♫ kunzite ♫

[dramatispersonae]

You're in a sumptuous room, with rich brocade in your team colors and fine appointments in copper and marble that should look bright and beautiful -- but everything is dusty and grey, with a furtive, abandoned air. This is a place that's been locked away for a long time. It feels as if it would be sad to linger here for long.

Fortunately (perhaps), after one good look at the room, you catch a brief, pained snatch of melody. Your vision goes dark, and you immediately find your mind somewhere else-- ♫

Comments

♪ instructions ♪

[dramatispersonae]

For the first round, your character will be locked into a vivid waking nightmare (with which they can hopefully identify) for three comments! Your character will know to some extent that it's a dream, as one does sometimes in lucid dreams -- however, this shouldn't prevent the character from being affected by and reacting to the scenario. Our goal is a deeply unpleasant experience rather than outright trauma, so please use your judgment on how much immersion versus a sense of unreality from being in a dream you need to play with to get that outcome!

You can play with characters reacting to the scenario any way you want - have them interact with each other as if they're all going through what's being described together as a group, or have each person interact with it separately, or whatever - as you and your team prefer. (If you’re coming in late, you can just react individually to the scenario comments and then jump in wherever your team is playing! The rest of the game won’t make much sense otherwise.) After your team has finished reacting to each comment, let your gamerunner know that you're done so the next one (and then the next round, when the dream is over) can be unscreened.

Once the nightmare is over, teams will be free to discuss and answer a series of questions.

Teams will be running at their own pace without inter-team interactions, so please pace yourselves accordingly as a group to make sure you don’t run overtime! We’ll be cutting off all teams at the 5-hour mark (9:30 PM PST/12:30 AM EST).

round 1 ♩

[dramatispersonae]

first

[dramatispersonae]

This experience is disjointed, jagged at the edges.

You left them a feather because you thought you'd found a place with them - you'd never believed there'd be humans (humans? are you not human?) who understood you before, whose embraces warmed without turning painful. But seeing that feather is the reason why the others know, now.

Greedy and blind, they chase you and your loved one(s? it's not clear). They are hunting what you are - something wild, something free, something unable to coexist with others (you loved someone in a different way than this, once) except as a trophy after all. Their faces are pitiless. Your heart hammers high in your throat, a hummingbird motion in your chest. There is no one else like you on the earth. You will not let them catch you.

Re: first

[seasidelove]

[Something tells me I can't sing these problems away like everything else can I]

We—we have to keep going!

second

[dramatispersonae]

Someone is next to you - a teammate? a friend? the bearer of your favor? They've been encouraging you, helping you get ahead of the hunters. They've promised you that they won't leave you, and you trust them - but as you flee, you can feel rather than see an absence at your side where there should be support.

When you look back, they're curled up around an arrow in their gut. You feel the stab of it as painfully as if it'd dug into your own flesh. How could they do this? How you could you let this happen? How could those who cared for each other fail so completely together? You can count the beats of their heart, driving the blood that escapes from their veins in a scarlet pool. (How could they leave you like this?)

Re: second

[isfet]

[swallows his cry of surprise before it can be much more than a faint sound of distress... nononono. too close to home.]

third

[dramatispersonae]

You mourn them, keening your loss to an uncaring sky (Wouldn't you have cried, once?) There's a part of you that listened to that other voice, but that's fainter now - now that they've left you, now that you could not keep them freely besides you after all.

Stricken with grief, you don't notice till it's far too late to do more than freeze with terror when the hunter steps into the clearing, his arrow nocked and aimed at your heart. (Why did you ever give them that feather?), you ask yourself, and you have no answer.

Re: third

[isfet]

...

Re: third

[despotic]

HOW DARE YOU -- !!!!!!

[ but maybe it's time to try and just attack the hunter. ]

Re: third

[seasidelove]

[She's lost her voice at this point in time—the most she can do is stare sadly at the arrow that's aimed at her heart and the hunter holding the bow.

She does, however, mouth:]

Please don't.

round 2 ♩

[dramatispersonae]

You wake up sitting securely in one of the luxurious abandoned chairs. You're feeling sore and ill, pained from the affereffects of whatever happened -- but it's all the ghost of a reaction, fading slowly.

Firebird's voice floats through the air on another brief melody. She sounds exhausted, as tired and sick as you are.

"So what would you do, if such a thing came to pass? After all of your fears came true?"

discussion

[dramatispersonae]

Re: discussion

[isfet]

[stands up, grabs the back of the chair, and kicks it into the wall.]

Re: discussion

[despotic]

What -- what an unpleasant -- stupid --

decision

[dramatispersonae]

Re: decision

[seasidelove]

We wouldn't let it happen, but if it does ... then we face our fears and deal with it.

round 3 ♩

[dramatispersonae]

Firebird's voice filters to your ears again.

"I thank you for your thought on this matter so far... what do you think bravery is? How is it different from foolhardiness? When is it the right decision to be brave?"

discussion

[dramatispersonae]

Re: discussion

[seasidelove]

Bravery ... it's standing up for yourself or your friends even if you might get hurt, right?

decision

[dramatispersonae]

round 4 ♩

[dramatispersonae]

Firebird sighs. Her voice is almost inaudible this time.

"And how do you face your fears while they are happening? If you could... how would you change the dream of fear so that a different future came true?"

discussion

[dramatispersonae]

decision

[dramatispersonae]

result ♮

[dramatispersonae]

...

[dramatispersonae]

The scenario plays again, all around you, but it's soft-edged and clearly on the floor and walls this time, at a remove from you -- you're not really reliving it. The scene changes at the end, though. . . after a moment of anguish, the 'you' of the dream gathers up your dying companion to its chest and flies instead, trying to find help. The light rolls off of the walls into a small ball on the floor, which solidifies into a brightly beaded copper charm bracelet. There aren't many charms on it yet, but one is a flask and one is a shield.

(To endgame!)