TANABATA ⟶ July Sanctuary Log

[likethelight]

 

Sanctuary - TANABATA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"SEE YOU AGAIN, MOM"

The "star festival", celebrating the one time of the year when star-crossed lovers could cross over a sea of stars to meet again. One based on hopes, wishes, and the fervent desire to see each other again. Following the departure of Amaterasu back to the sea, wolf momgod of all who is responsible for the Guardian Saplings including the one Sanctuary has been founded around, Sanctuary is hosting the best approximation to a Tanabata celebration as the Trench will allow. Why? Because hope keeps the trees alive and strong, and Tanabata is about people having hope -- and would have been happening around the same time.

And because people miss dogmom and she would have liked it.

The festival is taking place at Sanctuary, but all Guardian Saplings can be paid visits. Paper for wishes and decorations have been set up at each/given to the other caretakers.

A Sea of Stars
The main hall has been transformed into a living night sky, with jars of hope from the moonlit butterflies back in April hung with care high up, each repacked with a single orb of hope per small vial with care, creating a river of starlike glowing lights overhead. The windows have been covered to aid with the nighttime effect, in addition to helping to keep out the light of the Beast Moon after dark. The gentle glow, as they are literally the tactile hopes and dreams of people, provides a small purifying, uplifting effect to everyone underneath. The light ebbs and flows calmly. The hall is cool as well, thanks to the pale/cold bloodstone cooling system that glows like moonstone along the walls and keeps the indoor areas regulated.

In the evening, as the sun sets, the new choir bell will ring out as well, cleansing corruption entirely from all who hear it. The lights gently pulse in time with it.

Wishes and the Guardian Sapling
The sapling is no longer in bloom, but despite the sweltering heat in full glory. Paper wishes are hung in its branches, along with origami streamers in colorful paper of cranes and other shapes. A bustle of activity is in the cloisters around it in particular, with most tables set up there to keep the courtyard itself clear. Origami streamers are hung in all the doorways leading out to it as well, creating the effect of string curtains, and there are paper lanterns as well.

A life-size stone statue of a wolf bearing a striking resemblance to Amaterasu has been erected next to the sapling, with her most radiantly happy canine expression she could sometimes get. There is room to place offerings for her, and people are encouraged that she would like "all the foods."

Colorful strips of paper (tanzaku) have been cut and placed out on a table in the cloisters surrounding the courtyard, where one can write their wishes for the next year down on them and hang them on the guardian sapling. They come in the following colors with a helpful, but... somewhat hard to read note with arcane handwritten note:

Red will help with wishes relating to ancestors and family, and giving thanks.
Yellow is the color of friendship and is the best choice for wishes about relationships.
White is the color for determination and responsibility, and for making personal resolutions.
Blue represents tranquility and trust and will aid wishes aimed at self-improvement.
Purple is the color to choose if you want to improve your brainpower and skills.

Food and Activities
Following all of the best creative recreation methods available to them in Trench, the cooks in the kitchens have been trained by Megumi Fushiguro, among others, on how to best serve culturally appropriate dishes. These foods are served free at little vendor booths in the main hall (with people encouraged to help out and help serve!) and include pawprint mochi (the inside is either chocolate or strawberry), pickled sakura mochi, mitarashi and tricolor dango, chilled somen with a yuzu-soy dipping sauce, various types of filled onigiri, and cut watermelon in a variety of shapes including stars, sunbursts, and pawprints. Many have been made with small amounts of the Paleblood jam from June and have mild corruption cleansing effects as well. Various kinds of tea made from the dried or pickled cherry blossoms and/or leaves of the guardian sapling are being served as well, and they have a corruption-cleansing effect and have been noted as tasting "heavenly". Some of the jams have been cut with fruit juice/lemonade and frozen into popsicles as well... you're welcome, CorruptionPops are now a thing.

Various demonstration and activity tables have been set up including origami, with... questionably penned instructions from Palamedes in an arcane style for several shapes including cranes, sunbursts, stars, and wolves. Various Sleepers familiar with the practice have also been encouraged to set up there and help teach people how, and everyone is encouraged to hang their completed crafts in the guardian sapling. Most of the paper is red, white, pink, and gold. Paper lanterns have been made as well and light up various parts of the whole festivities.

A few vendor booths are set up, including one "selling" white yukata, trimmed in red and gold and bearing a distinctive star pattern on the back of it and intricate embroidery. Most Sanctuary members would receive one for free if they expressed interest, and anyone else can receive one for volunteering their time and helping out. People are encouraged to wear them for the celebration if they didn't have their own; these are styled in honor of Amaterasu.

Koz Orphanage has been specially invited as well, and children from it can be found running around during much of the event and given various activities to do or items to play with.

Sparklers are available for individuals as well, also courtesy of Viktor. Perhaps there might even be glowsticks from someone... :)

Fireworks and Closing Celebrations
On the final night, all the wishes will be gathered from the trees and collected in a ceremonial firepit. The wishes are burnt in order to release them to the heavens to be heard—and perhaps by Amaterasu still at sea—and will be ignited by several Sleepers with fire abilities (Shouto Todoroki, Megumi Fushiguro).

As they're burnt a fireworks display will begin overhead, launched from the steeple up high, courtesy of Viktor and anyone else assisting him in the matter. Anyone outside watching them in the courtyard will have the effects of the Beast Moon diminished by the blessing in effect from Moon Presence. The choir bell will toll a final time at the end, to clear the effects of any lingering corruption, and signal an end to the festivities.

WHAT

Sanctuary is about humane beast purification efforts and corruption relief. Renovations began in May 2022 and room clearing and rebuilding is still in progress. Beast patrol efforts and purification started more in earnest in June-July.

All roles are volunteer on an as-you-can basis up to full time, with time reimbursed by food, shelter, care, and community support. And because it's run by people who BLEED SENTIMENTALITY EVERYWHERE in addition to being founded on discovery of a Guardian Sapling, it's hosting a Tanabata celebration in conjunction with honoring the memory of Amaterasu.

WHEN

Starting July 7, ending after a few days in a final celebration and ceremonial burning of the wishes.

THINGS OF NOTE

Tanabata
➢ Please feel free to presume your character could have helped out with setup if they have any ties to Sanctuary or characters here! If they would provide a food, service, or game they are free to have a table set up.

➢ This event is open to the whole of Trench and would have been freely advertised as such, including as a safe place to treat effects from the Beast Moon and corruption.

General / Member Update
➢ Sanctuary has been blessed by Moon Presence for the month of July, thanks to the efforts of Luna and Sansa. All negative effects of July and the Beast Moon are lessened within its walls, and anyone meaning Sanctuary or the people in it will be physically repelled. Lunar flowers have begun growing up the sides of the monastery in earnest like morning glories as a result.

➢ as of June, coordinated efforts to patrol Trench on their own and save Beasts and people both have begun. Members will be on a group chat in order to coordinate with each other and reach out to purification Sleepers when encountering Beasts. Everyone is encouraged to work in teams, especially to partner with someone who can purify Beasts or corruption.

➢ a training facility has opened up, with currently self-defense hand-to-hand combat classes being taught by Jason and others willing to train others encouraged to come forward. Fighters on patrol and wardens will be contacted to let them know about open sparring times so members can coordinate better in fights. There is an indoor room with training dummies (that fight back courtesy of Viktor) that opens up into an outdoor space between two of the long halls that can also be used.

➢ with the hidden archives now unlocked, scholarly members of Sanctuary are encouraged to help study them and uncover other artifacts—and especially the strange new locked door discovered within.

➢ there is a family of batcat kittens old enough to be crawling everywhere throughout the building now. They might still be learning manners and latch onto you in an overexcitement to taste your blood from time to time.

➢ the large communal baths have been cleared out and renovated, thank god. They run on being open to male-identifying characters for one set of hours, female-identifying for another, and the rest of the time operate on "nobody cares". Privacy screens are hung between the tubs though—one side is regularly cooled down with ice for the hot months.

➢ with more people needing safe harbor during the Beast Moon and rising violence from natives during July, more actual rooms have been cleared out and are free to use for anyone who will also help work to maintain the place (chores, grounds keeping, etc.). There are always spare beds in the infirmary wing as well.

➢ members who patrol or purify beasts/fight in some way now have access to various relic items that have been donated for use for when they are actively on patrol. These will eventually be tracked in the member spreadsheet... eventually. Just give them back when you're done.

➢ Viktor and K's efforts have resulted in the lunar generator coming online and bringing lunar lighting and cooling throughout the building via a cold-pale bloodstone network. Rejoice!

➢ There is now a small, hidden stash of coffee bartered from Dabi. Someone might have to pry it from Viktor's jittery fingers.

 

This log is WIDE OPEN for Tanabata festivities and serves as the general log for Sanctuary for the month. Go wild and do whatever you want, have fun with your top levels, etc. :)

Comments

[manyone]

[ They can be privately awful together, maybe. Two people who did real questionable stuff for very questionable reasons.

Strange how they might be able to understand each other better than others, in a way. Beatrice smiles at Break. There is something in it, a little resigned. She's just the way she is through no fault of her own, isn't she? She was created to be this way and she can't be any other way, isn't that the truth? ]

Mm. It's what I have to be proud of. I'm a wicked, demonic Witch and that's just the way of it. Of course, there are Witches who don't do such things, but really...

[ Sigh. ]

Ah well! It's not terribly important now that I'm here. There's no need to be too concerned with it.

[ She turns her eyes back towards the food again, possibly considering taking some for herself. ]

It is nice and cool here. A break from how miserably hot it gets! I rather like it. It's a change from Rokkenjima...

[ Her gaze slides back to Break. ]

I don't suppose Ange-chan has told you about Rokkenjima, has she?

nevermind that content warning I rewrote the tag and forgot to delete it

[payingfordeliverance]

[Aha.

Break tucks this possible weak spot in the witch's armor into the back pocket of his mind where it can live with his other thoughts about all this, such as the question of why Beatrice has so far failed to inspire the same revulsion in him as the last weirdo he knew who got off on torture and emotional manipulation, and whether the nasty conversation Ange told him about was Beatrice being wicked at her after claiming she had no need or some attempt at finding her feet in the only way she knows how. These are things to consider later, as he gathers more information. For now, his smile turns a little tender and sad at the mention of Ange and her past, and Break does nothing to hide that. He's never bothered to conceal just where his affections lie. Sooner or later, everyone finds out they mess with Break's loved ones at their own risk.]

She has a little. Mm, but -- she was terribly young when she no longer had reason to visit the place, and...unfortunately, I suspect that recent events may have rather soured even her most wonderful memories of that time.

Re: nevermind that content warning I rewrote the tag and forgot to delete it

[manyone]

No... of course. You are correct.

[ It had only been a little while ago that she had seen a slide show of Ange's memories, conjured forth unwillingly by magic. She knew that Ange's childhood had been torn to shreds by Beatrice and that there was no fond memory of Rokkenjima. Only a black hole where Ange's family had gone to die. ]

It was a little island. No more than ten kilometers square, covered in forest for the most part. The only home I'd ever known.

[payingfordeliverance]

[And even more than all that, having her family finally returned to her here in Trench has been more bitter than anything else. She's had to watch these people who left her behind pick up with their own concerns right where they left off as though the murders were simply a blip in their day, confronting at last that twelve years have taken the six year old they all remember very far away, and the young woman in front of them is more a stranger who looks familiar than anything else.

He hasn't told her, not wanting to trod carelessly upon her grief. But truthfully, Break thinks that's a good thing. He hates that Ange is hurting for it, but if it helps her to move on at last, well. She's going to be getting a lot stronger in the next couple years, he's certain. But those are Ange's feelings and Break's thoughts on them, nothing he'd ever give to a witch who prides herself on being wicked to play with.]

A remote little place, then, and isolated. Exactly the sort of place where I'd expect an eccentric rich aristocrat might like to bring up his household. Mm. Even that gives me something to think about, but -- I wonder if Milady Witch loves Rokkenjima enough that she might be offended if I were to admit what has caught my attention.

[manyone]

Yes. Exactly that sort of place.

[ It is worse than Break knows, if he has not yet heard the tale of the original Beatrice and her daughter and what befell them. Beatrice shares Sayo's disgusted hatred of Kinzo and all that he did. A rage that extended to the rest of that family, though by now, after a thousand years and all her game boards, it had cooled to some extent. ]

Speak, please. You have my word that I'll visit nothing terrible upon you for honest words. I have affection for Rokkenjima, but it was also as much a prison as a home.

[payingfordeliverance]

Well, now I needn't say anything at all. "Prison" is exactly the word I was thinking of. [His smile turns a little dark.] Several of the kids from my own world were raised in that sort of isolation as well, in various forms. Even for the one who was truly beloved within her tiny world, and who chose her own captivity...it was a prison.

[Break is aware of Kinzo. Not because Ange let him know, but because Qrow did, after he got the information from Sayo in one of her drunken network fits and he turned right around to give the other local uncle this crucial information in their niece protection job. To put it crudely, Break would not piss on that man if he were on fire, which as we all know is a problem Kinzo sometimes has. On this, at least, they can all agree.]

To raise children in such a circumstance, perhaps especially children meant to be servants...no matter how you look at it, there's something of a cruelty inherent in that, right? Even in situations where such a thing is no one's fault or can't be helped, that cruelty is simply something that is.

cw: mentions of incest

[manyone]

The worst of it was that some raised there were not meant to be servants. Instead they were meant to inherit the Ushiromiya family, or in one case... one sad, unfortunate case, to replace a lost mother.

[ Beatrice would like to have him here so she can set him on fire, speak him back into life and do it all over again and again as long as she cares to do so. But such things aren't possible. ]

I was created there and it was the bounds of my realm. My entire world. Even if I was all-powerful there in the circumstances, I could not leave it. I was tied to it, inextricably. It was a place that drew everyone connected to it back, and then held them. The outside world would never learn the truth of Rokkenjima. Or the truth of Beatrice.

[payingfordeliverance]

[Outwardly, Break is calm, the only betrayal of how much he is thinking being the absent-minded dismantling of the rice ball he's now lost interest in. His omen, at his side as always, is similarly still, gazing out at the rest of the party.

Spiritually, Break is scribbling a lot of things in his mental notepad, like a big nerd.]

There's a young lady with a similar history, in my own world. She doesn't mind if I tell her story on her behalf from time to time, if you'd care to have it in exchange for your own.

[manyone]

Yes.

[ Beatrice inclines her head in a slight nod. ]

I'll hear this tragic tale, if you wish to tell it.

[payingfordeliverance]

Tragic? That may not be quite the right word. There's tragedy in it, to be certain, primarily the fault of thoughtless bastards with too much power. However, this story has a happy ending. You see, we were able to grant the wish of the young lady in question...and now, she lives here in Trench with me.

[Telling, that Beatrice would assume a story like her own must be "tragic" alone. Will she be vexed to hear of another girl getting a reprieve, or pleased that it's a possibility at all...?]

Then -- the first thing you should know is that, in my world, there's a dimension known as "the Abyss" that runs parallel to our own. The power within the Core of the Abyss can grant sentience, alter reality, warp human souls into monsters, that sort of business. [No big.] And, furthermore, in the Core is recorded every single one of the infinite possible timelines. I am told that, where you are from, such timelines are called "fragments".

[manyone]

Yes, that's correct. These other possibilities are called Fragments.

[ Beatrice is listening with an intent expression. Her pipe has appeared in her hand. She takes a light puff, smoke curling around her head as she waits for Break to continue. ]

Where does the girl come into it?

[payingfordeliverance]

The man who was meant to be the guardian of the Abyss and its power at the time got it into his head that it might be fun to give the Core a vessel of sorts, such that others could gain access to it. Don't ask me why; the stupid bastard may well have just been bored.

[Levi Baskerville is on the list of people he would invest a lot of time in hurling back into the sea if he ever showed up in Trench.]

To accomplish this, he saw to it that a ward of his who was meant to be thrown into the Abyss to die was with child when she went. To my knowledge, she was in on his plan, and agreed to it. What they did not anticipate was that the woman was carrying twins. One remained trapped in the Abyss and became its vessel, as they'd hoped. The other was spat back out into the human world. Their souls bound, the two were able to switch places as it suited them, but it was a small comfort to the Will of the Abyss. You see, they locked her sister's body in a tower on the grounds.

That might have been the end of it. Unfortunately, her presence in the tower gave the madman who had been obsessed with their mother access to them, and he thought it might be nice to send the world that woman loved down into the Abyss after her. He fed the Will a series of beautiful promises about taking her to see the rose gardens and such, the sorts of things precious to a lonely young girl well aware of her own prison. She believed him and granted him the power he asked for, allowing him to kick off the beginning of an apocalypse.

[manyone]

[ Beatrice listens, quiet and grim for once. This is important--if Break wants to tell her this story, he has a reason. Especially since he is a person who has no reason to love her, based on his stated attachment to Ange Ushiromiya. She listens and feels bitter anger in her throat, the bile of hatred towards this man she has never met. He reminds her too much of Kinzo Ushiromiya.

A man so selfish he forced a child on his own daughter because he could not stand to process his grief for the loss of the lover she so resembled. A man who trapped that girl in a secret mansion, isolated her from the world to hide her from the rest of his children and then tried to force the product of that union on his childless daughter-in-law. It's no plot to gain horrible power, but it is enough. ]

What a despicable, pathetic man.

[ Her voice quiet, serious. Unhappy. ]

cw: sacrificial suicide

[payingfordeliverance]

Just the one? Hah -- I failed to speak clearly, then, my apologies. The one who fathered the twins in the first place died some while after one of the sisters emerged, leaving everyone to suffer from the chaos he'd created. The madman who took advantage of things later was a different despicable, pathetic man entirely.

[They're like vermin, right? Find one and there's probably others nearby.]

Once it became clear that he'd betrayed them, the twin who could walk freely stole the power her sister had given and destroyed her own body to ensure that he couldn't gain access to the Will again. There was a great deal of other fuss going on at the time, but -- that would make the story much longer. Suffice it to say, that apocalypse was averted enough that only the capital city ended up as a crater, and the souls of everyone involved wound up floating around in various states of limbo for the next century. I bungled my way into the Abyss somewhere in the middle there. Not knowing anything at all, what I found was a wild, violent young lady with no control at all over herself or her emotions, driven mad with the power she carried...and, still waiting for that person to come and fetch her to see the roses.

Before I was pulled back into the human world again, she delivered her wish to me: to free her from her position as the Will of the Abyss, to save her. I carried that wish out with me and spent the next fifteen years learning all I could, seeing to it that all the players we needed were where they ought to be on the gameboard, if you will. I died before I was able to see the ending, but we came to understand that the way to free her was to kill her, and the way to do that was with the world-ending power she'd created a century previous. The boy who wound up wielding that power is here with me too, as is her sister. I'm told that...she died smiling and at peace, looking forward to the chance to have a real life, next time.

Re: cw: sacrificial suicide

[manyone]

Disgusting.

[ Beatrice clarifies her comments by adding a bit of hate for the father of the twins as well as the manipulative madman. She remains quiet as the rest of the storyh is told, her gaze focused on Break as he lays out what happened.

Still waiting for that person to come and fetch her to see the roses, Break says and Beatrice can feel her heart twist in her chest. She had waited a thousand years for a boy to come back on his white horse, like he'd promised--and he never had. Of course she understands this girl she has never met. How can she not? The pain of waiting, and waiting, and waiting, full of hope that slowly turns to bitterness and anger and hate. She clenches a fist at her side and her eyes close. ]

How fortunate she was to have someone willing to do that for her.

[ All she had wanted to do was be acknowledged. Then she could have gone to the Golden Land and slept her eternal sleep, free of dreams and worry and pain forevermore.

Yet here she was. Living, not dreaming. It was all that she could do. She understands, though. It hurts to see something of herself so starkly laid out by someone else. ]

Thank you. Though she isn't here to say it, I'll say it for her, as a girl who knew that pain as she did.

[ Her gaze turns away from Break, thoughtful and distant. ]

All of you did her a great kindness.

[payingfordeliverance]

Hah. You know, Miss Sayo said exactly that, when I told her of all this?

[Of course it makes fine sense to be pleased at a happy ending, but the both of them feeling a need to thank him on Alice's behalf is honestly pretty funny.]

However, there's no need. Miss Alice is here, you see. As I seem to be becoming everybody's uncle somehow, in this place, she is another of my precious nieces. It pleases her when her story is told, because -- for her, Trench is a blessing. She likes it to be known that regardless of the circumstances of her birth and the life she was trapped in before, in this world, she is simply a girl named Alice, and whatever she gets up to is what suits her and her alone.

[Probably Beatrice gets what Break is getting at here. To have wreaked such havoc on so many people, she cannot possibly be stupid, and Break is not being even remotely subtle.]

I'll be certain to pass along your regards all the same.

[You know, when he gives her the latest updates on all the juicy deets, since she's one of the primary people he shares gossip with around here.]

[manyone]

Both she and I have long experience of suffering and what it does to a person. Especially me. I waited a thousand years and hope turned to bitterness and hate.

[ It tasted like ashes in her mouth, when she had finally stopped hoping for that prince on a white horse. ]

I'm glad for her. I'm glad she's happy here. I'm glad she gets to be simply a girl.

[ She closes her eyes. Break is being as subtle as a gunshot and she knows what he's trying to tell her. Even if he's invariably set against her because of his fondness for Ange, there's something welcome in the way he tries to help her. Tells her that this place is a second chance. ]

If I can be simply Beatrice here, it will be something new at the very least. I think I'll try it, maybe.

[ But she'll always be a Witch, and that is the truth as far as she's concerned. ]

[payingfordeliverance]

Mm. To know your own priorities, and choose your own path -- that's always what's best.

[Obviously it would please Break very much if Beato's ultimate decisions on just what she will make of herself here in Trench skew more benevolent than not, even if she cackles wickedly the whole way through. Or, she may go the other way, and decide what she really wants is to be as unabashedly evil as Trench allows. Maybe that is where she gets her jollies, and there's nothing to be done about it.

But if she does go the latter route, Break will hate her substantially less for it than he would if she remained little more than a manifestation of Sayo's personal revenge fantasies. He deluded himself into thinking his own murders were on behalf of loved ones, back in the day, and seeing others declare their own crimes to be "for someone else's sake" has been a major pet peeve of his ever since. Beatrice may have initially existed to fill a role, but she's here now moving about freely as her own person. If it's her decision just who that person will be, everyone's feelings about her can be truly honest too, whatever they are.]

Then, that's enough heavy talk for such a pleasant festival, wouldn't you say?

[manyone]

Yes, it is! The question becomes what those priorities are to be in a place such as this, don't you think?

[ Something that has been on Beatrice's mind when not completely oppressed by supernaturally induced despair or anger, really. She faces a new world where she can leave behind the things that bound her to revenge, to anger, to bitterness.

What sort of person is the Beatrice who does not have those weights tied to her ankles? ]

I think you're very right, Mister Break. Tell me, have you made a wish?

[payingfordeliverance]

Mm, I've made one. In a place as cruel as this one, it's important to find a bit of hope to hold close, I think.

[Break's history with wishes gone wrong is long and unhappy, but he managed to die with a prayer in his heart all the same. He understands, now, how to go about such things properly.]

I am fortunate in that, when I washed up here, some of my brats from home were at my side right away. That made it easy to find my reason to keep going back then, and -- makes it easy to find wishes, now.

[manyone]

Hope is the most fleeting of things. Difficult to hold onto, when things are grim.

[ Beatrice smiles at that, her eyes focused on the tree and the branches dotted with paper wishes. ]

I'm happy for you, Mister Break. Really. Having someone next to you when you arrive must make things much... much different.

[ She'd had Sayo. It was a bit different, though, wasn't it? ]

[payingfordeliverance]

Mm. To have them around has been a great comfort to me, this past year.

[Spoken as though he hasn't spent every single day of that year pining in the back of his heart for the direct family he lost when he died, because virtually none of the many people from his own world who have shown up in this place are actually his.]

Even if this weary old soul of mine can't always take all the noise.

[Spoken as though half that noise isn't Break's own damn fault, given that provoking people is his hobby and he's also developed a habit of bellowing songs from the musical princess movies he likes down the halls.]

[manyone]

The young are ever-eager to clamor at the old, isn't that so?

[ Kihihi. She laughs behind her hand, though she herself is supposed to be ancient, she's not sure she feels it most of the time. Not when so much of that time was spent waiting, pining, aching for anyone to acknowledge her. ]

Though I rather like having the company, usually.

[payingfordeliverance]

[Cute. That's a cute sentiment, given that Beatrice absolutely reads as around the same age as one of Break's elder brats, in what little interaction they've had so far.

...he thinks to himself oldly, being the decidedly ancient age of forty himself, which is like a hundred and twelve in Break years.]

Hoh? And what sort of company did Milady Witch keep in the past? Of course, most of what I know of the story in your world comes from Miss Ange.

[...so, you know, biased as all hell. And Break is a nosy person.]

[manyone]

In the past it was mostly my furniture. Ronove, Gaap, the Sisters... they were always nice to have around, and not just for their usefulness...

[ A smile, warm and fond. ]

Maria. My fellow Witch. The co-founder of Mariage Sorciere. She was such an earnest and real believer in magic. The truest Witch I have ever met.

[ Her heart aches at the thought of her friend. ]

I hope she is happy, where ever she is.