Oren
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written by Hiver
Posts: 242
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Post by Oren on Apr 13, 2021 17:48:04 GMT -8
"Scout's Honor. Won't be a problem."
"You've a Motley?", he asked the warbling fissile glass. This was not news to him, but it still shocking to hear the words come out of his mouth. Words of companionship. The name Eurydice was familiar, and the face probably was too. But they had never shared words.
The whole affair drew a cheshire chuckle from Oren, watching Fawkes practically bleed from his eyes, and seeing Mitchell shift in embarrassment. He liked seeing how fragile he was. It made the glass edifice that the Swan tiptoed and pirouetted across in order to avoid any and all conflict all the more beautiful when it cracked under the pressure of other peoples' gravity. "It looks good on you."
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Post by Kai Rose on Apr 13, 2021 21:40:19 GMT -8
Kai sighed, her colors flickering as raw emotion flickered around the room. Whatever was going on with Oren and Mitchell, well, that was one thing, but Fawkes taking his slice made her lean back on the bed. She rubbed her increasingly colorful temples with pointed fingertips, dispelling the first hints of a headache. Then, details clicked and an inverted, sickly green ran out from her face and down her body.
What the hell were they doing?
Was it going to jeopardize everything?
Were they going to set Fawkes off --
"Are there any other surprises anyone wants to discuss before we get to this? Any other startling revelations about your personal lives?" she asked through gritted teeth, her gaze flicking between Oren and Mitchell as she calmed the rattling of the cage. "I can feel you two, and it's..." She shook her head, choking out a quiet, "Stronger than before...?"
The last was said like someone who was a little overwhelmed.
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Post by Mitchell Carr on Apr 14, 2021 23:14:05 GMT -8
Mitchell cocked an eyebrow as Oren swore he didn't have a problem. Fawkes had also spelled out that offering a toxicity wipe from Verdant gifts would just make him hypervigilant when he was trying to self-medicate a state that would allow him to sleep. He ran a hand through his hair, watching Kai's skin flicker momentarily without staring too much.
"Oh, sorry," he said absently, like a programmed reflex. He gave her an empathetic look, but chose not to dig into her comment in the immediate moment. Mitchell had seen others grow their connections with Arcadia, but the idea had always eluded him other than the fear of how he would change and look.
Working each finger joint with the other hand, he mulled what was actually necessary to mention and what was just Fawkes' projected frustrations. "I figured if I was being asked to be here, it was more important than the other issue? I'm not a psychopomp, but I don't think the drugs will mess with a lucid dream, so, I'm not...bothered." He rolled the word, fishing it from the rarer part of his vocabulary. "We all have to be in physical contact with each other to gain access to the Gate of Ivory," he mentioned again, assuming the first time wasn't clear by everyone claiming on their own beds like kids at a sleepover. "Obviously the more people you have involved the more inconvenient it gets."
He took another moment to cobble something between a vigil pledge between motley members and a mortal bargain of psychic protection.
"By this token of my wayward self, I’ll stand at the Gates of Dream,
To my right, the Door of Ivory. To my left, the thorned Door of Horn.
I shall grant you safety and clarity,
You shall grant me truth to the tapestry of our shared tragedy,
Though I cannot promise you’ll rest easy, I’ll watch over you in this ordeal."
He threw his second share of glamour for the evening, offering his hands as he blinked tiredly to the others, wanting to move on.
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Oren
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written by Hiver
Posts: 242
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Post by Oren on Apr 15, 2021 5:23:22 GMT -8
Their hands haven't touched in what felt like an eternity. It was the Glamour arcing between their fingers to be sure, but Oren felt his heart skip a beat. By invoking the Wyrd, Mitchell had opened himself. Contract bid the Mirror entrance, and he could not have been more grateful. No awkward words. No twinkling pomp. Vermillion permission parsed by trust and circumstance.
How could he not accept the invitation?
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Post by Kai Rose on Apr 15, 2021 14:40:06 GMT -8
Kai shrugged at the concern about having to touch people. That didn't really bother her. She offered a hand and her Glamour, and agreed to the Pledge.
"Let's do this thing. Oren, you got tonic?"
She wasn't about to get fucked up, but the palpable awkwardness here was more than enough to warrant one G&T.
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Oren
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written by Hiver
Posts: 242
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Post by Oren on Apr 15, 2021 17:01:31 GMT -8
"Of course, love."
Did anyone expect him to not have accessorized? Or that it too, would have a plastic twist-off?
Perish the thought. He pulled the tonic from the bag, as well as the second bottle of gin. He was lucky enough to snatch the limes on sale.
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Post by Krakenbox on Apr 17, 2021 20:42:44 GMT -8
Drinks made their rounds as everyone, but Mitchell, relied on the ancient tradition of alcohol to cut whatever tension had bubbled from the inevitable quirks of the Lost. At some point cards were offered to give the quiet something to do with their hands between casual conversation, like it was just a normal small gathering of friends. As the exhaustion hit, drunken shimmying and sober stage direction eventually got everyone in a position where they could fall asleep and maintain the psychic link. Being tugged through the Gate felt like a silent thunder clap, the hotel winking out as the door to the waking world closed behind with a snap of imagined colour. Reality was shaky, the unconscious mind having full awareness couldn't bypass the internal thinking that made the world feel a little further and uncertain. Neurons fired to fill in the gaps with imagined Rules. Down was the ground, everyone breathed, everyone had a body.
Fawkes was squinting at something in the distance, hands in his pockets and standing naturally. The fact that they were on the mirrored ocean didn't seem to register, the surface as solid as it needed to be. As he noticed the rest were there, he blinked as he turned his head back towards them. He looked like his Mask, though the image was cracked in a pattern that resembled lighting scars, with pieces missing here and there. Without the smooth features and cold expression, he actually seemed closer to Oren's age.
Mitchell was a bit more jarring, the humanity of his movement completely absent as everything was sharper and crystalline. His face was almost void of features, taller with a distance affect now that he was standing on pointe in the literal sense. The wave patterned scars now glowed faintly, smoke rising in thin tendrils and occasionally smelling like cooked flesh and chemical.
"All right, that seemed to work. Um, not really sure what to do at this point, to be honest." It took another moment to realize Fawkes was speaking, sounding like a different person without the crisp monotone. There was almost a musical quality to it. He emoted normally too, clearly lost in thought as he stared at the abyss beyond the reflective water.
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Post by Kai Rose on Apr 18, 2021 16:09:15 GMT -8
Kai's eyes snapped open in the Dream. As she stood upon the ocean of mirrors, gazing down and gazing up all at once, the Mind Sculptor could see herself differently. It was a bit jarring; the Polychromatic's crystalline skin was sharper and more reflective, her colors brighter and more commanding. Her fingers came to slender points, like needles, and she was taller and more slender. The glowing gold at her core flowed through all of the other colors, like veins and arteries of emotional power.
"Like every story, Fawkes, I think we must start at the beginning."
Her voice had a resonant quality, like it was far away.
"Are you okay with going to that place?"
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Oren
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written by Hiver
Posts: 242
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Post by Oren on Apr 20, 2021 14:39:46 GMT -8
The Shard in the Dreaming was lined in cracks and fractures. But the dry, sterile void in between the fissures was replaced with a thick resplendence. Light pouring from underneath the door frame, spilling out onto a floor baked in the deep, deep dark. These colours that scintillated through Oren were shades both familiar and peculiar. They entertained quarternary, quinary, and senary theories lancing and weaving through individual complex lattices of splintered glasswork. These were mere accentuations in a body that projected the greyscale countenances of the joyful, the wrathful, the sorrowful, and the fearful. "If our stories were penned within vellum and papyrus, what material would they bound them within? Leather? Down? Adamantium?" He spoke with the voices of the Many. For this was their home away from home. Their respite from the tyranny of the Mask. "Even if those pages were to draw blood from Our porcelain fingers, do you think We would be so blind to ignore the wisdom of those who bleed the same?"
"One never truly wanders when one is with....friends."
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Post by Fawkes on Apr 20, 2021 18:15:10 GMT -8
Mitchell nodded silently at Kai's suggestion, experimenting by taking a knife-point foot and dragging it across the liquid surface, studying his own reflection with removed curiosity. He even took a moment to try a weightless spin, chuckling quietly to himself as everything moved the way it was supposed to rather than him having to reign in limited flesh and sinew. The fact that it was a relief made him equal parts fascinated and horrified.
Oren's speech drew attention, both of them quiet for a moment before the Elemental cautiously smirked.
"Neat."
He slowly raised a hand towards the horizon, testing the sound that hummed through the landscape.
"Oh, when I was taken?" Fawkes mused out loud with the Wizened's suggestion. "No, I agree that seems to be the logical starting point. Let me...think..."
The Bastion flickered, too fast to track. Streaks of cracks flashed image and sound before winking out of existence as quick as it came. A chalk-white blue whale breached the surface in a leap, exploding into a flock of birds as it crashed back into the surface. Fawkes frowned, manipulating the image with gestures akin to a composer as the wind and fluttering rolled into sand at everyone's feet. The temperature spiked.
Another flicker.
Everyone was forced to wince as there was a loud explosion, the sound roaring and corrupting into static as a flaming military vehicle launched towards them with a spin.
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Post by Kai Rose on Apr 21, 2021 21:57:04 GMT -8
Kai heard it and felt it as much as saw it. A hand snapped up and motioned to the right, willing the car's trajectory slightly in that direction through the thick fog of Fawkes's powerful control of the Dream. A small stroke of luck -- a rock, placed just so to careen the car just off path to the right as she dove to the left, rolling to get out of the way --
"Everyone okay? Are we in the... Middle East?"
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Oren
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written by Hiver
Posts: 242
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Post by Oren on Apr 23, 2021 6:07:33 GMT -8
"Uh oh."
"What."
"I don't speak Arabic."
"Do I?"
"No, I don't."
" I'm sure we'll be fine." Kai warped causality. Not like that sort of thing mattered in a Place like this. This Bastion was awfully warm. " What waits for us, here?"
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Post by Fawkes on Apr 23, 2021 13:40:15 GMT -8
As Fawkes froze, the crystalline form of Mitchell's avatar shifted and splintered the seraphim's feathers and needles. The Dancer flowed out of the way of the hazardous prop, watching it sail overhead as the Wizened shaped the trajectory.
"Thanks Kai!"
Despite the alien quality to the dream avatar, the Fairest still sounded the same. The flat planes of his face kept an eye on Fawkes, as the Elemental's frenzied mental digging bled into the dreamscape. Snatches of sound and internal dialogue voiced frustration; as he honed in on a detail, a flash of red would render the world blank. Eidolons would flesh for a brief moment, before a crack removed a face and a voice with the precision of a scalpel. The uniforms were meaningless, the chaos piecemealed in half-completed ideas in protest of the reality of just how much Fawkes' psyche had been blasted and eroded.
The Elemental's mouth twisted, but there was a bit of pride in his sardonic chuckle as he looked around to an amalgamation of several bombed out structures slammed into one, and a group of faceless soldiers.
"Okay, right, and then..." he ducked out of the site, muttering to himself with a curious determination. "We..."
Fawkes paused, closing his eyes and hesitating as colour and whispering shifted like a mirage on the sand. One of the Eidolons started talking, the context lost in static, until the roar drowned out any sound. The world started to slide as fractures scissored through reality, causing light and dimension to bend, along with the rest of them. There was the spray of blood. Mitchell swore as one of the wings was shredded at the epicenter of one of the cracks.
The Elemental was shaking as non-lethal pieces of flesh were cut out of dumb luck, missing arteries and limbs. Several half-remembered companions were diced to salsa through the cacophony of ringing.
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Post by Kai Rose on Apr 24, 2021 11:17:39 GMT -8
It was surreal being here in Fawkes's dream. The world of memory was faceless, drained of specifics, just broad strokes and ideas of what the moment of his capture must have been like. The holes had a familiar sense to them, like burning anger at what was missing but with clean, precise cuts to flense the -- memory of the moment away --
the spark take from him the source
It was as the flashes of memory came in static that the world began to crack. Kai blinked away the image of colors burning into her mind only to look at her hand as triangular cuts came down and slashed the skin away from a finger, cutting it into a long, probe-like needle --
The other hand came down and she vaulted into an aerial, a half-remembered memory of dodging over something that in this world was a piece of vehicular debris but
put a hand down and push off to mark the path through the lattice-work -- They were never going to make it.
Time rewound. The world hadn't split yet. The bloody wounds were gone for now.
"Fawkes, wait. Moving forward in events triggers the world shattering and we don't do well in that reality without preparation. Just stop for a sec. We need to build up some power so we can shift the landscape if needed. Play it slow. We're part of this reality. We need to do things that make sense for it."
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Oren
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written by Hiver
Posts: 242
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Post by Oren on Apr 24, 2021 17:13:30 GMT -8
A memory flinched before it became ephemera. Strange. It felt as if he were on the verge of something distasteful. " How." " How!" "How?"
"If we pluck too hard the string breaks? How do we apply resin?"
The question floated as the glass-blown troubadour scintillated in the tenuous grasp of Fawkes's fractured mind.
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