audio | un: yiling laozu | the day following the dragon hatching (end of august)

[weifinder]

( sounding subdued, wei wuxian speaks out on network again! really we're all tired of hearing from this guy, get him a new hobby, like knitting. those needles are great impromptu weapons! ask wen qing. don't ask wen qing.. )

Hey. For those partnered with dragons, you'll know what I mean when I say that yesterday's hatching was emotional. I felt mixed joy and dread from Lethe intense enough to bring me to tears.

I reached out to a fellow member of our group, Wrathion, in an attempt to understand why. He found their mother Aiva at a loss to explain how she felt at the time of hatching, but with the moment passed, believing her young were fine. She sensed nothing awry. Her major concern rested with her mate's injury, and her irate belief that it was caused by a Minaras scouting airship, or so her shared images conveyed. He then coaxed the new mother into allowing us near the newborns for a brief examination.

( he pauses here, then sighs. this is not the sort of thing he finds enjoyable to say. it's simply important. )

We found that the infant dragons appear alive to sight and touch. But according to my sense of death and life, they're dead. Not possessed, not puppeted, just... dead. Which is different, as the citadel makes it impossible to tell the living from the dead otherwise. The only place you can is in the Mouse House.

( a final pause, and a solemn consideration: )

I don't know that anything survived that plague years ago. This feels more and more like a mockery of life forced on the dead.

video | un: dollhouse

[thedreamer]

Hello, gang! ...Gang? No, not the right word. Team? Better. Do we have a name? Those of us displaced and trapped here. Well, there we are.

[ As if the semantics are really important. Moving on. ]

I'm the Doctor, if we haven't spoken yet. And if we haven't - first of all, why haven't we? Second of all, I'm very glad we are now.

[ He's moving around a lot as he talks, walking in slow circles, just restless. ]

Hearing what everyone's uncovered recently has been helpful and I believe I can add something of value to the mix.

In conversation with our caretaker in the Mouse House, Ma'am Mariol, I learned more about the plague that swept through. When the sickness struck, it fractured Serthica. Those up here believed it came from down below, the Mouse House; the first to touch anything imported, anything crossing the sea, they assumed. Prior to that, it was easier for those down below to come and go up here. Much more difficult now, nearly impossible, and so the people down there, the children, they suffer.

[ He has to note that for a moment because he will remain displeased until he can fix their situation. ]

The children we've met in the Mouse House were orphaned as a result of the sickness. All of them. To anyone's knowledge, not a single person who was infected survived. They referred to it as the coal sick; called that because an infected person's hands, toes, face would go dark, like coal dust and rot. Rot - familiar word, that one, eh?

What else - right - it infected quickly. Someone could be healthy one day and then nearly dead the next. Coughing up blood, teeth chattering, wandering back and forth to keep warm.

I hoped to ascertain how the splitting of Serthica was decided, how people were sorted, if some were exiled down below who'd previously lived in the citadels, simply for fear of spreading illness. There's at least one woman that I know of in the Mouse House, who used to live in the citadels. She receives letters from her daughter, who lives up here. Evidently, this woman ended up in the Mouse House around the time the sickness swept through, yet her daughter remains here.

Don't worry, that won't be the end of what I learn. I'm still working it out. [ He gets a bit more restless, impatient almost, pacing more urgently. ] Brain isn't working fast enough. Thinking and thinking and more thinking. I have to be careful how often I go down there, so I'm told - not that I've ever listened to that sort of thing - but if there are other questions I've missed, tell me. Maybe I'm standing too close to see everything.

Many heads are better than one, so the saying goes. Unless it's a multi-headed predator of some sort. Not the best odds, in that case, if you're the prey, though very good if you're the predator. All creatures have a right to it, though, of course, so can't judge that one. Survival of the fittest. You'd be surprised, though! A very good friend of mine, his name was Bertram; a beautiful, tiny Snorclax with a rainbow shell. He told me once he faced down a three-headed serpent wielding nothing but a pencil. [ This has nothing to do with anything at all, but that hardly matters. He just likes to tell stories and he has a captive audience. Unfortunately for the audience. ]

Text; UN: Black Prince

[blackscales]

[ Wrathion reporting in with another scheme, this time one he needs assistance with. ]

Myself, Licyn and Moran were among those who assisted the Lady Arabella to safety during the summit. She discarded a key along the way that her assistant was attempting to give her, claiming it wasn't hers. On inspection this key is old, greasy, and has the phrase 'wake up' engraved into it. A meaningful message, I assume, like the one delivered to her previously with flowers. The key itself appears to be from the Ubiq factory in Eidris, which I have managed to gain myself an invite to tour after some trouble. I have a suspicion the key is for a winding mechanism, perhaps a clock given the engraved phrase. Regardless, it doesn't fit the style of a door or window key.

Licyn and the Doctor managed to track the grease on the key to the Mouse House. We have an idea of where it might have been, now we need to learn exactly what the key is for.

If you have the time, a useful role involving factories, gears, winding mechanisms and the like, and would care to join me on such a tour do let me know. I suspect this will help us piece together the bigger picture of what is happening here. Someone attempted to give Arabella this key for a reason, and understanding what it is for will help unlock why.

[ ooc: some info is available on things they might find already, but we can always ask more! ]