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

[reluctants]

I don't think you're wrong about people being stronger in groups. [ Typical Illya. She's got to start it by saying something nice.. A true compliment sandwich born out of sheer anxiety about making other people mad.. ]

But calling it an army is going a little bit too far, isn't it? Armies imply.. war. Scary stuff like that.

You could just call it a team, right?

[darcangel]

But we are at war with the Torments...

[reluctants]

That's also a scary word to use!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We can't do that! None of us can! Scary words are BANNED now!!!!!!

[ They will make Illya cry!! ]

[darcangel]

It is good to know that war is scary. But that is why we must fight hard and well: to bring a swift end.

[ just call her leeroy joankins ]

[reluctants]

[ ... ]

Jeannette-san, do you feel nothing when you think about the word war?

[ Please note Illya is definitely angling more for a 'don't you feel scared or worried' angle. Not a 'do you feel INTENSE AND READY TO FIGHT.' Though, you know, with Jeannette being Jeannette she might just take it that way. Who knows. ]

[darcangel]

It is good to know I do. I should dearly love for there to be no war, and for Yumemigaoka to be at peace. I do not wish anyone, Dreamer or citizen, to be hurt.

But I should hate myself if I let that stop me.

[reluctants]

[ But you're not the only one involved in this.

Illya writes it. Reads it.

.. then she doesn't send it. Even if it's the truth, it feels a little bit too rude. She may not be close with Jeannette or anything, but she does like the other - and she doesn't want to be rude, really. She's too much of a people pleaser for that.

What she instead sends a few moments later is-- ]

Then aren't you making yourself hurt by calling it a war?

None of the adults call it that.

[darcangel]

Is it not one, though? The Torments wish us ill, and we must fight to defend against them.

Just because people do not say a thing does not make it not so.

[reluctants]

Are you saying the adults are wrong?

[darcangel]

I am sure they are doing the best they can, but one cannot expect a human to know as much as an angel.

[ Yes.

Yes, she is. ]

[reluctants]

[ Jeannette, this conversation is just getting more and more confusing with every single message. Illya's pretty sure she's just reading into it too much, but she still has to ask-- ]

What do you mean, an angel?

[darcangel]

[ Jeannette is also confused. For different reasons. ]

Could I mean anything but a holy servant of God?

[reluctants]

[ ??? ]

Do those really exist?

[ Look, Illya is not religious, but who knows.. Jeannette just sounds so convinced of this that Illya is getting pulled right along in the other's pace in that sense. ]

[darcangel]

Oh, yes! One saved my life when I was twelve. She has been my dear mentor ever since.

[reluctants]

[ .....

She's so confused.

It's like she needs some sort of third party fact checker on this thread. Or someone who can explain to her what's happening. She doesn't want to disbelief Jeannette since that feels rude, but reading this is just.. It's so wild..!! ]

How did that happen?

[ M-Maybe she'll know how to think about this if only she finds out a little bit more, she figures.. ]

[darcangel]

A fire nearly claimed my beloved Domremy Apartments. I could not escape, but I prayed for the safety of my family and neighbors, and an angel heard my prayer!

That was the same night I awoke as a Dreamer.

[reluctants]

So that angel helped you awaken your power?

[ Maybe.. that's possible? Their powers are kind of mysterious, after all. Especially if Illya thinks about it, which she usually avoids doing. Mostly because it just confuses her as she does.

Just like right now. ]

What did it look like?

[darcangel]

There was a great light all around her, and a sense of great comfort. I knew her at once to be an angel, for none else could have such powers of salvation!

[reluctants]

[ ...

A little carefully, but she does type: ]

But there are a lot of other things with special powers, right? All of us have special powers.

[darcangel]

Do you not believe in angels....?

[ HOW SAD..... ]