[OPEN]

[evocation]

WHO: Kyna + various
WHERE: All over!
WHEN: June 2512
WHAT: August catchall! Catching up, settling in, all that fun stuff.
NOTES OR WARNINGS: Will add as needed! If anyone wants a starter hmu cephalopods

Comments

ian

[evocation]

[The safehouses are getting worse and worse, and at this point, it's essentially impossible for anyone to live there. It's a little hard for Kyna to wrap her head around—they've been such a constant since the day she first arrived—but it's a pipe dream to try to keep the monsters out of them at this point. Even if they could, they're such a mess Kyna thinks people would have a better night's sleep on the floor of the bar.

So, her invitation to Ian back at Vyonation is now more of a necessity. She hasn't seen him much over the past couple of days outside of check-ins and passing conversations, so she's more than a little relieved he's here. She's been worried.

Of course, she didn't think to mention her injured right hand, carefully wrapped in bandages and very obviously hurt without gloves, and it still slips her mind as she waves him in.]

Hey. Home sweet home, right?

[wittingly]

[ It's actually a fucking blessing that he got his act together and worked things out with her. Rather, since she forced him to get his act together and stop being such an asshole. Otherwise, who knows where he'd be right now? There isn't a single other person he'd be willing to let himself depend on here, and the thought of couch surfing...

He's not twenty anymore.

So he's grateful, more than a little relieved.

She beckons him in, he follows obediently, a backpack thrown over his shoulder and a tool bag hanging heavy from one arm. ]

Home sweet what the hell happened to your hand?

[ A mid-sentence transition, his brow furrowing up as he scopes what clearly looks like a bandage. Not one that he put on her after dancing with a bat. ]

[evocation]

[She's thrown by the sudden change of subject, and she frowns down at her hand, lifting it slightly.]

Oh.

[Right. That. There's that rush of discomfort and guilt she's been trying to shove aside again. This place seems intent on proving to her just how little control she has at all times.]

I, uh... I stabbed Nathan with a piece of glass. I mean, not... It was because of one of the slugs. Not on purpose.

[wittingly]

Jesus Christ.

[ Huffed in exasperation, his bag sliding off his shoulder. He lets it descend, and both of them hit the floor with a muffled thump. Abandoned in favor of walking over so he can get a closer look at her palm, as though he could possibly see through the bandage.

His brow furrows unhappily, and fingers encircle her wrist so he can pull it up a little closely to his eyes. She'll get a quick flash of concern and frustration before he lets go. ]

Wait, extremely hot bartender Nathan or inexplicably attractive grumpy bear Nathan?

[ Why are there so many Nathans... ]

[evocation]

[And he gets a front row seat to that guilt and anxiety, but she doesn't pull her hand back. It seems like a stupid thing to hide after how open they've been with each other. Her hand is still a little difficult to flex, but judging by the relatively simple bandage, it could have been worse.

She wrinkles her nose at the question, crossing her arms awkwardly. Usually, she'd make a joke about those observations, but she's not on her game today.]

Uh... What? Nathan Lowell. The guy who had magic back home like me.

[wittingly]

He had magic?

[ Kyna's got a new Magic Friend? Well that's a surprise. Except, it's not like they've ever had a real normal fucking conversation, so when was it gonna come up? Sometime after the severed arm, or maybe before his panic attack on the floor of a public restroom?

But anyway, doesn't matter, that dude's irrelevant right now. He shakes his head like he's physically dismissing the question, his attention immediately fixated on the bandage. ]

How bad is it? You need stitches? More stitches? Jesus Christ, how many fucking stitches did you wind up with during all this?

[evocation]

[Wow, okay. He's really worried. More worried than she expected he'd be. Honestly, she didn't think this was a huge deal—just another little injury in a shitty situation. It's impossible to hide her confusion.

Hesitantly, she uncrosses her arms, offering him her hand in case he wants to... what? Examine it again? She's not sure.]

Yeah, I needed stitches. It kind of hurts when I move, but it's.... you know. It's fine.

[Clearly fine, Ian!]

lance

[evocation]

[A few days after the monsters disappear, things aren't necessarily back to normal, but they're certainly less... fraught. Kyna's been telling herself, over and over, that all of this will get better again, that things will be fixed, but she can't help remembering Ian's skepticism. Truth be told, she feels like she did next to nothing while the monsters were attacking, and she can't get rid of that creeping fear that this is how it's always going to be without her magic.

So, maybe she's overcompensating a little, trying to act too unbothered. Ian's out doing engineer stuff, or whatever it is he does, and so it's just Kyna and Lance. She's digging through their kitchen cupboards, looking for something for them to eat.]

Sorry. All out of ramen.

[Ha ha.]

[lifetothefullest]

Well, that means I'm not cooking.

[He says it lightly, but it's also distracted; like Kyna he's still sort of adjusting to being back to 'normal', though more in the sense of feeling directionless. It feels wrong not to be doing anything at the moment, but he isn't sure there's anything he can be doing to help the recovery efforts.

But all of this has also brought up a mess of other thoughts, mostly through reminders of Hadriel; it's not like Hadriel isn't on his mind a lot, but this sort of experience has been a very strong reminder. And, with that, it's also been a reminder of a conversation he's meant to have already and is now long overdue.

Part of that has been the monster attack, of course, but the rest is that it's just... Not an easy conversation to even get into. How is he supposed to start it? It's just... Weird, and awkward, and he doesn't know how it's going to go and that makes him nervous. It could be completely fine, or it could go terribly.

But it's more likely to go badly the longer he waits, and so he's decided this is the day to have it, as concerned as he is about it.]

Um, food aside though, there's something I should tell you. It's still not that I'm a serial killer or anything, though.

[evocation]

[Oh, no. At least he isn't saying "we need to talk", but it's a closely related statement, and Kyna tenses automatically, preparing. She abandons her digging through the cabinets and peers up at him, expression half suspicion and half apprehension.]

What?

[lifetothefullest]

[Oh no, that look, and he cringes a little and half raises his hands in a show of surrender.]

It's not bad it's just... Really strange, and I should've told you sooner, but... Monsters.

[Great excuse Lance, A+, stop stalling.]

Um, no way to put this that isn't weird, so... Remember what I told you about Hadriel, and that it was a lot like here in that people arrived from lots of different worlds?

[evocation]

[She has no idea where he's going with this, so she relaxes slightly out of sheer confusion. If he's talking about Hadriel, this has nothing to do with her, right?]

Yeah?

[lifetothefullest]

[Don't relax just yet, that makes this even more awkward.]

Well sometimes people left Hadriel and then came back, and didn't remember anyone from there at all, like they came from an entirely different version of their own world. As far as we could tell there probably were different versions of the same worlds, which makes sense with multi-universe theories, which I'm totally not going to pretend I know a lot of details about.

[He knows basics, but he's not going to bother pretending otherwise. And this is more than enough background to give in order to get to the actual point.]

But um, there are some people here that I remember from Hadriel, but they don't know me; either their memories are gone or, more likely, they're just from alternate worlds entirely.

[He gives a long, quiet exhale before finally saying--]

I... Knew a version of you in Hadriel.

Ren

[evocation]

[After their shift, Kyna manages to bully Ren into hanging out back at her apartment, bribing him with the promise of food.

Admittedly, it was sort of a weird shift. The bar isn't operating exactly like a bar right now, and she feels like they spent half their time dealing with people coming to rubberneck or looking for somewhere safe. It's a little exhausting. A lot exhausting.

She lets them into the apartment, tossing her bag aside unceremoniously and immediately goes to shove Ian's makeshift bed on the couch aside.]

Ta-da. Don't tell Ian.

[variate]

[ no matter how good of a cook Ren's become (between cooking for Akechi, cooking with Tomoe, figuring out certain things for himself, and working in Red Wings' kitchen), he still won't turn down a free meal. it's the attic-living high school student in him that the siren call appeals to. if it weren't for the situation, he'd probably still be eating various kinds of stuffed savory breads and cup noodles and calling it a meal. ]

Ian's staying here?

[ there's a little bit of curiosity, as he's more surprised than teasing. ]

[evocation]

[She rolls her eyes, as though utterly put out by this.]

Yeah, he is.

[And then she gestures to the table, covered in what looks like junk. Ian's tinkering, apparently.]

He was staying in the safehouse, so he didn't have anywhere to go, you know?

[variate]

Yeah, I get it.

[ she doesn't have to say anything else, because he definitely gets it. for a moment his eyes linger at where Ian had been tinkering with things, because that's definitely someone making themselves at home. ]

This place is nice, but it might be lonely by yourself.

[evocation]

I've got another roommate, too. I'm popular.

[Or cursed. Maybe both.]

[variate]

I'll trust you on that.

[ with his usual deep, deadpan tone.

he does pick up a little bit of Ian's junk. for a moment, he misses making lockpicks. ]

ian numero dos

[evocation]

The city street is long and narrow, light reflecting off wet asphalt. It's not a place Kyna recognizes—not quite, anyway. Tucked among the towering New Amsterdam skyscrapers and twisting plants are buildings that shouldn't be there, and storefronts tucked in the wrong places. There's the bodega that sits on the corner of her street back home, the battered vinyl awning looking utterly incongruous attached to the sleek steel and glass high rise it's been shoved into. There's that VR arcade near Red Wings, jutting up against an old brownstone.

The effect sets her on edge, wrongness permeating the whole scene. But what gets her more than that is the destruction. All around her, windows are blown out, vehicles—a mix of hover bikes and cars from home that haven't existed here in centuries—broken down or half crushed against poles or each other. Tucked between the wrecks and in the shadows inside the buildings are still shapes, crumpled on the floors and sidewalks. She tries to tell herself they aren't corpses, but she knows better than that.

A small blessing: She's been in enough dreams by now that she knows this has to be one. There's that sense of unreality everywhere she looks, that understanding that this is off, but it doesn't diminish the creeping dread that makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She feels like she's being watched.

But this is just a dream, right? Screw it.

"Hello?"

[wittingly]

Overhead, a low tone breaks over top of all the other comotion. It starts out slow and barely audible, like a binaural beat. Steadily, surely, it grows and resonates until it fills up her skull and drowns out thought.

From the sky comes a--

—a corner. It just looks like the corner of a cube; flat bottom, right side, left side, but all three stretch out so far it's impossible to see where they end. It's impossible to see the rest of the shape of it. It's so enormous it's physically unsettling to look at, mind-bendingly unfathomably unnaturally huge. It crushes buildings like grass, like ants. The bodega. Red wings, skyscrapers, all crumple easily beneath this behemoth as it lands.

A hand grabs her arm, tugging her at the elbow.

"Come on, come on, come on- Come the fuck on."

[evocation]

Of course it's Ian. They seem to trip into each other's dreams so much she really should have guessed it, but even the knowledge that this is a dream doesn't stop the rush of terror when she sees that... Thing. It's so massive it's hard to wrap her mind around it.

They're at that level of trust now where as soon as he pulls, she follows, not even paying attention to where he's taking them. "What the fuck is that?"

[wittingly]

The truth is he doesn't know where he's taking them either. This is a stress dream — every single narrow alley, every street, every sidewalk is just a gateway to another. Twists and turns and corners that don't seem to take them any farther from the thing than when they started.

"It's them," he breathes, heart beating wildly. "Shit, we gotta get out of the city. They're gonna rip it out of the ground..."

[evocation]

His panic is making her anxiety ratchet up, and she doesn't even have the empathy bond to use as an excuse. It's clicking now that this is what he meant when he told her about those aliens that destroyed his world, but she still half expects to see those shapeshifting monsters from a few weeks ago, hunched and lurking in the shadows of every building they pass.

"Can't you stop it?" She asks, fear edging into her voice. If this is a dream, he should be able to, right? But then again, so should she, and she can't focus enough to even try.

[wittingly]

He's asking two questions at once when he turns to rasp out an incredulous, "How?"

How do you stop a fucking alien invasion, and how do you dictate your own nightmare? He's never had great control over his dreams, whether or not he's aware of them doesn't really change that. Might change his decision-making, but it doesn't influence the environment. There's a duality there in his lucidity — half recognizing that this is a dream, half convinced it's all real despite that. The consequences, the fear, the pain, it all seems so close to the surface.

His feet grind to a sudden stop at the mouth of an alley. What stands at the end might at first register as a monster, until its humanoid proportions and unnatural stillness make it distinct. It isn't that first-thought look for an alien, no little green man, no almost comedic disproportions. It's organic, it's real, it's horrifying.

The voice that comes out is most assuredly not human. It warps around English syllables with an accent that doesn't align with any earthly speech, a rough and dual-chambered set of syllables that you can almost feel more than hear.

"Submit and be judged."