there’s irony that one of the first familiar faces from mystic falls he sees is the creepy fish monster that one tried to kill him in kansas when he was searching for his birth mother. it’s just as scaly and gross as he remembers, and he’s mumbling as much as he runs for his life in the opposite direction. “ great. great. reprieve has monsters. no friends, no family, but monsters ? sure ! why not ?! ”
his shoes skid across the floor when he scrambles into the closest building, shutting the door and throwing his back against it to keep it from whipping back open. it bangs behind him, the monster fighting to get through, and he grits his teeth as he throws all of his weight back towards the door. frantically, his eyes scan the room and lock onto a familiar face. it’s a bar, he thinks, so hopefully the lone occupant isn’t too drunk and can actually help him. “ no, finish your beer. it’s cool. ” he says casually, as the door clatters and bangs behind him. “ i’ve got this. ” he absolutely DOES NOT got this and he’s sure it’s written plainly across his face.
“ i’m not doing this. ” his tone is vehement, words final, as he crosses his arms over his chest. he’s standing as far away from the edge of the lake as possible, blinking blearily out into the foggy water in the distance. he can’t swim, for starters, and that fog looks like something straight out of a horror movie. sure, if something grabs him and drags him under, he won’t die, but it’ll make him even more terrified of water than he already is. so no. no thank you. even in a canoe, like the one minnie has that is supposedly going to take them to the island with the pokemon gym just out of reach, doesn’t feel safe enough. hell no. NO WAY. no. “ mewtwo’s not worth it. ” sorry, mewtwo. he’s always been more of a fire-type pokemon guy anyway. “ here’s a concept — what if we just went home. there’s probably not enough people out there to even do the raid ... and my phone’s about to die, and we didn’t bring snacks. ” and he’s running out of excuses, so hopefully one of them lands.
you can give a man cool powers, but this does not, in fact, make the man himself cool. this is proven as he waves his hands like a wizard, throwing them out forwards as fireballs shoot from them. with precision, unlike the first few hundred times he’s tried, they hit the targets across the field and burst into flames. he whoops, hands thrown up in the air, but curses and yells, “ RUN ! ” as a stray fireball flies out and threatens to scorch them both. he throws himself out of the way, tumbling into an awkward roll as he ends up flat on his back. “ i still say that’s progress. ” he adds as he forces himself into a sitting position. “ neither one of us caught on fire, and the field’s still standing. ” minus one scorched spot but hey — nobody’s perfect.
there’s an old playground out behind the old train station in the echo district, one that’s clearly not seen any T&C for years if he’d had to guess. it was covered in rust, the swings hanging from a busted chain, and something tagged onto the metal slide with what looked like paint. like the motel, he looked at it as something he could use to distract himself; to fix. he couldn’t fix his circumstances, or the ache in his chest that came with missing the people he cared about most, but this he could do.
today it looks brand new. he’d scraped off all the rust and repainted the metal poles a bright blue before hanging up new chains for the swings. the slide had taken hours to scrape all the paint off, make sure there was nothing left behind, but it gleamed now like it had never been messed up. he was ... proud, in all honesty. of course now that it looked less like somewhere you’d need a tetanus shot after visiting, it was usually pretty crowded, but he didn’t mind. in the dead of night, when the cicadas were chirping and families were home in their beds, it was all his.
it’s where he is tonight, toes dragging in the sand woodchips beneath his feet as he reads comic books on his phone. tonight it’s hawkeye, the matt fraction run obviously, and he’s so tuned in he almost misses the crunch of gravel nearby. almost. he looks up like a startled deer caught in a set of headlights, headphone pulled from his ear as he stares at his visitor with incredulous eyes. he’s been searching for certain faces in crowds, hoping upon hope that one day his wish will be granted, but it’s almost kismet that their paths cross by chance. by coincidence. this, you could say, is kind of their thing. much like that day back on the steps of the chicago church, his expression is surprised as he gapes up at her. or at least, who he hopes is her. if it’s a doppelganger, if this is — ha — false hope ... “ hope ? ”
three months. three months of no familiar faces, no answers, and a whole lot of confusion. he’s still not sure how he ended up in reprieve, or how to leave, but he’s resigned himself to the inevitable; he’s stuck here. he might as well make the most of it. he’s currently inspecting two cereal boxes, trying to figure out if two smaller boxes on-sale are cheaper than the family size regular price, when he hears a familiar voice. or more specifically, a growl he’s only ever been able to associate with lizzie saltzman when she’s confronted with someone she finds unbelievably stupid. he’s familiar because that person is normally him. the cereal boxes are shoved haphazardly back onto the shelf as he bolts around the corner, overwhelming relief slamming into him like a truck when he sees it’s really her. it’s the relief, or a moment of temporary insanity, that explains why he throws his arms around her — probably surprising the both of them. “ i never thought i’d be happy to see you. ” the words blurt out without much deference given, cheeks flushing slightly at the backwards compliment as he springs back from the embrace. now that the relief’s at a manageable level, he’s left with embarrassment. no, mortification. “ i just mean ... we’re not each other’s first choices. for anything. ” not for organized sports, not for road trips, and under normal circumstances ? not getting stranded in some foreign town ten years in the past. “ — but i’m so glad you’re here. ” if anyone can get them out — by skill, or sheer force of will alone — it’s lizzie.
( aria shahghasemi, 19, he/him ) welcome to reprieve, LANDON KIRBY who is from LEGACIES, SEASON 2. rumor has it they are a PHOENIX, but only they could tell you the truth! when i close my eyes, i think of them and imagine THE CRACKLING OF FLAMES, HOODIES, & TIRED EYES AND HOPEFUL SMILES.
landon is the son of seylah chelon and malivore. his mother was yeeted into the pit by triad, a government organization she worked for, when they realized she knew too much about what they were up to. when she re-emerged at a later date, she was pregnant. an immaculate conception, if you quote alaric. something a little darker, if you read between the lines. he now knows all of this, and remembers this time, and he’s kind of / sort of found ways to deal with it but it still weighs on him sometimes.
he grew up in the foster care system as he was abandoned at a church when he was only days old. though babies are usually adopted out relatively quickly, he never found a home that stuck and bounced through various homes, and foster families, until he and rafael left georgia and came to the salvatore school.
he was a student at the salvatore school prior to reprieve. he’s pulled from season two, meaning that he has discovered his powers. he’s pulled from the end of season two but before, obviously, rafael could stab him with the golden arrow. that’s the one upside to reprieve.
i’m also going to expand his abilities a little bc canon... hasn’t given us much. he can resurrect from death, has fire wings, can levitate, and can also summon fire from his hands and throw fireballs if he focuses. he’s still learning, so it’s not always perfect, but he’s trying.
since arriving in reprieve, approx. 2-3 months ago, he’s been staying at the prestige motel in the echo district. the owner, edward norton, let him stay there rent-free if he agreed to work there. having a) no idea how he got there, and b) no way to get home, he accepted the offer. the place was a recent acquisition, won by norton at a poker game, and the man basically threw a couple black cards and landon and left him to figure out what to do with it on his own. he’s an eccentric billionaire who lives in alpha, so as long as the motel eventually turns a profit ? he doesn’t care what happens to it. though completely out of his depth, landon has enjoyed prettying the place up and throwing himself into the project completely. it was a nice distraction from the horrible reality of being a strange face in a strange place.
personality wise, landon is pretty reserved around people he doesn’t know. he trusts himself and his gut and likes to think he’s a pretty good judge of character. though it isn’t always easy for him to warm up to people. when he does — they’ve got him for life. he’s fiercely loyal and will do whatever it takes to protect the people he loves and cares about. he’s resilient and puts on a brave face, often using sarcasm or humor as defense mechanisms. he does have some abandonment issues, and has suffered abuse in the past in some of his foster situations, but again he somehow always finds a way to pull himself up and get through it so he is pretty good at combating adversity.
“don’t eat all the popcorn,” she swatted him playfully, nabbing a handful from the bowl to pop a few kernels into her mouth as commercials rolled. she wasn’t the type that paid for ad-free Hulu. commercials wouldn’t kill them. probably.
swallowing her bite, she canted her head, mulling over the question fluttering through her head. she’d always been too shy to ask her brother-friend too much about his abilities, despite helping him kill himself to test them. “can i ask a semi-weird, semi-personal question?”
“ i’m not. ” he replies with a frown, popping another handful into his mouth. alright so maybe he was but in his defense ? he’d popped it. or watched her pop it. semantics. “ we’ve got another package. we could always make more. ”
his eyes narrow, drawn away for the commercial for some trashy CW show as he raises an eyebrow. “ she asks, knowing my curiosity will never let me say no. ” though his words are dry, he’s not annoyed. “ sure. shoot. ”
Jo let out a half-laugh as he spoke, nodding in agreement. “Yeah, yeah…I can see that. The whole walking thing new, or….?” Jo looked up, evidently giving up on trying to mop up the mess that was her shirt. The cheap paper napkins were doing little more than pushing the liquid around, considering most of it had already soaked into the material of her shirt. “’S’pose this is what I get for wearing white.” White t-shirts were a wardrobe staple of hers; they were simple and matched with just about anything. But, at the moment she was wishing she’d reached for something a little bit darker. “That’ll show me.”
Looking around for a trash can to now throw away the wet napkins, Jo looked back over to him and smiled with a nod. “Yeah, you can buy me a drink. Throw in letting me borrow your hoodie for the night and I’ll consider us square.” It was cold now that she was wet (and coupled with the damn snow outside), and she really didn’t feel like going home to change just yet.
“ uh no. i’m just one of the most uncoordinated people you’ll ever meet. first comes the spilled drinks but just wait until you see me fumble a football. classic. ” self-deprecating humor comes easily, no heat behind his words as he rubs at the back of his neck. “ i really am sorry. ” apologizing several times might be counter-productive but he can’t help himself. it’s involuntary. “ maybe no one will notice. ” he grimaces slightly, not even believing his own lies.
at the mention of his hoodie, he mumbles his assent and shrugs it off. he’s quick to take his headphones out, tucking them in the back pocket of his jeans. “ here. ” he offers it up, smile fighting its way past hesitant lips. “ you take this and i’ll go get us those drinks. ” he steps backward, spring in his step until he nearly sideswipes a guy who could probably snap him in half. apologizing to yet another person, he shoots her a chagrined look before getting their drinks; tequila something for her, and some blue concoction that smelled like sour skittles for him. “ here. ” he passes it over to her carefully, making sure not to let anything slosh over the sides. if he bought her a drink only to spill it on her five minutes later, he’d have to leave town just to escape the mortification. “ cheers. ”
he’s seen his fair share of drownings: something easy about slipping in and failing to your own I D I O C Y though he suspected there was more to this —- something CULPABLE and evident but that didn’t need words; he wasn’t about to go pointing out the obvious though there did seem to be more to it than general intent ( something that managed to peak his attention enough to have him yanking out an earphone…fleetwood mac could wait ). “ lets see —- ” he makes an effort to have his features appear contemplative, a tide washing in the words he’s about to say. “ you have one of two excuses: ONE…you are some deep sea diver and TWO, you slipped. ” he lets out a chuckle, something sustained in attempts to make this situation a little lighter. “ either way, it’s fucked. dude…YOU GOOD? ”
“ i could be a deep-sea diver that slipped. ” that would explain the lack of equipment, if he decided to go with that particular lie, but somehow he gets the feeling that lying isn’t going to get him very far. “ — but yeah, can’t argue with that. ” it is fucked. he’s self-aware enough to know that what he’s doing isn’t just stupid but it’s dangerous. there’s so little he knows, so many variables that he just really hasn’t considered, but if the ends seem to justify the means — does that make it okay ? he wants to say yes but his position is, arguably, biased. plus, it’s not like he can go up to his friends and say ‘ hey, is it weird to keep killing yourself over and over again if you know you can’t die? asking for a friend. ’ without buying yourself a one-way ticket to emma’s office. or worse. “ that’s ... a good question. ” the easy answer is yes — because in a weird way, he is — but the correct answer is probably no. “ do uno rules apply ? can i draw 25 instead of answering that ? ”
this truly does feel just like like her luck. on a particularly hot summer night, she feels the need to churn out a strawberry milkshake, dust off an old book, and venture for the docks in hopes she’ll get the chance to mope in solitude for however long she needs to. and what does she find instead? LANDON KIRBY, rising out of the flames dancing on the surface of the lake, doing … god knows what. yeah, she’s perplexed, alright. not really sure if she should be concerned or make fun of him for something. ( she doesn’t even know what for. ) “ you’ve been setting fire to the rain? ” nope, she still doesn’t know whether concern or mockery is warranted ( there is no middle ground, apparently ). “ what are you even doing? and make it short, my shake is getting warm. ”
“ i was going for more like — swamp thing impersonation. ” the joke falls flat, much like his back against the dock as he struggles to catch his breath. when he’s less likely to dissolve into a coughing fit that could rival someone with a wicked case of the black plague, he pushes into a sitting position and tries again. “ what are the chances you’ll just take me at my word when i say it’s complicated and let it go ? ” he already knows the answer before she opens her mouth: slimmer than none. “ nope. okay, well. ” he shoves himself up, wobbling slightly in place like a baby giraffe on unsteady legs. “ here goes nothing. ” he screws his eyes shut, incredibly nervous about the possibility of nothing happening and embarrassing himself in front of lizzie saltzman of all people, as he relaxes his shoulders. when he cracks one eye open just to confirm it worked, he’s relieved to see he’s hovering a few inches above the ground. it’s working. “ so, apparently, phoenixes can do more than just NOT DIE. ”
andulkaphoto
discoholicmusic
stormborns
jacobvanloon
annaxmalina
jbbartram-illu
