player plot | when my time comes around, pt. 5

[cozen]

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.

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.

Comments

Abby A, open

[armd]

She might have had the initial moment of realisation, but the feeling doesn’t dissipate quickly. In fact, it lingers even as Abby walks herself back into the Gallows on unsteady legs, wobbling like a newborn deer. Her dog is at her side, insistent, nervous-happy. He barks once every so often; each time, her hand drifts down, finds his head and scratches idly.

Abby keeps seeing the world in double. The time before, the time now. The air should be thick with smoke and it isn’t. It should be nighttime, but the sun is high in the sky, hot. She is walking and lying flat on her back at the same time, staring up, the life draining out of her through a hole in her head.

All she’s interested in is finding other people. She needs to see for herself that they’re okay. Ellie’s word is usually enough (they don’t lie. Not to each other) but not this time; she’s headed up the path from the gate, toward the dining hall, her hands balled up into fists.

[thereneverwas]

Once inside, she nearly collides with Barrow, who's moving in a similarly hurried gait down the stairs in the same direction. He pauses a moment, surprised, but ultimately responds by flashing a wide grin and pushing at the top of Abby's head in the guise of tousling her hair. It's to move her aside, because he has to be first, and he's bigger so he wins.

[armd]

There's a shared moment in which they both look at each other and realise, and his grin makes Abby grin a bit too even though her head is spinning, even though she saw him last at that campfire, singing, and then across a battlefield, charging at soldiers. She doesn't remember what became of him in the end.

"Barrow," she says, breathless and relieved, then, "Hey," when he pushes her very successfully out of the way so he can get ahead of her, "Wait a second!"

He has a big stride. Abby is not used to having to work to keep pace with anybody. She is the one who typically sets it.

[thereneverwas]

His laugh is joyous, affectionate, and of course triumphant as he pulls ahead, flashing a wink over his shoulder at Abby as he passes through the doors. Sucker.

[armd]

"Wait," she insists, and isn't laughing any more, the relief curdling into something she can't quite name. Is he just going to chuckle and wink and push her shoulder like it's all fine? It doesn't really feel like that.

Not yet, anyway.

[thereneverwas]

He's given pause by the tone of that wait, and stops short with his hand on the door as he looks back at Abby. His expression is uneasy suddenly, like he's bracing himself: don't make me confront this, his eyes seem to say, not yet.

[armd]

Abby doesn't know what to make of that look he gives her. It's at war with her burning need to acknowledge what happened, talk about it, but—it's not going anywhere. And neither is she, and neither is he.

She relents.

"C'mon." She's moving again, following him. "Where were you? When it happened."

The worlds colliding. That's neutral enough to talk about, right?

[thereneverwas]

A bit of levity comes through, however forced, with a chuckle-- to be fair, it was kind of absurd.

"Meeting with Rowntree," he replies, "you?"

[armd]

"Weird," she echoes, trying to remember if she saw what happened to Marcus in the end. She thinks she saw him on the field once or twice... Or maybe she was imagining that.

"Walking the dog."

[thereneverwas]

Barrow laughs, but it becomes stilted: it's sort of funny to imagine someone suddenly having an existential crisis while walking a dog, but then he remembers what caused the crisis, and it veers back into don't confront it territory.

"How, erm, how'd he take it?" he asks, struggling to keep it light.

[armd]

"Pretty well. He knocked me over."

He was whining, high-pitched and pathetic, his tail going frantically. She has no idea who was looking after him all that time. Presumably somebody was. But Abby wasn't the only person who left an animal behind, it must have been chaos. What even happened while they were all dead?

She really can't stop thinking about it, no matter what Barrow wants her to do otherwise.

"I think I have to go."

[thereneverwas]

He nods, either to acknowledge or to echo her sentiment, but either way not arguing with it: there's a lot of processing to be done, and he won't keep her.

finally slams into this, mea culpa

[altusimperius]

Seated on the stairs leading into the tower is a familiar face, his eyes a little glassy and his face a little wan as he looks off at the harbor. It takes him a moment to catch her approach, and Benedict's eyes lock onto Abby's as he slowly draws up to his feet.

[armd]

Abby pauses in stride and he rises up, slowly. She's glad to see him, even more pleased to realise he was never there in the first place and didn't die like the rest of them. She says, glancing up at the tower, then back at him, "S'there a password or something?"

It kind of looks like he's guarding the entrance, is all.

[altusimperius]

Benedict looks like he might smirk, but then the expression turns into something harder, his brow furrowing in a twitching frown.
"Fuck off," he mumbles, and draws her into a tight hug. It's the only way she won't be able to see that his eyes are watering.

[armd]

Anything she was about to say, facetious or otherwise, dies on her tongue when he hugs her like that, tight. Abby breathes out. She says, "Sorry," and it's quiet, muffled by his shoulder. She hugs him back.

They don't really do this. But it feels right.

[altusimperius]

He holds her for a moment longer, perhaps too long (in his estimation, at least), then releases her just as quickly, looking away with a scowl. It's the sort of concentrated expression one makes when trying not to show any emotion, but Bene being who he is, it's harder for him than for some.

[armd]

Abby doesn't notice if it's too long. When they finally let go she can't quite bring herself to smile. They're still standing quite close to each other. She's actually grateful that Benedict won't look at her; any kind of scrutiny makes her feel self-conscious about her face, even though it's fine. Healed. She touches it anyway just to make sure, brushing her jaw with her fingertips.

Yeah. Still good.

"You okay?"

[altusimperius]

He's still looking down and away, like a sulky child withholding an apology. He hesitates, then shakes his head, wiping a hand across his mouth.
"Are you?"

[armd]

"I dunno."

It's weird. She gives her head a little shake. "It's... hard to stop thinking about it."

The battle. The dragon overhead, the heat and the cloying black smoke, all the screaming. What it felt like getting hit in the head, falling down, and knowing she wasn't going to get back up again.

[altusimperius]

Benedict's arms are folded tightly against him now, but he casts a furtive glance up at Abby.

"I bet."

A long pause, and then, "you could always... not, for a while." He nudges his head toward the residential tower behind him; there's a cure for thinking, it's called drugs.

[armd]

He's left himself wide open for a filthy joke at his expense and Abby can't even bring herself to make it. That's how she knows something is really off.

When she exhales it feels like she's trying to slough something off. "... Okay."

Might be nice, actually.

[altusimperius]

Such jokes would only leave behind hurt feelings (on both sides) in their wake, so it's probably for the best. He gives a tired little smirk and turns to go toward the tower, swaying a little bit: he's already drunk, or high, or maybe both, but holding himself relatively well

[armd]

Ah, yes, she has witnessed Benedict like this before. Drunk, dragging himself through Lowtown. It isn't quite that bad this time but he gets a certain swagger about him. Abby realises she's starting to know him enough that she can sort of tell. She follows him up the tower.

The spots where he smokes are always well-cushioned.

She has a seat, tucking her arms in over her chest.

"Ellie told me it's been a month."

[altusimperius]

"Something like that."

He sits himself and begins to methodically set up the pipe, with the air of concentration one only gets when one is already somewhat under the influence. He manages it fine (he's an old pro) and, once he's satisfied by the state of the coal and has taken a test draw, passes the hose to Abby.