Quest 074
[A girl named Dorothy realized, once upon a time, that there’s no place like home. A girl named Rosella has pretty much known that all along-and after failures and letdowns, mistakes and tragedies, there’s really nothing more she wants to do than to just go home and be with her family where it’s safe and happy and fine. No evil wizards. No dragons. No witches, no regrets, none of that at all. Just herself, and all the people she cares about, and the homeland she loves and misses so much.
There really is no place like home. And sometimes, when you live in a place like the City, your dreams really do come true.]
It’s a beautiful place, the land of Daventry. At least, it is the way that Rosella’s dreaming of it. The land she left behind when she came to the City was one of scorched earth and great crevasses in the ground, ravaged and battered by a three-headed dragon. This is not the Daventry she left behind; this is the home she remembers from all her happy years of childhood, with green fields and blue lakes, climbing trees and flower gardens. The sky is perpetually blue with only the occasional cloud (unless you’re in the Land of the Clouds, of course, which is another thing entirely), the sun is shining merrily, and it’s exactly the right temperature to be outside-a warm, pleasant, beautiful spring day.
And it’s all here; places like the castle are dreamed in near-perfect detail, from the alligator moat to the lion statutes flanking the doors to the pennants streaming from the towers, while others are a little more distant, a little more vague, and the blanks in her memory are filled in with whatever her dreams deem prettiest.
Castle Daventry bustles with life. King Graham is no longer unwell (or perhaps, in this dream, he was never ill in the first place), and so spirits are soaring high among all the castle’s inhabitants. In the throne room, the twin thrones sit proudly against one wall, while off to the side hangs Merlin’s Mirror, now clear after nearly eighteen years of being shrouded in clouds. The royal family themselves are around, and passerby might happen to catch a glimpse of them if they’re quick: King Graham is, in all likelihood, hanging about the kitchen hoping to snatch a taste of the pies being baked for the evening’s dessert; Queen Valanice is almost certainly in the library, poring over books or writing accounts of her own; and the newly-returned Prince Alexander is likely wandering the castle, familiarizing himself with his new home. Gerwain sits with the queen, working through a stack of papers of his own; and perhaps even Dagonet and old Ifnkovhgroghprm can be found hanging around somewhere, if one looks closely.
Beyond Castle Daventry lies Rosella’s favorite climbing tree, a little north and a little west of the castle itself. It’s quite an old, familiar sort of tree; it’s said that King Graham, back when he was still only a knight of the realm under King Edward, climbed that very same tree himself to retrieve a golden egg from a nest in its branches. There haven’t been any golden eggs in this tree for a very long time, though; still, it’s just the right size for a particularly determined child to climb, with just the right amount of low and sturdy branches, and a trunk with bark that’s easy to get fingerholds in. From a vantage point up inside the branches of the tree, many sights come into view: the castle gardens to the east, including a small patch set aside for Rosella’s own little garden of roses; the castle itself to the southeast; cool blue lakes to the southwest, northwest, and northeast; off in the distance to the west, the dim lines of a well; and to the north, a curious oddity-a door, set into the side of a mountain.
Upon closer inspection, one might find that the door in the mountain has a keyhole; a turn of its knob would reveal that it is unlocked. Venturing into the mountain yields a narrow cave of gray stone; the only remarkable part is the set of stone stairs leading upward into parts unknown. Though these stairs would, under normal circumstances, be quite perilous to climb, there’s nothing to fear from them in this dream-Rosella has more than had her fill of dangerous stone steps, and she’s not having any of them in her dreams. At the top of the stairs lies another cave of sorts, this one opening out into a bright, yet misty area-the Land of the Clouds.
The Land of the Clouds is, in all honesty, as treacherous as it is beautiful. Dream or not, it’s prudent to be careful where one steps when venturing around up here; Graham and Valanice always stressed that point to their daughter, and so her dreams are no exception. It is, however, reasonably easy to determine the safe parts from the unsafe ones; solid earth covered in green grass and a number of trees stretches forth from the mouth of the cave, and it is only around the edges that things begin to look a bit misty. Keep to the grassy areas and you’re certain to be safe; wander closer to the cloudier areas around the edges, and you’ll want to start exercising a little more caution about where you step. Rosella will never quite be able to eliminate her thoughts of fear and danger when dreaming of the Land of the Clouds, even though there’s no dragon in sight here-associating these sights with her own imminent doom will do that to a girl. So do be careful, please, since it’s a long way down.
[This is home: beautiful, wonderous, green and alive and bright. This is the place she’s wanted more than anything to return to, even for just a little while. And, as a matter of fact, she has; Rosella is here, too, seeing and reliving it all again-running to envelop her father in the tightest hug she can manage, lingering in the library with her mother, hunting down her brother for a smile and a wink. She’s climbing the high branches of her favorite tree, roaming the countryside, making her way to as many places as she can, one after another after another, because this is what she’s wanted for so long, and this may be the only chance she gets at it for a long time.
But as nice as being home is, she couldn’t be truly happy without all of her friends there-and so she’s glad (but not surprised) to see them turning up here, too.
Welcome home, Rosella and friends. There’s really no place like it, is there?]
[OOC: Not quite a dream sequence exactly, but that’s because the dream she’s having is very big and very sort of freeform. Pre-discussed visitors are free to land and wander around a little; maps of the respective areas can be found here for purposes of description. Also, pretty much everybody wanted Rosella to pop in and say hello, so unless otherwise specified, I’ll have her make her appearance after your initial comment to this post.
People who didn’t sign up to visit and hang out in the dream but want to peek anyway? Hit me up over here and we’ll discuss it!
Also, backdating is essentially a certainty on this one; new threads will be considered separate encounters unless otherwise noted. And long OOC note is long.]
There really is no place like home. And sometimes, when you live in a place like the City, your dreams really do come true.]
It’s a beautiful place, the land of Daventry. At least, it is the way that Rosella’s dreaming of it. The land she left behind when she came to the City was one of scorched earth and great crevasses in the ground, ravaged and battered by a three-headed dragon. This is not the Daventry she left behind; this is the home she remembers from all her happy years of childhood, with green fields and blue lakes, climbing trees and flower gardens. The sky is perpetually blue with only the occasional cloud (unless you’re in the Land of the Clouds, of course, which is another thing entirely), the sun is shining merrily, and it’s exactly the right temperature to be outside-a warm, pleasant, beautiful spring day.
And it’s all here; places like the castle are dreamed in near-perfect detail, from the alligator moat to the lion statutes flanking the doors to the pennants streaming from the towers, while others are a little more distant, a little more vague, and the blanks in her memory are filled in with whatever her dreams deem prettiest.
Castle Daventry bustles with life. King Graham is no longer unwell (or perhaps, in this dream, he was never ill in the first place), and so spirits are soaring high among all the castle’s inhabitants. In the throne room, the twin thrones sit proudly against one wall, while off to the side hangs Merlin’s Mirror, now clear after nearly eighteen years of being shrouded in clouds. The royal family themselves are around, and passerby might happen to catch a glimpse of them if they’re quick: King Graham is, in all likelihood, hanging about the kitchen hoping to snatch a taste of the pies being baked for the evening’s dessert; Queen Valanice is almost certainly in the library, poring over books or writing accounts of her own; and the newly-returned Prince Alexander is likely wandering the castle, familiarizing himself with his new home. Gerwain sits with the queen, working through a stack of papers of his own; and perhaps even Dagonet and old Ifnkovhgroghprm can be found hanging around somewhere, if one looks closely.
Beyond Castle Daventry lies Rosella’s favorite climbing tree, a little north and a little west of the castle itself. It’s quite an old, familiar sort of tree; it’s said that King Graham, back when he was still only a knight of the realm under King Edward, climbed that very same tree himself to retrieve a golden egg from a nest in its branches. There haven’t been any golden eggs in this tree for a very long time, though; still, it’s just the right size for a particularly determined child to climb, with just the right amount of low and sturdy branches, and a trunk with bark that’s easy to get fingerholds in. From a vantage point up inside the branches of the tree, many sights come into view: the castle gardens to the east, including a small patch set aside for Rosella’s own little garden of roses; the castle itself to the southeast; cool blue lakes to the southwest, northwest, and northeast; off in the distance to the west, the dim lines of a well; and to the north, a curious oddity-a door, set into the side of a mountain.
Upon closer inspection, one might find that the door in the mountain has a keyhole; a turn of its knob would reveal that it is unlocked. Venturing into the mountain yields a narrow cave of gray stone; the only remarkable part is the set of stone stairs leading upward into parts unknown. Though these stairs would, under normal circumstances, be quite perilous to climb, there’s nothing to fear from them in this dream-Rosella has more than had her fill of dangerous stone steps, and she’s not having any of them in her dreams. At the top of the stairs lies another cave of sorts, this one opening out into a bright, yet misty area-the Land of the Clouds.
The Land of the Clouds is, in all honesty, as treacherous as it is beautiful. Dream or not, it’s prudent to be careful where one steps when venturing around up here; Graham and Valanice always stressed that point to their daughter, and so her dreams are no exception. It is, however, reasonably easy to determine the safe parts from the unsafe ones; solid earth covered in green grass and a number of trees stretches forth from the mouth of the cave, and it is only around the edges that things begin to look a bit misty. Keep to the grassy areas and you’re certain to be safe; wander closer to the cloudier areas around the edges, and you’ll want to start exercising a little more caution about where you step. Rosella will never quite be able to eliminate her thoughts of fear and danger when dreaming of the Land of the Clouds, even though there’s no dragon in sight here-associating these sights with her own imminent doom will do that to a girl. So do be careful, please, since it’s a long way down.
[This is home: beautiful, wonderous, green and alive and bright. This is the place she’s wanted more than anything to return to, even for just a little while. And, as a matter of fact, she has; Rosella is here, too, seeing and reliving it all again-running to envelop her father in the tightest hug she can manage, lingering in the library with her mother, hunting down her brother for a smile and a wink. She’s climbing the high branches of her favorite tree, roaming the countryside, making her way to as many places as she can, one after another after another, because this is what she’s wanted for so long, and this may be the only chance she gets at it for a long time.
But as nice as being home is, she couldn’t be truly happy without all of her friends there-and so she’s glad (but not surprised) to see them turning up here, too.
Welcome home, Rosella and friends. There’s really no place like it, is there?]
[OOC: Not quite a dream sequence exactly, but that’s because the dream she’s having is very big and very sort of freeform. Pre-discussed visitors are free to land and wander around a little; maps of the respective areas can be found here for purposes of description. Also, pretty much everybody wanted Rosella to pop in and say hello, so unless otherwise specified, I’ll have her make her appearance after your initial comment to this post.
People who didn’t sign up to visit and hang out in the dream but want to peek anyway? Hit me up over here and we’ll discuss it!
Also, backdating is essentially a certainty on this one; new threads will be considered separate encounters unless otherwise noted. And long OOC note is long.]