Continuing Amara's post-game breakdown and playing catch up with prompts. A word with friends was started by @hedwigoprah
Avoirdupois | Noun/The official system of weights used in UK between 1856 and 1963. It had been the customary system in London since 1300/The official system of weights used in USA between 1866 and 1959./Weight; heaviness.
and
Vitiate | Verb (Thanks to @aetherflowers)/To spoil, make faulty; to reduce the value, quality, or effectiveness of something /To debase or morally corrupt /To violate
Thursday Bangers was started by @woundedsoul12
I wanna hold you high and steal your pain...
~Seether ft Amy Lee (*I technically already did a fill for this one, but had to loop back because this takes the lyric in a very different direction 😅)
Part 3 of ? (Part 1 is here, Part 2 here) Amara has met this particular 'friend' before. CW: Depression, despair demon shenanigans
When Amara woke up, she was still exhausted. The entirety of her physical existence mired in a certain avoirdupois that left her clumsy and sluggish.
Sleep had been fitful. Dreams clamoring for her attention as soon as she had closed her eyes. Running through a dying Minrathous, vitiated by blight, the shadows of corpses strung up on the gallows swinging above her. A wolf howling in the distance. She knew her friends were at some nebulous point beyond with all the certainty of dreams. She also knew she would never reach them in time. In time for what, her dream self couldn’t say.
Something followed in her shadow as Minrathous turned to an equally blighted Arlathan. Rivain. Treviso. The Necropolis. A whisper, slipping through pin prick holes in her wards, words an indistinct whisper with a familiar cadence.
Amara wasn’t sure how long she remained curled up on her impromptu bed after waking, trying to muster the energy to move. Eventually she dragged herself to her feet, wrapping the knit blanket around herself to ward off the chill that seemed to have settled on the room.
Overcasting, like she had done in the Crossroads, was dangerous for any mage. Particularly for spirit mages who could utilize their own energy to power spells in a pinch. It had been part of her training, to do so intentionally. Learn her limits by walking right up to them. But that had involved oversight and mandatory observation in the infirmary after. This time felt different, like she had found her limits and crashed right through them and kept going. Like when she had briefly tied herself to the veil, but less losing herself to an infinity and more breaking herself into infinite little pieces. Amara had taken a few steps towards Emmrich's room, intending to ask for his help, before she caught herself.
He wasn't here. No one was here. No one. They left you alone.
Bleary-eyed, Amara turned and went down the stairs instead. The library shelves were empty, a single chair keeping vigil on the space where she and the others had often gathered to discuss strategy. Apparently just as the lighthouse had manifested items for their use, it also maintained enough awareness to recognize what was no longer needed, clearing out the space that had been abandoned.
Could learn something from it. Acceptance. The inevitability of loss.
Amara shook her head, heading towards the courtyard. Bellara's workshop was dark. The plants that had sprung up around Harding's greenhouse were wilted. Dying. The walkway that had led to Davrin's room was falling apart - several of the steps floated loosely, untethered from their counterparts.
The lighthouse reflects its occupants. Right now, that would be you.
She would have to get in there while she still could. Make sure there wasn’t anything left of Davrin’s that needed to be recovered. His uncle had been through with Davrin’s parents. So had Antoine and Evka. But still -
He died saving you. What a tragic waste.
He had and it was. She should trust those who knew him best had seen to his possessions as he would have wished. Amara pulled her makeshift shawl tighter around her shoulders, shivering as she slowly made her way towards the dining room. She studiously avoided looking at Assan’s old sunning spot.
The dining room doors proved stubbornly heavy. A quirk of the lighthouse or her own recent misadventures, Amara couldn’t say. The room was oppressively quiet. Amara was pretty sure she could count on one hand the amount of times she had walked into this space and found it empty. She made a slow circuit of the room, noting the missing chairs and trying to ignore the oppressive silence and how wrong it felt to be here alone.
Why? You’ve always been alone.
As she wandered towards the kitchen, Amara spotted a canister of tea on one of the top shelves, one of the few sentinels left overlooking the silent dining room. A stab of guilt shot through her. Lucanis. She had left Treviso without a word. He would be worried, he and Spite both. She needed to -
Do nothing. He left you first.
Amara’s breath caught, some part of her brain finally breaking through the haze to recognize that thought wasn't hers. That something was speaking to her. Instinctually she reached out to check for spirits in the area and immediately had to pull back as even that magic, normally as natural as breathing, felt like trying to pull off her own fingernails.
I am just telling you what you already know, little ghost. He left you. They all did. They were always going to.
Amara turned sharply, heading back towards the door. She needed to get out of here. To find -
Who, little ghost? There is just us. The way it should be. I have told you before: you are mine. I am the only one who understands you. Who will never leave you.
The door was frozen shut, iced over with a thoroughness even Neve would have trouble matching.
Every time you come back to me, bleeding and broken and alone, I welcome you. Comfort you. And every time you leave, you let the world hurt you.
Amara turned, hands balled into fists. The entire room was slowly being encased in ice and fog, emanating from a barely there figure of gray light and mist, slowly coalescing into a vague facsimile of Amara with too many teeth and no eyes.
“I’m not going to let you leave this time,” it snarled. “I am done being patient. Sometimes you have to save people from themselves.”
“Rook!”
Wakefulness slammed into Amara. She sat up gasping. Her arm throbbed, hands still balled into fists, the pulsing heat of the fire spell she had been reaching for to throw at the demon melting the thin layer of frost that spiraled across her blanket, sparkling in the pale light of the fish tank wall that dominated the meditation room. She scrambled to her feet, almost tripping in her haste to get into a more defensible position and caught sight of Bellara, dressed in traveling leathers and standing just within the threshold of Amara’s room, the Caretaker floating behind her.
Bellara was wide eyed, apologizing for waking her. Amara barely heard her, scanning the room for danger.
There was no sign of the demon. Despair. But as Bellara ran over to her and pulled her into a hug, Amara felt just the faintest brush of cold against her forehead. Like a frozen kiss. Like a promise.
(Tagging folks who have been along for the earlier parts/to say hi/keep things going @seaglassmelody @blackwall-my-tiny-husband @davrinsleftpectoral @jukkaricity @jenn2d2 @sandcastlekings @mythals-whore @kogarashi-art I really need to make a tag list one of these days o.O)
