Hazel Tasker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
turningcolors) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
nexus_crossings2018-11-01 08:16 am
turningcolors) wrote in nexus_crossings2018-11-01 08:16 am
Age Old Advice (Seasonal Post)
A mist has settled over the Nexus this morning.
The fog billows and wisps, keeping destinations hidden from view. Muffling the noise of the plaza, stifling everything into a feeling of bleak isolation. Those who persevere will find a warm orange glow drawing them near. At either end of the Plaza--one near the sprawling parks close to the Wilds and the other closer to the beginnings of the urban sprawl--are two oasis from the creeping cold and mists. Hazel has taken the flame from the bonfire she lit at the Equinox that has burned steadily ever since and spread it out among several torches making up the perimeter of these areas now. The bonfire is long gone, but these two areas remain. When she came into the season she was a roaring blaze. So much to prove. With her place cemented here, she has gotten down to her actual work.
The Autumn spirit is seated on a bench in one of the torch lit circles holding a conversation with a person that's difficult to make out. IN fact, when someone approaches, they will find it's a spirit she is cavorting with. After only a few seconds the figure dissolves into the selfsame mist people have sought out these places to escape from. Hazel turns to her new audience.
"If you could talk to a lost loved one just once more, who would you want to see? What advice would you ask from a loved one deigning to cross the veil to see you?"
((Anyone who chooses to participate may choose to either speak to Hazel in general about the question she's posing or if the player is so inclined Hazel will conjure up the spirit of a lost loved one to speak to your character. Please DM me in DW or discord if you choose to have a loved one appear so we can hash out what you want to do. Curses and Blessings are still available as well. Happy Day of the Dead, folks ;) ))
The fog billows and wisps, keeping destinations hidden from view. Muffling the noise of the plaza, stifling everything into a feeling of bleak isolation. Those who persevere will find a warm orange glow drawing them near. At either end of the Plaza--one near the sprawling parks close to the Wilds and the other closer to the beginnings of the urban sprawl--are two oasis from the creeping cold and mists. Hazel has taken the flame from the bonfire she lit at the Equinox that has burned steadily ever since and spread it out among several torches making up the perimeter of these areas now. The bonfire is long gone, but these two areas remain. When she came into the season she was a roaring blaze. So much to prove. With her place cemented here, she has gotten down to her actual work.
The Autumn spirit is seated on a bench in one of the torch lit circles holding a conversation with a person that's difficult to make out. IN fact, when someone approaches, they will find it's a spirit she is cavorting with. After only a few seconds the figure dissolves into the selfsame mist people have sought out these places to escape from. Hazel turns to her new audience.
"If you could talk to a lost loved one just once more, who would you want to see? What advice would you ask from a loved one deigning to cross the veil to see you?"
((Anyone who chooses to participate may choose to either speak to Hazel in general about the question she's posing or if the player is so inclined Hazel will conjure up the spirit of a lost loved one to speak to your character. Please DM me in DW or discord if you choose to have a loved one appear so we can hash out what you want to do. Curses and Blessings are still available as well. Happy Day of the Dead, folks ;) ))
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And indeed behind Amelia the mists swirl. Figures who are not recognizable but clearly human seem to be walking here and there just out of sight. They could as easily be other Nexus denizens trying to make their ways about. Amelia will have no way of knowing.
But she hears a tired sigh, the beleaguered breath of a man about to give a lecture he does not want to be responsible for yet having too much responsibility to leave the words unsaid. The mists drift inward from the torchlit perimeter. Slowly coalescing into the vague visage of a man bent slightly by age. His gait drags on one side as though he was injured once and never quite healed properly from it. The mists only hint at the regalia of his armor but Amelia will know it all well enough to fill in the gaps with her own memories. It is his face, creased and stern yet somehow compassionate that takes the most detailed form out of all of his figure.
He lifts a hand to scratch at his beard before he extends it toward her in a greeting from her world.
"Mind who you call stubborn or I might be inclined to set the record straight on which of us has it more in spades."
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It's difficult not to tear up at least a little upon seeing her friend again. It's been half a decade since she last saw him, but the pain of his loss will always weigh heavily on her heart. It was never her fault that he died and she finally understands that, but the cascade of events that led up to and followed his death make this meeting bittersweet. Nothing can change what's been done or make right the horrors visited on this man's family and friends - and that is a pain that Amelia is certain she'll never be free of.
"We all have our faults," she jokes, rubbing at her eyes with the back of a hand. She shifts her weight and stands taller in front of him, wanting him to see she's grown up at least a little since they met. She may still be stubborn, but she's not the hot-tempered teen she was when they were catching criminals in the streets of Masarra together. "Some are simply more useful than others."
Not that being stubborn was always a good thing, but it probably didn't matter much right now.
A soft sigh falls from her lips and what little of a smile she had managed melts into a frown. "Things are so different here," she begins slowly, her gaze dropping from Frederick's face to his misty armor. Her frown deepens as she continues. "I've had to start over so many times and I feel... stuck. I can't go home, but I'm tired of having to pick up the pieces of my shattered heart time and again." She rubs at her eyes again and then folds her arms carefully in front of her chest. "Where did you turn, when things were dark in Masarra? Who helped you keep your head above water and how did you find them?"
It's a lot to ask of someone so quickly, but if her loved ones are following her around as Hazel has suggested... Well, Frederick should at least have enough details to get started, right?
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So much of Frederick's past never came to bear until his death. So many soldiers, old and aged as he had been, veterans of the Great War came to attend his funeral. Whatever man Frederick Blake was to the people of Masarra he was Another man in a time before that.
"When I learned the atrocities my people committed I fled my home. Abandoned my family, let my wife think me dead. I devoted myself to helping the innocents hurt by the ravages of war and traded my royal sigil and noble life for one of humble poverty instead."
If he had ended up in a place like the Nexus? Frederick cannot know what this place is really, what strange otherworldly things it houses beyond the mists. But for ill or for good he would have simply made a home here and never looked back. Just as he had when he made Masarra his home.
"Home is what you make of it, Amelia. If you cannot go back, stop trying. Stop dwelling and look forward. You are missing much of what is here in front of you when you live in the past.""
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A frown touches her lips as she drops her gaze to her feet. "After what happened back then... I can't blame you for leaving. There were atrocities on all sides, as there always is in war." It doesn't excuse what Frederick may have done, or what she knows everyone involved with the Great War committed in the name of their sovereigns. But Amelia is a pragmatic woman and as terrible as it all is... she gets it.
"I've given up everything that came before this place. My family is as well off as I could make them and they think I'm dead." Her frown deepens as she grips her upper arms in a self-soothing gesture. "I'm not looking back anymore, because there's nothing to look back to. At least not in Masarra. But I'm stuck in a loop here, in this place. I try and I try, and I fail every time. Despite all my efforts and how much I've grown, I still fail every time I try to grow and become more and I can't figure out why." She exhales a heavy, defeated sigh. It's something about herself, that much is certain, but as she can only see her own side of things, she doesn't know what it is.
"How do I break out of this pattern of survival to live for the first time in my life?" A breath, and she looks up and into the mists. "Without someone to live for outside of myself... I don't know what to do."
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Frederick was never much of a farmer but they all are raised to know the basics. Since nobility left him with little in the way of practical skills, most of his services went toward security and affairs similar enough to the military. Things he knew.
"One thing you're sure as Dreams not is a quitter. Don't disappoint me."
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Can the multiverse be fair for a single instant?
Amelia sighs heavily and shakes her head, letting her hands fall to her sides. If Frederick knew the half of it, he'd already be disappointed. She hasn't quit, but she certainly hasn't been giving it her all since she made her family noble and that was long before she came to the Nexus.
"I have no direction here, Frederick, and I don't know how to find it, either."
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"Were your family unhappy when you began your work? They were getting by. Thriving, even. But you saw what more they could have and you worked to that end. And now look at you. You have a home and necessities here. You could even say you're thriving in a sense. Eating and drinking fine food and teas. Yet there could be so much more for you. When was the last time you caught up with your friends here? You could have a thriving social structure. You could have a home here. And if you tell yourself you don't need it, that's fine. But the woman you could become does. Someone who is happy, stable, and who knows these streets by heart."
It's more than he meant to say but Amelia as ever is nothing if not good at getting what she wants. What she needs, in this case.
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But what Frederick offers as a vision for her future... it's something Amelia wants more than going "home". To be known, to be remembered by those she cares for most. It was always her real dream, even if she didn't know it. She wanted her family to be more than they were because she thought they deserved it, but she also wanted them to have a reason to remember her after that journey began. To have her fighting and generous spirit remembered above the deeds that pushed everyone else forward. It's not a thing she can have here if she keeps hiding from others, and she knows it.
"The streets move as they please," she jokes softly, wiping at a few tears in her eyes with one hand. "I'll have to take friends with me to make sure I don't get lost in them."
Her smile is pained, but sincere, as she looks up again to meet Frederick's gaze. No matter what the old man thinks of himself, he'll always be a loyal and true friend in her eyes. The road ahead of her is still uncertain and will require more of her than she can guess, but it'll be worth it if she can make even half of what he offers come true.
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And if it took his getting up from the Endless Dream to do so, well, Frederick doesn't much mind the journey. Looking back may not be something he's good at but the ragtag group he assembled so many moons ago in Masarra were as close to a family as he had in many a season. He does not mind tending to them in these small ways.
"I think it's best we part now, before this...strangeness. Fades on its own. You've had enough sudden farewells. At least let this one be planned."
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"Thank you for coming here, Frederick," she says softly. "I'm not one to look often to the past like this, but I'm grateful to have done so. Rest well, my friend, and may you find the peace you deserve."
She puts a hand on her chest and bows her head and shoulders in deference to him. It's an act of respect he deserves no matter his feelings on the subject. When she rises, she meets his gaze and then motions to the mists and fog surrounding them. It's time for him to go back, and it's time for her to go forward.
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It's the last thing he says. A final lesson to impart. Sir Frederick Blake turns and strides back out toward the perimeter of the torchlight with a purpose even as his form shimmers. It will not break--he will not let it break--until he's crossed the threshold. When his plated boots pass through they dissolve into the mist as does every last bit of him once he crosses the torches.
He says nothing more nor does he turn back to regard Amelia again. It would only cause both of them pain.
From the bench just off center of the circle of torches Hazel watches all of this, though what she thinks on the subject is hard to say. She regards Amelia only after the figure is gone away again into the realms Beyond.
"Did you find what you were looking for?"
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When Hazel speaks, the rogue turns and nods slowly. "I think so." I hope so. "Only time will tell if I'm able to use it properly."
She takes in another breath, and then inclines her head and shoulders to Hazel as she did to Frederick. This woman, whoever and whatever she is, has given her a gift more valuable than most others she's ever received. It's something that deserves a great amount of respect in return.
"What can I offer in return for your help?" she asks. A powerful being may not need anything from a mortal woman like herself, but the question is worth asking. "You've done a great service for me, and I would like to do the same in return."
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Hazel peers out into the mists with curious eyes when Amelia looks away from her. The gesture is respectful and this puts he spirit at ease.
"I look forward to your endeavors, whatever they may be."