[a heart.]

[antreegonist]

There's a moment of nothing but light and sensation. Someone's looking you over and the scrutiny prickles and burns – it's nearly a physical pain, like fine little hooks digging past your skin, into the very meat of you. I know who you are, it says, and I know what you are, and that you don't have any business here --

“But you do,” says Mithos behind you. He's a tired, steady voice in your ear, a light hand on your shoulder. “I don't know what Dream's thinking, but everyone is welcome here in my heart; just keep in mind it's a real mess right now.”

Your vision clears.

((assume your characters wandered in here through a dream. also join #ihateyouihateyouiwanttocuddle on irc if you can!))

Comments

Re: [past - mind]

[oneknightstands]

[quietly runs his thumb in a small circle against the inside of Mithos's wrist]

Re: [past - mind]

[antreegonist]

"I'm tired," he says.

Re: [past - mind]

[oneknightstands]

I'm sorry.

It takes time.

Re: [past - mind]

[antreegonist]

"Time..."

Re: [past - mind]

[oneknightstands]

Time to trust again, to recover from what's happened, to adapt to life with what you've lost.

Re: [past - mind]

[antreegonist]

"There's no more time."

Re: [past - mind]

[oneknightstands]

What do you mean?

Re: [past - mind]

[antreegonist]

"I'd have to want it."

Re: [past - mind]

[oneknightstands]

I think she would want it for you.

Re: [past - mind]

[antreegonist]

His hand spasms a bit; that's a definite moment of hesitation.

Re: [past - mind]

[oneknightstands]

For you to have a chance at happiness again, at trust and love. I don't think that's something that she would want to deny you.

Re: [past - mind]

[antreegonist]

"She didn't . . . but . . ."

He's fading.

Re: [past - mind]

[oneknightstands]

But—?

Re: [past - mind]

[antreegonist]

"Is it worth . . ."

Re: [past - mind]

[oneknightstands]

It is. [squeezes, lightly] I promise.

Re: [past - mind]

[antreegonist]

. . . he's gone.

Re: [past - mind]

[oneknightstands]

[lingers for a moment before closing the box]

Re: [past - mind]

[antreegonist]

What hits you when you touch the box is a crushing sense of defeat -- all you want to do is sink to your knees and curl up in a ball and die.

The rest of the scene fades . . .

Re: [past - mind]

[oneknightstands]

[tightens his grip on the box, white knuckled, as the feeling runs its course, before pushing himself off and up]

Re: [past - mind]

[antreegonist]

You're in a large round chamber with a cloth hung all the way around the walls. It's raised a little to leave room for the doors (one on the left and one on the right). A great deal of the cloth is still bare, but parts of it, at intervals, are thick with colourful embroidery.

The top of the chamber is open to the stormy sky.

Re: [past - mind]

[oneknightstands]

[stepping away, taking a look at those embroidered cloths]

Re: [past - mind]

[antreegonist]

They seem to be a visual timeline of Mithos's memories, detailing a world that definitely isn't Aather. He's been around a while and won a lot of memories, so it might be a little alarming that more than ninety-five percent of the timeline is blank.

There is a large cluster of embroidery near the beginning (you might spot Martel's death near the end of this section). Some small blips and one biggish blip around the middle. Another large cluster near the end (Lloyd appears here; they seem to be fighting.) The end itself is blank. Are you looking at any section in detail?

Re: [past - mind]

[oneknightstands]

[just taking it all in for a moment before turning to focus on the section before Martell's death]

Re: [past - mind]

[antreegonist]

The very first scene shows a very young Mithos in a forest, peeking out from behind a tree at a ring of other children with pointed ears.

There's a gap.

The second shows a much older Mithos -- perhaps twelve or thirteen -- seated in a garden outside a wooden house, with a younger Martel. Forest surrounds them. She's playing tiny embroidered panpipes.

A smaller gap.

Martel and Mithos on a long road, hiding from monsters and soldiers in blue uniform, or ambushing them. Mithos backing away from a soldier lying in a pool of blood: his first kill. Past that there's gradually more incapacitating or killing. This road ends at a stylized town.

A gap.

Martel and Mithos run around a city, accosting people and being turned away. They run into a man dressed in blue, with brown hair -- you may have recognized him coming up the cliff with Mithos. This scene runs on for quite a long time: they leave the city a couple of times; the brown-haired man teaches Mithos the sword; they meet another man dressed in black with blue hair (he was at the cliff too!); they're turned away and turned away again. They talk to a king and queen and are thrown in prison, escape from prison, break the brown-haired man out of prison. The city is attacked. They fight soldiers in white, try to rescue people, but many of the people flee from them. This scene ends with them narrowly escaping the city . . . the city is aflame.

Then an odd array of scenes, bits and pieces, not a continuous line of memory but clear enough to tell a story: Mithos, his sister and the two men go on a journey, bickering and bantering. They fight through to reach a version of the black tree -- it's withered. They talk to what seems to be its guardian, someone you don't recognize, sometimes a boy and sometimes a beast. Mithos continues to travel, fighting and then kneeling to ten elementals, the Summon Spirit, clearly swearing to them. He swears to the guardian of the tree last. More little traveling scenes now including the Spirits, a gap, and then Martel's death.

Re: [past - mind]

[oneknightstands]

[pausing between the second and the third scenes, carefully putting a hand to the blank space there, looking between the two memories]