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thecrossinglogs2025-04-19 09:44 am
thecrossingmods) wrote in thecrossinglogs2025-04-19 09:44 am
THE CROSSING #2
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!
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
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 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
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
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
no subject
[Rather pettily she'd thought, on seeing Nagito's reaction, of telling Celehar see, I told you this could upset someone. She's not going to do that. Obviously, if it hasn't occurred to him yet it will.]
It will pass, lad. I never laid this on anyone for long enough that they couldn't live without it.
no subject
A wonder, that a sword came out so much more gentler than a man.
Celehar clears his throat, passes his fingers under his eyes in an unsubtle attempt to clear his eyes. ]
But you are not laying this on me, are you.
[It aches terribly in the pit of his chest. He's been lonely, he knows that, but it's one thing to know that and only feel the pangs of it when sitting across the table from a second teacup, and another entirely to be relieved of that loneliness in so fundamental away.]
no subject
[it's not exactly the same, and certainly it wouldn't happen in quite these circumstances, a stranger-Healer sharing more than a wash of approval, but it was a familiar sensation for Darkwind.
Need watches out of the corner of her eye.]
I might have, though, if I'd met you. I've got a terrible soft spot for people who try to do what's right when they're tired and in pain.
no subject
Even in the days after - Evru's death, he did not feel tears come so easily as he does here and now. Perhaps he did not feel he deserved it. But he does not imagine he deserves Need's compassion in the same way. Here in Death, there is no need for sleep in the same way, no true exhaustion to weigh him down. If anything, he ought to be lighter than he has in some time, oughtn't he? Already he's given things up.
For someone who can't read his thoughts, Need's next comment certainly has the effect of it, engendering a subtle flinch that he could not have guarded against.]
... I am not a warrior. [It's soft, not exactly the repudiation the words themselves might make it seem.]
no subject
She tries a metaphor.]
There's a beast following you. Sometimes it's at a distance, but it's often right on your heels. When it gets bold, it goes for your throat and if you don't manage to shove it away, it drags you down. I recognize it. I've seen it hunting entirely too many people by now - and before them, it used to follow me. I know it's hard to get up under its weight.
But you do, and you still try to go forwards. And to think about things instead of only acting on reflex. I admire that.
[even if she does think he could do better on that account, it's not with a lot of rancor. Celehar tries, it's okay if he fails sometimes and can really get on her nerves now and then.]
cw for mentions of suicidal thoughts
He feels the grief here too, but - a hollow ache, not subsuming the loneliness but in equal measure alongside it. The intertwined misery, overwhelmed by the brush of love against his mind, loosens his tongue. It is impossible not to turn towards the kindness in some way, like a sunflower turning towards the warmth of its namesake.]
I did not, until the Emperor compelled me. I... in truth, I tried to use him against myself. [In retrospect it brings rise to a wave of embarrassment and shame, but in the moment, he had felt so little. Simply tar-thick exhaustion.] Yet instead of retribution, he offered me a glimpse of a life I thought lost. Given so much more than I deserved... what else could I do?
Even here - especially here, on Ulis's threshold. To still be here, I must, at least... [He trails off, the corners of his mouth twitching, a moment of self-recrimination. But he has not done a good job of it, has he?] At least listen.
no subject
It shocks her. It's one of those instincts she doesn't have anymore. She has a humanlike, lifelike form on the Moonpaths but it's a careful construction to let her playact at being who she was. With it she can walk with the living, speak as they speak, even touch them. Before coming here she'd hugged Karal and An'desha in farewell, but if she ever wanted to express a deeper sympathy, then 'wings' were-
-stop. Stop, that's thinking about herself and she shouldn't right now. She also doesn't lean over and kiss him, absolutely convinced that he'd not take it as intended. He'll already probably be humiliated later and being babied will make it worse.]
That's part of the beast. To make the world unbearable - no, to make what's unbearable seem like all there is and ever will be. Until it seems there's only the one way to make it stop.
Many people find themselves reaching for that. I can't blame you for being one of them. [Even if she's having to keep herself from speculating how someone this worn has enough to do with emperors to have any chance to 'use' one.] And you could have done worse. You were given a choice to move forwards, and you took it.
It's a choice you have to make often, and sure, sometimes you don't take it, or can't. It's part of being a person. No one's strong or good all the time, it's not reasonable or realistic to expect of people. We're not just our worst moments.
no subject
His father would never have summoned Celehar into his presence, though, and he supposes, with a weak twitch of the corner of his mouth, that it ought to have been his first sign.]
It seemed to me Ulis's will. [And once more, following the reckless compulsion he feels the need to clarify,] I - was given a task, and had not realized until I was doing so once more that I had missed it terribly. Have you met that feeling? It is - a compulsion. I cannot explain it, for in truth there is much that is miserable and tedious about a Calling - and yet to give it up is the greater evil.
no subject
[Violence. Killing. It wasn't an inherent evil in the Sisterhood the way it was for many religions, but she'd last fought at all long years before she died and had been content in that. It had been a strange, savage joy to come to it again, even if that emotion had faded and muted over centuries. -No, do not tell him that. He already thinks she's soiled with blood.
Celehar might accept 'travel'. Need hadn't ever completely reconciled to settling down and living in one place for years on end, barely leaving it, but she'd resigned to it and there was something good about having a home. Admitting to herself that there was a positive to drifting, rootless, had been... complicated, she's aware. And there are other applications too. Besides, she's a creature that existed aware of how others thought and felt; she's 'met' plenty that was never hers, or not much.]
There's a satisfaction in filling a role. In doing something real. It's not the same, but I took up metallurgy when I wasn't much older than you, very old for it. It was grueling and most of what an apprentice blacksmith makes is nails. But it was so good to work with my hands, to make things that people would use, to notice things around me and think, I know how that was made. One of the Twins was Dina, the Crafter, and it was good to feel closer to him, too.
[She hadn't missed the battlefield, much, and those times when she was still called upon to take up arms, the end of a fight was always a relief, an adrenaline crash, that brought exhaustion with it.]
The gods have roles we can play. Some people never have even a fiction of a choice when it comes to taking those roles. Others do, even if refusing feels unthinkable.
no subject
He does the service to both of them of not asking if she resented her fate, whatever made her take up a new role older than she ought. What does it matter, in the end? If he had lived, he would have had only a few years left before his wick burned out. Resentful or not, the change must needs be made.]
I wonder which rests easier, in the end. To walk a path knowing no other, or to walk having chosen.
no subject
[She presses her lips together in a tight smile, realizing that now she's talking about putting her soul into her sword.]
If I say that in this I see myself, and a lot of people I've known, in you, is that easier to accept? We're all of us very different, but there are patterns, sometimes.
['I see you being like me and admire that' certainly sounds conceited, but she doesn't think Celehar will go directly to that conclusion.]
no subject
He clasps his hands together tightly, leaning forward that he might rest elbows on his knees where he sits, breathing through the tension that the strangely conflicting emotions brings to the fore in him.]
It would be folly for me to claim to be the only one with a Calling. Or to think myself the only one who has faced such adversity in following it.
[Does it bring him comfort to know there are others? Celehar can't say. Grief is such a personal thing. But it does not hurt, and that is perhaps the most important measure with which he gauges his existence.]
no subject
Nothing like that had occurred to her before she took it on herself to try to comfort him. She'd just... seen that intensification of the pain he carries and acted without thought. She can't just do that. She doesn't just do that. What's happening to her?
At some point Need's shifted to sit at his side, close enough so that when she settles her arm back down, her hand in her lap, the wet wool of her tunic sleeve is no more than an inch from the wet silk of the sleeve of his coat. She can still feel a warmth in her palm and the underside of her arm. It was good to touch someone.]
I probably shouldn't compare. There's a lot I don't know, and I don't mean to brush that aside. Sometimes I'm presumptive, and I forget myself.
no subject
No, you are right. Anora wouldst say the same, and browbeat me besides. [And he sounds wistfully fond of it, despite the words - the 'browbeating' of a friend he misses, now, the truth of it unlocked by the emotion still buoying him along in the moment.]
The complexities lie in the details of mine past, not the heart of the matter. I know not the extent of your own life, but of what I do, you have more right to say it than most, Othalo.
no subject
[Maybe Need should ask for a description and keep an eye out, in case he arrives after Celehar's gone. She fully believes she'll be Crossing longer than anyone else here.
In the timeline of the memory, Darkwind feels his heartache eased for now, and that his strength has returned, and it's time to get back to addressing the situation. Need-who-was withdraws her wings and her grasp. The embrace, the protection and love and understanding, fade back into a vaguer warmth.
Need as she is examines her hand where it's laid palm-up across her thigh and asks again.]
Are you all right?
no subject
Somehow, he still finds himself appreciating Need's solid presence at his side. It's easy to feel the physical warmth of another body at his side, to remember that this is a simple comfort. He remembers his impulse to reach out towards Dankovsky and grab his arm before the Crossing, wonders momentarily how the others are doing, out in the storm, and finds that this too aches, his emotional keel overturned in the wake of such an overpowering current.]
Ready enough to walk on. [It's a bit tremulous, and his eyes are going to be reddened for the rest of the walk, but he finds it true.]
Are you? [His eyes catch on the hand she's watching, placed as it is on her thigh, then settle onto her face.]
no subject
[Need was about to say 'Of course I am' but hesitates, confused. There's this weight in her seeming-of-a-body, and this odd and distant pain. Less about the place itself, more about emotion and the memory of Darkwind. Darkwind trusting her, starting a friendship that by all lights was fairly casual. She doesn't want to leave that, she realizes, and curls the fingers of that hand into a loose fist. Staying isn't an option, she's well aware. There's never any going back.]
You may have to take the lead.
[If she was advising someone in her position she'd sigh irritably and say 'Ask for help, you fool'. Unfortunately, the thought of needing help literally does not occur to her, let alone asking; the thought that she'll rally to follow if Celehar starts to walk away is the closest she's got.]
no subject
... We need not move on yet, Othalo. There is time.
[If only because, considering her solidity, he thinks that his attempts to bring her to her feet might end badly for the both of them, and the last thing he wants either of them to have to handle now is attempting to save face.]
no subject
Now you're humoring me, prelate. [She draws a deep breath and shifts her feet, but doesn't rise.]
I know I've got to go. It's nothing I haven't resigned myself to before.
no subject
[It only seems an equal trade, after the help she rendered him in the first Crossing, but he continues to watch her, his eyes calmer now having settled from the influx of emotion and the sudden withdrawal of it. Easier to let it now be quiet for a while, let Need gather herself for a little while.]
Is there aught else to say of him?
no subject
Just that he thought of me as a friend. Not a close one, but he enjoyed my company and thought of me as trustworthy.
[She probably doesn't have to say that that's rare.]
I'll go on remembering that, I think. I'll only forget meeting him.
[Being trusted, immediately, without fear. Tayledras are better-inclined to her than most people but not usually to this extent; certainly Firesong found her intimidating. Maybe his closeness with the gryphons softened Darkwind up.]
no subject
'Tis the losing things in parts that makes it easier, and yet more difficult all at once.
[He casts a sidelong glance at her.]
It makes it all the more difficult to say how it changes us. Or if we do. It seems to me that the paths we walk in our emotions are well-tread enough that it is not so easy to leave the patterns. Like wagon ruts on a trail.
no subject
[She puts a hand to her shoulder and works it, making the joint click, trying to ease the arthritic aches that only come back on and around the Crossing.]
That's my belief too. We've had to go on every day with the effects of what we've seen and chosen. It would take a lot to change me, regardless. [With a thin smile:] I'm not sure you'd believe it, if I told you how old I am.
no subject
[A touch of - amusement, is that it? But certainly wry agreement tugs at the corner of Celehar's mouth.]
But I do not mean to say that people cannot change or be changed, only that the effects of the initial form leave their mark. Like a secondhand coat, I suppose, if you forgive the inelegant metaphor.
no subject
[She huffs, too quickly and quietly to be quite a laugh.
Need knows that what's possible in Velgarth versus elsewhere is very different. Celehar's at least from somewhere with maza and Witnessing and devotion to gods who are regarded as solidly real, so he might be more likely to believe her than some of the others who don't have that. Anyway, she's not going to volunteer her guess without actually being asked.]
Well, yes. Set ways can be changed and I imagine forgetting does make that easier. I don't think we're actually disagreeing on this point.
(no subject)