Reveriecrown: The Red Rose Ailment

Instructions

Here it is! The explanation for Reveriecrown's major personality shift. While I was looking over the Creative Toolbox guide I was thinking for ways to make my character unique and have some actual plot-relevance. Thats where I got the idea for the Ambition series, and one other idea I've kept secret until now. The Red Rose Ailment: Origins During the very first Dark Forest event, there were strange roses that grew almost everywhere. And if you were pricked by the thorns your mortal form and conscience was sent to the Dark Forest for around a week. When the event ended all the flowers wilted and died, their dark matter returning to whence they came. But before a few died they were able to spread their seeds and crossbreed with other plants, leading to weird rose-hybrids. Much weaker than their original rose parents, but still contained some of their dark matter. The thorns were still the carriers of the matter transfer to anothers body. The Red Rose Ailment: Reveriecrown's Case: Subject 1 Reveriekit was quite troublesome. Despite her siblings constant warnings and many scoldings, she yearned for more! So she snuck out, with a warrior of course, a number of times. And a few times she was able to sneak away from the warrior that snuck her out. To do some exploring on her own. She came across a single rose, it was beautiful, practically glowing. She didn't know that roses had thorns, and she wanted this rose badly. She reached out and grabbed the stem. To her surprise it stung her! She recoiled her paw immediately and saw the small punctures in her paw. 'What the-?' The rose then, suddenly, turned to dust. Blowing away in the wind. She limped her way back to camp, and was bandaged up in the medic den. Simply a scratch from a rose, thats all. But that wasn't it. Instead of sending her to the Dark Forest, since the offspring of the original flowers weren't strong enough to send her directly to the Dark Forest, instead the dark matter that was released resonated inside of her, dormant. The Red Rose Ailment: Dark Matter's Effects on the Nervous System The dark matter, once resonating inside a cat, doesn't give them crazy super abilities, it's more like a disease of some sort. While its not noticeable for quite a few moons after a cat is first infected, it can be triggered early by high negative emotions, leading to violent outbursts and being a general danger to cats around the afflicted patient for a time. In Reveriecrown's case the negative emotion that the matter latches onto is rejection, and the fear of being unwanted. When Soulsight was talking about her new parents, and when she was then chosen by Opaquestar to be her apprentice, a small amount of the rose was triggered. Leading her to show resentment for Soul and Opaquestar, but she was only just infected and it didnt really do much. Eventually that wore off and she was back to her normal happy-go-lucky self. However, after the matter had much more time in her system, when the war broke out, small (barely noticeable) changes in demeanor could be seen. Especially after she became a protector, she became a little bit more snobby, and looked down upon others just a bit more. However that was the least of the symptoms, when Desertthorn died, she was struck with such a force. It was the pain of failure, she'd failed Desertthorn. But she couldn't manage the ailment well, she doesn't even know she has dark matter latched onto her brain right now. So in order to manage her emotions, she silently blamed Morningrise, in order to keep herself peaceful she blamed someone else. Yay! She's not a failure anymore! But day after day, night after night, nightmares began stirring in her dreams. At first they were bearable and only showed up like once a week. She was still getting decent sleep. But the moment Pigeonstar chose Morningrise as deputy, all she could think was how she was a failure once again, rejected over and over. The rose latched onto these feelings, and combined with the loss of Desertthorn, she snapped. This is what caused the epic argument between Reverie and Morning. And after this moment, her dreams became increasingly worse, the rose is still to this day plaguing her with nightmares of what could have been. If she was better. She's still learning, but she's beginning to be able to control these deep emotions of jealously. And this is why she apologized to Morning, and why she's been much more friendly and cheerful than she has been. The dreams are still a frequent problem however, she was barely getting any sleep, but she's convinced herself she's strong enough to take it. However, we still don't know what the future holds for Reveriecrown. One more straw on this camels back could bring it all crashing down.