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

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

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?

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He looks up at the voice, both familiar and not. It stirs that weird disjointed bit of memory. And some deep uncertainty with it.

"A... Avery...?"

He looks the man over, up and down, and there's that kid, and there's his old friend, and there's a picture of a past that haunts Avery. He's not supposed to be seeing all three at once.

"Avery is that... you...?"

He laughs, looking a little bemused. Carefree. Full of life in a way Avery Atchison hasn't been in a long, long time. "Who else would I be?"

It's so strange. He wanted this, the lightness and life. But it feels like he's lost something.

He's learned from the last time with Wist. The first thing here is to test the waters.

"A good point, I guess. Do you... do you remember me?"

The smile falls away, and he looks apologetic. "I'm sorry, but I don't believe I do. Where did we meet? Perhaps you could jog my memory a little?"

It cuts a little. Actually, it cuts a lot, digging deep into fears of being forgotten. But he pulls up a smile, forces it onto his face.

"It's okay. We met a long time ago. I would've been surprised if you remembered. We were just kids. You were a very good friend to me, but it was only a brief time. Do you know how you got here?"

Just kids...

No.

This is going to bother him.

He squints, frowning as he looks the man over. There's something kind of familiar, but... Wait.

"...Teto?"

Edited 2019-11-15 14:44 (UTC)

His eyes go wide. His breath leaves him.

This should be impossible. But he heard. He heard right. He doesn't know what to think but suddenly he's overwhelmed, smiling blooming, eyes welling. The part of him that never quite settled right leaves Héctor in the dust, rushing forward.

"Avery!" He laughs jubilant and immediately throws his arms around the boy who isn't a boy anymore, but neither is he. He lifts Avery a little then lets go and steps back, looking down in disbelief. "You remember? How? What...?"

Avery laughs, feet dangling in the air until they aren't anymore, his crown nearly tumbling off his head.

"I'd tell you if I knew!" he says, smoothing down his tunic. "But I'm afraid I haven't the foggiest."

He snorts and shakes his head, hands going to his hips. He can't believe this.

"Look at you! Sounding all proper," He teases, remembering the kid who broke into closets with him. "I never thought I'd get to see you like this."

"Come on now, I wasn't that reckless, was I?" asks the young man whose counterpart graded midterms in his own blood.

"Oh, I think we both know who set the hallway trap. And whose idea it was to make a rope line along the trees so we could leap through the one open window." And that's to say absolutely nothing of what his counterpart would do.

Avery rocks back and forth, heel to toe and back again, arms behind his back as he puts on his most innocent expression. "Oh dear... it appears my memory is failing me again. I can't remember that at all."

He hums. "Though I do remember someone teaching me how to pick a lock."

"I think that crown of yours is weighing on your head, my friend. All that shining gold making you forget the trouble within." He's laughing. "I taught you lockpicking, how not to drive a car... you're doing your maestro disservice not recalling."

He can't help himself and laughs all over again. "All right, all right... I MIGHT have gone a little overboard back then. But I do have to have some measure of responsibility now. The joys of politics..."

He grins wider for his victory, reaching out to bump Avery's shoulder with his knuckles. But then some of the joy seeps away. His smile stays, but it's sadder now.

"Right, right. You were going to rule a kingdom..." He muses quietly. He breathes a sigh. "Would you sit with me for a little while? I know we're in the middle of foggy nowhere but... I'd just like to spend some time with you for a bit."

"Of course. Why would I say no?" Foggy nowhere aside, he means.

"Goodness you've gotten to be tall."

Tall. Of all the things about him now to notice, not his sunken face or mess of hair teeth. He laughs quietly. Grateful, he sits down right there.

"A lot has changed, my friend. Even you, a little bit." And a lot. "Do you remember everything from then? Do you remember Atchison? You were so scared of him. And I was scared of... a lot of things. We were going to run away, the both of us."

"Some things, but not everything," he admits, taking a seat next to Héctor. "I vaguely remember Atchison." He grimaces. "Such an unpleasant fellow. I somehow get the feeling he hasn't gotten much better over the years." He wonders if that was the man Ekkehardt was looking for earlier and hopes it wasn't. Polite man like that didnt deserve to deal with that grouch.

"I wonder what would have happened if we succeeded."

"He's not that bad actually." The defense comes without thought, though the slight laugh says he doesn't entirely disagree there's unpleasantness. Still. "I've had the chance to spend time with him. He's a good friend to me. Like you were."

That's a good question though. It's one he's got to sit with. And the truth is, while he's fine being whole again, some part of him aches for that possibility.

"I think the magic that brought us there would have sent us back eventually, but maybe if we'd gotten far enough away. We probably would have had more trouble finding your home, but you could've come to mine. You might be less polite than you are now, not ruling anything. I don't know if you'd like it more or less. But I know I would have been better with you around. Just as a person. Maybe with luck too." He looks down at his hands, no longer that strange transparency, but whole. And dead. "...I lost that friend I always talked about. He wasn't who I thought he was. It felt like all my past had been uprooted. That it was all joke. But you were real. Even if the part of that past is... not quite normal. I never got to thank you for that. Until now, I guess."

Avery ducks his head and hides a smile. "I don't know what to say." And he doesn't. He's never been very good at this kind of thing, with putting his feelings into words, especially without that barrier of paper and ink between him and the world.

"I'm... um. I'm sorry your friend ended up terrible, though." He cringes as the words come out of his mouth. "I mean... Well, I mean exactly what I said, but." He rubs the back of his neck. "You know what I mean."

There's something funny about it. He's as awkward as ever, but instead of that stiff and affronted look, it's almost shy. Avery can never seem to get the words out. But he can read them. He smiles warmly.

"I do," He says.

Ernesto is far from all this. It still doesn't make this entirely easy. The young Avery he knew never learned the truth like he did. It does seem like a much harder thing to face. Still he speaks.

"Can I ask you something? If you knew that something like that was going to happen, that someone would suffer for a choice, but there was nothing anyone could do to stop it from happening... do you think it would be kinder to be told or to let it be?"

Avery hums softly in thought, tilting his head up to look at the endless, swirling void above, the closest thing to a sky.

He can't help but wish it was filled with stars.

"I think it would be kinder to tell. Who's to say you can't stop it from happening? Maybe that warning is all that the person needs." He shrugs. "It just seems a bit pessimistic to me, assuming it won't work and all that."

He hums too. He thinks that's probably the sort of thing he would say. If he didn't know better.

"Even if it was something that had already happened? That they just didn't know yet?"

He lifts a hand, opening and closing it. Pondering.

He frowns. "Then they definitely should be told. I know that if no one told me, I'd always wonder why they decided to keep it quiet. It's worse when no one bothers, I think."

He's silent for a long moment. His hand lowers back down.

"I guess you're right." Wondering can be worse. Wondering if anyone ever really cared...

"You're my best friend. It doesn't matter who you are. But I know you don't like what you can be. Whatever side you're on. I wish you didn't. I like you for you. I wish you could see that either side of you... you don't have to choose and hurt. But I get it. I was afraid too. I didn't want to be what I'd become. What I am."

His voice is calm. Inside though, he's anything but.

"Do you remember Señor R, Avery?"

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