RAIN & MEMORY SHARE

[spoofer]

Characters: Ensemble cast, any/all characters of Xistentia!
Summary: Rain has come to the world, and with it, comes whacky memory share phenomena— certainly not all of which is wanted. Characters are driven to find shelter and solutions.
Date(s): September 30-October 7
Warnings/Notes: None specific, please warn in your subject headers

Awash In Memory

The landscape after cruelty which is, of course, a garden

The Rain

At first, it's just rain, expected to last a week. A swirl of silver cotton-candy clouds in the sky that rolls into a mist, and then a drizzle that freckles the gutters and chases people to their cars or into the shopfronts. It's nourishing and not too cold— a good excuse to share an umbrella or maybe just fitting of a shitty, blue mood if you would like to walk around in a billowy coat like the King of Pain.

Gimme Shelter

It can be a cute or enormously embarrassing way to meet people, pretty much up to you. Fall in step with someone under an offered umbrella, or dart around like a panic with a pizza box or plastic bag over your head. Maybe you'll just find an overhanging tree branch or store awning to tuck yourself under. Hopefully you're stuck with someone you like.

Quite a few restaurants seem to be offering rainy day specials, including Pop's Chock'lit Shoppe, comprised of hot cocoa and half-off a second cup if you're buying for a friend. You probably won't be the only one there.

However, for those of you who are taking the weather more seriously, the citadel has opened for shelter. Here, there are beds aplenty scattered throughout, and the bar and lounge is open with its terrible soundtrack as well as plentiful if repetitive food and drink. Residents are also exchanging resources of their own, including harvested foodstuffs and clothes. You can also check out the control room to see the meteorological analysis and forecast... which is behaving a little unpredictably, but-- it'll probably be fine.

Like My Mood

Alternatively, #mood.


Maybe everything sucks because you got stood up for a date or otherwise rejected recently-- it's a good time to storm around tragically in the street. Alternatively, if you're the happy type, there is an entire musical dedicated to the fine practice of dancing in the rain. Who needs musical accompaniment when you have the rhythmic drubbing of water on the earth and the sweet smell of petrichor?

Or maybe you're in the mood to talk. Certainly, there's an increasing sense of nostalgia going around that's stronger and more widespread than the average effect of poetic weather...

Oh Shit

However, the downpour steadily intensifies over the next few days, and soon after F.A.T.E.S. issues a warning— D.E.S.T.I.N.Y. has hijacked the climate. At first, there are only a few concerns— herds of animals coming into the city seeking shelter. Be careful if you find a herd of bison gathered under the highway overpass, or your kitchen is suddenly full of fairies. Hell, maybe you're a Good Samaritan, trying to rescue some hapless native cat or other.

But then it begins.

The Memory Share

As the rain grows heavy, the nostalgia turns into something unexpected. Characters who touch one another find themselves sharing brief sensory memory. These can vary from the sudden and terrible pain of old battle wounds, to the overwhelming, heart-pounding joy of welcoming a new child to the family. The scary thing is, these memory share are uncontrolled, and might come from even the shortest, most accidental touch.

The Telexistence Temple

News from your fellow residents: Era Ra and Ezekiel won visions during the fair. And now Era has information to share, that uploading memories at the Temple can lock and protect them from the involuntary release, as well as fortify the defenses of the city. She's also talking about some kind of a key hole there, which you can check out yourself. Weird!

You can teleport East from the Citadel to the Temple, or you can walk there on your own two legs. Weather allowing.

Within the Temple the chamber lays behind a large round door covered in inscrutable carvings. It's surprisingly bright in here now, in contrast to what Era's message held. It contains numerous strange beds, all of which are now online, having awakened in answer to the rainfall. The characters must lay down on while the daemons connect to a holographic interface.

From there, the memory share becomes intuitive even for the most technologically impaired of Xistentia residents.

The Temple Chamber

If you should choose to share, you may control who sees it; filter it to someone of your choice, or leave it open for everyone. You may post anonymously, but visual cues of identity cannot be erased. Pain is muted and impressionistic, but pleasure tends to be evocative enough. It's the way the mind works. Daemons will flag graphic or commonly disturbing material. With every new memory shared, the rain seems to be lessening.

You can also choose to lock it away, preventing anyone from seeing it for at least another month. Unfortunately your memory will not help to shield the city, but at least it will stop embarrassing you. Let's hope it doesn't provoke any intrusive questions in the meantime.

After 48 hours, enough memories have been shared. The sky over the city and the sphere of forest surround the urban bounds develops a barrier that looks almost liquid, translucent. Though residents can pass through it, it cuts the rain down to half. A few hours later, the storm wanes out and stops entirely. The shield also fades away, and the animals begin to ebb as well, back into the wild. It's only been a week, but it might feel much longer.


The memories will dissipate from storage in a month, regardless of whether or not they're viewed again.

Comments

[hasitsthorns]

It's true that Rose can be avoidant at best and non-communicative at worst when she doesn't want to talk about something. It was easier to just hope it'd blow over, that some time and space would fix things. It isn't, however, and that's why she's here. And part of her is glad that she had come now because what he says causes the striking revelation that-

"You thought," she starts. Stops. Rose had made this about her, about why she was mad and why she was acting the way she was. How Vanyel and Farraige had hurt her and even when she tried to blame herself for it that was still about her. She was doing it again, deciding a lot for other people. It never was about just her, was it? Relationships don't work that way, she's aware, but admittedly she needed to be slapped in the face with it to be reminded. And that's what his words feel like, a rude awakening; she drops her gaze, a little ashamed of herself suddenly for being so unintentionally self-centered.

"There was never a problem," she finally says, lifting her eyes again to look at him again. "It was never anything to do with you. I mean, not like that- You're fine. It wasn't that you were moving slow or anything like that, I just... got caught up in wanting Jaden's attention." And she might get caught up in wanting other boy's attention, too, but, "That never meant you weren't enough or I didn't want you still and I. I'm sorry, if I made you feel that way."

cw: blood

[cantseame]

Admitted, Farraige still isn't used to the way Rose expresses her affections. Not that he would ever have anything against it, but beyond their current situation, he has no personal point of reference. "I want you to be happy, in whatever you do." He answers softly, facing her full on and closing the distance between the two, with the creature floating behind, unsure if it should follow.

"But I want to be part of your life, too. That's important to me."

When he says that, his left hand comes to rest on her shoulder, squeezing gently. He wants to hold her and reassure her that they're okay, but he's not sure if he should yet. At least that's what he would be thinking if the touch didn't cause a much different effect for the both of them.

The room appears as an old study, far older than anything the two might've ever seen with books stretching for miles down any visible hallway. Here was the accumulated knowledge of Farraige's sect of wizardry. It was here his training began, and here it will end.

"They're not going to take him. Over my dead body." Snapped one old wizard in elaborate blue robes with a gold trim. "There's so much wrong with this situation, they're going to tear him apart. We don't even know exactly what happened, or what that thing is!" He adds, gesturing back to Farraige's form.

From the perspective of the memory, his body is bound to something. Though what, he cannot tell. There are so many muddled thoughts and feelings. The pounding of his heart, the uncertainty of his future, and the alien presence of... Something.

"Atlig, we have to do something." The blue robed wizard implored to another. While the blue robed wizard sported a magnificent beard, it was the wizard cloaked in red and gold that raised a hand to silence his companion, bushy eyebrows knitted together in thought. "I am aware, old friend. That's why I've called you all here. We cannot afford to lose Colm. We will need him for what needs to be done. The populace does not understand what transpired, so we may yet have a chance to obscure events."

A third wizard, clad in yellow robes with a black trim spoke from the side of the surface that Farraige had been bound. "It can't be removed from him. It's too deeply affixed to his being. To do so now would kill him." While the third wizard's tone is cold, a wrinkled hand still gently rests against Farraige's. "He is conscious, though disoriented. It will take time to recover."

There was much discussion between the three. Proposed options that were quickly shot down with fallacies in their respective plans. The trio would continue to monitor Farraige, no, Colm's condition while he rested beneath their watchful eye. In one such event, the blue robed wizard would come to Colm privately, checking on the boy's condition. The wizard looks down on him with such fondness, gently holding his hand. "We'll see you survive, my boy. They won't take you, no matter what we need to do. This isn't your fault." He speaks in a calming tone, offering a reassuring smile before leaving the room. Colm was in no condition to ask them what they had done.

When he was finally allowed to move about on his own, something felt different in the air. Something he couldn't quite place. There was still this constant alien presence nebulously in his being. His skin no longer felt like his own. His exploration finds him led to their ritual chamber, where he recognized the scent of certain ingredients. He knew immediately what kind of spell had been cast, but not what they had done with it.

"Masters, what have you done?" He asks, a growing fear in his heart. The one he recognized as Cartet, the blue robed wizard rose from his kneeling position, the other two soon following suit. "We've saved your life, my boy. They would have called for your blood had they still known of you."

Ortelius spoke again, seeming to carry the most authority of the three. "It was a unanimous decision. The boy you wounded... He yet lives, but we cannot mend his body. He is preserved and alive, though held in stasis. There were already too many witnesses, too many people who knew who you were and what they thought had happened."

Atlig stands to the side of Ortelius, gesturing to the center of the ritual room. "They have forgotten you, Colm. They cannot remember you. We have done so not only for your sake, but Alvin and Larissa's as well. We have no desire to see harm come to you or your parents because of a mistake."

To Colm, it was no mistake. He can still barely recall what happened when the creature took over. But he can recall the scent of blood and screaming. That memory would still return in time, but for now it was all overwhelming to him. There would come time for him to sort out his emotions.

"All we ask of you now is to remember your mission. We can't interfere with other lives any more than we already have. I'm sorry, I know this is much to ask of you. You cannot remain or the spell might fail, and we can no longer delay our efforts." Cartet said, trying to comfort the boy in a private moment. "Seek the other orders. Seek an answer to mend this world. We might yet save your friend and set all things right." The words were punctuated with a tight hug from Cartet, ruffling the boy's hair. "Goodbye, Colm. We wish you all the best in your travels."

The wizards gave him time to recover, time to come to terms that anyone he had ever met before this day would no longer remember him. Memory magic could be fickle, and so he was no longer able to use his real name. Instead, they bestowed him a new name that could still tie him to his family and his passion.

They would call him Farraige, and send him out to mend what had been broken. To set right their mistakes, seek the mysteries behind the creature that inhabited him, and find ways to mend the wounds of the world, as well as the ones so grievously inflicted on his former friend.

cw: blood, mild gore, death c': u asked for this

[hasitsthorns]

"Okay," is all she can answer to that. Just like with Vanyel, it's- It's not a promise necessarily that she'll do better but her word. "I'll... try to keep you more in the loop about, uh. About people I'm interested in." Try to include him in more parts of her life.

But while she suddenly sees a snippet of his past, the mage gets a glimpse of hers in kind that might explain why that's so difficult.

“You ready to rock, Rose?”
“Always, Roxy,” comes Rose’s voice though Farraige is seeing the world through her eyes now. When her gaze lifts to take in who had been speaking, her breath catches and heart races like she’s just laid eyes on the most beautiful thing in the world. In her mind, she has. Wild crimped brunette hair, eyes blue as the sky, and eyeliner wings sharp enough to stab a man. A smile that can and has broken many a heart. She’s wearing thigh-high steel toed boots, ripped up jeans, and a matching torn T-shirt. Roxanne was a rocker chick that rolled her way into Rose’s heart; the poor woman had fallen for the brown-haired beauty hard despite her best attempts not to.

“We’re gonna’ kill it,” she continues, grin splitting her face.
“We always do with you on bass.”
“And you sure you aren’t a siren with that voice?”

It’s an innocent, teasing question but there’s a fleeting feeling of worry that tinges the otherwise warm fuzzies. Roxanne didn’t know what she really was, not yet- Rose was planning to tell her. Soon. If anyone deserved to know, it was Roxanne. After all they’d been through. She kept finding some excuse, however, and things were so good right now. Amazing, even. Though Rose might only be thinking that because of the way Roxanne suddenly strode towards her, took her face in her hands, and pressed her lips to the blond’s playfully. She could feel the other woman’s smile against her lips as they kissed.

Why potentially ruin such a good thing?

In the moment Roxanne pulls away, Rose thinks: this is it. What ‘it’ is, even the blond doesn’t truly know. But she does know whatever it is, she wants it more than words can say. Roxanne gives a giggle - a sound that makes Rose’s heart flutter - and steps past her. “C’mon, we can finish this after.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Rose answers easily, following after her like a lovesick puppy.

If she had known there was never going to be an after, she would’ve at least asked for a few more kisses before they went on stage. Hindsight is 20/20 though, as they say, and Rose sometimes thinks she deserves it for allowing herself to get as comfortable as she had.

Everything’s going according to plan. The crowd is loving their style, feeling their set. It’s a good show. One of their best. Rose herself feels more alive than she has in a while at the infectious energy. It shifts abruptly. Over the music and sound of her own voice, Rose can’t hear the sniper up in the rafters confirm a command that the target is in sight. She can’t tell Roxanne not to walk right in front of her at that precise moment.

She can’t stop the bullet that enters the back of her head and barely misses Rose’s own when it comes out the front. But she can feel the blood and brain matter splattered on her face, see the blue sky in Roxanne’s eyes turn to night, and hear the thump of her body on the wooden stage after a screech of her bass.
After that, all she hears is nothing. People around her are screaming, stampeding out of the building. Rose doesn’t care about them though; instead, her eyes are glued to the body sprawled out at her feet. No heartbeat, no breath. Before she can even give herself time to grieve, her feet are moving her out of the building with the crowd. She has to run. There is no time to mourn if she wants to stay alive.

Alive like Roxanne isn’t. The woman is dead and takes a part of Rose’s heart with her. She swears she’ll never love again after that night, never let herself get close enough to anyone to love. It’s a promise to herself she’ll break when Charlie comes around, and then again with Vanyel, and now Farraige.

But in that instant, she truly believes her love is nothing but a curse. That everyone would be better off without it, without her.

The woman reels, drawing away from him suddenly. She feels the residual grief of his, of the shame over the things he'd done. The fear at what was happening out of his control. She hadn't meant to- "Shit, sorry, I'm. That's been happening." It wasn't the first memory she'd unintentionally shown someone and she was trying to avoid showing another but looks like D.E.S.T.N.Y. and it's fuckery had other plans in mind.

I did. c:

[cantseame]

Farraige reels back for a moment, willing his staff to his side. He wasn't expecting to experience something so visceral and violent. Even though the memory has gone, it still left him feeling sick. That anything like that could happen to someone, let alone someone like Rose. The creature flashes red, tentacles raising and gathering magical energy for the purpose of defending its host. Farraige raises a hand to stop it, giving an unspoken command between the two of them.

It takes him a moment to steady himself, wondering just what she'd think of him now when she put more of the puzzle pieces together. So much for coming to someone and speaking openly, right? He eventually steadies himself, slowing his breathing.

"Cat's outta the bag, I suppose... This is why I never played around with memory magic." He says, but even with the feeling of disorientation, the memory will be one he hangs onto. He never wants Rose to fear for him, never wants her to feel like that again.

"But at least... I think I understand a little better now." He says, offering her a plaintive smile. The creature draws a little closer to him, one tentacle coiling around the staff and resting upon his hand. It at least is calmer now that it doesn't feel as though Farraige is being attacked. Now it was Farraige's turn to worry, however. Wondering how Rose might react on knowing one of the greatest secrets he's tried to hide.

[hasitsthorns]

Ren was the first, Roxanne the second, and Charlie the third. She's always worried that Vanyel or Farraige might be the fourth; she's always worried that she'll doom them too with her black widow's kiss. It's why she'd try so hard not to fall in the first place but loving Vanyel was so warm and welcoming and wonderful that she can't bring herself to regret it. She doesn't regret her feelings for Farraige either.

At least, not yet. Maybe she still will. She had with Ren. With Roxanne. Charlie, too, though she had less time to stew on his death than the others before being flung into Eudio.

She takes another moment, closes her eyes. Breathes deeply. She has to separate her feelings and his recalling the memory. "I'm sorry," she finally says again. "I... spent so much of my life hoping people forgot me that I guess. I didn't stop to think about what it must be like to have them forget when you didn't have a choice."

A beat.

"Your name isn't Farraige?"

[cantseame]

Here he was, asking her to be more open with him. Now she's stumbled upon one of the secrets he's made a great deal of effort to keep. Not out of a sense of malice towards her, but he had tried to embrace his new identity as a wizard. To keep himself from regretting the loss of his old life, something that would still bother him deeply, and clearly does so now.

"It was a name the old masters chose for me. When they cast their spell to erase everything I was, to hide me in plain sight from the public... Well, had I kept my true name, it might've caused problems with the spell. People were already barely tolerant of wizards as is, what I had done would have had them clambering for my blood."

He shakes his head, finding time to take a seat and sorting his thoughts before continuing.

"I miss my old life and my home every day, but I've tried to embrace who I am now to just keep moving forward. It's... hard. But if I don't do it, who will? Nobody will figure out what this thing is, nobody will be able to save my best friend. It's up to me."

He looks up at her with a wry smile, motioning to the rain falling around them, and to the beach off in the distance.

"It's from my dad's ancestry. In the language of his home country, it means the Sea. They chose it to give me a way to always carry something of home with me."

[hasitsthorns]

Rose knows about the importance of names. In fact, she's more intimately familiar with the weight that they can carry than he might believe. That's because "Rose isn't my real name either," she admits.

Her reason for the change was also personal. "My name is Hanako, which means 'flower child.' But my mother called my her little Rosa, after the Rosa rugosa. The Japanese Rose. They were in bloom when I was born and she took it as a sign that I'd bloom in adversity." In a sense, her mother had been correct. "After she died and things went south with my dad, I. I felt more comfortable living a life by the name she'd given him than the one he had. So Rosalina it was." She could have chosen an entirely different name, shed herself of her previous life completely.

There's a pause as she gives a little huff of a laugh. "I've never... actually told anyone that." Not even Vanyel. It'd never come up, never seemed important. "Hanako is a scared little girl I never want to be again though. I'd rather be a rose blooming in adversity."

She takes a moment to regard him carefully. "So I get it, wanting to keep that piece of home."

cw: blood, mentions of gore, abuse

[cantseame]

He listens quietly, relaxing his posture for a moment as he hears her tale. He felt like he really understood her. Always getting the sense she was a bit more reserved than her demeanor would let on. And with her history coming to light, Farraige only felt it fair to tell her in kind, though the story would be one perhaps too difficult to tell.

"Colm O'Conell."

He hasn't said that name in so long. For someone else to hear it, to acknowledge it... It feels like such a massive weight in his heart shifting. That he spent eight years trying to banish the past, having to erase who he was, who his family was. "That was the name I grew up with. The name I had before it--" he pauses, motioning to the creature. "Before it came into my life. Before it changed everything."

What he recalled clearest of all was that the memory did not include the crime he felt himself guilty of. "There was another boy I grew up with. I wasn't allowed to tell him nor anyone I was a wizard. That was my masters' conditions for letting me stay with my parents."

He sighs, nervously running a hand through his hair. The spectral jellyfish flashes a darker shade of blue, floating low and close to Farraige as his tale continues. "His dad was abusive to him. I healed him in secret. I couldn't help him get away, and when he finally realized who I was... He was so furious and betrayed, he had every right to tear me apart for not doing anything, for not making his suffering stop."

Farraige motions to the creature, drawing in a shuddering breath as he continues. "That's when the little one found me. It was much larger and more terrifying than anything I had ever seen that day. I saw a vision of a monster, wounded and screaming, writhing in agony from some deep wound given to it by something more infinitely terrifying than itself. It found me. It hid in me."

For a moment, his arm closest to the creature physically tenses, and it backs away.

"It took control of me. It was scared, trying to defend itself when it was already hurt, and he was on top of me. It used my magic to curse him, used it to hurt him to protect itself."

He pauses, bracing himself for what he's trying to say. It's harder and harder to keep talking, his voice starting to crack.

"My magic. My water. It took his legs. Severed them clean off. If I hadn't managed to regain control at the last second, it would have split him in half and killed him. I would have killed him. My secret was blown wide open."

The tension and brief flicker of his magic comes and goes, falling with the end of the tale.

"So now you know. I ran away, the masters erased everything about my presence, and I've spent eight years now looking for a way to undo their mistakes. To undo my mistake. And figure out what chased little... Beag, into the open. That's why I came to Eudio in the first place. Seeking a way to fix everything."

He looks up at her with another smile, but it's clear to see how much of a toll telling her all of this has taken on him.

"Farraige and Beag. Both born from the ocean in some way. The more I've come to know it, the more I thought I should call it something other than monster, or creature."

[hasitsthorns]

Rose is no stranger to the feeling of vulnerability. She can hear it over the pounding rain, the subtle signs that this isn't easy for him to talk about. His heart rate picks up, his breathing becomes shallower than before, and there's a waver in his tone. She wonders if she'd sound the same way, talking about the ring. Or would she sound as cold and detached from that time as she tried to believe she actually was? It was easier to disassociate from those memories than deal with them.

Even now, she doesn't want to talk about them. While she understands the importance of him bearing himself in such a way, she's already said more about herself than she's told even Vanyel. He already knows a piece of her that no one else does. There are some things though she thinks maybe only she should know, only she should hold. Wrongly, perhaps, but she's also... She's scared. Even though she doesn't judge or condemn him in the slightest for what he'd done, her transgressions are not likely to be as easily swallowed.

"I think everyone's running from something, honestly. I know I am."

He made mistakes. He didn't have complete control She chose to murder her own kind in cold blood because she valued her own life more than theirs. It was her or them and she chose herself every single time. She still would if her back was put against the wall again and if she felt like she had no other choice but self-preservation.

"I think... that's smart though. I mean, it's. It's a part of you now. Probably better to embrace it." What a hypocrite. "I hope that you find the answers you're looking for too. If. If there's ever any way I can help, maybe, I'd... be happy to. It's the least I can do." It's the least she could do as his girlfriend, as someone who cares about him.