EVENT #7: THE SIGHT

[abraxasmods]

Event #7 - The Sight

go to the OOC event info and plotting post

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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.

Comments

[cointosser]

And she answers. He wasn't entirely sure if she would, if this was real. It's only fair he questions what is real when he's being dragged into people's memories. His hand around hers grows tight, more for his benefit than hers.

As these things continue, some part of him is afraid of getting lost. He's seen how fantasies or memories can be so enticing that one wishes to live in them. When things become... too much.

"He looks happy with you."

A mother. It suits her so well. Just as important as his happiness is hers, and it's clear she was. For that time. And though Jaskier wants to know more, the whole story, he hesitates on the questions that could turn something gentle into horrible remembrance. Is this what you left behind? Is he all right?

"I'm always afraid we forget the good when so much horror happens. But this... this is beautiful, Nadine."

[nadine_he_loves]

"I think he was."

There had been happy times, amid all the rest. The scenes shift, flashes of moments of the two of them together. Here, in a tent together, Nadine reading to Joe. The pair of them at the sandy edge of a lake, in winter coats and boots but building a sandcastle anyway. A cozy looking bedroom, more lived in than that first house of memory, Nadine in a bathrobe over her nightgown, tucking Joe in and brushing his hair back out of his face...

It's clear from the series of memories that they spent a long time together, the seasons changing.

"He was traumatized by what he went through. He didn't talk. But he found all kinds of ways to communicate with me. He didn't trust a lot of people, in the beginning, but...he trusted me. He listened to me, he'd settle down for me. By the time we got to what was left of civilization...we were family. He, uh...he has a new family now, I couldn't stay with him, but...I know he's with people that care about him."

Not who he was supposed to be with, but...Nadine had spent enough time in Boulder to feel certain that if Stu and Fran hadn't taken Joe in, then that young woman Lucy had. And that's okay. He's safe in Boulder, and as much as it kills her that he had to lose his second family...he'll have a life. And maybe, someday, he'll understand what she'd done for him, before leaving.

Maybe he already does.

And she's glad, too, that Jaskier has gotten to see this. She'd never kept Joe a secret intentionally, he's just something she doesn't talk about. He's part of another life, a life long lost to her. But he's also the best thing she'd ever done.

"He...god, he was my whole world for months. It was just us, for a long time. I never knew how badly I wanted that, until Joe. How badly I wanted to be someone's mother. I'm really lucky that I got to."

[cointosser]

They're all beautiful. Even if there are places and things he does not understand -- for surely her world is far different from his own -- it speaks to him that such scenes need no further explanation. That a love like this is universal. That people can bond the closest under adversity is surely one of the oldest tropes in stories. Yet how true it rings.

He moves through the memory as much as he can, attempting to move closer to the boy. To take him in.

"You were separated?" He looks back to her -- the real her -- then to the remembered version of her, kissing the child's brow. As terrible as it is to believe, perhaps that was for the best. That she was not forced to leave him when she was brought here. That she can at least rest, knowing there is a family with him.

Though he realizes a moment later: had she left him? To go to where that man was?

He rises, joining her side again, taking her hand. "I'm sure you made quite the impact on him." She certainly has on him, as well, and it's only been months. "I can't imagine a warmer woman to be a mother."

[nadine_he_loves]

Joe seems, at least in these memories, a relatively happy - if guarded - child. There's a haunted look in his eyes, and he never speaks, but it's there in these moments between the two.

"I protected him," Nadine clarifies. "It was better for him to stay in Boulder when I had to move on. I...hated to leave him, but it was what was best for him."

Which was the most important thing. Much as it hurt, much as she would have given so much for a little more time with him...Joe was safe and looked after. She can live with that.

She squeezes Jaskier's hand again, grateful for his presence here.

"And...thank you. You know, you would have really liked him. He's a guitar prodigy, he picked one up and played it like he's been playing for twenty years. He really came alive when he was playing music."

[cointosser]

"Ah! I should have guessed. You have that streak in you." It makes him laugh, quiet as it is -- as he feels like he should be in these memories, as a guest in a library of someone else's mind. This is not like before, where it was one single, solid memory. This is like flipping through the pages of a book, jumping from scene to scene, with little regard for where they land.

Which he likes, he finds, in this moment. Because he better sees what they were to each other.

Guitar? He thinks he's heard the word before -- ah, yes, Dean mentioned it several times, showed him those... events, that he had seen before, on the screen of his tavern. Jaskier heard the notes such an instrument created. Were they the same? He'd no idea if Dean and Nadine's spheres were similar, but it seemed like it.

"I would've loved to meet him even if he was awful at music," he says with a coy little smile. "But it makes it infinitely better that he wasn't. You have a talent for picking up those musically inclined, I see."

[nadine_he_loves]

"Kids...they've always been important to me. That's why I went into teaching. When we're young..."

The memories are fading around them, the little flat Nadine and Julie share reasserting itself as reality. Her voice is earnest, emotional.

"Everything's possible. Before we learn how the world really is, how unfair it is... We really, really believe every wrong can be righted, everything can turn out okay, hope means something. And that...that needs to be protected. And needs to be directed kindly and with patience...Like Joe."

Not for the first time, she's so thankful she'd been the one to find him.

"He lived through the end of the world and he was...he was feral, when he first came to. The first time we met anybody on the road, he tried to stab them. But when I had to leave him, he was in school, he had friends, he had his music...he got to be a kid. And you have no idea about my habit of picking up musicians. Some time...I'll tell you about Larry. Don't worry, that's a nice story."

As opposed to everything else Nadine has shared about the scant few men in her life prior to Jaskier. Who, she thinks, Larry would have liked. She's not oblivious to the similarities between the two of them.

[cointosser]

It is strange, in retrospect, that as she expands on her memory, on her sphere, that he recognizes how strangely optimistic it sounds. It could have only been her, or the people around her -- a small part of their fantastical world. But that hope ever had kindling to burn after that plague swept the world is reason enough to believe in it.

He's always liked to. He left hope in the cabin of every ship he saw off, full of elves that had deserved so much better. There, too, he'd seen hope: their faces pointed toward Xintrea, so sure that a different life awaited them there.

It is no surprise this is part of what so attracted him to her. Beyond that first night, he had seen traces of this. This... fuck, what else could he call it beyond pure kindness?

All people were capable of evil. Kindness was infinitely more rare.

"I'd love any of your stories. It's clear to me you come from a world that I can hardly understand, but it means much to have these shards of it that align with my own. As if people hardly change, even given different spheres."

Jaskier, of course, knows he's only the best musician she's had. He's being polite, though; and as the memory melts away, the world returning and the pain in his head rather distant, he keeps his hands in hers. "You truly are a remarkable woman."

[nadine_he_loves]

It's almost regrettable, leaving the memory behind. Nadine never though she'd ever see Joe, in any capacity. And even if it's a memory, experiencing it like that was like seeing him in the flesh.

But that's the danger, she supposes. Much as she misses him, much as she'd loved him, he's not a part of her life anymore. Still. These had been good moments, and she's glad to be reminded of them. And to be reminded there were good times.

"I know everything I've told you has been...not great, and it was important for you to know, but...there are plenty of good stories, too. And I really ought to share some of those with you. I'm glad you saw what you did, though. I don't really talk about Joe but he was a really big part of my life and making me who I am today."

She's made it such a habit, keeping that life and this life separate. It's easy to brush it off with vague allusions to an unpleasant childhood and unremarkable life, but really she's just in the habit of not sharing things. Any things. But that's part of her old life, too. She doesn't have to hide, she doesn't have to keep everything in. Certainly not from Jaskier. Considering the nature of their relationship, she really should be sharing more with him.

"And thank you."

[cointosser]

He scoffs, gentle. "I wouldn't say everything."

And he thinks most of the terrible is not, exactly, her fault. Considering the entire demon thing. Gods know what he makes of that now, but -- he's rather decided it doesn't matter, as time goes on.

He prefers seeing her as she is now.

And a memory or two, apparently.

"I always had a sneaking suspicion you weren't all bad." There had to be something good, he thinks. If she experienced anything close to what Julie told him, then there had to be something. Something to keep her moving onwards.

Someone like Joe. "You're all right, aren't you? No lingering headache?"

[nadine_he_loves]

"You're a better judge of character than me."

It's said lightly, but it's not entirely a joke. Jaskier sees things in her that she's struggled to see in herself. He sees her, all of her, and his faith never waivers. He takes all of her, just as she is, and isn't deterred by those dark parts. It's humbling, really.

How could she ever have thought she wouldn't fall for him?

"And I'm okay, it's just...a dull ache. It'll pass, I have tonics. And it usually doesn't happen twice, so we should be fine now."

That's one benefit, anyway. It's happened, it wasn't bad, and it's over now. Jaskier should be safe from her worse memories, or things she knows he'd never want to see.

[cointosser]

He smiles, and perhaps it's enough he doesn't disagree. However, what's important is she's judged him well enough.

Likewise, as well.

He frees her hand to tuck a bit of hair behind her ear tenderly. Yes. A dull ache is fine. He's... well, he might even say he's glad the opportunity arose. If anything should from this chaos has a silver lining, it's this.

"I wouldn't mind one myself, honestly. I'll even pay double price, if necessary. I know it's a lot to ask for." He can tease now that a dull, thudding headache is the worse to fear. He hasn't had it happen more than once, and... well. If she had seen any of his, he couldn't complain. Much. Perhaps not the spicier ones --

No. Only one other thing. That eye. The damn dream.

Jaskier licks his lips, hesitating. "Would you mind if I stayed over tonight?"

[nadine_he_loves]

"You're always welcome to any of my tonics. Free of charge. Boyfriend perks, you know."

Nadine's able to tease right back. Unlike her other experiences in sharing memories, she's not shaken and unsettled afterwards. If only more of them could be like this.

But it is over now. And while her head doesn't hurt too badly, she's worn out. There's still an emotional drain that came with it all, even if the emotions experienced had been good ones.

"I was hoping that you would, actually."

wrap it up here? :>

[cointosser]

"Ah, only the only one perk, of course."

As if he can think of someone else who he'd rather share memories like this with. He presses his forehead against hers, kissing her butterfly-light with his lips teased up into a smile.

It... it was a gift, in a strange way. From the Singularity. Not one intentionally given, of course, but still taken in the end.

"Good. How about we go to bed a bit early, then. I want nothing more to sink into something soft. With a touch of tonic. Promise I'll even rise early to make you breakfast in exchange."

Boyfriend perks or no.