Ode to Love

The Betrayer reveals that her betrayal, on a fundamental level, was being The Betrayer at all, as The Best Friend returns to her form. This crew is required to play certain interactions like games, even when we do not want to, and this is no exception. In the midst of the worst storm any of us had ever seen, however, she flips her card. In a sense she betrayed the game once afforded the opportunity. I ask with a glance "Did we just become best friends?" and her look confirms it. Narrative sense begins falling into place to support this, until quite soon this narrative replaces the Betrayer narrative in its entirety. She takes to the shoreline.  Her approach comes in whispers, narrative sense felt but not heard. The storm still raging, these whispers are each like a grain of sand. Painstakingly they are piled,  as she has taken refuge from the wind within my realm. Playfully she makes a tiny sandcastle, with what resources she amasses, as the howling can be heard outside. She ...

Unwrapping the swan It would seem the link is found Let's make sense of it No laughter, but joy You greeted me with a smile Though I soon conked out When I awoke there I soon found my meerkat friend We solved a puzzle Magic aminals  My favorite of the puzzles  For ease and design Sorry I slept so Did I answer your questions While we could spend time?  My heart/mind was anxious  Both beforehand and during Stir crazy both ways Draw me a picture Of this lucky encounter And how you saw it Little rat will send/bring Your heart has meaning to me Across small oceans

The Mechanic sees a rune flash inside her head. "That's the signal!" She makes her way above decks, shouts to her crew about her leg of the mission having begun, and then disembarks along the gangplank. The shoreline is foreign to her. She is used to the clutter of the underbelly of the ship, but still she makes her way along it. The cool of the night contrasts the warmth of the sand well, and provides some difference in sensation for the journey. Still, each step feels labored in its monotony, and so her mind starts to wander. Suddenly, she feels herself generate a rune of her own.  Just like that she is in a facility. It seems welcoming, though intentionally sterile. There is something... missing about it. Her mind starts to run at a million miles per hour, but only briefly. I suddenly walk in, as if drawn to the diaspora and her need for a partner, and she relaxes to a degree. It is as if the flywheel of her mind has a counterpart to lock into, someone running at the s...

The Ghost Rat Messenger slips off the ship onto shore, beneath cover of night. She had a plan in mind for how to encounter The One Sought, but she knows it will not be easy. Upon reaching the shoreline she looks over sea and up, and brightens the night sky with a grand display. Like fireworks, the dazzling lights replicate The Starry Night, certainly visible from anywhere within line of sight of the shoreline. From there she just wanders for a bit, letting her cares wash away like sand beneath waves. She finds herself beside the giant conch, hauntingly beautiful in the moonlight. She knows that I am here somewhere, though she knew this before, as her station grants a degree of foreshadowing and something like narrative sight. It is as if she can scan the sand and see me walking, but without context enough to say where. Still, it seems that I have witnessed her light display, and I am making my way along the shoreline somewhere, based on the specifics. Despite an endless shoreline, stil...

The moon hangs high in the sky over The Crow's Nest, just about half full. "They always look at the full moon as a sign, never suspecting the rest." The Navigator- if her title can be distilled to such a term- thinks to herself. She makes a few more adjustments and lets the coordinates calculate effortlessly into position. "This one is my story, I wonder how it will go." Such uncertainty is rare, so even the sense of it paints this as an adventure. She doesn't need to leave the ship, but decides to do so anyway. First she finds her way to the deck, then she finds her way to the shore, precisely where she is meant to be.  There is a table set up with a Go board. A stool is on either side. She cannot resist a good game of Omok, though no opponent is to be found. "Who is to say I can't make the first move?" She simply slides a black piece into place, in hopes of something blooming, and then examines her surroundings. The shoreline is relatively fe...

The Demon of God spots it, backlit by sunset. It is a land of storied legends, where The One Sought is said to be. It is said to be an island, but a scan of the horizon reveals only shoreline. "Land ho!" she cries out in her native tongue, and the crew makes rapid preparations for landfall. Soon enough, the ship presses against soft sand, and she alone gets off.  This island is strange, known for its mystical landmarks, shifting along with its sand, though no one has ever claimed to be here directly. It is a threshold in its own right, a double shoreline in a way, for the laws of her native realm do not fully apply here. Thoughts like these, and of the stories which she has heard, read, and memorized in preparation for her arrival, eddy within her mind like a sandstorm. Still, what once was thought impossible is accomplished before the sun fully sets: she finds the giant conch.  "He's somewhere on the beach." She came on her birthday on purpose, believing him to...