JAWS • DECEMBER 2025 EVENT/TDM

[uruz]

TDM & EVENT: JAWS

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Show Me Those Pretty White Jaws

The dream has been coming in waves for those new to Sleep's touch, as a shoreline that never stays still. As a sky that never remembers to include its stars. Beneath it all, there is a voice. Her voice: silk-sweet, coaxing from just beyond the approaching wave that towers like a moving mountain. She tells you to come home. She promises it won't hurt, even if she never tells you what waits beneath. You see the shape just before the dream ends: a massive black tidal wave, yawning wide and black until it looks like a pair of jaws breaking upon you. You don't have time to resist.

You and your veteran Vessels will awaken in water.

There is no surface. No bottom. No sky. No sound but your own heartbeat and the echoes of water being slashed though, dull and endless in the still, frigid dark. You are suspended, weightless— Some may have difficulty to breathe without inhaling water the first few times, while those aligned with the waves will feel it come like second nature. Once you acclimate yourself, you'll notice that around you drift glowing filaments; thin, pulsing threads that coil like jellyfish tendrils, softly luminescent. They curl and twist through the water, and when you look closer, you realize: they show you things. Memories, maybe. Dreams, maybe. Each one unique to your gaze: a hand reaching for yours in the dark, a goodbye that never finished, a face you haven't seen in years. They are what you think love looks like. What you once needed it to be. And when you touch them, they wrap around you, gently, warmly . . . Hungrily— and begin to pull you down.

To ascend into the next level, you must let go. But not everything that binds you wants to be released. The filaments drifting through the water show you what you think love looks like— what you've built it into. They are gentle at first, beautiful even, but the longer you cling, the more they pull.

There are ways to escape them: You may bind your filament with another's and together speak aloud a shared truth: what you believe love really is. If your hearts align or at the very least come to an agreement, the threads dissolve into light and lift you upward. If your beliefs clash or contradict, the threads knot tighter, and something . . . May take interest in you.

Beneath you, something moves. Huge, silent and almost regal. It glides through the deep like a phantom, almost too large to be real. You feel its presence before you see its flash of pearl white and glowing red eyes, three on each side of its face: a shark.

The shark is here to choose its next meal. It smells grief, fear and seeks out trauma most of all. It is drawn to the most unspoken parts of you, the very parts you thought were buried, roused from the tightened ropes of what you crave in your heart. And when it chooses you, it does not bite immediately. It invites, with its jaws opening like a sanctuary and slow towards you.

Inside is I, whispers Sleep. Allow Me to have you whole, and you will be at peace. Show Me love.

Fight against her, or even with your current partner about what love is, and Sleep will open her maw, spilling tendrils from her throat and begin to stalk you. Best be prepared to fight the possessed Megalodon— She will laugh, amused as you do, like a great cat playing with its food. And if you were to be caught, well. You'll wake in the dream's next level with an undeniable prey drive, whether Token or Offering.

She will do anything to keep you here.

NOTES:

• There is no surface visible at first. Light only comes from the filaments. As characters resist, act, or ascend, a faint stained-glass shimmer begins to pulse upward, hinting at the dream's next layer.
• Sound is muffled— speech emerges as bubbles, but meaning travels regardless. Words feel heavy here. Some phrases may literally change the water (turn to light, birth dream-objects, or ripple with tension). You will do better using The Murmur as a means of communication. Luckily you have your mask on!
• The Shark always circles once it senses trouble within you. Sometimes close, sometimes far, but always felt. If characters listen closely, they can hear the echo of One's voice coming from inside it: pleading with a haunted, at times screaming melody.

TOKEN EFFECTS

• The dream bends subtly around Tokens, especially at the whims of an Aquamancer. Walls of pressure open before them, and filaments shift course as if expecting them. This can make their path easier, unless they start to doubt their purpose.
• Tokens perceive emotional resonance as currents in the water such as subtle flows of energy. These can guide them (or others) toward escape paths, or signal when the shark is near.
• When a Token speaks or acts with strong intent, the dream sometimes translates it into a symbolic structure: A word might become a floating glyph. A gesture might alter the filament's shape. A moment of clarity might reveal a hidden path. Other characters can interact with these dream-objects, but they're fragile, unstable, and prone to distortion by doubt.
• The deeper Tokens go, the more they feel themselves pulling apart and begin to experience dual awareness: one part dreaming, one part watching— some may even see flashes of within the shark's belly, and One's voice much louder. The deeper they go, the more detached they become, and the more they lack the ability to act at all.

OFFERING EFFECTS

• The shark is more fascinated by Offerings. It circles them often, sensing kinship— or potential. The more monstrous the Offering, the more the shark "pauses' near them, almost curious.
• Offerings feel "the pull" more clearly, particularly Merrows and other aquatic-based Offerings—they can sense where the surface might be, and where the shark intends to strike next. They may even see pulses in the water that others miss, similar to Spider Man's "spidey senses".
• An Offering may experience rapid body changes submerged. Fins may appear, bones may shift, teeth may lengthen without warning and so on. This makes their movement easier or harder, depending on how much of themselves they're holding back or how apt their monstrous forms are at swimming.
• Some Offerings may feel drawn to the shark— not in fear, but in understanding. They may see themselves in it, and vice versa— One's song in particular is hypnotic, and for split moments you may understand his pain through his words. This might make you more prone to being consumed, though, so hopefully your partner can help you out of it—?.

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Watching Me With Eyes Of A Predator

The surface you breach is not water— it's glass.

You strike it with the force of falling sky. It fractures beneath you in a bloom of painted light. For one weightless moment, the dream hesitates, sputters. Then the world shatters, and you fall with the cascade.

Water pours through the crack in the ceiling, carrying you down in ribbons of color and a shattering splash. Stained glass shards drift like petals through the now collapsing roof, and you eventually land not in sand, but upon a cathedral floor, slick with tide. Around you, the water spreads, pooling across the stone and swallowing the walls in a rising hush as it finds escape through the doors.

The cathedral is vast, impossibly so. Its architecture towers, crooked and immaculate, built more from longing than stone. No altar awaits you. No congregation. Only the sensation of having trespassed into something meant to be private. Veteran Vessels may recognize this cathedral as St. Patrick's— before it was drenched in One's blood sacrifice.

High above and surrounding you, the stained-glass mosaics churn with captured light. f you linger beneath one of the window's rays, your appearance may begin to change under the light. You appear as someone else sees you. Be it a hero. A monster. A disappointment. A god. A weakness. A temptation. Even a burden. That version of you clings to your dream-body like a second skin; uncomfortable, intimate, and undeniable. For some, it may be beautiful. For others, unbearable.

If you and another stand beneath the same window, you may each appear as the other secretly imagines. There is no control and no negotiation. Only truth twisted through the lens of want, resentment, fear, or love. And it doesn't go away until you leave the light.

Eventually, the cathedral doors open by dream's will. Beyond them lies a cloister garden: narrow paths, pale trees, and wild flowers that bloom in stillness. At the far end, behind the overgrowth and ruined arches, you see a hollow.

It is a corridor where the dream collapses inward, twisting, warped, half-swallowed in fog and dread. Its stones pulse faintly beneath a shallow film of water. Black tendrils reach from its depths like roots, veins, twitching toward sound, warmth, and movement. You see them dragging matter into the earth, and between them lie bones, contorted and fresh, half-consumed.

And farther still, a body that still breathes. Glimpsed only briefly, A masked man's form is stretched by the hollow's gravity, arms pinned behind the veil. He does not move, or speak. Or perhaps, he cannot. The hollow does not let him go and will not, should you make your attempts. If you step foot in the hollows that have consumed him, you too will be consumed. A three eyed Tod sits at the hollow's edge, a single bushy tail splitting into three, as its body plays with illusion like smoke put to dance over fire. It says, as its head floats up and its maw splits into a grin too cheshire to ignore: Wearing shoes, yet no feet in sight. You'll hear steps pound in the death of night. What is it that you need, to cross this narrow blight?

It disappears and only leaves you the riddle to chew on.

Nothing living can cross the hollow, you'll soon find. Nothing except . . . The Nightmares.

Just outside the garden's boundary, you'll find horses built from wind and shadow, flickering at the edge of your vision. Their bodies are black— not the color, but the absence, swallowing all light. Some of their craniums cound be seen, others have a jutting horn of bone from their foreheads. Where eyes should be, there are six: three stacked on each side of the skull, glowing dimly red like distant embers beneath ice. Their manes flow like torn fabric, like drifting vapor that trails behind them like the smoke from a snuffed candle. Their maws are too damn wide to be herbivorous, yet they seem to enjoy the act of grazing. They wait, unchained and wild in a herd.

This is the only way forward. Only they can pass through the hollow untouched. But how to ride one—? You may chase them. You may plead, command, kneel. You may offer them all your need and all your love, promises that you will provide if they become your steed. But they were not made to answer it. For every Vessel, there is one single Nightmare that will choose them, and thus you will choose each other. They have their own personalities, some more aggressive or shyer than others. The harder you reach, the faster they vanish or harshed they will attack if unready. Try to mount one through force, and you'll regret ever trying. Try to bind one, and it will break you.

But if you are patient, if you figure out its nature and how to please it— your Nightmare may come closer. One may circle you. It may bow its head. Their snort is warm and real against your palm. If successful, it will lower itself to its knees. If you've got the height, they will simply wait, patiently, for you to get on their backs (Or not; there are plenty of sassy mares out there).

If you accept, you might not be taken somewhere safe, but you will be taken somewhere true, away from here. And if you force your want upon them, if you cannot let go— you will be left with something else.

In the distance, across the flooded cathedral floor, you may see One again. Flashes, glimpses. Always chasing a mare he never reaches, or the opposite— the mare chases after him.

NOTES:

• If a character successfully forms a bond with their Nightmare, it will return with them in the form of a waking world steed, officially introduced in the next event. You're free to give it the personality you wish.
• If a character attempts to force a connection with a Nightmare at any point (tries to catch, mount, command, etc.), the mare will bite or kick, which Vessels will suffer as a persistent dream-mark that will carry into the waking world.

TOKEN EFFECTS

• Light clings unnaturally to Tokens in the cathedral, especially near the stained glass. It bends around their bodies like a false halo, casting them in divine or monstrous outlines depending on who watches.
• If a Token casts or channels any magic within the cathedral or near a Nightmare, the spell does not manifest, but instead, a cold mist escapes their mouth, and the Nightmare turns to look. The dream rejects force.
• When a Nightmare looks directly at a Token, their eyes eclipse, pupils vanishing into rings of shadow. In that moment, a fragmented vision floods the Token's mind . . . not from the Nightmare, but from another character nearby. It shows the Token how that character once dreamed of them, what they feared, needed, or hoped they would become.

OFFERING EFFECTS

• The stained glass causes a subtle change in scent and physical appearance turning into a more grotesque version of this— Offerings begin to smell or look like what others most want from them.
• Offerings may always know where the Nightmares are, even when hidden. But the more they try to act on this knowledge, the harder the Nightmares are to reach.
• An Offering's body will react before they realize it, flinching from lies, bristling in moments of emotional pressure, pulling away from contact, and so on. They may startle even at gentle contact, as if something inside them is as reactive as they are.

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Where The Delicate Stops

As your Nightmare takes you through the misty hollow, you may begin to notice the empty city of Manhattan as veterans remember. There is no warning but the eerie silence that surrounds you like impossible weights. The cathedral once behind you folds inward— wrong, deep and full of pressure. It bursts through the hollow's path, through the city's street, and then— The dream ruptures.

Stone peels backward like paper. Glass liquefies mid-air. The sky above the city pulls itself inside out. Time bends sideways. And from the edges of the dream, something, someone, begins to hunt. Sleep's presence moves like the very shark she chose as a vision of her physical manifestation. She does not speak or rage. But you feel Her, rising like fever beneath the skin of Her world as the hairs at the back of your neck do. She does not want you this deep, and neither does One.

Somewhere within the collapse, you may see them— entwined, shifting, trembling. One's face is turned toward you, screaming something that doesn't reach your ears. Sleep's hands are tangled in his body. She pulls him back with a gentleness that breaks the sky, and he screams, reaching for you with his last breath before consumption. The dream convulses.

The Nightmares bolt with you still on them.

The city rises to meet you from the shadows, but it's not the city you know. Skyscrapers twist at unnatural angles. Streets flood, then dry, then flood again. Tendrils burst from subway grates and gutters, slashing upward like tongues. Streetlights spin like compass needles. Cars levitate, crash, freeze midair. You move through it all at breakneck speed, but the exit keeps shifting— a hole in the world that flickers just beyond reach where you see your body, fast asleep.

Somewhere in the chaos, a few Nightmares are caught. Sleep strikes like lightning— she coils like a viper and tightens like a vice. One touch from Her, and your Nightmare collapses mid-gallop, its body unraveling into smoke and light. No sound. No scream. Just absence. And you fall right off it like a ragdoll.

Others fall beneath impact, too— a wrong turn, a shattered wall, a burst of heat from One's grief. A broken leg. A crash. A wound too deep to ride through. If your steed is lost, you fall. And if no one reaches for you, you stay fallen. Others are near, and their Nightmares still run. All of you have a terrible dread in your bones— if you are caught or left behind, the consequences will be dire. You might not even wake up. So, call out. Cling. Climb. Share. Two Vessels on one mount. Anything to survive and flee as the dreamscape tightens its wrathful grip around you.

Sleep calls inside your spine. You can't make out what She says. One answers, the same blur of garbled words in your marrow. And then, just before the dream can take you, just before you reach an exit— you rise.

Your body lifts from the Nightmare as it paddles the air with desperation, it too rising. You're pulled upward, weightless, as if a thread inside your heart has been yanked by a furious god. You float, twist in the air. Your vision glows white.

We've got you.

And then you wake up— mid-air in the waking world.

Your body slams into your bed, floor, street, soil, wherever it was that you had slept. Reality greets you with terrible impact.

NOTES

• If a character does not find a mount in time, they may be caught in the dream collapse. They still wake— but they wake broken. These characters may wake up bruised, disoriented, or emotionally fragmented, and this can be explored in the next waking world event.

TOKEN EFFECTS

• Any Tether they feel becomes unstable—splintered. For brief moments, they feel it breaking and re-forming again and again, with slight differences each time.
• The more emotionally charged they are, the more the dream pulls toward them; tendrils snap faster, debris veers unnaturally close.
• Their body flickers with signs of their own magic—sigils, symbols, runes— burning just beneath the surface of their skin like constellations. These glow brighter as the dream collapses, as if trying to tear free.

OFFERING EFFECTS

• Where Offerings are grazed or injured, they bleed light, not red. It floats up like mist.
• They hear One's heartbeat, not theirs, and it speeds in panic. It affects their own pulse, the mare under them . . .
• The Nightmare no longer follows the Offering's will—it will respond to their fear instead.

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OOC NOTES

➤ Welcome to Somnia's third TDM, which doubles as the month's gamewide event!
➤ This TDM is considered game canon. You are free to have your character remember as many details as possible when they wake up.
➤ Only new characters are free to experiment with the Vessel options, Token or Offering 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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Vander/Warwick | Arcane | New Player

[cantilevers]

i. Show me those pretty white jaws

There was a duality of water, suspended yet sinking. Embracing yet free. Lifegiving and drowning. It felt as if he had been here before over and over again, first in the deluge of rain and struggle, then the prickle of rain, then the immersive tank of thick sustaining chemicals.

It was a similar duality that he opened his gray eyes to, neither panicking nor calm. He sank through the clear abyss of water, his thick arms stretching out on either side of him even as the first tendril caressed along the back of his hand as he sank gently without reservation. Warmth suffused the contact, brief and fleeting: one red cherry of a recently lit cigarette pressing to another unlit one in the stifling dark, one becoming two.

He twitched, allowing awareness of his surroundings sharpen as he looked around the wide expanse of a foreign place. It should be difficult to breathe, and yet, he felt no urge as he spotted other glimmering tendrils twisting in the clear water. He reached out to let one curl around his finger, new warmth blossoming with the contact.

…a tiny hand reaching from a swaddle of blankets to grasp his pinky…

Then another tendril against his leg setting a scene in a bar: "What’s the occasion?" Her coy smile. "Can’t a lady just enjoy a song?" A returned flirty smile. "Not this lady. And not this song…"

There was a pull to deeper down, a descend to the depths that happened to be where all Zaunites eventually went. Down, down, down, forgotten in the shadows of water and earth. The tendrils pulled, and he resisted marginally until a tendril found its way around his throat.

…heat and pain, the feeling of a final stand as he bought time and nothing more. Every second worth it. He snarled, baring blooded teeth before the blade pierced his back. He twisted, fingers closing on that slim throat as they grimaced like feral dogs at each other. His stomach pierced, a reminder of that day and fight drained from him as he slumped forward.

"I knew you still had it in you…"

Something dark stirred and not just the shark from below. There was a darkness that began to claw forward, rending him from the inside, bubbling towards the surface like a defiant cry. A father’s love, a refusal to quit, that darkness that had always been present and now wanted out.

He tore at the dragging tendrils, searching for a way out before everything he thought he was might be stolen, stuffed down to the middle of his core and held there bound and safe. The water around him began to boil as he jerked, baring his teeth at the shark. Daring. Dangerous.

He spotted another curled in tendrils as well; no fight was ever done truly alone. He needed them likely more than they needed him as he fought to suppress the snapping snarl beast from ripping up in him. He needed his humanity. "What’s a fine sardine like you floating in this vast ocean all alone? Care to school for a bit before the shark eats us both?"

ii. Watching with eyes of a predator
a. Tell me who you see
Falling felt like a finality of the past, though how or why was confusing. He dropped from the sputtering dream, and his arms curled as if to pull something – no someone – deeply important to the protectiveness of his chest. It was only empty air, which was a jarring moment of panic combined with confusion.

When he landed on the cobblestone floor of a mysterious cathedral, he lay staring up at the stained glass. It reminded him of home where colour had to be manufactured and hightlighted whenever and wherever a suppressed people could. Their generational defiance against the dark, and this glass reminded him that there was always something worth picking oneself up for. The missing weight that was supposed to be on his chest was his.

He rolled up to his feet, smoothing his hand over his blooded and dirty white shirt and wondered where it had come from. Hadn’t he been shirtless? Huh. Something wasn’t right.

He turned at the sound of another in the same vicinity as him, looking to determine who it was. Light from above reflected like a kaleidoscope upon him, altering his appearance in bits and pieces. He still forced a smile on his lips, appearing easy and casual despite his internal disquiet.

"It feels like I’m meeting people in the strangest of places," he reflected. "Hmm, is something on my face?" He touched it, unaware that what he knew himself to look like might not be reflected in another’s vision of him.

b. I'll be your Nightmare – Warwick Edition

There was sympathy and a pang of familiarity in sighting the trapped being in the hollow. What a pitiable creature to be held like that, bound and voiceless, likely held against his will. It seemed… unbearably sad to view, and there was an unspoken kinship with this kidnapped creature. He walked slowly in search of path to assist, and his own momentary despair at the sight became a reflection of his own duality.

Warped and changed in the dream as he approached the shadowed creatures grazing, he fell forward onto massive clawed hands and the beast wrapped around him protectively, runic symbols briefly reflected on human skin before buried in layers of thick muscle and chem-tech alterations and skin and fur. The beast walked with an unusual quiet, questing into the herd of herbivores as if the garden in which they grazed was a reminder of where he had once found a sense of peace amid the terrors and tortures of his own mind.

The beast walked on all fours around the herd, appraising, briefly chasing one that near-missed a kick to his jaw, and then he moved off to find a place in the grass to lay down. His digigrade hind legs stretched out and his disproportionally large forearms crossed to allow him to regard the heard in a contemplative manner before looking in the direction of the trapped one. A long ear flicked even as his chin rolled on his arm as he regarded another in the garden with glowing heterochromic gaze. His lips pulled back in the form of jagged toothed snarl even as a massive nightmare came to stand nearby, nickering gently at him.

Friend or food? That was the question.

iii. Wildcard

[OOC: Would you like a closed starter or a different kind of starter? Feel free to throw one up or I can create one for us. Please feel free to plot with me at apomorphine or PM this journal.

I will match prose or bracket for any replies.]

ii

[licensetotrill]

Jaskier was, rather petulantly, kicking at one of the pews.

Not with the intent to do damage - he doubted he could - but to make his thoughts on the situation clear. Namely, that it sucked. Perhaps it would have been lovely before- the reflection of the world in the glass matching the brighter more vibrant one of Jaskier's heart- but it was hard to ignore the deeper darker shadows. The memory of what had been done here. Why had Sleep brought them here, to gloat?

He gave a small jump when Vander spoke, looking up with a startled urgency before settling to see it was just another person. Smiling back, even, because hello, handsome .

Look, bards had a reputation and Jaskier wasn't breaking that mold anytime soon.

"No more so than the rest of us. Jaskier, bard. And you are?"

[cantilevers]

Such behavior was not unexpected or frowned upon, least of all in the place where he was raised. People frequently kicked, threw, broke and fell over objects, but this bloke seemed friendly enough despite the petulance. It wasn't aimed at him, though it would not be the first time a grown man acted petulant towards him; he wasn't serving drinks so it was unexpected that it would come his way.

He approached slowly, letting the other man determine how close would be comfortable. He was hoping a friendly distance so he could rest his hip on edge of the pew and his hand on the top of it. This place was entirely unfamiliar to him, so any sort of friendly gesture would be welcomed.

Bard, huh? Well, if that title was the same here as it was where he was, they might be friendly indeed.

"Pleasure, Jaskier the Bard. Vander, the bartender." He gestured around at the cathedral that they happened to be in. "Any idea where this is and how to be back in civilization?" His smile remained, inviting and warm, covering the internal disquiet.

[licensetotrill]

"Bartender!" Jaskier said cheerfully. The assumption was correct. "Would that we were back in the city... well. How's the saying go? We'll burn that bridge when we get to it? Something like that!"

He clapped his hands together, a bright smile on his face that shifted apologetic a moment later.

"If this is anything like last time this happened... and hopefully it isn't ... this is a dream and something catastrophic will happen and we'll wake up. It will be deeply unpleasant."

Jaskier had only been through it once, after all. A wild magnificent in some ways and terrible in others dream - only to wake up in a strange place. He has to wonder where he'll wake up this time. The others made it sound like it would be back in the city, but... who could be sure, really?

"Better to treat it like you're awake, though. The consequences are real enough."

[cantilevers]

"Both of us entertainers in our own way," he agreed with a confident smirk. It managed to stay strong despite the burning bridges; he had a bad experience with those in the past and never turned out well for anyone. "And what city would that be anyway?"

Currently, this place did not look like somewhere he recognized, though there was a little comfort in the confirmation that this was, in fact, a dream. It might feel real enough, but there were far too many oddities for it to be reality. Though maybe he would believe this was some form of afterlife, heaven, hell or somewhere in between.

At least there was good looking company to navigate this high probability of unpleasantness. "The person that seems to be at the center of this, the one who doesn't speak... is that one going to create unpleasantness? Or the one who trapped him?" Just a hunch, for good or bad.

He pushed off the pew, running his fingers over the top. That was nice solid wood, the kind that would be repurposed for something else where he was from.

"And how does someone in a dream world where consequences are real want to be treated, hmm?" He raised an eyebrow a tad suggestively.

warwick.

[opheliac]

[ this is a dream; that much jinx had realized thanks to arthur's totem idea. it was hard to distinguish when she was in the waters, but now with it in hand and the spongy ball not following the rules of physics by staying completely solid, it was definitely apparent.

she can't remember how she got to the cathedral, not exactly, but with dreams having a knack of dropping you in the middle of something with no context or recollection of what happened beforehand, it's something she should be expecting. yet what she didn't anticipate was coming across a herd of mares.

jinx had never seen one up close before, only from afar when the enforcers felt they wanted to travel by them rather than on foot or by car. but there is another creature that catches her attention and at the mere sight of him makes her knees want to buckle. the bluenette blinks once, twice—on the off chance her mind is playing a dirty trick on her, if Sleep is toying with her. but when vander has yet to disappear from her vision, she sucks in her lips in a poor attempt to keep her eyes from misting. ]

[ carefully, she wordlessly pockets her ball and inhales a deep breath through her nostrils. she's not sure how she looks with her appearance now, but the crow tries to imagine her long twin-braided hair and her signature attire. and once she feels she has it down and secured, she blows out her sigh—taking one cautious step forward. what would be the best way to draw his focus without causing a large scene? without upsetting him? the teenager thinks for a moment, then finally settles with a gentle whistle—low and short. ]

[cantilevers]

[By the time she had decided he was real enough, the beast was already aware of her presence in the field with the horses. His ear flicked as a subtle indication of his perception of her, though she smelled different than usual in this dream. One thing remained the same: her blood flowed through her arteries and veins, around her heart and body as it always did.

At the whistle, he lifted his great head from where it had been resting and regarded her across the distance that spanned them. The nightmare nearby pawed at the ground, and he ignored her to instead shift his weight to rise onto all fours. He rumbled a low sound of greeting at her, able to speak small sentences in his current state but not bothering.

He lumbered forward on all fours before he was in range to allow her the rest of the way. He sat back on his hunches and examined her with curious eyes. She did not seem to bear any suffering from the near fatal attack on her person by that Noxian. Little man had flown well, he mused.]

Powder. [He enunciated carefully, trying his voice in this place.]

[opheliac]

[ seeing her father rise and shift builds tears underneath her lower eyelids; even with him bumbling like that, it tears at her heart. he doesn't seem to be hurt, but she wonders if his muscles ache from what happened in the commune or wherever he was since their last meeting.

does he remember that? who truly knows, honestly, but when he settles himself there, jinx scurries to him quickly and immediately presses her forehead to his. his daughter breathes out a small chuckle at the name, nodding while sniffling before tugging away to get a good look at him. ]

Yeah, heeeey there, big guy. So this is where you've been hiding. [ obviously not, but she's trying to soothe whatever confusion he may have with some playfulness. ] I've been looking all over for you... You're doing okay?

[ it's better to just do 'yes or no' questions to keep things simple and easy for now.]

I

[heavensnight]

Maria would argue that her entire existence is because of love. Broken, strained, and beaten as that love was, she came to be because of it. It had been a marriage, failing as it was. Born from both parts of that marriage. Mary's love was so strong inside of her that it hurt her so badly to know that it would never be given life, given a real chance.

As she sank, she remembered things. The first time Mary saw James, the first time he had seen her, their first kiss, their marriage. The moments they had woken up together on soft and easy mornings or doing simple chores. Easy, simple things. Every day moments that reminded you again and again how much love was in you for another person.

The tendrils grabbed onto her and she did struggle because she wouldn't be giving in without a fight. Maria never did that. But it seemed the more she did, the more it attracted that damn shark. How it seemed to want to gobble her right up and there was nobody to help her.

Until there is, until another person calls to her and Maria stares at him. Nobody has ever seen her before, never acknowledged her like this, and she feels all the fear and tension leave her. No more struggle as she looks around, as if expecting there to be someone else he is talking to, and not seeing anybody. But she's quick on her feet (so to speak as she is literally floating) and attempts to joke. It's new for her but she knows this is just as much survival as fighting is. "Sardine isn't usually what you call a lady but this isn't a usual anything, huh?"

That went without saying.

[cantilevers]

Who would have thought that he would meet up with a beautiful woman in a place like this? Who would have thought that once she stopped struggling against the tendrils that their levels drifted to be even so they were tangled just the same as one another? He had no idea who this woman was, but he admired her fight and did wonder where she came from and how she had come to be here.

Of course, there were more pressing matters at hand like the six-eyed shark circling them. He kicked his legs to see if swimming actually was possible, drawing him closer to her even as the tendrils around his body tugged downwards. For once, he ignored them, focusing on her as she seemed as entrapped as he was.

"Perhaps not. Maybe you prefer something like 'pretty pearl'?" He reached out a hand, offering it to her. It seemed best if they stick together right now. "Though what would this lady in front of me prefer to be called, hmm?"

[heavensnight]

He's flirting with her, she realizes quickly. It shouldn't come as a surprise but for a long time now, she has not been flirted with. Not a second glance looked her way so it does take her aback. It is just as astonishing to her as the giant shark circling them.

But she is nothing if not quick on her feet. She'd always had to be in matters such as these. Trying different roles to see what might work when it came to James.

"Pearl, beautiful, gorgeous, or Maria if you want to go with simple," she jokes before taking his hand and using it to pull herself closer to him. The waters are cold but his hand is so warm and how long has it been since she had been touched...? The last time was her being killed and...

No, she can't think about that.

"What should I call you? Nice to know who to say goodbye to before we're gobbled up."

ii.a

[merged]

Enough pressure can pull the monster out of anyone. Sharon has known that since she was a kid, has spent her whole life catching flickers of it in strangers. Momentary flashes of something awful, smeared with blood, like a twisted hint of whatever truth coiled beneath a person's skin.

Maybe that's why she didn't recoil when she took in Vander's visage. He was monstrous, certainly—too big for a human frame, his skin ashen and mapped with scars. Blood clung to his mouth and dripped from his fingers. A song of his potential—a potential that lived in everyone. But it was still, without a doubt, him: Vander. They'd shared a seat at that crowded banquet table, surrounded by food and drink that ripped memories from them as if they were meant to be shared. More than that, though, he was one of Jinx's fathers.

"You look like a mess, but—it's nothing you need to worry about. Think it might just be the dream," she said, waving off his question. She couldn't tell for certain if it was the dream, but... It didn't matter much. It didn't change anything.

"Jinx'll be glad to see you." No matter his shape, Sharon didn't doubt that for a second.

[cantilevers]

There had always been this thing inside of him, the tremendous will to live, to thrive, to fight against anyone that stood in his way. It had been a terrible potency, mixed with his charisma and social know-how, he could play all the cards he liked. At one point, he was a half to a greater whole, the muscle in front of the brains but just as keen to have input. But that thing remained and it could forward face.

His state was in limbo, remembering things in clarity and then a jumbled mess beyond that which made no sense. Like most people, he made a point to ignore those problems for the more pressing present. Here and now. He turned and found himself regarding a young woman, seeing her at present for who she was, not who the reflection of the light could make her appear.

At her comment, he plastered on a grin and smoothed his hands over his white shirt. It was rather clingy and dirty, wasn't it? "Not my best day for dressing in white, but I'm used to that. And from experience, I've been told I'm much better looking in dreams than in reality..." he joked in a self-deprecated way.

"Jinx?" There was something about the name, ringing clear as a bell toll in his brain. "You know me."

[merged]

The joke falls a bit flat, but she musters a polite, mildly sympathetic smile anyway. She has a hunch he'd look a hell of a lot better outside the dream, even as a mindless beast in whatever other form he had, rather than this warped perception she's seeing now. The more he speaks, however, the less monstrous he appears in her sight.

That courtesy slips the moment he fails to place Jinx's name, smile fading. She remembers the warnings about amnesia, perhaps some strange aftereffect of whatever changed him, and blows out a breath.

"We might've met once before, in a dream, but I only really know your daughter. A girl about," she lifts her hand to mark roughly chin height, "yea tall, blue hair, total spitfire, has a thing for traps and explosives. Ring any bells, or have I made a total fool of myself?"

warwick

[tequila_sunset]

It’s something from a Zaunite’s murky nightmare: a mass of tentacles, clattering beaks, and strange mismatched eyes. It’s limbs thrash the air as if it were underwater. It’s studying Warwick, not moving closer, but merely observing.

EMPATHY - (You see a kindred spirit. A battered, lonely old beast. Wolf with no pack.)

Knitting into sinuous muscle, the shapes of limbs and teeth form in the mass. The creature cobbles itself into something new. The shape of a canid muzzle forms, a shaggy head beyond it. The manbeast is strange, the texture of it’s ‘fur’ is feathered and squirming. His paws are a strange mix of bird and dog, roughly textured and topped with dark hook-like talons.

(When he opens his maw to speak the voice echoes with multiple tones, rasping and hissing.)

“Hey, brother-man.”

His long tongue lulls out the side of his crooked jaw, pocked with irregular suction cups, while his tail wags- splitting into two for a moment before becoming one again. The creature is…hopeful. He leans forward, sniffing the air.

[cantilevers]

[Warwick turned his great head to observe the tentacled beaked creature and momentarily curled his upper lip back to expose rows of misaligned jagged sharp teeth. They seem to be eyeing each other, he decided. His nostrils flared to search for the scent of blood, to determine where the main source of its flow would be in that cobbled together mess.

Slowly, he lifted his head from his crossed forearms, noting the canine-like appearance that this beast had taken on. He pushed himself up to all fours, approaching without a care for his own safety as he eyed the other, snapping his jaws so his misaligned teeth clacked together. His long ears flicked in interest as he considered.

Threat. Not worth tearing apart.]

Who?

ii;

[bogeyman]

"Yeah?" Murphy responds to both statement and question with a singular phrase.

He doesn't know who this person is - and that alone is dangerous. The entire fucking town he'd been trying to escape was nothing more than some hellscape. Everyone saying whatever bullshit that they wanted to him, and he had to sit and stomach all of it.

Well, that wasn't quite true. He felt troubled by a lot of what was said. It didn't feel like it was said in confidence, but said like in a confessional. Like he was deserving to hear such confessions.

And now they're in a church - amazing.

The reflection of the man has his face smeared. He can't make out any distinctive look to him; it makes him seem alien and upsetting. But that's how he's viewing the situation that he happens to find himself.

"What the fuck's going on with your reflection...?"

[cantilevers]

He doesn't recognize the other man that happened to be in the church with him, and it was not someone that he had encountered in the wide ocean with the six-eyed shark. It seemed that each place came with new people, which meant the confusion about the situation, the expectations and the needs of each one put everyone on the back foot it seemed.

He turned to look around, noting the broken glass that angled light in different directions. The man who had joined him on this part of the journey was cast in odd shadows that made identifying his features difficult. Given the response to him, it seemed that both of them were struggling the same in this place.

"I couldn't tell you, but your appearance is covered in shadows in places. There's enough light that shouldn't happen, so I surmise this place messes up appearances. You got a name, fella?"

[bogeyman]

"Huh--"

Murphy listens to what's wrong with his reflection. His head gives a quick twist to glance and sees that it is as the man says. He takes a step back -- thankful that it isn't a stumbling one. He breathes in sharp through his nose and has to agree that it seems like Silent Hill is doing its same bullshit.

"Yeah." The word is spoken more like a noise instead of an answer. "Yeah." He says it a little firmer. "It's Murphy." He taps his fingers against the side of his leg.

"Used to this place messing with lots of things." He holds his hand out to make a swirling gesture. But he decides to hold off on his complaints. "So, hey. What's your name?"

Murphy still keeps his distance, because like he said, this place messes with a lot of things.

i

[ar_cane]

[ Water, the dreams always return them to water. This time it's deep and dark, not a wave crashing down to sweep him out to sea but the sea itself already wrapped around his body like the thick, suffocating embrace of too many blankets fueling a fever. Viktor tries to hold out as long as he can, but the body will gasp for breath when it realizes it's been deprived of oxygen. His lung fill with fluid rather than life-sustaining air, and yet he doesn't drown. Down, down, down, and maybe it's because he's dreaming, or because his brain is dying, or because of some other trick, but he starts to see things.

The hand of a boy reaching out to offer a bioluminescent flower, slurped up by a massive forked tongue wrapping gently around fingers and wrist, leaving behind a trail of saliva.

Flipping through the notes of a stranger who grows familiar with every signed page, a mind so alike yet full of so many new and fascinating possibilities. Floating through a miniature sky of false stars and laughing more brightly than he had in years.

A broken family, not his own, flashes of pink and blue hair smothered in strong arms wrapping up both girls in a warm hug as music plays in the background.

Stars swirling, face cracked, tears streaming, the world exploding out from clasped hands. The light twisting into the form of a massive drake, wings like twin anomalies bursting from its back.

Viktor opens his eyes with a gasp as he hears a familiar voice that has never spoken to him directly. Another dream, then, since it can't be a memory. He's knows Vander's face the way he knows his own—from living inside of it and seeing it reflected in in mirrored surfaces like the glass of a jukebox or the eyes of an old friend. ]

Vander. You're not the shark, are you?

[cantilevers]

[He both knew and didn't know this skinny frail looking man, but it didn't take a genius to know a Zaunite when one laid eyes on one. There was a certain sallowness to skin from those who spent their time in the trenches, a lifelong mark that all of them seemed to wear. There was something about this one that drew him more than he would have expected, like this was both a safe place and a dangerous place to be.

Everything about his own memories was disjointed and confusing, bits and pieces of a life marred with pain and potential. There were the clearer portions of the before and then there were the after, but he wasn't in a position to spend a lot of time dissecting what all of it meant, if it meant anything at all honestly.

He inclined his head to the side, smile warm and amused at the question. Why would he be a shark? No, that had never been his moniker.]

You know me. [Obviously.] No, shark was never the creature I had any particular affinity to. You're alright? [A pause as a name crested through the confused muddled portions of his memories.] Viktor.

[ar_cane]

[ It's strange to be faced with a man he knows to intimately and yet has no knowledge of Viktor the person, a scientist and a friend. He feels that he has an unfair advantage thanks to the time spent in Vander's memories, uncovering his mind beneath layers of beast and madness. It may have saved his life, for a while at least, but also transformed his life into something unrecognizable, a tool and a weapon; Viktor can empathize. ]

As alright as ever. These dreams constantly pose new puzzles. [ He gestures to the tendrils holding both of them tightly in place, then nods at the sound of his name. ] You remember me?

warwick nightmares :)

[hexrot]

[ Controlling himself under the spell of entering this dream level as a serpentine Drake has been an uphill battle; For one, Jayce cannot get close to the Nightmares, not when prey drive goads him to give chase and stalk them in bushes rather than leave them be or even befriend them. Frustration escalates the more he cannot have what he hunts, and eventually, the beast pokes about elsewhere to replace the grievances with more stimulating encounters.

This massive hybrid he comes across from his hiding spot in lines of bushes large enough to hide his own coils is what gets his attention. In the dark coverings, sparkles of lavender and sky blue twinkle with each shivering branch from his movement. Slow and deliberate, the Drake slithers closer, more curious of another Vessel than intent on picking a fight. ]

[cantilevers]

[His eyes were closed, but he was aware of the creature that was not associated with the herd. His chin remained propped on his massive forearms even as his nostrils flared as he drank in the scent that had permeated the area, and his ears could hear the gentle lub-dub, lub-dub of a heartbeat. His senses were hyperaware of the closing distance, waiting patiently for the beast to reach a point of 'no return' in his books.

Then he suddenly moved, twisting around and slamming his chem-tech modified right paw into the grass in front of the oversized lizard. He snarled, his eyes flickering from blue-yellow to red and back again as the chem-tech housing on his back rose in preparation for a fight. Beyond them, the herd stilled to watch the potential altercation.]

[hexrot]

[ The Drake wrenches back through pure, unbrittled reaction. Instinct. From his hiding spot the coils of his long, long body rise and poise not unlike a serpent ready to strike, each spiral of muscle shifting into hypnotic ripples.

But there is . . . Something. He cannot put his talons on this something. He can only follow it through to his hesitation, and his inability to attack on sight. Slowly, to tip of a furred tail reaches out. Careful. Ever curious. ]