CALCUTTA • JULY 2025 EVENT

[uruz]

EVENT: CALCUTTA

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I am caught, tangled in

( content warnings: body horror, surreal horror, post-apocalyptic themes )

You wake with soil under your nails, something sharp in your mouth, and the scent of damp rust in the back of your throat. The sky is not night, but it is no longer day. Around you, a city's skeleton lies tangled in ruin and overgrowth in the crisp, tail end nips of autumn— skyscrapers strangled by vine and mycelium tower around you, streets are cracked open like wounds. No sound of civilization. Only wind, soft and low like breath.

You are not where you should be, and you are not entirely who you were. Do you remember the dream you had? Perhaps barely, perhaps almost too vividly. You will likely find a mask nearby— one you find familiar. While you may not have the same urgency to wear it as you did within the dreamscape, you at the very least feel the need to carry it with you now.

Some wake in subway tunnels pulsing with bioluminescence, others in penthouse ruins swallowed by moss and red ivy. Rooftop gardens filled with brittle blossoms. Empty galleries hung with paintings that seem to shift when you’re not looking. Vessels are absolutely scattered. You can wake up anywhere that's possible within the bones of this city. Life endures here, but it is changed. In the streets, rats with slick, glowing underskin scurry between collapsed signs. Pigeons wheel overhead, blind-eyed and silent. Dogs and cats roam in feral bands, some marked by fungal growths, others with bodies too long, too many limbs, or split maws bursting with tendrils. Deer can also be found roaming the enclosure of what used to be Central Park, and will open their strange mouths when they seem to stare at you. Seem, because they no longer have eyes to do that with. From deeper shadows and thicker canopies come the zoo escapees: a moose that climb walls and have a petrifying gaze, herds of zebra stand frozen like littered statues until they hear noises, to which they will scatter like roaches. Sewer grates rattle beneath your feet, and something wet and ancient stirs in the depths— Hippos that release toxic gases when threatened lay in the waters and gnaw on anything they could get their teeth on. The most gentle of them all are the giraffes; they still attempt to nibble on the falling sunset leaves where still gathered, and will even come up to humans who offer anything green for them to eat. There's so much more left unsaid, if you're unlucky enough to come across them.

The flora is no safer. Familiar trees such as maple, ginkgo and oak still grow in parks and fracture ciment with their powerful roots. Plenty of the bark is etched with a strange set of sigils that hum when approached. Ivy pulses with low light and throbs when touched. Entire buildings are choked with fungus: spires of mushroom growths that sway despite the absence of wind, spores spilling like ash when disturbed. Moss spreads across broken windows in fractal shapes, responding to movement, to emotion with colors beyond what you could imagine. Wildflowers bloom in moonlight— roses with petal-thorns and daffodils exhale perfume that clouds your thoughts.

And still, the city seems to watch you soundlessly. Beneath your feet, the soil responds. Something old sleeps in the brickwork, the concrete, the iron bones of this place— and your presence has stirred it.

You'd better get moving. Survive.

NOTES:

• You must find shelter, water, and food. Anything that can be found in city stores is plausible, but much of the food will be expired or ransacked by the lives before yours, or animals. The Host-fauna are edible if you can stomach it, and some may talk in tongues before they die. The flora is a mixed bag, from harmless to not.
• The environment is reactive: Touch a wall and it pulses. Step into an abandoned deli and the shelves might whisper for a second.

OPTIONAL TOKEN EFFECTS

• Tokens will feel a strange resonance when near remnants of human structure, especially things tied to strong emotion (graffiti, photos, childhood toys, street art, music).
• Tokens will feel warm when close to sites where others have suffered or are remembered deeply. These sensations are disorienting but emotionally vivid, almost like deja vu.
• Tokens could experience nosebleeds or migraines near intense emotional hotspots. This is their magic wanting an outlet, but too newly formed to pour itself out.

OPTIONAL OFFERING EFFECTS

• Offerings will feel the thrum of the Murmur, like a second heartbeat in the earth, when near fungal flora or decayed nature.
• Offerings will feel oddly familiar with the world around them, as if it recognizes them and vice verse. Scents linger longer and skin responds to temperature or emotion in exaggerated ways.
• The act of hunting and consuming host fauna is euphoric, but only for a moment— followed by a haunting awareness of their own anatomy shifting from the inside in ways they should fear.

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And I wake, say your name

( content warnings: sensory distortion )

One night— it doesn't matter which, time has loosened— your mask beckons. Something is encouraging you to put it on. It sears cold when you do. A pressure behind your eyes grows sharp, then splits. Suddenly, the silence inside your skull isn't yours anymore.

The Murmur is stirring.

A psychic thread pulls taut through your mind like a bow ready to shoot. Language might fail. Images are the easiest to come first— flickers of hands, blood, feathers, fire. Then voices, soft and reverent, speaking your name in words you don't know but understand. Some speak back. Some yell. Some sing. You sense others, Tokens humming with potential, Offerings heavy with heat and pain.

You are not alone. You never were.



NOTES:

• Your gamewide "network" is live! Try to reach someone through the Murmur. Perhaps a thought, a memory, or just a name. Players are welcomed to create prompts within this log or post to the network community proper.
• Communication may come in fragments. Images repeat, words loop, emotion surges without cause or by accident. One name in particular echoes:

Espera.
You may try to reach for her, even if your chances are slim. You might end up contacting someone or something else entirely.

OPTIONAL TOKEN EFFECTS:

• Tokens may begin having their first access to inner magic. Not enough to use consciously, but enough to glitch with use, accidental or not. A friendly reminder that characters should not be able to use their magic with ease, yet. Keep in mind they should all have a realistic adjustment period.
• Tokens may have sensory overlaps: seeing sounds, hearing memories, tasting colors.
• Tokens may be energy sensitive. Areas with high ambient emotion (graveyards, burnt apartments, memorable objects) seem to strengthen their clarity but exaggerate their magic in startling bursts.

OPTIONAL OFFERING EFFECTS:

• Offerings may have their transformation accelerate when using the Murmur's network, albeit in a way that glitches in and out. A friendly reminder that characters should not be able to use their transformations with ease, yet. Keep in mind they should all have a realistic adjustment period.
• Offerings may hear less words, more songs, breathing, scent— nonverbal communication that may be overwhelming.
• Offerings may experience intense somatic reactions while using the network: twitching limbs, sudden pain, the sense of being stroked or watched.

ᛗ

Wrapped and quartered

( content warnings: body horror )

As the days bleed together, the city begins to still. Where once the overgrowth pulsed with strange life, now it withers back into itself. The streets grow colder. The air bites. The mutated fauna, once noisy, prowling, goes silent. Ivy wilts, retreating from the moonlight. The mushroom towers collapse in on themselves with wet sighs. Even the buildings seem to hold their breath. Your own exhales frost in the air, hanging like ghosts. Above, the sky splits at the seams— crimson bleeding in from the edges, as if the moon itself were being peeled open at the arrival of winter.

And then: the masks begin to thrum.

It is subtle at first, a hum at the base of the spine. A low vibration felt rather than heard. But it grows, constant, inescapable— as if something is ticking down inside you. The masks react even when untouched, glowing faintly, twitching. You feel it in your chest. A second heartbeat. You're urged to put it on.

A voice, familiar and female, threads through the Murmur like static on a broken radio. Espera says:

"If you have not Tethered . . . do so. Before she bleeds in full."

Your body responds before your mind does. Magic stirs in your bloodstream— volatile and half-born. For some, flame dances along their fingertips, mirrors twitch in response to their gaze, or their pulse sings in electric rhythm. For others, bones shift beneath skin, teeth ache with growth, limbs feel wrong. Something is changing about you. Slowly. Irreversibly.

NOTES:

• Animal hosts may react reverently to tethered pairs. Lone vessels are ignored, followed, or violently met.
• Winter is here in full, but it doesn't seem natural— it is a forced shift. The city feels colder, quieter, and more hostile. Even the corrupted ecosystem seems to brace for something larger.
• Magic is awakening further. All vessels, Token and Offering alike, begin to experience supernatural phenomena more intensely. These changes are often involuntary, especially under emotional or physical duress. Powers may flicker, trigger, or distort, reflecting the vessel's inner state. They should not have control of it yet.
• The call to Tether is no longer subtle— it is urgent. Even characters who resist connection may optionally feel the biological/spiritual pressure to Tether. Those who remain untethered may begin to feel destabilized, sensitive to The Murmur, and/or experience the subtle beginnings of Succumbence.

OPTIONAL TOKEN EFFECTS

• Tokens may have unintentional magic surges in times of distress OR the awakening of "comfort zones". Small, warped spaces where reality thins into dreamscape, resembling meaningful memories (a childhood room, a stage, a battlefield). These zones offer eerie familiarity, but not safety from the weather.
• They may feel watched by something divine, but dispassionate— like being studied under a microscope.
• They may feel a need for proximity so great that the body physically aches. In worst case scenarios, you may even fall ill the longer you ignore your body's cry to dissipate your building magic. Tethering will immediately resolve this.

OPTIONAL OFFERING EFFECTS:

• An Offering's new instincts and transformations may begin to surface. Fear of fire. Yearning for music. It will all depend on what you're becoming. One thing that may be shared is a fierce protectiveness toward nearby Tokens.
• They may sense that something is weighing their souls against an invisible scale— not to punish you, but to categorize you. You have the inexplicable feeling that it is also the same thing that is shaping you.
• They may feel compelled to nest or anchor themselves near a Token's comfort zone or with a Token— circling the space like a sentinel or beast returning home. Tethering will make you whole, calm and seen.

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Missing pieces find me

( content warnings: uncanny doppelgängers, possible visions of murder, violence, self harm. )

Winter has settled into everything with soft snowfall. Into your joints. Into the breath you share with others in the dark, or by an impromptu fire with scraps. Into the way your name sounds now when someone says it soft like a secret, or a warning. You've learned to ration warmth like a dwindling supply.

You've grown used to the rhythm of this place: the creak of half-dead buildings, the hollow crunch beneath your feet, the subtle hum that coils through the threads between you and the ones you've chosen to keep close throughout the month. The ones who understand that survival isn't just about staying alive.

But lately, something else has begun to settle in. It's not loud, and certainly not obvious. A shift, like a door left open too long. And that, Dear Vessels, starts in your reflections.

You see it in the fractured edge of glass, or in water that should have frozen weeks ago. In any surface slick enough to cast back your image, you may look, and it looks back. You move, and sometimes it moves too— but not quite right. A second too late. A second too early. Sometimes not at all.

And then it smiles, or frowns, or spits.

It is just enough to be wrong. Unnerving. Just enough to slip under your skin like splinters. You tilt your head— your reflection doesn't. You blink— it watches. And then you turn away. You tell yourself it's the frost. The tension. The light. But when you glance back, it’s still watching you.

Other vessels are seeing it, too, even if they don't say it out loud. They pause at windows. They look into still water a beat too long. They touch their own faces like they're checking for something missing. Or added. Something extra.

At least your reflection isn’t hurting you. Well. Not yet.

NOTES:

• A shimmering surface of any kind could reflect two vessels at once but their reflections are fighting. There's blood between them . . .
• At night, the moon above is bright, ice blue and full, with its edges tainted by a splowly spreading crimson. Characters may notice that in reflections, it is completely red and the tendrils from within spew out. A double take will have this reflection of the moon disappearing.
• Characters (especially those who may not be able to see the reflections) may notice and hear their comrade's reflections laughing or speaking to them— they may even respond and try to carry conversation. Note that it's the reflection that's doing this sporadically, and not the real person.

OPTIONAL TOKEN EFFECTS:

• Tokens may notice their hands glowing in thier reflection, but not outside it. After a few moments, the same magic curls up their arms. Their mirrorselves are trying to access their magic for them, so best redirect anything if you want to avoid possible friendly fire.
• They may realize their reflection is always watching their Tether, even as they sleep. It tilts its head, comes crawling with a knife raised, drives it down— then it's gone.
• They may see their mirrorselves practicing violence on nearby objects, anything they could get their hands on.

OPTIONAL OFFERING EFFECTS

• Offerings may wake to burning, superficial claw marks on their sides. Their reflections will be found licking their fingers.
• They may notice their reflection becoming violent with their nearby Tethers; pulling them by the hair, biting into them, prying at their eyes, etc.
• They may see their reflections pushing into existing wounds and feeding, wherever they are.

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wrapped and quartered

[potentialman]

i.
[ The air is getting colder.

Winter is normally Megumi's favorite season. He likes the calm of a new snowfall, of a city that quiets when people have an excuse to stay inside. He likes having a good excuse to spend the evening with a book and a cup of tea. (Sometimes, the people in his life will even let him get away with it.)

This is wrong, though. No gradual change in the weather, no changing colors and raking leaves on the school campus. It's like the world just woke up and decided, no, it's time for winter now. Plants furling and shrinking in on themselves. Fewer animals prowling the streets. The wildlife knows. ]

...and yet here I am.

[ Under his breath, not really said for anyone to hear.

Why is he out here, when the city seems like it's shutting itself down and preparing for something big? Supplies and fuel, ostensibly, sure, but it's not like he doesn't have some things ready to go as it stands. The Columbia University dorms have been fairly obliging sources of food, there's a decent amount of wooden furniture he can burn, and he's been proactively searching the floors of abandoned rooms and moving what's worth taking into more accessible stashes. If he has to hunker down inside to stay out of whatever comes next, he's equipped for it.

More never hurts, he figures.

Or maybe he just wanted to get outside while he still feels reasonably safe to do so. ]


ii.
[ When he heads in, eventually, he's got a bit more rubbish to throw onto his burn pile, and with the chill in the air, it's definitely feeling like a good time to use it.

He's taken over the student lounge on the first floor of the dorm to dig out a crude firepit, with a few ratty cushions salvaged from the chairs set around it. He's currently kneeling on one of those cushions, flint and steel out, coaxing a small heap of tinder into a steadily growing flame. At the sound of someone approaching, he speaks without looking up — the fire needs his attention for a bit longer before he trusts it to stay going on its own. ]

Do you need shelter?

[ Because look, here he is, with a decent set-up that he apparently is okay with sharing! Hello, new frien—actually, let's not say anything we can't take back. ]


iii.
[ Eventually, he does drift off to get some sleep. Some pretty bad sleep, by the look of it, because after a bit of tossing and turning, he snaps up into a sitting position, sucking in a deep breath, and the remains of the fire—which had been dying, but still should've had a decent amount of soft glow left—immediately go out.

Doesn't even seem like there's starlight or moonlight coming in, actually. It's pitch black as fuck in here.

At least, it is for a few beats, before the ambient glow returns. Even the fire, oddly—like it didn't actually go out, it just couldn't pierce the darkness for those fleeting seconds. Now it's glowing soft orange like nothing happened.

Megumi just looks at his hands as he catches his breath and his pulse evens out. Oops? ]

( i )

[offseers]

[ footsteps crunch in the snow. noah misses his military clothing and its heavy layers. what he wouldn't give for lanz's coat. or that sturdiness. ]

Never hurts to step outside for a bit.

[potentialman]

[ Noah's approach feels...comfortable, almost, in a way that Megumi wouldn't normally ascribe to somebody joining him without warning. The weird link between everyone here is to blame, he supposes, but he wouldn't go so far as to call it comfortable with most of the others.

It should bother him, shouldn't it? Megumi's always held himself apart from even the people who tried the hardest to get through to him. It's disconcerting to feel so immediately at ease this way, but something about it feels right.

This place is confusing. What else is new. ]

Normally I'd agree with you, but... [ He glances around at the streets. ] It feels like something's coming, and we're the only ones who aren't in on it.

[offseers]

[ noah hums. he has good intuition. it has guided the others well. he has a good sense of encroaching danger. notices when the sounds quieten. recognizes the twitch in human expression before reacting.

yes. it's easy to agree. this is the calm before the storm. ]

That's how it goes.

I think it'll be the changes we're going through . . . that'll make a difference.

[potentialman]

[ The changes. It seems to be worse on some of them than others. For Megumi, it feels like he's simply having to relearn the things he already knew how to do, to find different ways to twist the shadows into what he needs. He remembers Nobara in that first dreamscape, attacking their foes at the cost of her own blood.

He's gotten off easy, hasn't he? The roughest part of the adjustment has just been getting used to the hum of other people's thoughts and emotions nibbling in at the edges of his own.

Letting people in has always been a more daunting thought than taming a hundred shadows, and not just his given ten. ]

I think you're right about that. [ A soft sigh. ] Part of me just wishes it'd get on with it.

[ He's not so naive as to think he's not going to regret that thought, soon enough. But it feels like they're stuck in limbo. ]

[offseers]

[ that prompts a soft chuckle from noah. feelings from old stakeouts, missions, the wait, the crunch . . . he's familiar with all of it. the fussing over it as well is nothing new. ]

Not a fan of waiting, are you?

[potentialman]

It's the not knowing that gets me.

[ He can be patient when there's purpose to it. When he has some idea of what he's waiting for. But this... ]

That...and I think it wouldn't bother me so much if we weren't changing. But my sorcery's been changed and I still don't have a grasp on whatever it's becoming. [ For all that he's learned to fight hand to hand, and with weapons, those are really just a fallback. They supplement his technique, but his primary weapon has always been the Ten Shadows. ]

[offseers]

[ it's odd.

everyone is changing. everyone is afraid of the change. everyone doesn't know what kind of change it will manifest as.

but noah . . . has been changed before. this is nothing new. is that why he's not afraid? or just . . . he's so numb to it now. what could any change do that hasn't already been done to him? ]

I don't think any of us have a good answer. All we can do is help each other out.

cw: megumi-typical level of not giving a shit if he dies

[potentialman]

[ Afraid?

He's been avoiding thinking the word to himself, but...yes. If he's honest with himself, yes. The thought of dying doesn't particularly bother Megumi -- not as much as it probably should. If throwing his life down will accomplish something, that's fine.

But what are they even here for? Will any of them still be themselves, when everything's said and done?

And, a bit selfishly -- if his connection to his power is changing, what does that mean for his shikigami? ]

...maybe I just don't like the idea of losing my shikigami.

[ No maybe about it; he's just hedging his feelings by dressing them up as hypotheticals, as usual. But he's had his divine dogs since he was six years old. He can barely remember a time when he didn't have them at his side. No matter how alone he might feel among humans, he wasn't alone, really. ]

[offseers]

[ noah's not familiar with that word so he asks. ]

Shikigami?

[potentialman]

Think of them as summoned spirits. My technique is focused on calling them to help me fight.

[ It still feels weird to try and use the Murmur to willingly pass things on, but he knows that's worth far more than a few words with no context to explain what he means, so he focuses on his shadows. Frogs, elephant, snake, a bird-like chimera, a seemingly endless wave of rabbits.

More than any other, though, the image of two wolves keeps rising to the front. And despite what he's said about fighting, the memory of headpats and snuffles and ear skritches sneaks in around the edges, too.

Look, when the world flips upside-down, sometimes a guy just really wants his dog to lick his face and wag its tail at him. ]

[offseers]

[ huh. summoned "spirits" as animals. odd. the only spirits he's ever talked about have been people. why take the form of an animal? but then again, people here have a different relationship with nature than they do in aionios. ]

Just because we're changing doesn't mean the things we lost can't be found again.

[potentialman]

...I hope so.

[ Or maybe the dream before they woke here isn't a foolproof glimpse of what they're becoming. Still, when he tried to reach Gama, and instead just got a faceless net of shadows doing Gama's job...

It was fine, in the heat of battle. He had bigger worries in the moment.

...ugh, one more reason he wishes whatever would happen would get on with it. The downtime is a very bad opportunity for someone prone to overthinking and getting stuck in his own head. ]

wildcard.

[sorte]

🎬 really typical chase scene involving cars for an action drama set in nyc: postapocalyptic horror version.

📍 times square

---

[ the city seems eerily still now, but somewhere, about a block from Times Square; the echoing of footsteps bounce off the walls within an alleyway. splashes and cracks follow the footsteps close behind from larger puddles that the weather has only managed to freeze a thin layer of their surfaces. there's only one pair of footsteps, but they are clearly frantic as they get louder near the mouth of an alley off a main street that would be heard by anyone just about to walk by it.

Aventurine bursts out from the alley, making a sharp skid and pivot to abruptly change his direction 90 degrees, and the sudden sound of hooves can be heard echoing now as they approach like a train: a moose practically explodes out of the alley next, Aventurine's quick direction change just in time to spare him from bring quite literally trampled by the creature. since it has far more mass than Aventurine it isn't able to turn quite as quickly, giving him a few extra precious seconds to make distance again.

cursing under his breath, his eyes are darting around looking for somewhere he can possibly escape to that doesn't have broken windows or doors where the moose can just come in after him, but the migraine he's experiencing now makes it difficult to focus and asses possible strageities. after a few moments, it becomes bad enough that Aventurine has to clutch his head on one side as he continues to sprint down the street. with the moose gaining on him though, the gambler forces himself to drop into a slide across some slush and hide under an old car where the moose can't reach him. unfortunately, rather than being deterred, the moose starts ramming the vehicle to try and knock it off onto its side.

gritting his teeth, Aventurine covers his head, glancing to the other side of the car as he tries to assess if it's worth the risk of trying to make a run for it with the hopes the moose is currently too distracted with the car as an obstacle or just hope that it can't manage to knock it over before it exhausts itself and gives up. ]

[potentialman]

[ It's hard to miss a commotion like that.

From a nearby alley, a head pops out just in time to see the moose charge past, and start unleashing its frustrations on an abandoned car.

He didn't see anyone dive under it, but from the footsteps it seems likely. Hopefully whoever's under there has a whit of common sense, but just in case -- ]

Hey! Whoever's under there, shut up and stay put.

[ The moose turns to look at him, seeming to consider this new factor...and turns back to the car, letting out a bellow and ramming the car again.

Megumi crouches low enough to scoop up a hunk of concrete the size of his fist, and throws it as hard as he can. Which is still nowhere near as hard as Yuji, but he beans the moose in the shoulder. It turns, snorting, and charges.

Ugh.

He backs up a few steps, to the fire escape of the nearest building, and grabs the rail with one hand and vaults over it, instead of wasting precious seconds to go around to mount the stairs like a normal person. Those seconds instead go towards scrambling further up (ignoring the shooting pain in his side that says "hey, maybe twisting that way was not it"), and he manages to be above reach by the time the moose makes contact and sets the entire fire escape rattling with a loud crash.

He backs up a few steps higher. Fighting is a much more dubious prospect, between the lack of his jujutsu and his recovering injuries, and truth be told -- he doesn't really want to hurt an animal that's just going about its weird, mutated business. He starts talking, keeping his voice low and soothing. (A much nicer tone than almost anybody here in Disaster NYC has heard from him, really.) ]

Hey. Nobody's trying to hurt you. I know, suddenly people wandering around again, right? You probably surprised each other. We don't want trouble, either.

[ He keeps up the monologue for seconds that feel much, much longer, until finally the moose eyes him again, makes a snuffling sound that seems almost exasperated, and turns to lumber off down the street it originally came from. ]

[sorte]

[ Aventurine isn't moving, although, he might also not be able to be sure if he actually heard anyone considering all the angry noise being made just above him.

Still, maybe he heard a little of it, or he's just incredibly cautious, because even once the moose leaves as someone else seems to have pissed it off, Aventurine doesn't try to crawl out from under the car. He does slowly shift himself though to be able to look out from under said car in the direction the moose retreated and watch it. He doesn't have time to figure out to who it that's getting chased since he turns just in time to see it angrily introducing itself to the fire escape, but he does watch with fascination as it eventually calms down and just... leaves?

Wow, what the hell! Just like that, huh... that can't be normal, the person must be good with animals, maybe? He's not really sure, considering there's weird power mayhem things happening lately, so it could even be a result of that.

Either way, he's not moving from under the car until he's super sure that moose isn't going to change its mind and come back for round two.

He will sigh heavily in relief, though. ]

[potentialman]

[ Well, at least it's not some idiot who immediately assumes it's cool the moment things quiet down.

Megumi waits a good few minutes to be sure the moose is well out of range before he hops down from the fire escape with a wince and makes his way closer to the car. ]

It's clear.

[sorte]

[ Pokes his head out. He knew that voice sounded familiar. ]

Oh, look who it is. Fancy meeting you here. Nice day, right?

[ Not really, the weather kinda really sucks here even if it wasn't cold, but well, what can you do? Aventurine crawls out from under the car, brushing at his clothes although he sighs a bit because his white pants are a mess now. He just cleaned these, too, and it took forever... The misery of being in hell without a wardrobe and access to washing machines or even just soap and water to clean clothes by hand, he guesses. ]

[potentialman]

[ Of course.

Of course. ]

If I just reopened my wounds saving your ass, I want a do-over.

[sorte]

[ ehe. ]

No take-backs, now. That's poor spirit of the game.

Besides, you look absolutely fine, I think you'd already know if you did such a thing. Being young has such advantages in situations like these.

[potentialman]

[ He slides a hand under his shirt and carefully prods at where he's bandaged up. Stretching that way hurt like hell, but if he's sprung a leak, it doesn't seem to be a big, fast-moving one.

Still something he'll want to check on later, but it can wait until he's not out in the open. ]

I think the real advantage in this situation is not having the kind of personality that even ticks off wild animals. What did you do?

[sorte]

[ Aventurine isn't all that proud to admit this one, folding his arms over his chest. ]

Something happened while I was crossing the alley from above, and I fell on it.

[ Pauses. ]

Along with a bucket of snow that landed on whatever used to be its head.

[potentialman]

[ There's a long pause. Dead silence.

And then.

Snort.

Megumi doesn't really laugh out loud much, but this is definitely amusement. ]

[sorte]

[ wow, how rude! ]

Glad one of us is enjoying that.

[potentialman]

Thoroughly.

[ But okay, back to business. ]

I can't promise they'd act exactly like normal moose, given where we are and what we're dealing with. [ As in: fuckin weird. ] But you had the right idea. Get out of the way and don't give them any more reasons to think you're a threat. Moose mostly attack if they're startled or they're protecting their young, so they're usually only looking to scare you away.