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pluviosa2025-01-31 10:10 pm
pluviosamods) wrote in pluviosa2025-01-31 10:10 pm
Entry tags:
EVENT - Ripple and Warp IC log (part 1!)
ripple and warp
Hello and welcome to the IC log for Pluviosa's Fourth Wall event, Ripple and Warp!
In addition to providing information about how characters arrive on the new deck (whether they're existing passengers or not), this post also serves as a place where Fourth Wall characters can post top-levels without joining the game community.
Further information on Fourth Walls in general and the other accompanying OOC updates to the game can be found on the OOC information post here. This post also serves in lieu of a regular between-events Test Drive.
Finally, you may now start sending in your applications to keep your AU, CRAU, and so on characters around after the Fourth Wall! Be sure to note the minor changes to the Applications page (namely, the addition of an "AU information" section).
Without further ado - How did you get here? And more importantly, where is 'here' anyway?
Whether or not characters remember falling asleep on the evening of Day 37, they wake up somewhere different on Day 38, lying on a couch in an almost-familiar room. The couch is similar to the ones in the lounge, though those with keen noses will note that the cushions don't smell the same - there's no scent of your fellow passengers, or of the faint hint of an unknown, arid place that first accompanied the clean furnishings the Ship dragged out.
The room isn't one you've been in before, either, but it's still clearly on the Ship somewhere - there's the familiar motion of the legs moving, and the overhead emergency lights (the only source of light initially in the room) are the same as the ones in the hallways on Fern that the Ship has been working so hard to restore. However, that doesn't mean that it's hard to see - indeed, considering the contents of the room, the low lighting might be a blessing in disguise.
It's full of mirrors.
Not only the sorts of mirrors that character would expect to find, the ones that have been missing from the Ship's bathrooms and other expected places, though there are certainly plenty of those in the room - but the walls, the door, and the ceiling are also all mirrors. Mirrors hang on a portion of the larger furniture in what appears to be the living room of a suite. It's not as dramatic as it could be, but aside from the couch characters wake up on, it's pretty close. The floor, at least, is not reflective mirrors, though it's not much less shiny - instead of the usual hotel-esque carpet of the suites, there's seamless stone tile in stormcloud grey, slight variations in the color indicating marble. And all of those reflective surfaces are perfectly clean - although it's possible to find dried spots of decay on the backs of the mirrors, overall, it seems as though time doesn't have claim on this part of the Ship, much less the Growth.
And of course, where there are mirrors, there are reflections.
Some of them - probably the majority - are normal, perfect mirrors of the person the character expects to see. Some of them are distorted, but in a normal, mundane way - funhouse mirrors among the panels on the walls, making you wide or skinny or warped.
And then some of them show reflections of you that are distorted, not as in bent, but as in there being something different about the you that's in them. Different clothes; different hair; different age; different species. Added scars, or missing ones; limbs missing, or replaced with something else. A completely unknown you in the mirror.
For the most part, these altered reflections act the way you would expect, imitating the movements of the rest of the reflections in the room. But sometimes they don't. Sometimes they climb out of the mirror - and whether they're friendly or not remains to be seen.
There's a note on the mirror-topped table next to the couch. In backwards writing that needs to be held up to a mirror to be read easily, it says:
For those who are new around here, the method of arrival is... a bit different. This applies equally to characters who are just here for the fourth wall (alternates of existing characters etc) or those who will be apped as permanent residents - there isn't a distinction to these categories until the end of the event.
These characters arrive with a first sensation of being pressed against a hard, glass surface - not unlike the whispers of sensation that haunted the existing passengers over the last few days. The difference is that this time, the glass you're pressed against isn't a horizontal floor or bed - it's vertical or at least mostly vertical, and you can tell which way is down.
Or, put another way: Newly arrived characters start their boatride on the wrong side of the mirrors that are packed away into the unknown deck. They are facing towards the real world side, the way they would if they were reflections made physical, but turning around and looking behind them is nearly impossible.
Indeed, there's a growing pressure forcing them against the glass barrier. It grows harder and harder to breathe, almost like drowning, or being crushed by water pressure -
Until, just when you think you can't survive any more, something gives way, and you stumble out of the mirror into the real world. It's not the glass breaking - it's more like forcing your way through a soap bubble or the membrane that sits inside an eggshell that separates the hard pieces from the white. Water, too, cascades down out of the mirror with you, splattering all over the floor, but it's just water, and it doesn't seem to have left more than a bit of surface dampness on you.
However, when characters turn around, they will find that while the glass is still in place and unbroken, the mirror will no longer reflect anything - not even the shine of light cast on the glass - rendering these mirrors completely black. This reflectivity stays on the puddle of water around your feet instead, which aggressively reflects the area around it even if taken elsewhere - even if poured into a cup. In motion, it's too transparent to be taken for mercury or silver, but when pooled undisturbed, it does not ripple in response to the motion of the ship. Only the actions of characters or other forces can cause ripples. Otherwise, it appears to be normal water.
Characters who are alternates of each other might come out of the mirrors while they're literally being reflected (a certain surprise for those who are on the normal side of the mirror doing the looking), but they might also just appear in rooms all by themselves, or in the presence of someone else they know (or think they know). Those who don't have any immediate connections among the current passengers are more likely to appear in some empty room, but ultimately this is left to player discretion.
Not all reflections are as potentially friendly as those played by those of us on the player side of the screen, however. In addition to the "deeper" reflections played by real humans, who have or at least appear to have personalities and histories of their own, there are also "shallow" reflections. Unlike the Fourth Wall arrivals, shallow reflections can't be of characters who aren't present at the time - they only appear in response to characters looking into mirrors (whether those characters are existing residents or new arrivals).
The shallow reflections come out of the mirrors just like the Fourth Wall arrivals, but there's always something a little off about them. Some of them stay reversed like a reflection; some of them don't make any noise when they move and cannot speak; some of them come out of the mirrors with the funhouse-esque warped reflections and stay that way. Like their more 'real' counterparts, the mirrors the shallow reflections come out of turn completely flat, unreflective black; unlike their counterparts, they don't really hesitate in striding out, much less stumble and potentially collapse.
What do they want? To shove whoever they're a reflection of into the black mirror they came from. What happens if they succeed?
You die. I mean, probably. There's no way of knowing unless one of them does succeed, after all. If you want your character to die in this fashion, please let the mod team know. While we cannot guarantee that interesting things will happen to all characters (and those who are only here to visit for the Fourth Wall are not eligible), this may have permanent consequences for your character, take them out of play for longer ICly than a typical death, or impact other characters in the game beyond the typical levels of emotional harm. Or some combination of all three.
Fortunately, the shallow reflections only have physical strength on their side - they do not possess any powers of those they take the shapes of, and they can be killed in largely the same way as unremarkable flesh and blood humans. A killing blow causes them to collapse into the same hyper-reflective water as described above; the mirror they came out of remains black.
The deck itself is open fully to character navigation. Like the lab specimen storage of Zinnia, this deck - whose name is not posted anywhere for characters to find easily - is clear of any signs of Growth, and manages to feel chilly even if you get up to the top deck where the sun is shining.
Or... Should be shining. Regardless of the weather on other deck dimensions, the skies above this deck are
always, at best, a cloudy, half-stormy grey. The air above hangs tense, like the clouds are waiting for something to happen. Unlike the other instances of Ship weather, you don't need Neuvillette's particular affinity with water to sense it - any character with empathic or telepathic powers will be able to feel the sense of looming, helpless frustration in the clouds.
The most notable feature of this deck, of course, is that it's full of mirrors. Indeed, it's not only the mirrors that are missing from the suite bathrooms, the public restrooms by the cafeteria, and so on - there are far more mirrors than the Ship would reasonably need to outfit the decks it has, even including the multidimensional nature of it. Mirrors hang from the walls, and then more mirrors lean against those, or against the other furnishings, or even against each other (since some of them are standing mirrors), and the groups against the walls are often five or six panels deep with the largest at the back the side of the glass panels of the Ship's sliding glass balcony doors. (Yes, those are also replaced by mirrors, reflective in both directions.) Tabletops are reflective in their own rights, and then littered with even more, antique-looking hand mirrors and makeup compacts and those little circular mirrors sold in bags by the dozen at the craft store, only an inch across.
Considering all the reflective surfaces, it might be a good thing that there is only emergency power supplied to this deck - enough to keep the guide lights on and ensure that the sliding doors (though not the elevators) are working, and that whatever system pumps water through the faucets and showers is still going. The water is all cold, however, and there isn't any food available on the deck so far as characters are able to find. In the place where characters are used to finding the cafeteria, there is instead a terrifying mirrored bar filled with empty bottles and glasses as well as - well. Take a guess.
With the exception of the sliding glass doors in the suites, the glass of windows and so forth seems to be what it should be - though it's more reflective than seems natural, too. Like Zinnia, the cleaniness of this deck means that characters have full run of it, all the way down to the lounge on the bottom of the Ship - which is the only place that isn't completely clean on this deck. The super-reflective water that pours out of the mirrors seems to have flowed down here at some point, where it sits, unaffected by the motion of the Ship, about an inch deep across the entire floor. This water is the only feature down in the bottom lounge - there is no furniture, in contrast to its Zinnia counterpart.
And on this floor, at the very bottom, and only this floor, the reflective water has the smell - only the smell, not any other qualities - of fresh blood.
The Ship will not answer characters here - although the terminals in the residential deck that can normally be used to communicate with it (in whatever limited capacity) are present, their screens are (of course!) mirrors, and unresponsive. There's also no signs of drones about, not even the basic roomba-like cleaning drones; there's no evidence that they've been here recently, either.
A follow-up log, in which the Ship manages to make contact with characters wherever they are, will be posted later (mod goal time is 2-3 weeks from now). That log will take place on Day 40 and will bring with it food (for everyone who has gotten very hungry by then) and drone assistance, but whether characters actually manage to escape at that point or later on on Day 42 is left open to the opinions of you, the players! Both current players and visitors will be able to vote in a Discord poll on the matter, to be posted in the Discord announcements channel tomorrow (after you've had the chance to sleep on this post and let it cook in your brains a little).
Happy playing! Questions can be asked on Discord or added to the usual questions header below this post.
In addition to providing information about how characters arrive on the new deck (whether they're existing passengers or not), this post also serves as a place where Fourth Wall characters can post top-levels without joining the game community.
Further information on Fourth Walls in general and the other accompanying OOC updates to the game can be found on the OOC information post here. This post also serves in lieu of a regular between-events Test Drive.
Finally, you may now start sending in your applications to keep your AU, CRAU, and so on characters around after the Fourth Wall! Be sure to note the minor changes to the Applications page (namely, the addition of an "AU information" section).
Without further ado - How did you get here? And more importantly, where is 'here' anyway?
existing characters
Whether or not characters remember falling asleep on the evening of Day 37, they wake up somewhere different on Day 38, lying on a couch in an almost-familiar room. The couch is similar to the ones in the lounge, though those with keen noses will note that the cushions don't smell the same - there's no scent of your fellow passengers, or of the faint hint of an unknown, arid place that first accompanied the clean furnishings the Ship dragged out.
The room isn't one you've been in before, either, but it's still clearly on the Ship somewhere - there's the familiar motion of the legs moving, and the overhead emergency lights (the only source of light initially in the room) are the same as the ones in the hallways on Fern that the Ship has been working so hard to restore. However, that doesn't mean that it's hard to see - indeed, considering the contents of the room, the low lighting might be a blessing in disguise.
It's full of mirrors.
Not only the sorts of mirrors that character would expect to find, the ones that have been missing from the Ship's bathrooms and other expected places, though there are certainly plenty of those in the room - but the walls, the door, and the ceiling are also all mirrors. Mirrors hang on a portion of the larger furniture in what appears to be the living room of a suite. It's not as dramatic as it could be, but aside from the couch characters wake up on, it's pretty close. The floor, at least, is not reflective mirrors, though it's not much less shiny - instead of the usual hotel-esque carpet of the suites, there's seamless stone tile in stormcloud grey, slight variations in the color indicating marble. And all of those reflective surfaces are perfectly clean - although it's possible to find dried spots of decay on the backs of the mirrors, overall, it seems as though time doesn't have claim on this part of the Ship, much less the Growth.
And of course, where there are mirrors, there are reflections.
Some of them - probably the majority - are normal, perfect mirrors of the person the character expects to see. Some of them are distorted, but in a normal, mundane way - funhouse mirrors among the panels on the walls, making you wide or skinny or warped.
And then some of them show reflections of you that are distorted, not as in bent, but as in there being something different about the you that's in them. Different clothes; different hair; different age; different species. Added scars, or missing ones; limbs missing, or replaced with something else. A completely unknown you in the mirror.
For the most part, these altered reflections act the way you would expect, imitating the movements of the rest of the reflections in the room. But sometimes they don't. Sometimes they climb out of the mirror - and whether they're friendly or not remains to be seen.
There's a note on the mirror-topped table next to the couch. In backwards writing that needs to be held up to a mirror to be read easily, it says:
Thanks for visiting! I'm sorry I couldn't be there to meet you, but there's just so many people here today!
I wonder if you'll get a chance to meet the real you?
Good luck!
new characters and visitors
For those who are new around here, the method of arrival is... a bit different. This applies equally to characters who are just here for the fourth wall (alternates of existing characters etc) or those who will be apped as permanent residents - there isn't a distinction to these categories until the end of the event.
These characters arrive with a first sensation of being pressed against a hard, glass surface - not unlike the whispers of sensation that haunted the existing passengers over the last few days. The difference is that this time, the glass you're pressed against isn't a horizontal floor or bed - it's vertical or at least mostly vertical, and you can tell which way is down.
Or, put another way: Newly arrived characters start their boatride on the wrong side of the mirrors that are packed away into the unknown deck. They are facing towards the real world side, the way they would if they were reflections made physical, but turning around and looking behind them is nearly impossible.
Indeed, there's a growing pressure forcing them against the glass barrier. It grows harder and harder to breathe, almost like drowning, or being crushed by water pressure -
Until, just when you think you can't survive any more, something gives way, and you stumble out of the mirror into the real world. It's not the glass breaking - it's more like forcing your way through a soap bubble or the membrane that sits inside an eggshell that separates the hard pieces from the white. Water, too, cascades down out of the mirror with you, splattering all over the floor, but it's just water, and it doesn't seem to have left more than a bit of surface dampness on you.
However, when characters turn around, they will find that while the glass is still in place and unbroken, the mirror will no longer reflect anything - not even the shine of light cast on the glass - rendering these mirrors completely black. This reflectivity stays on the puddle of water around your feet instead, which aggressively reflects the area around it even if taken elsewhere - even if poured into a cup. In motion, it's too transparent to be taken for mercury or silver, but when pooled undisturbed, it does not ripple in response to the motion of the ship. Only the actions of characters or other forces can cause ripples. Otherwise, it appears to be normal water.
Characters who are alternates of each other might come out of the mirrors while they're literally being reflected (a certain surprise for those who are on the normal side of the mirror doing the looking), but they might also just appear in rooms all by themselves, or in the presence of someone else they know (or think they know). Those who don't have any immediate connections among the current passengers are more likely to appear in some empty room, but ultimately this is left to player discretion.
shallower reflections
Not all reflections are as potentially friendly as those played by those of us on the player side of the screen, however. In addition to the "deeper" reflections played by real humans, who have or at least appear to have personalities and histories of their own, there are also "shallow" reflections. Unlike the Fourth Wall arrivals, shallow reflections can't be of characters who aren't present at the time - they only appear in response to characters looking into mirrors (whether those characters are existing residents or new arrivals).
The shallow reflections come out of the mirrors just like the Fourth Wall arrivals, but there's always something a little off about them. Some of them stay reversed like a reflection; some of them don't make any noise when they move and cannot speak; some of them come out of the mirrors with the funhouse-esque warped reflections and stay that way. Like their more 'real' counterparts, the mirrors the shallow reflections come out of turn completely flat, unreflective black; unlike their counterparts, they don't really hesitate in striding out, much less stumble and potentially collapse.
What do they want? To shove whoever they're a reflection of into the black mirror they came from. What happens if they succeed?
You die. I mean, probably. There's no way of knowing unless one of them does succeed, after all. If you want your character to die in this fashion, please let the mod team know. While we cannot guarantee that interesting things will happen to all characters (and those who are only here to visit for the Fourth Wall are not eligible), this may have permanent consequences for your character, take them out of play for longer ICly than a typical death, or impact other characters in the game beyond the typical levels of emotional harm. Or some combination of all three.
Fortunately, the shallow reflections only have physical strength on their side - they do not possess any powers of those they take the shapes of, and they can be killed in largely the same way as unremarkable flesh and blood humans. A killing blow causes them to collapse into the same hyper-reflective water as described above; the mirror they came out of remains black.
??? deck
The deck itself is open fully to character navigation. Like the lab specimen storage of Zinnia, this deck - whose name is not posted anywhere for characters to find easily - is clear of any signs of Growth, and manages to feel chilly even if you get up to the top deck where the sun is shining.
Or... Should be shining. Regardless of the weather on other deck dimensions, the skies above this deck are
always, at best, a cloudy, half-stormy grey. The air above hangs tense, like the clouds are waiting for something to happen. Unlike the other instances of Ship weather, you don't need Neuvillette's particular affinity with water to sense it - any character with empathic or telepathic powers will be able to feel the sense of looming, helpless frustration in the clouds.
The most notable feature of this deck, of course, is that it's full of mirrors. Indeed, it's not only the mirrors that are missing from the suite bathrooms, the public restrooms by the cafeteria, and so on - there are far more mirrors than the Ship would reasonably need to outfit the decks it has, even including the multidimensional nature of it. Mirrors hang from the walls, and then more mirrors lean against those, or against the other furnishings, or even against each other (since some of them are standing mirrors), and the groups against the walls are often five or six panels deep with the largest at the back the side of the glass panels of the Ship's sliding glass balcony doors. (Yes, those are also replaced by mirrors, reflective in both directions.) Tabletops are reflective in their own rights, and then littered with even more, antique-looking hand mirrors and makeup compacts and those little circular mirrors sold in bags by the dozen at the craft store, only an inch across.
Considering all the reflective surfaces, it might be a good thing that there is only emergency power supplied to this deck - enough to keep the guide lights on and ensure that the sliding doors (though not the elevators) are working, and that whatever system pumps water through the faucets and showers is still going. The water is all cold, however, and there isn't any food available on the deck so far as characters are able to find. In the place where characters are used to finding the cafeteria, there is instead a terrifying mirrored bar filled with empty bottles and glasses as well as - well. Take a guess.
With the exception of the sliding glass doors in the suites, the glass of windows and so forth seems to be what it should be - though it's more reflective than seems natural, too. Like Zinnia, the cleaniness of this deck means that characters have full run of it, all the way down to the lounge on the bottom of the Ship - which is the only place that isn't completely clean on this deck. The super-reflective water that pours out of the mirrors seems to have flowed down here at some point, where it sits, unaffected by the motion of the Ship, about an inch deep across the entire floor. This water is the only feature down in the bottom lounge - there is no furniture, in contrast to its Zinnia counterpart.
And on this floor, at the very bottom, and only this floor, the reflective water has the smell - only the smell, not any other qualities - of fresh blood.
The Ship will not answer characters here - although the terminals in the residential deck that can normally be used to communicate with it (in whatever limited capacity) are present, their screens are (of course!) mirrors, and unresponsive. There's also no signs of drones about, not even the basic roomba-like cleaning drones; there's no evidence that they've been here recently, either.
A follow-up log, in which the Ship manages to make contact with characters wherever they are, will be posted later (mod goal time is 2-3 weeks from now). That log will take place on Day 40 and will bring with it food (for everyone who has gotten very hungry by then) and drone assistance, but whether characters actually manage to escape at that point or later on on Day 42 is left open to the opinions of you, the players! Both current players and visitors will be able to vote in a Discord poll on the matter, to be posted in the Discord announcements channel tomorrow (after you've had the chance to sleep on this post and let it cook in your brains a little).
Happy playing! Questions can be asked on Discord or added to the usual questions header below this post.
Endwalker spoilers!
They sure do love that... "I don't think so. Most souls... if it was some kind of ashkin you'd be able to fight it, and if it was some sort of proper soul they'd fade in a different way. ... I think." He glances over at them. "Most of the souls I know that were like that were ripped apart somewhat violently." Were they in Ultima Thule? He's not sure, but he figures they'll know either way.
... Anyway. "But no, either way they're... not reactive enough to be what's left of a person, I think. They're almost like... an Echo vision, but it's not one because I assume I'd be able to tell."
no subject
Sorry for the surprise history facts, Fridtjof. Despite the warrior's appearance, Eula is in fact every bit as much a warrior-scholar as most of the other Scions.
"And I imagine you would, at that; certainly no one else I have known with the ability has had difficulty telling. Perhaps if they were composed purely of dynamis..." He may not have mentioned Ultima Thule directly, but it's clear that Eula's mind has run down the same track anyway. "Though from my understanding, dynamis on its own has a tendency to disperse... Hmm. I don't suppose you have a particularly acute aethersense, do you?" Few could measure up to Aodhan or Y'shtola in that matter, but viera are supposed to be more inclined to it than most.
no subject
"A bit more than usual. I have been allowed to study white magicks from the Elementals..." He has. Opinions on them. But for the sake of diplomacy he's never voiced them. "But healing and protective magicks are more my specialty. I'm more comfortable channeling aether through a blade than a staff, but I make do."
Better than make do, but he doesn't consider himself particularly skilled. He's just doing his best. "And my abilities work fine here, despite there not being apparently elementally-aligned aether. There's someone else here who is from our world who is better at elemental magicks than I am - aside from Alisaie. Her name is Mint... if you're in need of crystals she might be the person to ask."
no subject
Dragoons get even more floor-tanky when they don't have any recovery skills at all.
"I will certainly keep this individual in mind, though most anyone able to channel aether should be capable of providing some assistance." From their belt, they unclip a cartridge - Fridtjof will recognize it as similar to the ones Thancred carries (and requires someone else's assistance to make proper use of). Eula tosses it lightly once before offering it for the young man to see more fully - this one appears full enough, but narrower than Thancred's. At the bottom of the cartridge is a seal that appears to be capable of opening. "Any form thereof will work, though I don't like filling them with raw ceruleum much, if I may be frank. Those tend to be more like to become grenades than ammunition."
no subject
Not to mention where it's mined in Tural... the stink of ceruleum keeps him away from places like Hhusatahwi. "I can provide, if you have need. It should be fine enough - I can adjust the elemental composition if that would be helpful."
... "Hells, I sound like one of the Archons. I never let Estinien hear me sound scholarly, he'd tease me until we both die." He offers a slight smile and hands back the cartridge.
no subject
Eula takes the cartidge back and replaces it in their belt. "I should have plenty for the time being, though a bit heavy on the lightning. Fortunately nothing thus far has forced me to reach for it." All of the reflections have been things they could resolve with spear, knife, or fists alone.
The mention of Estinien brings a smile. "I daresay he left as much to escaping our 'blathering on' as anything to do with the Scions officially dissolving," they agree.
Dawntrail Spoilers
... He should check on Lucia Corina.
"But yes, he very much did. It still surprises me how he ended up in Tural. ... Always drifting, that one. I can't blame him."
DT spoilers will continue until morale improves
For some, the home that was lost can never be replaced. Eula has managed to glean that much of Estinien's history, and there decided to let the matter rest; that he has claimed some manner of peace is enough, even if it does not resemble peace as others see it. Certainly none of the Scions seem to find peace in any other way.
"And you? You spoke of following in the footsteps of one you hold dear. Will you strike out to see a new horizon on your own, when peace settles its blanket over the land you now tread?"
narrator voice: the morale did not improve
There's something a little lost in his eyes. "I only wish to help defend the world as well. To extend that protection to all that I would have given to my people. I'm not as selfless as they are - not in that way - but..."
His gaze falls away, looking at one of the mirrors. Where he would be standing there's... nothing. He looks away again. "Finding oneself is a lifelong endeavor. I'm still barely more than a child by my peoples' reckoning. I'd like to find a more personal purpose, but I... do not know how to begin looking."
Gods, he's saying all of this to Eula Darnus. What have the worlds come to?
cw: hands-on patricide
"I suppose one benefit of your long lifespan is time enough to figure it out," Eula observes.
Then they glance to the side and say, "I was thirty and eight when Dalamud fell. Two decades had I spent in my brother's shadow, making that the whole of my identity, and after I had naught, no choice but to start again from nothing." They allow that statement a breath to settle, and then say, "If you should ever want for advice, then mine is this: The people we are when we first step out of childhood are in some ways the truest versions of ourselves. If you lose sight of that path, then look back to how you found yourself upon it in the first place."
A strained smile, over bitter memories -
She stands in the corner of a darkened room as her parents speak. Both are Garlean nobility, tall and slim and pale of hair. Her mother is dressed lightly, for a Garlean fashion, and the room is too warm, too open, to be in Garlemald itself. Her hands are clutching at each other under the table where she sits.
The girl's father is an imposing figure, a legatus in his own right, though not one who seems familiar to the one seeing the vision. He stands, which puts him head and shoulders above his wife. His helm sits at his elbow on the table; his expression is hard.
On the table between them sits a folded banner of Garlemald, carefully arranged such that the emblem of the nation is fully visible despite the folds. Sitting on it are a pair of small medals and an officer's insignia. Fridtjof would not know of his own knowledge, but within the memory, he does - this is what a family receives, when the body of their child cannot be returned to them.
"Our son died for the glory of this nation," the legatus says.
"What glory is there in death?" the mother answers, her voice forcefully even and carrying only a hint of her pain. Under the table, her daughter can see her hands shake. "He was barely more than a boy, Caracalla. And now he'll never - "
Her voice hitches.
"Nael will never come home again."
Unobserved by her parents, the girl's hands tighten into fists.
----
The Lord and Lady Darnus do not share a bedroom. They have not for a long time; with children nearly grown, there is no purpose anymore behind their marriage bed, and there was never love.
In the hall outside her father's room, the girl does not fidget. She carries a tea tray, taken from a servant, with her father's usual evening wine. In the bottom are traditional spices, disguising the texture and taste of the powder she added.
Chirugeon is a proper occupation for a woman with military aspirations, and poison a proper woman's weapon. Her smile is perfectly demure as her father drinks.
She stays, until he realizes. His eyes go to her, even as his breathing grows more difficult; he lunges for her neck.
Her brother was the only one who knew how improper she was. He was the one who taught her to fight, how to twist out of her father's hands, to twist one of his wrists and throw the other arm wide. The winecup falls across the desk, where military documents still lie, detailing exactly what kind of glory her brother's life bought her country.
Her father weakens. Eula Darnus pushes him back into the chair at his desk. He had her trained in the medical arts; it is only his own fault that she knows how to kill a man barehanded, her thumbs pressing into his windpipe.
"You are the one who gave the order," she says, imperious over the raging tide inside her, the rage, the grief. "A commander must be held responsible for his failures to his men. Isn't that right, Father?"
no subject
It isn't Garlean military training by a long shot, but he still remembers - "The iron soldiers first infiltrating our Wood and the destruction they brought. Timber for their war machines and fires and whatever else they wished." There's a slight undercurrent of anger. "And I knew I did not want any more to suffer." Maybe they have a point. Maybe he is like -
He clutches his head with one hand, staggering until his other hand finds a wall. The memory, the Echo - he's even worse with the reaction than Mykha is. His chest heaves and it takes a bit for his breathing to calm. He blinks and he looks at Eula.
"... I can understand taking revenge for a sibling. I can't understand killing family, but I suppose I'm not cold-blooded enough." It's not meant to be a dig, just a comment. Some of the Scions are more utilitarian than he is, and while he's on that side of the scale he's not as far as... that.
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At his words, their eyebrows rise, just before a small sigh escapes them. "Saw that, did you," they say, not a question. There's only one thing those words could refer to, after all.
It's not how people usually find out. In the aftermath of the vision, Fridtjof doesn't seem to have quite put it together yet. They have no doubt but that he will.
There's a hint of a chuckle in their voice as they say, "To a Garlean sensibility, that was as hot-blooded a killing as they come. The nobility especially are taught from a young age that our emotions will come to rule us should we give them an ilm, and I gave my love for my brother and my lust for justice many leagues that day."
There is no regret in their tone. They regret many - most - things that came after, but not that.
Glancing off with a distant look, Eula quotes themselves - "A commander must be held responsible for his failures to his men. That is the 'me' to which I looked for guidance when I had none, and regardless of any other's words, I do not believe that she led me astray."
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He shakes his head, thinking of the others in his training group. "If I held that view all of the time, I would have been cast out long before I left. We all knew going into training that not everyone makes it out. If we were in the middle of a mission, perhaps it would be different."
His eyes slip closed for a brief moment as he remembers their faces. Some died quickly, others slowly. Some were preventable, others... were not. When he opens his eyes again it's with a significant amount of sadness in his gaze. "But I can sympathize with losing family - even if some of them weren't by blood. I don't know that I'd be able to kill any of them myself unless..." Unless they were tempered, before they found the way to reverse it. Unless they were sin eaters. His shoulders fall. "I suppose even being inside of your head for a moment I can't understand just how angry you were."
Was their bond like him and Mykha? He's not sure - they're one of the only people he can see getting that angry about someone hurting. He doesn't even want to imagine what could kill them.
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They pause, and then shake their head slightly. "Well, the past can not be changed, at least not without such an expenditure of aether that one boy's life could never be worth the cost. Better to face the future I have left."
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He doesn't want to think about trying to change the past. Even just thinking of that adventure they had makes his head hurt as he tries to understand how it goes. "We do never know how long we have. And there's always the chance our fortunes change in an instant... but we keep going. Forge a new future for all of us."
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No shame in the admission that they were once a sorry sight; pride forged of having been reforged so many times isn't so brittle.
"But on the whole, we are in agreement on that. Though I suppose 'twas indeed my turn to be whisked off to another realm."
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He sighs and waves his hand a bit. "But that's done - I do hope Mykha has checked in on them when they have gone to the First, but I can understand if they haven't. Even so... there's often long periods of boredom in that sort of situation."