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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[ She has, by now, sort of forgotten exactly where they were going or why they stopped. Other than her legs knocking against the wall, it doesn't seem to matter all that much, and they're only a few more steps from her bedroom door anyway.

Heat rises under her skin, flushes over her face and chest. Though she knows he's holding her up, she slides her hands up under his shirt, her nails grazing over his stomach. Thighs tightening, she rolls her hips against him. ]

[ His mind is mostly on her, her hands on his skin and the pink rising in her cheeks. He shifts her higher as her hips press down on him.

Eventually, he turns them around. Pushes her up against the wall instead. With her braced there, he releases one hand to pull her dress off altogether before slipping his arm back around her. The fabric pools on the ground.

He delves back in. His teeth scrape at the side of her throat. Her heart thrums, matching the pulse he can hear. He knows, by now, exactly how hard she likes him to bite and how much of a mark to leave behind. ]

[ He presses her to the wall and she croons, watching him with dark eyes until he comes back to her neck. Head tilted back, she closes her eyes, one hand tangling in his hair as she clutches him. He does know, almost eerily precisely, what she likes; her skin raises up in goosebumps when he bites, a shiver running down her spine. ]

Geralt. [ It's half gasp, half whine, and she swallows hard, digging her nails into his back. Her chest heaves when she breathes. ] I want you inside me. Please.

[ The sound she makes sends a pleasant rush through his veins. He pushes her more firmly against the wall, nips once more with his teeth. She grows ever warmer, skin heated, and so does his own. ]

Yeah. [ He breathes out the word, a low rumble.

His grip shifts around her. He works at the buttons on his trousers with an impatience of his own, slips his hand inside. It takes not long at all to give her what she wants, his hips rising to meet her. His eyes fall shut, fingers tightening. ]

[ When he adjusts his hold on her, her legs squeeze to compensate and help keep the balance, her ankle pressing into the small of his back. Her fingers scrabble at his neck and shoulders, in time with quiet little noises that she can't stop from emerging on every exhale.

Her eyes snap shut and she moans when he sinks in, head falling back again. In that dark, the memories have stopped repeating, corpses and fire and swords, and her mind is blissfully empty except for him right here and now. She murmurs, nothing important, just his name and all manner of endearments between sharp breaths. ]

[ Her head tips back, lips parted, and he takes in the sight of it. She's clinging to him, the pinprick of her nails familiar where they dig into his shoulders, his spine. A hunger that borders on greedy swells, his forehead pressed against hers. She fills his senses easily, the stutter in her breaths curling around him.

If they're rattling anything on the wall again, he doesn't notice. They probably are, because he isn't near holding back. (Not that he ever really does so, and especially not with her.)

The world shrinks to just them. He's no longer paying attention to much outside of it—hitches her leg higher around his waist, arm just under her knee to hold her up. The more she encourages him, the more he responds to it. When his name falls from her, he swallows it with a kiss. A quiet noise catches in his chest. ]

[ Things have definitely been rattled along the wall and off the shelves. But she hasn't heard any glass shattering, so it's all things that can be cleaned up later, just random little knick-knacks and gifts they've accumulated over the months. There does not appear to be a shortage of small crystals and crystal-based goods affecting the city of Cadens, based on the things Julie has chosen to collect.

He kisses her and absorbs her whine, coming from somewhere deep in her chest. Her thighs stay tight, not just from the position but as if to keep him close; there's sweat beading behind her knees. Pressing her forehead back to his hard, she opens her eyes when she gasps for breath, dark and unfocused from the nearness. Her fingers knit in his hair behind his neck, catching where she's already tangled it. ]

[ Her skin is slick against his palms, and he grips her more firmly. Most of his shirt hangs loose, half-fallen off a shoulder. Up close, he can see the shadow of her lashes, the flecks of colour in her eyes.

He lets where she's knotted her fingers in his hair guide him, follows the line of her jaw to the spot just under her earlob. There's an unsteady exhale, a coil that tightens within. He sinks deeper inside her each time—a curse that slips free, and then another.

When he feels her nails cut sharper into him, it only sparks an electric flare that snakes through him, makes his fingers curl. He offers a low sound, one undeniably demanding more. ]

Edited 2022-06-08 11:15 (UTC)

[ Her neck cranes and her eyes roll to the ceiling before she closes them again. He doesn't fill her vision anymore, but his breath is in her ear, every little huff, and the air she swallows feels cold in comparison. There is something somewhat satisfying in the way the back of her head gets jostled against the wall.

The crackling tendril that winds around the base of her spine, her hips, pulls ever faster and more taut, and her nails claw first on his skin and then on his shirt. It's much sharper than she even means it to be, enough that she can foresee the marks on his back, but that consideration is beyond her now.

There's a belated realization that she's babbling, very little coming out other than ragged swearing on top of his name. ]

[ Eventually, his face buries in the crook of her neck. He's breathing harder, skin flush in one of its rare moments. Her body is moulded against his, all slick fucking heat and quiet little shudders.

Each dig of her long nails is in sharp focus—scratches he'd normally barely notice but now feel like small searing scorches, lighting him up. The harder she digs in, the closer she drives him. Between that, his name on her lips, it's enough to tip him over the edge. ]

Fuck— [ Fuck. Maybe he groans her name, maybe it's unintelligible. Doesn't much matter. His head sort of floats and spins at the same time; whatever has been haunting him when he first stepped through her door, it's been left behind for now. ]

[ With a sharp gasp, she tumbles off the cliff after him, one hand clenched in his shirt and the other clutching at his hair. Her breath feels caught in her chest, trapped in her lungs, and she feels light-headed. The intense, fluttering tightness leaves as quickly as it hit her, velvety looseness replacing it through her whole body. She mindlessly strokes the back of his head, her eyes still closed and her heartbeat so fast that it makes her frame shudder.

When some semblance of cognizance returns, she opens her eyes slowly, blinks at the ceiling. The feeling of elasticity, like her whole body has stretched, loosens her grip around him, her legs feeling heavy. Inhaling deeply, she lets her cheek rest on his head still at her neck. ]

[ For a moment, he just breathes her in. Her limbs are draped around him, and he holds her there while his heart steadies itself, embers cooling. A primal, almost unconscious part of him, always likes best how she smells afterwards—as much of him as she does herself, and no one else.

At least they can rule out prolonged contact for what's been happening.

They never quite made it to the bed, but that doesn't matter. He takes her now, setting her down briefly so he can scoop her up instead. Carries her the few steps more to her room. He lays out beside her with an exhale. Lets the warm lazy curls in the aftermath sink through him. ]

[ When he places her on the ground, her legs are wobbly for a second, and she's preparing herself to walk when he picks her back up. Her head falls against him for those few steps, and when he lies next to her, she curls into the space next to him, her arm thrown over his chest and her head on his shoulder. The bedsheets are cool compared to either of their skins.

That easy, comfortable silence settles over them for a few minutes, and she closes her eyes as she listens to his heartbeat and breath under her. She murmurs and her voice is drowsy, contented. ]

All things considered, this whole thing could've gone way worse.

[ Isn't that the truth. Geralt tucks an arm behind his head. His other hand rests in her hair. He curls a pink strand around his finger. Not how he imagined he'd end the afternoon, but he's hardly complaining. ]

You're right. [ He watches the ceiling, one foot tangled in her sheets. His boots are scattered in the trail they've left behind between her kitchen and her bedroom, and he'll notice later he's lost a shirt button someplace. Wouldn't be the first time. ] You could've witnessed a childhood memory of me being frightened up a tree. Mortifying.

[ He's teasing, but all in all: he'll take this. At least they might have some peace and quiet for a few hours. Most days, that feels like the best he can hope for. ]

[ Based on every magic-based mishap movie Julie has ever seen, she's thinking it might happen with anyone they happen to encounter, but only at first. In a movie, it would happen once between the main character and their friend or whatever, but then they're free to team up for the rest of the movie without worry. That makes sense to her, but then again, everything she thinks she understands in this world somehow tends to not at all be what she understands it to be.

She snorts at the visual he lays out, a little boy up in the branches, even if she can't exactly picture what should be at the bottom of the tree. She decides it should be a mouse in her mind, simply because that is very funny to her. An angry little mouse. ]

Either there's somethin' you're leavin' outta that description, or else you got a real low bar for embarrassment. Which would be tough with a buncha brothers. A few of my boy cousins once threw an entire bowl of punch on me. At a weddin'. There's pictures of me on the ground in a puddle of punch, cryin' my eyes out. My grandma framed 'em and hung 'em up.

Of course not. I never leave details out of any tale.

[ Details are definitely what he's known for. (There's more to it, to be certain, but that's a story for another time. She may or may not be far off the mark imagining a mouse.)

He glances down at her. They did what? ] Sounds like they deserved whatever you did to them afterwards.

[ He can only assume the incident ended with retaliation of some kind. More sticky liquor, perhaps. Geralt does not, in fact, realize punch is not strictly an alcoholic beverage. He's only ever had it through Julie. ]

That is why we call you the wordy Witcher behind your back. You just never shut up.

[ She sighs, hooks her ankle over his. If she's truthful, she can barely remember that incident at the wedding, both because she had been so young, and because it was only one instance of having far too many rowdy children present at every family event. The older ones were always supposed to look after the younger ones, but no preteen or teenager really wants to be childminding when they could be swiping unattended drinks and cigarette packs instead. ] Well, I was only like, three, I think? Maybe four. So I couldn't do that much to 'em then, their parents had to do it. Most of 'em, I didn't get back until we were older. I had a box of every embarrassin' picture we had of 'em. Awkward school pictures, naked baby pictures, couple of mugshots. Everythin' a teenage boy doesn't want anyone else to ever see. I used to mail copies to all their girlfriends. At Christmas, I'd send anonymous presents with the pictures printed on 'em.

[ Is that really a fair variety of revenge against childish actions done a decade or more earlier? Absolutely not. But Julie is nothing if not a little unreasonable. ]

Edited 2022-06-16 14:07 (UTC)

[ Perhaps not fair, but Geralt's surrounded by company for which petty overreactions are not unusual—Jaskier did once wish for a man's death over a bardic rivalry, albeit while inebriated—so the only thing Julie gets is an amused huff. He has a faint grasp on photos, having seen them, though he still doesn't fully understand how they're captured. Mostly just accepts that it's a thing.

He closes his eyes, relaxing into the pillows. ]

You've only convinced me it's a good thing the Continent hasn't invented captured images.

[ Would hate to have his own haunt him. He does not know what is to actually have a clear image of oneself as a child. He hardly recalls his own hair colour. Which is funny. You might think it should be the only aspect he remembers, if anything. But he really can't.

Or maybe he just never wants to think that much about it to try to remember those details. ]

[ She hums softly, her fingers curling gently in his shirt. It's not that she doesn't understand how photographs can sound absurd, even dangerous -- she certainly does. She grew up at precisely the right time to have most of her life captured in images on digital cameras, cell phones, uploaded to the internet. Much of the most embarrassing parts of her adolescence used to be forever memorialized on Facebook and Instagram. And it's strange because she now also understands what it's like to not have that too, to have only the memories in her own brain to look back on. She thinks, now, that she would prefer something in between the two. Maybe like it was before the 80s, when a Polaroid was all most people could afford. ]

Nah. Photos did more good than they ever did bad. We had a saying, "a picture's worth a thousand words". It meant that sometimes, the only way to really make people understand what was happenin' was for them to see it. Makes it all more real, makes 'em think twice. It's harder for bad guys to keep secrets when anyone could snap a quick picture and show it to the world. Think of how different it would be if we could've shown people what the dungeon was like. If I'da had a camera in Nott...

[ She trails off. What the queen did shouldn't be just a scar on his back. All of Thorne should have had to face what their leader was doing behind closed doors. ]

[ Hm. Somehow, that's never crossed his mind. It's hard to imagine, in general, the prevalence of pictures even after being told for someone who's never seen anything more than a painting or perhaps an illusion, crafted by a mage. He has to wonder, though. Would it have made a difference? He's seen what people are willing to accept, what they'll turn a blind eye to, even when the truth glimmers in the light of day. Then she says Nott and he grows quieter, sensing where her thoughts have turned.

Sometimes he thinks back, and he isn't entirely certain where he'd be if Julie had not been there. Probably crawled to some healer's door, if he was lucky. Bled out in a puddle if not. He's spoken of it to very few, even among those who were there. Part of that is his own reluctance to get into the matter, but the other part, too, is that it doesn't feel as though the details will do any good.

Still. It's been some time. There's more distance now between him and the entire incident. He lets a minute or so tick by. ] They wanted inside my head. Thorne. I wouldn't let them.

[ There's no need to explain why. From the start, there's been one task, one person, he's refused to falter on. He has a feeling, at this point, that Julie knows or at least suspects there are things he and Ciri are not saying. In truth, he isn't really trying to keep that a secret, that he's guarding something about Ciri in particular. He thinks Julie understands.

He doesn't linger on what he's said long, adding, ] Picture of the ride to Nott would've been nice, though. Decent view.

[ She can't say for sure whether it would have made a difference, but she knows that, often, it's the shock that makes people cry out. The ugly reality shoved in peoples' faces, even when they already had an inkling -- the Holocaust, Vietnam, Abu Ghraib. Those things came out of war, it was no secret what must have been happening, but there's a world of difference between a concept and the cold reality of what it looks like. People hate having to confront what they've been quietly condoning from a distance. They hate feeling like monsters.

Maybe that's why it's a word they so often threw in Geralt's face. ]

I know. [ She says it quietly, reaching up to touch his hand. He'd mentioned it that night, in the haze of the moments after she'd gotten him upstairs, before he passed out. That they were trying to get him to confess something they claimed he knew. At the time, she'd thought it had to do with whoever he'd said they were testing, in their court, but now she's not sure. They have that book, the one they say tells them all about the lives of the Summoned. That's probably bullshit, she thinks, but it must have some information about them, because they knew even then who they were pulling, at least to an extent.

And she's known for awhile that there's something they aren't telling her about Ciri. People chasing her for her royal status doesn't explain why they would want to leave their own world, and if that's not why they were chasing her, then why? But Julie has always trusted that, if it becomes important for her to know, then they will tell her. She understands why some secrets may best be kept to one's self. She has her own secrets from home that she is now the sole holder of, in the most literal sense.

Lacing her fingers between his, she makes a low noise, close to a chuckle. ] It's a nice little town. Lotta crime, but nice. I used to take Baron to run on the beach, next to the lake. I took Roach Two a couple times, before I sold her.

[ He isn't certain, either. How much do they know? How much does anyone know? The only thing he can say is they can't possibly understand the extent of what Ciri holds. They'd have never let her go otherwise. If they found him, they can find her. They've simply not thought it prudent to do so.

That isn't even accounting for what the Free Cities might know, either. It doesn't ever stop weighing on him, the uncertainties.

Her fingers curl through his, and he runs his thumb over her hand. He actually barely remembers much of Nott; what little he managed to see of it, he wasn't...entirely focused. But he does recall the lake, when they went to the mage for her portal. If not for the complicated factor of Thorne, Nott is where he'd prefer to be. The climate's far closer to what he's familiar with: winter snows, tall lush trees. Reminds him more of home.

He smiles a hint. Mm. Right. Roach Two. He hopes whoever paid for her kept that name. ] She's a good horse. Kept me on my feet. Chewed my hair, though.

[ Julie fears what any of these people know about the Summoned, honestly. The Summoned clearly have special power that the natives do not -- that's the whole reason they're here. And no one knows exactly what they want to do with this power, except in the case of the queen, who obviously thinks she can take the power from for herself. She just has to figure out how. But that says nothing of what else might be planned, if these leaders are trying to brute force their way into the Horizon, up to the Singularity. It was her fear months and months ago, the first time Solvunn and the Cities managed to summon on their own. That they were coming to take the Horizon.

Ciri would just be yet another unknown to try and factor into the whole mess.

She can't help but laugh at the visual of him getting slobbered on by a horse. It's a nicer image to replace the one of when she'd spent her time scraping dried blood from his scalp with her nails. ] That's what you get for never brushin' it.

[ Yeah. There's that, too, isn't there? What use the territories see in them, beyond...whatever the fuck they're doing at the moment. Biding their time, perhaps. He's well aware they're some sort of commodity.

He hums. His reply is a sleepy murmur. ] You brushed it.

[ He's never explained it, never quite thought to, but opening the door to him when he was bleeding out—that's one thing. That's the extent of what he'd been seeking when he came to her. Just a place to stay while he put himself back together. That'd have been more than enough.

But she'd done a lot further for him past that. Things he suspects she thought little of. Like scrub blood out of his hair and brush it or keep him company when he couldn't sleep. Maybe it isn't that significant to someone else, but it is to him. ]

I did. [ It's true, she hadn't thought much of it. Really, it had never occurred to her to not take care of him. Coddle him, even. Part of it was the environment she grew up in, with highly traditional gender roles where women were deemed caretakers, and another part of it was an effort to thwart her own chaotic tendencies to make things worse. But it was also the fact that, by then, he was her friend. She wanted to help him. And at the time, it had seemed like a given that would be the case. Who could look at someone bleeding out and just ignore it?

Now, she understands the reality. That he really did come from a world that would mostly rather let him die. It still doesn't make sense to her, but she accepts that truth. Her truth remains that, deep down, she's not the kind of person who can turn her back like that.

After everything the morning has brought, his slow heartbeat under her cheek has a sort of tranquilizing effect, and it's easy to let a feeling of relative safety blanket her mind. Eyes closed, still holding his hand, she sighs and then falls silent. ]

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EVENT #7: THE SIGHT

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