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

That's me! I'm a gracious guy.

Some might even call you considerate.

They could! They should.

Not a trait people usually associate with playboys, though, you know?

[you know the phrase 'playboy' but not 'boytoy', naeva?]

You know the phrase "playboy" but not "boytoy," Naeva?

[ He sounds extremely amused. ]

I already told you about my brother, Crow.

[She refuses to be shamed for this.]

Yeah, and my question stands.

My point is, I had a limited amount of people to learn words from, and they were the kind of people for whom 'playboy' was the polite phrase, not the kind who had boytoys.

[It's possible her brother really never was that much of a manslut and she picked up bad language elsewhere. It's also probable she'll never tell crow this, because even displaced from a destroyed universe, she's morally obligated to dunk on her twin at every opportunity.]

[ It's too bad he'll never understand the moral imperative of dunking on your siblings. Alas, the life of an only child. ]

I'm still surprised you never heard the term. Buuut it is what it is.

[You have a moral imperative to dunk on Jusis, it's pretty close.]

I don't think you really understand the kind of life I've had to lead...when I said I never left the forest before the engagement, I meant literally never.

I mean... you're not wrong. It's pretty far outside of what I can imagine. Staying in one area your whole life sounds pretty awful.

More people would have died if I left.

[She says it so casually, like having the lives of others in her hands is just something she's used to.]

There's much I still have to learn now, even if I can move freely. But...it's already happened. I can't change that...no reason to waste time crying over it. Might as well work on the future I can.

[ She's a queen. It's hardly a surprise she'd be used to having the lives of others in her hands. ]

That's the best way to look at it, honestly.