There's No Place Like Traumabonding for the Holidays

[beebs]

HOLIDAY MURDERGAME WHERE ARE THEY NOW MEME



It's the hap-happiest season of all, and what better way to celebrate than by remembering that one (or more) horribly traumatic experience that permanently changed the face of not only your relationships but possibly your outlook on life itself?

Any character (including NPCs!) who's ever been in any murdergame is invited! Feel free to share with your friends!

Regardless of how you choose to use this meme, there's two blanket rules:
1) Make sure the header of your comment has your character's name, home canon, and murdergame listed. If you used the same account for several murdergames, you can use the same toplevel for all of them.
2) No blank comments! First and foremost this is a chance to catch up with old murdergame buddies, and maybe make new ones if you choose! Thus, your comment should go into whatever degree of detail you like describing what life has been like since the murdergame ended. Did life go back to normal? Did they get married? Have a kid? Move to another universe entirely and start over with their found family? Have they kept in touch? Go into as much detail as you want, just put something!

You can use this meme to set up any kind of "canon" or canon-compliant holiday threads with your castmates, big holiday party or no.

OR... you can pretend that there's an interdimensional all-murdergame nondescript winter holiday party that you've been invited to attend! Maybe the Curtains narrators made sure the Denny's was conveniently empty (don't mind the weird old guy in the woods out back), or maybe there was some other convenient arrangement. Either way, you received an invite, and you're here now! So spike the eggnog and check for mistletoe, because the night is probably going to get wild.

(If you're not down for one option or the other, just note that somewhere in your top-level.)

Have fun, and Happy Holidays!

Comments

[ranked27]

Indeed, it seems there's a startling variety of people out there -- and the point we all have in common is that we have gone through bloodshed and mayhem. My, my, small world.

[There's this man. This party's invitations are quite powerful, bringing him back to life even if it's for a while. He sure won't say no to a bit of a break from, you know, being dead]

[scribbly]

[She's in the middle of putting together a plate of food—mostly sweets—as they speak, so she isn't really looking at him, not right away. The way his voice strikes something in her doesn't stop her from continuing:] It's almost too bad, you know? But I guess if stuff like that is gonna happen, it's good that everyone can...

[And then she turns around.

Mary's whole expression falls, eyes gone wide, jaw hanging open. But this can't be right. All these impossible things, but this seems like too much. She squeezes her eyes shut, hard enough that her vision is fuzzy when she opens then again. When it clears, he's still there.

It occurs to her that of course he doesn't recognize her. By her teenage standards, she's practically an adult now. Taller, more confident in the way she carries herself, trading her frilly dress for paint-stained jeans. But even so, she hesitates, her throat closing up around an introduction. It takes her a moment to finally manage to say something—quiet, careful, uncertain. Not ready to hope she's right.]

Ronove?

[ranked27]

[Ronove had seen Mary soon after arriving. He hadn't been able to recognize her right away, but after a while -- finding out Ib was there too, Mary's interests, and the resemblance that is still there, made it likely this indeed was Mary.

But even if she was, he had thought, that didn't mean it was the same Mary he once knew. He had seen Kyrie to a side, and although he made sure not to interact with her he figured out that wasn't the same Kyrie that had been in that game, so perhaps this was a different Mary. That thought was...a little disheartening.

So when he approached, gave a pretty noncommittal comment, he wasn't sure what to expect. Mary immediately knew who he was, and that's when he knew: this really was her.

Ronove bows, hiding his expression, but it's not hard to tell he's very relieved and glad right now]

Indeed. I'd offer you something to greet you, but there was no time to prepare anything for a reunion. I will have cookies for you next time we meet.

[If it happened once, it will happen again -- and of course, he will do his damn hardest to figure out how to have something next time. Death shouldn't stop a remarkable butler like him from doing what he does best, after all]

[scribbly]

[It's him. It's really him. He has all that certain steadiness and easy consideration—that he remembers the cookies, that he says next time—that helped make him a bastion when she had been more lost than ever.

Mary smiles, a little, in the shaky way of someone unsure if the expression is the right one, or if it will even hold. There's a break in her voice, too, when she speaks, with the same kind of unsteadiness.]

Maybe we can trade. Everyone tells me I've gotten pretty good at baking, too.

[She takes a breath. It's careful, like there's a part of her afraid that if she does too much the moment will shatter and she will lose it and she will lose him again.]

It's really you.

[And then you know what? Fuck it. Utterly careless, she lets her sketchbook and her plate clatter to the floor as she flings open her arms and lunges at him for a hug.]

[ranked27]

I'd gladly try anything you'd bake.

[Why, he sure would try it and then deliver a careful and very well thought critique on the quality of the baking, for constructive purposes. Pretty much a treatise because baked products and good tea are something he cares about greatly.

Mary may have left decorum aside, but even when given such a tempestuous hug, Ronove keeps up the professionalism...for like a second, before she pats Mary on the head. He can't help it, he's quite glad]

Mary, you have grown splendidly. I trust your life has been peaceful and free of any worries.

[He really hopes so, at least. This girl deserved only good things, and if anyone got in the way of that he sure is going to remember it and seek just retribution somehow. Demons aren't to be underestimated! Dead demons...probably aren't to be underestimated either]

[scribbly]

[She is trying her very best not to sob, because if she starts she doesn't know if she'll ever stop, but it isn't working entirely—she sniffles against Ronove's shirt, hugging him tighter as he pats her head. He's solid here, and real, and here, and she holds on like if she stops he'll be gone.]

Yeah! Yeah, it... [Though she pulls her face away enough to at least speak, she barely knows what to say. She's a brand new person now, in more ways than one, but at the same time, she feels like that little girl delighted, despite all else, to do something new alongside someone who cared about her.] I live with Ib, her parents adopted me. I've been to the beach, I'm, I'm doing pretty okay in school, I... [The words tumble out, all these things that matter even if they don't make sense. There's so much to say, she's lived such a life, she does not know where to begin or what is important or what she has time for. It's all too good to stay, isn't it?]

Oh! And, I'm, I'm learning how to do tattoos!

[Potentially an alarming prospect, considering old times. When she finally releases him, she sniffs again first, wiping her eyes with the heel of her palm and her nose with the back of her hand. Then she pulls her sleeve up and presents her arm to Ronove so he can see the art crawling all up and down it.]

The first one I did—well, first I did a couple just to practice, you know? [She points at a few clumsily-drawn roses here and there on her arm, not any bigger than a large coin.] The first real one I did was this, though.

[There's a butterfly on her wrist. A little scribbly, but in a way that feels intentional. One wing green, one wing yellow.

She supposes she doesn't know if a ghost would keep those sorts of marks. It feels like it's been so, so long; if they don't, would he remember?]

To...to match.

[ranked27]

[It's unfortunate that ghosts don't get to keep any marks. Perhaps it's for the best to be back to a pristine state]

'If you feel daring make it with two colors.'

[He remembers, indeed! Looks like he has a pretty great memory -- and still not a hand for art. Back then, he wasn't enjoying himself on this particular challenge because he doesn't have a hand for art, and he has enough pride to not want to embarrass himself. Nowadays...yeah, he'd say without a doubt Mary has surpassed his middling artistic ability by leaps and bounds. Perhaps that she dared to practice and improve, even using herself, is a sign of it, of how she was ready to get better at this]

You have gone far enough in this craft you have dwarved my own [nonexistent] skills. If you bring me baked products when we next meet I will show you my own attempt at this, pu ku ku...

[...correction, even though he has enough pride to not want to embarrass himself, he still likes Mary enough he'd tolerate making a fool of himself a bit. It's a given that if he tries to draw anything on himself it's going to look pretty mediocre!]

[scribbly]

[He remembers! Her face lights up like the sun and she smiles so hard it hurts a little. It could have so easily been a moment tossed aside as unimportant, forgotten and moved on from, for anyone but her. For anyone who hadn't spent countless lonely years in the gallery, who had never in her life had so happy a day as she did when she could indulge in her favorite hobby with people who cared for her for the very first time.

There have been plenty of happy days since. She still holds that one so close.

But there is, as she adjusts, without rolling her sleeve back down, something that shifts. It's the delight in her eyes instinctively shining at the thought of them playing that game all over again faltering against realization. It's the way her voice goes soft when she answers him.]

Tell me the truth. [It is not a request she ever makes, because she can count on one hand the number of people she trusts to honor it. One of them is Ib, and two of them are dead.] Do you really think there's going to be a next time, too..?

[Seeing him now is already too much to even hope for. How can he keep speaking so easily of seeing her again after this?]

[ranked27]

If you ask for the truth, then I will answer: I cannot guarantee it. This might be the last time we meet.

[It's blunt, but Mary has gone through a lot, overcame it, and has been living a good life, he judges she can hear such things without softening it up. Realistically speaking, meeting today was astronomically unlikely due to, well, obvious reasons]

However.

[Oh, there's more]

That we met today is an immovable, unquestionable fact. It should have been impossible, yet something made it happen, for reasons as frivolous as a holiday party. We may not know the cause nor the reason, but nothing indicates it's impossible it will happen again, just like this or in any other way.

Don't make seeing each other again be a goal to strive for, but don't close off to the possibility it can happen. Think of it as rolling the same number a dozen times with dice for fun. It will be remarkable when it happens, but you lose nothing if it doesn't.

[And since Ronove isn't one to leave things up in the air, of course he's going to be prepared if such a situation happens again. Saying things like 'if' won't do, because now that it happened once, nothing says it won't happen again, and when it does he'll be prepared, as it's only right]

Besides, this is a holiday party. Holidays happen on a yearly basis, don't they? If the host is consistent, next year there should be one to.

[So if it happens again it's likely it will be in a situation like this one!]

[scribbly]

[Of course her expression falters at his answer, but how could it not? Still, the Mary he met all those years ago wouldn't have left it at that; she would have screamed and kicked and cried and lashed out against the horrible unfairness of it all. A part of her wants to, of course, but she has been through enough that she knows how little good it would do. She has enough of a life now that she knows this is not the end of it, no matter how it feels.

And yet, there's a but.

It's enough that Mary settles, just so. It's more than enough, isn't it? That she has spent a life carrying the weight of mourning and for just now, even if it's only now, she gets to put it down. Still, she is always the sort of girl who wants more.

But it is enough that she can make a big display of pressing a finger into her cheek, hmmming in deep thought over this. There is no helping, despite her dramatics, the light returning to her eyes with the desperate hope that there will be another holiday party and another meeting.]

How's this, then? When this party is over [and she cannot help the way her voice catches, just a little] I'll keep believing we might meet again. But I'm going to treat it like we won't when we do, just to be safe.

If that's a deal, so is the cookie trade, 'kay?

[ranked27]

You do well. I say once again, you have grown splendidly -- not just in age, but in wisdom too.

[He extends a hand]

It is a deal. Do me a favor and shake this hand with as much energy as you can. Show your determination through it!

[Deals are to be sealed with determination, after all! No matter how unimportant or how vital the deal is, that's how it should be done!]

[scribbly]

...Thanks. That...means a lot, you know?

[She would not be able to articulate it as such, but it feels like being told she was, in fact, worth protecting all that time, in the end.

ANYWAY LOCAL TEENAGER ABOUT TO MAKE PACT WITH DEMON, and she very eagerly takes his hand and shakes it with entirely more enthusiasm than is professional!! she was given a JOB she is going to be as DETERMINED AS POSSIBLE!!!]

There! It's official! No takesies backsies!