Illarion Albireo (
unsheathedfromreality) wrote in
deercountry2022-03-02 01:14 am
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Entry tags:
Real & Half-Real: Prologue | closed to Sayo
Who: Illarion Albireo and Sayo Yasuda
What: Attempting to heist their way out of the horse plinko dimension. It doesn't exactly work.
When: ~Feb 25 - early March
Where: Illarion's pocket dimension time-out corner
cw: Wartime imagery, potentially gore, potentially trauma, eventual murder.
Somewhere, Illarion is written out of reality.
In another place, he is written back into it, and someone else with him. He's much as he left--corrupted, soaked, a feathered horror in gold and fuligin and dawn-pink--though by the time he's staggered a step and gone to a knee the eyes andeyes and feathers are gone to leave behind the much-diminished elf. Complete dislocation from the icy shallows (the shattering grief) of the Pthumerian Sea hits him with all the crushing weight of shock, eradicating thought, eradicating feeling. They are not where they had been.
Some slow instinct finally stirs him to determine where they are. He tips his head back and stares at a sky he can't see. One moon's setting, another's rising, and the planetary ring that braids between them catches the light of the distant sun. The stars are too close, too blue, the largest of them haloed in ephemeral lines of force. A thin high spire of a mountain rises somewhere behind him, its base lapped by the shallow waves of a warm sea. Something about it demands attention; something about it speaks significance.
Noise begins to filter through. The omnipresent rattle of gunfire and the screams of men and horses rend the evening air, too much and too close.
It isn't these he recognizes--he can't--but a feeling beneath his breastbone, a glow of reciprocated devotion that's turned to magic. It is a miracle that should have died with his dead Prince.
It is the potency to protect through more ways than violence. He blinks once, thought restarting, and turns toward Sayo. "Are you injured?"
What: Attempting to heist their way out of the horse plinko dimension. It doesn't exactly work.
When: ~Feb 25 - early March
Where: Illarion's pocket dimension time-out corner
cw: Wartime imagery, potentially gore, potentially trauma, eventual murder.
Somewhere, Illarion is written out of reality.
In another place, he is written back into it, and someone else with him. He's much as he left--corrupted, soaked, a feathered horror in gold and fuligin and dawn-pink--though by the time he's staggered a step and gone to a knee the eyes and
Some slow instinct finally stirs him to determine where they are. He tips his head back and stares at a sky he can't see. One moon's setting, another's rising, and the planetary ring that braids between them catches the light of the distant sun. The stars are too close, too blue, the largest of them haloed in ephemeral lines of force. A thin high spire of a mountain rises somewhere behind him, its base lapped by the shallow waves of a warm sea. Something about it demands attention; something about it speaks significance.
Noise begins to filter through. The omnipresent rattle of gunfire and the screams of men and horses rend the evening air, too much and too close.
It isn't these he recognizes--he can't--but a feeling beneath his breastbone, a glow of reciprocated devotion that's turned to magic. It is a miracle that should have died with his dead Prince.
It is the potency to protect through more ways than violence. He blinks once, thought restarting, and turns toward Sayo. "Are you injured?"
no subject
She's slightly taller, first off. Her hair is swept up in a painfully complex bun of spun gold, her eyes are a piercing blue, and her facial features have subtly shifted toward something more... Italian. And none of that's mentioning the formal dress she's been shoved into. (Or the fact that she has actual breasts and they are both substantial.)
After all, when you isolate Shannon away from the rest of the soul and cut away Kanon... only Beatrice remains. At least in theory.
Muttering, Beatrice sways to her feet, then almost immediately loses her balance since Sayo is not used to being so top-heavy.]
I'm fine, I'm fine.
What in the blazes...
no subject
That warrants asking about after they're oriented. Which he isn't, not yet, despite that inkling he's home, because getting home's supposed to be impossible. Or at least impossible without walking back into the ocean. Whatever he'd done (will do, was doing) couldn't have violated that rule.
Could it?
(Corruption's deranged his sense of future and past enough that knowing his Prince is dead can't rule out a return.)]
We have, [he says, carefully measured and in Shriketongue,] fallen out of Trench, I think. How many moons can you see?
[He doesn't know whether to hope for or dread hearing "two". The low atonal buzz in his ears and the back of his jaw could be Throne-song or something else.
The faint tug at his heart and the back of his mind calling him to dash himself at the foot of the Infinite is harder to blame on anything but the Throne.]
no subject
(Pay no attention to how she's feeling herself up with one hand, Illarion. Let Sayo have this.)]
Two. And a planetary ring. I'd ask if this is what the rest of the Waking World is like, but your words belie a certain... familiarity, so I assume that we're somewhere else.
My question is how did this even HAPPEN?! I lost track of you for two minutes and suddenly we're dragged into... wherever this is? Ugh. [Sayo huffs, pouting in an unconscious Beatrice-ism.]
no subject
(He is distracted enough with that he scarcely notices what's going on over there in his periphery. Even if he does, he'd suppose there were worse reactions to being handed a dream, whatever the circumstances.)]
Better if you'd said "one". We could get back from somewhere else in the Waking World.
[Even if only by throwing themselves into the sea.
Despite the situation, despite himself, he--grins, unhappily, at her pout. Part of him (corrupted and feeling) lies crushed beneath the magnitude of his own mistake; the rest will take whatever it can get to keep moving. Anything to play off of.]
It's my home. And two minutes is plenty of time to fuck something up-- [There's a burst of automatic fire nearer, much nearer, over the neighboring ridge. A crump of a detonating grenade follows.
He turns his head that direction though he can't see a damned thing. A reflexive attempt to summon his Omen to be his eyes gets--
Nothing. As if the situation weren't bad enough already.] --if you're an expert. We need to get to cover.
[He'll explain there. Maybe ask for an explanation of his own about how she's changed.]
no subject
[Leaning against the back of the cover, Sayo takes great, heaving breaths for a number of reasons as she desperately reaches out to catch her breath.] I admit... you struck me more as the type come from more of a straight fantasy world. I hardly expected automatic rifles and grenades in place of bows and magic fireballs. [She wiggles her fingers for emphasis.]
no subject
He drops any contemplation of the mystery and drops into cover beside Sayo as a bullet spangs off the elfstone half of their wall. Another mistake, standing around gawking--have his instincts really atrophied after only a few months in Trench?
More likely he's so corrupted a proper sense of urgency's lost on him if he can't focus on it.] With six centuries of practice? I'd better, [have her beat.
He lets his head thump back against the wall behind them. Loses a moment to temporal dislocation: Has he already taken cover? Is he about to? Who's got a bead on them? Focus--
NadyaFenkaSayo's saying something about fantasy and fireballs.] Genre conventions? Like we're in a bad serial?[A quiet huff.] War outgrew bows centuries ago. Might still see one if there's a sparrow marksmage around. Or not, if she kills you first.
[Then, with less humor--] Can you summon your Omen? Mine's [distant, connected but unreachable, if he really focuses, but that's good as,] gone.
no subject
*cackle*cackle*cackle*] Looks like both of us are no match for the millennium of experience the Golden Witch has to screwing everything up for herself! Although given that I've apparently taken her form, perhaps I should be the one owning up to her myriad mistakes, hmmm?
So war outgrew bows, yet you still tear apart Beasts with your bare claws and knives? My, my. [Sayo grimaces at Illarion's question, shaking her head.] I haven't made much use of Baphomet, but... I can't reach her either. While in isolation I'd believe it the fault of the master, it may be an ill omen.
Er. Not like the familiar, but, um... [She gestures awkwardly.] You know!
cw: derealization, hallucinations
Nearer, it comes obvious that their patchwork bit of cover is part of an entire mis-made maze of fortifications, a dozen elaborations on the idea of wall surrounding them in raw wood and brick and steel bulwark. The trenches behind it all seam the rocky ground in nonsensical configurations all the way out to the tidal flats surrounding that too-close, too-far mountain.
Illarion can't see the cities crowding the horizon where no city should be, but what he can ((feel)) is enough to tell him "fucked up" is not nearly large enough to encompass the situation they've dropped into.
Though he can't discount his own senses are lying to him. Though at least he's got Sayo's confirmation she's actually in that shape and not some--mad hallucination on top of the other mad hallucinations.
And that her Omen is, also, missing. He bites the inside of his lip--to purpose, tasting the mist of Darkblood from the wound.] A bad portent. I know. But I'm still Darkblooded.
[So there's at least that reassurance they're still Sleepers, and in some kind of communication with the Waking World.
Another sporadic bullet or two hit the wall. Nothing concentrated; might even be stray shots, though from where is impossible to tell in the chaos.
He presses a hand to his face, suffering another moment of temporal disorientation. She'd said more; had he answered? Is he answering?] --The rest of what you said. I'm, [godspit, it galls to admit it when he should be in control of this situation she's entirely new to,] corrupted as a Porphyrogene taking bribes. Did I ask you before if you've your Witch's magic to go with the form?
no subject
She laughs again, although it's far less cackle-y and far more resigned.] I'm worried I'm not doing much better, Forneus... And alas, I'm afraid it's not as simple as that.
...but I can give in the old Golden Land try anyways. Come, come, try to remember... what form did you have? Surely it was that of a guardian, a protector, a home for the defenseless...
[Concentrate. Beatrice still didn't have much power to her name—most of it was claimed by her successor, Eva (where did that thought come from?). Yet she was still a witch, tenuous as her hold was, and the illusion she wove around those six locked rooms that gave rise to the first mystery of the game remained unpierced. Not total belief, but a foothold.
A few golden butterflies flit away from her outstretched hand, and the cover they're hiding behind grows to further conceal them... although the added ramparts are about as substantial as paper. At least the enemy(?) can't see where they are.
Normally, Sayo would be ecstatic at this display of real magic, but between taking the red with Alisaie and the snug mantle of Beatrice, it's less impressive to her than it is worrisome that the illusion won't provide substantial protection if anyone looks too closely.]
That should give us some breathing room, at least.
...do you still breathe, come to think of it?
no subject
she speaks to the walls, coaxing them to recall a shape they once had, and a frisson of heartbreaking familiarity sets Illarion's hidden feathers on end. For a moment (an hour, a lifetime, an eternity) this is not a young woman beside him but his Prince, evoking an older and better state from lifeless stones. He goes rigid as the wall behind him, in the shock of recognition--in the doubled shock of recognizing recognition as unreal, impossible (except his Court-gift is there, he's certain of it), and not to be acted on. His hands lift (to reach out and take his Prince's shoulder) and he stutters in the gesture, turns it to lacing them around a knee drawn up to his chest.
The butterflies ((tickle)) in his periphery; he cannot see the ramparts that rise to hide them, but he can ((feel)) the shape of them, and imagine what it is she must have done. It is remarkable in the moment, unexpected and serendipitous. He prays (has prayed) (will pray) it goes unnoticed, though an awful presentiment twists through him that all the eyes in the world must be turned their way, must have seen that--
A yell of "Mage!" somewhere far afield nearly startles him from his skin. But it is followed by more gunfire equally far away, and none of it's aimed at them.
He relaxes by degrees, unclenching his gritted fangs.]
Only to speak. Don't bother when I'm alone. [With (usually human) company it behooved him to mimic the living around him, match his unnecessary breathing to theirs.
He is not doing that now.] What are your limits? Or your--rules. [A Knight-Preserver had to know the ones he healed well enough to recall how they'd been before the injury. A bulwark couldn't be treated surgically with her skin that resisted blades. Where did Sayo's restrictions fall--in casting, or its consequences?
Where had they fallen last time she told him about this? (No--she hadn't, this is new. Is it? They've had this conversation before. He's had this conversation with his Prince, before, and the sound of distant shouting is the murmuring of the Court.)
He sets his fangs again. Mutters,] We need to address the corruption. All thr--all--both of us.
no subject
Beatrice's gameboard had three rules that defined it: X (different accomplices each time), Y (whatever all present and alive in a scene agree is the truth is depicted as such, non-accomplices only see the golden butterflies up to thirty minutes before their deaths), and Z (someone, please, solve the epitaph and stop her). The three pillars of her mystery that held up the world above, no matter how much it shook under the weight of her grief.
But there's no debate to be had on this twisted reflection of Forneus's home; no asinine red-headed wannabe detective to say this is really a mystery.]
...this place is fantasy. Magic is real. [She laughs airily.] Never thought I'd be able to say that in red.
To be quite honest, I've never put in much thought as to Beatrice's system of magic in an uncontested fantasy. That was more Maria's area of expertise.
Yet... [She slides down the wall, cupping her chin.] Part of the epitaph was completed, and its mystery was never pierced. So I, "Beatrice," can be proven to exist and have some degree of magic independently. But proving that tiny sliver of magic is nothing compared in a world that doesn't even know of my legend. Beatrice might "exist," but Beatrice doesn't exist here. All I have are parlor tricks.
[She snorts.] Normally, that would be more accurate than you'd think... but today, it is in fact just me.