Well, that is not entirely true. You are within a dream, your substance is of the dream, yet, you are not the dreamer.
For those of your lineage, it is the difference between a bracelet and a manacle, or perhaps, a child's bedroom compared to a hospital ward.
At least you are not alone here. That, you know, would be a special form of torment.
You recall the song that the echo of Auntie once sung to you, the petals of her face taunt with sorrow as she recalled throwing herself into your papa's maw in the hope that he would ascend, in the hope that one day even the most meagre portion of her essence would return to her home among the stars.
You have too much of Mama in you to properly understand everything she tried to tell you, but she didn't mind, too scarred by eons of solitude to ever dream of rejecting companionship. Her helpers were cute too, soft and squidgy, not like the thin and bony Messengers that papa uses to keep an eye on you.
You're like Mama in that regard as well. She says he's silly and should change them into something more dignified, and sometimes she even briefly wins, and instead of little withered babies everywhere there are little red lizards or flowers with watchful eyes, but he always turns them back eventually.
You suspect he enjoys teasing Mama like that, but it's difficult to tell sometimes. There's so…much of him that you don't even think he remembers where he ends and his echoes begin sometimes.
You suspect they would argue far more, were it not for you. If there is anything that the Great Ones and Blood Royal can agree on, it is the importance of children.
Hence your presence in this place, a dream within a dream within countless other dreams, a pearl of impassable hells with your home in its heart.
All because of one thing.
Every great one loses its child, and then yearns for a surrogate...
Your fate may be written in the stars, but that doesn't mean that your parents do not struggle against it.
You remember the howls when Uncle Spider tried to creep in through his hidden web to pluck you from your crib, how the moon burned the colour of blood and a legion of echoes marched beneath it.
The gentle clacking of porcelain rubbing against porcelain as Grandma strangled the life out of a rogue echo that burst in on your lessons with her smooth, cold hands.
The wondrous, terrifying scent of your and mama's blood commingling as she taught you the duelling forms of the Noble House of Cainhurst.
How your head throbbed and burned as your Papa whispered secrets to you, truths that buzzed and stung like hornets let loose within your skull, and after as he held you in his arms, and told you were safe, that everything was going to be alright.
Then one morning you were no longer dreaming, and you knew that your Papa had lied.
…
Your eyes are still shut, the undersides of your eyelids dark orange from the heatless light shining down upon you.
Sadly, you can't turn off your nose and ears, or rather, it would be a very silly thing to try, given that you don't really know how you'd turn them back on again.
So they tell you what you had known since you woke up on this hard, spongy bed, with nothing but too-thin sheets to cover you.
You are not in your home.
Home does not smell so clean and sharp that it makes your head ache.
Home does not sound like the distant rattling of metal over tile, or the beating of some shrill insectoid heart.
You know, in your very bones, that you will never see your home or your family again.
You still do not open your eyes, resisting until that last moment that final, terrible conformation of all you feared.
Your eyes feel damp and raw beneath your eyelids, and wet trails spill down the sides of your face. You sniff sharply, jaw wobbling with the effort of containing your emotions.
You knew it was going to happen, and leaving your parents behind by being snatched to some new world was far from the worst of the fates that could befall you.
Knowing that does not make it hurt any the less.
Your eyes itch, and you fight the urge to blink until it feels like there are ants beneath your eyelids.
You surrender, and the cold, lifeless light of the world beyond tears into your eyes like a razor.
The only mercy here is that your sight is too blurred to see anything more than the most basic shapes.
You wipe your eyes, barely keeping your heart from bursting from grief, and look for the first time into this cruel and barren world that you find yourself in.
Your surroundings are as pale and insipid as everything else in this place, dull and desaturated compared to the wondrous domain that you called your home only yesterday. White on white on white, plaster and cloth and paint over metal. The only real colour around you was the halo of dark hair spreading over the pillow of the bed next to yours.
Even she seems pale and barely there, silent as she tosses and turns, caught in the grip of some bad dream or other. You'd sympathise, but at least she would get to wake up from what torments her. You have no such luxury, trapped in this pale, drained shell of a body, lost in a world that is not your own.
Only two things you can perceive even seem real to you, vibrant and solid compared to this lifeless, ephemeral place. A ring sits upon your finger, and scuttling and buzzing beneath it, lies a word of the True Speech, a note in a song that spanned stars and worlds and dreams. Even here, it still squirms happily within you, blessedly ignorant of the terrifying emptiness of the world around it.
You look at your hand, and each of your parents stare back. The ring burns on your finger with the heat of a final goodbye, and you clutch your hand to your chest.
You never knew things could be so precious before now.
Before, of course, you had people instead.
---
What are your precious things, SV?
Welcome to Origami Clock's patented minimalistic chargen vote. Each option conveys a particular focus for our OC, as well as allowing her to possess the prerequisite marks for being identified as a Magical Girl. Isn't that convenient?
-
Gem Options:
Golden Gem – Focus: Beasthood
Red Gem – Focus: Humanity
Prismatic (Tear) Gem – Focus: Eldritch
You will not witch out if you overdo powers/grief spiral. You will just become a crazed abomination hungry for blood/souls set free in an urban environment.
Grief seeds help. They make you remember what human emotions feel like. (Yes, you can become a grief vampire, but it certainly won't be an easy mode.)
Unless you really overdo things, you won't become an obviously inhuman thing, even with doubled foci. You may end up fluffy with dog ears, or behaving slightly more like a flower/octopus than is socially appropriate, but nothing worse than that.
Name: Ruby
Foci:
Humanity (Red Gem), Eldritch (Milkweed Rune)
Powers:
Augur of Ruby (Thorned vines/vampiric roots optional)
Regeneration (Only central flower/head/coldblood+eye resevoir are unable to be regrown)
Budding (NB: clones cost eyes, so don't go overboard)
Desperation Mode
An adorable plant creature unceremoniously dumped in a dimension very far from her home. Prone to jumping to conclusions, administering slightly eldritch hugs, and doing very unpleasant things to a certain emotionless bunnycat.
Currently cohabitating with Homura, who she has sworn to assist in her mission thanks to a slight misunderstanding. Depending on how silly Homura is being, this assistance will range from loyal minioning to administering soothing hugs and reminders that she should really get more sleep.
Important People
The Host - "Homura"
A lonely, horribly traumatised girl who has found a friend willing to share almost unconditional affection with her. If only that friend wasn't the herald of the imminent collapse of reality and thought that she was some sort of incomprehensible cosmic entity trapped in the body of a 14-year old girl.
Regardless, the mission continues as it always has. Madoka must be saved. No matter the cost.
-- The Gardener - "Rika"
A lonely, horribly traumatised girl who having been taken advantage of by a white-haired red-eyed magical creature, has just been rescued by another. Enjoys cake, sarcasm and gardening, dislikes the cold, squatting in the industrial district, and talking about her past, and really, really hates Kyubey.
Really isn't sure just what to make of Ruby. The fact that her magical senses can't tell if she's plant or animal is something that would quite disturb her if she gave too much thought to it, on the other hand, her utter lack of inhibitions when it comes to sharing affection and her disposable income forgive a not insignificant number of sins.
You'll still have control, it's just that if you go too far your options will start to go a little FLESH OF THE FALLEN ANGELS. It's not like I'm encouraging you to vote to comment about how tasty Sayaka looks or to forget that you only have four limbs and not 17, but the 'remember I'm human' options will become more extreme as they have to counterbalance the growing inhumanity of your thoughts.
Blood is the least...invasive medium for the touch of the Great Ones. Using your own medium isn't going to be in anyway as pleasant, for either of you. The Pretty Flower equivalent would be something like implanting one of your fingers into a meguca's heart, causing their arteries and veins to become thorned vines inside them, and their eyes to bloom into flowers. (Yes, I have just watched the 8th episode of alucard abridged.)
We could still use blood. The origin of the Blood Saints is just humans given a carefully controlled amount of Old Blood which is implied heavily to come from Ebrietas or Oedon. Interestingly the Eldritch route would likely innevitably lead to a Beast outbreak as it is thought to be the corrupting nature of man that makes the Beast from Old Blood.
Well yes, but again, Blood Saints need very particular strains of the Old Blood. If they aren't the right strains, you get the Experiment Hall/Castle Cainhurst. If you don't go down the healing route, your blood isn't quite the right type for Hunter-tier infusions, regular blood healing and the like.
Assuming Prettiest Flower wins, which seems quite likely, this will be because your blood is a little too potent/inhuman, making it dangerous to use in anything but small, infrequent doses for healing because of the risk of addiction/sticky whispers.
Your thumb rubs along the silver petals engraved around the glossy scarlet gem, and you hear the sound of Papa's voices rumbling in your mind. It is only the memory of a word, but the True Speech does not submit to the petty demands of entropy.
A sharp, brittle smile forms on your face for a moment, as you savour the knowledge that no matter what your future has in store for you, you will always be able to cast your mind inwards, and feel the lingering warmth of your Papa's final words to you.
Grow Strong, my Little Flower.
Despite the weight of the lifeless stone pressing in around you, you feel the pull of the moon overhead, and your face turns to follow it. It may not be the great, nurturing light of your Papa, but so far away from home, even the palest scrap of the familiar was something to be cherished.
You are almost tempted to uncoil yourself, to climb to some high summit and drink deep of this new moonlight. It may be the very thinnest of gruel, but it was better than lingering here, stewing in your own sorrow.
The pinch of the ring pulls you back from the brink, constraining the unwinding of your reaching tendrils. You can practically hear your mother scolding you for what you were about to do, making yourself as vulnerable as one of your lineage can be, with no thought to the dangers that might surround you.
You coil your tendrils back into fingers again, an embarrassed blush on your cheeks, at how easily you had slipped into one of the most notorious bad habits of your Papa's family. Your smile is bittersweet again, as you remember how the last time Papa drifted apart, Mama went into his dusty old workshop and woke him up with a hammer that was bigger than you were.
No drifting apart then. No running away from how badly you hurt. All you can do is move forward.
Maybe it will hurt less.
Do you want it to hurt less?
Your maudlin train of thought is suddenly derailed, as the dark-haired girl, her nightmare having reached some sort of awful climax, shakes herself awake. Her eyes are wild and panicked for a moment, before she takes in her surroundings, and sinks back onto the uncomfortable mattress with a weary sigh.
Then she sits up again, the cold light bleeding through the glass into the room sending shadows across her face. She looks at you, and you can feel the confusion wafting off of her like pollen in the wind, though little of it, if any, makes it to her expression, or indeed her voice.
"Who are you?"
Even softened by the residue of sleep, she sounded as cold and sharp and lifeless as every other aspect of this new world. Maybe this was her dream? You wondered what sort of person would make a world deliberately unpleasant for them to live in.
Even poor Uncle Eyes hadn't done that, even after those horrible Mensis people had crawled into his and locked him in a cage. He hadn't needed to, but then again, he had always been one of your more patient relatives.
You shuddered a little, as you contemplated a world of whiteness and cold unyielding angles, only pulled back when the black haired girl coughed sharply, lines of exasperation cutting through the pale skin around her eyes.
Then you blush a little and remember the shape you're doesn't have enough flowers on it for you to speak in the language you are accustomed to.
You think for a moment, translating what would have been a scintillating dance of aromas heavy with subtle meaning into vibrations that you bluntly hammer into shape with your tongue.
"Sorry, sometimes I forget it's easier just to speak like this. I'm…"
'Apotheosis of Encarmine Dew'
'Heart of the Sacred Blossom'
'Scion of Most Exalted Blood'
"…Ruby. Is that how you say it?"
"You're not from Mitakihara then?"
Her eyes turn flinty and suspicious, and you have to fight to keep yourself from unravelling into a protective bundle of thorn-encrusted vines. She doesn't look like she could even hurt you, never mind pose a serious threat to your life.
But that was what they said about Papa once, and her eyes make you think of what other cold, sharp things this place might contain. If this was her Dream, then she would not need that frail, drained form to cut and scatter you into pieces too small for even you to regrow from.
"No…I just woke up here…what-why are you so…"
Her hand moved, and suddenly she smelt of Time, stank of it, like she had been tearing her way through its endless viscera and had just emerged dripping from it.
You recoil from her. You cannot help yourself. You remember the stories Papa told you about those with the strength to fight against the River of Is, that they were ancient beyond comprehension, powerful beyond sanity or limitation. They made Great Ones look like children.
Against her, you are nothing but dust.
You curl up into yourself, panic bleeding into your voice as you apologise for your trespass in every voice you possess.
As you beg for mercy, she recoils in turn, clutching her head against the cacophony of pleas emerging from you. Seeing this, you immediately fall silent, your red eyes wide and glossy with fear as they peek out from where you buried yourself beneath your sheets in an instinctive, futile effort to hide yourself.
For a moment, you stare at each other from your beds, her façade at last cracked to show the sheer surprise and confusion that hovered over her like mist over a lake.
You might have stared at each other for who knows how much longer, if the door to your room hadn't squeaked open and a small white thing pushed its way through.
If you thought the world seemed barren and lifeless, this fluffy white husk seems to be its apotheosis. Its voice was so cold and empty that its words seemed to cut at your mind.
You act on the purest, most unthinking of instincts when you unwind your ringless arm into a dozen grasping vines, white tendrils surrounding and crushing the abomination to paste before it could utter another one of those cutting vacuums of emotion it used as speech.
A blush spreads across your pale features as your tendrils consume the remains before winding themselves back into a limb. Understanding dawns too, as you consider the withered, lifeless state of this Dream.
You knew that the Parasites of the Great Sea of Mud could infest even Great Ones. Was that thing a leech that could sap away the essence of Dreams themselves? How many of them must there be, if it could reduce a Dominion as great as your hosts to this drained remnant?
You bow to her avatar with grave solemnity, silently thanking your mama for teaching you the proper protocols. You didn't think it would matter before, with so few of the Great Ones or their Kin showing much nostalgia for their times in such limited forms.
Thinking of home makes you teary again, but you restrain yourself. Even as diminished as she seemed, your host still held in her the power to cleft moment from moment. Such power deserves respect, at the very least.
"I apologise for disturbing you, O Eternal One. Might I earn your forbearance by assisting you in cleansing this infestation of your Dominion?"
There is silence for some time, and when you quell your fear enough to dare look up at your host, you see her silent and staring into the middle distance, a look of faint horror bleeding though the stoic cast of her face.
You would not dare to presume to listen to the naked thoughts of one such as her, but your mama also taught you to read lips, and though barely there, you can see what voiceless words she is uttering.
'I've broken it, I've broken it, I've broken it…'
--- Homura.exe is not responding. What are you going to do about it SV?
Probably never? Unless one follows us through a crack in reality (and we're a Flower and an Octopus, we're kind of really, really good at slipping through cracks) or another Great One who can make Hunters falls in when the cracks widen.
We might be able to make them in the future. Magical Girl healing is potent shit, so they may be able to survive it long enough for us to learn how to do it.
Since the whole 'My Soul is a Rock!' thing makes physcial pain a bit less of a factor, it's mostly just a task of finding someone willing to undergo a fairly disturbing procedure for the sake of increased power. Think of it as a less bleakly obsessed version of Kirika Witching herself out to help Oriko complete her plan.
Oh, I forgot that bleakly obsessed is Homura's middle name. Wonder what she'd prefer? Mami-tier plant tendrils, Sayaka-tier healing factor, 'budding' Clones or just the ability to tear big holes in reality and drop asteroids on people?
What, do we have Eyes growing in all our flowers or something? I'm not sure what you mean by soaking them in insight either. Unless you mean leaving them in the presence of a Great One or eating the eyes/slugs that reflect the Greater Universe/Great Sea. In which case we have Augurs for everybody since we are a Great One, if very young.
Not all Ruby's flowers have eyes in, just the one that is usually very tightly closed and looks like a human head. When that is fully unfolded, she is both very vulnerable, since it is her main power node, and capable of doing horrible quantities of damage. Think of it as her equivalent of Amygdalas brain-laser or Ebrietas' overclocked Call Beyond.