[ percy also just puts cake in his mouth and glances at jiuqing his hands are away from bubble walls, as if maybe he is a little hesitant to contribute to helping get out of this bubble... maybe. we could just stay here. and it'd be safe. right? ]
[ percy sighs a bit and glances around the bubble a moment with a sort of... withering look. stop pointing your gun at me fine. ]
I suppose... it's only fair, then, that I help...
[ he lifts his hand, a small bit of amber light falling from between his fingers as he touches the bubble and...
there is a boy, and he is lying, broken on the ground. he is dead, and beside him is a small young woman with white hair and golden armor. she's knelt beside the boy, holding gently to her necklace. she is working on setting up a ritual that hopefully may bring this boy back from the dead.
bruised and bleeding, you're sat close by, fixing your gun. the thing is broken after your last misfire and it needs tending to in case anyone else wants to come for your group, an aftermath meant to meet grog unawares perhaps. some of the goliath may still not be happy with the death of kevdak. some may still feel the sting of it. there could be stragglers, there—
you thought keyleth was helping pike with this, but you watch as she tries to bring her earthly healing into the mix. she's tired, spent, and there's a defeated look on her face as pike's brow twitches. she's bearing the brunt of this... she can't...
she can't do it alone.
your friends struggle for a boy broken on the battlefield of torn up cobblestones and dirt. as pike chants in her soft celestial language, known only to her through the everlight, through her training as a cleric, you recognize it from your lessons—
(a memorywithina memory—your sister, ignoring lessons, blowing spit darts at you, loving you even through your grumbling sighs)
—celestial.
you look down at your gun, jammed and broken. it will cost money. time.
the boy... the boy dead on the ground. he doesn't have time.
you had time.
slowly, you holster your gun and rise to your feet. you listen to pike, her sweet voice straining upwards on its own, a plea to the greater gods above, you find yourself opening your mouth and recalling those lessons, where cass would sneak out and leave you to answer eagerly instead. you hum along with the tone of pike's voice, seeing her eyes meet yours, and at once... you both begin to sing.
the sound is... angelic, soft, warm, and as you bring yourself down to your knees, you touch the ground just beside the boy's hand, you take it in your own, and you sing for the first time in a while, in a language you know isn't meant for someone wretched like you, but maybe. maybe you can prove that it has a home here in your throat, as your harmonizing with pike begins to grow, and a third, disembodied voice begins to accompany you, created from the tones that you and pike sing with one another. angelic, pleading, sweet and melodic and foreign, words without words. when you sing, you reach for old hymnals of the dawnfather's ever-loving embrace, the protective boughs of the sun tree holding its beloved people forever and ever, as deep as its roots furrow—
the boy gasps to life.
he sputters.
he lives and you look downwards, ignoring the heat that builds in your face, the pain beneath your eyes. there you go. live another day.
pike looks to you, her eyes soft, tired, but grateful.
"thanks for helping, percy," she says.
you shake your head. "no... that was lovely... thank you."
keyleth jams a potion of healing into the boy's mouth and you help so not a drop spills, wiping his chin with your thumb and holding him steady with keyleth's help.
he's just kind of staring at his fingers. his expression is unreadable as the memory filters through. ]
[oh. well. shale would like to show percy the same politeness they showed jiuqing and look away. but there's something hard to look away from here for them.
jiuqing is someone shale understands. she's a little ruthless, but even that they understand. they didn't learn something about her they didn't already understand, just learned to appreciate the ruthlessness a little bit more than they had. she uses it in a very gentle way, they've always felt, and it's nice to see. percy is a little harder. he is somebody shale thinks they understand, but they haven't spoken much, sometimes even shale doesn't read the whole of people after a few first impressions.
they go quiet, have to think through seeing percy like this. his friends trying to heal, bring someone back, and the hesitant way he approaches wanting to be a part of that. the way his memories reach back to childhood and his sister to remember how to be a part of it, how to pray. so they're a little gentle in their reply.]
maybe the polite thing would be to pretend she didn't see it, the way shale is pretending they didn't see it for her, but jiuqing finds that she doesn't want to let it pass without a word.
unfortunately, having stuffed her mouth full, she's not able to speak just yet. while she works at chewing and swallowing, she puts a hand on percy's arm and shoots him a concerned glance.]
less gun smoke than he anticipated, less red hot iron. the violence is there, but it is an undercurrent, an aftermath. the soft adagio of an ending. jiuqing's hand rests on his arm and he glances at it briefly before looking at shale a moment. he gives them a quiet smile. ]
I don't know.
[ he's not on fire, it's the truth. he doesn't know. there are a multitude of words that percy could say, but he tries to choose the best ones, the ones he knows he can rely on. ]
I suppose I always thought that gods were truly done with me, but it surprised me then and there that they heard something. That it was enough.
The gods are never truly done with us, I don't think. [shale says this very gently.] No matter what we think we've done to deserve having their backs turned on us, there they are.
[...]
You pray for help, and see it as granting a request. But maybe what you did was open yourself to the possibility that someone else's prayer could be answered through you. [a child, someone who loves that child. even a healer who needed a little more help.]
As long as you live, no matter what exists in your past, you can always choose to try to be the reason something good happens.
[you can always choose to try to be the reason something good happens.
something about that resonates, almost, and jiuqing finds herself smiling gently. shale is truly wise - they really ought to listen to them more. they could probably all benefit from it.
she just hopes their words will help percy.]
...I agree. Your friends were very lucky to have you there, Percy, and so was that boy. Your help made a huge difference.
[ percy doesn't really know what to say to this, his gaze finally turned back towards the both of them. if he lies, he's going to find himself on fire again and that? not ideal. opening yourself to the possibility sticks will him. you can always choose to try to be the reason something good happens. ]
I just did what I could. But... I am glad my offering was enough. [ a faint smile finds its way to his mouth. ] That I could help... Pike is cleric, part of our group, she's always doing whatever she can and I... I wanted to make certain whatever she set out to do was able to be done.
[and ok so i hope this doesn't cause timey shenans for you percy but also you two deserve a memshare:
You step not so much into a memory but into a place, but a place so deeply filled with love and memory that every stone and leaf of it bubbles with familiarity. A feeling of peace, of home, of nature. You are outside to it, and you tend to it. You walk through what is both a verdant garden and an ancient graveyard, caring for the plants that grow here, checking the growth of plants on the plots surrounding you. Harvesting, gardening, thinking.
Here is what you see:
Behind you is what may at first look to be a stone cottage, but it is something older, something that comes to a steeple at the top. It’s a temple, made of stone, old and ancient. Vines crawl across its exterior, grow out of the cracks, and a layer of moss and lichen colors the stone a deep green. The open windows of the temple are overgrown with vines as well, and the wide wooden door at the front looks cracked and warped with its own layer of green and pink moss. Surrounding the temple are rows and rows of gravestones. Most are so old that no names can be read on the stone, though others are newer, fresher. The graveyard looks well tended, but not manicured. There are plants growing everywhere, wild, from the earth of the graves. Vegetables, fruits, lush vegetation and flowers, mushrooms and fungi. All well cared for, springing from the gravesoil.
Aside from the ring of gravestones, this “garden” is more swamp like. It’s temperate and bordering on humid, lush with vegetation. Flowers of many different varieties and meant for many different climates grow freely here, almost as though protected by some magic. It is dark here, due to the many, many overgrown trees that surround this place, the canopy overhead projecting shadows interspersed with sunlight. There are a few crystal clear pools of water, one steaming with heat and another welling up from a spring, deep blue and cold looking. There are smaller pools, as well, and bits of bog where the soft greens and browns of compost fall into green, thick, algae covered water.
But outside this immediate area of lush, beautiful vegetation, about a dozen yards away, rings of iron fencing surround the grove. There are about three concentric rings of fencing, the furthest one about fifty yards from the stone temple. It is immediately clear why these rings exist, because past the fencing, dark and twisted bramble and razor like gray-purple thorn vines are encroaching, overtaking the grove. The outermost fence has been entirely covered in these vines, overtaken, now part of a twisted forest that exudes the energy of death and decay. The middle fence has been partially overtaken as well, purple vines wrapped around it in places, bringing down parts of the fence, gnarled branches reaching over from dying trees. The innermost fence is still largely pristine, but the sprawl of the dark, dark forest is clearly creeping closer and closer towards it. The innermost fence especially looks hastily constructed, piecemeal.
When you look upon this forest, you feel a deep sense of despair, fear, and revulsion at the dead forest. You love nature, you even love the decay that rots and dissolves what is old and dead and from that rot grows something new. But what’s happening to the forest beyond the fence is not that type of decay. It is a death that exists outside the natural order of death, death from which nothing will recover or grow, the feeling of curse and blight, magic that warps. It feels wrong, and it is growing closer and closer each season, overtaking this grove that you love.
You put up the fence twenty seasons ago now, give or take. You started that one with your sister, working hand in hand, arguing when the work got hard and you had to wind it across stone, but laughing, too. The time you forgot about the family of rabbits in their burrough and they emerged spitting mad at you for nearly taking it out with an errant post, the time you crept up behind her and blared the sound of frog croaks so loud that she tripped and fell straight through the bogsoil, the time you both got caught in a storm and had to hide out in one of the old trees. You finished the fence on your own. It was hard, it tore the skin of your hands and wore you down. All the time thinking, how long had it been now? How long since you'd built the second ring, and four other pairs of hands joined along with you? The grief you feel towards the parts of the grove you lost to the forest mingle with the grief at the thought of her laughter. Or of your older sister's stubbornness, how mad your brother always made you. Your aunt's wise advice, dad's cooking, the sound of mom's voice...
Twenty seasons and enough time that you might need to start a new fence soon. But there's so little room. Some of the older graves might have to be left out of that protective ring. That, too, is heartbreaking.
"Come on," you say, staring down into the depths of the crystal spring, because these days, sometimes you talk to yourself. It's weird, you're fine with it, it's just something that you do now. "I need to know what to do. I know I should but patient, but I..."
It's no use. She doesn't speak to you anymore. You grew up in a world of visions and dreams. If not yours, someone else's. Always a maternal sense of guidance, a suggestion of what to do, of your proper place.
"It's been so long since I've heard from you, and I really need...I want to know what you need from me."
You know your place. It's here. You're the one who is supposed to stay and tend to all of this, because someone has to. Even if it means staying behind when everyone leaves to find the answers, one by one or two by two. Even if it means lonely season after lonely season, interrupted only by the occasional passing mourning party here for a burial, every few seasons or so. Even if the forest keeps getting worse and you're afraid it will get worse until everything is dead and there aren't any solutions or answers, not here.
"I'm just not so sure anymore," you admit, "whether I'm meant to stay or if you need me to go." This silence, it's disconcerting. And the forest around the grove, it grows worse and worse. And nothing changes and gets better and you wait, and you wait, but no one comes back, either. No one comes back for long enough that you start to think that they must all be...
Your thoughts sort of trail off, meeting something they don't want to think on. But you're lonely and you want someone to talk to, some advice, something, even if it's not...how these things are supposed to go.
Your eyes fall on one of the clusters of graves near the temple, the really old ones, the ones that belong to members of your family from generations and generations back, back into the old days, the days you know only from stories. The really old graves are so worn even their gravestones are just stone now, eroded and misshapen and become part of the garden. And on some of those graves, lilies grow. That's how your aunt would tell it, that these were some of the first flowers to grow here. On bad days, when you're feeling really desperate, sometimes you eat their petals, and you dream strange dreams, though you're never sure if those dreams really mean anything or whether you just want them to.
Today is a bad day, so you pick them and you eat their petals. Your mouth grows numb and tingles unpleasantly and your stomach turns and your vision blurs, but nothing else happens. Except that night, when you enter the portion of the stone temple where your family has built a comfortable little cottage and you find your bed that's alone at the top of the stairs and you fall asleep, dizzy and uncomfortable, you dream.
In your dream, you see a river of dark water, the bottom of which could not be seen. The water moved through the valleys and emptied into the ocean. You see the forest, a mighty forest all around you, and the trees of the forest all have eyes. You look into the sky, and the sky has eyes. And you see the spring has eyes in the depths of it, peering back at you. When you see these eyes you feel a sense of dread and revulsion the way you feel when you look at the encroaching blighted forest. And then you turn to your family grave again, terrified of what you'll see, but you only see the gravestones and the flowers that bloom there, and on those flowers you see nine butterflies, drinking their nectar, and you feel relief.
You wake up in your bed that morning. On the one hand, you feel like that one was...it was clearer. It felt like she was speaking to you, that time. You're nearly certain there was meaning there meant for you to find. Nine butterflies, what are you supposed to do with nine butterflies? "I'm not sure I understand," you say, helplessly, apologetic. "I don't get it. I don't know what you want me to do. I'll leave if you want me to, or I'll stay, but I need to know if..."
You stop yourself That outburst was a little embarrassing, kind of dramatic, and isn't helping anything. And you have gardening, and work to do, cooking and tidying and tending.
That afternoon, as you're tidying inside the temple, you spot five strangers climbing the inner fence. You open the door to the temple. In this memory, they're muted somehow, still. You see a woman, a little more distinct, tall with a soft animal-like nose, fur, and long droopy ears. She seems delighted that you're like her, you look like her. And another woman, small and angry, a dwarf. The other three are harder to make out. You just get an impression - green streaked with amber gone dark, a rusty color streaked with deep, dark marine, a blue color streaked through with stubborn scarlet.
You look back and forth at the four of them. "Huh," you say. "I think I've only got three more cups."
You make tea. The conversation that follows is indistinct, goes in and out (though if you wish to watch it, it's here from 55:21 to 1:10:03). The strangers aren't exactly sure why they've come to you, they've been sent here but aren't quite clear what they're looking for. But it's evident to you the strangers are here for the same reason every stranger you meet makes their way to the grove. They've lost someone. They've lost a few someones, but only one is gone for good. They ask you for a miracle, wonder if you can bring back the one who died, but that isn't something you can or will do. Instead, they wonder if you can help recover the others who are lost, but lost somewhere on this side of the veil between life and death, separated only by the existence of a few cruel people who, it seems, may soon be in need of burial services.
That's the type of miracle you're a little more comfortable with. Besides, something they say stands out to you. Nine butterflies, and they introduce themselves as the Mighty Nein. There's only four of them, but...something feels right about it anyway.
"Okay," you agree. "I'm already packed. I'll go get my things."
somehow, it really had not occurred to her that the residents might also be subject to having their memories be put on display like this - perhaps because of their insistence that there was no before the prism.
but she hadn't really believed that when they'd said it, then, and she certainly doesn't now.
when the memory fades out, she looks between shale and percy. should... they do the polite thing here and pretend they didn't see it? they're doing that with her. but this also feels pretty significant... it doesn't seem like something that should pass without a word.]
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saturations) wrote2022-03-08 08:46 am
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He didn't expect too much of you, I hope.
[ jiuqing you've been thru enough........ ]
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Sorry about that, Jiuqing. We can just do the polite thing and pretend we didn't notice it, if you want.
no subject
but she nods]
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I suppose... it's only fair, then, that I help...
[ he lifts his hand, a small bit of amber light falling from between his fingers as he touches the bubble and...he's just kind of staring at his fingers. his expression is unreadable as the memory filters through. ]
no subject
jiuqing is someone shale understands. she's a little ruthless, but even that they understand. they didn't learn something about her they didn't already understand, just learned to appreciate the ruthlessness a little bit more than they had. she uses it in a very gentle way, they've always felt, and it's nice to see. percy is a little harder. he is somebody shale thinks they understand, but they haven't spoken much, sometimes even shale doesn't read the whole of people after a few first impressions.
they go quiet, have to think through seeing percy like this. his friends trying to heal, bring someone back, and the hesitant way he approaches wanting to be a part of that. the way his memories reach back to childhood and his sister to remember how to be a part of it, how to pray. so they're a little gentle in their reply.]
...Hey. Alright?
no subject
maybe the polite thing would be to pretend she didn't see it, the way shale is pretending they didn't see it for her, but jiuqing finds that she doesn't want to let it pass without a word.
unfortunately, having stuffed her mouth full, she's not able to speak just yet. while she works at chewing and swallowing, she puts a hand on percy's arm and shoots him a concerned glance.]
no subject
wasn't what he expected.
less gun smoke than he anticipated, less red hot iron. the violence is there, but it is an undercurrent, an aftermath. the soft adagio of an ending. jiuqing's hand rests on his arm and he glances at it briefly before looking at shale a moment. he gives them a quiet smile. ]
I don't know.
[ he's not on fire, it's the truth. he doesn't know. there are a multitude of words that percy could say, but he tries to choose the best ones, the ones he knows he can rely on. ]
I suppose I always thought that gods were truly done with me, but it surprised me then and there that they heard something. That it was enough.
no subject
[...]
You pray for help, and see it as granting a request. But maybe what you did was open yourself to the possibility that someone else's prayer could be answered through you. [a child, someone who loves that child. even a healer who needed a little more help.]
As long as you live, no matter what exists in your past, you can always choose to try to be the reason something good happens.
no subject
something about that resonates, almost, and jiuqing finds herself smiling gently. shale is truly wise - they really ought to listen to them more. they could probably all benefit from it.
she just hopes their words will help percy.]
...I agree. Your friends were very lucky to have you there, Percy, and so was that boy. Your help made a huge difference.
no subject
[ percy doesn't really know what to say to this, his gaze finally turned back towards the both of them. if he lies, he's going to find himself on fire again and that? not ideal. opening yourself to the possibility sticks will him. you can always choose to try to be the reason something good happens. ]
I just did what I could. But... I am glad my offering was enough. [ a faint smile finds its way to his mouth. ] That I could help... Pike is cleric, part of our group, she's always doing whatever she can and I... I wanted to make certain whatever she set out to do was able to be done.
no subject
Seems like you helped.
[and ok so i hope this doesn't cause timey shenans for you percy but also you two deserve a memshare:
shock! twist! neither of you saw it coming!]
no subject
somehow, it really had not occurred to her that the residents might also be subject to having their memories be put on display like this - perhaps because of their insistence that there was no before the prism.
but she hadn't really believed that when they'd said it, then, and she certainly doesn't now.
when the memory fades out, she looks between shale and percy. should... they do the polite thing here and pretend they didn't see it? they're doing that with her. but this also feels pretty significant... it doesn't seem like something that should pass without a word.]
...Shale?