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[personal profile] cerementalism 2023-07-13 03:44 pm (UTC)(link)
Seer sits in quiet contemplation in her home, head slightly bowed as her attention is left to float. Time passes around her for the most part, in a mundane, non-magical sort of way.

Certain duties may go unneeded for a long time, but that does not mean those duties stop. The last Seer of Hallownest has been assessing her relationship with her duties as of late, weighing the importance of them against the future. Some she may soon leave behind.

Others, like keeping the graves, remain important. Besides that... it is just as much a habit as a duty, to sit and observe and keep a measure of things. This part of her occupation has always suited her very well.

"Is everything all right?" asks one of the bugs recovering in her home. They have noticed the way she has gone strange and stiff, but they are tentative when they're questioning her and suspect they won't be getting a straight answer (as they are learning, this is often).

"Mmm... I suppose I should go and find out," she says, cryptically, with her antennae twitching. It would be a shame to flout expectation. Then, to reassure, because they are fragile and maybe she's being unfair: "Nothing to do with you! You might mind the place while I'm gone, if you like."

Seer gets to her feet, flapping a hand at them and tutting when they try to help her up. She wastes little time dallying. There is a shudder waiting in the air, Essence (and something else) tangling unpleasantly about itself and eddying around her thoughts, seeping in from somewhere to the west - somewhere, yes, she knows exactly where. And who.

She passes in silence through passages and between graves. There is a thread she is following, or a signature - something that has been there for a little while and only just made itself known. This she will address later. Currently it makes a very handy compass.

Seer slows as she emerges from the tunnel, Blue Lake glistening ahead of her. And, like last time, she sees before she sees. She steps very softly across the sand, halts at the water's edge, and stares for a little while, thinking.

"Huh," she says. "Well, you don't have to make it easy, I suppose."

Seer turns to look behind her at the tunnel, and around at the shore, slowly pivoting in place until she is certain she is (almost) alone. Then she sits herself down in the sand, because she has a feeling this is going to be something she ought to sit down for. Her antennae creakily raise and fan out.

Out beyond Godhome, just past the fringes of the Lord of Shades, the soft-edged shape of a Moth is loosely implied in their direction.
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[personal profile] cerementalism 2023-07-15 11:12 pm (UTC)(link)
As a part of her flickers closer to the Lord of Shades, the shiver that runs through Seer is becoming familiar. She can work through that, easily, though it doesn't mean it comes naturally. Many things do not. The trick is in making it look like they do, and luckily her actual body is back on the lakeshore.

Anyway, she should maybe have guessed - Seer learned to do this a certain way, but it's not appropriate here.

She takes a deep breath, lets it out in a thoughtful little hum, and the bright Essence shaped like a Moth dims. Less of her. Less of anything, until it's a faint, muggy outline with wings tucked down and antennae drooping.

The dim, hazy, detail-less shape of Seer alights partly on the lake surface and partly in the nowhere-space at the outskirts of the Void, and treks quietly forwards on foot, coming to a stop just before it turns into trespassing. (All of this is an impression. Impressions are important, when you're working with Dream. Real space doesn't factor here, but an impression makes things easier to understand.) And there she will wait.

Seer is a neighbour dropping by for a visit. This is different than a Seer projecting light and guidance and really that's how she should have led. Also, she has what might count as proof she's not a stranger; she nudges at that strange thread in her mind, idly figuring it out as she goes and drawing attention to it for the Siblings to pick up on, too.

(It feels like nothing at all, which is why she didn't notice it before. Interesting. She's still not sure how she feels about it.)
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[personal profile] cerementalism 2023-07-16 09:55 am (UTC)(link)
Seer is not getting the invitation she would like. This is perfectly understandable.

Her projected self wanders at the fringes where Void meets Dream, looking. To come up beside a presence so vast is like standing too close to a walled city; she can see nothing inside, only circle and trace the outside of their mind looking for hints.

In reality, the water of the lake laps quietly at the shore's edge, and for a moment she recognises an echo she isn't really hearing. This is not much to go on. Plenty of people dream of water. There's too much Void in the way, and it obscures too well. All she has is the strange thread they left with her, the agitated Siblings, and the sense that something is needed.

She's worked with far less.

"Wielder," she murmurs softly, cheerfully, like a curious caretaker observing a child's activities, "what are you doing with yourself?"

Her physical voice is far away, but the question itself sinks gently into the Lord of Shades like sugar dissolving in water. Seer remains still in all senses of herself, and watches the Siblings with gentle interest.
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[personal profile] cerementalism 2023-07-16 05:03 pm (UTC)(link)
Seer feels the shudder in the water, and she pulls back from her little investigation a little quicker than she means to. All at once she's back in herself, sitting by the lake with the Shadelord's waves stirring at the shore by her knees. She is slouching more than usual, and quickly straightens up (though not by much) - and attempts to de-fluff her antennae, to middling success.

It's interesting to watch, the way the Lord of Shades comes back from whatever they're doing. A foray into Dream - the motes were twinkling all over the place like tell-tale confetti - but what kind she can't fathom yet.

Seer does not get up. She is still testing how she feels about addressing a Higher Being this way, as with everything else, but by request...

"Ahh, there you are," she calls casually across the water as they take shape. She's not really the type to shout - it's a good thing Blue Lake carries a voice, because she isn't projecting her thoughts any more either. "You look surprised to see me, Wielder! That answers one or two questions..."

Hm. And raises far more.

The Dream they'd once been trapped in had been a difficult lock to pick, but she'd had plenty of practice. This one, she suspects, will not be quite so hard. At least once she has the Void part figured out.

"Don't mind an old Moth, then," she advises helpfully, and sticks a hand out from behind her wings to make a shooing motion. "Carry on."

Worth a try.
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[personal profile] cerementalism 2023-07-17 05:30 am (UTC)(link)
That's fair.

She recognises that motion for what it is, and the puzzlement sets in further. They look tired, so why then - well, anyway, they're not going back to whatever they were doing.

"Hmm. Forgive the interruption," not how she'd choose to say that to a god, "but I could sense you from all the way in my home! I suspect this has something to do with it."

There is a slight, markedly polite little prod at the... at whatever they've left with her. The little glimmer of something that feels like nothing.

"Although now I'm looking at you I'm getting the impression you didn't mean to call me here. Huh! Just as well I came!"
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[personal profile] cerementalism 2023-07-17 06:40 pm (UTC)(link)
That feels quite a lot stronger than they likely expect. She is mindful not to flinch, though she doesn't touch that again.

That about confirms it, though. The Lord of Shades knows not what they've wrought! - is the way she turns it about in her head. That's what a Seer with a flair for the dramatic might have to say about it, but she suspects that won't go down well at present.

Seer holds steady as the black shape that erased the Light slides eerily towards her. She waits until the sharp flicker of reasonable unease passes along with their disappearance under the water - only then does she take a couple of small steps back from the edge of the lake, not a retreat, just giving them room. They don't want to be feared and it won't do to let that win out. (Nothing she can do about the bristling. Their presence is rather... charged, at the moment.)

Their smaller self is a relief. This too is politely quashed.

"You didn't mean to..." she guesses, almost casually. "Well, no one said being a nascent god would be simple."

After her initial try at getting their attention, she's not going out of her way to send anything like that now. She just waits, patient, to see how they'll handle themselves. They seem a little sluggish.
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[personal profile] cerementalism 2023-07-17 07:58 pm (UTC)(link)
She observes without comment. She's here on Seer business, and it starts with watching and listening. That and asking the right questions.

She does, however, sink back down into a seat amicably beside the Knight. She is also here on personal business. The two things are not mutually exclusive in the first place.

"...Ahh..."

How to explain? She doesn't know exactly what happened, is the thing. She can't even precisely tell the moment this strange little pocket in her Essence appeared. (In her Soul? In what? Hard to discern the details when it comes to Void.)

She doesn't need to be exact. The gist is there.

"...It seems you've left a part of you with me! At least that's how I'm looking at it," she admits. They might as well know she's not playing with a full deck here either. "I hardly mind. But the alarming part is you not being aware, I'm sure you can agree." She dips her head like she's speaking candidly to them, not that there's anyone else around to hear. It's a friendly gesture, then. "I found my way to you because of that, but that's not why I'm here. How are you feeling, Wielder?"
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[personal profile] cerementalism 2023-07-17 08:36 pm (UTC)(link)
Lightly prod. That should be all it takes for Seer to just agree, and if it were anything else perhaps she'd peel back the fog for them willingly. As it is, she offers them only a modest sliver: she is nervous. This is still more than her physical self relays, calm and practical as usual.

"Not at all. Though I ask you to be delicate while you have one hand in my heart! So to speak."

That's... kind of one way to put it. She tilts her head, still measuring. It's not quite right, but it's close.

What they have written is... also close. Her response is a thoughtful hum.

"...Were you?"

Then another hum, more doubtful this time, and her head tips the other way like she's trying to see their words from another angle.

"Ah, well I don't know what sleeping Void feels like. You're a mystery to me, Wielder. But that's not quite what I meant." Seer's voice softens into one of quiet concern. "Did something happen to you?"
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[personal profile] cerementalism 2023-07-17 09:45 pm (UTC)(link)
There, well, she debated on just keeping the whole of it to herself, but that seemed like a very good way of making them more curious. As it is, all's well that ends well.

"Hmm."

Therein lies the trick to this: she now knows they're concerned about her, that they know a link between Infection and the little sliver of Void planted in her, and that there was something uncomfortable that might have been shared. Very good. It's not much more than she knew already, but it's a good step forward.

"Ah, don't worry about me, Wielder. What Light there was in me was there inert..." This was almost melancholy, but Seer trails off suddenly.

A hand in her heart, indeed. The Void is inert until they start picking at it. Now there's a parallel she doesn't know what to do with right now, and she decides changing the subject is wiser.

"You were distressed," she explains, much more simply now that she's sure of which direction to take this in. "I'd have come looking for the source of that either way." In a tone that might be read as very gently teasing: "I don't suppose you knew you were making that mess, either?"
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[personal profile] cerementalism 2023-07-18 07:37 am (UTC)(link)
Seer mentally recoils. That was not supposed to happen - she hadn't meant to share that at all. Her guilt -

- no, she hadn't, that was not hers, it was someone else's, but how similar and how terrible. She can guess...

Seer resists the reflexive urge to press, to reach out - trying to reach the source of that through the Knight would be an exercise in foolishness. One task at a time. Seer takes a slow, easy breath, and exhales in a soft hum. She sets aside the reflection of regret and keeps a safer distance. Focus. Now is not the time to be drawn into a storm, not with the Knight sitting beside her lost in their own.

"...The Lord of Shades," she begins slowly, still carefully putting herself back on the rails, "was born yesterday. Reborn, at least. How long have you had to learn your Nail, Wielder?"

They both need grounding. Seer slips out a hand and touches lightly at their shoulder, consoling.

"You are unpracticed in this just as you were in dreams. Hmm, and speaking of dreams, I fear I may have proven myself a poor teacher... What were you doing when I came?"
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[personal profile] cerementalism 2023-07-18 12:57 pm (UTC)(link)
She's unflinching in the face of ill-received comfort, at least. That is starkly ordinary, and if the situation were a tad lighter Seer might have even been amused. As it stands, she's taking things a little more seriously.

She had been considering taking her hand back right away, but for now she just gives them an encouraging nod.

"I realise now that I woke you... but too I'm realising that letting you get right back to it may not be the way forward! Humour me for now, Wielder. All will make itself clear quite soon."

Their shoulder gets a friendly little squeeze, a cool attempt at prompting them to continue.
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[personal profile] cerementalism 2023-07-18 01:41 pm (UTC)(link)
Godhome...

As she suspected, a realm, and - if she remembers correctly from their fateful letter - not a particularly simple one.

"...Mmm." She sounds rather unhappy about that. "Do you visit this place very often, Wielder?"

Her hand lifts from their shoulder, and instead comes to rest over her chest, over the seam where her wings fall about her. She looks like she's thinking hard.

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