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makinglies2025-09-27 05:54 pm
lysoke) wrote in makinglies2025-09-27 05:54 pm
Entry tags:
Respite
Respite
The lake is dark and calm with a small breeze by the time they arrive at its shores. The stars above reflect perfectly in the still waters before them, and a small copse of trees lines one side, starting on their side of the river and jumping along the other side.
Chris takes a moment to re-prepare the spell he hadn't been able to cast in five years and gestures vaguely to the area around them as a suggestion for what the others can do. Gathering in the forest, sitting on a nearby over-turned log, it didn't matter to him. What he needed was an hour without interruption.
He settles down on the ground and presses his hands together as he closes his eyes to focus on the image in his mind. Within minutes, the white, shimmering outline of a large building forms in thin air. The gentle glow of its light barely spreads from the growing structure.
As promised, it takes the full hour before the slowly filling-in form is complete and finishes with a jaunty, echoing click.
Chris takes a breath, now sitting in front of the stoop that looks annoyingly like the one he'd passed earlier in the night, and gets back onto stiff legs as the glow fades away, leaving smooth, but otherwise unremarkable, white stone behind.
"Here we are. Home for the next however long we need. I'll start working on food and water next." Once they're inside, anyway, which is why he takes back his things from where he'd left them and leads them into the temple, marked only with the carving of ravens on the black wood of the double doors.
Inside is something just shy of opulence. The same polished white stone makes the walls, though black and gold veins course through the marble. The floor is the inverse, a black stone with white, shimmering speckles like a night sky if looked at for long enough. A single window faced East high up on the wall. The temple was alight with sconces at regular intervals along the walls, illuminating an open area that held all the offerings of comfort Chris could think of.
A large hot-springs-like bath, complete with a miniature waterfall, took up the left side of the room and ran into a smaller, similar bath at dog-height. Next to it, covered by a retractable screen, was a shower. Along the back wall, a raven's head emblazoned the white wall in black and watched out over a set of tables, chairs, and a couple of sofas. The majority of the center was clear for walking, but the right edge and right side of the room held a deeply inset pit of pillows, cushions, and blankets in various soft (black and purple) fabrics.
Finally, in the middle of the right-hand wall, there were two closed doors that, when inspected, revealed one room with a large, soft chair and rug, while the other room was made of nothing but stone with jars, pitchers, and plates on shelves along two walls and a cork wall perfect for catching daggers on the other side.
"I hope it works for everyone. I didn't...I didn't make separate bedrooms this time. I didn't figure we would need them tonight."
Chris takes a moment to re-prepare the spell he hadn't been able to cast in five years and gestures vaguely to the area around them as a suggestion for what the others can do. Gathering in the forest, sitting on a nearby over-turned log, it didn't matter to him. What he needed was an hour without interruption.
He settles down on the ground and presses his hands together as he closes his eyes to focus on the image in his mind. Within minutes, the white, shimmering outline of a large building forms in thin air. The gentle glow of its light barely spreads from the growing structure.
As promised, it takes the full hour before the slowly filling-in form is complete and finishes with a jaunty, echoing click.
Chris takes a breath, now sitting in front of the stoop that looks annoyingly like the one he'd passed earlier in the night, and gets back onto stiff legs as the glow fades away, leaving smooth, but otherwise unremarkable, white stone behind.
"Here we are. Home for the next however long we need. I'll start working on food and water next." Once they're inside, anyway, which is why he takes back his things from where he'd left them and leads them into the temple, marked only with the carving of ravens on the black wood of the double doors.
Inside is something just shy of opulence. The same polished white stone makes the walls, though black and gold veins course through the marble. The floor is the inverse, a black stone with white, shimmering speckles like a night sky if looked at for long enough. A single window faced East high up on the wall. The temple was alight with sconces at regular intervals along the walls, illuminating an open area that held all the offerings of comfort Chris could think of.
A large hot-springs-like bath, complete with a miniature waterfall, took up the left side of the room and ran into a smaller, similar bath at dog-height. Next to it, covered by a retractable screen, was a shower. Along the back wall, a raven's head emblazoned the white wall in black and watched out over a set of tables, chairs, and a couple of sofas. The majority of the center was clear for walking, but the right edge and right side of the room held a deeply inset pit of pillows, cushions, and blankets in various soft (black and purple) fabrics.
Finally, in the middle of the right-hand wall, there were two closed doors that, when inspected, revealed one room with a large, soft chair and rug, while the other room was made of nothing but stone with jars, pitchers, and plates on shelves along two walls and a cork wall perfect for catching daggers on the other side.
"I hope it works for everyone. I didn't...I didn't make separate bedrooms this time. I didn't figure we would need them tonight."
no subject
Bizarre.
"I don't know how to say this kindly, so I'll just say it: You think incredibly loudly." Jon sighs. "I'm not telling you to stop, mind. I know you can't help what you think. But you should be aware I'm... catching it. More of it than I usually do from the people around me. I suspect it's because you're afraid, and I'm not as used to needing to shut you out." He's lived with Wolfe and Chris for years, even if the situation with Wolfe has been off and on. "I'm not going to tell the others, if you're at all concerned about that. But it seems like something you ought to know."
no subject
Now I can't even think? I have to clear my mind. I have to keep it in, closer than before. Don't think, just do. Act. There's always something to be done. Do it. I can do this. I have to. For them.
She drags a hand through her hair, taking a deep breath and trying to force all of her thoughts away. They pull at her, always there at the edge of her awareness because she can't put things down. Wolfe told her, tried to show her, that she could set it all down for a time. That she wasn't required to always be in control or in charge of everything, not even herself. He tried so hard to help her let it go so she could rest for seconds or minutes at a time... and she couldn't. The overwhelming fear that she's going to fail and make things worse - for all of them, but especially for Jon - refuses to be pushed back as she brushes her fingers through her hair and starts to pull it into a long, single braid over her shoulder.
"...I'm sorry." Sorry she can't shut herself off when she knows that would be better. Can't be who her original was: a cold and distant but kind leader who kept a tight hold of her emotions. Her lips press into a frown as Little Thunder makes rainstorm noises above them, then starts a dive into some bushes ahead of them. "I'll find a way to stop it. If I don't and it becomes too much, tell the others and have them put me to sleep for a time so you can get a short rest from my shit."
He needs that, even if he won't say he does.
no subject
"You don't have to worry about my opinion. You don't have to apologize for existing. Or somehow thinking wrong. Or upsetting me. We're all messes. I won't tell you anything the others are thinking right now, but I'm worried about some of the same things you are. Being useful, making sure I'm not a burden. You, at least, can fight. Whatever Chris wants to insist, that's immediately valuable. Some potential scholarly ability or magic in the future isn't much use until it's here, which makes me a dead weight until then."
He stoops to pick up a stick as a they walk and chucks it out ahead of them for the dogs to chase after. Cookie races ahead with Patience on her heels. "The fact you have emotions isn't the problem. It's that you can't seem to fathom everyone else is having them and don't care if you do. They can be inconvenient or frustrating, but god knows I'm those things without the emotions."
no subject
Only, it was never her life. It was never her actions. It was the woman she was told she was, whose memories she has.
Her frown deepens as she watches Cookie and Patience dash off. "You're his partner and his friend. Chris needs that more than he needs," me, someone who only ever seems to hurt him no matter how many promises she makes to do better by him, "someone who makes a mess like me. You saw the way he all but pushed me out the door of the temple." She'll have to ask what she fucked up this time after they've both gotten some more rest and managed to eat more. Dreams, she doesn't know how to fix this and she knows she has to. She has to make this right or soon enough he'll be wondering why the fuck he's kept her in his family when all she does is hurt him over and over and over again.
She sighs heavily and ties off her braid. "If my emotions weren't a problem, I wouldn't need to be handled even so much as you're doing right now. I know things are strained and difficult after everything between losing Wolfe to the city and getting here yesterday, but there isn't time to process or deal with shit in the ways we all want when we have to get written into the Weave as quickly as possible. I refuse to let you or Wolfe suffer for any longer than the gods demand as part of the bargain for their help."
It's out of their hands in many ways, but she won't back down. No matter what she is or who she's supposed to be, she's too damn stubborn and protective and angry to do anything but fight when someone tries to withhold what she feels rightfully belongs to her people.
no subject
“He also didn’t push you out the door. You decided to leave for your own reasons, and he didn’t stop you.” There’s a part of him that he hates this, playing the voice of reason, pretending to be ever so wise. He knows full well his own issues with paranoia. Which… maybe that’s a point.
The dogs return and Jon pauses their walk a moment to take the stick and hand it off to Amelia to throw this time. “You know, I mess things up with people all the time. Every relationship I had back home, half of the ones in Duplicity. I’m not good at trusting people of being personable. I have got better… and it’s because I’ve made the conscious decision, make it still every day, to believe the people I’ve decided to love. Whether my brain is telling me I shouldn’t or not, I choose to do it. Maybe try that the next time you’re getting in your head about something. Decide what you’re going to believe. The demons in your own head, or the people who you say you love.
“Well don’t have a lot of time to relax, but we also can’t do everything at once. So, we have this thing in the Shadowfell, fine. We have getting to Iliniver. We have talking to some Mystra acolyte. I’m not one for relaxing, but there’s time we’ll need to fill between those things. What do you even do to blow off steam apart from chucking knives at things? Do you need to dom someone?”
no subject
She's... assuming a lot about them and their choices, isn't she? Fuck. How in all the hells could she do that when she's been working so hard to let them tell her what they need? Is it the exhaustion? The stress and horrors of the last day? Her own inability to grow up? What is it?
Luckily, Jon pulls her from any spiraling thoughts with the most ridiculous thing she may have ever heard come out of his mouth. Amelia blinks a few times, throws the stick for the girls to give them something to chase once more, then turns to the man with the most incredulous expression on her face.
"Are you seriously asking if I want to pick up something that I did in the city for work while we're trying to deal with the new reality of our lives?" What the fuck, Jon? She shakes her head and rolls her eyes, sighing as she calls Little Thunder down to her with a hand held out to her side. The raven returns with a joyful Hello! in Chris' accent and with some small shiny rock in her beak. "Don't ever suggest that to me again. For fuck's sake, we barely managed to escape with our lives, found out we're all... copies of some sort, and got put on a task by the Raven Queen so we can stay bound to this plane. I don't have a mind to do anything but what needs to be done to make all of you safe."
Us. 'What makes all of us safe', she meant to say. No correction of her words comes, though; it's unnecessary when she can grab the rock from the raven and then encourage her into the brush ahead to see if there's any game to hunt.
no subject
“I also see you’re not including yourself in any of this safety business. You’re going to upset everyone if you kill yourself saving them. Chris has told me as much. I’m sure he’d tell you the same. Wise and smug bastard that he is.” Jon loves Chris! He shows his love in many ways, including backhanded compliments.
“I’ll ask again what you need that we can actually do anything about. I can compel you to answer honestly, if it might help.”
no subject
She ignores his joke and the truth he points out about what Chris and Wolfe would feel if she died for their sakes. It's that last part that she doesn't let slip past.
"And risk using your abilities and losing access that much sooner? Don't." Her eyes narrow at him. "As for what we can do, you can accept that I'm going to be a dreamsforsaken mess for however long I need to and that anything I might do for 'fun' isn't accessible to us right now. Let me figure out what I need in my own time. Pressing me won't make me find an answer."
There's nothing to embroider on or with. Few chores to be done if Chris is going to recast the temple every day. Nothing to learn when they have no map and Chris' knowledge of things she'd want to know is limited. And sex is... dreams, she's not going to think about that right now. She's trapped and they're all just going to have to deal with it the same as she is.
no subject
It's a great deal sharper than he'd meant to be, but both her and Chris fretting over it has started to wear on his nerves. It's one thing to tell him not to feed, another thing to tell him not to do whatever he can with the limited tools in his kit.
"And fine." She doesn't want him to handle her? He can stop trying to be 'nice.' "Be a mess if you need to, but accept it's going to annoy Chris and probably the rest of us when you decide to walk out in the middle of an important conversation because you feel like you can't weigh in on things in that specific moment. Also... don't give me this 'woman I'm based on' bullshit."
Jon gestures back toward where they'd come from. "Have you met Adalwolfe Hawke? Do you know how many 'copies' of him there are out there? I knew Garrett Hawke well before Wolfe. He was in Duplicity and had lived a remarkably similar life... up to a point. We also had more than one of the same person at the same time. Not from different points on their same timeline, but from wildly different life circumstances. How the hell have you lived in Duplicity for years without realizing the multiverse is a thing. There was a split in your timeline. There's an Amelia Royer who's still back in her world, doing whatever it is you were going to do. And there's an Amelia Royer, you, who was kidnapped to a city and given some sort of new body because the thing that snatched her couldn't grab her physical form. What even makes a person? It's their memories, Amelia. Christ, but you're thick sometimes. The only difference for us is that most of the time, we don't get to see or even know about those divergent universes."
no subject
She will, at least, not remark on the 'Mistress knows best' comment. If she does, it's going to come at the point of a dagger and that's guaranteed to make things worse.
"Those instances aren't nearly the same as what we're dealing with now, Jon. People ignorant of what we know can't have the same struggles as us. Those people in Duplicity who were the same person but different? Or the same person from a different point in their life? They don't know the truth of what they are: copies made from the memories of someone else. They don't know that everything they remember is real but not for the physical presence in that city. They don't have any fucking clue that they're fuel to be used for the many experiences they can have in the city before they're discarded and everything they became is lost."
The dogs return once again with their stick and this time Amelia breaks it in two over her knee before throwing it as far as she can into the trees ahead of them. This gives her a few breaths before she rounds on Jon again with narrowed eyes. "I am not the woman who lived everything I remember from a plane I've never been to. I know that. Of course I know that. But that being true, that doesn't make me Amelia Royer. It doesn't make me anything related to that plane or those people or whoever that woman really is because she isn't me and I'm not her. I was given her stolen memories, but so what? I didn't live her life. I have her scars and know her fears and I've been convinced they're mine, but they're not. They were forced on me and in my ignorance I believed them. Now I know better and... and it all..."
It doesn't matter. Nothing that 'Amelia Royer from Ragneux' did fucking matters because she is not and never can be that woman. She can't return to that plane and go to the House to see the Family because they'll see her as some omen of terrible things to come. They'll see an outsider wearing their Shadow Mistress' face and think her something to be destroyed for their safety.
And they'd be right.
And I would be right to let them do it.
Frustrated, angry, with so many words in her head and heart that she can't articulate, she turns away suddenly and screams into the quiet woods. All around them birds and small creatures are scared from their cover. Ahead of them, the dogs bark with excitement at the sudden flush of some rabbits from their home and Little Thunder dives from the canopy to catch something easily twice her size and too frightened to realize what's coming for her.
Amelia stands still for a long moment, panting, hands curled into fists at her sides. The noises around them settle into quiet again before she speaks. "I don't know who I am anymore," she says, just loud enough for Jon to hear, "because everything I was told about my life before Duplicity is a lie. I didn't have a life, none of us did. Amelia Royer exists, but she's not me and I'm not her. So that... it makes me..." A long, shaking breath. "No one."
no subject
They've reached the point where Jon would ordinarily walk away, but that's not really an option anymore. He can't go and stew at home, away from Amelia for a few days or weeks. They're together here, and there's no running from the problems to give them space to breathe. It's a similar issue for Chris, he expects, having to deal with each other without the time to lick wounds and let them fully heal.
"They are the same." Jon balls his hands into fists. If he's going to have it out with her, he might as well have it out. Let them both bleed and see where they stand in the aftermath. Maybe this will ruin everything, but he's never been good at keeping his relationships intact. He always messes it up somehow. "If you want to stand there... and tell me I wasn't desperately in love with Martin Blackwood because I'm split from the Jonathan Sims back on Earth, you can go and fuck yourself. I've already had to live with being half the man I was because of the Eye. You don't get to tell me I'm not even that.
"Is that how you feel about Aloïs? I know he was important to you, that he was in Duplicity. But what you felt for him wasn't real enough because of how you were split off from the other version of you? That he wasn't real enough?
"You're exactly the woman you were before you knew the specifics of how your personal timeline diverged, Amelia. You did have a life. I had a life. Chris and Wolfe had lives. We all existed and mattered and no, we're not the people we were, but that's because we've gone through things those other versions of ourselves haven't. Just like Wolfe's gone through things that Garrett never did when he was part of that space fleet. You can believe what you want." Even if it's wrong. This is wrong. He can feel himself getting worked up, but with her... with her, it's easier to hold to the anger and keep the tears at bay. "But I know who I am."
The woods grow quieter again, the sun seeming to dim as the shadows of the trees grow longer. "I am the Archivist. I am the living record of every horror, every fear, every supernatural experience that I have ever seen or heard. I am the avatar of watching, of the truth you fear and fail to recognize. That you are Amelia Royer, and you have to live with knowledge that you are changed. You live in the shadow of yourself, Shadow Mistress, because that is where you feel safest. But I see you in the dark." Jon's eyes--there are too many eyes--have changed as he stares at her, unblinking. "I see you cowering from yourself and your own expectations. Frightened girl."
no subject
She can let most of that go for the sake of keeping the peace. Hells, she was on the edge of telling him to walk himself back to the temple or where it was if Chris has taken it down and to cool off by herself when he brings up Aloïs. Then all she sees is red.
Aloïs as he was in Duplicity was her lover and friend. Aloïs as he is in Ragneux, the Second to the Shadow Mistress, was not. Those two, for whatever feelings they might have buried beneath their duties and loyalty to the House, are not and never will be in love. They won't grow enough to get there. If they do, it's none of her business. Just as the way Jon feels about his memories and everything that comes from them, so is she entitled to feel and believe what she wants about what she now knows she is.
"Be who you are, Archivist." She all but spits the name at him. "Have your feelings and know they're true, but don't you dare tell me mine. Don't speak names that don't belong to you. The man who arrived at the same time as me and with paired memories may have come from Aloïs du Pont of Ragneux, but what I had with him could only exist there. It doesn't mean he was the same man and it doesn't mean that I am the woman my memories come from. I am my own person and I don't have a clue who that is when everything I believe was ripped from me less than a day ago. You don't get to dictate to me who and what I am just because you know who you are. Believe whatever the fuck you want to believe, but don't you dare tell me that you know who I am better than I do when you aren't me!"
She rounds on him and grabs him by the throat with one hand, the other holding the point of a dagger in the skin between two of his lower ribs. "I'm allowed to be frightened of the unknown, Jonathan Sims, and you have to let me be. And if you don't? I will stop hesitating where it comes to showing you how violent I can be when you stoke my anger."
Hold back. Keep it in. A cut will get you yelled at but you'll be cast out if you truly hurt him. No matter how much you want that right now.
Her breaths are steady but tense as she leans over Jon, grip tightening on his neck. "I have always been in someone's shadow. It just so happens that this time it's got my shape. I'll deal with it in my way, and you're going to let me. Do you understand?"
cw: mild PTSD
Amelia isn't ready for that, for the hard 'truths' that she still seems to be denying in the Archivist's eyes.
That knife, though... Jon grasps her wrist and the darkness deepens around them as more eyes manifest along the trunks and branches of the trees, in the shadows. He isn't the helpless man he'd been with Daisy Tonner, ordered to dig a grave for a man he'd barely known and one for himself, too. This woman's knife is nothing magic, there's no power behind it. He still feels fear fluttering in his chest, knowing it will hurt, that he doesn't want to be stabbed, that there's some slim possibility he won't be able to heal from it. And there's the fear that he's going to ruin everything for their group by pushing her too hard.
But then, he's also a stubborn bastard. "You're allowed to be frightened, to feel anything, but I'm not going to pretend to make it easier for you. You are Amelia Royer. Feel whatever way you want about it, but stop hesitating and cowering from that truth. And if you're going to stab me... maybe aim for my hand or face. We can hide it better from Chris that way."
cw: PTSD, panic attack
Away. She needs to get away. Free from the hand that's not--
ropes around her wrists, a hand pinning them to the bed, shackles she can't take off until the city sets her free
She snaps her wrist away from him startled gasp and her other hand shifts around her dagger so she can punch him in the face. A quick jab that's over in an instant, followed up with a push to his shoulder to send him stumbling as she does the same backwards and away from him. It's not until she's moved back several yards and almost trips over the whining dogs that she remembers that anything else exists. Her chest heaves with each breath, hands shaking as she puts away her knife and touches each of the girls on the top of their heads.
Away. Go. Run. She needs to be as far from all of this as she can be.
"Fuck you." She whispers it as she tears her gaze away from Jon and the eyes and the dark, then turns on her heel to lead the girls away from him. She can't think of the trouble it'll cause when Jon shows up by himself. She can't imagine the looks of disappointment from Chris or Wolfe when she returns later with--
Game, yes, food for them to eat. Something for her to do. A way for her to be useful even as she's no hunter or ranger. The girls can do this. They already have rabbits in their teeth and are trying to get her attention to take them. She'll do that in a minute. After Little Thunder finds her shoulder again and utters a concerned Dreams! in her ear. After she's finished rubbing and staring at her wrists to prove to herself that they're free. After she can breathe and be certain there's no ropes around her chest or blindfold over her eyes to keep her bound or dull her senses.
It's not safe for her to be alone here when they're so recently arrived and recovering from too many things all at once. She doesn't have a single thought to spare to any of that while there's still panic and adrenaline in her system.
Patience eventually manages to push her rabbit in Amelia's hands, then boofs at Cookie. The latter wags her tail in understanding and moves closer to the rogue as the former turns and quickly makes her way back to Jon. All the people of their pack are going to be looked after and Patience is going to make sure of it.
no subject
“Fuck…” Patience moves to press her nose to his hip as Jon covers his face with his hands and pulls himself together. There goes his attempt at finding some sort of relationship with Amelia. Whatever he believes about her and her stupid ideas about who and what they are, this isn’t what he’d wanted. Patience being there to watch him just makes him feel worse.
“Go be with her,” he tells the dog, peeking through his fingers at her. Patience boofs and shakes her head. Sometimes, he wishes she weren’t quite so intelligent. “I don’t need you to watch me.” Unfortunately, Patience seems to be stubborn enough to ignore him. “Fine. Am I allowed to go to the lake?”
He takes his first step and feels very suddenly hungry. Ravenous, in fact. The Archivist shoots a look over his shoulder, knowing how close potential prey is, but he masters himself and continues onward. He doesn’t need to eat. He doesn’t need to eat.
The next half hour is spent kneeling at the edge of the lake, sleeves rolled up as he tries to rub the pen on his arms away. It only works so well given how hard he’d pressed the ink into his skin. He spends another few minutes just staring blankly into the water, trying to find an excuse that saves himself and Amelia both the trouble of conversations they don’t want.
He could maybe get away with pretending they broke up for him to wash his arms privately. Play at having fussed and broken up for himself, not because he’d terrorized her. But the lie will depend on Amelia going along with it. It’s something to start with, at least.
Jon heads back toward where the temple had been, Patience leading the way in front of him.