[OPEN] Well. That Didn't Go Quite As Planned

[moneytwin]

Who: EVERYONE
Where: The Temple of Beginnings
When: Immediately After The End.
Rating: PG-13, may vary by thread
What: You fall, you pick yourself back up and you move on. Or at least, you try.


Fished Out Of Water
One minute, you are witnessing the fabric of an entire world implode as it is literally ripped apart by powers unknown. The next, that tell-tale twist somewhere beneath your sternum, before you are bodily YANKED away from Akvos, away from the ocean and the Queen and the King and the Princess.

And land back on (mostly) solid, dry ground.

Welcome back to the Temple of Beginnings. Don't worry, there's no hurry for you to get back up just yet.


Hey, Howya Doin'?
Once you do get back up, now is the time to be taking stock of the situation - yours, your friends, and even those new merfolk neighbours (who may need a hand getting their fins back into the water). There is also the missing members of the Circle to consider: people who disappeared on the journey to Akvos, and those who never made it back..

(There's also that small matter with a certain 'witchess-san' that may be a cause for concern to some more than others.)

Whatever the case, it's a lot to process right now. Take the time you have, because you don't know if it'll be enough for what you need.

---

[[ OOC: Here's an open post for threads reacting to the end of the Akvos world hop. Feel free to use the above prompts, and/or make your own! ]]

Comments

[lonered]

[That's true. Love is scary as hell. But also pretty wonderful. Keith can confirm. He can't help a snort of a laugh at that.]

I think that's dog for 'let's be friends' honestly.

[Congrats, Morrigan. Clearly you were blessed. With half-eaten hares.

But oh now that is interesting.]

That's kind of incredible. When I was a kid, I would've loved to escape, become something else.

[Anything else. Anything that would've made him feel for even a moment like he could escape from never belonging from always being different.]

[nogoldenmirror]

[Morrigan rolls her eyes, very close to saying "in her freshly clean unmentionables" when he admits that and she cringes.]

...I would have liked that, too. [Says the witch; admitting it quietly as, at last, she begins to drop down in altitude.]

In the end, the change is a magical one... You may change physically, but you cannot change the soul within. It will always remain what it is, and communication barriers will persist.

[lonered]

[Keith follows along with her towards the ground. Flying is all well and good, but he's full-body exhausted by it after a good deal of it.]

Yeah. I guess that sounds right. Running only works for so long before you run out of space to run.

[He tried, especially after Shiro was lost the first time.]

[nogoldenmirror]

[Welcome to the club. Ugh, she's going to curl up on the middle of her bed as a cat at this rate. When they land, she changes back to her human form and stares at the trees.]

Yet sometimes that is all one can do.

[Run... and hide away. Soon, she knows, she will have to go into hiding back home. Both from the Grey Wardens, and from her mother whenever she returns. The knowledge doesn't make it any easier.]

Let us return before the ground decides to open it's gaping maw and swallow us, yes?

[lonered]

That was a pretty graphic way to put it, but yeah. Good idea.

[Down to solid ground. Tired as he is, he always feels a little pang of regret when he leaves the sky. Ah well. More flying later.]

Thanks for the spar.

[nogoldenmirror]

You are welcome. Enjoy the rest of your evening.

[...And then she's suddenly a small cat and running off back towards the temple. Her bed is calling her and she doesn't want to be bothered on the way back.]

[brodakota]

[Signed us up to get results. It hits a little harder, now that he thinks about it. Knowing what he knows about the Director and the Project. Has he really just found himself in another Freelancer? He doesn't want to think about that right now.]

I kind of missed it to. I followed a friend into the rift, but after that...it's all kind of fuzzy until I woke up. I don't know what we missed.

[brodakota]

If they did get displaced, hopefully they found a world that would help them.

[Given...merfolk and all that. But it's a nicer thought that just a complete wipe.]

Would it be worth asking Astoria, do you think?

[billionaires]

[ he laughs at that, and this time it holds. hank's dog is great, but that isn't why he asked okay. ]

In that case... [ tony cradles either side of sumo's massive face and looks into his eyes. ] Do you want to be BFF?

[ then blithely to hank: ] He can make his own decisions, you know.

[ he's just being goofy for the sake of it now, and maybe because he's exhausted, too. he visibly sobers as worst case scenarios of the next world run through his head. ]

Here's hoping we don't get separated again.

[fuck1ngusernam3]

[He shakes his head, taking a long drink, making a face, then slumping over on an elbow, face propped on a fist.]

I don’t know. Something to do with the rift, but hell if I know what. Once she tells us what the fuck happened, maybe that’ll be... I don’t know. Not better. But it’d just, it’d make more sense, you know? And we’d know, maybe. What happened to all those, uh. Those people.

[fuck1ngusernam3]

Yeah.

[Hank watches him. He’s not concerned about Sumo - you can squash his face in about ten different directions at once and all he’ll do is give you that soulful, endlessly patient look - but he is a little concerned that Tony took his answer there as a no.]

Well, if your new best friend can’t find you just text me, okay? I’ll keep an eye out for you. If we can’t... [Save anybody, Hank can’t bring himself to say. If they can’t actually help anyone, not really, if all the shit they do is just going to end for no reason anyway.] If we can’t figure out what out glorious leader wants us to do, maybe we can just... get through it.

[He tries a smile.]

We’ll get together and bitch, or something.

[billionaires]

[ he gets where hank is going with that, unfortunately and he leaves sumo alone in favor of leaning forward over his knees. hank's follow-up gets a low laugh out of him before he scrubs a hand over his face. ]

That might be the best offer I've gotten here. If I forget to, you can text me, too.

[ he finds he likes the idea of them checking in with each other. ]

[infailtration]

Yeah, I'd hope so. And a world that can, not some horrible desert planet or whatever.

[ He pulls on a fresh shirt and considers the question, finally shrugging. ]

It's worth a try but somehow I doubt she'd answer right now.

[brodakota]

Closure, might be what you're looking for.

Something like that could help put it to rest, yeah. And maybe know how we can prevent another Akvos going forward.

[fuck1ngusernam3]

You know, sometimes I wonder if that's a real thing. Closure. Or if someone just made it up one day to make themselves feel better.

[He stares at the table, letting that sit for a second. Then he lets go of the bottle, pushing it back toward the other guy.]

You think she's going to? Go over all that shit with us, tell us what went down? Cause that last thing, that video - I don't know if the people on Akvos are our great leader's first priority right now.

[brodakota]

Maybe. I didn't really get a lot of opportunities for closure, so I take it where I can.

But I'm willing to give her some time since we just got back...but I have my doubts. I'm just trying to stay optimistic regardless.

Someone has to.

[brodakota]

Yeah. Have you ever tried?

Talking to her, I mean.

[fuck1ngusernam3]

Huh.

[Hank considers the guy, looking very faintly amused, his brow furrowed. Then he snorts, sitting back and looking away.]

Well that's uh, probably the healthy response, or some shit. What else is your optimism telling you?

[brodakota]

I'm still not sure how I came out the well-adjusted one, but here we are.

[He was the nurturer, if nothing else.]

I guess just to keep my head above water, hope we find an answer somewhere. If we manage to work together.

[fuck1ngusernam3]

Yeah.

[Well, his mouth says yeah, but the unhappy look on his face and the flat way he says it say something else.]

Not much to go on, is it? I mean, I thought we worked together pretty well last time, for a group of random superpowered assholes with no organizational structure and no plan.

[infailtration]

Only when I first arrived, and I was pretty out of it. So no, I guess not. Have you? Is there anything you'd ask about besides Akvos?

[brodakota]

Not yet. I guess I've been kind of intimidated, and busy, with everything.

...

I guess I'd want to know, why me? It's not like I'm anyone special.

[brodakota]

Well, there's always room for improvement there. It's a matter of improvising from the start rather than halfway through, I guess.

[fuck1ngusernam3]

When have we not been improvising?

[He takes a drink.]

It's just, so much of this shit's down to how the guy in charge handles it when shit goes wrong. And this... ugh, fuck, I don't know. I just want to know... if it was me, you know? If it was something I did. I don't think that's asking a lot.

[brodakota]

Fair point.

[He thinks for a moment.]

So, like, a breakdown of your performance, or something like that?