JERICHO ● SEPTEMBER 2025 EVENT/TDM

[uruz]

TDM & EVENT: JERICHO

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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[potentialman]

[ Oh.

Sleep does love dragging that one into the sunlight, doesn't she? ]

I see.

[ There's no verbal acknowledgement of Subaru's circumspection, no thank you said aloud -- but it's easy enough to infer, from the way Megumi's gaze drops and the silence that follows for a few beats. It's a tough subject, and one that's been dredged up surprisingly often in the last month.

He doesn't really want to go into it again. Not now. ]

...so, that one affects others in the vicinity, not the person who ate it, and induces -- some kind of vision. I guess it's hard to say what the common thread is, with only one data point.

[ He's not counting on getting any more to theorize from, though, because it'd make perfect sense to him if Subaru decided to skip on that one and try something else entirely. ]

[sacral]

[ Megumi breaks the bones of the situation down to fragments and marrow, visibly disinclined to elaborate. Subaru also hadn't elaborated, hoping to blanket his intrusion with acceptance. He cannot know the circumstances, the emotions that lead to this outcome. Wherever this vision, this memory, this wish lives in him — it must hurt. It aches.

Quietly, he shifts, holding his hand out. His fingers are delicate but steady, fingertips grey with famish and the nascent magic of a runecaster. ]

I can give you another, if you let me.

[potentialman]

Are you sure?

[ If you let me.

That's backwards, isn't it? Megumi should be the one who needs permission, if this is the game Sleep's playing. She's thrown so many things that force them to look into each others' hearts already; having the choice to reject one of them isn't a small thing. ]

[sacral]

I'm sure. I don't fear letting you in. Though...

[ Look close enough, and the wilt of a smile curls domestically at the corners of his mouth in a preemptive apology. His hand remains poised to take the already-bitten fruit, should Megumi choose to offer it to him. ]

I don't have many good memories.

[potentialman]

That's not going to scare me off.

[ Subaru saw Tsumiki, after all. Megumi doesn't know what, specifically, he saw -- but the bad memories easily outweigh the good ones (entirely the fault of Megumi and his shitty middle school attitude).

He holds the fruit out to Subaru. ]

[sacral]

[ It is an extraordinary extension of trust. Subaru intruded, and even in the interest of knowledge, Megumi is under no obligation to take one of his memories upon himself. But Subaru still feels as though it is... just, to have offered it, and now to do so. Stardust to stardust, he takes the fruit with a quiet thank you.

And once bitten, the memory unfurls in a warm glaze of sunlight through an apartment window:

"Hokuto-chan...? Oh, hold on..." An old-fashioned telephone rings through the space. Sumeragi Subaru is sixteen with two good eyes, speaking into the receiver of a telephone with a mixture of gravitas and distraction that is, quite frankly, impressive. "Yes, yes... understood." His distraction comes in the form of a sixteen-year-old girl, fluttering about him with all the fiery determination of a prodigy shaping her life's work. She straightens his collar, knots and bows the tie around his neck. Next, a vest, then a hat which she dutifully arranges on his crown.

By the time Subaru hangs up the phone, she's slammed a mirror down in front of him with a dazzling laugh, clearly enamored of her handiwork. When he looks in the mirror, there is his reflection. And beyond the mirror, it's like there's a second reflection: Sumeragi Hokuto. His perfect twin star.

"There you go, Subaru! Another perfect outfit coordinated by moi! Now you can go to your makeup lessons without a care!"

"Sorry, Hokuto-chan. Could you call the teacher for me...?"

"To tell them what?!"

"That I can't make it to today's lessons."

"WHAAAAT? Why not?!"

Subaru smiles and it's unlike any expression he's displayed in the world of Sleep's dream. With a gloved hand, he removes the hat. "Work." Softness curves his face in sad strokes, the duty of his clan's lineage slamming the door in the face of his human wants. Still, he smiles, the expression only fading when Hokuto's arms fly around his neck. She hugs him close. She hugs him as if he's the only thing that matters to her. Their smiles equalize, similar in their comfort.

"It's okay. Big sis is here for you. Never give up on your dream, no matter what."

And on the other side of their current reality, in the mirror of this dream, Subaru is silently watching the boy now at his side, in all his similarities. For all intents and purposes...

It is a good memory. ]

[potentialman]

[ It does seem like a good memory, although Megumi's cynical enough to recognize that all it takes to make a good memory a bad one is the knowledge that it's out of your reach forever. Still, if he'd had...more like this (sans the fashion choices, maybe), and fewer memories of Tsumiki that ended with shouting and slammed doors (always him slamming doors, never her) --

He looks at Subaru, not wanting to pry, but still wanting to know. Were you like that all the time? Did you ever make her cry?

Did you two ever fight?

Instead, he settles for -- ]

...you're a twin?

[ The similarities seem too uncanny for anything less. ]

[sacral]

[ Subaru isn't an overbearing presence, but there's a depth to his gaze that he doesn't think to shallow out. What Megumi wants to know and what he wants to understand polarize one another. So, it was Hokuto. A fortuitous exchange of coincidence. Or maybe Subaru willed her up from the depths of his heart.

In a dream, anything can be made reality so long as the mind and heart yearn for it enough. To wish is a powerful thing. ]

Yes, I am. Hokuto was my older sister.

[ He pauses, but eventually settles on: ]

We trained the same, but she didn't inherit my clan's power.

[potentialman]

[ Older, without power, but with all the outgoing warmth that never came naturally to him. Funny how things line up like that. ]

...Tsumiki was my step-sister, technically. No talent for jujutsu at all. But I always figured...she was better off that way.

[ Not having to face that life. Not having to swallow the deaths of everyone around her, learn the cold arithmetic of how many lives can be saved and how many are already a lost cause.

Not knowing her life did, in fact, have a very discrete price tag on it, according to the people who should've been last to make such a judgment. ]

[sacral]

[ Subaru feels those words rise in his heart, echoing. Reflecting back at him the hospital room, the regret. To live in the shadow of power is no less perilous. ]

Did you figure correctly?

[potentialman]

No.

[ His gaze drops to the table. ]

It's been a year and a half. She's still asleep. We've never figured out what cursed her. [ Whatever it is, he feels sure that it wouldn't have happened if he weren't in her life. ]

[sacral]

[ If their practitioners were of the same reality, Subaru thinks that he wouldn't have hesitated to try and retrieve her from whatever malady sent her under. But they aren't, so he cannot. But an immovable future has never daunted him before.

Weighing the words, Subaru reaches up to slip free the dreamscape's veil, swallowing the vivid discomfort that rises in its absence. ]

Fushiguro Megumi. Do you blame yourself?

[potentialman]

It's hard not to.

[ On an intellectual level, he gets all the things that everyone around him has already pointed out -- that she's far from the only one who's been affected by this particular curse, that it could've been anyone, and it's hardly a failure on his part that he can't trace the residuals back to a root cause when sorcerers twice his age and with far more experience have fared no better.

But what's the point of having the power to protect others when you fail to protect the one person you needed to protect, at any cost? ]

[sacral]

[ His fingers flex into a curl and then release again, the action of which is like pale moon phases on a paler tablecloth, full and then slender, tensing and loosening. ]

What did you do afterwards? When she fell under.

[ He's bearing the weight of responsibility on shoulders that were too young then and are too young now, but Subaru understands the architecture of grief too well to misunderstand why. ]

[potentialman]

There was a string of similar cases nationwide. Gojo-sensei told me that there were other sorcerers following up on all of them, but nobody found anything.

I know he probably thought it was kind of pointless for me to try and investigate Tsumiki, when he was working on it himself. There's no way I'd find anything he managed to miss. But...he didn't stop me.

[ It was technically a case well above Megumi's grade, and it started before he was even officially enrolled and thus taking missions on paper, instead of just tagging along with Gojo and observing. But...he'd needed to feel like he was doing something.

Gojo recognized that, and for once, mercifully, didn't call him out on it. ]

I couldn't figure anything out. Of course.

[sacral]

[ Of course. Subaru's unfettered gaze draws over his face, even the muted fog of his blind eye pointed in its search. ]

The price of inaction is far more severe. Even if you can't forgive yourself...

[ He shifts in his seat slightly, the length and meaning of this table forgotten. There is a different ritual in the rise of his hands now, the way he gently places his palms on either side of Megumi's face. Untold magic has traversed this path and yet it's not magic that he touches with. ]

When your sister awakens, she'll be glad to see you.

[potentialman]

[ She'll be glad to see you.

It's not the first time he's been told this, and though he knows it's true (because Tsumiki has never had a petty or grudging bone in her body), his own words still echo in his ears like a rebuke.

I hate you. ]

I've been horrible to her.

[sacral]

No two people carry the same pain or circumstances. And still, I'm sure she understood your heart better than you know.

[potentialman]

[ Tsumiki probably understood Megumi better than he understands himself, and in its own twisted way, that only makes him feel worse. Like he's just exceptionally stupid for not having been able to figure it out and be honest with her sooner.

She could see straight through him. Why can't he manage that with himself?

He bows his head forward, though not so abruptly as to shake off Subaru's hands. ]

That...would be just like her.

[sacral]

[ The cradle of his palms gives to the motion, but don't pull entirely away. ]

I see. [ Another shard of this mirror, slotted neatly into place. ] Then, if I had to guess, I would say that she already knew your true feelings, even when you didn't. You still have the chance to tell her when she comes back to you.

[potentialman]

...yeah.

[ Megumi isn't normally very tactile. He doesn't touch, he isn't open to being touched, although there are a few exceptions. Gojo never asks, just plunges into his personal space, and he puts up with it the same way he puts up with most of what Gojo does -- with an eyeroll and a few muttered words. Yuji also sails past boundaries; it's always with so much warmth and good intention that Megumi allows it, because any less of it seems like it'd diminish everything that makes him Yuji.

This, though, feels closer to Tsumiki, when he was younger, before he started pulling back and dodging every gentle question or extended hand. Like when he was five and he'd scraped his knees or found a dead bird, and he wouldn't cry, but she'd always put a hand on his shoulder and whisper that it was okay if he did.

He wouldn't, even then, because Megumi always held himself to standards he'd never expect of anyone else.

He doesn't, now, because he still does. ]

[sacral]

[ Power is a terrible burden on the soul. Others enshrine it, even in betrayal. For people like Megumi, they must learn to walk with it, even so. ]

You're still looking for a way, even though you're shouldering blame.

[ Carefully, his hands slip away, just as softly and silently as they'd appeared. Subaru is having trouble holding the feelings of dissonance and dread back and so goes to return Sleep's veil, gaze once again muted by its shroud. Then, he stands, feeling the wear of the banquet hall, the need to excuse himself from it, however momentary. ]

It's more than some are ever capable of.

[ He waits by his chair to see if Megumi has any interest in following. ]

[potentialman]

[ It's still not enough, he wants to counter, but instead of pushing back, he watches Subaru adjust the veil, stand up.

And since the pause seems to be as good an invitation as many, Megumi rises to follow.

It's a bit much in here -- loud with too many voices and heavy with the weight of too many memories. But even if he's never really been one for crowds, that's not really what pulls Megumi in pursuit. Subaru has made him feel seen, in a way he's completely unused to, even from the people who know him best. ]

[sacral]

[ It's not a grand gesture, but it does balm his heart in a small way to have Megumi follow. Subaru doesn't know the lay of the palace well, but his steps are calm in their measure. Any hall or corridor or room is likely better than the emotional clutter of the feast. If they're lucky, maybe they'll let out near the sea. ]

...you said that your magic is similar to what you're used to, but not entirely the same. Will you show me?

[potentialman]

Sure. [ The palace being a new development, Megumi doesn't have any better idea of where they're headed, but it doesn't really matter, he figures. He can manage a demonstration wherever. ]

I've been able to get it to work normally in this place -- I think because the dreams we're first pulled in through are closest to home, maybe? I didn't manage it the first time but I think having two months to try and pick apart what's working differently has helped. [ So he can show Subaru both versions, in fact. ] I think Sleep's version is...the path of least resistance, maybe. So trying to do anything without a good idea of the distinction meant it just came out that way.

[ It takes more focus to cast as he's accustomed to, which feels strange and counterintuitive. But it's manageable, if he concentrates properly and doesn't try to cut corners...which is nice, because two months is easily the longest he's ever gone without calling his dogs since he first learned to do it, and they were long overdue for some pettings. ]