aftr_stories | [MU] - FEELING LIKE A GHOST (PART II)

[MU] - FEELING LIKE A GHOST (PART II)

"No, no...no!"

The Storyteller's voice cuts through the inkdrop-dark, frantic and scrambling. A distant blot of campfire gutters in the far distance - far from where you are. The disorientation of the week preceding this one has translated into Mu, and everything is hopelessly out of place. The Storyteller sounds muffled, clearly addressing someone or something else, their voice cushioned by the uniform, void-like night.

"Stop it. Stop it! I wasn't gone for very long at all. You can't behave for two weeks? You have to make it all...all...wrong? I can't keep this up - not with what I've had to do since returning - !"

Gradually, however, the shadowy campsite solidifies into being. Or...a semblance of it does, in any case. Four glistening pyres rear out from the shadows, each glowing a different color. The strange material that domes them almost resembles worked steel, forming different patterns against their multicolored backdrops.

[ ♆ ] The first glows a deep crimson, kicking scarlet embers into the dream-night air. Its pit sphere portrays a crowd of people in silhouette, heads bowed in genuflection - paying homage to some looping, many-coiled shape in the sky above.

[ ♆ ] The second glows a deep orange. Its pit sphere is worked into the shape of a looming mountain, with what might be some sort of village or ruin sprawled at its base.

[ ♆ ] The third's flames are a rich green. Its designs are most abstract; the starburst patterns that swirl across the metallic composition of its fire pit sphere could be explosions, maybe...or something else entirely.

[ ♆ ] The fourth pyre is one bearing host to golden flames, amber sparks sprayed out from behind the shape of a set of scales nestled among a flurry of birdlike shapes.

Beside each pyre is heaped a pile of sticks, colored to correspond to their respective flames. The Storyteller sounds agitated when they manage to speak again:

"Will you let them at least make the choice I left to gave them?" When there is no response, they sigh. "If you can hear me...I can't make it clearer than that, at the moment. Pick one. Pick one, quickly, and try to get out before it decides to make things worse! Just add a stick to whichever one looks best to you!"

Unfortunately, whether you abstain from voting or make your choice, that's not all there is to this night...

Tonight's Storytelling, further warped by Mu's capricious nature, will likely feel familiar to those of you who were with us in December of the year prior. Only this time, you don't get much choice in what kind of story you're telling...or, indeed, any choice in the matter at all. As you wake by the Storytelling campfire, Mu shifts to form three separate events from your character's present - which is to say, within one full year of their current canonpoint - in the most stark and painstaking of detail. There is no altering the memory, nor is there any preventing it once it's begun to play. You will simply have to witness memories that are not your own this go around.

Furthermore, stories that take place in worlds other than LifeAftr will be, frankly, inevitable. Those memories, too, will be recreated, to be relived by the teller and lived by the listener.

While the initial setting will be familiar for oldcomers, and newcomers will recognize it from the introduction they received in their dreams, things will be far more similar to the memory share that occurred in December. All memories must be from within one year of your character's canonpoint. For questions, please refer to our OOC event post!

Even those who prefer not to voice their stories aloud are not safe this time around. The memory does not need to be willingly recalled in essence in order for Mu will shift to accommodate it in full.

Just like the last time this happened, all memories will be worth two offerings each, as if in compensation. So at least there's that!

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[They don't really know him, and he doesn't know them, but...then again, how much of the Guardian's life can the Drifter say they're familiar with, truly? Everything they know about them they learned as they lay dying, killed by the illness that constricted their insides, their clock run out. Everything about them they learned in those final, fatal moments: that they missed their spouse and their child, and that the same sickness that claimed them both had finally caught up to them.]

[But that's not what puzzles them, in this case. It's more...]

they are here now

[That surprises him, which is perhaps noticeable from the way he sits up straighter as soon as he reads it, his shoulders squared and stiff. It's only for a moment; he slouches again soon enough, frowning.]

[Really. They're here now, are they? Despite this very clear memory of their death?]

[... as far as karma goes, he can't figure out whetherthat's good, or just too fucking cruel to wrap his head around. But not impossible, given how messed up this place can be. He eyes his friend again, wishing he could see more of their face, that he was better at discerning their unique ways of expressing themself; he can't really work out how they feel about that. Instead of asking, he pushes on.]

... in that case, I guess I'd better thank them properly to their face, then.

[This isn't something with which they have a great deal of experience: new friends meeting old. Having friends at all, in fact, is something of a strange and difficult experience in its newness, and they cannot be entirely sure they are always doing it correctly.]

[It does very little good to fret over the intricacies of such a thing, however. And so they do not.]

they are the guardian

[The Guardian. The Drifter. Do they even have names where they're from? He won't say it, but the more Ichimatsu slowly uncovers the context clues that his friend gives to him, the more he starts to think that their world is just fucking garbage. He's not direct enough to ask them about it outright, though, so he decides to content himself with his assumptions for now.]

[He steals one more glance at the Guardian's body; and then he looks away from it, not intending to look again. There's no point, if this isn't the last time he's going to be seeing them. He inclines his head towards the Drifter instead.]

... makes sense. Well, you should introduce me sometime.

[It's a little forced, because Ichimatsu doesn't really do meeting people. But he can make exceptions.]

[Well, it's not an ideal world. The Drifter glances at the shaded-out memory. Wonders if it would be prudent to warn Ichimatsu that their friend was even less fortunate than the Drifter, who had not had much time to grow attached to much of anyone before the world required their sacrifice.]

[The Guardian had lost more than the Drifter thinks they ever can, or ever will.]

ok

have you seen anything else

[They're asking if Ichimatsu's memories are also spinning out for everyone to see, but they are doing it...poorly.]

[His expression pinches a little, but he's not offended by the question itself.]

... nothing worth talking about. Stuff with my brothers, I guess.

[hard to think of a memory in his life where they weren't present, even tangentially. It was nice. Mostly.]

Anyway, that's not important. Once I started thinking about it... hasn't this sort of thing happened before? I'm more worried about that than anything else.

yes
it is the dreams

[As vague an explanation as anything the Drifter ever offers. The reasoning makes perfect sense in their head: the god ensures this land of dreams does not get out of control, and when the god is absent, the land takes full advantage of the lack of supervision, and so they ought to be on their guard. But their means of communicating that are not always best. Or, at times, at all effective.]

do not know how to stop it

[Well, dying in a dream tends to wake one up, Ichimatsu recalls, but that seems like an extremely inappropriate thing to suggest with the memory-corpse of the Drifter's friend resting right in front of them. And Christ, believe it or not, he's had his fill of death for a good while, anyway.]

Sometimes a bad dream just has to work itself out.

[His voice is dull, but apologetic. He wishes there was more he could do.]
[... well.]

... I'm here, though. Wanna talk about something else until this is all over?

[It's maybe just as inappropriate, but Ichimatsu doesn't see a reason to let the Drifter sit here in the dark, agonizing over someone they can see as soon as everyone wakes up. This memory is just a cruel place keeping them from using their second chance. He's too annoyed by it to acknowledge it as something worth respectful treatment, anymore.]

[Perhaps. Death is not a surefire method of escaping a dream. Too often they have endured Judgment's crush and press, its method of riddling them with holes and tearing them to pieces and squashing them to jelly. That did not jar them into waking. It was a sort of death, in some respects.]

[It was a sort of death.]

like what

[The Drifter is not known to be a prime conversationalist, but...if that is what their friend would like, they will at least try.]

[Ichimatsu just barely suppresses a sigh. He's not exactly good at this, either. Instead, he pulls his knees up and folds his arms over them, determined not to give the memory any more of his attention - or theirs.]

[He's quiet for a few good beats, just staring blankly ahead. Finally, his gaze slides back to them.]

Why do you like dogs so much?

[It is a simple question, with a simple answer, but the explaining of that answer, like most things, is the hard part. Largely because the Drifter is poorly equipped to handle any explanation. They're the absolute worst at any and all manner of exposition.]

[How do they explain it - that the god that guided them was a jackal, and that there are multitudes of deities that evidently prefer to take the form of a creature that is, simply put, innate and understandable in how disarmingly friendly it is by nature?]

some are holy

[That's not what he expected. He didn't really pin them as the pious type, either... but maybe it has to do with them being so sick. Who knows? There's nothing wrong with it, either way, but it's definitely not his comfort zone as far as conversational topics go.]

[Well... it's not like he's doing this for him, though.]

Yeah? How can you tell?

[Again, they must hesitate, struggling to find the words necessary. In the end, they settle for that which others they know have done, unconsciously picking up on visual shorthand. They crouch down, and start to draw in the dirt with the pointed tip of one gloved finger. The shape is rudimentary, but distinct - a doglike snout with a pair of eyes and some large, pointed ears.]

the god that guided me
roused me from death time and time again
took the shape of a jackal

Is a jackal really a dog, though?

[More than anything, Ichimatsu's voice is gently amused, accepting the simplicity of the statement for what it is. He has no idea what's meant by roused from death, other than that his friend is usually too direct for that to be a metaphor, but he doesn't push it. The point is, they find dogs reliable. That's good for them.]

... we have some dogs in our religions, too. Inugami, Komainu... never met any of 'em, though. You must be lucky.

[Ichimatsu is also not very religious. But who is he to spit in the face of one who's met a god?]

doglike

[They amend it; doglike, and decided canid, and evoking that shape, but...there had been the dog in Central who ran freely over the great bulk of shadow, that sprawling mechanism that marked the entrance to the Immortal Cell's domain. The dog had run over it. All others had...]

[No one seemed to be willing - or able - to acknowledge it, besides.]

storyteller takes shape of dog
the white wolf
there are many

Ah, yeah. They are doglike... a lot of good people are like dogs, you know.

[His tone is a little distant, but agreeable. It's possible that the topic has reminded him of someone else. That is, until something seems to register with him, and Ichimatsu blinks at the Drifter with a sudden and curious puzzlement.]

Wait. The white wolf?

[The Drifter nods. Of course. There was never any question that she was something at least touched by the divine, if not divine herself. As little as she seems to wish to be...worshipped in the conventional sense. It has warped their understanding of how one should and should not handle the physical presence of a god, to be certain.]

yes
hallowed creature

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[MU] - FEELING LIKE A GHOST (PART II)

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