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X-treme Wrestling Federation »   » Archives » "Savage Saturday Night" RP Board
Epilogue
Author Message
Dolly Waters Offline
Always.



XWF FanBase:
The IWC

(gets varying reactions in the arenas, but will be worshiped like a god and defended until the end by internet fans; literally has thousands of online dorks logging on to complain anytime they lose a match or don't get pushed right)


#1
08-20-2021, 09:02 PM

The end.



Saugerties, New York

...an hour south of Bethel Woods...



It’s been on the brink of sunset for hours now, maybe even days. I ain’t so sure of anything anymore. But it doesn’t feel like a sunset, more like The Sunfall, stuck and begging to carry out it's sentencing. It’s descent is locked between the cheshire stripes of honey and sapphire in the sky. Nothing's right here, and what feels like sudden lapses back into my ayahuasca trip with the Carnies ain't helping.

Sipping tap water from a coffee mug, I turn my battered face away from the window at the kitchen sink and wander into the house. ‘Big Pink’, it’s famously dubbed. An old landing place for road-worn musicians. Many would pilgrimage here to shake off a burn-out. Corey brought us here after WarGames. He’d been insisting on this plan since it was announced that the show would be in Bethel Woods.

He knew I always wanted to visit Big Pink, and would tease me about my anachronistic nature. Said it was even more obvious than his own interstellar displacement. But it was especially my passé love for sixties folk-rock that made him chuckle. The Byrds, Simon and Garfunkel, Buffalo Springfield, Gordon Lightfoot, James Taylor, and especially Bob Dylan, and especially The Band. The basement of this house is where they recorded some of the most iconic songs in history.

Being at Big Pink should’ve been an adventurous moment. Like reaching the peak of an ending story you’ve long been invested in. But the hangover from WarGames was murky, and lingering everywhere. It clouded everything, leaving the pages indistinct and letterless. Leaving me unable to appreciate not just my surroundings, and the weight of the history here, but even what I accomplished days ago at WarGames.

Pinning Jim Caedus and Bobby Bourbon in the same night is an awfully unique achievement, but it still fell short of what I hoped to fulfill. I wanted to see Charlie’s Carnies win WarGames. I wanted to prove to myself in a time where descension, jealousy and apathy was ripping friendships apart, that I could be a spark of comradery. That I could be a unifier in uncertain times... I was all of those things for the Carnies, but it was instead proven to me that selflessness can only get you so far. And while in the end, it took Alias and Corey Smith combined to put me down in an effort that was leaving the talking-heads abuzz, I was unable to find comfort in any praise,

”I really thought you were about to beat me, Dolly..”

He said, while sitting between me and his boyfriend Christian in the pickup truck. The classic motor of the ‘63 Dodge stroking through the winding wooded roads just outside of Woodstock.

Yeah, yer’ lucky Alias was there… I tried being gamesome in what had been an already awkward ride from WarGames. I tightened my grip on the steering wheel and turned toward Corey, trying to show him a smile through my swollen and bruised face. But Corey seemed… not himself. He was gaping through the windshield, and sounding more monotone and scripted each of the spare times he would speak.

”...”

”It’s amazing how you two can have the type of match you just had, and still share such a bond-”

Christian started, while smiling back and forth at Corey and myself, and reaching an arm around the back of the seat to embrace my shoulder. He looked exhausted, and rightfully so. WarGames had been a helluva an event. We’d all been tested, physically, mentally, emotionally. But through it all, there sat Christian, gladly holding the weight of Corey’s XTreme Championship on his lap, without condition. The belt Corey that just defeated me for...

”-Corey is lucky to have your friendship, Dolly.”

Yeah, he is…

My laugh that followed turned uncertain midway through as I kept noticing Corey’s peculiar inattentiveness to the situation.

Speaking of which… Did Thad come congratulate you on the win after the show, Corey?

No.

Immediately as Corey answered the question he heaved out a suffering groan, clutching at his head with both hands. The veins in his temple were raised, and his face beet-red.

Arrghh! he retched louder, pulling at locks of his own hair. WHAT THE FUCK COREY? ARE YOU-

”ARE YOU OKAY, BABY?!”

Christian and I pleaded with him as Corey slouched over to his knees, crying out inaudibly, gummy saliva pulling from his lips and flinging about before he’s able to utter:
”It hurts so bad! The fucking lights!”

Corey had been complaining of a headache after the final match, but that wasn’t an uncommon phenomenon for any wrestler, especially with the damage we take on a given night. But Corey now appeared to be on the verge of convulsions. Okay, we’re going to the hospital!

”NO!”

He wailed,

”We’re going to Saugerties! I’m taking you to see Big Pink!”

His breathing appeared to steady a bit, the ember tone of his face settling back down to a pale ash. I nearly swerved off of the winding, two-lane road and into a ditch as I looked at him with frantic incredulity. We’ll go to Big Pink another ti-, ”Babe, there’s aspirin in the glove box. Please!” he commands, vulnerably pulling a hand away from clutching his eyes and reaching out an open palm for Christian.

Christian helped with two aspirin, and Corey practically chewed them up, refusing my bottle of water I was handing him from the console. He leaned back in the seat, returning his hands to shield his sensitive eyes like a visor. ”I’ll be fine, Dolly. It’s just a bad migraine. We have to see Big Pink while we’re up here. We have to see it while we’re together.”

Though Corey sounded normal for a moment, I looked back to find that he’d uncovered his eyes again and was zoning out through the windshield once more. He would intermittently be here, in the truck with me and Christian, and in a moment elsewhere. Looking off at something. His saggy, red eyes were widening in revelation, like he was watching a frozen tidal wave waiting to crash down. Ready to shatter and release the end.

Since arriving here, Corey has only drifted more, and the pulse of my relapse with team Charlie had settled in like an unruly, transient resident. I floated from the kitchen of Big Pink and into the open living room. Not caring that each step vibrated through the original wood flooring, and against the antique furniture.

Maybe ‘Tangled Up In Blue’ had been written from the couch where Christian was sleeping. Perhaps Paul Simon was drinking gin from this very coffee mug I’m holding as he strummed the first chords to ‘Mrs. Robinson’.

So much history had occurred between these spacious walls. So much that was important to me... this refuge house for cultural pilgrims that I’ve long romanticized... it all feels trivial now. Instead, what I spotted from the kitchen window was pulling me outside of Big Pink. Compelling me to the dusk-shaded meadowlands of the Catskill Mountains. Where the pine trees whisper and point me to a particular location, the grassy opening in the backyard.

There’s a lone red-oak standing out from everything else in the middle of the knoll. The tree is old and sturdy. It carries an unusual charm with it’s peculiar placement, alone, and defiant and surrounded by forests of pine. Corey’s there too. Standing in an old swing with a wood seat tied to the oak’s branch. He’s looking away from me and to the west, where the sunset still feels suspended, and unwilling to put an end to this day.

”Dolly?”

His voice echoed, and wafted across the yard, pulling me next to him. His swing was still, and his gaze settled on the ornery sunset. Beyond the waning hallucinogens in my system, I could feel something was terribly wrong with my friend. I could feel a mortal blow that was dealt to him. WarGames was, as he predicted, a harbinger of the end. I think about Thad Duke for a moment…

...Are you mad at me?

No.

But those things I said at WarGames… I- I just wanted you and Thad to remember who you were afterwards. Remember that you both made mistakes. I wanted to prove that the bond of Continuum could endure.

...I know.

In that moment I knew that Corey had realized something that he wasn’t sharing. An omen or a destiny that he was trying to come to terms with…

What is it, Corey? Let me help you…

I’m just tired, Dolly… and I’m thirsty.

The coffee mug of water moved from my hands to his, but slipped from his grasp just as the rim made it to his lips. The mug doesn’t shatter, it only spills and bounces from the grass.

Corey finally pulls attention away from the sunset and looks down to the mug. He sighs and then brings his eyes to mine. They’re pleading and lost. He shifts his focus back westward, pulling my attention to the sunset as well. It hadn’t moved an inch from the brink of night in what felt like ages.

Will the sun never fall?

It ain’t in the cards…

Corey looks at me again,

So you’ll always see me?



Always.

Corey smiled at me and grabbed my hand from the swing as night finally fell… and in the dark we both finally saw Big Pink sitting behind us.

We’ll come back here some day.



----



Ya’ know…

We see Dolly Waters standing on the front balcony of Coreytopia. She’s peering out at her comrades, who despite any plethora of problems they may have, are bustling and working hard to focus on the task at hand. Through their comradery and sacrifice they’re always united.

Dolly turns back to the camera,

...Over the last 48 hours since Warfare, I’ve thought hard on what I have to be grateful for, to whom I owe thanks.

See, it wasn’t that long ago that I was on my last leg, nothing but a forgotten wrestler who was on the verge of making the worst mistake of her life…

Well, the person who stopped me from making that mistake is currently lying in a hospice suite in this house.

His career…

Corey Smith’s career…

Corey Smith’s life…

Is...


She gathers through a frog in her throat, looking away for a moment and then darting her eyes back into the camera and has to redirect her words,

Corey Smith helped me unconditionally.

He brought me here and gave me a place to live. He showed me kindness, and a genuine appreciation that didn’t need to be flaunted on Twitter to be real.

In exchange, he asked for nothing. Only that I do whatever makes me happy, and deep down, we both knew exactly what that was… but Corey never pushed me to get back into the ring when I wasn’t ready.

He didn’t build expectations of how successful I should be, or set some arbitrary standard for him to be associated with me. Instead he brought me to a place where I could learn about sacrifice, and putting others first, and achieving success in the daily battles against ourselves that we all face. I’ve learned to acknowledge these battles,and learned how to fight them, and for that I will be forever grateful to Corey Smith.

And in honor of him… a man who will… never. wrestle. Again. I’m going to keep fighting. I’m going to remind the world what can be achieved through the lessons of unity and selflessness that he taught me.

WarGames, and that display of teamwork and togetherness that drove Charlie’s Carnies to the finals? That was just the beginning. The more I’ve realized that not everything is about Dolly Waters, the more I’ve come to realize that time is fleeting, and effort is everything, and that expecting to be anointed with praise, or accolades, or top-Twitter lists is exactly what weakens someone.

Betsy Granger...

I’m going to show you exactly what I mean next week on Saturday Savage. It was only a matter of time before our paths were going to cross in the ring, and I don’t think it could’ve happened at a better time. You're riding high off a win over Chris Page, while I’m riding high having done the one thing at WarGames you swore, and failed, to do… and that’s eliminate BOB.

I listened to your promos from WarGames. I heard you lamenting to the world that you didn’t draft me… It was stupid. Why even stick your foot in your mouth like that? All I could think about is how you must’ve immediately regretted your team, because you knew they weren’t capable of giving you what your ego was salivating for. Poor Reggie. Poor Lycana. Poor Atty. I mean it’s no fucking wonder she decided not to show up, the first words out of your mouth were how you wished that it was me and not her on your team.

You lost that match for Estrada’s Angels, because it was never about a team for you… it was about whoever could help you look good in the process of getting even with BOB. And once you realized that draft pick, after draft pick you made a bigger and bigger mistake, everyone on your squad became ancillary until Warstein arrived. And even with the help of a former Universal Champion you still couldn’t get the job done. But that’s no surprise, because when it comes to being a self-absorbed, egotistical worm, it’s obvious you’ve gotten yer’ tutelage from the school of Warstein and Raven.

There was no chance you two were going to be able to pull Lycana and Reggie together. Everything became about Betsy and Shawn, and all of the feelings you two allowed BOB to hurt. Be real, Betsy… Raven and Warstein only ever come around to remind everyone that they exist, and to pretend like they’re helping you in this fight that you’ve been losing for months on end.

Blow that win over Chris Page, where Robert Main helped you, out of yer’ ass and point to me where you’ve made any significant contributions to “ending” BOB… as if that’s what you’d actually want. Betsy, you should be down on yer’ knees, night in and night out thanking the Brotherhood of Baddies for giving the world a reason to care about Betsy Granger.

I’ll be fair, Fury and BOB should be doing the same thing as well, and I already told them as much during WarGames.

But BOB at least recognizes their grift, they’re not honest bout it, but at least they know how fucking lucky they are to be in any type of upper echelon position in the XWF. You on the other hand, Betsy? You still haven’t come to terms with the fact that YOU and gatekeepers like YOU, built BOB out of your own incessant need to be viewed as morally superior.

Months and months have gone by since you’ve started this “war” and again, what have you done about your BOB problem? Brought in Raven and Warstein a time or two, only they never actually show up? Bravo for keeping the clout alive of a couple of guys who, based off results alone, don’t really give a fuck if you’re getting your ass handed to you or not. Betsy… if you wanted help, all you had to do was ask. I did in one night what you’ve built your whole identity around… I smashed the mystique of BOB at WarGames.

Hell, I’m hot on the tail of chasing the Bastards down over in the OCW and taking those tag team championships away, and I’m doing just for the sheer sport of it. I’m doing it out of the gratitude of being able to compete in this profession I love, and I’m doing it by continuing to lay my ego aside to work as a team with a person I barely know.

Remember when you were able to beat them with Good-Atty?

I do.

I was proud to see you ladies pick up such a great team win.

But what happened there? Why did you allow Atty to be pushed away over some stupid fight with Warstein? You took his side when there was no side to take and left Atty drifting in the wind. Why? Because he’s considered to be “better” than Atara? Of course that’s why, because in the end all you care about is winning and looking good, but ironically you never enlist the type of help you need to accomplish that. You lean on those who will tell you that you’re great. People who feel like they own the XWF, though they’re never here, and are desperate to keep their waning-relevance on display.

By what right does Raven and Fuzz have to say that BOB should be destroyed? They took their balls and went to Twitter. Raven having most notably done it after Corey Smith and I punked him out in the ring. They left the XWF to BOB, so whatever you feel like are these great atrocities committed over the wrestling industry compliments of a Michael Graves inspired group, it’s all on you and your homies Betsy.

I never got the call to help… though you really wished you would have drafted me.

Well, you were right in having that regret. Because both you and I know exactly what I’m capable of in that ring… so why didn’t you pull that trigger? Because you knew Dolly Waters would’ve upstaged you, and unfortunately it still happened anyway when I pinned your arch nemesis shoulders down clean on that mat.

On Saturday Savage I’m going to upstage you again Betsy. I’m going to make sure that you never make the mistake of sleeping on Dolly Waters… and I’m going to be grateful for every moment of kicking your ass.

3x XTreme Champion
2x Tag Team Champion (w/ Vita Valenteen, w/ Charlie Nickles)
2x Hart Champion
2x Television Champion

3x Star Of The Month
August ‘21, May ‘17, October ‘16

3x RP Of The Month
What light through sonder... my perception breaks.
Tranquility: For Old Times Sake
Manifest Victory

my loves:
[spoiler]
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[-] The following 12 users Like Dolly Waters's post:
"Loverboy" Vinnie Lane (08-21-2021), ALIAS (08-21-2021), Arcana (08-21-2021), Atara Raven (08-20-2021), Corey Smith (08-22-2021), Derrick Diamond (08-21-2021), HeavensToBetsy (08-20-2021), JimCaedus (08-21-2021), Lycana (08-25-2021), Marf (08-21-2021), Thaddeus Duke (08-21-2021), Theo Pryce (08-28-2021)




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