🏝️ dulces sueños group excursion! 🏝️

[hearthwarming]

🏝️ who: intrepid adventurers (vacationers?) and more!
🏝️ what: ori organized (origanized?) a group trip to the resort! mass memshare ensues.
🏝️ when: fall 9-10
🏝️ where: dulces sueños resort
🏝️ warnings: threads will be marked as needed for memshares.

[ Hopefully everyone had fun on the Arco Lunar! The morning after the boat departs from the docks, a letter arrives to your mailbox: ]

Hello, intrepid adventurer!

I am excited to have you along for a group excursion to the mysterious new island! In two days' time, let us gather in the town square and set off from there! Please be prepared to stay the night. It will be so fulfilling and memorable for everyone to spend a night on an adventure together!

If you have any questions or concerns, please come find me at my flower shop in town or at the forest farm where I live!

Sincerely,
Oriphi

[ If she accidentally delivered it to a few wrong mailboxes, then... Oops!

On the promised day, once everyone (and likely a few surprise tag-alongs) has gathered or been gathered, Ori distributes little paper bags of snacks to everyone. Inside are cookies, oat snacks, and a freshly-picked apple from her and M-21's orchard. Do with them as you please... Just don't let her catch you throwing it into the sea or something. 🥺 ]

Alright. I think we should head out, then! Thanks for coming along, everyone! I hope it'll be a great time. Oh, and please don't forget to drink plenty of water and use this incredible ointment I discovered on this island! It's called "sunscreen!" Tieflings don't really get sunburnt, but you should use it!

[ And with that our intrepid adventurers set off to the mysterious, dangerous, unknowable... resort island! ]

( This is the ill-fated mass extinction memshare event. Please refer to the event for details on the resort and the plotting post for any specific details for characters' memshares! There are toplevels for each area of the resort (and for the memshare). Enjoy! )

Comments

[passthrough]

[At the very least, there's no awkwardness coming off from Otegine about the situation! Sometimes you're used to living in a citadel with open baths with 50+ other men.]

Ah... it's a habit, I guess. Sorry.

You don't feel that too, do you? The... [He takes a second, trying to find a word to label the absolute lack of space that muffled his own feelings.] ... emptiness?

[framestory]

[ Emptiness? Ellis feels that on a daily basis, but then he looks down at the water.

...

Anyway, that emptiness? It's being chased off and being replaced with the emotional equivalent of musical frogs stampeding through the street. Nothing to see here!!

He shakes his head no. He's fine. Yeah. Don't worry about it. ]

[passthrough]

[help

Confusion bubbles up rather quickly, and Otegine just... squints really hard at Ellis.

He holds a hand up, just signaling him to wait a moment, before taking a few wading steps away from Ellis. Mm. Hm. Hmmmm.

He takes a second to fish for his towel, and out of the bathwater he goes for a minute, though he doesn't leave, still squinting at the water and then back at Ellis. Hm. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

He is trying very hard to use his brain and it is very hard when emotions are already a foreign concept. Maybe this bath is cursed. Anyway, back into the water he goes.]

It's definitely the bath, and it's definitely around you. [There isn't a frustration around it, just an even heavier level of confusion tinged with just a baseline if concern. He's trying really hard to Think.]

Maybe the goddess is just playing jokes with us again. It... feels weirdly familiar. That's all.

[framestory]

[ Ellis looks surprised. In every aspect, Ellis would have thought that Otegine was the last person to have the empty, void-like feeling as "weirdly familiar". The surprise comes through and the pool of emotions are mixed even more. Ellis is trying not to feel confusion, but he kinda is as he stares at Otegine. ]

How is it familiar?

[passthrough]

Ah.

[Things start to tumble, a moment of panic, of rapid forced self assurance to quell it.]

I-it's nothing serious, really! I've, uh... got a couple memories that are missing. [It's not a lie, but not the entire truth, and there's a mild flicker of guilt even as he tries to keep his smile steady.] It just reminds me of when I try too hard to focus on that missing time.

It gets kind of hard to explain what you felt in a time where there wasn't really anything you had to remember.

[framestory]

[ Ellis stares at Otegine with a slight judging look.

... ]

Like being in a void?

[passthrough]

Yeah. Just nothing. Like being in a pool, but there's nothing in the pool, and there isn't actually a pool, and there might not even be a "you", either. It's just, uh... it's nothing.

[That, at least, is absolutely sincere. But he quickly grows embarrassed catching that look, his hand rubbing at his neck.]

Sorry, sorry. Describing feelings isn't really my forte.

[framestory]

Why were you in the void?

[ His expression grows a little more blank when he asks. ]

[passthrough]

... Why?

...

It's complicated. Memory problems, you know?

[Still sincere, but once again with a flair of guilt. Telling people he's pretty sure he is "dead" is not on his list of things to do openly.

It's his turn to just stare at Ellis now, brow tightening a little.]

Why are you asking?

[framestory]

I got banished once to the void, because I wasn't supposed to exist.

[ Ellis used to be like Otegine, but his time in Crescentview has allowed himself to open up more easily, especially seeing how others went through a similar time. They wouldn't disbelieve. They'd relate on some level. Is that what he's really looking for?

No. It isn't. ]

It was a terrible place.

[passthrough]

Not supposed to...

[He can't help but think immediately of Sadachika, or of those weapons he knows that are nothing but legends. Iwatooshi, Imanotsuguri, who existed only by stories... Tomoe, Doudanuki, who existed as conglomerate...

...]

If it's somewhere to be banished... it doesn't sound pleasant at all. [He knows his experience was mixed. But its hard to label it as good or bad when you're something that feels nothing. It becomes a state of being... and that state of being is "not being at all".]

Ellis... what are you, exactly?

[framestory]

[ Ellis seems to hesitate for a while, before he starts writing on Otegine's hand again. ]

I'm a character from a story that was kicked out by its author.

[passthrough]

[Oh. He's... fictional. Not even that, he's just a fictional idea.

...

His brain is too small for this, but... this makes him like Tomoe, right? A fleeting representation, maybe, but no actual existence?

He studies Ellis frankly for a moment.]

Do you normally have a body like this, or is that new for you, too?

[framestory]

I was made with one. I'm more like a discarded plot device though.

[ Bitterness seeps in despite his friendly face. ]

[passthrough]

[Mn. The bitterness feels familiar, met with understanding, though faint. He'd been one of the lucky ones, to not be thrown away outright while he still existed. At least... not that he can remember. But there were plenty of others that couldn't say the same, and even more that never made it to a proper age to even become anything beyond an item before being broken or lost.

...

He fully takes a seat near Ellis with a sigh. Soaking in the sensation of nothing just makes him anxious, but... at least it's not new. At least he can breath through the fleeting thoughts that pass.]

Do... you like being here? Feeling things? Or do you think it's too much, sometimes?

[framestory]

I like being here.

[ Feelings be damned, this will always be his response to that question. ]

But it's definitely too much to feel sometimes. I don't like it. Love feels disgusting in particular.

[passthrough]

It really is a lot. Especially with the Goddess meddling all over the place.

[The annoyance flairs heavily. He has some strong opinions about all this non-consensual bullshit!]

... Well, what exactly do you love that makes it feel disgusting? Is it someone just loving you, or, uh... the other way around?

[framestory]

[ Ellis thinks it's annoying, but life happens. Alas. He's so used to being toyed with a higher power, so it's just another day.

But Ellis shakes his head. ]

Being in love with someone felt like I was obsessing over them. I didn't like that.