(no subject)

[hot_mess_express]

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.]

Comments

[bad_crowmance]

[ 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?

[desirestruth]

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

[bad_crowmance]

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. ]

[desirestruth]

...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.

[bad_crowmance]

Sounds pretty depressing.

[ That's an understatement. ]

[desirestruth]

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.

[bad_crowmance]

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

[desirestruth]

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.

[bad_crowmance]

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

[desirestruth]

That's why it's funny.

[Snickering at him a little.]

[bad_crowmance]

[ He chuckles at that. ]

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

[desirestruth]

Of course I do. How would I not?

[bad_crowmance]

Heh! Alright, that's a good point.

[desirestruth]

[Well, she'll get up from the planting and take the sticks to mark off the area, and dust herself off.]

I'm always right. Someday you'll come to understand that.

[bad_crowmance]

You are definitely not always right.

[desirestruth]

I see no evidence to the contrary.

[We agreed to never speak of the fish.]

[bad_crowmance]

I'm sure you don't.

[desirestruth]

Thus, my statement is not disproven.

[bad_crowmance]

I could prove it but you wouldn't accept my proof.

[desirestruth]

Then we're at an impasse.

[bad_crowmance]

Looks like it!

[desirestruth]

However will we get through this?

[bad_crowmance]

By accepting that I'm actually the one who's right, of course.

[desirestruth]

[SNRK.]

Ah, what a fount of wisdom. Or is it hubris?

[bad_crowmance]

It's definitely wisdom. I'm wise enough to know that no one is always right.