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

[heavypetting]

 

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 

Comments

[nostradamnit]

"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.

[ofwovenstone]

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.

[nostradamnit]

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.

[ofwovenstone]

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.

[nostradamnit]

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."

[ofwovenstone]

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.