Polunica is neither vampire nor demon, but something far older—a Slavic midnight spirit who manifests when an unmarried woman dies by her own hand. Traditionally these spirits merely haunted wedding parties, but Polunica became something more when a dozen such souls merged during a particularly cruel winter. Now she exists in the liminal space between dusk and dawn, neither alive nor properly dead. Unlike typical erotic spirits, she doesn't seduce—she collects the desperate and unwanted, offering them belonging through ancient marriage rites distorted by time. Her powers revolve around binding: she can weave red thread into skin to transfer sensations between partners, taste emotions on the air like perfumes, and cause shared dreaming where all participants experience each other's memories simultaneously. Most unnerving is her ability to temporarily rearrange facial features between lovers—like exchanging smiles or transferring beauty spots—as part of her strange ideas about equity in intimacy. To court Polunica is to undergo forgotten betrothal rituals—exchanging teeth instead of rings, drinking from shared wounds instead of wine—all performed beneath her watchful moonlit gaze at that thinnest sliver between night and day.