westwhere | Memories I can't return to drift around me

Eleven at last came to on a cold, stone floor. He shivered and promptly turned over, levering himself up on his hands as he breathed out a chilly exhale.

They're trapped in their memories, he knew, as his eyes met the aptly-named Sleepers. Every night they dream.

And those memories haunted his mind's eye still, even after his struggle to escape the sleep that had held him captive. He didn't know what they meant, but as he caught sight of the other two that had come in with him at Zenobius' instruction, he moved to check on the woman closest to him.

Eleven reached to touch her shoulder.

"Hey. Are you awake..?"

Edited 2022-01-23 01:23 (UTC)

Moiraine's easy to wake, though she does startle at the contact, pulling back and looking up before she realises that it's just one of the people that she'd come here with.

She nods, pulling herself up to sitting after a few more moments, trying to refind that calm within her. Despite everything that's swirling in her head after what had just happened.

"Are we--" Alive? Actually awake? She doesn't know which question to ask.

Yennefer comes to at the sound of the unfamiliar voice, though when her eyes open she is able to recognize Eleven's face and then Moiraine's despite the hazy edges of sleep and the odd in-between where she witnessed memories that weren't her own.

Whatever happened definitely was not in their control and that was something that she didn't care for. But, she wasn't alone, at least.

Glancing around, Yennefer looks at the other woman and finishes her question.

"I don't know," Her tone came with a hint of uncertainty because at no point did she actually fall asleep. It was right after she was grabbed by the one she was caring for that everything shifted.

"What the hell was that?"

Eleven straightened to stand, glancing about.

"Dreams." He shivered. "No- memories. They suffer through reliving them every night.."

He frowned, fingers flexing in an aborted urge to fidget. "..I understand that much, somehow."

"That's--"

She pauses, trying to sort through what she'd experienced, trying to understand what of it was real. Though if it was memories wouldn't all of it be real?

"They're suffering because of it."

More than that but that they wanted an end to it. Something that within the memory they wouldn't be able to get.

"We were able to wake from it -- or leave." Painfully.

Yennefer tries desperately to play it back, organize it all so it makes more sense and not a disorganized jumbled mess of things that happened. It was easier said than done, with questions and random thoughts and images jumping out and presenting themselves as if they belonged to the sorceress herself.

And yet, while each of her group speaks about the people that pulled them in, Yennefer can't help but speak what she somehow knows but doesn't understand why.

"They can't," she looks at each of them, her tone oddly detached. "That's why they pulled us in."

"They can't?" Eleven repeated, brows creasing as he looked over the Sleepers.

Small wonder then, why they had to be bathed by others if they couldn't wake.

"I had to.. I traveled into someone else's dream. I didn't mean to, but when she woke, I did. I wonder if there's anything we can do."

"There's only one thing they want by this point."

With how long they've presumably been kept like this, with how they suffer, replay over horrifying memories. Even if they could wake what would they be coming back to, would they even be coming back?

"They want to die."

And she didn't find that wrong.

There was a not-so-obvious reason the Sleepers couldn't wake up and though Yennefer would have taken a bit more time to figure things out if she were back in her world, she was not there and this was not her problem. Not really. Only she does find herself caring in a compassionate way about their circumstances. Who would want to constantly relive memories through dreams? It seems like such a horrible punishment.

"I jumped off the balcony," Yennefer shares, turning to Moiraine to listen before nodding in agreement. "I don't have a problem helping with that. If the reason they pulled us in was for us to see how miserable they are, it's the merciful thing to do."

They want to die.

Eleven's heart fell. He'd hoped.. But he'd waded through that sleep himself. If not for Hemione, how long would he have wandered? They were trapped in their memories, unable to even so much as wander, reliving them every night. He swallowed and gripped his baldric between his hands.

His eyes dropped to the floor. There was a time he remembered, heartsick and hopeless, that he came to understand how difficult life was, compared to how easy it would have been to die. Remembered in the way of old memories sparked anew, how, in the end, they weren't able to save those miners at the farmhouse.

"There's nothing we can do to wake them?"

Moiraine shakes her head, though she doesn't truly know the answer to that, only assumes that it isn't possible -- Yennefer had said as much and after so long...

"If it was wouldn't it have been done already?"

She poses it as a question, as disbelief over fact. She'd like for them to be able to wake but how would you wake into something like this? After so long of being asleep?

"It would be merciful over the life they don't have."

If only she had been easier to influence when it came to empathetic behaviour. Eleven's hopefulness in there being another way would put an incredible amount of responsibility on the three of them, as well as take an amount of time that none of them knew for sure they had before they would move from Hamsour to wherever they are meant to go next.

"You spoke of travelling into someone else's dream before you woke up here. Moiraine is right, if there was a way, then Zenobius or another would have done what they could to release them."

She moves over to a woman asleep on one of the slabs. Of course, there was a possibility of consequences that may come with their decision. Though in this case, it is said that it is better to ask forgiveness than to get permission and Yennefer stood by in believing this was the most compassionate thing to do for the Sleepers.

Edited 2022-01-31 20:43 (UTC)

Would they have?

Eleven frowned. Was it possible they were kept alive for a reason? But if that were true, what were the chances it was for a good reason- particularly if it went against their will?

He looked over the Sleepers again. People needed to make their own decisions, yes, but sometimes they needed help. Then, decisions he's made for others lately—the assertion that he could help them—had come to disastrous consequences for both himself and the people he wanted to help.

Eleven breathed, then looked to Yennefer. "If you're sure they yearn for death, I will help grant it to them."

Moiraine nods, agreeing with it, and a moment later her hand reaches to under her coat, pulling a dagger from its hidden sheath.

"We don't all need to have a hand in it." An agreement was one thing, accepting the consequence, and whilst Moiraine wasn't fond of the idea of actually killing someone it was the best choice, an act she would do. And shoulder, as she had everything else for twenty years.

"But it can be done."

Eleven had the right to be unsure about the whole idea of murdering that many people when they couldn't actually use their voices. They did have ways of telling them though and between the three of them, that was made it loud and clear.

Between the three of them waking up and somehow knowing what they did, it was clear what needed to be done.

Yennefer looks over to Eleven and takes enough care to be sympathetic to the way he was so obviously feeling. She then moves her gaze to Moiraine, eyes dropping momentarily to the dagger in her hand.

"I can do it without the spilling of blood," she offers quietly, knowing that the both of them wanted to shoulder the responsibility but that it could be done without any mess to clean up or for someone else to come along and discover.

The choice was theirs.

Eleven shivers, considering, then reaches for the blade on his back and draws it. It's not what he wants to do, but neither is he going to make this decision only to have others carry it out for him. He breathes.

"As quick and painless as possible," he insists, voice low, then starts toward the men. He knows without thinking about it that killing defenseless women in the moment is beyond him. Not that defenseless men are much better.

Eleven brushes through their slumbering forms with a pang of regret, wondering who they had been before they'd come to this- if they'd ever been happy.

They've made their choice, he acknowledges to an absent judgement. I'm helping them in the only way I can.

Yennefer's offer is considered only for a moment before Moiraine nods, slipping her dagger away. If it could be done quickly, without blood spilled, as mercifully as possible.

She's about to say something to the other woman on it when Eleven moves first, surprising her with the motion.

"You say without pain and then do so?" Her tone is chastising. Whilst the bodies might not react would it be felt in their sleep, in the hell it already was for them?

"Blades aren't painless." Even if she'd offered her dagger herself.

Yennefer's attention moves between the two others before violet eyes drop to the Sleepers closest to her. They were still so young, but without much to live for, though not if they were stuck in their minds.

She moves to collect a woman's hand that had slipped off the edge of the slab -- the same woman that grabbed hold of her, leaving a dark bruising mark on her forearm.

Moiraine had a point, but she wouldn't interfere. So, she stayed quiet.

Eleven's steps pause. He turns back to the woman with a frown, then beyond her, Yennefer.

"I've seen many bloodless deaths," he rejoined quietly. "They didn't look painless."

He takes the last few steps to the furthest Sleeper. "But I'm a healer, so I know how to.." Eleven trails off, then shakes his head. "They're asleep so they won't feel fear, and it's quick enough that they won't have time to feel pain."

He knows all this, but even so, the sword is a weight in his hands as he lifts it, point poised for what he knows will be as close to instant death as he can grant.

"Merciful Goddess, forgive me for lacking the strength or wisdom to save these souls. I pray they find peace."

Metal pierces through in a moment of resolute strength, though that wavers swiftly enough in the grisly aftermath. Eleven breathes, then disengages his blade with as much care as he can manage. He stares for a moment, the hopelessness of the task settling over him again, doubting, then eyes the blood staining the end of his sword.

"Is this really all we can do..?"

"They may not feel it where we stand but they felt enough in their dreams."

They may not feel this and it would be a blessing if not, but a sword was not always the answer, a choice to be made. And not a choice made alone.

She turned from him as he continued, stepping aside to another part of the room. Though his next question came with some irony given the course they'd already agreed, and those that had already died.

"For those now dead it is, and too late to give them another choice." She understood it, killing wasn't a simple task, something she didn't relish doing but actions that had been taken when necessary. And they'd found no other mercies to grant them, knew too little to help them in another way if help could even be given.

Yennefer moves on the other side of the third person in the row of people, opposite of where Eleven was when he took the first person's life with his sword. She looks down, unknowingly committing the man's face to memory whose life she will end. But, she listens to Moiraine as she quietly utters a language neither of them would understand and holds a hand flat over his heart.

In a matter of moments, he stops breathing.

"You said they could never wake and Moiraine spoke of them wanting to die. They must have known there was no other way."

Yennefer shifts and utters the same words again over a woman next.

The sentiments are sensible and familiar of course, but still his heart wavers. Nothing else can be done, though he dearly wishes otherwise. It's the cruelest of kindnesses. Eleven swallows and raises his sword again, arms shaking, and it's only that desperate wish not to inflict more pain than necessary that sees the deed done a second time.

But this time, as he endures the grisly extraction of his sword and watches the trickles of blood run, and strength flees his limbs. Doubts creep through his veins and twist his stomach. Eleven backs up and barely keeps hold of his weapon between nerveless fingers, paler than before.

"I can't.. I'll do worse with the others."

Memories I can't return to drift around me

Sleepers [closed]

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