auroraexpress | (no subject)

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(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.]

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[ Luckily for the sake of Naeva's future sanity and unluckily for Crow's, it's the purple one he reaches for first. ]

Let me know if you see any more sexy memories!

[ And before she has a chance to protest, he taps her forehead with his bare fingers.

There is, of course, the immediately obvious amusement and a spark of genuine curiousity. He may not be the best student when it comes to book learning, but he loves to be right. And he wants to be right about this guess!

There is more beyond the immediately obvious, unfortunately for Crow.

It's a quiet sort of feeling, but it colours everything. It's not quite paranoia, more an intense sort of wariness. Trust no one. Be alert. Stay on guard, always stay on guard. You have to pay attention, have to stay alert, can't slip up-- can't let anyone in, can't believe anything they say. Think twice, listen. Draw your own conclusions.

Everyone has an ulterior motive and you absolutely cannot trust them. Everyone betrays, so you have to be ready to betray them first. Keep yourself safe, first and foremost. No one else will.

It buzzes through every part of him, buzzes through the amusement and the seemingly carefree grin as he waits to see what happens. ]

[She goes very still. She knows--knows he'd never willingly let her see that deep. Knows she shouldn't know this. And she also knows that now she's in a dangerous position of having to tell him exactly what she knows now without calling attention to the depth of it. She stands there, for a second or two, and then takes her gloves off. She takes the purple flowers from him, and then grabs his hand, seemingly just to pull it away from her head.]

That's not a memory.

[She sounds irritated, but now he'll know she's not. Her curiousity is fading but still there, as she gets answers--and she's deeply concerned what the white wisteria could be, still--but her mind runs a mile a minute, sorting and compartmentalizing all she's feeling. And it's good that it does, because even her petty emotions are so intense as to feel like a punch in the gut. Her iron self-control is the only reason her reactions seem as normal as they do.

The layer under that is a sort of sorrowful concern. Worry for her people. Worry for Lucien's. Worry for the worlds they must restore. She has seen so much suffering and will see so much more and she carries it with her always, a reminder, deep and raw, of what she must do, used as a weight to keep the last layer buried.

Because the last layer is hunger. Raw, primal and animalistic. She's fed recently so it only crackles and buzzes at the distance of her perception. It doesn't express even in words. Just the beating, burning pulse of every predator. Hunt. Feed. Sleep. Repeat. Control is of dire importance. Control the beast. Keep it leashed. Keep it tame. She knows what will happen if she loses control.]

...Maybe we should skip the white one.

[She says it calmly, evenly, but she meets his eyes without flinching. She knows--he will know she knows--what he'll feel.

A collateral. Mutually assured destruction. I'll keep your secret as long as you keep mine. This is the only way she thinks Crow can swallow what's happened.]

[ None of her feelings seem to bother him-- not even that primal hunger, deep and raw and infinitely more than any beast he has within himself. Her feelings are intense, dizzyingly so, but they're not even remotely what bothers him.

It's the implications that get to him.

There is the briefest flicker of an anger lashing out violently-- not at her precisely, but still lashing out-- before he pulls his hand away from hers. The smile on his face never even flickers, the mask doesn't slip. ]

Haha, you're probably right! Well, at least we know it's the flowers huh?

[ She's right, of course. Mutually-assured destruction is the only reason he can swallow any of this. ]

Mhmm.

[She looks at the carpet of flowers, coating everything outside and in the train, and rubs absently at her shoulder.]

...Going to be tricky to avoid touching them, and I've got no desire to know anything else about your dick.

That's too bad for you, I've been told I'm great in bed.

For the sake of both our dignities I will choose not to refute that nor find her to confirm that.

So it was a "her" you saw, huh?

[ That narrows the list down. ]

I didn't see anything and at the time neither did you.

[Eyes closed. How much does that pinpoint it, Crow?]

[ He's only slept with two people in Aurora and only one of them is a woman. It narrows it down pretty neatly. ]

Well yeah, I'm not gonna stare at someone every second I'm fucking them. Don't you think that'd be a little creepy?

...No?

[She doesn't understand the question???]

Heh! Well, different opinions for different people.

It's not like it's going to really be relevant between us...

[But she's like. Confused and thinking about this now.

Blindfolds are one thing but like, closing your eyes to not be creepy??? What?????]

It's really not!

[ Naeva, you're thinking too deeply about it, he just doesn't like staring. ]

Good, then we need never speak of this again.

[Nice try, Naeva.]

Of course, we will definitely never talk about your sex preferences or Lucien's dick again.

[She just choked on air and started coughing.

Give her a second.]

[ It's okay, Crow can wait. ]

Wh-what did you--how did you--what?!

[WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO HER?]

Didn't I just agree not to talk about it?

CROW!!

[ He leans in very close to her ear, not touching her but enough to softly whisper-- ]

"Last chance to back out...you sure about this?"

[ He's trying to mimick her voice, her inflection. If that... helps any.... ]

[She flinches and goes redder, and hauls back to slap him, before she manages to catch herself.]

Do not quote me at myself!

[She recognized it! She wants to die again!]

[ He laughs like the jerkbird he is, sorry Naeva. ]

[Alright that's it. She's grabbing him by his coat lapels to pull him into a headlock.

hey, did you know, she's really strong? Also she can't do this without marshmallow-helling him, so. Like, enjoy that.]

[ On the one hand: ♥ breasts ♥ !!! Really nice ones!

On the other hand: Headlock! That he can't escape! ]

Hey! C'mon, you asked!