tiredcharmer: (Uhhhhhh)
tiredcharmer ([personal profile] tiredcharmer) wrote in [community profile] diatu2020-01-13 09:38 pm

White Mourning [semi-open]

Who: Tyzias, her depression, and you!
What: Tyzias comes out of her self-imposed exile.
When: Early January
Where: The Campus
Warnings: Depression, minor dysphoria, implied suicidal ideation
Notes: The warnings are serious. If you're triggered by any of these topics, please don't open the cut text.


Caustic Echo (open)
After the Third Calamity descended upon Diatu and Tyzias was forced to reveal her true nature to save it, she disappeared.

Well, that's not exactly accurate. She got healed, made her excuses, walked to her room, locked the door, and didn't come out for eight days. There were no responses to any knocks at the door, and any attempts to force an entrance were met with stalwart automatic warding magics.

Eight days later, the goddess emerges from her room. And boy howdy she does not look good. Tyzias wears the exact same clothes that she did during the final battle, bloodied and torn and rumpled and dirty. Her eyepatch is only half-on, revealing the mess of scar tissue and dark mist seething underneath. She shambles forward with undeniable intent and a blank expression on her face, which is covered with an abomination that's half-five o'clock shadow, half-full beard. Looking at the damn thing is liable to make someone depressed all on its own.

Then Tyzias reaches her destination: a fountain in a secluded courtyard. Carelessly, thoughtlessly, she retrieves one of her numerous blades and dips it in the water. Normally Tyzias is efficient and precise with her movements whenever she has a weapon out, with the sort of caution you'd expect a master of the craft to have. Now it's like she doesn't give a damn whether she hurts herself or anyone else.

She dips it in the water, then begins hacking away at her face. Bit by it. Millimeter by millimeter. The beard slowly begins to disappear.

Sometimes, Tyzias flings the sword away (it inevitably sinks hilt-deep into a wall), and collapses against the fountain, not crying. There's a very distinct lack of crying that's almost unnatural. It's a void where crying should be.

The work takes hours.

Volumetric Shit Compressor (open)
gone bustin' - tyzias

That's what the hastily-scrawled note on Tyzias's front door reads. What it means is anyone's guess, unless said anyone is an expert on Earth pop-culture and is familiar with the undead situation in the caverns.

For several days, Tyzias is a ghostly presence around campus, stalking the hallways at random times, picking at tiny portions of food, and tossing used swords and other weapons away. Then she vanishes again.

Somebody stalking her, or passing by the entrance of the catacombs by chance, may find Tyzias performing a complex key ritual at the barrier to enter—after all, she was the one who designed the current security system.

Then, once inside, she rips and tears. Decayed gore and dried blood and disturbingly solid ectoplasm spatter the cave walls as Tyzias mechanically and recklessly annihilates the undead horde. She gives no thoughts to defense, of dodging, simply taking the attacks as they come and continuing with her assault until everything in the room is double-dead. Tyzias uses every weapon available to here like a club, smashing through her foes with absolutely no technique.

In fact, when you approach her on one of these missions, she just

Reaches out

Clamps her fingers around a zombie's head

And squeezes

Until it bursts like a ripe melon.

This probably isn't healthy.

Rigorous (Self) Critique (Closed to Yuume)
When Yuume finally arrives for her scheduled research session with Tyzias, she's a sight different than the ghost that was flitting around the campus just a day prior. Completely clean-shaven, smiling gently as she sketches some notes, knee jittering up and down... she's possessed by an almost manic energy that's the polar opposite of what she's been like for more than a week now. (Not that Yuume would know that, considering that they met over bulletin a mere day prior.)

Tyzias swivels in her chair and offers a two-fingered salute to Yuume, grinning crookedly. "Yo. Are you Yuume?"

Some Kind of Superstar (Closed to Seto)
A Duel Monsters card flies at Seto seemingly out of nowhere, with unerring aim and accuracy.

Tyzias emerges from the shadows, filled with that same manic energy. "Alright. How 'bout we do it properly this time? I think I owe you that after you helped save everyone's collective ass, mine included, on Christmas Eve." There's a hint of irony in that last phrase that's impossible to decipher the meaning of.

Finger on the Eject Button (Closed to Close Friends and Family (including Sophie))
Tyzias sits atop the clocktower, legs dangling over the abyss as she looks out over the campus with an unreadable expression. In Tyzias's hands is an old and battered textbook, its title barely legible through the wear, tear, stabbings, slashings, burns, and forces that it's been exposed to, even if one can read an alien language such as this. The spiked gavel on the cover, stained as it is, reveals its purpose: a receptacle of law. Wind skims the voids keeping classmates apart, as if grazing the hollow of a cut reed. A familiar note is produced: it's the one Desolation plays to keep its instrument in tune.

It is a day like any other in Tyzias's life, except something is missing now, and has been for weeks. Her hope, her dream, the one thing that kept her going this past sweep, is extinguished like a candle in the face of a wrathful gale. Her present conundrum is only the latest the latest sleight of hand in the repertoire of an unseen riddler, one to engender a sense not of mirth, but of lack. Their coarse schemes are those less of a prankster than a common pickpocket. Their riddle is Absence itself. It is a mystery dispersing altogether, like the moon's faint reflection, with even one pebble of inquiry dropped in its black well. It is the most diabolical riddle of all.

"Absence diminishes little passions and increases great ones, as wind extinguishes candles and fans a fire."

Tyzias needs help. But who will be the one to give it?
princepallidus: (In Awe)

[personal profile] princepallidus 2020-01-18 05:08 am (UTC)(link)
And just like that, a dam fucking broke and the words kept coming and coming. Pallidus didn’t say a word, struggling just to keep pace with the reckless tide of foreign words and alien concepts. Most of it he could understand to a degree but some of it was unfathomable to his mind, so used to limitations on his view of the universe. Theoretically he understood there was so much more out there, he had even understood that before arriving at the academy, but hearing it from someone who had actually lived it was a completely different level of comprehension.

Still, he held strong, allowing his brain the chance to try and catch up in order to make sense of at least some of her ramblings.

“So you found a way back, but there’s nothing to go back to,” he said after a moment, confirming her words from before. He had never considered that before, Cavernae just being Gone. He figured after a while he would eventually get back, but if he had the chance only to find no one he knew before, his family, Princess Tyria, all gone, he might go mad.

“But!” Pallidus suddenly had a thought, latching into it with desperation. “But, you’re here. Against your choice, yes, but you are here, right now. That means, ah, that is, would it not be possible that someone, anyone you knew, also came to a place like this? Magically appeared like us Sundered or otherwise?”
princepallidus: (Concerned)

And I’m sorry for not replying sooner! My notification was lost to the abyss...

[personal profile] princepallidus 2020-01-27 04:37 pm (UTC)(link)
Her second body? Was she referring to the way she looked before the Shadow battle? Or was she meaning something much more literal; a complete reassortment of particles and atoms coming together to give her soul a physical form again? He probably wouldn’t understand even if he tried, but that didn’t seem to be what was causing her true pain.

Hesitantly, not wanting to offend or upset her further, Pallidus reaches out a hand and gently touched her shoulder. “That’s a long time to be grieving. I cannot say I can fully understand how you feel at this time, and to claim I know would be cruel. I don’t want you to think one friend is better than another, or to invalidate how you feel now or before but... there are still people who care about you here.”

His grip tightened, and his eyes gleamed softer than before. “And, would it be so awful to find your friends again and have to befriend them a second time? You mentioned to me once that you used to keep your head down and tried to duck from scrutiny. Wouldn’t you like your friends to see you, the strong, caring, radiant person you are now? Even if it took a lifetime to find them again, wouldn’t that be worth it?”
princepallidus: (Satisfied)

[personal profile] princepallidus 2020-01-29 09:00 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh no. He’s so terrible at this! Comforting others, dealing with tears, and now here he’s gone and caused her to cry through his fumblings. Biting his bottom lip, Pallidus frantically tries to find the right words to apologize, but before he can get a word out he’s crushed in her embrace.

Oh. Well.

Gently, Pallidus returns the hug with one of his own. Flashes of the last time he hugged someone, Tyria in frustrated tears over her younger sister’s foolishness, the thought trickles through his mind and warms him. Hugging, yeah, he can do this.

“... Just take your time,” he says. “I’m here. As long as you need.”