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

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

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! ]]

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[Izuku can't sleep even though he's bone tired. His chest hurts from coughing and throwing up water when they arrived, after which he'd collapsed on the grass unable to catch his breath. All he could think about was the sound of screaming and people being ripped into the void and everything going dark.

So he decided to run. To get his mind off things. When that didn't work he'd tried sit ups, then push ups, then a used a tree to do some pull ups. Then he'd decided to just punch the tree even though he didn't have his powers and all he did was bloody his knuckles. He tried to do everything except what he really wanted to do... cry.

Late at night he debates going to bed but he's unsure about what he'll see when he closes his eyes. Then a curious light in the fields near the temple catches his eye. He follows it, shivering in the night air in clothes still damp from earlier, and when he breaks into the field, he sees the roaring flames.

He doesn't recognize the person there but he feels compelled to go closer, maybe out of a desperate desire for both warmth and company.]

Oh. Umm. Hello.

[His voice is gravelly and slightly congested. Sounding like they all feel tbh.]

[ For all she has her own house in Whitestone, and almost permanent permission to reside in the castle if she wishes, and even a free room in the temple itself, Vex knows that sometimes you need to listen to that inner voice and simply run.

Sometimes you just need freedom, to get away from others, to fly - and she can't do that here, either. And running away never really works, of course. No matter how far you go, whatever is at your back will catch up to you eventually, if you don't end up circling right back round to face it yourself.

Still. No one told her she couldn't build a fire, so build it she did, and here she remained well into the evening, ignoring the hole in her heart longing for the presence of her family, for Percival. For her brother.

She looks up at the voice, pausing mid-poke with one of the thicker branches. Others have come and gone as they pleased, but at least she's had Trinket as a constant behind her, a large snoozing wall of fur; he stirs briefly at Izuku's approach, before grunting and going back to sleep.

Ah hells. It's a kid. Looking about as well as she feels: terrible. ]

Hey... [a headtilt] Out a little late, aren't you?

[He glances down at his wrist to see if the communicator has a clock on it. Is time here even normal? He doesn't know. All he knows is that it's night now and it feels like they've been back for nearly a day. If there is a time on the communicator, he doesn't even actually read it.

He just gives an exhausted shrug.]

Didn't feel like sleeping.

Edited 2019-01-20 18:37 (UTC)

[ She can hardly blame him for that when she herself finds sleep avoiding her presence.

She lifts her hand, long fingers curving back towards her palm as she waves him over. ]

Then take a seat, if you want. You hungry?

[He approaches once she beckons and drops down in front of the fire. It's warm. He hadn't really noticed but his fingers were numb and there was a dull ache in both of his arms. They ached when he got cold. A result of all the damage he'd done to them. But he hadn't really registered it.

At the question of food, he makes a face, remembering the taste of throwing up seawater, and shakes his head.]

I'm... not. I know I should but... It's hard to have an appetite right now.

Then here. [hand drops, scooping something up, before tossing it his way: it's fruit. an...apple? Except you..peel it?? This place, man] Stick it on one of these skewers, and let it roast for a bit. Tastier than you'd expect.

[she doesn't know him, but it doesn't take a genius to tell he's tired, even if he's not sleepy] I have some water, too. It helps.

[He catches it on instinct and blinks at it a few times. A fruit? Well, at least going through the motions of putting it on a skewer is a distraction. Initially, he wants to decline the water, remembering what it was like to have it fill his lungs and stomach but he knows he's probably dehydrated and needs it.]

Ah. Okay.

[He blinks a little trying to get his cloudy brain to work.]

Did you do all of this?

[ The salt water that came out of you (out of all of them) took a lot else in the doing. It's not pleasant, but sipping means you stay hydrated. Some juices have too much sugar for her liking after so much salt, but what she wouldn't give for something hard and alcoholic right now..

But first, she offers her waterskin. ]

This? [the fire?] Yes. Once the merfolk were settled and safely in the water, and I'd.. caught my breath. [it's not the only thing, but it's a Thing She Did] I wanted to be warm.

[He takes it and takes a sip. For a second it looks like he might gag it up but he manages to swallow and keep it down. It does feel better. He hadn't realized he was thirsty. He takes a few small sips, making sure not to overwhelm himself and make himself nauseous.]

It's nice.

...The fire, I mean. I don't remember it being this cold before we left.

[Maybe it's not colder? Maybe everything just feels colder overall. Also, he's still a little damp which doesn't help.]

[ Being damp definitely doesn't help. Though both Vex and Trinket are mostly dry, she stripped them both of their armor; wet leather isn't pleasant to deal with, and so much exposure to salt water meant the unseen servants were working overtime to take care of the matter.

(Vex hasn't even touched the mess that is her hair yet. That's absolutely something that can wait until tomorrow.)

He has a point about the cold, though. ]

I haven't been here long enough to know what the season changes feel like. But it was more summery when we left for Akvos. [her expression is bleak a moment, before she shakes herself and continues] Now it's like spring. Given how strange this place is, maybe they work in reverse.

[ Or it's Astoria's fault. She was acting quite weird earlier. ]

..You can scoot closer, if you want, darling. I don't bite. [snoooooore, adds the bear]

Hmm. That'd be... definitely something magical. I don't think the seasons work that way.

[He sniffs and wipes his nose on his sleeve. The slight chill in the air is making his nose run. He seems to contemplate moving closer. He's in a surly, solitary sort of mood which is uncommon for him but makes him unsure of being around other people.

But he's also pretty cold. So he relents and scoots closer.]

S-sorry. I didn't mean to be weird about it. I'm just a little bit... in a mood.

I'd say it was weather better suited to the Feywild, but it's not even as mercurial as that. [a shrug] There's not much about this place that's natural, not as we'd know it otherwise.

After what we've all just been through, I think I'd be more worried if you were dancing and cheery. [her tone sobers a bit] It's not weird at all.

[ She watches him scoot closer, and as she does so, she unfurls something from her shoulders; a blanket she'd borrowed from the temple. She's warm enough against Trinket behind and the fire ahead, so if he wants to use that, she'll pretend not to notice if that makes him feel better. ]

...Thanks.

[He takes it and wraps it around his small shoulders. It feels warm from the fire and her body heat and the weight of it is a comfort in and of itself.

He exhales deeply, wraps his arms around his legs and rests his head on his knees. His voice comes out muffled.]

Do you ever feel so tired you can't sleep or do anything? I wanna ask about your bear but... I'm so tired.

[ He is so much younger than she is, and it makes Vex's bones ache to see how he wraps himself up in the blanket. There's quite a few young ones, actually, more than Vex thinks appropriate given the task at hand -- given the task that just blew up in their faces -- and she sighs a bit as she leans back against her bear; he grunts but doesn't otherwise stir. ]

Absolutely. Even my hair hurts, that's how tired I feel. [and she has so much of it] I'm happy to talk about Trinket, if you like, though. He's a very good bear. He did his best these last few days.

[her smile falls, blank, distant] We all did. We all tried. [it just. wasn't enough, in the end]

Not hard enough. Or... maybe not in the right way.

[He's quiet and sniffles for a few moments before pressing his face into his knees to muffle a sneeze. Ugh. He should really thank her for giving him this blanket. If he'd stayed out in the night air much longer, he'd probably catch a chill and then he'd be nothing but a nuisance to everyone.

He sniffs again and glances over at the bear before finally just allowing himself to fuel the small curious spark that still manages to fire within him.]

Is it... he... a pet? Did you train him? How do you train a bear?

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

Bonfire vigil

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