troubled sea so deep; magnus - Printable Version +- Beqanna (https://beqanna.com/forum) +-- Forum: Explore (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=1) +--- Forum: The Common Lands (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=72) +---- Forum: Meadow (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=3) +---- Thread: troubled sea so deep; magnus (/showthread.php?tid=11030) |
troubled sea so deep; magnus - Strangelet - 09-03-2016 The changing of the world was not so frightening. Not in and of itself, at least. We have walked so many worlds, felt them all change beneath our feet, that when this one quakes, it meant little to either of us. At least initially. We followed urging of the fairies through the collapsing world, all the way to the newly forming Mountain. Still, we thought nothing of it. Another catastrophe, another shattering and reshaping of another world, another day alive, though alive has always been fairly arbitrary too. Truly, it was not until the thinness of the air became too much for our lungs to bear and we were forced to make the rather treacherous climb back down the mountainside that the full impact of what had happened became clear. The voices left first. The quiet little whispers and the screams that have echoed almost unfiltered through our head since I patched poor Chistery’s brain and somehow unlocked my own latent telepathy. Suddenly, they were gone. Suddenly there was silence, just me and my Noctem. Oh, and then. For the first time in my life, the world looked solid and real, uninfluenced by flashes of light, flickering shadows, bright colors and flowing energy and wandering spirits. I felt no phantom pains from walking through someone long-dead and their wounds echoing through my body. I could breathe, and my skin felt...felt real. It felt significant and relevant and actually there, instead of the strange half-presence it had always felt before. Oh, Noctem! I cried, overjoyed that for once I could finally understand what the others experienced, could finally fit in my skin. But my twin did not answer me. No matter how I begged and pleaded and screamed, he did not reply. I tried to turn back, to climb back up the mountain and cross the divide that stole him from me, but I could not, try though I did. Until I was exhausted, until I ran out of tears and collapsed in a heap on the ground. I lay there for...for a very long time. I don’t know how long. I used to be able to watch it flow, to dip into the river of past-present-future and feel the currents, and without that all I had was the rising and falling of the sun. Eventually I made my way down the mountain, torn in two by the conflict raging in my chest. I could not help but revel in the experience of a mind unfettered by other people’s thoughts, and a firm anchor to...to a body that was suddenly only mine instead of ours. And at the same time...I was so very, very alone. I could not feel my Noctem, nor reach out beyond myself to any of our family. Not even to random strangers I encountered in passing. Whatever had allowed me to reach out and touch them before was gone, as though it had never been. Desolate elation. I did not even know that was possible until today. Now? Now I wander through the meadow on restless feet, my head hanging low, my forelock spilling down over my face, blocking a bit of my view and hiding me just a little from a world I have never been prepared to face alone. Once I would have followed a quiet pull to anywhere, to someone significant or to a situation that needed a nudge or to someone who needed to speak with the dead, any number of little fingers beckoning me forward. Now there is no quiet beckoning. Now I am lost. I look around the meadow, blue eyes scanning strange faces and strange bodies. And I walk closer to the nearest, rather than weaving through to the one who most needed me. There is no longer anything to need of me, and I am no longer able to give it. I feel oddly blind as I look at the buckskin stallion, trying to see all the wisps and tangles and colors that should be floating around him, tying him to others. I feel deaf, swiveling my ears to catch sounds that should be hissing in hushed little whispers. Nothing. Not a glimpse, not a hint, not a single clue who he iss, aside from the very solid physical presence of his body in front of me. “Hello,” I murmur quietly, and my voice is a little rough from disuse. “My name is Strange. Who are you?” @[magnus] - sorry this is so long. :| The next one will be shorter. RE: troubled sea so deep; magnus - magnus - 09-03-2016 — find what you love and let it kill you — magnus RE: troubled sea so deep; magnus - Strangelet - 09-03-2016 By this point I’m all too used to the pause and head tilt that is the typical reaction to my introduction. Yes, my name is Strange. Yes, it’s rather appropriate--though suddenly less so than it used to be. I’m comparatively quite...normal now. Blue eyes seeing only one world. No voices in my head that don’t belong to me. Even if it means there’s one missing that always has belonged to me. Or with me, at least. At any rate, the stranger shrugs and smiles and greets me in return, so I smile back. “It’s nice to meet you too, Magnus. Though I do wish it had been under less...apocalyptic circumstances. Are you...that is, Noctem, my twin, he told me about meeting a man named Magnus once. A very long time ago. Years and years, really. I don’t suppose that was you? If so, we’ve almost met already, in a manner of speaking.” That would have been early in our days sharing this body, when he was the only one wearing it really. I’d been with our mother for a bit there, hiding from the way the body hurt so badly sometimes to inhabit, the way it felt so heavy and sharp and jagged and…felt, though. Now...now it just is. “Ah. Yes, that’s...that’s a bit of an understatement. I’m...well, Magnus, I’ve been better. And I suppose I’ve been worse. I…” I sigh, looking away as another wave of loneliness hits. “I miss my brother. My whole family, really. I can’t reach them like I used to, and…” And it hurts. Almost as much as it used to hurt just being in this body. Still, there’s nothing he can do to fix that, so I shrug. “How are you?” RE: troubled sea so deep; magnus - magnus - 09-03-2016 — find what you love and let it kill you — magnus RE: troubled sea so deep; magnus - Strangelet - 09-04-2016 So he is the same Magnus. I nod once, smile briefly, just a creeping upwards of the edge of my lips. “It was a long time ago. I’m impressed you remember him at all. He was still pretty exuberant over every encounter then, and went into great detail. I don’t remember most of it, but...well. Enough to ask.” And somehow it makes me feel just a tiny bit less alone, knowing I’m talking to someone who talked to my Noctem once. “Oh. Well, I mean. He’s dead. But he was dead then too. It’s just we can’t reach each other anymore is all.” There’s no way to explain any of that without sounding mad, not really. I just sigh and shrug and glance back toward the Mountain. Directions have never been my strong suit, but this one’s kind of impossible to forget. My heart aches without him here, and I feel almost like...like I’m magnetized to always point toward home, where the rest of my heart lies waiting for me to find a way back to him. Magnus’s offer of aid is a generous one, of course. But I shrug. “I doubt it. Though I appreciate the thought. I felt...just before the world changed, I felt my mother...not die, exactly. But almost stop existing, maybe? I didn’t exactly have time to parse it out, to wade through the power to try to figure out what was going on. “Felt brothers dragged away to other worlds. One died. I don’t know what’s become of the other two; they’ve always been the hardest to reach. It’s just me left, or as good as. Thank you for offering, but I don’t know that there’s much of anything left to find.” Then I look him over again, pausing to focus on something other than myself and my plight for once. “Are you sure you’re okay?” He was looking a little ragged around the edges, which come to think of it made plenty of sense. It had, as he’d said, been a tense day. RE: troubled sea so deep; magnus - magnus - 09-04-2016 — find what you love and let it kill you — magnus RE: troubled sea so deep; magnus - Strangelet - 09-04-2016 Ah. Yes. I’ve sort of done it again, haven’t I? The more I speak, the more puzzled Magnus looks, though at least he is polite about it. I pause, regroup, and try again. “Mm. My body used to be able to take on his shape. Or the one he would have had, if he’d lived beyond a few moments after birth. And I used to be able to...hmm, let him borrow it. We shared. Sometimes trading off, sometimes both here. Right up until today, anyhow. Odd gifts from my mothers. It’s...rather a long story, I suppose.” Not exactly a solid explanation, but at least it was more of one than he’d had a moment ago. “So he was alive in a manner of speaking, and dead in another. It’s just now...well.” I shrug. Now he’s just dead, basically. Just as he used to be for everyone else, before we figured out that rather clever trick, a quirk of our heritage blending with a delightful twist of fate and my desperate need to not be in this body for a while. “Well, I’m glad you’re well enough. Though I suspect ‘a little tired’ is a bit of an understatement.” Before, I could have looked deeper, seen the depth of exhaustion in his body, sought out weariness in his soul. Now all I have is his body language, the tone of his voice, the way it all weighed on his shoulders. Still, no matter how tired he may be, he does not...god, it’s hard to read people like this. But he does not seem broken, or damaged, or devastated. His body at least shows no signs of trauma. “You look okay, at least.” RE: troubled sea so deep; magnus - magnus - 09-06-2016 — find what you love and let it kill you — magnus RE: troubled sea so deep; magnus - Strangelet - 09-16-2016 Magnus’s quiet laugh draws a smile out of me, coaxing my lips to curve upwards despite the lingering sorrow weighing me down. “If it were not for Noctem, I think I would envy you that. It is...difficult, to tread the line between worlds. To have so many others’ thoughts echoing so loudly in your head. This is the first time I feel...comfortable in my skin. It’s always been so dissonant, painful even, and now…” I look around, giving myself a moment to process the vast difference in how my senses function. “It’s odd. I feel...as though I’m missing senses. But at the same time, the ones that work feel...more concrete. More tangible. For the first time, I only see what is physically here in front of me, only hear the sounds audible to my ears instead of picking up all sorts of static and extra noise. So it’s...it’s nice. But at the same time, so...naked. So stark, missing all the nuance, and of course there’s...well, Noctem. I think if it weren’t for missing him, I might even prefer this.” To be able to function normally in this world, that’s something I never thought I’d experience. At the same time...it hurts to be without him. Magnus’s softly spoken wish that I find my way back to him has my heart aching with a fierce yearning that it could be so. Oh, someday soon, if only. “I hope so too,” I murmur quietly, letting that ache wash over me instead of drowning me. “Well you have certainly helped me today, Magnus. And I am very grateful for it.” If he were family, I would curl up against him, rub my cheek against his shoulder, let out a quiet sigh against his skin, and expect him to wrap me up in an embrace. I’m not so familiar with the social rules for new acquaintances, and don’t have the quiet tug of intuition guiding me to tell me how much of that fits the situation. So I step closer and just brush the velvet softness of my nose against his shoulder in quiet gratitude. Hopefully that is at least not overstepping too far. “Thank you for your kindness.” |