TEST DRIVE #6

[fairyfoes]

TEST DRIVE MEME

Considering apping to EACHDRAIDH? Why not give the setting a test run here! OPTIONAL SCENARIOS 01. ARRIVING IN THE DRABWURLD. The Seelie and Unseelie courts welcome you with mirthful revelry and hearty food. After you have been briefed on your purpose here, you will find an endless feast and a night filled with entertainment to placate your concerns. Mingle with new arrivals, sneak down the castle halls and make sure your eyes are always on your glass; fairies and imps have no bias when it comes to tricks! 02. THE STATION. Looking for a little slice of home? The Station gives you all that and more. Take advantage of the wifi, have a cup of fairy-brewed coffee (the one they didn't spit in) or sit back and relax on the patio. You can even move your things into one of the available rooms! 03. WILDCARD. Your own scenario! Explore the Drabwurld or simply take advantage of your Locket!

Comments

[shamanism]

[He'd be honored to know she thought such things of him. He, of course, feels exactly the same way. It'll take both of them to make this work.]

There could be neutral territory somewhere-- a place where neither court dares to tread. A buffer between the borders, perhaps. [A no man's land. That would be a terribly dangerous place for one of the courts to be, but for a neutral party...]

The sky may or may not be feasible. It certainly worked for Dalaran, but our resources are... somewhat limited at the moment.

[crymoore]

There exists places like that and they are threatened daily. Would people gather if they knew it could be ransacked each and every day?

[ They came to Theramore only because they had limited options. Jaina hasn't had a chance to memorize this world yet, but works at it every chance she gets. ]

It'd be problematic to make something fly when there could very well be something in the sky that would knock it back down. Building defenses, gathering enough magi to power catalysts and the sort would take some time. It isn't feasible right now, but perhaps in our future.

[ And does it feel good to call it our future. ]

[shamanism]

[Thrall grumbles in displeasure. Obviously he was hoping for a better answer than that. Such places are usually abandoned, so why...

Spirits, this shouldn't be so hard, but complaining about it won't make it any easier. He has built something out of nothing before. He can do so a second time, and he will make it right.]

It would take time, but it is time well spent. If we can keep it sheltered enough while we make preparations, we could launch it all at once-- and be protected. Though it's highly unlikely a small, neutral party against conflict would seek to start conflict, I am sure there will be some friction.

[He smiles despite his words, a gentle tightening of his lips around his tusks, not too much teeth. Very human.]

Still, it is a future worth striving for.

[crymoore]

It takes a bit of friction to create a bright flame that envelops others in warmth. [ Jaina reminds him as eloquently as a sorceress is capable of. ]

It's what we do with that flame that will be talked about for months to come.

[ While she pictures great things, fire is also a destructive force. It could very well be turned against them and what if this is the incident that causes their friendship to crack? ]

[ex_halberd259]

( Since tackling him, Lagertha has been much more at ease. Much more herself, and confident of the fact that they will be all right. Whether they are able to find (or steal!) passage home, or they build something for themselves here until the might, they will be just fine. Standing beside him, or laying atop him as she is currently, she feels able to take on the world. Just as she always has in her dreams. In which they are ever side-by-side. Never separate. One unit, attacking any challenge before them and conquering it.

The forest returns to life in a burst of sound and colour the moment he releases her wrists. Birds flap their wings and call trillingly overhead, and she can feel the tickling sensation of an ant crawling along her arm. The pair of them are covered in twigs, leaves and mud. There is a streak of it as wide as her thumb is long upon her left cheek, and she can't help but laugh in unison with him. This is familiar. More along the lines of what they both find familiar. )

That would be impossible when you've already chased it away. ( The upturn of her mouth has a smug air to it, and she grins as he pulls them up, the ant falling back to the damp earth, forgotten. Lagertha presses her index and middle fingers together, and jabs him playfully just beneath his ribs with another laugh of her own. )

It is heading east.

[impathy]

I do like a good book. Though now enough to take me from King's Landing, I think. But I've myself to blame that. It's not often a man is asked to follow fairies. If I had refused, well... I imagine I would have been terribly disappointed the next day.

Do you hate me, Lady Sansa? You need not lie about it. You are safe in your city and I have nothing now but my small amount of wit, so I'm not like to do anything about it. But I would like to know than not.

[impathy]

I should have been clear. I wonder if they keep good brothels. There's nothing wrong with a soldier's whore, to be sure. But I do like them a bit prettier and soldiers are often not so delicate.

[shamanism]

[His smile brightens without becoming terribly monstrous. It's something in his eyes.]

Even under duress in a foreign land, you haven't lost your gift with words.

[He's thinking something similar, though. Fire is the most unpredictable of all the elements; this could easily backfire on them.]

Whatever the result, we will weather it as only old friends can.

[dragmire]

"You think in the short term. My Hyrule, the one I sought to conquer all those years ago, is gone. I lost it to the long passage of time I spent in your realm. My people are long scattered - perhaps all slain by my enemies. Where once we kept a sacred temple, they now hold a prison to execute their enemies. But even those wretched men are long dead. If I have to spend another hundred years to leave this place, what of it? Hyrule will still be there, regardless of who populates it. For now, I wait. This place makes for a more amiable distraction than your prison. Even so, it will not hold me forever."

He would return, one way or another. Then, he would visit his wrath upon Hyrule again. It did not matter if it was the Hyrule she knew, only that it was Hyrule at all. The kingdom would endure in his absence and then he would come again and take it unopposed, now armed with power and strength not of that world. He was not wasting his time, but instead planning his next invasion.

[fulminants]

[ ...Wow. Johnny looks relatively sympathetic, even if he doesn't know the dude. Also, complications. ] That sucks.

[ Understatement of the year, but Johnny's not sure how to commiserate on that particular level -- and he's no therapist, so. ]

Wait, it doesn't? So how do these -- [ He pulls out the locket. ] -- things work? Magic?

[steeledskin]

I --

[ hmm. she snaps her mouth closed. there is a certain amount of weight to his argument. what does he have here? and yet she arrived with so little and in time gained so much. what's to stop him from doing much the same? neither of them amount to very much as leaders of men, she thinks. and so if something as wild and ludicrous as her own ascension could take place, she's certain his luck might also change.

therefore she must not offend him. one honest answer might be to tell him she cannot help but hate a lion. another might be to explain how her feelings are less hate and more guilt. ]

If I did -- [ hate you ] -- I never would have warned you 'gainst the Cothromach.

[ she would have simply let him come and let her brothers dispense with the problem. either way, her answer still isn't given straight. ]

[impathy]

Cleverly spoken, to be sure. But true enough as well. I'll take you at your word. Though if we're to live so far apart, I think it wise we not make much of our marriage. If I'm not to step foot into your city, you will surely not begrudge me finding pleasures elsewhere.

[Crude, he knows. He had even begun to start to practice a kind of chaste respect for their marriage bed, even with Shae still around. He had not been vigilant at it, but he'd tried not to disrespect her. But in this situation, where they would not cross paths at all? Well, he'd just as soon pretend they were unwed and carry on as he always had.]

[crymoore]

[ It won't be the first time she's gotten burned. The many nights she spent putting salve in places that salve shouldn't go will never be forgotten. The downside of learning the magical arts was recovering from one's mistakes, but Jaina always bounced right back from them. ]

That we will, dear friend. [ They certainly will. ]

I have heard tales of harsher lands towards the coasts where the armies do not frequent. The seas are deadly on their own with the creatures that rule them, keeping us from traveling outward.

Perhaps we could start there.

[steeledskin]

[ her insides twist and wring with the oddest combination of sensations. weighty relief, for one: relief that he would be the one to suggest how little they allow what is true back in westeros to appear as truth in these lands. oh there are enough people who know about that it might cause both of them some manner of trouble. and she could (perhaps) tell him immediately how the high queen has dissolved their union. her mouth opens; she is about to do exactly this. but...

but he reminds her that he is crude. awfully mannered. ill-tongued. and although the two are barely related, his poor behaviour urged her instead to keep that absolution pocketed. for once (for a first) sansa begins to wonder how she might in future play this one tied thread to her advantage. lord tyrion is not as awful as others are; if he does find success here in the drabwurld, he may yet be brought to bear upon other matters. she will not give up what little influence she may have on him so easily. ]

Wise, indeed. [ she praises him. empty hollow praise for an advised silence on the matter that she's already long since kept of her own accord. ] As you say. It's a very clever idea not to breath a word of it to anyone. Thank you.

[ sweet words with no weight and no feeling hitched behind them. ]

I LOVE THIS HI MAKO

[fissions]

[ mako, it's nice to meet you. im mako.

The toddler in the stranger's arms (his daughter, by the resemblance) is the first child she's seen ever since her arrival here -- which is not long, but it makes something inside her ache, strangely. Children should never be in a place like this, not when war rages all around them. A naive thought, to be sure. She spares the toddler a warm glance and a small smile.

She nods, and has the grace to look mildly embarrassed. Mako stands out like a sore thumb here, and there is the issue of blending in. ] A few hours. You are...?

[fissions]

[ Starting over, huh? Rebuilding from the ashes, there's a thought. Up until now Mako hadn't had the bandwidth to think of life beyond the kaiju. She smiles after a moment; and it's faint and bittersweet. ]

Often, that's the only thing you can do. [ He knows loss, she learns. Bone-deep, and so much more than personal. She knows the look -- she's seen it in the mirror, in her co-pilot's head. Mako tilts her head, quietly curious. ] Are you planning to start here?

[impathy]

[Empty words, as ever. It does sadden him to know that he'll never get a speck of honesty with Sansa, even though he's been nothing but honest to her in turn. Well, honest in the matters of importance. There were things he did not tell her, but she would not have been glad to know if he had. All the same, this leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. He did not want to be wed to her, though he certainly would have loved her had she let him. Or if I had let myself.]

Think nothing of it, sweet Sansa. But while we're speaking so kindly to one another, might I trouble you to know who else I would find here from our seven kingdoms?

[steeledskin]

[ ah. will telling him this much be safe? allowed? or will it do her conscience well enough to warn him who walks these lands with him, thereby saving him the surprise. thereby perhaps absolving herself of having let him take such a long long fall for a crime that was somehow more hers than it ever was his.

and so it's guilt and not misplaced affection that brings names to her lips: ]Currently? I have brothers, my lord. Three of them, missing only the youngest. And my sister. Two bannermen from the North, as well. Lord Renly and his sweet Lady Margaery -- [ she let him make of that what he will. sansa will keep that secret, certainly. ] And you must know Ser Loras.

[ but she saves the most strategic for last. partially because tyrion is a lannister. partially because she needs her lord husband to know that she has more than just brothers protecting her. more than brothers and walls. ] And a lesser known knight. Ser Gendry Waters.

[ she does not normally introduce him by his bastard name. today, she does it because it suits her purposes. ]

[enjoymyatelier]

Well, I wouldn't go into it unprepared. It can be a bit more dangerous and unpredictable than in fairy tales if you're new to it, but it's unbelievably useful when you actually know what you're doing.

[No reason to sugarcoat it, after all.]

And that's something I've been puzzled about, myself. The best I can imagine is that it's something that only really manifests when we're brought here, even though I'm not sure if it was always there or if it's something that was placed there through our arrivals.

[impathy]

[Three brothers? He realized she must have been counting the bastard as well. Though he imagined that Jon Snow would have no love for him now, even if they had clasped hands in friendship. A proper friend who had wanted nothing for him. It brought a sudden weight of gloom to think that he no longer had even that now.

But it's a queer thought to know that Robb Stark and Renly Baratheon were here and alive. He did not think her a liar on that matter. But what did it mean if these past foes were alive and well? He wondered who else might come from the dead in the meantime.

If the gods had any mercy, it would be Robert. A fool he was, but he kept us from clawing at one another.]

I cannot claim to know the last, but I do know the others. No doubt my nephew would be terribly disappointed to know his queen is with a lord instead. [She does not call him King.] As well as one of his Kingsguard gone astray. Do they all dwell with you in your cave or have you left some here in Caer Glaem as company for me?

[steeledskin]

[ perhaps she ought not to feel so much victory to think that she had gathered so many under her mountain roofs. but it's hard not to -- sansa has spent so long in abject isolation and fear that to have gathered any friends around her becomes a great joy. ]

Some split their time between Caer Glaem and the Cothromach. Many of us return, at times, for feasts and celebrations. [ hmm. ] It isn't a difficult task.

[ he ought to know that it will never be a challenge for those who take her side to sally forth and do her business. ]

[impathy]

You paint a very lonesome picture for me, my lady. It seems I'll have to seek out new friends.

[Not that Renly or Loras or any of them had ever been friends to him. No one in King's Landing had ever been friends to him. At best, he had those like Podrick and Shae and Bronn. Sometimes he liked to think of Varys as a friend, but he knew better than to believe that. But the truth of it was, he was no more alone her than he was anywhere else he had in his life. Only now he lacked the wealth and prestige of the Lannisters.

Damn these fairies.]

[steeledskin]

[ if she possesses an ounce of warmth for him, then it resides in these next words: ] You will not seek for long.

[ it's not a comment on him -- she would not claim he was a man easy to befriend. certainly, she felt no desire to befriend him. but her words reflect more upon the population around them. so many of their fellow shardbearers offered much more friendship than they ever should. they aimed to make such solid ties as sansa feared. ]

[impathy]

You are kind to say so, but I fear that the qualities that make me so well loved are in short supply here.

[Gold, chiefly. He has not an ounce of it. And what is a Lannister without their wealth?]

[steeledskin]

It will not matter. [ an exceptional bluntness finds its way to her tongue. ] They will forgive you it.

[ they. not her -- not her family, neither, she hopes. but the others. she speaks from a wry experience. if so many could forgive her so many lies and so much brokenness, they cold forgive him for being himself. of that she is certain. ]