[OPEN] The world is spinning endlessly

[spaghettification]

Who: Siebren and friends
What: October Shenanigans
When:...October? Possibly also November
Where: Siebren's home, the
Warning(s): Potential cannibalism mentions, unreality, mental unwellness, memory manipulation (self-inflicted), more in comment titles

1. This is the sound of energy [Gala Aftermath]
You can't believe how easy it is. You just have to go... a little crazy. And then, suddenly, it all makes sense, and everything you do turns to gold.
He calls into work the morning after the gala. And a couple more days beyond that. In that time, he is
metamorphosing
assimilating
unpacking
digesting everything that occurred that night. He stays at home, alone, trying to avoid everyone and everything.

much. It's too
The fragments of past that he's avoided for their sharpness rotate in him mind, turning their points toward him, crystal shards of time that threaten him. And yet, some part of him reaches out with Pandoran curiosity, like Sleeping Beauty toward the spindle. What he pricks isn't a finger, but he feels the pain just as instantly. And yet, and yet...

too much. It's
There it is, the multiple choice past solidifying in fractals, like frost spidering across a windowpane. Siebren has no way of knowing whether this is a correct past, but it is now his, memories feeling more stable than they have in years. Some things are lost, others are fake, but the end result is more real than anything he's been able to grasp before.

For three days, anyone approaching Siebren's home for any reason may hear, even from outside the building, the sounds of someone having a Bad Time™, with pained screams or furniture being thrown against walls as his gravitational powers pulse and fluctuate. For three days, he struggles.

And then, there is silence.


Traveling through the galaxy [The Library; CW vertigo]
Siebren returns to work. Nothing is wrong. He is fine. Can't you see how fine he is?

Somewhere, a book falls off a table and he flinches. And then, to anyone within a certain distance of him, the floor seems to fall away, in a dizzying cloud of galactic light, just for a moment, before he regains control, glancing around to see if anyone noticed.


Into eternity [Stargazing Night]
A notice goes up on the bulletin board, and letters are issued to penpals with explicit invitations: Crane's Ridge, 9pm on a given night. Bring snacks, drinks, something to sit on. Siebren will have his telescope and star charts.

He's brought some cheese and crackers and apple butter himself, as well, and is floating beside his big brass telescope, dressed in a comfortable sweater. For the moment, he is completely at ease. For the moment, nothing could possibly bother him.

Right?


A One Note Symphony [Wildcard]
Find me on Discord to plot, PM me, or just throw a thing!

Comments

[spaghettification]

A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.

Before Siebren sees the butterflies, there's a bubblegum taste in his mouth, sweet and not at all natural. But not unfamiliar, and certainly not welcome. He lifts his face to the ceiling and closes his eyes.

"I had wondered, what you might think."

[blindwatchersees]

I might think, yes.

Their wings cast shadows from the lamp-light.

I might think about these feelings. I wish I could offer you the places I had, where I could shut myself away, ranting and raving, knocking over tables, recoiling at the sound of my own voice. I wish I could offer you clean water and cool earth and soft moss and a place to bury all the pieces of yourself you aren't quite ready to understand yet. But I am just a portion of me, and I don't have those places with me to offer.

[spaghettification]

"I am...recovering." There's a vague almost-defensiveness there; he took more time than he wanted to before coming to work. He is impatient with himself--while Sheogorath is openly showing sympathy.

[blindwatchersees]

See to it that you give yourself what you need to do so. There's nothing quite as horrid than letting your mind and your soul go hungry at once, only because you told yourself they were both too needy.

One of the butterflies lands nearby and tentatively inches towards his hand.

[spaghettification]

Siebren holds out his hand.

[This is a touchstone, a signpost, this single gesture. He holds out his hand, as he held out his hand before, to Drelasa/John Rambo/George/Blanche/Sombra, and it is both real and true.]
"I almost worry more about my body, as my mind goes wandering. I haven't asked a doctor what to make of anything. Don't tell my co-workers; I told them I was sick, from eating something funny."

[blindwatchersees]

Something funny, eh? I can’t think of a time I’ve been less amused than during that gala. Being ‘reduced’ like that… I don’t often complain about mockery, but that was a poor jest.

The butterfly climbs onto his hand, exactly as substantive as a butterfly ought to be. Tethered by gravity, but only just.

[spaghettification]

"My experience was different. It was a lot. It became more than a lot." Siebren's hand lifts the butterfly up, toward his face, gives it the ghost of a kiss.

[blindwatchersees]

Oh, make no mistake. I was quite a lot of many things. And too much, in many cases. But… I was forced into the form of nothing more than an affliction, a thing to be feared.

The butterfly returns the ghost of a kiss with the echo of a late-night epiphany.

Now that Mendel and some of his court are dead, the powers are shifting. It’s a frightful thing, change, but it’s the one constant in all things.

[spaghettification]

"Power vacuums work very differently when people, or things close enough to people are involved."

He smiles with his lips, but it fails to reach his eyes.

"I killed Blanche. And then I did something more than just killing her."

[blindwatchersees]

Oh, I can tell. I can smell the cheap, artificial peppermint on your breath. Does everything taste funny to you now?

[spaghettification]

"The taste is not so bad. It's the texture, though. Waxy, like colorful sprinkles or very cheap chocolate."

Cheap white chocolate.

[blindwatchersees]

Dreadfully unsatisfying, that. Nothing worse than craving a bit of cocoa and only getting a mouthful of sweetened sour milkfat, half-grade bean butter, and disappointment.

[spaghettification]

"I don't suppose you have any tricks for getting the taste out of one's mouth?" It's mostly a joke, but only mostly.

[blindwatchersees]

Wash your beard? No, wait, that isn't how your body works. Hmm... cup of tea, maybe?

[spaghettification]

"Watch it turn into Snapple when I taste it." He rolls his eyes slightly, lifting the butterfly toward his shoulder. "I think there's some in the break room."

[blindwatchersees]

Should we go get it?

Ambiguous here if "we" is the butterfly and Siebren, or a multitude of butterflies offscreen.

[spaghettification]

"If that form is capable of it, that would be kind of you. But you might need to put on a body for that." More of a body than the swarm.

[blindwatchersees]

Or we could have it come to you.

There's a rapid tap-tap-tap suddenly coming from the break room, and a tea cup of unusual fashion, with scrabbling fingers protruding from its underside, scuttles into Siebren's reach.

[spaghettification]

"That...is adorable." Siebren holds out a hand for the cup, in invitation. "I'm sure some people would find it creepy, instead."

[blindwatchersees]

A little here, a little there.

The teacup crawls into Siebren's hand and settles there, content.

It's just a manifestation, so it's not nearly as sweet as my dear teaset Pliny. I wish you could meet him. But, ah, then I'd have to steal him from me, and I'd be very upset about that.

A pause.

He wasn't always a teaset, you know.

[spaghettification]

"Like Pliny the Elder? What was he before?" Siebren sips the tea with a bit of a sluuuurp.

[blindwatchersees]

"Which one? I've met plenty of old men named Pliny. It's a popular name among Imperials. Ah, but to answer your second question, he was a Dunmer who thought he could cross me. I turned him into a tea set for a year as punishment. Gave him the mind of a tea set, too. Well, once I was satisfied he'd learned his lesson, I gave him back his old form. Six months later, however, he called upon me and admitted he found the life of a tea set far more fulfilling. So, Pliny the Tea Set he became, once and for all, and it's been a charmed life for him since."

[spaghettification]

"Doesn't sound like a traditional Dunmer name to me." He realizes even as he's saying it that he's managed to internalize some of the Dunmer language, at least the common phonemes, by talking to Drelasa and listening to her sing. "That aside, though, I think I can understand why it would be fulfilling."

[blindwatchersees]

He had a different name as a Dunmer. But once he wasn't a Dunmer, it felt more fitting to give him a tea set's name.

I could turn you into a tea set, too, given a little time.

[spaghettification]

Siebren thinks about that for long enough to be serious.

"I'm not sure that's what I need in the long term. And...I'm not sure that's the sort of relationship I want with you, especially right now."