trans_9 | Grif, Kaya, Sherlock, Azula, and John's Bogus Journey

"Is that what it's from?"

He could quote it. It didn't mean he knew what the quote was from. Deleted it.

"And if they attack us, you can shoot them in the head," Sherlock said, perhaps just a little callously. "That's how it works with zombies, isn't it?"

He stood up himself, brushing ~~maggots~~ crushed flowers off of himself. Something about his body language made it look oddly like he was trying to hover protectively around Azula and Kaya simultaneously. One had saved his life and the other...the other was too broken.

Edited 2012-05-28 07:02 (UTC)

Grif shuddered. "Dude, if there are any zombies down here I am more out than I was already." Regardless, he slung his rifle down off his back.

"So. We're going to go up to the big castle. Decision made, let's get moving before I can change my mind."

His attention briefly landed on Azula. "Can you even walk?"

"If there were zombies, you wouldn't know," Kaya said, "and let's face it, the less we know right now, the better. If we have to get to the castle, let's get there quick. This will get ugly the longer we hold onto our fears."

She glanced over at Azula, and for a moment, there was a look of nothing but pure evaluation. Regular Kaya would have felt compassionate, would ahve talked to Azula right now.

But they couldn't have that girl right now.

"She can walk. She's just processing."

Azula glanced up having heard them address her, but the empty look in her eyes didn't offer any hope that she had understood. Despite that she rose to her feet slowly, lips pursed slightly. She didn't like this quiet. It was a quiet that seemed to infect the noise in her head till everything was muffled like when your ears were full of water.

Wretched water.

Without a word to anyone else she turned her attention to Sherlock. Even such as she was she knew that he was the only one here she had a bit of faith in when it came to making the right choices. She would follow them for now and if this really was just the first step towards eternal torment and suffering for her life then there was no sense in fighting it.

John watched Azula with concern. Hell was no place for...well, any of them, but it certainly wasn't a good place for a girl barely responding to outside stimulus. He followed her gaze toward Sherlock and raised his eyebrows questioningly at the taller man, who he was surprised to see also seemed to be projecting concern toward the two girls. While that would be normal behavior for most people chucked into Hell with a couple of teenage girls, it was unusual for Sherlock. But then, so was getting chucked into Hell, John supposed he couldn't really expect normal Sherlock behavior in the face of Hell.

"Right," he said, casting worried looks between Azula and Sherlock. "If Grif's going in front, I'll take the rear -- may as well have the two of us with the most military experience watching out in front and in back." He made shoo-ing gestures with his hands to try and get the other three into a cluster where he could keep an eye on them, and on Grif besides.

Sherlock actually listened for once, falling into line in the middle, looking on edge but not as on edge as he would have if someone other than John was watching his back. It said something about how much he trusted the other man that he had no urge to look behind him, instead believing implicitly that he didn't need to.

Falling into step next to Azula, he leaned over slightly and said very simply, very quietly to her, "I told you--it's a choice. When I met you, within a minute of meeting me, you were already tearing me to pieces in your mind. You're not this weak."

It wasn't kind, it was hardly sensitive, but it also wasn't said harshly. It wasn't a demand or an insult like her father would have given, an insistence that she be flawless. Instead, it was a statement of fact, him telling her that her lack of weakness was implicit rather than something she had to prove. She was bright, brilliant, and she could master herself if she had the will for it.

Edited 2012-06-01 08:00 (UTC)

Grif, for once, had the sense not to scoff about military experience.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm in the tin can," he grumbled instead. If anything suddenly came up on them, he was the one best equipped to take the hit. He didn't like it, but it was practical. "But if I'm on point I'm going to be afraid of stuff. No pep talk is going to stop me. It's like an inalienable right," he added as he began the trudge across the asphodel.

There was really not much more to say after that.

It was a choice she would have made anyway: when it came to changing the direction of the war, she didn't opt for staying the way things were. That didn't mean she wasn't afraid: she had a sneaky suspicion she was going to get afraid more and more. But for now, she had to stay calm, and weather what they had to.

And of course, keep to her water pouch, just in case.

To the naked eye Azula continued to move as if she were drifting, not really here nor there. Her limbs were limp. Each step had both the graceful motion of a feather and the beleaguered trudge of the damned. She swayed just slightly, a foot to the left, then a few steps later back to the right. Unsteady, sloppy, a barely noticeable measure of rhythm.

Only her eyes changed. It was brief and only just so much to be seen if you were watching her or incredibly perceptive. There was anger. Defiance. If her lips were to move, if she could find the energy or will to use her voice it would be to shout at Sherlock for his words.

But the embers of frustration dimmed again to a barely perceivable glow. The copper shine faded and she continued to stare straight ahead.

Still if only for a moment the fires had been stoked. Proof they weren't completely smothered.

As they moved closer, every single one of the gray people stopped the menial repetitive tasks they were doing (counting grains of sand, rolling rocks up and down the street) and turned to face them.

Oddly enough, rather than attacking, most of them started to cry.

The horrifying thing of it was the crying, every single one of their voices, was the exact same monotone, and while it was capable of emoting, it was the same voice over and over for every single one of them.

"It's red," said a woman, gesturing vaguely at Azula, weeping. "I'd forgotten red."

"His scarf is blue!"

"--it's green. Like a plant, like something alive--"

"--blue. Blue was my favorite color--"

"--they're breathing, they even sound different--"

"--can you sing? Please tell me one of you can sing, please I haven't heard music in so long--"

"--look at the one in the orange, it's so bright. So beautiful--"

A man started clutching at Sherlock, at his scarf.

"We weren't good enough. We weren't bad enough to be taken all the way in, but we weren't good enough either. It's always the same, it's never different, never..." He started begging. "Please stay. You're something different. Please!"

A woman started tugging at Azula's bathrobe, hands started to press against Grif, someone lunged at John, trying to steal his jacket--or maybe grab John himself. It seemed these lost souls were just as fascinated with them as oddities as the colors of their clothes and the sounds of their voices.

They were different. They were something bright, and colorful, and alive in an empty gray world.

"Oi, oi, gerroff!" John said, thrusting his hands out to shove the lunging person away from him. He pressed in closer to the other members of the crew, turning so that his back was toward them rather than the encroaching masses.

His heart went out to them once he'd put it all together, it really did. God knew if he'd been here, stuck in this place in this situation, he'd have been excited beyond belief at the reappearance of color. But he needed to think of the health of the other four crew members first. And if he'd been in these people's shoes...well, he might not stop at the sight of blood.

"Kaya, do you have enough water to get us a little breathing room here?"

Kaya's whole idea of staying stringent and focused was being put to the test here. She had forgotten how new the Erath Kingdom had seemed to her when she had seen it for the first time. Instead of just white ad blues and the color of animal pelts there were bright colors, and she couldn't stop looking at things.

This gray place, these people: how long had it been.

FOCUS.

"Right," she said, swallowing. "I have just enough to stream a wide enough birth for us. I'd do an actual protective bubble if I didn't have so little."

Who knew how bad desperate people could get?"

At first Azula didn't respond to their moans except to glance at them with disinterest. But the closer they came the more tense she became and by the time the first hand touched her robe she jerked away, perhaps too hard bumping into Sherlock. The hand was gripping at her robe tight and she heard a tear. Teeth barred like an animal and eyes wide with fury she lashed out dragging her nails across the things face with a total lack of the precision and control her usual strikes offered.

The souls retreated when they were damaged, but there was no blood and they seemed to be regenerating quickly.

Sherlock was already pale to begin with, but his face had gone even more wan at the sight of all this. Even as he kicked a man in the knee hard enough to snap it so he'd stop crowding in on him and Azula, he was shaking just slightly.

"Now would be convenient," he said to Kaya, punching another soul in the face with absolutely no visible qualms whatsoever.

"Whoah, hey! Hands off!" Grif pushed people off. This was awful, deeply awful, and he couldn't start to think about it now or he'd feel sorry for the lost souls.

He was reluctant to hit them but he had to, and their monotone shouts in response were just strange enough that he could push past them being people. They weren't even trying to hurt him, that would've made it hard. Pity would've made it hard.

"Do the water thing, dammit!"

Sheesh people, give her a moment!

But even she thought this was a bit much: she didn't like much being touched in a place like this not knowing who or what they were actually in contact with. She brought the water out of the pouch and spun her hands upward and then around the party. The people around them would have trouble touching them, as the slightest nudging toward them Kaya had the stream lash out, hard. It wasn't the nicest thing in the world to do, but better than hitting them after all.

"There," she said, sounding far from proud, but at least accomplished. "Let's keep going."

They were able to make their way past the group into the castle, leaving the poor lost souls behind them. Some of them started weeping as they retreated, knowing it might be the last they saw or heard something that would break up the monotony of their eternal punishment.

The doors of the castle closed on their own the moment the group got through them and there was no one waiting for them on the other side. As soon as it was apparent that they had a moment to breathe, Sherlock went from looking alarmed but otherwise fine to stumbling until fell against the nearest wall, crumpling in on himself, and slumping down to the ground, breathing raggedly and looking for all the world like he was about to have a full-on panic attack.

He was their first casualty to the horror they'd find in this place, the first psyche that had been compromised.

An eternity of boredom. An eternity. Never-ending boredom, never-ending monotony, for those that weren't quite good but weren't quite evil. An eternity, endless endless boredom without even the respite of death.

Was this just this world's afterlife? Was it every world's afterlife? If it wasn't, did this world's afterlife have the same rules as the afterlife of other worlds?

This place wasn't finished with them yet and Sherlock wasn't the only one that would see something that shook him to the core before the end. In fact, the hallway in sloped down into a tunnel, where cold exuded and there was a blue glow that looked like it came from light reflected off of ice or water.

Azula's steps were becoming slower and slower as she followed the party into the cold. Her eyes becoming more focused and muscles more tight. A shiver passed through her body and she bundled her robe tighter around herself for all the good it would do.

The entrance way to the castle was as elegant as one might expect a well off royal palace to be, except instead of marble, instead of glass and diamonds everything was made of ice and snow.

Frost crystals hung from a chandelier, sharp points of jagged ice rose from the candlesticks.

A mighty throne sat at the head of the hall with the door to it's right, and between them was what appeared to be delicately carved statues of ice. People who looked as though they should be dancing but instead were doubled over, on their knees, some clutching at their necks or reaching for some salvation that would never come.

Their footsteps sounded like bones crunching under their feet. The crackling of popped joints, the grinding of teeth with every step.

Wide eye'd and rooted to the spot Azula remained transfixed by the beautiful awful scene.

Back near the castle entrance, John was crouched down next to Sherlock, resting his hands on Sherlock's shoulders.

"Hey," he said in a voice that was firm and gentle, "hey, look at me. Breathe, Sherlock. Slowly Inhale, exhale, repeat. Just focus on me, all right? Listen to my voice and breathe slowly."

He kneaded Sherlock's shoulders, staring intently into his eyes. Christ, how was he supposed to comfort a man in Hell? "Try to relax your shoulders, all right? Tense up your legs with one breath and release them with the next. Come on, Sherlock, listen to me."

Noticing that the rest of their adventure party were in the process of heading away from them, he raised his voice to carry to their ears. "Hey, wait a tick, we're not all moving yet!" He blew out a breath in mingled anger and exasperation. "We shouldn't even be here."

Sherlock took a moment to take a few deep breaths.

"I'm not vasovagal." He wasn't about to pass out. "Just...unnerved."

That there even was an afterlife, a final judgement, was a horrifying thought to a man like him, but that there were such possibilities...

"We have to keep moving. The sooner we meet the mission objective, the sooner we can leave."

It was a very quick recovery, but mind over matter was a thing with Sherlock. The body was transport. It was transport and nothing else. He'd ignore his shaking hands and the adrenaline coursing through his veins that was spiking the same fear over and over again into the back of his skull: What if that happens to me?

What if that was what he'd wind up facing for an eternity?

It was better not to think about it--maybe even better to simply accept that there was a possibility of being found wanting. Eternity was eternity. The possibility of such a horrific thing happening when it all ended was all the more reason to try to survive and prolong their lives now.

While the others waited for Sherlock, Azula continued on, step after timid step into the room of ice and beauty. Steam formed from her lips with every breath she was barely taking.

The statues called to her silently, begging her to look but she didn't dare. They wanted to hurt her didn't they? They wanted her to suffer like they were!

But they were only statues, only statues and nothing more! A crack of frost under her own foot echoed and made her turn sharply to face what she thought was an intruder. Her hair fluttered behind her as she came face to face with the first statue, and saw his eyes shaking.

She gasped and stumbled back, but the image was locked in her mind forever now. Dark green eyes shaking in an unblinking face. The ice was thick, but up close one could see the truth. The statues were just what they appeared to be. Creatures trapped, frozen for all eternity completely still.

And what's more she saw something in the reflection of the ice. Fleeting, she had to look at another statue, then another to realize what these flashes were.

Pain.

Suffering.

Loss.

Frozen in place, to see the world moving around them, snow falling, creatures passing through, but unable to do anything about it. The only feeling more prevalent then the constant pain of ice burning into your unflinching flesh was whatever horrible moment of your life you were being forced to relieve while frozen in place.

She pulled away and stumbled into a statue of a woman who had been helpless to save her child dieing of starvation while she lay in bed too sick to care for him.

Jerking away and feeling the ice on her neck from the contact she found a man frozen on his knees while he felt himself burning alive.

Another, frozen while watching the woman he loved marry his brother.

The statues seemed to be moving closer, surrounding her. The room was spinning and Azula found it harder and harder to move her legs as she saw reflections of the pain these poor souls had left behind only to find it waiting for them in the end.

The chill bit at her skin and cut through her clothes, she turned sharply and her robe's sleeve caught on the nails of one woman. The robe tore and Azula let out a strangled cry of fear. Desperately she pulled away and the sleeve left her remaining snagged on the woman's unmoving hand.

Finally she succumbed to the spins falling to her knees in front of the ice throne. There was a statue there as well. Her father, eyes wide in horror, mouth open in pain. His powerful fingers that had held her, that had guided her and disciplined her were gripping the armrests of the throne so tightly she was sure it would leave indentations if he were ever going to move again.

But no, he too was living the worst moment in his life, the moment his daughter had failed him.

Tear streaked down her face freezing to her cheeks. There was no statue on the throne. Just another hallucination. But she could hardly tell anymore. The cold frozen marble of the floor proved cruel and unrelenting as she shook and cried silently.

And worst of all was with the fear, she felt sympathy. Pity. She didn't want these people to suffer like this anymore then she did. But there was nothing she could do for them.

She couldn't even save herself.

It took a lot to unnerve Kaya, but there was little doubt that this place was already starting to mess with her mind. They should have been staying together because nothing here was predictable, everything right now was out to hurt them, and this was no exception. Kaya had, after a very long time at least, mastered protecting herself when she knew a bad thing was coming, and what had happened to those people outside did not make her feel good, not by a long shot.

And though Sherlock was recovering and John and Grif were hanging back for the moment, it had also not escaped her attention that Azula was in the entirely worst frame of mind they could be right now. Going through the motions with her had been bad, but this was the worse she'd seen her, and she knew if she wasn't careful this whole place could undo her and everything she had been working for would be lost.

So she swallowed and entered the room, unprepared for the horrors within. Seeing them, she bit her lip, took a breath, and walked steadily toward Azula. It took more than she had even been prepared for, but she finally lowered herself to a crouch, mere inches from the girl.

"We can't look at this right now. This place was designed to be horrible, to make people suffer. If it does this to those are gone, it must also work for those living too. It's a reflection of the worst."

She hoped.

"I can't imagine what's happening in your head right now. But the longer we stay and see, the more it will prey on all of us."

Azula was slowly sinking to the floor from her knees. The chill rising through the polished marble was making her skin stick to it and turning her slowly blue to match the surroundings. Her shivering was uncontrolled and the droplets of water that fell from her ice covered cheeks cracked when they hit the ground as ice.

She closed her eyes tight but that only made the sounds echo louder. She could hear Kaya's breathing echoing through the chamber, and all the crushing deafening silence that the statues put out while frozen in screams.

Whoa, What? What was going? How was this happening?! Was it some sort of spell? Either way, Kaya wasn't about to let it do what it wanted. She took Azula by the shoulders and shook her sternly.

"Snap out of it! It's starting to work its whatever on you! Fight back Azula! You're stronger than this, I know it!"

John heard Kaya's raised voice and broke into a jog, swearing under his breath and then more loudly in surprise as his feet slipped out from under him. He only just barely managed not to slam into one of the frozen people -- he didn't know if their out-stretched limbs could take his weight.

"Right." He huffed out a puff of air in a visible cloud. "Thought the frozen level was deeper than this." He edged his way over to Azula and Kaya, bracing himself in preparation to haul Azula up in a fireman's carry. "Come on, up you get, we've got to keep moving."

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