thecrossinglogs | THE CROSSING #2

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THE CROSSING #2

It's that time again.

For more detail on the particulars of the event, be sure to refer to our info and planning post!

always keep moving

— CLOUDS ON THE HORIZON

The Desert is sprawling. If you've ever gotten turned around in the rolling dunes, it may have once felt endless. But in the weeks and days before the descent of The Crossing, something appears on the horizon: first a dark smudge of storm clouds, not unlike the others that have rolled through before, then growing — wider, darker, and more threatening.

You feel it, too. For some of you the feeling is new; for others it's a reminder of a trial you've been through before. It's a weight in your body, a solidity of your self, a vulnerability to whatever is approaching.

The storm overtakes the oasis. As the first drops of rain begin to fall, The Ferryman speaks in your mind.

It's time. Those who are prepared to pay the toll are instructed to gather on the bank of The River. As for the rest of you... we hope you have a plan.

taking refuge

— THE RIVER OF MUD

The storm hits hard and fast. Even as you gather around The Ferryman, the rain grows from spitting droplets to a desert monsoon. The Ferryman's protection only goes so far: even if you're promised safety from danger, you'll still have to cope with the cold, the wind, and the water.

As before, The Lantern's Light grows dark. As before, The Ferryman gathers memories one by one, consolidated into a mote of light in their palm that becomes the new center point for the growing temporary bubble of safety. But this time— what it was too dark to notice in the Cavern before— you realize that The Ferryman themselves is changing, too. Their form fades as the light in their hands grows, becoming as fuzzy and insubstantial as mist... not unlike the wraiths, outside of The Crossing.

The sparkling white salt flat before you begins to melt and grow murky, exposing the sticky, grasping mud beneath. The Ferryman glides out over the roiling muck of The River, and so do you, your steps as light as if there were still a crust of salt to separate you from the mud before.

You must keep moving, though. Linger too long, and you'll start to sink... and the mud might not let go, this time.

— A HAVEN FROM THE WANTS AND ILLS OF LIFE

The journey is arduous, and the storm is unrelenting. The Ferryman, unfamiliar as they might be in this form, leads confidently through the blur of lightning, wind, and rain. As before, the mote of light created from your memories follows in their footsteps, illuminating the path to follow along the wide expanse of The River.

Even with The Ferryman's protection, it is exhausting work. It's as mentally taxing as it is physically draining. As such, when the path forward begins to shudder and shift, it may come as a reprieve. The wall of wind and rain finally breaks, the Desert around you replaced by... somewhere else. A place you may recognize, or may not.

Whatever stress or fear you may have been feeling from your journey wanes, replaced by feelings of calm, peace, or joy. If the place you are in is unfamiliar, the feelings are muted, as if they don't quite belong to you... but surely this is better than returning to the monsoon? Perhaps you can rest a while. Play a game, recover in shelter, or take a meditative walk through a maze. What's a few minutes, anyway? Time hardly means anything anymore.

Just don't forget: if you linger too long in any one place, the mud of The River will start to suck you down. It's best to stay alert— and to keep an eye on those traveling with you, as well.

storm chasers

— SWEPT AWAY

The Desert isn't designed to weather a storm like this one. Beyond the pounding rain and cracking lightning, those of you who have decided to travel without The Ferryman must also navigate the environment itself. Flash floods sweep through lower-lying places in the dunes, where the sand isn't able to absorb water quickly enough. Creatures that may have been docile before are now panicked, and might impede your progress, or even lash out themselves.

And, of course, there are the wraiths.

They're easier to spot this time around, across the rolling dunes. It's easier to make out just how much they've changed as well: the claws, the teeth, the exaggerated proportions... and the unmistakable pain and fury in every movement, in every shriek and wail.

You are vulnerable to any and all injury during this time, whether from the wraiths, the wildlife, or the elements. As long as you follow your gut, you'll know where to go — but we hope you have a strategy, all the same.

— AN EYE IN THE STORM

At least in the Cavern, you had cover. Nooks and crannies, branching tunnels, rocky outcroppings... But out here, beneath the wide-open sky of the Desert, there's very little in terms of shelter. The odd plateau, or cave entrance, or inexplicable feature might grant you some reprieve, but there's always more sand to cross in-between.

On occasion, however, you may spot a strange sort of wraith watching you at a distance. Some of you may even recognize it: an eerie, dissembling creature that some have dubbed the Smart Wraith. Its form, like the others, has solidified into something grotesque and painful, as if its body has been plucked like clay by a particularly spiteful child. Unlike the others, though, it does not attack, or even approach. It simply watches, as it always have.

If you have the presence of mind to notice, however, you may find that there are occasional reprieves from wraith attacks, especially across longer stretches of dunes. They're brief, but often crucially timed (such as when someone is significantly injured, or when a flood has just rolled through), and always correspond to a moment when The Wraith can be found watching from some far-flung vantage point.

It's odd, certainly. But do you have the luxury of looking a gift horse in the mouth?

stormbreak

— CLEARING SKIES

Eventually, the storm calms. Your body lightens. The atmosphere realigns.

The Crossing ends.

The thick, sucking mud of The River has become shallow and waterlogged. It's easy to wade through now, if a touch... unpleasant. Fibrous plants and reeds line the sloped banks, inexplicably dotted with bright orange flowers. Light is low, though the sky has cleared, as if wherever you are now lingers in perpetual dusk.

If you were traveling with The Ferryman, the mirages that dogged your journey finally fade and stay gone. If you were traveling on your own, any wounds you sustained heal rapidly on their own. As before, the healing is natural, but on fast-forward, and thus may not always resolve perfectly.

For both groups, memories bleed away from you - perhaps literally, perhaps not. Anything you found in the Desert, unless given to you by The Ferryman, is gone from your pockets.

When you look again, The Ferryman appears just the same as they were before The Crossing began. Let's take a break, they say. It's been a long journey.

It certainly has.

Image credits: 1, 2 + OMORI'S STORY, and stock imagery unless otherwise noted

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[Nagito sits, but it's more like he simply lets his legs buckle and drops where he's standing. He's still gripping the sleeves of his hoodie, his expression a smile that can't escape melancholy, but compared to the last Crossing he's really very calm. It could be normal, low nervous laughter and not the start of a manic episode.]

What is this, anyway? [It's not really clear which "this" he's referring to. The emotions. The source of them. The cause of them.]

[Hmm. 'What do you think it is', she wants to ask, but that will sound overly defensive. She's also not sure which 'this' he means, but there's a general answer that fits most of the possibilities.]

A piece of me, and of... one of my friends.

[There's a split second of hesitation when she says that. Need has few friends. Then she does just ask:]

What does it seem like to you?

Ah, it's yours? [Normally Nagito would be more on the ball with that sort of thing, but his distraction is obvious on his face.] This is, for me, that is-- [He hesitates, uncertain.] Love, and acceptance. Not mine, of course. [Of course, because this is coming from Need's memory. Of course, because it could never be his.]

It's strange. It feels strange. [He wants it so badly. And just as much as he wants it, his thoughts rub against him like sandpaper, over and over telling him he doesn't deserve it.] People--haha, people don't understand me. Only...

[the very petty thought comes that when Need next sees Celehar, she'll have to tell him see, I told you this could upset someone. She lets it go.]

I guess it would feel like that.

[she's not going to get into how she doesn't really feel love, exactly, just now. She's unfortunately not unfamiliar with people to whom even affection is strange, even distressing. At the moment of this memory, asleep inside of the house is a mutilated girl who she went on to 'adopt', as much as she's adopted anyone, who took years to be convinced she was worth anything. It gentles her voice a bit, and Need seats herself on a conveniently bench-shaped and -positioned piece of stone. The sparse grass around it is flattened by the regular presence of a gryphon lounging to keep company with a human friend.]

Only? Why don't they understand you?

Someone as base as me can't expect understanding. [Which is what it has to be, because ultimately he doesn't know. He's never really known why people don't understand him.] But Hinata-kun tried. That was enough for me.

[Up until Nagito died, Hajime had tried to understand him. Even if the two of them disagreed, argued, got genuinely angry or upset--that was so much more than Nagito could ever ask for. Hajime tried, and the others had included him sometimes, and Nagito never knew how to ask for any of it.]

I don't know. Base people have always been pretty comprehensible to me.

[need, having psychic powers doesn't count. -and, hey, she hasn't heard nagito use that suffix before. She studies him closely as the memory of warm regard goes on.]

People can't always understand each other. Trying to bridge the gap can be a form of love too. The effort means something.

[Nagito stares down at his metal arm.] I'd be very upset with him if he showed up here. It's much safer for him and everyone else without me, as well. But I'd like to talk to him again. I'm really very selfish.

[He misses Hajime. He misses everyone he left behind. He hadn't acknowledged it until now.]

A thought or a desire isn't wrong, not on its own.

[she considers.]

What if he showed up much older, after living a full life, and still recognized you?

[The atmosphere of this place exposes all of Nagito's softest parts. When he speaks, he sounds absolutely, desperately, painfully fond.] ...If his hair was still spiky, I'd tease him about it. And if his hair wasn't anymore, I'd complain about it.

[it certainly is striking. Out of character, she'd say, except Need's aware that people usually have a lot more complexity to them than can be seen in such limited interactions.

She expects he'll close up quickly once the affection fades.]

Tell me what's special about him.

[It sounds like this is regard on a personal level and not that cultish devotion he has for Makoto.]

Oh, everything. [He doesn't say that in the way he talks about Makoto, though; instead, it's rather soppy. Nagito holds up his robotic arm.] He helped build this. Making it so that I could control it with my thoughts, that was his doing. He's very friendly, even if sometimes he seems kind of grumpy about it. [Tsundere, except Need wouldn't understand that.] But everyone likes him. It isn't as if we made it official or anything, but there's no doubt he was the leader of my former classmates. He understands me the best. [Understanding is very important to Nagito.]

['it isn't as if we made it formal', uh huh that sounded like it was going to go somewhere else. Children.]

I'm glad you got to know him. It's good to care and be cared about, regardless of the form it takes.

[The feeling of her embrace - I see what you went through and did and you made some choices I can't countenance, but you've suffered and struggled and I love you for making it so far - wanes to calm energy and a more background warm regard, as in the timeline of the memory Darkwind pulled a deep breath and was ready to go on, and Need-who-was furled her wings away.]

[The feeling--strange and desperately needed as much as it frightened him--fades, and Nagito feels more in control of himself as the mood calms down. The face he makes is just shy of embarrassed.]

You know, it's really very unfair to make me talk that much about Hinata-kun when I was feeling like that.

[He isn't really that bothered, though; there are a lot worse things he could have babbled on about.]

[Need watches his body language and expression shift with interest.]

Tell me you wouldn't in my place.

[Really she would have liked to have taken more advantage of the situation but isn't as quick to improvise as she'd have liked. The only things she'd thought of - testing, would he be receptive to a hand on his shoulder or back? asking, what's made you feel this way? saying, I like you better like this - well, she knew he'd remember and she can't read him enough to gauge the risk. Without any of her powers she also can't obviate the last few minutes of his memory and she is still going to have to keep existing in proximity to Nagito so it's better to be cautious and not potentially make an enemy of him.

...Of course, with her powers she wouldn't have to do any of that, she could just reach in like a pickpocket and find out what she wanted to know and not casually screw with the head of someone who probably doesn't deserve it. Need's trying not to constantly think about what she'd do differently if she wasn't laid low like this, though.]

Edited 2025-05-06 20:16 (UTC)

[Nagito is still smiling like this, but it's different--not as soft as when he'd been talking about Hajime. It's especially clear in a moment like this that Nagito has trained himself to smile as a default expression.]

Ah, I guess I shouldn't lie and say you're wrong, should I? [Nagito would absolutely take advantage of a situation like this. And he knows Need could have prodded at much worse.] But I'd appreciate if you didn't gossip to everyone else, regardless!

[Not that Need seems like the type.]

[Surface friendliness, Need thinks. Show of harmlessness? Ingratiation? It's certainly deliberate and likely a contributing factor to people not understanding him. She doesn't think it's entirely disingenuous in general.

Strange boy. Not a lot of fear in him, unless he's just that good at hiding it.]

You can just ask, you know, and the worst that's likely to happen is I won't answer. At my age not a lot shocks or offends me.

[She'd used to say 'When you get to my age' about that kind of thing but it'd be cruel to use a phrase like that to a bunch of dead children and barely-adults.]

If the stakes are high enough I might tell someone, but it's hard to see how 'you have someone you wish well' will ever be essential. [Deliberately downplaying it.] Otherwise, no. Not my business to brut about.

That's good to know! Even when I try not to shock or offend people, I tend to do so regardless. [It's different when he's doing it on purpose; when he's trying to be friendly and it goes wrong it can get pretty frustrating.]

I doubt my memories of Hinata-kun will manage to be that important. [If Hajime himself were here, then surely he would be that important, but-- Well, he can hold his tongue now, so he's going to exercise that skill. Anyway, Hajime will definitely never show up here.] Sounds like I'm pretty safe, then!

We'll hope that doesn't happen. [Need really isn't given to gossip, but she does have to remind herself of certain forms of ethics like boundaries and privacy regularly.

He might have done something that actually would set her off, she thinks. Nagito is definitely some kind of fanatic and she has little sense of what he's capable of, so she's erring on the side of 'a great deal'. But she's confident it wouldn't be enough to break her self control. She hadn't snapped finding out exactly what Nyara's father did to her and her sisters and it would be genuinely difficult to do worse. She had had to not speak for several days and that kind of thing would be more obvious here, but she'd been able to discuss the man calmly after that.

Still seated on a bench-like fallen menhir, Need stretches her legs out before her.]

So, what has this [she lifts her chin and turns her head in to indicate this situation] suggested about me?

[Nagito looks around. He'd been investigating a bit before he got hit with all those emotions, but said emotions had been pretty distracting. His gaze falls on the feather he'd been looking at when he got bowled over by all that love.]

Well, your world must have very large birds! [Or something big with feathers, anyway.] And you might have a softer heart than you like people to think.

[Nagito isn't great with interpreting emotions, but he did get hit very hard with them here. He can at least form an opinion on them.]

Tch. Don't spread that about. [She says it with mild irritation, but no heat. Pretending outrage at the suggestion she has a softer side can be fun.] Yeah, some people see it right away. Others it takes a while. Just remember I'm not secretly ever-sweet, all-giving, endlessly patient or anything like that. I just feel sorry for strays.

[She wonders how Nagito's interpreting the emotional contagion given his inexperience with empathic powers. If this seems different from the other scenes they've all wandered through. Should she tell him? Would he believe her if she says most of her memories incorporate other peoples' emotions? What would he think, if he did?

Better not. She really unsettled Celehar by being too forthright, earlier.]

Some of the feathers would be Treyvan's, some Hydona's. You can't always tell, but Hydona is larger, and Treyvan's got more color and shine to him. They're gryphons. This is the home they had a few years back.

It's like you come from a fantasy novel. It's too bad we only get to see the settings. [He'd like to see some gryphons. Nagito picks up the feather he'd dropped earlier, examining it.] Did this place belong to you?

Because we've got gryphons? Yeah, those were fantasy for us too, until we started getting people who really understood biology and had endless resources to pour into 'making myths real' and giving themselves legacies.

[a little bitterness there in the sarcasm, Need?]

Nowhere belongs to me, kid.

When you say it like that, it makes you sound like a very cool, lone wolf wanderer! [Very fitting for a fantasy novel! Though he is going to circle back to that gryphon thing, hang on.] So gryphons were bioengineered? With magic or technology?

Hah! No, I go... I went nowhere alone. I just never stayed with anyone, or in one place, long.

[by Need's standards anyway.]

At a high enough level they're the same. A scientific understanding of magic gives it more options, more predictably. Not that the intuitive approach isn't valuable, but when someone was creating a whole species that's supposed to live on after their death, predictable, replicable results were important so the whole team could use them.

It started with just modifying animals. Then someone - don't remember the name - had the bright idea, hey, what if grasswolves had brains modeled after humans? and making a new species of people who loved you as their creator became a fad.

If you understand it that well, can you even call it magic anymore? [Of course you can literally, but then it really is just another kind of science. Of course, that must be what Need means by them being the same at a high enough level.] Something like that... In my world--not that we have magic, but theoretically--someone with that much skill would almost certainly be said to have a talent. Their accomplishments would be lauded. But it doesn't sound like you think that.

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had to make the joke, you understand

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