abraxaslogs | 𝓣𝓱𝓮𝓻𝓮 𝓬𝓸𝓶𝓮𝓼 𝓪 𝓽𝓲𝓶𝓮 𝔀𝓮 𝓪𝓵𝓵 𝓴𝓷𝓸𝔀

[ It takes far fewer minutes than anyone might suspect. It's like losing balance, but she does not need the equilibrium of this body. It's silent; so silent, where that heartbeat should be, where so much 𝒾-𝓂-𝓅-𝑜-𝓈-𝓈-𝒾-𝒷-𝓁-𝑒 else should be; where the shallow breathing and chaos once exuding under the bed should be. Sabine stares at her hands too long, yet to any other rational being, maybe not long enough.

Her bare feet are still on the floor from pushing up from sleep.

Her eyes close. ]

𝐼 𝓃𝑒𝑒𝒹 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓉𝑜 𝒸𝑜𝓂𝑒 𝓉𝑜 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓇𝑜𝑜𝓂.

[ It's a sudden request from someone who doesn't ever request anything of him. Instinctively, he understands something isn't right. He doesn't bother with any back and forth for context. He's just there. It takes him a bit of extra maneuvering within the Gray Space once he reaches the Castle walls, the brooch doesn't bypass every ward - no one here is trusted that much, let alone a Summoned. But he makes it from one end of the city to the door to Jack and Sabine's room in a minute.

He knocks. ]

Sabine?

[ Sabine pushes herself to her feet, heedless of the fact she's still in what she slept in. Clothing is a concern of corporality, and what brief delight had struck that note for the past few weeks has doused like so many candles.

She knows these rooms,
she's walked these floors.

She doesn't mean this Thornian castle.
(Thorne is just another bed she's stuck in now.)
The door opens as easily as ever, and Sabine stands there. She looks up without feint or hesitation. A subdue straightness with her shoulders and spine set into a line and a truly unfamiliar—maybe even passingly not quite human—seriousness to her emerald eyes. Her mouth still hangs too long on his name and less on the second word. ]

Jack's gone.

Edited 2023-06-17 02:17 (UTC)

[ Nothing that isn't human can keep up a human expression forever. He's been face to face with a half mad god, a murderous angel, and now her - for the first time he sees a flicker in the mask.

It's the last thing on his list of things to process right now, though.

He stares at her stupidly at first, as though she's speaking in a foreign language. Gone? No, he would know. Jack had managed to call out to him last time -

But he wouldn't be able to if it was like the others who've vanished.

(nothing but his own faith had tied him to Jack)

His mouth sets hard and without really thinking he bypasses her, flicking with one wrist a tear in space and entering the room from the inside without having to move her from the doorway. He doesn't know what he means to do once he's standing in the middle of the four beds, three of them presumably unoccupied since he moved out. And so for a second he just stands there, his face contorting in anger and grief. He shuts his eyes against both. His rough voice is a string pulled near to snapping. ]

You're sure?

[ He vanishes before her and the rip happens again behind her. Any day before today, maybe there would have been a delight to see this teleporting Jack had so affectionately maligned. Today, she pulls the door closed, leaning her back against it. His emotions are a bright, bold color against the silence—desperation painted in disbelief. Even envy of that sheer closeness to the reaction is too far from her. Sabine leaned her head against the door without moving toward him. This boy who thought her like a replacement for himself, and how strange it was, almost like she was swapped, instead as a replacement for Jack.

If he were home, she would rather wear his cage.
(Like the accident. Better it was her than him.)

But this skin is too tight, and it is all too close,

and part of her whole feels abruptly ripped out,

𝓶 𝓲 𝓼 𝓼 𝓲 𝓷 𝓰.

Honesty, bare and base, is all there is left. ]

I don't have a way not to be.

Edited 2023-06-17 03:24 (UTC)

[ She answers and he scrubs at his face, wringing the same hand through his hair and turning his back to her. Embarrassed for his own reaction. What right does he have to be so upset compared to her?

He hasn't been as kind to her as he could've, should've been. He'd kept them both at a distance because Jack was Jack and it seemed like what was best. He feels a sense of shame bubbling up, but that won't do anyone good against the backdrop of everything wrong, and so he pushes it aside.

He has always only been able to move forward.

Kahlil lets out a breath and turns to look at her, face and eyes reddened, his voice still strained but quiet. Sympathetic. ]

What will you do?

[ There's no judgement in levelness of her look for his grief taking place. She doesn't know if she's judging Kyle's grief as a thing in and of itself, though. She's never had anyone in that same position at the same time. Someone who understood how special Jack is. It's not the same; they were here for such a short time together; and this feels like an extra dream she dreamed between slices of knowing she was still trapped. Like five years in, she tripped and fooled herself. And this is remembering again.

But. He was real. They were real. They'd been in the same place.

It's still so close Sabine can taste it. Smell it. Hear it. Feel it.
Like she'd tried to tell him before she came here.
About time not being linear.

Sabine barely has to focus on the clawing, aching urge, and the echo of Jack is a blur everywhere behind and around Kyle within her field of vision. Reading a book on the bed. Getting dressed. Smiling at her and pulling her close. Telling her one of a hundred stories about everything before she came to this place, both here and at home. Sliding trays of food under the bed. Tucking his head into her shoulder, fingers tangled with hers, finally drifting off into some real sleep. The temptation to let herself bleed, blend, wake up in any memory now instead is—

Sabine has to blink that away.
Look at one of the empty beds.

Focus on one time.
Focus on her heartbeat.

The silence where Jack's should be. ]

I don't know. I doubt yelling at the Singularity about it will help, but it's real tempting right now.

Edited 2023-06-17 04:26 (UTC)

[ He scoffs. It's a harsh sound, but the harshness isn't directed at her. ]

It might feel good. [ He touches one of the bed posts, leaning his head against it. ] You go to the one in Horizon, I'll travel to the edge of the mountains.

[ It'll be nostalgic for him. Another lifetime.

It's not an actual suggestion, though.

He sighs, banging his head once lightly against the post and straightening again slightly. His chest still hurts. Being in the room isn't helping. It's funny how empty places can turn so suffocating. His shoulders sag for a second, then his face twists again. ]

No, I think - I'm going to my domain. [ Not to yell. He turns to her and grimaces, but offers: ] Meet me there.

[ Anywhere is better than here.

She can refuse, if she wants. But he's already moving to sit on the bed that used to be his. ]

[ She's started studying it. The Singularity. Often. At night, during the ones when Jack slept soundly for even a small handful of hours. Easily keeping tabs on him and drawing herself from the Horizon if he began to stir. There's a futility in the yelling. Or attempting to decimate the inversely filled crater.

When Kyle changes his mind, her head only cants.
Barely. Not enough to call it a shift.

She doesn't say she's never been there. This morning—trapped, again; Jack beyond her reach, again—she's done pretending she needs them to tell her anything, especially in the Horizon. That she hasn't already found and mentally accounted for where certain people are in that place. The stunning statuary temple-bound. ]

Alright.

[ Sabine pushed herself off the door and walked closer. Her gaze settled on her bed, their bed, the bed. The covers were strewn and half thrown back. Both pillows are still wrinkled from mussing, the weight of a head shifting upon it. And instead, she follows Kyle's lead. Steps instead toward the bed he'd chosen. Sitting a few feet from him and closing her eyes. There is no effort.

It doesn't even take a breath.
She's already in the Horizon. ]

[ He's surprised when she approaches him and settles in this bed instead of that one. It reads plainly across his features, but he doesn't protest.

He pulls into a cross-legged position, facing her, waiting until she's closed her eyes.

The process isn't as seamless for him. It takes him a minute to first calm down before entering the meditative state that whisks his mind to the other realm.

He appears at her side, wearing his vestments - the Hanged Man's symbol etched into one shoulder. Neither were ever a conscious choice. When he sees her at the temple doors he grabs hold of her hand. They don't need to walk to any particular secret door. He doesn't have her skill within Horizon, but he has his own familiarity with his domain after nearly a year building it.

They are at once within a completely different place. The small kitchen of a narrow two story house. It's clean and neat but lived in, worn. Rain is pattering against the windows, splashing on pavement from a bent metal gutter that needs fixing. The lights are all off, but a radio is playing softly from the counter, the DJ talking about some upcoming concerts. There's mail scattered on a small table. There's a cabinet with a padlock on it, and a humming refrigerator.

The kitchen attaches to a small living room, dotted with personal effects: VHS, DVDs, CDs all neatly stacked on cheap cases. An old tv sits on an equally old stand in front of a coffee table, ringed with old stains despite attempts to clean them.

Kahlil drops himself onto the beat up couch, watching the rain out the window.

Jack was the only other person who has ever been here. Right before they found the ones who escaped into the mountains, he'd appeared here. Sick and exhausted, but alive. Kahlil had never felt so relieved. ]

[ There's a bare second—when Kyle confidentially takes her hand—where Sabine almost dissolves her hand entirely at the touch, making herself less than a mist and stardust his hand would pass through. (The last person to touch her was—) But that urge passes. Even if the urge to be human is less than intact suddenly, she's not childish. Or petulant. Or rude.

She feels things. (Especially now.)
But not the same as them.

It's not the same as with Jack near.

She moves in his wake a step before catching up to his side. Gone is the dress from Thorne, and in its place, ripped skinny jeans, a loose-cut shirt hanging off one shoulder, with the symbol of The Empress going down the center of the front, bisecting the words of wild mythologies and legends. Her hair has shifted a shade even, rich dark royal purple twining highlights through the lower half of her red curls.

A triple layer to the room briefly appears when she steps into it.

On one, she's never been here because The Summoned hold their own domains and secrets, control absolute even if they are in the fledging infancy of understanding these kinds of spaces. On the second, the echo of Jack is still too near to this place; she could shift her gaze and find him again, but she doesn't yet. On the third, she has Jack's memory of being in this place, of all the places he's been since arriving, but she hadn't needed to thrift through them closely. Not with him there.

Sabine wades through them all, all three and a fourth at once, letting her gaze slide off these things. A first (even if it never can be). The modern appliances. The paint, ceilings, and flooring. It's loved; and sad, too. She nearly reaches out to run her fingers along the closest thing to her.

Her words are soft, even if they mean a time more than a place. ]

It looks like home.

Someone important to me lived here a long time ago.

[ He continues watching the rain against the window for a moment longer, feeling suddenly exhausted. Then, he turns to watch her as she observes the space. It's strange to see someone else here, after keeping it only for himself (and Rousma) for so long. She isn't here now, though if he thinks too hard about her she might appear. Jack had known about her too, hadn't judged him for the strange form she took or the fact that he didn't do the healthy thing and let her go. Burying his face in her fur would be a comfort right now, hearing her whisper little songs in his ear. But the Rousma of this space is given life by his mind, and has a funny habit of blurting out his secrets to strangers.

By all accounts, Sabine is a stranger in this most sacred space. It only doesn't feel that way because of Jack. ]

Who are you? [ he asks, when he means what are you? It's not an accusation. It's more like a plea. A need to understand now that the one who connected them isn't here anymore to translate. ]

[ Sabine's gaze shifts back to Kyle.

She could, without the pause of one breath, peel back that memory, walk through it—open it like a flower around herself, answer the ripples of it ebbing against her skin, all time past, present, future can be right now, he'd never even miss her because she'd never have left here either—but she doesn't.

She knows that feeling. Both in the pained plea of Kyle's voice and in the preciousness of Jack's care of it, even in his own mind, heart, feelings, and memories. All beings have things that are sacred, even if all of them can be so different as to be lightyears and universes apart. And he brought her here on less than a few sentences. An escape, an overture, but not fully free.

(Sabine?

Yeah?

What are you?

She can still feel every place
Jack's face fit into the cup of her hands.)

There is only a second. A weighted second. Jack chose him. (Kyle swore himself as Jack's protector.) Jack trusts him. (He cared for Jack to the point of heartache). She counts Kyle in thiers now. (Like Jerry, and Rosa, and at least a Benjamin.) She has no more or less remorse in this second than that. But she'd still rather she was telling Jack again right now. ]

A Keeper of That Which Is But Shouldn't Be.

Edited 2023-06-19 03:02 (UTC)

[ Of Jack, is his immediate thought, the answer most obvious to him. Jack had an impossible power. That was half of why Kahlil had been so certain that he was meant to protect him.

The other half was, well, Jack.

The wording of the title is familiar to him, though it might only be by coincidence. It feels like something that could be taken from old Payshmura tomes. His brow is still furrowed as he continues to watch her. ]

Are you of the divine?

[ Something like Lucifer and his brothers. A creation of a god, not of humanity but closer to His own power. It's the strangeness of her now, that not-quite-right that reminds him of Lucifer and Castiel. As though they don't completely inhabit this space, or weren't meant to. ]

Edited 2023-06-20 07:46 (UTC)

[ Sabine appreciates the directness of the connection,
an easy side step with Lucifer in the castle with all of them,
but her expression crinkles into a grimace.

Because the comparison has too many red-tape restrictions that don't apply.
Angel's with wings clipped, left in an abandoned but penned-in playroom universe,
and not even any knowledge of what might be outside of it. ]

That's .... complicated. And supposes too closely that 'the divine' is one specific type of thing.

[ Sabine doesn't know if she feels up to fully getting into the nitty-gritty of omniversal being-based perceptions of quantum mechanics and cosmological theory five minutes after waking up on the second worst day of these last six years. She does what she supposes will help most, and it's still more than she's given anyone not-Jack. She picks something closer to the knowledge the question seeks rather than a far bigger answer. ]

I am not a god or a god-made creation to be pulled one way or another at one of their wills.
I was born this way. Like my parents before me. And their parents before them.

[ The divine is the only framework he has.

Her answer is honest, though. And he accepts it with a small, serious nod. Even if he has many, many more question, for now it's enough just to confirm she is something else.

There's not much else to say, he thinks. When he suggested he follow her here, it wasn't for an interrogation. And he imagines neither of them are in the mood for talking. If she wants to be alone, she's welcome to leave. But he doesn't mind her staying. If she finds any solace in a place like 'home'. He doesn't know if she has her own domain, if she shared the gas station with Jack. If it'll disappear now that he's gone, or become something else.

He doesn't really want to think of that either.

There's room on the battered old sofa. Items to touch and sift through. He doesn't mind if she wants to touch them, he wouldn't have brought her here otherwise.

Or, they can just sit in silence, until one of them (likely him) drifts off to sleep. ]

[ He lapses silence, and though her reactions are not than human, there's a tension that triggers again in this one. Not about whether it bothers him or not, what she just said about herself, her family. No. It's. She hadn't lied when he asked, weeks ago that the prevailing experience of her coma was loneliness.

Tethered to the body she made and committed a life to, with Jack, for Jack. Even if their life, marriage, and children were her (their) preferential dream, he'd still been there less than he wasn't. And she'd still sent a message to Kyle while sitting in her bedclothes, next to the too-cool spot next to her, wrapped in the sheet, flooded with the silence of Jack's missing heartbeat—the ever-present ripple-whisper of his chaos, feelings, thoughts.

It's not panic. It's too ... removed for that. But she doesn't want to be alone yet. Even if the aloneness is screaming silence, no other thoughts and feelings can fill. Not even Kyle's. She's still not ready. And she's never had someone who might even in the slightest shred understand the feeling—the absence. Sabine walked toward the couch and sat gingerly on it. Her words just roll off. Something to place in one more silence. ]

Consider us—me—more of a Guardian. A Watcher. A Safe Keep.

A stop-gap between one planet, its universe,
and the god trying to eat it, and them.

Did Jack tell you about The Rift?

Edited 2023-06-20 23:07 (UTC)

[ He watches her sit, even shifts a little toward his end to make more room. His back presses against the hard arm - he could shift it to make it more comfortable, but he doesn't alter a single detail.

His brow furrows slightly - and then he lets out a light huff, almost amused. Something about her description is ironic to him. Maybe if she knows everything that Jack did, she'll understand. ]

He did... but it's been a while. [ Ten or so months. He swears he listened to everything Jack said, it's just that... a lot of it was confusing. He just trusted that Jack understand what he was talking about. ]

[ Sabine doesn't make any effort 'to get comfortable,' she's not sure that's a possibility right now. Even her skin feels wrong right now. Everything feels wrong. There's a void, jagged and gaping in every part of her, seen and unseen, and everything in her is stretching toward it, desperate for even the whisper of reaching him again—the way she did in her coma.

That was the same set of realms, but that doesn't mean she stops reaching.
She leans against the couch, looking at some absent space in the air. ]

Eons ago, the shard of an incomprehensibly powerful god that would become a god in its own right became the center of Jack's universe as it was just sparking into existence. Among other things, it, right on top of where the newborn god slept, opened a door across all the dimensions and multiverses to some of the worst, more optimistic beings. Around both, their Earth formed and grew.

Even as he drew them all to him, Earth remained a novelty. A playground. A cradle to rob and dump into. And right where that trafficking door sits, where the rift above the sleeping god who wants nothing but to enslave all races of beings in a deathless thrall of agony, sits my parents' gas station. Jack's now. Since they're—

[ Right at the pause, Sabine gives a shrug. It's not one of a different kind of grief mingling into this newest one. She wasn't worried about their car accident any more than she was that she'd 'died in her coma.' All it had done had freed her of the physical form she created and grew, connected herself so thoroughly to that it couldn't-wouldn't let go. ]

The first part sounds familiar. [ He lets out a self-deprecating sound like a short laugh, but quickly clarifies: ]

I don't think it's funny, all of that. Just, I'm used to having the strangest story in the room.

[ And then Jack started explaining everything to him. He lets out another breath, this one devoid of humor. He leans back a bit, staring at the ceiling. There a cracks in the paint, a stain in a corner he suspects is mold. ]

Did he know what you are?

[ She doesn't recoil at the laugh, but there's a faintly guilty expression for the expalnation. It's the perfect opening to ask. At the very worst time. And she could ask him to explain. Nudge gently at how strange is his then. But Sabine doesn't have that in her. Which is a lie. She does. She was born to. She can feel the precipice of the moment that would begin to explain why Kyle has the ring of the Impossible, the Shouldn't Be marked upon him, too.

But she doesn't want to push herself back into that box.
She did it for years. She did it for weeks once she died and was free.
She put everything Jack was doing, saving the world, before anything behind them. Herself.

She's tired of not taking a moment to feel—no matter that those feelings might not look like what anyone human assumes they should—the full gravity of it all, of having to do this again. Too soon. After he'd been right here. The question catches her off guard, still warring between which was the more right and for whom, and she looks down. She wants to nod, but it's not the entire truth anymore. ]

He did when I came from.
But Jack here wasn't from that time.

The events that brought me back to him haven't happened for him yet.

Edited 2023-06-24 20:48 (UTC)

[ She's been incredibly hard to read this whole time. But there's that little flash of guilt on her features, and the way she reacts to the question before giving an answer.

He did know - he forgets if it was Jack or her that told him, that their memories didn't line up. It's not so uncommon in this place. Whatever power pulls them to this world does so from many timelines, many versions of the same place. It's maddening to think about too hard, for too long. It's something he's familiar with, though, before he even came here. ]

Why do you think it chooses us like this?

[ Backwards and forwards and adjacent to each other. Why some lose connection, and others don't. Jack had seemed certain Kyle would leave one day, and there was nothing to do about it. Kahlil believed he wouldn't, because he was meant to be here.

Choose, he says, because he's one of the ones who believes the Singularity has a will and power over the Summoning beyond the ritual cast by the people of this world. ]

[ It. The Singularity. The presence that permeates everything in the world outside and here in the Horizon. A tint to the air and everything within it. Pulling at the edges of her, mingling, mixing, tugging at the ends of her hair and the farthest reaching parts of her. The one everyone whispers about in private rather than in public. Here, the Horizon, more than this world. They are good questions: why does it bring some of them from all across the omniverse, but never all of everyone, here?

(And it's echoing reflection;

Why does it send some of them away suddenly?)

There's a quiet, absolute seriousness to what she decides to say. Because every part of her knows she will fight tirelessly harder to understand the why of what it's taken from her than the one that was about bringing her, them, here. ]

I don't know.

But I'm working on it.

[ He stares at her for a long while, wondering how many Summoned have hoped to learn the same. He thinks of Julie, one of their talks from months ago, her frustrations. Some of them have stronger connections to it than others, but even so - it's like speaking to a god. Like praying. Like faith. ]

I'll pray that you succeed, one day.

[ From someone else the words might sound facetious. From him, they're genuine. He smiles at her, a little sadly. From the kitchen a yellow dog pads into the room, it's steps nearly silent. It sniffs the old carpet and then settles down by the coffee table to sleep. ]

[ Sabine's gaze shifts as the dog comes in, and there are a number of whisp-thin questions that bleed into and through her thoughts, but it settles quietly, curled by the table, at peace with a known location. It looks soft. It looks like it belongs.

That originless, unmoored ache all across spiderwebs more.
It's new. It's old. It's bright and hurts. It's cold and tired.
Sabine looks back, holding on to what she can do. ]

I can feel it here and out there.

And I've been going to it in here some nights.

Every time I touch it, I get a storm of images, colors, feelings.

[ He'd taken her statement of intent as just that, nothing more. He had no reason to suspect otherwise, even knowing she is something not human. Lucifer is a divine creature, but as far as Kahlil can tell he doesn't share a special link to the Singularity. Neither does Istredd, despite how much of his attention it holds, and being one of the few who has visited it in person.

So when she continues, his expression shifts - eyebrows raise in surprise before his features harden. There are two others he knows have a kind of connection to the Singularity. One is in Thorne with them right now, one is in the Free Cities. Both would be in danger if anyone of Abraxas knew about their connection.

And now there's her, too. ]

Does anyone else know? [ His voice is low, though it doesn't need to be here. Fearful. The dog raises her head to stare at Sabine. ]

[ The sudden focus and severity don't surprise Sabine. The first time a conversation around someone who touched the Singularity happened, a shield was placed around her and the other person. The second time, she'd asked for it to be used. But they're here already, and it's safer than the alternative to be avoided, even if Sabine hasn't decided whether it's truly safe here at all. A bubble of neutrality that could afford influence from both sides wasn't the same as safe. ]

Only Istredd.

[ She could leave it there. An esoteric admission in two words, but she decides at that moment not to. Sabine turns a little facing him more directly, leaning her arm against the back of the couch, trying not to think about how this, too, should be a conversation with Jack. It was supposed to be. When she figured it out right. How to mend time around it. ]

I went to him shortly after it started because I was already in his classes, and we'd talked briefly about the Singularity when I first arrive. I wanted a crash course in everything this world was willing to publically disclose about it, as well as the take of the only person that seems closest to being a Summoned scholar of it.

[ He's sitting up straight now, continuing to frown as she explains - thoughtfully, now: ]

He told you about the Queen's experiment, then? To attempt to transfer our connection to the Singularity into one of her people? [ Another grimace. ] According to the ones that were there, it failed. And as far as we know, it hasn't been attempted again. [ a short pause ] A Summoned who is still here - in Solvunn, Himeka, was friends with the one who's connection they attempted to tamper with. You can talk to her about it, just... understand the ones who were first here two years ago went through something worse than we do now.

[ Himeka didn't seem to outwardly mind Kahlil's questions about Relena, but he still dislikes giving out the names of people who have given him sensitive information. In this case, he tells Sabine because of the danger she's putting herself in. Her need to gather more information. ]

The factions are Summoning beings of immense power. Some near god-like in power. But that means nothing to them. Thorne doesn't seem to care about the power that we arrived with. They only need us for our connection to the Singularity, our ability to get close to it.

[ A lot of people arrive and don't understand that. He didn't understand it. How could they, when the factions don't even let them near it - instead keeping them like prized horses in a stable. ]

Solvunn believes the Singularity birthed all gods and worlds. It would be... [ he gives a humorless huff ] ... would have been sacrilegious in my own world to consider anything above our god. But I believe he must have allowed me to be Summoned here. And that there is a connection between all these worlds and divine powers.

[ Hi, Sabine. Your boyfriend was friends with a religious fanatic. ]

[ (Is that better or worse than being besties with a hedonistic cultist?
One is a fluke; two is a pattern. Neither has given her cause to worry, at least.)

Sabine nods with his question and through his explanation. She's been through a handful of them now. Julie's vicious and capricious protectiveness of her knowledge of the beginning here. Istredd's intense, professional warnings and curiosities; his want to observe. To Kyle's now, a sharpened edge of his focus and concern, too. The difference between both of them is the way he translates the beliefs of the faction locations through the lens of his own beliefs.]

He did. Istredd also mentioned that I should tell as few people as possible for now and maybe forever. [ There's—it's not a careful breathe and consideration—just a flat directedness to the words that follow. ] But Jack trusted you, and he doesn't trust many people— [ Not all the way down. Not with all of him. And with too much good reason. ] —so I'm choosing to trust you with it, too.

[ She makes a note on Himeka's name, too, and the potential of contacting her.
It's easy enough—and no lie—to reach out based on her Singularity Study alone. ]

[ She says Jack trusted you, and there's a mix of emotions across his expression, too muddled to really work out. His mouth becomes a tight line and he looks down at his hands in his lap, eyebrows raised. ]

He saw parts of my past. Things I never intended to share with anyone. [ A pause, and he glances up at her again. ]

He took all the terrible things I've done in stride.

[ Didn't blame him for any of it. A first in his life - in his life.

(not the other one). ]

[ It's not really the place and time to tell him she knows, both that he did and what was shared. That she has all of the memories of all time around Jack, from his childhood until last night. That the post-cognitive awareness flooded into her around all of the time she hadn't been here to watch over him in this place. Little by little, it builds the feeling that questions whether she might. Tell Kyle. Someday.

If the trust she's placed in him, in even such a small admission, pans out as she assumes it will. It's never been a thing she did. It was never something anyone else knew until she needed their dreams and memories to get her messages to Jack.

And giving it over for free, without necessity.
That was an even stranger consideration. ]

He's good at that after all he's been through.

[ Not that he allows himself to see it.
Or keep the memories of the moments he does. ]

[ tba. ]

Sabine's interest and time investment within the Horizon at the Singularity for the month of May turns over in June to her arranging with Istredd to officially join the Singularity Study in Thorne. She constantly moves between studying it from tomes, all those willing to speak with her, Istredd's experiences, and taking that information to the source. Sabine spends her nights, unconcerned with the need to sleep, inside the Horizon, at the Singularity, reaching out to it.

Caught in the sway of Jack's vanishing—the new absence; the old familiar emptiness—Sabine purposefully places herself out of direct line with other patrons at the site. Often she disperses her mental form into something smaller: a butterfly with her Arcana painted down its back; a faint swirl of sparkling light or bubbles in the shape of The Empress, so on. When in a fully visible human appearance, she can most often be spotted sitting cross-legged, high above in the center of the circular opening of the towering relic, or on the very top with her hands gently pressed to it in front of her crossed legs.

Her eyes remain closed, and she focuses on untangling the new memory visions she gets every time she touches it. For the Singularity itself, Sabine keeps a gentle, persistent entreaty of greeting, of willingness to connect across the bounds outside the walls of physical, even mentally-physical, space.

~*~

When Sabine is not at the crater, she can be found exploring the Summoned-Created Horizon locations, still charmed at all the things the people brought to this space have created for themselves. So much of it rings of memories, pulsing all around her. Though each might be dark or light as she passes them, interest suffuses her at their creations.

Edited 2023-06-20 05:23 (UTC)

Sabine had decided not to give it much time once she decided. Istredd had been forthright in his knowledge and the names of those she might learn more from the first time they'd spoken, and he was a receptive teacher to the open classes she'd started attending. This last week she'd been quieter than her first month, now that Jack had vanished, yet seemingly she put even more focus into learning the magic offered instead.

She waits after the latest class, staying when the room disperses.

"Do you have a moment?"

Istredd noticed Jack being missing fairly soon afterward; it's difficult to not notice in Thorne, when every Summoned is already watched closely. And once you get used to seeing someone every day, their absence is felt. He tries hard not to dwell when people go, even if it makes him sad, because obsessing over it will only make moving forward difficult. He'll miss Jack though. He always found him easy to be around.

He doesn't know her history with Jack, he's never been privy to it, but he did catch on that they were close. Her quiet since his departure has been noted but Istredd is willing to distract her as much as she needs with other topics. It's what he would need, to keep from dwelling.

"Yes, of course." Istredd has Academic Magic books that he stacks after each lesson, not everyone wants to take them back to their rooms, and Thorne prefers knowing where they are. "What can I do for you, Sabine?"

"I wanted to talk to you about the Singularity again."

There is no brush beating and no hesitation. If anything, her quiet comes with martial professionalism, paces distant and exacting, even from only a handful of feet away. "I remember you mentioned that you were studying it, and I find myself very interested in the same after the last two months."

Especially the last one. Since going to the singularity. Since laying her hand against it, saying the first of many gentle entreaties to the omnipresence. Since the flood back, that day and every day she touched it after, was an overwhelming ocean of blurry dreamlike vision, chaotic colors, and emotions all intensely overlapping, nothing able to be separated from the rest yet.

Edited 2023-06-23 23:29 (UTC)

"It should be a subject of great interest to all of us, being the center of magic in this world, and possibly all worlds, and something only we have a connection to." Istredd knows that not everyone is interested in the same things he is, he's a historian so usually he likes boring things (to everyone else), but the Singularity is far from boring.

"Theoretically, if it is connected to all our universes, it may be the most important entity in existence." But he may be biased! Istredd spends regular time at the Singularity, he sits there as he reads or writes, and while he's never really felt a connection the way she or Rhy does, it still feels calming. "I have everything collected I've learned about in Abraxas written down, and I have a bigger version in my Horizon library."

Because he only writes down what he wants Thorne to be allowed to see out here. He can't trust them. Istredd creates his sound-cancelling bubble around them, like he did the first time, to indicate what they have to talk about is private. "Thorne tried to experiment on the Summoned before to steal their connection to the Singularity. It didn't work. They're paying close attention to us."

"Could I borrow books from your library? I spend most nights at the Singularity right now, and I would be glad to start reading up on what you consider the most important to start with while I'm there. I would return them each time before coming back?"

If he hasn't seen her, especially these last weeks, it's no surprise. She often sloughs off the mental-based appearance of her body within the Horizon while reaching out to it or trying to untangle the dream-visions. It wouldn't be wrong to assume some part of it has to do with not having to bear with the company—and the need therein to act in a non-concerning human fashion—since Jack's disappeared.

Sabine looks in a slow, graceful arc to where everything around them shifts with the net of magic thrown around them, and she chooses to add quietly. "I think it's going to be important for me to learn this and things related to protecting spaces soon, too."

Edited 2023-06-28 16:51 (UTC)

"Of course. I sit there and read sometimes too." Istredd likes visiting the Singularity. His visit to the actual one hurt a great deal and while he was excited to be there, it drained him and made all of the magic users ache. So it is safer and more relaxing in the Horizon. "If you want to write any thoughts or how you feel being there and put it down, you should."

Most people don't go there or don't feel anything special, but some of them do. Istredd is roughly on the 'can't really feel anything special but still feels connected' side.

"I know the Abraxan version of them, I can teach you." Istredd didn't only learn the Abraxan magic that was new to him, he learned everything he already knew but connected to this sphere. It is the best way to teach new people and also to give himself a secondary option. "Abraxan magic is both more fluid and more rigid, it's an interesting combination. The spells themselves are very specific, but there are a lot more options."

He's said before that it's a good thing the Brotherhood couldn't get their hands on magic like this. They would probably try to bleed it all dry if possible. Istredd often is amazed at how it feels, magic pulsing around them all day every day.

"Be careful not to spend all your life there, Sabine." Istredd is very serious about that. "This may not be as pleasant of a place, but it is what we have to live with." He doesn't want her to waste away, lost in a fantasy realm.

Sabine doubts that she'll spend her life there.
Less than the fluttering of a blink in the long run.

It's a necessary step in understanding this place, which is a necessary step in abandoning this place. Not for nothing, but with all the lack of importance or investment of removing a shirt, she's already debated the equation of ending this body and whether that would return her or at least free her to far more travable realms across the omniverse.

Her words are chosen without reflection on those. An even keel, and the faintest of eyebrows raised, as she says lightly the one thing she knew she would need to in this conversation. The one he'd likely find most important, even though it hadn't surprised her in the least.

"I have to figure out what it's trying to tell me first."

Both eyebrows raise. "It's been connecting with you? With Rhy it's with emotions, is it the same?"

Rhy did tell him a little bit about it, especially leading up to their visit there. It is part of why Istredd invited him to come, just in case having a Singularity favorite would help them get somewhere. Istredd never had proof that it worked outside of Rhy having a different and less painful experience than the rest of them.

As far as he knows the Singularity doesn't form words which would make sense from what he does know about it. Even if it had a language, it probably is not something that could be told to them. It may not be an entity that speaks at all.

Sabine nods—a single, solemnly serious, clipped thing.

"There are emotions, but also a tangle of images and colors."

It's like stumbling into someone's dream who never had eyes and was never taught a language, except that, for Sabine, none of those things are barriers. There's so much more to sentient life than the small perceptions of human beings. She never expected anything about it to be human-like, just like she never expected not to be able to reach it—because she isn't human at all either.

There're no edges, and she hasn't found an amalgam of translation, but this is barely a drop in the bucket since it started. The first page of the introduction, is before the prologue or the novel beginning. "It's nothing definite yet, but it's there, and there's no hesitation when I reach out to touch it."

He is genuinely surprised. "Images and colors too? That's new." Rhy has always said it was feelings or a sense. He wonders if the other woman, Julie, has her own experience too. Does the Singularity react to these special people in different ways? Perhaps that makes sense. They're all individuals.

His eyes are bright, completely focused on what she's saying, hungry for details that he won't be able to get. This is the only way to it. "Outside of Rhy, there is a woman named Julie. Jack accidentally outed their connection to the network a few months ago."

Istredd did scold Jack, gently, at the time, since it seems like the kind of thing people could use for ill against these unique individuals. "I met her briefly when I was sitting with the Singularity. She has pink hair and she spoke with familiarity about it." Which may give Sabine some knowledge about more than one person to talk to, if they haven't already bonded over it. Istredd sort of spooked her with his enthusiasm, which is not new.

He pauses and looks around. "We should go in. There is something else."

𝓣𝓱𝓮𝓻𝓮 𝓬𝓸𝓶𝓮𝓼 𝓪 𝓽𝓲𝓶𝓮 𝔀𝓮 𝓪𝓵𝓵 𝓴𝓷𝓸𝔀

ᴋʏʟᴇ { ᴡᴇ ᴀʀᴇ ᴋɴᴇᴇ-ᴅᴇᴇᴘ ᴡɪᴛʜᴏᴜᴛ ᴀ ᴘʟᴇᴀ

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if this isn't enough to respond to lmk!

This is PERFECT. Also, I love silent tags, so never worry about that.. <3

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𝓣𝓱𝓸𝓻𝓷𝓮.

𝓗𝓸𝓻𝓲𝔃𝓸𝓷.

[𝓒𝓵𝓸𝓼𝓮𝓭] 𝓘𝓼𝓽𝓻𝓮𝓭𝓭. 𝓔𝓪𝓻𝓵𝔂 𝓙𝓾𝓷𝓮.

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