bakerstreet | Sentinels and Guides (they're already giving me soulbonded pair vibes, tbh)

Entry tags:

Sentinels and Guides (they're already giving me soulbonded pair vibes, tbh)

Sentinels and Guides are Known:
A Sentinel!AU Shipping Meme

There are special people in the world: Sentinels--whose five senses are incredibly enhanced, sometimes to the point of overwhelming and who can easily lose themselves in fugue states--and Guides, the empaths with the ability to ground a Sentinel and focus them. Meant to be the protectors of the Guides, for every Sentinel there exists a guide that is their perfect match. In some universes, when matches are made, a Sentinel and Guide form a soulbond to fill the feeling of emptiness.

How easy was it for you to find yours? How are Sentinels and Guides treated in your universe? Or maybe you're one of the normal, unremarkable people. Do you fear Sentinels and Guides? Despise them?

Rules
1) Post with your character/canon in the subject header.
2a) Choose whether your character is a Sentinel or a Guide
or
2b) If you don't know or don't care, just leave it blank!
3) Information about Sentinels and Guides can be found here and here. Information on 'The Sentinel' which this meme comes from can be found here.

4) All the tagging! Have fun 8D

Prompts
oo1. The Meeting:
How did you meet? Was it at an event organized specifically for finding your other half? By accident? Did you follow a mystical calling to them? Some other way?

oo2. The Bonding:
Do Sentinels and Guides in your universe soulbond? How does it go down? Is there a ceremony or do you just retreat to the bedroom?

oo3. Rejection:
Sometimes Sentinels or Guides propose a match but it's just not perfect. You don't feel the pull or maybe you think there is someone better or maybe you're already claimed. Maybe you were claimed and someone better came along?

oo4. Protection:
Sentinels are meant to protect Guides, any Guides, but it's even worse when they feel their Guide is in danger. They go feral; blind to anything but stopping and killing whoever threatened their Guide or the bond. Maybe someone attacked your Guide or you haven't bonded yet and you feel threatened or maybe you're the one doing the threatening. Whatever the reason, Sentinels in a feral state are dangerous and only their Guides can stop them.

oo5. Lost:
Sentinels often lose themselves in their senses. Either you're a Sentinel who has lost themselves or a Guide that has stumbled on one or a friend trying to draw them out. Unbonded Sentinels will find it hard to escape without a Guide. Or maybe you're bonded already which means you just need yours to come home.

006. Persecution:
Sometimes normal people or the government fear the power of Guides and Sentinels. Guides are empaths, feeling the emotions and sometimes passing thoughts of others and it can make people feel violated. Sentinels often have enhanced strength, which can make them dangerous. So they scorn them, hurt them or in the case of governments, regulate them.

oo7. Death:
Unbonded Sentinels and Guides eventually lose themselves to the empty cavern inside them. Torn apart from the inside by the feeling of something missing. Breaking the soulbond of a Sentinel and Guide is agonizing and horrifying, leading quickly to death for the remaining partner.

oo8. Old-School:
Guides used to be treated on the same level as slaves. Unable to work unless their Sentinel said. Not allowed out on their own. They used to wear collars and couldn't own land or inherit money. Maybe the old ways haven't completely fallen out of style.

oo9. Unbonded:
Nothing is worse than being an unbonded Guide or Sentinel. Always looking for your other half to fill that empty feeling but you probably have friends that aren't your match or who are trying to set you up with someone. Maybe you're skeptical about the whole love at first sight thing and haven't been looking.

o10. Wildcard: Some mish-mash of the above or anything else you can come up with!

Image from weheartit / original meme by

imadeamistake

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[A Guide who serves in the royal court (or equivalent). Not interested in prompts 3, 7. Definitely interested in 8.]

[How would you feel about a little cross-canon? She could easily find her way to court, being nobility/royalty herself in her canon. I was thinking maybe prompt 1?]

(As long as you don't mind me being canonblind (to Campaign 1, I'm re-watching Campaign 2 right now...), I'm absolutely completely and utterly in for it. Prompt 1 works fine for me. You wanna start it?)

[I absolutely don't mind at all! And I can definitely start it.]

The thought of appearing at court doesn’t particularly appeal to Cassandra. She prefers to keep to Whitestone. Safe. Familiar. It’s harder to be overwhelmed, there. (And when she is there’s Vex; she’s not her Guide but she is A Guide. And it’s enough.) She’s long since learned... how to navigate life as an unbonded Sentinel, and ways to circumvent the worst of it. But it’s going to be difficult, at court. Percy could come, she supposes; he’s bonded, after all. He has his Guide.

But he’s needed in Whitestone, and the invitation to the celebration at court isn’t one to be ignored. Which leaves her.

So she goes. Dressed in the softest of fabrics, a bracelet wrapped around her wrist that she has worn since the Briarwoods – something she uses to keep herself grounded. There is a hair pin, holding her dark, white-streaked curls up, that she can use, too, when just the bracelet doesn’t help. All circumventions she’s using to get by.

Nervously smoothing the front of her dress, she inhales softly... and enters.

Nostradamus has served the court as a Guide as long as he's served as a physician. His wife had been a Sentinel, but years ago she and their children had died of the Black Plague, and Catherine de'Medici had called him to court when her eldest son, the Dauphin Francis, had presented as a Sentinel. It wasn't a bonded pairing--and Francis had been amazingly lucky to learn his betrothed, Mary Queen of Scots was a Guide; they'd bonded and been wed, and everything was neat and tidy.

Except it left Nostradamus at loose ends, an empath in a court full of plots, expected to help Catherine root out traitors to the crown and spies.

He's here to help gauge Cassandra's loyalty, but also as a subject matter expert. Francis and Mary are off tending to some business near the coast, and neither Catherine nor Henry II are Sentinel or Guide. It was Nostradamus who suggested the initial meeting with Cassandra take place in a certain parlor that's been set up to not tax the senses too much. There's a carpet on the floor, a fireplace against one wall to ensure it's not chilled and provide soft lighting (along with a few candelabras), and the walls have tapestries that help muffle sounds that would echo in other chambers (such as the throne room). It is a room, Nostradamus is certain, that his wife would have appreciated.

The celebration itself will not be nearly as gentle to Cassandra's senses. But for the moment, she's being granted a reprieve.

Cassandra has long since given up expecting to find a Guide of her own; she half-suspects that had there been one, that the Briarwoods would have murdered any and all of them in an attempt to keep her closer under their thumbs. So she has thrown herself into facing the world as a Sentinel alone. It will be worse at court. Having to navigate political intrigue amid a court full of plots, on her own. She was raised to it, of course, she has immense skill... but with the assault on her senses she very well might not be as... focused as she needs to be. Or too focused. Either way may spell danger.

She knows that she will be weighed and measured, here. Her loyalty gauged. And her loyalty will always be to her family, first and foremost. She has lost too much and shed too much blood to be any less. But she has no reason to be disloyal to the crown. Francis she might be unsure of, but she feels a certain... kinship, with Mary. (She too knows what it is to find yourself among sharks and spies, with trust a difficult thing.)

The chamber she’s led to feels different than the rest of the castle, and it’s easy to pinpoint what it is. It was designed and decorated specifically for a Sentinel’s comfort. The tension eases from her shoulders and she cannot help the soft exhalation. Relief. A brief reprieve before the celebration.

She moves throughout the chamber, the skirts of her dress swishing softly about her legs, taking everything in as she waits for whoever it is that will be taking her measure. Listening for the sound of footsteps that will herald their arrival.

Unfortunately (or perhaps not), there's a longer wait than expected. Some other disaster at court called the Queen's attention away. Eventually, rather than leaving her in uncertainty still, Nostradamus comes alone to the chamber where she's waiting. It is immediate, this moment of recognition between Guide and Sentinel, the words he had planned dying in his throat in favor of a soft inhalation, almost a gasp.

It isn't a need, an immediate thirst to bond (not like there had been with his wife, and perhaps the shattering of that bond was what mutes the sensation this time), but there's this sense that they could, that they'd be compatible, if they chose to be.

Cassandra doesn’t mind the wait, truthfully. A moment’s peace is well worth it. At the sound of footsteps, she’s turning toward the door before he’s ever stepped into the room, every inch the young noblewoman (every inch the politician). Curious as to why there’s just the single set of footsteps.

Only when he enters... she feels something... shift. A recognition, between Sentinel and Guide, and her lips part in a soft inhalation, gazing at him with wide blue-grey eyes. Oh.

She’s never felt anything like this before. It’s not the deep-seated need she’d always thought it would be, that her brother had spoken of, a thirst to bond... but she knows, immediately... that it would be possible, between this stranger and her. They could. If they wanted. They would be compatible. She feels... wrong-footed, somehow, as though she’s been struck speechless. Knocked rather off-centre. Of all that she had expected upon coming to court... this had been so far off the list as to seem impossible.

"Lady Cassandra de Rolo." The man's voice is a low rumble, like thunder in the distance on a summer night, or an exceedingly polite fireplace. He doesn't move closer to her, doesn't force proximity or even eye contact. They both feel the potential in this room, sure, but...

...but he's a commoner, even if he has acted as a temporary Guide to royalty. It would be incredibly unseemly for him to bring up what's going on here. No, instead, he'll offer her the hospitality of the castle.

"Queen Catherine regrets that she cannot be present to greet you. Your luggage has been brought to a suite already. We hope it will meet your expectations. While you're here, if you have any needs, I am at your service." What he really means is needs of a Sentinel nature. But he can already see how self-sufficient she is, how she works to remain centered. She may be fine alone, without his aid--at least until the boisterous parties with finely-spiced food and music and laughter and all the brightly colored dresses.

Cassandra inclines her head, dipping into a slight curtsy. The de Rolos have always been... a bit eccentric when it comes to the divide between royalty and commoners. That depth of character was what mattered, not bloodlines. A belief they don’t make public. “Nostradamus.” He doesn’t make any mention of the potential she can feel filling the room, and she doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t know where she goes from here. This isn’t... she isn’t... For the first time in a very long time, she is possessed with the brief urge to flee. It seizes her chest and sets her heart to racing and it takes all she has not... give into it. Something she is well-practiced at.

Instead she moves closer, half-drawn, half stubborn gesture to further defy that urge to flee. Until she is standing before him, hovering on that edge of impropriety, gazing up at him. Close enough to reach out and touch him.

“That’s quite all right. The duty that falls upon a Queen’s shoulders tends to avoid adhering to a set schedule,” she replies easily, a small, understanding smile upon her lips. Playing the role that is expected of her even as she’s set reeling. “I’ve no doubt that the suite will be more than satisfactory.” The offer... earns him a slight tilt of the head, a graceful arch of her brow. She hears what goes unspoken. And despite herself... she might. She knows all too well how... much the boisterous parties can be. How trying. “If I do I will be certain to seek you out.”

And then, because she cannot help herself, eccentric and brazen as she can be, unsure of anything at all, she brings up what he does not. “And I suppose we’re going to continue to avoid speaking of what we both know we’re feeling? As though it’s some sort of vibrantly coloured elephant in the room that neither of us ought to make mention of.” It’s spoken lightly, teasingly. As though she’s not deeply... confused by what she’s feeling. As though it’s nothing at all.

When it’s anything BUT nothing.

Nostradamus is a guide, attuned to emotions; he feels Cassandra's fear, notices how it contrasts with her bold actions. She's used to masking, to hiding everything, but she can't really conceal how she feels from him.

"It's your choice, if you'd like to speak of it with me. Or we could politely ignore it. You're noble--you're the one who gets to make that decision here, milady."

While she works hard to seem calm, he projects the calm (and, perhaps, the resignation) he actually is feeling. She doesn't need to be scared, at least not of him. He's little more than a servant.

It’s instinct, for Cassandra to hide what she feels. TO bury it down and keep it from everyone. Even though it makes no difference, here, even though he can sense it, laid bare to him in a way that unnerves her. She does it without thinking. (That she had managed to hide her feelings from Delilah was... a miracle. She still doesn’t know how she’d managed it.)

She stiffens. “I most certainly will not!” Her voice is sharp, her response immediate. Unhesitating. “I’m not the only person involved here, and I refuse to take that choice away from you. If you wish to ignore it, then we’ll ignore it.” As much as she might wish to know what it means, what it could mean... if Nostradamus wishes to never speak of it, then they won’t. And with the resignation he feels, despite his outward calmness... she thinks she knows his wishes.

She has been held, she has been tortured, she has been used. She has had all her agency, all choice, stolen from her. She will not do that to someone else. She refuses.

Her emotions feel to him like polished steel and trumpets and there's a small part of him that wants to melt into the corners of her mind because he feels safer with her than he has at court for years. Silk hiding steel, a woman with a straight backbone and a clear voice.

"Lady..." The admiration is clear in his tone of voice, and then he smiles softly. "I have lost the Sentinel to whom I was bonded, years ago. I never thought I would ever be able to bond again. Even if nothing else comes of this, you've gifted me with the knowledge that...I am not broken completely. That I could be part of a proper pair again. That is worth more than I will ever be able to repay."

Oh.

The admiration in his voice stuns her, catches her off-guard almost as much as the potential between them had. Cassandra hadn’t expected to earn that from him. Hadn’t thought... well, she hadn’t thought a great many things, before her arrival. And his smile strikes her, deeper than she ever thought possible.

There’s nothing to be repaid; she is glad of it, though, that she had been able to give him something so meaningful. But he’d done the same for her.

“This is how it’s supposed to feel, then.” He’s given her the answer she sought, even without meaning to. “I’ve never...” She trails off, the words met a Guide to whom the potential to bond was there going unspoken. It’s there, and he senses it too. Not that she knows what to do with that information. Other than breathe a soft sigh of relief. She understands his feelings more than he knows. Thanks to him she now knows that the Briarwoods hadn’t broken her. Not like that, anyway. It’s still possible for her. She might not always be a Sentinel alone. (She’s always been alone.)

Part of a proper pair, as he said.

To no longer need to go through it all alone. No longer needing to find ways to circumvent the worst of being an unbonded Sentinel. Navigating all the intricacies and complications without aid. It is... something she’d given up on. Stopped believing was possible. He’s given her hope.

[A Sentinel. Though, no 3 or 7.]

( no kylos/bens. def the sentinel. )

[prime sentinel material but open to either; not interested in 8]

[A sentinel with particularly strong senses of smell and hearing; defies stereotypes of sentinels as big strong sorts, and is a little self-conscious about that.]

[A truly horrible Guide who uses her power selectively to manipulate Sentinels and always pretends she's not doing it because she seems to have such an innocent face.]

[A Sentinel who has a tendency to get very attached to the Guides that help him out whether they're in a romantic relationship or not.]

[The guide.]

( m/f. she's def the sentinel. )

[A soft-spoken Guide who needs a lot of physical support for his ailing health, but is very tough, supportive, and resilient emotionally.]

[ sentinel. more interested in dangerously codependent platonic soulbond stuff than shipping, especially into scenarios 4 & 5. ]

[ you say unhealthy platonic soulbond and I'm there!! would you be up for something? I'm happy to AU into TLOU unless you'd rather do the opposite ]

[ aww yeah. i don't think i'm confident enough in sw lore to au the other way, but i'm cool with either tlou verse or going with a more general au for both of them, depending on your preference! ]

[ I'm totally fine with setting it in TLOU if you'll forgive any flubs on my part! Happy to do either scenario 4 or 5 if you're okay with a little bit of assumed CR - say we get the initial meeting out of the way and this isn't long after. Which one would you rather I start us off with? ]

[ assumed cr would be great! and i'm thinking 4 for a jumping off point? ]

[ Luke would really be so much better at this, she thinks to herself in despair. Leia knows she's a Guide in an abstract sense, but she's almost never used it for anything aside from her and Luke exchanging a general sense of presence and emotion with one another. She hasn't had a chance yet to learn anything further about her abilities, not like Luke, who has a fluid, innate sense of how to work with Sentinels.

Mostly, Leia has tried to avoid them, for exactly reasons like this. She hates being treated like a damsel in distress. There's enough infected coming at them that ordinarily she'd turn the other way and run, but Joel, who she'd just met the day before and tentatively helped out of a mild zone-out, isn't willing to turn around and leave the threat behind them. Isn't really answering her verbally anymore, either.

Leia lets out a loud and emphatic, ] Damn it, [ steadies her pistol with her other hand and tries to shoot as quickly as she can, heedless of ammo conservation. She knows she should be trying to reach him as a Guide, but pulling up her sense of others' emotions while she's trying not to die is a strain. ]

[ It might be for the best she doesn't try too hard to pull him out of his fugue, just yet. The small horde of infected bearing down on them is coming fast, runners darting out of the dark, howling as they throw themselves at their prey. And the only thing between them and Leia is Joel, the handle of a gore-spattered hatchet clutched in his white-knuckled grip. If she's a damsel, then he's an animal, a beast of little higher intelligence than the mindless creatures in twisted human bodies racing toward them.

Though both would be equally mistaken assumptions. The runners are quick, but Joel is brutally fast, jerking toward them before they've even staggered into the circle of low light thrown by the lantern laying on the ground beside her. He cracks the skull of one with his hatchet, slinging the body aside as it crumples and twists sharply to knock another runner off its feet. He stomps hard enough on its arm to elicit the muffled, grotesque crunch of breaking bone before stooping down to end its thrashing with a crushing blow to the back of its neck. His expression is set in hard lines, no clear emotion there besides the low simmer of barely suppressed rage, and even that looks dim and distant in the passing glimpse that pale light offers.

He twitches aside when a bullet wings past him, close enough that it should give anyone in their right mind pause— But given he's well out of his, the only acknowledgement he gives it is stepping over the twitching corpse that shot lays at his feet. Until the danger abates, he's as indifferent to the gunfire as he seems to be to her - if one discounts the bloody swath he's cut around her, as swift and deadly as any Sentinel in their prime. ]

[ Grim-faced and unflinching, Leia doesn't falter: she holds her ground, stays back from the gory battleground so that she isn't putting herself in further direct danger and distracting Joel. It's frightening in a way to see him descend so swiftly into mindless violence, but as Leia is currently directly benefiting from it, she doesn't think she has room to criticize.

It's after things start to calm down that she'll worry about it.

She settles into the rhythm of the carnage, starts to pick her shots more thoughtfully, covering Joel's blind spots rather than taking any shot she has and switching to her back-up weapon when she runs out of ammo. As Leia accepts what's happening, lets her own mind fall to instinct and the quick-sharp reactions of fighting, her sense of Joel's mind begins to take shape like a camera lens slowly finding focus on a too-close object.

When the violence subsides, she's regained enough confidence that she doesn't hesitate before clicking her safety on, holstering her gun, and walking up to him -- bloody mess and all -- and laying a gentle hand lightly on his arm. There's no need for her to keep awareness of their surroundings; she can feel that Joel will notice anything long before she does, a spark of hot alert and protectiveness. Leia's job is to anchor him on her, because -- ]

We can't stay here. [ Leia uses a firm, declarative voice. ] Joel, I need you to come with me.

[ They're not likely to stay alone for long, after all that noise. ]

[I waffle on which he was originally, but either way the serum was supposed to make it so he could self-regulate. It mostly worked.]

[For as many rules as Mandalorians have about everything else, they don't treat their Guides any differently than the rest of the clan. Because what good is a warrior without an emotional counterweight and a moral compass?

Either way: Din 'way too many feelings and bad at hiding them' Djarin is absolutely a Guide. Prefer no romantic/sexual situations though willing to discuss it for Cobb or Luke.]

[Could go either way! Don't like anything where 6/8 is considered default.]

[Sentinel AF, mind the warnings.]

[ guide. no 3/7, 6 and/or 8 are a given if playing off of canon but any kind of au is cool. crosscanon welcome, assumed cr preferred. ]

[ Big Guide Energy right here. cool with pretty much any prompts, not interested in threading smut for it. ]

[Platonic 3 way for the trio?]

[ yes absolutely! is there any particular prompt you're vibing with? we can always RNG if not! ]

[The trio realizing the connection? Parker can go either way pretty easily imo.]

[ parker is definitely a character i could see going either way! she's got a very unique vibe like that.

fajdslkf i guess this is technically gonna be more of a duo thread than a trio thread but even then they could have some real quality commiseration about it. i'm down to do up a starter, and you can swing parker in with whatever role you dig the most for her? ]

[Fine by me!]

[ It doesn't happen the first job. Isn't something that comes on all that fast by any standard, really.

Fact of the matter is, damn near everyone on this team seems to come pre-packaged with hangups and barriers and ways of keeping themselves all distant. A big control thing, a big survive-in-the-world-without-a-bond thing. An almost wanting to be alone thing.

What does happen fast is that Hardison loves all of them. Wants this weird-ass family pulled in and cobbled together. Has to keep remembering himself before he gets itchy Guide fingers and starts trying to root around wholesale, a hacker through and through. He gets patient. He reaches, and he's careful, and he waits.

And he sort of gets reverse-hacked. This whole thing that didn't happen all that fast manages to slide in under the radar, because he and Parker and Eliot click. It gets so easy that it doesn't merit extra thinking about.

One day he's just chilling, and Eliot's in the kitchen making ~real food~ in all his too-intense, "how does a Sentinel survive being so Like That all the damn time" presence. And Parker is rappelling from the rafters for kicks, always a little cooler, a little more muted.

All the synergy of the three of them left to their own devices, doing what they love, and the satisfied little hum of it in the back of Hardison's mind, rent-free, before he realizes that the ever-present ache of alonealonealone is maybe... not so much still humming away in the back of his mind alongside that. Is that allowed?

He breaks his attention from what may or may not be World of Warcraft and squints up at Parker as she Spider-Mans her way into visual range. ]

... so am I the only one feeling this whole situation? [ He makes a weird circular, "me you and the man in the kitchen we cannot see currently" gesture. ] Like, are we talking about it?

[ Wow, maybe he should have signed on for some fancy Guide training as a youth to be better prepped for this. He could've deleted himself from the registry afterwards. ]

[ either role! assumed CR very welcome; M/F or F/F; cross-canon loved; platonic and family dynamics also loved ]

[ He’d definitely be a guide. ]

[Leaning towards Sentinel, but not fond of Rejection or Death.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sentinels and Guides (they're already giving me soulbonded pair vibes, tbh)

Nostradamus - Reign - OTA

no subject

no subject

no subject

let me know if I need to change anything.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Bilbo | The Hobbit

Wei Wuxian • The Untamed • OTA

rey | star wars

Michael Locksley | Werewolf Alpha OC

mordred | arthuriana

Alec 'Bunny' Stebbins - OC - OTA

Dahlia Hawthorne | Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney | Voice Testing

Phoenix Wright | Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney | OTA

Alex Manes | Roswell New Mexico

zed martin | constantine

Fujishiro Nageki | Hatoful Boyfriend | OTA

joel | the last of us | ota

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Steve Rogers | MCU | OTA

The Mando himself | Star Wars TV | OTA

Ariel 'Falcon' Wilson | MCU (rule 63) | OTA

Kura Ren (Darksided Rey) + Star Wars (AU) + OTA

anders | dragon age | ota

alec hardison | leverage

Re: alec hardison | leverage

Re: alec hardison | leverage

Re: alec hardison | leverage

Re: alec hardison | leverage

Re: alec hardison | leverage

if this doesn't work just lmk!

leia organa | star wars (original)

Elijah Kamski | Detroit: Become Human | OTA

Bai Qian | Eternal Love | M/F for shipping, otherwise OTA