auroraexpress | (no subject)

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Who: The Glitter Criminal
When: Day 42, Morning
Where: The Jackal Express

[Hey, Aurora. Do you hear that? A slight whining noise, barely audible over the noises of the train itself?

Well, early in the morning of day 42, that whine becomes a loud POP.

And now all the public cars and all of Senna is literally covered in glitter. Glitter rains from the vents. Shoots out from under seats. Glitter big enough to come in funny shapes. Tiny iridescent glitter that you're never going to get out of your clothes coats the windows, making the scenery glimmer. Glitter everywhere in every shape, size and color.]

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No, I'm glad to say I am not. But I believe those are both Prince Cardamom, and he does make himself available to speak to, from time to time.

Then who are you?

My name is Naeva dos Martos. I am...a fellow passenger, I suppose is how it'd be described.

[hey, she's learned not to just tell people she's a queen! Whoo!]

I'm Penric kin Jurald.

[which answers the question of 'does he have amnesia' that Pen didn't know needed to be asked. ]

'Kin'?

[She tilts her head, and ear twitches--it's not a naming style she's familiar with, so she's curious.]

I take it, then, you've awoken to find yourself missing your abilities and skills?

I'm from the cantons. A younger son of minor nobility. From your name... that's not the Ibran peninsula, right? The sounds are almost correct, but...

And how did you guess about the 'abilities'? Is that what the message meant?

[you can calm down, Desdemona. ]

[Nope, she's not calm; because Pen at least kept things like vision and being able to interact with the environment and... not that she isn't glad one of them could.]

Edited 2019-09-18 01:05 (UTC)

I guessed about abilities because it was the same for me, when I awoke. It seems that if you awaken with your memories intact, you are likely to have lost your abilities, and vice-versa.

[She tries to smile reassuringly! ...She unfortunately has very pointy teeth and fangs on top of that. She's doin' her best, Pen.]

Your abilities may be regained as you generate Sparks, but it is a slow process.

[She does pause, and tilt her head though, finally addressing his first point.]

Ibra...I am not familiar with it. But I am not familiar with most human countries...I have remained isolated within Schwarzald for quite some time, and information about countries overseas is even harder to come by.

if you aren't human, what are you?

[Is that rude?]

No offense meant.

That's a somewhat complicated answer, but the short version is that I am Nightkin. We are born natural shapeshifters.

[And, to demonstrate, now she is a jackal!]

[that does startle Pen a bit, if only because he did not expect that]

I can think of some shamans who would like to learn that trick. Or be born with it.

Well, there's no magic I'd recommend that'd let you change your species...

[She laughs a little, before changing back.] The Night Mother formed us this way that we'd be closer to her. Humans are given to other gifts of their own.

Night Mother?

[that sounded divine, but Pen wasn't used to considering new gods beyond the five he knew darn well existed.]

[Of course, it could be an aspect of the Mother he knew.]

[Oh, Naeva knows her gods exist. She had to fight two of them at her wedding reception.

Wouldn't that be a fun thing to make Temple scholars chew on?]

The Night Mother is the progenitor of my species...she's not very forthcoming as to her own origins and power, and I believe tends to quietly bury myths speculating on them.

[Naeva straightens in her chair--her posture is already impeccable, but this now takes on the air of someone who tells a much-loved story she's told many a time before.]

The story as I know it goes, that when she came to the continent she sealed up a great hole from which beings of hate and malice spewed, and planted the Black Forest on top of it to form a wellspring of magic that would seep into the bones of the land. But she was lonely, and needed to keep the magic monitored and guarded.

To fulfill those two aims, she mixed her blood with the blood of all the native creatures of the woods, poured it into the clay and soil of the forest, and formed the first of the Night Kin. She crowned the first Queen of Schwarzwald, and bound the royal family to the very magic of the forest, to ensure that the protection she granted would grow and remain powerful by the symbiosis, and the forest would be protected.

...Or at least, that is the story I learned as a child, when I was first told of the duties sacred to us in the forest. Obviously, nightkin have spread far across the world...some even claim to have been shaped and sprung from other sources.

[Yes, yes it would. At least Penric's status as a divine of the Bastard means he has pretty flexible ideas about divinity and appropriate behavior; it would be more the act of physically embodying oneself that would be interesting.]

Interesting. Our beliefs say that the world, and what dwells on it, was created by the actions of the gods we now call the Father of Winter and the Mother of Summer, which separated from one divine Presence. I don't actually know if anyone ever asked Them, or if it was inferred.

But then, all of the nightkin are considered under the Night Mother's domain?

[Desdemona thinks asking gods noisy questions is a Horrible Idea, Pen, for the record.]

Edited 2019-09-22 20:55 (UTC)

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