Susato Mikotoba 🌸 御琴羽 寿沙都 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
judicialassistant) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
dreamcrystals2023-01-09 08:01 pm
judicialassistant) wrote in dreamcrystals2023-01-09 08:01 pm
[02] three lies, one truth
Sender: Susato Mikotoba
To: Everyone
Subject: Passive dream recording
Warning: Descriptions of death (specifically: falling/burning, stabbing, freezing, drowning) and the crippling fear that comes with that.
When Susato is first seen, she is nigh unrecognizable. There's only a glimpse of her. Her hair is frazzled, long well past her shoulders, and the white dress she wears, accented by pinks, does not match the grim darkness of the cage she is in. Seconds later, there's a loud metallic clang as the cage is shut.
There's movement like a shaky camera, and you... no, Susato is looking into the eyes of one man who looks almost surprised to see her. As if he hadn't been the one to put her there.
"Mr Vigil?"
The voice is small and cracks like glass over the flames below.
Before he can respond, there's the sound of a lever and a deafening scream as a feeling of terrifying weightlessness takes over your body.
You're falling, and you don't know when you'll stop.
* * * * *
Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
When the dream spits you out, you can taste a mixture of blood and dirt as you blink your eyes open. They sting like you've been crying, and when you bring your filthy hands up to look at them, you can see the pink of your kimono sleeves. The loops in your air feel looser and messier than usual as you can feel the terrifying glare of a man before you, bleeding and in chains, and yet no less threatening.
All around you are corpses. You just barely manage to struggle to your feet when he moves to strike you down with alarming quickness, his blade and scythe at his call. Something hard and sharp pierces your stomach as his voice booms:
"You will not tarnish... my brother's memory...!"
You were so close. You can see some of the broken chains you worked so hard at; he was almost free.
But it's too late.
A laughter seems to be coming from the noble in the portrait behind the Reaper, and an eerie red glow bleeds out from the canvas as your consciousness fades.
* * * * *
The laughter transforms into something else, another voice. It is almost pleasant; and the scene is entirely different now. A gorgeous ballroom surrounds you with an air of celebration, you are humbled, taking the man before you in a dance. Here is the face that everyone says you can trust, and yet you can hear suspicious whispers coming from the walls.
Something is wrong.
You feel cold in a way that is inexplicable. Your very core is frozen, and it feels like you will never get warm. suddenly it's a struggle just to move with the music; but eventually you stop listening to that, too.
"Don't struggle." The king pulls you close in what is most certainly a threatening manner. Beneath your gloves, your fingers have already become ice. "Your death is inevitable now. Accept it with grace, and don't scream."
But even if you wanted to, you can't.
Pathetic gurgles escape your throat as ice travels up your chest and your neck. A piece of your white hair falls across your face, but when you go to brush it away, your hands won't move. Nothing will.
There is stillness. For a moment, you have hope, because you can still move your terrified, wide eyes, but soon that too is gone.
* * * * *
In that moment, you're not able to look at anything else.
Your neck is craned upwards and suddenly, the dream has shifted one final time. You're staring at the surface of the freezing cold water from below, unable to breathe, but the Gods above have mercy on you, and it doesn't last long. A glaring white starts to creep into the corners of your vision, filling everything in haze, and the dream ends as suddenly as it began.
* * * * *
[ Back in the comparative comforts of her home, Susato awakes with a start. She gasps for breath like she's just been held underwater, sitting up and gripping at her blankets. For all she knows, they are her lifeline. She is shaking, the faded memories of dreamscapes past rushing back to her, and she feels her arm knock something off the bed she's on.
......All she can do is breathe. ]
(( ooc: tl;dr, just a fun throwback to the fun deaths i've been able to put her through this past year. <3 please assume delayed responses where appropriate/etc. ))
To: Everyone
Subject: Passive dream recording
Warning: Descriptions of death (specifically: falling/burning, stabbing, freezing, drowning) and the crippling fear that comes with that.
When Susato is first seen, she is nigh unrecognizable. There's only a glimpse of her. Her hair is frazzled, long well past her shoulders, and the white dress she wears, accented by pinks, does not match the grim darkness of the cage she is in. Seconds later, there's a loud metallic clang as the cage is shut.
"Mr Vigil?"
The voice is small and cracks like glass over the flames below.
Before he can respond, there's the sound of a lever and a deafening scream as a feeling of terrifying weightlessness takes over your body.
You're falling, and you don't know when you'll stop.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
All around you are corpses. You just barely manage to struggle to your feet when he moves to strike you down with alarming quickness, his blade and scythe at his call. Something hard and sharp pierces your stomach as his voice booms:
"You will not tarnish... my brother's memory...!"
You were so close. You can see some of the broken chains you worked so hard at; he was almost free.
But it's too late.
A laughter seems to be coming from the noble in the portrait behind the Reaper, and an eerie red glow bleeds out from the canvas as your consciousness fades.
Something is wrong.
You feel cold in a way that is inexplicable. Your very core is frozen, and it feels like you will never get warm. suddenly it's a struggle just to move with the music; but eventually you stop listening to that, too.
"Don't struggle." The king pulls you close in what is most certainly a threatening manner. Beneath your gloves, your fingers have already become ice. "Your death is inevitable now. Accept it with grace, and don't scream."
But even if you wanted to, you can't.
Pathetic gurgles escape your throat as ice travels up your chest and your neck. A piece of your white hair falls across your face, but when you go to brush it away, your hands won't move. Nothing will.
There is stillness. For a moment, you have hope, because you can still move your terrified, wide eyes, but soon that too is gone.
In that moment, you're not able to look at anything else.
Your neck is craned upwards and suddenly, the dream has shifted one final time. You're staring at the surface of the freezing cold water from below, unable to breathe, but the Gods above have mercy on you, and it doesn't last long. A glaring white starts to creep into the corners of your vision, filling everything in haze, and the dream ends as suddenly as it began.
[ Back in the comparative comforts of her home, Susato awakes with a start. She gasps for breath like she's just been held underwater, sitting up and gripping at her blankets. For all she knows, they are her lifeline. She is shaking, the faded memories of dreamscapes past rushing back to her, and she feels her arm knock something off the bed she's on.
......All she can do is breathe. ]
(( ooc: tl;dr, just a fun throwback to the fun deaths i've been able to put her through this past year. <3 please assume delayed responses where appropriate/etc. ))
no subject
Yeah. ... me neither.
[He has no qualms about sharing the fact that he experienced the same dream, even if it was a markedly different outcome. It just felt like he was supposed to be there, but that's the magic of the subconscious, sometimes. It's very rare that Ferran ever voluntarily dreamwalks...]
I guess it's hard to be cautious when you don't even know you're dreaming, huh.
no subject
Maybe she still will. ]
Sometimes I'm able to figure it out. Perhaps if I had, things would have ended differently. [ She said as much to Hans, too. ]
no subject
Sometimes what ifs don't help, but sometimes they do.]
... What do you think would have happened?
no subject
I don't know. Perhaps I could have woken us both. [ Earlier, that is. ]
no subject
Hopefully you won't have to worry about that again, but... maybe you'll be able to smack him out of it, if something like that happens. [...] You didn't know what he was like at the time, right?
no subject
If Ferran is asking, clearly he knows all about it, doesn't he? ]
We only spoke afterwards. It has been difficult for me to...
...to accept anything he has said since. Though I want to believe it.
no subject
I understand. Even when he's being real, he... avoids, tries to turn things around. He likes playing with people. Knowing him for this long, I still get surprised.
[He certainly didn't expect how things have gone with them lately. Not that he's complaining.]
Maybe you'll get the hang of getting what he really thinks, eventually. ... If you... want to, I mean.
[Ferran wouldn't try to pressure her into interacting with him, not with such a memory attached. He would just like to make sure neither of them get hurt again—they both mean a lot to him.]
no subject
She'll let that thought stew for a little longer. ]
I... told him I would come by with more carrots for Sitron.
[ So she hasn't... cast him out completely. ]
no subject
I know that horse must love you by this point. [...] Sitron was his best friend as a kid, if another dream he had wasn't a lie. He might still be. So... I'm sure they both appreciate it.
no subject
[ probably. "best friend" in ace attorney language, that is.
Whether Hans deserves it is a whole nother story, but whatever. As long as no one's getting hurt, it's really not her business. ]
I wonder if Sitron is the jealous type?
no subject
He better not be, after that month I took care of him.
[He knew nothing about horses! Now he knows some. But Sitron is a good boy and he had help from the stables, so it wasn't exactly the worst hardship. He really did miss Hans during that time he was asleep, though...]
... I like to think I mean something, anyway, after he's stuck around me for this long. [He sighs, thinking about how complicated these dreams have been.]
He... well, our relationship basically started with me dying in a dreamscape.
[killed by hans club... even if in a roundabout way.]
no subject
Perhaps she hadn't even realised she'd been teasing him. She finds herself forcing a chuckle anyway, but otherwise doesn't interrupt. She thinks back on what she can remember of Ferran's dreamscape, the only one she's ever seen, vaguely remembering a man in red. ]
His dreamscape?
no subject
A shared dreamscape, more than a year ago... where everyone in town was drawn in. Long story short, I turned into something dangerous, and he protected himself.
[He doesn't seem distressed by the topic, though there's a mild but serious furrow to his brow.]
Despite that, I know he felt bad about it, because the next time he saw me he admitted to everything he did back home.
no subject
[ She finds her lips twitching for a moment, like she's trying to smile, though the memory hadn't been a particularly pleasant one. In the back of her mind, she wonders if Ferran meant a Fae when he mentions something dangerous. ]
He reached out to me, though it took him about a week. [ and also wound up telling her everything. ]
no subject
Yeah? I wonder if he would have come to talk to me at all, if we hadn't met in town by accident after.
[He'd like to think he wouldn't have done the latter, but he might have assumed the prince didn't want anything to do with him after that... He couldn't really be sure, now. Ferran tilts his head in thought, quiet for a moment. Susato hasn't shown any indication of it if she feels this way, but...]
... Does it bother you at all that I wasn't honest about him?
1/3
It should.
2/3
She shakes her head. ]
It...does. But then, I suppose I've become more forgiving of such things.
no subject
...I think you would have been honest about him if you thought he would be a threat to me, at least.
no subject
Yeah. I wouldn't bother protecting him, if he seemed like that. Warning you would be the least I'd do.
[He can't go so far as to say he'd reveal everything simply based on the idea Hans would hurt anyone at all, though—nor can he say he's sorry for keeping all of that to himself. He doesn't like that Susato is bothered, of course, but that's just the consequence of his actions.]
I understand. And for the sake of transparency... I'm definitely biased, at this point. [...] You know how I said I wasn't taken, at the wedding?
no subject
She looks up at him with an expression of curiosity, though if she has any inkling of what he's about to say, she doesn't show it. ]
Yes, I remember. [ Go on. ]
no subject
Well... we're together now, I guess.
[You know, in case Susato thought he was any good at judging people's character. Or making good decisions about who to keep close. He can't say he doesn't have a track record...]
no subject
No, not even that. Her expression is actually fairly neutral as she tries to absorb this information, because, well, that explains a lot. ]
You guess? [ What, is he not sure??? ]
no subject
Uh, I mean, he didn't exactly walk up to me and go "do you want to date," you know? But I probably got as clear of a statement as I'm going to get.
[Does she want the details??]
no subject
[ For someone so morally upright, she is staying markedly mum about this. Perhaps after everything, despite what Ferran expected, she no longer feels like she can judge. ]
no subject
[He didn't really bring it up to... brag or anything, which is why he's trying to not go in depth, even if he has no qualms about sharing otherwise. He understands that it's probably a questionable decision at best; he just wanted to explain himself, to some extent. With that done:]
Anyway... are you hungry or anything? [He's here to comfort and/or distract her, if possible, not talk about his relationships.]
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1/2
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