[In truth, waking up somewhere new with no recollection of how she got there wasn't all that strange anymore. What was strange, was the fact that it has happened twice now. Taliira would at least take some comfort that this time she wasn't waking up in some Illithid Nautiloid... again.

Her head throbbed and her lungs burned with the smoke from the fire. She could hear the echoes of some beast or another in the distance, the shrill screams of the dying, the panic swelling in her chest over the safety of her family —

No, wait, that wasn't right.

With a soft groan, Taliira was sitting up, pressing her palms to her eyes in some sort of attempt to alleviate the pain in her head. Her lungs still burned, and coughing didn't seem to help, but it wasn't fire she was breathing in. Ash clung to her like a second skin, and if that wasn't concerning enough, she could still hear the distant whispers of screams in the back of her mind if she let her thoughts wander. She didn't think that the tadpole could give her false memories — someone else's memories? — but if it had, that was... the least of her concerns right now.

Taliira pushed herself up to her feet, brushing off as much dirt, muck, and ash as she could. She had no idea where she was, how she got here, or what was going on, but she wasn't going to get any answers by lying here and being buried alive.]

Hello?

[Her voice echoed, carried in the silent breeze. There was something wrong with this town, not that the half-burnt-down half decrepit look of the houses had anything to do with the eerie feeling she got as she walked, she was sure.]

Hel — Ah!

[Her feet slipped out from under her, the mud causing her to fall backward. She tried pushing herself up, but every time she did, she seemed to sink deeper into the mud, towards an opening underneath it that would probably lead to nowhere good. Turning onto her stomach, Taliira reached out and grabbed onto a root that had been sticking out. It provided enough of a stable hold that she was able to pull herself out of the mud and, as soon as she was free, she took a few steps away from it and doubled over to catch her breath.]

Gods damn it.

[It had taken her a good hour or so after waking up to notice the new additions to her body. Once she had found a more or less safe and dry area to sit in, she took stock of her surroundings and the strange dull ache she felt in her legs. She ignored it because she had other things to worry about and pain and discomfort weren't something new to her. She had dealt with that all her life, so it wasn't difficult to push the strange distant ache to the back of her mind and focus on something else.

Like the black marks on her arm that definitely weren't there the last time she looked at her arm.

No matter how much she scrubbed at them, they wouldn't smudge or rub away. She even tried a bit of spit against her fingers, rubbing at the edge of one rather aggressively in an attempt to get a portion off with no luck.

The more she tried to get them off, the more panic she began to feel. It felt as if her throat was closing up, her thoughts racing with what-if's that seemingly got worse. Not knowing where these came from didn't help the panic, and it was only the pain from scrubbing her arm nearly raw that snapped her out of it. The pain managed to ground her enough to at least remember to breathe again.

It was fine. She needed to be rational. This was probably some side effect from the tadpole and not something outrageous, like her mother coming back from the dead to torment her. That was unlikely.

Hopefully.

She was fine.]

[The last thing she had expected to find here was a sentient skeleton crew propping up a tent for a party. Then again, at this point, nothing should surprise her anymore. Between waking up here, the strange lingering memories, and whatever was happening to her body, the skeleton-owned masquerade might as well have been the most normal thing to occur here.

She hadn't intended on attending the masquerade, but her curiosity managed to get the better of her and she found herself in the smaller tent to change into the appropriate attire demanded by said skeletons.

When she walked out of the tent she wore a red ballgown, decorated in black lace. Her shoulders were bare, exposing the dusting of freckles across them that trailed lower. Her thick black and white hair which was usually pulled into a ponytail was loose now, curled and falling down her back in waves. The elbow-length gloves and the black choker on her neck were decorated with glittering rubies, and when she walked out of the tent she was handed a beautifully carved wooden mask that resembled two skeletal hands with matching rubies.

Taliira stood at the entrance for a few moments before she took a deep breath, placed the mask on her face, and walked inside. Even if she didn't dance with anyone — because she wasn't about to dance with herself, and dancing with a skeleton felt a little weird — she could at least enjoy the night with alcohol.]

[Hello, I haven't been involved in DWRP in what feels like a year! I'm both nervous and excited to be here, hello. If you wanna plot something specific, want to talk, or discuss the rate in which light travels through space, you're welcome to hit me up at RedOutlaw :'D]