(december catch-all) LEGGY KRAMPUS IS COMING TO TOWN

[vestigemods]

DECEMBER CATCH-ALL

► YOU WANT SNOW? WE GOT SNOW

To all who've endured the last couple of dismal months, congratulations - you've broken through the windy rains of October and damp, depressing ones of November to an inexplicable peace falling over the containment zone. Untouched snow covers the ground, a veritable winter wonderland. It's almost idyllic, even if not quite in the same way that the early weeks of summer may have been. The air is brisk and chilly, but at least you can see the sun again. In fact, the heat of it on your skin is almost enough to make up for the chill, at least when the sun is at its peak.

Make snowmen! Have a snowball fight! Perhaps even skate on the frozen lake - Foodland seems to be stocking brand new sets of ice skates in various sizes, their colors obtuse enough to make sure you'll be spotted even if it starts to snow. And... consider showing a little pity on the local wildlife if they come a-scritching at your door? If you're cold, they're cold, et cetera.

BABY IT'S COLD OUTSIDE

But December has a little bit more misfortune in store than just a little bit of nippy weather. On the 16th + 17th, you might start to feel... a little strange. Maybe you've come inside from a rousing snowball war to park by the fire, but instead of warming up, you just... keep getting colder. In fact, your temperature keeps on dropping no matter what you try - blankets, a hot bath, none of it seems to do more than slow down the speed at which you're cooling.

Or maybe you're not cold at all... but oh, you're starting to wish you were. Because your temperature only keeps rising, like a hot flash from hell no matter what you do to cool down, with sweat beading on your forehead and dripping down your neck. You may even find yourself desperate enough to strip down to your underclothes and lie in the snow, if only for some sort of relief. Don't worry, though - whether you're too hot or too cold, it'll go away on its own eventually. Let's hope it's before the hypothermia gets too bad or you go delirious with fever.


Then, throughout the couple of days before Christmas, the snow kicks up to a flurry. According to the children's books in Foodland, this is a telltale sign that a magical gift-bearing man called Santa Claus is on his way. But kids' books never do tell the full story, do they?

True to form, there's a pitter-patter up on the rooftop. Is it reindeer paws? Since when do reindeer have paws, anyway? Then the fire in your fireplace, if lit, goes out with a magical puff of air... but what comes down your chimney is quite a bit worse than the stories. His Naughty List is filled with those who have yet to satisfy the elder gods with their horrible death, and rather than bringing gifts and cheer, this particular Santa has come to collect.

Two clawed hands wrap around each side of the fireplace, eyes pale as the snow, the beard around his gaping mouth tinged with the red of blood. But there are more hands now, so many hands, so many too-long arms, peeling himself from your fireplace to attack. He moves quickly, almost uncannily so, with an agility one might not expect from one with such gangly arm-legs. His hands are sharply clawed, perfect for swiping and drawing blood - but that's not what he's trying to do. No, his goal is to drag those who've been Naughty back up the chimney from whence he came, hauling them off through the flurry of snow and disappearing from sight if you try to pursue. But it's fine. Being choked to death by Leggy Krampus's obscenely long prehensile tongue isn't... the worst death, at least?

► MOD NOTES

• This is the December Catch-All Log, for any action top-levels throughout the month. Large gatherings (parties, meetings, etc) are still encouraged to post their own logs for organizational purposes!
  
• Refer to the bottom half of the November + December Bulletin for any December-specific info to potentially include in your prompt, as well as more specifics regarding the events.
  
• Because this is a catch-all for everywhere + all month, try to remember to label your top-levels with identifying information like the IC date and location of each prompt (whether in the subject or in the prompt title within the comment). Also consider mentioning if any of your prompts are event prompts!
  
• December's specific resources can be found in the Not-Bulletin.
  
• Any questions can be directed to this top-level or, for a quicker response, to Trace on discord/plurk.

Comments

[legbreakings]

I don't know either, alright! If I had answers I wouldn't need to ask you!

But I'm asking you now. You reacted strangely to them maybe messing with our golden cores. There was a lot that was strange that day. I never asked about it. Now I'm asking.

[mannerless]

How is it that you’re so much better at talking about asking questions than actually asking them?

( because that still isn’t a question, despite wei ying’s best efforts to drag one out of him - but to hell with it, he’s quite ready to be done with this circling, so: )

I don’t have it. Is that the confession you’re looking for? I don’t have a golden core. Ideally, I’ll have another in a couple of days and the issue will thus be moot.

video

[legbreakings]

[ Oh, he could be better at questions but when Wei Wuxian is in a mood to be evasive, he doesn't trust his questions. He doesn't know enough to ask precise questions and anything less than that, and he expects only half-truths at best.

Only then Wei Wuxian does give him an answer and...

He rears back, dropping the phone, staring at it in horror before he picks it up again, breathing heavily and with trembling hands. No, the text hasn't changed. ]

How! Tell me how it is "moot", Wei Wuxian! [ His voice is panicked and shrill and it may give away too much but he simply doesn't have it in him anymore to be satisfied with text messages. He needs for these screams bubbling up in him to be heard.

He has no core. He has no core. ]

Tell me how... How this can be moot!

[mannerless]

( the heaviest, most put-upon sigh!! and then he answers the video with video of his own, lying on his stomach on his bed. it's a bit hard to tell if his expression is longsuffering or empathetic (whichever it is, it's subtle), but he waits for jiang cheng to finish his squawking, then quickly says - )

Quiet - d'you think Shijie can't hear you? Because she can. ( at that volume, at least. he'll do this out loud, but not if jiang cheng's going to out the matter to shijie. she doesn't need to find out.

then, a bit grim but otherwise quiet and steady, ) And it's not moot now. It'll be moot if they're good on their word and they give me a new one. A-Cheng, listen - I get that this is a bit horrifying for you, truly I do, but you have to understand that it's been like this for a long, long time. I'm used to it.

[legbreakings]

[ Jiejie is going to hear? He scowls at the rebuke but does snap his mouth shut and resolve to speak quieter, how or when or if at all they tell her is something to be hotly debated once he knows what there is to find out.

He makes an agonized noise in the back of his throat at Wei Wuxian's making light of that - that! and blurts out, horrified ] How can you still act like that?! I knowwhat it's like being without a core! I know! [ His face darkens, though he does stick to a whisper shout. ] And how did you lose yours anyway?!

[ Oh. He has a suspicion now. He has a terrible suspicion. But... No. Even not-thinking about it makes his stomach clench so tight that he wants to puke. No. ]

[mannerless]

( wei ying shakes his head a little, humming a quiet hum, as jiang cheng talks about what it feels like - and when the demands are finished, ) You know what it's like at first. It doesn't stay like that, so raw and awful. It dulls, more quickly than you might think. Now it's more like... like when you've gone out the other end of hungry and don't feel like eating, that gnawing feeling in your gut. And it's always there, but it gets easier to ignore it. ( which leaves out how weak he feels, how tired he feels, the way his bones haven't felt warm in years. the impossible way that he feels a little bit numb and distant from everything around him but also so vividly present in every ache, scrape, stiffness from poor sleep, every ounce of illness - but he hardly notices any of that, now. by the time he left the burial mounds, it was normal. he had adjusted, and it was already far less terrifying and miserable than jiang cheng recalls it being.

but that's not all he gets to say, either. a-cheng asked how he lost it. the one question he hoped wouldn't come up but knew for a fact was inevitable.

wei ying opens his mouth to continue, then shuts it again, lips pressing together. then the camera skews up to the ceiling for a second as he sits up, thoughtlessly tugs the hood of his sweatshirt up over his head as if that helps anything - and he opens his mouth again, this time for a moment longer as words very nearly come out, but his jaw trembles just slightly and he closes it for a second time. he's trying, alright? give him a moment. this is-... it's impossible to answer, really, because he sure as hell can't lie to jiang cheng but his throat seems to close around anything resembling the truth.

his eyes flicker off to the side, almost self-conscious, teeth worrying the slightest bit of blood from his chapped bottom lip before he adjusts a hand on the phone and the video feed turns off. he can do it if it's just their voices, maybe.

he has to. )

How did I lose it, ( he echoes back as if he's about to reminisce, but it's stalling, the veneer of nonchalance far too thin to cover the unsteadiness of it. ) I'm-... ( wei ying has the phone up to his face now, though the top edge is pressed against his forehead rather than positioned against his ear as it's supposed to be, as if the inkling of bruising pain might be enough to distract him from his own apparent inability to fucking do this - all of which means that when his voice drops to just above a whisper, jiang cheng can hear it regardless. ) Golden cores can't be rebuilt, A-Cheng. Only replaced.

[legbreakings]

[ It gets easier to ignore? Is this truly the hill Wei Wuxian wants to die on? Jiang Cheng makes a pained noise at the back of his throat which he only halfway manages to stifle. No, no, no, he didn't ever want Wei Wuxian to lose his core in the first place, never mind be without one long enough that he could get used to it. How is that supposed to make Jiang Cheng feel better? No.

But Wei Wuxian isn't done yet. There are more truths to be shared, truths he doesn't want to hear - and he is only connected to Wei Wuxian through this stupid phone device, he isn't even in front of him to shake him or quieten him or force more words out of him. All he can do is sit there and listen and try not to let any sounds escape.

...and then there it is.

Golden cores can't be rebuilt, A-Cheng. Only replaced.

There it is, the truth that has been growing in him over time, he just hadn't been willing to let it sink in, has tried his hardest to ignore it, deny it, close his eyes to it.]

No! [ He shakes his head, once, then frantically, and there are tears stinging in his eyes, then rolling down his cheeks. ] No, it's not...! It's not true! You wouldn't! You can't... [ He presses a hand against his mouth. ] No.

[ It can't be. It can't. He doesn't... ]

...not for me.

[mannerless]

( and through each stage of jiang cheng's realization, wei ying waits in silence. patiently - no, that's giving him too much credit. in truth, he's at a loss for what he can say. what there even is to say, let alone what he'll be able to force out past the choked-up feeling in his throat, as if his body's trying to stop him from saying anything even stupider than he already has.

but then jiang cheng goes and says a thing like 'not for me', and wei ying can't just allow that to be the definitive word here. ) I had to. ( all he can manage is a choked, desperate whisper, so that's what jiang cheng gets. ) You had to be able to rebuild, you had to-, to stop laying there wanting to die. I couldn't stand it. I couldn't, I had to do something and there wasn't anything about rebuilding a core, not in any of the books, gods, I looked.

( he swallows hard, then again, managing to work his throat just barely loose enough to put a little bit of voice behind his whisper, just enough to sound a little more resolute when he says, ) I don't want to lie to you and tell you I'm sorry. I'm not. I don't regret it. I haven't, not for a single second since I did it. It's- it's the one thing I've ever done that actually meant something. ( not for lack of trying, but all of the rest of it - rescuing the wens and building the mountaintop village, spending months in the burial mounds before that just to master his demonic cultivation, and standing up against their captors in the cave of the tortoise of slaughter before that - when it came down to it, all of it was for nothing. it did more damage than good.

but not this. )

[legbreakings]

The one thing [ he chokes out and there is so much more he wants to say, so much more he wants to berate, but the rest of the words get cut up when he goes all choked up and pathetic and there are far too many tears threatening to drown him, too. It's all terribly unfair when he wants to be angry, wants to lash out. Because he is sure he should be lashing out, it is the only appropriate response - and far less pathetic than bawling like a child, too.

Yet here he is, the tears are still spilling down his cheeks. He wipes at them angrily but new ones just take their place. ]

You think you had the right to make that decision for me! [ he finally manages to blurt out, and no, no, that's not even what he wants to say, but he can't stop himself either. It really is so much easier to lash out, even now when that is difficult in itself. ] You gave me your core because you thought me too weak to survive on my own! And now I'm supposed to thank you for it!

[mannerless]

( and again, wei ying holds his peace. holds his peace and allows jiang cheng to find the words, even if those words are angry. he knew they'd be angry. angry and hurt, and that's exactly what comes.

but then - 'and now i'm supposed to thank you for it! ) No, ( he argues at once, quick and urgent. he's shaking his head but jiang cheng can't see it. ) No, no, I don't want you to thank me. You shouldn't thank me. I didn't do it to do you some grand favor- and I didn't do it because you were weak, either. I was weak. I was more scared of losing you than you were of dying, how does that make you the weak one?

( he's kind of just saying words at this point - he has no rational concrete approach to this, no well-formed argument by which to present his case. he has no case. all he has is what he felt, what he could and couldn't live with. )

I don't want you to thank me. ( he repeats it again, a miserable whisper this time. ) But please don't hate me again. Not for this.

[legbreakings]

[ He had been weak? He, who would sacrifice his own core so that whimpering, listless Jiang Cheng could reclaim what he didn't have the strength to fight for without it? He can't help but laugh. If Wei Wuxian were here in front of him right now, Jiang Cheng thinks he could easily laugh in his face.

Except then that miserable whisper reaches his ears and steals the laughter from his throat, leaving only the bitterness that had carried it. ]

Do you still not understand that I never quite managed to hate you? [ This comes out as a whisper, too, just as miserable as Wei Wuxian's. He slumps on his bed, shoulders low and head bowed, the phone only staying upright since he has it propped up against the blanket. ] I tried so hard to hate you. There is nothing I wanted more. [ Jiang Cheng wipes at his eyes again, once, twice, wipes at them furiously. Oh, how he hates that he cries so easily. ] I tried.

[mannerless]

( perhaps it may not seem like he had been weak, but he certainly felt weak. he felt weak and desperate and scared, even as he put on his terribly stubborn face and scoured the medical guides as if he stood a chance of finding anything. if such a thing existed, to restore a golden core, why wouldn't it be better-known? 'because there wasn't much need for it, before the core-melting hand,' his rational mind supplies, even as something deeper (because how many would validate such a technique, where one willingly gives up their core for another?) surfaces just long enough for him to swallow it back down. because that implies some manner of bravery and that's the opposite of what he's trying to say.

'do you still not understand that i never quite managed to hate you?' jiang cheng is whispering now, and it's clear at once that his clumsy wording ('hate') has muddied things more than he intended. ) I know, ( he assures the moment the words are through, quiet and shaky but hopefully soothing. ) I know you didn't, I know.

I-, I just. ( teeth briefly worry his bottom lip, and - ) We can't be-... like we were, again. I can't take it.

[legbreakings]

I don't want to go back to that! [ Jiang Cheng blurts out, his voice a little high-pitched and panicky almost at the prospect of things going back to the way they had been. It had been terrible, unbearable even; he didn't know how he could stand going back to this state of painful limbo where they didn't talk about any of the painful secrets between them. He didn't want to go back to a state where he almost hated Wei Wuxian, yet never truly succeeded at hating him, and so only hated himself more for it.

He just... ]

I don't want to lose you again [ he admits in a small, pathetic voice, followed by a sniffle just as small and pathetic. ] I hate this... I hate what happened... but I hate it even more when I hate you, too.

[ Because there is no winning in hating Wei Wuxian. There is no victory in wanting vengeance against him. It is only one more loss to add to the count. ]

[mannerless]

You can't lose me, ( he says, and a note of 'don't be stupid' has stolen its way into his otherwise reassuring tone. ) Even if you could hate me, you still wouldn't be rid of me.

( and he feels like he should say more than that, but what else is there to say? the truth has come out, and they've established that they aren't going to lose one another over it. that's all that really matters, isn't it?

so instead, after a bit of silence, ) Hey - go check on your porch. ( because a bundle definitely still awaits him there, and it's about time he discover it. )

[legbreakings]

[ Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes at the reassurance, never mind that it does feel so good to hear it. They may be doing better now but he still finds himself pathetically needy for these dumb little reassurances that should really be beneath him as a grown-up sect leader in his own right. ]

Yes, yes, of course I can't get rid of you, you're like a bad rash, you just won't go away even when you try your best.

[ He gets up, phone in hand, to check on his porch. There is Blossom's barking heard off-screen as the dog seems to interpret this as Jiang Cheng getting up to walk her. ]

What did you get me? If it's something embarrassing, don't think I won't get back at you!

[mannerless]

It isn't, ( he's quick to assure, a bit quieter and more sincere than jiang cheng's own threats. ) It's nothing I haven't already told you was coming.

[legbreakings]

You're such a nuisance. When you give me a gift you could at least hand it over in person instead of making me hunt it down.

[ A mere token protest, for he is already in the process of fetching the bundle.

He makes intrigued noises as he opens it, revealing purple robes that yes, do sport conspicuously familiar lace but right now he is just stuck on the color. ]

You.... actually got me new robes?