auroraexpress | (no subject)

Who: Everyone
When: Day 20, evening
Where: The train and surrounding terrain

[So after all the earlier excitement.... dramatic organ music starts to play through the cars. There's no obvious source. It's just... There? All around you for a while, before fading.

Of course before the music fades there's more things going on. A mist seeps up from the earth outside the train and within the train simply seems to form like it's produced by invisible fog machines. As the mist grows into a thick fog, you can hear eerie noises. Distant wolf howls, the screech of a fox that sounds like human screaming, owls hooting hauntingly, the leathery flap of bat wings, and other, less identifiable noises of the night, strange and otherworldly.

If you go out in it, breathe it in, the mist will chill you. Make you desire... Touch.

The need to hold another person is an almost growing compulsion, but it can be fought.

However things that are harder to avoid are the flowers, night blooming wisteria in white and purple seems to have grown from nowhere in the train cars, hanging down to brush the heads of passengers with sweet scented blossoms, and the floors of the train and ground around it have become endless beds of gently glowing moonflowers.

The only places the fog and flowers don't reach are team cabins.

Effects:

Mist:

Cold that cannot be dispelled without touch, a desire to touch others.

Wisteria:

Purple blossoms cause an empathetic bond with the next person you touch.

White blossoms cause arousal and a mild to powerful aphrodisiac effect.

Moonflowers:

Share memories or thoughts with the next person you touch.

By morning the mist and flowers will vanish.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'm no—

[ He's pausing because... well.

"It's dark, and the atmosphere would only be more creepy if it were raining.

So, naturally, it starts raining.

Before him are three shadowy figures; one crumpled to the ground that he recognizes as his mother. And the two over her prone body that are now turning towards him.

Terror—not that he knows it, but it's one of the few times in his life that he's ever felt fear—arises and he's stumbling back, too small and too slow and the rain isn't permitting any sort of flight or a sneaky escape—the figures are just drawing closer, holding out a burning torch in his direction. Eventually he stumbles over something and lands with fingers in the mud of their backyard, and he begins inching backwards.

They're saying something, but the memory is garbled. He's young and doesn't understand what they're saying. Sometimes their figure take different shapes, as if the memory is weak and not exact.

But what is crystal clear is the draw from the earth under his fingertips. The searching feeling of "if something is there, I need your help" is flowing from his body and stretching outwards. It's the first time his power has manifested, and he's afraid of that, too.

Something is pushing its way through the earth behind him. The shadows stop, trying to see what's going on, when something erupts from the ground and throws itself at the nearest one. It's canine-shaped, but it shouldn't be moving—it's been gone a long time, enough to just have bones remaining, yet it acts just as possessive as the real dog it used to be acted. And just like the dog it used to be, it chases the shadows out of the yard and down the street, until the power holding it together fades away.

There's blood coming from his nose, but. That seems a little trivial." ]

[The memory from Jusis is a lot more gentle. Walking in an indoor garden with a black haired boy. Talking about declining invitations from girls. The black haired boy asks what kind of girl is his type, and Jusis replies that it's not his business. More over he's not even interested in a romantic relationship, but if he was he'd look for a woman like his mother.

When pressed what she's like, Jusis says she's strong. She held her head high and never let her position as his father's concubine tarnish her pride. Rean comments that Jusis must take after her, that his pride isn't like a noble's so it must be like hers, and Jusis is pleased, even admitting he hopes Rean is right. The conversation continues peacefully as they take in the artificial stars and then the scene ends.

And Jusis yanks his hand back, breathing quickly as the terror from Ciabatta's memory courses through him, trying to process the things he saw. He heard stories of the bone dragon under Heimdallr but it's different to see an animated bone dog in the, not flesh, as it were. And what was that all about?]

...what was that? Was that yours?

Edited 2019-04-20 05:06 (UTC)

It appears we're doing the stupid memory sharing thing again, yes.

You—what did you see?

It was raining, and two figures were... They killed perhaps? Or were looking over your mother. She was dead or collapsed.

You were scared and summoned a skeletal dog to drive them off.

... forget about it. Yours was much nicer.

Yes because saying forget about it has always worked.

What was mine?

You said you want to date someone like your mother.

[When did he say something like that....... Oh that conversation.]

Well, she was a good woman.

[ ... that is so disgustingly pure.]

I guess that makes sense.

And you, what happened then? What did I just see?

[ There's a long pause, and then an exhale. ]

I think they were robbers. The police never found them. [ there's a trace of bitterness there. ] She wasn't dead yet, so my power didn't affect her. Or that's my theory, anyway. Instead, the family dog woke up and defended me.