IC Inbox | noctiumrp

[voidgates]

« theartistalphinaudandhisass »

TEXT ✧ AUDIO ✧ VIDEO ✧ ACTION

SUMMER ICARIAN ✦ FINAL FANTASY XIV (WoL OC)
RESIDENCE ✦ Residency
GEMBOND ✦ Ruby

"...ltros, what are you doing with that, put that down right now you little —"

INFO ✧ PERMISSIONS ✧ KINKLIST ✧ EXTRA

Comments

another night, another dream, but always you;

[voidgates]

[One night, Summer dreams of a city.

It's difficult to say offhand which city it might be, or if it's even one that truly exists to begin with. There are elements of consistency, certainly — it's cut stone underfoot, reminiscent of a place like Ishgard or Ul'dah or the Crystarium. The buildings around are tall and proud. But whether the stone is gray or brown or white, whether the weather is frigid or sandy-hot or just altogether too bright? Truthfully, it's too murky from the outset to tell.

The surroundings aren't the only thing that's nebulous and clouded-over, either. The people who wander the streets and keep vigil in the commercial districts are more formless shapes than proper faces — ideas of citizens, rather than the real thing. Mayhap if one were to look at them hard enough, and hold enough of a concept in one's mind, they might start to take on a form reminiscent of a person familiar, but...

But that's not how this dream goes, not for Summer.

There's something oppressive about this nightmare-that-isn't-quite-one-yet. There's a tension in the air, a creeping shadow of something not quite right. Mayhap you watch Summer for a while as she weaves her way through the shapeless crowds, seeming to look for — something. At length, you might discover the feeling that you're looking for something, too, though you couldn't possibly place what or why.

Maybe those are your own feelings. Maybe they're borrowed from the environment you've wandered into. Who's to say, really?

But in every iteration of the dream, sooner or later one of two things will happen: either Summer will notice you, if you happen to wander close enough for her to spot you, or if you choose to keep your distance, you'll eventually see her spot someone else.

In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't much matter. Either way, the outcome is the same:

What should be a familiar face, Summer discovers, abruptly isn't, and a look of slow and disbelieving horror crawls across her expression as she starts to back away, eyes wide and recognition (or rather, lack thereof) dawning.]


[OOC: So! As this is a dream/nightmare of Summer's, I'm willing to play with the elements of it and allow the overall flow of it to be affected by the visitor to her experience! The details just have to adhere to the basic outline above — she's in a reasonably urban-ish city environment (sorry, Gridania and Il Mheg), she eventually sees someone she knows, but when she approaches them, she doesn't appear to recognize them. Within those general guidelines, please feel free to add elements of your own! I'm willing to play fast and loose and just kind of see where things go from there.]

[basura_boi]

[ Ezar has only seen Amaurot once, and that the nightmare glimpse from Summer's not-quite-memories, the burning sky. Somehow, perhaps drawing from Summer's memories again (or perhaps something else) this time it's an even more clear vision of the dying city, the burning sky.

This is not the first time Ezar has had this dream since he first saw the city, for all he does not talk about it ever, in the hopes that it will simply go away. He wanders the debris-filled streets, lost, but not so much afraid as grief-stricken. The sight of the burning sky no longer overwhelms him and spills over into tears, though it does still ache.

He spots Summer at the same time she sees him and feels no small amount of relief at a familiar (...except this city is also familiar in a different way, and he does not want that...) face, a safe person, someone he hopes will tell him that it will soon be all right. ]

Summer!

[ But there's no recognition on her face, and maybe that's because this is truly a nightmare. Nonetheless, he reaches out for her. ]

Summer, please....

[voidgates]

[In Amaurot, the surrounding locals are more sparse than they might be in other places; it's only understandable, mayhap, when all of her memories of Amaurot are a spare and lonely place to begin with. But with Ezar's influence, and the devastation of the Final Days layered over what otherwise might have been an idyllic and forgotten city beneath the waves, the few citizens around are sparse for an entirely different reason: because half of them are corpses.

Some of them run. Some shiver and shudder as dark clouds manifest into horrible beasts before their eyes. And Summer is no longer wandering, but running — searching desperately for someone, anyone, any familiar face amidst the chaos.

For an instant, she thinks she sees one. Someone she ought to know, though she couldn't put a name to how or why. But it's someone who would keep her safe, she thinks; someone who would introduce some semblance of order to this madness —

Only then he reaches for her, and the horror sets in.

It's not that he has no face, and it's not that she doesn't know him. So much the worse, really — it's that she knows she does know him, or should, but there's not enough of him to be...anything. Like finding a refuge only to have it snatched away again, a safe haven secretly hiding danger instead of respite; a sense of bitter loss and wrongness washes over the dream, and without even half a conscious thought, she starts backing away.]

W...What's wrong with you...!

[Wrong, wrong, wrong. This isn't someone she knows. It should be, but how could she, when there's only a fraction of them there?]

[basura_boi]

Summer?

[ Always, he's prepared to believe her over his own perceptions. He looks down at his hands in confusion, expecting to see the claws of a monster. But his hands are still his hands, and when he touches his own face, it still feels like his face. ]

Nothing's wrong with me? Is something wrong with me?

[voidgates]

[The thing that ought to be someone she knows — it reacts to her apprehension, right before her eyes. It turns the place that ought to be its face towards things that might be hands. It reaches up to touch itself, like for just a moment it's cognizant of its own deficiencies.

It's only once its perhaps-fingers make contact that the pieces begin to fracture and fall away.

From each place where it touches itself, seams like ice cracking begin to splinter outward, stretching and rippling across the expanse until they intersect with each other, form shapes, outline shards. It mumbles something she can't discern, and the first of the pieces falls free to shatter like glass on the ground, leaving behind nothing but a black void in its place.

Wild-eyed, repulsed, she shakes her head desperately, backing away another few steps before finally turning outright to run.

Retracing her steps means heading back into the fires and chaos of the collapsing Amaurot — but, well. Even now, that seems to be the better option.]

[basura_boi]

[ The look on her face hurts, even before she runs from him. And almost, Ezar lets her go, already feeling the horrible, sinking darkness that assumes whatever has happened is his fault, and the only way to solve it, to not hurt her, is to remove himself.

But now. He's fought with himself long and hard, both successfully and at times unsuccessfully, to escape that feeling, to know that it is invariably a lie. It's never as simple as a single decision, to choose to not be the one who lets go and hides. It's a choice to be made again and again and again, every day, every week, every month, to try even after after failing. But maybe, just maybe, it's starting to get a little easier.

Where once he would have let her go and wallowed in the hurt of it, now he takes a firm mental grip on himself, swallows that hurt, and follows. At the least, he can't desert her, not in this horrible, burning place, not when she's so scared.

A black mage, even one as fit as Summer, is no match in speed for a dragoon. He catches up easily, in time to see some... thing big and with far too many eyes and teeth where eyes and teeth had no business being, burst from a collapsing building.

He runs in, knowing full well this will probably get him kicked in the nuts or punched in the neck or maybe both, grabs for her, and jumps. ]

[voidgates]

[Endure the first doom, comes the thought from nowhere — not really anyone speaking so much as just an understanding, a certainty that comes into being when the beast makes itself known. And for a fleeting second, the terror in her subsides as it hardens like molten steel into the blade of a sword. Tis not that she's any less terrified of this monster as the one that she's been fleeing from, but this is a monster she's faced before. This is one she knows she can kill.

Black mages are sometimes called starcallers, she'd told Ezar once. Mayhap it was a mage whose creation magicks brought forth this particular beast, enshrining within it that selfsame power to bring meteors crashing to earth. It will do so now if it gets the chance, she knows — rain them down and bring the buildings to fall on her, and she's only just starting to look for a safe place to stand and engage it when —

And then suddenly she's soaring, grabbed and sent hurtling high into the sky, the creature watching her with all its hideous eyes and mouths from down below as if debating whether to pursue its fleeing prey, or to move on to choicer morsels now that this one has been drawn out of reach.]

[basura_boi]

You're not supposed to be fightin' things by yourself.

[ He's certainly no warrior nor dark knight, but that also doesn't really matter to him so much. Ezar lands them both on the top of a building, pausing to try to get the lay of the burning city--but nowhere really looks safe to go, as such. There's just bad and worse, worse being what they left behind, bad being out in the open in a place where fire is raining from the sky.

How long, he wonders, does he have before Summer tries to get away from him again? Though he can try to preemptively find a solution. ]

And mayhap don't look at me, if I'm that ugly. Least 'til I find us somewhere safe to set down.