EVENT: BIA ▒ STERN

[ataraxites]

CHARACTERS: Ensemble production!
LOCATION: The stern areas of the ship
WARNINGS: Disturbing imagery, violence, psychological trauma, gore, etc.
SUMMARY: Characters have to fight to find their way back to each other from being increasingly isolated and plagued by their deepest fears and most hopeful dreams.
NOTES: May 27 onwards.

An echoing boom comes from deep in the middle of the ship, shakes its way through the trees and waters of the Oxygen Gardens, down into the maze of walkways and mechanics that make up the Engineering Complex. A sense of danger rolls through with it, enough to make you pause in your work, set down tools or supplies, ignore the thrumming pain in your head to find out what. Trapped far away from the comforts of beds and kitchens and slow approaching necessity of gravcouches, you only have each other to turn to. But soon that grows difficult, turnings leading you off path, door slamming shut behind you. In the increasing isolation panic swells like an infection up through your mind-- but then soothes. You find your way into an unexpected comfort, the company of a long-gone friend, an old home filled with happy memories. You linger, drift into contentment, and yet it still can't calm one deep nagging doubt: you aren't safe where you've found yourself.

Comments

[muscovy]

[He lets himself be scooped up, clinging to her shoulders for support as she turns to run, and looks over her shoulder as he does so to attempt and see what is happening.

That is why he catches the odd sensation of this is not real, though he cannot place it. Something about this, though he can't tell what, is incredibly off.]

I think he can make pictures in our minds.

[He's witnessed that before, though it didn't feel or look quite like this. But different people can do the same thing in different ways. And if he can do that... then they cannot know what is real, and will maybe run into a wall because they think that there is a corridor there, and that would be dangerous.

A part of the little soldiers in the meanwhile keep attacking Morgoth, swinging their little flame swords through the air and at him, while the other half follows Galadriel to shield her retreat.]

[inafadingcrown]

Or he is one himself. [She says with sudden clarity.] A trick of the ship.

[She peers around the corner, checking to see that Morgoth is still occupied with the little soldiers, and sets Muscovy on the ground.] If this does not work, you must run ahead, regardless of whether I am able to.

[And with that, she tries to concentrate again, to get back to that moment of realization that this could not be the true Morgoth.

He had been here before and the ship had lessened his powers, just as it had hers. And that is how she was able to play a part in his death. He had not arrived again in the jump. She knows he did not.

Which is why he cannot be real.]

[muscovy]

[He wants to reply that no, he won't run until she does too (unless she is dead, that is, then there would be no reason to stay). But she is concentrating before he can, and so he waits, eyes flitting forth and back between her and Morgoth and his soldiers.

He wants to ask what she is doing, how he could be a trick of the ship - an illusion? But he ...looking at his soldiers battling the terrifying figure, he doesn't look unreal at all. Still, if Galadriel is sure - if she is sure, she is probably right. And then things are that way and he isn't real. But he is still terrifying, and even illusions can hurt you if they are this physically there, so he doesn't call his soldiers back and stays ready to run.]