there are nights you say you don't remember [open!]

[tedandroses]

Who: Teddy and (you?)
When: backdated from just post-Event through May (and into the first weeks of June if it works better for where you want to run into Teds!)
Where: Around Solvunn, in the Horizon, Nocwich
What: Post-event feels; May-early June catchall
Warnings: Nothing major: some feelings of derealization. Re-remembering distressing events. If that needs to be upgraded I'll mention in the subject lines.


Teddy opens her eyes, blinking. The sky was falling down, and --

Their cheek is pressed into the dust, hard against the rock, and when they try to push themself to a sit, it feels like they haven't used their joints in -- they were thinking years, but no, that's wrong; the whole thing was wrong. They were trying to wake up. They were trying to...

Oh. Oh god.

It comes crashing back like a wave: the storms, the crater, the fog. And the memories. All the memories Teddy still -- or can now recall -- the terror of knowing they were losing. Pushed roughly to the forefront: not just the things they'd lost but those they'd given up to Sam in desperation to not lose it forever.

Sam -- Teddy shouldn't even know Sam. Much less, feel the instinctive urge to thank him as he's hit by an onslaught of memories of his home and family that tumble over each other so intensely he sits back down hard. He shouldn't know -- so much -- about so many things --

People are moving. People are telling them things; their voices don't feel like real sounds, but some part of Teddy's brain interprets it for her, and she gets back to her feet and allows herself to be directed toward the carts going to Solvunn. Her eyes catch on even more familiar forms, even beloved, heading in other directions, and she knows she's never looked at them here: can feel that her body recalls but does not know being embraced, jostled, laughed with.

That knowing feels like a great wave lifting them off their feet and shoving them underneath the water over and again. (They shouldn't know what the ocean feels like.) They want to be sick. They want to scream. They can't do any of it: just let it roll them over. They sit, silent and finally, blissfully unthinking for the ride. It's not until they're back in Solvunn, safe under blankets, that they burst into stifled, hiccuping sobs until they can't breathe.


Far above, the Abraxas skies are blue and cloudless like Teddy's never seen.

>> HORIZON
>> SOLVUNN
>> NOCWICH

[OTA! If there's nothing that catches your eye/you want something slightly different let me know at wingedvoices and I'll start one!]

Comments

[tedandroses]

SOLVUNN

Something Teddy has learned -- and that their body knows before their mind does, sometimes -- is that finding something to do, to help with, to fix is much better for them than thinking about whatever it is that's bothering them.

Even though there's a part of him that stubbornly wants to lie around just another day, sit with the heaviness of everything he gained and lost over him like a blanket, he feels guilty and restless after just a little while.

Besides, Teddy needs to get the ritually-blessed tea that serves to (and as far as she can tell, relatively effectively) keep her seizures at bay. She really ought to check on the family that runs the little store downstairs, too -- an odd thought, Teddy realizes wryly, when it's they and their neighbors who were a large part of her going so easily to the Singularity and -- well, they're fine, sort of, and it worked, didn't it?

But it's unsettling, thinking that they've lost weeks, and what if --
Maybe they're not all fine, anyway: Teddy'd said he was going to ask around about anyone who might have showed up unexpectedly or might have gotten left behind, and he intends to.

And yet, regardless of those what-ifs, Teddy does still care. In the few weeks before all of that, they'd settled into Solvunn as a whole. Caring about their neighbors has never been something that extended only to good friends for Teddy, and these are their neighbors.

It does feel better, anyway, to get out into the sun -- to actually see Solvunn in the sun. She sits and sips her tea, people-watches for the length of it. She takes note of where things are still fallen down, in need of repair, or where people look extra harried.

For the next few weeks, that becomes their routine: offering a hand where they can, playing that game of oh I couldn't ask that of you/it'd be no trouble; I'd welcome something to do/well if you're sure, now, if you could just for a moment -- that's almost a first language to them. Corralling kids too young to be in school while their mothers work on something, keeping them busy with a game or a song; fixing a fence; running errands: whatever they can do to fill the days.

It keeps Teddy busy, and it gets him better acquainted with who works where and who knows who; he does ask about people being left behind or showing up unexpectedly (this, unfortunately, gets nothing but slightly concerned looks and assurances that no one would let that happen, but no useful information).

She also starts to recognize names and hear a little bit of gossip this way too: snatches about the Council, and the school, and a visiting healer whose name seems familiar but not in a way Teddy can put a finger on. She's usually quiet and industrious while she works unless someone wants to talk, and she files the information for later.

It's easy to startle them while they're working. More than once, Teddy's thrown themself full force into a chore or an errand instead of thinking, and jumped nearly out of their skin when someone came close or said their name. "Sorry, just -- focused," they apologize with a slightly rattled grin, and turn to see who wants them.

He starts to spot people, too: some that he knows he spoke to at the meetup at the tavern, and others that they know they didn't.

Later, as it gets toward evening, when they're not in the middle of a promise, they'll circle back, hoping to catch a familiar face.