[He cannot know what's happening to him until it's too late, even if his incident with Thancred's memory has already set a precedent. This is all still too new, too sudden, and without context, they cannot know what is causing it. Their close proximity to the Singularity just days before? Something about the thaumametors that Ambrose conveniently forgot to mention? Another outside influence, ripping their memories from their minds and letting them settle in someone else's head? Why? How?
As before, he finds himself debilitated by it. Barely kept standing, some unconscious part of his mind anchoring himself against Yennefer's touch, perhaps the only thing that keeps Stephen from pitching straight into the ground.
(What is this? Running, running, screaming, voices in his mind telling him that it's gone, he's lost it. His magic is gone--no, her magic? The lines are blurred, they're one and the same now--and there is no way to get it back. The rain pelts against him, the sky is grey and heavy and suffocating in these moments of desperation. His hands sting; his palms are bloody.
Words that would summon magic do not come. The space in front of him that should whir to life with a portal remains empty. Once again, in that dimly aware part his brain somehow still active in this wayward memory, it reminds him too much of his own scarred hands beyond this place. That feeling of uselessness after his injury, cutting deep, hollowing him out from his core.
The scream is not his own, but it might as well be. He's felt this way before, in almost every degree, and in that whirl of frustration, anger, hopelessness, desperation, he understands, because he has he knows what it is to have lost everything.)
Stephen.
Her voice jolts him back into reality--or maybe it's merely the severance of the memory finally freeing him--and when he opens his eyes, he's a sensation of daggers behind his eyes. His head may burst on the spot, and he hisses out a curse under his breath, disoriented. The whiplash from her memories to now might as well have set the world at a tilt.]
Yen... Yennefer. Your... [Words feel clumsy on his tongue.] Your magic, you were running-
no subject
As before, he finds himself debilitated by it. Barely kept standing, some unconscious part of his mind anchoring himself against Yennefer's touch, perhaps the only thing that keeps Stephen from pitching straight into the ground.
(What is this? Running, running, screaming, voices in his mind telling him that it's gone, he's lost it. His magic is gone--no, her magic? The lines are blurred, they're one and the same now--and there is no way to get it back. The rain pelts against him, the sky is grey and heavy and suffocating in these moments of desperation. His hands sting; his palms are bloody.
Words that would summon magic do not come. The space in front of him that should whir to life with a portal remains empty. Once again, in that dimly aware part his brain somehow still active in this wayward memory, it reminds him too much of his own scarred hands beyond this place. That feeling of uselessness after his injury, cutting deep, hollowing him out from his core.
The scream is not his own, but it might as well be. He's felt this way before, in almost every degree, and in that whirl of frustration, anger, hopelessness, desperation, he understands, because he has he knows what it is to have lost everything.)
Stephen.
Her voice jolts him back into reality--or maybe it's merely the severance of the memory finally freeing him--and when he opens his eyes, he's a sensation of daggers behind his eyes. His head may burst on the spot, and he hisses out a curse under his breath, disoriented. The whiplash from her memories to now might as well have set the world at a tilt.]
Yen... Yennefer. Your... [Words feel clumsy on his tongue.] Your magic, you were running-