07-06-2016, 09:46 AM
I study the stranger as she struggles to find words, feel the ages upon ages clinging to her and anchoring her to...to a time far too familiar, even if the place is different. I've had visions of the end, dreams and an inner knowing that is hard to describe. Like a compass pointing me toward an inevitable future, but one that has turned to ash in the wake of my lover's suicide. Holding her hand as the world ends, standing over the remains of our home as the sun comes to claim us.
She burned it to the ground when she died, and I still had those dreams. The only difference was that the hand I held was a ghost's, and I had walked the earth without her all the years between. My heart still in her hands, still hers and no one else's, I had waited eons for someone who has already been gone for most of my life. Someone who, even when she was mine, was always running away, always shutting me out, always playing some endless game of hide and seek. In those dreams, those visions, I had lived my entire life still seeking.
I don't want it anymore. I'm done playing.
The stranger's end of the world is different: not the ghost of the Jungle and the sun dying and devouring the earth as it expands, but a beach and a sound I don't know that grates along the back of my neck and down my spine and sets my teeth on edge, things I don't know doing the devouring. Still, it has the same feel to it, the same inevitability, the same inner knowing that this is the end. It clings to her, sinking claws and teeth into her all-too-solid soul, keeping her from life though she is not exactly dead.
Fascinating. And utterly heartbreaking. I live with my dead inevitable future now and then, when it sneaks back into my dreams or reaches out to caress my cheek with a dead lover's touch and remind me that it waits, whispering of lifetimes alone out of loyalty to a woman whose touch I haven't felt in decades. Whose touch no longer exists other than in spirit. Who hides even now, though I've long since stopped seeking.
This woman has spent countless ages immersed in the end of the world, played it out over and over, so much so that I can read it in the space around her soul. Not the details, just glimpses and that sound. “I felt you,” she says, and I focus my gaze on her instead of the ending that clings to her. The sound fades, and I nod. There is something different about her as well, under the weight of all that death, all that ending...or maybe woven into it, harnessing it and making it a strength instead of letting it consume her.
“My name is Quark. And I'm not magic, no, couldn't tell you exactly what I am. Not quite sure there's a name for it, really. Spirits and vision and life, fire and healing and reaching across the void, walking other worlds...” Even building one, once, little good though it did any of us. It was enough to bridge the gap between myself and my love. Built of our lives, our dreams, our shared potential, it was solid and real enough that our time there resulted in a pair of twins that shouldn't have been able to exist. I'd sworn to her if we couldn't have this world I'd make her a goddamn new one, and I did.
Even that wasn't enough.
“I want to go back. There's someone I want to see. Not as a ghost. As flesh.” God, if Nocturnal had ever said those words, I would have found a way to drag her back across the void, would have sunk dragon claws into her soul and not let go until she was home to me. If she'd said them to anyone else, trying to find a way back to me, I would have given my goddamn life in an instant for whoever had made that reunion possible, once upon a time. So how could I do anything but try?
“I couldn't do it on my own,” I tell her, narrowing my eyes and studying the way the end clings to her and puzzling out the way possibility tingles along my skin, letting what power I have reach out to touch the space between her and the weight of death that never quite came for her—and never quite stopped doing so. “And I don't think I can make it permanent. But maybe...”
As I make contact, I can feel that clinging, crushing weight perking up, taking notice. Not of me, not exactly. I am nothing to it, I am no one. But...oh. Ohhh isn't that interesting? It's almost as if...it recognizes the sameness between itself and the ending that has haunted my dreams for decades, since the moment I lived through a fever that was meant to kill me, since the moment I gave up death for Nocturnal and set myself on a far different path than the easy passing into the dark.
Where I touch, it gets...distracted, almost. Tendrils caressing that vision, that dead promise of happily ever after that mutated into a ghost of itself when Noct died. Its touch burns like acid, and I push a little bit more of my ending between it and Gail. “Maybe I can buy you some time,” I murmur as all that death slowly turns its focus on something new and interesting and like-but-not-like.
Gritting my teeth through the adic-burn, I gather up the scraps of that dead future, the tattered remains of my old hopes and dreams for my relationship with Nocturnal, all those flashes of vision, the way my life still tries now and again to steer itself toward her. I wrap it all up in the lingering weight of always and push it into the space between, fighting back a scream as I feel the death that had been clinging to Gail slowly start to dissolve and digest and consume the ghost of what might have been.
When enough of it is focused on the distraction I've provided it, I slice through the bond that connects me to a future that will never be mine, almost collapsing as the pain of acid devouring its skin fades away into memory. I sway, reeling from the effort and the loss, and stumble toward Gail. Don't think she can make it back without me, and I'm running low.
“Right. Not sure how long that'll take, but it's time to go.” The words slur, but even as exhausted as I am I reach her and grab on, sinking power into her skin so that life clings just as stubbornly to her soul as death had moments ago. “This might hurt. Not sure, haven't tried it before.” That's all the warning I give her before throwing myself back toward my body and dragging her with me across the void.
Hurt may have been a bit of an understatement, though I do my best to shield her. It's agony, clawing my way through what is usually a thin veil between the worlds. Ah, but that's when I'm traversing it alone, and this time I'm bringing a friend along for the ride. It feels like forever until I am suddenly back in my body, which is somehow still perfectly intact though it feels like it should be flayed raw and bleeding from every square inch of skin. I barely have the energy to lift my head, but I manage it anyhow just long enough to see that Gail made it back with me. Grinning, I collapse against the tree.
Worth it. “Go find your someone.” Make the goddamn most out of the limited time you've got, because I don't know how long it's going to last. And I don't think I can do that again.
She burned it to the ground when she died, and I still had those dreams. The only difference was that the hand I held was a ghost's, and I had walked the earth without her all the years between. My heart still in her hands, still hers and no one else's, I had waited eons for someone who has already been gone for most of my life. Someone who, even when she was mine, was always running away, always shutting me out, always playing some endless game of hide and seek. In those dreams, those visions, I had lived my entire life still seeking.
I don't want it anymore. I'm done playing.
The stranger's end of the world is different: not the ghost of the Jungle and the sun dying and devouring the earth as it expands, but a beach and a sound I don't know that grates along the back of my neck and down my spine and sets my teeth on edge, things I don't know doing the devouring. Still, it has the same feel to it, the same inevitability, the same inner knowing that this is the end. It clings to her, sinking claws and teeth into her all-too-solid soul, keeping her from life though she is not exactly dead.
Fascinating. And utterly heartbreaking. I live with my dead inevitable future now and then, when it sneaks back into my dreams or reaches out to caress my cheek with a dead lover's touch and remind me that it waits, whispering of lifetimes alone out of loyalty to a woman whose touch I haven't felt in decades. Whose touch no longer exists other than in spirit. Who hides even now, though I've long since stopped seeking.
This woman has spent countless ages immersed in the end of the world, played it out over and over, so much so that I can read it in the space around her soul. Not the details, just glimpses and that sound. “I felt you,” she says, and I focus my gaze on her instead of the ending that clings to her. The sound fades, and I nod. There is something different about her as well, under the weight of all that death, all that ending...or maybe woven into it, harnessing it and making it a strength instead of letting it consume her.
“My name is Quark. And I'm not magic, no, couldn't tell you exactly what I am. Not quite sure there's a name for it, really. Spirits and vision and life, fire and healing and reaching across the void, walking other worlds...” Even building one, once, little good though it did any of us. It was enough to bridge the gap between myself and my love. Built of our lives, our dreams, our shared potential, it was solid and real enough that our time there resulted in a pair of twins that shouldn't have been able to exist. I'd sworn to her if we couldn't have this world I'd make her a goddamn new one, and I did.
Even that wasn't enough.
“I want to go back. There's someone I want to see. Not as a ghost. As flesh.” God, if Nocturnal had ever said those words, I would have found a way to drag her back across the void, would have sunk dragon claws into her soul and not let go until she was home to me. If she'd said them to anyone else, trying to find a way back to me, I would have given my goddamn life in an instant for whoever had made that reunion possible, once upon a time. So how could I do anything but try?
“I couldn't do it on my own,” I tell her, narrowing my eyes and studying the way the end clings to her and puzzling out the way possibility tingles along my skin, letting what power I have reach out to touch the space between her and the weight of death that never quite came for her—and never quite stopped doing so. “And I don't think I can make it permanent. But maybe...”
As I make contact, I can feel that clinging, crushing weight perking up, taking notice. Not of me, not exactly. I am nothing to it, I am no one. But...oh. Ohhh isn't that interesting? It's almost as if...it recognizes the sameness between itself and the ending that has haunted my dreams for decades, since the moment I lived through a fever that was meant to kill me, since the moment I gave up death for Nocturnal and set myself on a far different path than the easy passing into the dark.
Where I touch, it gets...distracted, almost. Tendrils caressing that vision, that dead promise of happily ever after that mutated into a ghost of itself when Noct died. Its touch burns like acid, and I push a little bit more of my ending between it and Gail. “Maybe I can buy you some time,” I murmur as all that death slowly turns its focus on something new and interesting and like-but-not-like.
Gritting my teeth through the adic-burn, I gather up the scraps of that dead future, the tattered remains of my old hopes and dreams for my relationship with Nocturnal, all those flashes of vision, the way my life still tries now and again to steer itself toward her. I wrap it all up in the lingering weight of always and push it into the space between, fighting back a scream as I feel the death that had been clinging to Gail slowly start to dissolve and digest and consume the ghost of what might have been.
When enough of it is focused on the distraction I've provided it, I slice through the bond that connects me to a future that will never be mine, almost collapsing as the pain of acid devouring its skin fades away into memory. I sway, reeling from the effort and the loss, and stumble toward Gail. Don't think she can make it back without me, and I'm running low.
“Right. Not sure how long that'll take, but it's time to go.” The words slur, but even as exhausted as I am I reach her and grab on, sinking power into her skin so that life clings just as stubbornly to her soul as death had moments ago. “This might hurt. Not sure, haven't tried it before.” That's all the warning I give her before throwing myself back toward my body and dragging her with me across the void.
Hurt may have been a bit of an understatement, though I do my best to shield her. It's agony, clawing my way through what is usually a thin veil between the worlds. Ah, but that's when I'm traversing it alone, and this time I'm bringing a friend along for the ride. It feels like forever until I am suddenly back in my body, which is somehow still perfectly intact though it feels like it should be flayed raw and bleeding from every square inch of skin. I barely have the energy to lift my head, but I manage it anyhow just long enough to see that Gail made it back with me. Grinning, I collapse against the tree.
Worth it. “Go find your someone.” Make the goddamn most out of the limited time you've got, because I don't know how long it's going to last. And I don't think I can do that again.