the messenger (2025)

[darcangel]

🕊️ Who: Jeannette d'Arc & YOU!
🕊️ When: March 4 & shortly after
🕊️ Where: Your email inbox, and also Matsuba
🕊️ What: TIDINGS FROM THE MAID.
🕊️ Warnings: Chuuni so thick you could cut it with a holy sword.

[ So you know how the Director of the Dreamer Union messaged all Dreamers about the Disturbance? Yeah? A day or so later, somebody has a Reply All Incident. And everybody gets this in their inboxes.

Enjoy. ]

From: jehamne@dreammail.com
To: [ dreamer union email goes here ]
Subject: RE: Disturbance Updates

✝ JHESUS MARIA ✝
Dear and good friend, Director Chloe Yoshino: Jeanne the Maid, Dreamer La Pucelle, sends thanks for your missive and commends the Dreamers she fought alongside. It is good to know that only by working together may we prevent Disturbances, or end them quickly, for the sake of the Disturbance's center and the good folk of our town.

I therefore beg and entreat you to form a Dreamer Union Army with me at the head as Commander of War. An angel declares I have the qualifications to command such a force. Were it not for her recommendation I would not speak to you thus, as it is not my station; but she claims I can best protect Yumemigaoka in this way.

Know that by "army" I do not mean a faceless rank and file which seeks victory by force of numbers. That helps no one. Instead I ask that you let me oversee the dispatching of Dreamers where each individual can do the most good, using their unique skills to support each other, for "so long as the commander gives the right orders and each soldier does their best, one can find a way to win any battle". Thus also spake the angel. As I am soon to graduate, I offer the whole of my time to this cause, save of course the Sabbath.

When I speak of this matter to others, they do not believe; so it may be that you or your counselors may request I offer some sign by which you know my words are true. And I say to you, in God's name I did not come to make signs; but send my army into the Dream Sphere, and I shall show you the sign for which I am sent.

Do you set me bravely to work, and I will drive the Torments from Yumemigaoka, and make a good and lasting peace.

God bless and keep you. Reply soon.

JEANNE

Written this Shrove Tuesday in the year of our Lord 2025

[ ......If you would rather speak to Jeannette in PERSON, she'll be found around the Domremy Apartments. Catch her sometime on Wednesday the 5th and she'll have her bangs pulled off her face and ashes smeared in a cross on her forehead. LENT HAS BEGUN. IS THAT NOT EXCITING?! ]

Comments

[thestarknows]

[The morning after her Disturbance, Junna wakes up... and sees this.

Blink. Bliiiiink.]

U-um...

Jeanette, is everything okay?

[darcangel]

Is this Junna?

Should you not be resting??

[ "why can you see this message that i obviously sent only to chloe yoshino" < "GURL U OK" ]

[thestarknows]

I just woke up a little ago and was checking my phone.

Which maybe I shouldn't but...

[saynotobugs]

Hello to you too.

[darcangel]

[ NOW MAKI IS REPLYING TO THE EMAIL?! ]

Do you help Chloe Yoshino with her mail, Maki? Had I known, I would have greeted you as well. Please excuse me.

[saynotobugs]

Not exactly. I'm pretty sure you hit "reply all" on that announcement.

[predecir]

[Bruno, noted lapsed Catholic, passes idly by Jeannette and immediately does a frantic double-take.]

Oh - geez, is it that time already...?

[darcangel]

[ Bruno! How good to see him. Jeannette lights up. ]

If you mean Ash Wednesday, then yes! It came late this year.

[ She has been waiting SO patiently but at last... ]

The good priest of St. Remy is still bestowing ashes, if you wish some.

[predecir]

Oh! Uh - yeah, yeah, I'll do that on my way home.

[his ass is Not doing that]

Have you been, uh, settling in okay? We met at the DU! [Added quickly, because he doubts she remembers him and that was a Weird thing to ask without that context!]

mail;

[traceofeffort]

[It takes a long time for Lisa to read through the e-mail. Director Yoshino's message was much as it always was, and while she felt a certain amount of ironic satisfaction at the Union finally noticing people on hard times tended to yield Disturbances, that left her wondering if she was next. So she set it aside and tried very hard not to think about it, until the ping of a second Dreamer Union message came in, this time......... huuuuuh.]

I'm still working through some of this, but you didn't get any less ambitious while you were gone, did you, Jeannette?

[darcangel]

I merely wish to protect my home and the people I love.

[traceofeffort]

We're in agreement on that. And in that sense, you've got my support any time you need it. Or, well. Not right NOW, though, I'm on a leave of absence for a bit. But when I get back, I'm all about protecting my home.

[Jeannette, who has recently heard Lisa's opinion on what home and heart are, likely doesn't need a reminder.]

Even if I think "army" is kind of a strong word.

[dullshooter]

tl;dr are you trying to sell me a bible

[darcangel]

It is good to know a Bible should be given, not sold!

[ Render unto Caesar, etc. ]

[dullshooter]

you should tell that to the United States of America, they could use the tip

[olruggio]

[he thinks about just deleting the email but-]

I suppose we can at least commend you for your enthusiasm.

[darcangel]

Thank you very much.

[ ....She doesn't recognize this email address though. ]

May I have your name, good Dreamer?

[liedol]

Wow, that's our Jeanette-chan for you! You didn't change a bit while you were away, huh?

[ coming from anyone else this would definitely sound like sarcasm, but Ai's 100% sincere....... which almost makes it worse??!?? ]

[darcangel]

Certainly not. I should not make such statements if they were not meant.

[ It's okay, Jeannette's sarcasm sensor is faulty on the best of days. ]

[reluctants]

[ ...

The more she reads here, the more Illya's jaw straight up drops. She isn't even fully realizing at first that this email was a misfire. Maybe she'll realize it in a moment, but right now the young girl is caught off guard by something here just a little bit too much to really examine much of anything else about it. ]

AN ARMY??????

[ You can't do this to her blood pressure, Jeannette. ]

[darcangel]

Everyone has that reaction.....

[flatcola]

I haven't gotten a reply all in a while. It's impressive how rare it is here honestly.

Let's please not call it an army though, that's scary.

[darcangel]

Why must everyone stop at that word, and not look at the rest?

[ being joan is suffering ]

[determinationtofist]

Too many words!! I don't understand a thing!! Summarize, please!!

[ And hey, she may not be her angel, but it's still an angel asking— ]

[darcangel]

[ This email really did end up going to everyone, didn't it..... ]

An angel said the Dreamer Union will not win our fight against the Torments without unifying, and that I have what it takes to be a commander. I am informing Chloe Yoshino of this, so she may bestow me that title and I may do everything in my power to keep Yumemigaoka safe.

[ Not that hard to understand, right? ]