Princess Rosella of Daventry

[Accidental Voice Post]

[The audio opens, as most posts of the accidental nature do, with some shuffling, some rustling, some gentle flurry of movement--the swishing of skirts, the whisper of wind, the soft thud of footsteps against a well-worn path. Branches snap, leaves crackle; the footsteps abruptly go silent as a voice, startled, cuts through the background noise.]

Is that--

[A few rapid steps swish through the grass; the suspense hangs in the air another moment before the voice speaks again, this time heavy with uncertainty and disbelief.]

But it can't be--!

[Another pause, wavering amidst the wind and the rustling of nature. And then at last, quietly this time, as if the speaker were remarking to herself under her breath--]

I'd know that old house with the ghosts anywhere. The graveyard, the crypt...no, that's it, there's no doubt of it, but why is it--

[She trails off, hesitant, before something occurs to her--and the words take on a new, eerily emphatic tone.]

I wonder if that box is still there...

[The footsteps begin to rustle again, a little quicker this time, and shortly thereafter the audio switches off.]


[OOC: So there actually is a haunted manor in Rosella's canon, in which she meets some ghosts and robs some graves and dodges zombies like a boss. Oh, and it's also where she hid Pandora's Box all those years ago, locked up tight in the crypt. (Good old Whateley Manor, withdrawn from the charming little town of Innsmouth to the world of Daventry.) Obviously, the one she's seeing isn't the exact same one that she visited in Tamir...but of course, Rosella's cursed out of her mind and doesn't know that. :D]

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[Filtered AWAY from the Deities | Attempted Unhackable]

I'm sure most everyone has noticed by now the carousel animals' recent habit of jumping off their posts and stampeding throughout the City. It's an unexpected occurrence, I think, but hardly a surprising one at this point. It's May, after all, and strange things always seem to happen in the month of May, just as October tends to be a particularly horrifying month when it comes to the curses.

Still, I think this May is turning out to be much different than the ones I've seen before it. It isn't the first time I've ever heard the clock wind down into silence, and it's not the first time I've seen the animals leave the carousel and attack the passerby. What is different, though, is how long things have gone on--and how quiet the deities have been in response to it. Horrible things have happened before, but it's strange that the deities have been so silent. Moreover, they haven't stepped in to intervene this time, as they sometimes have in the past. Last year they fairly finished off the shepherdess for us, and spent a certain amount of time talking amongst themselves about her, as well. But this year there's nothing, and there haven't been any unusual invaders the way there have been in previous years; on the contrary, it almost seems as though this year the City itself is acting to cause the mischief.

It seems clear, though, that the deities aren't willing to step in this time. They left us to manage the problem of the barrier for ourselves, and it seems as though they plan to do the same for the clock and whatever else might be tied to it.

Two words have shown up now, since this trouble seemed to begin--"death", and "IECENVDE", which we think might unscramble into the word "evidence". Death and evidence could point to any number of things, really: to blood, to wounds, to the graveyard, or to the dead in the City themselves. Blood and wounds, of course, are evidence of death on their own; a graveyard is evidence of death because it's where the dead are laid to rest, and where those places are marked with headstones. And it doesn't seem to make much sense, having a graveyard at all in a place where the dead are made to live again, but it's played a role in a few times of trouble before this--once when people that tried to escape the City were put into graves instead, and another time when it filled with all new gravestones, ones that bore the names of visitors that had come to see us, and digging down into the graves only led to a set of catacombs beneath the graveyard itself.

And then there are the dead in the City, who can't help but be evidence of death just by existing here. Adrastus's mother once suggested that she was the one who paid for the dead in the City, who gave them the chance and ability to live again here. And the first time I met her was just around two years ago this month, when she came to collect Adrastus in the beginning of May.

It's hard to say, with all this in mind, what might be going on. Whatever it is, it's certainly not a series of events we've seen before, though bits and pieces of it have shown up in other places here and there--the clock stopping, the harpies, the carousel animals. And all in the early days of May.

But I think what's becoming clearest of all is that things can't go on like this, and something will have to be done because the deities certainly don't seem inclined to do it for us. There was a second way of restoring the barrier, after the first came down; what's to say there isn't a similar way of restarting the clock, if we can only find it? That seems to be the problem most at hand; if the City revolves around the clock and it's the City that's against us at the moment, then perhaps mending the clock will also mend the City. Perhaps that's the thorn in the lion's paw that only needs to come out for things to resolve themselves again. But I can't face that clock, I can't--

Which I suppose, at the risk of mixing my fables, leaves just one question: who, then, will bell the cat?


[OOC: Bzns has officially become srs. Anybody with information about the Omens Plot who wants to get together and chat it out, consider this an open forum to do so! Threadjack, talk amongst yourselves, whatever. Rosella, for her part, is still suffering from phantom pains and is fixin' to get that clock fixed; if she answers you in voice or video, feel free to notice she sounds rather strained and tense. o/]

( What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry? )

~
[Accidental Video | Open Action]

[It's late afternoon, dwindling into early evening, that finds Rosella in the Turnabout Cafe, seated at a table near a window and carefully sipping at a hot drink. Oddly, there's a bit of dirt and mud on the skirt of her otherwise neat dress--not near the hems, where one might expect it from some casual walking, but further up and streaked around where her knees would fall, as though she'd been kneeling on it somewhere outdoors. To anyone who knows her merely in passing, she seems normal and content as she drinks her beverage; for the people who know her well, it's a bit more obvious that something has rattled her. It's something about the eyes, the shoulders--she's decidedly more fidgety than usual as she talks to herself, the words almost too low to hear.]

...who lived upon a barge; in fact he was the roughest cat that ever roamed at large...

[She sips her drink, and looks out the window, and drums her fingers on the table as her lips keep moving, absently, repeating the lines of some rhyme or another she's nearly forgotten and trying valiantly to recall.]


[OOC: Please assume this is backdated a few hours! And so the Iconomancy plot marches on. The first part is a solo log and merely there for reference; the second part is open action for anyone who wants it, and Network for everyone else.]

They do say history repeats itself, don't they?

This isn't the first time something has happened to the barrier. It was a little over a year ago, now, the first time I recall it happening; it was December, and Sam had been in the hospital, and the animals came off the carousel and started to lead the way out of the City. The barrier started coming down in bits and patches, and people saw all sorts of things through the holes--mostly visions of home, bu some people saw other things, too. Horrible things. And there was a man, one who claimed to be an architect, who arrived and said he'd done this to set us free and encouraged us to leave while we had the chance, but it turned out to all be a trick, and people who tried to escape only found themselves--trapped, instead.

And something happened to it just a few months ago, when we were all on that horrible train, didn't it? I remember looking out the windows and seeing things there, and there were monsters that jumped at the windows. Something went wrong with the Network devices then, too--they didn't seem to work properly while we were underground, and people had trouble calling out. And there was something wrong with the barrier then, too.

This isn't the first time harpies have come here, either, though I've never been here to see them myself. I've heard word of them, though. A cat, a harpy, and Adrastus all came to call a long time ago, and the clock stopped ticking then, too. I wonder if the barrier came down back then? There aren't many people around who would remember it, if it did; still, it'd be a useful thing to know, either way.

Adrastus has come several times, himself. I was expecting him this time of year last year, wasn't I? I always expect him when things like this happen. Last year we were waiting for an angel of death, and I thought he might be the one to come, and he did. I saw him, just for a minute, and gave him the lemon cake I'd saved for him. And then no angel ever came at all. That was this time of year, wasn't it? Which makes Spartacus a year old now, already.

The trouble always comes first, and then a stranger arrives. That architect, the shepherdess. Adrastus and his mother. We've had the harpies for two days now; if a stranger does arrive, it'll be soon. And they'll tell us we're all free to go, and we'll be left to decide, as always, if they're really telling the truth or if it's all just another trick to make us miserable and leave us as trapped as we were before.

The Carousel opens; that's how they got rid of the shepherdess last year. It opened into cogs and gears and they drove all the sheep into the hole it left behind, and the wool came back out of the mountain like an explosion. And the Carousel has something to do with the clock, and if the clock has something to do with the barrier, then the Carousel might be the way to find it. It's all tied together somehow, it has to be, and there must be a way to fix it all. The deities haven't spoken about it, and there's no telling if they will. They have before, but that doesn't mean they will again.

But what matters is staying safe until we figure out how to manage this. It seems as though the harpies are keeping their distance from the city proper today, doesn't it? There are more of them, one can see them flying about in clusters, but for some reason they aren't as quick to come swooping in as they were before. I'm not certain why that might be, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't take advantage of it while it lasts. So.

FOR ANYONE IN NEED OF REFUGE FOR THE DURATION:
Anyone is welcome to take shelter at the Warehouse for the time being. We're well stocked with provisions and have plenty of room for anyone in need of a safe place to stay in the midst of this chaos. If the Warehouse is too far to go, please feel free to call me and we'll find a way to bring you here safely; if it's still too much of a problem, I know we're not the only ones offering shelter in the midst of this, so there are plenty of options.

If there's one thing I've learned from history, it's that we all need to pull together in times like this. And if there's a second thing I've learned, it's that things always get better, if one can just hold out long enough to see it through.


[OOC: Yup, she's cursed today; her horoscope for the day is "Today is a reflection of the past, but that doesn’t mean you’re trapped in a loop. If you don’t like where you are, perform acts of kindness to improve your karmic balance. Things should pick up soon!". Hence the tl;dr. Enjoy this blast from the City's past? >>]

( Private || Hackable by Friends )

[Failed Filter | Accidentally Viewable to Public]

PARTY
--Location

o) Gardens?
o) Palace?
o) Warehouse?

--Guest list
--Invitations

o) Out by Monday at latest

--Food

o) Dinner? No, that's too much for one little party
o) Snacks
o) θάνατος
o) Desserts?
o) Cake

--Music
--Decorations

o) "Crystal Ball"?
o) Find out about chocolate fountains
o) Fresh flowenslsossffffssssmmsss,usfsfosfff

[OOC: Hello, bad omens! The abrupt ending to this post (and failed filter) is because Rosella's poor skittish cat just jumped on her, which made her stylus drag across her device's screen--which the device promptly translated into a jumble of letters. And due to the fact that she'll be nursing a scratched hand for the next few moments, she won't realize right off that her filter failed--or that she unconsciously added "death" in Arabic and Greek to her lists.]

Well, that was certainly an...interesting curse yesterday, wasn't it? Rather tedious after a while, of course, but the same could be said for most of the curses, anyway. When they're not dangerous, they're tedious, and even the nicer ones begin to get a bit wearing after a while, in the hours winding down toward midnight. But I did like yesterday's curse, in its own way; some of the songs were terribly catchy, and even if things did get a bit repetitive, at least it made it that much easier to learn the tune and the words. I recognized a few of them, even, from around Christmas last year--like the one about the holly and jolly, or the one about the star dancing in the night with the tail as big as a kite. I like both of those very much.

I'm, er, not quite as certain about the one about the hippopotamus, though. It does seem like a terribly odd gift to ask for, doesn't it? Whatever would one do with a hippopotamus, anyway? I could understand a horse, perhaps, but certainly not that.

Goodness, and speaking of horses, it's almost two years now that I've had Valor in the City! He was my Christmas present two years ago, and it's been just lovely having him. I wonder if there are any places to find a sleigh around the City? Or if there's time to build one, even, before Christmas Eve. It'd be great fun to go sleighing around to see everyone, especially with all this snow, and I'm sure Valor would enjoy the chance to trot about with a harness of bells and holly in his mane and so on.

And wasn't it lovely to see all of the visitors earlier this week? Most of them were They were all so nice! I saw Blue again, and Duo, and the Goblin King, and made plenty of other new friends besides. It's always so wonderful to visit with them all when they manage to come, and I think it made for a perfect start to the holiday season, really. Except for that awful

Oh, er--and Nigel, I do hope you've been settling in all right? If there's anything else you need, please do let me know and I'll be happy to see to it for you. Or...er, ask, if you'd rather, and I'll help you find it yourself, instead.

( Private || Hackable by Friends )

One of the first lessons I ever learned in this City was about the importance of understanding. In a place like this, with so many people from so many different places, it's easy to find ourselves caught in the middle of misunderstandings simply because we see things in different ways, and because we've all had different experiences that have shaped the way we approach things now. A word from one place might be the same word in another, but the two words might have completely different meanings. A reality in one place might be nothing more than a story in another. A monster in one world might not be a monster in the next.

The curses bring about a lot of misunderstandings, too. That's the whole point of them, really, to make us do things we normally wouldn't, and to try to make us miserable because of it. And oftentimes, they succeed--especially so with curses like this. The ones that make us act differently are the ones that are hardest to be understanding about, both during and afterward, because they turn us into people we're not, make us do things we wouldn't, make us hurt people we ordinarily love. These sorts of curses are some of the worst to endure, and the hardest to forgive.

And yet, these are the ones when forgiveness is needed the most.

I'm still not certain yet if yesterday's curse really ended at midnight, or if it's decided to persist through today as well. Last year this sort of thing ended at the stroke of midnight, and in a rather humiliating way for everyone concerned. This year, it's much harder to tell.

However, when it finally does come to an end, I hope that we can all find it within ourselves to be understanding about the circumstances, and to be open to the people we've hurt, and to forgive the things we said and did when we couldn't help ourselves. And it's a duty that both people need to engage in--the people that were hurt need to find the strength to forgive, and to not hold those actions against the person that hurt them, and the person that was cursed needs to do the responsible thing and ask forgiveness for the things they did, and apologize for hurting their friend, even if they couldn't help it at the time.

I'd hate to see more friendships needlessly ruined over something as silly as a curse.

I'm very sorry, but I'm afraid I won't be coming in to the Library to help today. I'm feeling a bit under the weather, and so I think I'll be staying in and getting some rest until I start feeling a bit more like myself.


[OOC: My, Rosella's certainly putting on a brave face for someone who found a human heart on her doorstep yesterday. Sob. She'll just be over here hating this curse and hiding inside her magically-warded Warehouse until the world stops being crazy, thanks. ♥]

( Text | Failed Private | Accessible Due to Curse )

[Voice Post]

...Oh, honestly. Whatever this curse is, it's an absolutely ridiculous one. First I found myself the whole morning running around doing errands for people--because it seems everyone needs an errand run today, and they won't help you with whatever one you're on at the moment unless you agree to run one for them first!--and it took hours just to get back to the first person that needed the help. And then when I went to the Library, I've found myself hearing creaks and groans and scratching noises the whole time, but no one else seems to hear a thing!

At least the Library has been mostly uneventful, though. A bit spooky, yes, but nothing too troublesome. It gave me time to think a bit, and to write a bit, and to look at the reward I earned myself for running all those errands this morning. Really, it's the funniest thing--I had a little crown just like this, once upon a time, but that was all the way back in Tamir, almost two years ago now. How strange that another one, just like it, should end up here?

Well, in any case, I suppose it's about time I started to head for home. I think I've done all that I can here, for the moment.

[Fabric rustles near the microphone as Rosella moves to turn the device off, and the feed ends with a click. However, a few minutes later, it jostles back on, and a new bit of audio is added to the post as music begins to play.]

"Okay! Show me your performance!"

...What in the world?

"Are you ready? Let's see your energy!"

I beg your pardon?!

"Step! Step! One, two, step!"

[And once again, the audio clicks off.]


[OOC: I am a terrible person and should feel bad. So Rosella's kind of shuffling through genres today: this morning she was in adventure-mode and got sent out on a fetch quest, and then entering the Library switched her into more of a Myst-style creepy mystery game, and now that she's back out again, it's time for my personal favorite, rhythm games. Namely the dancing variety. ♥]

( Private//Hackable by Friends )

That was a nice curse yesterday, wasn't it? I'm glad we finally had a nice one again. After everything we went through last week, I should think we've more than deserved the respite. It's rather interesting, though, that we had a curse that brought all the dead back to life so soon after a day when we were all concerned about the coming of an angel of death, and particularly so since...er...I don't seem to recall any word of anyone actually dying from such a visitor. It's rather backwards, isn't it? Here we'd all expected to see a rise in the numbers of the dead in the City, and then the next thing you know, it's just the opposite--they were all restored to life, even if it were only for the day. It's strange.

I still can't help but wonder about Adrastus's visit, though. Did, er, anyone else happen to speak with him while he was here? I have a feeling that wasn't the last we'll see of him, either, so it'd be prudent to-- He seems to be quite concerned with things like fairness and keeping balances and, as he mentioned to me, coming to collect when "due is due".

I wonder if the two things are connected somehow? An angel of death, a due being due, and then everyone coming to life again? It's quite the puzzle, to be sure.

Of course, sometimes the best ways to deal with puzzles are to leave them alone awhile, and keep busy with something else instead. That was an old trick of Daddy's, I think, and it's worked well for me every time I've tried it, so I don't see why it shouldn't work again. Which is why I spent the day getting some chores done, like tending my flowers! I seem to have acquired quite a few of them, honestly, what with the window box of roses that Kurama grew for me, the pot of roses Sam surprised me with, and the seeds that Dr. Chase got me for my birthday. And that's just to name a few! I must admit, I do have particularly high hopes for the seeds, though. It says they're meant to grant a wish of joy, and I think joy is something we could all use a little more of, here in the City. So we'll see how that all turns out.

...Well, assuming I can manage to keep Spartacus from eating them, of course, which is turning out to be a very real concern of mine these days.