Ch.3L: Leto's Private Session / Nyse Lagoon

[Legendary Sidekick]

Soon you are no longer a mermaid. You aren't naked for long either. Pieces of gold armor fly from the stars and cover your entire body, leaving only your upper back exposed. White feathery wings sprout from your shoulder blades.

In the distance is a figure--a feminine form armored in gold as you are, with great white wings...

 

[Ireth]

Leto

Leto watches in wonder as she is clothed in armor and bestowed with white feathery wings, and more still as she spies the figure up ahead. As she flies closer, she realizes it looks like her friend Brynhild, if she were to become a valkyrie; or maybe it's her friend's goddess namesake. Or some blend of both, thanks to Leto's muddled mind.

She closes her eyes for a while, focusing on the feeling of flight -- real flight, not just falling with grace thanks to her swan-feather cloak. If this is her one chance at being a valkyrie, whether it's real or not, she's going to do her best to enjoy it while it lasts.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

You fly closer to the valkyrie. She's wearing a half helm with horns, so her face is visible. It is indeed the widow you know as Brynhild. Perhaps she is in the dream because you were thinking of her when you saw her in the distance?

"It's good to see you, Sigrlinn."

She doesn't call you Leto?! Her look of surprise at this mirrors your own expression!

((You can't see yourself, as you can in some dreams. You feel your eyebrows raise as you see Brynhild's raised brows, etc.))

"Do you remember everything I told you?"

 

[Ireth]

Leto

Leto stares at Brynhild in shock, and sees the same in Brynhild's face. She takes a slow, deep breath and says, "Sigrlinn... That's my name, isn't it?" She looks back toward the Graces, wide-eyed. It feels strange in her mouth, but somehow right.

Realizing Brynhild asked her a question, Leto -- or Sigrlinn -- turns back to her. "I think I'm starting to."

Sigrlinn. She'll have to remember that. Sigrlinn.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

The graces look at each other. Then at you. Thalia says, "I thought you were Leto. Looks like you'll be getting more than just some magic."

The Graces swim out of your view.

Brynhild says, "Even if you choose something other than Air Magic, you should fly with me."

She lets you enjoy your wings. As you get close to the stars, they are exactly what you thought they were.

((Feel free to include what Leto thinks stars are. It's her dream, so it can be far removed from reality. For this dream world, it doesn't matter whether she's actually right or the dream is bending its world to what Leto thinks is real.))

"I'm afraid I can't tell you all of your memories. Trying to get them all back will defeat the purpose of this meditation. You won't get the control over your mind and body that you seek if you try to recover nearly two decades all at once. Ask a question. Just one. Maybe your question will unlock something buried in your mind. If so, I will answer the question, Sigrlinn."

Brynhild repeats the name nostalgically. "Sigrlinn! I remember calling you Runa, but Sigrlinn Tofisdottir is your true name. I wonder if I called you Siggy for short." She shrugs. "I don't remember calling you that, so probably not. But I'm just a dream version of me, so who knows? Maybe you do."

 

[Ireth]

Sigrlinn

Sigrlinn soars with Brynhild among the stars. As she always thought, they are embers blown upward from Muspellheim, realm of eternal fire.

She nods slowly as Brynhild speaks. "I imagine trying to remember everything at once would hurt." But which question to ask, if she's only allowed one? What she really wants to know is why her memories were taken in the first place... but that's exactly the thing that will get her killed if she finds out.

Finally she asks, "Who destroyed the village I came from?" She imagines Apollo raining fire-arrows down onto it and shivers.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

"Loki."

Now you are elsewhere—reliving the horror! Watching people you love die, some evaporated in an instant, others with their guts spilling from open wounds. This is not a flash in the pan. You experience every heart-wrenching hour of the worst memory of your life.

When it is all over, the beast becomes a swordsman no mightier looking than Vin. Perhaps a little taller, or he just seems taller because he is so thin.

"She buried the message where even I can't get it, so we'll leave the message in your head." He strikes you with the hilt of his blade. "No, you won't be earning a pair of wings today. I need you alive. Since your memory's been tampered with, all I need to do is expand it. She won't kill you to get it out, and you'll forget you even have a message hidden in your brain. You should thank me." A man screams as Loki tugs on his intestine. Not enough to rip it out—just enough to torture the man. You know this man to be your father. "You'll forget this too."

((BACK TO MAIN THREAD - LETO IS AWAKE!))

 

[Ireth]

Sigrlinn

Sigrlinn is paralyzed with terror as her worst memory returns full-force. The beast, a gold-eyed serpent as huge as the breel, laying waste to the village she called home, tearing apart her family and friends. A dark-haired man about her age -- one she knows to be a friend -- stumbles from a burning building, screaming as flames consume him. He reaches for Sigrlinn as he falls and does not get up.

The beast turns to Sigrlinn, its golden eyes mesmerizing. Before she knows what's happening its teeth are in her side. She screams, but cannot fight back or pull free. The beast throws her to the ground, then changes shape as it approaches her again. It becomes a man, with greyish skin and the same golden eyes as the serpent. From here he looks at least fourteen feet tall. When he speaks, his eye-teeth glint like fangs.

Loki strikes her with his sword, and darkness flares in Sigrlinn's vision. His words stick in her mind and prickle. "She" won't kill her... Who is "she"?

His final words echo, and the last thing she sees is the twin lights of his eyes.

((FYI, the dark-haired man is Hrafn, a man who once loved Sigrlinn.

Diverting to main thread now~))