hadriel_logs | Event Log: Memories Past

Event Log: Memories Past

Who: Everyone
What: Memory Share Event!
Where: All around the city
When: November 14th-20th
Warnings: Please remember to tag all warnings for memory shares!

Have you ever looked through someone else's eyes? Heard through their ears, spoken with their tongue? The gods have tried to teach some of you empathy, but it's time you learned the hard way, exactly what the others here have been through. For a week, every time you brush skin to skin with someone, you'll experience a memory of theirs: happy, sad, it doesn't matter. All that matters is that it feels real to you.

The first touch may come as a surprise- it lasts only for a split second but may feel like an eternity, where you're trapped in someone else's memory. After that, it could be more expected, and some may even figure out how to control it and share specific scenes from their past with others. Or, you might wear gloves and long sleeve shirts for awhile, nobody's judging.

Maybe curtail the handholding for awhile- or go right ahead, if that's your thing. After all, you never really know somebody unless you've walked a mile in their shoes, right?

► This log covers November 14th-20th.
► Feel free to make your own logs as well
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► If you die in a memory, you don't die in real life, but if you do die in real life please let us know here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Like Lup ever needs an excuse to touch Drake.

It's one of those afternoons where she is demanding his attention, half flopped over his couch after getting the go ahead to come over, groaning over her own boredom. Barry's working diligently in the lab and Taako's hanging out with his spooky bf, so Lup's one hundred percent Drake's for the day, which just means that touching of some sort is bound to happen.

And it finally happens, when Drake is moving by her, Lup reaching up to affectionately brush her fingertips along his wrist.]

[ Drake is about as comfortable with Lup as it's possible for one person to be with another, which is why he doesn't see it coming. He should have -- they reach for one another so easily, he should have been more aware that she may be less aware, so to speak. He's barely been curbing himself with Ephemera, another one that Drake doesn't actually mind sharing things with in this way but ideally only with warning so he can think of something less traumatic. The first swap where they figured out what was happening was... rough. And every now and then, like now with Lup, a touch catches one of them by surprise, and that's dicey,

This isn't even dicey, this is one of the worst things possible to be shared.

--

"I'm never going to see my son again."

Drake is crammed into a containment cell with at least a dozen other people, their expressions running the gamut from sad to terrified. He's cold and hungry and doesn't remember how he got here, but he is here and he has to deal with that. The man who spoke is sitting on the tile floor, head in his hands. Drake crouches next to him, gripping his shoulder. His voice is gentle and determined when he replies. "Hey, you gotta try to calm down a little bit, buddy, all right? We're gonna find a way out of this."

The man shakes his head, despairing, voice hitching as he continues. "He thinks I killed myself. He's never gonna get over it."

Drake presses his lips together for a moment, draws breath to say something else when a door slides open in the hall outside the cell -- men in scrubs and lab coats come into view, struggling with a man -- or something that used to be a man -- at the end of a dog catcher's stick. They're forcing him along using jabs from a cattle prod and he's thrashing and snarling and frothing at the mouth, trying to get at his captors. They shove him into an adjacent cell.

"That's the guy they took yesterday... what did they do to him?"

A lab tech turns away from his previous rat and addresses the people in Drake's cell. "Now, which one of you freaks wants to try cure version number three, huh? Eenie, meenie, miny--"

"Moe." Drake stands up and steps to the glass, squaring his shoulders and tilting his chin high. He can't let anyone else be taken away, turned into whatever that monster across the hallway is. He has to protect these people and maybe, just maybe, buy them enough time to be rescued. "Three's my lucky number."

"Look at you. The brave one."

"Why don't you put the cattle prod down? We can have a brave-off." The tech hesitates, looking him up and down, and Drake nods knowingly. "Yeah, that's what I thought."

"Get down on your knees." Drake obeys and the tech calls out to his teammate at a control panel. "Door." The glass of the cell slides away and another tech hooks the loop of the stick around Drake's neck, tightens it and drags him to his feet. "Come on, let's go."

Drake is led, on the stick, down the hall and into a sterile-looking exam room. They direct him onto a steel table, fasten straps and cuffs around him to keep him contained. A woman in a lab coat wheels over an IV bag and takes the cap off the needle, other hand pushing his shirt sleeve up.

"Cheer up," she says as she taps the inside of his elbow, "You're getting the cure."

Drake ignores her, ignores everyone, closes his eyes, and they don't even bother to swab his arm before sliding the needle into his vein. Like they know already that it won't make a difference. They all know that this is it for him -- he'll never see anyone he loves again, and he didn't get to say goodbye.

The needle is cold and the liquid that comes through it is colder but burns somehow at the same time, icy fire spreading from the crook of his arm. The memory fades out as he turns, gone for good.

--

What does he see from her?

Edited (i can word at 7am) 2018-11-22 12:46 (UTC)

[Worst case scenario on both ends.

Lup isn't even thinking when she reaches out for the man, the moment their skin touches and she suddenly is seeing his past memories. Which is precisely why it takes her by surprise, her own memories slipping into his head just as easily.

--

She's in a cave with a long, thick cloaked wrapped around her, the heavy hood pulled up, keeping Lup's face mostly shadowed even as the lights of her magic floated above lighting the way. Even with the cloak pulled tight, face half hidden, it's so easy to see the exhaustion against her sharp features, the sunken darkness beneath her eyes, the wrinkles from living in a constant state of worry lining her forehead. She's grasping something in her hands, something wrapped up in a cloth, just the barest shine of metal peeking out.

More than her tiredness, more than her worry, the guilt etched against her face looks like it's eating her alive.

Guiding her through the damp, winding cavern in a dwarf, long-bearded and a third of her height, Lup trailing after the man without a word, clinging whatever she's holding, peering every moment or so over her shoulder.

It took so much to finally have the relic in hand. There's no chance Lup is going to let it fall into anyone else's hands.

The pair travel in silence, down the winding paths, through ornate hallways, until finally they arrive in front large door, more complicated looking than the rest. The dwarf grumbles something under his breath, shifting his torch from one hand to another to press his hand against the door, which immediately swings open, revealing an enclosed vault, full of money and jewels and other precious family treasures.

But the dwarf steps back for Lup and waves a hand, speaking out in a gruff voice:]

Here it is. Nothin's gonna get through this door. [And as Lup sweeps forward to peer into the vault, the dwarf's voice dropping down to something darker.] Not a thing.

[And before Lup can react, he's pulling out a long, silver dagger and stabbing the elf right in the back, quickly wrestling the item she's been grasping from her hands, the cloth falling away to reveal a silver gauntlet. Lup stumbles from the attack, gasping out in pain, but before she falls, she casts a spell to sweep both the dwarf and the gauntlet into the vault, which she slams the door shut behind them.

There's faint howling, the pounding of fists from inside, but the noise gets quieter and quieter as Lup slumps against a cavern wall, slipping down until she's sitting, back propped up against the cold stone. Her head hits the wall as a hand slips beneath her cloak and returns coated in blood, the veins along her arms already turning dark beneath her skin. She coughs out, groaning, blood trickling down from her chin.]

Silverpoint poison. What a friggin' tool. [She clutches an arm around her middle and grimaces.] Ugh, 'Ko's gonna be pissed.

[She shifts then, stretching her legs out in front of her, an ornate umbrella laid out across her lap. For a woman so close to her death, she almost seems calmer now that the gauntlet is trapped away. This is fine. All of this is going to be fine.

Until suddenly it isn't. It doesn't take much before Lup gasps out in pain and slumps forward, dead, her lich form drifting out of her body so casually. But then the umbrella in her body's lap trembles, first just a shiver, the next a full quake. And then the umbrella is leaping into the air, unfurling and then inverting, and sucking the lich up whole, Lup barely given the chance to scream before she's just gone completely, an umbrella and a corpse left behind.]

[ Holy shit.

Drake is no stranger to visions of other people's lives, and this is the closest Hadriel's ever gotten to a brain vision. It feels almost identical, really, down to how he has to catch his breath when it's passed and reorient himself, so that's not what he's shocked by. It's what he saw. ]

...Lup?

[ The dagger wasn't the worst pain he's felt, the poison, none of that. But her fear, that was so sharp and sudden, it happened so quickly and then there was nothing at all and Drake shudders a little with the vision so fresh in his mind. He tries to hold on to the details of it, what the dwarf looked like, that gauntlet, so that if he ever sees them here he'll know. But that makes him wonder what the hell Lup must have seen from him... his life's been pretty miserable. So the first thing he does isn't ask after the memory, but after her. ]

Are you okay?

[Typical Drake, always looking out for the people closest to him. (And, as that memory so curtly informed her, looking out for the people he didn't even know.)

But she must look a little pale from the shock of such a vivid, emotional memory, from the vision of one of her closest friends being tormented, no doubt being killed, Lup's grip against Drake going tighter instead of retracting, like she needs his solid build to stay standing while she comes back out of it.]

Yeah, m'fine. [Her voice mumbles, slurs just a touch, Lup's palm never lifting from Drake's arm as her gaze finally trails up to meet his.] Just. Shit, Drake, what I saw... You. [What's there to even say?

Naturally, the conclusion Lup comes to is that she needs to punch him in the arm to feel better. So that's just what she does.]

Ugh, you're such a dumbass. Always throwing yourself into danger, wanting to be the big hero. You idiot. You're friggin' important too, dingus. Some of us want to keep you alive. We need you around!

...ow.

[ Drake says it mildly, almost like it's a required response rather than something he actually felt, though Lup's fist did have a bit more power behind it than usual. There's a tiny sting, it just doesn't compare to the ache in his chest when he realizes what she saw. It was one of two things -- his death trying to protect that cell full of strangers, or trying to take on Delight to protect the city. He's got a feeling from the way Lup went pale it was the former, and considering what he... yeah. Probably. ] ]

Hey, I know. [ It'd count as a second touch if their skin brushed while trying to hug her, so Drake doesn't, but he looks like he wants to. He lifts his just-punched arm instead to squeeze Lup's shoulder where it's safely covered. ] I promise you, I'm working on being a little selfish. Not goin' anywhere. Not leaving you guys, okay? Something like that goes down again, I take a page from my guy and rally the whole cell to fight, not just play it safe as the sacrifice.

[ Does that help? Is she calmer? Because he's got questions... ]

[His agreement comes so easily, without a single ounce of Drake's usual stubbornness, that the suddenness of it seems to take the elf back, all of her anger slipping away before she can stop it. That's one way to cool her off almost instantly, isn't it?]

R-right. I mean, good. That's how it should be. That's... Yeah.

[Hm. She's staring at the man, like she's waiting for a punchline, but Drake's being his usual honest self. He means it. He really means that he's going to try and remember his worth. That they love him and need him around. That he can still keep the rest of the world warm without always setting himself on fire.

Once she realizes he's being honest, there's a look of relief that flashes across Lup's face before she's just pushing herself right against his chest, her head to his shoulder, chin on fabric, her hands only coming up to twist into his shirt, not trying to let their skin touch again quite yet. She releases a breath she hadn't even been certain she was holding in, it sounds ragged, like a great deal of her worry for him is being released from her body.]

Good answer. Ephemera finally talk some sense into you?

[ It's not quite a complete acquiescence to what Lup's asked of him before. He said something like that, because back in the basement there had been no chance of zombie uprising. They'd had cameras with sound and the ability to gas the cell, he'd been able to tell, so no plan would have worked. But something where there was a chance, he'd fight for himself now even if there was a risk.

All it takes to confirm that's the right choice is his friend's relief. Something twists in Drake's chest, a familiar and useless "sorry I'm dead" guilt, and he brings up his other arm carefully to hug her. No contact where their shirts don't cover so it's a little awkward, but he manages. ]

We've been talking a lot about this kind of stuff since he got back, yeah. You started it, though.

[ Is it okay if he asks..? ]

I saw something kinda crazy, just now.

I'm not surprised, I've always been such a trendsetter.

[But Lup allows herself this closeness, to press against Drake's clothed chest, to feel how solid and real and alive he is. No matter what she saw, no matter how often he's thrown himself into dangerous situations for the sake of others, right now in this very moment, he's safe. And no one is going to take that away from her.]

Yeah? [Still so unaware that anything transferred over on her end, Lup pulls away just enough to catch the man's gaze, both of her long ears perking up in interest.] What's that?

[ With Lup leaning against him, Drake rubs her back gently, smoothing her shirt beneath his hand. It's probably something traumatic for her and he's not certain he should bring it up... maybe just the crazy part. Not the dying slowly and painfully part, though he saw that too and she'll be able to guess. ]

You got sucked into an umbrella..?

[Ah. Well. Lup doesn't even have to ask how he's seen that. She saw his whole death scene so guess it just makes sense the memory would have triggered her own death.

Great. Thanks again, Hadriel.]

Got it in one, my guy. [Her grip on him loosens finally, so the woman can give a casual shrug of her skinny shoulders, flipping her hair over her shoulder. It's not exactly the kind of information she would have wanted anyone to see, but if she has to share, at least Drake's the one on the other end. She's not sure how she'd be able to shrug off a total stranger seeing such a personal memory of hers.]

Wild, am I right? I'm bettin' that's the first time you've ever said that before, huh?

[ Drake doesn't like that she pulls away, now that they're talking about this, but he allows it of course, letting Lup set the rules here. It's her trauma being discussed, she can set whatever distances she likes. But he has questions. ]

Very wild. And painful, honestly. But wasn't it your umbrella? I mean, why did it suck you in like that? I was thinking 'wow that sucked but she's fine, she'll get another body' until it... did that. It just feels like I'm missing something.

[ She'd seemed so calm as her body died, as she switched back to lich form. And then distinctly not. Drake wonders something else, his expression shifting to worry. ]

Do you remember being in it?

[This is why Drake's her favorite. He doesn't push Lup when she's not ready for it, gives her a little space to compose herself before she can find her laughter again.]

Oh, def. Ten years stuck in there and I sure remember 'em all. [Not that there's a lot to recall for most of those years. The world outside had been completely silent for nearly a whole decade, until her brother had picked up the umbrella.] It wasn't very exciting, but I remember it.

[The worry across his face has Lup scooting a little closer, not quite draping herself all over him like she usually does, but closing some of that distance. No matter how bad it looked, she doesn't want Drake to worry. It was a long time ago.]

So, I made the umbrella, right? It was just a regular, dope umbrella when I picked it up, but I imbued it with magic I learned from an artificer. And, no surprise, I was a little cocky when I made it. We'd just become liches and I felt like nothing could touch us. So naturally I made it so that whenever I defeated another magic user, it would suck up some of their magic, sorta like a little parting gift for my victory.

[It'd just been funny at the time mostly. A bit of a goof.]

But being a dumbass, I didn't stop to think that my lich form is composed completely of magic. And when that dickhead stabbed me, technically I lost the fight. So I got slurped up.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Event Log: Memories Past

gimme that 7 boy

/chants deathswap deathswap

DEATHSWAP!!!

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject