claire temple (mynightoff) wrote in saveatlantisic, @ 2019-02-03 18:41:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, *laura, *whit, claire temple, solaire of astora |
claire temple & solaire
january 20-22
fear-scape!
low - mentions of kidnapping, but obviously no one actually gets hurt
complete |
In the fading days of Lordran, Solaire wore his armor until it was so filthy that he could bear his own stink no longer. He had been so long without it that its presence on his shoulders felt odd, like someone calling him by a nickname he hadn’t used in years. When had he put on his armor? Where was he? He was in a nothing sort of world, with shadows and colors swirling around him as if they were deciding what shape they would take. “Hello?” He called, and immediately jumped like a shy rabbit; the sound had echoed around in his helmet and startled him. Solaire brandished his sword and reaffirmed his grip on his shield, more for his peace of mind than to seem intimidating. He missed his warm bed with Bethany curled next to him. She made just as excellent a big spoon as little, and with her dog and his cat to complete the mix, he had nearly forgotten what the chill of a threat felt like. That was the only way that he knew how to describe this world - a threat. Something that would be born, but not yet, not yet. “Hello!” he called again, hoping to hear something, anything in response. He had never gotten along well with nothing. Once her eyes had adjusted to the shadows and the lack of bright light, Claire’s first instinct had been to look for Matt. She’d called out for their other friends after, but it was Matt first, and he was the one she turned back to in the end. The last thing she remembered was falling asleep with him curled up beside her. If he was somewhere out there, too, she had to find him. She was sure he’d be worried sick if he knew. Claire shivered. She didn’t know if it was actually cold or if she was just scared and lost. Or both? It might’ve been both. She heard a voice off to her right, however, so she spun towards it. “Who’s there?” It’d sounded familiar -- but it also sounded far away, so she couldn’t quite place it. Solaire knew that voice, although it took him a moment to place it. Sound still wasn’t behaving normally in this strange vacuum. “This is Solaire of Astora,” he called out, and ventured a guess. “Is that you, Dr. Claire?” (He still was a little shaky on how titles were used in modern times, but he figured it was better to be safe than sorry). He turned toward the direction of the voice, but just as he did, it was as if an angry pencil just… erased what little light was left. Shadows dissolved into a true blackness that fell over his face and shoulders like a cold blanket, and he stumbled, his hands automatically going up to see if there was anything he could feel as he walked. No, nothing. Solaire was a brave soul. He’d fought dragons, monsters that wore his friends’ faces, and the gods. But the most frightening thing to him had always been the concept of nothing. Failure, darkness, an abyss that ate your scream because it had no matter of its own. The aftermath of losing the fight against the flickering flame of life, perhaps. The particulars suddenly didn’t matter; the darkness was a choking, heavy presence, and his heart rate kicked up as he started breathing too quickly and heavily, terror working its way through him. “Claire. Where--- where are you?” “I’m --” Claire turned around in another circle, trying to center herself on a landmark of some sort - but she couldn’t see Solaire, or anything else for that matter. She wiped her palms on her thighs, though it did little to settle her nerves. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I can’t make sense of this place.” It had to be another example of strange Atlantis magic - or so she assumed - which meant it would be over soon. The only trouble was that without any sign of the sun, or any clocks, she had no idea how long they’d been there. A stray thought crossed her mind, that this was a COS trick instead, and it made her shiver. “Just try to follow my voice. I’ll stay where I am…” Claire swallowed, her throat tight. “I’ll stay here. I don’t know where here is, but I’ll stay, otherwise we’ll never find each other.” They might end up wandering in opposite directions, otherwise. “Do you see anything?” “No,” Solaire said, “only darkness.” It reminded him suddenly and horribly of the Tomb of the Giants, and he swallowed, throat dry, wishing for any source of light. Source of light… gods, he was an idiot. “Hang on,” he called excitedly, walking toward the direction her voice had come from. “I can make light! I can-“ He pulled back and through himself, finding the spark of magic most humans in his world possessed, and produced a crackling, violet bolt of lightning… a bolt of lightning that fizzled and disappeared before it could illuminate anything, as if the darkness were hungry, as if the shadows planned to pick their teeth with him. “Damn,” he said, hand dropping useless to his side. “What is this? Has the world ended in darkness at last? It can’t be; we pushed it off. It should have lasted at least another hundred years; this doesn’t make any sense. I don’t— speak again, will you?” Solaire was babbling now, his fear growing more obvious by the second, and he lurched into the dark, hands groping for a wall, for an object, for Claire, for anything. “This can’t be happening. Not like this—“ “Hey, hey, Solaire, focus,” Claire called out, her voice insistent. She could hear the fear in his voice plain as day, even if she couldn’t hear him or see him. Focusing on Solaire came naturally. Claire had always been able to push her own fears and anxieties aside to do her job, and she could approach this in the same way. “We’re gonna get through this.” Whatever it was. Claire frowned. She should have been asleep in bed with Matt, not here. What had happened? She shook her head. She could figure that out later. “The world hasn’t ended. We’re here, right? We’re still here. That means --” Her breath caught in her throat as her imagination ran haywire, worrying about what Matt was doing and where he was, where all of their friends were. “That means it’s not over.” She repeated herself for her benefit as much as his. “It’s not over.” That was the thing about the Abyss - it destroyed all in its path, leaving nothing but half-mad acolytes that had managed to survive in its edges. There were ways of surviving the Abyss but Solaire had none of them equipped. So whatever this was, it wasn’t the Abyss, the nothing, the final guttering gasp of the fire going out. Eternal death still stalked them at the edges of his vision, but he was able to take a slower breath, hold it, then another, and another, regaining control of his terror before it could overcome him completely. “It’s not over,” he repeated after a long moment, more for his benefit than for hers. “There’s always something to be done, a chance.” These were familiar mantras to him in the days before Atlantis, when the threat of going hollow nipped at his heels. “Can you hear my voice?” he asked suddenly, eyes narrowing. Was it his imagination, or did the darkness seem… less oppressive, somehow? He moved forward then, ears straining to hear her as a path slowly revealed itself in the dim gloom. “I hear you!” But Claire wasn’t the only one who heard. It happened quickly, while her guard was down, just like it’d happened in her friend’s apartment. One moment she was focused on Solaire’s voice, and in a flash, something changed. Something emerged - or someone - from the disappearing shadows. She was grabbed, and thrown around like a rag doll, by people larger and stronger than she was. She couldn’t see their faces under the black masks, but she could see the focus in their eyes. She’d seen it before on the Russian men; no amount of pleading had made any sort of difference. They wanted what they wanted, and they wouldn’t stop until they got it. She bit down on the hand that had clamped down on her mouth. “Solaire!” she shouted. “Someone’s -” The world went black as she was tossed into - a closet? A coffin? A car trunk? She couldn’t tell from inside. All she knew was that it was dark and there wasn’t a lot of space. “Solaire?” He’d seen a glimpse of what might have been Claire, and then it was as if a swarm of shadows had enveloped her. Solaire broke into a run, sword at the ready, unsure of what kind of enemy he was looking at, but at least it was light enough to feel like a person again… little comfort given what had just happened to his friend. “Claire?” he called, shield up, ready for anything. He heard her - a muffled cry - and he turned just in time to be plowed into by three figures. His sword struck home on one of them, but it seemed to have no effect as it went through and emerged from the body unsullied by blood. Was it an unholy creature? That would be the only reason-- Shoved to the side, his weapons apparently useless, Solaire assumed a defensive position and called: “Claire, where are you? My sword - it’s not working but I don’t think they can hurt me.” “I --” Claire had no idea how to answer the question. She couldn’t make heads or tails of anything. At least she could tell Solaire wasn’t that far away, but that still didn’t tell her where she was. Her heart was stampeding in her chest now, threatening to burst from her body entirely. “Not again,” she murmured, “not now.” Everything had been so good. Too good, maybe. She’d gotten comfortable, and then the rug had been ripped out from under her feet. And now? Now she felt the walls of whatever she was in crowding her, sucking the air from around her. “I don’t know,” she said finally, though her voice was quieter than before. “I can’t - I can’t see.” How was she supposed to help anyone like this? If she couldn’t even help herself? “Listen to me, just keep talking and I’ll find you.” Solaire might have still been rattled by his own experience with the darkness a few moments before, but helping others, at least, was familiar territory. “I don’t know what came after you, but I need you to stay loud so I can find you. I ne--” It was around that time that something hit his back, and hit it hard enough that he staggered. Regaining his balance and swinging around his shield was easier said than done, but it should have hit. It didn’t. “They put you in, which means there’s a way out,” he called, and slammed his sword forward. It went through a shadowy figure and kept going. These beings didn’t appear as if they could hurt him, but they sure could tire him out. “Find a way out; I know you can do it!” Claire pressed her hands against a wall, the one between her and wherever Solaire’s voice was coming from. That was different than the last time she’d been taken. That time, she hadn’t had anyone nearby who could hear her -- at least not right away. She hadn’t doubted that Matt would find her then, but now, she had no idea how he would be able to. She didn’t know where they were; how would he be able to figure it out? They might not even be in Atlantis anymore for all she knew. She knew Solaire was right, deep down, but a part of her also recalled what Madame Gao had said to her in Colleen’s dojo: that she was drawn to people who were special because she wasn’t. What if that was true? Luke had treated her like she was just another woman, and Matt -- he was too biased. And if she wasn’t special, how could she help any of them? Was that why things had gone so wrong? Why her life had continued to go wrong in New York? Because she just didn’t have what it took to help anyone, let alone herself? “Are you still there?” she asked, what felt like hours later. No one was coming, she’d realized. Matt wasn’t coming to her rescue this time, and Solaire could only do so much, for reasons she still hadn’t figured out. Her choices were simple: give up, or keep fighting. And Claire didn’t want to give up, not when she had an entire life in front of her. She shuffled her feet and kicked something metal, something she hadn’t noticed before. She knocked on the wall above her again, and this time it sounded like the trunk of a car. She could save herself, she thought. She’d studied how to escape from a car trunk, after the Russians had gotten ahold of her. She’d learned what to do so they’d never be able to take her to another location again. “Hold on, I’m -- I think I can do this.” The panic settled as she formed a plan and felt around inside for the right cable. She’d needed to tear at the panel with one of her metal claws to get access, but when she did, she tugged hard. The moment she saw the blinding light again, she flung herself out and onto the ground. Solaire had barely dodged another onslaught when suddenly Claire tumbled into view beside him. If he had been one of the poets of his age, he might have said she had been birthed from light, but instead he hollered: “duck!” One of the creatures barely missed sinking his gloved hands around Claire’s shoulder. Unthinkingly, Solaire pressed his spare dagger into her hands and moved to cover her back, armor clanking. “Ready to confront the villains, salvage the day, and rend a few heads from foul necks?” He quipped eyeing the shadows. Was it him, or did they seem… afraid of Claire now? “Am I ready?” Claire flipped the dagger in her hand and laughed. She didn’t feel like she had in China with Danny and Colleen, in over her head and scrambling for purchase. This time, she knew she belonged there and she knew she had what it took. Gao had poked at her until Claire showed weakness. She poked at a wound until it started to bleed again, but that didn’t mean it was true. How many people had she saved? She was stronger and more capable than anyone knew. “Hell yeah I’m ready.” She lashed out with a claw and her opponent disappated like mist. She blinked in surprise, and then turned to see another one take a step back. All of them were backing away now, unwilling to engage. “Huh, that’s --” Everything around them felt lighter now, clearer. “What’s going on?” “I’m not certain,” Solaire replied, his eyes a little narrowed against the sudden greying of the sky. It was almost as if things were lightening, as if the heaviness that had been so prevalent was being lifted right off of their shoulders. “I think we’re getting through it-” he said, but the next time he blinked, his eyes opened to a patient room in the Medical department. |