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 Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2014 6:25 pm
Amrita arrived back at Professor Emrys' office at nearly the exact same time as the day before. Like last time she knocked on the door in case he had beat her there. There was an awful lot of deja-vu this morning, from staying up all night worrying and thinking to coming in pretty much the moment the school opened. The difference was she had more of a purpose for being here today, and more or less an answer to his offer.
"Professor? I gave it some thought...are you free to talk?" She imagined this conversation would be an awful lot longer than their first one, and as anxious as she was, she didn't want to interrupt his no doubt busy day.
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Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2014 10:25 pm
The door swung open, revealing the professor at his desk once more. This time there were two mugs, one in his own hands, the other waiting for Amrita. "There is time to talk," he answered mildly.
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Posted: Sun Feb 02, 2014 8:37 am
Amrita's attention moved towards the two mugs, one placed in front of the space she had been sitting yesterday. She doubted it was there for anyone else, but at the same time was mildly disturbed that it was there at all. Waiting for her. Was she predictable, or did he just have a lucky guess?
"Thank you~" She moved to take the seat, the same one she did yesterday, and pointed at the mug. "Is this for me?" It seemed more of a formality to ask, but she didn't reach out to take it until he answered. If it was indeed meant for her it would be held in her backward hands, rested on her lap for now. As she did before she sat on the edge of the seat, slouching just enough to not look as nervous as she felt.
"So...I thought about what you said yesterday, and I thought it was important to clarify what freedom meant for me." She glanced up at him, and then back down to the mug in her hands. "You're...actually the first Professor I've ever told." She added sheepishly, her fingers worrying on the mug instead of in her hair. "A year and a half ago, I was captured by the Hunters. A few of us were, actually." She added, suddenly feeling terrible that she didn't come forward with this sooner; she wasn't the only potential danger here. "They put something on my core...They called it a tag? They said it could be activated at any time, so they could hear and see through us and, likely, talk through us too." She was frowning now as she explained it, her hands trembling with anger.
"It's been dogging me. I can feel it there, like a parasite. It's all I can think about. When I do something, I wonder if they know, and if they'll do something about it. So far, nothing. But I can't help but feel it's only a matter of time." After all, they didn't need to be watched constantly, but one day they may activate it to see her do something horrible to one of their own; what would happen then? "I hold myself back constantly - from almost everything - because of it. I'm surprised I let myself even run for Student Council..." When she had been announced as the Vice President, she had been equal parts delighted and horrified. But, so far, so good.
"So...freedom, to me, means this tag gets removed. Can you still help me?"
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Posted: Sun Feb 02, 2014 1:55 pm
He watched without expression, not even blinking, as the ghoul explained, but at the question he smiled and answered, "Of course. Do you agree to the cost?"
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Posted: Sun Feb 02, 2014 2:12 pm
That was all she needed to hear.
Amrita closed her eyes and let out a slow breath, then lifted her gaze to look him in the eye.
"Then yes, I do." As sure as she was, she was still afraid. Stepping into the unknown always was. It was a point she had argued with herself at length: all it was, was removing a tag. Removing the shackles. There was no way that it would change her life that drastically, right?
She would take the risk, if it meant no longer being afraid.
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Posted: Sun Feb 02, 2014 2:50 pm
"Then close your eyes, Amrita. Do not open them until it is done."
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Posted: Sun Feb 02, 2014 3:11 pm
The mug was placed back on the desk, the contents untouched. She was fighting a losing battle to keep her hands from shaking, and ended up simply folding them tightly on her lap. This was going to hurt, and she knew it. The last time someone touched her core, the pain had been near unbearable. It had only taken a few seconds, but it stretched on like hours in indescribable agony. This time would be different, though. This time, she wanted it and had even invited it. When it was over, she'd be free. Her life could continue. It would be okay again.
It would be worth it, of that she was certain.
Amrita closed her eyes, and braced herself for whatever came next.
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Posted: Mon Feb 03, 2014 1:54 am
Cool fingers gently touched her brow, and the professor began to speak in a slow, rhythmic monotone, "Imagine a root Amrita, spreading far beneath the surface of your thoughts. It is strong and solid and it anchors your very existence. This is your past and while it is fixed it also grows as your own understanding and perspective of that past evolves and changes." As he spoke the image spread through her mind with a vivid clarity, beyond simple imagination. The longer she held the vision, the sharper everything came into relief, the more detail she could see and recognize as events from her past. It revealed intricate whorls and textures that... "Now trace them back and go up, and up, and..." the voice droned one quietly in the background. It was a little like a tree, but so much more beyond that. It was to a tree as a strand of hair is to a feather. The comparison was there, it just wasn't a very fair one. It was Amrita, the culmination of the initial spark that created her and every moment and influence that shaped and built her after that. The extensions that could be considered branches reached high, up and beyond the point where she could see, and this was the future she could have had, plainly before her and it was dying, choked by the... "Ah...there it is..." A metal structure, inorganic and full of harsh, sharp angles cut into Amrita's existence, her core. It created an ugly contrast, welded crudely into those branches, but it was clear that removing it now would damage her even more, leaving her in twain with a gap too large to be allowed to repair over time. "I can replace it. With your consent I can rebuild what will be lost."
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Posted: Mon Feb 03, 2014 6:13 am
Amrita did as she asked, and at first it was easy. Roots were a quick image to conjure up, and her earlier years spent with trees both above and below ground helped created a very clear, very realistic image in her mind. As Emrys explained what the root symbolized, her conjured image began to change, twisting and growing to accommodate what was being asked of it. She couldn't pin point when, but it was no longer nothing like what she had first imagined and, strangely, felt too clear and too real to be an illusion.
She couldn't help the feeling of awe as she imagined herself going upwards, bringing in to focus more and more of her lovely tree. Here and there she could pick out memories; little snippets of daily life that she thought she had forgotten. It had been an exercise in restraint to not focus on them, and she stubbornly pressed forward, determined to keep her mind on the task at hand instead of indulging reminiscent distractions. Up and up she went until his voice reached her once more, and it was then that she saw it: the tag. The ugly parasite on her core. The way it twisted and deadened anything around her including the branches that rested above it. It was horrifying, and the longer she focused on it the clearer it became, the more obvious the damage became.
She felt her entire being shudder under the weight of this new horror. There was a shift in the colours around her, and she felt herself raise both her hands to her mouth, covering it as if to silence a gut wrenching sound. Even she recognized how bad the situation was. Panic gripped her once more, its icy finger squeezing tight.
Emrys' offer was a god send.
"Yes." Amrita choked out, her answer immediate as her attention shifted towards the unstable, dying branches of her future. Had it always been like that, or did she wait too long? "Please." Her tone pleaded, begging him to repair the horrific damage she couldn't take her eyes off of. She couldn't find any other words than that; it was the only thing she could think to say, and yet it said so much.
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Posted: Mon Feb 03, 2014 11:23 pm
The pressure to her temple was no longer quite so gentle. Amrita's core began to shudder and groan with protest as it was twisted and shifted to accommodate something new. Whispering filled her ears with a language that could not be understood except for that it was the language underneath all terrors, the language of FEAR itself. There was a shriek of protesting metal from the branches as small, black crystals glowing with a strange inner light began to grow and spread like frost across glass, increasing in size the more they covered. It was accompanied by a loud, distant scream of pain, and while Amrita could recognize it as her own, she was much too separate from the experience to do more than witness the crystals destroy first the chip and then proceed to overwhelm everything else in a swift, merciless takeover.
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Posted: Tue Feb 04, 2014 1:09 pm
It was strange to hear such an agonizing sound and recognize it as your own voice, when you didn't feel whatever it was that made such a terrible noise. She thought she should probably be concerned about that; some strange, distant voice suggested that might be a proper response to hearing it, but really, she couldn't bring herself to care too much. All she saw was the tag being destroyed as black crystals took over, and all she could imagine feeling was relief, even as her own voice continued to scream.
Like everything else, the relief was short lived as she saw the crystals continue to spread. The further the black crystals crawled along her core, the more concerned she became, her distant cries changed their pitch in horror.
She couldn't do anything but watch, and hope - perhaps in vain - that he would keep to his word.
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Posted: Tue Feb 04, 2014 1:56 pm
The future had become a relentless march of dark, crystalline branches. And Amrita needed to wake up. The crystals continued to spread. She needed to open her eyes and save what she could or there would be nothing, nothing left of her.
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Posted: Tue Feb 04, 2014 2:24 pm
They didn't stop, and Amrita began to panic. This wasn't right. This wasn't what they agreed to. Something must have gone wrong! She tried calling out for him to stop, but the distant voice failed her. She was alone in her own head, watching these crystals threaten to destroy everything.
As the panic rose she began to struggle within her own mind, trying to imagine the crystals receding, a slow rewind of the way they crawled up the branches she had been told was her future. She had to do something, and in that split second it was the only thing she imagined she could. She had done something similar once, when she had climbed the root of her memories the first time...her desperate mind could only hope that it would work in reverse, too.
Her focus, however, became split: when she wasn't trying to imagine the crystals receding back to only encompass the initial damage, she was struggling to wake up, trying to push past the block of strange whispers and the pressure against her temple. It felt like a losing battle but she had always been a fighter, and a stubborn one at that.
It became abundantly clear that waking up was the most important thing to do, and after a while she focused entirely on just that. The more she did, the more she willed her own limbs to work again, the louder her own voice became. She clawed through her own conciousness to save herself, or at least what was left of it. The more she struggled the more realized she was holding herself so tightly her fingers had broken the skin on her arms. Little things started to come back to her; the feel of the chair, her toes on the ground, the way her hair tickled her face. All little things she became conscious of quickly; each realization a stepping stone for the next.
Until, finally, she let out a gasp and her eye flew open. She immediately began to look around, trying to relieve this overwhelming disorientation.
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Posted: Tue Feb 04, 2014 2:47 pm
A pale man with jet black hair and eyes that radiated the same inner light as the crystals towered above her, face holding an intensity that was miles away from the professor's constant neutrality. Seven long, thin fingers had dug into her brow, tearing past skin and breaking through bone to sink into her brain matter. Her face was wet with both tears and blood, and when he met her gaze, Merlin smiled down at Amrita like she was something precious even as he fingers twisted and tightened with her.
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Posted: Tue Feb 04, 2014 4:08 pm
Her wandering gaze was quick to find the man in front of her, and even faster to trail up to see his face. The pale face, the black hair, those eyes; she recognized him, and that recognition gripped her heart in its cold, icy fingers.
"Wh-" Merlin. The one who shattered and scattered their memories, once upon a time. "-You!" His Legacy was the one that had dogged her since the Kingdoms; here he was again, Revenge Incarnate, towering above her. Smiling at her as if she were a precious thing.
Pain exploded behind her eyes again, tearing another cry from her lips and forcing into sharp clarity something else; his hands were too close to her face. The pressure against her brow went too deep to be a surface touch and, finally, she realized exactly what that meant, and what the wet substance was that pooled down her patched skin. She began to feel as though she were glitching; her motions feeling jagged and disjointed, her vision cutting in and out as her shield tried to withstand the damage being done.
"-No!" She cried out, her voice hoarse from use. Trembling hands made a grab for both his wrists, trying desperately to pull his hands away from her. She even lifted one of her backwards feet, kicking against him in a shaky attempt to both push him away and herself backwards, even if it meant toppling over in her chair. Her instincts were kicking in, and though she put all of her efforts into surviving, she could only hope she had the strength to do it; it was hard to properly fight back when you could barely feel their limbs.
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