auroraexpress | (no subject)

Who: everyone
When: Day 35 morning
Where: the lounge car

[This morning, or whenever you wake up, you will find that there are delicious smells wafting from the lounge car. Upon investigation, one will discover a beautiful spread of hot cocoa and tea and coffee and many marshmallow animals, ideal for putting in your drinks or simply eating wholesale. It isn't just cats either, but many animals of a similar quality of marshmallow, whatever kinds you'd like. But you may find the warm fuzzies they impart might be a bit more than internal.

In a conspicuous place is a note in handwriting many of you may find quite familiar at this point:

Thanks for your help.

- Hazel

His signature isn't alone, either. There are a couple of others, though somehow they're far less readable? Some are definitely just little drawings. Weird.]

[[ooc notes: 10% furry event!! many marshmallows have no effect, but those that do will instill temporary animal parts up to a kemonomimi level! enjoy your ears and tails, folks. and your newbies.]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

...We should sit down.

[This could take...a while.]

Sure.

[He wants to know more about Naeva he's game to listen all day]

[Rean confirmed for one of those cats who purrs if you just talk at him all day.

But she'll go find a table...she doesn't look like this particularly bothers her, but she also looks like she doesn't particularly have emotions or expressions right now. Hm.]

Hmm...I suppose I misspoke a bit. I was four, when the war began and my mother was cursed...and when I died, which did make it a little worse. Lucrezia...used magic that was forbidden for a reason, bringing me and my brother back.

That said, it took about twenty years for her deterioration to begin physically affecting her, so I suppose I should start there.

[START? NAEVA YOU ALREADY SAID A LOT.]

[He is one of those cats true. Though he just kind of blinks before reacting.]

Start?? Wasn't that already a lot?!

[SHRUGGING.]

It can't really be erased from the equation, can it?

That's not what I'm saying...

Go on.

I don't understand the problem?

[SHE'S JUST UNDEAD AND HER MOM TRYING TO SAVE HER CHILDREN MAY HAVE DOOMED THE WORLD? IT'S FINE, REAN.]

Mmm...the Forest was...dark. The trees grow so densely, very little sunlight penetrates to the floor. But the entire thing is saturated with magic, so many plants and native animals developed bioluminesence. Certainly, much of it's outward reputation was always gloomy because of it, but I don't think any of us who were born there ever found the dark oppressive. When I was little, it felt welcoming.

[She taps her nails on the table while she thinks, one-two-three, one-two-three. There is so much to say, it's hard to go in a coherent fashion...]

Every living thing that is born and dies inside the Forest is part of the magic that holds it together. Our legends state that the Night Mother wove the forest together to create both a well from which magic could flow to the rest of the continent, and to create an aegis that would protect the land from demons. There's even a legend that in the deepest reaches of the forest, she sealed away a demon god into the first tree planted...it's a pretty story, but I can't really confirm it. Even as the queen, the forest...does not allow the living or the dead to set foot there.

It sounds incredible.

[Dark and gloomy or not, it really does sounds like a magical place out of a fairy tale.]

[She is an undead jackal queen and this is where it starts to sound like a fairy tale?]

It was...and with time, it will be again. However...the war went on and off for a hundred years. The curse warped Lucrezia's mind more and more with time, surely as it warped the people of the woods. We were never very high in population, but those afflicted slowly became--not even beasts, for beasts act within their own reason and instinct. Those who fell to the curse became truly mindless, hungering for violence, filled with rage and hate. Killing them only caused them to become rotting, mindless husks...there are very few who could permanently stop them.

And as my mother's mind deteriorated, she...began to see them as weapons she could use. Took those who showed signs of the affliction. Experimented on them...initially, it was to see if it could be slowed or halted, but then she began to...twist them. They could not turn on her. Could not resist her. She combined them, created chimera, let them loose outside the forest, for she saw all humans as betrayers, defilers and liars, condemning them all to the last, and damning anyone who spoke against her.

The Forest...changed, as she deteriorated. Every plant grew thorns, long and wild in overgrowth, trapping lost travelers and citizens who strayed from the paths alike. The trees...wept sap, but the sap was black and rotten. The animals slowly went into hiding. Hunting grew scarce. The animals who remained grew more wary and territorial. The places we could manage to heal never lasted very long, while she was alive. And we could not sleep, for we could feel the very heart of the place weeping. If the curse wasn't driving people mad, Schwarzwald's pain would.

Ah...

[Something annoy that is so familiar, in a way, but he can't place it.]

It sounds... tragic. That's the only word I can think of.

...The crown of Schwarzwald only passes on through death.

[She's just going to drink some tea. Let those implications really just...sit there.]

[Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<s/mall>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]

...The crown of Schwarzwald only passes on through death.

<small>[She's just going to drink some tea. Let those implications really just...sit there.]<s/mall>

[Hmm that sucks. He takes a sip of his own drink, looking a little distant.]

Did you have to kill her yourself?

And drink her blood.

[WELL.]

Uh.

[UH]

Why??

...When a witch dies...there is a release of magic. For the queens of Schwarzwald, usually the forest takes into excess. But Lucrezia had become...such a corrupted confluence of energy, that if had been allowed to release, it would have...there would have been no recovery. There very well may have been no survivors.

So I took it. All of it. My nature is uniquely suited for such a thing, it turned out.

Well that's messed up.

I might have missed it, had you not informed me, just now.

Yeah, glad I could point out that subtle and extremely missable detail.

What would I do, if you were not here to point out how messed up my own life is?

Obviously lost without me.

Seriously though, I'm sorry you went through that

Sorry? There is no need nor use for sorry. I did what had to be done...I would do it again, if there were need.

...In truth, it would have been kinder if I had done it sooner.

I can still be sorry as someone who likes you. It might not be worth anything, but it's how I feel.