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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Comments

[potentialman]

It can be. But not everyone masters it, and the amount of energy that goes into it isn't always practical.

[ Which is perhaps a vicious understatement. His first, incomplete attempt was followed by him throwing up and passing out under a bridge for -- he's not actually sure how long, but never mind. ]

[sacral]

[ A slight exhalation causes his face covering to waver. ]

Allocation of time and energy is an important step in mastery, it's true. [ Glancing at his companion's hands, he can imagine the disciplined mudras they would fit to, a conduit for the arts. No wonder he looks as if he carries a weight too ancient for his youth — all exorcists fare similarly. ] Energy especially. For practitioners, it's the currency of the soul.

[potentialman]

[ He talks like he knows exactly what he's talking about, and it's close -- a nearer match than any of the conversations Megumi's had with others in New York, people who either didn't deal in sorcery or who were clearly coming from a different kind of it entirely. ]

So you're -- [ Not a jujutsu sorcerer, exactly, since they don't seem to have quite the same terminology. ] -- an exorcist?

[ It's not surprising, really; the weary demeanor and the sense that whatever someone might imagine he's already seen, it's worse, is enough to pass for a jujutsu sorcerer. Put him next to Ieiri or Kusakabe, and he'd blend right in. (Nobody blends in with Gojo, but Gojo...well, is Gojo.) ]

[sacral]

That's right. An onmyouji, if the designation means anything to you. [ Not just an exorcist, but a diviner, a medium. A spiritual bulwark for the living against the transgressions of the dead. ] I suppose that's one way to tell if our memories of Tokyo align. Do the Sumeragi exist there?

[ Perhaps they wouldn't if his timeline is to be believed, if the world ended in that fated year, crumpled in a bellowing song of sand and fire. But who knows, more surprising things have happened on this plane of existence already. ]

[potentialman]

[ The word is familiar, even if the sorcerers of his time and place don't use it for themselves. More the kind of word one might run into among civilians, outside of jujutsu society. ]

I'm not familiar with the Sumeragi, no. [ There aren't that many sorcerers around. If the clan held any repute, it should at least sound familiar. ] The major clans as I know them are the Gojo, the Kamo, and the Zenin.

[sacral]

[ Subaru takes note, though it comes with a likewise unfamiliarity. ]

Those clans aren't the ones from my knowledge of Japan either. For us, there are just two now. The Sumeragi and the Sakurazuka. [ Though Subaru is disinclined to get into the weeds about the meaning behind the pair, the saints and the assassins, the heirs who blurred the lines to sacrilege. Pausing, remains neat, if not somewhat less guarded for the assumption that he's in the company of a fellow practitioner. ] My name is Subaru. Sumeragi Subaru.

If I can ask — do you have your power here?

[potentialman]

I'm Fushiguro Megumi.

[ Only two clans left raises a few questions in Megumi's mind -- not the least of which is how do you even keep going, if they see a volume of curses that looks anything like the one he's used to. Sorcerers are overworked, sent into the field even as students. Gojo sometimes disappears for days at a time to deal with something or other that just can't wait or fall to anyone else. Even with all that, with ten thousand "unexplained" deaths a year, they're still barely keeping their heads above water sometimes.

He doesn't even want to imagine how Subaru's ilk hold their world together.

So he doesn't. He zeroes in on the question, instead. ]

...yes and no. It's changed, but not completely. I've been able to get some of the same effects, but it doesn't quite look the same and it feels like I'm touching the energy differently, somehow.

[sacral]

[ Unspoken answer to the unspoken question: he's overworked, underfed, and has no friends. ]

Then what I'm feeling must be similar to your situation. There are parts that I know, but sometimes it seems like it's just an echo.

[ It's vastly unnerving for him to have the power of his family rewrought in such a manner, but Subaru does his best not to show it beyond the pale conflagration of his refusal to accept this banquet — so far. ]

Earlier, you mentioned it wouldn't be good for us to draw attention. From who?

[potentialman]

Sleep. That's the only name I know to call her.

[ And that's a good reminder that he should probably decide on what seems the least worrisome to eat. His gaze moves up and down the tables as he continues, noting what people are eating. How they're reacting. ]

I can't really match her to any deity I've heard of. But everything still alive in New York has been touched by her. Warped. And if you haven't already given yourself over...it all comes after you.

[ The starlike fruit seems to bring the least drama, he decides. There's sure to be something, but nobody holding one seems as alarmed as those eating the meat, or to be moving with a rhythm he can't hear, like those drinking. He reaches for the closest bowl, picking up a single fruit. ]

I don't think she's taken personal notice of most of us, so far. Like we're just ants under her feet, unless we do something that catches her eye.

[ And the longer they abstain, the more it feels as though her gaze is shifting in their direction. ]

[sacral]

Sleep. [ He repeats, the word, the name, somewhat thick in his mouth. A mortal necessity sought out by more immortal powers... a duality that runs a world's edge. Sleep heals. Sleep corrupts. It begs pitch-dark awareness, rippled at the bottom of one's very soul. Subaru frowns, the cadence of it suddenly understanding. ] That's a fitting name.

[ He does wonder briefly about the state of the city beyond the reach of this realm. He's not a Dreamseer. Kamui... neither Kamui exists here to act as a conduit. He must simply exist in this interim which necromances the dead, which dresses them up and feeds them to revelry or ruination.

And, catching the way Megumi's fingers finally steal towards the moondusted fruit, his attention sharpens. ]

Do you want me to go first?

[potentialman]

[ Megumi shakes his head. ]

No, it's fine.

[ This isn't his first rodeo, after all. It doesn't really matter that the man next to him is older, clearly more experienced in plenty of ways -- Megumi's the one who's been dealing with Sleep and her endless bullshit. He can take this figurative bullet.

He takes a bite -- ]

He's fourteen and his footsteps are echoing down the halls of the hospital, drawing closer to a pair of nurses talking in hushed tones outside one of the rooms.

"It doesn't make sense, there just doesn't seem to be any medical reason for her to --"

"-- ssssh, later, later. You must be Fushiguro-kun, right? Your sister --"

He doesn't stop to hear what she's trying to tell him. He pushes straight past her, into the door, every stupid thing he said this morning replaying in his mind. Shut up. Stop acting like you're my mom. I don't care.

I hate you.

She's not moving. Eyes closed, arms at her side, and unlike the nurses, he can see exactly what the reason is, if not where it came from or how to unravel it, because the cursed energy around her is chokingly thick, nothing like her usual faint, steady hum.

There's a hand on his shoulder -- one of the nurses? He swats it off without looking and takes another step into the room.

He's such an idiot.

I didn't mean it. I didn't mean it. I didn't mean it and I'll apologize as many times as I have to, if you please just open your eyes --

-- please. Come back.

[ Nothing seems to be happening, as far as Megumi can tell. He looks at the fruit in his hand, puzzled. ]

...there's no way this doesn't do something.

[sacral]

[ Wise to the way of dreams and memories, the way that illusion corrodes both, even Sumeragi Subaru doesn't escape the pull of fruit's effect. For a tense moment, he cannot tell the difference between the three, a bruise to a diviner's heart. Stilled in his seat, he quiets, a ghost in his intrusion upon this young sorcerer's mind.

He knows this scent, the clinical antiseptic of a hospital cast in the most inhospitable light that Subaru has ever known. Gaze startled, it draws from the nurses to Megumi, down to the girl who commands his attention. A sister. His sister. Regret thrums palpable in the moment, colliding with the walls of his heart like a frightened animal. Chased by hindsight, Subaru knows there is no crueler ghost than the one of knowledge come too late. Megumi's lens allows him to also see the cursed energy coiled in spiritual strangulation around her. For one moment, Subaru almost starts forward, the need to delve into her soul and retrieve her so innate to him that he forgets where he is until Megumi speaks aloud, breaking the trance.

He's gone very still, body schooled but teeth clenched in the back of his mouth. He realizes there's no respect in a memory thieved and keeps his gaze on the table for a long moment. Finally, he decides to bear the possibility of driving Megumi away. ]

...I can tell you what it is, if you want to know.

[potentialman]

[ That pause is ominous, and it all clicks when Subaru speaks again. Because, of course. By hazy dream logic, there's no reason at all for the effects to be limited to the person who actually partook.

Megumi could kick himself for not having considered the possibility sooner, really. ]

What happened?

[ He already knows he won't like the answer, but better to know than to keep flying blind. ]

[sacral]

[ His gaze draws somewhat faraway, the moonstone white of his right eye further glossed, as if tracing the memory. If he's to know it, the least he can do is honor it. ]

I saw your sister.

[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. ]