WEEK 3 MINGLE

[foundationmods]

WEEK 3

Week three opens like the other two weeks, but when you wake up, you know there's been a change in the area. At first, nothing is wrong - but when you look at any window, you aren't greeted with the cheery sight of the outside - instead, there's just a cold, harsh blackness. Trying to leave out the doors is impossible, too - if you try, you just find yourself back on the couches in the lobby. On top of that....The Staff are beginning to act even stranger, their glitching out becoming more obvious. Sometimes, they seemingly go blank mid sentence and walk away, as if they were reset, and slur or stutter their words.

The weather is...well, non-existent, except for the courtyard, which is still pleasantly snowy. There is still music playing in the halls, and the cover songs continue with some low-key music for the week.

On Monday morning, another memory is returned to everyone. Another piece to the puzzle, one step closer to finding the truth of this place. Yet, it doesn't seem like you're any closer to solving this...

And time still ticks onwards, regardless if you're ready or not.


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Comments

[latebluemer]

They're really eye-catching, aren't they? Not really my aesthetic, but they're pretty important back home, too.

[It's pretty lighthearted, though her voice quiets a little when she continues, leaning over some of the flowers as well and playing a little with their curling petals. The greenhouse takes good care of its plants; they're blood-red and vibrant and almost surreal.]

There's all kinds of legends about them.

[relentlesslyonwards]

[He doesn't miss the way the atmosphere seems to shift, although to what is something he can't quite put his finger on yet. He follows her movements with his eyes, gaze moving from her hands, to the flowers and back to her face.]

...What kind of legends?

[latebluemer]

Well, most of them are about death.

[She lobs that straight off, as though to clear the air a little with the bluntness, but that's also one of the most common places to find these guys. There's something both nostalgic and unwanted about running into grave flowers here. She has a feeling they won't help the corpses in a place like this.

They're probably just ordinary flowers.]

But there are also stories that say these flowers represent people who will never meet again. There's an old story about two elves who loved each other. One elf guards the leaves, and one elf guards the flowers. Because the flowers and the leaves never grow at the same time, those elves would never meet. When they tried, the gods punished them, and they never saw each other again.

[relentlesslyonwards]

[He's attentive the entire way through the story, taking a petal between his own fingers when she finishes.]

Hearing that, it makes it sound like these flowers are a bad omen for us. ...Although, it's already a little too late to be blaming anything on them.

...Are there any happy stories associated with these?

[latebluemer]

[...]

[She ends up crouching, too, arm around her knees and contemplating the flowers for a long moment.]

If there are, I don't know of any. But if they're an omen for us, then there's something that Kurosaki-san told me. There's a way for us to all go home. If these flowers grow when you meet someone you're never going to see again... Then maybe we'll get to go home.

[They'll catch the Monsters and beat them all, and then somehow wrangle the Foundation or the Resort into letting them go free. They don't even know what will be waiting at the end of the road.

... The way out of this world is death. Maybe this really is the perfect flower for them.]

[relentlesslyonwards]

[As he lets the implications behind her words wash over him, he moves a hand down to the base of the stem, as if to pluck it from the ground but pulling back at the last minute.]

I don't know if that's really the way I want to get back home though. As twisted as this place is, I'm glad I met the people here. And just parting ways like that doesn't really sit well with me.

[latebluemer]

I'm not sure either. We don't know if it works, and we don't know what we'd be going back to.

[Her voice is steady, almost detached, sweeping over the logistics of the decision as though they're talking about choosing ingredients for dinner or something like that. It really is a twisted place, where they have to talk about legends like they apply to their lives.

She's not sure, either, about the meetings here. She won't forget them, she knows, unless something like what happened to their Foundation memories happens once again. She doesn't voice that one.]

What would you want to do at the end of this, Schwarzer-kun? If you don't want to part ways.

[relentlesslyonwards]

[His gaze doesn't leave the petals of those blood-red flowers and there's a very, very long pause before decides he's ready to answer.]

Well... I'd want to find a way where we can go back home and be able to visit each other, but even I understand how naïve that sounds. [He shakes his head.] So if we do end up going our separate ways, then I think I'd at least like a memento of the time we've spent together -- something I can keep as a reminder.