lifeaftr | Exploration Event: Neverwere

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Exploration Event: Neverwere

EXPLORATION EVENT: NEVERWERE

Who: Everyone!
What: Your wildest dreams come true!
When: May 15th to May 18th
Where: Ziziphus, those still on Ensō...and Mu
Warnings: Mark as needed!

Then Know That My Life Was Just a Killer Dream
You can find most of the information you need in the OOC info post! In the meantime, feel free to use this log as a catch-all for your dream worlds, as well as detailing your efforts to free one another. Whether they're on Ziziphus or Ensō at the time of the dreams' capture, your character is free to access as many dreams as you like, as the interlocking mental landscape allows for that sort of crossing over apropos of nothing. And time, of course, is very fluid in dreams - many days, months, and years can transpire in a matter of mere minutes.

Will you fight your way free from Ziziphus's vines or Mu's thrall, or are you content to die in your sleep?

Remember to let us know if your character dies during this event!

Event Timeline

[ ♆ ] May 15th: The vines make their move, ensnaring characters in ideal fantasy worlds
[ ♆ ] May 17th: The Storyteller will make contact with those they can, as well as issue information and a potential solution
[ ♆ ] May 18th: Those that have not freed themselves from the vines or from Mu will suffer a death

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

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He's more puzzled than hurt, though he's definitely both. Lup's nothing if not volatile, even if that seemed...a little uncalled for. Maybe it's a side effect of their separation, and he feels a little guilty for that, though he can't say exactly why, or how he was meant to prevent it. So he just moves to another part of the kitchen, setting up a prep space slowly and carefully like that's where the uncertainty is, not with her.

He doesn't understand at all, but that's fine. That's kind of the point, he has legitimate curiosity about her situation, precisely because he wasn't there, but okay.

"You know, if it's top secret space stuff, that's all you had to say," he jokes, still with an excess of caution, eyes lowered. He'll circle back around to whatever this is with gentle persistence; he needs to know that she's happy with what she's doing, and that...is not how he would characterize that response.

"But hey, you wanna do my work for me, who am I to complain, start peeling something or get out of my kitchen."

He moves away, his eyes anywhere but on her and it feels like something's squeezing the air out of her chest. With a jolt she realizes what it is that's bothering her, it's a sense of, of being out of step? Like she doesn't quite know him as well as she should, or maybe like not being known. But, that's just what happens when you spend most of your time apart, it's probably like this every time she gets back. This indescribable comfort in each other's presence, and yet, little moments that remind her they're not kids anymore, not inseparable anymore. It's just the lives they've chosen for themselves.

Then why does she feel like fucking, begging him to look at her? Why does it feel absolutely fucking buckwild that they chose to be separated?

She pushes her hair back roughly, only half hearing his jokes, and sticks her head into some random cabinet. Maybe-- maybe she just needs a fucking vacation. Space takes a lot outta you and she's just being dumb and weepy. A heady, cloying smell drifts by and she emerges from the cabinet with a bowl and a screwed up nose.

"The only thing that's gotta get out of your kitchen is the trash, dude." It's. Not exactly choice ribbing, nor delivered all that teasingly. She walks back to the counter to grab a knife and something to peel with it, realizes she has no fucking clue where any of his shit is, in his kitchen. She doesn't-- belong here, and she stops, lost.

It's not choice ribbing, no, is what his unimpressed look says. "What, you wanna go through the cold storage next? Where's your camera crew, huh? Didn't know we were playing Kitchen Nightmares up in here, thought you just wanted some twin time. You know, I don't go to space and tell you how to, how to fondle moon-rocks, or what-have you." See, that's choice ribbing. He just hopes that settles the tone of things out of this weird space and into something a little more familiar.

He doesn't like her being on edge, is all, nor is he a big fan of how adrift she looks, purposeless in his kitchen. Ren does a better job of staying lively on her toes than that, and she spends half her time putting particularly colorful peels in her pockets. so he takes pity on what he assumes is just a moment of not knowing where to start, and produces some root vegetables to pile in the bowl in front of her. He wasn't kidding about doing work, especially if he's about to play therapist.

He watches her, catalogs her reactions, like he's the scientist here instead of her. Sometimes taking care of people is a precise business that you can't just throw their favorite food at and hope for the best, but luckily that isn't the only tactic in his wheelhouse. "You gonna tell me what's eating you or do I gotta drag it out?"

It is familiar, at least, his frankly scathing retort that blows her shit pretty much completely out of the water, thanks. And she appreciates that, the ears-back look of mortal offense coming automatic and easy, like a reflex, like breathing. She doesn't have to think about it, which is a blessing when her thoughts are-- overwhelming.

They're not even-- it's not even anything she can articulate? Just a feeling like a scream building in her chest as she sets her bowl down on the counter, her knuckles white around the rim. She's-- apart, from him, from his life, and suddenly reality takes a step back from her grasp like it's not even real, or perhaps she isn't. The urge to, to rip and tear something down around her is wild and nonsensical and too familiar and her eyes dart around the room frantically as if she's expecting something to cloak it all from her view.

She hears his concern reaching out to her and wants to respond, this isn't right and you are my heart! sticking in her throat like she's being strangled. But no words make it past her pleading expression.

For a moment, he thinks that's going to have settled it; they'll resolve this into familiar nattering and light verbal sparring, offended looks that aren't even half serious, easy laughter. He isn't remotely sure what to do when that doesn't happen.

He doesn't have any fresh frame of reference, for seeing his sister's thoughts coming unstuck from her words, her surroundings. Not even much from their past, this past, to clue him in to how to ground her. That feeling of helplessness, too, is unfamiliar, but he moves to her side on autopilot nonetheless, prying her hands out of their painfully frozen grip before she breaks something. He tries to keep the fear he feels out of his grip on her hands, tries to radiate calm instead of trembling. This can't turn into some kind of upsetness-amplifying hall of mirrors.

"Hey, what's-- I didn't--" It's harder to put his words in a straight line than he thinks it should be, but he doesn't even know what the problem is to address it, much less how to do so in like. A good way. "Not really convincing me there's nothing wrong, here, but you don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

Sure, he took a pretty firm stance on that just a second ago, but maybe that was the wrong move he made? Maybe demanding answers was the wrong thing, maybe they just aren't 'there' anymore. Which is a painful thing to think, for someone so open, but not implausible, he supposes. Sometimes you strike a nerve, even if it's the farthest thing from intentional.
"I don't know what you want," more quietly still, some of his own bewilderment coming through. "I don't know what's going on, but I'm here now, okay? You're okay."

He steps closer and Lup doesn't even look at him, like she's not expecting him to address her, to see her, her eyes continuing their panicked search for something she can't even begin to name. She's locked in by something, she's sure of it, unable to move or cry out or feel how fucked up this is. She should be terrified, should be mad as hell, not drowning in some kind of-- in a sickening certainty that there's no way out, again. Again? What is happening to her--

Hands around hers, firm enough almost to hurt as she's gathered up in them. Her brother's softly reassuring voice, unmistakably for her. Her gaze meets his and she wouldn't stop looking at him if the world was ending around them, now. She doesn't understand the painfully bright relief she feels at having him acknowledge her existence, but right now she'll fucking take it.

His fingers aren't trembling, but fear is etched into his face same as hers. And still it's like struggling against the tide to answer him. "This isn't--" she presses out after an agonizingly long moment of silence, instantly stifled again by her own mind and the things she can't express. She doesn't have an answer for the way it all feels wrong and unreal and there's another voice telling her she's just making a scene, what the hell is she fucking losing it for? Not knowing where the stupid vegetables are in this kitchen? Her professional chef brother not super appreciating her coming in unannounced to jank up his whole routine? Can't you see Taako was happy before you got all clingy?

Whatever the hell this is, it's not the voice of her instincts, her heart, and she refuses to listen. It feels like fighting for her life, and his too, but finally she scrapes together a few more words. "We're not okay," she begs, voice hoarse and eyes wide as if they could speak for her.

Deja vu swims across his thoughts, momentarily disorienting, but he blinks it away like every other time his eyes have watered sharply in a kitchen. It's nothing, he doesn't remember a conversation like this, like this but reversed, Lup and a campfire and him refusing to let her pull a soothing wool over his eyes with faked optimism. Doesn't remember the shock and hurt she projected at being called on her seemingly benign bullshit. Doesn't remember being the one to insist that they're smothering a wound, instead of bandaging it.

But where the refusal he doesn't remember was only tired and a little hurt, hers is so clearly desperate and afraid, and the idea that he is somehow causing that is sickeningly, skincrawlingly wrong. How did this go so steeply downhill so fast? Lup isn't the only one feeling a touch of unreality; these kinds of hairpin emotional turns are the stuff of surreally moonlit nightmares. Though not his, of course.

"Maybe we're not," he agrees, maybe too readily, though he's still trying for the old soothing patter, keeping his grounding grip on her hands, thumbs sweeping across her knuckles like he can smooth out the tension there. It's not like her, is the thing he keeps thinking in all this. Not like her to struggle with words, that's more his bag, he thinks and promptly unthinks, miles beneath the surface of whatever this crisis is. None of this fear and paralysis is like her, it's foreign to all his concrete memories of her bravery and fierce resolve. He doesn't remember any pain like this for her in all their life together. "News to me, but okay, so we're not okay. Deep breaths, be in the moment, none of that thousand yard space stare. What does that even mean? I'm listening, but you still have to tell me what's wrong."

He doesn't get it. Which isn't that weird, she barely gets it herself, acting purely on the force of her instincts. Not to mention the sheer fucking terror coursing through her body! But he's here and he's patient and willing to follow her anywhere, and that-- that's the first thing, the first conviction that's felt right in all this. It gives her the strength to keep going, teeth boring into her lower lip as she fights with all her might to shape the panic and displacement and the despair into something that makes sense.

"Something's not-- I feel-- lost, I--" The familiarity of it, of this horrible feeling that she should not know is making her sick, it's making her nauseous like the stench of rot in the air and she's going to drown-- but she swallows it down, tries again. Tries to slice through the fear down to what started this, this episode, or whatever the fuck. And it makes her eyes water.

"I feel like-- like we're lost to each other, Taako." It's terrifying. It's a pit of grief and horror in her heart that matches nothing she knows, that she remembers. "Why aren't we-- why aren't you out there with me? Why don't I know-- your kitchen, your life's work, I-- Does this feel right to you?"

It's all too easy to share her horror without any real examination of it; why not? They're not twins for nothing, there's no reality where Lup panicking isn't a strong indication that shit has broke bad. Something in him wants to accept her fear as justified, completely unquestioning.

But that same incongruity is a real sticking point, quickly crystallizing into doubt, as shameful a thing as that is to feel. Doubting Lup, even from a place of kindness, that can't be something he dwells on. But this is wrong, this isn't how the Lup he knows--he doesn't have a frame of reference, for this type of crisis, but this isn't how Lup handles herself regardless, and that takes the teeth of credibility out of it. The problem here is in Lup. There's nothing he needs to run away from.

"Yeah life's work is maybe a bridge too far, I mean-- It doesn't feel not right? It just is, Lup." His shrug is almost a flinch, but he doesn't pull away, just shifts a bit, brows drawn. He doesn't really like to talk about his life in these terms, and he thought Lup was fine with that, that she understood. "What's wrong with this? It's not the, the most prestigious gig imaginable or whatever, but it's good. I thought it was good, anyway. Not like it has to be forever, but it's fine for now."

He doesn't sound entirely convinced, but it's not self-deprecating either. It's not something to deprecate, he's correct, this is a fine and even admirable life, it's as much as it has to be. Not everyone has to reach for the fucking stars. Maybe it's on him, maybe he's been too distant, maybe he wasn't there for her, maybe there's something he missed. He takes a deep breath, because if he hasn't fucked things up yet he's probably about to, and that thought has no right to be as familiar as it is. "Why would we be lost to each other just because I'm not-- I didn't follow you? Is that really what you think? You're this afraid that, what, we'll grow apart, that I'll be consumed by my work or something?"

It's like the last bit of ground she had to stand on crumbles beneath her feet. Taako's hedging, his questioning of her feelings, his doubt-- it hurts like hell, like words said so indifferently, and when has he ever been indifferent to her? How can that, this pain, be something she knows and fears? The whole thing has the tears in her shock-wide eyes spilling over, running silent tracks down her cheeks.

And nothing can make Lup question herself like Taako, always her gauge for when to fight and when to run, though when did they ever have anything to run from? More that doesn't make any fucking sense, memories, emotions, everything surreal, unreal and she stutters, words trapped in a swamp of misery and horror again. "That's not-- I know you-- you're happy--" What if the problem is in her? If he sees nothing wrong with how they live, how rarely they see each other, reunions that are just slightly out of tune, hearing about his life second-hand instead of being in it--

That can't be how it's supposed to be. It just can't! It's squeezing the air out of her lungs, the sensation of rope or, or vines-- it's fucking vines-- snaking around her chest and legs and arms making her shake, she wants to fight, has to fight this. He's wrong, on this one. Her expression hardens. "But something's wrong, Taako, this isn't-- This isn't us! We're-- we're more than this! You've got to help me figure out what's keeping us apart, I-- Do you trust me?"

None of that really answered his questions or explained to him what the problem is. 'More than this' has his ears pinned back with the weight of some negative feeling he doesn't have time to unpack, not in the face of this urgency, her panic and tears. Once her frantic words swing in the direction of some nameless thing keeping them apart, he feels so much dread he can't speak, can't move, not that he has anywhere to go.

It's Lup, but it isn't. Lup seemingly half mad with fear and trying to lead them both on some kind of quest for-- for nothing. He can't decide what feels more unreal, Lup acting out of irrational fear or his own sudden doubts, about everything, destabilized by her railing. Every hair on his neck and arms is raised in sympathetic fear, and for a moment he smells that vegetative decay too, jarring and entirely foreign and nothing like even the most poorly kept kitchens he has no memory of making the best of.

He doesn't immediately know if he trusts Lup. It shouldn't be a question he struggles with, but no words present themselves and all he can do is mirror her wounded stare. Suddenly he would give anything at all to not be a part of this. How did what should have been a nice meetup get-- like this? His instinct is always to trust Lup, and anything that tells him otherwise, even his own mind, is suspect. He feels like he's being assailed somehow, overpowered invisibly, and that more than anything sways him.

"...I do trust you." His voice, despite having been in use only moments ago, sounds hoarse and rusty with disuse, like after a long bout of illness-driven sleep. "Of course I trust you, Lup. But I don't-- I still don't know what you're asking me for."

It's only a moment of silence, of a mute uncertain stare boring into hers. It's a look that's almost-- hurt, that she put him on the spot like this. Blink and you'll miss it, really, he's already saying the words that she'd needed to hear. But it's enough, for Lup. It's enough, for Lup's world-- for this world, to crash and fucking burn around her. He hesitated, clear as day, and she can't-- she can't reach him. He's right there, he's holding onto her, and she can't reach him.

And that-- that's what does it, in the end. Heavy black curtains stifling her screams while his hand was on the umbrella, the desperate struggle just to catch glimpses of his life, not a single thing she could do to be seen or heard or, or known-- It floods her mind like a dam broke down. And with that, more recent memories - Chara, happily lecturing her with one of the botany books she'd gotten them under their arm, suddenly pulled under by vines, her own hands restrained before she could fire a single shot-- Her expression, in the dream, it's a dream it's a nightmare it's not real-- horrified, petrified, as she realizes Taako still has no idea, he has no fucking clue he's buried somewhere on the island too, having the life squeezed out of him--

"Taako, none of this is real--" Her voice cracks, her throat absolutely parched, how long have they been trapped? "You have to remember, you--" And that's all she gets out before she's violently expunged from his mind.

And Lup wakes up alone in a bed of decomposing plants, face tear-wet, hands wrapped in the comforting grip of a dying root.

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Exploration Event: Neverwere

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cw: dissociation

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