[MU] - DECEMBER STORYTELLING / MEMORY SHARE

[lifeaftr_mods]

Something is wrong.

This may not very well be obvious, at first. The Storyteller is not present to put forth yet another diatribe, informative or apologetic, and the backdrop of guttering flame and sandy campfire is as present as ever...albeit briefly.



Those who tell their stories will start to notice something...odd taking place. Indeed, no matter how they intend to begin their tale, the land of Mu will immediately start to warp to accommodate it, or something utterly unlike it, until storytellers and listeners alike may find themselves in an exact recreation of a seemingly random memory, in the most stark and painstaking of detail. There is no altering the memory, nor is there any preventing it once it's begun to play - you will simply have to witness memories that are not your own this go around.

Furthermore, stories that take place in worlds other than LifeAftr will be, frankly, inevitable. Those memories, too, will be recreated, to be relived by the teller and lived by the listener.

---

It is time, once more, for you to tell a story...with a slight twist! This is, in fact, our first player plot, as provided by Dragon! The initial setting will be familiar for oldcomers, and newcomers will recognize it from the introduction they received in their dreams.

Yet for this Storytelling only, people can imagine whatever stories they wish, from both their homes and their time on LifeAftr, as long as they don't mind the fact that others will be reliving those stories in the form of an impromptu memory share.

Even those who prefer not to voice their stories aloud are not safe this time around. If the memory is recalled in essence, Mu will shift to accommodate it in full.

There is, however, a benefit to this: those who venture memories to be relived will receive both a befuddled apology from the Storyteller, who will assert that this was most definitely not meant to happen (they're the Storyteller, not the Rememberer!), as well as a tired promise that the relived memories will be worth two offerings each, as if in compensation.

Not that it counts for much, probably.

Comments

zacharie | ota

[creditless]

[ The castle is in crumbled ruins, allowing light to stream into the room.

On the throne sits a man with a face tied around his, still drying, but skinned from the hulking beast on the floor, who must have had a very tiny face-to-body ratio. The blood of a hundred frogs are spilled around this room, comically sized and designed, sliced with a blade that was drawn created to look like a razor. Why not go for the sharpest thing you can think of? But among this bloodshed, there is peace. A little girl, related to the faceless man, by the way she comfortably rests her head on his leg and whines for him to sing her a story. ]

A story? [ He asks. ] Can't a big brother relax after saving the princess from the tower?

[ "I wasn't a princess," She mumbles, and by her garb, a cheesy design still appropriate for her youth is right: "They made me dance to all their folk songs at breakfast, lunch, and dinner and only fed me trays of mush. Not a hint of sugar." ]

Fine, fine... it's just a matter of picking a song that won't get me in trouble.

[ He thinks about the player's playlist. ]

What was it? The Lord of Cashmere? ... no, no, that song belongs to someone. [ He pats Sucre on the head. ] Promise me you'll never steal a song that belongs to someone!

[ He pat her head as sun strewn through the stain glass, changing the colors of red on the floor to a threshold over a rainbow. ]

Here we go.

Wandering child of the earth
Do you know just how much you're worth?
You have walked this path since your birth
You were destined for more.

There are those who'll tell you you're wrong
They will try to to silence your song
But right here is where you belong
So don't search anymore...

[unpurify]

[There's blood, the stench of corpses and song.

Two of those three things were something the Batter was used to so it doesn't bother him. In fact, he's curious for once despite himself. This felt like an old memory.

Zacharie, a girl the Batter recognizes as Sucre after a moment of staring and the floor covered in corpses slain by a blade. Ah.

One day, a masked man met the King during an audience.

Or this was merely the aftermath. A mask made of skin as an emergence of victory and a sister - apparently - saved from a tower. Free.

Maybe not. There's no 'The End' on this just yet. The memory fades, however and the Batter speaks up.]

Zacharie?

[creditless]

[ He continues the song softly to its completion, even though the memory has passed both of them by now. ]

Yes?

[unpurify]

[The Batter waits until Zacharie is finished, strangely enough. But give the man seems to like music, it's probably not a surprise.]

That was after the story in the Library.

[He's not making it a question because it's obvious.]

[creditless]

Yes...

[ He puts a hand to his forehead like that story was unearthed from him rather than something he casually remembered. ]

... Sucre was my little sister. The Toad King liked how she danced and stole her for his amusement when I refused his offer to let her go. By the time you met her, she was grown up... I was overprotective of her... and she had tasted Enoch's sugar, so all I could do was make her comfortable.

[unpurify]

[The Batter notes what Zacharie does and it almost reminds him of those moments when the purifier tried to remember things from a long time ago.

It hurt. Metaphorically and possibly emotionally.]

...when did she meet him?

[creditless]

Enoch? Or the King?

[unpurify]

Enoch.

[They're both not fun topics but the Batter knew Enoch better then he did the Toad King.]

[creditless]

She's an escape artist. Went on an adventure one day and got mixed up with the wrong merchant. I pulled her out before she got put into the workline, but the damage was already done.

I tried to stop her from eating it, but the worse she got as that happened, I...

[unpurify]

[It topples into itself. The Batter has seen the Elsens addicted to Sugar and how they lashed out when deprived of it or simply in a craze. The Burnt from when he obtained the music box, for example.

And, of course, the Batter met Sucre herself. He saw her live, fight and die. A fight that was frantically fast and a slug-fest that dragged on and on. He can't remember if she managed to kill him.

Then she made her final request.]

...I do not know what the right thing to do here is.

[Because the Batter is probably going to make a mistake.]

But I can try to smile?

[creditless]

[ There's a moment.

And it lasts.

Uncomfortably so.

And then, Zacharie breaks out into laughter. Full-bodied, painful laughter that sends a sharp sting to your heart sometimes. That's the most hilarious thing he's ever heard in his life...! Here he is, pouring out the death of his sister, and the Batter is so bad at this that he thinks the right thing to do is smile.

He's trying and it's HILARIOUS so it... it worked? ]

[unpurify]

[Yup, wrong choice. The Batter doesn't quite make a face but he does sigh.]

I was being serious. It apparently makes people feel better.

[So yeah, he's still crap at it. So sue him.]

[creditless]

N- not when they're talking about... the- their sisters...!

WHO YOU-- K-- KILLE[ he's basically scream laughing right now, tears dripping into the endless void of his face to not emerge. ]

Oh my god.


... Oh my god, we have so much work to do.

You better pray my beloved Sucre shows up here.

[unpurify]

[S I G H.

Well you can't say he didn't try Zacharie. Even if it was the world's worse try, right up there with you impression of a cat's meow.]

What should I have done?

[May as well learn it for future reference.]

[creditless]

For once, the thing that comes natural! You should have stayed silent, for you had a hand in her demise and no apology can make up for such a thing!

[ He goes to wipe away the tears beneath his mask, shocking himself in the process. ]

It's like smiling at a memorial because you think it makes the room less gloomy!

[unpurify]

I wasn't going to apologize.

[He's not that inept and the Batter would have to ask himself if he had been tossed against a wall one to many times to suddenly start thinking apologizes would heal what he did to the people in his world.]

So don't smile often?

[creditless]

Don't smile when people are talking of somber things like death, mi amigo. That's step one.

[unpurify]

[This time the Batter does make a face, although it's mostly due to him trying to work things out rather then anything Zacharie's said so far.]

Step two?

[creditless]

Ask if they're comfortable saying any more, and if not, you're here to listen. [ A pause. ] For someone like you, it might be fine to say 'sometimes, I'm unsure what to say', because it's true, but when you phrase it that way it's understandable.

Now then, sometimes a pat on the back or shoulder is merited, sometimes it isn't. That you'll have to learn from experience.

[unpurify]

[Yeah. This is making it very, very clear he's out of his depths here. Also probably not going to do any touching unless the other party does so first. It's very much not something the Batter did on his own. Bar certain people, he had a personal space barrier of five miles. Metaphorically.]

...are you?

[Half because he wanted to try again and half because they got side-tracked. So?]

[creditless]

I'm five times better than I was when I went on that tangent. They say a man would get used to a noose if he had enough lives to go through it-- that's how I feel about my dear Sucre. I miss her and I wish her back, but her death... it has gotten to the point where it is only that.

[unpurify]

[They say a man would get used to a noose if he had enough lives to go through it.

Yeah, that sounds about right. The Batter knows that there's nothing that could be done for Sucre. She was long gone when he ran across her and he really didn't have the right to decide if killing her was the best thing to do. Zacharie had said it was for the better but...

It had been the first time that the Batter had seen him express sorrow.]

If she came here, what would you want me to do?

[Stay away from her? Try something else? He doesn't know.]

[catpiper]

[All that blood is, well, not great. The dead frogs littering the floor, the face tied around his head-it's a jarring background to an otherwise peaceful scene of a guy singing to his sibling.

Ren's not sure how to take in this scenery or how calm both parties seem to be in the middle of all that bloodshed. This image will vanish soon though and she tries to concentrate on the melody, and his sister's face, for the duration of the memory. But it proves difficult ignore everything else and she still looks nervous, even as she asks-]

Do you like to sing?

[creditless]

I did, once.

[ He pulls a music box from his pocket and begins to play it. ]

I don't any longer. Besides, my tough voice isn't suited for such a thing. Can you? ... sing, that is.

[catpiper]

[The little box captures her attention immediately and it's hard to pull her eyes away from it. Even when he speaks, she responds to the item instead of him.]

Your voice was pretty.

[Even if it's only an echo now. The nice way he sung to his sister is something she'll remember. Tough voice or not, he can sing.]

I like to sing about the moon-[A pause]-and things that make me happy.