✨ two truths and a lie!

[icyspicy]

Username/Display Name: summer / 𝖜𝖎𝖓𝖙𝖊𝖗 🐙✨
Server Channel: #general
Time: idk sometime in the afternoon

Well well, would you look at that? The place didn’t burn itself down while I was gone, though not for lack of trying. Or so I’ve been told.

Anyway, it looks like we’ve acquired some new faces in the last month. In the grand tradition of the hotel forcing us to get to know one another, why don’t we play a little game?

Is everyone familiar with “two truths and a lie”? It’s simple enough. List three things about yourself, one of which is not true. Others must guess which is the lie.

Here, I’ll go first.

[ TL;DR - We’re playing two truths and a lie now! Thread hop around and tag each other! Winter will be hopping around to play too, but if folks just want to chat with him now that he’s back that is also fine! ]

Comments

[airdnd]

[ Sumina doesn't know what it's like, to love someone so irrevocably, so deeply, so completely... She's never truly been in love before. And then to lose that person so suddenly. All she can do is imagine, but even so, she thinks she would wish for such a thing, too.

She doesn't know if she'll ever know what it's like. But she doesn't have to, to imagine how unimaginably painful it must have been, to have something so precious taken from you. As ever, when her own experiences fall short, empathy is all she can draw upon. It was true when Sumina told Giselle she would be ready to listen, and it certainly is true now, too. She'll listen - even if she may never truly grasp all that's said, most of all because Giselle's story will always be her own, she'll listen. ]

Giselle, I'm so sorry.
That you lost someone that you loved so dearly... It's a kind of pain I only know of through others' stories, and it pains me that now I know of it through yours, too. I can see how one might be driven to desperation because of it.

[ So, in exchange for a renewed lease on life for her lover, Giselle pledged her service to the witch. But... hasn't she been a maid for hundreds and hundreds of years, now? ]

If you are still serving as a maid, however, does that mean... She has not yet fulfilled your wish?

[ Is that why Giselle is here? ]

fatamoru spoilers

[fixtures]

[ it takes a long time for her to respond — long enough for it to seem that she might not answer. ]

They have indeed returned to me twice now.
But neither time did they remember me.

[ She's glad to be talking about this in writing, rather than in person. She'd feel far too pitiful about the way just thinking about her beloved in this sense wears her down, and makes her unable to keep a steady façade up. And, it helps, too, to have these words from Sumina immortalized in text, for as long as she has access to this device. ]

I keep praying that the next time they appear, they will.
If I had a second wish, then maybe things would change for the better...

[ So, yes — it's the truth behind the wish she came here for, still desperately clawing for a way to reach that person who she had loved. ]

[airdnd]

[ Sumina would have understood if Giselle would have left their conversation there entirely. Perhaps that's a hidden blessing of this mode of communication. Just as with letters, there's always an out, an option to simply... refrain from responding, that doesn't quite exist in a face-to-face conversation without causing quite a bit of discomfort.

Or at least, that's what Sumina thinks, until a short time turns into a long time, long enough, and she realizes that it's not quite so easy in this way, too. Not when she can see, too, when Giselle does begin to respond. It's a feeling of being on tenterhooks, a worry settling in. And though what she finds at the end of that wait lances through her heart, she's... incredibly thankful, that Giselle shares this with her, when she'd been so averse to it the last time they both faced an uncomfortable topic of conversation. ]

How painful it must have been to be forgotten by your loved one not once, but twice...

[ She thinks about how, where she's from, it is always said that deals with those who can grant wishes should always be made very cautiously. How Giselle's story rings true of that, like a cautionary tale, like a story of a widow who wished for her husband to return only to find him revived from a state of decomposition, or a man who wished to be rid of his illness only to be turned to stone, or a barren mother who wished to bear a child, only to find her daughter turning into a hag many years later.

To have her wish 'fulfilled' in this way, to see her beloved twofold without any memory of her... maybe a wish could be used, instead, to free them of such a fate. To free both of them of such a tragic fate, because as it is... Giselle is imprisoned by this wish, too, isn't she? Bound to servitude for an ill-fated reunion that repeats itself... ]

I can't fault you for wanting a second wish. By "for the better," Giselle... do you mean to wish for your beloved to return to how they were when they were alive, with their memories of you intact?

[ A beat, and then she adds: ]

Or something else entirely?

[fixtures]

I've always kept the wish to see them as they were once more alive in my heart.
I will always wish to reunite with them.

[ That much comes quickly — it's almost refreshingly stubborn, like she refuses to admit that she's given up hope. Undeniably, she wants to see them alive again, memories of her in tact. That want is the only thing that's kept her in one piece all these years. Even still... ]

But...
I don't think I could bear it, to wish for their return once more, and have it not come to fruition soon.
They may not continue to feel the same way, in any case, meeting me as I am...
I'm no longer the person they once loved.
And I can no longer remember what they sounded like... what we used to do, or talk about.

[ These are things that she's never voiced to anyone before — and probably still wouldn't be able to bring herself to do. It's easier, somehow, to pretend she's writing to a friend who she won't see for a very long time, as it would be in her realm, if she were sending letters. Moreover, as she rereads the words as she types them, she begins feeling a little pathetic and dreary. ]

It's a bit helpless, right?
Though I cannot think of "something else entirely" at all.

[airdnd]

[ Though they speak not in person, Giselle's written responses instill an aching in Sumina's heart all the same.

Giselle has lived for so long without her love, that she's forgotten the sound of their voice, or how they used to pass the time... Sumina can't help but wonder if the same will be true of her own mother, after her father's soul has departed from the mortal realm.

Will the same be true of herself, too, even if she may not live quite as long as her elven ancestors...? Will she begin to forget the names and voices of her dear guests, and her precious friends? Yet it's still different for her, and for her mother, too. They'll still have each other. And others from their world who live similarly long lives. But Giselle... That's not the case for Giselle, is it?

For a long while, she stares down at her phone, lost in thought, wondering how she should respond to Giselle. At length, she simply responds from her heart, as she has become accustomed to doing with those she has come to care for, here. There is no need for professional boundaries or distance, here... ]

I don't know if it's helpless, if I speak honestly... But I can't help but continue to feel that it must be so heartbreaking...

You may be a different person than you were when your arrangement with this witch began, Giselle, but I don't think that makes you any less deserving of love and happiness. And I think... That it's enough, to remember that you had that time with them. Even if those details have faded over time, your heart still remembers those feelings, doesn't it?

You don't have to know what "something else entirely" means right now, or perhaps not even anytime soon. We still have a long way's to go before we earn our wishes, it seems.

We can think about it together over time.

i uploaded this icon specifically for u

[fixtures]

[ I don't think that makes you any less deserving of love and happiness.

We can think about it together over time.

In the privacy of her room, tears spill over her cheeks before she realizes they're welling up, though not a sound escapes from her. When was the last time she cried? She can't remember anymore. What an odd feeling. It feels different than the other times she's felt close to ears in the past; her heart swells, instead of cracking, and she feels like getting closer rather than running away.

Somehow, Sumina was able to say exactly what her heart has yearned to hear for so many ages — able to comfort her in a way she didn't know she needed anymore. She sniffles, reading those words over and over again, trying to convince herself that they're true. That even like this, falling so far as she has, she could still be a lovable Giselle. And that Sumina will be by her side for some time to come. She has to believe that will be true. She couldn't bear it if it weren't true. ]

Thank you, for saying that.
You do not know how much that means to me...
How much you mean to me...

[ Giselle is typing... ]

I will pray... that we may do just as you say.
"Think about it over time."
And I will hope that fate does not pull us apart.

[ Because that's what always happens in the end to her: soon as she closes her hands around happiness or someone she can rely on, it all seems to vanish into tragedy in the blink of an eye. The truth is, admitting that she's attached to her is frightening, because it is opening herself up to (what feels like) the inevitable pain of being ripped apart. It's why when she arrived here, she'd been cold and impersonal, mysterious. All to avoid the potential of that pain. But, right now... she wouldn't trade anything for those words that came from Sumina's heart. ]

If you might rely on me the same way...
It would soothe my spirit.
Please.

(sobbing uncontrollably) thank you

[airdnd]

[ Oh, how Giselle's message lances through Sumina's heart - but it's not the same sort of anguish she'd felt upon learning of her dear friend's past. It's... something warmer, and brighter than that. It's hope. For Giselle's future, that she may be free of her twisted fate, and find her own peace. ]

Thank you, too, Giselle. For being here.
I'm so very happy to have met you.

I don't intend to leave this place without a wish, but even if I do, I'm better for having made friends here whom I will treasure even after I've gone.

[ How wonderful is it, that she's been given this chance... Sumina might have never learned, otherwise, what it's like to be cherished as the person that she is, and not just what she can offer through her occupation. ]

But for now, let's both look forward to the future together...