war table: strangers in the mirror.

[propulsion]

WHO: Closed to the gang
WHAT: Delving into the temple of Dirthamen in search of artifacts, Riftwatch finds that the temple demands more than they seek. But what else is new?
WHEN: Cloudreach
WHERE: Arlathan Forest, within the temple of Dirthamen, Elven God of Secrets and Knowledge
NOTES: OOC post.

You stand before it, a glow emanating from its smooth surface, a perfectly round sphere whose warmth bathes your face and hands in light. Around you are veiled faces in hoods, heads bowed in reverence, and a murmur of chanting echoes, overlapping, like the clashing of tides. Your hovered hands drift apart in a slow and elegant motion, and you can only faintly see it, the lines of magic you draw between your fingers, like faint golden cobwebs of shivering power.

They tremble between your fingers, they shiver, and they bend towards the orb. You must master it so it does not, in its wisdom and hunger, take from you what you're not willing to give, but you are well trained, you are beyond compare, and you will give only what you will.

The chanting rises, and the orb pulses with light. You focus, and the magic drawn between your fingers pulls away from it, arcs around in loops. It feels akin to reining a wild horse or mastering the lines affixed to the sails of a ship in a storm or pulling taut a bowstring.

And your control slips. Or you set something free. Either way, your hands come down on the surface of the orb, and it burns you alive.

...

The fading impression of this memory glimmers in your mind.

And nothing else. Where are you? What are you doing? Why do you wield this blade in your hand, or lay here with your bare throat offered to another's? You don't so much awake; you become aware of yourself, cold and aching and tired, and as you try to assess the situation and evaluate the motivations of the weary, filthy strangers that surround you, you wait for context to return, but it never does. You reach backwards for memory, for anything, encountering only the image of the glowing orb before you, and the way it had burned you with the things it knows when you touch it.

But there are more pressing matters to resolve.

After the initial confusion and chaos, all that is left to do is assess the place you are in, and decide what next to do. To escape, perhaps, or, some niggling part of you wonders, find the location of the glowing orb, which you know, deep down, is somewhere in this place.

The Temple of Dirthamen

Not that you know its name.

This place feels like an underground palace, sunken deep inside the earth, grand chambers that connect to one another with various passageways, tunnels, and staircases. Light sources come from your flaming torches or travel-sized lanterns hanging off your belt, or the occasional luminescence from green-glowing runic engravings on tiled walls, or the faint glow of a green miasma that lingers in hallways and chambers. There are walls set with elaborate mosaics, and great statues depicting twin figures, one of them cloaked in shadow and the other more detailed, and creatures such as ravens, always a pair, or the arching legs of a giant spider.

As intentionally built as it is, it is also half-wild. There are chambers that seemed carved directly into rock, and floors of rough natural stone. It is not, however, all intentional. You will find the frames of stone archways set directly into rough rock, or stairwells that lead nowhere but directly into cave wall, as if the earth had grown around it.

Despite this oddity, it is a beautiful and grand place, but clearly one steeped in ancient neglect, with flooded chambers, moss-riddled stairwells, crumbled stone, and the smell of rot and dust.

Traversing this place, however, is a challenge in and of itself, hostile to the strangers that crawl through its catacombs. Not only will you find whole pathways blocked with crumbled stone, or rooms that require you to swim through them to get to the other side, or a strangely angled corridor that forces you to climb up its craggy surface, the building itself is intentionally guarded against intruders in a myriad of passive ways. Traps trigger when a previously unnoticed puzzle is left ignored or incomplete, or doors refuse to open without the presence of a key in spite of there being no discernible lock. Some of these you may be able to solve, some will force you to double back.

You are also not alone. Out the corner of your eye, the presence of spirits dart in and out of the catacombs, and occasionally, you hear the ominous chittering sound of many-legged beasts that put you to mind of all those giant spider statues.

Some places you may encounter in your blind journey forwards:

THE QUEEN'S LAIR: You don't know how it happened, but the ground gives beneath you and whoever you are with, sliding without dignity down the abruptly steep angle of not-quite-smooth-enough rock. You land with a violent tumble upon surprisingly soft, spongy ground—fungus, moss, mud, deep puddles. As you look around, you see the large stone chamber you are in is lit with a sort of ambient bioluminescence of green miasma, showing up the sight of thick patches of cobweb strung between pillars, statues, hanging from loops from the ceiling. You see bundles blanketed in web, tellingly humanoid in size and general shape and, thankfully, perfectly still. The smell of dust and old decay in the air makes you hopeful that perhaps this place is more tomb than nest, until you see the way the giant cobwebs around you begin to sway. Looking up, through the miasma, the shadowy shapes of dog-sized spiders begin to pluck their way down. And you think you see, far above, the unmoving shape of a truly colossal spider resting high above. At least, you hope it's unmoving. You have two choices: take your chance in trying to scramble back up the steep incline you fell down, despite slippery rock, or brave the chamber and try to make your way in deeper in search of the gated archway on the other side that you will only know is there when you find it. Or the secret third choice of being eaten by spiders.

THE RED REVELRY: You and your companions, such as they are, find yourselves at the entryway of a great chamber. The walls glow with a faint blue-green light, only barely illuminating the wide open space. The open tiled ground is littered in debris, some of it crumbled rock, and some of it, ancient shattered skeleton, scraps of cloth, the evidence of many corpses that have long since decomposed to nothing but dry bone, dull jewelry, and the rotted remains of their clothing. Unpleasant, but unless you wish to yet again double back, the only way forward is through, and you do see another archway towards the back. However, the moment you step into the room, your mind fogs over. The room fills with golden light, laughter, music, and a swirling crowd of elven folk. You are in the midst of a revelry, and your heart feels light and joyous. One offers you a goblet of wine, another bids you to dance with them, another offers to share from a platter of fruit. The room is also surrounded by tall men and women of more serious demeanor, dressed in rich ornamental armor, dark cloaks, armed with curved blades, and you barely notice the sound of metal on leather as they all at once draw them. You do notice, however, as the screams begin, as blood begins to spatter, as the ring of guards begin to systematically cut down each reveler in arms reach. Now would be a good time to remember that none of this is real, but as you can't quite shake the immersive experience of a panicked grip to your arm or the visceral sensation of wet arterial spray spattering against your armor, it might be best to run for the next door before you find out otherwise.

Optional dice roll: A d20 roll of 16 or higher has you break the illusion, safely restoring the chamber around you to the dark dusty tomb full of unmoving skeletons. A result between 10 and 15 means you are still immersed in the illusion but you have your wits, and, with focus, are able to move through the figures as though they aren't there, but may still struggle. A result between 5 and 9 means you are too immersed, and the crush of the crowd is preventing you from running, and if a guard with a blade strikes you, you will be injured. You may need help. A result between 1 and 4: oh my god all of this is real and you're going to die unless someone drags you out of here. Otherwise, choose your own result, no dice no masters.

THE PATH OF THE SIGHTLESS: The broad hallway you approach is tiled with jade, with an atmospheric light coming down from the tall arched ceiling. Up ahead, the road is strange. The tiles are grey stone and then foot-square tiles of dull gold or similar metal. Upon stepping into the corridor, you will find that your vision is gone, cloaking you in darkness. To anyone else, standing outside of the corridor, they can see within it and you perfectly fine. What's more, any step you take that is not on one of the shining tiles, comes with a consequence: a psychic kind of torment that feels like a swarm of ravens invading your mind. They tear and claw, a physical sort of headache-like pain that becomes quickly overwhelming and paralysing, leaving you cold and shaking. What's more, this assault has things to say. Although you do not remember anything of yourself, these ravens seem to know. However, if you make it back onto a shining tile, or are close enough to one of the ends of the corridor to leave it, the torment will stop.

The idea here is that those with you will need to verbally guide your way through the corridor. If you are subjected to punishment for mis-stepping, the 'ravens' that flood your mind will pluck and claw at all the insecurities and fears you would have had if you remembered them. This is one way to get information about yourself, but as delivered through the bitchiest and harshest of critics. Your character will not be able to withstand it for long but will have difficulty hearing or moving, so feel free to assume they need extra assistance or manage to help themselves.

In general, feel free to find the kind of obstacles you might anticipate, such as ancient elven magic hopscotch, doors that only open if you pierce your hand on the knife-like protrusion where a handle should be, rooms full of wisps that taunt and mislead, platforms that require Big Jumps to get across or else you'll find yourself wet or on fire, Veilfire puzzle with tiles that ripple and shift, and so on.

There are also places of respite, ancient prayer rooms or barracks-like quarters, where you may discover the rations you have on you and get to know people who do not know themselves.

Strangers in the Mirror

Here is what you must bear in mind.

MEMORIES OF THE LIVING: Although you have no recollection of yourselves, recollection is not forever withheld. At any time, your mind may jerk towards an impression of something, clear as day. You may whole heartedly believe that you are recalling something of your own past, or it may be so incorrect that you are certain that this memory doesn't belong to you. These flashes come in moments of quiet, in looking upon the face of an ancient statue, or catching your reflection in a shining surface of water or metal or polished tile, or seeing the light in another's eyes.

If you happen to meet the person for whom these memories belong, you will know like a hook in your heart that this memory belongs to them. There is no way for you to give it the way you got it, for only the gods can parcel out memory and knowledge without the tools of language and writing, and so what you choose to do is yours to decide.

MEMORIES OF THE DEAD: There will be moments, likewise, when the memory of those long gone from this place invades your mind. However, they are not for you to know. At any point, you will find that you lose time, that a great stretch of blankness takes hold of your mind, and you come back to your own forgetful self in some other place, perhaps with entirely new company, performing some task you did not mean to begin: sweeping the floor, or kneeling before an altar, or sitting at a table prepared to eat a meal that is not there, or even once again about to slit the throat of a willing supplicant.

Use this mechanic to free up your character to pursue threads with others rather than only your home team. If you can also play out encountering someone in this fugue state or vice versa, in which they will be largely unresponsive, but seem to know their way around, completing their tasks, until they snap out of it.

And some general advice on your current affliction:

This is a fictional form of amnesia, so don't overthink it. Broadly, your character should instinctively know standard facts like what colour the sky is, even if they can't see any sky currently, or they may have an instinct towards certain skills they have practiced every day since childhood, like the yo-yo. However, knowledge of who they are, what their name is, where they've come from is completely lost on them.

More specific world facts like what the Chantry is, what a mage is, what a Ferelden is, you can be fast and loose with. If your character is deeply intimate with something like the Circle, they may roughly know of it in vague terms. Alternatively, if it's more fun if your mage doesn't even know that magic exists, then go with it.

Rifters from profoundly different worlds, like modern earth, can absolutely have a sense that they are in some kind of weird ancient world surrounded by old timey people. This is left to your discretion.

As far as what your character is like without their memories, again, this is up to you. They can be cluelessly the same, or exhibit hidden personality traits they ordinarily keep suppressed (or suppress ordinarily prominant instincts), or simply be fundamentally different without the burdens or highlights of their own lives to inform them. Are they friendlier? More vicious? Braver than usual? Less selfless, more? Whatever you like!

A Gift of Revelation

And then it ends.

Seemingly without ceremony, if you are far away from the thing that ends it. You feel a lurch and then it all comes flooding back: your name, your life, the mission, the people around you, the forward camp merely a few hours of travel outside the bounds of the temple you are in. You may be close enough to where you'd already started scouting before it all went foggy to make your way out easily, or you may be so immersed in the depths of the temple that your mission of trying to escape hasn't really changed, despite this context.

And yes, your sending crystal is still not working. Figures.

You still harbour the memories that you were given unbidden, even if they've lost their bright shine in the void, and you will still feel that sense of knowledge for whom they belong when you meet them next, if you are unable to work it out on your own.

Once out, the warmth of the Arlathan Forest greets you, and your crystal begins to flicker back to life once more. Truly, they don't pay you enough for this.

Comments

[laruetheday]

Probably stupid of her considering what just happened inside her own head, but the reveal that Ellie also has one of her memories is an unpleasant shock.

"What does that mean?" Her voice is higher than normal, almost shrill. "What happened?"

She'd been planning on telling Ellie that she got one of hers, and giving her her name back, but this is clearly much more important.

[notathreat]

"You prayed to your dad for help, and he gave you a ship and a crew." Prayed to, not asked.

Ellie supposes that she could just hold back information until the girl gets her through this, but it seems incredibly shitty to do that, actually.

"His name is Ares, and you said that everybody who dies in a war owes him a debt. So there were all these... undead soldiers manning this old ship. And they had to do anything you told them to do."

Ellie frowns.

"... you were young, though. Like not even most of the way through being a teenager."

[laruetheday]

She'd thought that hearing something about herself would make it better, or... easier somehow. Or she'd hear a name and suddenly the memory would flood back to her, just like that.

But the things Ellie tells her are only confusing and strange. The words don't feel familiar, no matter how many times she repeats them in her mind.

Ares. A debt. Soldiers.

Clarisse rubs a hand over her eyes. "Okay. To your right."

[notathreat]

After Ellie finishes telling her, she second guesses it. Of course, it's far too late to take it back right now.

Ellie shuffles her foot to the right, cautiously putting her weight down and taking another breath. She wishes she could see. If only to know how far she is, how far she has to go.

"Not exactly comforting, sorry," Ellie mutters, awkward. "But it- I dunno. It belongs to you, so."

She should have it.

[laruetheday]

"If I don't remember or give a shit about it, does it actually belong to me?"

Doesn't feel like it. Anyway, this has been Philosophy Corner with Clarisse, and now she's done talking about it.

She's too busy staring out across the corridor as Ellie steps to the right and settles her weight onto another tile. She doesn't feel any kind of connection to the things Ellie told her about a ship and an undead crew and a father she prayed to, but she does feel a weird connection to Ellie herself. She doesn't know herself, but she knows something about this girl, about how she felt as she made her way through a rotting old hotel.

It's one of very few things she has to hold onto right now, so she keeps it close.

"Next one is ahead of you but sort of to your left, too. About a foot away."

cw: zombies/executions/suicide mentions

[notathreat]

"Fuck if I know, but that's not my call."

Ellie... disagrees. She wants to know what she lost, feels fucking violated by the lack. This place took something from her. Lots of things. She looks at her own body and doesn't know how she lost her fucking fingers. She has so many knives and doesn't know how she learned to use them.

She doesn't know her own fucking name.

It's disconcerting, feeling faceless, feeling unmoored.

So she's distracted when Clarisse gives her next order. Ahead and forward. About a foot away. She jumps, and overshoots, her toes grazing the wrong blank tile.

The pain is immediate, but more than that is the utter, absolute terror of it. She doesn't know what's happening, or why there's a clawing, ripping sensation in her mind, like something is in there going after her brain.

Why do you want to know? says a laughing, cawing voice, a squawk and groan of croaking laughter. It feels like feathers inside her skull.

It's not like what you've forgotten is worth anything. It's not like you mattered.

Ellie swears, breathless, breaking out in a cold sweat, and stumps back the way she came, breathing fast.

"Fuck, fuck-"

And for Clarisse, there's much more.

"You see what it is?" Joel asks.

"Yeah," Ellie says, pushing something out of the way. "Okay." It's almost immediately after the last memory. Joel has the same blood splatter, though he's taken off his gas mask. The windows in this room are boarded haphazardly over, but there's late-afternoon sunlight coming through the slats.

There's a desiccated corpse in the middle of the room, bone showing through, identity obliterated by time. They're laying in a large bloodstain. It doesn't shock Ellie; she's seen far worse, and not just once. There's a solemn sadness when she walks up to it, but no horror.

"Ellie!" comes the warning shout from behind her, and Ellie dodges backward as something lurches out of the shadows at her, scrambling across the floor. The creature, fungal plates bursting out of its face and obscuring its vision, tries to get at her. Joel surges forward, puts a foot in its back, and point-blank executes it with one shot.

It's a fluid, practiced move, and Ellie catches her breath. "Thanks," she says, kicking herself. She knows fucking better.

"Yep," Joel says, quiet and relieved and worried. The exchange sounds casual when spoken aloud, like Joel's handed Ellie something out of reach. They both know she slipped, that she could've died, but this is what they do. They take care of each other. He doesn't scold her. She already knows, and tomorrow something similar will happen, and she'll save him, too.

They move on, look over the bodies, their gear. A leather tag with an embossed J is on the body's backpack, and Ellie pauses.

"Hey, Joel. I think it's them. The couple that ran away last year."

Joel turns to her, pausing, the enormity of it washing over them. These were people they knew. He kneels down next to the desiccated body, the one more easily identified than the one he just blew apart. "I think you're right," he says, steady but heavy.

Ellie casts around, and finds what she'd hoped for; a note. She picks it up, dusty in her fingers, and reads aloud:

"Jackson is a wonderful place, but we got tired of hearing the stories of people suffering everywhere else. We wanted to save lives. We had good intentions. We didn't make it an hour before running into a horde. Now we're bitten. We've decided we're going to end our lives instead of turning. Please tell our family and friends that we're sorry. Love Adam and Sidney."

Ellie's voice is low, solemn, a faint ache lacing through it. She remembers their faces. Just kids, not that much older than her. She flips the paper over, and sure enough, there's more.

"I shot her. I can't take my own life. I'm a fucking coward. Adam."

"Jesus," Joel mutters, rubbing at his jaw, and Ellie looks up from the page.

"If only they were immune, right?" she says flatly, her throat tight. There's something churning in her, something angry and helpless, like this is personal. Like this is her fault, somehow. Like this belongs to them, somehow.

Joel glances sideways at her, unsettled, and tries to redirect. "Well... let's go get Tommy, and we can get these bodies back to Jackson."

He turns, walks -- and Ellie looks after him, feels the connection stretching out between them. She should follow them. She could. It would be easier. She's been following him for a long, long time.

But this time, she's not gonna. This time, it's just too much, and she'd can't ignore it anymore. She can't do this anymore. Keep watching people die, keep finding bodies.

"After you took me out of the Firefly hospital, you said there were dozens of people like me." Ellie's voice is flat, almost too calm. Joel stares at her, too still. The both of them too still. He nods, a small jerk of his head.

"Yeah. Yeah, that's what they told me."

"I've never met another immune person before," Ellie says quietly, and it tries to climb up her throat. She's thought this through, thought of this before. It's eaten at her every time he tells her to put her mask on. Not to tell anyone new. "Have you?"

There is a damning pause, and Joel, just like she knew he wouldn't, doesn't answer. "They could be hiding it," he says, false calm. "You do."

She does, because he makes her. Ellie puts the page down.

"Do you believe that?"

A subtle change comes over Joel, a dangerous sort of pause. A disappointment in his voice that makes something in Ellie's stomach crawl, because it's cowed her every time before. "Is now really the time for this?"

"We traveled across the entire country to bring me to the Fireflies. I had so many questions for them." Ellie can feel tears threatening. She doesn't want to do this, to ask this, but she can't fucking pretend anymore. She needs to know. And today, she's decided, she's not taking no for an answer. "Why did you pull me out of there while I was still unconscious?"

"Because I let them run their tests, and when I saw that they were useless, I got us out of there-"

"How do you know they were useless?" Ellie's voice breaks, and she hates it. She's heard this before. She knows it's a reasonable question and she's so fucking tired of Joel acting like it's not. "Maybe if you just woulda given them more time, they could've figured something out-"

He walks closer, looming over her, and Ellie feels no fear. His anger is thunderous, intimidating, but not to her. Never to her. To her he is safe, he is home.

"Ellie," he says, cutting her off, speaking low and quiet and firm, shutting her down. "There was no cure." Every word is careful, enunciated, like he needs to get it through her head. Like she's being idealistic, hoping for the impossible. A child.

"There's nothing that could've helped these people or anybody else." Joel pauses, because he knows it hurts her. So many things do. "I know you wish things were different. I wish things were different. But they ain't."

Ellie holds his dark gaze, feeling herself welling up, fucking hating it, and finally breaks her eyes away from Joel's face.

"We need to get these kids back to their families. Or is there somethin' else you'd like to rehash?"

It twists like a knife, sitting in her throat. That helplessness, and that betrayal. Because she's finally realized that he never will tell her the missing pieces. He will never trust her with them. And she can't trust him to tell her to the truth. It hurts.

And in that moment, she shuts herself down. Closes the door between them, and decides. She turns to him, looks him in the eyes, and withdraws from him completely.

"No."

The relief is quiet in Joel's eyes, just like she knew it would be. She doesn't lie to him. He has no reason to suspect that she's doing it now. His shoulders relax.

"Good. C'mon."

And he turns to leave. To get Tommy.

Ellie looks down at the corpses at her feet, and there is a sense of more. Of faces, of names. Of people she's watched die. People she's loved and lost to this. Of graves she's dug with her own hands, both alone and alongside Joel. Those bodies stretch out and out in a long line between them, and Ellie decides.

If Joel won't tell her, she's going to find out for herself. But first she needs to play the part, make him believe that he's convinced her. At least until she can leave.

And she knows exactly where to go. That Firefly hospital.

Ellie steps over the bodies at her feet, numb, and follows Joel.

It turns out to be the very last time she does.

[laruetheday]

The next memory that hits—and it does feel like a hit, like getting punched with someone else's feelings and history—is like a continuation of the first one, but it's worse.

The monsters are physically horrifying, but there's a sense throughout that they're also somehow normal. But the bodies, and the notes? There's something else to that. Some context she doesn't quite have a grasp on, something about a cure, and the Firefly hospital, and the way Joel is so obviously lying. But he's been lying for years. She knows that the same way Ellie did.

Clarisse feels it, the way Ellie loves him and hates him at the same time, the way it made her feel sick to shut him out completely.

She's still feeling it when she comes back to herself, but there's no time to process. Ellie doesn't look hurt or anything, but the way she's shaking, the way she's breathing, something obviously happened. Is happening.

Without thinking, Clarisse nearly runs out into the corridor to get to her. She stops herself at the last instant, one foot in the corridor and one out, and freezes that way, not sure what to do. Shit, shit, shit.

"Hey," she says. Trying and mostly failing to sound supportive, calming. "Ellie. The tile's right behind you, okay? Like six inches back. Just go slow."

[notathreat]

The girl's voice comes through alongside the tearing derisive cackling, and that's the voice that Ellie gropes for, off-balance and terrified. She does as she says, moves back, and the painful voice and scratching claws retreat from her mind.

It takes a few seconds of just breathing before she clocks it.

"... what'd you call me?"

[laruetheday]

"Your name. It's Ellie."

Clarisse sounds almost embarrassed as she offers it up. She'd been planning on telling her, it's not like she kept it a secret for hours or something, and she's not sure why she feels defensive.

"I only learned it a minute ago."

[notathreat]

It takes her a few moments to catch her breath.

"Ellie," she repeats. A shaky in and out. "Sounds about right."

There's no great cosmic rightness to it, but it still feels good. Like something returned to her. She clings to it with both hands. She's Ellie. Girl with the knives and the missing fingers, currently temporarily blind.

A minute ago. So that's why she was quiet.

"What else did you see?"

[laruetheday]

"You were making your way through this old building that looked like it was falling apart. You and this older guy. Fighting monsters that looked like they used to be people."

Clarisse chews on a thumbnail as she considers telling her the rest of it. But she thinks she should wait until Ellie's on the other side of the corridor, at least. She's about halfway now.

Clarisse gives her a minute to process, or regulate her breathing, or whatever she needs to do. She leans against the wall and watches Ellie, who can't see her looking.

"Let me know when you're ready to keep going."

[notathreat]

As horrifying as it sounds, it's all so frustratingly distant. Something that belongs to her, that she can't quite reach. Ellie takes an unsteady breath. It's not fucking enough, of course, but at least it's something. Monsters that look like people. An older guy. She wonders who it is. Or was.

Horribly, she wonders if the voices know. The ones that seemed to know what she'd lost, when she stepped in the wrong place.

But that's fucking insane. It hurt. It would probably kill her if she let it go on long enough.

"I'm ready."

[laruetheday]

She watches Ellie collect herself, and can't help wonder what she's thinking. If what Clarisse told her feels foreign and meaningless, like the things Ellie told her do, or if there was some kind of spark of recognition there.

"Okay. About a foot ahead of you and slightly to the left. I'll let you know when to put your foot down."

Assuming she doesn't start disassociating while someone else's memory plays in her head, that is. But... hopefully that part is finished now.

cw: gore, death, vivid ptsd flashbacks

[notathreat]

It's much harder to balance while completely blind. Ellie takes a breath, stands on her right foot and puts her left one carefully out. Shuts her sightless eyes, like that might help.

Deep breath, hold.

The wind is rising. It ripples through the grasses, what could be ripening wheat if they had enough hands. The barn is dilapidated but repaired, put together as well as Ellie's hands could do. Joel taught her the simple things, but there's so much she never learned.

The sunset is orange, the light fading, and the paddock is scattered with sheep and lambs.

Ellie is taller, stronger, with ten fingers and lingering ache in her right arm, where her tattoo is slightly warped. Her hair is much shorter, hacked off in the back and falling unevenly into her eyes, around her face. She is thin, almost painfully so. Wiry and empty and hollow, with a smile on her face that doesn't reach her eyes.

It's a good day, she tells herself. But it's not for herself.

There's a cloth wrap around her body, holding a small bundle of warmth to her front and leaving her hands free. It's a baby, a squirmy, smiley little boy with chubby cheeks and dark hair that sticks up no matter how he naps. Dimples at the root of each finger. He's wearing dinosaur pajamas with feet. He's crawling, but can't walk yet. His hair has that baby-smell still, warm and a little stale.

He looks up at her and smiles, and he looks nothing like her, and he is hers all the same. When he laughs, Ellie almost forgets -- and what she can't forget is a deep shadow in the memory, a leviathan that rolls beneath her feet, makes her unsteady.

She struggles to stay steady. For him. Some days she almost has it. She has the audacity to think that she might be able to do this.

There is a sense of foreboding, here, as she rounds up the sheep. Her voice has a forced lightness. Their names are half puns, half saccharine. Daisy. Snowy. Ewe-gene. She counts them for the little boy snuggled against her, speaking like he has the words to reply. Complains of getting sleepy. They have too many sheep. They should eat some. Just a little bit. A tasty snack.

Is he getting cold?

Ellie steps into the barn, a long stretching shadow, and closes the gate on the corralled sheep, happily eating. The sunset's behind them, orange and red, the gusting wind in the gathering dark. The barn creaks, old bones. Hay and dust motes float around them, golden.

A lamb gives a soft cry from a back corner, outside the gate, and Ellie startles, looking up.

"Hey? How'd you get out?" It's playful for the benefit of the little boy, but her heart pumps harder, faster as she walks onward into the dark back of the barn, where her eyes adjust to the little fuzzy white thing, hiding behind a bucket, a shovel leaned against the wall.

"C'mon, little dude-"

Ellie reaches. Too fast. It startles.

It leaps away from her grasp, crashing into the bucket, the shovel, the rake. The sound is cacophonous in the enclosed space.

It screams.

A flash of blood, horrific, a scream in Joel's voice. Torture screams. Butchering screams. A human voice strained and snapped and twisted into something animal.

It twists beneath her feet, the leviathan waking.

Ellie jerks upright in a cold sweat, her heart racing, her skin itching, hurting, unreal. She clutches at the little boy against her. She can't get enough air. There is a crying in the background, a screaming. The baby against her is crying, startled by the noise, but she can barely hear him. It's just the wind, swirling around her. No. No. She can do this. She can be okay.

Ellie turns, walking slowly after the lamb. It trails away from her, trotting to the open door.

"Okay... c'mon, little guy. Don't you wanna eat?" It comes out choked, strained beneath the false lightness. She walks towards it. It runs from her, out the door.

It's shaking in the wind, being tossed and caught. And then a gust of wind crashes into it. Slaps it closed like a giant's hand. The barn door crashes shut and plunges Ellie into complete darkness, a scream ringing in her ears, her own frantic breaths.

The leviathan catches her in its teeth.

The memories crush around her, melting into this one, a screaming surge of flashback, so strong it feels like the present. Like another memory that Clarisse is witnessing.

Ellie's flashlight flickers on. A delapidated house. Peeling chunks of plaster. A long, long stretch of stairs going down and down.

"Ellie!"

Joel's voice. High, panicked, terrified. The no catches in Ellie's throat, stuck with tears, with panic. No. No. It's happening again. It's all happening again.

"Help me!"

Ellie is sprinting down the stairs, all disgusting, hot-cold panic. The door at the base has blood all down it, drag marks underneath.

Joel is screaming, hurting, dying.

Ellie tries the knob, jerking it frantically. Slams her shoulder into it, heedless of the damage it'll do to her. It's beyond reason. It's beyond fear.

"Joel!" she screams, tears wracking her throat. She gives up trying to turn the stuck knob, just throws herself bodily against the door. Over and over and over, until she can feel things inside her breaking. "Oh god- please no-"

It rips out of her, shrill and panicked and losing all restraint. Helpless cries, little girl cries, animal cries-

"Ellie!" Another voice breaks across it all, grips her with both hands, drags her back.

The present. The barn. Her.

"Hey. Ellie."

It snaps across her consciousness, a beautiful young woman with dark curls, dark eyes, crouched in front of her. The door is open, the light is spilling in. The baby is screaming, sobbing along with her.

"Look at me. It's okay. You're home. You're home."

Dina's fingers close on Ellie's shoulder, squeezing down, grounding. "Breathe," she says, like she has a hundred times, a thousand times. "Breathe."

"I can't-" it's soft and broken and still panicked, ripping out of Ellie's throat. "I can't-"

"Okay. I'm gonna take him, okay? C'mon. C'mere, sweetie. Okay, bud-"

Dina opens the wrap, takes the baby from Ellie's arms. He's panicked, sobbing, real tears down his tiny cheeks, wide scared eyes. Next to Dina it's very clear that she's his mother. In her arms he begins to calm, leaning into the safety of her chest.

The warm spot where he was curled against Ellie's breastbone is sweaty, cold, empty. She is hollow and reeling, trying to fill her chest with air. Head between her knees. Breathe. Breathe.

"I'm sorry," she forces out, her voice thick and still laced with panic, stumbling. "I dunno what- I-I don't know what-"

The baby cries, his sobs slowly trailing off, and Ellie can feels herself welling up. Failure. Humiliation. Shame.

"I was just- just bringing in the..."

Useless. Weak.

"It's okay," Dina is whispering to the baby. JJ. Light of our lives, JJ. "There we go..." her voice is so gentle, so sure, so real. Ellie loves her, and she's failing her. She's been failing her for a long time. She's been failing her and her son.

Their son.

"Hey..." Dina breathes out, places a hand on Ellie's shoulder as she sinks down next to her in the dirt of the barn floor, cradling JJ in her lap.

"Oh man," Ellie whispers, her breathing still coming only in gasps, but finally under some semblance of her control. Her skin is aching, crawling, nerves misfiring. She trembles, and can't help the way she leans, just barely, away from Dina. The way she can't look at JJ, cradled in her arms. Safe now. Safer than Ellie could ever keep him.

What if... what if she'd...

"It's good," Dina's saying, and it's hollow. "We haven't had any excitement in a while, hm?" She sets her hand on Ellie's knee instead, and Ellie can hear it, right there in her forced smile. It's not good.

It's not good.

They can't fix this. They can't fix her.

Maybe nothing can.

[laruetheday]

She comes back to herself not knowing how much time has passed, again.

Clarisse is shaking, gasping for breath, hands curled into claws like it's her who's still in the throes of panic. She uncurls her fingers, painful, stiff. Wipes clumsily at her face, sure she must be crying, but when her hand comes away it's only wet with sweat.

"I—" Her voice chokes off. She lifts her head, looks for Ellie with blurred vision. She can still hear the screaming. Shrill, animalistic, from so deep inside that it felt like her throat would rupture.

Ellie's throat, not hers.

Everything seems to swim, and she feels sick, physically sick. She crouches down, rests her forehead against the stone wall and tries to let the cold sink into her.

"Sorry, you—you're good, you can step down," she manages after a moment that seems to stretch out for far too long.

"I remembered something else about you." A deep breath, ragged and painful. She can't tell Ellie about all of that. She doesn't even have the words for it. But— "You have a little boy. JJ." She wipes her sleeve across her face, rough. Snap out of it. Fuck. "Maybe he's waiting for you outside this place."

[notathreat]

... oh. Fuck, that didn't sound good.

Ellie catches her breath when the girl addresses her, because she sounds really, really close to tears. Like her heart's been broken, like she's had the fright of her fucking life.

So Ellie is not expecting what comes out of her mouth.

"... I have a kid?" Ellie whispers, and it's quietly wrecked. Maybe he's waiting for you. "What the fuck-"

Ellie sounds breathy, confused, scared, angry. The target, though-

"The fuck am I doing in here if I have a kid?"

[laruetheday]

"None of us know why we're here."

Kid or not, there has to be a reason. Clarisse can't tell what it is. The only clue she can come up with is that the memories she's gotten have skewed violent in some way, but that's where the commonality ends.

She gets to her feet again, feeling slightly less nauseous, and surveys the last section of the corridor Ellie will have to walk through.

"You're almost to the end. Just a few more."

[notathreat]

It's a confusing rush of feelings, and Ellie feels like she has way more questions, despite having more answers than when they started. They're all a little fucked up.

She wants to ask what Clarisse saw that made her so upset, in conjunction with the kid (her kid, JJ, what does JJ stand for-?) but a deep sense of foreboding has her deciding not to ask. At least not yet.

"... okay."

As fucked up as it is, Clarisse is getting her through this, and doesn't steer her wrong. Even if she doesn't mean for it to be, it's reassuring. Ellie follows the last few instructions, managing to work her way through to the end without a return of the harsh, cawing voices.

Ellie's sight comes back all at once, between one blink and the next, and she takes several deep lungfuls of air. Relieved, shuddering with it. Blinking, she turns around.

"Holy shit. Okay, we're in business! I can see again!"

Immediately she sees the problem, though. Clarisse was guiding her from behind. Ellie's going to have to switch the directions around, be extra careful.

"I've got you. When you're ready."

[laruetheday]

She can tell by Ellie's reaction the moment she steps over whatever magical line is keeping her blind. Just by the way she breathes in deep, her relief palpable even from this distance.

Clarisse is feeling it too, a little. At least until she realizes that it's her turn to cross.

But Ellie says she's got her, and she believes it. They don't know each other, but Clarisse has seen firsthand her capacity to have someone's back. And maybe it's dumb of her to put that much trust in someone, but it isn't like she has much of a choice.

"I'm ready," she says, takes a deep breath, and steps onto the first tile.

Her vision blinks out again, instant, and she feels the same creeping sense of disorientation she did before. Ugh, this is going to suck.

[notathreat]

"Weirdly, closing my eyes helped," Ellie tells her. Something about tricking her brain into feeling like it was a choice, so she could rely on her other senses a little bit more.

"One step forward, then put hover your foot forward, and... your left. I'll tell you when to put it down -- yeah, there."

It's easier, having just gone through this.

"Then a big slide to your right."

[laruetheday]

Biting her bottom lip, concentrating on the sound of Ellie's voice and the placement of her feet, Clarisse follows the instructions.

It does help a little bit, keeping her eyes closed.

"This is so awkward," she says, and she doesn't just mean shuffling her way blind down a corridor while Ellie directs her. "Like we can't even make small talk because we don't know anything about ourselves."

[notathreat]

Ellie thinks about it, then lets out a low huff of breath, almost a laugh.

"Let's make up shit about ourselves then," she suggests. "To your left-" Ellie glances down at her hands, finding the missing fingers again. Turns her hands over, finding the edge of the tattoo. Ferns, over... burn scars?

"I'm Ellie, and I'm a dragon slayer. I lost these fingers in a fight to the death with my mortal enemy."

A laugh comes on the heels of that, tight but slowly loosening.

"What about you? How'd you get the scar on your chin?"

cw emotional abuse, implied physical abuse by a parent

[laruetheday]

Clarisse remembers looking at the scar on her chin in the reflection of the knife she'd woken up holding, but she hadn't thought much of it other than to wonder briefly how she'd gotten it. It hasn't been on her mind since then, and the thought of Ellie noticing it enough to comment on it feels... weird.

"Trying to get your fingers out of the dragon's stomach, obviously." Hey, Ellie's mortal enemy could be a dragon, right? In this scenario?

She's not gonna give herself a fake name, though. That's going a step too far.

She steps to the next tile and waits for Ellie to tell her where to go next, and maybe the movement makes the light catch on the buckles of her coat, or the blade of the knife she's stuck in her belt.

Something happens that only Ellie can see.

Your father is standing in front of you—the military haircut and cruelly handsome face, the hunting knife and biker's leathers, the sunglasses that only half obscure the miniature nuclear explosions that are his eyes.

You've always been big for your age, tall, but whenever you are face to face with Ares, you realize how small you really are. How human.

He isn't even really here. He's an image in the steam from the ship's boiler, but that doesn't stop you from being afraid of him. If he wanted to, he could hurt you anyway.

"I don't want excuses, little girl," he says, and the temperature in the room seems to spike, but you're freezing cold and trying not to shake. He always calls you that—girl, or little girl. That's all you are to him, a girl. A little girl not even worthy of her name.

You can't look at him. You can't look at him because then he'll see how fucking scared you are and he'll either laugh or he'll hurt you and make it worse. I'll give you something to be scared of.

"Yes, father."

"You don't want to see me mad, do you?"

"No, father."

"No, father," he mimics, and his voice is a falsetto, a high-pitched mockery of your own. If you were his son, would he mock you like this? Maybe, but not in this specific way, targeting you because you're a girl and girls are weak. Useless and weak and everything you've grown to hate about yourself.

He doesn't stop there. He calls you pathetic (you are pathetic). He says he should've given one of your brothers the quest instead of you. You're fucking terrified but you're also so fucking sad. He doesn't believe in you, and you don't think anything you do will ever make it better, but you have no choice but to keep trying. Endlessly, for the rest of your life, you will try to make him love you, and he never will.

You as much as tell him this. You promise you'll succeed, that you'll make him proud of you, even though the Oracle said...

"I DON'T CARE WHAT IT SAID!" Ares bellows right into your face, and he isn't even really there, not in any physical way, but it still feels like the force of his voice makes the steam shift course around you, your hair blow back from your face. Your skin is on fire, your heart is a leaden rock inside your chest.

"You will succeed," he continues. "And if you don't..."

His fingers curled into a fist almost the size of your head, he lifts it close to your face. So close he could tap you on nose, so close that it forces you to look at it and understand exactly what he will do to you if you come home empty-handed.

It would be better not to come home at all.

Your father's voice is a low growl when he speaks again. "Do we understand each other?"

He already knows the answer.

[notathreat]

There is a long pause in the temple air, filled only with Ellie's soft, panicked breathing. She doesn't answer Clarisse, doesn't quite hear everything she says. Instead she's rooted to the spot with fear, with self-loathing, with a whole host of things she's never felt about herself, not like that.

It feels uniquely wrong. Disgusting. A kind of betrayal she can't quiet process. Yet all through the memory it was was abundantly clear that this was no surprise, no accident, no one-off. This was a constant. She doesn't remember anything at all about herself, but this feels like something she's never known. That kind of fear.

Ellie doesn't have to look at the girl to know it belongs to her. To know how close this was to that other memory, in a point of time. It puts so much into context.

Destroy anyone. I like that.

She still doesn't know her name. Girl, little girl. She wishes she knew her name. She's furious that she doesn't.

"Hey, do you think we're friends?" Ellie says suddenly. "I mean -- if you'd go that far to get my fingers back-"

Her stomach is flipping over.

"Two steps forward then hover your foot. It's going to be one big step to your right, but you have to skip a tile to get there."

[laruetheday]

Clarisse notes the long pause and tries not to feel anxious while she waits for Ellie to speak again. It's hard not to. She has a totally new appreciation for how freaked out Ellie must've felt doing this.

When Ellie does speak again, she doesn't mention anything about why she got so quiet, and Clarisse is afraid to ask. She just makes her way to the next tile, tries to focus on that and only that.

Two steps forward, hover your foot, one big step to the right.

"Sure," she says, once she's standing on it and she can relax for a second. "I mean, I wouldn't climb into a dragon's mouth to get just anybody's fingers back." She can't help herself, though, and after a few seconds: "You good? You're breathing weird."