Jill
Despite being told she could help herself to blankets, Mimir only grabbed one. She sat with her legs pulled to her chest, blanket wrapped around her back, pink eyes showing little sign of fatigue as they fixated on the distortion in the room.

Sigrún was asleep. Mimir glanced over every once in a while, the heap of blankets covering her — ~~friend? Fascination?~~ — acquaintance making it almost hard to recognize. They find it just a little funny how it curls up, becoming so small so easily. They wonder, in passing, if it's comfortable.

They sigh, eyes glued in place for just a while longer before looking down at her gloved hands. It's a bad idea. Everyone said so. They know so. And yet, they're drawn to the spot, the pull almost gravitational. No matter how far away she would get, as long as it existed, she would be pulled to it. 

The tattoos on her palms seem to glow in the dark. The brightly colored ink, forever etched into her skin, stares back at her, the gloves sitting at her side. Mimir shifts, moving to crawl towards the spot. It wasn't far, after all, and before she knows it, she's sitting in front of it, bare hands rubbing her leg. Getting the sweat off.

It's not like she's going to lay in it. Just take a poke. See what the fuss is all about. Mimir doesn't dare glance back at Sigrún as she extends an arm out, a single finger entering the no-touch-zone everyone warned her so badly about.

Maybe she should have listened.

The black and white room was blinding. Mimir squints, trying to get a grip before realizing someone was above her. *Who is that? Basil?* She opens her mouth to say something, only for his words to cut her off.

Not safe? This is a memory, right? This isn't—

The shriek throws her off and she scrambles away from the boy, first backwards away from him and then trying to get to her feet, only to be pulled away, the flashes, noises, the *Feelings* Drowning her all at once. She felt numb, but she felt everything, paralyzed as she felt it all dig itself into her brain at once, her chest heaving all too quickly. This was too much. Mimir wasn't able to take all of this, wasn't she? The panic raises into her throat, and she feels like throwing up, but right before she can, the voice is back.

*Move.* The white light blinds her all at once and she yells, the panic rising again. She's going to be stuck, isn't she?

And then she's pulled again, but not as badly, not into the depths. Pulled away. Mimir has to *Leave,* And she does, her feet taking on a mind of their own as she runs, and then—

The glow of her pink eyes hardly fades as she flings herself away from the distortion, a yell leaving her as she does so. Breathing, yes, but much too quickly, and it hurts. God, her head *Hurts,* And nothing is slowing down. The blinding white is etched into her mind, the memories just as much, but... It didn't make sense.

Nothing makes sense, it's all too messy, it's—

Mimir feels herself crying. The hot tears falling down her face all at once, so fast. Nothing is slowing down.
Helen
In its haphazard cocoon, Sigrún is stirred by a shout and a chill up its spine.

The air in her room is thick and charged with movement, fear, sights unseen; dark tentacles bloomed from her shadow, and she knew before opening her eyes what that stinging in the sensitive flesh was. A number of stubborn forces were now awake.

There was another there, a weight missing at the foot of her bed— Sig's sleep-heavy mind tries to find them, and move closer, but the shapes of the room warped and shuddered like she was peering through brackish water, her limbs passing through half as many shapes as they hit. It peers through the scrying pool and follows the heartrending sound of sobs to Mimir, a deathly-silver shade of lilac in the low light, shaken and strange. 

Sigrún curses herself for falling asleep.

With a crash, a shudder, and the sound of air being sucked through clenched teeth, a worried face now stared into Mimir's. It is striped with jagged red and sickly white, eyes peeled wide and straining to focus; cold fingertips gently light on their shoulders, recalling a warning about skin and minds flayed like string cheese. Still, it must know she is there, that this body breathes as it shakes— Sigrún feels warmth through the fabric of their shirt, and, content with that, faces the writhing mass of burning colours behind her.

More black brine than smart words trickle from the corners of Sig's mouth, but she had more to say to Mimir that to the ones beyond the shuddering veil. She had formulated enough apologies over the years to be confident in that, at least.

*-would you hate that?*

*-mm*
*-I don't know*

A blanket is draped around Mimir's shoulders, so that a strong arm may curl around them and pull them closer. *Up*, it mouths. Another, peeled away from its back like a petal bent from its body in a harsh wind, reached for the door handle.
Jill
Mimir feels the blanket wrap around her and the guilt takes over. This wasn't what she expected, and Sigrun shouldn't have to see it. No one should. Fuck. Mimir wipes her face off with a sleeve, begging herself to just *Stop* For a second and get her shit together, to relax, anything but this. 

"I-I-" They stop, shaking their head, trying to take in a deep breath but not succeeding, not yet. "Sig-Sigrun, I di-didn't mean to-" The tears spill over again and she wants to bash her head into a wall. This weakness, the fact that this... Distortion, this spot had destroyed her, brought her down to this level, pissed her off more than anything. The cloud of memories in her head didn't make it any better either, and it *Hurt,* Too. God, it fucking hurts.

Sigrun looks at Mimir and she can barely make out what it mouths, but she nods, only to be cut off by the arrival of the masks and the voices. Her eyes glance around the room. Was she still in the distortion? That wasn't right, she left. But still, she heard them, and the confusion is all over her face. Can Sigrun hear them too? No, no it can't. This is all her, isn't it?

*It's a leak,* The thought crosses her mind briefly. A leak. The memories were leaking out of her subconscious and manifesting in front of her. She'd finally lost it. As the memories start to slow, so does her breathing, but the thoughts do not. Mimir looks past Sigrun and sees the figure, the bracelet, and the hand, and she blinks, eyes wide. 

*You were never meant to be here.* Be *Where?* The cradle? This room? The distortion's fucked up mind palace? Mimir doesn't move, one hand clutching the blanket and the other holding a fistful of Sigrun's shirt. 

"This d- this doesn't make s-sense, I-" The words aren't directed towards Sigrun, and Mimir's grip on its shirt loosens as it slips past the squid girl and towards and hand, grabbing onto nothing as she's lifted off the floor and towards the door.

The blanket stays wrapped around them, her head almost totally submerged in the fabric as she does her best to avoid touching Sigrun at all. That wouldn't be fair to her. Not now. Not ever.
Helen
The sound of crashing whitewater in Sigrún's head nearly carries Mimir's broken sob of confusion; it's dashed against the shore when a fistful of her shirt is pulled away from her. For a moment, instinct calls to move with it—to curl around them, press them into her same current, where they could both melt through a crack in the door into open waters.

Sigrún instead takes the hitch as a moment to stop moving. Either the room was spinning or it was her head, and squinting at melting, *Screaming* Array of colours did little to clarify.

Mimir, however, saw something clearly, and the brow over those alien eyes furrowed with a bitter pang of jealousy. There was something right in front of *Both of them*, but all it could make out was the same door frame splashed across three conflicting planes, light from the hallway warped into faint, bleeding lines in the dark, shifting in and out of focus. Sigrún was getting just a little bit tired of never being able to see *Shit* In this place.

The warm, heavy weight in her arms is lifted from her, though, said the one sense still working clear as day; her human arm slips from its shoulders as it struggles to its feet, in a world of its own. Sigrún would admit to many a passing raven and few others that she so longed, in that moment, to traverse that world with her. 

Instead, bound by her bones and their faults to the other side of the gate, it shot a sucker-lined arm through the invisible path toward the doorknob, twisted, and pulled.

The door flew open with *Force*, droplets of hot ink dripping down the back of her throat and spilling from under her tongue onto the floor—Mimir is pulled by their covered wrists through the frame and into the dim hallway, pulled too close to Sig's wide-eyed, black-smudged expression. Its shoulder blade digs into the opposite wall, sinking a little, tentacles curled into spirals.

Questions burn in her throat, but they come up as coughed-up splatters of oil and brine on the back of her hand.
Jill
Mimir feels the wind from the door flying open in her face and it feels more than refreshing. The light of the hallway stuns her as she's pulled out of the dorm, the hands on their wrists anchoring them to reality and keeping her from losing herself in the flood of memory and emotion so forcefully thrust into her skull. The light hurt, but so did her head.

It stares at Sigrun, her own eyes wide and red from crying. She doesn't dare look back into the dorm, the fear keeping any potential wandering at bay. The inky black sputtering filling her with more concern as they take a step closer before hesitating. What was she going to do? Wipe it away? That would be bad for *Both of them.* 

The pounding of their head immobilized them any further as they slowly sunk to sit on the floor, hands reaching to cover her eyes only to pull them away. The darkness brought back the memories, the memories made her head hurt, but the light did too. Moments flash past her at the speed of light, blurring together.

"Thi-this is my fault, I-" She's staring down at her hands now.

"It's n-not fair to you-ou." The shakiness wasn't going away. It made her mad, but she didn't have the energy for the emotion. She felt like she was going to pass out, any second now.
Helen
*Pull yourself together,* Sigrún chided itself, wide fire opal-eyes lifting to meet Mimir's while the last of the hot, diluted ink cleared from the back of its throat. Her wrist left a smear of the stuff across her chin, the rest running down her thumb. Imperceptible to anyone else, it made her feel like a child—spurting vertigo juice at the slightest jolt, choking on it, staining the carpet like a puppy. Its small, frustrated grunt before it dropped to the floor as well wasn't aimed at its lilac-plumed friend.

"How on earth was this your fault."

Sigrún's tone is flat, an afterthought. Some mix of mucus and ink still coated her throat, but her sharp breaths weren't impeded by it.

"You're the one who was actually *Invited* To stay in my room and cause trouble."

An errant tentacle curls over Mimir's shoulder over the blanket, squeezing once. *Some* Decorum was necessary, when people cried—it was a sore thing to cry alone. The blonde wasn't *That* Spacey, was she? Sig decided that it had no clue what they were sorry for, something it didn't dwell on—she wondered, silently tracing the eyes on its palms with her own, what they really might be guilty about.

The duel between empathy and curiosity was one of biblical proportions. *Hush, you, she looks like she's about to faint. Or level a building. She saw something, she knows something, you have to know it, and you have to not force it, and be nice and care that she's so freaked out—*

"You saw something... Upsetting?"

Sharp, stained teeth worry a hangnail. Sig didn't seem to notice.
Jill
"I tou-ouched it. I thought I-" 

Mimir is already growing tired of this state. It sucks in a heaping breath, trying to force itself to *Be coherent.* It was a guest, it was supposed to be polite, watch over Sigrun, like it said it would. It willed its body to keep still, nothing but tension keeping everything together.

"I wasn't sup-posed to cause trouble. You were supposed to slee-eep well." 

The stutter was getting better, and as Mimir wiped tears away with the back of their hand, they felt movement on the opposite shoulder. They weren't sure how they didn't notice before, but they turned their head ever so slightly to glance at the tendril, blinking, unsure of how to respond before turning back to Sigrun. Slowly, their mind starts to pick itself back up. They had hit the peak of the distortion's madness, and now all that was left was to come back down. Of course they were still crying, but the emotions behind their eyes swirled like small storms. 

"Upsetting is-" They would laugh if they weren't holding back sobs. Mimir's moth clamps shut again and they close their eyes, trying to *Keep still.* A long breth enters and exits through thier nose.

"One way of putting it."