Hanging off the bandwagon (Intro)

[elven_irs]

He comes, his mount fully loaded with scavenged goods and remnants of food - his clothes are ripped, his arms are bloodied but whole, his eyes are full of simmering fury.  At his side, the trusty sword, clean and well furbished, the golden hilt gleaming in the sun’s last rays. On his back, the arrows and the bow, ready to be taken.

The battle

Comments

[angsty_redhead]

For a change, have someone who wasn't dead last time you met. Have a big brother, coming against all reason out of the house, roused by all the shouting.

"--Carnistir?"

[elven_irs]

Yes. That's is, indeed, GOOD. And the caps denote affirmation, for once.

He'll turn around, not exactly starting, but taking a breath.

"Maitimo!" Not dead relative. Not a dead relative. Wonderful! "What the hell is this valardamned place! Dead people everywhere!" Pause. "And what the hell are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be in Himring?"

He's not really yelling, but there's a glimmer of caution. He's not quite sure where he is and what's going on. You never know what other tricks the Ennemy will come up with.

[angsty_redhead]

"No." Himring being currently a tiny island in the sea somewhere. Ask Maglor about that one. He looks curiously at Caranthir, partly out of askfhkjhag he missed his dead angry brother, partly out of his evident time-displacement. "Where do you come from?" With a glance at his assorted luggage.

[elven_irs]

"From Dagor Bragollach, where else, big brother?" He almost scowls, but doesn't. "Don't you remember the fighting and the flight? I lost Amrod. I lost the little one."

He's now angry at himself, and because he doesn't turn his anger against himself, ever, turns and punches the closest tree.

"And how do I know you're not an illusion too?"

[angsty_redhead]

Oh, Caranthir, you bundle of issues you. He winces a little at the punching, because seriously. "...I'm no illusion. Should I be?"

[elven_irs]

"I don't know. Are you dead too? You weren't last time I checked, but after seeing that fop Angamaite, and Pytio... baby Pytio..." He facepalms. "Dead cousins and dead little brothers. Maybe you're dead and I don't know it, damnit!"

[angsty_redhead]

Yeah, pretty much. He grimaces. "I am. Most of us seem to come here from the hour of our death." And they tend to be more amenable to the weirdness; death will open a mind that way.

[elven_irs]

Yes, dying does indeed have that effect.

.......

"I need to go. This is just too strange." He turns, fusses with the saddle, turns again.

"How did you die?" the question is blurted before he can think better of it.

[angsty_redhead]

"Try, and more power to you if you succeed."

He pauses for a long time. And how many times is he going to have to explain this today? "Do you know what came of our Oath?"

[elven_irs]

"Alright. You're going to bring up the Doom and all that, aren't you?" He snorts. "The Valar didn't do anything more, did they, or are they playing tricks on my mind now? You look hale enough to me. Why do you say you're dead?"

And oh, dear, Carnistir then actually pokes Maitimo with the tip of his finger, just in case this is an illusion, or something.

[angsty_redhead]

"No," catching Caranthir's wrist in the hand he didn't used to have. "It was all us."

[elven_irs]

.....

That gets his attention. Both the physicality and the, er, ghost hand?

"...I...Maitimo..." he sighs. "You need to explain that. The hand."

First things first.

And that thing, going up his spine? It's a shiver of complete and utter dread.

[angsty_redhead]

A very corporeal ghost hand! :D

"I am hale. I walk and breathe and bleed as well as I ever did." Especially the bleeding. There are still stitches under those clothes. "And I have died and watched you die, Morifinwë, and none of it, any longer, seems to stick."

[elven_irs]

"Not you too." He facepalms. "The babes were telling me so, and I called them insane. I've not died, nor have I seen anyone die, other than Telvo, who is hale as your hand is."

Another deep shudder.

"What in Mandos' hell is going on? And where are we?"

[angsty_redhead]

Rich of Cara to call them babes, they being the only reason he isn't the icklest.

"I don't know. Time and death do not work here: we arrive, from disparate moments, often alive when we should not be--" and has he mentioned how much he, personally, hates that? "--and more of us all the time. I've been here a month. Ambarussa, I believe a year, and we patch our history together from what those who died after us remember."

[elven_irs]

Well yes, he's Cara. And it's affectionate. Thanks to them, he gets to feel protective, which is nice, even for an evil SOB like him.

"Who else? They said everyone was here, you, Maglor, Tyelko... Is Kurvo here as well? How can it be? I'm not dead - I have no memory of being killed, none at all. I was only threading from the battlefield..."

The thought makes him angry, and it's about to bring on another rant. Stop him, Mae. Seriously. He's going to get a sore throat.