victory_road | I want to Beheeyemlieve

Entry tags:

I want to Beheeyemlieve

Who: All affected!
Where: Inside a dream, a memory.
When: Halloween night!
Summary: Log for the 2021 Beheeyem Halloween event
Rating: Many of these memories may involve experiences that could be distressing. Please make sure to read the individual CWs for each top level. Also, make sure to tag your own top levels accordingly.

For question, please refer back to our earlier FAQ post.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ hi tree grandpa, how about some Bad Vibes? ]

The feeling that something is wrong might, at first, be hard to discern from the many ways in which things are just... different. After all, a tree doesn't sense things the way a human does, and probably not how a robot does, either - even if that tree is magic, and generally senses quite a lot more, and more consciously, than most trees. Even without eyes, Shadowmaru can still "see" - or maybe feel - his surroundings, far beyond those actually close to him, like the tree's vast network of roots act to sense what's happening aboveground.

That wrongness is still there, though... and maybe, if Shadowmaru can focus on what those roots are telling him, he might find the source: A choking, grasping darkness, reaching out toward him.

Millennial Tree Cookie - the way Shadowmaru is more used to seeing him, apparently completely human - is standing by the tree, a hand pressed over his mouth in some concern. "This memory, once again... I'm sorry you've been placed in this, of all moments."

This is... something else. This is nothing like he's ever encountered. All the senses are wrong, there's nothing coming in through audio, visual or even tactile sensors. In dreams, he'd always been himself again. Always been as he was meant to be. He tries to thrash. To move, just to see if it's even possible.

The darkness doesn't seem to click, not at first. Not while he's desperately trying to free himself. But his body won't move. Nothing will respond to his commands. Panic starts to race through him, compounded by the feeling of darkness. Of choking - of - dark water, crush depth -

If his head still moved, he'd have jerked it toward the sound of a voice. A familiar voice. He tries to answer, but sound doesn't come. Nothing comes out.

Help...!

He can't move exactly, but something... happens, when he tries to act, a surge of something that makes Millennial Tree Cookie startle - or maybe that's because, somehow, he can tell what Shadowmaru is trying to say, even if it doesn't come out right.

Either way, he sets a hand gently against the bark, speaking softly but urgently. "Please calm yourself, my friend - struggling could have some... undue effects. My true form may not be able to move, but you could still impact your surroundings."

In other words: Please don't set off a surge of uncontrolled god tree magic. Please.

"You are not in danger, you're just in my place for the moment."

He would love to be calm.

He's trying. He's trying very hard. It's not easy to feel calm when you're flashing back to dark water. The only time it had been so hideously hard to move. No - listen to his friend. His fellow nonhuman. It isn't easy.

What's happening?

Why is he a tree?

At least it's a more controlled question, and less of a panicked one.

"It is a memory - from my history. This may be unpleasant, but it is also temporary. You cannot be truly harmed."

Which may not be terribly comforting in the moment, in Shadowmaru's current mental state - but it's what he's got.

Temporary.

There's one last, less violent squirm. More like a shudder than an actual attempt at moving away. It's temporary. It won't be permanent. If he had lungs, he'd breathe out a sigh of relief.

So... he's in his friend's memory.

And his friend was a tree?

"Yes. Although this particular memory may be... difficult to weather, once it is finished, you will be free."

He wonders how close the curse - or, more accurately, its echo - has crept by now. It's only a matter of time before it reaches them, so he'll just have to do whatever he can to both comfort and prepare Shadowmaru before that point.

...Of course, it may not occur to him to explain some... pretty important parts of all this but that's. Probably fine.

Difficult?

Difficult, he can handle. Difficult, he has lived. Time and time again. The life of an AI was not precisely a simple, easy one, after all. Not theirs, at any rate.

Motion, slight, again. Like the squaring of shoulders. The bracing of muscles. Fine. If he must pass through another trial, then so be it.

Millennial Tree Cookie nods at that new motion. That seems... better. So he looks out over the forest again, brow creasing slightly.

"...At the moment we are experiencing... there is a curse approaching. You can likely feel it, whether you recognize it or not. It will reach you, as it did me... and you must resist, and go to sleep."

Go to sleep?

That's it? That's all he has to do? His friend is making this dire prediction, that a curse is rapidly approaching. And all he wants Shadowmaru to do is sleep?

How can a tree look bewildered? Is that even possible?

He smiles sadly, and clarifies: "It is not... a natural sleep, exactly. I used magic to seal myself - my consciousness, my power - away, leaving only my physical form standing in place. I could not be revived until I was purified of the curse."

It sounds like death. Or... stasis of a sort. It's confusing. He didn't think organic beings, living beings, could fall into such a state.

It sounds terrifying.

How is his friend so calm in the face of this?

Despite Shadowmaru's silence (or maybe because of it), Millennial Tree Cookie seems to pick up on his hesitation. He pats "his" bark gently, an admittedly awkward attempt at comfort by someone barely used to having hands with which to give it. But he hopes it can be some help.

"I know, from your perspective, it must be a troubling prospect. But there is no cause for fear. This moment passed by the same as any other, as I knew it would before ever making my choice. The only choice I could have made, really."

There's nothing more comforting than the inescapable march of time!!

Edited 2021-11-20 05:06 (UTC)

Only a moment, he's told. It shouldn't frighten him. He's seen worse things than a slowly creeping curse, hasn't he? He should be calm and collected against the face of such danger.

There's no way to really square up his shoulders here, but he tries. He tries his best to seem as if he is. So far, his cookie friend has been able to understand these non-movements.

Okay. He can do this.

MT nods minutely, with a quietly appreciative smile. "Thank you, my friend. I understand this must be daunting, but... you have already shown great courage in adapting."

Encouragement alone, however, won't help Shadowmaru navigate this memory. So, after giving Shadowmaru another moment to breathe - so to speak - he continues. "I must assume, if you are to complete this memory, you should be able to use my magic. It may not be long now before you feel the curse; when you do, you must find that magic and take hold of it. Do you understand?"

Magic? How is he meant to take hold of magic? He doesn't even know where to begin with that one. There's no way to shake his head, or otherwise disagree, but - well.

Hopefully the confusion comes through. Please picture him gesturing a bit like his icon, hopelessly. Sure, he gets what MT is saying, but the process...?

How?

This part might be difficult to explain, and the Millennial Tree has to hesitate at Shadowmaru's confusion. Using his magic is so second-nature, explaining how to do it is like explaining how to breathe.

So... he guesses he'll just have to try to do that.

"...Start from your surface. Can you feel your bark, and the air running over it?"

Can he feel the air? He supposes so? Can't everyone feel such a thing? It doesn't seem as if it ties into the notion of magic. But maybe he needs to focus on it.

He attempts to do so, mentally picturing a "nod".

"Very good. Now, focus below the bark - can you feel the wood beneath, the fibers making up your being?"

He promises he's going somewhere with this.

Can he? Sort of, he believes. Like circuitry. Like wiring, electric sparks from an engine. It's similar, isn't it?

Another sort of "nod".

"Now, reach through that - not quite below, but within. There is... a pulse to magic, around and within yourself; you need to find that pulse first."

A pulse. Find the pulse. Okay - like activating stealth systems, right? It has to be.

He does his best. Reaching for any sort of pulse he can feel.

Certainly, as he reaches for it, there's bound to be something. Millennial Tree Cookie didn't choose the word pulse for nothing; in an odd way, it may well resemble the heartbeat, the movement of blood, that Shadowmaru has experienced as a human - something he may not consciously notice at first, but that he can feel nonetheless if he searches for it.

MT glances out at the advancing darkness again. "...Have you found it?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I want to Beheeyemlieve

2

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject