[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

[barberian]

It's not what I want, (Yasha tries, frustrated. She is staring at the ground too. She has always been bad at talking about what she wants, and the situation is now so uncomfortable that she is close to leaving, but she holds herself fast in place because– well, she has it in her head that Beau deserves more than that.

They are friends. Or, at least, Yasha thinks that they are. As close to friends that she can ever get with anybody save for Mollymauk. She closes her eyes with a sigh, and gathers herself, and tries again. Her gaze remains trained on her feet.)

I am not mad at you, (she says eventually, gesturing with one hand.) I am mad at the situation, and I... need time. That is why I want to go, because I need space to think. But I am not mad at you.

(It's the truth. The plain, stumbled over truth of the whole situation, as stark and as open as Yasha can bear to put it. She already feels guilty for having pulled Beau off of her feet earlier, but isn't sure how to apologise without it sounding forced.)

[lesbeau]

[Beau would argue that she doesn't deserve much of anything, if the universe has anything to say about it. Yasha's well within her rights to go down swinging, and so is she. But sometimes she forgets that Yasha and Molly were so close-- it's times like this, in quiet honesty, that her perceptions are found wrong.

It's making her realize, for all the time she's spent with the Nein, she barely knows Yasha at all.

Beau sighs, crossing her arms.]

Fine. I'm not stopping you, just... go on.

[If anyone doesn't know how to apologize, it's her. Didn't she make a commitment to be better? Didn't she say she was going to be a better person?

So much for that.]

See you when we wake up.

[barberian]

(Yasha sucks in a breath and huffs it out again; she's felt misunderstood by people before, this is not a first for her. She is bad at explaining herself, it is why Mollymauk clicks so well with her. He just knows, and doesn't have to ask her anything. He understands her. She forgets that not everybody has this same ease.

She doesn't know how to convey to Beau that she is not leaving, she just wants to be alone for a couple of hours. That she's sorry for pulling her off the ground before. That she doesn't know how to deal with her grief, with the bad memories that it triggers, and she certainly doesn't know how to ask for help with it. Beau... is not making it very easy for her, either. Yasha doesn't know what to do. She tried, she laid it out as neatly as she could but Beau still doesn't get it. What else can she do?

This inner turmoil manifests in her standing very still in place, obviously struggling with herself. Then, she slowly turns, and she starts to walk away. At least she knows how to do this.)

[lesbeau]

[Don't worry, Yasha. Beau doesn't know how to say that either. But she's never had a friend like that, someone to relieve that all-important tension. It's just her, and her messy words and her messed up head and her fists. She can't expect Yasha to do something with that, to waste her time on the way Beau is treating her. And maybe that's by design. Control how they hate you. Control what little you have.

So she lets Yasha go, head tilted down, settling back on the ground into a familiar pose. She won't meditate now. But she'll lie and say she is, purposefully letting her form fall.

It's hard to live a life of solitude. Double so when you do it to yourself.]