fairynuff | TEST DRIVE MEME #8

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TEST DRIVE MEME #8

TEST DRIVE MEME

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OPTIONAL SCENARIOS

01. ARRIVING IN THE DRABWURLD.
The Seelie and Unseelie courts welcome you not with mirthful revelry, this time around dear friends. There is a seriousness in the air, though the food is still hearty and the imps still mischievous. 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! Be mindful, though -- the monarchs are watching and cross court communication should be done with the utmost secrecy.

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[She stops in mid-air, the locket dangling in front of her face. For a moment she looks cross even stern, but it passes quickly. The multiverse isn't something she's as well-versed in as Jason apparently is. But it makes some sense; the tone, the overall strangeness. (What would make more sense though, is another memory drama or a blow to the head. She's not discounting those yet.) ]

I'm almost there.

[Which is all she has to say about that. She closes her locket abruptly and flies as fast as she can to the ring. From there, she makes her way to Jason. Almost there had been perhaps an over-estimation. But she gets there eventually, the sun down.

She opens her locket again then -- and realises she doesn't know how to send private messages. She curses under her breath. Ask for me, he'd said so she does. A little while later, she finds him. Or, at least, where he's supposed to be.

Of course Kori doesn't knock; she just appears.]

[Sneaking up on any of the kids that Bruce trained isn't the easiest task, but Kori does manage it. He turns toward her with a look of disgruntled surprise, and he wonders what he should be telling her. "Welcome." "Hi." None of these seem to work. That she's so determined to seek him out is confusing, but it's just as confusing as it had been to run into Kaldur'ahm all those months ago.]

Didn't learn to knock where you come from? [he finally manages, looking put out.]

Look, do you want a drink? From the sounds of it, you need it. [They need it, but she's the one who ended their conversation so abruptly. She didn't like what he had to say, right? That's what he's assumed, at any rate.

Jason rather likes that conclusion.

It means he has the upper hand.]

I live in a ship wreck; there's little cause for knocking.

[Was that a rhetorical question? Oh well.

She looks at him closely. She really looks at him. He doesn't look as young, but that might be less to do with age and more to do with experience. To be here as long as he apparently has is bound to leave lasting evidence. But it does knock the breath out of her, a little. She tries to keep ber face neutral, not because she's embarrassed by how she's feeling but because this is Jason and he takes advantage of every weakness.

She knows him as well as she knows herself. ]

I'd like a drink, [she says at last. What she'd like more is to touch him; face, arm, hands -- anywhere. She's smart enough to know not to. ]

[The way that Kori looks at him is unsettling. It's one thing to have that over the lockets. It's another thing to have it in person, with her standing right there. While he's met and been carried by her before, there is something to the familiarity of the way she looks at him that he just ... doesn't like. What the hell happens after Gotham, after his plan with Hush, that makes this happen? Is it that? Is it the multiverse?

He has considered both possibilities. He's told her one, but he hasn't thrown the other out the window. Either way, that still makes him someone she doesn't know. He hasn't lived it, and he's lived here. Between Morla's changes of his physiology, his knowledge of magic, and his desperation to save that same damn multiverse by helping his friends find their shard knowledge or whatever else, he knows one thing for certain: there is no way that he'd be someone she knows.]

Right. If I give you something, that means you're going to listen. Pay attention. Don't go walking out. [Condescension readily enters his voice. If he looks down on her, he'll have control over this. If he looks down on her, he can feel better about the fact that he's hurting someone who he once wanted to be able to call a friend.

(These days, Donna is the only one he would even label that way, and it's a flimsy attempt.)

Jason moves to pull out two glasses and draws out am amber colored liquid. He fills both (short) glasses half-way. A bit later, he murmurs an ice spell and drops an ice cube in each glass. One is left on his desk, and he carries the other over to her, extending it toward her with the greatest amount of distance kept between them.]

[She doesn't sit, but she takes a glass once it's offered and she watches him. He wants her to listen and she nods, agreeing. In all honesty, she doesn't need prompting. She listened to Jason Todd for weeks on her island; she listened to his past and to his sins. To his fears and his honesty; she'd listen to him say it all again if he asked her too. Before he begins, she wants to say all this, but then there is magic.

Jason Todd has never done magic in his life.

She exhales a soft, surprised breath and downs her drink in one go. ]

Jason, [she says at last, softly. Gently. ] I would not go anywhere.

[She's being far gentler than she usually is, mostly because it feels like she should. This situation feels delicate. ]

Yeah, see, that? That I don't get. [He returns to his desk and leans against it. In a fluid motion, Jason grabs his own drink and sips it carefully. Unlike her, he's going to savor it. He feels like he should.]

You weren't willing to listen before, though. You wanted to wait until we were in each other's presence. For me, there isn't anything sentimental about us being like ... this. [Jason motions his hand forward to indicate the two of them being in the same room before it comes back to rest at his side.]

Because I barely know you. I could lie. I should lie, but would it even work? You'd pick up on it soon enough. If you're going around and asking for Red Hood like that, someone else is gonna spill the wrong information to you. [At this, he pauses to take a sip, tilting the glass up against his mouth. His eyes squint as he drinks it down. It burns, but he can handle it. After a few seconds, he decides to finish off the contents. You know what? Fuck savoring it. This whole thing is a mess.]

I don't know if we've missed our ... bonding time in the future after I finished up in Gotham, or if you're from a whole different world. But either way, the—[way you're looking at me, like I'm someone important]—... fact that you're here, you're not going to be happy with the results. Because that isn't ever gonna happen now.

[She's already not happy, but saying so might be tactless. What she does instead is wait, to see if he's finished and then she places her glass down on the closest surface. ]

Jason, [she begins, no less gently,] I said that I would listen. I will listen, no matter what it is you have to tell me. If you are not my Jason, I will listen anyway.

[Her Jason, she says without irony. She pauses. ]

I will tell you about where I am from, if you will also listen, afterwards.

I'm not gonna line up the details of my life and let you pick out what's wrong, [he says sharply. Laying it all out there for anyone—especially someone who is, to him, a stranger—isn't high on his list of priorities. He can't let her know anything. He can't let her figure it out that way.

Because what if he is her Jason?

He thinks back to that meeting with Aquaman's protege and the fact that they were on different teams. It was telling.]

Do you remember my last mission with the Titans? [he decides to go with. The team thing seemed to be a sticking point, a real one, so he's going to go with it now.]

[She shakes her head, but what he's said is already telling.]

No. [She hesitates, and then:]

The Titans are new, from my perspective. Neither you and I are members; Red Robin leads them, I believe his original team remains unchanged.

[Honestly she doesn't care, but Jason had seemed to care about Tim somewhat so. There's that.] But go on, please.

There isn't a story there. [There could be. In his mind, there is: the Titans were one team that only accepted him as a temporary replacement. Whenever someone looked at him, they saw the R on his chest, and they had expectations. Jason was never their teammate, even up until the end. He may have helped save Raven's mother, he may have helped a woman whose daughter was troubled, but what value to the team did he really have? He's fairly certain that it's none.]

We're not friends. [Jason feels as if he needs to get that point across. The information has been laid out.]

If you wanna talk, you can go on now. I've said my piece. But I think we know what we need to know. [What I need to know. Her determination to listen to him still unsettles him. The implication is clear: the Jason she knows does talk to her. Are they similar?

He hopes not.]

[She keep his gaze, utterly determined. She's fine with talking; her story isn't pleasant, but it's one her Jason knows.]

When I was young, my sister sold me into slavery. Is that same for your Koriand'r, I wonder? I hope not.

[Start off dramatic, keep his attention.] I am telling you not for pity, but so that you might understand. She did it to save my people a grim fate; for years I stewed in anger and in resentment until I snapped. I was not treated kindly, and when I escaped I did not treat my captors kindly either.

[The experiments are alwaya fresh on her mind, along with the torture. The humiliation. A princess of Tamaran reduced to nothing but fodder. She is still furious; it's in her eyes, the downturn of her mouth.] I met with allies after the fact, but it came to be that I crash landed on Earth. A boy found me -- his name always escapes me ... But I would know him anywhere. His eyes, they were as blue as yours.

[She pauses, the image of Nightwing hazy in her head. Blurry all in the middle.]

I helped him for a while, to be a hero. But to be a hero on Earth, it requires mercy. I -- I did not think most of our adverseries were deserving of it. He disagreed. So I left and placed myself into isolation; it was peaceful. Secluded.

And then you washed up onto my island, Jason.

[Jason is not without empathy or sympathy. What she tells him doesn't fall on deaf ears, no matter how much he wants to raise his hand and signal her to stop. She had said she would explain, and though he made it clear he didn't want an explanation, it would be cruel to dismiss her now. Plus, he wants to hear, he wants that comparison, even if he doesn't know what to make of it.

Starfire in his world had gone through a great deal of trouble. Jason hadn't memorized her file. He memorized her, and he knew her well ... in a very boyish way. It's hard to not have an attraction to Starfire at the age of fourteen. (Even now, he's attracted to her, but he pushes that out of his mind.)

He can't confirm or deny for that reason. What does shake him for a moment is the mention of Dick (it has to be him, it has to be), and the fact that his name "always escapes her." Is that possible? His gaze narrows when she says that, and he doesn't know what to make of it. And when she realized that the world hadn't suited her, that her own values hadn't suited her, she removed herself from it. It was an action that he understood. To a degree, he had done it. He made the choice to do exactly that, hadn't he?

But then she goes on. She tells him that the other Jason Todd is what broke her out of that isolation. Not only is he a significant figure in her life, but he's that important. An anxious feeling twists inside of him, making him feel strangled by the fact that he feels like he should be responsible for her. The sudden pressure from that makes him want to dart out of his room, but he can't. It's his home. She doesn't belong here.]

I'm not him, [he insists, visibly uncomfortable.] Look—I get it. I know what step comes next. [Kindred souls. Friendship. More?]

But that isn't what comes next for me. I don't do ... [Jason waves a hand between them.] ... this whole thing. [Friendship. But he does here, doesn't he? Somehow. Somehow people have made it so he does, and she'll realize that quickly.] Not with people from our world. [There, that rectifies it.]

Or a similar world. If you know a Jason, you know that I like to keep these things separate.

[It's not the end of her story by any means; she's not sure to vocalize the significance of Jason Todd in her life, back home. That he offered her a partnership without judgement or that he tried to save her from murdering a man in cold blood. To say she knows him seems in poor taste; asking if he died, too, even more so. But listening to hin, she thinks he must have. The Lazarus Pit hadn't held a tight sway on Jason when she found him,
but it had been a presence.

She nods, in understanding. It's in her nature to fight these kinds of things, but not at the risk of another persons comfort. Jason is not comfortable and she gets that. ]

I understand.

[She should leave, she thinks. She can't take her eyes off of him, but she knows that she should go. She opens her mouth and hesitates, then: ]

We work well together, back home. At least allow me to offer that, if you ever need it.

[That final offer is what he wants to reject the most, but she's provided enough information (and enough for him to draw further conclusions) to know that she's telling a simple truth: they work well together. Jason doubts he'll have arguments with her about whether or not to kill Faolan and Lancelot and improve their cause. But he doesn't know. War is different from vigilante behavior. She'll have to understand it, and it's better to accept that strength than push it away.

Jason denies all notions that do occur to him that he simply wants to have someone close to him that he does know. He denies the fact that her affection is a wanted a thing. He doesn't deny that she would be a good ally. That is clear. That is all there is.

(Jason is rather good at convincing himself of something, but he doesn't always remain muddled in those ideals unless pushed. He changed his mind on Bruce's fate several times, and was happy with these changes.)]

You'll have to meet the others. Don't divulge too much about me. The woman in charge of this city is the Baronness Ariadne. [My best friend. Who he's hurt. He's hurt her, but that's what he does. He disappoints.] I work in tandem with her and a few others, but I believe in our cause.

We're here to find a way to change fate and stop a cycle from repeating. We're here to save existence. It isn't typical, and it requires a lot of bloodshed. Are you up for the task? [Half the time when Jason gives this speech to people, he feels like an action hero.

He won't admit it to anyone (anyone), but it makes him feel pretty fucking cool.]

[It seems as though that Jason is always fighting a war; with himself, with his family -- and now here, in this strange world. It is not her war. She has no stakes in this; for all Jason talks with such passion, she still feels like a prisoner.

It's also very dramatic; very typically Jason. He asks her if she's up for the task and she wonders, briefly, if he is, really.]

I am.

[And meeting the others. The fact that here are others is possibly the biggest surprise of all. She pauses, after that confirmation and she waits. She watches. She studies Jason a little more. ]

You feel strongly about this place.

Should I not? [Jason's mind quickly switches gears, turning this into another game, another test of wills. Does she think that he's someone who tempers his emotions? Does she believe him to be someone to keep himself in check? All his life, he has always held strongly to his beliefs and identity. He knows that about himself. It's hard for him to blanket it with other sentiments, even when he tries.

He knows that's why Talia withdrawn her efforts to move him like a pawn to some degree, and watched to see what he might do. She knew that he changed his mind.]

I do not understand why.

[She doesn't say it maliciously; she says it as someone who is trying to understand. To piece together a picture of why anyone would stay here and not fight against it. She's so tired of war; it comes for her too much. It takes too much.

These fairies are not her people. They're neither friend nor foe. She would fight for Jason Todd because she loves him, but not without cause. Not without rationale. ]

I can't tell you that. [The way he says this is makes one thing clear: Jason does not mean "I can't tell you." He means "I won't tell you." Answers are ready. He has a purpose here. He's accepted for that purpose. He works together with friends toward a common cause.

He's saving the world. That's why he was Robin. He wanted to do some good, and here, he can do it the right way. It's not so different from home, but on a larger scale.

Even if he feels he's not good enough or up to the task, the people around him are.

But he won't tell her any of this (not now, maybe not yet). Jason doesn't know her, after all.]

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TEST DRIVE MEME #8

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