this is fun and we have fun here

[spelleton]

Catchall post for "fucked up sad dead ghosts" AU

This is a catchall for whatever we decide to do here since it's cleaner just to keep all threads in one post for easier reading and also sadness.

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[heartchained]

[ The forest looks -- like it used to, not how it is now. Some things are the same - lanterns and the way the trees cluster together - but moonlight filters down through the leaves and fireflies dance in the darkness. Clean and bright.

He's silent for a long moment, and then he laughs, weakly. ]

This certainly is powerful magic.

[ It's been a long time since he's been able to remember this with such clarity. It's a shock to his senses. He doesn't know where to look.

The village still thrives. He can hear the voices of children, distant and laughing. The sounds of forest creatures, filling the night.

Everything is as it was.

He appears to be somewhat shellshocked. ]

[hattersgonnahat]

...I guess you could say it's magic. [It's a little more scientific than that, but sure. We'd be here all night if she tried explaining every little bit of it, and that's not nearly as fun as getting to explore it all. She likes this version of the forest a lot better already.]

This must be a really old memory. [Which, the kid already had a strong guess this would happen. If his appearance was in some part reflecting what this time rift was going to be like.]

[She was distracted by the sound of other kids nearby. It would seem that they aren't alone, let's go check it out! ...Well, check it out without being creeps about it.]

[heartchained]

[ Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, et cetera, something something. He looks at her oddly, for a moment, but doesn't question it. ]

[ There are masked children, doing the things that children do; playing and shouting and talking together. Instead of dwellings crammed with shadows and yellow eyes, there are people; the houses in the trees and on the ground bright with lights and life. ]

It is. It's been -- a lifetime, since it looked this way.

Well, several. I suppose it must be several, by this point.

[ He sounds a little distracted; a small group of three children has caught his eye. A girl with long, blonde hair and a horned mask; a brown-haired boy dressed in purple, with a mask shaped like a moon turned on its side; a boy with white hair and a mask that mimics a fox's face.

They're talking about something or other, excitedly. ]

[hattersgonnahat]

[He did sound distracted. The kid looked over at what he was staring at too for a moment and watched. What was so special about them?]

[Actually...]

[She looked up at him again. Hey, one of those kids does have the same sort of mask as him. That's weird.]

[With that little found detail, she approached them closer.]

[heartchained]

[ He doesn't remember what they were talking about - his memory is so hazy, and he made it that way for a reason, he thinks - so even up close, there's not much to hear.

The boy with brown hair says something indistinct, and laughs; the boy with the fox mask smiles to hear it. The girl tosses her hair (decorated with flowers), but it's easy to tell that even under the mask, she's amused.

But it is easy to tell, this close, and with him following dazedly behind like he doesn't know what to think, that the child with his mask looks too much like him to be a coincidence. ]