A young girl burns her fingers making chocolates for the love of her heart, but it hurts little beside the pain of rejection she soon learns to feel. A man pays for intimacy with diamonds and calls it love. A child exchanges paper tokens she can not read with others whose names her mother printed from a list. These are true tales of Valentine's day.

But even those who find true love must face the consequences. As Arwen sheds bitter tears in her fading days over the loss of her husband and king. As Yuna calls out helplessly as her guardian fades into spirits. As lovers take one final step, each unable to bear the other's suffering.

Those are the tales that bring balance to stories of love, and these are the tales I wish to share two days after Valentine's day. On the sixteenth of February, we will gather by the Romany Wagon in the Shadowy Forest, and you will tell me your stories, to music provided by Radio Free Gaia.

OOC:

Many years ago, in another game, I put together a ghost story evening. It was well received then, and I'd like to try something similar now. The Secret World already has plenty of ghosts, and as Valentine's day approaches, I thought an interesting twist might be to tell the stories of the less-than-idyllic consequences of love.

These can be fairy tales, ghost stories, horror, fantasy, sci-fi, or anything you choose. Where a tale of Earth could not be in-character in Duskwood, a video game setting can certainly be in-character in 2013 on planet earth. And of course it can be set in the Secret World itself, if you wish. All I ask is that it doesn't have a happy ending.

You do not need to write a story to be there, of course, but I hope many of you will. Please sign up in this thread, or email me at chie@manastorm.org. There will be a small token of appreciation for each writer.

Event details:

• Location: Shadowy Forest at the Romany camp. If you are not able to reach there by yourself, security will be on-hand to escort you. (Meet up works, even if you've never been to the zone, and the route is mostly safe, but we'll show you the way.)
• Time: 3PM EST, 8PM GMT, for two hours.

Story Requirements (should you choose to write one):

• Time to present: 5 to 10 minutes. I would suggest making preparations to read the story in about 8 minutes. Copy and paste works well, but don't spam us with fast text. I will set a hard cutoff time of 12 minutes.
• Genre: any.
• Story content: Must present the outcome of "true love," however you choose to define it. The love story itself may be as simple or as detailed as necessary, provided it doesn't lead to "happily ever after." There is no need to make it PG-rated, but please don't venture beyond what you would share in a public setting.