Work Text:
Your first indication something is wrong feels like a punch to the gut. The air rushes from your lungs
out with the old
and you struggle to draw breath. You can't seem to suck in any air, it's like you've forgotten how to breathe. Your throat is stuck shut, and refuses to work. You desperately attempt to remember what motions you go through to breathe, and to your mounting horror, find that you can't. It's been an unconscious action for as long as you can remember, and you have no idea how to consciously force it.
Spots swim in front of your eyes and you become aware of a pain in your abdomen that's been getting increasingly difficult to ignore. You finally manage to suck in a tiny gasp of air and the pain from your belly roars for your attention. You look down and see a spreading splotch of red on your golden pajamas and suddenly the pain flares. You double over and grab your belly, trying to...what? You don't know, you just want it to end, you want the pain to go away it's too much you didn't sign up for this it was supposed to be a game it was supposed to be fun
and in with the new
and it stops. You gulp down a blessedly pain-free lungful of air and let out a shuddering breath. And suddenly, all is silence and whiteness. There is nothing around you but endless white, and you look down at yourself to make sure you haven't gone blind. You haven't. You also realize that it isn't entirely silent—there is a faint breeze blowing around you. As you focus on it, you notice that the breeze is literally flowing around you in a curlicue motion. It rushes at you, encircles you, and blows away again in tiny gusts. It's almost like the wind is trying to encircle you, to fold itself around you, to protect you. This notion fills you with a quiet tranquility and you find yourself grinning like a loon. Quiet tranquility perhaps, but you've never been very good at subdued. It finally occurs to wonder what exactly is going on, but the wind wraps itself around you more tightly, and you get the impression that you don't need to worry. And then
rise up windy one
you're floating, flying, the wind is curling around you and feel something pull at your head. You reach back and find a hood shaped like a windsock attached to your shirt. The tail of the hood reaches your heels and the wind is whipping it back and forth. You look down and find your golden pajamas have been replaced with an outfit colored in hues of blue with a symbol on the front that you find vaguely familiar. In addition, you feel fantastic. Like you've just had the most perfect night's sleep followed by the world's best (confectionery-free, of course) breakfast. You look up at the clouds
there's work to do
and gasp. There you are, lying on your quest bed with a gaping hole right through your heart. You're surrounded by a pool of oozing red. Your hands leap to your chest where you remember feeling a wrenching pain in the recent past. They find nothing but whole and unharmed skin, but you cannot help but feel a twinge of phantom pain.
Floating over the battlefield, staring at your real self-turned-corpse, you feel betrayed, and worse, you feel stupid (stupid stupid dumb). You'd followed the advice of a troll once before, or so Davesprite had claimed. It led to your death. You have no memory of it happening because, due to Davesprite's interference, it hadn't. The idea still makes you shudder though.
Now here you are again. Another dead John added to the pile because you ignored your friends' advice and listened to a troll. Rose called you a leader, but what sort of leader gets himself killed twice in a row by the same thing? What sort of leader ignores his best friend's advice? And yet...you're floating above the battlefield, stronger than you've ever been. Had you not trusted Vriska and told her to put you to sleep, then you would've been awake and felt your death even more intimately...and painfully. Maybe she was doing you a kindness? Maybe she was just looking out for you! (but what if you could've defeated whatever it was that killed you?)
You shake your head and decide that you really aren't sure what to think about this right now. You could really do with some advice from somebody. Rose would probably have something to say on the matter. It looks like you don't have anything in your sylladex though. You guess you're going to have to get your hands on a computer somehow.
After that well...you're not really sure! You'll probably talk to Rose and see what she thinks about all this if she isn't too busy! For now, you're going to admire your slick new duds, and maybe play around with your new god-tier powers. Whatever those are. The game's not going to wait, and you've got some adventuring to do!