#year 5095

[VOTE HERE: HOW DID DOCHALLOT REACT?]

A: Nervous about living in a foreign country, Dochallot researched as much as she could about Mitherword as a country. When it was time to leave, she felt confidently familiar with her new home.

B: Feeling unprepared to be a queen, Dochallot studied her mother as an example of how to rule. When it was time to leave, she felt confident in herself as a princess.

C: Distressed at being married off, Dochallot spent time with her theycephew Brandalloch and her sister Rulott, coming to terms with her future. When it was time to leave, she felt confident in her resolve to face the challenges ahead.

You will note two things about the current voting sequence.

The first is that you do not have direct control over Dochallot’s emotions or opinions. She will be her own character, although her personality is informed by your decisions made during chargen. You help her work through her emotions and her goals, but cannot dictate how she feels to herself.

The second is that immediate mechanical advantages are no longer listed as results of votes. This will be the norm for the majority of the game. Read your options carefully and consider the implications of what they say. In most cases, consequences of votes may be too complex to explain with simple positive and negative markers.

Hi! With this vote we are leaving chargen and entering the actual game! After this update, the pace of the game will slow down considerably as we no longer encompass several years in a single update and instead tackle individual weeks and days bit-by-bit!

I’m also introducing something new for you all!

... hello? Are you the Is watching over me? My life is getting very... different, now, than what I thought it would have been. Some people say it’s foolish to trust in the stars for their guidance, but why would Meadoe Rule have placed them there if we were to ignore them?

If you send asks titled DEAR DOCHALLOT, I think I’ll be able to see them, and respond to them. It might be good, for us to get to know one another better, as to better work towards our goals.

Because I could really use some guidance right now.

If you're looking for nostalgia... at this moment, especially, that is an easy question. Maybe starting at 11 years old, when the reality of the responsibility of my bracelet came to me, Brandalloch and I would spend dozens of nights sitting on the wind-balcony, in the center keep, at the highest tier of the city, looking out at everything below us. The houses, the lives within them, the fields of snow and forest and mountains stretching into an eye-blur beyond.

Knowing that we were privileged with a great duty that tied us to this place, our youthful excitement creating great fantasies of our future heroics that we would overlay on the sight before us.

At that time, I vibrated with anticipation of taking up my place in this world. As I grew older the familiarity turned this into routine, into expectation, but now, as I'm on the eve of being... sent off?

A part of me dearly wishes to be that child again, lit up with imagination at the possible futures ahead of me. The futures I had imagined for myself here are not to be mine, it seems.

I know I'm not very old, but I think I'm already no longer young enough to view my suddenly very divergent future with the same sort of excitement. If I could recapture that Dochallot's enthusiasm I would do it gladly.