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

[conservationist]

[But he wants to brush it off. Because he doesn't want to argue with him about something neither of the two of them understand at all.]

I've been told... by a fairy, whatever that's worth... that I agreed to it in a dream.


So, yes, kidnap victim.

[lyorning]

[yes, let us pretend I am cool and composed]

It nearly is; it was created by Her Majesty Zerika the First at the dawn of the Empire. As for the comfort, it has some. One knows who will receive the Orb, and some manner of their character.

[lycanthnope]

[ What's the matter? Get picked on too much at school? Didn't make the mathletes this year? Despite his curiosity and his immediate instinct to mock, he really ought to keep his mouth shut. Because he'd been told the same thing.

Because he'd asked for a whole lot more than just faeries once.

(He tries not to think about what happened. Some days, it's easy to forget. Some days, it takes all the distraction in the world to stop him from thinking about it.)

So he changes the angle. Deflects it away from what they want (and how badly wanting can backfire) and towards what they're stuck with. ]

And you're okay with this little game of cops and robbers they've got set up?

[conservationist]

[Oreki gives quite an incredulous look.]

Of course I'm not okay with it. It's insanity. I'm not going to fight in some random monarch's war just because they tell me to.

[envoyoftwilight]

Shard. Shard. Midna's knowledge on it wasn't as clear as she wanted it to be, but she had the general gist of how things worked. And she didn't miss the way he subtly addressed her. It wasn't pointed at all, but at the same time, every word he uttered had a literal sharpness to it. If words could only cut...

"I only just arrived," she reminded him with a confidence that she wished she felt more of, rather than a feigned portrayal she was putting on. "I wasn't planning on causing you conflict right away. I need a little time to settle in first. Once I have, I'll be ready to play with you."

[debts]

[ Just like a Stark. Natasha huffs out a laugh, though it's not exactly because something is funny. She glances up at the sky — she'd had the same thought, though her knowledge about constellations only extends so far, i.e. navigation — and raises a brow. ]

Maybe you'll have better luck than I did.

[ A beat. ]

What I wouldn't do for satellite imagery right now.

[chromosomes]

[ Being a loving brother, John is just... going to laugh at the look on her face. He can't help it. ]

Crazy, right?

[ He knows it is. He knows she thinks it is. The knife is easily replaced, no bulges or bumps showing anything out of place in the bag despite the fact that it clearly shouldn't fit. ]

Though... ultimately pretty convenient, at least when it comes to carrying shit around.

[bloodhaze]

Does my title amuse you?

[He has to wonder exactly why she has that arrogantly amused look on her face. Ugh, this is why he has never gotten along with the undead. This right here.]

My Orcs are proud warriors of blade and steel. They'll know nothing of your little magic toy.

[impathy]

Are you now? Something must have happened to cause that, to be sure. Did she kill someone you love?

[And how freely you speak when you're on your own, he reflects. Would that you could have spoken to me like that before, I might have been able to do more for you.</i?]

[Locket]

[impathy]

I have. Daily and quite often. But they are still my family, for whatever it's worth.

[So he has his family loyalty. More than a small measure, regardless of how little they deserve it.]

[crofts]

1. feeaaaasstttt
( This is fascinating from an archaeological perspective, nostalgic from memories of the Endurance crew, and horrifying on multiple levels - turning up in unknown places surrounded by strangers has not, of late, gone so very well for her. Or for them, really.

Lara is leaning with her back against the wall, holding a flagon of something but not drinking it. She's watching, mostly, trying to gauge what people are doing. Sometimes it's easiest to be invisible in a crowd. Sometimes it's easiest to be uncomfortable among them, too. One of her hands rubs against the frayed leg of her cargo pants, pushing over her thigh and towards her knee, grinding her knuckles into the rough material. Her gaze drops to drink. Enough others have drunk from the same jug, yet when you are among the Unseelie that isn't necessarily encouraging.

Grimacing, and ignoring the hunger gnawing at her gut, Lara keeps up her vigil. It's more about common sense than discipline, although she could imagine Roth telling her to stop being so bleedin' stubborn and eat the damn stuff. For now-- she'll just wait a little longer. Just to be certain. As a general rule, second chances don't exist and a strangers hospitality is a dangerous thing. )


2. Unseelie haaaaalls
( What's that, you say? Wandering a strange keep in the dark? Why, she doesn't mind if she does, thank you. Excuse her, she has THINGS to discover. Maybe some history to contemplate.

Getting out of here is top priority number one, but exploring.

That and she needs to find her room, because as much as is galls her to admit it, this might just be the safest place to sleep. At the very least, the prospect of sleeping in a bed (and maybe eating some of the food she has stowed away, no one has keeled over or passed out yet) is very, very appealing.

She hears something, or maybe feels another presence is more accurate, and leans against the wall. Her unconscious, her hand has slipped to the pry axe at her belt, the other still grasping her food.

Barely audible: ) Come on.

( Whether she's talking to herself or someone else she doesn't know. )


3. Wildcard - Noa Woods and the Loch
( This is better. It's easier to breathe out here, away from the court and the chaos. She knows that is part of her know, stitched in and irrevocable, but it's a relief to find peace nonetheless. Part of her wonders how much peace there would truly be if the side of chaos overruled order, but order only invites further chaos anyway. One cannot really exist without the other to work against it... more than slightly chilling, considering the never-ending war.

Lara is making more arrows, inspecting the shafts from her perch on a rock overlooking the Loch, though she looks up at any sudden sounds. She is well positioned - close enough to the trees to melt away into them, if she suspects a threat. For now, however, she is allowing herself at least the pretence of relaxing. )

[steeledskin]

She brought a part of her forces against my city. [ her voice is tight. unyielding, despite how she speaks the truth. these matters were widely known and well-publicized. hiding them would do her no good. but there are pieces of the whole story which could yet remain untold. ]

In that way, it might perhaps be said she killed a great many things beloved to me.

[ things that ought to be beloved at least. ]

[dragmire]

He chuckled, though it was not cruel. No, she amused him. Certainly she was brazen and that he could respect, even if it would win her no favors if she meant to make herself an enemy. It would be a waste to have to throw her down when she rose up too high.

"Don't keep me waiting too long," he answered coolly. "I would hate to forget you were even around at all."

[impathy]

And yet you live. An impressive feat to survive at all, I would think. The bards must love you.

[Pretty. Young. Innocent. All qualities that Tyrion lacked, even though he had done the very same thing for King's Landing. They hated him all the more after that and he'd had gained no reward for it.]

[steeledskin]

The Seelie ones, at least. [ she shudders to think what unseelie songs might make her out to be. something awful -- and perhaps she deserves every name. ]

[stickseller]

(At least this Stark isn't QUITE as addicted to it? Or in need of it. He can do things without, he just prefers with because it's exciting and new. He doesn't really believe that brushing your teeth requires advanced technological assistance, but ever since he invented a vibrating toothbrush he hasn't had a single cavity so clearly that's something!!

He can't help the burst of laughter that comes from his mouth then, shaking his head.) Satellite imagery? (He raises an eyebrow slightly at her. Of course, he's heard rumours. Whispers of the possibility of sending something into space that could send information back down, ever since the Germans had managed to launch a missile into space in 42, and then the V-2 rocket back in May, but actually sending and receiving information was still a far off dream, let alone sending and receiving photographs.) I see I'm dealing with a dreamer. (A dreamer he's curious to know how knows about that kind of thing, it wasn't something advertised.)

One day. Maybe.

[debts]

[ Her smile peters out into something more genuine, a little more directly amused. Howard Stark: first and only person to call Natasha Romanoff a dreamer.

She doesn't clarify the expression. Instead, she shifts the set of her shoulders as she stands, brushing her palms against her sides before sparing another glance towards him. It looks -- a little thoughtful, but mostly approachable. The kind of expression a diner girl might wear when she's having a good day over a bad one. (The implications of time travel are easier to digest with magic, but she's still working the trajectory of that particular conversation.) ]

Natasha.

[ Clarifying: ]

My name.

[stickseller]

(To him she is, though. Space travel is something still years off. Sputnik 1 is still a decade away, having something in space that could actually show them a picture of where they are, which he's assuming is what she means by it, that is a dream.

He returns the smile, his own relaxed, pleased. He seems surprisingly at ease with all of this for what it is, but he's always been good at putting up facades. Truth is though, it did come at a convenient time, and while he worries for his butler, he knows the man is more than capable of taking care of himself. And hopefully it'll all soon be cleared up. Hell, maybe the magic can help somehow. (even if he is still skeptical to it all, at heart. But for the time being it's better to go with the flow, as it was. He'd seen a few trying to resist and he'd much rather keep dealing with the faeries than the imps.)

Beautiful. (The grin flickers into the vague area, blurred between a smile and a smirk.) The name. And the person it's attached too.

(He is a Stark, after all. He'll reach his hand towards her.) Howard.

[birdonym]

[Finch has to smile at that.] Why indeed?

[He watches Stark, genuinely impressed at the kit he keeps on his person. The passion Stark has for his work, regardless of his aptitude, is clear (although it is that aptitude that Finch is measuring).]

Implicitly, portability, of course. You might say size is near-everything. The smaller size of my laptop compared to the desktop you are so skillfully disassembling prohibits it from having a larger processor, among other things. The computer may translate large amounts of data to very small spaces, but it still does require space. As you can imagine, the desktop is also as comparatively easy to repair and customize as it is to disassemble, which can be a great advantage for more demanding work. Excepting the memory and hard drive, all the other components of the laptop are built as one into it, severely limiting any attempt to augment its capabilities.

[stickseller]

(You never know when you're going to stumble upon something you need or want to take apart. As the boy scouts say always prepared, not that he had ever been one of those, but he still took the phrase to heart and tried to live by it.)

Obviously, but I'm guessing yours is still quite powerful? (The rate he was going through what he had spied stumbled upon him working on was, to his eye, quite quick. But this too seemed to have the possibility of that, likely more from what the other was saying.

He nodded along to the words, though he kept his eyes on the machine he was working on, quickly adding each removed piece to his notebook, jotting along notes, keywords of what Harold was saying to the margin.) Are there still ones that take up entire floors of buildings? That's what mine currently does, but compared to what I saw yours doing, mine is as slow as molasses on the coldest day of winter. (Where one might thing he would be annoyed, he mostly sounds vaguely amused by it.

Carefully he unscrewed the hard drive from it, picking it out and examining it.) So a...laptop would be kind of like, a notebook, but the desktop is the heavy duty typewriter you keep at your home desk. (Vaguely. It's the closest he's got at the moment and mostly distracted.)

Is it something everyone has access to, or does it require special permits?

attaches to your leg cutely.

[amplified]

( this is not a face she was expecting to see. possibly ever. and she just... stares, for a long time, before she picks her own locket up and pokes at it until she knows her face and voice display together. she quickly masks her shock ((and the pain associated with stupid fucking jackson and his stupid fucking face)) and tries to be relatively composed, because he's already disoriented. and pissed. )

Jackson? Is that actually you?

[debts]

[ She doesn't bother to look pleased about it. It's not really necessary -- right now, Natasha doesn't give enough of a fuck to navigate that when it's the world that comes first -- so while she doesn't smile, she doesn't bite, either. ]

I know.

[ This time she does smile. Natasha cultivates things carefully, though not nearly with the pedantic attitude some might suggest. She arches a brow, neat, and shrugs a shoulder. ]

You look a lot shorter in the pictures. [ Sort of, though in reality what she's referencing are the coroner's reports included in the initial dossier on Tony Stark. Tactfully, that does not get a mention. ]

[stickseller]

(Well well, a feisty one. Those are always fun. Howard's just going to rock back on the balls of his feet, and bark out a laugh then.)

You know I usually get the opposite, so I'll take that as a compliment and run with it.

(He's always worked his angles well, although, of course, he figure she's probably mostly seen photos of him next to Steve -- that man makes most look small, it's cheating.)

So what do you usually do, Miss Natasha? When not getting lured by faeries to a magical world of war?

Grommash Hellscream | Warcraft | Court Undecided

[bloodhaze]

01. Feast

[Grommash had no idea where the hell he was. The last thing he remembered was being in a life or death battle with a Pit Lord and then... imps overwhelmed him, and dragged him in a sack to this land. Imps should not be able to overwhelm him and the fact that they had was more than enough to injure the champion's pride.

There was so many humans at this "feast" and he wondered why he hadn't been attacked. Was this their doing? Were they trying to mock him? This made little sense, and was unnecessarily petty, even for humans, but through his blood raged eyes it made perfect sense. He had almost started just cleaving every human he seen in two, before remembering Thrall and just how badly his rage and lust for power had gotten. Instead of going a more violent route, he instead opens his mouth, jaw unhinging almost impossibly wide, and lets out a loud screech worthy of the name "Hellscream". It is extraordinarily loud. Almost ear-drum bustingly so for anyone in close enough range. Enjoy your meal :|]

02. Station

[Grom is trying his best to relax in his new environment, but ugh. Everything is so small, so humanized. He's sitting down on the patio with a drink in his hand. It's in a small glass cup! One that looks way too undersized for an Orc of his build. And after taking a second look at the cup, he realizes it would barely even qualify as a sip. With a growl, he crushes the glass cup in his hand, letting the shards and all of the cups contents fall to the ground.

He's angry at everything! Why did he have to get stuck in a place like this. Clearly it was not made for an Orc.]

Useless...

[fulminants]

[ Blissfully oblivious to the more complex intricacies of the relationship between this man and some guy who (apparently) looks like him, he smiles. ]

Nice meeting you, James. [ He exhales. ] So, d'you know what the hell's really going on here? Is there really a war?