lostcarnival | ⇨ A SONG IN THE SILENCE

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⇨ A SONG IN THE SILENCE

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.

Threaded | Flat

It isn't difficult for the Void to turn Shima. The lowkey dissatisfaction he has always felt about his life is a simple thread to pull, unwinding out before him the familiarly crushing weight of blood and obligation, every decision he had to obey that wasn't his to make, every one of his own quiet resentful thoughts that there was no point in trying to be good because he could never be good enough, every wordless confirmation in the actions of those around him that this was true, that had opened up a hole of unhappiness in him over the years that no one had ever acknowledged. But the Void knew, and Shima had done this before, gambling on the lives of his friends and his world to escape the horrible pressure of his previous existence. If there is one shred of resistance in him, it's against the destruction of his Self, the right to be who he is, and luckily for his psyche he's pretty willing to compromise on how long he is allowed to Be.

Assaiah was crumbling already, what would it ultimately harm for him if this world and all worlds crumbled too? Lucifer would even achieve the perfect equality and peace he desired, lucky him--though Shima isn't here for that. Accepting the Void's gift, for Shima, is simply an extension of that impulse to throw everything away, as long as he could finally be free. And here, he just wants to have a good time before it all ends.

He sits, reaching for his Spark, wrapping his hand around the darkly glowing thing before looking around at the others.

"Don't tell me I'm the first one~?"

Edited 2018-02-03 04:25 (UTC)

He's always tried so hard.

That desire, that faith, is the first thing that comes before him - that need to keep trying, to keep hoping, to believe in things that others could only fear. Steven's natural inclinations are obvious. No matter his fear, no matter how much it hurts, in the darkest moments of his soul he would try to reach out. Compassion is the language of his spirit.

But what has it gotten him?

There is no feeling here, no suppressed passions, or repressed fears for him to coax out. There isn't even the wild and uncontrolled desires of the Blue Rose and his mother the Rose Queen. All there is to find is the icy cold of nothingness - the natural end to all things. What everything becomes, no matter how much it suffers, no matter how much it persevers.

Wouldn't it be so much easier to bypass the pain? Why does he choose to struggle?

And he does struggle - he clings to his memories as best he can. For every pain, there's something he loves and wants to return to, for every disappointment, there's a hope. Yet, destroying is easier than creating. Easier than protecting. Every time his defenses are torn down, it's harder to find them again. It wears on him, like the gradual erosion of earth beneath water.

He's drowning - he's buried alive beneath the weight of unrelenting responsibility and fear. All the things he can't accomplish and everything he'll go through, just to fail. Even now, he refuses to let go, trying to reach out for the heart of an entity that just doesn't have one. The void doesn't feel. It can't be begged for mercy. It can't be shown compassion. There's nothing.

When he finally breaks beneath the pressure, he weeps in mourning for everything that could have been. Everything that it's now too late for. All the pain that's being suffered for nothing.

He cries, but as he does, he realizes something important. If he takes this power, this new path forward... no one will ever have to cry again. There will be nothing left to fear.

Steven wakes up with tears on his face, only just beginning to dry. Yet, the sadness is gone from his heart. It's over. Isn't that what this means? After this, he won't have to fight anymore.

He crosses his hands over his heart, and he laughs, in frail, helpless relief.

Taako's emotions aren't hard to reach. He's done his best to hide them, of course, to cover any pain or doubt before it can be detected, even by himself, but it's only a very thin veil that covers them, and the Void tears through it all at once and digs its tendrils down into some very fresh wounds. It hasn't been long at all, after all, since Taako lost his sister all over again, and even though she's since returned, he had lost her and he had lost himself for over a decade-- and, not only that, but he's effectively lost another member of his family, as well.

Lucretia betrayed him. She betrayed all of them, she took years of their shared lives, she took... she took his sister from him. She took everything. And, in that moment following that realization, the rage and pain that he'd felt-- not only at the loss of his sister, but at her betrayal, at the abuse of their trust, her thoughtless destruction of years they'd shared-- nearly crushed him. They're here again now, rising up into his chest and his head, choking the air from his lungs until the dull ache within his core is the only thing he can feel anymore. There's no one here to wake him up from it this time. There is no Lup here to reassure him, or to stop him from acting.

Taako's trust is given very sparingly; love is even rarer. He has never allowed someone to hurt him so deeply before, but that pain is tearing him open from the inside now, as though something is crushing his lungs from within, and it's misery, and he's never been more acutely aware that while Lup is alive, Lucretia is effectively dead now, and even her memory is ruined. And it isn't just her. After her, there was Sazed-- a friend, a trusted companion whose selfish actions likewise nearly ruined Taako's life. Is he doomed to feel this again and again? Who will he lose next? How much more can he stand? For all that he has Lup, he's still alone-- she's undead, untouchable, forever out of his reach and set to outlive him and leave him alone in a death she'll never share. Kravitz is just like her, in this sense. Magnus is a human, as is Angus, and both will die long before Taako's own life is over. Everyone that he's dared to feel for, to care for despite his best efforts not to, will leave him alone, sooner or later. He will always end up alone.

All at once, he collapses within, folding beneath the crushing weight of his fear and pain and loss and rage, the horrible, terrifying sensation of love-- love lost, love betrayed, love that has doomed him-- and then... rage is all that emerges. Pain and anger bubble to the top, icy, and his entire body lights up with it, and he sucks a breath into his aching lungs, and he reaches out to the Void and he accepts it.

He doesn't have to feel this way. He doesn't have to feel anything at all.

When he comes to, it's slow; he gazes at the spark before him, his hands going to curl around it, and he feels... better. He feels calm. There's no more pain, or confusion; he doesn't have to feel anything that he doesn't want to anymore. Only love for those who care for him, and nothing for anyone or anything else. Love. He can remove their pain, he can prevent his own, and he knows exactly how. He can ensure that he and Lup, Kravitz, and Barry all share the same eternity, forever.

He exhales slowly, and he smiles.

"I shouldn't have worried."

When there's nobody you can trust, does anything even matter? There's science, that one sure beacon of logic, but even that strains in the face of the untidy, chaotic forces that make up reality. People most of all, the unpredictable, untrustworthy masses. How pure could science be in their absence? In the absence of everything?

The reanimation of reality, surely that has been what he's been feebly reaching toward all along. His previous creations were scientific breakthroughs, obviously, but flawed. Violent. Not quite alive. How could they be anything but when their very existence and original creation was flawed to begin with? His parents, Dr Gruber, Dan...in the end they left him, through abandonment, through death or through a...through a lack of effort, a dedication to the unimportant. In the end, there is only him, alone, and what he sees now he must do.

It's barely a moment, barely even any struggle from Herbert before he opens his eyes again. The message was one he'd already half-considered before, after all. The only difference now is it fills him with relieved confidence. There is no feeling of doubt. Only sharp interest as he considers his Spark before reaching to press it close to himself. He can't trust anyone with it, after all. For all he knows they'll try to steal it and he can't take that chance.

"Where is this?" he asks. There must be someone here who can answer that.

Edited 2018-02-03 06:40 (UTC)

The moment she's in the abyss, the music that touched her is gone. The alluring sound, the gentle tones that were in part nothing more than hallucination of desire-all of it vanishes, and with it so does the world. Despite being unable to see herself, it feels as though parts of her are fading before her eyes. Her light, filled with golds and reds and blues and greens and white, white, white...snuffed out, a flame to a gust of cold chilled wind, dragged out into clouds as ink upon the ice and blood upon the seas, until it fades and disperses so thinly it might well have not existed at all.

Until there is only the Void.

Carly is scared. Where was this? What happened, to bring her here, and why was it so lonely, so empty, so distant so cold so wrong?. But no one answers, and no one can, not even in her imagination. Not even in her memories, where taunting voices of ancient gods claim 'whose fault is it, but your own?'

Aslla Piscu needed to die, she tells herself, and she feels the sensation of his laughter upon her soul, his power crawling up her spine as tremors. Aslla Piscu needed to die, because of what he would cause if he were ever allowed.

Because of what she had done at his hand-

Jack Atlas needed to stay away, she thinks, as her heart clenches, and the could bites. The King of Riding Duels, the man she loved, safe from the dangers they would encounter or at least while her eyes could witness them. Safe from her eyes, and she from his, lest they see the worst happen to each other again, that was the source of this new lonliness that could not quite be shook.

Safe from witnessing the worst in each other-

Death was a necessary act, sometimes. The ultimate task with the ultimate of responsibilities, and who could ever say why someone had felt it wise to trust her with those. The leader, the organizer, she may have worked behind the scenes but what was it she had always said after all, that she felt more comfortable watching others obtain the spotlight, that she desired to document and ensure that future in others? To ensure the comfort of those around her, their fame, their fortune-

While so many suffered, while she suffered-

Send them soaring into the stars, leave the others in the mud, what use was that? What use when there was so much pain left behind anyway? Kill the man to realize there was another way, arrange the wardrobe only to crush the hearts of her own employees in the time they needed it most. Cheer her lover to never see him succeed-it was all just fooling herself when the time was calm, when the skies were clear enough that the dark could not be seen but here the dark was, to remind her-

She could cheer and shout and encourage and sing and laugh but when it came to the final countdown and curtain call even if she succeeded in that final push for someone else the world was selfish.

'You remember how you died, don't you?' her mind supplies, cutting through self-made promises of change and re-focus and desperation. 'And what about how Misty died, how Kiryu died?' About deaths rife with betrayal, suffering, injustice, a lack of good in all corners of but one of millions of worlds. And it wasn't right. To do so much for so little, for so much pain instead, for herself to twist the blade and claim forced hands and necessities and so on, so on, so on, so on-

...

She could tell herself

'The people you help forward have thanked you for even the most minor of pushes'

'You were forgiven of your crimes, of the deaths, of the emotionally shattered'

'There are people who care for you, people you have cared for, who know just who you really are, just look to the Ringmaster just look at the Ringmaster just look how far you've come, look at where your heart lies, look at how the heart lies, look-'

Your Heart is Lying.

She formed a flimsy contract with a devil for a lover who could not look her in the eye after seeing what such kind hands were capable of, she formed a yet flimsier one in the name of days of memories, days of foolish crushes that were elevated upon pedestals and forced to bloom in the chaos of war before the focus she had granted direction took a direction she could never follow again, she formed desperate, desperate, desperate contracts of attachment, devotion, lingering, lingering, lingering, just say what you mean already just admit what you cannot do, just admit what you cannot choose, just ADMIT-

But aaah, Carly cries at last, holding herself close, she cannot.

She cannot bring the words forward, because something inside just continues to weep for what was lost, for when it was simple and neat and single stranded. It weeps for the tattered strings she wove together in hopes of creating something beautiful, leaving messy knots and fraying edges and uneven ends that lead to more nothingness. No art in the reality. No truth in the screen covering the vision.

And she knows what she is capable of, and she knows people are capable of so much worse, and she knows people she has helped onward in their dreams have crushed the dreams of others in their past, that they are capable of so many more things so many more terrible things than even her own bloodstaind hands are capable of, because she helped them there, didn't she?

And she praises and cheers and ignores the bad and turns her eyes to the good but she knows what lies in the darkness of another's heart and she's seen it within herself, seen it and felt it and held it in her trembling hands while muttering cursed and ancient tongues over painted lines and cut runes for the name of One.

Single.

Thing.

Existing.

What kind of existence, she finally determines, her heart at last devoid of all light, should be allowed to persist in nothing but selfish steps forward into its own glory, at the cost of so many others underfoot.

What kind of existence could deserve to quietly age itself into the end, snuff itself in a whisper, and simply pass on into the night, when it had yet to suffer the bang and the buck of all pain left upon those who struggled to help it forward?

...

None.

===========================

It is easy, as her eyes open, to embrace her 'old self' even while embracing the void, that tiny thing allowed back into her heart, that shadow of itself, the eclipsed 'sun' from which all things end and reverse. Carly stands silent when she 'wakes', ponderous and perhaps dangerous in that quiet as she ruminates on what is already so well understood. At the very beginning, she was a reporter. One who documented the 'scoop' of the day, the story on the streets, the news that needed and deserved to be news.

Life, Existence, Reality...that in itself was a story. A tale to be completed, brought to its final end, for until something was destroyed, it was nothing more than an ongoing tale. There were no real 'happy endings'-and like all stories, the world would have to come to its own end, to be wiped clean for a new 'happy beginning', something new, something incomprehensible, because even what followed destruction did not matter.

It was not her story to write, after all. This one was-her story to finish, and end, and cast aside into the ether, tying it off with final 'big bang'.

Carly turns, and turns with perhaps the most unsettlingly cheerful smile one could ever have. "....Good Mornnning..~!" she begins, knitting her fingers behind her back and spinning around to face the nearest set of others in full. "...So... ...Do you know what we need to do, now?"

It'll be over soon. The final 'dot' at the end of a sentence, before that last empty splash page to finish it all is added in.

Because all stories need a worthy ending.

Edited 2018-02-03 07:24 (UTC)

It takes a good deal longer to get Childermass to accept what the Void is selling, so to speak. He's as stubborn here as he is anywhere else, with anyone else, though the sheer presence of it severely outweighs the peaceful emptiness of the shadows he's so used to. He may hold out longer but it's inevitable, in the end. It has all the time in the world to find a way through the magician's ever stoic shell, to dig deep into what's buried beneath what Childermass presents to the world — distant, collected, seemingly uncaring, with far too much patience for how many fools he's had to put up with in his time.

It's in that which the Void finds a foothold. For all the work he's done, for cowering magicians or idiotic lords and ladies and gentlemen, rarely if ever a thank you. For all that he knows, his origin being more important than his actual knowledge. That a bastard shouldn't have a say in anything, that a servant shouldn't be a magician. Being the one who's worked tirelessly for what little he actually, truly has for himself set against so many who have just been handed their good fortune, being born in the right place, to the right people, never having to pick up a job or two or three...

Childermass doesn't dwell on it, not normally. To lash out against those people was always, to him, a waste of time and energy. He had things to do, always working on something and paying little mind to the opinions of others. It was the same during his service to Mr. Norrell and he had no plans on changing it currently, in the future, ever, but why? Why should he do so much for so little gain? Why is it alright to let his own struggles pass ignored or, worse, laughed at? Why shouldn't he level the playing field?

Because that's what the Void would do, could do.

If there's nothing to have, nothing to lord over society with, that would be better, wouldn't it? And if there's nothing to have, there's nothing for him to lose, either. He could hold onto that moment where he had his magic and friends he could count on and— the rest. The rest he has to lose by going back to England at the very end of this. Any other time, he'd find it a ridiculous notion, but trapped here long enough, forced to suffer through all the bitterness and misgivings he's hidden so deep under that deadpan sarcasm, there's only one option at the end. He takes it. He has a new reason to act now and he won't waste what time he has left.

When Childermass awakens, it isn't with much of any sound besides a quiet sigh, one of relief, like a world of trouble has just been shrugged off his shoulders. He looks up into the darkness for a moment longer before focusing on the black light. With that, odd as it is, he feels no need to hesitate in reaching for it and pushing himself up to sit. Closing his hand around that tiny black sun causes it to shift in form, leaving him with a black card with an illustration of the Fool, stylized in silver across the surface.

"Ah," he finally does speak, still quiet, still keeping to himself as he observes the card. The Fool, the first one he gave up at the start of this journey, all to reach this point. "So that's where you've been."

The journey to the stage had been almost peaceful, almost calming. The struggle through the crowd, getting away from his brother… It’d all been so uncomplicated. His thoughts and agency had fallen away, and all he’d known or needed was to get to the stage, to get to the music.

Now it’s like he’s fallen away too, into the same place, and all those thoughts are jumbling up in him.

It’s a mess of discomfort and fear and shame, with nothing outside himself to focus on. Nothing outside himself... at all. Even when he tries to make out something about his surroundings – and he does try – it’s just a nauseating self-awareness. A familiar nightmare, even. Falling into nothingness, haunted by voices he can’t make out... with the sense he’s forgetting and losing something very important.

He clings to that thought, that there are things and people that matter to him and that… that he doesn’t want to forget, but…

Maybe that’s not what happens, maybe it’s the thought that clings to him, instead, because dread of loss fills him. Family and friends alike disappear and die, and the world… forgets. He lost his father like this, didn’t he? The world forgot, hardly noticing the difference. Even he hardly noticed, beyond the unsettling sense it could happen to him, enough to crave recognition all the harder. He’s always worked hard, to be memorable. To be something. Filling hours with interests and training and responsibilities, keeping tabs on his brother and others as he gets to know them.

And, the roiling thoughts and emotions insist, deep down he resents the world for not giving him the results he seeks. He’s tried to gloss over it with politeness and friendliness and optimism, to force himself to hopefulness, to be even more what they wanted. Even as they humored him, avoided him, or demanded terrible things...

Papyrus struggles, protests, resists the message of the void. It takes a while; he’s slipped into thoughts like these, before. A few seconds, a few minutes, or... even longer, on occasion. And he’s always refused to give up. He’s always had… something, to hold on to. Something to pull himself out with. Some confidence that… that actions, choices matter, that being … kind…

Something that he can’t manage, because there’s nothing but himself here, nothing but the relentless knowledge of his memories and thoughts and feelings, and the distraction of the nothingness keeping him from focusing. No pretending, anymore, that everyone and everything he’s loved – including himself – weren’t the source of all his pain. That every hope he’s expressed and dream he worked toward weren’t all lies. Because they were, weren’t they. Even his own daemon, his own soul given voice, knows it – says so, sometimes – and he’s talked over her, as if just being loud enough would make anything real. How he’s hurt her, refusing to listen. How he’s hurt his brother, traipsing about ignorant and arrogantly incurious. How he’s let … important people down, by pretending things would be okay, and standing by as they died.

When it seems as if all his life has been a series of ways he’s hurt others and pretended otherwise to himself, that all the world is this same hurt multiplied untold times… when that’s the only thought he can sustain, beyond regret and a screeching desire to escape into pretending again, to escape in any way at all... something in him shatters.

He thinks an idea that isn’t his own.

What if, the thought says, he could take that eagerness to dream himself away from reality, and share it? Just as his hopefulness let him pretend things weren’t so bad, just as his nameless brother escaped the pain of existence by dreaming it away… except, since there’s no way to cure this hideous world, a dreaming that lasts until the end. Drifting away, and never waking in pain again.

Papyrus wakes, and everything is… well, painful again. Everything physical, anyway; his emotions and memories are finally no longer overpowering. It’s as if this is the first time he’s ever been awake, and all his life before was a dream. His bones feel new, all of him feels exposed.

Really exposed; part of him is outside him, like a heart or a daemon, but not quite the same as either. He cups a hand around it in wonder, and rises unsteadily to his feet.

There’s others here from the Carnival, even a few friends. And he’s so glad to see them, a smile spreads across his face. Knowing them, knowing they’re going to fix everything together… it almost makes up for all the chances they’ll never get, now that their time together is so certainly limited.

“Hey, do you think… Will the others get chosen, too?? I want to see them again, before the end.”

Edited 2018-02-04 18:43 (UTC)

There is something about this that is far too familiar.

The darkness, the aching, yawning Void that surrounds her is so cold and chill Tanyuu can barely draw breath. It feels like she isn't even there, only whispers and not a shred of light to be found. The bell-tones of her flowers drown out and fade away into nothing, and she thrashes and reaches to find something, anything to hold on to. But even her arms and tail seem to vanish before her eyes...she is becoming nothing.

She knows the dangers of places like this. The space between worlds, where one can so easily lose their way, helpless as their mind slips away in tiny pieces. How one can be warped by such, identity fracturing under the weight of oppressive loneliness. Terror seizes her heart, and she cries out soundlessly, screaming for someone, anyone to help her, to bring her back. She has to find a way back, she must, but this is--

This is...

To escape a tokoyami, you must take a new name, and lose your old life. If a shadow steps upon yours, the person trapped within will take your place. Swarms of sanekuimushi can obliterate one's very soul, and even one's existence itself can be erased by the life born outside of the universe. This has never been unfamiliar to Tanyuu--she spent her whole life studying these things, fighting it, containing it. It was something she had carried within her very blood, and until a few spare years ago she was prepared to life with it until her dying breath. And now, here, it claims her once more, reaching into her heart and mind, sapping away everything under it's relentless pressure. She knows this is but one side of an eternal equation--life and death, creation and destruction. Though the light always fights and strives and clings to continue on, inevitably the darkness must come, and night falls and oblivion claims it's due.

It's inevitable.

It's fate.

It is what was always meant to happen.

Little by little, the vibrant green leeches out of Tanyuu's leaves and vines. Flowers wilt, dried up and hanging limp, and bright belldrops fall away to make way for a crown of dry branches. Black letters swarm across skin and scale alike, multiplying until nothing else can be seen beneath.

This is what she is. To fight it, to think she could escape the omens...it was a child's flight of fancy.

She reaches, and--

There is light. Tanyuu blinks a few times, lowering her hand and looking around the room with a calm gaze. He seems as serene as always, but where before there was the hint of warmth now there is nothing but chill logic. She take sin the scene dispassionately, looking over each of her companions in turn before turning her attention toward her empty light. With a soft sigh, she pulls it back within her and closes her eyes.

"We ought to get to work then, shouldn't we?"

The will to live is a stubborn foe, after all.

She holds out longer than most, for Lavellan hasn't gone through what she has for nothing -- she hasn't remained standing after losing everything because she'll fall to her knees at the first sign of pressure. She is a mage, her willpower is her weapon against possession, and she has never in her life been considered at risk for it. She bares her teeth at the Void and invites it to try harder.

It does.

It shows her a world that she has failed to save, a lover she could not turn from his path, a clan that couldn't understand and survive without its First. A world where giving up the Inquisition only drove it further to the edge, where all her decisions did nothing she thought they would -- the elves suffer because of her, Thedas's forgotten and overlooked fail to matter, and her legacy is twisted beyond recognition. She lasts as long as she can, attempting to cling to it with desperate fingers while thinking over and over again -- no, I won't let that happen, I won't until the Void reminds her that she has given up her power. She is nothing, she can do nothing.

And it's there that the despair sinks in through the cracks, and the Void finds an opening in her insecurities. And when it it is too much, when the despair of all she's done and failed to do, it offers her an out.

It cannot be fixed. She cannot save the world, she cannot save save Solas, she cannot save the people she cares for; wouldn't it be easier to bring them the end herself? It will at least be better than any other fate waiting for them. Yes, she thinks, at last, and then she awakes with a gasp.

There are others around her -- good. Working alone had been so isolating, and one of her fingers reaches out to brush the black light hanging in front of her, a strange thing that she can't name. What was it Strange had said? It had more to do with souls than anything else.

So for the moment she simply stares at it, before getting to her feet -- one hand gently brushing her Spark as if she can't imagine it existing at all. "Well," she says with a small smile to whoever might be near her, "it seems like our work is almost done."

Instead of never done. And wouldn't that be a relief?

Something is holding her.

Something- the concept of something, doesn't completely encapsulate what it is. It isn't a thing, it isn't only a cohesive measurable quantity. Everything is holding her, and her isn't what she is, but something more and something less.

She tries to move, tries to struggle, whatever she is that has no arms to move and no limbs to struggle. She tries to swim as if through molasses, or any comparable highly viscous fluid that could be used for the metaphor. Maybe even a non-newtonian fluid, as the most she struggles, the more it becomes less a fluid and more a solid.

A non-newtonian fluid of concepts. A piquing awareness that moving this direction is the restrictions levied by her parents. It's for your own good, she hears without ears, echoing in the vastness that feels too small, too crushing. She retreats from it to find the Prince, an embodiment of fear and panic and entrapment. In the other direction is the Ringmaster, the Carnival that she is bound to for a year and a day. A prison full of inmates that refuse to see it for what it is.

Everything is growing tighter, more dense, she can't breathe, and yet it is not oxygen she craves.

Freedom, it whispers, and she doesn't understand what it is that is whispering or what is whispering or how, but she must escape and she reaches for it...

* * *

The spark in her hand makes her feel powerful, in a way she's never felt before. With this, nothing could trap her ever again. She was the one in control, and now it was their turn to feel what she felt.

There are others here. She doesn't - know how to think of them. Friends are commitments. Commitments are restrictions. She would not be restricted anymore.

But tools- she could use Tools.

It's not too long after the group wakes up that they are joined by someone who is now a familiar face - CY-Ren herself. She emerges from the shadows without much urgency, looking at the ensemble as if she is here to tell them that the doctor will see them now.

She is in her civilian clothing, a similarly dramatic looking jacket with a furry collar, and tight black jeans with sharp looking boots. She looks them over with icy blue eyes for a few moments, before tilting her head. Her expression is stoic.

"You've all woken up, then," she says. "Good. I wasn't sure how readily you'd accept this new reality."

Connie stood alone once Cy-Ren had left, the Lapis Lazuli gem in her hands now dominating her attention.

She'd never held a gem in her hands before; it was heavy, didn't feel particularly fragile. It was a stone, after all. But what it represented was something entirely different.

Willed together by the power of your spark

Connie might have balked at being given such an obvious path, if it had been anyone except Cy-Ren that had done so. But it was perfect, in reality.

She held her hands apart, in her right, the gem. In her right, a plume of sea-foam energy coalescing from her spark. She slowly put her hands together, her eyes intensely watching what would happen.

Threaded | Flat

Renzou Shima | OTA

Steven Universe | OTA

Taako | OTA | tw: death, and HUGE TAZ Balance spoilers

Herbert West | ota

CARLY NAGISA | OTA | when u type so much u break the voidbreak off from the tagging prompt-

no subject

Papyrus | ota

Tanyuu Karibusa | OTA

Lavellan | OTA

Connie Maheswaran | OTA

⇨ CY-REN ARRIVES (MEGATHREAD)

B15 - Penthouse ( Partially closed )