#bekahdoesnerdshit does meta

[bekahdoesnerdshit]

Thinking about how a lot of Ransom's callousness and like, performative boisterousness comes from how profoundly lonely she is. She doesn't have any family to speak of: she's an only child, her parents died when she was a kid, her grandfather died a couple years ago. She's divorced, she sees her kids like once or twice a month, she's had a string of fun but ultimately shallow romantic relationships. She's too high-energy to fit in with her more bookish colleagues, but too tied to her work at the university to give it up to become a full time adventurer. She doesn't have a Place, she doesn't have "her" people, and she's been telling herself for so long that she doesn't care that by now she actually believes it. It doesn't sting if no one wants you around long term if you beat them to the punch and push them away first.

[bekahdoesnerdshit]

When Cog summons her wings, they come to her easy as breathing. The shadows around her gather at her back and unfurl into feather-light, barely corporeal raven wings- black as night and held together by magic. Cog asks for her wings, and they materialize for her.

Acedia's wings rip from her back, tearing open the skin between her shoulder blades and sending rivulets of hot blood running down her spine. Her back hunches, her shoulders jerking, and as the wings unfold it's clear that every moment of it is intensely painful. The wings themselves are a mockery of a willowy tree, once draped with vines and moss, now skeletal branches.

Cog's wings are a gift from a god who grew to love her like a daughter. They're a part of her, just like the rest of her magic.

Acedia's wings are everything she's perverted and betrayed, a pointed reminder of her place from the god she sold her soul to.

[bekahdoesnerdshit]

Cog’s Sudden Interest in Exhibitionism is Character Development I PROMISE

Post to follow

[bekahdoesnerdshit]

“It’s because of her sacrifice that you can succeed on your heart dice. It’s because of her sacrifice that anyone can use magic at all.”

You have a name for the thing inside of you now. A name, and a story. You finally understand why this shadow was so relentless in pursuing you, why it spoke of power and deals and urged you to do whatever it took to strengthen your magic. Suddenly, what you had thought for weeks was an evil entity seeking to corrupt you and your magic in order to wreak untold havoc on the world was a distant ancestor calling out for help in the only way she could. Suddenly, you understand why the face that’s been haunting you looks so much like your own. 

You understand, now, the full scope of the legacy you bear. And for the first time in your life you can see that that legacy isn’t one of corruption and greed and a lust for power, but one of empathy and selflessness in the face of overwhelming despair. It’s a legacy of choosing to do the right thing, even when it’s hard. Even when you’re afraid. And, reframed like that, you get it. To look at a world that’s crumbling to pieces around you and wanting to gather it up in your arms to keep it safe, to be willing to make a pact with a being you don’t fully understand, let alone trust-- You don’t have to imagine how this ancestor felt in that moment. You don’t have to imagine what it feels like to know your magic isn’t enough to face the problem at hand, and to be looking at an outstretched hand offering to change that. You know exactly what she was facing, the costs she had to weigh. After all, haven’t you been doing the exact same thing these last few weeks?

Her heart beats in your chest, her blood runs through your veins, and you find yourself wondering if compassion and love and conviction burn as brightly as they do in you because they burned the same way in her. You see so much of yourself in her; she lived and died centuries before you were born, and yet you know with absolute certainty that if your roles were reversed, you would have made the same choice she did. You would have sacrificed everything, given up your life, your soul, to give the world a fighting chance to keep its magic. And after having spent the last several months running as fast and as far as possible from the responsibility you knew waited for you in Lafaroh, the certainty with which you know that terrifies you. 

You have no choice but to accept the Heart, and the power and responsibility that comes with it. You know that. And it isn’t-- It isn’t that you’re being forced to. You know your friends will support whatever decision you make, and you trust that the Guardians meant it when they said they would protect the Heart and the town until an Inheritor was ready to claim it. But how can you walk away from what might be your only chance to fix magic in the Wasteland? How can you walk away from something that might let you fix Ace’s magic? And somehow more than either of those things, your heart now breaks for shadow inside you. A soul corrupted and reduced to a flicker of what it should be, alone and hurting for century after century as it fought to resist an inevitable decay--

There isn’t a person outside of the room you’re standing in who knows what she did; there isn’t a person outside of your godforsaken town that even knows her name. The world exists as it does because of the bravery of one, nameless woman, and neither the Masters at the Academy or the elves in Cormir could care less. And that isn’t fair. The world needs to know, her sacrifice needs to be honored. Her...work needs to be finished. And if you’re brave enough, if you’re smart enough, maybe you can save her, too. 

She was afraid, and she was alone, and in spite of both of those things she was brave enough to make the choice to save the world. 

And god, you’re afraid. But you’re not alone. So maybe, just maybe, you can be brave enough to make the right choice too.

“My name is Charlotte Olivia Grace. I am an inheritor, a child of Mystra. This power is my birthright; I step forward now to claim it to honor and fulfill the bargain struck before the end of the Old World. Although I do not claim it eagerly, I do so willingly. By doing so, I pledge to do everything in my power to sanctify and return magic to the Wasteland. This I so swear.”

[bekahdoesnerdshit]

Been thinking a lot this week about how it’s going to be for Ace to process watching Cog fight her way through most of New Alexandria to keep him safe. Like not only is she exponentially more powerful now than she was the last time he saw her fight in any meaningful way -she was level 5 at the time, and we just hit level 14- but she’s also been listening to this entity in her dreams telling her that she has to be strong to protect people. That she needs to be willing to do whatever it takes to keep people safe, that sometimes that’s going to mean putting a permanent end to their ability to hurt the people she loves. Between its influence and the power that she now has...

How are you supposed to react when you see the scared little girl you befriended and saved less than a year ago now standing in front of you, wielding with ease and experience the kind of magic you’ve only ever seen from Masters? She’s glowing; light pours out of her and although she’s too bright to look at you catch a glimpse underneath the hand you threw up to shield your eyes and you’re nearly certain her feet aren’t quite touching the ground. One of her hands is laced tightly with yours, and with the other she channels searing beams of light one after another down the hallway, clearing your path of Academy guards who scream and shrink back as blinding radiance burns their skin and eyes.

Even the shadows her radiance burns back seem to flicker and dance for her, wrapping around the legs of your would be pursuers and slowing them down further still. The way they gather and part for her is familiar in a way you’re afraid to examine too closely, because you know you won’t like the implications behind any answer you could find. You’ve seen shadows move like that for someone else one time before, and you put her in the dirt for what she did to her daughter.

You remember of the look of fear and wonder you saw on Cog’s face when she first saw the Academy. It’s absent now, replaced by blind determination and even, you think, anger. It twists her features in a way you don’t recognize, and that twists something sick and painful in your gut. She fires off another blast of burning sunlight before whipping around, faster than should be possible, to send five deadly bolts of fire over your shoulder toward the people following you up the hall. Each one slams home, one after the other. You remember sitting crosslegged on the floor of your bedroom with her, trying to encourage her to coax enough magic out of her core to light up her fists for a decent Scorching Ray, and try to reconcile that meek, gentle girl with the powerful, self-assured sorceress you see now in front of you. You’re not sure how you can.

She’s outgrown you. You realize it as she pulls you by the hand down a hallway now cleared by the force of her magic, toward where she told you her and her friends had planned to meet if they got separated. You realize it again as she hugs each one of them in turn before beckoning everyone in tightly around her and Teleporting you halfway around the world with barely a word spoken.

She’s outgrown you, but she doesn’t seem to realize it. Because as soon as you’re safely out of New Alexandria, the little girl you know is back again. She’s flitting between each of her friends, fretting over them and checking them for injuries, easing their pain with magic even when they insist they’re fine. She turns to you once they’re taken care of and the way her hands shake, the way her face crumples as she takes you in, that’s an expression you recognize. You barely have time to open your arms to her before she barrels into you, choking back a sob as she buries her face in your chest. She was so worried, she tells you between gasping sobs now that adrenaline is no longer holding back her tears. She was so afraid, and she’s so sorry that she ever left you, and she won’t ever do it again, and and and—

You shush her gently, smooth her hair back from her face and tell her that you’re alright, that everything’s alright, that she saved you and everyone made it out, but she just clutches at the back of your shirt and cries even more. And it’s contagious: you have to close your eyes and take a deep, steadying breath to keep the tears suddenly burning behind your eyes from spilling over too. You press a kiss to the top of her head, hold her tight, and promise you’re not leaving her again either. You’re here, for whatever she needs, as long as she needs.

There’s a hand on your arm, and you raise your head to see Sunny looking at you with a strange, grim expression. She looks at you, then down at Cog, then nods toward Cog’s shadow. It’s darker than it should be in the dimly lit basement, more solid. That thing in your gut twists again, and you taste bile in the back of your throat. Sunny saw the same thing you did today, the raw power in Cog, the… the uncharacteristic ferocity with which she turned it against the people in New Alexandria. The way the shadows seems too eager to reach out to help her, in a way that was bone-chillingly familiar. It’s a conversation you’re going to have to have later, probably in hushed whispers in the hallway after Cog falls asleep, and you acknowledge it with a curt nod. Soon. 

Soon, but not now. Because right now the best thing you can do for Cog -the best thing both of you can do for her- is be here, and be solid, and be okay. Sunny’s hand slides around to rest as a comforting weight on Cog’s back and Cog responds by reaching blindly for her too, pulling her in close by the first bit of fabric she can find and refusing to let go. And gradually the sobbing stops, gradually her shoulders stop shaking. When Cog finally lets go and pulls back enough for you to see her face, her red, puffy eyes remind you a lot more of the girl you comforted while camped out on the side of the road leading away from Lafaroh than the hardened, merciless mask she’d been wearing up until minutes ago. But there’s something in her eyes now, the cold resolve of someone who’s made hard decisions, who’s fought and killed for those decisions, and could bring themselves to do so again if they had to. Something in the world you sent her out into hardened her, and you don’t know what to do to keep that guilt from eating you alive. 

[bekahdoesnerdshit]

Gays I think Cog might have fantasy dyslexia and here’s my proof:

Openly and repeatedly admits to having learned very little from her classes

What little she did learn was from lecture, not her textbooks

She’s pulled out her notes from class once or twice and they’re just a Mess

The letter she wrote to Ace several sessions ago was just riddled with spelling errors (because I wrote it on my phone BUT)

Despite being a good enough public speaker to give people temp hit points (inspiring leader baybe!!) she has said Multiple times that she is no good at writing essays, persuasive or otherwise 

Excelled in the practical, hands-on portion of Academy testing, while struggling with the written parts

She wanted to be a law student, so clearly she doesn’t just Not Care

Very good at recognizing arcane runes, which look Distinctly different from the Common alphabet!

Gravitates to aural and tactical forms of learning, like learning Sending by copying the way Wol cast it and learning most of the songs she can play on the violin by ear

In conclusion: Cog had undiagnosed fantasy dyslexia, and since she didn’t receive the support and accommodations necessary to help her learn and excel in school she decided she was “just a bad student” and stopped trying so she’d stop feeling bad when she failed anyway.