Event | Landfall | Dreaming

[ironwood]

Characters: Any and every!
Date: August 10th - 31, 2013
Location: The realm of Dreaming as accessed via Sinbrilee
Situation: Dreaming is but one of the three realms and here characters are subject to their fanciful thoughts.
Warnings/Rating: Please place content warnings in subject headers!

Sinbrilee | Dreaming | Death

Life. Dreaming. Death. Three realms overlaid upon one another and yet each distinctly their own. They dwell in Life and do so live upon the back of the great turtle as those of Sinbrilee did upon the shell of his sister. However, there stand numerous arches of marble throughout the ruined city that are inlaid with runes beyond understanding. Those that live and breathe which step through those whose runes glow with faint, iridescent light tread instead into the realm of Dreaming.

Here, there exists no single defining characteristic beyond the visitor's imagination. The landscape sculpts to their individual thoughts, the events to their dreams. From a drab gray nothing to the most brilliant of displays, the senses perceive all that they wish to perceive for all that nothing here truly exists. This far from Tu Vishan, the ability to shape their surroundings is all they have, for Sinbrilee's Dreaming does not have the energy to sustain powers, only the bodies of those that dwell here.

Should two parties near, then the Mesh begins. Dreams, you see, not only can be shared, but they strive to be. These visions sculpted into reality reach out for one another and blend. They begin an exchange akin to a linking of the minds, within which one visitor can learn the other's deepest thoughts. Their limitation is but compatibility, for two minds that cannot flow upon the same current cannot hold the Mesh.

Happiness or loss, the landscape and events play out memories and fancies with a most convincing air. The mood rises and falls with the tide of the visitor's mind, detached as they are from the soothing influence of a great turtle's mind. Nothing here, however, is real; 'constructs' simply fade if taken through the archways and even the greatest scientific minds or tools will reveal nothing of its source. This is an ancient magic of an ancient realm, long practised in concealing itself from any prying.

Note: Due to the fluid and highly individual nature of Dreaming, no official subheaders will be provided in the comments of this post. Feel free to post and thread however you like, so long as the rules of Dreaming are adhered to.

Comments

cw: friendship, death, some violence

[heartofgraces]

[It smells of flowers here. The breeze is warm, inviting, a gentle caress of spring no matter the actual season. From the hill, Lhant Hill, in point of fact, you can see far out over the ocean, glittering and gleaming far brighter than it really does, here in Asbel's memories. At the edge of the hill stands a great tree, with various names inscribed in the trunk.

Asbel dreams of friends, both young and old, most of them from his home but familiar new faces from here in Tu Vishan pass through the field of flowers, safe and happy, for a time. Asbel himself seems to doze inside the field, surrounded by flowers...

...but sometimes there's two of him? Or sometimes, there's a small, white-haired boy in the place of the second Asbel. Each time, he seems to be talking to the other about something. Getting closer to them reveals, for the time, the inside of a lab where two scientists argue over the fate of a boy called 'Lambda', and a long, echoing shaft heading downward, towards a source of power.

On the other hand, on the rare occasions he has nightmares, one gets to watch his friends die. A purple-haired girl with pigtails explodes into light in front of a monster...Richard is cut down inside Walbridge. A tall blond man dies in the snow, a short white-and-red haired girl and a young blue-haired man with glasses are both struck down by an unseen foe, and Asbel is powerless to stop. As the dreams progress, members of Team One are also killed in front of his eyes, by the mother of all Qin. So, enjoy that.

ooc: please select normal dreams, lambda, or nightmares, or if you'd like a combination of the three, go for it. Please enjoy your stay in Asbel's head, and remember to remain seated until the idiot has come to a full and complete stop. ]

cw: suicide, violence, mental disturbance, death

[inseine]

From the cracks of a crumbling Grecian arch, Javert procured a handkerchief. He could not explain what compelled him to snatch it for himself, but there was something, a pang of dread and familiarity, that gripped him when he read the two monogrammed initials embroidered into the corner:

U. F.

At once, the stone and the ruins drop out from under him, and he is jolted from his distraction by a single bullet whizzing past his ear.

Gone was Sinbrilee. Gone were the pillars, the ocean sky, and Tu Vishan. Instead he found himself in a narrow Parisian alleyway, his back pressed against an ancient stone wall, the din of battle just around the bend. Bodies littered the ground, with the girl called Éponine Thenardier lying bare-breasted and cold at the top of the heap. Rough and scarred hands snatched him by the wrists. Javert, startled, felt a sharp yank forward and caught a glint in the sun from the sharp flick of a thief's knife.

"You are free!"

Dripping with kindness and tranquility.

Javert's mouth lulls open like a gaping fish. He raises his eyes and discovers, standing before him in full National Guard uniform and a musket in hand, none other than the ex-convict Jean Valjean, alias Monsieur Ultime Fauchelevent.

He knew where he was. He knew when he was. But this time, he understood something loud and clear: This was a trick. He is not reliving that damnable insurrection in Paris. It is simply an illusion like the crumbling, dead plane shown to him by the Devil.

When Javert concealed the handkerchief in his balled fist, he did not recognize that it was he who was trembling, and not the scenery, his teeth bared in an astonished sneer.

[OOC: All are welcome. Feel free to jump in and add to the scene any elements you please. Things to expect: Rapid scenery change, Javert getting rather irritated by his own plaguing thoughts and memories, possible visions of suicide.]

tw: the hunger games

[insecrets]

There is no real reason for him to have been exploring other than for something to do. It's not really his thing. Finnick really is about self-preservation for the most part.

He recognizes the lush trees almost immediately, the humidity, the screech of the wild animals. It's the arena again, the Quell. Has he always been here? Was everything about Tu Vishan a dream brought on by pain and suffering in this place?

"Katniss? Peeta? Johanna?" Finnick turns around in circles, but doesn't see them. Of course not. They're not here. And this isn't really reality as he knows it, is it? Not that he knows much of anything anymore. In his pocket rests a picture, of a broken mad girl from District 4 and a smiling baby with sea green eyes. That's not real. Right?

He imagines he can hear a ticking, or maybe it's real.

Which piece is he in? What time is it?

[ooc: so basically the quarter quell's arena was divided into twelve separate sections where a bunch of equally terrible things happened including: killer monkey mutts, acid fog, a torrent of blood that fell like rain, a barrier filled with jabberjays that mimic your loved one screaming bloody murder, etc. if you have an idea, let me know which, or i can just throw whatever! /o/]

[kelpful]

Option A
Percy's had a rough few days (weeks, months, years), but there's still a part of him that holds onto the positive. The idea that no matter what happens, he'll pull through it, and so will the people he cares about. Coupled with his longing for home, it's no surprise that when he finds himself stumbling into the realm of Dreaming, he's abruptly wading through the creek at Camp Half-Blood.

On instinct, he looks around for Asti, frowning slightly when he can't find the turtle. There's a vague sense of trepidation at abruptly being in a new location, but he misses home so much, he ignores it for now. He wades out of the stream and just takes in the forest, absently keeping a grip on his ball-point pen. You never know when trouble might arise, after all, even in the middle of Camp Half-Blood.

Especially there, actually.

Option B
The atmosphere is dark, dank, almost oppressive. Anyone who's stumbled across the Death plane might momentarily think they're back there again, but it's missing that overwhelming aspect.

What it has instead is a giant, gaping hole in the ground. And one Percy Jackson standing about ten feet away, glued to the spot with a look of complete desperation on his face.

"Percy!" People who know her might recognise Annabeth's voice. They might see her, clinging to the edge of the pit. "Percy, help! I need you!"

But Percy doesn't move. A hand can be seen scrabbling at the edge and then Annabeth's scream echoes throughout the dream, louder than physically possible. Twining with the sound is a hiss, lower, the scream melding into it. "Sacrifices. Beautiful sacrifices to wake the goddess."

That's when Percy hits the ground running (or in some cases, just hits the ground. It's a reoccurring dream), stumbling over his own feet to reach the edge, screaming something that might be no, or might be her name, or might be something else entirely.

Annabeth's voice fills the dream. "This is your fault, Percy. You did this."

cw: friendship and fluffiness. also death and violence

[oathwalk]

A warm, gentle breeze carrying the scent of the sea drifts through the dream, bringing with it a sense of healing and peace. It catches in hair and clothes and carries across the landscapes that gently shift into each other—rich, green farmland dotted with lush forests—a meadow on a hill, full of flowers, with a path leading out to an ancient tree on which names are carved—houses in a paved city which Earthlings might recognize as some cousin to both English and Mediterranean Early Renaissance; a large, green crystal (the inscription reads "Gloandi") jutting out from the pavement, with outgrowths of stone in the shape of wings; a castle at the summit of the city. Light streams through into the throne room from open windows, and even in closed halls, the healing wind finds you. The people are kind and trustworthy. Everything feels safe.

And then there is the other side of things.

Sometimes, the rooms in the castle could suffocate you with the smell of steel and blood and eviscerated corpses, fighting in all the hallways. Sometimes, Gloandi goes dark and all the warmth and life that it offered has vanished. In the castle, a tall man with a red cloak who looks a bit like Richard has a large, blood-covered sword. There are people screaming in the dungeons. There are heads on spikes and pleas of innocence. A dark, ancient stone passageway leads into the castle, and there you might sometimes feel overwhelmed with weakness and pain, surrounded by the unconscious bodies of three children and a freakish monster made of darkness—a monster that feels like it's the only thing in that room that can save you in that place. The green countryside changes into a strange, warped cocoon, full of life but tasting of poison and cut off from the rest of the world, suffocating. There is no kind wind here. Rarely, but often enough, there is a laboratory with a woman in a wheel chair with green hair, and then everything cuts out. Nothing is safe and no one is trustworthy, and everyone will turn on you soon enough.

The castle's throne room has closed doors. Don't come in. Can't you taste the death inside?

cw: child abuse

[disfavored]

1//

[It's a clear evening and while there is ice all around, the cold is mild. A young boy - Tarrlok, from decades ago - is outside with his brother and father, who watches over them as they practice a bloodbending technique on a small rodent-like creature. His brother performs flawlessly, but Tarrlok hesitates and when urged to continue, stumbles and fails the technique. He is scolded harshly by his father, and sent away until he's ready to try harder.

He walks off and sits on his own, by a mound of snow.]

2//

[Tarrlok - the same age as before - is playing in the snow outside of his house with his brother while their mother watches. There is no father to be found, and everything from the amount of laundry hanging to the places at their table inside suggests that three people live there, not four.]

3//

[A fancy gala in the center of Republic City attended by many well-dressed wealthy-looking patrons. Tarrlok - his regular adult self this time - mingles with them a bit. The conversations between the patrons are all of happier things and the entire even has a carefree feel suggesting that the city is currently at peace.]

[ooc: open to all, feel free to choose one dream or say that your character witnessed more than one before approaching.]

Raimei Shimizu | OTA

[anomia]

[ 1 ]

[The sound of laughter is raucous in the air, a cluster of people together, all smiling. One is a tall young man with pink hair and a sword to match Raimei's, several short with dark hair, a grumbling Westerner, a one-armed blond man, and one boy with white hair. Raimei is among them, even bubblier and more vivacious than usual, and if your character approaches she'll include them immediately, bounding over to them.]

You're here! [Raimei lurches in to wrap her arms around them and hug them tightly, half-laughing.] You have to smile, okay?


[ 2 | cw: violence, death ]

[In direct contrast to the dream before, this one is dark. The sky is black, and vaster for the leaping, roaring flames that consume an old, traditional style Japanese compound. Shoji screens and walkways go up in crackling red and orange, burning down to ashes and embers, and there is charred, disfigured flesh scattered as corpses.

Those looking closely will realize that most of the bodies were killed not by the fire, but by sword wounds, and most have their own swords in hand.

Raimei stands at the entrance, holding hers loosely in a grip at her side, and her eyes are blank as she stares at it. Unmoving, she'll need to be interrupted to gain a response; but as time goes on, her expression contorts more and more into a deep countenance of hate.]

[depicted]

The awful stench of Paris mixed well with what Dorian remembered. The smell of blood and gunpowder, that was new, but the reek of disease and waste was almost like coming home, if that could be said of a city whose greatest association to Dorian was death. Dora's corpse buried under pavement, Oscar's in an ugly hotel—all Dorian brought to the dream was the smell of rotting roses and the distant sound of a piano, Chopin's Nocturne Op.9 in Bbm.

Dorian's mouth is set in a calm line, hands in the pockets of an overcoat, nothing but world-weariness in his expression. He hears his loved ones screaming, but he ignores it. It is nothing he hasn't known before, after all.

"Nice Paris." Dorian lifts a hand (blood drips between the fingers, but it's not his so he doesn't bother thinking about it) to indicate the scene around them. "If you can bring your stubborn mind to stop thinking about this, we may be able to move this somewhere more neutral."

you know what I'm here for: your money or your life

[oathwalk]

[It is only natural that Lhant Hill brings them together. Richard doesn't even realize he is in Asbel's dream. Smiling to himself, he touches the tree bark with a light finger and traces over their names: Sophie, Asbel, Richard . . .

His fingers skate underneath theirs. The name isn't written there, but Richard sketches it with a finger anyway. Lambda.

He would like to see that name added to it, one day.]

you'll never take me alive

[heartofgraces]

Richard.

[The voice behind him isn't Asbel's, not today, and the sight is one he's seen just once before.

Asbel's body, with those purple eyes of Lambda's control. It seems he's taken the opportunity to talk to an old friend, doesn't it?]

cw: murder, cannibalism, serial killers // closed to Mark Hoffman

[bonvivant]

[It's a large room with many expensive-looking art pieces and decorations. Mostly deep blues and purples as far as colors go, and the lighting is oddly dim and foreboding.

At the center of the room is a large, extravagant dinner table - big enough to seat twenty - where Hannibal sits at the end, alone. Extravagantly prepared food lines the table; a wide variety of dishes from seemingly normal cuts of meat to heart and liver and even brain. Each dish looks as if it would have taken hours to prepare: each cut of meat is perfect, the vegetables and cheeses are arranged in an intricate fashion with the intention of being aesthetically pleasing. There is only fine red wine to drink. Of course, nothing at the table is vegetarian.

A stray newspaper sits on a small table near the wall. The front page article is about the Chesapeake Ripper.

Hannibal looks at the food on the table as if it might be made of wax and he wasn't sure whether of not to taste it. He seems to have some amount of awareness that this isn't reality, or at least, reality as it usually is. Will the food taste foul? Would it turn to dust in his mouth? Was this some other-worldly being's attempt to cause him guilt about his actions or wean him off of his deadlier hobbies by associating it with something unpleasant? He didn't much like the thought that someone else was in his head.

But, the smell is normal (he'd notice any difference), so he takes a small cut of heart and eats it slowly, savoring the flavor. He is satisfied; it seems that whatever the cause of this was was giving him a second chance to relive some of his favorite past meals.

But, it was also a reminder that he hadn't indulged himself since his arrival here, and this vivid reminder would only increase his longing.]

Re: cw: suicide, violence, mental disturbance, death

[givenanonymity]

This is not Los Angeles.

There are shades of it, all cities are cousins of one another and each arch and stone is the DNA of old places. This is old DNA, old stone and he can feel it. It's there and he doesn't know what to do except draw his gun. These places are not safe.

One alley, then another, then another. The gun is pointed in every direction. He has to get back to the car, call for backup - Sing. Sing was in the area, he could come for him. Tapp and Sing - Are dead. They're dead...

When he comes upon the bodies he reaches into his pocket for his phone, shocked and staring. He's seen horrible things, he's seen and made his fair share of corpses but this...these men...

He makes quite a spectacle of himself, standing there gun drawn at the shock of new dead. An attack. Here. In this bastard Los Angeles. These familiar stones.

What he does not see however is the red robed monster steaking up behind him as he stares. It wears the head of a bleeding pig for a face and it is small, almost dainty, almost petite. It approaches quietly, heedless of the corpses.

In it's hand is a knife.

His mind is thrown. All he can do is stare.

[saisamour]

Marius cannot tell at what point the musket disappears from his hand.

But the distressed yelling and the blasts of gunfire are still ringing in his ears, the smell of gunpowder stinging his nose and the black smoke clouding his vision. He blinks, twice, wipes an arm against his brows (there is a streak of bright red mixed in with the sweat and soot on his skin when his hand drops to one side), and stumbles forward, leaning a hand on the nearby stone wall to help support himself.

Through the haze he spots a familiar little boy in rags scampering towards an alleyway and rounding a corner, and his eyes grow large in alarm as he chases after him. "Gavroche!"

But when he makes the turn for himself, what greets him is the sight of Javert and M. Fauchelevent, and his initial thought is to run, because he knows what happens next—M. Fauchelevent fires his musket and the inspector falls and is no more. But his feet refuse to budge, and the fear in his eyes slowly turn into one of confusion, because even if he had not heard M. Fauchelevent's voice announcing Javert's freedom, the feeling that there is something odd about this scene nags at him.

DOOM AND GLOOM Y'ALL.

[givenanonymity]

[His dreams are always the same. They always have been. Before John. Before the end of his humanity. He relives his cases, he relives the people that he couldn't save. Custer's last stand with SWAT in place of soldiers (aren't they soldiers though? Aren't they?)

The door bursts into the room. The difference is that he is an avenging angel in these dreams. The cases where he was constrained, bound by man's laws. He has John's power in his dreams.

He'd made a wrong turn somewhere and come out dreaming only in this dream when the door bursts down he is not dressed in his flack vest, no gun hangs at his side. He wears a black coat and a hood and there are darker stains in the grey that are blood. His SWAT men and he have something in common - they are pigs. They are dressed in pig masks but his is weeping. Blood runs down it's plastic cheeks.]

Freeze! Police. [The word is trailed off. Unsure. This is not how this dream ends. And he doesn't know. He doesn't know he's wearing his true face when he looks at the man sitting behind the table with all those dishes prepared so elegantly. Is he police? Is he something else?

His body guards drop to the floor. Dead. Thuds. thumps. Murdered. As they do they vanish. One is a black man with an angry twist on his face. The other is a woman, her red hair torn and shredded by rats and the third...

The third sports a coarse beard and an orange jumpsuit like a criminal but there's a badge around his neck.

Hoffman remains standing. Still dressed to kill. Gun still raised]

Identify yourself.

[sophos]

I.

Anyone remotely familiar with Mount Olympus in any incarnation will probably recognize being there. It shows signs of being in the midst of reconstruction, with temples and buildings in various states of repair or completion. It fits right in with the motif of Sinbrilee itself, but there's something hopeful and promising about it all.

Standing tall and vaguely proud near the center of it all is the forty foot tall original Athena Parthenos, and Annabeth herself is sitting at its feet, hovered over a mess of papers and temple designs and sketchbooks. This is her Olympus, the plans of which she was placed in charge of. In her line of sight is a library, giant and finished and if you know anything about Annabeth at all, it's easy to see her influence and personality in its design. In the distance, even though it can't be seen at all, is the sound of the ocean.

II.

It's a cavern. A dark, heavy cavern, clearly underground, the pressure and intensity of which mimics the Death plane, but isn't quite. The floor is made of spiderwebs, woven together tight, but it's also littered with dark holes that open into an endless darkness. They're mostly avoidable, if you're aware of your surroundings.

The Athena Parthenos also exists here, but this one is covered in spiderwebs and its presence is much more looming and shadowed. Moving all over it, and around the entirety of the cavern, are hundreds of tiny spiders, whispering and calling out for their mother.

Annabeth is covered in webs and dirt and grime, with a bubble wrap cast around her ankle, and she's screaming. There's a line of web wrapped around the same broken ankle, and it's yanking her, pulling her back for a giant gaping hole in the ground. Her hands scrape at the ground, and she cries out for help, but it's futile. She goes over the edge, alone, managing to grab onto a jutted out ledge roughly fifteen feet from the top. The web is pulling her straight down, where the only thing that awaits her is darkness - a creeping, cold darkness, heavy with hatred and a foreboding sense of horror. A bodiless, hissing voice crawls up from the pit, "No escape. I go to Tartarus, and you will come, too."

She chokes out a sob, fingers shaking, knowing it's only a matter of time before she can't hold on anymore, before she falls. "Percy," is the only hoarse cry she can muster; he's not here, he doesn't have her hand, he couldn't catch her, and she's going to fall alone into only her death.

[ooc; doop doop, feel free to stumble upon this as annabeth is going over the edge of the crevice!]

[inseine]

The distant screams shatter the shock away. The simple presence of a blood-drenched outsider, Dorian, introduces a foreign and coveted element to this canned scene: control. He, Javert, can assume control of this wretched mess. He mechanically rights himself, steels his jaw, and meets his foe without yield.

There is only one way out of this, he figures, and he has no pistol. It does not occur to him to dream one up and finalize the deal. So instead he picks up his fist and lashes out like the cornered beast he is, and Jean Valjean was no more. He dissolves upon contact, a sharp report exploding in Javert's ear.

Javert crumples away from the dust cloud of Jean Valjean, barely stifling the cry at his gullet. The alleyway melts and contorts into a myriad of colors, a canvas of bleeding oils cast in dreary grays, reds, and blacks.

"Neutral, yes! Let me just pick up these streets and toss them out for your England!"

Dorian, if nothing else, makes a decent mental anchor.

Javert presses a palm against his temple. Blowing up Jean Valjean with a killing touch was worth it, it seems, granting him a pinch of self-awareness and the tinny remnants of a ringing ear. It does not surprise him that the setting is fluid, that it cannot make up its damn mind. It is fitting somehow. A lantern sprouts up beside him here, a bridge over there. The distant rush of a strong current roars, and the most Javert can muster is a vaguely irritated grimace. His hands slowly drop to his hips, arms akimbo, while the river and the bridge and the lanterns and the hulking shadow of Notre-Dame wobble and swirl around them, reeking of death, raw sewage, and vomit.

"You're a strong-willed fellow, aren't you?" he murmurs imperiously, cold and controlled. Or at least, he sounds and appears in-control; the flowing scenery speaks otherwise. "I cannot give you London. Take the reigns, and do it yourself. I don't wish to be here, same as you!"

[bindsthedead]

This wasn't Death. For all the bone chilling current, the mist and fog, it was merely some sort of copy.

Unfortunately, it was a very accurate copy, and Sabriel grit her teeth and braced herself against a surge in the current. There was noting but flowing black water as far as she could see- though with the density of the ever present fog, that wasn't much farther than the tip of her sword. Marks that should have been moving over the blade were inert, and Sabriel had realized that her magic and supernatural senses weren't working, which made her fingers tighten on the hilt of her sword as the fog began to thin.

cw: death, some violence

[constants]

[ OPTION A ]

[ The room is quiet, the air still. In fact, there is almost no sound to be heard at all. No one moving around, no clock ticking, no traffic outside. There's a window and the light shining through is dimmed by clouds that are dumping snow on a untouched landscape dotted here and there by trees. The furniture in the room is dark wood, a table with two chairs. The quality is good, and they look nearly new, hardly a scratch or fingerprint on them.

Empty. That's the feeling.

At the table sits the Archive, perhaps a few years younger than she is now. Somewhere around ten. There are papers in front of her in neat piles and a box of crayons. She fills the papers out in perfect stillness and silence, hardly a fidget or peep out of her. The dissonance of her demeanor and age is even sharper. Every once in a while she changes crayon colors, but otherwise she continues to fill out paperwork in silence. ]


[ OPTION B ]

[ There's noise. Shouting, inhuman screaming, gunfire. Things that look like humans but clearly aren't (Red Court vampires), a tall man in a black trenchcoat holding a staff, and another tall man with a shotgun. A baseball stadium, Wrigley Field. The vampires are sort of spread out between the dugout and home base, attacking the man in the black coat near home base, and the man with the gun and the Archive near the dugout. The man with the staff is spouting fire out of his staff, and the man with the shotgun is firing flames.

The Archive, for all that she's seven and a tiny child with baby fine blonde hair, a black dress, and silver cape, is perfectly calm. Between her hands floats what might as well be a cloud of ink in clear water, except it has nebulous tendrils floating around. With a single gesture it speeds out and hammers into one of the vampires. There's a terrible sound, like sizzling bacon and a wildcat screaming, a flash of purple light, and a swell of darkness. Then it passes straight through, leaving only ash and dust behind. ]


[ OPTION C ]

[ The Archive sits at a nicely polished wooden table, filling out paperwork with pens arranged in rainbow order. Outside it's clearly fall, the leaves are red and falling. It's quiet and still, and although it feels empty, she's not vastly out of place in the setting. There's no traffic, no extraneous noise, clearly an isolated location.

Something is very slightly off about her. Perhaps her hand is a little stiffer, or she bumps a pen before picking it up. Whatever it is, she's a bit on edge. And then, inexplicably, she stops. She's not moving and no one is there, but the words are being whispered throughout the room. A police report from Chicago. A bullet hole in a boat, blood spatter, no body. Single shot. Name, Harry Dresden.

Slowly, mechanically, her hands push the paper work away from her and tears just start flowing. Her face doesn't scrunch, doesn't change a fraction, and she doesn't make a sound. Her head bows until it rests on the table and she cries in silence, shoulders shaking with sobs. ]

come to me, Asbel's suffering [closed to Asbel]

[oathwalk]

The first time, it starts like this: it's the throne room. Richard stands at his father's right side, his father who sits when they talk because the poison has left him weak and he can't stand as much as he used to. The conversation turns back on itself. Richard can remember fragments of it. Strahtan military, losing resources, loyal knights. The conversation moves around again, reshuffles (Fendel military, loyal resources, losing knights) until it comes to something that could be an end and his father says, "That is enough for today." Richard stands still and his father walks away.

It's the right-hand guard—Miles, Richard remembers, and for a moment Richard is eleven and Miles, just come to the palace, offers him a comic book when no one is looking—it's Miles who puts the sword through his father's back, and Richard is so shocked that he doesn't have the chance to move before the left-hand guard runs him through.

"Live on," he hears. It feels like his father speaking, though it is not his father's voice.

[bonvivant]

[A pig indeed. How rude, interrupting a man's dinner, even if there was far more food here than Hannibal could ever eat on his own without it spoiling.]

The one wearing the mask ought to identify first, should he not?

[Because he doesn't accept 'police' as an identification. He doesn't seem to react to the presence of a gun, nor the dead-and-vanished bodies, and is as nonchalant as ever.

He takes a slice of liver this time and eats it.]

I love the smell of guilt in the morning

[heartofgraces]

He hadn't known. He'd never known what had happened in the castle doors. It happens just as he gets the message from Cheria, when he stops to consider what he's supposed to do now, that the new Knights are brought in on the plan.

It takes Asbel too many precious minutes to fight past them, and too many more to run down the castle halls, searching for the right room and it never is. Part of him knows this never happened, part of him knows he wasn't there, it didn't go this way, but when he yanks open the doors to the throne room too late, hears the sound of a sword scraping along the ribcage, but it's Richard, not Ferdinand (He doesn't even know what Ferdinand looks like) and Asbel cries out, drawing his sword with a roar but he's too late, just that much too late, just like he was too late at Walbridge.

"Richard!"

cw: torture; possible mentions of pedophilia, sexual abuse, murder // CLOSED TO BRUCE WAYNE

[everylittlegirl]

This isn't the first archway that Hayley has passed through, but it is the first where she is alone. Instead of an alien planet, she finds the familiar interior of Jeff's house, the brightly colored walls and the stone garden all reminiscent of memories seemingly forever ago. She reaches up to gingerly touch the photograph of Janelle on the pink wall, withdrawing her hand before she reaches it, wanting to preserve the memory.

It takes a moment for her to hear Jeff's cries, but then she crosses easily from the bedroom, through the hall, into the kitchen, still all too familiar with the home. She probably knows it even better than Aaron's. She arrives to find him meticulously placed, such that he barely avoids hanging himself. The blue rope around him can only be the ones she used, the kind she still has with her even in Tu Vishan.

It's a strange memory to see her and she finds herself a bit disgusted with the sight of Jeff again. Instead, the girl moves to his living room, changing the CD in the stereo and playing some Elephant Woman for the seemingly empty home. Well, aside from her and Jeff, of course.

cw: blood, war, death, pontmercy brand of cray

[saisamour]

At first the world is wrapped in a dark smoke, thick enough to choke, and the only sound is the unyielding volley of gunfire.

And then there are puddles on the ground, bright red, tiny at first until they begin seeping through the cracks on the pavement and coalescing into a larger body of blood that slowly rises to the height of the ankles.

The splashing of feet on the tiny sea of blood intermingles with the shots in the air, and light filters through the edges of smoke until it unveils to the vision of a barricade of furniture and wood and coffins. An old man hangs upside down, blood pouring out of the gunshot wound by his heart and painting his clothing and his face in the color of crimson. To one side is a girl, young and pale and thin, in male clothing. There is a hole in her hand and in her chest.

And then there is shouting from all ends of the barricade, some in alarm, many in determination, and others in fear. The louder, stronger voices might be familiar to some: Courfeyrac, Combeferre, Enjolras, Grantaire. Jean Prouvaire's is nowhere to be heard. Gavroche's taunting song cuts mid-sentence, and nothing further comes from him.

And then Marius emerges, a cravat that might have been white, once, but is now red wrapped around his head-wound, his shirt colored in a mixture of soot and dried blood, a musket in hand and a sabre hanging by his waist. He is yelling "Stand back!" at anyone nearby who might not be part of the barricades and the Paris of 1832, of a rebellion doomed to fall not only in his world but also in his nightmares, again and again and again.

cw: sexual abuse, death; possible pedophilia, murder, suicide, etc. // CLOSED TO BRUCE BANNER

[everylittlegirl]

By the time Hayley stumbles into the arch that holds the scene laid out before her, she's already mostly had her fill of this city. As enlightening as it is to stumble into others' realized dreams, having them stumble into hers was hardly her favorite pastime. As soon as she realizes where she is, that it's a memory of her own past, she turns around to walk right back out.

Before she can get there, two hands firmly grab her shoulders and steer her back through the kitchen, the doorway, and into the living room. Everyone is dressed in black, platters of food lining both the kitchen she has just vacated and the table in the dining room, visible through another doorway from where she stands now. She glances down to her own black dress and can feel the hair that stretches down to her shoulders. She remembers that she cut it off later this night, not to be the little doll they all pitied.

"Come on, Hayley," her mother murmurs into her ear as she's shoved into the crowds of people. Most of the faces are unfamiliar in her relatively upper-class California home, people who knew her father just little enough to appreciate the man. They're all full of sympathies and apologies. What a tragedy; he died too soon; it was a freak accident; he loved you, you know.

She's halfway to a scream when she notices a face in the crowd who isn't in her memories and the sound dies in her throat. Hayley looks right into the gaze of Bruce Banner and wants to die all over again.

[everylittlegirl]

Hayley seems to recall walking through another one of those stupid archways, but why are there woods? They certainly aren't her own memories or dreams and the owner is clearly nowhere to be found. Or so it seems, until she trips over a root, stumbles through a small clearing and comes out the other side just in time to nearly fall into Percy.

The girl rights herself immediately, straightening her clothes as she looks at him. She looks past him to the creek, still confused as to where he has come from, before returning her gaze to him.

"Percy?" It's less a clarification of who he has and more a question of whether or not he might know what's going on.