[ The instant your hand touches the lantern, the small flame blooms into a something huge and bright like an unfolding star, light flooding the Haven as well as your mind.
In that moment, the world disappears into that flash of light and it feels like
two matching games about intimacy, one in which you panicked and fled to go drown yourself in self-loathing, and the relief you felt to be met with patient understanding instead, and another in which you tested a boundary and were met with patient understanding once again, solid and unwavering in a way that feels like solid ground beneath your feet that gives you the strength to stand, and to walk, and maybe to dance, a thing that emerges from a chrysalis and unfurls fragile, shivering wings that spread into something broad and beautiful, and you know its name is Trust;
it feels like an explosion of wild joy that you try to temper but you can't, because someone you missed with all your heart is back, they're back, and you missed them and they're back and it's all you can do not to jump all over them like the giddy puppy you've suddenly become, but their absence felt like a missing piece and their return feels like being a little more whole than you were before, and you want to hold it and not let go because it's important and there was so much you had left to say;
it feels like someone peeling you off the ground after a week that kicked your ass followed by a game that kicked it even harder, and you're both covered in dirt inside and out and you're ready to lay on the floor and become one with the worms but there's someone here that cares about you more than you do right now, and that feels even better than whatever magic puts your bones back together and puts the air back in your lungs;
it feels like beer and stirfry, picnic barbecues, the stench of cigarettes which you hate but also find comfort in, because it's a smell that means you're Here and possible of being found;
it feels like love.
Your eyes adjust to the light and the Haven resolves back into place, right where you left it. The newly brightened lantern illuminates an even greater radius than before.]
[ Seriously though what. What does he do with this...?
He needs the lamp, logistically speaking; he's alone and it would be a piss-poor choice to leave his only source of portable light. but.
he also feels a little like he just touched a livewire and it's not that he HATES it, or rather, he's afraid to hate it in case it does cobalt some kind of psychic harm, but it's also super fucked up that he just got a direct dose of a person's brain to his brain. isn't that a major violation of privacy? and also, HE DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO HANDLE THIS.
what if he ignores it. can he do that? There has to at least be something around himself he can see now that he can distract himself with. Looking around again now that he has a better view... ]
[ no stress, buddy, you're safe here. No need to fret too hard. ]
[ In this larger, brighter, expanded circle of light, you can see more of the immediate surroundings beyond the edge of the Haven. You see the skeletons of bushes. What once was lush grass is now crisp, dry tufts, crinkled over bare dirt. The naked trunks of what used to be conifers extend overhead and vanish into darkness. ]
[ One side of the platform-shaped Haven slopes gently down to the ground. From there, a dirt path winds off into the trees. ]
[ Unfortunately, you can't see much more than that. The lantern's brighter now but there's a whole lot of Dark out there, and it can't remove it all.]
[It turns out darkness sucks actually?? Or, at least, the things that live in darkness sure do.]
[ Anyway. You follow the path through a forest long dead. ]
[ Out here, the air tastes bitter and caustic. The unnatural silence is occasionally punctuated by sounds: a distant, echoing crash of something crisp and wooden getting broken. A lonely groan from an inhuman throat. The intermittent scrape of dry leaves, disturbed by feet that skitter away before your circle of light can touch them. ]
[ As you walk, the path starts to climb up a slope, leading you through several switchbacks. The trees thin out, and the sky seems to lighten a few shades, like something up ahead is illuminating the very air. ]
[ You can see light glinting off boulders and tree trunks, guiding you forward like a beacon. ]
[ You have to scrabble over some rocks, picking your way upward. Then you look over a ridge and there it is:
—The ugliest city you’ve ever seen in your life. ]
[ The city is on the far side of a huge expanse of cobblestone — which, now that you’re looking at it, strongly resembles a parking lot. On this side of the lot, to your left, is a lookout where tourists could stop and take in the vast and devastatingly scenic darkness-filled canyon you just crawled out of. ]
[ I mean, that tracks. Evil things like him live there soooo....
Senpai's going to take a moment to just take this in. It's probably not a good thing that the inside of Cobalt's heart is a tourist trap that looks to have been nuked. But then again, he's seen a memory or two of his so... maybe it's just meant to be "memories of home." Which is bad enough! But maybe less than bad than "representative of some part of him that has been broken by Imeeji." ]
Well. No way but forward.
[ He notes that he has been driven to starting to talk to himself in the absence of other people. Is that a bad thing to do in Cobalt's psyche? X for Uncertain.
After taking another moment to look around he's going to head deeper into the street, away from the canyon. What's to see here? Can he enter any of these broken looking buildings to check them out for useful shit? ]
[ It might have been beautiful once, back when the buildings were still brightly painted and the streets were full of people. But now the buildings are boarded up, and roads that were once broad and inviting and now blocked by thick makeshift barricades cobbled together from metal signs, wooden pallets, rusted cars, barbed wire — anything and everything that wasn’t nailed down, and probably some things that were. ]
[ The barricade and building are run through with cables, and bright lights of all shapes and sizes are pointed outward as if trying desperately to keep the darkness away. The light illuminates the thick, dingy haze that squats over the city, which you can feel in your throat with every breath. ]
[ From here, you can see some spots along the wall where the lights have burned out, leaving some buildings drenched in shadow. ]
[ Someone on top of a building turns a spotlight on you. You hear shouting from a familiar voice. ]
“There's a survivor! Raise the gates!”
[ You hear activity from beyond the wall, and a moment later there's a groan of metal and clank of chains. ]
[ Two cars, stacked end to end in a cage of rusted beams and rebar, is raised by powerful winches like a massive gate. Behind it is a narrow, well-lit alley, leading the way into the city. ]
[ If you're a member of the undead, do you really count as a survivor? He thinks better of correcting them, though; fuck knows what'll happen to him if he did that.
He moseys quickly on through, eyeing the... car gates as he goes. ]
You all take that old, "reuse, reduce, recycle" motto pretty seriously, huh?
[ As you enter the alley and the gate shuts heavily behind you, the lantern you've been holding shatters into bright flakes of white light and vanishes. ]
[ You can still feel it, though. ]
[ Innately, you know the lantern is not gone, and not broken. It has gone into your Armiger -- a space inside of you, next to your soul. You can feel it in there, ready for you to call it into existence once again, any time you want. ]
[ In fact, now that you're paying attention, you can feel there is something else in your Armiger besides your lantern, waiting for you to call it into being. You know that all you have to do is hold out your hand and it will appear in your palm the moment you will it to be so. ]
[Everything else does, though, all at once. The lantern falls out and clangs on the ground, along with a hunk of metal that's glowing with red light, and your phone.]
[Additionally, in a glittering flash of white light, something large drops into your palm. ]
[ It's a sword with seven blades. It's also somewhat translucent, like it's been forged out of glass. Yet, somehow, you know it's strong as steel and twice as sharp.]
[ As you turn it in your hands, you can feel something strange about it. You can feel... that it has been imbued with the power of lightning.]
[ As surely as you are breathing, you understand: while you are holding this object, you will be able to channel its power and cast Thundara at will. ]
[ You now have access to your Armiger. You can put things into it at any time, and they will appear or disappear from your hand at your whim. ]
[ and dies again. What the fuck is with this sword? And i guess ZZzap is back but rebranded. plus his phone! there's a lot to take in here. time to just crack more jokes to cover up all of this discomfort!!! ]
What, was this some caveman's idea of a chainsaw? Now what?
[ He doesn't like the implication that all these nifty weapons mean that there's going to have to be fighting. Please tell him he's not going to get hit with a carousel horse again!!
pickin up... this sword. hesitantly. is he gonna get zapped with more feelings again, please ... no more emotions... ]
[ the joke's on everyone but especially himself, he always generated far more than enough on his own. ]
[ uhhh... i guess... he can stick this shit in his armiger? well he's going to try. should probably figure out how this space-pocket shit works before he goes any further anyway. ]
[ Everything is comfortably banished back into hammerspace where it belongs, and looks very flashy doing it, too. Give these items the ol' razzle dazzle]
[ With the closed gate at your back, there’s only one exit, and it’s in front of you. ]
[ The alley is narrow and zig-zags through crumbling buildings. Eventually you see the exit, and the man who’s standing at the end of the alley, waiting for you. Phoenix and Hurricane are also there. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Re: Haven
In that moment, the world disappears into that flash of light and it feels like
two matching games about intimacy, one in which you panicked and fled to go drown yourself in self-loathing, and the relief you felt to be met with patient understanding instead, and another in which you tested a boundary and were met with patient understanding once again, solid and unwavering in a way that feels like solid ground beneath your feet that gives you the strength to stand, and to walk, and maybe to dance, a thing that emerges from a chrysalis and unfurls fragile, shivering wings that spread into something broad and beautiful, and you know its name is Trust;
it feels like an explosion of wild joy that you try to temper but you can't, because someone you missed with all your heart is back, they're back, and you missed them and they're back and it's all you can do not to jump all over them like the giddy puppy you've suddenly become, but their absence felt like a missing piece and their return feels like being a little more whole than you were before, and you want to hold it and not let go because it's important and there was so much you had left to say;
it feels like someone peeling you off the ground after a week that kicked your ass followed by a game that kicked it even harder, and you're both covered in dirt inside and out and you're ready to lay on the floor and become one with the worms but there's someone here that cares about you more than you do right now, and that feels even better than whatever magic puts your bones back together and puts the air back in your lungs;
it feels like beer and stirfry, picnic barbecues, the stench of cigarettes which you hate but also find comfort in, because it's a smell that means you're Here and possible of being found;
it feels like love.
Your eyes adjust to the light and the Haven resolves back into place, right where you left it. The newly brightened lantern illuminates an even greater radius than before.]
/2
WHAT THE FUCK. He almost fucking drops the lamp out of shock, because who expects to have to do a sanity check from holding a lamp!? ]
Re: Haven
He needs the lamp, logistically speaking; he's alone and it would be a piss-poor choice to leave his only source of portable light. but.
he also feels a little like he just touched a livewire and it's not that he HATES it, or rather, he's afraid to hate it in case it does cobalt some kind of psychic harm, but it's also super fucked up that he just got a direct dose of a person's brain to his brain. isn't that a major violation of privacy? and also, HE DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO HANDLE THIS.
what if he ignores it. can he do that? There has to at least be something around himself he can see now that he can distract himself with. Looking around again now that he has a better view... ]
Re: Haven
[ In this larger, brighter, expanded circle of light, you can see more of the immediate surroundings beyond the edge of the Haven. You see the skeletons of bushes. What once was lush grass is now crisp, dry tufts, crinkled over bare dirt. The naked trunks of what used to be conifers extend overhead and vanish into darkness. ]
[ One side of the platform-shaped Haven slopes gently down to the ground. From there, a dirt path winds off into the trees. ]
[ Unfortunately, you can't see much more than that. The lantern's brighter now but there's a whole lot of Dark out there, and it can't remove it all.]
Re: Haven
Well whatever. He's a big boy and (probably) not afraid of the Dark.* He's going to follow the winding dirt path with the lamp.
*citation needed after impocalypse ]
Re: Haven
[ Anyway. You follow the path through a forest long dead. ]
[ Out here, the air tastes bitter and caustic. The unnatural silence is occasionally punctuated by sounds: a distant, echoing crash of something crisp and wooden getting broken. A lonely groan from an inhuman throat. The intermittent scrape of dry leaves, disturbed by feet that skitter away before your circle of light can touch them. ]
[ As you walk, the path starts to climb up a slope, leading you through several switchbacks. The trees thin out, and the sky seems to lighten a few shades, like something up ahead is illuminating the very air. ]
[ You can see light glinting off boulders and tree trunks, guiding you forward like a beacon. ]
[ You have to scrabble over some rocks, picking your way upward. Then you look over a ridge and there it is:
—The ugliest city you’ve ever seen in your life. ]
[ The city is on the far side of a huge expanse of cobblestone — which, now that you’re looking at it, strongly resembles a parking lot. On this side of the lot, to your left, is a lookout where tourists could stop and take in the vast and devastatingly scenic darkness-filled canyon you just crawled out of. ]
Re: Haven
like himlive there soooo....Senpai's going to take a moment to just take this in. It's probably not a good thing that the inside of Cobalt's heart is a tourist trap that looks to have been nuked. But then again, he's seen a memory or two of his so... maybe it's just meant to be "memories of home." Which is bad enough! But maybe less than bad than "representative of some part of him that has been broken by Imeeji." ]
Well. No way but forward.
[ He notes that he has been driven to starting to talk to himself in the absence of other people. Is that a bad thing to do in Cobalt's psyche? X for Uncertain.
After taking another moment to look around he's going to head deeper into the street, away from the canyon. What's to see here? Can he enter any of these broken looking buildings to check them out for useful shit? ]
Re: Haven
[ The barricade and building are run through with cables, and bright lights of all shapes and sizes are pointed outward as if trying desperately to keep the darkness away. The light illuminates the thick, dingy haze that squats over the city, which you can feel in your throat with every breath. ]
[ From here, you can see some spots along the wall where the lights have burned out, leaving some buildings drenched in shadow. ]
[ Someone on top of a building turns a spotlight on you. You hear shouting from a familiar voice. ]
“There's a survivor! Raise the gates!”
[ You hear activity from beyond the wall, and a moment later there's a groan of metal and clank of chains. ]
[ Two cars, stacked end to end in a cage of rusted beams and rebar, is raised by powerful winches like a massive gate. Behind it is a narrow, well-lit alley, leading the way into the city. ]
Re: Haven
He moseys quickly on through, eyeing the... car gates as he goes. ]
You all take that old, "reuse, reduce, recycle" motto pretty seriously, huh?
Re: Haven
[ You can still feel it, though. ]
[ Innately, you know the lantern is not gone, and not broken. It has gone into your Armiger -- a space inside of you, next to your soul. You can feel it in there, ready for you to call it into existence once again, any time you want. ]
[ In fact, now that you're paying attention, you can feel there is something else in your Armiger besides your lantern, waiting for you to call it into being. You know that all you have to do is hold out your hand and it will appear in your palm the moment you will it to be so. ]
Re: Haven
Fuck. shit
WHO'S PAYING ATTENTION, NOT THIS GUY, HE'S TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE HIS SOUL EVACUATE HIS BODY
i'm so sorry he just doesn't know how to cope ]
Re: Haven
[Sadly, your soul does not come out. :( ]
[Everything else does, though, all at once. The lantern falls out and clangs on the ground, along with a hunk of metal that's glowing with red light, and your phone.]
[Additionally, in a glittering flash of white light, something large drops into your palm. ]
[ It's a sword with seven blades. It's also somewhat translucent, like it's been forged out of glass. Yet, somehow, you know it's strong as steel and twice as sharp.]
[ As you turn it in your hands, you can feel something strange about it. You can feel... that it has been imbued with the power of lightning.]
[ As surely as you are breathing, you understand: while you are holding this object, you will be able to channel its power and cast Thundara at will. ]
[ You now have access to your Armiger. You can put things into it at any time, and they will appear or disappear from your hand at your whim. ]
Re: Haven
[ and dies again. What the fuck is with this sword? And i guess ZZzap is back but rebranded. plus his phone! there's a lot to take in here. time to just crack more jokes to cover up all of this discomfort!!! ]
What, was this some caveman's idea of a chainsaw? Now what?
[ He doesn't like the implication that all these nifty weapons mean that there's going to have to be fighting. Please tell him he's not going to get hit with a carousel horse again!!
pickin up... this sword. hesitantly. is he gonna get zapped with more feelings again, please ... no more emotions... ]
Re: Haven
[you just gonna carry them all around in your arms now or what]
Re: Haven
[ uhhh... i guess... he can stick this shit in his armiger? well he's going to try. should probably figure out how this space-pocket shit works before he goes any further anyway. ]
Re: Haven
Re: Haven
What is your life, Cobalt, an RPG?
[ haha am I right? ]
Now where to?
[ he's getting a text about buildings... so cobalt apparently actually IS here somewhere to be bullied. he should find him.... ]
Re: Haven
[ With the closed gate at your back, there’s only one exit, and it’s in front of you. ]
[ The alley is narrow and zig-zags through crumbling buildings. Eventually you see the exit, and the man who’s standing at the end of the alley, waiting for you. Phoenix and Hurricane are also there. ]
[Approach?]