[quote=@Tatterdemalion]
SECOND PLACE
WEREWOLF MAGNET

Of course. It all makes sense. This is what she was looking for, all along! Not dumb white picket fences and pies cooking in the oven! Before her eyes unfolds a vision of the world where everything turns in a great wheel. The seasons turn, and life turns to death to life again! Why should Big Underworld get their soul portfolios stuffed with ghosts? Why should psychopomps have to ferry humans to their eternal reward every second of every day? If Mother Earth had her way, it would all be part of the cycle! Life turns to death turns to life! Numinous awe fills Elodie up to the brim, and tears prick hotly at her eyes.

She wiggles like a happy sardine in the sheaf.

"Yes," she cries out, in a way completely unlike she might cry out with her arms wrapped around any hypothetical boys. "Yes, yes, yes! I want to change! I want to throw my life in the garbage can and recycle it, I want to be the person turning your wheel!" She reaches up and touches the flowers, and they don't wilt away! This is fantastic! "Is there, like, a prayer I have to say, or-- how do I break my mind chains?" She tries imagining a chain and then snapping it! Wait, is snapping the right action? Maybe there's a specific way she's supposed to destroy her mind chains. Is there a twisting motion to it, maybe?[/quote]

"There is," declared Gaia in the voice that was the creaking dark of ancient trees and the spine-thicket guarding wild blackberries, "no [i]time[/i]. The fox does not contemplate or learn how to live, the fox just lives - and it is your duty to live as the fox. My abundance is yours. My power is yours. My voice will be with you. My presence will be with you. There are no ranks or tombs or books or pyramids or societies or any of the dead-while-living architecture. There is no how. There simply is. Act! Act, do as thou wilt, do as I wilt, do all as now safe in the knowledge that if you step off the path I will [b]destroy [/b]you. Simply speak and I will grant your desire, and when you listen you must grant mine."