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player plot | when my time comes around, pt. 5
WHO: Everyone!
WHAT: Everything's fine and we're going to have feelings about it.
WHEN: August 15 9:49
WHERE: Primarily the Gallows! But potentially anywhere.
NOTES: We made it! You are all free of my tyrannical plot grasp! There is a final OOC post with some notes + space for plotting here.
WHAT: Everything's fine and we're going to have feelings about it.
WHEN: August 15 9:49
WHERE: Primarily the Gallows! But potentially anywhere.
NOTES: We made it! You are all free of my tyrannical plot grasp! There is a final OOC post with some notes + space for plotting here.
This is a timeline where, some mild chaos aside, things for the last month have carried on as normal. Riftwatch hasn't lost anyone at all. There were no funerals. The work continued. The late afternoon of August 15 may find people at their desks, in the midst of meetings or debriefs, in the library, in the sparring yard. Or maybe afield, seeing to errands or meetings or missions somewhere else in Thedas. Maybe, if they are particularly unlucky, they are deep in conversation with an ally or embroiled in combat with an enemy agent at the precise moment when the magical connection between two realities closes and the diverging timelines snap together into one existence.
At that moment, everyone forgets what it is they were just doing. Instead they remember what they might have been doing in the world where a third of Riftwatch's number was lost, despite their hands suddenly occupied with the normal business of handling pens or swords or books they don't recall picking up.
For the always-living, it may feel as though they have been magically transported somewhere new mid-thought. For the dead—the formerly dead, the might-have-been dead—it will feel as though they have just woken up. Perhaps they'll have a vague sense of a dream they now can't recall, in between their last conscious moment amid the blood and screams in Granitefell and awakening just now in a quieter world, or perhaps they'll have a sense of nothing at all.
For a few hours, the worse world will be the only one anyone can remember. Over time, memories of the other world—the only one that really exists now—will filter in, competitive with other memories in a way that might require everyone to double or triple check whether they wrote a letter or completed a mission in that timeline or this one. But the memories of death and dying will never fade into anything less real.
At that moment, everyone forgets what it is they were just doing. Instead they remember what they might have been doing in the world where a third of Riftwatch's number was lost, despite their hands suddenly occupied with the normal business of handling pens or swords or books they don't recall picking up.
For the always-living, it may feel as though they have been magically transported somewhere new mid-thought. For the dead—the formerly dead, the might-have-been dead—it will feel as though they have just woken up. Perhaps they'll have a vague sense of a dream they now can't recall, in between their last conscious moment amid the blood and screams in Granitefell and awakening just now in a quieter world, or perhaps they'll have a sense of nothing at all.
For a few hours, the worse world will be the only one anyone can remember. Over time, memories of the other world—the only one that really exists now—will filter in, competitive with other memories in a way that might require everyone to double or triple check whether they wrote a letter or completed a mission in that timeline or this one. But the memories of death and dying will never fade into anything less real.
no subject
Now, it's heartfelt. And there's no taking it back. No denying. Abby's a part of her and has been for years. She's in her blood, now. In her bones. Losing her had felt like losing a part of herself. Most days Ellie feels like she has very little of that left.
"It's weirder to say."
Ellie sighs. Something that should take the breath out of her lungs, clear it all away. It doesn't.
She makes herself release her grip on her forearms. Enough to just be laying her palms against her. Her relaxed fingers. There are half-moons in Abby's sunburnt skin. Ellie grips to squeeze. This time, just a touch more gently.
"... if I find Clarisse first I'll send her your way," she promises.
no subject
"Thanks."
For saying she'll send Clarisse in her direction; for finding her first, and grounding her. "Same."
She's looking at Ellie with a thoughtful expression. There's a pause before she realises she's still holding her too, that in order for Abby to go anywhere they both have to let go. She almost laughs when she notices, and releases her.
no subject
Ellie says it as an echo, a breath, and they keep holding each other. She has a flashback, a thought, a memory of Abby with blood on her face, every muscle trembling as Ellie dragged her back and into her arms, away from a stalker on the floor.
She'd showed her the bite on her arm, They'd said they were sorry.
Abby laughs, and releases her, and Ellie stares at her face, swaying on the spot. At her eyes, the both of them whole, thoughtful. Scared, but real. Another tear skips down her cheek. After all those weeks being bottled up, she can't seem to make them stop. She's like a tap, just leaking.
Some other time she may have resisted the urge, but today she doesn't. She reaches up to Abby's cheek and cups it, trailing the warmth of her fingers and palm along Abby's cheekbone and down her jaw. All the places where the blows had cracked her, broken her. She places her thumb on the bridge of her nose, rests it there. Whole. Real.
Ellie's eyes flicker from Abby's intact face, and back up to her eyes. Blue, blue, with that ring of hazel around the center.
Real.
no subject
Before she can reach up to feel her face, check the skin and remind herself that it isn't broken, Ellie surprises her by doing it for her.
Her hand touches Abby's cheek, holds it, tracing across the places she remembers being hit. There isn't any pain associated with the touch, because she's uninjured, whole. It is very hard to keep from flinching away. She exhales, and Ellie's thumb sits on her nose like she's casting a spell. Grounding her.
Abby looks back at her. Wet-eyed, tired. Green gaze, filmy with tears. She says, quiet, "You good?"
no subject
It clenches in her stomach, in her chest. Ellie hadn't expected her to pull away when she reached because last time she'd been unable to.
Ellie presses lightly with her thumb on the bridge of Abby's nose, and pulls her hand back abruptly, like she's coming back to earth. To reality. This one, anyway.
"No."
Blunt, and without expectation. No, she's not good. No, she doesn't expect Abby to do anything about it.
no subject
"Same."
But it hasn't hit yet, and she's trapped in an emotional twilight. Knowing it will hurt, feel bad and all-wrong, waiting for that to hit. Kind of wishing it would so she could get it out of the way already. Of course it doesn't work like that.
She's grieved so many people before, and never herself. Never considered somebody else doing it either, let alone Ellie.
"I'll message you later." A reckless, awkward promise. But she will.