11731/15 Fears: Portents

15 Fears: Portents
Date of Scene:	24 June 2022
Location:	Robbie's Apartment
Synopsis:	Rien is visited by a waking nightmare that plays on her worst fears. Is this a precursor of something to come or just idle thoughts running rampant on a worried mind?
Cast of Characters:	Rien D'Arqueness, Chas Chandler

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Rien D'Arqueness has posed:
It's one of the nights Robbie's late in coming back to the apartment. Maybe he's doing work-work, maybe he's doing hush-work... and maybe Eli is running amok in the city. It's this last thought that tugs at her mind as she prepares for bed. Normally she would shove it aaside and remind herself that Robbie always comes back to the apartment. Pulling a brush through her hair, her mind wanders to worrisome subjects. He's been having more trouble keeping Eli under wraps lately, it's been affecting him more, affecting them all more. She lets out a small breath and finally admits to herself that she's been on edge, waiting for the night he doesn't come back. The night that Eli takes over completely.

There's not much in the waking world to frighten the mutant sorceress. Things like death, pain, bring hunted, being used, creatures in the dark.. these things don't bother her. No, what slips past her defenses are the insidious internal fears. What happens if Robbie -doesn't- come back? What if he -never- comes back? She'd be alone again. Jon's already pulled back from leadership while he's dealing with other matters, she isn't one to make friends quickly or easily... the thoughts circle through her head as she goes through the nighttime rituals on autopilot. Brushing her hair and teeth, washing her face, using the toilet.

The first fears tends to feed into the next... what happens if she ends up like her father? Doomed to find and lose love constantly throughout eternity, forgetting who she is, becoming the Queen of Nothing her family had pegged her as. Reinne du Rien. She'd taken Rien for a name in an act of defiance, but it wasn't really her, was it? Was she nothing? She wasn't even in her own world, could she ever really belong to a world she wasn't born to? The thoughts are still chasing themselves endlessly through her head as she turns off the lights and lays down, eyes closing to try and get some sleep.

Chas Chandler has posed:
    One worry feeds on another, the two coumpounding and expanding in her mind. They're so prevalent that she doesn't even notice the silver mist that worms it's way into her thoughts. Weaving through idle ideas, touching up on memory here, a worry there. Digging deeper and deeper into her mind. Until it finds her core and,,,,

    The image in the mirror isn't her. Sure it looks like her: same long blonde hair, same fine features, same eyes. But it's not her. Something about the curve of the mouth, the tightening of the eyes at the edge of their sockets. It smiles then, wider and wider and wider in a way that her mouth cannot smile.

    "Finally ready to talk?" her reflection asks in a voice that is so like her own, but not the same at all. THe inflection is all wrong. Accents hitting on syllables that don't line up with the words right. "We've been waiting for such a long, long time."

Rien D'Arqueness has posed:
Rien steps up to the mirror, still buried in her own worries and concerns, her fears and terrors. It isn't until the face reflected starts to turn strange with the rictus smile that she can't manage and certainly doesn't feel. Blinking, she isn't worried, not yet. There's nothing showing any true threat yet, though her suspicions are raised.

Both brows furrow at the jarring sound of the reflection's speech, briefly wondering if she shouldn't just smash it and move on, then pausing at the final comment, "We? I only see one, where's the rest of your 'we'?" The words are deceptively calm, those blue eyes jumping around, wondering what sort of ambush she's stumbled into... and for that matter, how did she get here? She was just getting ready for bed....

Chas Chandler has posed:
    "Does we have to mean more than one?" her reflection asks. "And if it does, what is to say that there is not more than one, others that you cannot see, are not aware of, are not cognizant of the presence of more even if your mind tells you there is only one." The reflection smiles wider still. "After all, you are the only one here, so that alone puts 'we' in doubt does it not? I am simply you, so 'we' cannot talk... you are the only one speaking."

    A low cloud of mist snakes along the floor, barely more than the floor itself but it is all pervasive. All encompassing, and fills the entire ground of the small spartan apartment share by Rien and Robbie. It's cool to the touch, and mioght be a welcome presence on the hotter trending nights of the Eastern seaboard of the US. BUt something about it too feels...strange. Unnatural.

Rien D'Arqueness has posed:
Eyes narrowing, she stares at the reflection of herself, then shakes her head and turns from the mirror, "You make about as much sense as that Deadpool guy. I'm going to go check on Gabe, you have fun being creepy." Her feet start off at a leisurely pace, but as those insidious thoughts start to creep back in, whispering that she's alone, she's always going to be alone, her feet start to pick up pace as she hurries down the hall. By the time she reaches Gabe's door, her breathing has picked up a little, and her knock might sound a bit forceful, "Hey Gabe, you okay in there?" The sight of the mist has her frowning, knocking again, "Gabe? C'mon, cunado, answer me please..."

She's getting a little frantic as the mist continues creeping in, her hand dropping to the doorknob, "Hey Gabe, sorry in advance..." And she tries to open the door to satisfy for herself that he's actually home and in his room, and probably sleepy and pissed that she's bursting into his room. Please let him be in there to be pissed at her. Rien flicks a glance back to the mirror, then back to the door, "Dammit Robbie... why do you always have to be out so late..."

Chas Chandler has posed:
    The door opens not onto Gabe's room but instead on a room full of mirrors. And Rien is faced with more twisted reflections of herself. Some have only slight variations. Different eyes. Different hair. Different body shape. But it's still her. Only her. They all speak in unison with that strange cadence that isn't quite right. "Running will only make you more alone. That's the problem isn't it?"

    The fog has risen, pooling around her calves. "You flee what you can never outrun. Even if you are the only one left in the entirety of the world..." the reflections say. "What will you be then? Adrift in the world. No connections. No relations. No one to remember that you even had a name. Do you have a name?" they ask, tilting their heads in strange unnatural ways. "Tell us... who -are- we?" they ask, lifting a hand to stare at their own fingers in wonderment. "Or do you even know?"

Rien D'Arqueness has posed:
"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, fuck this...." Rien wants to go, wants to turn away from the many, many, many Rien's staring back at her. "The only ones I'm running from is YOU! Fuck off and give me my family back!" She whirls around, eyes darting this way and that, looking at each of the different reflections until she's all but snarling at them, hackles up.

Ssssssssssssssnnnnnnnnnnnnnniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiikt.

The claws slide out, the ivory of bone limned in that soft blue glow, the woman looking very much like her father in that moment. Ready to fight everything, even herself, if it means getting back what she's lost. "I'm not running!" She lashes out at the mirrors, claws and fists swinging, shattering as many as she can. Unmindful of the cuts and slices of the glass into her skin, the wounds sealing almost as soon as they open, only the droplets of blood to show that they were ever there.

"I'm not... not... I'm..." she slows, pausing, confused. Staring down at her hands, then back at her endless reflections. Rien's expression falls, crumpling into base emotion as she's thrown back to her earliest memories, "I am... Reinne du Rien... Queen of Nothing... nothing.." Tears start to fall as she stares blindly ahead, seeing nothing, voices from the past echoing in her head. Angry voices, dismissive voices... cold, uncaring. She cringes, slowly folding in on herself. In the end, she's crouched on the floor, arms over her head, claws extending down from her hands along the line of her back, crying.

"...I am nothing..."

Chas Chandler has posed:
    The laughter that comes from the reflections in the remaining mirrors is a haunting thing. Piercing deeper and cutting more fiercely than anything Rien's own claws could possibly do. The fog has risen, it shifts and ebbs around her shoulders as she crouches down. "And that is how you managed to touch upon us and ultimately why you are the gateway for our reemergence."

    More laughter trickles from the mirrors, every shard and broken pane showing more of her. More of no one else. "We are nothing, just as you are nothing, and in being nothing we will forever be alone and unknown." The reflections chuckle in amusement. "But is that truly so bad? To be alone is to be free. Free of responsibility. Free of care. Only the alone can truly know freedom."

    A number of the reflections step from their panes and huddle down with her. And the worst is that they all look like her. Exactly like her. In fact, it would be difficult to tell which is truly the original Rien, huddled and afraid as they all look. The voice comes from everywhere and nowhere. "And when you are free of those responsibilities, you can embrace the nothing that you are meant to be. Nothing has no meaning and every meaning. Why not accept that potential and take that lack of meaning to heart?"

Rien D'Arqueness has posed:
"No... no go away, go away! I don't want you, any of you! I don't want this!" Rien scuttles backward, away from her doubles, turning, scrambling to hands and feet, then leveraging herself upright. "You're wrong! I don't want this! This isn't freedom, it's torture! It's a void, a vortex that kills everything... I don't want any of you."

Turning, she runs out of the room, trying to get away from them. From The Nothing. "Robbie! Gabe! C'mon guys, call out! Tell me where you are! Robbie! Gabe!" Rien continues to run, aimlessly, blindly. Trying to get away from the mirrors and their contents. "I can't.. I won't be nothing.. I won't fall into that trap!"

The bravado is thick, but she can't hide the tremor in her voice as she calls out, can't hide the stink of fear that fills her own nose. And really, how does one outrun something like this? They really are everywhere, all around... ever present..."

Chas Chandler has posed:
    More fog greets her; the visibility all but gone. Even the walls of the apartment aren't there as she moves through calling for anyone but herself. It's all just fog and hazy images that share her face. Her form, running parallel, perpendicular, through and around her. All her. All nothing.

    That voice that is and is not hers laughs around her through the fog. "Yes. It is our little no one. It's torture because it's true. The absence of knowing pain doesn't make it any less real. But in time, you will forget even that. In time you will forget that you ever hurt. Because no one will be around to comfort you in your agony. It will swell and consume you and then it too will be nothing. One more face in the crowd of the faceless."

    Even as it speaks she can feel her own features blur and shift to a haze to match those faceless figures that run with her in the fog.

    An unsettling feeling creeps into her. If she is running through the fog, and those other faceless women are running through the fog, was she the one who started? Or is she just another of those multiples? Her consciousness starts to jump from figure to figure, and yet the perspective is never different. They are all her and they are all faceless and unrecognizable even to themselves.

    The bubbling laughter of her own voice cracks and screeches with audio distortion as it traverses through this empty and lonely hellscape.

    And then it's over. Rien stands in front of the mirror, the hairbrush still in her hand, the sink water adding its own soft white noise sound to the empty silence of the room. The reflection in the mirror is her still. Completely her. No strange quirk to mark it as different. And yet, there, lingering in her mind the question:

What does 'her' even mean?