bakerstreet | Washed Up on the Beach

Washed Up on the Beach

The boundlessness and daring unchained nature of the sea captured the attention of writers and historians and adventurers for centuries; it still does! Exploration, conquest, commerce, and luxury all find roots in uncharted waters, be they ocean or large inland sea or freshwater lake and river. Along with those marks of growth come some consequences, born of nature and man: namely, several ways in which you might find yourself…

Washed Up on the Beach

Not quite sure how you got here? There are a few starter options to consider:

1. Shipwreck: Did it go down in a storm? Lose a fight with pirates? Ignore the warnings of a competent lighthouse-keeper (or see no warnings at all due to a competent one)? Whatever the cause, your ship is lost and you survived, somehow. This applies to lakes and rivers, too, which can be just as tempestuous with a bit more potential for settled, "modern" life springing up around them.

2. Vacation Misfortune: Surfing lesson or session gone wrong? Lose your kayak and your paddle? Not quite the island tour/lakeside town fishing expedition/flight across the sea you expected? Jumping from tall seaside cliffs doesn't always have an easy ending, either. Maybe you were caught in a riptide and managed to get through it, but you definitely aren't where you started...

3. Lost at Sea: Can coincide with a shipwreck, but you might also be an intrepid explorer seeking new and uncharted islands, or someone on the run from an overbearing family or one too many failed assignments. Or you just plain can't read a map and work a sextant at the same time, and your compass doesn't point north.

4. Walk the Plank: Of course, for the less ethically inclined there is always piracy in its various forms. A prisoner or a renegade acting for his own benefit can be forced off the ship into the sea and whatever awaits him there; a stowaway or thief aboard could meet a similar fate.

5. Crossing Lines: Speaking of the criminal realm, if you run afoul of the wrong crowd in a port city, or you are the wrong crowd and you screw up one time too many, there's no law in that lawless profession saying they can't truss you up and toss you off the nearest dock. Hopefully you find some benevolent help after that.

6. Too Close to Land: What if the water is your natural home? Drawing too close to the shallows leaves you subject to crashing waves and sandburn, among other things; stay for too long as the tide ebbs, and you might get beached. Weather is probably a factor for you, too, as the hot sun and changing tide leave you dry quickly, or a storm rolling in makes the surf churn and pull.

It doesn't have to be one of these! There are near-countless variations on how and why and with what means one ends up washed up on the beach (unconscious, or drifting in on a makeshift raft, or swimming for shore, or looking for new discoveries - or any combination thereof), all of which include just a bit of suspension of disbelief. Maybe it's tropical; maybe it's frigid. Be bold. Be creative. AU stuff, one person in another's canon stuff, completely unrelated but you think it would be cool to play this out stuff: everything goes.

Setting up your initial post with some kind of scene suggestion is recommended, but not required.

Tag other people. Become the rescuer, actively seeking to assist after an accident or rumor you heard, or a fellow survivor/explorer, or someone taking their beachcombing find captive (alone or as part of a larger collective), or someone sent to fetch the missing person for straightforward or nefarious purposes. You don't even need to be the person making the discovery! Maybe you're introducing the washed-up victim to life in his or her new environment instead, a walk about town or a lesson in how to do the hard labor required of such vagrants. This isn't an explicitly smut or violence-ish meme but it could happen, so please take note and warn or describe permissions accordingly.

And have fun!

original posted here!

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[Excellent :3]

[It's half an hour to sunrise - the streets are still dark, but there is a glimmer in the sky betraying what is about to occur, and Malin is using the time when there are no humans nor vampires around to walk out into the open a bit more. Not really in the open, she stays in the shadows that are still deep and is, as always in towns or cities, wearing her huge, long coat that covers everything but her boots, but she has the hood thrown back, so her bat ears can move freely on top of her head, stand 8" at the tips above the snake-like scales covering the rest of her head, that just generally resembles a yellow snake.

She stops when she sees the man sitting at the beach, squinting, wondering if she is interpreting correctly what she is seeing. Perhaps yes, perhaps her hunch is wrong, but if it is wrong, she could get some more nourishment before she has to retire for the day.

And if her hunch is right, she can perhaps get in a few minutes of conversation with someone who will be too dead in an hour to rat her out to whoever controls this city. She hasn't really spoken to anyone in ages. It's a draw too strong to resist, risky as it is.

Her voice is young and female and, surprisingly for something coming from her body, the deformity of which not even the oversized coat can really hide, very pleasant.]

How much longer are you planning on staying here?

[It's fairly obvious to her, or at least she hopes that she's reading things right; but it's as good a starter for a conversation as any, or at least any that she can think of. She's fairly out of practice with small talk.]

[The sunrise is the one thing that Kei missed the most. Out of every color and experiance from the human world he misses the feeling of heat washing over his skin and the small peaks of light as they rise above the horizon. The man who turned him had had a sick fascination with it as well and while the sun might burn and mar his otherwise perfect skin he wanted to see it, even if it was for one last time.

He feels the other creature step beside him, his senses alarming him the instant that she nears. He doesn't move but instead keeps his body perfectly still, his arm draped over his right knee while his other hand leans against the sandy shore. The granules of sand fall against his fingers as gravity pushes them to their resting spot against the earth. He continues to watch the horizon his words slow, smooth and measured with an eerie calm that came from years of life after death.]

I want to see the sunrise.

[He exhales slowly though he doesn't need to breathe. It's simply a pleasurable sensation to feel his lungs fill and empty with each breath.]

And what about you?

[The breathing doesn't quite fit, but it also sounds ...not quite right. She might not have noticed that just a decade ago, but her ears are really something else now.]

...I just want to talk, I guess.

[She doesn't sit down yet, doesn't dare to put herself into a position from which she will have a slight disadvantage, especially with the big coat surrounding her.]

Not until sunrise. But if you're going to see it.

[Her face cannot portray much emotion anymore, but her voice can and does: Hesitance, a hint of shyness, need. Distrust, too, a lot of that, uneasiness overcome by want.]

[Kei simply doesn't care anymore. The world has stolen away the things he's loved and left him alone. There were times when he wondered if he could love and yet he knows that it might simply be a fleeting notion.

He doesn't look up at the girl when he speaks. His tone sounds impatient and yet it is laced with a teasing sort of candor that is usually reserved for old men.]

If you want to talk sit. You're to tall up there.

[For Kei it doesn't matter what position he's in. If he wants to move quickly he can move within the blink of an eye. He simply doesn't care.]

[It might be the notion of age in his voice more than anything that makes her sit down quickly, only pausing to make sure that all of her remains covered by the coat. She cannot quite hide the talons sticking out of the long sleeves when she puts them down on the ground, shifting a bit until she has found a position that she feels comfortable in.

He reminds her of Lars, a bit. Her... she isn't sure any more what to think of him. If the Prince was right, if he had truly sired and then abandoned her only to adopt her under the pretence that he had done neither, he hadn't been generous at all but rather terrible to her. But he had been friendly enough all throughout their time together, as friendly as anyone had every been to her, and stable. She feels a bit of that in those words, and thus she doesn't shy away from the half-order like she might have done otherwise.]

Sorry.

[She fidgets a bit more with her coat, watching him out of the corner of her eye.]

...Can you tell me more about this city?

[She would accept any type of conversation, but that is also something that she would like to know more about. She's never been this far to the south and east, she never thought that she ever would be.]

[Kei continues to watch the sky line, waiting, praying for the sun to crest over the horizon. He feels it a ways off but the anticipation grows. His relaxed hand digs into his pocket and pulls out a cigarette which he positions lightly between his lips. Another movement into his pocket and he's pulling out a small black lighter. Fire bursts at the tip of the bud and as he inhales he holds out the pack to offer her one as well.]

There are a lot of bad people in this town.

[He's killed and drank enough for them to know.]

Most are here because they can't afford to go anywhere else. I wouldn't stay here or you might never leave.

[She flinches at the minor burst of fire so close to her, all but crawling away from him, but manages to fight the urge down for the moment.

And then watches him in rapt fascination as he actually starts smoking. ...Sure, he's waiting for the sunrise, but that's a different level. Maybe it's normal in some places, but she can't remember ever having seen a vampire smoke this casually and without need. For more reasons than one, but the existence of fire that close and unprotected to one's face and the breathing thing are two good reasons.]

I meant other Kindred. [Did he misunderstand her on purpose? Or is he trying to convey some other message? Probably the latter, it's always the latter, isn't it? Corners of her brain that haven't been in use for a good long while try to kick themselves into work and come up short. She has no idea.] ...Vampires. Who controls this city?

[Surely it is big enough to have some sect or the other claim it. But... but then he is strange, and she suddenly remembers the rumours that she has heard about the Kindred of the East. Different, dangerous, hostile, mysterious, much better than their human counterparts at not letting western Kindred get a foot in the door. But he seems to not be hostile at all towards her, presumably because he can't be bothered any more, so even if any of those rumours were true, she will probably be fine.]

Edited 2016-10-27 10:07 (UTC)

[He likes the smell of smoke and the warmth that floods from the end of the lit bud. Fire's never bothered him simply because he can escape most flames that might cause him harm; everything except the sun. The smoke dulls his sense of smell making him smell only the intoxicating allure of the cigarette and not the ranging pollution of the city.

Kei almost laughs when she clarifies her question.] This city isn't controlled by Vampires.

[Kei finally turns towards her inhaling the sweet smoke.] No one wants this city. [It's all gone to shit.] There are human gangs, they know enough about us to keep a vampire from taking over any real power. We're the worst kept secret.

[What had the reports said? A mutation in his DNA. He doesn't remember anymore.]

[That's...

She tries to dig out what she's been told about Kindred history and the general state of the Masquerade around the world. It's been buried by months (years, really, if you count her time as Lise's subject of experimentation, but she still tried to cling to her humanity with all that she had in her back there) of not using those lines of thinking, of learning nothing new, and after her escape of not bothering to think about politics, history or anything akin to it at all. But she can still recall the main items. That vampires had been the worst kept secret - or no secret at all, really, up until the age of Inquisition when humans found a way to combat them effectively, and that many Kindred met final death at that time. That by the end many came together to agree on the Masquerade and some of those in turn went on to form the Camarilla, though some could see no reason because they were insane fanatics and formed the Sabbat instead. That the Masquerade, creating, furthering and upholding humanity's ignorance of vampires' existence, not separating their societies but disallowing vampires to work openly in the human one, was what made the world safe for the Kindred.

So what he's telling her... It is a bit hard to wrap her head around, especially with how she's getting the feeling that he is different from the vampires that she's used to. But she can read out of his words that whatever structure this city has, it is completely different from what she encountered in Copenhagen, and that the claim of the Camarilla that the fall of the Masquerade would bring on a second Inquisition were at least not completely off the mark.]

But they aren't trying to destroy you?

[Perhaps she could stay here. She's used to things having gone to shit. But if there are no vampires here who will destroy her if they find her, and humans somehow coexist while knowing ...that still leaves the matter of her appearance. It probably isn't an option. Still, there is a sliver of hope in her voice.

It isn't that she is tired of travelling, of having nowhere to rest her head, but she is tired of running. Running from a danger that grows more diffuse as she moves, but that still remains stark in her mind. Her unlawful siring won't make a difference this far away, but her appearance does, and she has been told that what she did can be spotted quite easily with the right skillset - cannibalizing another vampire. And places where there are no vampires usually mean that there lupines. It would help if she knew more about the parts of vampire society that are not Camarilla, especially about her own clan, but she had precious little time to gather knowledge before things went to shit. And not knowing how others might react to her - she isn't desperate enough yet to seek out someone who might easily just try to kill her upon sight.

But if vampires have no power here, and humans coexist with them... Perhaps even someone who looks as inhuman as her can carve out a space for themselves.]

[Kei takes a moment to watch her, his eyes reading beyond what's there to see. She isn't wrong about her knowledge of the Masquerade but this city, Kei, are different. He watches as the city changes and perhaps his influence here has changed it more than it might have otherwise. Sho is in charge of one of the larger gangs in the city while other old friends of his have fallen to the other side of the fight. Kei wants nothing to do with it. The city is dying and the people only tear at the wounds until it festers and bleeds. There is no sunlight for those who walk in the darkness.

His head turns and he stares towards the horizon once again. There is nothing to do but wait for the sun. He feels the pressure against his senses as day nears. There is still time and the pace of it's coming is almost agonizing him or perhaps it's because he's thinking of the past, of those who used to fight off the ever pressing loneliness.

Kei's hunger stirs beneath that feeling, wanting to live and thrive.] I never said that.

[He pinches his cigarette between his lips and carelessly flicks the embers into the sand.] It's more complicated than a simple answer to a question. You gotta figure it out. [They're still monsters.]

[For a moment, rebellion rears its head and she wants to shoot back harshly, that is easy to say for you, you still look normal, but the rebellious urge hits a padded ceiling quickly and dies down into simmering, futile anger.]

You can't figure things out very well without talking to people and hanging out in the open. And I can't really do either any more without people noticing me immediately, and noticing ...what I am, or that I am not a proper person.

[Because that is what it feels like. The few times that Lars talked about Gangrel who looked somewhat like she does now, they had gained their animalistic trait over centuries or millenia, had had some control over the general circumstances and were very powerful on top. They had time to get used to it, and got power in return. She doesn't know how they feel or felt about themselves, but even if they weren't proper people anymore, they still had a better chance of dealing with their appearance. She mentally eyerolls at herself. So she's jealous of stories now. How useful.]

I only came to talk to you because you are as good as dead anyway.

It's a risk you have to take. If you want to that is.

[He continues to speak in a passive tone. She's right, he does look human but that doesn't always make it easier for people to accept him. It makes it easier for people to consider him as human but his true colors are far different from that.]

Your future depends on you.

[It's a simple concept but it's true. Just as he's choosing to end his own future today. With the sight of the one thing he's missed more than anything else. His eyes turn back towards the horizon as the waves continue to crash rhythmically against the shore.]

[And on what kind of cards life has dealt to you without your own input. But she doesn't comment on it, because that is just how it is in her experience - you get dealt the crappiest bunch of cards possible and then you're still expected to play even when you can impossibly win.]

And because of that I don't want to cut it short by walking into danger when I can avoid it.

[She'll probably just move on, eventually, though she might stay longer than she intended to originally. What little information he has given her makes that sound like a good plan.]

...Why are you sitting out here?

[Suicide or other kinds of unnatural deaths aren't that far removed from her experience, but she's never understood them, so there is genuine curiosity in her words. She has never had the chance to speak to someone who was actively working on it and in no way defensive about the whole process, or someone that she or someone else was trying to stop.]

[Life isn’t about winning or losing. In Kei’s mind it’s something far vaguer, unattainable. You live life to live. That simple joy and ecstasy of feeling and experiencing but what do you do when those feelings are cut off, leaving only the absence of what you once loved.

Kei hums softly, his head rolling on his shoulders as it tilts to the side.] It’s your choice. [He doesn’t really care what she does though he continues to find it curious that she’s sitting with him now.]

Waiting for the sunrise.

[He replies in a quieter voice.]

It’s what I miss the most. So I wanted to see it one last time.

No.

[She shakes her head. That much is obvious and wasn't the question - or at least she assumed that it was obvious enough that it needn't be mentioned.]

Why do you want to meet final death?

[He doesn't look over at her when she speaks.]

I think I've lived long enough. I don't see it as a bad thing like some might. One day, everything will die.

Why do you think you lived long enough?

[She makes no move to get up even as the sky slowly brightens. As long as she is fast when the actual sun appears, she'll survive, even though it isn't advisable to stay that long.

But this question is the crux of what she is wondering. How can anything trump the will to survive?]

[Kei replies in a slow voice. He can feel the sun as it begins to rise before he see's the touch of the bright ray's across the sky. Five minutes and the sun will burn him leaving nothing of him but a memory.]

I've lived. I've experienced. I've loved. I'm tired of it.

[It's as simple as that. He's tired of being alone and he's felt all he wants to.]

[No, she cannot understand it.

But she needs to go, and soon.]

...You had a good life, and lost it?

[Perhaps she has always been too busy just surviving, too caught in the present, to properly get the feeling. Maybe she's never lost enough. Or rather, not fallen from a place high enough to not hit the ground running.

Maybe she is just lucky to have a brain wired to alert, to survival, without even knowing what to live for. Just live.]

Life isn't worth living if you're all alone. Other define you and give you purpose, value and something more than just what you are.

[His voice is soft and as he looks towards the horizon his expression is grateful. This is the moment he's been waiting for.]

...Life is more than that.

[It's a whisper. She can't continue - she can't define the "more" - but she knows that she doesn't want to stay until the sun takes her.

And she doesn't want to intrude on his private moment, either, because that is what it feels like. Intimate. So she stands, looking over to the east.

...Perhaps, though, she should look again into not living alone. Perhaps it is time for a gamble, for an attempt to return to some kind of society.]

Something better than life can certainly be found.

Then find it.

[He doesn't look towards her as she stands but continues to wait as the rays of sun peek over the curve of the earth. For the first time in their conversation he's smiling at the sight.

She might not understand but he's happy now, ending things like this and finally being able to see the sun.]

[She'll leave him silently, her feet barely audible on the ground as she retreats back into the darkness, away from the rays that will soon scorch the ground where she sat.]

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Washed Up on the Beach

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History lesson by John Snow (as in, her knowledge is super limited. And biased.)

Good Lesson

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I have an icon now :3 so that's what he is seeing, just with a coat on top

Nice

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