EVENT #1: THE EMPTY THRONE

[aionmods]

The Empty Throne

DESCENT

Nearly two weeks after being dragged from shrine caverns, you hear along the grapevine that the "the throne room is complete." It doesn't take long to figure out what that means; the ritual grounds that you have been hearing mention of are finally prepared, and it's only a short while before you are once again being gathered together for travel. As a small mercy, at least this time the journey is short.

Through a passage that has been blocked by a gathering of soldiers for the entire length of your stay, a stairway is revealed to you. It leads deep into the ruins, through unfamiliar structures and into the bowels of the earth. Though your feel your are mostly going downward, the walk is still long on account of how many stairs their are, and the soldiers escorting you are restless. They are now being led by the stray, mask wearing Achamites that have been accompanying the group till now, silently observing. Whatever place this is, it seems that they now hold court.

Funneled into the chambers below, you are greeted by a massive, domed enclosure of stone. Positioned around its circular radius are twelve thrones in various states of disrepair, sized as if meant to seat giants. The backs of these thrones all differ slightly in design, though most have great cleaves of stone broken loose from their architecture, as if subjected to some great cataclysm. Each is engraved with a sigil, though some have been obscured by the destruction wrought. The throne closest to the entrance has been almost entirely demolished, making it impossible to glean much about.

The dome's ceiling appears to be hundreds of feet tall at its apex, its smooth surface disrupted by stalactites that puncture through its form like teeth. As a result, many chunks of the original structure seem to have cracked and collapsed in to the floor below. When examined closely, these fragments of the domed ceiling seem to be made of a material strangely reflective in quality, though caked in many years of dirt and grime. If large enough sections are cleaned, patterns may emerge, revealing designs that look almost like star maps. The floor beneath your feet as a similar, but subtly different quality, covered in wreckage and ruin but can be cleaned to reveal complex patterns of intersecting lines.

A careful eye will indicate that these lines all lead towards the center of the room - the one space that has been cleared and scrubbed prior to your arrival. Here, the lines converge, with carefully preserved marking in the stone that bely increasing levels of runic complexity the closer you look. This is where the ritual will be held, you are told.

THE RITUAL

There is not much time to regain your bearings before you are being shuffled forth towards the ritual space; no, all the waiting has already been done. Under the command of the smaller group of Achamites, the Hylicians will make heavy use of the whips in leading everyone to their places along the rune-inscribed circle. Before that, however, small cuts will be made to each prisoner with an athame, either on their hand or arm. With a sharp, burning sensation in the afflicted skin, these cuts will spread into wounds reflecting the image of one of the eleven sigils displayed on the thrones encircling the group, and matching the shrine they were originally pulled from.

With this accomplished, they can finally be taken into the circle. With a design comprised of four triangles overlapping, the design of an open eye carved at its center, all prisoners will be led to separates points on its design where the lines cross. Seemingly arranged by their shrine sigil to be closest to whatever throne represents them, they will be brought to their designated positions one by one. Any attempts to flee or disrupt the process will be dealt with swiftly and harshly, exacerbated by the increasing levels of paranoia and fear in the soldiers themselves. Whatever is being done here, they don't seem happy to involved with it either.

When everyone is in place, the seeming master of ceremonies will finally emerge. A dark haired woman will appear from the shadows, motes of golden light fluttering about her otherwise darkness-clad visage. Moving towards the center of the circle, she will stand over the marking of the eye and begin working her magicks. As if on cue, the soldiers will withdraw any remaining whips and scurry to the outside of the circle, only for new bonds of ethereal energy to lash out of the ritual circle itself, binding each and every prisoner and dragging them down to their knees. Among the soldiers, you can hear mutterings identifying this woman as "the Aion."

"Come," she says to the coterie of robed Achamites, who will approach the circle with an assortment of vials collected into cases. There is enough for each prisoner to be given a drink, and so they will; a vial of abyssal liquid will be forced into each one of your throats, no matter how uncomfortably it must be done. While no less ruthless, the Achamites have a different way about them as they work, forcing themselves upon you with a strange familiarity that feels more akin to a mother forcing their child to take medicine than the suspicious hostility of the soldiers. As the foul liquid touches your tongue, it takes on a consistency almost like a living thing, crawling down your throat even if you refuse to swallow, all while the Achamites stroke your hair and make saccharine assurances.

Once all the prisoners have been fed their vial, the Achamamites too will retreat from the circle - all except for one. Joining 'the Aion' at the center, the two of them will begin enacting a planned ceremony of sorts, that culminates in the following scene:

The Achamite kneels before the Aion, lifting their masked face to meet their dark gaze. They speak, in practiced tones.

"To the Kenoma my body, to the Kenoma my soul."

In response, the Aion holds the Achamite's face between their hands in almost a loving gesture. She speaks softly:

"By the blood of the Martyr, I accept your sacrifice."

From the Aion's hands a darkness spreads across the Achamite's body, as if they are melting and dissolving on a cellular level. She kneels along with them, cradling them as their body breaks down, pooling in a void-black liquid around their knees. It drains into the lines of the ritual circle, surging out towards the prisoners.

Within moments, the ritual is complete.

KENOMA SICKNESS

As this dark power surges throughout the ritual circle, you will find yourself almost consumed by the tide. Whatever foul creation you were forced to swallow wakes within your chest, and you can feel it move within your veins, inside you lungs, behind your eyes. As quickly as it begins, the flood of darkness washes over you, but not without leaving you stained.

Something has changed in its wake. As you return to your senses, you will notice the magical bonds of the circle have fallen away, leaving you free to move; for once, the soldiers will not move to lead or restrain you. Instead, the Hylicians warily back away from the ritual space, retreating towards the only path upwards, where they form a defensive line. The Achamites that linger make a series of ritual gestures, praying in voices too soft to hear. The Aion woman stands in the center, her hands blackened with residue from the person you just watched fall to pieces in her arms.

"You will be given time to find your truth," she says. "Use it well."

As you recover from the experience enough to stand, she and her Achamite entourage are already retreating to join the Hylician guard. Gradually, your situation will become clear: they intend to keep your trapped down here. However, it will not be the same as when you waited before. Instead, the soldiers simply intend to block your only exit out, and otherwise leave you free to roam the full diameter of the throne room, seemingly free to do whatever you want as long as it isn't trying to break free of the cavern's confines. Each day, they will offer to their prisoners a limit supply of food, water, and firewood, but nothing more. Beyond that, you only have your increasingly dirty white robes and the same bedrolls as before.

❖ COMMUNION
The first change you will experience is an itching darkness in your mind, like a psychic wound that is becoming infected. The sort of thoughts you would normally try to force down become increasingly hard to resist; despair, hatred, and fear will plague you, and requiring great feats of will to silence even temporarily. Phantoms of the things you'd rather forget will become a constant companion, all while a presence seems to whisper: when you accept your fate, the pain will stop.

Worse than this, the darkness of your mind may not remain private. As if awakened by the ritual, your empathetic sense has become impossibly strong, to the point that you feel the broadcasted emotions and thoughts of others, and in turn, your darkest thoughts will be psychically projected to others with a volume proportional to the intensity with which you feel them. This effect is most potent between those sharing Legacy, with the capacity for their identities to become momentarily confused. In all cases, this connection may bleed into your dreams, or manifest as hallucinations.

❖ TRANSFORMATION
Yet, your mind is not the only thing that ails. In proportion to the strength of your emotions, your body may begin changing to match your state of mind. Physical transformations akin to those mentioned here will begin to manifest, themed to your inner suffering and the most negative aspects of your self conception. These alterations may shift from moment to moment, depending on the turbulence of your emotional state. They may or may not be painful.

❖ AFFLICTION
Along with the above effects, characters may also experience various more mundane ailments; essentially anything traditionally associated with illness could fit. Weakness, nausea, body aches, and chills are all common options. Along with this, void-black ooze may start to trickle from virtually any orifice. While it may stain clothing and skin, the material itself will dissipate after a few minutes in a manner reminiscent of ectoplasm. This effect may also appear around your Shard, as if the stone itself has begun to bleed.

RESISTANCE

Even as the Kenoma threatens to overwhelm you, you still have the power to fight. Though it may be a grueling war of attrition, you can force back its advances with sufficient will to survive and resist the darkness. Of course, your captors are not going to make this easy for you. Those that fight hard enough to expel the Kenoma from their bodies and spirits will take at least a week to do so, and for that duration they will be trapped within this chilly cavern, haunted by their worst thoughts and emotions.

The bedrolls barely strand up against the cold, your clothing doesn't at all, and to be comfortable you'll require fire. Yet, there is a limited amount provided to you, along with food and water, and the soldiers do not seem to be making any effort to distribute it evenly. Achieving basic warmth and sustenance may become a battle against your fellow inmates, all while you struggle against the enemy infecting your body. Cracks in the dome of the cavern lead into some smaller caverns and crevasses in the stone that can offer some privacy or protection, but the more splintered the group becomes the less the supplies will hold up. Fortunately for you, neither the cold nor starvation will kill you, but it will make you suffer.

Yet, you may still persevere. As you fight back the Kenoma, something else will be cultivated in its place. Bit by bit, a comforting and warm presence will grow within you, gradually disrupting the maladies afflicting your body and mind. Your faith and perseverance has been rewarded with an attunement to the Pleroma, the Kenoma's cosmological opposite; given enough time, the Kenoma will be forced from your being entirely, in the form of void-black sludge. Only then will your power begin to shine through, the abilities of your past life slowly returning.

You must keep your guard. With or without otherworldly power, escape will be a struggle.

ACCEPTANCE

Or, you may choose the easy option. Maybe the Kenoma resonates with your history and emotions in a way that makes it seem like it isn't the enemy. Maybe the depths of your despair are too deep to escape. Maybe your simply lack the strength to fight. Whatever the reason, sooner or later, the Kenoma claims you. The more you let it in, the less it feels like a poison and the more it feels like strength. The darkness settles comfortably into the cracks and holes of your spirit, and you awaken to its power. You feel the change viscerally.

This world is not good enough, a voice seems to speak through the Kenoma. This suffering you feel, the cruelty that has birthed this darkness in you... it is simply the rot that is consuming this existence. A better universe awaits, one forged by your own hand, and all you need do is first bring about this broken reality's end.

Whatever effects you were suffering from the Kenoma's presence will fade away, and in its place, you will feel your endurance bolstered. The clarity is stark in comparison to the mire you were trapped in before. As the other prisoners suffer around you, the Aion woman from before and an accompaniment of a couple Hylician soldiers will approach you among the ruins, as if summoned straight to your location. She looks you over, her dark eyes impassive, and then asks:

"Did you feel it?"

She doesn't actually wait for an answer, your expression alone enough to assure her. She'll tell the soldiers that you are free to go, and that you are to be given a share of their food and a change of clothes. She'll escort you out of cavern and towards the upper ruins, where the soldiers and Achamites have set up camp. This feels natural to you, somehow, like you and her are on the same wavelength in a way that is hard to comprehend. She is like you, you sense. That dark power is within her as well.

She doesn't linger with you for long, but she will see that you are on your way before heading back to the caverns. She'll say that the voice you heard, that promise, was the Regent, the ruler of this land. They spoke of a power that could birth a new, better universe, and they weren't misleading you. It's within their reach, closer than ever, and if you help them achieve it you will be rewarded lavishly. For now, you are free to regain your strength while the others make their choices. She only asks that you stay in the area and be ready to join the Regent in Achamoth when all is prepared.

If you're prone to boredom, though, she will mention that you'd really be doing the prisoners a favor by convincing them to accept the Kenoma like you did. You could convince them with words, or by making their situations so unbearable they won't have a choice but to break. However you'd like. It won't be worse than what's coming for them if they carry on this way.

When she parts ways with you, you are left to your own devices. Somehow, you feel inclined to cooperate. After all, the Regent did have a point.

QUESTIONS

Are the involuntary transformations during the Kenoma sickness period temporary afflictions or permanent ones?
By default they are temporary, but characters can also keep a couple keepsake changes if you'd like! An Aion's physical appearance is something that is generally in flux, and so even if you keep something from this event, you can always alter it later.

What kind of supplies are going to be distributed to those who accept Kenoma and leave the caverns?
They'll be given food, water, and clothing. They'll be given more/better rations than they were as prisoners, but it's still the sort of food that is limited by the fact that they are out here on a mission. The soldiers will have some fresh meat from prey they've been hunting in the forest, and will generally be having a lot of stew-based food going. There are actual spices in it, though, so that's cool. This is all set up where the Hylicians are camping.

As for clothes, they will get a fresh set (including boots or shoes) and some soap to clean themselves up in the nearby creeks and ponds. Hylici has an aesthetic that leans towards ancient Greek/Roman, so while they won't have anything fancy with them, you are free to assume they are able to acquire anything in that general ballpark. They do also have pants, though. While it is now spring and Horos has a generally temperate climate, it can be chilly at night.

Will Pleroma attuned be able to escape once they've regained their powers?
Yes, they will be allowed to escape at that point, and a second log will be going up to cover that part of the event. This log should generally cover up until shortly after Pleroma start ejecting the Kenoma's influence. Characters are permitted to escape by their own power if they somehow devise a plan to do so, but as we know the Pleromas are at a significant disadvantage in this situation, some characters who have fought against the Kenoma particularly valiantly will be given some magical assistance to help the survivors escape.

Will the Kenomas be able to try to stop them?
Yes! The second log will be set up to contain some PVP, though given the Pleromas do need to escape, we ask that you play nice. There will be a battle, but it will be structured in the context of the Pleromas having to hold off the Kenomas long enough to escape, so it will be relatively brief.

Can we speak to "the Aion"?
Yes, she will be around for the full length of the event. All characters will have the chance to find her watching over the group whether they are Kenomas or soon to be Pleromas. She will not be that talkative, though, so anyone tagging her will have to lead the conversation. She will not make small talk. Martyrs will recognize her as one of them.

Comments

Vi | Arcane | Firebrand

[fistcuffs]

THE FIRE

[ Vi isn’t sick. She’s not sick because to be sick right now would be death, and like hell is she going to die in this cave after everything these assholes have put her through. She has to live now. Out of pure spite if for no other reason.

But of course, that’s easier said than done. Vi can’t let herself stop, can’t let herself rest, because if she falls apart now she doesn’t know how the hell she’s going to pull herself back together. Barring an enemy to fight she paces, taking ragged little breaths between steps. Catch her at the right moment and you might see her stumble, crumpling a little against cold stone. The firewood in her arms slips, falling to the ground in a loud clatter of wood on rock.

An impossible sound to miss, if you’re anywhere in the vicinity. ]



THE FEAST

[ Any resources she can get her hands on, Vi is collecting, organizing, distributing. In her stronger moments she’s back on her feet, looking for anyone who looks lost, cold, alone. ]

Hey. [ Her thumb jerks behind her, her face open with real concern. ]

We've got a fire going. Come on, get warm.



BRING YOUR OWN FEELINGS

[ Guilt bleeds from Vi. Punishing, suffocating, agonizing guilt.

Approach her and her hands come up. She’s shaking her head, shaking all over. You might catch flashes of it now- a sister lost, years alone in a cold cell. She wasn’t there, wasn’t there, wasn’t there to protect her sister. To save her father, her brothers. They’re all dead, and it’s Vi’s fault. She’s sure of it. She knows this guilt, this pain, deeper now than her own bones. ]

No... no, don’t- [ Breathe. She can’t breathe. She folds rigid arms around her middle, hunching. ]

Don’t touch me, okay?



WILDCARD

[ If any other firebrands are looking for the opportunity to jumpstart some CR with a horrendous dreamshare, I'm your girl! Also open to playing around with other psychological/physical affects. ]

BYOF :)

[passio]

[ dextera knows this. he knows this guilt and this horrible sense of failure—they’re sharing it, and in a way the overwhelming presence of hers smothers his own. he’s exchanging one horrible burden for another without alleviating any of the pain, but with the hurt comes clarity. he imagines his loss; he can feel hers, and he knows what he would want someone to do for him.

he wants to help. ]

…

[ when she tells him not to touch, he does politely withdraw his hand, but he doesn’t leave her alone. even in silence, he nonetheless seems urgent about wanting to support her panic. ]

[fistcuffs]

[ Given that Vi is the one projecting all over the place here she wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d simply fled.

And that’s really all Vi really wants to do at the moment - to crawl into a corner until she gets a handle on this. Whatever this is, whatever fresh new humiliation this whole awful situation is about to unleash. She puts her face in her hands and just- tries to breathe for a minute. The thoughts, the memories, the pain. ]

Look, I don’t- [ What? Pour her heart out to a cave full of unsuspecting strangers? Her face is hot with shame.

None of its new, and that’s a focal point. She can control it, maybe, if she focuses on that. Except-

There is a thread there, maybe. A sense. A feeling both hers and not quite hers. She jerks her head up, brow furrowed, fixing her gaze again on him. ]

[passio]

[ dextera flinches when she looks at him. their darkest emotions are mingling, and her gaze is like having his own reflected back at him, something he’s always tried to avoid. he therefore averts his eyes, but he’s still not running.

he can’t speak, but the single small benefit to this horrible ebb and flow of anxiety and fear is that with his thoughts flowing outwards, they carry with him intentions if not words. dextera is here, in all his crawling tension, because he has sensed familiar regret and self-reproach in another person. ]

…

[ if he can help her, maybe he can help himself. he therefore pushes himself to meet her fixed gaze, offering that understanding.

tentatively, he extends his hand again. ]

[fistcuffs]

[ It takes her a moment, working the threads back, a little like peeling an onion. She’d been lost before, drowning in the bottomless well of her own pain. But if the threads aren’t hers alone, that means- ]

Okay. [ she says, her voice breaking a little on the word. But she reaches for the hand and clasps it, grasp firm, before she can really think to second guess the instinct. ]

[passio]

[ dextera squeezes her fingers. there’s nothing really for him to do, physically, that can save either of them—but when all he has is touch, it’s all he can offer to ground them both. the sickness has left his understanding of the world around him hazy and frightening, so this helps him just as much as he hopes it helps her.

he breathes in slowly. holds it. exhales. ]

…

[ his gaze on hers is, he imagines, far from comforting. no one has ever told him that they’re glad of his penchant for staring seemingly into someone’s heart, and certainly not now when those emotions are feeding on and feeding into everyone else around.

however, inasmuch as it’s a benefit, this connection strengthens whatever psychic bond has been forced on them all, and dextera is able to communicate in the absence of words that strong desire to help—if only because he feels her pain, too. ]

the fire.

[deushexmachina]

[A sound impossible to mistake — huff of air from lungs, broken bark on rock, the clatter of noise and curses. Jayce steels himself. Manicured fingernails cut into the flesh of his palm. He steps around the corner—

—and sees her, hanging against the wall, wood cuts and thick branches at her feet. His adrenaline peters off, he steps forward.]

Hey, [concern laces his voice,] do you need help?

[fistcuffs]

Does it look like I need help?

[ The voice doesn’t click right away, as she braces her hand against the wall and fights for some inner well of equilibrium. What the hell is wrong with her? Other people besides Vi herself need this wood. She draws in a ragged breath, fists clenching.

And then she sees him. Recognition filters into her face, softens her expression. ]

Oh. Hey.

[ That’s... actually relief in her voice. ]

[deushexmachina]

[His flinch melts when he hears that relief in her voice — unexpected and welcomed. Must be from Piltover, he thinks, confident in that flash of recognition. Makes things a little easier. Jayce offers a small smile, his eyes weighed down by purple shadow.]

You probably don't need it, [he steps forward, bending over to grab one chunk of fallen firewood,] but I hate feeling useless.

[His momentum slows as he rises, the bruising along his forearm indicative of a slowed healing response. Shallow breathing, the huff of aching escaping. Affliction.]

[fistcuffs]

[ She notes the bruises first and then the slowness to the way he’s moving. Everyone’s sick here. Weak. On him though, it seems particularly out of place. Off kilter.

Maybe that should fill her with some grim sense of satisfaction. She looks for that feeling for a moment, watching him stoop to pick up the wood. ]

Thanks, [ she says instead, meaning it. She reaches down to grab a few of the larger pieces. ]

Better odds with two of us. [ She offers him a little wink, leaving Jayce about a quarter of the total load. Then she stands, ducking her head so he won’t see her wince again. ]

There’s food this way if you can eat. [ She points with her chin, wanting the invitation clear. [

BYOF sorry not sorry, but def let me know if this doesn't work!

[zauneyete]

Oh, don't worry about that.

[ How could Silco not pipe up, after the obvious display of... events he'd had an extremely active hand in. Those memories were...different, of course, for him. Colored with years of blistering, blinding fury and hatred, chilled only by the sharp, biting cold -- like drowning, and being reborn.

Silco, thinking he's perfectly safe from his own burgeoning psychic ability, speaks up, confident that he has the upper hand right now. It's still early, after that ritual, and Vi is -- was supposed to be a loose end -- one that had...before the heat death of the universe, been thwarting his efforts to located and deal with it.

Now she was here, mocking him with this... feeling. Guilt. The opposite of the elation he so often felt -- was feeling, and inadvertently projected -- at the thought of that knife he'd sunken into his former companion's back.

He waited, mismatched eyes looked for every little detail of misery, or anger. The eerie effect is mired by a hacking cough -- black from his lips and lungs, and he flung it on the ground next to him. He'd seen what the mines did to lungs, and he'd thought he'd won out against that fate, yet here he was. With disgust on his face, he looked back up to Vi, trying to recover the sense of superiority. ]

It's sad, isn't it? How easily things fell apart, and how much they clearly don't matter anymore.

NEVER BE SORRY this is perfect

[fistcuffs]

[ Her first thought, actually, is that she’s having a nightmare. A hallucination. Some kind of abject break from reality that would account for this. For him. Silco alive, Silco breathing, Silco seeing this. Seeing her like this, as if he has some right to it. To her memories of Powder, who she loved and changed and fed and guarded with her life and thought about every day, every day that she wasn’t there.

She swipes at the tears on her face, scrambling back. Desperate for distance, for space, for something other than the slicing, needling knowledge, bone-deep, of that truth. Like the prick of a knife. Like the prick of that knife. And now she can see the knife, she’s thinking about the knife, about Vander, about-

She makes an inhuman, enraged sound, covering her face with her hands. ]

Get the hell away!

[ He’s not real. He can’t be, she knows that. ]

[zauneyete]

[ Silco barely moved, just a slight, slow motion, to lean against a wall. He even held his hands up. See? Playing nice.

Of course, he wasn't. He knew what he's doing, simply by existing in Vi's general presence. Of all the people for Silco to pick up on a projection of, it had to be his daughter's sister. He could have moved on, but Silco wasn't the sort to hide, or cower. He made his presence known, particularly when the opportunity to do so came at an advantage like this.

It would be painful for Vi, and wasn't that a reason to do so? ]

I'm not close, Vi. It's all in your head. [ He said, his tone too smug. Too confident. He hasn't picked up on the reason she thought it was weird that he was alive. Given the last time he'd seen Vi had been in the underbelly of Zaun, when he'd tried to hunt them down. ] Isn't it a shame that all you can think about right now is how much you hate that I'm here?

[fistcuffs]

[ What the ever-loving fuck is wrong with her? Vi reaches for some grasping edge of sanity. Scrubs at her eyes, fights for breath. For air.

He’s a man. Delusion or not. Living or dead. He’s weak and pathetic and small and for once there’s no Sevika ready to stand in her way. No goons flanking him. No Powder to worry for. ]

You want to stay in my head? [ She starts to push to her feet, fighting the viselike grip of the black inside her. A grasping, cloying call. She stumbles once, leaning on the wall. Holds herself there, white-knuckled. ]

Wonder what I can pry out of yours? [ The threat is an empty one, for all intents and purposes. When she has no control, no grasp at all on this formless tension. The nightmare of this fucked up connection versus the gentle acceptance of the last.

But she knows it works sometimes. Somehow. She takes a step closer; eyes darkening, blackening. ]

The Feast

[contentsunderpressure]

[Of course this was how things came together, the world explodes, and yet her sister was still alive. A fire could have been nice, but some choice words had to come first.]

I'm good, trust me, sis.

Re: The Feast

[fistcuffs]

[ Something like hope dies a little in Vi’s face, but she stays where she is despite it. Shifts her weight a little, back and forth. This is Powder. Her sister. Hurt and confused and lost.

Quietly: ]

I’m gonna keep asking, Powder.

[contentsunderpressure]

It wouldn't be you if you didn't.

[Slightly snide, but it was true. Vi likely wouldn't stop helping me even if hell froze over.]

Have you had many takers for all of this?

[fistcuffs]

Not too many. [ She narrows her eyes a little, surveying a few of their similarly dirty, sick compatriots nearby. Whatever glances Vi draws are hardly trusting. ]

But this is what they want. Us fighting each other, not them. [ It only makes sense to do what she can to work against the effect.

She lifts one shoulder, then lets it drop. Careful not to look at her sister. ]

FEAAAAAAAAAAST

[killandrecycle]

[Wordlessly, the little demon follows along. She isn't looking to make any friends, but she also isn't looking to freeze to death, either. She more collapses near the fire rather then sits there, but she seems to have enough energy left to speak.]

Why even bother helping me? You don't know me. I might just end up stabbing you in the back for all you know.

[Not that there seems to be much danger in that. She had a hard time even getting over to the fire, and she almost certainly has no blade concealed in her robes.]

[fistcuffs]

[ She’s not actually wrong. And worse, Vi doesn’t really know the answer. It’s the right thing to do. It’s what Vander would have done. She doesn’t like to see someone needlessly in pain if she can do something about it. None of the answers come with words she can shape, exactly.

Still, she takes a seat a fair distance away, wanting to offer them offer them both the protection of space. ]

Well, you’re here. I’m here. [ She gives her an assessing look, up and down. Casually flexes a massive arm before resting it again across her bent knees. A tiger at rest. ]

Why don’t you give it a shot? [ A tiny quirk of a smile gives her away. ]

[killandrecycle]

[Judged solely on looks, the girl is no danger at all. She's in no better a condition then anyone else, but quite a bit shorter and scrawnier then most. Despite this, she doesn't seem like she's afraid. Judging by the sour look on her face, she isn't amused, either.]

You're not the one I want to stab. Nothing to gain from it.

[She doesn't seem to be letting her gaze go too far away from her new conversation partner. One tiny act of kindness doesn't seem to be enough to get her to give any trust or drop her guard. The way she sits makes her seem more defeated, knees drawn under her chin, with her arms wrapped around her legs.]

You hear it too, don't you? That voice. Taking about how this world is trash.

[fistcuffs]

…Yeah. I hear it. All the time. [ Her gaze stays on the fire, expression taut for a moment.

She looks away, fists tightening. Defiant. ]

I’m not listening. [ She can make it true if she can only keep saying it. ]

The Dream | closed to Estinien

[fistcuffs]

[ It all starts on the bridge.

A small hand rests in Vi’s. This is her sister. This is Powder. She is going to lose her one day, and she knows this now even though in the half-dream-memory space it hasn’t happened yet. But she loves this sister. Loves her more than anything.

There’s a bridge ahead, cloaked in smoke. There’s been fighting, and screaming, and death, and Mom told them them to wait. She had told them it wasn’t safe, and Vi believed her because she was old enough to understand the shape of war. She would have listened too, this time at least, only it’s been hours and hours, and mom and a dad haven’t come back.

She has to know. She has to find them, she has to see, even though a part of her already knows that whatever she finds there will be something she’ll want desperately to unknow.

Powder isn’t old enough. But she can’t leave her, this baby sister. And like smoke, like clockwork, when she turns the hand is gone. Her sister is gone.

Vi whirls, fists up, panic rising in her throat. She’s a woman again. woman with strength in her fists and rage in her heart, and still it wasn’t enough, it has never been enough to save Powder. To save their parents, their new family, any family at all that they belonged to.

Walls are rising, steeling, crushing close, and Vi can’t see the bridge anymore. There’s no one to fight, nothing to hit, nothing at all she can do to fix the unfixable. ]

[coerthantorment]

[The village is cloaked in smoke. The silhouettes of draconian wings beat overhead, leaving devastation in their wake. There's been fighting, screaming, and death, but there isn't anymore. No, it's now that he walks among nothing but ashes.

He finds himself walking towards the same familiar house along the same familiar path, the burning ruins that he's visited many times before. No matter how many times he comes here, nothing changes. After all, the past cannot be undone.

As the walls of that broken home settle in around him, he realizes that there's something still here, someone still among the living. For a moment, his heart leaps.]

Hamie...?

[Yet the smoke thins, and instead it's a woman standing there. The familiar dirge of this frequent dream is interrupted, and he doesn't know whether to be angry or relieved.]

Who...? No. Leave this place.

[After all, it's nothing but a graveyard, now.]

BYOF

[dragon_rider]

[ It's impossible not to notice when someone seems to struggle — If only because it takes every ounce of Viking willpower to not corner himself either. To grit his teeth and bear it — There's a lot he can barely bear either. Maybe it's the chief in him that gets him to slow down and notice others. ]

[ Approaching as slowly as someone might a scared dragon (or perhaps its his own weakness by now). Mouth pulled into a thin line even before his offer is rejected. A deep sigh and he nods, pointing downwards. ]

Alright. How about I just sit here then?

[ And without waiting for an answer, he decides to just sit instead. Tucking his good leg under prosthetic. He decides for the moment not to say anything more. ]