Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jaskoleczka) wrote2020-10-30 04:16 pm
jaskoleczka) wrote2020-10-30 04:16 pm
Entry tags:
{ pfsb } a test
Avallac'h was meant to follow me, but something went awry...
It's a quiet night, and the Scottish skies at the end of the universe are filled with to the brim with soft gray clouds. The waters of the little inlet and around the lake lap lazily at the shore. Deep in the lake, the giant squid cruises idly for food, trailing its tentacles like smoke through the water. In the stables, the horses whicker quietly to each other. All is peaceful, and perfect.
Until some of those soft, contented sounds turn sharp, and anxious. Wood rattles as nervous horses begin pawing and kicking at their stalls, tossing their heads, wide-eyed and alarmed.
And then a flash of light splits the clouds with a horrible sound as of a great deal of air being displaced all at once, and then: nothing.
The horses calm. And somewhere, far out in the lake, there is a splash.
***
Ciri surfaces with a splutter and gasps for air as she turns her head, taking stock of the situation.
This is...not Velen. At least, it's nowhere in Velen she recognizes. "Avallac'h?" she calls, her voice echoing strangely over the water, but just inflating her ribcage to project her voice has her wincing. The water is too dark to see through, but she knows what she would find if she could: a faint dark cloud that is seeping from the wound in her side and the tear in her shirt.
"Wonderful," she says to herself, and eyes the distance to shore. It isn't far – fifty yards, perhaps – but she's exhausted from the ambush, the flight, the portal, and she's already lost a lot of blood.
But there's nothing for it: she grits her teeth and strikes out for shore, hoping against hope that this lake is not home to drowners...or worse.
In the end, she almost makes it. There's the shore, only twenty yards, ten. A few feet. Everything goes black, and when she comes to, she's washed onto a sandy beach that makes no sense with the cold lake water she's just escaped – but that's all she has time to determine before exhaustion and pain told firm hold of her reins, and she collapses into a heap on the shore at the end of the universe.
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"At home, I prefer a stand. Both for Bichen and my guqin."
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There is no sign of a musical instrument anywhere visible in anything he is carrying.
"I can show you, if you like."
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"Cultivation – yes, you said you were a cultivator. Is that some way of using energy, like magic?"
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He sweeps his hand across in front of him, and a stringed instrument appears. With unconscious grace, he seats himself on the floor, the guqin balanced across his lap, and places his fingers on the strings.
"As a cultivator, I cultivate qi, which is energy. It flows through my meridians into my dantian, where I refine and concentrate it and use it to form my golden core."
Someone sensitive to magical and spiritual energies, as he starts to play Tranquility softly, might be able to sense his core, glowing at his center like a bright, miniature sun, or the flow of spiritual energy that he directs into the music. Certainly flickers of blue light are visible, dancing across the strings.
"The spiritual energy thus created can be used in many ways. Balance is important. Training with the sword improves the body, for example."
He has gotten more and more used to offering these explanations here at the inn, so although it is more than he has spoken at once before to her, it comes naturally all the same.
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There is no response to his words. Her hands have fallen loose in her lap, and her large green eyes are unfocused, blinking slow and heavy.
She stands in the midst of mountaintops wreathed with clouds. The air smells of water and moss. The gentle plucking of the guqin mixes with the playful tinkle of running streams. Across from her stands a man her own age. He smiles at her – but is smile is not for her. It is for Lan Wanji, who steps the the man and embraces him.
Behind them, a red ribbon coils from the man in black's hair, and slowly winds around his wrist. She tries to call out, but her voice is gone — the ribbon tugs – the man is dragged from Lan Wangji's arms and vanishes into the mist. She reaches out a hand and the red ribbon leaps from the mists and stabs into her palm. Gasping, she pulls her hand to herself, but the ribbon has disappeared. Her palm has instead filled with blood.
It floats in the center of this red pool: the rose of Shaerawedd.
"Lan Zhan, this is not real."
It is not her voice. This voice is flat, neutral, deeper than her own. "You lost him. You found him. You will lose him again. And when you do, the Shadow will fall upon the Twin Jades of Lan."
A whip, cracking purple with electricity, lashes at her and she cries out: someone catches her wrist and tugs her into a stumbling run. She cries out again, this time in fear: the face of her rescuer is that of a skull. Golden eyes blaze, and shadow smokes about the blade of the longsword she holds.
In the room, Ciri sighs out a breath. "The Shadow follows more than just you. Harrowhark! This is the second death. You will build your church on this rock and your eyes will run dry as the desert for your weeping. She is gone; you have buried her. Dry your golden eyes, dear child, blessed daughter. She will never leave you."
Her voice changes again; it recites: "For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household."
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His hands freeze on the strings as he stares at her in shock, shock that transmutes to pure terror as she continues speaking.
"No." It is barely a whisper, choked and desperate. "No. He -- I cannot-- what do you mean? What are you saying?"
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A girl with blue hair, dressed in whites. A girl with red hair, dressed in black. Both wield swords and ferocious smiles. Behind them both, darkness looms, reaches, swallows them and Ciri too.
She opens her eyes to the wide flat pan of desert. Beneath a twisted, lightning-struck tree, on a stump, sits Geralt the witcher, a fire crackling at his feet. He looks up.
"See you on the Path."
Ciri blinks, smiles encouragingly. "That was a lovely song," she says, entirely oblivious. "Have you – Lan Wangji?"
For he is staring at her in horror. "What's wrong?"
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"How did -- how did you know. What did you-- how--"
It cannot be true. Any of it. It cannot. He will not let it be.
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(She remembers sitting down. Listening to the music. Smiling at its beauty. It has only been a matter of seconds, surely?)
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Taut, now, with hard-won control.
"You called me by another name. You spoke of things you could not know."
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She begins pacing back and forth, her hand lifting to her forehead as she shakes her head. "I was so tired...and your music was so soothing...I must have fallen into a trance and –"
She turns to him, green eyes pleading. "Lan Wangji, forgive me. I cannot control it. I thought it had stopped. I hoped it had. I am sorry, so sorry."
It is clear from his expression that whatever she'd said, it was not what he wanted to hear.
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"You did not intend it."
She cannot control it, she had said.
"What was it?"
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"Sometimes they manifest as prophecy. Sometimes they allow me to act as a medium. I'm never aware of it, but I have been told that under the right influences – drugs, shock, magic – I may begin practicing augury."
She stops pacing and turns to him, her hands still worrying at each other. "I don't know how it works. But I know...I know that whatever you heard, it was the truth. I'm sorry."
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“I will not let it be.”
He draws a slow, careful breath.
“Thank you. For the warning.”
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"Thank me? For giving you evil words in return for all your kindness? You have aided me, you have calmed me, and this, this is how I repay you, with this cursed power?"
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He does not think she would be this upset if she had. He is familiar with what it looks like when someone hurts another because they can, careless and cruel.
“If what you said is true. If knowing means I can prevent it. Then yes. I thank you.”
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"What you heard wounded you," she says, soft. "And I was the medium for that pain. Let me apologize for that, at least."
As for changing the future...
She keeps her mouth shut. She's said too much already. "I hope you can," is all she says, before she rubs at her face.
"I...forgive me, Lan Wangji. I must be more tired than I thought. I think it would be best if we saved further instruction regarding this inn for another time."
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“As you prefer. Rest well, Ciri.”
He does not sound insulted, and offers a polite bow.
“I will see you later.”
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"Good night."