𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘 𝐊𝐄𝐄𝐏 𝐆𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐓 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐀𝐙𝐄 ▣ AUGUST TDM

[saltburntmods]

AUGUST 2025 TDM: BALANCE

Welcome to SALTBURNT, a panfandom smut/thriller game based off the film Saltburn, where characters are encouraged to indulge their deepest desires. The money never runs out and the liquor never stops pouring, so you may as well indulge from the bounty. Of course, things are rarely what they seem, and the manor itself seems to have a consciousness of its own. Throw parties, trash the house, engage in youthful merriment, but remember — dangers come out at night, and no one, no matter how rich you are, is safe from demons lurking in the shadows.

Threads can be considered game canon, provided the players agree. Players can also start fresh upon acceptance into the game. In game characters can post to the TDM directly, using « NEW CHARACTER/IN GAME» in the header. There will be a spot below for new characters to link their toplevels for easy access. Alternatively, prompts on the Test Drive can be used for in game logs.

GOODBYE TO SALTBURNT

CONTENT WARNINGS: house fire.

The day starts much like any other — at least in the first few moments of consciousness, chased to morning light by the pounding of a hangover, the sweaty night terrors soaking your sheets, or the scent of breakfast on the rise through the house. Well, it seems someone must've burnt the bacon, now that your nose wakes you up, which is highly unusual for the skilled chefs here at Saltburnt. Flutter your eyes open and see a pillowy cloud of smoke filtering under your door, something that manages to finally alert you to the danger you're in. Out in the hallway, flames lick up the walls, smoke and ash burning your eyes. The next move is obvious: grab whatever you can carry and get out, as quick as you can. It seems that place you've called home for a day or a year is going up in flames.

Outside, flames engulf one wing of the huge manor, invaluable trinkets laid out on the lawn from the help, usually invisible, running in and out to grab what they can spare from the flames. Of course, people offer their helpful services — tending to burns and smoke inhalation, trying to put out the fire from whatever means they have, be it buckets of water stolen from the lake, or magical prowess from the population of guests. Regardless, the fire rages, and only manages to cease when about half of the house has been burnt down to structurally questionable bones, ashy remains, and the occasional falling cinder of burnt wood.

Before the mess, the Balfours stand in a range of different emotions — irritation from Bunny, paranoia from Rosie. The only one who manages to attempt to find a silver lining is Portia, whose plastic smile twitches around her watery eyes, hand cinched in an iron grip around Jonty's. There's a pleading look in her eyes for all of a moment before the patriarch of the family springs (more, dustily sways) into action, calling forth, "Giles!"

The man in question appears, soot-coated and harrowed, yet still immaculately well put together, bowing slightly at the waist. "Sir?"

"The —" he starts, somewhat unsure of himself, before solidifying his resolve. "The camping gear. In the shed."

A firm nod, manners impeccable. "At once, sir."

LIVING OFF THE LAND

CONTENT WARNINGS: nsfw themes.

By mid-morning, you'll find Portia Balfour has taken … liberties with the lawn decor. Aside from a brief intermission spent sobbing at the manor's scorched stonework, the lady of the manor does what she does best (in Portia's very modest opinion): she beautifies. Gone is the sad, sad state of all that empty sprawling green; what stands in its place is an encampment of tents stretching from the gardens to the forest boundary. And not your mother's backyard camping equipment, either — that would be so terribly basic and blase, darling. They're much more exciting than that. Fresh out of the imagination of someone who clearly consolidated ideas from flipping through a Martha Stewart Magazine and browsing Coachella's website, the bell tents (100% cotton, Portia is too happy to share with you) come in a lovely selection of colors. Beige, buff, biscuit, oatmeal, fawn. And Portia's personal favorites: the chartreuse, and a shade that closely resembles bile.

At your look of confusion, or distress, or perhaps distinct horror, Portia announces, with a stiff smile to rival a fresh dosage of Botox: "It's fine. It's fine! I wanted an excuse to finally redecorate, anyway. We'll just— we'll make a retreat out of it, my lovelies."

Well, where else are you going to go? Outside of each tent, Giles and his fellow staff have taken the time to generously assign you and your former suitemate to a shared tent, your names scribbled together in obnoxiously joyful cursive on a bright chalkboard. Just in case your amateur eyes can't distinguish between beige and oatmeal. Of course, mistakes are made. You can't possibly expect the housestaff to remember all of your names, or who you've shared space with before the "Little Setback", as Portia has taken to calling it. Some of you might find yourselves paired up with the wrong partner in the mix-up and reshuffling of housing arrangements, while others — without suitemates, or freshly arrived — find themselves shoved together by Giles' subpar matchmaking skills.

Whoever the two of you happen to be, you'll find that — while the interior is positively spacious — some concessions had to be made. Namely: there is, in fact, only one bed. Or, in your case, only one sleeping bag. Designed to lovingly cradle two bodies in disturbingly close proximity, your organic, artisan cashmere sleeping bag comes with only a narrowed zipper for entry and one built-in memory foam pillow, so you can meditate by listening to your partner's breathing at all times. Portia's private DJ turned ex-fling turned self-proclaimed intimacy coach, Ezio, insists it helps you and your partner connect to the same emotional frequency for maximum bonding. Whatever that means.

Luckily, not all of your belongings were unsalvageable. Giles has painstakingly begun the process of transferring supplies into your tent, from changes of clothes to personal effects to underwear you're 70% sure belong to another resident. Among them, you'll find both a camp counselor uniform that looks like it was pulled off the rack from an adult novelty shop, and a pair of athletic short-shorts and white tank tops for your scheduled summertime activities.

The generosity doesn't end there — with Ezio's advice, Portia has arranged a gift bag for each tent, meant to strengthen ties amongst the House's residents. What better time to connect than in the wake of such a tragedy? Inside, guests will find: a guided erotic meditation track, mood-boosting meditative candles in scents such as Nag Champa and Afternoon Scrapbooking, a set of silk ribbons with slogans reading Surrender and Trust, heated massage oils marked for tension release, an ergonomically-shaped crystal pleasure wand sculpted from Rose Quartz meant for "grounding and release", silicone bands for your, ahem, instrument to help harness your "root chakra", and a guided positions manual for Kama Sutra with Portia's favorites meticulously circled. Happy healing!

No summer camp trip would be complete without activities. Ezio, allergic to wearing anything that isn't a breathable speedo, leads a series of trust-building exercises. A blindfolded obstacle course, set up with chairs hauled down from the attic as well as pool noodles and cardboard boxes, requires one partner to lead the other successfully to the end. Ezio's twist? You can only direct your partner through sincere, heartfelt compliments in the vein of, "you look so pretty when you're confused." If you lose patience and swear, you're forced to mandatorily hug each other — medically effective to reduce your blood pressure! For the detail-oriented, there's the Human Scavenger Hunt. Sitting in meditative circles, you're given a list of clues to find on your partner's body, ranging from locating the part of their skin that's softest to finding their ticklish points. That birthmark on your buttcheek will come to light. For the more athletically inclined, there's the honeyspoon race — with your mouth as the spoon. It's your job to transfer as much honey as you can into your partner's mouth without spilling. Or perhaps you'd prefer less mouth-to-mouth contact in the piggyback race, or a vanilla and traditional game of Tug of War, or even Bunny Balfour's strange rendition of Jason at Camp Crystal Lake. Those of you who can't outrun the killer get helped to a nice dousing of red food coloring you can cleanse off in the communal showers positioned at the treeline, with nothing blocking the rest of the camp's view of your natural assets.

Mealtimes are rigidly run as scheduled by Giles' demand, though the Balfours' menu is rather limited to simpler cuisine this month. Toad in a Hole, Angels on Horseback, Bubbles and Squeak, and what looks to be a charming attempt at S'mores served on digestive biscuits — all dutifully charred over a campfire and served with a variety of fine vintages spared from the worst of the flames. And if you come underdressed for the occasion? "We dress for dinner," Portia remarks from her place at the head of a honey-oaked picnic bench, overlage sunglasses shielding her eyes. You get the impression she's looking down her nose at your choice of wardrobe, anyway. "Black tie. No exceptions."

Eat up, gather your energy; you'll need it for what comes next.

TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK

CONTENT WARNINGS: emeto, slight body horror, potential character death, fuck or die.

While you were all asleep in your spacious tents and unspacious sleeping bags, the maze has shifted form, spreading its sections along the entire grounds of the house. You wake from what should be the end of your glamping spree already lost in a part of the sprawling labyrinth, maybe with your tent-mate, or the person you spent the night with, or someone completely new. You’re only sure of one thing — it seems like you’ve suddenly developed a pesky case of allergies. It starts with an uncomfortable pins and needles sensation that crawls over your entire body as you start to move. Sweat dampens your clothes despite the towering blossoms offering a rather pleasant shade from the sun, and soon your teeth are chattering with chills. So maybe you’ve caught a summer cold, or some of you might be spreading mono from having a pair of too-loose lips. In any case, it’s probably nothing you haven’t dealt with before, and it won’t stop you from finding your way out of the maze.

The natural thought would be to utilize your own skillset to escape, but you quickly realize that using any magical abilities yields no results upon the thick foliage — or at least you think there’s no effect. If you try to use fire to burn down a part of the maze, not only does it not work for you, but now, in a part of the maze opposite to you, there are burning flames that other house guests will have to get past. Being big and bad, in this case, means you’re probably just an asshole now. As you stumble through the maze, you encounter more and more magical obstacles that you might begin to recognize as coming from your own friends. Looks like everyone’s desperate to get out, and you’re only making things worse. (If your character tries to use their magic, please submit it here, so others can play with it!)

Speaking of worse, those allergies are swiftly advancing into a full blown infection from — you guessed it — the foliage of the maze itself. The constant reproducing and shifting is caused by THE BOGWOOD BLIGHT, evident by the dark lesions spotting the plant stems, and white, fuzzy spores clinging to the undersides of the leaves. Your symptoms progress into searing pain as flowers, branches, and thorns begin to grow inside of you, your vomit coming up bloody and thick with masses of dead leaves. Young vines and tiny flowers seem to spool out from your own hair, curling around your throat if you don’t keep up with tearing them out. Hallucinations plague your mind, sharp desire both violent and sexual permeating your senses and threatening to push all other reasonable thoughts out.

It would be easy to succumb to this sickness, to let your base instincts fight or fuck one another until you’re all hopelessly lost and doomed to a certain death in the labyrinth. But there is a way out, for those who can hold on to their sanity and bear through the pain: participate in the trials, and earn your freedom.

These trials? Nothing like the fun and games of a night camping beneath the stars. The verdant landscape of the neatly trimmed maze has become flush with deadly obstacles, and it’s up to you to get past them all. Naturally, your first instinct is to grab your trusty iPhone and reach out to your closest and most trusted companions — but everything you send reaches the recipient in a way that utterly twists your intentions. A simple are you okay? turns into I’m glad to finally be rid of you. Trying to reunite with a loved one throws you for another loop when you finally do find them — three loops, in fact, because you encounter three identical copies of your love, all trying to convince you they’re the real one. In order to reveal the truth and continue your journey along the maze, drive a thorn into one of their hearts. Hope you know your lovers well. Maybe a little physical touch will help?

The maze might break into a small clearing for you, a wide open space with checkerboarded grass filling from one edge of the field to the other — two different tones of the same haunted green pervasive through the labyrinth. Certain spaces are occupied by expertly crafted hedges to resemble all the familiar pieces to a chess board, while the Kings are left empty, awaiting you and an opponent. Take your positions, or wait for a stranger to stumble upon you, if you were unlucky enough to face the maze by yourself, and play the game according to all ordinary rules of chess. Following a checkmate, you have the option of how you’ll claim dominion over the opposite side, or how they’ll claim it over you — a slap or a kiss will suffice, to earn your win. Strangely, physical touch seems to relieve the worst of your allergies. These things do have a way of escalating, don’t they? Best to keep your wits about you.

For those of you prone to clumsiness, you’re probably doomed already, but the viper pits are an easy trap for even the most seasoned of the bunch. Take one step, and the ground gives way beneath your feet, plunging you into a dark, flinty hole in the earth. The injuries you might have sustained on the way down are the least of your worries. Inside the pervasive darkness of the pit, it’s time to face your vipers — that is, your worst fears seem to press in on you, terror blooming in your very bones until your own nauseating dread is all you can feel. Maybe it's actual vipers, or rough waters pulling you down, or a thousand razors cutting your skin — the mystery of the dark is that anything can be inside it, waiting. Maybe you’ll be lucky enough to have a friend risk it all to help you out, but you can always just save yourself, clawing to the top while your greatest fears weigh you down.

If you manage to avoid the pits, they’re not the only deadly thing on the ground. Step close enough to smell the honeysuckle and you’ll feel a sharp clamp around your ankle. Vines, slithering out from the foliage, wrap themselves around your body in near shibari style — and these vines like to fondle and grope, ramping up the sexual side of your infection symptoms. The only way to get free? Turn to someone else struggling in the vine trap and get frisky — or let the vines turn from pleasure to true pain as they slowly squeeze the life out of you. Orgasm or die. It's a pretty easy choice, isn't it?

Just when you think it’s the dehydration of too many long days and nights scrambling through the maze that will kill you, you’re lucky enough to happen upon a water source — one of the many beautiful fountains, shimmering ponds, or rustic bird baths dotting the path of the maze. Whichever it is, you’re parched enough to drink deep despite the possibility of bird shit floating around. As you crouch over the water, your reflection stares back at you — only it’s either your most perfect self that you wish you could be, or the worst version of you that you fear you’ve already become. Once you catch your reflection’s eye, you’re caught, unable to stop yourself from being pulled into the water’s depths. The bird bath overflows, the pond turns dark and bottomless, and the gilded fountain statues laugh at your plight as you struggle to keep yourself from drowning. Time to face those ugly truths about yourself — fast.

After your harrowing ordeals, you reach what can only be the end — a narrow pathway lined with thorn-filled hedges, too thick and solid to pry through. The only way forward is onto the path. Luckily, a piece of bright hope shimmers before you — a single strand of golden thread, hopefully leading you out into the world once more. You step onto the path, following the glimmering thread, and it seems like all is well until the moment someone enters the path behind you. The hedges rush toward you, brutally narrowing the space as thorns dig into your flesh and rip fresh wounds across your body. Looks like only one of you can complete this painfully claustrophobic trial at a time, and the other has to watch your slow and bloody suffering, waiting for the moment the walls part and you can rejoin your love without consequence. Better hurry to get there. They’re going to need some patching up once they’re done.

As you escape the stifling thorns, finally emerging on the other side and collapsing with relief to be free and hopefully to get some help for your worsening illness, you realize with a sick drop of your stomach that you haven’t made it out after all. The golden thread has led you into the heart of the maze, where you know the Balfour’s beloved Minotaur statue should be… only it’s nowhere to be found. Instead, there are two statues towering over your pathetic form: Medusa cast in gold, and Midas carved in stone.

MATERIAL GIRLS

CONTENT WARNINGS: potential character death, loss of limbs.

It's been a long, harrowing journey, but you're here now, likely with some friendships or trauma-bonds made along the way, which is what summer camp is all about. Each of the statues before you is decorated with a marble slab at the base, detailing EYE TO EYE below Medusa and HAND IN HAND below Midas. Curiosity eventually wins out against wariness — or maybe the charms of the maze have worn thin on you through the days, frustration guiding your motion. Whatever the case, you weigh your options and choose accordingly between the two, stepping forward and sealing your fate.

EYE TO EYE — Look to Medusa for a few seconds, and a door will appear beside her, granting you free exit from the maze. However, for the following days, you begin to change. It starts at your fingertips, gradually spreading from arm to shoulder to neck, and so on, transmuting your body from flesh and blood to cold, icy stone. Those affected start to lean into their darker side, turning from the hero to the villain, the kind to the cruel. To stop your gravelly fate, amends must be made — forgive someone who wronged you, love someone you hate, clear up a misunderstanding you've let fester inside, make up for some injustice you've committed in your life. Give them the knife and let them start cutting. Beg for penance, and whether or not you receive it is beside the point — the begging is enough to redeem you in Medusa's eye.

HAND IN HAND — Alternatively, hold the hand Midas extends for a few seconds, and a door will appear beside him, granting you free exit from the maze. However, for the following days, you too start to change, following the same pattern of those more Medusa inclined — but gilt instead of stony, turning gold from the outside in. Those affected lean further into their brighter, more pleasant sides, cheer replacing sorrow, your mood uplifted to a potentially overbearing degree. To stop your gilded fate, sacrifices must be made — reveal a deep rooted secret, let go of something you're insecure about, give away something of important value to you. Material good are nice, yes, but do you know what Midas would like even more? Limbs, eyes, flesh, blood, something you're really going to miss.

Regardless of your choice, you're out of the maze, congrats! Act swiftly and all will be fine. Dither and, well — you'll make a beautiful, statue-corpse eventually, and the maze would be happy to have you. Of course, even a successful solution will take time to settle in. Your stony, golden limbs revert as slowly as they crawled up on you, any severed body parts taking days to reform but eventually coming back as good as new, with a small memorializing token — a hand or an eye shaped birthmark to remember what you've lost.

Out of the maze, you can see the work being done on the house, renovations well underway while you were busy messing around. It was so kind of you to give the Balfours the chance to start working on the house — and while it's unlivable for the next while, there are always the tents to keep you warm.

DIRECTORY

taken
activity check
setting

reserves
rewards
rules

applications
hiatus & drop
faq

Comments

dr. hunter aloysius "hap" percy | the oa | new/new

[angelhunter]

[ Enter your grouchy neighborhood serial kidnapper, showing up at the worst possible time. Starters below, I may or may not add more in another comment. Character info and warnings are here (he's coming from the very end of Part I) though age restrictions are relaxed in this instance. I'm happy to hash things out beforehand via PM or PP @ verhoeven, and heads up that I may be slow! Just here to play in the space ‪‪❤︎‬ ]

open to all

[angelhunter]

generously assigned
[ cw house fire, drinking ]

[ The first night, Hap's tent-mate has the sleeping bag entirely to themselves. He's nowhere to be seen, though his gift bag has been rifled through (the ribbons resting curled atop everything else). He and sleep are old adversaries, and every advantage Hap might have over it is nowhere to be found. It takes another full day of rigorous thinking, fruitless rationalizing, and wrestling with the temptation of denial for him exhaust himself.

If not for a heaping glass of wine, he'd be an irritable prick. His thoughts are worn out but his emotions can go another round. He's angry, he's afraid, he's helpless without anyone to blame. Literally drowning them out is the closest he's felt to reason since he woke up in a house on fire.

Whether he's joining his assigned partner or they're joining him, Hap makes no fuss about changing into a pair of pajama pants and kneeling to unzip the sleeping bag. Whatever their reaction, he states plainly, ] I couldn't care less about emotional frequencies.

familiar pieces
[ cw body horror ]

[ Hap steps into the clearing, breathing a mild sigh of relief. It's not over, he's aware of that, but at least there's space. The topiaries are both beautiful and refreshingly mundane. Hap runs a hand through his hair as he walks between them. It's nearly a habit now, unconscious, trapping flower buds in the rake of his fingers and shaking them to the ground.

No kings. Easy to surmise what that means. A game of chess. There may well be some inexplicable twist to it but he can't stop himself from feeling heartened. This is one he could win.

Hap turns to the person who will become his opponent. ] Do you play much?

[ ooc/ happy to heavily summarize the game to get to the end quickly, mostly because I uh am wicked bad at chess. ]

weigh you down
[ cw allusions to kidnapping, induced possessiveness and distrust ]

[ A sudden flip of his gut and then blooming agony. Hap groans at the bottom of the pit. Despite the pain, he rolls onto his side — he needs to move, he needs to catch her. It takes his fingers digging into the dirt for him to remember where he is and where he isn't: on the landing of the cavern stairs, the sudden wound in his heart resembling a gaping mouth full of gnashing teeth. Shifting into his elbows, shoving himself to his knees, Hap braces himself against the pit wall with a tight fist. It takes a long moment to set the rage aside, and when he does, when he's first able to see clearly, his eyes fall upon his glasses.

Cracked. One arm completely mangled.

Furious, Hap grabs them and flings them at the far wall, heedless of anyone who might be down there with him.

(Once he's aware of his company, though, he'll do anything to make sure they don't leave him.) ]

network

I'm in need of medical supplies.

wildcard

[ down for most anything else, including the effects of misfired magic (which can also be incorporated to any of the above prompts). ]

weigh you down (cw: choking)

[vdovy]

[ Yelena was not alone in the pit before him. There was another her, straight-postured and laser-focused: the widow. It felt as real as anything — as everything — does in the maze. She can still feel her own nails digging into her neck, windpipe under pressure. But the widow vanishes with a tumbling new arrival and she can guess what that means: this is his nightmare now.

Loose dirt crumbles to her shoulders as she presses herself back into the pit wall to observe him. A smooth side-step dodge and the glasses land where her nose previously was before hitting the ground. She picks them up and analyzes the lens. They don't look too thick but he'll be at a disadvantage nonetheless. ]

Maybe it's better to be blind for this. [ She sounds almost apologetic, taking a few forward steps into a thin slant of moonlight — their only light source. ] What are you scared of?

cw ongoing abusive mentality

[angelhunter]

[ Hap starts at the voice, an infinitesimal jolt that exhausts him. He's in no state to fight someone, or refrain from fighting them. His strength will be reckless if called upon and he isn't as reluctant to do so as he normally would be.

He's miring in half-knowing all of that when she steps into the light, materializing like a ghost. Her hair looks white in the glow. His reluctance to harm returns with a fierceness, dangerously front of mind, silently conditional. ]

I'm sorry — [ Hap pushes himself to his feet as he apologizes, ] if I hit you with those.

[vdovy]

[ This man does not seem entirely lucid. Yelena isn't sure that she is either, but residual adrenaline from her earlier struggle keeps her head just clear enough to maintain that singular point of focus: getting out of this hole.

His fears are taking their time to materialize. That's good. ]

You didn't. [ She assures him, stepping closer as he stands. The halter dress she found to wear was a bright, floral orange before her journey through the maze. It's damp now, torn where she had a run-in with some thorny hedges, while moisture and dirt have stained the fabric a gradient of filthy to filthier brown. Muddy slashes cover her arms and legs. Her heavy boots, rescued from the house fire as she escaped, don't look too bad by comparison, but they were already black.

Yelena's brow furrows with effort to see the man in the dark. No injuries immediately visible. That's good too. ] You took a big fall. Does anything hurt?

cw injury

[angelhunter]

[ She's straining to see him, while he refuses to take his eyes off her. A wince flashes across his face as he straightens to his full height. His shirt, a dull navy blue, is missing the odd button. One sleeve has rolled partially down his forearm, the other holding below his elbow. Snags and tears are scattered throughout his clothes and the skin on his arms is streaked raw red from constant scratching. Fresh blood trickles down his temple. The ringing in his skull is negligible.

It seems to emanate from her.

That steady Saturnian pitch drowns out the dull throb in his shoulder, until he tries to lift that arm and interrupts the song with a hoarse cry. ]

God damn it! [ Hap hasn't felt such undeniable pain in over a decade. For a split second it's deafening. He clutches it to him by the elbow, grimace plastered to his face, and tries to get himself together on heavy breaths. ] I think it's dislocated.

network

[temporicide]

I'll bring you some. But if you can give me a list of specifics, that's better. So you're not disappointed.

Are you injured?

ongoing cw for amputation, mood alteration

[angelhunter]

Alcohol, sutures, a needle, and plenty of gauze.

I'm not injured but it seems I'm going to have to be.

[temporicide]

Bear trap ?

I will come get you first
I'm very fast

[angelhunter]

[ That makes him laugh, because he genuinely does wish it had been a bear trap. It would still be his fault but at least it would have been an accident. ]

Not a bear trap.
I'm [ writing it down is even more ridiculous ] turning to gold if you can believe it.

[temporicide]

That one is new, but here I believe it. Once we all turned into different people entirely for a month

Where are you
What parts of you are gold so far

familiar pieces.

[unapparent]

[ Having spent twelve turns of the moon in this wretched house, Alicent knows the way of things. Of this. Of heat, flooding her throat, chest, gut. Immolation and humiliation a heartbeat away.

And yet Alicent awaits her challenger as though unperturbed, sat cross-legged on the board in place of the white King. A fact that amuses her enough to keep the despair at bay. The manor so loves its games (as men love war and war loves suffering). Flowers adorn her auburn curls, seemingly sprouting from the arc of each wave. Blood spatters the front of her pale blue dress, dried across the raised ridge of her collarbone.

She has devoted most of her efforts to drawing the vines from her throat and ignoring the thrumming in her veins (the pulse of need in her cunt, yet another humiliation of the flesh). ]

My father taught me Cyvasse as a girl.

[ A truth, though her brows arch as she considers the nature of his question. She has “lost” a game in this garden before, after all, and imagines the cost to be of an intimate kind. Her English lilts older, the cadence far from modern rhythms.

In any case, Alicent extends a hand, awaiting a knight to help her to her feat. Even an opponent ought exhibit decorum, after all. ]

A similar game of strategy, as I understand it.

[ Unsaid: She understands it because another has taught her this variant during her stay. It seems unnecessary — and unwise — to disclose that particular detail. ]

[angelhunter]

[ Hap breaks from the line of pawns, smiling cordially. Even before she speaks, the woman as an air of austerity around her, as if suited to her current position despite the casual disarray woven through her hair, writ on her in blood. Thought he doesn't recognize the game of Cyvasse, he can relate to learning it from a parent. It was his mother that taught him chess.

As she appears unperturbed by his presence, Hap approaches. He nods, then takes her hand to help her gently to her feet. He may not be in his place yet but the game has already begun. He doesn't trust that she's as demure or novice an opponent as she seems, which is half the fun of playing someone for the first time — a luxury he hasn't had in a very long time. ]

Nice to meet you. [ Like this, not forced to share a bed or flee a burning building. Or worse, engage in juvenile summer camp activities. ] I'm Hap.

[unapparent]

[ A change of topic rather than an exchange of information, though it may indicate manners more than strategy. Although her mouth only quirks, she appreciates either inclination. ]

[ archly, ] I’ll be the judge of that.

[ Whether it’s indeed “nice” to meet him and be met, in the heart of the maze. Her pulse thuds in her chest, her wrist, her palm, and she fears it may leap into his hand. Alicent allows her grip to linger, even so.

With a tousle of her curls, ]

Queen Alicent. [ regardless of whether he intends to ask, ] Your Grace or my lady will suit.

[ As a form of address. Her name is a thing to be earned — perhaps even of the course of this game. ]

Will you be my opponent, Hap?

[ Spoken as though it’s her idea (her choice, something to cling to, as her body pangs and aches against her will). ]

[angelhunter]

[ Hap takes her imperiousness in stride, a challenging edge to one corner of his smile. His grip is firm; her hand is warm. It goes on longer than it should and ceases in promising sync.

Neither here nor there, the thought flickers, What does her heartbeat sound like?

With an introduction like that, "queen" doesn't surprise him in the slightest. He nods again at her instruction for address, expression sharpening into a grin. ]

If I may, Your Grace. [ He's not teasing, he's testing. Finding out how it sounds in his voice. The distance it's meant to embody stretches even further, coming from him. Across seas and time. A man with no use for such rigid, austere forms of address, but he won't sneer at her for demanding it of him. She is royalty, as far as he's concerned. Here she stands, a king. ]

generously assigned

[abort]

[ Ava doesn't sleep the first night either. Sleep isn't something she does, and she has a lot to think about, a lot to look at. She wanders, barefoot; she watches the stars twinkle overhead, the wind blow softly through the foliage. She thinks. She makes decisions; not every one she needs to make, but enough. She needs to find someone to trust.

She's cross-legged on the floor of the tent when he makes an appearance, nowhere near the sleeping bag. ]

No. I think most of what he said was pseudoscience.

[angelhunter]

[ Unexpectedly, Hap finds it in himself to chuckle. Ava, whose name was scrawled outside the entrance, has blindsided him with one of his favorite words. He looks up, having largely ignored her on the way in. There's a coolness about her that strikes him as odd and refreshing.

Hap doesn't carry himself with any malice but he is taller than average and built a little broad. He appreciates that she's not looking at him with any fear, as reasonable as it would be. He doesn't have the energy to assuage it. ]

And the rest was bullshit.

wildcard (cw: attempted suicide)

[resurrected]

[ The last thing that she remembers from before is the lurch in her gut as she made a rapid, wind-whipped descent from the bridge, concentrating her every last ounce of will on finding the others. She wakes in a coughing fit, in a real bed, in a burning room.

Through death and resurrection, through years of captivity, through jumping and landing here, in this unintended, impossible universe — through all of it, the OA has maintained her grip on reality. In this maze, as she stumbles around in a feverish haze, she finally starts to lose that too. She turns a corner and up ahead, there he is, smiling warmly in wait for her like he should have been that day on Ellis Island.

Then, inexplicably, he turns and starts to walk away. ]

Papa! [ In English and Russian alike, she shouts after him to stop, to turn around, to come back to her. They're both here, they made it at last, why is he running from her, why won't he just — and then her foot catches on an errant vine and she flies forward, tumbling into the dirt. She sacrifices one muddied canvas sneaker in the struggle but escapes ensnarement. Back on her feet, she hesitates to resume the chase, sounds of struggle impossible to ignore.

Following her ears brings her to towering tangle of vines hoisting up a man like dangling fruit. Her pulse skips with recognition. It's not natural to be that rotten straight off the vine. ]

Hap. [ For anyone else, known or unknown to her, she would rush to the rescue. For him, she keeps her safe distance, expression hardening as she pins him down just as unyielding with her glare. ] Where are the others? What happened to Homer?

cw body horror, vine stuff, violent ideation, stalkery behavior, not in that order

[angelhunter]

[ When he first began to tread the maze, he crossed paths with others often. Some he stayed beside a good while. Eventually, they always parted ways. Then the opportunities to stick together grew fewer and further between. He regrets letting the last one go, though he didn't explicitly ask them to work with him. He didn't even really get close enough to try. He felt it safer to linger at his heel. Lagging at one corner, he was gone in an instant. Hap ran after him until he started coughing up mud.

Selfish idiot. He's a doctor. He doesn't know the mistake he made.

Since then, Hap wandered in ire and misery. Any time he heard someone call out, he followed the voice to no avail. Strangers beckoning, then half-familiar voices (the woman from the suite he woke up in, the girl assigned to share his tent). And then her.

"Come back!"

It ought to have spurred him in the opposite direction, but Hap pursued it doggedly. Unlike the others, it never waned or went silent, only moved — one corner ahead of him, one row beside. She didn't jump around or toy with him. She was here, and he didn't know what he'd do when he got a hold of her.

Hap ran himself ragged. It only took a small stumble and flinging his arm out to catch himself on the hedge for the hedge to catch him. Weakened from illness and exercise, he struggled and failed to pull his hand free. Vines slithered out from between the tidily sheared twigs and ensnared one limb after another. Once they took his weight, the fight drained rapidly out of him. Her name raked the inside of his skull like tree branches scoring a window. Even as the vines wound maddeningly around his thighs and teased the back of his neck, she was the blackness behind hard-shut eyes. Formless, shapeless violence and sex. For ages. Forever.

Until he hears her voice again.

Hap's eyes snap open. His mouth falls agape, slack with a bewildered smile. ] Prairie. [ A brittle laugh breaks from him, unbridled, tired energy. His eyes are alight with it. ] It is you.

[resurrected]

No. [ OA shakes her head, eyes squeezed shut, pulling the peaked lapels of her long coat up around her ears. When she first wrapped herself up in it, she thought its bulk could protect her as she escaped the burning house. It had since kept her warm for the temperature drop after dark and she fell asleep in it before waking in the maze. ]

That's not you. He doesn't know the true you, [ she whispers to herself from under the coat. The toes of her bare foot burrow into dewy grass.

When she feels more grounded, the coat settles back onto her shoulders. She wears the same hard expression as she demands again: ] Where is everyone else, Hap? You didn't come here alone.

[ Please, she hopes desperately. He can't have been the only one to successfully make the jump. Homer is strong. Rachel, Renata, even Scott, they're all so much more resilient than Hap could ever make himself. They can't be lost to her. ]

[angelhunter]

[ It is her. He said it but he has not quite committed to believing it. His eyes pin her in place, begging, demanding. It has to be you. The coat is new but it hangs off her like the clothes her parents picked out for her, worn threadbare and shapeless over the years. Her hair is as brittle as he remembers, willow leaves in autumn. The clutch of her hands, the angle of her feet — nothing about her rings false.

She followed him. ]

Come here. [ he implores, ignoring her question. He's sure it's her. Now he just wants her closer. Gradually, so as not to alarm her, he strains at the vines tying his arms to the labyrinth wall. There's no give. Almost as if in retaliation, the vines around his legs wind tighter, higher. He grunts softly. ] Come. We can talk.

weigh you down;

[preborns]

[tucked in a corner, arms laced loosely around her knees, alia watches the display of fury – first when the man stands, leans against the pit wall and gathers himself, then when he sees his destroyed glasses – with a calmly neutral sort of expression. her golden hair is tousled from her own fall, and her knees are scraped up and bruised, but she seems in fairly good spirits.

if anything, there’s amusement in her wide-set, intently unblinking eyes as she watches the newcomer rage and fling things about. her own frustration has worked itself into calm, and she gives no heed to the fact that she’d had some tantrum-ing of her own moments before. instead, tilting her head to one side, birdlike, alia arches both eyebrows and asks dryly:]

Do you feel better, then?

cw blood, body horror, and regular warning that this guy has a complex about prophetic blond waifs

[angelhunter]

[ Hearing a voice in the dark, Hap stiffens. It sparks blaring tension through his back and shoulders, blooming at the base of his skull. Blood trickles down into his eye. Aching pain at the back of his head and stabbing pain from the front. Pressing the heel of his palm to his brow elicits a sharp hiss. It feels wet.

He wipes his eye, blinks through the red haze to search the darkness. It's thicker than night. Her pale hair is an uncertain blur to him as his vision clears. He sees it, but is it real? Hap has caught wisps of wheat-blonde hair, false and fleeting, a few times in this labyrinth. Usually after a violent coughing fit. Once as he severed with his bare hands a vine that had grown from his scalp to nearly around his neck as he had foolishly slept.

Like that, this hurts, but it's not the same. It's didn't come from within. But that voice... Did he know it? He can't remember what it sounded like. Hap steps towards it, still steadying himself on the wall. ]

Who's there? Who are you?

cw:body horror and i'm so ready for them to be sooo normal

[preborns]

[there are vines and thorns and growing things within alia as well, but – who’s to say they haven’t always been there? in a wasteland, any source of water is precious, sacred, and perhaps the warm wet of her blood, her breath, the meat of her muscles and marrow of her bones is succor to whatever seeds now flower and blood inside her. it doesn’t matter much if it was arrakis or saltburnt that planted them.

the stranger, new meat, new blood, new breath in the dark – here her attention lies, prompting her to unfold, to stand slyphlike and golden, dressed in a torn, filthy nightgown, bare feet coated in grime. she steps (drifts, floats) forward and tilts her head birdlike to one side.]

I am Alia Atreides. And you are bleeding. [a flash of her teeth, bemused at herself, one careful hand reaching to touch – not the wound that bleeds, but the drip of it, the trail of red stealing across his brow.] But what else? You’ve newly arrived, I don’t recognize the sound of your thoughts.

next stop normalville, pay no mind to the cartoon dynamite on the tracks

[angelhunter]

[ It's not Prairie.

She doesn't move like her. Like the flesh and blood he threw to the dirt. Alia flickers like a fantasy of her, taunting him to the yearning of guitar strings. Staccato yet smooth. Confident yet fragile, belonging in another dimension of those exact coordinates. A specimen cut into pieces, spread out in glass slides, somehow all still moving as one. Hap forgets to flinch when she touches him. ]

What? [ His thoughts? What are his thoughts? He can't keep up with them. Hunger and desperation have torn them to shreds. ] I am. I am new. I fell— [ Hap cranes his neck to look up. Maybe it's that, maybe it's the light, but a sting arrows through his skull and he hisses. ]