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HOME SWEET HOME

Elrond let the gang decide when to leave, providing hospitality and medical care until they're ready. When the quest calls to them and they know it'll tug them along soon, he makes sure each is fully supplied and armed with weapons of their choosing, some custom made. They each have a pack, food supplies, and extra clothing. All of them get offered sturdy boots, even those who have stranger body types like Filbo.

He gives the group four copies of a book transcribed with the prophecies that had been brought to Rivendell, to be studied and interpreted on their journey.

Those who mentioned knowledge of the One Ring are briefly pulled aside away from the guests at Elrond's Council. They're implored to keep it secret, for the knowledge of Frodo's task could lead to people trying to steal the Ring when he's on a journey to destroy it.

Crowley is also released from the dungeon, with Elrond apologizing for the Elves' caution. It's at least clear he's been shown some of the same hospitality. He's healed up, well fed, and clothed in replacement clothes just like they all are.

Elrond's final goodbye to the whole group is warm and genuine.

"Namárië. It is a word we use for greetings and goodbyes. It means 'be well.' Whether you seek to help this world or try to find a way home, it is our hope that whatever paths you tread fly beneath your feet, and whatever obstacles you face are quickly overcome."

A pause.

"It would be easy to try to make you feel that the hopes of those in this new world go with you; but such burdens should only be carried by those who choose it. The Green will not admit it, but they have done you a great wrong. If you try to only find your way home, it's justified, and I hope you do find it."

Yes, there are prophecies, but making people do something by force is wrong, and all weary travelers deserve to find their way home. After a brief time of saying any goodbyes, they get to make their way to the other side of the valley. On the other side of the pass is the castle the Green spoke about.

The castle is a Frankenstein monstrosity that seems cobbled together from many buildings and machines. The second the last of the gang piles inside, it starts moving, massive legs clanking along. But where it's going is unknown. At least that means they have time to explore, rest, and get settled.

There are many mystical objects and mysteries within. One half of the castle seems to be a strange frozen realm of faerie, with strange sights to explore. But even the warmer side of the castle has its oddities. Magic waterfalls that show memories, and a scrying pool that shows frozen images of home, locked to the times each member of the squad left theirs. There are magical doors that lead to sights beyond the imagination, strange collections and even entire small realms, some beautiful, some dangerous.

The three magical creatures, Jonald, Ronald, and Rolkien constantly get underfoot trying to get the group settled, but refuse to talk about their former master, seemingly hurt at his leaving the castle.

The castle also seems to like assigning roommates for some of the group, making it so doors only open to their assigned room anytime they try to go to a place to sleep, even teleporting to them to the room if they fall asleep elsewhere.

It's a strange place, sometimes dangerous, sometimes annoying, but at least they have even more time to rest, train, plan, and prepare. They will have a few weeks to adjust to their new normal.

Then...who knows where the road will take them.
OOC DETAILS
❧ Prompts. The mods aren't doing prompts, but players can check out the page on the Moving castle for inspiration. The castle has many mysteries and oddities and absolutely anything can be behind the magical doors.

❧ Food and water. The castle seems to have an internal pressurized water supply and food is plentiful...for now. The food supply will not last forever but some food was left behind by the castle's previous occupants. There there's enough for a long break without hunting. There is some fresh food that's rotten and needs to be thrown away but whoever lived here clearly knew how to keep food prepared. There are cooking oils, flour, and sugar for bread and baked goods. There is jerky of various types of meats, dried fruit, sun-dried tomatoes, stores of nuts, jars of preserved fruit and jams (and empty jars to make more), and hard cheeses that need only a little mold cut off them to still be edible. Some of the jars have confit, meat cooked and preserved in lard, or garlic preserved in oil. A small root cellar has a few barrels of potatoes, parsnips, and onions.

It also has some barrels of beer and bottles of wine.

There are also dried herbs hanging in bundles from the kitchen ceiling, jarred pickled vegetables, and vinegar for pickling more. There are also fresh veggies the group can harvest together. The gardens will not be infinite in supplying the group but luck has it that many vegetables are ripe for harvest right now. The squad can pick juicy tomatoes, green beans, peppers, carrots, radishes, blackberries from a small thicket, squash, and plenty of zucchini. The garden does need tending to stay healthy. Aside from harvesting from it, weeds need to be pulled, beans and tomatoes need to be trellised, spoiled veggies on the ground need to be tossed away.

❧ Bathing. There is no soap other than what the Elves may have given them but there are hot baths. The water has to be heated on a fire down the hall and carried to the tubs.

❧ Weather/Atmosphere: The air outside and inside is on the warmer side. Even though the stone is cool, the cooking fires warm the air to something comfortable. The air outside in the gardens is warm and sunny, with the occasional cool breeze due to the altitude.

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It's all water under the bridge- [Dan starts to say, then she holds out the paper to him. For a moment, he suspects he's about to have to explain to Ange that he can't read, but when he opens it it's not a daunting fortress of text but a large circle. He folds it back up and tucks it into the pocket of his jacket with a nod; he doesn't need to know exactly what it is to know that it's both magic and something benevolent.] Thank you.

[Dan's a skilled enough piano player that he finds a halfway reasonable harmony with Ange's clunky, artless fumbling on the keys.]

I do understand that. I just... [She reminds him of his big sister, of the last conversation he ever had with her. He'd told her revenge wasn't going to solve anything. It wouldn't bring their family back. It wouldn't undo the hurt they'd been through.

She'd said it just would be nice if this were finally over.]

I'm trying my best while I'm here to find a reason to stick around in this life. [He's latched onto Bunny, but a good husband can't solve deep depression.] Because I done got closure, and it wasn't enough. And I wish I'd had time to accept it wouldn't be enough before I got there and got disappointed by it.

You're welcome. I know you're attached to your horse, and you won't be able to take her everywhere. This should allow you to summon her. Or create a horse, if she's not available or you don't want her. Don't ask me how a circle can do this.

[Although Concrete Blonde probably isn't going to take kindly to being teleported like this, that's bound to be a spooked horse!]

So...you're just drifting along, until you find something to do with yourself and not...let everything end?

[Her word choice doesn't sound all that compassionate, but her tone does show she's concerned. Oh, she hates so much she relates to this. Depression is a tough thing to battle. She has largely covered hers with anger at everything, but it's still there]

Edited 2022-06-06 21:55 (UTC)

That's...that's so kind of you. [Dan doesn't like to think of himself as attached to anything he can't be guaranteed to keep, and that's why he's spent most of his life trying to sever bonds with anyone or anything, caving not intentionally but because it's so impossible for him to keep himself as a distance from others when he so badly wants to care for them. He doesn't want to be attached to his horse.

But he is, and Ange noticed it, and Ange decided to do something to make that bond harder to break, and it chokes him up a bit, in a conversation that's already got him struggling not to let the dam break.] Magic don't always work with me but...I'll try it, see if it works.

[A languid, minor key line swirling out on the piano.]

I reckon that's it, yeah. And sometimes you drift into something that surprises you with how happy it can make you. [Like Dan's daughter, or like Bunny, or like the kids he came to love on the Rig and now here.] But it's just drifting, at least, it is for me.

[God, he wishes he had something more encouraging to tell her, but he's already proven himself dishonest. The only way back out of that pit is to be truthful going forward.]

I swear it does get easier.

It gets easier, you swear...

[Ange barely holds herself from scoffing at that. Still, for a moment she touches the keys with more strength than it warranted]

That sounds miserable. I don't want to end drifting like that.

[Not that it's any better that she already planned to end everything once she succeeded in her plans. At least Dan has found worthwhile things even though they still aren't enough to bring him true happiness. Ange doesn't even want to try, having locked herself in a path with a dead end and not seeing anything other than that]

Edited 2022-06-07 00:02 (UTC)

It ain't easy. [Dan wouldn't wish his way of life on anyone else. People like him - vagrants, monster hunters, whatever - they don't end up this way out of a wealth of opportunities and great decisions.

But it's not just Dan's career and living situation. It's the entire mentality, the idea of just spending down one's days without any hope of ever washing off the sadness entirely, without hope for the future, without a plan.]

But you don't got to end up drifting. Just because the truth won't set you free don't mean nothing else will.

...I'll see. I'm not backing down until I get what I want. I don't mean to be rude, but if not even my own dead brother could get in my way, you won't either.

[At least...for now. There's plenty of time for Ange to realize there are far more important things than a futile truth and chasing something that won't help her in the slightest]

...but I must thank you for your patience, I guess. I won't pretend what I saw in that memory never happened, but...I'll try not to act like that again. [Ange sighs, she stops playing] Perhaps that it hurt means I do enjoy knowing you.

[Despite everything she does like Dan, yeah. Part of her thinks she's being too soft towards him right now even though he hadn't done anything wrong to her, but for the most part she's trying to shut that part down]

Edited 2022-06-07 03:28 (UTC)

I ain't got no intention of getting in your way. [Dan laughs, even though it's sad. He's never had much luck in telling kids what to do. He can only give advice from his own life experience and hope they keep it in mind when hard choices are asked of them.

He smiles at her.]

Ange, I don't know if this'll make me not being angry make sense to you, but I got enough problems I don't choose. If there's a problem I can just let slide, I will. Ain't no benefit to me feeling hurt and angry by anything you might could have said, so. [He shrugs.] I don't feel hurt or angry.

[He plays an arpeggio.] I enjoy knowing you, too.

I can't decide if that philosophy makes you mature or if it makes you avoidant. You're a strange man.

[Perhaps someone younger would say Dan's attitude is what adults do. Ange sure knows enough to realize that no, Dan's attitude isn't something all adults share. Maybe it's not even 'the mature thing to do'.

But perhaps life would be easier if she knew how to do that]

Next time we're locked into each other's memories pretend it's not happening. Knowing each other works better when we're in control of everything.

[At least that way they can avoid seeing something like Dan's memories, and Ange is pretty sure her own would have been pretty unpleasant too!]

You wouldn't might be the first to accuse me of being avoidant. [Dan gives her a wry smile.] Gets on my husband's nerves sometimes.

[Running from his problems has been Dan's way of getting through life for more than two decades. It's hard to undo - but like he tells Ange, that's why he doesn't take on any new grievances he doesn't have to.]

I'll happily agree to that.

[The mention of Bunny...ah, she has to wonder...]

How did you and him meet? If you had been here in the Wilderlands for years I would think you met him somewhere in this magical land, but we three got here roughly at the same time, and you two presumably were already married, coming from the same place. You don't stumble into a legendary being while going to the local convenience store. How did it happen?

[Just how did these two met, seriously, she thinks]

Edited 2022-06-10 00:58 (UTC)

Never say never. I ran into Bigfoot once while looking for an outhouse. [Dan's not even joking, but he supposes that being a monster hunter opens up the possibilities in his worlds some.]

I don't know if you've heard folks talk about "the Rig", but it was a situation sort of like this. Big powers that be kidnapped folks from different worlds and made us run fetchquests. They grabbed Bunny because, well, look at him. And God only knows why they grabbed me. [Absentmindedly, quietly, Dan starts to play a Smokey Robinson song on the piano.]

Anyway, they put me and him on a quest together, and we got a place that only had one bed to split between the two of us, so we did the only sensible thing and fell in love. [In reality, they were both strippers, and they did in fact fall for each other, and Dan responded to the terror of being in love and thus being bereavable by doing so many drugs Bunny's convinced it was a suicide attempt, and they fought about it a lot, and then they got married on a reality TV show in yet another quest for the Jorg. But that's a lot.

Dan slaps his hands to his thighs, truncating the song and grinning.] And that's that.

More of this Rig place...

[She indeed has heard it referenced before. Ange has heard enough to be aware it's more than a can of worms, it's far more than that. So, Bunny and Dan were in there too. Funny thing how many people who were there are here now]

Ah, how hilarious. The Green are using the same methods than rig owners delegating their chores to random people from other worlds.

[With less corporate powerpoint presentations]

How romantic. [Said so dryly, but it's fitting that's what happened, probably] Not confident enough in your voice to have gone the usual route of serenading someone until they fall in love with you?

[Ange smiles a bit]

Honestly, I'm sick of the kidnapping, but I'd want to be out on missions and quests anyway. A little mortal danger keeps me young.

[Dan laughs. He's well aware that his voice is terrible, a striking and unpleasant sound that people have to adjust to, that it's somehow both painfully dry and yet still sounds like a wet cough, the low, constricted, scraping tone reminiscent of a metal dumpster being dragged across a muddy parking lot, made tolerable only because Dan always speaks quietly and calmly.]

You know full well I got a voice couldn't even a mother love. Ain't a song in existence so bad that it'd deserve my butchering.

I thought love was about learning to love everything about your beloved. Bunny should love your voice by now.

[Romantic love is once another thing she doesn't know about, really. Her only points of reference is her parents, and her brother kind of. Neither of those is an example to follow given the circumstances involved.

Dan and Bunny perhaps should be added onto that list, really. Despite the positive points of their relationships, Dan's...everything makes it all less exemplary than it would be otherwise. Also Bunny is a rabbit, that's a big difference from normal too]

Edited 2022-06-11 00:10 (UTC)

Oh, he does now, and that's how I know it's a real epic romance. [Dan leans into his already-pronounced rasp to make his voice even more comically grating.] But don't no one start off loving this voice. I'm just lucky I'm real pretty.

[He bats his eyelashes. Dan's as aware of his advantages as he is of his disadvantages; being attractive, brilliant and athletic pick up a lot of the slack his illiteracy, poverty and pug-ugly vocal timbre leave. And then he gets a little more serious.]

It ain't about loving everything about your beloved. There are plenty of things Bunny don't like about me. [Dan pats the metal flask tucked into his jacket, highlighting one of many examples.] And there are plenty of things he does that I wish he wouldn't might. It's more about...it's about being able to take a breath and remember what you love about someone even when they're leaning into that part of them that you don't understand and don't like. And then you use those things you love about them to try and decode the parts you don't.

[Bunny's quick to judge, prideful, reticent to show vulnerability and prone to being uncharitable when challenged, direct to the point of being an agitator. Dan's impulsive, passive-aggressive, avoidant, and addict and a liar.

It's a solid relationship, and Dan suspects Ange could learn from observing them - Dan, too, is learning every day from this terrifying reality of being in love. Dan wonders if Ange has ever seen how much work love is, if anyone's ever wrestled with loving her because the work was worth it, or if they all gave up when loving a full teenage girl was no longer always easy and convenient.]

So, love is a lot of compromising and always repeating to yourself what you saw in that person in the first place.

I suppose that works.

[Sure makes sense to her, when she puts it like that]

Yeah, a lot like that. [He smiles at her and plays a sweet little riff on the higher keys of the piano.] It's work. Not going to lie, Ange, loving folks is work. Maintaining relationships, love or not, friendship or whatever form it takes, is work.

[His smile gets sad.] You did that work deciding to give me a second chance. That's how you keep a friend.

......

[Ange imitates the riff the best she can, chewing on what she heard. So that's love in general, isn't it? Not just romantic love is like that.

That's...probably...true, isn't it?

It's such a curious thing, she thinks, these days she gets told all kinds of life lessons by people. 'Without love, the truth cannot be seen'. 'Don't become a child soldier making revenge your reason for living'. And now 'loving folks is work'. She's never able to dismiss things when they really hit her heart.]

...I'll believe your words about this, then. Ah, more work to do to maintain this relationship.

[Despite having come here not knowing how talking to Dan again would go, it has gone better than she expected. Ange feels relieved]

Edited 2022-06-11 01:54 (UTC)

I'm grateful you want to put that work in. [Dan doesn't want to tell Ange how much he expected her not to; Dan's used to being treated as disposable, more used to it than he even realized until recently. He can't blame anyone; he's spent most of his life treating most of his relationships as disposable too, walking away whenever things got too inconvenient or demanding or scary.]

Here. All black keys except this one, [Dan says, repeating the riff.]

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