Deer Country Mod (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
reddosmod) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
countryclub2022-07-25 10:37 pm
reddosmod) wrote in countryclub2022-07-25 10:37 pm
Entry tags:
July Test Drive Meme!
JULY 2022 TDM
STANDARD ARRIVAL
rough seas and high winds
of monsters in the water
CODING
Another month, another test drive meme! Our test drive memes are open to anyone interested - regardless of whether or not you join our game!
All Test Drive Memes are game canon. Players can choose to keep their TDM threads canon or not. TDM threads can be used for AC and can be used as your writing sample for your application.
Our TDMs serve as a way to build into the actual lore and worldbuilding of Deer Country and we strongly encourage everyone to enjoy and participate! Current players are always welcome to pull prompts from the TDM to reference on the Network or bring into logs as well as tag out to new characters top-leveling on the TDM itself.
Characters will always be able to actively die during TDMs as this is an extremely dangerous world. You can still have this be game canon! Check out how character death in Deer Country works here.
If you have any questions about the TDM, please ask down below!
IMAGE DESCRIPTORS IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE
Prompt One
[Image One: Colorful paper lanterns shaped like jellyfish lit up and hovering in the air. ]
[Image Two: A person with long hair wearing a crown dedicated with shells and rocks. ]
Prompt Two
[Image One: A GIF of waves breaking roughly out in the middle of the ocean. ]
[Image Two: Strong waves crashing into a lighthouse and rocks. ]
Prompt Three
[Image One: A large Ningen (a sea creature that is half human, half monster, and has no face except for a large slit for a mouth) towering over a deep sea diver. ]
[Image Two: A person standing out on the rocks with their arms out stretched as the tentacles of a large sea monster wave in the air above the ocean. ]
All Test Drive Memes are game canon. Players can choose to keep their TDM threads canon or not. TDM threads can be used for AC and can be used as your writing sample for your application.
Our TDMs serve as a way to build into the actual lore and worldbuilding of Deer Country and we strongly encourage everyone to enjoy and participate! Current players are always welcome to pull prompts from the TDM to reference on the Network or bring into logs as well as tag out to new characters top-leveling on the TDM itself.
Characters will always be able to actively die during TDMs as this is an extremely dangerous world. You can still have this be game canon! Check out how character death in Deer Country works here.
If you have any questions about the TDM, please ask down below!
Prompt One
[Image One: Colorful paper lanterns shaped like jellyfish lit up and hovering in the air. ]
[Image Two: A person with long hair wearing a crown dedicated with shells and rocks. ]
Prompt Two
[Image One: A GIF of waves breaking roughly out in the middle of the ocean. ]
[Image Two: Strong waves crashing into a lighthouse and rocks. ]
Prompt Three
[Image One: A large Ningen (a sea creature that is half human, half monster, and has no face except for a large slit for a mouth) towering over a deep sea diver. ]
[Image Two: A person standing out on the rocks with their arms out stretched as the tentacles of a large sea monster wave in the air above the ocean. ]
WHEN: August
WHERE: The Farther Shores/The Boardwalk
CONTENT WARNINGS: N/A
WHERE: The Farther Shores/The Boardwalk
CONTENT WARNINGS: N/A
You're one of the lucky ones. Your journey is smooth sailing and you wind up exactly where you're supposed to: on the Farther Shores. You grow out of your squid body without a hitch, either with the help of another Sleeper or one of the Wakers, and you get to discover this new world. All new Sleepers might take some time to find their bearings. It might be tricky to remember how to use your body parts the way you're supposed to. You might stumble around the beach or forget how to talk - but don't worry! It'll come back to you sooner or later.
Hopefully, you've found something to wear, either in your Welcoming Bag or otherwise, and can start familiarizing yourself with your surroundings. Maybe you help some other squids out on the beach. Waking up sucks! You feel for the little guys. And hey, maybe you're hoping one of those squids is a good friend...Stranger things have happened.
SEASONAL DETAILS ON THE BOARDWALK
This month has an entire festival dedicated to Mariana. The people of Trench seem to be quite enamoured with her, despite her often cruel and unpredictable behaviors. The festival has gone all out with decorations. The boardwalk will be lined with lanterns in the shape of various sea creatures, such as jellyfish, dolphins, seahorses, and (of course) squids! These lanterns will be lit every night throughout the month and will burn through the night. They are bright beacons to a month that is otherwise becoming more and more gray and chilly as time passes.
The people of Trench are also decked out for the occasion. Blues and greens are the popular color choices for outfits, and many people will even decorate their hair with pieces from the ocean. Whether it's with full headpieces that are worthy enough for mermaids or just something as simple as weaving shells into a braid, everyone seems to have something on them that ties them to the sea. There are stalls set up to help newcomers (or oldies who just want to have some fun) decorate their hair as well and face paint for those who want to go the extra mile.
The festival comes with all sorts of celebrations that can be partaken in at absolutely no cost. There are food vendors, though they seem to be short on seafood this month. Likely it's due to the rough seas with waves so treacherous that not even the most skilled of sailors seems to be able to get out into them. They'll remark on how difficult is must have been to swim to shore in those awful waves. So instead of fish and shrimp, there are other sea-dedicated dishes: seaweed salad, noodle dishes made with seaweed broth, caramelized chicken in a fish and ginger sauce, etc. There are also ocean themed desserts, such as cupcakes with blue frosting shaped to look like a great wave. There are games such as dunk tanks, dart balloons, ring tosses, and other typical carnival entertainment. If you can think of it, it's probably there. At the end of the night, there's often a fireworks display over the rolling waves.
Hopefully, you've found something to wear, either in your Welcoming Bag or otherwise, and can start familiarizing yourself with your surroundings. Maybe you help some other squids out on the beach. Waking up sucks! You feel for the little guys. And hey, maybe you're hoping one of those squids is a good friend...Stranger things have happened.
This month has an entire festival dedicated to Mariana. The people of Trench seem to be quite enamoured with her, despite her often cruel and unpredictable behaviors. The festival has gone all out with decorations. The boardwalk will be lined with lanterns in the shape of various sea creatures, such as jellyfish, dolphins, seahorses, and (of course) squids! These lanterns will be lit every night throughout the month and will burn through the night. They are bright beacons to a month that is otherwise becoming more and more gray and chilly as time passes.
The people of Trench are also decked out for the occasion. Blues and greens are the popular color choices for outfits, and many people will even decorate their hair with pieces from the ocean. Whether it's with full headpieces that are worthy enough for mermaids or just something as simple as weaving shells into a braid, everyone seems to have something on them that ties them to the sea. There are stalls set up to help newcomers (or oldies who just want to have some fun) decorate their hair as well and face paint for those who want to go the extra mile.
The festival comes with all sorts of celebrations that can be partaken in at absolutely no cost. There are food vendors, though they seem to be short on seafood this month. Likely it's due to the rough seas with waves so treacherous that not even the most skilled of sailors seems to be able to get out into them. They'll remark on how difficult is must have been to swim to shore in those awful waves. So instead of fish and shrimp, there are other sea-dedicated dishes: seaweed salad, noodle dishes made with seaweed broth, caramelized chicken in a fish and ginger sauce, etc. There are also ocean themed desserts, such as cupcakes with blue frosting shaped to look like a great wave. There are games such as dunk tanks, dart balloons, ring tosses, and other typical carnival entertainment. If you can think of it, it's probably there. At the end of the night, there's often a fireworks display over the rolling waves.
WHEN: Last Week of July, First Week of AugustT
WHERE: Beach and Nearby Oceans
CONTENT WARNINGS: Threat of drowning, severe weather phenomena, Environmental hazards, possible death
WHERE: Beach and Nearby Oceans
CONTENT WARNINGS: Threat of drowning, severe weather phenomena, Environmental hazards, possible death
For some reason, Mariana is particularly wrathful even as the month begins. Even leaking into the end of the month of July, the sea begins to foam and rage in ways that are almost impossible to imagine. As you stare out int the beachheads, you may see vast waves and surf that would daunt the most professional of surfers. Water crashes into each other in colossal spouts. Waterspouts can be seen as storms occasionally buffet the coastline and just out into the ocean itself. However, the one thing about this chaotic energy is that it is just that, chaotic. One moment the sea may be calm, and the next it is a roiling, seething force out to destroy everyone.
This is, naturally, dangerous for those who are just hapless squids trying to reach shore. They may find themselves inexorably being flung towards sharp rocks and shoals, threatened with being dashed upon the stone near to the coast, or they may find themselves constantly swirling in eddies and whirlpools to the point of near exhaustion. However, they are not the only ones so threatened. Even those on the coast are in near constant danger of being washed right back out to see by an unexpected wave and sudden rip-tide. There are wood planks and other detritus to grab hold of, but it is very much a battle for one's life out there!
The sea's rage, the locals say, is because Mariana is particularly incensed over something that occurred. They do not know what exactly, but many have said that sleepers have felt a particular brunt of this ire lately. For now, it is a game of survival and a constant battle to bring people in safely.
Notes:
-Any natural weather occurrence is possible in the first week of August and last of July. Seemingly impossible combinations may occur (A waterspout in the middle of the eye of a hurricane, almost anything.
-These threats will be upon anyone who is not far enough inland to enjoy the festivities. The beach is not truly safe and sleepers are hustled inland quickly.
-Death is possible, though sleepers who die in the ocean find themselves returning very quickly as squids for some reason, within 24 hours, only to be threatened again before they eventually find shore.
This is, naturally, dangerous for those who are just hapless squids trying to reach shore. They may find themselves inexorably being flung towards sharp rocks and shoals, threatened with being dashed upon the stone near to the coast, or they may find themselves constantly swirling in eddies and whirlpools to the point of near exhaustion. However, they are not the only ones so threatened. Even those on the coast are in near constant danger of being washed right back out to see by an unexpected wave and sudden rip-tide. There are wood planks and other detritus to grab hold of, but it is very much a battle for one's life out there!
The sea's rage, the locals say, is because Mariana is particularly incensed over something that occurred. They do not know what exactly, but many have said that sleepers have felt a particular brunt of this ire lately. For now, it is a game of survival and a constant battle to bring people in safely.
Notes:
-Any natural weather occurrence is possible in the first week of August and last of July. Seemingly impossible combinations may occur (A waterspout in the middle of the eye of a hurricane, almost anything.
-These threats will be upon anyone who is not far enough inland to enjoy the festivities. The beach is not truly safe and sleepers are hustled inland quickly.
-Death is possible, though sleepers who die in the ocean find themselves returning very quickly as squids for some reason, within 24 hours, only to be threatened again before they eventually find shore.
WHEN: Throughout August
WHERE: The coast and waterways
CONTENT WARNINGS: Monster Horror, Possibly Getting Eaten, Threat of bodily harm, Unnatural Physiology, Existential Dread
WHERE: The coast and waterways
CONTENT WARNINGS: Monster Horror, Possibly Getting Eaten, Threat of bodily harm, Unnatural Physiology, Existential Dread
Something has been dredged up from the deep by the storms that rage. It is said that Mariana not only presides over the oceans, but also the most powerful monsters that dwell within the deep. Some of these, it is believed, may be the remains of Pthumerians whose minds and lives were lost during the hard times before, or the spawn of their mating with things other than humans. Whether these rumors are true, eldritch things have begun to emerge from the depths and darkness, things best left unseen.
Throughout the month of August, it is possible to encounter creatures that can only be described as monsters emerging from the water. With every passing storm, another emerges. Some are as large as small kaiju, while others are closer to human size, and each shares very little in common with the others, save for two particular details. The first of these is that they are all aquatic in nature and bear at least a passing similarity to sea monsters of ancient legend or particularly large and dangerous aquatic animals. Giant cuttlefish, Megalodons, Plesiosaurs, Octopi, Sea Cucumbers, Whales, or any of a number of other sea creatures appear to be their basis. The other similarity, however, is that all are hideously and grotesquely deformed. Tentacles, second rows of teeth, great clawed hands and feet enabling them to walk on dry ground, a thousand eyes all over the hump of a hunchback whale all shooting laser beams in the full moon, almost anything seems to be possible, though the changes are all chtonically horrendous in nature.
These creatures are violent, dangerous, and horrifying to behold. Just looking at them jars the mind and threatens to damage one's psyche while they try to understand what they are seeing. Bones are in seemingly impossible angles, bodies moving in ways that they shouldn't. Just looking at them can cause nausea, vertigo or mental breaks, though the danger does not stop there. They are agents of chaos, seeking to destroy mind or body, on a rampage whenever they reach ground, though they do not delve far into Trench beyond the waterways and beach, almost as if they are prevented by something. When one strays too close, an ominous light glows from the tops of the tallest spires in the city and they are inevitably repelled, but until they are killed or sent back to the deep from whence they came, they remain a threat outside of the city.
Throughout the month of August, it is possible to encounter creatures that can only be described as monsters emerging from the water. With every passing storm, another emerges. Some are as large as small kaiju, while others are closer to human size, and each shares very little in common with the others, save for two particular details. The first of these is that they are all aquatic in nature and bear at least a passing similarity to sea monsters of ancient legend or particularly large and dangerous aquatic animals. Giant cuttlefish, Megalodons, Plesiosaurs, Octopi, Sea Cucumbers, Whales, or any of a number of other sea creatures appear to be their basis. The other similarity, however, is that all are hideously and grotesquely deformed. Tentacles, second rows of teeth, great clawed hands and feet enabling them to walk on dry ground, a thousand eyes all over the hump of a hunchback whale all shooting laser beams in the full moon, almost anything seems to be possible, though the changes are all chtonically horrendous in nature.
These creatures are violent, dangerous, and horrifying to behold. Just looking at them jars the mind and threatens to damage one's psyche while they try to understand what they are seeing. Bones are in seemingly impossible angles, bodies moving in ways that they shouldn't. Just looking at them can cause nausea, vertigo or mental breaks, though the danger does not stop there. They are agents of chaos, seeking to destroy mind or body, on a rampage whenever they reach ground, though they do not delve far into Trench beyond the waterways and beach, almost as if they are prevented by something. When one strays too close, an ominous light glows from the tops of the tallest spires in the city and they are inevitably repelled, but until they are killed or sent back to the deep from whence they came, they remain a threat outside of the city.
no subject
He cocked his head to the side at her comment, brow lifted.
"That sounds quite like how my peers describe me," he commented. "Good."
It meant that the last decade spent cultivating his Lordly manner succeeded-- even with the rough edges of the Thames still evident in the way he spoke.
"Now, if you're quite done, I know of a place to get good tea and scones-- once you're properly clothed, of course."
He was too gay to be moved by a woman in the nude-- by others might have different ideas.
no subject
"Tea," Joy says, with a soft, gauzy wistfulness, blinking slowly up at the Lord El Melloi II, "And scones."
"Tea," she repeats, with a rising, perilous lilt, "And scones."
"Tea!" She reiterates, with breaking glass sharpness. "And scones?!"
"Of course! How foolish of me, how short-sighted - to think! I overlooked the curative properties of tea and scones!!" She hisses, all pretense stripped raw, her teeth gritted and fingers clawed into the balled up corner of the cloak she still holds. "That will make it all better, after all! Nothing that can't be fixed with tea! And! Scones!!"
no subject
Oh she was definitely one of those. In his mind's eye, he saw the maniacal edge that overtook his young sister, Reines El Melloi Archisorte, in moments when she was feeling particularly knavish and tired of the games of fake politeness. Her flaxen hair, straight as rain, only helped her look like a doll: her eyes, wide as the full moon and sharpened to an obsidian edge with rage and bloodlust, had rent him thousands of times over.
The dramatic caterwauling, at least, was new.
Stepping back, the young Lord scoffed.
"Why yes, because we're fresh out of cheese toasties and chip butties. The tea is muddy anyway-- and it's a miracle there's even marmite in town."
Running a gloved hand through his hair, he sucked in a deep breath and hoped that the headache he felt slowly building in the back of his head wouldn't overtake him.
"Forget the scones. Forget beans and toast. Once you're done with your howling and tantruming like an infant, we can get you out of the sand and get you some local news. Because-- I'm sorry. We're rather far from the nearest Tesco, and we've lost our backbone along the way."
cw: blood, gore, gross
"Your magnanimity," she pronounces, chilly as a death sentence, "Does not go unnoted."
With that, she takes him up on his offer. She throws herself backwards into the Vileblood still pooled in her enormous popped blister with a thudding underliquid crack of skull against stone, her face almost disappearing under the clotting murk, filth lapping over eyes and mouth. She arches her back like metal buckling in a vice and lets loose a bubbling, choking howl. She slams her fists against the side of her vessel hard enough to collapse an edge, which drools further pollution onto the rocks, and digs her heels in like anchors as she gives voice to her gurgling outrage. The cloak floats over it all like a sodden apology.
She whips herself into sitting as abruptly as she immersed herself, a wide arcing splatter of gore around her, and glares up at Waver. When she opens her mouth to speak, blood gushes forth, her words sloshing with it.
"Well!" She snaps. "I hope you relish disappointment, as I have not the least intention of leaving this beach, and I have no interest! Whatsoever! In your news!!"
no subject
Waver stood there, watching the scene unfurl while the smoke curled off of his cigarette into the salty breeze. The acrid scent of it was an odd comfort in the foreign landscape-- the familiarity of it's taste and it's weight helped ground him when confronted with this frankly shameful display.
"Very well," He scoffed-- flicking ash in her direction with a gesture as sharp as his tone.
He turned on his heel to leave.
"I hope you have the welcome you deserve."
cw: body horror, vertigo
It's the cigarette ash that spirals on the wind to land on the rippling surface of her broken pod that does her in.
Joy goes quite still, in a brittle, splintering way, and she extends herself along the retreating mage's eighth cranial nerves, reaches precisely into the labrinth of the ear, where the vestibular organs are placidly at work. She takes hold of the sensory connection, and in a brisk flood of inflammatory triggers, she tips his body over into the worst case of vertigo she can inflict short of ripping the whole structure out in two meaty little gobs.
When he topples over, as he will, unless he has any very clever tricks up his sleeve, Joy levers herself to her feet and picks her way across the sand.
"Disgusting and antisocial," she says, nastily.
cw: body horror, vertigo
That was his only thought as his body crumpled as if beneath the weight of an unseen ocean. His vision swan; his stomach sought rebellion. Cigarette dropping into the waves that surged down the shoreline-- and, unprepared for combat, he went down with the ease and grace of a doll being thrown aside by a particularly careless and unempathetic child.
Gritting his teeth in the waves of nausea that threatened, Waver helplessly glowered at the woman.
"Guess-- we're the same."
He spat out the words, his only aim being at misdirecting her venomous rage.
Hopefully, she didn't see the way his fingers clawed into the sand.
no subject
She used to be so precious about that. She had insisted on decorum, on propriety, and it is still a manner she affects when it pleases her to do so, but this is a lesson Joy has learned: in the end, it's all so much meat.
The rather irritating meat at her feet quivers. It squirts hot jets of saliva as gastric dysrhythmias set in, vagus nerve twitching with sympathy for its cranial cousins. She bends over with keen interest in the continued unpleasantness she's inflicted upon him, mouth a sharp little underline of minor triumph.
"Creche insults from a creche mind," she says, just to rub it in, and at least this is familiar.
cw: sand + eyes. You do the math
...he would show her juvenile.
Waver Velvet, Lord El Melloi II of the Mages Association and head of the Modern Magecraft department at the prestigious Clock Tower that was sought after by wealthy magus lineages the world over, scowled as this foul woman leaned over him like a snake leering down at the prey it was crushing the breath out of with it's powerful, sinuous coils. His eyes, the same dark green as the stormy ocean, narrowed with her jubilant, wicked smile and haughty words.
Indeed, if he was the worst kind of mage? She was among the best.
And he knew exactly how to throw off her game.
"Have you looked in a mirror lately?" He asked dryly, his voice hoarse and cracking from his efforts to both focus and not lose himself to the hot, sickly queasiness that threatened to drown him with every motion.
"Because... it seems you have something on your face."
With that-- he was in motion. He whipped out the hand he had dug underneath him and flung sticky, sulfuric sand in her eyes. The thick mess of sand, silt, and other muck smelled as putrid as it looked, and the clots of it would be as frustrating to clear as in it's powered, dry form.
If she insisted on calling him infantile.... then he would deliver.
cw: sand to eyes, body horror
She never trips. Her cavalier's grace married to her necromancer's art always catches her, her balance as perfected as anyone's balance can be, and she trips to land flat on her sacred cheeks anyway.
No one has ever said the Saint of Joy wasn't petty. She kicks out, sightless but not needing it to guide her towards the lovely curve of his liver, and when her heel connects she triggers an impulsive, furious cascade of synthesis and dumping into the bloodstream, a convulsive surge of activity that will cramp and burn and scour him with the worst hangover she can manufacture on short notice.
cw: body horror, emesis reference, blood horror
Retching, Waver rolled over on to his hands and knees and prayed to whatever gods or pthumerians cared that he didn't lose his paltry breakfast of tepid tea. His stomach was already weak, and the last several weeks of worrying after a certain pirate captain hadn't helped matters.
The part of his mind that maintained clarity dimly recognized the nature of this magic-- the flesh magic bending his vagus nerve to her will and coaxing it into submission. Stars danced in his vision, like a cacophonous scream from millennia ago.
Okeanos beckoned. The wine-dark cast of it's face and salt spray fingers were an old friend, promising stories from well beyond it's horizon. It was the eternal dream of the man that conquered the whole of the middle east in his push towards that boundless sea-- and it took everything in Waver to not give himself up to it's touch.
He tasted the acrid burn of hot bile and bit down on his lip, Trench-sharpened teeth unwittingly cutting into flesh and drawing the verdant green inside his veins to the foreground. The brine in the air met with the dizzying floral sweetness of mimosas-- the pear-like scent intermingled with melons and dreams-- when his blood oxidized... and he was struck by an idea that broached on madness. Reeling himself to his feet, Waver whirled on the woman, the flesh mage, the mad fiend that had been spat out from the depths by Mariana herself... and reached out to embrace her in his long, reed-like arms.
It was a mad movement, brought on by the spirit of the ancients and the visions he saw in his minds eye of that very same tree with it's gauzy puffs of flowers and the astonishingly stubborn bracts closing in on themselves to sleep.
As an herbalist, he knew what the essence of those flowers could do. As a mage, he understood that magic was everywhere, and as a teacher he saw the multitude of avenues from which it could be applied. Just as Pyrite could represent everything from it's mundane chemical properties that could flood the classroom with nitrous oxide with the wrong reagent and yet still be used in place of a fire element in a complex alchemic principal...
Who was to say that the idea of a dream wouldn't put someone to sleep.
The heady essences of that tree which was delicate as mead could set your heart racing and dull the senses in a similar manner. It tucked itself in to sleep at night, to dream alongside humanity.
Who was to say that this couldn't work.
Without giving any by-your-leave, Waver pressed his lips hard against hers and allowed his blood to intermingle with his saliva, darting his tongue between her lips just long enough to slip some inside. He drew away quickly-- or, at least tried to, and spat into the rolling tide.
"Will you shut up now?"
cw: hypnosis, unwanted kissing
He kisses her.
Her body locks up like a frozen tablet, nothing but a glaze of white-hot noise behind her snapped open eyes as he invites his probing tongue into the slack shock of her half-parted lips.
Blood and saliva, the most commonly used paints in a flesh magician's palette, and even in the wilderness of her staggered fury she remains perfectly adept at isolating and incinerating the foreign invaders in a flash of color-draining affront. This little man, who will be much littler when she is done with him, has chosen another absolutely juvenile trick, which is nearly as offensive as the daring to lay hands upon the inviolate temple that is a Saint's own hallowed flesh.
"How dare you," she says, dreamily anticipatory, in a voice that tenderly promises such great and terrible violence that even God Himself might blush at it, "How dare-"
The white-hot noise shades pinkish, then pink. Her already hugely open eyes strain to open wider, flooding with new shock, and she looks at Waver as if seeing his face for the first time, and truly marking it. Her eyelashes flutter frantically as she claws her fingers into the sand and straightens her back like one shot clean through the body, and she takes a huge, gasping breath - and slumps, bonelessly, back onto the sand. There she sprawls, insensate and diminished, under the effects of something most unsettling: something new.
(The trees blow in the wind. Pinkish strands of strange flowers brush across her cheeks. There is someone sitting beside her that she knows, if she only opens her eyes.)
cw: UNCONSCIOUS NAKED LADY ABANDONED ON THE BEACH
...Odds were that yes, Iskandar-- Alexander the Great himself-- had many encounters with the surreal flowering tree that would eventually be called albizia julibrissen. He would ask about that later.
Upon feeling the effects of the foreign flesh magic that bore down on him with the weight of a star start to release, he moved quickly. Digging into his pocket, Waver produced a copper coin-- one of many coins from London that he kept on his person, and non-too-gently pressed it against her lips.
"May Mariana show mercy and bring you back into her arms," He uttered quickly. Then, as an afterthought, he added: "Or, at least still your tongue."
Straightening his stance, he then did the smartest thing any man in his position would do.
Run.
The cloak was her's to keep, should she wish.
Should Mariana allow it.
All he cared about was his survival. There were students to attend to, and people that depended on him.
If there was a tingling on his tongue, he ignored it. It was no worse than some of the more questionable potions he had drank over the years.
For now.
cw: body horror, forced empathy, fungus
(Inside of Waver's mouth, spores nestle against the slick epithelial cells of the oral mucosa, their simple and elegant function activated by the mechanical recognition of foreign territory.
They unfurl in microscopic pink strands, weaving down in search of the slender branching cell network that they so closely mimic, but with greater speed and aggression than any natural growth. They are a thalergetic marvel wedded to the blood of this world, two magics intertwined, and they do only one thing, and they do it very well, and very quickly. Contact is made. A connection is formed. It lies latent, awaiting signal.)
Her mouth parts. The coin clicks against her teeth. Mercymorn snaps upright like a flicked blade, as sharp and lethal, and she stares straight ahead with fixed eyes and shivering shoulders, hands balled into cut-palm fists.
(The signal comes, and they explode into furious transmission, a seething storm of tumultuous sensation like a siren blasted into an ear, thought obliterating rage and the wild, wide sweep of physiological activation across every cell and sense.)
"Bastard!!" Bawls the Saint of Joy, as much like a child as she accused him of being, a welter of boiled over rage that sweeps all other feeling aside.