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

[carmesi]

[peter's hand is on the lock, fingers turning the combination for it, and wanda watches the world around them become warmer—in colors, in atmosphere. the walls of HYDRA's research lab is replaced with far more welcoming ones, bright lights, a monotonous sound of friendly chatter in the background. there are faceless students milling about as the focus turns like a fish-eyed camera towards peter's two friends.

his focus of attention then, and now.

wanda watches curiously as the scene unfolds, noting peter's follow-up explanation. ned and mj, a pause right before the girl's name.]

To Europe? It sounds... exciting.

[for a couple of kids from queens, it most definitely would be. wanda watches the group of friends, until the bell rings and forces them to realize their lateness belatedly, hurrying towards their next class. without prompting, she tugs peter along to follow, her curiosity that of someone who never got to be in school, a fledgling desire for such an institution brought to her consciousness only by way of the american tv shows she would see.]

I didn't realize American schools actually looked this way. I remember seeing one in Malcolm in the Middle. [she looks back at peter, then continues—their hands held together, a bridge between the two. touching him, though, means that she can sense something a little extra, other than the obvious way his shoulders are stiff and his expression pinched.] Why does it feel like you've said goodbye to them, without expecting to see them again?

[—not... dead. that's not the vibe she's getting. something else.

wanda stops in front of a door—it leads to a maths classroom, if the posters about maths and the equations on the whiteboard are anything to go by. she looks through the window on the door, and it's only after a moment that she turns her head back towards him, a carefully-made contact with his eyes and her own.]

They — aren't part of your life, anymore?

[peter, who wanda offered relief by mentioning she doesn't read minds anymore, can still sense his emotions palpably enough to draw conclusions.]

[piqure]

had the trip been exciting? maybe too much, at the end.

but it’s impossible not to feel the giddiness he had back then, back at this one day of the many. it was easier to ignore the aftermath of a victory against thanos, funeral suit still wrinkled in his closet; easier to ignore the five years they missed in the snap. easier with his friends, easier to pretend to be normal in their lateness to math and their packing plans (or lack thereof) to a trip to venice. college plans. ] It was — an interesting trip. Definitely a little more exciting than I thought it would be.

I was kind of — looking forward to it being a normal trip, you know? Just a high school trip but, [ there’s a small shrug tossed her way as he thins his lips, left corner of his mouth upturned. you know how it is, it seems to say.

he is tugged along the familiar hall and it occurs to him, sharply, that she grew up in a far different place. he snorts - malcolm in the middle, huh? ] Oh yeah! Most schools look like this here, actually. All of them kind of look like they’re out of one of those old movie sets, like the Breakfast Club though, right? Have you seen that one too —

[ his reply dwindles down at the end, an absentminded continuation to her commentary, snapped forward by her precision. he looks at her, standing in the threshold of the math classroom.

then, he looks past her, at ned, and mj. he misses them. he wished he valued moments like this more, back then. but how could he have known?

but, he’s already dumped enough of his pain onto wanda’s plate, hadn’t he? he shakes his head, expression sobering up again and tries for acceptance to the set of his shoulders. ] It’s more like — I’m not part of theirs, anymore. [ a wince, a single corner of his eye creasing. ] Maybe that can change later, but it’s better this way, right now.

[ the memory shudders around them, and peter instinctively turns to look around, wondering what things will morph into next. or perhaps this is the end of it? guilt chases at the corners of his conscience. from the glimpses of wanda’s life, her’s was filled with so much chaos and loss and god only knows what experiments, and here he was, missing his high school friends, his girlfriend. it felt disproportionate. ]

[carmesi]

[not being part of their anymore implies one of too many things. only a couple seem the most viable: one, that peter himself is dead, which wanda highly doubts; two, is him cutting off his bond between them, which also seems unlikely. still, peter is not one without sincerity, and the glimpse she had gotten of his life after his aunt died is actually enough for her to try and connect the dots.

the memories changes around them, and instead they are brought back to her domain. the tall, dark trees of her foreboding forest line at their sides, the crows cawing a few times before quieting.]

What did you do?

[it might feel disproportionate, his pain in comparison to her own, but it is not for him to try and compare them. wanda knows there is a story here, relating to his aunt, somehow, that he is careful about sharing.

she holds his hand tighter, and reaches for his other one.]

It is better for who, Peter?

[piqure]

[ the world shudders, breathes and shifts around them and for a moment peter braces himself, elbow stiffer and hold on her hand a little tighter. minuscule changes of posture until they're greeted again by the greenery of wanda's domain. the cawing of crows is sharp and cacophonous, and he blinks up at them.

she reaches for his other hand and he doesn't step away.

what did you do she asks, pointed and perceptive as ever and for a moment, he doesn't meet her gaze, instead electing to watch the shadows of the woods around them.

a shake of his head, a wince of recollection and his answer comes in a short stammer — ] — What - well —

[ would telling her everything incite more tension between her and stephen? it wasn't like it wasn't an obvious eggshell, at least at one point and his only concern is turned on the thought of not making it worse (again). he finds himself shaking his head. ] — I guess I just — took responsibility? [ is a careful answer, a cop-out swallowing a lump in his throat, heart hammering loud as he looks back to her and pauses. it's a non-answer, he knows. but he considers the place around them, the mettle of her powers and the vastness of the red magic he'd only glimpsed at before and the question follows before he can reconsider the implication of opening the floor enough to ask. ] Hey, Wanda, can I ask you something? About your powers?

[carmesi]

[he's avoiding answering the question, but instead of pushing—wanda just waits. it's easier with someone as easy to read as peter, especially with her powers, to let him sort through all the thoughts in his head first before trying to delve into them. besides, he deserves his privacy and getting to say as much as he wants.

it doesn't mean that she doesn't feel his hesitation, though. even when peter says that he took responsibility, it feels bittersweet. not quite the victorious achievement one would gleam pride from as a young adult.

the question catches her off-guard, completely veering from the explanation she expects. wanda frowns, blinks a few times, and shakes her head lightly; her hands tighten around the boy's.]

Of course you can.

[and to make it fair, she lets go, stepping back and drawing an arch with her hand so that the trees give way to the outside of the forest, so it's less oppressive and for peter to have clear skies to look up at. she starts treading the way through, slowly, making sure that he follows her closely.]

[piqure]

[ he watches the trees give way overhead, momentarily distracted by how quick it changes. easy as breathing with nothing out of place. unlike his disjointed horizon, tumultuous in its changes with only a handful of consistencies that have settled as of late.

he takes a breath. he isn't sure he wants to know the answer. knows well enough that people like sam, and stephen and tony (were he still alive back home), would all be affected. that was the deal, that was the suture to the multiuniversal rift that clawed its way through the new york sky. that was his fix. forget peter parker.

it wasn't like he knew her well before coming here. but — but hope inspires what-ifs. he doesn't know what happens when, or if, someone returns to their world and catches up on the timeline like he had. would they forget him here too? ] If — if a spell affected your memories, would you be able to tell? [ too specific of a question to be curiosity alone. but let him hope it isn't too obvious. ] It's just — your magic seems to have a lot to do with, well, mind stuff? So I was just wondering...

[carmesi]

[peter says he wants to ask about her powers, but he starts speaking in hypotheticals—of a spell that affected memories. it sounds awfully specific for something strung together from just curiosity over magic.

while he isn't entirely wrong, it's not necessarily how it works. she can control the minds of others, she can read their thoughts, she can bend their will with her own, but that is not everything that chaos magic encompasses.

at this point, she isn't sure what the limit of it is, either.]

I don't know. [there's a pause in her step until she comes to a halt, looking about at the skies that have opened up around them. she squints, thoughtful, at a particular cloud.] It depends on the spell and the one who casts it.

[after another moment of careful thought, she turns to peter.]

You live in New York, don't you?

[and there happens to be a sorcerer of great renown that lives there, too. one can see the pieces connecting for her clear as day on her expression, as it shifts minutely, her head tilting.]

[piqure]

[ okay, so maybe it was a more pointed question than he made it sound at first, but, being fair, it was about her powers.

His shoulders rise and fall, contemplating her answer. He tries not to look disappointed, because that’s not a fair thing to be. He’s careful not to look her way, for a bit, but her own gaze draws his back, a little weary. ] Um — yeah, yeah I do.

[ He squints at her, just a little, as if trying to gauge just what she’s thinking. Her head tilts even he can tell where the thought process is going, because wait yeah obviously the Sanctum is in New York and — oh no. ] No, okay, it’s probably worse than it sounds! It’s really — it’s not, you know, world ending? [ words shoved messy all together, like trying to cover a span of some very long days in something - super casual, like it wasn’t anything to worry about.] Okay, it probably was for like, a short bit, I don’t know but we fixed it! But I just was thinking if you would have been affected at all!

[carmesi]

[she raises an eyebrow at his quick and confusing explanation (he's speaking too fast again, and without context, it is easy to get lost; luckily, wanda thinks she knows what happened here—and it all leads to stephen strange). she considers how to react. upset? angry? nonchalant?

in the end, she chooses to heave a sigh and turn back around, continuing her way towards a small pier on the lake. a small bench sits on the middle of it, her mind enabling such fixtures with a passing thought within the horizon.]

Stephen casts a spell to make others forget. And I'm the monster.

[she snorts, muttering her annoyance, and then sits on said bench, looking out towards the lake. expecting peter to have followed, she turns to him.]

Why would he have done that?

[piqure]

[ the first thing that rings through peter, upon first hearing the low-voiced annoyance, is panic.

he follows closely by, without a pause or question of whether or not the bench was ever there in the first place, overlooking the expanse of the lake. ] No, no, no no one's a monster, okay? [ he drops down beside her, knees knocking into the wood as his entire posture pivots her way. ] It's not like that, [ has he inadvertently made things worse again?

all he wants is for everyone here to keep the peace, but that's a naive notion amidst people with great power (and we all know what's said about that). he doesn't know the extent or the sources of their tensions. he can infer of the one between her and tony stark. stephen — is less clear by virtue of less knowing. ] I asked him to. I asked him to help me, and then I messed with the spell and then things just kind of spiraled from there, and that's when all those people who knew versions of Spiderman kept pouring out. And in the end, the way to fix everything — the mess I made, even if Stephen helped — was to do the spell over the right way and I asked him to do that. The only way to fix all those tears in the multiverse was to make everyone forget who I was, [ his voice wavers, paper thin. there's so much more information to infill and he knows he's speaking fast. he knows it's a lot that's said and he knows there's even more. a part of him thinks he shouldn't have told her anything but it isn't like this place gave them too much a choice, not with how much of an open book Peter has always been. ] No one's a monster, [ he heaves, with deflated finality. ] It just got — messy. But it's okay, now. Really.

[carmesi]

[wanda holds her tongue while peter explains, almost too quickly as if trying to draw reassurances for everyone involved. it takes her a moment, amidst his explaining, for her shoulders to relax, turning just so to face him; she grabs one of his hands mid explanation and holds it steady between her own.

she tries to understand what he is telling her.

after he's done talking, she just stays silent, staring down at their hands.]

I have my own hang ups with the people you look up to, and it's not fair that you have to be in the middle of it. [she pats his hand lightly.] Sorry.

[it is now when she raises her gaze to look at him, a sort of bemused expression on her face. she feels the world for this young man, someone who has managed to become something of a son to her—a replacement for that which she yearns. she could never fault him, never see his mistakes as anything deserving of punishment or ire. so, when he himself brings forward the self loathing and deprecating statements, it makes her heart ache.

she offers in a whisper:]

You're really, truly alone.

[back home. no aunt may, no tony stark, no friends.]

Peter... [a hand raises to rest on his cheek.] I hope I never forget you. You're— so important to me. And even if it's okay now... are you?

[piqure]

[ her own hangups, she says, and peter's nose wrinkles. it's a soft way of putting it, it feels like. because stark — well, stark tech was a driving asset in the war on sokovia, wasn't it? and then with ultron, which — which upset the inner workings of the avengers enough to cause them to go head to head in the first place. and then there was pietro, an avenger for a day and didn't that have implications of its own. and the only reason peter hadn't brought any of that up is that he didn't know how. that you can only keep asking if someone is okay so many times, and none of that actually guarantees that they are (he knows, he knows because he's asked, he's always asked and he's always grateful and he's always fine in the way that no one actually is, with all the accumulative traumas across their years.)

and then stephen? stephen is intimidating and way too smart and way too academic about magic and even peter has that figured out. he could guess that might serve as a point of argument, maybe? he's less sure about what else this could be.

maybe, maybe. speculation of things that aren't really his business, but he wonders anyway because, much like the questions posed his way, he wishes every one of them was simply just okay. they're on the same side here. they have to be, right?

her hand on his pulls him back from the undercurrent of thoughts, a constant thing. his eyes drop, a little, when she holds his face. ] Yeah. Yeah, me too. [ she is important to him. family, he thinks. or feels. he doesn't meet her eye, offering a shrug. are you okay?

he's been asked that a lot. his answer had always been the same except this once, an allowance to be shoved aside later on. ] No.

Well — it's better here, sort of. But — I don't know. This place isn't permanent. We all have our timelines to go back to, and I know people are all working on trying to figure this stuff out, and I know that when we do, things will be different. Or — or back to how they were before we got here. [ he sits up straighter, and offers her a more sure smile. ] I'm — really glad I get to know you hear though, Wanda.

[carmesi]

[she sits here in the quiet stillness brought forth by her horizon. it's easy to get lost in it, in the unfathomable depths of the lake; it's easy to feel small in it, with the majestic snow-capped mountains framing the horizon. wanda stumbles over peter's words about how this place isn't permanent—as far as they know—and that the real possibility of returning home to how things were is either reason to hold on to hope, or reason to dread returning at all.

at his words of being happy to have met her here, she can't help the smile as she returns her gaze to focus on him.]

One of the very few nice things about this place, I would say.

[peter is smiling, but she can tell, of all the sadness that carves itself inside of him. she's quiet for a moment and permits herself to be a little nosy about the situation.]

A memory spell could easily be removed, if you talk to the people who have forgotten and remind them what it is they've lost. [and yet she knows that peter must have made the choice to not do so— he's lost, and he feels guilty for it.] When we return home, and should you find me — remind me of who you are.

I won't let you be alone, Peter. Even if you think that's the best way to keep everyone safe.

[wanda wraps her arms around him, brings him in for a hug.]