Cursed Night Market

[pantheraliam]

Welcome

You’re not sure how you got here, but you don’t seem to mind. You feel a pervasive sense of calm with regard to your environment. You have entered what appears to be a night market. Perhaps the concept is familiar to you, or perhaps it isn’t. Colorful stalls, glowing with lantern light, line the path before you. You know what you need to do to return to where you came from. Investigate the various stalls - buy and sell what you have, until you’re able to purchase a path back. The merchants will take any currency that you have on hand. If you don’t have any, you will find some coins of an ambiguous nature in your pocket.

Rare Items

The first stall that you encounter boasts that you can buy and sell rare items. After trading a coin, the merchant hands you something - insists you take it. You don’t recognize the item, but the person behind you does. It is something extremely dear to them. If they check their person, they will find the item missing. If you attempt to return the item to them, you will find that you are unable to. Helpfully, the merchant offers that the person the item belongs to must tell the buyer a story about the item before it can be returned.

Fortunes

The second stall you encounter claims to buy and sell fortunes. Trading a coin, the merchant will relay to you a fortune, but, as you listen, you realize that it isn’t your fortune at all. With a cackle, the merchant explains that you must deliver the fortune with the person behind you. Neither of you can leave the booth until you have revealed to them their future.

Memories

The third stall you encounter claims to buy and sell memories. You can choose to sell the merchant a memory you would like to forget, or you can ask to buy someone else’s memory. Selling your memory will transfer it to the person behind you. In return, you will gain one of their memories. Buying a random memory will instead cause you to forget one of the people most important to you. In some instances, you might feel a great urgency to find someone, although you don't know who it is.

Dreams

The fourth stall you encounter claims to buy and sell dreams. Trading a coin at this stall will cause you and the person behind you to be transported into a shared dream. The dream may be about the highest point in your life or the lowest. It may also be about a close friend, there or gone. It may reveal your greatest desire or your greatest insecurity. Or any number of other things!

OOC notes

Suggestions on prompts: if you’re going to write one where someone will be seeing/receiving something from your character, it’s helpful to describe it in detail in the brackets in your TL. I know some of these prompts are probably a little confusing, but, I mean…it’s roleplay. Just fuck around. No one’s gonna police how you do things here.

Please feel free to top-level, tag in, and share this meme wherever you’d like - it is open to anyone. The four stalls mentioned are prompt suggestions, but you can go crazy and have any stall do basically anything you want. Please see/use subject line CWs. This musebox doesn’t have a dedicated rule list because it’s just for my personal shit, but please be kind, follow standard RP rules - just be nice! Do the right thing! If you have any questions, hit me up here.

code by Flyleaf ❖ inspired by event code by 10billionghosts ❖ background via unsplash

Comments

[placation]

[ That's the thing, though – no response that Eren has ever given him has been unsatisfactory.

If it's how he feels, then it's how he feels. Maruki has never been in the habit of trying to force him to feel any other way than he already does. ]

It will, one day. Somewhere, sometime. Just not right now. Unfortunately, you're stuck with me instead.

[ His teasing grin returns for that, and it feels like lightly bantering each other over stew before everything went to hell, it feels like gently feeling out the edges of a new bond while wandering through a tea festival–

He probably saw Eren only yesterday – maybe even only minutes ago – and he's missed him so much.

He kicks a leg out from where he's still leaning heavily against the stall, nudges Eren's shin with the toe of his shoe. ]

Maybe you brought me here to say goodbye?

[abandonhumanity]

To you? [Eren cocks an eyebrow.] I'm not sure that's possible.

[No, Maruki has never asked anything of Eren that he wasn't capable of giving; didn't ask him for much at all, really, but gave him plenty - gives, really.

[Eren puts his hands in his pockets. In another reality, it's a black and white track suit. Today, it's his long black coat.]

We've never said goodbye before. I don't see why we should start now.

[placation]

[ Maruki knows Eren– knows several Erens– and this Eren is his friend, as they all are, but still new to him in some ways. His expressions are different, his stance. Maruki mirrors it, hands in his own pockets. He's not different at all, really. Years separated Eren in Somnius and Eren in 7. What separated Maruki? Forty days.

It only serves to make him feel more unstuck from time and place. And despite all he knows theoretically about realities, it's not a physical or mental sensation that he's used to. ]

You're right about that. I don't know why I'm trying to make sense of this, really...

[ A thumb dug into his temple, rubbing and kneading. He smiles at Eren through it. ]

Have you looked around at all? It's funny. We could share dreams or memories here. As if we need the help.

[abandonhumanity]

I met you in a dream. [Pause.] Once.

Then, my head was full of fake memories of you. I thought we grew up together. You did too, didn't you? [When they were hunters, he means.

[Looks like it's time for reminiscing now, instead. Eren starts moving toward the smell of food, not signs promising magical journeys.]

[placation]

[ Honestly, it's a relief. And a funny role reversal, in a way – Eren is the grounding force for him now. Maruki trails after him until they can walk side by side, close, shoulder to shoulder. Anything to tether his mind down to whatever reality this currently is. ]

That... Yes, I remember that. We had always been together, in that case. It's why I wasn't going to let you go off on your own, even though...

[ He trails off, the strangeness of false memories that felt so real at the time compounding with all of the competing memories in his head. Another few moments to knead at his temple as they walk. He really doesn't know how Eren does this all the time. ]

It felt real. Having known you that long. I know that it wasn't, but it really did. [ So maybe, in a way, it was... ]

[abandonhumanity]

It could have been real. [Eren glances sidelong at one of his dearest, most cherished friends.] A memory is a memory. Tomorrow, somewhere else, we might say, "I know that weird market wasn't real."

It's real right now. [The student has become the teacher? He just has a little more experience with this sort of thing, by now. But...everything that Maruki taught him is a big part of that - here, there, and everywhere else too.]

[placation]

[ Maruki glances sidelong to meet his gaze, but he holds it, turns his head to smile fully at Eren. ]

You're right. Of course you are. You know, for all the theories that I studied and even wrote myself... [ A sick twinge in his gut. ] And for all the realities that I created...

[ An arm crossed over his chest to dig the heel of his palm into the center of his sternum, quelling some tremendous wave of upset from the part of him that watched blank lanterns ascend overhead with a silent promise not to let that future come to pass. It did, in other realities. Maybe it always will. ]

I never had to contend with experience of more than a couple at a time myself. [ The true reality, Somnius, the City of 7, the cognitive world and the collective unconscious – he only ever knew small combinations, dependent on his current situation. ] But you're right. What's real in the moment is real in the moment, and that's what matters.

[ His breath is short, uneven, head pounding through primordial, temporal dark. ]

[abandonhumanity]

[Eren places a hand on his friend's shoulder.]

Breathe, Maruki.

[placation]

[ Breathe at a cottage dining table, breathe on a castle sofa, breathe in a garden, breathe in a forest, breathe in a counseling office more times than he could ever begin to count–

Eren tells him to breathe, and it's like coming home.

Maruki laughs at first, all the air punched out of him despite the gently authoritative command. The way the tables have turned is so absurd, he can't help himself...

But then he does. Some part of his mind harkens back to every time he slowed his breathing to try to get Eren to mirror him without being told. For quite some time as they meander slowly, aimlessly through the market, he only focuses on his breath. It takes some time to slow, longer to even out, but he does get there eventually, breaths deep and purposeful, heart finally beginning to slow.

An exhale after a held breath, and he smiles over at Eren, steadier than before, plainly and profoundly grateful. ]

I wonder where you learned that one from...

[abandonhumanity]

[Eren glances sideways at his friend as they approach a food stand at long last. He raises an eyebrow.]

Can't remember.

[placation]

[ That earns Eren a light punch to one shoulder as Maruki huffs a laugh that quickly turns to a relieved sigh. ]

Don't be a little shit.

[ Do. Please. He's missed it, whether it's been minutes or years since he last experienced it.

A glance at the food stall then. ]

Imagine if it was stew...

[ He can't stop himself from reminiscing! He's so painfully fond. Help. ]

reads this again and kills you I had to turn off my music to tag this

[abandonhumanity]

[Ah. Endless realities, all compounding on each other, but seeing an old friend that he recognized had been enough to momentarily distract him from what else his conscious mind can now ponder.

[Stew. Jean. They were rivals, and then they were friends, and then they were enemies, and then they were a promise, made between two people who loved each other, loved each other, loved each other more than either of them were ever able to put into words.

[They had never acknowledged their love in their own reality (whichever of the many numerous realities Eren created counts, anyway), but in Somnius, they had been married. They'd tied traditional Shiganshina bands around each other's wrists and swore a vow.

[Eren's palm lays over his chest, but there's no heartbeat. He grips.]

[placation]

[ Maruki watches him. The shadows over his face cast by the overhead lights on a dark night, the way his hand presses over where his heart should be.

It's a terrible empathy that wells up in his chest. Eren is dead; it doesn't mean he doesn't feel.

Maruki can't tell him to breathe. It won't do any good. He lays a hand between Eren's shoulder blades instead, palm flat and firm. Steps closer in to his side, out of the way of other people trying to approach the stall, cranes his neck to try to catch his eye. ]

Tell me what's going on in your head. I always wished I could get in there and find out for myself.

cw: suicidal ideation

[abandonhumanity]

[Maruki is ever grounding. Eren still feels untethered. He doesn't have to be tethered anymore - he can exist now forever in that inifinite, dark, lifeless place that he wanted so badly, but...he does have to feel right now, yes. And he feels it.]

You don't want to be in my head. [It comes out sounding weak, for Eren. Maruki might notice; others might not.]

Jean and I were married, right? That's what...

[placation]

[ Maruki doesn't move an inch. He'll keep Eren anchored to memory, if not to time and place. ]

You were, yeah.

[ Soft, but with conviction. Maruki's own jumbled mass of memories about the many lives he's lived is one thing, but he knows this about Eren. ]

You guys had a cottage, then a farm, and I liked staying over at both when I got the chance. You worked well together...

[abandonhumanity]

[Eren nods. He remembers. Jean...] And Mikasa too...That's right.

[Of course, they never could have that in Eren's true reality - that's why they allowed themselves it in Somnius. It wasn't a perfect place. Eren hated it most of the time - hated them sometimes, too, he remembers.

[No different, really, no matter where they go.

[He loved them. He wished so often that those places, somehow, could have become "home," but that was never possible...]

We said goodbye. [It isn't enough. He mourns.] Jean promised me...Mikasa wouldn't be alone.

[placation]

[ Another memory that isn't his own, was never his to begin with, only ever relayed to him by Eren: A captive doctor and a patient he repeatedly risked his life for, a goodbye of their own at that same place.

The hand between Eren's shoulder blades rubs a firm circle, as much to keep Maruki grounded as him. ]

I can't tell you anything to make it better. Nothing ever will. But you...

[ He stops, mouth setting in a fine line. His head is swimming again. Breathe. ]

The things that you do for the people that you love, Eren. They matter. Saying goodbye matters. Even if it isn't enough.

[abandonhumanity]

[As ever, Eren has no right to Maruki's comfort - anyone's. His loved ones were not grateful for what he did, save for one, and he can't blame them for that. He didn't do it for praise. He knew that they wouldn't understand; none but Armin, when Eren finally got a chance to explain. Eren acts beyond others' understanding - he acts because he's decided he knows the answer, and no one can tell him otherwise, once he's made a decision like that.

[It matters because they're alive. It matters because their curse is broken. They're heroes to the world. Eren made sure it mattered, but that isn't what Maruki is talking about.

[Facing them felt impossible; leaving without seeing them again would have truly been. It wasn't a matter of bravery, really, nor kindness - Eren wanted to see them again too.

[His hand grips Maruki's shoulder. There are never words to speak to this. Life is unbelievably cruel. Sometimes, that weight alone is enough to make Eren want to fall to his knees.

[That grip tightens. They can ground each other. For the majority of their many, varied relationships, that's what they've done.]

I couldn't leave without. [Honesty unbefitting of this Eren, this voice - but not with this man, this friend. Maruki knows it all. There's no reason to hide. How beautiful a bond like that is.]

It was selfish. [Not self-deprecating really. It's light, somehow.] But...

Despite everything...

They wanted to see me again too.

[placation]

[ Lifetimes across just a small handful of infinite possible realities should by all means separate them, and here they are. Holding one another fast in a strange market, baring their souls under dim light. As ever, as ever. ]

I'm biased, of course, but... If they got something out of it as well, then it wasn't entirely selfish, in the end. Maybe your motives were, but the act itself wasn't.

[ It's all about perception, after all.

He knows he doesn't have to explain that to Eren. They helped one another to understand a lot of concepts like that, didn't they...

There are memories in Maruki's head that he doesn't think he's actually lived. Vivid bright, but hazy. Sharp at the edges, but dimmed. A frigid night above Odaiba. A photo taken on a sunny day outside a school. A taxi pulling up just when needed. A darkened nurse's office. He remembers.

The words come out slow and unsure. He has to chew them over as he speaks them, and they're nearly disconnected, like he doesn't know where each thought is going until it gets there. He's unpracticed at this – sorting through so many lives reflected endlessly, like two mirrors facing one another. ]

There were situations where I succeeded. And I was never able to say goodbye. Everyone forgot me. I think I was– not happy with that, but at... No, not at peace either...

[ Resigned to it.

He stops, sighs. ]

I don't know. I just think that you were able to say goodbye, so they never forgot you. That's a beautiful thing.

[abandonhumanity]

[To be forgotten...

[Eren told Mikasa that that's what he wanted. He told her to throw away that old scarf once he died, and to forget about him; of course, she never could. Part of him knew that, maybe, but...

[To Armin, he cried. He told him that he didn't want Mikasa to forget him. He is, before anything, a selfish, sobbing child. He knows it.

[And he's a paradox. He wanted both, in ways. He wanted her freedom, but he wanted her endless love too.

[He couldn't have been forgotten by her, or by Armin, or by anyone - anyone, and he made sure of that; ever selfish, yes, and far from beautiful...

[Eren's nervous habit, the clenching and unclenching of his hands, works into Maruki's shoulder now. There's only one thing he can say, really - one promise he can make without any doubt at all.]

I won't forget you. I haven't.