deercountry | let me look at the sun

Entry tags:

let me look at the sun | open

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

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[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.]

Edited 2021-12-08 22:38 (UTC)

[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.]

[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.]

[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.]

Edited 2021-12-08 23:46 (UTC)

[ 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.

[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?

[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.]

[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.

[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.

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.

What?

[She looks at him, a quick, suspicious glance.]

No -- that's... fine. What do you mean, you can... 'change' this? There's nothing to change. It's not as if it will actually --

[She is cut off as there is motion in the group. The leader - a tall man with teal-colored hair garbed in a black coat is giving instructions. Lysithea shakes her head by Paul.]

We were very optimistic, you know. We thought... even with the Imperial army marching upon us, the Professor had seen us through so much hardship that we couldn't possibly fail under his leadership.

You shouldn't... be up here.

It's going to become unbearably chaotic very soon.

[She hadn't introduced herself. The tension was perhaps pushing aside her good manners.]

[The dinner continues, all pleasant chatter and the occasional appearance of skeleton waiters. Palamedes glances at Paul only briefly before his gaze snaps back to the table; no, there isn't much about this that makes sense. Whose memory is this, if the two of them can stand over here and watch Palamedes from outside himself? Has someone rooted around in the dredges of his soul to impose this dinner party on the world for some unknown reason?

It concerns him more than the memory itself that there's something out there capable of doing this, but his attention is too split between understanding the work and watching this dinner happen again, from out here, to focus on that now. No; it's this goddamned party.]

Not us, [he concedes, about the murdering. No, the two of them are safe, unless — well. For lack of a better comparison - and startlingly many similarities - Palamedes has been comparing these excursions into memory to his time in the River, and if that holds water (ha) and they can appear here, then surely something else could venture in with ill intentions...

But at the dinner: no, not them. He won't trouble Paul with theories about what might be lurking outside the edge of this space, uncertain as he is about where that edge exists.]

These are necromancers, [he says instead, as he moves away from the wall to walk around the table, hand idly tapping the backs of the necromancers' chairs.] The rest are our cavaliers — partners who can put up a fight. She's mine: Camilla.

[A nod to the memory of Camilla in her seat, a momentary fondness; then Palamedes proper comes to a stop behind a different pair of chairs: a woman with thick glasses and a warm disposition, and another woman slender and tired with illness, pretending very well to be interested in the first's conversation. His hand rests on the back of the bespectacled woman's chair with a lingering gentleness unlike the way he'd tapped the other chairs to point out the necromancers, some pointedly restrained emotion. But it isn't her his gaze remains fixed on, between the two.

(Funny, he thinks, that she hadn't bothered to look at him when this dinner party was real, either; and he had been such a blind fool in turn to assume with his heart—)]

How do you make it go faster? The mechanism, that is. I'm powerless here.

[Oh, and that irony is sour in his stomach, but please tell him this memory-power thing. He'd love to think about something else.]

[And who could blame her for that?

Paul wouldn't be seeing this if it ends well for her, and the array of possibilities of what that means in a pitched battle are nauseating.]

That's not how it works. I'm here until it's over, I leave when you do. [One way or another. He looks out over the soon-to-be-battlefield again, then at the people clustered around the man she calls the professor. Paul can see what she means about their optimism, the varying degrees of hope and belief in their eyes, and he finds it difficult to keep looking at them very long.]

You don't have to worry about me. I can handle myself. [Paul turns to face her directly, his expression drawn.] What were you saying?

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.

[If Paul could overhear Palamedes' thoughts on these 'memories' he'd find a certain consolation in not being the only one questioning their origin. This isn't how memory works, even for minds trained in retention and recall. No mentat could do this, and he doubts any Reverend Mother would dare try.

But then, yes, that leads into the question of: if these aren't memories sifted from a human mind, in all its fallibility, where do they come from? And every book he's read is silent on the subject, every Trench citizen he's asked gone blank and reticent to the point he only asked a handful of times. (Sometimes, it's felt like the library is keeping something from him, an intuition he can't back up with any evidence except the absence of it.)

That's the theoretical. The practical is that watching Palamedes walk around this table, his hand touching this and that, his expression heavy and grey, is like pressing down hard on a deep bruise. (She's mine: Camilla, and Paul makes special note of her face.) Paul flexes his gloved fingers with an audible crunch, a grimace twisting his mouth, and starts to roll up his left sleeve. If Palamedes wants to talk about anything else, it's literally the least Paul can do for him.]

You were right. Blood is thematic. [There are shallow scabbed lines running up the back of his left wrist like gills that testify how far he's explored that.] Where I'm from, this isn't called magic, but the principles...they're more similar than different.

The mind affects reality everywhere. When you reach for a glass of water, your hand moves because your mind tells it to. The connection is more direct here. Moving the glass without moving the hand.

You're not powerless here. You just don't have control. [For what it's worth. Paul offers Palamedes a faint, understanding smile - he can't imagine what this is like, for someone who's used to being able to move glasses without his hands, so to speak, but he's not unfamiliar with powerlessness.] You're the locus of the memory, the most important aspect. The motive force of all of this comes from you, your ability to imagine the alternative outcomes - even the improbable ones, like everything speeding up. All I do is anchor one possibility over the others.

[It's barely an explanation, and he knows that, and he knows Palamedes will know that, but the truth is that it's all he's sure of. The same techniques are described as working for completely different reasons in different places; the scope of choices people make in how they practice their magic dizzying. The common feature is always, however, the focused application of will.]

So if there's anything else you'd rather change, I can try. [Despite rolling up his sleeve, he hasn't gone any farther than that yet.] Or not.

[He hesitates, and he shouldn't ask, but:] Who is she?

[She's beautiful, whoever she is, a pale pressed orchid, but the way Palamedes is looking at her isn't how Paul has ever seen a man look at a woman he thought was beautiful.]

"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."

Edited (typo) 2021-12-10 20:25 (UTC)

[ 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?

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.

I...

[...Lysithea exhales lightly.]

There's really no need --

[It is then that there is a palpable shift in the atmosphere. Tense and oppressive as the situation already is, there rises a murmur in the mass of gray-garbed soldiers as the red army slowly parts. Striding through, shoulders thrown back and head held arrogantly high, comes a silver-haired woman bearing a crown upon her head and an impossibly large axe in her hands.

Lysithea draws in a quick breath.]

People of Garreg Mach... I call upon you to lay down your arms. Give the Archbishop over to me and surrender the monastery. I am Emperor von Hresvelg, and I shall see the Church of Seiros face justice today.

You can't change anything. You can't change something that's already happened. I don't need a... revisionist fairy tale to help me sleep better at night.

This will end how it ended. In years of unrelenting strife and death.

We're about to start fighting. And I have a role to play in this, even if it is naught but a memory. There is no reason for you to subject yourself to this.

[Paul looks at her with slightly narrowed eyes, and then starts pulling off his gloves.]

Even if I did leave, where would I go? There's nothing here outside this memory.

[His knuckles are the deep color of new bruises, his body slightly stiff in every joint, but he can compensate for that. Magic is a new thing for Paul, but fighting isn't.

Paul wonders if it was like this at Arrakeen, if anyone had time to huddle together waiting before the sword fell. He wouldn't know. He wasn't there to see it happen.]

You should be with them, if you want to see this through. I don't want to take you away from that. [He says it quietly, mingled resignation and apology.] What are their names?

Paul specifying that nothing will hurt him does not put Midoriya at ease. However, Midoriya knows that, technically, he did just break into someone's memory all kitted out. He feels he should be thankful he isn't being treated like a burglar.

Being spoken to jolts him out of his silence. He lowers his mask with one gloved hand. Under it is a plain, freckled face that is more suited to smiling than the tense frown he wears now. He always looked younger than many of his classmates due to his height and his open, expressive eyes. They're at odds with the ragged, newly darned tears in his clothes. He glances where the mother disappeared before speaking.

"Nice to meet you, Paul-kun. I'm Deku. I'm sorry for barging in like this. What do you need?"

His voice is soft for discretion, but his usual pensive, quavering indecisiveness is clipped away. He's speaking clearly like he's at work. He's in his hero costume after all, and giving his hero name. Helping someone else is just part of the job description.

"There's nothing to apologize for," Paul says, quietly and firmly reassuring. "It's all right for you to be here, Deku."

Paul rarely talks to people his own age, and he is a little surprised to see the face under the mask. It feels - more bearable, to be in this specific memory with someone less likely to assume a superior position.

Outside, there's a storm, the rapid beating of rain against a window of smoked glass somehow muffled and softened but still ever-present. The room they're in is built from dark grey stone, like the rest of the palace complex, and full of a night chill. Everywhere, the accrued pieces of Paul's life as it used to be: a curved piece of driftwood on the desk next to a small collection of well-worn books, an abstract angular black sculpture, a weathered model of a sea faring sailing ship.

"All I'm going to ask you to do is nothing." Paul begins to change behind the opaque screen, apparently unconcerned by the presence of the other boy - being a duke's son involves a curious mix of his body being completely inviolable, and also a matter of the state. "And to let me hide you."

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?

You can change it. Think of me like- a bridge your will can cross. [This is harder than he thought it would be, requires more of his focus. This immediate slowing seemed necessary to give them time to have this conversation - but it's imposing his will instead of Flynn's, and the memory resists his intrusion.

But Flynn seems interested, the intensity of his focus promising, so Paul disciplines himself and his blood into compliance.]

This is based on your memory. You imagine the alternatives, I help them manifest. [He takes a precious moment to pause.] I can't promise it will be exactly the way you imagine. There's a margin of error.

[ Yeah, that doesn't mean much, except to indicate that this place isn't part of the Nine Houses. That makes sense -- it's too nice of a place. ]

Don't worry, wasn't planning on it. [ And then, because that sounded a little harsh: ] Thanks.

[ That's as good of an invitation as any. Gideon takes a moment to size Paul up. Necromancer's stature, which means this dude is not a threat whatsoever, or could completely and utterly kick her ass. No in-between. Gideon doesn't have her sword on her, here, but she'll take those odds. She joins him by the water's edge, gathering some wet sand up into her hands and molding it into a little ball. ]

It's all right. This place has much better vibes than, say, a bone arts-and-crafts session. Besides, I don't think I've ever been on an actual island before. [ so that's pretty cool! ] I'm Gideon.

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