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

[lifeaftr_mods]

"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!

Comments

[want_to_belong]

[He frowned, side-eying her.]

It's not. But we've been able to stay safe when we stick together.

[tuskenlancer]

[ He...has a point. If she'd listened to Wash, if she'd trusted him, she would have been fine. He'd begged her to listen to him, and she'd completely brushed him off.

CT frowns in return, troubled and unhappy. ]

...I guess you're right.

It's just hard to know...who to trust, I guess. What's real and what's not.

[want_to_belong]

Guess I'm lucky in that way. I do know... I trust Iggy with my life. And Gladio, 'n Noct.

This place tries to screw with that, too, though.

[tuskenlancer]

Yeah.

I trust Wash, too. I...I thought I did.

[ The memories are still vague, but some of them are resurfacing a little now, making her stomach sink and her throat try to close up.

"C.T. Listen to me. Trust me. Do you still trust me?"

"I love you, Wash. But I trust him."

She shudders, looking away. ]

I guess I...didn't trust him enough.

[want_to_belong]

Got lucky that I was nagged. I didn't think it'd be a big deal to stick around home if it made people feel better.

[Being a people pleaser worked out for him in the instance.]

[tuskenlancer]

[ It's all too easy to imagine Gladio and Ignis insisting that Prompto stay with them, that they wanted and needed him around despite any forces trying to pull him the opposite direction, and she smiles. ]

I'm glad it worked.

[ Death may not be permanent here, but that doesn't mean that it's fun. If even one person was able to escape that, well, that's something. ]

...What do you think they're gonna do to us next?

[want_to_belong]

Yeah. Just wish I hadn't taken for granted that my friends were together.

[It had felt safe. The two of them, out together, what would go wrong? But he'd lost them, and it had hurt.]

Not sure what's coming next, but I plan on sticking close to the people I care about. If something happens... I want to be there to protect them. [Even if he'd die trying.]

[tuskenlancer]

[ She winces at that, only able to imagine what had happened, and nods. ]

Yeah...me, too.

[ Honestly, she's just lucky nothing had happened to Carolina or Wash. Not like she'd been in any state to protect them, if they'd been in danger. ]

[want_to_belong]

I think, next time, if something weird is going on we need like a one or two week period before we fully believe it's true.

[tuskenlancer]

I...guess so.

[ She tries to imagine that, imagine Tex or someone showing up and CT refusing to believe it's really her for weeks. Imagines how she would have felt if Wash had refused to believe CT was who she said she was. Refused to believe she was even real.

Prompto's right, she knows that, but her stomach still knots unhappily at the thought, and she gives him a weak smile. ]

Remind me, okay?

[want_to_belong]

Yeah.

I was prolly too quick to try and explain things away this time. Next time... I'd still hang out with Noct, but I'd keep things more on my terms.

[Phantom Noct had been kind of pushy, and Prompto had only gotten lucky.]

I shoulda known better when he was being... kinda mean.

[tuskenlancer]

Jealous.

[ She'd noticed it too, though it's hard to name specifics now that she can't remember just who she'd been following. ]

Just...didn't want you to talk to anyone else, right? Said you didn't need them. Or what you had to do was too important to wait.

[want_to_belong]

Yeah. He wanted to hang out, but he didn't want to hang out with everyone else. And when I didn't do what he wanted he would... accuse me of stuff.

[Some things that hurt even if he was a fake, because they hit too close to home.]

[tuskenlancer]

Accuse you?

[ She doesn't remember anything like that happening to her, but to be fair, she doesn't remember much. Her stomach turns over uneasily at the thought. ]

Accuse you of what?

[want_to_belong]

He'd... He'd say I was going to let him die.

[Hard to say, because he didn't want Noct to die at all, but he knew what their world had waiting for him. A little flustered, even now he tried to speak in his own defense over it.]

I told him that we were trying to find another way. But, he didn't listen.

[tuskenlancer]

I'm...I'm sorry.

[ She doesn't know any of the details. Why Noctis might have been in danger, what exactly he expected Prompto to do to help him. But she doesn't need to know. She knows Prompto, after all. She knows how much he cares about his friends. ]

You know that's not true, right? And that...that the real Noctis would never say that to you.

[want_to_belong]

[He shook his head. Though it still stung, he shouldn't let it. He knew it was fake.]

I know. It was pretty dumb of me to fall for it. Noct wouldn't say that. Not a chance.

Guess I just missed him so much that I ignored obvious signs.

[tuskenlancer]

No.

[ She's shaking her own head before he even finishes talking. ]

You weren't dumb. We were all...

[ She'd done it too. Ignored signs, or just refused to see them. Let things slide that she never should have, because she wanted so badly to believe.

She can't remember now what exactly she'd wanted. Or, more to the point, who. But she remembers Wash's panic, his pleading, and she remembers brushing it off.

She shifts from one foot to the other, uncomfortably. ]

We all just...missed them, I guess.

[want_to_belong]

Yeah. It'll be nice when he comes back for real.

[Because he held out on hope. Noct was going to come back, and they were going to do all their friend stuff again.]