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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
Her voice sounds hoarse. She feels outside herself, somehow, both exhausted and panicked at the same time and not sure how to deal with either. Abby sitting right beside her helps, a little. At least she isn't alone. That's how it felt, at the end. She was alone.
After a moment, slowly, Clarisse shifts and rests her her head against Abby's shoulder.
When they'd seen each other during the battle they'd only bumped fists, like anything else would've been too much, an admission of what was happening. But now, in the quiet of their bedroom, after the worst thing has already happened, she thinks it's okay.
"When I woke up—" That's what it feels like. She woke up from being dead, even though she'd already been awake— "I just... curled up on the floor of the armory. For a while."
no subject
"I was walking the dog," she explains. "He knocked me down." It wasn't funny but she snorts over the lump in her throat.
Then she says, "I'm sorry." Apologising doesn't seem right for what she's feeling right now. She wasn't the only one who walked away. But Abby doesn't know how else to say it; she sighs, pushing through. "I shouldn't have... I wish I stayed with you."
It wouldn't have been better, but it might have been easier.
no subject
"Yeah. But it wouldn't have changed anything." That's why they walked away from each other in the first place. So they didn't have to watch.
"I knew you were dead," she adds, in a voice that sounds strangely flat. "I knew because at the end of the battle the guy riding the dragon challenged anyone who was still alive to come out and fight him. But you didn't."
So she knew, and that was bad enough.
no subject
"Yeah," she manages, voice hoarse. Is silent again for a while longer, trying to find something to say.
Eventually she asks, "Did Ellie say what... happened?" with her hands clasped together. They're between her knees and she's pressing tightly on them, looking at her thumbs, nails ragged from biting. "What they did after they found out?"
She remembers that radio switched on and turned up, tucked away in the upper room of the theater (in what would have been Ellie's hideout, not Tommy's, now that she's remembering it). She remembers pausing to listen to the tight, panicked voices of people from her units trying to relay information as quickly as possible, Isaac's dead. It's a fucking massacre.
no subject
"I didn't ask." She hasn't even really thought about it until now. Maybe in a couple days she'll even want to know, but right now the thought of finding out what everybody did while she was dead seems too overwhelming.
"All I know is—Ellie said it was four weeks."
Which is a long fucking time to be dead. They must have done something with them. The... bodies. Buried them or burned them or whatever. Her stomach feels like it flips over with sudden nausea.
She thinks about lighting funeral shrouds, the heat of the smoke, the solemn silence.
no subject
What else is there to say? That's a long time to be dead, and a long time to be alive. Clarisse is thinking about funerals but Abby is thinking about tense, quiet meetings, and frenzied planning and 2am ideas. "I can't believe they figured out how to undo it."
It's insane. They broke the way the world works for one more chance. She finds she'd much rather think about this than the way dying felt, or the cold, dark edge lacing the edge of those memories that represents being dead for a long time.
"You should go be with her." It feels awkward to say, but she means it sincerely. She's looking at her hands and thinking of the way Ellie slammed into her, closer to a desperate collision than a hug even though they meant the same thing. "She went through a lot."
no subject
"I don't want to leave you."
She doesn't want to leave Ellie alone, either. And she doesn't doubt that Ellie went through a lot, but it's different. Ellie didn't die, and it feels wrong to stand up and leave Abby here by herself when she's the one who knows exactly how Clarisse is feeling.
no subject
She takes Clarisse's wrist, a simple precursor to then holding her hand and squeezing it warmly, in silent acknowledgement.
Clarisse doesn't have to go immediately, is what she might have said if she could get any words out over the sudden lump in her throat, because she's so grateful that Clarisse said that to her, I don't want to leave you, like they've been granted a do-over of that moment out on the battlefield.
no subject
She does need to go back to Ellie—she promised she would, and she wants to see her again. Since she can't be in two places at once maybe she'll just spend the rest of the day bouncing back and forth between Ellie's room and this one, as much as she doesn't love the idea of doing that.
"I'll be back," she promises. "I'm staying here tonight." No matter what, she's not gonna let Abby be in here alone after it gets dark.
no subject
Abby believes her. More than that: it feels intensely nice to be prioritised. She doesn't know if she could have brought herself to ask Clarisse to stay if she hadn't already planned on it, and doesn't entirely understand why that is. Maybe because everything feels so fucked up and fragile. She gives Clarisse's hand another squeeze before she lets her go.
"I'll be here." She's done interacting with people for the day. Maybe she'll get into bed and pick up a book she's already read, one she knows has a happy ending. If she's lucky enough, she'll doze off lying on her back, holding it open. "Thanks."
no subject
It's a comfort knowing that when she returns, Abby will still be here. She's doing her best not to think about how fucked up it is that she's counting on that instead of encouraging Abby to go and be around someone who'd make her feel better.
Clarisse finally stands up and walks to the door of their room, but she turns and looks back at Abby again before she leaves, hesitating before she actually crosses the threshold. She gives her a sad, tired smile that doesn't reach her eyes. It's the best she can manage.
"See you later, then."