let me look at the sun | open

[terriblepurpose]

Who: Paul Atreides, open
What: Event catch-all
When: Month of December
Where: Archaic Archives, streets of Trench, the forest's edge, memories
Notes: Go ahead and contact me at terriblepurpose or by PM if you'd like to discuss any starters or suggest new ones! For tagging in your character's memories to Paul, feel free to start with whatever your preference is.

Content Warnings: Violence, body horror (lockjoint), death, religious extremism, extensive Dune spoilers, suicidal ideation, funerals, grief

Comments

archaic archives | research | open

[terriblepurpose]

[What Paul has fashioned of this corner of the Archaic Archives is certainly not a lair. The connotations of lair imply something hidden, and Paul isn't hiding anything in any way that's immediately obvious from the physical evidence.

It's more of a nest, one he flits to and from over the course of days, lining it with books and papers and one large, heavy blackboard dominating a forgotten study nook in the shifting library stacks. The books and papers have titles like The Unseeing Eye, or Winter Mournings Revealed; Dialogues With The Inner Self and Other Applications of The Subtle Internal Arts of Mind; and Oneiromancy: A Theoretical Primer, to name a few, and anyone who finds this place while Paul is or isn't there will likely be able to pierce together the intent of them all collected: someone is trying to teach themselves about memory and dream blood magic.

The blackboard is chipped in places and heavily weathered, its grey painted frame sagging in on itself with age. It's dense with overlapping notation from day one and only becomes more so over time, littered with tiny and precise writing: stabilized thoughtform = controlled conditions?; geomantic implications of construction, explore; account for 4th body; parallel processing; threshold event?; define timeline enforce structure. The notes can't seem to stay contained there, spilling over onto scraps of paper pinned at the wooden edges or littered over the wide wooden table Paul has claimed as his primary workspace.

In the center of that table sits a folded paper dragonfly. Sophia tends to sit next to it while Paul is in the nook, a smoke and ink version of a desert mouse that Paul talks to quietly as he conducts the work. It's a patter of 'I understand what you mean, but what if I-' and 'I know, but-', his omen apparently pressed first into the role of research assistant before communications device.

A person might find Paul in the halls of the archives, sifting through books and other sources for scraps of information. They might find him in his little lair, bent over his notes or frowning at his blackboard with chalk in hand. Or perhaps he finds them there, on his return journey with books and monographs piled high on a borrowed library cart. Whatever the case is, Paul won't be the one to speak first, taking a fuzzy moment to shift from internal thought to external socialization, blinking owlishly at whoever he meets.

There's ink on his fingers, chalk on the cuffs of his sleeves, and a half-wild light in his eyes. Paul has questions, and other people - why, they might have answers.]

(cw: unnecessarily wordy introspection, demons, possession, mention of "suicide", and terrorising!)

[possessum]

( Something has become aware of the young man there in the labyrinth of books.

Something perhaps nearly as ancient as some of these tomes, and like many of them, it's coated in the dust of time, a layering that it struggles to see through, to remember itself through; the creature is a lost thing. Something that's been broken over time: forced in and out of human hosts through intensive ritual, bound to Earth's plane and held caged there. A bird with mutilated wings, shred like paper.

Once, it wasn't so. Of all the great goetic entities, King Paimon is one of the greatest. So close to Lucifer himself and one of the four Cardinal rulers of Hell, a being of knowledge, truths, and secrets. Such a place as this, with its arcane insights and plethora of knowledge, would be an ideal for the great king. And Paimon has been drawn here ever since he woke in this new place: still trapped within a vessel but no longer trapped in the dreamscape that was Deerington. In this place, his powers are slowly returning, and he's slowly remembering and re-learning. He comes here often, to the Arcane Archives. He moves through the rows of books and trails them softly with his fingertips, leafs through page after page, absorbing. It's here that he feels his spirit sparking to life within him, a brilliant golden cacophony, impossibly loud and even more impossibly bright.

Even in the state that Corruption has twisted him into (a snarling thing, progressively more and more aggressive), the demon comes here to this important place. Only right now it's like a starving animal following some instinct back to a place it was once fed. His frayed mental state has no capacity to actually utilise this space right now; he can only prowl it like a ghost haunting the endless rows of books. Long-limbed, tall, and silent as a shadow, the energy of him is a painfully-taut wire ready to snap.

When he sees the boy tucked away into a quiet little space of his own, the demon freezes, every fibre of his essence locked on, watching through a small gap in a nearby row of books. At this point in Corruption, "Peter" no longer exists. There is no memory of him — no memory of the fact that this body is Peter. But there is the memory of other things, feelings and direction, what the demon's goal was for so long. To break down the designated male host so that he could successfully inhabit his body. To make him vulnerable.

The boy is youthful-faced and lean — on the cusp of adulthood, head full of thick dark curls. These surface features remind Paimon of Peter even if he doesn't explicitly know it. It triggers something in him. Gives the lost thing something to focus on, a goal to accomplish again.

Break him down, hollow him out. Get inside.

Peter was sixteen years old when the possession was finalised. And perhaps, on some level, the demon of knowledge knows that the young man he's staring unblinkingly at is of the exact same age.

The final thing that hollowed his vessel out was the act of terrorising him while wearing his mother's skin. Like an animal, he'd chased and snarled and screamed and thrashed and cut through Annie Graham's skin, and let the boy watch his mother kill herself.

In the silence of Paul's solitude comes a sudden interruption — a sharp cluck-sound as the entity flicks its tongue against the roof of its mouth. The seconds after that are few but they stretch out, tense, strained...... and then the demon abruptly starts shoving books through the bookshelf it's hiding behind, sending them violently flying outwards as it starts forcing its way through that shelf like something bursting from a wall, a madman snarling, pupils blown wide, turning the eyes of this body from warm chocolate browns to inky black.

It's the boy in the secluded nook that he's locked onto, clearly ripping his way right through the bookshelf towards him, fingers curved like claws as they scrabble and grip and force their way through. There's an anger that's animalistic, wild — and most of all, hungry. )

"unnecessarily wordy introspection" no all necessary

[terriblepurpose]

[Paul has been told that the Archives belong to Never Mind. They have refused to call this a temple, but it's what he's begun to see it as. The shifting walls and bookshelves, a mandala; the archivists, the priesthood; the act of learning, offering and prayer at once. It's soothing, cloistered, peaceful. If he believed in any kind of fairness, he'd curse that he was chosen by her and not the raven-shaped god of knowledge.

But still. He's found something here that has been the closest to a sense of safety yet. Being here allows him to feel as though he's capable of taking control of the situation, of himself. When in doubt, he has always reached for knowledge, and he is full of such doubt these days. He is distracted with it, revolving around the questions of how and why of dozens of things. He is rushed with it, his blood thrumming with the recklessness of the Bone Moon.

What this all comes together to mean is this: Paul has taken off his shield generator to read, because the edge of it was catching on paper, and he was getting annoyed. He set it on a bookshelf close at hand, just in case, but as the hours wore on today he didn't think of it at all.

Paul does think of it when it clatters to the floor and is promptly buried under falling books as someone (not something, he corrects, a flicker of disturbance at his first categorization) bursts through the bookshelf opposite him. His desert mouse disappears into a pocket as he stands up so quickly the chair he was sitting in scrapes on the ground, his hands rising palm up and warding towards the stranger.]

Stop -

[Paul's off-balance from the shock, from trying to read the stranger's face and seeing - seeing what? Another boy, not much older than he is, who's clearly mad with the Hunter's Curse, and anything else is him being shaken. He is not a child, he's not afraid of an unarmed man who's going to end up stuck in a shelf or falling on the floor no matter how wild his eyes are.]

You don't want to hurt me, or yourself, stop this.

[He steps towards the stranger, pitching his voice to a soothing, gentle register. This isn't the first madman he's handled here; there is nothing different but the intensity of it. Nothing.]

free 2 RAMBLE (•̀o•́)ง

[possessum]

( The manner in which the thing makes its presence known seems mindless — frenzied, uncontrolled, blinded by an animalistic desperation. If there were a wiser way to gain what it wants, the entity is certainly far-removed from it.

...But even here, there's tactic involved in the method used. Paimon in this state isn't explicitly capable of being aware of it so much, but it's there even so: there's purpose to scrabbling his way from the bookshelves with reckless abandon, snarling loudly, making quite the show of it.

He wants to terrify the boy. That was part of it, after all, such an essential part. Vulnerability is born from terror, from the feeling of being trapped the way he means to trap the boy in his own secure little corner.

(Make a home a nightmare, and the people inside have nowhere to feel safe in, and they crumble to pieces one by one by one. Peter was the last member of the Graham Family standing, until he wasn't, and in the very end he was terrified of his own home, its very foundations.)

...—But the boy doesn't immediately react the way the demon anticipates. There's no screams, no thrashing wildly away from him, no attempt to escape. There's— instruction, direction ('Stop this') and the young man (host, the male host, it's supposed to be a male host and if he gets inside of the male host then all the things that are wrong in him will be right again, won't they—?) even steps closer. The voice is soothing, placating; the demon finds himself shocked into silence by this for a few long seconds. Everything goes very still, the very energy of himself sucked in and held there.

And then anger floods up and out and he screams, the sound only barely human in the sense that it's forced through human vocal chords. It's some natural reaction to being met with this resistance, one force meeting another and surging brutally in attempt to suppress it. Several of the books on the shelf suddenly fly outwards, not pushed by his scraping hands but by his mind, a whirlwind of pages and thick covers that slam against the opposite wall and floor and possibly the boy himself — unless he manages to dodge them — with dangerously heavy thuds.

It clears the shelf enough that the demon's able to lunge almost all the way through, and then its lean torso twists, turns itself upwards; the figure begins to crawl vertically up the shelf it's finally torn through, long limbs moving spider-like, knocking more books off the higher it goes. When it's up high enough that it has to turn its long, slender neck down all the way to stare at the boy, it bares its teeth at him, the words a reedy hiss. Though it's perhaps unexpectedly comprehensible, there's a coating that surrounds the words, some echo of Other. The rise and fall and rise of multiple voices, whispers, howls: a cacophony of ancient things. What speaks was never meant to be understood by human ears. )

YOU BELONG TO ME

( ...At least buy him dinner first, Paimon

...But perhaps, this isn't simply a person gone crazed with the Hunter's Curse. Perhaps this is something else, something that seems to have personal offense with the young man stood down there. )

YOU WILL SUBMIT, BOY
YOU WERE ALWAYS MEANT TO SUBMIT

the memories of others | winter mournings | open

[terriblepurpose]

[After a few searing days of research, Paul decides he has no choice but to be ready. The window of opportunity is small, and although there's a risk of the memory he needs for his theory coming early there's also the mitigating factor that it might repeat. He's still starting with a theoretical idea of what to do, anyway, and if he's right - if he's right, if he understands what he's studied, he should be able to control the circumstances if not the timing.

But these particular memories aren't about Paul or what he has studied. When he binds these particular Winter Mournings in dark leather cords, this is about other people, and even if Paul has ulterior motives he will never be careless about that responsibility.

The bone and antlers glow, and Paul touches them, falling into whatever memory and person they take him to. He appears in memories almost seamlessly - one second, there is a space he's not in, and the next, he is. His first action is always to observe before he acts, and so whoever he meets here in the ether of the mind will first see a solemn looking teenage boy somewhere in their field of vision, or perceive the presence of a silent newcomer some other way.

Paul is here to help. Whether or not he'll be able to is another matter entirely, but the fact remains: this is a grave duty and one he treats with the utmost respect, this delving into the agonies and grieving of other people. He knows too well what it's like to lose to do anything else.]

welcome to jrpg nonsense

[thinkfirst]

[ Paul flickers into being in a very strange place indeed.

Water cascades hard and fast behind three men in full armor, the roar and the sharp salty mist thick enough to crowd the senses, except it's possible to hear the dry sneer of the man in the center over all of it, talking like he expected the motley group of people now standing in front of him. ]

Welcome to the very depths of the ocean, [ He sneers at the lot of them, and Flynn—a different Flynn, a Flynn in less armor, wrapped in a scarf, standing beside Paul—sucks in a sharp breath at the same time as the Flynn in the memory.

The memory, because that is what it must be, though Flynn has not experienced this before. He has seen this man since waking up in this awful city but not in living color like this, alive, reciting words Flynn must have repeated to himself a hundred times, wondering if this was the moment when he could have pulled Alexei back off his path.

The quiet boy beside him, though. That's new. That is a piece Flynn doesn't remember, and so he pushes past his own remembered fear and anger to shift closer as Alexei—the man in red, sneering and remote—asks about someone named Yeager. Flynn talks under the words, small and sharp, aimed at the newcomer. ]

You should not be here. This is a dangerous memory.

[terriblepurpose]

[Paul's eyes are half-lidded, his senses crowded with the pouring crush of water. Salt, not cinnamon, and he brings his hands in front of his chest, thumb to thumb and index finger to index finger in an upright triangle.]

A breath held. A chime.

[Paul murmurs as he inverts the triangle, wrists pivoting to flip the shape of his focus. He exhales shakily, and the world doesn't stop, but it slows. Just enough. He can feel his hold on it slipping even as he takes it in hand, but he has it - the blade of a knife dancing off his fingertips as it falls.]

I can't leave until the end. [He looks at Flynn out of the corner of his eye, his voice quiet and tight even as the world around them keeps moving slowly, other voices drawing out and the water's roar stretched long.] And it's all right. I've prepared for this.

[He looks around now, evaluating the people around him - he recognizes none of them, but that's to be expected.]

My name's Paul. I'm trying to- [A catch in the back of his throat, and the falling water begins to rush faster again.] I want to help.

[thinkfirst]

Help?

[ Flynn latches onto his word, his eyes widening as the familiar rush of water, seared into his memory, slows. He steps closer to this stranger, to Paul, who clearly has some sway over this place. His heart is already pounding hard in his chest in anticipation of the conversation they are about to hear. His words are intent and intense, and apparently heard only to Paul, because none of the party, the people Yuri loves, turn to look at him. ]

How can you help? Can you change what you see here?

[notimeforfailure]

[He appears by the gates of a great monastery. ...Not, perhaps, that he is afforded the time to gain his bearings. Behind him, there stands a great mass of soldiers garbed in gray and bearing the banner of a great dragon jealously protecting the jeweled crown of an archbishop. Before him, stretched as far as the eye can see is a sea of red flying the flag of a two-headed eagle.

A small group is gathered alone. No gray uniforms here: a bespectacled, sheepish-looking boy, an arrogant-faced young noble with a dreadful haircut, a fiery woman astride a horse. And here, perhaps, is the owner of this memory, a silver-haired girl who immediately turns to look sharply at this newcomer despite that he is ignored by everyone else.

She frowns - carefully steps outside of this group. She does not recognize this interloper.]

...Who are you? A Sleeper?

[terriblepurpose]

[The stranger's hands have curled into fists in his black leather gloves, his spine rigid and jaw set as he looks out over the army in front of them. When Lysithea speaks he almost seems startled.]

-yes. [This is a memory which suggests getting to the point.] I'm Paul. A paleblood.

[It still feels strange to describe himself that way, but again, that's beside the point. He pulls his shoulders back and exhales through his nose, clarifying his focus.]

That means I can try to change this, if you want me to. Or at least make it safer. [Even as he says it, he's not sure it's true, the parts of this memory forming a daunting complexity. But he's here, and he can try.] Or I can do nothing. It's up to you.

a very special dinner party

[megatheorem]

[This is not a memory Palamedes would expect to dwell on. He's been wondering if that is the logic of it, having been pulled through a few others' memories himself before at last being deposited a visitor into his own; what point is the magic of this place trying to make? What mistakes, what fear is he meant to ruminate on at a dinner party?

(That he can think of one instantly is beside the point — A dinner party!)

He stands witness, shoulders squared tensely and arms folded tight against his chest, one hand curled under his chin, watching himself sit at this table crowded by, honestly, weirdos. A muscular young woman in skull paint sits at one elbow, alternately stuffing her face and flexing for the teenager on her other side, while the other Palamedes spends the majority of his dinner chattering ceaselessly about titles and rankings. Scholar and Warden float out of his lengthy explanation, above the warm rumble of conversation.

For all intents and purposes, despite how some people at this party are literally painted up like skulls and the waiters seem to literally be skeletons, this is a friendly dinner party between colleagues and almost-friends. The Palamedes at the table looks comfortable, engaged in conversation, having a decent time — and his other half is somewhere, the other all grey-clad figure at this table, not as engaged. (Every glance at Palamedes could be the glance before a knife between his ribs, after all, so Camilla the Sixth could be having a better time.)

But it's a nice party. The atmosphere is friendly, the conversation flows — and often into strange topics, which a knowledgeable visitor might be able to pinpoint as more necromancy from context. It's a very nice time, and somehow, most of the people gathered around the table are enjoying themselves.

Standing against the wall, Palamedes the Witness is not enjoying himself. It's subtle, in the total stillness of him and the tight furrow of his brow; the look he fixes this dinner party with is intense in a way that suggests, well — any manner of things, and none of them entirely pleasant.

Eventually, and without looking away from the table, he says:]

You can speak; this isn't the kind where we're forced to participate. Someone would have killed one of me by now if it were.

[Doubles are suspicious! Anyway, hi.]

[terriblepurpose]

I was wondering about that.

[Paul smiles, a soft twitch of his mouth under the sunken hollows of his eyes.

Palamedes, Warden and heir of the Sixth House, and Paul perceives the context now like it's written on the air. There are lines of force and influence here expressed in every subtle gesture and every slight look, not least of which are found in the witness Palamedes' retrospective gaze. No great wonder that Paul had felt a kinship and recognition before, even without knowing why. Paul's been at this dinner party, even if he hasn't been at this dinner party, with its macabre attendants and grim looking guests.

Paul hadn't thought of this. He doesn't know how he couldn't, except that maybe part of him flinched from the possibility. He doesn't have the right to do that anymore.]

I can make this go faster if you want me to, I think. I've been able to slow things down. [He leans back against the wall, tilting his chin up as he looks at the aged and sagging ceiling.] Which doesn't make sense. None of this makes sense.

You don't have to tell me what this is. [Not that he imagines Palamedes feels a burning need to clarify things to him.] At least no one's trying to kill us. You're right. That is nice.

...but if someone is going to try to kill us, or you, I'd appreciate a warning.

the streets of trench, the edge of the forest | run rabbit run | open

[terriblepurpose]

[Of course, to execute Paul's plan requires supplies. Bindings, in the forms of cords and ribbons and fine links of soft chain, are easy enough to get. But the important parts, the ossified memory-structures of bone and antler, aren't just lying around, even in Trench. There's always a demand for these objects, and it's only heightened in this season, so if someone hypothetically wanted a large quantity of either they'd be forced to search in places where other people hesitate to.

It helps, in a way, that this is the hunting season. Fewer people will risk the obscure streets or the shadows of the forest's edge when Dorothea's curse is in play, and that creates opportunity for those bold or foolish enough to risk it.

Paul is a cinnamon incense scented shadow on the walls and in the trees, and not sure if he's bold or foolish. Probably some inadvisable mixture of both. He's trying to be careful, the stern voices of every teacher he's ever had a chorus in the back of his mind - but another part of him is restless to the point of near-pain, impatient and impulsive.

And there's a kind of reckless joy in this. Every time he slips a pursuer or sights a trap Paul feels a little more confident about his growing knowledge of this place. There's an underlying rhythm to things here he's beginning to be able to intuit, his shrouded blackclad form huddled in the roots of a gnarled near-pine as a steaming, soaked beast lurches past him with slavering pinkish jaws. He muffles the bones and antlers in his bag with moss, and he keeps moving, his heart thrumming inside the cage of his ribs.

But he's not invisible. A person might still see Paul, especially those who mean him no harm - he's not hiding from people who don't seem to be hunting. (And he's not immune to being seen by those who are, either. Paul isn't as good as he thinks he is, not here.) He's on side streets and in the rippled edge of the woods, a quick and surefooted figure accompanied by the occasionally seen flicker of a mouse that scouts ahead of him.

Every day is different. Sometimes he's the rescuer, disentangling people from their hunters. Sometimes he's the prey, evading pursuit or entrapment - or not, as the case may be. Sometimes, he's just a stranger flexing his stiff hands and trying to stretch out his tight muscles and joints, his brows furrowed in concentration. Whatever he's doing, he's not unfriendly to those who approach him, as long as they do so without a weapon in their hands or minds.]

[hearthebell]

[He shouldn't be out here alone. The man's handler would say so, were he here to offer input, but it's been a strange week or so since he arrived. Suddenly, there's no one to curtail every fey or frivolous impulse, no string on the kite of the detective's indulgence. The first few days were ruinous; too much sugar taken from the ships, not enough sleep as he'd taken for granted the ease with which he'd find safe, warm shelter. More time and energy has gone toward simple survival, in other words. Many of the lessons are wholly novel, or at least coated in two decades of pampered rust.

Has he really never cooked a meal or planned the mundane details of his life? No, he really has not, and the result has paralyzed him for a spell, made him look and feel foolish and crippled. Even a fool or a cripple can remain alive with some wit, however, and fortunately, L's always had that in spades.

He's come to the edges of the forest, where Trench begins to melt away into treeline, for one final test. His avoidance of other sleepers has resulted in quite a lot of reading, and he's aware that as a sleeper, there are things that are different now. His blood type will be new, and he's already ruled out most of them. Glancing up at the moon, he tears away a hangnail with his teeth, squeezing a few drops of blood onto a dark stone.

Thought so.

The air feels off. Something about the way the night sounds fall silent in patches off to his left. He stills, remaining in his tense crouch, staring into the deeper shadows of the forest.

The wind, though. Its capricious changes rouse his excitement and curiosity the way stagnant air conditioning never could.

Is that a man? A boy? Similar coloring to L himself, but his features are soft and pleasing, where L's jut and clash awkwardly. A mouse scurries ahead of him; much like his blood type, L is also late in discovering his own omen.

He looks harmless enough, a slender shabby creature with a mob of uncombed hair hanging in his round eyes. He's still in his arrival robes, and instead of brandishing a weapon, he sucks at his pulled hangnail. When he speaks, it comes out slightly muffled, because it's, by necessity, around the obstruction of his fingertip.]

You're... in a rush, or...?

[It's a weird thing to say. He knows that it is; it assumes that there's nothing unusual about either of them being out here, that whatever the other's purpose is, it's not odd or insidious. More than anything, it's the call of someone who is just not in the habit of casually addressing people, even when his curiosity presses him to ignore his own comfort levels.]

[terriblepurpose]

[The forward leaning tilt of the stranger, the lines of urgency in his body, suggest the answer is yes. It's almost what Paul actually says. His mouse hops back to his side and rises on her back legs next to his boot, tiny nose twitching and ears flared to match Paul's assessing look as they both appraise the newcomer.

Looking harmless enough means nothing, but Paul recognizes no evident threat in him, so he adjusts the moss, bone, and antler stuffed satchel slung over his shoulder and shakes his head.]

I have time. Why do you ask?

[He must need help, Paul thinks. Another newcomer, obviously, unkempt and disoriented. Paul has found many people here need a frankly alarming amount of assistance to survive, and it's not that he judges them for that. It's just that sometimes - it wears. But he disciplines himself into patience regardless, waiting for the stranger to ask for whatever it is he needs and isn't able to take for himself.]

the memories of the self | winter mournings | open

[terriblepurpose]

[One of the gambles inherent to what Paul is attempting is that his other memories will become known to others, and he has no control over what those memories are and who might see them. That, more than anything, more than his lack of skill and knowledge and the tenuous nature of his plan, was what made Paul hesitate. There was a moment when he might have made another decision, a safer and better one, closed up his books and walked away from something he knows will only bring him pain, no matter what happens.

And then he made his first Winter Mourning, and his peace with the consequences. So be it. He needs to know, and the cost is one he's willing to pay. So others in Trench may be subject to all manner of Paul's memories, in all their glory.]

A.
[They may join Paul at night, in the softly lit cloister of a stark and quiet bedroom as his mother wakes him for a test in pain, and a betrayal. There is a box in another room full of agony, a poison needle aimed at his neck, and a conversation in fog to come - but for now, there's only a sleepy teenage boy who has no idea of what's been done to him already, or what will be done to him soon.

Paul steps into this memory as soon as it's joined, shifting from observer to actor in an instant. He opens his eyes and looks at whoever has joined him, and says, exactly like he did the first time, a question aimed at his mother (and she is so obviously his mother anyone could tell, the lines of her face mirrored in his like a barely rippled pool) waking him:]

What's wrong?

[He stares directly at whoever has joined him, silently imploring them to be quiet.]

B.
[Or perhaps they find Paul on a grey beach, crouched by the edge of the water and anticipating a departure, and a loss. He's already in his own body when they arrive, dipping his bare hand into the cold waters of Caladan. There's no one else here, and so he looks up and sideways with a small, tight smile on his face - not hostile, but tired, and with a faint tinge of fear that seems directed at nothing and everything:

This one isn't so bad.

[Mountainous islands rise all around them under a grey and tumultuous sky, and there's a low and powerful hum underlying the roll of waves and the faint raucous cries of birds. The air smells of petrichor and the rich tang of boreal forests. Paul's planet is a beautiful place, and he's not ungrateful to be here again.]

C.
[This memory is one Paul refuses to re-enact. A group of people cluster in a rocky niche jutting from a vast desert, the air beginning to heat to a sear as light crests over the horizon. Everyone is dressed in form fitting black suits lined with tubing and heat-reflective materials, but two people stand out for the water-fullness of their flesh and the weariness in their eyes: Paul's mother, again, her face tight, and another Paul, standing taut and ready and already despairing.

The easiest way to identify Paul in this memory is that he's the figure dressed for a Trench winter, wrapped head to toe in black with only the faint glimmer of his eyes visible through a gauzy grey veil above a tightly wrapped black scarf muffling the rest of his face, standing next to his own blankly and terribly faced self.

"I invoke the Amtal," a man says, wild eyed and justified in his horror as he paces back and forth, staring at Paul's mother.

"You may not challenge a sayyadina," another man says, his leadership apparent in his stance and his words. There's a tension in the air, a live thrumming electric arc - this is a situation not decided, a tipping point, a challenge, a last effort.

"Then who will fight in her name?"

"Jamis, don’t do this. Don’t. The night is fading."

"Then the sun will witness this death. Where is her champion?"

Jessica stands still, a wound opening in her eyes. The moment stretches.

The other Paul steps forward.

This is a murder, and a desperation. The Paul wrapped in winter follows himself, not looking at whoever else has come here. He doesn't want to see this. He doesn't want this to be seen. But this is the price, and he has to pay it.]

D.
[If Paul and someone else are very, very unlucky, they find themselves in a tent lined with capillaries of water buried under sand. His mother is here, again, and they are both wearing the gauzy clothes of sleep and the wreckage of grief.

There is spice in the tent. There is the smell of cinnamon. This memory is not a true memory, even if it begins that way. This is revelation, burning and brilliant, an apocalypse.

Paul stares at the person across from him in the tent, his eyes wide and all-unseeing.]

This isn't right.

[The tent walls breathe, the fluttering of lungs.]

A

[wannasmash]

Midoriya only intended to delve into his own memories. He still woke at night, cold with sweat, from the horrors of last month. What frightened him most was the possibility of this half-buried dread catching him in the middle of a fight. He couldn't be responsible for others' lives like this. He should face that which pained him--as a friend back home put it. As for secrets, those which protected the lives of others, Midoriya intended to chaperone people away from them with the hardheaded, unfounded optimism of someone who doesn't quite understand how this world's magic works.

Given that some memories can be interacted with, for better or worse, he suits up in his hero gear--dark green jumpsuit, bracers on his limbs, mask on his nose and mouth, armored shoes, and mechanized gloves--before gently pressing the bare skin of his forehead to the glowing antler.

This is nothing he remembers. He's intruded on someone else's past. (A mother and son. His heart constricts, missing his own so much.) He should figure out how to leave if he can.

The person in bed is staring at him. He knows he's here, somehow. He's in control of the memory, or re-enacting it, and he's telling him to be silent. Midoriya can read that in the air well enough. He remains still and quiet against the wall as directed, eyes wide above his mask (which he forgets to remove), privately thinking he couldn't blend in if he tried.

[terriblepurpose]

"Get dressed and come with me," his mother says, laying a stack of clothes on a desk underneath a softly glowing round light, and then she steps from the room without another word. The boy sits up in his bed and rubs one eye sleepily with the heel of his hand, wearing only a loose pair of sleeping pants.

"Hello," he says, "My name is Paul. You're on Caladan, my homeworld. Nothing here is going to hurt you."

He stands up and stretches, arms overhead, then brings them down and flexes his fingers at his sides, giving the newcomer a level, evaluating look. He looks like someone who, at the very least, decided to treat this seriously, and Paul makes his decision.

"I know you don't know me, but I'd like to ask you for a favor," he tells him, collecting his clothes from the desk and pulling a folding privacy screen from the wall. "But I should know your name, first."

b

[lipochrome]

[ This place isn't all that different from the First House, and Gideon supposes she should be grateful for having at least some experience with this kind of nature. Still, she's never been so close to this much water. It's a little unsettling, if she's being honest.

The guy before her doesn't seem too worried about it, though. Kudos to him. She comes a little closer -- what if he falls in? Might be a good idea to spot him, just in case. ]

Yeah, well. Nice place you've got here. [ a beat. Gideon doesn't return the smile, but she does offer a friendly little nod. ] I'm guessing you know where we are, huh?

[terriblepurpose]

Caladan, year 10191. The day before the first wing went to Arrakis.

[Paul knows it won't mean anything to her, says it more for himself.]

I'm Paul. And you're- [Taller than he is, for one thing, and strong. Striking golden eyes and a shock of red hair. He almost feels like he should be able to place her, but it eludes him.] -welcome here, for whatever that's worth. There's nothing dangerous on this island, but I wouldn't go swimming.

[He straightens up, flicking water from his hand.] Is it all right if we stay here for a while? I don't want to waste your time.

D.

[hopticulture]

[she's no desert mouse, so this strange place she finds herself in is severely out of her element. this isn't her memory, she knows that much the moment she opens her eyes and stares into the unfamiliar eyes of a young human boy. the air is sharp and intense; a rabbit's nose is sensitive to smells and the spice makes her black eyes water, her throat feeling tight.

it feels like she's stuck in a dream, and unable to tear her eyes away from his she responds with a whisper, her voice quiet and small:]

Why? [she senses the movement before seeing it, finally looking away to see how the tent seems to pull in and out with a rhythm, and she can hear her own heart pounding loud in her ears.] What's happening?

[terriblepurpose]

[A girl who is also a rabbit would at least give Paul pause outside of this liminal space, but here: the moon, life, death, rebirth, a litany of symbolism any half-trained child knows. So he accepts it. There are other things on his mind beyond trivial questions.]

The future. It's coming.

[His tone is despairing, his eyes still unfocused, or perhaps focused on something else. His mother huddles in the corner of the tent, her face hidden behind her hair and hands, as rivulets of water begins to trickle down the walls of the tent. It smells like tears. Paul closes his eyes, sucks air through clenched teeth, and digs his fingers into fabric of the tent's floor.]

This isn't what happens. This isn't -

[There's a sound like a distant, immense heartbeat, throbbing over the wrenching gasp that comes from Paul as his feet kick out uselessly at the floor.]

archaic archives | a chance encounter | camilla hect

[terriblepurpose]

[There are always other people in the Archives, and yet Paul comes across them rarely. It's something the library stacks seem to work to accomplish in the way they are laid out, or the way they alter to be laid out, always somehow shunting people at cross angles. He catches a glimpse of a whirling skirt at the end of a row of books, or the tapping of unseen shoes across a dim hall lined with musty tapestry and thick with statuary, but only occasionally anything more distinct.

He prefers it that way, most of the time, and when he catches a glimpse of dark hair through a gap in a bookshelf he ignores it, taking his latest book and bringing it back to his library cart.

It bounces off the edge of the cart and topples to the floor, unnoticed, as he drops it and turns on his heel to dart back to the gap. They're gone, because of course they are, and this bookshelf runs at yet another strange angle to everything else, stretching distant in both directions. He doesn't know which way they went, and if he goes in either he might lose them.

The bookshelf doesn't go all the way to the ceiling.

Paul lands on the other side a few short seconds later, light on his feet, and stares at the young woman with dark, short cropped hair he last saw in someone else's memory. It's only then his higher thought processes catch up to the problem of what he's going to say.]

Are- you Camilla?

[hectup]

[these haphazard stacks of books are nothing like camilla is used to; far be it from the sixth house to treat sources of knowledge as poorly as this, and yet—well! well. camilla is only one (1) person; organizing this mess of a library would, in her expert opinion, take a dedicated force, hence her calculated calm as she makes her way through the lopsided aisles and/or stacks. it's fine? in that it isn't fine, but something, something, one chooses one's battles; she can—will—navigate this maze with a steaming cup of tea, all for palamedes' benefit. he's sure to make a breakthrough.

(and even if it takes him twice as long as she's sure it will, it's just—ugh. it's good to have him back.)

but as cam rounds a corner, feeling the tell-tale prickle of eyes at the back of her neck—oh, you know! you know. her twin scabbards peek over her shoulders; she is, honestly, tempted to drop this teacup in order to draw them, as she whirls about, but—oh?

oh.

this figure drops before her—and, like? honestly? kudos to it; cam is nothing if not unfamiliar with the skill it takes to make such a thing seem easy, and yet cam stiffens, holding this steaming cup of tea that much higher even as her expression remains as flat as ever.]

So I'm told.

[haha! flat as ever—though, as she gets a better look at this particular person, she thinks back to pal's ramblings(tm). of all the people in this world, this can only be—]

Paul?

[terriblepurpose]

[Ah, yes, and the knives. Paul should have thought about that too. He knows who she is. (Thankfully: it also occurs to him that if it wasn't her, this would actually somehow be worse.) Paul collects himself, smoothing out his coat, and bows. It's not a deep bow, restrained by Palamedes' attitude about formalities, but it feels like he owes her a little extra courtesy.]

Yes, and I owe you an apology, Lady Camilla.

[Palamedes talked about him enough for her to recognize him, and Paul is surprised he can find a way to feel more unnerved.(Nervous is not the word.) When he straightens up again he makes himself look her in the eyes, expression serious.]

I wasn't sure which way you went. It seemed - more straightforward.

[Or he could have, for example, called through the bookshelves. He takes a breath through his nose and wills his cheeks not to flush, which is fortunately something he can actually do.]