this is Salem, a land filled with magic and maladies. It is a place where witches and their elemental familiars gather, a home to legend and
lore that predates time itself. Yet of all the wicked and wonderful stories the past can tell us of, the most magical are the ones yet to happen.
This is Salem - this is the start of your very own journey. Welcome to starfall
Starfall is an animaga witch roleplay set in mostly modern times. Members play as witches in a world plagued by monsters, where the only safe spots are walled cities. Starfall strives to be a character-driven roleplay with expansive lore and a highly interactive plotline. We want to allow members to
create and look back on a magical journey, and mold the site and its plot as their characters grow.
Simply waking up caused his brain to pound against his skull and the light filtering through the door to cut at the back of his eyes. Desmond regretted it immediately, but couldn't return to unconciousness no matter how deeply he buried himself within the shadows of covers.
His memories from the night before returned slowly and unbidden, in a slur of distant fragments. He had woken up somewhere in the middle of the night. Cold. Familiar. Years ago, he had passed out here once from a combination of blood loss and exhaustion, but he hadn't woken up there at that time. The first time, he had been taken somewhere else. Warm. Foreign. (She became familiar, with time.)
Last night, though, he had been left alone.
She couldn't have helped him up this time, naturally. She wasn't part of this world anymore. And, even if she had been, he wasn't sure she would waste her time on him again.
The seer sunk deeper into the covers.
He remembered stumbling back, vaguely. But... wait... that hadn't been the direction to Tay's place, was it? And falling asleep in this bed... hadn't that happened before waking up outside? These questions shot lightning through his skull and only served to frustrate him, so Des didn't think on them for very long.
Unfortunately, though, bound by basic human necessity, Des knew he couldn't stay in this bed forever. And so he rises. His preparation for the day only involves relieving himself and putting on vaguely presentable attire, thus leaving the rest of him in a state of unkempt dishevelment. With no intent to accomplish anything productive, Des, a blanket, and a cup of tea situate themselves on one side of Tay's couch.
"Did I... go out last night?" he asks the other Silvertongue, in much the same tone as when he asks whether something is real or a vision.
taylan sleeps fitfully that night, as seems to be the norm recently, and he thinks that maybe the world is turning a little grey once more. he probably just misses ignacio, just as he misses his daughter, and it’s a feeling that sticks to the inside of his throat no matter how much he drinks. the worst of it is past, though, and this is something that will pass. come dawn, he’ll have gotten over it, the price of past follies seen only in another empty wine bottle under his bed.
he’s gotten better at it over the years, after all.
waking up that day takes a little longer than he’d like, but it is hardly as if taylan is in any rush. at least this time, he wakes with full memory of the night before, content in his knowledge that it had been without any midnight wanderings. he’s not sure he can say the same about his housemate though -- tenant? friend? odd old acquaintance from years past who is now somehow staying in his house? -- having wakened some time before dawn by the sound of desmond stumbling in.
there is a fresh pot of coffee on the countertop and french toast in the frying pan by the time taylan sees desmond, the seer presenting a question for a greeting. it’s an odd one.
“i guess? i heard you coming in this morning.” he motions towards the toast in a wordless offer. “what, were you drinking again?”
Desmond can feel the warmth of the stove and the smell the sweetness of the french toast as he emerges from the bedroom. Though not unwelcome by any means, he still couldn't quite wrap his head around Tay's boundless kindness. It was wasted on the likes of the freeloading seer, and Tay had known him for long enough to be keenly aware of this. And yet, for some reason which was wholly beyond Des' comprehension, Tay still hadn't even tried kicking him out.,
He had no reason to doubt the plantshaper's witness account. So it must have been real... but then why did his recollection feel wrong? Why had he gone to that place, even if inebriated? Though it was technically where his future wife met him for the first time, he didn't see her until he woke up, and didn't associate that place with her. How had he gotten there in the first place?
Desmond met Tay's question, at first, with furrowed brows and a ponderous silence. He accepts the french toast before returning to his seat on the couch, but does little more than poke at it with a fork.
"Not more than usual," he answers finally, not mentioning that the blackouts would make that statement difficult to validate, "though I haven't been sleeping right for a while. It's almost like when I used to get divining dreams, but this isn't the same." He couldn't deny the similarities, though: gaps where there should have been memories, memories where there should have been none, and the sensation that there was some kind of underlying motive... that he was being pushed around like a pawn. That thought earned the toast a particularly forceful stab.
he waits patiently for an answer, fetching his own plate of french toast and taking a seat opposite desmond. the silence is interrupted only by iris, who fades into existence with a cheery wave of her tail in greeting before pushing her way out to the flower shop proper, likely getting started on the daily task of watering the plants. clearly, she thinks the conversation will take a while. whatever brings her to that conclusion, taylan has no idea.
the clink of metal against ceramic earns a quizzical look. was there too much egg in the french toast? too little? “you and me both, then,” he responds off-handedly, “minus the entire divining part.” he doesn’t elaborate on it, neither wanting to detract from the more pressing matter of a seer getting odd dreams, nor wanting to explore the matter of himself waking up in a place he’d rather not be. his dreams have always been odd things, part memory and part fiction, and completely something to be disregarded as the byproduct of an overactive imagination.
it had been an odd incident, though: waking up in the streets lit only by flickering fluorescent street lamps, a snapshot of some years prior when he had kneeled on cold stone streets with his hands stained scarlet. if he tries now, he recalls it only through a fog, remembers vaguely the long walk back to the flower shop. doesn't remember coming in, per se, but remembers waking up again some time later within his own room. it troubles him, and for that, he tries to pretend it never happened.
nevermind if the dream -- or not dream, he still hasn’t made up his mind -- coincides with a troubling episode of sleepwalking. he has never really had a sleepwalking problem before, and makes a mental note to look into various herbal remedies.
he turns his attention back to desmond. “what do you think it is, then?”
The seer offers a nod of acknowledgement towards Iris. Though they hadn't spoken with each other extensively, she seemed to be a capable familiar, which was something Des could respect.
Taylan's statement was met with a soft, musing hum. Desmond was too tired to be playing detective, and too hungover to be fully following the conversation. He immediately caught the tone implying unimportance, but not the meaning behind the words (which was notably more important than the tone implied). He lets the words pass without reply.
The seer finally cuts into his breakfast with the side of his fork and takes a bite, offering no thanks or compliments to the host who'd offered it to him. He does seem to listen to Tay's question, his eyes staying steadily on the other Silvertongue, but, rather than offering an immediate answer, he takes another bite of toast. Taylan was really an underrated chef.
The florist's earlier words were just now starting to be processed by the seer's groggy mind. Then, maybe that was the reason... Though it offered more questions than answers. Desmond hated those types of answers.
The seer twirls the French toast around his plate, eyeing it lazily. "Have you been sleeping longer? And waking up as if you hadn't slept at all? Have you woken up someplace where you hadn't gone to sleep?" the seer asks as if it were both a question and an answer, and not truly expecting Tay to reply to each question individually, "And were you in Sundial on the night when dozens of witches died in the midst of shared nightmares?"
there’s no further comment on the toast, no potential feedback on the egg-to-cinnamon ratio ( recipe of which is on one of the colourful notes stuck to the kitchen backsplash, copied out from various cookbooks over the years ), so he figures that there’s nothing wrong with his cooking today and takes a bite for himself. it tastes like french toast. good enough, he supposes.
the combination of hot breakfast food and fresh coffee is, frankly, heavenly after a poor night’s rest. taylan is content to leave the conversation at that and simply go on about his day, fueled by caffeine and stubbornness, but apparently his housemate has a different idea.
he looks up with a notable shift in attention, his gaze more focus, brows drawn together in a mild frown; as desmond rattles off the questions, he patiently lifts one finger at a time as though counting them.
a pause.
he considers: how much does he need desmond to know? how much does he want desmond to know?
taylan counts the questions down as he answers them, head tilted quizzically to a side. “yes, yes, and--” he hesitates, the still-fresh memory unsavory. “yes. i believe i was, so yes to that too.” questions answered, he lowers his hand, cuts himself another bite of french toast, and chews thoughtfully.
"It's just a feeling," he says, taking another bite of French toast before offering an explanation.
From what he could tell, this was only happening to people in Sundial, and only while they were in the city. The seer had visited Mirrorlight Metropolis not too long ago for business, and experienced no such sleep disturbances. But, while he was here, it just kept getting worse ever since that deadly shared dream. Unfortunately, he wasn't aware of many types of magic which could affect a whole city for such a long sustained amount of time.
"It feels like a curse on the city," he finally says, "And that the first shared dream was just a symptom of something worse." Whatever these sleep anomalies were, they had been building -- not for everyone, but enough for Desmond to notice. He didn't know when its grand finale would unfold, or what that finale would entail, but he was fairly sure something big was coming.
He was even more sure that he did not want to deal with it.
His eyes squeeze shut for a moment and the base of his thumb presses up against the center of his forehead as a wave of pain from his headache hits his skull. Thank the fates he didn't have anything important to do today. His eyes blink open slowly and with a quiet groan, but he soon resumes his breakfast, apparently not feeling the need to elaborate any further on the subject of strange sleep.
