adam "now he's a spooky 10" lynch (parrish) (tamquam) wrote in valloic, @ 2020-07-09 08:39:00 |
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Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, !: network post, the raven cycle: adam parrish, the raven cycle: ronan lynch, ₴ inactive: henry cheng |
Scrying was a strange sensation. It never stopped being unusual or unfamiliar, only easier and better to navigate the longer he could stay under. The more often Adam could greet the world, in all its vast expansiveness, the less overwhelming it felt. There was still danger there, his mind could be so caught up inside this plane of existence that his body didn't seem to matter. But he was learning to not let his curiosity and over analytical mind take over when the pull back to reality was necessary. He could go again. He could always go back. The terrifying, cold feeling that came when peeking into the world was not the same when Adam was scrying in Vallo. The world didn't look back at him, the dark horror that had petrified him didn't exist here. It was the same sort of unknowable limitlessness, but Vallo was allowing him to observe. Welcomed him as a psychic, as the magician, as Adam Parrish, a boy who was inquisitive and never satiated with the answers given to him, only the ones he found. His scientific and practical brain mixed delightfully with the side that had seen some improbable, impossible shit. So, he liked those mornings where he carved out time for himself to scry. Vallo was much calmer, much more peaceful in the astral space than he was accustomed to. Maybe it was because magic was native here than in Henrietta. Their existence at home was irregular, surreal, round holes and square pegs. Which meant it was easier to spot aberrations in the world, see things that didn't fit. Like dark spots in his vision. There had been so many dark spots this week, the multiplying fuzzy threats, it was nearly unbearable. But it had been blissfully, hopefully, empty by the Barns. And as he chose this day to scry, before the market opening, he wanted it to stay that way. This particular morning, just after dawn, Adam took his bowl of water out to the back porch. The sun had just begun to rise, the chill from overnight not yet gone. He settled barefoot on the last step, sinking his toes into the grassy dirt. The bowl, a black and colorless thing, sat between his feet, filled with water. As a promise, he swore to Ronan that he would stop scrying with bright lights or anything else damaging to his eyes. Beside him, he set his phone down, with a timer. A failsafe, a precaution. Persephone was a good, constant reminder of why these things were needed. His lashes fluttered quickly at the water, then slower, then slowly, then never. He stared, unblinking, into the boundless, mystical unknown, still and unmoving, grounded with the land. He loved his home for things it gave back to him so freely, this anchor to here instead of there. Adam opened his eyes to somewhere else. Fuzzy around the edges, as if he were looking at a picture underwater. The familiarity of the place was not lost on him—a barn, one he had frequented before. It was endless, walls that went on forever when in reality they were short, stocky things in need of a paint job. A small sliver of dread crept up his spine. This was not like the other days where the danger lurked far off but frightening nonetheless. This rang too close to the time it stared back at him from the murky depths, watching him, waiting, knowing he was a usurper in— He spun around in the vision, and Matthew was standing there, blurry and indistinct aside from his blonde curls and he was crying, crying. Adam tried to go to him, but a sharp baa, heard in his deaf ear, caused Adam to spin in another direction. Everything was dissolving around him, there was no sheep where it was supposed to be. There was no Matthew anymore. And Adam's self—his other self, his immaterial scrying self—reached out to touch the washed-out orange wall. Contact, like a drop in an undisturbed pond. Then a ripple. Darkness, like what he had seen this week blanketing parts of Vallo, spread like decay across the side of the barn. Panic seized him, and he didn't wait to see if there was more—could there have been more? What more did they need? The immediate danger was real, obvious, there in his home—and Adam clawed (unguibus et rostro, unguibus et rostro, unguibus et rostro) back into his body, his consciousness, an incomplete return in his haste. With numb hands and pupils blown wide, Adam kicked over the bowl as he scrambled for his device which was beeping, shrill and high, that seven minutes were up. It felt like nothing and hours. Time was running out or they were too late. Adam punched out a desperate, scrambled text, his fingers barely cooperating as he still had one foot in and one foot out of the psychic world: |