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pixieledmemes2025-03-15 08:32 am
Test Drive Meme #2
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You wake up at a party.
You're not sure how, exactly, you got here. You may have just been walking in the woods or at a meeting for work or doing any other normal activity for you. But you know you weren't supposed to be at this party, you're fairly certain.
Anyone you ask about it will say the party is for you. You and the others also waking up and looking confused. Further questions will lead to the partygoers insisting you have something to eat. You're starving and others are eating the food without repercussion, so you figure there's no harm in a bite. You finish your portion.
It's a garden party at the crack of dawn, with the sun still in its early stages of climbing through the yonder, casting a good mix of pastel hues of blue, pink, and beige on everything. Heralding the first day of spring, the Ruler of the Spring Court has found it fitting to arrange this gathering where guests can feel the blades of grass touching their ankles, as well as the rich soil beneath their feet. Flowers of all kinds surround the party as if they were carefully curated. With spring as the "dawn of seasons," which marks a transition from winter's latency to the resurgence of life everywhere, the Ruler of the Dawn Court has also seen it fit to host aspects of this party during the one time of the year that dawn occurs the whole day. Tall candles and torches grace the outskirts of the garden party, providing warmth and an orange glow everywhere. Not one flame goes out even with the occasional wind, the Duchess always makes sure of this.
There are also freshly picked blossoms and branches with leaves on every table accenting the festive spread of food and drinks. This time, a lot of the food prepared for the Adopted guests are familiar to them with a little bit of a twist. Burgers might come in small packages and in toothpicks, while hotdogs in buns are also diminutive. Cookies look delectable but they have a flowery flavor to them, as if eating freshly picked daisies or daffodils. Fruits that may have been present in an Adopted's home, such as pineapples and watermelons, have seeds in odd places. Picking this selection of food is an attempt to be more welcoming and to appease the lovely guests the fae have invited.
As the party winds down and everyone's eaten, a tall, stately woman stands up and speaks. You feel her voice more than hear it.
I am the Lawspeaker of the Fae, elected by Seelie and Unseelie alike, and you are all, now, subjects of Faerie. You cannot leave this realm once you have eaten our food, and even if you could, there is no saying how much time has passed back where you're from. Your loved ones are likely dead, your problems have likely played out. We require assistance in various matters, and each of you has been chosen for your talent and skill. You will be adopted by one of the Seelie or Unseelie Courts based on your strengths and personality. Your Court will decide what to do with you from there.
As suddenly as she stood, she sits back down.
A party is not complete without dancing, of course, and while during the last gathering held for the Adopted, different fae danced to music exclusively for them around a glowing tree, this time they are insisting their guests to join in.
This is a party for you, after all.
If the prodding of the different fae hosts won't convince you, perhaps the music will. They play easily recognizable tunes that their wonderful guests must have heard before. These melodies have certain unique effects to their mortal attendees, which are as follows:
- Upbeat Music: You will believe that you and your dance partner have been friends forever and have known each other a long time.
- Romantic Music: You will become amorous and flirtatious towards your dance partner.
- Slow Music: You will develop some tension with your dance partner. It may be negative or sexual; completely up to you.
- Quiet Music: You will assume your dance partner is a threat and try to fight them.
At the Spring King's behest, every Adopted should wear a flower corsage or boutonnière to the gathering. After all, this is to celebrate the coming of spring and what better way to do that than to honor everything in bloom.
The thing is, though, the King of Spring, while amorous and friendly, also has a penchant for playing with mortals' memories, if not also affect their desires and despairs.
So, mischievous as he is, he made sure to enchant the different flowers present in every corsage and boutonnière for the party with the effects below:
- Rose: You will recall a horrific trauma
- Carnation: You will see a vision of your future, whether it's good or bad
- Orchid: You will remember a time you lost someone
- Chrysanthemum: You will believe someone among the Adopted is your soulmate
- Dahlia: You will believe you betrayed someone important to you, whether you actually did or not
It is perhaps a good thing that no one but the Adopted are allowed to see these visions and memories, but everyone who wears a corsage or boutonnière will be able to see each other's memories and visions when in close enough physical proximity to the vision-haver, for better or for worse.
You feel a vibration in your pocket sometime after the Lawspeaker addresses everyone. When you search for the source, you will pull out your Leaf, the device the Fae use to stay in touch with each other. Anyone who's used a smart phone will easily recognize how it works.
Greetings, Adopted. This is your Lawspeaker.
Tell us all of a time you gave someone a gift. Perhaps a bouquet of flowers or a box of chocolates. Was it appreciated or not? A reward might await the most meaningful gift given.
no subject
[Only a day or so ago, the realization would have impelled him to seize her immediately and install her in Les Madelonettes. Yet here, he does not make any sudden movements, doesn't bound ahead and collar her. That time has gone, dissolved when she took a bullet at the barricades, and when he took a spill into the Seine. There is no malintent in his gaze, only a cool, dispassionate recognition.
Believe it or not, relief glimmers in his dark eyes. Her presence in front of him is the last nail in his coffin. Any doubts about his own death peel away, and an eerie, reassured calm descends upon his shoulders. He affords a perfunctory glance down to his boots when she apologizes, and hums his blithe acknowledgement.]
The boots are old and require a scrubbing. You are about twenty-four-hours too late to muss them up much more than they already are. Think nothing of it.
my barricade timeline is so messed up whoops
She looks back at him. This is... this is not the man she knew from Paris. She doesn't trust him.
She crosses her arms.] We are Jondrette, in Paris, [she tells him.] But here I suppose I will be Thénardier again. I never cared for Jondrette.
[She glances at his boots, and wipes her mouth on the back of her hand.]
Was it blood that mussed up your boots? Were you there when they shot that man through the head? Or did you see what the blond man did to Claquesous? He did what you never could, you know. Took one of us down for good. But Claquesous he deserved it- said he had a police card. Was he, Javert? I would like to know if I have fucked an officer. If I let him into my home when we had one. Tell me.
[Or she could do that.]
no subject
[But in spite of his demand, his mouth dips into a severe curve, the shadows in his face blackening. He must, again, force himself to contend with what happened at the barricades; for all his attentive observations, he saw only so much from his bindings in the Corinth lower levels. A twitch seizes his jaw as he forces himself to delve past Valjean's shocking gesture and remember the traitorous students assembled around him.
He may have glimpsed Claquesous, the ventriloquist. But it wouldn't matter if he did, and he freely goes on to tell her so, chin dropping to his chest.]
I did not see it, but I do not weep for him. Yes, he was one of ours. Regrettably.
[His eyes narrow.]
He was a triple-crosser, a police spy and a scoundrel belonging to the Surêté. Good riddance to him for pirouetting into the wrong armament. He never was distinct about his true loyalties.
no subject
Montparnasse had always been jealous he didn't get there first. But he gave her others. Nothing so obvious, he said, nothing so gauche.
Eponine spits, getting the last of the taste of bile from her mouth.] He is a bastard! No, I do not cry for him either. He deserves it, bastard spy like that! Oh and he could be good to me!
[Now he was dead. She was dead- she knew she was dead. She had gone to that barricade to die, and she had succeeded. With any luck, Marius did as he was told, took the letter and left that awful place. She could only hope he took Gavroche with her, too. She smiles to think of him singing in the distance as she gave in to the dark and the cold.
But now she was here where it was warm and bright and food filled her stomach and drinks were plentiful. She would think this were Heaven, had she not known she belonged in Hell...]
And you- you are dead, too? Did they shoot you? I do not care who fell at the barricade, they mean nothing to me. No, Marius would have taken the boy and they would have fled soon after the rain stopped. [She cannot think of Gavroche seeing her body flung to the side like such refuse.] Do you remember the rain? That is when I died.
[There had been no rain. Only blood soaking her clothing. She looks down, where the blood has dried to a rusty brown, her coat covering the most of it. She'd given it no thought before.]
no subject
Look and judge for yourself.
[He opens his arms, stoically revealing his perfectly unbloodied clothing. There are no bullet holes, no rusty blotches. But that isn't the whole tale; he reeks, of course, the familiar dank and muddy stink of the Parisian riverbanks, and there is a different, abstract staining of his whites apart from blood.
Perhaps he was caught in a maelstrom, a thunderous rainfall. Or......... something less wholesome.
Javert drops his arms, folding them across his chest, and murmurs with unwavering, callous certainty,]
Likely the whole lot of us is dead. It is a neat explanation for the impossibilities creeping about.
no subject
He wasn't covered in blood like she was. He smells awful, even with the flora of this strange place wafting through the air. He smells like the nights she would walk along the river. But his clothes are not clean. Perhaps it was the same rain she died in. But something about it all seems wrong.]
You did not die there. Not if there are no bullet holes. [She circles him carefully, looking at his clothing, as though a sign would jump out and tell her how he had died.]
If we are dead- where are the others? [She looks around for any of the faces she had seen at the barricade.] Why are they not here? Such a place as this could not be hell, and the lawspeaker said it was not! But this is not heaven, for I would never be allowed in. No, I should be burning in hell. M'sieur, I do not even know if you are dead.
no subject