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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[heavensnight]

After the hell she'd gone through again and again, it was hard to be startled by the strangeness they kept encountering. Maria knew it wasn't normal, that they could be hurt or something could hurt them surely, but her mind continued to simply view this logically. Getting upset wasn't going to fix this for them.

And flirting with this new person she met, joking around with him, seemed like a much more fun alternative to anything else they could be doing.

There's a snort of laughter at his compliment. "Gotta be careful when you're falling, though. Look at where it got us," she said as she tried to still sit up with him. Without much thought of the position, she was straddling him as she looked up at the cathedral and looked around. "Kind of pretty, though. The church where I'm from isn't half as nice."

When she looked to his reflection in the glass, something about the outline was much larger and she tried to focus on it better. Unknown to her that her reflection was starting to make her paler, the black blood running from her face. No, she was far too focused on Vander's appearance.

[cantilevers]

He lifted a hand and pushed some of his wet hair from clinging to his forehead as he continued to look around at the cathedral. It reminded him of some of the ones in the undercity, though the architecture was a different style than this. "I can't say that I mind the change in scenery. So far, less sharks looking to eat us," he remarked.

He moved to sit up with her, not at all offended when she ended up straddling his lap. He set a hand against the small of her back as he also reviewed their location. "Architecture is different where I'm from, but the stained glass happens a lot."

His eyes were drawn from the floating shattered glass to her, noting how some colours created a different reflection on her face. Black blood, ashen skin... he lifted his hand from his side to cup her face as if he could feel the difference. He couldn't. It felt like an illusion, yet he suspected there was truth to it. "Did you... ever have a goth phase...? Black streaks down your face."

[heavensnight]

It was easy to joke and make light of the situation around them. Especially when her companion through this was someone like Vander. He felt comfortable to her and she already liked him a lot. Maria hoped that he wouldn't be leaving her so quickly, that he was real, and they could talk more.

It's simple until it isn't and he asks that. She freezes because she knows what he's asking and she's looking around, trying to see if he can see her. "No. Not really my vibe." Maria doesn't try for levity there and it sounds as distracted as she truly is. She looks at the glass and for him, all she sees is fur and a snarling beast. Much like his hand, her hand goes to his cheek and there's his beard but it isn't fur.

Her eyes go to his as she asks, "Part dog or something?"

[cantilevers]

The easiness around them vanished when she froze, and he felt bad for asking, especially when she turned her head to look around as if expecting to see something or someone else. It was all the confirmation that he needed that each of them had secrets, that something lurked beneath the surface of their skin.

Was it strange to feel a kinship with someone who he barely knew who seemed to share characteristics that they didn't want revealed? Levity, flirting and physical closeness was how they covered over the fact that there was something under their skins.

"No, I suppose not. I prefer you in pink, and that tattoo suits you both in form and colour," he agreed, not willing to push and risk losing the connection that they had developed already. He didn't want to be alone.

He met her gaze evenly, his blink lingering longer with his eyes closed as he experienced the jilt of her question. His lips twisted as he recalled his moniker, Hound of the Underground. Someone had taken that a little too literally, and he affirmed what he had faint impressions about since waking in that water.

"Murk wolf actually," he remarked softly. "And chem-tech. I died and someone decided my parts were still useful..." He said it faintly, like he was only piecing that together himself in that very moment.

[heavensnight]

Maria has always had to act with a certain persona in mind. The helpless woman, dependent on her white knight. The woman who would smile and flirt, who would always put him first. It wasn't even that difficult because it wasn't like she had much else to put first. For Maria, she had to put pleasing James before all else because that meant surviving. But there's no James and so how she is supposed to act is a mystery to her. Maria doesn't know. Maybe flirting with a stranger isn't the ticket but it's a nice distraction and she feels a connection to Vander. Whatever that connection is.

But his comment about her tattoo does make her smile and makes her feel happy in a way she doesn't know she can say she's felt before.

His answer takes her by surprise. The fact he doesn't try to come up with something else because she doesn't imagine anybody could make what he just said up. And it confirms, to her anyway, Vander isn't a creation in her mind. Maria had never even heard of a murk wolf or of chem-tech. Certainly she didn't think it was something that she could imagine up.

"I'm some man's...something. I don't know what you'd call me honestly. A town made me for him." It's not her attempt to make this about her but if he would tell her something about himself then she would as well. "Seems we're a good pair?"

[cantilevers]

He resisted the urge to touch the tattoo, even if he had the impression that she would let him. They seemed perfectly comfortable with each other physically anyway, as he saw no reason to urge her out of his lap either. Like her, he valued the feeling of connection even if it was fleeting. It made the confusion in his head bearable and quiet while he was with her. Flirting never hurt his mood either; it was something he had been doing since he was old enough to know what flirting was.

Truth was the best policy it seemed. How else could they explain the shark stalking them, breaking out of a fish bowl to end up in a cathedral and who knew what else? This all could be a fevered dream in which case, he wasn't so certain he was eager to wake up to whatever might await him at the Sump.

He tilted his head curiously at her own confession. He value the nugget of information she provided, making his own feel just a touch less crazy sounding. "A town made you," he murmured, considering. "Does that make you the mayor or a head of council then?" He went for a little levity.

"Is that man going to be jealous you're in my lap if he saw us? I don't want to cause you trouble."

[heavensnight]

It would probably be smart for Maria to get off his lap. Explore, try to figure out what the hell is going on. But simply she doesn't want to. She likes feeling him, likes knowing someone is close. All she's had was James's touch and she rarely got that. It feels good to have someone else's warmth.


"I'm nothing so fancy. Just a woman. That's all. But no, he won't be. I think he could barely stand me at some points and the last thing that happened to me was he wanted to use me to bring his wife back." She puts her arms on his shoulders and smiles at him. If there is a touch of sadness in it, she doesn't mean for that. "Are you okay? Your story's a lot."

[cantilevers]

"Well... maybe you can be mayor wherever we are then. I'd vote for you," he remarked affectionately. Democracy wasn't exactly common for leadership roles in the undercity, but on small scales it did happen and voting for the most popular resolution did happen. He thought she could use a boost too if she was 'just a woman' because he had the impression she was anything but 'just' of anything.

"Sounds like a winner of a guy," he said, neither condemning nor approving. He didn't know who this man was, and it would be silly to pass such judgments after... well, what had he been created for? A man desperate to bring his daughter back from the dead. He'd heard the storybooks after all, like a distant lullaby to drug induced sleep. "Sounds like you weren't a fan of that plan. I don't blame you; everyone deserves a chance at life, wouldn't you say?"

He smoothed his hand up her back as her arms settled on his shoulders, both of them seemingly comfortable as they had been in their previous location. He could see the sadness in her, just a peak beneath the flirty affable surface she presented. She looked... lonely. He shrugged a little. "No, probably not. I don't... remember much of it, just fleeting impressions and some images. However, you make it better, Maria. I can focus on you and that's enough for me. Are you okay?"

[heavensnight]

"You could be my...whatever partner to leadership is around here." If there even was any. Again, they should probably figure that out but Maria wasn't in any rush to do so. In her mind, whatever was happening outside probably wasn't as nice as what was happening inside this cathedral with Vander.

Right now, her anger at James is still fresh. Never before had he tried to kill her first. James rarely smiled at her and that smile, when he told her he knew he could bring Mary back, had been one of the few. That cold, awful smile. Often Maria switched from anger to pity to whatever seemed like love for James. Right now it was simply anger and she didn't want to think about it. How it curdled inside of her and made her wish he was here so she could really make him regret it.

And what Vander says to her makes the anger seem so distant. "They do," she says quietly. "We do." Because that seems like what they should be able to hear.

She likes his touch and even though she knows they should be doing so much more than sitting here with each other, she doesn't care to. Vander was right, she was lonely. And she could only imagine his own feelings and she knew he was a man who definitely needed comfort. Maria was good at that. It was what she had truly been made for and Vander was the only person to take her up on it. "I'm probably as okay as you are. But this doesn't need to be so one-sided. Maybe this is all some wild dream and we're here for each other. You focus on me and I focus on you. We can make each other feel better." Her voice lowers at the last sentence and her hips move against his as she fully settles. It's without much thought and solely driven by instinct. Maria had always used sex appeal with James and it rarely worked but it was always her first method. The first language she knew. She's lonely and she feels desperate for some connection. Vander would give it to her, she knows. He'd acknowledge her and make her feel good. His hands on her already feel so right.

But now isn't the time, is it? A logical thought finally enters her mind and she moves back. It almost feels like using Vander and she doesn't want to do that. It's like a bucket of cold water hits her and she feels like some animal that had been going in for the kill before someone stopped them.

"I'm sorry." She doesn't think she has to explain for what. Surely Vander knows what she was implying. "Now's not really the time or place, huh?"

[cantilevers]

"Bodyguard... or liaison," he remarked thoughtfully. He was used to holding a position of power back in his city, though this was all imaginary for them. Though, if they were the only ones in this place, they could give one another whatever titles they wanted for the fun of it. He was not above a little fun to keep the mood light as otherwise, they both might fall into a state of depression.

He wondered how long ago she had been with this guy she spoke of. There was a weight to the words that she spoke about him, layers of emotions that he didn't have knowledge of her situation to make the connection of which emotion went with what aspect of her interaction with that man. "So... it seems we live until that option is taking from us, yes? We live for today, striving for another tomorrow."

He also recognized that they should be productive and explore their surroundings, but the sense of imminent danger was distant right now. Perhaps part of this place was meeting and learning about another person? Maybe all of this worked because they knew each other? His thumb stroked under her eye, thinking some of the black looked like fallen tear streaks. "Maybe you're right. This is a dream and we'll all wake up to fond memories of that dream, yeah?" The images the light presented told him he wasn't alone with the tortured past and all. "I like the sound of that, beautiful. I think with our powers of persuasion, we can make certain both of us are happy and taken care of..."

He trailed off as he felt her hips move against his own, a clear motion that he knew very well. He didn't freeze nor did he buck his hips towards her either; his expression softened in a combination of understanding and amusement. She had been made for a man by a town; was this what the man wanted? His other hand rose from her back to cup her other cheek even as she slid backwards, humming softly at her.

"You don't ever have to apologize to me, Maria," he murmured softly and with understanding. "It's a lonely existence sometimes, isn't it? However, we should wait as we don't know if this place is safe, yeah?" He leaned in, resting his forehead against her own. "Besides, what if there's a strapping handsome man hiding somewhere that sweeps you right off your feet? Let's not narrow your options."

[heavensnight]

It seemed impossible they were the only ones here. Even with James, it had not been only them. And why would it just be her and Vander? Why would it only be them? Depending on how things went, she knew she'd be pondering this. At least until they found other people.

Vander could have humiliated her. Not purposely, she thought. He didn't seem like the type to do so. But the way he does turn her down is so gentle though it helped that she had stopped it as quickly as she had begun. She believes him when he says he doesn't have to apologize to her and she realizes he had spoken about waiting until a better time. Maybe it shouldn't surprise her he wasn't going to be the type to turn down a chance to sleep with a willing person. Or maybe it was simply a new feeling to have this returned.

Whatever the reason, Maria closes her eyes and nods. For a moment, she wants to know what it's like to have this physical contact with someone. Someone that doesn't want to push her away.

"We've been talking a lot about my options and not yours. Feels like that might become a running theme with you but we'll get there when we get there." The last thing Maria wants to do is move away from Vander but she knows they need to actually explore this place so she removes herself from him and gets up, offering him both of her hands to help him up as well.

"This place doesn't seem so dangerous, though."

[cantilevers]

His thumbs stroke her cheeks and his forehead remains against her, aware that rejection regardless of the type was difficult. While they had only just met, it was clear that they had a connection that both of them leaned into. He was keen to explore it, wouldn't even oppose all that much if she insisted on making further bold moves on him. It had been a long time since anyone made him feel desirable after all, and he hoped to commit even a fraction of that feeling for her.

He tipped his chin and kissed her forehead gently before withdrawing his face, though his hands remained on her cheeks affectionately stroking. He smiled at her words, and she wasn't wrong though perhaps not for the reasons that she might assume. "Well, I did say that I would wing-man for you. I want you to find the best match for you," he replied simply.

He helped her to stand and then pushed himself up to his feet with her assistance, staying close as he looked around as if expecting some new danger to pop out of anywhere. It looked like a simple cathedral, just with the stained glass showing odd reflections. A few candles burned and there were the pews and altar. It didn't seem unfriendly, yet light shifted over the top of her head and there were changes there too. What was the cause?

"We should take a look around, but so far, it seems like a place with a trick of the light."