#destination despair

[sidereal-kindergarten]

how is agnes doin.... is she still living in garbage bins???

Help her. Help her. Help her.

[CHAPTER UNLOCKED.] 

[dr-destination-despair]

We’ve been pretty busy while working on stuff, so I apologize that its been awhile since our last update! I promise we still exist! Anyway, since its been awhile, its time for another character reveal.  Buck Harrington, the Ultimate Scam Artist, is surprising a legitimate student of Hope’s Peak and did not scam his way in. He spent most of his life on the streets trying to make a living. 

Can he find a way to scam the mastermind into ending the killing game?

[sidereal-kindergarten]

Destination Despair; an update

The forest wasn't normal. She'd established that already, but some of these plants... she'd never even heard of them before. There were purple leaves. Purple. And not just - ever so slightly purple leaves, but full-on magenta.

Magenta wasn't a real colour! She knew this! She'd learned this in school! So why, why, were the trees magenta?

Fucking magenta. She had more important things to worry about, such as the fact that the trees were thinning out. Sighing, she pushed aside another branch, grumbling darkly as a thorn got caught in her sweater.

And she came face to face with a strange rock formation. In the middle of a lake was a smooth stone, twisting and twirling up towards the sky. Spots of grass, dirt, and sand were scattered across it.

There were huts and tents spread around, some nestled in crooks and shadows, others inlaid directly into the stone. A tent or two stood independent of the rock.

Gray smoke drifted across the sky. A child was laughing in the distance.

"What," said Agnes, and sunk to her knees. The huts were made of leather, the leather supported by - by mammoth teeth? "What, what, what?"

As she watched, a man carrying two toddlers walked out from one of the huts. She couldn't see his face from this distance, but the way he bounced the children, he looked like a kind man.

Maybe she could get help there.

She began climbing down the cliffside.

[sidereal-kindergarten]

does agnes have like a watch or anything... maybe she could check that out

(Color palette “Terror” by @epikowlpalettes !)

*

So. Recap. She was in a strange forest, beneath a strange tree, in a strange time, and potentially in a strange world.

One moment she'd been in the back alley, wishing she was anywhere else - anywhere - and then she'd... she'd changed, and been tugged, and then she was laying on her back in a field with a dark woman leaning over her.

Was her phone working?

She patted herself down.

Damn. Gone. 

Okay, next. Was her watch working?

The red numbers were glitching back and forth, jumping from midnight to dawn and back again. The dates were acting odd, as well, and the year was straight-up missing.

Okay. Okay. Okay.

She had to get help, somehow. In a strange place. In a strange time.

Staggering to her feet, she brushed down her sweater. Alright. She could do this.

[sidereal-kindergarten]

Destination Despair, an update

It became apparent soon enough that there was no 'home' to return to. Not that it was much of a problem - Oga was very welcoming, and after a few days, some of the others warmed up to Agnes as well.

Daily life in the clan was... calming. Agnes had been overrun with children since the first day - they'd been prodding and babbling and tugging gently at her hair, curious and wondering. Oga had carefully pointed out everyone's names, and while some of them were hard to pronounce, Agnes did her best to remember them.

The first day Oga wasn't there when Agnes woke had been a scary one. Up until then, Agnes had tagged along with Oga wherever she went, and not having her there was... jarring.

It wasn't a big deal, in the end. A mother dropped a toddler in Agnes' arms and gave her a stern talk-to before climbing away. Agnes had done her best to care for the child throughout the day.

She learned her first word - butterfly - this way. When Oga returned, sometime around sunset, Agnes was sitting by a fire with three toddlers surrounding her, babbling along with whatever they were saying.

"Butterfly?" Aggie had asked, wanting to make sure it was a real word and not just gibberish, and Oga had lit up.

"Butterfly!" she'd repeated, before saying something else while nodding.

They worked on words from then on - greetings, and food, and items. Hello, bye, may your path be bright, soup, water, leather, stone, fire.

"Morning," Oga greeted when they woke up, beaming brightly whenever Agnes returned the greeting. They ate together, Oga chattering away while Agnes listened and did her best to understand. Then they split ways, Oga disappearing down the side of the mountain, Agnes cleaning around their shared home. She ran errands for the various clan members - fetching, and carrying, and finding, and learning with every step of the way. Most of the time, though, she could be found with children of all ages.

Her sister had given birth just a few years ago, and there were some days where Aggie ached for little Nicholas more than anything else. The children were all beautiful, but none measured up to him, with their dark hair and dark skin and brown-purple eyes. There'd been one, the first two days Agnes was with the clan - a little girl, with pretty green eyes - but she'd disappeared and never returned. 

People mourned, but nothing was done, and Aggie wondered over that for a long time.

(Oga explained, far later down the line, that 'green eyes is a curse; people disappear, sometimes, when they bear that colour. It's a wonder you yet live!')

(It hadn't been very comforting.)

It took almost two weeks, but Agnes finally mustered enough courage (and words!) to stumble her way through the question 'where do you go, Oga?'

Oga had promptly decided it was 'take your roommate to work'-day, helping Agnes down from the mountain and into the forest on the other side of the lake. They'd made mindless conversation as Oga walked about, picking plants and flowers and berries and fruits. She named them all, and attempted to explain what they all were good for, and even though Agnes didn't understand it all, she enjoyed every second of it.

"This," Oga said, pointing to the plants she'd gathered, "this is work." Then she turned, looking to the coast - to the shells and stones and crystal blue water. "This? This is..." She thumped her hand to her chest. Aggie didn't understand the word, but the meaning hit close to home. Hobby, heart, passion.

She spent some time scouring the beach for pretty rocks or shells. In the end, she found something smooth and round and perfect for Oga's larger hands.

Oga pressed their foreheads together, smiling like Aggie had handed her the very sun.

Agnes learned another word this way; thank you.

[sidereal-kindergarten]

agnes are you ok???? whats wrong???

Destination Despair, an update

How did she get here?

Agnes tore through a bush, slapping aside a low-hanging branch before ducking beneath a fallen log. Her heart was racing, threatening to spill out between her ribs if she stopped moving.

Where was she?

She stopped by a tree, pressing her back into it. Closing her eyes, she focused on breathing for only a moment. Her shoes were soaked - her skirt had wet stripes from branches and leaves. Oh, God. Oh, God.

Who had - oh...

Tugging a hand through her hair, she found a tangle of sticks and grass. She'd run with quite the panic - and even now, she didn't doubt why. Even now, with her heart calming at least a tiny bit, her fear made utter sense to her.

Thinking back to the woman who'd loomed over her - the leather strips around her waist, the fur-lined cloak - her ragged hair and dirtied skin -

Scratch all of that. 

When was she?

[sidereal-kindergarten]

Destination Despair, an update

People were walking along the shoreline on Agnes' side, carrying armfuls of moss and leather. One of them, a woman, had eggs and shells nestled in the fold of some leather.

"Hello?" called Agnes, stumbling the last few meters down to the beach. "He - hello! Excuse me?"

They spun around, eyes wide and wary, some of them dropping their burdens in their haste. The woman with the eggs and shells handed over the leather then moved towards Agnes, eyebrows furrowed.

"Oh - uh - hi! Can you tell me where I am, or, or, what the time is?" Agnes tried, stepping back. The woman walked strangely - something animalistic over it - something raw, and graceful, and wary.

Agnes' heart clenched at seeing it - at how right it felt, like a tiny part of her grasped after it with longing.

She didn't like it. 

The woman didn't answer, only came closer, walking faster now, tilting her head this way and that. 

"Uh, uhm," stuttered Agnes, backing further off. "I - do you - do you understand me? Do you speak English?" She moved to take another step, but her foot caught on a rock - she stumbled back - into another rock - and fell in a mess of limbs onto the sand.

The woman was over her a moment later, knees planted aside Agnes' hips, hands fluttering across Agnes' arms. Agnes inhaled sharply, and kept her breath in, staring up at the sky as fear bit into her. Still. She had to stay still, and not startle whoever this was, and -

Words reached her ears, low and soft and... worried? She didn't understand the words, but the woman was talking- guttural, and sharp, and nothing like English at all.

Nothing like any language Agnes knew of at all, in fact.

"I, I," Agnes managed to say, gaze flickering between the woman's hands and her face. "I'm - I'm fine." She took a deep breath, calming her tone. "I'm fine."

The woman looked at her properly. Her frown faded, replaced instead by open-hearted wonder. Slowly she raised her hand, brushing aside Agnes' hair.

Her eyes were vibrant purple.

"I'm fine," Agnes whispered.

The woman slid off, giving Agnes only a second to catch her breath before she was hauled onto her feet and dragged towards the group. There was a lot of talking - tones of anger and determination among them, along with eventual exasperation.

Agnes had no choice but to go with it when the woman shoved her - gently! - into a primitive-looking boat.

They set off towards the settlement on the island.

Good God. What had she gotten herself into?

[sidereal-kindergarten]

Introducing ‘Destination Despair’

Agnes “Aggie” Darwin. 22 years old.

She does not know where she is. She does not know why she’s there. 

She barely knows who she is.

This is her story.