A'kin the Friendly Fiend (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
friendlyfiend) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
towerofanimus2013-05-15 11:15 pm
friendlyfiend) wrote in towerofanimus2013-05-15 11:15 pm
Entry tags:
We are the lost and alone, we are never going home....
Characters: A'kin and YOU
Setting: Pick a floor, any floor...
Format: Prose to start; will change to match you.
Summary: Spending a month in what amounts to a dead afterlife left the fiend somewhat worse for wear.
Warnings: High potential for clinginess and violation of personal space, especially for existing CR and/or angels, paladins, or other 'holy'-aligned characters.
Rather than teleporting directly from place to place as was his normal habit, today finds Animus' resident arcanaloth wandering between floors, gazing around desperately, touching, sniffing, listening... drinking in the sights and sounds and sensations of the Tower as if convinced that it might vanish at any moment.
A'kin had never given much thought to the composition of his home city. If a building was solid and well-maintained, there had been little difference between one brick baked from a Prime world's clay, another hewn from the raw essence of elemental Earth, and a third simply existing as part of the same manifestation of belief that gave the planes their form. But whatever had seemingly extinguished every spark of life in this cosmology hadn't stopped with the flora and fauna- it had left the Outer and Inner Planes (or at least those fragments he could access through what few portals remained functional) spiritually and metaphysically dead as well. Some structures still existed in various levels of disrepair, others were crumbled to dust as if some core of their essence had died, but many.. simply weren't.
A place born from belief with no believers left to support it, the ruins had been as much empty space as empty streets, brain-aching voids hungrily grasping for something, anything to fill them. Cobblestones flickered into existence to bridge the gaps the instant he had considered about crossing them, landmarks struggled to hastily reassemble themselves- but one individual's belief could only stretch so far. Thoughts and memories of other times and people and places sometimes found their way in, substituting Sigilian structures and denizens with his memories of Gehenna, of the Outlands, of Animus, and others in an improbable chimera existence. As soon as he had interacted too closely with anything, as soon as he moved on and turned his thoughts to other matters, as soon as he stopped believing in anything, it would begin to fade again, and as the weeks went by, it had happened more and more quickly, awareness of the unreality of all of this making it harder and harder to not disbelieve.
By comparison, this seemed solid, seemed real- but if it were not, then all it would take is one lapse of concentration or one imperfection to break the illusion, and it could all fall away again. A'kin shudders at the thought before returning to his furtive testing of the environment. As loathsome as Animus and its rulers could be, it would be a relief compared to that.
Setting: Pick a floor, any floor...
Format: Prose to start; will change to match you.
Summary: Spending a month in what amounts to a dead afterlife left the fiend somewhat worse for wear.
Warnings: High potential for clinginess and violation of personal space, especially for existing CR and/or angels, paladins, or other 'holy'-aligned characters.
Rather than teleporting directly from place to place as was his normal habit, today finds Animus' resident arcanaloth wandering between floors, gazing around desperately, touching, sniffing, listening... drinking in the sights and sounds and sensations of the Tower as if convinced that it might vanish at any moment.
A'kin had never given much thought to the composition of his home city. If a building was solid and well-maintained, there had been little difference between one brick baked from a Prime world's clay, another hewn from the raw essence of elemental Earth, and a third simply existing as part of the same manifestation of belief that gave the planes their form. But whatever had seemingly extinguished every spark of life in this cosmology hadn't stopped with the flora and fauna- it had left the Outer and Inner Planes (or at least those fragments he could access through what few portals remained functional) spiritually and metaphysically dead as well. Some structures still existed in various levels of disrepair, others were crumbled to dust as if some core of their essence had died, but many.. simply weren't.
A place born from belief with no believers left to support it, the ruins had been as much empty space as empty streets, brain-aching voids hungrily grasping for something, anything to fill them. Cobblestones flickered into existence to bridge the gaps the instant he had considered about crossing them, landmarks struggled to hastily reassemble themselves- but one individual's belief could only stretch so far. Thoughts and memories of other times and people and places sometimes found their way in, substituting Sigilian structures and denizens with his memories of Gehenna, of the Outlands, of Animus, and others in an improbable chimera existence. As soon as he had interacted too closely with anything, as soon as he moved on and turned his thoughts to other matters, as soon as he stopped believing in anything, it would begin to fade again, and as the weeks went by, it had happened more and more quickly, awareness of the unreality of all of this making it harder and harder to not disbelieve.
By comparison, this seemed solid, seemed real- but if it were not, then all it would take is one lapse of concentration or one imperfection to break the illusion, and it could all fall away again. A'kin shudders at the thought before returning to his furtive testing of the environment. As loathsome as Animus and its rulers could be, it would be a relief compared to that.
no subject
...Enoch?
[He hesitates as the figure of his former roommate approaches, hope rising at the sight of a familiar face but unwilling to make a move which could break suspension of disbelief.]
no subject
*Of course he isn't, Enoch thinks, he can't be, not after being home for so long. But the question is the only one he can think to ask.*
no subject
[Stepping forward, the fiend tentatively returns the question with the only one he can think right now. If this is an illusion it could break everything, but the possibility of pinning his hopes on another phantasm is virtually intolerable.]
Are you.. Are you... you?
no subject
*Enoch's first thought was the brainwashing, but...A'kin hadn't been around for that.*
Of course I am. Riki doesn't seem to do things like that.
no subject
I believed you, but it wasn't you.
no subject
Right, you said part of your world is created by belief... I didn't think you could believe a person into existence, though...
...But we are both here, truly here.
no subject
The burg was so emptied, though, so needy, and it tried... Pulled anything from my skull that it could get enough of a grip on, but they vanished when I turned away, crumbled when I spoke too deep or too long. Even the places were often half-real at most. A whole cosmology of belief and naught but a single believer, nothing to see or touch but the ghosts of your mind... It's enough to drive a sod barmy.
[Coming closer, almost within arm's reach now, he forces a brief, exhausted grin.]
...I'm trying to believe that.
no subject
I'm sorry... *He takes the step forward to put himself in reach and reaches out to put a hand on A'kin's arm.* Nobody should have to suffer this.