#schwarzwaldcr

Stalker crossover au || Grace Ashcroft

If there was one thing Grace was good at it was running.

The wooded surroundings were unfamiliar as she tried to put a much distance between her and that horrible place behind her. She had never considered how disorientating being kidnap was. Any sense of time or location had been lost to her the moment she was knocked unconscious in Wrenwood.

i had a bout of nostalgia the instant i saw your url and i'm super happy to see titles here i thought had reached lost media status ages ago. how many people remember the LSD Dream Simulator anymore?

thank you for being here, instant follow!

Hi there, thanks for reaching out and thanks for the follow. Ash here replying to you. Very cool to see people recognize the little details like our URL. Long live Legend of Dragoon, long live LSD Dream Emulator - they're personal favorites here on the blog for sure.

Messages like this (as well as lots of little comments in tags for reblogs on our post) are incredibly gratifying to receive. A big goal we had with starting this blog a little over a year ago was to help people remember and celebrate the pieces of media that were worth keeping in their lives through gifs and virtual photography as well as written articles (written personally with great care and without the use of AI). Sometimes that means something more recent and mainstream, sometimes it's a real deep cut, but the goal is always to make you feel something whether it's deep nostalgia or looking at something in a way you hadn't before.

Seeing the visual and textual content we make really resonate with people is, again, incredibly gratifying and we don't take it for granted. We see you guys in the notes and remember you. Genuinely one of the most exciting parts of Larsa and I's day is when we discuss what content we'll be dropping (generally 3 posts around 4-5 AM PST every day, rare drops outside of that) that you'll hopefully love for one reason or another. When we started this blog we never thought we'd break ten notes total, and needless to say it's wildly shattered expectations in the short time since then.

Thank you all for enjoying what we do. There's plenty more to come, and we hope you'll love it. We hope you come away from any of this with a renewed love of the things that were/are important to you and even find some new things to love that you might've never heard of.

Regina's honed eyes pierce the darkness, scanning the shadows and unlit corners using a combination of her tritium torch and her dark-adjusted eyes. She visually tracks the faintest glimmer of motion nearby and hears the almost inaudible sound of light footsteps darting in betwixt her and her team.

The moment she feels a soft hand upon hers, she gently places her other on top of it and turns to face her guest, staring her right in her wild eyes.

Regina speaks her first words softly and soothingly, her voice barely above a whisper: "It's alright," she tells her, almost as if she were a mother hushing her crying baby. Or perhaps a kindhearted soul calming a wild animal in distress. "I know. The Sixth Rule. This isn't a flashlight; it's a shielded ring filled with tritium, a hydrogen isotope that gives off its own light through the natural process of radioactive decay. There's no electrical power involved." To further prove her point she gently moves the other woman's thumb and forefinger over the 'switch', showing her through touch how it's in reality just the ring's hinged front cover. "Not all of us can see in the dark quite as well as you," she adds with a quiet and subdued sense of play, hoping to keep the woman calm. "Please forgive the nature of our entry," Regina continues. "We had to be on our guard against anything attempting to harm or ensnare us. We've done our research, and our intel tells us all we need to know about just how dangerous this place is for people like us. We don't mean you, the Castle or the Zone any harm: We're actually here to help you, if you'll allow it," she offers a small, yet sincere smile.

She'd warned that the edge of the Crags were more treacherous now than ever before, but she just can't predict that the instability has come so far from that edge. A sort of hum, a slight vibration in the ground, through her boots.

The Wolf turns her head toward Carlos and away from Raven's wondering about how much the terrain is changed. He's gone to survey Schwarzwald from their lofty trail, a rare opportunity to truly absorb the size of this Zone. It's hard to do so in the constricting confines of the greater woodland below. The cracks are forming already in the stone below his feet. She hears it instead of sees it and she doesn't hesitate to abandon Raven to his ho-humming, bouncing off the balls of her feet with a hand outstretching to grab the back of Carlos' collar, barking a loud, "Don't!"

She plants, she pulls, and the momentum forces her to switch positions. Just enough weight against the stone to finally crack it loose and with a snap, it lurches into the space above the slag far below. She catches sight of Raven running toward the scene. Not for her, no, he knows. He understands. He's running for Carlos to keep him from falling in, or from doing anything particularly stupid.

She can feel her stomach rise to her throat, her heart stutters a few beats as she feels gravity start to take hold into the void. So many times and she's still so unused to feeling that fluttering precursor to death. Before she can utter that key phrase to help, she sees Carlos recover enough to reach, and she reaches back out of instinct. She's not expecting him to catch her, gripping his lower arm in her captive hand and swinging with this new tether against the rockface just below, fresh cut from the debris that crashes on the slag.

His grip doesn't falter or slip, but that isn't what worries her. The extra weight against fresh-cut gravel and stone is causing it to crumble under his feet, she sees the new cracks forming and knows she has barely a minute to come to terms with the inevitable and resign herself to her fate. Raven is there, she lets go of Carlos' wrist, lays her eyes directly in his.

"...It's okay. You...you can let go." Assurance she knows will do nothing to actually assure him, but the way she stares into his eyes with the weight of sincerity. "I'm not afraid."

It's a tiny white lie. It's natural to be afraid of death, and her mane pulls a little tighter against its restraints as she thinks on it a moment too long. She can only hope Carlos chooses to do the correct thing here. She can't protect him if he falls with her...

   In an instant,  their fates exchanged.  But why?  

   The marks were still fresh on the Wolf’s jacket sleeve,  frizzy threads carved out by his nails that desperately,  and effectively,  denied the hungry abyss of the Wolf.  It all happens too quick,  only then did he notice the ache against his throat where his shirt had yanked the breath out of him,  as the jolt of her momentum pulls at his overburdened shoulder.  Reaching deep into his reservoir of strength,  Carlos let out a protracted yell.  Echoing back all around them,  distorted from the belly of the Crags.  

   He feels Raven at his back,  the silent urging to abandon the stones that fail beneath his feet.  He never would have imagined that the same urgency was meant to abandon her,  too.  Too eager to believe that everyone was after the same thing here:  let no one fall.  Something stupid that Carlos faithfully trusted,  up to the point that she let go of him.  

Right, he probably should have gone back to the hotel but he was too drunk to even get up. It’s probably a good thing that he hadn’t gone out, though, he doubts he would have made it back safely.

The loud clang and clink feels like it jolts throughout his entire body. Head thumps against the bar top and he groans at the loud sounds that seem to pierce his head. “Can’t you be a little more careful with those things? My head’s killing me.” Not that he needs to state the obvious, he swears she did it on purpose.

“Guess I passed out before he could offer me a room.” Because truthfully, Leon doesn’t remember a damn thing about last night. His knuckles sting, though, like he’d gotten scraped knuckles in a fight, it’s a surprise no one kicked him out if that was the case. Maybe it was well deserved? Maybe it was after all the staff had gone? Hell if he knows.

The smoke and food combination is going to make him sick but he pushes any sick feeling down and gives a small grunt instead as he picks up his head only to see her sliding an glass over to him. Water will help but meds will do a hell of a lot more.

I got sick of it as a sideblog and with no way to change that status, decided to remake it as its own blog! You can follow The Wolf over on @schwarzwaldcr now!

It's hard to believe Wulf is actually fluffier than Carlos, but then again, it's a rare occurrence to find her with her impressive mane outside its braid, the inky cloud tied back with a teeny braid made of itself in the messiest ponytail imaginable. Judging by the fact she's wearing the old aviator's jacket over her shoulders and the fading grunge industrial band t-shirt probably from the 90s, one can guess she's been manning the tavern all day. Not that she'll be complaining about it, though, if the six-pack of beer bottles in her left hand says anything on it.

"You know ... the best part of our Lonely Hearts Special is that there's always a little overstock." she states, with a half-crooked wide smirk exacerbated by the pipe in one corner of her mouth.

"Figured even if you've got something going on, you could use a little liquid, for courage or otherwise. Homebrewed, every year, limited stock!" she trills, twirling the handle of the pack around her fingers with the grace of a practiced barkeep to set it on a nearby surface for him.

"Well, enjoy! Have a good holiday."y 

A wave, and a turn on her heel, and she's walking back the way she came.

   An idea pops in his head,  and he knows it is a risk the moment he has it.  Reservation does not stop him.  His hand invades her space,  interrupting the wave to catch her wrist in order to discourage her hasty exit.  “Wait,”  comes out even before he feels the prickle to defend against her possible retaliation.  His palm floats back to release her,  open harmlessly.

   “Don’t tell me you’re going straight back to work?”  Incredulously asked,  continuing to traverse her with his eyes,  espying the unique details of her suchas she was:  a practicality to her clothes,  as usual,  but not ideal for deep treks through danger.  Her hair alone was the subject of his plain fascination,  he began to smile simply to look upon it stormy mass,  meeting her eyes with the appreciation still warm on his lips.