⇨ A SONG IN THE SILENCE

[ringleaders]

Who: The Harbingers
When: Just after midnight, Day 13
Where: ????
What: The new Harbingers have an out of body experience.
Warnings: Ego death. Some generally upsetting content, most likely.

ONE WAY OUT↴ You don't fall unconscious so much as you find yourself completely slipping out of this reality, the meaning of everything you left behind becoming increasingly abstract and hard to hold on to. You're lost in a void, surrounded by whispers that fall just out of range of hearing, in the presence of something so vast that you feel crushed by its presence. On, in this case, lack of presence. Like they say: the abyss stares back. It isn't someone, it is an emptiness, and everything about you feels like it bleeds away in the face of it. A hole that has no bottom. Every attempt to pull yourself together makes this vertigo feel worse, until existence itself feels terrifying or reprehensible. How precisely this existential crisis manifests will depends on the individual, tailored to your own unfulfilled desires, disappointments, frustrations. You find yourself faced with all of the things about reality that fill you with despair and disgust, and while you can attempt to fight it with thoughts of the things you hold dear, it feels unrelenting. Eventually you will break under the weight of it. It's only then, when you find yourself desperate for any kind of escape, that you are finally given the opportunity. The void speaks to you without words, but instead with a simple understanding. It can give you what you need to take control of this despair, of this heartbreaking necessity. Of every lost soul in this world, you are the one that has been given the chance to be the one to end it, to take control in the universe's final days. You will be creation's judge and executioner - and having witnessed this evidence, you know what you must do. This can't go on. This can't be fixed. The only hope left is for the end, but it will be an end at your hand. For once, the power is yours. Only when you are willing to accept this gift will you awaken. You find yourself in your body again, your senses painfully acute, as if you've been reborn. Is this the first time you've truly lived? Every pain, every worry you had prior to this moment seems so small in comparison. The path ahead is clear and unburdened by complication. You are in a dark space, surrounding by the specters of creatures you can't quite make out, like things just barely forgotten. You find that you aren't alone, as others have awoken in the same space. In front of you, floating above your chest, you will find a black light, like a small inverted sun. You know it's a part of you, but that it wasn't like this before. Though fear and a distant sense of disquiet may linger, you can't bring yourself to distrust your new location, or the change in your Spark. You have reassurance, now. It will all be over soon.

Comments

[scientificist]

"I'm rambling senselessly?!" says Herbert, brows furrowing, offended. He's speaking quickly, though, anxious to get all of his words out before being cut off.

"Iiiif she's in charge she should, prove it--not! Through threats but through her plans, moving forward with our true cause. This--" and he gestures his chin down slightly at the bow still menacing him, "--proves nothing."

[atouts]

"Something she would get to if not for your huffing and puffing about, Dr. West," Childermass replies, about as unmoved by Herbert's offense as he is by, well, virtually anything, so business as usual for him. "Or perhaps we should send you out to face that 'one girl' alone and see how you feel about that afterward."

[starseedling]

Oh, Steven doesn't like this at all. At the sight of blood, he immediately wants to use his healing powers to fix it... but he also doesn't want to get in the way of CY-Ren right now.

"Guys, come on..." he pleads. "We wouldn't even know this stuff if it wasn't for her! We can work together..."

[npcarnival]

"Shhh," CY-Ren hushes gently, waving off Steven's concerns and Childermass's defenses.

It's then, as promised by the energy in the room, that music will begin to seep in through the cracks, filling the space ambiently like a soft glowing light. It's a languidly paced beat, and her hips sway to it as she moves in close to Herbert, just a breath away from touching.

"When I want you," she purrs, "I don't have to raise my voice." She raises her hand to his chin, still not quite touching his face, but somehow still forcing him to turn his head in her direction, as she pleases. "When I call you... You know you haven't got a choice. When you hear me... you better come without delay. Hear me calling... honey, won't you come and play?"

She smoothly flows her hands down his body, still not quite touching, and as she does... despite himself, Herbert will find that he desperately wants her to. Even if he's completely unaccustomed to it, there is something subtly arousing about the music, in a way he may have never experienced before.

"Cooome ooon..."

And then she pulls away, lazily spinning in a perfectly executed dance move, and bringing her bow against her own body. She slices her torso wide open, but all that comes out is Void - Void that swirls like water, forming the material of her Harbinger form.

"Succumb, surrender to me," she sings, the music growing heavier. But now instead of just targeting Herbert, it's resonating into everyone around her - though to a lesser degree. The way it will manifest will depend from person to person. It may be sexual desire, or adoration, or the unquenchable thirst to serve her needs. Whatever it is, her song will spark these feelings within all of them, in some form or another, as she dances through the crowd.

"Throw yourself into my sea...
I'm waiting here with my arms open wide...
Come to me, darling..."

She waves one of her arms, opening a rift in the Void, leading to somewhere filled with light. She beckons towards Herbert, and he will feel absolutely compelled to come towards her, as requested. Despite his protests, all of this seems suddenly reasonable - desirable, even.

"Come inside."

that was the plan. to give you a boner. and you got one.

[scientificist]

Herbert starts out looking around sharply, for the source of the music, but his eyes are drawn back to CY-Ren in no time, watching her move towards him. He feels torn for a moment, between moving away from her again and staying still but he doesn't move in the end, wetting his lips with his tongue and looking vaguely dismayed, blood still trailing slowly down his neck. This is... strange? Uncomfortable. Herbert doesn't have much of a personal space bubble but women don't generally invade it to begin with, outside of nurses, obviously.

His mouth opens slightly, eyes widening as she presses more into his mind, moves her hands down him a breath away from actually touching and he looks stricken, almost unhappy. Obviously he's conflicted, but increasingly equally obviously (unfortunately for everyone in the area, honestly) he's turned on.

The music is barely audible to him near the end: it might as well be static. He's watching CY-Ren, her body, her lips. He's never thought of a woman directly before like this, outside of anatomically. It's like his work, in that he'd do anything she required, anything it--she, asked of him. Finally, his hands lower entirely, falling to his sides, only one of them still clutching the large green syringe of his Spark. Only the fact that CY-Ren beckons to him stops him from falling onto suddenly weak knees.

All the same, he staggers when he starts to walk over. There's nothing he can think of needing more.

"I don't want to hear that coming from you."

[motivenotfound]

At first, Mari was impatient and annoyed with Herbert for the same reason she was impatient and annoyed in general--she wanted to hear the plan, not wait on a bunch of manchildren to bicker in the void.

And she's smug--or is it just pleased?--at first when CY-Ren puts a rather pointed stop to Herbert's ego. Which was pissing her off before they were in the void, frankly.

But then--then--

It's some combination of the timing, maybe, or how effortlessly CY-Ren dominates this annoying little boy, or the way she looks when she does it, or maybe it's the way CY-Ren sounds when she sings.

But suddenly Mari is Mad. She's mad because Herbert is getting CY-Ren's attention and not her.

Herbert doesn't get more than two steps towards CY-Ren before Mari abruptly shoves him out of the way, all business, all attention on their leader.

"No one cares about you!" she snaps as she sidelines him, before turning intently to the blonde.

"Enough distractions. You're the one in charge here. What's the plan?"

[sworntothesword]

Connie still doesn't know most of these people. She's been largely watching Cy-Ren since she first arrived, a little starstruck.

At several points she wanted to say something but someone else stepped in first. And now it looks like any opportunities have passed.

Her pupils dilate as Cy-Ren sings her song, and she obediently follows through the light.

[atouts]

Seems like arguments and disagreements are all a moot point now, CY-Ren's song drawing Childermass's attention and forcing him to fixate on her same as it does everyone else. Some small part of him takes offense at it, being told he has to love someone — anyone at all — in particular.

That small part doesn't mean anything, though. It's drowned out, by both music and the sudden rush of need. To do as she says, to make her happy, that's suddenly all that matters. He watches in silence, gaze unerringly following CY-Ren's every move, expression slack with awe.

[scientificist]

Herbert straight up falls over sideways when shoved, barely on his feet to begin with. It would be easy to stay like this, staring at CY-Ren from the ground, but she asked him, she wanted him to come to her. He rolls onto his hands and knees. If it wouldn't mean looking away from CY-Ren he'd be glaring at Mari. She's preventing him from doing what CY-Ren wants, which is unacceptable.

"You're interrupting CY-Ren, Mari," he says flatly as he tries to push upwards to his feet.

[tacosgay]

"Can we just take a second to stop pushing each other around like children, and pay attention to what's actually important here?"

And, in this moment, it's actually not him-- it's CY-Ren. The sexual aspect of her attraction might be useless on him, but the more subtle kind of draw, the need to serve her... that sinks right in, and it's something Taako, as an individual, has never felt before, not even in the presence of the goddess he does serve back home.

How would Istus feel, seeing him mindlessly moving towards this false god, his gaze planted firmly on her visage, his mind swaying, dark and thoughtless, along with her song?

[npcarnival]

CY-Ren pays no attention to Mari and Herbert's squabble - whether or not Herbert ever made it to her just isn't important. Instead, she stays focused on the portal she's opened up - she spreads her palms and coaxes it open further, gradually opening a gateway back to the real world.

"Of course..." she says softly, moving through gate without looking back. It leads to the interior of a extremely lavish penthouse... hers, naturally.

"With some practice, you'll all find yourselves able to use your Sparks to summon the powers of the Void... and with that power, it will be your duty to keep the forces of Creation busy while I finish perfecting my Requiem... The performance you just witnessed was only a test run."

She opens her coat, and pulls out two palm-sized, perfect jewels - the gems of the fallen Amethyst and Lapis. As Steven and Connie come to join her, she will hand them off to them.

"As a Harbinger of the Void, you'll find yourself able to claim familiars of your own... servants to aid you in your tasks. It can be any beast under your power, or one willed together by your Spark." She smiles to herself.

"It should all come to you quite naturally."

The night sky shimmers through the plane-glass windows, the ocean rolling far below them.