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.

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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!

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( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

[yourattention]

"Well. I guess that solves the mystery of what price I paid for dying."

There's something disconcertingly cheerful about the way he says it. Well, there's something a little disconcerting in Connor sounding cheerful at all - he does speak in something other than a monotone sometimes, but it's almost never about things like this.

"It's not a big deal. It'll go back to normal in a week."

[savedbyasong]

"Price?" As he says it he remembers. Tim had told him. Dying here meant paying a price. Memory or... Being invisible it seemed. Why was that? Had it something to do with how they were brought back? In the Tower he had lost memories when he had died fourteen times. The process becoming less stable.

Here though it seemed to be straight away. And temporary. A week... Connor is worryingly cheerful about it all. Not that Shion doesn't understand trying to downplay worry and fear. But he barely sounds like Connor at all.

Still he nods, breathes. He doesn't let go of Connor's hands. "A week." A nod.

Another breath and he glanced sideways, keeping him in sight. "I..."

He trails off. Because Ceej is here. Alive. Just like he said and though he sent Shion away... He came back.

[yourattention]

"I said I'd come back." Connor sits down next to Shion, letting their shoulders touch together. "I just, uh. I don't know, it was a lot to handle? And I was freaking out? So, you know."

That's more than he would normally say about anything - it doesn't bother him, because Shion deserves an answer, but he's distinctly aware that his mouth is running with very little filter. It's not a problem near people he's comfortable with, but it's a distinct possibility that it'll be a problem if he's talking to people he doesn't know as well.

"I'm sorry. You deserve better."

[savedbyasong]

"You did... You came back." He leaned against Connor's shoulder. He's exhausted. As Diarmuid had sternly told him after the last time he had died, death didn't count as resting. Ceej had come back. If he hadn't... Shion didn't know what he would have done. It wouldn't have been Connor's fault. People just disappeared sometimes.

The realisation that Connor disappearing would destroy him as much as if Aster disappeared, as much as Reno's disappearance from the tower had, hit him hard. He closed his eyes to stop the tears slipping through. He had cried enough.

But he gave up trying when Ceej apologised. "Don't... I... You have nothing to be sorry for."

[yourattention]

"Hey, no." Connor reaches over and wipes a tear away. "This is exactly what I'm apologizing for: I keep making you cry and it's super not cool of me."

The softness in the way Connor says it is the closest he's come to sounding like he normally does. Even the constraints of his penalty can't keep the fondness out of his voice when he talks to Shion, which would be cute if that very thing wasn't the cause of his problems.

"I should be nicer to you."

[savedbyasong]

"You don't..." Connor made him happy. Made him smile. The circumstances around everything were what made him cry. He cried far too much. "You are nice to me. Even when I'm a mess."

He was patient, even when Shion panicked, when all his thoughts were too much that he could barely breathe never mind speak.

He leaned into Connor's hand. You're the one who deserves better. I'm... Sorry I should have asked..." You were probably meant to ask before you kissed people. Maybe? He really has no idea.

[yourattention]

If this was a YA romance novel, Connor would pull a smooth move like kissing Shion and declaring them even. It's not, though, and Connor would rather not have this conversation like this? Or ever? The circumstances here might be even worse than the ones that prompted him to put off this talk in the first place.

"We're both messes," he says instead. It's not what he means to say, exactly, but it's close enough. "Anyway, there were a lot of emotions happening? So it's fine. I didn't mind."

[savedbyasong]

Connor didn't punch him or push him away. Shion was half expecting him to, even if Connor had never hit him before but he didn't. Instead he said he didn't mind. He wasn't angry or upset.

Shion reached up to hold Connor's hand. Connor didn't sound like himself, Shion couldn't see him properly. Keeping hold of him was the only way to know he was there, that he was real. Or as real as any of them were.

"I'm glad. I'm glad you didn't mind. I'm sorry I tried to make you talk... I didn't want you to die. But I shouldn't have tried to force you. It's was your choice to make."

Choice was very important. They had a lot more control here than they had in the Tower but their lives were still directed by unknown forces. It was bad enough without them trying to control each other as well.

[yourattention]

"If I was angry with everyone that tried to get me to talk, I wouldn't be talking to anybody."

Normally, there would be a dry sarcasm behind a statement like that but it's said as a simple fact. It's true, more or less: Tim had tried, in a way. Lup had definitely tried. People he didn't even know had tried, had begged people to tell their stories. And yet, he couldn't do that - still can't, because even if he wanted to now? What's coming out of his mouth is not quite what he ever wants to say.

"Sometimes people do selfish things designed as kind ones. I do it all the time, so it'd be hypocritical to complain when other people do it."

That's one of the things he maybe should have told people, when the flowers were overtaking him. So much of what he does is born out of an obsessive need to be seen, to be worth something - he doesn't know how much of what he does is genuine and what's just . . . a front.

[savedbyasong]

"So do I..." And he hadn't even realised it. It seemed every time he thought he was improving. Every time he thought he had gotten better, moved on from the selfish naive child who knew nothing then he realised he had gotten it all wrong.

He wants to protest that Connor doesn't but that would be doing it again, taking Connor's choice from him. Dictating to him. He just squeezes his hand instead. "I won't do it again." Even though it would be difficult, even if it was painful.

"I broke my promise to Aster." He hasn't seen her yet. He's not sure how angry she is at him. Probably very. He deserved it.

[yourattention]

"It happens. Nobody keeps all their promises, Shion." Normally, he'd say promises are practically made to be broken, but that's close enough. It's probably a better sentiment anyway. "She'll forgive you. That's what family does."

If Shion's not quite looking, the expression on Connor's face doesn't even remotely match the tone of what he's just said. It's not like it's hard to tell anyway - Connor's never had much of anything nice to say about his family. It's like he told Lup: he gave up the first time partially because everybody else gave up on him first.

[savedbyasong]

She would forgive him because she forgave him everything. Even when he messed up and got himself killed. Even when he messed up and got other people killed. In some way it was grounding, to know that he could not mess up enough for her to give up on him. In other ways it was terrifying, for her to trust him that much. To hold that much trust.

But then again, he trusted her just as much. He glanced over at Connor and saw that look. It didn't take that much to figure it out. He knew that Connor had never really had... anyone. No friends or family. No one who just... loved him. Despite everything.

He turned to look at him fully, forgetting for a moment that he couldn't. Connor disappeared from view but Shion still had his hand, he could still feel him. Connor was still there. Shion leaned forward so he could touch his forehead on Connor's.

At least he hopes it's Connor's forehead. He's guessing. It's weird not being able to see him. A little like the first time he had pressed his head to Aster's when the glamour first failed in the Tower, shear metal and wire instead of flesh, instead of eyes.

He can feel Connor even if staring him like this just shows the flower covered wall behind him.

"Yeah, she will." Even if Shion didn't deserve to be forgiven. That's what family was.

[yourattention]

Connor figures out what Shion is trying for and turns to touch their foreheads together. If he were a different person, he'd probably take advantage of his conditional invisibility to kiss Shion, but there's a handful of things he's maybe too afraid of to fuck up and this is one of them.

They need to talk. They really, really need to talk, but it's damn near impossible this second given the nature of his death price and that, maybe, is the worst part of his punishment. Instead, Connor tries to ignore the way it feels like he's just talking past anything he actually wants to say. Anything he wants to mean.

"You don't have to feel bad for not being perfect. Nobody is."

[savedbyasong]

"I know... I don't want to be perfect." Perfect had a lot of connotations, perfect was No.6. Perfect was not being human but instead being obedient, a worker. "Humans mess up all the time... And I guess people who are not humans but still not..." He waved his hand as his thought trailed away from him.

He closed his eyes, it's a little easier like this. He can still feel Connor's forehead against his but there's not the strange disconnect of not being able to see him. They needed to talk but... Shion's afraid of what Connor would say. He said it was alright, that he didn't mind. But part of Shion feared having the conversation they needed to.