🌒︎ closed

[thoughts]

Who: river & friends
When: late may/june
Where: castle thorne, the horizon, & nocwich
What: post-event and june catch all!
Warnings: canon-typical warnings apply!

[ ooc: as always, please take a look at river's opt-in/opt-out post to let me know how you'd like me to handle her psychic powers around your character, especially as her mental state becomes more volatile. hover over any chinese text for a translation. feel free to reach out to me at ragemarshmallow on discord or ragemarshmallow if you'd like a starter! ♡ ]

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CLOSED ✦ cassian

[thoughts]

[ river does not know how long it's been since their return from the singularity's crater. eight hundred years that never happened passed in three weeks, only for them to be brought back to castle thorne as if nothing ever changed.

it's too much to process. but the onslaught of memories comes, leaving her with no other choice but to try. days turn into weeks as she stays secluded to her room, barely even noticing the people that come to check up on her. she's at least started to eat and bathe at cassian's insistence, things she had left behind along with her mortality only to learn that her human body still needs it to survive.

all the while, she hasn't said a word. time has escaped her in a daze ( floating in delirium, as it were ) and there's nothing particularly remarkable about today out of all the rest.

but as she sits in her bed where she's remained stationary for most of this lost time, she finally addresses the other person in the room with her directly. ]

Kassa.

[ her brother. her friend. her partner in crime or a stranger from another universe. who are they to each other now, after all that has and hasn't happened? she turns to face him with eyes dulled by exhaustion, looking at him as though she isn't quite sure he's really there. ]

Can I still call you Kassa? Or is it Cassian? Or Alyx?

[ those names always seemed wrong somehow, but everything is different now. she doesn't know how they're supposed to move forward from here, so she may as well start by asking. ]

[diametrically]

[ River doesn't need to know how long its been since because Cassian has been keeping time. Almost obsessively as if it were some tether to reality ensuring that he didn't risk drifting again.

Whether he intends her to be (and whether or not she wanted that in return), River has also inadvertently become a tether as well. He counts the time in hours and minutes, but he also counts it in other ways: the number of books he brings back from the library to read to her, the plates of food and cups of water that he tries to coax her to eat that remain mostly untouched, and the deep breaths she takes signaling that she's finally fallen asleep. He's never enjoyed the sound of his own voice, preferring silence in most cases. But the silence that settles between them is filled with her despondence and his worry; it's a sound that he quickly decides that he doesn't like.

The last of the books he's borrowed from the library this week is set aside on the ten stack beside him. It should almost be dinner time. But before he can say as much River's voice startles him. Relief mingles with heartbreak at seeing her like this reaches across his face. Unable to help himself he pulls her into a hug, his body moving before he can stop it or consider that she may not want to be touched. After a moment he responds to her question, voice heavy with emotion. ]

Alyx was never my name to begin with.

[ It was something he could detach himself from and give to those that didn't deserve to call him by his name. Something to be used in public but not in private. ]

If you want to call me Cassian or Kassa, it's fine. Whatever you want to call me is your choice.

[thoughts]

[ he was becoming that tether for her before unreality came crashing down over their heads. there's a certain irony to it. river spent her first months in abraxas trying to convince herself any of it was real, and now she's right back to questioning everything.

cassian pulls her into a hug and it feels real. his warmth, the sound of his voice, the beating of his heart. his relief and sadness and the exhaustion that he has always carried on his shoulders. it all seems real - but she had come to know these things about him in months and years and centuries that never happened, in a world that may not exist.

cassian jeron andor. kassa. she called him gēgē too, and the thought fills her with such profound confusion and shame.

she doesn't hug him back, her body staying limp like a puppet with its strings cut, but she does bury her face in his shoulder as she starts crying quietly. ]

You said you wouldn't leave. You promised.

[ and she knew even then not to believe him. she is his tether and he was her anchor, but neither of them was strong enough to keep each other from blowing off course. ]

[diametrically]

I know. I'm sorry.

[ There is no apology, no number of excuses that will make up for the wrongs he's done to her - for the wrongs that this or her home has done to her - but he does so in spite of that. And he'll continue to do so in actions rather than words to show her that he is.

This is a slippery slope and he understands that somewhere in the back of his mind but maybe he's already caught in a landslide of his own making. From the moment they had both arrived here in Thorne, the ground had already begun to slip beneath their feet and they were both trying to find even ground any way they could. Guilt weighs heavy on his consciousness knowing that his mind had River effectively replaced Kerri, and thanks to Istredd, he now knows that River feels similarly.

His head leans lightly against hers, allowing her weight to lean fully on him. Quietly, it's his way of telling her that he's here. He's here if that's what she wants. ]

For everything I've done to you, you have every right to tell me to leave.

[thoughts]

[ the mere thought of it fills her with such intense fear that river clings to him suddenly, keeping her face hidden against him as her hands grip tightly into the fabric over his back. ]

Please, don't. Don't go.

[ not again. the pain of losing him a dozen times is still too raw, whether or not it was ever real. her shame and sorrow for forgetting simon is paired with the knowledge that she has always needed her brother. her closest friend, the one who saved her when no one else believed she needed saving, that takes care of her now that she is broken beyond repair and there is no returning to the life they once knew -

she needs him. but simon isn't here. for all of his faults and flaws, cassian has been there since the moment river was pulled through the fountain in thorne. he's taken care of her in all these weeks of her near-catatonic state, the pile of books he's read to her towering high even as his voice failed to reach her through the storming in her mind.

everything they've been through is too much to process, but in the face of eight hundred years of memories too heavy to hold, there is one thing river can say for certain. ]

I don't want to end up alone.

[ and alone, she was. it was by choice, by necessity for the nature of her delirium and the immense power that consumed her whole. she isolated herself from her friends, from those she came to consider her family - things she never truly had in the world she came from - and all of humankind. she refused to let most anyone touch her and she spent centuries hidden away in the horizon.

she missed cassian for every single day in nearly a millennium, both in her desperate search for his stardust and as they walked in separate planes on the other side of catastrophe, only ever crossing paths when all was in ruins.

in the face of eight hundred years of memories too heavy to hold, she only knows how much she does not want that future for herself and that she needs her brother. so she clings to him and weeps, swallowing the shame of knowing that cassian is not simon and that she still needs him anyway. ]

Please don't leave me behind.

[diametrically]

[ The strength of her grip is always deceiving and the desperation in her voice threatens to continue fracturing his heart. Before they had godhood thrust upon them, he had told Yennifer that him being by River's side had always been and would always be her choice. While he can no longer deny that she is just as important to him, his existence in the lives of those around him is more harmful than good. Life has shown him that time and time again. And if he takes any stock in that dream they'd had, it might very well take him eight hundred years to unlearn bad habits that were ingrained in his bones.

But - ]

I won't. I'm here. I won't go anywhere you can't follow.

[ Cassian has always been a practical man. He knows that promises like this are lofty, understands with startling clarity that if he should be sent home that would make the promise he's making a moot point. If he couldn't keep them in his galaxy, then how could he keep them here? He had failed Kerri. He had let Maarva down. And the promise to Bix and Brasso and Bee? It threatened to join the myriad of broken promises he'd made in his life. But he wouldn't do it again. Not after Maarva. Not to Kerri (because he refuses to believe that his sister is scattered and lost to the stars), to Bix, to Brasso and Bee.

Not to River.

So despite his rational mind he seals his fate, willingly. Wholeheartedly. Because he couldn't ignore the way his bones ached at the thought of her terrified, alone and scared. Because even though she wasn't his sister by blood, they were inexplicably tied to one another now. And he would never turn his back on those that were important to him. He would find a way to get her home, back to her brother no matter the consequence to him. He draws in a breath, hugging her tight. ]

I promise.

CLOSED ✦ henry

[thoughts]

[ when river falls into henry's dreams one random evening, several weeks after their return from the alternate reality, it's entirely unintentional. she was just thinking about him, memories of the time she spent under his thrall ( didn't, it didn't happen, none of it was real - or was it? ) buzzing through her mind. perhaps it makes sense, given the chaotic nature of her magic and the twisted bond between them.

a power she never held as a human girl before everything ( did or didn't happen ) awakens with a yawn and reaches for him, tapping into his mind and taking hold of his dreams. without thought or intention on river's part, her magic subconsciously brings them to the same place they found each other every time she felt called to his side.

it starts like this:

henry finds himself alone in a forest. the trees are covered in rot, the air is noxious and thick with spores that seem to fall endlessly from nowhere, and the perpetually black sky is lit up by sporadic cracks of lightning. he could walk for hours in any direction without finding a human structure within the corrupted fauna, yet he might still recognize it in that inexplicable way of dream logic.

it's not the upside down of hawkins, indiana - it's the forest outside of hawkyn, a place that only ever existed within their minds. but they created it together, and if he walks for long enough or looks for those connections, he'll eventually find her standing amidst the trees.

it's not serenity, the black shroud surrounded by starlight that once lived here in the chaos with him - it's the girl, river, wandering through the forest in a daze of her own. henry might see her walk behind one tree without reappearing on the other side, only to catch sight of her further away walking in the opposite direction.

maybe she's looking for him or maybe she's lost. maybe they both are. but the dream continues in this general fashion, left open for henry to decide what he's going to do next in this maze of their own making. ]

BODYSLAMS IN HERE finally

[vecna]

[He knows the spores, he knows the lightning, doesn't he? Doesn't he? Faraway, like a dream, all things are blurry along the edges -- registering in his cognizance and yet only so very, very delayed. He wanders.

For what feels like hours.

And then, starlight through the trees. Is she lost? Is he? Frustration tries to boil, as it always does when something doesn't go his way, and-

That flame doesn't spark. Henry's just curious. He approaches, his footsteps crunching through dark detritus beneath.]

River?

[He calls out, first and foremost. Does she hear him?]

yessss

[thoughts]

[ river feels like she's been wandering for ages - for entire lifetimes. in search of him, or in search of answers, or both maybe. either way, she startles when she hears his voice echo through the corrupted forest. it sounds a million miles away but then he's there right behind her. ]

Henry?

[ is it really him? which version of him is it, the god or the man? she frowns slightly, not upset but confused. ]

Is this home? Or are we still dreaming?

[ or is this a new dream? she honestly can't tell right now, but a part of her is still relieved to see him here. ]