JAWS • DECEMBER 2025 EVENT/TDM

[uruz]

TDM & EVENT: JAWS

Watch on YouTube

ᛗ

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—?.

ᛗ

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.

ᛗ

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.

ᛗ

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!

network ᛗ logs ᛗ ooc ᛗ memes ᛗ navigation

code

code

Comments

[roedeer]

I see. Sounds about right...

[ considering his position that he's in the form of when he takes a look in the stained glass, it's common for a rabbit to indulge in lettuce and carrots. this isn't a form that he would take, but has no choice. with a small smile, he moves from the cherub statue to ignoring the red splattered floors towards something lively in contrast to the foreboding discomfort he gains it. ]

Then I'll feed you. Come along.

[ there are certain things soleum had noticed when moving around himself, the creature still coming along, the hallow inside that nestles that black orb shaped "head" that drips upward makes soleum think how could he even eat like that in such a form. a shudder rolls down his spine, but he composes himself as the chipper hostess as he finds this sort of person familiar.

who else couldn't fathom boredom, who also loomed over him and constantly needed entertainment or would turn against him.

please... ]

Everything about this tour is to be for your tastes, so here... around this corner—

[ turning, they'll come pass abandon pews, the backrest broken on some, others have collapsed, and a few overgrown with vines that's somehow penetrated through the weak wood. the church is cold, light breaks in through the stained glass high above them adorning them in all sorts of colors, and soleum walks forward with his long arms behind his back, and a swivel of his little cottontail.

as they reach the alter, he'll stop where goblets rest, untouched pink petals, vibrant and lively as though plucked from a tree nowhere to be seen. a hand comes to soleum's chest now, right over his heart as he stands out of the way to display the man's meal. ]

I wouldn't want you to be famished, my guest.

[hallowedly]

( The serrated edge of steps crumbled gives way underfoot, heavy groan of doors yielding. The pews next, stalwart but water-seized, dark enmity broken only by colored beams and light ruptured through dregs of mosaic. Beneath it, before Seishirou's wandering step, the rabbit transforms: longer now, leaner, an abstract painter's grotesque fascination with the linear form.

And in his hand, all at once, pleasantly pinked — poison, by any other name. Seishirou's mask nearly trembles with the start of choked laughter, with the absurdity of the proposition. His fingers curl, bind, braid behind his back, their still shadows joining the rarefied strata of unearthly scavengers waiting to jump off the floor.

She's watching. She always watches. His head's all beat, all ache, all mutinous sound. )

No, no. I've broken with etiquette once already. ( Even great hares would hop away from this Trojan horse. ) By all means. You first.

( But then, he reeks of novelty, of fresh meat. Some mercy, peeled from under Seishirou's nails. ) You don't know your way here. ( Painfully, blissfully obvious, where the rest of the waking world's population has had entirely too long to intimately acquaint the Cathedral these past few weeks. ) Stop.

[roedeer]

That may be true.

[ yes, he doesn't know his way, he's nothing more than someone trying to understand his way and figure out what paths are laid out for him. as scary as this is, how the cathedral warps those around by the light, how the man has control because his knowledge stems further than what soleum's has.

it doesn't mean he should give up. ]

But, because you seem to be willing to dine with me. I don't mind.

[ picking up the goblet, soleum slowly drags his index finger along the shape of its rim as he thinks it over. there are many, so he grabs another and walks over to the man to kill the distance. where a small table sits barely keeping its shape, soleum sets the goblet right next to his guest. ]

You did mean it, didn't you?

[ and he withdraws himself to move back to where the rest are, his left hand reaching into one, and his fingers curl around pink petals. ]

Together.

[hallowedly]

( He's alive, at least, alive and wakeful and unassumingly hapless, and for a rabbit devoid of any apparent offensive persuasion — these are all fine things to be. So sayeth Sakurazuka Seishirou, pointedly ignoring the culinary adventures of his moon-feted companion to walk the halls, the nearest corridors.

Some parts of blood old, some evidence of extermination new. A topology of seismic cracks borrowed, and a beam of light, bearing down, in parts blue. Wedding bells are certainly ringing for One's deferential descent into eternal unity with Sleep.

Here and there, Seishirou succumbs to his knee, combing the corner of an altar for fresh mould, tasting the wilderness of green, curled tendrils peering like eyelets through crack webs of ruptured stone. He recalls One's passing in the wakeful world with difficulty; in truth, they only ever witnessed the aftermath. This is, forensically, an opportunity.

He won't waste it on the flights of fancy of a child playing at games of suspicion. )

...no. ( But cute, saccharine, predictable. ) I meant precisely what I said: you first. ( And softer, on its footsteps: ) You never gave a name.

( Given everything, perhaps Usagi. )

[roedeer]

[ games of suspicion is a cruel understanding, it is an individual following through with their job alongside a gamble. attentive to their guest with their joke of a lighter diet, he should be thrilled that soleum could make it happen with ease.

should he be offended by the other's unwillingness to start? this gives soleum a chance to scrap the whole idea together which works for him! he's glad this creature has other plans that hold their interest. the way they search through the cathedral can be heard from where soleum stands, shards of glass crack and split, the tiles groan from additional weight, or lackthere of underneath.

he analyzes the gruesome features of his "guest" as they inspect the cathedral, and he's still an unknown entity to him in terms of appearance. to think that maybe his curiosity would shift him from a grotesque beast of many limbs, but he remains in a form that still needs to be fleshed out. he'd rather not do so, but it would help him moving forward if he knew something... soleum may not be familiar with this place in general, but the the movements displayed by his companion admit that there's something to their identity. they never ask soleum about anything other than his name, and it's an opportunity he shouldn't lose.

standing here won't prove his worth, though. ]

I see. Let's indulge in each other.

[ a confirmation for himself that if they're going to learn things about each other, it can start over this "meal". he has no choice but to eat them. in his mind, he can imagine what a certain pink companion would say if soleum opted out of completely doing so.

— My friend! You've stomached worse, a modest delicacy such as this should be of no consequence for you! You have always strived to put on a good show for me, how shall we rekindle your inspiration?

that entity would be disappointed if soleum gave up, and even if he's not here, that doesn't mean growing rusty is an option. it does offer soleum some peace, as much as he wants to relax and let his shoulders fall, he has to remain calm. a few petals are dropped back into the cup, but there's still a good amount in his palm to use. he looks in the creature's direction to make brief eye contact as the petals are placed into his mouth like pills. they flutter onto his tongue, the bitter taste flooding his mouth, and soleum smiles. he chews, and then makes a swallowing motion which sends them down the hatch! turning away slightly, soleum wipes his mouth with his wrist to clean up any mess, savoring the taste. ]

Roe Deer.

[ he sets the goblet down, now sliding it in the direction of his guest to confirm it's their turn. ]

[hallowedly]

( Lie off a liar's tongue, shuddering, shriveled. He finds it incomprehensible: the end of days is by definition a race, not a marathon. They cannot afford to metabolize a long courtship of practical amiability.

Shame, for the inefficiency of it all. Shame, but in this particular corner of the Cathedral, where Seishirou's slithered on his knees, the slip of every morsel of gravel is a rolling thread, and he thinks — ...there was blood here, of the corpse, of the man, of the monster.

There was blood here, in the waking world, and now it's gone. And so must be the cadaver, moved. Time to find it. He drifts up, as if gravity is a suggestion and his silks humour its juvenile summons. )

...indulge in each other? ( A moment, to entertain the comedic absurdity of — ) Roe Deer, are you hitting on me in front of... ( Gaze up, up, at the crumbled fragile parts of a particularly compromised cherub. Ahead, the fool of a rabbit, drinking his fill. Oh, dear. ) ...a holy figure?

( Give Roe Deer a moment to marinate in the Scoville intensity of his heated choices. Seishirou will wait, he'll wait, he'll murmur: )

Sakurazuka Seishirou. ( The air reeks of blood, of damp, of finality; of a room holdin gits breath. He's at the beck and call of misplaced anticipation. ) That isn't a lie, by the way.

( Not that he takes ambush by suspicion, falsity and foul play as a particular offence, only that he's inclined to retaliate in rapid-fire succession. So much for the goblet, skidding futilely to his feet.

He kicks it, once, shrill. ) Let's be clear, you and I: the next item of food or drink you put before me goes through your jugular. Not down, through. With its container. Now, shall we carry on? There's a corpse somewhere.

[roedeer]

[ sakurazuka seishirou.

it's unheard of, and a mistake on his part as he cries inside at the sweep of seishirou's foot against the floor. aggressive, paranoid, suspicious that soleum was capable of downing them in the manner that he did? it weighs on him trying to find what caused such a reaction when he did everything perfectly! it was flawless, a show of his truth!

his truth... ]

Excuse me. [ slow and deliberate steps towards the creature where his form shudders, it melts like tar onto the ground, and soleum swears he can hear the stickiness rip off of his clothes and skin. it's grating within his ears that he must come to a stop and recalibrate, all the while fixing where he went wrong: ]

It was my mistake. [ to hit on him in front of a holy figure that watches them from a bird's eye view? to make a fool of someone he's just met where they hold a wealthy amount of knowledge compared to what little soleum has? neither. it stands out to him, the choice that he made. ]

In a Darkness, it is best to refrain from real names.

[ this is his mistake. he became comfortable, and didn't think of the dangers that lie ahead because of the gimmick this place carries. he should have advised this in the beginning, however, the sounds, the sight, and even the smell still tears away like a second layer of skin. at this moment, soleum eyes widen briefly, returns to normal, and he draws in a breath.

crimson eyes raise up, not to search for another holy figure, but to stomach the sight— he's seen this many, many times, but it never gets any easier. a shiver rolls down his back in waves that spreads a aching chill across him arms and down his back. it ends at his stomach, a thrashing and roaring wave of nausea, but he manages to keep himself from keeling over from the sensation ]

I believed you'd follow my course of action. I thought...

[ in you far too well.

finally, his eyes settle onto the man a few inches off from his own height, a head of well-kept, brown hair that curls here and there, and bounces right above a pair of vibrant blue eyes that stare right at him. please, he thinks. his own eyes slowly descend, the man's neck blocked by the side of his blue collar of an agent's uniform, but discoloration still meets along the time if a person squints.

this is bad. ]

We may go. [ why out of all people? ] May I have a different name to call you?

[hallowedly]

( You thought wrong, but then the contrite over-correction of the crippled rabbit's muttering and mumbling already document that understand. Then, the slips through nooks of rasps and crannies of hitched breath — 'Darkness,' the assumption of mirrored, perhaps governed play. No, what was the pattern here? Guided.

Then, a supernatural agreement of some kind. Perhaps the gentlebun expects dominion over the palatial pocket of the unknown universe that is successfully abrading him. That sort of authoritative power is — contained, typically, to a kekkai. But none has been declared. To exercise it over an open territory would be...

...interesting, if the theory holds. If Seishirou has the two-three blinks of an eye to test it. Alas, the corpse of the matter, yet waiting. )

No, Momo-kun. ( A fine name for a pet bunny, if a sixteen-year-old girl has ever chosen one. ) You may not.

( Whatever degree of a private existential crisis this spurs should please — and thank you — be contained long enough for Seishirou to finish out his work here. Ah, the tiring ordeal of being a trusted corporate employer.

When he nods toward the nave, it's a blandishment in virtue of not being a crime. The center aisle waits, cracked and stone dropping to grind underfoot. A delight. )

But you may either follow me or kindly scuttle off.

[roedeer]

[ he told him to call him "roe deer" and rather than do that like any gentleman and old man of his age should, pettiness takes over seishirou to go with a pet name! these extra characters get ruder, and ruder... don't they? it's not welcomed, but soleum is unable to throw away his picture perfect smile. what a dilemma! with a sigh, the bunny rabbit brings himself beside the individual, but his eyes focus on the windows and the light that barely passes through. ]

Alright.

[ if that's how this game is played. he clears his throat as he matches the pace of a co-worker, a nuisance, the most annoying man alive— agent choi, in all his illusionary glory. soleum knows that this isn't him, but the suspicion that wafts off the man gives soleum some pause, forces him to redirect his actions. he brings a hand to his mouth, curling it into a fist as the knuckle of his index finger presses against the lower lip.

one tap, then another, and what follows from this small gesture is a question from his mouth, curious. ]

What are you trying to find at the end of the rabbit hole?

[ his eyes flicker to the show of a tail, a blonde fluffy one that wiggles its way right above the belt of agent choi. saliva thick in his throat and soleum swallows it down, then with a shake of his head, the appearance shifts between two, then three. a prim and proper gentleman in a tan suit with a company lanyard would his neck, and it tucked into the pocket of his shirt to hide their name. brown fox ears tipped with black twitch curiously, and a cat-like grin settles onto their lips, briefly there and gone again, as if nothing more than a trick of the light. it flashes, then an overjoyed researcher with a knowing, but smile smile close to breaking out into a laugh appears, a look of deadly curiosity from a man in his 40's, and his nose wrinkles where glasses are perched at the bridge.

the appearance swaps around, it never stays one person, and sometimes the attire one individual wore switches to someone else. soleum tilts his head while closing his eyes in frustration, the overwhelming sense of individuals he has trouble dealing with, their judgements always far left to where soleum wants them to be, but that's because they're aware. ]

[hallowedly]

( There is a moment, trapped between them like a snake stifled in its burrow by its own shed skins, when he glimpses his reflection (reflections). When the game of one becomes that of two, of four, of a myriad of geometries and sartorial combinations. This must be how universes are born, matter toying with the imprecation of countless possibilities, before the first roar's heard.

As they crawl through the silent stretch of the nave, he shames himself, touches the silhouette of his mask's lips to affix himself in reality through tactility. It isn't the strength of the illusion, but its sickly, cloying unpredictability. His mind is confused, but his fingertips remember.

Between them, one face is painfully pedestrian, irrevocably known. Ah. Well, then. Ash in Seishirou's mouth, the bittersweetness of a complication. )

Agent Choi. ( Let it simmer, let it sinker. His eyes are an empty sky, and stars still sleep unseen. ) Or the corpse of a thing that could be divine.

( But wasn't, Subaru-kun had divined, a god. ) We've lived through this moment once. ( A beat. ) Or, rather, the ones after it. You'll want to look away. Unless... I don't suppose you've witnessed a murder scene before?

[roedeer]

[ a familiar name, no, an individual that soleum spots every so often within the mix of faces and attire scattered in the window's glass, under the limited light, and so on. a man he's unable to escape, even now, even when he shouldn't be here, but it's a name spoken off his lips familiar, knowing and present. how does he know him, where does he know him, and is this darkness mocking him by showing that person's reflection? it sinks, it wedges deeper inside like a knife pressed into his back, and is the concern he trains himself not to show. he lost him upon entry into the darkness, he hasn't found him, and yet this person knows his name. is time different here?

one hand curls into a fist, nails dig into his palms leaving behind crescents in its wake. ]

We'll have to keep going to see who we find, then.

[ he'll take the bait, but he improvises by accepting whatever path they walk upon, even if his heart trembles in his chest. they'll have to find one or the other, and the urge to find a certain someone is stronger than the alternative. ]

Death doesn't bother me.

[ of course it does, but what bothers him more is that if he has to look at a corpse then please let it be normal. soleum looks up slightly to meet the man's face, he isn't sure what his eyes will see, but he has to remain calm. ]

It's a part of life, and I have no choice other than to be familiar.

[ he's humble, but soleum has had his fair share of holding the weapon in a murder scene, but that's not important. they're clean now. ]

What part of the divine do you want to make use of? [ it's seishirou's hunt at the end of the day. ]

[hallowedly]

...hmmm? Oh, none. That isn't my line of work.

( No, the abuse of the supernatural at fragile and unworthy hands is precisely what the Sakurazukamori disposes of. Yin to the Sumeragi yang — protection of the dead, against the living. But they are not pedants at war over onmyoudo doctrine. The lapin gentleman held rigorously in Seishirou's seeing side is nothing if not peremptory in his heavy-handed dissection of Seishirou's motives.

...control, he supposes. Stability. So often, people cling to information to reassert their dominance under circumstances that have already stormed them at sea. There is nothing to cling to for the previously grotesque, now unreasonably cute and pale-furred and nicely fattened rabbit.

Only the taut unfurling of the center aisle, as dead candles on each wall rain down lances of shadow. Only the stale squalor of stifling air, the funerary stench of a tomb.

He remembers, from last time: the altar, the white roil of One's remains, the blood, the deluge, the stairs slicked and Seishirou's footing slippery. And he remembers, too, frowning as he searches his chest on instinct only to run into neither a breast pocket, nor his customary coat — )

I don't suppose you have a handkerchief with you. ( Just in case. )

[roedeer]

[ it certainly is kim soleum's line.

dressed in his tailor-made suit, an employee for daydream inc. might normally fancy themselves in control of the supernatural. instruments used to extract energy from the entities and only when they're weak, then throwing them back to the living to regain their strength before doing it all over again. ]

And what about those for whom it is?

[ cryptic, the wordplay, and how the other has carried himself thus far is no different from the fox back home. there's more to his words, isn't there? soleum could be over-thinking it, but he doesn't expect an answer as he allows the dulled click of his shoes to fill the silence between them. he brings a hand to his chest, fingers peel back at the crisp black edge of his suit to check for what the other needs. it doesn't take long to fish out what he wants, and he holds it out for the man to take.

soleum will stop now as he looks to the man, nestled between a window on both sides of them where stained glass is cracked from the corner and pooling into the hall. it doesn't end there, something thicker sneaks inside, a grey fog that slowly begins to settle in... exhaled by an unknown presence. it breathes against the mirrors like a kiss, caresses them before bouncing off and filtering into the hall without coming any closer to them.

it beckons, waiting for them to come, become lost and search for what they desire. ]

[hallowedly]

( But there, the purveyor of all forensic evidence, the cotton-honoured one, the glorious only: a distinctly unobtrusive handkerchief that Seishirou, flimsily collecting it between fingertips, has to gladly surmise is immaculate.

Thank everything for basic hygiene, and the rupture of reality to make way for the inglorious visage of seeping, thickening mist above all. Slate oils to charcoal hard and a lump of shadow, after. It's syrupy in, like a draft, or a granular parasite. And it's calling.

Onwards, little rabbit, in Seishirou's footsteps. Onward, where the altar opens up like an orchard to summer dreams, and it's only prints of blood and webs of viscera and nothing of the man who was. Ah. Too late, too late.

Or perhaps, too soon. Clicking his tongue (undignified), he only waves Momo-kun along, this time cutting back through the nave, for the inner courts, to satisfy whatever moribund requirements this puzzle still asks of them to cogitate. Mettlesome thing, is divine intervention.

There was a question, he supposes, hums — )

...ah? Why should the actions of thieves concern me? ( It's more their impunity, to start. ) People who need to steal — sorry, borrow — even from gods are pitiful, don't you think?

[roedeer]

That's humanity, they live by using what's available.

[ melancholy drips into his voice because he doesn't agree with it either. from supernatural entities to gods, there's always a certain group that wishes to harness their power for their own goal.

daydream inc. is like that. they steal, they profit, he works for a company that uses contracts to give themselves control and exert power over other beings. the concept of it is insane compared to the management bureau who hold a bond with them. every day, kim soleum is thrown into places like this to steal from those entities, sometimes the gods.

a new scene, the fog rolls in in a burst, a hearty chuckle at the location of the damned. the smell of rot and blood wafts underneath soleum's nose, the sight isn't as scary, just like a quick flash gore scene popping in front of his eyes, but the shock dulled thanks to someone's insight.

the thick layer of water and crystals becomes a barrier, move too close, and it blocks the way of letting anyone pass. it even stretches itself along as if to tell them wrong way, and kim soleum, curious, will lift his hand to reach out. the amount of fog allows entry, but the faint barrier occassionally is troublesome. pushing his hand forward, he can feel something sharp and cold, like glass pressing against the tips of his fingers.

taking part in this is just as insane, but it's par the course for daydream inc. put himself in situatuons where death is just one misstep ahead, and soleum withdraws his hands to feel shallow cuts along them before looking down. this is insane, this is way too much, and he doesn't even understand what went wrong to come into a place like this.

but he has to keep moving, he can't stop here despite how much he wants to. to return home, there are times where he has to steal from the gods. ]

But... I don't agree with it.

[ he calls to his companion, ]

This way is no good.

[hallowedly]

The way is good.

( Gelid, stormed. There's a hollowness when his glance falls on blood, when the floors eat the drip, when each droplet's rounding. An exhilaration that the worst came to visit, howling and long, and he resigned himself to it before it could rip down his doors.

This is his house, the grounds where he is strong. What is sleep but an illusion, and what has it done here but bitten long? Let them live like parasites and acid in her belly, let her intestines knot, let her breath boil, let her ache for them. This cathedral, wayward and labyrinthine, and her corridors black, this world belongs to the Sakurazukamori.

He is himself, manifesting shallow-footed and long, just another wraith out for the hunting and the haunting; he is himself, peeling Momo-chan's hands apart, and nearing it to where the barrier strains, and the crystals will cut again, if Momo-chan lets them. )

You just don't like the road toll.

( He lets Momo-chan's hand slither down, before it can rupture again. )

[roedeer]

[ he's bled before, he's offered it in large increments and small too, but is now one of those times where they have to? seishirou angles his hand, soleum watches briefly at what he's encouraging, and his palm inches from where the shard rests. he's implanting the idea, but will it spread? ]

It's not that I dislike the toll.

[ as his hand falls, soleum looks back at the surface where it once was, and lifting it slowly he rests it against the crystals, but he doesn't push. he allows for his hand to linger in place, and it's with his eyes closed and a small smile that he looks to the sakurazukamori. ]

I search for paths with the least resistance, but... do you want to join me?

[ he nudges his hand against the points.

whether this mean he can use soleum's hand to press against and force the blood from his palm, or for him to also use his own so they both have an offering to give... if his companion is fine with this avenue, then soleum doesn't think he's losing much. ]

[hallowedly]

( And feed the fangs of barriers drawn long, let them hook and sink, let them desecrate. Offerings, tribute, concessions. They're fishwives at the cosmic market, haggling with the child of chthonic ideation.

Sleep has no intellectual interest in them, nothing but the hunger that churns her belly, gaunt, nothing but the ache eroding the marrow of her teeth. She does not think through their propositions, only the return on her diminished interest.

Blood drools, glistening, at the mouths of Momo-chan's gashes like stars in winter. Seishirou taps the carved, smooth lips of his sculpted mask as if he were every lecher, tickled by a greedy opportunity. )

It's a fool who gives out his blood, his birth city or his birthday. ( But then, gaze hazed, a moment's consideration: ) A fool, or a man in love.

( And fear him, he who is either. And mourn him, he who is both. )

Would you say you're particularly amorous or stupid?

[roedeer]

[ it sinks in, it parts his flesh, and blood weeps from his palm as it falls along the crystal. soleum closes his eyes as he accepts the resistance through pain, it stings, and that doesn't stop him from bringing his tongue between his teeth to bite down some. this sort of gesture isn't scary, it's pretty tame above all things, and this is something he can control.

he hears seishirou speak, soleum's eyes part open to look at the mess being made by his offering. he thinks it over, is he a fool, is he in love— some might think so how he willingly followed into this, but it's true that soleum would find other avenues if needed, he'll part with parts of himself if he has to. even he has cut through his hand to offer his blood to bring back a friend. his only friend, who he would gladly sacrifice a part of himself to save.

at times like this there are circumstances where, even in a ghost story, whatever consequences may follow are secondary to the sound of his heart beating in his ears.

what does that make him? ]

Haha... I'll leave that for you to figure out...

[ he pushes forward, the glass cuts even more, and his blood has found a place on the shard and the ground underneath as it drips. between their silence, the wet plip of blood that hits occasionally and swallowed by the unknown responds in kind, what may have been dangerous has probably permitted entry. ]

[hallowedly]

( A seal of some nature (indiscreet), open.

He should thank the rabbit, he supposes, all brittle skips of a wandering heart, and Seishirou might, for Momo-chan's feverish giving, his sweet nuisance. Blood beads and pearls and glistens down, rolling over glass teeth. He watches the grounds consume it, watches whatever doors were frightened to be breached, watches them flicker then creak alive.

Ahead, past his rabbiting companion, the green stalks and sickly, warmongering wilderness of grass sleeps overgrowing, catapulting high and higher. Seishirou doesn't wait; wades between their ranks, serpentine and all-all knowing, because if an apple is to be found or delivered, a man and the silken theatrics of his swelling kariginu skirts have their part to play.

Strange, where high birds snare and snag in the sky, and the air's crisp and filling like a feast, as if the pressure's risen and his body cannot contain all the thrum, the bustle, the turbulence stirred by nature around him. )

Good boy. ( This, behind himself, because every pet should be verbally scratched behind his ear. ) What a good job you've done. You must be proud, mustn't you?

( Opening up their vantage to spy a dream-collapsing hollow. )

[roedeer]

[ the barrier that was there vanishes instantly, the gate opens, and their path forward is available now. soleum, with nothing to staunch the bleeding can only curl his fingers inward into a fist as he takes a step forward, and his blood drips against the ground without disappearing.

he has nothing to be afraid of after doing so, using his own body fluid as payment to pass, then he should be allowed to keep going without any issues. it stings. ]

It was the only path available at that moment, it couldn't be helped.

[ if the opportunity was there, he would have searched for another angle, a different path that allowed them to lose less. nothing at all, if it was up to kim soleum. though, blood is less than a finger, a finger is less than an arm, and if he starts from the ground up could another path have asked for more?

is that why his companion who flicks between an aware set of three people had decided to keep moving this way.

he is more knowledgeable about what's happening here, and that's why soleum follows behind him, even tilting off to the side to get a better look despite the foliage in the way. the hollow emanates a disturbing feeling from it, what looks like the pathway blurs before their eyes, what had been a patch of land now wood, then that same dreary fog rolls back in. ]

A weak spot...?

[ soleum mumbles to himself, interested at the sight because could that be a chance, to leave? nothing's that easy though, he knows that, but he can't help but look to his partner. the skin offered by the cathedral still remains, but only slightly. ]

Did you want to check around before we continue moving?

[hallowedly]

( Here, they breathe, and the air stinks of ozone, and yonder, the dream curls, concave and beaten down into the apocalyptic mouth of nothingness, biting in. He sees it: the end, the bitter end, and by it — horses.

And near, so very near, and dispersing between fingertips: One, savaged. A happy turn of events to have a handkerchief, after all.

He swivels on his heel to mind his very best of newfound friends, voice cloying. Choke, drown. )

No. ( Easy, breezy, beautiful in its finality. The snap before a neck gives. ) I think it's best if our roads part here.

( They've served some use to each other, grudging. Found little, slaughtered less, dismembered the Cathedral's for her secrets and her mosaic entrails.

And now, no longer candided in the gilded sheen or syrupy rosé of the church's windows, he wears his own kitsune-masked face, his derelict impatience. There is work to be done, and the grievously sticky Momo-chan encumbers him like molasses glued to teeth. )

You have so much ahead of you to discover you. ( Like smears of One's cadaver, once it stills. ) I don't want to keep you. ( Shoo. )