הניאל (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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imeeji_frontstage2022-08-07 12:02 pm
rosetograce) wrote in imeeji_frontstage2022-08-07 12:02 pm
Flowers of Heaven II: Star of Bethlehem
Who: lost(?) idols
Where: ???? a mysterious courtyard
When: day 490
[ You awaken to the feeling of cool stone at your back, and a night sky overhead.
All around is a courtyard—a wide circle of marble tile, alternating black and white, interspersed with stone benches and flowerbeds and ornamental trees, all lit by the lambent gleam of strangely vivid starlight.
It is beautiful. And it is decaying. The stone is cracked; the flowers wild and overflowing between the cracked stone; the trees bent and twisted with age, the ground around them littered with fallen fruit. There is a fountain in the center of this space, but it too is broken-down: the water sits stagnant, and nothing remains of the design except a basin and the shattered base of a once-golden sculpture.
—And surrounding it all are not walls, but dense mounds of kudzu, climbing over itself until it towers as high as any watchtower.
How did you get here?
The last thing you vaguely recall is a sudden fit of drowsiness. There’s no sign of any guide or host around, and your powers don’t currently work either. In fact, if you have any corruptions, whether mental or physical, they too are … gone? No, perhaps that's not quite it; you can still feel them—faint, like a phantom limb. Invisible, and unable to affect you.
But there is one notable exception to the rule: all wings, corruption-induced or not, remain in place, as natural as the starlight.
There are other idols around you, all waking up the same way. Is this meant to be some kind of game…? ]
Where: ???? a mysterious courtyard
When: day 490
[ You awaken to the feeling of cool stone at your back, and a night sky overhead.
All around is a courtyard—a wide circle of marble tile, alternating black and white, interspersed with stone benches and flowerbeds and ornamental trees, all lit by the lambent gleam of strangely vivid starlight.
It is beautiful. And it is decaying. The stone is cracked; the flowers wild and overflowing between the cracked stone; the trees bent and twisted with age, the ground around them littered with fallen fruit. There is a fountain in the center of this space, but it too is broken-down: the water sits stagnant, and nothing remains of the design except a basin and the shattered base of a once-golden sculpture.
—And surrounding it all are not walls, but dense mounds of kudzu, climbing over itself until it towers as high as any watchtower.
How did you get here?
The last thing you vaguely recall is a sudden fit of drowsiness. There’s no sign of any guide or host around, and your powers don’t currently work either. In fact, if you have any corruptions, whether mental or physical, they too are … gone? No, perhaps that's not quite it; you can still feel them—faint, like a phantom limb. Invisible, and unable to affect you.
But there is one notable exception to the rule: all wings, corruption-induced or not, remain in place, as natural as the starlight.
There are other idols around you, all waking up the same way. Is this meant to be some kind of game…? ]
Re: EXPLORE THE COURTYARD?
[ clings. ]
[ then he just leans forward and throws himself down the stairs. (somewhat) tuck and roll. mostly roll. this is the dumbest fucken idea ever, but who said being smart was part of the equation. it's about sticking it to the man... or the equally stubborn stairwell in this case. ]
Re: EXPLORE THE COURTYARD?
[ Just gonna wait for the inevitable right where he is for a second, but he's not really going to leave the fool at the bottom of whatever this is. ]
Re: EXPLORE THE COURTYARD?
then there is gentiana's stillness. it settles about his shoulders like a weight, pressing down. why not just keep waiting. wait and wait and wait for someone to come, though someone will never come, though all might be empty forever—
(who are you, gentiana? who are you, here in the dark?) ]
Re: EXPLORE THE COURTYARD?
MY NAME IS QUETZALALA, THE DARK KNIGHT OF SENSITIV, YOU IMPLIED I WAS IRRELEVANT AND EMPTY, NOW PREPARE TO DIE!
[ IT'S AN ATTEMPT AT GO TIME, BB! ]
Re: EXPLORE THE COURTYARD?
[ He walks down the stairs with his light and graceful steps, calling out to Lala as he thinks he's approaching. ]
Don't hit me with that thing. [ It sounds distasteful on a number of levels. ]
1/2 (second reply will split off)
...But enough of that. He's screaming his conviction to the emptiness before them, even though the last of the light has faded and all else is silent, and emptiness claws at his heels.
Compared to that yell, the sound of Gentiana dragging himself onwards is strangely muffled. Like the very air of the tower is suffocating the sound. And each of them are beginning to sound somewhat distant to the other... ]
2/2: Alala
—and as the echoes of that battlecry fade out, the sound is replaced with something like water...
It is water: drip, drop, falling into a pool, and sending ripples tinged with light out from a center point somewhere ahead of him, roughly illuminating the shape of a circular body of water. ]
Re: 2/2: Alala
[ he picks himself up and grips the sword with a renewed vigor, heart pumping loudly in his ears as adrenaline pulses through his veins. he approaches the pool, briefly glancing up to see where the water's dripping from, but ultimately he focuses on the pool - peering into it. ]
[ does it have a bottom? ]
Re: 2/2: Alala
Great gashes like scars are carved into the walls—if they can even be called "walls," still, in this strange void. Viscous gold seems to seep from them... and then turn to ice. Only the path (again, if it can even be called that) to the pool is unmarred.
Alala can peer over the edge, but rather than being able to see the bottom, the water's surface is like a mirror.
—And every time a droplet falls, there's a fleeting glimpse of a face, partially obscured by bars of darkness. Across the pool is an empty chair—a throne, really—of polished dark horn. ]
Re: 2/2: Alala
1/2
and then tendrils of water ripple and rise from the water like vines of kuzu, wrapping around his arm—and pull him under the surface. ]
2/2
—and then, when he finds herself surfacing again, he's at the top of the stairs once more, perfectly dry, with the courtyard just at his back. ]
no subject
[ as soon as he's back at the top of the stairs he's mcfucken pissed. ] Oh no you fucken don't! I did NOT go through all of that just for a RESET!! [ he takes a few steps back and just bolts down those stairs, fatigue BS be damned. he knows the tricks and the mindgames and he's ready. ]
no subject
This time the swords are missing from the rack on the wall. One seems to have fallen a ways down the stairs—and where it hit the stones, it shattered, leaving a jagged hilt and a mess of shrapnel... as well as a spray of gold across the stone. ]
no subject
[ a sword is a sword is a sword... kind of. ]
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This time, the stairs are more worn; there's more gouges in the wall. Torn fabric, scuff prints. Everything marred; nothing pristine.
There's something dreamlike about the logic of it all—operating on laws of symbolism rather than of nature. ]
no subject
Is this some kind of a time loop? Am I eventually going to end up in a graveyard?
[ still heading down. ]
no subject
Even though he still knows he's walking down—just like he did before—the walk feels uncannily like climbing a tower. Maybe it's something about the nature of climbing, about reaching for something...
And as he goes down, down, down, that aching melancholy and emptiness still gnaws at him, still threatens to seep into his bones and eat away at his convictions; at the will to continue; at the will to care about anything at all. After all...
It will never ̦͇̩͚̞m̪̯̙̯̼a̗̟͎̬̘̪t̲͓t̪e͈͚̹͕͇̯̮r, in the e҉̯̰̕͞ṋ̢̦̮͖d̬̟̪̥̞̖̥͢ͅ.
Maybe it's just a trick of the dim light, but it almost seems like black liquid is weeping from the stone walls. ]
no subject
Ok, Linkin Park, ... [ he grits his teeth and sucks in a sharp breath, trying to focus on something - anything - to avoid those stupid thoughts from invading his mind. ]
[ he settles on... bee movie. ]
no subject
...But how strong, really, is the sheltering wall of refuge in audacity? Of spite-fueled pride? just sugar and glass—just the idea of belief, which crumbles in your bleeding hands?
How could something as frail as that ever be enough? ]
no subject
[ he huffs, loudly! and continues forcing himself to move forward. one foot in front of the other in front of the other. ]
[ maybe if he... hums??? ] Baby shark, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo... [ something horrible and repetitive should do the trick. ]
no subject
...ahead of him, this time—broken swords littered across the steps, brittle and rusted metal; a smear of golden blood across the floor like a crushing head wound. and there, in the darkness—
something like the sleeve of a once-white robe stained gold-and-black. is there someone here? ]
no subject
Hey! W- Wait!! Don't leave me in this nightmare!!!
no subject
it's an empty sleeve, a sword driven so hard through the shredded cloth that the blade broke, wedged into the floor; and before him, a stairway littered with empty, bloodied robes. did he think there was anything left to save here? any wound that could be healed?
there is nothing left. ]
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2/2: Gentiana
Emptiness ought to be light, shouldn't it? But no, it is heavy—heavier than all the world. It is enough to bring him to his knees.
And this darkness will swallow him whole, if he lets it.
Here, floating in the dark, all direction seems to lose meaning. An idea fills his mind—a strange dialectic:
Gentiana can let that feeling fill him like dark water, or he can try once more to answer the question the emptiness asks: who are you, when all else is gone? who are you, alone? ]