[God Quest] tourniquet

you are a terribly real thing in a terribly false world

You need to find the pee for your wound.

Finn isn't quite sure how to feel about that, but that's what Frey advised, and so he heads away to think. And to think some more.

He already knows what takes the sting away from his life - it's been the same thing for a long time, and precedes drugs and deep red wine and sleepless nights spent with a nose in a book.

But it hasn't felt right since comiing back from Torchline, and so he's avoided it. And wouldn't you believe it - things haven't gotten better.

So it's with his toes curling in his shoes that he stands outside his attic apartment, swallowing hard, not knowing what to expect within. Only when he does open the door it looks exactly how it always did, tidy but cluttered, everything in its own place. The blackboard is covered in research notes and half completed musical scores. The guitar leans against one wall.

It takes a little longer for Finn to pick up the instrument, just in case it still doesn't feel right, but all of that changes upon striking even the first chord. And then he's sidling up to his desk, taking some new music parchment and jotting down a few notes, a few experimental bars.

The Spyglass loses himself in the process of creating, of testing and practicing, and with Safrin's strings his apartment becomes something brighter and more colourful than it ever has been. By the time he's playing the song in its completion, he might have lost a day to it. And Finn cares not one jot.

---

Finn is playing this: Link!

and that, I believe

is why you are in so much pain

FINN

On Finn's desk, a fractured bit of energy begins to develop in response to the notes he plays. His rhythms transform and warp it, the melody stretches and tears at it, and every rock of his body in time with the chords he plays adds more dimension to it.

It being the physical manifestation of the emotional trauma he's been forced to bear. By the end of the song, frozen in amber, is a scar. It seems to scream with memory and when picked up, will be heavier than it has any right to be. Such is the emotional weight that it represents. But at least Finn will be free of those triggers and traumas so long as the scar remains encased in the amber. If broken, all will flood back to the Spyglass. Until then, Finn's time in Torchline will be something he remembers but does not feel. As Frey had said, the purpose of peeing on a wound was to remove the sting that it might heal without being picked at or constantly reinjured. Sting removed, it was now up to the Spyglass to keep safe his trauma while allowing himself to move on from it.

---

Finn has received

Trauma glass | A hand-held ball of amber that holds the emotional trauma sustained during Flowerbirth PC 312. If the amber is broken, all of the emotional consequences and damage will return to Finn instantly.  

RANDOM EVENT

you are a terribly real thing in a terribly false world

The final chords ring out across the apartment and Finn feels a smile creep across his face. Safrin's strings have the sun feeling as though it's warming his shoulders, and the scent of honeysuckle sweetens the air. He inhales deeply, and for the first time since before Flowerbirth it's as though the air fills his lungs all the way. Finn's smile grows, his shoulders relax, and he blinks himself back to the present.

It's at that moment that he notices the amber sphere on his desk, brows furrowing together. Approaching it, he can already sense something off about it, something screaming and sad. His fingers hover over it, before pulling away again. Finn swallows hard. "Thank you so much," he whispers to the deity who isn't present, and yet he feels them all the same.

~FIN

and that, I believe

is why you are in so much pain

FINN