After everything that has happened thus far since he’s been here, which wasn’t a lot considering it was only two weeks, this was the last thing he expected to see when he went outside. Not too far away, there were flames. What the hell happened? Looking around, he saw people panicking and he didn’t know what to do except to just stand there and watch the flames roar into the sky.
Minutes pass before he decides to move. Unfortunately, he wasn’t looking where he was going and ran directly into someone. Cursing, he bowed and spouted apologies.
“I’m so sorry, I wasn’t watching where I was going! I was preoccupied!” By the flames in the damn sky, but he wasn’t going to say that out loud. Why was it that he had the habit on consistently running into people here. Even back home, he did it often enough and that was annoying.
( @crimsonshouts )
It starts with a vicious rumbling that makes Klug startle a moment, worried that perhaps his Tectonic spell was in affect - but no, he never remembered USING it to begin with, so he’s not the one behind this at all - he barely even has time to get out of his shop and hang a ‘closed due to disaster’ sign over it before the earth tears asunder with crimson flames and explosions that echo booming through the entire city: the booming explosion made him fall to his feet, hands over his ears.
No, wait, that wasn’t an echo of the explosion. His head - it was hurting really badly, like there’d been an explosion there too - and then, like a sharp firecracker going off, he remembered. He remembered...everything, how he’d been such a horrible person and acted like a big jerk just for the sake of ‘surpassing’ his mentor, Lemres...how could he have forgotten about Lemres?
Yet...in the end, what had chasing after that gotten him? Chasing to surpass him and become the best comet mage? He....really did act like such a horrid person just for the sake of surpassing him-and in the end, it wasn't worth it.With that memory gone and acting differently, kinder because of it...everyone liked him more. Even....Aya had liked him more, and he wished he never had to remember it at all.
...wait. No....AYA. A dawning, horrid realisation hit him as he shook and sobbed, cutting the tears short and him to reel in horror. If....if he remembered everything now, then aya....aya....oh no. He couldn’t sit here and feel ashamed of himself, disgusted at himself right now - if Aya remembered, too, then he was going through something far worse, and he had to find him and support him. The ‘other world’ was not his priority, and the shaky comet mage forced himself to his feet and ran, looking for Aya...
Molly’s breath hitched as she heard explosions and sees the fire in front of her, arms clutching around her middle as her eyes are stuck on watching it all. W-What happened? Who did this? She’s not sure, but her legs are stuck in place. It’s making her panic, it’s making her mind turn into a jumbled mess-- why did she decide to walk here today?
But the mention of a ‘Virgo district’ and another world catches her attention. Somewhere... else? That’s-- That’s way too risky. She doesn’t know anything about the area, or the people, or if it’s even trustworthy in the first place. However, her legs start to move, and she runs with a panicked expression to the portals. Whatever it may be, she needs to get out of here as quickly as possible. Her legs start to ache, but she doesn’t stop until she reaches Koi’s City Hall. She should’ve said something to Sylvie, but that thought doesn’t cross her mind until she rushes inside a portal, falling to the other side.
She just lays there, breathing labored as she tries to get over the anxiety and panic she felt earlier. It was all... too similar to what happened before. To her home.
A soft whimper escapes her lips, and she holds her knees close to her chest.
( closed mini event starter for @inkyhearted )
When he’d seen the explosions of fire and rubble in the city - in honestly, his thoughts had gone right to Molly, to making sure she was alright because he KNEW full well fire and such awful things like this would only remind her of a deep fear, something she’d had to go through that had left lasting trauma long ago - so his thoughts had not been on Koi. This happening with hardly ANY break after the events of so many dying at the underwater mess? Was it any wonder everyone wouldn’t take it well?
The fixing of things was not his expertise, he felt that with everyone - and his best friend - likely panicking and running to the ‘safer’ of the two worlds, as a psychologist he should follow everyone there to be of better use. After all, he wasn’t exactly going to be helpful in the terms of rebuilding what had been damaged back at Koi: though ‘dragons’ being actually real and not things only spoken of in stories was a surprise.
Well, who was he to judge what was ‘strange’ or not, people could call his own Epithet strange. Speaking of that, he was currently sitting down in the library area of the ‘school’, watching to see how introducing his sheep to the dragon who was also going to be a friend like his sheep - would go. He’d been a little worried at first, but the gold-colored dragon seemed....to be telling jokes, making little chirps that the sheep gave baa-ing laughter at?
...That reminded him of his uncle a little. It was a little comforting. Though, it seemed he and his sheep and dragon weren’t alone, because he saw a strange individual near the books as well - were they watching, or just there to try and read? “Hello...? Me and my sheep don’t mean any harm, and neither does DreamWeaver, my dragon friend. I can’t see you really well from there, it’s okay to not hide!”
she needs more threads, so here she is! this is a starter call for kanon in the new event!! i’ll be capping at 2 for now, thank you!! castmates are exempt!
Not a sound, but a feeling in the back of his aching mind.
The meaning of it hadn’t hit Puck quite yet as he sat there, boredly thumbing through his welcoming gift. It’d been a good few months since he had arrived here and the book about technologies and the like had barely been touched, only getting a few pages in each time he picked through them. Usually, he’d just get confused, tired, or distracted, his mind wandering towards other activities within minutes.
Today it was a headache that stole his attention.
A fog filling his focus and vision as the words before him blurred and twisted away from his understanding. That was fine, the headache sucked but it was fine! The book was abandoned on the floor as he slumped backward, the palms of his hands pressing into his eyes in a feeble attempt to soothe the rolling pain boiling through his skull. The lack of feeling, physical anyways, was what he missed most out of everything since his arrival. Sure, sure, it was nice being kind of alive again, to walk and dance and have a weight and be able to press his hands against something and have it push him back. In the oddest way… he missed being dead.
The swelling ache in his head took over his thoughts again, a sharp stab earning an annoyed groan in response. And then came that click. After smashing it against every other possible entry, that block finally found the right hole.
The bitter taste in his mouth hit before it all fell into place.
Dinner at home, he’d promised to hang out with his friends that day… maybe skip town for the weekend? Puck could see her, blurry in his mind, blocking the door and calmly asking him to at least stay for dinner. The quietness in her voice, in her attitude, wasn’t scary, it was the last warning to stop pushing back before the horror show began, so he’d relented. Dinner, a meal with his family for the first time since he was in middle school, Lucy, the somber smile on his mother’s face as his father began coughing, running. It was a blur before his eyes. The final moments, hands clutching the gate as he begged whatever was out there that someone would see him, that he would get up and open the gate and get help.
That he wouldn’t die here alone.
A wet warmth began to spread across his palms as everything crumbled around him, leaving only the churning horror and illness in his stomach. It’d been so long since he’d thought about the constant unease in his gut, the tightness that would cover his throat like a soggy blanket when he wasn’t thinking about it during trips into town, watching others eat. The feeling was one of the last reminders of what he was here, working body or no. Sickness was his only clue to how he’d passed, his one hint to the mystery that he never bothered to solve.
The world outside him was burning, crumbling, places where he’d visited now reduced to rubble. Who cared about any of that anyway? Pucks world had ended decades ago, and it was buried right next to where he should be in a grave he’d never see again. A grave on a planet he probably wasn’t on anymore, and no amount of wishing would let him go back there to cry and cry and cry.
So he’d have to make do, on this couch, in this home that never felt like home.
THE SMELL OF SMOKE IS UNMISTAKABLE. Even from around the bend, Maya could pick up on it wafting over the trees. When she’d gone on her jog this morning, it felt like any other day on the islands. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing special... But now, as she picks up her pace and crests the hill to look over the city, she realizes how wrong she was.
There’s a pang in the pit of her chest as her brain pieces things together. It felt like all of Beaulieu had started to crumble in the short few hours she’d been gone, and that included her own living space. Her mind races, asking questions like ‘are my friends okay?’, ‘are my things okay?’, ‘what is going on?’. She has no answers. Arm drawn up over her mouth, she pushes through the treeline, and beholds her worst fear; Her own home falling under the weight of the fire.
The Siren hits a standstill, hands falling to her sides. Witnessing the flames pushes several memories to the front of her mind. Memories of Hero’s Pass, and the choking smoke of the lava. Of Sanctuary getting assaulted and blown to smithereens after Angel’s betrayal. Of... a voice. A voice she’d forgotten, somehow, up until now. Her hands clench into tight fists as the same sentence plays in her head over and over.
❝ Child, you have so much left to learn! ❞
The bang that follows that sentence makes her wobble in pain. Her head aches, and her vision skews as she props herself up against one of the trees to stop herself from falling over. That bang, a resolution to twenty seven years of abuse, torment, controlling and anguish. She digs her nails into the bark, not caring that the smoke was starting to hurt her lungs. That bang, a single bullet cracking through the air and ending her handler’s life. Tears well in the corners of her eyes, be it from the fire or out of emotion. That... bang.
During her entire stay here, Maya had been suffering in silence. She had, until now, not been able to recall several things about the night she escaped. Before those memories were so vivid that they’d keep her up at night, but here, she couldn’t even remember if she had the strength in her to actually pull the trigger. Had she been too scared? Was she really free, or did she have to constantly look over her shoulder? Was everything she’d done to cement herself as her own person for nothing? She’d been so... confused, and the constant reminders of her captivity during her time in Theorillia only exacerbated those feelings.
But now, as she lets herself slide down the trunk of the tree, she remembers. Her head thrums with pain as it all rushes back, but she remembers. She did pull the trigger, and she’d watched as his limp body dropped to the courtyard tiling. She’d escaped him. Maya exhales in relief, and then takes another deep breath. She fights to keep her composure, but she fails as her next inhale falls into a sob.
Face hidden against her knees, the Siren lets herself cry for the first time in years.
All that stress she’s accumulated comes to a rolling boil. Her frustration with being used again, her anger at willingly coming into this situation, her despair over nearly being drowned and now, her confusion as her house burns down in front of her. Not even she can keep it all from falling off the sides, so.. she cries, and she cries hard.
Time passes. Her quarters split and crumble into ashes. Her tears had long run dry, and she was left to sit in aching silence by herself. She’d been repeating that bang in her head, staring at the fading embers the whole while. Her eyes and lungs hurt, but still, she rises to her feet as the last wooden beam falls. Once again, she is left to pick up the pieces, alone.
Not much seemed to survive the fire. Even less would’ve if it wasn’t for the fact that so many of her personal belongings were fire proofed. She frowns as she looks at all the burned books, ruined furniture, and a... cracked vase. Using her phaselock, she picks up chunks of wood and tosses them to the side, trying to find what little was left. As expected, this didn’t bear much fruit, but she takes solace in knowing that her guns, as well as whatever was left in her bags, was safe.
Over time, her lawn becomes littered with what she can find, and eventually she comes to stand among all her sad little prizes. Her makeup is smeared, smoke clings to her hair, and she could really use a bath with how much char is on her hands, but she can’t find the energy to care. A ways away, she hears more distress. People calling for one another, and trying to save their things before everything comes crashing down. She rivets her eyes shut, before heaving a labored sigh and plucking her still much too hot guns out of the grass.
These things that were happening were bigger than her. She didn’t have the time to sit here and cry like a child. Her friends could be hurt, and there were people that needed help, and right now...
