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balance_logs2020-01-03 01:32 pm
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Field Mission 7: The Queen of Hearts, Part 1
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![]() ![]() The day is met the way all others begin: the sun rises from the eastern stretch of land facing the sea, as the citizens of Emberwharf awaken to a fish market brimming with life and splendor. The same sun is seen in Ok'talar, where its warchief watches, as is tradition for its leader to be meditating under the warmth of its warm embrace. The clans of the Highlands pick up where they left off just yesterday, squabbling over minor infractions of land, marriage, or deals that have fell through. And in the cold clutches of Orrenvia to the north, people are bundling up and preparing to visit the mines at the base of the Spine of the World. The general news throughout the Kingdom of Fanelia is that today is a day of celebration. It marks the 110th anniversary of the coronation of its ruler, the Queen of Hearts. While some people around the outskirts of the citadel proper consider this as a day of mourning, many are called forth to partake in festivities, dining, and the accompaniment of the finest musicians from the far-reaching town of Peppelfen. For the last 110 years, the Queen has kept order and, somehow, relative peace throughout the kingdom she rules. Although open defiance and protest is met with swift justice and sentencing, no one can overlook how crafty and careful she is. Her manipulations resonate throughout the annals of the history of Fanelia, present in every major brokered deal throughout its vast land mass and diverse population. Her benevolent guidance is felt by all... as is her tyranny. She is a monarch of paradoxes: obsessed with control, but only acting for the betterment of the realm's self-preservation. Every passionate declaration of "OFF WITH HIS HEAD!" had been necessary up to this point; who else can steer and guide this world into prosperity than she herself? The horizon in the far off distance swirls with its usual tumultuous temper. A dark cloud surrounds the continent where Fanelia is located, known to all as "The Expanse." Every year, the border closes a little bit more inward, narrowing the lands and threatening the civilizations that reside on the fringes. Its presence encroaches, and with it, a general looming sense of fear that one day only the capital city will be left standing, protected by a magical bubble of pure radiant light that allows only those permitted by decree to enter. But none of you can remember your life before this illusion took hold. As far as you're concerned, you've been here your entire life. You don't notice that this farce, this world created by the usage of a Grand Relic, has only existed for a year. One whole year has passed since magic was cut loose from Faerun's fabric, and no one is any wiser that it's been gone at all. You look down to your wrist, noticing the same three clouded, empty colored crystals that have always been there since the day you were born. Each one bears the shape of a heart, and it makes sense to you why Lucretia is known as... 1. THE COURT OF HEARTS![]() A. ANOTHER MORNING, HOWEVER YOU SLICE IT Good morning! Where are you right now? Another day is creeping over the horizon, and your life as you know it is continuing down the path it always has. Wherever you are. However you're feeling. The crystals on your wrist, though you've managed to sort out at least one purpose for them by now, remain as dull and lifeless as they've always been. Maybe you've long since figured out that not everyone has them — and maybe today is the morning that you finally heed a call to figure out why. The harder you think about it, the more questions you seem to have. It's a wide world out there, and there are people you just might be dying to remember. Where will you go? Who will you run into? B. NETWORK Speaking of that one purpose you've stumbled upon: A series of messages that, if you choose to access them, dance across your mind as if they were your own thoughts. Over the years, the messages have ranged from confused — people on the other end wondering what this is, without really finding any answers — to just straight up sales pitches. One day, though, a message under the name of Avalon appears: Wandering fortune teller and adviser offering services. [ooc: If you'd like a randomized way for a memory to begin unraveling, feel free to hit up the RNG thread for a fortune! Note: A low roll doesn't necessarily mean a failure to nudge your character in the right direction, it will just dictate how cryptic and/or troll-y the fortune actually is. Or, feel free to come up with an unrelated fortune for a prompt.] C. AROUND THE CAPITAL One way or another, you may make your way to the capital city, the seat of the Court of Hearts. Whether you're here for answers, or whether you're here just to see the sights, here are a few ideas to get you started.
![]() D. EXPANDED WILDCARD As we mentioned in the OOC post, we highly encourage worldbuilding and creating your own scenarios to recover your character's lost memories! Outside of the capital city, the entire setting is yours to alter, and play in, as you see fit. Want to haunt the Enchanted Forest, or hunt wild boars? Want to follow your character's fairy tale story and have them work their way to leader of a clan, or of a settlement in Kingstown? Go for it! This is your story to write. If you have any questions, feel free to hit us up on the OOC post. blurb code by photosynthesis |
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Well, in reflex, almost? It's definitely not the first time she's taken him by the hand.
Anyway. They can now hold hands as they take their seats. Perhaps resting them atop the table once they're seated, or at least that's Sayori's plan. She answers proudly regarding the frog:] Truffle!
[And then takes a card from the piles of question cards with her free hand. Huh, sort of relevant to the magic thing! She reads it out loud.] Then, if you could become invisible, what's the first thing you'd do?
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Truffle? [That's . . . so cute. He grins up at Truffle and almost says something dumb, like that it's nice to meet him, but then Sayori's asking him the first question.]
[Hm.]
Trip the Queen of Hearts into a puddle and take a picture of it for the Queen of Uta. [A decisive nod. Never mind the anachronous photograph technology.] Maybe streak? But that kinda takes the fun outta streaking, being invisible. How about you?
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Truffle does croak once in acknowledgment as Mista looks at him. He has the soul frog's approval, for some very mysterious reason.
Sayori laughs at his answer, of course, and it doesn't even occur to her to pretend to be scandalised at the idea of embarrassing the Queen of Hearts like that. Or at the suggestion of nudity, considering she had to be told to wear clothes after washing up on the beach with legs.
Speaking of that...] Hmm! [She gives this question its due thought, giving his hand an idle little squeeze as she considers it. After a moment, with realization:] You know, it would be awfully nice to be able to take a walk without having to cover up. I think that's probably what I'd do, too!
[She doesn't really have any mischief she'd rather do, so.]
i swear i found this question and didn't make it up.
See, you get me!
[Mista is so pleased at being Understood on such a deep level that he doesn't bother being embarrassed by the idea of Sayori running around naked and invisible. Instead he just points at her with his free hand and gestures at the other tables around them.]
This lady gets me! [who are you even talking to.] Okay, so we'll probably agree on the next one too, huh? What do we have . . .
[Peering at the next card, he reads out:] "If the universe is just a simulation, what update or patch does it need?" The fuck?
SLOW APPLAUSE... also CW: suicide, hanging, unreality, etc. u know.
Her feet shuffle a little in excitement as he takes the next card, but...]
Huh? [If the universe is just a simulation?
Her expression falls, an unpleasant twist in her stomach as she considers the question. Why does that make her feel so—
She glances to their joined hands, then to Mista's face, searching. And then.
It happens quickly on the outside, of course, from discomfort to panic over the span of a few seconds. But in her head it seems to take forever, recounting the excruciating moments of...of watching herself? Of watching herself, and someone else (ą̶̫̝̞͍̜̿́̌͘ ̸̝̥͚̉̍̋ͅb̶̳̬̏ơ̴̪̙̟̗̲͋̅y̷̧̹͔͚̅?̸̣̟̤̬͓͗͝) and remembering confessions of illness, of love, of pain—
She remembers seeing her own dead body.
She remembers the universe breaking. Taking the place of that dead body at the end of a rope, on the edge of choking to death and nearly blind with fear until someone swoops in and saves her. Someone—a boy?—other people, and a boy who...who promises to protect her. Who looks like...
Her eyes find his face again, unfocused and wide with remembered fear, her face pale and breaking out in sweat along the edge of her hairline. Her free hand rests at her neck, and where they still touch she holds him in a vice. There's one deep, trembling breath as she tries to shake off the horrible grip of the...whatever it was, so she can think.] S— sorry...
[Beneath her sleeve, something glows with a soft red light.]
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[There’s anger in him. Anger is the first thing she feels as she comes back to earth and the Oath pulses back on — anger and fear, a yearning to make sure she’s okay and a certainty that she isn’t, that something’s gone horribly wrong and he’s lost someone else.]
[Someone else?]
[His fingers are a vice grip around hers, both of their knuckles gone white. Her hand on her neck pushes something else to the forefront of his mind, something he can’t quite put his fingers on. There’s a pulse of pain in his ribs, and he exhales sharply, agonized and at the same time completely indifferent to it, because Sayori—]
[Sayori is—]
[Heavy in his arms and struggling to breathe. Halfway across the table from him and struggling to breathe. Or perfectly fine. Or not. Where are they? The world around them flickers, except also, it doesn’t. He covers one eye with his hand and hisses faintly, confused and angry and frightened. One of the hearts on his wrist flickers, not quite willing to stay lit.]
S— Sayori? Did you do something? With your . . .
[His gaze drifts, helpless, to her neck.]
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What does burn in her chest is the suggestion of pain. In the ribs? Like something is broken. How does she know that? But nothing is broken. God, her neck feels—
She lowers her hand from her neck like she's expecting to see something on her fingers—blood?—and there's nothing there. But there are scars on her skin that weren't there before, raised lines of faded scratches that she can't see. The flickering light on Mista's wrist draws her attention, and as she watches it blink she suddenly understands—
These feelings, these missing-pieces feelings, they're his. Not the pain in her neck but the distant emotions and sensations she can't quite grasp.
She'd squeeze his hand but she's already holding it so tightly, her gaze on him becoming a bit more intent with the sharp focus of her concern for him.] Mista? It's— I'm okay, I didn't...
I think... [What does she think? She has no idea what she just saw, but despite the uncertainty there's a quality of warmth in the words.] ...I know you...?
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I know I know you.
[—with all the certainty of someone who only ever thinks with his heart. He can tell that he knows her, that he has known her, that whatever he thought he felt for her was only the tip of somebody else's iceberg. The fingers of his free hand reach out to touch her, to trace his fingers over the scar that wasn't there before, and just as quickly freeze in midair. Something knows not to.]
[Don't do that. Sayori doesn't like that. The light on his wrist flickers brighter; he balls his hand into a fist, rests it on the table, then squeezes hers.]
We know each other from . . . somewhere else. Don't we?
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Absently, her eyes still locked on his fist:] Yeah.
[And then she takes a deep breath like she's just come up for air, swallows whatever knot of uncertainty was in her throat. She repeats, more confidently:] Yeah. You said...
[Already whatever it was is starting to feel fuzzy in the details, but more than his exact words, she remembers what she felt when she heard them. There's a pulsing echo of it, disbelief and joy, trepidation and warmth, fear and love all balled up together and impossible to disentangle. She looks him in the eye, wondering and yearning.] ...I was someone to protect. Someone to believe in. ...Right?
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[His eyes widening slightly, he reaches out without looking, without knowing; his fingers brush over her knuckles, the space he kissed after ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓, when he promised her . . . whatever it is that he promised her . . .]
[To protect her. Someone to protect. Someone to believe in. He believes in her, he does. He always has, ever since he met her.]
. . . Uh-huh.
[His thumb presses between her knuckles before sliding over to the space between her thumb and fingers, resting light against the web of skin that reaches up a little further than it might on a normal girl. There's a pulse of echoing fondness, love and tenderness and frustration that he can't feel it more clearly. He wants to know better, wants to understand more.]
It's . . . an Oath. From me to you. To protect you, to follow you. And I carried you out of . . .
[Out of&mdash] A nightmare? [It must have been. That must have been it. That couldn't have really happened, could it?]
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She nods furiously, leaning forward in her seat as if urged forward by their connection. Their...Oath? That must be what this is, right?] You did! It was definitely you.
You— [a stumble, her gaze flickering down to his chest and over to his arm with a furrow in her brow] you carried me even though you were hurt. And you had some little fellows with you!
fingers wtf were you doing up there
[This isn't the first time his heart has done that weird sideways thump in his chest while he's looking at her, but it's the first time it's been so . . . what's the word for it? Like he's felt it before, not just once but a hundred thousand times. Been here, right here, feeling this thing with her. For her. He looks for a second as though he's been slapped.]
I— [Of course I did, is what he means to say, even though he doesn't remember at all. It just makes sense, though — makes sense that he'd carry her no matter his own state. Of course he would. It's Sayori; he'd do anything for her.]
[But there's no time to consider it. Not with the next thing she throws his way. That shocked look plasters itself over his face again, leaves him gape-mouthed and with another heart flickering to life on his bracelet.]
F— Fellows? [Little men? It flickers dim again and he shakes his head, confused.] Why — how many?
their best.
She chooses to ignore the warped image it makes as a whole for now. What's more important is Mista, right now in front of her, one of her dearest friends going through—something. Something with her. Something they share, somehow.
She answers automatically:] Seven? [They...had numbers on them. She thinks she saw a 7. But then—] Wait, no. Six.
[That's— she doesn't know how she knows it. She definitely didn't have time to count. But seven doesn't feel right; she's sure it must have been six.]
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[And yet, his brain can't register it as anything but gospel truth. There were six, and there was a seventh. Without hesitating, he nods his understanding.]
It must've been six! One, two, three, five, six, seven! Right?
[That's how you count. That's how he counts.]
[The second heart flickers to vibrant life again, and stays that way this time.]
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[Why is there no 4? She doesn't understand consciously but at the same time it doesn't seem that weird. And she knows it's better not to ask.]
They were really cute! Do you— [she wants to say remember, but, when would that have—?] —know who they were?