Illarion Albireo (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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deercountry2022-05-16 04:23 pm
unsheathedfromreality) wrote in deercountry2022-05-16 04:23 pm
Real & Half-Real: Chapter 2 - Nephele-That-Isn't
Who: A brave party of rescuers and their intrepid support staff
What: Pocket dimension shenanigans to save a missing Sleeper
When: Two insane days in May
Where: Nephele-that-isn’t, which isn’t Deer Country either
All at once–one day, in early May–the portal’s finished, and the planning is as near to done as it will ever be. All at once, it’s time to venture into Nephele-that-isn’t, and retrieve not one but two Sleepers who’ve gone astray.
The team assembles in the clearing by Argonaut’s abandoned shrine, in a darkness lit by glowing CRTs and the green, green moon. The portal itself, and the world beyond it, casts a light all its own–and one by one they step over that rune-etched silver threshold, and one by one vanish into another story than Trench’s own.
Like being sieved through strands of glass and fire. Like being picked apart thread by narrative thread as the Words themselves that write the universe flash before stunned eyes in the seconds before they’re erased and something worse substituted. Moments of fleeting alignment between passager and host-creator come in stopped heartbeats and empty lungs, in the memory you’ve been dead for years and the cold slide of steel between ribs.
Then that second-that's-years is over and deposits its captives beneath an alien sky, with sun and ring and stars and moons foreign as any far-flung land. Some travelers wear skins and magic to suit those stranger heavens; some have been changed by the logic of the half-world half-story to better fit its weave.
With a changed nature come changed senses and abilities–and those in the skins of shrikes, with eyes to see, may notice much more if they look.
All can see one grim fact, however, on entering the world: Any clock, any watch, any Omni now displays 48:00:00 or its analogue equivalent... And begins at once to tick down.
[[ Part of the Real & Half-Real player plot! Navigate to other plot posts: [OOC] Interest Check | [IC] Prologue | [IC] Iskierka's Notes | [IC] The Portal & the Plan ]]
What: Pocket dimension shenanigans to save a missing Sleeper
When: Two insane days in May
Where: Nephele-that-isn’t, which isn’t Deer Country either
All at once–one day, in early May–the portal’s finished, and the planning is as near to done as it will ever be. All at once, it’s time to venture into Nephele-that-isn’t, and retrieve not one but two Sleepers who’ve gone astray.
The team assembles in the clearing by Argonaut’s abandoned shrine, in a darkness lit by glowing CRTs and the green, green moon. The portal itself, and the world beyond it, casts a light all its own–and one by one they step over that rune-etched silver threshold, and one by one vanish into another story than Trench’s own.
Like being sieved through strands of glass and fire. Like being picked apart thread by narrative thread as the Words themselves that write the universe flash before stunned eyes in the seconds before they’re erased and something worse substituted. Moments of fleeting alignment between passager and host-creator come in stopped heartbeats and empty lungs, in the memory you’ve been dead for years and the cold slide of steel between ribs.
Then that second-that's-years is over and deposits its captives beneath an alien sky, with sun and ring and stars and moons foreign as any far-flung land. Some travelers wear skins and magic to suit those stranger heavens; some have been changed by the logic of the half-world half-story to better fit its weave.
With a changed nature come changed senses and abilities–and those in the skins of shrikes, with eyes to see, may notice much more if they look.
All can see one grim fact, however, on entering the world: Any clock, any watch, any Omni now displays 48:00:00 or its analogue equivalent... And begins at once to tick down.
[[ Part of the Real & Half-Real player plot! Navigate to other plot posts: [OOC] Interest Check | [IC] Prologue | [IC] Iskierka's Notes | [IC] The Portal & the Plan ]]
no subject
"'Compassion and tolerance are not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength,'" the lord beside him recites, but... distantly, almost absently, as if a reflex from a catechism. There's a flicker-quick glance at Ize, from the corner of his own colorless eyes (and which is more disquieting, to one who would seem to study this most ancient of wood-elves — the sudden bursts of speed, here as in battle, or the realization that, in his youth, his eyes must have been as vibrant as the teal feathers growing amidst the electrum that looks like hair?), before he adds, "It's troubling indeed to think you've been surrounded by those who are in such haste to discard others, or denigrate their value to those who do perceive it."
And, in a stronger voice, brisker, whether or not anyone else has come close enough to hear it, "No. He would not have called it weird, or stupid, or unnecessary, to try to help or save another — but."
Augustin reaches for Ize again, turning as he does, but barely touches him — the talon at one fingertip very, very gently preens a feather back into place, next to Ize's ear. "He would also remember that each of us makes our own choices, in every moment; when an offer of compassionate help is rejected, even if the consequences for the sufferer are severe, it is not the fault of the one who tried to help; he would not seek to accrue more blame, or guilt, than he truly earned."
There's a faint sound in the air, then, a little more melodic than the wind and ship have heretofore managed: a reedy little chuckle, although his expression barely shows any humor.
"He was always much more patient and wise than I, after all."
no subject
He shies away with a lean and a frown as his feathers briefly puff up. It's nothing personal--which is exactly it. Augustin is not his mother, his friend, his close comrade, or his Prince. Despite the complicated interlocking social breaches, and more importantly, the reminder of where they are and what they've done in the form of the blood spattering them both, it's a distinctly harmless and young sort of annoyed look from someone with something to prove. Really, Uncle?
"It's not guilt," he continues seriously as if he never moved. "I hardly ever feel guilty. I look forward. It's why I'm here. And blame is something other people do. I've been blamed, but for stupid things, not for anything that really matters."
He looks up (and up) at him, not moving his solidly planted feet but for the necessary lilting to accommodate a moving ship. It comes easy to those who can walk on snow.
"It's responsibility. I'm responsible for everyone near me. That's just how it is. It's my failure," he says this tightly as if to clutch it to his suddenly constricted voice, "but I have to keep moving. Can't help anyone else if I don't get up."
He produces a rag, and the first of his blood-stained armor plates floats into his scarred hands.
no subject
It's a mild echo; it's not for him to be judgmental, to be quick-tempered — no hot-headed, hot-blooded mammal, he — mildly questioning, as if trying to ensure he hasn't somehow simply misheard his (unfathomably) young nephew. The tilt of his head, as he watches Ize's hands busy themselves cleaning this fancy bit of metal, is far too avian for any mammal present or watching to even contemplate in any depth without the risk of sympathetic muscle spasm.
"Failure... fault... self-castigation..." A small twitch of his shoulders is a shrug, apparently, serving to dismiss all of these words as nothing but synonyms to prove his point.
It hurts, of course, to see someone so young bearing a weight so terrible, so terribly heavy; but — well, this notion with which he's credited his brother still hangs heavy in the air between them:
... when an offer of compassionate help is rejected, even if the consequences for the sufferer are severe ...
"Who placed this responsibility on your shoulders? To say that you, and you alone — as young as you are — are the one who bears responsibility for all those around you — who was it, fledge, who decided she didn't want to bear her responsibilities any longer, and shifted them to you? Or have you taken on the weight of the world all on your own?"
It would just figure, that a descendant of Alfred's would do that.