August Aftermath: Plants Solidify Sunshine

[lifeaftr_mods]

AUGUST AFTERMATH: OVERGROWTH

Who: Everyone
What: You're back, for better or worse
When: August 19th and onward
Where: The Storyteller's Temple on Ensō, and anywhere else
Warnings: Please mark as you go!

Optimism Doesn't Change the Facts

By the end of the 17th, the last of those suffering from the Overgrowth have either pulled through or succumbed entirely. For the next two days, their bodies will decompose and the flowers will feed on their remains, flourishing into bright patches of color.

If you perished and choked on your flowery words, never fear. Come the 19th, you will be stirring awake in the Storyteller's Temple. You will be experiencing a few...side effects, as it happens, while your body readjusts. It will take something like a week for those symptoms to disperse, though the Storyteller isn't around to inform you of this.

What is around? Aside from your own freshly revived selves, there are a great deal of flowers, and all of them are sickeningly familiar. Scarlet gladiolus. Blushing dog rose. Soft yellow buttercups. Garnet-colored geraniums. Dark nodules of fly orchids. Rich violets. Periwinkle hydrangeas. Peppered yellow speckles of goldenrod. Jade green zinnias. Red spears of snapdragons. Pale begonias. Pink spangles of mountain laurel. The very flowers that killed you are now growing all over the Temple, inside and out, in rich abundance, cloying the air with their perfumed fragrance.

Don't be concerned. These ones certainly aren't going to be spreading to your flesh anytime soon.

---

If your character died during this event, please let us know if you have not already. Death penalties have been reduced for this event, but we still need to account for them!

---

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

[lightlessfuture]

[ They tilt their head at the invitation, lowering their hand - but they don't hesitate to sit. If their friend simply wants to rest, then that's fine too.

They're content to stay by their side.

After a while, though, they do raise their hands to ask a question. ]

feeling-better?

[souldeterminant]

[They can only be grateful for the silence. Even if there are questions to answer, it's simpler, this way. Less complicated than opening their mouth and using their voice, remembering the inflections, the softness. The slight, eventual husk of vocal chords that aren't used all that often, never for too long.]

[Yes. This is far easier.]

Yes. [Is the eventual response. It's true, they are. The knot in their chest has nothing to do with flowers, this time.] You?

[lightlessfuture]

no-sickness
better-now

[ They had disliked being sick on its own merits, but it had brought back terrible memories. Dredged them up, pushed them to bloom. It was something they couldn't put away or push back; once broken, it could not be repaired. That mental barrier in their head they'd been holding all this time, without even really realising it.

Their friend seems...very tired. What do you do, with tired people?

Sit beside them. Let them rest. Keep them company.

After a moment of thought, they offer their hand again, tilting their head inquisitively. Not to help up. Just to hold.

If they want. ]

[souldeterminant]

[A distracted nod, accompanied by the vague shadow of a smile. Good. They're happy to hear it. They don't, however, seem to know what to do with the offered hand. Hooded eyes open ever so slightly more, caught up in an internal debate.]
[What would Frisk do?]
[Slim fingers curl over the much smaller hand, more cradling than holding. And they look back to the ceiling, jaw clenched. The free hand on their chest flexes, gestures slower and wider to make up for the hand currently occupied.]

Have you seen Chara?

[lightlessfuture]

[ That hesitation is puzzling. Do they really feel better? Normally they wouldn't question this sort of thing, but

they've learned something, from the flowers, at least.

...Perhaps they're still shaking off sickness. Or death. Or something. They're not entirely certain how this works, even after all this time...they're still much more used to bugs.

Have you seen--

Who? They...it takes them a long moment before they have to put the pieces together in their head from what they remember. Who would they be looking for, right now? Who seems to be closest to their teacher?

Red eyes and a lingering smile and a knife. Sharp and cunning. Is that their name?

It takes, perhaps, a concerningly long time for the Knight to answer this question (and they answer it one-handed, not wanting to break that contact, curling their own much smaller fingers around their friend's) but at least they've learned to elaborate somewhat instead of leaving that silence as is. ]

have-not-seen
sorry-am-slow
do-not-know-names-for-some
just-faces

[ They just...never asked. It never came up, really. If people didn't want to introduce themselves, that was fine by them; they didn't have a name either, until recently. ]

[souldeterminant]

[There's simply a lot to process; right now, they don't... feel quite like themself, wracking their brain for any sign of the person they should be.]

[No one else is there. Whatever happens, it's on them, for now. Until things are back the way they should be. They might not remember how this is supposed to be or rather--]

[They do remember. They remember all too well. It's simply been a long time since they've had to be Frisk, and not Chara. Back then, they'd been resigned to this feeling; a sense of being nothing more than a passenger, watching the world through another's eyes. They hadn't enjoyed it. Now?]

[Now, the only surprise is that they can still breathe.]

That's okay. They wouldn't mind. [Really, they don't.] How long have we been gone?

[lightlessfuture]

few-days

[ They are sensitive to small changes in the world around them. Their friend seems...off? Strange.

But then again - maybe it was something lingering still. Or the pain of dying. Or something even deeper that the Knight couldn't possibly fix.

They don't know. Not unless they ask.

...

They don't ask.

They put their hand over their friend's own, clasping the larger hand in both of their smaller ones. Just holding on.

If they want to sit in silence, to rest, then questions can wait. ]

[souldeterminant]

[A few days.]

[Is that a relief, or regrettable? They're not so sure- exhaustion sitting heavy on their SOUL, like a blanket. No matter what they do, they can never seem to tear it off, not entirely.]

[And yet, at the same time.]
Frisk, Tim, Lup. They have miles to go, before they sleep.
[They have responsibilities to attend to. A slow, drawn-out exhale escapes them before the child sits up, aiming a soft, upwards curve of their lips to their quiet companion.]

[It's almost perfect.]

Everyone else?