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At first, there is nothing.

And then there’s a voice, saying:

I need your help.

… look, I don’t have time to explain. Hold this.

And something, ready or not, is thrust into your hand. Maybe it’s a pen, or a brooch, or a watch or a phone, or anything at all so long as it’s small enough to hold, and looks too important to lose.

Maybe you try to object, but a small, winged creature wreathed in iridescent sparkles darts into your view, and clasps your hands, and curls your fingers tight about the object in them.

You’re just, the creature says, going to have to trust me. Now: raise your hand, and say:

Power of a Dreaming Star – Metamorphose!!

Maybe you know these tropes, or maybe you don’t.
Maybe you’re about to protest that no, you couldn’t possibly, this is ridiculous and you’ve got the wrong person—

But you can’t resist the call. Nobody ever can.

And then?

Then? It’s not dark any more.

And an awful lot seems to be happening at once.

[ ♡ ooc information & combat rules ♡ ]

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So, you’re back in school.

Once the light show is over, once you’ve had a moment to acclimatize to your new look, you find yourself stood in a high-school classroom, dressed in unfamiliar clothes. The room is sunk into darkness, illuminated only by the white pillar candles burning at the teacher’s desk, and in clusters at the sides of the room. Outside, all is darkness: stand close enough to the windows and you may be able to make out the outlines of the quad, the high wall, the open gate. From a distance, however, the glass swims with reflections that don’t seem to be your own. Other than that, the room appears entirely ordinary – save the vase containing two small white flowers with drooping heads sat on one of the desks, and the winged bear (is it a bear?) fluttering by the blackboard, surrounded by a corona of light.

From here you can head down the corridors to the School Library, upstairs to the School Roof, or downstairs to the Courtyard… but you might want to talk to Michelle and get your bearings first.

You push open the door at the top of the stairs and walk onto the school roof. The skies overhead are midnight-dark and moonless, the city laid out before you sunk in shadow, with nothing to illuminate it but the pale light of the stars. Vines of flowers are twined about the railings and spreading out across the flags. Dark though it is, you can still just about make out the silhouettes of buildings – the hunched roofs of family homes, the taller towers of the city center. Further off, you can make out the tops of towering trees, and, more distantly still, the line of the shore.

From here, you can fly Downtown, to a Quiet Street, or to the Dark Forest. You can also return to the Homeroom by retracing your steps down the stairs.

You walk into the school library. Like the classroom before it, it is illuminated largely by candles, largely clustered about the librarian’s desk, but unlike the classroom, these are all in lanterns. There’s a lot of paper in here, after all. The high shelves and stacks form shadow-haunted alleyways, the candles huddled on top of them. A book drop is visible at the door; returned volumes sit on a trolley, ready to be put back in their places upon the shelves.

A tall, well-built man with antlers and a scar across the bridge of his nose stands at the librarian’s desk flipping through a book on wild animals. Despite his imposing build, he has a friendly smile on his face, and it feels comfortable and natural to draw near to him. A handheld lantern with a candle inside it is on the desk at his side.

You can head back down the corridor to return to the Homeroom, or take the stairs to the Courtyard.

The scent of flowers hits you, heady and sweet but too much so, as you step into the school courtyard. A riot of blossom and vines spill in tangles from concrete planters, twist in skeins around the trunks of trees, peep through the leaves on the boughs, covering them in false bloom; they knot about the closed gates, holding them every bit as fast as locks and chains ever could. The school buildings loom behind you, the flowers crawling like ivy up its concrete façade. From here, you can see the side of the school gym, a short distance away across the grounds: candles burn in here too, and yellow light flickers and dances behind the windows. Behind the buildings, you can also see a high chicken-wire fence, wound about with flowers.

From here, you can fly to a Quiet Street, to the Downtown area, or to the Dark Forest. You can also choose to visit the School Gym or the Competition Pool.

The side doors to the school gym open at a gentle touch, the doors swinging open in the slight breeze. Inside all is silent, chairs lining the sides of the room, basketball nets and the apparatus, unfolded and garlanded with blossom, casting long shadows across the varnished floor, the white-painted walls. Candles cluster at the edge of the courts, they line the front of the stage, they burn bright on the balconies and the empty lectern standing on the stage. An electric clock, set above the stage, quietly ticks to itself. Gym bags cluster about the closed doors to a storeroom, a forgotten bottle of water sits by the legs of one of the chairs. Maybe it’s just the wind, but you could almost imagine you hear the falls of sneakered footsteps on the courts.

From here, you can return to the Courtyard.

Mostly hidden behind a chicken-wire fence wrapped about with vines of flowers, the school swimming pool stands silent beneath the night skies, shadows casting a strange dance across the cool, dark waters. Numbered starting blocks stand in line at the near end of the pool, reels of lane markers, a pile of forgotten covers, shadowy heaps of are gathered beneath a lean-to near the changing-room doors. The air smells heavily of chlorine. There’s nothing to hear but the gentle lapping of water, the quiet gurgling of drains – and yet, carried on the wind, you can hear the faint chatter of youthful voices, the shrill of a whistle.

Head back across the grounds to find the Courtyard.

A chill wind is blowing as you land silently on an ordinary suburban street – ordinary save for the riot of flowers growing over front yards, twining about lampposts and gateposts and the trunks of trees, climbing the lengths of front walls, springing freely from the cracks in the paving. The cool night air (is it night, or is it simply dark?) is heavy with their scent. The houses sit silent, blank-faced, apparently empty: all save one, a short way down the road, where warm light dances in the downstairs windows and, behind the drawn curtains, the silhouettes of people can be seen passing before the illuminated glass.

From here you can fly to the Dark Forest or School Courtyard, or head to the Family Home.

You did knock before letting yourself in here, didn’t you? The room you find yourself in, for all it’s illuminated entirely by candlelight, is if anything disturbing only in its sheer ordinariness. A couch in front of a television set, a low table covered with spread-out schoolwork, shelves laden with books and keepsakes, pictures and an empty pin board mounted on the walls, a clutter of small blue storage boxes by the skirting board. It leads into an open-plan kitchen and dining area where a tall woman, her hair pulled back into a low ponytail, stands before the range stirring a pot with a wooden spoon. The couch, as you walk in, is also occupied, but at the sight of you the small, dark girl sat holding a cellphone springs to her feet and points an accusing finger straight at you.

From here, you can return through the front door to the Street, or – if you can get past its tiny guardian! – head upstairs to visit the Girl’s Bedroom.

The door opens on a neatly-kept girl’s bedroom, illuminated by candles and sheltering under the sloping eaves of the roof – but, colorful and cheerful as it looks, as the door swings to behind you, you become aware of how close it feels in here, how oppressive. Stuffed animals line the foot of a single bed; a white student’s desk is tucked neatly into an alcove; the walls are hung with cheerful prints and studded here and there with photographs and postcards. A clean, pressed school uniform hangs on a hook on the wall. A glossy, verdant pot plant, a white-painted closet, a bookcase, a full-length mirror and, stood on the sill by the windows, a shrine.

You can head back down the stairs to the Living Room.

You arrive on an empty city street. Maybe it’s midnight – who can tell here? – but the perfect desertion of this place seems somehow different from that, more fundamental. The street is abandoned, it does not sleep. Flowers twist about the lampposts, they spring from the cracks in the paving, they grow in tangles up the facades of the shops, roots burrowing beneath brick and paint. A chill breeze skitters down the street, sending leaves and flower petals and old receipts dancing in the gutters. Once-cheerful window displays look nothing but tired, fraying at the edges, and strange ripples swim across the glass. Warm, flickering light spills from a single storefront – a café, with a swinging sign and a rain-washed chalkboard stood before its front door. Further down the street, a shopping center is visible, revolving doors still spinning slowly as if to urge you inward. Bill posters, scattered here and there along the length of the street, advertise a show at a local live house.

You can visit the Café or head through the revolving doors to the Shopping Center. A back alleyway leads to the Live House.

From here, you can fly to H͟͏ę͢͝l̴̡̢͠l̷̵̛͟ơ̴̧͝,̴́̕͡ ͟͠H̀̀a̢̛̛͝pṕ̵̡̕y͟ Land!, or back to the School Roof.

Pushing open the door (it sticks, just slightly) you enter the coffee shop. Candles burn in the windows and on each of the tables, and in huddles at the counter, where a lean, dark-haired young man in a black apron stands sipping coffee from a large white mug. He raises his eyes disinterestedly to glance up at you as you walk in, judging your frilly outfits with a jaundiced eye, then goes back to gazing out of the window. Flowers curl about the edges of the closed doors to the kitchens.

It’s cosy, for all that: close, warm, decorated in shades of brown and cream. The air smells of coffee and cake. Chairs cluster about pale wooden tables, some still laden with teapots and coffee mugs and plates of food. Mugs and plates are stacked neatly behind the counter, a blackboard lists the day’s specials and invites you, in cheerful hand lettering, to try the seasonal items. There are pastries and slices of cake on display, and in spite of all logic they look fresh, even tempting. As the door swings to behind you, you can faintly hear a bubble of companionable chatter.

You can leave through the café door to return Downtown.

You enter the shopping center. It’s even darker in here, and eerily still; your footsteps echo as you walk into the central square, flanked on either side by the darkened windows of forgotten stores. What little light there is creeps in through the skylights above the courtyard, half-illuminating a display of sorry-looking hothouse plants strangled beneath the tendrils of the ever-present flowers, a fountain wrapped about with leaves and vines and blossom, their roots tangling in the still, dark water. A faint whirring noise can be heard on the edge of hearing: the sound of the escalators to the second floor, still turning endlessly and uselessly, forever.

You can go down the hallway to the Gift Shop, or up the escalators to visit the Fashion Boutique. Head back through the revolving door to return Downtown.

Edited 2021-01-23 23:37 (UTC)

Just off the shopping center’s central square, a small gift shop waits with its doors gaping open. Inside, the shelves are full of trinkets and accessories of the kind that would appeal to teenage girls – key chains, cute purses and pass holders, mugs and glasses, lanyards, hair clips. From a display toward the back of the store, a familiar face can be seen: a pink-and-white sign reading ‘Happy! Lucky! Everyone’s Favorite Michelle!!’ heralds the presence of a wide array of Michelle merchandise, from pencils and stickers to plush toys and figurines. The cash desk stands empty, with a collection of cardboard boxes stacked behind it.

You can go back through the doors to the Shopping Center.

Edited 2021-01-23 23:37 (UTC)

The boutique stands with doors thrown wide. A display of mannequins in the windows show off cute, fashionable outfits – so fashionable it’s obvious that whoever designed them doesn’t expect anyone over the age of 25 to so much as step inside the store, still less try anything on. Inside, illuminated by candlelight, racks of cute, colorful clothes line the walls and lie folded on central tables, along with displays of underwear and shoes and accessories; a stand of mannequins wound about with flowers cluster in the center of the room, every inch as intimidatingly well-dressed as the ones in the window. A cash desk stands by the door, a huddle of candles blazing in lanterns; changing cubicles line the rear walls. Faintly, you can hear the sound of an upbeat song playing over hidden speakers.

You can travel back down the escalators to the Shopping Center.

Though it’s wreathed in overgrowth, the door to the Live House swings open easily – someone has taken a knife to the vines that covered it, though they show no ill-effects as a result. You step into the lobby, illuminated as ever by the golden glow of candlelight: there’s a lounge area, couches and chairs arranged around little low tables, where pillar candles burn; there’s a display of CDs and flyers and posters for upcoming shows, with a stack of cardboard boxes stood next to it; a candlelit reception desk, with a guest book and a magazine rack and, on the wall behind it, a display of instruments and equipment to rent, next to a door to the studios. A flight of steps leads downstairs, to a small auditorium. The windows ripple with strange reflections.
And there’s a girl sitting on the Live House counter, her feet bare, picking at her nails (claws?) with a knife. She glances over at you as you walk in, the disdainful oh-hi-I-see-you-but-I-choose-not-to-acknowledge-you eye flicker common to all felines. She’s dressed in leather pants, a strategically ripped red-and-black-top, fingerless gloves. This, it would seem, is her place.

You can go Backstage through the corridors, take the stairs to enter the Auditorium, or leave the Live House to head back Downtown.

You pass into in a windowless corridor, illuminated only by the glow of candlelight coming from the stage beyond. It is wide enough to permit the passage of two people at once and still have room for the clusters of equipment that line it. Instrument cases stand propped against the black-painted walls, next to speakers and amplifiers and sound mixing gear deemed surplus to requirements, twists of cabling no more than half-hidden beneath them. From here you can see out onto a small stage, a drum kit and keyboard already set up and waiting for a band that will never arrive.

You can head through the wings to the Auditorium, or back down the corridor to 〇〇 Live House.

Edited 2021-01-23 23:38 (UTC)

You find yourself in a windowless auditorium compact enough to move right past cozy and into the arena of the just plain cramped. The clean-swept concrete floor is empty, stacked chairs piled up against the walls to leave room for a crowd to stand. The stage area, equipped with drum kit and keyboard, surrounded by plush red curtains, is just about large enough for a five-piece group to stand on without bumping elbows with one another, and slightly raised – enough to make stepping up from the floor an inconvenience, but not so much so that it would actually prove prohibitive. A row of candles lines the front of the stage, sits atop speakers and instrument cases and amplifiers in a way that probably isn’t doing any favors for their acoustic properties but at least makes it possible to move without tripping over a cable or a pedal or the leg of an instrument stand.

From here you can get Backstage through the wings, or head upstairs to 〇〇 Live House.

H͟͏ę͢͝l̴̡̢͠l̷̵̛͟ơ̴̧͝,̴́̕͡ ͟͠H̀̀a̢̛̛͝pṕ̵̡̕y͟ Land!, a short trip from the city proper, looks like it’s seen better days even from the air. It is the kind of fairground that might appeal to a child too young to realize how unambitious it all is, or an undemanding teenager who just wants somewhere to go to hang with their friends that won’t throw them out for loitering. At least the lights appear to be working?

You land in the central square, surrounded by shuttered sideshows and unmanned concession stands wound about with flowers. The rides, though there’s nobody to run them and nobody but you to ride them, are still working: Baby’s First Roller Coaster weaves lazily round a tiny track wreathed in overgrowth, a fleet of bumper cars cluster at one side of their overgrown rink, lights flashing listlessly, a large and incongruously impressive carousel spins slow circles, carnival horses bobbing wearily to the sound of a barrel organ. There’s even a half-sized Ferris wheel, though what market there is for getting a brief look across a dilapidated funfair and the deserted beach beyond it there might be is anyone’s guess.

You can fly back Downtown, or take the promenade to the Beach.

The beach at night: it feels more desolate than romantic. You step out upon a barren stretch of sand studded along its length with empty shells, illuminated by nothing more than the slick and sickly glow of fairground lights from the promenade. No moon. No stars. The sea is eerily, preternaturally still – millpond-still, disturbed only by the play of the wind across its surface. No other figures, no voices, not even the lapping of the waves. Just you and the ocean, ink-black and yawning, and yet it somehow feels as if you are being watched…

From here, you reach H͟͏ę͢͝l̴̡̢͠l̷̵̛͟ơ̴̧͝,̴́̕͡ ͟͠H̀̀a̢̛̛͝pṕ̵̡̕y͟ Land! along the promenade, or fly to the Overgrown Garden.

You find yourself in a forest clearing. Did you bring a lantern? It’s incredibly gloomy in here, a fairytale before the Happy-Ever-After makes everything better, the trees a tangled labyrinth of bough and branch, the canopy tight-woven, blotting out what little light there is. How much that is to do with the riotous overgrowth of flowers here, strangling the trunks of ancient trees and spreading in promiscuous tangles overhead, it’s impossible to tell. The air hangs heavy with the too-sweet smell of flowers. A slight break in the treeline to one side of the clearing suggests the presence of a narrow, mossy path, almost forgotten; another, slightly wider path lined with round cobblestones leads to a pair of iron gates almost hidden beneath a tangle of flowers.

A small campfire flickers up ahead, two cloaked figures huddled close about it for what pitiful scraps of warmth and light it can provide. The darkness eats away at it, the shadows clustered too close about and stealing away its brightness.

You can take the cobblestone path to the gates of the Ruined Mansion, or the overgrown footpath to the Forgotten Shrine. You can also fly back to the School Roof, the School Courtyard, or the Quiet Street.

You head up the path and through the torii gate to a lonely temple. Moss and lichen surrounds the fountains; vines twist around uprights covered in flaking scales of red paint. Ema hang on an aging wishing board, the wooden plaques strangely startling by their apparent newness. And flowers, flowers, flowers: springing from the cracks in the flagstones, winding over the fences, hung heavy over the sloping eaves of the roof, covering it as if with a carpet of snow.

Inside, candles burn inside red paper lanterns, casting the large, echoing room in a ruddy glow. The screens stand torn and open and the floor, once polished to a high sheen, is littered with petals and leaves and fallen twigs, and warped where rainwater might have washed it. The shrine itself stands empty save for a stray taiko drum, a few shide wands stood on a small table, their white pennants fluttering in the chill breeze, an old broom standing against one wall, a gong. Whatever might once have watched over this place, it seems it was chased away long ago. There’s nothing to see but a huddle of makeshift altars where the sanctuary might once have stood.

You can head back to the Dark Forest down the overgrown path.

Edited 2021-01-24 00:04 (UTC)

Pushing open the overgrown gates, you find yourself in the grounds of a once-grand manor house, now fallen to ruin and thick with flowering vines. The vines crawl up the lengths of the walls, they wind about broken pillars, they choke the life out of the plants in their mossy beds, they even wrap about the fountain in its circular pond, roots trailing in the still, dark water. A footpath twists about the house and through a wrought-iron arch in a crumbling garden wall.

The house itself is a wreck. The roof is gone, and the tops of the ornamental towers: one is little more than crumbling walls no taller than a man. The grand window that once commanded the front of the house is now set in nothing at all, the stained glass shattered in places and held up by nothing more than its own frame. It ends – though spars of the roof remain, jutting up darker still against the night sky – abruptly at the second-floor balcony. A single statue still stands proudly upon it, but the rest are sadly disfigured, or fallen. The front doors gape open, and perilous though the place looks, you could probably still go inside…

You can return to the Dark Forest through the mansion gates, or head to the Overgrown Garden through the iron archway.

You’re in a garden, beneath a sky that shimmers with a shifting rainbow of light. It’s lush, beautiful, and almost too wild with growth to quite merit the term ‘garden’. There are fruit trees here, their trunks twisted and knobbled with age, their branches still low enough to easily reach. The ground is carpeted with colorful wildflowers, and flowering vines and wild roses twine around trees and golden trellises alike. If you're of a mind to pay attention to these things, you might come to realize that no two flowers are exactly alike in color or breed.

Some yards away stands a single tree, its boughs heavy with blossom. Its swaying branches beckon you to rest beneath them, if only for a moment - to join the white-clad girl already lying there, wound about with lotus and chamomile blooms, completely lost to slumber.

You can return through the iron archway to the Ruined Mansion, or fly to the Beach.

So you leave her, because you have to leave her: because she has nowhere else to go, and as for you, you cannot stay. She does not attempt to call you back. You know she’ll dry her tears and pick herself back up, and some day she’ll try again. What choice does she have? Either that or give up entirely, and if there’s one thing Aya and Wednesday have always shared, it’s the absolute refusal to know when they are beaten…

As for you, there’s a path to walk, and a stairway to climb, back to where you belong – or do for now. It’s too high, impossibly so, leading up and out across the city: but somehow it feels like a home to you, and it’s not the city you were walking in before. It’s bright, bustling, the streets crawl with cars and pulse with people, it is peaceful and prosperous and safe. You can’t reach it, because it’s not your place and never could be, but you know without having to ask that it’s Wednesday’s, and it’s hers. It’s where a life like the one she part-remembers might be lived.

No surprise that she now wants it back.

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magical idol time » test post

A Girl's Homeroom

The School Roof

The Library

The School Courtyard

The Gym

The Competition Pool

A Quiet Street

A Family Home

A Girl's Bedroom

Downtown

H̷͞͠a̢͞z̸̧̕a̕w̸̵̛a͡͠ Coffee

The Shopping Center

The Gift Shop

The Boutique

〇〇 Live House

Backstage

The Auditorium

H͟͏ę͢͝l̴̡̢͠l̷̵̛͟ơ̴̧͝,̴́̕͡ ͟͠H̀̀a̢̛̛͝pṕ̵̡̕y͟ Land!

The Beach

A Dark Forest

A Forgotten Shrine

A Ruined Mansion

An Overgrown Garden

Coda