Void Missions (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
voidmissions) wrote2022-05-15 05:21 pm
voidmissions) wrote2022-05-15 05:21 pm
MEMORY SHARE: 12 OF BEETROOT EVENT (May)
JEMA'GRETHY MEMORY SHARE
The caves of Jema'grethy will allow for a few different ways for memories to be interacted with. But for most, such as those entering in bonds, it will be seen like a vision in their head, putting them in the position and perspective of whose memory it is.
For people sharing bond memories, and also memories being shared while moving through the Memory Cave, this is the spot to place said memories! It's not necessary if you'd like to write it during the thread, but hopefully convenient for others. Just make a toplevel with your character's name in the header, and remember to include any content warnings thereafter for each memory, as applicable!
For people sharing bond memories, and also memories being shared while moving through the Memory Cave, this is the spot to place said memories! It's not necessary if you'd like to write it during the thread, but hopefully convenient for others. Just make a toplevel with your character's name in the header, and remember to include any content warnings thereafter for each memory, as applicable!
Esteban Drake
Bonding memories - For Molly Hayes
First memory - Last twenty-four hours
It rustles through the branches, sweeps arias across the greenery on its way, dancing and darting onto treetops and rooftops alike, fluttering through the golden-green of newborn leaves. There is a song carried on its wings, whispers of secrets and echoes of storms barely seen, far off in the distance.
They watch it by the swooping motion in the trees, the bow of branches and green roof tiles that peek through the endless circle of leaves. When it comes higher, dashes through the tallest branches of the tallest tree, they are prepared for it, and as the bark creaks and groans and laughs along with its far-too-old voices to the youthfulness of the breeze, a smile stretches across their lips.
Their feet dangle over nothingness, a sheer drop that should be a threat but is nothing more than a comfort, a warmth that beats in their heart. Without flight, this is the best they can do to feel it-- to feel as close to the clouds and the moons above, and they drink it in, as if it were a home. The wind soars on its way down, unruly and unrepentant, and the branch they'd been on wavers, creaking and cracking, and they chuckle, more amused than scared.
Underneath them, children are swooping and laughing with the fickle breeze, their arms spread wide to welcome it as they twirl over the cobblestones. They spin in colours the grim cloud shouldn't be allowing, bright as jeweled-winged butterflies. Parents nearby are removing the last vestiges of the morning markets, the propped stalls folding back and out of the plaza and to the nearby guilds.
They have to go. Little clusters of tasks that need to be done sets them back on their feet, unwary of the wavering branches about them. The wind tosses them a goodbye as they amble closer to the trunk, as surefooted along these narrow pathways as if they were on solid ground, arms stretched on either sides, just to feel the brush of leaves against their clothes.
Leaves turn to trinkets-- beads of glass and wooden carved ornaments that they brush aside, followed with ribbons of colours and snapped lyre strings. Clusters of feathers dipped in precious silver flutter alongside a carved wooden ring worn by an incredible age, next to a bundle of flowers pressed in dragonglass.
There are so many more of these nowadays; filling the Naming Tree with the presence of lost ones, but they're quite glad that it is. They wish these people well, wish them restful years before they are picked to be a child's guardian spirit, wish them safe travels to the center of the world before they are reforged into being. Hopes that the world will be kind to them when they return.
At the trunk, they leap, fearless and used to this, and so begin their slow descent, branch to branch, jump to jump, as they make their way back down.
Second memory - Positive
Third memory - Negative
Memory Cave
Negative - Death doesn't discriminate (CW: Offscreen Death) [For Tidus]
Her hand is tiny in theirs. With big blue veins that snake through skin so pale and papery that folds in little creases and feels dusty to the touch. They don't let go anyways; refuse to let go. Half-sitting on the mattress, her hand held in both of theirs, they linger, smiling even though there's no reason to smile. Not now.
She's dying.
Not right now; not right away-- they've managed to get here fast enough that friends are still allowed a visit. But it won't be long. Weeks at the most. They thought she'd been sleeping when they slipped within, but she proves them wrong when her voice rises, whisp-soft, like the pale hair at the top of her head.
"I didn't know he had a grandson," she murmurs, and it is almost lost, for how the words twist onto themselves. There is a brief surprise that she remembers them at all; they didn't think she would.
Their left hand comes to cover hers, wrapping the fragile weight of it in what little warmth he can offer right now. They've lied to get in, to get a last glimpse at one of the first friends they ever remember making, and now they'll have to lie again, just to keep it going. They hate lying, feel it wrap the noose around their throat; but it's simpler this way.
"Well, y' did lose touch a while 'go." They try to be uplifting, but the world is muffled here; more quiet, more subdued. "He talked 'bout you a lot though. Grandfather was a huge storyteller in his old age," they snicker; a truth mixed in with the lies.
Melchor had told them stories all throughout their childhood; but it was not Melchor who recognized the old woman for the slip of a pre-teen, hair in long braids while she helped them catch frogs out in the grass that grew taller than they did.
They didn't have to come here; they know that this time is long past for her, and barely means anything in the bigger picture. But her hand squeezes theirs, and there's nowhere they'd rather be because it matters not just when they're healthy and well and able to keep up with them.
It matters that they're here, right now. It matters that they love this girl-turned-crone, even just for a memory of afternoons during one rustgrass season where they raced and played and danced and were little kids, and the world was bright and uncomplicated. It matters because they want to remember her. Child or crone; they want to remember her.
Dragons are the most selfish of all immortals.
And all immortals have a hoard. Hoards of knowledge, hoards of treasures, hoards of power, hoards of pleasure. They could have chosen something else. They could have chosen anything else. But there had been too much pain already, and their choice had been made, knowing the consequences that were coming; knowing that they had chosen the most fragile of hoards, the most breakable, the most painful.
All mortals die. To love them is to lose them.
But they'd rather love them and lose them and live with them and suffer their loss-- than to merely exist. This was their choice. For however long they'll live; for however long the centuries stretch before them. For however many people they will see, grow slow, grow fragile, grow old and die; they choose to love them. Love them endlessly. Love them recklessly. Because they may not be able to change their fate.
But they can change their lives.
Even if it's just by giving them a tiny bit of sunlight. Even if it's just by sharing their joys and sorrows. They matter. Their lives matter. Their dreams and their hopes and their ambition and their kindness and their pain and their struggles and their losses. They all matter.
And loving them is just as easy as it is hard, knowing that one day-- too soon, always too soon-- will be the last.
Bittersweet – Dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before (CW: Mentions of Death?) [OTA]
"I found you."
Their breath ghosts through the air, foggy in the light that pierces through layers upon layers of blue, frigid ice. Even with their warmth, they can feel the cold, nipping at their nose, the tips of their fingers, muffled into mittens for the rare times that they've ever worn them. They bring them up to their mouth, drag the scarf down just long enough to breathe onto their palms lightly, a short break while they watch the shadow ahead of them.
Ink-dark in an otherwise pastel-light cavern, the abyss sucks every light and colour that comes too close, hides it away until nothing but shadows remain, hushed and still as a moonless night. Nothing but a void, and the slight rasp of cavernous lungs that seep each breath between a cage of bones.
Talons as long as they are tall have gouged these walls, broken into this prison of ice and rock and settled, a nest to cradle this lost god once and for all. Now he rests; a broken discarded shell, dreaming softly on his throne of rock, in his house of ice, in this cage of bones. They could not be less in awe of him, even as tired and broken as he is now.
They smile as they approach, a light uprise to their lips, listening to the purr of something so gargantuan sleeping as soundly as a kitten. Briefly, they wonder if this is how he felt, watching them rest; a fondness that is both relieved as it is bittersweet. The sound of their footsteps is almost entirely swallowed by his breath. There isn't even a twitch when they press their knitted mitten to the leather of a wing.
"Ammy was worried." They pause, their hand still on the fragile limb, close enough that they can see the maze of veins stretch across the vastness of the skin. They remove it. Remove their glove. Bronze skin presses against the abyss, fearless, unabashed. Warmth meets warmth in a world too cold to bear. They trail their hand along as they approach.
"I was worried." There's something heavier in their throat at this, something that catches, but that they push aside. The other mitten is tossed aside, and their opposite hand comes to press against magic-warmed scales, the dragon's breath rattling through the enormous snout they've just touched. His eyes remain closed, dreaming, dreaming, lost into dreams that never end.
They nod, leaving it at that. The bulky clothes that have sheltered them so far into this domain of ice and snow are sweltering here, next to the sweep of his lungs, the heat of a behemoth pressed to the slope of rocks on which he rests. The cloak was bulky and irritating, and they breathe deeper to shed it, scarf and hood and all, moving more nimbly now, spreading their arms out and about. There is still no movement from the dragon, but they did not expect there to be any.
“Tadah~” they cheer, whirl on themselves like the sproutling they'd been before, when they'd last seen him. Nothing more than a child, to this ancient being; still so young compared to his millennia. Amarantha had told them Melchor had been one of the first hatched, once, long, long ago. Before the gods had birthed the other races. Before the first moon had shattered, before the stars were scattered from its broken eggshell.
Listen to the Wind. Listen to the stars.
“I made it to soar wing.” They snicker, laughter caught at their shoulders and in their throat that doesn't quite make it out of their lungs. “I would say 'no broken bones,' but you would absolutely call that lie out.” Another cheer, something light and fluttery as they step closer to the slumbering giant, a hand drifting across the scales that they can reach as they step along.
Melchor's chin rests on the crook of a wing, and they duck underneath it, into a darkness so pitch black, only the broken light that flutters at the gaps are indication of where they can go. They shuffle in the darkness, encounter a wall of the abyss that seems out of place. A running start gets them the leverage to climb atop it, feeling young, so young next to this ancient being who had been by their side for so long. It had ripped open a hole when he'd disappeared.
Their head pops over the wing joint, arms supporting their entire weight as they blink the blur from the sudden light that assaults them. Shards of blue dance along with sparks of buttery sunshine across their eyes, and they have to heft their weight up onto the wing, half blind to the world while they adjust. The entire limb shifts with every breath, slowly, a soothing lullaby for someone slumbering so deeply. They keep going.
Leather is impractical. It shifts and bends underneath their feet, threatens to move at every steps, but they remain confident; assured that the giant won't wake.
He is dreaming, they know. Dreaming of nothingness. Dreaming of tomorrows. Dreaming of a day where he will forget that he is dreaming, and where death will catch him gently by the hand, leading him out of this cage, out of his house and off from his throne.
Until his veins become silver and gold, until his bones crack and spill into precious stones. Until his horns and claws harden into diamonds. For a dragon's tomb is always a magnet for all the riches of the earth.
Cradled near a horn, an arm wrapped around its bulk, they rub their chin against the hard bones, a soothing gesture meant to comfort and reassure. It doesn't quite work the same when they are the one to do it, but it's enough. It has to be enough for now. Their breath catches in their throat as they smile, fill their heart with hope and brightness, as they share this gift. It's not much-- they can't ever return what has been given to them. But it's something; a little shard of the past that they can share.
“Would you like a bedtime story?” They ask, joy in their voice even if their heart sinks with the nostalgia of the words. “I know many; which one would you like?”
They do not expect an answer, smile when a soft rumble of a sigh seeps out of the great bellows of his lungs. He is asleep; but there are still gifts to give away, and he is listening, even if he is not aware of it. It doesn't matter which story they choose in the end; just that they are here to share it.
They take a deep breath.
“Listen to the wind. Listen to the stars.” They murmur, a lullaby to a dreaming giant.
“They have stories to tell.”
Memory Shard (200 words) - Positive, very short - [OTA]
They slip between slumber and awakening, their eyes blurry with last remnants of their dreams, guided by a voice as familiar to them as their own parents'. Their cheek presses against the warm blankets wrapped about them, and the crackle of a flame sparks shadows through the dim light. Grandfather is reading, his chair creaking as he wavers back and forth, slipping a finger between the pages to turn it with the rasp of paper that has come to mean home.
His voice is soothing; a cradle of stories and words that echo between one sleepy breath and the next. ”Listen to the wind. Listen to the stars,” he would often say. ”They have stories to tell.”
They yawn, and his hand comes to pat their head lightly, ruffling bangs framing their face, without breaking his sentence. Their braid is teased back behind them, so they won't tangle with it, and their eyes close of their own volition, soothed back into the gentle folds of sleep.