DREAM NETWORK

Sender: Ferran

Have you ever missed someone who hurt you on purpose?

[It'll be good to confirm whether he's alone on that, one way or the other.]

Sender: Naoya
To: Everyone
Subject: Storytime (and a request)

Mistletoe is a curious thing, isn't it? Traditionally people kiss underneath it, but there's more of a story to it. The druids of my world would harvest it for their magic, but there's one particular story that I'd like to highlight.

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A long time ago the god Baldur was a god of the sun, joy, peace... all of those positive things. His mother, the goddess Freya, heard a prophecy that he was going to die. She didn't want that, so she made everything in the world swear an oath not to harm him. Everything, that is, except for mistletoe - apparently too young to swear an oath, or something like that.

The gods had a fun time throwing everything at Baldur and watching it bounce off, but Loki, god of mischief, found out about the mistletoe and fashioned a spear out of the stuff. He then gave it to Hod, Baldur's blind brother, and watched as it slew Baldur.

There's more to the story - about the goddess Hel not wanting to let the dead god go unless everything in the world wept for him. But Loki disguised himself as a giantess and would not cry, so Baldur stayed dead. And that culture's gods are barely worshiped anymore in my world, so who's to say?

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Now, storytime aside... I seem to have taken ill. It's nothing life-threatening, but I'd have someone look at it all the same. There wouldn't happen to be a doctor or healer among our number willing to make house calls, would there?