antreegonist | [a heart.]

Entry tags:

hearts,
ic

[a heart.]

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!))

Page 1 of 171

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. . . you're standing in the middle of what was once a battlefield, a broad plain covered in the armor and weapons and bodies of soldiers, all of them half-buried in the pale earth. What protrudes is charred black or melted. The standards, and any identifying features, are largely lost under the damage. The smell – burned meat and ozone – is thick in your throat.

Somewhat in the distance are two trees. They're huge, dwarfing the landscape, and so close their canopies touch and intertwine. The one on the left is black-barked, its leaves brilliant green; the one on the right is silvery and ghostlike. They're perfect mirror images. Even from here, you can see vast jagged rips down both their trunks.

Above you the sky's filled with dark clouds; there are continual flashes of lightning within them, and rolling thunder. No rain. You can see hints of a bright, deeply oversaturated shade of blue behind the storm. The whole sky has an unnatural sheen laid over it, almost like you're looking through a polished pane of glass.

There's no solid road, but someone has walked ahead of you here: there are clear bootprints in the earth, picking a relatively straight path through the dead and towards the trees.

Edited 2012-08-16 00:55 (UTC)

The ground slopes upward gently. The landscape doesn't blur around you or anything, but the distance is a little strange. You're at the trees much faster than expected.

Well, you're at their foot, and even the roots of both trees are vast where they buckle or arch their way free of the ground – some higher up than Onyx tower, some thicker around than cabins, an imposing tangle. There are three clear entrances where it looks like you could go further in: left towards the black tree, right towards the ghostly tree, or straight forward between the two.

Mithos is standing here . . . a version of him, anyway. If you were present at the very beginning of Aather, this is how he looked back then: younger, a little shorter and softer in the face, hair down and covering his ears. He wears no key and casts no shadow. He looks very angry. He's holding a light sword, though its tip is still pointing towards the earth.

“What do you think you're doing here?”

Edited 2012-08-16 01:10 (UTC)

The roots weave on around you, solid and ghostly both. If you're paying attention you'll see them taking on more of a structure -- walls? loose approximations of shelves? tightening up as you go on. They never stop being roots, but after a bit of walking the passage opens out into a huge space, open to the strange sky.

More root-shelves, arranged in neat rows, stuffed with books and scrolls; you're pretty clearly in a library. There are some stacks between the shelves too, and areas that are barred off with a white rope. There's an order to everything -- the shelves and stacks are organized rather than just scattered willy-nilly, some by size or weight, some by colour, some by shape, and some you can't figure out the system for, possibly because not a single book has a title on its spine.

The smell of the battlefield has given way to that of old books, clean paper and ink, and a slight tang of metal.

Near the front, a large section of reading material has exploded out from the shelves. There is a Mithos here; he looks like the Mithos you know in Aather. He also has a sword, but it's sheathed and belted. He's down on one knee, picking the books up steadily. He looks tired.

Edited 2012-08-16 02:40 (UTC)

This corridor goes on a little longer, the root walls changing back to a largely unstructured mess. A new scent, fresher, cleaner: is that a sea breeze? The earth under your shoes has changed, at some point . . . if you look down, it's now silver sand mixed with ash.

You enter another huge chamber carpeted with the same. There's a stream of water running through it, from southwest to northeast, and a stream of blood running from northwest to southeast. A large pool lies in the middle where the two mingle: the liquid there is heavy and silver, almost like see-through mercury. Several heavy pillars are sunk into the floor of the silver pool. They're made of some kind of white stone, very solid and straight. You can see then shifting slowly, constantly, though none go so far as to brush the edge.

Lloyd is standing in front of the pool, back turned to you, watching the pillars.

There are white doors to the left and right, both labeled with the word MIND. There is also another corridor leading straight onwards, at the back of the chamber.

Edited 2012-08-16 07:32 (UTC)

The sand in the corridor gives way to lush grass. It smells like the forest after rain here, fresh and sweet.

Another broad space, and this one is a large grove of normal-sized trees -- at least a couple of hundred. They're spaced out a little haphazardly, some clumped close together, some further away from the others. There are team keys hung on many of them, as well as various knickknacks, but not all. Some are just little saplings, some are quite large and sturdy, but they're all carefully tended. In the middle of the grove, notably, are seven of the biggest, most established trees, close together; there's something shining through them.

You know one of these belongs to you, and you know where it is, if you care to look.

There are doors to the left and right labeled with the word HEART, as well as a corridor that continues to lead straight on.

Edited 2012-08-16 08:45 (UTC)

Grass grows thickly all the way through this corridor -- when you emerge, it's not into another chamber, but away from the roots themselves. You're in the sheltered spot between the two trees.

Flowers in a riot of colours dot the grass here; all kinds. Some of them, white ones with yellow centers, might be recognizable as fandalias, if he's ever shown or described them to you. A little stream runs through here, the water clear and running fast. By the stream grow much younger, more reasonably-sized versions of the two trees.

There's a little wooden house in the distance; it's rather larger than a cabin, cozy-looking. There's a garden out front.

You're aware of an intense sense of presence here: while the rest of the heart feels real and solid, everything here is consciously, intensely, vividly alive.

Edited 2012-08-16 20:45 (UTC)

This isn't quite a garden, though it seems like one. This room is filled with banks of blinking silver-and-blue machines with an organic quality to their shapes. They do look rather like plants and trees with strange fruit, if you just look at them out of the corner of your eye. There's also something wrong with your sense of scale, because it looks like a large space and there are wide corridors between the machinery, but you feel cramped and claustrophobic.

If you look up, the ceiling is an opaque blue dome, the same colour as the sky was outside. The air smells recycled and metallic. Soft clicks and beeps resound.

You can feel -- someone here. Maybe several someones? They're lonely.

Edited 2012-08-16 05:01 (UTC)

This door leads out to . . . is this a cliff? The lip of a sunlit cliff . . . there's something huge nearby, something that looks like a softly glowing lotus flower with every petal wrought of pink-white crystal, hovering gently in the air. Down below is a broad plain; there are two large companies of soldiers squared off out there in perfect formation, banners flying. One side's in white, one side's in blue: Sylvarant and Tethe'alla.

A small party of figures is making its way slowly towards you from below, about halfway up the cliff path; you can recognize Mithos, and possibly Yuan and Kratos and Martel with him. The other six figures with them are unfamiliar, but three are in white and three are in blue.

(There's a glass box in the shadow of the giant flower thing, upturned and leaking dark liquid.)

Edited 2012-08-16 06:39 (UTC)

This chamber is small and cramped, made of rough-hewn wood. It's spattered with blood, walls and floor and ceiling; layers and layer of blood. Mithos is here. Martel is here. Neither of them cast shadows. They're in a spreading pool of blood from the wound in Martel's chest; they're covered with it too; it's a mess. Mithos is clutching at her, shaking and silent. The leaking box is clasped between Martel's hands. She's talking, barely audible, airless:

"Please . . . Mithos, go on . . ."

Edited 2012-08-16 09:11 (UTC)

You enter . . . a large garden of sorts; a tangled mass of entwined, flourishing vines. They're very strange...'conglomerations' is a good word. Some have blueberries and tiger lilies growing on them; some have broad leaves and large white flowers with a hint of pale yellow light at their centres; some have black-and-white striped seedpods with bluebells growing from the tips; that one looks exactly like a bougainvillea vine except that it's completely silver, etcetera etcetera. It's a dizzying riot of colour. The scent is heady and intoxicating.

There's another white door across from where you entered, and a large mirror standing in the middle of the garden, more vines climbing its sides.

Edited 2012-08-16 03:44 (UTC)

This room is very large and dark.

There is a huge object in the middle, glowing softly, though its light doesn't penetrate far at all. It looks like a multilayered lotus flower made of pinkish-white crystal. From the door you can see there's a blurred shadow caught within it. You can also see the silhouette of another person standing in front of it . . . they're holding a giant glowing violet sword . . .

"I don't understand," you hear. It's Mithos's voice. "I don't understand!"

Edited 2012-08-16 06:23 (UTC)

This door opens out into the sky. You can see a whole world laid out below you.

Mithos is standing in the distance. He has the Eternal Sword in hand. You can hear him saying something, but he's a little too far away for you to make it out.

Edited 2012-08-16 22:28 (UTC)

You find yourself in a vast, peaceful garden, grass and flowers lush underfoot. It's filled with fountains, several hundred thousand of them in every shape or size you can conceive. A great deal of them are white, though many many many more are grey. Some are plain, some are beautifully sculptured, some are downright ugly or laughable. Some have missing pieces and some are whole. Each fountain has a basin set somewhere in it, filled with something heavy and silvery, like clear mercury. Little vines are creeping up their bases, moss growing on their feet.

If you look up, the sky is strange, but not in the same way it was outdoors. It looks like a starry night at first glance, but if you look long enough, you'll notice the dark ripples like water, and that the stars drift and flicker like very distant, floating candles.

There's a hush laid over this whole place, a great calm silence. There seems to be no limit to it, no walls, but if you stand still a moment, you can feel a very faint tug drawing you to the center of things.

Edited 2012-08-16 18:10 (UTC)

[. . . heading towards the trees as well; where else?]

[freezes and doesn't move! clenching his hands]

It's all very still here.

[grits his teeth...]

Dream, you stupid bastard.

[spoilers I am not doing anything.

c'mon, just wake up.]

If you're sitting still and not doing anything, you start hearing things. The clash of weapons. Men screaming as they die.

[a w e s o m e

glances at his sword at his waist]

If you stab yourself to get out of my heart that is so not buddies, Guy Cecil.

[ no. arya hates war. ]

[ if it was anything other than a dream she'd have to get rid of that smell -- but she covers her mouth and nose with her hand and tentatively takes a step into the bodies, if she can? ]

[it worked the last time this garbage happened

pulling his sword and eying it now

what now dream heart]

A flash of memory: you're in a throng of soldiers. Here they're alive and you can identify them: somewhere you know that the ones wearing white are 'Sylvaranti' and those in blue are 'Tethe'allans.' But you're so angry, so full of red red rage, and what you're really thinking is that they're all human, we're better off without them, filthy traitors, kill them.

You dodge a soldier's desperate lunge with a spear, knock away another with the hilt of your sword, and thrust a palm filled with lightning toward a terrified man's face --

Mithos's voice happens.

"Spark."

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Page 1 of 171

[a heart.]

[ground level]

[roots]

[center - knowledge]

[center - principle]

[center - love]

[center - truth]

[past - body]

[past - mind]

[past - heart]

[future - body]

[future - mind]

[future - heart]

[resolution]

Re: [ground level]

Re: [ground level]

Re: [ground level]

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