What You Take With You part II: Reflections In The Fog

[unpocoloco]

Who: All those on the What You Take With You mission and everyone else (who OOCly wishes to join in)
What: An important artifact is brought back only to immedaitely activate. Further details are here.
When: November 10th
Where: Daybreak Campus and around Soliel
Warning: Warn in headers as appropriate

On November 10th the recovery team sent into the Outlands makes their return with the obsidian mirror. Thus far it hasn't seemed any different than any other obsidian mirror, nothing spectacular about it beyond its age and where it came from. But Daybreak was only called to retrieve it, not anything more. The spell is worked to open the path between the Outlands and Daybreak, allowing them back. But as this happens, the mists rise up as they often do when the two worlds intersect. The team might even see it ghosting over the mirror before catching their own reflections in it. A light flashes over its surface and in that instant, the mirror activates.

Just one look in any reflective surface throughout Soliel-- a mirror, a window, a bit still water-- and people will be struck with sudden dizziness, a feeling of being knocked back, and then darkness. You'll find, on waking, a dark and desolate landscape full of smoke and fog. It'll be hard to tell where one is going. You won't be alone. People all over the academy have been brought into this vision. You may run into them, but even more likely, you'll run into the spots of color that cut through the fog.

And dwelling with this color? Why it's you. But better. Or maybe, much, much worse. It seems the mirror has something to show you. But is that something a promise? Or a threat...? Learn its lesson and you may escape both the shadowy realm and a terrible fate in your future. What image will you leave on the world?

Comments

[fireindreams]

[Right, the letter said he was polite. Maybe...?]

Are you Ekkehardt Gehring? This person?

[He holds up a few pictures that came with the letter. One is, unsurprisingly, the picture of Grimm and Ekkehardt's terrible adventure in ugly sweaters but there's a few others even if Ekkehardt himself probably won't recognize when they were taken.

It's been quite some time, after all.]

This letter says you can answer a lot of questions I might have.

[spelleton]

It depends, of course, on what those questions are - but I'll certainly try my best.

[ He thinks he understands, of a sort, what this is, especially when he sees those photos.

(It makes his chest ache in a way he's biologically incapable of.) ]

What is it you wish to ask?

[fireindreams]

[That part of Grimm that was observant enough to pick up on little bits of what Ekkehardt doesn't talk about isn't there. Alderic didn't have that - this is their first meeting as far as he knew.

(But looking at Ekkehardt brings a sense of warm familiarity. Three years and more, gone but not totally forgotten. A dear...friend?)]

There's...a lot. [Unsurprisingly.] What I'm now, Daybreak, and you too. He wrote a lot about you.

[A lot about the people Alderic may meet, who'd have memories of someone named "Grimm". A school filled with magic and a great thing they'd all have to do. He thinks that Grimm may have run out of room at some point and it still wasn't enough.]

Can you tell me about yourself? Please?

[spelleton]

Hm, well...I don't talk very much about myself.

So you've put me into a bit of a difficult position...or should I say, Grimm has. But he always liked doing things like that - making my life harder, that is - so I can't say I'm surprised.

[ Even in this dream of a future that may or may not come to pass, Grimm insists on making his life more complicated. Isn't that just like him? ]

But I can offer you some basic information, at least. My name is Ekkehardt Gehring, and my profession is as a healer and surgeon.

[ He pauses, but only for a moment. ]

And I was very fond of the person you once were. He was a dear friend to me, in fact.

[fireindreams]

[The letter mentions that, and that there were somethings Grimm wouldn't write down about Ekkehardt because it should be his choice to talk about those things. He can pick up on the air of mystery around this person - he really doesn't look like a healer - but there's still that nostalgic feeling.

A feeling that seems to be right.]

I met him a little bit here, in this darkness. [It was strange to see, a future (a past?) he'd never experience. A disconnect.] He seems like the kind of guy who'd make life hard for a friend and laugh. In a nice but really weird way.

[Grimm had no reason to let people see Alderic and it wasn't hard at all to accept this was his fate. He could have left pretty much within minutes of meeting. But he didn't.

A choice to let Alderic exist a little longer. And the desire to let people make those choices still resonates within them.]

But I guess knowing a little about you means I can get to know you again. I-if you want.

[Alderic and Grimm are not the same person. And it sounds like Ekkehardt was really fond of Grimm. He couldn't give that back.]

[spelleton]

He is. [ He will be, he was. But he doesn't want to speak of things in past tense, not yet.

He'll be a memory, one day. But he's not unused to that; the Ekkehardt who Grimm had met before this is a memory too, a ghost of someone who no longer exists, who stopped existing a decade and more past. ]

If you'd like to get to know me, I'm not against it. [ His smile is faint, and a little vulnerable. ] I'm not terribly interesting, but I won't deny you. I admit I'm curious about you, as well.

[fireindreams]

[The letter is a gift from the past to the now and future. Alderic has to take Ekkehardt's word about Grimm and what little he knows from meeting him briefly.

Grimm had written about his friends, his family, and Daybreak. He wrote and wrote, and never once talked about himself.]

I don't think I'm that interesting either. [But he smiles anyway.] Maybe together we could make one interesting person?

[It's a bad joke, an echo of Grimm's own terrible sense of humor. That endures despite the gap between the two of them.]

[spelleton]

Oh, everyone's interesting eventually. That's what I believe, in any case. But perhaps you're right.

What else would you like to ask? About me, or about the man I knew before, related to you. [ He tilts his head a little, eyes curious. He wants to see what else Alderic feels important to ask. ]

[fireindreams]

Let's see...

[There's a lot here. Grimm himself explained a lot but Alderic had a feeling he left some things out too. A friend he may hear about that Grimm knew but couldn't explain. His (their?) choice to become a vampire.

Why he kept using the term nightmare when one would think dream would sound nicer.]

When did you meet him? He says it here but it's...weird.

['Flowery' is a better term but Alderic didn't exactly have the same flare that Grimm did, at least outside of his shows.]

[spelleton]

A while ago. [ His voice is wry. ] I'm not surprised he wrote that down. He likes - liked - teasing me about it.

I'd been formally recognised as a mage, then, by my family. I had the proper training, and I was ready to undertake missions. I believe it was on one of my first ones that we required the cooperation of a vampire for.

So, I met him then. [ ......He rubs the back of his neck after a moment, grimacing a bit in what's clearly a small amount of embarrassment. ] And I immediately, ah...thought he was quite handsome. And he noticed. So I suppose he considered that significant.

[fireindreams]

[Well. That goes as far as explaining why Grimm seemed highly entertained when Alderic got to that part in the letter. In a good, but weird way.]

Y-yeah, that explains it. Not that it's a bad thing! He really liked you and you're pretty--ah.

[Just going to...smack himself with the letter to make himself shut up. Possessive of Grimm's grace, Alderic is not.]

Also you need to confess to someone. It's been five hundred years now.

[Which feels like an exaggerating. But maybe it's enough to put a timeline to when Grimm passes on.]

[spelleton]

You think so? [ The surprise is clear on his face; he lets it show. Well, then. His tone is faintly amused. ]

That's quite a compliment. [ Alderic and Grimm are not the same person, and Alderic, at least for this moment, appears younger. He doesn't think it will be the same when Grimm passes on, but still.

It's sweet, though, in its own way. ]

Confess...?

[ He shakes his head. He knows what this is about, but... ] He needs to stay out of things that don't concern him.

...It will happen when it happens. No need to rush.

[fireindreams]

I think...it might not be my business, but he sees that person makes you happy. And...well, there's still some stuff in here I don't know but he really wanted you to be happy because of something.

[He's missing context of course, but Ekkehardt should remember Grimm's question in a dream. Was he happy?

And would there be more in the future? Because he knows what it's like to be alone for an eternity.]

But yeah! You shouldn't rush it. It probably wouldn't be nice if you rushed it and--

[Alderic shakes his head and laughs a little.]

Maybe I should ask just how he got so weird.

[Which feels like a question Ekkehardt won't be able to answer.]

[spelleton]

I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to answer that. [ There's a little bit of sadness to his barely-there smile, something bittersweet in his expression. ] He's always been that way. If it has a cause, it's not something I know or understand.

Not that I want to. Some things, it doesn't matter where they came from, only that they exist.

[ "Did you find happiness?" It's not that long ago, from his perspective, that Grimm said that to him.

Such an unusual amount of care, for someone in his circumstances. ]

Well, he has his reasons for thinking that...I suppose. [ Not that he's going to go into it unless he's asked, but still. ]

[fireindreams]

[It doesn't matter where it comes from, just that it existed. Just like all of these relationships in Grimm's letter. Out of everything that was what he wanted remembered.

Bright like a flame, Grimm had written. All of them.]

A nice kind of weirdo. I would have liked to meet him a little longer.

[Because Alderic belongs here. He's the past and the future and once Grimm agrees to the terms of leaving, he'll vanish. But that's okay. They'll meet again.]

You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. It's your choice.

[As always.]

[spelleton]

[ Some things really do stay the same. He can't help but smile at such a thing. ]

I was alive, the first time I met him. Our second meeting was quite some time later, and I was no longer alive by then. [ It's a casual admission. ] He didn't know, at first, and he was rather concerned with my mental state when he found out.

[ He shrugs. ] So he has his reasons to be worried about my continued happiness, though I'd rather he'd have worried about himself a little more.

[fireindreams]

[Someone who died but is still here...? Well, if he's a vampire now then maybe it isn't that weird. Would it be rude to say he looks well for someone who's undead?]

Yeah, I guess I can see why he'd be worried. [Finding out a friend died at some point would make him worried too.] Maybe I should tell him you're okay when we talk again.

[Because they're going to have to. Grimm gave Alderic time for reasons unknown, but with what he's learning about the guy he can guess why. Just to let him exist a little longer.]