"shi yasss queen" (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shiftingwinds) wrote2021-02-06 08:19 pm
shiftingwinds) wrote2021-02-06 08:19 pmEntry tags:
[7rings] catchall for mollymauk
shitpost to come when i know more about molly
shiftingwinds) wrote2021-02-06 08:19 pm
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This one is so fresh it feels like barely a memory. Just a thing that happened, only days ago. Eight months ago. However long ago, as time passes here. He'll let her take his hands, shaking only slightly
it takes him a moment to remember to breathe again. how to do it. that it isn't pain and blood between his ribs.]
. . . Ah, fuck. Probably a bit of an embarrassing display. Especially after what you managed.
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[that was... that was so much. she knows how it feels, from his memory and from her own memory of the day before, to be that close to death. if the others hadn't been so ready to take her straight to the medbay, she'd have been just as dead here as he had been before coming here.
but it's not something to be embarrassed by. even in his last moments, he'd been strong enough to fight back, in some small way - even if it was to spit blood in his killer's face. if she'd been as injured as he was, at that point, she probably wouldn't have managed.
he really is so strong.]
I'm just sorry you had to go through that.
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[He says that in a tone that means he's trying very hard to make a joke. but the same tone also says that maybe he isn't ready to joke about it and is just pushing it so no one can see that this. this shit be sad.]
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[—fighting, in whatever way you could, she's about to say. she lets go of his hands, but only so that she can hug him - but that new contact is enough to send them headfirst into another set of memories.
some of them, she was too young to remember at the time - but she was present for them, and now they're crystal clear. there's a pervading, bone-deep terror that settles into the qingxuan of those memories, growing stronger and stronger as time passes, reaching a crescendo when that monster's voice echoes even in the heavens -
and it lingers, when the memory fades. she's clutching onto molly tightly, her face buried in his shoulder, not looking up.]
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he so instantly wraps her into his arms, squeezing tightly - a hand at the back of her head. Fuck. He hates these, the digging, the violation, and this one is. Well it's terrifying. the skulking shadow, waiting around the corner. she'd explained to him, a drunken story as part of a bet, but he'd failed to grasp the weight of it then maybe. something always follows, doesn't it?]
Shit. Shit, I'm-- I'm sorry. I won't have seen it, if you don't want me to have.
[Hasn't he dug enough?]
But I'm sorry. You're alright. You're here now. It's not here.
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in this case, though - ]
It's okay.
[her voice is small.]
...you're right, it's not here. And it will be dealt with when I go home. [she still doesn't raise her head, though.] ...ahaha, we've both got things we've been running from, don't we?
[they really do mirror each other, in a way.]
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Seems that way.
[ . . .]
But that's your wish, yeah? That you'll get rid of it?
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there's a very, very slight hesitation before she nods, which he'll feel the motion of against his shoulder.]
Mm. Ming-xiong agreed to help me, before we came here, and we were going to ask another friend to help, too... but I didn't want either of them to be hurt if there was a way I could deal with it without involving them.
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[he's thinking about the card again. how her memory had shown misfortune, a cruel fate, about her hesitation when he'd pulled the deck for her. A chastizing voice, familiar, flashes across his memory aren't you afraid you'll lead people down false paths?
but his own voice, in return. people are looking for a path. I've always left-- I've always left it better than I found it.
So self-assured. prideful, even.
he shifts so he can keep holding her - her face pressed against the shoulder of that extravagant coat of his. from this close, she can see more of the delicate embroidered patterns across it, symbols from every corner of the world. stars and animals and gods and pattern.]
So we'll get you both through it.
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[someone looking out for her - well, that's true, isn't it? there was her brother, when they were both mortal; her brother again, pulling her up to heaven as a junior official, and then helping her to ascend; ming yi, after they'd become friends, always getting dragged along into her antics; and now there's mollymauk and all the others here.
she's lucky. she's really, really very lucky -
but if that thing tracks her here, somehow, it's a lot to risk losing. she takes a breath. it's fine, it's fine. if anything could follow them here from home, shi wudu would have been here already. mollymauk and beau's other friends would have been here already.
for better or worse, they're here on their own.]
...we'll get you through it too. I haven't given up on getting both you and Beau back home.
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they're pressed here so close
it feels impossible to avoid another
The memory is clear and bright, in the way that most terrifying experiences are, when you think them over.
You’ve just descended the stairs to the speakeasy of this Gentleman you’ve heard so much about, when a tabaxi turns to your group. She starts:
“Halt friends, I do not r— Lucien?” Her eyes widen in shock, but you still don’t know who she is, you’re racking your memory, but the name
The name makes you feel ill, all of a sudden, an itch at the back of your skull. There’s no time to consider it.
“It has been too long, two ye–”
“Far too long!”
“Two years!” She laughs, bright, hands still gripping your shoulders on either side, tightly, like an old, old friend. “Look at you! You grew out your hair! And you are covered in tattoos!”
There’s something in her expression that seems confused about this, as her eyes flit to your hands, your neck.
“We’ll catch up, we need a table, we need drinks for me and my compatriots.”
“Of course, you– these are your friends now?” She looks over your group, appraising, but then goes to do as you’ve asked. Drinks and a table.
You now get a better look up at the top, some skulking individuals with long dark cloaks and dark armor, carrying what looks almost like a heavy crossbow, but it’s a long, metal rod. You’ve only seen them in use here and there. A recently emerging technology that has been largely guarded within use of the empire itself.
The second she turns, you give Fjord - a green, half-orcish man, a little pat on the back and hiss a whisper at him.
“I’m sorry, this is my nightmare, please just go with it? It’s Lucien.”
He simply looks a bit baffled in return. The tabaxi returns to the table, reaching her hands out for yours.
“Oh, too long.” She starts quickly, sitting up straighter, then her face suddenly turns apologetic. You see all the faces of your friends, twisted in confusion. They aren’t even trying to hide it.
“Nonagon. I apologize for using your old name. Nonagon, it is a pleasure to see you again.”
“Who can keep track these days? Again, a long story.” You manage to croak out. She doesn’t seem to notice. She just looks concerned.
“Nonagon, what happened? We watched you die.”
She looks expectant. As do the rest of them at the table. Jester, Fjord, Nott, Caleb, Beau. All of their eyes are trained on you. They all await your answer.
“I’m sorry, it— I think it all went a bit fuzzy at the end there. Won’t you remind me?”
The tabaxi looks almost stricken, but she recovers. Casting a glance at the others at the table, and then,
“I don’t trust these people, Nonagon, but—
If you trust them, then I trust you. You gave us a speech. We had a fine meal. We all got ready there in the forest . . . She said it would be hard for us to tell whether or not it worked at first, but we went and checked, and you were not breathing. For a good hour, you were not breathing and you had gone cold. We knew then that-- that we had lost you. We checked, and I'm very attuned to vitals, as you know. There was no heartbeat. So we waited longer. The sun rose, and nothing. So, as you told us, if anything were to go wrong, we had to get rid of any sign, any trace. So not far from the Tomb Taker hideout, we buried you and we went our separate ways. She took the tome, the mage woman, it was part of the arrangement you had with her. Her contract said she was in the right and that we knew better than to go toe to toe with her and her ilk.”
Everyone looks at you. Eyes on eyes on eyes on eyes.
The memory fades.]
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seriously, how many times has mollymauk died? that's twice now, unless this is supposed to be after the first memory, but that doesn't seem quite right. not knowing what beau came here for, and not knowing what molly himself has said about it. i'll change my wish to her...
also, lucien? nonagon? shi qingxuan seems just as confused when they come out of it as molly himself and his friends were within it.]
...ah.
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. . . As I said. A ghost follows me too.
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...when you get back, slice it up. [that's. this isn't the kind of situation where you can slice up a ghost, sqx, even if he'd made mention of doing that with her own ghost himself, weeks ago.]
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I will do my very best.
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[his best is pretty good, after all. she smiles a little at that, and pats his back.]