JERICHO ● SEPTEMBER 2025 EVENT/TDM

[uruz]

TDM & EVENT: JERICHO

ᛗ

Prologue: New Characters

You've been plagued with a reoccuring dream, as of late. Every time you sleep, the dream returns to you.

It always begins the same way: As a breath held for too long. As a pressure at the base of your spine. A silence that presses against the skin like confession, like prophecy. A ripple moves through your bones. A tide builds and pulls at your feet, familiar by now. You dream of a black, soundless wave, thick like oil and starlight, swelling across the horizon line. You've seen the wave before, countless times, always rising. With every night, it never reaches you. You always seem to wake before it does . . . That is, until tonight.

The wave moves slow, deliberate— like something ancient and alive. And when it finally crashes, there is no harsh impact. Only warmth. Only submersion. Rather than drowning, you are being claimed with saltwater that's sweet with myrrh. The darkness embracing you pulses with desire. Then, a voice envelops you.

"Come home."
It dribbles with honey-like promise, like a truth you've always known, whispered now from within your marrow more like temptation than a request.

"You are mine. You always were."
The voice offers purpose. Worship. Belonging. And when you wake . . . You wake changed, with a mask on your face you did not choose. Elegant. Sacred. Too important to remove. You have been given a gift. A new beginning.

Welcome home, new Vessels.

Watch on YouTube

ᛗ

Sink Down Like Precious Stones

( content warnings: drowning, body horror )

Vessels awaken within the dreamscape as the black wave recedes from their skin like velvet falling off the bone, their masks in place over their eyes and left afloat in the watery expanse. All around them, the ocean stretches infinite and lightless— so still it mirrors the sky above, indistinguishable from the void. Far in the distance, massive obsidian walls curve inward, enclosing this vast seascape like a forgotten temple basin. And there, at the far horizon, one glow pierces the dark: a low-burning fire flickering within a half-sunken structure of impossible architecture— arched, ribbed, as though built from marble and cathedral glass.

This is a test, and it begins with belief.

Those with unwavering faith— whether in Sleep, another god, or even themselves— will find the surface beneath their feet holds firm. The sea becomes glass, and they may rise, and walk. But those adrift in doubt begin to sink. Precious stone creeps over their skin. Joints stiffen. Flesh cracks. Breath slows. It is not death, but it is close and might as well be hell. Your only salvation lies in your own conviction . . . Or the mercy of another Vessel who happens to walk.

Those who drown will not die. They will loop this moment— sinking, blackness, return, sink again— until belief takes root in some way. Alternatively, they may awaken in a later dreamspace . . . Changed.

NOTES:

• Pale white fish as well as glowing jellyfish may be encounted. The fish stare at vessels as they drown, and jellyfish may leave behind a shock that could temporarily stop the process of crystalization. But only temporarily— and their stings are excrutiating.

TOKEN EFFECTS:

• Magic becomes volatile— spells flicker, overcharge, or fizzle unpredictably when cast on or near the ocean.
• When you cast, your veins glow from beneath the skin, but not with light. It's writhing. Like something trapped under glass.
• When channeling magic, your mouth may fill with brine and blood.

OFFERING EFFECTS:

• The water responds emotionally— thrashing with fury or calming with yearning depending on the Offering's state of mind.
• The sea amplifies desire and instinct, making base emotions harder to suppress— rage, hunger, longing all churn just beneath the surface.
• The black water feels too warm, too alive, clinging to the body like memory; any stillness invites visions of Sleep's embrace, both reverent and consuming.

ᛗ

You Taste Like New Flesh

( content warnings: body horror, psychological horror, compulsion, unreliable reality )

The ocean path ends at a palace carved of pearl and spun silk, impossibly perched where water meets nothingness. Whether you have traversed the black sea on trembling feet or simply awaken seated at an impossibly long table, it makes no difference. You are here now, and welcomed, suddenly in attire fit for a gala. Around this table sit countless Dream-Vessels, many silent and still, faces unreadable in the flickering candlelight wearing generic, six-eyed masks. The table stretches beyond sight, arching beneath creeping vines that twist like ancient veins overhead, blooming with strange blossoms that beat with energy. Flames dance atop dozens of candles— some burn on brass holders, others hover, like fireflies caught mid-flight, their shadows flickering and shifting with an otherworldly rhythm. Around you, phantasmal forms shimmer on pedestals: Sleep's ancient Guardians are eternalized through memorial, monstrous and magnificent, lost to time yet enshrined in reverence. On the highest pedestal stands a still living One, silent and watching the feast with somber eyes. Sleep's voice whispers in your ear, encouraging a glance to, perhaps, see what you may become.

"Feast, My Dear Vessels. Until you taste like New Flesh."

The foods before you don not come unmeddled with. Each bite pulls memories from your bones to the surface— moments buried or erased, but these are not just yours. The banquet feeds on shared history, stirring secrets tangled between you and the others here. To eat is to open a door: to risk awakening something dormant, to invite others inside your buried truths, to forge bonds or betrayals that can never be unseen.

Eton Mess: Crushed meringue, tangled cream, and berries that bleed like bruises when bitten. Sweetness melts quickly, leaving your tongue cold. As you eat, a memory rises— but you don't experience it alone. The person nearest you sees what you see, hears what you hear, feels what you felt. Together, you can alter one key detail, and that change ripples outward, shifting how you both remember the event.

Deviled Kidneys: Spiced and seared, the metallic richness clings to your mouth, as if tasting old blood. Eating summons the echo of a painful or violent memory, but your partner experiences it with you.

Roasted Lamb in Mint Sauce: The sweetness of the meat is cut by mint sharp enough to sting the throat. Your act of consumption awakens a craving, but not in you— in the Vessel sharing this dish. They feel an inexorable pull toward your memory, even without knowing what they seek. The bond persists until the craving is confronted.

Honey Scouse: A thick, golden stew heavy with warmth, but beneath the sweetness, something cloying curls around the edges. Every shared spoonful spreads a slow, creeping influence between you and your partner: intrusive visions, subtle compulsions, small lapses in agency. Neither of you can tell whose thoughts belong to whom.

Starpit Fruit: Plum-sized and faintly glowing, the juice leaves your fingertips dusted in silver, like handling starlight. When bitten, the fruit releases the memory of a forgotten wish, not to you but to the person beside you. They see it clearly— and know exactly what you once wanted most, even if you had buried it.

Marigold Brandy: A golden spirit served warm, glowing faintly as though sunlight has been trapped inside the glass. When lifted, it releases a soft, floral scent. The first sip draws you and your partner into a shared burst of joy— a memory that makes you swell with happiness. The sensation is so immediate, so electric, that when the memory breaks, your bodies ache to move, to speak, to draw more positivity to light. You may feel an irresistible pull to get up and dance on the wide palace floors, even if no music is playing . . . And if others nearby drink as well, the effect multiplies.

Saints Breath Chalice: A dark, wine-thick cordial served in tarnished silver cups etched with symbols that shift when stared at too long. The liquid smells faintly of frankincense and something sweeter— blood-warm and alive. Drinking it floods you and your partner with the overwhelming sensation of being inside someone else's celebration, a memory that belongs to neither of you: a vast mass of black, with branching antlers and six, glowing red eyes. It reaches to sink its claws into your chest as she sings: One. Beloved. We were meant to be. It is impossible to tell whether you're witnessing joy or manic worship. There is chanting you cannot understand but somehow already know, drums that sync with your heartbeat until you can feel nothing else. Your limbs begin to twitch, then sway, then move without conscious thought, drawn into a dance you do not remember learning. If more than two people drink, your movements synchronize perfectly, your breath matching theirs, until the room seems stop to watch.

The table awaits.

NOTES:

• Feasting becomes addictive. The more a character eats, the harder it is to stop. Gluttony may cause physical consequences: nosebleeds, twitching fingers, warping speech, uncontrollable confessions, or dripping nectar from their mouths.
• Those who refuse to eat at all begin to starve in a dream-sense: they lose color, smell burning, and feel the weight of Sleep's gaze. Her wrath isn't immediate— but it grows the longer you reject the feast. She takes offense.

TOKEN EFFECTS:

• Each spell cast after eating releases parasitic energy— manifesting as flowers, thorns, parasitic insects or rot— either from their own body or from someone they recently touched.
• Casting warps your limbs temporarily: too many joints, fingers curl the wrong way, nerves burn like wires.
• Touching others leaves sigils burned into their skin. These will briefly carry over into the waking world during next month's event. Runecasters will get the innate feeling that this symbol has a meaning summed up as "The Night Does Not Belong To God". How they interpret that is up to them.

OFFERING EFFECTS:

• The act of devouring awakens an overwhelming desire, often physical, but sometimes emotional or spiritual. This desire clings to another Vessel at the table, creating obsessive attachment or aggression.
• The more they eat, the more their monstrous traits subtly emerge.
• Consuming another Vessel's memory (if shared or touched) grants a brief glimpse of their deepest fear or weakness.

ᛗ

There's Something In The Way You Lay

( content warnings: sexual content, voyeurism, body modification, omegaverse traits, loss of agency )

Beneath its pearlescent halls, beyond the banquet of flickering candles and dream-Vessels who eat in hollow silence, a spiral staircase winds downward. Its steps are damp and velvet-slick. The further you descend, the warmer the air becomes— humid, cloying, thick with the scent of sweat, salt, and incense. The sounds reach you first: Slaps, gasps, the wet chorus of bodies and perverse intimacy. Laughter, muffled sobs, the echo of whispered names long forgotten. At the base lies a corridor of "private" rooms. Their doors swing open with dreamlike invitation. Inside, the scenes unfold: past dream-Vessels lost in tableau— arched backs, bitten lips, mouths open in prayer or obedience. Some are alone, coiled in worship. Others tangle in groups, indistinguishable where one body ends and another begins. Vines bloom across the ceilings, watching. The walls glisten with breath. You see their faces, but you can't quite distinguish what or who they are. You may not remember choosing a role, but the dream has chosen for you. α or Ω— and with the naming, your body changes. There is no shame here, only devotion made manifest. This is how Sleep is worshipped now: through cruelty and surrender, through the giving and the taking of flesh.

NOTES

• Masks may optionally offer a sort of glamour for Vessels who wander into these chambers— they will not be able to recognize each other. How much of that, whether it be appearance, voice, and so on, is up to you.
• Past dream-Vessels perform for no one, eyes vacant, movements perfect, as if only a ghost of a memory. Player characters may interact with them and even partake in intimacy with them, but be warned: they are emotionally absent and may cause symptoms of succumbence that could be remedied with a proper, player-character tether.
• Tools hang on the walls: Rods of all sizes, slick with heat. Collars that hum with low, seductive voltage. Blindfolds that intensify physical contact, There's no need for cuffs or chains when there are vines that seem to respond to the α party's mood— tightening, flowering, or reaching for skin. You are free to come up with your own items.
• α perks:: Instinctive claiming (done through biting, rubbing, branding, etc), an almost predatory focus and obsession for those who interest them, pack gravity (the ability to attract one or more vessels at once), emitting a scent that ignites heat/rut in others, darker urges surge and a commanding voice.
Ω perks: High pain tolerance, instinctive yielding, emotional synchrony with those being watched, self-lubricating, hypersensitive, scent tracking, intense need to please or be filled emotionally, physically, and spiritually. When touched, glowing runes bloom across the skin.

TOKEN EFFECTS

• Spells cast during acts of intimacy may provoke a heightened sensation of euphoria for both caster and whoever is affected by the spell.
• Magic may manifest as misty appendages— extra hands, tongues, eyes, etc.
• Divine energy becomes volatile when passed through the body— ecstasy may border on agony, or vice versa, and Tethering becomes impossibly euphoric.

OFFERING EFFECTS

• Flesh becomes malleable mid-act— bones bending, jaws unhinging, skin blooming open, etc.
• Animalistic traits emerge: tails, claws, growls, tentacles, scent glands— all begging to be used.
• Feeding and Tethering are indistinguishable— hunger becomes worship, and worship becomes need.

ᛗ

I am not worthy

( content warnings: body horror, violence, gore, parasitic/invasive feeding, death )

Wherever you are, the palace begins to rot. First slowly, then all at once: vines swell with black fluid, splitting at the seams. They burst from beneath marble tiles, coil up pillars, slither across frames and vacant thrones like arteries choking a heart. The candlelight flickers. One by one, the flames throughout the palace float upward . . . And die. No smoke. No warning. Just wet silence. Then the Dream-Vessels begin to fall. They do not scream as they do. They collapse like marionettes, limbs askew. Their flesh splits open along wounds that should not exist— a rip at the neck, teeth marks prying open the ribcage, a bite that swallows half a torso. Bones jut like sculpted ivory. Entrails slither across the floor like garlands. Some burst mid-air, as if the dream demands spectacle. Others fold in on themselves until all that's left of them is a mound of flesh.

"I am not worthy."

One voice. Ten. A thousand—layered, glitching, sweaty. It echoes from the walls, the bodies, the seams in the floor. The corpses twitch in time with the chant, jerking violently. Some snap backwards, eyes wide, jaws unhinged. Others explode— blossoming in gore, raining viscera. From the heaving pile of ruined Dream-Vessels, something forms.

It lurches into being: stitched from tongues, teeth, torsos. Weeping. Wailing. Worshipping. A monstrosity of raw flesh and faith: all failures made meat. Its eyes (are they eyes?) blink out. Arms claw outwards, too many to count. Its scent is of copper, sweat, and sorrow.

When The Abomination chooses to feed, it seeks not flesh, but the softest rot inside you. An appendage uncoils from its writhing mass and unhinged jaw— veined, slick, and trembling like a violated root. It drives itself into your mouth, splitting your lips with obscene tenderness, and sinks deep into your throat, locking you still.

What it draws out is not blood. It siphons your doubts, your fears, your most secret self-hatred. Your inadequacy. Every buried shame. Your hate. Your negativity. Every flinch of unworthiness. Every moment you believed yourself unlovable, unseen, too small. It gorges on what you hide from even yourself, and the more you try to resist, the sweeter your sorrow becomes. The last thing it takes is your life force, and then your viscera, leaving you wilted and shrivled like a hollow log.

This death is violating and feels painfully slow. You're drained raw of your vitality until you're but a brittle husk that breaks to dust in the wind. It seems near impossible to destroy, always reforming into bits and pieces left smudged behind. Perhaps your best bet it to run, or attempt to wake yourself up from this nightmare.

One's voice repeats in choked sobs: I am not worthy.

NOTES:

• Wounds from the beast linger. You may wake bleeding or marked.
• If devoured, characters will awaken the following month extremely fatigued during the first 3-5 days of the month. They may also sporadically rigurgitate black sludge. Characters who die and are already in the game may requesta plot clue, that will be a vision your character will dream of before awakening.

TOKEN EFFECTS

• Magic recoils violently when used on The Abomination, backfiring with psychic screams or ripping into your flesh.
• Your hands glow uncontrollably, burning what you touch— even those you love.
• Magic becomes hungry; it demands pieces of your body to function. A tooth. A nail. A rib (and so on).

OFFERING EFFECTS

• The rage it stirs in you is monstrous. You begin to shift uncontrollably— flesh blooms, bones crack under strain.
• Your body begins moving before you decide to. Twitching toward The Abomination, and toward the scent of despair.
• During the chaos, you may develop a fixation with another Vessel's flaw. You can smell it on them. It entrances you . . . To the point that you may feel the urge to feed them to The Abomination.

ᛗ

OOC NOTES

➤ Welcome to Somnia's second TDM, which doubles as our third gamewide event!

➤ This TDM is considered game canon. You are free to have your character remember as many details as possible.

➤ Only new characters are free to experiment with the Vessel options to your liking; this is a dreamscape, so multiple/different situations for you to really test which option you like most is possible. Current characters must remain as their chosen Vessel type unless you requested a switch, which can be done on the Taken page.

➤ All TDMs take place within a dreamscape, meaning characters can interact with the setting without needing to apply. Come have fun with us!

➤ Veteran players, I ask to please refrain from making post-event threads for the time being! We have some important information to take into account in next month's event when characters are slated to "wake up". At the very least, please wait for the information to be offered on the next plotting post. Thank you everyone for your patience!

➤ Please comment on the TDM's INVITE TL if you are a new player interested in joining the game, but don't yet have an invite. Current players or the mod may reach out to extend an invite. Once you've got one, please don't forget to comment on the Invite page so you may properly link it in your reserve and app.

➤ Questions? Please direct them to the designated questions comment linked below!

network ᛗ logs ᛗ ooc ᛗ memes ᛗ navigation

code

Comments

[herofhopeless]

[Despite taking this long to acknowledge the person next to him, Clive had a compulsive habit to track anyone near him, particularly those he did not know. This person, though, had been quiet, sitting with an empty plate and staring down at the table. Occasionally, Clive had taken a peek out of the corner of his eye, but the person looked dutifully bound to resist whatever temptation called to him.

Somehow, he knew that the other man needed help. Maybe he just couldn’t bring himself to take the first step, maybe he thought it would be rude to take. A soothing presence urged Clive to help, to feed. When Clive added the lamb to the stranger's plate, he took the time to examine him. Properly this time.

If he hadn’t, he may have missed the shift in the stranger’s eyes. Hmm. Odd.]

I heard it, too. Largely, I’m not fond of hearing voices in my head, either. What did it say to you?

[commitments]

[ Adolphe is accustomed to suffering in silence and self-restraint.

Those words should be reassuring yet it doesn't put him completely at ease. Still incredulous and wary now, but the longer he holds out the more the pressure frays his sanity. Is color disappearing? Or is that just him? A burning smell...

The lamb looks delicious, glistening at different angles by floating flame and candlelight, and it holds his attention even if he thinks to give Clive a scan. ]

It said to feast... Something about tasting like new flesh whatever that means. [ Freaky. ] What have you heard?

[ He's hungry, curious over their circumstances, hungry, questioning their state, and hungry. Maddening. ]

[herofhopeless]

[A thing that the two men would have in common, had they known.

Something strange is happening to the person next to him. It's obvious in how he holds himself, seems a bit unmoored. Clive thinks about the people he hauled out of the strange water before arriving here, how this place had whispered things to him on the way here, how it told him something similar upon entry to the feast hall.]

Likewise. Usually, I'm not keen to follow the directions of a disembodied voice from nowhere, but...

[Something was definitely off about his dining companion. Clive leans closer, concern writ on his features. He places a hand lightly on the other man's shoulder.]

Are you alright?

[commitments]

[ The hand that finds his shoulder will notice that it's tense and stiff, drawing up to the touch like raising hackles. It takes a moment before he relaxes with a deep inhale through his nostrils, then out. Finally, he tears his attention away from his plate and looks to Clive, though his eyes flit down and back. Pensive.

What is it... ]

I'm hungry, I think. [ He didn't mean to say that, but it's out. Vocalized. ] Thanks, by the way.

[ For getting him a serving. ]

[herofhopeless]

[Clive almost removes his hand when he feels the tension there, but the remembers the first time he was touched with affection upon receiving nothing but pain for so long and opts to leave it there for the moment. He decides he made the right call when he feels his companion relax under his hand.]

If it helps, nothing strange has happened to me since I started eating.

[Aside from maybe the slight urge to keep eating, but he could very easily attribute that to a life spent on less filling fare.]

Of course.

[He gives the stranger's shoulder a light squeeze before removing his hand.]

My name is Clive. And you?

[commitments]

[ Adolphe looks up at Clive, then casts his gaze on other vessels dotted along the windy dining table that seems to snake for however far. It does line up to what Clive said, or at least no one is outright acting strange. Maybe just displeased.

This is a dream... But a dream is made up of structures and people one has seen, isn't it? He doesn't remember a Clive and the man is rather memorable. Maybe domineering in appearance, but the touch to his shoulder and the calmness in his voice speaks for more. All Adolphe offers is silence to the kindness, though he thinks to himself how long it's been since he had a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Even the pressure is welcome.

... ]

Adolphe. [ With the encouragement, he adds a bit more to his plate. With the lamb, he scoops some kidneys. ] Have you made anything out of this? Usually, I'd wake up by now.

[ While he didn't watch Clive skulk around, he heard those footsteps and the trail that led him back to his seat beside him. ]

[herofhopeless]

It's a pleasure to meet you, Adolphe.

[Clive wonders where his mind could have conjured this man from. He'd never met anyone like him. Even the name was an unfamiliar sound. Dream or no, the man next to him was clearly having some struggles with adjusting to whatever was happening around them and if Clive was anything, it was adaptable so he would share that with his newfound companion.]

Likewise. Normally, I don't even make it past the beach.

[Clive glances back around the room.]

I do think it's a bit strange that the things on the pedestals surrounding us don't seem to be alive, but that one- [He nods towards the front of the room] -is. It hasn't moved. Not a twitch, other than the rise and fall of its breathing.

[commitments]

[ The pleasantry and everyday decorum puts a pause to his thoughts. His eyes round owlish and blinks a couple of times. He tries not to let it hang long... So quickly and quietly. ]

... Yeah. A pleasure.

[ Adolphe starts cutting the kidneys and the lamb into pieces, but his eyes follow Clive's lead. The single breathing figure hasn't changed... It breathes like the start and like now. It not having done anything is a blessing, but it cranks the anticipation.

When will it start moving? ]

I don't think it's the origin of the voice, but it all must mean something. The banquet, the inanimate figures, the lone breathing figure, and... The voice.

[herofhopeless]

[His companion being thrown by politeness that had been ingrained in Clive since he was a boy put him a bit off-kilter. Perhaps this wasn't the time or place for that. Or has Adolphe never been talked to or treated this way? Clive looked back to the front of the room in an attempt to get out of his own head.

Why was he so fascinated by his dinner companion? It was unlike him to be so drawn to a stranger. When had it started? Certainly not when he sat down.]

I don't think so either. The voice sounded more feminine and the... person at the head of the table doesn't look like a woman. I could be wrong. They are rather obscured.

[Clive turns to look back at Adolphe.]

Perhaps, after dinner, we can take a look around and see if there is anything to find that might help us figure out where we are.

[commitments]

The voice did sound feminine... I wouldn't say it matches with the appearance of that one, but we don't know much.

[ It could? Adolphe doesn't want to make assumptions because anything can happen, which is why he is inclined to take Clive's offer. He wants to know why they're here, what they're here for, and what may happen.

But a memory takes them when he has a forkful of kidney and lamb.

CW: human experimentation. What the body remembers is pain and a wave of it rushes in. It's needles. It's scalpels. All sorts of tools used on flesh and all sorts of wires hooked to the prison. Blood drained day after day, lightheartedness becomes permanent yet the skull feels so heavy. Sometimes, there are flashes of hologram panels showing all sorts of biological metrics and parameters. The tests never cease... And there's no sense of resistance or defiance, even when the pain monopolizes all senses. There's resignation instead, a sense of fulfillment and duty.

When there's a gasp of air, cold fluid fills the lungs and with it unadulterated fear—a wish for it to stop. No matter how strong convictions, humans are weak creatures.

The memory fades, even if it's all just sensation. Adolphe's eyes go wide as he looks forward, unable to blink. ]

I—[ Normally, he would shut this down. He would close off and wrap himself in a cocoon of distance and aloofness, but with the lamb he becomes so enthralled with what Clive might think.

So worried, especially, by what he might have felt. ] I'm sorry.

[herofhopeless]

I’m hoping we can find something more elsewhere in this place. I’d wager there is more to this building than just this hall.

[Clive’s fork is partway to his mouth when a vision washes over him. It isn’t just what he can see, though, it is what he can feel. He doesn’t hear his fork clatter back down to his plate, doesn’t feel the cushioned chair under him, or the warmth of the man next to him. The resignation starts to set in, but Clive bucks against it. Even awash in someone else’s memories, his mind rallies against the feeling of the inevitability of being under another’s control.

Clive pulls out of the memory shortly before Adolphe. Concern crests over him, writ clear as day on his features. He leans over and puts his arm over the back of Adolphe’s chair, creating at least a bit of a wall to hide his companion from potentially prying eyes. While he wants to protect Adolphe from further exposure, there is also a small part of him that wants to keep this moment to himself, to keep this part of Adolphe to himself.

He brushes away the apology. No one should apologize for being in pain.]

Are you alright?

[commitments]

[ Adolphe grips onto his utensils so tightly where his nails are biting into his palms and his knuckles pale white. Still and stiff, he's holding his breath behind a thin frown and takes in air when he can't go on. It's shaky, but controlled.

The utensil clatter onto the table, abandoned so Adolphe can cross his arms over his chest. A defensive pose after having relived the sensations of being a little test subject. After a moment, his shoulders slacken and he relaxes. ]

... Yeah, I'm fine.

[ He doesn't want to admit that Clive's arm bracing the backrest of his chair is comforting because what he'd like to do is away from this hall. From everyone.

But for the moment, not Clive. ]

You said something about exploring?

[ It's a small attempt to circle back, though it isn't seamless at all. ]

[herofhopeless]

[Clive shifts his body a little more to create as much of a barrier as possible between Adolphe and the room. He debates taking the arm of the chair and turning the furniture more towards him to protect his dinner companion’s other side, but thinks that might be too jarring considering what they just experienced.]

Okay…

[The doubt is evident in Clive’s voice, but if the other man doesn’t want to talk about it here, he isn’t going to push. It’s not exactly the most private venue.

Clive pushes his own chair back and stands. Now he does pull Adolphe’s chair out a bit, tilting it away from the rest of the guests as much as possible. Later, he might stop to think about why he felt the way that he was, why he wanted to keep protect this person.]

Let’s get out of here.

[He offers a hand.]

[commitments]

[ It isn't private... And the banquet hall is so open, yawning with its dark vines and lined seats. It's overwhelming, really, when Adolphe prefers the comfort of his small cottage a couple of skips away from civilization. In the quiet, he's thankful that Clive respects his wishes.

There is a new and small desire to share and unravel all that he had kept secret and buried, but it's a struggle. This affinity he has for Clive, one he can't seem to question, keeps coaxing him. Why does he keep resisting? What is there to fear? It's a visceral reaction to fear, but the effect that draws him to Clive contends with it.

Maybe later, which is the furthest he had ever considered with anyone. Adolphe takes Clive's hand and pulls himself onto his feet. ]

Yeah. I'd like that. [ Another gander and... ] I'm not sure where to start. It felt like I just appeared here after crossing the dark sea, so there might not be a path to backtrack.

[ At least that's his case. ]

It has been so long I am so sorry

[herofhopeless]

[The urge to protect this man surges in Clive’s chest. Those memories he saw, the pain, the fear, the resignation. He never wants Adolphe to experience that ever again. He wants to know him, to show him that they can be safe together. To share. It’s a strange feeling, not one he is used to, but he chooses not to look at it too closely.

Once Adolphe is standing, Clive does not release his hand. Nearly reflexively, he shifts their grip to weave his fingers between the other man’s.]

There isn’t much that way. It’s mostly just a long hallway. Let’s try that doorway over there.

[Clive gently guides Adolphe through the opening. The atmosphere doesn’t change immediately, but the dimmer lighting and the way the stone muffles the sound quickly quiets any extra external stimuli. Clive chooses a turn and continues before pausing near an alcove and looking over at his companion.]

Is this better?

don't worry about it!!

[commitments]

[ Oh. Adolphe is taken aback by the change in their grip... His fingers twitch, fretful, by how foreign it feels. He's not a physically affectionate type—or affectionate as a baseline in general. Embarrassment stirs, just a bit, but he finds that he likes the warmth.

To him, the world had always been cold and cruel, but at times he considers it's his bias. This is one of these times as he's guided through the doorway. His eyes travel along its frame and grooves before falling back onto Clive. Anyone would aspire to be like him, Adolphe thinks. ]

It is, but you don't need to coddle me... [ A grumble, though one without heat. ] I'm not fragile.

[ So he peeks past, curious though not hopeful for an exit. It'd be nice, though. ]