un: absterge

[downswing]

( 'lo, from the depths of the Mouse House, post-Unwinding: )

If... this were no dream. The child of the rains, bearing a vulpine mask. 'Hyang-Won' and his pale protector.

He is remembered? He did not appear as the other manifestations.

Though we have retrieves ourselves, we cannot abandon a child to nightmares.


( Guilt is strong among exorcists. )

Comments

[downswing]

Then we proceed elsewise.

[thedreamer]

Yes, and carefully. You've been here longer than I have. Do you believe this child is the Beastmaster the others are talking about? That our encounter with him was a glimpse of the past?

[downswing]

I believe I am not he who beholds suffering.

[thedreamer]

I may be able to. If we can find a way back. I couldn't get close enough to the boy at the time and my thoughts about him were being manipulated.

[downswing]

You too experienced revulsion?

[thedreamer]

Like nothing I've felt before. A foreign entity in my mind, twisting my thoughts.

[ Unsettling, to say the least. Nothing ever really gets past his mental defenses like that. ]

Was it the child or the reality itself? I didn't feel that way about anything else I encountered.

[downswing]

Was the hatred our own?

[thedreamer]

Another manipulation, perhaps. In a world rife with them. A projection of another's hatred. Or a projection of the child's own, even. Hatred of himself, his circumstances. There's more information to gather, to know for sure.

[downswing]

If we had surrendered to our hate... what might we have done?

[thedreamer]

We would have lost ourselves.

I don't know what's waiting for us if we go back, though I don't fear it, only the risk to the others here. But if there is a way to go back, we'll find it, and you won't be alone.

[downswing]

When. Hardly 'if.'

[thedreamer]

If is just when holding its breath. The time will come and we'll go together.

[downswing]

Pretty poetry. Now, the truth.

[thedreamer]

The truth is it can be done. How quickly is the unknown.

Outside of this world, I travel between time, space, and other realities in my ship. My ship is the mechanism of transport. Without it, that makes this more challenging, but not impossible. We need a method of transport. You seem to know people capable of opening portals.

[downswing]

They claim futility here. Perhaps the man Magnus.

[thedreamer]

Perhaps he'll be willing.

There is a chance we cannot bring the boy back immediately or at all. I won't know without seeing him again, talking to him further. If the reality he exists in is a past timeline rather than a parallel echo, bringing him forward and into this world can cause a paradox, a collapse of our reality.

[ He couldn't see or sense anything with certainty at the time, unfortunately, everything was distorted. Maybe he won't be able to in going back, but he'll always believe it's worth a try. ]

[downswing]

Understood.