Okay. [He has about a dozen questions, but his curiousity can wait. As far as he can tell, patience goes a long way with Ilde, and thankfully, he is well practiced in it.] When do you wanna meet up?
[They arrange a suitable time, and once it rolls around, Edward makes a point of being there early. When Ilde arrives, she'll find him waiting in the hall for her, leaned calmly against the wall with his arms folded.
(He's itching for a cigarette, just a little. Something to give his idle hands to do. But he's well-practiced in making himself be patient.)
[ She is focused on the task at hand, and moves to speak to the Enclosure panel alongside him. She tells it: the last days of the Godking's palace. And she puts her hand on the door.
The atmosphere within is a profoundly, sickly orange. Ash snows from the sky and the world smells of smoke. When the wind stirs, it is hot and grainy with particulate. There is nothing on the landscape that can diffuse the sickly orange light. There is nothing but cracked, scorched earth here. But just ahead... a palace with many elegant minarets set atop a cliff.
She stops there just inside the door and turns towards him, waiting to see if he really still wants to come in here. ]
She's told him stories about her home, anecdotes about what life was like for her there, and the scene ahead of them isn't all that alien to him. He was alive when the bombs dropped in his own world. He spent a lot of time out in Boston and the surrounding area that would later be called the Commonwealth Wasteland. But putting eyes on her reality -- knowing she's choosing this right now, that she sought him out so she could "go home" for a little while...
He nods to her. Like hell he's letting her walk in there alone, regardless of whatever he may feel or think about this.]
[ Ilde leads the way up the stairs, which are gruesome. It is littered with old bones in all manner of desiccation and disarray. Dark brown stains of dried blood are streaked along the pale stairs. Some bodies dragged, some bodies thrown. She doesn't look at them, her eyes on the archway that opens onto the cool, darkness of the palace interior.
Their footsteps echo in the empty space, off tiled mosaic floors. There are ruined rugs on the floor, scorched and clawed and darkened with blood. A few colorful banners hang limply from flagstaffs, but they are shredded and threadbare and only just stir in the hot breeze. The place smells of rotten flesh and sickness; madness.
Ilde moves through all of it with somewhere else in mind. She is heading for the rotunda that looks out over the cliff. The circular room is just as empty as any other, but the weight of that emptiness is crushing. The silence is deafening; defiant. There should be something more here, as though this place has been stretched and warped by the immensity of something it once contained. Expectation crackles in the air, a smell of ozone.
This is where the Godking would preach his mad sermons, and where he would look out from the height of this cliff and stare out over his ruined kingdom with pride.
Ilde lowers herself down wearily in the center of the room. She looks at the empty space before murmuring tonelessly, ]
[It's goddamn eerie walking through a different apocalypse, there's really no other way of putting it. The palace looks like super mutants tore through it -- echoes of senseless violence committed against those who couldn't fight back, with the mess left behind as a reminder of the terror that must've been felt here.
And Ilde passes through it all like a pale ghost, with the kind of familiarity that Edward has seen time and time again -- A wastelander in well-trodden territory, long used to the bones and blood and debris.
Edward remains silent through it all, his eyes sharp and watching exits even though he knows there's no danger here. It's reflexive.]
Yeah. [He stands on the edge of this room. Something about it makes him... uncomfortable. On edge. His hands itch for the weight of his rifle, but he doesn't carry it with him on the Barge unless shit's happening.] The Enclosure makes simulations of places, maybe sometimes animals or... other mindless things. But not people.
[ She answers without turning her head, just looking into the light coming into the otherwise dark room. ]
I feel... as though it would be dangerous to invoke him. But I think... at times, I miss his company.
[ There is something wrong with her, she knows that. She knows that it is a terrible thing that she can love and still hate someone with such intensity. ]
It can be hard to leave people behind. Even when the relationship is... difficult.
[In truth, Edward's thinking of Jack and Lorenzo.
After another pause, longer this time, he quietly asks,] Do you want to talk about it? We don't have to do it here, if it'd feel... unsafe.
[He'd like to get her out of here, too, worried about this illusion's effect on her if she stays too long. But right now, he doesn't see any immediate need to make that call. It's her choice.]
[ What would she say? That the Godking put an imprint on her that she will never be free from? That it's her burden to bear. That she promised him... She says none of that. She just picks herself up, dusting off the skirt of her white dress. ]
You should see the garden, before we go.
[ She walks at an easy pace back towards him, turning down a different hallway that exposes a set of stairs that go downward beneath the palace. The first few levels once housed the likes of the kitchens and storage areas. They are dusty and disarrayed, long since emptied and ransacked through. The levels below them begin the long swirl of the dungeons. Barred cells line the inside wall. They are empty because the Enclosure does not craft the occupants, not because Ilde cannot hear them.
The outside path of the stairs drops off into darkness; spiraling down the tall cavern. Flickering torches light their way and it is several more levels before a path out over the darkness comes into sight. It is more than comfortably wide, and it leads into the arched opening of a cave in the cavern's wall. The row of jail cells continues down and down and down and down.
She pauses there to glance at Edward. ]
Nearly there.
[ She walks onto the rock bridge with no more fear than she showed in walking down the spiraling flights of stairs. She made the trek often, and heading down into the garden was always a relief. Turning into the cave's mouth, there is the glowing warmth of a sunny day emanating from deeper in. The temperature rises, the smell of wet dirt and fresh flowers grows thicker. In the great cavern there is an enormously lush garden. The space is lit by some strange ball of magic cradled against the roof. It is radiant with the soothing-sweet touch of the Godking's undiluted magic. It has the same ozone taste as it did above in the rotunda, but so much more concentrated. The air is thick with it, shimmering and ethereal. Everything is so beautiful and it is so close and so warm.
Alongside him, Ilde has begun to softly glow. She seems to be bathed in golden light and her blue eyes are vivid. It is the angel that Dreus would see from within his own poisoned, addled mind. ]
This is my garden.
[ Green in every direction, with even an orchard. This place is a jewel in a blasted world. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
undisguised) wrote2022-08-27 09:17 pm
no subject
Okay. [He has about a dozen questions, but his curiousity can wait. As far as he can tell, patience goes a long way with Ilde, and thankfully, he is well practiced in it.] When do you wanna meet up?
no subject
no subject
(He's itching for a cigarette, just a little. Something to give his idle hands to do. But he's well-practiced in making himself be patient.)
He nods to her when he sees her coming.] Hey.
no subject
[ She is focused on the task at hand, and moves to speak to the Enclosure panel alongside him. She tells it: the last days of the Godking's palace. And she puts her hand on the door.
The atmosphere within is a profoundly, sickly orange. Ash snows from the sky and the world smells of smoke. When the wind stirs, it is hot and grainy with particulate. There is nothing on the landscape that can diffuse the sickly orange light. There is nothing but cracked, scorched earth here. But just ahead... a palace with many elegant minarets set atop a cliff.
She stops there just inside the door and turns towards him, waiting to see if he really still wants to come in here. ]
no subject
She's told him stories about her home, anecdotes about what life was like for her there, and the scene ahead of them isn't all that alien to him. He was alive when the bombs dropped in his own world. He spent a lot of time out in Boston and the surrounding area that would later be called the Commonwealth Wasteland. But putting eyes on her reality -- knowing she's choosing this right now, that she sought him out so she could "go home" for a little while...
He nods to her. Like hell he's letting her walk in there alone, regardless of whatever he may feel or think about this.]
no subject
Their footsteps echo in the empty space, off tiled mosaic floors. There are ruined rugs on the floor, scorched and clawed and darkened with blood. A few colorful banners hang limply from flagstaffs, but they are shredded and threadbare and only just stir in the hot breeze. The place smells of rotten flesh and sickness; madness.
Ilde moves through all of it with somewhere else in mind. She is heading for the rotunda that looks out over the cliff. The circular room is just as empty as any other, but the weight of that emptiness is crushing. The silence is deafening; defiant. There should be something more here, as though this place has been stretched and warped by the immensity of something it once contained. Expectation crackles in the air, a smell of ozone.
This is where the Godking would preach his mad sermons, and where he would look out from the height of this cliff and stare out over his ruined kingdom with pride.
Ilde lowers herself down wearily in the center of the room. She looks at the empty space before murmuring tonelessly, ]
He isn't here.
no subject
And Ilde passes through it all like a pale ghost, with the kind of familiarity that Edward has seen time and time again -- A wastelander in well-trodden territory, long used to the bones and blood and debris.
Edward remains silent through it all, his eyes sharp and watching exits even though he knows there's no danger here. It's reflexive.]
Yeah. [He stands on the edge of this room. Something about it makes him... uncomfortable. On edge. His hands itch for the weight of his rifle, but he doesn't carry it with him on the Barge unless shit's happening.] The Enclosure makes simulations of places, maybe sometimes animals or... other mindless things. But not people.
[A pause.] Did you... want to see him?
no subject
[ She answers without turning her head, just looking into the light coming into the otherwise dark room. ]
I feel... as though it would be dangerous to invoke him. But I think... at times, I miss his company.
[ There is something wrong with her, she knows that. She knows that it is a terrible thing that she can love and still hate someone with such intensity. ]
no subject
[In truth, Edward's thinking of Jack and Lorenzo.
After another pause, longer this time, he quietly asks,] Do you want to talk about it? We don't have to do it here, if it'd feel... unsafe.
[He'd like to get her out of here, too, worried about this illusion's effect on her if she stays too long. But right now, he doesn't see any immediate need to make that call. It's her choice.]
no subject
You should see the garden, before we go.
[ She walks at an easy pace back towards him, turning down a different hallway that exposes a set of stairs that go downward beneath the palace. The first few levels once housed the likes of the kitchens and storage areas. They are dusty and disarrayed, long since emptied and ransacked through. The levels below them begin the long swirl of the dungeons. Barred cells line the inside wall. They are empty because the Enclosure does not craft the occupants, not because Ilde cannot hear them.
The outside path of the stairs drops off into darkness; spiraling down the tall cavern. Flickering torches light their way and it is several more levels before a path out over the darkness comes into sight. It is more than comfortably wide, and it leads into the arched opening of a cave in the cavern's wall. The row of jail cells continues down and down and down and down.
She pauses there to glance at Edward. ]
Nearly there.
[ She walks onto the rock bridge with no more fear than she showed in walking down the spiraling flights of stairs. She made the trek often, and heading down into the garden was always a relief. Turning into the cave's mouth, there is the glowing warmth of a sunny day emanating from deeper in. The temperature rises, the smell of wet dirt and fresh flowers grows thicker. In the great cavern there is an enormously lush garden. The space is lit by some strange ball of magic cradled against the roof. It is radiant with the soothing-sweet touch of the Godking's undiluted magic. It has the same ozone taste as it did above in the rotunda, but so much more concentrated. The air is thick with it, shimmering and ethereal. Everything is so beautiful and it is so close and so warm.
Alongside him, Ilde has begun to softly glow. She seems to be bathed in golden light and her blue eyes are vivid. It is the angel that Dreus would see from within his own poisoned, addled mind. ]
This is my garden.
[ Green in every direction, with even an orchard. This place is a jewel in a blasted world. ]