auroraexpress | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(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 can't say that I have, actually!

[ Says the man with the unnecessary belts. ]

[Yeah she just kind of. Gestures. Sir you have a belt on your thigh.]

Really.

Really!

[ You will not get him to admit the belts aren't needed. ]

So that's just there for gripping onto, then?

[SERIOUSLY CROW IT IS RIDICULOUS AT LEAST PUT A KNIFE THERE.]

The purpose of that belt is a secret.

...So it's not a sex thing, then?

[because she can't see him keeping that a secret.]

Do you really want me to tell you if it's a sex thing?

No, but if it was a sex thing you'd have made a lewd comment about it already.

Haha, well I can't deny that.

You'd never even try to.

[Well then. She's going to gather up the seeds she'd gotten, and head into the room where she planted the flowers.]

Hey, there should be some sticks over there, bring them in, I want to mark these off so I can fence them in later.

[ He grabs the sticks before following along. ]

You're really into this gardening thing, huh?

I can control the life force in plants as well as people's blood...it was a safe way to learn to control my powers.

[She wiggles her fingers and the rose bushes wave at him as he passes them!]

...Besides. I'm over a hundred years old. If I didn't find a variety of hobbies, I'd have lost my damn mind a long time ago.

Just how long is your lifespan, anyway?

[ He's curious! ]

I'm half-dead, remember? So 'lifespan' doesn't apply to me...neither my brother nor I have aged since our twenties.

[She's just gonna casually keep planting the seeds, unaware how her being half-dead might come off depending on where crow is in his personal time continuity.]

...Nightkin usually live about 100 to 120 years, but can live longer under certain circumstances. The Night Mother, who made the species, is still alive and well over a thousand, and dragons can live centuries. It's also theorized that witches don't naturally age or die of aging to begin with, but that's hard to confirm, given the way succession passes in the Black Forest.

[ This is definitely before talking to Jusis because he is one hundred percent not going to be up for human contact for a while after that. Or inhuman contact, for that matter. ]

So you might live for hundreds of years or even forever, huh?

It's possible. I don't know that I'd want to live forever, though.

Living forever sounds like it'd get pretty boring, yeah.

[ Also isn't your boytoy human-- But he has enough tact not to say that, at the very least, even if he thought it. ]

...And I'll outlive quiet a few people I care for, too.

[It's okay, Crow. She knows.] The royal family tends to live a little longer than regular humans, but even so. I'd almost certainly outlive any children we have, too.

Sounds pretty depressing.

[ That's an understatement. ]

I suppose. But I'll get to see them grow up, too. Get to see them live in a better world than I grew up in. It's not so bad, to think of it that way. And when my crown finally passes to the next queen, I can rest, return to the earth and soil, nurture new life there, too.

For all of that...it'll be worth it.

Heh! You've got a pretty romantic idea of it, huh? ....Well, as long as you find it satisfying.

Aren't my alternatives pretty bleak, Crow?

[She has a point.]

I don't see a reason to fear life or death...pain passes. Things get better. Eventually I can make things right again. And I've been dead since I was three...I've known it all my life. To be afraid now...wouldn't make much sense.

But ah, it's all just the romantic ramblings of an old woman, anyway.

It sounds really weird when you call yourself an old lady with a face like that.

That's why it's funny.

[Snickering at him a little.]

[ He chuckles at that. ]

Man, you've got a twisted sense of humour.