abraxaslogs | EVENT #7: THE SIGHT

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EVENT #7: THE SIGHT

Event #7 - The Sight

go to the OOC event info and plotting post

The night before APRIL 18, your dreams are disrupted by a vivid image of the same eclipse that occurred last month. The black sun seems to be an endless void in the sky, growing ever darker - until it suddenly opens into an eye that stares straight at you.

When you wake up, much of your night seems a blur except for the vivid dream of that eye. Whether you find it unsettling or try to ignore it, the image is something you cannot get out of your mind. If you ask, you will discover that none of the locals of your faction saw another eclipse. Speak with your fellow Summoned, however, and you may learn that while there was no eclipse that formed over the world, you were not the only one who had this dream.

Of course, dreams don't need to mean anything. You can't feel or see any immediate effects, and nearly everyone around you is going about their day as usual. Maybe you should do the same.

The Awakening

It might happen that very morning or a day or two later. You could be discussing the dream with a fellow Summoned or perhaps you simply brush shoulders with them as you walk by. Whatever it is, as soon as you make brief physical contact, one of you is struck with a sharp pain in your temple that grows into a terrible headache. It's disorienting and painful as the world around you shifts to someplace you may or may not recognize. Like an old film reel, you watch the events of the past play out before you: the past of the other Summmoned. It might be something they would rather hide, a moment of failure or despair, or something they are immensely proud of and brings them great joy - or even a jumble of several images over the course of a person's life. But you see it as if it were real and right in front of you all the same. When you come to, you'll likely find yourself on the ground or bent over, possibly with one or more people around you to see if you're okay. It'll take you a bit to gather your bearings, and the subsequent pounding in your head could last from minutes to hours.

Or, maybe you aren't the one who receives the vision. Instead, as you watch, another Summoned might grasp their head and crumble in front of you. They may go silent or groan in pain. They'll be impossible to shake out of their stupor until it's over. If you ask what happened, they may be inclined to tell you the truth - that you, you were what happened to them.

Or, if your Arcana signs happen to line up in a specific way, you'll see each other in the shared memory itself. You may also find that for certain Summoned, you can help soothe the effects, calm their emotions, or help draw them out of the memory before it consumes them for too long. It's not entirely clear what determines which effect, but one thing is for certain - within each memory, every Summoned as they appear in the past seems to wear the mark of their Arcana somewhere on their person.

For some, they might experience this only once. For others, they might experience it multiple times: with the same person, with several other Summoned, or with a different memory each time. Over the next 7 days, you'll find the Summoned around you are all receiving a glimpse into each other's past, as if the Singularity has awoken an eye within each of you.

Flee for the safety of the Horizon if you want, but you'll find that in there, it's much the same. In fact, inside the Horizon, the other Summoned don't even need to be anywhere near you - just existing in the Horizon space itself together will be enough to possibly set off a headache-inducing vision.

The Factions

What has occurred between the Summoned will not go unnoticed within the factions. While it's difficult to say how faction officials have picked up what's happening, it'll be obvious they do know.

In THORNE, characters will be asked to remain in the castle walls until further notice. Characters will not be allowed to leave the castle grounds, not even to go into the surrounding city, and anyone who is already outside will be requested to not leave again as soon as they return. If asked, they will be told it's for their own safety, given the Singularity is behaving unpredictably and the Summoned have a unique connection to it. Soothing potions and healers are on hand to offer assistance, if anyone is particularly suffering from ill effects.

In the FREE CITIES, characters will find the army by the outposts show more activity than usual. A higher number of guards will patrol the streets throughout the event, particularly in areas frequented by the Summoned. Anyone who publicly and visibly experiences the effects of the memory share (pain, doubling over, etc.) will be offered assistance by the guards. They are generally there to help, but they are also there to maintain order and ensure anyone behaving erratically due to this incident is properly contained. This might include confinement for a day or two if anyone is especially posing a risk, but no one will be punished except in the most extreme cases, as the locals are aware this is not within the control of the Summoned.

In SOLVUNN, the locals will be watching what's happening with a mixture of trepidation and curiosity. Host families and neighbors will be on hand to help with charms meant to offer protection, as well as general care and assistance (soup, blankets, and so on) if your character seems to be especially under the weather or afflicted by the event. Towards the end of the event, more elders and mages will be out and about to check up on the Summoned to make sure they're doing okay. If asked, the mages will say they aren't sure what's going on, but that they are currently divining with the gods and hope to have a definitive answer soon in the upcoming days.

None of the factions appear to be doing much more than keep a watchful eye on the situation - but as the week comes to a close, officials will start making a decision as to what they want to do and how to handle the Summoned who have demonstrated this unforeseen connection to the Singularity.

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[ It's not that Julie doesn't want to be with Nadine. Truthfully, she would like nothing more. What she's seen from others luckily hasn't been so bad, but she did have to watch her own pain play out, relive one of the worst moments of her life; being with the one other person in the world who could ever truly understand would be the most soothing thing possible. But there are things in Julie's head that she really doesn't want Nadine to have to see, things that could break a much stronger person than either of them. The note was for Nadine's protection more than her own.

It'll be too hard to forgive herself if Nadine has to witness what Julie has seen, what she knows.

But as she sits on her bed and looks at the door, she really wants to open it. ]

Okay, just -- one second.

[ She calls it out hesitantly, wanting to try something that she doubts will actually work, but is kind of a stab in the dark at some form of protection for them. Taking a deep breath, she holds her hands up, closes her eyes and reaches blindly with her mind. With her heart. It's like a prayer to the Singularity, almost, because she doesn't know what else to do, and this isn't something concrete. She can't just want it and make it happen like fire or flowers. But Julie tries anyway, desperate.

Don't show her the fall, please not the fall. Or when they took her head. Anything before she got to Vegas, I can live with. But don't let her see what happens.

When she opens her eyes, her hands aren't glowing, and she doesn't know if she's done anything at all. If it doesn't work, if Nadine learns... well, maybe Stephen or Wanda or Kylo will know how to erase the memory from her mind.

Julie wraps her blanket around herself, over her head like a child, like it could block any connection that tries to establish itself. Opening the door, she sits lotus style on the floor, looks up at Nadine with big eyes. ]

Just stay on that side of the threshold. I tried -- I put up runes and I did some other stuff that probably didn't mean anythin', but I don't know if it'll work at all. At least if you're out there, we can say we tried, right?

I really don't think it matters.

[Nadine shakes her head, but stays in the doorway for the moment. When it comes to magic like this, what precautions can they really take? But Julie's right. They can say they tried. God knows there's plenty floating around in her mind that she'd like to shield Julie from. The last thing the other woman needs to see is more of the graveyard America became, or Flagg's true face.]

I just wanted to make sure you're okay. Um...remembering things can be bad enough, but experiencing them like that...

[Her only experiences so far involved being present for the memory, watching it alongside who it was shared with. As far as she knows, that's just how it happens. Now she does take a small step inside the room, reaching into one of the pouches hanging from her belt.]

And I wanted to see if you'd like this. It's just a little something for sleep. The kind without dreams you can remember.

[God knows how bad the nightmares can be, after remembering things.]

I don't either, but it's better than nothin'.

[ A mug floats from the bedside table to where Julie sits, and she takes it in both hands to sip from it. There's a moment of quiet, her eyes averted from Nadine's face, and it's obvious that she did have to experience something that hurt her to have to go through again. On her own, in her room, she can block it out by pouring all of her focus into other things. There's a stack of random magazines and newspapers next to the chair Jesper made her, a pad of paper with a list half-written on it. It doesn't matter what's taking up the space in her mind as long as it's something benign. ]

Uh, I mean, I guess I'm okay. I didn't... I didn't see anythin' too bad in anyone else's head, and that's good. I already knew what was in my own brain, so.

[ She trails off, takes another drink. It feels selfish to be upset over something that's not new, when so many people are witnessing trauma that had nothing to do with them. Plenty of people's parents die, she can't say it was special or fresh. Being sad now won't accomplish anything.

Nadine pretty much immediately crosses the threshold, and Julie squawks indignantly, her mouth hanging open. She put effort into protecting them and here Nadine is, walking through doors! But she does have drugs, and that sounds absolutely perfect, so Julie reaches up with an open hand. ]

I don't think either of us need to see anything new to leave a mark. It's not like normal remembering.

[In the confines of one's own mind is one thing. Memories can be pushed away, and were subject to so much in the waking mind. Time, distance...things fade a bit or alter subtly.

This is different, as far as Nadine knows. She'd been there, watching herself, no hazy fuzz of time or shifting of memory to soften it. The shock of seeing what had really happened, as opposed to how she remembered it - not nearly as frightening, not nearly as hostile - had been more than enough to upset her.

When Julie holds out her hand, she's glad. Not that she advocates using substances to deal with stress or upset, but...Julie's already been going through such a difficult time. Now this is happening... The woman needs a good night's sleep.]

Maybe we can just sleep through the whole thing.

[It's only partially a joke as Nadine hands over the little bottle...not quite carefully enough, and her fingertips make contact with Julie's hand.]

[ This is also Julie, a woman who has never healthily dealt with any trauma in her entire life, was taught that feeling emotional pain is a weakness and a burden. Nadine can just go ask Sam about the many frustrating conversations he's had about it with her. As far as Julie's concerned, what right does she have to be upset about something she already lived through? How can it rightfully feel shocking or hurtful when she already knows what happened, what will become? Repetition should be numbing, not wounding.

Julie opens her mouth to respond, but before she can, the piercing pain is back, and she's glad that she's already on the floor. She forces her eyelids to raise, so she can try and grab Nadine, but Nadine is already gone.

Or at least the Nadine she knows is. It's not Julie's bedroom anymore, it's a dark room lit with candles, the fireplace. Nadine sits on the sofa, no horns, no white hair, and a gawky, stringy guy -- no, a boy, he's younger even than Julie is -- sets down wine glasses. "I didn't come here to drink, Harold," Nadine says, and Julie immediately knows what this is, doesn't want to see. She tries to leave the room, finds only an entranceway with a direct eye line back to the sofa, nowhere else to go.

She doesn't look, refuses to look, tries to block out the sound. It's mostly Nadine talking, and Julie had known that Flagg told her to seduce this kid, but he sounds so scared of her. A grunt, a shuddering breath, and Julie presses her face to the wall. "I'm sorry," he says in his reedy little voice, and Nadine answers, "Don't be."

There's a swirl of background and Nadine and Harold are fighting, his face twisted and mean, cruel. The basest hatred and disgust, barely contained within his skin. The kind that can only be found in men who hate women.

Just as Julie glances around, the scene shifts, blurs, once more, and now they're outside, it's day and there's snow. There's still smoke from the tires where Nadine stopped short, and Julie stands on the road next to the motorcycle, watching. The other bike, Harold. It happens so fast, his skid, the way he goes flying over the edge of the barrier. There's a sickening crunch, loud enough that Julie can hear it from where she is, and she begins running toward the edge, even as Nadine only walks.

Julie looks down at Harold, impaled and spitting up blood. She doesn't need to see any more, begins walking back toward the motorcycle. Maybe if she walks far enough, she can walk out of the memory. ]

[It happens so fast. The sharp sudden pain, like a bolt through the skull, and then reality shifts and changes. Nadine isn't sure what to expect, but she finds herself alone in this memory.

God knows what Julie was seeing, if anything.

It's haunting, this vast warehouse. The emptiness is chilling - maybe because she knows why it's so empty. She's seeing the remnants of America as Julie saw it, a fresh look at a world she'd assumed she'd never see again. This may be a vision, a memory replaying like a video, but it looks real. She's standing here, in this place, moving among relics of a time lost.

But she can see touches of Julie here and there. The outfits on some of the mannequins, they have to be Julie's doing. And there she is, by herself, decked out in what looks like a prom dress.

How long had she stayed in this place? As she walks through the warehouse, it shifts. In some ways subtly, but the passage of time is clear. She's walking through the memories, the warehouse seemingly unending. Again she wonders how long Julie spent in this place. It's hard to tell, but it doesn't seem like a short amount of time.

Dear god. Nadine can't imagine it, can't begin to grasp what sort of toll this must have taken. Seeing Julie like this, alone in this place...Nadine hadn't spent much time alone, after the world ended. She'd had Joe, and then Larry. And knowing Julie as she does now...she's a woman who needs people.

This must have been a living hell...]

[ By the final memory, the store is littered with various food wrappers and scattered piles of clothing tags. There's evidence that she did fire her gun at some point. And there are multiple places throughout the store that show where she camped to perform different activities. A pile of magazines on the floor, some of them cut up to turn into vision boards. The poster board and scissors are nearby, the glue stick still open. In a different aisle, there are multiple jigsaw puzzles, all complete. Board games lie abandoned halfway through playing, a stack of books next to a recliner.

But the little heaps begin growing stranger. Dolls with cut off faces, stuffed animals set up in little tableaus. There's a painting on the floor, but it looks like the artist freaked out halfway through and tried to blot out what they'd done. Spilled pills dot some aisles, along with little spots of blood that trail through the store.

In the back of the store, Julie lies on her side on a trampoline, staring blankly into space. Her face looks thin, and there are scabs on her arms. She doesn't move at all, just blinks, and then the memory ends.

Back in the bedroom, Julie gasps and instinctively recoils from Nadine, grabs at her head on both sides. ]

[Nadine is slouched against the doorframe when she comes back to herself, head bowed, the pain from the experience still lingering as a dull ache in her head.

She doesn't know what to say. She'd seen something private, Julie's slow and lonely decline in that place. It doesn't matter that it happened in another world, in another life. That's the sort of thing that stays with someone.]

Julie...

[Maybe it's too late to offer any comfort, nothing will change what the other woman went through. But it makes her heart hurt. Seeing it like that only makes it so much easier to understand Julie, but god it hurts.]

Are you okay?

[Does she even know what Nadine had seen?]

[ Julie presses the heels of her hands to her eyes, groaning in pain. She feels like someone is hacking away at her temple with a dull axe. Honestly, she contemplates immediately downing the potion, dropping out of consciousness on the spot, but she instead forces her eyes open to look at Nadine. ]

He deserved it.

[ It's all she says, her voice strained, and she clumsily stands to go flop back into bed, face in the pillow. This would be at least fifty percent more tolerable if they just had to share their worst memories without the blinding headache. ]

[Julie's response catches Nadine off guard, and she pinches the bridge of her nose as she casts the other woman a curious look. 'He' could refer to a few different people...though there's only one that Nadine would agree deserved it.]

Oh. Um. Harold?

[Well...she supposes it's not by far the worst thing Julie could have seen. But it's not great. Harold had been a truly repugnant human being, and their own interactions had been uncomfortable, to put it mildly. She's not sure she wants to know exactly what Julie saw.

But at least she's someone who can understand the memories, already knows the context for them.]

I...I didn't see anything too awful. From you. Just...just some stuff from right after the plague.

[ If Julie's honest, the first memory looks much worse for Nadine than she'd ever spun it. Harold had been terrified, didn't seem to want much part of any of it. But everything that followed was so sickening, the way he'd looked at her, the way he'd spoken. Julie can't find it in herself to care. Especially not what he'd spit so viciously, "He's going to give me a woman that makes you look like a potato sack, Nadine."

Julie is well aware that she was, ultimately, one of those prizes. She was there to keep Lloyd in line, function as a toy that could be taken away if he cracked. It served everyone's goals, and she came out on top in the end, but deep down, she knows the truth, that she could easily have been meat dangled to a worse animal than Lloyd. Someone who wouldn't let her walk on his face and thank her for the privilege. A Harold. Wasn't that just how the apocalypse went? Vegas had no shortage of pleasure girls. Julie was simply smart enough to play her cards exactly right, well enough to gain her own power and keep Lloyd in the right place until it was too late for there to be consequences.

In her haze, she forgets to immediately ask what Nadine saw, but it sounds like they both got lucky on this one. Julie makes a muffled noise into the pillow, then speaks without lifting her head. ]

How long after?

I don't think that long after...I just saw the warehouse. I'm sorry.

[Nadine thinks that's enough for Julie to understand what she'd seen. She's not about to bring up details on her own, she'll leave it to Julie to decide if she wants to ask for specifics on what she saw or elaborate. It was still something private and personal, witnessing someone else's memory like that. It's not her place to pry.

She sinks down to the floor, back against the wall, feeling drained.]

And I'm sorry if you had to see anything...upsetting. I know some of the stuff with Harold got...upsetting.

[There's only so many ways to politely phrase the entire Harold situation.]

It's fine. I'm fine. Over it.

[ She's not. She probably never will be. There's a reason that solitary confinement is considered torture, and that's not even true solitude. Something inside Julie was fundamentally broken during that time, something she works hard to ignore and block out. She's not quite she would be able to keep on going if she ever tried to actually deal with it.

Making a vague noise, Julie closes the curtains with her third hand, so that she can roll her head to the side and open her eyes without additional pain. ]

I mean, it wasn't anythin' I haven't seen before. I didn't look, but it ain't like I'm some blushin' little pre-teen. Mostly it was just... things were shitty for women after Trips. We both know it. Every woman knew it. We didn't need a Harold around to make it even shittier, and he would've treated any girl worse than he treated you. Like we're fuckin' dolls to be played with whenever men feel like it.

[Nadine doesn't think that's the sort of thing someone gets over, but she knows there's no point in saying so. God knows there's plenty of things she claims are fine, and that she's over. She understands. And maybe Julie believes it. She's not going to shatter that illusion, she of all people knows how important they can be.]

Well...if you ever want to talk about it, I'm here to listen.

[It's all she can offer. That, and doing what she can to ensure Julie isn't ever alone again for any significant period of time. She'd already fucked up there once, she isn't going to again. Not if she can help it.]

And I know, but...yeah. Yeah they were. And there was something really wrong with that boy. I never wanted anything to do with him. I never... And I don't regret what I did to him in the end. He probably would have met a worse end, honestly. He was always...he believed a lot of lies, he did a lot of shitty things, and he was never going to last long in Vegas if he'd made it. At least nobody else had to deal with him.

[At least her status had offered her a veneer of protection. Some other girl wouldn't have had that.]

[ Julie doesn't respond to that. It's not that she doesn't appreciate the offer. She does appreciate it. But she doesn't think that talking about it can solve anything. It's not something other people can relate to, can actually wrap their minds around. They shouldn't be able to, it's not human nature to understand. Most of what happened after Captain Trips was human nature at its basest, people clinging to each other to survive as they gave into other, more dangerous instincts. Stripped themselves of the society they'd all been forced into at birth. But at least in the death pits, they could hear other voices. Trust that they weren't hallucinating. Know for sure when they were the last one standing.

In that store, Julie lost the whole world. In fact, until Nick Andros and his feeb came along, she had very much begun to believe she was the only human left. She would take fire and lightning and bullets before she took loneliness again. ]

You only survived with him if you had a purpose, a real job. Harold already served his purpose. You finish that, you finish the only leverage you got. He needed Lloyd, and I made Lloyd need me. That's all it is, a game of who needs who.

Yeah. I'd argue that Harold barely even had a use, and...I'm pretty sure there were other ways to get him to do what Flagg wanted, but...

[Nadine shakes her head. It's one thing she's never been able to excuse or dismiss or turn and twist until it made some sort of acceptable sense. She'd been given to a teenager as some sort of treat to inspire a job well done. Like a thing.]

There were things I could say no to, and things I couldn't. Harold was something I couldn't. I just sort of thought of it as an unpleasant job at the time. It's um...it's kind of funny, almost. The way things look different with a clear recollection.

[Or maybe without certain influences on her mind. A part of her wonders if it's the same for Julie. Do things look different now, looking back?]

[ Julie snorts derisively, rolls her eyes, then opens the bottle Nadine brought her and tosses the potion back like a shot. Yeah, Julie knows how that feels, to be just an object with a use, instead of a person. She's pretty sure most women understand it to a degree. But it doesn't really answer her primary question. She closes her eyes as she speaks. ]

What I don't understand is why you did it. He wasn't with you, and you knew he needed you. That it wasn't even his choice. So why not just say no? You had leverage.

[ Everything looks different now. Obvious. But she still can't say she'd do it differently, if only because she wasn't really ever given a chance to choose otherwise -- the witch didn't think she was worthy or something, because she never had those cornfield dreams. Still, there had been a sort of haze over Vegas, in her mind. Things felt different there. ]

[Nadine is quiet a time, her face drawn and eyes somewhere far away. It's a fair question, she understands why Julie asked. Some of it is hard to put into words. The rest of it...]

Just because he couldn't kill me doesn't mean he couldn't do terrible things to me. Or to the very few people that mattered to me then. I, uh, I told you about Joe. The little boy I found. I never told you what happened with him, but...I was his family, Julie. I was his mom, after the world ended, and he stayed with me in Boulder.

[And he had been under no protection whatsoever. Just because her life was safe, relatively, that didn't mean anything for Joe.]

I would have taken a dozen Harolds to keep him safe. And anyway, I think...I think he did something to me. Flagg.

[It's rare that Nadine calls him anything besides Randall, but as she'd said. Some things look different, now.]

Magic or...something. And as fucked up as it is, I really did love him. And I wanted the things he promised me.

[ Julie sighs and flings her arm over her eyes. She understands what Nadine is saying. Really, she does. But she also spent months in Flagg's orbit, watching, listening. While people rarely said no to him, he also wasn't someone who refused to listen to objections. He could be pragmatic. Wanted to keep his inner circle content. And he forgave transgressions. Sometimes.

The whole thing still doesn't make sense. It feels like pieces are missing. But neither does it matter, at this point. What's done is done, and it was done long ago.

She blinks into her elbow. Yeah, she knows there was something that he did to people. She knows because she saw Lloyd break free from it. Heard about Nadine doing the same. It was like flipping a switch, going from full faith and belief to doubt and guilt, rebellion. And Julie doesn't know what it says about her that she never felt that flip. Not like they did. ]

It ain't fucked up. We all did.

Like so many other philosophies for a society, theoretically it sounded good. He had a solid pitch. And he was charming. He had this magnetism... A lot of people wanted what he was offering. I do still agree that the way we were living before Captain Trips...it didn't work. But I don't think his way would have worked, either.

[Not anymore. It had been a beautiful dream. A place free from judgement, from rampant consumerism, from shame. A place where anyone could be themselves and be someone. A mecca for every outcast and stranger who lived on the edges.

Of course it had appealed to them both.]

And I do think...whatever lives we can make here, they're better than what we would have had. If nothing else...we have people who really care about us. That we're important to. Not because of what we can do for them, but just because. And you know...you know you're important to me, right?

[ There's only silence in response to that. Julie has a lot of conflicting feelings about it all now. She'd never had a real choice -- it was either Flagg or the store. But she'd liked it, still does. Maybe there was stuff she had to look the other way on, but her life in Vegas had been good, as good as she could have hoped for in that world. And it probably would have lasted much longer if not for some fucking old woman who didn't have the decency to just die when everyone else did.

It wasn't real. It was a lie, a lie that she was special, a lie that he cared, a lie that it was what she deserved, but she'd had it, and what was the alternative, exactly? Why were so many people punished for taking the only opportunity they had? It had to have all meant something, but Julie can't figure out what.

She chews the inside of her cheek for a moment, turning that over in her head too. It's hard for Julie to believe that people care about her just because of who she is, instead of what she can provide for them. It's always been her survival mechanism, becoming whatever it is that people need in a bid to make them take care of her. She can't understand why it's different here, why she had to die and be brought to a different world to have that. ]

I know. [ She says it quietly, maybe a bit uncomfortably. The way it comes out when someone was not really raised in an openly affectionate environment. ] It's just... I can handle it all when I don't have to think about it. I can pretend we've always been here, that this place makes sense. It's easier. But when I have to remember it...

Yeah. I get it. Some days it's so far away and it's easy to just stay in the present. That's half the reason I'm taking so many classes and working. All of that fills up my head. And then at night...

[Nadine sighs. Nights are the worst, particularly those where she's alone in her empty bed. It all comes back in the night. She can imagine it's the same for Julie.]

But we really haven't been here that long. Time...it doesn't heal all wounds, but it helps. And I think the more we build our lives here, the further away all that stuff from before is going to seem. It's never going to go away, we're never going to forget it or leave it behind completely, but we can sure as hell get further away from it.

[Easier said than done, especially with so many memories brought freshly back like this. There's no distance now, that thin veneer of time stripped away brutally.]

[ Julie doesn't take classes, and she also hasn't figured out a job yet (Geralt insinuated that Mag might hire her in the tavern, but that's not a door Julie's chomping at the bit to open just yet, not while she still has a small bit of gold from Nott and enough support around to keep her temporarily afloat), but she has figured out that dumping huge amounts of effort into figuring out how to do various spells from scratch does absorb a lot of brainpower. She also still stays in the Horizon frequently, if only because she does seem to have a preternatural connection to it, and she worries that she might lose that if she stays away.

But if she slows down, if she doesn't constantly distract herself, then she can't stop it all from seeping back in. Already it floods her subconscious most nights, makes her whimper and jerk in her sleep. When she remembers the dreams, she starts drinking as soon as she wakes up.

It's too fresh now, refuses to be ignored or shut back in its box. She didn't have to see it two of the times, and Wanda did something to ease it the third time, but now it wants her to think about it all, to crumble because she can't possibly deal with it.

The potion she took is beginning to kick in, and her eyelids are heavy. ]

Will you sleep in here with me? [ It's quiet, tired. Julie is not someone who has a problem voicing her needs, but she does have an issue doing it in a way that makes her sound weak. But she doesn't think Nadine can really stand to be alone right now either. ] I don't think it happens again, or at least not soon. Geralt was here for a while earlier and it only happened once.

Yeah, of course. Any time.

[Nadine doesn't hesitate to agree. She isn't keen on lying alone in bed tonight herself. Too much is all stirred up, too many unpleasant things on the mind. She likely would have made the offer, if Julie hadn't asked.]

I'm just gonna grab a potion for myself.

[Neither of them need bad dreams tonight, and both need a good deep sleep.

Maybe tomorrow, all of this will be over.]

'kay.

[ The response is little more than a mumble, and even as she watches Nadine leave the room for just that minute, she's already quickly falling into that hazy, floaty-feeling space between consciousness and sleep. By the time Nadine gets back, Julie is asleep, despite the lanterns still being lit. In Nadine's momentary absence, Julie has scooted toward the wall to make space, thrown the lightweight quilt back from the other side of the bed for her. ]

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EVENT #7: THE SIGHT

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