![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
[ENTER THE PALACE]
[You find yourself with a sensation like floating in water.]
[Above, the sky is dark. You can occasionally see things shifting, like gusts of wind, or perhaps waves of water. Is it…even a sky above you? Or is it some kind of giant ocean? Whatever it is, you can’t make it out very well. All around you, you appear to be floating in what appears to be water. It looks like a great, wide ocean of…space in every direction around you, with stars and lights twinkling in the distance. It looks like water and feels like water, but it doesn’t make you wet. You can reach your hand into it and pull some out, the purple and violet water and the tiny points of light inside it will even rest in your hands if you cup them to carry it, but once you’re not trying to hold it anymore, it’ll flow off of you, not a single drop remaining behind. You feel something similar if you go underneath the surface. The “water” doesn’t touch your eyes, mouth or nose when give the chance, it merely drifts around you, allowing you to breathe and see unabated. And you can see for a great distance, the twinkling stars illuminating the ocean of space all around you. Though perhaps less dark and empty, it feels every bit as vast as the sky above. You feel like you could swim forever and never reach the edge.]
[It’s quiet, here, with little noise around you but the starry ocean’s waves crashing back into its surface. It’s peaceful. In another situation, it might even be comfortable.]
[Above, the sky is dark. You can occasionally see things shifting, like gusts of wind, or perhaps waves of water. Is it…even a sky above you? Or is it some kind of giant ocean? Whatever it is, you can’t make it out very well. All around you, you appear to be floating in what appears to be water. It looks like a great, wide ocean of…space in every direction around you, with stars and lights twinkling in the distance. It looks like water and feels like water, but it doesn’t make you wet. You can reach your hand into it and pull some out, the purple and violet water and the tiny points of light inside it will even rest in your hands if you cup them to carry it, but once you’re not trying to hold it anymore, it’ll flow off of you, not a single drop remaining behind. You feel something similar if you go underneath the surface. The “water” doesn’t touch your eyes, mouth or nose when give the chance, it merely drifts around you, allowing you to breathe and see unabated. And you can see for a great distance, the twinkling stars illuminating the ocean of space all around you. Though perhaps less dark and empty, it feels every bit as vast as the sky above. You feel like you could swim forever and never reach the edge.]
[It’s quiet, here, with little noise around you but the starry ocean’s waves crashing back into its surface. It’s peaceful. In another situation, it might even be comfortable.]
done
[You’re Nessa Houghton, staring up at your cousin as she stabs you in the chest.]
[You’re Minato Arisato, staring up at a white-haired young woman as she stabs you in the stomach.]
[The last thing you see before you lose consciousness is the grin on her face.]
no subject
He's still reeling from the sensory overload of everything he just saw--(felt, experienced?)--and then there's the shooting pain of being stabbed right in the gut.
It's not the first time, which is really saying something about his life, but that doesn't make it any more enjoyable.
And then, there's nothing as he falls unconscious. ]
/2
[…]
[…]
[…]
[CH-THUNK]
[You feel a jolt run through your entire body, jarring you awake and making you take in a sudden, deep breath and sit up straight. Immediately followed by falling back down. You once again feel like you’re floating in water.]
no subject
[Your vision is blurry, but gradually returning to you. If you have glasses, they’re being held out to you. One way or the other, your vision clears up and you can see a woman standing above you, arms crossed, glaring down at you…]
[With a pair of glowing yellow eyes.]
Don’t force yourself to get up too quickly. Your body is still recovering.
no subject
Honestly, he is willing to just lie here until his body stops protesting, but he's still squinting and trying to figure this out. ]
... Nessa-san...?
no subject
That's my name, don't wear it out.
no subject
... Who was that white-haired person...?
... Oh. Thanks for helping me, by the way.
no subject
She's a real peach, ain't she?
[She rubs her head.]
Well, don't thank me too much. I had to work pretty fast and loose for a few minutes there...
[She points at his chest. Whatever he was wearing has been pulled open or outright discarded (well, neatly folded and placed a short distance away). There’s no wound on his chest, but where he was attacked…
…there’s now a small glass sphere, embedded in his chest. Looking at the stars twinkling inside it, it may be a familiar sight to him, but…the one he saw before, in the memory, was purple. This one is a faded white-gray color.]
I have to admit, it was a bit of a rush job, but, well. You were bleeding all over the place, so I skipped the heated seats and the seatbelt covers.
no subject
What... is it?
no subject
Or, at least, it's a facsimile of it.
Normally, the real thing is...
[She pulls down at her collar, revealing a bit of her chest. Right at the same point where the glass bubble is embedded in Minato's chest, there's a hole in hers.]
Right here.
And you just got the lived experience of why that is. The one I put inside you is a copy I managed to cobble together to stabilize you.
no subject
Okay. So far he's following, but also-- ]
What happened to yours, then? Are you okay without it?
no subject
I think your sight should be fully coming back by now. You might want to take a look around.
[By now, Minato's strength will have returned enough that he can start to move and his vision will have returned to the point that he can look around and take in his surroundings. He's floating in a small pool of the starry water...in the middle of the palace's courtyard. Stone floor surrounds the pool he's in and there are paths leading from the center of the courtyard, going off in different directions.]
[And the state of the palace's courtyard is not very good, to say the least. It's badly damaged, pictures and portraits line the walls, but they're torn, faded, turned over. Statues are broken into pieces. The floor, walls and ceiling all have chunks missing, there's scorch marks, blade marks....it looks like a tornado and a bomb got into a fight in here.]
[So that's probably a "no" on the "are you okay" front.]
no subject
... Okay. I see.
What do I have to do to help?
no subject
[That is a...very sudden injection of bitterness into her tone.]
You know what happens when you let a Nightmare run wild and you live in a realm between dreams and reality? This. And every night that moppet has had herself an awful little dream about Esmau has just made her stronger in here and now she’s trying to tear the whole bloody place apart.
You’re the ones who encouraged this nonsense by befriending that fake instead of bringing me back and you only started giving a damn about it when she was the one who started passing out in front of you, so you're damn straight I expect you to help sort this mess out.
no subject
... I'll do everything I can, of course.
But--what do you mean? "That fake"...?
no subject
She's a fake, you dolt. The real me, me, died during one of the Warden's tasks and you all have been having a merry little time with a photocopy while I've been rotting in my own subconscious. Thanks for that.
The exception of course being that time I got to be a skeleton.
[Oh yeah, Nessa mentioned something like that, didn't she....]
no subject
... I think I understand what you mean, but... I thought that the you we've been talking with is your younger self.
Isn't she still you, then...?
no subject
no subject
Is that not the case...?
no subject
I can't, with this. You people are all unbearably naïve.
[She reaches a hand in and grabs his arm, helping to pull him out of the pool.]
If I didn't need your help, I'd be punching you in the nose right now. Just get out of there and I'll explain how this works.
no subject
... Okay... but I'd really like an explanation of how it's naive, too... Nessa-san is important to me regardless of what form you're in, so...
[ first, he should grab for his shirt, though, probably. ]
no subject
Alright, listen up.
The nightmares of Esmau have gotten to the point where they're able to take shape and now she's trying to tear the place apart for two reasons. [She holds up two fingers.] One, she hates me and she would really like it if I just didn’t exist anymore. She’s already succeeded at that once.
The second reason is that she’s looking for the palace’s Treasure. The real version of the thing I shoved into your chest - the Voidheart.
[She turns back around and gestures towards Minato and the orb now implanted in his chest.]
Like I said before, the Voidheart is normally what keeps me alive. Something’s wrong with it and it’s hidden somewhere in the palace, now.
If you want to save Nessa, whatever and whoever that means to you, then there’s two things you have to do. Find the Voidheart and defeat that Nightmare of Esmau.
no subject
Okay then.
[ a deep breath, and he squares his shoulders. ]
I'll do my best. We can talk about everything else after.
[ ... taking a look around the courtyard, do any of the paths look different at all, or are they all about the same? ]
no subject
...there's a concept that you need to start getting used to, Minato.
no subject
... What's that?
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)