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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Darjeeling. It should have a mild, robust flavour.

[A comforting flavor, but he doesn't say so, sitting on the bed and drinking tea with Crow like they're commoners or something.]

[ One of us is a commoner, Jusis. Or a "waif from a fallen country." You know, whatever. ]

It's nice, I like it.

[ It is, in fact, a very comforting flavour. ]

[He's the son of a concubine we're both dirty blooded here. He sips his drink.]

Naturally. I wouldn't brew you inferior tea.

[ He lets out a chuckle at that. ]

No... I guess you wouldn't, huh?

Naturally.

[As long as Crow gets that it's fine!]

[ Crow Gets It. ]

I do have one question. Feel free to answer or not, choice is yours and it really won't bug me either way.

Well, ask.

....How long has it been?

Since you died? ....Less than a year, for me. But for Rufus and Randy, closer to two years? Not that Randy knows you I suppose.

[ He mentions the difference in time between him and Rufus and Randy and it sparks a memory of something Jusis said before. ]

Right, I remember you mentioned that there was a difference when I first showed up here. ...I met Randy briefly around then, actually. Though I doubt either of us realized we were from the same place.

Yes. Where you are missing memories I'm apparently missing "time". However that works.

Apparently Randy becomes a comrade, but... that's after where I recall things.

[So long after Crow's dead.]

You know, I'm actually not sure how missing "time" is any different from missing "memories," except it's less of them.

[He shrugs.]

I don't earn back tokens, and my body is still the same as I remember, without the extra age or whatever may have changed in that time.

So there is a difference... it seems like a shame you can't find any way to fix it so far, though.

So it seems. It's nothing I can do much about though.

[So he doesn't dwell on it.]

At least I remember my whole past, which is better than many.

[ You DON'T SAY? ]

Not dwelling's definitely for the best, especially if you can't change it.

I suppose you would know.

Sure does!

[ The words come out pretty cheerfully and he takes a sip of his tea. ]

I've actually got... five memory tokens ready to go, I've just been holding off for a convenient time to take them.

[ That time is not right now. ]

What's it like, regaining memories like that?

[ He's quiet for a moment while he thinks of the words to describe it. ]

It's like... being back in that moment. Reliving every sound, sight, touch. Thought. The present fades away, that is your present. And then you open your eyes and you're back where you were and the memory's faded into the back of your mind, as if it was always there but you know it wasn't.

That sounds exceedingly disorienting

[ He shrugs slightly. ]

Honestly... yeah, a little. But given my choices, I'll take it.

... yes. I suppose I would as well.

I've got some pretty good systems set up for getting sparks so at least I'm gonna be able to get them back at a decent speed.

What systems?

[He doesn't see you making bonds that much?]