[open] water like a stone
Who: Lupin (lumenrelegandus), Lust (sonvisage), Vanille (sugaryoptimist)?, anyone; multiple threads welcome!
When: Any time since the attack and rescue. This set-up is backdated.
Where: the Clinic
Format: Starting with paragraph 'cause I always do. From there, we can go to haiku…
What: Bedside visitations. I need some help getting him oot and aboot agin. Some of you were foolish enough to volunteer. ;)
Warnings: Oh, angst no doubt. Maybe some post-traumaticness. Definitely grief. Potential mistaken identities and lots of reading.
The first time, it had been of no consequence and he hadn't even noticed. The second damning time, he'd lived it down and moved on. The third was an unforgivable violation. He started using occlumency. Which worked. The forge remained silent except when deliberately activated. Tools shouldn't require the application of effort not to use, but it was a good enough solution for a while.
That his forge had again broadcast uninstructed meant he was no longer applying that effort. That it was blank…
He wasn't brain-dead. His wound, thanks to Io and Deneve, Sakura and Edward, had healed. There was no danger-nothing physically wrong with him at all. He remained unresponsive.
His forge gave no more hints. But for anyone who visited for a prolonged time, or more than once, and stayed close, their forge might suddenly receive a flash of image. Was it the Broadcasting epidemic, to which he was obviously susceptible? or a message…?
Unlike his past displays, the images were brief and peaceful. An office or classroom, filled with bizarre, even grotesque displays, that far from frightening, contributed to a magnetic, warm, adventuresome atmosphere. There were visitors: once, a tall, stern-faced, older woman, tight-lipped yet kindly-eyed, in what should have been a laughably stereotypical witch's black peaked hat, but on her seemed eminently appropriate and dignified. Once another woman, either a nun or in medical uniform, with a soft, perpetually worried look. Once a giant bear of a man, who like decor of the room should be terrifying, save for a monumental impression of kindliness. Once, so bright in memory he seemed to glow, an old man with amber-lit waves of full bodied beard, and eyes so sparkling they outshone their half-moon spectacles. Sometimes there were children in school uniforms. One child recurred very dominantly. Unlike any other image, he appeared in other settings: a path in the woods, a bench in a sporting field, a bridge overlooking mountains.
This child's colouring and face, and his glasses, were quickly recognisable to anyone who'd failed to remove an obviously magicked photograph from Lupin's person. It had started in Lupin's jacket pocket. When the jacket was removed, it vanished and reappeared on the adjacent nightstand. If picked up, it would be back on the nightstand, no matter where it had been put down. If held for too long, it would fall straight out of one's fingers-always found back at Lupin's side. -And, of course, what it showed, moved.
Sometimes the figures in it, including the grown man who had been the boy in the classroom and forest and field, would point back at Lupin (wherever the photograph was in relation to the bed) and make expressions of entreaty. Please take care of him for us.
Noticeably absent from all these images: the woman whose projection onto a forge had initiated resistance. His late wife, Dora, never appeared.
They could only repeat he was not in a coma. So eventually, someone would surely say or do something, to which he would react…
When: Any time since the attack and rescue. This set-up is backdated.
Where: the Clinic
Format: Starting with paragraph 'cause I always do. From there, we can go to haiku…
What: Bedside visitations. I need some help getting him oot and aboot agin. Some of you were foolish enough to volunteer. ;)
Warnings: Oh, angst no doubt. Maybe some post-traumaticness. Definitely grief. Potential mistaken identities and lots of reading.
The first time, it had been of no consequence and he hadn't even noticed. The second damning time, he'd lived it down and moved on. The third was an unforgivable violation. He started using occlumency. Which worked. The forge remained silent except when deliberately activated. Tools shouldn't require the application of effort not to use, but it was a good enough solution for a while.
That his forge had again broadcast uninstructed meant he was no longer applying that effort. That it was blank…
He wasn't brain-dead. His wound, thanks to Io and Deneve, Sakura and Edward, had healed. There was no danger-nothing physically wrong with him at all. He remained unresponsive.
His forge gave no more hints. But for anyone who visited for a prolonged time, or more than once, and stayed close, their forge might suddenly receive a flash of image. Was it the Broadcasting epidemic, to which he was obviously susceptible? or a message…?
Unlike his past displays, the images were brief and peaceful. An office or classroom, filled with bizarre, even grotesque displays, that far from frightening, contributed to a magnetic, warm, adventuresome atmosphere. There were visitors: once, a tall, stern-faced, older woman, tight-lipped yet kindly-eyed, in what should have been a laughably stereotypical witch's black peaked hat, but on her seemed eminently appropriate and dignified. Once another woman, either a nun or in medical uniform, with a soft, perpetually worried look. Once a giant bear of a man, who like decor of the room should be terrifying, save for a monumental impression of kindliness. Once, so bright in memory he seemed to glow, an old man with amber-lit waves of full bodied beard, and eyes so sparkling they outshone their half-moon spectacles. Sometimes there were children in school uniforms. One child recurred very dominantly. Unlike any other image, he appeared in other settings: a path in the woods, a bench in a sporting field, a bridge overlooking mountains.
This child's colouring and face, and his glasses, were quickly recognisable to anyone who'd failed to remove an obviously magicked photograph from Lupin's person. It had started in Lupin's jacket pocket. When the jacket was removed, it vanished and reappeared on the adjacent nightstand. If picked up, it would be back on the nightstand, no matter where it had been put down. If held for too long, it would fall straight out of one's fingers-always found back at Lupin's side. -And, of course, what it showed, moved.
Sometimes the figures in it, including the grown man who had been the boy in the classroom and forest and field, would point back at Lupin (wherever the photograph was in relation to the bed) and make expressions of entreaty. Please take care of him for us.
Noticeably absent from all these images: the woman whose projection onto a forge had initiated resistance. His late wife, Dora, never appeared.
They could only repeat he was not in a coma. So eventually, someone would surely say or do something, to which he would react…