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Entry tags:
memoria
❧ destruction of coriolis (cw: death, body horror)
You find yourself en route to a city with an unknown companion. Even though things seem normal, the world itself seems to be holding its breath until you arrive to the town and find it infested with Nulls, husks of what were once human beings.
Semi-CYOA: It's your decision whether you fight or flee, whether you try to save yourself or others, whether you see the end of the world... or lose your soul to the Nulls before the night goes dark.
Semi-CYOA: It's your decision whether you fight or flee, whether you try to save yourself or others, whether you see the end of the world... or lose your soul to the Nulls before the night goes dark.
❧ hello major tom (cw: optional body horror)
Have you ever wanted to experience space travel? Now you have. Comes in two flavors!
Flavor 1: Pilot. You're in command of a small two-person craft, maneuvering through space while an unfamiliar man (or familiar, if you've also been through the destruction of Coriolis!) sits in the passenger seat. It's easy enough to tell why he's not piloting, given that the left side of his face is mostly covered by a wide half-mask temple to jaw. Go long enough, and maybe you'll reach your destination...
Flavor 2: Passenger. Standing on the deck of a ship that seems like it would be better suited for the ocean than the skies, you watch as a long, jagged line of nothingness seems to break through the emptiness of space--and Nulls begin to fall to the ship's surface, captured by its artificial gravity and melting out of the shadows.
Flavor 1: Pilot. You're in command of a small two-person craft, maneuvering through space while an unfamiliar man (or familiar, if you've also been through the destruction of Coriolis!) sits in the passenger seat. It's easy enough to tell why he's not piloting, given that the left side of his face is mostly covered by a wide half-mask temple to jaw. Go long enough, and maybe you'll reach your destination...
Flavor 2: Passenger. Standing on the deck of a ship that seems like it would be better suited for the ocean than the skies, you watch as a long, jagged line of nothingness seems to break through the emptiness of space--and Nulls begin to fall to the ship's surface, captured by its artificial gravity and melting out of the shadows.
When your world has been destroyed, there's a certain sort of security you take from seeing the same people every so often, even if you come from drastically different places. You find yourself in a bedroom as someone knocks on the door and announces that breakfast is ready, and the five individuals from very different backgrounds go through the morning routine and sit down to eat together. You can be part of the family too, if you'd like, or you can stand back and watch like a creeper--there's room enough for everybody in this memory, however you'd like to partake.
This isn't your memory--that, you know for certain. But here you are, standing before a giant tree softly lit with the glow of magic, a ceremony taking place around you. To you? You're certainly a part of it, whether you want to be or not... just beware the magic. It burns.
❧ dusk 🔒 (cw: emotional/spousal abuse)
Locked to those Wave has CR with already, please; these have the potential to get Heavy.
This prompt is a bit more of a "choose your own adventure" type deal than the others, and Wave does not have to be part of these threads! Dusk is someone that has a lot of effect on Wave, but who she doesn't talk about at all outside of veiled references to the type of people she wants to leave behind. Be warned that these threads may nudge into CW territory; let me know if we need to avoid anything!
(frozen comment) Destruction of Coriolis (cw: death, body horror)
Odd, says the young man next to you, tall and slim with a half-mask fitted across his left eye. Usually you can hear the city by now.
It's your choice whether you respond or not--the man continues down the road toward the city on the horizon.
It remains quiet as you explore. Coriolis seems like a peaceful world, rolling hills stretching toward eventual mountains in the north. Trees dot the landscape, but in the distance--near the city--is one that's larger than all the rest, standing proud a quarter-mile from the city's gates. It doesn't matter whether you yourself have magic or not; this tree is magic, and you find that you know it as easily as you know how to breathe. Huh! You pass by it, and there might be a prickle at the back of your scalp, some feeling that should be there but isn't... or maybe that shouldn't be there but is?
The sky is red as you enter the city through massive gates that stand ajar. Here, at last, you hear the town, but where normally evening brings a cacophony of noise and shouting, horses trotting and wagons and carriages creaking... there are only whispers on the wind, the cracking of pennants or flags when the wind picks up, the slam of a door knocking against the side of a building.
I don't like this, your companion says. I'm going to see if there's anybody in the guardhouse.
Your time is yours to explore as you please. But when you enter your first building, lit only by the dying day... Your eyes might almost sweep over it at first (understandable, given the shadows here), but the shadows in the corner have eyes. A shape, a form, hunkered down low to the ground. Perhaps you open your mouth to call out, perhaps you reach for a weapon--it rushes you, mouth opening in a silent scream as it slashes out toward you with hands that end in clawed fingers.
Will you run? Will you fight? Think fast, because these shadows are everywhere, melting out of the wall where the door you entered casts its darkness beside you. Their claws, if they touch you, are cold as ice--or colder still, for even those with a predisposition to it will find it makes your breath catch in your chest from the shock to your system. These creatures can draw blood, yes, but it's when they don't that you have to worry; it's when their form seems to separate, two creatures overlaying each other and offset by mere finger-widths, that they're at their most dangerous. If they get their claws into you then, it feels like your very being itself is being tugged from your body, your essence askew and no longer fitting into your body.
Beware. If they drag you too far, you'll never be able to realign and come back home.
Your weapons, if you've chosen to fight, can only do so much. The town is alive now, the sounds of screams and shouts and orders in the air, the clatter of metal on cobbles as soldiers die, the rush of wind and sudden crackle of fire spells being thrown and catching alight. You see one of the guard--dark green livery, it's important for some reason--stiffen and cry out as claws rip down his back--he falls to his knees, crumpling, withering, his body seeming to break down to nothingness before you as though it's been buried in nothing, and finally--finally--he staggers up to his feet, dark green livery stained to darkness, his form lost to the uncertain outlines of the monster.
The ground shakes--splinters, a thunderous cracking as the cobbles break and fall apart, scorched black dirt beneath the stone. You hear your name, turn; the sky is fracturing now as well, jagged lightninglike tears of darkness stretching all the way toward the sinking sun. The sun's darkened, a deeper red as it hits the horizon, the darkness of night coming from behind you to flood across the sky, and no matter what you do there are more, there are more, there are more. Beyond the city walls the branches of the tree you passed before are glowing with magic, light veining through bark and leaf and shining into the night air, but there's a decidedly pale cast to its light, and if you risk being attacked to watch, that light starts to fade...
Keep fighting, or don't. It all goes to nothing in the end.]
(frozen comment) Hello Major Tom (cw: optional body horror)
[The air is strange here--not bad, not noticeably unpleasant, but there's a sort of staleness to it in spite of the way it circulates throughout the cabin, the way it fills your lungs. Then again, maybe you should expect that--after all, you're now in the main cockpit of a small two-seater craft, just large enough for your seats, the array of instruments spread out before you, and a small storage space and walking path that leads to a small door. There are no windows here, just a blank wall above the panels that curves up and over your head until it connects to the rest of the ship's body.
Should you decide to explore the rest of the craft, you'll find it to be small but functional: The door leads to a walkway with several windows, showing the buildings and streets of what would seem to be a small town, if not for the explosion of stars and color beyond the tallest ones, a faint blue to the space around. At the corner of your view, you might be able to see a giant, tilted pillar of energy piercing into one of the streets, faint energy slowly swirling around its edges.
You can follow this path to the galley, where cabinets are latched shut and the table and chairs don't move. Beyond that you'll find a landing and a ladder that descends further into the ship; the next floor down has two small cabins (each with a small row of windows you can see out of!) and a bathroom, and further below that is a small storage area, stocked full of small crates.
Returning to the main cabin, you'll find that--should you wish to fly--the knowledge of how to do so is with you, similar to how you instinctively know how to do things in a dream. You run the ship through its waking sequences, nudging it carefully away from the outside dock... and as your hands grip the yoke, the crystal before you clears, fading into transparency from where it connects to the dash before you all the way up and over your head, all the way back until it reaches the door.
Welcome to the space between. You've got full range view of the skies, and a ship ready to fly. Where will you go next?]
2. Passenger (here's your optional body horror with the Nulls!)
[This ship is a far cry from the small craft you might get the opportunity to pilot. The air here, by contrast, is sharp and crisp and smelling faintly of ozone--which may make sense, considering there are no walls between you and the space beyond.
You stand on the deck of a ship that seems like it's better suited to sail the seas, its sails full and glittering as light hits it from multiple sources, its decks seemingly made of timber (?). We're leaning fully into "space is like the ocean" territory here and I don't care, I do what I want when it comes to fun :) There are deckhands all over, attending to their business, and at the helm stands a crew of three: one at a giant ship's wheel, making minute adjustments as you go, and two figures that are easy to pinpoint as the ship's Captain (an older man with a fully gray beard, a curl to his lips and laughter in his eyes) and First Mate (a woman, tall, her limbs longer than a normal human's--not that she looks human, given the bell-like appendages that seem to be her ears).
It's a sailing ship, but it's clear that it's been designed for the skies: in spite of being open to the space beyond, there's a breathable atmosphere being engineered from some unseen workings, and a hum coming from the main mast might clue you in on where the source of the ship's gravity lies.
Maybe you luck out and experience a peaceful trip through the skies, ending finally when it comes into sight: an amalgamation of streets and buildings without any sense of cohesion, strips of land and street and home laid along another like two strips from the peels of an orange. At regular intervals, giant spikes of energy are thrust through the makeshift "world," their points beneath the streets crackling with it. Still, you know it as well as you do your own name: This is home, at least for now. This is safety.
This is the Anchorage.
If your trip isn't so lucky, you'll know it at once when the first crack splits the peaceful white noise of the night. There, off the starboard bow!
A jagged line of nothingness splits the night sky open, a screeching that sets your teeth on edge emanating from nowhere and everywhere all at once as it begins to splinter further open. A bell begins to clang, followed by the roaring of klaxons as the ship's crew spring to action, running for the lifelines that are anchored to the masts and pulling weapons from where they'd been previously stashed.
Not all of the Nulls make it to the deck. They have to wait until the ship's artificial atmosphere and gravity have eclipsed the rip they've made in reality, and there are plenty that worm their way out only to be destroyed by the realities of space. But there are enough that drop to the deck and stagger upright, dark and shadowed and sometimes difficult to see without the light from any closer stars. The crew knows their business and gets to work, going after the monsters on deck while the first mate bellows orders between taking potshots from the deck. There's some sort of crystal she's shouting for, a handful of crew swarming over a small crate that had been tucked in next to the mast.
You might not want to take the time to watch, though. Wait too long and you'll feel the burning cold of their claws, the way they latch into you and try to pull your soul askew. This fight is for your life too, not just the memories of these people from so very long ago. Although it seems as though the smaller group dedicated to operationalizing this crystal of theirs could use a hand, as the Nulls attack those who aren't fighting just as fast as those who are.
Maybe you're not fast enough to help them. If too many of the crew go down, you can try to open the crate and figure out how to use the skull-sized crystal within... but good luck, with so many of them bearing down on you. Wouldn't it be easier to stop fighting and give in, to just let the darkness take you...?
Or maybe you're too stubborn to let them kill you. Maybe you're too stubborn to let them kill anyone, to let those crew members decompose before your eyes and blur those lines between life and reality and death. If that's the case, they'll get the crystal hooked up to a set of straps and pulleys, lifting it up out of the crate until it swings clear of the upper lid. Now! the first mate cries, pointing toward the rip that's opened up out of nothing. Fire! One of the crew slaps their hand to the crystal, focusing on it and then glaring out at the source, and a bolt of bright, pure light streaks from the crystal, striking the Nulls' portal with a crack of thunder.
This magic might be enough to close the rip the Nulls have opened in reality. But even if it does, the crystal is visibly depleted, and all of the crew that had helped to shift it look visibly exhausted... and older, somehow.
The Nulls pose a danger no matter where you are.]
(frozen comment) Family Breakfast
A young woman sits on the bed, seemingly in the middle of braiding her hair back from her face. "...so he said we'd talk to the guy in charge of everything here in the morning," she says, tying off the braid neatly. "I really didn't know anything about all this. None of us did."
"Don't worry." It's Wave's voice, but is Wave actually there with you? The Wave that's speaking looks younger, more sure of herself, more relaxed as she waves the other girl's concern away. "There are a lot of--"
A knock on the door, followed by a voice from beyond: "Hey, breakfast is ready."
"Come on," Wave says, flashing an easy smile toward the girl. "We'll figure it out after breakfast."
The memory of the room begins to fade as Wave heads to the door and opens it, stepping out into the main area of a decently-sized apartment. A tall man with a shock of white hair digs through one of the cabinets, tossing dishes and cups out as he finds them--each motion is paired with the glow of magic from his hands, a small stream of water manifesting midair to carry plates and glasses toward the table that lays beyond the stove.
Near the door stands a younger man, who Wave smiles at as she passes him. "Morning." Then she pauses, rolling her eyes good-naturedly before stepping forward to start plucking things out of the air. "Quit being lazy."
"It's not lazy! It gets things done faster!"
You'd be forgiven for not having checked out the living room by this point, where a couple couches and chairs have been arranged around a fireplace near the front of the apartment--but from it now comes the sound of a frustrated growl, the muted thump of somebody beating their fists against the cushions. The white-haired man doesn't miss a beat, calling out, "If you're that determined to sleep longer, go to my room. You'll have a better bed and a door that actually shuts."
He's finished digging out all the cutlery by this point and turns, but Wave's already there, giving him a pointed look that seems to say he'd better not even consider using magic to "set" it when she's standing between him and the table. He chooses to surrender the silverware to her, grinning broadly as a little boy stumbles his way past all of you with his couch cushion, glaring daggers at everybody that's been making noise so early in the morning.
"Someone didn't get enough sleep," Wave remarks, watching him go, then turning back to the table.
The bedroom door slams shut.
"Where do you keep the juice?" the younger man asks, heading toward the fridge. "Or milk... or whatever..."
"Should be in the coldbox--something, at least." The older one turns his attention to Wave, silently questioning, and she gives him a wide shrug, brow furrowing (and although you're only visiting this scene, you somehow know it too--this is his place, not hers; how the hell would she know what he has available to drink?). He shrugs back, and then a shit-eating grin crosses his face as he half-turns to call out, "If there's nothing in there, we're not lacking for water!"
The younger woman comes to help now too, helping Wave to finish setting the table, and within minutes everybody's sitting down at the table to eat, a group of strangers come together in this strange amalgamation of a world.]
(frozen comment) Investiture
There's a flash of panic within you, the sudden urge to flee. Like a rabbit bolting from the wolf, these words a binding settling over your shoulders that you aren't ready to face. Whose feelings are these--your own? Someone else's? It's dark still, the players yet unnamed, though there's the glow of light on the horizon.
This magic, given unto the people of Coriolis, binds us and sustains us. And today, we will bind these two further unto its power, that they will shepherd our people and our world into a brighter future.
But first, we must recognize they who have faithfully led the Sector of Vairenn for many years: Rigel-an of the Dawn, a mage beyond compare... my advisor and my friend. May his soul be at peace in the magic of the Veloi. And Vairenn's lady doctor, View-anu, whose healing magics have been without peer for decades. May we keep you for many years yet, my lady.
As the light filters in, your surroundings becoming clearer with each passing moment, there's an uneasiness at the back of your mind that lingers, loss and horror and suspicion and doubt, all of it twining together in a single thread of alarm that cries not yet! You can't! You sit in the front row of an assembly of nobles, facing toward a massive tree glowing with an orange light. Before it is a tall, strong man--Adonis, you instinctively know--dressed in silver robes with a black sash around his waist. He's speaking to the gathered, asking for any words to be shared about Rigel-an; this is to properly lay his spirit to rest as much as it is the passing of the torch. But Rigel shouldn't sleep, not yet, not when you're so sure...
Your name is called. Funny, this isn't your memory? But you stand, and a man sitting across the aisle from you stands, and the two of you make your way to stand before Adonis, who nods for you to kneel. There's more ceremony to be endured, words and blessings and questions of faith, but it's when a dark-skinned woman stands before you, stone bowl in her hands, that the words suddenly have meaning again.
For eyes that meant to see, she says, turning the bowl methodically with one hand. And ears that meant to hear. Truths upon thy mind, and clarity upon thy will. She studies you, her eyes seemingly seeing straight through you and laying bare any secrets you'd care to hide--does she know? Can she know, this mage from a simple memory? And vision to those who'd seek.
The water she blesses you with is magical, you know. Thana's blessings are potent, rare--this is the second you've been given.
But there's no time to think about her words and what they mean, because it seems like immediately Adonis is standing before you and your partner again, two mages standing behind him. One holds a box, in which sits an ostentatious crown decorated with rubies and onyx and black opal; the other is a woman that might seem familiar somehow, holding nothing in her hands but wearing a crown in similar colors, its profile lower, elegant.
This is what it means to rule the Second Sector, he says, looking solemnly at you both. I do not appoint my Archons to grant them power; I lay upon them the responsibility to govern. My Archons have no right to the common joys of living, no freedom to indulge in their own personal interests or biases. You must shoulder the heaviest burdens, fight the fiercest battles, and shield your people's lives with your own. To be an Archon is to sacrifice yourself for our people, to serve them through your rule, to subject yourself to absolute objectivity and justice. Knowing this, will you commit yourself to all of Vairenn?
I will, the person beside you says.
Lord and Lady Calerin were bound to the Veloi long ago, Adonis intones, lifting his voice so that your audience can hear. Today, they will become vectors of its power. I charge you both to use this power for the good of Coriolis and the people of Vairenn.
(Another memory hits you then--"What do you think will happen if you try to instill that power in someone that doesn't have any magic?"
"...it will probably hurt.")
The crown from the box is placed on the head of the person next to you. Adonis turns to the woman behind him so that she might give him its twin; she smiles at you, reaching up to unpin the crown from her hair. As I pass to you the title I have carried for so many years, I pass this crown to you as well--take care of it, she adds, handing it to Adonis. It was one of your father's favorites.
The weight of the crown settles onto your head, and the both of you are bidden to rise, to approach the tree behind them all and connect to the magic of the Veloi. That sharp desire to flee returns, whether it's in line with your own feelings or opposed--it's a low, mounting terror that feels like it might swallow you at any moment. Not yet! But all too soon you're before the tree, the magic twining up its trunk and shining out through the lines of bark, glowing warm from the leaves above and wisping back down to earth. Your partner takes your hand, reaches out with the other... and the both of you press your free hands to the tree.
And it's pain, fire, ice, electricity running through your veins, a circuit meant to carry nothing overloaded with all the power the Veloi have to offer.
Don't scream. Don't scream. Don't scream.
It's flooding you, running down your arm from the tree's rough bark, down to your toes and up to your eyes--your vision blurs--there's a ringing in your ears--the power runs back down your other arm and into the person beside you, still as stone, fingers tight around yours. After a moment, maybe you hear the words: Don't try to hold onto it; let it flow to me. I won't let you fall and there's a question here about whether that's a good idea but the other option is being burned alive from the inside out with this power you could never hope to grasp; what do you do? Do you burn? Do you let the power pass through you and out? The more you try to hold onto it, the more difficult it becomes to stay upright, your vision going dark, your head spinning, the hand on yours still tight as ever. And if you let it go... well.
Eventually the pain begins to wane, the flood of power lessening until the last of it leaves you with a sharp snap of power. You glance toward the person beside you, and he's glowing--the brands of his magic burn with power, notable even through the heavy ceremonial robes he wears, spiraling up his arms and across his shoulder blades. How much of the power that flooded you is his now? Is there any way to know?
As the two of you turn back to face the rest of the gathered, Adonis announces, I present to you: Dusk-an and Wave-anu, Daughter of the Dawn--Lord and Lady of our Second Sector.]