su jiuqing (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
countermeasures) wrote2022-02-13 08:23 am
countermeasures) wrote2022-02-13 08:23 amchroma | catchall for vin
i haven't had coffee yet so this won't be pretty yet
countermeasures) wrote2022-02-13 08:23 am
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I hope I'm not keeping you from resting...
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[she's not sitting up, though. her back is still pretty tender.]
...thank you for coming to see me.
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[as she comes closer, though:]
What happened to your back?
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[well. she's tempted to try and look at her back, but even just turning her head a little hurts, so she thinks better of it.]
...I had wings, for some reason... but they were torn off.
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Has the pod helped, yet?
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I'd rather leave the pods open for people who need to be stabilized. I'll use one myself once we're all in less imminent danger.
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Might I ask what happened...?
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[...]
I'm sorry. I'm not really sure where to begin.
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Take as long as you need. You needn't explain it all if you don't wish to, either.
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[her brow furrows]
...it was as if we became more immersed in that world. We felt as though we had been there all our lives. Like we had certain... roles to play.
[she chuckles weakly]
I was a soldier.
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I think... there was one point where I managed to break out of it, briefly. But for the most part... I believed I belonged there.
[my rolls against her being convinced those memories were real were so consistently bad]
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Does it worry you, now that you remember the truth?
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I don't like how easily that place was able to make me forget who I really am.
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It's... frightening. It must have been more frightening to live it.
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[but snapping out of it, realizing that she'd been caught in its thrall the whole time... she sighs.]
...anyway. While we were there, we believed it was our duty to complete a ritual. It was in three parts... the first was very easy, and we were asked to come back again after sixty years.
The second... was more difficult. I don't remember all of it, I don't remember who I faced, but the other three... they were fighting people I recognized. [she looks up to meet her gaze briefly.] ...one of them was you.
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[she can't imagine how disorienting it must be to be under the impression you had lived that long in a specific place, only to come back and find out it was an illusion. for the next part, though... she doesn't look terribly surprised, especially after jiuqing mentions forgetting someone. after a beat:]
...I was fighting with Clarte, I'm guessing? [more importantly, though:] Is that how you became injured?
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[she can imagine clarte's missing memories - on top of their usual amnesia - must have been fairly obvious.]
...some of our injuries were from that. But once we completed that part of the ritual, we were told to come back another sixty years after that...
[120 years..........]
Our fresher wounds were from... our conflict during that third attempt. What happened to the others is for them to tell, but I... changed... into some kind of a monster. And I tried very hard to kill them.
[...]
I'm only glad I didn't succeed.
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...I cannot imagine what that might have been like for you.
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[but...
they did anyway. isn't that just the way things are, here? hasn't it been that way for the last month?]
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It may have been bad for all of you, but... You are the one I am speaking to, now.
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[honestly. that's fair.]
I'll be honest... I hated it.
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[that's definitely a compliment.]
So I am... sorry you had to go through it.
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...at least it's over now.
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