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Entry tags:
- arcane: vander,
- arknights: gavial,
- bastard!!: dark schneider,
- black butler: sieglinde sullivan,
- expanse (the): amos burton,
- fate/: quetzalcoatl,
- fate/: rin tohsaka,
- fire emblem: claude von riegan,
- genshin impact: tartaglia (childe),
- genshin impact: zhongli,
- granblue fantasy: eustace,
- magnus archives (the): the archivist,
- orv: dokja kim,
- star wars: cassian andor,
- star wars: jyn erso,
- trigun maximum: vash the stampede
The Seeds of Unrest, Phase Two 🌱
UPROOTED
Time has not been kind thus far, and the future will be no kinder.
The slow passage of days to weeks has seen both cities increasingly ravaged by the untamed growth of the enlarging roots. Their size is enough to uproot buildings by their foundations, if not bisect them entirely where they push through unfettered. In the worst-hit areas, entire blocks are left abandoned - if even standing at all, displacing families and leaving businesses in ruins.
Cetina and Kathova have been in near constant contact with Bearers via Communion, feeding them information about which areas to focus their lifesaving efforts. Yima’s Manor and the Seat of the Tribune - despite their closeness to the Trees - have been fortified by your leaders and act as a base of operations for each respective faction. You will be able to return to either to find sanctuary from the chaos beyond, but the innumerable civilians are not so lucky.
Bearers are tasked with rescue and recovery efforts and requested to assist hands on the ground with taking refugees to temporary shelters. Survivors must be dug out of the debris. Those who are capable of healing will be enlisted to assist at hospitals and triage centers. Supplies must be gathered and harvested from areas that are collapsed and too dangerous for civilians to navigate. If you are feeling generous, you can go on search and rescue missions, as many people are considered missing in both Highstorm and Springstar. Some areas are completely cut off to regular foot traffic by the massive, winding roots bearing countless Blight-blooms. Citizens are succumbing to the Blight flower’s effects persistent from phase one with more and more frequency.
While both cities slowly succumb to a deepening catastrophe, the situation worsens.
The slow passage of days to weeks has seen both cities increasingly ravaged by the untamed growth of the enlarging roots. Their size is enough to uproot buildings by their foundations, if not bisect them entirely where they push through unfettered. In the worst-hit areas, entire blocks are left abandoned - if even standing at all, displacing families and leaving businesses in ruins.
Cetina and Kathova have been in near constant contact with Bearers via Communion, feeding them information about which areas to focus their lifesaving efforts. Yima’s Manor and the Seat of the Tribune - despite their closeness to the Trees - have been fortified by your leaders and act as a base of operations for each respective faction. You will be able to return to either to find sanctuary from the chaos beyond, but the innumerable civilians are not so lucky.
Bearers are tasked with rescue and recovery efforts and requested to assist hands on the ground with taking refugees to temporary shelters. Survivors must be dug out of the debris. Those who are capable of healing will be enlisted to assist at hospitals and triage centers. Supplies must be gathered and harvested from areas that are collapsed and too dangerous for civilians to navigate. If you are feeling generous, you can go on search and rescue missions, as many people are considered missing in both Highstorm and Springstar. Some areas are completely cut off to regular foot traffic by the massive, winding roots bearing countless Blight-blooms. Citizens are succumbing to the Blight flower’s effects persistent from phase one with more and more frequency.
While both cities slowly succumb to a deepening catastrophe, the situation worsens.
STIRRING STORMS
As the days pass, inexplicable and unnatural weather occurrences will randomly plague both cities. They can last as long as a full day or as little as an hour before dissolving entirely.- Flurries: this snow is tainted by the Blight, making the snowfall look like ash. Any organic matter it touches will be affected by reopening wounds, re-infection of illnesses, or re-experiencing injuries that may have healed over years ago.
- Thunderstorms: these storms carry a frigid rainfall and heavy cloud cover, making already difficult-to-navigate disaster zones harder to clear. As each thunder bellow crashes overhead, you might swear you hear a familiar voice reaching out to you in the fading rumble… one that sends a message - either from the future or past.
- Fog: dense clouds of thick, freezing fog will roll in randomly, making visibility even more precarious. In your search for survivors - or your companions, you may find yourself coming face to face with someone else, instead: a version of yourself (or a companion) from another timeline. You may also hear your own voice calling out to you from within the fog, attempting to beckon you further into the mist.
- General Note: Exposure to any of the above weather patterns will increase your Blight infection.
THE BLIGHT COMES FOR ALL
As if it were not enough to see the cities that have become your salvation at the end of the Timestream falling to collapse and ruin, the Bearers will slowly begin to realize their previous immunity to the Blight is eroding. They will begin to show symptoms of infection that increase into May’s event. ( For more information on the effects of the Blight and purification methods, please see the OOC Summary. )
Now that their last bastion - the Bearers - are just as much in harm’s way as everyone else, the populous’s efforts to formulate a temporary stop-gap solution are being rushed to completion. Time is not on anyone’s side. They will continue to work with those who have been kind enough to volunteer their resources and brilliant minds - collecting materials and attempting to figure out a way to avert their otherwise inevitable destiny.
🌙 YIMA will stress for all Zenite Bearers to prioritize their well-being and to avoid unnecessary exposure, to manage their symptoms as much as possible. They must fight for their own survival to bring in the birth of a new universe - and their lives are too precious to risk. Beyond that, she asks them to save what they can of their people and their most critical structures with the understanding that hard choices may be necessary.
🌞 CYRUS will implore all Meridian Bearers to prioritize the general population's lives and turn their efforts to save as much of Springstar as they can. He will note that Bearers have ways to help keep one another from suffering too much contagion and to coordinate their usages appropriately, to keep one another safe, and watch their backs.
Now that their last bastion - the Bearers - are just as much in harm’s way as everyone else, the populous’s efforts to formulate a temporary stop-gap solution are being rushed to completion. Time is not on anyone’s side. They will continue to work with those who have been kind enough to volunteer their resources and brilliant minds - collecting materials and attempting to figure out a way to avert their otherwise inevitable destiny.
ORDERS
Orders from your leaders will come as soon as infections among the Bearers have been confirmed.🌙 YIMA will stress for all Zenite Bearers to prioritize their well-being and to avoid unnecessary exposure, to manage their symptoms as much as possible. They must fight for their own survival to bring in the birth of a new universe - and their lives are too precious to risk. Beyond that, she asks them to save what they can of their people and their most critical structures with the understanding that hard choices may be necessary.
🌞 CYRUS will implore all Meridian Bearers to prioritize the general population's lives and turn their efforts to save as much of Springstar as they can. He will note that Bearers have ways to help keep one another from suffering too much contagion and to coordinate their usages appropriately, to keep one another safe, and watch their backs.
ANOTHER EN-TREE-TY
The Tree of Life continues to sicken, yet - thankfully - the progression of the Blight is slow. Still, Bearers will find themselves occasionally compelled to take a moment to sit beneath its boughs and vibrant leaves, even as some begin to show signs of discoloration and rot. Any characters who sit with the Tree with the purple leaf they found on their person after phase one will find it warming to the touch, its veins laced with gold. This effect will be even more effective if taken into the cavernous roots beneath the Tree! While this may fill you with a temporary sense of calm, it doesn't seem to have any other effects... yet still, you are compelled, if not curious.
The Tree has offered you this gift for a reason. Perhaps you will find its use before long.
...As long as you - and Kenos - survive long enough to discover it.
The Tree has offered you this gift for a reason. Perhaps you will find its use before long.
...As long as you - and Kenos - survive long enough to discover it.
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And now? Reliving those moments with a stranger. Standing her ground and disintegrating "her sister" with the power of another. The yearning for Sakura, the heartbreak for Archer... It's difficult. It's much too difficult. It weighs on her like an anvil on her chest. Pressing air from her lungs and causing the muscles of her throat to knot up. Tohsaka wants to cry, but she cannot. The last time she cried in front of someone was when Kirei handed her the ceremonial Azoth blade that her father should have gifted to her, and she hated every single second of it.
Rin's lip quivers, and her brows furrow to keep her eyes shut.]
I'm fine, [she forces out] I just need to rest.
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with her eyes closed, she won't see him unclasp and shrug his way out of his coat, draping it around her shoulders. it isn't much, but... well, it's warm, and it's something; he'll shift to sit side-by-side with her, a little space between them to give her some semblance of privacy. ...even if it isn't much.
he doesn't ask her for an explanation. it isn't the time; questions can come later. maybe the best thing he can give her right now is a few moments where she can just... sit, sort through what just happened, and grieve if she needs to. with some company, if that... helps, at all. ]
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When Vash's eyes finally peel away from her Rin sits back up. She pulls the overly large red coat around her like a blanket, and she scoots so that her back just gently brushes his. There. He can't possibly see her like this! And as soon as that thought solidifies it happens. Tears flow from her. They spill over and fall quickly from her face. Rin's dark lashes become dotted with little droplets as the larger ones roll over her cheeks and gather at her chin before falling off.
She hates this. It's so raw. Tohsaka scrubs at her face with the heels of her palms, and she can't help but sniffle a little to keep her face from getting worse.
A few hiccupped sobs, and she leans back. Her small frame resting weight on him like he were the back of a reclining chair.]
ow :(
and when he feels her body faintly trembling where her weight is leaned into his, the pressure increasing as she permits herself to relax back into him, his heart well and truly aches in response. he can't deny he has the urge to turn around and wind an arm around her or... something, but instinct tells him that wouldn't go over too well. that isn't the kind of comfort she needs when feeling vulnerable and rubbed raw, exposed. if he acknowledges it, it'll just make it harder for her, he thinks.
so the only thing he can give her is to pretend he doesn't notice her bleeding her pain (even if they both know he does), to be a solid support to lean on (literally, if not figuratively). it's not enough, is it. ]
:3c
Goodness, how many absolute juggernauts with a complex about Saving Everybody is she going to meet? Is she just a magnet for them? A little relief falls over her. If only because even if exposing her recent fears is terrible, it's at least a small reassurance to know something familiar.
After drying her face Rin shuffles the coat around yet again. While wearing it she leans more of her weight against him. Her front draped against his back, and her chin perched on his shoulder.]
So that wasn't the first time you've made that weapon, huh?
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Vash tilts his head just slightly when her position shifts, making herself comfortable on her Plant-perch. well, alright then; it seems she's managed to wrangle herself from the (probably much-needed) mini-cry she had that he totally doesn't know about. so, he'll keep looking on out into the strange expanse of their limbo, humming his assent thoughtfully. ]
Don't like making a habit of it, though.
[ it's a little odd to be having this talk, honestly; he hasn't met a soul who hasn't feared for their lives after seeing something like that. but... he could nearly swear she had almost been expecting it. it can't be true, of course - but still... considering the state her sister had been in, perhaps frightening occurrences and life-or-death deus ex machinas aren't as strange as they should be to this girl. ]
...You're pretty tough, you know that?
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I can always handle the second or third most important thing very easily, but when it comes to the absolute most important thing is where I fumble.]
Aside from it being clear you're trying to change the subject I have to correct you. I'm in no way tough, and I've lived a pretty easy life.
[Easy... comparatively. She didn't grow up unable to smile because of the Fuyuki fire. She didn't have to endure years of "training" in the Matou basement with the crest worms. She may have lost her parents, but she lived in a nice house and didn't have to struggle for much.]
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[ about her living a pretty easy life, he means. Vash might not know her well or be in a position to speak like an expert on the subject, but... someone doesn't handle themselves like she does if they haven't been hardened by their experiences. what he saw here - wherever this is - should be proof enough that this girl's life hasn't been a walk in the park by any means. ]
You were ready to lay your life down for Illya. Most people wouldn't be able to make that choice with a level head. [ and that isn't even touching on the decision she had made afterward, face-to-face with that too-familiar creature. ]
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[Or at least that's what she assumed. There's a lot of technical details that she's omitting, or that she herself isn't even privy to. Not only that, but... the sequence of events there was wrong. It shouldn't have happened like that. As if puzzle pieces were mutilated to force a fit and create a picture that was never meant to be.]
Even so, you don't have room to talk. You're not human, are you? When I pushed my magical energy into you I could feel that you didn't have circuits in the same way that we do.
[Though what was off she couldn't quite say. Was it the shape, the path, the function, or the flow of how he received her energy? Was it the arm that tipped her off? No, at the very least it wasn't the arm. For all she knew that could have just been the Noble Phantasm, or "crystallized mystery" (powerful armament), of a Heroic Spirit. It was definitely in the way they connected that helped her form this assumption.]
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still, he lets it go. if she doesn't want to accept it - hey, it's alright. he'll keep his (glowing) opinion of her strength of character to himself. grudgingly.
so he looks at her from the corner of his eye instead at her question. it answers one of his own - 'magical energy; circuits;' was what he'd felt run through him? it was different than anything he had experienced, yet familiar despite this. ]
I'm not sure it'd make much sense if I tried to explain. [ the tried and true It's Complicated, huh? what a cop-out. ]
...Not that I can explain any of what's happening, anyway. [ right; his eyes drift back out to their surreal and non-descript surroundings - some shared space that he could not identify nor define if he tried. how they're even connected like this, where this is-- ]
Don't suppose you know what's going on, do you-- uh. [ ...w-wait. ] Hey, I never even got your name.
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No, I was hoping you'd know what was happening. I though maybe you'd be some oneiric traveler, or something similar.
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No, I'm definitely not. [ he is the opposite of that. there is nothing dream-like about him unless you have NIGHTMARES ABOUT IDIOTS!! ...okay actually, Rin might have those, never mind ] I was peacefully dreaming about eating a burger, and suddenly I'm standing there in some fancy yard [ it was fancy by his criteria do not argue thank you ] with you, and...
[ 'your sister.' ]
A... anyway, I'm pretty sure I don't belong here.
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AND OF COURSE SHE HAS NIGHTMARES ABOUT IDIOTS.]
If you feel like you don't belong then perhaps try to leave instead of scrambling around and clinging to me like a duckling that had just imprinted on the first person they see.
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...ofc she has nightmares about idiots. Rin, babygirl, ]
You know what? Maybe I will, how about that?!
[ YEAH, HOW ABOUT THAT INDEED?? HE DOESN'T NEED TO STAY HERE AND TAKE THIS ABUSE actually being a duckling isn't that bad when it comes to things, he'll take that,
but he is flouncing up to his feet, leaving his coat behind and i am not going to link the ridiculous outfit under his coat bc it brings shame to me so whatever, just know it's stupid. he's going to start
walking
in a random direction. haughtily. ]
Could just let me out of here if you think I got in where I wasn't supposed to, you know, don't go blaming this all on me!
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[Wow, could she have picked better words for that last bit?
No, absolutely not.]
HELP LMAO
he nearly misses his next step,,,,
before slowly sending a look at her over his shoulder. he is Looking. he is Looking, Respectfully, but also Looking, Irately. ]
What is that supposed to mean...
[ he's never sleeping again after this ]
NO HELP, SORRY
Oh, you need me to elaborate? When I thrust myself into you and altered your body it's possible you didn't release all of it. It's not your first time, is it? If you can't tell by yourself I can probably resonate with my own mana even if it's inside you.
[With each sentence she closes the distance. This is not a god fearing woman.]
I FALL TO MY KNEES
his shoulders are scrunching up, and he whips back around to look at her like a cat with its hackles raised-- ]
STOP. You stop talking about it like that, WHY are you talking about it like that?! You're giving me the creeps! For real, I've got goosebumps and everything!!
oh good that puts your face in the right spot...
[She beckons him much like a person would beckon a pet rather than a fellow person.]
My mana still lingering within you might be what is keeping us tethered. Or perhaps you imprinted so thoroughly that you refuse to leave?
................................🧎♀️
......never thought of it like that and now he's
thinking of it like that, and
having some kind of existential crisis, hold please ]
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Oh well! The suffering of tall men who throw their own safety to the wind is not her problem (except for when it is). Tohsaka closes the final distance between them. Ah. She has to look up.
And up.
And up to meet his eyes.]
Are you still in there, big boy?
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....
.......and he deflates as if he were a balloon with the air slowly being squeezed from it, bit by bit. ]
Oh, yeah! Yeah. Fine 'n dandy, thanks for asking, Gem Girl! [ haha he definitely doesn't sound sarcastic or, say, harrangued ] Never better. Anyway, can you let me outta here, you think? Maybe while not saying anything else? Like, maybe just being reaaaaal nice and quiet?
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[A beat, as she remembers something, and then:]
I'll also have to touch you.
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[ .......he sounds like a toddler lamenting the unfairness of his life as he does, indeed, plant his butt cross-legged right there in front of her on the ground, bouncing one knee impatiently, leaning elbows on his thighs. ]
You really think this is gonna work?
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[Tohsaka steps around Vash to the large expanse of his back. After situating herself behind him, Rin kneels and places a small palm where she had it previously during the attack.
Rin's eyes close as she uses her sensitivity to mana to seek out if there is any of her own left. To him it might feel incredibly odd. Like a fish swimming in the ocean of his veins. Like water pressure flushing out pipes.
Yes... there is still some of her left in here. Power that his 'body' is slowly absorbing. If left alone it would fully become his own. However he seems more eager to leave sooner.]
Mmm... You're going to have to expell some of this.
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