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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sumeragi subaru | x/1999 | new player

[sacral]

1. LIKE PRECIOUS STONES

[ Sinking into the sea is not unlike sinking into someone consciousness. A rare technique afforded to him by a years-old lineage, its prestige dusted with holy antiquity. Yet there are no feverish currents to rebuke him. No raw soul rising up to eject him from his intrusion. For once, he is here, in this somewhere, and he has no idea why that is. It is calm, glassy. Mirrorlike. Whose? — is what Subaru's sluggish mind wonders.

He is held aloft on this sheen briefly, perfectly suspended between air and water. Maybe as a cruel, creeping testament to his former mastery of the elements. It's then that he remembers where he was just prior to this awakening that feels more like being asleep. In a garden always blooming, hand outstretched. He was being offered something. His wish. Sucking in a breath, Subaru opens his mouth to cite a mantra to wipe this illusion from his awareness but finds himself choking on it, the familiar tones melting to blood and salt and sweet in his mouth. ]

Th — [ a wet cough ] this isn't my...

[ ...magic. It's then that whatever tenuous platform was holding him aloft disappears, leaving Subaru to plunge into the sea and sink like a rock. He flails just once, the plume of water kicking up the little fish like shooting stars. Then, less elegant, a jellyfish sent careening out of the foam, a magnificent, blobby comet.

Sorry, his faith is a bit of a mess at the moment. ]

2. NEW FLESH

[ Subaru isn't one to glut himself on pleasures. This isn't to say he's not a glutton, but his indulgence is a different breed. Nothing he wants can be found here, so he chooses penitence and vigil while he feels so wrong in his own body, unused to what hunger in any of its forms will do to him.

So, he 2-A: waits. Much to the Lady's chagrin which he feels pulsing in the smell of flowers and wax, the constellations of flame. A hollowness ravages the paper-pale hue of his skin, veins racing with runic black. Something is displeased with him, and he wonders, dimly, stubbornly, if he can draw it out with abstinence. (Which he would've done even if he wasn't already feeling nauseated.) To combat the heaviness, he ventures aloud to anyone within earshot: ]

Do you know this ritual?

[ Or, 2-B: he's finally taking the plunge at Her behest, or someone's behest. He's an easier sell than his morose demeanor might suggest. Subaru picks the Starpit fruit, its silver dust leaving a star-smattering across his fingertips, already inky-grey as calligraphy brushes dipped in water are. It's not the taste of the fruit in his mouth that widens his gaze, but what happens after: a great barrier rises from the floor at his feet, its translucent walls shaped like a pentagram. All at once, everyone disappears from inside it. All that's left is the banquet table, the candles, the burgeoning branches, the sleeping Gods...

— and you, his tablemate. Stunned, he gazes at it, an apology low in his throat. ]

You won't be able to exit until I take it down, if I still have the ability.

[ Sounds promising. ]

3. I AM NOT WORTHY

[ When it begins to unravel, Sumeragi Subaru, the 13th head of his clan, isn't surprised. This place is too much like the world of the Dreamseers, too much like an illusion, too full of excess and rot to do anything else but collapse in on itself in a fit of bone, flesh, fruit, and architecture. This is an exorcist's fare, the work of diviners and mediums. But he finds himself none of those things, his power severed.

But that doesn't mean that he's willing to do nothing, even here. If he encounters the beast feeding or preparing to feed, he interrupts it by way of a crude spell: a chimera of a sigil hastily traced onto a napkin with the ash of a candle wick, slapped right onto the glistening tongue of the creature. Its many voices bellow in the ensuing flash and Subaru, even as he feels the blood-deep sear of one of his bones cracking, seizes the elbow of the other Vessel in harm's way. He doesn't know the price, he's forced a magic that doesn't belong, but it'll be fine, he thinks, he dares to hope. ]

Hurry. [ An urging to run, his breath fluttering paper thin in his chest. ] The spell was weak.

[ But hurry to where in this collapsing world? ]

4. OOC/WILDCARD

( ooc: feel free to wildcard or plot with me for personalized starters! alas, poor protagonist is not quite ready for the orgy but i have faith in him. icons are from all over the series, but he is still blinded in his right eye. also testing him out as a runecaster! )

2-A

[potentialman]

...sort of.

[ Megumi's been refraining; he doesn't trust anything on the table. He wouldn't as a newcomer, and after a couple of months under Sleep's gaze, he trusts it even less.

But those couple months have also been enough for him to recognize that when she's displeased, things could become immeasurably worse. ]

There was a dream like this before. The foods were different, but they had strange effects. Shared visions, or making people crave contact. I'd assume these are similar. [ Which would normally be all the motivation necessary to say, nope, not eating this, no way, but -- ] I think it'll be safer than the alternative.

[ It's a grudging admission; he's pale and washed out in the way that suggests he's been putting this off. But he's seen what the world under Sleep's gaze looks like, when she's not taking particular notice of any of them.

The last thing he wants is to get her attention. ]

[sacral]

I assumed so. [ It's a listless answer, heavy with disembodied knowing. He knows something, but its form is ephemeral. ] Those who eat behave strangely, but the reason was beyond my sight.

[ Until this boy's explanation. Strange effects. Shared effects. Subaru considers him through the veil, notes that he looks like Subaru feels. So their preferences align. Subaru is also wary of the feast, dissimilar in the way he's become accepting of sin, but he can't in good conscience let someone else suffer with him. ]

Come on. [ He motions, standing. ] Sit beside me, then.

[ And, lower: ]

What is the alternative?

like precious stones

[hallowedly]

( Sea's rolling susurrus, shivered and anaemic and the rounded gasp of resigned exhalation. Death becomes the willing, sketches of charcoal beside (beneath) gunmetal glass. Corpses that never learned to step on corpses.

Earlier in his morning, afternoon, evening (he has walked, still walks, this mirror bridge for a heartbeat or an eternity), Seishirou might have conspired some petty surgery of cruelty and visited hope on the deserted. Now, practicality has bled out ingenuity, and he is... brittle, silent, restless beneath an empty grey sky that has denied him the narcotic sedation of death, the tempest of his ancestral power, and even the private delusion that his final moments were a miraculous cliche of fictional disposition. The horizon stretches, sprawls, stale and luminous and inescapable like languid terror.

Between rare white roils, he glimpses and gazes and the ugly cut of misplaced petulance, and hurt, the futile hurt of the drowned and falling, the drowned and waking, the drowned and dying.

Later, he will say, ah, fated: the verdigris of settling water, the patina of Sumeragi Subaru's dimming gaze. He would know them like the high call of sparrows come autumn, or the wound that's clawed his chest undone, only to slither gone. He does not hesitate — an enemy who has exercised the mere irritation of an opaque supernatural loophole to command the last breath from your lungs will surely not exhaust himself with effort now, on the cusp of submersion. Still, feet stained by the refraction of sharp errant light motes, he barters balance on the glass deck, takes the knee —

Then carefully, far too carefully, collects ashore the floating silhouette of the 13th head of the Sumeragi clan, once foe, now dead weight. As it happens, so happens, the grip of his hands, pulling young Subaru up, slips and latches onto his bird-boned right shoulder — where a pinch, a choice roll, the tender-most suggestion of pressure might nudge along the nostalgia of a dislocation. He should help himself. He should. Clutches the humerus, sets his palm for counterweight on the scapula, rotates, considers —

...then pulls back at the last heartbeat, a final press of the mouth on his latent marks on his pray's hand: Schroedinger's mercy. Knelt, hovered, he settles instead on scavenger duties, summarily peeling away Sumeragi Subaru's outer jacket to hunt for any whiff, shadow or memory of a stray lighter.

Really. It's one little treat or another. )

I might have overlooked your face in this crowd, Subaru-kun. ( A pause, then, chirpily in the practised voice: ) But I'd never mistake your sense of humerus.

( To think he lived under the guise of these wretched puns for a year. No man has sacrificed more for the art. )

[sacral]

[ To thieve bone or fire from him would've been a gentler greeting than the sticky-soft utterance of a pun when he's at his most vulnerable. Despicable work. A tide recedes to allow this cloying violation room to breathe and Subaru finally breathes with it. Or gasps, or sighs. Air enters the lungs, alive, leaves, also alive. Perhaps he would narrowly choose the taste of iron and brine to the sweetness of familiarity administered with all the precision of resetting a broken bone.

It was a clean break. No marrow, no fine stromata, veined and webbing, ever ruptured. But it was broken, for a time. Just as a smile breaks over scar tissue no longer humming with its wagers. Dead, dead. Remembrance is all it is, or all it was. Fate is all it is, or all it was. ]

It's at the bottom. [ He supplies as explanation for his empty pockets, teeth chattering, tongue slaked. Subaru is not cold; it's some other seasonal malady in perpetual bloom that takes hold of him. Kneeling and familiar hands and salted copper linger too near in his memories. Even the lay of his jacket's collar — ] The lighter.

[ Subaru doesn't actually know if it sunk to the bottom of this sea. It feels appropriate that it would have, now that his preferred way to experience smoke and mirrors has dredged him up with little ceremony. His snub is weak and coils over itself as it always has, memories of one heir dispatching another fermenting in his soul. Invocation, a sluggish heartbeat. Magic looms in his veins, a greyed kaleidoscope, masquerading as his own but they both know better that this crucible is not one of theirs.

For purchase, for stability, for something that yearns to know, Subaru rights himself with a fistful of humid shirt-fabric right over the Sakurazukamori's heart. The vast sickness hasn't set in yet, only the foolish suturing of hope. ]

You're dead. [ Something he knows. ] I killed you.

[ And yet here he is, once drowning, now placed neatly upon shining, tidal platform of faith. ]

2-B

[panzana]

[As Subaru bites into the Starpit Fruit, a memory that is not his own flashes through his mind. It's a memory of a four-year-old Italian boy with fluffy dirty blonde hair sitting in a tree near a church with a nine-year-old French boy with light brown hair, the two of them holding open books in their laps as they chat enthusiastically.

"Say, Henri! How do you say 'bird'?"
"It's 'oiseau' in French."
"Oiseau... Oh, I know this one! Soleil! That means 'sun'!"
"Yup. You're really good, Nicola."
"And you're good at Italian too, Henri."

The French boy named Henri lets out a pleasant laugh upon receiving the younger boy's praise. The young Nicola's heart fills with happiness and pride at the sight.

"Say, Nicola. Are you gonna be the next boss?"
"Yup. I don't really wanna be boss, but I have to." Silence falls briefly between them, but Nicola soon speaks up again.
"The Falzone manor's kinda scary, so I didn't like it before. But I like it a lot now that you're here. It's so fun to play with you."
"I'm glad that you come over a lot. When you leave, I'm usually alone."
"Me, too! Mother won't play with me, and I don't have a father..."
"Then it's perfect, 'cause I'm older than you. I'll be your big brother if you want."
"Really?! Yay! Are you sure?!"
"Yeah." Those words from Henri are like music to Nicola's ears.
"Say, Nicola... I'm kinda scared of the mafia, too. Maybe it's scarier for you because you have to be the boss and all... but God is watching over you. You're a good boy, so you'll be happy."
"Heh heh... Thank you, Henri..."

Feeling immense joy and comfort at the older boy's sweet words, the young Italian beams at his friend. No, he's more than just Nicola's friend now. He's what Nicola has always wanted in his life.

"...Big brother Henri."

The memory cuts off there. In "reality," Subaru finds himself alone with a well-dressed masked man, his head covered with those same blonde locks as the young Italian boy from the memory. Unbeknownst to the fact that this stranger has recalled a memory that Nicola himself has completely forgotten, he looks around in shock at the translucent pentagram-shaped walls surounding them until his gaze fixes on the only person left in this suddenly deserted banquet hall—the person sitting across the table from him.

The smile that spreads across the adult Nicola's face is a polite one, but the jade green eyes boring through his mask are cold as ice. He doesn't know whether he should be friendly or hostile towards this suspicious man, so the tone in his response ends up coming out as a mix of both.]

If your ability is what caused this to happen, then surely you have the means to undo it. Is there anything I can do to help?

[Hopefully they can get out of this peacefully, but if not, Nicola won't hesitate to turn to violence if he deems it necessary.]

[sacral]

[ What unfolds in his mind's eye is not so dissimilar from what Subaru would experience when entering someone else's consciousness by way of onmyoudo. It was a ritual passed on to him, ancestral and fierce, wildly dangerous for those of weaker magical constitutions. Subaru never struggled with it beyond the soul's most primal nature to fight back and expel the intruder, but he finds no such resistance here. All cognitive barriers simply melt away and leave him standing in the warm, familial wake of something that doesn't belong to him, but feels as if it could have, ringing in his ears, feverish, bell-like — "I'm your one and only big sister!"

..."I know what you really are —"

"So come on."

"We both know you're going to kill me."

There is no room for these memories to move in simpatico. Only Subaru tearing his mind's eye from the vision, down from the tree, the boys, the book held aloft in gentler hands, allows him to see who bears this mark of love on his soul. He blinks the daze of it away to hone on the man now seated before him on the edge of dreams. Similarly honeyed and verdant, he notes, but sharper now, younger predilections reshaped by the violence of circumstance. It's — in his eyes.

His heart clenches, perhaps a little too visibly, not unused to pressing his heels against the whispering back of such a knife's edge. ]

Not long ago, I lost this ability. [ Subaru is not harshly masked, but softly veiled. ] It seems like it reacted to something to manifest like this.

[ He chooses his words carefully, leaving the rest of the broken-skinned stardust fruit on the otherwise empty plate. Wary, he moves his chair back. ]

But because of that, I have doubts that it's really mine.

3

[trashblaze]

[ This place isn't right. What a terrifying world, all those screams… For an entire minute, Caelus is dumbfounded, not because he's frightened but because he has no idea what to do. He's experienced similar things before: suddenly thrown into an unknown space, not knowing where the exit is, and voices ringing in his head. But it's hard to process anything when… somehow, he knew that he couldn't save these suffering people. The sight is madness. Yet why can't he help them, what is this ugly feeling? Can he still try, even though he knows it could be useless to? He puts himself together shortly and is determined to walk forward regardless, but then he suddenly feels that vine— no, not a vine. Before he can fully register that it was a tongue trying to get him, someone suddenly takes care of it in a flash. ]

Whoa!?

[ Startled by both the grotesque tongue and his unexpected rescuer, Caelus lifts his head and turns around, face to face with an unfamiliar young man. Behind his mask, Caelus can't help but immediately smile, seeing a form of action, of deviance, in a dark space like this. It gives him hope. He's always had it, but it's comforting when someone else is moving too. But when the person urges him to go, he doesn't move yet. Seconds later, he does…

However, not to run away, but to meet up with this person. Caelus approaches the beautiful stranger with his usual tenacious energy— an unchanging fiery spirit that's never left him, no matter what. His silhouette is strangely familiar, a young person with a lot on his shoulders and a source of light for others, but it's of course someone else. He offers his hand, momentarily lifting the mask on his face to drive the point home. A very determined face. ]

Let's go, together!

[ There's no way he's running away alone if he can help it. ]

[sacral]

[ Subaru isn't someone who has an immense amount of hope in much of anything. He'd abandoned his bloodline and been robbed of another, his wish was made forfeit at the beginning of the end. He'd planned to just live with the immensity of misunderstanding and failure, but seeing people in danger made the magics in him surface, a stunning amalgamation of instinct and power. He feels little hope, though this dreamlike world has caused things to splinter and shift into a ragged mosaic of stained glass that he still might see through. Stained in ash, in petals, in ink and —

Together.

...stained in gold, the color Subaru sees from this stranger in the half-light of his blind eye and the gossamer veil covering it. Momentarily transfixed, Subaru lifts his hands halfway, then halts. His skin glows in a way that suggests fire, that suggests harm. He doesn't dare take this person's hand. ]

I shouldn't touch you. But I'll be behind you.

[ He urges forward, away from the many-voiced creature reshaping itself to hollow out the next Vessel it sees. ]

wildcard; sipping marigolds

[pointedlook]

[ Outfitted properly for a gala, he's spent much of his time in this strange dream space walking along the lengthy table and trying to see where it ended. Thus far, it seemed like it stretched on forever, an unbroken line laden with food and guests, lit overhead by the warm glow of candles. In either direction, the width of the banquet hall feels much the same, the only change in that there appeared to be a set of gilt doors propped open, showing the elegant spiral of a staircase.

Sighing at the impossible and endless table, he finally takes a seat, wholly ignoring the flicker-shimmer of mask wearing Vessels in the chairs nearby. Lips pressed into a thin line, he gives all the food a pinched look before opting to at least drink something. Maybe it would relax the tension he felt in his shoulders. He picks out a glass of what looked like liquid sunlight, the bright yellow-gold giving off a faint heat even through the cup.

It's like a mulled mead when he takes a careful sip, the flavor blooming on his tongue as neatly as the memory does in his mind: he's younger, dressed down in worn jeans and a Nirvana t-shirt, perched on the edge of a hospital bed. The real inhabitant of said bed is a youthful looking woman, her red-brown curls flattened and uneven from laying on them. On the other side of the bed is a rumpled seeming man in a chair pulled up close, his tired eyes sparkling with happiness.

The woman appears similarly exhausted, dark smudges under her eyes, but she's positively glowing as she cradles the swaddled infant in her arms.

"Here, Philippa, say hello to your Uncle Arthur," she says, holding her baby girl out for him to take, beaming at him so brightly he can't even think to deny her. Swallowing emotion and his nerves, he gently curves Philippa into his arms, awed by how tiny she was. And that somehow, she managed to look like her parents, even at two days old.

"Hey, Phi. I promise to save you from your dad's fashion sense," he teases, getting a faux-annoyed squawk of hey! from Dom across from him; that was easier than spilling his guts on how much he loved this small human already and how he'd do anything to keep her from harm.

Mal's joyful laugh follows him back into the banquet, taking root as the drink slides through him, filling his lungs with a sense of buoyancy. Startled but glad nonetheless, he glances at the man next to him, a boyish grin overtaking his expression as he stands and extends a hand. ]

Care for a dance?

help i love his face in that image

[sacral]

[ Joy runs over in an abundance that would seem ill-suited to this gathering if not for the way that the memory pours across his heart first, then his mind's eye. This belongs to the man who treasures it, not the dream pressing it to him in a soft unfurling. Golden, sweet, human-thrummed warm; the essence of it catches on Subaru's awareness like shimmering motes suspended in sunlight. Love exists in this moment that is not his, that he didn't have to fight to see or to prove the existence of. It is perfect in that it just is. Birth is a transcendental homecoming, a constellation of blood and trust in equality. Subaru is seeing — family.

Though the memory tolls through him as an ache of joy, the glance he flickers upwards is still somewhat schooled behind the gentle cover of his veil. He juxtaposes the face of that younger man, "Uncle Arthur", with the sleek, handsome one that considers him now. His hesitation might give away that his first instinct is to refuse, but he thinks better of being the reason that this happiness ebbs so quickly. ]

If you don't mind... [ Slender fingers traverse Arthur's palm as if in divination, a sensory experience in itself. Finally, his hand settles in the other man's. ] that I never really learned.

[ He stands, delicate build corseted by a sternness that doesn't entirely seem to be his own, but one that he's forgotten how to cast off. His attire seems to reflect that: somber and plain across his chest, but the slight skewing of his body hints at the mesh and pearl, a garden blossoming over the frail contours of his back.

He thought wryly of it. He still thinks wryly of it, but his attention chooses to be elsewhere. Subaru cants his head, as if one of those stray motes of humor has managed to imbue him too. ]

I skipped out on all the family gatherings that might have taught me.

[ A morsel given: prestige shirked. ]

3

[revolts]

[ is this guy... blind? toji does a double take and it's only in one eye, probably. the guy's a sorcerer, or something like it, and you can never really fucking tell with those guys, but he must be at least mostly blind to try and offer the likes of fushiguro toji shelter. (or stupid, or insane, both just as likely when it comes to the sorcerer type.)

the casual touch to his elbow makes him blink, toji struggling to recall the last time anyone got so close. there's an effortlessness to it that is alien to him, a reflexive ease of connection that men like toji are not afforded. when touch finds toji, it is always measured, bought, paid for, earned. in intimacy and violence, such contact is always consciously pursued.

but here is a man so single minded in his defense of a stranger that he's broken what may as well be the natural order of the universe to grasp toji so. ]

Do you line up to bleed for every stranger you meet, or is this just your daddy issues talking? [ in spite of subaru's warning, toji keeps himself between the boy and the beast. there's some makeshift weapon gripped in one hand, some splintered, heavy wood, and when he grins it's with too many pointed teeth. when the thing lunges at them again, he cracks it back with his bludgeoning, laughter rumbling so deep in his chest that it spills out as a snarl. ]

[sacral]

[ wdym he sprung fully-trenchcoated from his grandmother's forehead there was never a man involved ]

Consider it a responsibility. [ Wryness, polished to shine, to sand down its tooth. Subaru answers even when he shouldn't, less out of obligation to entertain a potshot and more because of his obstinate attitude. Danger is the lesser focus; he didn't miss it, the halt in the wake of his touch, the calculation it takes to dissect its meaning when there is none. ] Isn't it fortunate, then...

[ Wood collides with the creature's skull and it howls in protest, but the sound is so much more distant than this man's guttural burst of enjoyment. Yes, now he knows the type. The amalgamation lurches, the soullessness of its infinite parts nauseating. At its feet: steaming blood, pooled in all the putrid colors of its host bodies. Subaru ducks from the same elbow he dared to touch, to the pool, two fingers drawn through the liquid before it coagulates. In its path, sigils drawn in its cordial offering: half in Subaru's mother tongue, half in the language of this new God. The delicate weave of his fingers, a third language, activates the ward, stalling the beast in place. ]

...that we're strangers?

[ If the man is going to exercise the least advisable of his options, he may as well have the best shot available. ]

2-B because I'm mean to my characters. :]

[aeviternitas]

[ To one side, he is joined by an almost ethereal looking man, with white hair that he has pulled over one shoulder that it not spill on the floor behind him where it might be stepped on by their fellow Vessels. The dish before him is a small helping of deviled kidneys. He has scant taken more than a bite when something around them shifts. His gaze darts skyward, following the strange magic as it rises around him.

His subconscious — or perhaps Sleep's twisted sense of humor — draws forth a bitter font of memory that spills across his own mind and the space between him. The parallels to a prison are inescapable, it seems.

The figures that loom over him, a creature small and fragile by comparison, are brimstone in their judgment. Their faces are lost in memory to a span of time so long as to be meaningless. Terror and grief and confusion rise in wails and pleads that fall on deaf ears. And then, he is alone.

This place is different: save for a single low platform of stone, there is only sand - not the glimmer of a sunny beach nor the glare of a desert dune, but instead the pall of ash, dull beneath a lightless sky. Beyond that, fog, looming than creeping. Desperate, he runs into the mist seeking some, any way out— only to arrive back at that same platform. Again, and again, the scene plays, like a record player that cannot find the next ridge in a scratched vinyl. Years pass, simultaneous instant and infinite in scope. His hair grows longer, the hem of his robes dirty and worn but he does not age. Finally, weary and hopeless, he sits. And it is there he stays.

The Forsaken's fork returns to the plate with a decisive clink, despite the grace of movement that would suggest the god otherwise composed. The tang of copper like blood is heavy on his tongue and in his throat. He sets either hand in his lap that they not tremble, and closes his eyes that the other man might not see the fear that claws its way up from seized lungs and a rabbit-quick heart. ]

You may surmise I am not unused to such, now. [ There is a wry humor there, resigned as he is. He turns his pale blue gaze on the other man, and even smiles, lacking emotion though it is. ] Given your reaction, I take it to mean you did not intend thus.

i will protect him, me personally

[sacral]

[ Throughout the duration of the memory, Subaru can't bring himself to look away. It feels... an insult, to avert his eyes and deny the memory he's come to trap between them, looming long and pale, historic to this man's architecture. He has touched the depths of many souls in his short lifetime, run his fingers over the wet, living ripple of humanity's heart. That was his gift, his birthright. But here, there is only opaque, directionless despair. He breathes and it's ash that he tastes, tepid in comparison to the primordial froth of life. Instinctively, his slender fist closes next to his heart.

Even at a respectable distance, seated as they are, Subaru thinks he can feel the innate fear ringing off of his companion. Quietly, he reaches up to remove Sleep's veil, stomaching the inherent discomfort that comes from doing so. He owes him the weight of his gaze, even if the corners of his mismatched eyes pinch. ]

I'm sorry. That wasn't my right to see. [ And, as a addendum, a soft and unswift explanation: ] This barrier isn't intended to be a prison, either.

[ But he sees how it could be misconstrued as such with the way it's trapped them in the soundless desolation of this dream. ]

2-b

[airdrops]

[Man, everything about this is aggravating to a crazy degree. A dream she can’t wake up from—one seemingly shared with others, for as oddly real as they all feel—an entire feast they can’t even enjoy without setbacks, and to top it all off, her Arts just aren’t behaving the way they should.

And apparently not just hers, if this new barrier suddenly erecting itself around them is anything to judge by. And, y’know, the fact that the man at the table beside her doesn’t seem all that confident about getting rid of the thing.

With a sigh, she pushes herself to her feet to examine it a little closer, feline tail twitching with some agitation behind her.]

What’s it made of? I can probably break us out if it comes down to it.

[Sounding so very confident about that, despite the fact that nothing around here is as simple as it seems.]

[sacral]

Wait! [ Subaru nearly rocks his chair off its balance with how swiftly he stands up from it, its legs clattering against the floor. His hands which came to rest firm and flat on the table twitch, and then under better judgment, release some of their tension. He amends, more subdued but no less earnest: ] Please.

[ In his youth, he was better at dealing with those of more fiery dispositions. His ability to temper brashness and tenacity decayed around the same time he'd lost Hokuto, he wagers. But it doesn't stop the brief panic from shining through the pinhole damage to his current disposition, reminding him of what life with her was like. ...that and he knows the body language of an irritated cat when he sees it. ]

It's a spiritual barrier. It... [ Standing upright, he approaches her. ] It may be twisted by this dream, just like my other abilities. But if its strength is the same, forcing your way out could be too dangerous.

[ Now, to see if his entreaty is taken in good faith or as a challenge...

Subaru is tired, and it could go either way, he realizes. ]

2-B

[obsidien]

[If he dies, would Sidurgu be freed? That's what runs through his mind right now, but he controls himself because according to the dark knight creed, one only executes the evil and powerful-- and this Hyur hasn't done anything evil, just something bloody annoying.

Annoying enough that his black-scaled tail starts twitching behind him.]

If you still have the ability, eh? [His tail gets more agitated.] Do you mean to tell me that you're responsible, and not whatever it was you ingested?

[Just so he knows exactly who or what to be mad at.]

[sacral]

[ Beneath the veil Sleep shackles him to this dream with, Subaru's skin runs somewhat hot, flushing with the innate knowledge of what someone's killing intent feels like. His tablemate cannot be blamed; all around them, people are pulled from their plates and chalices, prone to obeying the spiritual and temporal strings that some unseen master holds. And the quickest way out would be to sever them, of course, even when they tangle, when they all lead to one another.

Subaru is used to Dreamseers, to "fate". He knows that it could very well be by design. ]

I don't know. [ The honesty of his statement is the bone of the situation. Next, the marrow: ] The barrier was mine, once. But I no longer have the ability to create it.

[ He chances a long look up at the other man's eyes. The tail remains in his peripheral, a signal for already waning patience. ]

It may be a memory.

1

[falconia]

[ A flood of searing details burn holes into sight soon as he opens his eyes, like staring through the wrong end of a kaleidoscope, colors bleeding profusely into darkness. Everything, even the rest of human sight, is vividly swallowed up in this lightless place. Stranger views here than most nightmares he's harbored as of late, sinking on these thoughts, lacking an anchor by which to firmly ground himself in reality. Better to wrench himself upright, then; resolved to move forward, he takes a cursory step.

Then what he assumed was the floor and the tentative agreement he's struck (trusting it to keep his balance), abruptly shatters on him. Griffith falls clean through. Sinking fast into these warping angles, cascades of this ocean envelop him.

For anyone else, it could be the miserable precursor to attempted drowning. Nearly does him in the process, unable to scrape by and find his bearings. But in possession of an ego that could swallow a world, he's able to climb back upright in his sodden coat after fighting every inch to break the surface, wet to the bone.

If he's angry, that's only natural recourse— same as the severe weight of Griffith's vise-grip, his hand a tether poised to yank this fellow stranger out topside. Beneath the hoarseness, his voice has the cadence of a knife, not yet dulled and blunted of its edges. ]

Then we ought to find the perpetrator.

[ Simple as. ]

[sacral]

[ Equilibrium. Strength. A mirroring in the way he likewise clamps onto the grip offered to him. Then — a dissolution of barriers briefly as Subaru heaves a sopping wet cough once he breaks the surface, dumped onto the treacherous glass of the ocean's spiritual whim. Someone decided that he would not drown today in this cosmos of some unfamiliar God's design. He breathes, thin. Water patters off of him, thick. Subaru looks skyward first and there are no stars; he feels similarly snuffed out. If someone were to see the beauty of him it would be similarly viewed, he thinks: a waking shimmer, already having breathed his last breath elsewhere in time.

Belatedly, he realizes his rudeness in still gripping his savior's coat sleeve, though the motion to let go comes more sluggishly than his words do. ]

For me... [ Now, his gaze abandons the sky. Turns to other, closer starlight hue. The same carbon that circulates in stars lies in the steel of blades, he knows. ] Or for you?

2-B

[cursedvessel]

[Yuji is so focused on his plate, on feeding the hungry urges gnawing at him, that it takes him a moment to realize that everything has gone strangely silent. Glancing up from his plate, he quickly realizes why. Before he can do something like poke at the barrier with his finger, he's distracted by the voice of his tablemate.]

Well, if you were able to get it up, I think chances are good that it should work in the reverse. Won't know unless you try.

[He seems pretty relaxed about the situation. And hey, it's not like all the food is gone. Reaching out, he grabs up a Starpit fruit for himself and takes a bite.

A new new scene unfolds before Subaru. A small hospital room. Fresh flowers gathered in a vase on the windowsill. In the bed lies an old man. When he speaks his voice is gruff with an underlying tone of affection.

'You're so strong...help people. It's fine if all you do is reach out a hand. Just help people whenever you can. Even if you're lost, even if they're ungrateful...help them anyways. Die being surrounded by a crowd. Don't end up like me.'

The memory fades.]

[sacral]

[ Among the eerie masked partygoers and other Vessels too paranoid or displeased to eat, it is... somewhat refreshing, to see someone throw caution to the wind like this boy does. Concern creases his instincts, but he finds he can't immediately contain it. For the first time since his arrival, Subaru feels his expression loosen into unguarded wonder. ]

...that is true. Are you —

[ His question stalls on his tongue when his kekkai's faint, glassy hum is interrupted by a splash of memory. Sterile, sunlit sheers, the scent of a bouquet in bloom. Love. There is love in this room.

"Help people."

It resonates with Subaru so deeply that even upon fading, he takes a long moment to remember that he was mid-question. ]

...are you sure that you feel alright?

2-A

[armwriostle]

[While Subaru is unfamiliar with how hunger ravages the body, Wriothesley had known the feeling quite well. Yet, it still gnaws at him in a way that's unfamiliar. It's not the type of starvation that weakens the body, but this one seems to erode a person in a deeper way. He doesn't quite appreciate that, really.

Yet, he's also stubborn. The two of them can at least commiserate in their similar states.

He looks over at the other and offers an easy smile.] Is that what this is? [Perhaps it being some messed up ritual makes sense. Still, these kind of things don't happen too often in Fontaine. Or at least modern day Fontaine.]

Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with any of this. Even most of the food seems foreign to me. [He eyes some of the dishes and then glances at the foreign fruit.] I can't say this is a dinner party I'd like to be at again, that's for sure. [He shouldn't say that out loud though if the heavy feeling of being watched seems to weigh even more on his shoulders. Someone sure has a temper.]

[sacral]

It may be. [ Though none he's familiar with, even if these echoes of familiarity are returning to him warped and wrong. Candlelight, waves, stillness. Six eyes, as far as the eye can see, and no music to dance by. No, none of these things are in clan Sumeragi's cosmic eye. ] But I suppose it's also dependent on what you make of ritual in the first place.

[ People will cast away nuance to source habit from anywhere, so long as it brings solace. Subaru looks sick but uncompromising. ]

...I've never liked to be at any dinner party. [ A somewhat flat admittance. ] But you sense it also.

[ Her. ]