The Pathologic Round-Robin Story Collab!

[maximumhusky]

OKAY. This is a Round-Robin type of collaborative fiction! Continue writing where one person left off, but feel free to continue in your own manner. Make long entries, short entries, serious entries, comedic entries, etc., Collaborate with others to create a grand, cohesive story, or hijack it to make your own masterpiece! WARNING: All posts are canon.

Preferably make posts anonymously out of tradition, but I guess there's no harm in being logged in if you have an account?

LINKS:

Pathologic Prompt Meme: https://pathologicroundrobin.dreamwidth.org/825.html
Pathologic Round-Robin: https://pathologicroundrobin.dreamwidth.org/654.html
Pathologic Kink Meme (nsfw): https://pathologicroundrobin.dreamwidth.org/1201.html
Contact me here if you have any questions!: https://pathologicroundrobin.dreamwidth.org/1347.html

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Once a year, Khan brings libations to the edge of town, where the endless chasm extends over the Gorkhon, to where the Polyhedron once stood. He can't support it now, not while he's politically bethrothed to Capella, of course, but nobody can stop what he does in his private moments. He still dreams of it, of its endless corridors, of the happy memories he'd perceived there. He still dreams of running through it's corridors, chasing his friends and finding a place of joy that was untenable in the real world.

Everybody wakes up from their dreams eventually.

This year, however, his libations process is different, because already at the edge of the Gorkhon, legs dangling down over the bridge, large doctor's bag behind him, is Bachelor Dankovsky, looking older and more tired since the last time Khan had seen him, almost five years ago, in the height of the Plague.

"Didn't you would come back." Khan says, shoving his hands into his pockets.

I'm probably going to regret this but

[(Anonymous)]

Bachelor Dankovsky opened his mouth in response. A swarm of bees started to flood out from out from it.

okay yeah I did regret this

[(Anonymous)]

Dankovsky suffered a coughing fit as the bees flew out from his mouth, but soon their numbers trailed off. He opened his mouth to let the last of the bees fly off his tongue. Khan, the normally collected boy, had his eyes widened. At least when Dankovsky was distracted. He was tempted to say something to the hunched over doctor, but Dankovsky raised a hand to indicate a pause.

"Forgive me." Dankovsky coughed again. "It's... one of the strange things I've been suffering lately. I didn't think I'd ever return, but circumstances seem fit to say otherwise."

"What was that thing that just happened now?" Khan was surprised to see such tiredness in Dankovsky's eyes. "What do you mean it's 'one of the strange things?' Is spitting out bees common to you now?"

"Hah." Dankovsky smiled bitterly. "Bees weren't as bad as it could've been. First it was blood. That gave me quite the fright. Now it would be charmingly quaint."

"Have you come to see Burakh then for help?" Khan asked.

"I'm not sure if it would help."

"Why? Isn't he the best to ask for these sort of things?" The earnest confusion that Khan bore in his voice reminded Dankovsky of the fact though Khan portrayed himself as the future ruler of this town, he was still a youth. That childish innocence was to be cherished...

But it couldn't be sustained for too long for Dankovsky.

"I don't think it's a Steppe matter, you see." Dankovsky replied. "I believe my problem lies here, with our cherished Polyhedron."

OH HO

[(Anonymous)]

Khan looks up, back towards where the Polyhedron should stand, and can't help but feel a little skeptical about that conclusion. "Do you dream of bees and blood, Bachelor Dankovsky?" he asks, wryly. "Because the Tower is a place of dreams, a place where dreams can exist upon our mortal plane. Nightmares and dreams alike...that wasn't how it was designed to be, but that's what I made it into."

Uncle Simon and Mother had both had different interpretations of what the Polyhedron could be used for, but Khan had known they were both wrong, when it came down to it. He was the one who'd walked its steps and understood its secrets.

Daniil's so dreamy~~ Like literally. It's kinda horrifying, actually. Help.

[(Anonymous)]

"Do I dream of blood, you ask? As a doctor, of course. Many times." Bachelor Dankovsky said. "Now, bees? Never. I just suppose that perhaps my mind is interpreting the unknown droning noise I've been hearing increasingly in the back of my mind into the more mundane source. And expelling the results out of me, like an illness. Maybe it's better that my subconscious chose bees. Who knows what could've come out of me instead." Dankovsky chuckled, but its falseness irritated Khan.

"Why exactly are you here, Dankovsky?" Khan asked. "Dreams made manifest... Is that why you've come back? To pick through the rubble of the Polyhedron for clues and cures?"

"If it comes down to it, yes. Ever heard of getting the hair of the dog that bit you? It might be superstition, but superstition is all I have left it seems. There's nothing else I can think of that might be the cause of this. I've exhausted all other options." Dankovsky said with a distant look in his eyes.

Khan was silent for a moment. He wasn't too sure how much of the Dankovsky he knew from before was still there, or if he was talking to a desperate shell of his former self.

"You haven't visited Burakh, have you? If you're so willing to try your options, you should probably go visit the best doctor in town." Khan turned away from Dankovsky's strange gaze, to think. "...Please, Dankovsky. He'd be more than willing to help you." Khan said at last.

Dankovsky's eyes looked in the sky above the chasm. The Polyhedron was there, at one point in time, a fixed one. The memory of climbing up its steps was potent in his mind, though the time had long past Dankovsky. He felt faint, but he considered Khan's words. "If he's at the usual spot, then maybe I will."

Dankovsky turned to leave. Khan heard the echo of his footsteps, but when he turned around to see him, Dankovsky was already out of sight.