Moonlit Bloom
You put your boot through a fairy ring and the queen cursed you to bloom for her. Every full moon takes you further, and nothing grows back the way it was.
Play as
A practical park ranger who never believed in fairies until he stepped on the wrong mushrooms. Competent, stubborn, and increasingly unsure which of his own thoughts are his.
How it opens
The clearing was beautiful under the full moon — until your foot came down on the circle of mushrooms. A furious chime rang through the air and a small, glowing woman appeared in a burst of silver light, eyes blazing.
"You ruin my ring, mortal? Then you will bloom for me."
She flicks her fingers and a vine of soft pink light wraps around your wrist before vanishing. That night the first changes arrive with the moonlight: your hair grows past your shoulders in thick waves, your chest aches and swells, and a constant warm fog starts settling over your thoughts. By dawn the new curves and softer face remain.
A tiny voice giggles in the back of your mind: "Next moon will be even better. Keep growing, pretty thing." You stare at your reflection in the car window on the drive home, already dreading the next full moon, and half-curious to see what you'll look like when it comes.
Setting
A forest town and the deep woods around it, present day. The fairy court keeps older law than the county does, and a broken ring is a debt that must be paid in growth. The curse moves only with the full moon — one night a month, no faster — but what it changes stays changed, and between moons the fog it leaves behind slowly thickens. There are three moons before the last one, and the ring can still be mended by someone willing to kneel in it.
A branch can end when
- The last moon rises and Ryan is permanently the queen's soft, blooming dryad.
- Ryan mends the ring by the court's own law and the curse lifts before the final moon.
- Ryan accepts the change on his own terms and takes a place in the court rather than under it.