video | un: quibbler

[creidim]

[ Luna is... looking a little overwhelmed, although it might be hard to determine considering she's usually so wide-eyed all the time. But it does look like there's honestly too much going on all at once. The poor girl is a bit over-stimulated with the latest round of blood effects. Her senses are in overdrive, and just... so terribly confused right now. ]

How do I make a room that's silent—? Like from the outside? So I don't hear what's going on outside? Or perhaps someone has some very powerful ear-plugs? That might be a bit more convenient for going about outside, really...

[ She trails off for a long moment before she grimaces a little and then continues: ]

Something is... not quite right. Sometimes it's fine and then everything just goes... weird. Things... taste. And feel. When I shouldn't be able to taste or feel them in the first place. I just keep getting all these tastes in my mouth and they won't stop. [ Eating has been a nightmare the last few days. ]

It's... like I know what people taste like. And feel like.

[ Because that doesn't sound absolutely horrifying in the slightest. ]

This... is a blood thing, isn't it? I'm a Paleblood, if that helps. It must be a blood thing. Is... anyone else having this issue?

ooc: pls feel free to drop hints as to what character voices may taste like or physically feel like in ur tags. or I could just make something up for them.

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[fogsong]

[ That last statement makes Sharon snort loudly. ]

Yeah, most of them are real dignified, huh? [ Heavy on the sarcasm. Sorry, Luna, she really does hate them all. ]

[creidim]

They're Pthumerians, not monsters, Sharon.

[ It's gently offered but firm enough. ]

[fogsong]

Anything and anyone can be a monster, Luna.

[creidim]

I think we toss that word around too freely. Monstrous deeds can be done, yes. But I'm not for one to call others monsters.

[ She doesn't even call Maul a monster. ]

[fogsong]

Sounds like a personal problem, Luna. [ Cooly. ]

[creidim]

[ Well, then. ]

Would you rather I did? That would include people I care about.

Or is it only alright when we pick and choose who to call monsters?

[ She's genuinely asking. ]

[fogsong]

To me, you only get to commit so many monstrous actions before you're a monster but the intent behind those actions is as important as the action itself. But you do you, Luna.

[creidim]

Well with that argument: consider me one. I've done plenty of monstrous things, and in the moment I intended them. But that doesn't make sense for me to you, does it?

I'm not trying to fight with you, Sharon. I think you misunderstand, concerning the Patrons. They're not people. Thinking they are and equating their actions to our standards will not help you, it'll only get you more angry and more hurt.

[fogsong]

I am not even a little surprised you've done monstrous things, Luna. [ But, no, she does not see Luna as a monster. ]

I get that they're not people but they affect people. They cause suffering they don't have to. Why should I not be angry?

[creidim]

Well, then. My earlier point stands. [ Can't pick and choose. ]

Again, it's putting humanity to them. You realise they probably don't recognise it as that? They're embodiments of concepts. Of Compassion, Relationships, Knowledge, Hope, Justice.

[fogsong]

Oh, well, that changes fucking everything, doesn't it? If they don't recognize the harm they're causing, well, golly gee that makes it better. [ Ah, the biting sarcasm has come out to play. ]

That's such bullshit. What do you think they see us as, Luna? Why do we go through these things? What's the fucking point?

[creidim]

I don't know. [ It snaps out of her a little more harshly than she means to: uncharacteristically. Sharon's voice is still so raw and sharp. Acrid on her tongue. No, she doesn't know what the point is. There is no great answer to revealed to her. ]

I don't know if they're trying to make something of us, if they're trying to make us grow or something else. The relationship between Humans and Pthumerians is complicated. I don't know.

[ There's a sharp exhale and she falls silent for a while. ]

... Maybe this is just the price we paid for the choice we made. This was the door we opened.

[fogsong]

And yet you give them the fucking benefit of the doubt. [ She snaps back quickly, the anger coiling in her voice like a viper ready to strike.

But it's Luna's final statement that forces that viper down. That makes Sharon fall quiet. When she speaks next, her voice is still tense but there's something gentle under the surface. ]

So, what, like it's a consequence of what you guys chose back then?

[creidim]

[ Better to give them some benefit of the doubt than to completely shut them down. This is their world, after all. It's not to say she's always thrilled about what goes on with the Patrons. Don't mistake her concession for acceptance or complacency, Sharon. ]

... We were the final Guardians, the choices we made shaped this world. The entire Sodder family was sacrificed, as was Mother Superior. It opened the Flesh Door. Blood saturated this world, blood we spilled — even if for some of them it was the best possible choice we thought we could make.

[fogsong]

[ As much as Sharon has heard of the Dream and the Sodder family, the end result of it still makes so little sense to her. ]

How does that work, exactly? How could your choices shape this world when this world has been around for so long? [ She'll never see this world as the Pthumerians because it stopped being theirs the moment they started to bring in Sleepers. ]

[creidim]

[ It is not entirely a happy tale. And the numbers of Deerington Sleepers are dwindling, plenty of them have returned to the ocean. ]

I suppose things like time and space don't make much sense when you're in a dreamworld created by a reality-altering being of immense power.

The one considered the first Beast in the Waking World? She's a Beast because we chose to Awaken her. [ Whatever was left of her, driven mad. ] Moon Presence has been in this world for ages, long enough for monasteries to be built and dedicated to her and then fall to ruin. Even though we only made the decision of her fate to be reborn here mere months before the ones from Deerington washed up on the Farther Shores.

[fogsong]

[ Sharon doesn't dare mention that she's painfully aware of how time can move in a world created by someone who can warp reality. Time didn't move in her Otherworld, though, but that was because time had stopped for Alessa the moment they had burned her. Maybe it was the same for Julia. Maybe time and everything else stopped the moment she was trapped. ]

Do you regret the choices you made back then, Luna? Do you think you guys made the right ones?

[creidim]

I don't, no. Some of my choices didn't align with the majority, at any rate. [ Sacrificing Cynthia and Roderick Sodder turned out to be the better choices for them — that aligned with Luna's choices. She can't say what was the better choice for Mother Superior — Luna choose to do nothing whilst the majority voted to Sacrifice her. If Cynthia hadn't been Sacrificed, then Mother Superior could have been so much worse for them. ]

Perhaps only Julia. We honestly believed death was the kindest choice possible, instead it only let her horror form this place. Death is not a kindness for everyone.

[fogsong]

[ Perhaps only Julia. That shocks Sharon. She never would've thought Luna would make that particular choice. At first, hot anger sparks in her chest, familiar rage, but she forces it down. She takes several minutes to respond. ]

Why were you guys even given these choices? Why wasn't it Julia's choice?

private | cw: fourthwalling, kind of... existential talk

[creidim]

It's why we were brought into the Dream. To make that choice, to change the world. We were the last resort. [ There's a pause and she switches the feed to private for the next part. ]

I'm a book character, Sharon. In a lot of worlds I'm just a character in a children's story. [ She's even had strangers recognise her. Fans. ] But I'm real, I exist. I think and feel and live.

Or maybe I'm just real because a little girl with godly powers dreamed me up to make a difference, whether it was good or bad. [ Granted that was what Mother Superior thought of them. That they didn't truly exist because Julia created the Sleepers. ] It all goes far beyond anything we could possibly comprehend. Dreams spilled into reality, shaped this place from the very start. In part from Julia, but a lot of it from us.

Maybe it was Julia's choice to shape us to make the final choice of ending the Dream. I don't know.

private

[fogsong]

[ Everything Luna says give Sharon pause. Between the concept of being a character, something that fills her with a strange discomfort, to the idea that Julia brought stories to life to not only save but to make a choice she couldn't make herself. It reminds her of Alessa; Julia always does.

She knows what it's like to draw people in to another world in a desperate, last attempt to change things. For her, it had been for a chance of revenge and, distantly, a chance for happiness. She'd needed Rose and Cybil and Sharon to open the way to kill Christabella and the rest of the Brethren. It had all been a desperate gamble.

She frowns deeply. ] Have you ever thought about finding a way to ask her?

[creidim]

[ It's... absolutely a very uncomfortable subject. Luna found out about it on day one of her being in the Dream, Newt had warned her from the start. From then, she's had a few years to really grapple with the whole concept of it. ]

She's dead. I don't know if it'll ever be something we'll get to know, just something we'll have to live with. And even then, there's not as many of us left, now. Most Sleepers of Deerington either didn't come to the Waking World, or if they did — they've returned to the ocean.

[ There's a brief pause. ]

She wasn't mad, though. She wasn't angry at us. She made us feel... comforted, at the end.

[fogsong]

It's not like you guys ruined her life or manipulated her. It's shitty that a kid who wasn't going to live comforted the lot of you, though. [ There's something heavy and thick in her voice as if she were getting emotional but there's no blame there. It's not the fiery bite of rage, either, as should be expected from her. It's just sorrow. Grief for what was taken from someone so young and powerful and innocent. ]

Shit. [ An emotional pause and a muffled sniffle. ] I think she should have been mad. She should have been furious at the world for what it did to her, Luna. Everyone should be.

[creidim]

It spoke more of her than anything that she wasn't. She told us she understood. I don't think it was ever in her to be angry.

It made it so much worse. We failed her, like so many others did. [ That's what it felt like in so many ways. They failed Julia, and now they have to live with it. Now they have to live with this world, and how their choices made this world how it is. ]

I just hope that she knew we didn't do it out of hate. I never thought she was a monster.

[fogsong]

[ As it should, she thinks. ]

If she wasn't angry, she knew. But also... Maybe she was tired. Ready for an end she didn't deserve. [ a weighted pause ] I wish she'd been reborn here. She deserves a second chance.