The Storyteller (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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aftr_stories2019-05-25 08:58 pm
story_teller) wrote in aftr_stories2019-05-25 08:58 pm
[MU] - I'VE HEARD YOU SCREAM IN YOUR SLEEP
[The night of May 27th, in the familiar avenue of your dreams, you will finally receive some manner of explanation for the catastrophic mishap that has struck the local network of Stones of Farspeech.]
[The Storyteller is, unsurprisingly, harried in their delivery of this news. Perhaps their stress will be evident in the shape they have currently chosen to assume.]
- stories. I need stories to fix this. I'd not realized things had grown so dire. The monthly upkeep was not enough to sustain this ever-growing, ever-changing fabric, and so I'll require your stories. They may be past or present - it does not matter, but the sooner you can offer them, the sooner I can fix this! From as many different people as possible! Variety is critical. One story from ten people will be more helpful by far than twenty from one!
I...I will fix this. I can fix this. I only need your help to do it. The more I can accrue...
[A moment of consideration, and then - ]
Ten. Ten at the minimum. Ten should stabilize this. Twenty-five will ensure it will remain stable for the next three months. Fifty, and it will remain stable for the rest of the year.
Without your aid, I will be unable to make this right.
[The Storyteller is, unsurprisingly, harried in their delivery of this news. Perhaps their stress will be evident in the shape they have currently chosen to assume.]
- stories. I need stories to fix this. I'd not realized things had grown so dire. The monthly upkeep was not enough to sustain this ever-growing, ever-changing fabric, and so I'll require your stories. They may be past or present - it does not matter, but the sooner you can offer them, the sooner I can fix this! From as many different people as possible! Variety is critical. One story from ten people will be more helpful by far than twenty from one!
I...I will fix this. I can fix this. I only need your help to do it. The more I can accrue...
[A moment of consideration, and then - ]
Ten. Ten at the minimum. Ten should stabilize this. Twenty-five will ensure it will remain stable for the next three months. Fifty, and it will remain stable for the rest of the year.
Without your aid, I will be unable to make this right.
[If your character wishes to donate, they may comment to the corresponding top-level below. To ensure that no one goes bankrupt, we will impose a five story limit per character - and only two stories can be used to stabilize the network immediately.
If your character wishes to converse with the Storyteller, they may also do so.]
no subject
[They've never had to maintain something like this before, of course. Is it any wonder that things fell apart the way they did?]
no subject
[Kravitz doesn't know exactly how the Stones work and he's from the world that invented them. Hell, he was probably alive and on the world when they were, but you think he has a clue?? Absolutely not. Besides, he's become a little more... sympathetic of the Storyteller lately.]
Magic is complex to be precise, especially with so much to manage. I imagine if you're sustaining it in any active capacity, you've got more to think about there as well. Please, I-- take a moment? For once, this does not threaten our lives. We can spare a bit to breathe, and think.
no subject
[That seems to unsettle something about them. They shift taloned feet in the dream-and, ruffling wings.]
It is difficult to track things in a linear sense when your understanding of them is anything but.
no subject
Were you also affected by the Roaka's ash? Or do you... recall any of that period? Everyone's timeline is a bit bent lately.
[Is it possible they don't recall that period at all? He doesn't remember it very clearly, but he can pull certain conversations, write down and re-memorize facts about himself. But... it's jarring, for certain. That he knows.]
no subject
[Oh, their memory is...it is full of gaps. Sometimes it feels like collecting rainwater through a sieve. Unfortunately, or fortunately, none of those gaps are quite so recent.]
Yes. I recall it.
no subject
Do you... recall what happened at any of it? I, uhm...
[Wow, how does he describe this-- well, they're still a god, no matter how familiar they make themselves. Kravitz owes his honesty.]
I did not remember many facts that my supposed younger self was speaking of, but they were relayed back to me after the fact. Did you have a similar experience? Of recalling things you thought lost?
no subject
[The Storyteller's tone becomes distant, as though they are lost in the walkways of memory. Perhaps they are.]
There were memories I had not thought of in a long time. Faces and names I did not realize I had forgotten. Things that were once hazy and indistinct, now clearer.
Dreams more vivid than ever before.
no subject
I understand that, myself. I had... forgotten my family, from when I was alive. Their names, faces, the feelings of... all of it.
[He still seems to be struggling with his phrasing, a strange position for someone him with 10 words when 2 would suffice to be in.]
I'm sure you have much more to lose than I do in this. I had just wanted to... commiserate. And ask if you wanted me to tell you about the conversation I had with a supposedly younger self of yours.
[And their name, but. Not yet. Not right now.]
no subject
[Instead of demand, the way so many here do.]
I cannot promise that I remember all of what I might have been speaking of, but if you have questions, I may do my best to answer them. As I said, I cannot promise clarity. My memories are still hazy, even with that small reprieve.
no subject
Well, I... those names, you mentioned. Some of them I recognized, but most I didn't. I know Rapsho was Bliss, and Anbaki that of Justice. But... do you remember the others? Anta, Inu, Oko and Stori?
[Kravitz averts his eyes just a bit out of respect. He knows this topic will be painful.]
I confess, I'm a little surprised Stori was not you.
no subject
Some of those names are...well, it matters very little, to whom they referred.
The ones they belonged to are long gone.
no subject
[Now this, Kravitz knows. If it is grief, if it is death, if it is loss-- he has never counseled a god, but many, many mortals have trained him for a moment like this.]
I do not mean to put words in your mouth or overstep, but... stories are how the dead are kept in memory. How we preserve those we loved. Is that not the essence of history? A story of life and death and those who are no longer here?
[He doesn't want to press too hard, but as far as his curiosity on this story can take him, he's more interested now in the teller, the one who bears it as burden.]
I know this, Storyteller. If it is Death, I understand.
no subject
[Even for a god of words, there are times when even the most expansive vocabulary does not fully summarize just what certain things mean. Perhaps because it proves difficult to translate into a concept that can be relayed to someone who is not a god.]
Can those long past be remembered when the one doing the remembering hardly remembers them?
no subject
I... if you asked for my personal opinion, I think it matters if it changed you.
[He isn't sure how to describe this, either; he has no clue what the Storyteller has seen, the nature of their work. But he'll try.]
When I find people who have broken the natural order, who have scraped to change the world, they almost always do it for a single person. They're fighting not for their body, or something they can hold, but for what they meant to them. The connection. Their bond.I think it is rare anyone remembers everything about anyone-- but that connection is what they reach for, enough to break the world for a chance at getting it back.
[Kravitz' eyes slide back to the Storyteller's again, trying not to be accusing, invite him with his gaze into the discussion.]
If you remember their impact. If they gave you feelings, or a process, or left your life differently... I think that matters. I think that, too, is a story.
no subject
Realizing that you have forgotten those closest to you - your very own family - and in the same moment that you remember their faces, you remember also that they are lost to you.
[Is it any wonder that they wished to forget?]
[Wouldn't you?]
Perhaps in the way of mortals, or those with transient lives, that is what you have come to expect. I...cannot say the same for my own kind.
But my memory is misbehaving, of late. Who can say?
no subject
I... had that experience, as well. The younger self that ash made me... remembered my parents faces. Names. I had sisters I don't even recall existing now.
[He's recalling the memory of memories, the retelling of what Ren told him that he parroted to her from a place in his mind he can no longer access. It stings, but he has tried to ignore it. What hope does he have of getting them back?
Kravitz thinks it would open more wounds than it would close.]
It is the nature of time. But even that sorrow has it's place. If... even if it was not meant to happen. I have seen much grief, but all anyone can do is work through it without trying to break open a world.
no subject
[If there is a blip in the static fabric of a world like this one, it is soon smoothed away, like waves rinsing over a sandy shore. Soon, there is no sign whatsoever that it was ever there.]
[You said it yourself, Kravitz.]
[It is the nature of time.]
I know well the nature of such a thing. But a world like this one cannot endure under such stress. Not with all that it must hold together. Not with all that I...must hold together.
no subject
It's like he feels it instead of seeing, or remembering, a hitch in a sense given by a god, a stumble-step through universes, like his soul went somewhere his body didn't. What just... happened, what was that--
He takes a breath, tries again.]
Must you hold it together alone? Is there anything we can do to lift the burden? There are even fellow gods on other islands, or magic we have found-- surely, there is something.
no subject
[That is the one thing that dead memories cannot do.]
The others can...help, to an extent, but only to an extent. Few of them specialize in stability, and it requires my power and attention to bring them into a state that can be communicated with as well.
no subject
[He is so used to turning to a powerful deity when his magic fails him- but it's just them, running this show. It's not the kind of reprieve he wanted to give.]
If there is anything I can offer- even just a place to grieve- I am more than welcome to provide. I have overseen the passing of millions of souls, and while I'm sure there are differences in our worlds, I am happy to assist.
[Not happy to be... sad, of course, but. He's trying.]
And uhm, of course, providing stories as we go.
no subject
[They don't...suggest one way or another that this is an offer they will accept or not. Perhaps they are still undecided. Or perhaps they don't mean to impose anything in the short term when they cannot say with confidence whether they will require it.]
I suppose we will have to wait and see. As always.
no subject
[He wants to keep them as healthy as he can, with whatever is in his power. It's just... better for the world, not to mention all else.]
Please, let me know if there's anything else I can do. even just to lend an ear. And I will donate to this cause, as well. Best of luck getting this resolved.
no subject
The doors to my temple are - I hesitate to say "always" open. [After all, the last event proved that they would not always be.] But under most circumstances, they are.
The offer is mutual.
no subject
[That's not a question or a promise, just a fact now, aka expect him every 7 days or so to just come make sure they're cool and also I got you this from the Denny have a story GREAT. Kravitz, you're becoming the bird mom now.]
I'll see you soon.