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𝐧𝐩𝐜 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐜𝐭
SLEEP
A manipulative enigma with grand presence and power within The Murmur that rivals that of a god, and many already treat Her as such. She is everywhere and nowhere at once. Call to her, and she may answer you. She may even treat you, if you treat her, but be prepared to sacrifice. Painful offerings and loyalty are her favorite gifts of devotion (She's also a hopeless romantic).
The Numerals and Espera seem to despise Her, and One is inexplicably bound to Her. What Sleep has disclosed about Her intentions seem quite simple: Collect more Vessels to host Her power, expand past the Earth She's tied to, and deliver them all from loneliness and prolonged suffering to a divine eutopia only She can create.
For that, She needs One.
The Numerals and Espera seem to despise Her, and One is inexplicably bound to Her. What Sleep has disclosed about Her intentions seem quite simple: Collect more Vessels to host Her power, expand past the Earth She's tied to, and deliver them all from loneliness and prolonged suffering to a divine eutopia only She can create.
For that, She needs One.
ONE
A somber, shy and elusive individual that better expresses himself through poetry and song. One's past is shrouded in mystery, tragedy and his own amnesia, but hinted to hold an incredible power that not even he is aware of. One has devoted his entirety to Sleep through blood sacrifice in an attempt to skew Her attention from the vessels to himself, but whether that was successful or not has yet to be known.
Vessels have been made recently aware that One has suffered Lunar Exaltation before the world was destroyed: An ascension, from mortal to more, and a beacon of power that remains the reason why Sleep seeks to claim him.
Vessels have been made recently aware that One has suffered Lunar Exaltation before the world was destroyed: An ascension, from mortal to more, and a beacon of power that remains the reason why Sleep seeks to claim him.
TWO
Not much is known about the Numeral Two, other than he is an expressive and unburdened Token, mute but not idle. He was very close to One before being thrown into a voided plane of existence by Sleep's hand, and scattered into fragments. Espera claims he is essential to returning One to his senses and putting an end to Sleep's reign.
Currently missing, but one fragment has been found.
Currently missing, but one fragment has been found.
THREE
An impish Offering of the Trickster variant, the Numeral Three has a playful disposition and colorful means of expression. Rather chaotic but not malicious, he takes the form of three-eyed corvids, cacatuas, and foxes with frequency, while answering riddles fuels his permanance for brief bursts. His connection with the Waking World is stronger than Two's, but in no less need of mending.
Currently his appearances are unreliable; He may be seen in shared dreams or when he has enough power to solidify from the Void's realm.
Currently his appearances are unreliable; He may be seen in shared dreams or when he has enough power to solidify from the Void's realm.
FOUR
The first Numeral to vanish and the last to be found. Not much is known about Four, other than having a very strong connection with Three.
Currently missing.
Currently missing.
ESPERA
Revealed to be Nymphai, The Espera were birthed from One's exaltation and were meant to guide him on his journey from mortal to more before being barred by Sleep. She, (or they), is (are) a singular entity of three bodies, which are missing in a similar manner to the Numerals.
She has a stronger presence within the Murmur but too weak to manifest physically, and is always watching to aid the Vessels in any way she can.
NAME5
PB NAME
PB NAME
Info Five Here
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Though he doesn't smile, she's grinning enough for the both of them, buoyed by the resplendent answer of his voice. There is a sense of solidarity in this song as it picks up the deep thrum of the earth; not quite a bassline, but even deeper, the primal pulse of the root system that links all living things. Delight rings in the bells, comfort eases over the flute. If he has something to hide, she will help him tuck it away. If he is brave enough to wander, then she is willing to guide him.
The song finds the longing pull of strings, as well. High and quiet at first, sounding more like curiosity or question. But it becomes lower, fuller, as they fill this space together, and Kalmiya becomes more comfortable in her place within it. As she grows warmer and drifts nearer. As near as she dares—as close as he'll let her, hand still intwined with his as they dance.
In the rich current of the strings, there is hunger, as well. An ache, a yearning, a hole to be filled. But never does it overwhelm the flutes and bells, nor the deep resonance of connection. It harmonizes as sweetly as One's voice, playing along without request, without expectation.]
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the sweetness of the moment, the levity, the liberty, is chased out. a dark presence hangs above them, unseen, but it is more than enough to cause one's immediate retreat. he pulls his hands away, his body whole, his lips dry and a tremor slithering through him with enough momentum to make the quaking visible.
if there was even a bit of connection there, it has now snapped. one almost quickly returns to the step of the pedestal, and sinks to his knees, hands up in reverence. worship. yet, that doesn't look much like respect. it looks like fear in disguise. he seems to whisper something to her:
kneel. ]
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In that moment she stands by, she sees him supplicate. And in his fearful deference she sees many other things too. Neatly regimented crowds of worshipers in modest clothes, dyed only with the pigments not reserved for greater purpose, kneeling before her in desperate congregation. Herself, upon her own pedestal, leading that congregation in feverish, fraudulent devotion. Herself, smaller, weaker, a child in a meditation chamber begging for the vision that would save her, for the power that would never come.
The anger that burns in her blood is blinding. Equal parts righteous and vengeful, it propels her forward along the path of One's footsteps, a flash of furious gold in his wake. With one powerful leap—is it the memory of the Feywild which grants her weightlessness, or is it the pure, feral strength of an Offering given purpose?—she ascends to the plateau of the pedestal.
Whether she is physically allowed to land at One's side does not matter. When she lands—if she lands—it is with feet planted firmly, shoulders squared, face upturned as she rips her mask away from her face in violent, defiant instinct.
There is no room for fear. There is only the anger that touches every cell in her body, every pathway of her mind, every step of her feet since she made the deadly trek through the desert away from her wretched hometown.
She says nothing, and she does not kneel.]
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You trespass upon my sanctum.
[ The weight of it drops like a shroud, each word a chain that binds. One, already on his knees, bows lower, as though the gravity of her presence pulled him down further still. Sleep did not need to touch him to mark him; the crown of her dominion was already pressed into his spine. She did not look at him— there was no need. He was hers. ]
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Pain is written into the tight lines of her expression and the tremble in her legs. Her stance is no longer tall and proud, but bent, braced, bearing this unbearable weight. Still, she does not kneel.
With a laugh like fire and venom, she repeats, incredulous and hateful:] Trespass? You started it, shoving your awful little fingers into my dreams!
[Kalmiya, too, does not look at One, though it is not out of dismissal or disregard. It is a fiery refusal to look away from the point she is making, the challenge she issues with the wild spark of her own divine fury in her eyes.]
Don't plant seeds if you aren't prepared for the things they'll grow into!
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My Sweet,
[ a claw, the size of kalmiya's head, curves under the softness of her jawline, the delicate, plush skin under it scraped at with gentle regard. ]
This is my garden.
My dream.
You . . .
[ she tilts upwards, to face her crushing wonders in full, ]
Act like blight rather than blooms. That is a shame.
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It's a curious feeling to be touched by Sleep; it brings to the forefront an ugly war within herself, her bone-deep revulsion for gods and masters in a violent tangle with her desperate need for companionship and love. Is this how One feels? Is this how he has felt for years— decades— eons, at her every touch? What a miserable existence.
She cannot meet all six eyes at once, gargantuan as they are. Meeting even one causes the tremor in her spine to spread to the rest of her body. Not out of fear, or even rage, but the crushing natural order of being a mortal in the presence of a god. The tightness in her chest is nauseating, the pressure behind her eyes dizzying.
Her sneer is a nasty thing in the shape of a smile, the aposematic indication of poison beneath whatever Sleep calls my Sweet.] Blight is as natural as blooming. If you can't accept that, maybe it's time to give up on keeping a garden.
no subject
[ her voice echoes in thousands of tones, merging into one like a flock of songbirds, and the words drip cold as sap down the ribs of her certainty. she her yapping, and growling . . . yet she does not bit. it is almost cute, and kalmiya invites her to play. she does not know the game she is inviting. ]
I need not give up my garden.
[ A pause— a sound like wind through bone. black thorns unfurl from the floor of the dream and curl around kalmiya's ankles, gentle as a lover's hand, cruel like the world's disasters. ]
I simply could just give up on you.
[ the dark, slime-like roots take hold of her, envelop her— until kalmiya is wrapped in painful binds, but there is something else that tugs. something else that sleep plays with along her fingertips, pulled taut like golden strings. her tethers, within what the murmur looks like to sleep. a massive network of threads expanding across nebulae. ]
Wilting thing.
Never loved.
Always used.
If my freedom is not of your tastes,
I could always send you back.
[ her claw tugs on one of kalmiya's tethered strings until the sharpness of it cuts through it, causing a a low, resonant snap— the sound of a tether cut in the dark. one after another, invisible cords peel off her skin; she feels the weightlessness of being unmoored, the panic of a bird whose wings have been clipped mid‑flight. her connections taken from her like a piece of her dying an agonizing death by sudden suffocation. each and every one. a pain like no other. a solitude that is worse than any physical torture. ]
No roots.
No chains.
No bonds.
No love.
No burden.
[ she will destroy each and every one. leaving a devastating pause in between each one. ]
That seems like what you want, Kalmiya.
And I provide, for all my Vessels
Whether they choose to worship
Or not.
no subject
The bindings, though disgusting and painful as their thorns dig into her, do not tell her much about the rules of this game—aside from how unbalanced it is in power, as her instinct to phase out of the tangle of roots hits only a wall where her magic used to be. Where she finally feels the brush of the drawn line is the pressure upon her tethers, the weight of Sleep's horrible fingers on the bonds she's managed to forge here.
Icy terror seizes her in the infinitesimal moment when the string is drawn too tight, when breakage is inevitable, and then—
—snap.
There is nothing where love used to be.
She does not scream, because the sound that would come from the squeeze of her throat is suffocated by its own intensity, her voice breaking before it even reaches her mouth. It's worse than vertigo, worse than freefall, worse than having her still-beating heart ripped from the protective cage of her ribs before the rest of her body is kicked off the precipice.
One by one, they are ripped from her in this way. Wriothesley; The Forsaken; Aventurine; Cooper; Freddie; Ranni; Ash; Sharon; Toki; Arthur. The stronger the bond, the more strands braided into the Tether, the more agonizing it is when it's severed. She cannot retreat into the hard shell of shock, because this is beyond the physical, beyond anything her body could possibly protect her from. Every part of this pain is felt in every part of her being. It is, without a doubt, the worst thing she has ever felt. It may be the worst thing she will ever feel.
Perhaps she cries. She cannot tell, so consuming is the agony of having so much love ripped from her. It feels like an eternity that she sits in that flayed state, blood and being dripping from the holes left behind, her very self weeping slowly from the open wounds.
Limp within her bindings, voice ragged and small, she eventually speaks; it doesn't sound like her. It doesn't feel like her. But it is a part of her—the part left behind, the part that clings to the people she made her home before the wretched touch of this dream sunk its claws into her soul.]
...is what I would go back to...worse than this?
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The steady nectar of Tethers
Native only to my chancel.
You will never be the same.
You will never want less.
[ even in one's hearts of hearts, even if it's something that hurts too much to lose, it hurts even more to be without. the void is trecherous. even the strongest of vessels succumb to their solitude. to be sent back . . . would be unthinkable. sleep dips her head, her marvelous antlers like trees in bloom. ]
To be without them
Is worse than death itself,
No?
[ she knows it is the heart to every living thing in her network, in the vastness of her expanse. when sleep strides back to kalmiya, the thorns and vines have loosened, come apart in the ink black backdrop of the astral plane they sit in. after watching the vessel with a short bout of stirness, pity takes hold of her, urging to being to dip her hands and card through the woman's hair, cradle her face. ]
Fear not,
I am merciful in my cultivation
I shall not abandon you, wilting petal.
But to banish the blight
I must clean out your infected roots
And nurse your axis
Back to health.
[ and possessively preen her beautiful golden locks. ]
Return to them, Vessel
Tell them
Learn my ways
My wonders
And worship proper
So you may never earn this side of me again.
no subject
She flinches as an animal once bitten expecting another strike when Sleep's fingers brush her again, the harsh movement kicking up another wave of nauseous vertigo and cold sweat. But she is in no more position to resist it than she was the first time. In fact, vivisected as she feels by the violent removal of her Tethers, she aches to fill the cavity of her being with something, anything, even the disgusting touch of this god. It is both repulsive and intoxicating to be handled by Sleep in this manner. She is too weakened to do anything but lean into the addictive cradle of her massive palms.
It makes one thing very clear:
she can't go back now.
Not for want of Tethers—not for need of an intimacy that her world cannot provide. She cannot go back because she is blighted. However, it is not an illness born of her own hatred, as Sleep suggests. It is a pathogen of Sleep herself, and so long as Kalmiya carries it, she cannot go back to her world. She cannot risk letting it touch that precious place or spread to the people she cherishes, nor can she leave those she's grown to care about here to succumb to it in her absence. As long as this touch brings her any measure of comfort, there is no place or person that is safe from the blight.
She must clean the infected roots. This world must be rid of Sleep.
Only once it is nursed back to health can Kalmiya return home.
It is an understanding so intuitive as to be unconscious when Sleep strokes her hair, the magical flow of the locks limp and listless in her pain. Every muscle throbs with the ache of solitude and the yearning of the lonely. She can barely focus on the beautiful blooms of Sleep's antlers as she is beseeched to preach the word. To worship.
Never before has biting her tongue tasted so much like blood in her mouth as she gives her word. At the letter, never the spirit. The Fey have taught her well how to twist her tongue and promise what she is not truly willing to give.] I'll tell them.
[She will tell them—warn them. She will learn the ways and the wonders, come to understand why the ancient Vessels and Hosts worship the way they do. And in the end, she will use it all to rip Sleep from the sick loam of this world.
Her plea feels pathetic and small, the words leaving her the way blood seeps from a wound.] Please don't hurt him. It was my fault.
[The ancient Vessel. The choir, the clergy, the high priest. One. If this is how he has ever been made to feel, Kalmiya cannot bear to let it happen again on her account.]
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I need not hurt him.
Kneel sweetly,
Just as he does.
Yield to me,
Just as he does,
And you will remain forgiven of your tresspasses,
Just as he does.
[ and with a sickening crrrrrk that sounds like bone, sleep is gone. the void undone. kalmiya will find herself on the lower levels of the banquet, and one, high on his pedestal. he dares not look at her. ]
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From her crumpled position, she steals a sideways glance up along the pedestal. But she cannot catch a glimpse of One's eyes.
Rocked by another wave of disorientation as she makes to stand, she cannot focus now on how that makes her feel, because she cannot focus on any feeling except the gaping hollowness inside of her, the ragged edges of the wound aglow with rage. Finding privacy is not as easy an ask outside of the basement, but she'll find a spot to curl up and lick her wounds until waking.
Not before whispering to One, though, the quietest of bells carried along the weak breeze from that primal forest:
I understand now, why you're afraid.
But I'm not giving up. You shouldn't, either.]