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TDM 001 ● JUNE 2025
TDM: ONE
ᛗPRELUDE
(content warnings: dream horror, loss of autonomy, mild body horror, cult undertones )You’ve had this dream before.
A moon cracked wide, spilling tendrils from its craters like bleeding silk. A sky starless and slow. And on the horizon: a wave. Massive. Black. Still. It creeps forward every time like sunrise. It hushes before collapse, but every time before this, you wake up just in time.
But not tonight. You can't outrun it even if you tried— it comes crashing down on you at last, swallowing you like a gaping black hole. Saltless, soundless, the water devours. But instead of drowning, you drift, suspended in velvet dark. And in that dark, her voice breathes.
Let me in.
I can give you everything you’ve ever hungered for.
A place.
A purpose.
Stay.”
She offers. And you— your mouth, your mind— give an answer before you even know you’re speaking. Yes.
The tide recedes. The dark peels away like silk. You awaken beneath a canopy of gold, in a garden that hums with warmth and longing. Soft grass. Strange trees. Fragrant fruits in every color, dripping with light. And a mask upon your face, no straps, no weight, yet it clings to your skin like it was always part of you. You don't want to remove it. You could, maybe . . . But it would feel like tearing your skin away.
She no longer speaks to you, but her orchard breaths a sigh upon your arrival. A force tugs at the edges of your thoughts, beckoning you to contact the web you're now a part of. Welcome, Vessel.
ᛗYOU CAN THREAD THE NEEDLE
(content warnings: sensory manipulation )An orchard stretches around you in impossible directions, the horizon blurred like wet paint. Trees curl and arch with an elegance that feels practiced— like they’re posing for someone watching. Their trunks shimmer faintly. Leaves flutter even when there is no wind.
You are not alone. Others stir nearby, familiar or unfamiliar, though that distinction begins to blur. You may not know them, or perhaps you have the feeling you do even if you've never met them in your life. Either way, you might wish to know them.
From the strange branches within the orchard hang fruits shaped like stars, teardrops, or glass bells. Each one pulses faintly, waiting to be plucked. Their effects are subtle but powerful, crafted to cater to your desire and wonder:
🍎A pearlescent orb, cool and slick to the touch, whose taste floods you with a future that might be: a fleeting vision of joy, belonging, or beauty you didn’t know you craved. Whoever is nearby sees a glimpse of it too.
🍎A silver-veined citrus, fizzing like champagne. When shared between two, it evokes the feeling of a first time— first love, first rebellion, first triumph — even if you’ve never lived it. The emotional residue lingers between you.
🍎A blood-orange fruit with velvet skin, which when bitten into, causes your voice to harmonize with another’s— even if you weren’t speaking. You’ll find yourselves finishing each other’s thoughts, or speaking a secret you both forgot you held.
🍎A waxen, translucent fig, which grants you a small miracle: something you longed for appears beside you, conjured from dream. It might be a lost keepsake. A voice. A scent. A face.
🍎A smooth, silver fruit with a mirrored skin. When bitten, it briefly reflects the dreamer’s true self — not as they are, but as they wish to be. For a moment, others may see it too. The illusion clings for a time, making the character appear more like their ideal self in body, presence, or aura.
🍎A dark plum that glows faintly pink, almost heart-shaped, and warm to the touch. Its juice runs red and sticky, clinging to the lips. To taste it is to be filled with longing— for intimacy, for sensation, for touch. The desire may be gentle or overwhelming, but it lingers, tuned to the presence of someone nearby. It is not mindless. It is focused.
At the center of the orchard is a fountain, still and inviting. Its water tastes like clarity— and for a moment after drinking, your thoughts shape your surroundings. What you create might intertwine with what another dreams beside you.
Sleep does not speak in words. She breathes through the trees, hums through the soil, stares through your mask. Her voice, barely a whisper:
Want.
Want, and see what answers you.”
You feel it,— if you resonate with another, something will change. Maybe the orchard will shift again. Maybe it already has.
ᛗTHE DAYLIGHT RECEDES
(content warnings: grief, loss, emotional vulnerability)The orchard is gone. In its place stretches a landscape of ashen grass, supple and fragrant underfoot, warmed by a pale light that doesn’t seem to come from the sun. All around, a soft breeze stirs the fields— endless, loamy, and quiet. The air smells like soil after rain. It is peaceful here. But not happy.
Scattered across the fields are half-buried remnants: old beds, cracked record players, wilted bouquets, melted candles, notes scrawled on napkins— things lost in the moments between love and loneliness. Everything here feels half-remembered, yet painfully familiar. If a character reaches for one of these objects, they may hear a voice whispering a name they have tried to forget, or one they wish they'd remembered sooner.
In the distance, a shrouded figure walks the fields, unhurried, always just out of reach. Their back is turned, but their presence pulls like gravity. Some may choose to follow. Some may wait. And some may realize they’re walking beside someone else— a stranger who seems to carry a memory they, too, once held.
This is a moment of reflection. Interactions blossom from shared worries, slow confessions, or uncanny synchronicities. Characters might recognize something in another, such as a gesture, a phrase, a scent— and feel that thread begin to tug. Best follow its lead . . . You won't be able to leave unless you do.
ᛗ
EVERYTHING WE LOVE RESETS
(content warnings: body horror, transformation, loss of autonomy, psychological horror, cosmic dread )
You awaken— or perhaps you never truly slept. The orchard is gone. The fields have withered. All is silence now, and the air is soaked in dread.
A still, uncanny plane stretches out before you: rotted soil, stagnant pools, shattered glass trees that hum with an almost-familiar voice. Echoes of what the dream once offered—sweet fruit, blooming things, beauty— remain only as scars on the land. Their pleasures have fermented into menace. The dreamscape is collapsing.
Sleep, ever present, ever watching, does not weep. She has already taken what she wants, and you see her teeth stretched too wide in the shadows. In the reflection that splits back at you. In the soundless breeze with much more bite and possession than the gentle caress of invitation. She whispers, from the shadows between dying stars:
"You said yes. Now let me see what you become."
The mask on your face tightens, no longer decoration. A binding. You are no longer merely dreaming— Your skin may change fluidly, or break down through the bones violently. Your flesh may split, brimming with power, or your blood could burn like lava oozing through your veins. You may even experience it again, and again, and again; a different beast or burst of magic each time. Whether painful or painless, You are now either Token, or Offering. You may not yet know what that means— But your body does.
A still, uncanny plane stretches out before you: rotted soil, stagnant pools, shattered glass trees that hum with an almost-familiar voice. Echoes of what the dream once offered—sweet fruit, blooming things, beauty— remain only as scars on the land. Their pleasures have fermented into menace. The dreamscape is collapsing.
Sleep, ever present, ever watching, does not weep. She has already taken what she wants, and you see her teeth stretched too wide in the shadows. In the reflection that splits back at you. In the soundless breeze with much more bite and possession than the gentle caress of invitation. She whispers, from the shadows between dying stars:
The mask on your face tightens, no longer decoration. A binding. You are no longer merely dreaming— Your skin may change fluidly, or break down through the bones violently. Your flesh may split, brimming with power, or your blood could burn like lava oozing through your veins. You may even experience it again, and again, and again; a different beast or burst of magic each time. Whether painful or painless, You are now either Token, or Offering. You may not yet know what that means— But your body does.
ᛗ EVEN WHEN WE RUN WITH DEATH
(content warnings: body horror, fungal infections, parasitism, loss of agency, cosmic horror, violence, death, cult imagery)Your surroundings bend and break with growing instability: The sky splits open, revealing a bleeding red moon, weeping tendrils like raw nerves. It feels wrong in a way you have no words for. It sees you. And it beckons for blood.
The dream does not want peace now. It wants performance. It wants pain. And above all, Sleep wants you all to herself. She watches from the broken heavens, humming in delight as you run, as you fight, as you fracture under the weight of your becoming. Perhaps you turn on each other, frightened with what you have become or too frazzled to control yourself, or the newfound power you possess.
There are other things to look out for, though. Creatures stalk this unraveling plane: malformed creatures with mutated faces and fungal blooms bursting from their orifices, or tendrils slithering from what were once mouths and eye sockets. Once Vessels. Hosts. They may speak with familiar voices. They may try to barter, or bite. Those with hands and fingers may try and force your eyelids to part, to tilt your gaze to the sky above you, chanting in tongues that drill into your brain stem. Hushing in song. Whispering Look at her. She is Beautiful.
If you are caught, if you gaze up at Her for too long— you too will suffer the same fate. Fungal bursts and tendrils will spurt from your mouth, invade you from the inside and reach out to her in sacred reverence. It's a horrible way to go. If this is an end you find, you too, despite your pain, may begin to smile. You might have even more reason to attack your fellow Vessels. They too, must see Her beauty like you do.
The song stutters. The dream recoils when you succumb to the worst of Her parasitism, even though you don't lose consciousness. It is not Sleep who speaks next. In your last few seconds of awareness, you hear in your ears, in your mind, in your soul, snarling and thick with fury:
The world begins to scream. You begin to fall.
The dream is over.
ᛗNOTES
➤ Welcome to Somnia’s first TDM! All TDMs will be considered game canon.
➤ You are free (and encouraged!) to experiment with the Tether mechanic as well as Vessel options and the Network to your liking; this is a dreamscape, so multiple/different situations for you to really test which option you like most is possible.
➤ All TDMs take place within a dreamscape, meaning characters can interact with the setting without needing to apply. Come have fun with us!
➤ Mod invited players may currently extend one invite per player. Interested players who do not have mod invites or a friend to get an invite from may comment to the appropriate top level to solicit one, or, solicit one from the mod here. Please keep in mind that soliciting an invite does not guarantee one.
➤ Questions? Please direct them to the designated questions comment linked below!
➤ You are free (and encouraged!) to experiment with the Tether mechanic as well as Vessel options and the Network to your liking; this is a dreamscape, so multiple/different situations for you to really test which option you like most is possible.
➤ All TDMs take place within a dreamscape, meaning characters can interact with the setting without needing to apply. Come have fun with us!
➤ Mod invited players may currently extend one invite per player. Interested players who do not have mod invites or a friend to get an invite from may comment to the appropriate top level to solicit one, or, solicit one from the mod here. Please keep in mind that soliciting an invite does not guarantee one.
➤ Questions? Please direct them to the designated questions comment linked below!
lune | clair obscur: expedition 33
prelude to the needle.
[ The dark rises up and Lune is falling.
Falling, ever falling, weightless and hollow, in petals that are suffocating. She is desperate and terrified and angry, and no voice that beckons can hold her back from the inevitable. Yes. Whatever is happening, it can't be the end. She won't allow it. Just another chance--
And she awakens in the garden, hand out stretched for nothing, bare fingers cresting over warm grass. Getting up feels challenging, her fingers brushing over something that drapes over her face. It doesn't prevent her from seeing, oddly enough, and it's weightless. With fumbling fingers, she starts to remove it, and then thinks better of it - just for the moment - as she goes to wander barefoot through the orchard at her own pace.
But she can be found later, eyeing the trees warily (as one does), and sitting on the lip of the fountain. She is pensive, tense, and watches anyone who approaches with curiosity. ]
You might want to take care around the fruit. We don't know what it does.
[ 'We' because, of course, others are here too. No one she's recognized just yet, which makes her ill at ease. No one dressed like the people of Lumière, no one wearing an Expedition uniform. She doesn't understand. ]
the daylight recedes.
[ Another landscape, darker than the last. The orchard has vanished, its comfort gone. Instead, Lune walks among a field of old thoughts and memories that feel just out of reach, like some kind of nostalgia for a time she can't recall. There are baskets and urns full of roses, red and white, but no one to give them out; no stalls to house them. Are they from this year's Gommage? Last year's? Ten years ago?
No one's here to give her an answer.
Disgruntled, she says to no one in particular: ]
This is just another illusion.
[ Like the mask, which hasn't taken her over. There's no Axon. Or is there, just further afield, or in hiding? She can't sense anything appropriately, her magic dimmed to silence. Her feet carry her further, to a broken guitar. It's hers, she thinks. Black, sleek, now old and decrepit. But that can't be hers, hers is new. Isn't it? She touches a hand to her head.
And whispered to no one: This is all wrong. ]
even when we run with death. (note: will be alternating between Runecaster, Lightweaver, and Bloodwright / cw: some body horror depending on type)
[ The illusion is gone. Here is the truth. And for all the terror here, all the crawling dread, Lune feels more in control. This is just another cataclysm, another set of monsters. And no matter what's happening to her...
When one falls, we continue.
Her thoughts are cast far and wide to The Network, not caring what comes along with it: the steely determination, the spike of fear. Let people feel it. But a message comes with it - ]
"If you need to, run. Find somewhere to hide. Those of you who can fight: help where you can. We need to regroup and keep away from these things."
[ Nothing good can come from them, after all, and she's not about to find out what happens when one gets close enough to touch.
Lune doesn't know what's become of her body, of the stains on her fingers, of the hum of magic that now courses through her. It's not recognizable and doesn't feel in tune with the Pictos on her skin, not anymore. But she isn't a child any longer, unattuned, uncertain. She'll stand and fight regardless. ]
wildcard.
[ Want something else? Pick a different prompt, change it up, or PM me for a closed stater. ]
Prelude to the needle
[ In a dream, there is no wrong way to go. No urgency. Linhardt wanders through the orchard, vaguely moving towards the center without conscious awareness.
Stopping in front of one of the trees, the young man runs a hand up the shimmering trunk, fingertips slow and careful, cranking his head back and watching the leaves move with a look of curiosity and then, as he continues to watch, consternation, his eyebrows coming together and his mouth frowning slightly. The leaves shouldn't be moving that way; there's no wind to guide them. The trees, and their fruits, are wrong. They're all too similar to one another. Even magical trees differed from one another, and every fruit that Linhardt sees is not only perfect, but identical.
An idea occurs to him.
He reaches out to pluck one of the reflective fruit, motions delicate in case it's not as robust as it looks. As he's holding up the fruit to try and use its mirror like properties to catch a glimpse of the mask covering his face, Linhardt is startled by someone speaking behind him, and he drops it on to the ground.
It's strange to see someone and not feel them. After turning, he can see the woman sitting on the fountain's edge, but she has no more discrenable life energy than a bucket. He feels blind, despite being able to see her clearly in the daylight, sitting on the fountain.
She's not wrong.]
Maybe it's a gullibility test?
[ The woman has what are clearly linguistic markings strewn about her body. What language is that? He's never seen anything like that. Perhaps it's some kind of pictographic language? Or some form of cipher? But why would someone have a cipher inscribed on their skin? His eyes linger on the glyphs for a moment before he catches himself.
People don't like being stared at.
Linhardt forces himself to make momentary eye contact. ]
Do you think this is a nightmare, then? That this place is dangerous?
[Is she some manner of oracle? The one downside to dreams is they don't work on any form of logic. Often what one feels is what's important. So perhaps since she seems like an oracle, she is one.]
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No, she can't think about those. ]
I don't know what I believe because nothing's conclusive. But I do think that there's plenty here to be perturbed by.
[ She is hungry and she is not; she wants to drink from the fountain but knows how foolhardy that might be. If this really is a kind of illusion or trap, it's just as likely to cause as much damage as anything else. And with her magic out of reach, she won't be able to heal or help anyone.
Slowly, she rises from the lip of the fountain. Lune is still barefoot, all things considered, and she can feel the press of the grass and the soil beneath her feet. It's a convincing lie, if it is one. ]
All of the trees look similar, like they're copied over and over again. Only the fruit is different. And some of it looks...
[ Unappealing. Fake. Fantastical. Wrong. ]
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You're far too reasonable and logical to be an oracle. The problem with nothing being conclusive is that it extends to us. If this is a trap, what says you're not part of it? Or I'm not?
[ He isn't, of course, but if this woman is real, then she wouldn't know that. Linhardt nods, confirming her observations, then points between two different trees, some distance apart, drawing her attention to the leaves at the end of the swaying branches.]
Look at how the branches are moving: They're both moving in precise tandem.
[Not only their looks are copies. His eyes rest on the piece of fruit he'd dropped, still pulsing softly against the grass.]
I can't find my magic.
[It's the only way he can think of to phrase it: That his magic has somehow been misplaced and that is why he cannot tell if the woman or the odd trees are alive. Why he could not heal the bruise he can feel forming on his knee. Why his earlier attempts to summon fire had failed.
There's some part of him missing. He doesn't know what or how, but something is different, gone. If it's missing, then it has to be somewhere.]
And there seem to be no tools in this place. Which together will make testing difficult.
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If you're looking for oracles, I'm not the one to be asking. [ That's Sciel. ] And I can't convince you any more than you can convince me of what's real and what's not. I think that's largely going to be the point.
[ He's sharp, though. He's working through the same reasonings she is, calculating the implication. Lune reaches her hand out to touch the tree, her fingers sliding over what feels like wood. If she closed her eyes, it would be too real to ignore, and that's the perfection that is the dream or the illusion.
Even if it feels wrong.
Lune's head turns quickly when he speaks of magic, eyes narrowing. A piece of her wishes to rail against it, distrust everything, even someone speaking to her. But the odds of him being fake are dwindling.
If someone wanted to fool her, after all, they'd show her familiar faces. People she already trusts. ]
...I can't find mine, either. It's all absent. Like trying to grasp at air.
[ So any kind of testing is bound to lead to problems and inaccuracies. Lune reaches up into the tree to pluck another fruit, which she passes to him. And once he has it, she's wandering over to another tree in search of a different fruit. ]
We can still start comparisons as best we can. And we should see where the bounds of this place may be.
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Daylight Recedes
But she is canny to these places, these sorts of things. Nightmares always lose their luster eventually, falling away to reveal their fangs. This still doesn't feel like it, even if the veneer is peeling, but the worst still feels inevitable enough that Trina is too wary to do much but drift among the items, wondering to whom some of them belong.
A voice that catches her ear seems to reflect her thoughts, and she's almost surprised to find that it belongs to one of the people that don't quite look like they belong here, and thus must have been captured with her.]
But you're right, it's just a dream.
[She's still of the belief of "just" in this case, which is probably going to be her downfall once the nightmare is truly revealed, but at least... they're of a similar mind.
She looks a little sad, as she continues:] I don't think many people have realized it yet, though.
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There's an ethereal cadence about her, soft edges. Without her magic, she feels half-blind, stumbling through the world with one of her senses cut off. ]
Is that a fact?
[ It's not skeptical, despite how her tone may be. Does she know something Lune does not? ]
If it is, then...dreams can be too real sometimes for people. Too inviting. There are plenty who would prefer to dream than face the reality in their wakefulness.
[ So many in Lumière who would rather sink into comfort than fight for another year. She doesn't begrudge them, for each and every one of them must choose what they can. Some people aren't cut out for Expeditions. But the longing to sink into comfort, to pull it over one's head like a blanket, is one she has watched many times before. ]
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[In more of a way than just someone who likes to sleep a lot, but she does have that sort of drowsy, sedate air to her in general.]
Sleep, dreams, they have many uses. I don't think it is bad to provide relief to the afflicted, even if that relief is through escape. I'm most curious as to why something so... personal as dreams is being so widely shared with so many people. Or how. This isn't-
[Like the nomads and the Flame of Frenzy. Where the barriers between their individual consciousnesses was eroded and they sometimes could not tell where one ended and another began.] No, this is a new territory, even for me.
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So it's possible for people to all bein a shared dream or a liminal space like this.
[ These aren't just...hallucinations or conjurations of random qualities. She'd begun suspecting as much, as the information she's gathered thus far differs far and wide. No dream would be so detailed. There has to be an element of reality here, a root to follow. ]
What are your experiences with dreams like this?
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prelude to the needle
[Whether the references translate or not, the sarcasm certainly does. Unless the same mind whammy that's been head frelling him so far pushes him into it, you can call him Tantalus.]
[Despite the breezy way of talking, he regards her with sharp eyes, taking in her appearance, paying attention to her movements, looking around to see if she's alone. To some, it might seem like he's exuding an edge of danger, acting cagey, suspicious.]
[Really, he's the one expecting something to try and hurt him. He doesn't know what this is, who's behind it, or what their game is.]
[So he's trying to avoid getting got.]
Who are you? Did you bring me here?
I'm so sorry about her
What are you even talking about?
[ Royal wedding? Dwarves? Glass boxes? She feels like she's truly stepped in something surreal here, listening to him, and Lune closes her eyes briefly so she can rub at them with her gloved fingers. Is he speaking in some kind of riddle or...fairytale? She sighs. ]
What makes you think I have any such power, or that I would want to be here in the first place?
[ Her frown is tight, irritable. ]
I don't know what's going on here anymore than you do. [ Or so she hopes. ] But I know that eating some fruit that's sitting out, in trees that all look the same, is likely a trap.
Re: I'm so sorry about her
[Someone asking "What are you even talking about?" is the story of his (recent) life. And also a pretty good gauge that someone is operating from a different cultural context. (What else is new?)]
And I asked if you did it because this isn't exactly my first time I've been a barrelman at this kind of rodeo. I've been stuck in weird simulations before. One of them, the person behind it was pretending to be someone in it.
[And that had stung so bad to talk to a man he had hoped so desperately was his father.]
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You've every reason to be defensive. But we can't let our emotions keep us from acting. There has to be a way out of here. And if not...
[ Well, then they'll need to make one, or ride out the illusion until an opportunity opens up. ]
prelude to the needle
Do you think it really matters, then?
[ Megumi's been assuming that this is dying, some weird last gasp hallucination before the end. And if that's the case, then it hardly seems to matter whether the fruit does anything.
But her caution implies that she, at least, is expecting to wake up from this. ]
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[ So, yes, she has every intention of getting out of here. It comes with a kind of aggressive, almost dogged determination that she isn't going to wait around for help, but nor is she going to fall for potentially obvious tricks being played on her mind.
She's had enough of that for one lifetime. ]
If this is an illusion, it can still have an effect on our very real bodies. It could be poison, it could be something to make us complacent. I'd rather not find out.
[ But she's not going to stop people from trying. (That's what she tells herself, at least...) ]
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I thought I was dying. It sounds like that's not the case for you?
[ It had been the most logical explanation, the easy line to draw from point A (everything that just happened in Shibuya) to point B (weird dreamlike place that definitely isn't Shibuya). But even if he can accept that his dying subconscious might decide it was time for some weird trip through unreality on the way out...
Why would there be anyone else there? People who clearly come from somewhere completely different than him, and who don't think they're on a one-way trip to the great beyond? That just seems nonsensical.
But if he's wrong about that... ]
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we run with death (offering: swarmling, insect horror inc.)
Through it all, a quiet affect attempts communication: ]
"I'm sorry, ha ha..."
[ The laugh doesn't carry across the tether, not really—just a flutter where one could feasibly be. ]
"I just wanted you to know you should be careful of what you say."
[ Incoherent, insectile, those images continue to crawl through the mind's collective eye. Ivan doesn't mean for them to, but this is his new world; these are his overwhelmed senses sprawling across the bond between them all and brushing blindly into so many, many others. ]
"Monsters can hear you, too."
[ He can. ]
[ And what's left to separate him from these other shambling things? ]
oh this is a great tag 👀
"Who are you?"
[ She's only ever seen a few monsters capable of speech, special, different. This... It doesn't fit. How could such a creature get a hold of this link if they weren't--
Something feels heavy in the pit of her stomach. She tries again. ]
"I can feel something over the connection from you. What is that?"
thank god, i was worried psychic bug jumpscare was too extra
"What we're sensing seems to spread to each other a little, so I suppose what you're feeling is... me. I was a human who woke up in the garden with everyone else. Now, I don't know. My body's changing."
[ Another burst of visual information arrives, this time sustained for longer than a second. The difference is this is a scene he actively wants to send from his eyes, looking upward since he can't succeed in standing. A pair of hands enters the frame from opposite edges, splattered in an oily coating.
And then another pair.
And then another. ]
"Did I show you?"
nah I love creepy shit
❤️ 👍👍
the daylight recedes
Gloved fingers brush against the petals of a rose as he passes by and they drop at the touch.]
Still haven't decided if I think I'll remember all this when I wake up.
[His voice is a drawl, an almost comical impression of what someone would think I cowboy should sound like.]
What bout you?
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I'd like to hope so. Whatever's happened to bring us here... [ Or their minds, if this is a dream or illusion. ] ...I don't want to repeat the experience.
[ The falling. The offering. The voice. ]
But I can't understand what much of this is supposed to convey, either. Is it trying to pluck on our emotions or hope that we keep stumbling deeper?
[ ...If so, it might be working. ]
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No one really seemed put off by him or bothered by who or what he was. Yet he can't disagree with the woman, he'd rather not repeat this experience.]
Emotions are the easiest string to pluck, sweetheart.
[He'd know, he used it against people all the time. Easiest way to trip someone up, catch them off guard and get the upper hand.]
With all that talk you sound like you're on team this is real.
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apologies on this being forever late time is fake
even when we run with death. —Act 1 spoilers within likely!
Gustave resists, eyes cast stubbornly down behind the blindfold he can no longer seem to pry from his face. He fills his palm with the familiar grip of his sword and spins his pistol into existence, tucked tight against his chest, and fights.
(He's exhausted. His body remembers the sensation of pain and the horrible swallowing weakness that followed, the sticky fabric of his blood-soaked uniform. He doesn't know how he got his arm back, and he's too wary of its sudden reappearance to try calling the lightning. But he fights anyway.)
The voice comes in the middle of a sweep of his sword; it stutters, and he has to leap back to avoid a slash of claws, dripping ichor and wickedly sharp. He knows that voice. ]
Lune!
[ Another slash of his sword and the thing's head rolls; he stands a moment, chest heaving, looking around for the source of it. ]
Where are you? Can you send up a flare, give me a sign?
oh yeah, totally gonna be spoilers. also BONJOUR
Of all the people for her to hear, this surely would be the one to force her to drop her guard. ]
You can't be here.
[ It leaves her thoughts without her consent, her heart thundering through the pain. Some part of her wants to believe it, wants to cling so tightly to the hope that she isn't alone. But this has to be a trick. And in the middle of everything falling apart, she can't afford to be deceived.
Lune grasps that connection even as she's running, looking. If she can find him, then maybe she can find the deceiver. (Maybe she can find Gustave.)
She calls out again, more focused this time. ]
Who are you? [ Demanding, wary. ] You can't trick me into believing you're Gustave.
BONJOUR MON AMI also I owe u a meme tag but fuck it we ball
Lune, putain—
[ An exasperated mingle of French and English filters through the connection, accompanied by a cocktail of emotions of his own: hope and blade-sharp longing to see his friend and frustration, along with a flush of real anger and aggression when he turns to see another strange, four-legged thing with too many tendrils where its mouth should be, baying as it runs toward him.
He has no idea how to convince her he's real, and that he could also very much use her help, and the creature gives him no time to think before it's leaping for him. He holds his ground, squeezing off a shot that hits it in the chest and sends it yelping into a collapsed heap, and rattles off a hurried thought along the connection that has somehow sprung into being. ]
You grew up with Tristan. You love viennoiseries almost as much as you love protocol.
[ Come on, Lune. Who else would tease you about clinging tightly to protocol, the way you are doing in this exact moment. ]
Just in case I am Gustave, you could help me out with some of those putains d'sparks of yours before I have to shoot these down on my own all day or get pathetically eaten. Your choice.
you are so good don't even worry about it (p.s. spoils all the way down)
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