DRAGMANTICAR: A Valentine's Day Exalted Datequest

"What?" You stare blankly at your aunt, mouth ajar in astonishment. "She what?"

"Close your mouth and don't speak in the middle of eating," your aunt chides you, rapping your knuckles with a delicately carved wooden ladle gilded with with fine golden leaf. "Haven't I taught you better, Five?"

You shut your mouth, hurriedly work your jaw, swallow, then ask again. "She did what?"

"She went off to school. I don't know why you're making such a big fuss out of it." Doesn't know why you're making such a big fuss out of it? This is a big deal! You don't understand why she's being so casual about this! "You two are twins, but you can't do everything together forever."

...can't do everthing together? You set down your chopsticks on the table gently, and stare at your aunt. You and your twin sister have always done everything together. You grew up in the same room in the family manse, you went to the same prep school, you studied martial arts together (albeit under different teachers). A single soul in two bodies. But, even with all that, you were prepared for the possibility that you two would grow apart. Even twins cannot remain as one single unit forever.

No, it was the way she left. "She didn't even say goodbye." Dragons, she didn't even tell you she was leaving.

Your words as as soft as the wind, but your aunt picks them up anyway. She pauses in her step, the oddest expression on her face. She licks her lips several times, searching for the right words to say.

She doesn't find them. Instead, what she says is this. "I suppose that's between you and her."

And then she flees that room, leaving behind only you and your questions.

You sit, chopsticks on table, rice slowly cooling in front of you, appetite gone. Between you and her. That phrase troubles you more for the implications behind it, implications probably unmeant by your aunt but worrisomely real. If you do leave this unclearness, this vagueness to fester, perhaps this really will stand between you and her.

...you can't accept that.

With a sudden scrape and a nail-scratching grind, you push your chair out and stand up. You won't accept that. You turn on your heel and march, long fast striding steps filled with determination and power. One of your aunt's bound blood-apes, immaterial and skulking, glances at you takes a single step back back, fear in its eyes, once it sees your expression.

You're in no mood for joking around.

You stomp up the stairs at a terrifying pace, essence pouring through your body like the blood that pulses through your veins. A fearsome conviction has gripped you, and your path is clear. You throw open the door of you and your sister's shared room, and inside, you wreck it.

You tear through random nicknacks, left behind belongs, whatever stands in your way. You fling aside old scrolls that languish, long since read, and small bits of interesting stones that you two collected in your youth. And there, hidden in a crook between beadpost and tile, in a niche dug slightly into the wall, you find it. The acceptance letter.

It's a very bland letter, written probably by an clerk or some other bureaucratic member of the school's administrative staff. You've been accepted to so and so school for young dynasty maidens, yadda yadda. It moves on to lecture on about the duties of maidens of dragon's blood, how one day they will become the matriarchs of their families, blah blah blah, more prolatizing about the need to remain strong and steadfast pillars of their family (in contract to flightly and passionate men), and how they will one day assume a leadership position in their respective houses, blah blah. Then there's a list of everything that needs to be prepared, the headmistress's signature, and a list of accolades attributed to her. But it's near the bottom, where you find all your suspicions justified.

Scrawled in the small, carefully placed script of your sister's handwriting there is a small message. "I don't want to leave before telling Five. But, it's for his own good. And it'll just make this harder."

"I'm sorry Five. Stay well, and please forgive me one day."

Your hands tremble, crumpling the edges of the letter a bit. 'For his own good'? Who- who does she think she is? Where does she get off deciding what's good for you? If it's something that involved the two of you, it was something she should have consulted with you, not done herself, and then snuck off without even a single word to you to tell you what was going on!

You exhale and inhale, heavily, glaring at the latter. You have to admit you're upset. For the first time in a while you're genuinely angry at your sister.

But underneath that, you're also scared. You're mostly scared. What't this big thing that your sister thinks is so important that it might ruin your relationship but she won't even tell you about it? Are you to leave the everything to someone else?

...no.

No, you decide. You're not leaving it all to someone else. With a sudden clarity to your actions, you smooth out the slightly creased edges of the letter, fold it back up, and place it on your writing desk. You pull out a scroll, filled with names and notes. You're not going to just leave it to someone else.

You're going to do something about it. You're going to find your sister, and you're going to make sure your relationship doesn't crumble, yourself.

You're going to go to school.

BUT FIRST

CHOOSE A HOUSE AND CHOOSE A ASPECT
YOU MAY VOTE FOR MORE THAN ONE CHOICE FOR THIS VOTE

Houses:
[ ] Cathak
[ ] Cynis
[ ] Iselsi
[ ] Leedal
[ ] Mnemon
[ ] Nellens
[ ] Peleps
[ ] Ragara
[ ] Sesus
[ ] Tepet
[ ] V'neef

Aspect:
[ ] Water
[ ] Air
[ ] Earth
[ ] Fire
[ ] Wood

This is a terrible visual novel dating sim-esque quest created for February 14, 2017's valentines day. You play Five , a dragonblooded dynast who goes off to an all girls academy in order to repair his relationship with his sister. Various romantic shenanigans will occur from this ridiculously hackneyed premise as befitting a dumb romantic protagonist. Your endgoal is to choose an route and follow it through to its ending.

TD;LR: Something Terrible; Blame @TenfoldShields

P.S. GM'S Note: VOTE YOU FUCKERS

OUR PROTAGONIST:

Name: Five
Age: Fumbling and Awkward Adolescent
Aspect: Water
House: Cygnis

FAMILY:

Name: One
Age: Sultry and Mature Woman
Relation: Teasing eldest sister
Relationship Status: Fair
Aspect: Wood
House: Cygnis

Name: Six
Age: Fumbling and Awkward Adolescent
Relation: Twin Sister
Relationship Status: Like two burning suns trapped in each other's orbit
Aspect: Fire
House: Cygnis

Name: Lira
Age: Respectable and Knowledgeable Motherly Figure
Relationship: Aunt
Relationship Status: Good
Aspect: Wood
House: Cygnis

FACULTY AND STAFF:

Name: Mnemon Kaleni
Age: Aging yet Still Powerful Authority FIgure
Relationship: Headmistress
Relationship Status: HEADMISTRESS
Aspect: Fire
House: Mnemon obvs

Name: Mother Ajah
Age: Sultry and Mature Woman
Relationship: Dorm Mother
Relationship Status: Slightly Amusing
Aspect: Earth
House: Lost Egg

Name: Instructor Ritani
Age: Dashing Mature Gentlment
Relationship: Calligraphy Instructor
Relationship Status: Somewhat warm
Aspect: Air

STUDENTS:
Name: Mieki
Age: Fumbling and Awkward Adolescent
Relationship: Same Year
Relationship Status: Just Introduced
Aspect: Air