08-25-2020, 01:01 PM
ooc human au! tl;dr at the bottom. there’s a * at the start of the action.
It was getting worse.
The zoning out, the dissociation. The nightmares. Georgia had always suffered from fatigue, so it was virtually impossible for her to physically pull an all-nighter. It roughly translated to no peaceful sleep - ever. She’d wake up every hour; she’d be in and out of full consciousness.
Nightmares plagued her restless mind like a swarm. It became increasingly intolerable because they were hardly nightmares at all - they were just memories with added details. Her childhood was being corroded; the memories of her father were becoming warped - their time spent together addled and riddled by Georgia’s surging anxiety and ancient forces bent on having a project to watch.
She would be floating, out of body, watching herself at six years old. She’d splash in the water as they sat along the beach, causing waves and lifting the ocean in balls as she toyed with her powers. Her father sat behind her, trying to wrestle her hair into a braid. He was faceless; he was always faceless in her dreams now. His hands were rough, calloused. A sea trader’s hands. It was a good memory. It felt like a good memory. But there was always a sense of unease; the memory was too superficial, too perfect. Something was going to happen.
The water would suddenly bleed red, leaking from where her father was. Clouds rumbled in the sky. Georgia’s scope of vision hardly extended past the bubble of her six year old self and her father; but there was a sense that the world was crumbling. Her hair had tints of red in it where her father’s hands had been dipped in the water. Thick, red liquid was now the plaything of her young self. It had an awful, metallic scent. Georgia wanted to choke on it.
She had that one frequently. Waking up, gagging on the thickness of blood. Occasionally, she dreamed of her own drowning; of calling a wave too big and being swept out to sea. It was illogical, irrational; she was perfectly capable of surviving underwater. It still chilled her to the bone: screaming for her father, swallowing mouthfuls of briny, salty water. Struggling to keep her head above the surface. The sheer terror that arched through her body.
She’d wake from that shaking. Every time. Paralyzed by terror, nerves on end and heart racing. Sometimes she would shake so violently she assumed she was cold; she’d yank the blanket up and find herself sweating. It was only a matter of time before she forgot the dream and sank back into the web of nightmares.
This was her repeat cycle; this was her loop. This was her torture. She lost track of the time, the days. Forgot where she was. Zoned out during conversations in such a severe manner she wouldn’t remember the conversation afterwards. She was losing herself to her own head; constantly trying to figure out where the dreams came from. What they were about. Were they a part of her curse? Were they a part of her past? Oftentimes the dreams slipped through her grasp, through her fingers. She struggled to remember them properly.
The days became a blur. People - conversations, they grounded her. If she woke up feeling empty she knew it was only a matter of time before her resolve would fade and she’d dissociate, slipping away into a shell of herself to wander the island like a lost ghost. Sometimes she’d lose herself on the pathways. She’d be following a footpath and then end up standing in the ocean, powers activated to keep her afloat on the water.
That was what scared Georgia the most: the power. She wielded such devastating ferocity within her own hands - she could hurt someone. She could kill. She could call on tsunamis and hurricanes, thunderstorms and waterspouts. She could destroy this island. A part of her brain would argue so? You owe them nothing here. Which wasn’t true. She owed the people of The Typhoon everything. There were children here. She refused to let herself be swallowed by her own power.
* These were her thoughts as she sat in the surf. These were her thoughts as she allowed the water to splash against her skin. Her fingers tangled in her hair as her head dipped to rest on her knees. The water was supposed to make her feel better. Calm her. But it only brought her a sense of dread - the same anxiety that rose in her dreams, paralyzing her. The longer she sat there the more she shrank into her own body. The more she felt reality fall away. She shrank, curling into herself, her mind. Receding.
Quiet.
Suddenly, a force arched through her body. Something old...ancient. It was staggering; it was painful. It felt like claws on her back. Georgia gasped, jerking - the sensation returned, pushing, forcing its way through her mind. The pressure was immense; incomprehensible. All consuming. Her own body panicked, heart slamming against her chest as she fell backwards. Georgia struggled to breathe - sea salt choked her; the smell of sour seaweed clogged her sinuses. The girl cried out, frustrated and in pain. She didn’t have time for this. Didn’t have time. Didn’t have time.
”Krios.”
A voice; disembodied, echoing. Ancient, like the other, but not oppressive. Georgia felt the warmth of beach sand; the chill of constellations. The glittering of water. The pressure in her lungs lessened. She inhaled, shaky and disoriented.
”Krios, let her be.”
Georgia struggled to get a hold of herself. Struggled to rid herself of the fog surrounding her brain. Tried to reconnect with her own body so it would stop functioning on autopilot. Mom, she thought desperately, reveling in the feeling of comfort the second voice brought. It was a primal feeling that drew her to the second voice - memories of being cradled and rocked by someone that wasn’t her father.
The pressure of the first presence had receded, pausing. It lasted a heartbeat, two...three...like it was thinking. Considering.
Georgia scrambled onto shore.
Then it crashed back into her, full force. Georgia screamed, shrill, unending, and grabbed her head, cradling it as she crashed to her knees. The immensity of the presence - of Krios - smothered her. Suffocated her. She gasped, feeling ragged claws dig into her brain. She tried, so desperately, to shove walls up; to block it. But the force of a Titan...a retired, beaten, old Titan, was too much to bear. She caved - easily.
It smelled like must. Smelled like the bottom of the oldest boat, encrusted with barnacles. Humid, sticky wind blew like the south’s hot breath against her face. Krios. The south - the ram; Aries. One of the four pillars separating heaven and earth. He was ancient; he was banished, tortured, incarcerated. The pain he wrought was worse than slamming through barrier waves - worse than storms and typhoons. It dragged down her spine, fried her every nerve; Georgia screamed, again; a wail. Make it stop, make it stop… The ocean behind her responded to her agony, rolling and frothing. A saltier wind clashed with Krios’s humidity.
Lights flashed behind her eyelids. The jingle of sequins echoed in her ears. Pain rolled through her system. A distant, angry noise filtered through the static. More lights.
The scenery changed: A clearing. Sand stuck to the bottom of her feet. Her hair was wet. She felt younger. The ocean crashed behind her. She was on her hands and knees, leaning over something.
A body.
Blood was everywhere; his skin was pale and cold. His eyes were glassy. Water soaked every inch of him. Georgia reached for his face, hands trembling.
Nothing. Featureless. Smooth.
Her father.
Georgia had been plunged into one of her nightmares; real time. A sob escaped her throat; she had replayed this scene - this image - hundreds of thousands of times. The greatest insult was that she couldn’t ever make out his face.
”You torment her ceaselessly,” her mother’s voice echoed somewhere in her mind. “End this.” She sounded righteous, but tired. Her time had long since passed. Three, four millennia has left the old titans and primordial forces dusty.
A deep, scratching, scathing voice responded: “Never.”
Georgia threw herself across her father’s body, screaming his name. Burying her face in his soaking shirt, begging for him to wake up. Telling him she was scared, that she didn’t know what to do.
”How pathetic it is to cry over partial memories,” Krios seethed, distant in her conscience. “How disgusting to waste your time with this, acting as if this is all you know.”
Georgia sobbed, gripping her father’s shirt like a lifeline. The wind had begun to pick up - whipping sand grains across her face.
”P. Partial?” She whispered, ever so hesitant.
”Yes, partial.” Krios huffed. “Coping. Your own stupid brain covered up the real memory. Let me...help you see.”
Georgia didn’t have a choice. There was no bargaining. She was slammed - not transported - slammed into another scene, where she sat at the water’s edge, soaking wet and spitting out ocean water. She’s clearly just been knocked over by a wave; one of her own making, considering the surf was relatively calm.
”Dad? Dad! Where are you?” She cried as she stood, her voice wobbling. She searched past the horizon, looking for a figure bobbing on the waves. She turned, looking farther down the shore; a tug. Go there. Run.
Georgia sprinted, full send, across the sand. As fast as she could go. Panic climbed into her throat. Her father couldn’t hold his breath for as long as she could. He needed her. She could save him.
But there was nothing to save. The waves broke over nothing. The sand had no indentations. “Here, right here,” Georgia felt herself say. The wind pushed at her hair, and gusted, nearly toppling her. It pushed her towards a cluster of palmedos, up an embankment. Georgia crept up the sides and discovered her father, bruised, blue, and soaked. She went cold. Her entire body felt numb; felt incapacitated.
”You killed him.” Krios whispered in her ear. “It was you, all along. You drowned him. How does it feel, to murder your father?” He preened. “I know I enjoyed it.”
”I didn’t!” Georgia screamed, ripping herself away from the memory.
She managed to find herself back on the beach of The Typhoon, standing in the sand. Tears were hot on her cheeks. The wind was strong, flinging flora debris from the forest up the beach.
Her father...drowned. She’d always assumed he had been murdered. So many things didn’t line up: how had he gotten that far out to sea? How had he ended up in the tree line? Why didn’t he swim? Why didn’t he call for her?
A storm was brewing.
Clouds crumbled into dark, hulking masses, crashing with rumbling thunder. It spread, covering the entire island - shadowing her home. Threatening her friends. Ocean waves battered the shore. Georgia found herself in the middle of it, in the eye, crying as Krios whispered in her ear.
”Unlike you, my father had it coming. He was abusive and tormented my mother. Your father was a gentle soul...a caregiver,” He sneered. “I am not surprised that he managed to lure the attention of my unfaithful wife.”
Georgia sucked in a ragged breath; hot air grabbed her cheeks, prying her face upwards to stare into the dead eyes of the southern titan. “My mom,” She croaked, “has every right to be unfaithful to an ugly ass titan like you!”
Krios roared, shaking her bones. The sound trembled the ground, made her shake with terror. Georgia covered her head, tears mixing with the rain that began to pour down. The storm was growing - just like the day her father died.
Like the day she murdered him.
”Your mother is an ungrateful whore, and so you shall be as well!” Krios thundered, what little wisps of physical form he had disappearing in the wind. “You murdered your father and your mother will never want you. You are a pathetic half-god; your siblings will never know your name. You will be lost to history. You will suffer the same fate in Hades, locked away in Asphodel, damned to wander endlessly for all eternity!”
Georgia’s consciousness began to fade. The storm was dipping into her power reserves, sucking every last bit of energy from her. Her vision swam. Sand grit between her teeth. Her nerves and adrenaline burned, flayed. Debris cut into her skin. She could barely hold herself upright. Murderer, murderer, murderer. Her brain whispered.
Krios drew her head towards him yet again. He was not visible, but she felt his grip nonetheless. “You deserve death. You almost crave it,” he whispered. “You want no attachment. You will carry this guilt for the rest of your miserable, mortal life. Who will be next, demigod? Whose life will you take?”
”Please,” She breathed. “Let me go.”
And with that, she passed out.
Krios vanished in a swirl of warm wind. The storm around her closed in, drenching her in rain. Thunder rumbled above. Lightning flashed, electrifying random spots on the ocean surface while it frothed under Georgia’s emotional influence.
tl;dr Georgia was sitting in the waves when the titan Krios (stepfather, same bugger who cursed her) decides to have some fun and shows her flashbacks of her father’s death. Only now he decides to reveal that it was actually Georgia’s fault, even if it was an accident. He dips her in and out of the actual memory, taunts her a little bit, and Georgia calls him ugly. Due to the triggering flashbacks, Georgia starts an island-wide thunderstorm that verges on a tropical depression/category one hurricane. Krios leaves, Georgia passes out on the beach. The storm is still going! 2269 words total.
It was getting worse.
The zoning out, the dissociation. The nightmares. Georgia had always suffered from fatigue, so it was virtually impossible for her to physically pull an all-nighter. It roughly translated to no peaceful sleep - ever. She’d wake up every hour; she’d be in and out of full consciousness.
Nightmares plagued her restless mind like a swarm. It became increasingly intolerable because they were hardly nightmares at all - they were just memories with added details. Her childhood was being corroded; the memories of her father were becoming warped - their time spent together addled and riddled by Georgia’s surging anxiety and ancient forces bent on having a project to watch.
She would be floating, out of body, watching herself at six years old. She’d splash in the water as they sat along the beach, causing waves and lifting the ocean in balls as she toyed with her powers. Her father sat behind her, trying to wrestle her hair into a braid. He was faceless; he was always faceless in her dreams now. His hands were rough, calloused. A sea trader’s hands. It was a good memory. It felt like a good memory. But there was always a sense of unease; the memory was too superficial, too perfect. Something was going to happen.
The water would suddenly bleed red, leaking from where her father was. Clouds rumbled in the sky. Georgia’s scope of vision hardly extended past the bubble of her six year old self and her father; but there was a sense that the world was crumbling. Her hair had tints of red in it where her father’s hands had been dipped in the water. Thick, red liquid was now the plaything of her young self. It had an awful, metallic scent. Georgia wanted to choke on it.
She had that one frequently. Waking up, gagging on the thickness of blood. Occasionally, she dreamed of her own drowning; of calling a wave too big and being swept out to sea. It was illogical, irrational; she was perfectly capable of surviving underwater. It still chilled her to the bone: screaming for her father, swallowing mouthfuls of briny, salty water. Struggling to keep her head above the surface. The sheer terror that arched through her body.
She’d wake from that shaking. Every time. Paralyzed by terror, nerves on end and heart racing. Sometimes she would shake so violently she assumed she was cold; she’d yank the blanket up and find herself sweating. It was only a matter of time before she forgot the dream and sank back into the web of nightmares.
This was her repeat cycle; this was her loop. This was her torture. She lost track of the time, the days. Forgot where she was. Zoned out during conversations in such a severe manner she wouldn’t remember the conversation afterwards. She was losing herself to her own head; constantly trying to figure out where the dreams came from. What they were about. Were they a part of her curse? Were they a part of her past? Oftentimes the dreams slipped through her grasp, through her fingers. She struggled to remember them properly.
The days became a blur. People - conversations, they grounded her. If she woke up feeling empty she knew it was only a matter of time before her resolve would fade and she’d dissociate, slipping away into a shell of herself to wander the island like a lost ghost. Sometimes she’d lose herself on the pathways. She’d be following a footpath and then end up standing in the ocean, powers activated to keep her afloat on the water.
That was what scared Georgia the most: the power. She wielded such devastating ferocity within her own hands - she could hurt someone. She could kill. She could call on tsunamis and hurricanes, thunderstorms and waterspouts. She could destroy this island. A part of her brain would argue so? You owe them nothing here. Which wasn’t true. She owed the people of The Typhoon everything. There were children here. She refused to let herself be swallowed by her own power.
* These were her thoughts as she sat in the surf. These were her thoughts as she allowed the water to splash against her skin. Her fingers tangled in her hair as her head dipped to rest on her knees. The water was supposed to make her feel better. Calm her. But it only brought her a sense of dread - the same anxiety that rose in her dreams, paralyzing her. The longer she sat there the more she shrank into her own body. The more she felt reality fall away. She shrank, curling into herself, her mind. Receding.
Quiet.
Suddenly, a force arched through her body. Something old...ancient. It was staggering; it was painful. It felt like claws on her back. Georgia gasped, jerking - the sensation returned, pushing, forcing its way through her mind. The pressure was immense; incomprehensible. All consuming. Her own body panicked, heart slamming against her chest as she fell backwards. Georgia struggled to breathe - sea salt choked her; the smell of sour seaweed clogged her sinuses. The girl cried out, frustrated and in pain. She didn’t have time for this. Didn’t have time. Didn’t have time.
”Krios.”
A voice; disembodied, echoing. Ancient, like the other, but not oppressive. Georgia felt the warmth of beach sand; the chill of constellations. The glittering of water. The pressure in her lungs lessened. She inhaled, shaky and disoriented.
”Krios, let her be.”
Georgia struggled to get a hold of herself. Struggled to rid herself of the fog surrounding her brain. Tried to reconnect with her own body so it would stop functioning on autopilot. Mom, she thought desperately, reveling in the feeling of comfort the second voice brought. It was a primal feeling that drew her to the second voice - memories of being cradled and rocked by someone that wasn’t her father.
The pressure of the first presence had receded, pausing. It lasted a heartbeat, two...three...like it was thinking. Considering.
Georgia scrambled onto shore.
Then it crashed back into her, full force. Georgia screamed, shrill, unending, and grabbed her head, cradling it as she crashed to her knees. The immensity of the presence - of Krios - smothered her. Suffocated her. She gasped, feeling ragged claws dig into her brain. She tried, so desperately, to shove walls up; to block it. But the force of a Titan...a retired, beaten, old Titan, was too much to bear. She caved - easily.
It smelled like must. Smelled like the bottom of the oldest boat, encrusted with barnacles. Humid, sticky wind blew like the south’s hot breath against her face. Krios. The south - the ram; Aries. One of the four pillars separating heaven and earth. He was ancient; he was banished, tortured, incarcerated. The pain he wrought was worse than slamming through barrier waves - worse than storms and typhoons. It dragged down her spine, fried her every nerve; Georgia screamed, again; a wail. Make it stop, make it stop… The ocean behind her responded to her agony, rolling and frothing. A saltier wind clashed with Krios’s humidity.
Lights flashed behind her eyelids. The jingle of sequins echoed in her ears. Pain rolled through her system. A distant, angry noise filtered through the static. More lights.
The scenery changed: A clearing. Sand stuck to the bottom of her feet. Her hair was wet. She felt younger. The ocean crashed behind her. She was on her hands and knees, leaning over something.
A body.
Blood was everywhere; his skin was pale and cold. His eyes were glassy. Water soaked every inch of him. Georgia reached for his face, hands trembling.
Nothing. Featureless. Smooth.
Her father.
Georgia had been plunged into one of her nightmares; real time. A sob escaped her throat; she had replayed this scene - this image - hundreds of thousands of times. The greatest insult was that she couldn’t ever make out his face.
”You torment her ceaselessly,” her mother’s voice echoed somewhere in her mind. “End this.” She sounded righteous, but tired. Her time had long since passed. Three, four millennia has left the old titans and primordial forces dusty.
A deep, scratching, scathing voice responded: “Never.”
Georgia threw herself across her father’s body, screaming his name. Burying her face in his soaking shirt, begging for him to wake up. Telling him she was scared, that she didn’t know what to do.
”How pathetic it is to cry over partial memories,” Krios seethed, distant in her conscience. “How disgusting to waste your time with this, acting as if this is all you know.”
Georgia sobbed, gripping her father’s shirt like a lifeline. The wind had begun to pick up - whipping sand grains across her face.
”P. Partial?” She whispered, ever so hesitant.
”Yes, partial.” Krios huffed. “Coping. Your own stupid brain covered up the real memory. Let me...help you see.”
Georgia didn’t have a choice. There was no bargaining. She was slammed - not transported - slammed into another scene, where she sat at the water’s edge, soaking wet and spitting out ocean water. She’s clearly just been knocked over by a wave; one of her own making, considering the surf was relatively calm.
”Dad? Dad! Where are you?” She cried as she stood, her voice wobbling. She searched past the horizon, looking for a figure bobbing on the waves. She turned, looking farther down the shore; a tug. Go there. Run.
Georgia sprinted, full send, across the sand. As fast as she could go. Panic climbed into her throat. Her father couldn’t hold his breath for as long as she could. He needed her. She could save him.
But there was nothing to save. The waves broke over nothing. The sand had no indentations. “Here, right here,” Georgia felt herself say. The wind pushed at her hair, and gusted, nearly toppling her. It pushed her towards a cluster of palmedos, up an embankment. Georgia crept up the sides and discovered her father, bruised, blue, and soaked. She went cold. Her entire body felt numb; felt incapacitated.
”You killed him.” Krios whispered in her ear. “It was you, all along. You drowned him. How does it feel, to murder your father?” He preened. “I know I enjoyed it.”
”I didn’t!” Georgia screamed, ripping herself away from the memory.
She managed to find herself back on the beach of The Typhoon, standing in the sand. Tears were hot on her cheeks. The wind was strong, flinging flora debris from the forest up the beach.
Her father...drowned. She’d always assumed he had been murdered. So many things didn’t line up: how had he gotten that far out to sea? How had he ended up in the tree line? Why didn’t he swim? Why didn’t he call for her?
A storm was brewing.
Clouds crumbled into dark, hulking masses, crashing with rumbling thunder. It spread, covering the entire island - shadowing her home. Threatening her friends. Ocean waves battered the shore. Georgia found herself in the middle of it, in the eye, crying as Krios whispered in her ear.
”Unlike you, my father had it coming. He was abusive and tormented my mother. Your father was a gentle soul...a caregiver,” He sneered. “I am not surprised that he managed to lure the attention of my unfaithful wife.”
Georgia sucked in a ragged breath; hot air grabbed her cheeks, prying her face upwards to stare into the dead eyes of the southern titan. “My mom,” She croaked, “has every right to be unfaithful to an ugly ass titan like you!”
Krios roared, shaking her bones. The sound trembled the ground, made her shake with terror. Georgia covered her head, tears mixing with the rain that began to pour down. The storm was growing - just like the day her father died.
Like the day she murdered him.
”Your mother is an ungrateful whore, and so you shall be as well!” Krios thundered, what little wisps of physical form he had disappearing in the wind. “You murdered your father and your mother will never want you. You are a pathetic half-god; your siblings will never know your name. You will be lost to history. You will suffer the same fate in Hades, locked away in Asphodel, damned to wander endlessly for all eternity!”
Georgia’s consciousness began to fade. The storm was dipping into her power reserves, sucking every last bit of energy from her. Her vision swam. Sand grit between her teeth. Her nerves and adrenaline burned, flayed. Debris cut into her skin. She could barely hold herself upright. Murderer, murderer, murderer. Her brain whispered.
Krios drew her head towards him yet again. He was not visible, but she felt his grip nonetheless. “You deserve death. You almost crave it,” he whispered. “You want no attachment. You will carry this guilt for the rest of your miserable, mortal life. Who will be next, demigod? Whose life will you take?”
”Please,” She breathed. “Let me go.”
And with that, she passed out.
Krios vanished in a swirl of warm wind. The storm around her closed in, drenching her in rain. Thunder rumbled above. Lightning flashed, electrifying random spots on the ocean surface while it frothed under Georgia’s emotional influence.
tl;dr Georgia was sitting in the waves when the titan Krios (stepfather, same bugger who cursed her) decides to have some fun and shows her flashbacks of her father’s death. Only now he decides to reveal that it was actually Georgia’s fault, even if it was an accident. He dips her in and out of the actual memory, taunts her a little bit, and Georgia calls him ugly. Due to the triggering flashbacks, Georgia starts an island-wide thunderstorm that verges on a tropical depression/category one hurricane. Krios leaves, Georgia passes out on the beach. The storm is still going! 2269 words total.
© LEXASPERATED
[align=left]
THE SEA WAVES ARE MY EVENING GOWN:
[align=center]
[glow=#3e4242,200,600]YOU ARE THE RITE OF MOVEMENT[/glow]
*:･ﾟ✧ — georgia sarris-rosi — demigod of the sea — tags
