keitaro notices, after brushing the dirt off his knees, that his comrade looks disorientated. While Keitaro is sure that confusion had come across his own face over the strange note, just as Liem seemed wary of the city they walked through in turn, despite Keitaro's confidence, he doesn't know where to place that look in Link's eyes.

He even finds himself taken aback. ]

Are you all right?

[bakedapple]

[ Allegiance has never played a strong role in why Link does what he does, is the person he is. What allegiance is there to be had, really, in a kingdom that no longer existed. The Hyrule he once served died a hundred years ago. It was its remnants he felt obligated to, the scattered people who descended from those who somehow managed to survive through indescribable loss. People he did not know, and who did not know him. Perhaps this is why it is so easy for Link to yank Keitaro up onto the safety of the road, despite having no idea who he is — and for him to look down at the other stranger clinging desperately to the rocks lining the river below, and feel a sense of obligation to help him too.

Keitaro might feel inclined to follow the orders of the expedition leader, but Liem is no longer that person to Link. He shakes his head briefly at Keitaro's question, dismissing it, before swinging his legs over the edge of the drop and beginning the climb down. His descent is fast. He's a practiced climber, with well-trained instincts and an iron grip, unafraid of heights and sure in his choice of footholds and handholds. It takes less than a minute for him to reach Liem, ignoring any and all statements from either of the strangers telling him to stop.

Nearing the river, he stops, double-checks the support under his feet with a few pointed digs with his toes, and lets go with one hand so he can twist his body to get a good look down. The grey-haired stranger has ears like a Hylian, but eyes like a monster. It's the fear and strain his his face that reassures Link of his humanity, and at the same time, his need for help. That water is too cold and moving too quickly; it won't take long for it to wear down one's endurance. ]

Can you climb up just a little? Reach out to me! [ Link is close enough that Liem could probably grab his ankle with some effort, but it's his outstretched hand that he wants Liem to try for. ]

[sterngaze]

[Climbing back up is indeed the plan. Liem is soaked, and already shivering from being dunked in the river’s brisk current, but he’s used enough to navigating different types of terrain, and his grip on the rocks at the river’s edge is firm despite their slippery sheen. His fingers haven’t yet numbed from the chill, at least.]

No— Link, wait!

[When Link begins to descend towards him, Liem tries to get him to stop long enough to just scale the bank himself, high enough so the others can pull him up. (Would Link even be strong enough to help him back up the side, if he reached him? He’s such a small man…) But the riverbank is slippery in places and crumbles easily in others; his attempt to climb out of the river is foiled by a deceptive, shallow-seated stone that gives way beneath his weight and sends him sliding back into the river, shocking him again as icy water swallows him up to the waist.

As Link scrambles, monkey-like, down to him, Liem tries a second time to drag his dripping body out of the water and up the side of the drop. He is cautious about his choice of hand- and foot-holds, and this time he succeeds in clambering up to grab Link’s outstretched hand with his own waterlogged one.

He only hopes that nothing happens to Keitaro while they’re both down here…]