TEST DRIVE MEME

[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 grand feast is held in the Eaglais clearing. The food is good, the music is sweet, and the evening is lit by gentle fairy lights. All Shardbearers of all courts are summoned here under a universal truce for the evening. Nature itself has shaped itself into tables, chairs, and long couches so that the new guests can rest. When they’re ready to call it a night, Shardbearers are brought to their court strongholds in a one-way trip by fairies and imps. 02. NETWORK Take advantage of your Locket! The network can be accessed by any Shardbearer with a locket or shardless characters with enchanted devices, and is a quick way to meet new people and discuss the state of the world. 03. WILDCARD. Your own scenario! Explore the Drabwurld! There are lots of places to go, and plenty of trouble to get into in them!

Comments

[meetmyblade]

Thousands of years?

[Evie is visibly taken aback about that and startles somewhat, but then composes herself. Getting overcome isn't going to help matters at all, only hinder them.

Although she's sure she must look something like a fish out of water with her jaw agape, she manages a wry little smile as she sighs.]

Well why wouldn't there be time travel in a place like this? If it can draw people in from different worlds then the issue of a tossing people around a few centuries or more should be old hat.

[But... then something twigs. France. Katsa's been to France. Then maybe there's someone from her world here. Now there's a comforting thought.]

Did you say France? That's across the sea from Britain, where I'm from. How did you end up there, Katsa?

[survivra]

[ now that surprises her, and it shows in katsa's face. ]

No! You know France? I visited one of its cities for a time, by the same power that brings us here, I imagine—Paris. [ she says the name with a french accent. though the pronunciation isn't perfect, it's clear she's heard it enough times. ] I was with someone who's from there, but has been here instead as well for a while now. I—well, it wasn't a pleasant place, but if the people manage to end their revolution and settle things without corrupt leadership...

[ and if assassins or templars ever win the war between them, she adds silently, thinking of élise's reminder that there have always been wars fought in france. some have only been secret. ]

Neither Arno nor Élise ever mentioned Britain nor any United Kingdoms when they spoke of France... Is that what those two countries are? A part of the United Kingdom?

[ then again, she'd never mentioned monsea or wester or any of the other seven kingdoms besides the middluns to others, because it had simply never been relevant. perhaps that wasn't so strange. ]

[meetmyblade]

Britain and the United Kingdom are the same thing; its full name is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and it's made up of the four countries of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales who are spread over one larger island, Great Britain, and the north eastern tip of the neighbouring island Ireland. France is our neighbour to the south east, separated by a stretch of sea we call the English Channel.

[But even as she's giving her impromptu geography lesson, there's something that Katsa's said which is resonating with her. Revolution. Arno and Élise... That's an extremely big coincidence that the other girl could have met another Assassin and a Templar, and after all the French had more than one revolution. Élise in not an unpopular name, but- Arno and Élise together surely...

Well she's going to have to ask. No harm in that.]

I'm sorry, you mentioned an Arno. By any chance... that wouldn't be Arno Dorian, would it?

[survivra]

[ For a second time Katsa starts with surprise, and she does not comment on the geography lesson nor Evie's question for a moment. It's with this question that things begin falling into place for Katsa, that the observations that had piqued her interest (the rooftops, the gauntlet, the way Evie seemed to prefer to watch) had piqued them for a reason. And with Arno's full name, they all click.

She almost holds her breath as she answers Evie's query in a roundabout way with an unasked one of her own. Despite her indirect response, recognition makes itself clear on Katsa's face at Arno's name. ]

There would be Assassins in Britain.

[meetmyblade]

And in the Drabwurld too, it seems.

[This is a relief, but a strange one. There are Assassins here, she is amongst brothers and that is good. She has allies and support, she has a foundation to build on. Admittedly it's not the same as having Jacob or Henry or even George to ally with, but it's a start.

The strange part is where it seems her contact happens to be a long dead Assassin from the French Revolution, and whose ill-fated Templar lover might just be around too.

It doesn't quite explain how Katsa knows about the Brotherhood, and it has not slipped Evie's attention that she's not wearing a blade.]

I think we had better start again, don't you?

[survivra]

[ Women among the Assassins. It shouldn't be as astonishing to Katsa as it is to receive that confirmation: Arno had never said otherwise, and it would seem strange for an order founded on the concept of freedom not to allow women in their ranks when Élise was proof they fought for their enemies. But two years later and she still is slow to lose her sense of surprise at learning other worlds put blades in their women's hands.

It's a good surprise. And exciting, too, to learn that her hunch was right. She has been feeling frustrated with her dearth of knowledge regarding Assassins and Templars, and there are suddenly a hundred questions she anticipates asking Evie. A third voice. A third view. What it is, it doesn't matter. ]

Well, I am not one of them. There are no Assassins nor Templars in my seven kingdoms—at least, none that I know—and I've only learned lately about the war. There is no Brotherhood here either, and I know what Élise is as well.

[ She starts to say more when a thought strikes her. She's been assuming that Evie is an Assassin, but could she be a Templar? She doesn't know how Evie knows Arno's name and what he is. ]

I don't know much about it, but I wouldn't hesitate to hurt someone who wished to hurt him. [ There—let that serve as a warning, just in case. ] But you know him? Personally? Or is it only through the Assassins?

[meetmyblade]

No, I've never had the pleasure of meeting him. All I know of him is from his own writings and writings about him, he's- well he was born in 1768 and I was born in 1847.

[It strikes Evie that it might be terribly tactless to straight out blurt out that Arno Dorian's been dead for quite a number of years, especially if he's still alive and kicking.

And given that Katsa's talking about Élise in present tense, so must she be.

Which means they must not know.

Evie feels a peculiar knot tighten in her stomach when she thinks of that. Personal feelings should not get in the way of the mission. That's something Élise de la Serre did not adhere to, and she paid the price.]

Rest assured, I would no sooner wish harm upon him than I would upon my own brother- [wait hang on, Jacob could certainly do with a slap every now and then so probably not the best example, she quickly makes that into a plural, there we go bullet dodged] -s in London.

He has told you about our Brotherhood then? About what we stand for, what we do?

[survivra]

Writings.

[ Katsa says the word, and her head whirls. Arno is not merely one name among many, it seems, unless it's standard practice for Assassins to write about all their brothers. The latter is possible, but Katsa thinks the former is much more likely. She knows him. She would believe—

But then so long. Nearly a century. That in itself is not the most surprising thing to Katsa. She has known anomalies with time in this world, experienced it so many times herself, but there's something else significant in that. Evie has not denied the existence of a war. They're still fighting. So she was right even though she does not wish to be: Élise and Arno would not have an easy time finding a common, lasting goal between Assassins and Templars.

Evie knows more than Katsa could possibly know, however. She resolves to stop guessing and assuming: it's a bad habit. Katsa relaxes. ]

Yes, he told me: that the Assassins fight for the right of people to make their own futures. Their own freedoms. Templars would instead choose those things for them in the name of order and peace.

[ And what's so frustrating is that Katsa, from what she has heard, believes that she agrees wholly with the Assassins. Except that she likes Élise, and Élise doesn't like being controlled, either. So instead she just feels stupid, like she's missing pieces of it, because she doesn't quite make sense of Élise. Katsa searches for Evie's eyes to meet them steadily with her own. ]

Is that right? I know that I could still know more about your Brotherhood.