Mmmmm luckily there's this little nook off the side of the road, so no one disturbs them...

Eventually, though, the sun's starting to rise, the market's in gear, and Elana can hear the blacksmith starting up his day.

She'll give them a little longer, in case he's the sort who's grumpy when he wakes.

Time well spent.

Alas - Lace does want to ever get a gun.

Then into the city it shall be.

She ends up having to produce detailed sketches for the blacksmith - and notes about material tolerances - and measurements...

It ends up taking all day, which Lace seems to think is rather quick. The blacksmith thinks it might take him a little bit for a prototype, longer to refine the exact process - he needs to make tools, first, for some of the details Lace wants.

"Should we stick around the city?" Lace asks Elana once they're free. "Or come back later?"

"We may as well stick around. Look through the books we grabbed. Check the new scroll."

She nods. "That'll take plenty of time itself, yeah."

"Same inn as last time?"

"Sounds wonderful to me."

"All right." And back to the nice inn.

And some alone time, first.

Naturally.

Some very delightful time later, Lace stretches out, languid, and asks, "So - journals or Elder Scroll first?"

"Do you feel up to the scroll?"

"I think so? It was - intense but doable, last time." Nuzzle. "And I'm in a very good mood right now."

Kiss. "Scroll first, then."

Kiss!

And to the scroll. Lace sits with her back facing away from Elana - sadly enough, she doesn't want Elana glimpsing the page, so they can't cuddle while she reads.

And she opens it...

Her vision shatters.

First - (second? last?)

Elana - the shape's firmer, more settled than her last visions, the possibilities of the future narrower - standing over her as she writhes, petting her hair - the image shivers - Lace alone, back arching as she screams - an enormous sigil carved in stone, channels full of blood, her blood, her body torn open in the middle but still alive, still pouring life and pain -

Armies colliding, blood on the ash -

Lace tries to focus, tries to force the vision back to that sigil -

A beating heart - she can't tell if it's hers -

Another glimpse of the sigil, she nearly gets it, nearly sears the pattern into her head -

A dark figure before a bleeding heart, reaching out to touch -

Steps into a mountain, carved with fine detail -

Lace alone, torn open, writhing in pain - the vision splits in two, she lives and the pain crests and swells and she whites out as her mind tears open - the pain ebbs and her organs give out one by one and the sun runs red with the blood of the earth -

She's standing on a mountain, breath freezing in the air, the red bloody air, staring in horror at -

The sigil, the last piece falls into place -

A shadow falls on the world as the heart spews blood -

A conversation runs backwards, baffling, points defeated before they're raised and Lace can't follow it and the faces of the people are many layered and impossible to focus on but it's something about treason, maybe, or dragons, or friendship -

A mountain moves, but it's not - it's a person, not - it's a machine Lace realizes, pouring off steam like arterial spray with a promise of blood running from its eyes -

A vampire on a frozen throne, unfamiliar, hair white and eyes dark, looking straight at her -

The hallways are empty except for the hiss of steam, the everyday detritus of life lying abandoned -

Lace is wandering on a desolate plane, trapped, trying to find the city of light, the way out of this cursed plane, this world of torture past the point of all beauty into pure destruction -

The bones of the earth curl and flutter like ribs cracking open -

A mechanical sun, its light orange and harsh unlike the smooth blood of the sun above, lights a city and a tower -

Lace kneels in the center of the sigil, trying to focus on emptying her mind of anything else but this, and Elana kisses her before beginning -

It's not any easier to watch her do this the second time. More difficult maybe.

Lace sobs when it breaks - her vision is still fucked up, blood red and dark and -

She closes the scroll with shaky hands so Elana won't glimpse it and crawls towards - where her girlfriend last was -

All the hugs.

She curls into Elana's lap, nuzzling her neck, shaking a bit, until her vision returns.

"'M okay."

Pet pet.

"That looked worse than last time."

Nuzzle. "It was - more disorienting. Like - multiple things were happening at once in each fragment, at - different levels of truth, or maybe metaphor... And it jumped around more..."

"Do you think you can make any sense of it?"