exsiliumlogs | (no subject)

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Date: February 1st
Location: The Initiative Hold & Courtyard.
Characters: Everyone.
Summary: New Transports have all arrived and have been shuffled into the Courtyard after their initial briefings, while older Transports are returning from the mission to Uruguay.
Warnings: None.

While those who have been guests of Exsilium since at least the last wave of Transports return from their desperate mission and are pressed out of the Transporter room and into the Courtyard, the Initiative prepares to receive a second wave at the same time. And if you're in that second wave, the fresh meat, then you've just been hustled and bustled through mazes of information and literal, wide corridors of the Initiative Hold and you've been equipped with your weapon—be it a gun, a sword, or even your existing powers. They've handed you this light netbook and a small pouch of coins (or a debit card, if you're more inclined), and there are several Transports before and after you going through the very same motions. You can hear the Greeter's voice as she walks alongside large groups, telling them all about the history of this place and sharing with you your purpose here in a hurried and urgent tone. "You're in luck that we have enough rooms for all of you; the housing building is getting awfully full. Please, let me show you into the courtyard."

You pass what looks like huge gymnasiums, all with dummies and targets strewn and splayed around the room. Training areas. There are even classrooms, and a few small offices. You're rushed past a large library while the Greeter informs you that you can find almost all your information there, if you've got the time to look—and trust her, you'll have time. You don't spend a lot of time in the bank, and it's a bit of a blur of exchanges with more and more of these strangely-accented and oddly polite-seeming members of the Initiative.

Soon enough, you're in a massive courtyard bustling with all the other Transports. It's not exactly what you'd expect, and it looks more like barracks than anything—huge walls of concrete and stone, separating you from all of the hallways you'd just passed through. It's raining heavily, and dark clouds loom in the air, though it hasn't turned to snow. It's a chill cold, and there are shelters—long cloth hangings that extend from the walls of concrete to house you from the rain, but not enough. Most notably, the courtyard is filled with a marketplace. Even in the cold and the rain, there are several citizens seated at their covered booths and tables, bundled up against the weather. They're selling all manner of their own handmade goods and foods, and citizens and Transports alike are traveling from one small covered shop to another in search of all manner of necessities.

The Greeter's voice has become so faint now, but you swear you can make it out in the back of the crowds as she tells you, "Good luck. Be safe!"

Her voice is drowned out by the busy marketplace, though even the transactions taking place are somewhat subdued. Nobody is overly happy, really, though most citizens can be found with smiles on their faces. It doesn't seem like they're that shocked to see you, either; even if you're not bound in tattered rags and wrapped in heavy shawls as they are. You're welcome to walk up to a shop, and find yourself something to eat—hey, maybe you'll even find something akin to a raincoat. Or, you can join the others under the coverings against the walls. Where am I? What war? She was talking so fast, and it didn't all make very much sense… did anyone else catch it all?

Welcome to the courtyard. Welcome to the Initiative Hold—and most importantly, welcome to Exsilium

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[ She glances back at Nunnally, then at said doll. She smiles just a bit playfully. ]

His name is Cheese-kun. You've never seen Cheese-kun before in your world?

That was interesting. Not the stuff about United Earth; she doesn't buy the your world is threatened line for a moment. Her world has threats, and her world has protectors, and even if she is one of them, she's nowhere near the most capable at anything, and if they wanted Signers really capable of fighting on this scale, Ruka thinks she would probably rank somewhere under the severed arm in a canister.

No, what's interesting is Kanaya's conclusion.

"What do you mean by that? Timeline divergences."

There are less extreme ways to get a look at your crush's junk!

[A frown. She knows there probably was no other way around it but- actually wait a minute. He's dressed differently, not in the derse jammies like she had been.]

What was the last thing that happened for you? Before coming here?

[He shrugs at that since there's nothing else he can really say on the matter after apologizing and explaining there was no other way. Then he goes ahead and answers the question.]

I was talking to my sprite. [But that doesn't really tell her much, does it?] It's been five months since we entered the game.

Shit.

[Five months. That's a hell of a lot to miss out on.]

We were stood watching Jake and your head on Makeout mountain when I showed up here. It's been over six months... Jake turned up here in December and he's from the same time, hence the head thing. What's been happening? What's the game like? Did we bring my Mom and your bro back?

[Oh yeah.] My Mom's here! But she's not my Mom, she's actually my daughter, and she's our age? And uh, a bunch of other things I should probably tell you if you don't already know?

Edited 2013-02-10 03:22 (UTC)

She slowly draws her lips over her teeth to make sure only her two main fangs show, which is synecdoche for her realizing how very closely she is flirting with exposing the absolute core of her primary predicament in undeath. The pain--

Is something she can only mitigate by professing that timelines diverge in the end, dooming herself in the process.

"Well, in many cases the Initiative has taken transports whose fates and personal timelines are closely intertwined, so - it does take a while to think about it." She's going to need to make more gestures for this, and extends her right forearm in a straight line. "Imagine the timeline," as she moves her first two fingers along it slowly, "where nobody has ever been taken and everyone proceeds with their uninterrupted joyful or joyless lives." Her fingers reach the base of her right hand, which opens from a tight fist into a wide burst of five splayed fingers. "But then you have the dubious luck to arrive here and stay for a year." That occurs at her right thumb. And at her middle finger-- "Where you find your friend who remembers leaving two years ago and has been here for six months.

"Do you remember their having been kidnapped, or suddenly returning rabid against the United Earth? Or for that matter, do they remember all the things that have happened in the meantime to you."

. 'I won't accept that!'

Huh? That sounded like ...

[ But it couldn't be ...

Kira paused and turned around. For a second, he could have sworn he heard Lacus's haro. He was about to dismiss it as his imagination, but he heard it again. It didn't seem possible that he imagined the same thing twice. He ran towards the direction of the voice, pushing through the crowd. ]

Lacus! Lacus!

Edited 2013-02-10 03:33 (UTC)

[He can tell when someone's sizing him up. He chuckles to himself.]

I don't think we've been introduced. Harvey Specter.

Not me personally. Not yet. But that is what they were made for.

The swirl of information runs through her mind—rubber bands and fractured hearts and a twin brother, a decade her elder, spinning stories of the life they would lead once she returned home. She knows that there are alternate worlds and alternate times, but as far as the City was concerned, it never broke a timeline on its own. If people returned to their own worlds, it was at the same age, the same physical body, the same set of memories they possessed when they left. It had happened to her, once, years ago. The best anyone could hope for was half-forgotten dreams, and even those were rare. If she returned to Neo Domino City from there, she would have shed the long years and the hurts and every bond ever formed.

If she 'returned' to Neo Domino from the City, she, as she was, would simply cease to exist.

As she thinks, her left hand moves in familiar gesture, to press the heel of her palm against her eyepatch, against the false eye that lay behind; the pressure of solid metal and all the misery it contained helped her focus away from her own feelings, and to other matters.

But that gift of an eye was gone, too; the fabric nearly folds concave under the pressure. With a startled jolt Ruka thrusts her hand back, away from herself, breathing staggered. A swallow, a shaking exhale, and her hand instead moves to settle against her brow, fingers combing into her hair.

Breathe. "That's... that's a lot to take in." Inhale. Exhale. "I'm not sure if I fully understand it... that is, your explanation was fine, but I think... that's something I need to think about to get."

[ ~~can you imagine the kind of shenanigans they would have~~ Distracted as he is with the knowledge that his aforementioned possibility may well be real, Steve tries to catch it, he really does. But both his hands are occupied with objects he can't drop in a hurry, and the result is the coat finding its new home half-draped over his shoulder and most of his head. ]

I'll leave him a note. Future me. [ An amused, slightly muffled mumble before he sets down the shield and tugs first one arm through a sleeve and then the other. His smile is grateful when he looks up again, even if it is a small one. The coat's big on him and the cuffs hang over his knuckles, both indicative that this guy might not exactly be honest about owing Steve one. After all, how would any of Steve's clothes fit him? ]

Thank you. I know you didn't have to. What's ... what's your name?

Her attention is drawn to Haruka's eyepatch again in spite of herself - she's an alien. She should know to hate staring. She doesn't understand what's going on with Haruka's hands. (Sometimes she might run her nails, her fangs, her lipstick as just color and not lines, down along her "brother's" face; sometimes, when she's to have kicked her other shameful nightly habit, she clasps a pillow in her arms and tests if she can pretend it has piercings. Most of the time she feels ashamed of the fractured way she is now.)

"There are some people who think our original fates are immutable, of course, but--" She flashes a sparkly smile. "That's physically impossible, Haruka, isn't it."

[He smiles.]

Good. I have a reputation to uphold.

So how long have you been here, Crystal?

[A flash of gold scales catches Kang's eye, and he freezes when he sees the wyrmling. Still a wyrmling, but still nearly bigger than he is, and he's not exactly a small draconian. Aurican could still easily kill him if he wanted.

However, this dragon has absolutely no knowledge of draconians, and if Crucible is right, will never have anything to do with the metallic dragons that hunted (and still hunt) down his kind. He's also offered to teach the wyrmling how to read and write. He can't do it over the devices they've been given. He steels himself, taking a deep breath, and walks over.]

[Lacus turned when she thought she heard her name. Was that...Kira? Was he pulled here as well? She supposed it might have been that he was here for a while before she arrived or if he did at the same time, they missed each other in the crowd of other new arrivals that came with them.]

Kira? Kira!

[Her face lights up, relieved to see him, a familiar face in all of this as he manages to push through the crowd. She did worry at him being in this situation as well, but at the same time it was good to know he was all right, that he wouldn't be back home wondering what had happened to her.]

[ It's been some time since Nikolai has seen a masked man. The last time, it was a bratok who has been given the position of executioner. He's a huge man, towering over Nikolai himself. It was a simple mask, just a black cloth with cut out eyes over his head. An executioner, really. The mafiya likes to keep things simple, and there's no need to change what already scares the living shit out of people.

Now Nikolai looks at this man with the fancy mask that's long enough to punch a hole into someone else's face. He thinks, briefly, that he looks like a humming bird - a small thing with a sharp beak, making small noises as he moves around. The thought amuses him, and he hooks two fingers over to the umbrella and drags it closer until it covers his own head. The back of it might now be dripping on the stranger's ass.

Nikolai shrugs. ]

People not made of paper. Waterproof. Won't die from rain. [ He grins- and after a moment, it widens. ] This for me?

[ The accent is thickly Russian. ]

[ Like a fire, rage is. Licks across the veins, pricks against the skin even from afar. Nikolai notices eyes very well. A necessary part of his job description, especially since how he acts is entirely based upon whose eyes are upon him. Nikolai continues to lean against the wall, sneaking a glance or two towards the woman in the distance.

Long black hair, pale skin. She's beautiful, that's what she is, and Nikolai suddenly thinks of Anna. There's no reason for it, because Anna's hair is light as much as this woman's is black, and she's sweet and gentle as much as the fire is coming off this woman's skin. But there's rage that he's seen in Anna's face once, rage tempered with sheer desperation, and Nikolai thinks about how she looked like then, pale and angry and so fucking stupid as she shouts at Kirill.

He turns fully around, back against the wall (there's safety in that, barest bit of it), and he raises his cigarette in a mock salute towards her before he takes a long drag. Tips his head to the side and lets it out, his eyes still on her. ]

Entertainment costs money. [ He calls over. ] You keep watching me, you have to pay.

[ When you're in his line of work, you stop hearing words. Nikolai doesn't hear what Legolas says, but what he doesn't say. There's puzzlement there. Legolas knows him - his name, his face, something trite of that sort, the most basic knowledge you have from people. But he doesn't know Nikolai the way he should, and Nikolai thinks about Frodo who has even forgotten Nikolai's name.

He quirks his lips up at the question. Maybe he's deserved it himself with the way he phrased his first words, but it's strange, to pretend to talk about Legolas as if he's a third person to Legolas himself. Nikolai has does that plenty - talking about someone present as if they aren't there - but without such overt acknowledgment and recognition. It changes something that is dangerous, that is the speaking equivalent of walking across tightropes, to something that's far more harmless.

Like playing a game.

But then, isn't that how Legolas is? He always manages to change something heavy to something far lighter. Without seeming to mean to. And at the same time reminding Nikolai that it should be dangerous - like the name he is using.

It's almost enough to make a man laugh. ]

Same way you know Nikolai Luzhin's name. [ There's an irony in his tone. He is playing Legolas's game, and they are both aware of that. ] There was an arrow, and blood.

[ Pause, and Nikolai laughs. ]

Elf is rude. Always blood involves, and blood difficult to get out of clothes.

[ Games and word tricks, and now half-truths. ]

Dying from broken arm more like dying from stupid. [ Flatly. They can be considered straightforward, his words, but the conventional word is 'rude'. Nikolai adds on to it by staring at the American. ]

You want something?

[ He doesn't recognise him. Nikolai cocks his head to the side almost immediately, his eyes narrowing. It's obvious that this is the same man- or whatever creature Frodo is- because he recognises the name, acknowledges it to be his own, and yet he does not remember Nikolai.

Weird. He looks at Frodo for a long moment more, taking a drag of his cigarette. The tobacco is so obviously stale that it doesn't even crackle from the flame, and Nikolai quirks his lips up slightly. ]

You were being chased by monster once. I killed it. [ He shrugs slightly. Blows the smoke into Frodo's face. ]

I do mind.

Steve. Steve Rogers. It's good to meet you, Doctor Hunter.

[ And Steve offers his hand for the good doctor to shake, the new layer of cloth between himself and the rain a welcome relief. ]

Say, do you know what kind of medicine they sell here?

[ Any awkwardness goes whizzing right over Jake's head, but considering he'd only gotten a chance to talk to Dirk for a few minutes before getting whisked off to another planet... a second time you had to cut Jake a break when it came to reading any in person subtleties.

Last he spoke to Dirk he was angry at the guy for putting him through hell and back. Speaking of which, if he weren't so damned excited to see him he'd still be pretty damned pissed right now!

Either way he reaches out to clap a hand on Dirk's shoulder in a friendly sort of greeting. ]

A likely story.

[ It is dripping on his ass now, thanks. But he doesn't mind sliding himself in closer, to be more fully covered. ]

You're waterproof, but you might still catch cold out here! We certainly can't have that. [ He offers a cheery smile up at him, even if the close proximity and the mask don't do favors for each other. ] And I'm afraid as it's the only one I have, I can't say it's for you — but the space under it certainly is!

[ And if she thought that expression was telling, he looks eve more uncertain now. ]

They've been willing to foot the bill for us when we've arrived here, and they've been pleasant enough one on one. Unfortunately their way of doing business does leave a sour taste in a lot of people's mouths.

[He nods, yeah he'd figured that's where she and Jake were from already considering how annoyed she was and Jake came holding his dead head. And oh, that's a lot of questions at once, he looks a little lost on where to start for a moment, but then lets out a breath and goes with the thing most relevant to her interests first.]

No, we didn't bring them back. A fucking juggalo troll prototyped your sprite with some corpses before we got the chance. [He, on the other hand had a deal with AR and that was what kept him from doing it.] But on the bright side, you and your sprite reached Casablanca levels of friendship beauty that makes up for it.

[He pauses, considering what else there is to say about the game. Not much besides all the relationship bullshit, and he doesn't feel like sharing that he and Jake got together because that's not doing so great anymore.] In any case, I knew younger versions of our ancestors were on their way. Apparently our purpose in the game is to "pave the way" for them. Didn't know your mom was your daughter, though. That's new.

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Re: Lacus Clyne l Gundam Seed

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Hi great-great-grand-uncle

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yes, yes i am!!!

yiiiis i am a -kun!!!!

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