[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]
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Comments

I see that Morrowind level-up message

[misbegottendreamer]

It's the second morning after the gala, and she's headed to his place with a basket of fresh-baked bread and some jam from the farm. She's just turning down the path to his house when she hears the shouting, and senses the low vibration of something crashing against the floor. She covers the rest of the distance in a hurry, knocking on the door with more urgency and force than she normally would.

"Siebren? My love, are you alright?"

:)

[spaghettification]

The response isn't verbal, or even audible. There's a pulsing sensation, like a wave (a particle?) washing over her, and then an intense disorienting vertigo paired with a blast of calliope music sounds in dissonance. Something is very wrong, and it hurts. And there's the vague tinge to it, of the powers that disrupted the gala, but also colored by everything that Siebren is. It is floating, it is spinning. It is zero gravity without a horizon to orient to, or any sense of direction at all.

[misbegottendreamer]

She thanks the gods that she is blind and only has so many senses to have disoriented.

With some fumbling, her hand finds the door handle, and she checks to see if the door will open.

[spaghettification]

Further good luck! The door is unlocked. Inside the house, though, things are quite a mess. It's going to be a bit of a landmine to navigate even with sound to help her. Siebren's audible, though, his breath coming in shaky gasps as everything is a fuckery in his skull.

[misbegottendreamer]

She stumbles over to him, leaving her basket by the door, calling out in a voice that is more troubled woodwind than anxious womer.

[spaghettification]

He grabs onto her clothing, clinging to her like he's afraid he might be pulled away by some current and drown, if he lets go. Or perhaps, some gravitational well. Her not-clarinet sound is met with a harmonizing hum, but a shaky, uncertain one.

[misbegottendreamer]

She quickly slips off her mask, and begins to sing to him, crouching in as close as she can.

"I am here, kena," she sings to him, her claws gently brushing his hair out of his face. "I am here with you, in the House of Troubles. Venture where you will, and I will support you."

[spaghettification]

"It hurts." The words come out in a whimper, eyes not opening. His awareness of her presence is flickering, like a candle guttering in the wind, but on some level there is comfort to be found.

[misbegottendreamer]

Her claws run so very gently against his scalp.

"What can I do for you? What can I get for you?"

[spaghettification]

"I don't know." He sounds so helpless, so young for a moment. And then in the next instant his face twists in a mask of pain, and he lets out a sharp, primal scream. It is a strange piercing sound, given how low his voice usually is.

[misbegottendreamer]

She clings tighter to him in shock, trying to ease his pain with a low hum, as much as she can manage. Siebren's scream is almost deafening, but she won't leave him.

[spaghettification]

Inside, everything is mirror shards, reflecting memories from a multiple choice past. In one, he glimpses the cold stare of a Galactic Emperor. In another, a pirate with ghostly green skin. There’s a humming of bees, but he can’t see them. He turns his head as if looking for them.

None of this is real, but it is true. None of this was, but it might will be. Everything is unstable, and he feels it only as falling.

The scream ends. His throat hurts, he realizes vaguely.

[misbegottendreamer]

She’s clinging to him, a warm body to contrast against the cold vastness of everything. In this moment, she’s not sure if there’s anything she can do, but she wants to be here for when the moment that she can do something does arise.

[spaghettification]

Her presence is an anchor. Her existence in his memory is also an anchor. As the potential pasts assail him, he knows he wants no past without her--and no future without her as well. It is a starting point, as he painfully picks through shards and starts to try to reassemble himself from the wreckage internally.

"Can you...sing for me?"

[misbegottendreamer]

Drelasa nods, and sings from the very depths of her soul. Her song is the motion of the stars in the heavens, and the feeling of dancing weightless in the early evening air. Her song is a plea, and a promise, and a reassurance. Everything she wants for him, she wraps in a mantle of tonal splendor, and pours her heart into giving it shape.

[spaghettification]

It helps.

He clings to every note, like a mountain climber using the narrowest of handholds. It is enough for him, for this moment. He goes still and silent, and to outward appearances he might seem to be asleep.

He's not, but it seems peaceful enough.

traveling through the galaxy

[theydrewfirstblood]

Someone noticed—and he’s currently clinging to the back of a nearby chair that saved him from falling.

John’s been hoping to see Siebren since the gala, to thank him for the whole experience. Maybe even talk to him about…he’s not even sure how to explain it, to put into words the yearning he’s felt since that night. Being with Laios, it’s incredible, but this is more than touch or sex—there’s a certain type of damage they share, and Siebren…

He makes the sharp edges safer to touch.

So he’s at the library, looking for him. Discreetly—he’s there to look for some books on the local flora and fermentation to improve his dandelion wine, that’s his story and he’s sticking to it.

But a book drops somewhere, he flinches—and then he’s falling.

For a second, he can’t figure out which way is up. John grabs something, the chair, but he’s barely aware of it. Everything is spinning in a haze of dazzling light, beautiful and otherworldly but still disorienting…

When the world returns, John can’t move for a second, unsure if he can keep his balance.

This is the sound of energy

[fuelmayor]

It's the third day after the gala. A week ago, a coffee mug with a glaze resembling the night sky and the sandwich that accompanied it vanished from Siebren's residence. The sandwich is long gone, but his eeriest neighbour from down the road has caught the culprit (the Lileep tucked under the Fuelweaver's arm, eyes narrowed like it would be scowling if it had a visible mouth) and is here to return the dishware from whence it came.

Or at least that was his intention. That sounds like screaming from inside the house. A more familiar sound than he would prefer, but this isn't the Village. He can believe that his intervention will help, not worsen the situation for both himself and the poor soul inside no matter what action he takes.

He raises his voice. "Doctor De Kuiper?"

[spaghettification]

Siebren notices John and hesitates, considering fleeing altogether. Guilty, of course. Both in the sense of being culpable and feeling like shit for what he's done.

"John?" His voice is small, so small and unsure that it seems ill-fitted to his broad-shouldered, clumsy frame as he floats still, neither trying to escape nor coming nearer to help.

[spaghettification]

There is no answer from inside, beyond the continued chaotic sounds of Siebren's struggle.

(It is a violent act to hatch from an egg. The shell must break to do so.)

[fuelmayor]

Is the door locked? Fuelweaver's going to try the handle first. (The Lileep mutters to itself.)

[spaghettification]

The door is not locked.

The home is in a chaotic state of disarray. Gravitational powers in flux during an episode like this lead to flying objects, some of which had significant mass (but in zero G, no weight). For example, a wardrobe, dashed against a wall, clothing spilling out like the lolling tongue of a sun bear. Dishes broken in shards.

Siebren is on the floor, curled into a fetal ball, hands covering his ears.

[theydrewfirstblood]

John manages to shake his head to clear it when Siebren’s voice helps to banish the rest of the cobwebs. Looking up, he smiles, lets go of the chair to step forward—

“—ah.”

John looks down as his hand stings—and realizes that his grip on the chair splintered the wood, some of which has left tiny slivers buried in his palm.

Okay…not good for the whole ‘definitely still human’ thing.

When he looks back up at Siebren, his eyes holding an equal measure of guilt.

“…hey, Sieb.”

[spaghettification]

"...hoi." He advances like a pawn moving two squares forward, to meet John. "Are...are you alright?"

[theydrewfirstblood]

“Yeah, yeah, just—vertigo, but with a really cool light show.” John quips, carefully making sure he doesn’t leave any pieces of wood to fall from the broken chair. “That, or I need to see a doctor. Uh…crappy furniture, I guess.”

Closing the space between them so he can speak more softly, John reaches out with his unmolested hand to pay Siebren on the shoulder warmly.

“You doing okay? I checked in here a couple days ago, and they said you were out sick?”