Barabas Gilliam (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
weremongoose) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
acatalepsy_logs2019-02-03 07:58 pm
weremongoose) wrote in acatalepsy_logs2019-02-03 07:58 pm
[OPEN] The trouble it might drag you down
Who: Barabas & Anyone (plus closed top levels for Shiro & Maes)
Where: Around abut the temple
When: Upon his return from his two day disappearance for a canon-update.
Rating Generally benign -- some talk of violence, battle, ...a little dismemberment.
What: Barabas went and disappeared for a few days and got canon updated. So now he's back, with a lot to deal with.
[ Open - Kitchen ]
[By the time Barabas makes his way to the kitchen, he's well aware that he'd have to drown himself in an olympic size swimming pool of chamomile to have any sort of calming effect. But as that is not an option, he will content himself to brewing a pot of it and starting there.
He looks exhausted -- there are likely still a few leaves and twigs and various other pieces of flora clinging to his hair and his clothes from his trek through the temple woods. He normally makes a point to look as put together as their situation allows. Not right now.
There's too much in his head. It feels like he's been gone for -- god has it been years? It might have been years -- a long time, but he's come to terms with it only having been days in this place. Reconciling that is taking some doing.
The redhead will look up at the sound of anyone entering to offer a weary smile and gesture to the teapot beside him.] Care for tea?
[ Closed - Shiro ]
Link
[ Closed - Maes ]
Link
(( if anyone would like to run into him some other way, hit me up on plurk @![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
seasided or on discord @ seasided#5378 and I'd be happy to do something up ))
Where: Around abut the temple
When: Upon his return from his two day disappearance for a canon-update.
Rating Generally benign -- some talk of violence, battle, ...a little dismemberment.
What: Barabas went and disappeared for a few days and got canon updated. So now he's back, with a lot to deal with.
[ Open - Kitchen ]
[By the time Barabas makes his way to the kitchen, he's well aware that he'd have to drown himself in an olympic size swimming pool of chamomile to have any sort of calming effect. But as that is not an option, he will content himself to brewing a pot of it and starting there.
He looks exhausted -- there are likely still a few leaves and twigs and various other pieces of flora clinging to his hair and his clothes from his trek through the temple woods. He normally makes a point to look as put together as their situation allows. Not right now.
There's too much in his head. It feels like he's been gone for -- god has it been years? It might have been years -- a long time, but he's come to terms with it only having been days in this place. Reconciling that is taking some doing.
The redhead will look up at the sound of anyone entering to offer a weary smile and gesture to the teapot beside him.] Care for tea?
[ Closed - Shiro ]
Link
[ Closed - Maes ]
Link
(( if anyone would like to run into him some other way, hit me up on plurk @
no subject
Well, that tracks. I last saw you a few days ago, just figured we were either missing each other in the office or you were taking a few days away from here to clear your head. The last people I knew this happened to was Shiro and Keith, but I had only just met them at the time so I didn't think to ask them more about the experience. I think they experienced a similar time jump...for lack of a better term.
[Maes looks towards there piles of notes.]
It's strange to me that people don't remember their time here though. Is it purposefully blocked somehow? Or is it just like a side effect of the magic and intermingling of so many different worlds. The whole point of a paradox is it's not supposed to be able to exist. People shouldn't be able to come from different points in time or back from the dead...
[There's a pause, he's not really talked with Barabas about his own issues with being here and now he's toeing dangerously close to that line. He shakes his head, redirecting his thoughts.]
Astoria's talked about connections to worlds and people before, right? According to her our being here and our going to other worlds is based on that. What if when that connection breaks that's what sends us home, but the memories of this place stay with Astoria.
no subject
[Barabas is going to try to go over his past few days to see if he can figure if anything was out of the ordinary before he went and slipped.
But more importantly, he notices that pause there, Maes. And so his approach is delicate as he asks,]
Are there people among us who are dead in their worlds?
no subject
[Of course, that's assuming that what Astoria has told them about the whole 'connection' thing is actually true. Maes understands why most people are skeptical of her good intentions.
He tenses slightly. It's not that he'd been lying about it, but he'd definitely been avoiding the topic. It was bad enough dealing with the looks he got from Roy or Riza sometimes...not to mention when the Elrics and Winry had been here. The nice thing about people coming from so many different worlds is that most of them didn't know what had happened.
Still, he doesn't want to lie. At least, he doesn't want to lie to a friend.]
Yeah. At least, I know of one other. I had a whole conversation with him trying to convince him this wasn't some kind of after life.
[There's a pause. He runs his hand through his hair and just decides to admit to it. Although, wasn't this whole conversation supposed to be about dealing with Barabas coming back?]
It's more or less the same conversation Roy had to have with me when I first got here.
no subject
And he thinks they're standing in front of something unspoken, something heavy and lingering there in the unsaid.
But then Maes continues.]
Maes...
[This one hurts. Maes is far too young to be dead. And that little girl and his wife that he talks about with so much clear adoration, somewhere in a world without him. How is that fair? How is that right? But life so often isn't. The redhead shakes his head.] I'd say I'm sorry, but what a useless sentiment even if it's a true one.
no subject
He looks away, it's gotten easier to keep himself composed, but it's still a pretty heavy conversation.]
It's...something I avoid for just that reason. [Well, several reasons really.
At this point though, it might be easier to just get the rest out. If Barabas is going to know part of it, he should probably know the rest as well.] Both Roy and Riza are from a few years after the fact, but even before I heard from them I knew something had to be wrong. You don't lose as much blood as I did and live to talk about it usually.
[He feels sick suddenly as the memory washes over him. He still has nightmares sometimes and since he doesn't tend to talk about it, sometimes it still feels pretty fresh. That thing taking on the face of his wife. The gun shot. Maes reaches for a nearby chair and uses it as support, masking the motion by pulling it over to have a seat.]
What's even worse is, even though I'm alive here, I'm not sure it's even possible for me to return to Amestris without just....winding up in the same predicament.
[He'd thought of other possibilities. Sending letters back with Roy if this "mission" were ever to end. Tagging along with some other group back to their world in the hopes that he could continue a life there. The problem though was that neither option (dead or alive) really allowed him the one thing he wanted most of all: to get to see Gracia and Elysia again.]
no subject
[The words are light but his tone is quiet, and he falls silent to listen as Maes continues. He wants to know, to understand. ...he also wants to help. That urge is strong, even if he has no direction to set it in yet.
So for now, listening. And not commenting on the physical reaction he just witnessed.]
But you aren't sure it isn't possible either. You are alive here, and that's something. [A pause and he adds, with the certainty of a main who has recently witnessed it happen,] Death isn't always a one-way door.
no subject
It is something. And I'm going to do everything I can to fight for that existance to continue as well.
[Maes frowns at what comes after the pause, shaking his head slightly.]
I don't know if we're talking about the same thing here, but as far as I know where I'm from when humans messed with trying to restore people from the dead it didn't work out to tell for anyone involved.
[Edward and Alphonse had lost their bodies and from what Maes had gathered the thing they'd brought back wasn't even human. He was skeptical about it, but he'd been brought HERE somehow. So there had to be other ways.]
Is this related to something that happened on your...vacation?
no subject
[Maes is a friend. Barabas will do whatever he can to help his friend.]
Ah. Is that so? Interesting. Back home... it's not something I've seen before, but my friend died. Her husband had been expecting that possibility, and he'd prepped a solution -- consuming and then pouring enough divine energy into bringing her back that he accidentally also resurrected her psychopath reformed-muderer of an aunt.
[It was good times.]
no subject
I don't even know where to start with that one Barb. I really don't.
[He takes another minute, rubbing at the bridge of his nose.]
So, your friend's husband both obtained and consumed something your referring to as divine energy--like are we talking gods here? And then why would that also bring her psychotic aunt in the process?
I'm not an alchemist, but even I know enough to know that's not even remotely close to how that process is supposed to work.
no subject
If it makes you feel any better, neither did any of us.
[But right okay. Yes. He nods.]
That's right. Gods. Animal gods in particular. And well, at the time, psycho-aunt's spirit was bound to a dagger and she was hanging around as a ghost for a while. That and Kate's whole family has this connection through the blood thing? ...honestly Kate's level of fucked-up-weird is impressive even by post-Shift standards. She handles it really well though.
[He shakes his head.] I don't know a thing about alchemy, but none of what's been happening. My world gets stranger at every turn.
no subject
Not really. That just means it really is messed up.
[The explanation helps a little more...not much, but a little.]
Yeah that's...I'm not sure that's something we can pursue exactly. Roy could probably give you a better explanation of alchemy, though he gets fidgety when it comes to the stuff that would be close to what you're describing. Bringing people back from the dead is considered a taboo.
no subject
Then maybe I'll ask him about it sometime. It seems like something I'd like to understand. I'll be delicate.
[Because after all,] It likely should be a taboo in most cases. The power involved with it seldom comes without a heavy price.
[But Maes is already alive. Flesh and blood. Barabas can tell that much.]
no subject
[He's not sure how he feels about that prospective conversation. He's definitely sure it's not an avenue to pursue. So far the only one who seems capable of pulling humans here from near death is Astoria. But she never seems to quite understand how her own ability works anyway. It's not exactly reassuring.]
Still, it is a good idea to pool our resources. It's the benefit of having people from so many distinct worlds together, right?
no subject
[Life and death and all.
He nods in agreement with what Hughes says next though.]
I think so. If nothing else that's the greatest strength we have, separate from anything Astoria might offer us.
[Because it's independent of her. They are who they are and what they bring to this giant fucked up magical table.]