bringspeopletogether: ([misc] in another life)
Alistair ([personal profile] bringspeopletogether) wrote2016-06-24 05:18 pm
Entry tags:

[sandbox] out of the abyss

It starts as a shimmer out by the lake. Look at the water from the right angle, and the light glinting off it looks a bit...green. Sickly.

(Familiar, if you're from a certain time and place in Thedas.)

Look up some minutes later, and you can pinpoint the source: a thin, glowing ribbon uncoiling in the sky. It emerges slowly, but the more light it casts, the more momentum it gains, until it explodes outward with an enormous crack like lightning splintering the ground.

A much quieter thump follows as something hits the dirt.

Someone.

The glow vanishes; the person doesn't move for a long beat. (Get up, he's telling himself, get up -- ) He manages to drag his hands level with his shoulders, press down to bear himself upward an inch, look up at where he's landed.

Get. Up.

Another shove, and Alistair lurches to his feet, sword hauled from its scabbard and shield at the ready. His breath rattles, harsh against his throat, as he stares wild-eyed around the grounds.
freedom_is_grey: (bright and sad)

[personal profile] freedom_is_grey 2016-07-06 09:01 pm (UTC)(link)
"I had a feeling."

Or a guess. Whichever.

"Considering you ended up here. And solid. And -- "

Incredibly paranoid and disoriented.
freedom_is_grey: (Default)

[personal profile] freedom_is_grey 2016-07-06 09:19 pm (UTC)(link)
She shakes her head just the tiniest bit.

"Not for you. Time -- sometimes I come here once every week, sometimes months go by. Not years, yet, but -- "

Maybe someday.

"And I think you're ahead of me this time."

Ysalwen exhales.

"You aren't sure either, I take it?"
freedom_is_grey: (Welp that happened)

[personal profile] freedom_is_grey 2016-07-06 09:24 pm (UTC)(link)
Well.

"Maybe try a little bread? If you feel up to it."

A breath.

"I don't mind sharing."
freedom_is_grey: (Chasind travel)

[personal profile] freedom_is_grey 2016-07-07 12:00 pm (UTC)(link)
"Maybe later. When things start to stay down."

She'll keep some bread set aside for him.

"Or brother, perhaps. Hmm."
freedom_is_grey: (Default)

[personal profile] freedom_is_grey 2016-07-07 05:03 pm (UTC)(link)
"So."

She breaks off a piece of bread, adds some cheese, and takes a bite.

"Do you want me to talk at you as background noise? Or -- "
freedom_is_grey: (by fate even the gods are cast down)

[personal profile] freedom_is_grey 2016-07-07 05:15 pm (UTC)(link)
Ysa can do that. She will have to power through without feeling much of anything, but it can be done. And numbness is better than lying with her face and voice and energy, so --

"Well. It's -- a little terrifying? But some friends here have a seemingly omnipotent enemy that works through causality and can't be killed or destroyed in any of the ways they have available to them?"

She exhales, keeping a careful eye on Alistair.

"So I've been looking into -- well. He's made of matter, which is to say 'stuff', which -- "

Another careful breath.

"Basically I am finding a way -- or trying -- to take all the bits that make this person up and have them repel each other and scatter off to all the corners of the universe. So -- it's slow. Very, very slow. It doesn't help that most Earths whose work I can follow don't really understand the forces that hold atoms together, not really."

And she is not about to start experimenting without a very good framework. Nope.
freedom_is_grey: (brightness treble)

[personal profile] freedom_is_grey 2016-07-07 07:44 pm (UTC)(link)
"Well."

Ysalwen is quiet for a minute, fingers twined together in her lap.

"It's more like unmaking than anything else. Which usually isn't what I do. So."
freedom_is_grey: (by fate even the gods are cast down)

[personal profile] freedom_is_grey 2016-07-07 07:54 pm (UTC)(link)
"Oh, hush," Ysalwen says, caught halfway between impatience and gentleness.

"You know I would only bring it out for special omnipotent enemy occasions. And we don't really have any of those, thank Andraste's grace."

So far, anyway.
Edited 2016-07-07 19:55 (UTC)
freedom_is_grey: (brightness treble)

[personal profile] freedom_is_grey 2016-07-07 08:58 pm (UTC)(link)
"All right," she says, slowly.

"So the basic particle of material existence is an atom. It, in turn, is made of up tinier particles called protons, neurons, and electrons. No, wait -- neutrons, that's it. And those, or in among those, are other, smaller particles, and they're held together by forces. It's sort of the same way that planets and moons orbit due to gravity, but also not like that at all. You can't even use the same math to describe it, which is interesting in and of itself. Remind me to show you some of the modeling I've played with, some day."

Anyway.

"Now, the way in which worlds with science understand fire is that it requires three things. Material to burn, such as wood or oil or anything made of carbon, an energy source for ignition, such as an already extant fire or a spark of some kind, and oxygen. In the absence of one of these things they cannot make fire. Now, if I were to cast a fire spell, I need actually none of those things. I did some experiments once and I can cast fire in a vacuum -- that's a place with no air -- no oxygen. Theoretically impossible, but because of how magic works in Thedas, possible for me."

A soft exhale.

"So while mathematically it's impossible to figure out how to interrupt the forces holding atoms together -- using the right magic in the right way at the right time -- "

Dreaming it often enough that a person who knew it was there could reach into the Fade and bring the dream of dissolution into the waking world --

" -- I can do it. Potentially."
freedom_is_grey: (Welp that happened)

[personal profile] freedom_is_grey 2016-07-07 09:25 pm (UTC)(link)
"Yes."

Her smile is tiny and crooked and a little bit rueful.

"Sorry to disappoint."
freedom_is_grey: (Brightly burning)

[personal profile] freedom_is_grey 2016-07-07 09:36 pm (UTC)(link)
"You are."

Um. Well.

"Do you -- we could hug, if you wanted? And then no one could see you cry."

And, well.

"And you know I would burn anything that tried to touch you to a cinder. So."
Edited 2016-07-07 21:37 (UTC)
freedom_is_grey: (soft)

[personal profile] freedom_is_grey 2016-07-07 09:45 pm (UTC)(link)
"All right."

Her voice is quiet, now, even as she settles next to him and tugs his head down to her shoulder.

Hugging time.

She can keep this up for an hour. At least.

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