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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ronan's lips pull back into a sneer when she bumps into him. The girl Kylo can't seem to stop looking at, in that way people look when they don't want anyone else to notice they're looking. The girl Kylo warned him to avoid, even though he doubts Kylo is avoiding her.

He's about to say something shitty when the headache strikes like a clap of thunder.

This has happened often enough now that Ronan has a good idea what to expect next. He's almost eager for it, once the wave of pain fades enough that he can focus on the scene playing out before him. Here, finally, a chance to see more of the life Kylo's kept hidden from him —

The handcuffs take him by surprise.

Maybe it should have been obvious. Ronan had gathered enough to know Rey was an enemy, but he'd been imagining a distant sort of enemy, always eluding capture. He had no idea that she had been captured. This is very different from the other vision he'd caught from Kylo, though. This prisoner isn't being interrogated, isn't screaming in agony as Kylo tortures her. The two of them are side-by-side, speaking in hushed voices. Co-conspirators.

"I feel the conflict in you," she's telling Kylo. "It's tearing you apart."

Ronan knows Kylo's face well enough to recognize the vulnerability written there. His uneasiness at having failed to hide something crucial. Rey is telling the truth.

"Ben."

...Ben?

Rey opens her eyes again and the scene remains the same, having settled on this place, this thing between the young man and Hennessy. She realizes she's seen him around Kylo, at meals, whenever she wasn't fast enough to duck down a hall or leave a room that he was occupying.

She doesn't know what that means, but she files it away, watching the scene in front of her. Hennessy speaks to an older man who seems to be going through the motions, unaware of the presence of the two of them or obviously Rey.

She frowns when the young man tells Hennessy to shut up. She remembers Hennessy calling someone else from her world a "frenemy." This must be him.

“What’s your big plan here? Shut down the ley lines to keep away the Lace?” He says. Rey doesn't know what that means, but Hennessy certainly does. She can glean from the surface of the dream and the shape of things this isn't a good thing she's trying to do. At least from the perspective of the dreamer. Hennessy holds something, something Rey can glean from the memory that it's supposed to do what it is the young man said it should. Shut down the ley line.

Magic.

“So what now?” Hennessy asked. “We, like, battle forever? Is that going to be how it is? I try to make this thing that will shut down the line and you change the dream so I can’t remember what I was doing and round and round and round?”

The feelings she gets from both of them aren't extreme hatred or malice, just that they both think they're doing what's right. Watching it makes a lump form in her throat, at how familiar it seems.

Ben. Why has Ronan never heard that name before? Ben. Kylo answers to it, his expression shedding its practiced indifference as he finally looks at Rey. She's telling him, "When we touched hands, I saw your future. Just the shape of it, but solid and clear. You will not bow before Snoke. You'll turn." And then she leans in, adding in a whisper, "I'll help you."

Ronan's heart hurts. He can't tell whether it's his own hurt or a part of the memory. Why has he never heard about any of this? All this time, he's been calling Kylo by the wrong name. Imagining the wrong life. All this time, and Ronan knows nothing, while this girl knows everything.

Kylo is countering, "I know when the moment comes, you'll be the one to turn. You'll stand with me." And Ronan — though he feels like he's been blind until now — can see that this is a wish, not a prophecy.

Ronan laughs, bitter and humorless, when the doors of the elevator open to reveal a blood-colored throne room. He's seen echoes of it in the Horizon, in Kylo's domain, and he had always imagined it as a reflection of Kylo's own throne. How stupid he feels, that he hadn't considered the seat belonged to someone else before Kylo. The power of his position had been obvious to Ronan, but not the evil that came with it. It's taken this ridiculous, cartoonish display to open Ronan's eyes. He's been such a fool.

Though Hennessy and Ronan are engaged in a stalemate Rey can feel his intentions working in the background, because this dream is a part of him so the memory reveals itself to her. She looks towards the burning dam in the distance, watching as the dreamed birds circle the fire, then turning and seeing more slowly forming behind Hennessy.

“The Lace isn’t here now,” Ronan said. “As long as we work together, there’s no Lace. I can keep it away forever. We can take a break from what we’re doing. Hennessy, I found you before. You were drowning. I came looking for you. I wanted to do this with you. Do you remember? Don’t make me beg.”

Rey looks back at Ronan, startled at the words. Hennessy had told her a little about their relationship, but this is an aspect she wasn't expecting. She can feel her heart ache and whether that's his desperation or her own compassion she can't quite tell.

This isn't right. This isn't the Kylo he knows, on his knees while this Freddy Krueger motherfucker taunts and torments someone so important to him. And Rey is important to Kylo, Ronan knows.

"Darkness rises," Kylo's master declares, "and light to meet it."

But she is more to Kylo than his equal, his foil. There's always been longing in his eyes when he's looked at her, and it's never once been the longing to do her harm.

"You're not just going to let this happen," Ronan says to the kneeling Kylo, who pays him no heed. When Kylo raises his eyes, it's to look at Snoke, who's mid-villain monologue, confessing his manipulations.

Ronan looks from Kylo to Snoke and back to Kylo again. "Oh," he utters, everything clicking into place.

"My worthy apprentice," Snoke says, addressing Kylo now as he forces Rey to her knees before him. "Son of darkness, heir apparent to Lord Vader. Where there was conflict, I now sense resolve. Where there was weakness, strength. Complete your training and fulfill your destiny."

Kylo rises, lightsaber in hand. "I know what I have to do."

"You fucking better," Ronan says.

Rey watches the birds swarming behind Hennessy, the intention clear. Destroy the orb she held, so that Ronan could wake with the burning flames instead. Something was about to be destroyed, regardless of who won this fight.

“Have you thought about the consequences? You can’t deal so the whole world has to instead?”

“I’m the rubber and you’re the glue, Ronan Lynch,” Hennessy replied. “What’s funny is—Bryde’s you, and he’s still more right than you are. You’re still thinking like a non-dreamer. At least I’m thinking like a forger.”

She pointed behind him.

Ronan just had time to look and see that the real Hennessy stood there, holding another silver orb in her fingers. This one was even stronger than the other Hennessy was holding. It was not just the absence of sensation. It was a blanket of nothingness. It was noise-canceling, sound-deadening, pressure-relieving, stain-lifting, subscription-canceling, and his birds were pointed at the wrong Hennessy and the wrong orb and—

It all happened so fast Rey barely had a moment to react. She gasps as she awakes on the floor of castle Thorne. Ronan is laying next to her, and she realizes with horror that he must be in her memories. Wincing she shifted around, reaching out to gingerly touch his shoulder, shaking him.

"Ronan?"

Kylo's master — this monster — keeps gloating, bragging about how thoroughly he's invaded Kylo's mind, and the knot in Ronan's stomach tightens. This could have been him. Bryde, who knew every thought that passed through his mind, anticipated every move he would make, could have easily caught him in a trap like this. How lucky he is that Bryde had no goal other than to bring the Greywaren to his full potential, that he'd summoned a master who'd honored him rather than used him.

Ronan has no doubt, now. He can see the man he loves in this Kylo, whose eyes are burning with determination to see this through to the right end, and Kylo doesn't disappoint him. He deceives his master with a trick worthy of a dreamer, and then it's a fight, Kylo and Rey battling Snoke's guard in tandem just like Ronan and Hennessy had fought the Moderators so many times before it all went wrong.

Which has Ronan feeling a new kind of dread, because he knows it will go wrong. Kylo and Rey leave this fight as enemies. At the end of this, Kylo will be as alone as Ronan, because they were alone when they met each other.

And he's right. "It's time to let the old things die," Kylo says when he and Rey are the only ones left standing. It's an echo of the words Kylo had used to comfort Ronan when he was mourning his former life.

Ronan had been glad to hear them. Rey is not. When Kylo extends his hand to her, she answers, "Don't do this, Ben." And Ronan can't blame her, exactly. The first time Bryde had told him to abandon his boyfriend and his family, he'd recoiled from the idea. But Bryde had been right, and they had tried to kill him, and he has wished a thousand times that he'd just listened. He wishes Rey would listen.

And now Kylo is pleading with her, the same way Ronan had pleaded with Hennessy, and Ronan's heart aches for him. It's not fair, after everything that was done to them, they were abandoned by the ones they'd wanted most by their side.

Suddenly, the throne room is gone. Ronan is on the floor, and now Rey's saying his name, shaking him out of his trance. He blinks until her face comes into focus, and then his expression hardens as he reassembles his armor. He's sure she's gotten a glimpse of something from him. He's just not sure what.

"You should watch where you're going," he hisses softly.

Frowning Rey leans back on her heels, shrugging her shoulders.

"I said I was sorry. Or I tried to." She wasn't sure if she had gotten it out. She pulls her teeth between her lips as she studies him for a moment, not as careful to school her expression as he is, but she's never been particularly good at masking her emotions.

"What did you see?"

Ronan eyes her warily, coiled like a rattlesnake ready to snap up and bite her. Most people who get a good look at him decide they ought to take him out before he can strike, and she could easily be one of them, depending on what she's seen.

But if she wanted to hurt him, she'd have done it by now. Ronan sits up and pinches the bridge of his nose, willing the pain behind his eyes to subside.

"You were in a throne room," he answers, because he sees no reason to withhold it, even if Kylo has. He also sees no reason to elaborate, however. She doesn't look like she's seen many throne rooms and he isn't even sure how to describe what went on there.

There is a flash of panic that crosses Rey's face, when she wonders if he had been in a dream and not a memory. A dream she's had so many times since turning her back on Kylo Ren and choosing the Resistance, one where a jagged throne hewn from stone had been large enough to hold the both of them, robed in black.

She hadn't shared that dream with anyone. Didn't intend to. It meant nothing, she'd made her choice.

But there had been Snoke's throne room, what almost felt like a lifetime ago now, when for the briefest of moments she and Ben had been aligned. The panic is gone, replaced with a grim sort of resolve as she nods her head.

"I saw you with Hennessy. She was trying to destroy the ley line, you were trying to destroy the dam." She still isn't sure who was in the right in that situation. Probably neither of them. That always seemed to be the case.

"She was trying to destroy herself," Ronan corrects, not a sharp defense but a measured explanation. The way Bryde would correct such a misconception, as if it benefits the listener to understand more than it benefits him to be understood. "I was trying to destroy the thing that was killing us."

It doesn't matter which way Rey decides to see it, though. Ronan has always been the obvious bad guy in the eyes of the world. It changes nothing if she joins their ranks.

Her reaction to what he's seen interests him far more. He didn't miss that flash of panic, and he's wondering now what she's afraid he might have caught.

Still studying her, he says, "I don't know anything about you, you know. Just that I'm supposed to stay away from you. I think he's afraid of what you might tell me."

Her brow furrows as he corrects her, a layer of nuance she hadn't been able to pick up on given that she'd been dropped into the middle of the memory. Hennessy did have a self deprecating way about her, that she was trying to destroy herself... It made a certain kind of sense.

"You were trying to save her. I know the feeling," she presses her lips together, biting the inside of his cheek as he mentions Kylo.

"I don't know how much you saw. Maybe he's afraid I'll poison you against him."

Ronan doesn't say it's not possible. Kylo should already know that and Rey doesn't need to.

"Is that something you'd try to do?" he asks with a wry edge, because he's not really asking. "I saw that he captured you, then he saved you, then you saved him. He offered you everything and you turned him down because you wanted to fight."

There's no criticism in his tone. Ronan, too, wanted to fight, and in his case, it was Hennessy who'd urged him to step back and let the others die. He'd refused.

"I think he didn't want me to figure out you and I are the same."

She could deny that, but she'd seen his memory. It had resonated deeply with her, not because she'd picked up on his feelings, or because she was a compassionate person. She could be compassionate, but they'd both seemed wrong in the moment to her. No it had resonated because she'd had such a similar moment with Kylo.

"You'd probably have to ask him that. We aren't exactly on speaking terms right now. That seems like a reason he'd want to keep us apart, though." She doesn't know how to feel about that. That he somehow found someone so similar to her in this place, that they had connected and were friends at the very least, if not more. Hennessy hadn't given her specifics on their relationship and Rey didn't ask.

Ronan doesn't intend to ask Kylo anything. To have concealed something like this for so long feels tantamount to a lie, and Ronan doesn't make it his business to drag the truth out of people. The truth is a gift given to the worthy, which tells Ronan where he currently stands as far as Kylo's concerned.

"Is that his choice?" Ronan asks. "The whole not on speaking terms thing."

She presses her lips together, picking at the skin around her nails with her opposite hand as she looks away.

"You saw what happened. After that he put a bounty on my head. If we talk, we fight. It's better this way."

"That doesn't answer my question."

But it's very interesting that she's evading it. The bad kind of interesting. The kind that makes Ronan's heart sink into his stomach.

"No. It's my choice." She looks back at Ronan, frustration more at herself than anyone else brewing under the surface. But Kylo never had anything to say that she wanted to hear anyway.

"Why does it matter?"

Ronan considers her for another moment, his fingers drumming on his knees. The world has stopped spinning by now, so he decides finally to climb to his feet, where he at least has the advantage of height.

He could say nothing and walk away. There's no real benefit to giving her any insight into what's going on between him and Kylo, while there are countless reasons not to.

And yet...

"Kylo is mine," Ronan says with an aloof nonchalance, smoothing out the rumpled sleeves of his exquisitely embroidered robe. He dresses like a king these days, and now he's talking like one, too. "Everything about him matters to me."

Edited 2022-05-17 20:34 (UTC)

Rey follows suit in standing, brushing off her leggings as she does. It's a good distraction to mask the ugly surge of jealousy that crashes over her as he declares Kylo his. She has no reason for it, she rejected him. It stood to reason that he'd find someone else, someone who wouldn't reject him for the things he wasn't able to let go of.

When she looks back at Ronan there is a tightness to her jaw and she's blinking just a little too rapidly for it to be casual.

"Maybe you should be talking to him instead of me, then."

Ronan's mouth twitches into a triumphant curve, his icy blue eyes flashing with something like pleasure. He doesn't mean to look cruel, but the cut of his features casts every expression in a more sinister light and this one is no different.

"Is this how you handle everything?" he asks. "Keeping your mouth shut? You didn't seem so meek in that throne room."

In contrast, Rey's expression gives up on her desperate attempt at neutrality, settling into a scowl.

"What do you expect? Do you want me to fight you for his honor?" she lets out a derisive snort, stepping backwards as she does. "Or do you want me to tell you the things he won't?"

"Oh, it's way too late to fight me for him," Ronan drawls, though he sounds like he enjoys the idea of it. There's nothing he likes better than a fight, but there's also nothing she could possibly do to release Kylo from his obligation, so they'd really only be fighting for the hell of it.

Which... would still be very fun.

"No, I meant what I said. I'm interested in him. And you. And whatever this situation is. Do you want his side to be the only one I hear?"

Her outright scowl softens a little when she realizes he doesn't want to fight, though she isn't enthusiastic about going over her history with Kylo, either.

"I don't really care what you think of me," she says like a lying liar who lies. She thinks about leaving it there, almost walking away. But for some reason she just can't. "We're connected. I can sense him easier than I can anyone else, the Force allows us to communicate with one-another across distances, unless one of us is actively trying to block the other out." Which she currently is doing.

Ronan acknowledges that disclosure with a vaguely thoughtful hum. That puts rather a lot of previous conversations into context and he doesn't like it, even if it's not much of a surprise.

"So you've blocked his number," Ronan says. It's not hard to guess, when she's the one giving Kylo the silent treatment. This probably also means she really has no idea what's going on between him and Kylo.

He looks away, squinting at the air like he's reading something written there. Slowly, he muses, "The destiny he doesn't want. The other half he didn't choose. It's so easy to give up something that's not around."

His eyes slide back to her as he asks, "Do you still wish you could change him?"

Edited 2022-05-18 00:19 (UTC)

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