unnecessaryflourishes | Abraxas inbox

[ Post ghost shenanigans and, well, everything that happened before...Himeka has finally had enough time to sort out some of her thoughts on a discussion she had with Geralt nearly two months prior. And there's really only one person she knows who may understand it better than her. ]

[ Her new old frien-emy.

With whom she will use her now understood Horizon letter-writing powers for his viewing (dis)pleasure. ]

I need to borrow your head. But just for a moment if you can spare it.

[ Great opener. ]

I would prefer that to remain in my possession, if it's all the same. But I am certainly willing to answer questions, if you that had been your intent.

More or less.

I know you've been spending time in the local library. Have you learned anything useful?

Useful in which regards?

[He has certainly found stuff, yes. But if there's something she's looking for information on in particular, she may have to be a little more specific.]

You know...into the quandary of our existence here?

[ Just something small like that. The entire issue. Etc. ]

You can hardly have expected me to discover the underlying truths of our existence here in a bare handful of months, if that.

Well I'm not sure what else you're reading about. Nothing akin at all to how any of this may be connected to
Oh something like
a rejoining or the consequences of that?

Just wondering.

I have been primarily seeking out what information there is about the gods of this world, as well as any related myths and legends.

[Mostly because if they are also essentially primals he feels that's a useful thing to be aware of.]

The details of this world itself and whether or not it is truly the source of all worlds is a matter I have yet to delve into to any particular depth.

Oh...well have you found out anything there?

[ She has her suspicions but she is curious about his input. ]

But you know...do you think what I said could be true?

[ He is not even remotely familiar with the Primary Settlement.

Amos had spent maybe a week or two out here when the first group had arrived in Solvunn before surmising that the place probably wasn't for him and splitting. He's been in the Tertiary Settlement for months now, a quiet existence without much disturbance — at least until he'd heard about Solvunn getting itself involved in whatever it was that went down at the Singularity.

Something about it hasn't sat right with him, so he'd come out here. Hence, his current conundrum: okay, he's in the Primary Settlement, what is he supposed to do here.

Wandering aimlessly about town had eventually had him find the library, and it seemed as sensible a place as any to try to find some kind of answer. Only he still doesn't have any idea what he's looking for—

A massive dude sitting at a table with distinctive hair, and it takes Amos a moment to place it, but he does. Not like he'd spent a ton of time milling about when portals had suddenly opened up in Thorne's execution yard, but it's hard to miss, or forget, someone like this guy.

Fuck it, Amos figures, going to sit down across from him. He's got no books on him. Wouldn't know what to pull, anyway. Instead he takes a moment, looking across the table at Emet. He cocks his head. ]

You were in Thorne before here, weren't you?

[If Emet is surprised to find himself approached out of the blue he shows no sign of it. He's well aware that he stands out at the best of times (his hair is more than a little distinctive if nothing else) and it's hardly as if he's made any secret of being willing to help should someone happen to need something in the library.

He does also look vaguely unimpressed when he looks up at the sound of Amos' voice, but there's a sense that this is more his default state of being than anything to do with Amos himself.]

I was, yes. Though I can hardly claim to have been there for long.

[Still, he does recall having seen Amos previously, albeit largely at a distance - it's mostly by the color of his soul that he recognizes Amos, rather than physical appearance.]

Nor do I recall that we spoke much, previously.

[Though he is certainly willing to do so now, should Amos wish.]

[ Vaguely unimpressed wouldn't bother Amos, anyway. If anything, he appreciates it. It means he's less likely to get bullshit, which probably makes Emet a good candidate to talk to. ]

Nope. Hard to carry on a whole lot of conversations when you're locked up for no reason.

[ There's residual bitterness to his voice; a bit of anger creeping in there, too. He pushes it down, flat. Sits back in his chair. ]

It means you're not from here, though. Or there. [ Not that he really cares where Emet is from — the important thing is that they have something in common, being ripped away from their worlds in order to be in this one.

He cocks his head, not really one to dance around the point. ] How much do you trust the people in charge here?

That would make it difficult, yes.

[There's no judgment in his voice though, nor anything to suggest that the traces of anger and bitterness he can hear in Amos' voice are anything less than well-deserved. (He does not know - and does not care - what Thorne had been intending to do, in imprisoning a number of their summoned. All it will have done - and does indeed seem to have done - is made those so imprisoned less inclined to be pleased with their rule.)

Still, he offers a brief inclination of his head at the mention of not being either from Thorne or from the wider world they have found themselves in.]

I would be more willing to trust them over those who saw fit to throw a number of those they summoned into cells for ill-explained reason. And yet, it is hardly as if they have been truly open, either. More willing to accept those like you or I, yes. But is that simply by virtue of who they are, or do they instead seek to balance the playing field by claiming their own share of those who have been brought forth into this world?

[ Amos absorbs every word Emet gives him. The no-bullshit attitude, combined with their somewhat shared experience, combined with the fact that he assumes Emet is doing a fair bit of research or... something, in the library... has him inclined to really hear him out, so he does.

And everything he says makes sense. Amos nods. He doesn't see anything here to disagree with. ]

See, that's something I can't figure out about them. They just accepted everyone who showed up here where those assholes — [ Thorne, seriously, fuck those guys — ] didn't. I don't get it.

[ He isn't exactly someone accustomed to receiving blind trust. It feels like a bad idea, actually.

So Emet's suggestion about them possibly being used strikes a particular chord. ]

Did you get involved in all that Dimming stuff?

Given that I cannot precisely ask those who might have the whole of the reasons why, I can but speculate. Likewise, on why those in Thorne might have chosen as they did.

[Which he most certainly cannot say he approves of. But they have made their bed and now they must lie in it - even if their more recent Summoned may not be aware of how they had treated the first few sets.]

However, if one wished to earn a measure of trust from a people who had been... displaced, be it by choice or otherwise, one could certainly do worse than offer to your aid to the individuals in question. Moreover, it could be potentially advantageous to make common cause with those who might be - shall we say - disinclined to trust a government with whom you may not have the best of relations with.

[As he himself as occasionally done, if not terribly recently. Still, that is something that bears no real relevance to the situation and so he leaves it aside in favor of the other topics at hand]

I took part, yes. I cannot claim to have a particular loyalty to Solvunn, but surely it is better to know something of those who might pledge themselves to the other city-states?

[A pause and then:]

And I cannot deny having had some small desire to see Thorne's intentions foiled at least a little.

Edited 2022-03-06 07:12 (UTC)

[ While there's plenty more that Thancred could ask Stephen Strange about this place, the Horizon, eventually his need to let his feet carry him elsewhere to explore and see for himself wins out. The best way to understand this place is to see it with his own two eyes, he determines, and there's no reason he can't circle back to Strange and his sanctum in due time.

He does comprehend that he cannot remain in here forever, and that all of this will make more sense when he leaves. Yet at this point he knows enough to press forward, drawn by the desire to eventually find a spot within this plane where he can create his own place — a little slice of home, whichever form that might take.

It's hard to know when his memories have left him, and yet he is still him enough that he expects he'll come up with something if he lets his instincts take point.

During his wandering in search of an empty plot, he comes across something that he's drawn to almost instantly, as if being tugged forward by a string tied around his waist. The dark spires stretch into the sky even from a distance, somehow familiar even if he has no frame of reference to understand how or why that's the case. It's a bone-deep sensation of nostalgia that brings him closer, one foot in front of the other, something written so deep into his soul that he cannot ignore it.

Time here is difficult to measure, and he isn't clear on how much of it he spends walking, but eventually he reaches the city, its buildings looming above him in a way that should feel ominous. Yet instead, Thancred is only more curious. He moves ahead, finds one of the main streets, and continues on. ]

[At first, there is naught but the city, tall spires rising up to meet the very heavens themselves even as the city stretches out before him. A city of shadows, for all that there's no one in the empty streets, and little noise echoing out from the buildings with their too-tall doors and unusually large windows. Even what few figures are present are little more than shades, pale figures that look almost unreal in their tallness (and the odd glow they seem to carry with them).

But a soul such as Thancred's cannot go unnoticed forever. And so it is that he does find himself attracting the attention of someone much more real. Admittedly, Emet-Selch doesn't look too dissimilar to the shades that inhabit his remembered Amaurot, tall and pale as he is, but he wears no mask and his hood is down, leaving his face in full view.

(Something that would raised no shortage of eyebrows back in his own time, so long ago. But here, in the heart of his Domain... he does not care.)]

Well now. What do we have here?

[ As soon as Thancred sees more of the city, he wonders what about it could have ever registered as familiar. Everything is three sizes too tall, gargantuan and towering over him in such a way that it's impossible not to feel as if the ghostly figures are looking down on him.

This isn't a facet of the Horizon itself, as everything in Strange's area had been sized appropriately. Does that mean that this is all borne from the desire of the person who created this place? Someone with a giant ego, perhaps?

Before Thancred can make any attempt to interact with the shades that wander around the place, however, he is approached by someone who actually has his face uncovered, and who addresses him directly. The figure is just incredibly tall as everything else here, though the paleness of his face invokes the idea of a ghost all the same.

Who do you have here, Thancred almost corrects, the riposte sitting on the tip of his tongue before he swallows it down. It would likely not do to be rude to someone in their own space, yet the urge had come up in him so readily. ]

... I'm only wandering through. [ His neck is already beginning to ache from having to stare up so much. ] This place is quite difficult to miss.

[The size of everything is indeed something borne of the will - the desire, perhaps - of he who has created this space. True, it has nothing to with ego, like Thancred might expect, but it is purposeful, in a sense. And given the size both of the man he is now talking to and the shades themselves the unusual size of the building is... more understandable, at least.

Still, Emet-Selch makes not even the slightest attempt to bend down. Not even to spare Thancred's neck, and though he has noticed the lack of Thancred's customary barbs he cannot - quite - tell if it's as a result of that which the Horizon inflicts or the fact that he has not yet reached a point at which Amaurot would hold any meaning. An oddity, yes, but one he is willing enough to tolerate.]

As well it should be. It was the jewel of the star, once. Though it is hardly a surprise that you should find it more so than most.

[His soul is sundered, and of the Source besides. Two things that would easily be enough to let the soul-deep memories of Amaurot leak through, in a moment where one might otherwise be unguarded.]

[ The jewel of the star? Which star, and why is it in the past tense? Thancred looks around once more, as if the other shades or the dark structures themselves might contain answers for him. Though while he'd felt drawn to this place from a distance, now that he's here he has little idea what to make of it.

Or of the man who looms over him. It is for the best that the stranger makes no attempt to bend down and meet Thancred on his level, in all honestly. That would likely only make him feel more like he was being condescended to, somehow.

Though when he's singled out in such a way, he finds himself on the defensive all the same, fists clenching at his sides. The way that man says you, as if it's an accusation, doesn't sit well with him. ]

What is that supposed to mean?

[ This man (is he a man?) seems to know something that he doesn't. Granted, Thancred's aware that isn't difficult to manage at the moment, but the imbalance is still enough to make dread weigh down in his chest. ]

Edited 2022-03-09 00:55 (UTC)

[Of a star that, it would seem, Thancred does not recall. Which explains a great deal - and offers an explanation as to why he cannot recall Amaurot. True, it may yet remain to be seen if he does so outside of the Horizon (or on a subsequent visit), but that is something that Emet-Selch is more than willing to leave aside. There is no sense in asking when Thancred himself cannot remember.

He does, however, note the way Thancred's fists clench at his sides, and though Thancred is not wrong to suspect that Emet-Selch knows something he does not, neither does Emet-Selch address that matter. Or the way Lahabrea has left his mark on Thancred's soul.]

Even here, there are those who souls are such that they are drawn all the more strongly to this place. Souls marked by loss and sacrifice. Yours is one such.

[And in ways that he doesn't Thancred will recall, though he would like to think that some of that same weight is something that Thancred will be aware of even now.]

[ Souls marked by loss and sacrifice.

Thancred frowns, a hand lifting up to rest over his chest, as if his beating heart might somehow hold the answer for him. It is impossible to know what he might have lost or sacrificed when he can't find a single memory to hold onto, a single experience to anchor himself to. Yet he'd come here, to this ghostly city, and that apparently means something.

There is only one way that this stranger could say such things about him with authority. Yes, he could be lying, and yet Thancred must admit he doesn't suspect that. He can't say why, but he does believe he's decent at reading other people, and the towering man's words seem genuine. ]

... We know each other. [ It's the only reasonable conclusion to draw, yet no matter how long he studies the stranger's face, it becomes no more familiar to him. He heaves out a sigh, finding it more and more frustrating that he can't recall a thing now that he is in the company of someone who knows him. Are they friends? Enemies? Or something in between? ]

That we do.

[Emet-Selch makes not the slightest effort to clarify how, or why. He doesn't even offer the slightest suggestion of whether or not he had been similarly giant during their prior meetings. But he sees no reason to deny that they do understand each other. That he knows something of Thancred's soul, though it has come as much in bits and snatches as anything. Little glimpses of who Thancred is, when he is not turning some manner of ire his way simply for being an Ascian. But those glimpsed had yet been enough. If not the complete picture of who Thancred might be.]

Why, for a time we even traveled together.

[Again, he doesn't mention any details. But this time, it's more deliberately done. A moment of curiosity - absent his memories, what assumptions might Thancred come to, he wonders.]

Edited 2022-04-17 06:59 (UTC)

[ They traveled together? Thancred frowns, brain still grasping at details that simply will not come. It feels as if this stranger (who is not actually a stranger) is telling him the bare minimum, and he can't determine if that's an attempt to not overwhelm him or if it's meant to get under his skin.

His neck is beginning to ache from being tilted up for this long, and that alone makes the claim a bit difficult to believe. Something isn't quite checking out here. ]

Were you this size when we did so? Surely that must have been a burden for one of us.

[ It would mean there was either someone too small for the world they were traveling through, or someone too big for it. Both could be problematic. ]

[While it's not wrong, precisely, that Emet-Selch is offering only the barest minimum of information - even here he can't entirely resist the urge to attempt to provoke Thancred a little - he is yet attempting to not be completely overwhelming. He remembers his own trip to the Horizon, after all, and the feeling of knowing so very little about himself and the world he might have come from and it is not one he would have considered enjoyable.

Even if his not unaware that his slow careful offerings of information are likely not helping much. And yet, it feels more correct than simply seeking to overwhelm Thancred. Tempting though it might certainly be.]

No. I was nearer your height, at the time.

[Plus or minus a foot or so, but he figures that's negligible, given the vast disparity between their heights as they currently stand.]

I see.

[ All of this must have taken place outside the Horizon, in a time and place that Thancred cannot begin to conceive of, and straining to remember will only make him more frustrated. He still knows none of the details and this stranger-who-isn't-a-stranger doesn't see fit to share them with him. It would be a bit of a waste, given that it will all come back to Thancred as soon as he leaves this place.

Yet he also can't quite stop himself from asking questions as he continues to take in these strange surroundings and how they somehow manage to feel both foreign and familiar to him. ]

And you can simply... do that? Change your form at will, even outside the Horizon?

[ Yet this seems to be the height that the stranger prefers, if this is how he chooses to appear here. Somehow he suspects there is more to it than simply wanting to tower over others. ]

[Perhaps fortunately, simply asking questions is one of the better ways to get answers out of Emet-Selch. There might still be no guarantee that any answers will be the complete truth, but they are still answers nonetheless.]

To an extent, yes. Though it would not be as simple a matter as it is here.

[Doable, yes - he has done so many a time - but not quite so easy.]

I see.

[ Thancred crosses his arms, tapping his foot against the unfamiliar ground beneath him. There is more he could ask, but to what end? Soon enough his memories will return to him and then he will be able to form a conclusion about this interaction, bizarre as it has been. ]

Well, if you have aught else to tell me while I'm here, feel free. Otherwise, I will continue to wander. And I expect we'll speak again, ere long.

[ He's not certain he should ask for a tour, or that he wants one at all. ]

I do not. You are free to leave should you wish.

[In time, Emet-Selch imagines they will meet again. Either in the Horizon once more, or through any of the various other means at their disposal. But if Thancred is disinclined to remain in his domain, then Emet-Selch sees no particular reason to force the matter.

(There is no point to it, and he has no immediate reason to do so besides.)]

Though I imagine that we will speak again, given time.

Edited 2022-05-21 02:25 (UTC)

There is a very Amaurotine-styled book resting in Emet Selch's living room, hiding in plain sight underneath a long-finished mug of coffee. It should be familiar. Not just by the look of the cover, but in feeling as well. It should be without doubt to Emet-Selch that he once possessed this book, and once spent many hours enjoying it, perhaps choosing to revisit it again and again for years upon years. Or perhaps he did not enjoy it. Perhaps it was finished once, and merely sat within his library. Only Emet-Selch would truly know.

Inside is a certain play- scribed in neat Amaurotine, with a series of sublime illustrations penned oh-so-carefully by hand. Even the ink's colors are still vivid. They leap from the pages as if the book were new.

Who would know of this?
And who would have the capability to recreate something long destroyed based off memory alone?

Edited 2022-03-06 02:20 (UTC)

For all that Emet-Selch knows the house he has claimed as his own more than well, after nearly half a year spent in it, he doesn't notice the book right away. Indeed, it's not until some time after the peace summit that he happens upon it, tucked halfway out of sight. And yet... when he does, oh, what surprise. So much so that he can scarce believe it, as he draws it carefully out from under the mug that had hidden it.

It takes no more than the sight of the cover alone for him to realize what it is. To know, too, who has left it for him to find - other than he himself, there is but one person who would so carefully resurrect a fragment of the days before the world had been split into fourteen shards and leave it somewhere he could find it. As a no more or less than a gift, for it can be nothing else. Not from his oldest friend.

For a long moment, he simply stands there, fingers tracing across the covers with something like a gentle reverence. For the fragment that has been returned to him. For the care with which Hythlodaeus has made it and returned it to him, after the long millennia he has spent with only the fallen fragments of their home, and the ruins that had been left behind.

It takes longer before he dares to open it. In fear, perhaps, that the contents will not be as grand as the cover, or that there will be something amiss that might mar that which has already been offered. But in the end curiosity wins out, and when he finds that it is in their own long-forgotten language rather than the Garlean or Eorzean he expects he cannot help but the soft noise that escapes him - one of relief, and wonder, and the almost bittersweet realization that he has missed seeing written Amaurotine more than he might have thought possible, and it's all he can do to simply stay standing. Nor does he say more. He's not sure he could, given that the sheer force of his emotions has him all but stunned.

Edited 2022-03-07 07:35 (UTC)

Abraxas inbox

mid-november-ish

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in Solvunn's library, post-Dimming...

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backdate to feb 12th; thancred's first horizon trip

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a gift!

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