This is what your life costs everyone else; this is how much we hate you.
Famous last words, if anyone else had been around to hear them. Definitely the kind to have him swept out to sea without a funeral. Sacrifices for the Koronokto get their rites before, not after, if they get anything at all. The privilege to die for their city, Cael supposes. The immortality of returning to a well of magic, being used, cycling through for the betterment of their world.
Or it's destruction.
There is no greater consciousness, hitting the water. No lights in tunnels. There is a slowing of time, moments to take in the glassy heat at his back, a smell like every stick of incense and every side of pork upended into the fire. The fat of their glutted wealth burning on a pyre.
House Dane burns, and it is his doing, and he closes his eyes for the water while Kieran drags him close. He knows the peace of salt air stripping his skin, and then it is over.
And then it is starting anew.
The black of the sea is the black of unbeing, until sensation filters in. It's a curious, pregnant thing: at first he thinks he feels out of place because he should be dead, then those feelings elaborate from the nebulous wrong to the specific. An uncomfortable pulling sensation in his mouth and nose, some fixed object opening around each of his arms. When he opens his eyes there's a film of unseeing, a wash of too-bright light, the curvature of--
Cael finds his body floating in some kind of tunnel; glass all around, a cap above his searching hand. He pushes on it to move down in the water, closer to level with someone staring in through the glass. It's nothing he recognizes, and he brings a fist down at their face. When it doesn't immediately free him, he reaches back, finds the opposite side of the structure and thuds a surprisingly thick boot in its place, beating at the clear barrier until shouted instruction and lack of oxygen forces him to stop.
With the cap still in place, water starts to drain, drawing him to sit at the bottom of whatever this is, more exhausted than hostile, but eying the offered hands warily when someone swings the panel open.
item prep and specimen library ◊
Not generally one to let it show, Cael has no idea what any of these people are talking about. He just knows they're being directed up a wide hall, toward something called a pod, and that begs the question of what they're not being shown.
He's gleaned a few things from his immediate time here:
Something had gone horribly wrong. No one seems to know who he is. It is impossible to move quietly in big squelching boots.
At the end of the line heading toward the dock, someone would find a pair of soggy hiking boots, as if the last of their group had vaporized up out of them. The first door had given him the kind of fight that meant it either couldn't be opened, or couldn't be opened quickly and quietly; the next, beyond the caved-in set of stairs, gave way easily. Dust moved along the air, and he held his soggy sleeve his mouth to keep from coughing.
It's a place to start, the drip of his barbaric trousers mixing with the light detritus on the floor. His tracks are otherwise dried, going from wet footprints to clear spots in the dust, as he picks through empty boxes, ties a scrap of gold fabric across his mouth and nose, and uses the shelves and dim light from the hall to find a south-facing door, poised to delve deeper into the rooms.
[ Cael has a full profile with his history and permissions, and feel free to ping me on discord or plurk if you have other questions. ]
Cael Lupei | OTA | Tube arrival and bunker exploration
This is what your life costs everyone else; this is how much we hate you.
Famous last words, if anyone else had been around to hear them. Definitely the kind to have him swept out to sea without a funeral. Sacrifices for the Koronokto get their rites before, not after, if they get anything at all. The privilege to die for their city, Cael supposes. The immortality of returning to a well of magic, being used, cycling through for the betterment of their world.
Or it's destruction.
There is no greater consciousness, hitting the water. No lights in tunnels. There is a slowing of time, moments to take in the glassy heat at his back, a smell like every stick of incense and every side of pork upended into the fire. The fat of their glutted wealth burning on a pyre.
House Dane burns, and it is his doing, and he closes his eyes for the water while Kieran drags him close. He knows the peace of salt air stripping his skin, and then it is over.
And then it is starting anew.
The black of the sea is the black of unbeing, until sensation filters in. It's a curious, pregnant thing: at first he thinks he feels out of place because he should be dead, then those feelings elaborate from the nebulous wrong to the specific. An uncomfortable pulling sensation in his mouth and nose, some fixed object opening around each of his arms. When he opens his eyes there's a film of unseeing, a wash of too-bright light, the curvature of--
Cael finds his body floating in some kind of tunnel; glass all around, a cap above his searching hand. He pushes on it to move down in the water, closer to level with someone staring in through the glass. It's nothing he recognizes, and he brings a fist down at their face. When it doesn't immediately free him, he reaches back, finds the opposite side of the structure and thuds a surprisingly thick boot in its place, beating at the clear barrier until shouted instruction and lack of oxygen forces him to stop.
With the cap still in place, water starts to drain, drawing him to sit at the bottom of whatever this is, more exhausted than hostile, but eying the offered hands warily when someone swings the panel open.
Not generally one to let it show, Cael has no idea what any of these people are talking about. He just knows they're being directed up a wide hall, toward something called a pod, and that begs the question of what they're not being shown.
He's gleaned a few things from his immediate time here:
Something had gone horribly wrong.
No one seems to know who he is.
It is impossible to move quietly in big squelching boots.
At the end of the line heading toward the dock, someone would find a pair of soggy hiking boots, as if the last of their group had vaporized up out of them. The first door had given him the kind of fight that meant it either couldn't be opened, or couldn't be opened quickly and quietly; the next, beyond the caved-in set of stairs, gave way easily. Dust moved along the air, and he held his soggy sleeve his mouth to keep from coughing.
It's a place to start, the drip of his barbaric trousers mixing with the light detritus on the floor. His tracks are otherwise dried, going from wet footprints to clear spots in the dust, as he picks through empty boxes, ties a scrap of gold fabric across his mouth and nose, and uses the shelves and dim light from the hall to find a south-facing door, poised to delve deeper into the rooms.
[ Cael has a full profile with his history and permissions, and feel free to ping me on discord or plurk if you have other questions. ]