event: a gentle web

[thestewards]

I've lived a lot of different lives
Been different people many times
I live my life in bitterness
And fill my heart with emptiness

► The OOC plotting post for this event can be found here.

► Direct all questions to the mods at this link.

► Characters can speak with Fayura or Verim in response to her request or her web. If you would like to speak with them, please add a prompt to your top-level or as a comment to your top-level. A thread with Fayura can be requested here. A thread with Verim can be requested here.

STRANGER SUMMONS
In the morning
You wake to a feeling of unease. It’s not the room, which is comfortable and well-appointed, if plain—much like the guest room of a hotel. A note rests on the nearby bedstand, inviting you to breakfast with Queen Fayura, her court, and the Strangers who make their home with her, and it lets you know you can ask the many footmen in the twisting halls of the Queen’s Residence for directions.

That isn’t what leaves you uneasy, no.

There’s a strange flavor in the air to those both new and already present. Some of the Strangers who have been in Draega for a month or more will recognize this unease as the psychic flavor of the Queen’s emotions. Fayura’s dark presence fills the residence, and while it is normally calm and steady (if a bit wrinkly around the edges, like an exuberant young woman rumpled from her activities), now it is outright unsettled. Because her presence is so strong, because it permeates the very rocks of the bizarre building, it changes the mood in air.

Breakfast is lean: little more than thin porridge, glasses of milk and water, and carefully rationed cups of fruit preserves. The Queen’s Court, those of her First Circle, look wan and hungry. There is as much unease between them as in the air.


In the afternoon
Around midday, a psychic call touches the minds of each Stranger in Draega. Fayura’s mental presence slips along your own, quietly seeking permission to speak to you mind-to-mind, and when she has it, she says: Come straight to the Residence if you are not there already, close your minds to every thought but the beacon I leave for you, and speak with no one, not even your friends.

The beacon is a mental loadstone calling you to the Queen’s Residence. When you arrive, you’re ushered not into the Great Hall, but into a little used room. Here, the Queen holds formal court, something she rarely does.

Though witchlight and candles fill the room with light, a psychic darkness creeps across the floor. Tendrils of ice fill the spaces between the old, hardwood floorboards. Frost spiderwebs across windows and over the walls. In spite of this, the room itself doesn’t feel cold.

At the end of the room, the Queen of Hayll sits on a simple stool. Gowned in black spidersilk, she looks like midnight come to life. To her right stands a frame two feet by two feet: a tangled web simply woven. At its heart sits a Jewel chip. Should you probe it, you find its color and rank difficult to determine. Red, but not. Something darker, something strange, something that isn’t quite right. Her Consort stands just behind her, his golden eyes glazed.

“A coven of Black Widows has come to my city,” the Queen of Hayll tells you once all the Strangers are assembled before her. “They broke a young girl who had the potential to be a Queen when they tried to kidnap her last night.” A wave of fury ripples through the residence, something dark and dangerous—a dull roar from the abyss in the mind from which the Jewels’ power springs. “I have never directly asked you to put your lives in danger, but I ask you now: find these Black Widows. Bring them to me or bring them to Grand Master Niall or Lord Grejor, whomever you trust more to mete out justice, but bring them.”

She gestures to the web beside her. “A Black Widow rarely shares the webs she weaves, but I will share this one with you.”

Fayura's web Trigger warnings: mental assault against a child
Webs of dreams and visions are not concrete things. To weave them, a witch steps to the side in her mind, looking through the veil of madness to read possibile futures. But Fayura’s web doesn’t tell of possible futures. It recounts a single past, a vision pulled from walls that echo with a child’s agonized cries of pain and fear.

Three spiders crawl through the night. They chitter and clamber. They weave their wicked webs in dark corners of the city, ensnaring minds. They search, they search, they look, they seek, seek, seek, probing dreaming minds, peeling back shields around vulnerable minds, tasting the air for the earthy flavor of a Queen. (this one this one take this one to rip and rend)

They find her— is that her? —a girl that is a Queen but a girl who is not a woman— too young to have her adult strength it makes her sweet so sweet —young enough to be woven into a new shape— CON­SUME HER DE­STROY HER

They sing to her from the Darkness, but she doesn’t want to go, she doesn’t want to leave her dreams or her family her home this place this city it’s not dark but it’s Dark and it feels right and good there’s more right and good in the Darkness than in the dark corners and she fights and she pulls and she won’t go, she won’t, and she—

White
Yellow
Tiger Eye
Rose
Summer-sky
Purple Dusk
safety that's safe
it's safe there it is
it's safe it's safe
it's safe it's safe
it's safe it's safe
it's safe it's safe
it's safe it's safe
it's safe it's safe
it's safe it's safe
it's safe it's sa

She flees into the sanctuary of her mind, where the Darkness is a caress around her. She plummets past the White and the Yellow, and the Black Widows give chase, thrilling to the scent of fear.

One peels off with a shriek of rage.

Deeper, darker darker, where the abyss is quieter (quieter still deep below in the frigid depths of the BLACK and she reaches reaches for a presence deep below her) and full of Summer-sky power—she can’t go much further, her web is made of Purple Dusk, but the other doesn’t slow. The little girl slams through the web of her mind, shattering it, collapsing the abyss with a scream of power, flooding her body with more power than it can contain.

The spiders withdraw. Their prey is no good to them like this, but maybe they’ll feed on the corpse of her mind later, filling it with nightmares until not even the Black Widows of the Lady’s court can piece the little girl back together.

beneath them far beneath them a quake of power a profound fury a silent song of rage and sorrow that spirals and shivers

TANGLED WEBS OF FEAR AND LOATHING
This Black Widow coven has left tangled webs throughout Draega. These webs snare the minds of light and dark Jeweled Blood and Strangers alike. In many of the webs, the mind of a captured victim assumes an active role within the vision contained inside the web, forcing them to live through the vision. Landen minds can’t be trapped by tangled webs, but their moods and actions are certainly affected. Until the webs are cleared, they will radically alter the behavior of landens throughout the city, twisting their behavior.

Fayura has tasked you with not only finding the members of the coven but with removing the tangled webs the Black Widows wove throughout the city. The events in the web can be changed—much like with lucid dreaming, you need only realize you’re trapped within a tangled web to change the course of its vision or to escape it, and then, when you understand it, you will be able to destroy it.

A Web of Violence Trigger warnings: female on male rape, sexual violence, impending death

run

run

run

RUN

breath burning run faster faster legs aching heart hammering pulse pounding throbbing throbbing throbbing

She’s behind you, you know she’s behind you, hungry for your body and your mind, but you can’t slow down. Your sister, you think about your sister, who just barely wears the White. You need to be there for your sister. She could be a Healer, she could be more that what the Blood have become, she co—

An acrid psychic scent hits you, sour and sharp and seductive. You want her and you hate her as her power slams into your back and throws you into a wall.

A second later, she’s on you, her nails ripping through your skin as she tears off your clothes. You try to shield with your Purple Dusk, but she’s stronger than you. Shields shred like butter beneath her hands. Skin parts and opens and burns. She jabs the snake tooth under the nail on her right ring finger beneath your skin (the rough edges of all her rings cut into your bleeding flesh, and you scream before she muzzles you with an aural shield) and pumps poison into you.

Your panic spreads it faster. You feel the poison in your limbs. You’re going to die. You know you’re going to die. She’s climbing onto you, and you’re going to die like this.

A Web of Desire Trigger warnings: dubcon, sexual assault, assault, sex work, abusive relationships

You were pretty, once. You paint your lips with red paint made from the venom you milk from your snake tooth during your moontime, and you smile. Your face is hazy in the mirror, but your lips are red red red (he wears the Red, and one day, he’ll see how much you love him and he’ll love you, too) and males love red lips. Red mouth, red body, red between your legs when they ride you too hard.

You were pretty, once, but that doesn’t stop them from pushing you down. You watch the ceiling as they pant and groan and heave above you. This will keep you safe. This will keep you alive and fed. There’s nothing left in the wilderness except dead, dry desolation. Same as the desolation inside you. You’re not a Queen, but you feel it, too.

You were pretty, once. You remember what it was like to smile and watch a male’s blood drop from one head to another. You remember the power you had before they used you up and left you dry, before they wrung the joy from loving someone else. You love him, and you wear him close to your heart.

You were pretty, once, and then you told him no, not tonight. You were pretty, once, until he held you down with Summer-sky power. You railed against the Darkness for letting him be just one rank darker than you as he took your beauty from you. A blade over your eye and down your cheek. Sharp edges in your arms, across your breasts, cutting new roadways of pain all along your abdomen.

You were pretty, once. With red, red lips and a smile that drove males to their knees before you, but now red repulses you and your love never came for you. But in this memory, things are different. You are not you. You are someone else, and you can escape the one who wants to cut you.

A Web of Innocence Trigger warnings: domestic violence, violence against women, blood, implied medical torture

You’re five years old, on a ship that rides the waning waters of the Heartsblood River. Your face to the wind, adventure on the horizon. Papa calls out to you, and you turn, running barefoot across the deck to him. He holds his hands behind him, and you jump around him to see what he hides. A shield hides your prize, but Papa is kind, and once you close your eyes, he puts something soft and warm in them. You cry out with delight, opening your eyes: a stuffed animal in the shape of a puppy. From Draega, he tells you, where the landens make amazing things.

You’re 12 years old when you meet him. He’s landen but he’s smart and he makes you giggle and blush, and you give him the stuffed puppy you’ve cared for all these years and he gives you a blue ribbon. You wear it until it falls off your wrist, and then you go back to Draega and buy another.

You’re 20, at the altar in Draega. You want to wear the Sapphire, because Sapphire reminds you of the landen boy, but no one gets Birthright Jewels that dark anymore. Still, you squeeze your eyes shut and hope and hope and hope and hope and pray and pray and pray until you bite your cheek and taste blood. A wish offered with blood is a prayer to the Darkness. That’s when you smell the smoke. You know you should run, but you have to finish your Birthright, you have to succeed, you have to complete it, so you struggle and struggle and struggle. The fire takes your eyes but you take the Sapphire.

You’re 21 and you’re with him now. Your family disowned you, but you don’t care. At last, you’re happy. “Can you tell me our future?” he asks, and you weave a web that shows you with two Sisters but no husband. You lie and tell him something pretty.

You’re 27 years old, reading fortunes not just for your husband but for the hypocrites among the Guild. The Guildmasters come to your husband in the dark and pay him for your visions. He trades the money for drink and comes home stinking of alcohol. Even their Grand Master comes to you, the young prodigy they all adore. “Tell me how to ensure the Blood don't destroy the landens,” he tells you, and you give him a vision of Ebon Askavi and a song that resonates deep within the mountains, growing louder with every passing year. He strikes you hard across the face, but you know he’ll go to the Black Mountain within the year.

When you’re 29 years old, your husband drags you to the Medico Guild and leaves you there. “Weave, little spider,” their Guildmaster says, and you weave because they hurt you when you don’t, turning on their muters and cutting into your skin to see what color you bleed. You weave and weave and weave, pressing deeper and deeper into the sanctuary of your mind until at last you break yourself when you drift down below your inner web.

You’ll kill them all one day. You’ll leave them broken on the floor, eternally sleeping in puddles of their own blood. But you need to find a Queen, and the Queen you want is here but she isn’t ready, not yet, so you’ll wait ten years or find another. You’ll make her understand, you’ll make her see what you no longer can.

AIR TIME
Whether you catch the news on a Far-caster in the city or you're spinning the dial on your own device, you'll hear…

etiquette with evandra and aren
[Today, Evandra speaks softly and slowly. Sorrow thickens her throat and stretches her words into brittle filaments.] How do landens deal with Black Widows, Lord Aren, when even the Blood can be destroyed by them?

[Aren, too, is quiet.] Trust is—

[Evandra, sharply:] The Blood always speak of trust! What good is trust so often broken?

[Aren stumbles over his words.] I… that is, as Blood, we… We rely on Queens… [He trails off.] You are right to be furious. Nothing can be said that repairs a shattered mind.

the weather
[A soft-spoken man’s voice rumbles out of the Far-caster. He’s pleasant to listen to, with a soothing cadence to his voice.] …flooding along the banks of the Heartsblood River to the southeast. The river walk will be unsafe for the next week, and pedestrians are advised to take great care if they want to walk it. Interested in sailing? The Transport Guild…

the news
[Garret speaks with his usual briskness, but his temper snaps behind his words in a way it never has.] The Ebon Council and Guilds have spoken out against Queen Fayura, demanding to know what use a Queen can be if she can’t keep “undesirables” out of the city.

[Wilt sounds hollow.] While the Ebon Council demands the Queen's Court do more to guard the city’s gates, the Guilds have announced their intention to build a large-scale muter that would suppress the power of the Blood within a two-mile radius of the city. A spokesman from the Tinker Guild says they’ve already begun work on this device.

[Garret:] Indeed. The Strangers’ support for the Guilds the past few months…

Comments

[theladyofwinterfell]

( Revenge. Sansa knows about revenge. She'd exacted it against Baelish, had used Arya's hand to execute him for the crimes against her family. She'd used Ramsay's dogs against him in the end, letting his hounds feast upon him the way he'd threatened so many people before. She's used revenge but it's not purged Ramsay from her. I'm a part of you now, he'd told her, his parting blow. Still, anger is better than fear and she gives into it, follows Guts and puts more distance between she and Ramsay. )

Help me, Guts. Help me end him.

[garmr]

[He may not have much peace-of-mind or magical prowess to guide her with, but hate? He knew a lot about hate. That painful memory of hers was too close to his own to do it any other way. He can stoke that coal into a raging wildfire, if she wishes to get closer. More oxygen for those memories of their deaths - rotten people had their due justice coming, after all.

There is a hound of his own in him, too, a nascent beast. A barking, gnashing set of teeth bathed in the orange flames. Something burning and sharp to the touch, with malicious fangs and a thirst for violence. A turbulent, restless hunger. It would be unwise to touch it, but she could always point it in the right direction. It had only one rule after all: the blood must flow.]

Sure.

[theladyofwinterfell]

He's where I can't touch him, he's deeper than I am. Go...go back toward the castle. I'll hide here, I'll be safe. But you have to end it for me, Guts, you have to. I don't have the strength to do it again.

( She'd done it once, yes, but that had been after Theon had helped her escape and Jon had protected her until she felt strong again. She doesn't have those protections now. She has Guts, though, and she can let him do this for her. )

[garmr]

…

[ What emerges in the snow is not Guts as he appears - but a hound. It is covered in black fur, in stark contrast with the snow. Its jaws are long and filled with fangs, and ragged claw marks zigzag over its sockets in place of proper eyes. It is larger than a dog. In fact, it is just a few hands shy of a horse’s height. Much like the flames keeping her away from the Opal, it is scalding to the touch. Wherever it’s paws land, the snow melts and rises as steam.

Its lolling flame-tongue retreats into its mouth as it lowers its muzzle to the ground, trying to pick up a scent. It passes Sansa without a second glance at her. As long as they don’t touch, it wouldn’t acknowledge her existence. It had one purpose it intended to follow through: Rip him to shreds.

And so, once it picks up that scent, it bounds away towards the dark walls of the castle.]

[theladyofwinterfell]

( Sansa feels safe when she sees the hound run from her, sees him head toward the castle. Her hound won't hurt her. Her hound won't let any harm come to her. There are howls and screams, both of man and beast, but Sansa just stays hunkered down in her Purple Dusk and just waits.

He'll come back. He has to come back and her hound is going to keep her safe. )

[garmr]

[Perhaps it is a bit too eager in its hunt to call it protection, but it pursues what it is here for, and enthusiastically so. As it tracks through the visceral memories, it is hardly dissuaded by the sounds and sights of the carnage that came with his death. In fact, it revels in that act of vengeance. Ramsay's hounds were hungry. This hound is hungry too - how long has it been since it could properly bloody its teeth? Weeks! It is positively starving.

Well, this memory will have to do - the Bolton man was close enough to the one it really wanted to eat. Even if it is just a glimpse - even if she turns away when the feast was just getting started - it will do. It slips in, much like the hunting hounds prowling through the iron gates of their kennels, and minces the threads of the man and the web with its fangs and its flames. Screams and snarls and howls erupt altogether, indicating its violent indulgence - but it dies down in time once enough innards splatter and blood soaks the stone ground. For a while, there is silence and snow. Silence...

The hound returns with something in its teeth, though it may be best not to look too close. Its fur is wet and dripping. For a few moments, it just looks at her from a few meters' distance, and then it speaks - though it shouldn't be able to:]

You're safe now, girl.

[theladyofwinterfell]

( Sansa isn't afraid of the hound, unnerving though it is. She knows it's here to keep her safe and she draws close to it, heedless of the blood that stains it's fur. She finds a clean place that she can touch it and pets it a bit, wanting to express her gratitude; he's saved her from this nightmare and woken her from this dream. She doesn't know how he knew what to do and why he has but it's enough for her. )

I owe you my life, truly. Thank you. Thank you, Guts, for being here for me. I'll never forget this kindness.

[garmr]

...

[The hound's fur stands on end, its teeth grinding together as it looks at her. It doesn't express any reciprocal kindness, just a silent curl of its lips and a quiet, low growl. This hound isn't one for comfort or softness. There is very little touching it can tolerate from anyone's hands. Foes, that is want it wants. Battle. More warm flesh to sate its teeth with. Not hers, though. Not today.

Now that it has fulfilled its purpose, it has no reason to stay. And so, it bounds towards the dark woods, disappearing just as it came. It is time for her to return as well.]

[theladyofwinterfell]

( Sansa comes back to herself and consciousness. She expects to be bleeding and to have it dripping from her but she doesn't; she feels eerily cold and shivers a bit but she doesn't hurt. She blinks a bit and sees Guts beside her. Perhaps it's too forward of her by far but she reaches for his hand and clasps it in both of her own. )

I'm sorry that you saw, that you know what happened. No one should have to know that or be burdened with that. I'm so sorry, Guts, truly. I shouldn't have come out here to work on the webs. I just didn't know what would happen.

[garmr]

[To be honest, Guts is a little shaken himself. Not even he knows what the hell just happened back there and how it ended up working. It was all so visceral, he’d simply followed the raw emotion to its conclusion, and here they were. Did that snarling thing really come from him? What would it have done if she didn’t bring herself back to consciousness?

He buries these thoughts for the time being, brought back down to Earth by Sansa clasping his hand in hers. Her fingers are cold. She’s still so frightened. For all that the strange beast raged in the web, he really did understand, in a way that was far closer than one would expect.]

...You ok?

[theladyofwinterfell]

( Sansa shakes her head. She's far from being all right, truly, and seeing Ramsay has reminded her of every hurt and every mark he's ever wrought upon her body. She squeezes Guts' hand, trying to maintain that hold on reality. The last thing she wants is to slip into another web when she feels so fragile just now. )

No, but I think I will be. I'm away from it now, at least, and soon the memories will fade and the wound will knit over again.

[garmr]

[Guts feels her clasping on desperately, and doesn’t have it in him to put up any of his usual roughness.

He raises his other arm, and if she allows it, he’ll hold her closer, in a grasp unexpectedly gentle for a man of his nature. Perhaps, it could be the way he would have liked to have been held as a boy after the night he’d been sold.

His black cloak drapes over his shoulders, and there is enough of it to wrap around them both.]

[theladyofwinterfell]

( Sansa hasn't been held by anyone but Jon in so long that she doesn't know how to do it. Still, Guts' offer isn't one she declines and she curls close to him, tucking her head in against his neck and wrapping her arms around him tight enough that he might not disappear on her. )

Thank you for saving me. Thank you.

[garmr]

[He's quiet as Sansa squeezes tight, allowing her to hold on in whatever way she saw fit. His plate mail was still there, but the cloak provided an encompassing warmth for her against the cold chill. The arm holding her, at least, was still flesh and blood, and rests gently against her back.

And so, for a few moments, Guts shares what silent comfort he can offer her. In his two-year quest he would never let himself get close like this, but it just felt like the right thing to do after being shown something so personal. For all it was worth, he was there.]

You should go back. You've done plenty.

[theladyofwinterfell]

Perhaps so but I hate feeling as if I've failed. I feel like I failed the queen and I failed myself. I shouldn't have let myself get distracted by old ghosts when I had a job to complete.

( Sansa makes no move to leave the circle of his arms and, if anything, presses up closer. Guts is large enough to scare off anyone who might try to lash out at her now and while the webs were just fragments of memory and dream, Sansa still feels vulnerable. )

[garmr]

The thing about ghosts.. They always linger on long after they should be gone. Sometimes they catch you unawares.

[He looks down at her, patient as she holds tight underneath his cloak. All he can wonder is when he'd gotten so soft that he didn't mind letting her feel safe nestled beneath his arm. He was really doing a piss-poor job of keeping these people at a distance, wasn't he? The bug must have really rubbed off on him.

But, still... He couldn't just leave her to suffer. Not like that.]

[theladyofwinterfell]

( Sansa stays close, enjoying his closeness and warmth. It's good to have someone she can depend upon here and to have someone who feels safe - it's been a long while since Sansa's had anyone that makes her feel safe the way that Guts does in this moment. )

Sometimes they do. I have a lot of ghosts in my life, I'm afraid. I've seen a lot of death for someone as young as I am.

[garmr]

[Well, if he couldn't relate to that aspect about her...]

Dance with death enough times and you get real good at stayin' alive. Sounds like that's the case for you.

[Mercenaries had plenty of sayings and superstitions about death, but that one held most true in his experience. It was hard, but it came with grit. She was a struggler, in her own way. He can't help but warm up to that.]

[theladyofwinterfell]

I wouldn't consider myself someone who dances with death. More like death surrounds me and I do all I can to survive it.

( Sansa feels confident in saying that she survives, even if nothing else, and while she's close to Guts and can feel him holding her up, she has the strength to do that. Ramsay's ghost cannot touch her now. )

My father used to say that when the snows come and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives. I am a Stark of Winterfell, a wolf, and I cannot be a lone one. If I am alone, I am lost.

[garmr]

...

[Was Guts ready to take the saying to heart? Not particularly. Not yet. The wounds left behind were still too fresh. He'd spent a good two years traveling alone as he used to do when he was young, and did a pretty damn good job of it. He supposes it works well enough for her. Can't expect a noble's girl to be tossed out into the world all by herself.

He reaches up to unclasp his cloak from his shoulders. Although he pulls away from their embrace, he leaves it wrapped around her shoulders. Something to keep her warm for a little while.]

We better head back to your pack, then.

[theladyofwinterfell]

We'd better get back to the Queen's residence, yes. I should rest for a while, I think. I know it was just a memory and a dream but I still feel quite shaken.

( How can the imaginary feel so real? )