TO HAVE AND TO HOLD [modplot]

[letsgolegion]

Who| Anyone who wants in
What| "To Have and to Hold" plot
Where| The planet Olum, Matihara Temple
When| Set vaguely the same time as "Gods Among Us" and "Other Mother"
Warnings/Notes| N/A

The planet Olum is a genuinely welcoming place. While the clothes they have to wear for the rituals are a bit...odd (provided they don't opt for coverups), they are comfortable, especially with such a balmy climate. Despite the Olumites allowing outsiders into their ceremonies, there's a distinct lack of tourist-ey elements; no gift shops, no merchants selling anything, just a spirit of genuine unity and celebration. The Olumite marriage guides seem to genuinely care about helping people with their relationships, and seem happy to share their cultural traditions with other species.

As far as missions go, it's definitely a nice vacation from the usual life or death struggles.

It means the Legionnaires have no distractions. They have to settle in and try to navigate this while faking sincerity as best as they can.

[ooc: All information about the setting can be found on the infopost.]

Comments

[wallsofjericho]

The shift in focus from what he was seeing to what he was viewing was alarming, but not unexpected. He couldn't make much sense of the darkness, at first, but he found himself wishing it had stayed dark as other things came into focus. Seras running, captured, and killed. It was hard to watch passively, but Joe realized that, despite taking a step towards her in the ring, his viewpoint of the murder never changed.

So he watched with growing sorrow. As her memory receded, his own took its place. He tried to wrench the stones towards something positive, but the slick metal control room slid into existence anyway. The massive opening along one wall into another world of floating stone landmasses under a purple-red, planet-laden sky.

And himself. He can see how he looked then, being consumed from within by an entire host of souls, as if he was starved to death. They might have healed his voice, but they were parasites. They were screaming through him, about survival and corruption and sacrifice. Joe can remember how he was able to break in, control his own mouth, and beg for his father to do what he had to. Before Joey hurt anyone more.

You had no choice he thought quietly to himself as Joe watched his father run him through with a sword. The image of Slade Wilson cried "Sweet God, I have no choice!"

Just like Joey remembered. His hand touched his sternum thoughtlessly, but there was no scar there. Joe blinked wet eyes a few times.

[died_a_virgin]

Seras was breathing hard, holding back sobs as the memory faded. She looked up at him after a moment, two red lines down her cheeks. She hadn't cried since before she became a vampire. There had been a few times that she came close, but she had never actually cried.

She wiped at her cheeks, staining them red. She blinked at her wet fingers for a second before laughing a little. So vampires cried blood. She shook her head a little bit as his memory faded and another one took its place.

This time it was a better memory. It was a bright, sunny day and Seras was wearing a rather large hooded coat that covered her completely and she was laughing at something a tall man with a long braid and an eyepatch had said. They headed to a small building where her Master sat with his coffin.

There was talk about getting back to England from Rio. They argued about different ways when suddenly the door burst open and a large man in a priest's garb holding two large knives (long enough that they could be considered swords) came stalking in, heading straight for Alucard.

Without warning, punches started flying between the vampire and the priest, and she grabbed a large metal pipe, intending to help her Master out, but a sharp look from the Priest stopped her dead mid-swing. She crumpled to the floor and a moment later the priest flung a knife and pinned a piece of paper on the wall.

He told them about a private flight out of Rio and that they needed to get on it. The memory faded as the priest left the building grumbling about cutting Alucard's head off again.

[wallsofjericho]

He'd seen that she was crying, but Joey was too upset at seeing his death from the outside to immediately offer comfort. When his memory melted into a new one of hers, there still seemed nothing to say to the girl who cried red tears. She had shared her death too. They both knew what it was like.

That didn't mean he could leave her feelings unrecognized. Joe gave her arm a careful pat, erring on the side of caution as yet another violent memory unfolded around them. Not that he was afraid of being attacked, but Joey suspected that these were all raw memories. Sore spots. He knew a lot of people that wouldn't want a hug right now.

"Is that your old boyfriend," he signed. They were supposed to be acting like a couple, after all, so questions about blood tears and coffins weren't a good idea. Yet he felt like they should interact over the memories, in case the sharing was being studied. "Oh, you've been to Rio, too? They have a beautiful culture..."

But he has monsters on the brain, and the memory that follows hers is a six foot high praying mantis with a middle-aged woman's face. Joe recoils, both physically and mentally from it, and the creature dissolves into an image of Joey and his friend Kole, whose face looks like a younger version of the bug woman, falling asleep sitting up. Somehow, this is the worst option, and he hugs himself for a moment, before letting go to sign. "I have happier memories than this. I promise."

[died_a_virgin]

"My trip to Rio wasn't a very good one, but what I saw was really pretty," she said and jumped when she saw the bug woman. Nazi Vampires were one thing, but bug people were something completely different.

"Most of my memories are...rather bloody. A lot of what I did was fight after becoming a vampire," she said, wiping the blood off of her cheeks as she gave him a small smile. "Neither of those men were my boyfriend."

Her cheeks were red as another memory popped up. This time she was leaning against a wall as a woman in a green suit with long blond hair talked to a group of men, with their leader seated with his braid wrapped loosely around his neck.

The woman was explaining how the men were being hired to hunt monsters and vampires. It seemed to be rather unreal and the mercenaries don't buy it until she is pointed out as a real vampire. It wasn't very surprising that they didn't believe that she was a vampire at all. She looked like a teenage girl and she was, but she wasn't. Not anymore.

"I think they're laughing at me, Sir Integra," she said, pointing to them.

"Make them stop laughing then, Police Girl." The other woman responded with a small smirk.

"Right, Ma'am." she said with a quick salute before turning to the mercenary leader, the man with the braid she had been speaking with in Rio. She turned to him with a snap of her fingers "Come on."

He laughed again and came shuffling towards her, saying that if she was a vampire than he was Frankenstein's monster. She was able to put a stop to the laughter with just a few quick pokes, almost too quick for anyone to see. She poked the man a few times on his forehead, hard enough to send him spinning back into his men and was leaning against the wall again before anyone noticed. That stopped the laughing quickly.