finalflight | THIS IS JUST A PSL NOW I GUESS;

[Cutting herbs isn't nearly as foreign to her as he may think. In her adoptive parent's garden, they cultivated and grew Vietnamese herbs such as heart leaf, pennywort, perilla, and the like. Shame they wouldn't have any of that here unless she can be surprised. Those herbs are better grown in warmer conditions. She works deftly and carefully and some tufts of green start to peek out of her satchel.]

Do I sound that different here? Oh, probably. I haven't given it much thought.

[Vietnamese first and then English later. She's still more than proficient at the former. The latter was learned through lessons, lots of Hollywood blockbusters she watched with River, and BBC dramas. Her word choice and cadence are flowery for a reason.]

[He might not comment on it, but he notices her familiarity with cutting herbs; he thinks she could have mentioned any experience earlier and save him the breath. But that's just him being a grump about things, as per usual.

The branches of the trees overhead shudder a little.]

You sound like a foreigner, yes. [Weir might not be flowery, but his cadence is that of a BBC drama, tbh.] You're lucky the people of the Vale aren't much the questioning sort. Otherwise you'd be subject to the friendliest interrogation you could stomach.

[He can't imagine. That just sounds awful to him. He opens his mouth to say something else off-handedly while he stuffs herbs into his satchel, but stops when-

The atmosphere changes, so very subtly. Like a storm about to roll in; like something in the veil tearing open. Like a dream starting to overcome two people just trying to collect herbs--

Ah, hell.]

Wait. Do you feel that?

[that's, um, new]

[Lucy stops from cutting an herb halfway. A leaf drops to the ground as she gathers her bearings.]

... Yes.

[Her skin pulls underneath.]

Yes, we do. Did we disturb something? Catch its attention?

Edited 2023-07-01 18:01 (UTC)

I don't know. This has never happened before.

[In the handful of months that he has lived in Turner's Vale, working as a hunter, he is brought into the deep recesses of the forest more than once. Deeper and more frequently than anyone else should bother -- he is a hunter, after all, and there is no better place to catch game. Or to gather wild vegetation.

But he has never felt this happen. Why here? Why now? The only difference is that he has someone with him, but he has never heard tales of the villagers experiencing something similar when they tread into the forest, even though they do not stray too far from the northern path.

Immediately, his eyes flicker over to Lucy. She's the only difference, isn't she? A woman from another world; a woman that isn't supposed to be here. Weir cannot sense things with accuracy in this forest, not when he is surrounded by life force at every turn (the trees in this place are rife with them, bafflingly), but he can feel the "eyes" of this place turn towards her, attentions fixed on the anomaly that she is.]

You're not supposed to be here.

[He says, suddenly, like it is a fresh revelation... because it is. Weir's soon up on his feet and crossing over, grabbing her by the wrist and trying to tug them both back towards the road in which they've wandered off from.]

And I don't want to find out what happens if you linger.

Ah—

[When her wrist is grabbed, she hears Fang hissing in her head and Flora crying out indignantly (it's too much like those wretched humans who called themselves her mother and father). But Lucinda, aside from stumbling and barely saving herself from tripping doesn't resist at first.

Is this the rock being overturned?]

Wait.

[Internally, Lucinda soothes her friends and then wiggles her wrist from Weir.]

You don't understand this world completely, do you?

[Hints of it from their conversations, the way he treats Turner's Vale and its people, this very forest...]

Do you think it's trying to understand me?

[Touching her, he can nearly feel the entities beneath her skin writhing in protest against his proximity. Her questions lance through him, and she manages to loose her wrist because he practically balks at them.

If only because she's right.]

I've only said that this has never happened before. You want to stand there and ask questions or do you want to-

[Leave. Whatever is turning itself inward, whatever this forest might be doing, he instinctively knows in the marrow of his bones that it isn't anything good.

And he's right.

A wind passes through, cold and scented like those bright blue flowers, the Vale Sapphires that dot the valley, the town, the forest... And in the wake of that, comes the fog, swirling in at their feet at first, then overtaking them both completely.

It's so thick that, when it floods the space between them, he loses sight of her.]

Shit- Lucinda?!

[Lucinda flinches as the fog overtakes them separating her from Weir. The flowery scent is unlike Flora's and it fills her senses as she hugs her cloak around her from the sudden chill.]

𝓣𝓱𝓲𝓼 𝓯𝓸𝓻𝓮𝓼𝓽 𝔀𝓪𝓷𝓽𝓼 𝓼𝓸𝓶𝓮𝓽𝓱𝓲𝓷𝓰.

𝓓𝓸𝓮𝓼 𝓲𝓽 𝔀𝓪𝓷𝓽 𝓾𝓼?

𝓘𝓽 𝔀𝓪𝓷𝓽𝓼 𝓱𝓮𝓻.

[She does not panic. Does not shout. Her mind has been trained to observe and calculate regardless of the distress of her spirits for her safety. She wills Flora to calm down and start fighting the scent with her own. Lucinda shouts back sharply.]

Weir! Can you follow Flora's scent?

[Flora's scent is soothing and enticing; the more she flourishes through Lucinda's skin the more her aroma becomes like sweet fruit. But they're at the mercy of this forest so who knows if it can even cut through?]

[The scent is strong but familiar enough that he doesn’t even register it as strange until he hears Lucinda’s exclamation.]

What?!

[Flora’s scent— Perhaps he could if he tried. Perhaps he can, just the faintest whiff of it in the air. But Weir, as always, is caught between what action will make sense for him to launch into — would finding her amid this mess help him get out of it faster? If the forest wants her, then why should he stand in its way? The choices he makes are so, so less forgiving when danger rolls itself into play.

He hesitates, deciding on what to do, and it’s exactly this passing moment of inaction that has the forest deciding that no, she must not belong here, not if a native of the Vale treats her in such a way.

And so the fog roils. The scent is impossibly thick. And then… it all fades away, dissipating like smoke evaporating; the air clears, another breeze pushes through the flit the flower-perfumed air away.

Weir and Lucinda are left standing there. They can see each other clearly now, and the way he has his hand hovering over one of his knives. But the forest is not a forest any longer. It is the scene from a memory — and not Weir’s.]

What the bloody fuck is happening.

[It's hard to say what would have happened had Weir abandoned her completely. She probably wouldn't have been surprised. Hurt? Perhaps a little in the mildly offended way. Lucinda is more than prepared to act alone— No, not alone. They would all act together.

The fog clears and she sees Weir clearly. They weren't too far off from one another after all. It's everything else that she's concerned about and he is, audibly, too. What is this memory before them?

It's still a forest of sorts but the trees are different. It looks like nighttime but it feels so...]

... It's humid.

[Her skin is crawling. Her friends are oddly silent. She shrugs off her cloak and folds it in her arms while glancing around. The trees now look thinner and that's because they're in groves of tall bamboo that towers above them. They have an eerie iridescent green color and they're so dense it's difficult to see through them and above. In fact, trying to look at the sky feels more like looking at an inky dark expanse.

Her heart stops.

She remembers this place.]

... Weir? We need to move. [Lucinda's voice remains calm but she's gripping her folded cloak tightly.]

Don't run though. Just walk and keep walking.

Edited 2023-07-02 06:22 (UTC)

[It’s humid. The temperature is not at all suited for his own cloak, his own leathers, but that’s not at all what he’s concerned — instead, he only sees the strange “trees” before him, tall and skinny and unlike anything he’s ever known before. This is not the forest he knows.

What is this.

What’s happened. Is this like before—]

Shit! What did you do this time?!

[And though he gives no indication to whom he’s speaking to, perhaps confusing for Lucy, the voice in his head unfurls and buzzes and bursts to the surface. Laughing.]

BLAMING us? This is your forest, River-child. Not us!

Don’t lie to me! The forest has not once done this in—

In the few months that you have lived here? Oh, you are SO informed about your new world, are you?

[Sorry, Lucy. You’ll have to try again. His focus is elsewhere.]

[Lucy swears under her breath, her iron patience starting to chip but only slightly. She moves to Weir's side and shakes his shoulder sharply.]

Weir. Do not go crazy on me. We need to move.

I've been here before.

[The medium's eyes dart back and forth. And then she sees it. She sees them. Shadows with softly glowing eyes between the groves of bamboo. They're watching them, they're watching her, they know that she can see—]

[He starts when she grasps hold of his shoulder and shakes him, raising up his forearm to swat her away instinctively. His jaw is set, and his eyes rake across her.]

What do you mean you've been here before?

[But she's grounded him in the here and now, no longer focusing on the voice in his head, who still rumbles with amusement with a low, piercing static.]

What is this? Are we in danger?

[The words spill from his lips right before he sees those shadows in the "trees". Watching, waiting, and what the actual fuck.]

Maybe. Most likely.

[The shadows do not move but they keep watching the both of them as if assessing which one to go to first. They're very focused on Lucinda though.]

... This is a place I only saw when I was... [Lucinda grits her teeth.]

Confined. It's a place between the living and the dead; a place that I was most susceptible to as a medium in my dreams.

But we are both awake. This is still the forest we walked into. So the only way to find out more is to move.

Confined?

[Gods, what is this? A place between the living and the dead, full of these... spirits? Their eyes focused on them both, but so much more on Lucinda. He should be glad for that, were it not for this being utterly confusing, either way.

Weir is adept, at least, at not losing himself to either fear or panic on a whim -- his outburst of frustration and surprise at the Polymath notwithstanding. He was allowed that much, okay.]

I don't understand. Are you saying this place is a recollection of yours?

[He will follow if she leads the way, at least, each step feeling so leaden.]

It's a possibility.

[Lucinda begins to walk through the clearest path. Beneath their feet are leaves from the bamboo, rustling softly as their footsteps tread across. The shadows continue to stare.]

... This world of yours or at least this forest... What is the aim, I wonder?

[To kill her? Eject her? The latter would be preferable so she could theoretically return home but who knows at this point? Weir certainly doesn't understand what he's dealing with outside of the Vale.]

[He follows closely behind, his hand still clasped around the hilt of one of his daggers.]

The forest has never done this before.

[He repeats what he said to the voice in his head.]

I've hunted in this forest countless times. Which would mean whatever might be happening, you are its cause.

You and I are both asking why. If we must, we can start with me being the cause.

But why am I the cause? Why am I just causing this reaction here and not in the village?

[This bamboo forest looks neverending. The sky is so black. The plants are so green and barely glowing but just enough that Lucinda can recognize the pathway she has traveled through in her dreams. There are different shadows some more well-defined, some not. They continue to gaze upon these travelers. There are a few that stand idly by, paying them no mind.

Her shoulders relax somewhat. They are not aiming for her or him immediately and it looks like they have no intent to.]

Whatever the reason is, now it places me here. [Her voice grows less harsh and more... Tired.]

Maybe it's trying to dig deeply to cause a wound.

Because nothing bad ever happens in that blasted village.

[It's too colorful, too perfect. The people, too effusive and all too eager to humor even a man of his countenance. If something bad were to happen, that would have gone against his wish when he wielded the Heart that now lies beating irregularly in his chest. It would have not have made sense.

But the forest that lies beyond the village, couching it on all sides, perhaps... the same did not apply. But why such a reaction to Lucinda?

Well. He barely has time to consider these thoughts, because the shadows that he sees as they move? They send a chill up his spine, again and again. Weir has encountered plenty of terrible things in the Pit, many far more disconcerting than this, but what he lays eyes upon now amid this foreign forest of bamboo is otherworldly in a different way. As though he is truly getting a peek of what it is like to live through the eyes of an esper.]

Maybe it's trying to get you to leave. [His voice grows more grave in turn.] You arrived via the forest; perhaps it knows that you are an anomaly.

But why did I have to be brought along with you?

To be a witness? To facilitate the change with your presence as well?

[There are so many questions between them and yet the one who should have the answers is also out of his depth.

After a minute or so passes, Lucinda stops midstep holding up her hand to make Weir pause as well.]

Listen.

[From a short distance the sound of tears being shed brings life into this bamboo world. Lucinda's face is expressionless but there's a spark of recognition in her eyes.]

... Let's go that way.

[He doesn't bloody know. "To fuck with him" would be just as valid of a theory as any.

Weir stops when Lucinda halts, too, his entire body tense. He hears the sound of crying lost in the depths of the slender trees.]

Why? Is that... [Maybe it's trying to dig deeply to cause a wound.] ...your voice?

[Ah.]

Yes.

[Her voice is barely a whisper now. She cuts through a narrow path of bamboo that is clear of ghosts and stops at a clearing. There, a young girl, perhaps no more than 11 or 12 years, dressed in a simple cotton tunic and trousers is on her knees crying. She's a skinny little thing and her black hair falls to the side of her face. Several shadows stand around her, staring and waiting.

Huyen was a pitiful child.

Lucinda says nothing for a few seconds and when she finally does speak up (the crying girl does not notice; the two adults do not exist in her periphery) her voice is detached. Emotionless.

She has to be because it's clear this forest wants to wound her.]

... Even though I feared this place, I could at least cry here. At least there were ghosts who could hear me.

𝓟𝓸𝓸𝓻 𝓗𝓾𝔂𝓮𝓷.

𝓨𝓸𝓾 𝓼𝓱𝓸𝓾𝓵𝓭𝓷'𝓽 𝓱𝓪𝓿𝓮 𝓽𝓸 𝓻𝓮𝓵𝓲𝓿𝓮 𝓽𝓱𝓲𝓼.

𝓦𝓮 𝔀𝓲𝓼𝓱 𝔀𝓮 𝓯𝓸𝓾𝓷𝓭 𝔂𝓸𝓾 𝓼𝓸𝓸𝓷𝓮𝓻.

[This scene is not one he should be privy to. He knows this. This is something raw, and emotional, and kept private — this is something that will tug at the heartstrings, and Weir, though not wholly immune to empathy, does not think he can afford that right now.

Not with her, this variable that he does not know what to do with, this woman who is asking too many questions of this world that he cannot answer. He can’t afford to care. Practically, and for his own sake, he simply cannot.

He tries to steel himself against the sight. He takes up a low, detached tone, and yet it still cannot rival Lucinda’s own. His eyes cut to her, and he finds the sight so, so eerie.]

What is this place? And all of these spirits? Is this what you saw when you were younger?

This place is something akin to a limbo. Somewhere between dreams and death. I was very susceptible to finding myself here.

[Huyen's crying turns into shuddering before she sits up, wipes her eyes, and stands, dragging her feet through the endless grove, muttering at the ghosts to move aside. They do. Lucinda follows her and the shadows keep the path clear for her and Weir.]

And I was very susceptible to all kinds of ghosts. The ones who want to give their final words to their loved ones. To use me as their voice. Or I could be an instrument to express their anger and vileness.

𝓢𝓸 𝓼𝓮𝓵𝓯𝓲𝓼𝓱.

𝓢𝓸 𝓭𝓮𝓼𝓹𝓮𝓻𝓪𝓽𝓮.

𝓛𝓲𝓴𝓮 𝓪 𝓶𝓸𝓽𝓱 𝓽𝓸 𝓪 𝓯𝓵𝓪𝓶𝓮.

All these spirits Weir? I still see them, at least in my world. Here was a place many of them congregated and I found myself stuck in. There is a reason why I was confined.

Look.

[A tall shadow approaches the girl. It's glowing white eyes are menacing and it drives the other spirits away. Huyen backs away but the shadow's hand grabs her by the wrist and it hisses with glee.]

𝗟⃥𝘌̸𝗧⃥ 𝗠⃥𝘌̸ 𝘜̸𝗦⃥𝘌̸ 𝘠̸𝗢⃥𝘜̸𝗥⃥ 𝗣⃥𝘙̸𝗘⃥𝘛̸𝗧⃥𝘠̸ 𝘌̸𝗬⃥𝘌̸𝗦⃥,̸ 𝘠̸𝗢⃥𝘜̸𝗥⃥ 𝗣⃥𝘙̸𝗘⃥𝘛̸𝗧⃥𝘠̸ 𝘍̸𝗔⃥𝘊̸𝗘⃥,̸ 𝘠̸𝗢⃥𝘜̸𝗥⃥ 𝗦⃥𝘞̸𝗘⃥𝘌̸𝗧⃥ 𝗟⃥𝘐̸𝗣⃥𝘚̸.⃥ 𝗦⃥𝘏̸𝗔⃥𝘓̸𝗟⃥ 𝗜⃥ 𝗕⃥𝘖̸𝗥⃥𝘙̸𝗢⃥𝘞̸ 𝘐̸𝗧⃥ 𝗡⃥𝘖̸𝗪⃥?̸ 𝘗̸𝗟⃥𝘌̸𝗔⃥𝘚̸𝗘⃥ 𝗦⃥𝘞̸𝗘⃥𝘌̸𝗧⃥ 𝗧⃥𝘏̸𝗜⃥𝘕̸𝗚⃥,̸ 𝘐̸ 𝘞̸𝗜⃥𝘓̸𝗟⃥ 𝗕⃥𝘖̸𝗥⃥𝘙̸𝗢⃥𝘞̸ 𝘑̸𝗨⃥𝘚̸𝗧⃥ 𝗙⃥𝘖̸𝗥⃥ 𝗔⃥ 𝗠⃥𝘐̸𝗡⃥𝘜̸𝗧⃥𝘌̸.⃥

[The girl struggles and whimpers, shaking her head furiously. This is the type of sight that would make someone want to jump in between her and the vile ghost. But Lucinda makes no motion for it. Her eyes remain distant and detached.

It has already happened. She cannot change it. What ifs are poisonous.]

[Even now, the Polymath's voice reverberates in his head.]

̷L̷̷O̷̷O̷̷K̷ ̷A̷̷T̷ ̷A̷̷L̷̷L̷ ̷O̷̷F̷ ̷T̷̷H̷̷I̷̷S̷, ̷R̷̷I̷̷V̷̷E̷̷R̷-̷C̷̷H̷̷I̷̷L̷̷D̷. A true peek into someone's past is a rare thing. Covet it as precious information, learn what you will from it. Oh, we envy you in this MOMENT.

There's nothing to envy. [He murmurs, and he quite means that. The Ceaseless Pit has all manner of monsters and things that can kill. There are gasses, wisping about at the lower levels, that can cause hallucinations much like his one, paralyzing mind instead of body, until the individual becomes lost and withers away to madness.

Is that what's happening to them now? How long will they be trapped in this? How long until they can leave? Why should he envy being stuck in these circumstances, far beyond his knowable control?]

What did you do?

[That, he says to Lucinda. That spirit, the one grabbing Huyen's hand, it's still a right intimating thing. Especially for a small child. However, Weir knows that this is little more than recollection, too; even if he did have a mind to step in (surprise, he does not), he wouldn't. This would change nothing. It isn't interactable, is it?

Like hell if he's risking himself first if it is. Lucinda's lead is the one to follow for now.]

Did you allow spirits like that to take you? To control you?

[Despite the illusion the forest has trapped them in, forcing them to witness the pitiful child, Lucinda's mind feels sharp and polished as steel. It's nothing more than a mental attack and she's been through such trials before.]

I tried to fight them off, as best as I could. Sometimes I was able to run.

[Huyen breaks free of the shadow's grip and runs away. The shadow follows.]

But I would only know if I was successful once I woke up.

[Above them, the ink-black sky begins to twist and blink changing from a void to a ceiling. The scenery around them changes as if waking from a dream. Blink once and the two of them see the single window where the branch of a flowering tree peeks through. Blink twice, they see a single bed, expensive but useless furniture. Blink once again, and they see the pitiful girl with cuffs around both ankles and long chains that match the perimeter of the room. She listlessly lays on the floor, unmoving.

Unlike the bamboo forest and the numerous shadows... It's this place that temporarily stings Lucinda. She flinches. Swallows. Takes a deep breath.

She never wanted to return here.]

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