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.]

no subject
/4
---
[Your hand is on the handle of the door, pulling it closed. You were in such a hurry to leave the house that you almost forgot to close the door behind you. You take one last look at the cabin as you take a couple steps back from it, then you look at the other similar cabins nearby. Then you turn and run, as fast as your small legs will carry you, your feet kicking up dust on the dirt ground beneath you.]
…
[You’re standing in front of the door to the temple. You swallow once, look down at your hands and then you push the door open, slipping inside. You walk past the wide tables that everybody sits at for meals and up to a curtain dividing the common area from the rest of the temple.]
…
What are you doing here?
no subject
Your hand slowly reaches out for it. Then hesitates. Then hesitates.
Instead of grabbing it, you lightly touch two fingers to the top of it. You feel a pulse coming off of it.
A second later, you’re taking it in your hand and moving the curtain back into place.]
Oh, I get it. She brought you here.
no subject
Too bad for you….
done
You’re gonna end up just like her!
[You’re Nessa Houghton, staring up at your cousin as she stabs you in the chest.]
[You’re Akira Kurusu staring up at a white-haired young woman as she stabs you in the chest.]
[The last thing you see before you lose consciousness is the grin on her face.]
no subject
[a strangled cry escapes his lips as the dagger bites into his flesh, and one hand automatically rises to clutch the handle, his expression sheet-white and slack. his vision is going black around the edges, pain is coursing through his entire body, and yet--]
[. . . he still tries to take a swing at her before he passes out]
/2
[The swing whiffs as your quickly weakening arm barely even moves....but at least your assailant seems to have appreciated the effort.]
/whoops actually 3
[…]
[…]
[…]
[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
[. . .]
[an then, an angry hiss]
Asshole.
[. . . not directed at her, obviously]
no subject
[She didn't notice. Or, maybe from the grin on her face, she did.]
no subject
[giving her a lopsided, but clearly tired, smile as he reaches for his glasses]
It's my best charm point.
no subject
Alright. Let's take this slowly. What's the last thing you remember?
no subject
. . . some woman with white hair. She wasn't very. . . ah. "Friendly."
no subject
That was my cousin, Esmau. She found you while you were looking at a memory, so she got the drop on you. She...
[She lets out a sigh.]
[...okay, good news, bad news time. Good news: there's no scar! Bad news: Where you were attacked, there's now a small glass sphere, embedded in your chest. Looking at the stars twinkling inside it, it may be a familiar sight to you, but…the one you saw before, in the memory, was purple. This one is a faded white-gray color.]
She has a habit of doing that.
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 this?
no subject
Or, rather, a copy of it.
It's a piece of magic that connects the Void, a realm outside reality, to Earth. Normally, the real thing is right here, but...
[She pulls down the top of her own shirt to reveal a hole in her own chest, in the same spot where Akira's chest is now occupied by that orb.]
Esmau did to you what she did to me, so...
I fixed it for you the same way it was fixed for me.
no subject
[an exhale, and his hand falls away form his chest, his expression unreadable]
Thank you.
[just. . . to get that out of the way first; and his words are sincere. but that begs another question--]
What do you mean she did to me what she did to you?
no subject
You saw it.
She took that giant pointy stick of hers and now I need a magical orb to do all the stuff that my heart used to do.
no subject
"Pointy stick?"
[TRYING. . . NOT TO BE AMUSED]
Why'd she want to hurt you in the first place?
no subject
Also, my grandmother told her to.
The latter is why she did it, but, the former is why she enjoyed it so much.
no subject
. . . sounds like there's a lot of shitty family history, there.
no subject
It's mostly just those two, but they did manage to wreak a bunch of havoc. Unfortunately, up to and including this moment.
[She twirls her finger around to indicate to Akira to take a look around. His vision will have mostly unblurred by now so he can see the courtyard around him and it's....not great. It is badly damaged, to say the least. Pictures and statues are torn or destroyed, the floor, walls and ceiling all have chunks missing, scorch marks, blade marks…it looks like a tornado and a bomb got into a fight in here.]
Esmau, or at least the Nightmare representing her in here, has been particularly busy the last couple of months.
no subject
Jesus. . .
[. . . and then sets his jaw tightly, expression hardening, as he turns towards Nessa]
How can I help?
no subject
Do something about it when the Warden's task killed me, instead of palling around with the fake that replaced me for two months, for starters.
[Her tone got......a lot icier right then, huh.]
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)