Doors Verse (doorsverse) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-12-20 22:12:00 |
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Entry tags: | plot: wonderful life |
Who: Everyone!
What: It's a Wonderful Life
Where: Passages
When: Christmas Eve
Warnings/Rating: This is a group log. Please write your character's location in the subject line. Please warn for threads that go dark or explicit. Feel free to "dibs" a thread you intend to hit. The It's a Wonderful Life effect only takes place in the woods, so if you want your character to experience life without themselves/each other, send your characters/alters there. Two or more characters may participate in a themed thread, and staying in the non-themed woods for the duration of the event is just fine. Both character/alters in a set may attend.
You are now in Bedford Falls. It’s a postcard, a child’s train set, a fantasy illustration. Whirring snowflakes whip in frantic flurries over the graceful curve of a village street, illuminated by perfect cones of warm light from the street lamps. Main Street is lined with shop windows, each painted with jolly snowmen and labeled with their sober functions, neat as a collector’s set: Emporium, Movie House, Bank, Grocery. Their flat rooftops glisten with icicles and picturesque frosting made of winter’s cold. All the shops are closed for the night, with no one inside the darkened windows, but a Christmas tree stands in every window, and the sugar coating on the street bears the mark of many people hurrying home after finishing the last of their Christmas shopping. That's a pretty good idea. I'll give you the moon, Mary. The ring of silver bells and the combined scent of spiced cider and mulled wine beckon visitors to the edge of town. In the lee of a gentle slope where tiny sledders in knit caps have long since vacated the scene for visions of sugar plums, there is a clearing. An outdoor hearth lined with heavy slate is the center of several stout chairs made of unfinished oak. Every chair has a thick blanket lined with white fur, and the stone hearth crackles invitingly. Toasting forks are out, along with anything that could conceivably be toasted, from bread to marshmallows. Clay mugs and heated containers with deep ladles stay warm just within reach, and out on the edge of the clearing, down a frosted path, there are several one-horse open sleighs, complete with silver bells and more blankets for folks to dress like eskimos. The horses trot merrily around the clearing, passing a small pond perfect for skating, and then return to the pretty clearing in a few minutes’ time. Every man on that transport died. Harry wasn't there to save them, because you weren't there to save Harry. Heading back toward town from the little clearing of happiness is a mistake, however. Some cultures have a tradition not to tread the path recently trod without unraveling good will and intention, and that looks to be the case here. A sign that must have escaped first notice greets one at the edge of the town, which somehow lacks the inviting atmosphere it had moments before. Pottersville, says the sign, and it can’t possibly be more different than a little while before. The street is sunken with treacherous potholes, the shops are boarded, and rather than clear footprints and dancing snowflakes, the streets are deserted and frozen over with iced mud. A cold, ugly wind howls through the empty spaces between the abandoned shops, and most of the street lamps are dark or dim. Hey look, mister. We serve hard drinks in here for men who want to get drunk fast, and we don't need any characters around to give the joint "atmosphere". Is that clear, or do I have to slip you my left for a convincer? The closest thing to life on this street is a little spot called Nick’s. It’s small, neon, and possibly even more depressing than the town is, soaked in cheap beer so long you can smell it on the nasty dry air. The proprietor seems to have just left, and all that’s available is the sparse little porch, with its snow-heavy bench, and the coats and wraps abandoned in the tiny little coatroom. You've been given a great gift, George: A chance to see what the world would be like without you. Instead of a pleasant postcard, the road that first delivered the visitors now sinks into a thick black wood. Heavy snow makes traversing under the massive evergreen trees a risky business, and there’s no ring of sleigh bells here. The wind whistles and chaps at the skin, and deep within the trees there are shadows of possibility, and every road is the one not traveled. |