A TRAIN COMES INTO THE STATION.
You wake up on a train.
Your phone is buzzing. It's in your pocket, in your hand, on the seat next to you. It's a normal phone, and you're on a normal train car. One of the lights flickers, a little further down. The world is very quiet. It feels like you're right where you're meant to be. On the phone's surface is a white screen and the words—
WELCOME TO THE CITY. BEGIN ORIENTATION?
▶ NO
Please take a moment to complete your orientation.
Once you're finished, the subway doors slide open to let you out onto the train platform. To your right, the platform continues on and eventually ends; to the left is a set of stairs that will lead you up into the station itself. The platform is quiet, clean, empty–there's no one else around, and the only sounds you can hear are your own footsteps, your own breaths, and the occasional faraway sound of a creaking pipe or rush of air. The train you disembarked will stay there as long as you do, its doors still open, until you finally decide to venture up into this new locale.
As you make your way up the stairs to your left, you find yourself in the belly of City Hall station. The station is large, a sprawling underground mini-metropolis of corridors and storefronts. Here, you may find others like you, freshly-arrived city residents from other realms (or even your own). There is also a subway map, which will give you an idea of the layout of the neighborhood, and ticketing machines, which can currently only be used to buy tickets to a handful of stations located on lines 1, 2, and 9.
If you're hungry or in need of any kind of supplies, there are plenty of storefronts inside the subway station as well—snack stands, convenience stores, restaurants, clothing stores, a pharmacy, and a variety of empty shops that may or may not have ever been in use. Everything is unlocked, and you can take whatever you need.
Characters may stay on the train platform indefinitely, and may re-board and re-disembark from the subway as many times as they like, but the train will not depart nor will the doors close. Once they go up the stairs into the train station, they may hear the train doors closing and the train departing. Another train will not arrive, no matter how long the character waits. Only once they come up the stairs into the station itself may characters encounter their fellow newly-arrived residents and take advantage of what the city has to offer.
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WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD.
The station is located in the city center. It has three major exits that lead to areas of interest in the district, but there are several other smaller exits that lead in other directions around the neighborhood. You are welcome to use any of them, but may find the north, southwest, and east exits to be the most welcoming.
TO THE NORTH
The northern entrance to the station leads up into the sunlight and puts you out in a brickwork plaza. There's a modest building in front of you, three or four stories of stone with a welcoming facade. There's a sign above the entryway–it says City Hall. You may be tempted to explore, if you're interested in learning more about the city and how it functions, but prepare to find yourself disappointed–the folders in the records rooms are full of empty, blank sheets of paper, and the logbooks and balance sheets are similarly devoid of information.
Immediately to the west of City Hall, you will find a small building that houses the tourist information kiosk. The kiosk is not currently operational, but you may want to remember its location...
TO THE SOUTHWEST
The western exit of the station takes you up into a city park, lush and green with a very light fog still hanging about the trees. There are lampposts on the walkways and benches where you could rest, and plenty of flora, although you can neither see nor hear any signs of animal life. You walk the paths that meander idly through the verdant grass and you feel a sense of peace, some of your unease about this place easing into a pleasant calm. The air smells fresh, like it's recently rained, and you'll find the grass ever so slightly damp should you decide to take a seat.
As you make your way deeper into the park, the trees grow denser and the smell of soil and plant life grows stronger. This is the older part of the park, very nearly a forest, with ivy climbing the trunks of the trees and plants and shrubs growing riotously around their bases. As you turn a corner, you find yourself first in the statue garden, although the statues are harder to see now, choked as they are with ivy. There are many statues, some partially obscured, some fully–very few of them still stand free of the vines and clinging roots. (It doesn't feel quite as peaceful here.) If a statue's face looks a little bit familiar, you may not want to look at it too long.
Continue down the path and you will find yourself in a graveyard, one that seems centuries old. Most of the headstones are worn away by time and covered in moss, rendering them impossible to read. The few that are free of moss are blank, or bear only suggestions of names too faint to be understood. (Was that the name of–no, it couldn't have been. Could it?) Many of the headstones stand at an angle or are toppled over completely, having been subjected to either strong winds or the roots of the trees that grow up from some of the graves, spreading branches toward the sky.
TO THE EAST
The final exit of the station, to the east, puts you out on a quiet surface street. Are you hungry? Or are you paralyzed by choice? There are plenty of restaurants, offering options of almost any food you can imagine. You could try a convenience store–it's well stocked, and the items there seem free for the taking. How about a restaurant? There's no one to take your order, but when you look in the kitchen, there's something on the stove, and it's just what you've been craving. Imagine that.
A few blocks down, you come in through the lobby of a tall building and find yourself in a corporate office. The fluorescent lights are steady and unforgiving, and the cubicles and offices are empty. There are a few pieces of paper on desks, a few folders left in organizers, but everything is perfectly blank. Despite how empty and quiet the office is, it nonetheless gives you the feeling that just a few minutes ago, this place was bustling with workers going about their daily business.
You enter another building and find yourself in the lobby of an apartment complex–finally, a place to rest. The first door you try opens easily into a completely empty living room, freshly vacuumed but without a single piece of furniture. It's a nice apartment, quiet, but with a little too much echo for your taste, maybe. Still, and perhaps oddly, you have no trouble envisioning what life here would be like.
The second door you open leads to an apartment that feels lived-in. Why does it feel lived-in? It's fully furnished with items that seem to go together perfectly, true, but the feeling is more than that–the room feels like someone was just here, maybe standing right in the kitchen only moments before you swung the door open. The air is a perfectly comfortable temperature, and it somehow smells like home despite that you've never once set foot here before. The refrigerator is stocked, and the cabinets are full of spices and flatware and kitchen utensils.
As you look around the living room, you find that there are pictures in frames on the walls and some of the flat surfaces–a seascape, a field, a shot of a city park bench. In each of the photos there's something just slightly wrong with the angle, as though the photographer were aiming for a subject that can no longer be seen.
Characters are welcome to explore the district around the City Hall subway station to their heart's content. The City Hall building itself contains several floors of offices and file rooms, but none of them contain any particularly interesting information. Nonetheless, characters may wish to team up with other newcomers and try to find some hints about the nature of the city. They can also spend a while in the park, the statue garden, or the graveyard. In the blocks surrounding the station there are plenty of options for food and housing, as well as office buildings, storefronts, and alleyways to look around. There are no workers in any of the buildings, and there does not seem to be an honor system for payment, nor any consequences for taking food from the stores or setting up camp in an apartment or office building.
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A WASH, ANYONE?
The coin laundromat is tucked into the first floor of one of the tall apartment buildings. Soap is complimentary, and while the machines say that they cost a quarter per load, in reality they are fully operational without any money being exchanged at all. If you have any clothes that need a wash, perhaps items that have been dirtied by your explorations (or your travels before arriving in the city), you may want to take this opportunity to wash them for free.
From the soap dispenser, you can retrieve packets of detergent in different strengths. There's plenty of stock of for mild to moderate grime and for heavy-duty stains, but there are also a handful of packets with slightly less obvious purposes. For things remembered, says one. For unhappy accidents, says another. Feel free to use whichever seems most suited to your needs.
When your laundry cycle has ended, the buzzer sounds and the door pops open so the clothing can be retrieved. You grab a laundry basket and reach in to start pulling fabric out of the machine by the handful. But wait a second–the more clothing you retrieve, the less familiar the items seem, and by the time you've retrieved the last bundled sock from the depths of the dryer you're absolutely positive: These clothes don't belong to you.
You're sure that you put your own clothing into the machine, but these are someone else's clothes entirely. Did someone sneak in while you weren't paying attention and swap out your laundry? Or did you accidentally open up the wrong dryer to retrieve the wrong load? Maybe you'd better look around at whoever else is in the laundromat with you and have a go at trying to find the owner of these clothes.
Whether the characters have had their clothing swapped or simply opened the wrong machine to grab someone else's laundry is up to the player's imagination, but one thing's for sure: you have someone else's clothes in your basket. Maybe these are clothes that belong to another character in the laundromat, or maybe they're garments that belong to someone that character knew back home. Players are encouraged to mess around with the premise and use it to get to know other characters!
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COME ONE, COME ALL...
Have you ever noticed that flickering sign hanging in the window of that little building around the corner from the parking lot? The one that says PSYCHIC READINGS in bold neon lettering?
You step inside the shop and immediately smell a powerful combination of aromas: herbs, candles, incense, something spicy and warm underneath. It's a small space, cluttered with objects. A crystal ball covered in velvet sits in the center of a table, and there are tarot card sets and drawers full of dried herbs and flowers. On the shelves are various remedies with labels printed so neatly it's impossible to tell whether they're typed or handwritten. Headaches, or hemophilia, and also irascibility and fits of sighing. There are also jars full of less easily-identifiable contents, but a close examination may show you frog legs, fish eyes, rat tails. For some reason, it feels like sticking your hand in one of these jars might not be the best idea.
Toward the back of the shop is a glass case that holds the bust of a woman. As you approach, your movement triggers a light inside the case to illuminate the woman's face–or where her face would be, if she had one. The normal human features of her face are smoothed out until they barely resemble a face at all, with slightly hollowed divots for eyes and a faintly raised bump for a nose. The closer you get, though, the more strongly you feel that despite the absence of eyes, the woman is indeed watching you.
The lettering at the top of the case states FORTUNE TELLER, and a sign affixed to the front of the glass says, Ask for anything, but be careful what you wish for.
You form a question in your mind, then ask your question out loud. The woman shifts, straightening up, and you hear the faint whirring of clockwork and pneumatics moving inside her. She gathers her hands in front of her, cupping them like she's holding water, and strange light emanates from her palms, casting harsh illumination on the blank space where her face should be. Although she has no mouth with which to speak, you nonetheless hear a vaguely female voice intone, "Your fate has been read."
A paper slip emerges from a slot in the front of the case, your freshly-printed fortune, the ink barely dry.
Although the crystal ball will not actually show the future, characters with any kind of herbal knowledge may clock that the herbs and remedies in the drawers and shelves of the shop are legitimate. Characters can ask anything they want of the fortune teller, or make as many wishes as they like. They'll get as many fortune slips as correspond to the number of questions they ask. Players are encouraged to come up with whatever vaguely-accurate fortunes you think work for your character, but if you're low on ideas, you can always try an online Magic 8 Ball or fortune cookie generator.
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WILDCARD.
The city is by no means small, and there are plenty of things for you to see. There's no rush in exploring, so feel free to take your time looking around and peering into various nooks and crannies and alleyways—and don't worry, you're not very likely to find anything peering back.
If none of the above prompts appeal, feel free to check out the Locations and Maps pages and write your own freestyle prompt using one or many of the available locations.
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citylogs2023-06-01 12:00 am
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[ done and done, he'll ream your ass over it, gautier. but also. he's slipping and sliding! bad. call him mr lube with how slick this goes down.
anyway.
dimitri clenches the table firmly as he says, ] I'm not talking about it.
[ not - not talking about it, either - but then his hands immediately fly off, because he was terrified of breaking it, and then he turns around, worried that he'd somehow destroyed the table, and -
- it's not broken. it's intact! ] Oh! That's a relief.
[ wait. ] How - ?
[ dimitri peers at the table. how is it not broken? he just breaks things. he frowns at the table, looks at it from the top, and then the bottom, where he sees it's only reinforced by the joints being made of thin metal and not much else, and then he slams his fist onto the table really hard -
- it doesn't break. but there's a small dent. ]
Oh.
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This shouldn't be happening.
Sylvain stares at the table. Looks under the table with Dimitri, trying to see if there's some secret making the table more durable than normal. No, looks like a table. He stands. Watches Dimitri hit it, makes a surprised noise when Dimitri smacks it and it doesn't break. There's just a dent.
It should be broken.
He immediately plops the back of his hand on Dimitri's forehead like he's going to cast some healing magic, and, see, the problem is that he doesn't have enough faith to heal in the first place, and he definitely can't heal here, so basically, Sylvain's accidentally checking for a temperature.
Which is okay.]
You feeling alright, Dimitri?
[Something is Wrong.]
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[ this is so weird! dimitri turns to the table once more. he tries to lean his weight into it, both of his hands gripping the edge. this is surely something that would've broken a desk and more besides, a while back, but that's not happening. in fact, dimitri is struggling, until finally, the table shows a bit of promise and a crack appears in the surface.
a very small hairline crack. ]
I guess I don't ... have my strength anymore. [ dimitri says, panting, not knowing what to do with this knowledge. ] Not that it matters - I can still fight, if it comes down to it - but .... it's strange.
[ also: he has to be more careful now, because his recklessness was only possible with the type of strength that he has, but now ... ]
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Besides, Dimitri's likely also feeling...things because of this, and, as his knight, it's his duty to distract him. And so, Sylvain says the first thing that comes to his head that isn't related to politics, Faerghus, or Dimitri's safety.]
Guess that means we won't have to learn how to fix doors, huh? And, hey, I won't have to worry about you breaking all our plates when you wash the dishes.
[Look! A distraction!]
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- by the goddess, his uncle and his permanent bid for the crown, to fully eliminate him from the history books, he and cornelia would have a field day with this knowledge, and anyway -
- there's a bit of a pause, as if his body had missed a step somewhere up the stairs to connect from that to sylvain's distraction, and dimitri just ... laughs, belatedly. it sounds so forced and awkward, the reaction so uncanny, like a doll that had just acted off-script. the boar rearing its head, wearing a smile. ]
Doors!
Yes, I can now open doors and wash dishes. Imagine. [ dimitri clenches his fist, unclenches it, and murmurs, ] But yes, when it comes down to it, I can still fight.
[ there's a high and terrible voice in him that roars, can you? and he doesn't want to answer that. all of a sudden, this entire, empty place, is so volatile with its shadows, so stuffy with its walls. if he looked in the screens he will see his father reflected back at him. ]
Let's go outside.
[ not waiting on sylvain's word, he leaves. ]
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Wait up!
[Sylvain follows.
Dimitri's in a mood, and this is tough because he doesn't have other people with him, it's just him, and he never knows the right thing to say. Never. What is he supposed to do with this? And if he doesn't think about Dimitri, he thinks about...everything else...and Sylvain doesn't know what to do about that either. He doesn't want to do anything about...everything else.]
Let's find somewhere that's not so...hard. You know? [It's the worst word for it, but Sylvain stomps his feet in the hopes that Dimitri gets what he means: hard, stone, glass, whatever else.]
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so, he nods. message understood. not so hard, then. ]
There ought to be a park.
[ easier to follow signs, which there are plenty of, for something as easily recognizable as there massive park, so. he goes there.
the multiple ringing questions of what does it mean? what does it mean? rattling inside of his mind is distracting, and then he has to slow down and think, the faster he walks the more his mind works overtime to compensate for trying not to think of their situation. so. they go to a park, what do you bring to a park - ]
Let's take as much snacks as we can.
[ is he hungry? not really. does it matter? they're gonna have a stress picnic. that's what one does in a park. and suddenly, he understood annie and mercedes very well. ]
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Yeah.
[He responds automatically, because, one, he's going to have a stress picnic with Dimitri, and, two, Dimitri's his prince and he knows an order when he hears one. Even when it's not said as an order. He's even half-turning to look for a place to grab snacks from, which is actually very difficult because he's used to market stalls filled with fresh produce and so on, not...wherever they are, whatever they are.
But then-]
There.
[That looks kind of like meat over there, yes? And so Sylvain trots over to the convenience store, and inside, and his steps slow because he's not sure what to think about the setting's version of a 7-Eleven, but, obviously, they need to grab a basket and take one of everything and figure it out later.]
brought to u by my friend reminding me coffee is only in dagda/south in 3h
all of these go into a tote bag, which he starts putting in sylvain's haul as well. and then they go towards the park, following street signs.
dimitri lifts their items, he carries them through the streets - insists on carrying it - so empty and quiet. now that he knows how much of his strength has been taken, the silence feels oppressive instead of just feeling curious and apprehensive over it.
they walk for a while in silence, until dimitri notes: ]
... it's heavy.
[ things haven't been heavy for him in a while. but he tries to keep his voice still as he says it, like it doesn't bother him (it does). ]
omfg they will DIE
They walk in silence for a while, and everything feels quiet and tense. Strange. Oppressive? Maybe it was just a him thing. Probably it was just a him thing. He doesn't want to admit it to Dimitri, as Dimitri was having a bad enough time without adding that to whatever it was he was thinking.
But then Dimitri speaks, noting that the bag was heavy.]
I can carry it. [But that doesn't feel right, and, besides, Dimitri likely wouldn't, doesn't like that.] Or just give me a handle. We can carry it together?
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[ he pauses to arrange his hold on the other handle, and gives it to sylvain so both of them can carry it.
it's nice that he offered to do it both, he'd protest otherwise. shoulder the heck out of their picnic items all the way to the park even if it tires him out. just to prove he can still do it. whatever. it's silly. but there are things dimitri wants to feel secure in, and his strength, unpredictable as it was, had always been reliable. now he feels uncertain, and unmoored ....
anyway. not the kind of thing easy to talk about while walking.
they go to the park. it's a nice park. very grassy and green. but also. ]
That's it?
[ small. (for country bumpkins.) it encompasses a few blocks, and certainly nothing like back home, where there's a giant forest to get lost in if you're not careful. bigger cities like fhirdiad - sure. it's hard to find greenery there. but even then, he didn't have to travel very far if he wanted to see nature. ] ... we'll have to review a map sometime. I don't really have an idea of the size and scale of this city and how far away we are from anything.
[ well, they'd ... better walk to a nice shady area. he points out to the distance where there's a fire pit with a bench and such, and they go there. ]
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This can't be it. [This can be it and he knows it, but Sylvain is currently in the denial stage.
He's also following his prince to a nice and shady spot.]
You're right. Map when we can- think there's a library somewhere? [He's just getting everything in order in his head.] There might be something there...at least, so long as the books aren't edited or somebody like Seteth didn't go through the stacks.
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[ and that's the problem. they have nothing but time until their situation changes. ]
When I said we could have freedom here, I didn't mean it like this.
[ seems like he'd jinxed them both, by being too optimistic about their situation. really, he should know better by now.
dimitri digs into the bag to look for the string cheese, peels it open from the plastic and eats it like a celery stick. well. not bad, but it's nothing like any cheese he's tasted. for someone who can't taste, it has the texture of leather. and he doesn't know whether that's something to be fascinated by or disgusted by at this point.
he just eats it anyway. ]
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[Just in case Dimitri was going to take that the wrong way he follows up quickly, because His Highness was definitely going to take that the wrong way, Sylvain could feel it, taste it.]
If we had to be here, I'm glad we're here together. I don't even wanna think about what I'd be doing if I was on my own. [Probably lying face down in some grass, shitfaced drunk, sobbing about Miklan and that entire...thing, probably, or worse things. But that doesn't matter.] Okay?
[Sylvain shoves Dimitri with his foot, which means shoving the stupidly metal greave, but it makes a point.] We've got time, we'll figure out whatever's going on. Pass me the meat.
[He wishes to make a toast to Ingrid and other missing friends.]
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... I am glad that you are here, as well. If only because I won't be alone. Selfish as that thought is, I really am grateful.
But it does mean that returning to our world, the way that we are, is now more complicated than ever before. Fhirdiad won't recognize a prince without the strength of his crest. And Gautier .... [ dimitri struggles as he tries to figure out to open the can until he finally manages it, and gives it to sylvain, but really ... what else can he say about gautier? ] ... is very traditional. You know your house best.
[ what else can he say about it.
dimitri also gives him some cheese. ]
To absent friends. [ a toast. ]
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[He could play with him, and protect him, and teach him things - not just bad things, good things - and look out for him in the way all older brothers should...and that's probably too grim to focus on given the general topic of conversation.
It's one thing to say that in general, it's another to implicitly agree with being immediately disinherited the second they get back once his lack of crest is revealed. But.
Sylvain taps his can against Dimitri's own.]
To absent friends.
[Dri..................nk what is this what is he drinking, Sylvain slowly swallows, slowly, trying to figure out what the fuck he just drank it's not bad but it's definitely An Experience.]
no subject
You took care of us well, whether we liked it or not.
[ not that sylvain had much of a choice considering he was a knight, and considering ... gautier being what it is. but for all of his efforts, sylvain really was a good friend. and a good brotherly figure at that.
they make the toast. dimitri drinks. it tastes like nothing, which is a bit of a disappointment - you'd think with all the things that changed his lack of taste would be one of them - but anyway. he just drinks a huge gulp of it, not realizing he'll regret this a few minutes later. he's just really thirsty, ok. ]
We've been walking for so long I hadn't realized how thirsty I was.
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So.
And so Sylvain stares for a moment as he leaves the drink on his tongue before he swallows and takes another big gulp to keep pace with Dimitri.]
Right? It kinda catches up with you. I guess it's just everything that's going on. I know once I get to bed I'm going to fall asleep, and nothing - not even you - is gonna wake me up.
[Also, why is Dimitri biting the cheese, the texture is so much better when pulled apart...whatever. He takes a bite of the jerky and immediately misses Felix and Ingrid, as this is so their thing, and also not his thing.]
It feels weird just taking somebody's bed.
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anyway. dimitri keeps eating his cheese, lost in thought. ]
I think some rest is good. And if we fall asleep and wake up in the monastery in the morning, like this is just some strange dream - all the better.
Though I suppose that's too optimistic at this stage.
[ he leans against the table, munching as his head is on the surface, staring at sylvain sadly. ] ... I do feel bad, as well.
But a house is more comfortable than staying in ... a store, or outside the park.
Worse comes to worse, we'll apologize and take our leave.
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[But that doesn't matter! They're stuck in the middle of nowhere, who the hell cares? No. Nobody cares. What matters is that Dimitri drank the...drink and didn't comment on the flavor! What gives! What the heck? Okay.
Okay. Sylvain's going to offer Dimitri some of the jerky.] C'mon. Tastes like back home.
[It's teriyaki flavor, it absolutely does not.]
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The meat feels ... strange. It's more like leather than anything else? [ he frowns at the packaging. ] I think Ingrid and Felix would like it, but I don't know.
... we have to be careful about what we take from their stores next time. We don't know which foods will be good for us and which ones are poison.
[ so, still no comment on the flavour.
anyway - ] ... my head aches. It must be ... stress from being in a new place and all.
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Probably. I'm feeling stressed. I've got a headache too, Dimitri. And my eyes feel kinda...dry?
[Tingly is a better word for it, or maybe burning.]
Probably from all the stone around us.
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Ah, we should've ... secured housing first, probably, instead of just eating out here.
[ this is why he has retainers and this is why he has an entire house, he can't think of everything by himself. ]
If you're not feeling well, you can try and lie down on the bench? I'll move to the seat across so you can have some room to stretch.
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[As the closest thing Dimitri has to a retainer, Sylvain's going to do his best to retain his little heart out. Besides.]
I don't feel like sleeping. If anything-
[And then his mouth shuts, and remains shut because he was about to say something stupid like, "I feel like running." And this is stupid because he's with Dimitri, and, energized or not, he won't be able to keep up with his prince who has the tenacity of a beast.]
We're in a new place, and the food's pretty strange.
[Don't ask him what he was going to say.]
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but he agrees with that sentiment. dimitri sighs, sits up -
- and groans. ]
Well ... I don't feel good.
[ dimitri buries his head on his arms, sighing heavily. ] My headache has gone worse. I feel like ... I'm going to be feverish.
Have we been poisoned? [ and so early in their stay? damn ]
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