Princess Rosella of Daventry

[Accidental Voice Post]

--eally isn't proper behavior at all!

[The post, clearly accidental, begins with a feminine voice and a rustle of fabric, accompanied moments later by the sound of wind and water lapping lightly at a shore.]

I know you were only trying to help, and I'm terribly grateful for that, but really, I wasn't in trouble! And, er, 'rescuing' me really only made for more of it, so that wasn't the best of things, either.

[Careful listeners may detect a faint splash, and a very soft, burbling croon.]

Yes, I know. And you are a good boy, and I promise to scream and thrash and make a great fuss if I ever am in trouble, and then I'd be more than happy for the assistance, believe me. It's just that last night wasn't one of them.

[More water, another breath of wind. After a pause, the voice speaks again, and this time it's softer, fonder, with a touch of amusement beneath it.]

...I'm sure it's what Blue would've wanted you to do, though. So I suppose I can't be too upset with you for that.

[Another splash.]

That's right, it's been just us for a whole year now, hasn't it?

[There is one last pause, and then a few faint strains of eerie warbling float past the microphone, almost too quiet to be heard.]

I know. I miss him, too.

[And shortly thereafter, the audio ends.]


[OOC: Ahahaha, okay, so in an effort to fulfill one of my long-term Poly dreams, Cain and Rosella celebrated an anniversary down by the lake last night...which happened to involve some smooching...which in turn happened to cause the friendly baby Cthulhu lake monster, Ellington, to, er, attempt to drown Cain in the lake. SHENANIGANS, HO! More of the story will be coming out via Rosella and Cain in the comments, but that's...pretty much the gist of it. Happy anniversary of your first kiss, Rosella. >>]

As families go, I...suppose I'm really rather lucky, honestly. I've long since learned that families come in all different shapes and sizes and that some are far worse than others, but I think mine is...well. I suppose it's one of the nicest I've ever come across, and that does seem to be a rather rare thing. Which is a bit strange, really, since I'd always assumed that all families were like mine, or at least they were for the most part. I never really thought they might be...so different. At least, I didn't before.

( OOC Cut For Tl;Dr )

That's my family, the one I left behind in Daventry and haven't truly seen in more than two and a half years. They come to visit sometimes, a day here and there when they get the chance, but they've never come to join me here for good in all that time. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not; sometimes I think I'd like very much to see them, but other times I think it's for the best that I'm the only one enduring things here, while they're all safely at home.

I've had a family in the City, too, and we didn't have blood to tie us together, but we did have love to do it.

I wonder, sometimes, which of the two is really more important in defining a family.


[OOC: Roots Day! Because let's be honest, Rosella's got one of the least dysfunctional families in this whole place--which is saying something, considering they climb beanstalks and kill vampires and slay dragons. >>]

[Voice Post]

--oses, what in the world? Oh--

[A throat clears, a little hesitantly.]

I...suppose this may seem a rather odd question, but did anyone else have something, er, go missing in the past few days, while the visitors were here? Yesterday morning I woke up and found that all my red roses were gone, from the ones on bushes in my pots to the miniature ones in my window box--and now here they are, and I can't for the life of me puzzle out how they might've gotten all the way out here! I'm certain they're mine, I recognize a few of them, but why would someone take a whole great bunch of roses and move them out somewhere like this? Really, it's the strangest thing! And honestly, what an awful damper that would be on an otherwise pleasant day, to go around taking people's things like that while they're occupied with visiting their friends. Why would anyone ever?

[A small huff of exasperation, followed by a brief pause.]

Which, er, brings me back to my question: has anyone lost...let me see, it looks like...a writing set, or a very fluffy white rabbit, or a stopped clock, a book of poetry, or a teapot and china to match? If you have, it seems they're all out here by a table in the Square. You can't miss it, really--it's surrounded in roses and all set for tea, of all things.

[A pause, a whisper of wind--]

Oh, what's this?

[--and then, a faint rustling sound.]

...A letter? Addressed to--

[And with a click, the audio ends.]


[OOC: Just a little Fourth Wall aftermath~ Please assume this is backdated to early this morning, a little after six or so--and thanks for playing, everyone!]

( Private || Hackable by Friends )

There's a story in one of my favorite fairy tale collections about a little princess with six brothers, all of them older than she. And of course, as fairy tales usually go, there's a wicked stepmother--and one who is a witch at that--who grows jealous of her husband's love for his children, so she decides to curse them all by turning them into swans. And she manages to do it, almost, except that she happens to miss the little princess with her curse. So the brothers turn into swans and fly away, and the princess is left alone and distraught with all her family taken away from her. But the princess resolves to chase after her brothers, so she runs after them as they fly away, and follows them for days and days.

One night, as she stops to rest, the six swans fly down and transform back into her brothers for a short spell, and tell her the nature of the curse they're under. They're condemned to live as swans for all but a quarter of an hour of each day, and the only way to break the spell is if someone vows to go for six years without ever smiling, or laughing, or speaking a single word, and to sew them each a shirt of thistles in the meantime. And if she slipped even once, then the curse would set, and it could never be broken again.

On my first anniversary here, I remember thinking about that story. I'd seen so many wonderful and terrible things in that one year of life in the City, and the princess in the tale went for six times that, never speaking a word, for the sake of the people she loved. It's really rather extraordinary, isn't it? The things we can do when we know someone is counting on us to succeed.

She managed quite a lot, that little princess, and on less hope than many of us have here.

It's certainly something to think about, isn't it?

Oh, honestly. It's another of those weekends again, isn't it? It certainly seems so, if the state of the Network is any indication. And really, I suppose I ought to consider myself lucky, since I don't seem to have been affected by it today. I didn't wake up with wings, and as far as I can tell I'm exactly the age I ought to be, and my hair's not turning purple and I don't taste like chocolate and I'm not dripping roses all over the place or talking in stories or beating off swarms of chirping little birds and things trying to do my housework for me. I haven't seen any memories of mine up on the Network yet, and I think if they were going to be, they would've by now. And I seem to be able to write what I want in the way that I want, so I don't think I have any curse like that, either.

Which means I think I've managed to escape it today, which isn't a bad thing at all. Having a harmless curse is a wonderful thing on days like this, but I think having no curse is just as well, too.

In any case, I hope we'll all do our best at trying to get through today--with whatever curses come of it--without too much trouble. It's been such a nice month so far, with just a little ridiculous singing and listing and so on. And with Giving-Thanks coming up soon, and Christmas next month, it'd be nice to have a little time to relax and enjoy the season without too much grief over curses.

I suppose we ought to start thinking about planning a dinner for it, too. Sam and I used to do that, a big turkey dinner at the Warehouse. Or at least, we did two years ago. I think last year we had to miss it because he was--

...Well, in any case, it's something to think about. And it's a relief that this November is going so much better than the last.

Still, I think I'll have to, um, see about that on another day. After the weekend is over, I should think. The Monday after weekends like this can usually be counted on to be free of curses, and I think it'd be much more sensible to wait until then than go out and take chances with--er, with whatever random things might come my way from the people outside. So, um, I think I'll just stay in today, then, and read a book or...yes, that sounds lovely, staying in bed with a nice book. Yes, I think that's just what I'll do.

It's, um. It's only sensible, after all.


[OOC: Oh, Rosella, never stop failing at lying. She is cursed today, with an unusually strong fetish preference for accents, but it's not something she's about to admit to the Network because it's just not the sort of thing that Nice Young Ladies™ talk about. >> Please feel free to troll her; she'll be fine if it's text, but she might get a little bit flustered and stammery if it's audio. And she will deny it forever.]

( Private || Hackable by Friends )

If there's one thing I've learned in more than two years of living here in the City, it's that one of the few things as constant as the curses is the need to apologize for them when they're over. I know I've mentioned time and again how important it is to be understanding with other people when they're cursed, and to take care not to hold a person's cursed actions against them when it's over, since oftentimes they couldn't help it when they were and feel just as terrible about it afterward. But it's the sort of thing that bears repeating, I think--just as apologies bear repeating, even when you're lucky enough to have the sort of friends that have already forgiven you for the things you did while cursed, before you even say them.

I'm not cursed now, but I certainly was a few days ago, and I really am so very sorry for the way I was acting. I was feeling terribly proud of myself that day, as I'm sure the whole Network could tell, but I'm certainly not proud of the way I was acting now. So I do apologize for that.

And really, if I ought to have been praising the virtues of anything that day, it should've been the lovely new clothes that a wonderful fashion designer named Cinna made for me. If there's anyone deserving of laud and honor, it's him; he's a simply marvelous designer and tailor, and the dresses he made for me are absolutely perfect. They're as comfortable as they are beautiful, and they're so wonderfully practical, too--exactly right to suit my needs. Which is especially lovely for adventuring, and goodness knows I put my dresses through rather a lot of those.

With so many lovely holidays coming up in the next few months--Giving-Thanks, and Christmas, and even Halloween at the end of this month, besides--I'm sure that there will be plenty of occasions perfect for new and pretty clothes, and I'd absolutely recommend Cinna to anyone interested in them. He's kind and clever and wonderfully talented, and I'm certain that any other customer of his will be just as happy with their things as I am with mine.

Oh, but speaking of getting dressed up--has anyone started thinking yet of what they want to go as for Halloween? I remember two years ago I was a lady knight, and last year I went as Persephone, but I haven't thought of anything for this year yet, and there are only three weeks left until it comes.

[Accidental Video | Open Action]

[Rosella is sitting in one of the quieter, more secluded parts of the beach, perched comfortably atop a fairly large outcropping of rock and silhouetted against the rapidly setting sun. Her hair drifts lightly in the evening breeze as she settles back onto her hands and crosses her legs at the ankles, apparently contemplating the view. Across her lap lies what appears to be a flute; nearby, on the surface of the rock, sits a somewhat tattered paper notebook and pen. The video is at the wrong angle to see what might be written in that notebook, but its pages are covered in jotted notes, arrows, and some heavily-underlined question marks.]

If so needed, only in need...but what makes one need greater than another? What makes it a need at all?

[Like everyone else in her family, Rosella has a bad habit of talking to herself when she's alone, and especially so when she is trying to think; this, apparently, is no exception. She glances down at the notebook at her side, shifting her weight and raising one hand to tuck a wisp of stray hair behind her ear, and then settles back into her position again.]

Coin and cloth...and stone. Stones, new stones. Old friends, new stones, dark places...

[There is a pause, and then a sigh as she lets her head fall back in exasperation.]

Oh, drat it all, I don't know.

[She makes a face accompanied by a low murmur of frustration; though the video is at the wrong angle to capture the expression, the microphone does catch the sound. Then, shaking her head, Rosella sits up and raises her flute, apparently tired of musing for the moment, and opting to play a little instead.]


[OOC: So! Strange things are afoot in the City these days, and it's bugging Rosella something awful. So, tired of hanging out in the Warehouse and thinking up a storm, she decided to get out and go to the beach to muse a little, just for a change of pace. Feel free to action her up if you'd like, and Network for everyone else! But be advised--she'll probably deny that she's got heavy stuff on her mind. She's trying her best to stay upbeat these days.]

On this day last year, I remember I told a story about a princess with six older brothers that were turned into swans by their evil stepmother. The only way to break that curse was for someone to spend six years without speaking or laughing, and to sew six shirts out of thistles for the brothers in the meantime. The young princess, upon learning of this, agreed to spend those six years in perfect silence for the sake of saving her brothers, working until her fingers bled from the sharp edges of the thistles as she strove to make the shirts for them. Like most fairy tales, that story is only a few pages long, all told, and when the whole story of that princess and her plight can be finished in a matter of minutes, it's easy to overlook just how long of a time six years really is.

Time is a funny thing in fairy tales. One minute a baby princess has just been born, and then the next she's at her christening, and then no more than a few sentences later she's already nearing her sixteenth birthday, daydreaming about the prince she hopes to marry someday. Years run together in a matter of words, and we never think anything of it. A curse to die turns into a curse to sleep for a hundred years, and we never stop to consider just how long a hundred years really is, and just how long that princess would be locked away from the people she loved, sleeping unaware of the world as it went on around her.

Adventures take time, no matter how the stories may suggest otherwise.

Of course, this place is a bit different in that they say time doesn't move in our homelands so long as we stay here. We'll go back to the very instant we left, and no one will ever know that we were gone. That means I'll go back to being seventeen again, with my long-lost brother's hand in my own as I pull him through our castle. That tour, when we finish it, will be the first time he's ever laid eyes on it all. He's been gone for almost eighteen years, you see, and he's never had the chance to see the place that I've always known as home. And I'll go back to my father resting in his bedchambers, recovering from a terrible shock that left him teetering on the brink of death.

Sometimes adventures go quickly because the hero--or heroine, as the case may be--is racing against a ticking clock the whole time. I've had an adventure like that before.

But the only clock ticking here is the one that drives us all mad when we're alone. We go back to the moment we left, and no one will have missed us when we do. So the only ones aware of just how long the adventure lasted...are ourselves.

On this day last year, Rue told me that it's the first year here that seems like the longest, and then all the others go by faster and faster each time. And I think she's right about that. There were times in this past year that seemed to drag on forever, of course, but I remember how it felt as though some great change had occurred, the day I had been here for a whole year, and how from that point on, keeping track of the months as they passed seemed to become less and less important with each one that went by.

I wonder if, when I'm telling this story again someday, I'll find myself letting the time run together the way that fairy tales do. "And she lived there for years on end, and had many great adventures along the way, and then finally the day came when it was time for her to come home..." It's quite a lot of experiences to put all into a single sentence, isn't it? All the friends I've made, all the things I've done, all the laughter and heartache and misery and hope--all summed up into a few short words and a single breath. A year is a long time, for such a short word.

And today, I've been here for two.

Mm, and speaking of time, I think I'll spend this anniversary of mine keeping as busy as I can around the City. Two years ago today I ruined my best dress, so perhaps I'll go look at the pretty ones in the shops today in celebration. And, of course, I'll stay close to the Fountain and keep an eye on the Network, too. Two years ago today, I fell into that Fountain. Perhaps if someone else should end up in the same predicament today, it'll be my turn to go and rescue them, instead.


[OOC: Yup, that's right, it's a Polyversary! As of today, Rosella has been in the City for two years now. My nostalgia, let me show you it. ♥ When I brought her in two years ago, I never could've imagined all the great times I'd have with her, so THANK YOU to everyone that has played with her all this time, and here's hoping for many more great years to come!]

So last week it was equivalence, and this week it's pain, is it? It rather makes me wonder if there's a pattern to the words the deities are giving us to write about, and especially so since both words seem to describe an aspect of life in the City. Or perhaps I'm simply reading a bit too much into it, just the same.

Pain is...something I don't like to think about very much, honestly. And it's something that comes in so many different forms and shapes and varieties, and each one hurts a bit differently in its own way, but they all hurt. It's not a very pleasant subject, pain.

I've known a few different kinds of them, I suppose. I've felt the pain--and had the marks left, too--from when a witch grabbed at a necklace of mine and broke it off against my neck. I've felt the horror of realization of certain death, like a painful wrenching in the pit of my stomach, when I was stealing a hen that lays golden eggs out from under the nose of a sleeping ogre, and the hen squawked and the ogre woke up. I've felt the dull ache of hopelessness, sitting in a locked room in a tower, trapped waiting for dawn to come and knowing that the deaths of two people I cared about would come with it. And they're all terrible in their own way, of course.

I think...I think that pain makes people do foolish things, at times, to try and relieve it. I was just recalling a story this past week about the king that ruled Daventry before my father did, and how he very nearly brought his whole kingdom to ruin because of the decisions he made. He died long before I was born, so I never knew him myself. But in all the stories my father has ever told me about him, he never once made that king out to be a bad king--just a kind, sad, and lonely one. He was a king who sometimes made poor decisions because he thought it would take the pain away. I think everyone rather knows what that's like, to make a decision like that just for the sake of alleviating the pain.

But I think that pain also helps people to make the right decisions, too, because hard choices are hard for a reason, and if escaping pain can lead people to make bad choices, then enduring it can sometimes help them make good ones. It hurts, the first time a little girl falls off her horse, but it also presents her with a choice: will she cry, and sulk, and curse that mean old horse for letting her fall, and vow to never go near one again? Or will she cry until she learns that eventually the pain fades, and get back up and try again, and slowly but surely learn how to avoid making the same mistakes until she never falls again?

Though I must say, it's a bit harder to get back up from emotional pain than it is to recover from the physical sort. That's...rather what I'm trying to do now, I think. I'm afraid I'm still not very good at it, either.

I really am so very sorry to everyone I might've--menaced when I thought I was a pirate the other day. Even without the fact that I went around calling myself "Morgan the Lurch" the whole day, I do hope it was quite clear that I really wasn't myself, and didn't know any better at the time, and if I had I certainly wouldn't have done some of the things I did. I really am so very terribly sorry, and so absolutely mortified, too.

There was a silver lining to the whole ordeal, though, even though I admit I didn't discover it until I, er, tripped over it on my way home. Duo, are you settling in well so far? When you feel you've slept your fill, do let me know, and I'll make you anything you like to eat when you're ready for it.

Oh, and Neil, I finally finished your story! I do hope you like it; I'll send it over in just a minute.

( Attempted Private to Neil | Accidentally Viewable to Friends )