Aurora - Rean Heart

[awakenerd]

You float in a void--darkness around you, above, below, in every direction, nothing. You stand on nothing, you even breathe nothing. But you do not feel in danger, you are not suffocating. You are simply existing in… Nothing.

Crow | Towa | Dusk | 80H | Rufus

Comments

[voreaciously]

"Whose heart is this?"

[she's unconscious so she doesn't know yet, but she knows where she must be, she's done this, before.]

"And what is your purpose, here?"

[awakenerd]

"You are in the heart of The Ashen Knight. Also known as Valimar, or to you, Rean Schwarzer.

My purpose is simply to be myself."

[voreaciously]

I have a map, here.

[she's going to look at it again, wondering if it's changed.]

There's a location I believe I at which I am meant to arrive, would you know anything about it?

[awakenerd]

She doesn't look at the map but her eyes close briefly in what could be a sigh.

"The map shows exactly where you need to be. It is a riddle, but I am afraid you must practice a certain discipline to understand it.

I will speak plainly, since you would get nowhere otherwise.

Where you need to be is where you are. Where you are is where you wish to be. Where you wish to be is where you need to be.

Taken together, you need only think about what you wish, and this place will attempt to fulfill it. Your desires and your fears, your thoughts and your goals, they shape where you will go and what you will see. Just like the real world, in a sense, though nothing like it, in another. What is it you want to accomplish?"

[voreaciously]

She considers the beach, and the statues and how she willed them to be who they actually were and it makes sense.

"Why is he like this..." She knows what she's being told about the riddle, but it seems so VERY INSTRUCTOR to just accommodate everyone else.

"I wish to accomplish a good many things, but, for now, I want to help him. Even if it proves challenging, as I am certain it will."

[awakenerd]

The woman shrugs as if saying "who knows" about the first question.

"You will have to set some specific goals, I think, beyond "helping". In a world that revolves around your desires, the more precise you can be the better."

[voreaciously]

"Thank you very much, My Lady." She nods in grateful understanding--she can do specific--and tries to think, to focus.

I wish to be in a place where I can understand why he does not like himself.

[awakenerd]

The woman nods, regal and sedate.

And then the scenery simply changes around you. No longer in the water, no longer wet, simply standing in a large room.

It is not... An empty room.

The room is filled, piled, strewn, and stuffed with corpses. Blood is up to your ankles and on a mountain of the dead is a throne of skulls and bones, and on the throne is a man, and that man is bound in chains that stretch to the ceiling like a puppet's strings.

[voreaciously]

[well

time to climb!!]

[awakenerd]

Some corpses slide and slip and make the journey difficult but eventually you reach the top! Yep the guy on the throne is Rean and he looks like he's as lifeless as the dead bodies except he's breathing a little.

[voreaciously]

[hey so what she wants to do, what she needs to do, is break those chains, which she'll do by freezing some carefully and then shattering them, careful not to hurt him.]

[awakenerd]

She can do that! There are... Oh so many chains. But they fall one by one as she shatters them.

About halfway through Rean grabs her arm, looking at her intensely. As if he hadn't been half catatonic when she arrived.

"Don't."

[voreaciously]

"Why not?"

[awakenerd]

"Don't break things you don't understand, 80H."

[voreaciously]

That gets her to stop.

"Then help me understand."

[awakenerd]

His voice is... Tired, but his grip loosens.

"You want to know why I hate myself, right?"

[voreaciously]

"Yes, I do. Everything, really." She can guess, but she should not act on conjecture, he was right to stop her in that case when she doesn't understand this aspect of him.

At least not yet, anyway.

[awakenerd]

"There's a lot of reasons. I've always been scared of myself as long as I can remember, I've never liked myself. I've always had--a rage within me. And now I bear a curse. I cannot control myself without help, I cannot contain this power and this viciousness without control.

In life I worked constantly to maintain my humanity. In death...

My shame helps me keep it buried.

...No, maybe I'm not being very clear. There's a lot of things even I don't remember clearly.

But even if I didn't need to suppress it, still--I would not deserve to like myself."

[voreaciously]

She listens intently. "And whose strings are you on?"

[awakenerd]

"Mine. Crow's. Randy's. My existence. The past. My responsibilities. My duties. My regrets."

[voreaciously]

"Are they tethers or meant to control you?"

[awakenerd]

"Do you know what I am?"

[voreaciously]

A history teacher.

"A Divine Knight."

[awakenerd]

"No. Me. This aspect you are talking to."

[voreaciously]

"...You're the rage."