Who: Everyone visiting the asteroid
When: April 30, day to late night
Where: Asteroid 276, Thisavrou
Warnings: Disturbing imagery, nightmares (?), descriptions of blood and vomiting.

event log

Over the past month, relations with Asteroid 276 have transpired peacefully. Many visitors observed the self-proclaimed recluse of improvement. Some spoke with the Greeter. Some pursued modifications. Some shared stories of their lives. No effort was made to breach the commune's privacy, harm its inhabitants, or break its rules. In turn, the asteroid's inhabitants provided examples of their work.

As a result of your actions, negotiations are successful.

Asteroid 276 is to become a long-term trade partner of Thisavrou. Its universal signature will be saved on file, with trade representatives visiting every quarter-cycle. They will bring a steady supply of resources and requests, and the commune will turn their skills to any of the problems that face the twin planets, whether in curing plagues or helping individuals.

To celebrate this alliance, a gathering is held in the welcome wing of the asteroid. All who participated in the assessment are invited, and if some might find the lack of bar brawls disappointing, certainly the meal can't be faulted. With a full month to refine their produce to the preferences of visitors, the commune offers tables full of dishes to suit a wide array of palates and digestive tracts. The vegetables and meats may not come from the sources you're used to, but they certainly taste close enough-- taste better.

Mild intoxicants are available for those who choose to partake, and crowds of researchers proudly show off some of their projects around the edges of the room. A near-transparent insect flits up and down on gossamer-thin wings, appearing almost to teleport with its speed. A limbless expanse of furred green membrane encases a sick rodent... only to expel it moments later, with all trace of disease gone. The creators prefer to show rather than tell, but the Greeter makes her rounds around the room: to explain to the curious and draw out the shy. And most of all, to express her gratitude.

"Centuries of isolation. Millennia of fear. And you have given us a chance to move forward."
"Truly, I cannot thank you enough."

The night ends. All parties return home. There's a hum to the Ingress, a strange bout of nausea, but it passes quickly enough. So does your ride across the EN-Line. All guests, even those who partook lightly, will find a sleepy fullness settling upon them. Perhaps you sleep?

Certainly, you dream.

You dream of a wide emptiness, a place with neither up nor down but joy and kin and kindness all around. You dream of poisonous fury, of vengeance and loss so complete that you could scream forever and not vent a fraction of the pain. Of blood, blood, blood, thick enough to paint your skin and hide. You have to. You want to. You rip it from them gleefully, but there's so, so much you find yourself drowning. It's filling your lungs, surging up through your throat--

(Some of you may dream of slightly more.)

Wherever your dream takes you, it ends with nausea. With retching. You come to consciousness to find your body already reacting: you're outside, upright, purging the contents of your stomach over the nearest balcony or into a trash chute. The world is still twisting before your eyes, and it may take a moment for reality to settle. A moment longer to realize you're not the only one outside. Maybe you take some time to talk. Maybe (eventually) you realize you need to go clean up the mess.

There is no mess.

Maybe you dreamed it?

Still, the hunger in your belly persists-- for days, in some cases. And with it, an odd quiet, an emptiness in the back of your skull. Like waiting for an echo that won't come. Thisavrou's physicians can find no symptoms worse than mild indigestion, and only those who work around the Ingress are likely to hear the other strange occurrence of that night. The rumors are unsubstantiated--wild, and those who chatter too openly about them on shift are encouraged to take some time off. Still, the words carry: Asteroid 276 is gone.

What that means? Interpretations vary. Feel free to do some research, or come up with your own.

[[ooc: Check out the OOC post if you have questions! More information, especially on the dream portions, will be inside.]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Yes. Of course. The breath escapes their lungs in a protracted hiss - not quite a sigh, and certainly not of relief, but they're both starting to swing around into a territory they can navigate, together. Feeling ill is perfectly normal, is it not? It is perfectly normal, and the pair of them, why, they're well-acquainted with it, aren't they?

The urge to laugh bubbles in their throat, a poisonous swelling beneath their tongue that they have to choke down. At this, at all this - and it isn't even funny! The reversal of their roles, the way they're now the one supporting him through his inexplicable illness, even if this time around it was not pre-planned as part of a poorly-advised attempt at murder-suicide, but rather -

What?

What, then?]

Let's get inside.

[Tone low, careful, controlled. Soothing. (That's a joke; as if anything they're capable of could or would be, in any way, a consolation.) Breaths deep and slow and even, a foundation upon which he may ground himself.

Words measured, and even, burning away the tremor that threatens to overwhelm them.]

When did this start?

[Asriel lets Chara lead, his steps slow and unsteady as he follows.]

When I woke up...

[No that's... not quite right.]

I felt a little sick when I came home tonight, but it wasn't like this. It was after that dream.

[The dream feels important, but he's not sure why.]

[Guiding him all the way back to bed would not be conducive to actual progress, they should think. Frisk would wake up, assuming they've not been fitfully sleeping already, and it would be - significantly farther, they think, than Asriel has the stamina for.

They settle for the kitchen. Steering him toward one of the chairs after scraping it away from the table with a nudge of one toe.]

Dream?

[Coupled with the unconscious sharpening of their tone, and that is - too much, isn't it, too harsh, too cruel. Can they ever be anything but? A grimace, a breath, and they Continue.]

What sort of dream?

[Sitting down comes as a welcome relief. It feels easier to talk this way too.

There's nothing in Chara's tone that seems to bother Asriel. In fact, all he wants to do for the moment is just keep listening to their voice. It gives him something to focus on, other than just this sickness.]

... It was really weird. Like it didn't even feel like my dream. All I remember was this big ocean, but it was all blood.

[Which sounds like the edgiest fucking thing to dream about but stay with him.]

And I was... drowning. It was sticking to me and I couldn't get it off, and there was a figure I didn't recognize in the middle of the ocean. I didn't know them, but they... they knew me. And they were so... cruel.

They reached out to touch me, and the last thing I remember was melting... and then I woke up.

[Their expression darkens immediately, and they glance - away, aside. The last thing he needs, at this moment, is to feel that this is somehow his fault. That they're unhappy with him, and not the content of his dream. An ocean filled with blood, and then melting, and a muscle in their jaw tightens, pulling their teeth together as though bared.]

You've...never had a dream like this before?

[It sounds along the lines of no, he has not, but it's prudent to make sure.

And they've been sitting here, interrogating him, instead of doing what a best friend should and would do and actually taking steps to make him feel better, and they're not the greatest person, no, nor even the greatest friend,cannot be more like Frisk, because they are far too diametrically opposed to that softened-edge forgiveness that Frisk practically radiates, and waking Frisk now over this would be both selfish and stupid. Mostly the former.

Chara stands. Possibly too abruptly.]

Do you want... [They realize too late they didn't entirely conceptualize what it is they meant to do in the vein of "comforting Asriel" prior to taking action, and grope for the first thing that comes to mind.]

...tea?

[Asriel glances up, but it's not hard to catch onto what Chara's implying.

Asriel's had so many nightmares he's barely been able to keep track of them all. Nightmares of resetting, of killing the people you once called family, watching your own sibling dying painfully as you realize in horror what "the plan" actually was all along. And yes, he even dreamed of a sea of angry villagers and the fate that followed.

But it wasn't the same. The fear might've been, but this was... something that Asriel couldn't grasp at, no matter how hard he tried. It was too dark and suffocating - and he had dreams like that too. Locked in a dark cell and left to rot away.]

No, I haven't.

[Chara's offer gets him to pause.]

Um, I'd... I'd like some tea, if that's okay.

[Despite Chara offering probably means it's okay.]

[It's no surprise, really, that he has nightmares. Most people would, having lived through what he's lived through. They still wake with the tang of their own sweat bitter against their tongue, the recollection of the patterned bruising, the sharp crack and report of a firing gun, the sensations of coming apart at the seams and falling to dust despite having the power to destroy everything.

It'll be fine, though. It'll be fine. They've gotten up and they're in the kitchen so it's simply a matter of setting the kettle to heat on the stove, and picking through the boxes of tea piled in the cupboards. They'd remembered to buy tea. How could they ever forget?

Lavender is good for soothing strained nerves. For nightmares.

Their fa -

Asgore.

He told them that, once.]

It isn't real. [That much, at the very least, they can say for certain.] That doesn't mean it doesn't...stay with you.

[Asriel watches them work, his own queasiness subsiding. He's still shaken by the whole thing - it's not like he doesn't have a lot of nightmares, but they're... familiar? In some weird way, he could sort of predict what was going to happen. Terrified faces of his friends and family, a dark cell, those were things he knew.

He didn't understand this dream.]

It wasn't my dream. [That part... feels important?] It felt like... I was in someone's else dream? I don't know how to describe it. It's not what I usually dream about.

[They've not asked about the content of his dreams, just as they've not asked that which populates Frisk's. They're certain enough of the general subject matter that doing so would result in little more than the stirring of things best left forgotten.

Still, it gives them pause. Tea leaves deposited into the kettle, the heating and steeping of the water, the machine-gun tin rattle of the steam tap-tapping at the metal interior.

They digest the words quietly, a faint crease dimpling their brow.]

What happened? In - the dream?

Asteroid 276: Conclusion

event log

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject