AonEne

How did she know what I was thinking? Cassie stared back into her eyes. She didn’t agree, but making a big deal out of it would be stupid, so she kept quiet and looked at Draug. “What do you mean, she ‘catches’ them?”

We believe in you!

That’s amazing.

“But most people’s mistakes don’t kill people,” Cassie breathed, extricating herself from Shana’s hug. “We all make mistakes, but I made the worst possible one.” Now even if I can help them, I can never prove myself. There’s nothing to prove. I am worse than worthless - I detract from this group! I killed a spren! She glanced miserably at Draug. “She-thoexis?”

*hugs, chocolate-chip cookies* Everything Wyn said, and this: Live for us, for the Shard. I will happily be your friend if you need one. Live to dream, because in your dreams you can have powers. Live for your family, because they would miss you if you left them. Live to keep seeing the sun - the sun helps with depression. Live to live, because I swear to you, your life will improve if you let it. Your depression may not go away, your suicidal urges may not even go away, but if you can learn to ignore them, to dismiss them knowing that they are not true, you can still live a happy life. Please don’t kill yourself, SongStorm. I don’t know you, but I want to know you. Will you give me the chance?

Myriad glanced around the room idly. “Hello?” she called out. @Rushu42

Hey, we had Meme Monday but no, me asking that was completely unrelated. I join this club.

Cassie hugged Shana back, eyes closed. Shame was radiating through her, and when Draug asked how it had happened, she spat out the words in a rush of sudden self-hate. “I skipped the journey in favor of the destination. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know it would break my oath...” @Wyndlerunner @Sorana @xinoehp512

Metal screeches and rubber burns, the smell infiltrating her nostrils even as she turns to face the source of the sudden noises - but it is too late, far too late, as a hulking conglomeration of black metal and plastic slams into her - Myriad stood with eyes narrowed and hands on hips, staring across the road. She'd been here, glaring, for so long that people on the other side were starting to give her weird looks. Her current body's hair was short, red, and bouncy with curls. She was freckled down her hands and arms, which seemed disproportionately long for the height they were attached to. Her light gray bag was slung over one shoulder, containing her things; it was the only thing she kept between bodies. At first she doesn't even feel it, and then there's just pain, a fiery monster that rampages up and down her body; she wants to thrash, wants to scream, but she can't move her legs at all and her arms only weakly - oh no, what's happening to me - she can only lay there, one arm half crumpled over her chest because trying to twitch it off hurts too much - hot, thick redness is everywhere, and there are screams, and curses, and then she's slipping and she can't hear it all anymore; is she going to meet God, like Mom always says? Blowing one excitable flap of her bangs away from her eyes, Myriad decided not to pick someone with bangs the next time she switched. It was entirely possible that she'd forget that resolution soon, however, because most of her thoughts were focused on the rumble of moving vehicles in front of her. There weren't too many, but they all went so fast, buzzing and flashing lights and speeding up and slowing down. None seemed inclined to stop and wait, and she couldn't see a crosswalk anywhere. Why couldn't this have been in an alley? There were tons of those around here. In fact, they seemed to be this world's trademark unit of space - the city she was in was called Alleycity, and she had heard several more words with 'alley' tacked onto them while moving through crowds of people; both in the usual way, and in her own special way. Alleys didn't have cars or the like, or if they did, at least they couldn't go as fast. But no. The group she had heard about was on the city block on the other side of this street, and now Myriad had to cross it if she wanted any hope of finding intelligent people here. But the slipping is almost nice, really, because it feels like she's falling into a soft, velvety blanket that keeps itself between her and the agony. She appreciates that. The blanket is also specked with warmth, little flaming bubbles of it that burst against her skin as she snuggles in the blanket. They're so small and far away, though, and it occurs to her that touching one, nestling herself into it, would be just perfect. Myriad took a deep breath, then forced it out until her lungs were empty of air. She waited for a relatively dull stretch of traffic, then gathered herself and calmly set one booted foot on the road. She pulls herself laboriously through the velvet, which is suddenly beginning to feel suffocating rather than freeing. It's so close and tight around her, and now her breaths are coming tightly too...wait, are her breaths coming at all? Has she been breathing this whole time? All at once she doesn't know and it's too much and too HERE and she can't do this and she just wants the pain back. At least with the pain, she mostly knew where she was. Onward she stumbles. She'd meant to walk through the short lull, but the instant after she moved forward, Myriad heard a screeching sound, froze for approximately a second, and then ran all the way to the other side, a high, panicked sound erupting from her. She hit the sidewalk and dropped to her knees, bracing her borrowed palms flat on the rough pavement despite getting scratched. It takes far, far too long to reach the nearest flare of heat, and yet she has the oddest sensation that it was really only a heartbeat or two - two slow, thudding heartbeats that gush out the last of her life. But that idea isn't very loud in her mind when the rest of her just wants this heat, wants it abruptly and more than anything else she knows. Myriad whipped her head back to the danger, eyes searching, seeking, struggling...and then stopping as she saw it. Someone had activated a drill while doing construction. They hadn't meant to scare her. It hadn't been a car. This wasn't even a new event; the citizens of this place had been fixing it up for as long as she'd been here, after the damage of a war or the like. She placed her head on her folded arms, half-sitting on the sidewalk for a minute as her adrenaline drained away. There was no point in trying to remain dignified anymore - everybody over here had seen her get startled by a drill, rush across the street, and then collapse. Freaking fantastic. She noticed footsteps, then lifted her head to see a young woman with dark blue eyes and a gentle smile crouching beside her. "Are you okay, hon?" She extended a hand to help Myriad up. "I think so," Myriad mumbled, unsteadily letting the woman pull her up by the arm. "Thanks." Glancing around, she winced at the stares she was receiving - and at her scraped hands. That's annoying. She looked the blue-eyed woman up and down, then mentally shrugged. It was about time she moved on anyway. With the woman still holding her wrist, Myriad simply went for it. She Bolted. She touches the burning mass, and it is glorious. Something in her falls away like a sheet of rain, and she launches herself forward, easily clawing her way into the heat. It feels like home and life and normalcy; she relaxes. Or does she? A dissipating sense of extraordinary panic and guilt rests in her heart, permeating her even as it drift she away. She frowns and...opens her eyes? She’d thought they were already open. She sits in the driver’s seat of a car, half-unbuckled from her seat belt. It’s not her car, though; her car is - is - what color is it? That detail escapes her grasp now, as do all others about the vehicle. She finishes undoing the belt and swings the door open, stepping out. It is then that she notices that the car is crookedly parked at the edge of the road. And that her hand is not her hand. She looks down at the hand, examining it in shock, and notices something else. Her-hand-not-her-hand drops to the flat expanse where her chest should be. Not only is this too muscular to be hers, it's clearly not female at all. She skitters back a step, beginning to hyperventilate; her foot bumps something. She turns. There she is, bloody, broken. Dead. The ghost of Marian Summers screams. *** Myriad stepped through the door of the Scholar's Guild as literally a new woman and looked around appraisingly with eyes like a beetle's shell and a smile that was no longer gentle.

So, Rebecca. Been getting any out-of-context randomness from @Archer lately? ()

!

Like seriously, giant.

That is a giant mood, @Ark1002.

Deteca smiled happily. Weddings were so nice.

"Shana and James think..." She couldn't finish, so she didn't try. Instead she just shrugged hopelessly.

I considered saying *keeps Luna from falling over* but then didn’t. Clearly, I should have. *pulls boots off* How do you play forum tag? I’ve read of people playing it, but don’t know how myself.

*applauds*

*tells her to wear them*

*sends boots back to Lunamor because she only ever wears one pair of shoes*

Cassie pressed her palms into her eye sockets, which failed to stop either her headache or her tears. “Ugh,” she muttered weakly, then ran to the counter and grabbed a tissue. After holding it to her eyes for a bit, she looked up at Draug. “No, things are the opposite of all right.” Things are all wrong.

*gives boots*

You skipped the journey. Sure, she’d skipped some of the oaths, but did that mean she was skipping the journey and going straight to the destination? Cass’s gaze dropped from Shana to the table, biting her cheek in thought. Can’t that be just another journey? A different one. One where I rode in a plane for part of the trip. That doesn’t count as skipping it, just doing it faster in a new way... But when you take an airplane flight, you don’t fall out of the sky halfway through before getting back up like nothing happened and going on. The intense nausea, pain, and wrongness that had crashed over her when the Nightwatcher was gifting her...could that have been the death of a spren? She’d heard they screamed when they died, but if a spren communicated with emotions instead of a voice - and if you couldn’t hear or feel them as a Shardblade afterward - The Nightwatcher’s grieving eyes. How she’d said she was giving Cassie the bane so she wouldn’t do more harm. The panic James and Shana were practically emanating now. Oh, storms. A headache announced its presence with a pound, and she buried her hands in her hair for a moment. “No,” she whispered, not denying anymore but protesting. No, not this. Not now. Not Joy. “No. How...why did I...how did I not see this?” Logically, her mind told her the signs had been concealed. The Shardblade - which was Joy, she realized now, but not alive - had even glowed, likely from the Nightwatcher’s power, or maybe just temporarily from the Surge of Stormlight in the room. Logically, she couldn’t have figured it out, especially not so early on. But illogically...”I’m so stupid. I broke the First Ideal?”

Cassie looked at James; she looked at Shana. Then she laughed. “Um, okay, good joke?” @Sorana @Wyndlerunner