The Consumption was completely different from the bond between Julia and Yuli. The pair had a glow, a color, which pulsated out from their bodies in tandem like a shared heartbeat.

Image: Julia, also naked, is sitting on her knees next to Yuli. Both of them have pulses and crackles of energy emanating from them. As Yuli sits on their haunches, it is clear that they, like Phoebe, have a feather in their chest. End description.

Image: A close-up of Yuli in the same position. Their feather can be seen in more detail, though it looks identical to Phoebe’s. End description.

“Look at that. I’ve never seen a binding like this before,” Julia said, then squinted, eyeing a particular strand. It was already thinner than the rest, and was warping erratically. Within minutes it thinned and thinned at the middle before snapping like a rubber band that had been pulled too taut. “The connections are weakening.”

Image: Four strands of energy. The second one has snapped in half, with both ends flailing upwards. End description.

Phoebe could only sit there, unable to move more than a few inches, as Julia scrutinized her. It was even more difficult to ignore Silver’s gaze, who had resigned himself to staring after failing to struggle closer. Eventually, Julia must have observed all she could, because the light vanished and Phoebe’s consciousness was pulled back into her frozen body.

“What’s the deal?” Phoebe asked, slowly stretching and getting up from the kitchen floor.

“The binding got super confused. It’s physical like a Consumption, but there’s an exchange of energy like a Rise, too. And it’s degrading.”

“So can we let it fade? I can just wait for all those things to break and it’ll be over?”

Julia shook her head. “Breaking a Rise willy-nilly can throw you on your ass for days, and breaking a finished Consumption is impossible. I don’t know what’ll happen when all those strings snap, but dying might not get rid of the side effects. The ritual was strong enough to leave a permanent scar so… I don’t know if we should risk it.”



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04.03.22
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Sorry that you guys had to wait an extra day for this reveal! Well- both of these reveals.

I got back from the conference yesterday and it was really nice. I presented on my graduate research thus far, saw some great presentations by others, and hung out a bunch with my lab-mates. It was nice to get to know everyone a little better. We all represented our university where is mattered most (on the dancefloor lmao.)

I’ve also partially (at least) gotten over the fear of flying I developed out of nowhere during COVID. So that was very welcome.