(Truth from Dreams) Nature's bounty

[Animus]

Animus settles down on the floor with his back to the wall, making himself as comfortable as possible. Restlessness sets in almost immediately; the need to shift around, to move. He clamps down on it, letting his eyes drift closed and focusing on his remaining senses.

Soft music, the softer hiss of air conditioning. Mechanical sources, that couldn't hold his attention for long. The musty smell of a room long disused is likewise passed over, in short order. The Thyrsus' attention soon moves inward, mind and body slowly relaxing. The cool hardness from wall and floor. The soft, steady rhythms of breath and pulse. This made him more at home, allowed his consciousness to begin to drift, but it still wasn't quite enough. Too centralized, too familiar.

His focus broadens outward once again, this time along the lines of his sense of the living. Tiny flames warming everything around them, even in the midst of humanity's obsession with substituting its own designs for those of the natural world. Leo, Kite, Ariadne. The fluffy bundle of fur Kite had introduced as Shelly. Innumerable insects that no building ever entirely rid itself of. At the edge of range, birds overhead, the occasional fast-moving spark that could only be from passengers in a car. The soft blanket of grass, and the occasional tree.

Finally his mind lets go, taking with it the press of life as it breaks away entirely from the external environment. Awareness comes slowly, details which are first inchoate gradually gaining focus and sharpness. He walks barefoot down a path, dirt shifting and packing under bare feet and oozing between toes. The occasional sharp throb of stepping on a root provides definition: the craggy trunks of trees surrounding him, scattered sunlight filtering through the branches of a deep forest. The rich scents of pine cones and decomposing leaves.

Sounds, too. Bird calls, high over head. Rustlings in the underbrush, signaling movement. Low growls, of one pack animal warning off a rival, or attempting to goad potential prey into flight. In the far distance, a chitter of pain cut off by its owner's death.

The Shaman travels ever onward, in constant vigilance. For all of nature's beauty, she did not tolerate the slightest bit of carelessness.

  5 suxx in 15 minutes

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2014-06-06 17:21:19		Animus rolls 10 to Wits + Comp + 2 (10 Again)		8, 9, 6, 10, 9, 5, 2, 4, 6, 8, 3		5 successes

Casitive

[roadnottaken]

The Shaman cringes under that silent judgment, feeling small and helpless. Doubts creep into his mind, along with half-formed flickers of memories yet out of reach. Self-doubt creeps up on him, but the jay's presence goads him on.

Eventually darkness closes in. Fear begins to gnaw at him, slowing his pace. The sounds of water impinge as if called into being by his growing hesitation, and a parched throat likewise makes itself felt. He could almost taste the cold, clear liquid washing down his gullet. Surely slaking his thirst would provide far more comfort than whatever might lie in those dark depths?

One step, two. The Thyrsus is not even aware of the beginnings of retreat until the alarm-bell calls of the green jay bring him back to himself. At once he halts, kneeling to scrape some of the new soil into his hands. Dry, gritty. And what it represented ...

But death had its place, too, in the cycles, and he would face his own if need be. Better to be a sword shattered in the defense of those worthy, than one warped and pitted, left to corrode worthlessly. Making eye contact with the bird, he stands, forcing himself to take one step, then another, leaving the promise of comfort and safety further behind.

  8 suxx running tally

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2014-06-07 18:41:08		Animus rolls 10 to Wits + Comp + 2 (10 Again)		5, 5, 2, 8, 4, 3, 6, 8, 10, 7, 7		3 successes

[roadnottaken]

The pain hardly bothered him. If the dead wished their revenge on the living, let them have it. And if the numerous and growing cuts turned each step into an arduous limp, so be it. Perhaps he even deserved it.

Vines, plant life. A welcome change, even if he half-expected thorns to sprout, and exact a toll of their own as he climbs.

Perhaps that would've been kinder. The darkness scratches at primal half-memories. Blood spilling across paws. A wolf tearing a swath of destruction, heedless of friend and foe. Darkness and silence broken by thunder, and lightning searing through flesh, senses shattered by pain.

  ohjustbarely

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2014-06-10 22:57:06		Animus rolls 7 to Res + Comp (10 Again)		5, 4, 4, 3, 2, 9, 6		1 success

He freezes in pain, shock; maintaining a helpless death-grip on the vines despite the sense of strangling innocents, perhaps friends. Panic is battled back and the Thyrsus stubbornly reserves his climb. He'd felt the plant life; it couldn't have become human veins.

Right?

  -1 mana; 13 suxx tally

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2014-06-10 22:58:01		Animus rolls 10 to Wits + Comp + 2 (10 Again)		8, 10, 3, 10, 2, 2, 2, 5, 3, 2, 8, 9		5 successes

Whatever the wavering doubts pulling at him, he fights onward, leaving behind one mental barrier to forge his way into the unknown.

[roadnottaken]

Home.

The Shaman drifts forward, dream-like, opening his senses. The scent of mint tickles the edge of memory, but nothing truly surfaces. Hardly surprising.

He's barely aware of passing through the door, lost in wonder at a sense of peace he had never once felt since regaining self-awareness.

[Animus]

Animus pads inside, one hand tracing uncertainly along the walls as he walks. If he could touch it, it was real, right? Eyes flicker around the house, but it is as much touch and smell that cement it in his mind.

And then, he's confronted with ... himself? Aggression, the hunt ... was this what he was becoming? Or ... did he not remember because this other had lived it? Mind reeling, the Thyrsus is caught completely off balance. "I ... wait, what? Denier, of ..." He shakes his head, hopelessly tied in knots of confusion. "What are you?"