FINAL FAREWELL

[goosemods]

FINAL FAREWELL

LILYWHITE v. GRIMSHAW
FINAL MOMENTS
LAST MESSAGE
REVIVAL

HOW THIS WORKS

• Thanks to Anon, all sacrifices have been reversed. All items taken by mimics have been returned. Students who got into fights may still feel banged up, and the blood on their clothing will still be present, but serious/debilitating injuries will have been healed.


• Azurcrest cliff has been fixed, and stands as tall and hard partying as ever.


• All adults in the lodge will start to wake up after Anon lifts his protection.


• Once she has a grasp of the situation, Mrs. Bloom gets the help of MACUSA agents to release the Anti-Apparition Zone, in order to allow emergency personnel on campus ASAP. Within 15 minutes, the school is swarmed by hitwizards, healers, mediwitches... and the press. Outside the school, the fate of Gooseberry has been a major media incident.


• Whether or not it feels like it, the school has been inaccessible for about a day and a half, leading to international concern for the safety of those inside.


• Students are encouraged not to talk to the media yet. They're quickly counted, identified and evacuated on buses.


• Students are taken to a modest Marriott Hotel in Logan and all arrive at about 10:30 PM on Sat, Jun 23. Here, Healers and mediwitches check on all students, and Aurors ask for statements on the incident.


• It's confirmed that despite Brother's magic, Mr. Merrill and Director Grimshaw remain dead.


• Parents/guardians can come pick up their children when they're ready, but students are able to stay the night at the hotel if immediate transportation can't be arranged.


• Students have access to wifi and wizarding news, and can read the reports on the incident from the moment the school became inaccessible at around 11 AM (on Fri, Jun 22), to the confirmed rescue of the students on Saturday evening. Magical news agencies report with great relief that although a staff member and two Aurors are confirmed dead, all students have been found alive. Mr. Merrill is portrayed heroically, mentioned as a teacher who died protecting the students. Several celebrities are quoted as hoping for the safe return of the nearly 150 missing teenagers. It's clear, however, that details are still vague.


• You may continue backtagging scenes in thedeepwoods for as long as you want! You do not need mod permission or to fulfill any prerequisites before waking up any of your victims. (But you can also assume they woke up when their mimic was killed by Anon.)

» REVIVAL: Those who were dead are not, that which was lost is returned. Around campus, the fog melts away and the forest returns to normal, but you all know how much it's changed.

» EVACUATION: The school is swarmed with government officials, the media, medical support and more as the Anti-Apparition Zone is taken down after the emergency. It turns out North American wizards and witches were all holding their breath, waiting to find out what happened to the young students at Gooseberry. As you're hurried onto the buses, do you try to give a statement to the media? Or do you just cling to your friends, eager to put the forest behind you?

» THE HOTEL: Finally, a moment of peace. Healers check on students, and everyone get the chance to contact their families. Students without accommodations are given rooms at a modest hotel (two twin beds and a pullout couch in each). Although your movements are closely monitored for safety, the hitwizards watching you don't have the heart to assign rooms.

» Home: Someone came to take you home eventually. Did you miss it?

» OOC - Discussion

Comments

REVIVAL

[goosemods]

Samantha & Solomon

[oh_girl]

She's not even facing the Oak when everything goes down. She barely has time to register what's going on when it's all over. White light bathing her, Brother and Anon just gone, gasps and the sounds of deep, blessed breathing from the dead waking up. She looks around, hoping - Solo's not there, though. He's not magically transported back to the Oak. He's not anywhere.

Her hope shatters in an instant. What if he was too far? What if because he wasn't close enough to the Oak he wasn't saved?

There's no hesitation in her. She gets up without a second look at anyone or anything and takes off running to Azurcrest to find him. It feels like years before she reaches it, though it's not that far and she's running as fast as her legs will take her. There's no cracks in the ground, the path is clear and firm under her feet. "SOLO!!?" She's screaming, panic and hope and despair and grief and pain in her voice/

Please be here.

"SOLO WHERE ARE YOU?"

Wilde, Open to Any/All

[destructobot]

Wake up!

The white light is an arrow from the back of the mind. A rope down into the dark. Like in a dream, Wilde catches it, rides it up and out into the world again. His heart throbs in his chest, and his lungs bloom with air.

He's awake, somehow. Somehow, sitting in the grass by the split Oak. And though he has no idea, no idea at all how or why he's come to be here, he still feels the last of that light. A promise of love. So he's smiling, even as he struggles with disbelief over the first gasps of his new breath.

"What the fuck," he whispers, in a tiny, elated voice.

Gwen and Webster

[gwenniepop]

She was dead.

Air, rushing back into panicked lungs. Gwen's eyes fly open, wide and afraid. She can't breathe, she's drowning, drowning in her own blood. The touch of Brother lingers, trying to soothe her even as it brings her back to life, but her fingers are already flying up to her throat, feeling....smooth, unblemished skin, only the faintest heat of her pulse, under the skin. Above her eyes, clear skies. There is an echo in her head, as she struggles to just breathe. Wake up! She's lying on the grass, the ground hard but familiar under her back.

And then, a shadow, blocking out the light, as someone leans over her.

Avery, Open to All/Multiple

[un_kept]

Wake up!

It stirs her like a loud bang or a nightmare when you're in a deep sleep. She takes in a sharp, pained breath. She feels like she drank too much the night before or like she fell off her broom in practice and hit the ground and several trees on the way down. Everything hurts.

She expects the bright white light to still be burning when she opens her eyes, but it's not. The mysterious fog is lifted and there are murmurs everywhere - not as scared, not as much horror. Hope, relief. It's so loud here. Suddenly, she remembers what happened. Gwen she thinks, sitting bolt upright. Clem! It wasn't really Clem, but it was.

Herself - oh no, did she hurt anyone? Avery is not surrounded by loved ones when she wakes, but she's right next to Gwen & Webster, already having a moment together. Briefly squeezing her friend's hand, she leaves them to it. Her eyes fall on each of her classmates there. They did it. No thanks to her - but they still did it. Gwen was alive, she was alive.

Phineas + Sofia

[phin]

Phin feels it all at once. It's all come back, like a bolt from heaven and hell, like electricity and fire and water and rage and joy. He's in love! He's in love, and he's himself, and he remembers all of it.

He jumps up from the ground, whooping loudly, throwing multi-colored sparks at the sky with his wand. He's in love! He's alive! He yells again in pure happiness, like this is a rock concert or someone's just scored a Quidditch goal, like it's New Year's and the countdown's finally over. He's overwhelmed. He can't stop himself.

"Sofia," he shouts. It's a full-throated roar of love. He bounces with the feeling of her name. He radiates with the feeling of her name. "Sofia! Where are you??"

Chad Counts (Open++...why would you respond to this?)

[winterbottom]

Everything flashes back into place, and the moose is gone, and the tree is gone (does that mean Elkey is gone too?)

And then everyone comes rushing back. He remembers the time he won over every bully, which is still a tiny list, but it's Chad's, and he didn't know how much he valued it until it had gone away for a little while. And then he laughs, loud, and unbothered by any solemnity.

"ONE!!!!" He proclaims, triumphant. "TWO! THREE! FOUR! THE SQUARE ROOT OF 144 IS 12. PI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Hi, guys. Chad remembers math.

Fern

[nothalfplaid]

One minute, there's the crack of the bat, pain shooting through her head, and then nothing. But the nothing calls out with a voice, accident and powerful, and Fern wakes up again with a gasp. She's covered with something that she has to push of her face. Calvin's cloak. How much time has passed? It felt like an instant, but the artificing shed is smouldering rubble beside her. She gingerly touches the side of her head. Brain still on the inside, no immediate sign of concussion. Good enough for her. She stands, throwing the cloak over her shoulder. She needs to find her friends.

But she has somewhere to go first. She takes off at a run back the way they'd come together, towards the Lodge, her lungs burning with the effort. She doesn't stop for anything, not until she reaches the infirmary.

Mackenzie is fashionably late. (open++)

[princeprincess]

A lone female figure walks through the field towards the oak, her normally impeccable hair tangled with stems and flowers, holding her heels in one hand. It's a long walk back to the tree, but she sees people there, and smells trouble. She's less alarmed than she ought to be, but what's the sense in getting upset before you even know what's wrong?

So she walks, tired but confident, in no hurry to get there any faster.

Stokers

[browbeats]

She comes to slowly. The voice at the end of her dream, the rough hand on hers, the cool grass tickling her neck, she focuses on each thing individually, tries to categorize each thing. To piece it together and figure out what it means, what was real, what was a part of her horrible imagination.

As breath fills her lungs for the first time in an unknowable amount of time, Rosy squeezes the hand of the person closest to her.

Teddy & Issy

[cant_even]

Isabelle's eyes are wide as she watches the scene unfold. Lilywhite and Grimshaw and then Ms. Vector. The tree splits in half, Anon's grief floods through her, burning as much as the light and she feels at peace. She feels the pain wash away. She can feel Azurcrest rebuilding in the ground beneath her feet and when it's all over she turns to Teddy, eyes shining full of tears.

"It's - it's over."

After a beat, she's touching her face - her own face. She can feel it. she recognizes the skin beneath her fingers, the shape of her own nose and eyes and lips and the memory of Teddy - of their first kiss, the entire dance and what happened rushes back to her. "I love you. It's over, oh my God Teddy we did it, it's over."

Addy and Nia wake up

[addytives]

They'd practically opened their eyes in unison, to the flash of a blinding light bursting from the Ornery Oak, only a little way down Bear Trail. Addy hadn't spoken a word yet, just run as fast as her legs could carry her to the base of the tree, where the light had burned the fog away. The white, beautiful moose she'd become so fond of and loved so closely over the years had grown and wailed and healed. Addy pressed fingernails into Nia's hand, not knowing what she was seeing until everything evaporated and they were left with a campus that was not as destroyed as it had been, and the cheering and celebration of their friends.

Anonymous was gone.

A breath after everything is silent, Addy loosens her grip, but not by much. There's confusion and there's loss, and the only anchor is the fact that Nia is here too. She should jump to action, she feels that would be right, but there's nowhere to jump. So she's numb and frozen and stands there shallowly breathing those last wisps of fog. Then "What." She breathes. "What?"

Fern & Heathcliff

[heathclifflacey]

The realization that he'd slept through something big -- just like last year -- had occurred to Heathcliff as soon as he woke up on the pitch and saw the light coming from the Ornery Oak a short distance away. It had faded shortly thereafter and by the time he'd reached the tree where so many of his classmates were gathered, everything was already over. It had left him with an odd tangle of emotion; guilt and worry and relief and confusion. What rose to the top, though, had been simpler and after the basics had been explained to him he'd left to find Fern. He hadn't been there with her but he wants to be now and he needs to know that she's all right.

He reaches the Lodge just as the girl is coming out through the doors and his features light up at the sight of her. Safe and whole. And, oddly enough, wearing his letterman jacket which she absolutely swims in. Somehow, that makes him love her even more. "Fern!" He rushes forward, ready to pull the girl into his arms if she'll let him.

Essie is Very Late (Technically Open if anyone wants??)

[magitechnically]

She'd woken up alone. Didn't know how long she'd been sleeping. It had been daytime when she'd closed her eyes, but now it was darkest night.

There had been deaths. 2 needed their help. She'd remembered that much when she'd stirred back to consciousness.

Last year there had been lists, names, they'd all woken up together. But she was alone. Did that mean she was one of those names?

Outside and alone, with strangers hiding among them, the safest place to be was up. So Essie gets small. It's a risk, not being able to use her wand to defend herself, but she's played among the treetops dozens of times now, knows what sorts of predators to look out for as she sails from tree to tree, trying to find someone, anyone. Jeffy. Lucas. Bash. Jade. Ari. Calvin. Micah. Hazel. Fern. One of them would know what was going on.

There's a break in the trees as she starts along Jay Trail, and the change in the landscape is immediately apparant. Azurcrest Hill is gone. The cabins, the cliff, just gone, like they'd never existed, fog obscuring the collapsed ruin hiding below.

Essie glides between more trees, scurries down to the ground, becomes large again, and stands at the new edge of the world. She doesn't know how long she stands there, alone, mourning the loss of her home, their home, when there's a bright light coming from behind her.

Her heart leaps. It's 2. He's massive. His light washes over her, and she hears his words, knows without a doubt that they've come through for him. All of her friends, who'd been so brave, last year, this year. She can't wait to see them again.

Then there's more bright lights, all centered at the Oak, and the loud crashes of the of the hill restoring itself.

She breaks out into a run, only glancing back once to see the cabins standing proudly again atop the hill.

Reid (open++)

[cygninae]

Reid wakes up inside the Transfiguration classroom. He's alone. When he sits up, he realizes there's something sticky all over him. It's blood. It looks like gallons of it was dumped down the front of his shirt, all over his arms, some running down his chin. His mouth tastes like copper.

"What the fuck."

---

The lodge is empty. It's eerie like this. He can hear some voices but they're not nearby and honestly that makes it creepier. And he's literally following a blood trail. He needs to get out of— "What the fuck." The stairs are blocked. "Christ." Just, like, a whole mess of lockers fucking up the stairs. He turns around.

---

Okay, window open. Good start. He looks down at the drop, and after a second, lightly tosses the Quaffle and sweater out of it. He watches them tumble out into the night, landing in the brush. Cool. Not a lot of space for landing there, though, which sucks. Flying would probably clear his head right now. He could fly right to the oak, where he can see some lights, but... he recognizes that Quaffle and the sweater. So, instead he climbs. He swings out of the window with nimble movements, and carefully picks out his way to solid ground.

---

He walks up the path to the oak, and, like, it's obvious shit went down. He was there for some of it, he's not about to forget the fake Ursula, or when Grimshaw showed up and Reid knew he'd gotten hurt pretty bad. The walk gave him time to try and put everything in context. He's not dead, though, so maybe he just passed out and Rosy healed him. Then they had to leave him there where he'd be safe. And then Sy was like, hey man, have my lucky Quaffle for, like, emotional support.

Something like that.

Whatever happened, Reid still looks like a dead man as he shambles up to the tree, pale and covered in drying blood, wearing a letterman jacket that's too big for him.

Ursula & Ferdie

[cecaelian]

Walking away from Rosy's body hadn't been the hardest thing endured tonight, but it was up there. The Lodge had seemed like a good place to look for the missing, possibly hidden behind one of the many unopened doors, so they were now stuck retracing their footsteps.

And then it all happens quickly. Bright lights, a giant moose, more bright lights, a land mass reforming itself. Ursula instinctively covers her eyes from the light with her remaining good arm and when it passes, her other arm's been reset in its proper location, with only the slightest stiffness and an unnecessary sling a reminder of the injury. And in her hand, a very lightly bloodied flower crown.

"Ferdie, what just happened?" she turns to ask him. "Oh my god."

EVACUATION

[goosemods]

Reid & Zav

[cygninae]

The buses roll down the weaving mountain road, but things are looking less wild. They drive past the skeleton of an old farm, but someone's still keeping horses there. The animals graze lazily and ignore the chain of buses.

Reid looks back at his phone. One bar. He swipes to favorites: mom, dad, Zav. He doesn't want to have to try and explain everything over the phone to his parents. He's not sure he'll ever know what to say about this. The front of his shirt is still covered in his own dried blood, for fuck's sake.

So he hits the icon of Xavier's face, and listens to it ring.

Rosy & Danny

[browbeats]

Rosy moves like she's in a fog. People. Blood. Bodies. Media and aurors, busses and friends and teachers, Rosy feels detached from all of them. The only people she can see clearly are Sy, Roxie, Reid, Ursula, Ferdie. Her people. None of the are allowed to leave her line of sight.

But then there's Danny. And Rosy, who has never considered herself a sentimental person, not someone to get emotional over just some guy she's been dating for a couple months, wants to crumble.

Instead, she punches him in the arm.

Jade & Ramon

[odder]

It's funny. She couldn't make friends at a normal party, but she'd made one in hell. Jade knew that she had to wait to talk to Ramon until after it was all over. Until then, they both had to keep up the fact that they were each a disembodied hand on the journals, giving each other hope that someone else was out there.

And now it's over.
Her face and ribs remember to ache and the warming charms on her shirt have worn off long ago. She's empty, shivering. She tries not to look too cold as she slips to Ramon's side, leaving behind the four people she'd been surgically attached to all night for just a moment. She feels torn away, but approaches him in the bus line as casually as if they're picking up a conversation about class the next day. "I didn't do anything stupid."
(She sounds proud of herself, but it's both a lie and solely because there'd been a shield protecting the students from going to help with Grimshaw.)

Fern & Open

[nothalfplaid]

When a reporter tries to ask her questions, Fern doesn't even stop walking, just flips him the bird and keeps scanning the crowd. She has people she needs to find. They should all be okay, but she needs to be sure.

Madison, Open

[cupquake]

Madison can only gape wordlessly when rounded on by reporters on her way into a bus. She feels like she's been asleep for six years. She has no idea what's happening, how to feel, what to do. And yet, being herself, she's still crying silently, ceaselessly. Her stupid blotchy face is going to be all over wizarding news and she knows she looks awful.

The shock of everything makes her numb, so she pulls away and into the bus before she knows it, leaning her foggy head against the glass of the window.

I can't believe this is real, she thinks. It's only here -- safe and ready to go -- that she feels the first stab of relief. Gratitude. Oh my god.

THE HOTEL

[goosemods]

Hazel & Lucas

[lilwitchhazel]

Though it hasn't been heavy sobbing, Hazel has been crying virtually non-stop since Brother had revived everyone. She hadn't allowed herself to really let it out before that, and a mixture of relief and bottled up emotions had lead to... this. Red-eyed, a little disoriented, and with a pounding headache and sore body, the Coppertale looks around the hotel for familiar faces she hasn't had a chance to speak with. Or cry on. Or whatever.

She catches sight of Lucas. They hadn't been close for most of the year, but as things had gotten harder, her feelings of kinship towards him had grown into something solid and meaningful. She twists her way through the various people milling about, laser focused, wiping fervently at the tears in her eyes. As she reaches him, she throws her arms around him and presses her face against his chest.

"God fucking dammit," she says into him, words muffled.

HOME

[goosemods]

Cameron & Iliya

[gonnabefamous]

As soon as she was able to get to the hotel, Cameron's mama had pulled her big boy into her arms and cried. She had teary hugs for each of his roommates, too. Then she had asked Rhiannon Plunkett if they would like to stay at the Carney home. It had been such an exhausting experience, after all, and weren't they too tired for international travel?

When they had gotten back to the house, Casey Carney had done what her mother, her grandmother, and her greatgrandmother had done in times of tragedy when feelings are too raw to put into words: she cooked. For dinner, fried chicken, biscuits, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, and because Iliya likes desserts, a big German chocolate cake. Like Cameron, she's good at filling silences with pleasant chatter when no one else is up for talking. It helps, because even though Cameron has his voice back, he finds himself silent a lot.

It's almost midnight by the time they're alone for the first time since this all started. Cameron sits down on the edge of his bed with a second slice of cake, and passes Iliya his own. "This is the cake I wanted to make you for your birthday," he says. That feels like years ago, not months.

OOC 🌲 QUESTIONS/DISCUSSION

[goosemods]

Thank you, everyone, for this incredible journey.

Re: OOC 🌲 QUESTIONS/DISCUSSION

[cant_even]

Thank you so much ❤️