3441/Court of Owls: Red Dead Redemption Four - A Quiet Time

Court of Owls: Red Dead Redemption Four - A Quiet Time
Date of Scene:	19 September 2020
Location:	Realm of Chaos
Synopsis:	A trip to a dark world, and offers are made, the first of many. Do the bats have the will to hold out?
Cast of Characters:	Tim Drake, Jason Todd

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Tim Drake has posed:
...F
    A
        L
            L
                I
                    N
                        G...

There is a place where all things are that should and should not be. Where reality is fluid, mutable.

Chaos isn't a ladder. It's a liquid.

There's a black sand beach by a wine-dark sea, the waves crashing drunkenly on the shore. Obsidian and onyx cliffs reach towards the pitch sky above, lit only by the dimmest sparks of thousands of too-distant stars. Perhaps. Perhaps they aren't stars at all.

It is on this stretch of grit that Jason and Tim land. The force of the landing should be enough to splatter them into paste, yet it doesn't. Though for a time, the pain of what it should have been echoes across their bodies.

Once the worst of the pain passes, Tim sits up, trying to collect his bearings. He looks down at himself, garbed in hooded black robes, a knife hanging at his waist. He stands, feeling his bare feet dig into the black sand beneath him, but somehow the sand feels alive, writhing.

He takes a breath. This has to be another nightmare. He looks over to his right, where Jason had landed about 20 feet away in much the same state. Is he real, or another part of this dream state? Tim's mind is awhirl with the possibilities, though none of what he considers, given the last thing he remembers of consciousness, seem palatable to him.

Jason Todd has posed:
The pain didn't feel good but it felt familiar and also different from the drowning and darkness of before, Jason latches onto it, embraces it, and uses it to help him sit up. He finds himself in the same robes as Tim. "Another dream," he wonders aloud, but then he shakes his head, this all feels too solid, too real.

"You, you Timmeh?" he asks him as he gets slowly to his feet. "Or is this My Own Private Idaho made just to fuck with me?"

Tim Drake has posed:
"I'm me," Tim replies dryly. He traces the knife at his side... it's the same size, shape, and style as the ritual knives he and Jason had seen before. He pulls it out of the loop it hangs in, examining it. The grip on one side has the looping, linked rings on one side with a stylized bat, and the other side swirling formless whorls with a stylized owl. He frowns a bit at this, put tucks the knife back into its loop. Blades aren't his preferred weapon, but he's certainly been trained in their use, should it come to that.

Always the detective, Tim's gaze falls on the area around them. There's no clear way off the beach. The rising cliff face behind them is certainly not made of stone, specifically... the glitter to it is unnatural. There is no moon, not even a dark one.

"Pretty sure we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto." He moves towards the water to look at it, but recoils, stepping back onto the beach to get away from it. Beyond the whorls and swirls of what looks to him to be surely blood and viscera beneath the waves, there is a palpable feeling of malice coming from it.

Jason Todd has posed:
Jason too examines the blade drawing his feeling the weight of it and the way it swings. He looks to the 'water' when Tim recoils and steps back himself. "What the fuck are we doing here?" he wonders aloud, the panic in his voice quickly fought back into place. Fear and panic had no place here, not if they wanted to live.

Tim Drake has posed:
The voice comes from nowhere and everywhere. -//You are here to see me.//-

Tim startles slightly, though years of training make that reaction almost imperceptible. He glances around, looking for where it might have come from, but there is nothing. "You are?" he asks, not shouting, but rather in a normal tone.

-//Beyond your comprehension.//- The voice seems amused. -//You may call me what you like. I've gone by many names.... He Who Sleeps, He Who Holds the Darkness, What Walked Once...//- There is a pause. -//Those who sent you to me, however, call me The Great Shadow.//-

Tim looks to Jason with a very clear 'what the fuck is going on here' look.

Jason Todd has posed:
When the voice speaks, the knife comes out, Jason holds it defensively, eyes darting around for its source.

Jason shares that look at Tim even as he says, "How about He Who Shuts the Fuck Up and Sends Us Home?" he always handled fear with defiance, but his voice isn't as steady as it would be facing a threat he could see and understand.

Tim Drake has posed:
-//Oh, you will return. Eventually. Once I have taken my measure of you.//- The waters crawl forward towards them, and shape into dark tentacles of dubious origin. They skitter up the black sand beach and snatch Jason around the waist, lifting him into the air and tossing him back and forth among themselves like a toy. -//You are the dead boy. Death is but a window to another place. You feel... familiar.//- Jason's robed form is flipped into the air and tossed around again. -//Dead walk just as well as the living.//-

Jason Todd has posed:
Jason draws back as the tentacles make their way up the beach towards him, "Tim, attack them from the flank I'll fight them head on," he says it seems he's their target. He slashes at them as the wrap around him, but to no avail, he's lifted from the sand and flung about like a rag doll. "So I discovered," he says. "Want to find out how it feels personally I'd be happy to help."

Tim Drake has posed:
Tim does draw his knife and slash at the tentacles, attempting to free Jason, but to no avail as the knife seems to be ignored by them. Jason is continued to be juggled around, tossed idly by his waist, his ankles, and then unceremoniously dumped back onto the beach. Then, despite his best attempts to avoid them, the tentacles grab Tim and give him much the same treatment. -//One dead boy of seemingly little consequence and one living who is the last of his blood. How interesting.//-

-//There is power in death. In blood. In chaos. In shadows.//- Tim keeps a grip on the dagger, slashing as he can manage, fighting back the terror he feels from the disembodied voice, the strange tendrils that mandhandle him and Jason. -//You are both already of shadows, which means you are half mine already.//-

Jason Todd has posed:
Grunting Jason struggles against the things grip. "Let me down and we'll see how 'yours' I am," he threatens. Though in truth felt nothing more than the desperate sense he could not win here, bringing back memories of Joker's pale face and the pain of metal striking flesh. "RAAAAAAGH!" his flashbacks fueling his rage as he tries to tear the tentacles from around his waist.

Tim Drake has posed:
-//Child, I see your soul, tattered and fluttering though it may be. Do you think your mewling cries threaten me?//- The tentacles change, and now a hundred tentacles end with a hundred Jokers from the waist up, all laughing maniacally. -//When you are terrified of laughter? I can taste your fear, and it is delicious to me.//-

Even Tim flinches as suddenly he is thrown from Joker to Joker, and then they shift again, to Black Mask, and then back to tentacles that leave them both behind on the beach as they withdraw into the water. -//You know the power darkness holds. You can take more than that. Death will be no burden to you, dead boy. You will dance away from her tender grasp and she will never know your face again.//- And for a moment, Jason will feel... empowered. Stronger. As if his fears are no longer able to touch him.

-//You are but one vessel, last of your line. But blood runs and fills many cups. You can go from one to many, stronger than you have been in generations. You need not fear faltering.//- For a moment, the crushing aloneness Tim has felt lifts.

Jason Todd has posed:
Jason rears away from the Jokers surrounding him, hands instinctively covering his head as they did on that warehouse floor. When he is let go he drops to the sand shaking, before the things words and that rush of power hits him and he feels himself drawn to both sitting up, eyes flashing something dark and primal as in that moment he's filled with the savage joys of vengeance and blood. It lifts and he lets out a breath, trying hard not to think about how good that had felt after so much fear.

Tim Drake has posed:
-//Swear yourself to my servi--//-

"NO." Tim shakes his head, a deep well of stubborn will rising up inside him. "I don't know who you are, but I know //what// you are," the young detective says quietly. "And I'm not making a deal with a demon." He looks to Jason, knowing, hoping, that his will is equally strong; but not knowing what this denial will cost either of them.

Jason Todd has posed:
Jason shakes his head and makes himself stand. A gob of spit lands in the grit of the shore. "Fuck you, I am nobody's bitch," he tells whatever it is out there. Though deep down there's a part of him which is unsure, a part of him that remembers that feeling of power.

Tim Drake has posed:
-//Interesting.//- The waves crash. -//Your denials are weak. This is what you want. You will embrace the shadows within, I can feel it.//-

The waves continue lapping at the shore. -//I have all the time in the world. //-

And then they are back in the room again. Tim sits up in a rush, breathing heavily, patting himself all over. Slacks. Dress shirt. No robes, no knife.

Jason Todd has posed:
Jason wakes up in the damn tube there's a moment of panic before he calms himself and presses the button, sliding the thing open, even if seems to Jason to take forever.

"Well that was fun?" Jason says putting on a brave face about what they say. He's still dressed in Talon gear.

Tim Drake has posed:
It was just a dream. Entirely a dream.

Except...

There are tiny pieces of gritty black sand at their feet, as if they had recently stumbled off a beach.

Tim stares towards the door, looking grim. "I can't wait to see what happens next," he replies darkly to Jason.

Jason Todd has posed:
Jason nods, laying back in the still open pod. "Heh. Is this where one of us says it could be worse?" the words are meant to be a joke but there's no mirth to them, just quiet dismay at the knowlege that after what they saw today there could well be no limit to what horrors they may face next.

Tim Drake has posed:
"Pretty sure if I say 'I've got a bad feeling about this', that makes you a 7 foot tall walking carpet." Tim's trying to remain light, but there's a dark trickle in his mind. What if... Well, there are a lot of possibilities that open up with the level of magic whatever it what... the Great Shadow... had to offer. He had seen some of it, buried in the back of his mind's eye.

"Oodles of terrifyingly great kids" she had said... Without trying to think of that, the conversation he and Phoebe had not too long ago bubbles up. "You can't let the past paralyze you for the future," she had said... Rose's words, some of the last she had spoken to him, dance and twist among the visions he has of a future. A future he had refused to entertain.

Death is but a window to another place.

...maybe Damian might know where there might be the Pits...

Jason Todd has posed:
There are no words in Jason's mind, only memories, the same ones that play over in his dreams, the Joker, the crowbar, it starts the same but then Jason feels that rush of dark power and he grabs the crowbar painlessly as it falls to strike him, he twists it in the Joker's hand as he begins to rise the power growing in him as he does. There's fear in the Joker's eyes then, genuine fear, Jason yanks the crowbar from his hand, flips it once and swings.

The first swing knocks Joker off his feet. The others beat his body and head to a pulpy mess, before those tendrils appear dragging what's left to some unknowable hell.

Jason smiles.

...If there was no other choice would it be so bad...