lucetilogs | Luceti Valley

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Luceti Valley - The First Log

Who: Everyone
What: The start of a new experiment... or is it?
When: August 2nd - August 6th
Where: Luceti itself
Summary: Luceti has become an idyllic and peaceful 50s-esque village. The first few days are just business as usual, right?
Rating: Varies with thread. Please move explicit stuff to appointments post with appropriate warnings.

August 1st had seemed like an ordinary day in Luceti. But late in the evening, for those night owls who had not turned in yet, they were witness to strange fluctuations in the barrier. Beautiful, really, almost like Luceti had received its own 'Northern Lights', even though it seemed to come from the far east, across the ocean. This ominous light show lasted for all of fifteen minutes before it ceased all together. Skimming the ocean waters, a horde of cultists entered Luceti, cloaked by darkness. Upon reaching the entrance to the tunnels, their leader stepped inside and was followed one by one by his fellow cultists. When the last had entered, the tunnel entrance closed. Across the mountains, the entrance to the tunnels in the village did the same.

Midnight passed without incident, but by three in the morning, the change suddenly came. Minds were altered, forms were changed, and buildings sprang from nowhere.

Much later, on August 2nd, morning settled on a changed village, the new mayor made his way to his mansion with his pair of adorable dobermans at either side of him. The sun shined bright. It was a good day to be a Lucetian.

Note: There will be a stand alone log for the homecoming dance. There will be another log for the second stage of the event.

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[Booker DeWitt has lived in Luceti all his life. He fought in the war as a cavalry man and went to work in the factories after to support his family with some honest labor. When his wife died, her brother Robert went insane with grief and began hearing her voice wherever he went. They tried to help him but eventually, had no choice but to put him into the town asylum. Booker visits as often as he can.

Unfortunately, his work is not putting bread on the table as it should. His family consists of his daughter Elizabeth and his brother-in-law and neither can be well provided for. Taking part in the strikes was an effort of desperation, as it was for everyone else. A working class man has to feed his family.

He can be found at the bar drinking, outside the factory or on his way to the asylum.]

[Long days at the factory are even longer now. The hard work's even harder. They're running with too few people, but their production is still expected to be the same. Sure, they're compensated with a bit more money, but... not enough.

The worst parts, though, are just before and just after the shift. Having to cross the God damn line of strikers.

Norman's been doing it for three months, but every day's a struggle to just keep walking.]

[Vash wasn't overly surprised to see Brooker at the bar when he entered towards the end of the day. He had taken part in the strike with the hopes of getting better wages, but he also didn't have a family to support like some of his coworkers did.

Dressed in a light long sleeved shirt and a pair of faded jeans, long hair down and shaggy in front of his face, Vash takes a seat next to Booker with a smile.] Hey there man, good to see you outside the picket lines! What you drinking there? Because next round is on me.

[Booker was just sucking down the cheapest beer possible wallowing in his problems when Vash popped in. There was a guy who had an uplifting personality. Booker didn't know anyone who thought badly of the guy, it was just a shame he was stuck in the same boat as the rest of the strikers.

Booker squeezed a smile into existence before finishing off his beer - if Vash was paying for next he was going to get something a little nicer.]

Yeah, you too. What the hell's got you in such a good mood?

Well, I got a date coming up in the next day or two and it's with a total babe. [Granted, any girl he was currently dating he would call a total babe, but he fully believes it.] Hard to feel down when I got something like that to look forward to.

[He nods to the bartender and puts in their orders.]

[He snorted, shaking his head with some amusement on his end. Vash was a character, no doubt about it.]

Oh really? Well aren't you a lucky son of a bitch.

Yeah! I really am! HAHAHAHAHA! And she's kind and funny on top of being a total babe! I don't know how I managed to get so lucky! [Abort! Abort! You do not want him to talk about his girlfriend. He won't stop!]

((After this lovely interaction.))

[Elizabeth thought the walk home from the institute would help sort her out, help her calm down. But what Robert had said made all of the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. This isn't right. This isn't right...]

[Now, whenever she thought of Robert held down by restraints in a sterile room, Elizabeth felt like covering her head and screaming until her skin stopped crawling. Some little voice inside of her said that it was normal, that thinking about a relative being mentally ill was disquieting to say the least. But the bigger part of her was experiencing a full-blown panic attack. Because it was her in the restraints, it was her in the room, it was her screaming, and screaming, and screaming--]

[She runs the rest of the way to the house, slams the door behind her, puts her back to it before she can faint onto the floor. This wasn't right, this wasn't her home, she wasn't safe here.]

Help... [Elizabeth's nails are digging into her cheeks. She's going insane, she doesn't know which end is up. What was she supposed to do?]

DAD!! [She's screaming at the top of her voice, sobbing.] Please be here, please be home! Don't tell me I'm alone here!!

Edited 2013-08-06 09:16 (UTC)

[Booker had been home for quite some time, going through his personal items to pick out what he could sell and what was junk. It was amazing how much of what defined his life turned out to be worthless.

There was a trunk-full of things at the foot of his bed. Lace and jewelry boxes, photographs and silly trinkets, a wedding dress and a dried bouquet that had lost it's fragrance long ago...he didn't have the heart to open it without consulting a few bottles of beer.

He was wondering exactly how much some medals would go for when he heard the door open and close. At first he thought nothing of it, just that Elizabeth was home and he certainly expected to hear her call through the house just to see if he was there...

what echoed through the rooms instead made his blood run cold and his limbs jump into action.]

Elizabeth?!

[Whatever he'd been fiddling with was left discarded on his bed as he rushed out to the living room to find his daughter huddled against the door screaming and wailing like a banshee - it made his heart drop into his stomach.]

Baby-girl! Baby-girl, look at me!

[Booker's knees collided with the ground in front of her as he passed his hands over her head, grasped her hands in his so he could just look at her and make sure she wasn't hurt...he didn't really know what he was saying he just knew he had to made sure she wasn't hurt because what flashed in his mind was that she was hurt: bleeding, stabbed, shot, something that was physical and immediate.]

You're not alone, okay? You're not alone, I'm right here. I'm here.

[He just wanted her to stop screaming.]

[She stopped. It was okay, everything was okay, her dad was there, he was going to protect her in this crazy, screwed up moment she couldn't figure out. Elizabeth gripped his hands as hard as she could and breathed. Shaky and wheezing, but deep breaths. She never took her eyes off of him, and just seeing his face smoothed the jagged arcs of panic that had ripped her apart so easily.]

[She cried, too. Pulled herself into his chest and cried, even though she didn't know what she was crying over. The hard week, the stress from the week, Robert's condition, she hadn't slept enough. All sorts of reasons.]

I thought you wouldn't be here, and I would be alone again. While I thought about the asylum all night. I'm going to have nightmares about it.

[He let her curl into his chest, let her cry, let her do what she needed to do and held her closely as she spoke with one big hand cradling the back of her head to him as if she were still a baby in his arms.

He sometimes thought she was still just as small. He made the same kind of comforting cooing noises that he had when she was teething. God, he remembered it like it was yesterday.]

S'alright, hon. I'm not leaving you. I won't let 'em hurt you again.

[It must have been the panic muddling his words together because his sentences were falling apart the instant they left his mouth but they...they got it across fairly well. Booker just knew that he'd never left her before.

He was just so scared of her going into that fearful place again, that place where she sobbed and screamed and desperately needed some security but couldn't find any. It made him sick just thinking of how it must've felt for her. He wished he could beat back whatever thoughts terrorized her.]

I'm here for you, sweetheart.

[Elizabeth nodded and clung tightly to her father. It had been a while since she had done something like this. From what she could remember, at least... As Booker held her, she felt the panic and the upset drain away into the floor and she wondered how this couldn't be 'right' as Robert had put it. If Booker wasn't her father, how did he calm her down just with a hug and a few words? How did he know what to tell her without her asking?]

[Her crying petered off, but she still clung to him as though he'd disappear if she didn't hold him down. Elizabeth was quiet, but not entirely back to where she was before her visit. Something told her she wouldn't be the same again, that she'd seen and heard too much.]

Please, if I ever go insane, please don't put me in the asylum. I'd rather be crazy for the rest of my life.

[Her plea sends a cold shock of fear through him that makes him squeeze her in his embrace, hold her a little more fiercely because the idea both terrifies him and angers him.

That anyone would even try to touch his daughter to put her in the asylum is an unforgivable thought that makes his jaw clench and his breath push through his nose like a mad bull might. But the notion that she thinks this could happen...and the truth behind it, scares him more than anything else could.]

No.

[He'd spoken to Tenebaum about it. There is a possibility of insanity being something that is passed down, but Robert's was brought on by grief and loneliness - not spontaneously ... right? He rocks back, only far enough to look at her, brush the tears on her cheeks away and pledge with all solemnity that she would never have to give up on him coming to save her.

...What?]

I wouldn't ever give you up. You understand? I wouldn't.

[He...they...they've both lost so much already. He wouldn't let them lose one another.]

I understand. [She nods, sniffling and trying to calm down before another wave of tears dissolves her again. If there was one person in the world whose word Elizabeth never doubted, it was her father. He meant what he said, even if it wasn't the most polite or elegant thing. And even if his word wasn't enough, Elizabeth felt so much comfort when he held her tightly. No one could pry her out of this grip, it's impossible.]

I'm sorry, going to visit Uncle Robert doesn't usually do this to me--I don't know what happened. [She sniffs again and wipes her eyes on the sleeve of her coat.] First he had some kind of... convulsion and when I asked if he needed a doctor he panicked. He looked scared, Dad. Like he was being hurt by his treatments.

And then he started telling me to question everything, saying things weren't right and that I had to fight it. I saw... something. Like a memory I didn't recognize. Someone saying they were going to cure me, and I was scared but I insisted I wasn't sick. And that's what's happening with Uncle Robert right now, isn't it? They're curing him, but he says he isn't sick.

[She holds Booker's hands and shakes her head.] Maybe it was a dream I don't remember. The situation is too similar to be anything but that.

[Isn't it?]

[His brow furrows considerably as she speaks. So she went to visit Robert and came back like this?

He shouldn't feel such heated anger towards the man - after all he was sick but he thought Robert cared about her more than he did his version of things. At least that was the impression Booker had gotten from Robert over the past year.]

He doesn't want to be there, baby. He doesn't think he's sick but...we don't have any other way to try and help him.

[The weight of that choice - of sending Robert away - still lays heavy on his mind. Like everything, Booker takes his decisions to heart no matter what they are. Maybe guilt is easier than not having any. But he doesn't have time to even start wallowing - not with what she told him about this memory she doesn't think belongs to her.

It scares him because that was how Robert started.]

You're not sick, baby-girl. Okay? You're just fine.

[He smiles; weakly, but he smiles.]

I know you feel bad about him being there - so do I, believe you and me - but we ain't doctors. I can't explain what's wrong with him...but he's sick.

[Elizabeth nods again and smiles back. It's also weak.] I know. I know he's sick, and I know he wants to leave. I just couldn't shake the idea of him being hurt in there.

Just my overactive imagination, that's all. And the stress. It's been a hard week.

[Booker's smile twists grimly and he pets her hair, something he used to do more often when she was small and her head was dwarfed by his hand and they'd both laugh. Her delighted and he amused. It was a fond gesture.]

I know baby, I know.

[He muttered it with as much apology as he could force into the words. He was so sorry she had to grow up poor, had to struggle and watch her family do the same. He looks back on his life and thinks that he could have tried harder, done more, been a better worker, saved more money. Done something different for her.

She deserved so much better.]

I'll talk to Dr. Tenenbaum tomorrow, okay?

[Even though he talked to the woman every time he visited Robert. Knew about the treatments and what Robert was undergoing. He thought it would help. That it would be what was best for his addled mind.

So why did it leave such a sour feeling in his throat?]

[Truth be told, Elizabeth didn't feel anything in regards to their lower class life. She had a family, she had a home, she had a decent education and a well-loved library card. There had been plenty of Christmases and birthdays, hugs and 'I love yous' and laughter. Money hadn't given her half of the things she treasured. And even if circumstance was taking some of them away, she kept the things she still had close to her heart. That was why she took so much time keeping her dad fed, mending his shirts, looking for work... Trying to court a rich man's son... Not so that they could move up in the world, just so that the shadow over his features would pass.]

[Elizabeth pulled his hand forward until it was on top of her head, much like a hat, and grinned. His hand still dwarfed her head, really.] Okay. Thanks, Dad.

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Luceti Valley - The First Log

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Day 3

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[End of Day 4]

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