[attr="class","aurelie"]

[attr="class","aurelie_body"]"I didn't know you were here! I wouldn't have voted for Dummy if I had..." Aurelie burst out, reaching her hand out for jack wainwright, but he was already fading from view and evanescing away from her outstretched grasp.

She was left with an empty hand and an aching heart, one that wondered, Why did I say anything? She'd wanted to know what ward he was in, in case it ever became possible to meet somehow outside of dreams. I should've just asked him, instead of telling him where I was. Why am I such an idiot?

If she had known he was in the Dummy ward, if she'd recognized him somehow through the ceiling Tera crystals, Aurelie knew she never would've voted for Dummy. She would've happily inflicted punishment on a dozen strangers, rather than someone she cared for.

But she hadn't known. She hadn't seen.

Aurelie awakened from the dream crying—not that strange, given the anguished note the dream had ended on. What was strange were the tears she cried. They sparkled on her fingers like faceted gems, capturing and refracting the light with unexpected brilliance. Puzzled, she cupped the tears in her hands and laid them on the table, feeling somehow that they were more precious than ordinary tears.

Like Tera crystals compared to ordinary gems, she thought. Or Steel-type Pokemon metal compared to mundane metal. Maybe these tears have special properties too...maybe?

After that dream, it seemed somehow fitting to be subjected to the torments of the forced laughter during the Laughing Hour, the tedium of polishing tera crystals, and then the brutality of the feeding pit. She was a fool and a monster, and the degradation and beatings seemed an apt punishment. During the next seven days, she endured it all, even standing in the center of the chamber with no eyepatch, her scars revealed for all to see and mock.

Sometimes, Aurelie tried speaking to her cellmate freya morningstar, who seemed to have withdrawn into herself, a silent husk of a woman. She would feed her if she seemed sluggish, cajole her to sleep, talk to her about plans or dreams. The white-haired woman seemed lost in her own thoughts, but maybe she heard. Maybe.

In a corner of their cell, the redhead assiduously collected a hidden stash of mochi, clothing threads, and ordinary rocks or pebbles gleaned off the floor. She still held out hope of building something that could help them. It was a small hope, but it was all she had.

The red-haired smith eagerly welcomed the chance to visit the Chamber of Desires again. Peering into the Wellspring Mask been the only note of happiness she'd experienced in this prison. What Aurelie saw there on her subsequent visits, though, stunned her.

Rather than the vision of cozy familial contentment she remembered, she saw instead dreams of League victory and prosperity on her second visit. Aurelie gasped and recoiled, appalled. On the next visit, she beheld dead bodies seeping blood, with more sprayed across the walls and ceiling in sanguine splashes. On the last visit, she saw a scene of joy and love, a romance she didn't know but could still feel deep in her heart.

This isn't what I saw before! These aren't my desires, she thought, haunted by what she saw. This mask... Is it collecting our desires? Why? Are they giving it power somehow?

So many questions, so many wounds and bruises, so many regrets, and so many tears. When would it end? And how would it end? Or was this to be her life forever, until their captors killed her?

[attr="class","cred"]VEL OF PIXEL PERFECT