#albatross.

NPC: ALBATROSS. REMORA   —   29,  W.

Danger Sense: you can feel when danger is about to strike within one mile of your person (+) you can pinpoint the exact person in danger if you make eye contract with them (-)  you cannot turn this power off (-) you do not know when the danger will strike, only that it will most likely happen within the next 12 hours (-) you do not know the exact danger level except for when it involves death (-) you do not know how the danger will present itself

HISTORY

cw: death mention

WHEN THEY ASK HOW YOU CAN SHOULDER THE WORLD, you will tell them it’s a matter of perspective. The fall does not feel far when your cheek is already pushed to the ground, the dirt a familiar taste in your mouth. After a time, pain can transform into pleasure and rebuild a girl into a heroine. So when they ask if you understand the weight of your responsibility you will reply there has never been enough for you to carry. As a child you are made aware of things that lurk in the night, the phantoms that haunt others much like you, and the gift that you possess like a key. Your secret is stored in a locket, kept hidden around the length of your neck and it reminds you of the tragedies that await your failure. A girl with no sense of self other than the security she can provide others, you understand your life to mean more than the whole of your parts. It is the knowledge that you could be the hand of fate, the only person who sees fate as it is. You are given a choice then, extend your hand to save another, or cut the arm of one who begs for mercy — the decision has always been yours to make. It is one you have always known the answer to.

There is surrender in the ocean, a calm that molds your history. It carries with it the freedom of knowing, the ever constant flux of cause and effect, creation and destruction. An ocean is a small space of infinity and it exists endlessly without pause. Some will warn you that the sea is nothing but death, an abyss that can persuade a soul into stasis, but this is a lie spun by those who are too afraid of what they might be — of who they currently are. In truth, the ocean cannot separate itself from its parts in the same way humanity cannot separate itself from itself. You know this about man and you love them because of it. And so you stare into the abyss and try to memorize its face for you know that only a few may survive its knowledge — only you are strong enough to bear it.

CONNECTIONS

CALADRIUS﹒ GOD KNOWS WHAT BONES I’D BE GNAWING ON IN MY SLEEP

You learn of his shadow in the same way he learns of yours. The stars align just so, and the wind brushes past just right, and the words that would have made Camelot crumble are made softer by moonlight. Your friendship emerges as the consequence of your selfishness — you wouldn’t have wanted it otherwise. There is a silent recognition between you, a mutual understanding of who you are and what you must do. CALADRIUS sees it as a game, a thing to make light of the dark situation you are both in. You appreciate it as a consequence of all things interesting. Still, you hope he dies first in the timeline of your lives. You hope he dies so that he will not have to bear the weight of knowing he might have saved you. You hope he loses so that he can be spared from another victory.

ROOK ﹒WOULD YOU DO IT AGAIN? YES.

cw: parental death

Your devotion is not a coincidence, it is the result of regret. ROOK does not know this but you were there the night her parents died, you knew this in the same way you knew the sun would rise again. The weight of this guilt resides in the truth that you could have prevented it, that you could have spared them, but you saw the way his lips moved into a smile and you were envious of the way love clung to her. It doesn’t matter that you too were a child, anyone can save anyone, you were just too much of a coward who couldn’t see past her own life. ROOK and her family were the result of your envy, the tragedy that follows in the wake of your humanity. They did not reach out for you to save them, but shouldn’t have needed to ask. Now, ROOK is the only person who can give you absolution. You will never tell her of this event, you do not want her forgiveness — you couldn’t ask for it.

SPARROW﹒   WHAT I MEAN TO SAY, PERHAPS, IS THAT, IN A WAY, I AM NEVER EMPTY OF YOU

Death in its many forms has come to greet you, but SPARROW’S family is the one you miss the most. Fate sewed your souls together, strung your hearts along a clothesline, and allowed the sun to damage your memories into a nostalgic blotted pattern. Your life was touched by theirs and for a moment you believed yourself capable of holding onto something that wasn’t out of obligation. But resentment has ways of manifesting itself that precedes the laws of love. It was wrong of you to blame them for a fate they couldn’t control, but you saw the threat before anyone could think of its existence. SPARROW might not have been the one in danger, but the effect was essentially the same. They would have been wounded by the harm to another, and for that you shielded them from the worst of it. You could not have controlled the compulsion to protect them, just as you could not deny the feeling of bitterness at having to do so.