You're From The Isle If Anybody Asks

[missrecalled_mods]

First Awareness

Those used to this by now probably knew what it meant when they felt their magic return for a moment. For the rest, suddenly their powers were back. Just for a few minutes, but a lot could be done in a few minutes. If the person even noticed their powers were back, that is.

Of course those on the shore might have seen the hazy indistinct shape through the barrier coming closer, might have seen the moment the hole in the barrier opened. Might have seen King Ben leading people down a gangplank through the barrier with crates of supplies....

Unions, Re And Otherwise

Once the supplies were unloaded, the barrier was sealed up again. King Ben seemed to be in charge during the unloading, Once the barrier was closed again, by the green magic streaming from the Queen's finger, it was Mal who seemed to be in charge.

"Alright, listen up. We have 2 hours and the clock is ticking. I'm not FG but we're keeping to a deadline anyway. If you want to come to Auradon or know someone you want us to bring back, you have 2 hours to convince us. You and everyone else, sharing the same 2 hours. Along with anyone who has a supply request for our next visit, or updates. Those of you bringing supplies to the school, time to get cracking. Two hours passes faster than midnight at the ball."

Those Who Left

(Please TL Here for boat and Auradon Shenanigans. TY)

Those What Remain

Once those going back to Auradon had left and the barrier was back in place, it was for those who remained on the Isle to sort the supplies and figure out how to get done everything that needed to be done with the people that remained.

Comments

[elvendryad]

And Foulques could feel the subtle change in Chell's mood as he mulled it over at first -- just a small hint of fond amusement. It was hardly judgmental... he didn't quite reply to him, but for what felt like a subtle confirmation: yes, he was here; they were here; he saw him. Felt him? He'd been right: words so often were inadequate, and this was bypassing all of that. A quiet yes, at any rate. Perhaps of interest for the lancer for later, would be the complete lack of objection about that latter comparison -- but also what seemed to be a slightly different understanding of it. What it was, though, exactly, he might have to ask later.

The rush of ideas about plants seemed to surprise Chell a bit, but he quickly fell into trying to focus as it was presented to him. He'd been expecting perhaps one or two, or maybe even three or four -- but this was something else. He was impressed, though -- it was new, it was interesting! -- and there was so much of it!

By the time Foulques had paused, he might be able to note something else... that for all that Chell maintained he'd been of a people not much unlike most others, there was something else present, some sort of... other...? A discipline, a practice, a pattern that felt not quite like what he might be used to thinking of as, well, what thought patterns and memory were ordinarily like, at least for him. This was something methodical, something organized... something reflexive... alien, almost? The echo of the ents Chell was so used to, enough so that he was falling into their patterns to keep up, grabbing hold of what he could of each of those ideas presented to him, trying to categorize and sort them--

And there was something else, some idle, distracted part of Chell's attention that was rather plainly -- in deliberately obvious sight, it seemed, struggling to call up a memory, but needing help with it: something faded and secondhand, mostly-forgotten, a memory so old it seemed to come from many lifetimes previous... how old was he? Or perhaps, how old were some of the notions, like this one, that he was carrying? ...of somewhat-similar produce from people he could barely remember. This one was something like small nuts at the end of stalks of grass, which was then crushed...? No, that wasn't quite right, but some part of a thread of what he'd just been shown was tugging at it. Perhaps it was that last one, the notion of being ground fine and made into something softer, the bread... had it been bread? Or a cooked cereal, perhaps...? He wasn't sure; if he'd ever known, it was so long ago....

[mist_the_point]

The methodical nature of Chell's thoughts brought to mind the visions he'd seen from Sun and Moon's perspective. It was hardly identical, of course, but something about the methodical nature of it, each thought a distinct piece of information laid out neatly like... well like a tree's growth rings struck him as more similar to the information that had scrolled by from the mammet's point of view. As opposed to his own thoughts, which were much more disorganized, flowing from one to the next almost unbidden, which was partly how he'd pulled so much memory of edible flora together so quickly.

As he examined the faint and faded memory of Chell's- from how log ago, there was no way to tell, but far longer than what he would consider a normal lifetime-, it brought back memories of his own, not nearly so distant as Chell's but still faint and faded with time. The enticing and faintly nutty smell of baking bread filling the kitchen of a little stone cottage as a tall, slim woman stirred a pot on the nearby stove. Her skin and hair were the same colors as his, though her hair was significantly longer and sleeker, woven into a single braid that reached to the middle of her back. My mother, Capucine, he instantly identified her.

More memories of her followed, all warm and affectionate, but tinged with sorrow. Her looking up from working in her little garden outside the cottage, dappled sunlight dancing over her as her face broke into a bright smile that lit up her gold eyes. Her working at the cottage's kitchen table laden with various dried herbs and fruits, glancing at a recipe book before adding a few herbs to a mortar for grinding. Her kneeling in prayer before a delicately carved wooden figurine of a beautiful woman. The goddess Nophica, The Matron, another instant identification.

His mother had been very devout, he recalled, her faith giving her joy in the good times, comfort in the bad ones. He wondered if she'd turned to the Matron as Dalamud had burned red in the sky, growing larger and more baleful by the day? A brief image of a sky with two moons, one much like the one Chell would know, and the other smaller, but glowing an ominous red... And before he can turn from it, the fleeting image of a dragon. No, not a dragon, but an avatar of pure rage in the form of one. Enormous and black, raining fire and death. Bahamut. The Dreadwyrm. The Twelveswood left burning in its wake, and in the wake of the fire...

A pile of charred rubble where once had stood a little stone cottage. A few pieces still smoldering. The air acrid with the smell of burning, of charred wood and stone and flesh... And heavy with loss and despair.

A wince that Chell would both see and feel as Foulques ruthlessly shoved the memory away. "Apologies," he said aloud. "I hadn't meant for my mind to stray to thoughts of the Calamity, but I doubt any who lived in Eorzea then could truly separate the memory of their loved ones from how they were lost."

(in case anyone's stalking: things got a lil dark there. >_>)

[elvendryad]

It may have started with some hint of agreement -- yes, this? likely this! -- when it came to the bread, that half-idea of grass-nut things, and....

He set that aside, quite willingly following along this new train of thought. It brought up other memories of his own, however faint those now were: he'd mentioned before, briefly, that much had been lost to him, to time... names, faces, voices... but the feelings, those were there. The sense of what it was like to have others surrounding him, a loving family, a whole community... that much, he could find, in agreement to Foulques's, of his mother.... A faint curiosity, toward the idea of religion -- it was just not something Chell seemed to be familiar with, as presented -- and a quiet, at what followed, one with a somewhat hidden sense of sorrow and loss of his own... something about that was familiar, as well. Chell's had mostly been longer, drawn out, a slower loss, rather than something so shockingly massive all at once, but he understood, all the same.

The fire and smoke and rubble... he was deliberately refusing what memory of his own that tied to, rather than letting it join as well. It wouldn't help anything. The more dramatic loss, thankfully muffled under centuries of deliberate aversion....

He shook his head a little as Foulques spoke again; it was like apologizing for wincing or crying out, when putting pressure on an injured leg, as he saw it. It was barely a second or so after, that Chell offered a thought of his own in consolation, carefully focused....

Foulques might well have caught the echoes of the situations and context around it, though such implications weren't Chell's intent here: that Chell knew, and knew well, as definitely as he knew that stone was hard and water was wet, that that last moment held a kind of rest. That was the notion he offered this time... however secondhand it might actually have been, in reality -- thirdhand? how did one count the passing of experiences, like this? -- it was a feeling that was clear and soft, something reinforced time and again, despite what had led to it... something that was sometimes barely a blink, or perhaps a long moment, as all else failed, and probably longer to the one it belonged to... that last whisper.... Whatever had happened, he was certain that there had been that, as well, a last bit of peace.

It wasn't the most conventional way to offer condolences, certainly....

[mist_the_point]

Peace... A rare thing in Eorzea. But he hoped what Chell offered was true. The countless lost to Bahumt's wrath deserved that much at least.

As one memory flowed into another, images of another sort of fire in the sky took their place. Fireworks bursting in the starry sky above the Twelveswood, new fleeting constellations painted in every color. Blossoms and starbursts and showers of light, there one moment, gone the next. And people watching on the ground below in bittersweet remembrance. The Rising, he identified it. An annual festival to commemorate those lost to the Calamity... and to symbolize Eorzea's rebirth from its ashes.

"Though the continent be forever changed, life does go on," he said thoughtfully. "And so must we. Though whatever may come for Eorzea in the future, I won't be there to see it. Which is likely for the best."