texts from folkmore; tffm

[folkie]

Texts From Last Night

Welcome to Folkmore's Texts From Last Night meme! This meme can be used as a branch off from our Test Drive Memes and be used as game canon or just for casual fun in the setting! You do not need to be in our game or be invited to play on our TFLN. This can be a great way to meet current players for future invites, get a feel for the setting, or just have some fun.

This can be used for samples on our applications and used as spoons for players accepted into the game!

TEXTS FROM LAST NIGHT GENERATOR
use not required, other sources are ok too

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Mayerling | Vampire Hunter D | Legend

[whowillmourn]

1. Colors are the most amazing thing. Have you ever truly pondered the shades of green in a leaf? The streaks of blue in the sky? All the textures to white in clouds? Seen not through anything but with your own two eyes?

2. It is a remarkable irony to stand outside without burning with fire that refuses to burn me when for nearly all my long years of existence it would be the other way around, that sunlight would burn me and only me, such that you could cup my face without it harming you.

3. If anyone is in need of a hero, I will be there at but a word.

4. Usually everything is not on fire quite so literally, but I assure you, in all other regards, everything is perfectly normal.

5. If it be possible to get drunk on love, then consider me love drunk for there is no luckier person than I when it comes to the wondrous woman who loves me back.

2

[fogsong]

That sounds an awful lot like you're standing in the fire. Please tell me you're not standing in the fire.

[whowillmourn]

I am combating the fire, so that it should not burn what is dear. As much as I understand wildfire to be natural and good to many an environment, I should think it does not suit a swamp.

[fogsong]

Do you need help? [ As much as she hates fire and would rather avoid the current wildfires, she's willing to face anything for him. ] The smoke in the swamp has to be awful.

[whowillmourn]

I would very much appreciate it, for there are not others here, no one to receive my confession to protect them. Yet I cannot well leave the spirits here to face death should I abandon them to this fire. Would you prefer, I can come fetch you and return us here, for it may be faster.

[fogsong]

You really are a Legend.

Come get me. I think the only way I could ever be faster than you is if I learned to teleport. [ Already, she's slipping on her shoes and tucking her sawblade into her belt. ]

text > action

[whowillmourn]

It is yet a novel matter to be referred to as such, for it to be such a normal word to pass people's lips or their fingers.

I am on my way. [ Softly, Mayerling promises to return soon before he takes to flight, moving at high speed between the trees. Exile does not always like people to travel without some risk of danger, so he does not avoid it and trusts his senses and strength to protect him. As when Sharon asked for his help from the fae, the Legend moves with all due haste, yet with less panic for none seemed to be in immediate danger. It is a short affair, given all the liberties of Folkmore, to reach Sharon, the string on his end fading to the silver of his name.

Mayerling enters, so that he may hold Sharon close, within his bubble, while they travel. Longer, should she wish to stay. Such an air of privacy it lends in spirit if nothing else. ]

My love. You are as remarkable as I.

[fogsong]

To Sharon, Mayerling embodies the very meaning behind the role of a Legend and, as much disdain as she has for the role system, she still somehow manages to be proud of him. Johan Mayerling is a good man—better than most she's known. He will never not amaze and astound her.

She loops her arms around him and, at his statement, offers him a big, cheesy grin even as she flushes in appreciation. "I know, but I do appreciate the reminder," she says as she surges up to kiss the tip of his nose. Sharon needs reminders every now and again. Especially lately.

[whowillmourn]

He enjoys her affection immensely, the way it always reflects her and no one else. Mayerling allows a brief moment to hold her close and share those warm feelings as much through his arms as their bond. His admiration for her is true and plain as day. "I feel most fortunate every day for all that you are and you do, every time I taste food, and every time you engage with these trials on my behalf, and it is my pleasure to remind you and no great difficulty, as I have these thoughts every day we see each other."

His wings wrap around them. Mayerling lifts them off the floor with his telekinesis, and they are ensconced, safe from the sun on this clear day. He moves them through the door without even opening it. Then they travel back toward Exile and the swamp within. It strikes him yet again how much freer he feels with this ability, given him by Thirteen, to travel during both night and day. Remarkable. A freedom he did not even know back in Trench.

[fogsong]

There isn't a moment that goes by that she isn't vaguely aware of the wealth of admiration and affection he holds for her. It's intoxicating. Makes her heart swell and soar. Once, she questioned what he saw in her. Nowadays, she can see it, too. His love isn't some healing balm but it certainly fucking helps. She beams with gratitude and it bounces through the bond as if eager he feel it, too.

Sharon has long since adjusted to these types of trips with him, tucked against him as the whole world flies by in a blur of shapes and colors, the moment she recognizes something, it's gone. In her very humble and entirely non-biased opinion, it beats almost all other forms of travel. 5 out of 5 stars.

Once on the ground, she surveys the swamp. The fire isn't that far out but wildfires move quickly. Far more quickly than she's comfortable with. Her heart leaps in her throat despite the awareness it can't harm either of them. She breathes out, gaze flickering to Mayerling, "Given it requires confessions to stop, think this means we didn't do so great confessing things in May?"

[whowillmourn]

Despite knowing the fire is no threat to either of them, Mayerling cannot help the protective wing that wraps halfway around him to shield Sharon from the heat that does not burn. The experience differs with another present, with Sharon present; though of all the elements, if there is one Sharon is safe near, one that she need not fear, it is fire. Her question is a solid one, one the very fire around them raises with each creeping tongue of flame.

"It would certainly suggest that we have not yet confessed to complete satisfaction," Mayerling agrees, "The carrot was offered then; now we face the stick. It makes sense rationally. Some who confess now may wish it came with the rewards offered before."

Mayerling is not among them, satisfied with how things are for himself. He confesses not for some reward but to protect others.

"I was a child the first time I walked into daylight, so strong was my desire to see what a flower looked like lit by the sun to my own eyes. I gave my parents quite a fright and needed weeks to recover."

[fogsong]

Sharon had been far more curious about the potential consequences of not confessing that, distantly, she finds dark satisfaction in the fires even if she'd rather keep her distance. It's not quite as exciting a prospect as witnessing Never Fade explode into a fiery ball of hot rock and ash but it is certainly destructive enough. It's not enough to move her to confess, not unless it's necessary to save her home or a friend's, but it feels like the right move on Thirteen's part.

Some part of her may even be a tiny bit, a teensy bit impressed.

She watches him as he confesses but the flames, and the memory that plays out within, pull her attention from him. Her hold on him tightens. She's thought of what he must've looked like as a child plenty of times, small and cheeks still round with baby fat. He wanted to see a world soaked in sunlight so desperately he'd face the fires and, somehow, it didn't quell his desire. Weeks to heal.

"And how long did it take for you to try again?"

[whowillmourn]

The small Johan Mayerling looks maybe around nine years old and very, very sleepy. It is difficult for a vampire to stay awake during the day, and he hadn't mastered it yet. Sleep still pulls at him at noon, and Mayerling usually rests at least for two hours in the middle of the day. It's easier that way. The younger version of him opens a door, setting off an alarm, and rushes toward the garden. Yet all he can see is fire, the fire that bursts around him when he should step outside unprotected. His parents come upstairs, and while they both step forward, his father blocks his mother and steps outside himself to burn to collect their son.

Mayerling lays in a soft child-sized coffin afterward. His face and body burned and slow to recover. Despite all that, Mayerling cannot help but smile at seeing the memory play out before his eyes. It is bittersweet joy to see his parents alive.

"My parents and our servants kept a close eye on me for some time, such that many attempts were aborted before they even began," Mayerling answers fondly. "It was nearly two years before I slipped outside on an overcast day when everyone was more relaxed to try to see the flowers. A servant brought me indoors, though they quickly passed me off to my parents. A vampire, injured like that, is far more likely to try to feed on a human. The instinct grows more powerful, and human blood quickens healing far faster than synthetic blood."

Mayerling glances down, a little embarrassed. "Afterward, when I was permitted human visitors, the servant asked if I would drink his blood. I was appalled and found the idea abhorrent, same as I was taught, and he explained that seeing me in so much pain, knowing that even among Greater Nobility there is a chance for madness that never heals, he would rather I drink his blood should I step out again than to risk such harm to myself. He meant it for my own sake, not only what a mad vampire can do to humans. It stunned me so thoroughly that it was some time before I ever stepped into the sun again."

It is one matter to risk his own life and his own well being but quite another to harm those around him. He learned about more than vampires' relationship with the sun that day.

[fogsong]

The moment the young Mayerling burns, Sharon looks away. The flinch wrinkles the skin across her nose, jaw tight. He'd been so young, perhaps no older than Alessa had been. Her attention returns quickly to the flames as the memories continue. Allows herself to soak it in. These memories helped define him, she would not waste this moment.

She can sense his embarrassment as he continues, though she finds it impossible to comprehend fully. She finds nothing embarrassing there. It's not as if she hasn't offered herself before, somewhat thoughtless of the relationship between humans and vampires, especially of those from Mayerling's world. Even now, if things got so dire... Hmm.

She loops her arm around his waist to hold him closer, glancing up at him. "You were appalled," she huffs out a chuckle. Of course. Of course. "He must've cared a great deal about you to offer knowing your family's stance on it." She can't imagine anyone in the Mayerling's employ wouldn't know. Such an offer no doubt changed his perspective on the delicate relationship between humanity and the Nobility.

[whowillmourn]

Even now, Mayerling would rather die than feed on someone and indeed asked and received Sharon's promise to stop him—killing him if necessary—from feeding on someone. They are all the more blessed that in Folkmore, people generally return from the dead, so that such a death should only be temporary, not permanent. Though permanence would not alter his feelings on the matter of whether or not he would choose to feed; it would be a terrible burden to place on Sharon to take his life and to live with it.

Mayerling turns away from the flames and places his attention properly on Sharon, alive and well, her heart beating clearly to his hearing. Yes, the child Mayerling is quite young, so young that it holds some level of comedy to see his reaction to the offer. Children have all the capacity of adults to be firm and true to their beliefs and their hearts. The servant respect his but also expressed his own with honesty and forthrightness. It is incredible to see in anyone, and Mayerlingi smiles at Sharon.

"Humans and vampires, in some places and times, lived together in harmony, so that he did not fear my reprisal on saying such words to me," Mayerling says, "Indeed those words may have done more to keep me indoors than anything my parents said, a fact I am sure he intuited. Yet the words only worked because they were honest. My senses would have picked up any lie."

1

[survivalthroughhate]

You would relish being Force-sensitive I think. Life stands out as different shades of color when you close your eyes and every person with their own unique shade.

Write something else. I like hearing the way you put things, the cadence of your unique sentences.

[whowillmourn]

That sounds uniquely delightful, an absolutely rich experience of life that would battle the loneliness so many of us face within us—a reminder that we are not alone. Have you considered ever putting some form of brush or pen to paper so as to share some pale shade of the world as you experience it? I would enjoy seeing your art.

I should hope that suffices, the melding of my writing and continued conversation down the same vein, for it had not reached its natural end.

[survivalthroughhate]

I have been learning how to sketch and draw as a hobby here. Perhaps I should start adding color to my sketches and try to show what the world around me looks like with closed eyes.

That will do. Your words calm me sometimes, at moments when my spirit feels restless and threatens to turn to anger again.

[whowillmourn]

That sounds like a wondrous idea and indeed the pinnacle of art itself—to communicate one's true experience, all the more so those ones which others cannot share any other way. Art transforms our feelings, our innermost experiences, our greatest privacies, and sparks experience and understanding in others, without such truly magical tools as sharing memories in dreams. It is a magic we can all reach for.

I am greatly familiar with the need to find the means to blunt strong emotion and the needs they inspire that do not represent what we want ourselves to be. the difficulty in so doing. In fact, words, if only to myself, are one of the ways I have long coped with that difficulty, one I was born with and have known all my life. I am glad to know they can help another and would be pleased to offer them when you should have need of them. You need not even say you have such need but only reach out, for this is always how I speak.

[survivalthroughhate]

It is also a way to create instead of destroy, something I was long denied in my life, even by own self. And it is a great challenge, for creating is far harder than destroying ever is. Now I can show how I feel without necessarily having to kill or maim, something I know everyone here is grateful for.

Someday you should write a book and put down such beautiful words for posterity. I know I would read it often.

[whowillmourn]

I have witnessed the destruction of my civilization, a fall from the peak of technology and advancement back to simpler times where what roads remain are dangerous and more difficult, isolating people again. Yet humans bravely face the struggle to build their own civilization, one more promising than that which predates them, for no matter the heights it reached, the way it treated people sewed its destruction, a fall that can be blamed on no others than those who held sway over it and supported it, all of vampire kind. I am no exception, for I too benefited under the old system, and my carriage, old as it is, is a vestige of those days. I too had to learn to demonstrate my emotions without the use of violence, and violence remains so easy an option that will always be there for us to pick up. The choice remains ours what to do, and to strive for better and find fulfillment there.

Your words hearten me dearly, for long have I wondered whether I shall matter too anyone once my time has come or whether I shall fade forgotten to dust. To think that someone wants a tangible representation of my thoughts and existence, so many times alone it would be a balm.

[survivalthroughhate]

You know, your description of what your world is like makes the way I view you in the Force make more sense. I don't think I've ever told you what you look like. But it's like seeing a blazing sun on the horizon with all sorts of colors stretching out around it. Yellows, oranges, reds, and pinks. But I could never tell if that sun was setting or rising. Now I think I know.

You only fade forgotten once the last person who remembers your name dies. So if you put words down for others to read, you shall remain immortal for a very long time.

[whowillmourn]

At over six thousand years old, I would be mildly surprised to learn my sun was rising. There have been vampires twice my age, it is true, but so many have died that I have passed more and more in age as vampires wane and humans wax. Less than ten thousand years vampires ruled supreme, and I doubt that shall happen again; nor would I want it, for I do not believe vampires superior to humanity, no matter our scientific accomplishments. It is beautiful to hear your description of me in the Force, a striking image, and should you ever feel moved to paint it, I would humbly enjoy gazing upon it.

What you say is true, and humans do much to bury vampires in the ground, not only their lives but their names and deeds and works. As the last of my family, I have become known only by that name, the rest irrelevant to them, remembered only in my heart and mind and with Sharon to some small extent too. If I should write in my own world, I should not sign my name but use another by which I may be remembered, one that is not a vampiric one, so that I may gain that new form of immortality. Yet that idea saddens me as well; is it not better to write as who I am, even should I be lost to history?

[survivalthroughhate]

Well, you've never told me how old you are. Just that you had lived a long time. What is the lifespan of vampires where you are from? You could be only at your midpoint. But I'm sure you know better than me.

Then I shall endeavor to paint what I see in my mind and give it to you as a humble present.

Were I in your shoes, I would want to be remembered for who I am rather than what I would like to be, but then, I am far younger and more inclined to want my name to be remembered no matter what the reason might be.

[whowillmourn]

A vampire who properly sees to their needs and is not cut down can live forever. In practice, something always happens, as certainly the fall of our civilization and the hunting of our kind into extinction bears true. With such dwindling numbers and increased isolation, the odds of carrying on endlessly decrease, and it begs the question whether or not it is worthwhile to put in such effort. For myself, I find value in seeing how humans recover and rebuild themselves, so that my struggles to survive are not in vain.

Most graciously and humbly appreciated.

How do you know who you are, and how do you ensure you are remembered for it and not for some version you've never been that lives in other people's minds? My name is but one part of me and not, perhaps, the most important part, even as it connects and ties to the entirety of my family before me. For now, I am the one who remembers them, yet when I am gone, that may become no one, either in name or nature. So I will consider the merits to the page which itself may one day be lost.