A character's first post always seem to go longer than most others, be it because introductions are always lengthy or because it's just more open to the whole monologue thing. Whatever the case, first posts are also handy in that they often introduce who and what a character is, which makes them great standalone rp samples in my opinion. The only downside is, like I said, that a first post can often be different from a normal post.
Not everything I post in here is going to be the very first post a character makes, but they'll have a similar feeling of introduction and explanation of the character's place in the rp at the time of entry. Additionally, there's no particular order to what I post. It's really whatever I find, whenever I find it.
Posted: Fri Aug 04, 2017 3:25 am
Enter from Time Skip
At the base of the Sero tree, a green-haired girl paused to look up into the rustling leaves. The mist stopped about 50 feet from the tree, but the light still had to dapple through the branches and foliage of the giant tree before finally reaching the ground in bright patches. She breathed slowly and deeply, enjoying the view. After all, she was probably going to have to wait for hours even if she did rush her way into the Mizukage's office.
From the announcement she had been given, Kagerou assumed that the majority of the village would be making their way to see Jack. Those who weren't interested in the special access privileges provided to a military member could go and see Inka, but as a ninja village, there were plenty of ninja who would need to see Jack specifically if they wanted to resume their jobs and lives. It would be a long line to see the Mizukage, was Kagerou's guess.
Although, having assumed that, this place was surprisingly calm and empty. This stairway that Kagerou stood at the foot of was the only path to the windowless office. She looked down to survey the settled and definitely not busy scene. If the Mizukage's office was going to be busy, then this path would have been bustling with people coming and leaving. Kagerou mused as she started her ascent of the stairs, . She recalled that her parents had received the notice to see the Mizukage before Kagerou had. she figured,
There were lifts Kagerou could have taken instead, but she wanted to take her time. She admired the sheer size of the tree, and if it hadn't been an important part of the village, she would probably make it a habit to lounge in the branches while reading a book or something. She enjoyed the view and air as she slowly ascended.
At the parts of the stairway that followed the great tree's curves, Kagerou skimmed her hands against the rough bark. Her eyes looked just ahead of where her hand would pass, careful to avoid any possible splinters. Each step she took caused the bells tied to her rest to ring lightly, and it wasn't long before she started to hum an improvised tune in time to the steady ringing. A little more and she was flexing her wrist in order to create certain rhythms to accompany her humming.
She seemed so light-hearted right at this moment. Kagerou, that is. For the first few weeks after the destruction of the village, she had to try really hard to smile so that she could comfort others. Despite everything she wished she could do, the reality was that she often couldn't do more than smile and bring some peace and optimism into the lives of others, so she did just that. In the first place, considering everything others had to go through, Kagerou was very fortunate to have only experienced the little she had. She was able to even think about smiling only because of her luck.
Smiling begets smiles. Not just to others but also to the smiler. Once she started to force herself to smile, Kagerou found it easier and easier to find things to smile about. Little things, like being alive or seeing the first sprouts of life beginning to take root in the newly formed terrain. Talking with the survivors about the past and, more importantly, the possibilities about the future. Even a small joke said in passing. Now that the village could function fully once more, there were even more reasons to smile, so Kagerou could smile lightly and naturally as she walked forwards.
Humming, ringing, thinking about the past made the trip fly by. Before she knew it, Kagerou stood in front of the solid oak doors of the office. It was a little brighter up here than down at the base of the stairs. Less leaves and branches for the light to filter through. She paused for a little bit, seeing how no one else seemed to need to get through the doors, and raised her face to the sky so that she could just feel the warmth of the sun on her skin for a little bit. It was a pleasant feeling, and not something she had much chance to enjoy because of the constant mist present in the village. Then again, she also loved the cool, refreshing weather of her mist-filled village.
However, the building looked so dark. Not the paint job. The lack of windows. She figured that it was for security and privacy, but it must still be so dreary to not look out and enjoy the view of nature every now and then. Confining. Suffocating. Kind of prison-like? The gray stone especially made it look like a prison.
Reaching out for an oak door, Kagerou opened it and slipped inside. Two others were present, and the receptionist. Taking in the room, she took her time walking to the desk. Of course, she noticed the seats that seemed like they were supposed to be used for people waiting. Although, neither of the other two were sitting, A simple but severe set of doors stood at the other end of the room, doors that Kagerou figured would lead to wherever they were to meet the Mizukage. Most interestingly, there were these strange portraits lining the walls. The figures within the portraits weren't strange. Kagerou recognized enough of them to know that these were images of previous Mizukages. She could name a few and respected them all for their services to the village, but they were ultimately all strangers from another time for her. Rather, the portraits were strange because Kagerou could see glimpses of the outside through them, which was unexpected considering the window-less exterior but Kagerou had also lived her entire life among ninja. She figured that some sort of jutsu, like fuuinjutsu, was involved in making it possible to look through the wall.
By this point in her thoughts, Kagerou had reached the receptionist's desk after a leisurely stroll and couldn't put off speaking for any longer. "Good morning," she greeted warmly, "I'm here to be assigned my rank and role as well as to be told anything else I might need to know." Business talk followed, simple and just shy of curt. Kagerou tried to put in some small chat, friendly conversation. However, the receptionist remained professional and deftly avoided falling into the pitfall of useless chatter.
Understanding the receptionist's position but also slightly disappointed, Kagerou let the receptionist be and didn't bother her anymore. Turning back around, she had a little more time to observe the other two present in the room. She noticed now, from where they had chosen to stand, that it seemed like they had also been interested in the portrait-windows. The hooded red-head was actually still staring at the portraits. The blonde, meanwhile, was much more ambiguous. His back was to the pictures, very pointedly so. It felt like he was intentionally not looking at them,
After stepping away from the receptionist's desk, Kagerou stood and stared into the room for a spell. She appreciated silence, but this type of quiet made her simultaneously want to start a conversation to lighten the mood and avoid conversation completely so she didn't annoy anyone.
In the end, she decided she'd take a seat first and then think about it. She took a chair in the front row, somewhere she could easily get up from. These chairs were here for a reason. She might as well use them instead of neglecting them like the other two.
Heights, sheer drops, and stairs. Stairs everywhere. Especially the stairs. Seriously, despite being the least dangerous element of the mountain village, it was the stairs that gave this newcomer to Kumogakure the most trouble. She didn't care about the potentially fatal falls she could trip into with a careless step, but the exhaustion from hiking to the top of the highest mountain was not something she could just brush off. The trek to the Raikage's office from where she was currently staying at was no joke to the 22 year old. She had counted five breaks before finally reaching the doors, but then again, she also took a break whenever she felt like it, having no desire to push herself for the journey.
However, she did eventually reach the doors. Taking one last break before entering the office, the stranger fanned herself, chest heaving with large breaths and drops of sweat glistening on her brow. Luckily for her, while the outfit she wore looked like just any old maid outfit, it was actually a maid outfit made to remain presentable even after heavy exercise, so there were no embarrassingly moist spots on her clothing. For most, it was a strange choice in attire. For this woman, however, it made perfect sense. She had been a maid not more than a couple years ago. Besides, anything else would require more effort than she thought was worth. Even if she could see the puzzled looks others gave her, this whimsical adventurer wouldn't have cared. Her clothes fit and she could move comfortably in them. That was all that mattered.
After catching her breath, the former maid tentatively felt for the doors. She took a little longer than most, but after finding and identifying the handle, she entered the office. Her ears adjusted from the sound of the constantly billowing winds outside to the muffled noises of a professional interior. Besides some business talk going on, it was mostly quiet with very little small talk, but she could hear the breathing and shuffling of those that were silent. She felt that there was more people in one direction than the other. How did places like this work? She wasn't all that sure. She'd never bothered to go into a government building like this one before. This was the first time she actually considered becoming anything but a passerby.
If the woman had to guess, though, then she should go in the direction of the business talk. She turned and walked in the direction of the unmuffled discussion, tapping the ground in front of her lightly with her white walking stick to "watch" out for any obstacles that may be in the way. Her red eyes, which had opened, stared blankly at nothing in general. White hair fell carelessly in front of them. Whoever had been talking--the receptionist and two males--had finished by the time the red-eyed female successfully made her way to the reception desk. If the chairs weren't fixed to the ground, no doubt any of them in her way would have been shoved ever so slightly to one side or another by the walking stick the blind used to navigate, nothing more than a quick tap to learn that they were there before moving on to find an opening meant to be walk through. Otherwise, there was no change to the room.
Some sort of line had been expected, but as the foreigner approached, she sensed that it was just two people standing in front of a desk without any obvious organization. She paused, the unexpected development making itself obvious through a quizzical expression that crossed her easily readable face. She didn't know much about these sorts of places, but she had expected some sort of line like with most any service. Then again, she didn't mind being wrong. It happened, more often than not, for people like her.
Appeased despite having little reason to be, the lady waited pleasantly with a patient smile behind the other two that had arrived first. She had heard three voices but in front of her right now, she could only feel the presence of two that were standing on her side of the desk. It appeared that the receptionist, assuming she had assumed right, was not present at the moment.
Posted: Fri Aug 04, 2017 3:29 am
Ba Sing Se was under a state of lockdown, separating the Teru who had been exploring outside from his parents who had been handling business inside. Teru's face, deceptively impassive, but his mind was abuzz with nervous worry as he paced back and forth in his family's home having returned alone. Bozu, the reinsnake, hung loosely from a ceiling rafter and watched the teen's repetitive movements.
Teru only stopped in his tracks when he heard a knock at his door. He looked up in surprise. There weren't any visitors he was expecting. Everyone he expected to receive condolences from after news of his parents' plight spread had already paid a visit. The small gifts, mostly food, and his just cleaned house were proof that people had already come and paid their sympathies for the day.
After some thought, the boy queried, "Who is it?".
An elderly voice answered from the other side of the door, "Who."
Teru's brow's furrowed in confusion and much less irritation than it looked like he was feeling, "What do you mean who? You're the one who knocked." He had stepped up to the door by now, but did not open it yet.
"Now y'all, come ons. Thas not how them jokes goes," the old woman's voice cackled from the other side, heavy with the accent unique to the swamp tribe "It's 'Who who?' and then comes my answer 'An owl, ya silly catergator! Hoot hoot!'."
Teru groaned, very audibly. He recognized the voice only now, and as he opened the door to let the guest in for the second time today, the first being when she had come and paid her condolences with the rest of the village, he greeted. "Granny Bei, I'm very sorry that I didn’t recognize you." He spoke very correctly, the stress of his parent's loss getting to him. The same stress also served to heighten his resting mean face, and even though he was quite glad to have the company of a familiar elder who's wisdom he trusted, his face made it look like he was annoyed beyond belief.
Granny Bei gave Teru a good smack on the knee with her walking cane as she entered, "Lighten up, would ya?! We all yar family here in this muddy lil swamp called home!"
With the most forced smile ever, Teru weakly laughed "Ah har har har…"
"They'll all be back 'fore ya know et!," Granny Bei predicted, about Teru's parents of course. She disappeared for a bit into Teru's father's study, during which there was nothing but silence because Teru didn't know how to handle Granny at the moment. She reappeared shortly with a thick bundle of scrolls Teru didn't even remember existing, which she thrusted at Teru with the exclamation, "Now git!".
"H-huh?" Teru scowled, not feeling a bit mean. He just felt confused. A little bit of it was from how Granny Bei knew her way around his house more than he did, but that wasn't something new. Most of his unspoken questions were about what exactly he was supposed expected to do with these scrolls.
Granny Bei seemed unconcerned about Teru's scowl, and had proceeded to usher him out the door, "Whatchu waiting foh?! Young'uns these days. Don't know no meaning of oppohtuhnahteys."
Teru, his scowl turning his query into a demand, asked, "Wh-whatch y'all mean, Granny Bei?!" as his accent slipped into the same kind that his conversation partner used.
The answer Granny Bei was a quick snap of the cane onto Teru's head.
"Yowch!" Teru turned, looking furious, but the tears beginning to form in his eyes showed that he was just hurting and wasn't actually that mad.
Pointing her cane at Teru and wagging it around, Granny Bei forced Teru to remember, "I say. Do ya have the minds of a guineafly?! Why, I remember it like it was jus yestahday. Every time I told a story about heroes and adventuhs in tha ousside, ya'd gits all riled up!". To send the point of her next few words home, she got uncomfortably close to Teru, her face almost touching his, "Don'ts ya see? This is it! Yar parents are in peril. What better reason can ya possibly be waiting for ta git out and live? Now git!". Granny Bei's face receded. However, her cane remained pointed at Teru, or more specifically, the scrolls he had been forced to hold. "See those scrolls? Theys something ya mother brought from backs home, tha No'tharn Water Tribe watuh bending. Not da pansy bending yah do. Not da real bending we does here, either. All its teaches iz watuh bending, pfeh, but its'll give ya somethang to pruhtect yuhself with."
Realization hit Teru like a brick, or like the way Granny Bei's cane hit him earlier. The two were alike in the pain they brought. His eyes went wide, relieving his face of their usual scowl as he stuttered a broken, "O-oh."
Granny Bei repeated, "Whatchu waiting foh?! Now git!" mostly the same thing, "Back in the house! Git! Git! I don't want ya out till ya've read the whole dang scroll!". She waved her cane with the ill omen of a fearsome threat.
"Y-yes ma'am!" Teru needed no further convincing as he dodged back into the house that he had just been chased out of, by the very person who had chased him out in the first place.
With a low chuckle, Granny Bei closed the door that Teru had forgotten to close in his rush. Then, with her job done, she peacefully walked away to finish some other business she had. Not a trace of her previous excitement could be seen, aside from the very wide smile she had on her face.
Teru sighed once he was back in the safety of his home. The elderly lady had led him by his nose throughout that entire exchange, but the method and result both were what this particular granny was known for. "Ow…," he rubbed the back of his head, still stinging from the hit it had taken, Incidentally, healing was all Teru knew how to do with water bending. The "Traditional Arts," as the title of these scrolls called it, would be a completely new style.
However, was now really the time to be mastering a new style? After the exciting meeting with Granny Bei, Teru knew better than to think like that. What else would he do? Sit back and mope? Teru decided as he delicately pulled out the first scroll in the series,
Bunny waited, perched quietly on the edge of the dingy bed in the dingy room with the dingy lighting. Where was he? He didn't know, and he had no one to ask. Strange place equaled he was lost. Being lost meant that if he wanted to be a good boy, he needed to stay still and wait for someone to find him. That was what older sister Cassie always told him, and she would always, always find him. She'd be crying a river of tears, but she would definitely find him. If Bunny moved, then he would be making his sister cry that much longer and he couldn't do that.
Unconsciously, Bunny's grip tightened around the hard, metal object she had found on the desk in the room earlier. His favorite teddy bear was no longer with him, even though he remembered sleeping with the bear, so while this new object was by no means a plushie, it was going to have to be a substitute. There was a vague suspicion of the little girl in the dream he had right before a bright flash of white light stealing it, but even little Bunny knew that was impossible. the little boy thought rather childishly, His next thought was something like a resolution to always wake up when first awoken from now on, but it was soon forgotten like most other things children say they would do.
Tick tock. Tick tock. Over time, it was becoming incredibly difficult for Bunny to remain still. He had already hopped away from the bed about ten minutes ago to grab the mysterious object on the table, that was why he was holding the hard, metal object now. Ten minutes, however, was an eternity to a child like Bunny, and he was getting the near irresistible urge to move again. The itch mounted higher and higher, until Bunny decided,
In time, just walking around the room progressed to exploring the hallway. When Bunny became bored of that, he had the choice to go up or down. He chose up, and he found that the next floor was the roof. That made sense. When he peeked out of a window earlier, he had found himself higher up than ever before. His room had been on the 20th floor of the Morning Hotel. Bunny wandered around the roof, tilting his head and waving his tail experimentally as he got used to the feel of the wind brushing past them.
Oh yeah, since coming into this world, Bunny had grown tails and a horn. It had shocked him at first, and he was still surprised by it, but after having explored so much, he was quite accustomed to them now. He had noticed his red hair had turned a shocking white as well. To his relief, however, he saw his same old red eyes staring back at him after looking at a broken mirror. He still clutched that mysterious object that was in the room with him. Someone was telling him to keep it. That it would help keep him safe. Bunny didn't know who was telling him that, and he couldn't describe the method of communication, but he was almost sure someone was telling him to keep the object.
That same someone was now also pulling at him now that he was on the rooftop. Not a physical pull, but a mental pull. He, she, it, thing, demon, human, who knows what was instilling in Bunny the urge to approach the edge of the roof. Bunny complied and poked his head over the edge to find that he was very, very far from the ground. Somehow, though, he didn't feel scared. Now, that mysterious voice was urging him not with words but with something Bunny couldn't describe to take a step forwards. Bunny screamed, "NO!" and shook his head in refusal as he took a step back, but the someone kept on insisting he will be alright.
The wide open sky. The ground so far away, out of sight now that Bunny was no longer peeking over the edge. Freedom to follow his desires. There was something in Bunny that agreed with the voice. The gullible little child found so little acceptable. He timidly, grip tightening on the object, stepped to the edge. There was an irresistible urge to look at the ground that Bunny followed, but this time, he did not fear the height. It instead assured him, somehow. Bunny took a step and dropped. Just as he fell into the Morning Hotel, he now fell out of it.
Rin let out a gleeful squee as the first signs of the game appeared in front of her eyes. From the darkness popped up various colors and shapes, forming into various screens that surrounded her. She wasn't even in the game yet. She had just gotten through the registration and login screen and had only just entered character creation. Eagerly, Rin reached out a hand and swiped around at the various options. Hair color, hair style, body proportions, gender, nothing went untouched by the elementary schooler's eager curiosity. There was a sense of urgency in her movement because she knew she wasn't supposed to be online right now. The VR headset and game she was using were both her dad's. Even worse, they had just been delivered to their home this very day. Rin had been sternly told by her father that she was not to touch the VRMMMO at all because she was too young for it, but in a rare breach of her usual behavior, the prospect of a new game overrode her father's stern words. After very slowly and very hesitantly pacing in front of the delivered package and then opening the package and then taking the headset and game out of it and then finally donning the headset, Rin figured just a little bit couldn't hurt. If she finished before her father came back, it would be all okay.
After some initial fumbling in the login screen, Rin had become accustomed to the strange sensation of using her body as the controller. Granted, it still felt weird to be reaching out to the buttons instead of jiggling a control stick to drag a cursor to the wished for icon, but it was a strange, enjoyable kind of weird. Rin literally hopped onto the button to change her avatar's gender to female. Beneath her hands, she felt a solid wall, which she then pushed off of with a laugh. Just bouncing around the creation screen was loads of fun, watching her movements cause a stream of colors and various changes to her surroundings. With a twirl, Rin's outstretched arms caused a rainbow of options to appear, disappear, and change. She could see the results of her handiwork to one side, rather bizarre combination of randomly chosen physical characteristics.
She could also feel those characteristics, which was probably the weirdest thing. This one was harder to enjoy, but it still held with it that strange allure of an unknown sensation, the kind where after feeling something new, the urge to feel it again and again occurs until the sensation was no longer strange. Rin felt herself grow then shrink. Although, it appeared that the options didn't really allow her to shrink much smaller than her natural height. Her hair would be swishy and long one moment then stiff and short the other. She'd have bangs. They'd be pink, then orange, then green, then white, then black, then they won't exist before popping back up with another reckless swipe of the child's arms. Her body would feel thicker at one moment then thinner the next. It felt extremely weird when parts of her body were completely opposite of other parts, like stick arms paired with beefy legs or a short torso paired with long arms.
Sometime during the middle of all this childish madness, Rin had to suffer through complete blackness because of something she didn't understand. A… "Server reboot?". At the time, she tried to imagine what it would be like to "re" a "boot." Did that mean to make a new boot? She wasn’t sure, but that didn't matter. There came a voice, a woman's, after the blackness that Rin listened to carefully. Her first that was that the voice was some sort of a game secret that only popped up after doing something, which she probably did with all the random buttons she had pressed. What the voice was saying sort of sounded like the introduction to some rpg game Rin had played. Kind of but different. She paid careful attention to it just in case it was important. Her mother taught her to pay careful attention to stories in games whenever they were there.
However, Rin was too excited with just character creation to even get into the game before deciding that she had better log off because her father would be home soon. Humming a happy tune at having just spent about an hour very productively in her opinion, the child looked for the little icon that she remembered was the button for the main menu. There had been a "something-something off" option in the main menu. Rin couldn't remember exactly what it was, but it had the word "off" in it so it had to be what she needed to turn off the VR.
The menu popped up but the option Luna recalled was nowhere to be seen. She stared quizzically at the options presented, childishly expecting for the missing option to suddenly appear out of the blue. When she got too impatient for that, in about ten seconds, she closed the main menu and began checking other places. It was a pseudo-systematic search where Rin clicked wherever felt like it looked right, often clicking on some things twice just in case the off option had appeared when she wasn't looking. The main menu, of course, was clicked many times in the course of the search.
When there were no results to be shown for a good three minutes of search, a childish frustration clouded Rin's face. The pout the child expressed was a bizarre expression considering that her avatar, by this point, had overlarge eyes, a freakishly small nose, a seagreen mohawk, and about a dozen piercings. All patience lost, Rin punched whatever button-like thing she could find in the sort of unreasonable hope that one of them would be the magical logout button. Still nothing. Once she had tired herself out, she looked up from her slumped sitting position on the ground.
She was about to scream and throw a tantrum. she wiped her tears and stood up, "M-maybe," her thoughts continued out loud, "Maybe I have to make my character first? Yeah, like how I have to put in a nickname for my monster before I can get back to playing the game, but this is Daddy's account. Umm… I'm in so much trouble…" This wasn't the time to dwell on how much trouble Rin was in, though, and Rin sort of knew that. With much trepidation, the girl started carefully selecting her options now. "I'm in sooooo much trouble," and other similar phrases constantly slipped through Rin's mouths as she carefully considered her options, "Daddy is going to yell at me so much, but I should at least try to not mess up his game."
The first and most obvious step was to make the avatar a male. Done and easily. Everything else after that was hard.
"Race?" the first biggest hurdle for Rin, "Uh… Cats are nice and daddy likes cats too. He yells at our cat a lot, but I know he really loves him, so I'll choose that one race that gets cat ears. Umm… Which one was it again? Sh-something." The first "Sh" option was shaman, and Rin naturally gravitated towards that choice, "Sh-shaman? Okay, I think that was it."
Then the system asked for a class to be selected. With no idea on what to choose, the class option didn't appear to have changed anything when Rin was fiddling around with it, she clicked on the little "tips" button. The game suggested Mage class for shamans, and Rin followed the advice.
With race and class selected, Rin could now freely get into the nitty gritty details of her character's appearance. "First this is," she started, "cat ears. Cat ears. Where are the ears? They're not he? Where are they? Huh? But I thought that shamans…" She returned to the race screen and looked through the list again, "Sh- Sh- Sh-," until she found another race that began with the right sound, "Shifter?". Hoping that this new race was the right one, Rin selected mage again for her class and then resumed her search for cat ears. After digging through the most extensive list of appearance options out of any race, Rin found the cat ears. She also found a cat tail, and decided to put those on as well.
"Cat ears. Cat tail," Rin counted out what she had managed to get done so far. Now she had to just do everything else, including fixing the wacked out appearance her randomness had created. That part was easy, Rin chose one of the premade body builds. She randomly looked at a few more because she wanted to make sure she got the best one for her dad, but in the end, "What's the difference between all of them?". Because the game creators assumed that players wanted their characters to look nice, they had only put in nice-looking options. No surprise Rin couldn't really understand why one body would matter over another. Unable to appreciate the aesthetic difference between a shorter height and a taller height, she settled with whatever premade body she happened to end last on.
Ever so gradually, Rin's mood began to lift. "Body done!" she practically sang as she maneuvered the options to fix up the face. Again, she resorted to premade faces over trying to manually adjust the sliders. "No. No. No," Rin scrolled through the options, showing surprisingly harsh judgement with her face selection. Behind each no were rather specific reasons, . After a rather severe series of elimination rounds, Rin finally settled on a face that reminded her of her cat.
Quite naturally, what followed for the hair and fur color decisions were to also base those off of her cat. It was really easy to do it that way, too. Rin's family's cat was just plain black, so Rin just chose the color black. Done. Really easy. After a celebratory, "Yay!" Rin moved onwards.
By this point, Rin was starting to get very bored with making a character. She had already spent over an hour in this one place after all. She chose the hair style rather flippantly and without much though. Long hair on a guy looked weird to Rin. Ponytails looked to old fashioned, kind of like someone who appeared in those historical dramas. Super short hair looked kind of intimidating and Rin didn't like the idea of her father being intimidating. He was nice and pretty, so she needed to make his avatar look like that. With that in mind, she chose a kind of fluffy but short hairstyle that reminded her of her cat.
Now, Rin was about to choose eye color based on her cat as well. Except she discovered, probably more like rediscovered as no doubt her mindless hour-long button mashing had no doubt created this before, that she could have different colored eyes. This was weird, like the long hair and ponytail hair were, but it was a cool kind of weird. Rin immediately decided that she needed to have different colored eyes. Wait, no, her father needed to have different colored eyes. Right, definitely, mhm. "GOLD!" Rin cheered, "AND!" she reached for another color, "SILVER!" because those two colors were the color of jewelry. "The sun and the moon," Rin sang a tidbit of some nearly forgotten cartoon opening song as she remembered something else cool that was the color of gold and silver. Naturally, she kept on singing in a broken manner, "keep on going higheeeeer," where she hummed the parts she had completely forgotten and made up lines that kind of sounded like they fit for the parts she had almost completely forgotten, "We are the Winx! We are the Winx! Come join the club, we are the Winx!". Rin finished the song with a generic magical girl pose: feet shoulder-width apart, hand in a V-for-victory sign in front of her face, and a wink.
No longer did Rin look like a little girl as she struck a pose that she was kind of sure that characters did something like at the end of the song. She now looked very much like a grown, appropriately muscled man. Like most MMO characters, he looked quite handsome. Rin at least knew what good-looking people looked like. Her dad was considered very handsome by many. Well, pretty to Rin, which meant that Rin thought she looked very pretty right now.
With a twirl, Rin gave herself a once-over to make sure that she looked okay. She wiggled her tail and ears a bit, relishing the very strange sensation of new body parts. Then she sighed. She remembered why she was doing all this in the first place. Her dad must have long been home by now. "I'm in for such a scolding," she bemoaned as she tugged down the front of her shirt.
She had to accept the inevitable, though. Although, Rin didn't think of it like that. More like her thoughts, Rin moved on to the next and last step of character creation, where the system prompted her for a name. She looked at the prompt for a bit and then the text provided for quite a while. A name? She had learned her mother's habit of just naming herself after whatever the game manual called the main character, but Rin couldn't remember anything like that in the FAO manual. "Let's see," Rin thought aloud, "Let's see. Uh… Mommy would always use her real name whenever there is no name, sooo… Rin!". As she shouted aloud her name, the field for username filled itself in and prompted if Rin was sure. Right before swiping "yes," Rin caught her mistake.
"Uh oh!" she exclaimed, "I almost forgot. This is daddy's character. Then… No! And… Uh… Let's use Sakamoto!". The "no" option for confirmation was selected and the box cleared, only to be refilled with the new suggestion of "Sakamoto," Rin's family name and something that both her dad and her could use. As she confirmed this name, Rin secretly hoped that her dad would let her play in the future.
Rin was oblivious to the cardinal rule of the internet she had broken. She was oblivious to the risk she put herself by revealing her last name. Weakening her anonymity was probably not the worst thing she could have done, but it was still a very obvious thing not to do and Rin didn’t know she wasn't supposed to. Why? Because this was her first time on the internet. She had played many a console and offline game, but she had never been allowed to touch the internet or other form of mass media. Her dad thought she was too young, and he wasn't being overprotective considering Rin was only seven.
What had been done was done. Using her last name as her screen name, Rin finally set digitized into the world of FAO after well over an hour and a half in character creation. By now, everything had already tentatively settled. People were bustling everywhere in the City of Beginnings, but most had accepted their fate, a fate that Rin had happened to miss out on hearing.
Rin gave herself only a moment of awe at this new world before quickly going, "Oh no! Daddy! Log out! Log out!". She looked around frantically for some sort of menu option, her arms swinging around rather awkwardly. Eventually, a downwards stroke pulled up the menu and Rin knew what to do from there.
Rather, she thought she did. There was no way to log off in this menu either. Rin stared blankly at the screen. The calm before the storm because she very quickly started frantically pressing every other option on it. There were whispered glances at the strange sight of a grown man freaking out when everyone else had already accepted the inevitable.
Rin was stuck. She had to admit she was stuck, so that meant she had to do something to get unstuck. In games, remembering what had been already done helped. Were there any clues in the past? Rin thought and thought.
She continued to think and think, straining every fiber of her mind that she could, until she remembered that one moment of darkness during her initial character creation frenzy. The woman's voice had said that log out was no longer possible and that the player was now trapped in the game. It sounded like the beginning of a certain rpg Rin remembered playing, but that rpg had let Rin turn off the game. Only the character she was playing could leave. Did this game force the player to stay in the game just like the character? Rin didn't know, and in her desperation she crouched and whimpered, "Rin doesn't know. Rin doesn't know," her sentences degrading to using the third person in her frightened confusion.
People jostled around her huddled form. Some looking at the strange sight but no one who was actually cared enough to help what appeared to be a grown man having a break down in the middle of the beginner's plaza. Even when Rin hugged herself and began rocking back and forth, she got no sympathy. Instead, there were whispered sneers and insults. Thankfully, none of which Rin noticed.
She couldn't cry forever, though, and she did indeed begin crying at one point. As the day wore on into night, Rin looked up from her knees at the now slightly thinner crowd. "They're all like me?" Rin thought out loud, remembering what she had read in the manual about how mmos were different from offline games in that they allow for the player to interact with other players. "Are they stuck like me?" Rin's questions continued, "Daddy is going to be so angry, isn't he? I want to see Daddy… and my little brother… Mommy… help me." Her face returned to her knees. "Mommy. Mommy," Rin muttered as she began to cry again, "Mommy, what should Rin do?". "If it was Mommy," Rin slowly adapted in her own way, "Mommy would know what to do. Mommy was always good at video games," she garnered courage from the memory of her deceased mommy, "So Mommy wouldn't be afraid like Rin is. Mommy would just finish the game and get out. That's what… That's what I should do, right?".
The tears had stopped again, but this time, they had really stopped. Still sniffling, Rin stood shakily up. She was stuck here, but she wasn't going to let that bring her down for forever. Rather, she couldn't. She was too young to be constantly depressed and she needed to go back home so she could take care of her little brother and help her father around the house. Besides, her malleable mind was already adapting to the situation. She couldn't get out, but that didn't mean that she could no longer enjoy this game.
She could play the game, definitely. She remembered she had some xing, which she already remembered was the currency of the world. If she already had some, that meant she should try and buy something with it, especially since she wasn't given anything to start with like in an rpg. Then, after that, she knew she had a level. She had to raise that level by killing monsters and quests. So equipment than trying to find quests then killing monsters after quests. She could do it. She was kind of bad at games sometimes but she was also good at them in other ways. What mattered now was that she had a plan.
Ready to face the world now, Sakamoto put her best foot forward with a smile. "Let's play."
The sound of rapid footfalls preceded the debut of the fourth, but not last, actor in this performance. Anyone bothering to pay attention to the door that led into the hallway would probably see a whiz of red scarf, brown hair, and black uniform pass by only to be pulled back in a moment later by a hand that had grabbed onto the edge of the still open door just in time. "Woah! Almost missed it there!" would be the first words as Karen's all too happy face steadied into view.
The scene that greeted her gave her a bit to think about as she froze in the doorway, her smile gradually dropping as she registered the little confrontation that seemed to just be starting. The newcomer hadn't heard any of what had been said, but it wasn't too hard to guess from body language. The costumed male seemed had on this smile that pretty much screamed, "dangerous." As a girl herself, Karen could relate to feeling incredibly creeped out if some weirdo dude ever gave her that look. Evidently, it wasn't just a her thing or a girl thing. It didn't look like the normally dressed dude liked what he was seeing either.
Her sense of justice kicking in, Karen strode in with a straight back and a hard look. Her quicker strides should easily catch up to the supposed creep's deliberately slow approach, and she would proceed to do one of two things depending on the situation at hand. If Mr. Red had paused to acknowledge her arrival, then Karen was going to try and beeline ahead of him to put herself between girl and guy. If Mr. Red's advance had instead relentlessly continued and it didn't look like Karen would be able to catch up in time to get between him and his target, then she was going to grab a hold of his shoulder for better or for worse to make him stop. Of course, rash actions didn't necessarily mean rash thoughts... At least, not completely. After hopefully putting an effective hold on the situation, she'd ask, "What's happening?" to everyone in general and then a more directed, "Are you okay?" to the girl that looked like she was being targeted.
Posted: Fri Aug 04, 2017 3:38 am
It was supposed to have been over. Except, Iris didn't get to return home. Quite the opposite, in fact. She now stood, once again, somewhere she was not only completely unfamiliar with but also had no reason to believe she would ever end up at. This time, at least, she wasn’t alone. Three others, two human girls and a Pokemon, stood with her, surrounding a floating head of fire that nearly imitated various facial expressions, dipping into the uncanny valley.
Too many questions and not enough answers floated through Iris’s head, so she focused, refusing to be drag herself down with uncertainty that she could not fix. First, she needed information. She listed closely to the fire head’s talk so that she would not miss any of the precious information that the head gave to everyone, but also keeping in mind that everything could be a lie or half-truth. Then, in a little bit, she would need to inspect her equipment, which had just been deposited in a shower of fire upon the marble(?) plinth in front of her. Suspicious and more than a little iffy to be using items created or even just summoned in such a manner, but she would need to make do with what was given. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, after all. She’d learned that already.
Once the explanation ended, though, and the eight ways rose out of the ground for the gamers to choose from, Iris drew her attention inward to her most important piece of equipment: her body, which now felt just a little bit off. Checking the class thing AL mentioned showed her why. Her stats had, in a sense, been dropped to a lower level and rearranged. She had lost a lot and gained very little. Annoying, but not the biggest problem. She could always relearn about the gems and legends she had forgotten and as she still had her gifts, she just needed to retrain them. No, there were things she missed far more than her powers.
She hoped they were. She prayed that they were. She thought that they were. None of the three with her looked like any of them.
Then what about her Pokemon?
She couldn’t find their Pokeballs anywhere on their body, and the idea that they could have been safely taken elsewhere without her was unimaginable. It was an unwritten rule that Pokemon in Pokeballs didn’t work that way in her world.
While the others acclimated to the change of scenery in their own way, this was how Iris worried all while moving forwards. Greetings were shared by the others as Iris moved around some sort of computer terminal thing. Wow, it had been a long time since she saw one of those. Never one that was particularly good at technology, she ignored it for the moment, subconsciously expecting someone else to figure it out and share the knowledge and consciously deciding to move on to the next step.
Then, very deliberately, she walked up to the stocked plinth.
On the way there, she pauses once. Amid everyone else’s bustle and introductions, the strangest one of all had asked the exact same question she had. Iris stared blankly at the unknown Pokemon, she assumed he was a Pokemon and that he was a he, and then gave a sympathetic smile. ”I wonder that too,” her first words were a response to the Pokemon that could speak the same speech as humans.
Iris remembers, as she gets a good look at everyone for the first time: the two costumed girls and the talking Pokemon. Another first was the realization that her first adventure had ended only to be thrust into a second adventure. It felt a little strange, such a dissociated view. She’d never considered the island’s challenges and all the chaos involved in trying to stop a doomsday vote as an adventure. It had always just been a matter of survival with a healthy dash of discovery mixed in, but nothing like “adventure 1.” It was interesting to think about, but with a shake of her head, Iris refocuses.
She turns back around to her plinth and looks at her last hope. Her last hope for her Pokemon, that is. She could feel it. Why? Because at the very tippity top of the pile of supplies was one Moon Ball, an obvious starter if Iris ever saw one. Incidentally, she had also received Amy and Turk in a Moon Ball. Of course, in this situation, her starter could only be one of them. However, if that had to be the case, then she hoped that within the pokeball one of her two companions awaited her. She had to believe in the little things.
Iris convinced herself as she took the last few steps to the plinth,
However, just in case that the Moon Ball contained neither of her trusted partners, she hoped for, something she had some confidence in training, raising, and loving as any Pokemon deserved to be.
Iris paused with her hand on the ball. Part of her expected an answer to her prayers. Expectations of disembodied voices like that sort of came with the whole experience of being trapped on an island with frequent contact with gods. She received none, but of course, that was the obvious likely result. The gods were fickle, and now that she was no longer touched by Victini, there were no legendaries who had any reason to bother with her silly questions. Alone, Iris popped open the Pokeball, and in a spray of light, she finds herself facing…
She faces…
”GYAAAAAH!” without warning, a sudden scream from Iris echoes through the small room. The stress and anticipation that had been building up since starting this game explodes in that instant to take the shape of a wild, yet unnamed conclusion. With a grimace, Iris stumbles back and away from the reason for her distress, her emotional high ending in an accusatory, ”Y-you!”.
The “you” in question, a red and black fox-like creature, stands frozen in shock, very clearly startled by the greeting her trainer had thought fitting to give. Such a cute little thing. No apparent reason for Iris’s outburst could be seen from either her demeanor or appearance.
The Funeral Slab. Many poor souls had been laid to rest here, especially in the aftermath of the flood that devastated the countryside of Mizu no Kuni within the immediate vicinity of Kirigakure. It was here, that all Luna knew for the first 11 years of her life was laid to rest. All of her families, friends, relatives, everything had been burned here. At least, that was what she believed. There had been so many bodies, so many dead, and they were all scattered so far apart, that most of the cremation, the cleanup, had been done by strangers to the bodies. Luna, who had been gravely injured herself and swept far from the lands she was familiar with, could not be here when most of the bodies burned. She could only assume, after seeing not a single familiar face for months and confirming that her village's island didn't even exist anymore, that everyone she knew was laid to rest, either here or elsewhere. Maybe Kirigakure had its own memorial. She... she didn't know. Before Kirigakure had done anything to deserve such caution, she had been convinced by her peers to treat the village with suspicion. Now, after what had happened, the timid little girl honestly couldn't bring herself to get anywhere near the village. This Funeral Slab was the only place Luna could consider a memorial.
That was why now, 6 months after the disaster, she was here for the second time. This time, solely to pay her respects. She held a bouquet of flowers in her arms, a small offering to those buried here. The first was immediately after she had recovered. It was standing here, in front of this slab, that she decided to follow the person who just happened to save her by chance and was kind enough to nurse her back to health... or something of that sort. Now, she stood here, a little older and only a little different. She hadn't changed much, really. Well, maybe she had gotten a little stronger and learned a few techniques. She'd found the path she wanted to grow her skills in, something she had been taught she would need if she wanted to survive outside of the villages. However, she was hardly a threat. A kid like her was only a kid.
Respectfully, Luna stepped softly over the blackened earth and long-cold ashes of past cremation fires. She approached the elevated black stone with solemn silence, and once she reached the landmark, she took a moment to meditate on it. She admired the craftsmanship of the memorial for so many unnamed deceased. She reflected on her past. She remembered what she lost. She imagined what they would say to her now. She thought about her future. Her thoughts were, of course, simple. She was but a child, and what she thought about was mostly what she recalled being told to meditate on during ancestral memorial services. However, as much as her young mind and lack of experiences could, she thought long and hard about such subjects her family had taught her to think about.
Posted: Sun Jan 21, 2018 10:33 pm
Enter Kagerou
A scattered dream that's like a far-off memory or was it a far-off memory that's like a scattered dream? There was something... something Kagerou couldn't place her finger on, a dream... in a voice... but then a crack sounded and all she knew about the transition had shattered and flown into different directions, burying within the depths of her mind as her conscious rose once again. It had felt like an instant, but she knew, her memory beckoned to the tiniest fragment of knowledge that told her to expect an instant right now to be relevant to perhaps something like infinite? Who knew how much time... Why, though? What was it? Who was she? That was right, she was Kagerou Uchiha, or was it Kiritani? Incomplete but whole. With her consciousness, memories swelled and as the cracking grew louder, she regained a clearer and even clearer version of her self. Heat, she could feel a narrow strip of heat that grew wider and then another strip of heat elsewhere. Black thoughts, bubbles of nothing, rose with everything she regained. These were pieces of who she once was, now clearly missing, but she knew... sort of... kind of... Did she really, though? A coping mechanism, maybe? Her youth reflected clearly on her mind, she could remember those days without a problem. Did she perhaps decide that, like her mother, she needed to sacrifice her spirit and mind to protect what she held dear with her body? Then again, perhaps this was just a consequence of the final moments, the plague... A plague? How strange, she could almost just not remember it. If it weren't for a certain letter, she wasn't sure she would have even thought about it now. A certain letter from a certain someone who warned her about the plague long before the nations blew up over it. Someone. Many people in her life. Had they all survived? What... now? Now that she awakened in a strange world...
Almost like a switch had flipped, Kagerou's mind started to very concisely process everything she knew. The first thing she did as her eyes opened, was to prepare herself for the unknown. Nothing else could matter before that. Who knew what kind of danger she would be tossed into on her first step out. Kagerou didn't realize how true that last sentence was. It was merely a poetic framing of her observations,
The shell about Kagerou finally shattered, the last to break. Thin veins of cracks had spread about it while the crystal waited. It was as if the will alone of its inhabitant within to be ready to her utmost had held the chrysalis together until it broke, and when the chamber broke, it did so into tiny little pieces that lightly burst outwards and delicately showered down to reveal the green hair, red eyes, and... definitely shorter form of the one within.
Greeting the future as a denizen of the past was a girl who could almost be called a child. However, the way she moved was anything but. Suspended within the crystal, when the shell that contained her shattered, so did the portion beneath her break, leaving her falling a short distance in mid-air. There was no way she could have known that the first thing to greet her in her new life would be a drop and yet she had on a small smile paired with downcast eyes. After all, she was alive, what wasn't there to smile about that? As she dropped, Kagerou bent her legs to absorb the impact, a motion that almost would have been mistaken for a deep curtsy if she had completed it like she had intended to. However, deep hibernation wasn't going to be without its consequences. Instead of stopping from hitting the ground with anything but her feet and straightening herself out with a single smooth motion, Kagerou's ankles gave way and she dropped to one knee instead. The hitch in her plans really made her aware that, Retaining her poise despite her blunder, Kagerou raised her eyes as she remained kneeling, not willing to trust her legs quite yet.
The very first thing she saw was the giant beast. Hard to miss when it took up more space than she could look at all at once from this distance, and while his face was not that of a human's, she could still guess at what his expressions meant. Kagerou nodded at the serpent in silent greeting before turning to look to the two smaller, bipedal figures she had seen in the corner of her vision. The further of the two she did not recognize, and she did not have time to pay him much heed when the closer figure attracted almost all of her attention. Kagerou's eyes grew wide and her smile soon followed, growing bigger. What kind of bizarre fate, what kind of unbelievable luck could have arranged this meeting, Kagerou did not know. However, she was happy all the same. Happy to see a familiar face, something that she had almost given up on ever seeing. Kagerou closed her eyes to control the well of her emotions, but for no longer than a just barely too long blink,
Shadow hadn't been looking at Kagerou when she turned to him. His eyes were focused on his surroundings, but mostly the wyvern. Kagerou decided to do the same. When she opened her eyes, the red eyes of the green-haired girl faced the wyvern once more. A creature this large and of the kind where an element danced across its skin could easily dispatch all three of the just awakened humans regardless of how it happened. Kagerou could feel it. Years upon years of studying and training lost, to the point that it almost felt frustrating, but there was no point in fretting, much as there was no point in trying to stand in the most advantageous position against this giant of an enemy in its natural habitat. Slowly and with no sudden movements, Kagerou lowered from a kneel to a seiza. Since she wasn't certain in her body's strength, it would be better to rest for a bit longer.
Kagerou saw fear in the face of this nameless recipient of the newly awakened three, but something told her that it did not feel threatened. At least not yet. was the optimistic possibility that crossed her mind, As the green haired almost child thought on what to say first, her head tilted to the side in an almost playful and relaxed manner. However, her smile, which had shrunk after turning away from Shadow and had stayed fixed since then, and still eyes betrayed that she was seriously and carefully plotting out what courses of action to take. She recognized these little mistakes in her expression, hurdles to a perfect lie, herself, but she did not remember if, compared to her past life, her acting skills had deteriorated or if she had even thought that times like now were an appropriate time to try to put on a false face. She certainly felt a twinge of guilt and shame mere moments after realizing what she had done, but it had been too late to stop then.
When she decided, Kagerou's head tilted back to be straight. "Hello," she kept it simple, "my name is Kagerou,""Kiritani. Who might you be?". There was the smallest of pauses before the last name, a moment of indecision but not one to lie. Not quite a lie, at least. Her eyes steadied with the eyes of the one she spoke to, wondering what the reaction will be.
Tl;dr. The narrator whispers, "I hate you all. Rocks fall. Everyone dies." Xion was having a pleasant nap. At least, it felt like a pleasant nap suspended in a sea of nothing. Usually, that would cause her to fall into a terrified panic, but not this one. No, this time, she just drifted along with it. Something told her this nothingness was inevitable, but that it would one day end. Until then, she enjoyed her beauty sleep.
That "then" was when her crystal eventually cracked. Splintering into sharp, jagged edges, Xion's chrysalis broke apart with what sounded 10 times more noise than was really necessary for the task at hand. Loud and obnoxious was her entrance into this brave new world.
Dressed in her usual maid attire, Xion's first taste of the world that had changed so much was sulfur. Literally, she tasted sulfur in the air. Heat strong enough to imitate the noon summer sun except it came from all directions except just one threatened to burn her skin and quickly dried her throat. It felt like Xion hadn't drunk anything in ages, which was probably true, but that was besides the point. She was incredibly thirsty, very disoriented, and wondering if maybe she had become a squid again like that one time. After a funny wiggling of all limbs, she determined that she had, indeed, not become a squid.
Then, in that case, what was she? She certainly felt human, but she couldn't possibly be feeling this kind of heat as a human. No way, not unless she was next door neighbors with a volcano.
Also, she was caged. That was sort of worrisome. Was she then a sort of bird? No, she definitely had arms, not wings.
Was there... no one around to provide answers? Xion couldn't see anyone (ha, get it?), and having awoken too late to hear any of the movement made by the hooded man, Xion had no way to really realize that there was someone watching her. Believing that they were hiding because clearly that was the logical course to take, Xion called out into the unknown, "Olly olly oxen free?" which was of course most definitely the universal signal for hiders to reveal themselves.
It had felt like he had some sort of revelatory dream, the realization of a sudden and unexpected change in circumstances. However, like nearly all dreams, the details eluded him as his mind continued to slumber. today was a check-up day, so he could be lazy for the rest of the day. He'd just need to get up eventually to feed, but that could wait.
A chill wind intruded upon Jean's drowsy time, and he tried to pull the covers closer, prevent the warmth from escaping. However, his limbs could not find the space to move. They were restrained, encased. He couldn't before, but now he could feel some sort of hard surface holding his entire body in place without a single speck of room. He was entrapped, and as one would expect, there was no blanket to pull. Then, it crossed Jean's mind that cold like this was outright alien in and of itself.
His eyes snapped open in alarm, and he could see his time to awaken was not now. His eyes peered through some sort of opaque darkness, broken only by a thin sliver of light, too bright in this field of black to make out any details through. If the slivers of cold he felt through his body were any sort of sign, then these cracks had spread throughout whatever molded prison held him.
Jean began to fear the worst. The gears in his mind turned and twisted frantically before suddenly grinding to a halt. He remembered the revelation of his dream, or rather, his thoughts retread the same path that his dream had taken. Jean froze with surprise, not like he could move anyways,
To mull over this sudden turn of events, one several centuries in the making, Jean wouldn't have minded several more minutes... No, hours? Days? Just some length of time to process this new information and its implications.
Of course, convenience makes for such a dull story. Following the sound of something fragile suddenly breaking into a million tiny pieces, something collided with Jean's cocoon of solitude at the most inopportune movement, and without a single warning shake, not even a wobble, the impact from the now shattered mirror shattered Jean's own confinement, the one he had just started to appreciate, into its own million tiny pieces that each reflected the light and sent him tumbling backwards into a new world.
He wasn't alone, either, not anymore. Although, it wasn't like he was conscious for most of his time in the crystal without any company. The last time he had seen his mother's face felt more like a few hours than a few centuries. However, that was neither here nor there. Jean, who had closed his eyes upon impact, blearily opened them to stare into a grey sky full of clouds, one so very different from his slice of life. He lay on his back with some sort of moving, be it squirming or just rhythmically breathing/beating, weight on top of him. It appeared he needed to accept that this uncomfortable weight was at least partly his fault. He could feel an antler in his left hand, something he had grabbed some time during the rough and tumble greeting. He sort of recalled being stuck in the gut with it. Not impaled, of course, but a strong enough poke to elicit his sharp grab at the offender.
the sheltered doll's mind took a moment to realize the danger he was in as he looked at what exactly lay on top of him, "OH GOD DEER!". Immediately, though not very effectively, the monster-person (all deer were monsters in Jean's book, same with octopi) was shoved off of Jean with a mass of less than coordinated tendrils. Well, to be exact, the tendrils tried. Uncontrolled, the golden appendages frayed into their far thinner golden threads, and while they certainly exploded from Jean's body with all haste, the absolute lack of focus in the placement of their force created a rather bothersome but not altogether very powerful mass of squirming threads. Arms and legs were quick to join the effort once Jean realized he had lost nearly all control in his threads. Of course, it was a given that Jean's hand had completely released the antler at this point. There was scrambling away from the innocent offender, of course, even while Jean was trying to push him away, which created rather conflicted motions. Nothing looked coordinated... It was a mess of movements... Although, hey, at least Jean looked pretty? [1/10 Tendrils]
A dull roof arched high above the heads of the few present, creaking with old age and looking like it was about to fall down at any moment. There were rows of pew seats, but the only thing seated in them were countless dust bunnies and cobwebs. About the only things clean in the entirety of this decrepit and abandoned chapel, where even half of the holy symbol was nowhere to be seen, were the most vital of marriage symbols traditionally present at weddings, hastily hung at this shotgun wedding, and the lectern that the shady and sickly priest stood at, currently recovering from a coughing fit. Hunch backed and with a shrewd face, the only thing to pity him for was his age. Though, the ruffian standing to one side of the altar didn’t even give him that much respect.
“Hurry it up!” he roughly spat out, as if the priest’s coughing fit was anything anyone could control. He had a bit of a rough charm, or would if the scowl didn’t ruin his appearance. Though, “attractive” was about the norm for appearances in this world. Providing some much needed but also unneeded exposition, he happened to add, “We don’t have all day! I need you to marry me to this brat before anyone else finds out!”. Before any more could be explained, though, one of the other three people sitting in the front row of the dusty pew, supposedly to act as witnesses, shifted slightly and drew the overbearing temper of our apparent groom. With something close to a snarl you might hear from an animal, the bandit extended his arm possessively between his witness and the bride that stood on the other side of the altar. He was quick to stomp out any ideas of revolt, “Hey, you! Don’t be getting any funny ideas! The power from marrying this squirt will be wasted on you! Just follow me, and we’ll strike it big. Trust me!”.
The man who had shifted gave a rather timid, “S-sorry…” and then fell silent.
Appeased with the response, Mr. Bandit Groom glanced nervously over at the bride of this ceremony for what was probably the hundredth time since he had the miraculously good fortune of finding the man and getting a hold of him before anyone could report to the authorities. His plan was perfect, he believed, and it just needed a few more steps before it would be complete, but despite thinking as such, the news was just too good and unbelievable that he held a constant fear that suddenly the bride would vanish into thin air.
Granted, considering the bride’s current state, it was difficult to see exactly how he would vanish. He was quite thoroughly gagged and bound to a wooden pole. Though, not quite to the point that it hurt. His kidnappers had at least been conscientiousness to ask him if they were tying the ropes too tight while they were binding him.
===
[Insert reply from my rp partner.]
===
After one final, particularly wet cough, the priest proceeded with the ceremony in a hoarse voice that creaked with the roof beams of the church. It was a proper, if short, speech. There wasn’t anything necessary missing from its concise length. Though, despite the brevity, the frequent pauses that the priest took to clear his throat made the whole procedure much longer than it felt like it should be.
The priest had finally reached the final leg of his speech, and in his gritty, harsh voice, he asked the meager audience, “If anyone can, ahem ahem, show just cause why this, kgh, couple cannot lawfully be joined together in matrimony, let them speak now or forever hold their peace...” The question had no meaning, but the silence was held out of custom.
The only thing to respond in that silence was the roof’s protests. It groaned and creaked. There was a cracking sound that drew some concern. Splintering. A foot stuck in the roof, some understandable flailing by whoever’s foot was stuck. Wait, a foot? The struggle only quickened the demise of the surface of the roof, and before long, the rest of that section of the roof came down, along with the person who had been walking on top of the church. Now the foot had become a whole human.
It was a nasty fall, no other way to put it. While not at the peak of the arch, it had been a good ways up, about two stories high, maybe. The body lay on its back in the middle of the church, between the pews and the steps that lead up to the altar. The man, judging from what could be seen of the body frame through the light debris didn’t move for a little bit.
He wasn’t dead yet, though. The creaking of his bones as he slowly moved his splayed limbs and picked himself up were testament enough to his ongoing life. Silver hairs and red earrings made out of some sort of crystal framed a slightly smiling face. Dressed in fine clothes with elaborate embroidery, the handsome man looked out of place in the old church. Even though all of this was dusty and dirty from his trek across the roof and subsequent fall through it, none of it could hide his charm, especially not the power of his smile. Carefully constructed to appear genially pleasant, it shone through the yet settling cloud of dust and distracted the eyes from his rapidly healing wounds and myriad. Where a stake had surely slid through his leg, there was just a light scratch, and it was a miracle that he was standing just fine, wiping away the dust on his clothes like they were the biggest concern in his life, after a fall that would have certainly broken a bone, or at least sprained an ankle, of a normal person.
“Good afternoon,” Ambrose greeted pleasantly as if he hadn’t just interrupted a wedding by falling out of the sky. He took a moment to arrange his hair.
The hopeful groom sputtered, uncertain whether he should be shocked, concerned, frightened, angry, suspicious, or some combination of the above. His friends didn’t appear to be any better off than him. They had all been shocked frozen when this rich looking pretty boy literally crashed their wedding.
Clasping his hands behind his back in the very image of a polite gentleman, Ambrose calmly spelled his intentions out for the bandit, his three friends, and the priest, “I’m here to steal the bride.”
Ambrose faced the party of five, so Lindir, who he had his back turned to, could see very clearly that the hands Ambrose held behind his back were anything but polite. His right hand had already pulled out several needles from within his sleeves.
Posted: Thu Jul 18, 2019 9:21 pm
< Jane Lembas > < 29 :: Female :: 5'5" :: C :: Spontaneous Cookie Creation > < General Base :: Dining Hall >
The heavily fortified walls of the dining hall, something this large room shared with the rest of the fortress of Shambala, gleamed with cold metal, yet there was an undeniable warmth in the atmosphere within even in the artificial white lighting. To celebrate, those charged with preparing food and accommodations had gone all out with this feast. Platters of warm, still steaming food lined the mess hall tables, a good chunk of them baked goods. From savory pastas to delicate creme brulees.
In fact, even more were being added by a young woman with a mature air, slowly filling up whatever empty spots were on the table. Her blonde hair hanging down over one shoulder and a concentrated expression pursing her lips, Jane walked steadily down the rows with a cart stacked with plates and baskets, counting and deciding. Baskets full of warm and fluffy bread, created directly by her right on the spot were placed down regularly as the finishing touches of table setting. Additionally, she would periodically put an empty plate upon the table and hold her hand over it whenever she felt like a little something or other was missing from the area. From thin air, a dish would appear upon the plate, and then the setter would nod and walk further down the row. If it looked like there weren't enough filling foods, then a side like baked potatoes or casserole would come out, piping hot. If it looked like a certain area was severely lacking in sugar rush, out came a plate of cookies, brownies, or whatever other sweet.
Jane set down one last plate of food as she heard the signal sound for the opening of the mess hall and the first of the hungry masses streamed in. Retracting her hand, she also hurried to push the cart back to where it belonged so that she could quickly join in on the festivities. A recent arrival to Shambala, arriving less than a week ago but adapting quickly, this would honestly be her first big chance to get to know the people in this base.
Enter Kagerou
