aftr_stories | [MU] - FEBRUARY STORYTELLING / VOTING

As you made your opinions of the last voting session quite clear, there was no new island in the month of February. However, that does not mean there should never be a new island ever again, which is why the Storyteller has stubbornly resumed the same voting efforts as before. Try and pick an actual island this time, if you please? Each island contains resources and dangers both - there is no reward without a little risk.

Those of you who were with us for October's Storytelling may find this scene familiar - only, instead for four glistening pyres, it's only three that rear out from the shadows, each glowing a different color. The strange material that domes them almost resembles worked steel, forming different patterns against their multicolored backdrops.

[ ♆ ] The first glows a deep crimson, kicking scarlet embers into the dream-night air. Its pit sphere portrays a crowd of people in silhouette, heads bowed in genuflection - paying homage to some looping, many-coiled shape in the sky above.

[ ♆ ] The second glows a deep orange. Its pit sphere is worked into the shape of a looming mountain, with what might be some sort of village or ruin sprawled at its base.

[ ♆ ] The third's flames are a rich green. Its designs are most abstract; the starburst patterns that swirl across the metallic composition of its fire pit sphere could be explosions, maybe...or something else entirely.

Beside each pyre is heaped a pile of sticks, colored to correspond to their respective flames. Hopefully it is clear that you must add your stick to whichever pyre you intend to vote for; though if you're confused, hopefully your fellow adventurers will be able to explain it to you.

This will, of course, decide your next island destination, and those abstracted renditions are all you have to go off of.

Once you have cast your votes, what happens next is purely routine.

It is time, once more, for you to tell a story. The setting will be familiar for oldcomers, and newcomers will recognize it from the introduction they received in their dreams. This too is a dream, and the ink-black dark is illuminated only by the bonfire surrounded by log seats. And seated around the fire are your fellow islanders, many of whom doubtless know the drill by now.

One by one, you will each have the opportunity to share your stories, as stories possess a certain undeniable power. Newcomers can tell whatever tale they wish, but for those who have been in LifeAftr for at least one Storytelling, only stories of their time in LifeAftr will count down the road. The story need not be long, or conventional, or even verbal; as long as the Storyteller knows it has been told, it will qualify. Those of the nonverbal persuasion have, as of a request issued by Ren (

catpiper), an alternative means of telling their stories if they so choose, in the form of the Chamber of Glyphs.

If you prefer to keep your mouth shut, that's always an option, though you're more liable to benefit if you do. Perhaps you'd rather not relive any of your history, varied and variegated as it must be. Or maybe you're something of a compulsive un-truther, prone to embellishments and long, fanciful tangents. As long as the core of the story is true to its spirit, you are free to spin your tale however you like.

So choose well.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It might.

...Selflessness only ever earns one but a singular reward. To work yourself to death for others only to be cast aside when you should no longer prove of use to them.

[ If that doesn't hit her hard. Christ. ]

... maybe so. But it doesn't mean you should never be selfless.

Of course it does. Why, that's just common sense and self-preservation.

Absolute selfishness will leave someone just as lonely.

So then you believe in the idea of balance as well.

I do, yes.

[ ... ]

I'm guessing from your story, you don't?

I think it’s a foolish endeavor at times, yes.

[ Hm, strange wording there. ]

Then what times isn't it foolish?

Contextual, and dependent on eventual results.

... I guess that's fair enough.

[ She hesitates. She almost doesn't say it, but. ]

You think way too much.

I have had two millennia to do nothing but, my dear.

[ She doesn't even try to hide the way she flinches back at the my dear. ]

I'm not-- [ She just barely holds back a frustrated huff. ] The only thing I meant was that... it seems like you have people that genuinely care about you. That's all.

I don't think it would be a terrible thing to let them in, or to let yourself be that sage you used to be.

It's a fascinating thing, isn't it? People draw close to something monstrous because they see something resembling value in it. Something to be salvaged, or at least preserved. So much so that they risk being destroyed in the process.

...Adagium and the sage don't know how to coexist. If that's something which can be learned, then the effort put into seeking balance was worth it. And--more likely--if it should fail then the endeavor was pointless. It's as simple as that.

Edited (...my keyboard's old don't mind me) 2019-02-24 08:23 (UTC)

[ It hits her so hard, it almost knocks the breath out of her.

I wouldn't have guessed you for a healer.

'Me? Oh, heavens no. ... Hm...no reason to concern yourself with it. It hardly matters...for either of us, at this point.'

For a very long moment, she looks into the fire they're seated before. It's like an itch has been scratched at the base of her skull, but it's painful, a burning she wants desperately to stop. It'd been small flashes, before. It's a dam broken, now, and at the center of that is Ardyn, of all people.

She finally looks at him. ]

I don't know about that. You showed me kindness when we were in those crystal caves. You didn't have to, but you did.

[He raised an eyebrow at that, looking her over as in in evaluation.]

How interesting. And here I thought you'd forgotten me--you'd not have been the first.

[ She shrugs, and even though she tries to hide it... it's painfully obvious that she's somewhere between troubled and downright disturbed.

She glances at him, then back to the fire. ]

It's not just you I've forgotten, you know. If I could, I'd remember everything right now.

[ It had hurt Ren and Ignis, after all, when they'd realized she had no memory of them. ]

Memory's a terribly tricky thing, is it not? So easily lost by damage to a mortal psyche.

It is.

But I'm sure it won't be long before I remember more. Maybe I'll be able to remember the man who let the sage's kindness shine through that darkness you like to talk about.

Surely you're not so stupid as to think that was kindness. For all you know, I was having a bad day and just wanted to kill something.

[ It's amazing how frustrated she gets with him. Truly. ]

Maybe you're the stupid one for not realizing the extent of your past self's influence.

[such is the power of ardyn's aura of fuckheadery]

Is that what you think? My, how charmingly sentimental.

[ no onnnnnnnnnnne gives headaches like ardyn ]

You know, you can stop with the backhanded comments.

I could, certainly.

Then please, go ahead.

[ she's sure gonna regret this but you know what

fuck it ]

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