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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
His broad shoulders convulse with something almost like mirth, and then it breaks loose, whatever it is-- he's shaking with laughter, tears are streaming from his eyes, it is impossible that he's even fucking alive.
He pulls Tiffany close again, perhaps only to hide his face from her in this wild and deeply undignified firing of every powerful emotion at once.
"Sorry," he gasps after a moment, his hands shaking against her.
no subject
She puts her arms around him again, hands pressed, gently. Steadying.
"No." A little muffled, since they're twined close together. The Gallows must be full of reunions like this, or larger. There were so many that were killed. Killed. "It will take time, I think. I-- can't imagine it. Being on your side. If you need time, alone--" Though he just came back, and she can't imagine letting that go just yet.
no subject
"Let's," he breathes, "...get out of the hallway." His grin is automatic and genuine, but at the same time self-effacing; he doesn't need to be seen like this by other people.
no subject
There's a small storeroom not too far off. Tiffany points it out.
"I still remember when I first came to the Gallows. I didn't know where anything was. I kept opening doors, thinking I would find the staircase I was looking for, and it'd be someone's room instead. I never surprised anyone but I felt like it was only a matter of time."
Keeping a conversation going, that's sort of like a white lie as well. Not pretending that everything is normal--they can't do that. Not this time. But it keeps things even. Like the sound of wind through the trees. Concentrate on that, and the shaking will stop.