deleons | The Limbo Meme

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limbo meme

The Limbo Meme

Congratulations, you are dead.

You’re not sure how it happened, or maybe you are. Was it a hero’s death, or the desperate last moments of a coward? Maybe you died to protect someone, maybe you fell on your own sword, maybe you passed away peacefully in your bed one night, or maybe you were taken out by force. Whatever the reason, you are now neither here nor there, no pearly gates or brimstone in sight. This is what they call “limbo”, a liminal space made not to exist in, but to pass through on your way to a more finite destination. Even so, there’s no telling how long you might be stuck here, nor who you might encounter.

Directions:
-create a top level, either blank or with a prompt or preferences
-select a number, letter, or combination of the two from the lists below if you wish
-tag others and enjoy being dead
(OTA all canon characters and OCs)

Optional Prompts
How long have you been here?

1. Newly dead; You haven’t been here long. Maybe you don’t remember how you got here, or maybe you do. You might be scared, confused, disheartened, or even relieved. You’re not the only one drifting through this strange place, so maybe you should ask a familiar - or unfamiliar - face what’s going on.

2. Getting your footing; You’re not exactly a seasoned death veteran, but you’ve been here a while, and whether you like it or not, you’re almost starting to get used to this place - but when will it be time to move on? And who’s that new person who just arrived? That person in the corner has been here as long as you have, if not longer. Maybe you should talk to them.

3. A seasoned spirit; You’ve been here for years, or decades, or centuries. Perhaps you’ve learned how to drift in and out with how long you’ve been dwelling in this strange place. You could give a newbie some advice, or maybe ease the frustration of someone who has been here not quite long enough to accept what their existence has become - that they’ll become you. Then again, maybe you’re just angry you’re still stuck here at all.

What are you doing?

A. Asking questions; How did you get here? How did you die? Will you ever see your family or friends again? Is that one of them? When will you move on to the next stage? Who’s that weird guy standing in the corner over there? You’ve got questions and you want answers.

B. Facing your killer; You know how you got here, you know who’s responsible, but do you know exactly what you’d have to say to them if you saw them? Well, you better figure it out - they’re standing right in front of you.

C. Facing your victim; Well, this is awkward. At some point in the past, you made a decision, and now that decision has quite literally come back to haunt you. The person for whom’s death you are responsible is standing right in front of you, and they are probably going to want some answers

D. A familiar face; Maybe you’re new here, or maybe you’ve been here for years; either way, you’ve just seen a familiar face, whether it be a long lost loved one, or someone you never expected to follow you so soon in death. What will you say to them?

E. Wildcard; Go crazy! Any number of things can happen when your soul is trapped between dimensions. Strike up a conversation with a stranger, explore any strange new powers you might discover as a ghost, haunt one of the living, etc. The possibilities are endless!

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[ They have that in common: the stiff upper lip, the attempts to cobble their composure together and maintain a kind of dignity, even when they're scared shitless. Darlington takes a deep breath, and tries to answer the other boy's question, wracking his brain. Normally he has such crisp, precise memory, everything pinned with exacting specificity, but now he finds that his recollection is hazy. All he can recall is a burning sensation in his throat: ]

There was... a potion, I think? I remember Ronan sounding particularly upset. He said we were, to quote, "absolute fucking idiots" to try this and that it'd backfire on us, that it would be like poison.

I'm struggling to remember the rest. Of how it went.

[ Hopefully their friends are sitting ready to yank them back to the world of the living once their bodies start fading too much — but from here, it's impossible to tell. ]

[No telling, really. The idea of a potion - a poison - should be more alarming than it is when it hits Gansey, and as far as he can deduce from that sensation alone, it means it’s probably true. Ronan’s described reaction certainly sounds accurate, anyway, and Gansey silently curses himself for apparently having written it off. His risks aren’t always calculated, but he’s never quite messed up this badly before.]

Darlington. [Richard Gansey’s voice is composed and unwavering, but there is a rawness in his throat when he speaks that he hopes only he can notice.] Do you have any experience with this sort of thing? Any at all?

Tell me what you know.

[They’ll figure this out yet - they have to.]

[ He's known Gansey long enough that he can recognise that touch of fragility in his friend's voice, but he does the gentlemanly thing and pretends he doesn't. Clears his throat instead, and looks around this liminal nothingness, trying to make something out of the haze. ]

I do have some experience with this, or something similar to this. One of the Yale societies, Book & Snake— they specialise in necromancy, bone conjuring, and speaking to the dead. They have a certain subsection of rituals that allow you to dip your toe into the afterlife, so to speak. I've done it once and only once. This... reminds me of it.

[ If you squint, you could perhaps imagine that the pair of them are standing on the banks of a great river that flows black beneath the stars, which twinkle in unfamiliar constellations above. There's the susurrating white noise of the water, but it isn't exactly comforting. The thought does occur to him now that perhaps they needed some sort of totem, some anchor to keep them connected to their memories. Darlington himself serves Lethe House when he's at school, and how darkly fitting is that. ]

If we are where I think we are: it's the river, the boundary between the world of the living and that of the dead. If we could see the other bank, we'd probably see uncountable shades of people. Ghosts.

[ A beat. Mentally retracing their steps, Darlington suddenly realises: ]

Maybe we're looking for someone who might have known Glendower.

The afterlife...[He breathes this to himself, scanning the area in front of him in search for the “other bank”, though really, the space around them is so massive and disorienting that it’s still difficult to picture that they’re standing near a river at all.

[His King’s name makes his head snap back in Darlington’s direction. “Glendower.”]

Yes!

[There’s a flash of excitement that crosses over Gansey’s expression as he recalls, however vaguely, their activities while they’d still stood in the land of the living. The realization is enough to momentarily assuage his panic.]

Top shelf, Darlington, yes! You’re right, we were, we were—- [He makes a few circular gestures with his hands up near his head while he tries to recall the specifics. Suddenly, he snaps his fingers and points at his companion.] A vision. That’s what we were after. Something like a vision anyway, but a way to speak with someone who could—-

[Something dawns on him then and he lowers his hand, sucking on his lip a bit while his eyes drift back over the “river”.]

Who could help us. Who could give us a clue. But I didn’t think we would...

[His voice trails off then. Die? Is that the word he should say next? Surely they couldn’t really be, could they? All at once his excitement seems to vanish. What to do now?]

We’ll have to think of something. Find our source and ask them what we want to know.

And then ask them how to get home from here.

((ooc: I hope you don’t mind the novel tags! This is very fun! If you’d like to add me on Plurk, it is linked in his profile!))

'Top shelf'. You sound like an old timey radio announcer sometimes, you know. Pip pip, cheerio.

[ Pot, kettle, black. Darlington was raised by his grandfather and you could catch those lingering traces of it sometimes: the occasional old-fashioned bit of slang, the antiquated formality of his speech. No wonder the two of them got along so well.

But there is that a bigger question at hand, and so Darlington finally lets himself look at it head-on, even through the fear ebbing beneath it all. It's all starting to feel awfully mythical — a literal trip into the underworld — but then again, that's why he joined in with the Aglionby boys, wasn't it? To feel part of something bigger than himself, a quest laced with grandeur. Lethe gave him that sense of purpose during the school year, but the summers were adrift without Glendower. ]

It should be temporary. Hopefully. You know, like a near-death experience— we're touching on it, but we're only half-here. Like there's an anchor around our ankles, and the others will be able to tug on it and pull us back.

[ Hopefully. Finally, he takes another deep breath and then starts forward, wading deeper into the river and heading towards the other bank. It seems like it should be freezing cold, but it doesn't feel like anything. ]

Into the breach, then, Gansey?

[Into the breach indeed, it seems, as Darlington has already begun wading through the strange water. Just as Gansey had hesitated the second time he and his friends had entered Cabeswater, he hesitates now. Noah had been the first one to plunge forward then, and now Darlington. As before, with an arguably braver companion leading the way, Gansey with his pride has no choice but to follow. Even so, once the water reaches his waist, he hesitates again.]

Is it deep?

[There doesn’t seem to be much of a current, and it isn’t cold as he expected to be - in all ways it feels quite unlike any water he’s ever waded through, actually. But he’s nervous.

[His mind wanders back to what Darlington had said only a few moments ago, that their friends will be the ones to pull them back. Ronan will no doubt be unhappy when Gansey sees him next. Additionally, if his friends will move as quickly as he’s sure they will, it means they may not have much time in this place, and it would be quite a waste, wouldn’t one think, not to take advantage of the situation while they can.

[He presses forward through the water.]

If it is, it doesn't matter, [ he answers, just in time for the other boy to start walking. And it is, in fact, deep: they sink in up to their hips, but thankfully the current itself isn't strong enough to tip them over or pull them away. Instead, it's just— steady. Inexorable. It'll be there, waiting, for the day they actually do die.

Fording the river simultaneously feels like it takes an age, and yet no time at all. When they go clambering onto the other bank, fingers digging into the mud, Darlington eventually slides to his feet and then reaches out to help heft Gansey onto solid ground with him. And they're closer to the press of ghosts now: the crowd is aimless, drifting, not paying much attention to the two boys.

Which is. A good thing. He's not sure how well he'd have handled it if they'd all turned their heads to stare at them at once, en masse. When Darlington speaks again, his voice is light as ever, joking: ]

'Come on down to Virginia', he said. 'We'll keep researching Glendower. It'll mostly be library work,' he said. How did I ever let you get me into this, Gansey?

[As Gansey takes the last few muddy, uncertain steps onto the bank, he finds himself grateful for Darlington’s lightheartedness. He’s not all the certain that he entirely believes it, but he’s grateful nonetheless. Darlington isn’t much older than him (and its not as if he doesn’t have much older colleagues that he has regularly rubs shoulders with), but at times like this, someone with a little more age and experience, who is perhaps a little less seventeen and a little more certain, can prove to be quite a comfort to have around; furthermore, it gives Gansey energy to mirror. And so, he responds lightheartedly in return.]

It was.

Mostly.

[He too is grateful that the spirits (spirits?) so far seem relatively unfazed by their corporeal (are they still corporeal?) visitors. He can’t help but let out a small breath when his eyes scan the crowd of them, but he doesn’t speak on it. He doesn’t want to offend.]

Where to begin then, Darlington?

[ 'I don't know,' he almost says, but the urge to always seem wise and entirely in control of the situation wins out in the end. Darlington hesitates on the riverbank, before he pats his coat pockets absentmindedly (they're already dry; when did that happen?). Inside, he finds a weighty lump, which turns out to be... a pocketwatch?

No. A compass. He flips it open and watches the needle as it spins and spins, before eventually pointing to the distance. ]

That direction. I'm not sure if it actually counts as north, but I think it's where we need to go. We're searching for someone connected to the leyline— I hope that it'll be able to pick up on that energy even while we're here. That is, at least, the working theory of this endeavour. I think.

[ He starts walking forward, eventually steeling himself as they walk into the mass of ghosts, pressing through them and following that gently-twitching needle.

He doesn't have any personal motive in seeking the Welsh king. Gansey has his reasons for his lifelong hunt for Glendower and his favour; Darlington, on the other hand, isn't even certain he knows what he would ask for at the end of this road. What appeals to him instead is the mystery. The magic. The romance. The mere act of being on a capital-q Quest with likeminded souls. It's the same drive behind his own private investigations back in New Haven (and if he's hoping he'll be able to convince Gansey to come to Yale after graduation and after this business in Henrietta is resolved— well, he'll keep working on that later). ]

[Again, Gansey is thankful for Darlinton’s apparent certainty. For a moment, he wishes that patting his own pocket would somehow produce his large and boxy EMF reader, but on second thought he realizes that the device would probably either explode from the pure amount of energy radiating from this place, or cease to function entirely. It seems a simple compass will, in fact, be their best bet. And so, Gansey continues following Darlington’s lead.

[But moving through the horde of ghosts is unnerving to say the least. The air around them feels chilled to the point of frostbite, but at the same time, Gansey can’t say that he feels terribly affected by it. This truly is a bizarre place.

[Face after face. Gansey can’t help but scan them - subtly at first, and then rather brazenly. Leave it to him to want to make a good impression on a bunch of dead people, but if they’re looking for someone who might know something about Glendower, then it’s worth a straight-on look or two...or four...or ten. It’s not without some frustration that Gansey realizes he’s not entirely sure what to look for. Old paintings and scrawling make people from the 15th century look almost fictional in their depictions, quite far removed from the image of an actual person. These spirits all look frighteningly real. And some of them are looking back at him now. That leaves a chill on his spine. When he speaks again to Darlington, it’s in a low, quiet voice.]

Do you see anything?

Not yet.

[ His jaw is starting to wire tighter with tension, the deeper in they go, and the more ghosts they pass. Darlington's accustomed to being quiet and watchful; he likes sitting back and gathering information, seeing what he can learn from others' behaviour. But the main lesson he's ever been taught about Grays is to not look at them. Don't draw their attention. Don't make them look back at you or notice you or have any reason to get attached to you.

And right now, the two boys may as well be comprised of hollering klaxons and blinking lights screaming, we're here, we're alive, come and get us.

Not for the first time, he finds himself missing Alex. For better or worse, she's more accustomed to the dead than he is.

But then. There. The compass pointing the direction and the crowd parting slightly, enough for them to see a figure in the distance, shoulders slumped. Tousled pale blond hair, face averted from them, and an Aglionby Academy uniform. With a black raven on the crest, compared to the black hound on Darlington's Lethe House jacket. He frowns. ]

Is that your school uniform?

[Gansey's head turns. He knows nothing of not looking at "Grays", and he's been looking. He's been distracted, and greatly so, searching for what he's always searching for - more clues, a step closer, and indication that what he's looking for is there and real and within his reach.

[But when he hears Darlington's question, his brain lags like a computer. His thoughts are still on Glendower and finding a 15th century face. The other boy's question doesn't register until he sees it himself.

[An Aglionby uniform, but that's not all - out of place, yes, but it's not the uniform that catches his attention. Slumped shoulders, tousled blonde hair. That's not just any Aglionby student, that's--]

Noah?

[Gansey doesn't wait for Darlington to catch up to his realization. He dashes toward his friend without further notice. Noah hadn't been with them. He hadn't had any potion, concoction - whatever it was they drank. Noah shouldn't be here. Why is Noah here?]

Noah!

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The Limbo Meme

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i love novel tags!!

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SO i'm thinking maybe they're eventually led to noah, then get yanked confused back out of limbo?

this sounds good to me! Do they know Noah’s secret by now?

hmmm maybe they don't, so it's a first ~hint~ towards the secret

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