A Spacemas Carol: December's Mod Event Log

[savmods]

Who: Anyone and Everyone
When: December 19 onwards
Where: Avagi... and beyond?
What: Your past, someone's present, and potential futures.
Warnings: Body horror and an associated image in the second part. Otherwise, label your content.

While the Ingress may have been destroyed, the energy powering it remains alive and well. The residents of Avagi know this intimately: from their own arrivals, from the portals that have appeared, and the short-lived changes (as well as longer-lived possessions) that have cluttered the station over the last few months. Recently, whatever force is manipulating this has even gone so far as to revive the dead—demonstrating, perhaps, an unwillingness to relinquish those it has brought to this place. To say this entity is seasonal would probably be a mistake. In the heart of Avagi's storms, there are no stars to mark the seasons, much less connect them to a certain planet's holidays—or the literature thereon. Still, from luck or from intention, the current fluctuations comes with a certain theme...

Past

It starts at the turn of the station clock's midnight. Flickers at the edge of one's vision. Indistinct whispers, ghosting through walls and down corridors. Those who are sleeping will be untroubled, but the wakeful and wary can watch the light build: from flickers to pulses, from pulses to pools. Over several hours, silver mist fills rooms and corridors, varying from a thin veil to dense, obscuring fog. If you step into the mist, you'll feel a sense of displacement; of sound and color, energy and a shift of life. Ingress travel. Except... not quite. Shortly after entering the mist, you'll find yourself free of disorientation and apparently free of physical form, unable to interact with your surroundings. As a quasi-ghost, you've been transported to somewhere and somewhen—a location from the past, back on a world of someone’s origin or from any place you've been since first arriving through the Ingress. While these experiences can vary wildly, some things remain consistent: The past matters: These visits to the past are not repeats of idle afternoons—each has emotional significance to someone currently on Avagi. The past cannot be changed: As real as any given scenario seems, you're fundamentally incapable of altering it. The past event will play out as it did in real life and dissipate when it reaches an ending. Trying has consequences: Attempting too hard to interfere increases the emotional significance, and will consequently draw onlookers further into the scene. You may find yourself anchored to any participant in the scene: first physically (experiencing the scene through their eyes) and then emotionally (experiencing their emotions and thoughts). If drawn in too deeply, you may lose track of your own nature during the experience, drowning in the sense of being someone else.. You are not alone: While immersed in a scene, you'll see nothing but the history playing out. However, at the its conclusion, the fog will once again displace the world around. As it melts away, you'll find themselves back in Avagi's halls—and face to face with whoever else was also viewing that piece of the past.

Present

Whether through one memory or several, eventually, the fog disperses. Only a faint mist remains, gathered in corners of the station's halls. It's simple enough to avoid, and nothing obstructs efforts to return to your rooms, your friends, or any other destination. Nothing, that is, except finding them. The layout of the halls has shifted. The clutter you so painstakingly cleared is back. The GPS on your ACE mistakenly reports that you are floating off in space far outside the station, and any efforts to locate or call your companions results in glitchy static. Something is interfering with your calls—more effectively than the distance between worlds. Inference and intuition are all you have to put together the pieces. The layout has changed, but the construction stayed the same. You're still on the former Ingress station. But not the same area that you called home. This is a different section of Avagi. An inhabited one. Dank, warm air pulses in and out of the vents in odd rhythms. Water damage stains the walls, and some seep dark liquid. There's an odd symphony in the distance: four notes, hummed to a pattern that buzzes in the back of your head. It's possible to wait it out. But if you do explore, you might come across your friends. And together, you might find the source. Further in, a wall of flesh fills the pathways, rising and falling with intermittent, massive draws of air. A fluid wash of features glues it to the bulkheads. Claws and eyes, hands and faces: half-made bodies shifting in and out of recognition with each pulse of breath. And always with the same gold glow beneath the skin. It's a familiar shade, to those who witnessed Thisavrou's destruction. It's the being who destroyed it. Those who flee will escape her notice. Those who wait may watch in secret for a time. Mother's focus seems to be elsewhere...or, perhaps, something else is hiding your presence here from her. Any attack on Mother's flesh shape, or any overt effort to draw her attention, will meet violent, immediate reprisal. You'll experience an immobilizing psychic force before the flesh consumes you. But whether you hide or fight or run, your time on this section of the station will end in the same way: a burst of brilliant, clear light providing transport back home.

Future

You flash back to reality amidst a burst of light—but this time, you recognize your surroundings. You have returned to the Avagi you know, and the silver mist that filled the halls has cleared. Over the next few days, most of Avagi will settle back into a state of normalcy. The ACEs are working properly, and station residents will have all the time they need to compare notes on their experiences—and, perhaps, on any plans to act on what they've learned. Avagi is not as empty as it seemed. And one place in particular will remain changed in the wake of the event. The Ingress Memorial, once inactive, has come to life, emitting a swirl of silver light that shifts and flickers, like the light of the portal it once contained. For the next five days, it will offer a vision to anyone approaching it: a single, brief scene from their potential future. Players have the following options: Canon future: Your character catches a glimpse of their future if they were to return from Avagi to their own world. This consists of a canon event. Avagi future: Your character catches a glimpse of their own future on Avagi. This can be a short-term future (i.e. an actual vision of a future scene you plan to play out), or a potential longer-term one in which they stayed on Avagi for months or years. Storm future: Your character catches a glimpse of themselves as a Mirtos—a desiccated husk and incarnation of the storm's hunger. As seen in Thisavrou's destruction, these creatures are carried by the storms and destroy all they come across. The visions can observed by any present when the Memorial is approached. And while the past is fixed, the future is always capable of being altered. What will you do regarding yours?

---

[OOC: Check out the OOC post for more information!]

Comments

[inconsequence]

It’s hardly as though you intended to. You made yet another in a long string of bad choices and hoped it would turn out for the best. This is unsurprising, your history considered.

[Look at them, being all scintillatingly rational. See, now no one can accuse them of being petty. Clearly their self-awareness of their own flaws eclipses any genuine need to fix them or address them in the long term. Obviously.]

Was it worth it?

[lavelly]

[Lavellan shrinks into himself. Another in a long string of bad choices. Well, it's true, isn't it? Was he expecting Chara to forgive him? Tell him it wasn't as bad as he feared? Even if it was in character for them, he isn't owed forgiveness from anyone. He may be trying to dwell less, but that still doesn't change.

And here they are, back to the problem at hand.]

No.

I should have stayed. I should have let them take me instead of you.

[inconsequence]

I doubt that would have made any of it easier, or better, where either of us are concerned.

[Why bother with shoulds and should nots? It is the same reason they do not bother with apologies. There is no altering that which has been stitched into place. Perhaps, in another timeline adjacent to this one, they could have spun back the clock and timed every choice perfect, and gotten as many second chances that are possible.]

[But, no. That is not their talent, nor is it their prerogative. Good children get second chances.]

[Not bad ones.]

Like it or not, there is no changing that now.

[lavelly]

[He scoffs at that.]

I doubt that. They'd already fucked me up, they couldn't possibly do worse.

[And yet they could have, and he knows it. That's why he'd run. He doesn't remember the decision itself, the thoughts that led to it--only the image of Chara falling, and them advancing, and the fear. And then he was elsewhere, and in its place there was shame.

But that just proves his point, doesn't it? Better him than them. Better the coward who would save his own skin over a child.

He's trying not to think like this anymore. He's trying. But the universe keeps throwing arguments to the contrary back in his face.

And if he doesn't dwell, if he can't figure out what he did wrong, how can he do better in the future?]

[inconsequence]

I would not invite the universe to inflict yet more upon you. You are more than capable of doing that yourself.

[It is easier by far to bite out, to dig into still fresh wounds, than it is to risk admitting to something that already was an embarrassment, when it first occurred. Imagine them reduced to pained and desolate frustration, unmoored, right in front of him! How absurd is that, right?]

It happened. I suggest you learn to live with it without allowing it to consume you utterly.

[lavelly]

[There he goes again, making it about him. As he does.

He closes his eyes and reminds himself of what should be the real object of his concern.]

And how are you living with it?

[The last time they had a real conversation, Chara still thought he was a figment of their imagination.]

[inconsequence]

[Touché.]

[The grimace is subtle enough that they hope he does not notice it for what it is, pulling at the corners of their mouth and sliding their gaze away. They almost adjust their stance, fold their arms over their chest, but to do so would betray them.]

[They hold still.]

...the same as anyone else would be, I expect.

[Poorly.]

I'm living with it. Nominally.

[lavelly]

[He might not pick up on specific tells, but he can certainly sense an aura of discomfort.

Chara gets a disbelieving smirk.]

Then I can only try to live with it as well as you.

[inconsequence]

[Wow don’t call them out like this.]

I am not callously erasing large swathes of memory because of a fundamental inability to live with it. [SO THERE.]

[lavelly]

[A wince.]

That wasn't what I wanted to happen.

[inconsequence]

Then what did you want? An easy fix? A means of forgetting for relief, for a little while, consequences be damned? What was it you were looking for, exactly, that you could not have gained by speaking to someone who understands how it feels?

[Ah. Mm.]

[That’s a bit more than they meant to say.]

[lavelly]

What, like you?

[It's like something snaps. In a single moment he goes from despairing, defeated, even lifeless to alight with anger over the fact that they'd dare.]

Well, what was I thinking? Why wouldn't I seek support from someone who has insisted on antagonizing me at every turn? If you remember, Chara, I did try to talk to you, and you accused me of killing everyone you loved. You told me to--

[He breaks off and covers his face with a shaking hand, fighting off the flashes of memory that still plague him; Chara pointing their knife at their own heart, daring him to do it. You know how to fix it intertwining with a different memory, said with the wrong voice.

* You just wanted to see me suffer.

Stop. This isn't happening now. He shakes himself, but the conviction is already gone from his voice.]

You've made it no secret that you want nothing to do with me. Why are you surprised that I took the hint?

[inconsequence]

[They can't even call him wrong for thinking it. It's...it's what they implied, is it not? It's what they connoted. It's what they insisted upon! They did this. They did this to him, and drove him to this precipice, and pretending otherwise - growing bitter and hateful and spiteful and disgusting when something comes of it, it's the kind of human thing they've never truly been able to shake.]

[They shove a fist roughly over their mouth, attempting to bite back the shrill hitch of awful, inexplicable laughter.]

Ha...ha. No. Yes.

You're right.

[They - they did this too, did they not?]

I drove you to this.

[lavelly]

Chara, for fuck's sake, that isn't what I meant!

[The anger is still gone, and he sounds more broken than anything. Almost hysterical. They'll never understand each other, he's starting to realize. He'd thought it before, but now he's really becoming convinced that it's true.]

All I want to know is, if you care so much, why don't you act like it?

[It's building in him again, the panic. Chara doesn't make sense, he doesn't make sense, none of this makes sense.]

Just tell me. Please. I don't--I'm tired of this. We don't have to do this. I just want to understand you.

1/

[inconsequence]

I don't -

[They're just making this worse. They're making things infinitely more difficult, for everyone, and he never would have ended up the way he did if they'd not done what they did!]

[There's never been a single person in their life who wasn't hurt, just for having them there.]

Because there's no -

[There's no person that wasn't ruined through proximity to them alone, because they've ruined everything they've ever touched, even that which they never wanted to touch, even that which they fought harder than anyone to protect, even - ]

Because -

2/

[inconsequence]

[Their hands have tangled into their hair. They're breathing too fast, too shallowly. They need to slow down. They need to behave, and stop throwing a tantrum like some kind of two-year-old. You're making a scene, Chara! Making a mess!]

Because there is nothing - nothing in my life - that I do not manage to irrevocably destroy, just by being there.

3/

[inconsequence]

There is nothing that has not come off worse for having known me.

[If you care so much, why don't you act like it?]
[Why don't you ACT upon it?]

4/5

[inconsequence]

[Because this is what ACTing gets them. It gets them a fistful of flowers, a throat hot and choked with blood, a SOUL in hand and a dead brother whose dust spills out across the golden blooms at the Barrier's entrance.]

[It gets them a woman with hair like fire and a SOUL to match, who gives herself up unthinkingly for their benefit and has nightmares and sleepless hours and uncertain realities to bear, because of it.]

[It gets them a man who has tampered with his own head so many times that absolute erasure is a dignity he would never refuse.]

5/5

[inconsequence]

...and this is proof of it.

[You see?]

[They've ruined you too.]

[lavelly]

[Oh.

It's almost like a cosmic joke. His own thoughts thrown back at him, his own heart pulled out and left to bleed in his own hands. Surprise: the answer was yourself all along. The problem after all was that they shared the same delusion, or the same truth, he doesn't really know anymore and he doesn't have the energy to force it all to make sense.

He feels nothing, because there's too much to feel and he doesn't know where to begin. He's been running on fumes for a long time now and he just doesn't have anything left for this.

Eventually he realizes he needs to speak. It's been long seconds and all he's done is look at them, but fuck what does he even say. He feels like his very self aches. Not his body, but the spirit, if there is one.]

I said the same things.

[Is that enough, to encompass what he's just realized? It will have to be enough. He isn't going to elaborate.]

If you've hurt people, Chara, it's because of what you say. How you act. Not who you are, or people wouldn't keep trying. If you really want to stop hurting people, then stop trying to.

[It's not that simple. He knows it's not that simple, or else he wouldn't be in the same damned situation himself. But it's what he needs to hold on to, or he'll fall apart. He has a choice. He has control. He isn't some fairytale monster who simply can't help himself, as much as that would be easier to bear.

And neither is Chara.]

[inconsequence]

I'll ruin them either way.

[There it is, a flash of the vibrant smile so characteristic of them, a pained, desperate pulling at the sides of their mouth. The smile they got so good at wearing. That is the foundation of it, he knows, he knows, and they know it too.]

[The fact that destruction is inevitable. It is always, always inevitable.]

[But this way? This way, they are the one in control, when it happens.]

Do you truly believe that?

[lavelly]

[If they're looking for a reaction, they won't get one. Lavellan's face doesn't so much as twitch; instead, he just looks very sad.

He wants there to be hope for Chara, because maybe then there's hope for himself. Or maybe Chara will just serve as a warning of what will result if he stops listening. Stops being willing to learn.]

You have to choose one, Chara. Help people, protect them, support them. Or ruin them. You can't have both.

And you can choose. Or else none of us has a choice, do we?

[inconsequence]

I am the demon that comes when people call its name.

[They rattle it off easily, like a recitation. Like a promise. Like a prayer.]

I am the destruction of every world. I am the increase of every cruel number. I was never really human; just pretending to be one. I was the future of humans and monsters, until I was easily replaced. I was the best friend he always wanted, until someone better came along.

[Since when.]
[Since when was any of this a choice for them?]

I was not made to be this, Lavellan.

I only ever was.

[lavelly]

No, you're not.

[It's said with a finality. It's a statement, not an argument.]

You're just a child who's known too much violence. And I hope one day you'll realize it.

[There's nothing more he can really say. He's done. They're done.

But if nothing else, he's convinced himself: he has a choice, as well. Yes, he is selfish. Maybe not in the way he thought he was, but selfish nonetheless. But it's only because he made himself that way.]

Just remember that the next time you decide to be cruel to someone. And if you do anyway, if you decide to try and drive them away, don't be surprised when it works.

[And to himself, as well, take note.]

[inconsequence]

Do you think I haven't tried?

[The words tear themselves from their throat before they can stop them; before they can swallow them away or choke them back. Wrenching like broken glass, like fragments of bone lodged in their gullet.]

I was the future of humans and monsters. I was the angel that everyone believed would free them! I was - I -

[They tried.]

[They really did. They tried to be good, they swear they did, they tried, and they were going to do exactly what they were meant to, and look at how it ended up.]

I did everything I was supposed to.