[ week one: overflow ]

[murderhost]

MINGLE LOG

The way you arrive might vary from person to person. Perhaps, you wake up on the beach, with your pet cat licking your face. Or you wake up tucked away in your bed, an item of yours nearby and a card on the bedside table reading your name and Welcome to the manor!

Either way, you end up in a modern mansion on a empty, lonely beach, with no explanation of why you're there or what's going on. In the driveway, there is a car with keys in the ignition but, unfortunately, no gas in the tank. In the living room, there is a touch screen television featuring a variety of profiles featuring you and the many other lost souls trapped in this mansion alongside with you.

There is also a camera crew. A camera crew? Really? But following the characters along are blank faced mannequins in a variety of colors, dressed in all black, operating cameras to film them. If you try and talk to the crew, they say nothing (as they have no mouth or eyes or... anything) and just continue to film them. Trying to touch them results in the mannequin falling over and going immobile, only to be replaced by a new one that appears from... somewhere? Weird.

The kitchen is fully stocked. There are spare clothes in the closets. There's even a few video game systems with games in the living room as well. There are books to read in the library. There's writing and drawing materials in the office. There's things to do. Just... why? To what end? What's going on here?

For those intrepid folks who decide to walk as far as they can away from the manor and the beach will find themselves blinking at one point and suddenly being back in the front yard of the manor. Huh. Strange.

Answers don't seem to be coming anytime soon. You might as well just... settle in?

—

PROPERTY DAMAGE | PRIVATE CONVERSATIONS

♥

Comments

[factoring]

[ Well, why not? How much stranger could a Thursday get. ]

What is it?

[noirges]

[ oh miss kyoko just you wait ]

Are you in love with anyone, Madame Kyoko?

[factoring]

[ No fears. (Yet.) ]

I'm not.

[noirges]

[ so she's single? ]

Have you ever been...? Would you like to be?

[ (yves voice) how does one look upon milly and not fall in love? ]

[factoring]

[ She's single. ]

I've never been in love, and I've never thought much about it.

[noirges]

[ mentally jots this down in his ship chart ]

Oh... have you been really busy? Or uninterested...?

[factoring]

I've been busy and I continue to be busy.

[noirges]

But maybe you could be busy... and your lover could be busy with you?

[factoring]

...

What?

[noirges]

You know, like a partnership in life!

[factoring]

That would be difficult.

[noirges]

Eh? How come?

[factoring]

It's a solitary job with constant travel.

[noirges]

Does it... have to be solitary?

[factoring]

[ Taking a moment to really consider it.

Her job.... ]

Yes.

[honeytraps]

Do you like watching romance movies? What's your favorite? Do you like it when they get together in the end, or when something keeps them apart?

[factoring]

I rarely watch romance movies. I tend to watch movies and documentaries about folklore and myths.

damn and here i am not playing my ptn character who loves talking myths

[honeytraps]

Hmm, so you're actually kind of a dreamer at heart then, aren't you?

[Which might be a little weird to say to someone who watches documentaries and nothing about romance, and yet... They're a special kind of story, too, aren't they?]

Will you share one with me?

she loves them so much

[factoring]

Do you think so?

Have you ever heard of a selkie?

[honeytraps]

[Milly shakes her head "no."]

I don't know a lot of myths. Nobody ever taught me about them.

[factoring]

I'd be happy to talk to you about more of them, if you're interested.

This is a Scottish myth about beautiful women who wear seal coats to live within the sea. Sometimes, a fisherman will steal their coat and hide it away to ensure she doesn't return to the ocean. She may bear children with the fisherman, but the whole time, she will long for the sea. Whenever she discovers her coat again, she disappears, never to be seen again by her family.

There are some variations on this story. Sometimes she will visit her children once a year in her human form. Sometimes she only visits as a seal.

[honeytraps]

[Milly listens to this entire myth, her big eyes becoming slightly shiny with something like wistfulness. It really seems sad.]

I wonder if she misses them--her children.

But I think it's amazing if they can find their coats and escape all on their own.

[factoring]

Maybe she does, but they're also a reminder of all the years that she couldn't return back to her home.

People will do what they can to survive.

[honeytraps]

... I think I'd probably want to forget them, too, as soon as I made it back to the sea.

Her husband must have never really loved her, either. He only wanted to own her.

[factoring]

I wonder if she felt conflicted. Leaving her children forever, but those same children were part of such a painful memory.

What do you think love should be?