[He is an angel of the Lord. A Lord he is devoted to entirely, a Lord which he will gladly destroy false idols for. The existence of other gods, even in worlds and dimensions he has never visited? The idea is preposterous, to an angel like Cheriour. He has no time or need or want to think of such things, not while he does his duty.]
[He does his work on Earth diligently. His bloody, bloody work, where he hunts down those humans whose hearts are darkest so that the pure and innocent can survive another day. In a way, he's a dark being, a tool of destruction, used to deliver the final blow of justice in a very dangerous manner. His sword has tasted blood, and it will do so again, over and over...]
[He has finally started to rest for the night, getting in a few hours of sleep before he continues his work. But, when he wakes up, he finds himself not where he was when he went to sleep. Indeed, he finds himself in a...dream-like place. Pieces of land hover in the air, the thick smell of saline and oil hitting his nostrils. He turns his strange clock-eyed gaze over it all, eyebrows furrowing as he gets to his feet.]
W-what? [He has never seen this place before. He's never seen anything even like it, not on Earth, and not even in heaven.] Where...where is this?
[Angel. What an interesting, foreign concept, and yet, how like him. Much like an angel, the Outsider serves the source of all things - after all, that is what the Void is. All creating, all devouring, omnipotent nothingness. Easy to shatter a human mind, but this one should be far enough removed. So he appears in a swirl of blackness, stands on a piece of debris just off the platform Cheriour found himself on, black eyes fixed on his involuntary visitor curiously.]
This is the Void.
[There's no inflection here, only a plain statement.]
[The sudden appearance of the blackness almost makes Cheriour jump in place, and the man that appears is...well, not exactly a very friendly sight. The first thing that comes to mind when he sees those black coal-like eyes is that this is a demon, a creature of the night, and Cheriour reaches towards his sword...only to have his hands helplessly gasp at air. His sword isn't on his hilt.]
[The alarm and surprise rises horrendous as he steps back, trying to comprehend what is going on. Has...has he been kidnapped? He can't sense the other is a demon, which is strange, but...there's something very, very strange about all of this.]
[He'd prefer not to be attacked. It would be as pointless as it would be boring, so the Outsider just cants his head to the side and waits where he is, wondering if the angel will get his bearings. He's not a demon, for sure. Powerful, but neither a good being nor an evil one. In fact, once Cheriour tries to sense anything, he might sense that the entirety of the place he is in feels much the same, like ancient sentient power.]
You don't need to worry. When you wake up you will be returned just where you were.
[Yes, yes, this...feels like a dream. Though none of his dreams have been quite like this. He relaxes somewhat, but there's still a sense of wariness about this. Something about it seems off, and this strange fellow, with his strange eyes, is not helping. This entire place feels...powerful. Unknown. Like he's standing on the edge of a black hole, faced full front with it's intensity. Like the Lord he serves, but...older than that, somehow, which is quite an odd thought indeed.]
But if I am dreaming, why would I...return? Am I actually somewhere else?
[No use getting into the details of how their dimensions really shouldn't be intersecting. That's really not the interesting part here, after all, it's not even a problem to solve or a choice to make.]
[Well, the man wasn't going and saying "YOU, ANGEL, LISTEN TO ME" so...perhaps he didn't know what he was, Cheriour thought. He stares before answering, folding his arms.]
Ah, yes! I'm an angel of the Lord, sir. And if you "too" are bound to a higher power, then...who do you serve, exactly? And what are you? You don't feel like a demon...
[She's a delinquent. A high school student, judging from the uniform, but that's not an occupation when you don't show up, and she doesn't if she can help it.
Right now she thinks she might be dreaming about a video game again. It's different than her usual ones. No gas cans or fire bombs. No ash. Water, though. Like the river that runs through their town. Deeper than that, though. No wading through to look for lost shoes, this time.
They're missing again. But it's alright. They always turn up eventually. She'll just have to look for them.
If this is a dream, she'll wake up. She always does. Sometimes it just takes longer, when the dream's better than school in the morning.]
Is there anyone else here? You don't have to be shy, you know...
[It feels like there is. Like someone watching over her. Like a God, maybe. Not Lord Kanti, of course. No gas cans. No fire bombs. But maybe of the river. There's water. And broken things.]
[Broken things, indeed. And many. Broken down husks of boats, washed up on the shore. Wooden things, metal things, twisted beyond recognition. A big round glass tank, broken open and now empty, but there's a bright, slightly blue-tinged glow staining the sand around it.
In the distance, there's whalesong, but all around her, it's just water and sand, stones and debris. Beyond that? A greyish, blueish nothing. Like mist, perhaps, if you squint, but then if you squint hard enough, the Void can become anything right in front of your eyes.
And there he is. Half sitting on, half leaning against an upturned boat that was once called AMARANTH. Arms crossed, head tilted slightly, watching her with entirely black eyes. Curious.]
[She's never heard whales before. Except maybe on TV. It sounds kind of pretty. Echo-y. Like it means something, and she almost knows what it means, but she doesn't, and then it fades into a different tune that means something else. Maybe all whales sound like that. Maybe only dreamwhales do.
She hopes she doesn't get splinters from all the broken ships. It'd be hard to avoid them, if she walked in the sand too long. She tilts her head and reads the one he leans on.]
Is that your ship? [Slightly suspicious.] Did you sink all these?
[Oh, he asked her something. So, maybe she should answer.]
Oh! I don't really know how I got here. Maybe I sank too...
[Hmmm.] Not really. If you sank them because they made you mad.... Oh! Or is sinking things kind of your job? [Hmmm.] Or... I guess you could just be asking what I think about it, and you didn't sink anything. Maybe you just found them and gathered them up. Like... those ships in a bottle you see old professors make. So I guess that's okay, too.
[She may have kind of sorta burned part of her town down, once. What's morality, to a teenager?]
[Now she's just musing, but her musing isn't quite the same he usually sees. There are skips and leaps all throughout. It keeps him listening, and in the distance, the whales' voices are replaced by the steady rushing of waves, like whispers creeping across the sand.]
They all sink eventually. I might be there when they do, but I've often been there when they did not.
[ She doesn't see. She doesn't see, and doesn't doubt for a moment where she stands. The world is mist and shadows to her eyes, but nowhere else do mist and shadows hum quite the way they do here. Her steps halt when she feels her feet just peeking over the edge, when dust from the floating ruins crumbles underneath her weight quietly, falling like snow into cerulean nothingness.
Oh, but she mustn't let it crumble on her shoes, not when she will meet him again at last. They are still polished leather in her mind, brilliant stones lining buckles of gold. She will dance in them tonight. ]
Do you remember the young girl, love? She never told you, but her hands trembled, the first time she drew her blade across the bones... so, so many years ago.
[ Wistfully her fingers stroke the pale disc in her hands. She has already memorised every single line, from the moment she carved it. They are smooth and clean, and she holds the rune in front of her chest, as if she were offering it to the Void itself. ]
She can do so much better now, you made her so much better, love.
[He remembers. It has been centuries, it has been moments, it never mattered how much time has passed. Time is of no consequence to the Void, and barely of any for him. For her, on the other hand... well.
It isn't that she has grown old. That the polish has worn off, that neither her voice nor her hands are smooth anymore. Far more than that, what has contributed to his growing disinterest is that she has begun to be predictable. She's begun to use her powers with no regard for anyone but herself, and he's been tired of that for millennia. Neither devotion nor obsession have ever been enough to earn his favour or so much as his attention, and yet - and yet there's those moments. Moments when her brilliance still shines, moments when she's truly unpredictable in her destruction.
For those, he will humor her.
And so he appears, a blur of black she likely cannot see, but that makes no matter. She knows his voice, better than anyone alive, and he reaches out to accept her offering.]
You did well even then, despite the trembling hands.
[ The Void is bright, that much she still sees. The darkness must be where she finds him, that much she still remembers. Always, always hiding where the weak hearts and simple minds are too fearful to tread. But she came to him, all the way to the Far Continent, trembling only ever from excitement, never fear. But that was so long ago.
Too long ago, that is her measure of time for too many things now. Too long since the days of silk, no, no, no more such skin or fabrics or voice at all. Rough it is all now, like the weather. Like the way her beloved treats her. Every day she sets the altar, a dutiful wife's calling from his shrine; and so rarely does he answer her call.
Morsel or feast, it makes no matter what she offers. Too long ago, since he last came to dine, and at the end of the day only her birds sing their songs of gratitude.
It does not behoove a lady of her station to pine, and yet... ]
Will you show me more?
[ And yet the sound of her voice betrays the agonizing hopes of a much younger girl. ]
[ Each of his chosen makes the Void a different place. Some shattered, some growing. Hers has become a sprawling thing, a vibrant map of memories, a patchwork of different scenes from anywhere in the world at all, Dunwall sewers and vast plains littered with dry and huge and ancient bones, ship decks and caves deep in blood red stone.
Her question makes him smile, which is not a pretty thing by any means, though she cannot see. For all her magic, and despite her body bound by it to always recover again, she is not immune to the decay that beckons all mortal things. Not merely in body, either. The Void is far too immense for any human mind to stand, and yet she keeps reaching for it like a moth returning to the candleflame. It grinds her mind down to splinters, slowly but surely, and still she does not falter. Unrelenting in what she wants, even if it destroys everything else around her. (Herself too. Just in ways she doesn't care to acknowledge.) Does she accept this as a consequence, or does she not care? Or is she even aware of it anymore?
The rune vanishes between their hands. He lets her old and calloused ones fall upon his own instead, which are cold and always just a little bit damp, but otherwise hands just like a human's. He runs his thumb over her knuckles, the gesture imitated from someone else's intimacy that he does not share the sentiment of. ]
My dear, faithful Vera. What would you like to know?
[ And he stands before her, even though his feet have no visible ground to brace themselves against. Now he is not so tall, not imposing in figure, but they both know she knows better. Knows far more of what he is than most. Yes, he will give her more of his gifts, like he will give those who are drowning more rocks to break their bodies on. Of course. And she will be beautifully terrifying. ]
[The first thing Arno realizes upon waking is that his stomach has dropped to his feet, that the sense of being home amongst the crowds and the riots of Paris long gone, emptiness in its wake. It's a start that wakes him, hands to the cold concrete island under him, robes in tow as he stares out into the Void.
This is... not even the acceptance ceremony of the Brotherhood was like this. Arno swivels his head from one end to another, finding nothing familiar and the sound of the area, of the quiet that seeps into his bones, incredibly unsettling. Breathing in quietly does nothing to calm his nerves, and pulling into Eagle Vision only leaves a blue-ish hue to his sight, nothing else standing out.
The Frenchman walks forward a little, noting the edge of the island and the nothingness below. He has no idea where he is, and that doesn't sit well with him. With nowhere to go and no idea how to even leave, he's stuck, trying not to pace as he continuously looks for an exit somewhere.]
[And an exit the Void provides. As he approaches one side of the platform, pieces of stone from further out come together to form a path, winding upward. In the distant nothingness, there's the sillhouette of a great whale, suspended in the Void.
What Arno finds if he ascends much depends on him - but it may well be a familiar scene. Or, a familiar scene +1, a stranger with black eyes looking on.]
[Arno can only gape for a few seconds as he watches, as what a pathway it is, like steps leading somewhere he should not go, not with the whispers he can already hear in the back of his mind. He knows better, should know better, but his feet carry him the way the Void offers such an alluring tease, hoping foolishly to find a way out. His eyes watch what's ahead of him, leaping from one stone to the next, crouching on a few as he takes notice of the whale in the distance, twisting and turning whichever way he's directed.
What rises as Arno approaches the end is not the comfort of a home, or the peacefulness of a field that brings good memories. Instead, it is the tall and empty vastness of the Bastille during its siege, the chaos of the crowd missing, the fires burning and haunting him like marks of an old memory he cannot shake. And truly, has he ever really let go of what drives him still, to this very day?
The ghosts of his past would not say so. No, Arno Victor Dorian has taken his wrongs and wanted to set them right, seeks redemption in his actions for things that he had no control over in his life, blames himself to where he runs blindly towards anything that he believes will fix what he so desperately wants to change.
For him, it is the top of the Bastille, the high end of the old fortress overlooking the city, that becomes what he walks into. And in that space that is so incredibly and dauntingly familiar is a figure who is not, one whose eyes cause the Assassin to step back in alarm and on edge.]
What is this? [A beat, and he feels himself becoming incredibly wary of all around him.] Explain yourself!
[Today, the Outsider perches on the outer wall, with his feet planted against it, and regards the outrage with indifference.]
You're not a man to let the past go, despite the pain it causes you.
[It is obvious, and not just to one who sees forever. From the Void's point of view, Arno is surrounded by possibility, wrapped in tangled threads of potential tomorrows.]
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[He does his work on Earth diligently. His bloody, bloody work, where he hunts down those humans whose hearts are darkest so that the pure and innocent can survive another day. In a way, he's a dark being, a tool of destruction, used to deliver the final blow of justice in a very dangerous manner. His sword has tasted blood, and it will do so again, over and over...]
[He has finally started to rest for the night, getting in a few hours of sleep before he continues his work. But, when he wakes up, he finds himself not where he was when he went to sleep. Indeed, he finds himself in a...dream-like place. Pieces of land hover in the air, the thick smell of saline and oil hitting his nostrils. He turns his strange clock-eyed gaze over it all, eyebrows furrowing as he gets to his feet.]
W-what? [He has never seen this place before. He's never seen anything even like it, not on Earth, and not even in heaven.] Where...where is this?
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This is the Void.
[There's no inflection here, only a plain statement.]
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[The alarm and surprise rises horrendous as he steps back, trying to comprehend what is going on. Has...has he been kidnapped? He can't sense the other is a demon, which is strange, but...there's something very, very strange about all of this.]
What? Who...who are you? What is this?!
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[He'd prefer not to be attacked. It would be as pointless as it would be boring, so the Outsider just cants his head to the side and waits where he is, wondering if the angel will get his bearings.
He's not a demon, for sure. Powerful, but neither a good being nor an evil one. In fact, once Cheriour tries to sense anything, he might sense that the entirety of the place he is in feels much the same, like ancient sentient power.]
You don't need to worry. When you wake up you will be returned just where you were.
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[Yes, yes, this...feels like a dream. Though none of his dreams have been quite like this. He relaxes somewhat, but there's still a sense of wariness about this. Something about it seems off, and this strange fellow, with his strange eyes, is not helping. This entire place feels...powerful. Unknown. Like he's standing on the edge of a black hole, faced full front with it's intensity. Like the Lord he serves, but...older than that, somehow, which is quite an odd thought indeed.]
But if I am dreaming, why would I...return? Am I actually somewhere else?
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[No use getting into the details of how their dimensions really shouldn't be intersecting. That's really not the interesting part here, after all, it's not even a problem to solve or a choice to make.]
I understand you too are bound to a higher power.
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[Well, the man wasn't going and saying "YOU, ANGEL, LISTEN TO ME" so...perhaps he didn't know what he was, Cheriour thought. He stares before answering, folding his arms.]
Ah, yes! I'm an angel of the Lord, sir. And if you "too" are bound to a higher power, then...who do you serve, exactly? And what are you? You don't feel like a demon...
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[He wonders what an "angel" might be, and who his lord is, but he supposes he can find out.]
There are those who consider me a god, but my nature is more that of a ... representative, if you will.
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[Not a name he knows. Intriguing. The statement about being a "god" makes Cheriour frown slightly.]
Hmm. A representative for who, exactly?
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Right now she thinks she might be dreaming about a video game again. It's different than her usual ones. No gas cans or fire bombs. No ash. Water, though. Like the river that runs through their town. Deeper than that, though. No wading through to look for lost shoes, this time.
They're missing again. But it's alright. They always turn up eventually. She'll just have to look for them.
If this is a dream, she'll wake up. She always does. Sometimes it just takes longer, when the dream's better than school in the morning.]
Is there anyone else here? You don't have to be shy, you know...
[It feels like there is. Like someone watching over her. Like a God, maybe. Not Lord Kanti, of course. No gas cans. No fire bombs. But maybe of the river. There's water. And broken things.]
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In the distance, there's whalesong, but all around her, it's just water and sand, stones and debris. Beyond that? A greyish, blueish nothing. Like mist, perhaps, if you squint, but then if you squint hard enough, the Void can become anything right in front of your eyes.
And there he is. Half sitting on, half leaning against an upturned boat that was once called AMARANTH. Arms crossed, head tilted slightly, watching her with entirely black eyes. Curious.]
People don't usually come here by accident.
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She hopes she doesn't get splinters from all the broken ships. It'd be hard to avoid them, if she walked in the sand too long. She tilts her head and reads the one he leans on.]
Is that your ship? [Slightly suspicious.] Did you sink all these?
[Oh, he asked her something. So, maybe she should answer.]
Oh! I don't really know how I got here. Maybe I sank too...
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Perhaps. Or perhaps you dreamed your way here. The ship belongs to a man named Samuel. Would it bother you if I had sunk them all?
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[She may have kind of sorta burned part of her town down, once. What's morality, to a teenager?]
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They all sink eventually. I might be there when they do, but I've often been there when they did not.
[A shrug. What's morality to the Void?]
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Can you go anywhere you want?
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[That might be a smile.]
Can't you?
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Oh, but she mustn't let it crumble on her shoes, not when she will meet him again at last. They are still polished leather in her mind, brilliant stones lining buckles of gold. She will dance in them tonight. ]
Do you remember the young girl, love? She never told you, but her hands trembled, the first time she drew her blade across the bones... so, so many years ago.
[ Wistfully her fingers stroke the pale disc in her hands. She has already memorised every single line, from the moment she carved it. They are smooth and clean, and she holds the rune in front of her chest, as if she were offering it to the Void itself. ]
She can do so much better now, you made her so much better, love.
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It isn't that she has grown old. That the polish has worn off, that neither her voice nor her hands are smooth anymore. Far more than that, what has contributed to his growing disinterest is that she has begun to be predictable. She's begun to use her powers with no regard for anyone but herself, and he's been tired of that for millennia. Neither devotion nor obsession have ever been enough to earn his favour or so much as his attention, and yet - and yet there's those moments. Moments when her brilliance still shines, moments when she's truly unpredictable in her destruction.
For those, he will humor her.
And so he appears, a blur of black she likely cannot see, but that makes no matter. She knows his voice, better than anyone alive, and he reaches out to accept her offering.]
You did well even then, despite the trembling hands.
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Too long ago, that is her measure of time for too many things now. Too long since the days of silk, no, no, no more such skin or fabrics or voice at all. Rough it is all now, like the weather. Like the way her beloved treats her. Every day she sets the altar, a dutiful wife's calling from his shrine; and so rarely does he answer her call.
Morsel or feast, it makes no matter what she offers. Too long ago, since he last came to dine, and at the end of the day only her birds sing their songs of gratitude.
It does not behoove a lady of her station to pine, and yet... ]
Will you show me more?
[ And yet the sound of her voice betrays the agonizing hopes of a much younger girl. ]
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Her question makes him smile, which is not a pretty thing by any means, though she cannot see. For all her magic, and despite her body bound by it to always recover again, she is not immune to the decay that beckons all mortal things. Not merely in body, either. The Void is far too immense for any human mind to stand, and yet she keeps reaching for it like a moth returning to the candleflame. It grinds her mind down to splinters, slowly but surely, and still she does not falter. Unrelenting in what she wants, even if it destroys everything else around her. (Herself too. Just in ways she doesn't care to acknowledge.)
Does she accept this as a consequence, or does she not care? Or is she even aware of it anymore?
The rune vanishes between their hands. He lets her old and calloused ones fall upon his own instead, which are cold and always just a little bit damp, but otherwise hands just like a human's. He runs his thumb over her knuckles, the gesture imitated from someone else's intimacy that he does not share the sentiment of. ]
My dear, faithful Vera. What would you like to know?
[ And he stands before her, even though his feet have no visible ground to brace themselves against. Now he is not so tall, not imposing in figure, but they both know she knows better. Knows far more of what he is than most. Yes, he will give her more of his gifts, like he will give those who are drowning more rocks to break their bodies on. Of course.
And she will be beautifully terrifying. ]
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This is... not even the acceptance ceremony of the Brotherhood was like this. Arno swivels his head from one end to another, finding nothing familiar and the sound of the area, of the quiet that seeps into his bones, incredibly unsettling. Breathing in quietly does nothing to calm his nerves, and pulling into Eagle Vision only leaves a blue-ish hue to his sight, nothing else standing out.
The Frenchman walks forward a little, noting the edge of the island and the nothingness below. He has no idea where he is, and that doesn't sit well with him. With nowhere to go and no idea how to even leave, he's stuck, trying not to pace as he continuously looks for an exit somewhere.]
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What Arno finds if he ascends much depends on him - but it may well be a familiar scene. Or, a familiar scene +1, a stranger with black eyes looking on.]
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What rises as Arno approaches the end is not the comfort of a home, or the peacefulness of a field that brings good memories. Instead, it is the tall and empty vastness of the Bastille during its siege, the chaos of the crowd missing, the fires burning and haunting him like marks of an old memory he cannot shake. And truly, has he ever really let go of what drives him still, to this very day?
The ghosts of his past would not say so. No, Arno Victor Dorian has taken his wrongs and wanted to set them right, seeks redemption in his actions for things that he had no control over in his life, blames himself to where he runs blindly towards anything that he believes will fix what he so desperately wants to change.
For him, it is the top of the Bastille, the high end of the old fortress overlooking the city, that becomes what he walks into. And in that space that is so incredibly and dauntingly familiar is a figure who is not, one whose eyes cause the Assassin to step back in alarm and on edge.]
What is this? [A beat, and he feels himself becoming incredibly wary of all around him.] Explain yourself!
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You're not a man to let the past go, despite the pain it causes you.
[It is obvious, and not just to one who sees forever. From the Void's point of view, Arno is surrounded by possibility, wrapped in tangled threads of potential tomorrows.]
Where will all your running take you?